Former Longtime Confidant Accuses Ariel Sharon of Assassinating Yasser Arafat
by Stephen Lendman
12/30/06
Longtime and now recently deceased confidant to former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Uri Dan, published a book in France that may have been his 2006 one titled Ariel Sharon: An Intimate Portrait in which he accused the former prime minister of assassinating Palestinian Authority (PA) President Yasser Arafat by poisoning him. Dan claimed Sharon got approval from George Bush by phone early in 2004 to proceed with his plan after he told the US president he was no longer committed to "not" liquidating the Palestinian leader who then was under siege and practically incarcerated in what remained of his Ramallah compound, most of which had already been destroyed by the Israelis in a lawless act of retribution against him.
Based on his record during his tenure as Texas governor, when he authorized more death row inmate executions than any US governor in history (and was called by some the Texecutioner), this revelation should come as no surprise. It's even clearer based on Ariel Sharon's boast once about his relationship with George Bush saying: "We have the US president under our control."
Arafat died in Paris on November 11, 2004 at age 75. He was taken there on October 29 that year and hospitalized for treatment for an undiagnosed illness that began developing in April and became serious enough for him to need special care. It may have already been too late when he arrived as he slipped into a coma on November 3 and remained in that state till his death eight days later from what was explained at the time as complications from a blood disorder. Indeed it may have been true if his blood was poisoned by a substance able to work slowly and from which no cure was possible at least once the former Palestinian leader arrived in Paris.
To those knowledgeable about Israel's history since it became a state in 1948 and earlier, this revelation, if true, should come as no surprise. All Israeli governments have a long and disturbing record of conducting targeted assassinations in Israel and abroad as it suited them against all persons thought to be a threat to the Jewish state. From his earliest days in 1969 as Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) Chairman and President, Arafat went from enemy to ally and back to enemy again under various Israeli governments depending on his willingness to deny his people their rights in service and pledging fealty to Israeli authority as he did in agreeing to the Oslo Accords, or Declaration of Principles (DOP), signed at a White House ceremony in September, 1993.
This was an agreement from hell, a disgraceful act of surrender, giving Israel what it wanted and Arafat and his cronies a "get-out-of-Tunis-free pass" (where they took refuge when forced out of Lebanon after the 1982 Israeli invasion) to return to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) where he agreed to serve as Israel's enforcer against his own people. As it always was earlier and since that time, the Palestinians got nothing but the right to have their lands stolen and lives immiserated with the help and duplicity of their own leader and those complicit in his Fatah-led government.
They endured this fate until the outbreak of the al-Aqsa Mosque (or Second) Intifada on September 28, 2000 following Ariel Sharon's provocative visit to what Muslims call the Noble Sanctuary in occupied East Jerusalem. It's gone on since unabated up to and following Arafat's death and led to the democratic election of a Hamas government in January, 2006.
Fed up with the corrupted Fatah party under Arafat (now under Palestinian President and loyal Israeli servant Mahmoud Abbas), the long-suffering Palestinian people voted them out in an election the Israelis and Bush administration thought they had "arranged" properly enough to assure their preferred quisling party would remain in power but learned to their dismay it didn't turn out that way. It also didn't turn out as Palestinians hoped either as Israel and the US, with complicity or silence from the West, conducted a scorched earth campaign against a defenseless people through invasions, daily attacks with sophisticated and powerful weapons (supplied by Washington at US taxpayer expense), targeted assassinations and other daily killings, mass arrests and incarcerations, a systemic policy of torture, destruction of property, and denial of the most basic rights and services essential to life and survival. And that leaves out all the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) did to the Lebanese people over the summer that will take a least many years to recover from if Israel will even allow it to happen.
Throughout it all, the courageous Palestinian people continue struggling daily for their freedom and the right to be treated as human beings to live in peace in their own land - against the greatest odds with virtually no outside support or any show of caring about their desperate state even from within the Arab world.
If Ariel Sharon murdered Yasser Arafat, it should surprise no one, and further, if proved beyond dispute, it would never be reported in the US corporate-controlled media even if it made headlines in Israel which might be possible in a country allowing far more press freedom than the total lockdown of it in "the land of the free and home of the brave" where no press freedom is allowed through dominant news and information sources and only is through alternative sources like the one through which readers are now receiving this report. As we begin the new year with the 110th Congress about to convene on January 4, it's one of many issues to reflect on and consider what we ought to be doing about it in our own behalf.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com
Saturday, December 30, 2006
Saddam dead
The puppet regime in Iraq has given the bush his revenge on “the guy who tried to kill his daddy.” Another “milestone”.
[…]
‘Saddam Hussein’s execution comes at the end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops,’ Bush said in a statement released as he prepared to usher in 2007 at his Texas ranch.
[…]
‘Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror,’ he said.
And so, Saddam Hussein is dead. I read that TV executives are planning tasteful coverage of the event. And after that we can slip into mourning and rending clothes for president ford. There certainly is a wide choice of ‘tasteful’ fare to entertain ourselves this New Year’s weekend.
And still, the carnage continues.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
[…]
‘Saddam Hussein’s execution comes at the end of a difficult year for the Iraqi people and for our troops,’ Bush said in a statement released as he prepared to usher in 2007 at his Texas ranch.
[…]
‘Bringing Saddam Hussein to justice will not end the violence in Iraq, but it is an important milestone on Iraq’s course to becoming a democracy that can govern, sustain, and defend itself, and be an ally in the war on terror,’ he said.
And so, Saddam Hussein is dead. I read that TV executives are planning tasteful coverage of the event. And after that we can slip into mourning and rending clothes for president ford. There certainly is a wide choice of ‘tasteful’ fare to entertain ourselves this New Year’s weekend.
And still, the carnage continues.
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year
Friday, December 29, 2006
Too Little Too Late
by Mary Pitt
As the time nears for the Democratic Congress to take office, debate is beginning to rage about whether the Pelosi approach is the correct one and it is more prudent for the Congress to launch investigations to hold responsible certain individuals in reverse chain-of-command fashion, dealing with rapscallions on each level in order to obtain testimony against those higher on the food chain or whether the direct attack would be more immediate and productive and follow the leadership of outgoing-Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and others of like mind and go directly to impeachment. It is the opinion of this writer that both approaches to haltering the rampant adventurism of this administration are too little and too late.
This is not your old-fashioned game of political niceties that is being played here. It's a combination of Texas Hold-Em with all guns on the table and the world's greatest chess masters with behind-the-scenes coaches who now find themselves in check. The ploy that will win means to take all the chips at once, permanently, and they are down to their last hole card. The last draw is for the very future of the entire world or its possible destruction and the devil will take the hindmost.
First, since the only thing that has been constructed in Iraq on a permanent basis are fourteen permanent military bases and an "American Embassy" the size of The Vatican and of a scope of grandeur, fortification, and defensibility that would have been envied by the glory-loving sheiks of old, it appears that withdrawal in any fashion at any time has been ruled out. This glorious city has not been built for the purpose of leaving the area, no matter how badly beaten and raggedy-assed the once-proud American Eagle may become. This is not about patriotism or even about democracy. It is about raw power and world control and nothing less.
Please note that work is rapidly being completed on the Guantanamo Bay complex of "Court Houses" and their support facilities offshore. Ostensibly, this location is to exempt the administrators of "justice" who practice there from the limitations of the American Constitution, despite the fact that few of the prisoners who have been held there for years of agony and brutality will ever be tried there. (As an aside, they have mis-read the Constitution which states that the legal caveats apply "anywhere in the jurisdiction of the United States.". As a property which is owned, operated, and administered by the government of the United States, even a casual reader would assume that it is within the jurisdiction of American law, but nobody has seen fit to challenge the opinions of the White House legal "scholars".) Nonetheless, the "court complex" will be completed and the hierarchy will gather there with all the comforts of home to watch the pronouncement and performance of punishment upon the rebellious malcontents who refuse to bow to total control.
Throughout the United States, multi-national contractors are hard at work on "relocation camps" to be used in case of "national emergency" so that large numbers of people may be confined there for long periods of time. A "shadow government" has been formed outside the Washington area to be safe from any possible "invasion", peopled by hand-picked official who are poised to take control of all governmental functions if and when the legitimately-elected Representatives of The People should be rendered incapable of functioning. It is now being planned that increased military might may be obtained by the "selling" of American citizenship to foreign nationals who would have no compunctions against arresting and interning ordinary Americans, probably with no knowledge even that such actions should be illegal. Executive Orders and Justice Department opinions have prepared the access to power to allow the arrest of lawfully-elected officials as well as civilian resisters, "deport", try, convict, and execute as many as necessary to discourage any further resistance by the hoi polloi, and continue on track to become, as they feel they are entitled, "the Rulers of the Universe."
Investigations? Impeachment? It does not matter at this late stage. Either is too slow and ponderous. Nothing short of a secret grand jury indictment for treason and the immediate arrest of the highest officials in the Executive, State, and Justice branches now in office will be able to save our United States, restore it to its former status as a beacon of freedom in a troubled world and save all our sorry asses. Throughout this whole takeover of the United States, from the initial electoral blitzkreig through the unilateral initiation of two separate wars, the shredding of the civil rights that have been granted by the Constitution, the draining of the Treasury through no-bid contracts with hand-picked multi-national corporations, and the assumption of absolute power of the Executive, the Neo-Con cabal have been two jumps ahead of those in Congress who might attempt to bring it under control. By the time Congress determines that there us a "problem", it is already too late to do anything about it and, meanwhile, the next step in the coup d'etat has been solidified and another initiated.
"Whose fault is this?" you may well ask. It is yours and mine, Mr. and Mrs. John Q! We allowed our franchise to govern to be stolen away by the spectacle of national elections that have become no more and no less than popularity or beauty contests. The handsome face or the well-cut suit will win every time over the rumpled shirt and the great mind topped by a homely countenance. Abe Liccoln would not have stood a chance in modern-day America! And it is "inconvenient" for us to devote the needed time to the health of our democracy in order to keep up-to-date on current events. We refuse to believe that politics is anything more than a game where we pit sides against each other and the only prize is the glory of knowing that we are a bit better than the other guys.
Well, this time it is not a spectator sport. This time it is, most literally, a contest for all the marbles. The winner WILL take all. They already have your good-paying job; your house, your car and your pension are in the pot and the only thing you have left will be your freedom of self-determination. You're down to your hole card. Raise, fold, or draw!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
As the time nears for the Democratic Congress to take office, debate is beginning to rage about whether the Pelosi approach is the correct one and it is more prudent for the Congress to launch investigations to hold responsible certain individuals in reverse chain-of-command fashion, dealing with rapscallions on each level in order to obtain testimony against those higher on the food chain or whether the direct attack would be more immediate and productive and follow the leadership of outgoing-Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and others of like mind and go directly to impeachment. It is the opinion of this writer that both approaches to haltering the rampant adventurism of this administration are too little and too late.
This is not your old-fashioned game of political niceties that is being played here. It's a combination of Texas Hold-Em with all guns on the table and the world's greatest chess masters with behind-the-scenes coaches who now find themselves in check. The ploy that will win means to take all the chips at once, permanently, and they are down to their last hole card. The last draw is for the very future of the entire world or its possible destruction and the devil will take the hindmost.
First, since the only thing that has been constructed in Iraq on a permanent basis are fourteen permanent military bases and an "American Embassy" the size of The Vatican and of a scope of grandeur, fortification, and defensibility that would have been envied by the glory-loving sheiks of old, it appears that withdrawal in any fashion at any time has been ruled out. This glorious city has not been built for the purpose of leaving the area, no matter how badly beaten and raggedy-assed the once-proud American Eagle may become. This is not about patriotism or even about democracy. It is about raw power and world control and nothing less.
Please note that work is rapidly being completed on the Guantanamo Bay complex of "Court Houses" and their support facilities offshore. Ostensibly, this location is to exempt the administrators of "justice" who practice there from the limitations of the American Constitution, despite the fact that few of the prisoners who have been held there for years of agony and brutality will ever be tried there. (As an aside, they have mis-read the Constitution which states that the legal caveats apply "anywhere in the jurisdiction of the United States.". As a property which is owned, operated, and administered by the government of the United States, even a casual reader would assume that it is within the jurisdiction of American law, but nobody has seen fit to challenge the opinions of the White House legal "scholars".) Nonetheless, the "court complex" will be completed and the hierarchy will gather there with all the comforts of home to watch the pronouncement and performance of punishment upon the rebellious malcontents who refuse to bow to total control.
Throughout the United States, multi-national contractors are hard at work on "relocation camps" to be used in case of "national emergency" so that large numbers of people may be confined there for long periods of time. A "shadow government" has been formed outside the Washington area to be safe from any possible "invasion", peopled by hand-picked official who are poised to take control of all governmental functions if and when the legitimately-elected Representatives of The People should be rendered incapable of functioning. It is now being planned that increased military might may be obtained by the "selling" of American citizenship to foreign nationals who would have no compunctions against arresting and interning ordinary Americans, probably with no knowledge even that such actions should be illegal. Executive Orders and Justice Department opinions have prepared the access to power to allow the arrest of lawfully-elected officials as well as civilian resisters, "deport", try, convict, and execute as many as necessary to discourage any further resistance by the hoi polloi, and continue on track to become, as they feel they are entitled, "the Rulers of the Universe."
Investigations? Impeachment? It does not matter at this late stage. Either is too slow and ponderous. Nothing short of a secret grand jury indictment for treason and the immediate arrest of the highest officials in the Executive, State, and Justice branches now in office will be able to save our United States, restore it to its former status as a beacon of freedom in a troubled world and save all our sorry asses. Throughout this whole takeover of the United States, from the initial electoral blitzkreig through the unilateral initiation of two separate wars, the shredding of the civil rights that have been granted by the Constitution, the draining of the Treasury through no-bid contracts with hand-picked multi-national corporations, and the assumption of absolute power of the Executive, the Neo-Con cabal have been two jumps ahead of those in Congress who might attempt to bring it under control. By the time Congress determines that there us a "problem", it is already too late to do anything about it and, meanwhile, the next step in the coup d'etat has been solidified and another initiated.
"Whose fault is this?" you may well ask. It is yours and mine, Mr. and Mrs. John Q! We allowed our franchise to govern to be stolen away by the spectacle of national elections that have become no more and no less than popularity or beauty contests. The handsome face or the well-cut suit will win every time over the rumpled shirt and the great mind topped by a homely countenance. Abe Liccoln would not have stood a chance in modern-day America! And it is "inconvenient" for us to devote the needed time to the health of our democracy in order to keep up-to-date on current events. We refuse to believe that politics is anything more than a game where we pit sides against each other and the only prize is the glory of knowing that we are a bit better than the other guys.
Well, this time it is not a spectator sport. This time it is, most literally, a contest for all the marbles. The winner WILL take all. They already have your good-paying job; your house, your car and your pension are in the pot and the only thing you have left will be your freedom of self-determination. You're down to your hole card. Raise, fold, or draw!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice. Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
Thursday, December 28, 2006
Behind The Gaza Breakdown
by Chris Toensing; Middle East Report; December 27, 2006
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=11721
The latest convoluted set of events within Palestine, and at its borders, form a depressing tableau that mirrors the conflict as a whole.
Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister compelled by an Israeli-Arab-Western financial blockade to seek his government’s budget from Iran and Sudan, was denied reentry into Gaza, the seat of his government, until Israeli-Egyptian-U.S. negotiations decided he would leave his bags of donated cash behind in Egypt. That a Palestinian’s movements should be thus externally controlled is not, of course, novel, and Israel accorded Yasser Arafat similar treatment, in life and in death. But there was a twist in Haniyeh’s delayed border crossing on December 14: The prime minister’s entourage met a hail of bullets from gunmen likely linked to Fatah, the main rival of the Hamas movement to which he belongs. Haniyeh escaped, but a bodyguard did not.
The backdrop to this imbroglio is the refusal, by Israel, the United States and much of Fatah, to accept the outcome of the January 2006 Palestinian elections, won fair and square by Hamas. Israel promptly halted transfer of the customs revenues it owes by treaty to the Palestinian Authority. The U.S. organized a Western-Arab aid embargo upon the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, to remain in place unless Hamas recognizes Israel, renounces violence and embraces all agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians under Arafat.
One might call these actions hypocritical. Having spent 2005 extolling the virtues of electoral democracy to Arabs, the Bush administration then boycotted the victor of the first Arab elections in decades in which the reins of power actually changed hands. Certainly, the revenue and aid blockade, aiming as it does to starve the Palestinian people into turning against Hamas, is immoral.
But the half-secret behind the sordid scene at the Gaza border crossing is that the embargo is slipping. For some months, alarmed by humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories, the European Union has been sending indirect aid, which, though not disbursed by Hamas-controlled ministries, does ease the burdens on the population and, hence, the popular pressure on Haniyeh’s party. Neither is Hamas simply waiting for charity. According to European border monitors, the prime minister’s colleagues had already brought some $80 million in cash, much of it raised in the Arabian Peninsula, into Gaza before he was stopped. Hamas has weathered the embargo without acceding to U.S.-Israeli demands and, thus, it has retained its mantle as the political force representing the spirit of resistance to Israeli occupation. As independent leftist Mustafa Barghouti told The Washington Post, “If they were to hold [new parliamentary] elections tomorrow, I’m fairly certain the results would not be much different.” Why? Mouin Rabbani of the International Crisis Group puts it this way: “The Palestinians are being asked to choose between their national dignity and their next meal”—and so far they are choosing the former. Even Israel’s five-month offensive in Gaza, following Palestinian capture of an army corporal, seems not to have eroded Hamas’ support.
Enter the final dramatis personae, President Mahmoud Abbas and those others in Fatah whose hopes spring eternal for a resurrection of the 1990s “peace process,” despite Israel’s manifest lack of interest. For months, Abbas has been avowedly anxious to woo Hamas into forming a “national unity” government, but his conditions keep moving away from a national reconciliation document agreed upon in June and toward the Israeli-U.S. conditions for relaxing the siege upon Gaza and the West Bank. For that reason, and because the embargo has amplified less compromising voices within Hamas, the Islamist movement has declined. On December 16, Abbas upped the ante, threatening to call new parliamentary and presidential elections if Hamas does not change its mind.
The U.S. and Britain have backed this maneuver, whose legality the American media persist in casting as “unclear.” But according to Nathan Brown, a scholar of Arab constitutions, the Palestinian Basic Law is “extremely clear and definitive” that Palestinian legislative terms are four years long. Full stop. The Palestinian president, Brown writes, “has no more basis for early parliamentary elections than President George W. Bush has for ordering new Congressional elections if he does not like the result.”
Couple this fact with Fatah’s complicity in Washington’s attempts to unseat Hamas—such as back-door funding, already in October, for the Islamists’ putative electoral opponents—and the deeper contours of the ongoing Hamas-Fatah clashes in Gaza come into focus. The U.S. might like to see the fighting escalate; when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last visited Washington, Bush reportedly pressed him to allow the Badr Brigades, a Palestinian armed unit based in Jordan, into the West Bank. Do the two largest Palestinian factions have the stomach for civil war? Or, instead, will Hamas return underground and step up attacks on Israel, hoping for Abbas to assume the role of Israeli-U.S. proxy policeman played by Arafat during the 1990s? The Hamas politburo head promises the latter scenario, if his party is not permitted to govern. So Israel and the U.S., who limned the Palestinians’ current plight, will also sketch the outline of the sequel.
'2,700 Palestinians held without trial'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dec. 26, 2006 22:30
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1164881984410
A top IDF judge disclosed on Tuesday that 2,700 Palestinians have been detained without trial this year, criticizing the military prosecution for not filing charges against some of them.
Col. Shaul Gordon, chief justice of the army's West Bank appeals court, told the soldiers' weekly Bamahane that 2,000 of the detainees filed appeals, and their detention was shortened in many cases. He said even the ones who do not file appeals are reviewed.
The practice of administrative detention has been harshly criticized by Palestinians and human rights groups, who say that if the IDF has evidence against suspects, it should put them on trial.
The IDF has responded that sometimes evidence is too sensitive to submit to a trial…
Israel approves W Bank settlement
Tuesday, 26 December 2006, 20:01 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6210721.stm
Israel has approved the construction of a new settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials have said.
The defence ministry said 30 houses would be built in the settlement for families moved from the Gaza Strip.
It marks the first time since 1992 that Israel has approved a new settlement, rather than expanding existing ones, an Israeli settlement watchdog said.
Settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, although Israel rejects this.
Palestinian condemnation
The construction of the Maskiot settlement in the West Bank's northern Jordan Valley will begin within weeks, Israeli officials said.
It will house families who were moved from the Gaza Strip when Israeli troops and settlers left in 2005, they said.
Israel's Peace Now group - whose members monitor Israeli settlements in the West Bank - said it would be the first such settlement since 1992.
The Israeli decision was denounced by Palestinian officials, who said it violated the US-backed "road map" peace plan for the region.
"We condemn this act and this decision especially as it comes after the Israeli side committed itself to stop all unilateral actions," Saeb Erekat, an aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told AFP news agency.
Under the road map, Israel committed to freezing all settlement expansion in the occupied territories, while the Palestinians pledged to crack down on militants.
There are approximately 450,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=107&ItemID=11721
The latest convoluted set of events within Palestine, and at its borders, form a depressing tableau that mirrors the conflict as a whole.
Ismail Haniyeh, the prime minister compelled by an Israeli-Arab-Western financial blockade to seek his government’s budget from Iran and Sudan, was denied reentry into Gaza, the seat of his government, until Israeli-Egyptian-U.S. negotiations decided he would leave his bags of donated cash behind in Egypt. That a Palestinian’s movements should be thus externally controlled is not, of course, novel, and Israel accorded Yasser Arafat similar treatment, in life and in death. But there was a twist in Haniyeh’s delayed border crossing on December 14: The prime minister’s entourage met a hail of bullets from gunmen likely linked to Fatah, the main rival of the Hamas movement to which he belongs. Haniyeh escaped, but a bodyguard did not.
The backdrop to this imbroglio is the refusal, by Israel, the United States and much of Fatah, to accept the outcome of the January 2006 Palestinian elections, won fair and square by Hamas. Israel promptly halted transfer of the customs revenues it owes by treaty to the Palestinian Authority. The U.S. organized a Western-Arab aid embargo upon the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, to remain in place unless Hamas recognizes Israel, renounces violence and embraces all agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinians under Arafat.
One might call these actions hypocritical. Having spent 2005 extolling the virtues of electoral democracy to Arabs, the Bush administration then boycotted the victor of the first Arab elections in decades in which the reins of power actually changed hands. Certainly, the revenue and aid blockade, aiming as it does to starve the Palestinian people into turning against Hamas, is immoral.
But the half-secret behind the sordid scene at the Gaza border crossing is that the embargo is slipping. For some months, alarmed by humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian territories, the European Union has been sending indirect aid, which, though not disbursed by Hamas-controlled ministries, does ease the burdens on the population and, hence, the popular pressure on Haniyeh’s party. Neither is Hamas simply waiting for charity. According to European border monitors, the prime minister’s colleagues had already brought some $80 million in cash, much of it raised in the Arabian Peninsula, into Gaza before he was stopped. Hamas has weathered the embargo without acceding to U.S.-Israeli demands and, thus, it has retained its mantle as the political force representing the spirit of resistance to Israeli occupation. As independent leftist Mustafa Barghouti told The Washington Post, “If they were to hold [new parliamentary] elections tomorrow, I’m fairly certain the results would not be much different.” Why? Mouin Rabbani of the International Crisis Group puts it this way: “The Palestinians are being asked to choose between their national dignity and their next meal”—and so far they are choosing the former. Even Israel’s five-month offensive in Gaza, following Palestinian capture of an army corporal, seems not to have eroded Hamas’ support.
Enter the final dramatis personae, President Mahmoud Abbas and those others in Fatah whose hopes spring eternal for a resurrection of the 1990s “peace process,” despite Israel’s manifest lack of interest. For months, Abbas has been avowedly anxious to woo Hamas into forming a “national unity” government, but his conditions keep moving away from a national reconciliation document agreed upon in June and toward the Israeli-U.S. conditions for relaxing the siege upon Gaza and the West Bank. For that reason, and because the embargo has amplified less compromising voices within Hamas, the Islamist movement has declined. On December 16, Abbas upped the ante, threatening to call new parliamentary and presidential elections if Hamas does not change its mind.
The U.S. and Britain have backed this maneuver, whose legality the American media persist in casting as “unclear.” But according to Nathan Brown, a scholar of Arab constitutions, the Palestinian Basic Law is “extremely clear and definitive” that Palestinian legislative terms are four years long. Full stop. The Palestinian president, Brown writes, “has no more basis for early parliamentary elections than President George W. Bush has for ordering new Congressional elections if he does not like the result.”
Couple this fact with Fatah’s complicity in Washington’s attempts to unseat Hamas—such as back-door funding, already in October, for the Islamists’ putative electoral opponents—and the deeper contours of the ongoing Hamas-Fatah clashes in Gaza come into focus. The U.S. might like to see the fighting escalate; when Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert last visited Washington, Bush reportedly pressed him to allow the Badr Brigades, a Palestinian armed unit based in Jordan, into the West Bank. Do the two largest Palestinian factions have the stomach for civil war? Or, instead, will Hamas return underground and step up attacks on Israel, hoping for Abbas to assume the role of Israeli-U.S. proxy policeman played by Arafat during the 1990s? The Hamas politburo head promises the latter scenario, if his party is not permitted to govern. So Israel and the U.S., who limned the Palestinians’ current plight, will also sketch the outline of the sequel.
'2,700 Palestinians held without trial'
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dec. 26, 2006 22:30
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1164881984410
A top IDF judge disclosed on Tuesday that 2,700 Palestinians have been detained without trial this year, criticizing the military prosecution for not filing charges against some of them.
Col. Shaul Gordon, chief justice of the army's West Bank appeals court, told the soldiers' weekly Bamahane that 2,000 of the detainees filed appeals, and their detention was shortened in many cases. He said even the ones who do not file appeals are reviewed.
The practice of administrative detention has been harshly criticized by Palestinians and human rights groups, who say that if the IDF has evidence against suspects, it should put them on trial.
The IDF has responded that sometimes evidence is too sensitive to submit to a trial…
Israel approves W Bank settlement
Tuesday, 26 December 2006, 20:01 GMT
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6210721.stm
Israel has approved the construction of a new settlement in the occupied West Bank, Israeli officials have said.
The defence ministry said 30 houses would be built in the settlement for families moved from the Gaza Strip.
It marks the first time since 1992 that Israel has approved a new settlement, rather than expanding existing ones, an Israeli settlement watchdog said.
Settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law, although Israel rejects this.
Palestinian condemnation
The construction of the Maskiot settlement in the West Bank's northern Jordan Valley will begin within weeks, Israeli officials said.
It will house families who were moved from the Gaza Strip when Israeli troops and settlers left in 2005, they said.
Israel's Peace Now group - whose members monitor Israeli settlements in the West Bank - said it would be the first such settlement since 1992.
The Israeli decision was denounced by Palestinian officials, who said it violated the US-backed "road map" peace plan for the region.
"We condemn this act and this decision especially as it comes after the Israeli side committed itself to stop all unilateral actions," Saeb Erekat, an aide to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, told AFP news agency.
Under the road map, Israel committed to freezing all settlement expansion in the occupied territories, while the Palestinians pledged to crack down on militants.
There are approximately 450,000 Jewish settlers in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
A Look Back and Ahead In An Age of Neocon Rule
by Stephen Lendman
12/27/06
[…]
At the end of the sixth horrific year under the reign of the Bush modern-day extremist Jacobin-neocons, we can now look ahead, but to what. We have an administration in charge for another two years one longtime analyst characterizes as "a bunch of crooks, incompetents and perverts" with the president's approval rating plunging as low as 28% in some independent polls and a growing number of people in the country demanding his impeachment and removal from office.
It's not likely from the new Democrat-led Congress arriving in January, as their DLC leadership took it off the table and so far only promises more of the same failed policy other than some minor tinkering around the edges to create an illusion of change no different than the deceptive kind of course correction proposed by the Baker "Gang of Ten" Iraq Study Group (ISG) that guarantees none at all. It doesn't leave members of the body politic with much hope for the new year that will likely just deliver more of the same rogue leadership and policy engendering growing public discontent and anger but not at a level so far to scare the those in power enough to want to address it.
The heart of the problem is the unpopular illegal war of aggression in Iraq, the cesspool of corruption and scorn for the law in Washington, and the assault on human rights and civil liberties in the country justified by the so-called "war on terror" now rebranded a "long war" against "Islamofascism" and "radicals and extremists" (who happen to be Muslims.) It's the same failed policy using the kind of deliberately provocative language intended to deceive the public to think a threat great enough exists to justify any state action in the name of national security including waging wars of aggression and all the horrors associated with them at home and abroad.
[…]
read the full article
12/27/06
[…]
At the end of the sixth horrific year under the reign of the Bush modern-day extremist Jacobin-neocons, we can now look ahead, but to what. We have an administration in charge for another two years one longtime analyst characterizes as "a bunch of crooks, incompetents and perverts" with the president's approval rating plunging as low as 28% in some independent polls and a growing number of people in the country demanding his impeachment and removal from office.
It's not likely from the new Democrat-led Congress arriving in January, as their DLC leadership took it off the table and so far only promises more of the same failed policy other than some minor tinkering around the edges to create an illusion of change no different than the deceptive kind of course correction proposed by the Baker "Gang of Ten" Iraq Study Group (ISG) that guarantees none at all. It doesn't leave members of the body politic with much hope for the new year that will likely just deliver more of the same rogue leadership and policy engendering growing public discontent and anger but not at a level so far to scare the those in power enough to want to address it.
The heart of the problem is the unpopular illegal war of aggression in Iraq, the cesspool of corruption and scorn for the law in Washington, and the assault on human rights and civil liberties in the country justified by the so-called "war on terror" now rebranded a "long war" against "Islamofascism" and "radicals and extremists" (who happen to be Muslims.) It's the same failed policy using the kind of deliberately provocative language intended to deceive the public to think a threat great enough exists to justify any state action in the name of national security including waging wars of aggression and all the horrors associated with them at home and abroad.
[…]
read the full article
Monday, December 25, 2006
Will Stinky Cut The Big One?
By Sheila Samples
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
~~McBeth, Act V, Scene V
It's almost painful to watch the disintegration of George W. Bush and what's left of his murderous administration. Those who haven't fled are racing blindly through the halls of power, lurching into one another in a desperate attempt to distance themselves from Bush and to escape reaping what they have sown.
Even cutting a bit of slack, it's still inconceivable that any thinking person could spend more than five minutes in the presence of Bush without the shock of recognizing what a total idiot this country has as its president. Other than breaking stuff, killing anything in his path, refusing to admit mistakes, and making an obscene mess of anything he touches, apparently the only thing Bush can do with any success is break wind --pass gas -- fart.
First Fart Boy
In his Aug. 20 U.S. New & World Report "Washington Whispers" under the heading "Animal House in the West Wing," Paul Bedard wrote that Bush not only loves to cuss, but "... the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes...can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides..."
Bedard also told the Boston Herald's Margery Eagan that he’s heard about Bush’s full-salute “Austin Greeting” when new aides arrive. "He likes to gas a couple, and then bring the aide in and see what the kid’s face looks like.” Eagan, who admitted she was grossed out, commented, "Naturally, the aide can’t accuse the President or grimace or hold his nose. This dilemma apparently drives the presidential funny bone wild."
Most of us stopped laughing at Bush's coarse antics long ago. The boastful sound and fury of hot air blasting from both ends of this crude, immature thug as he rips one windy flatulent speech after another while saying absolutely nothing is not only vulgar, but is indescribably evil. The stench of Bush's lies mingles with, and hovers over the growing mounds of mangled and broken bodies of innocent men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan -- swirls around coffins laden with American service members sneaked back in-country with no fanfare.
CNN -- The Most Twisted Name in News
Each day, more and more soldiers and marines are blown to bits. Each morning the streets of Iraq's cities are strewn with hundreds of shackled, tortured, beheaded Sunni and Shiite civilians. Yet, for the past year, the hypocritical Congress, corporate media and crusty retired military "experts" sat around gleefully playing politics and fiercely debating whether the Iraqi quagmire was a civil war. It was a rabid debate -- with all participants forced by Bush and Cheney's claims of success to argue but one side with no pretense of delving into the reality of Bush's mad adventure.
Until Nov. 26 when Michael Ware, CNN's Baghdad correspondent, startled the world and brought the civil-war debate to a screeching halt. Kitty Pilgrim, sitting in for Lou Dobbs, asked Ware, "The Iraqi government and the U.S. military in Baghdad keep saying it's not a civil war -- what are you seeing?"
Ware, a seasoned war correspondent who is no stranger to civil wars and has covered the war in Iraq for both Time Magazine and CNN since it began, responded intensely, "Well, it's easier to deny it's a civil war when you live in the most heavily fortified place in the country -- the Green Zone -- and that's where the prime minister, the national security advisor and the top military commanders live. However," Ware continued, "as for the people living on the streets, or Iraqis in their homes -- if this is not a civil war, then they do not want to see what one looks like."
Ware went on to describe the stark inhumanity of neighbor against neighbor, family on family, ethnic cleansing, "institutionalized" Shiia death squads in legal police uniforms who roam the streets, dragging Sunni families from their homes never to be seen again -- Sunnis plunging car bombs into marketplaces...Ware said the recent surge in violence was a result of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr boycotting the Nouri al-Maliki puppet government and parliament as a result of Maliki meeting with "the criminal Bush."
A national dead silence followed Ware's outburst of truth. The next evening, Wolf Blitzer gave Ware a second chance to join the "best political team in journalism" by reigniting the debate. After sternly warning Ware that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Iraq was "almost -- almost" in a civil war, and that the White House, Bush administration and PM Maliki flatly deny it, Blitzer asked, "Is it a civil war?"
Again, without hesitation, Ware reiterated that the horrors exploding around him were nothing if not a civil war. He said, "the debate about whether there is a civil war is fueled either by the luxury of distance -- those who aren't here on the ground -- or by the spin of those with a political agenda to deny its existance."
A week later, Annan set Blitzer straight. He not only said Iraq was indeed in a civil war, but that Iraqis were "better off when a brutal dictator ruled their land."
Michael Ware is no longer in Iraq.
Decisions...Decisions...
The Iraq Study Group (ISG) report was a swat across Bush's rump, and a confirmation that this nation's foreign policy is run by corporate committee. Some thought Poppy Bush and Uncle Jim (James Baker, III) were stepping in yet again to pull Stinky's cajones out of the fire by helping him to save face for the mess he had made. However, those familiar with the Group's Iran-Contra power-brokers know why they stepped out of the shadows now, after three years of bloody violence. The report basically said -- You screwed up again, Junior -- big time. Iraq is so broke, you can't own it, you can't fix it and you can't leave it. You're stuck there, which is fine, because you can't leave until you get the oil, which is why we put you in office and sent you over there in the first place. Get that oil law finalized so we can get the oil contracts before China, India and Russia get there.
Bush is overtaken with strategies and plans from those who sense his confusion and assume he is weakening. Anyone who thinks Bush will admit his mistakes and support the troops by rescinding their death sentences doesn't know Jack about George. During the nine-month gestation period (Mar-Nov) of the ISG Report, 633 coalition troops were blown to bits -- 592 of them Americans. In the month since the ISG strategy died aborning, 80 troops have been slaughtered -- all of them Americans -- three of them today as I write this on Christmas Eve. Tonight, 12 families will kneel and pray for their childrens' lives, unaware that they are already dead.
And so we wait while Bush struts and frets on the world stage and rips one brain fart after another, all signifying nothing. He's gonna weigh the options -- listen to the voices...take the generals' advice...surge up briefly before pulling out...double-punch 'em with a double down and keep on truckin' -- before he announces his decision to stay the course, or achieve the objective or accomplish the mission -- whatever.
The Big One
Bush reminds us often that he's The Decider. Nobody has the right to question his decisions -- not even him -- because history has called him to action, and he is delivering God's gift of freedom to every individual on earth whether they want it or not.
Who can forget the profound deliberation that preceeded Bush's decision to invade Iraq? On 9-11, he announced, "I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass." And, in March 2002, a full year before invading Iraq, his decision was, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out!"
When asked during a press conference last week if he questioned his own decisions, Bush replied confidently, "No, I haven't questioned whether or not it was right to take Saddam Hussein out, nor have I questioned the necessity for the American people -- I mean, I've questioned it; I've come to the conclusion it's the right decision. But I also know it's the right decision for America to stay engaged, and to take the lead, and to deal with these radicals and extremists, and to help support young democracies. It's the calling of our time .... And I firmly believe it is necessary."
We're losing in Iraq, but Bush says that doesn't bother him -- it just means we're going to win if we expand the armed forces, put more and more troops on the streets of Baghdad, and stay the course.
Bush is a brutal, pathological liar -- arguably a homicidal maniac. After losing two wars against helpless, unarmed nations, he's bored. The Decider is moving on to greater things, and those who know how to listen to him know the decision to nuke Iran has already been made. Before he leaves office, Bush plans to spread the same freedoms throughout Iran that Iraq is presently enjoying, only this time he has decided to attack a huge, oil-rich, armed-to-the-teeth nation which has the capacity not only to defend itself, but to wreak death and destruction upon its attackers.
Will Stinky cut the big one on his way out? Or is he just whistling past the graveyard -- yodeling past the skull orchard -- as he goes mano-a-mano with Poppy?
Where's Michael Ware when you need him?
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: rsamples@sirinet.net.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more: it is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
~~McBeth, Act V, Scene V
It's almost painful to watch the disintegration of George W. Bush and what's left of his murderous administration. Those who haven't fled are racing blindly through the halls of power, lurching into one another in a desperate attempt to distance themselves from Bush and to escape reaping what they have sown.
Even cutting a bit of slack, it's still inconceivable that any thinking person could spend more than five minutes in the presence of Bush without the shock of recognizing what a total idiot this country has as its president. Other than breaking stuff, killing anything in his path, refusing to admit mistakes, and making an obscene mess of anything he touches, apparently the only thing Bush can do with any success is break wind --pass gas -- fart.
First Fart Boy
In his Aug. 20 U.S. New & World Report "Washington Whispers" under the heading "Animal House in the West Wing," Paul Bedard wrote that Bush not only loves to cuss, but "... the first frat boy loves flatulence jokes...can't get enough of fart jokes. He's also known to cut a few for laughs, especially when greeting new young aides..."
Bedard also told the Boston Herald's Margery Eagan that he’s heard about Bush’s full-salute “Austin Greeting” when new aides arrive. "He likes to gas a couple, and then bring the aide in and see what the kid’s face looks like.” Eagan, who admitted she was grossed out, commented, "Naturally, the aide can’t accuse the President or grimace or hold his nose. This dilemma apparently drives the presidential funny bone wild."
Most of us stopped laughing at Bush's coarse antics long ago. The boastful sound and fury of hot air blasting from both ends of this crude, immature thug as he rips one windy flatulent speech after another while saying absolutely nothing is not only vulgar, but is indescribably evil. The stench of Bush's lies mingles with, and hovers over the growing mounds of mangled and broken bodies of innocent men, women and children in Iraq and Afghanistan -- swirls around coffins laden with American service members sneaked back in-country with no fanfare.
CNN -- The Most Twisted Name in News
Each day, more and more soldiers and marines are blown to bits. Each morning the streets of Iraq's cities are strewn with hundreds of shackled, tortured, beheaded Sunni and Shiite civilians. Yet, for the past year, the hypocritical Congress, corporate media and crusty retired military "experts" sat around gleefully playing politics and fiercely debating whether the Iraqi quagmire was a civil war. It was a rabid debate -- with all participants forced by Bush and Cheney's claims of success to argue but one side with no pretense of delving into the reality of Bush's mad adventure.
Until Nov. 26 when Michael Ware, CNN's Baghdad correspondent, startled the world and brought the civil-war debate to a screeching halt. Kitty Pilgrim, sitting in for Lou Dobbs, asked Ware, "The Iraqi government and the U.S. military in Baghdad keep saying it's not a civil war -- what are you seeing?"
Ware, a seasoned war correspondent who is no stranger to civil wars and has covered the war in Iraq for both Time Magazine and CNN since it began, responded intensely, "Well, it's easier to deny it's a civil war when you live in the most heavily fortified place in the country -- the Green Zone -- and that's where the prime minister, the national security advisor and the top military commanders live. However," Ware continued, "as for the people living on the streets, or Iraqis in their homes -- if this is not a civil war, then they do not want to see what one looks like."
Ware went on to describe the stark inhumanity of neighbor against neighbor, family on family, ethnic cleansing, "institutionalized" Shiia death squads in legal police uniforms who roam the streets, dragging Sunni families from their homes never to be seen again -- Sunnis plunging car bombs into marketplaces...Ware said the recent surge in violence was a result of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr boycotting the Nouri al-Maliki puppet government and parliament as a result of Maliki meeting with "the criminal Bush."
A national dead silence followed Ware's outburst of truth. The next evening, Wolf Blitzer gave Ware a second chance to join the "best political team in journalism" by reigniting the debate. After sternly warning Ware that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan said Iraq was "almost -- almost" in a civil war, and that the White House, Bush administration and PM Maliki flatly deny it, Blitzer asked, "Is it a civil war?"
Again, without hesitation, Ware reiterated that the horrors exploding around him were nothing if not a civil war. He said, "the debate about whether there is a civil war is fueled either by the luxury of distance -- those who aren't here on the ground -- or by the spin of those with a political agenda to deny its existance."
A week later, Annan set Blitzer straight. He not only said Iraq was indeed in a civil war, but that Iraqis were "better off when a brutal dictator ruled their land."
Michael Ware is no longer in Iraq.
Decisions...Decisions...
The Iraq Study Group (ISG) report was a swat across Bush's rump, and a confirmation that this nation's foreign policy is run by corporate committee. Some thought Poppy Bush and Uncle Jim (James Baker, III) were stepping in yet again to pull Stinky's cajones out of the fire by helping him to save face for the mess he had made. However, those familiar with the Group's Iran-Contra power-brokers know why they stepped out of the shadows now, after three years of bloody violence. The report basically said -- You screwed up again, Junior -- big time. Iraq is so broke, you can't own it, you can't fix it and you can't leave it. You're stuck there, which is fine, because you can't leave until you get the oil, which is why we put you in office and sent you over there in the first place. Get that oil law finalized so we can get the oil contracts before China, India and Russia get there.
Bush is overtaken with strategies and plans from those who sense his confusion and assume he is weakening. Anyone who thinks Bush will admit his mistakes and support the troops by rescinding their death sentences doesn't know Jack about George. During the nine-month gestation period (Mar-Nov) of the ISG Report, 633 coalition troops were blown to bits -- 592 of them Americans. In the month since the ISG strategy died aborning, 80 troops have been slaughtered -- all of them Americans -- three of them today as I write this on Christmas Eve. Tonight, 12 families will kneel and pray for their childrens' lives, unaware that they are already dead.
And so we wait while Bush struts and frets on the world stage and rips one brain fart after another, all signifying nothing. He's gonna weigh the options -- listen to the voices...take the generals' advice...surge up briefly before pulling out...double-punch 'em with a double down and keep on truckin' -- before he announces his decision to stay the course, or achieve the objective or accomplish the mission -- whatever.
The Big One
Bush reminds us often that he's The Decider. Nobody has the right to question his decisions -- not even him -- because history has called him to action, and he is delivering God's gift of freedom to every individual on earth whether they want it or not.
Who can forget the profound deliberation that preceeded Bush's decision to invade Iraq? On 9-11, he announced, "I don't care what the international lawyers say, we are going to kick some ass." And, in March 2002, a full year before invading Iraq, his decision was, "Fuck Saddam. We're taking him out!"
When asked during a press conference last week if he questioned his own decisions, Bush replied confidently, "No, I haven't questioned whether or not it was right to take Saddam Hussein out, nor have I questioned the necessity for the American people -- I mean, I've questioned it; I've come to the conclusion it's the right decision. But I also know it's the right decision for America to stay engaged, and to take the lead, and to deal with these radicals and extremists, and to help support young democracies. It's the calling of our time .... And I firmly believe it is necessary."
We're losing in Iraq, but Bush says that doesn't bother him -- it just means we're going to win if we expand the armed forces, put more and more troops on the streets of Baghdad, and stay the course.
Bush is a brutal, pathological liar -- arguably a homicidal maniac. After losing two wars against helpless, unarmed nations, he's bored. The Decider is moving on to greater things, and those who know how to listen to him know the decision to nuke Iran has already been made. Before he leaves office, Bush plans to spread the same freedoms throughout Iran that Iraq is presently enjoying, only this time he has decided to attack a huge, oil-rich, armed-to-the-teeth nation which has the capacity not only to defend itself, but to wreak death and destruction upon its attackers.
Will Stinky cut the big one on his way out? Or is he just whistling past the graveyard -- yodeling past the skull orchard -- as he goes mano-a-mano with Poppy?
Where's Michael Ware when you need him?
Sheila Samples is an Oklahoma writer and a former civilian US Army Public Information Officer. She is a regular contributor for a variety of Internet sites. Contact her at: rsamples@sirinet.net.
Thursday, December 21, 2006
Rice calls Iraq worth the investment
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3343184,00.html
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that Iraq is ''worth the investment'' in American lives and dollars. Rice also said the United States can win in Iraq, although the war so far has been longer and more difficult than she had expected.
In an AP interview, Rice was asked whether an additional USD 100 billion the Pentagon wants for the Iraq and Afghan wars might amount to throwing good money after bad in Iraq. Rice answered that Iraq is "worth the investment" and that "once it emerges as a country that is a stabilizing factor you will have a very different kind of Middle East.'' (AP)
"We Think the Price Is Worth It"
By Rahul Mahajan
November/December 2001
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)
Ain’t none of their people suffering, so why should they care?
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Thursday that Iraq is ''worth the investment'' in American lives and dollars. Rice also said the United States can win in Iraq, although the war so far has been longer and more difficult than she had expected.
In an AP interview, Rice was asked whether an additional USD 100 billion the Pentagon wants for the Iraq and Afghan wars might amount to throwing good money after bad in Iraq. Rice answered that Iraq is "worth the investment" and that "once it emerges as a country that is a stabilizing factor you will have a very different kind of Middle East.'' (AP)
"We Think the Price Is Worth It"
By Rahul Mahajan
November/December 2001
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1084
Lesley Stahl on U.S. sanctions against Iraq: We have heard that a half million children have died. I mean, that's more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?
Secretary of State Madeleine Albright: I think this is a very hard choice, but the price--we think the price is worth it.
--60 Minutes (5/12/96)
Ain’t none of their people suffering, so why should they care?
Tuesday, December 19, 2006
Options after the Deconstruction of Iraq
by Rodrigue Tremblay
December 18, 2006
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
George W. Bush, September 12, 2002
"Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons."
George W. Bush, March 18, 2003
"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
Paul Wolfowitz, May 28, 2003
"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.."
George W. Bush, May 30, 2003
Wars of aggression are the most barbarous of all human endeavors and are, more often than not, the instruments of insane tyrants who hear voices. Wars are also waged by warlike gambling leaders who bet their citizens' houses to fulfill their megalomaniac dreams of grandeur —And the illegal military invasion of Iraq was a gigantic gamble from the start. What's more, it is a war that was planned and executed on the basis of fabricated lies. It was a war based on false pretenses and on false perceptions of the Muslim Middle East. For example, it is not true that Middle Eastern Muslims hate the West "because they hate our way of life, our freedom, and our democracy." Polls indicate that such ideas are simply based on ignorant prejudices. This wicked war will be judged by history as one of the most blatant abuses of power by any American administration ever.
In the process, the Bush-Cheney team, through a combination of design and blunder, has inflamed the entire Middle East, from Iraq and Afghanistan, to Palestine and Lebanon, and soon, to Iran, and possibly Syria, Saudi Arabia and even Turkey. In Iraq, nearly four years after the March 20, 2003 invasion of the country, the mess and the destruction are complete, leaving behind a genuine humanitarian catastrophe and a political near-debacle.
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, for one, has concluded that the “average Iraqi’s life” is worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein and that the situation in Iraq is now "much worse" than a civil war. Even some republican senators now say openly that Bush's war in Iraq may be 'criminal'. Only President George W. Bush and his Rasputin-like vice president, it seems, continue to think that their wrecking-crew Middle East policy makes any sense. Even departing Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejects bluntly their stubborn "stay-the-course" and “must-complete-the-mission” policy.
However, departing Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld amazingly listed 20 tactical options for U.S. policy in Iraq, but no strategic option. It seems that among G. W. Bush's sorcerer's apprentices, there are a few tacticians, but no strategist. This may understandable in a government of ideologues. For the Bush-Cheney administration, ideology is a strategy in itself, and it is this neoconservative dogma that cannot ever be questioned or modified without loosing face. Even if all the rosy neocon assumptions about Iraq and the Middle East have turned out to be wrong and wrong-headed, George W. Bush has bet his entire presidency on the foolish enterprise and would need a credible face-saving solution to extirpate himself from the mess he himself created. As an immature person and as the bully-in-chief, as he has recently been labeled by economist Paul Krugman of the New York Times, G. W. Bush cannot face the failure of his adventure in Iraq and will remain in a state of denial as long as he is allowed to do so by Congress.
And now, the 10-member Baker-Hamilton bipartisan commission has made it unanimous and officially concluded that Bush's Iraq policies have failed. But, amazingly, the Commission watered downed its recommendations for fear that Bush would reject them out of hand. As a consequence, its 79-some recommendations deal more with tactical changes than fundamental strategic realignments. For one, the Commission refrained from calling for a timetable for a real withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq or even for a real troops reduction. In this sense, the Baker-Hamilton commission did not produce the face-saving plan of withdrawal from Iraq that the current U. S. President and American politicians from both sides of the isle could have leaned on to extirpate themselves from the blunder they made in the fall of 2002. Secondly, the report did not establish how the Iraq adventure is a costly distraction from the real threat of Islamist al Qaeda-type terrorism, which is in resurgence in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
But all is not completely bleak, even if you are a Neocon who has been "mugged by reality." Indeed, obliterating Iraq from the map, as a country opposed to Israel, and taking control of its oil reserves, were the core objectives behind the pro-Israel neocon policy of invading that country; they were well camouflaged under the terms "liberation" and "democracy". It's not sure, therefore, that the mess that the Bush-Cheney administration has created in Iraq was solely the result of abysmal ignorance and incompetence.
When George W. Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003, he did not only topple the Saddam Hussein regime, one of George W. Bush's juvenile fantasies, but he made sure that the entire infrastructure of the country was also destroyed: the army was dismembered, security services were abolished, and, the ruling Sunni-dominated Baath Party was dissolved and its members purged from any administrative positions. An enormous political vacuum resulted, opening the gates to a bloody civil war between the Sunnis in the center, the Chiites in the south and the Kurds in the north.
In this sense, the debacle in Iraq was a planned failure. The final chapter of this drama would be the official break-up of the country into pieces along religious and/or ethnic lines, to the great satisfaction of two countries, i.e. Iran and Israel, the only two countries bound to profit directly from the fragmentation of Iraq.
This is probably what we are going to witness in the coming months. But, just as President Richard Nixon promised to get Americans out of Vietnam in 1968, and only succeeded in doing in 1973, after 20,000 more young Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died there, President George W. Bush will try to temporize and save face, as thousands more Americans and Iraqis die. —It is a terrible shame.
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/tremblay=1049
December 18, 2006
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
George W. Bush, September 12, 2002
"Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons."
George W. Bush, March 18, 2003
"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
Paul Wolfowitz, May 28, 2003
"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.."
George W. Bush, May 30, 2003
Wars of aggression are the most barbarous of all human endeavors and are, more often than not, the instruments of insane tyrants who hear voices. Wars are also waged by warlike gambling leaders who bet their citizens' houses to fulfill their megalomaniac dreams of grandeur —And the illegal military invasion of Iraq was a gigantic gamble from the start. What's more, it is a war that was planned and executed on the basis of fabricated lies. It was a war based on false pretenses and on false perceptions of the Muslim Middle East. For example, it is not true that Middle Eastern Muslims hate the West "because they hate our way of life, our freedom, and our democracy." Polls indicate that such ideas are simply based on ignorant prejudices. This wicked war will be judged by history as one of the most blatant abuses of power by any American administration ever.
In the process, the Bush-Cheney team, through a combination of design and blunder, has inflamed the entire Middle East, from Iraq and Afghanistan, to Palestine and Lebanon, and soon, to Iran, and possibly Syria, Saudi Arabia and even Turkey. In Iraq, nearly four years after the March 20, 2003 invasion of the country, the mess and the destruction are complete, leaving behind a genuine humanitarian catastrophe and a political near-debacle.
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, for one, has concluded that the “average Iraqi’s life” is worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein and that the situation in Iraq is now "much worse" than a civil war. Even some republican senators now say openly that Bush's war in Iraq may be 'criminal'. Only President George W. Bush and his Rasputin-like vice president, it seems, continue to think that their wrecking-crew Middle East policy makes any sense. Even departing Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejects bluntly their stubborn "stay-the-course" and “must-complete-the-mission” policy.
However, departing Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld amazingly listed 20 tactical options for U.S. policy in Iraq, but no strategic option. It seems that among G. W. Bush's sorcerer's apprentices, there are a few tacticians, but no strategist. This may understandable in a government of ideologues. For the Bush-Cheney administration, ideology is a strategy in itself, and it is this neoconservative dogma that cannot ever be questioned or modified without loosing face. Even if all the rosy neocon assumptions about Iraq and the Middle East have turned out to be wrong and wrong-headed, George W. Bush has bet his entire presidency on the foolish enterprise and would need a credible face-saving solution to extirpate himself from the mess he himself created. As an immature person and as the bully-in-chief, as he has recently been labeled by economist Paul Krugman of the New York Times, G. W. Bush cannot face the failure of his adventure in Iraq and will remain in a state of denial as long as he is allowed to do so by Congress.
And now, the 10-member Baker-Hamilton bipartisan commission has made it unanimous and officially concluded that Bush's Iraq policies have failed. But, amazingly, the Commission watered downed its recommendations for fear that Bush would reject them out of hand. As a consequence, its 79-some recommendations deal more with tactical changes than fundamental strategic realignments. For one, the Commission refrained from calling for a timetable for a real withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq or even for a real troops reduction. In this sense, the Baker-Hamilton commission did not produce the face-saving plan of withdrawal from Iraq that the current U. S. President and American politicians from both sides of the isle could have leaned on to extirpate themselves from the blunder they made in the fall of 2002. Secondly, the report did not establish how the Iraq adventure is a costly distraction from the real threat of Islamist al Qaeda-type terrorism, which is in resurgence in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
But all is not completely bleak, even if you are a Neocon who has been "mugged by reality." Indeed, obliterating Iraq from the map, as a country opposed to Israel, and taking control of its oil reserves, were the core objectives behind the pro-Israel neocon policy of invading that country; they were well camouflaged under the terms "liberation" and "democracy". It's not sure, therefore, that the mess that the Bush-Cheney administration has created in Iraq was solely the result of abysmal ignorance and incompetence.
When George W. Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003, he did not only topple the Saddam Hussein regime, one of George W. Bush's juvenile fantasies, but he made sure that the entire infrastructure of the country was also destroyed: the army was dismembered, security services were abolished, and, the ruling Sunni-dominated Baath Party was dissolved and its members purged from any administrative positions. An enormous political vacuum resulted, opening the gates to a bloody civil war between the Sunnis in the center, the Chiites in the south and the Kurds in the north.
In this sense, the debacle in Iraq was a planned failure. The final chapter of this drama would be the official break-up of the country into pieces along religious and/or ethnic lines, to the great satisfaction of two countries, i.e. Iran and Israel, the only two countries bound to profit directly from the fragmentation of Iraq.
This is probably what we are going to witness in the coming months. But, just as President Richard Nixon promised to get Americans out of Vietnam in 1968, and only succeeded in doing in 1973, after 20,000 more young Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died there, President George W. Bush will try to temporize and save face, as thousands more Americans and Iraqis die. —It is a terrible shame.
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
http://www.thenewamericanempire.com/tremblay=1049
Monday, December 18, 2006
Six brutal truths about Iraq
By General William Odom
18.12.2006
General William Odom, one of the earliest advocates of an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, attacks some of the mythologies that are interfering with an honest debate about how to proceed in the Middle East and says the media have failed to recognize dramatic changes in the region.
Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. He was Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army's senior intelligence officer. From 1977 to 1981, he was Military Assistant to the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
E-mail: diane@hudson.org
Mythologies about the war in Iraq are endangering our republic, our rights, and our responsibilities before the world. The longer we fail to dispel them, the higher price we will pay. The following six truths, while perhaps not self-evident to the American public, are nevertheless conspicuously obvious to much the rest of the world.
Truth No. 1: No "deal" of any kind can be made among the warring parties in Iraq that will bring stability and order, even temporarily.
Ever since the war began to go badly in the summer of 2003, a mythology has arisen that a deal among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds could bring peace and stability to Iraq. First, the parliamentary elections were expected to be such a breakthrough. When peace and stability did not follow, the referendum on a constitution was proclaimed the panacea. When that failed, it was asserted that we just had not yet found the proper prime minister. Even today, the Iraq Study Group is searching for this holy grail. It doesn’t exist.
Truth No. 2: There was no way to have "done it right" in Iraq so that U.S. war aims could have been achieved.
Virtually every new book published on the war, especially Cobra II, Fiasco, and State of Denial, reinforce the myth – the illusion – that we could have won the war; we just did not plan properly and fight the war the right way. The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and most other major newspapers have consistently filled their opinion pages with arguments and testimonials to support that myth. (Professor Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University offers the most recent conspicuous reinforcement of this myth in the Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2006.)
The fragmentation of the country, civil war, and the rise of outside influence from Iran, Syria, and other countries – all of these things might have been postponed for a time by different war plans and occupation polices. But failure would have eventually raised its ugly head. Possibly, some of the variables would be a bit different. For example, if the Iraqi military had not been dissolved and if most of the Baathist Party cadres not been disenfranchised, the Sunni factions, instead of the Shiites, probably would have owned the ministry of interior, the police, and several unofficial militias. The Shiites, in that event, would have been the insurgents, abundantly supplied by Iran, indiscriminately killing Sunni civilians, fighting the U.S. military forces, blowing up the power grid, and so on.
A different U.S. occupation plan might have changed the course Iraq has taken to civil war and fragmentation, but it could have not prevented that outcome.
Truth No. 3: The theory that "we broke it and therefore we own it," with all the moral baggage it implies, is simply untrue because it is not within U.S. power to "fix it."
The president’s cheerleaders in the run-up to the war now use this theory to rationalize our continued presence in Iraq, and in that way avoid admitting that they share the guilt for the crime of breaking Iraq in the first place.
Truth No. 4: The demand that the administration engage Iran and Syria directly, asking them to help stabilize Iraq, is patently naïve or cynically irresponsible until American forces begin withdrawing – and rapidly – so that there is no ambiguity about their complete and total departure.
Effective negotiations will be possible, even with Iran, but only after the U.S. withdraws. And such negotiations must be based on a candid recognition that Iran will come out of this war with a much enhanced position in the Middle East. Until these realities are acknowledged, the planning staffs in the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department will not begin addressing the most important tasks awaiting them in confronting the post-Iraq War world.
First among them is how to help the Arab Gulf states cope with a stronger Iran, one that has territorial claims on the Arab side of the Gulf. Second is dealing with the increased threat to Israel that comes from the U.S. defeat in Iraq, its own recent misguided war against Hezbollah, looming instability in Lebanon, and the large number of experienced al Qaeda cadres produced by the war in Iraq. Moreover, as the Sunni-Shiite split in the Arab world spreads from Iraq into neighboring Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, not to mention Lebanon, the United States will be facing a dynamic it has little power to limit.
These new challenges will not be manageable by the United States alone. Europe will have to join with the United States in meeting them. American neocons who have sought to split the United States from Europe, as well as Europeans who tilt excessively in favor the Palestinians, will have to change their tunes if Israel is to survive the upheaval that the U.S. and the Israeli governments so eagerly perpetrated.
The media have not begun to recognize and explain the dramatic changes catalyzed in the Middle East by the war in Iraq. Most editors are not even willing to contemplate them, preferring to pretend they do not exist, probably because they bear some responsibility for creating them.
Truth No. 5: The United States cannot prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The only sure way to stop Iran's program is to invade with ground troops and occupy the country indefinitely. Both Iran and North Korea learned from Israel's bombing of the Iraqi nuclear facilities and have hardened their own to make bombing only marginally effective at best. Having squandered ground force capabilities in Iraq, the U.S. does not have sufficient forces to invade Iran, even if that made sense. And bombing would produce all the undesirable consequences of that action but not the most desirable one. Yet the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers editorialize as if this is not so.
Truth No. 6: It is simply not possible to prevent more tragic Iraqi deaths in Iraq.
Many pundits and politicians – particularly those who howled for the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003 — posture about human rights abuses that will occur if U.S. troops are withdrawn rapidly. The way to have avoided moral responsibility for these abuses was not to invade in the first place. At present, U. S. military forces in Iraq merely facilitate arrests and executions by Shiite officials in the police and some army units. These, of course, are mainly in reaction to the Baathist-led insurgency. This struggle will continue, with or without U.S. forces present, although the forms and tactics of the struggle will change after U.S. forces withdraw. An earlier withdrawal, one or two years ago, would probably have allowed this struggle to be fought to a conclusion by now. Our well-meaning efforts to prevent blood baths are more likely causing them to be bigger, not smaller.
The Iraq Study Group’s recommendations could be used to dispel these myths and prompt a rapid withdrawal, but it remains to be seen if either the president and his aides or the Congress can or will use them for that purpose. The “one last big try” aspect of the recommendations, if pursued vigorously, will just make the final price the catastrophe higher. The media, by dispelling the foregoing list of myths, could make that less likely.
http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00146
http://www.iraq-war.ru/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=112637
18.12.2006
General William Odom, one of the earliest advocates of an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, attacks some of the mythologies that are interfering with an honest debate about how to proceed in the Middle East and says the media have failed to recognize dramatic changes in the region.
Lieutenant General William E. Odom, U.S. Army (Ret.), is a Senior Fellow with Hudson Institute and a professor at Yale University. He was Director of the National Security Agency from 1985 to 1988. From 1981 to 1985, he served as Assistant Chief of Staff for Intelligence, the Army's senior intelligence officer. From 1977 to 1981, he was Military Assistant to the President's Assistant for National Security Affairs, Zbigniew Brzezinski.
E-mail: diane@hudson.org
Mythologies about the war in Iraq are endangering our republic, our rights, and our responsibilities before the world. The longer we fail to dispel them, the higher price we will pay. The following six truths, while perhaps not self-evident to the American public, are nevertheless conspicuously obvious to much the rest of the world.
Truth No. 1: No "deal" of any kind can be made among the warring parties in Iraq that will bring stability and order, even temporarily.
Ever since the war began to go badly in the summer of 2003, a mythology has arisen that a deal among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds could bring peace and stability to Iraq. First, the parliamentary elections were expected to be such a breakthrough. When peace and stability did not follow, the referendum on a constitution was proclaimed the panacea. When that failed, it was asserted that we just had not yet found the proper prime minister. Even today, the Iraq Study Group is searching for this holy grail. It doesn’t exist.
Truth No. 2: There was no way to have "done it right" in Iraq so that U.S. war aims could have been achieved.
Virtually every new book published on the war, especially Cobra II, Fiasco, and State of Denial, reinforce the myth – the illusion – that we could have won the war; we just did not plan properly and fight the war the right way. The Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and most other major newspapers have consistently filled their opinion pages with arguments and testimonials to support that myth. (Professor Eliot Cohen of Johns Hopkins University offers the most recent conspicuous reinforcement of this myth in the Wall Street Journal, December 7, 2006.)
The fragmentation of the country, civil war, and the rise of outside influence from Iran, Syria, and other countries – all of these things might have been postponed for a time by different war plans and occupation polices. But failure would have eventually raised its ugly head. Possibly, some of the variables would be a bit different. For example, if the Iraqi military had not been dissolved and if most of the Baathist Party cadres not been disenfranchised, the Sunni factions, instead of the Shiites, probably would have owned the ministry of interior, the police, and several unofficial militias. The Shiites, in that event, would have been the insurgents, abundantly supplied by Iran, indiscriminately killing Sunni civilians, fighting the U.S. military forces, blowing up the power grid, and so on.
A different U.S. occupation plan might have changed the course Iraq has taken to civil war and fragmentation, but it could have not prevented that outcome.
Truth No. 3: The theory that "we broke it and therefore we own it," with all the moral baggage it implies, is simply untrue because it is not within U.S. power to "fix it."
The president’s cheerleaders in the run-up to the war now use this theory to rationalize our continued presence in Iraq, and in that way avoid admitting that they share the guilt for the crime of breaking Iraq in the first place.
Truth No. 4: The demand that the administration engage Iran and Syria directly, asking them to help stabilize Iraq, is patently naïve or cynically irresponsible until American forces begin withdrawing – and rapidly – so that there is no ambiguity about their complete and total departure.
Effective negotiations will be possible, even with Iran, but only after the U.S. withdraws. And such negotiations must be based on a candid recognition that Iran will come out of this war with a much enhanced position in the Middle East. Until these realities are acknowledged, the planning staffs in the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department will not begin addressing the most important tasks awaiting them in confronting the post-Iraq War world.
First among them is how to help the Arab Gulf states cope with a stronger Iran, one that has territorial claims on the Arab side of the Gulf. Second is dealing with the increased threat to Israel that comes from the U.S. defeat in Iraq, its own recent misguided war against Hezbollah, looming instability in Lebanon, and the large number of experienced al Qaeda cadres produced by the war in Iraq. Moreover, as the Sunni-Shiite split in the Arab world spreads from Iraq into neighboring Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain, not to mention Lebanon, the United States will be facing a dynamic it has little power to limit.
These new challenges will not be manageable by the United States alone. Europe will have to join with the United States in meeting them. American neocons who have sought to split the United States from Europe, as well as Europeans who tilt excessively in favor the Palestinians, will have to change their tunes if Israel is to survive the upheaval that the U.S. and the Israeli governments so eagerly perpetrated.
The media have not begun to recognize and explain the dramatic changes catalyzed in the Middle East by the war in Iraq. Most editors are not even willing to contemplate them, preferring to pretend they do not exist, probably because they bear some responsibility for creating them.
Truth No. 5: The United States cannot prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
The only sure way to stop Iran's program is to invade with ground troops and occupy the country indefinitely. Both Iran and North Korea learned from Israel's bombing of the Iraqi nuclear facilities and have hardened their own to make bombing only marginally effective at best. Having squandered ground force capabilities in Iraq, the U.S. does not have sufficient forces to invade Iran, even if that made sense. And bombing would produce all the undesirable consequences of that action but not the most desirable one. Yet the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and other newspapers editorialize as if this is not so.
Truth No. 6: It is simply not possible to prevent more tragic Iraqi deaths in Iraq.
Many pundits and politicians – particularly those who howled for the invasion of Iraq in 2002 and 2003 — posture about human rights abuses that will occur if U.S. troops are withdrawn rapidly. The way to have avoided moral responsibility for these abuses was not to invade in the first place. At present, U. S. military forces in Iraq merely facilitate arrests and executions by Shiite officials in the police and some army units. These, of course, are mainly in reaction to the Baathist-led insurgency. This struggle will continue, with or without U.S. forces present, although the forms and tactics of the struggle will change after U.S. forces withdraw. An earlier withdrawal, one or two years ago, would probably have allowed this struggle to be fought to a conclusion by now. Our well-meaning efforts to prevent blood baths are more likely causing them to be bigger, not smaller.
The Iraq Study Group’s recommendations could be used to dispel these myths and prompt a rapid withdrawal, but it remains to be seen if either the president and his aides or the Congress can or will use them for that purpose. The “one last big try” aspect of the recommendations, if pursued vigorously, will just make the final price the catastrophe higher. The media, by dispelling the foregoing list of myths, could make that less likely.
http://niemanwatchdog.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=background.view&backgroundid=00146
http://www.iraq-war.ru/tiki-read_article.php?articleId=112637
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Configuring Iraq's Occupation
By Ghali Hassan
Dec 15, 2006, 05:37
Faced with fierce legitimate Resistance to its violent and brutal military Occupation of Iraq, the U.S. is searching for a way to configure the Occupation. The “new” strategy is to manipulate and pacify the American public to “achieve” U.S.-Zionist ideology in the Middle East
Let us roll up our sleeves and admit the obvious truth. The vast majority of the Iraqi people have rejected the Occupation, and are united in their call for the immediate and full withdrawal of U.S. forces and collaborators from Iraq. Also most Iraqis see U.S. troops and their collaborators as the generator of violence, and a significant majority of Iraqis is in favour of armed attacks against U.S. forces.
As a result of nearly four years of brutal Occupation, violence has increased dramatically and the living conditions for ordinary Iraqis have deteriorated. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been needlessly killed and many more have been injured. Millions of Iraqis are now displaced refugees within Iraq and outside Iraq. U.S. forces continue to use collective punishment, including ongoing military siege of Iraqi towns depriving the civilian population of water, food, electricity and medical supplies. All this is in violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law.
According to a survey of 2,000 people by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies, more than 90 per cent of Iraqis ‘believe the country is worse off now than before the war in 2003’. The survey found that 95 per cent of respondents believe the security situation has deteriorated since the arrival of U.S. forces.
In order to refocus an increasingly anti-Occupation Resistance by ordinary Iraqis, the U.S. and its collaborators are inciting and promoting civil strife by ongoing attacks on Iraqi civilians. This morally indefensible deliberate violence is a pretext to justify the ongoing Occupation. Hence, the tactic of ‘precipitate withdrawal’ would cause a ‘blood bath’, as if the current Occupation is not an orchestrated murderous bloodbath conducted with the blessing of U.S forces. It is a criminal campaign to rule Iraq and divert attention from a violent Occupation.
In addition to daily car bombings committed by U.S. collaborators on civilians in the centre of Baghdad, U.S. forces conducted regular indiscriminate bombings of civilian centres throughout Iraq. A case in point is the town of Ishaqi, 80 Km north of Baghdad. On 08 December 2006, U.S. forces attacked the besieged town, killing 32 civilians including eight women and six children. As usual, no one has yet been held accountable for the crimes. For the rest of the world, the illegal invasion of Iraq and the ongoing war crimes committed against the Iraqi people confirmed that the U.S. is everything it is claiming to be against.
To cover up the daily suffering and massacres of innocent Iraqi civilians, the U.S. is embarking on a campaign of pacifying the public. In the recent report (The Way forward) prepared by the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a group of American ruling elites chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, the Iraqi people had neither been consulted nor treated as anything except as a moral pretext. It is a coup prepared specifically for U.S. domestic consumption.
The report, which is supposed to be the blue print for the “new” U.S. strategy in Iraq, is deliberately focused on Syria and Iran. Not because the two governments have any significant influence in Iraq but for the sole purpose of distorting the role of the Iraqi Resistance – in thwarting U.S. messianic agenda – and denying Iraqis victory over Western armies. While the report suggests that the U.S. is somehow fighting a foreign enemy (Syria and Iran), not indigenous Iraqis, the report does acknowledge the presence of the Iraqi Resistance to the Occupation. Moreover, there is no hard evidence that the Iraqi Resistance is supported by foreign powers; it is a legitimate indigenous Resistance supported by the majority of the Iraqi population.
In presenting the ISG report, James Baker said: “This report does not in any way call for a graceful exit. In fact, we specifically say we agree with the president’s articulated goal” and added: “The report also makes clear: We’re going to have a really robust American troops’ presence in Iraq and the region for a very long time”. While the report received wide-coverage in the mainstream media, however, it is misleadingly portrayed as a “step forward” for Iraq. The report justifies the Occupation and shields the U.S. from the responsibility of an illegal war of aggression and horrific war crimes committed against Iraqi civilians.
It is important to remember that, as U.S. Secretary of State under Bush I Administration, Baker was the architect of the 1991 mass murder of Iraqi civilians (known as the “Gulf War”) and the genocidal sanctions that destroyed Iraq and the fabric of the Iraqi society. In his new role, Baker bullied and demanded the puppet government act in favour of U.S. interests or else. Troops’ withdrawal is simply a veil threat to scare the hell out of the puppet government, hence the criticism of the report and rejection of troops’ withdrawal by the leaders of the puppet government. Talabani, al-Maliki and al-Hakim were begging Bush to stay to protect them from the masses. They were wrong; the report’s goal is “staying the course” not withdrawal.
Finally, the main aim of the report is the control of Iraq’s oil resources by U.S. Oil Corporations through a colonial dictatorship. Indeed, the report is very specific about the privatisation of Iraq’s oil, and warns the puppet government to sign the so-called new “oil law” giving U.S. Corporation unhindered access to Iraq’s oil reserves. The report demands the puppet government sign the production sharing agreements (PSAs) – enforced by the U.S. – with foreign oil companies to develop Iraq's oil fields. It recommends that the U.S. “should assists Iraqi leaders to reorganise the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise”. (See my OJ analysis).
The ISG report is a propaganda tool designed to configure the Occupation, manipulate and pacify the American public. Therefore, regardless of who control the U.S. Congress and the White House, the Democrats and the Republicans have almost an identical approach to violence and foreign policy. The U.S. is not interested in peace, and never has.
The U.S. presence in Iraq is the main cause for the violence and suffering of the Iraqi people. Its removal is Iraqis legitimate struggle for self-determination and deserves the support of every civilised community.
Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_23559.shtml
Dec 15, 2006, 05:37
Faced with fierce legitimate Resistance to its violent and brutal military Occupation of Iraq, the U.S. is searching for a way to configure the Occupation. The “new” strategy is to manipulate and pacify the American public to “achieve” U.S.-Zionist ideology in the Middle East
Let us roll up our sleeves and admit the obvious truth. The vast majority of the Iraqi people have rejected the Occupation, and are united in their call for the immediate and full withdrawal of U.S. forces and collaborators from Iraq. Also most Iraqis see U.S. troops and their collaborators as the generator of violence, and a significant majority of Iraqis is in favour of armed attacks against U.S. forces.
As a result of nearly four years of brutal Occupation, violence has increased dramatically and the living conditions for ordinary Iraqis have deteriorated. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians have been needlessly killed and many more have been injured. Millions of Iraqis are now displaced refugees within Iraq and outside Iraq. U.S. forces continue to use collective punishment, including ongoing military siege of Iraqi towns depriving the civilian population of water, food, electricity and medical supplies. All this is in violation of the Geneva Conventions and international humanitarian law.
According to a survey of 2,000 people by the Iraq Centre for Research and Strategic Studies, more than 90 per cent of Iraqis ‘believe the country is worse off now than before the war in 2003’. The survey found that 95 per cent of respondents believe the security situation has deteriorated since the arrival of U.S. forces.
In order to refocus an increasingly anti-Occupation Resistance by ordinary Iraqis, the U.S. and its collaborators are inciting and promoting civil strife by ongoing attacks on Iraqi civilians. This morally indefensible deliberate violence is a pretext to justify the ongoing Occupation. Hence, the tactic of ‘precipitate withdrawal’ would cause a ‘blood bath’, as if the current Occupation is not an orchestrated murderous bloodbath conducted with the blessing of U.S forces. It is a criminal campaign to rule Iraq and divert attention from a violent Occupation.
In addition to daily car bombings committed by U.S. collaborators on civilians in the centre of Baghdad, U.S. forces conducted regular indiscriminate bombings of civilian centres throughout Iraq. A case in point is the town of Ishaqi, 80 Km north of Baghdad. On 08 December 2006, U.S. forces attacked the besieged town, killing 32 civilians including eight women and six children. As usual, no one has yet been held accountable for the crimes. For the rest of the world, the illegal invasion of Iraq and the ongoing war crimes committed against the Iraqi people confirmed that the U.S. is everything it is claiming to be against.
To cover up the daily suffering and massacres of innocent Iraqi civilians, the U.S. is embarking on a campaign of pacifying the public. In the recent report (The Way forward) prepared by the Iraq Study Group (ISG), a group of American ruling elites chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, the Iraqi people had neither been consulted nor treated as anything except as a moral pretext. It is a coup prepared specifically for U.S. domestic consumption.
The report, which is supposed to be the blue print for the “new” U.S. strategy in Iraq, is deliberately focused on Syria and Iran. Not because the two governments have any significant influence in Iraq but for the sole purpose of distorting the role of the Iraqi Resistance – in thwarting U.S. messianic agenda – and denying Iraqis victory over Western armies. While the report suggests that the U.S. is somehow fighting a foreign enemy (Syria and Iran), not indigenous Iraqis, the report does acknowledge the presence of the Iraqi Resistance to the Occupation. Moreover, there is no hard evidence that the Iraqi Resistance is supported by foreign powers; it is a legitimate indigenous Resistance supported by the majority of the Iraqi population.
In presenting the ISG report, James Baker said: “This report does not in any way call for a graceful exit. In fact, we specifically say we agree with the president’s articulated goal” and added: “The report also makes clear: We’re going to have a really robust American troops’ presence in Iraq and the region for a very long time”. While the report received wide-coverage in the mainstream media, however, it is misleadingly portrayed as a “step forward” for Iraq. The report justifies the Occupation and shields the U.S. from the responsibility of an illegal war of aggression and horrific war crimes committed against Iraqi civilians.
It is important to remember that, as U.S. Secretary of State under Bush I Administration, Baker was the architect of the 1991 mass murder of Iraqi civilians (known as the “Gulf War”) and the genocidal sanctions that destroyed Iraq and the fabric of the Iraqi society. In his new role, Baker bullied and demanded the puppet government act in favour of U.S. interests or else. Troops’ withdrawal is simply a veil threat to scare the hell out of the puppet government, hence the criticism of the report and rejection of troops’ withdrawal by the leaders of the puppet government. Talabani, al-Maliki and al-Hakim were begging Bush to stay to protect them from the masses. They were wrong; the report’s goal is “staying the course” not withdrawal.
Finally, the main aim of the report is the control of Iraq’s oil resources by U.S. Oil Corporations through a colonial dictatorship. Indeed, the report is very specific about the privatisation of Iraq’s oil, and warns the puppet government to sign the so-called new “oil law” giving U.S. Corporation unhindered access to Iraq’s oil reserves. The report demands the puppet government sign the production sharing agreements (PSAs) – enforced by the U.S. – with foreign oil companies to develop Iraq's oil fields. It recommends that the U.S. “should assists Iraqi leaders to reorganise the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise”. (See my OJ analysis).
The ISG report is a propaganda tool designed to configure the Occupation, manipulate and pacify the American public. Therefore, regardless of who control the U.S. Congress and the White House, the Democrats and the Republicans have almost an identical approach to violence and foreign policy. The U.S. is not interested in peace, and never has.
The U.S. presence in Iraq is the main cause for the violence and suffering of the Iraqi people. Its removal is Iraqis legitimate struggle for self-determination and deserves the support of every civilised community.
Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_23559.shtml
Welcome to the New World Job Order
Doubling the number of part-time employees
By Jack Rasmus
Z Magazine Online
December 2006 Volume 19 Number 12
This past October, Wal-Mart, the largest employer in the U.S. with revenues of more than $310 billion a year, announced it was going to double the number of its workers employed part-time —from 20 percent to 40 percent of its total work force—while reducing full-time jobs by yet unknown thousands at the company. Given Wal-Mart’s total U.S. employment of 1.3 million, that means 260,000 more Wal-Mart workers will now make roughly half of what full-time employees earn. What little health and other company-paid benefits the 260,000 had as full-time employees will be reduced or eliminated. Wal-Mart will save an estimated $3.042 billion a year in wages and benefits by doubling its part-time work force to 40 percent, for a total of 520,000 part-timers.
Wal-Mart also announced in October a “cap” on wages that will impact many thousands more of its workers. In addition, both part-time and full-time workers will have to work erratic work schedules and be on call nights and weekends, with as little as 24hour notice of work shift changes.
Like “just-in-time” inventory introduced throughout most industries and companies in recent years, Wal-Mart workers now will be “picked off the shelf” at the last minute by Wal-Mart managers to satisfy day-to-day shifts in sales demand, creating in effect a just-in-time work force—a trend that hasn’t been seen since the early 1930s in the longshore and trucking industries.
Just-in-time employment will undoubtedly allow Wal-Mart to reduce its total employment significantly over the near term, saving the company further millions of dollars annually in addition to the $3.42 billion above. Workers who miss work due to illness will face new company rules for discharge due to health related absences—a change designed to further drive out more full-time workers.
The above combined actions by Wal-Mart will result in a significant shift in income, from Wal-Mart’s employees as a group to the bottom line of the company’s annual profit and loss statement. The combined total from the announced changes could easily amount to $5 billion a year in direct savings to the company and, in turn, in lost income to workers. It was not surprising that Wal-Mart’s stock price jumped by more than 10 percent in the days immediately following the above cost saving (and income shift) announcement.
The broader point, however, is that Wal-Mart is just one of many contemporary examples of the radical restructuring of jobs by Corporate America—a restructuring that is now ushering in a de-facto “New World Jobs Order” in the U.S.
[…]
(more)
By Jack Rasmus
Z Magazine Online
December 2006 Volume 19 Number 12
This past October, Wal-Mart, the largest employer in the U.S. with revenues of more than $310 billion a year, announced it was going to double the number of its workers employed part-time —from 20 percent to 40 percent of its total work force—while reducing full-time jobs by yet unknown thousands at the company. Given Wal-Mart’s total U.S. employment of 1.3 million, that means 260,000 more Wal-Mart workers will now make roughly half of what full-time employees earn. What little health and other company-paid benefits the 260,000 had as full-time employees will be reduced or eliminated. Wal-Mart will save an estimated $3.042 billion a year in wages and benefits by doubling its part-time work force to 40 percent, for a total of 520,000 part-timers.
Wal-Mart also announced in October a “cap” on wages that will impact many thousands more of its workers. In addition, both part-time and full-time workers will have to work erratic work schedules and be on call nights and weekends, with as little as 24hour notice of work shift changes.
Like “just-in-time” inventory introduced throughout most industries and companies in recent years, Wal-Mart workers now will be “picked off the shelf” at the last minute by Wal-Mart managers to satisfy day-to-day shifts in sales demand, creating in effect a just-in-time work force—a trend that hasn’t been seen since the early 1930s in the longshore and trucking industries.
Just-in-time employment will undoubtedly allow Wal-Mart to reduce its total employment significantly over the near term, saving the company further millions of dollars annually in addition to the $3.42 billion above. Workers who miss work due to illness will face new company rules for discharge due to health related absences—a change designed to further drive out more full-time workers.
The above combined actions by Wal-Mart will result in a significant shift in income, from Wal-Mart’s employees as a group to the bottom line of the company’s annual profit and loss statement. The combined total from the announced changes could easily amount to $5 billion a year in direct savings to the company and, in turn, in lost income to workers. It was not surprising that Wal-Mart’s stock price jumped by more than 10 percent in the days immediately following the above cost saving (and income shift) announcement.
The broader point, however, is that Wal-Mart is just one of many contemporary examples of the radical restructuring of jobs by Corporate America—a restructuring that is now ushering in a de-facto “New World Jobs Order” in the U.S.
[…]
(more)
Thursday, December 14, 2006
Omissions In the Iraq Study Group Report
by Stephen Lendman
Thursday, December 14, 2006
http://tmars.iwarp.com/guerrilla_campaign/document/Omissions-ISG-Report.html
Noted historian Eric Foner in a December 7 article on OpEd News.com calls George Bush "the worst president in US history....(who) in his first six years in office....managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors." Equally noted historian Gabriel Kolko agrees, and along with his other comments, calls the Bush administration "the worst set of incompetents ever to hold power in Washington." And referring specifically to the war in Iraq, Kolko colorfully describes what former Reagan administration National Security Agency (NSA) chief General William Odom calls "....the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States" by saying the Bush administration "shocked and awed....itself." Hard to say it better than that.
Enter James Baker and the Iraq Study Group (ISG) that reported its findings publicly on December 6 after most of it was leaked well in advance making its release and full-court corporate media press hyping and griping anti-climactic as well as disappointing and disturbing. The ISG was formed in March with at least four crucial aims:
--to avoid a perceived inevitable political and fiscal train wreck caused by the disastrous Bush administration policy over the past six years.
-- to buy time for the failed and discredited Bush administration attempting to save it along with the family's name and reputation.
-- to devise a scheme to assure US dominance in the Middle East, fast slipping away, is restored and maintained going forward so this country doesn't lose control over what a State Department spokesperson in 1945 called a "stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history -(the region's oil)."
-- to be a (thinly-veiled) attempt to assuage public anger over a war gone sour, that's illegal, can't be won, is taking a terrible toll, and never should have been waged.
The ISG did it by proposing 79 recommendations supposedly comprising a change of course strategy that, in fact, amounts to little more than moving the existing chess pieces around the Iraq board, ending up almost where we are now - in a hopeless unresolvable quagmire approaching an apocalypse with no possibility of winning an unwinnable war and no high-level policy-makers thinking we can save for a president mired in a state of denial.
He's out of touch with reality, and according to Capitol Hill Blue editor Doug Thompson from insider reports he's getting calling the president "a dangerous cornered animal" he writes: Bush is a man "living on the edge" growing "more sullen and moody with each passing day....his paranoia....increasing to manic levels as he launches into tirades about traitors in his own party, in the press and among his allies (and) feels betrayed by....James Baker (whose ISG report he feels humiliated his administration)." The president, hasn't a clue that Jim Baker didn't do this. George Bush did a very thorough job of it himself.
What the ISG Should Have Addressed but Didn't
That said and well reported, what's most striking about the ISG report isn't what it says but what it leaves out. Beginning in 1991, the US conducted an unending war of aggression in two phases, with a dozen years of punishing and unjustifiable sanctions sandwiched between them, against a country posing no threat to us or its neighbors following its long and costly war in the 1980s with Iran (that the US urged Saddam to wage and supported him throughout) from which it needed financial help to recover but hadn't gotten enough to make a significant difference. It began after Saddam misread US intentions regarding his troubled relations with Kuwait, allowing himself to be deceived by the first Bush administration into believing we had no interest in how he chose to settle his justifiable dispute which Washington had a hand in creating.
[…]
full article
Thursday, December 14, 2006
http://tmars.iwarp.com/guerrilla_campaign/document/Omissions-ISG-Report.html
Noted historian Eric Foner in a December 7 article on OpEd News.com calls George Bush "the worst president in US history....(who) in his first six years in office....managed to combine the lapses of leadership, misguided policies and abuse of power of his failed predecessors." Equally noted historian Gabriel Kolko agrees, and along with his other comments, calls the Bush administration "the worst set of incompetents ever to hold power in Washington." And referring specifically to the war in Iraq, Kolko colorfully describes what former Reagan administration National Security Agency (NSA) chief General William Odom calls "....the worst strategic mistake in the history of the United States" by saying the Bush administration "shocked and awed....itself." Hard to say it better than that.
Enter James Baker and the Iraq Study Group (ISG) that reported its findings publicly on December 6 after most of it was leaked well in advance making its release and full-court corporate media press hyping and griping anti-climactic as well as disappointing and disturbing. The ISG was formed in March with at least four crucial aims:
--to avoid a perceived inevitable political and fiscal train wreck caused by the disastrous Bush administration policy over the past six years.
-- to buy time for the failed and discredited Bush administration attempting to save it along with the family's name and reputation.
-- to devise a scheme to assure US dominance in the Middle East, fast slipping away, is restored and maintained going forward so this country doesn't lose control over what a State Department spokesperson in 1945 called a "stupendous source of strategic power and one of the greatest material prizes in world history -(the region's oil)."
-- to be a (thinly-veiled) attempt to assuage public anger over a war gone sour, that's illegal, can't be won, is taking a terrible toll, and never should have been waged.
The ISG did it by proposing 79 recommendations supposedly comprising a change of course strategy that, in fact, amounts to little more than moving the existing chess pieces around the Iraq board, ending up almost where we are now - in a hopeless unresolvable quagmire approaching an apocalypse with no possibility of winning an unwinnable war and no high-level policy-makers thinking we can save for a president mired in a state of denial.
He's out of touch with reality, and according to Capitol Hill Blue editor Doug Thompson from insider reports he's getting calling the president "a dangerous cornered animal" he writes: Bush is a man "living on the edge" growing "more sullen and moody with each passing day....his paranoia....increasing to manic levels as he launches into tirades about traitors in his own party, in the press and among his allies (and) feels betrayed by....James Baker (whose ISG report he feels humiliated his administration)." The president, hasn't a clue that Jim Baker didn't do this. George Bush did a very thorough job of it himself.
What the ISG Should Have Addressed but Didn't
That said and well reported, what's most striking about the ISG report isn't what it says but what it leaves out. Beginning in 1991, the US conducted an unending war of aggression in two phases, with a dozen years of punishing and unjustifiable sanctions sandwiched between them, against a country posing no threat to us or its neighbors following its long and costly war in the 1980s with Iran (that the US urged Saddam to wage and supported him throughout) from which it needed financial help to recover but hadn't gotten enough to make a significant difference. It began after Saddam misread US intentions regarding his troubled relations with Kuwait, allowing himself to be deceived by the first Bush administration into believing we had no interest in how he chose to settle his justifiable dispute which Washington had a hand in creating.
[…]
full article
Monday, December 11, 2006
Iraq Is Now beyond Repair
The Americans Don't See How Unwelcome They Are, or That Iraq Is Now beyond Repair
.by Patrick Cockburn; Independent; December 11, 2006
During the Opium Wars between Britain and China in the 19th century, eunuchs at the court of the Chinese emperor had the problem of informing him of the repeated and humiliating defeat of his armies. They dealt with their delicate task by simply telling the emperor that his forces had already won or were about to win victories on all fronts.
For three and a half years White House officials have dealt with bad news from Iraq in similar fashion. Journalists were repeatedly accused by the US administration of not reporting political and military progress on the ground. Information about the failure of the US venture was ignored or suppressed..
Manipulation of facts was often very crude. As an example of the systematic distortion, the Iraq Study Group revealed last week that on one day last July US officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. In reality, it added, "a careful review of the reports ... brought to light 1,100 acts of violence"..
The 10-fold reduction in the number of acts of violence officially noted was achieved by not reporting the murder of an Iraqi, or roadside bomb, rocket or mortar attacks aimed at US troops that failed to inflict casualties. I remember visiting a unit of US combat engineers camped outside Fallujah in January 2004 who told me that they had stopped reporting insurgent attacks on themselves unless they suffered losses as commanders wanted to hear only that the number of attacks was going down. As I was drove away, a sergeant begged us not to attribute what he had said: "If you do I am in real trouble.".
Few Chinese emperors can have been as impervious to bad news from the front as President George W Bush. His officials were as assiduous as those eunuchs in Beijing 170 years ago in shielding him from bad news. But even when officials familiar with the real situation in Iraq did break through the bureaucratic cordon sanitaire around the Oval Office they got short shrift from Mr Bush. In December 2004 the CIA station chief in Baghdad said that the insurgency was expanding and was "largely unchallenged" in Sunni provinces. Mr Bush's response was: "What is he, some kind of a defeatist?" A week later the station chief was reassigned..
A few days afterwards, Colonel Derek Harvey, the Defence Intelligence Agency's senior intelligence officer in Iraq, made much the same point to Mr Bush. He said of the insurgency: "It's robust, it's well led, it's diverse." According to the US political commentator Sidney Blumenthal, the President at this point turned to his aides and asked: "Is this guy a Democrat?".
The query is perhaps key to Mr Bush's priorities. The overriding political purpose of the US administration in invading Iraq was to retain power at home. It would do so by portraying Mr Bush as "the security president", manipulating and exaggerating the terrorist threat at home and purporting to combat it abroad. It would win cheap military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. It would hold "khaki" elections in which Democrats could be portrayed as unpatriotic poltroons..
The strategy worked - until November's mid-term elections. Mr Bush was victorious by presenting a false picture of Iraq. It is this that has been exposed as a fraud by the Iraq Study Group..
Long-maintained myths tumble. For instance, the standard stump speech by Mr Bush or Tony Blair since the start of the insurgency has been to emphasise the leading role of al-Qa'ida in Iraq and international terrorism. But the group's report declares "al-Qa'ida is responsible for a small portion of violence", adding that it is now largely Iraqi-run. Foreign fighters, their presence so often trumpeted by the White House and Downing Street, are estimated to number only 1,300 men in Iraq. As for building up the Iraqi army, the training of which is meant to be the centrepiece of US and British policy, the report says that half the 10 planned divisions are made up of soldiers who will serve only in areas dominated by their own community. And as for the army as a whole, it is uncertain "they will carry out missions on behalf of national goals instead of a sectarian agenda"..
Given this realism it is sad that its authors, chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, share one great misconception with Mr Bush and Mr Blair. This is about the acceptability of any foreign troops in Iraq. Supposedly US combat troops will be withdrawn and redeployed as a stiffening or reinforcement to Iraqi military units. They will form quick-reaction forces able to intervene in moments of crisis..
"This simply won't work," one former Iraqi Interior Ministry official told me. "Iraqis who work with Americans are regarded as tainted by their families. Often our soldiers have to deny their contact with Americans to their own wives. Sometimes they balance their American connections by making contact with the insurgents at the same time.".
Mr Bush and Mr Blair have always refused to take on board the simple unpopularity of the occupation among Iraqis, though US and British military commanders have explained that it is the main fuel for the insurgency. The Baker-Hamilton report notes dryly that opinion polls show that 61 per cent of Iraqis favour armed attacks on US forces. Given the Kurds overwhelmingly support the US presence, this means three-quarters of all Arabs want military action against US soldiers..
The other great flaw in the report is to imply that Iraqis can be brought back together again. The reality is that the country has already broken apart. In Baghdad, Sunnis no longer dare to visit the main mortuary to look for murdered relatives because it is under Shia control and they might be killed themselves. The future of Iraq may well be a confederation rather than a federation, with Shia, Sunni and Kurd each enjoying autonomy close to independence..
There are certain points on which the White House and the authors of the report are dangerously at one. This is that the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki can be bullied into trying to crush the militias (this usually means just one anti-American militia, the Mehdi Army), or will bolt from the Shia alliance. In the eyes of many Iraqis this would simply confirm its status as a US pawn. As for talking with Iran and Syria or acting on the Israel-Palestinian crisis it is surely impossible for Mr Bush to retreat so openly from his policies of the past three years, however disastrous their outcome..
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=11605
.by Patrick Cockburn; Independent; December 11, 2006
During the Opium Wars between Britain and China in the 19th century, eunuchs at the court of the Chinese emperor had the problem of informing him of the repeated and humiliating defeat of his armies. They dealt with their delicate task by simply telling the emperor that his forces had already won or were about to win victories on all fronts.
For three and a half years White House officials have dealt with bad news from Iraq in similar fashion. Journalists were repeatedly accused by the US administration of not reporting political and military progress on the ground. Information about the failure of the US venture was ignored or suppressed..
Manipulation of facts was often very crude. As an example of the systematic distortion, the Iraq Study Group revealed last week that on one day last July US officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence. In reality, it added, "a careful review of the reports ... brought to light 1,100 acts of violence"..
The 10-fold reduction in the number of acts of violence officially noted was achieved by not reporting the murder of an Iraqi, or roadside bomb, rocket or mortar attacks aimed at US troops that failed to inflict casualties. I remember visiting a unit of US combat engineers camped outside Fallujah in January 2004 who told me that they had stopped reporting insurgent attacks on themselves unless they suffered losses as commanders wanted to hear only that the number of attacks was going down. As I was drove away, a sergeant begged us not to attribute what he had said: "If you do I am in real trouble.".
Few Chinese emperors can have been as impervious to bad news from the front as President George W Bush. His officials were as assiduous as those eunuchs in Beijing 170 years ago in shielding him from bad news. But even when officials familiar with the real situation in Iraq did break through the bureaucratic cordon sanitaire around the Oval Office they got short shrift from Mr Bush. In December 2004 the CIA station chief in Baghdad said that the insurgency was expanding and was "largely unchallenged" in Sunni provinces. Mr Bush's response was: "What is he, some kind of a defeatist?" A week later the station chief was reassigned..
A few days afterwards, Colonel Derek Harvey, the Defence Intelligence Agency's senior intelligence officer in Iraq, made much the same point to Mr Bush. He said of the insurgency: "It's robust, it's well led, it's diverse." According to the US political commentator Sidney Blumenthal, the President at this point turned to his aides and asked: "Is this guy a Democrat?".
The query is perhaps key to Mr Bush's priorities. The overriding political purpose of the US administration in invading Iraq was to retain power at home. It would do so by portraying Mr Bush as "the security president", manipulating and exaggerating the terrorist threat at home and purporting to combat it abroad. It would win cheap military victories in Afghanistan and Iraq. It would hold "khaki" elections in which Democrats could be portrayed as unpatriotic poltroons..
The strategy worked - until November's mid-term elections. Mr Bush was victorious by presenting a false picture of Iraq. It is this that has been exposed as a fraud by the Iraq Study Group..
Long-maintained myths tumble. For instance, the standard stump speech by Mr Bush or Tony Blair since the start of the insurgency has been to emphasise the leading role of al-Qa'ida in Iraq and international terrorism. But the group's report declares "al-Qa'ida is responsible for a small portion of violence", adding that it is now largely Iraqi-run. Foreign fighters, their presence so often trumpeted by the White House and Downing Street, are estimated to number only 1,300 men in Iraq. As for building up the Iraqi army, the training of which is meant to be the centrepiece of US and British policy, the report says that half the 10 planned divisions are made up of soldiers who will serve only in areas dominated by their own community. And as for the army as a whole, it is uncertain "they will carry out missions on behalf of national goals instead of a sectarian agenda"..
Given this realism it is sad that its authors, chaired by James Baker and Lee Hamilton, share one great misconception with Mr Bush and Mr Blair. This is about the acceptability of any foreign troops in Iraq. Supposedly US combat troops will be withdrawn and redeployed as a stiffening or reinforcement to Iraqi military units. They will form quick-reaction forces able to intervene in moments of crisis..
"This simply won't work," one former Iraqi Interior Ministry official told me. "Iraqis who work with Americans are regarded as tainted by their families. Often our soldiers have to deny their contact with Americans to their own wives. Sometimes they balance their American connections by making contact with the insurgents at the same time.".
Mr Bush and Mr Blair have always refused to take on board the simple unpopularity of the occupation among Iraqis, though US and British military commanders have explained that it is the main fuel for the insurgency. The Baker-Hamilton report notes dryly that opinion polls show that 61 per cent of Iraqis favour armed attacks on US forces. Given the Kurds overwhelmingly support the US presence, this means three-quarters of all Arabs want military action against US soldiers..
The other great flaw in the report is to imply that Iraqis can be brought back together again. The reality is that the country has already broken apart. In Baghdad, Sunnis no longer dare to visit the main mortuary to look for murdered relatives because it is under Shia control and they might be killed themselves. The future of Iraq may well be a confederation rather than a federation, with Shia, Sunni and Kurd each enjoying autonomy close to independence..
There are certain points on which the White House and the authors of the report are dangerously at one. This is that the Iraqi government of Nouri al-Maliki can be bullied into trying to crush the militias (this usually means just one anti-American militia, the Mehdi Army), or will bolt from the Shia alliance. In the eyes of many Iraqis this would simply confirm its status as a US pawn. As for talking with Iran and Syria or acting on the Israel-Palestinian crisis it is surely impossible for Mr Bush to retreat so openly from his policies of the past three years, however disastrous their outcome..
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=11605
Sunday, December 10, 2006
The Lesson of Medina
As the prophet Muhammad was growing in popularity he asked his followers to go and live in Yathrib, an oasis about a hundred and fifty miles from Mecca. Inevitably Muhammad stepped on commercial interests with his message of social responsibility and tolerance and was forced to flee for his own life to Yathrib. In those days a city was the state--the nation, if it existed at all, was usually a confederation of city-states. Since Yathrib was populated by so many of his followers Muhammad quickly became a head of state; he renamed the city Medina and continued to convert followers. The powers of Mecca became more hostile than ever and waged war against Medina, which Mohammad and his followers defended at great sacrifice and success. War, however, was not Muhammad's way so he turned to diplomacy with the first pilgrimage to Mecca. He was not allowed into the city but he and his followers could not be ignored and he negotiated a peace with Mecca and would be allowed to complete his pilgrimage in the following year. This was originally seen as capitulation by some of his followers but Muhammad rode out the storm and emerged as a great leader and unifier; Islam flourished in those years benefiting many. The lesson of Medina is that prosperity grows by planting seeds in fertile earth, nurturing the seedlings and protecting them from ravaging forces.
Plato had a similar view many years earlier when he wrote his Republic the city-state was the basic unit of his republic. In retrospect it makes perfect sense to germinate the idea of a unifying identity at this level. Cities and their surrounding areas were isolated from outside influences much like a garden is isolated from the rest of nature.
The nation and "nation building" are relatively recent outgrowths of this original concept of a unifying identity. The unity provided by the nation-state has never fully supplanted the unity of the city-state or regional identity in many places--Flanders, Scotland, the Basque region, Chechnya and Nepal to name but a few. To a large extent the nation-state can only be successful if it allows its regions and cities to continue to develop their own identities.
A constitution is the glue of a nation--it defines the identity and the bounds within which a region may develop. The experience of the United States was not unique. The question of how much control States would cede to a fledgling federal republic was the greatest struggle in creating our own constitution. Leadership, diplomacy and compromise prevailed on a scale comparable to Muhammad and the nation was born. The issue of slavery was so contentious it had to be deferred for eighty years.
The above are basic facts that should be understood by most people and certainly by anyone who purports to want to bring democracy to the people of another land.
Yet as I read the report of the commission on Iraq and listen to the generals, legislators, pundits and officials of state I hear nothing about establishing democracy in a city, nothing about how the constitution puts the cart before the horse. The seeds of democracy must be planted in the cities. Pick one you can defend and allow it to flourish. This is the best we can do. It is what the British attempted in Basra. It is happening in the Kurdish North. It could have happened in Falluja. It will never happen at the point of a gun.
Of course I may be missing something in our agenda. We may be trying to isolate Iran or maintain a supply of oil but these are not particularly righteous reasons to die, they are not articulated and they don't seem to be consistent with our own identity or values. The one other reason for our presence is to fight the war on terror. I have heard the expression that it is better to fight this war there than on our shores. That reason is, of course, a red herring. Nothing we are doing in Iraq is making us safer here; in fact the very notion of safety is the antithesis of the courage we value so highly. Such a notion is purely a political ploy. It is particularly disheartening to contemplate that such a war should be staged in a place that has never been involved in terror other than as the victims of Saddam Hussein and now this war.
The lesson of Medina is a lesson for the ages. I provide it here in the hope that someone will hear it again and apply it in Iraq. I don't expect that it will be the U.S. government; I hope it will be the leadership in Iraq.
Plato had a similar view many years earlier when he wrote his Republic the city-state was the basic unit of his republic. In retrospect it makes perfect sense to germinate the idea of a unifying identity at this level. Cities and their surrounding areas were isolated from outside influences much like a garden is isolated from the rest of nature.
The nation and "nation building" are relatively recent outgrowths of this original concept of a unifying identity. The unity provided by the nation-state has never fully supplanted the unity of the city-state or regional identity in many places--Flanders, Scotland, the Basque region, Chechnya and Nepal to name but a few. To a large extent the nation-state can only be successful if it allows its regions and cities to continue to develop their own identities.
A constitution is the glue of a nation--it defines the identity and the bounds within which a region may develop. The experience of the United States was not unique. The question of how much control States would cede to a fledgling federal republic was the greatest struggle in creating our own constitution. Leadership, diplomacy and compromise prevailed on a scale comparable to Muhammad and the nation was born. The issue of slavery was so contentious it had to be deferred for eighty years.
The above are basic facts that should be understood by most people and certainly by anyone who purports to want to bring democracy to the people of another land.
Yet as I read the report of the commission on Iraq and listen to the generals, legislators, pundits and officials of state I hear nothing about establishing democracy in a city, nothing about how the constitution puts the cart before the horse. The seeds of democracy must be planted in the cities. Pick one you can defend and allow it to flourish. This is the best we can do. It is what the British attempted in Basra. It is happening in the Kurdish North. It could have happened in Falluja. It will never happen at the point of a gun.
Of course I may be missing something in our agenda. We may be trying to isolate Iran or maintain a supply of oil but these are not particularly righteous reasons to die, they are not articulated and they don't seem to be consistent with our own identity or values. The one other reason for our presence is to fight the war on terror. I have heard the expression that it is better to fight this war there than on our shores. That reason is, of course, a red herring. Nothing we are doing in Iraq is making us safer here; in fact the very notion of safety is the antithesis of the courage we value so highly. Such a notion is purely a political ploy. It is particularly disheartening to contemplate that such a war should be staged in a place that has never been involved in terror other than as the victims of Saddam Hussein and now this war.
The lesson of Medina is a lesson for the ages. I provide it here in the hope that someone will hear it again and apply it in Iraq. I don't expect that it will be the U.S. government; I hope it will be the leadership in Iraq.
Friday, December 08, 2006
Fruit Salad With the Prime Minister
(The Neediest President in History, Part 2)
12/8/2006
The Rude Pundit
And so it was that James Baker III, oozing the kind of reptilian evil that we expect from the half-men, half-crocodiles that slither from the putrid pools of 41's inner circle, said to a Senate Committee regarding his Iraq Study Group's list of nearly four-score recommendations: "I hope we don't treat this like a fruit salad and say, `I like this, but I don't like that, I like this, but I don't like that.'" Yes, Baker was there to save the nation from Iraq and 43 and 43 from himself, but no one gives a damn. When it's time for an empire to fall, it must fall. So when 41 became a weepy bitch over Jeb's imminent passage from public life, it was the pathetic whine of a fallen patrician, the end of the goddamn line.
For what was 43's press conference yesterday but a chance to hunch over in the ditch once more and toss dingleberries at the media, the degraded man, not so much a president anymore as a dalmatian, bred to be a proud-haunched firefighter mascot but merely capable of licking his own anus instead of actually saving anyone from an inferno.
Fruit salad? Hey, listening to Bush, Jr. yesterday one got the idea that we were watching a jiggly Jello mold with a coconut topping. It wasn't just the usual state-the-obvious-firmly lines: "[T]he Palestinian-Israeli conflict is important to have — is important to be solved." Or the bizarro dropped half-sentences that are more insulting than incoherent: "I talk to families who die." And it wasn't the moments where Bush demonstrated his ability to magically pull synonyms out of his ass: "I also believe we’re going to succeed. I believe we’ll prevail" (which was followed by a descent into Howard Hughes-like echolalia: "Not only do I know how important it is to prevail, I believe we will prevail. I understand how hard it is to prevail").
No, no, it was the nutzoid insistence on his ability to "understand" and "read" things that made Bush seem like he needed the approval of someone, anyone, at this point. From the ridiculous statement of "I understand what long deployments mean to wives and husbands, and mothers and fathers, particularly as we come into a holiday season" to the disturbing admission regarding the ISG report: "To show you how important this one is, I read it, and our guest read it. The Prime Minister read — read a report prepared by a commission. And this is important," it was part of a litany of demonstrating how great and wonderful he is, please love him.
But also how bugfuck insane. Said the President of the United States, once again, "And one of the things that has changed for American foreign policy is a threat overseas can now come home to hurt us, and September the 11th should be a wake-up call for the American people to understand what happens if there is violence and safe havens in a part of the world. And what happens is people can die here at home." Have we really, sadly, horribly not advanced in our thinking in the last five years past that?
Fruit salad? Hell, at this point, we'll be lucky to get out of the next two years without having all of our salads tossed.
12/8/2006
The Rude Pundit
And so it was that James Baker III, oozing the kind of reptilian evil that we expect from the half-men, half-crocodiles that slither from the putrid pools of 41's inner circle, said to a Senate Committee regarding his Iraq Study Group's list of nearly four-score recommendations: "I hope we don't treat this like a fruit salad and say, `I like this, but I don't like that, I like this, but I don't like that.'" Yes, Baker was there to save the nation from Iraq and 43 and 43 from himself, but no one gives a damn. When it's time for an empire to fall, it must fall. So when 41 became a weepy bitch over Jeb's imminent passage from public life, it was the pathetic whine of a fallen patrician, the end of the goddamn line.
For what was 43's press conference yesterday but a chance to hunch over in the ditch once more and toss dingleberries at the media, the degraded man, not so much a president anymore as a dalmatian, bred to be a proud-haunched firefighter mascot but merely capable of licking his own anus instead of actually saving anyone from an inferno.
Fruit salad? Hey, listening to Bush, Jr. yesterday one got the idea that we were watching a jiggly Jello mold with a coconut topping. It wasn't just the usual state-the-obvious-firmly lines: "[T]he Palestinian-Israeli conflict is important to have — is important to be solved." Or the bizarro dropped half-sentences that are more insulting than incoherent: "I talk to families who die." And it wasn't the moments where Bush demonstrated his ability to magically pull synonyms out of his ass: "I also believe we’re going to succeed. I believe we’ll prevail" (which was followed by a descent into Howard Hughes-like echolalia: "Not only do I know how important it is to prevail, I believe we will prevail. I understand how hard it is to prevail").
No, no, it was the nutzoid insistence on his ability to "understand" and "read" things that made Bush seem like he needed the approval of someone, anyone, at this point. From the ridiculous statement of "I understand what long deployments mean to wives and husbands, and mothers and fathers, particularly as we come into a holiday season" to the disturbing admission regarding the ISG report: "To show you how important this one is, I read it, and our guest read it. The Prime Minister read — read a report prepared by a commission. And this is important," it was part of a litany of demonstrating how great and wonderful he is, please love him.
But also how bugfuck insane. Said the President of the United States, once again, "And one of the things that has changed for American foreign policy is a threat overseas can now come home to hurt us, and September the 11th should be a wake-up call for the American people to understand what happens if there is violence and safe havens in a part of the world. And what happens is people can die here at home." Have we really, sadly, horribly not advanced in our thinking in the last five years past that?
Fruit salad? Hell, at this point, we'll be lucky to get out of the next two years without having all of our salads tossed.
The Spirit of Democracy in Venezuela
by Stephen Lendman
"Today we gave another lesson in dignity to the imperialists, it is another defeat for the empire of Mr. Danger....another defeat for the devil. We will never be a colony of the US again....Long live the socialist revolution....Destiny has been written....Socialism is human. Socialism is love."
This is how Hugo Chavez Frias characterized his smashing electoral victory on December 3 when he appeared on the balcony of the Palacio de Miraflores (the official presidential palace residence) and addressed a huge gathering of his followers below that evening telling them of his victory for the people and that he now has an even stronger mandate to pursue his Bolivarian Project to do more for them ahead than he's already accomplished so far which is considerable.
He told his loyal, cheering supporters his impressive landslide electoral victory is one more blow to George Bush, and it follows on the others won by populist candidates in the region in the past six weeks by Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil on October 29, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua on November 7, and Rafael Correa in Equador on November 26. Chavez will serve for another six year term that will run until December, 2012.
Earlier in the day, Hugo Chavez showed he's indeed a man of the people by casting his own vote the same way ordinary people do. Unlike George Bush who goes everywhere in an entourage of limousine, helicopter, or Air Force One luxury accompanied by a phalanx of security needed to protect him from the people he was elected to serve, Chavez drove himself in his aging red-colored Volkswagon to his assigned polling station accompanied by his young grandson in the back seat, voted, and then left the same unaccompanied way he came. That's how a man of the people does it - no bells, whistles or extravagant trappings of power that's a hallmark of how things are done to excess in the US calling itself a model democracy but one only for the few with wealth and power and that behaves like a rogue state that's only a model for despots and tyrants.
(read the rest)
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2006/12/spirit-of-democracy-in-venezuela.html
"Today we gave another lesson in dignity to the imperialists, it is another defeat for the empire of Mr. Danger....another defeat for the devil. We will never be a colony of the US again....Long live the socialist revolution....Destiny has been written....Socialism is human. Socialism is love."
This is how Hugo Chavez Frias characterized his smashing electoral victory on December 3 when he appeared on the balcony of the Palacio de Miraflores (the official presidential palace residence) and addressed a huge gathering of his followers below that evening telling them of his victory for the people and that he now has an even stronger mandate to pursue his Bolivarian Project to do more for them ahead than he's already accomplished so far which is considerable.
He told his loyal, cheering supporters his impressive landslide electoral victory is one more blow to George Bush, and it follows on the others won by populist candidates in the region in the past six weeks by Inacio Lula da Silva in Brazil on October 29, Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua on November 7, and Rafael Correa in Equador on November 26. Chavez will serve for another six year term that will run until December, 2012.
Earlier in the day, Hugo Chavez showed he's indeed a man of the people by casting his own vote the same way ordinary people do. Unlike George Bush who goes everywhere in an entourage of limousine, helicopter, or Air Force One luxury accompanied by a phalanx of security needed to protect him from the people he was elected to serve, Chavez drove himself in his aging red-colored Volkswagon to his assigned polling station accompanied by his young grandson in the back seat, voted, and then left the same unaccompanied way he came. That's how a man of the people does it - no bells, whistles or extravagant trappings of power that's a hallmark of how things are done to excess in the US calling itself a model democracy but one only for the few with wealth and power and that behaves like a rogue state that's only a model for despots and tyrants.
(read the rest)
http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2006/12/spirit-of-democracy-in-venezuela.html
Much Ado About Nothing
by Mary Pitt
12/8/06
The elephant called the Iraq Study Group has labored long and hard and, after keeping their secret until "after the election", has brought forth a gnat. They have utterly failed to discover a method for extracting W's grubby little fist from the cookie jar this time. Instead they have delivered another missive of pomposity which has nothing new to offer and can only prove one thing. We are in another quagmire and there is no way we can get out of it without being covered with mud. One does not walk out of a door with honor after walking in without any. This committee recommendation deserves only one title: "Too Little, Too Late".
This is typical Bush politics. When in trouble, appoint a prestigious investigative committee, make a lot of smoke, and then continue with the same foolhardy practices that started the problem. After 9/11, a similar committee was named and they "investigated", failing to come to any realistic conclusion without having deposed any of the major figures in the administration, particularly not Bush and Cheney, and issuing a large tome of recommendations to prevent its happening again, none of which were instituted by the administration or the Congress. In this instance, they have re-written the Bible, solving all the international conflicts of history, but only if we accept the whole thing rather than "picking and choosing as if it were a fruit salad". So much for that, since Bush has already announced his intention to "cherry pick".
Those of us who were aware of the events of the world for the past couple of decades warned against attacking the Middle Eastern countries, both Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly the latter. In their history, these nations have been "conquered" and occupied time after time and have worn out their enemy by the simple method of out-lasting them. They merely go on with their lives as if nothing had happened, living by their own rules and methods, informally enforcing their traditional roles and dealing with those who break their rules in their own manner, summary execution. Personally, I recall stating in a forum of mixed political persuasion that invading either of these countries would be tantamount to entering the lion's den and would end in the greatest defeat ever experienced by the American war machine and I suffered being berated as a "fraidy-cat peacenik" and "un-patriotic". It is small consolation to be able to say, "I told you so."
But, what should we expect? We went into Iraq with just a quarter of the forces that were used in the Gulf War, with no mechanism having been prepared for "re-construction" because, if you recall, Mr. Bush had said that he was "not into nation building". Once Saddam fell, those charged with control of that poor nation were concerned merely with stealing the taxpayers' money and enjoying the privilege of instituting any brain storm that occurred to them, because there was no constructive leadership at the top. There was no preparation for the invasion with insufficient military personnel, requiring the activation of the National Guard, many units equipped with old, unreliable vehicles which were anything but battle-ready, in order to have the minimal force which was used. The word "draft" became a dirty word, since the administration was well aware of the kickback that would have caused as wealthy people would realize that their own sons and daughters would be put at risk. It was more important to keep the consumer goods flowing so that the profits would continue to pour into the pockets of the multi-national corporations and, thus, the campaign funds into the coffers of the political parties.
The first proposal of the ISG to hit the dirt was, of course, the proposal to end the conflicts between Israel and its neighbors. This, the most important of the entire publication, is a hot potato which neither the administration nor the Congress dares to touch. The political hold of Israel on our government, through their lobbies and their campaign funding, is so strong that it cannot even be discussed without accusations of "anti-semitism". While Iran is threatened with annihilation for their attempt at developing nuclear technology, it is a well-known fact that Israel also possesses nuclear power, though discussion of that is also forbidden. Would it not express our good will if those nations were to be brought together in Jimmy Carter fashion and pushed to come to an agreement in eliminating this threat to Middle East peace?
President Bush is right about one thing. This war will go on and on and on! Not until after he leaves office and not before current members of Congress either see the light or are dis-elected, will any leader be found with the ability and determination to restore peace to the Middle East. We can only pray that the United States is still standing when it is over, despite the loss of the lives of our young people, the overwhelming indebtedness of our treasury, and the destruction of our own democracy. Never mind the idiotic plans to "re-deploy outside the country" or to "set a timetable". The only way our troops will ever leave Iraq will be to deploy to the border, cover their arses, and get the hell out.........fast!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice.
Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
12/8/06
The elephant called the Iraq Study Group has labored long and hard and, after keeping their secret until "after the election", has brought forth a gnat. They have utterly failed to discover a method for extracting W's grubby little fist from the cookie jar this time. Instead they have delivered another missive of pomposity which has nothing new to offer and can only prove one thing. We are in another quagmire and there is no way we can get out of it without being covered with mud. One does not walk out of a door with honor after walking in without any. This committee recommendation deserves only one title: "Too Little, Too Late".
This is typical Bush politics. When in trouble, appoint a prestigious investigative committee, make a lot of smoke, and then continue with the same foolhardy practices that started the problem. After 9/11, a similar committee was named and they "investigated", failing to come to any realistic conclusion without having deposed any of the major figures in the administration, particularly not Bush and Cheney, and issuing a large tome of recommendations to prevent its happening again, none of which were instituted by the administration or the Congress. In this instance, they have re-written the Bible, solving all the international conflicts of history, but only if we accept the whole thing rather than "picking and choosing as if it were a fruit salad". So much for that, since Bush has already announced his intention to "cherry pick".
Those of us who were aware of the events of the world for the past couple of decades warned against attacking the Middle Eastern countries, both Afghanistan and Iraq, particularly the latter. In their history, these nations have been "conquered" and occupied time after time and have worn out their enemy by the simple method of out-lasting them. They merely go on with their lives as if nothing had happened, living by their own rules and methods, informally enforcing their traditional roles and dealing with those who break their rules in their own manner, summary execution. Personally, I recall stating in a forum of mixed political persuasion that invading either of these countries would be tantamount to entering the lion's den and would end in the greatest defeat ever experienced by the American war machine and I suffered being berated as a "fraidy-cat peacenik" and "un-patriotic". It is small consolation to be able to say, "I told you so."
But, what should we expect? We went into Iraq with just a quarter of the forces that were used in the Gulf War, with no mechanism having been prepared for "re-construction" because, if you recall, Mr. Bush had said that he was "not into nation building". Once Saddam fell, those charged with control of that poor nation were concerned merely with stealing the taxpayers' money and enjoying the privilege of instituting any brain storm that occurred to them, because there was no constructive leadership at the top. There was no preparation for the invasion with insufficient military personnel, requiring the activation of the National Guard, many units equipped with old, unreliable vehicles which were anything but battle-ready, in order to have the minimal force which was used. The word "draft" became a dirty word, since the administration was well aware of the kickback that would have caused as wealthy people would realize that their own sons and daughters would be put at risk. It was more important to keep the consumer goods flowing so that the profits would continue to pour into the pockets of the multi-national corporations and, thus, the campaign funds into the coffers of the political parties.
The first proposal of the ISG to hit the dirt was, of course, the proposal to end the conflicts between Israel and its neighbors. This, the most important of the entire publication, is a hot potato which neither the administration nor the Congress dares to touch. The political hold of Israel on our government, through their lobbies and their campaign funding, is so strong that it cannot even be discussed without accusations of "anti-semitism". While Iran is threatened with annihilation for their attempt at developing nuclear technology, it is a well-known fact that Israel also possesses nuclear power, though discussion of that is also forbidden. Would it not express our good will if those nations were to be brought together in Jimmy Carter fashion and pushed to come to an agreement in eliminating this threat to Middle East peace?
President Bush is right about one thing. This war will go on and on and on! Not until after he leaves office and not before current members of Congress either see the light or are dis-elected, will any leader be found with the ability and determination to restore peace to the Middle East. We can only pray that the United States is still standing when it is over, despite the loss of the lives of our young people, the overwhelming indebtedness of our treasury, and the destruction of our own democracy. Never mind the idiotic plans to "re-deploy outside the country" or to "set a timetable". The only way our troops will ever leave Iraq will be to deploy to the border, cover their arses, and get the hell out.........fast!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan, a free-thinker, and a warrior for truth and justice.
Huzzahs and whiney complaints may be sent to mpitt@cox.net
Thursday, December 07, 2006
Revisiting the Lancet Report
“…When the post-invasion death toll was compared against the pre-invasion death rate, the findings, extrapolated for the whole country, disclosed “excess” deaths — above the pre-invasion death rate — of between 400,000 and 900,000, with the likely total of excess, or war-related, deaths put at 650,000. The results were published last week in The Lancet.
And, of course, the study was dismissed — as “politics, not science,” as “total crap” — by every stay-the-course zealot with a media forum…”
A Few Corpses Past 'Whatever'
By Robert C. Koehler
In the light of this report, I’m going to say that the researchers of the Lancet report have just had their methodology, and their numbers independently verified. So, can we now cut the crap, and call the supporters and the architects of this obscene carnage in Iraq what they really are?
The Coalition Casualties in Iraq website lists 2922 American military killed as of Dec 06, 2006, and 35,174 injured as of December 2, 2006, as reported by the Department of Defense. You know, the same ones that have been underreporting Iraqi deaths. We already know that the bushists don’t count deaths that occurred “out of theater” as happening in Iraq, even when they die on the plane flying them to hospitals out of the country. When the truth of this war is finally exposed, we are going to find out that the bush administration has vastly underreported American casualties as well.
Are people going to still be willing to let the bush, cheney, and all the others off the hook for this? And what about their enablers and accomplices in the media and Congress? Will we still be able to look ourselves in the mirror if we do?
Study Says Violence in Iraq Has Been Underreported
By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday, December 7, 2006
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration routinely has underreported the level of violence in Iraq in order to disguise its policy failings, the Iraq Study Group report said Wednesday.
The bipartisan group called on the Pentagon and the director of the U.S. intelligence community to immediately institute a new reporting system that provides "a more accurate picture of events on the ground."
The finding bolsters allegations by Democratic lawmakers and other critics that the Bush administration has withheld or misconstrued intelligence that conflicted with its Iraq policy while promoting data and claims that supported its positions.
Those allegations date back to President Bush's contention before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion that Saddam Hussein was hiding illegal nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. His claim proved to be unfounded.
Bush and his top officials have denied the allegations and accused the news media of exaggerating the violence between Iraqi Shiite and Sunni Muslims, minority Kurds and other groups.
The office of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, declined comment, saying it was studying the report.
On page 94 of its report, the Iraq Study Group found that there had been "significant under-reporting of the violence in Iraq." The reason, the group said, was because the tracking system was designed in a way that minimized the deaths of Iraqis.
"The standard for recording attacks acts a filter to keep events out of reports and databases," the report said. "A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count."
"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals," the report continued.
The finding confirmed a Sept. 8 McClatchy Newspapers report that U.S. officials excluded scores of people killed in car bombings and mortar attacks from tabulations measuring the results of a drive to reduce violence in Baghdad.
By excluding that data, U.S. officials were able to boast that deaths from sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital had declined by more than 52 percent between July and August, McClatchy newspapers reported.
The ISG report said that U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence on one day in July. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light more than 1,100 acts of violence," it said.
The panel cited other problems with intelligence that it said have hampered U.S. policymakers' comprehension of the Sunni insurgency or the role being played by Shiite militias and death squads.
U.S. officials have "been able to acquire good and sometimes superb tactical intelligence" on al-Qaida in Iraq, and there has been an improvement in the collection of information from human sources, it said.
But the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have failed to invest enough personnel and funds into understanding "the political and military threat to American men and women in the armed forces," the report continued.
The panel also noted a shortage of proficient Arabic speakers, a problem that the administration and intelligence officials have been urged to correct since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16179553.htm
And, of course, the study was dismissed — as “politics, not science,” as “total crap” — by every stay-the-course zealot with a media forum…”
A Few Corpses Past 'Whatever'
By Robert C. Koehler
In the light of this report, I’m going to say that the researchers of the Lancet report have just had their methodology, and their numbers independently verified. So, can we now cut the crap, and call the supporters and the architects of this obscene carnage in Iraq what they really are?
The Coalition Casualties in Iraq website lists 2922 American military killed as of Dec 06, 2006, and 35,174 injured as of December 2, 2006, as reported by the Department of Defense. You know, the same ones that have been underreporting Iraqi deaths. We already know that the bushists don’t count deaths that occurred “out of theater” as happening in Iraq, even when they die on the plane flying them to hospitals out of the country. When the truth of this war is finally exposed, we are going to find out that the bush administration has vastly underreported American casualties as well.
Are people going to still be willing to let the bush, cheney, and all the others off the hook for this? And what about their enablers and accomplices in the media and Congress? Will we still be able to look ourselves in the mirror if we do?
Study Says Violence in Iraq Has Been Underreported
By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers
Thursday, December 7, 2006
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration routinely has underreported the level of violence in Iraq in order to disguise its policy failings, the Iraq Study Group report said Wednesday.
The bipartisan group called on the Pentagon and the director of the U.S. intelligence community to immediately institute a new reporting system that provides "a more accurate picture of events on the ground."
The finding bolsters allegations by Democratic lawmakers and other critics that the Bush administration has withheld or misconstrued intelligence that conflicted with its Iraq policy while promoting data and claims that supported its positions.
Those allegations date back to President Bush's contention before the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion that Saddam Hussein was hiding illegal nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs. His claim proved to be unfounded.
Bush and his top officials have denied the allegations and accused the news media of exaggerating the violence between Iraqi Shiite and Sunni Muslims, minority Kurds and other groups.
The office of National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, who oversees all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, declined comment, saying it was studying the report.
On page 94 of its report, the Iraq Study Group found that there had been "significant under-reporting of the violence in Iraq." The reason, the group said, was because the tracking system was designed in a way that minimized the deaths of Iraqis.
"The standard for recording attacks acts a filter to keep events out of reports and databases," the report said. "A murder of an Iraqi is not necessarily counted as an attack. If we cannot determine the source of a sectarian attack, that assault does not make it into the database. A roadside bomb or a rocket or mortar attack that doesn't hurt U.S. personnel doesn't count."
"Good policy is difficult to make when information is systematically collected in a way that minimizes its discrepancy with policy goals," the report continued.
The finding confirmed a Sept. 8 McClatchy Newspapers report that U.S. officials excluded scores of people killed in car bombings and mortar attacks from tabulations measuring the results of a drive to reduce violence in Baghdad.
By excluding that data, U.S. officials were able to boast that deaths from sectarian violence in the Iraqi capital had declined by more than 52 percent between July and August, McClatchy newspapers reported.
The ISG report said that U.S. officials reported 93 attacks or significant acts of violence on one day in July. "Yet a careful review of the reports for that single day brought to light more than 1,100 acts of violence," it said.
The panel cited other problems with intelligence that it said have hampered U.S. policymakers' comprehension of the Sunni insurgency or the role being played by Shiite militias and death squads.
U.S. officials have "been able to acquire good and sometimes superb tactical intelligence" on al-Qaida in Iraq, and there has been an improvement in the collection of information from human sources, it said.
But the Pentagon and U.S. intelligence agencies have failed to invest enough personnel and funds into understanding "the political and military threat to American men and women in the armed forces," the report continued.
The panel also noted a shortage of proficient Arabic speakers, a problem that the administration and intelligence officials have been urged to correct since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16179553.htm
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