Guten Morgen Mr. Bush - 500 Beiträge pro Seite (Seite 60)

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Friday, June 24, 2005

Jaafari in Washington
Weeping Madman in Sweltering Baghdad

Robin Wright and Jim VandeHei of the Washington Post profile the meeting of Ibrahim Jaafari with George W. Bush.

As reported here yesterday, on Thursday morning back in Baghdad, four bombings left 17 dead and 70 wounded. (-Al-Sharq al-Awsat).

Richard Reeves predicts that the US will be in Iraq for 6 or 7 more years, and that when it withdraws it will be a "tragedy." He has no idea.

Every time the interim leader of Iraq has a photo op with US officials, he seems to feel a need to say all kinds of unrealistically optimistic things. It used to happen with the rotating presidency of the Interim Governing Council. Izzedin Salim went on saying optimistic things right up until he was killed while waiting on the Marines to let him into the Green Zone. Allawi came and said that the problems were only in four provinces (he didn`t mention that one of them was Baghdad).

Now Jaafari is saying that progress is being made against what he calls "the terrorists," and that all that is necessary is an acceleration of the training of Iraqi troops (with maybe some other countries than the US helping [NATO already is].)

Most observers I know of who know anything serious about military training don`t expect an effective Iraqi army to be stood up for five to ten years, so if Jaafari thinks there is a quick fix in this regard, he is just wrong.

The Post adds


` With just seven weeks until a constitution is due, Jafari also insisted that the Iraqis will make the deadline even though nothing has yet been written. "We know there are challenges and we know there are difficulties, but certainly the difficulties in writing a constitution will be not as severe or as intense as they were during the elections . . . in putting together the government," he said in the interview with The Post. `



I am quoted saying it is very unlikely that they can write a whole constitution by August 15 when it has taken them up to now to form a government and even form a drafting committee. As I reported yesterday from al-Zaman, the drafting committee is not meeting this week because the parliament building had no water or electricity because of sabotage. (Water service returned on Thursday.)

Andy Mosher and Bassam Sebti with Naseer Nouri draw the curtain back on the real Baghdad, a Mad Max scene of unpredictable explosions, scattered body parts, inadequate and undependable electricity, lack of refrigeration, water sabotage, and weeping madmen: ` Nearby, a scruffy young man in dirty pants and an unbuttoned shirt stood staring at vegetables scattered on the ground by one of the explosions. Bending over and picking up an onion spattered with blood, he began to cry. "Every one of you in Karrada calls me Crazy Ali," he said to no one in particular. "But I would never do such a thing. I am better than you sane people. At least I do not hurt you." `

Salon.com reports on how many Iraqi girls have been forced into prostitution abroad. One of the subjects is a victim of the Fallujah campaign.

Looted artwork and antiquities from Iraq are helping fund terrorist activity, rather as blood diamonds in West Africa did.

Somehow the rhetoric about freedom in Iraq seldom extends to the rights of workers and trade unions. They are demanding input into the writing of the permanent constitution. Free trade unions were key to the post-war order in Japan and Germany, but the Bushies are not as wise as the New Deal diplomats of that era were, who had lived through the Great Depression and knew the importance of a living wage.

The good news is that the Grand Mufti of Egypt has condemned the bombings in Iraq that kill innocent civilians. The bad news is that he says that "resistance to Occupation" (i.e. killing US and Coalition troops) is quite all right. The mufti, Egypt`s chief Muslim jurisconsult, serves at the pleasure of the Egyptian government. If he is being allowed to talk this way, it is because the military dictatorship that controls Egypt is peeved at the US for trying to make it open up the electoral system. Allowing this statement to appear in the official newspaper, al-Ahram, is a small act of revenge. It also has the advantage of making it seem to the Egyptian public as though the Mubarak government opposes the US occupation of Iraq (which is highly unpopular in Egypt), while in fact the Egyptian military has offered extensive logistical aid to the US.

posted by Juan @ [url6/24/2005 06:32:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/jaafari-in-washington-weeping-madman.html[/url]

Al-Duri Leads Baath
Birth of His Daughter in Mosul

Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri [al-Douri] just had a daughter in Mosul, according to al-Hayat. The article says, roughly:

Al-Hayat has learned from sources close to Iraq`s armed groups that the former vice president of the Revolutionary Command Council and the present Secretary-General of the dissolved Baath Party, Izzat al-Duri, was blessed with a baby girl, his eleventh child. She was born to a wife he married after the American attack. He has named her "Tahrir" (Liberation).

The sources affirmed that al-Duri received congratulations from the leadership of the Baath inside Iraq and outside it. He visited his wife, who gave birth in Mosul before leaving for parts unknown.

The sources said that al-Duri is in excellent health, and only suffers from occasional problems. He had a wide network of communications inside the country and without, which facilitates financial and political support, and donations, to the armed groups.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that police officials in Kirkuk are reporting that the United States forces have detained "Sufyan," the father-in-law of Izzat al-Duri. They say he is being interrogated at a holding cell out at the Kirkuk airport.

Yesterday, al-Quds al-Arabi carried the following (trans. FBIS):


Iraqi Ba`th Party Statement Confirms Commitment to Resistance
Unattributed article from London:
"Ba`th Party Confirms its Commitment to Resistance Option"

AL-QUDS AL-`ARABI
Thursday, June 23, 2005 T03:09:21Z
Document Type: FBIS Translated Text
Word Count: 747

The Iraqi Ba`th Party issued a statement commemorating the sixteenth anniversary of the death of Michel Aflaq in which it confirmed its commitment to the option of armed resistance in Iraq. The following is the text of the statement:

"With encouragement for the struggle, comradely deference, and ideological commitment, the Ba`thist mujahidin in resisting Iraq and their comrades in the lands of the Arab Nation and the diaspora salute the sixteenth anniversary of the death of the late commander, founder, and comrade Michel Aflaq. Commemorating the anniversary is a manifestation of the Ba`th allegiance and honoring the anniversary is a confirmation of the fighting commitment. It is a remembrance of the founding commander and of his life, his ideas, and his struggle to oversee the future of the (Arab) Nation and its eternal message.

"The resisting Ba`th Party embodies the age of heroism as it was heralded and called for by the comrade founding commander. The Ba`thist mujahidin, who are recording the pages of honor, pride, and dignity of their resisting land and their new nation, nevertheless embody the thought, pursuit, and struggle of the Ba`th Party at both the levels of the political struggle and the jihadist battle from the Comrade Commander Secretary General Saddam Husayn on down to the dear comrades at the broad base of the party.

"The struggling Ba`thists have not, and will not abandon their nation. Commander Saddam Husayn is a fighter and holy warrior who has not, and will not abandon Iraq, its people, or its nation. The comrade Ba`thist resisters have not, and will not abandon the Ba`th Party, the founding commander, the secretary general, and their Iraq and their nation.

"On this anniversary that we revere, we recall the rightful wagers of the founding commander on Iraq, on its leadership, and on the role of the Ba`th Party there. Through the commander and the comrades, Iraq`s influence has been extended to the (Arab) Nation in all its various countries. Here, the anniversary brings us back more than 60 years, when the comrade founding commander put Iraq into the heart of the Nation`s emancipative struggle. That gave true weight to Iraq, the struggle of its lively political powers, and its anticipated Arab role. He called for supporting Iraq when its fighters rose up at that time.

"The founding commander taught us that Iraq represents the true meaning of nationalism. Iraq today is targeted for its Arabism just like it is targeted for its nationalism, the sovereignty of its people, and the unity of its territory. The not-so-distant history paved the way for the standard of living in Iraq now and the challenges being warded off by the resisting Ba`th Party. For the Ba`th Party, with the brave army of Iraq and its proud people, fought and triumphed against the Persian Shu`ubist onslaught that was based on religious reactionism and backward Islam. How today resembles yesterday and how what was said by the founding commander at that time still rings true now and applies to the situation of the battle of Iraq`s liberation: `The Arab Nation has awakened to Iraq`s call and to the splendor of the leading role and honorable virtues it has embodied. Its historical steadfastness is the line of demarcation between conditions of impotence, deviation, and treachery and the new phase that will no longer permit anything other than the honest, open stance with the national truth that Iraq represents.`

"This is a time in which the Ba`th Party, through its struggle and jihad in Iraq and within the span of a short time period, can enable the Arab Nation to once again discover itself, assess its capabilities, and promote its history not just to awaken from Iraq`s jihadist call, but to share in meeting the call, carrying the message, and honoring the jihad by the honest, open stance with the national truth that resisting Iraq represents.

"The Ba`th Party, in its . . . jihad [resistance] in Iraq and its commitment to the option of the armed resistance, is not the renegade. It embodies and affirms what was said by the commander founder: `The Ba`th is, above all else, the love of Arabism and the love of Islam and the experience of the party in Iraq has asserted these ideas actively and heroically.`"

(Description of Source: London Al-Quds al-Arabi in Arabic -- London-based independent Arab nationalist daily with an anti-US and anti-Saudi editorial line; generally pro-Palestinian, tends to be sympathetic to Bin Ladin)



On June 18, wire services reported that Muhammad Yunis Ahmad, a former high Baath party official, is a principal funder of the guerrilla movement in Iraq, and that the US Department of the Treasury was freezing his known assets.

On May 3, Patrick Cockburn of the Financial Times wrote, "The insurgents are less interested in participation in the present government than in direct talks with the US, a timetable for the withdrawal of American forces and the right to rebuild the Baath party. In Sunni Arab towns and cities a so-called New Baath party is beginning to emerge and is said to be very well organised."

Then there was this:


"MOSUL, Dec 10 [2004] (MENA) - The dissolved Iraqi Baath party has started regrouping by electing Tayeh Abdul Karim and Naeem Haddad as its leaders. The party has also started publishing newspaper Al-Thawra as its mouthpiece, Iraqi sources, who requested anonymity, told MENA. The paper is being publicly circulated in Mosul and other several cities across Iraq, they added."

posted by Juan @ [url6/24/2005 06:22:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/al-duri-leads-baath-birth-of-his.html[/url]

UN and Trying Bush

More on my UN Option for Iraq. By the way, someone over at the Kos discussion (scroll down) said that there "was no civil war" when the US withdrew from Vietnam. But mainland southeast Asia from the mid-70s is a pretty stark cautionary tale. Khmer Rouge take-over of Cambodia, genocide (one million killed out of a population of 6 million); North Vietnamese victory in the south and imposition of reeducation and Communism; exodus of Chinese Vietnamese as refugees; Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia and decade-long occupation; Communist takeover of Laos; hostilities between Vietnam and China. If all *that* is awaiting the Oil Gulf after a US withdrawal, it will be a world-class catastrophe. Southeast Asia wasn`t central to the world economy.

Nabil Tikriti writes from Istanbul:


"Unfortunately, I`m not sure that your UN idea would actually work in practice. I was in Somalia in the spring of 1993 with Medecins sans Frontieres /Doctors Without Borders, and I saw how Somali militias cut to pieces armed and fully engagement-authorized Pakistani peacekeepers in Modadishu -- the precedent to the infamous "Blackhawk Down" incident several weeks later that summer.

Iraqis have long been furiously anti-UN, due to the UN`s role in the sanctions regime in the 90`s -- especially when they contrasted the international community`s enforcement of UN Security Council resolutions demanding Iraq`s withdrawal from occupied Kuwaiti land vs. the international community`s inaction concerning Israeli occupation of formerly Jordanian, Egyptian, and Syrian territory following the 1967 war.

Iraqis also compared their entire economy being strangled by the UN due to their pre-1990 WMD programs (which, in retrospect, apparently ceased to be a going concern by 1995) while the state of Israel had well over 200 nuclear missiles ready to strike Iraq or any other regional society whenever deemed necessary. In a nutshell, no Iraqis seemed surprised -- or saddened -- by the August 2003 bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad.

In addition, there is something of a superiority complex in the Arab World vis-a-vis Africans and South Asians, and I`d pity the poor "Southern" troops who might find themselves in the Iraq meat grinder with insufficient weaponry, logistics, and backup.

While I`m glad that someone out there is actually trying to float an idea for US withdrawal, I don`t see the UN idea working either.

Perhaps the US should just depart and write a compensation check for damages rendered to whatever Iraqi government eventually emerges. Considering the tens of thousands of deaths, the complete destruction of all state structures, and the 13 years of UN sanctions which preceded the 2003 invasion, I`d guess about 600 billion USD might begin to compensate for the torts involved.


2) Tonight the "World Tribunal on Iraq" opened in Istanbul, which appears to be a continuation of an initiative started by Ramsey Clark et al to put Bush and others on a mock trial (www.worldtribunal.org).

It will feature Arundhati Roy, Fred Halliday, Samir Amin and several other scholars."

posted by Juan @ [url6/24/2005 06:02:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/un-and-trying-bush-more-on-my-un.html[/url]
Thursday, June 23, 2005

Stirling Newberry on UN Option
And the Great Oil Price Shock of Gulf War IV

Stirling Newberry doesn`t think the UN has enough troops for Iraq, either; and he instances the Congo as an example of things going bad.


"What’s wrong with staying in: Realistically any change of occupation policy will require a change of regime in the United States. Given that the current Executive controls both houses of Congress, and there is no even improbable scenario which brings to the White House anyone of different persuasion – indulge your most arcane avian bird flu and Presidential succession scenario – its war hawks all the way down the depth chart – realistically, it means than any occupation scenario is basing its judgement on 2009. By 2009, at reasonable estimates, there will be another 3500 US military fatalities in Iraq, there will be another 250 allied fatalities. There will be another 2000 mercenary fatalities. There will be some 40,000 Iraqi military dead – including government and rebel fighters. There will be some 200,000 incremental deaths in Iraq because of direct consequences of conflict, deprivation and crime. We are not talking, then, about “can we turn Iraq around today”. We are talking about “can we turn Iraq around after another 3 and a half years of civil war?” It is useful to look, then, at two example failed states and their experiences. One is the Democratic [Republic] of the Congo. The other is Lebanon. "



Michael Pollack writes in clarification of my point about Gulf War IV likely being a guerrilla struggle that has every reason to sabotage Gulf petroleum production, unlike the Iraqi and Iranian states in the 1980s during the Iran-Iraq War, which I think is better termed the First Gulf War.



I also noticed . . . that you made a small change to your earlier post in line with my suggestion:


"We already saw petroleum spike to $40 a barrel in the early 80s, in 1980 dollars, which is probably $80 a barrel in our money. Cause? [A run of speculation in the markets prompted by the] Iranian Revolution and Iran-Iraq War. Only a kind of MAD prevented Saddam and Khomeini from destroying each others` oil fields; at that, they were sometimes attacked. Guerrillas do not give a rat`s ass about MAD."


And although this is a refinement, I think it still isn`t getting across your keystone point . . .

What I think is [significant] -- and I emphasize that I think your argument here is very important, and new -- is that Iran/Iraq war didn`t sustain the price spike.

Here`s my precis of your argument as I understand it:



[Precis:]

Prices shot up in 1979-80, crushing the world economy. But they didn`t stay there -- even though the war raged on and got progressively worse. The worse the war got, the more prices fell. And the reason is MAD -- that both countries were deterred -- even in a macabre war to the death that involved nerve gas and suicide minesweeping -- from attacking each other`s oil fields.

And this has caused a mass unjustified complaisance. The Iran/Iraq war was the longest conventional war of modern times. An obscene number of people died. It took place in the very heart of the oil producing gulf. And yet most people in the West barely noticed it at the time, and barely remember it now.

But now, replay that scene without MAD -- because that`s what you`d have now in what you are calling Gulf War IV. Take the oil spike from 1979 -- which is graven in everyone`s memory -- and continue it for 8 years. And not at a level price, but at one that continually increased from that initial spike.

And then imagine what would have happened to the world economy. You`d have the great depression. With no exaggeration.

[end precis]


That`s your argument, as I understand it, as you clarified in email, and I think it`s very powerful one. And I think it deserves to be spelled out -- perhaps in a new short post -- or people will miss it. Because the central point is very subtle -- you`re talking about the dog that didn`t bark, the crisis that didn`t happen. And the empirical point is one that most people have never really registered -- that prices crashed in the 1980s, after their initial spike. And to that you`re adding to it something that I don`t remember anyone else ever pointing out before -- that they did it in the middle of a horrible middle eastern war.

I think that`s an awful lot to leave tacit. I think all that has to be spelled out before the average (or even the attentive) reader will really grasp just how stark your scenario is -- and how tightly your reasoning is based in recent history and present reality.

(Especially because so many . . . people have been waving around apocalyptic oil-shock scare scenarios for so long that many of us have a tendency to glaze over unless you shake us out of it.)

Michael




Another response, from Ireland, by email:



"I`d like to make a comment on your UN proposal, from the narrow perspective of an Irish citizen.

There is tremendous support for multi-lateral structures such as the EU and UN in Ireland, probably in large part because of our inability to defend ourselves by military means alone and our need for "international law" to protect our interests. We have declined to join overt military alliances such as NATO and the WEU, despite our close ideological and economic links to the Anglo-American world and the EU. Our army has only two tasks: internal security, mainly against paramilitary threats such
as the IRA, and UN peacekeeping (including the DRC, Liberia, Lebanon, Bosnia and East Temor).

I think Americans generally underestimate the degree of anger and disgust in the West, and the loss of good-will to the US and Britain, engendered by the Iraq war, and the propaganda, lies and bullying that led up to it. The US and UK forces in Iraq and their allies have no legitimacy in many Irish minds. Tony Blair was wildly popular here after the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement. He is now widely mistrusted and even disliked.

On the other hand, a small nation such as ours cannot afford to piss off our economic bread-butterers, and there has been little political fall-out for our government allowing the bulk of US military personnel and supplies to Iraq to pass through Shannon airport. People don`t like it, but accept it as politically necessary - probably not the most moral attitude to take.

My main point is that, even with a UN security council and General Assembly mandate, I think it would be nigh on politically impossible for any Irish Government to send Irish troops to Iraq, particularly on the kind of dangerous "peace enforcing" mission you envision."

posted by Juan @ 6/23/2005 05:45:00 PMhttp://www.juancole.com/2005/06/stirling-newberry-on-un-opti…

Abizaid: "Cost in Blood and Treasure"
2nd Lt.: "The War is Lost"

Vice President Dick Cheney needs to talk to his generals more often. Michael Hedges of the Houston Chronicle reports that Gen. John Abizaid, who has recently consulted with US commanders in Iraq, said today that the guerrilla movement in Iraq is as strong now as it was 6 months ago. Dick Cheney recently said it was in its "last throes." If so, the throes appear likely to go on for decades. Abizaid, however, conveyed an unrealistic impression that the Iraqi forces will take over the heavy lifting any time soon, and he continued to deny that the US needed more troops on the ground. CNN`s Jane Arraf reported on Wednesday from Anbar province that virtually no one among the Lt. Colonels and fighting troops on the ground in Iraq thinks they have enough boots on the ground.

Abizaid said,

` "The most important thing I saw this time is that there is increasing confidence in Iraqi security forces to get the job done," said Abizaid. Abizaid dismissed the notion that more American troops were needed in Iraq. "There are more troops on the ground than ever before," he said. "Iraqi troops are coming on line and they are fighting." . . . Among Abizaid`s other concerns was the danger of a civil war in Iraq. . . Abizaid . . . was told that the U.S. war effort would likely stretch into the indefinite future. "It is like running a marathon. You hit the wall at 21 miles or 22 miles," he said Friday. "If you give up, then you lose the prospect for victory or success. We`re not at the 21-mile mark yet, but we are heading for the wall. "We need to work our way and fight our way through the wall. It is not going to be done without work and without sacrifice. And it is not going to be done without cost in blood and treasure."



General Abizaid has always been a straight shooter, and as a Lebanese-American Arabic speaker, has a more detailed and realistic idea of the situation than most US officers. But if he was quoted accurately, I don`t think he was delivering any good news.

There appears to be a big gap in attitudes in Iraq between the generals and the subaltern officers and servicemen. An academic sent me this:


"Yesterday I talked with a 2nd Lt and West Point grad who has just come back from Iraq. He says flat out that the war is lost, that "we" only control territory when the troops are there in massive numbers and that "they" take over as soon as the troops leave, that the army is over-extended and morale is terrible -- drug use is escalating -- that there still isn`t enough armor, that the Iraqi army and police are worse than useless, and that senior officers are convinced that it is Vietnam redux. One of his classmates a 23-year old was killed last week -- for nothing. There are signs that this story is belatedly beginning to sink in across the country, but he, and I, fears that it is too late."



We saw this sort of thing in Vietnam, too. The Generals are the last to know, and they always think victory is around the corner if only they can convince the US public to commit "blood and treasure" for a few decades.

posted by Juan @ [url6/23/2005 02:02:00 PM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/abizaid-cost-in-blood-and-treasure-2nd.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

!

Dieser Beitrag wurde vom System automatisch gesperrt. Bei Fragen wenden Sie sich bitte an [e-mail]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
Latest Coalition Fatality: Jun 23, 2005
Six US troops presumed dead in Iraq attack-official. Noch nicht bestätigt.

Military Fatalities US, UK, Other: : Total: 1918 ,US: 1730 ,June05: 66





Iraker: Civilian: 382 Police/Mil: 240 Total: 622
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Regelmäßige Updates von Meldungen aus dem Irak:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Speaking of Last Throes, Here is The Codpiece`s [urlLatest Approval Rating.]http://www.pollingreport.com/BushJob.htm[/url]
[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]Jun 25, 2005


THE ROVING EYE
The first, not the last throes
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF25Ak04.html

"The insurgency in Iraq is in its last throes."
- Vice President Dick Cheney, in May

Even the Central Intelligence Agency now admits that Iraq is the new Afghanistan - breeding a new, lethal generation of jihadis. Iraq has also been the new Vietnam since the day the resistance was born, April 18, 2003, in front of the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad. Iraq as the new Vietnam replays - in a new setting - the movie of a superpower being subdued by a guerrilla war. Remember former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz`s famous words before the invasion: "Let the desert be our jungles."

A mini-Tet offensive happened in Baghdad on Monday. In a city allegedly under the control of American and American-trained Iraqi forces, more than 100 guerrillas mounted a devastating attack on Baya`a, the biggest police station in Baghdad - employing successive waves of mortars, explosions, rocket-launcher attacks, hand grenades, sophisticated diversionary tactics and the sinister icing on the lethal cake, car bombings. Hi al-Elam, the neighborhood around the police station, was turned into a smoldering disaster zone. The guerrillas retreated after two hours, having lost dozens of men. But just like the Tet offensive, the message was clear: the writing, scrawled in graffiti, was literally on the walls of Hi al-Elam - "We`ll be back."

Three days after this mini-battle in Baghdad, the Pentagon top brass had to face the fact that the writing on the wall is now becoming increasingly visible not only to tens of millions of Americans (60%, according to the latest polls) but to the cowed, Bush administration-intimidated Congress as well. Nevertheless, during eight hours of back-to-back testimony to House and Senate committees in Washington, the Pentagon still refused to abandon the rhetoric of "steady progress" and "victory is certain".

General John Abizaid, the Centcom chief, had to admit "more foreign fighters [are] coming into Iraq than there were six months ago" - not exactly Cheney`s "last throes" scenario. Senator Robert Byrd, a Democrat from West Virginia, told Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld to "get off your high horse" and stop answering questions "with a sneer". Senator Ted Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, went one step further and suggested it was time for Rumsfeld to go.

Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee, "If the coalition were to leave before the Iraqi security forces are able to assume responsibility, we would one day again have to confront another Iraqi regime, perhaps even more dangerous than the last." The occupation`s logic - we can`t leave because they would not know how to take care of themselves - happens to be the same espoused on the record by Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, in Washington for official talks at the White House. Sunni Arabs in Iraq - as well as the Sadrists - will take note, adding even more fuel to the fire.

Help, the voters will kill us
The somewhat rash exchanges in Washington have to be put in the context of the 2006 mid-term elections in the US. The Iraq quagmire is leading senators and congressmen - especially Republican - to a degree of panic. They`re starting to realize that President George W Bush`s war is taking them down. Democrats for their part - including those who supported the war in the first place - are scenting blood. Crucially, no senators or congressmen suggested that the Pentagon should send more troops to Iraq - an extremely unpopular move. But at the same time, nobody suggested troops should be withdrawn immediately - which means they still, albeit grudgingly, subscribe to the Pentagon`s strategy.

The disorientation was more than evident in the behavior of Senator Lindsey Graham, a Republican from South Carolina and staunch war supporter. Graham said he was concerned by declining support for the war - which means bad news in the next elections - but he also said, ominously, "We have bought into a model that is extremely difficult, but the only answer, because you can`t kill enough of these people" - implying that it is such a pity the Pentagon cannot produce a thousand Fallujahs.

For his part, Carl Levin, Democrat from Michigan and the senior Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, came up with the wacky suggestion that "the United States needs to tell the Iraqis and the world that if that deadline [for approving a new constitution] is not met, we will review our position with all options open, including but not limited to, setting a timetable for withdrawal". Levin shifts the blame for all the mess from the occupation to Iraq`s politicians. He should beware of what he wants: Iraqis may enthusiastically welcome his proposition, as throwing the occupiers out is their No 1 priority.

And it`s one, two, three, what are we fighting for
The Pentagon strategy is not working, and it won`t work for two main reasons. The neo-conservative American project for Iraq was based on ethnic, confessional sectarianism for a start. The current pre-civil-war atmosphere is just a consequence of privileging Kurds out of proportion and marginalizing Sunni Arabs - not to mention the blowback (from Washington`s point of view) of a weak Shi`ite-dominated, Islamic-leaning, Iran-friendly government having to fight not only the Sunni Arab guerrillas, but a Sunni-Sadrist political opposition. Moreover, the development of the so-called Iraqi defense forces may take at least five years. The current militia inferno - tolerated or even encouraged by the Americans - is bound to derail the country for at least a generation.

Just like in Vietnam, the Americans have no meaningful intelligence on the resistance. It`s a massive, American strategic, cultural and linguistic failure. That`s why American "counterinsurgency" in Iraq these days is reduced to supporting militias nested in the Interior Ministry - "Rumsfeld`s boys", as they are known - as well as operations conducted by El Salvador-style death squads. There`s no way this will win Sunni Arab hearts and minds. For most Sunni Arabs, from the simply alienated to the terrified, most of them impoverished to sub-Saharan conditions, the American presence - in the form of awesome firepower - only means death and destruction.

The hearings this Thursday in Washington may have been just the tip of the iceberg. The real facts on the ground are, in Iraq, a horrific quagmire; and in the US, the unstoppable rising of anti-war sentiment. This is not a "last throes" scenario - rather the first throes of a national American rejection of the Iraqi imperial adventure. Just like in Vietnam.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

1 Gallone (3,8 l)

http://www.gaspricewatch.com/usgas_index.asp#

[Joerver]

!

Dieser Beitrag wurde vom System automatisch gesperrt. Bei Fragen wenden Sie sich bitte an [e-mail]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Es gibt zwei Zweige aus denen sich die Neocons entwickelt haben. Der eine sind die Leoconservativen, die ihre Ideologie aus den Theorien von Leo Strauss entwickelt haben. Das ist der mehr intellektuelle Teil, der sich in Chicago um William Kristol, dem Herausgeber des Weekly Standart und seiner Ehefrau gebildet hat. Der Spiegel nannte sie mal die `Nazijuden`.

Der 2. Zweig ist durch `Scoop` Jackson, the Hawks` Hawk, entstanden. Jackson war Demokrat und hat als erster gefordert die UDSSR durch Atombomben zu zerstören. Gleichzeitig hat er auch in den Diensten Boeing gestanden, was ihm den Namen. "Senator from Boeing" einbrachte.

Er hat immer gut verstanden Politik und Geschäft unter einen Hut zu bringen. Aus seiner Schule sind die beiden übelsten Neocons hervorgegangen, Perle und Wolfowitz.

Besonders Perle hat sich sehr durch seine zweifelhaften Geschäfte hervorgetan, dafür haben ihm die Enthüllungen von Hersh in 03 seinen Posten in der Bush-Regierung gekostet.
Dafür hat er dann Hersh einen Terroristen genannt. Eine ziemlich üble Ratte der Mr. Perle.

Diese ideologischen Spinner und die korrupten Abkocher haben sich dann zusammengefunden und schon seit über 10 Jahren versucht Einfluß zu gewinnen.

Nun unter Bush sind sie in Machtpositionen gelangt, und haben, besonders nach den ihre Pläne begünstigenden Ereignisse vom 9/11, begonnen ihre Ideen zu verwirklichen.

Durch Bush und seine christlichen Visionen sind zum Erhalten der Macht die christlichen Zionisten und Weltuntergangspropheten dazugekommen.

Durch diese gefährliche Mischung von skrupellosen Geschäftsleuten, träumerischen Ideologen und das Jüngste-Gericht-herbeisehnenden christlichen Fundamentalisten ist ein gefährlicher Sprengsatz entstanden, der auch das Ende der Zeit, nicht nur das Ende der Geschichte, in Kauf nimmt.

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/115505_focus06.shtml

P-I Focus: The road the U.S. traveled to Baghdad was paved by `Scoop` Jackson
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/115505_focus06.shtml

The hawks` hawk

Sunday, April 6, 2003

ROGER MORRIS

America`s attack on Iraq started 65 years ago in the wooded curving inlets and gentle fog of Snohomish County.

At least that`s one genealogy of the war, curling back through closed-door politics where so much of U.S. history happens.

Nineteen thirty-eight was the year Henry Martin Jackson, an ambitious 26-year-old Democrat from Everett fresh out of the University of Washington Law School, was elected prosecuting attorney for Snohomish County. As usual, few outside Washington state noticed the obscure local vote. But it launched a fateful political career, and ultimately led to the U.S. missiles, tanks and troops flung into Iraq last month.

Jackson rose rapidly from the Everett courthouse. Making a name for himself chasing bootleggers and gamblers, he shot on to Congress in 1940. He served five terms in the House, broken by a stint as a World War II GI, and by 1952, had gained the Senate, where "Scoop," as he was called, became a national force. A middle-of-the-road, pro-labor Democrat on domestic issues and an early champion of environmental causes, Jackson was chairman for nearly two decades of the Interior Committee (later Energy and Natural Resources) and sat on the Government Operations Committee and Joint Committee on Atomic Energy -- all major fiefdoms in dispensing federal money and wielding influence in politics and policy. One of Capitol Hill`s more vigorous legislators, he was a main author and driving force of the legislation creating the Environmental Protection Agency, major wilderness preservation and other landmark acts.

With another local prosecutor raised to Senate power, King County`s Warren Magnuson, Jackson also saw to it that generous appropriations and contracts were sluiced to his home state, especially the Puget Sound area. "Scoop" especially would be known scathingly in congressional corridors as the "Senator from Boeing" for being on-call to the corporate giant.

But it was in national security that Jackson`s impact was deepest. The hawks` hawk, he was to the right of many in both parties. Not even the massive retaliation strategy and roving CIA interventions of the Eisenhower `50s were tough enough for him. Perched on the mighty Armed Services Committee as well as his other bases of power, he went on over the next decade to goad the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, urging the Vietnam War, fatter military budgets, stronger support of Israel in the Middle East and a more aggressive foreign policy in general.

It was then, 40 years ago, that Jackson began to be linked directly, if furtively, to some of the uglier and little-known origins of the war on Iraq in 2003. Overseeing the CIA`s "black budget" for covert operations and interventions from a subcommittee of Armed Services, he was one of a handful of senators who gave a nod to two U.S.-backed coups in Iraq, one in 1963 and again in 1968. Those plots brought Saddam Hussein to power amid bloodbaths in which the CIA, exacting the price for its support, handed Saddam and his Baath Party cohorts lists of supposed anti-U.S. Iraqis to be killed.

The result was the systematic murder of several hundred and as many as several thousand people, in which Saddam himself participated. Whatever the toll, accounts agree that CIA killing lists comprised much of Iraq`s young educated elite -- doctors, teachers, technicians, lawyers and other professionals as well as military officers and political figures -- Iraqis who would not be there to oppose Saddam`s growing tyranny over ensuing years or to help rebuild or govern Iraq, as the United States now hopes to do, after the current war.

By 1969, Jackson was so prominent in military and national security affairs, and so at odds on those issues with many in his own party, that newly elected Republican Richard Nixon thought to name the Washington Democrat his secretary of defense, though the senator declined the job.

But Snohomish County`s favorite son coveted the White House himself and was soon a sharp critic of Nixon`s arms control and détente. Added to his cold warring was even greater zeal for Israel, a certainty that the United States should endorse the Israelis` own hard line -- absorbing the West Bank after its conquest in the 1967 Middle East War, the long-term subjugation of Palestine and an abiding hostility to Iraq and other Arab states.

As Jackson grew nationally prominent, he attracted the inevitable ambitious staffers and partisans boarding his coattails to advance both their own hawkish views and themselves. Among them was a recent graduate of the University of Southern California who was fanatic about amassing and projecting U.S. power, especially on behalf of Israel, and not least about his own strategic genius. The young New Yorker named Richard Perle became Jackson`s chief assistant from 1969 to 1980.

I saw these origins firsthand working in the Senate in the early `70s after resigning from Henry Kissinger`s National Security Council staff over the invasion of Cambodia. Seen from the inside, Jackson`s Senate heft was considerable. Though a relatively small, unprepossessing figure as politicians go, he usually did his homework, could be incisive about important details his colleagues let slip and struck a shrewd balance between conviction and expedience. Much of his Capitol Hill power derived from his unique role, which he played well, as a northern Democrat with solid labor backing and other party credentials yet whose hard-line international view drew the support of many Republicans and the most conservative Southerners on either side of the aisle.

His belligerence also exerted (and still does) a kind of extortionist pull on liberal Democrats deathly afraid of appearing "weak" on national defense or in standing up to the Russians and anyone else. There was no question that "Scoop," from the mountains and straits of the far northwest corner of the continental United States, caught the unease and reflexive combativeness of much of America in dealing with a planet we knew so little despite our power. Still, in the `70s, a more worldly post-Vietnam moderation and sensibility in the leadership of both parties appeared to have passed Jackson by, leaving his chauvinism and foreign policy animus marginal, sometimes looking a bit crazed.

As for Perle, he was a pear-shaped, slightly fish-eyed man of self-consciously affected locution, the too-hungry, too-sly and too-toadying aide familiar in bureaucracies public and private. His views were patently uninformed, and he wore his conference-room warrior`s zealotry no more gracefully than his expensive blue pinstriped suits. It seemed obvious that the bellicose policies he and Jackson embodied were not only wrong for America, but would also usher Israel into the ruinous isolation I and other admirers of its brave people most feared. "Scoop" & Co. would remain, I assumed, an extremist fringe. How wrong I was.

Jackson, of course, never got the White House. With big pro-Israeli money though stolid style, he lost the presidential nomination in 1976 to Jimmy Carter, who offered a fresh face in the national weariness in the wake of the Watergate scandal. But when Jackson died seven years later back in Everett, ending more than four decades on the national scene, he had spawned a cult following. There was always much less substantively than met the eye in the lavishly financed and much-propagandized neoconservative cabal taking power under President Reagan, and now again under George W. Bush. In any case, its throwback foreign policy was, and is, "Scoop" Jackson warmed over -- the red, white and blue, Israel-first, bombs-away dawn of an old era.

For his part, Perle missed a long-coveted chance to make presidential policy when Jackson stumbled in 1976. But the aide promptly moved on to the next coattails in classic, if banal, Washington, D.C., style. Relentlessly levering the system he learned under Jackson, he cultivated the media, courted politicians in both parties and used old allies in the politically potent pro-Israeli and military-industrial lobbies. By the Reagan `80s, he was an assistant secretary of defense, veteran of the now-venerated Jackson tradition of military expansion and a self-promoted strategist for a Republican president as comfortably as for a Democratic senator.

Whatever "Scoop" Jackson`s mix of political principle and opportunism, Perle`s politics were largely himself.

On the way up, Perle gathered his own disciples -- Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, Under-Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and others who would go on themselves in similar fashion to become key officials in the current administration. Like Perle, who was appointed to chair the administration`s influential Defense Policy Board, they`re all longtime advocates, years before the Sept. 11 attacks, of pre-emptive American military invasions in Iraq and elsewhere and of implicit, if not open, support for the expansionist and repressive policies of their right-wing counterparts in Israel. By all accounts, their concerted influence was decisive in going to war in Iraq.

Grown wealthy in the revolving door between government and corporate plunder, Perle has drawn notoriety lately not only for his intimate ties to Israel but also for his connections to companies standing to profit obscenely from the war he`s mongered. When Michigan Congressman John Conyers Jr. and Sen. Carl Levin began to prod Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld about the disreputable dealings, Perle angrily resigned March 27 from the chairmanship of the board, though he continues to sit as a full-fledged member of the pivotal body. Token resignation aside, it all reeks of the seedy conflict-of-interest "Scoop" once would have prosecuted in Snohomish County. But in the rest of their martial provincialism, Perle and his minions are Jackson`s offspring.

By the way, Snohomish County`s current prosecuting attorney, if you hadn`t noticed, is a young woman named Janice Ellis. She seems dedicated to her job. But you can`t tell where these county officials may go. Please let us know if Ellis begins to take an unusual interest in national security.

Roger Morris, who served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents Johnson and Nixon, is an investigative journalist and historian. He is at work in Seattle on a book on U.S. covert policies in the Near East and South Asia.

© 1998-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 25, 2005
Three Things About Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/opinion/25sat1.html

To have the sober conversation about the war in Iraq that America badly needs, it is vital to acknowledge three facts:

The war has nothing to do with Sept. 11. Saddam Hussein was a sworn enemy of Washington, but there was no Iraq-Qaeda axis, no connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks on the United States. Yet the president and his supporters continue to duck behind 9/11 whenever they feel pressure about what is happening in Iraq. The most cynical recent example was Karl Rove`s absurd and offensive declaration this week that conservatives and liberals had different reactions to 9/11. Let`s be clear: Americans of every political stripe were united in their outrage and grief, united in their determination to punish those who plotted the mass murder, and united behind the war in Afghanistan, which was an assault on terrorists. Trying to pretend otherwise is the surest recipe for turning political dialogue into meaningless squabbling.

The war has not made the world, or this nation, safer from terrorism. The breeding grounds for terrorists used to be Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia; now Iraq has become one. Of all the justifications for invading Iraq that the administration juggled in the beginning, the only one that has held up over time is the desire to create a democratic nation that could help stabilize the Middle East. Any sensible discussion of what to do next has to begin by acknowledging that. The surest way to make sure that conversation does not happen is for the administration to continue pasting the "soft on terror" label on those who want to talk about the war.

If the war is going according to plan, someone needs to rethink the plan. Progress has been measurable on the political front. But even staunch supporters of the war, like the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, told Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a hearing this week that President Bush was losing public support because the military effort was not keeping pace. A top general said this week that the insurgency is growing. The frequency of attacks is steady, or rising a bit, while the repulsive tactic of suicide bombings has made them more deadly.

If things are going to be turned around, there has to be an honest discussion about what is happening. But Mr. Rumsfeld was not interested. Sneering at his Democratic questioners, he insisted everything was on track and claimed "dozens of trained battalions are capable of conducting anti-insurgent operations" with American support. That would be great news if it were true. Gen. George Casey, the commander in Iraq, was more honest, saying he hoped there would be "a good number of units" capable of doing that "before the end of this year."

Americans cannot judge for themselves because the administration has decided to make the information secret. Senator John McCain spoke for us when he expressed his disbelief at this news. "I think the American people need to know," he said. "They are the ones who are paying for this conflict."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Saturday, June 25, 2005

6 US Military Personnel Killed, 13 Wounded at Fallujah
Women Targeted

A bomber targeted a Marine convoy near Fallujah coming back from a checkpoint, then guerrillas sprayed machine gun fire. They killed 6 Marines, including 4 women, and wounded 13, 11 of whom were women.

The American women were deployed at the checkpoint to pat down Iraqi women. Arab culture insists on gender segregation, and it is considered unacceptable for male foreigners to pat down Muslim women.

The Marines appear to have had their guard down. Fallujah has been relatively quiet since it was invested by US troops last November, and much of its population is still living elsewhere as refugees. There have been occasional firefights in the city, or firing of mortar rounds by guerrillas. Friday`s attack was the most audacious since the city was reduced.

The guerrillas clearly had the women under surveillance and deliberately targeted them. Attacking each other`s women is a major feature of imperial warfare in history. The Sepoys in India in 1857 who rebelled against their British officers often invaded the British cantonments and attacked their women. Indeed, when the British troops were sent out from Britain to reconquer North India in 1857-58, they underlined avenging the massacres of white women as among their primary goals. In Bosnia, Serb irregulars used rape as a deliberate tool of war. In most cultures, ideals of masculinity are wrought up with the protection of women (feminism hasn`t penetrated most militaries), so attacking the enemy`s women is a way of humiliating and rattling him

The Marines responded by putting all of Fallujah under a strict curfew. Al-Jazeera is saying that the Marines are sending automobiles through the streets with loudspeakers, calling on the residents to inform on the guerrillas to the Americans, and threatening that if they did not, they would be trapped in their homes by a continued curfew. The US military frequently employs forms of collective punishment in Iraq, and resorts to locking down an entire city where it feels it necessary.

The Guardian writes that

"gunmen on Friday killed an aide to Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq`s most revered Shiite cleric. Police said two bodyguards were also killed trying to protect Shiite cleric Samara al-Baghdadi, who represented al-Sistani in Baghdad`s predominantly Shiite al-Amin district. Iraqi security forces also discovered the bodies of eight beheaded men - at least six of whom were Shiite farmers - in a region north of Baghdad on Friday. It was unclear why the men were killed."



Al-Hayat reports that Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari privately asked congress to tighten its economic boycott of Syria as a way of forcing Damascus to be more forthcoming about policing the Syrian borders to prevent the infiltration of Sunni jihadis into Kashmir and other flashipoints. Jaafri will travel to Damascus himself soon, though I think his reception just got chillier.

al-Sharq al-Awsat also says that a young men in Najaf are being arrested for wearing blue jeans.

posted by Juan @ [url6/25/2005 06:10:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/6-us-military-personnel-killed-13.html[/url]
Friday, June 24, 2005

Student Unions [in Iraq] Call for Withdrawal of Occupation Troops

Gilbert Achcar kindly sends along his translation of this newspaper article:



` Student Unions [in Iraq] Call for Withdrawal of Occupation Troops

Baghdad – Abdel-Wahed Tohmeh – Al-Hayat, June 24, 2005

11 Student Unions approved the call made on al-Jaafari’s Government to set a timetable for the withdrawal of multinational forces and considered that the request made [by the Government at the UN] for the extension of their presence is “an infringement on Parliament’s prerogatives.”

The 11 Unions issued yesterday a statement, of which Al-Hayat got a copy, supporting the members of the Independent National Bloc and other MPs [see the article by the same author dated June 20] and calling on “al-Jaafari’s Government, the United Nations and its Security Council to adopt these demands.” The statement also said: “We have taken part in the election and voted, risking our lives going to the polling stations, only for one essential issue that the electoral slates adopted and put in their political programs, and that is the demand for the withdrawal of occupation troops from Iraq.”

The Unions called on the lists that won the election “to remain faithful to their promise and put their political programs into practise so that the people could respect them.” Their statement also called on the Government “not to adopt crucial decisions without referring to the representatives of the people in the National Assembly.” The statement also expressed bewilderment at “al-Jaafari’s and his Government’s support for maintaining occupation troops at a time when the US Congress is asking for their withdrawal.”

The statement was signed by the Student Unions at the Universities of Baghdad, Mustansariyya, Kufa, Qadissiyya, Basra, Diali, Ramadi, Mosul, the Technological University, the Islamic University and the Organism of Technical Education.
The president of the Student Union of the University of Baghdad, Mustafa Shabar, said that “the students of Iraq are resolute to get the Government and the National Assembly to abide by anti-occupation demands.”

Moreover, 18 students representing Iraq’s 18 governorates ended a sit-in at al-Firdous Square in the center of Baghdad, meant as a protest against the Government’s decision to extend the presence of multinational forces. Shabar said that “the choice of al-Firdous Square for our sit-in came as a result of the refusal of the Government to let the sit-in be held in front of the Parliament building.” Member of Parliament Falah Hassan Shneishel added that “a big rally will take place today at Kadhimiyya with the participation of tribes which came to Baghdad from all Iraqi governorates in support of the demand by the MPs to the Government to put a timetable for the withdrawal of occupation troops.” `

posted by Juan @ [url6/24/2005 02:23:00 PM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/student-unions-in-iraq-call-for.html[/url]

Does Karl Rove Hate our Liberties and Way of Life?

` At a Manhattan fund-raiser Wednesday night, the flamboyant architect of Bush`s two presidential campaigns and now White House deputy chief of staff told members of the Conservative Party of New York State: "Conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 in the attacks and prepared for war. Liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." `



Now we know where the Bearded Lady of the Carnival Right, Ann Coulter, actually gets her material. She is just channeling Karl Rove, who believes that "liberals" wanted to put terrorists on the psychiatrist`s couch or wanted to put them on trial rather than declaring them "enemy combatants" (i.e. persons with whom Bush and Rove could do as they pleased, without reference to any law). And, he implies that Conservatives knew what to do instead. Why, they got out their shotguns and went hunting for the varmints. Rove must not have heard that the Senate just apologized for not objecting to the practice of lynching in the old days.

So Rove is saying this about the "Conservatives" (and I apologize to the real conservatives for bringing him up in this context, but he is the one who used these words). He is saying that they don`t indict terrorists or consider them mentally ill. Right?

But wait. Is Rove saying that the Bush administration didn`t prepare any indictments as a reaction to 9/11?

What about this, from former Attorney General John Ashcroft, whom--I believe--George W. Bush appointed?


"This morning, a federal grand jury indictment charging Nuradin M. Abdi, a 32-year-old Somali national, was unsealed in Columbus, Ohio. Abdi was arrested on immigration charges and has been held by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement since November 28, 2003. I note that an indictment is merely an accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty. The charges against Abdi are:

* Conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists;
* Conspiracy to provide material support to al Qaeda; and,
* Two counts of fraud and misuse of documents."



Gee, Rove must have been just furious at Ashcroft. Not only did he deal with Abdi with a mere indictment rather than personally taking him out and putting two bullets behind his ear, but he openly announced that he was presumed innocent!! What a wimp. What a marshmallow. And he calls himself a "Conservative"!

But surely Ashcroft wimped out here because he was just accusing someone of planning a bombing. He`d deal someone who pulled one off differently, right?

Nope. This from 2003:


Attorney General John Ashcroft announced May 15 that a federal grand jury in Manhattan has indicted two Yemeni fugitives for the October 2000 bombing attack on the USS Cole in the harbor of Aden, Yemen, that killed seventeen Americans and wounded more than 40 others.



It is worse. He had to indict them in absentia because the Conservatives hadn`t got them in custody, despite all that rooting around with their shotguns. Hmmm. So Rove all along seethed because he considered Ashcroft a goddamned Liberal.

So the "Conservatives" might have indicted some terrorists instead of just blowing their brains against the Oval Office walls. But surely they didn`t excuse them by saying that they are mentally ill, right? Terrorists like Saddam and Bin Laden are just evil, not insane. Isn`t that the implication?

Oooops. Bush slipped up and said this about his decision to go after Saddam, to the Republican National Committee:

"Do I forget the lessons of Sept. 11th and take the word of a madman, or do I take action to defend our country? Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time."



But he just slipped up once, right? Nope.

Bush liked the line. Put "the word of a madman" and "Bush" into google and see how often it comes up.

George! Say it isn`t so. First the indictments. Now putting Saddam on the couch and calling him a madman. Could it be W. is a closet Liberal?

But then the "Liberals" are unconcerned with terrorism, right? Isn`t that what Rove is saying?

But here is what Ted Kennedy said about his position on the Iraq War:



" I voted against that resolution and war with Iraq because I was not persuaded that Iraq posed an imminent threat to our national security, and because of my belief that war with Iraq, especially without broad international support, would undermine our ability to meet the gravest threat to our national security - terrorism against the United States by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups."



But, the Rove "Conservatives" would say, Kennedy is just a partisan Liberal who won`t give Bush the benefit of the doubt and doesn`t understand the American values that are key to taking on the terrorist threat. Right?

Nope.


"Let me say it plainly: I not only concede, but I am convinced that President Bush believes genuinely in the course he urges upon us. And let me say with the same plainness: Those who agree with that course have an equal obligation – to resist any temptation to convert patriotism into politics. It is possible to love America while concluding that is not now wise to go to war. The standard that should guide us is especially clear when lives are on the line: We must ask what is right for country and not party. That is the true spirit of September 11th — not unthinking unanimity, but a clear-minded unity in our determination to defeat terrorism — to defend our values and the value of life itself."



The little things standing between Karl Rove`s "Conservative" approach to "terrorists" are numbered 4-7. Rove has worked for decades to erase them from the American Constitution. What do you call an American who despises the Constitution?


"Amendment IV

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Amendment VI

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.

Amendment VII

In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise reexamined in any court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

Amendment VIII

Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."



Rove and his un-p.a.t.r.i.o.t. act want to declare some US citizens "enemy combatants" and to get rid of the Bill of Rights in their regard the way the John Travolta character got rid of dead bodies in a vat of acid in Pulp Fiction. As for non-citizens, Rove has declared the Geneva Accords "quaint" and wants an end to international law.

But remember, Rove is neither insane nor a mere criminal. You figure out what he is. But remember that he seems to hate our liberties and way of life.

posted by Juan @ [url6/24/2005 06:33:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/does-karl-rove-hate-our-liberties-and.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

America`s neo-conservative world supremacists will fail

Current US megalomania is rooted in the Puritan colonists` certainties
Eric Hobsbawm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1514315,00.ht…

Saturday June 25, 2005

Guardian
Three continuities link the global US of the cold war era with the attempt to assert world supremacy since 2001. The first is its position of international domination, outside the sphere of influence of communist regimes during the cold war, globally since the collapse of the USSR. This hegemony no longer rests on the sheer size of the US economy. Large though this is, it has declined since 1945 and its relative decline continues. It is no longer the giant of global manufacturing. The centre of the industrialised world is rapidly shifting to the eastern half of Asia. Unlike older imperialist countries, and unlike most other developed industrial countries, the US has ceased to be a net exporter of capital, or indeed the largest player in the international game of buying up or establishing firms in other countries, and the financial strength of the state rests on the continued willingness of others, mostly Asians, to maintain an otherwise intolerable fiscal deficit.

The influence of the American economy today rests largely on the heritage of the cold war: the role of the US dollar as the world currency, the international linkages of US firms established during that era (notably in defence-related industries), the restructuring of international economic transactions and business practices along American lines, often under the auspices of American firms. These are powerful assets, likely to diminish only slowly. On the other hand, as the Iraq war showed, the enormous political influence of the US abroad, based as it was on a genuine "coalition of the willing" against the USSR, has no similar foundation since the fall of the Berlin wall. Only the enormous military-technological power of the US is well beyond challenge. It makes the US today the only power capable of effective military intervention at short notice in any part on the world, and it has twice demonstrated its capacity to win small wars with great rapidity. And yet, as the Iraq war shows, even this unparalleled capacity to destroy is not enough to impose effective control on a resistant country, and even less on the globe. Nevertheless, US dominance is real and the disintegration of the USSR has made it global.

The second element of continuity is the peculiar house-style of US empire, which has always preferred satellite states or protectorates to formal colonies. The expansionism implicit in the name chosen for the 13 independent colonies on the east coast of the Atlantic (United States of America) was continental, not colonial. The later expansionism of "manifest destiny" was both hemispheric and aimed towards East Asia, as well as modelled on the global trading and maritime supremacy of the British Empire. One might even say that in its assertion of total US supremacy over the western hemisphere it was too ambitious to be confined to colonial administration over bits of it.

The American empire thus consisted of technically independent states doing Washington`s bidding, but, given their independence, this required continuous readiness to exert pressure on their governments, including pressure for "regime change"and, where feasible (as in the mini-republics of the Caribbean zone), periodic US armed intervention.

The third thread of continuity links the neo-conservatives of George Bush with the Puritan colonists` certainty of being God`s instrument on earth and with the American Revolution - which, like all major revolutions, developed world-missionary convictions, limited only by the wish to shield the the new society of potentially universal freedom from the corruptions of the unreconstructed old world. The most effective way of finessing this conflict between isolationism and globalism was to be systematically exploited in the 20th century and still serves Washington well in the 21st. It was to discover an alien enemy outside who posed an immediate, mortal threat to the American way of life and the lives of its citizens. The end of the USSR removed the obvious candidate, but by the early 90s another had been detected in a "clash" between the west and other cultures reluctant to accept it, notably Islam. Hence the enormous political potential of the al-Qaida outrages of September 11 was immediately recognised and exploited by the Washington world-dominators.

The first world war, which made the US into a global power, saw the first attempt to translate these world-converting visions into reality, but Woodrow Wilson`s failure was spectacular; perhaps it should be a lesson to the current world-supremacist ideologists in Washington, who, rightly, recognise Wilson as a predecessor. Until the end of the cold war the existence of another superpower imposed limits on them, but the fall of the USSR removed these. Francis Fukuyama prematurely proclaimed "the end of history" - the universal and permanent triumph of the US version of capitalist society. At the same time the military superiority of the US encouraged a disproportionate ambition in a state powerful enough to believe itself capable of world supremacy, as the British Empire in its time never did. And indeed, as the 21st century began, the US occupied a historically unique and unprecedented position of global power and influence. For the time being it is, by the traditional criteria of international politics, the only great power; and certainly the only one whose power and interests span the globe. It towers over all others.

All the great powers and empires of history knew that they were not the only ones, and none was in a position to aim at genuinely global domination. None believed themselves to be invulnerable.

Nevertheless, this does not quite explain the evident megalomania of US policy since a group of Washington insiders decided that September 11 gave them the ideal opportunity for declaring its single-handed domination of the world. For one thing, it lacked the support of the traditional pillars of the post-1945 US empire, the state department, armed services and intelligence establishment, and of the statesmen and ideologists of cold war supremacy - men like Kissinger and Brzezinski. These were people who were as ruthless as the Rumsfelds and Wolfowitzes. (It was in their time that a genocide of Mayas took place in Guatemala in the 1980s.) They had devised and managed a policy of imperial hegemony over the greater part of the globe for two generations, and were perfectly ready to extend it to the entire globe. They were and are critical of the Pentagon planners and neo-conservative world supremacists because these patently have had no concrete ideas at all, except imposing their supremacy single-handed by military force, incidentally jettisoning all the accumulated experience of US diplomacy and military planning. No doubt the debacle of Iraq will confirm them in their scepticism.

Even those who do not share the views of the old generals and proconsuls of the US world empire (which were those of Democratic as well as Republican administrations) will agree that there can be no rational justification of current Washington policy in terms of the interests of America`s imperial ambitions or, for that matter, the global interests of US capitalism.

It may be that it makes sense only in terms of the calculations, electoral or otherwise, of American domestic policy. It may be a symptom of a more profound crisis within US society. It may be that it represents the - one hopes short-lived - colonisation of Washington power by a group of quasi-revolutionary doctrinaires. (At least one passionate ex-Marxist supporter of Bush has told me, only half in jest: "After all, this is the only chance of supporting world revolution that looks like coming my way.") Such questions cannot yet be answered.

It is reasonably certain that the project will fail. However, while it continues, it will go on making the world an intolerable place for those directly exposed to US armed occupation and an unsafer place for the rest of us.

· Eric Hobsbawm is author of The Age of Extremes: The Short 20th Century 1914-1991. This is an edited extract from his preface to a new edition of VG Kiernan`s America: The New Imperialism

[e-mail]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

One miracle too many

The US is a theocracy suffering from galloping spiritual inflation
Mark Lawson
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1514199,00.ht…

Saturday June 25, 2005

Guardian
This weekend in New York, the Rev Billy Graham will hold what is likely to be his final roll call of US souls. Aged 86 and suffering from prostate cancer, Parkinson`s and water on the brain, the preacher will speak from an ingenious pulpit designed to allow him to evangelise in a sitting position.

Graham has told interviewers that his illnesses have not dented his faith and, indeed, he has much reason to believe that all his prayers have been answered. Travelling around the US in the past few days, I was astonished by the extent to which the country seems to have become a theocracy: even beyond the evidence offered six months ago in the re-election of George Bush by the God-fearing.

An evangelical Christian from Texas, John Brown, is reported to be drilling for oil between Haifa and Tel Aviv, having drawn up a map of where the black stuff might be from references in the Old Testament, which he regards as a sort of Da Vinci code for the fuel futures market. "I believe God deposited the vision of oil for Israel in my head," Brown told Newsweek. This scriptural fundamentalism now extends to nutrition: the latest fad of the US fat is the Bible diet, which preaches eating foods referred to in holy verses: honey, locusts, loaves, fishes and so on.

The open religiosity of US society has always been a shock for European visitors, but it feels as if the rhetoric is intensifying monthly in a sort of galloping spiritual inflation. Last week an 11-year-old boy from Utah disappeared during a scout camp. After four days in the wilderness, the child was found, thirsty but perky. It`s true that even British phone-ins in these circumstances would have freely invoked a "miracle", but the public comments of the boy`s relatives and family friends resembled scenes from Iran of the ayatollahs unexpectedly dubbed into American.

His survival was offered as a parable for the nation. "People say that the heavens are closed and that God is not listening," his mother said. "But the heavens are open and He does listen." Another advocate added: "People need to understand that there is a God." Whatever Bible these people read, it obviously excludes the Book of Job which, unlike this new US version of religion, struggles with the greatest challenge to faith: the fact that some (even most) scouts missing in the wild will die, no matter how devout their parents.

Even so, such evidence of deep and simple faith in America should mean that Graham can retire on a high. Most public figures end their life in some kind of failure - politicians are forgotten, entertainers replaced by new waves - but the preacher seems to have won a landslide in his final term. While rival evangelists imploded in sex or financial scandals, Graham remained clean, except for some unfortunate comments about Jews caught on the Nixon tapes.

And yet, in one crucial sense, Graham`s mission has failed. One of his favourite texts as a preacher has been that religion should not be politicised. Since an endorsement of Nixon which he came to regret, Graham has refused to back candidates.

This scrupulous avoidance of politics, however, feels increasingly like the Pontius Pilate book of hygiene. Graham may have declined to come out as a supporter of Bush, but he is more or less his creator. It was the evangelist, as a friend of the first President Bush, who converted the prodigal son of the clan from drink to religion. As Dubya discovered politics shortly after finding God, Graham can`t wash his hands of the question.

And right across the country over which the Rev Graham`s most high-profile convert presides, the preacher`s insistence on keeping politics out of God is ignored. In Florida, one of the Christian lobbyists who fought to reinsert the feeding tube of the brain-damage victim Terri Schiavo has declared that he will run for the state Senate seeking to unseat a Republican who declined to side with the religious right. Politicians who take secular positions are likely to be vulnerable to this religious hit-man tactic in the future.

And the US supreme court is expected to rule next week in a case resulting from a judge`s attempt to display art based on the Ten Commandments in his courtroom: one of many current attempts to overturn the determination of the republic`s founders, as if anticipating their people`s weakness for God, that church and state should remain separated.

This definition of non-Christianity as un-American is also found in last week`s official investigation into the Air Force Academy which found evidence of cadets who refused to attend services being frog-marched back to dormitories in a practice known as "heathen flight".

So perhaps, as Billy Graham sits at his special lectern, calling on New Yorkers to come forward for Jesus, he will wonder whether an America which seems to be the answer to his prayers has in fact sold its soul to the devil.

mailto:[e-mail]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Jaw jaw on just war

Richard Harries
Saturday June 25, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1514165,00.ht…

Guardian
A recent seminar in London drew together Christian just-war theorists from the United States and Britain to discuss the international scene in the light of Christian principles. It worked well because the participants shared a common intellectual framework and the view that, whatever moral judgments may be made about particular wars, the analysis provided by traditional just-war thinking was an indispensable intellectual tool.

Nevertheless, there were strong differences of opinion between the dominant US perspective and the dominant European one, nowhere more marked than in attitudes towards the United Nations.

The first criterion for a war to be regarded as morally justifiable is that it must be declared by a legitimate authority. For most of history, this has been the supreme sovereign. Until 1945, there was no higher sovereignty than the government of a nation state, though, since then, the UN has, in principle, offered such an authority. Article 51 reserves to states the right of self-defence, but wars of intervention must be authorised by the security council.

The dominant American attitude at the London seminar was that the UN was corrupt, ineffective and liable to be manipulated by states hostile to US interests. There were predictions about its total collapse in the review later this year. It was only with difficulty that I extracted from one critic the admission that, on basic Christian just-war principles, even if the present UN is inadequate, there is a moral imperative to create something better and stronger.

The same imperative applies to international law, including the great body of human rights law. Future generations will regard this as one of the great achievements of the postwar world. Again, there is too much cynicism in some quarters - with legality being seen simply in terms of being able to hire the right lawyer - but western civilisation is built on the Christian idea that law must ultimately be our guide in both international and internal affairs.

It is absurd for people to dismiss the UN on the grounds that they should not let what they think is right be determined by the national interests of potentially hostile countries. But the UN is not a platonic idea above the competing interests of nation states. It is an arena in which those interests are tested one against another, with resulting decisions being more likely to be for the common good than the decisions of individual states alone.

Unfortunately, the US national security strategy document of September 2002 suggests that, in future, the overriding consideration should be the US national interest - a view in contrast to the US desire in the immediate postwar world to collaborate with other nations and build stable international institutions.

Some suggest that the continuing European desire for international agreements and institutions, diplomacy and legality, is the expression of weak powers. It may be true that Europe is militarily weak compared with the US, as Robert Kagan argued, and that weaker powers are likely to see such things as more in their interest than superpowers. But such an approach could still be right and wise, and the one most likely to make for a stable international order. The threat of terrorism, for example, is of such a kind as to underline the importance of working with others rather than taking unilateral decisions.

European self-righteousness about this approach is no more attractive than an American sense that they are a chosen nation, beholden to no one. Nevertheless, without any sense of moral superiority, it is right to argue, on rational grounds, for what is likely to work for the common good.

The Christian just-war tradition, however misused, has much accumulated wisdom, not least in reminding us that relationships between states are just as much a matter of morality as relationships between individuals - and that strengthening the UN, and the role of international laws that reflect that moral dimension, is a continuing imperative.

· The Rt Rev Richard Harries is Bishop of Oxford. His most recent books are The Passion In Art and Praying The Eucharist (both 2004)
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Latest Coalition Fatality: Jun 23, 2005
June05: 72




Iraker: Civilian: 384 Police/Mil: 253 Total: 637
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Regelmäßige Updates von Meldungen aus dem Irak:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[SittinBuII]

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/article/articleview/1362/1/1…

[Joerver]

electronicIraq.net

International Law
World Tribunal for Iraq, Culminating Session Testimony
http://electroniciraq.net/news/2020.shtml

Dahr Jamail, Electronic Iraq

25 June 2005

Istanbul, Turkey
25 June 2005

Thank you very much for inviting me to the Culminating Session of the World Tribunal on Iraq. I first went to Iraq in November of 2003 as an American citizen both frustrated and horrified by what my unelected government was doing. I went to report on the situation because I was deeply troubled by the "journalism" being provided by the corporate media. At the time, as a frustrated mountain climber from Alaska working as a journalist in Iraq, I never would have believed I would be providing testimony to the World Tribunal on Iraq. I want to thank the organizers for this opportunity. I am honored to be here in solidarity with the Iraqi people.

In May of 2004 I interviewed a man who had just been released from Abu Ghraib. Like so many I interviewed from various US military detention facilities who`d been tortured horrifically, he still managed to maintain his sense of humor.

He began laughing when telling me how CIA agents made him beat other prisoners. He laughed, he said, because he had been beaten himself prior to this, and was so tired that all he could do to beat other detained Iraqis was lift his arm and let it drop on the other men.

Later, he laughed again as he told me what else had been done to him, when he said, "The Americans brought electricity to my ass before they brought it to my house."

But this testimony is not about the indomitable spirit of the Iraqi people. About the dignity and strength of Iraqis, we need no testimony. This testimony is about ongoing violations of international law being committed by the occupiers of Iraq on a daily basis in regards to rampant torture, the neglect and obstruction of the health care sector and the ongoing failure to allow Iraqis to reconstruct their infrastructure.

To discuss torture, there are many stories I could use here, but I`ll use two examples indicative of scores of others I documented while in Iraq.

Ali Abbas lives in the Al-Amiriyah district of Baghdad and worked in civil administration. So many of his neighbors were detained that friends urged him to go to the nearby US base to try and get answers for why so many innocent people were being detained. He went three times.

On the fourth he was detained himself. Within two days he was transferred from the military base to Abu Ghraib, where he was held over three months without charges before being released.

"The minute I got there, the suffering began," said Abbas about his interrogator, "I asked him for water, and he said after the investigation I would get some. He accused me of so many things and asked me so many questions. Among them he said I hated Christians."

He was forced to strip naked shortly after arriving, and remained that way for most of his stay in the prison. "They made us lay on top of each other naked as if it was sex, and beat us with a broom," he said. In addition to being beaten on their genitals, detainees were also denied water and food for extended periods of time, then were forced to watch as their food was thrown in the trash.

Treatment also included having a loaded gun held to his head to prevent him from crying out in pain as his hand-ties were tightened.

"My hands were enlarged because there was no blood because they cuffed them so tight," he told me, "My head was covered with the sack, and they fastened my right hand to a pole with handcuffs. They made me stand on my toes to clip me to it."

Abbas said soldiers doused him in cold water while holding him under a fan, and oftentimes, "They put on a loudspeaker, put the speakers on my ears and said, "Shut Up, Fuck Fuck Fuck!" In this manner Abbas`s interrogators routinely deprived him of sleep.

Abbas said that at one point, "Two men came, one a foreigner and one a translator. He asked me who I was. I said I`m a human being. They told me, `We are going to cut your head off and send you to hell. We will take you to Guantanamo.`"

A female soldier told him, "Our aim is to put you in hell so you will tell the truth. These are the orders we have from our superiors, to turn your lives into hell."

Abbas added, "They shit on us, used dogs against us, used electricity and starved us."

He told me, "Saddam Hussein used to have people like those who tortured us. Why do they put Saddam into trial, but they do not put the Americans to trial?"

But unlike Saddam Hussein, the US interrogators also desecrated Islam as part of their humiliation.

Abbas was made to fast during the first day of Eid, the breaking of the fast of Ramadan, which is haram (forbidden).

Sometimes at night when he would read his Koran, Abbas had to hold it in the hallway for light. "Soldiers would walk by and kick the Holy Koran, and sometimes they would try to piss on it or wipe shit on it," he said.

Abbas did not feel this was the work of a few individual soldiers. "This was organized, it wasn`t just individuals, and every one of the troops in Abu Ghraib was responsible for it."

Accounts by human rights groups support this. According to an April 2005 Human Rights Watch report, "Abu Ghraib was only the tip of the iceberg, it`s now clear that abuse of detainees has happened all over--from Afghanistan to Guantánamo Bay to a lot of third-country dungeons where the United States has sent prisoners. And probably quite a few other places we don`t even know about."

The report adds, "Harsh and coercive interrogation techniques such as subjecting detainees to painful stress positions and extended sleep deprivation have been routinely used in detention centers throughout Iraq. An ICRC report concluded that in military intelligence sections of Abu Ghraib, `methods of physical and psychological coercion used by the interrogators appeared to be part of the standard operating procedures by military intelligence personnel to obtain confessions and extract information.`"

Amnesty International has also released similar findings.

Other human rights groups report that US military doctors, nurses, and medics have been complicit in torture and other illegal procedures such as those administered to Sadiq Zoman.

55 year-old Zoman, detained from his home in Kirkuk in a raid by US soldiers that produced no weapons, was taken to a police office in Kirkuk, to the Kirkuk Airport Detention Center, the Tikrit Airport Detention Center and finally to the 28th Combat Support Hospital, where he was treated by Dr. Michael Hodges, a Lt. Col.

Lt. Col. Hodges` medical report listed Zoman`s primary condition as hypoxic brain injury (brain damage caused by lack of oxygen) "with persistent vegetative state," myocardial infarction (heart attack), and heat stroke."

After one month in custody, Zoman was dropped off in a coma at the General Hospital in Tikrit by US soldiers. Zoman`s last name was listed as his first name on the report, despite the fact that all of his identification papers were taken during the raid on his home. Because of this, it took his desperate family weeks to locate him in the hospital.

Hodges`s medical report did not mention the fact that the back of Zomans` head was bashed in, nor that he had electrical burn marks on the bottoms of his feet and genitals, or why he had lash marks across his back and chest.

Today he lies in bed still in a coma, and there has been no compensation provided to his now impoverished family for what was done to Sadiq Zoman.

Another aspect I shall discuss is the catastrophic situation of the health system in Iraq. I`ve recently released a report on the condition of Iraq`s hospitals under occupation.

Although the Iraq Ministry of Health has supposedly gained its sovereignty and received promises of over $1 Billion of US funding, hospitals in Iraq continue to face ongoing medicine, equipment, and staffing shortages under the US-led occupation.

During the 1990`s, medical supplies and equipment were constantly in short supply because of the sanctions against Iraq. The war and occupation brought promises of relief from effects of the sanctions, yet hospitals have had little chance to recover and re-supply: instead, the occupation has closely resembled a low-grade war since its inception. In addition, allocation of resources by occupation authorities has been dismal. Thus, throughout Baghdad there are ongoing shortages of functional equipment and medicines of even the most basic items such as analgesics, antibiotics, anesthetics and insulin. Surgical items and even basic supplies like rubber gloves, gauze and medical tape are running out.

In April 2004, an ICRC report stated that hospitals in Iraq are overwhelmed with new patients, short of medicine and supplies and lack both adequate electricity and water, with ongoing bloodshed stretching the hospitals` already meager resources to the limit.

Ample testimony from medical practitioners confirms this crisis. A general practitioner at the prosthetics workshop at Al-Kena Hospital in Baghdad, Dr. Thamiz Aziz Abul Rahman, said, "Eleven months ago we submitted an emergency order for prosthetic materials to the Ministry of Health, and still we have nothing." After a pause he added, "This is worse than even during the sanctions."

Dr. Qasim al-Nuwesri, the chief manager at Chuwader General Hospital, one of the two hospitals in the sprawling slum area of Sadr City, Baghdad and home to 3 million people, added that they, too, faced a shortage of most supplies and, most critically, of ambulances. But for his hospital, the lack of potable water was the major problem. "Of course we have typhoid, cholera, kidney stones...but we now even have the very rare Hepatitis Type-E...and it has become common in our area," said al-Nuwesri, adding that they never faced these problems prior to the invasion of 2003.

Chuwader hospital needs at least 2000 liters of water per day to function with basic sterilization practices. According to Dr. al-Nuwesri, they received 15% of this amount. "The rest of the water is contaminated and causing problems, as are the electricity cuts," added al-Nuwesri, "Without electricity our instruments in the operating room cannot work and we have no pumps to bring us water."

At Fallujah General Hospital, Dr. Ahmed, who asked that only his first name be used because he feared US military reprisals said of the April 2004 siege that "the Americans shot out the lights in the front of our hospital. They prevented doctors from reaching the emergency unit at the hospital, and we quickly began to run out of supplies and much needed medications." He also said that Marines kept the physicians in the residence building several times, intentionally prohibiting them from entering the hospital in order to treat patients.

In November, shortly after leveling Nazzal Emergency Hospital, US forces entered Fallujah General Hospital, the city`s only healthcare facility for trauma victims, detaining employees and patients alike. According to medics on the scene, water and electricity were "cut off," ambulances targeted or confiscated by the US military, and surgeons, without exception, kept out of the besieged city.

Hospital raids by US military and US-backed Iraqi forces now appear to be standard operating procedure. On the 18th of this month, doctors at the main hospital in Baquba went on strike, saying they are fed up with constant abuse at the hands of aggressive Iraqi police and soldiers.

Dr. Mohammed Hazim in Baquba, pleaded for his governor to protect he and his colleagues from "organized terrorism of the police and army."

When wounded Iraqi security forces showed up demanding treatment, Dr. Hussein told one of them he would require an x-ray. The doctor was told to go to hell by the policeman he was treating and was then beaten. The same policeman then ordered another police officer to put a bag over the doctor`s head and take him away.

"Our security guards tried to stop them, telling them I was a doctor, but they didn`t listen and beat the security guards too," he said, "Then one of them put a gun to my head and threatened me."

Similar behavior has been reported during the recent US-Iraqi military operations in Haditha and Al-Qa`im. Doctors also recently went on strike at the large Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad in a very similar incident.

Many doctors in Iraq believe that the lack of assistance, if not outright hostility, by the US military, coupled with the lack of rebuilding and reconstruction by foreign contractors has compounded the problems they are facing.

The former ambassador of Iraq Paul Bremer admitted that US led coalition spending on the Iraqi Health system was inadequate when he said, "It`s not nearly enough to cover the needs in the healthcare field."

When asked if his hospital had received assistance from the US military or reconstruction contractors, Dr. Sarmad Raheem, the administrator of chief doctors at Al-Kerkh Hospital in Baghdad said, "Never ever. Some soldiers came here five months ago and asked what we needed. We told them and they never brought us one single needle...We heard that some people from the CPA came here, but they never did anything for us."

At Fallujah General Hospital, Dr. Mohammed said there has been virtually no assistance from foreign contractors, and of the US military he commented, "They send only bombs, not medicine."

International aid has been stymied by the horrendous security situation in Iraq. After the UN headquarters was bombed in Baghdad in August 2003, killing 20 people, aid agencies and NGOs either reduced their staffing or pulled out entirely.

With senior Iraqi doctors fleeing Iraq en masse for fear of being kidnapped, interns and younger doctors are left to deal with the catastrophic situation. The World Health Organization last year warned of a health emergency in Baghdad, as well as throughout Iraq if current conditions persist. But despite claims from the Ministry of Health of more drugs, better equipment, and generalized improvement, doctors on the ground still see "no such improvement."

In conclusion, a quick summary of the overall situation on the ground in Iraq is in order. Over two years into the illegal occupation, while Iraq sits upon a sea of oil, ongoing gasoline shortages plague Iraqis who sometimes wait 2 days to fill their cars. In a country where a long gas line once meant a one-car wait, Iraqis who are lucky enough to afford it now purchase black market petrol and hope that it is not watered down.

Electricity remains in short supply. Most of Iraq, including the northern region, receives on average 3 hours of electricity per day amidst the nearly non-existent reconstruction efforts. Even the better areas of Baghdad receive only 6-8 hours per day, forcing those who can afford them to use small generators to run fans and refrigerators in their homes. Of course, this is only for those who`ve been able to obtain the now rarefied gasoline.

The security situation is, needless to say, horrendous. With over 100,000 Iraqis killed thus far and the number of US soldiers killed approaching 2,000, the violence only continues to escalate.

Since the new Iraqi so-called government was sworn in two months ago, well over 1,000 Iraqis and over 165 US soldiers have died in the violence. These numbers will only continue to escalate as the failed occupation grinds on. As the heavy handed tactics of the US military persist, the Iraqi resistance continues to grow in its number and lethality.

As I mentioned before, potable water remains in short supply. Cholera, typhoid and other water-borne diseases are rampant even in parts of the capital city as lack of reconstruction continues to plague Iraq`s infrastructure. Raw sewage is common across not just Baghdad, but other cities throughout Iraq.

With 70% unemployment, a growing resistance and an infrastructure in shambles, the future for Iraq remains bleak as long as the failed occupation persists. While the Bush Administration continues to disregard calls for a timetable for withdrawal, Iraqis continue to suffer and die with little hope for their future. With each passing day, the catastrophe in Iraq resembles the US debacle in Vietnam more and more.

Dr. Wamid Omar Nadhmi, a senior political scientist at Baghdad University who was invited to this tribunal, told me last winter, "It will take Iraqis something like a quarter of a century to rebuild their country, to heal their wounds, to reform their society, to bring about some sort of national reconciliation, democracy and tolerance of each other. But that process will not begin until the US occupation of Iraq ends."

And it is now exceedingly clear that the only way the Bush Administration will withdraw the US military from Iraq in order for Iraqis to have true sovereignty is if they are forced to do so.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Recruiting poster from [urlpowerlineblog.com]http://powerlineblog.com/[/url]

[Joerver]

Is Dick Cheney the New `Baghdad Bob`?
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissu…

Is it just me, or is Vice President Cheney, who repeated Thursday that the Iraq insurgency is in its final throes, starting to sound like former Saddam spokesman, "Baghdad Bob"? Is it time to start calling him "D.C. Dick"?

By Greg Mitchell

(June 24, 2005) -- Is it just me, or is Vice President Cheney starting to sound like another balding, rose-colored-glasses wearing, war spokesman, Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf, better known as “Baghdad Bob”?

Yesterday, after a week of serious criticism, for claiming that the insurgency in Iraq was in its “last throes,” Cheney refused to back down, even after Gen. John Abizaid, our top military commander for the Middle East, proclaimed that the insurgency, in fact, was as strong as ever, and “a lot of work” remained to be done to defeat it. Earlier this week, GOP Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska had said he was sick of sunny assertions about the war from the White House, and declared that the U.S. indeed might be losing, not on the edge of victory.

Yet Cheney said on Thursday, “If you look at what the dictionary says about `throes,` it can still be a violent period.” He compared this time to the end of World War II when tough battles “occurred just a few months before the end. I see this as a similar situation.” Give this man a beret!

Is it time to start calling him "D.C. Dick"? Or "Baghdad Dick"? Or perhaps "Bunker Bob"?

Baghdad Bob, of course, was Saddam Hussein`s minister of information, later immortalized on t-shirts, Web sites and even a DVD for his optimistic, if fanciful, statements about Iraq`s triumph over the American infidels, right up to the point his boss left the building. Baghdad Bob somehow survived and later worked as an Arab TV commentator, sans trademark beret (although he now seems to have inhabited our vice president`s body).

Here are a few Baghdad Bob classics from the spring of 2003 (courtesy of one of his Web faux-shrines, We Love the Iraqi Information Minister). See if you can imagine them coming out of the mouth of our vice president speaking to the press today.

*****

"No, I am not scared, and neither should you be."

"Be assured: Baghdad is safe, protected."

"We are in control, they are not in control of anything, they don`t even control themselves!"

"The battle is very fierce and God will make us victorious."

"They think that by killing civilians and trying to distort the feelings of the people they will win."

"I blame Al-Jazeera."

"Those are not Iraqis at all. Where did they bring them from?"

"I can assure you that those villains will recognize in the future how they are pretending things which have never taken place."

"I would like to clarify a simple fact here: How can you lay siege to a whole country? Who is really under siege now?"

"We`re giving them a real lesson today. Heavy doesn`t accurately describe the level of casualties we have inflicted."

"The American press is all about lies! All they tell is lies, lies, and more lies!"

"They are becoming hysterical. This is the result of frustration."

"I speak better English than Bush."

"Just look carefully, I only want you to look carefully. Do not repeat the lies of liars. Do not become like them."

"The United Nations...it is all their fault."

"Even those who live on another planet, if there are such people, would condemn them."

"This is unbiased: They are retreating on all fronts. Their effort is a subject of laughter throughout the world."

"The force that was near the airport, this force was destroyed."

"They are achieving nothing. Our estimates are that none of them will come out alive unless they surrender to us quickly."

"They hold no place in Iraq. This is an illusion."

"Once again, I blame al-Jazeera. Please, make sure of what you say and do not play such a role."

"Most of you probably saw the movie `Wag the Dog`. I hope you remember it."

"These cowards have no morals. They have no shame about lying."

"You can go and visit those places. Everything is okay. They are not in Najaf. They are nowhere. They are on the moon."

"Rumsfeld, he needs to be hit on the head."
Greg Mitchell ([e-mail]) is editor of E&P.



[e-mail]
mailto:[e-mail]


Find this article at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/pressingissu…

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Das Gipfeltreffen der G8: Zirkus und Betrug
von John Pilger
http://www.zmag.de/artikel.php?id=1460&PHPSESSID=f27d1b01019…
http://www.newstatesman.com/200506270006

24.06.2005

Die Schlagzeile des London Observer vom 12. Juni lautete: "Der Schuldendeal über 55 Milliarden mit Afrika (wird) ein `Sieg für Millionen`". "Sieg für Millionen" ist ein Geldof-Zitat. Bob Geldof sagt: "Wenn morgen 280 Millionen Afrikaner erwachen, sind sie zum erstenmal in ihrem Leben weder dir noch mir einen Penny schuldig..." Nichts als atemberaubender Schwachsinn. Dabei hat es den Lesern schon längst den Atem verschlagen - angesichts der impertinenten Sophisterei von Leuten wie Geldof, Bono, Blair oder von Blättern wie dem Observer.

Die afrikanische Tragödie und die imperialistische Plünderung des Kontinents werden zu einer Zirkuskomödie gemacht. Nutznießer dieses Zirkus sind die sogenannten G8-Führer, die sich nächsten Monat in Schottland treffen. Ein Zirkus ist es aber auch für jene unter uns, die nichts dagegen haben, sich von den Marktschreiern des Spektakels (den etablierten Medien und deren "gefeierten Stars") ablenken zu lassen. Es wird die Illusion erzeugt, die Popstars führten einen Kreuzzug gegen das Establishment an - eine kultivierte und kontrollierte Rebellion. Diese Illusion soll unsere große, zornige, politische Bewegung verwässern. Ein G8-Gipfel nach dem andern, und nicht eines der maßgeblichen "Versprechen" wurde eingelöst. Genauso wird es auch dem "Sieg für Millionen" ergehen. Alles Betrug - im Endeffekt sogar ein Rückschritt für die Armutsbekämpfung in Afrika. Das "Paket" wird eng gekoppelt sein an jene üblen, in Misskredit geratenen Wirtschaftsprogramme von Weltbank und Internationalem Währungsfonds. Das Paket wird dafür sorgen, dass die "auserwählten" Länder noch tiefer in die Armut abgleiten.

Kein Wunder, dass Blair und Schatzkanzler Gordon Brown den Deal unterstützen, ebenso George Bush. Selbst im Weißen Haus wird von einem "Meilenstein" gesprochen. Im Grunde ist das Ganze nur eine willkommene Fassade für sie - und die Naiven, die Berühmten und die Ahnungslosen sorgen für die Aufrechterhaltung dieser Fassade. Nachdem er ausführlich über Blair schwadroniert hatte, beschrieb Bob Geldof George Bush als "leidenschaftlich und ehrlich", wo es um die Bekämpfung der Armut geht. Bono nennt Blair und Brown Zwei wie "John (Lennon) und Paul (McCartney) auf der Bühne der globalen Entwicklung". Hinter den Kulissen dieser Bühne gelingt es einer Raubmacht, das Leben von Millionen Menschen im Interesse der totalitären Konzernen "umzuorganisieren" - damit die Konzerne die Kontrolle über die Weltressourcen erlangen.

Keine Verschwörung. Das Ziel ist nicht geheim. Gordon Brown gesteht es in jeder seiner Reden ein. Allerdings pflegt der liberale Journalismus die Sache zu ignorieren und zieht die Spin-Version vor. Auch das Kommunique der G8, das den angeblichen "Sieg für Millionen" ankündigt, lässt an Deutlichkeit nichts zu wünschen übrig. In einem Abschnitt des Kommuniques, mit der Überschrift `Vorschläge der G8 zur Streichung von HIPC-Schulden`, heißt es, der Schuldenerlass solle armen Ländern nur unter der Bedingung gewährt werden, dass sie "diese Summe an die an sie fließenden Bruttohilfen anpassen". Mit anderen Worten, die erlassenen Schulden werden mit der Entwicklungshilfe verrechnet und zwar Eins zu Eins. Die armen Länder gewinnen also nichts. In Paragraph 2 heißt es, "es ist unabdingbar", dass die armen Länder "die Entwicklung des privaten Sektors vorantreiben". Sie hätten sicherzustellen, dass "Hindernisse für inländische und ausländische Privatinvestitionen aus dem Weg geräumt werden".

Die Summe von "55 Milliarden", die der Observer nennt, dürfte sich in Wirklichkeit auf kaum 1 Milliarde belaufen - für 18 Länder. Und mit an Sicherheit grenzender Wahrscheinlichkeit wird diese Summe nochmals halbiert werden. Was anschließend herauskommt, ist ein Betrag, der niedriger sein wird als die Schuldenrückzahlungen von 6 Tagen. Zu der Halbierung wird es vermutlich aus folgendem Grund kommen: Blair und Brown wollen, dass der IWF seinen Anteil an der "Hilfe" über eine Neubewertung der eigenen (gewaltigen) Goldreserven finanziert. Der "leidenschaftliche und ehrliche" Bush hingegen lehnt ab. Zwei Tatsachen werden in diesem Zusammenhang verschwiegen. Erstens, dieses Gold wurde einst aus Afrika geraubt. Die zweite unausgesprochene Tatsache: Ab kommendem Jahr sollen die Schuldenrückzahlungen massiv angehoben werden, bis 2015 auf mehr als das Doppelte. "Kein Sieg für Millionen" also, vielmehr der Tod von Millionen.

Derzeit kommen auf jeden Dollar Afrika-"Hilfe" 3 Dollar, die dem Kontinent durch westliche Banken, Regierungen und Institutionen entzogen werden (ganz zu schweigen von den Profiten transnationaler Konzerne, die zurück ins Mutterland fließen). Beispiel Kongo. Der Kongo ist ein extrem verarmtes Land - aber reich an Mineralien. Die Ausbeutung des Kongo liegt in der Hand von 32 Konzernen, alle aus G8-Ländern. Im "Verlauf" eines zweihundertjährigen Imperialismus verloren im Kongo mehrere Millionen Menschen ihr Leben. Zweites Beispiel, die Elfenbeinküste. In diesem Land kontrollieren 3 G8-Unternehmen 95% des Kakaoexports und der -verarbeitung. Kakao ist die wichtigste Ressource des Landes. Drittes Beispiel: Mozambique. Das Bruttosozialprodukt des Landes liegt um 1/3 niedriger als zum Beispiel die Profite der in Afrika seit langem agierenden britischen Firma Unilever. Viertes Beispiel: Südafrika, wo der berüchtigte Genkonzern Monsanto, mit Sitz in den USA, 52% der Futtermaisproduktion kontrolliert.

Nein, Blair schert sich einen Dreck um die Menschen in Afrika. Ian Taylor, von der University of St Andrews, fand - unter dem Freedom of Information Act - heraus, dass Blair zwar öffentlich davon spricht, "Armut Geschichte" machen zu wollen, gleichzeitig baut seine Regierung heimlich Stellen in der Afrikaadministration ab, und sein Entwicklungshilfeministerium, das "Department for International Development" (DfID), setzt in Ghana heimlich und durch die Hintertür die Wasserprivatisierung durch. Nutznießer sind britische Investoren. Das DfID erhält seine Befehle von der internen "Business Partnership Unit". Deren Aufgabe ist es, "Wege zu finden, wie das DfID ein positives Umfeld für produktive Auslandsinvestitionen schaffen" kann "und einen Beitrag für den Finanzsektor leisten".

Und was ist mit der Bekämpfung der Armut? Nichts - natürlich. Das Ganze ist eine Charade zur Förderung unserer modernen Imperialideologie - `Neoliberalismus` genannt. Leider wird darüber in dieser Form nur selten berichtet, keine Verbindungen hergestellt. In derselben Ausgabe des Observer, in der der "Sieg für Millionen" verkündet wurde, war auch ein Artikel über britische Waffenverkäufe nach Afrika zu lesen. Diese Waffenverkäufe hätten inzwischen die Milliarden-Schwelle überschritten. Ein guter Kunde in Afrika für unsere britischen Waffen ist Malawi - ein Staat, der mehr für seine Schulden aufbringt als für seinen Gesundheitssektor. Dabei sind 15% der Bevölkerung HIV-positiv. Gordon Brown nennt Malawi gern als Beispiel, "warum wir Armut Geschichte machen sollten". Aber Malawi wird keinen Penny vom Schuldenerlass des "Siegs für Millionen" sehen.

Das Ganze ist eine Charade - ein Geschenk an Blair, der alles unternimmt, damit die Öffentlichkeit "einen Schritt nach vorne tut". Noch ein Punkt, über den nicht gesprochen wird: Blairs Verwicklung in den größten Politskandal in moderner Zeit - sein Verbrechen im Irak. Blair ist in erster Linie Opportunist, das beweisen seine Lügen. Aber er präsentiert sich auch gerne mal als guter Imperialist, als eine Art Rudyard Kipling (Autor des `Dschungelbuchs` - Anmerkung d. Übersetzerin). Blairs "Vision für Afrika" ist ausbeuterisch und von oben herab. Es ist eine Bühne, auf der weiße Popstars tanzen (und neuerdings auch ein paar schwarze Vorzeigeeinsprengsel). Blair klang geradezu messianisch, als er davon sprach, "das Kaleidoskop" gewisser Gesellschaften (Gesellschaften, von denen er so gut wie keine Ahnung hat) "zu schütteln" und "zuzuschauen, wie die Stücke (an ihren neuen Platz) fallen". Bislang lief dieses Schütteln auf 7 gewaltsame Auslandsinterventionen hinaus - mehr, als jeder andere britische Premier in den letzten 50 Jahre vorzuweisen hat. Und Bob Geldof, der zum Ritter geschlagene Ire, schweigt.

Die Demonstranten beim G8-Gipfel in Gleneagles sollten sich von dem ganzen Zirkus nicht beirren lassen. `Direkte Aktion` funktioniert - das beweisen die mächtigen Volksbewegungen Lateinamerikas, die sich gegen die `total locura capitalista` (den totalen kapitalistischen Irrsinn) wenden. Diese Bewegungen können uns eine Quelle der Inspiration sein. Sehen Sie sich nur Bolivien an, das ärmste Land Lateinamerikas, wo gerade eine indigene Bewegung Blairs und Bushs Konzernkumpels in die Flucht schlägt. Oder schauen Sie auf Venezuela - das einzige Land auf Erden, in dem der Ölreichtum der Mehrheit zugute kommt. Schauen Sie auf Uruguay und Argentinien, Ecuador, Peru, auf die Landlosenbewegung Brasiliens. Überall in Lateinamerika erheben sich die einfachen Leute, sie wehren sich gegen die alte (von Washington gesponserte) Ordnung. "Que se vayan todos!" (raus mit ihnen allen) rufen die Massen auf den Straßen.

Die Propaganda, die bei uns Nachrichten heißt, verfolgt häufig das Ziel, die Menschen zu pazifizieren und ruhigzustellen. Sie sollen gar nicht erst auf die Idee kommen, sich mit den Mächtigen anzulegen. In dieselbe Kerbe schlägt dieses ganze Gebrabbel von `Europa`, das für keinen Journalisten einen Sinn ergibt. Die "Nein"-Entscheidungen der Franzosen und Holländer sind Teil der Bewegung - das heißt, Teil jener Bewegung, die wir in Lateinamerika sehen. Mit dieser Bewegung kehrt die Demokratie dahin zurück, wohin sie gehört: Die Mächtigen müssen dem Volk - nicht etwa dem "freien Markt" oder der Kriegspolitik wildgewordener Schläger - Rechenschaft ablegen. Und das ist erst der Anfang.

Erstabdruck in [urlThe New Statesman]http://www.newstatesman.co.uk/[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Ich hatte heute im Guardian einen Artikel von Hobsbawm gelesen #29484 oder http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1514315,00.ht…. Der Artikel enthielt einiges, was ich auch immer wieder thematisiere.
Daher habe ich nochmal gegoogelt und folgenden Artikel gefunden. Es gibt auch noch ein Zeit Interview, aber alles älter.

Die gefährlichsten Ideen der Welt. Von Eric J. Hobsbawm / The World`s Most Dangerous Ideas. By Eric J. Hobsbawm

Im Folgenden dokumentieren wir einen Beitrag, den der Nestor der Sozialgeschichtsschreibung, Eric Hobsbawm, in der Zeitschrift "Foreign Policy" (Oktober/November 2004) veröffentlichte. Zunächst in einer von uns besorgten Übersetzung, anschließend im englischen Original.


Die Ausbreitung der Demokratie
Die gefährlichsten Ideen der Welt.
http://www.uni-kassel.de/fb5/frieden/themen/Weltordnung/hobs…
Von Eric J. Hobsbawm

Wir sind gegenwärtig Zeuge einer scheinbar geplanten Neuordnung der Welt durch die mächtigsten Staaten. Die Kriege in Irak und Afghanistan sind immerhin Teil eines vermutlich allgemeinen Versuchs, die Weltordnung durch die "Ausbreitung der Demokratie" zu schaffen. Diese Idee ist nicht nur eine Don Quijoterie - sie ist auch gefährlich. Die Rhetorik, die diesen Kreuzzug begleitet, impliziert, dass dieses System in seiner standardisierten (westlichen) Form übertragbar ist, dass es überall erfolgreich sein kann, dass es die heutigen transnationalen Probleme beseitigt und dass es eher Frieden bringen als Unordnung sähen kann. Kann es aber nicht.

Demokratie ist recht populär. 1647 verbreiteten die Levellers in England die einflussreiche Idee, wonach "die Regierungsmacht auf der freien Einwilligung des Volks" beruhen müsse. Sie forderten das Stimmrecht für Alle. Natürlich garantiert das allgemeine Wahlrecht noch kein besonderes politisches Ergebnis und Wahlen können nicht einmal ihre eigene Fortsetzung sicherstellen - siehe Weimarer Republik. Es ist auch unwahrscheinlich, dass demokratische Wahlen Ergebnisse hervorbringen, die Hegemonial- oder imperialen Mächten genehm sind. (Wenn der Irakkrieg abhängig gemacht worden wäre vom freien Willen der "Weltgemeinschaft", hätte er nicht stattgefunden.) Doch diese Ungewissheiten mindern nicht die Anziehungskraft demokratischer Wahlen.

Neben der Popularität der Demokratie gibt es noch mehrere andere Faktoren, die den gefährlichen und íllusionären Glauben nähren, Demokratie sei durch die Propagierung fremder Armeen wirklich herstellbar. Die Globalisierung unterstellt, dass sich die menschlichen Verhältnisse in Richtung eines universellen Musters bewegen. Wenn Tankstellen, iPods und Computer-Freaks sich auf der ganzen Welt gleichen, warum dann nicht auch die politischen Institutionen? Diese Sichtweise unterschätzt die Komplexität der Welt. Auch der Rückfall in Blutvergießen und Anarchie, der uns in vielen Weltteilen begegnet, hat den Gedanken an eine neue Weltordnung attraktiver gemacht. Der Balkan schien gezeigt zu haben, dass Regionen des Aufruhrs und der humanitären Katastrophen der - wenn nötig: militärischen - Intervention starker und stabiler Staaten bedürfen. Da eine wirksame internationale Regierungsgewalt nicht existiert, sind manche Menschenfreunde sogar bereit eine Weltordnung zu unterstützen, die von den US-Macht getragen wird. Doch man sollte immer misstrauisch sein, wenn Militärmächte vorgeben Gutes für ihre Opfer und die Welt zu tun, indem sie schwächere Staaten besiegen und besetzen.

Doch ein anderer Faktor ist vielleicht am wichtigsten: Die Vereinigten Staaten haben sich zu einer unausweichlichen Kombination aus Größenwahn und Messianismus entschlossen, die beide in ihren revolutionären Ursprüngen angelegt waren. Heute sind die Vereinigten Staaten unerreichbar in ihrer techno-militärischen Vorherrschaft, überzeugt von der Überlegenheit ihres Gesellschaftssystems und - seit 1989 - fernab von jeglichem Gedanken - den selbst die größten Weltmächte immer noch hatten -, dass ihre materielle Macht begrenzt sei. Wie Präsident Wilson (ein auf spektakuläre Weise gescheiterter Politiker in seiner Zeit) sehen moderne Ideologen in den Vereinigten Staaten eine vorbildliche Gesellschaft verwirklicht: eine Kombination aus Recht, liberalen Freiheiten, freiem Wettbewerb privater Unternehmen und mit festen Regeln versehene Wahlkämpfe mit allgemeinem Wahlrecht. Worauf es nur noch ankäme, sei die Wiederherstellung der Welt nach dem Vorbild dieser "freien Gesellschaft".

Diese Vorstellung ist gefährlich wie das Stochern im Nebel. Auch wenn die Aktion einer Großmacht moralisch oder politisch wünschbare Folgen haben mag, ist es verhängnisvoll, sich mit ihr zu identifizieren, denn die Logik und die Methoden der Staatsaktion sind nicht im Einklang mit dem universellen Recht. Alle etablierten Staaten stellen ihre eigenen Interessen voran. Wenn sie über die Macht verfügen und ein ausreichend "vitales" Ziel haben, rechtfertigen die Staaten (allerdings selten öffentlich) auch die Mittel. die zur Erreichung des Ziels eingesetzt werden - insbesondere wenn sie der Meinung sind, dass Gott auf ihrer Seite ist. Sowohl gute als auch böse Imperien haben die Barbarisierung unserer Epoche hervorgebracht, welcher der "Krieg gegen den Terrorismus" nun Tribut zollt.

Indem die Unverletzlichkeit universeller Werte bedroht wird, wird die Kampagne zur Verbreitung der Demokratie zu keinem Erfolg führen. Das 20. Jahrhundert hat gezeigt, dass die Staaten weder einfach eine neue Welt hervorbringen noch historische Transformationen abkürzen konnten. Auch können sie nicht einfach sozialen Wandel dadurch bewerkstelligen, dass Institutionen exportiert werden. Selbst innerhalb der Schranken nationaler Territorialstaaten sind die Voraussetzungen für eine wirkungsvolle demokratische Regierung dünn gesät: Ein Staat muss über Legitimität, Konsens und die Fähigkeit zur Konfliktschlichtung zwischen Interessengruppen verfügen. Ohne diesen Konsens gibt es kein souveräne Bevölkerung und daher auch keine Legitimität für rechnerische Mehrheiten. Fehlt dieser Konsens - sei er religiös, ethnisch oder beides -, so gibt es auch keine Demokratie (das ist z.B. der Fall mit den demokratischen Institutionen in Nordirland), oder der Staat ist gespalten (wie in der Tschechoslowakei), oder die Gesellschaft gleitet ab in einen permanenten Bürgerkrieg (wie in Sri Lanka). Sowohl nach 1918 als auch nach 1945 verschlimmerte die "Ausbreitung der Demokratie" ethnische Konflikte und führte zur Desintegration von Staaten in multinationalen und stark kommunalisierten Regionen - eine trostlose Aussicht.

Unabhängig von der geringen Erfolgschance leidet das Vorhaben, westliche demokratische Standards zu verbreiten, unter einem grundlegenden Paradox. Es wird überwiegend als Schlüssel zur Lösung der bedrohlichen transnationalen Probleme von heute aufgefasst. Ein immer größerer Teil des menschlichen Lebens entzieht sich dem Einfluss der Wähler: in transnationalen öffentlichen oder privaten Organisationen, die keine Wahlen oder zumindest keine demokratischen Wahlen kennen. Und Wahldemokratie kann außerhalb von politischen Einheiten wie den Nationalstaaten nicht wirksam funktionieren. Daher versuchen die mächtigen Staaten ein System zu verbreiten, von dem sie sogar selbst finden, dass es den aktuellen Herausforderungen nicht gerecht wird.

Europa ist der schlagende Beweis. Eine Organisation wie die Europäische Union (EU) könnte sich gut zu einer mächtigen und wirksamen Struktur hin entwickeln, weil sie - mit Ausnahme einer kleinen (wenn auch wachsenden) Zahl von Mitgliedsregierungen - keinen Wahlkörper hat. Ohne ihren demokratischen Mangel gäbe es die EU gar nicht und das Europäische Parlament hat auch keine Zukunft, weil es kein "Europäisches Volk" hat, sondern nur eine Ansammlung von Mitgliedsvölkern, von denen nicht einmal die Hälfte sich bei der EU-Wahl 2004 zur Wahl hinbemüht hat. "Europa" ist heute eine funktionierende Einheit, aber anders als die Mitglieder genießt es weder Legitimation in der Bevölkerung noch aus Wahlen hervorgehende Autorität. Von daher ist es keine Überraschung, dass immer dann Probleme auftauchten, wenn die EU die Basis der Verhandlungen zwischen Regierungen verlassen hat und zum Gegenstand demokratischer Kampagnen in den Mitgliedsstaaten wurde.

Der Versuch Demokratie zu verbreitern ist also in einem eher indirekten Sinn gefährlich: Er vermittelt jenen, die diese Form des Regierens nicht gut finden, die Illusion, dass sie es sind, die über jene regieren, die in Wahrheit regieren. Aber ist das denn so? Wir wissen heute einiges darüber, wie die tatsächlichen Entscheidungen für den Irakkrieg in mindestens zwei Staaten mit zweifellos echten Demokratien gefallen sind: in den Vereinigten Staaten und Großbritannien. Wahldemokratie und Abgeordnetenhäuser hatten mit diesem Entscheidungsprozess wenig zu tun - außer dass sie vielfältige Probleme aus Lüge und Verheimlichung hervorgebracht haben. Entscheidungen wurden in kleinen Gruppen vertraulich getroffen, nicht viel anders als in nicht-demokratischen Ländern. Glücklicherweise konnten die unabhängigen Medien in Großbritannien nicht so leicht umgangen werden. Aber es ist nicht die Wählerdemokratie, die notwendigerweise eine wirksame Pressefreiheit, Bürgerrechte und die Unabhängigkeit der Justiz sichert.

Aus dem Englischen: Peter Strutynski

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[SittinBuII]

24499: Der ganze Artikel ist ...

Erstens: Es gibt keine Demokratie. Ein herrschendes Volk ist ein innerer Widerspruch. Man kann nur Vertreter wählen, und diese haben immer andere Interessen als das Volk. Außerdem kann man nicht wirklich wählen, weil sich alles dem Kapital, der einzig wirklichen Macht, unterordnen muss.
Außerem gibt es selbst in den ältesten Demokratien keine wirkliche Demokratie, wenn die Wahl in den Händen von nichtdemokratischen Wahlmaschinenherstellern liegt.

Zweitens: Ist das ein typischer Staats-Vertreter. Merkt man an seinem mißbräuchlichen Verwenden von Anarchie als Chaos.

Er ist ja schon mal so weit gekommen, es grundsätzlich zu kritisieren, was diese angeblichen "Demokratien" für Schwachstellen haben. Z.B. warum sie auf Krieg aus sind ohne demokratische Kontrolle.

Er ist auf dem Weg, ja, aber wenn es ein 100-Meter Lauf wäre gerade Mal aus dem Startblock raus.

Es fehlt die Transzendierung, die Abstrahierung, warum alle Staatsgebilde diese Schwachpunkte haben, warum Verfügungsmacht immer mißbraucht werden wird und warum es an der Größe dieser Gebilde liegt.

[Joerver]

Sit
ich glaube du hast einen anderen Artikel gelesen!

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Bei der Zahl der ausländischen Kämpfer muß man zwischen US-Propaganda und von den offiziellen Stellen herausgegeben Zahlen unterscheiden. Es gab 400 Tote im Irak, die als Ausländer identifiziert wurden und den Aufständischen zugerechnet wurden, davon 3% Europäer. Bei der Gesamtzahl der getöteten Kämpfern ist das eine einstellige Prozentzahl. Eins muß man auch noch beachten, es gibt eine Reihe krimineller Gruppen im Irak, die sich auf Geiselnahmen spezialisiert haben. Diese sind nur auf Geld aus und im Großteil der Fälle treffen die Geiselnahmen einfache Iraker.

[Table align=center]
Along the Syria-Iraq Border, Victory Is Fleeting in an Effort to Rout Out Foreign Fighters
[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

Marines atop a burning building last week in Karabila, where they found arms caches and quashed insurgents, only to see them resurface.
[/TABLE]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/international/middleeast/2…

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

KARABILA, Iraq, June 21 - American marines climbed atop the collapsed roof of the final house to be searched this week in an operation to clear this desert town of foreign militants and declared victory. Almost one hour later, they left.

When asked if the foreign fighters would be back, Sgt. Wayne O`Donnell of Company K, the unit that made the final push to the tip of the town, replied in a tired voice as he walked away, "Oh, definitely."

So goes the war in Iraq in this windswept swath of desert along the Syrian border, where marine commanders move their thinly stretched troops from village to village to quash insurgents, only to see them resurface a short time later. The problem is all too familiar. American troops farther north on the Syrian border had to beat back insurgents twice in nine months, after leaving only 500 troops to control thousands of square miles.

The issue of troop levels is so delicate that the commanding officer here, Col. Stephen W. Davis, refuses to allow their true numbers to be publicly released. If insurgents learned the figure, he says, it would pose a safety risk for his marines. He does acknowledge what is widely known - that most of the 300-mile border with Syria, a major entry point for foreign militants, is unguarded, and the most important crossing point, in Husayba, a town near the Euphrates River, has been closed for seven months because troops simply cannot control the flow.

"They will come from wherever we are not," Colonel Davis said of foreign fighters.

The area is important because it contains a large portion of the Euphrates corridor, a crucial route for insurgents bound for central Iraq and Baghdad. It is in Anbar, a troubled Sunni Arab province where opposition to the American military has been staunch since the invasion in 2003.

The offensive in Karabila, which began June 17 and ended with a final house search on Monday, seriously damaged many of the town`s homes. It was not the first time marines had swept the area. In early May, the same marines battled militants across the Euphrates from Karabila. But after sweeping the towns, the marines returned to a base some distance away. In all, it was the eighth operation in the region since the marines - part of the Second Regimental Combat Team of the Second Division - arrived in February.

Marine commanders argue that fighting in the same place is not backtracking. Success, they say, cannot be measured in the amount of territory seized and occupied, but instead in punching holes into the web of insurgent networks.

"If they come back, they`re going to come back clumsy," said Capt. Chris Ieva, commander of Company K, which helped lead the offensive. He compared the effect to that of a Mafia group being forced to move and find new police officers to bribe.

Still, success is difficult to measure in the complexity of an insurgent war, and apparent military victories must be weighed against other factors. For one, there is the anger of Iraqis returning to their broken homes, which, in the Karabila offensive, had grenades detonated inside and walls punched out by tanks, even though most were empty and not all belonged to insurgent suspects. Precision bombs were dropped several days before the fighting, damaging portions of town blocks.

Marines took care to evacuate local residents before the operation, warning them to leave their neighborhoods with shrill messages blared from speakers on the top of Humvees. They reported three civilian deaths: a mother and two children, killed as marines battled an insurgent who had taken the family hostage. Reports from a local hospital by The Associated Press put the figure at more than 10.

Colonel Davis said the tougher search methods were meant to prevent marine deaths, which surged in the offensive across the Euphrates in early May, when insurgents used new tactics, such as shooting through a hole in the floor. Nine marines were killed in fighting in that offensive.

Here in Karabila, marines entered a house on Saturday and found an old man standing in a hall who told them, "No muj here," referring to mujahedeen, the word for holy fighters. Moments later, a marine on a staircase was ambushed by a man who threw a grenade and sprayed automatic gunfire, killing the marine and wounding three more.

"The nature of the fight is confusing," Captain Ieva said.

By midweek, commanders declared the operation a success. In all, they said, they killed 47 enemy fighters and rescued four hostages from an insurgent torture house.

But by at least one measure - recovering weapons - the operation seemed to have fallen short. Marines found many weapons, but when commanders displayed the machine guns, rocket launchers and other items for reporters after the operation, a rough count showed only about 90 weapons, far fewer than the hundreds of houses searched. Officials did not give complete numbers for munitions, which were blown up on site.

Colonel Davis says the terms "winning" and "losing" do not apply in this insurgency war. His mission, he says, is to keep pressure on the insurgents in his area. Declaring victory is more a political decision than any final military maneuver.

For now, he is looking forward to the day when the Iraqi Army will set up bases in the areas that the marines have swept, a process that has been slow to begin in Anbar.

"I don`t think you`re going to see a back-breaker," he said. "This is just a continual war."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 26, 2005
A Glide Path to Ruin
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/opinion/26kristof.html

The biggest risk we Americans face to our way of life and our place in the world probably doesn`t come from Al Qaeda or the Iraq war.

Rather, the biggest risk may come from this administration`s fiscal recklessness and the way this is putting us in hock to China.

"I think the greatest threat to our future is our fiscal irresponsibility," warns David Walker, the comptroller general of the United States. Mr. Walker, an accountant by training, asserts that last year may have been the most fiscally reckless in the history of our Republic. Aside from the budget deficit, Congress enacted the prescription drug benefit - possibly an $8 trillion obligation - without figuring out how to pay for it.

Mr. Walker, America`s watchdog in chief and head of the Government Accountability Office, is no Bush-basher. He started out his career as a conservative Democrat, then became a moderate Republican and has been an independent since 1997.

Now he`s running around with his hair on fire, shrieking about America`s finances. Well, as much as any accountant ever shrieks.

I asked Mr. Walker about Paul Volcker`s warning that within five years we face a 75 percent chance of a serious financial crisis.

"If we don`t get serious soon," Mr. Walker replied, "it`s not a question of whether it`ll come, but when and how serious."

Joseph Stiglitz, the Nobel-winning economist, says he is also "very worried."

"I find it very difficult to know how to put a number" on the probability of a crisis, he added, "but there`s a widespread sense in the market that there is a substantial chance."

Another issue is that three-fourths of our new debt is now being purchased by foreigners, with China the biggest buyer of all. That gives China leverage over us, and it undermines our national security.

On fiscal matters both parties have much to be ashamed of, but Republicans should be particularly embarrassed at their tumble. Traditionally, Republicans were prudent, while Democrats held great parties. But these days, the Bush administration is managing America`s finances like a team of drunken sailors, and most Republicans keep quiet in a way that betrays their conservative principles.

Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, wrote a couple of years ago: "Republicans used to believe in balanced budgets. ... We have lost our way." He`s right.

Critics have pounded the Bush administration for its faulty intelligence in the run-up to the war in Iraq. But President Bush peddled tax cuts with data that ultimately proved equally faulty - yet the tax cuts remain cemented in place.

Go to www.whitehouse.gov and read Mr. Bush`s speech when he presented his first budget in February 2001. He foresaw a $5.6 trillion surplus over 10 years and emphasized that much of that would go to paying down the debt.

"I hope you will join me to pay down $2 trillion in debt during the next 10 years," Mr. Bush said then, between his calls for tax cuts. "That is more debt, repaid more quickly, than has ever been repaid by any nation at any time in history." His budget message that year promised that the U.S. would be "on a glide path toward zero debt."

Oh?

More than two centuries of American government produced a cumulative national debt of $5.7 trillion when Mr. Bush was elected in 2000. And now that is expected to almost double by 2010, to $10.8 trillion.

Some readers may be surprised to see me fulminating about budget deficits, since often I`m bouncing over ruts abroad trying to call attention to some forgotten crisis, like Darfur. But there is a common thread: These are issues that aren`t sexy, that don`t get television time and that most Americans tune out - yet demand action on our part for both moral and practical reasons.

America`s fiscal mess may be even harder to write about engagingly than Darfur, because the victims of our fiscal recklessness aren`t weeping widows whose children were heaved onto bonfires. But if you need to visualize the victims, think of your child`s face, or your grandchild`s.

President Bush has excoriated the "death tax," as he calls the estate tax. But his profligacy will leave every American child facing a "birth tax" of about $150,000.

That`s right: every American child arrives owing that much, partly to babies in China and Japan. No wonder babies cry.

E-mail: [e-mail]

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Compan

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
The Race to Alaska Before It Melts
[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

Icebergs are all that can be seen of Portage Glacier from the Begich, Boggs Visitor Center;
the glacier has retreated out of view.
[/TABLE]

http://travel2.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/travel/26alaska.html?i…
June 26, 2005
The Race to Alaska Before It Melts
By TIMOTHY EGAN

THEY stood and gawked at the great blue mass of shrinking ice. Behold: a frozen landscape giving it up to a midnight sunset. The scene at the receding edge of the Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park in Alaska was part festive gathering, part nature tour with an apocalyptic edge. Dressed in tank tops and shorts - beachwear, in fact - on this freakishly warm day in early June, people moved ever closer to the rope line near the glacier as it shied away, practically groaning and melting before their eyes.

A product of the late ice age, the glacier looked old and tired on this hot day. There was a sense of loss, some people said, at watching this giant recoil. There were oohs and aahs but also more hushed tones, expressions of fear that the big land was somehow diminished, a little less wild. Just a few years ago, the spot where these tourists stood, on dry ground marked by Park Service signs, had been under ice.
[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
Alaska is changing by the hour. From the far north, where higher seas are swamping native villages, to the tundra around Fairbanks, where melting permafrost is forcing some roads and structures to buckle in what looks like a cartoon version of a hangover, to the rivers of ice receding from inlets, warmer temperatures are remaking the Last Frontier State.

That transformation was particularly apparent at the visitor center here, where rangers were putting the finishing touches on a display that sought to explain the changing landscape of the country`s northernmost state. The sign said, "Glimpses of an Ice Age past. Laboratory of climate change today," and it explained how the Exit Glacier has been shrinking over the years, and what scientists are learning as the state heats up.

Out in the fjords, kayakers paddled into bays newly opened by other receding glaciers. They came to see the ice, a tour guide explained, to paddle around something that had been moving toward a tidewater destiny for thousands of years. And many of them were in a hurry. Glacial pace, in Alaska, no longer means slow.

"Things are melting pretty fast around here," said Jim Ireland, the chief ranger for Kenai Fjords. Climate change, he said, "has become one of the major new themes for this park."

In ambition, in the scale of its scenic extremes, in the pure size and wonder of its fish and wildlife, Alaska has never been anything less than flamboyant. It is, after all, more than two times the size of Texas, with a shoreline, more than 33,000 miles, that exceeds that of all other states combined. And as Alaska morphs through a period of warmer weather, it is doing so with characteristic extravagance.

The old Alaska, the Alaska of forbidden expanses and adrenaline-surging encounters with brawnier ends of the food chain, still exists of course. But a larger drama - of this land losing some of its icy inheritance - is playing out as well.

The sea-level edge of the Exit Glacier, just outside the town of Seward and one of the most visited bodies of ice in the north, has receded by nearly 1,000 feet over the last 10 years, park rangers say. In Prince William Sound and farther south in Glacier Bay National Park, where the cruise ship industry does a thriving business based on active walls of ice, many glaciers have pulled their toes out of the water and shriveled up the valleys. This process has created another attraction: the instant landscape. Take away the ice, add rain and sunshine to the debris left behind and, presto, Stage 1 of creation.

To some visitors who fear that global warming is to blame for the accelerated pace of change, there is a sense of urgency in their travel planning. They seem to be fearful that if they don`t get to Alaska soon, they will never see the full glory of the state`s frozen magnificence.

"One of the things we hear a lot from people is that they want to see Alaska before it`s gone," said Hugh Rose, a tour guide, geologist and photographer who lives in Fairbanks. "The melting, the warmer temperatures, the changing patterns of wildlife and the land - they`ve become huge topics of conversation among guides and our clients."

Of course, Alaska is not going anywhere, at least not right away. About 4 percent of the state is ice. One glacier, the Malaspina, is larger than Rhode Island, and another, the Harding Icefield, which feeds the Exit Glacier, is nearly half that size. If all of Alaska`s glaciers were joined in one mass, it would be bigger than 10 of the states.

But the Great Land is definitely getting warmer. Last year was abnormally hot in the usually wet and cool southeastern part of the state, where cruise ships ply the Inside Passage. Anchorage, Fairbanks, Nome and Juneau all posted their warmest summers on record. More wildfires burned in 2004 than any other year on file. And by early May of this year, the woods were ablaze on the Kenai Peninsula, and the preternaturally quirky residents of Homer were gardening in cutoffs - at a time when snow was still falling in Detroit and Boston.
[Table align=left]

Exit Glacier is said to have receded nearly 1,000 feet over the last decade.
[/TABLE]
This year, Mr. Rose noticed something odd during the annual spring birding trek he leads to the Copper River Delta, famous for its rich, high-priced wild salmon runs. He takes people to the delta to watch masses of western sandpipers that have migrated north from winter havens in Central and South America. The birds, and people who pay to watch them, have brought an infusion of tourism cash to the fishing village of Cordova, which highlights the migration with an annual shorebird festival. The event has traditionally been held on the second weekend in May; last year it was moved to the first weekend of the month. "There used to be 100,000 birds on the second weekend in May," said Mr. Rose. "Now you`ll miss most of them if you don`t arrive earlier."

The question of exactly how much warmer Alaska is than "normal" - and whether it is part of human-caused changes in the temperature brought on by increased greenhouse gases or something natural and cyclical - can start a decent bar fight in any fishing harbor.

"It is probable the last decade was warmer than any other" since records have been kept, the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment reported on Nov. 24, 2004. The study is a project of nations including Denmark, Canada and the United States. The Bush Administration, which has been cautious about blaming global warming for any Alaskan changes, cites rising spring temperatures, loss of sea and glacial ice, melting permafrost and conversion of some parts of the soggy tundra into brushy wetlands among the changes taking place.

But to many Alaskans, global warming is not an abstraction or a theory. At least four native villages in the far north may have to move inland or to higher ground to avoid being swept away by erosion from the sea - a consequence, the villagers say, of early-melting sea ice that contributes to shore erosion. The melting ice may also affect polar bears, and whales, who live off the sea life beneath the ice.

None of this has deterred people from coming to Alaska. If anything, say many guides and tour operators, warming temperatures have brought more people, and the Alaska Travel Industry Association is projecting a strong year, surpassing last year`s 1.45 million visitors. And while travel industry officials say they are not exactly marketing the warmer temperatures around a "See Alaska Now" campaign, they say some travelers are driven by concern about the fate of the Great Land in a warmer world. "Our clients are really interested in this," said John Page, who runs Sunny Cove Sea Kayaking Company in Seward. "Everyone wants to know: Is the ice retreating because of global warming? How`s this going to change Alaska?"

For tourists, it can mean a thrill at seeing a landscape more dynamic than any place on earth - global warming on hyperspeed! - or disappointment that something so wild and massive is, well, shrinking.

Both reactions were evident at Portage Lake, about 50 miles south of Anchorage. Tour buses packed the parking lot of the big, well-staffed Begich, Boggs Visitor Center. This is where people come by the thousands to see Portage Glacier, one of the most accessible of Alaska`s frozen attractions. Except, you can no longer see Portage Glacier from the visitor center. It has disappeared.

The most persistent question to rangers at the station was: Dude, where did Portage Glacier go? A display inside showed that just 11 years ago, the glacier descended down to the end of the lake. But now it is around a distant corner and at the back of the lake, completely out of sight from the center. A video featured a Forest Service scientist, Kristine Crossen, who explained that the glacier had been retreating about 165 feet a year. "We have good evidence that the climate is warming in Alaska," she says.

Visitors were perplexed. Gordon Middleton drove up to Portage Lake in his camper, from his home in Anacortes, Wash. He is retired from a life on factory floors and fishing boats. For him, ice is the draw.

"I`ve been watching glaciers so long I`m called the Ice Man by some of my friends," said Mr. Middleton. He aimed his camera across the lake from a roadside perch and zoomed in, looking for Portage Glacier.

"It`s supposed to be ... there," he said, pointing to a shoreline of rocky moraine, the detritus left behind by retreating ice. "But I don`t see anything."

Virtually every visitor center built around a glacier or a blue wall hugging a mountain cliff has its landmarks to warmer temperatures. Just outside of Juneau, the Mendenhall Glacier, which is about 12 miles in length, has gradually pulled away from near the parking lot and up the lake. It is still a prime visitor site for people who are bused from cruise ships in port. But for some cruise passengers who have seen the glacier before, the changes are stunning.

"I saw the Mendenhall Glacier 25 years ago, and it has really pulled back since then," said Mark Stringer, who is from Arizona and was visiting Alaska by cruise ship. "But you know, this is a dynamic process. It`s a blip in time. We don`t know what`s going to happen."

In Glacier Bay National Park, the ice has been shrinking since at least the time of Capt. George Vancouver`s visit, more than 200 years ago. What are now bays filled with whale-watching kayakers and iceberg-viewing cruise passengers were full of glaciers in the late 1700`s, officials say. And what was once bare rock at the edge of the ice to Captain Vancouver`s crew is now part of a lush rain forest. But the pace of ice age retreat has greatly accelerated in recent years. Government photos show that Muir Glacier, one of the park`s prime attractions, has receded by more than five miles in the last 30 years.

"The big story around here is the retreat of Muir Glacier," said Dave Nemeth, the park`s chief of concessions. "But all around the park, there are constant changes going on."

For many amateur photographers on a first visit to Alaska, the money shot is a glacier calving into the water. And with these tidewater glaciers disappearing from places like Prince William Sound and Kenai Fjords, it has prompted some urgent travel advisories for people to hurry before those shots disappear.

"If you ever wanted to take an Alaskan cruise to see glaciers, do it sooner rather than later for the best views," wrote Bob Martin, who runs a Web site called the Inquisitive Traveler.

But people in the cruise ship industry say it is hard to gauge exactly how many visitors are coming to Alaska now out of a sense of concern that Alaska is melting away. "We know glaciers are one of the top five reasons why people travel to Alaska," said Noel DeChambeau, a marketing director at Holland America, the cruise line company. "They want to see natural wonders. And I don`t get a sense that the natural wonders are going away any time soon."

But Mr. DeChambeau did note that Holland America`s overland trip to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Congress and President Bush plan to open to oil drilling, sold out early this year. Other tour operators also report a surge of interest in travel within the Arctic Circle.

"Some people are clueless or they say, `Cool - your summers are getting longer,` " said Mr. Rose, the Fairbanks guide who leads tours to the Arctic. "But for every one of them, we get a client genuinely concerned that Alaska is changing too quickly, and they want to see it while they can."

In the town of Seward, which seems to have a disproportionate number of people who dine with baseball hats emblazoned with a fishing hook and the slogan "Bite Me," residents are of two minds about the warming weather.

Up at Exit Glacier, a man who told everyone his name was Pete and said he lived in Seward was holding forth, telling people that just five years ago he could reach out and touch the glacier from where he stood, a good 300 yards from the edge of the ice now.

Meanwhile, back in town, tour guides were doing a brisk business during a week when people were wearing Hawaiian shirts and lathering on the sunscreen.

"I`ve lived here 22 years, and the changes I`ve seen are tremendous," said Mr. Page, the Seward kayaking guide. "The summers are much warmer and sunnier. We see things like white-sided dolphins, which don`t normally appear in these waters. It certainly has not hurt business. But on a planetary level, I`m concerned."

Other Alaskans are trying to take the long view - enjoying the rush of visitors to see a land shaking off much of its frozen past.

"I`m 64 years old so I`m not too worried it`s all going to melt in my time," said Charlie Clements, who runs the Blue Heron B & B, in Gustavus, just outside Glacier Bay National Park. "But I have noticed a lot of changes. We aren`t getting as much snow. And the summers, they`ve been really warm."

His bed-and-breakfast, which is planted in one of the wettest places on the planet, within miles of some of the world`s biggest glaciers, now has an added feature: a sunroom. It is no longer a joke.

TIMOTHY EGAN reports for The New York Times from Seattle.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Amid the horrors of the Middle East, it is strange to hear about this European `crisis`
http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?stor…
25 June 2005
Robert Fisk

The Independent


Why is it that we Europeans can no longer understand our own peace and contentment and safety and our extraordinary luxury and our futuristic living standards and our God-like good fortune and our long, wonderful lives?

‘What on earth are you Europeans on about? What is this nonsense about Europe breaking apart?’ We were at lunch only a hundred metres from the crater of the bomb which killed Lebanon’s former prime minister last February. The restaurant was almost destroyed in the explosion and the staff bear the scars. The head waiter at La Paillote has a very painful, deep slit down his right cheek. My host was still amazed. ‘Do you people live on planet earth?’ he asked.

Point taken. When I open the European papers here in Beirut, I read of European chaos, of constitution rejections in France and Holland, of the possible break-up of the EU, of the return of the lira (of all currencies, the most preposterous!), of shouting matches in Brussels (of all cities, the most preposterous!) about rebates. ‘Blair tells Europe it must ‘renew’,’ the International Herald Tribune informs me. ‘Brown in stark warning to EU,’ my own paper headlines. Only the Eastern Europeans, it seems, like the European Union. And part of the answer to my Lebanese friend’s question may lie among Eastern Europe’s ghosts. But the Western papers, when they reach Beirut, have an awesome perversity about them.

Yesterday, for example, the Lebanese papers ” like others in the Arab world ” published a picture that no Western publication would dare to show. At least a quarter of one front page here was given to this horror. It showed an Iraqi man amid the wreckage of a bomb explosion, trying to help a 12-year-old boy to his feet. Well not quite; because the boy’s left leg has been torn off just below the knee and, beneath his agonised face, there is indeed, in colour, the bloody stump, a thing from a butcher’s shop, a great piece of red bone and gristle and hanging flesh.

Laith Falah, one of the lucky Iraqis to be ‘liberated’ by us in 2003, was bicycling to a Baghdad bakery to buy bread for his parents and three sisters. For him, for his parents and three sisters, for all Iraqis, for Arabs, for the Middle East, for my luncheon host, the EU’s problems seem as preposterous as Brussels and the lira.

So why is it that we Europeans can no longer understand our own peace and contentment and safety and our extraordinary luxury and our futuristic living standards and our God-like good fortune and our long, wonderful lives? When I arrive in Paris on Air France and step aboard the RER train to the city, when I take the Eurostar to London and sip my coffee while the train hisses between the great military cemeteries of northern France where many of my father’s friends lie buried, I see the glowering, sad faces of my fellow Europeans, heavy with the burdens of living in the beautiful First World, broken down by minimum hours of work and human rights laws and protections the like of which are beyond the imagination of the people among whom I live.

And when the train eases towards Waterloo and I catch sight of the Thames and Big Ben and I know I shall be curling up that night in the softest bed of the smallest Sheraton in the world (it’s in Belgravia), I call a friend on my mobile, an Iraqi who’s trying to emigrate to Australia or Canada ” he hasn’t decided which yet but I’ve already told him that one can be quite hot, the other very cold ” and he tells me that he can’t cross the border to Jordan even to visit the Australian embassy. No Eurostars for him.

Oddly ” and this is part of the perversity which our newspapers accurately reflect ” we want to believe that the Middle East is getting better. Iraq is the world’s newest democracy; our soldiers are winning the war against the insurgents ” at least we are now calling it a war ” and Lebanon is free and Egypt will soon be more democratic and even the Saudis endured an election a couple of months ago. Israel will withdraw from Gaza and the ‘road map’ to peace will take off and there will be a Palestinian state and …

It’s rubbish, of course. Iraq is a furnace of pain and fear, the insurrection is becoming bloodier by the day, Lebanon’s people are under attack, Mubarak’s Egypt is a pit of oppression and poverty and Saudi Arabia is ” and will remain ” an iconoclastic and absolute monarchy. ‘Take the greatest care,’ I say this week to a Lebanese lawyer friend whose political profile exactly matches the journalist and the ex-communist party leader who were assassinated in Beirut this month. ‘You too,’ he says. And I sit and think about that for a bit.

Maybe we Europeans need to believe that the Middle East is a spring of hope in order to concentrate on our own golden grief. Perhaps it helps us to feel bad about ourselves, to curse our privileges and hate our glorious life if we persuade ourselves that the Middle East is a paradise of growing freedom and liberation from fear. But why? We lie to ourselves about the tragedy of the Middle East and then we lie to ourselves about the heaven of living in Europe.

Maybe ” a perverse Fisk now slides into this paragraph ” maybe the Second World War was too long ago. Almost outside living memory, the real hell of Europe persuaded us to create a new continent of security and unity and wealth. And now, I suspect, we’ve forgotten. The world in which my father’s chums died in northern France in 1918 and the world in which my mother repaired Spitfire radios in the Battle of Britain is being ‘disappeared’, permitted to pop up only when Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara wants to compare his horrible little war in Iraq to Britain’s Finest Hour or when we want to enjoy an orgy of cinematic Nazi destruction in The Downfall.

Only in the east, where the mass graves litter the cold earth, does memory linger amid the mists. Which might explain their love of the EU. Yet Laith Falah’s terrible wound was more grisly than Saving Private Ryan ” which is why you will not have seen it in Europe this week.

And yesterday, before lunch, I went down to Martyrs Square in Beirut to watch the funeral of old Georges Hawi, the former communist party leader who was driving to the Gondole coffee shop on Tuesday when a bomb exploded beneath his car seat and tore into his abdomen. And there was his widow, who had swooned from grief and horror when she actually saw her husband’s body lying on the road, weeping before the coffin. And 2,000 miles away, Europe was in crisis.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Rove Taking a More Public Role
Bush Adviser Playing Messenger for Second-Term Agenda
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06…

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 26, 2005; A01

He has risen to the highest ranks of the White House, carries the title of deputy chief of staff and presides over a broad portfolio of domestic and foreign issues. But even as he has morphed from political operative to policy adviser, Karl Rove retains the instincts of the direct-mail specialist he once was in Texas.

The verbal strike he aimed at liberals and liberalism during a speech to the New York Conservative Party on Wednesday night came straight out of the direct-mail manual: pithy, provocative and designed to energize one side by torching the other.

Rove`s flamboyant remarks -- in which he roused conservatives by saying liberals prefer "therapy and understanding" for terrorists instead of retaliation -- has put President Bush`s top strategist back on stage. It`s a place where he has seemed increasingly comfortable of late.

Through much of last year, by contrast, Rove remained largely in the shadows, avoiding on-the-record interviews or television appearances and the controversy that inevitably would have followed. A political lightning rod, whom Democrats accused of unfairly injecting the war on terrorism into the 2002 midterm elections, Rove let others in the campaign attack the Democratic nominee, Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.), and explain Bush`s strategy to the outside world.

But the president`s reelection victory liberated Rove and marked the beginning of a new chapter in his career. On the afternoon after the election, Bush paid tribute to the outsize role his longtime adviser and friend of 30 years had played, publicly identifying him as the "architect" of a victory that came only after one of the most hard-fought campaigns in modern presidential politics -- a victory even some White House officials doubted would happen, given problems in Iraq and public concerns about the economy.

Rove was rewarded with a new title (while retaining the "senior adviser" designation he carried from the first term) and the first-floor West Wing office down the hall from the Oval Office that other deputy chiefs of staff have used. Long a policy wonk in a political operative`s skin, Rove always had significant involvement in issues during the first Bush term. Now, that role has been made formal, with expanded administrative powers and the explicit authority to range widely into a variety of policy areas.

His colleagues see him as one of the administration`s most potent public advocates on behalf of Bush`s major initiatives. "Karl is a key asset to this White House," White House counselor Dan Bartlett said in an e-mail message. "His keen insight into the president`s thinking, grasp of a wide range of complex issues and ability to speak beyond the Washington Beltway, make Karl a valuable messenger for the president`s second-term agenda."

In his new role, Rove has become more visible and somewhat more accessible. He has made himself available to White House reporters and has appeared more frequently on television. When he went to the New York Times for an interview earlier this year, he showed up with flowers for columnist Maureen Dowd, part of a running inside joke with one of Bush`s most acerbic critics.

Rove speaks on behalf of the president not just on the politics of the moment but also on the administration`s policy agenda. He has been at the center of the administration`s efforts to restructure Social Security, and he will be deeply involved in the battle to confirm a new Supreme Court justice if there is a vacancy soon, as is widely expected.

Having done what few political strategists have done -- oversee two successful campaigns for the White House -- Rove has become a bona fide celebrity within the Republican Party and one of the most sought-after speakers by GOP audiences. A White House official said Rove now can attract about as much money for a candidate or the party as Vice President Cheney, behind only the president -- an unprecedented capability for a White House staff hand.

A more public role has hardly dulled Rove`s combative edge. From the first days of Bush`s presidential campaign in 1999 to the present, he has picked the fights and shaped the arguments used to advance his boss`s agenda or political ambitions. It was Rove who shared with Bush the passion to promote personal or private accounts as part of Social Security restructuring, a battle that has proved more difficult than many White House officials envisioned. It was also Rove who helped shape the strategy of renominating a series of appellate court judges blocked by Democrats during Bush`s first term.

Within the White House, Rove is regarded as a happy warrior, well-liked by colleagues for his humor and ebullient personality. To the opposition, however, Rove`s remarks to the New York state Conservative Party last week were simply fresh evidence of why they loathe him. Congressional Democrats, most of whom supported Bush after Sept. 11, 2001, denounced the speech as deceitful and typical of the low-blow tactics they say have marked Rove`s career.

What is still unclear is how deliberate Rove was being in prompting an uproar with his comments. With public opinion on Iraq at an ebb and the president preparing to deliver a major speech Tuesday on the subject, Rove`s remarks seemed in part an effort to redraw lines to how they were in last year`s presidential campaign. Bush succeeded then by casting himself as the embodiment of strength and resolve, and portraying Kerry as the symbol of weakness and vacillation.

Rove`s speech -- a broader meditation on the rise of conservatism and the decline of liberalism -- is one that often animates his public remarks, White House officials noted, and is a topic he has both studied and tried to influence throughout his long career in politics. But this was the first time his inflammatory language about liberals and Sept. 11 drew such wide notice.

The White House reaction to the uproar also bore the indelible stamp of Rove: no apologies and no retractions, and all engines in the GOP spin machine churning in concert. White House press secretary Scott McClellan and Bartlett defended Rove from the briefing room and on several morning television programs, and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman jumped in with customary aggressiveness. House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), in a bit of a role reversal, came to the defense of Rove by repeating some of the most provocative lines to College Republicans and saying, "That`s not slander. That`s the truth." The National Republican Senatorial Committee sent out an e-mail fundraising appeal proclaiming "Karl Rove Is Right."

GOP officials said Rove had criticized liberals, not Democrats or the Democratic Party, a distinction that many Democrats found unpersuasive. Kerry stoked his e-mail supporters, asking them to sign a letter to Bush asking him to "thoroughly reject Karl Rove`s purposeful attack on the patriotism of those who dare ask the tough questions that best protect American troops."

While many Democrats reacted with rage when they first heard about Rove`s remarks, they were more mixed in their view of whether he had made the mistake of going too far or had cleverly baited a trap for them by opening up an argument on political turf that long has favored the Republicans. "I don`t think anybody knows yet [whether] what he said the other night is a mistake," said Tad Devine, who was a top strategist in Kerry`s campaign. "I will say it is calculated and deliberate. Karl for a long time has tried to position the Democrats as liberals, and liberals as weak, who don`t want to defend America."
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Sunday, June 26, 2005

Ahmadinejad Uses Bush`s Tactics

Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei gloated Saturday that the Iranian public had "humiliated" Bush by electing hard liner Mahmud Ahmadinejad as president. But in fact, the campaigning style of the two men suggests that in some ways they are soul mates.

Newly elected Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad won in some part by using the same electoral tools as George W. Bush and Karl Rove.

1. Smear Tactics

Ahmadinejad`s supporters smeared his chief rival, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani by spreading all sorts of false rumors about him. Negative campaigning is illegal in Iran, but complaints to the rightwing judges went nowhere because they support Ahmadinejad. (See below).

Bush supporters in South Carolina in the 2000 elections smeared his Republican rival for the nomination John McCain by falsely suggesting (via a phony telephone poll) that he had had an interracial affair that produced an illegitimate child. In the 2004 campaign, the White House directed the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to smear John Kerry as a liar and coward with regard to his distinguished military record, while chicken hawk Bush, who did not even properly serve out his time as a reservist back in the US, was depicted as some sort of war hero.

2. False Consciousness

Ahmadinejad, a rightwinger, poses as a champion of the common people, and once dressed up as a street sweeper. He thus got a lot of working class people to vote for him, even though he will do the bidding of billionaire clerical hardliners who have done little for ordinary folks.

Likewise, George W. Bush affects a southern drawl (he is from Connecticut) and makes himself out to be a friend of the common man, with his "tax cuts" and program to "save" social security. In fact, everything Bush does primarily benefits the rich and actually hurts the interests of workers and farmers. Nevertheless, as with Ahmadinejad, he gets many in the working classes to vote for him.

3. Posing as a Critic of the Government You Run

Ahmadinejad is allowed to attack the Iranian government because he has impeccable credentials as a rightwinger and loyalist to Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei. He can therefore complain about state corruption without being pilloried or punished. His anti-government rhetoric struck a chord with many Iranians and helped him get elected. If a liberal reformer had spoken that way about the Iranian government, he would have been accused of disloyalty and lack of patriotism.

Likewise, George W. Bush affects a rhetoric of "cleaning up Washington" and breaking the gridlock and overcoming partisanship. In reality, corruption has flourished in his regime, with severe questions constantly being raised about lobbyists essentially bribing Delay, Duke and others. The grandson of a senator and son of a president who calls the white-tie corporate crowd his "base" represents himself as an outsider to Washington and a critic of the government! Yet liberals like Dick Durbin who criticize the government are pilloried as traitors.

4. Benefitting from Dominance of the Judiciary

Ahmadinejad was supported by the clerical rightwing judiciary and Supreme Jurisprudent Ali Khamenei. When other candidates complained about ballot stuffing, the rightwing judges backed Ahmadinejad.

Bush: Five words: Florida and the Supreme Court.

5. Religious Congregations and the Military

Ahmadinejad was supported by many mosque preachers all over the country, as well as by religious volunteers for a paramilitary called basij. Some 300,000 basij all over Iran essentially acted as a political party to support Ahmadinejad.

Bush depends heavily on the support of evangelical and fundamentalist churches in the United States, which abuse their tax-exempt, non-partisan status by actually becoming foot soldiers for the Republican Party. The US military is also disproportionately Republican and supports Bush. Air Force cadets are apparently put under enormous pressure to become evangelicals, under the Bush regime.


By the way, speaking of cadets, Space Cadet Michael Ledeen over at the American Enterprise Institute alleged last week that hardliners brought two million Pakistanis over to vote for Ahmadinejad. Presumably they would have been brought in to Zahedan in Iranian Baluchistan from Quetta.

Ledeen fancies himself a Middle East expert and is trying hard to get up a US war on Iran, having been helpful in getting up the Iraq War, which he promised us would go so well.

Let me explain a few basics to Mr. Ledeen.

1. You can`t move 2 million people through the Baluchistan desert in a short period of time. A population movement that massive could even be seen by satellite.

2. Pakistanis are largely Sunnis. They don`t like the Iranian regime, which is their rival. They would not go vote in Iran. Even the Shiite minority would not, and it wouldn`t vote for Ahmadinejad if it could.

3. The voting rolls for Iranian Baluchistan show about 800.000 voters. Where are the two million Pakistanis?

4. Baluchistan voted for reformist candidates. (Most Baluchis are Sunnis and are afraid of the Shiite hardliners).

Can you imagine that people like Ledeen are actually allowed to come on television as "experts" or to publish in political journals despite spewing complete nonsense? If your son gets drafted and sent to die in Iran, it will be in some part because of the propaganda spread by people like Ledeen, who, by the way, has some sort of weird relationship both to the more fascistic elements in Italian military intelligence and to the Likud extremists in Israel. NB: The false Niger uranium documents were forged by a former agent of Italian military intelligence . . .

All that said, it is probably true that there was some ballot stuffing by Ahmadinejad supporters. It was alleged by clerical moderate Karrubi, and it is plausible. These presidential elections are the least free and fair since the early 1990s, though all along there has been a problem of the exclusion and vetting of candidates by the clerics. On the other hand, it seems undeniable that Ahmadinejad`s campaign struck a chord with many Iranians tired of corruption and economic stagnation. He may well have won the second round even without those "extra" ballots.

By the way, rightwing US commentators often slam Iranian elections because the candidates are vetted by the clerical Guardian Council for their loyalty to the Khomeinist ideology. In the past two years, the vetting has grown ever more rigorous, excluding relative liberals from running for parliament or president. The commentators are correct.

However, in the United States the "first past the post" system of winner-takes-all elections and the two-party system play a similar role in limiting voters` choices of candidates. Neither libertarians nor socialists are likely to be serious contenders for the presidency in the United States, since neither of the two dominant parties will run them. The US approach to limiting voter choice is systemic and so looks "natural," but US voters have a narrower range of practical choices in candidates than virtually any other democratic society.

posted by Juan @ [url6/26/2005 06:34:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/ahmadinejad-uses-bushs-tactics-supreme.html[/url]

Mosul Police Station blown Up, many Dead
31 Killed Saturday, Dozens Wounded

Mosul: A suicide bomber detonated his payload at the central police station in Mosul on Sunday morning, bringing down part of the wall and killing at least 5 persons, 4 of them officers. At least 7 were wounded. The rubble was still being searched Sunday mid-morning Baghdad time.

On Saturday, wire services report, , "a suicide attacker rammed his vehicle into an Iraqi police patrol on a bridge in southwest Mosul, killing at least five and wounding two . . ." This attack aimed at killing the provincial chief of police, but he was not in the convoy.

Tel Afar In the northern, Turkmen city of Tel Afar, Reuters reports, "Residents and officials at Tal Afar . . . where U.S. troops have cracked down this month, said three bomb attacks were followed by a battle involving U.S. tanks and helicopters that lasted about three hours. Hospital officials said at least two civilians were killed."

Samarra: The Associated Press reports that on Saturday, a suicide bomber targeting the home of a special forces police officer instead killed 9 persons on the street.

Ramadi: On Friday, 20 guerrillas captured 8 policemen at a checkpoint near the city, took them to their offices, and mowed them down with gunfire.

Baghdad: On Sunday morning, guerrillas assassinated Col. Riyad Abdul Karim, the deputy head of one of Baghdad`s main police departments.

Guerillas fired three mortar rounds at a thronging cafe in a mostly Shiite district of western Baghdad Saturday evening. They killed 5 civilians and wounded 7.

Guerrillas killed two police commandos patrolling West Baghdad on Saturday. Another policeman was found assassinated.

Amara: Guerrillas assassinated three policemen 46 miles south of Amara on Saturday.

Kirkuk: On Saturday, three Iraqi policemen were killed in Kirkuk, along with two Kurdish truck drivers delivering cement to the Americans:

From FBIS



Saturday, June 25, 2005 T20:59:22Z

"KIRKUK, June 25 (MENA) - Two Kurdish drivers were killed Saturday when their trucks came under fire by unidentified gunmen on Kirkuk-Tikrit road in northern Iraq. The truckers were carrying cement to US forces in northern Iraq, said eyewitnesses, adding that the attackers were dressed in Iraqi army uniform . . ."

KIRKUK, June 25 (MENA) - An Iraqi police convoy came under fire in Iraq`s northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Three Iraqi policemen were injured in the attack that took place in Kirkuk`s Al-Alamin district. Meantime, Kirkuk`s Multaqa municipality chief Hiroush Abdel Karim survived an attempt on his life earlier in the day when an explosive charge went off near his motorcade. Two civilian cars were destroyed and a citizen was injured in the blast . . ."



The New York Times reports that Iraqi reconstruction efforts are plagued by graft.

Peter Beaumont reports for the Guardian from Baghdad that sectarian reprisal killings are on the rise in Iraq, and increasing hatred between Sunnis and Shiites are fueling them.

At least 70 radicalized British Muslims are fighting on the side of the guerrillas in Iraq, according to the Times of London. There are about 1.7 million Muslims in the UK excluding Northern Ireland, which does not keep statistics on them. (The UK population is approximately 60 million). Many second-generation Muslims are not well integrated into UK society and say they face discrimination and unemployment, especially in smaller cities like Bradford, the site of a race riot. On the other hand, 70 out of 1.7 million is not very many.

Reports from the Iraqi press via BBC World Monitoring for June 23:


"Al-Da`wah publishes on the front page a 70-word report stating that 40 National Assembly members presented to the assembly a bill regarding the formation of the southern federal bloc that comprises Basra, Al-Nasiriyah, and Maysan Governorates . . .

Al-Furat publishes on page 2 a 100-word report on the conclusion of the recent conference of the Advisory Councils of the southern governorates in Basra. The report says that the conference demanded 17% of Iraq`s budget [i.e. oil income]. . .

Al-Adalah carries on page 1 a 150-word report citing Vice-President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi as saying that the there are no differences between the Unified Iraqi Alliance and the Kurdistan Coalition on adopting federalism as a form of government in Iraq . . .

Al-Hawzah publishes on page 1 a 200-word text of Muqtada al-Sadr`s answers to questions by a number of "militant speaking Hawzah" regarding participation in the municipal councils` elections as candidates and electorate. Al-Sad says that religious scholars are not allowed to become candidates, while others are granted this right "under the condition that they are selfless, able to resist earthly temptation, and work to gain Iraq`s independence."

Al-Bayan carries on page 2 a 100-word report citing chairman of the Baghdad Governorate Council saying that the council has made all arrangements for the elections of the municipal councils in Baghdad, scheduled for the end of July . . .

Al-Zaman publishes on page 4 a 600-word part 1 of a report on an interview with National Assembly member Mufid al-Jaza`iri, who says that a deadline for drafting the constitution is not [far] enough [off]. He adds that the government`s decision to extend the stay of multinational forces has been taken without consulting the National Assembly . . .

Al-Dustur publishes on the front page a 300-word report stating that Iraqi tribal chiefs continued their sit in demanding that the Iraqi government review its recent decision to extend the stay of multinational forces in Iraq. The report cites the organizer of the sit in, Ali Hudhayfah, as saying that the reason behind the sit in is "to inform the elected Iraqi government that the Iraqi people are opposing the presence of these forces." He added that a number of National Assembly members, namely Falah Shanshal, Karim al-Bakhati, and Baha al-A`araji, have visited and declared solidarity with us. The report cites Shaykh Hatam Hashim al-Sadkhan, chief of the Al-Hamid tribe in Dhi Qar Governorate, as saying: "We have come to this place to support the National Assembly`s decision of the withdrawal of US forces and to denounce the Iraqi government`s decision regarding extension of the stay of multinational forces in Iraq." . . .

Al-Furat publishes on the front page a 300-word report citing well-informed US sources affirming that 80% of the funds allocated by the US for the reconstruction of Iraq have disappeared. The report says that this indicates large scale embezzlements and corruption. . . [This is a vast exaggeration - JC]

Al-Furat publishes on the front page a 160-word report citing Iraqi sources in Basra and Al-Nasiriyah Governorates asserting that a large number of the Al-Bidun, who were expelled by Kuwait after the Gulf War in 1991, are now working as informants for the US Army . . .

Al-Mada publishes on the front page a 150-word report saying that strict security measures have been taken by the Iraqi police to protect 3,000 people who staged a demonstration in Al-Najaf Governorate demanding the release of all detainees from the prisons, especially those from the Al-Sadr trend. . . .

Al-Furat publishes on page 2 a 200-word citing a health source as saying that 67,196 diarrhea cases were reported in Iraq in 2004. The source predicted that the number of cases will increase this summer due to drinking water pollution . . .

Al-Mashriq publishes on page 4 a 300-word report saying that the Ministry of Health has warned the citizens against drinking the water supplied through pipelines without boiling it, adding that diarrhea is currently spreading among people.

Al-Mashriq publishes on page 4 a 300-word report saying that the Environment Ministry has warned against the increase of environmental waste allover Baghdad . . .

Al-Manar al-Yawm carries on page 3 a 300-word article criticizing the Mojahidin-e-Khalq Organization for being a terrorist organization during the time of the former regime. . .

posted by Juan @ [url6/26/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/mosul-police-station-blown-up-many.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Sunday, June 26, 2005
War News for Sunday, June 26, 2005

http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: At least four Iraqi policemen killed in a suicide bomb attack on police district headquarters in Mosul.

Bring `em on: At least five Iraqi policemen killed and two wounded in suicide bomb attack on a police patrol in southern Mosul.

Bring `em on: Two civilians killed after three bomb attacks is followed by a battle involving U.S. tanks and helicopters that lasted about three hours in Tal Afar.

Bring `em on: Suicide bomb attack and insurgent gun attack on the home of a special forces police officer kills at least nine in Samarra.

Bring `em on: Three Iraqi policemen killed by armed gunmen 75km south of Amarah.

Bring `em on: Body of a uniformed Iraqi policeman found in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Firefighters continue to battle a huge fire on a crude oil pipeline near Yussifiyah.

Bring `em on: One truck driver killed after insurgents launched a gun and RPG attack on a convoy in northern Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Five Kurdish rebels killed by the Turkish military near the Iraq/Iran border.

Peace Talks or Therapy?: After weeks of delicate negotiation involving a former Iraqi minister and senior tribal leaders, a small group of insurgent commanders apparently came face to face with four American officials seeking to establish a dialogue with the men they regard as their enemies.

The talks on June 3 were followed by a second encounter 10 days later, according to an Iraqi who said that he had attended both meetings. Details provided to The Sunday Times by two Iraqi sources whose groups were involved indicate that further talks are planned in the hope of negotiating an eventual breakthrough that might reduce the violence in Iraq. I sincerely hope that the wingnuts and the warmongers will not construe this as giving therapy to the terrorists.

Iraq: Two Brothers, Two Deaths

600 extra reservists boosts Britian`s military presence in Southern Iraq.

Opinion and Commentary

Endless Flow:

The seemingly endless flow of bad news has sparked deep unease among many Republicans with an eye on tough mid-term elections next year. It has also opened up an apparent gap between senior White House officials and the army. Both Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Vice-President Dick Cheney made aggressive statements saying that the war was on track and the insurgency was being defeated. However, senior generals, including John P. Abizaid, commander of US forces in the Middle East, paint a much less rosy picture.

Such developments have emboldened Democrats to go on a fierce offensive. In a response to Bush`s radio address, Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security adviser under Jimmy Carter, slammed the President for turning Iraq into a training ground for terrorists. He said the war had been conducted with `tactical and strategic incompetence` and made the United States less safe.


Cruelly Misled:

But America has is finally realising that it has been cruelly misled; drafted into this war under false pretences. A majority of the Americans now tell opinion pollsters that the war wasn’t worth it. Nobody seriously believes that the invasion has lessened the risk of international terror. The CIA warned last week that a new breed of super-militant jihadists is being schooled in Iraq, much tougher and more ruthless even than the mujahideen who emerged from the Afghanistan in 1980s. Well, they were warned.

Pretty soon, American mothers are going to demand a halt. An exit strategy. But the defence planners never had one. They believed their own propaganda. They thought that with smart weapons, stealth bombers and computerised logistics, this war could be fought from the air. Shock and awe would show that resistance to American might was futile. Bush thought his boys would be coming home almost as soon as they arrived.

This has been shown to be the US’s biggest military miscalculation since Vietnam. It isn’t quite the same scale of disaster as the war in Indochina, but it is going the same way. Donald Rumsfeld conceded last week that there could be no timetable for troop withdrawal. His exit strategy is “one more heave”.

As in Vietnam in 1965, America is now facing a difficult choice: escalate or get out. But it will take many more deaths and many more billions to sort out Iraq – if indeed it can be.

But it must surely be clear, even to Bush, that this is simply not possible. The only safe withdrawal would have been not to go in in the first place.

Now, there are many who argue that – whatever the merits of the invasion – the allies have a moral obligation to remain in Iraq “until the job is done”. It’s our mess, and we should clear it up. We owe it to the Iraqi people to restore law and order and essential services before we clear off.

It is highly likely now that there will be some kind of civil war in Iraq once the Western armies finally leave. This is now a heavily militarised nation, where violence is endemic and weapons are plentiful. Society has been shattered, essential services – electricity, water – have still not been restored, and the economy is in ruins.

This is true. However, it is hard to see how peace and order can be restored while the country is under foreign military occupation. The nominal government is only able to function so long as it remains in the US-protected Green Zone. It can have no legitimacy when it appears to be held hostage by the US.

As far as civil war is concerned, we may only be delaying the inevitable. A timetable for withdrawal might at least force the rival factions to the negotiating table. It could get the international community to re-engage with the problem. The longer the war goes on, the more it will divide the West and sour the climate of international relations.

Indeed, it is arguable that Iraq has been at least partially responsible for the breakdown of this month’s EU summit. The enmity between Tony Blair and Jacques Chirac dates from the war of words over the second UN resolution, which we almost accused France of opposing because it wanted to win contracts from Saddam. The attempt to divide the continent between “old” and “new” Europe was also a result of the desperate diplomacy before the invasion.

The enmity will not be far below the surface at Gleneagles. However, instead of sniping at each other, world leaders should use this G8 to agree on an exit strategy from Iraq, complete with a UN- sanctioned timetable for withdrawal. America needs to be saved from itself.

The presence of Christian occupiers in a Muslim country not only makes Iraq a magnet for every Islamic extremist on the planet, it also prevents there being any reconciliation of the antagonistic cultures within Iraqi society. America is the problem, not the solution.

There comes a time when you have to realise that if you want to stop breaking eggs you need to abandon the omelette.


Rosy Illusions:

Mr. Cheney`s response, in a CNN interview, was to insist again that the insurgency faces defeat and that its attacks reflect its desperation.

Such wishful insistence poses at least two perils.

One is that if the administration believes that the present course is leading to imminent victory, it won`t take necessary steps, such as: increasing pressure to make quick progress toward a new Iraqi constitution and elections; improving recruitment and performance of Iraqi security forces, and sealing the porous border between Iraq and Syria.

Another is that if the American people decide that their elected leaders cannot face or tell the truth, they are likely to become more pessimistic than even the current challenges warrant. That could lead to disastrous political pressure to withdraw U.S. forces prematurely.

Before the war, Mr. Cheney and other administration chiefs blithely shrugged off warnings about the difficulties of a postwar occupation and predicted that Americans would be welcomed by Iraqis as liberators.

They were laughably wrong then. They`re wrong now, but there`s nothing to laugh about.


Krugman: Hold Bush Accountable:

In this former imperial capital, every square seems to contain a giant statue of a Habsburg on horseback, posing as a conquering hero.

America`s founders knew all too well how war appeals to the vanity of rulers and their thirst for glory. That`s why they took care to deny presidents the kingly privilege of making war at their own discretion.

But after 9-11, President Bush, with obvious relish, declared himself a "war president." And he kept the nation focused on martial matters by morphing the pursuit of al-Qaida into a war against Saddam Hussein.

In November 2002, Helen Thomas, the veteran White House correspondent, told an audience, "I have never covered a president who actually wanted to go to war" - but she made it clear that Bush was the exception. And she was right.

Leading the nation wrongfully into war strikes at the heart of democracy. It would have been an unprecedented abuse of power even if the war hadn`t turned into a military and moral quagmire. And we won`t be able to get out of that quagmire until we face up to the reality of how we got in.

Let me talk briefly about what we now know about the decision to invade Iraq, then focus on why it matters.

The administration has prevented any official inquiry into whether it hyped the case for war. But there`s plenty of circumstantial evidence that it did.

And then there`s the Downing Street Memo - actually the minutes of a prime minister`s meeting in July 2002 - in which the chief of British overseas intelligence briefed his colleagues about his recent trip to Washington.

"Bush wanted to remove Saddam," says the memo, "through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." It doesn`t get much clearer than that.

The U.S. news media largely ignored the memo for five weeks after it was released in The Times of London. Then, some asserted, that it was "old news" that Bush wanted war in the summer of 2002, and that WMD were just an excuse. No, it isn`t. Media insiders may have suspected as much, but they didn`t inform their readers, viewers and listeners. And they never have held Bush accountable for his repeated declarations that he viewed war as a last resort.

Still, some of my colleagues insist that we should let bygones be bygones. The question, they say, is what we do now. But they`re wrong: It`s crucial that those responsible for the war be held to account.

Let me explain. The United States soon will have to start reducing force levels in Iraq or risk seeing the volunteer Army collapse. Yet, the administration and its supporters effectively have prevented any adult discussion of the need to get out.

On one side, the people who sold this war, unable to face up to the fact that their fantasies of a splendid little war have led to disaster, still are peddling illusions: the insurgency is in its "last throes," Dick Cheney says. On the other, they still have moderates and even liberals intimidated: Anyone who suggests that the United States will have to settle for something that falls far short of victory is accused of being unpatriotic.

We need to deprive these people of their ability to mislead and intimidate. And the best way to do that is to make it clear that the people who led us to war on false pretenses have no credibility and no right to lecture the rest of us about patriotism.

The good news is that the public seems ready to hear that message - readier than the media are to deliver it. Major media organizations still act as if only a small, left-wing fringe believes that we were misled into war, but that "fringe" now comprises much if not most of the population.

In a Gallup poll taken in early April - that is, before the release of the Downing Street Memo - 50 percent of those polled agreed with the proposition that the administration "deliberately misled the American public" about Iraq`s WMD. In a new Rasmussen poll, 49 percent said that Bush was more responsible for the war than Saddam Hussein, versus 44 percent who blamed Saddam.

Once the media catch up with the public, we`ll be able to start talking seriously about how to get out of Iraq.


Exit: The Best Option:

The general was right that growing public opposition to the Vietnam War pushed President Richard Nixon to pull the plug on that conflict.

He was wrong to imply that being guided by voters to set firm deadlines for withdrawing from a foreign quagmire was a bad thing for either side. An estimated 3 million Vietnamese and 58,000 American deaths later, Vietnam is run by the same Communist Party that was our enemy back then.

It now seems to matter not at all. We’re perfectly happy to see them open their cheap labor markets to the West.

The sad irony is Iraq — unlike Japan or Germany during World War II — also wasn’t a viable threat to the U.S. when we pre-emptively invaded it.

Once again, we’ve been reminded that violent intrusions into other people’s history have unforeseen consequences, usually negative. First among these effects is the inciting of insurgencies, united only by common hatred of the occupying foreign soldiers.

Iraq, as Vietnam, likely will experience serious problems after the American withdrawal. These problems, however, will be Iraq’s, destined for Iraqis to sort out.

Simply put, the best thing we can do now to encourage stability in Iraq is to stop serving as a recruitment poster for the insurgency.


# posted by Friendly Fire : 2:17 AM
Comment (0) | Trackback (0)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Ich habe das vor kurzem gefunden und finde es passend für die augenblickliche Entwicklung.

In The Quiet American, Graham Greene`s 1955 novel on the wages of naive arrogance in Vietnam, the world-weary British journalist Fowler remarks to Pyle, the US agent, with the best of intentions: " Oh, I know your motives are good, they always are ... I wish sometimes you had a few bad motives, you might understand a little more about human beings. And that applies to your country too, Pyle."

June 26, 2005
Who Are Americans to Think That Freedom Is Theirs to Spread?
By MICHAEL IGNATIEFF
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/magazine/26EXCEPTION.html?…

I.
As Thomas Jefferson lay dying at his hilltop estate, Monticello, in late June 1826, he wrote a letter telling the citizens of the city of Washington that he was too ill to join them for the 50th-anniversary celebrations of the Declaration of Independence. Wanting his letter to inspire the gathering, he told them that one day the experiment he and the founders started would spread to the whole world. ``To some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,`` he wrote, the American form of republican self-government would become every nation`s birthright. Democracy`s worldwide triumph was assured, he went on to say, because ``the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion`` would soon convince all men that they were born not to be ruled but to rule themselves in freedom.

It was the last letter he ever wrote. The slave-owning apostle of liberty, that incomparable genius and moral scandal, died 10 days later on July 4, 1826, on the same day as his old friend and fellow founder, John Adams.

It`s impossible to untangle the contradictions of American freedom without thinking about Jefferson and the spiritual abyss that separates his pronouncement that ``all men are created equal`` from the reality of the human beings he owned, slept with and never imagined as fellow citizens. American freedom aspires to be universal, but it has always been exceptional because America is the only modern democratic experiment that began in slavery. From the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863 to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, it took a century for the promise of American freedom to even begin to be kept.

Despite the exceptional character of American liberty, every American president has proclaimed America`s duty to defend it abroad as the universal birthright of mankind. John F. Kennedy echoed Jefferson when, in a speech in 1961, he said that the spread of freedom abroad was powered by ``the force of right and reason``; but, he went on, in a sober and pragmatic vein, ``reason does not always appeal to unreasonable men.`` The contrast between Kennedy and the current incumbent of the White House is striking. Until George W. Bush, no American president -- not even Franklin Roosevelt or Woodrow Wilson -- actually risked his presidency on the premise that Jefferson might be right. But this gambler from Texas has bet his place in history on the proposition, as he stated in a speech in March, that decades of American presidents` ``excusing and accommodating tyranny, in the pursuit of stability`` in the Middle East inflamed the hatred of the fanatics who piloted the planes into the twin towers on Sept. 11.

If democracy plants itself in Iraq and spreads throughout the Middle East, Bush will be remembered as a plain-speaking visionary. If Iraq fails, it will be his Vietnam, and nothing else will matter much about his time in office. For any president, it must be daunting to know already that his reputation depends on what Jefferson once called ``so inscrutable [an] arrangement of causes and consequences in this world.``

The consequences are more likely to be positive if the president begins to show some concern about the gap between his words and his administration`s performance. For he runs an administration with the least care for consistency between what it says and does of any administration in modern times. The real money committed to the promotion of democracy in the Middle East is trifling. The president may have doubled the National Endowment for Democracy`s budget, but it is still only $80 million a year. But even if there were more money, there is such doubt in the Middle East that the president actually means what he says -- in the wake of 60 years of American presidents cozying up to tyrants in the region -- that every dollar spent on democracy in the Middle East runs the risk of undermining the cause it supports. Actual Arab democrats recoil from the embrace of American good intentions. Just ask a community-affairs officer trying to give American dollars away for the promotion of democracy in Mosul, in northern Iraq, how easy it is to get anyone to even take the money, let alone spend it honestly.

And then there are the prisoners, the hooded man with the wires hanging from his body, the universal icon of the gap between the ideals of American freedom and the sordid -- and criminal -- realities of American detention and interrogation practice. The fetid example of these abuses makes American talk of democracy sound hollow. It will not be possible to encourage the rule of law in Egypt if America is sending Hosni Mubarak shackled prisoners to torture. It will be impossible to secure democratic change in Morocco or Afghanistan or anywhere else if Muslims believe that American guards desecrated the Koran. The failure to convict anybody higher than a sergeant for these crimes leaves many Americans and a lot of the world wondering whether Jefferson`s vision of America hasn`t degenerated into an ideology of self-congratulation, whose function is no longer to inspire but to lie.

II.
And yet . . . and yet. . . .

If Jefferson`s vision were only an ideology of self-congratulation, it would never have inspired Americans to do the hard work of reducing the gap between dream and reality. Think about the explosive force of Jefferson`s self-evident truth. First white working men, then women, then blacks, then the disabled, then gay Americans -- all have used his words to demand that the withheld promise be delivered to them. Without Jefferson, no Lincoln, no Emancipation Proclamation. Without the slave-owning Jefferson, no Martin Luther King Jr. and the dream of white and black citizens together reaching the Promised Land.

Jefferson`s words have had the same explosive force abroad. American men and women in two world wars died believing that they had fought to save the freedom of strangers. And they were not deceived. Bill Clinton saluted the men who died at Omaha Beach with the words, ``They gave us our world.`` That seems literally true: a democratic Germany, an unimaginably prosperous Europe at peace with itself. The men who died at Iwo Jima bequeathed their children a democratic Japan and 60 years of stability throughout Asia.

These achievements have left Americans claiming credit for everything good that has happened since, especially the fact that there are more democracies in the world than at any time in history. Jefferson`s vaunting language makes appropriate historical modesty particularly hard, yet modesty is called for. Freedom`s global dispersion owes less to America and more to a contagion of local civic courage, beginning with the people of Portugal and Spain who threw off dictatorship in the 1970`s, the Eastern Europeans who threw off Communism in the 90`s and the Georgians, Serbs, Kyrgyz and Ukrainians who have thrown off post-Soviet autocratic governments since. The direct American role in these revolutions was often slight, but American officials, spies and activists were there, too, giving a benign green light to regime change from the streets.

This democratic turn in American foreign policy has been recent. Latin Americans remember when the American presence meant backing death squads and military juntas. Now in the Middle East and elsewhere, when the crowds wave Lebanese flags in Beirut and clamor for the Syrians to go, when Iraqi housewives proudly hold up their purple fingers on exiting the polling stations, when Afghans quietly line up to vote in their villages, when Egyptians chant ``Enough!`` and demand that Mubarak leave power, few Islamic democrats believe they owe their free voice to America. But many know that they have not been silenced, at least not yet, because the United States actually seems, for the first time, to be betting on them and not on the autocrats.

In the cold war, most presidents opted for stability at the price of liberty when they had to choose. This president, as his second Inaugural Address made clear, has soldered stability and liberty together: ``America`s vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one.`` As he has said, ``Sixty years of Western nations excusing and accommodating the lack of freedom in the Middle East did nothing to make us safe -- because in the long run stability cannot be purchased at the expense of liberty.``

It is terrorism that has joined together the freedom of strangers and the national interest of the United States. But not everyone believes that democracy in the Middle East will actually make America safer, even in the medium term. Thomas Carothers of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, for one, has questioned the ``facile assumption that a straight line exists between progress on democratization and the elimination of the roots of Islamic terrorism.`` In the short term, democratization in Egypt, for example, might only bring the radical Muslim Brotherhood to power. Even in the medium term, becoming a democracy does not immunize a society from terrorism. Just look at democratic Spain, menaced by Basque terrorism.

Moreover, proclaiming freedom to be God`s plan for mankind, as the president has done, does not make it so. There is, as yet, no evidence of a sweeping tide of freedom and democracy through the Middle East. Lebanon could pitch from Syrian occupation into civil strife; Egypt might well re-elect Mubarak after a fraudulent exercise in pseudodemocracy; little Jordan hopes nobody will notice that government remains the family monopoly of the Hashemite dynasty; Tunisia remains a good place for tourists but a lousy place for democrats; democratic hopes are most alive in Palestine, but here the bullet is still competing with the ballot box. Over it all hangs Iraq, poised between democratic transition and anarchy.

And yet . . . and yet. . . . More than one world leader has been heard to ask his advisers recently, ``What if Bush is right?``

III.
Other democratic leaders may suspect Bush is right, but that doesn`t mean they are joining his crusade. Never have there been more democracies. Never has America been more alone in spreading democracy`s promise.

The reticence extends even to those nations that owe their democracy to American force of arms. Freedom in Germany was an American imperial imposition, from the cashiering of ex-Nazi officials and the expunging of anti-Semitic nonsense from school textbooks to the drafting of a new federal constitution. Yet Chancellor Gerhard Schroder can still intone that democracy cannot be ``forced upon these societies from the outside.`` This is not the only oddity. As Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff of the German weekly Die Zeit points out, the `68-ers now in power in Germany all spent their radical youth denouncing American support for tyrannies around the world: ``Across the Atlantic they shouted: Pinochet! Somoza! Mubarak! Shah Pahlevi! King Faisal! Now it seems as though an American president has finally heard their complaints. . . . But what is coming out of Germany? . . . Nothing but deafening silence!``

The deafening silence extends beyond Germany. Like Germany, Canada sat out the war in Iraq. Ask the Canadians why they aren`t joining the American crusade to spread democracy, and you get this from their government`s recent foreign-policy review: ``Canadians hold their values dear, but are not keen to see them imposed on others. This is not the Canadian way.`` One reason it is not the Canadian way is that when American presidents speak of liberty as God`s plan for mankind, even God-fearing Canadians wonder when God began disclosing his plan to presidents.

The same discomfort with the American project extends to the nation that, in the splendid form of the Marquis de Lafayette, once joined the American fight for freedom. The French used to talk about exporting Liberté, Egalité et Fraternité, but nowadays they don`t seem to mind standing by and watching Iraqi democrats struggling to keep chaos and anarchy at bay. Even America`s best friend, Tony Blair, is circumspect about defining the Iraq project as anything more than managing the chaos. The strategy unit at 10 Downing Street recently conducted a study on how to prevent future international crises: debt relief, overseas aid and humanitarian intervention were all featured, but the promotion of democracy and freedom barely got a mention. European political foundations and overseas development organizations do promote free elections and rule of law, but they bundle up these good works in the parlance of ``governance`` rather than in the language of spreading freedom and democracy. So America presides over a loose alliance of democracies, most of whose leaders think that promoting freedom and democracy is better left to the zealous imperialists in Washington.

The charge that promoting democracy is imperialism by another name is baffling to many Americans. How can it be imperialist to help people throw off the shackles of tyranny?

It may be that other nations just have longer memories of their own failed imperial projects. From Napoleon onward, France sought to export French political virtues, though not freedom itself, to its colonies. The British Empire was sustained by the conceit that the British had a special talent for government that entitled them to spread the rule of law to Kipling`s ``lesser breeds.`` In the 20th century, the Soviet Union advanced missionary claims about the superiority of Soviet rule, backed by Marxist pseudoscience.

What is exceptional about the Jefferson dream is that it is the last imperial ideology left standing in the world, the sole survivor of national claims to universal significance. All the others -- the Soviet, the French and the British -- have been consigned to the ash heap of history. This may explain why what so many Americans regard as simply an exercise in good intentions strikes even their allies as a delusive piece of hubris.

The problem here is that while no one wants imperialism to win, no one in his right mind can want liberty to fail either. If the American project of encouraging freedom fails, there may be no one else available with the resourcefulness and energy, even the self-deception, necessary for the task. Very few countries can achieve and maintain freedom without outside help. Big imperial allies are often necessary to the establishment of liberty. As the Harvard ethicist Arthur Applbaum likes to put it, ``All foundings are forced.`` Just remember how much America itself needed the assistance of France to free itself of the British. Who else is available to sponsor liberty in the Middle East but America? Certainly the Europeans themselves have not done a very distinguished job defending freedom close to home.

During the cold war, while most Western Europeans tacitly accepted the division of their continent, American presidents stood up and called for the walls to come tumbling down. When an anonymous graffiti artist in Berlin sprayed the wall with a message -- ``This wall will fall. Beliefs become reality`` -- it was President Reagan, not a European politician, who seized on those words and declared that the wall ``cannot withstand faith; it cannot withstand truth. The wall cannot withstand freedom.``

This is why much of the European support for Bush in Iraq came from the people who had grown up behind that wall. It wasn`t just the promise of bases and money and strategic partnerships that tipped Poles, Romanians, Czechs and Hungarians into sending troops; it was the memory that when the chips were down, in the dying years of Soviet tyranny, American presidents were there, and Western European politicians looked the other way.

It is true that Western Europe has had a democracy-promotion project of its own since the wall came down: bringing the fledgling regimes of Eastern Europe into the brave new world of the European Union. This very real achievement has now been delayed by the ``no`` votes in France and the Netherlands. Sponsoring the promotion of democracy in the East and preparing an Islamic giant, Turkey, for a later entry is precisely what the referendum votes want to stop. So who will be there to prevent Islamic fundamentalism or military authoritarianism breaking through in Turkey now that the Europeans have told the Turks to remain in the waiting room forever? If democracy within requires patrons without, the only patron left is the United States.

IV.
While Americans characteristically oversell and exaggerate the world`s desire to live as they do, it is actually reasonable to suppose, as Americans believe, that most human beings, if given the chance, would like to rule themselves. It is not imperialistic to believe this. It might even be condescending to believe anything else.

If Europeans are embarrassed to admit this universal yearning or to assist it, Americans have difficulty understanding that there are many different forms that this yearning can take, Islamic democracy among them. Democracy may be a universal value, but democracies differ -- mightily -- on ultimate questions. One reason the American promotion of democracy conjures up so little support from other democrats is that American democracy, once a model to emulate, has become an exception to avoid.

Consider America`s neighbor to the north. Canadians look south and ask themselves why access to health care remains a privilege of income in the United States and not a right of citizenship. They like hunting and shooting, but can`t understand why anyone would regard a right to bear arms as a constitutional right. They can`t understand why the American love of limited government does not extend to a ban on the government`s ultimate power -- capital punishment. The Canadian government seems poised to extend full marriage rights to gays.

Some American liberals wistfully wish their own country were more like Canada, while for American conservatives, ``Soviet Canuckistan`` -- as Pat Buchanan calls it -- is the liberal hell they are seeking to avoid. But if American liberals can`t persuade their own society to be more like other democracies and American conservatives don`t want to, both of them are acknowledging, the first with sorrow, the other with joy, that America is an exception.

This is not how it used to be. From the era of F.D.R. to the era of John Kennedy, liberal and progressive foreigners used to look to America for inspiration. For conservatives like Margaret Thatcher, Ronald Reagan was a lodestar. The grand boulevards in foreign capitals were once named after these large figures of American legend. For a complex set of reasons, American democracy has ceased to be the inspiration it was. This is partly because of the religious turn in American conservatism, which awakens incomprehension in the largely secular politics of America`s democratic allies. It is partly because of the chaos of the contested presidential election in 2000, which left the impression, worldwide, that closure had been achieved at the expense of justice. And partly because of the phenomenal influence of money on American elections.

But the differences between America and its democratic allies run deeper than that. When American policy makers occasionally muse out loud about creating a ``community of democracies`` to become a kind of alternative to the United Nations, they forget that America and its democratic friends continue to disagree about what fundamental rights a democracy should protect and the limits to power government should observe. As Europeans and Canadians head leftward on issues like gay marriage, capital punishment and abortion, and as American politics head rightward, the possibility of America leading in the promotion of a common core of beliefs recedes ever further. Hence the paradox of Jefferson`s dream: American liberty as a moral universal seems less and less recognizable to the very democracies once inspired by that dream. In the cold war, America was accepted as the leader of ``the free world.`` The free world -- the West -- has fractured, leaving a fierce and growing argument about democracy in its place.

V.
The fact that many foreigners do not happen to buy into the American version of promoting democracy may not be much of a surprise. What is significant is how many American liberals don`t share the vision, either.

On this issue, there has been a huge reversal of roles in American politics. Once upon a time, liberal Democrats were the custodians of the Jeffersonian message that American democracy should be exported to the world, and conservative Republicans were its realist opponents. Beginning in the late 1940`s, as the political commentator Peter Beinart has rediscovered, liberals like Eleanor Roosevelt, Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and Adlai Stevenson realized that liberals would have to reinvent themselves. This was partly a matter of principle -- they detested Soviet tyranny -- and partly a matter of pragmatism. They wanted to avoid being tarred as fellow travelers, the fate that had met Franklin Roosevelt`s former running mate, the radical reformer Henry Wallace. The liberals who founded Americans for Democratic Action refounded liberalism as an anti-Communist internationalism, dedicated to defending freedom and democracy abroad from Communist threat. The missionary Jeffersonianism in this reinvention worried many people -- for example, George Kennan, the diplomat and foreign-policy analyst who argued that containment of the Communist menace was all that prudent politics could accomplish.

The leading Republicans of the 1950`s -- Robert Taft, for example -- were isolationist realists, doubtful that America should impose its way on the world. Eisenhower, that wise old veteran of European carnage, was in that vein, too: prudent, risk-avoiding, letting the Soviets walk into Hungary because he thought war was simply out of the question, too horrible to contemplate. In the 1960`s and 70`s, Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger remained in the realist mode. Since stability mattered more to them than freedom, they propped up the shah of Iran, despite his odious secret police, and helped to depose Salvador Allende in Chile. Kissinger`s guiding star was not Jefferson but Bismarck. Kissinger contended that people who wanted freedom and democracy in Eastern Europe were lamentable sentimentalists, unable to look at the map and accommodate themselves to the eternal reality of Soviet power.

It was Reagan who began the realignment of American politics, making the Republicans into internationalist Jeffersonians with his speech in London at the Palace of Westminster in 1982, which led to the creation of the National Endowment for Democracy and the emergence of democracy promotion as a central goal of United States foreign policy. At the time, many conservative realists argued for detente, risk avoidance and placation of the Soviet bear. Faced with the Republican embrace of Jeffersonian ambitions for America abroad, liberals chose retreat or scorn. Bill Clinton -- who took reluctant risks to defend freedom in Bosnia and Kosovo -- partly arrested this retreat, yet since his administration, the withdrawal of American liberalism from the defense and promotion of freedom overseas has been startling. The Michael Moore-style left conquered the Democratic Party`s heart; now the view was that America`s only guiding interest overseas was furthering the interests of Halliburton and Exxon. The relentless emphasis on the hidden role of oil makes the promotion of democracy seem like a devious cover or lame excuse. The unseen cost of this pseudo-Marxist realism is that it disconnected the Democratic Party from the patriotic idealism of the very electorate it sought to persuade.

John Kerry`s presidential campaign could not overcome liberal America`s fatal incapacity to connect to the common faith of the American electorate in the Jeffersonian ideal. Instead he ran as the prudent, risk-avoiding realist in 2004 -- despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that he had fought in Vietnam. Kerry`s caution was bred in the Mekong. The danger and death he encountered gave him some good reasons to prefer realism to idealism, and risk avoidance to hubris. Faced with a rival who proclaimed that freedom was not just America`s gift to mankind but God`s gift to the world, it was understandable that Kerry would seek to emphasize how complex reality was, how resistant to American purposes it might be and how high the price of American dreams could prove. As it turned out, the American electorate seemed to know only too well how high the price was in Iraq, and it still chose the gambler over the realist. In 2004, the Jefferson dream won decisively over American prudence.

But this is more than just a difference between risk taking and prudence. It is also a disagreement about whether American values properly deserve to be called universal at all. The contemporary liberal attitude toward the promotion of democratic freedom -- we like what we have, but we have no right to promote it to others -- sounds to many conservative Americans like complacent and timorous relativism, timorous because it won`t lift a finger to help those who want an escape from tyranny, relativist because it seems to have abandoned the idea that all people do want to be free. Judging from the results of the election in 2004, a majority of Americans do not want to be told that Jefferson was wrong.

VI.
A relativist America is properly inconceivable. Leave relativism, complexity and realism to other nations. America is the last nation left whose citizens don`t laugh out loud when their leader asks God to bless the country and further its mighty work of freedom. It is the last country with a mission, a mandate and a dream, as old as its founders.

All of this may be dangerous, even delusional, but it is also unavoidable. It is impossible to think of America without these properties of self-belief.

Of course, American self-belief is not an eternal quantity. Jefferson airily assumed that democracy would be carried on the wings of enlightenment, reason and science. No one argues that now. Not even Bush. He does speak of liberty as ``the plan of heaven for humanity and the best hope for progress here on Earth,`` but in more sober moments, he will concede that the promotion of freedom is hard work, stretching out for generations and with no certain end in sight.

The activists, experts and bureaucrats who do the work of promoting democracy talk sometimes as if democracy were just a piece of technology, like a water pump, that needs only the right installation to work in foreign climes. Others suggest that the promotion of democracy requires anthropological sensitivity, a deep understanding of the infinitely complex board game of foreign (in this case Iraqi) politics.

But Iraqi freedom also depends on something whose measurement is equally complex: what price, in soldiers` bodies and lives, the American people are prepared to pay. The members of the American public are ceaselessly told that stabilizing Iraq will make them more secure. They are told that fighting the terrorists there is better than fighting them at home. They are told that victory in Iraq will spread democracy and stability in the arc from Algeria to Afghanistan. They are told that when this happens, ``they`` won`t hate Americans, or hate them as much as they do now. It`s hard to know what the American people believe about these claims, but one vital test of whether the claims are believed is the number of adolescent men and women prepared to show up at the recruiting posts in the suburban shopping malls and how many already in the service or Guard choose to re-enlist and sign up for another tour in Ramadi or Falluja. The current word is that recruitment is down, and this is a serious sign that someone at least thinks America is paying too high a price for its ideals.

Of all human activities, fighting for your country is the one that requires most elaborate justification. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. once said that ``to fight out a war, you must believe something and want something with all your might.`` He had survived Antietam and the annihilating horror of the Battle of the Wilderness, so he knew of what he spoke. The test that Jefferson`s dream has to pass is whether it gives members of a new generation something they want to fight for with all their might.

Two years from now is the earliest any senior United States commander says that Americans can begin to come home from Iraq in any significant numbers. Already the steady drip of casualties is the faintly heard, offstage noise of contemporary American politics. As this noise grows louder, it may soon drown out everything else. Flag-draped caskets are slid down the ramps of cargo planes at Dover Air Force Base and readied for their last ride home to the graveyards of America. In some region of every American`s mind, those caskets raise a simple question: Is Iraqi freedom worth this?

It would be a noble thing if one day 26 million Iraqis could live their lives without fear in a country of their own. But it would also have been a noble dream if the South Vietnamese had been able to resist the armored divisions of North Vietnam and to maintain such freedom as they had. Lyndon Johnson said the reason Americans were there was the ``principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania,`` the right of people to choose their own path to change. Noble dream or not, the price turned out to be just too high.

There is nothing worse than believing your son or daughter, brother or sister, father or mother died in vain. Even those who have opposed the Iraq war all along, who believe that the hope of planting democracy has lured America into a criminal folly, do not want to tell those who have died that they have given their lives for nothing. This is where Jefferson`s dream must work. Its ultimate task in American life is to redeem loss, to rescue sacrifice from oblivion and futility and to give it shining purpose. The real truth about Iraq is that we just don`t know -- yet -- whether the dream will do its work this time. This is the somber question that hangs unanswered as Americans approach this Fourth of July.

Michael Ignatieff, a contributing writer, is the Carr professor of human rights at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. He is the editor of the forthcoming book ``American Exceptionalism and Human Rights.``

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

Da sind noch einige Flash mehr, die ich noch nicht gesehen habe:

[urlVisit the TooStupidToBePresident.com]http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/[/url]


anklicken

[url]http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/laura_stand-up.htm

[url]http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/disassembler.htm

[url]http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/catapultpropaganda.htm

[/url][/url][/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]
BUSH PROPOSES CHARGING AXIS OF EVIL NATIONS ANNUAL MEMBERSHIP DUES
[/TABLE]

‘The Free Ride is Over,’ Says President

Looking for new ways to slash the mounting federal budget deficit, President George W. Bush today proposed charging Iran and North Korea annual dues for their membership in the Axis of Evil.

The president’s plan, which took many in Congress and in the diplomatic community by surprise, would put responsibility for the rising costs of military spending, Social Security and other government programs squarely on the shoulders of America’s two most despised enemies.

President Bush made the proposal in a speech in Flint, Michigan, telling his audience that for Iran and North Korea, both members of the Axis of Evil since 2001, “the free ride is over.”

“Iran and North Korea have enjoyed all the benefits of Axis of Evil membership without paying a dime for them,” said Mr. Bush. “Well, if they think that state of affairs can continue forever, they are sorely mistaken.”

While Mr. Bush stopped short of naming an exact figure for annual membership in the Axis of Evil, he warned the two nations, “Membership in the most exclusive evil club in the world does not come cheap.”

President Bush reserved some of his remarks for Iraq, telling the audience that while there had been some setbacks in the conflict there, “The war is still going better than the Russian space program.”

Elsewhere, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del) said that his presidential ambitions would not be hurt by an incident in 1988 in which he was accused of plagiarizing a political speech, telling reporters, “That happened four score and seven years ago.”

http://www.borowitzreport.com/archive_rpt.asp?rec=1160&srch=

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 26, 2005
Gray Says He Felt Betrayal at Deep Throat`s Unmasking
By DAVID JOHNSTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/politics/26cnd-gray.html?h…

WASHINGTON, June 26 - L. Patrick Gray, the acting director of the F.B.I. at the time of the Watergate break-in, ended more than three decades of silence about his role in the scandal, saying in a television interview broadcast Sunday that he felt shock and betrayal by the disclosure that his former deputy, W. Mark Felt, was Deep Throat.

In an interview on the ABC News program "This Week," Mr. Gray said that he felt "like I was hit with a tremendous sledgehammer" by Mr. Felt`s recent disclosure that he was the secret source for Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the Washington Post reporters who broke important Watergate news relying on Mr. Felt`s information.

Mr. Gray, 88, resigned from the Federal Bureau of Investigation in disgrace in 1973. In the ABC interview with George Stephanopoulos, he spoke bitterly of Mr. Felt, saying that "he told me time and again he was not Deep Throat."

If he could, Mr. Gray said, he would say to Mr. Felt: "Mark, why? Why didn`t you come to me? Why didn`t we work it out together?" Mr. Gray said he now realized that he failed to halt news leaks from the bureau during Watergate because Mr. Felt was in charge of stopping them.

"I think he fooled me, if you want to put it that way, Mr. Stephanopoulos, by being the perfect example of the F.B.I. agent that he was," Mr. Gray said, according to a transcript of the interview. "He did his job well, he did it thoroughly, and I trusted him all along, and I was, I can`t begin to tell you how deep was my shock and my grief when I found that it was Mark Felt."

Mr. Gray`s memories of events seemed sharp and his words were punctuated by flashes of anger as he defended his actions and insisted that he had been badly misled not only by Mr. Felt but also by President Nixon and his aides.

In his 1979 book, "The F.B.I. Pyramid From the Inside," Mr. Felt wrote contemptuously of Mr. Gray as an absentee director who compromised the bureau`s independence by mishandling the break-in inquiry. Of his former subordinate, Mr. Gray said in the ABC interview, "He was a smooth operator, and I can`t understand how Mark could have let himself do to me what he did when I trusted him so implicitly."

Mr. Gray has most often been depicted in accounts of the Watergate period as a naïve and politically pliant lawyer from Connecticut who was appointed by Nixon to head the F.B.I. on a temporary basis after the death of J. Edgar Hoover in May 1972. The president and his aides had long feared and mistrusted the bureau.

After the bureau began investigating the break-in, Mr. Gray turned over raw F.B.I. interview reports and lead sheets to John W. Dean, Nixon`s counsel, who ran the effort to conceal White House ties to the Watergate burglars. Later, in the fireplace of his Connecticut home, Mr. Gray burned files that he had been given from the White House safe of E. Howard Hunt, whose phone number was found in address books of the Watergate burglars.

In the interview, Mr. Gray defended his actions, although he admitted that he erred during Watergate in temporarily holding up an investigation following the money trail to a Mexican bank when White House aides falsely told him that it might interfere with a continuing C.I.A. operation.

Mr. Gray said he provided internal F.B.I. investigative files to the White House only after he had been cleared to do so by the bureau`s general counsel. He said he had been justified in burning the files because their contents were unrelated to Watergate.

One file contained top-secret cables apparently forged by Mr. Hunt that made it appear the administration of President Kennedy had been implicated in the assassination of President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam in 1963. A second file contained false letters apparently intended to embarrass Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, if he ran for president.

Mr. Gray said he burned the papers because he was following the instructions of Mr. Dean and John D. Ehrlichman, Nixon`s top domestic affairs adviser, never to reveal their contents. "I had an order, direct order from the president`s principal adviser, to whom he had previously ordered me to report," Mr. Gray said, saying that he trusted Nixon and his aides.

Mr. Gray recalled his ill-fated confirmation hearings in early 1973, when he was asked how one White House operative had obtained access to information apparently taken directly from F.B.I. files. "And I thought for a long time — I could have perjured myself — and said, `I don`t know,`." Mr. Gray said in the interview.

He remembered telling the committee what until then had been a closely held secret, that he himself had supplied the information to the White House. "Everything went up in the air when everybody found out that Gray was sending F.B.I. files, reports on the investigation to John Dean at the White House, and it was at that point that John Dean exploded over there," Mr. Gray said.

Mr. Gray`s disclosure prompted the White House to turn against him and provoked Mr. Ehrlichman to utter his famous phrase that Mr. Gray would be left to "twist slowly in the wind." Mr. Gray`s nomination to be made permanent F.B.I. director was withdrawn and in April 1973 he resigned from the bureau.

When Mr. Gray first heard Mr. Ehrlichman`s remark on a White House tape, he reacted with anger. "Well, what I thought cannot be repeated on television," he told Mr. Stephanopoulos. "But anger, anger of the fiercest sort, and I could not believe that those guys were as rotten as they were turning out to be."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

NEWS ANALYSIS
Bush`s Credibility Takes a Direct Hit From Friendly Fire
Cheney`s remark on the Iraqi insurgency`s `last throes` undercuts a calibrated message.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bushiraq…
By Doyle McManus
Times Staff Writer

June 26, 2005

WASHINGTON — For months, President Bush has struggled to maintain public support for the war in Iraq in the face of periodic setbacks on the battlefield. Now he faces a second front in the battle for public opinion: charges that the administration is not telling the truth about how the war is going.

Bush and his aides have delivered a positive, if carefully calibrated, message. The war is not yet won, they acknowledge, but steady progress is being made. "We can expect more tough fighting in the weeks and months ahead," the president said in his weekly radio address Saturday. "Yet I am confident in the outcome."

But last month, Vice President Dick Cheney broke from the administration`s "message discipline" and declared that the insurgency was in its "last throes." The White House has been paying a price ever since.

Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), who supported the decision to go to war in Iraq, complained that the White House was "completely disconnected from reality." Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), another supporter of the war, charged that Bush had opened not just a credibility gap, but a "credibility chasm."

Even Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld distanced himself from the vice president`s words. "I didn`t use them, and I might not use them," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. Rumsfeld said the insurgency could conceivably "go on for four, eight, 10, 12, 15 years, whatever…. We don`t know. It is going to be a problem for the people of Iraq."

Historian Robert Dallek, a biographer of President Lyndon B. Johnson and an outspoken critic of Bush, said: "Analogies are imperfect, and I hate to press this one, but this is so much like Vietnam. It has echoes of the Vietnam experience when senators like [Arkansas Democrat J. William] Fulbright began to hammer Johnson on our aims and goals and credibility….

"It`s a cumulative process. It takes time. We`re not at the full-blown stage on this yet. But it`s heading in that direction."

Cheney spokesman Steve Schmidt said the vice president thought the controversy was mostly partisan politics. "He understands that it`s natural for political opponents to seize on a statement and try to make political hay of it," Schmidt said.

But other administration officials and Republican elders, who spoke anonymously because they feared retribution from the White House, said the vice president had blundered.

"This is like the aircraft carrier," said former Ronald Reagan aide Michael K. Deaver, referring to Bush`s announcement of victory in Iraq from the deck of the Abraham Lincoln in 2003. "It simply has given an extended talking point to those people who are opposed to the war and want to make the administration look bad…. I don`t think it`s a big problem. It`s a problem."

He rejected any parallels with Vietnam. "There isn`t any comparison between this and Vietnam," Deaver said. "There aren`t student demonstrators all over the country. There aren`t National Guardsmen tear-gassing people…. We`re a long way from that.

"Bush`s back is not against the wall politically. He still has a lot of leeway."

But complaints about the administration`s credibility issued last week from some supporters of the war as well as opponents, and from Republicans as well as Democrats.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), a supporter of the war, called on Bush to deliver a tougher message to the public about the danger of losing in Iraq. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), another supporter, complained that although the Pentagon claimed it had trained 170,000 Iraqi security forces, it refused to say how many were ready for military operations — "the key element to success," McCain said.

Underlying their criticism was a steady erosion in public support for the war.

"We will lose this war if we leave too soon. And what is likely to make us do that? The public going south," Graham told Rumsfeld. "And that is happening, and that worries me greatly."

Several recent polls have found that a majority of Americans now believe that the United States made a mistake in going to war in Iraq, and increasing numbers — but not a majority — said they want U.S. troops to be withdrawn immediately.

"What`s interesting in this decline in support for the war is that it has sprung from the public itself," said pollster Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center. "It wasn`t led by politicians or by an antiwar movement. It started back in May, when the focus in Washington was on other issues."

Bush acknowledged Saturday that maintaining U.S. public support for the war was critical. "The terrorists` objective is to break the will of America and of the Iraqi people before democracy can take root," he said.

Bush will try to repair the damage Tuesday evening when he speaks at Ft. Bragg, N.C. Aides say that the president will point to reports that an increasing number of insurgents in Iraq appear to be fighters from other Arab countries, bolstering his argument that Iraq is "a central front in the war on terrorism."

But officials acknowledged that the underlying problems will take more than one speech to dispel.

"Senators are hearing from back home: If things are going so well, why do we hear every morning that 30 people have been killed in Baghdad?" said a top Republican advisor who refused to be identified.

Meanwhile, leading Democrats, who had largely fallen silent on Iraq after successful elections were held there Jan. 30, have been emboldened to step up their criticisms. Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the Armed Services Committee, called on the administration to consider setting a timetable for withdrawing troops if Iraq`s constitutional negotiations got bogged down.

Biden said he opposed setting a timetable but exhorted the administration to set clearer benchmarks for progress and to be more candid about failures.

In the Democrats` official response Saturday to Bush`s radio address, Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security advisor to President Carter, said: "This war has been conducted with tactical and strategic incompetence…. The president should provide the American people with a plan describing the key elements of a successful strategy in Iraq."

Times staff writers Mark Mazzetti and Richard Simon contributed to this report.



Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Tomgram:Michael Klare on a Saudi Oil Bombshell
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=3832

Right now, the price of a barrel of crude oil is flirting with $60; a Chinese state-controlled oil company has made an $18.5 billion bid for the American oil firm, Unocal -- you remember, the company that fought to put a projected $1.9 billion natural gas pipeline through Taliban Afghanistan and hired as its consultant Zalmay Khalilzad, presently our Afghan ambassador and soon to be our ambassador to Iraq; world energy consumption, according to last week`s British Financial Times, surged 4.3% last year (the biggest rise since 1984), oil use by 3.4% (the biggest rise since 1978); in the meantime, Exxon -- which just had the impunity to hire Philip Cooney after he was accused of doctoring government reports on climate change and resigned as chief of staff of the White House Council on Environmental Quality ("The cynical way to look at this," commented Kert Davies, U.S. research director for Greenpeace, "is that ExxonMobil has removed its sleeper cell from the White House and extracted him back to the mother ship.") -- has quietly issued a report, The Outlook for Energy: A 2030 View, predicting that the moment of "peak oil" is only a five-year hop-skip-and-a-pump away; "Oil Shockwave," a "war game" recently conducted by top ex-government officials in Washington, including two former directors of the CIA, found the United States "all but powerless to protect the American economy in the face of a catastrophic disruption of oil markets," which was all too easy for them to imagine ("The participants concluded almost unanimously that they must press the president to invest quickly in promising technologies to reduce dependence on overseas oil..."); and oil tycoon Boone Pickens, chairman of the billion-dollar hedge fund BP Capital Management, is having the time of his life. ("I`ve never had so much fun…") Over the last five years, he claims, his bet that oil prices would rise has "made him more money... than he earned in the preceding half century hunting for riches in petroleum deposits and companies," and he is predicting that prices will only go higher with much more "pain at the pump." Ah, the good life. And if you don`t quite recognize the new look of this fast-shifting energy landscape, then how are you going to feel if the Age of Petroleum turns out to be drawing -- more rapidly than most people imagine -- to a close?



Well, hold your hats, folks. Below Michael Klare, an expert on "resource wars" and the author of the indispensable Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America`s Growing Petroleum Dependency, discusses a new bombshell book by oil industry insider Matthew Simmons, and his unsettling news that everything you`ve heard about those inexhaustible supplies of Saudi oil, which are supposed to keep the world floating for decades, simply isn`t so. This is real news and absorbing its implications is no small matter.



Imagine, just for the sake of argument, where we might be today, energy-wise, if Americans -- and American legislators –- had actually taken Jimmy Carter`s famed 1979 "moral equivalent of war" speech on energy conservation seriously, but rejected his Carter Doctrine and the Rapid Deployment Joint Task Force that went with it -- both of which set us on our present path to war(s) in the Middle East. Here`s part of what Carter said to the American people on television that long-ago night:

"Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did in 1977 -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the 1980s, for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade -- a saving of over 4-1/2 million barrels of imported oil per day… To give us energy security, I am asking for the most massive peacetime commitment of funds and resources in our nation`s history to develop America`s own alternative sources of fuel -- from coal, from oil shale, from plant products for gasohol, from unconventional gas, from the sun… I`m proposing a bold conservation program to involve every state, county, and city and every average American in our energy battle. This effort will permit you to build conservation into your homes and your lives at a cost you can afford…"

Well, it never happened. Now consider Matt Simmons` news and where we are today.

Tom

Matt Simmons` Bombshell
The Impending Decline of Saudi Oil Output
By Michael T. Klare

For those oil enthusiasts who believe that petroleum will remain abundant for decades to come -- among them, the President, the Vice President, and their many friends in the oil industry -- any talk of an imminent "peak" in global oil production and an ensuing decline can be easily countered with a simple mantra: "Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia." Not only will the Saudis pump extra oil now to alleviate global shortages, it is claimed, but they will keep pumping more in the years ahead to quench our insatiable thirst for energy. And when the kingdom`s existing fields run dry, lo, they will begin pumping from other fields that are just waiting to be exploited. We ordinary folk need have no worries about oil scarcity, because Saudi Arabia can satisfy our current and future needs. This is, in fact, the basis for the administration`s contention that we can continue to increase our yearly consumption of oil, rather than conserve what`s left and begin the transition to a post-petroleum economy. Hallelujah for Saudi Arabia!

But now, from an unexpected source, comes a devastating challenge to this powerful dogma: In a newly-released book, investment banker Matthew R. Simmons convincingly demonstrates that, far from being capable of increasing its output, Saudi Arabia is about to face the exhaustion of its giant fields and, in the relatively near future, will probably experience a sharp decline in output. "There is only a small probability that Saudi Arabia will ever deliver the quantities of petroleum that are assigned to it in all the major forecasts of world oil production and consumption," he writes in Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. "Saudi Arabian production," he adds, italicizing his claims to drive home his point, "is at or very near its peak sustainable volume . . . and it is likely to go into decline in the very foreseeable future."

In addition, there is little chance that Saudi Arabia will ever discover new fields that can take up the slack from those now in decline. "Saudi Arabia`s exploration efforts over the last three decades were more intense than most observers have assumed," Simmons asserts. "The results of these efforts were modest at best."

If Simmons is right about Saudi Arabian oil production -- and the official dogma is wrong -- we can kiss the era of abundant petroleum goodbye forever. This is so for a simple reason: Saudi Arabia is the world`s leading oil producer, and there is no other major supplier (or combination of suppliers) capable of making up for the loss in Saudi production if its output falters. This means that if the Saudi Arabia mantra proves deceptive, we will find ourselves in an entirely new world -- the "twilight age" of petroleum, as Simmons puts it. It will not be a happy place.

Before taking up the implications of a possible decline in Saudi Arabian oil output, it is important to look more closely at the two sides in this critical debate: the official view, as propagated by the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE), and the contrary view, as represented by Simmons` new book.

The prevailing view goes like this: According to the DoE, Saudi Arabia possesses approximately one-fourth of the world`s proven oil reserves, an estimated 264 billion barrels. In addition, the Saudis are believed to harbor additional, possible reserves containing another few hundred billion barrels. On this basis, the DoE asserts that "Saudi Arabia is likely to remain the world`s largest oil producer for the foreseeable future."

To fully grasp Saudi Arabia`s vital importance to the global energy equation, it is necessary to consider the DoE`s projections of future world oil demand and supply. Because of the rapidly growing international thirst for petroleum -- much of it coming from the United States and Europe, but an increasing share from China, India, and other developing nations -- the world`s expected requirement for petroleum is projected to jump from 77 million barrels per day in 2001 to 121 million barrels by 2025, a net increase of 44 million barrels. Fortunately, says the DoE, global oil output will also rise by this amount in the years ahead, and so there will be no significant oil shortage to worry about. But over one-fourth of this additional oil -- some 12.3 million barrels per day -- will have to come from Saudi Arabia, the only country capable of increasing its output by this amount. Take away Saudi Arabia`s added 12.3 million barrels, and there is no possibility of satisfying anticipated world demand in 2025.

One could, of course, suggest that some other oil producers will step in to provide the additional supplies needed, notably Iraq, Nigeria, and Russia. But these countries together would have to increase their own output by more than 100% simply to play their already assigned part in the Department of Energy`s anticipated global supply gain over the next two decades. This in itself may exceed their production capacities. To suggest that they could also make up for the shortfall in Saudi production stretches credulity to the breaking point.

It is not surprising, then, that the Department of Energy and the Saudi government have been very nervous about the recent expressions of doubt about the Saudi capacity to boost its future oil output. These doubts were first aired in a front-page story by Jeff Gerth in the New York Times on February 25, 2004. Relying, to some degree, on information provided by Matthew Simmons, Gerth reported that Saudi Arabia`s oil fields "are in decline, prompting industry and government officials to raise serious questions about whether the kingdom will be able to satisfy the world`s thirst for oil in coming years."

Gerth`s report provoked a barrage of counter-claims by the Saudi government. Their country, Saudi officials insisted, could increase its production and satisfy future world demand. "[Saudi Arabia] has immense proven reserves of oil with substantial upside potential," Abdallah S. Jum`ah, the president of Saudi Aramco, declared in April 2004. "We are capable of expanding capacity to high levels rapidly, and of maintaining those levels for long periods of time." This exchange prompted the DoE to insert a sidebar on this topic in its International Energy Outlook for 2004. "In an emphatic rebuttal to the New York Times article [of February 24]," the DoE noted, "Saudi Arabia maintained that its oil producers are confident in their ability to sustain significantly higher levels of production capacity well into the middle of this century." This being the case, we ordinary folks need not worry about future shortages. Given Saudi abundance, the DoE wrote, we "would expect conventional oil to peak closer to the middle than to the beginning of the 21st century."

In these, and other such assertions, U.S. oil experts always come back to the same point: Saudi oil managers "are confident in their ability" to achieve significantly higher levels of output well into the future. In no instance, however, have they provided independent verification of this capacity; they simply rely on the word of those oil officials, who have every incentive to assure us of their future reliability as suppliers. In the end, therefore, it comes down to this: America`s entire energy strategy, with its commitment to an increased reliance on petroleum as the major source of our energy, rests on the unproven claims of Saudi oil producers that they can, in fact, continuously increase Saudi output in accordance with the DoE`s predictions.

And this is where Matthew Simmons enters the picture, with his meticulously documented book showing that Saudi producers cannot be trusted to tell the truth about future Saudi oil output.

First, a few words about the author of Twilight in the Desert. Matthew ("Matt") Simmons is not a militant environmentalist or anti-oil partisan; he is Chairman and CEO of one of the nation`s leading oil-industry investment banks, Simmons & Company International. For decades, Simmons has been pouring billions of dollars into the energy business, financing the exploration and development of new oil reservoirs. In the process, he has become a friend and associate of many of the top figures in the oil industry, including George W. Bush and Dick Cheney. He has also accumulated a vast storehouse of information about the world`s major oil fields, the prospects for new discoveries, and the techniques for extracting and marketing petroleum. There is virtually no figure better equipped than Simmons to assess the state of the world`s oil supply. And this is why his assessment of Saudi Arabia`s oil production capacity is so devastating.

Essentially, Simmons argument boils down to four major points: (1) most of Saudi Arabia`s oil output is generated by a few giant fields, of which Ghawar -- the world`s largest -- is the most prolific; (2) these giant fields were first developed 40 to 50 years ago, and have since given up much of their easily-extracted petroleum; (3) to maintain high levels of production in these fields, the Saudis have come to rely increasingly on the use of water injection and other secondary recovery methods to compensate for the drop in natural field pressure; and (4) as time goes on, the ratio of water to oil in these underground fields rises to the point where further oil extraction becomes difficult, if not impossible. To top it all off, there is very little reason to assume that future Saudi exploration will result in the discovery of new fields to replace those now in decline.

Twilight in the Desert is not an easy book to read. Most of it consists of a detailed account of Saudi Arabia`s vast oil infrastructure, relying on technical papers written by Saudi geologists and oil engineers on various aspects of production in particular fields. Much of this has to do with the aging of Saudi fields and the use of water injection to maintain high levels of pressure in their giant underground reservoirs. As Simmons explains, when an underground reservoir is first developed, oil gushes out of the ground under its own pressure; as the field is drained of easily-extracted petroleum, however, Saudi oil engineers often force water into the ground on the circumference of the reservoir in order to drive the remaining oil into the operating well. By drawing on these technical studies -- cited here for the first time in a systematic, public manner -- Simmons is able to show that Ghawar and other large fields are rapidly approaching the end of their productive lives.

Simmons` conclusion from all this is unmistakably pessimistic: "The ‘twilight` of Saudi Arabian oil envisioned in this book is not a remote fantasy. Ninety percent of all the oil that Saudi Arabia has ever produced has come from seven giant fields. All have now matured and grown old, but they still continue to provide around 90 percent of current Saudi oil output … High-volume production at these key fields ... has been maintained for decades by injecting massive amounts of water that serves to keep pressures high in the huge underground reservoirs . . . When these water projection programs end in each field, steep production declines are almost inevitable."

This being the case, it would be the height of folly to assume that the Saudis are capable of doubling their petroleum output in the years ahead, as projected by the Department of Energy. Indeed, it will be a minor miracle if they raise their output by a million or two barrels per day and sustain that level for more than a year or so. Eventually, in the not-too-distant future, Saudi production will begin a sharp decline from which there is no escape. And when that happens, the world will face an energy crisis of unprecedented scale.

The moment that Saudi production goes into permanent decline, the Petroleum Age as we know it will draw to a close. Oil will still be available on international markets, but not in the abundance to which we have become accustomed and not at a price that many of us will be able to afford. Transportation, and everything it effects -- which is to say, virtually the entire world economy -- will be much, much more costly. The cost of food will also rise, as modern agriculture relies to an extraordinary extent on petroleum products for tilling, harvesting, pest protection, processing, and delivery. Many other products made with petroleum -- paints, plastics, lubricants, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and so forth -- will also prove far more costly. Under these circumstances, a global economic contraction -- with all the individual pain and hardship that would surely produce -- appears nearly inevitable.

If Matt Simmons is right, it is only a matter of time before this scenario comes to pass. If we act now to limit our consumption of oil and develop non-petroleum energy alternatives, we can face the "twilight" of the Petroleum Age with some degree of hope; if we fail to do so, we are in for a very grim time indeed. And the longer we cling to the belief that Saudi Arabia will save us, the more painful will be our inevitable fall.

Given the high stakes involved, there is no doubt that intense efforts will be made to refute Simmons` findings. With the publication of his book, however, it will no longer be possible for oil aficionados simply to chant "Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia, Saudi Arabia" and convince us that everything is all right in the oil world. Through his scrupulous research, Simmons has convincingly demonstrated that -- because all is not well with Saudi Arabia`s giant oilfields -- the global energy situation can only go downhill from here. From now on, those who believe that oil will remain abundant indefinitely are the ones who must produce irrefutable evidence that Saudi Arabia`s fields are, in fact, capable of achieving higher levels of output.

Michael T. Klare is a professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author of Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America`s Growing Petroleum Dependency (Metropolitan Books).

Copyright 2005 Michael T. Klare


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
posted June 26, 2005 at 3:57 pm

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]#526 stellt Tom ein neuen Artikel von Michael T. Klare über ein neues Buch vor von Matthew R. Simmons vor.
Matthew R. Simmons, Chef der Investmentbank Simmons & Cie, ist ein enger Berater von Vizepräsident Richard Cheney. Seine Analysen haben großen Einfluss auf die Energiepolitik der US-Regierung.
In a newly-released book, investment banker Matthew R. Simmons convincingly demonstrates that, far from being capable of increasing its output, Saudi Arabia is about to face the exhaustion of its giant fields and, in the relatively near future, will probably experience a sharp decline in output. "There is only a small probability that Saudi Arabia will ever deliver the quantities of petroleum that are assigned to it in all the major forecasts of world oil production and consumption,"
Zusätzlich noch ein Artikel der Times, der in die gleiche Kerbe haut.

Published on Wednesday, February 25, 2004 by New York Times
Forecast Of Rising Oil Demand Challenges Tired Saudi Fields
http://www.countercurrents.org/peakoil-gerth250204.htm

By Jeff Gerth
When visitors tour the headquarters of Saudi Arabia`s oil empire — a sleek glass building rising from the desert in Dhahran near the Persian Gulf — they are reminded of its mission in a film projected on a giant screen. "We supply what the world demands every day," it declares.

For decades, that has largely been true. Ever since its rich reserves were discovered more than a half-century ago, Saudi Arabia has pumped the oil needed to keep pace with rising needs, becoming the mainstay of the global energy markets.

But the country`s oil fields now are in decline, prompting industry and government officials to raise serious questions about whether the kingdom will be able to satisfy the world`s thirst for oil in coming years.

Energy forecasts call for Saudi Arabia to almost double its output in the next decade and after. Oil executives and government officials in the United States and Saudi Arabia, however, say capacity will probably stall near current levels, potentially creating a significant gap in the global energy supply.

Outsiders have not had access to detailed production data from Saudi Aramco, the state-owned oil company, for more than 20 years. But interviews in recent months with experts on Saudi oil fields provided a rare look inside the business and suggested looming problems.

An internal Saudi Aramco plan, the experts said, estimates total production capacity in 2011 at 10.15 million barrels a day, about the current capacity. But to meet expected world demand, the United States Department of Energy`s research arm says Saudi Arabia will need to produce 13.6 million barrels a day by 2010 and 19.5 million barrels a day by 2020.

"In the past, the world has counted on Saudi Arabia," one senior Saudi oil executive said. "Now I don`t see how long it can be maintained."

Saudi Arabia, the leading exporter for three decades, is not running out of oil. Industry officials are finding, however, that it is becoming more difficult or expensive to extract it. Today, the country produces about eight million barrels a day, roughly one-tenth of the world`s needs. It is the top foreign supplier to the United States, the world`s leading energy consumer.

Fears of a future energy gap could, of course, turn out to be unfounded. Predictions of oil market behavior have often proved wrong.

But if Saudi production falls short, industry experts say the consequences could be significant. Other large producers, like Russia and Iraq, do not have Saudi Aramco`s huge reserves or excess oil capacity to export, and promising new fields elsewhere are not expected to deliver enough oil to make up the difference.

As a result, supplies could tighten and oil prices could increase. The global economy could feel the ripples; previous spikes in oil prices have helped cause recessions, though high oil prices in the last year or so have not slowed strong growth.

Saudi Aramco says its dominance in world oil markets will grow because, "if required," it can expand its capacity to 12 million barrels a day or more by "making necessary investments," according to written responses to questions submitted by The New York Times.

But some experts are skeptical. Edward O. Price Jr., a former top Saudi Aramco and Chevron executive and a leading United States government adviser, says he believes that Saudi Arabia can pump up to 12 million barrels a day "for a few years." But "the world should not expect more from the Saudis," he said. He expects global oil markets to be in short supply by 2015.

Fatih Birol, the chief economist for the International Energy Agency, said the Saudis would not be able to increase production enough for future needs without large-scale foreign investment.

The I.E.A., an independent agency founded by energy-consuming nations, and Washington see investment in energy exploration and field maintenance as vital, but such proposals face strong opposition inside Saudi Arabia. Tensions with the West, particularly the United States, make such investment politically difficult for Saudi society. For example, an effort by Crown Prince Abdullah, the kingdom`s de facto ruler, to encourage Western companies to invest $25 billion in his country`s natural gas industry essentially collapsed last year.

"Access to Persian Gulf oil reserves, especially Saudi Arabia`s, is the key question for the whole world," Dr. Birol said.

President Bush has said he wants to make the United States less reliant on oil-producing countries that "don`t like America" by diversifying suppliers and financing research into hydrogen fuel cells, but achieving that remains far off.

His administration backs foreign investment initiatives in the gulf region, including Saudi Arabia, and his energy policies rely on Energy Department projections showing the world even more dependent on Arabian oil in 20 years. That may be enough time for governments to find alternatives, but oil field development requires years of planning and work.

Publicly, Saudi oil executives express optimism about the future of their industry. Some economists are equally optimistic that if oil prices rise high enough, advanced recovery techniques will be applied, averting supply problems.

But privately, some Saudi oil officials are less sanguine.

"We don`t see us as the ones making sure the oil is there for the rest of the world," one senior executive said in an interview. A Saudi Aramco official cautioned that even the attempt to get up to 12 million barrels a day would "wreak havoc within a decade," by causing damage to the oil fields.

In an unusual public statement, Sadad al-Husseini, Saudi Aramco`s second-ranking executive and its leading geologist, warned at an oil conference in Jakarta in 2002 that global "natural declines in existing capacity are real and must be replaced."

Dr. al-Husseini, one Western oil expert said, has been "the brains of Saudi Aramco`s exploration and production." But he has told associates that he plans to resign soon, and his departure, government oil experts in the United States and Saudi Arabia say, could hinder Saudi efforts to bolster production or entice foreign investment.

Saudi Arabia`s reported proven reserves, more than 250 billion barrels, are one-fourth of the world`s total. The most significant is Ghawar. Discovered in 1948, the 300-mile-long sliver near the Persian Gulf is the world`s largest oil field and accounts for more than half of the kingdom`s production.

The company told The New York Times that its field production practices, including those at Ghawar, were "at optimum levels" and the risk of steep declines was negligible. But Mr. Price, the former vice president for exploration and production at Saudi Aramco, says that North Ghawar, the most valuable section of the field, was pushed too hard in the past.

"Instead of spreading the production to other fields or areas," Mr. Price said, the Saudis concentrated on North Ghawar. That "accelerated the depletion rate and the time to uncontrolled decline," or the point where the field`s production drops dramatically, he said.

In Saudi Arabia, seawater is injected into the giant fields to help move the oil toward the top of the reservoir. But over time, the volume of water that is lifted along with the oil increases, and the volume of oil declines proportionally. Eventually, it becomes uneconomical to extract the oil. There is also a risk that the field can become unstable and collapse.

Ghawar is still far too productive to abandon. But because of increasing problems with managing the water, one Saudi oil executive said, "Ghawar is becoming very costly to maintain."

The average decline rate in Saudi Aramco`s mature fields — Ghawar and a few others — "is in the range of 8 percent per year," without additional remediation, according to the company`s statement. This means several hundred thousand barrels of daily oil production would have to be added every year just to make up for the diminished output.

Every oil field is unique, and experts cannot predict how long each might last. For its part, Saudi Aramco is counting on Ghawar for years to come.

The company projects that Ghawar will continue to produce more than half its oil. One internal company estimate from 2002 puts Ghawar`s production at 5.25 million barrels a day in 2011, more than half the total expected crude oil capacity of 10.15 million, according to United States government officials and oil executives.

"The big risk in Saudi Arabia is that Ghawar`s rate of decline increases to an alarming point," said Ali Morteza Samsam Bakhtiari, a senior official with the National Iranian Oil Company. "That will set bells ringing all over the oil world because Ghawar underpins Saudi output and Saudi undergirds worldwide production."

The I.E.A. warned in November that huge investments would be needed to offset the decline rates in mature Middle Eastern oil fields — it put the average at 5 percent — and the increasing costs of oil and gas production. The agency, based in Paris, forecasts that Saudi production will need to reach 20 million barrels a day by 2020. (I.E.A. and other research estimates say that more than 90 percent of that would be crude oil; the rest would be liquid products like natural gas liquids that result from the processing of crude oil.)

In his speech in Jakarta, Dr. al-Husseini noted the need for exploration, pointing out that colleagues at Exxon Mobil predict that more than 50 percent of oil and gas consumption in 2010 must come from new fields and reservoirs.

Harry A. Longwell, the executive vice president of Exxon Mobil, says finding new sources of oil is crucial. Mr. Longwell, in an interview, said that increasing demand and declining production were not new problems, but they were "much larger now because of the world`s demand for energy and the magnitude of the numbers now are much larger."

To offset its declines, Saudi Aramco is bringing back into production one idle field, Qatif, and is enhancing production at a nearby offshore field, Abu Safah. The company says that with expert management, these fields will produce about 800,000 barrels a day.

But current and former Saudi Aramco executives question those expectations, contending that the goal of 500,000 barrels a day for Qatif is unrealistic and that development costs are higher than anticipated.

Qatif poses real difficulties. It is near housing for Saudi Arabia`s minority Shiite population and contains high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide, a highly toxic gas. Its development is "particularly challenging," according to a technical paper by Saudi Aramco engineers presented last year in Bahrain, which said that 45 percent of potential drilling sites "were rejected due to safety concerns."

At Abu Safah, Saudi Aramco has experienced increasing water problems as it has turned to submersible pumps to extract oil. Experts, including American and Saudi government officials, say the technique is ill advised. Saudi Aramco, in its written response to questions, defended the use of the pumps at Abu Safah and its ability to manage the water after 37 years of production.

One United Sates government energy expert noted that "submersible pumps is what the Soviets went to on an indiscriminate basis in West Siberia and it went south." Samotlor, a huge field in Siberia, once produced more than three million barrels a day, but it declined sharply in the 1980`s after the Soviets pushed it too hard. Today it produces only a few hundred thousand barrels a day.
Article found at :
http://www.energybulletin.net/newswire.php?id=333

Original article :
http://www.countercurrents.org/peakoil-gerth250204.htm

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 27, 2005
The Chinese Challenge
By PAUL KRUGMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/opinion/27krugman.html?hp

Fifteen years ago, when Japanese companies were busily buying up chunks of corporate America, I was one of those urging Americans not to panic. You might therefore expect me to offer similar soothing words now that the Chinese are doing the same thing. But the Chinese challenge - highlighted by the bids for Maytag and Unocal - looks a lot more serious than the Japanese challenge ever did.

There`s nothing shocking per se about the fact that Chinese buyers are now seeking control over some American companies. After all, there`s no natural law that says Americans will always be in charge. Power usually ends up in the hands of those who hold the purse strings. America, which imports far more than it exports, has been living for years on borrowed funds, and lately China has been buying many of our I.O.U.`s.

Until now, the Chinese have mainly invested in U.S. government bonds. But bonds yield neither a high rate of return nor control over how the money is spent. The only reason for China to acquire lots of U.S. bonds is for protection against currency speculators - and at this point China`s reserves of dollars are so large that a speculative attack on the dollar looks far more likely than a speculative attack on the yuan.

So it was predictable that, sooner or later, the Chinese would stop buying so many dollar bonds. Either they would stop buying American I.O.U.`s altogether, causing a plunge in the dollar, or they would stop being satisfied with the role of passive financiers, and demand the power that comes with ownership. And we should be relieved that at least for now the Chinese aren`t dumping their dollars; they`re using them to buy American companies.

Yet there are two reasons that Chinese investment in America seems different from Japanese investment 15 years ago.

One difference is that, judging from early indications, the Chinese won`t squander their money as badly as the Japanese did.

The Japanese, back in the day, tended to go for prestige investments - Rockefeller Center, movie studios - that transferred lots of money to the American sellers, but never generated much return for the buyers. The result was, in effect, a subsidy to the United States.

The Chinese seem shrewder than that. Although Maytag is a piece of American business history, it isn`t a prestige buy for Haier, the Chinese appliance manufacturer. Instead, it`s a reasonable way to acquire a brand name and a distribution network to serve Haier`s growing manufacturing capability.

That doesn`t mean that America will lose from the deal. Maytag`s stockholders will gain, and the company will probably shed fewer American workers under Chinese ownership than it would have otherwise. Still, the deal won`t be as one-sided as the deals with the Japanese often were.

The more important difference from Japan`s investment is that China, unlike Japan, really does seem to be emerging as America`s strategic rival and a competitor for scarce resources - which makes last week`s other big Chinese offer more than just a business proposition.

The China National Offshore Oil Corporation, a company that is 70 percent owned by the Chinese government, is seeking to acquire control of Unocal, an energy company with global reach. In particular, Unocal has a history - oddly ignored in much reporting on the Chinese offer - of doing business with problematic regimes in difficult places, including the Burmese junta and the Taliban. One indication of Unocal`s reach: Zalmay Khalilzad, who was U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan for 18 months and was just confirmed as ambassador to Iraq, was a Unocal consultant.

Unocal sounds, in other words, like exactly the kind of company the Chinese government might want to control if it envisions a sort of "great game" in which major economic powers scramble for access to far-flung oil and natural gas reserves. (Buying a company is a lot cheaper, in lives and money, than invading an oil-producing country.) So the Unocal story gains extra resonance from the latest surge in oil prices.

If it were up to me, I`d block the Chinese bid for Unocal. But it would be a lot easier to take that position if the United States weren`t so dependent on China right now, not just to buy our I.O.U.`s, but to help us deal with North Korea now that our military is bogged down in Iraq.

E-mail: [e-mail]

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
U.S. Talks With Iraqi Insurgents Confirmed
Goal Is Sunnis` Political Inclusion, Rumsfeld Says
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06…

By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 27, 2005; A01

The U.S. military in Iraq has been holding face-to-face meetings with some Iraqi leaders of the insurgency there, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and the U.S. commander in charge of Iraq confirmed yesterday.

The talks are part of the military`s revised campaign to drive a wedge between the Iraqi and foreign insurgents, according to U.S. commanders. Pentagon officials have acknowledged the new strategy but have not, until now, spoken openly about efforts to make contact with some Iraqi insurgent leaders.

Asked to respond to a report that U.S. military representatives had meetings with several Sunni Iraqi insurgents twice in June, Rumsfeld told Fox News that "there have probably been many more than that" and described the contacts as an effort to "split people off and get some people to be supportive" of the political process in Iraq.

Other parts of the U.S. government, including the State Department and CIA, have also been holding secret meetings with Iraqi insurgent factions in an effort to stop the violence and coax them into the political process, according to U.S. government officials and others who have participated in the efforts.

The military plan, approved in August 2004, seeks to make a distinction between Iraqi insurgents who are attacking U.S. troops because they are hostile to their presence, and foreign insurgents who are responsible for most of the suicide bombings -- which have killed more than 1,200 people in the past couple of months -- and whose larger political aims are unclear.

Gen. John P. Abizaid, who as commander of the U.S. Central Command is in charge of the war in Iraq, told CNN yesterday that "U.S. officials and Iraqi officials are looking for the right people in the Sunni community to talk to in order to ensure that the Sunni Arab community becomes part of the political process. And clearly we know that the vast majority of the insurgents are from the Sunni Arab community. It makes sense to talk to them."

But, Abizaid added, "we`re not going to compromise with Zarqawi." That was a reference to Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who is believed to be leading that part of the insurgency involving foreign fighters, particularly Islamic extremists arriving from Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Yemen and elsewhere.

Rumsfeld compared the meetings to those Afghan President Hamid Karzai held with the Taliban, against whom the United States waged war in 2001. "The same thing`s going on in Iraq," he said.

Rumsfeld and Abizaid were responding to an article in the Sunday Times of London, which reported yesterday that the meetings were held on June 3 and 13 at a summer villa near Balad, 40 miles north of Baghdad. Citing two Iraqi sources, the newspaper said that among the Sunnis in attendance were representatives from the Ansar al-Sunna Army, which killed 22 people in the dining hall of a U.S. base at Mosul, and the Islamic Army in Iraq, which asserted responsibility for the killing of Italian journalist Enzo Baldoni.

The newspaper said the insurgents "had agreed beforehand to focus their main demand" on a guaranteed timetable of U.S. withdrawal. "We told them it did not matter whether we are talking about one year or a five-year plan but that we insisted on having a timetable nonetheless," one of the Iraqi sources was quoted as saying.

The newspaper said the meetings were supervised by Ayham al-Samurai, a Sunni Muslim who lived in the United States for 20 years and returned to Iraq to become electricity minister in the new government. The meeting included a senior military and a senior intelligence officer, a civilian staff aide from Congress and a representative of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Time magazine reported in February on a similar but more informal meeting.

Rumsfeld, speaking in general about contacts with the Iraqi insurgents, said they were part of an effort to include Sunni factions that had forsaken the nascent Iraqi political process but may now have a change of heart. "The Sunnis made a mistake not participating in the election as fully as they could have," Rumsfeld said. "They now know that. They said they`ve made a mistake. They`re leaning in."

"They`re not going to try to bring in the people with blood on their hands, for sure," Rumsfeld told NBC`s "Meet the Press." "But they`re certainly reaching out continuously, and we help to facilitate those from time to time. . . . The goal is to get people all moved toward the support of the government."

Rumsfeld acknowledged that there is no military solution to ending the insurgency and that the talks with Iraqi insurgents were part of a search for a political solution to the war. "I mean, foreign troops are not going to beat the insurgency," he said. "It`s going to be the Iraqi people that are going to beat the insurgency and Iraqi security forces. That`s just the nature of an insurgency."

He also pointed out, on Fox News, that "insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years."

Staff writer Bradley Graham contributed to this report.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 27, 2005
The Army`s Hard Sell
By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/27/opinion/27herbert.html

The all-volunteer Army is not working. The problem with such an Army is that there are limited numbers of people who will freely choose to participate in an enterprise in which they may well be shot, blown up, burned to death or suffer some other excruciating fate.

The all-volunteer Army is fine in peacetime, and in military routs like the first gulf war. But when the troops are locked in a prolonged war that yields high casualties, and they look over their shoulders to see if reinforcements are coming from the general population, they find -as they`re finding now - that no one is there.

Although it has been lowering standards, raising bonuses and all but begging on its knees, the Army hasn`t reached its recruitment quota in months. There are always plenty of hawks in America. But the hawks want their wars fought with other people`s children.

The problem now is that most Americans have had plenty of time to digest the images of people being blown up in Baghdad and mutilated in Fallujah, and they know that thousands of our troops are coming home in coffins, or without their arms, or without their legs, or paralyzed, or horribly burned.

War in the abstract can often seem like a good idea. Politicians get the patriotic blood flowing with their bombast and lies. But the flesh-and-blood reality of war is very different.

The war in Iraq was sold to the American public the way a cheap car salesman sells a lemon. Dick Cheney assured the nation that Americans in Iraq would be "greeted as liberators." Kenneth Adelman of the Pentagon`s Defense Policy Board said the war would be a "cakewalk." And Donald Rumsfeld said on National Public Radio: "I can`t say if the use of force would last five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn`t going to last any longer than that."

The hot-for-war crowd never mentioned young men and women being shipped back to their families deceased or maimed. Nor was there any suggestion that a broad swath of the population should share in the sacrifice.

Now, with the war going badly and the Army chasing potential recruits with a ferocity that is alarming, a backlash is developing that could cripple the nation`s ability to wage war without a draft. Even as the ranks of new recruits are dwindling, many parents and public school officials are battling the increasingly heavy-handed tactics being used by military recruiters who are desperately trying to sign up high school kids.

"I started getting calls and people coming to the school board meeting testifying that they were getting inundated with phone calls from military recruiters," said Sandra Lowe, a board member and former president of the Sonoma Valley Unified School District in California.

She said parents complained that in some schools "the military recruiters were on campus all the time," sometimes handing out "things that the parents did not want in their homes, including very violent video games."

Ms. Lowe said she was especially disturbed by a joint effort of the Defense Department and a private contractor, disclosed last week, to build a database of 30 million 16- to 25-year-olds, complete with Social Security numbers, racial and ethnic identification codes, grade point averages and phone numbers. The database is to be scoured for youngsters that the Pentagon believes can be persuaded to join the military.

"To have this national data collection is just over the top," Ms. Lowe said.

Like many other parents resisting aggressive recruitment measures, Ms. Lowe has turned to a Web site - leavemychildalone.org - that counsels parents on their rights and the rights of their children. She described the site as "wonderful."

What`s not so wonderful is that this war with no end in sight is becoming an ever more divisive issue for Americans. A clear divide is developing between those who want to continue the present course and those who feel it`s time to craft an exit strategy.

But with volunteers in extremely short supply, an even more emotional divide is occurring over the ways in which soldiers for this war are selected. Increasing numbers of Americans are recognizing the inherent unfairness of the all-volunteer force in a time of war. That emotional issue will become more heated as the war continues. And it is sure to resonate in the wars to come.

E-mail: [e-mail]

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Monday, June 27, 2005

50 Killed in Guerrilla Violence
Al-Hakim: Sectarian War Could Engulf Middle East
Al-Akhbar: Internationalize Iraq Crisis

Guerrilla violence killed at least 50 persons in Iraq on Sunday and left a similar number wounded, according to Al-Sharq al-Awsat. Among the killed was a US soldier killed by roadside bomb in Baghdad (two other US servicemen were wounded in the incident).

The biggest death toll came in Mosul. The casualties in the bombing of the police station mentioned here on Sunday rose to 12 dead, two of them civilians, with 8 wounded. Later, a suicide bomber killed 16 persons and wounded 7 -- mostly civilians -- in the parking lot of an Iraqi army base at the edges of Mosul. Yet another attacker with bomb belt blew himself up in Mosul`s Jumhuri Teaching Hospital, targeting a room used by police guards and killing 5 and wounding 8 of them, and wounding 4 civilians, as well.

Outside Sadiyah, an hour and a half`s drive north of Baghdad, guerrillas shot down 6 Iraqi soldiers at their base.

There were two bombings in Kirkuk, one of them using a booby-trapped dog, which left 6 persons injured.

Al-Hayat: Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and of the United Iraqi Alliance that controls parliament, warned Sunday that "the launching of a sectarian war in Iraq would mean the outbreak of war in the entire region." He called on Arabs and Muslims to "stand decisively against those who spread terror" to Iraq. His statement was distributed at a wake held for the victims of attacks last Wednesday and Thursday on the largely Shiite neighborhoods of Shu`lah and Karradah in Baghdad.

He said, "Zarqawi-- the criminal and the wreaker of corruption in the land-- and his helpers and supporter from among the sectarians, and the orphans of the dead-and-buried Saddam regime, and the excommunicators, have unveiled the ugliness of their visages more and more by targeting innocent civilians from among the Shiites." He added, "These criminal groups have openly announced to the multitudes their sectarian war against the Shiites in Iraq, and have issued Islamic legal rulings declaring them excommunicated and unbelievers, saying that it is a duty to kill Muslims who follow the family of the Prophet, after having initially hidden for the previous span of time behind the pretext of confronting Occupation and those who collaborated with it." He affirmed that the Iraqi people "will not be drawn into these criminal, terrorist plots, rather Sunni and Shiite organizations will strengthen their bonds."

Then there is this item:



` Iraq`s Al-Hakim Praises Egyptian Grand Imam for Condemning Terrorist Attacks
MENA (MIDDLE EAST NEWS AGENCY)
Sunday, June 26, 2005 T19:03:23Z

BAGHDAD, June 26 (MENA) - Chairman of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) Abdel Aziz Al-Hakim hailed Sunday the stance of Al-Azhar Grand Imam Sheikh Mohammad Sayed Tantawi on Iraq.

Sheikh Tantawi had condemned attacks targeting innocent Iraqis, Hakim told a ceremony mourning those recently killed in a cluster of bombings in Al-Karada and Al-Shuala districts in Baghdad.

The SCIRI leader asked Muslim scholars and religious authorities to make public their stances on attacks against Iraqis.

He stressed that Iraqis need to unite in the face of terrorist attacks. `



Al-Hakim was glad for the denunciation of the killing of innocent Muslims by the Rector of al-Azhar, who is among the foremost religious authorities in the Sunni world. Tantawi has also forbidden Sunnis to excommunicate Shiites, i.e., to allege that they are not really Muslims. His statement calling on Muslims in Iraq to unite across the sectarian divide came after he had met with former interim PM Iyad Allawi.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that the provincial Governing Council of Maysan province, along with political parties and civil society organizations, has called for a boycott of British troops and a non-cooperation drive with regard to them. The non-cooperation movement comes in protest against what the GC calls the continued "excesses" of the British troops against inhabitants of the province. They cited home invasions, one of which cause a pregnant woman to miscarry, the incarceration of "a number of innocents," and mistreatment of government bureaucrats from the circles of the minitry of trade. The governing council also lodged a complaint about these incidents with the national parliament. Maysan politics is dominated by the Sadr movement of nationalist Shiites, many of them influenced by Muqtada al-Sadr or by his rival, Muhammad Yaqubi.

Egypt`s government is afraid that the US will withdraw, leaving Iraq a mess in the Middle East that will blow back on other Arab states.

At the same time, the government-owned al-Akhbar in an editorial urged the United States to seek international help in Iraq in a way that it refused to do in the past. (This reference may be to the United Nations or the Arab League-- it isn`t clear). Via FBIS:


` Cairo Paper Says Washington Should Ask for International Help in Iraq Editorial
The Difficult American Option in Iraq!"
AL-AKHBAR
Sunday, June 26, 2005 T21:52:23Z

"This is a fact proven by the rising number of Americans killed in Iraq, the continuing Iraqi bloodletting, the incessant explosions that claim tens of Iraqis every day, and the size of the terrifying destruction that has turned this Arab country into wrecks and ruins.

Perhaps the only way to come out of this fix is an admission by the United States of the dimensions of the Iraqi predicament and a very determined quest to involve the international community in searching for a solution--even if this solution meant Washington`s adoption of some difficult decisions it had not taken into consideration when it took this dangerous decision to invade Iraq.

(Description of Source: Cairo Al-Akhbar in Arabic -- State-Owned Daily) `



George Hunsinger warns of a Thiry Years` War on the part of the US in the Middle East.

I share al-Hakim`s fear that civil war in Iraq could ignite the entire eastern portion of the Middle East. He is a man of the region and attention should be paid to him on this. Likewise, I agree with the Egyptians that a precipitate US withdrawal would very likely spark the sectarian war that al-Hakim warned about. I also agree with the al-Akhbar editorial that it is time for the US to bring in the international community. The Egyptians know Iraq and know the region. The Americans, who have shown themselves incredibly ignorant of both, should listen carefully to what they are saying.

posted by Juan @ [url6/27/2005 06:26:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/50-killed-in-guerrilla-violence-al.html[/url]

It Depends on What "Throes" Is

It started when Cheney went on "Larry King Live" last month and said this:


` "I think we may well have some kind of presence there over a period of time," Cheney said. "The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they`re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency." `



This is the man who "knew where exactly" Saddam`s alleged weapons of mass destruction were and who was sure Iraqis would deliriously greet the US military as liberators.

Virtually nobody agreed with Cheney. Senator John McCain, when asked if it was the last throes, sighed "No." Senator Chuck Hagel suggested Cheney was disconnected from reality.

Then there was this exchange at a senate hearing between Sen. Carl Levin and General John Abizaid, the Pentagon`s senior officer in the Gulf:


` Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich.: "General Abizaid, can you give us your assessment of the strength of the insurgency? Is it less strong, more strong, about the same strength as it was six months ago?"

Gen. John Abizaid, top U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf: "In terms of comparison from six months ago, in terms of foreign fighters, I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago.

"In terms of the overall strength of the insurgency, I`d say it`s about the same as it was."

Levin: "So you wouldn`t agree with the statement that it`s in its last throes?"

Abizaid: "I don`t know that I would make any comment about that other than to say there`s a lot of work to be done against the insurgency." `



In other words, a lot to be done and no progress in the past 6 months.

So then Wolf Blitzer at CNN came back to Cheney and asked him again about the last throes.


BLITZER: The commander of the U.S. Military Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid has been testifying on Capitol Hill.

CHENEY: Right.

BLITZER: He says that the insurgency now is at a strength undiminished as it was six months ago, and he says there are actually more foreign fighters in Iraq now than there were six months ago. That doesn`t sound like the last throes.

CHENEY: No, I would disagree. If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period -- the throes of a revolution. The point would be that the conflict will be intense, but it`s intense because the terrorists understand if we`re successful at accomplishing our objective, standing up a democracy in Iraq, that that`s a huge defeat for them. They`ll do everything they can to stop it. [Cheney then invoked the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944.]



Cheney contradicts himself here. On the one hand he redefines "throes" as capable of lasting a long time. Then he goes back essentially to predicting that the Iraqi guerrilla war will be over in about six months. Isn`t that the implication of his invoking the Battle of the Bulge?

Then Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld goes on Fox Cable News and says this:


` Rumsfeld said: "We`re not going to win against the insurgency. The Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency. That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years." `



So now not only has there been no progress for six months, not only is there a lot of work to do, but we are not in December, 1944 of WW II at all. We are in 1963 of the Vietnam War, with 12 years to go, and we can`t win. The Iraqi ARVN has to win.

But my real question is whether "throes" can mean what Cheney alleges.

The Oxford English dictionary defines a "throe" as


` 1. A violent spasm or pang, such as convulses the body, limbs, or face. Also, a spasm of feeling; a paroxysm; agony of mind; anguish. `



That just doesn`t seem to me to be the sort of thing that could last for several years at a time. A spasm has to be over with pretty quickly.

The Bard gives us this: "Their pangs of Loue, with other incident throwes That Natures fragile Vessell doth sustaine." [SHAKES. Timon V. i. 203] So here a throwe [throe] is a pang, as in a pang of love. (Spelling it without the "w" seems to be a seventeenth century practice that only arose late in Shakespeare`s lifetime; i.e. it is a late innovation).

A lot of early modern writers used "throes" to refer to a mother`s birth pains:

Milton says, "My womb..Prodigious motion felt and rueful throes." [1667 MILTON P.L. II. 780]

And Pope writes, "Her new-fall`n young..Fruit of her throes." [1715-20 POPE Iliad XVII. 6]

Defoe has, "Frequent Throws and Pangs of Appetite, that nothing but the Tortures of Death can imitate." [1719 DE FOE Crusoe (Hotten`s repr.) 408] Again, a pang, as in a pang of appetite. I wouldn`t say a pang of appetite could go on for years ordinarily.

But Cheney didn`t just speak of a "throe." He said "the last throes, if you will." Apparently we won`t. But in any case, the last throes are the spasm of a dying body, of the sort that actors find it so difficult to do convincingly. Afficionadoes of classic silly comedy movies will remember when the dying prospector kicks the bucket in "A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World." I mean, his foot actually strikes the bucket as he dies. That`s the throes, Dick.

OED says the Scottish spelling of this was deid-thraw. I thought that had an ominous ring to it, sort of like something you`d find in Frank Herbert`s Dune books. "The deid-thraw of Abu Musab."

Spenser in the Faerie Queene gives, "O man! have mind of that last bitter throw." (I. x. 41)

I thought this entry rather good: "The agony of . . . outrage transcends the throes of dissolution." [1833 H. MARTINEAU Tale of Tyne vi. 113 ]

In fact, I`m pretty sure that`s how just about everyone feels about Cheney`s assertion about the throes in Iraq.

Cheney is wrong to mix up two separate usages of "throes." The "last throes" are the "paraxysm of death," and imply a quick end. The "throes of revolution" are a different sense of the word.

The OED gives, "When a nation is in the throes of revolution, wild spirits are abroad in the storm." [1856 FROUDE Hist. Eng. (1858) II. ix. 373]

You can say that again. Also watermelons and dogs rigged up with bombs.

The throes of a revolution is a figurative sense of throes, drawing on its meaning of "convulsion, paroxysm," and perhaps invoking its archaic connotation of the pangs of childbirth. It just isn`t the same as "the last throes" unless you actually were speaking of "the last throes of the revolution."

So, I have to reject Cheney`s explanation to Wolf Blitzer of what he meant by the "insurgency" being in "its last throes, if you will." He wasn`t talking about the throes of revolution. He was talking about kicking the bucket. Pretty soon. And the guerrilla movement in Iraq just isn`t in the last throes of anything. It is in throes all right, of some sort. But there`s no death rattle to be heard except that of its victims. And we can expect this to go on for years (I`m agreeing with Rumsfeld! Help!)

The OED on etymology or the origins of words is sometimes hard to follow. But I waded through what it had to say about "throe." And I conclude that the whole thing is probably a series of mistakes, something like Bush`s malapropisms. Throe as a word was given to us by a series of people very like Bush. It should probably be the "thrawes of death."


[Throe is a late alteration (noted first in 1615) of the earlier throwe, throw (which survived as late as 1733). The origin and history of ME. {th}rowe (found c 1200), and its northern form {th}raw(e, {th}raw, thrau (known c 1300, and still in use in Sc.) is not quite clear.



It may come from the verb throwen or thrawen, which early on (i.e. when the Buyids of northern Iran ruled Baghdad) meant "to twist, rack, torture." That works for me. But there are apparently reasons to think it got mixed up with other verbs over time.

Such a series of linguistic errors is hard on dictonary makers. Bush produces them by the bushel.

Bush has refered to America as the world`s "pacemakers" instead of "peacemakers". Or he has spoken of the need for the Americas to be an "economically vile hemisphere." He has called for "the end of terriers," which appears to be a mongrel dog made up of "tariffs and barriers". Or he said, "I understand there`s a suspicion that we—we`re too security-conscience." Or "Who could have possibly envisioned an erection — an election in Iraq at this point in history?" (Jan. 10, 2005)

In the same way, some Bush ancestor seems to have messed around with thrawen and thrawe and turned it into throw and then later on misspelled it throe.

And then Dick Cheney came along and reinterpreted it as something that could last for twelve years in a row.

posted by Juan @ [url6/27/2005 06:20:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/it-depends-on-what-throes-is-it.html[/url]
Sunday, June 26, 2005

Al-Hayat on US contacts with AMS
Chalabi Favors Timeline for US Withdrawal

Gilbert Achcar writes:



Quite interesting excerpts from an article written from Baghdad by Basil Muhammad in today`s Al-Hayat, reporting on an interview he made with Abdul-Salam al-Kubaisi, a prominent leading member of the (Sunni) Association of Muslim Scholars (AMS), the most respected Sunni group vocal against the occupation.

Excerpts:

` ...On the dialogue with the Americans, he said that the contacts that the AMS had with them were "interrupted," explaining that "the previous dialogue between the two parties was very obscure and we don`t know whether it was a tactial dialogue or a strategic one." He added that "the dialogue that we hear of between the dissolved Baath party and the Americans seems different." He also added that "the ground on which the AMS stands in any dialogue is patriotic whereas the Baathists have different choices, including their return to power; the AMS doesn`t want any power, but seeks a specific goal that is the withdrawal of occupation forces."...

He described the meeting held recently by Iraqi Vice-Prime Minister Ahmad al-Chalabi with the leadership of the AMS as "a step toward the dialogue with al-Jaafari`s Government." He said also that "al-Chalabi agrees with our position calling for a timetable for the withdrawal of US troops... We told him that we won`t join the political process as long as State terror is carried on in al-Qa`im, al-Anbar and Baghdad districts."

He maintained that "the patriotic camp calling for the withdrawal of occupation forces and for quickly establishing a timetable for their withdrawal has become larger than anytime before."

Al-Hayat has learned from other sources that there is a current within the Government holding a position in favor of a timetable for the withdrawal of American troops.

This current, of which al-Chalabi is a prominent member, has accused American parties of refusing the idea of concluding an agreement on the status of foreign troops, and of wanting to preserve the current status quo. `

posted by Juan @ [url6/26/2005 01:12:00 PM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/al-hayat-on-us-contacts-with-ams.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Abu Ghraib expanded as violence sweeps Iraq
By Kim Sengupta
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?st…

27 June 2005

Faced with unremitting violence, the United States is building new detention areas at Iraqi prisons including the notorious Abu Ghraib.

President George Bush had declared that Abu Ghraib would be torn down in a symbolic gesture after shocking pictures emerged of Iraqi inmates being abused and tortured by American forces.

But the continuing insurgency and rising death toll has meant that not only can the US not hand over Abu Ghraib to the new Iraqi government, according to a planned timetable, but other prisons including Camp Bucca in the British-controlled south of the country are being expanded.

The numbers of prisoners being held by the US in Iraq has reached record levels this month, with 10,783 in custody, up from 7,837 in January and 5,435 in June last year. American Iraqi officials agree there is no sign of the resistance or the prisoners it produces abating soon. "It`s been a challenge" said Col James Brown, commander of the 18th Military Police Brigade. "Many of the people we have captured have not given up the struggle."

President Bush will make a nationwide television address tomorrow after opinion polls showed increasing numbers of Americans are disenchanted with the war.

But the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, was forced to admit yesterday that the fighting could go on for years, adding: "We are not going to win against the insurgency, the Iraqi people will win against the insurgency". Mr Rumsfeld tried to play down reports that the US and Iraqi officials had been meeting representatives of the Sunni insurgency to try to forge a peace deal. He insisted such contacts were "routine".

The decision by American commanders to add to the detention facilities instead of their planned decommissioning would be seen as an admission of just how much the situation is out of control more than two years after invasion.

Major-General William Brandenburg, who oversees US-run prisons in Iraq, said US forces would have been out of Abu Ghraib under an original timetable by spring next year. But he now says: "I believed it until mid-December, but the numbers just weren`t going that way. Business is booming." General Brandenburg said the US would need to hold on to at least 2,000 prisoners in the Baghdad area, and the eventual handover to Abu Ghraib to the Iraqis will have come after expansion of Camp Cropper, on a US base near the airport, where Saddam Hussein and other "high-value" prisoners are.

Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca, near the Kuwaiti border, are at their maximum capacity with 10,178 detainees between them. US guards have shot several prisoners at Camp Bucca, leading to public expressions of concern by the Iraq`s former interim government and privately by senior British officers.

The Iraqi government and US authorities maintain separate holding facilities at Abu Ghraib, which gained its infamous reputation under Saddam Hussein`s regime before the scandal of the US abuse.

At the weekend, suicide bombings killed 33 people and wounded 27 others in the northern city of Mosul. The first blast, with 12 deaths and eight injuries, was caused by explosives hidden in a truck under watermelons which demolished a police station and adjoining buildings. A survivor, Mohammed Hussein Ali, a 30-year-old policeman, said all approaches had been blocked off except one for the market. "We didn`t suspect the watermelon man, because we see such vehicles every day on their way to the bazaar."

Two hours later, a suicide bomber struck at an army base in Mosul, killing 16 and injuring seven more. Shortly afterwards, another insurgent with an explosive belt walked into the Jumhori Teaching Hospital, where casualties from the previous blasts were being treated, and set off the bomb in a room used by police guards, killing five and wounding 12 others.

A US soldier was killed and two others injured by a roadside bomb in Baghdad, and a senior Iraqi police officer, Colonel Riyad Abdul Karim, was killed at his home in a suburb of the city.


27 June 2005 11:19


©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

The tipping point

US public opinion on the Iraq war dips with every dead soldier, and plummets at the first sniff of defeat
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1515312,00.ht…

Gary Younge
Monday June 27, 2005

Guardian
At just around the time when Hush Puppies were believed to have been relegated to the footwear of choice for old geezers and ageing hippies, they suddenly enjoyed a comeback. Hip people started scouting around in unfashionable shops to buy them and then hip stores in Greenwich Village started to sell them. A Hush Puppy executive, Geoffrey Lewis, was taken completely by surprise. "We were told that Isaac Mizrahi was wearing the shoes himself," he said. "I think it`s fair to say that at the time we had no idea who Isaac Mizrahi was."

In Malcolm Gladwell`s book, The Tipping Point, he describes the conditions that are necessary to transform Hush Puppies from the old school to new cool. "The world of the tipping point is a place where the unexpected becomes expected, where radical change is more than a possibility," he argues. "It is - contrary to all our expectations - a certainty."

American public opinion appears to be approaching just such a point in relation to the war in Iraq. The last fortnight has revealed a growing impatience with the military misadventure in the Gulf and an irritation with the White House`s persistent denials that anything is wrong. This has translated into more urgent and widespread calls to bring the troops home that has finally percolated up to the political class. This new phase has put George Bush on the back foot, forcing him to deliver a major address tomorrow night to rally public support, which is evidently draining away. He will tell them that America needs "resolve". For the White House Iraq has become the latest faith-based initiative.

A recent Gallup poll revealed that 56% said the war "wasn`t worth it". Meanwhile, for the first time, a majority say they would be "upset" if Bush sent more troops, and a new low of 36% say troop levels should be maintained or increased. An earlier Washington Post poll showed that two-thirds of the public believe the US military is bogged down in Iraq while almost three- quarters think the level of casualties is unacceptable. The figures match or exceed the previous high-water mark of public disenchantment. More than half believe the war has not made them safer and 40% believe it has striking similarities to the experience in Vietnam.

Anti-war sentiment had always been part of mainstream national conversation here. But with the Democratic party and its presidential candidate having supported the war, such views remained marginal in the body politic. Now, as these statistics make themselves felt in the postbags and phone logs of congressmen, the notion that not only is the war not going to plan but that the plan might itself be flawed is finding expression in the most unlikely places. On June 16, the Republican congressman Walter Jones, the man largely responsible for introducing freedom fries to the congressional menu, co-sponsored a bipartisan resolution persuading the president to set a timetable for troop withdrawal.

When the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, testified before a Senate armed services committee last week, the Republican senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, said: "I`m here to tell you sir, in the most patriotic state that I can imagine, people are beginning to question. And I don`t think it`s a blip on the radar screen. I think we have a chronic problem on our hands. We will lose this war if we leave too soon. And what is likely to make us do that? The public going south. And that is happening."

The critical factor driving this slump, explains Christopher Gelpi, associate professor of political science at Duke University who specialises in public attitudes to foreign policy, is not how many soldiers they lose but whether the mission for which they have fallen is likely to be successful. "The most important single fact is that the public perceive the mission as being destined for success. The American public is partly casualty-phobic but it is primarily defeat phobic. You can muster support for just about any military operation in the US so long as you can get enough of the defeat-phobic people on board."

Those who are casualty-phobic have been troubled by the 1,739 slain soldiers. So far this month, the US has, on average, had almost three soldiers killed and 10 wounded, every day. The 700 Iraqis who have died in the last month do not figure on the sympathy radar. But the chaos of which their deaths are just the most bloody indicator suggests little likelihood of success.

Comparisons with Vietnam are premature, but the trend towards it in public perception is undeniable. "It won`t be easy, but they could carry on at this level of support for quite some time. But if it drops another 10%, that would be really bad," says Gelpi. The decisive moment that produced the tipping point in Vietnam was the Tet offensive; given the ideological incoherence and fractured organisation of the Iraqi insurgency the turning point is likely to be less dramatic and more prolonged. It may even have happened already.

Until earlier this year, the White House had an easy-to-follow narrative for success on its own terms. When weapons of mass destruction were not found, it simply changed the story to fit the absence of facts. The final chapter then became the democratisation of the Arab world. First there would be a "handover" of power, then elections, all leading up to Iraqis regaining control of their own country. The carnage, in terms of human life, regional stability and international law, was dismissed as a price worth paying for the bigger picture. For a while, a majority of the American public bought it. But in recent months they have proved reluctant to wear it.

You can keep spinning just so long before you fall flat on your face. The administration`s insistence that things are on track and all it must do is stay the course is beginning to grate. US efforts to reshape the world through a policy of pre-emption have been buttressed by an attempt to remould reality through the power of assertion. Since Vice-President Dick Cheney claimed that the insurgency was "in its last throes" 77 American soldiers and about 600 Iraqi civilians have died. His tortured explanation, late last week, that "if you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period", adds insult to injury.

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue," wrote George Orwell in his essay In Front of Your Nose. "And then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."

[e-mail]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

The truth about lies

Leftwing radio talk show host Al Franken has won a `breakthrough` award for his wisecracking war against the claims of the American right. James Silver reports
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1515537,00.ht…

Monday June 27, 2005
The Guardian

His three-hour radio show over for another day, Al Franken - to many liberals, one of the Last Great Hopes of the American Left, and "an obnoxious prick" to his rightwing detractors - steps out into the blistering New York City heat and wilts. A sore back explains his painful-looking waddle to the coffee shop. The Al Franken Show, on fledging liberal talk radio network Air America, has just moved studios from the skyscrapers and buttoned-down shirt chic of 6th Avenue to the rather more down-at-heel bagel-shop obscurity between 10th and 11th Avenues on the far west side of Manhattan. He appears to be still getting used to it.

Is Franken, 54, over-doing it? His goofy features seem to adorn every third taxi in the city. There are the bestselling books (his most recent hit was Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right), the TV appearances, the political street-fighting, the corporate event pay-days, entertaining US troops abroad, and - perhaps, above all - his seemingly solo jihad against what he tactfully calls "the greedy, evil, warmongering bigots and scumbags of the American Right". Oh, and next year he will be moving his radio show to his home state of Minnesota as he gears up for a possible run for the US senate in 2008.

Tonight the former Saturday Night Live star steps on to the stage at the city`s China Club to become the first recipient of the prestigious New York International Radio Festival`s World Achievement Award for Breakthrough Radio, which is "only periodically given to one radio on-air talent who has made a great political or cultural impact in his country and/or throughout the world".

Award show hyperbole aside, there is no doubt that Franken and Air America - which has been going for 18 months and is syndicated in 65 cities around the US, attracting 2.7 million listeners - have carved out a niche in enemy territory. Political talk radio has traditionally been the home of rightwing shock jocks.

Now a Jewish, wise-cracking, unabashed Manhattan-dwelling liberal, in a country where that is often a dirty word, has parked his camper-van in middle-America`s back yard.

"Rightwing radio still does dominate," concedes Franken, "but before Air America it was a monolith." The Right, he patiently explains, cornered the market in talk radio in the late 1980s when the Fairness Doctrine, which ensured that radio stations had to be balanced, was revoked. His nemesis, top-rated talk show host Rush Limbaugh, who claims up to 20 million listeners, launched his station and spawned a generation of copy-cats. Rightwing talk flourished, while there was no real equivalent on the Left.

Franken`s routine uses wry humour to debunk inaccurate claims made by rightwing commentators and politicians. Given his heavy workload, he secured the services of 14 students - a "ragtag bunch of Harvard misfits" whom he named Team Franken - to do the fact-checking and research required to write Lies.

"What we do is set up a lie and then debunk it," he explains. "I think we are developing a kind of a cottage industry. I`m very entertained by the debunking process and also at the same time I`m outraged by the lies. I really do see the serious corrupting effect Fox, talk radio and many commentators on the right have on America. A lot of people in the mainstream media think it`s beneath them to debunk it. And it`s not. These people need to be subjected to scorn and ridicule. Someone has got to be willing to get down in the weeds and fight them."

He cites a recent example from his show. "[Fox news anchor] Bill O`Reilly took [leading Democrat senator] Joe Biden`s appearance on ABC`s This Week with George Stephanopoulos and deliberately misrepresented what Biden said. Biden was calling for an independent commission to look at Guantanamo and other US detention camps. When pressed by Stephanopoulos, Biden said that although he personally thought the US should close Guantanamo, he said that he had introduced legislation to get a bipartisan commission to make the recommendations.

"Two days later O`Reilly cuts it together to make it sound like Biden had simply said `Close Guantanamo`, leaving out any mention of legislation and independent commissions. Then O`Reilly himself said `I believe there should be an independent commission.` He not only misrepresented what Biden actually said, he then claimed for himself the senator`s idea. I mentioned this to Howard Kurtz, who writes about the media for the Washington Post. He replied, `Well, people expect that of Fox`. No one in the mainstream press holds them to any standards at all."

Franken is disparaging of his rightwing media foes. Rush Limbaugh is "fat" and "a hypocrite", Ann Coulter is "a nutcase", and Bill O`Reilly "a splotchy bully and liar". He says: "All three have very different pathologies which is really interesting."

He has written chapters or even entire books about them, such as Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot (1996). Franken thinks Limbaugh is "anything but an idiot. That was meant ironically." He pauses. "But he was of course very fat at the time. He was a huge, morbidly obese, fat man with a huge gut and a big fat ass.

"Rush is someone who for years had been saying, `Anyone who uses drugs illegally should be put away`. It turned out, of course, that he was doing massive quantities of prescription painkillers. The quantity meant that he had to get them illegally. There`s no shame in addiction, but he`s a hypocrite. He`s a guy that talks about fam ily values and he`s been married and divorced three times. Rush is a talented radio guy. It`s just that he has no fidelity to the truth at all."

Franken, who has feuded with Coulter, memorably described her in Lies as "the reigning diva of the hysterical right". He has seen nothing since to make him change his mind. "Ann Coulter just says terribly, awful, vicious things ... About Muslims, she said we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. Or she said the only regret about [Oklahoma City bomber] Timothy McVeigh was that he didn`t go to the New York Times building. These are things that pass for jokes for her.

"O`Reilly was sued for sexual harassment by a woman who produced a complaint that included very, very graphic transcripts of alleged phone sex from him that he never denied. In fact he settled with her. Then he talks about traditional values versus leftwing people who have these terrible secular humanist values."

Franken claims not to mind any of them having a pop at him in return. Indeed, to be reviled by Bill O`Reilly is "a badge of honour". He says: "If you are known by your enemies then those are three great enemies to have. And I must say the one who comes after me the most often and the hardest is O`Reilly.

"He did me the biggest favour he could possibly have done when he essentially forced Fox to sue me over Lies. They took me to court over the subtitle - A Fair and Balanced Look At The Right - and claimed that I was infringing their trademark. [Fox News uses the phrase Fair and Balanced]. There was a hearing and the court ruled in our favour and we got massive publicity. I was hoping the case would go on for a couple more news cycles."

Nor do the mainstream media escape Franken`s ire for the "disgraceful" job they did reporting the build-up to war in Iraq - which he, of course, opposed vociferously. "What we have in this country right now is a cowed media. The Bush administration has successfully intimidated them and they`ve done that by denying access to correspondents who have challenged them. Reporters worry about losing their access, and thus their job. It`s an awful situation."

When Franken began accusing Bush of lying, it was, he recalls, "a big deal". But that`s changed. "Now people are much more willing to say the government was lying, for instance, over the war." A smile creeps onto his face. "We need to broaden our vocabulary. Sometimes people aren`t lying, of course, they`re just bullshitting, or what they are saying is poppycock or nonsense."

He reveals his next book is called The Truth (with jokes). "It`s not about the media this time. It`s about whatsisname? George Bush."

From bloggers to pundits, his enemies are no doubt poised to respond. And when they do, Franken will be down in the weeds, waiting for them.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Achtung kein Video Game Es gibt auch keine Scorer Punkte!

[urlCoalition Fatalities By Location Across Time]http://www.obleek.com/iraq/index.html[/url]

[Joerver]

Caspian Sea Pipeline Has Its Origins in Turbulent Waters
U.S. fears political upset in Azerbaijan could threaten a strategic new oil route skirting Russia.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-azerbai…

By Kim Murphy
Times Staff Writer

June 27, 2005

BAKU, Azerbaijan — The opening ceremony of the new Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline here last month was a virtual Who`s Who of the region. The presidents of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan and Turkey were on hand. So was U.S. Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman.

The only dignitary missing was Russia`s energy envoy, Igor Yusufov. He called in sick. As the 1,100-mile pipeline has been pieced together from the Azerbaijani capital here on the Caspian Sea, through Georgia, and on to a Mediterranean port in Turkey, the U.S. has secured an advantage nearly as important to its strategic interests in the region as the democratic revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine: a transport link for billions of barrels of new Caspian Sea oil through U.S.-friendly terrain, bypassing both Iran and Russia.

President Bush, in a written message to the gathered leaders, called the pact for the pipeline between regional governments and a private oil consortium led by BP "the contract of the century."

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said the $3.4-billion pipeline, which is due to ship 1 million barrels of oil a day by 2008, represents "a geopolitical victory for Azerbaijan and its allies … that will seriously change the balance of power in the region, bringing prosperity and strengthening independence."

The subtext may have been the real reason for Yusufov`s absence: the pipeline known as BTC significantly loosens Russia`s stranglehold on energy supplies out of the former Soviet Union and boosts the economic muscle of the nations on its borders, which are struggling to emerge from Moscow`s powerful influence. Analysts expect it will transport up to a fourth of the world`s incremental new oil supply in 2005 and 2006.

But this strategic success story depends largely on where the pipeline begins, in this former Soviet republic of 8 million perched on the geopolitical razor`s edge between Russia and Iran.

For years, the U.S. and major Western oil interests quietly supported Heydar A. Aliyev, the ex-Soviet-era communist boss who seized power two years after Azerbaijan`s 1991 independence declaration. He handed down power to his son, 43-year-old Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded him as president in a widely criticized election held after his death in 2003.

The younger Aliyev has been a staunch supporter of the West`s oil ambitions in Azerbaijan and its military campaigns on its borders. At the same time, he has clamped down on the independent media, allowed the arrest and torture of political opponents and had public protests violently quelled.

Turbulence has rocked the republics on Russia`s borders over the last two years — popular movements have toppled authoritarian regimes in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. In the same vein, Azerbaijan is facing parliamentary elections in November that could shake the foundations of the republic and help determine the success or failure of American policy in a region Washington sees as vital to its interests.

Unlike in Ukraine, where a generally pro-Western opposition faced a pro-Moscow prime minister for the presidency, both Aliyev and opposition leaders are seen as accommodating to Washington`s interests. The problem, analysts say, is that clashes between the two camps could threaten the security of new oil supplies the U.S. sought as a reliable alternative to the turbulent Middle East.

Aliyev is under increasing pressure from the U.S. and Europe to improve on the 2003 presidential balloting that led to major complaints of vote-rigging and protests that resulted in one death and 200 injuries.

This time, opposition leaders say a failure to ensure an open campaign and free balloting will surely lead to major street protests — whose outcome might not be as peaceful as the "rose" and "orange" uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine that swept in new democratic governments. Not only are Aliyev and his allies unlikely to step aside without a fight, the opposition itself is fractured, underfinanced and has among its adherents, at least in the north, elements of radical Islam.

Damage Control

The government of Aliyev, in a clear attempt to head off trouble, has opened indirect talks with the opposition and pledged to hold democratic elections. On June 4, the government sanctioned the first legal opposition street rally since the violent protests of October 2003. An estimated 10,000 critics of the government flowed into the streets, and even more protesters marched in a second rally on June 18, carrying photos of President Bush with the words, "We Want Freedom!"

"We are reasonable people. We have quite a lot of experience in our life. And we know that revolutions will only bring worse. But the Azerbaijan government is pushing people into the streets," said Isgander Hamidov, a former minister of the interior who spent 10 years in prison as a dissident under the elder Aliyev`s government.

Two months ago, the National Democratic Party leader was arrested again; Hamidov said he was tied up, beaten and had his fingers squeezed in a closing door until they were broken. Then, he said, authorities offered him $150,000 to leave Azerbaijan with his family. He refused.

"Why should we have political prisoners and have to fight to set them free? Why should we have to battle against bribery and corruption? Why should we have monopolies [among the friends and relatives of the government] on business? Why should the law exist nowhere but on paper?" Hamidov said. "I`m afraid that if a revolution happens in this kind of anger and hate, the experience will be awful. Terrible."

Many believe that the still-relatively-popular Aliyev would have won the 2003 elections even without the apparent vote-rigging that resulted in his winning 76.8% of the vote. But the new president`s failure to implement pledged reforms, and the continuing domination of the economy by stalwarts of his father`s regime, including the brothers and cronies of the elder Aliyev, has left many Azerbaijanis angry and disappointed.

Opposition leaders complain that the U.S., which has made forceful statements in recent months for democratic transition in the former Soviet republic of Belarus, has not done so on Azerbaijan because of pipeline politics.

"Western countries fear that if they change the power in Azerbaijan, they will forfeit stability and risk losing their economic interests here," said Rauf Mirkadyrov, editor-in-chief of the independent Zerkalo newspaper.

"At this point, half the community is in a revolutionary mood. And the other half, I would say the majority half, hasn`t lost hope fully. They still believe things can be changed with political and economic reforms. But day by day, the second half is losing its members," said Zafar Guliyev, a political analyst with the Turan news agency in Baku.

Change in the Capital

The skyline of this city of 2 million signals an economic revolution. Along the Caspian shoreline, new high-rise apartment buildings and mid-rise offices in various stages of construction stand in rough filigree against the skyline.

Much of that is thanks to the estimated 900 million tons of oil sitting just offshore, suddenly deliverable to market with the opening of the BTC pipeline.

Oil revenues are expected to reach a total of $100 billion — perhaps up to $160 billion, if oil prices remain high. The nation`s GDP is expected to grow an astounding 14% this year and 17% in 2006. The federal budget alone next year will rise from $1.8 billion to $3 billion.

Already this past year, the government created 120,000 new permanent jobs both public and private, and pledges to reach a target of 600,000. Government salaries and pensions have gone up.

"In 1993, Azerbaijan was ruled by unskilled people and traitors. Azerbaijan`s existence as a state was under threat. There was chaos in the land. But now there is stability and peace, and Azerbaijan is one of the most dynamically developing nations in the world," Aliyev told several thousand supporters at a rally last week.

"If someone tries to make instability in Azerbaijan, we shall prevent it — not only will we prevent it, but the Azerbaijani people themselves will reject it. Our politics are based on the will of the people," the president declared.

But the boom has yet to reach many of the more than 40% of Azerbaijanis who still live in poverty and have little hope of moving into one of the pastel high-rises by the Caspian. Cardiologists in Baku earn $20 a month. The average salary is $150 a month — at that rate it would take a lifetime to buy one of Baku`s new high-end apartments.

"The oil money, it`s not for us. We are ordinary people; we`ll see nothing," said Mulayim Tamrazova, who is supporting three children and an invalid sister-in-law on her $75-a-month salary at the local gas supply department. Moreover, she said, the government doesn`t pay on time.

"They pay us for one month, then they wait for two or three months, then they pay for another month. Today is the 15th of June, and I haven`t gotten my salary yet for May," Tamrazova said. "But we`re used to it. We`re not alone. The whole nation is living like this."

Meanwhile, the elder Aliyev died with rumored personal assets of billions. His brothers are also wealthy oligarchs, and friends of the regime control powerful revenue-generating ministries.

Journalists who write frequently about corruption have found themselves the targets of dozens of libel suits filed by government officials — most of them upheld by often obsequious courts. Actions by various tax and municipal authorities have closed down most original opposition newspaper offices in central Baku, leaving them to operate in ramshackle quarters on the outskirts of town, if at all.

On March 2, longtime investigative journalist Elmar Huseynov was shot to death outside his apartment, prompting international demands for an independent investigation.

Huseynov, a reporter who for years had dogged government officials with his inquisitive and critical stories, had been the subject of 34 libel cases filed by complainants including members of parliament as well as the minister of defense and the mayor of Baku (whom he criticized for shutting down cheap public tramlines and closing corner kiosks that were the livelihoods of many Baku merchants).

Over the years, his newspapers faced governmentordered shutdowns and freezes on their bank accounts. Huseynov would be arrested, only to emerge from jail to open his newspaper or magazine under a new name.

When the libel judgments reached a cumulative total of $200,000 in November of last year, government agents arrived at Huseynov`s apartment and hauled off his stereo and a few other valuables.

"He had been offered money a lot of times not to write about these or those people, or this or that matter, but he refused," said his widow, Rushana Huseynova.

Then one night in March, Huseynova said she heard the sound of several shots downstairs, then the doorbell, shortly before 9 p.m. She opened the apartment door, and noticed that the lights in the hallway and in the street downstairs had been turned off.

Then she saw her husband.

"They shot him downstairs. He was very strong, and he could rise, and he came to the door. He rang. I opened the door. He was bleeding even from his nose. He couldn`t pronounce a word, because there were seven bullets in him. He slipped, and I took him and put him on the floor. He lived about two minutes, and he was gone."

Suspects Arrested

The government says it has arrested two Georgian nationals in connection with the attack, although it has not specified their roles or motives.

"The Azerbaijani president expressed his negative attitude towards this event. He called this event the murder of freedom of expression in Azerbaijan," said Nazim Isa Isayev, deputy chief of the political department of the presidential administration. "The president thinks it`s honorable work to find, arrest and punish the perpetrators."

But Huseynova and many opposition figures are skeptical the authorities will solve the case. "I am 100% sure that the commissioners of this murder are the Azerbaijani state. They are responsible for the crime," Huseynova said.

Now, many wonder if Huseynov`s murder could make it even harder to hold free elections. For their part, government officials fear the opposition will stage protests no matter how the election unfolds.

"We have no guarantee that opposition members will accept the results of the election, even if they are conducted fairly and democratically. In fact, we are expecting that they will paralyze the election," Isayev said.

The government is pledging a tough, but legal, line. All are mindful of the violence that shook Uzbekistan in May, when protesters in Andijon were confronted by police in a clash that reportedly killed hundreds.

"Azerbaijan has chosen the way of democratic development. If the elections are fair, it`s natural that in the case of mass violations of law in the streets, the security services of the government will be called on to defend Azerbaijan justice," said Ramil Kasanov, head of the youth wing of the ruling party, Yeni Azerbaijan.

"In this case, the authorities will not be defending their own rights," he said. "They will be defending the rights of the people who voted for them."


Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[urlSecond Panama Canal Bridge]http://www.brueckenweb.de/Datenbank/bruecken/brueckenblatt.php?bas=5441[/url]

Baujahr: 1962

Opening of the 2nd Bridge across the Panama Canal

On Sunday, 15.08.2004, the national holiday of the state of Panama, the second bridge across the Panama Canal has been opened for traffic during a two-day celebration.



[urlIssue of U.S. Ordnance Shadows New Panama Bridge]http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-panabomb27jun27,1,7584140.story?coll=la-news-a_section[/url]

By Chris Kraul, Times Staff Writer

PANAMA CITY — The opening of the $100-million Centenary Bridge over the Panama Canal next month is expected to reduce traffic bottlenecks and spur residential and commercial development. But it also underscores a thorny issue in U.S.-Panamanian relations: Who is responsible for cleaning up shuttered U.S. military weapons testing ranges in the former Canal Zone and beyond?

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
Latest Coalition Fatality: Jun 27, 2005
Military Fatalities US, UK, Other: : Total: 1930 , US: 1742 , June05: 78



Iraker Jun-05: Civilian: 433 Police/Mil: 280 Total: 713
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Regelmäßige Updates von Meldungen aus dem Irak:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Monday, June 27, 2005
Photo Essay, Monday, June 27, 2005
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/


# posted by yankeedoodle : 3:06 AM
Comments (36) | Trackback (0)

War News for Monday, 27 June, 2005

Bring `em on: Three US soldiers and four Iraqi policemen wounded in a series of four bomb attacks in and around the city of Kirkuk.

Bring `em on: Iraqi police colonel gunned down in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Fifteen people killed and seven wounded in suicide bomb attack near the Al-Kisk army base in Mosul.

Bring `em on: One US soldier killed and two injured in roadside bomb attack on a convoy in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Deputy police chief of Baghdad gunned down in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Five Iraqi policemen killed, eight policemen and four civilians injured, in suicide bomb attack on security facility in hospital in Mosul.

Bring `em on: Six Iraqi commandos gunned down in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: US Apache helicopter down north of Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Mother and two girls killed in a mortar attack in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Bodies of five truck drivers found in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Policeman, civilian and nine year old boy killed in gun attack on a barbershop in Baghdad.

The strike at Baghdad Airport: Global won a contract to secure the airport last June, worth several million dollars, and it was regarded as one of the most important contracts in Iraq, with the airport an essential outside link as well as a frequent target for guerrilla attack.

The one-year deal was signed as power was being handed from U.S. authorities to an Iraqi interim government in late June -- a factor that appears to have caused subsequent problems. "That`s when the difficulties began," said Simington. "It was hard to get paid by the Ministry of Transport in November and December. They were saying there was no contract signed with them and that it wasn`t their responsibility," he said. I am sure that there are many other contracts like this and the powers that be in the new Iraqi government want their share of the gravy also.

The only reconstruction that seems going on in Iraq is prisons: Faced with unremitting violence, the United States is building new detention areas at Iraqi prisons including the notorious Abu Ghraib. Hmmm promises, promises: President George Bush had declared that Abu Ghraib would be torn down in a symbolic gesture after shocking pictures emerged of Iraqi inmates being abused and tortured by American forces. Must have slipped his mind, I guess.

The Reality Chasm: How, then, to explain the very different versions of reality in Iraq that come out of the mouths of top Bush administration officials and of senior generals on the ground in Iraq? On Memorial Day, Vice President Dick Cheney declared that the Iraq insurgency was in its "last throes." Yet last week, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, General Abizaid said that, actually, the insurgency has not grown weaker over the last six months and that the number of foreign terrorists infiltrating Iraq has increased. Pressed by Rep. Loretta Sanchez, a California Democrat, to choose between the general and the vice president, General Casey seemed to struggle. "There`s a long way to go here," he testified. "Things in Iraq are hard." He said that the allied forces had weakened the insurgency—but acknowledged that the number of attacks has remained steady.

Waiting List: Marwan asked his commander to consider him for a suicide mission last fall but had to wait until the beginning of April for his name to be put on the list of volunteers. "When he finally agreed," Marwan recalls, "it was the happiest day of my life." There are, he says, scores of names on that list, and it can be months before a volunteer is assigned an operation. But at the current high rate of attacks, Marwan hopes he will be called up soon. "I can`t wait," he says, rubbing his thumbs with his fingers in nervous energy. "I am ready to die now."

Pick a number: Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years. Coalition forces, foreign forces, are not going to repress that insurgency. We`re going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency." Worst Secretary of Defence EVER!

What happened in Buhriz?

Some of our readers, and especially Bob, have been discussing this issue in the comments section over the past few days. Xymphora is now writing about it in his blog and I recommend you follow his link to Dahr Jamail`s article in Electronic Iraq.

# posted by Friendly Fire : 1:25 AM
Comments (14) | Trackback (0)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Mike Whitney: `Incinerating Iraqis: The napalm cover up`
Contributed by megsdad on Monday, June 27 @ 09:57:46 EDT
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=21693&mode=nest…

"You smell that? Do you smell that? Napalm, son. Nothing else in the world smells like that. I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for twelve hours. When it was all over I walked up. We didn`t find one of `em, not one stinkin` dink body. The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like... victory."
-- Robert Duvall, "Apocalypse Now" (1979)

Two weeks ago the UK Independent ran an article which confirmed that the US had "lied to Britain over the use of napalm in Iraq". (6-17-05) Since then, not one American newspaper or TV station has picked up the story even though the Pentagon has verified the claims. This is the extent to which the American "free press" is yoked to the center of power in Washington. As we`ve seen with the treatment of the Downing Street memo, (which was reluctantly reported 5 weeks after it appeared in the British press) the air-tight American media ignores any story that doesn`t embrace their collective support for the war. The prospect that the US military is using "universally reviled" weapons runs counter to the media-generated narrative that the war was motivated by humanitarian concerns (to topple a brutal dictator) as well as to eliminate the elusive WMDs. We can now say with certainty that the only WMDs in Iraq were those that were introduced by foreign invaders from the US who used them to incinerate the indigenous people who dared to resist.

"Despite persistent rumors of injuries among Iraqis consistent with the use of incendiary weapons such as napalm" the Pentagon insisted that "US forces had not used a new generation of incendiary weapons, codenamed MK77, in Iraq." (UK Independent)

The Pentagon lied.

Defense Minister, Adam Ingram, admitted that the US had misled the British high-command about the use of napalm, but he would not comment on the extent of the cover up. The use of firebombs puts the US in breach of the 1980 Convention on Certain Chemical Weapons (CCW) and is a violation the Geneva Protocol against the use of white phosphorous, "since its use causes indiscriminate and extreme injuries especially when deployed in an urban area."

Regrettably, "indiscriminate and extreme injuries" are a vital part of the American terror-campaign in Iraq; a well-coordinated strategy designed to spawn panic through random acts of violence.

It`s clear that the military never needed to use napalm in Iraq. Their conventional weaponry and laser-guided technology were already enough to run roughshod over the Iraqi army and seize Baghdad almost unobstructed. Napalm was introduced simply to terrorize the Iraqi people; to pacify through intimidation. Cheney, Rumsfeld and Negroponte are old-hands at terrorism, dating back to their counterinsurgency projects in Nicaragua and El Salvador under Ronald Reagan. They know that the threat of immolation serves as a powerful deterrent and fits seamlessly into their overarching scheme of rule through fear. Terror and deception are the rotating parts of the same axis; the two imperatives of the Bush-Cheney foreign policy strategy. Napalm in Falluja

The US also used napalm in the siege of Falluja as was reported in the UK Mirror ("Falluja Napalmed", 11-28-04) The Mirror said, "President George Bush has sanctioned the use of napalm, a deadly cocktail of polystyrene and jet-fuel banned by the United Nations in 1980, will stun the world.... Reports claim that innocent civilians have died in napalm attacks, which turn victims into human fireballs as the gel bonds flames to flesh...Since the American assault on Falluja there have been reports of `melted` corpse, which appeared to have napalm injuries."

"Human fireballs" and "melted corpses"; these are the real expressions of Operation Iraqi Freedom not the bland platitudes issuing from the presidential podium.

Dr. Khalid ash-Shaykhli, who was the head of the Iraqi Ministry of Health in Falluja, reported to Al Jazeera (and the Washington Post, although it was never reported) that "research, prepared by his medical team, prove that the US forces used internationally prohibited substances, including mustard gas, nerve gas, and other burning chemicals in their attacks on the war-torn city."

Dr Shaykhli`s claims have been corroborated by numerous eyewitness accounts as well as reports that "all forms of nature were wiped out in Falluja"...as well as "hundreds, of stray dogs, cats, and birds that had perished as a result of those gasses." An unidentified chemical was used in the bombing raids that killed every living creature in certain areas of the city.

As journalist Dahr Jamail reported later in his article "What is the US trying to Hide?", "At least two kilometers of soil were removed......exactly as they did at Baghdad Airport after the heavy battles there during the invasion and the Americans used their special weapons."

A cover up?

So far, none of this has appeared in any American media, nor have they reported that the United Nations has been rebuffed twice by the Defense Dept. in its call for an independent investigation into what really took place in Falluja. The US simply waves away the international body as insignificant while the media conveniently omits it from their coverage.

We can assume that the order to use napalm (as well as the other, unidentified substances) came straight from the office of Donald Rumsfeld. No one else could have issued that order, nor would they have risked their career by unilaterally using banned weapons when their use was entirely gratuitous. Rumsfeld`s directive is consistent with other decisions attributed the Defense Secretary; like the authorizing of torture at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, the targeting of members of the press, and the rehiring of members of Saddam`s Secret Police ( the Mukhabarat) to carry out their brutal activities under new leadership. Rumsfeld`s office has been the headwaters for most of the administration`s treachery. Napalm simply adds depth to an already prodigious list of war crimes on Rumsfeld`s resume`.

Co-opting the Media

On June 10, 2005 numerous sources reported that the "U.S. Special Operations Command hired three firms to produce newspaper stories, television broadcasts and Internet web sites to spread American propaganda overseas. The Tampa-based military headquarters, which oversees commandos and psychological warfare, may spend up to $100 million for the media campaign over the next five years." (James Crawley, Media General News Service) It`s clear that there`s no need for the Defense Dept. to shore up its operations in the US where reliable apparatchiks can be counted on to obfuscate, omit or exaggerate the coverage of the war according to the requirements of the Pentagon. The American press has been as skillful at embellishing the imaginary heroics of Jessica Lynch and Pat Tillman as they have been in concealing the damning details of the Downing Street Memo or the lack of evidence concerning the alleged WMDs. Should we be surprised that the media has remained silent about the immolation of Iraqis by American firebombs?

The US "free press" is a completely integrated part of the state-information system. Their meticulously managed message has been the only part of the entire Iraqi debacle that hasn`t suffered the ill-effects of the bunglers in Washington. From Dana Milbank to Judith Miller, from FOX News to CNN, from Tom Friedman to Tom Brokaw, they have been a steadfast ally to the powerbrokers they serve; providing the diversions, omissions and cheerleading that are required to keep the public acquiescent during a savage colonial war. Given the scope of their culpability for the violence in Iraq, it`s unlikely that the use of napalm will cause any great crisis of conscience. Their deft coverage has already facilitated the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people; a few more charred Iraqis shouldn`t matter.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

The Daily Illini - Opinions
Issue: 6/27/05
Monday, June 27, 2005 • Independent student newspaper since 1874 • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Column: College Chickenhawks
By Eric Naing
http://www.dailyillini.com/media/paper736/news/2005/06/27/Op…

This past weekend marked the 56th Biennial College Republican National Convention in Arlington, Virginia. While I don`t have anything against this convention (where else could you see anyone under the age of 80 wear a seersucker suit?), it seems like all these Tucker Carlson wannabees should be meeting in a different place - namely Iraq.

If these College Republicans have enough time to hold conventions every two years (or is it twice a year? I`m too lazy too look up the word "biennial," but it sounds a little gay to me), then they should have more than enough time to fight the good fight in the Sunni Triangle. The military is in need of troops and seeing as how it`s these young conservatives that always declare their love for this war and for the troops, it seems right that they should enlist immediately.

This past April, the Army missed its recruitment quota by 42 percent while the Army Reserve fell short 37 percent. The Army National Guard missed its recruitment goal by several thousand and the Marine Corps missed its own goal repeatedly for four consecutive months (the last time this happened was ten years ago). From 2003 to 2004, the military`s re-enlistment rate fell by 11.6 percent and 8.7 percent of Army lieutenants and captains left in 2004.

At the convention, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council addressed his audience of young Dick Cheney devotees about the Iraq War saying, "There are some things that are worth fighting for." He then compared the College Republicans to the troops in Iraq saying, "They`re giving their lives as you`re giving your time." Amazingly, Mr. Perkins actually managed to say this without a black hole of irony opening up in his mouth and swallowing the entire convention hall.

The troops in Iraq are sacrificing not just their lives, but their families, their health and happiness all to defend this country. But yes, Mr. Perkins, organizing a bar crawl or holding Friday happy hours is pretty much the same thing. Instead of avoiding car bombs, College Republicans avoid hippie drum circles. Instead of fighting against radical, Islamic fundamentalists they fight against radical, left-wing professors. Making the switch from walking to class to walking through Najaf should be easy as pie.

The College Republicans attending this convention who cheer the war and call liberals wimps and traitors should be chomping at the bit to sign up for a tour of duty in Iraq. They are all healthy, of military age and seem to really believe in the war. Of course, the College Republicans are not the only chickenhawks amongst us. President Bush famously used his father`s connections to protect the shores of Texas from the Viet Cong in the Air National Guard. And according to Vice President Cheney, he "had other priorities in the `60s than military service." Conservative radio king Rush Limbaugh avoided the draft citing medical reasons, namely an "inoperable pilonidal cyst" and "a football knee from high school." I repeat: Rush`s excuse was his anal cyst and an old football injury.

Over 1,700 Americans troops have lost their lives in Iraq since the initial invasion. It is downright disgusting that the very people that started this war chose not to help out their own country when they could have. The College Republicans who serve as cheerleaders for the Iraq war still have time to follow their own advice. In this modern day and age, all it would take is a few minutes enlisting on www.military.com to show how much they truly love their country.

Recently, a conservative student organization raffled off an AK-47 on this campus. While I was disturbed and angered at the time, I`ve come to rethink my position. These students deserve to have all the assault rifles they want and I know how they can get them - by enlisting in the military. These people wanted this war. These people insist that the war is going great. So, it is only fitting that they should be the ones who fight it.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Wer Gerichtsentscheidungen aus den USA sucht, fidet diese in Original und voller Länge und auch Kommentare in
http://www.findlaw.com/

Hier einige Urteile zu Gitmo!
http://lawcrawler.findlaw.com/scripts/lc.pl?entry=gitmo&site…

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

According to one of the current running jokes in the vast Iranian blogosphere, Ahmadinejad is already doomed because Bush will never be able to pronounce his name.

Jun 28, 2005

THE ROVING EYE
Twelve more years
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF28Ak05.html

If only those "axis of evil" fellas were a little more ... cooperative.

In Iraq, the Sunni Arab resistance insists on being on a roll, thus disturbing the Pentagon`s plans of quietly building its 14 military bases. In Iran, the new game has not even started, but Tehran and Washington are already at each other`s throats. Only one day after his victory, Iranian president-elect Mahmud Ahmadinejad said at his first press conference in Tehran, "Iran is on a path of progress and elevation, and does not really need the United States on this path." A few hours later, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was snarling on Fox News, "I don`t know much about this fellow ... But he is no friend of democracy."

Double standards rule. Imagine the fury in the US if, for instance, an Iranian government official in 2000 said, "I don`t know much about this cowboy Bush. But he stole the American elections."

Karl Marx may be rolling (with laughter) in his Highgate, north London grave. Talking about classic class struggle: in Iran, a left-wing, working-class hero (Ahmadinejad) has beaten a super-bourgeois, millionaire mullah (Rafsanjani). In Iraq, the local, deposed, militarized Sunni Arab bourgeoisie is fighting a national liberation movement against an imperialist occupation. According to one of the current running jokes in the vast Iranian blogosphere, Ahmadinejad is already doomed because Bush will never be able to pronounce his name. On a more serious note, as much as for Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the election result is a "humiliation" to America. Yet a much harsher humiliation is being inflicted by a few thousand Sunni Arab guerrillas in Iraq, bogging down the self-described mightiest army in the history of the world.

No wonder Rumsfeld is in a foul mood.

Wait for 2017
Fresh from being invited last week by Senator Ted Kennedy to graciously step down, Rumsfeld is back on his usual attack-dog mode - but now with a downbeat twist. In May, Vice President Dick Cheney said the "insurgency was in its last throes". Now - without even appealing to semantic contortionism of the "unknown unknowns" kind - Rumsfeld in fact has clarified to American and world public opinion that the "throes" will go on until 2017. He said, "We`re not going to win against the insurgency. The Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency. That insurgency could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, seven, eight, 10, 12 years."

So Rumsfeld is in fact admitting what many people already knew: the Lebanonization of Iraq. With the added element of Vietnamization/Iraqification: when Rumsfeld said "the Iraqi people are going to win against the insurgency", he actually meant former Mukhabarat pals of former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi at the Interior Ministry, plus the militia inferno at the core of the ministry (the so-called "Rumsfeld`s boys"), ganging up to fight the resistance. Sunni Arab intelligence plus Shi`ite and Kurd militias fighting Sunni Arabs. In other words: civil war. Iraqification as the way to civil war was more than evident when Rumsfeld said, "We`re going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency."

Rumsfeld also said that the Pentagon is "talking with insurgent leaders": "Well, the first thing I would say about the meetings is they go on all the time." What this actually means is that the Sunni Arab "Rumsfeld`s boys" exchange information with the Sunni Arab guerrillas and play a double game, looking for the best deal. It`s not dissimilar to the mujahideen in eastern Afghanistan in late 2001 bagging cases full of dollars from the Americans with one hand and passing sensitive information to the Taliban with the other. The resistance has infiltrated each and every government and official body in Iraq, Interior Ministry included. If the Pentagon throws around a lot of money-stuffed cases, it might reach some degree of success.

Rumsfeld took pains to remind and alert American public opinion that the Pentagon does not talk to terrorists, so there`s no conversation with cipher Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - maybe for the simple reason that the Pentagon doesn`t have a clue where he is (or, cynics would add, because Zarqawi is dead). It gets curiouser. Only hours after Rumsfeld did the Sunday talk show round in the US, al-Qaeda in the Land of the Two Rivers and Ansar al-Sunnah denied that they were talking with anybody. Al-Qaeda said these were "lies", they would never talk to "crusaders, Jews and the enemies of Allah". "Axis of evil" observers will be fascinated by the symmetry: the Pentagon does not talk to terrorists in Iraq as much as it does not talk to the new, weapons of mass destruction-pursuer president of Iran, and vice-versa.

General John Abizaid, the US Centcom commander, was more precise than Rumsfeld when he said that the Pentagon was "looking for the right people in the Sunni community to talk to". "Right people" can only mean people such as the Association of Muslim Scholars. Anyway, all the Sunni Arab "right people", even if they were willing to talk, would press on the Americans their number one condition: the end of the occupation itself.

This blockbuster is a dud
Whoever is talking to whichever evildoers, it all boils down to a massive, desperate public-relations campaign in Washington. The Bush administration must imperatively convince American public opinion that it will "win " in Iraq as a nagging Titanic feeling starts to fill the air. When confronted with a non sequitur, the White House and the Pentagon have always been able to change the script of the Iraqi movie. No weapons of mass destruction? No problem: let`s go with "democracy and freedom to the Arab world". Terrorism? Let`s fight it with "free elections". Oops, we didn`t want these Iran-friendly Shi`ites in power. No problem, let`s support them and use them to build an Iraqi army to fight the Sunnis on our behalf.

Now growing numbers of Americans seem to have had enough of all the plot twists - and would rather switch to a Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise vehicle where the bad guys always lose and the good guy always gets the girl. People around the world are always bemused by the fact that American society is a strictly winner-takes-all universe. Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld may end up being branded as losers - the ultimate insult (or "unknown unknowns", in Rumsfeld doublespeak). Rumsfeld has finally admitted that the Iraq war is unwinnable. No amount of Washington spin can have it packaged and sold to the American people - again.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[urlPoll Data (pdf) ]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpoll062705.pdf[/url]
[urlPoll Demographics ]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/polls/postpol062705_demos.pdf[/url]



washingtonpost.com
Poll: Optimism on Iraq Is Premature
Most Americans Dispute White House Assessment of Weakened Insurgency, Post-ABC Survey Finds
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06…
By Richard Morin and Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, June 27, 2005; 6:24 PM

As President Bush prepares to address the nation on Iraq Tuesday night, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds most Americans do not believe the administration`s claims that it is making impressive gains against the insurgency, but a clear majority is willing to keep U.S. forces there for an extended time to stabilize the country.
[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
The survey found that only one in eight Americans currently favor an immediate pullout of U.S. forces, while a clear majority continues to agree with Bush that the United States must remain in Iraq until civil order is restored -- a goal that most Americans acknowledge is, at best, several years away.

Amid broad skepticism about Bush`s credibility and whether the war was worth the cost, there was some encouraging signs for the president. A narrow majority--52 percent-- currently believe the war has contributed to the long-term security of the United States, a five-point increase from earlier this month.

The findings crystallize the challenges facing Bush tomorrow evening in his nationally televised address from Fort Bragg, N.C., an event the administration sees as a critical opportunity for the president to restate the case for his Iraq policies. The goal is to reinvigorate public support for a war that has grown unpopular over time and persuade Americans that the administration has a policy that will lead to success over time.

So far, continuing spasms of violence in Iraq are competing with regular declarations of progress in Washington. Few people agree with Vice President Cheney`s recent claim that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The survey found that barely one in five Americans -- 22 percent -- say they believe that the insurgency is getting weaker while 24 percent believe it is strengthening. More than half -- 53 percent -- say resistance to U.S. and Iraqi government forces has not changed, a view that matches the assessment offered last week in congressional testimony by the U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. John P. Abizaid.

Views of the current status of the insurgency were deeply colored by partisanship. More than a third of all Republicans -- 35 percent -- agreed with the administration that the insurgents were growing weaker in Iraq, compared to 13 percent of all Democrats and 19 percent of all political independents.

By a narrow margin, the public continues to believe the war was not worth the cost and bigger majorities fear that Iraq has crippled the ability of the United States to respond to conflicts elsewhere in the world and has damaged efforts to recruit young people into the military. A large majority still say the U.S. is bogged down in Iraq.

Overwhelming majorities of Americans believe the Bush administration and U.S. military leaders fundamentally underestimated the difficulty of the war and failed to anticipate the tenacity of the insurgency in Iraq.

Part of the administration`s apparent growing credibility problem may be due to recent disclosures about pre-war planning, including the so-called Downing Street Memo written in July 2002 to a top adviser to British Prime Minister Tony Blair that said the administration had decided to go to war and that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

The administration has dismissed the conclusions of that memo, but the memo`s wide circulation may have raised new doubts or reinforced old suspicions about Bush`s motives for going to war. For the first time, a narrow majority -- 52 percent -- said the administration deliberately misled the public before the war, a 9-point increase in three months. Forty-eight percent said the administration told the public what it believed to be true at the time.

On a number of measures, public disapproval of Bush`s policies has diminished slightly in the past month. Overall, however, Americans remain negative in most of their assessments about the cost of the war.

A majority -- 51 percent -- disapprove of the way Bush is handling his job as president compared to 48 percent who approve, the same as a month ago. On Iraq, 56 percent disapprove of his handling to 43 percent who approve.

The survey found that opponents of Bush`s policies feel more strongly about their views today than in the past, with four in 10 Americans saying they strongly disapprove of the job he is doing as president, the worst showing of his presidency. Just 27 percent strongly support him.

Despite public misgivings about elements of the policy, there remains an underlying reservoir of support for the war and continued unwillingness by the public to abandon Iraqis to their fate. Despite the almost-daily suicide bombings and mounting casualty rates, a majority of Americans -- 53 percent -- now say they`re optimistic about the situation in Iraq, up 7 points from last December.

A total of 1,004 randomly selected adults were interviewed by telephone June 23-26 for this survey. Margin of sampling error for the overall results is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

The survey found the public sharply divided over another widely publicized administration claim. Speaking to an 80-nation conference on Iraq reconstruction in Brussels last week, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that victory over anti-government forces will be "a death knell for terrorism as we know it" elsewhere.

Fewer than half--46 percent--of those interviewed agreed that defeating the insurgents in Iraq would do much to defeat terrorism elsewhere while 53 percent said it would have, at best, only limited impact on the broader anti-terrorism campaign. On that question, partisan divisions were striking. Seven in 1o Republicans agreed with the essence of Rice`s statement while an equal proportion of Democrats disagreed.

The news for the administration was far from uniformly bleak. Throughout the survey, public dismay over the situation in Iraq alternated with more hopeful views.

By narrow margins, the public believes the war was not worth the cost and worry that the U.S. is not making sufficient progress toward civil order in Iraq. Six in 10 believe America is "bogged down" in Iraq and a similar proportion doubt that country will have a stable, democratic government a year from now. Seven in 10 say the war has made it difficult to attract new military recruits, and two in three say it`s made it harder for the U.S. to respond to conflicts elsewhere in the world.

Six in 10 say the elections in Iraq earlier this year brought it closer to the day that U.S. forces can be withdrawn. And overwhelming majorities believe the Iraqi people are better off now because of the war and will be better off in the future as a result of the U.S. invasion.

But balanced against those doubts are findings that suggest the final verdict on the president`s polices on Iraq is not yet in. On other questions, negatives views of the conflict appeared to be easing somewhat. Currently 51 percent believe that the war has contributed to the long-term stability of the Middle East, up nine points from a year ago. And the proportion who said the conflict damaged America`s image with the rest of the world fell to 67 percent, down nine points since last June.

Assistant polling director Claudia Deane contributed to this report.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 28, 2005
White House Is Said to Reject Panel`s Call for a Greater Pentagon Role in Covert Operations
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/28intel.html

WASHINGTON, June 27 - The White House has decided to reject classified recommendations by a presidential commission that would have given the Pentagon greater authority to conduct covert action, senior government officials said Monday.

The decision is a victory for the Central Intelligence Agency, which has long been the principal architect and instrument of the secretive operations. The agency has been struggling to retain its authority in the power structure headed by John D. Negroponte, the new director of national intelligence, especially as the Pentagon has pressed for a greater role in intelligence operations.

The White House will also designate the C.I.A. as the main manager of the government`s human spying operations, even those conducted by the Pentagon and the F.B.I., the officials said.

The decisions are part of a detailed White House response, expected to be announced later this week, to the 74 recommendations issued in March by the commission, headed by Lawrence Silberman and Charles Robb, that examined the role of intelligence agencies in detecting and countering the international spread of illicit weapons. The plan for covert action was the only major recommendation explicitly rejected by a White House team headed by Fran Townsend, the president`s homeland security adviser, the officials said.

The decision marks the second time in a year that the White House has rejected a high-level recommendation to transfer some C.I.A. powers to the Pentagon. The Sept. 11 commission recommended that the agency`s special paramilitary unit be transferred to the Pentagon, but the White House decided in November to maintain that capacity at the C.I.A., while also moving to strengthen the Pentagon`s paramilitary capacities.

Under Mr. Negroponte, who took office in April as part of the biggest intelligence overhaul in four decades, the C.I.A. no longer has the pre-eminence it commanded for decades. The director of central intelligence, Porter J. Goss, no longer regularly attends either the daily morning briefings for President Bush or regular meetings of Mr. Bush`s principal foreign policy advisers.

But in addressing the commission`s recommendations, the White House appears to have decided to maintain the C.I.A.`s predominance in both covert action and human spying, the areas in which the agency has most rigorously defended its turf.

Under law, covert actions may be carried out only with presidential authorization and Congressional notification, and those operations are devised so that American government involvement is disguised and meant never to be acknowledged.

In its report, the commission said covert action "may play an increasingly important role" as the United States steps up efforts to counter terrorism and the spread of illicit weapons, because it can serve as "a more subtle and surgical tool" than diplomacy or the use of military force.

Its recommendations about covert action were deleted from the public version of the 601-page report, but senior government officials said they would have allowed the Pentagon a larger role in carrying out intelligence, reconnaissance or sabotage missions more secretive than the operations already carried out by American Special Operations forces, which are defined as clandestine - a shade less secret than covert.

The commission`s recommendation, the government officials said, was based on a conclusion that military forces were often better trained and equipped than the C.I.A. to carry out missions that might be a part of a covert action. But the officials said they believed that the White House had concluded it would be preferable to leave covert action in the hands of the agency, to maintain a sharp legal and operational distinction between its paramilitary operations and those carried out by the military.

Both the Pentagon and the F.B.I. have moved in recent months to assert a greater role in spying operations, particularly those related to terrorism and weapons proliferation. The C.I.A. has retained overall authority over such operations, but with Mr. Goss now reporting to Mr. Negroponte, some agency officials had feared that Mr. Negroponte`s office might also assert its right to coordinate human spying operations and that the Pentagon might demand a co-equal role in covert action.

Spokesmen for the C.I.A., the White House and the Pentagon all declined to comment on the White House decisions. The senior government officials who described them came from several different agencies, but insisted on anonymity because the commission`s recommendation on covert action remains classified, and because the other decisions have yet to be announced.

Among the dozens of commission recommendations to be endorsed by the White House, the officials said, are one calling for the establishment of a National Nonproliferation Center, to manage actions to combat the spread of illicit weapons. As a small coordination unit, the new center will join the National Counterterrorism Center in reporting directly to Mr. Negroponte.

Another recommendation had called for the creation of a new human intelligence directorate at the C.I.A. to encourage new approaches to human spying operations. But action on that measure is to be postponed until further review by the agency, a plan it welcomes. Officials there had been concerned that such a step would undermine the existing directorate of operations, which oversees the agency`s clandestine networks of case officers and spies.

An additional recommendation has already led to the drafting of an executive order that would allow the Treasury Department to penalize companies that do business related to the weapons programs in North Korea, Iran or Syria, administration officials said Monday. The draft order, they added, would give the Treasury Department the authority to pursue and freeze the offending companies` assets, in the United States or abroad.

The new responsibility is similar to the authority the Treasury Department was given after the Sept. 11 attacks to seize the assets of companies and other organizations that are believed to have aided terrorists. The existence of the draft executive order was first reported in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday.

Joel Brinkley contributed reporting for this article.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 28, 2005
The Speech the President Should Give
By JOHN F. KERRY
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/opinion/28kerry.html

Boston

TONIGHT President Bush will discuss the situation in Iraq. It`s long past time to get it right in Iraq. The Bush administration is courting disaster with its current course - a course with no realistic strategy for reducing the risks to our soldiers and increasing the odds for success.

The reality is that the Bush administration`s choices have made Iraq into what it wasn`t before the war - a breeding ground for jihadists. Today there are 16,000 to 20,000 jihadists and the number is growing. The administration has put itself - and, tragically, our troops, who pay the price every day - in a box of its own making. Getting out of this box won`t be easy, but we owe it to our soldiers to make our best effort.

Our mission in Iraq is harder because the administration ignored the advice of others, went in largely alone, underestimated the likelihood and power of the insurgency, sent in too few troops to secure the country, destroyed the Iraqi army through de-Baathification, failed to secure ammunition dumps, refused to recognize the urgency of training Iraqi security forces and did no postwar planning. A little humility would go a long way - coupled with a strategy to succeed.

So what should the president say tonight? The first thing he should do is tell the truth to the American people. Happy talk about the insurgency being in "the last throes" leads to frustrated expectations at home. It also encourages reluctant, sidelined nations that know better to turn their backs on their common interest in keeping Iraq from becoming a failed state.

The president must also announce immediately that the United States will not have a permanent military presence in Iraq. Erasing suspicions that the occupation is indefinite is critical to eroding support for the insurgency.

He should also say that the United States will insist that the Iraqis establish a truly inclusive political process and meet the deadlines for finishing the Constitution and holding elections in December. We`re doing our part: our huge military presence stands between the Iraqi people and chaos, and our special forces protect Iraqi leaders. The Iraqis must now do theirs.

He also needs to put the training of Iraqi troops on a true six-month wartime footing and ensure that the Iraqi government has the budget needed to deploy them. The administration and the Iraqi government must stop using the requirement that troops be trained in-country as an excuse for refusing offers made by Egypt, Jordan, France and Germany to do more.

The administration must immediately draw up a detailed plan with clear milestones and deadlines for the transfer of military and police responsibilities to Iraqis after the December elections. The plan should be shared with Congress. The guideposts should take into account political and security needs and objectives and be linked to specific tasks and accomplishments. If Iraqis adopt a constitution and hold elections as planned, support for the insurgency should fall and Iraqi security forces should be able to take on more responsibility. It will also set the stage for American forces to begin to come home.

Iraq, of course, badly needs a unified national army, but until it has one - something that our generals now say could take two more years - it should make use of its tribal, religious and ethnic militias like the Kurdish pesh merga and the Shiite Badr Brigade to provide protection and help with reconstruction. Instead of single-mindedly focusing on training a national army, the administration should prod the Iraqi government to fill the current security gap by integrating these militias into a National Guard-type force that can provide security in their own areas.

The administration must work with the Iraqi government to establish a multinational force to help protect its borders. Such a force, if sanctioned by the United Nations Security Council, could attract participation by Iraq`s neighbors and countries like India.

The deployment of capable security forces is critical, but it alone will not end the insurgency, as the administration would have us believe. Hamstrung by its earlier lack of planning and overly optimistic predictions for rebuilding Iraq, the administration has failed to devote equal attention to working with the Iraqi government on the economic and political fronts. Consequently, reconstruction is lagging even in the relatively secure Shiite south and Kurdish north. If Iraqis, particularly Sunnis who fear being disenfranchised, see electricity flowing, jobs being created, roads and sewers being rebuilt and a democratic government being formed, the allure of the insurgency will decrease.

Iraq`s Sunni neighbors, who complain they are left out, could do more to help. Even short-term improvements, like providing electricity and supplying diesel fuel - an offer that the Saudis have made but have yet to fulfill - will go a long way. But we need to give these nations a strategic plan for regional security, acknowledging their fears of an Iran-dominated crescent and their concerns about our fitful mediation between Israel and the Palestinians in return for their help in rebuilding Iraq, protecting its borders, and bringing its Sunnis into the political process.

The next months are critical to Iraq`s future and our security. If Mr. Bush fails to take these steps, we will stumble along, our troops at greater risk, casualties rising, costs rising, the patience of the American people wearing thin, and the specter of quagmire staring us in the face. Our troops deserve better: they deserve leadership equal to their sacrifice.

John F. Kerry is a Democratic senator from Massachusetts.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Compan

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Iraq: A bloody mess
By Patrick Cockburn
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?st…

28 June 2005

A year ago the supposed handover of power by the US occupation authority to an Iraqi interim government led by Iyad Allawi was billed as a turning point in the violent history of post-Saddam Iraq.

It has turned out to be no such thing. Most of Iraq is today a bloody no-man`s land beset by ruthless insurgents, savage bandit gangs, trigger-happy US patrols and marauding government forces.

Then and now Average daily attacks by insurgents Pre-war March 2003: 0 Handover June 2004: 45 Now: 70 Analysis: Figures should be viewed with caution because US military often does not record attacks if there are no American casualties. Total number of coalition troops killed Pre-war March 2003: 0 Handover June 2004: 982 Now: 1,930 Analysis: Number of US troops killed increased sharply during Fallujah fighting in April and November 2004. Iraqi civilians killed Pre-war March 2003: n/a Handover June 2004: 10,000 Now: 60,800 (includes 23,000 crime-related deaths) Analysis: Estimates of Iraqi civilian deaths have varied widely because the US military does not count them. Electricity supply (megawatts generated) Pre-war March 2003: 3,958 Handover June 2004: 4,293 Now: 4,035 Analysis: Coalition is way behind its goal of providing 6,000 megawatts by July 2004. Most Iraqis do not have a reliable electricity supply. Unemployed Pre-war March 2003: n/a Handover June 2004: 40% Now: 40% Analysis: More than a third of young people are unemployed, a cause for social unrest. Many security men stay home, except on payday. Telephones Pre-war March 2003: 833,000 (landlines only) Handover June 2004: 1.2m (includes mobiles) Now: 3.1m Analysis: Landlines are extremely unreliable and mobile phone system could be improved. Primary school access Pre-war March 2003: 3.6m Handover June 2004: 4.3m Now: n/a Analysis: 83 per cent of boys and 79 per cent of girls in primary schools. But figures mask declining literacy and failure rate. Oil production (barrels a day) Pre-war March 2003: 2.5m Handover June 2004: 2.29m Now: 2.20m Analysis: Sustainability of Iraqi oilfields has been jeopardised to boost output. Oil facilities regularly targeted by insurgents.

On 28 June 2004 Mr Allawi was all smiles. "In a few days, Iraq will radiate with stability and security," he promised at the handover ceremony. That mood of optimism did not last long.

On Sunday the American Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, told a US news programme that the ongoing insurgency could last "five, six, eight, ten, twelve years".

Yesterday in London, after meeting Tony Blair, the new Iraqi Prime Minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, tried to be more upbeat, commenting: "I think two years will be enough and more than enough to establish security".

Tonight President George Bush will make his most important address since the invasion, speaking to troops at the US army base at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. He is expected to seek to assure increasingly sceptical Americans that he has a plan to prevail in Iraq, and that the US is not trapped in a conflict as unwinnable as the one in Vietnam, three decades ago.

The news now from Iraq is only depressing. All the roads leading out of the capital are cut. Iraqi security and US troops can only get through in heavily armed convoys. There is a wave of assassinations of senior Iraqi officers based on chillingly accurate intelligence. A deputy police chief of Baghdad was murdered on Sunday. A total of 52 senior Iraqi government or religious figures have been assassinated since the handover. In June 2004 insurgents killed 42 US soldiers; so far this month 75 have been killed.

The "handover of power" last June was always a misnomer. Much real power remained in the hands of the US. Its 140,000 troops kept the new government in business. Mr Allawi`s new cabinet members became notorious for the amount of time they spent out of the country. Safely abroad they often gave optimistic speeches predicting the imminent demise of the insurgency.

Despite this the number of Iraqi military and police being killed every month has risen from 160 at the handover to 219 today.

There were two further supposed turning points over the past year. The first was the capture by US Marines of the rebel stronghold of Fallujah last November after a bloody battle which left most of the city of 300,000 people in ruins. In January there was the general election in which the Shia and Kurds triumphed.

Both events were heavily covered by the international media. But such is the danger for television and newspaper correspondents in Iraq that their capacity to report is more and more limited. The fall of Fallujah did not break the back of the resistance. Their best fighters simply retreated to fight again elsewhere. Many took refuge in Baghdad. At the same time as the insurgents lost Fallujah they captured most of Mosul, a far larger city. Much of Sunni Iraq remained under their sway.

At the handover of power the number of foreign fighters in the insurgency was estimated in the "low hundreds". That figure has been revised up to at least 1,000 and the overall figure for the number of insurgents is put at 16,000.

The election may have been won by the Shia and Kurds but it was boycotted by the five million Sunnis and they are the core of the rebellion. It took three months to put together a new government as Sunni, Shia, Kurds and Americans competed for their share of the cake. For all their declarations about Iraqi security, the US wanted to retain as much power in its own hands as it could. When the Shia took over the interior ministry its intelligence files were hastily transferred to the US headquarters in the Green Zone.

To most ordinary Iraqis in Baghdad it is evident that life over the past year has been getting worse. The insurgents seem to have an endless supply of suicide bombers whose attacks ensure a permanent sense of threat. In addition the necessities of life are becoming more difficult to obtain. At one moment last winter there were queues of cars outside petrol stations several miles long.

The sense of fear in Baghdad is difficult to convey. Petrol is such a necessity because people need to pick up their children from school because they are terrified of them being kidnapped. Parents mob the doors of schools and swiftly become hysterical if they cannot find their children. Doctors are fleeing the country because so many have been held for ransom, some tortured and killed because their families could not raise the money.

Homes in Baghdad are currently getting between six and eight hours` electricity a day. Nothing has improved at the power stations since the hand-over of security a year ago. In a city where the temperature yesterday was 40C, people swelter without air conditioning because the omnipresent small generators do not produce enough current to keep them going. In recent weeks there has also been a chronic shortage of water.

Some Iraqis have benefited. Civil servants and teachers are better paid, though prices are higher. But Iraqis in general hoped that their standard of living would improve dramatically after the fall of Saddam Hussein and it has not.

Adding to the sense of fear in Baghdad is the growth of sectarianism, the widening gulf between Sunni and Shia. Shia mosques come under attack from bombers. Members of both communities are found murdered beside the road, in escalating rounds of tit-for-tat killings.

The talks between US officials and some resistance groups revealed in the past few days probably does not mean very much for the moment. The fanatical Islamic and militant former Baathists and nationalists who make up the cutting edge of insurgency are not in the mood to compromise. They are also very fragmented. But the talks may indicate a growing sense among US military and civilian officials that they cannot win this war.

Patrick Cockburn was awarded the 2005 Martha Gellhorn prize for war reporting in recognition of his writing on Iraq over the past year




28 June 2005 11:48


©2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Guerrillas Shoot Down US Helicopter
Bombings in Baghdad
Bush Presses Blair for More Troops

Guerrillas using a shoulder-held missile launcher, probably an SA-16, shot down a US Apache helicopter Monday north of Baghdad, killing both servicemen aboard. AP reports, ` "Witness Mohammed Naji told Associated Press Television News he saw two helicopters flying toward Mishahda when "a rocket hit one of them and destroyed it completely in the air" . . . Heavy gunfire was heard at the time of the crash and shots also were heard afterward, the AP reporter said. ` If this is the future of the guerrilla war, US casualties will rise dramatically.

In another attack on Monday, guerrillas detonated a massive bomb aiming at a US military convoy in Baghdad during the early evening, but missed. It went off between the al-Bida`a Cinema and the Sunni al-Samarra`i Mosque, killing at least four Iraqi by-standers and wounding 16 others. AP says people were shopping in the New Baghdad area "before the curfew." There`s a night-time curfew in Baghdad?

Elsewhere in the capital, guerrillas targeted a police patrol in the northern Azamiyah neighborhood (largely Sunni), but appear to have missed, killing two innocent by-standers.

Wire services report, "Seven Iraqis were also wounded when a rocket slammed into a restaurant in the centre of the capital as attacks continued in Baghdad despite a security clampdown. The seven, three waiters and four customers, were wounded when a rocket exploded in Al-Yassir restaurant near a busy taxi and bus terminal off the capital`s central Museum square."

Former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi admitted in Cairo recently that Syria is not actively backing the jihadi infiltrators coming into Iraq across the Syrian border. Allawi will have been in a position to see the intelligence on this matter when he was in office, so this is a crucial admission. It contradicts the charges bandied about by members of the Bush administration and the Neoconservatives in the US.

A Two-Front War

Tony Blair and the British military are caught between Iraq and a hard place. The Bush administration is putting enormous pressure on the British to send more troops to Afghanistan, where the Taliban are regrouping and launching an Iraq-style guerrilla war. So the British began making noises about reducing the number of their troops in southern Iraq (around 10,000) and shifting them to Afghanistan.

But no. Bush recently told Blair that Iraq is on the brink of disaster, and that the British need to send more troops to that country, in addition to sending new units to fight the Taliban.

The Scotsman reveals that


` Tony Blair was warned that war-torn Iraq remains on the brink of disaster - more than two years after the removal of Saddam Hussein - during his summit with President Bush in Washington earlier this month. Scotland on Sunday revealed last month that Blair is preparing to rush thousands more British troops to Afghanistan in a bid to stop the country sliding towards civil war, amid warnings the coalition faces a "complete strategic failure" in the effort to rebuild the nation. `



If the Pushtuns turn against the Karzai government in large numbers, rallying around neo-Taliban, the country could fall back into war. This danger was always the hidden cost of Bush going on to Iraq before stabilizing Afghanistan.

I don`t think the British public will put up with being dragged into a two-front hot war, and you wonder whether the Blair government might fall over such a development.

The mystery to me is why the Americans think they need more British troops in southern Iraq. Most of that area has fallen into the hands of religious Shiite militias anyway, and I doubt the British get out of their barracks all that much. When they do, they appear to be angering a lot of the Shiites, as in Maysan, the provincial government of which yesterday launched a non-cooperation campaign against the British. Do the Americans want to move the British up to the hot zone in the Sunni heartland? Is the South more unstable than it looks on the outside (e.g. is the Mahdi Army reconstituting itself down there?)

Ironically, even as the Afghanistan venture appears on the verge of collapse, Dick Cheney instanced it in his Wolf Blitzer interview on Sunday as evidence of the undue pessimism of his critics and a reason to be optimistic about Iraq.

About three quarters of Americans believe that the guerrilla movement in Iraq is either maintaining its strength or growing in strength. Only 1/4 agree with Dick Cheney that it is weakening.

Arundhati Roy reports from the mock tribunal in Istanbul trying George W. Bush for the Iraq War.

The Egyptian cleric kidnapped by the US Centeral Intelligence Organization from Milan in February of 2003 was involved in Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist group, and was preparing false passports and aiding in other ways the transport of radical volunteers to go to Iraq, where the group had a base in the north. An Italian magistrate has issued arrest warrants for the CIA personnel involved. It is not entirely clear why the US couldn`t get the Berlusconi government to move against the cleric itself.

I`m posting this a little early because am traveling on Tuesday, but will try to post more late afternoon.

posted by Juan @ [url6/28/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/guerrillas-shoot-down-us-helicopter.html[/url]

Rumsfeld on Vietnam and Government Secrecy

These quotes from Congressman Rumsfeld, circa 1966, are amusing and tragic in retrospect.


` A 1966 article in the Chicago Tribune quoted Rumsfeld as saying the following: “The administration should clarify its intent in Viet Nam,’ he said. ‘People lack confidence in the credibility of our government.’ Even our allies are beginning to suspect what we say, he charged. ‘It’s a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy,’ he said. ‘With the secrecy, it’s impossible. The American people will do what’s right when they have the information they need.” [Chicago Tribune, 4/13/66] `

posted by Juan @ [url6/28/2005 06:08:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/rumsfeld-on-vietnam-and-government.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Jun 29, 2005

SPEAKING FREELY
Hobbesian hell in the making
By Gaurang Bhatt
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF29Ak05.html

There is surely a serious problem brewing in the world`s need for an affordable and reliable supply of energy. Ever since Winston Churchill and Gertrude Stein drew a map of the current Iraq, supposedly on a breakfast napkin, to Franklin D Roosevelt`s historic meeting and agreement with King Ibn Saud on an American ship, the policies of the British and their successor hegemon, America, have been based on ensuring reliable access to cheap oil to fuel economic progress.

The failed American policy of making the Shah of Iran the US`s linchpin and the withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, due to Osama bin Laden`s jihad, led to the foolish misadventure of the conquest and occupation of Iraq and the ongoing disaster. The occupation is an unmitigated catastrophe destined for a withdrawal, with cutting of losses due to the fickle attention span and intolerance for casualties by the American public. They lack the intellectual capacity or insight to understand any complexity.

A recent article by Naomi Klein in reference to the Abu Ghraib atrocities evaluated in parallel to the French experience in Algiers, illuminates the problem. The French general taxed with the atrocities of the Battle of Algiers by a group of reporters put the quintessential question to them, whether they believed, like he, and the then-government did, that they wished to continue the occupation and exploitation of Algeria. If they did, then the end would justify the means and the moral quibbling was idle rhetoric because in real life the old adage stood on its head and the end always justified the means.

An honest and pragmatic book by Central Intelligence Agency analyst "Anonymous" applauds bin Laden`s genius and lays out a ruthless plan of combating it. The grievances of Muslims are genuine, despite their unacceptable and dastardly means to redress them. The American support of tyrannical and corrupt kleptocracies in the Muslim world and America`s connivance and tacit support of Israeli tyranny and occupation of Palestinian lands is a raging fire that cannot be extinguished, or even contained, by public relations disinformation or President George W Bush inviting Muslim clerics for a post-Id Iftar (breaking of the fast) dinner and proclaiming Islam a religion of peace.

Islam has never been a religion of peace. Mohammed, unlike any other prior prophet or future one, resorted to arms as a means to spread his doctrine. His massacre of dissenting innocent Jews and his deathbed statement that there should be no other religion in Arabia contrasts sharply with Christ`s statement that "there are many paths to my father`s mansion". Not that Christianity, as practiced by the West, has been a benign force. It was used to justify slavery and colonial exploitation without mercy, even for fellow Christians, in the murderous mayhem of the Crusaders toward fellow Christians who were Orthodox in the Byzantine, and president William McKinley toward Filipinos.

The truth is that the battlelines have been drawn between the two follies, Christianity and Islam, both with their falsely arrogant certitudes about a single god who doesn`t exist. Unlike the Crusades and then-prevalent blind faith that led gullible and ignorant masses to death by false promise of the rewards of an eternal heaven, for a pecuniary benefit by a corrupt Pope, the current battle is for the survival and supremacy of the West.

For Islam, devoid of a reformation and renaissance, the reasons for this Armageddon are the same. It is a backward-looking religion with a nostalgia for old glory, just like current-day Britain. It is incapable of reform or democracy, because the true believers, unlike the present-day Jews, Christians and Hindus (except for a minority), who understand that there never was and never will be a red telephone by which God conveys a direct voiced message to human beings, still fervently believe that their scriptures are the word of God and thus incontestable and immune to modification or multiple interpretations.

The large majority of Muslims believes that the Koran is the word of God. Only ignorant America comes close to the Muslims in this inane stupidity, proven by the growing numbers of evangelists and the exploitation of the American tax code by rich fanatics to establish think-tanks to propagate their unholy agenda to the detriment of the nation. These are not real think-tanks to promote intelligent debate for the public good, but Trojan Horses and tax-sheltered propaganda machines to subvert public good and legislate biased laws to promote the vested interests of rich and powerful minorities and a funding resource to brainwash the naive youth.

Thus, the very concept of secular laws and the will of the majority is an unacceptable heresy to believing Muslims, and a mere loophole to be bypassed by Christian fanatics and rich minorities. What is worse is that dissident intellectuals or humanists become branded as apostates, who can be justifiably terminated by blessed sanction of zealot mullahs and their blind, equally zealous, followers in Muslim countries and pariah liberals in the evangelistic American state.

This is not a milieu for the flourishing of a democratic culture. The European Union, though more benignly inclined toward its indigenous population, has revolted against its prior folly of liberal asylum and immigration policies, which had resulted in large North African, Turkish and South Asian Muslim minorities, unable to assimilate and unwilling to acquire marketable skills, like the Chinese or Hindu Indians.

There is unquestioned racism there, as opposed to America, which has been more inclusive by concentrating its adverse prejudice selectively toward blacks. Nevertheless, the falling birthrates and the coming demographic meltdown dictate the need for immigration, contrary to the new racist attitudes in even formerly liberal countries like the Netherlands and Denmark. The recent rejection of the EU constitution in France and the Netherlands was dictated by the unjustified fear of uncontrolled alien Muslim immigration from Turkey and the justified fears of an economic race to the bottom, that the neo-liberal, capitalistic American policies of globalization destine, contrary to the prescient analysis of the great German economist Friedrich List.

China, with a nationalistic agenda, has profited handsomely from cheap wages and the forced necessity of providing employment to its migrating masses, blind to their exploitation. It is in character with a long history of civilization of the Mandarins, by the Mandarins and for the Mandarins, just like much of the history of India with regard to the Brahmins.

Politics has always been and will always remain a fertile field for the intellectually inept and morally bankrupt manipulators of the blindness, ignorance and mercurial proclivities of the foolish masses. Governments ranging from so-called democratic America and Europe to the so-called communist China are no different. The newest trend is supplanting democracy by oligarchy and Francis Fukuyama`s end of history is a folly of blind misperception. The much-maligned misuse of power by Russia`s Vladimir Putin, though for the evil purpose of consolidating his illegitimate power, is more beneficial in the long run to the state and the common man, because it is contrary to the currently fashionable false obsessive fetish of unregulated free enterprise and markets, which even the father of capitalism, Adam Smith, warned against as a conspiracy to defraud the general public.

It is only a matter of brief time before the profligate mismanagement of the beholden-to-vested-interests American leaders` disastrous policies leads to a substantial downsizing of the American dream and future, and in response for an incensed American public to acquiesce in and even applaud aggressive and exploitative policies to use the country`s unrivaled and devastating military might to sustain their extravagant lifestyle. Thus the quest for weapons of mass destruction by Israel, India, Iran, North Korea and even Pakistan are not paranoid aberrations, but necessities based on reality. Within the next decade, when push comes to shove and the high price of oil and natural gas threatens the economic security of powerful nations, there will be no resistance to and general acceptance of the use of overwhelming force to dictate to the weaker idiot nations the terms of selling their essential resources.

The unfortunate truth is that energy resources are primarily in lands with Muslim majorities and rule. Contrary to Samuel P Huntington`s misconception of the clash of civilizations, it is the crucial necessity for survival and the need for cheap and reliable energy resources that sets up a scenario for a protracted devastating war between Christian developed nations and the resource-rich Islamic ones.

China, cursed and blessed by a thoroughly self-enriching leadership not devoid of foresight and redeemed by a vision of a future to reclaim its nostalgic dream of its glorious past, and Russia with its rich resources and landmass, with a history of sacrifice, are best equipped to weather the storm in the long run.

The future for India with its self-serving leaders and even more ignorant and illiterate masses is obscure. As for America and Europe, it is uncertain, because times have changed from the old colonial days and a resurgent Russia and China are unlikely to be fooled again, as they were in 1990 and the 19th century respectively.

For the world as a whole it is a reversion to the law of the jungle and the merciless and amoral battle for survival, which evolution has waged over eons for individuals and species, bringing all humanity to the Hobbesian hell, where life is nasty, brutish and short. The tragedy is that the brief history of a relatively civilized era of human history is coming to an end, and we are all destined to revert to survival in the evolutionary jungle, where power and survival are dependent on the barrel of one`s gun.

Gaurang Bhatt, a former professor, is a writer on diverse topics ranging from the economy to immigration and international relations.

(Copyright 2005 Gaurang Bhatt)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Darkness at the break of noon Shadows even the silver spoon The handmade blade, the child`s balloon Eclipses both the sun and moon To understand you know too soon There is no sense in trying. Pointed threats, they bluff with scorn Suicide remarks are torn From the fool`s gold mouthpiece The hollow horn plays wasted words Proves to warn That he not busy being born Is busy dying. Temptation`s page flies out the door You follow, find yourself at war Watch waterfalls of pity roar You feel to moan but unlike before You discover That you`d just be One more person crying. So don`t fear if you hear A foreign sound to your ear It`s alright, Ma, I`m only sighing. As some warn victory, some downfall Private reasons great or small Can be seen in the eyes of those that call To make all that should be killed to crawl While others say don`t hate nothing at all Except hatred. Disillusioned words like bullets bark As human gods aim for their mark Made everything from toy guns that spark To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark It`s easy to see without looking too far That not much Is really sacred. While preachers preach of evil fates Teachers teach that knowledge waits Can lead to hundred-dollar plates Goodness hides behind its gates But even the president of the United States Sometimes must have To stand naked. An` though the rules of the road have been lodged It`s only people`s games that you got to dodge And it`s alright, Ma, I can make it. Advertising signs that con you Into thinking you`re the one That can do what`s never been done That can win what`s never been won Meantime life outside goes on All around you. You lose yourself, you reappear You suddenly find you got nothing to fear Alone you stand with nobody near When a trembling distant voice, unclear Startles your sleeping ears to hear That somebody thinks They really found you. A question in your nerves is lit Yet you know there is no answer fit to satisfy Insure you not to quit To keep it in your mind and not fergit That it is not he or she or them or it That you belong to. Although the masters make the rules For the wise men and the fools I got nothing, Ma, to live up to. For them that must obey authority That they do not respect in any degree Who despise their jobs, their destinies Speak jealously of them that are free Cultivate their flowers to be Nothing more than something They invest in. While some on principles baptized To strict party platform ties Social clubs in drag disguise Outsiders they can freely criticize Tell nothing except who to idolize And then say God bless him. While one who sings with his tongue on fire Gargles in the rat race choir Bent out of shape from society`s pliers Cares not to come up any higher But rather get you down in the hole That he`s in. But I mean no harm nor put fault On anyone that lives in a vault But it`s alright, Ma, if I can`t please him. Old lady judges watch people in pairs Limited in sex, they dare To push fake morals, insult and stare While money doesn`t talk, it swears Obscenity, who really cares Propaganda, all is phony. While them that defend what they cannot see With a killer`s pride, security It blows the minds most bitterly For them that think death`s honesty Won`t fall upon them naturally Life sometimes Must get lonely. My eyes collide head-on with stuffed graveyards False gods, I scuff At pettiness which plays so rough Walk upside-down inside handcuffs Kick my legs to crash it off Say okay, I have had enough What else can you show me? And if my thought-dreams could be seen They`d probably put my head in a guillotine But it`s alright, Ma, it`s life, and life only. Copyright © 1965; renewed 1993 Special Rider Music Columbia Records

[Joerver]

ROBERT SCHEER
Iranian Revolution Is Thriving in Iraq
Robert Scheer
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-schee…

June 28, 2005

Did those wily ayatollahs give us the purple finger again? It sure looks like it after the smashing defeat Iran`s religious fanatics dealt reformers in the presidential election Friday.

It was a replay of the election in Iraq, in which candidates groomed by Tehran`s theocracy herded loyal Shiite followers to the polls to dip their fingers in purple election ink. Only this time the sight of lines of shuffling, chador-clad women voting away their human rights was not applauded by the White House.

If he were capable of embarrassment or critical thought, President Bush might have caught the irony of celebrating the triumph of democracy in greeting Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari in Washington on Friday and on the same day having his administration condemn the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as Iran`s new president.

Whether the United States approves or not, the most powerful Iraqi behind the scenes since the occupation began more than two years ago has been Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who, along with Jafari was sheltered and nurtured by Tehran`s ayatollahs during Saddam Hussein`s secular dictatorship. It was no accident that the first serious independent initiative of the elected Shiite leadership in Iraq was to welcome Iran`s foreign minister and to declare, amazingly, that Iran was the moral party in its 1980s war with Iraq.

The elected leaders of Iraq and Iran are borne by the same ill wind — religious fundamentalism — which unfortunately is the first choice of many voters in Iraq, Iran and even the United States.

Elections are only one component of a thriving democracy. Unless restrained by a respected constitution and functioning balance of powers, democracy can be subverted by demagogic leaders. For the Bush White House, such complexity is irrelevant. Because the U.S. militarily controls Iraq, the flawed election there is seen as a triumph of democracy. Because Iran is an independent nation hostile to the U.S., its flawed election shows the country to be "out of step … with the currents of freedom and liberty that have been so apparent in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon," according to the State Department.

Ahmadinejad "is no friend of democracy," Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld averred Sunday, probably correctly. Yet when he added, "He is a person who is very much supportive of the current ayatollahs, who are telling the people of that country how to live their lives," he may as well have been talking about Iraq`s religious Shiite leaders, who not only beat the United States` handpicked leader in January`s historic elections, but are already running much of southern Iraq as an Islamic state.

On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported that Shiite militias and religious parties have turned the southern city of Basra into a de facto Islamic theocracy. "Religion rules the streets of this once cosmopolitan city, where women no longer dare go out uncovered," reported The Times. "Conservative Shiite Islamic parties have solidified their grip, fully institutionalizing their power."

Thus, not only is Bush now allied in Iraq with the disciples of the anti-American Tehran tyranny, this foreign policy neophyte claims to be thrilled that the Iraqis have requested the indefinite commitment of U.S. troops to keep them in power by putting down a Sunni-led insurgency.

"I`m not giving up on the mission," Bush promised Jafari on Friday, just hours after more U.S. soldiers were killed and others wounded in a car bombing near Fallouja. Calling it "a mission" implies that our goals in Iraq are clear and finite. In fact, since the moment we easily took Baghdad from Hussein`s ragtag loyalists, the situation has become murkier and more open-ended. Is our "mission" to provide security for Islamic fundamentalists hoping to turn Hussein`s secular Iraq into Khomeini`s theocratic Iran?

The tragic legacy of Bush`s overthrow of the defanged secular dictator of Iraq, whom Rumsfeld once embraced as the U.S. ally holding back the Iranian revolution, is the triumph of that revolution in both Baghdad and Tehran.

At the very least, such obvious and looming contradictions in U.S. policy might compel debate in this country about the costs of what has been aptly termed our imperial hubris. So far, the Bush administration has managed to short-circuit that debate with a numbing cheerleader`s rant about elections, as if they can always be co-opted.



Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

`50s redux -- Rove revives McCarthyism
- E. J. Dionne Jr., Washington Post Writers Group
Tuesday, June 28, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archi…

Washington -- IN THE 1950s, the right wing attacked liberals for being communists. In 2005, Karl Rove has attacked liberals for being therapists. Thus is born a kinder and gentler form of McCarthyism.

Named after the late Sen. Joe McCarthy, who never let the facts get in the way of his lust to charge liberals with sedition, McCarthyism has come to mean "guilt by association."

What gave McCarthyism its power was that the senator from Wisconsin did not invent the danger posed to the United States by Soviet communism. The Soviet Union was a real threat and there were real communist spies working in America.

What made McCarthy and his allies so insidious was their eagerness to level the "soft on communism" charge against even staunchly anti-communist liberals. One of them was Secretary of State Dean Acheson, an architect of Harry Truman`s tough policy of containing Soviet power. In the 1952 presidential campaign, Richard Nixon pounded Democratic nominee Adlai Stevenson for earning a "Ph.D from Dean Acheson`s College of Cowardly Communist Containment."

The McCarthyites` real enemies were not communists but the New Deal liberals who had dominated American politics for 20 years. The McCarthy crowd was willing to divide the nation at a time of grave international peril if that`s what it took to beat the liberals.

Rove`s instantly famous speech last week to the New York state Conservative Party should be read in light of this history and not be written off as a cheap, one-time partisan attack. On the contrary, the address by Rove, President Bush`s most important adviser, provides the outlines of a sophisticated strategy aimed at making liberals and Democrats all look soft on terrorism.

Here are the key passages: "Conservatives saw the savagery of Sept. 11 and the attacks and prepared for war; liberals saw the savagery of the Sept. 11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers. In the wake of Sept. 11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of Sept. 11, liberals believed it was time to submit a petition. ... Conservatives saw what happened to us on Sept. 11 and said: We will defeat our enemies. Liberals saw what happened to us and said: We must understand our enemies."

Liberals and Democrats were enraged by Rove because virtually every office-holding liberal and Democrat closed ranks behind President Bush on Sept. 11. They endorsed the use of force against the terrorists and, when the time came, strongly backed the war in Afghanistan.

But Rove knows how to play this game. The only evidence he adduces for his therapy charge is a petition in which the current executive director of MoveOn.org called for "moderation and restraint" in the wake of Sept. 11. Rove then slides smoothly from the attack on MoveOn to attacks on Michael Moore and Howard Dean. Finally, Rove tosses in an assault on Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., for his statement that an FBI report on the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay might remind Americans of the practices of Nazi and communist dictatorships.

In the ensuing controversy, Rove`s defenders cleverly sought to pretend that there was nothing partisan about Rove`s speech. "Karl didn`t say `the Democratic Party,` `` insisted Ken Mehlman, the Republican national chairman. "He said `liberals.` " It must have been purely accidental that one of the "liberals" mentioned was the Democratic national chairman and another was the Senate Democratic whip. It must also have been accidental that both of them, like most other liberals, supported the war in Afghanistan, not therapy. At the time, Durbin called the war "essential."

On Friday, White House spokesman Scott McClellan narrowed the Rove attack even more. McClellan found it "puzzling" that Democrats were "coming to the defense of liberal organizations like MoveOn.org and people like Michael Moore, " when, in fact, Democrats were coming to their own defense. McClellan also ignored what Mehlman had conceded the day before -- and what the text of Rove`s remarks plainly shows: That Rove was attacking liberals generally, not just these two targets.

That`s how guilt-by-association works. Make a charge and then -- once your attack is out there -- pretend that your words have been misinterpreted. Split your opponents. Put them on the defensive. Force them to say things like: "No, we`re not soft on terrorism," or, "I`m not that kind of liberal." Once this happens, the attacker has already won.

Respectable opinion treats Rove`s speech as just another partisan flap. It`s much more. It`s the reincarnation of a style of politics that turns political opponents into traitors or dupes who are soft on the nation`s enemies. Welcome back to the `50s.

Page B - 7
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archiv…
©2005 San Francisco Chronicle

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[urlJeff Gannon, Johnny Gosch, Hunter Thompson, and Bohemian Grove snuff porn]http://www.total411.info/2005/02/jeff-gannon-johnny-gosch-hunter.html[/url]

[Joerver]

June 28, 2005
Public Skeptical on Ultimate Success of U.S. Efforts in Iraq
Clear majority says Bush has no clear plan for dealing with Iraq
by David W. Moore

http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=17074
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey finds Americans about evenly divided on whether the United States can ever establish a stable government in Iraq. Among those who say it can, most expect success within five years. Other poll findings show slight majorities of Americans who want a timetable for removal of troops from Iraq and who think the war was a mistake. A clear majority of people say that President George W. Bush has no clear plan for dealing with the war in Iraq. Just 40% approve of Bush`s handling of the situation there. Bush`s overall job approval is at 45%, with 53% disapproving -- the worst negative to positive ratio in Bush`s presidency.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday on June 26 that "Insurgencies tend to go on 5, 6, 8, 10, 12 years," implying that the war in Iraq may not be "in the last throes," as suggested by Vice President Dick Cheney in a June 20 interview with Larry King on CNN. This new projection of how long the Iraq War might last could exacerbate an already widespread skepticism among Americans as to whether or not the United States will ever be able to establish a stable government in Iraq.

According to the latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup survey, just 49% say the United States will achieve that goal, while 45% say it will not. But the positive half of the public has more optimistic assumptions about how long it will take to establish a stable government than Rumsfeld. Almost three-quarters of Americans expect success within five years, while Rumsfeld says five years is probably a minimum; the war could last as long as a dozen years.

Do you think the United States will -- or will not -- ever be able to establish a stable government in Iraq that will allow the U.S. to withdraw its troops from Iraq?

Yes, will No, will not No opinion

2005 Jun 24-26 49% 45 6
mehr:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=17074

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Tuesday, June 28, 2005

http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

War News for Tuesday, June 28, 2005

Bring ‘em on: At least two people killed and two wounded when police opened fire on a crowd of unemployed workers demonstrating for jobs in Samawa.

Bring ‘em on: Bosnian national working for a US company killed June 15 in bomb attack some 60 kilometers from Baghdad. He was the first Bosnian to die in Bush’s war.

Bring ‘em on: Suicide car bomb attack near the entrance to a US base in Baquba, no word on casualties. One civilian killed and seven wounded in two coordinated car bombings in Baquba. One civilian killed during a gunbattle involving police, U.S. troops and insurgents in the Yarmuk district of western Baghdad. Two policemen killed by gunmen in western Baghdad. One Iraqi council member from the Mansur district of Baghdad shot dead. Three people killed and 13 wounded when a suicide bomber dressed as a policeman blew himself up in a police security station inside a hospital in Musayyib. Two bodyguards killed and six people wounded in car bomb attack aimed at the head of the traffic police in Kirkuk, who survived the attack.

Bring ‘em on: A senior member of Iraq’s parliament, his son, and three bodyguards killed in a car bombing in northern Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: One US soldier shot to death in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed and one wounded in a suicide car bomb attack in Balad.

Bring ‘em on: Four killed and ‘dozens’ wounded in car bombing outside a theater southeast of Baghdad. Three Iraqi employees of the North Oil Co. killed in roadside bombing between Kirkuk and Hawijah.

Helicopter crash: Two crew members killed in crash of US AH-64 Apache attack helicopter in Mishahda, no reason for the crash yet disclosed. Other reports indicate the aircraft was shot down by ground fire.

Another disaster: Iraq`s health ministry is warning of a human refugee disaster as thousands of families flee the Iraqi city of al-Qaim, an Arab newspaper reported Tuesday.

The United Arab Emirates` al-Khaleej daily newspaper quoted Iraq`s deputy health minister Jalil al-Shammari as warning of starvation among the refugees who fled and continue to flee al-Qaim and surrounding areas to avoid massive U.S. military operations against suspected insurgents.

Al-Shammari told the pro-government paper that more than 7,000 families have left several towns in al-Qaim province in Iraq`s northwest.

While most families have taken refuge in several towns, hundreds of families are stranded in the desert, he said.

Voting change proposed: Iraq`s most powerful Shiite cleric appeared to offer a major concession to the Sunni Arab minority on Monday when he indicated that he would support changes in the voting system that would probably give Sunnis more seats in the future parliament.

In a meeting with a group of Sunni and Shiite leaders, the cleric, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, outlined a proposal that would scrap the system used in the January election, according to a secular Shiite political leader, Abdul Aziz al-Yasiri, who was at the meeting. The election had a huge turnout by Shiites and Kurds but was mostly boycotted by Sunni Arabs.

Such a change would need to be written into Iraq`s new constitution, which parliamentarians are drafting for an Aug. 15 deadline. Although there has been little public talk about what form elections might take under the constitution, Ayatollah Sistani has been highly influential in Iraq`s nascent political system.

Under the proposal, voters in national elections would select leaders from each of the 19 provinces instead of choosing from a single country-wide list, as they did in January. The new system would essentially set aside a number of seats for Sunnis roughly proportionate to their numbers in the population, ensuring that no matter how low the Sunni turnout, they would be guaranteed seats.

Sunni Arabs welcomed news of the suggestion. "This should have been done from the beginning," said Saleh Mutlak, a member of the National Dialogue Council, a Sunni Arab political group that has pressed for a more active role in politics. "That election was wrong."

Firemen: Firefighters are Iraqi heroes in most parts of the country - battling blazes, giving first aid and even getting water to places where pipelines have been sabotaged.

But in regions where insurgents are waging a guerrilla war against US and Iraqi forces, they can face a different kind of fire.

The rattle of insurgent machine guns often greets them when they respond to emergencies, especially following the almost daily suicide car bombs targeting US and Iraqi military convoys, said Colonel Abdul Karim Messin Zayer, a fire station commander on Baghdad`s southern outskirts.

At other times, armed men show up at fire stations to warn firefighters not to respond to attacks against the US military, said an administrator at the civil defense corps headquarters.

Prisons: The U.S. military said Monday it plans to expand its prisons across Iraq to hold as many as 16,000 detainees, as the relentless insurgency shows no sign of letup one year after the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqi authorities. Say what? A year after the Iraqi government gained sovereignty the US military is fixing to imprison 16,000 Iraqis?

The prison population at three military complexes throughout the country — Abu Ghraib, Camp Bucca and Camp Cropper — has nearly doubled from 5,435 in June 2004 to 10,002 now, said Lt. Col. Guy Rudisill, a spokesman for detainee operations in Iraq. Some 400 non-Iraqis are among the inmates, according to the military.

"We are past the normal capacity for both Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca. We are at surge capacity," Rudisill said. "We are not at normal capacity for Camp Cropper."

The burgeoning prison population has forced the U.S. military to begin renovations on existing facilities, and work has also begun on restoring an old Iraqi military barracks near Sulaimaniyah, 160 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The facility, to be called Fort Suse, is expected to be completed by Sept. 30 and will have room for 2,000 new detainees, Rudisill said.

British quandary: Britain is coming under sustained pressure from American military chiefs to keep thousands of troops in Iraq - while going ahead with plans to boost the front line against a return to "civil war" in Afghanistan.

Tony Blair was warned that war-torn Iraq remains on the brink of disaster - more than two years after the removal of Saddam Hussein - during his summit with President Bush in Washington earlier this month.

"The Prime Minister was given a pretty depressing run-down of the prognosis for Iraq while he was in Washington," one senior Ministry of Defence source said last night. "The Americans are pushing for at least a maintenance of the troop numbers we have there now. Our latest intention is to reduce by at least half the number of our troops in Iraq within a year.

"It`s difficult to see how we can square that circle."


Oh boy! Only two years left to blog! And then we all get ponys!: Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said yesterday that two years would be "more than enough" to establish security in his country, a task that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said may take up to 12 years.

After talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, al-Jaafari said that such goals as building up Iraq`s own security forces, controlling the country`s porous borders and pushing ahead with the political process would all play a part in ending the violence.

"I think two years will be enough, and more than enough, to establish security in our country," he told reporters.

Well, maybe a little longer: Iraqi leaders put on a brave face on Monday after Washington said it would be up to them -- not American forces -- to defeat an insurgency that could last a decade or more.

Asked about comments by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that the insurgency in Iraq would last years, Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said it was impossible to predict how long it would take to defeat the guerrillas.

"Politics is not mathematics," he told a London conference.


And It’s 1,2,3,4 – What Are We Fighting For?

This, apparently: Physicians have been beaten for treating female patients. Liquor salesmen have been killed. Even barbers have faced threats for giving haircuts judged too short or too fashionable.

Religion rules the streets of this once cosmopolitan city, where women no longer dare go out uncovered.

Unmarked cars cruise the streets, carrying armed, plain-clothed enforcers of Islamic law. Who they are or answer to is unclear, but residents believe they are part of a battle for Basra`s soul.

In the spring, Shiite and Sunni Muslim officials were killed in a series of assassinations here, and residents feared their city would fall prey to the kind of sectarian violence ailing the rest of the country.

Instead, conservative Shiite Islamic parties have solidified their grip, fully institutionalizing their power in a city where the Shiite majority had long been persecuted by the Sunni-dominated rule of Saddam Hussein.

And this: Students in the Shi’ite Muslim religious Iraqi city of Najaf said the police recently arrested and beat several of them for wearing jeans and having long hair.

“They arrested us because of our hair and because we were wearing jeans,” said student Mr Mohammed Jasim, adding that the arrests took place two weeks ago in the city, the spiritual heart of Iraq’s newly dominant Shi’ite majority.

“They beat us in front of the people. Then they took us to their headquarters, beat us again, shaved our heads and tore our clothes.

“When we asked what we had done, they said that we had no honour,” he told Reuters this week.


Quote Unquote

Congressman Donald Rumsfeld (R, IL), 1966:

“The administration should clarify its intent in Viet Nam. People lack confidence in the credibility of our government.”

“It’s a difficult thing today to be informed about our government even without all the secrecy. With the secrecy, it’s impossible. The American people will do what’s right when they have the information they need.”

“I do, however, believe it is important to the future of our Nation to recognize that there is a problem of credibility today.”

“…the people of the United States must know not only how their country became involved but where we are heading.”

“Accurate judgment is predicated on accurate information. Government has an obligation to present information to the public promptly and accurately so that the public’s evaluation of Government activities is not distorted.”

Cheneyburton

Only a billion?: Pentagon auditors have questioned more than $1 billion in costs by contracting giant Halliburton Co. for its work in Iraq, a number several times higher than previously disclosed, according to a report by congressional Democrats.

The report, based on Defense Contract Audit Agency documents and a briefing by DCAA officials, details $813 million in questioned costs on a Halliburton contract to provide logistical support to U.S. troops and $219 million on a no-bid contract to restore Iraqi`s oil network.

The Defense Contract Audit Agency found an additional $442 million in Halliburton charges that were "unsupported," meaning the company had not provided enough documentation to justify the cost, the report said.

Among the costs that Pentagon auditors questioned were $152,000 in "movie library costs," a $1.5 million tailoring bill that auditors deemed higher than reasonable, more than $560,000 worth of heavy equipment that was considered unnecessary, and two multimillion-dollar transportation bills that appeared to overlap.

Free pass: Democratic legislators stepped up criticism of the Halliburton Company on Monday for what they said was "war profiteering," citing Pentagon audits that question more than $1 billion of the company`s bills for work in Iraq.

The estimates of excessive spending and improper billing by Halliburton, a Texas-based company that provides logistical support and oil-field repairs in Iraq, are more than twice as high as those in previous official reports. The findings, including previously unpublicized internal Pentagon studies, were released at a Democrat-sponsored forum that was held, Democratic leaders maintained, because the Bush administration and Congressional Republicans have refused to hold the contractor accountable.

"The bottom line is, the Republican leadership in the Congress is giving Halliburton a free pass," said Senator Frank R. Lautenberg, Democrat of New Jersey.

Downing Street And Other Crimes

Rewards few and risks high: In the spring of 2002, two weeks before British Prime Minister Tony Blair journeyed to Crawford, Tex., to meet with President Bush at his ranch about the escalating confrontation with Iraq, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw sounded a prescient warning.

"The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few," Straw wrote in a March 25 memo to Blair stamped "Secret and Personal." "The risks are high, both for you and for the Government."

In public, British officials were declaring their solidarity with the Bush administration`s calls for elimination of Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction. But Straw`s memo and seven other secret documents disclosed in recent months by British journalist Michael Smith together reveal a much different picture. Behind the scenes, British officials believed the U.S. administration was already committed to a war that they feared was ill-conceived and illegal and could lead to disaster.

Shades of Cambodia: A U.S. general who commanded the U.S. allied air forces in Iraq has confirmed that the U.S. and Britain conducted a massive secret bombing campaign before the U.S. actually declared war on Iraq.

The quote, passed from RAW STORY to the London Sunday Times last week, raises troubling questions of whether President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair engaged in an illegal war before seeking a UN resolution or congressional approval.

While the Downing Street documents collectively raise disturbing questions about how the Bush administration led the United States into Iraq, including allegations that “intelligence was being fixed,” other questions have emerged about when the US and British led allies actually began the Iraq war.

World Tribunal on Iraq: Today in Istanbul the jury was taken aback by witness testimony from Iraqi war victims and a US Air Force veteran.

"Snipers hunt people in the streets. People attempting to go to health centers are shot at," testified Eman Kmammas, an Iraqi translator. "There are many crippled children. There are thousands of widows and orphans. There are no police for security and there are no courts. Even hospitals are occupied and bombed and burned."

Former US Air Force combat veteran Tim Goodrich stunned the jury by revealing his role in the "softening up" of Iraq months before the US declaration of war. "We were dropping bombs then, and I saw bombing intensify," Goodrich explained to a hushed room. "All the documents coming out now, the Downing Street memo and others, confirm what I had witnessed in Iraq. The war had already begun while our leaders were telling us that they were going to try all diplomatic options first."

This gripping but unsettling revelation came on the second day of proceedings at the World Tribunal on Iraq, held in Istanbul, Turkey, which is collecting evidence of war crimes in Iraq.

With all that, what`s a little domestic surveiliance?: Three decades after aggressive military spying on Americans created a national furor, California`s National Guard has quietly set up a special intelligence unit that has been given ``broad authority`` to monitor, analyze and distribute information on potential terrorist threats, the Mercury News has learned.

Known as the Information Synchronization, Knowledge Management and Intelligence Fusion program, the project is part of an expanding nationwide effort to better integrate military intelligence into global anti-terrorism initiatives.

Although Guard officials said the new unit would not collect information on American citizens, top National Guard officials have already been involved in tracking at least one recent Mother`s Day anti-war rally organized by families of slain American soldiers, according to e-mails obtained by the Mercury News.

A Totally Unrelated Story That Doesn’t Even Belong In An Iraq War Blog

It’s not like we’re talking about oil: After weak prices in the 1990s due to oversupply, natural gas production in North America will probably continue to decline unless there is another big discovery, Exxon Mobil Corp.`s chief executive said on Tuesday.

"Gas production has peaked in North America," Chief Executive Lee Raymond told reporters at the Reuters Energy Summit.

Asked whether production would continue to decline even if two huge arctic gas pipeline projects were built, Raymond said, "I think that`s a fair statement, unless there`s some huge find that nobody has any idea where it would be."

Veterans And Active Duty Soldiers, Report Here

Take it to Karl: This is a site set up for the purpose of receiving email from men and women serving currently in the United States military or veterans who are angry at Karl Rove`s recent comments.

Let Karl Rove know that when it comes to defending the USA, there are no Democrats or Republicans, just Americans.

Send an email to FightingLiberals at yahoo dot com.

Commentary

Opinion: So the polls show most Americans don’t “think it was worth going to war in Iraq.” An even bigger majority, almost six in 10, are dissatisfied with the Global War on Terror or, as the inside-the-Beltway types call it, the GWOT. This may seem a little contrary, even ungrateful, given that the same Americans are increasingly confident they won’t have to face another terrorist attack like 9/11 anytime real soon. (Only 4 percent thought one might happen in the next few weeks.) Something seems to be keeping the terrorists at bay. President George W. Bush says it’s the war in Iraq. So is the public just churlish? Or stupid? I don’t think so. What we’re seeing with these recent polls, in fact, is a return to common sense.

The more that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld claims he’s not worried about public opinion, the more obvious it is that he is. During hours of grilling by suddenly emboldened congressional skeptics yesterday, he claimed, lamely, that popular support would swing back behind the Iraq war because Americans have “a good center of gravity.” But he’s smart enough to know that is precisely why they’re growing immune to the administration’s spin.

A clear head and a calculator will tell you very quickly that the costs of this conflict in Iraq are on a scale far beyond whatever benefits it was supposed to bring. If Saddam had been behind 9/11, OK. But he wasn’t. If he’d really posed a clear and present danger to the United States with weapons of mass destruction, then the invasion would have been justifiable. But he didn’t, and it wasn’t. Bringing freedom and democracy to the Iraqi people is a laudable goal, but not one for which the administration made any worthwhile preparations—which is why the occupation has been so ugly, bloody and costly. Tabloids may amuse their readers with snapshots of Saddam in his skivvies, but it’s the Bush administration’s threadbare rationales for postmodern imperialism that have been exposed.

Comment: The Army`s recruiting shortfalls have put the future of the all-volunteer armed forces in jeopardy. Pressure is mounting in the Pentagon -- and perhaps on the Pentagon -- to put a happy face on its failure to achieve the needed enlistments for the Army and, to a lesser extent, the Marine Corps. The Army fell short of April recruiting objectives by 42 percent.

Three questions arise:

Can the all-volunteer force survive a sustained and unpopular war, regardless of who sits in the White House?

Will quantity in recruiting become a silent substitute for quality, leading to what is often referred to as a "hollow army?"

Were serious flaws built into the system more than three decades ago when the Gates Commission (named for its chairman, Thomas Gates) issued its report on creation of an all-volunteer armed forces?

The Gates Commission, in considering the transition from a draft to a volunteer force, optimistically assumed that young Americans would come to the colors if the nation went to war with any country that presented a conventional threat. Unconventional, non-state warfare didn`t enter into the commission`s calculus.

Editorial: Red flags flapping sharply in the wind signal our country is on the verge of a major political - and economic - setback.

We may now be only weeks away from a complete collapse of the Iraqi army and the withdrawal of British troops from Iraq in the face of overwhelming public pressure on Tony Blair.

That is a realistic projection based on the reports of two Washington Post reporters, whose dispatches from inside Iraqi Army units and U.S. units assigned to train and work with the Iraqi military have just been published.

Opinion: There should have been no doubt what would happen to anyone who questioned George W. Bush’s case for war. The dissenters would be baited, ridiculed, marginalized, and drowned out by accusations of disloyalty as well as epithets about “Saddam sympathizers.”

Which is, of course, what happened. War critics were treated like fringe nut cases, while nearly every major Washington pundit fell for the Bush administration’s deceptions about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. Just look at the editorial pages on Feb. 6, 2003, the day after Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech to the United Nations.

Now, amid the rising death toll in Iraq, a hopeful new line from some pundits is that the nation is on the cusp of a serious debate about the war’s future – as Bush finally levels with the American people, regains their trust and enlists them in the sacrifices ahead.

Does anyone believe that Bush will “address” how he “deliberately misled” the country to war? Or that if he did so, that would somehow earn him the credibility to explain how thousands of additional U.S. soldiers must die in Iraq because Bush and his advisers can’t think of a way out of the mess?

Rather, Bush has already signaled how he intends to deal with the growing doubts about both his pre-war rationalizations and his foundering war policy. The American people can expect another round of baiting, not debating.

Comment: “Before we commit troops, there has to be a clear strategy.” Contrary to recent developments, U.S. military forces should never be sent on “vague, aimless and endless deployments.”

Those are not criticisms of the Iraq quagmire expressed by some wimpish, touchy-feely liberal, as Karl Rove has now characterized virtually all administration detractors. No, those words were issued by George W. Bush during the campaign of 2000.

One wonders at what point Mr. Bush decided that unclear, vague, aimless and endless deployments are actually good military policy. Perhaps they’re good when they seem -- “seem” being the operative word -- politically expedient. Or perhaps he still believes such deployments aren’t very smart, but hasn’t the foggiest notion of how to end one, stuck as he is in Tom Jefferson’s famous metaphor of the 1820 Missouri crisis: “We have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go.”

Casualty Reports

Local story: Cranston, RI, Marine killed in suicide bombing in Fallujah.

Local story: Bronx, NY, Marine killed in suicide bombing in Fallujah.

Local story: Fairchild, WI, soldier killed by roadside bomb in Baghdad.

# posted by matt : 10:30 AM
Comments (10) | Trackback (0)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

President Bush prepares to address the nation about Iraq tonight

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Latest Coalition Fatality: Jun 28, 2005

June05: 80, Mai05: 88, Jan05: 127

Coalition Deaths Since June 28, 2004 (anniversary of Iraq`s sovereignty):
Total Coalition: 957
U.S.: 886

Iraker:
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Regelmäßige Updates von Meldungen aus dem Irak:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Wer soll das sein?

[Joerver]

Published on Tuesday, June 28, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
From Tehran to Washington, an Axis of Demagogues Just Got More Dangerous
by Norman Solomon
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0628-20.htm

Ten days ago, in one of southern Tehran`s poor neighborhoods, I interviewed some voters in line to cast ballots for Iran`s next president. After a while, when an official at the polling station asked who I thought would win, I repeated the conventional media wisdom: "Rafsanjani."

"It will never happen," he replied flatly. "I promise you."

During the interviews, the name Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had often come up -- in response to the question "Who will you vote for?" -- with several people making comments along the lines of "he has helped us." At the time, I chalked it up to local loyalty to the city`s mayor.

Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a political powerhouse in Iran for a quarter-century and one of the country`s richest men, turned off voters in impoverished neighborhoods like Saleh-Abad. His elitism and well-known nepotism was a glaring contrast to Ahmadinejad`s populist appeal.

Unfortunately, Ahmadinejad has risen to power as a theocratic leader aligned with fundamentalist vigilante forces. It`s an old story in many societies, with a demagogue tapping into justified grievances against economic injustice to rise to power.

In Iran, it`s true, the president is largely subservient to the clerical Guardian Council and the hardline Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, known as "Leader." Yet since 1997, Iran`s presidency has been an important foothold for reformers. Now that foothold is gone. In a country that has seen slow but significant progress in social freedoms and human rights during recent years, the runoff election results last Friday -- catapulting the odious Ahmadinejad to the president`s office -- is a blow to freedom of speech, women`s rights and a range of possibilities for protecting civil liberties.

All this surely is good news for Washington`s top officials gunning for a confrontation with Iran. A few weeks ago they could not have been pleased with the surge of U.S. media coverage hyping Rafsanjani as a "moderate." That kind of talk must have been worrisome for war-planners in Washington.

Now the Tehran-Washington axis of demagogues is more dangerous than ever. They`re very likely to feed off each other, satisfying rabid domestic constituencies and stoking international tensions. Yet as usual, despite the rhetoric of government leaders, most people want peace.

It was late morning when I visited the Saleh-Abad neighborhood during the first round of the elections, with the humid heat already uncomfortable. As I was leaving a courtyard outside a mosque where people were voting, an old man approached me and held out a clear glass cup filled with water. The water was remarkably cold. A tiny gesture? Sure. Just a hokey story? Maybe. But the warmth that I experienced as an American, talking with hundreds of citizens at random in Tehran, makes me believe that most Iranian people -- while understandably quite distrustful of the U.S. government -- want good relations with the United States.

For now anyway, Iranians appear to be stuck with a government that`s likely to adopt more hardline policies. And in the short term, there`s probably very little they can do about it.

In the United States, we have a lot more democratic avenues available. Meanwhile, officials in Washington are steadily upping the rhetorical ante and moving towards a military confrontation with Iran. So far, we`re doing very little to restraint them. What`s our excuse?

Norman Solomon`s new book "War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death" has just become available. The book`s first chapter is posted at: www.WarMadeEasy.com

[Freund_1]

Bush fordert Landsleute zu Zuversicht und Kurshalten im ...
Washington (dpa) - US-Präsident George W. Bush hält in dieser Nacht eine Grundsatzrede zur Irakpolitik. Wie aus Redeauszügen vorab verbreitet wurde, ruft er seine Landsleute darin zu Zuversicht und Kurshalten auf. Der Einsatz sei schwierig und gefährlich. Auch er sehe die Bilder von Gewalt und Blutvergießen, sagte Bush. Die Opfer seien es aber wert, weil der Krieg lebenswichtig für die künftige Sicherheit der USA sei. Der Präsident will die Rede vor Soldaten in Fort Bragg im Bundesstaat North Carolina halten.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Published on Tuesday, June 28, 2005 by the Boston Globe
America`s Crusader
by James Carroll
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/arti…

Billy Graham returned to New York this past weekend. Tens of thousands of people attended his revival gatherings at Flushing Meadows in Queens. Such response to the aged master of the public pulpit highlights the unpredicted resurgence of a certain kind of American religious enthusiasm. What gives?

Much is made of connections between right-wing politics and conservative Christian belief, with debate over such issues as life and death, homosexuality, textbooks, and even foreign policy being framed by fervently held dogma. President Bush and other Republicans are drawing powerful energy from this combination of politics and religion, a mix that also drives Graham`s rejuvenated appeal. His long-time use of the word ``crusade" for his revival meetings has new resonance in the era of the global war on terror, but Graham has been tapping into the crusading spirit from the very start of his career. A look back suggests that swift currents of religion and politics have been flowing for a long time.

On Sept. 23, 1949, President Truman announced that the Soviet Union had exploded an atomic bomb. The American nuclear monopoly was over, and a formerly complacent United States reacted with shock. The administration, against the advice of top atomic scientists, took the most fateful step of the arms race, secretly ordering the development of the genocidal hydrogen bomb. But doomsday fears immediately seized the public mood, too.

It was then, as I learned from historian Stephen J. Whitfield, that Billy Graham made his great arrival on the American scene. He had already pitched a large tent for a revival meeting in Los Angeles, and it began, coincidentally, a few days after Truman`s announcement about Moscow`s bomb. Just then, on Oct. 1, the Communists officially took over China, news that hit Americans like a thudding second shoe of the apocalypse. People flocked to Graham`s sermons as they never had before. Los Angeles attendance ultimately numbered well over 300,000. A star was born, and so was a crusade.

``God is giving us a desperate choice," Graham preached, ``a choice of either revival or judgment. There is no alternative. . . . The world is divided into two camps. On one side we see communism," which has ``declared war against God, against Christ, against the Bible, and against all religion. . . . Unless the Western World has an old-fashioned revival, we cannot last." Graham had his finger on the pulse of American fear, and in subsequent years, anticommunism occupied the nation`s soul as an avowedly religious obsession. The Red scare at home, unabashed moves toward empire abroad, the phrase ``under God" inserted into the Pledge of Allegiance, the scapegoating of homosexuals as ``security risks," an insane accumulation of nuclear weapons, suicidal wars against postcolonial insurgencies in Asia -- a set of desperate choices indeed. Through it all, Billy Graham was the high priest of the American crusade, which is why US presidents uniformly sought his blessing.

This national spirit of radical bipolarity, understood in overtly theological terms, went into hibernation at the end of the Cold War, but the earthquake of Truman`s September 1949 announcement had its haunting aftershock in the September attacks of 2001. The old time political religion woke up, and Billy Graham was still there to preach it. Graham did not expressly name the new enemy, but his son and successor Franklin did, labeling Islam a ``very evil and wicked religion." The unleashed energy of an exclusivist doctrine of salvation led, as always, to the denigration of those who are not among the saved, and, in the context of political emergency, that denigration has again become violent. Bush`s war is a religious war, whether he disavows ``crusade" or not.

The lesson of 1949 is that the American fear of Soviet nuclear aggression, coupled with fear of communist global dominance as represented by China, stimulated self-wounding reactions that proved far more damaging to the United States than anything Moscow or Beijing ever did.

Once again, American fear itself is today devastating the nation. Once again, nuclear accumulation is underway. Once again, an irrational military establishment has sent the US Army on a suicide mission. Once again, civil liberties and the rule of law are jettisoned in the name of ``security." Once again, homosexuals are being scapegoated. Once again, virtue is defined in narrowly partisan terms.

Billy Graham is a lion-hearted American, and one can only wish him well. But the implications of his transcending influence, old and new, should not be ignored. More than the man himself, the nation`s response to him and his themes tells us who we are.

© 2005 Boston Globe

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Tomgram: The Immoral Relativists of the Bush Administration

Immoral Relativism
And Other Distractions of the Age of Bush
By Tom Engelhardt
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=4027

"At a breakfast meeting with reporters, Wolfowitz said he hasn`t read the [Downing Street] memos because he doesn`t want to be ‘distracted` by ‘history` from his new job as head of the world`s leading development bank. He returned this weekend from a tour of four African nations.

"`There`s a lot I could say about what you`re asking about, if I were willing to get distracted from the main subject,` Wolfowitz said. ‘But I really think there`s a price paid with the people I`ve just spent time with, people who are struggling with very real problems, to keep going back in history.`" (Jon Sawyer, Wolfowitz won`t talk about war planning, St. Louis Post-Dispatch.)

For at least 30 years now, the right has fought against, the Republican Party has run against, and more recently, the Bush administration has claimed victory over the "moral relativism" of liberals, the permissive parenting of the let-them-do-anything-they-please era, and the self-indulgent, self-absorbed, make-your-own world attitude of the Sixties. Since September 11th, we have been told again and again, we are in a different world... finally. In this new world, things are black and white, good and evil, right and wrong. You are for or you are against. The murky relativism of the recent past, of an America in a mood of defeat, is long gone. In the White House, we have a stand-up guy so unlike the last president, that draft dodger who was ready to parse the meaning of "is" and twist the world to his unnatural desires.

In his speeches, George Bush regularly calls for a return to or the reinforcement of traditional, even eternal, family values and emphasizes the importance of personal "accountability" for our children as well as ourselves. ("The culture of America is changing from one that has said, if it feels good, do it, and if you`ve got a problem, blame somebody else, to a new culture in which each of us understands we are responsible for the decisions we make in life.") And yet when it comes to acts that are clearly wrong in this world -- aggressive war, the looting of resources, torture, personal gain at the expense of others, lying, and manipulation among other matters -- Bush and his top officials never hesitate to redefine reality to suit their needs. When faced with matters long defined in everyday life in terms of right and wrong, they simply reach for their dictionaries.

You want to invade a country not about to attack you. No problem, just pick up that Webster`s and rename the act "preventive war." Now, you want an excuse for such a war that might actually panic the public into backing it. So you begin to place mushroom clouds from nonexistent enemy atomic warheads over American cities (Condoleezza Rice: "[W]e don`t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."); you begin to claim, as our President and other top officials did, that nonexistent enemy UAVs (Unmanned Airborne Vehicles) launched from nonexistent ships off our perfectly real East coast, might spray nonexistent biological or chemical weapons hundreds of miles inland, and -- Voila! -- you`re ready to strike back.

You sweep opponents up on a battlefield, but you don`t want to call them prisoners of war or deal with them by the established rules of warfare. No problem, just grab that dictionary and label them "unlawful combatants," then you can do anything you want. So you get those prisoners into your jail complex (carefully located on an American base in Cuba, which you have redefined as being legally under "Cuban sovereignty," so that no American court can touch them); and then you declare that, not being prisoners of war, they do not fall under the Geneva Conventions, though you will treat them (sort of) as if they did and, whatever happens, you will not actually torture them, though you plan to take those "gloves" off. Then your lawyers and attorneys retire to some White House or Justice Department office and, under the guidance of White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales (now Attorney General), they grab those dictionaries again and redefine torture to be whatever we`re not doing to the prisoners. (In a 50-page memo written in August 2002 for the CIA and addressed to Alberto Gonzales, Assistant Attorney General Jay S. Bybee, now an Appeals Court judge, hauled out many dictionaries and redefined torture this way: "must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.") And if questioned on the subject, after emails from FBI observers at the prison lay out the various acts of abuse and torture committed in grisly detail, the Vice President simply insists, as he did the other day, that those prisoners are living the good life in the balmy "tropics." ("They`re well fed. They`ve got everything they could possibly want. There isn`t any other nation in the world that would treat people who were determined to kill Americans the way we`re treating these people.")

Women and Children Last

What the Bush administration has proved is that, if you have a mind to do so, there`s no end to the ways you can define "is." No administration has reached not just for its guns but for its dictionaries more often, when brought up against commonly accepted definitions of what is.

Why just the other day, faced with a downward spiraling situation in Iraq and plummeting public-opinion polls, Vice President Cheney went on Larry King Live and declared that the Iraqi insurgency was actually in its "last throes." In this case, he had perhaps reached for his dictionary a little too fast. The phrase was taken up and widely questioned. So Cheney who, as Juan Cole reminds us, claimed he "`knew where exactly` Saddam`s alleged weapons of mass destruction were and who was sure Iraqis would deliriously greet the U.S. military as liberators," simply returned to the administration`s definitional stockpile. When asked by CNN`s Wolf Blitzer whether General John Abizaid`s description of the Iraqi situation -- that the insurgency was "undiminished" (with ever more foreign fighters entering Iraq) -- didn`t contradict his, he responded:

"No, I would disagree. If you look at what the dictionary says about throes, it can still be a violent period -- the throes of a revolution. The point would be that the conflict will be intense, but it`s intense because the terrorists understand if we`re successful at accomplishing our objective, standing up a democracy in Iraq, that that`s a huge defeat for them. They`ll do everything they can to stop it."

Actually, according to my own patriotically correctly named and so indisputable reference book, The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, a "throe" is "a severe pang or spasm of pain, as in childbirth," and the "throes" of a country in, say, revolution or economic collapse would also be brief spasms. Of course, just the other day, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, looking into his murky crystal ball, claimed that this "spasm" could last up to another 12 years. I suppose from now on we should all speak of that period from birth to death as the "throes of life." As it happens, the American people seem uncomfortable with our Vice President`s latest definitional forays. (For more on defining "throes," I turn you over to the indefatigable Juan Cole.)

Here`s the strange thing, then, no one in our lifetime has found the nature of reality to be more definitionally supple, more malleable, more… let`s say it… postmodern and relative (to their needs and desires) than the top officials of the Bush administration.

Their watchwords might be defined, if you don`t mind my reaching for my dictionary of sayings, as -- batten down the definitional hatches, full speed ahead, and if you hit a mine, women and children last. In that way, they have redefined "accountability" as never having to say you`re sorry; or, as then-Governor of Texas evidently put it to the man ghostwriting his campaign autobiography in 1999, "...as a leader, you can never admit to a mistake"; or as former Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz put it when telling reporters he hadn`t bothered to read the Downing Street Memos, you shouldn`t let yourself be "distracted" by messy old "history." In the Bush administration, accountability has largely meant promotion.

Let`s throw in just a few other moments of high Bush postmodernism: No administration in memory has been quicker to lie in its own interests and never stop doing so, no matter what. (For instance, to this day the President never ceases to push the absurd link between the war in Iraq and the September 11th attacks). None in recent memory has been quicker to lie about or smear its opponents, or had, in political hand-to-hand combat, a nastier, sometimes filthier mouth, publicly (as Karl Rove proved in recent statements) or privately. None has, in fact, seemed to care less about any of the moral categories of behavior it was ostensibly promoting, when those happened to run aground on the shoals of its own political desires and fantasies.

A Five-Star Rendition and Other Acts of Relativity

Every administration sets a mood. You can see the one this administration has established reflected way down the line -- in, for example, the depths of Abu Ghraib`s interrogation chambers. As it happens, you can also catch a glimpse of it in five-star Italian hotels. The other day, Stephen Grey and Don Van Natta of the New York Times reported (Thirteen With the C.I.A. Sought by Italy in a Kidnapping) that an Italian judge had ordered the arrest of 13 American agents, assumedly working for the CIA, for performing an "extraordinary rendition" in Italy. They kidnapped an Egyptian cleric named Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, who may or may not have been linked al-Qaeda, and flew him to Egypt to be tortured. Now, you may imagine that our "shadow warriors," operating in the dark zone of international illegality in the name of our President`s Global War on Terror, are Spartan men and women, stripped down for action, ready to sacrifice everything for missions they believe in. You undoubtedly assume that, while in Italy, they laid low, bunking in safe houses, while organizing their covert kidnapping. But wait, these are representatives of the Bush administration, so think again. Here was a paragraph buried deep in the Times piece that caught my eye:

"The [CIA] suspects stayed in five-star Milan hotels, including the Hilton, the Sheraton, the Galia and Principe di Savoia, in the week before the operation, at a cost of $144,984, the [Italian] warrant says, adding that after Mr. Nasr was flown to Egypt, two of the officers took a few days` holiday at five-star hotels in Venice, Tuscany and South Tyrol."

A Washington Post report added this little detail: "The Americans stayed at some of the finest hotels in Milan, sometimes for as long as six weeks, ringing up tabs of as much as $500 a day on Diners Club accounts created to match their recently forged identities." The Los Angeles Times contributed the fact that the $145,000 tab actually only covered accommodations. As it happens, our luxury warriors were gourmets as well. They ran up tabs at Milan`s best restaurants.

All of this fits so well with general attitudes at the upper reaches of this self-indulgent administration. Ours is, after all, a war to satisfy our own desires, to make the world the way we wish it -- and who wouldn`t wish for luxury surroundings and a nice five-star, post-kidnapping vacation in Venice or Florence, all at the taxpayer`s expense? (I guarantee, by the way, that our agents also ate all the macadamia nuts and drank all the liquor and downed all the $10 cokes in their mini-fridges.) And yet you can rest assured that no one in this administration is going to demand repayment. In fact, no one has even whispered a word about these expenses so far, no less promised taxpayers our money back, but you wouldn`t expect that from an administration that stonewalls for a corporation, Halliburton, which seems to have taken both the American taxpayer and the Iraqis to the five-star cleaners. And while we`re at it, let`s just note that our rendition teams circle the world not on some scruffy cargo plane, but on a Gulfstream V turbojet, the sort "favored by CEOs and celebrities," as Dana Priest of the Washington Post puts it. This is the mentality not of warriors, of course, but of looters who never saw a payoff or an opening they didn`t exploit.

From top to bottom, Bush`s people are, in this sense, a caricature of their own caricature of the 1960s. In fact, given their fixation on the Sixties, it`s worth revisiting their record in that long-ago era when they were already the most morally relative of beings. On the central issue of those years, the Vietnam War, they were essentially missing in action; or, as our Vice President so famously commented, "I had other priorities in the `60s than military service." The striking thing about the record of most of the Bush administration`s key players (and almost all of the neocons) was that they used privilege, legalistic tricks, and every bit of slyness they could muster to avoid any entanglement with Vietnam (on any side of the issue) and later on, coming to power, they had not the slightest compunction about wrapping themselves in the flag and the uniform, acting like the warriors they never were, and attacking those who had engaged in some fashion with the Vietnam War.

It is perhaps not an irony but a kind of inevitability that, having worked so hard to avoid Vietnam (and its "mistakes") all those years, they now find themselves tightly gripped by a situation of their own making that has a remarkably Vietnam-like look to it; and, worse yet, they find themselves acting as if they were now, after all these years, back in the 1960s fighting the War in Vietnam rather than the one in Iraq. In his testimony before the Senate last week, Donald Rumsfeld even managed to get the classic Vietnam word "quagmire" and the equivalent of "light at the end of the tunnel" into a single sentence: "There isn`t a person at this table who agrees with you [Senator Ted Kennedy] that we`re in a quagmire and there`s no end in sight."

As a group, the top figures in this administration have often seemed like so many aggressive children let loose in the neighborhood sandbox by deadbeat dads and moms. Does nobody wonder where those mommies and daddies, the people who should have taught them right from wrong, actually went? Certainly, their children are, in the best Sixties manner, all libido. Let me, in fact, suggest a label for them that, I hope, catches their truest political nature: They are immoral relativists.

Yet, even for the most self-absorbed among them, the ones most ready to twist reality (and the names we give it) into whatever shape best suits their needs of the moment, reality does have a way of biting back. Count on it.

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute`s Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War.

[Special thanks go to Nick Turse for his invaluable research aid.]

Copyright 2005 Tom Engelhardt


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
posted June 28, 2005 at 4:50 pm

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 29, 2005
President Bush`s Speech About Iraq
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/opinion/29wed1.html?

President Bush told the nation last night that the war in Iraq was difficult but winnable. Only the first is clearly true. Despite buoyant cheerleading by administration officials, the military situation is at best unimproved. The Iraqi Army, despite Mr. Bush`s optimistic descriptions, shows no signs of being able to control the country without American help for years to come. There are not enough American soldiers to carry out the job they have been sent to do, yet the strain of maintaining even this inadequate force is taking a terrible toll on the ability of the United States to defend its security on other fronts around the world.

We did not expect Mr. Bush would apologize for the misinformation that helped lead us into this war, or for the catastrophic mistakes his team made in running the military operation. But we had hoped he would resist the temptation to raise the bloody flag of 9/11 over and over again to justify a war in a country that had nothing whatsoever to do with the terrorist attacks. We had hoped that he would seize the moment to tell the nation how he will define victory, and to give Americans a specific sense of how he intends to reach that goal - beyond repeating the same wishful scenario that he has been describing since the invasion.

Sadly, Mr. Bush wasted his opportunity last night, giving a speech that only answered questions no one was asking. He told the nation, again and again, that a stable and democratic Iraq would be worth American sacrifices, while the nation was wondering whether American sacrifices could actually produce a stable and democratic Iraq.

Given the way this war was planned and executed, the president does not have any good options available, and if American forces were withdrawn, Iraq would probably sink into a civil war that would create large stretches of no man`s land where private militias and stateless terrorists could operate with impunity. But if Mr. Bush is intent on staying the course, it will take years before the Iraqi government and its military are able to stand on their own. Most important of all - despite his lofty assurance last night that in the end the insurgents "cannot stop the advance of freedom" - all those years of effort and suffering could still end with the Iraqis turning on each other, or deciding that the American troops were the ultimate enemy after all. The critical challenge is to gauge, with a clear head, exactly when and if the tipping point arrives and the American presence is only making a terrible situation worse.

Mr. Bush has been under pressure, even from some Republicans, to come up with a timeline for an exit. It makes no sense to encourage the insurrectionists by telling them that if their suicide bombers continue to blow themselves up at the current rate, the Americans will be leaving in six months or a year. It is Iraq`s elected officials, who desperately need an American presence, who have to be told that Washington`s support isn`t open-ended.

The elected government is the only hope, but its current performance is far from promising. While the support of the Shiite`s powerful Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for the democratic elections was heartening, the Shiite majority in Parliament is mainly composed of religious parties competing to demonstrate that they have the ayatollah`s ear. The Kurds continue to put broader national interests behind their own goal of an autonomous ministate that would include the oil fields of Kirkuk. The Sunnis, who boycotted the election, are only now being brought into the constitution-writing effort and so far have made no real effort to mobilize against the terrorists in their midst.

Pressure from the Bush administration for the government to do better has increased since the State Department took control of Iraq policy from the Pentagon. But there is much more to do, and the president needed to show the American people that he is not giving the Iraqi politicians a blank check to fritter away their opportunities.

Listening to Mr. Bush offer the usual emotional rhetoric about the advance of freedom and the sacrifice of American soldiers, our thoughts went back to some of the letters we received in anticipation of the speech. One was from the brother of a fallen Marine, who said he did not want Mr. Bush to say the war should continue in order to keep faith with the men and women who have died fighting it. "We do not need more justifications for the war. We need an effective strategy to win it," he wrote. Another letter came from an opponent of the invasion who urged the American left to "get over its anger over President Bush`s catastrophic blunder" and start trying to figure out how to win the conflict that exists.

No one wants a disaster in Iraq, and Mr. Bush`s critics can put aside, at least temporarily, their anger at the administration for its hubris, its terrible planning and its inept conduct of the war in return for a frank discussion of where to go from here. The president, who is going to be in office for another three and a half years, cannot continue to obsess about self-justification and the need to color Iraq with the memory of 9/11. The nation does not want it and cannot afford it.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Das große Problem für alle Zustandsberichte aus dem Irak ist, dass sie sich auf die Umgebung der `Green Zone` beschränken, also auf den inneren Bereich von Baghdad.

Es ist augenblicklich nicht möglich für ausländische Reporter im Land selbstständig zu recherchieren.

Burns und Wong berichten seit langem aus dem Irak, meist als `embedded` Reportern.
Sonst sitzen sie in ihrem Hotel hinter großen Betonplatten verstärkt mit Sandsäcken ausgebaut als Festung der NYTimes und warten und können nur zu den Pressekonferenzen in der `Green Zone`, so wie sie selbst schon in Artikeln erzählt haben.

Bei US-Aktionen im Land kommen sie zusammen mit den US-Truppen in die Kampfzonen und berichten darüber, was die US-Army ihnen erlaubt zu sehen.
Joerver


June 29, 2005
Some Iraqis Optimistic About Sovereignty
By JOHN F. BURNS and EDWARD WONG
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/29/international/middleeast/2…

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 28 - When Shaker Assal was approached in his butcher`s shop on Tuesday and asked what he thought about life in Iraq a year after it resumed formal sovereignty, he responded with a blast of invective as heated as the sunbaked sidewalks in his Baghdad neighborhood of Ghazaliya.

"What sovereignty are you talking about?" he asked. "How can you even call it sovereignty? We have thousands of occupation troops in this country and you talk about sovereignty? Enough! Iraq is nothing but an American base."

And what about the two Iraqi governments that have taken office since the head of the American occupation authority, L. Paul Bremer III, handed a leather-bound folio marking the formal transfer of power to Iraqi leaders on June 28 last year?

"Both of those governments have been rubbish," Mr. Assal said. "How can you call them governments when they were imposed from abroad? Those governments and their ministers are just puppets. They are all spies, for Iran and the Kurds. I tell you, Saddam did the right thing when he used chemical weapons against the Kurds."

Mr. Assal, 44, is a Sunni Arab, from the community that ruled Iraq for centuries until the downfall of Saddam Hussein, and he does his business in a district, Ghazaliya, that American troops consider among the most dangerous in Baghdad. When Humvees pass through the neighborhood, they do so on notice that insurgents, overwhelmingly Sunni Arabs, are never far away.

If Mr. Assal`s views were the norm, the Bush administration`s hope of establishing a stable democracy here, sustained in time by Iraqi rather than American troops, would seem illusionary. But in an informal survey of opinions across Baghdad conducted on Tuesday by Iraqi reporters on the staff of The New York Times, the butcher`s outburst was a relatively rare case of untempered hostility for the Americans and the Iraqi governments they have worked with in the past year.

The survey turned up plenty of people who bridled over the issues that have eroded support for the American presence in Iraq, from the relentless violence to doubts about the degree of authority vested in Iraqi ministers to faltering supplies of electricity and water and woeful inadequacies in hospitals and schools. There were many, too, especially among Sunni Arabs, who favored a withdrawal of American troops and the resumption of authority by an Iraqi government that is not dependent on foreign troops.

But perhaps more striking, considering the huge gap between the hopes stirred when American troops captured Baghdad in April 2003 and the grim realities now, were the number of Iraqis who expressed a more patient view. Among those people, the disappointments and privations have been offset by an appreciation of both the progress toward supplanting the dictatorship of Mr. Hussein with a nascent democratic system and the need for American troops to remain here in sufficient numbers to allow the system to mature.

"There was a peaceful handover of power between Allawi`s government and Jaafari`s, and that is unique in our history," said Haydar Farman, a 34-year-old engineer. It was one that saw Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite favored by the Central Intelligence Agency, head an appointed government that ruled for 10 months before handing over in May to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a religious Shiite chosen as prime minister by the Shiite coalition that won January`s elections.

Mr. Farman was similarly sanguine about the violence that continues to rack the country, with nearly 1,400 civilians killed in the seven weeks since the Jaafari government took office. "We have to hope things will work out in the end," Mr. Farman said. "It`s the price that all countries have to pay during periods of transition."

The violence continued Tuesday with at least 35 deaths, including a suicide car bombing in a northern suburb of Baghdad that killed the oldest member of the national assembly, Dhari al-Fayadh, a Shiite tribal leader in his late 80`s. His son and two bodyguards also died. Mr. Fayadh is the second of the 275 assembly members who won seats in January to be killed by insurgents.

The American military command said two soldiers were killed in two separate suicide car bombings in Tikrit and Balad, and another suicide car bomb killed five Iraqis and wounded nine near the headquarters of Iraqi security forces in Baquba. In Kirkuk, a suicide car bomb aimed at a police chief killed a bodyguard and a civilian. In Baghdad, a city council member and two policemen were killed in separate shooting attacks. In Musayyib, south of the capital, a suicide-belt bomber exploded in front of the main hospital, killing one policeman and wounding 17 others.

Even among Sunni Arabs, the community that has generated the insurgency, there were conflicting views about the need for American troops to withdraw, the demand that often comes first when Sunni Arab leaders set terms for joining the political process. "We haven`t seen anything change" since Iraq resumed sovereignty, said Muhammad al-Nuaimi, a 34-year-old barber standing in his empty shop in Adhamiya, a mostly Sunni Arab neighborhood in northern Baghdad that has been the site of frequent fighting.

But Mr. Nuaimi said he did not favor an American troop pullout yet. "For the time being, if the American forces withdraw, this will not be good for the country because political and religious parties will work against each other, and the government is still unstable," he said.

Elsewhere in Adhamiya, other Sunni Arabs took a more positive view. Waseem Haitham Najeeb, a 19-year-old employee in an appliance store, was one. "The general situation after the handover of sovereignty is better than before," he said. "What Iraqis need is an improvement in security, whether it is done by American or Iraqi forces. Once that happens, we won`t see a single American in the street."

Back in Ghazaliya, Thamir Muhammad, 41, a computer operator, said the most pressing need was for Americans to allow Iraqis to take real control of the country`s affairs. "With the changes that have come in the past year so small and so slow, I don`t feel there is an Iraqi government," he said.

The most positive views, not surprisingly, came from Shiites, who in January saw political power pass to the country`s Shiite majority. Abdul Hussein al-Jasim, 37, a painter in the Karada district, said he preferred Dr. Jaafari`s government to Dr. Allawi`s - a widespread opinion among Shiites, many of whom said they believed Dr. Allawi`s government to have been corrupt. "The situation now is better than before," he said.

Ali Adeeb, Khalid al-Ansary, Thaier Aldaami and Fouad al-Sheikhly contributed reporting for this article.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Arguing with Bush

Bush`s speech.


"The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent.



"Terrorists" are not a cohesive ideological category like "Communists" as Bush suggests. Lots of groups use terror as a tactic. The Irgun Zionists in 1946 and 1947 did, as well. Also ETA in Spain, about the terrorist acts of which Americans seldom hear in their newspapers (they are ongoing). The Baath regime in Iraq engaged in so little international terrorism in the late 1990s and early zeroes that it was not even on the US State Department list of sponsors of terrorism. Bush could take the above rationale and use it to invade most countries in the world.


"To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill: in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali and elsewhere.



Yes, and these were al-Qaeda operations, and you haven`t caught Bin Laden or al-Zawahiri.


"The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."



This is monstrous and ridiculous at once. The people in Fallujah and Ramadi were not sitting around plotting terrorism three years ago. They had no plans to hit the United States. Terrorism isn`t a fixed quantity. By unilaterally invading Iraq and then bollixing it up, Bush and Vines have created enormous amounts of terrorism, which they are now having trouble putting back in the bottle.


"Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia and Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and others."



Maybe 8 percent of the fighters in Iraq are foreign jihadis. Of the some 25,000 guerrillas, almost all are Iraqi Sunni Arabs who dislike foreign military occupation of their country. You could imagine what people in Alabama or Kentucky would do if foreign troops came in and tried to set up checkpoints in their neighborhoods.

Moreover, many of those jihadis fighting in Iraq wouldn`t even be jihadis if they weren`t outraged by Bush`s invasion and occupation of a Muslim country.

The fact is that the US went in and convinced the Sunni Arabs of Iraq that we were going to screw them over royally, driving them into violent opposition. They aren`t inherently terrorists and could have been won over.

There are no Iraqi military units that can and will fight independently against the Sunni guerrillas, so all those statistics he quoted are meaningless.

Almost all the coalition allies of the US have a short timetable for getting out of the quagmire before it goes really bad. Bush`s quotation of all that international support sounds more hollow each time he voices it.

An interesting Flash presentation on Coalition casualties can be found here, demnstrating their geographical extent throughout the country.

The political process in Iraq has not helped end the guerrilla war. It has excluded Sunnis or alienated them so that they excluded themselves. It offers no hope in and of itself.

There was nothing new in Bush`s speech, and most of what he said was inaccurate.

Tomdispatch.com takes apart Bush`s moral relativism or amoral relativism and is worth a read.

posted by Juan @ [url6/29/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/arguing-with-bush-bushs-speech.html[/url]

Tel Afar and the North

We have not heard much lately about the US campaign in the northern, largely Turkmen city of Tel Afar. The city has been a perennial security problem. There is evidence of local Turkmen guerrilla groups cooperating with Arab guerrillas, and the city seems to be part of an underground railway for the infiltration of foreign jihadis from Syria. An informed observer with experience in Iraq explains the dynamics of ethnic and religious disputes in the Iraqi north, especially among the Turkmen:



"Quick clarification on your June 16th post regarding Tel Afar. The US and the Iraqi forces are having such a hard time because the Turkmen in Tel Afar are actually Sunni, not Shia`. They are nearly all Ottoman-era Sunni migrants, rather than Shia` descendants of the Akqoyunlu and Karaqoyunlu tribes who make up a majority of Turkmen in Kirkuk.

While the Ba`ath used tribal proxies everywhere, they generally recruited "direct hires" in the security services from a much narrower base in specific communities. Nearly all Turkmen who had significant positions in Ba`ath security were from Tel Afar. Tel Afar had land conflicts with the Kurdish Mirani tribe - who were allies of Mustafa Barzani - and backed the government in the Kurdish wars of the 60`s and 70`s. Saddam subsequently recruited heavily in Tel Afar for Maktab al-Amin positions because many of them speak Kurdish. Tel Afar will remain an insurgent stronghold because it is historically as much a Ba`athist city as any city of the same size in al-Anbar.

The Turkmen-Kurdish conflict in Kirkuk is a little different. Unlike in Tel Afar, Turkmen in Kirkuk are unlikely to join the present insurgency because they really dislike both the Ba`athists and the Sunni jihadist types. The Turkmen in Kirkuk are a minor impediment to Kurdish control over the oil but the Kurds are more likely to repress them out of a fear of Turkish government influence. A Turkish special forces team attempted to assassinate the Kurdish governor of Kirkuk in July 2003, in coordination with Turkmen in the city. I`m convinced Kurdish abduction, torture and abuse of Turkmen is intended to intimidate alleged collaborators with Turkey rather than the insurgency. Make no mistake - the Kurds fully intend to be independent, even if it takes another decade. The Kurdish policy in Kirkuk is to control Turkish intrigue long enough for demographics to shift in their favor, without provoking Turkey to the point that they close the border. That occurred when the US accidentally arrested that Turkish hit squad.

. . . I have no doubt that the Kurds are abducting Turkmen, but I also have some suspicions about the objectivity of the [State Department memo] and the scale of the problem. Kurdish abduction and torture of Sunni Arabs is a much more serious problem, but neither the US nor Turkey are likely to protest too strongly. This conflict seems to be on an inevitable and tragic path towards a shadow war in which pesh mergha and the Badr Brigade - maybe wearing Iraqi uniforms, maybe not - start going after the insurgents using their own methods and tactics. Both the U.S. and Turkey have an incentive to draw the line if Turkmen are the victims . . .

I don`t support a "shadow war" in which the Kurds and the Shia` political parties start fighting fire with fire. I think there needs to be pressure on them to prevent abuses, and I think there needs to be rigorous monitoring. But I hope I don`t give the impression of moral equivalence between the pesh mergha and Shia` parties on the one side, and the former Ba`athist/jihadists on the other. The former are more responsive to public and international opinion and there`s a certain degree of internal self-control that usually places some limits on their behavior. Not to mention Sistani, who . . . deserves the Nobel Prize. The Ba`athists and jihadists are another matter . . .

Interesting history... Too bad the US doesn`t understand it."

posted by Juan @ [url6/29/2005 06:28:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/tel-afar-and-north-we-have-not-heard.html[/url]
Tuesday, June 28, 2005

SCIRI Rejects Negotiations with Baathists

Against the backdrop of the London Times report that the Americans are negotiating with Iraqi guerrillas, confirmed recently by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Gilbert Achcar writes:


Excerpt from the lead article on Iraq in Al-Hayat, June 28:

The Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (led by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim) [the main Shia fundamentalist pro-Iranian force in Iraq and the main component of the Parliament`s majority United Iraqi Alliance] warned the Americans against concluding a settlement with the Baathists and supporters of the previous regime.

Ali al-Aadhad, a member of the leadership of the SCIRI, told Al-Hayat that "the terrorist attack that hit the Shia-inhabited al-Karada aera in Baghdad represented a turning point in the strategy of the alliance between the Takfiri forces [fanatical Sunni fundamentalists] and Saddam Hussein` bunch. This turn meant basically a shift from attacks aimed at the US and [Iraqi] army and police men to attacks aimed at Shias as was the case in al-Karada."

He considered that "such terrorist attacks constitute a means of pressure on the Americans to speed up the conclusion of a settlement with Saddam`s bunch, allowing them to return to political life." He maintained that "the Americans use sometimes labels like `Sunni Arabs` in order to justify the talks, but the SCIRI knows that the talks are held with Saddam`s bunch."

He accused the Americans of attempting "to by-pass Shia religious forces" [the SCIRI leader specified "religious" because "secular" former US-designated Prime Minister, Iyad al-Allawi, is the main architect of the strategy of a US deal with the Baathists], maintaining that "the timing of the US settlement with Saddam`s bunch means that the Americans want to involve this bunch in the drafting of the constitution and the forthcoming elections." He added that one of the most important goals of the al-Barq [Lightning] operation was "to accelerate the weakening of Saddam`s bunch in a way that contradicts the ongoing attempts to conclude an American settlement with this bunch."

posted by Juan @ [url6/28/2005 08:34:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/sciri-rejects-negotiations-with.html[/url]

Parliamentarian Assassinated

Guerrillas assassinated a member of parliament in Baghdad on Tuesday. They cut down Dhari Ali al-Fayadh, along with his son and three bodyguards. Al-Fayadh had run for office as part of the largely Shiite United Iraqi Alliance. The oldest member of parliament, he served as speaker of the house when it first met. He is the second member of parliament to be killed.

Reuters also reports:


"In other incidents on Tuesday, a suicide bomber dressed as a policeman blew himself up in a hospital in Musayyib, south of Baghdad, killing three people and wounding 13. A car bomb killed two bodyguards in a failed assassination bid on the chief of traffic police in the ethnically divided northern oil city of Kirkuk and police opened fire on a crowd of demonstrators in the southern city of Samawa wounding seven."



US forces began a new campaign at Haditha.

45% of Americans in a new poll say that the US will never succeed in Iraq. Some 49% thought it could, but most of those believed it would take five years (a very optimistic time scale).

Iraq`s new government is trying to get out of a United Nations-imposed program that subtracts 5 percent of its oil revenues to pay compensation to Kuwait and others for damage done by Iraq in the 1990-1991 invasion of Kuwait. Iraq wants the ability to negotiate bilateral deals rather than being under the UN thumb on this. The Iraqi government is only able to pump about 1.4 million barrels a day because of sabotage, and needs every cent to run the government and work against the guerrilla movement. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and others, however, want the payments to continue, figuring Iraq owes them $50 bn. for damages.

posted by Juan @ [url6/28/2005 08:16:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/parliamentarian-assassinated.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

!

Dieser Beitrag wurde vom System automatisch gesperrt. Bei Fragen wenden Sie sich bitte an [e-mail]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]Der vergessene Krieg. Zwischenzeitlich hat der Kampf auch schon 192 US-Soldaten das Leben gekostet. Und die Kampfhandlungen haben in den letzten Wochen wieder stark zugenommen.
Man sollte immer an die UDSSR denken, was denen in Afghanistan passiert ist.

US helicopter `shot down` in Afghanistan
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,1517128,0…

Associated Press
Wednesday June 29, 2005

Guardian Unlimited
A US helicopter that crashed in eastern Afghanistan yesterday may have been shot down, the US military said today. The fate of the 17 personnel on board remained unclear.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack on the Chinook aircraft, which had been on a mission against al-Qaida fighters. It came down in mountainous terrain near Asadabad, in the Kunar province.

"The helicopter was transporting forces into the area as part of Operation Red Wing, which is part of the enduring fight to defeat al-Qaida militants and deny them influence in Kunar province," a US military statement said.

"Initial reports indicate the crash may have been caused by hostile fire. The status of the service members is unknown at this time."

US spokeswomen Lieutenant Cindy Moore said no other details of those on board, including whether they were believed to have died, was available.

Analysts said insurgents` ability to strike at helicopters transporting US-led forces could become a major anxiety for military commanders. The US-backed mujahideen war against Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan in the 80s turned when Afghan fighters worked out how to shoot down Soviet aircraft.

There is growing concern that the situation in Afghanistan is escalating into a conflict on the scale of that embroiling the US in Iraq.

Last night, the US president, George Bush, sought to shore up flagging domestic support for the Iraq conflict in a speech in which he invoked memories of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

More than 660 people have been killed in Afghanistan since March, including 465 suspected insurgents, 29 US troops, 43 Afghan police and soldiers and 125 civilians - a level unprecedented since the Taliban was ousted by US-led forces in the months after September 11.

The military statement said US and Afghan troops had "quickly moved into position around the crash to block any enemy movement toward or away from the site", and that support aircraft were overhead.

"This is a tragic event for all of us, and our hearts and prayers go out to the families, loved ones and men still fighting in the area," said Brigadier General Greg Champion of the US army. "This incident will only further our resolve to defeat the enemies of peace."

A purported Taliban spokesman, Mullah Latif Hakimi, telephoned the Associated Press before news of the crash was released yesterday to claim that insurgents had shot the helicopter down. He said rebels had filmed the attack and would release the video to the media.

AP said the spokesman had often contacted news organisations to claim responsibility for attacks on behalf of the Taliban. His information had frequently proven to be untrue or exaggerated, and his exact tie to the group`s leadership remained unclear.

However, provincial governor Asadullah Wafa also said the Taliban had shot down the aircraft with a rocket.

The crash was the second of a Chinook helicopter in Afghanistan this year. On April 6, 15 US service members and three US civilians were killed when their craft came down in a sandstorm while returning to the main US base at Bagram. The military said the cause was still being investigated.

Much of the recent fighting in Afghanistan has taken place along the country`s border with Pakistan. The US military has launched operations against al-Qaida and Taliban militants, as well as fighters using high mountain passes to cross over from Pakistan, along several parts of the frontier.

The violence has left much of the desperately poor country off limits to aid workers. Afghan and US officials predicted the situation would deteriorate in the run-up to legislative elections in September.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

The long and the short
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1516773,00.ht…

Leader
Wednesday June 29, 2005

Guardian
Iraq is both a tragedy and a mystery, since the nature of what is going on in that country is obscure to Iraqis and outsiders alike. The insurgency was born of the American invasion, but it is hard to determine which of three related developments - the US occupation, the transfer of power from Sunnis to Shias, or the rise of fundamentalism - is the most basic cause. The most pertinent facts about the insurgency are that it is a minority movement in Iraq, since it is confined to Sunnis, and yet it appeals to the angry and disaffected within the Arab world as a whole, where Sunnis are a majority. Minority status in Iraq means the insurgency is characterised by a grave weakness, yet the ability to draw on the worldwide Sunni majority gives it strength. This paradox is at the heart of the problem for the Iraqis themselves, for the Arabs, for the Americans, and for the British, pulled haplessly along as we are by our ally.

Vietnam is often mentioned. If there have to be comparisons, Malaya might be a better one, although it was far less violent. But Vietnam is relevant in the sense that, although no politician, official or soldier would ever use the phrase "light at the end of the tunnel", that is beginning to be the message from Washington. Again and again the administration has proclaimed that the war would be over once some necessary stage was passed, whether it was the formation of a government, the drafting of a constitution or the completion of some phase in the training of Iraqi forces. Yet the bombs keep on going off, the mortars keep on coming in, and the bullets keep on finding their marks, often enough in the bodies of Sunni moderates. Now George Bush and his associates are using different words, long haul words, tunnel words. General John Abizaid, the US commander in the Middle East, stated in congressional evidence that the insurgency was just as strong as it was six months ago. A CIA report has suggested that Iraq is training a new generation of jihadists. And Donald Rumsfeld now says, with the assumed wisdom that is his stock in trade and without admitting for one moment that he has ever said anything different, that everybody knows that insurgencies go on for years. President Bush, making yet another speech on Iraq yesterday, is emphasising the themes of endurance and patience.

The politicians are doing this, in part, because they see, in their collapsing poll ratings, daily evidence of the damage done by the easy promises of the past. What Mr Rumsfeld says is nevertheless true. Most insurgencies are long lasting, and most are defeated in the end, if they are defeated, by local forces, though foreigners can help. But while the switch to long haul rhetoric, and the efforts now going on to persuade some insurgent groups to change sides, may better reflect the reality of the conflict, it will be hard to convince the American public.

The most difficult question is whether the Iraqi people would be best served by a withdrawal of foreign forces soon, or by one at a much later point when the insurgency has supposedly been contained by the Americans and well-trained Iraqi forces can take over completely. A quick withdrawal would almost certainly lead to violence on a scale beyond that experienced so far, with no guarantee of a resolution of the conflict, and with other states possibly intervening once America was gone. Yet staying the course could be as bloody, or bloodier, and the insurgency, many believe, thrives on the American presence and would diminish without it. Mr Bush, facing for the first time demands from within his own party that he set a timetable for withdrawal, told the Iraqi prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jafari, when he saw him last week, "You don`t have to worry about timetables." But you do, and, for good or ill, it is the American people who may set them.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Fadhil Al Bedrani hat für BBC und Reuters geschrieben.

Collective Punishment
by Fadhil Al Bedrani
http://www.worldtribunal.org/main/?b=1#

Different crimes were and are being committing against Iraq and Iraqis by the occupying American forces but I will concentrate on Falluja.. I am speaking as a journalist and as a person from Falluja. I am an eyewitness of the two strikes against Falluja in April and November 2004. In the first massacre 518 civilians were killed among them, according to Dr Ahmed Hardan of the Falluja General Hospital, were 216 children who were killed either by the Americans or because of the lack of food and drinking water while the town was under siege. The first massacre began on April 4th 04 till May 1st. I could never forget the killing of 25 members of two families gathered in one house in Goulan area; this crime happened on April 11 04.

In the second massacre began on November 1st, not on Nov 8th as the Americans said. Their pretext was the Allawi Cabinet asked their help. Days before the strike, flayers were distributed asking the people to stay at homes otherwise they would face dander.. 150 000 from 600 00 stayed in the town. Those who stayed were surprised when the bombing targeted the houses first. I saw the women, children and elderly people were running fear of bombing here and there.

On Nov 15th, in Goulan area, 20-25 persons were running barefooted when an American warplane bombed killing and wounding them; only one elderly woman and 2 children stayed safe when they did hide themselves under rubbles of a bombed house. The dead bodies were left in the street for 20 days; because of the lack of the first aids, most wounded died.

Let me speak about Sua`ad Salam who stayed in a bombed house with the dead bodies of her whole family in Hasawa area, central Falluja.

The American forces considered the whole Falluja as a military target without taking in the consideration the humanitarian issues; they destroyed the town 100%; they destroyed the houses and infrastructures.

I think that the all remember the TV images of killing an unarmed wounded young man; that was on Nov 14th, in Hussein Shalash mosque in Al Shuhada area, south Falluja.. may be no body knows that the same American soldier with the same gun killed three others.

On Nov 25th, 15 American soldiers a house at Bathara area, central Falluja, three civilian men were there; one was handicapped, the second 61 years old and the third was 52 years old. The only one who stayed alive said, "When the Americans entered the house they saw that we were sitting unarmed; 14 left and the last one threw us a grenade saying -bye-. Two were seriously wounded I with my slight wounds tried to help them but after a while they were back; I pretended dead while the other two were suffering. They put a bullet in every head and left.

Whatever, the stories need volumes to be said; but what I want to add is the doctors and the staff of the Falluja hospital was detained on Nov 15th; the warplanes bombed the alternative hospital in downtown the town; bombed the medicines warehouses in Nazzal area; killed 4 doctors, 8 medical workers.

According to the numbers of the Association of the Moslem Scholars: 3500 civilians were killed, 7000 were wounded, and 1200 were arrested. 45 days after the massacre, the people began returning; the civil society organizations arranged an accurate body counting according to the sources of the hospital, mosques and official offices; the killed were 4000, wounded 7000.

Before ending my testimony, I should speak about an old woman, 71 years old, who died because of lack of her medicine; even before her martyrdom she asked me to take her condition to the Iraqi ministry of health and international organizations because she could not find her medicines when Falluja under siege. Also allow me mention Awwad Mohammed Al Dulaimi who lost his whole family, first wife, 5 sons, 2 daughters, a daughter in law and 2 grandchildren 6 months and 5 years old. His second wife is still surviving but blind and he had a heart attack. This happened on October 2nd 04.

[Joerver]

Dahl, Roald: Charlie und die Schokoladenfabrik Der arme kleine Charlie gehört zu den 5 Glückspilzen, die die sagenhafte Schokoladenfabrik des sagenhaften Herrn Willi Wonka besichtigen dürfen.

[Joerver]

Ein Thema, das in allen Zeitungen behandelt wird.

Reactor Plan Raises Hopes and Doubts
Facility to be built in France may be a cleaner source of energy or a huge waste of money.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-fusi…

By David Holley
Times Staff Writer

June 29, 2005

MOSCOW — In a bid to harness what backers say could be a nearly limitless source of clean electric power, an international consortium Tuesday chose France as the site for an experimental fusion reactor that will aim to replicate how the sun creates energy.

The planned $13-billion project is one of the most prestigious and expensive international scientific efforts ever launched. But critics say the technological hurdles to be overcome are so vast that the money could be better spent in other ways.

Japan and France, backed by roughly equal factions in the consortium planning the project, had competed fiercely for the prestige and economic benefits of hosting the project. But Tokyo agreed to a compromise: The fusion reactor is to be sited at Cadarache, near Marseille in southern France, while Japan will have the next-largest role in the project, providing research and staffing. Cadarache has one of the biggest civilian nuclear research centers in Europe.

"We are making scientific history," Janez Potocnik, the European Union`s science and research commissioner, said at a news conference in Moscow held to announce the agreement for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor project.

"This is a great success for France, for Europe and for all of the partners in the ITER," French President Jacques Chirac said in a statement. "The international community will now be able to take on an unprecedented scientific and technological challenge, which opens great hopes for providing humanity with an energy that has no impact on the environment and is practically inexhaustible."

Fusion is the process of atoms combining at extraordinarily high temperatures that not only provides the energy of the sun and stars but also gives hydrogen bombs their enormous power. The challenge faced by the international project is to control that energy in a selfsustaining reaction in which the heat released by fusion can be used to generate electricity, an engineering feat of daunting complexity.

But the theoretical attractions of the idea are also great. The reactor`s main fuel, deuterium, also known as heavy hydrogen, can be obtained from water. The project`s website states that Lake Geneva alone contains enough deuterium to meet global energy needs for several thousand years.

Existing nuclear reactors use fission, or the splitting of large atoms, to produce power, a process that leaves waste that remains highly radioactive for hundreds of thousands of years. Fusion reactors, by contrast, would produce minimal waste that would be radioactive for a much shorter time, backers say.

A joint declaration signed here Tuesday at a meeting of representatives of the United States, the 25-member European Union, Russia, China, Japan and South Korea said the project would explore "the long-term potential of fusion energy as a virtually limitless, environmentally acceptable and economically competitive source of energy."

The project is important for "the rapid realization of fusion energy for peaceful purposes and the stimulation of the interest of succeeding generations in fusion," it said.

ITER was conceived at an international summit in 1985 as a showpiece for cooperation during the Cold War. Construction of the reactor is expected to take 10 years. The reactor itself is budgeted to cost about $6 billion and will produce about 10,000 jobs. The rest of the $13 billion is for associated research, a significant portion of it in Japan.

If the ITER project is successful, long-term plans call for a demonstration fusion power plant to be built in the 2030s and the first commercial fusion plant to be built in mid-century.

"As a project of unprecedented complexity spanning more than a generation, ITER marks a major step forward in international science cooperation," said Potocnik, the EU commissioner. "Now that we have reached consensus on the site for ITER, we will make all efforts to finalize the agreement on the project, so that construction can begin as soon as possible."

The 500-megawatt reactor planned at Cadarache will be built for fusion to take place at more than 180 million degrees, with the hot fuel held in place by powerful magnetic fields.

Vladimir Kuznetsov, director of the program for nuclear and radiation safety of the Russian Green Cross, said that "Russia was the country that initiated this kind of research" half a century ago, but that "since then nothing spectacular was achieved along that road." He expressed doubt that the project would ever come to fruition.

According to the agreement reached Tuesday, the European Union as a whole will cover 40% of the cost and France alone will pay for an additional 10%. The remaining half will be paid by the other five partners, including the U.S., at 10% each. France will provide 40% of staffing and Japan 20%.

Kuznetsov said he believed that Russia`s contribution would be an inappropriate use of scarce funds better spent to safely dismantle decommissioned nuclear reactors and submarines.

"In general I don`t think it is quite moral and economically viable to launch extravagant and costly projects like this when millions of people on our Earth still go hungry," he said.

Greenpeace International also issued a statement in Paris sharply criticizing the project.

"Advocates of fusion research predict that the first commercial fusion electricity might be delivered in 50 to 80 years from now," Greenpeace said. "But most likely, it will lead to a dead end, as the technical barriers to be overcome are enormous."

Times staff writer Sergei L. Loiko contributed to this report.


Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Die Reaktion auf die Bush-Rede ist in allen gr0ßen Zeitungen negativ.
Hier LATimes und WaPost:

EDITORIAL
Presidential Disconnect
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-ed-bush2…

June 29, 2005

President Bush`s pep talk to the nation Tuesday night was a major disappointment. He again rewrote history by lumping together the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the need for war in Iraq, when, in fact, Saddam Hussein`s Iraq had no connection to Al Qaeda. Bush spoke of "difficult and dangerous" work in Iraq that produces "images of violence and bloodshed," but he glossed over the reality of how bad the situation is. He offered no benchmarks to measure the war`s progress, falling back on exhortations to "complete the mission" with a goal of withdrawing troops "as soon as possible."

Bush spoke at Ft. Bragg, N.C., and offered proper respect and thanks to U.S. troops, more than 1,700 of whom have been killed in Iraq. But his address on the first anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq gave no glimpse of how much longer 140,000 U.S. troops must remain there. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gave no timetable either but did say Sunday that the insurgency could last a dozen years. That realistic analysis marked quite a change from Vice President Dick Cheney`s claim a few weeks earlier that the insurgency was in its "last throes."

Last week, the top military commander in the Middle East, Gen. John P. Abizaid, also recognized reality by telling Congress that the strength of the insurgency was about the same as six months ago, before Iraq`s national assembly elections. The January vote, hailed again by Bush as a landmark on the journey toward democracy, was soon overshadowed by renewed violence as legislators dithered in forming a government.

The U.S. has had too few troops in the country since right after the March 2003 invasion. Bush said Tuesday that if commanders ask him for more troops, he will send them. But he quickly announced why no one should bother asking: Sending more Americans would undercut Iraqis` will to lead the fight against insurgents and would signal "that we intend to stay forever."

Who could disagree with the administration`s goal of a democratic Iraq that respects human rights? But again, time for a reality check. A Times report last week noted complaints that the country`s special security forces resemble too much those of Hussein`s day, abusing and torturing those they arrest. A report Monday told of conservative Shiite militia groups taking over the southern city of Basra, killing political foes and punishing those violating their interpretation of Islam.

Bush might be right to now put Iraq at the center of the "global war on terror," but it didn`t have that status before the invasion. Al Qaeda flocked to Baghdad after the invasion and used Iraq as a rallying point for Muslims outraged by the U.S. invasion of an Arab nation.

Recent polls indicate that Americans are understandably upset at spending $200 billion and so many lives in Iraq, while hearing only rhetoric about staying the course. If more months pass with Iraqi forces leaning on the safety net of U.S. troops, politicians putting tribe and religious community ahead of nation, and the daily havoc of suicide bombers, presidential scrutiny through rose-colored glasses will fall on ever-deafer ears. The public can recognize the difference between rhetoric and reality.



Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

washingtonpost.com
Mr. Bush on Iraq
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06…
Post
Wednesday, June 29, 2005; A20

PRESIDENT BUSH sought last night to bolster slipping public support for the war in Iraq by connecting it, once again, to the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and to the war against terrorism. That connection is not spurious, even if Saddam Hussein was not a collaborator of al Qaeda: Clearly Iraq is now a prime battlefield for Islamic extremists, and success or failure there will do much to determine the outcome of the larger struggle against them. But Mr. Bush didn`t explain how a war meant to remove a tyrant believed to wield weapons of mass destruction turned into a fight against Muslim militants, a transformation caused in part by his administration`s many errors since Saddam Hussein`s defeat more than two years ago. The president also didn`t speak candidly enough about the primary mission the United States now has in Iraq, which is not "hunting down the terrorists" but constructing a stable government in spite of Iraq`s sectarian divisions and violent resistance from the former ruling elite. It`s harder to explain why Americans should die in such a complex and ambitious enterprise than in a fight with international terrorists, but that is the case Mr. Bush most needs to make.

When he did turn to Iraq`s reconstruction Mr. Bush mostly described the bright side of a very mixed picture. While acknowledging that "our progress has been uneven," his dominant theme was success: in training Iraqi security forces, holding elections and promoting political accord. The progress he described is genuine, as is the reality that the United States has no reasonable alternative to continuing to support the construction of a representative Iraqi government. Mr. Bush rightly argued that a deadline for withdrawal would be a "serious mistake."

Once again, however, the president missed an opportunity to fully level with Americans, even though some of the hard truths he elided have been spelled out by his aides and senior military commanders. The insurgency, they have said, is not growing weaker; most likely, said Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, it will never be defeated by American troops, and it will continue for many more years. Iraqi troops probably will not be ready to take over from U.S. units for several years, at least. For now, the combined U.S.-Iraqi force is nowhere near large enough to hold territory taken from the insurgents or to secure the country`s borders. Yet Army and Marine units are being pressed into their third tours of duty, even as recruitment of fresh soldiers at home lags badly.

Mr. Bush`s account of his strategy for Iraq, which has remained virtually unchanged in the past year, doesn`t answer the worrying questions raised by these facts. How will the insurgency be contained during the considerable time it will take to prepare Iraqi troops? How will the Army and Marines manage years more of heavy deployments while addressing their recruitment problems? And how will continued heavy spending on the war affect the federal budget and domestic priorities? The president`s evasion of the hardest facts about Iraq is coupled with a reluctance to candidly describe the likely price of success -- though Mr. Bush did make an appeal last night for military service.

Fortunately, most Americans appear to have a hardheaded appreciation of the problems and stakes in Iraq. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that most do not believe the administration`s claims of progress, but a majority still is willing to support an extended stay by U.S. forces. If those forces are to succeed in the difficult months and years ahead, Mr. Bush will need to preserve and nourish that fragile mandate -- which will mean speaking more honestly to Americans than he did last night.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Google`s free 3-D service brings views of Earth down to the PC The view from Google Earth as it zooms in to an altitude of 1,267 feet above SBC Park.

Google`s free 3-D service brings views of Earth down to the PC The Palace of Fine Arts and the Marina stand out in this Google Earth view from 2,107 feet.

earth.google.com
Fly between San Francisco`s skyscrapers, through the Grand Canyon or across the Swiss Alps with Google.

The Internet search engine unveiled a free, three-dimensional satellite mapping technology Tuesday that is part flight simulator, part video game and part world atlas.

Practically speaking, Google Earth, as the technology is called, allows users to get directions and find businesses and share the information with friends. But the ability to zoom in from space to street level and take virtual flyovers inevitably will elicit a chorus of gee-whizzes.

"It`s actually pretty cool," said Allen Weiner, an analyst with Gartner Inc., a market research firm. "It`s important to have a lot of the gee-whiz factor because it gets people to use it, and then they can get involved in the business portion."

Google Earth comes in tiers ranging from free for the basic version to $400 a year for commercial use. A download from earth.google.com is necessary.

Only Windows-based desktop computers less than 4 years old are compatible with the software, although Google is working on a Macintosh version. Laptops generally must be no more than 2 years old.

Google got into satellite imagery last year with the acquisition of Keyhole Corp., a digital mapping company. Since then, the merged firms have been working on combining searching with mapping for Tuesday`s launch.

Google Earth, with its free basic service, takes satellite mapping to the masses like never before. An earlier version required a subscription except for a seven-day trial period.

"We would like to think we were already reaching a lot of people," John Hanke, Keyhole`s general manager said. "But making it free opens it up to a lot more of an audience."

Google Earth features a search box where users can enter queries, such as San Francisco. The technology quickly zooms in from a view of the globe to an aerial image of the city. Users can then manipulate the controls to focus on, for example, the Ferry Building. By tilting the image and clicking on an arrow or two, a user can simulate flying above the city.

The images users see aren`t perfect. They don`t include some new buildings because they are updated on average every 18 months. In addition, the user can`t zoom much closer than the equivalent of a few hundred feet above the ground. At that distance, certain details are hard to see.

Also, buildings tend to go flat when a user rotates the image surface. To make up for that, the service gives users the option of inserting model buildings on the landscape that appear as simple cutouts.

Generally speaking, topography shows up much more realistically than man- made structures. For instance, a trip over the Grand Canyon looks better than a trip down Market Street.

Users can choose to have landmarks identified with text. They can also have a particular kind of business, such as pizza parlors, indicated on the map.

No advertisements appear on Google Earth. However, they eventually may be included, according to Hanke.

Google, in Mountain View, also is leveraging the images by offering a mapping service through which a traveler enters a destination and is transported along the route. Users can also create and share their own annotations.

Google`s isn`t alone in its interest in aerial imagery. There`s a virtual space race among the Internet behemoths.

A project by Microsoft`s MSN Web portal uses photographs from both satellite and airplanes. The so-called Virtual Earth is expected to be unveiled in the coming months.

Back on Earth, Amazon`s A9 search engine has incorporated street-level photographs into its results.

Separately Tuesday, Google introduced an updated version of its personalized search. The feature, located inside Google`s testing ground, Google Labs, personalizes results based on what a user has searched for in the past.

For example, a fisherman who enters the query "bass" would more likely get results about the fish. A music lover who enters the same word would get results about the musical instrument.

E-mail Verne Kopytoff at [e-mail].

Page A - 1
URL:http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/06/29/M…
©2005 San Francisco Chronicle

[Joerver]

Was man noch zu Google Earth wissen muß!

http://desktop.google.com/download/earth/index.html
Something you should know about Google Earth (beta)...

Google Earth is a broadband, 3D application that not all computers can run.

* Apple Macintosh computers are not supported at this time (but we are working on it).
* Windows-based desktop PCs older than 4 years old may not be able to run it.
* Windows-based notebook PCs older than 2 years old may not be able to run it.


More specifics about what you need to run Google Earth...

Minimum configuration:

* Operating system: Windows 2000, Windows XP
* CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® PIII 500 MHz
* System memory (RAM): 128MB
* 200MB hard-disk space
* 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 16MB VRAM
* 1024x768, 32-bit true color screen
* Network speed: 128 kbps ("Broadband/Cable Internet")

Recommended configuration:

* Operating system: Windows XP
* CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® P4 2.4GHz+ or AMD 2400xp+
* System memory (RAM): 512MB
* 2GB hard-disk space
* 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 32MB VRAM or greater
* 1280x1024, 32-bit true color screen
* Network speed: 128 kbps ("Broadband/Cable Internet")

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Jun 30, 2005

Why withdrawal is possible
By Mark LeVine
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF30Ak02.html

As calls to set a timetable for withdrawing American troops from Iraq grow with each new casualty, President George W Bush and other critics of such a move argue vigorously that announcing such a deadline would grant the insurgents a major political and strategic victory: the former by vindicating the violent, even terroristic methodology of the insurgency itself, the latter by allowing rebels to bide their time and overwhelm government troops once American forces depart.

However convincing at face value, these arguments raise the question: are the only options in Iraq maintaining an unpopular and costly occupation, or handing the country over to "former members of Saddam Hussein`s regime, criminal elements and foreign terrorists" (as Bush describes them)?

The answer is manifestly no, and the fact so few people within the corridors of power can imagine an alternative policy reveals a powerful yet fallacious line of reasoning at the heart of arguments to "stay the course" in Iraq: that a US troop withdrawal would automatically leave a security vacuum in its place.

But such an outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion; the problem is that few Americans, especially politicians, are willing to consider the alternative: apologize to the Iraqi people for an invasion and occupation that (whatever our intentions) has gone terribly wrong; ask the United Nations to take over the management of the country`s security, lead negotiations to end the insurgency, and oversee redevelopment aid; and leave as soon as a sufficient number of replacement forces are in place.

There are four reasons why such a development, however distasteful to the Bush administration and many Americans, is the best hope for achieving the peace and democracy most everyone wants to bring to Iraq.

First, it is increasingly clear that the insurgency is unwinnable as long as the US remains in Iraq. Even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld now admits that it could take a dozen years to defeat it. Given such a forecast, he explains that "Coalition forces, foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency. We`re going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency."

Is this our gift to the Iraqi people, what 1,700 American soldiers have died for - a cancerous insurgency that will devour the energy, revenue and personnel of the Iraqi government for the foreseeable future? In most any other country, such an admission by one of the war`s chief architects would lead to his resignation, or even indictment for what former senior Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) official Larry Diamond describes (in his new book Squandered Victory) as the "criminal negligence" of the US-led occupation.

The fact that US diplomats have had secret talks with insurgents confirms that the Bush administration is worried that it cannot defeat the insurgency and is exploring the option of a "peace with honor" to extricate America from what even the president (jokingly, no doubt) calls the Iraqi "quagmire". Must we repeat rather than learn from the disastrous history of our withdrawal from Vietnam a generation ago?

Indeed, if the US is talking to insurgents, others can too - particularly others who haven`t been involved in the occupation of Iraq and all the disastrous consequences it has led to in so many areas of life in the country. While some elements of the insurgency (particularly the criminals, Ba`athists and foreign jihadis cited by the president) want to transform Iraq into some sort of neo-Taliban state, the clear majority of insurgents are ordinary Iraqis who see themselves as patriots defending their country and will lay down their arms once coalition forces have left, as long as their leaders are involved in negotiating the temporary presence of peacekeeping forces necessary to maintain order.

Second, while Republicans have rightly criticized systematic corruption at the United Nations, the oil-for-food scandal pales in comparison with the level of corruption in post-invasion Iraq. Whether it`s $9 billion in cash literally gone missing from CPA offices, repeated no-bid contracts to Halliburton and even the managers of the Abu Ghraib prison, or the smaller-scale but ubiquitous corruption infecting every sector of the Iraqi economy under our tutelage, the US has proven itself incapable of managing the reconstruction and development of the country or supporting an environment in which Iraqis can do it themselves.

A new international regime, which separates the management of the country`s security from its reconstruction and the immense profits (and potential for malfeasance) tied to both is the sine qua non for establishing a democratic future for the country. The UN system can`t do it alone, but with a sufficient level of supervision and expertise by donor countries and Iraqi professionals, it can help Iraqis rebuild the country with their own skill, labor and resources. In such a scenario it will be much easier to persuade countries such as France, Germany and others who largely stayed clear of involvement in the invasion and occupation to contribute the necessary funds and personnel to enable Iraq`s stability and reconstruction. More important, it will give Iraqis a working stake in the peaceful development of their country.

Third, most Iraqis and other critics of the occupation believe the US has no intention of withdrawing its troops from Iraq or relinquishing its de facto control of the country`s all-important petroleum resources. Bush declared in his speech on Tuesday night that "as Iraqis stand up, we will stand down", but such blithe declarations are belied by the massive construction going on at US bases across the country and remarks by senior US officials, who have admitted that we intend (with Iraq`s "permission" of course) to station tens of thousands of troops in more or less permanent bases across the country for the foreseeable future.

All that`s needed is a Status of Forces Agreement signed by an Iraqi government that could not survive without a continued US presence - or in lieu of that, a security situation which makes asking us to leave practically impossible in the foreseeable future - to realize the grandest aspirations of neo-conservatives and security hawks alike: a large and long-term US presence in the heart of the world`s major oil producing region as we enter the age of peak oil.

Such a situation might seem ideal in the context of a new cold war with an energy-hungry China, but it would likely fuel a much hotter war against a mushrooming pan-Islamic insurgency across the Muslim world. The US would be much more secure if it took the hundreds of billions of dollars being spent in Iraq and devoted them to developing sustainable alternative energy technologies and transforming the global economic system so that our standard of living no longer depends on billions of people living on $2 a day or less, and entire world regions such as Africa and the Middle East structurally marginalized from the formal flows of money and goods in the globalized economy.

Fourth, an insurmountable collection of evidence is emerging that American forces have systematically committed war crimes in Iraq and continue to violate international law in their actions across the country. The longer the US remains, the greater the chances that senior officials will face criminal charges, or at least international censure, for the conduct of the invasion and occupation of the country.

While it is perhaps unlikely that senior officials will ever stand trial for their actions in an international venue, the loss of American prestige and respect across the world that our actions have brought on is incalculable. Moreover, when tied - quite naturally - by people across the global south to our support for the policies associated with the dominant neo-liberal model of globalization, the Iraqi occupation and the increasingly open imperial endeavor it represents has contributed to the victories of populist anti-American candidates across Latin America, and now Iran.

Even those who support a timetable for withdrawing American troops might respond negatively to the suggestion that America apologize for its invasion and occupation of Iraq. Certainly, the president`s speech before the troops at Fort Bragg offered no hint of remorse for the pain and suffering the invasion brought to Iraq.

Such knee-jerk patriotism disappears, however, when you actually visit Iraq, as I did (that is, without a massive security detail and living with Iraqis), and see the disaster that the occupation has produced first-hand. Observed close up, without the filter of an obsequious news media, the overwhelmingly negative consequences of the occupation become impossible to ignore: the 100,000 dead (the majority of them civilians); wide-scale violations of human, political and civil rights; the destruction of the country`s health, education and other crucial social systems; the massive unemployment; a violent and destabilizing insurgency that is likely to last a generation or more; the rending of a delicate social fabric that managed to survive a bloody British occupation, several wars, and the even bloodier rule of Saddam Hussein (which we should never forget was made possible in good measure by decades of support from administrations as far back as President John F Kennedy).

In Alcoholics Anonymous, apologizing and making amends for the hurt one has done to others are among the most important steps in the long path toward sobriety. Clearly, Bush, who believes Iraqis should "put the past behind them", isn`t about to engage in soul searching about the mission and consequences of our Iraq adventure. But if Americans can admit to - and in doing so, comprehend - the damage our government has wrought in Iraq in our name and with our consent, we will take an important first step in ending our addiction to an unsustainable corporate-led, consumer-driven culture, and the wars and systematic violence, oppression and exploitation it requires world-wide. In doing so we will begin the long but necessary task of building a sustainable and peaceful future, for Iraq, for ourselves, and for the world at large.

Mark LeVine, professor of modern Middle Eastern history, culture, and Islamic studies at the University of California, Irvine, and author of Why They Don`t Hate Us: Lifting the Veil on the Axis of Evil, Oneworld Publications, 2005.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

FORT BRAGG, NC (IWR News Parody) - A poll conducted by the Internet Weekly Report and CNN, immediately after President Bush`s speech on the Iraq war last night, found that the majority of Americas feel that they can no longer cope with the Bush presidency. 75% of those interviewed said watching Bush speak was worse than hearing fingernails scratching on a blackboard, Wayne Newton singing "Danke Schoen" or going to the dentist for a root canal. Below are several residents from Fort Bragg, who find themselves unable to cope with the Bush Presidency.

"Bush reminds me of my ex-husband. He`s so full of horseshit. It`s just too draining to hear him keep lying over and over again about why we`re in Iraq," said Hotel Manager Edith Crowley.

"I used to think my future was bright, but that was before Bush`s crooked pals outsourced my job to India," said Java programmer Jeff Johnston.

"What future will my kids have? The only jobs left will be at Wal-Mart or with the army in Iraq or Syria," said English professor Judy Tatum.

"I just don`t understand where all the friggin` journalists are hiding. This lying SOB should have been impeached like in 2003," said small business owner Phil Redding.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
Jun 30, 2005

Revolution, geopolitics and pipelines
By F William Engdahl
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GF30Dj01.html

After a short-term fall in price below the $50 a barrel level, oil has broken through the $60 level and is likely to go far higher. In this situation one might think the announcement of the opening of a major new oil pipeline to pump Caspian oil to world markets might dampen the relentless rise in prices.

[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
However, even when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed on June 15 to raise its formal production quota by another 500,000 barrels per day (bpd), the reaction of NYMEX oil futures prices was to rise, not fall. Estimates are that world demand in the second half of 2005 will average at least 3 million barrels a day more than the first half of the year.

Oil has become the central theme of world political and military operations planning, even when not always openly said.

Caspian pipeline opens a Pandora`s box
In this situation, it is worth looking at the overall significance of the May opening of the Baku to Ceyhan, Turkey, oil pipeline. This 1,762 kilometer long oil pipeline was completed some months ahead of plan.
The BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) pipeline was begun in 2002 after four years of intense international dispute. It cost about US$3.6 billion, making it one of the most expensive oil projects ever. The main backer was British Petroleum (BP), whose chairman, Lord Browne, is a close adviser to Britain`s Prime Minister Tony Blair. BP built the pipeline through a consortium including Unocal of the US, Turkish Petroleum Inc, and other partners.

It will take until at least late September before 10.4 million barrels can provide the needed volume to start oil delivery to the Turkish port of Ceyhan on the Mediterranean Sea. Ceyhan is conveniently near to the US airbase Incirlik. The BTC has been a US strategic priority ever since president Bill Clinton first backed it in 1998. Indeed, for the opening ceremonies in May, US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman attended and delivered a personal note of congratulations from US President George W Bush.

As the political makeup of the Central Asia Caspian region is complex, especially since the decomposition of the Soviet Union opened up a scramble in the oil-rich region of the Caspian from the outside, above all from the US, it is important to bear in mind the major power blocs that have emerged.

They are two. On the one side is an alliance of US-Turkey-Azerbaijan and, since the "Rose" revolution, Georgia, that small but critical country directly on the pipeline route. Opposed to it, in terms of where the pipeline route carrying Caspian oil should go, is Russia, which until 1990 held control over the entire Caspian outside the Iran littoral. Today, Russia has cultivated an uneasy but definite alliance with Iran and Armenia, in opposition to the US group. This two-camp grouping is essential to understanding developments in the region since 1991.

Now that the BTC oil pipeline has finally been completed, and the route through Georgia has been put firmly in pro-Washington hands, an essential precondition to completing the pipeline, the question becomes one of how Moscow will react. Does President Vladimir Putin have any serious options left short of the ultimate nuclear one?

A clear strategy
A geopolitical pattern has become clear over the past months. One-by-one, with documented overt and covert Washington backing and financing, new US-friendly regimes have been put in place in former Soviet states which are in a strategic relation to possible pipeline routes from the Caspian Sea.

Ukraine is now more or less in the hands of a Washington-backed "democratic" regime under Viktor Yushchenko and his billionaire Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, known in Ukraine as the "gas princess" for the fortune she made as a government official, allegedly through her dubious dealings earlier with Ukraine Energy Minister Pavlo Lazarenko and Gazprom. The Yushchenko government`s domestic credibility is reportedly beginning to fade as Ukrainian "Orange" revolution euphoria gives way to economic realities. In any event, on June 16 in Kiev, Yushchenko hosted a special meeting of the Davos World Economic Forum to discuss possible investments into the "new" Ukraine.

At the Kiev meeting, Timoshenko`s government announced that it planned to build a new oil and gas pipeline from the Caspian across Ukraine into Poland, which would lessen Ukraine`s reliance on Moscow oil and gas supplies. Timoshenko also revealed that the Ukrainian government was in positive talks with Chevron, the former company of US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, for the project.

It goes without saying that such a project would run counter to the Russian regional interest. One reason for Washington`s strong backing for Yushchenko last year was to counter a decision by the Kuchma government and parliament to reverse the flow of the Brody-Odessa pipeline from a planned route from the Black Sea port into Poland. The initial Odessa-to-Poland route would have tied Ukraine to the West. Now Ukraine is discussing with Chevron to build a new pipeline doing the same. The country presently gets 80% of its energy from Russia.

A second project Ukraine`s government and the state NAK (Naftogaz Ukrainy) are discussing is with France`s Gaz de France to build a pipeline from Iran for natural gas to displace Russian gas. Were that to happen it would simultaneously weaken ties of mutual self-interest between Russia and Iran, as well as Russia and France.

On the same day as the Kiev conference, Kazakhstan`s government told an international investors` conference in Almaty that it was in negotiations with Ukraine to route Kazakh oil as well through the proposed new Ukrainian pipeline to the Baltic. Chevron is also the major consortium leader developing Kazakh oil in Tengiz. Given the political nature of US "big oil", it is more than probable that Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney and the administration in Washington are playing a strong role in such Ukraine pipeline talks. The "Orange" revolution, at least from the side of its US sponsors, had little to do with real democracy and far more with military and oil geopolitics.

Pipelines and US-Azeri ties
The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline was originally proclaimed by BP and others as the project of the century. Former US national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was a consultant to BP during the Bill Clinton era, urging Washington to back the project. In fact, it was Brzezinski who went to Baku in 1995, unofficially, on behalf of Clinton, to meet with then-Azeri president Haidar Aliyev, to negotiate new independent Baku pipeline routes, including what became the BTC pipeline.

Brzezinski also sits on the board of an impressive, if little-known, US-Azerbaijan Chamber of Commerce (USACC). The chairman of USACC in Washington is Tim Cejka, president of ExxonMobil Exploration. Other USACC board members include Henry Kissinger and James Baker III, the man who in 2003 personally went to Tbilisi to tell Eduard Shevardnadze that Washington wanted him to step aside in favor of the US-trained Georgian president Mikhail Shaakashvili. Brent Scowcroft, former national security adviser to George H W Bush, also sits on the board of USACC. And Cheney was a former board member before he became vice president. A more high-powered Washington team of geopolitical fixers would be hard to imagine. This group of prominent individuals certainly would not give a minute of their time unless an area was of utmost geopolitical strategic importance to the US or to certain powerful interests there.

Now that the BTC pipeline to Ceyhan is complete, a phase 2 pipeline is in consideration undersea, potentially to link the Caspian to Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan with its rich gas reserves, directing that energy away from China to the West in a US-UK-controlled route.

In this context, it`s worth noting that Bush himself made a trip to Tbilisi on May 10 to address a crowd in Freedom Square, promoting his latest war on tyranny campaign for the region. He praised the US-backed "color revolutions" from Ukraine to Georgia. Bush went on to attack Franklin D Roosevelt`s Yalta division of Europe in 1945. He made the curious declaration, "We will not repeat the mistakes of other generations, appeasing or excusing tyranny, and sacrificing freedom in the vain pursuit of stability," the president said. "We have learned our lesson; no one`s liberty is expendable. In the long run, our security and true stability depend on the freedom of others." Bush continued, "Now, across the Caucasus, in Central Asia and the broader Middle East, we see the same desire for liberty burning in the hearts of young people. They are demanding their freedom - and they will have it."

What color will the Azeri revolution take?
Not surprisingly, that speech was read as a "go" signal for opposition groups across the Caucasus. In Azerbaijan four youth groups - Yokh! (No!), Yeni Fikir (New Thinking), Magam (It`s Time) and the Orange Movement of Azerbaijan - comprise the emerging opposition, an echo of Georgia, Ukraine and Serbia, where the US Embassy and specially trained non-governmental organizations operatives orchestrated the US-friendly regime changes with help of the US National Endowment for Democracy, Freedom House and the Soros Foundations.

According to Baku journalists, Ukraine`s Pora (It`s Time), Georgia`s Kmara (Enough) and Serbia`s Otpor (Resistance) are cited by all four Azeri opposition organizations as role models. The opposition groups also consider Bush`s February meeting in Bratislava with Pora leader Vladislav Kaskiv as a sign that Washington supports their cause.

It seems the same team of Washington regime-change experts are preparing for a "color revolution" for the upcoming November elections in Azerbaijan as were behind other recent color revolutions.

In 2003, on the death of former Azeri president Haider Aliyev, his playboy son, Ilham Aliyev, became president in grossly rigged elections which Washington legitimized because Aliyev was "our tyrant", and also just happened to hold his hand on the spigot of Baku oil.

Ilham, former president of the state oil company SOCAR, is tied to his father`s power base and is apparently now seen as not suitable for the new pipeline politics. Perhaps he wants too big a share of the spoils. In any case, both Blair`s UK government and the US State Department`s AID are pouring money into Azeri opposition groups, similar to Otpor in Ukraine. US Ambassador Reno Harnish has stated that Washington is ready to finance "exit polling" in the elections. Exit polling in Ukraine was a key factor used to drive the opposition success there.

Moscow is following Azeri events closely. On May 26, the Moscow daily Kommersant wrote, "While the pipeline will carry oil from the East to West, the spirit of `color revolutions` will flow in the reverse direction." The commentary went on to suggest that Western governments wanted to promote democratization in Azerbaijan out of a desire to protect the considerable investment made in the pipeline. That is only a part of the strategic game, however. The other part is what Pentagon strategists term "strategic denial".

Until recently the US had supported the corrupt ruthless dictatorship of the Aliyev`s as the family had played ball with US geopolitical designs in the area, even though Haider Aliyev had been a career top KGB officer in the Soviet Mikhail Gorbachev era. Then on April 12, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went to Baku, his second visit in four months, to discuss demands to create a US military base in Azerbaijan, as part of the US global force redeployment involving Europe, the Mideast and Asia.

The Pentagon already de facto runs the Georgia military, with its US Special Forces officers, and Georgia has asked to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Now Washington wants to have direct bases in Azerbaijan proximate to Russia as well as to Iran.

The Pentagon has also allocated $100 million to build a Caspian Guard of special forces military, ostensibly to guard the new BTC pipeline, though the latter was deliberately built underground to make it less vulnerable, one reason for its high cost. Part of the Pentagon money would go to build a radar-equipped command center in Baku, capable of monitoring all sea traffic in the Caspian. The US wants airbases in Azerbaijan, which naturally would be seen in Tehran and Moscow as a strategic provocation.

In all this maneuvering from the side of Washington and 10 Downing Street, the strategic issue of geopolitical control over Eurasia looms large. And increasingly it is clear that not only Putin`s Russia is an object of the new Washington "war on tyranny". It is becoming clear to most now that the grand design in Eurasia on the part of Washington is not to pre-empt Osama bin Laden and his "cave dwellers".

The current Washington strategy targets many Eurasian former Soviet republics which per se have no known oil or gas reserves. What they do have, however, is strategic military or geopolitical significance for the Washington policy of dominating the future of Eurasia.

That policy has China as its geopolitical, economic and military fulcrum. A look at the Eurasian map and at the target countries for various US-sponsored color revolutions makes this unmistakably clear. To the east of the Caspian Sea, Washington in one degree or another today controls Pakistan, Afghanistan, potentially Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. These serve as a potential US-controlled barrier or buffer zone between China and Russian, Caspian and Iranian energy sources. Washington is out to deny China easy land access to either Russia, the Middle East or to the oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea.

Whither Kyrgystan?
Since early 2005, when a series of opposition protests erupted over the fairness of parliamentary elections in February and March, Kyrgystan has joined the growing list of Eurasian republics facing major threat of regime change or color revolution. The success of former Kyrgystan premier Kurmanbek Bakiev in replacing ousted president Askar Akayev in that country`s so-called "Tulip" revolution, becoming interim president until July presidential elections, invited inevitable comparisons with the "Orange" revolution in Ukraine and the Georgian "Rose" revolution.

Washington`s Radio Liberty has gone to great lengths to explain that the Kyrgystan opposition is not a US operation, but a genuine spontaneous grass-roots phenomenon. The facts speak a different story however. According to reports from mainstream US journalists, including Craig Smith in the New York Times and Philip Shishkin in the Wall Street Journal, the opposition in Kyrgystan has had "more than a little help from US friends" to paraphrase the Beatles song. Under the Freedom Support Act of the US Congress, in 2004 the dirt-poor country of Kyrgystan received a total of $12 million in US government funds to support the building of democracy. This will buy a lot of democracy in an economically desolate, forsaken land such as Kyrgystan.

Acknowledging the Washington largesse, Edil Baisolov, in a comment on the February-March anti-government protests, boasted, "It would have been absolutely impossible for this to have happened without that help." According to the New York Times` Smith, Baisolov`s organization, the Coalition for Democracy and Civil Rights, is financed by the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, a Washington-based non-profit organization in turn funded by Rice`s State Department. Baisolov told Radio Liberty he had been to Ukraine to witness the tactics of their "Orange" Revolution, and got inspired.

But that isn`t all. The whole cast of democracy characters has been busy in Bishkek and environs supporting American-style democracy and opposing "anti-American tyranny". Washington`s Freedom House has generously financed Bishkek`s independent printing press, which prints the opposition paper, MSN, according to its man on the scene, Mike Stone.

Freedom House is an organization with a fine-sounding name and a long history since it was created in the late 1940s to back the creation of NATO. The chairman of Freedom House is James Woolsey, former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) director who calls the present series of regime changes from Baghdad to Kabul "World War IV". Other trustees include the ubiquitous Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Clinton commerce secretary Stuart Eizenstat, and national security adviser Anthony Lake. Freedom House lists USAID, US Information Agency, the Soros Foundations and the National Endowment for Democracy among its financial backers.

One more of the many non-governmental organizations active in promoting the new democracy in Kyrgystan is the Civil Society Against Corruption, financed by the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). The NED which, with Freedom House, has been at the center of all the major color revolutions in recent years, was created during the Ronald Reagan administration to function as a de facto privatized CIA, privatized so as to allow more freedom of action, or what the CIA likes to call "plausible deniability". NED chairman Vin Weber, a former Republican congressman, is close to neo-conservative Bill Bennett. NED president since 1984 is Carl Gershman, who had previously been a Freedom House scholar. NATO General Wesley Clark, the man who led the US bombing of Serbia in 1999, also sits on the NED board. Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, said in 1991, "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."

Not to be forgotten, and definitely not least in Kyrgystan`s ongoing "Tulip" revolution is Soros` Open Society Institute - which also poured money into the Serbian, Georgian and Ukraine color revolutions. The head of the Civil Society Against Corruption in Kyrgystan is Tolekan Ismailova, who organized the translation and distribution of the revolutionary manual used in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia written by Gene Sharp, of a curiously named Albert Einstein Institution in Boston. Sharp`s book, a how-to manual for the color revolutions, is titled From Dictatorship to Democracy. It includes tips on non-violent resistance - such as "display of flags and symbolic colors" - and civil disobedience.

Sharp`s book is literally the bible of the color revolutions, a kind of "regime change for dummies". Sharp created his Albert Einstein Institution in 1983, with backing from Harvard University. It is funded by the US Congress` NED and the Soros Foundations, to train people in and to study the theories of "non-violence as a form of warfare". Sharp has worked with NATO and the CIA over the years training operators in Myanmar, Lithuania, Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine and Taiwan, even Venezuela and Iraq.

In short, virtually every regime which has been the target of a US-backed soft coup in the past 20 years has involved Gene Sharp and usually, his associate, Colonel Robert Helvey, a retired US Army intelligence specialist. Notably, Sharp was in Beijing two weeks before student demonstrations at Tiananmen Square in 1989. The Pentagon and US intelligence have refined the art of such soft coups to a fine level. RAND planners call it "swarming", referring to the swarms of youth, typically linked by short message services and weblogs, who can be mobilized on command to destabilize a target regime.

Then Uzbekistan ...?
Uzbekistan`s tyrannical President Islam Karimov had early profiled himself as a staunch friend of the Washington "war on terror", offering a former Soviet airbase for US military actions, including the attack on the Taliban in Afghanistan in late 2001. Many considered Karimov too close to Washington to be in danger. He had made himself a "good" tyrant in Washington`s eyes.

That`s also no longer a sure thing. In May, Rice demanded that Karimov institute "political reforms" following violent prison uprisings and subsequent protests over conditions in the Ferghana Valley region in Andijan. Karimov has fiercely resisted independent inquiry into allegations his troops shot and killed hundreds of unarmed protesters. He insists the uprisings were caused by "external" radical Muslim fundamentalists allied with the Taliban and intent on establishing an Islamic caliphate in Uzbekistan`s Ferghana Valley bordering Kyrgystan.

While the ouster of Karimov is unclear for the moment, leading Washington backers of Karimov`s "democratic reform" have turned into hostile opponents. As one US commentator expressed it, "The character of the Karimov regime can no longer be ignored in deference to the strategic usefulness of Uzbekistan." Karimov has been targeted for a color revolution in the relentless Washington "war on tyranny".

In mid-June, Karimov`s government announced changes in terms for the US to use Uzbekistan`s Karshi-Khanabad military airbase, including a ban on night flights. Karimov is moving demonstrably closer to Moscow, and perhaps also to Beijing, in the latest chapter of the new "Great Game" for geopolitical control over Eurasia.

Following the Andijan events, Karimov revived the former "strategic partnership" with Moscow and also received a red-carpet welcome at the end of May in Beijing, including a 21-gun salute. At a June Brussels NATO meeting, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Ivanov backed Karimov, declaring there was no need for an international investigation of what happened in Andijan.

Tajikistan, bordering Afghanistan and China, is so far the only remaining Central Asian republic not yet to undergo a successful US-led color revolution. It`s not for lack of trying. For several years Washington has attempted to woo Dushanbe away from its close ties to Moscow, including the economic carrot of US backing for Tajik membership in the World Trade Organization. Beijing has also been active. China has recently upgraded military assistance to Tajikistan, and is keen to strengthen ties to all Central Asian republics standing between it and the energy resources to the Eurasian west, from Russia to Iran. The stakes are the highest for the oil-dependent China.

Washington playing the China card
The one power in Eurasia that has the potential to create a strategic combination which could checkmate US global dominance is China. However, China has an Achilles` heel, which Washington understands all too well - oil. Ten years ago China was a net oil exporter. Today China is the second-largest importer behind the US.

China`s energy demand is growing annually at a rate of more than 30%. China has feverishly been trying to secure long-term oil and gas supplies, especially since the Iraq war made clear to Beijing that Washington was out to control and militarize most of the world`s major oil and gas sources. A new wrinkle to the search for black gold, oil, is the clear data confirming that many of the world`s largest oilfields are in decline, while new discoveries fail to replace lost volumes of oil. It is a pre-programmed scenario for war. The only question is, with what weapons?

In recent months Beijing has signed major oil and economic deals with Venezuela and Iran. It has bid for a major Canadian resources company, and most recently made the audacious bid to buy California`s Unocal, a partner in the Caspian BTC pipeline. Chevron immediately stepped in with a counter bid to block China`s.

Beijing has recently also upgraded the importance of the four-year-old organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, or SCO. SCO consists of China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and Tajikistan. Not surprisingly, these are many of the states which are in the midst of US-backed attempts at soft coups or color revolutions. SCO`s July meeting list included an invitation to India, Pakistan and Iran to attend with observer status.

This June, the foreign ministers of Russia, China and India held a meeting in Vladivostock where they stressed the role of the United Nations, a move aimed clearly at Washington. India also discussed its project to invest and develop Russia`s Far East Sakhalin I, where it has already invested about $1 billion in oil and gas development. Significantly, at the meeting, Russia and China resolved a decades-long border dispute, and two weeks later in Beijing discussed potentials for development of Russia`s Siberian resources.

A close look at the map of Eurasia begins to suggest what is so vital here for China, and therefore for Washington`s future domination of Eurasia. The goal is not only strategic encirclement of Russia through a series of NATO bases ranging from Camp Bond Steel in Kosovo to Poland, to Georgia, possibly Ukraine and White Russia, which would enable NATO to control energy ties between Russia and the EU.

Washington policy now encompasses a series of "democratic" or soft coup projects which would strategically cut China off from access to the vital oil and gas reserves of the Caspian, including Kazakhstan. The earlier Asian Great Silk Road trade routes went through Tashkent in Uzbekistan and Almaty in Kazakhstan for geographically obvious reasons, in a region surrounded by major mountain ranges.

Geopolitical control of Uzbekistan, Kyrgystan and Kazakhstan would enable control of any potential pipeline routes between China and Central Asia, just as the encirclement of Russia allows for the control of pipeline and other ties between it and Western Europe, China, India and the Mideast.

In this context, the revealing Foreign Affairs article from Zbigniew Brzezinski from September/October 1997 is worth again quoting:

Eurasia is home to most of the world`s politically assertive and dynamic states. All the historical pretenders to global power originated in Eurasia. The world`s most populous aspirants to regional hegemony, China and India, are in Eurasia, as are all the potential political or economic challengers to American primacy. After the United States, the next six largest economies and military spenders are there, as are all but one of the world`s overt nuclear powers, and all but one of the covert ones. Eurasia accounts for 75% of the world`s population, 60% of its GNP [gross national product], and 75% of its energy resources. Collectively, Eurasia`s potential power overshadows even America`s.

Eurasia is the world`s axial supercontinent. A power that dominated Eurasia would exercise decisive influence over two of the world`s three most economically productive regions, Western Europe and East Asia. A glance at the map also suggests that a country dominant in Eurasia would almost automatically control the Middle East and Africa. With Eurasia now serving as the decisive geopolitical chessboard, it no longer suffices to fashion one policy for Europe and another for Asia. What happens with the distribution of power on the Eurasian landmass will be of decisive importance to America`s global primacy ...

This statement, written well before the US-led bombing of former Yugoslavia and the US occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, or the BTC pipeline, helps put recent Washington pronouncements about "ridding the world of tyranny" and about spreading democracy into a somewhat different context from the one usually mentioned by Bush.

"Elementary, my dear Watson. It`s about global hegemony, not democracy, you fool."

F William Engdahl, author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, from Pluto Press Ltd.

(Copyright 2005 F William Engdahl)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

6/28/2005
BushSpeech Final: U.S. - 0, B.S. - 1,744 and rising
M. Kane Jeeves (sometimes credited as Ed Naha)
http://mkanejeeves.com/?p=126

[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
“MAD TV” used to have a recurring sketch about, literally, ugly Americans trying to hook up via a dating service called “Lowered Expectations.” Today, the Bush Administration, aping that sketch, is lowering the bar on what we can count as a “mission accomplished” in our Iraq boondoggle.

Our fey Fearless Leader in a somnambulistic speech in front of a packed crowd of, what NeoCons refer to as, cannon fodder at Fort Bragg put the cap on the spiel. The underlying message of the speech was this: “We screwed up. We’re not going to admit it. You’re going to pay for this with money and blood. We’re not going to admit that. Remember 9/11. If you’re not with us, you’re weakling tools of terrorists. If you’re against this mission, you’re spitting on these troops.”

In short, this Administration’s Iraq policy has boiled down to a riff based on an old “National Lampoon” magazine cover showing a dog with a gun to its head. The headline? “Buy this magazine or we kill the dog.”

Gone are the halcyon days of Dick Cheney pontificating that American troops would be “greeted as liberators,” of Rumsfeld announcing that “I can’t say if the use of force would last five days or five weeks or five months, but it certainly isn’t going to last any longer than that” and the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board lackey Kenneth Adelman saying that the war would be a “cakewalk.”

Before we dissect Dubya’s speechifying, let’s examine what has led up to his appearance at Ft. Bragg. Every non-Fox poll has shown Americans to be P.O.’d (technical term, there) about what’s going on in Iraq. 1,744 American troops dead. Raise the flag, but don’t dare burn it.

Veep Dick Cheney, smelling reality, lied to Larry King about the Iraq insurgency (read: Iraqis) being in its “last throes.” When everyone howled about this comment, whilst car bombs were killings hundreds, he decided to resort to Webster’s Dictionary to define “throes.” (As in, this Administration Throes A Hail Mary Pass?)

When that didn’t stick and Americans decided to react to the real carnage going on, the Administration tossed out Karl “DoughBoy” Rove to try to slime the “liberals.” Well, that didn’t exactly work, either.

So, they sent out Rumsfeld who did the RoadRunner thing, dashing from one Sunday morning talk show to the next, last weekend, inadvertently stating that the insurgency might last as long as 12 years, later adding that, of course, by THAT time, America would be long gone and the Iraqis would be fighting the insurgency.

On Monday, the day before our War Prezdent’s speechification, Rumsfeld appeared with General George Casey, to try to ‘splain things. It was an interesting event. He lowered the bar so low that even a triple-jointed Limbo dancer couldn’t have slithered under it.

“Success for the coalition should not be defined as domestic tranquillity in Iraq,” he stated. (NOTE: cancel the order on those bouquets of flowers being tossed to the “liberators.”)

In terms of Americans rising up and saying “this war should never have been fought?,” he said: “Our American system places all of our faith and all of our hope in the people of our country, and the confidence that, given sufficient information (NOTE: because this Administration has been SO forthcoming with the facts.), over time they’ll find their way to the right decisions. (READ: BushCo.’s decisions.)”

Expounding upon this “Americans as idiots theme,” he said: “…it doesn’t take a genus to understand that the alternative is a — is to turn it back to the dark course, the path of Zarqawi and beheadings and that type of thing. I don’t think the American people want to go that direction….It’s a test of wills.”

So, if you’re opposed to this illegal war, you’re pro-beheadings, I guess.

Looking for a rimshot, he also offered: “It is hard, I understand, for people to connect all of the pieces, but the reality is we’re an awful lot better off fighting against the extremists and the terrorists in other parts of the world than having to do it here at home.”

Unfortunately, Department of Defense briefings don’t offer a laugh track.

General Casey, looking like an extra from an old John Wayne flick, dropped bromides like: “Iraq slowly gets better every day.” and “….they (the insurgents) have not stopped political and economic development in Iraq.” As we all know, oil is flowing in Iraq, business is booming (literally) and folks are dying to get to the local market place. Just look at the body count. Ack!

“To be sure,” Casey said, flatly, “the terrorists and insurgents are out to shake our will. But they will not succeed.” At that point, I half-expected someone to enter like in a Looney Tunes cartoon, yelling: “Programs! Getcher programs, here. You can’t tell a terrorist from an insurgent without y’er programs.”

Speaking of insurgents, a story broke over the weekend that Americans were actually having discussions with Iraqi terrorists or insurgents or people who spit in our general direction. General Casey said that he didn’t know about all that but “we may start moving there.”

Oy!

As tension mounted, the day before Dubya’s visit to Gasbag Gulch, Scotty McClellan drummed up support for the lame duck at his press briefing, exuding quite a bit of gas himself. From what orifice? You decide. “The President recognizes one of his most important responsibilities during a time of war is to keep the American people informed about the situation….In a time of testing like this, it’s important to let our troops know that the American people stand firmly with them as they seek to complete the mission….The terrorists are seeking to shake our will and weaken our resolve. They know they cannot win unless we abandon the mission before it is complete.”

At this point, Bush really didn’t have to show up on Tuesday. Everyone had said everything and, probably, more coherently.

Back to the press briefing. When a reporter asked Scotty if Bush was going to actually say anything NEW or if this speech was going to be the same ol’ same old, McClellan stated; “As I said, this is a new speech.”

He also added: “And the president made it clear after September 11th that some will want us to grow complacent and forget about, or put the attacks off as a distant memory. But it does require patience and resolve to see this struggle through to the end.”

I’m thinking the end of this is going to come as quickly as the end of Sisyphus’ rock rolling.

In short: we are sooooooo fucked.

Drum roll! Then, came the speech. Dubya strutted out like the cock o’ the walk and took his place behind the podium in silence. This was going to be serious and informative. Kinda. (NOTE: this bilge is edited. My comments are in parenthesis and CAPS.)

BUSH: Good evening. (HE LIED.)

…The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. The war reached our shores on September 11, 2001. (BUT THEN, WE DECIDED TO IGNORE THE REAL WAR AND INVADE IRAQ. KINDA KEWL, HUH? GO FIGURE.)

The terrorists who attacked us and the terrorists we face murder in the name of a totalitarian ideology that hates freedom, rejects tolerance and despises all dissent. (JUST LIKE WE DO!) …. To achieve these aims, they have continued to kill: in Madrid, Istanbul, Jakarta, Casablanca, Riyadh, Bali and elsewhere. (I’LL GOOGLE IT ALL, LATER. TRUST ME.)

The terrorists believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent ….(WELL, MAYBE. DON’T MENTION HALLIBURTON OR KEN LAY OR…)

After September the 11th, I made a commitment to the American people: This nation will not wait to be attacked again. (LIKE WE DID ON MY WATCH. WASN’T MY FAULT. I WAS READING. GOOD BOOK, TOO. GONNA FINISH IT SOME DAY. THAT GOAT IS SUMPTHIN.’) We will defend our freedom. We will take the fight to the enemy. (EVEN IF THEY AREN’T OUR ENEMY. BUT THEY LOOK LIKE ONE. )

Many terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York and Washington and Pennsylvania. (BUT I CAN’T REALLY TALK ABOUT THAT IDEOLOGY BECAUSE, WEE-DOGGIES, I’M JUST PAINTING ALL A-RABS WITH A BIG BRUSH, HERE. BUT YOU CAN SPOT ‘EM. THEY WEAR TURBANS AND HAVE THESE WEIRD BEARDS? AND THE WOMEN DRESS IN HALLOWEEN COSTUMES, LIKE THAT GAL FROM THE ADDAMS’ FAMILY. THOSE FOLKS ARE THE ONES I’M TALKIN’ ‘BOUT. YA’ DIG?)

There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. (THINK I SEEN ONE AT A STARBUCKS, YESTERDAY! THEY WERE ORDERING ORDINARY COFFEE! THOSE FILTHY HEATHENS. I ORDERED THEM TO BE SNATCHED UP AND SENT TO GITMO.)

The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us. (MY OWN BUSHCO. SPEECH # 113-C.)

The work in Iraq is difficult and it is dangerous. Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed. Every picture is horrifying, and the suffering is real. (‘COURSE, YOU FOLKS CAN’T SEE NO DEAD AMERICAN BODIES, ‘CAUSE THAT WOULD RILE YEZ UP. CAN’T HAVE THAT, NOSSIR.)

Amid all this violence, I know Americans ask the question: Is the sacrifice worth it? (WELL, AMERICANS WHO CAN ACTUALLY READ ASK THAT.)

Some of the violence you see in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom. Our military reports that we have killed or captured hundreds of foreign fighters in Iraq who have come from Saudi Arabia and Syria, Iran, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, Libya and others. (JUST DON’T ASK ANY OF THE GENERALS OVER THERE, ‘CAUSE THEY SAY MOST OF THESE TROUBLE-MAKERS ARE IRAQIS!)

…They are making common cause with criminal elements, Iraqi insurgents and remnants of Saddam Hussein’s regime who want to restore the old order.
They fight because they know that the survival of their hateful ideology is at stake. (KINDA LIKE WE DO! I MEAN, THOSE LIBERALS? WASN’T KARL GREAT LAST WEEK, A-HEH-HEH.)

Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. (THANKS TO ME.)

Here are the words of Osama bin Laden: “This third world war is raging” in Iraq. “The whole world is watching this war.” He says it will end “in victory and glory or misery and humiliation.” (SO, HERE I STAND. THANKS FOR THE LAST ELECTION.)

…We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul. (WHILE WE WERE DROPPING NAPALM ON FALUJAH.)

We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who behead civilian hostages and broadcast their atrocities for the world to see. (WHILE WE JUST TORTURE PEOPLE IN SECRET.)

These are savage acts of violence, but they have not brought the terrorists any closer to achieving their strategic objectives. The terrorists, both foreign and Iraqi, failed to stop the transfer of sovereignty. They failed to break our coalition and force a mass withdrawal by our allies. (UM, I CAN’T NAME ANY OF ‘EM RIGHT NOW, EXCEPT FOR THE BRITS. GIMME A MINUTE. OH, YEAH. THE POLACKS. ARE THEY GONE, YET? AT LEAST I GOT A KILBASA OUTTA THAT DEAL. REAL GOOD ON A BAR-BE-KYEW.)

The lesson of this experience is clear: The terrorists can kill the innocent, but they cannot stop the advance of freedom. The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September the 11th, if we abandon the Iraqi people to men like Zarqawi and if we yield the future of the Middle East to men like bin Laden. (GOTCHA CONFUSED, YET? LEMME PUT IT TO YA THIS WAY. 9/11 EQUALS IRAQ. BREATHE IN DEEPLY. CHANT. 9/11. 9/11. 9/11.)

For the sake of our nation’s security, this will not happen on my watch. (LIKE 9/11 DID. OOPSIE.)

A little over a year ago, I spoke to the nation and described our coalition’s goal in Iraq. I said that America’s mission in Iraq is to defeat an enemy and give strength to a friend — a free, representative government that is an ally in the war on terror and a beacon of hope in a part of the world that is desperate for reform. (SO, I DIDN’T QUITE GET THAT RIGHT. SUE ME.)

…One year ago today, we restored sovereignty to the Iraqi people. (WHEN PAUL BREMMER TOSSED OUR STOOGES THE PAPERS WHEN ON THE LAM, UNDER DARKNESS, TO HIS CHOPPER TO GET HIM OUT OF THAT SAND PIT A.S.A.P..)

…We are improving roads and schools and health clinics. We’re working to improve basic services like sanitation, electricity and water. And together with our allies, we will help the new Iraqi government deliver a better life for its citizens. (MAYBE, OVER THE NEXT TEN YEARS, WE CAN GET LIFE BACK TO WHAT IT WAS UNDER SADDAM. DAMN! DID YOU KNOW THEY HAD NIGHTCLUBS AND DISCOS? KARL NEVER TOLD ME THAT!)

…Today, Iraq has more than 160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions (INCLUDING DODGING, DUCKING AND RUNNING AWAY). Iraqi forces have fought bravely, helping to capture terrorists and insurgents in Najaf and Samara, Fallujah and Mosul. (OKAY, SO ZERO OUT OF FOUR ISN’T TOO BAD. LOOK AT THE METS!) And in the past month, Iraqi forces have led a major anti- terrorist campaign in Baghdad called Operation Lightning, which has led to the capture of hundreds of suspected insurgents. (OR, SUNNIS THAT THE SHIITES WANTED IN JAIL.)

Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended by their own countrymen, and we are helping Iraqis assume those duties. (OKAY, ONE OF THE BIGGEST DUTIES IS SPRINTING!)

The progress in the past year has been significant, and we have a clear path forward. (OR BACKWARDS. LOOK, THE CRUSADES WERE PRETTY KEWL. I MEAN, THAT ARMOR?)

To complete the mission, we will continue to hunt down the terrorists and insurgents. (OR ANYone WITH A TOWEL ON HIS HEAD. I GET THEM CONFUSED. IS OSAMA THERE?)

And the best way to complete the mission is to help Iraqis build a free nation that can govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself. (I’M THINKING, A FLYING CARPET SQUADRON! MAYBE GET MYSELF A GENERAL SINBAD OR SOMETHING. GOSHDARN. WISH WE’D GOTTEN THAT GENIE IN A BOTTLE BEFORE THE IRAQIS LOOTED THAT DADGUM MUSEUM.)

…Our strategy can be summed up this way: As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down. (OR FALL DOWN, OR ROLL OVER, OR SLITHER AWAY BEFORE MY FELLOW AMERICANS FIGURE OUT THIS IS A CON JOB.)

We have made progress, but we have a lot more work to do. (I’M RIDING MY BIKE THIS AFTERNOON.)

Today, Iraqi security forces are at different levels of readiness. Some are capable of taking on the terrorists and insurgents by themselves. A large number can plan and execute anti- terrorist operations with coalition support. The rest are forming and not yet ready to participate fully in security operations. (MOST OF THEM ARE HIDING.)

…NATO is establishing a military academy near Baghdad to train the next generation of Iraqi military leaders, and 17 nations are contributing troops to the NATO training mission. Iraqi army and police are being trained by personnel from Italy (WHO DID SO WELL IN W.W. II.) , Germany (THE IRAQIS MARCH REAL GOOD, NOW, BUT THEIR LEGS SEEM REAL STIFF.), Ukraine (FOLK DANCING 101. THEY LOVE IT.) , Turkey (BRING A FEZ!) , Poland (INSURGENTS HATE POLKAS. IT’S A FACT. IT’S SOME SORT OF ISLAM/ACCORDION THAING.) , Romania (THEY CONTRIBUTED WOLFMAN T-SHIRTS TO THE OFFICIAL UNIFORMS.) , Australia (CROCODILE DUNDEE HATS ARE BETTER THAN TURBANS.) and the United Kingdom (IRAQI TROOPS NOW DRILL TO THE STRAINS OF OASIS.).

Today, dozens of nations are working toward a common objective: an Iraq that can defend itself, defeat its enemies and secure its freedom. (AND GET MY ASS OUT OF THIS SLING.)

…Some contend that we should set a deadline for withdrawing U.S. forces. Let me explain why that would be a serious mistake. (LIKE I REALLY KNOW WHAT A MISTAKE IS?)

Setting an artificial timetable would send the wrong message to the Iraqis, who need to know that America will not leave before the job is done. (OKAY, SO I HAVEN’T QUITE DEFINED THE JOB.)

…Some Americans ask me, If completing the mission is so important, why don’t you send more troops? (BECAUSE I’M ALREADY IN DEEP SHIT.)

If our commanders on the ground say we need more troops, I will send them. But our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job. (AS OPPOSED TO THOSE OLD GUYS I FIRED FOR DISAGREEING WITH ME.)

…We are fighting against men with blind hatred and armed with lethal weapons who are capable of any atrocity. They wear no uniform; they respect no laws of warfare or morality. They take innocent lives to create chaos for the cameras. (MUST NOT SLIP AND SAY ‘ABU GHRAIB.’)

…They are trying to shake our will in Iraq, just as they tried to shake our will on September 11, 2001. They will fail. (NEW YORK? BAGHDAD? HELL, IF YOU’VE LISTENED THIS LONG…LOOK INTO MY EYES. YOU VILL OBEY, OBEY!)

The terrorists do not understand America. The American people do not falter under threat, and we will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins. (PLEASEGOD. BECAUSE REPUBLICANS DEPEND ON THAT IN THE ‘06 ELECTIONS.)

America and our friends (WE STILL HAVE FRIENDS?) are in a conflict that demands much of us.

We accept these burdens because we know what is at stake. (MY PARTY’S ASS.)

We fight today because Iraq now carries the hope of freedom in a vital region of the world, and the rise of democracy will be the ultimate triumph over radicalism and terror. (THE EXACT OPPOSITE OF MY HOME TURF.)

And we fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand. (WHERE THEY NEVER CONSIDERED GOING BEFORE. MY BAD. BUT, HEY, I’M THE KIND OF GUY YOU’D WANT TO HAVE A BEER WITH, RIGHT?)

So we’ll fight them there, we’ll fight them across the world, and we will stay in the fight until the fight is won. (I HOPE LAURA MAKES FISHSTICKS TONIGHT. WHAT WAS I TALKING ABOUT?)

…But Americans have always held firm, because we have always believed in certain truths. We know that if evil is not confronted, it gains in strength and audacity and returns to strike us again. (I SEEN THOSE LORD OF THE RINGS FILMS. ) We know that when the work is hard, the proper response is not retreat, it is courage. (OR GETTING YOUR DAD TO BAIL YOU OUT OF WHATEVER MESS YOU’RE IN….INCLUDING THE NATIONAL GUARD.) And we know that this great ideal of human freedom entrusted to us in a special way and that the ideal of liberty is worth defending.

I thank our military families. The burden of war falls especially hard on you. (BUT NOT ME OR CHENEY! HA-HA-HA!)

In this war, we have lost good men and women who left our shores to defend freedom and did not live to make the journey home. (SUCKERS. DID YOU THINK YOU’D LIVE TO GET YOUR BENEFITS?)

I’ve met with families grieving the loss of loved ones who were taken from us too soon. I’ve been inspired by their strength in the face of such great loss. (SO, I’M CUTTING BACK V.A. BENEFITS FURTHER. ‘UNDERFUNDING’ IS MY MIDDLE NAME.)

…I thank those of you who’ve re-enlisted in an hour when your country needs you. (BECAUSE I NEVER WOULD. AND I CAN’T RE-START THE DRAFT WITHOUT GOING DOWN IN FLAMES.)

…After September 11, 2001, I told the American people that the road ahead would be difficult and that we would prevail. Well, it has been difficult and we are prevailing. (EXCEPT FOR YOU LITTLE FOLK WHO DON’T EARN A COOL MILLION A YEAR AND, IF NEAR STARVATION, HAVE TO SHUNT YOUR KIDS INTO THE CANNON FODDER BRIGADE. JUST LISTEN TO SOME COUNTRY MUSIC. IT’LL HELP.)

Our enemies are brutal, but they are no match for the United States of America, and they are no match for the men and women of the United States military. (AND THEY’RE NO MATCH FOR THE POLLS. SO, PEOPLE? LISSEN UP! I’M YOUR WAR PREZNENT. BELIEVE IN ME. I’LL PAY YOU. I GOT MONEY. LOTS OF IT. GIMME A BREAK, HERE, WILLYA? LOOKIT THESE FLAGS AROUND ME. LOOK AT THESE KIDS IN UNIFORM! IS THIS SUMPTHIN’ OR WHUT?)

Bush also asked us, this coming 4th of July, to salute our troops and fly our flags high.

END OF SPEECH. BEGINNING OF PUNDIT TALK CONGRATULATING JUNIOR ON READING OFF TELE-PROMPTERS AND NOT PISSING DOWN HIS LEG.

Hours before Obi-Wan-Kidumby gave his speech? A suicide car bombing north of Baghdad killed the oldest member of Iraq’s fledgling parliament, while several other attacks killed two US soldiers and injured three more.

As of this moment in time? 1,744 U.S. troops dead. A total of 1,932 “coalition” forces dead. At least 100,000 Iraqis dead, depending on who’s counting.

For what?

“A test of wills?”

For Dubya? Carnage means never to have to say you’re sorry.

He’s the Commander-In-Chief, remember?

And, if you don’t follow, blindly…. you’re dissing the troops.

Final tally: U.S.: 0, B.S.: 1,744.

God save America.

July 4th? Fly those flags. Upside down. Our troops are in trouble and only WE can save them. Remember that in ‘06.

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Baby George In The Land Of The Bubble People
by Phil Rockstroh
http://dissidentvoice.org/June05/Rockstroh0628.htm

June 28, 2005

In the early 1970s, when George W. Bush was shirking his National Guard duties in Alabama, state Republican Party insiders tagged him with the moniker, “The Texas Soufflé,” due to his habitual arrogance, ceaseless indulgence in braggadocio, and preening sense of privilege and entitlement.

At present, after nearly half a decade of Bush’s soufflé presidency and the rise of what could be termed soufflé economics, soufflé energy policies, and soufflé jingoism, I think those Alabama party hacks were being charitable in their characterization of Bush, because the composition of any given soufflé is too subtle and far too much care must be taken in its preparation to be an apt analogy for his obtuse, crude persona.

More accurately, Duyba should be compared with a bubble blown from a wad of trust fund bubble gum.

This might explain the reason he sees threats everywhere: The earth bristles with those who would pierce his bubble of privilege and ignorance . . . would topple him from his throne of grandiosity . . . would knock the tin crown of entitlement from his ego-tumescent head.

Bush, insulated from reality and in the thrall of obsessive self-regard and overweening pride, has never been tempered by the consequences of his actions.

In this, Bush is merely a reflection of an era dominated by the virtually unfettered power of the military/corporate security state: he is a byproduct of Viagra militarism and jack-shack economics -- whereby limp-dick, aging men conflate their pharmaceutically-induced hard-ons into delusions of unflagging power and potency, if not the mandates of heaven. They believe they have become the earthly embodiment of the Phallus of God -- the Cosmic Johnson of Jehovah. They are delusional, yet their flaccid, military/corporatist fantasies have risen to become the Dick (Cheney) of Death.

Bastard child of this hegemonic cluster-fuck, his majesty the baby, George W. Bush, throws global-wide tantrums of thwarted entitlement.

Indulged and protected by wealth and privilege, Bush has lived a life devoid of the depth and compassion gained by the interplay of experience and introspection. In his world, informed by infantile omnipotence and macho narcissism, superficial symbols become paramount.

As Bush exemplifies, the childish minds of totalitarian personalities are particularly enamored with symbols of military power. This is why dictators swoon over their own reflection when they don over-the-top military uniforms, and, accordingly, why little Dubya lives to play dress-up. The vestments of martial power serve as compensation for the despot’s inner sense of weakness and vulnerability. But, because power is addictive, the relief is only palliative and comes at a terrible price. Soon, more and more blandishments of macho-narcissistic armor are required to keep at bay feelings of internal weakness -- feelings that are only exacerbated when the world beyond takes up a defensive stance against his belligerence.

However, the world is far too large and intricate -- and the human heart too complicated -- to be controlled by even the most ruthless tyrants. Throughout history, even the most cunning and powerful despots -- those who constructed the murderous mechanisms of absolute power around themselves -- faltered and fell. Reduced to a joke, a historical sight gag, with their silly uniforms and shiny boots, inevitably, every last strutting, preening one of them (including George W. Bush) will matriculate through the university of higher humiliation known as the vastness of life.

How long did the Thousand Year Reich of the Nazis last -- twelve years?

If you put your ear to the ground, you can hear the dynamo hum of tyrants rotating in their graves . . . this is the closest thing we will ever have to a perpetual motion machine.

Deep down totalitarian personality types such as Dubya realize the truth: they know, in the end, they too will join the subterranean machinery of rotisserie tyrants.

If we could power hybrid cars with the rage generated when Bush’s and his administration’s sense of endless entitlement is thwarted by the larger realities of the world, we could drive Humvee/Prius hybrids to Mars.

Living (or a pale facsimile thereof) within the confines of his self-inflated bubble is the tyrant’s defense against the threats he perceives from the realities of the outer world to his grandiose (and therefore fragile) sense of self. The Bubble Prone Personality (BPP) must maintain absolute control over his environment at all costs. (Watch how Bush goes into meltdown during those rare events when he is not protected by the cordon sanitaire of staged and scripted events.) Accordingly, for control to be maintained, a closed system must be rigorously established and maintained. Secrecy and ideological rigidity are essential. Openness creates feelings of vulnerability; feelings of vulnerability engender paranoia; paranoia creates the urge to purge; purging creates even more feelings of paranoia; these generate even more feelings of vulnerability -- and that, in turn, causes those enclosed within the bubble to grow more fearful and to strive for even greater secrecy, conformity, security, and control. In short, a day in the life within the proto-fascistic Bush administration.

Yet closed systems contain the seeds of their own destruction: To preserve the illusion of absolute order, the apparatus needed to maintain the protective bubble must grow larger and more complex, and, as a consequence, it becomes increasingly chaotic and unstable. Reacting to the perceived lack of control, the rulers of Bubble Land, now plangent with paranoia, institute even more rigid codes of secrecy and conformity. All of this necessitates the establishment of still larger and more elaborate systems of control, which, in turn, create even more complexity, and more disorder, thereby, continually expanding the cycle of instability that, instead of preserving the system, ends by accelerating its demise.

Worse, the obsessive striving to maintain the closed system is not only suicidal, it can become homicidal as well. Because as the absolutist system continues to grow more insular, inflexible and chaotic, the world outside of it appears increasingly hostile, dangerous, and threatening . . . an attack seems imminent.

This is how an isolated terrorist attack is viewed as a prelude to permanent war. Hence, the paranoid fantasy of the “clash of civilizations” is born.

In the United States, even before 9/11/2001, before the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, corporatism, suburbanization, and class isolation had already created an insular, bubble culture.

Daily, bubble-butt consumers sit isolated inside their bubble-butt cars, trucks and SUVs. Bubble-circumscribed suburbs and exurbs float farther and farther away from civic life and communal engagement. The corporatist classes, including elected officials and media elites, most of whom seem to harbor a thinly-veiled contempt toward the public they self-righteously profess to serve, continue to separate themselves from the rest of us by fostering increasing gaps of wealth and privilege. Today, the gap has widened to such an extent that they have come to inhabit a self-serving, self-referential universe informed predominantly by careerism and cynical opportunism.

The Bush administration is a mere reflection of the bubble-wrapped people of the US and their outright disregard of anything on earth that does not serve their selfish, short-term needs and cravings. Bubble Boy Bush merely mirrors our hidden aspirations and agendas -- which can be summed up thus: of paramount importance -- the end all, be all of all things -- is my comfort level. All things in creation exist solely to serve this end.

Yet a dreadful knowledge gnaws beneath the surface of our awareness: at a deeper level, we Americans realize that in order to live in the manner we have become accustomed, we must continue to plunder the resources of the world at a rapacious rate -- and we know that our actions are not only unethical, but unsustainable as well.

But the implications of acknowledging these realities are too overwhelming. The knowledge that we maintain “our way of life” on the bartered blood of the innocent is too unnerving and damning.

We banish such thoughts from our minds, yet they arise as a host of diffuse anxieties and distorted fears. In addition, the dilemma is steeped in bitter irony: for the more anxious we grow, the more desperate we become for reassurance. And what do we find reassuring? Well, of course, the bubble-enclosed life we have always known. It must be maintained at all costs.

Therefore, we crave even greater levels of comfort: Our gas-guzzling motor vehicles must be made larger; our food portions bigger; anti-depression and anti-anxiety medications must be made even more widely available. Meanwhile, the bubble swells to the bursting point.

Of course, for us to remain in denial the world`s resources must be plundered at an even faster rate and by even more ruthless means, which, in turn, causes us to suffer yet more underlying unease. This creates a feedback loop whereby we crave even more of what has been destroying our peace of mind in the first place. The skin of the bubble stretches to its limits.

Against this canvas of mutually-reinforcing cultural madness, our delusions of absolute power are punctured by the realities on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan, while on the domestic front, rising oil prices plus the looming consequences of oil depletion, ever-expanding personal and governmental debt, and an inflated housing market (to cite only a few examples) threaten to burst our comfort zone bubble.

All around us, here in The Land of the Bubble People, the sharpened tips of reality bristle as we Americans, borne upon a tailwind of governmental/corporate lies and the airhead currents of our complicity, drift ever closer to our moment of reckoning with the pointed edge of penetrating truth.

Phil Rockstroh, a self-described, auto-didactic, gasbag monologist, is a poet, lyricist, and philosopher bard, living in New York City. He maybe contacted at: [e-mail].

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Das Ende eines Traums?

washingtonpost.com
Poll Examines Schwarzenegger Re-Election
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06…

By BETH FOUHY
The Associated Press
Wednesday, June 29, 2005; 12:13 PM

SAN FRANCISCO -- A majority of California voters does not want to see Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger re-elected, according to the latest poll showing the Republican`s political appeal sliding.

The nonpartisan Field Poll of registered voters found that just 39 percent said they were inclined to give Schwarzenegger a second term, while 57 percent were not. As recently as February, the numbers were almost reversed, with 56 percent saying they were inclined to re-elect Schwarzenegger and just 42 percent were not.

A series of polls released by Field researchers indicates Schwarzenegger has lost considerable ground among voters in recent months. The drop in the governor`s popularity has coincided with his push for a fall special election for voters to consider several ballot measures aimed at curbing the power of Democrats and public employee unions in state government.

Earlier installments of the poll have shown that Schwarzenegger`s job approval ratings have tumbled amid voters expressing skepticism about the special election and tepid support for his ballot measures.

Schwarzenegger has repeatedly said he would favor negotiating an agreement with legislators over the ballot measures that could avert a contentious showdown in the fall.

Still, the findings released Wednesday show that Schwarzenegger has fallen out of favor with almost every major demographic group.

The governor still enjoys considerable support among Republican voters, with 71 percent saying they were inclined to re-elect him.

But the poll found that 83 percent of Democrats, who form the majority of the state`s registered voters, would oppose a second term, as would 61 percent of independent voters. Solid majorities of Hispanic voters and women also say they do not want to see the governor re-elected.

"This is a definite turn away from the governor," Field Poll director Mark DiCamillo said. "It`s fallen so far, so fast and in a very broad-based way."

Todd Harris, a Schwarzenegger political adviser who is working on the special election campaign, said the poll results on a distant would-be election didn`t concern him.

"It`s June of `05 and they`re talking about November `06," Harris said. "I`m not exactly losing sleep over a poll that asks voters about a hypothetical ballot matchup that is 17 months away."

Schwarzenegger has not yet announced whether he plans to seek a second term.

The poll found that the governor`s sagging political fortunes have bolstered the status of two Democrats who have announced they are running for governor. In hypothetical one-on-one matchups, the poll found that voters would chose state Treasurer Phil Angelides or Controller Steve Westly over Schwarzenegger.

However, the poll found voters would favor the former action movie star over two other well-known Hollywood faces, director Rob Reiner and actor Warren Beatty. Both are active in Californina politics but have not signaled any intention to run for governor.

The poll of 711 registered voters was conducted from June 13 to June 19 and had a sampling error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.

___

On the Net:

www.field.com
© 2005 The Associated Press

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

!

Dieser Beitrag wurde vom System automatisch gesperrt. Bei Fragen wenden Sie sich bitte an [e-mail]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]


[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]

Hello, And Welcome To The Compassionate Conservative Mental Health Hotline. If you are obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2 for you. If you have multiple personalities, press 3, 4, 5 and 6. If you are paranoid, we know who you are and what you want. Stay on the line so we can trace your call. If you are delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mother ship. If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a small voice will tell you which number to press. If you are a manic-depressive, it doesn`t matter which number you press. No one will answer. If you are dyslexic, press 9696969696969. If you have a nervous disorder, please fidget with the hash key until a representative comes on the line. If you have amnesia, press 8 and state your name, address, phone number, date of birth, social security number and your mother`s maiden name. If you have post-traumatic stress disorder, slowly and carefully press 000. If you have bi-polar disorder, please leave a message after the beep or before the beep. Or after the beep. Please wait for the beep. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9. If you have short-term memory loss, press 9 . If you have Iow self esteem, please hang up. All our operators are too busy to talk to you. Thank you for calling. We hope to hear from you soon.

*

*

*

[Table align=center]
for
June, 2005
JOHN BOLTON
[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=7331…
[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Jun 30, 2005

Bush`s mission implausible
By Ian Williams
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF30Ak01.html

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
For several years after September 11, 2001, President George W Bush`s major pronouncements were often made in military bases in front of serried uniformed ranks unlikely to heckle or catcall. On each occasion he usually wore some military garb, giving rise to the quip that he was seen in uniform more often than Fidel Castro.

So it was surprising and not very astute for him to give a major policy speech at Fort Bragg, North Carolina on Tuesday night. The base is named after a Confederate general and a year ago claimed to have assembled a "team to capture deserters". On this occasion at least, the president eschewed any visible item of military uniform.

However, the martial background of Fort Bragg dangerously recalled the best backdrop never to be used in a political campaign –when weeks after the war had started the president landed in full pilot`s outfit on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln. The ship sported a huge banner declaring "Mission Accomplished". By the time of the election, it was of course clear that the declaration was more than a little optimistic. Two years later, it is the last thing he wants to remind people about.

But the discipline of this military audience was not matched by the civilian members of his administration. In the few days before, Vice President Dick Cheney insisted that the Iraqi insurgents were on the brink of defeat, while Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was planning for 12 more years of war.

The president`s advisors say he was offering clarity. There is little sign of it, apart from a depressing endorsement of Rumsfeld`s pessimism. He asked himself whether the war was worth it, and answered himself that "it is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country". In contrast, polls show that Americans are dubious about the president, about his motivations for the war and whether it was a good thing.

Even the polls that show that most Americans oppose an immediate pullout from Iraq offer scant comfort. The attitude seems to be regretful, "We broke it, so it`s our job to fix it," a view elaborated by several veterans` groups who opposed the war, but do not want to leave ordinary Iraqis to the tender mercies of the forces the invasion has attracted and unleashed. That does not amount to ringing endorsement of the presidential record.

Certainly, voters are in a more questioning mode now, and they are far less likely to accept the president`s reassertion, or rather reimplication, that Saddam Hussein was behind September 11.

His speech was carefully constructed. If you parse it grammatically, you will not see a direct statement that Saddam was behind September 11. But most of the audience are not grammarians and semanticists. That was certainly the clear, and essentially dishonest, reason he offered for the war. However, there was no evidence then, and he produced none now, to prove the allegation.

When he said "Our mission in Iraq is clear. We`re hunting down the terrorists," increasing numbers of Americans are aware that the "terrorists" are actually flocking to Iraq because of the American invasion, not because they were there earlier.

Two years ago, he could get away with that more easily. In the run-up to the invasion, the nightly triptych of the TV screens, the pictures of Osama bin Laden, the burning World Trade Center and Saddam all under the title "War on Terror" could persuade 70% of Americans. But it has been a long time since bin Laden has been shown on television: it could remind people that he has not been found and that Saddam is no substitute.

However, adding to his troubles, the "Downing Street memos" - the documents from Britain which confirmed the suspicions of many that the war had been decided on long before it was launched, have moved from the Internet readers of the British press into mainstream American newspapers, with open discussions.

The speech mentioned weapons of mass destruction in Libya that were given up after the war. But no more mentioned the absence of them in Iraq than it did the strong opinion of many foreign-policy experts that the war was in fact the reason why North Korea now has them.

The appeal to the troops did allow the president to invoke the coming Independence Day celebrations and appeal to patriotism. "This fourth of July, I ask you to find a way to thank the men and women defending our freedom - by flying the flag, sending a letter to our troops in the field, or helping the military family down the street. The Department of Defense has set up a website - AmericaSupportsYou.mil. You can go there to learn about private efforts in your own community."

It does not take too much cynicism to foresee the Republican media trying to sweep up a wave of demonstrative patriotism in the next few days, hoping that an appeal to "support-our-troops" sentiment will drown out rational questions about why they were put in harm`s way to begin with.

Perhaps there is no better gauge than recruitment figures. The military is losing experienced people who are not re-enlisting. They are failing to meet their recruitment quotas, despite widely reported lowered standards and unprecedented activism by recruiters in schools and colleges.

Originally coy about carrying the speech, the networks cancelled some reruns to run it live, persuaded by the White House press office that there was a major policy statement coming. There wasn`t. And Bush probably did himself no favors by broadcasting a pep talk intended for troops already committed to action to much more skeptical civilians.

In a way, his most remarkable achievement, with his social security reform dead in the water, his United Nations ambassador-designate held hostage by the Senate, and the continuing maelstrom in Iraq, is to look like a lame-duck president only six months into his second term.

Ian Williams is author of Deserter: Bush`s War on Military Families, Veterans and His Past, Nation Books, New York.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

God`s Country?

In a preview of this weekend`s Times Magazine, a proposal for redrawing the line between church and state.

July 3, 2005
A Church-State Solution
By NOAH FELDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/magazine/03CHURCH.html?

I. THE EXPERIMENT

For roughly 1,400 years, from the time the Roman Empire became Christian to the American Revolution, the question of church and state in the West always began with a simple assumption: the official religion of the state was the religion of its ruler. Sometimes the king fought the church for control of religious institutions; other times, the church claimed power over the state by asserting religious authority over the sovereign himself. But the central idea, formally enshrined at Westphalia in 1648 by the treaty that ended the wars of religion in Europe, was that each region would have its own religion, namely that of the sovereign. The rulers, meanwhile, manipulated religion to serve their own ends. Writing just before the American Revolution, the British historian Edward Gibbon opined that the people believed, the philosophers doubted and the magistrates exploited. Gibbon`s nominal subject was ancient Rome, but his readers understood that he was talking about their world too.

[Table align=right]

Photomontage by Jason Fulford for The New York Times.
[/TABLE]
All this changed with the radical idea, introduced during the American Revolution, that the people were sovereign. This arrangement profoundly disturbed the old model of church and state. To begin with, America was religiously diverse: how could the state establish the religion of the sovereign when the sovereign people in America belonged to many faiths -- Congregationalist, Anglican, Presbyterian, Baptist, Quaker? Furthermore, the sovereign people would actively believe in religion instead of cynically manipulating it, and elite skeptics would no longer be whispering in the ears of power. Religion would be a genuinely popular, even thriving, political force.

This model called for a new understanding of church and state, and the framers of the American Constitution rose to the occasion. They designed a national government that, for the first time in Western history, had no established religion at all. The Articles of Confederation, which were drawn up during the Revolutionary War, had been silent on religion -- itself something of an innovation. But the Constitution went further by prohibiting any religious test for holding office. And the first words of the First Amendment stated that ``Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.`` If the people were to be sovereign, and belonged to different religions, the state religion would be no religion at all. Otherwise, the reasoning went, too many religious denominations would be in competition to make theirs the official choice, and none could prevail without coercing dissenters to support a church other than their own -- a violation of the liberty of conscience that Americans had come to believe was a God-given right. Establishment of religion at the national level was prohibited. Religious diversity had ensured it. The experiment had begun.

II. OUR PRESENT PREDICAMENT

During the two and a quarter centuries since America`s founding, the experiment has progressed fitfully. The nonestablishment of religion, with a simultaneous guarantee of its free exercise, was an elegant solution but not a complete one. Generation after generation, fresh infusions of religious diversity into American life have brought with them original ideas about church and state -- new answers to the challenge of preserving the unity of the sovereign people in the face of their flourishing spiritual variety and often conflicting religious needs.

Consider the influx of Catholic immigrants that followed the Irish potato famine in the 1840`s. In the overwhelmingly Protestant world of the framers` America, there was a common belief that taxation for religious purposes violated religious liberty. As a result, when public schools were invented a few decades later, they featured only ``nonsectarian`` Bible reading and prayer. But Catholic immigrants soon protested that the schools` nonsectarianism -- in which the Protestant King James Bible was free to be interpreted by the individual student but not by the teacher (let alone a priest) -- was in fact sectarian Protestantism in disguise. The unsuccessful struggle of Catholic immigrants to have their own schools publicly financed or, failing that, to take the King James Bible out of the public schools, generated half a century of vituperative and sometimes deadly struggle.

In our own era, two camps dominate the church-state debate in American life, corresponding to what are now the two most prominent approaches to the proper relation of religion and government. One school of thought contends that the right answers to questions of government policy must come from the wisdom of religious tradition. You might call those who insist on the direct relevance of religious values to political life ``values evangelicals.`` Not every values evangelical is, technically speaking, an evangelical or a born-again Christian, although many are. Values evangelicals include Jews, Catholics, Muslims and even people who do not focus on a particular religious tradition but care primarily about identifying traditional moral values that can in theory be shared by everyone.

What all values evangelicals have in common is the goal of evangelizing for values: promoting a strong set of ideas about the best way to live your life and urging the government to adopt those values and encourage them wherever possible. To them, the best way to hold the United States together as a nation, not just a country, is for us to know what values we really hold and to stand up for them. As Ralph Reed recently told an audience at Harvard, ``While we are sometimes divided on issues, there remains a broad national consensus on core values and principles.``

On the other side of the debate are those who see religion as a matter of personal belief and choice largely irrelevant to government and who are concerned that values derived from religion will divide us, not unite us. You might call those who hold this view ``legal secularists,`` not because they are necessarily strongly secular in their personal worldviews -- though many are -- but because they argue that government should be secular and that the laws should make it so. To the legal secularists, full citizenship means fully sharing in the legal and political commitments of the nation. If the nation defines itself in terms of values drawn from religion, they worry, then it will inevitably tend to adopt the religious values of the majority, excluding religious minorities and nonreligious people from full citizenship.

Despite the differences, each approach, values evangelicalism and legal secularism, is trying to come to terms with the same fundamental tension in American life. The United States has always been home to striking religious diversity -- diversity that has by fits and starts expanded over the last 230 years. At the same time, we strive to be a nation with a common identity and a common project. Religious division threatens that unity, as we can see today more clearly than at any time in a century in the disputes over stem-cell research, same-sex marriage and end-of-life issues. Yet almost all Americans want to make sure that we do not let our religious diversity pull us apart. Values evangelicals say that the solution lies in finding and embracing traditional values we can all share and without which we will never hold together. Legal secularists counter that we can maintain our national unity only if we treat religion as a personal, private matter, separate from concerns of citizenship. The goal of reconciling national unity and religious diversity is the same, but the methods for doing it are deeply opposed.

Yet neither legal secularism nor values evangelicalism has lived up to its own aspirations. Each promises inclusion, but neither has delivered. To make matters worse, the conflict between these two approaches is becoming a political and constitutional crisis all its own. Talk of secession of blue states from red in the aftermath of the 2004 election was not meant seriously; but this kind of dark musing, with its implicit reference to the Civil War, is also not coincidental. It bespeaks a division deeper than any other in our public life, a division that cannot be healed by the victory of either side.

III. CLOSING THE RIFT

The split between legal secularism and values evangelicalism was not born in a day. Legal secularism arose in the post-World War II era, reflecting a growing concern about the need to protect religious minorities, especially newly visible Jews who were arguably excluded by public displays of Christian religion like crèches or recitations of the Lord`s Prayer. But instead of attacking religion directly, as some antireligious secularists did earlier in the century with little success, organizations like Americans United for Separation of Church and State and the American Civil Liberties Union argued more narrowly that government ought to be secular in word, deed and intent. In 1971, in Lemon v. Kurtzman, the Supreme Court made this position law, requiring all government decisions to be motivated by a secular purpose, to have primarily secular effects and not to entangle the state with religious institutions. This new standard -- known thereafter as the ``Lemon test`` -- did much more than simply reaffirm a deeply rooted American norm of no government money for religion; it prohibited school prayer and Bible reading, which had been practiced in the public schools since their founding, and in many instances it removed Christmas decorations from the public square. The framers had neither known nor used the category ``secular`` as we understand it, but the court made secularism an official condition of all acceptable government conduct.
[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
In many quarters of religious America, there was outrage at this court-mandated secularism, which to many believers soon came to seem of a piece with the Supreme Court`s 1973 guarantee of abortion rights in Roe v. Wade. By 1980, the televangelist Jerry Falwell and the Moral Majority, the political organization he founded, succeeded in mobilizing this frustration to help elect Ronald Reagan president. In time, Reagan`s judicial nominees began to roll back the advances of legal secularism by allowing the government to pay for religious education and other activities via vouchers or other neutral and generally available government programs. In a particularly ingenious twist, evangelicals won these cases by depicting themselves as a minority subject to discrimination by secularists who wanted to deny them government support.

But the values evangelicals did not succeed entirely in reversing the Supreme Court`s embrace of legal secularism. Throughout the 90`s, in a series of 5-4 decisions in which Justice Sandra Day O`Connor provided the swing vote, the Supreme Court refused to permit the government to take any symbolic action that might be seen to ``endorse`` religion, thus preserving and even expanding the ban on school prayer. The other eight justices on the Rehnquist Court held that government financing and state-sponsored religious symbolism should be treated the same way: either both were permissible or both weren`t. But since those justices were split 4-4 on whether to allow more of each or less of both, O`Connor`s compromise -- allowing some government financing of religion but no government endorsement of religious symbols -- has been the law of the land for the last two decades.

The resulting doctrine has been the cause of the major church-state controversies of recent years. In 2004, for instance, when a California man named Michael Newdow pressed the court to find that the words ``under God`` in the Pledge of Allegiance impermissibly endorsed religion, the court ducked the issue. The more liberal justices seemed afraid to rule the pledge unconstitutional yet were unwilling to embrace the view (advanced awkwardly by O`Connor, given her usual opposition to endorsing religious symbols) that there is no endorsement when the religious symbol is longstanding and common.

During the same Supreme Court term, a young man named Joshua Davey asked the court to require the state of Washington to let him use his public scholarship money to pay for his studies as a theology major at an evangelical college. But the court, including Chief Justice William Rehnquist, refused to overturn the state`s policy against paying for religious courses of study, even though Davey was as much the victim of ``discrimination`` as were earlier evangelical plaintiffs whom the court had granted access to government money to pay for their student publications. In essence, the court, divided itself and uneasy about O`Connor`s fence-sitting, is unwilling or unable to take a unified stand on what the Constitution really means when it comes to the relation between religion and government. It will be surprising if the Ten Commandments cases just decided by the court bring to an end the judicial wrangling over the church-state question.

The O`Connor compromise between values evangelicalism and legal secularism may be unsatisfactory, but the truth is that neither approach deserves to prevail. Both are self-contradictory: they fail precisely where they want to succeed, namely in reconciling religious diversity with unity. The values evangelicals want to find shared values, but that leads them to rely on the unexamined assumption that deep down, Americans agree on what matters. The trouble is that ``we`` often do not agree. The Ten Commandments may appeal to Jews and Christians, but to Muslims, they are an imperfect revelation superseded by the Koran, and Buddhists and Hindus find no appeal in the Commandments` self-attribution to the single God who took the Children of Israel out of Egypt.

Even a joint commitment to ``the culture of life`` turns out to be very thin. Catholics and conservative Protestants may agree broadly on abortion and euthanasia; but what about capital punishment, which Pope John Paul II condemned as an immoral usurpation of God`s authority to determine life and death but which many evangelical Christians support as biblically mandated? To reach consensus, the values evangelicals have to water down the ``values`` they say they accept to the point where they would mean nothing at all. They are left either acknowledging disagreement about values or else falling into a kind of relativism (I`m O.K., you`re O.K.) that is inconsistent with the very goal of standing for something rather than nothing.

Meanwhile, the legal secularists have a different problem. They claim that separating religion from government is necessary to ensure full inclusion of all citizens. The problem is that many citizens -- values evangelicals among them -- feel excluded by precisely this principle of keeping religion private. Keeping nondenominational prayer out of the public schools may protect religious minorities who might feel excluded; but it also sends a message of exclusion to those who believe such prayer would signal commitment to shared values. Increasingly, the symbolism of removing religion from the public sphere is experienced by values evangelicals as excluding them, no matter how much the legal secularists tell them that is not the intent.


Despite the gravity of the problem, I believe there is an answer. Put simply, it is this: offer greater latitude for religious speech and symbols in public debate, but also impose a stricter ban on state financing of religious institutions and activities. This approach, the mirror image of O`Connor`s compromise, is drawn from the framers` vision and the historical experience of separating church and state in America. The framers might well have been mystified by courthouse statues depicting the Ten Commandments, but they would not have objected unless the monuments were built with public money. Having made a revolution over unfair taxation, they thought of government support in terms of dollars spent, not abstract symbols.

From this logic, it follows that a moment of silence to begin the school day should not be invalidated just because it is intended to let children pray if they wish. Though it will never be easy to determine when schoolchildren are being coerced by peer pressure, at least some older students at optional events like a Friday-night football game surely are not being forced to pray when others are doing so voluntarily. Intelligent-design theory, itself a product of the ill-advised demand that religion disguise itself in secular garb, should be opposed on the educational ground that it is poor science, not on the constitutional reasoning, which some secularists have advanced, that it is a cover for religious creationism. If its advocates can persuade a local school board to put it in the curriculum, the courts need not strike it down as an establishment of religion. On the other hand, charitable choice, which permits billions of dollars in federal money to support faith-based organizations, should not be a vehicle for allowing government to pay for programs that treat alcoholics by counseling them to accept Christ. Schools that teach that Shariah (or Jewish rabbinic law or canon law) is the ultimate source of values should not be supported by tuition vouchers.

Such a solution would both recognize religious values and respect the institutional separation of religion and government as an American value in its own right. This would mean abandoning the political argument that religion has no place in the public sphere while simultaneously insisting that government must go to great lengths to dissociate itself from supporting religious institutions. It would mean acknowledging a substantial difference between allowing religious symbols and speech in public places (so long as there is no public money involved) and spending resources to sustain religious entities like churches, mosques and temples. Public religious symbolism expressed in statues, oaths and prayers reflects citizens` desires to see their deeply held beliefs expressed in those public situations where moral commitments are relevant: legislatures, schools and, yes, courthouses and statehouses. Religious proclamations or prayers may open sessions of Congress without costing anyone a dime.

But government money, even when nominally available equally to all, inevitably creates political competition between religious groups over how and where scarce money will be spent. Zero-sum appropriations drive zero-sum politics. A tuition voucher is never priced out of thin air: its amount is set by a political process that favors some schools (for example, Catholic schools that already have infrastructures and support from a centralized church) at the expense of others.

In the courts, the arrangement that I`m proposing would entail abandoning the Lemon requirement that state action must have a secular purpose and secular effects, as well as O`Connor`s idea that the state must not ``endorse`` religion. For these two tests, the courts should substitute the two guiding rules that historically lay at the core of our church-state experiment before legal secularism or values evangelicalism came on the scene: the state may neither coerce anyone in matters of religion nor expend its resources so as to support religious institutions and practices, whether generic or particular. These constitutional principles, reduced to their core, can be captured in a simple slogan: no coercion and no money. If no one is being coerced by the government, and if the government is not spending its money to build religious-themed monuments or support religious institutions and practices, the courts should hold that the Constitution is not violated.

Admittedly, this approach goes against the trends of the last several decades, which are for stricter regulation of public religious symbolism and more permissive authorization of government financing and support for religion. At first blush, then, the proposal may strike both sides of the current debate as mistaken, since it requires each to give up some victories in exchange for an alternative solution. Nonetheless this approach is not only faithful to our constitutional traditions; it also stands a chance of winning over secularists and evangelicals alike and beginning to close the rift between them.

IV. FAITH IS NOT A CONVERSATION STOPPER

The solution I have in mind rests on the basic principle of protecting the liberty of conscience. So long as all citizens have the same right to speak and act free of coercion, no adult should feel threatened or excluded by the symbolic or political speech of others, however much he may disagree with it. If many congressmen say that their faith requires intervening to save Terri Schiavo, that is not a violation of the rules of political debate. The secular congresswoman who thinks Schiavo should have the right to die in peace can express her contrary view and explain why it is that she believes a rational and legal analysis of the situation requires it. She may lose the vote, but she is not excluded from the process or from the body that votes against her, any more than a Republican would be ``excluded`` from a committee controlled by Democrats.

Legal secularists may fear that when facing arguments with religious premises, they have the deck stacked against them. If values evangelicals begin by asserting that God has defined marriage as the union of one man and one woman, then, say the secularists, the conversation about same-sex marriage is over. But in fact, secularists can make arguments of their own, which may be convincing: if the state is going to regulate marriages, shouldn`t they be subject to the same equality requirement as every other law? Some might even go further and ask the evangelicals how they can be so sure that they have correctly identified God`s will on the question. They may discover that few evangelicals treat faith as a conversation stopper, and most consider it just the opposite.

In any event, when the debate is over, the people will vote, and they will decide the matter. Legal secularists cannot realistically expect that they will win more democratic fights by banning the evangelicals` arguments, which can usually be recast, however disingenuously, as secular. Once in a while they may, if the composition of the Supreme Court is just right, thwart the values evangelicals` numerical superiority with a judicial override; but in the long run, all they will accomplish is to alienate the values evangelicals in a way that undercuts the meaningfulness of participatory democracy.

When it comes to religious symbolism, typically some group will ask the state for a display or an acknowledgment of their holiday or tradition -- a crèche or a statue, a song or pageant. Invoking Justice O`Connor`s endorsement test, legal secularists ordinarily object that if the state acquiesces, then it is embracing the religious symbol and excluding adherents of other religions. But this interpretation of what state support would mean may not be the best or most natural one. The fact that others have asked for and gotten recognition implies nothing about the exclusion of any religious minority except for the brute fact that it is a religious minority. There is no reason whatever for religious minorities to be shielded from that fact, since there is nothing shameful or inherently disadvantageous in being a religious minority, so long as that minority is not subject to coercion or discrimination.

Take the fact that the government treats Christmas as a national holiday. It would be absurd if Jews or Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists felt fundamentally excluded from citizenship by this fact -- and I would venture to suggest that very few do. Most Americans are still Christians who celebrate Christmas, and the state acknowledges that fact, just as the culture does through the songs on the radio and the merchandise in the stores. The celebration may not always be deeply religious, but the atmosphere corresponds to the realities of the Christian majority. Just what is threatening to religious minorities about Christians celebrating the holiday or singing carols in school? What, exactly, is the harm in being wished Merry Christmas even if you`re not celebrating? The state has not made Christianity relevant to citizenship nor has it spent taxpayers` money to advance the cause of the church. It has simply acknowledged the preferences of a majority. Some members of religious minorities may choose to spend December feeling bad that they are not part of the majority culture -- but they would have this same problem even if Christmas were not a national holiday, since Christmas would still be all around them. The answer is for them to strengthen their own identities and be proud of who they are, not to insist that the majority give up its own celebration to accommodate them.


In the last 50 years, legal secularists have expressed concern that public manifestations of religion marginalize religious minorities and hence reduce the capacity of those minorities to participate in a common national public life. And at times, that has been a valid complaint, as with mandatory religious exercises in schools. But today the increasing presence of other non-Christian religious minorities, and an attendant atmosphere of religious multiculturalism, mean that public manifestations of religion -- at least at the national level -- are becoming increasingly pluralistic and inclusive. Consider the televised memorial service led by President Bush on Sept. 14, 2001, a day he had designated as a national day of prayer and remembrance for the victims of the 9/11 attacks. With the cabinet, members of Congress and the foreign diplomatic corps in attendance, the president assured the congregation that God created a world ``of moral design`` and that ``the Lord of life holds all who die and all who mourn.`` Suffused with theology as much as any presidential address since Lincoln`s second inaugural, the speech took on the problem of evil while commending the future of the republic to God`s grace.

Yet despite the high-Protestant venue -- the Episcopal Washington National Cathedral -- the president was preceded in the pulpit by the dean of the cathedral as well as by the Roman Catholic archbishop of Washington, an African-American Methodist minister, Billy Graham, a rabbi and an imam who quoted verses from the Koran. The display of inclusiveness was driven not only by political imperative but also by the recognition that this extraordinary national-religious moment must reach out to America`s religious diversity.

In this latest demographic version of a religiously diverse environment, where Protestants may soon cease to be a majority in the United States, the danger that Christmas crèches or prayer at high-school graduations will marginalize non-Christians is substantially decreased. Some parts of the country are still dominated by particular denominations or trends; but even in the heart of the Bible Belt, diversity is growing as a result of immigration and shifting population patterns. Indeed, the Ten Commandments monument that Judge Roy Moore erected in the Alabama Supreme Court was thought by its supporters, however inaccurately, to be nonsectarian, on the theory that Jews and Christians alike respect the ideals it represents. Although insensitivity and ignorance are still very much with us, today we are unlikely to see the religious majority refusing to allow religious minorities to display their symbols alongside those of the majority. The five-times daily broadcast of the Muslim call to prayer from a mosque may at first raise hackles, but when the comparison to church bells is made, public acceptance is likely to follow, as it did in the town of Hamtramck, Mich., last summer.

V. WHAT INCLUSION REALLY LOOKS LIKE

Atheists will doubtless maintain that any public religion at all -- like ``under God`` in the Pledge of Allegiance -- excludes them by endorsing the idea of religion generally. But this misses the point: it is an interpretive choice to feel excluded by other people`s faiths, and the atheist, like any other dissenter from a majoritarian decision, can just as easily adhere to his own views while insisting on his full citizenship. So long as no one is coerced into invoking God, it makes little sense to accommodate the atheist`s scruples by barring everyone else from saying words that he alone finds to be metaphysically empty. Complete subjective inclusion is impossible, so if our goal is to include as many people as possible, we need to reach as widely as possible by letting the ordinary democratic process take its course. The Jehovah`s Witnesses, who in the 1940`s fought for the right not to salute the flag, never insisted that the salute or the pledge should be abolished altogether -- they just wanted their children to be exempt from a mandatory ritual that violated their consciences and hence their religious liberty.

In some instances, pluralistic, public expressions of religion even hold out the possibility of enabling new religious minorities to participate fully in the American public sphere. Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists, for whom religion and immigrant status may be closely connected, may well seek opportunities for the symbolic recognition of their citizenship that can be gained in schools, legislatures and elsewhere. Acknowledging holidays like the Muslim Eid al-Fitr or the Hindu Divali in what has traditionally been a Christian country may validate a sense of belonging in a way that no secular civic symbol can. Such an embrace of minority faith might go beyond symbols like legislative prayers, which remain legal despite secularist objections, and extend to celebrating holidays in the schools or granting adherents those days off from work, which would be of questionable constitutionality under current law. Ultimately, the nation may have more success generating loyalty from religiously diverse citizens by allowing inclusive governmental manifestations of religion than by banning them.

Observing the political clout of the values evangelicals, many legal secularists cannot imagine how the former could possibly feel marginalized from American society. They must realize, however, that the evangelicals` political strength has not often extended to the cultural realm, about which values evangelicals care the most. These evangelicals feel defensive not only because they believe they are losing the culture war and have trouble enacting religious values into public policy -- though, in fact, they have made some strides on issues like abortion and same-sex marriage -- but because they have difficulty making the religious sources of their ideas acceptable in the cultural-political conversation. To give a religious reason for passing a law is still to run the risk of that law being held unconstitutional as serving a religious rather than a secular purpose. So evangelicals end up speaking in euphemisms (``family values``) or proposing purpose-built dodges like ``creation science`` that even they often privately acknowledge to be paradoxical.

A better approach would be for secularists to confront the evangelicals` arguments on their own terms, refusing to stop the conversation and instead arguing for the rightness of their beliefs about their own values. Reason can in fact engage revelation, as it has throughout the history of philosophy. The skeptic can challenge the believer to explain how he derives his views from Scripture and why the view he ascribes to God is morally attractive -- questions that most believers consider profoundly important and perfectly relevant.

This kind of exchange need not produce agreement on abortion or same-sex marriage or anything else. To the contrary, hard moral questions will remain controversial. But acknowledging a moral debate as a moral debate in which all sides deserve a say will have the effect of communicating to evangelicals that their voices count. In the long run, this approach is more likely to focus our national debates on substance instead of procedure -- on what God or reason or whatever source of values teaches about human life and intimate choices, not about whether God belongs in the conversation at all. Secularists who are confident in their views should expect to prevail on the basis of reason; evangelicals who wish to win the argument will discover that their arguments must extend beyond simple invocation of faith.

VI. THE PROBLEM WITH MONEY

If we are to progress toward reconciliation of our church-state problem, it will not be enough for legal secularists to re-evaluate their attitude toward religious symbols and religious discourse. Values evangelicals must also change their ways and give something up -- by reconsidering their position in favor of state support for religious institutions. The reason they should be prepared to do so is that such state support actually undercuts, rather than promotes, the cohesive national identity that evangelicals have wanted to restore or recreate. When filtered through vouchers distributed by the government and directed by individual choice, state financial aid for religious institutions like schools or charities does not encourage common values; it creates conflict and division.

Today`s voucher programs, like the one in Florida that is currently under challenge before the Florida Supreme Court, focus on helping kids in failing schools. But imagine a broader voucher system. Many or most parents might well use the vouchers to send their children to private, mostly religious schools; more than half the beneficiaries of the Florida program do exactly that, and in other, more focused plans, the numbers have been upward of 90 percent. Because we value religious liberty so highly, most Americans would surely agree that it would be wrong to regulate and supervise religious schools closely enough to ensure that they teach some version of prescribed American values. That is precisely why the Constitution has been interpreted to protect the right to educate your children in private religious schools altogether. But given this right to educate according to your own values, what is to ensure that the curriculum in state-supported religious schools will promote common values? It is at least as likely that balkanized schools will generate balkanized values as that they will promote a common national project.

While the great majority of schools run by most religious groups do encourage loyal citizenship by their lights, we cannot simply assume that any school of any religious denomination will teach shared American national identity or values. Some schools will teach that the best form of life is to prefer your fellows -- whether Protestants or Jews or Muslims or Catholics -- to other Americans. No religious tradition is without at least a hint of such particularism, which is just one mechanism by which common citizenship may be undermined by some forms of religion. Different religious schools will also teach disparate values, increasing national disagreement when it comes to controversial issues. There is nothing inherently wrong with that type of values diversity, of course. Private schools unsupported by vouchers can in any case teach whatever they want about citizenship and loyalty. But while values evangelicalism claims to advocate national unity and inclusion through shared values, school-voucher programs cut exactly the other way, promoting difference and nonengagement. Permitting schools supported by private money to teach that there is no common American undertaking is not the same as encouraging that teaching through state subsidy.

Now consider what will happen when some delegate in a state legislature rises to argue that voucher payments should not be extended to schools that teach racism, or anti-Americanism, or sexism. Under the law as it is developing, the state cannot pick and choose but must pay for all the schools or none. Cutting financing for the offending school would require cutting it for every school. There will then inevitably ensue a debate about whether the outrage of financing this one school outweighs the benefits of financing all the others. In essence, this will be a debate about how bad the teachings of the religion under attack are, and how good the others.

This situation, reminiscent of 19th-century legislative debates about the supposed ills of the Catholic Church, captures precisely the sort of divisiveness in politics that institutional separation aims to avoid. Only this time it will probably not be Catholicism in the dock but something else -- Islam, say, or polytheistic Hinduism, or some religion so new that it still seems like a cult. The framers` innovation of nonestablishment was designed so that the sovereign people should not spend their legislative sessions debating the relative merits of different faiths and their compatibility with American values. That is a recipe for real and deep division.


The tradition of institutional separation that must be reasserted goes beyond blocking money for religious schools. All attempts to use government resources to institutionalize religious practices countermand the American tradition of nonestablishment, grounded historically in the belief that government has no authority over religious matters. When government pays for social programs through the rubric of charitable choice, the programs must not be ones that rely on faith to accomplish their goals -- or else the government is institutionally sponsoring the religious mission of the church in question. This is also why the state itself must not compose or mandate public prayers, which then take on the shape of state-imposed religious exercises in a way that is very different from voluntary prayers chosen and led by individuals in public contexts. The founding father James Madison himself understood that paying the chaplains of the House and Senate out of the public till was a constitutional anomaly, and he wisely, if belatedly, suggested that the members of Congress ought to pay for their services from their own pockets.

Surprising as it may at first sound, the changes from existing laws and practices that I`m advocating have a realistic chance of being adopted and even embraced by values evangelicals. It may already be possible to glimpse a growing recognition among values evangelicals that voucher programs do not necessarily promote common values but may do just the opposite. The ballooning of school-voucher programs that some expected in the wake of the Supreme Court`s 2002 decision holding them constitutional has not come to pass. Faith-based charities have not yet managed to crowd out secular service providers, although more extensive government financing for faith-based social services remains a stated goal of the Bush administration. Given that voucher programs have not spread, it should be relatively easy for values evangelicals to abandon them -- especially since they will be getting something in return, namely greater recognition and acceptance for their values-based arguments and the corresponding symbols of public religion.

Government financing of religion is, after all, a relative latecomer to the ideology of values evangelicalism. The movement from the start drew its energy from symbolic questions of culture and morality, not from any desire to see a merger of church and state. Catholics may have pressed hard from within the movement to make vouchers an important issue, but even they turn out to be relying little on those voucher programs for educating their own children; the voucher students in Catholic schools in Milwaukee or Cleveland are heavily inner-city non-Catholics. Evangelicals should also be prepared to acknowledge the historical fact that our constitutional tradition, flawed though it assuredly is, has always made institutional separation the touchstone of nonestablishment.

VII. THE EXPERIMENT REVISITED

The proposal is a simple one -- and it looks backward to history in order to look forward. If we could be more tolerant of sincere religious people drawing on their beliefs and practices to inform their choices in the public realm, and at the same time be more vigilant about preserving our legacy of institutional separation between government and organized religion, the shift would redirect us to the uniqueness of the American experiment with church and state. Until the rise of legal secularism, Americans tended to be accepting of public, symbolic manifestations of faith. Until values evangelicalism came on the scene, Americans were on the whole insistent about maintaining institutional separation. These two modern movements respectively reversed both those trends.

The novelty of these developments does not mean they are wrong, of course. But in an America grown so religiously diverse that it can no longer easily be called ``Judeo-Christian,`` we need to learn from our history if we are to have any hope of constructing a single nation that will endure. Muslims, Buddhists and Hindus will have to join Protestants, Catholics, Jews and atheists in finding a resolution to our church-state problem that all can embrace. A solution that will work for our generation must bind us to the past. But like all successful nation-building, it will work only if it also sets a foundation for our future.

Noah Feldman is a professor at the New York University School of Law and a fellow at the New America Foundation. His book ``Divided by God: America`s Church-State Problem -- and What We Should Do About It,`` from which this article is adapted, will be published later this month by Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

The President must be holding out hope the insurgency might turn Christian.– Grant Gerver

[Joerver]

June 30, 2005
Mood of Anxiety Engulfs Afghans as Violence Rises
By CARLOTTA GALL
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/international/asia/30afgha…

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 29 - The loss of a military helicopter with 17 Americans aboard in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday comes at a time of growing insecurity here. For the first time since the United States overthrew the Taliban government three and a half years ago, Afghans say they are feeling uneasy about the future.

Violence has increased sharply in recent months, with a resurgent Taliban movement mounting daily attacks in southern Afghanistan, gangs kidnapping foreigners here in the capital and radical Islamists orchestrating violent demonstrations against the government and foreign-financed organizations.

The steady stream of violence has dealt a new blow to this still traumatized nation of 25 million. In dozens of interviews conducted in recent weeks around the country, Afghans voiced concern that things were not improving, and that the Taliban and other dangerous players were gaining strength.

An American Chinook helicopter that crashed on Tuesday was brought down by hostile fire as it was landing during combat in a mountainous border area, American military officials said Wednesday.

Afghans interviewed about the continuing violence also expressed increased dissatisfaction with their own government and the way the United States military was conducting its operations, and said they were suspicious of the Americans` long-term intentions.

"Three years on, the people are still hoping that things are going to work out, but they have become suspicious about why the Americans came, and why the Americans are treating the local people badly," said Jandad Spinghar, leader of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in Nangarhar Province in the east, just across the Khyber Pass from Pakistan.

Poverty, joblessness, frustrated expectations and the culture of 25 years of war make for a volatile mix in which American military raids, shootings and imprisonments can inflame public opinion, many here say.

"Generally people are not against the Americans," Mr. Spinghar said. "But in areas where there are no human rights, where they do not have good relations and where there is bad treatment of villagers or prisoners, this will hand a free area to the Taliban. It`s very important that the Americans understand how the Afghan people feel."

Reflecting the shifting popular mood, President Hamid Karzai has publicly criticized the behavior of American troops and called for closer cooperation when Afghan homes are raided.

The Taliban`s spring offensive has sounded an alarm for the United States military and the Karzai government, both of which had said that the Taliban were largely defeated and that the nation was consolidating behind its first elected national leader.

"We were wrong," a senior Afghan government official acknowledged, saying of the Taliban, "It seems they were spending the time preparing." He insisted on anonymity because of the delicacy of the subject within the government.

While the government blames the Taliban - and its backers in Pakistan and Al Qaeda - for the violence, the American military is frequently blamed by Afghans for drawing radical Islamic fighters to the country and then failing to control them.

"The Americans are the cause of the insecurity," said Abdullah Mahmud, 26, a law student in Kabul. "If they were not here, there would not be any insecurity. The money they are spending on military expenses - if they spent half of it on the Afghan Army and police and raised their skills, then there would not be any security questions."

Opponents of the government are calling for foreign troops and international aid organizations to leave Afghanistan, a call that has resonated with Afghans` spirit of independence. The government, though, is anxiously seeking assurances that the foreign troops and assistance will stay and help it through this latest wave of adversity.

During the anti-American protests that followed allegations that guards at Guantánamo Bay had desecrated the Koran, Kabul`s students demonstrated against the establishment of permanent United States military bases in Afghanistan, said Muhammad Mir Jan, 25, a literature student. "Students support the current presence of troops because we need them now," he said, "but not a permanent presence."

An unemployed man sitting in a corner shop in Jalalabad with a group of friends said of the Americans, "They should go." But others demurred.

"No, I think the Americans should be here, because if they are not, the warlords would come back again and the poor people would not be able to survive in this country," said Samiullah, 27, who said he was applying for a job as a driver with a foreign group.

Abdul Zaher, 26, the owner of the shop, said, "They should not leave our country until they have rebuilt it."

Sayed Asadullah Hashimi, an assistant professor at Kabul University`s School of Islamic Law, said, "Outside Kabul, two-thirds of the people think that the Americans came only to invade and occupy Afghanistan, and that is why day by day the tension is growing. The mood is worsening."

With parliamentary elections approaching in September, the issue of the American military presence is already emerging at the forefront of political debate. Foreign diplomats are forecasting that the election will deliver a Parliament divided on ethnic lines and largely anti-Karzai, with a strong element of jihadi leaders and Islamists.

President Karzai will have to change his cabinet, now largely made up of technocrats, to reflect the makeup of Parliament, said one diplomat, who asked not to be identified because of the political nature of his comments.

The current instability does not yet add up to a national uprising. The Taliban movement remains restricted to a narrow core of believers and a larger number who are motivated by money more than anything else, Afghan and foreign officials said. But they warned that it would be dangerous to ignore the signs of unrest.

Changes have often come suddenly in Afghanistan`s turbulent history, frequently catching outsiders by surprise: the slaughter in the Khyber Pass of retreating British forces in the 19th century; the kidnapping and killing of the American ambassador in 1979; and the Russian debacle after 10 years of brutal occupation in the 1980`s.

The airlift of foreign aid workers from Jalalabad after a day of rioting last month raised the specter of the Afghans turning against foreigners once more.

Afghans interviewed this week frequently warned that if the American forces did not show greater care, especially in their treatment of detainees and their families, the people could turn against them. "They should respect our culture and our religion and they will be successful," said Lal Muhammad, the senior partner of a real estate firm in the southern city of Kandahar.

His partner, Taher Shah, said the United States should not overestimate the extent of its own power. "The Americans are very powerful and they can control the government," he said. "But if the people don`t like them, they will have to leave."

Foreign officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicate nature of the issue, said much of the public disillusionment and frustration was traceable to a lack of governance - from the simple absence of government, to the failure to administer the law properly, to the corruption of the local police and the courts.

"Since 2002," one of the officials said, "we have been issuing warnings that the main threat was the failure to address profound governance problems, and if we did not take it seriously, grievances would start to stem from that."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
Secular Shiites in Iraq Seek Autonomy in Oil-Rich South
[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]

Bakr al-Yasseen is a leading organizer of a campaign for a federal, autonomous structure for Basra.
[/TABLE]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/international/middleeast/3…
By EDWARD WONG

BASRA, Iraq, June 27 - With the Aug. 15 deadline for writing a new constitution bearing down, a cadre of powerful, mostly secular Shiite politicians is pushing for the creation of an autonomous region in the oil-rich south of Iraq, posing a direct challenge to the nation`s central authority.

The politicians argue that the long-impoverished south has never gotten its fair share of the country`s oil money, even though the bulk of Iraqi oil reserves lie near Basra, at the head of the Persian Gulf. They also say they cannot trust anyone holding power in Baghdad because of the decades of harsh oppression under the Sunni Arab government of Saddam Hussein.

"We want to destroy the central system that connects the entire country to the capital," said Bakr al-Yasseen, a former foe of Mr. Hussein who spent years in exile in Syria. He is one of the chief organizers of the autonomy campaign, which is supported by Ahmad Chalabi, the one-time Pentagon favorite and scion of a prominent Shiite family from the south, among others.

Mr. Yasseen, who has ties to Jalal Talabani, the Iraqi president and a Kurd, is demanding for the south the same broad powers that the Kurds now have, including an independent parliament, ministries and regional military force.

The Kurds have long demanded a strong measure of autonomy in a future Iraqi state. But the issue of an autonomous south is new, and complicates the already heated discussions on federalism in the new constitution. The religious Shiite parties and the Sunni Arabs have generally opposed Kurdish autonomy, but the emergence of a southern drive for greater regional independence could lend important support to the Kurds` quest.

Here in Basra, Iraq`s second-largest city, banners have appeared on the streets in recent weeks calling for an autonomous region similar to Iraqi Kurdistan. Academics and local politicians are holding meetings at night to try to define their demands. Some are talking on the phone to members of the constitutional committee in Baghdad on an almost daily basis.

While religious Shiite parties now dominate the national government, many people here fear that the parties may not adequately defend the rights of the south and worry about the rise of another authoritarian government, perhaps a conservative Islamic one.

"There`s no democracy in Iraq," Mr. Yasseen said, expressing the deep suspicions of moderate and secular Shiites. "Anyone who says there`s democracy has a little Saddam in his head. He wants to become a Saddam."

Mr. Chalabi and Sheik Abdul Kareem al-Muhammadawi, a prominent member of the National Assembly, are planning to propose a regional vote on the question of southern autonomy in October, at the same time as a national referendum on the constitution, said Ali Faisal al-Lami, an aide to both politicians. Mr. Chalabi comes from the southern city of Nasiriya, and though he is distrusted by many Iraqis, he could use his family and political ties to wield considerable influence in an autonomous south.

The advocates of autonomy say that while the south has 80 to 90 percent of Iraq`s oil reserves, the country`s only ports and its richest date palm groves, the neglect under Mr. Hussein`s rule is painfully evident: many of the avenues here resemble garbage dumps, open sewage floods some streets, and shantytowns dot the landscape. The south should have partial or full control over how its oil wealth and other income are distributed, the federalists say.

Mr. Yasseen recently sent a letter to the National Assembly demanding that it begin discussing the possibility of southern autonomy. Dozens of Kurdish legislators the letter, forcing the issue to the table.

"I support a real region in the south," said Abdul Khalik Zengana, a senior official in the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two main Kurdish parties. "That will help our interests, and it will help to enhance federalism in Iraq. We bless this step. But we also think southern federalism should be decided on by a referendum of people in the south."

American officials have remained publicly silent on the matter. The interim constitution that the Americans co-wrote last year says Iraq must adopt a federal system "to avoid the concentration of power."

"We want a moderate federalist system," said an American official who spoke on the condition of anonymity, because of government protocol. But it is up to the Iraqis to figure out exactly how governing powers should be divided, he added.

Any move toward federalism and autonomy is anathema to some religious Shiite parties, which made big gains in the January elections and now wield considerable power in both Baghdad and the south. They say they distrust American-backed goals, and they argue that Islamic states have historically favored a strong central government. Furthermore, they want all the oil revenues to be controlled from Baghdad.

The staunchest Shiite opponents of autonomy are Moktada al-Sadr, the young firebrand cleric who led two uprisings against the Americans, and Ayatollah Muhammad Yacoubi, another activist cleric who was close to Mr. Sadr`s martyred father.

Mr. Yacoubi`s Fadilah Party governs Basra, while Mr. Sadr`s organization and his militia have a formidable presence here. The two groups believe that a legendary imam called the Mahdi will appear soon and cleanse the world of infidels, creating universal Islamic rule. Any division of powers is incompatible with that belief, they say, and could also lead to the breakup of Iraq.

"Most of the people reject the idea of autonomy," Sheik Abdul-Sattar al-Bahadli, a senior cleric in the Sadr organization, said in an interview here. "The idea of federalism arose after the occupation of Iraq, and it`s the idea of the occupiers."

Countries in the region, especially Iran and Saudi Arabia, are also likely to balk at the idea of an autonomous south, since those governments fear independence movements from ethnic or religious minorities in their own oil-rich areas. Kurdish autonomy already inspires anxiety in Turkey, Iran and Syria, all countries with significant Kurdish populations.

Mr. Yasseen and his allies envision a unified political south that would encompass the cities of Basra, Nasiriya and Amara. It would be one of a half-dozen autonomous regions in Iraq, each with powers approaching true sovereignty, as in Kurdistan.

Another group of federalists, most of them academics, disagree with that plan. They want a more moderate system of federalism that would give less sovereign power to outlying regions and preserve a stronger central government.

Some people think that "the Kurdish model of federalism is not a successful one," said Dhiaa al-Asadi, a spokesman for the group and a supervisor in a project promoting local governance that has financing from the American government. "It is not a federal region right now. It is almost a separate country."

Mr. Asadi said a delegation from the south would try to meet soon with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq, and other religious leaders to try to persuade them to support federalism.

Ali Adeeb and Abdul-Razzaq al-Saeidy contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 30, 2005
5 Americans Say Iran`s New Chief Was `79 Captor
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/international/middleeast/3…

SAVANNAH, Ga., June 29 (AP) - A quarter-century after they were taken captive in Iran, five former American hostages say they got an unexpected reminder of their 444-day ordeal in the bearded face of Iran`s president-elect.

Watching coverage of Iran`s presidential election on television dredged up 25-year-old memories that prompted four of the former hostages to exchange e-mail messages. And those four realized they shared the same conclusion - the firm belief that President-elect Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had been one of their captors.

"This is the guy," said a former hostage, Chuck Scott, a retired Army colonel who lives in Jonesboro, Ga. "There`s no question about it. You could make him a blond and shave his whiskers, put him in a zoot suit and I`d still spot him."

Mr. Scott and three other former hostages, David Roeder, William J. Daugherty and Don A. Sharer, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that they had no doubt Mr. Ahmadinejad, 49, was one of the hostage-takers. A fifth former hostage, Kevin Hermening, said he had reached the same conclusion after looking at photos.

Another former hostage, a retired Air Force colonel, Thomas E. Schaefer, said he did not recognize Mr. Ahmadinejad, by face or by name, as one of his captors.

Several former students among the hostage-takers also said Mr. Ahmadinejad did not participate. And a close aide to Mr. Ahmadinejad denied the president-elect took part in the seizure of the embassy or in holding Americans hostage.

Militant students seized the American Embassy in Tehran on Nov. 4, 1979, and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days to protest Washington`s refusal to hand over Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi for trial. The shah fled Iran earlier that year after he was overthrown.

The aide, Meisan Rowhani, told The A.P. that Mr. Ahmadinejad was asked during recent private meetings if he had a role in the hostage taking. Mr. Rowhani said he replied: "No. I believed that if we do that the world will swallow us."

One hostage-taker, Bijan Abidi, said Mr. Ahmadinejad "was not involved."

"There was no one by that name among the students who took part in the U.S. Embassy seizure."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 30, 2005
A More Perfect Union
By RUTH MILKMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/opinion/30milkman.html

IT is a time of trial for organized labor. Only 13 percent of nonagricultural workers are unionized. The figure is even lower among immigrants who toil at unskilled jobs in the nation`s newest industries. Employers have abandoned the paternalistic job security measures, pensions and fringe benefits of which they boasted only a few years ago. Instead, they are imposing wage cuts and speedups on their workers while the American Federation of Labor stands by helplessly.
[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
Sound familiar? This was the labor movement`s plight in 1935. Like many Americans today, people back then believed that labor unions had become weak and irrelevant. In 1932, George Barnett, president of the American Economics Association, declared, "American trade unionism is slowly being limited in influence by changes which destroy the basis on which it is erected." Yet a few years later, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, an insurgent group within organized labor born out of a debate that few outsiders bothered to follow, set off America`s greatest surge of unionism. That growth continued, peaking at 35 percent of the workforce just before the two rival labor federations reunited in 1955, forming today`s A.F.L.-C.I.O.

Now the unionization rate has sunk to about 8 percentof all private-sector non-farm workers. Globalization and the service economy have displaced the mass production industries that produced the last great internal union upheaval 70 years ago. Those industries, and the New Deal legal and political order that the C.I.O. helped shape, have been weakened beyond recognition.

Next month, at the A.F.L.-C.I.O. annual convention in Chicago, a sharpening dispute over how labor should meet these challenges will reach a turning point. A dissident group led by Andy Stern, who heads the 1.8 million-member Service Employees International Union (the A.F.L.-C.I.O.`s largest affiliate), is trying to oust John Sweeney, the federation`s president, and engineer a major shift in organized labor`s strategy. Outspoken and impatient, Mr. Stern has angered his colleagues in union circles by threatening to pull his union out of the A.F.L.-C.I.O. if his reform program is not adopted. But for all his abrasiveness, his program offers labor`s best hope - maybe its only hope - for revitalization.

Mr. Stern`s Change to Win program calls for a one-union-per-industry model that would curb competition among unions and increase the organizing capacity of those that remain. Changing job descriptions have rendered many traditional union jurisdictions obsolete, so that unions often end up competing against one another for members. Merging industry unions would also make it harder for employers to play off one union against another.

Consider the airline industry: at least five unions represent pilots, three represent flight attendants and six represent ground crews and ticket agents. This balkanization has made it harder for unions to fight assaults on their livelihood by companies like United Airlines, which recently shed its pension obligations, opening the door for other airlines to threaten their workers with the same fate. Today, federal, state and local government employees are scattered among 13 unions, and health care workers among more than 30.

The proposed consolidation of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.`s 58 affiliates threatens many vested interests, not least those of the officials who head smaller unions. But a handful of the largest unions - the Teamsters, Laborers, Unite Here and United Food and Commercial Workers - have embraced Mr. Stern`s reform agenda. These unions make up 40 percent of the A.F.L.-C.I.O.`s membership, and may join the service employees union in bolting from the federation if they lose their bid to transform it.

The insurgents have also called for spending $60 million - about half the federation`s budget - on organizing, versus the $22.5 million that Mr. Sweeney has offered. They argue that if labor is going to survive, its most urgent priority must be increasing the percentage of unionized Americans. But only a few A.F.L.-C.I.O. unions - most of them Mr. Stern`s allies - have put more money and effort into organizing.

Ten years ago, Mr. Sweeney - who was Mr. Stern`s predecessor as the service employees union president and his onetime mentor - was elected to the A.F.L.-C.I.O. presidency on a platform of "organizing the unorganized." But because he presides over a federation of unions whose current structure does not allow him to enforce his will, Mr. Sweeney has been unable to reverse the tide of union decline. That`s why another key plank in the Change to Win platform is to strengthen the power of the central federation itself.

The service employees union`s track record is the best case for taking its proposal seriously: it has tripled in size over the past quarter-century, as membership in most other unions plunged. It is on the front lines of the nation`s service-based economy, the leading edge of the race to the bottom that threatens to drag down labor standards for the rest of us. And with an eye on globalization`s impact, its building service division has formed alliances with unions overseas to advance its organizing in the United States, where janitors and security guards are often employed by foreign-owned companies that offer workers in their home countries better pay and working conditions.

With unions in decline, real wages for hourly workers are stagnant, their health and pension benefits are in tatters, and inequalities between rich and poor have widened to levels not seen since the 1920`s and early 1930`s - just before the last great union surge. Given a chance, Mr. Stern`s proposals can restore labor as the counterforce it once was in an era that saw remarkable gains in prosperity for all Americans.

Ruth Milkman, a sociologist, is director of U.C.L.A.`s Institute of Industrial Relations and a visiting scholar at the Russell Sage Foundation.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Compan

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
Mike Luckovich
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

[Joerver]

June 30, 2005
Dangerous Incompetence
By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/opinion/30herbert.html

The president who displayed his contempt for Iraqi militants two years ago with the taunt "bring `em on" had to go on television Tuesday night to urge Americans not to abandon support for the war that he foolishly started but can`t figure out how to win.

The Bush crowd bristles at the use of the "Q-word" - quagmire - to describe American involvement in Iraq. But with our soldiers fighting and dying with no end in sight, who can deny that Mr. Bush has gotten us into "a situation from which extrication is very difficult," which is a standard definition of quagmire?

More than 1,730 American troops have already died in Iraq. Some were little more than children when they signed up for the armed forces, like Ramona Valdez, who grew up in the Bronx and was just 17 when she joined the Marines. She was one of six service members, including four women, who were killed when a suicide bomber struck their convoy in Falluja last week.

Corporal Valdez wasn`t even old enough to legally drink in New York. She died four days shy of her 21st birthday.

On July 2, 2003, with evidence mounting that U.S. troop strength in Iraq was inadequate, Mr. Bush told reporters at the White House, "There are some who feel that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, Bring `em on."

It was an immature display of street-corner machismo that appalled people familiar with the agonizing ordeals of combat. Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, was quoted in The Washington Post as saying: "I am shaking my head in disbelief. When I served in the Army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander - let alone the commander in chief - invite enemies to attack U.S. troops."

The American death toll in Iraq at that point was about 200, but it was clear that a vicious opposition was developing. Mr. Bush had no coherent strategy for defeating the insurgency then, and now - more than 1,500 additional deaths later - he still doesn`t.

The incompetence at the highest levels of government in Washington has undermined the U.S. troops who have fought honorably and bravely in Iraq, which is why the troops are now stuck in a murderous quagmire. If a Democratic administration had conducted a war this incompetently, the Republicans in Congress would be dusting off their impeachment manuals.

The administration seems to have learned nothing in the past two years. Dick Cheney, who told us the troops would be "greeted as liberators," now assures us that the insurgency is in its last throes. And the president, who never listened to warnings that he was going to war with too few troops, still refuses to acknowledge that there are not enough U.S. forces deployed to pacify Iraq.

The Times`s Richard A. Oppel Jr. wrote an article recently about a tragically common occurrence in Iraq: U.S. forces fight to free cities and towns from the grip of insurgents, and then leave. With insufficient forces left behind to secure the liberated areas, the insurgents return.

"We have a finite number of troops," said Maj. Chris Kennedy of the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment. "But if you pull out of an area and don`t leave security forces in it, all you`re going to do is leave the door open for them to come back. This is what our lack of combat power has done to us throughout the country."

The latest fantasy out of Washington is that American-trained Iraqi forces will ultimately be able to do what the American forces have not: defeat the insurgency and pacify Iraq.

"We`ve learned that Iraqis are courageous and that they need additional skills," said Mr. Bush in his television address. "And that is why a major part of our mission is to train them so they can do the fighting, and then our troops can come home."

Don`t hold your breath. This is another example of the administration`s inability to distinguish between a strategy and a wish.

Whether one agreed with the launch of this war or not - and I did not - the troops doing the fighting deserve to be guided by leaders in Washington who are at least minimally competent at waging war. That has not been the case, which is why we can expect to remain stuck in this tragic quagmire for the foreseeable future.

E-mail: [e-mail]



* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Echoes of Vietnam
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06…

By Richard Cohen
Post
Thursday, June 30, 2005; A23

About two years ago I sat down with a colleague and explained why Iraq was not going to be Vietnam. Iraq lacked a long-standing nationalist movement and a single charismatic leader like Ho Chi Minh. The insurgents did not have a sanctuary like North Vietnam, which supplied manpower, materiel and leadership, and the rebel cause in Iraq -- just what is it, exactly? -- was not worth dying for. On Tuesday President Bush proved me wrong. Iraq is beginning to look like Vietnam.

The similarity is most striking in the language the president used. First came the vast, insulting oversimplifications. The war in Iraq was tied over and over again to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, although that link was nonexistent. The Sept. 11 commission said in plain English that there was no connection between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. Even a line such as we must "defeat them abroad before they attack us at home" had a musty, Vietnam-era sound to it. Whether it`s true or not, it is an updated version of the domino theory: if not Saigon then San Francisco.

Second, just as Lyndon Johnson and others referred to communism as if it were a worldwide monolith, so Bush talks about terrorists. He mentioned "terrorists" 23 times, and while he also occasionally employed the word "insurgents," his emphasis was on the wanton murders of the former and not the political aims of the latter. He even cited the terrorist leader and al Qaeda associate "Zarqawi" by name, saying the United States would never "abandon the Iraqi people to men" like him -- strongly suggesting that he was the problem in Iraq. Abu Musab Zarqawi, though, is only part of the problem.

Bush sounded downright Johnsonian in talking about progress in Iraq. He cited rebuilt "roads and schools and health clinics," not to mention improvements in "sanitation, electricity and water." This, too, had a familiar ring. We got the same sort of statistics in Vietnam. Some of them were simply concocted, but most, I think, were sort of true. Roads were paved, schools were opened and village councils were elected -- and yet, somehow, it never mattered. The newly elected village council could meet in the newly opened school and get there on a newly paved road -- and spend the night planning an attack on U.S. forces. It is all so depressing.

In Vietnam, it took the United States forever to recognize that it was fighting not international communism but a durable and vibrant nationalist movement led by communists. Something similar may be happening in Iraq. Yes, foreign terrorists are flocking to the country. But the Sunni insurgency is a different thing. The Sunnis may work with foreign terrorists and gladly use their expertise, but their goals are not the same. The salient and depressing fact remains that no insurgency can survive for long without either the cooperation or the apathy of the populace. Someone`s making bombs, and someone`s not turning him in. Bush may extol Iraqi democracy, but at the moment not enough Iraqis feel it is worth dying for.

Finally, Bush descended to Vietnam-speak. This is the language used by the Johnson and Nixon administrations to obscure the truth by emitting a fog of numbers. Thus Bush cited the "8 million Iraqi men and women" who voted, the "30 nations" with troops in Iraq (a total joke, and the president knows it), the "40 countries" and "three international organizations" that have pledged "$34 billion" in reconstruction assistance (another joke), the "80 countries" that recently met in Brussels to aid Iraq, and the "160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions" -- one of them being, clearly, to stay out of harm`s way.

The war Bush declared to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction is not the war being waged. The two have only one thing in common: rhetorical sleight of hand. Yet the consequences of pulling out of Iraq would be awful. The day Saigon fell I was ashamed for my country -- an ugly, disgraceful retreat. I don`t want that to happen again. But unless Bush rethinks his strategy, fires some people who long ago earned dismissal, examines his own assumptions (what`s the point of continuing to isolate Iran and Syria when we need them both to seal Iraq`s borders?) and talks turkey to the American people, he will lose everything good he set out to do, including the example Iraq could set for the rest of the Middle East. I know Iraq is not Vietnam. But Tuesday night it sure sounded like it.

[e-mail]

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Thursday, June 30, 2005

Another US Helicopter Downed, This Time in Afghanistan
17 Dead

Taliban used some sort of rocket to shoot down a US helicopter in Afghanistan, killing all 17 servicemen aboard.

This is the second US helicopter lost this week. Earlier in the week, Iraqi guerrillas north of Baghdad downed one, killing two US soldiers.

It is not clear if these are rocket propelled grenade strikes, which are difficult to pull off and therefore rare, or if Taliban and Iraqi guerrillas are getting hold of shoulder-fired missiles, which would be more dangerous to the US in both places. What kind of missile used, if so, would also be telling. Old SA-7s, manufactured by the Soviet Union, don`t appear to be very sophisticated and are seldom still in good working order (one of these was used unsuccessfully against an Israeli jet liner at Mombasa). SA-14s and SA-16s are more deadly, with electronic heat-seeking capability. I`m told that despite the serial numbers, SA-14s are deadlier.

Milt Bearden, the CIA station chief in Pakistan during the 1980s, has long held that the US provision to the Mujahidin (predecessors of the Taliban) in Afghanistan of Stinger missiles to use against Soviet helicopter gunships was key to their victory.

If the sophistication of the weaponry in Afghanistan and Iraq increases, it could signal a two-front, hard-fought war for the US. I am not sure how many shoulder-fired missile launchers are out there on the world market already.

Meanwhile, Bush`s speech on Iraq appears to have drawn a remarkably small audience on television. NBC`s broadcast of it only drew about 5 million viewers. That is not a very good prime time statistic. If I`m not mistaken, Jay Leno`s late-night comedy and interview show does something on that order. My guess is that Americans do not like the subject of Iraq because it is clearly bad news, and did not expect Bush actually to give them any good news. They were right, of course.

posted by Juan @ [url6/30/2005 06:32:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/another-us-helicopter-downed-this-time.html[/url]

Guest Opinion: Iraq Avalanche Unstoppable: Richards

"The Iraq Avalanche Cannot be Stopped"

by Alan Richards

University of California Santa Cruz
Santa Cruz, CA
June 24, 2005

I have been reading the debate . . . on "What next in Iraq?" ("Unilateral withdrawal? UN forces? Staying the course?") with great interest. There is a way, however, in which I am troubled by what I perceive as a tacit assumption--a very American assumption,--underlying most of the discussion. It seems to me that even "pessimists" are actually "optimists": they assume that there exists in Iraq and the Gulf some "solution", some course of action which can actually lead to an outcome other than widespread, prolonged violence, with devastating economic, political, and social consequences.

I regret to say that I think this is wrong. There is no "solution" to this mess; it is sometimes not possible to "fix" things which have been broken. I can see no course of action which will prevent widespread violence, regional social upheaval, and economic hammering administered by oil price shocks. This is why so many of us opposed the invasion of Iraq so strenuously in the first place! We thought that it would unleash irreversible adverse consequences for (conventionally defined) US interests in the region. I am very sorry to say that I still think we were right.

Let me get specific:

1) As you have often pointed out, our continued presence de-legitimizes the current Iraqi government, which is, in any case, largely a Shiite Islamist and Kurdish tactical alliance. As Patrick Cockburn has pointed out (London Review of Books), the Kurds destabilized Iraq for half a century, and the Sunnis can certainly do the same. No Sunnis, no deal, no way-as you have repeatedly stressed. And the polls, which you courageously cite, which show some 40% of the population backing the insurgents, at least in principle,demonstrates-as you have repeatedly argued-that a large number of Iraqis want us to get out. This means, as you say almost every day, that our current policy ("unilateral presence", if I may call it that) is unsustainable. The insurgents, and many Iraqis, want us out, by any means.Our continued presence cannot succeed.

2) Your scenario for a regional Lebanese or Thirty Years? War style conflict in the wake of a precipitous U.S. withdrawal seems very plausible. Indeed, since I think that the U.S. cannot stay, and since I (regrettably) think that the U.N. option is also not viable (for some of the reasons your correspondents have stated), such a scenario may be the most prescient prediction. But the U.S., as a polity and culture, will simply not sustain this war, not without huge damage to other interests, to the military itself, and to what remains of American democracy. Our continued presence only postpones the evil day, and the U.N. is not, I think, likely to step in.

3) Salafi jihadis and Iran are the big winners in all this-and they hate each other. I can see NO possible way for outsiders to defuse this: not with the U.S. in Iraq, not with the U.N., not with a power vacuum. People from outside the region (U.S., E.U., U.N., India, China, whoever) can do very, very little about this. It seems to me that, as usual, only Muslims can ameliorate the problems of Muslim governance.

4) Finally, there is a tacit assumption in the discussion so far that low oil prices, including current levels, are viable. I don`t think this is true, for at least two reasons. A) The terrifying truth is that how we consume energy now both in the U.S. and elsewhere is entirely unsustainable for environmental reasons. Denial is the national past-time on this; and it is deeply destructive. Global warming is a reality, it will get worse, and the consequences will be extremely serious. I now work surrounded by biologists and environmental scientists, many of whom would cheer (even as they paid a heavy price in lost jobs and income) if the price of oil hit $100 a barrel, because they are in a panic about the consequences of our current profligate behavior. B) The jury is still out on the "Hubbert`s Peak" or "Peak Oil" hypothesis, but the viewpoint is hardly silly. If it should prove to be correct, oil prices will rise, steeply-until we get serious about fostering the kind of changes in consumption and technology which are necessary, in any case (see A). To repeat: assuming that low oil prices are viable is very dubious at best, and at worst, constitutes a species of denial.

5) Who will pay the price for high oil prices? As you rightly say, poor people, especially in the Global South. Will they know this? Certainly. Will they thank rich countries like us? Hardly. Might this lead to other violent social movements, particularly given all the other problems in the Global South? I can`t see why not. Of course, there are ways in principle of dealing with this problem which could minimize the pain. Every competent economist knows the litany of price changes, technology subsidies, and quantitative mandates which we should have implemented, decades ago. We should still do this now, even at this late date. Of course, every indication suggests that the necessary steps will not be taken, thanks, in large part, to American culture and politics. After all, no one, from either party, in the political arena is saying anything even remotely commensurate with the threat which most scientists see to the future of the planet. No one with any power is talking sensibly about energy use, global poverty, and their interrelationships. No one at all.

6) My last pessimistic point: my reading of history is that the only way large changes occur is as responses to large crises. I don`t like this, but it seems true to me. And, I hasten to add, change in a crisis is hardly guaranteed to be humane, decent, or to have any claim on our ethical allegiance. We might get a new Roosevelt, but we also might get a new Hitler.

Please don`t misunderstand me: I am not advocating regional-crisis-cum-oil-price-spike. I simply think that it is probably unavoidable. If we leave, there will be violence, mayhem, slaughter, and instability, and if we stay there will be violence, mayhem, slaughter, and instability. If there is (as I tend to think) a large crisis looming on the horizon, it will certainly be ugly, even hideous. And then-something else will happen. The one thing I don?t think is possible is to avoid it.

So let me close where I began: I think it is delusional to imagine that there exists a "solution" to the mess in Iraq. From this perspective, the folly of Bush, Cheney and Company in invading Iraq is even worse than most informed observers of the region already think. Starting an avalanche is certainly criminal. It does not follow, however, that such a phenomenon can be stopped once it has begun.

posted by Juan @ [url6/30/2005 06:12:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/guest-opinion-iraq-avalanche.html[/url]
Wednesday, June 29, 2005

Some Iraqis Criticize Bush`s Speech
Looming Health Crisis in Qaim Area

An Iraqi response to Bush`s claim that he is fighting terrorism by drawing terrorists to Iraq:


` "Why don`t they find another place to fight terrorism?" asked Abdul Ridha al-Hafadhi, 58, head of a humanitarian aid group. "I don`t feel comforted by Bush`s remarks; there must be a timetable for their departure." `



On Wednesday, a grenade attack wounded two Polish troops near Diwaniyah, and a bombing in Tel Afar killed four. On Tuesday, a bombing near the Japanese base at Samawah killed two Iraqis. Thousands of people came out for the funeral of slain parliamentarian Dhari Ali al-Fayyadh.

On Tuesday, guerrillas killed US troops at Balad and Tikrit; several were also wounded.

Reuters also reports that on Wednesday US forces arrested Dhahir al-Dhari, a major clan leader whose brother heads up the Association of Muslim Scholars, a hard line Sunni clerical group. Likewise:


` But another Sunni leader, Ayham al-Samarai, a former minister in the previous, U.S.-backed interim government, launched a new political movement, saying he aimed to give a voice to figures from the "legitimate Iraqi resistance". "The birth of this political bloc is to silence the sceptics who say there is no legitimate Iraqi resistance and that they cannot reveal their political face," he told a news conference. `



Al-Zaman: The Ministry of Labor is opening an inquiry into why several major Iraqi factories have closed down.

Iraq`s health minister has warned against a building humanitarian crisis in the Qaim area. US military operations in the cities near the Syrian border have left made refugees out of 7,000 families, some of them now living in tents in the desert. It is alleged that the US is not allowing ambulances and humanitarian aid into the cities, and that there is danger of some refugees starving.

Although the primary stated goal of US campaigns in places such as Qaim is to root out guerrillas using them as bases, the massive force employed clearly announces that a subsidiary goal is to terrify the Sunni Arab population and to "encourage" them to report on the guerrillas from now on. Jane Arraf of CNN when reporting on the al-Qaim campaign showed a picture of what looked like a large community center being blown up by American planes. I thought to myself that it couldn`t possibly be necessary to destroy that nice building. And, at the same time, the US is talking to the guerrilla leaders. Saddam called this sort of policy "tarhib wa taqrib": first you terrify your subjects, then you find ways of pulling them close to you. It does not reflect well on the US that the techniques it is now using look so familiar.

posted by Juan @ [url6/29/2005 12:32:00 PM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/some-iraqis-criticize-bushs-speech.html[/url]

[Joerver]

Die 2. Karikature hatte ich gestern schon eingestellt, aber die Archivierung der WaPost Cartoons erfolgt über U-Click und da besteht die Verlinkung nur für kurze Zeit. Deshalb stelle ich Tony Auth und Pat Oliphant Cartoons, wenn möglich, von anderen Quellen noch mal ein. Also keine Erinnerungslücken

[Joerver]

No solution and no apology as president runs out of ideas
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1517824,00.html

Simon Tisdall
Thursday June 30, 2005

Guardian
George Bush`s speech to the country from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, was an opportunity to show he knows what he is doing in Iraq. It was a chance to demonstrate that, despite past mistakes, he has a plan that will work.

Mr Bush also needed to counter the widespread perception that his administration is in a state of denial over the mounting casualties and costs that are dramatically eroding his poll ratings.

His Fort Bragg moment, if handled skillfully, might have enabled him to refute the Republican senator Chuck Hagel`s widely quoted, armour-piercing jibe that the White House is "disconnected from reality [and] making it up as they go along".

But the president fluffed it.

Like a recidivist incapable of going straight, Mr Bush plunged back into the scaremongering rhetoric of last autumn`s election campaign and once again deliberately conflated the Iraq war with the 9/11 terror attacks.

As before, he offered no way back and no joint, consensual path forward. Instead he ignored his critics, rewrapped himself in the flag, and gloried, from a safe distance, in the sacrifice of America`s soldiers.

Oblivious to the inherent contradiction, he vowed to defeat a weakened, immoral enemy that was simultaneously ubiquitous and on the attack. "Terrorists who kill innocents on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania," he said. "There is only one course of action against them: to defeat them abroad before they attack us at home. The only way our enemies can succeed is if we forget the lessons of September 11. For the sake of our nation`s security, this will not happen on my watch."

This last phrase possibly offered the best clue to Mr Bush`s second-term Iraq strategy, such as it is. He may lack new ideas, but he knows what he is not going to do.

There would be no timetable for a withdrawal, he said, despite claims that the American presence is the main problem. Nor would there be an unpopular, but arguably necessary, increase in troop numbers until Iraq`s post-Saddam institutions were secured.

Off-stage, Mr Bush`s chief adviser, Karl Rove, was busily drawing divisive domestic battlelines, lambasting Democrats and other "liberals" who he said wanted "to offer therapy and understanding for our attackers".

Most tellingly, Mr Bush once again refused to admit any mistakes before, during or after the 2003 invasion. There would be no raking over the past, Dan Bartlett, his communications director, insisted. In other words, Mr Bush does wars. He does freedom and he does democracy, as defined in Washington. But he does not do apologies.

What the president`s "not on my watch" remark suggested instead was that as long as he occupies the White House, there would be no significant reconsideration of the present "three-war" strategy. This comprises the war to pacify Iraq and Afghanistan; the global "war on terror" (which now increasingly targets Iran); and the selective, preponderantly diplomatic war for democracy in the Middle East and beyond. This is how Mr Bush is beginning to define a legacy almost wholly lacking in domestic policy achievements.

But if the president is not for turning, the US public increasingly may be. All the indications are that Mr Bush`s unionist-style no surrender, hang tough, trust-me patriotism is wearing thin.

Polls suggest that Americans just do not buy it any more. They feel they have been duped.

The assembled Fort Bragg troops gave Mr Bush only one spontaneous round of applause - the rank-and-file equivalent of a catcall.

Yet all would change in a moment if there were another successful al-Qaida attack on the US mainland.

Paradoxically, if any such a dreadful event were to occur, America`s defender in chief would be sure to claim personal vindication.

In such a case, war without end might truly prove to be Mr Bush`s lasting bequest to the American people.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

The sobering of America

US foreign policy is getting better - and that`s partly because Iraq has got worse
Timothy Garton Ash
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1517617,00.ht…

Thursday June 30, 2005

Guardian
To return to America after an absence of six months is to find a nation sobered by reality. The reality of debt and lost jobs. The reality of rising China. Above all, the reality of Iraq.

This new sobriety was exemplified by President Bush`s speech at Fort Bragg on Tuesday night. Beforehand, as the camera panned across row upon row of soldiers in red berets, the television commentator warned us that the speech might last a long time, since it was likely to be interrupted by numerous rounds of heartfelt applause from this loyal military audience. In fact, the audience interrupted him with applause just once. Once! Lines that during last autumn`s election rallies drummed up a certain storm ("We will not allow our future to be determined by car bombers and assassins") were now met with a deafening silence. Stolidly they sat, the serried soldiers, clean-shaven, square-jawed, looking slightly bored and, in at least one case that I spotted, rhythmically chewing gum.

Bush ploughed on with his sober, rather wooden speech, wearing that curious, rigid half-smile of his, with the mouth turning down rather than up at each end. A demi-rictus. The eerie silence made him look, at moments, like a stand-up comic whose jokes were falling flat; but of course this was no laughing matter. Afterwards, the same television commentators who had warned us to expect rounds of applause speculated, with an equally authoritative air, that the White House had suggested restraint to this audience, so it would not look as if the president was both requesting blanket coverage from the television networks and exploiting the nation`s military for the purposes of a party-political rally. But then perhaps soldiers who actually risk their lives for Bush`s policies in Iraq, and have lost comrades there, would not have been in a great mood to applaud anyway. Afterwards, as he mingled with the troops in the hall, their faces showed little more than mild curiosity at the prospect of meeting their commander-in-chief.

Bush`s Fort Bragg speech once again presented Iraq as part of the global war on terror - the Gwot. He mentioned the September 11 2001 terrorist attacks five times; weapons of mass destruction not once. We have to defeat the terrorists abroad, he said, before they attack us at home. As freedom spreads in the Middle East, the terrorists will lose their support. Then he made this extraordinary statement: "To complete the mission, we will prevent al-Qaida and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban - a safe haven from which they could launch attacks on America and our friends."

Consider. Three years ago, when the Bush administration started ramping up the case for invading Iraq, Afghanistan had recently been liberated from both the Taliban and the al-Qaida terrorists who had attacked the US. There was still a vast amount to be done to make Afghanistan a safe place. Iraq, meanwhile, was a hideous dictatorship under Saddam Hussein. But, as the United States` own September 11 commission subsequently concluded, Saddam`s regime had no connection with the 9/11 attacks. Iraq was not then a recruiting sergeant or training ground for jihadist terrorists. Now it is. The US-led invasion, and Washington`s grievous mishandling of the subsequent occupation, have made it so. General Wesley Clark puts it plainly: "We are creating enemies." And the president observes: our great achievement will be to prevent Iraq becoming another Taliban-style, al-Qaida-harbouring Afghanistan! This is like a man who shoots himself in the foot and then says: "We must prevent it turning gangrenous, then you`ll understand why I was right to shoot myself in the foot."

In short, whether or not the invasion of Iraq was a crime, it`s now clear that - at least in the form in which the invasion and occupation was executed by the Bush administration - it was a massive blunder. And the American people are beginning to see this. Before Bush spoke at Fort Bragg, 53% of those asked in a CNN/Gallup poll said it was a mistake to go into Iraq. Just 40% approved of how he has handled Iraq, down from 50% at the time of the presidential election last November. Contrary to what many Europeans believe, you can fool some of the Americans all of the time, and all of the Americans some of the time, but you can`t fool most Americans most of the time - even with the help of Fox News. Reality gets through. Hence the new sobriety.

I don`t want to overstate this. One is still gobsmacked by things American Republicans say. Take the glorification of the military, for example. In his speech, Bush insisted "there is no higher calling than service in our armed forces". What? No higher calling! How about being a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, an aid worker? Unimaginable that any European leader could say such a thing.

None the less, here are a few indicators of the new sobriety. First of all, neocons are no longer calling the shots. As a well-informed Washingtonian tells me, the nominations of Paul Wolfowitz to head the World Bank and John Bolton to be ambassador to the UN actually show they have been kicked upstairs. There is little talk now of proud unilateralism and America winning the Gwot on its own. Everyone stresses the importance of allies. Bush quoted with approval Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, on our shared interest in a stable Iraq, and proudly averred that "Iraqi army and police are being trained by personnel from Italy, Germany, Ukraine, Turkey, Poland, Romania, Australia and the United Kingdom".

The state department, under Condoleezza Rice, is setting out to repair old American alliances and to forge new ones. One of America`s most dynamically developing alliances is with India, a country in which America is also much loved. If anyone in Foggy Bottom (the wonderfully named neighbourhood of the state department) feels a twinge of schadenfreude at the crisis of the EU, they are not showing it. They want a strong European partner too. On Iran, which even six months ago threatened to become a new Iraq crisis, the US is letting the so-called E3 - Britain, France and Germany - take the diplomatic lead. Even with the election of a hardline Iranian president, military options are not being seriously canvassed. And if the European diplomacy with Iran does not work, what is Washington`s plan B? To take the issue to the United Nations! What a difference three years make.

Schröder is right, of course. It would be suicidally dumb for any European to think, in relation to Iraq, "the worse the better". Jihadists now cutting their teeth in Iraq will make no fine distinctions between Washington and London, Berlin or Madrid. Any reader tempted to luxuriate schadenfreudishly in the prospect of a Vietnam-style US evacuation from Baghdad may be woken from that reverie by the blast from a bomb, planted in Charing Cross tube station by an Iraq-hardened terrorist. But it is a fair and justified historical observation that American policy has got better - more sober, more realistic - at least partly because things in Iraq have gone so badly. This is the cunning of history.

www.freeworldweb.net
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[urlHow much effort is really being made?]http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1569[/url]
In the speech, President Bush will no doubt once again cite `training of security forces` as one of the success stories of the Iraqi adventure. Completing that mission will probably be one of the criteria for withdrawing U.S. troops from Iraq.

Did you ever wonder how much actual effort was being put into the training effort? So did we.

According to this recent Congressional Research Service report Post-War Iraq: Foreign Contributions to Training, Peacekeeping, and Reconstruction (PDF), here is a summary of what is being done to retrain the security forces in Iraq under the auspices of the NATO Training Mission-I (NTM-I) program:

NATO Member	Contribution (Trainers, Funding, Force Protection)
Belgium	Offered five to 10 military driving instructors for a German-led training mission for Iraqis in the United Arab Emirates. Will contribute $261,000 to a trust fund to help cover costs of the NATO mission.
Bulgaria	Pledged to send five instructors to Iraq, $40,000 in funding.
Canada	Offered up to 30 instructors to train outside Iraq, probably in Jordan, $810,000.
Czech Republic	Pledged to send five instructors and train up to 100 Iraqi military police in the Czech Republic during 2005. Announced donation of approximately $180,000 in April 2005.
Denmark	Offered 10 trainers and seven soldiers for force protection. Sent pistols, radios, binoculars and other equipment for Iraqi forces.
Estonia	One officer serving on NTM-I and has pledged $65,000 in support funds.
France	Will send one officer to help mission coordination at NATO headquarters in Belgium. Has offered to train 1,500 Iraqi military police in Qatar outside of the NATO NTM-I mission.
Germany	Offered to train Iraqi military personnel in United Arab Emirates and to contribute $652,000 to support program funding and airlift for Iraqi personnel. Iraqi security officers have received training under the auspices of NTM-I at a NATO military training facility in Oberammergau, Germany.
Greece	Has contributed approximately $376,000 in support funding.
Hungary	Sixteen officers currently in Iraq in support of NTM-I mission. Plans to supply 150 force protection troops for training facilities once the training facility at Ar Rustamiya is complete. Original nominal deployment period for the Hungarian troops was set for June 1, 2005 to September 30, 2006. Donating 77 refurbished Russian-made T72 tanks to Iraq in September 2005.
Iceland	Public information officer will serve with NATO mission in Baghdad. Offered $196,000 to fund training outside the country and help transport equipment to Iraq.
Italy	Eight officers currently serving in support of NTM-I mission in Baghdad. Considering sending up to 16 more.
Latvia	Plans to host Iraqi soldiers for bomb disposal training. Contributing $65,000 to NTM-I trust fund. Sending equipment to Iraqi forces.
Lithuania	Two trainers serving in Iraq, two more expected. Also considering training Iraqi personnel in Lithuania.
Luxembourg	Offered $196,000 in support funds.
Netherlands	10 military police and 15 trainers currently serving on NTM-I mission. Considering sending more.
Norway	Sending 10 trainers to Iraq. Hosted training of 19 Iraqi officers at NATO Joint Warfare Center. $196,000 in funding.
Poland	Plans to send up to 10 trainers and a transport platoon of about 30. Considering sending force protection unit. Decision pending expiration of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1546 and elections scheduled for September 2005.
Portugal	Sending up to 10 soldiers to Iraq to support NTM-I mission.
Romania	Two instructors in Iraq, five more planned. Will take 25 Iraqi officers on training course in Romania in July, 25 additional expected later in 2005.
Slovakia	Sending two instructors to Iraq, $53,000 in support funding.
Slovenia	Offered to support training outside Iraq, probably in Jordan. Offered $132,000 in support funding.
Spain	Plans to train groups of 25 Iraqis in mine clearance at a center outside Madrid. Pledged $530,000 in support funding.
Turkey	Two officers serving in Baghdad; offered to train Iraqis in Turkey. Pledged $125,000 in April 2005.
United Kingdom	Eleven soldiers now serving with NTM-I mission. Pledged $330,000 in support funding.
United States	Commands the operation under Lt. Gen. David Petraeus. 60 instructors and a force protection company with NTM-I mission in Baghdad. Providing logistics and airlift support. Pledged $500,000.

Noch etwas von der Blogger Seite:
[urlFaildoers]http://www.needlenose.com/node/view/1574[/url]
Die Seite:
http://www.needlenose.com/

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Der Independent hat einen Relaunch seiner Online-Ausgabe gemacht. Das führt augenblicklich zu Zugangsschwierigkeiten.

Taliban `filmed fighters shooting down Chinook`
Published: 30 June 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article295732.ece

In an ominous sign of the growing instability in Afghanistan, the US military said that enemy fire had downed one of its helicopters on Tuesday. The 17 American servicemen it was carrying are missing and feared dead after the Chinook went down in Konar province.

Two men claiming to be Taliban spokesmen have phoned Western news agencies claiming to have video footage of the helicopter being shot down and the aftermath of the crash.

Marine Corps General Peter Pace yesterday told the Senate Armed Service Committee that the helicopter had been shot down: "It was a special operations helicopter shot down, possibly by a rocket-propelled grenade, some kind of rocket, but we don`t know," he said.

US-led coalition rescue troops have been dropped by helicopter into the mountains around the crash site to search for survivors.

The Chinook appears to have been the first American aircraft shot down in Afghanistan. US aircraft have been downed in Iraq, and this latest incident will increase fears that the situation in Afghanistan could escalate to mirror that.

It is also reminiscent of the way in which Afghan mujahedin shot down Red Army helicopters with US-supplied Stinger shoulder-launched missiles during the jihad against the Soviet occupation, a parallel that will be lost on no one in Afghanistan. The success of the mujahedin in crippling Soviet movements by bringing down their helicopters is thought by many to have been decisive in forcing the Soviet withdrawal.

The US helicopter was carrying troops to Konar, where the US military says it has "a large force" fighting with "a very determined al-Qa`ida enemy". The New York Times quoted unnamed military sources as saying the helicopter was carrying Navy Seals special forces.

The governor of Konar, Asadullah Waffa, said the helicopter had been brought down by a rocket fired by militants who had crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan to spread chaos ahead of the September parliamentary elections, and that Afghan security forces had captured two militants posing as cameramen.

General Pace told the Senate committee that insurgent violence in Afghanistan was rising and expected to worsen, and more US troops would be sent there ahead of the elections. The US would send "whatever number we need to ensure the security," and Nato also "will send in extra troops," General Pace said. Nato has about 8,300 troops in Afghanistan.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

From CNN`s unscientific opinion poll on their webpage: Which word best describes President Bush`s speech? Reassuring 16% 7040 votes Uplifting 7% 3039 votes Worrying 77% 33908 votes

[Joerver]

The lobbyists` scandal: The secret world of Washington
The Capitol`s grubby secret is the swarm of lobbyists in a sea of money, washing around the Congress and Senate. But one lobbyist may have just over-reached himself.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article295734.e…
By Rupert Cornwell
Published: 30 June 2005

It all began in 2000 when the Mississippi band of Choctaw Indians, grown rich on the operations of casinos on their tribal land, decided they needed some allies in Washington to help protect their wealth from competitors. Not unreasonably, they chose to retain the services of Jack Abramoff, the king of Washington lobbyists. What happened next has become an American morality tale of our times.

Over the next two years, the Choctaws paid Mr Abramoff and his colleague Michael Scanlon some $15m (£8.3m). Alas, the esteem was not reciprocated. In a series of e-mails, the pair referred to the Choctaws and other Indian tribal clients as, among other things, "troglodytes" and "monkeys". Of that $15m, it is alleged, Mr Abramoff and Mr Scanlon channelled off up to $7m.

Some of the money went to pay off a debt from Abramoff`s days as a B-movie producer in Hollywood. Some went to finance a golfing trip to St Andrews for Tom DeLay, his most influential friend in Congress. Some, it seems, went for the lobbyists` own enrichment, under a system referred to in the e-mails as "Gimme Five". Over the past 12 months, the saga that has unfolded in a series of hearings by the Senate Indian Affairs committee, has transfixed Washington. "Simply and sadly, it is a tale of betrayal," says John McCain, the panel`s chairman, distinguished only by the lobbyists` "insatiable greed" and their "utter contempt" for their clients.

Lobbying is Washington`s grubby secret. In the city of ceremony and empire, peace and war, it is the unspoken business of the shadows. Some say lobbying is part of the democratic process. Others claim it is legalised bribery, even downright corruption. But love it or loathe it, it is the way Washington works. Usually you hear little about the cajolings and threats, the quiet meetings, the lavish lunches and junkets that lubricate American politics. But every once in a while something comes along to open the system to the thing it hates most: daylight. The case of Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon and a clutch of Indian tribes which paid them $82m is one of those somethings.

Mr Abramoff claims he was doing nothing illegal, that the Indians got value for money and his only sin was to have been too good at his job. But now his career, indeed his liberty, are under threat, as the FBI investigates allegations of massive fraud. The affair has cast a dark cloud over Mr DeLay, the former pesticide salesman from Texas who is now House majority leader, known on Capitol Hill as "The Hammer". Some even believe the scandal could mark the beginning of the end of this era of Republican dominance.

Lobbying per se is nothing new. The right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances" is enshrined in the first amendment of the Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech. As long ago as 1913, Woodrow Wilson was complaining that Washington was "swarming with lobbyists ... you can`t throw a brick in any direction without hitting one."

But the 28th president cannot have imagined how access-peddling would blossom into a $4bn industry. There are 14,000 registered lobbyists, and at least as many again who are not registered. The money pours in not just from the US but around the world. Between 1998 and 2004, foreign companies spent $620m (£350m) bending ears in Washington.

Lobbying thrives in the US for two reasons, which a comparison with Britain illustrates. Britain has a parliamentary system, where the prime minister controls the legislative agenda and where party discipline ensures it becomes law. Basically, if you want to tilt the playing field, you must get to ministers, best of all the prime minister. But unless you are Rupert Murdoch, that can be tricky.

Forget about the average backbencher. British sleaze has an engaging directness; take the brown envelopes bestowed by Mohammed Fayed on Neil Hamilton in the "cash for questions" case. But the sums involved would not cover the daily expense account of a Jack Abramoff.

Congress is the legislative branch of the constitution. It writes laws and appropriates money for government spending. Most important, it is separate from the executive branch headed by the White House.

Although George Bush`s Republican party has majorities in the House and Senate, he has no direct control of the Bills they consider. For a lobbyist this is heaven, a sky studded with dozens of powerful committee chairmen and ranking members, all with their fiefdoms, whose yea or nay is decisive.

The other key ingredient is money, the colossal sums needed to fight election campaigns. In Britain, the curbs on such spending are strict. In America, by contrast, the sky`s the limit. Total spending for the 2004 elections, presidential and Congressional, reached $4bn.

The summit of extravagance was the 2004 race in South Dakota, one of the least populous US states, in which Republican challenger Jim Thune defeated the Democratic Senate minority leader Tom Daschle. The combined cost was a staggering $40m, and this money was not raised by each of the 391,000 good citizens who voted, chipping in $100 for the privilege.

In a larger state, the average cost of defending a Senate seat is $20m. This means an incumbent has to raise $9,000 every day of his six-year term. There is only one place to get that kind of money. And so the merry-go-round starts to turn.

The basic trade-off is simple. Corporate and other donors (among them Indian tribes) provide money in a bid to secure the legislation they want, with desired exemptions, loopholes and financial breaks. The intermediaries between the two sides – legislators in constant need of election campaign funds and business interests trying to influence them – are the lobbyists. And the more people a lobbyist knows on Capitol Hill, the more effective he or she is.

Unsurprisingly, ever increasing numbers of them are former legislators. The revolving door is nothing new, but today it spins faster than ever. Congressmen and their aides become lobbyists, cashing in their contacts for seven-figure salaries.

The executive branch too joins in the fun. Take Philip Cooney, the White House official who went to Exxon, days after it was revealed he had been doctoring climate-change reports to diminish the role of fossil fuels in global warming. The Washington-based pressure group Centre for Public Integrity, says almost 250 former Congressmen and senior government officials are now active lobbyists.

Attempts to cleanse the system of its addiction to money invariably fail. The 2002 Campaign Reform Act outlawed "soft money" (previously unlimited contributions to the national parties for generic "party-building activities") that in fact went to help specific candidates. This closed one source of money. But the ever-escalating cost of campaigns meant other sources had to be found. Enter the lobbyists.

Jack Abramoff and his ilk are key figures in Washington`s power networks that embrace the politicians on Capitol Hill, lobbyists and non-profit interest groups and organisations. And no network was mightier than the one embracing Mr Abramoff, Mr DeLay and Grover Norquist, president of the Americans for Tax Reform interest group.

Mr Abramoff`s special good fortune was to be in the right place at the right time. No lobbyist was a better friend of Mr DeLay and Newt Gingrich when the Republican landslide in the 1994 mid-term elections turned these two conservative firebrands from minority mischief-makers into the new masters of Congress.

Suddenly, Mr Abramoff was the man who could open the doors that mattered on Capitol Hill. The money that poured in from clients enabled him to fix anything, from private luxury box-seats at Washington Redskins games to golfing trips for his Congressional pals. Lobbyists are barred by law from paying for such junkets. But that could be got round by having the non-profit group pick up the bill (tax-deductible of course).

Fred Wertheimer, chairman of the Democracy 21 organisation has been toiling half a lifetime to reduce the role of money in US politics. "DeLay has made it an art form. You have to `pay to play`, you have to provide campaign finance for his party if you want to have any influence." So how corrupt is the system? Mr Wertheimer says: "It`s corrupt with a small `c`. As a rule, you`re not talking about classic quid pro quo bribery corruption. Politicians aren`t getting personally rich out of it, unlike other countries where money used to buy influence goes to the personal benefit of the office-holder."

After the 1994 victory, Mr DeLay set up a project aimed at consolidating Republican power. It too boils down to a deal. Lobbyists and trade and industry associations would be allowed virtually to write legislation. In return, the lobbying firms would hire Republicans.

The result has been a semi-purge of former Democrat lawmakers-turned-lobbyists. Today`s lobbyists pour their clients` money into Republican ideological projects, and use their contacts to round up more funds for Republican candidates. As successive elections strengthened the Republican grip on Congress, the system has become steadily more entrenched.

Possibly, the Indian tribe`s scandal will change matters. In their hubris, the Republicans may have overreached. Public approval of Congress, at just 33 per cent one recent poll shows, has never been lower.

Maybe Mr DeLay, at the centre of other ethics inquiries, will be forced to step down as majority leader. But do not bet on it. Jack Abramoff may end up as the scapegoat, thrown to the wolves to persuade ordinary Americans that the system is able to police itself, while the realities remain. Washington plays by the rules it knows, however disagreeable they may be. As a chastened Mr Abramoff told The New York Times: "Eventually in politics, money wins."

It all began in 2000 when the Mississippi band of Choctaw Indians, grown rich on the operations of casinos on their tribal land, decided they needed some allies in Washington to help protect their wealth from competitors. Not unreasonably, they chose to retain the services of Jack Abramoff, the king of Washington lobbyists. What happened next has become an American morality tale of our times.

Over the next two years, the Choctaws paid Mr Abramoff and his colleague Michael Scanlon some $15m (£8.3m). Alas, the esteem was not reciprocated. In a series of e-mails, the pair referred to the Choctaws and other Indian tribal clients as, among other things, "troglodytes" and "monkeys". Of that $15m, it is alleged, Mr Abramoff and Mr Scanlon channelled off up to $7m.

Some of the money went to pay off a debt from Abramoff`s days as a B-movie producer in Hollywood. Some went to finance a golfing trip to St Andrews for Tom DeLay, his most influential friend in Congress. Some, it seems, went for the lobbyists` own enrichment, under a system referred to in the e-mails as "Gimme Five". Over the past 12 months, the saga that has unfolded in a series of hearings by the Senate Indian Affairs committee, has transfixed Washington. "Simply and sadly, it is a tale of betrayal," says John McCain, the panel`s chairman, distinguished only by the lobbyists` "insatiable greed" and their "utter contempt" for their clients.

Lobbying is Washington`s grubby secret. In the city of ceremony and empire, peace and war, it is the unspoken business of the shadows. Some say lobbying is part of the democratic process. Others claim it is legalised bribery, even downright corruption. But love it or loathe it, it is the way Washington works. Usually you hear little about the cajolings and threats, the quiet meetings, the lavish lunches and junkets that lubricate American politics. But every once in a while something comes along to open the system to the thing it hates most: daylight. The case of Jack Abramoff, Michael Scanlon and a clutch of Indian tribes which paid them $82m is one of those somethings.

Mr Abramoff claims he was doing nothing illegal, that the Indians got value for money and his only sin was to have been too good at his job. But now his career, indeed his liberty, are under threat, as the FBI investigates allegations of massive fraud. The affair has cast a dark cloud over Mr DeLay, the former pesticide salesman from Texas who is now House majority leader, known on Capitol Hill as "The Hammer". Some even believe the scandal could mark the beginning of the end of this era of Republican dominance.

Lobbying per se is nothing new. The right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances" is enshrined in the first amendment of the Constitution that guarantees freedom of speech. As long ago as 1913, Woodrow Wilson was complaining that Washington was "swarming with lobbyists ... you can`t throw a brick in any direction without hitting one."

But the 28th president cannot have imagined how access-peddling would blossom into a $4bn industry. There are 14,000 registered lobbyists, and at least as many again who are not registered. The money pours in not just from the US but around the world. Between 1998 and 2004, foreign companies spent $620m (£350m) bending ears in Washington.

Lobbying thrives in the US for two reasons, which a comparison with Britain illustrates. Britain has a parliamentary system, where the prime minister controls the legislative agenda and where party discipline ensures it becomes law. Basically, if you want to tilt the playing field, you must get to ministers, best of all the prime minister. But unless you are Rupert Murdoch, that can be tricky.

Forget about the average backbencher. British sleaze has an engaging directness; take the brown envelopes bestowed by Mohammed Fayed on Neil Hamilton in the "cash for questions" case. But the sums involved would not cover the daily expense account of a Jack Abramoff.

Congress is the legislative branch of the constitution. It writes laws and appropriates money for government spending. Most important, it is separate from the executive branch headed by the White House.

Although George Bush`s Republican party has majorities in the House and Senate, he has no direct control of the Bills they consider. For a lobbyist this is heaven, a sky studded with dozens of powerful committee chairmen and ranking members, all with their fiefdoms, whose yea or nay is decisive.

The other key ingredient is money, the colossal sums needed to fight election campaigns. In Britain, the curbs on such spending are strict. In America, by contrast, the sky`s the limit. Total spending for the 2004 elections, presidential and Congressional, reached $4bn.

The summit of extravagance was the 2004 race in South Dakota, one of the least populous US states, in which Republican challenger Jim Thune defeated the Democratic Senate minority leader Tom Daschle. The combined cost was a staggering $40m, and this money was not raised by each of the 391,000 good citizens who voted, chipping in $100 for the privilege.

In a larger state, the average cost of defending a Senate seat is $20m. This means an incumbent has to raise $9,000 every day of his six-year term. There is only one place to get that kind of money. And so the merry-go-round starts to turn.

The basic trade-off is simple. Corporate and other donors (among them Indian tribes) provide money in a bid to secure the legislation they want, with desired exemptions, loopholes and financial breaks. The intermediaries between the two sides – legislators in constant need of election campaign funds and business interests trying to influence them – are the lobbyists. And the more people a lobbyist knows on Capitol Hill, the more effective he or she is.

Unsurprisingly, ever increasing numbers of them are former legislators. The revolving door is nothing new, but today it spins faster than ever. Congressmen and their aides become lobbyists, cashing in their contacts for seven-figure salaries.

The executive branch too joins in the fun. Take Philip Cooney, the White House official who went to Exxon, days after it was revealed he had been doctoring climate-change reports to diminish the role of fossil fuels in global warming. The Washington-based pressure group Centre for Public Integrity, says almost 250 former Congressmen and senior government officials are now active lobbyists.

Attempts to cleanse the system of its addiction to money invariably fail. The 2002 Campaign Reform Act outlawed "soft money" (previously unlimited contributions to the national parties for generic "party-building activities") that in fact went to help specific candidates. This closed one source of money. But the ever-escalating cost of campaigns meant other sources had to be found. Enter the lobbyists.

Jack Abramoff and his ilk are key figures in Washington`s power networks that embrace the politicians on Capitol Hill, lobbyists and non-profit interest groups and organisations. And no network was mightier than the one embracing Mr Abramoff, Mr DeLay and Grover Norquist, president of the Americans for Tax Reform interest group.

Mr Abramoff`s special good fortune was to be in the right place at the right time. No lobbyist was a better friend of Mr DeLay and Newt Gingrich when the Republican landslide in the 1994 mid-term elections turned these two conservative firebrands from minority mischief-makers into the new masters of Congress.

Suddenly, Mr Abramoff was the man who could open the doors that mattered on Capitol Hill. The money that poured in from clients enabled him to fix anything, from private luxury box-seats at Washington Redskins games to golfing trips for his Congressional pals. Lobbyists are barred by law from paying for such junkets. But that could be got round by having the non-profit group pick up the bill (tax-deductible of course).

Fred Wertheimer, chairman of the Democracy 21 organisation has been toiling half a lifetime to reduce the role of money in US politics. "DeLay has made it an art form. You have to `pay to play`, you have to provide campaign finance for his party if you want to have any influence." So how corrupt is the system? Mr Wertheimer says: "It`s corrupt with a small `c`. As a rule, you`re not talking about classic quid pro quo bribery corruption. Politicians aren`t getting personally rich out of it, unlike other countries where money used to buy influence goes to the personal benefit of the office-holder."

After the 1994 victory, Mr DeLay set up a project aimed at consolidating Republican power. It too boils down to a deal. Lobbyists and trade and industry associations would be allowed virtually to write legislation. In return, the lobbying firms would hire Republicans.

The result has been a semi-purge of former Democrat lawmakers-turned-lobbyists. Today`s lobbyists pour their clients` money into Republican ideological projects, and use their contacts to round up more funds for Republican candidates. As successive elections strengthened the Republican grip on Congress, the system has become steadily more entrenched.

Possibly, the Indian tribe`s scandal will change matters. In their hubris, the Republicans may have overreached. Public approval of Congress, at just 33 per cent one recent poll shows, has never been lower.

Maybe Mr DeLay, at the centre of other ethics inquiries, will be forced to step down as majority leader. But do not bet on it. Jack Abramoff may end up as the scapegoat, thrown to the wolves to persuade ordinary Americans that the system is able to police itself, while the realities remain. Washington plays by the rules it knows, however disagreeable they may be. As a chastened Mr Abramoff told The New York Times: "Eventually in politics, money wins."

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Latest Coalition Fatality: Jun 28, 2005
June05: 80
Das ist die letzte Zahl für Juni bis jetzt.

Hier sind die letzten Zahlen von gestern:
Iraker: Civilian:470 Police/Mil: 293 Total:763
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Regelmäßige Updates von Meldungen aus dem Irak:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

`To abandon Viet Nam would be wrong` — Text of speech by President Lyndon Johnson, delivered April 7, 1965
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=21744&mode=nest…

Posted on Thursday, June 30 @ 10:04:33 EDT
Text of speech by President Lyndon Johnson, April 7, 1965

Tonight Americans and Asians are dying for a world where each people may choose its own path to change. This is the principle for which our ancestors fought in the valleys of Pennsylvania. It is the principle for which our sons fight tonight in the jungles of Viet Nam.

Viet Nam is far away from this quiet campus. We have no territory there, nor do we seek any. The war is dirty and brutal and difficult. And some 400 young men, born into an America that is bursting with opportunity and promise, have ended their lives on Viet Nam’s steaming soil.

Why must we take this painful road? Why must this nation hazard its ease, its interest, and its power for the sake of a people so far away?

We fight because we must fight if we are to live in a world where every country can shape its own destiny, and only in such a world will our own freedom be finally secure.

This kind of world will never be built by bombs or bullets. Yet the infirmities of man are such that force must often precede reason and the waste of war, the works of peace.

We wish this were not so. But we must deal with the world as it is, if it is ever to be as we wish.

The world as it is in Asia is not a serene or peaceful place.

Of course, some of the people of South Viet Nam are participating in attack on their own government. But trained men and supplies, orders and arms, flow in a constant stream from North to South. This support is the heartbeat of the war.

And it is a war of unparalleled brutality. Simple farmers are the targets of assassination and kidnapping. Women and children are strangled in the night because their men are loyal to the government. And helpless villagers are ravaged by sneak attacks. Large-scale raids are conducted on towns, and terror strikes in the heart of cities.

The confused nature of this conflict cannot mask the fact that it is the new face of an old enemy. The contest in Viet Nam is part of a wider pattern of aggressive purposes.

Why are these realities our concern? Why are we in South Viet Nam?

We are there because we have a promise to keep. Over many years, we have made a national pledge to help South Viet Nam defend its independence. And I intend to keep that promise.

To dishonor that pledge, to abandon this small and brave nation to its enemies, and to the terror that must follow, would be an unforgivable wrong.

We are also there to strengthen world order. Around the globe from Berlin to Thailand are people whose well being rests in part on the belief that they can count on us if they are attacked. To leave Viet Nam to its fate would shake the confidence of all these people in the value of an American commitment and in the value of America’s word. The result would be increased unrest and instability, even wide war.

We are also there because there are great stakes in the balance. Let no one think for a minute that retreat from Viet Nam would bring an end to the conflict. The battle would be renewed in one country and then another. The central lesson of our time is that the appetite of aggression is never satisfied. To withdraw from one battlefield means only to prepare for the next. We must say in Southeast Asia--as we did in Europe--in the words of the Bible: "Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further."

Our objective is the independence of South Viet Nam, and its freedom from attack. We want nothing for ourselves-only that the people of South Viet Nam be allowed to guide their own country in their own way.

We will do everything necessary to reach that objective. And we will do only what is absolutely necessary.

We do this in order to slow down aggression.

We do this to increase the confidence of the brave people of South Viet Nam who have bravely borne this brutal battle for so many years with so many casualties.

We will not be defeated. We will not grow tired.

We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement.

We hope that peace will come swiftly. But that is in the hands of others besides ourselves. And we must be prepared for a long continued conflict. It will require patience as well as bravery, the will to endure as well as the will to resist.

I wish it were possible to convince others with words of what we now find it necessary to say with guns and planes: Armed hostility is futile. Our resources are equal to the challenge.

Because we fight for values and we fight for principles, rather than territory or colonies, our patience and our determination are unending.

Editor`s Note: The text of this speech was found within Greg Mitchell`s oped in today`s Editor & Publisher.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 30, 2005
Troops` Silence at Fort Bragg Starts a Debate All Its Own
By DAVID E. SANGER
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/30/politics/30speech.html

WASHINGTON, June 29 - So what happened to the applause?

When President Bush visits military bases, he invariably receives a foot-stomping, loud ovation at every applause line. At bases like Fort Bragg - the backdrop for his Tuesday night speech on Iraq - the clapping is often interspersed with calls of "Hoo-ah," the military`s all-purpose, spirited response to, well, almost anything.

So the silence during his speech was more than a little noticeable, both on television and in the hall. On Wednesday, as Mr. Bush`s repeated use of the imagery of the Sept. 11 attacks drew bitter criticism from Congressional Democrats, there was a parallel debate under way about whether the troops sat on their hands because they were not impressed, or because they thought that was their orders.

With Iraq once more atop the political agenda, the Senate on Wednesday gave hasty approval to an additional $1.5 billion for the Department of Veterans Affairs, to cover a budget gap caused in part by unexpected demands for health care by returning Iraqi veterans. The administration has reversed itself, and now plans to seek emergency money from both the House and the Senate. Before the Senate voted unanimously to raise the spending for health care, the head of the veterans administration returned to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to tell House members that, contrary to his testimony the previous day, the agency needs emergency financing for this year and the administration will be submitting a request.

Democrats had seized on the veterans` spending issue as another example of the administration`s mishandling of the war.

Republicans moved quickly to respond to what was becoming a significant embarrassment.

Capt. Tom Earnhardt, a public affairs officer at Fort Bragg who participated in the planning for the president`s trip, said that from the first meetings with White House officials there was agreement that a hall full of wildly cheering troops would not create the right atmosphere for a speech devoted to policy and strategy.

"The guy from White House advance, during the initial meetings, said, `Be careful not to let this become a pep rally,` " Captain Earnhardt recalled in a telephone interview. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, confirmed that account.

As the message drifted down to commanders, it appears that it may have gained an interpretation beyond what the administration`s image-makers had in mind. "This is a very disciplined environment," said Captain Earnhardt, "and some guys may have taken it a bit far," leaving the troops hesitant to applaud.

After two presidential campaigns, Mr. Bush has finely tuned his sense of timing for cueing applause, especially when it comes to his most oft-expressed declarations of resolve to face down terrorists. But when the crowd did not respond on Tuesday , he seemed to speed up his delivery a bit. Then, toward the end of the 28-minute speech, there was an outbreak of clapping when Mr. Bush said, "We will stay in the fight until the fight is done."

Terry Moran, an ABC News White House correspondent, said on the air on Tuesday night that the first to clap appeared to be a woman who works for the White House, arranging events. Some other reporters had the same account, but Captain Earnhardt and others in the back of the room say the applause was started by a group of officers.

While the White House tried to explain the silence, Democrats were critical of Mr. Bush`s use of the Sept. 11 attacks - comparing it to the administration`s argument, before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, that Saddam Hussein had links to Al Qaeda. The independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks found no evidence of "a collaborative operational relationship" between Iraq and Osama bin Laden`s organization.

Mr. Bush declared in his speech, as he has many times in recent months, that the Iraq campaign is part of a wider war on terrorism that was brought home to America on Sept. 11, 2001.

Mr. Bush, his aides said, was referring not to the past, but to the arrival in Iraq of terrorists linked to Al Qaeda once Mr. Hussein`s government fell.

"What we need is a policy to get it right in Iraq," Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, Mr. Bush`s opponents in the 2004 election, said on the NBC morning show "Today." "The way you honor the troops is not to bring up the memory of 9/11. It`s to give the troops leadership that`s equal to the sacrifice."

Carl Hulse and DavidStout contributed reporting for this article.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

AHEAD: SIX DECADES OF HUMILIATION
http://www.uexpress.com/tedrall/?uc_full_date=20050628

NEW YORK--The world hates us more than ever, according to a new Pew Research poll of 16,000 citizens in 15 countries. Most Canadians think Americans are exceptionally rude. The Chinese say we`re violent and greedy. Nearly half of Turks--up from 32 percent a year ago--say they dislike Americans as individuals and America as a nation, according to the survey. Muslims have a "quite negative hostility toward America," says Pew president Andrew Kohut. Even among our traditional allies, he says, the United States "remains broadly disliked."

The reason for our declining popularity is no mystery: Bush`s unjustified, illegal war against Iraq. But Iraq, Bush`s doctrine of preemptive warfare and instances of prisoners being tortured and even murdered aren`t completely unprecedented. Cheney`s neoconservatives are merely the latest executors of an aggressive foreign policy that has long prompted fear, hatred and resentment among the leaders and citizens of other nations. Beginning with Theodore Roosevelt`s brutal suppression of Filipino insurgents at the dawn of the 20th century, continuing with the holocaust of two million Vietnamese civilians under LBJ and Nixon`s carpet bombs and recently exemplified by a series of bullying adventures against such defenseless nations as Grenada, Panama and Afghanistan, the U.S. has become, perhaps to its surprise, the biggest danger to peace and stability on the planet.

Many Americans, still taking pride in the memorable image of "Gift of USA" flag logos on bags of grain being tossed to starving Africans, find it difficult to accept the role of international pariah. But the truth is that many people are as scared of us as they were of Germany and Japan in 1939.

Ah, irony. Our rep has gone down the toilet with the Koran, but things are looking up for the Axis powers we defeated in World War II.

Germany, nearly recovered from the economic shock of reunification and a lead partner in the European Community, is lobbying for a permanent seat on the United Nations security council. "Because of [Germany`s role in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans]," Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told Bush at the White House on June 28, "we have earned certain rights." Bush, seeking payback for Schroeder`s lack of support for the Iraq war, is said to be cool to the German bid. Nevertheless, bringing up the question demonstrates Germany`s newfound self-confidence. As the German weekly Der Spiegel commented: "Normally it is only superpowers who express themselves--and their rights--so aggressively."

Twenty countries, including India, Japan and Brazil, want to join the prestigious security council. Controversy continues to dog Japan`s efforts to be recognized as a major military as well as economic power, mainly due to its refusal to come to terms with its part in World War II. Japanese textbooks gloss over atrocities in China, and the government has never issued a formal apology. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi continues to pay honors at a shrine to Japan`s war dead, including known war criminals. But Bush supports just one addition to the Big Five: Japan.

Germany and Japan`s remarkable comeback since 1945 holds an instructive lesson for the United States today. During the last six decades both countries recovered from total defeat, massive loss of life and infrastructure and the humiliation of occupation by concentrating first on economic revival, then building a political society designed to cause as little offense as possible to the international community and finally, since the end of the Cold War, asserting themselves militarily but only in peace-keeping missions which even their former enemies couldn`t openly oppose. Now both are poised to resume the roles they played before they launched their empire-building military campaigns, no longer as expansionist aggressors but as powerful nations worthy of trust and respect.

Particularly in Germany, every postwar generation was taught about the evils of militarism and the horrors their parents and grandparents had carried out in the name of God and country. Pacifism is the norm; Nazism is reviled. Even in Japan, where official signs of contrition haven`t been forthcoming, only a few nostalgic nutcases yearn for the glorious days of the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. No one`s afraid of the Axis anymore.

Now the U.S. is the sole, charter member of its own Axis of Evil: invading and threatening invasions, breaking arms treaties willy-nilly, kidnapping and murdering foreign citizens without cause, refusing to abide by the Geneva conventions. But that will change someday--whether we`re forced to change, as were Germany and Japan, or whether we choose a different path on our own. What`s daunting is how much time--and humility--it will take for the rest of the world to trust us as much as they trust Germany and Italy.

COPYRIGHT 2005 TED RALL

RALL 6/28/05

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

Das muß `shrinking` heißen
[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Bodies from U.S. copter crash found in Afghanistan
Thu Jun 30, 2005 11:45 AM ET
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&…

By David Brunnstrom

KABUL (Reuters) - The bodies of 13 U.S. troops have been recovered from the crash of a U.S. helicopter in eastern Afghanistan, but seven more U.S. soldiers are unaccounted for and some may have been captured, a news report said on Thursday.
[Table align=right]

U.S. soldiers, with a Chinook helicopter in the background, return to their base after attending a local
tribal council in Zabul province, south of Afghanistan June 30, 2005. The bodies of 13 U.S. troops have
been recovered from the crash of a U.S. helicopter in eastern Afghanistan, but seven more U.S. soldiers
are unaccounted for and some may have been captured, a news report said on June 30.
[/TABLE]
A report on the BBC Web site quoted unidentified U.S. military officials on the recovery of the bodies from the site of Tuesday`s crash in Kunar province.

The BBC said officials said there was hope some of those unaccounted for were alive but it also quoted correspondent Andrew North as saying they may have been captured by insurgents.

The report said some of those unaccounted for had been soldiers who had been fighting on the ground. It said North was at the U.S. military base at Asadabad, capital of Kunar.

General Aminullah Patyani, army commander for eastern Afghanistan, told Reuters "a few bodies" had been found at the crash site in the Dar-e-Paich area about 30 km (19 miles) northwest of Asadabad, but he did not know how many.

He said the search was still going on and he had no information about U.S. troops being captured by insurgents.

A U.S. official said in Washington on Wednesday that all 17 U.S. troops aboard the helicopter, who included elite U.S. Navy Seals, were presumed to have died in the crash.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. military, which has not confirmed any deaths, said she could not confirm the BBC report.

"I don`t know where they are getting that information," Lieutenant Cindy Moore said. I don`t have what they are saying."

The MH-47 Chinook helicopter, a Special Forces variant of the U.S. military`s CH-47 twin-rotor workhorse, crashed after being hit by insurgent fire, the U.S. military said.

RECOVERY OPERATION

A statement from the military on Thursday said U.S. forces had secured the crash site and were "assessing the cause of the crash and the status of the 17 service members."

It said U.S.-led forces were continuing an anti-militant operation codenamed "Redwing" in Kunar, but gave no details.

U.S. spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Jerry O`Hara said work at the crash site had been hampered by the presence of militants in the area, cloudy weather and rugged, heavily wooded terrain.

The Chinook, which crashed during an anti-al-Qaeda operation, was probably struck by a rocket-propelled grenade, General Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday.

Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said the guerrillas shot down the Chinook with "a new type of weapon" which he did not describe.

Hakimi, whose information has often been unreliable in the past, said on Wednesday that the guerrillas had killed seven U.S. "spies" in the area before shooting down the helicopter.

In early June, the U.S. military said a helicopter had been attacked in Uruzgan province by a suspected surface-to-air missile. Such weapons, supplied by the United States, were used to great effect by guerrillas fighting Soviet occupiers in the 1980s but the Taliban have not been known to use them.

The U.S. military said the Chinook was hit as it approached a landing zone while bringing in reinforcements to assist troops on the ground and crashed 1-2 km (half a mile to one mile) away.

If confirmed, the casualties would be the heaviest for U.S. forces in an incident linked to hostile fire in Afghanistan since they invaded and overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

The stepped-up fighting and increased use of roadside bombs and suicide attacks have raised fears that insurgents are importing Iraq-style tactics to Afghanistan.

However, casualty levels among the 20,000-strong U.S.-led foreign force remain a fraction of those in Iraq.

Before Tuesday, the Pentagon reported 149 U.S. military deaths in and around Afghanistan since 2001, including 77 killed in action, compared with more than 1,700 deaths in Iraq since 2003. reuters db

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

2 interessante Polls von Zogby:

[urlThe Lost Center by John Kenneth White and John Zogby]http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1006[/url]

To paraphrase William Shakespeare, “Now is the summer of our discontent.” Nowhere is this more apparent than in the latest Zogby International poll (conducted June 20-22) which finds George W. Bush at the lowest ebb of his presidency. The president’s job approval rating stands at an abysmal 44 percent. The disapproval is across the board: nearly two-thirds of all respondents dislike Bush’s handling of the Iraq War, jobs and the economy, education, the environment, and Social Security and Medicare. Moreover, on Bush’s two signature issues–the war on terror and taxes–his performance has wandered into negative territory: 50 percent disapprove of his management of terrorism; 62 percent dislike his tax policies.

In many ways, this season of discontent resembles 1992, when voters turned on another President Bush. That year, 69 percent said the country was “worse off” under the forty-first president’s economic stewardship than it had been during the Reagan years.[1] But the more apt comparison may not be 1992, but the period immediately following World War Two. Back then, the returning veterans rejected ideological dreamers and wanted a strong dose of realism in their leaders. The veterans who entered politics–best represented by John F. Kennedy and Richard M. Nixon, both of whom won House seats in 1946–were moderate and pragmatic. Nixon, for example, ran on a platform of “practical liberalism” as the “antidote [for] New Deal idealism.”[2] Both men captured the “Vital Center,” a phrase coined by historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr. to describe the emergence of an era where winners extolled their management skills and downplayed any ideological predilections.[3] The late CBS News commentator Eric Severeid once described Nixon and Kennedy as sharp, ambitious, opportunistic, but devoid of strong convictions–unlike the young men of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal who “dreamt beautiful and foolish dreams about the perfectibility of man, cheered Roosevelt, and adored the poor.”[4]

The present disillusionment is ushering in another new era of political realism. The seeds were sown in 2004, when moderates and independents voted for John F. Kerry over George W. Bush. Moderates backed Kerry by a margin of 54 percent to 45 percent, while independents voted for the Democratic candidate by a much smaller but still significant 49 percent to 48 percent margin. While Bush won–thanks to overwhelming GOP support (93 percent) and strong backing from white evangelicals (78 percent)–his poor showing among moderates and independents was a sure sign of trouble ahead.[5] And the troubles have come. Today, only a third of independents and moderates would back Bush in a rerun of the 2004 presidential election. Iraq is a primary source of their discontent: 70 percent of moderates and 68 percent of independents dislike Bush’s handling of the war, and 63 percent of both groups say the war was not worth the cost in American lives.[6]

But the political center’s disenchantment with Bush is not confined to Iraq. On issue after issue, moderate and independent discontent exceeds the national figures. For example, while 61 percent of all Americans disapprove of Bush’s handling of Iraq, among independents and moderates, those figures rise to 68 percent and 70 percent respectively. Similarly, when asked about foreign policy, 61 percent of all respondents disapprove. But 73 percent of independents and 70 percent of moderates dislike the president’s foreign policy management. Likewise on jobs and the economy, Social Security and Medicare, education, the environment, and taxes, large majorities of independents and moderates disagree with Bush. In each case, the political center’s discontent is higher than the national average. Even when asked about Bush’s handling of the war on terror, most moderates and independents disapprove (see Table 1). No wonder 57 percent of independents and 60 percent of moderates think the country is headed in the wrong direction, as compared to 53 percent of all respondents. What this data makes clear is that Arthur Schelesinger’s Vital Center has morphed into the Lost Center.

Table 1 The Lost Center and George W. Bush.
Issue	Moderate Response	Independent Response	National Response
Percentage giving George W. Bush either a fair or poor rating on his overall job performance	66	67	56
Percentage giving George W. Bush either a fair or poor rating on education	79	74	63
Percentage giving George W. Bush either a fair or poor rating on handling Iraq	70	68	61
Percentage giving George W. Bush either a fair or poor rating on foreign policy	70	73	61
Percentage giving George W. Bush either a fair or poor rating on the environment	74	72	65
Percentage giving George W. Bush either a fair or poor rating on jobs and the economy	73	74	65
Percentage giving George W. Bush either a fair or poor rating on taxes	69	68	62
Percentage giving George W. Bush either a fair or poor rating on Social Security and Medicare	75	78	69
Percentage giving George W. Bush a fair or poor rating on the war on terrorism	54	56	50
Percentage of respondents saying they are proud to have George W. Bush as their president	44	44	51
Percentage saying the U.S. is headed in the wrong direction	60	57	53
Issue	Moderate Response	Independent Response	Nationwide Response

Source: Zogby International, poll, June 20-22, 2005.

The Republican-controlled Congress is held in equally low regard by the Lost Center. While Congress earns a 70 percent a nationwide disapproval rating, among independents and moderates, that figure rises to 78 percent and 75 percent respectively. The implications for Republican office seekers in 2006 are ominous: one-third of all respondents would vote for GOP congressional candidates; but fewer than one-in-five independents and moderates are willing to do so (see Table 2). The turning away of independents and moderates from an ideologically-minded Republican president and Congress has undoubtedly been fueled by the Terry Schiavo case, the nasty fight over federal court appointments, and the bitter contest over John Bolton’s nomination to be U.N. ambassador. Add a contentious Supreme Court nomination to this issue mix, and today’s discontent could become a full-scale moderate revolt.

Table 2 The Republican Congress and the Lost Center
Issue	Moderate Response	Independent Response	Nationwide Response
Percentage giving Congress either a fair or poor job performance rating	75	78	70
Percentage that would vote for a Republican congressional candidate in 2006	18	16	33

Source: Zogby International, poll, June 20-22, 2005.

For the moment, independents and moderates represent the Lost Center. But today’s Lost Center might be on the precipice of wielding far more political power. If so, watch for Bill Nelson and Bob Casey to prevail over Katherine Harris and Rick Santorum in the Florida and Pennsylvania U.S. Senate contests. What would characterize these Democratic victories in bellwether states is the repudiation of ideology and partisanship in favor of pragmatic moderation. Hillary Clinton has taken notice. On abortion and defense issues, Mrs. Clinton has cast herself as a pragmatist and rejected the ideological entreaties of her fellow Democrats. Those efforts have paid off in New York State, where Senator Clinton is headed toward an easy reelection victory. But nationally, this Zogby International poll shows her losing in a hypothetical 2008 presidential contest to Mr. Moderate himself, John McCain, by 19 points. Among moderates and independents, the Arizona senator’s margin increases to 22 points and 35 points respectively (see Table 3).

Table 3 McCain vs. Clinton, 2008 (in percentages).
Candidate	Moderate	Independent	Overall
McCain	54	59	54
Clinton	32	24	35

Source: Zogby International, poll, June 20-22, 2005.

George W. Bush has lost the center. He may prevail in Congress and at the polls, but only by keeping the Republican faithful in line and mobilizing the party’s base on Election Day. But that strategy means the president must woo voters who are ideologically, not pragmatically, minded. While this strategy may give Democrats some comfort in the short-term, the Lost Center’s longing for pragmatism means that successful candidates from either party must reject both the “happy talk” from the Bush administration and the “just say no” opposition from the Democrats. Practical programs that promise real results are what these voters desire. Thus far, the Lost Center finds both parties wanting. But if it can find pragmatic candidates and a party that speaks for them, it has the power to transform American politics in much the same way that the Vital Center once did.

John Kenneth White is a professor of Politics at The Catholic University of America. John Zogby is president and CEO of Zogby International.

Notes

[1] Gallup Organization poll for Newsweek, September 10-11, 1992.

[2] Quoted in Richard M. Nixon, RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1978), p. 35.

[3] See Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., The Vital Center (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1949).

[4] Quoted in Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House (New York: Fawcett Books, 1965), p. 67.

[5] See Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International, exit poll, November 2, 2004.

[6] See Zogby International, poll, June 20-22, 2005.

(6/30/2005)

http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1006

Released: June 30, 2005

No Bounce: Bush Job Approval Unchanged by War Speech; Question on Impeachment Shows Polarization of Nation; Americans Tired of Divisiveness in Congress—Want Bi-Partisan Solutions—New Zogby Poll
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.dbm?ID=1007

President Bush’s televised address to the nation produced no noticeable bounce in his approval numbers, with his job approval rating slipping a point from a week ago, to 43%, in the latest Zogby International poll. And, in a sign of continuing polarization, more than two-in-five voters (42%) say they would favor impeachment proceedings if it is found the President misled the nation about his reasons for going to war with Iraq.

The Zogby America survey of 905 likely voters, conducted from June 27 through 29, 2005, has a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points.

Just one week ago, President Bush’s job approval stood at a previous low of 44%—but it has now slipped another point to 43%, despite a speech to the nation intended to build support for the Administration and the ongoing Iraq War effort. The Zogby America survey includes calls made both before and after the President’s address, and the results show no discernible “bump” in his job approval, with voter approval of his job performance at 45% in the final day of polling.

Where voters live has some impact on their perceptions. The President’s job rating remains relatively strong in the South, with 51% rating his performance favorably; in all other regions, those disapproving his performance are in the majority.

In a more significant sign of the weakness of the President’s numbers, more “Red State” voters—that is, voters living in the states that cast their ballots for the Bush-Cheney ticket in 2004—now rate his job performance unfavorably, with 50% holding a negative impression of the President’s handling of his duties, and 48% holding a favorable view. The President also gets negative marks from one-in-four (25%) Republicans—as well as 86% of Democrats and 58% of independents. (Bush nets favorable marks from 75% of Republicans, 13% of Democrats and 40% of independents.)

Impeachment Question Shows Bitterness of Divide

In a sign of the continuing partisan division of the nation, more than two-in-five (42%) voters say that, if it is found that President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should hold him accountable through impeachment. While half (50%) of respondents do not hold this view, supporters of impeachment outweigh opponents in some parts of the country.

Among those living in the Western states, a 52% majority favors Congress using the impeachment mechanism while just 41% are opposed; in Eastern states, 49% are in favor and 45% opposed. In the South, meanwhile, impeachment is opposed by three-in-five voters (60%) and supported by just one-in-three (34%); in the Central/Great Lakes region, 52% are opposed and 38% in favor.

Impeachment is overwhelmingly rejected in the Red States—just 36% say they agree Congress should use it if the President is found to have lied on Iraq, while 55% reject this view; in the “Blue States” that voted for Massachusetts Democrat John Kerry in 2004, meanwhile, a plurality of 48% favors such proceedings while 45% are opposed.

A large majority of Democrats (59%) say they agree that the President should be impeached if he lied about Iraq, while just three-in-ten (30%) disagree. Among President Bush’s fellow Republicans, a full one-in-four (25%) indicate they would favor impeaching the President under these circumstances, while seven-in-ten (70%) do not. Independents are more closely divided, with 43% favoring impeachment and 49% opposed.

Americans Tiring of Partisan Division on Capital Hill

The same survey finds that a 55% majority of voters believe the two parties are too focused on their respective bases, and as a result, compromise—and results—have become impossible in Washington. Just 36% in the poll rejected that notion, saying the parties’ organization provides as broad a base as possible, and that compromise is occurring.

A follow-up question found that seven-in-ten (70%) voters believe the parties should be broad-based, and should pursue compromise—while less than one-in-four (23%) favored putting base issues first, even if it means nothing is accomplished.

These views are held by members of both major political parties, as well as independents, although Republicans, whose party controls both houses of Congress, are more likely to favor the parties focusing on the desires of their base than are Democrats and independents, with 31% of Republicans favoring this approach—more than the 20% of Democrats and 17% of independents who hold that view.

Pollster John Zogby: “The nation continues to be split down the middle but there appears to be a deep and growing concern about how polarized we are. The President tried to address the situation on the ground in Iraq and hoped to allay the fears of the nation. It looks like that did not happen. Meanwhile, opposition to the war reveals that Americans are just as hostile and intense as they were the day after the 2004 election. The message seems to be pretty clear for Mr. Bush: lay off the partisan rhetoric and work to find compromise solutions.”

Zogby International conducted interviews of 905 likely voters chosen at random nationwide. All calls were made from Zogby International headquarters in Utica, N.Y., from June 27 to 29, 2005. The margin of error is +/- 3.3 percentage points. Slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion, and gender to more accurately reflect the voting population. Margins of error are higher in sub-groups.

(6/30/2005)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Tomgram: Paul Loeb on Dying for One`s Country
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=4145

"In this time of testing, our troops can know: The American people are behind you. Next week, our nation has an opportunity to make sure that support is felt by every soldier, sailor, airman, Coast Guardsman, and Marine at every outpost across the world. This Fourth of July, I ask you to find a way to thank the men and women defending our freedom -- by flying the flag, sending a letter to our troops in the field, or helping the military family down the street. The Department of Defense has set up a website -- AmericaSupportsYou.mil. You can go there to learn about private efforts in your own community. At this time when we celebrate our freedom, let us stand with the men and women who defend us all."

 (George Bush in his TV address to the nation on Iraq at Fort Bragg, June 28, 2005.)



The President`s speech Tuesday had the ring of familiarity to it -- utterly flat, remarkably stale familiarity. Sooner or later, when words ring so familiarly and are, at the same time, so discordant in relation to reality, even a President`s supporters begin to worry. If anything in the President`s speech was new, it was only to the degree that reality had somehow infiltrated his world, despite the best efforts of his handlers. For instance, in the relatively brief speech, clearly meant to be upbeat despite bad times in Iraq, "loss" and "lose" were used 7 times; "prevail" twice; "win", "won," "victory," "triumph" not at all. Iraq was mentioned 91 times and Afghanistan only twice (even as news about a Taliban-downed Chinook helicopter carrying 16 Americans was being played down at the Pentagon so that it would not share headlines with the President`s message).



George Bush`s handlers can read the polls and about the only number favoring the President these days is the 52% of Americans who still think he`s handling the "war on terror" well. Not surprisingly then, the speech managed to meld the 9/11 attacks, the war on terror, and the war in Iraq in a major way. It was a case of history-by-association. In a speech supposedly focused on Iraq, the date September 11, 2001 was mentioned 5 times; "terror," "terrorism," "anti-terrorism," and "terrorist" were used 35 times (or approximately once for every 100 words). And yet this too had a tired ring to it. Perhaps the only new note in a well-worn speech was the repositioning of our President as recruiter-in-chief for our overstretched military. ("I thank those of you who have re-enlisted in an hour when your country needs you. And to those watching tonight who are considering a military career, there is no higher calling than service in our Armed Forces.") That was another bow to unpleasant reality and, I suppose, one way of supporting the troops as well. Make more of them.



The President`s "clear path forward" -- when opinion polls sink, you go on television and address the nation, resolutely reiterating your previous policy in order to get a quick bump in the polls, and you do so in front of a military audience -- was familiar in another way (for those of us old enough to remember). Lyndon Johnson, a president who swore often to "stay the course," once strode exactly this path. Some of his Vietnam statements would sound eerily up-to-date at the moment -- and his speeches too grew uncomfortably familiar, even to his increasingly anxious supporters, as he headed via Credibility Gap directly into Credibility Gulch.

"Q. Mr. President, you have never talked about a timetable in connection with Viet-Nam. You have said, and you repeated today, that the United States will not be defeated, will not grow tired. Donald Johnson, National Commander of the American Legion, went over to Viet-Nam in the spring and later called on you. He told White House reporters that he could imagine the war over there going on for 5, 6, or 7 years. Have you thought of that possibility, sir? And do you think the American people ought to think of that possibility?

"LBJ: Yes, I think the American people ought to understand that there is no quick solution to the problem that we face there. I would not want to prophesy or predict whether it would be a matter of months or years or decades. I do not know that we had any accurate timetable on how long it would take to bring victory in World War I. I don`t think anyone really knew whether it would be 2 years or 4 years or 6 years, to meet with success in World War II. I do think our cause is just. I do think our purpose and objectives are beyond any question."

Speaking this week at Fort Bragg, the President was, as many have noted, greeted by the troops with a "stony, untelegenic silence," except once when a presidential staffer evidently prompted them to give him an ovation. Like Johnson, Bush -- now facing the first calls for "timetables" and "withdrawal schedules," for goals, definitions of success or victory, or time limits of any sort -- swore he would do none of the above, that he would set no "artificial timetable." His was a classic Vietnam-era stay-the-course speech. (Recently, Lt. Gen. William Odom, former director of the National Security Agency, commented: "When the president says he is staying the course it reminds me of the man who has just jumped from the Empire State Building. Half-way down he says, ‘I am still on course.` Well, I would not want to be on course with a man who will lie splattered in the street. I would like to be someone who could change the course.")



Among the many mantras repeated by the President, none perhaps was more familiar than the need for Americans to "support our troops." This has been a line pushed hard not just by this administration but by the right more generally ever since the 1980s and has become something of a patriotic serum, meant to innoculate all who use it against close examination of the policies that those troops are sent to carry out. It`s a strange formula when you think about it -- to urge people to support the troops, not the policies -- but it`s the essence of our present political world. The truth is that the troops -- our young men and women -- whom George Bush sent off so rashly into the world to fight and die are doing so, even if in the name of "freedom," for practices that are anything but free and generally strikingly un-American. Take just two of them mentioned in the last few days:



In Arrested Development, an op-ed in the New York Times, Arlie Hochschild laid out some of the numbers on children that the President`s war on terror has put in all too adult jails under all-too-adult conditions of mistreatment beyond the reach of parents or lawyers. Hundreds and hundreds of children – and those are only the ones we know about. At the same time, information long circulating that Americans were holding war-on-terror prisoners on prison ships (or possibly just U.S. Navy ships) floating off the coast of justice have begun to surface more insistantly. (The last time I heard about prison ships of this sort, the British were holding our revolutionary war soldiers in them in New York harbor.) These are just two minor aspects of George Bush`s ever-expanding global Bermuda Triangle of Injustice, something I`ve been calling a "mini-gulag" since long before the Abu Ghraib story broke. Americans simply should not be supporting such practices, which can only lead into quagmires galore and to presidential speeches like the one Tuesday.



For me, "supporting our troops" has a very particular meaning. It had the same meaning in the Vietnam era (which is why, to this day, visiting the Vietnam Wall leaves me filled with sadness and with anger because we were unable to bring our boys home before all those names mounted up). If you support the policies of an administration, then you naturally support the mission of our troops and so whatever they are doing. If not, then you don`t want another unneeded death to occur and the only way to truly support our troops is to work hard -- in the case of Iraq with growing numbers of angry military people and military family members -- to bring them home.



Paul Rogat Loeb, a man generally of a sunny nature who has put together a splendid, hopeful book about how to be hopeful under the worst of conditions (The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen`s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear) turns to sacrifice, the protection of freedom, and support for the troops and considers them in his own original way for this sad July 4th.

Tom

They Died for Their Country
By Paul Rogat Loeb

"They died for their country," read the white granite memorial in the Concord, Massachusetts town square, honoring local men who died in the Civil War. Newer headstones mourned Concord men who gave their lives in other wars -- practically every war America has fought -- belying the recent baiting of quintessentially blue-state Massachusetts as a place whose citizens lack patriotism. I was in town, on the first anniversary of Sept 11, speaking at a local church that had lost one of its most active members on a hijacked plane, a man named Al Filipov. It was clear then -- and clearer now -- that these honored dead would not be our nation`s last.

I thought of Concord when George Bush urged us, this past Memorial Day, to redeem the sacrifices of our soldiers in Iraq by "completing the mission for which they gave their lives." But what if this mission (which will, of course, claim more lives) itself is questionable, and founded on a basis of lies?

Forty-eight Concord men died in the Civil War, which the memorial called "the War of the Rebellion." They indeed died for their country, turning the tide at battles like Gettysburg and helping end the brutal oppression of slavery. The World War II vets, listed on a nearby plaque, helped preserve the freedom of America -- and the world. We owe a profound debt to the farmers and artisans who won our freedom in America`s Revolution, and whose sacrifices were marked, a few miles away, with an exhibit on the battles of Lexington and Concord. It`s easy for those who have lived through too many dubious wars to forget the power of their sacrifices.

But not all the Concord deaths served such lofty purposes. Three Concord men died "in the service of their country" during the Spanish-American war. This war of empire took 600,000 lives alone in our subsequent occupation of the Philippines and our suppression of the first Asian republic, prompting Mark Twain to suggest that the Filipinos adopt a modified version of our flag "with the white stripes painted black and the stars replaced by the skull and cross-bones." Five Concord men died in Vietnam joining 58,000 other Americans, one to two million Vietnamese, and four million who died after we overthrew a long-neutral Cambodian government and paved the way for Pol Pot.. One died in our 1965 invasion of the Dominican Republic, which helped prevent the return of a democratically elected president and installed a corrupt oligarch who would rule for nearly three decades.

The American soldiers who died in these wars were as brave as their compatriots in the Civil War or World War II. They undoubtedly had as much integrity in their personal lives. But their courage and sacrifice made the world neither safer nor freer. Since my visit to Concord, the memorial has added another name, a 25-year-old first lieutenant, killed a month after our forces rolled into Iraq in March of 2003, around the time that Bush spoke under that "mission accomplished" banner on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln.

It`s tempting to assume that all the sacrifices of our soldiers are worthwhile. But mere courage guarantees no inherent moral rightness: German and Japanese soldiers fought bravely in World War II. The September 11 hijackers were willing to surrender their lives to murder 3,000 innocent people, including Al Filipov, whose widow would initiate the peace and justice lecture series where I spoke. Even when we`re told our soldiers are fighting for freedom, we have to look at the broadest consequences of their actions. For instance, an international Pew Center survey right after our Iraqi invasion found that we`d so embittered the Islamic world that majorities to near-majorities in countries like Pakistan, Indonesia and Egypt now said they trusted Osama bin Laden "to do the right thing in world affairs." They now viewed him as a hero, not a murderer.

Unfortunately, those who initiated the Iraq war now use each additional American death to justify the need to stay. If we challenge this war, we`re told we`re being disloyal to the troops, undermining their resolve and disdaining their sacrifices. We heard this as well during Vietnam, after which the media rewrote the history of the antiwar movement to imply, through images like protestors spitting on soldiers, that those working to bring the troops home were their enemies.

By time the first Gulf War began, these images were omnipresent. Even young anti-war activists told me, "We won`t spit on the soldiers this time." Yet when sociologists Jerry Starr and Richard Flacks, who worked extensively with Vietnam vets, tried to track down the story, they couldn`t find a single incident of a vet who said he was actually spat upon. And when syndicated columnist Bob Greene invited responses on the subject in a column that reached 200 papers, he found only a handful.

The power of such useful myths for those who send our sons and daughters to war may erode as military families and veterans play an increasingly visible role in the current antiwar movement, though veterans and families played a key part in the Vietnam-era peace movement as well. Every time I`ve marched against this war, I`ve ended up next to someone carrying a picture of a relative in uniform, a son or brother, husband, nephew, or niece, often someone facing the involuntary servitude of being unable to leave the military long after his or her original service term had expired. But unless we can convince our fellow citizens to separate the lives of the soldiers from the policies that place them in harm`s way, they`ll continue to be held hostage to the choices of leaders who are insulated from the human costs.

So let`s remember the debt we owe to those who have died for freedom as well as those who risk and sacrifice in the name of protecting us all. But not all wartime deaths advance human dignity, and not all sacrifices are worthwhile. If those who die for a worthy cause are indeed heroes to be honored, those who send our brave young men and women to die in wars of empire and dominion squander their courage, their trust, and ultimately their lives. To use their losses to justify further needless deaths is to betray the best of what the soldiers enlist to protect. For not all of America`s wars have been worth dying in, nor are those we now fight.

Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen`s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear, winner of the Nautilus Award for best social change book of last year. He`s also the author of Soul of a Citizen: Living With Conviction in a Cynical Time and three other books.

Copyright 2005 Paul Rogat Loeb

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
posted June 30, 2005 at 4:33 pm

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Diesmal haben die Polls nicht zum Vorteil von Bush ausgeschlagen nach seiner Rede. Nicht einmal die Soldaten, die zugehört haben, haben sich zu viel Beifall hinreißen lassen, wie NYTimes und andere berichten.

Wenn ich den Poll von Zogby lese, muß ich sagen, es ist eine ziemliche Ernüchterung eingetreten in den USA.
Mit der Wirtschaft ist nicht sehr viel Staat zu machen. Sie dümpelt so vor sich hin und erscheint nur im positiven Licht durch die Kosmetik der Statistik.

Der Satz The present disillusionment is ushering in another new era of political realism. hat für mich etwas Neues. Vor einigen Wochen habe ich noch die Bemerkung von Kissinger gefunden, dass für die US-Bürger Realismus fast ein Schimpfwort ist, nun scheint sie dieser Realismus eingeholt zu haben.

Das bedeutet nicht, dass Bush auf Schröderische Werte hinunterstürzen wird, aber doch eine mehr kritische Betrachtung seines Wirkens.

Weiter hoffe ich, dass der US-Optimismus nicht verschwindet, denn einmal deutsche Miesepeterichkeit reicht, da braucht uns niemand Konkurrenz zu machen.

[SittinBuII]

Wir könnten ja Optimistisch sein, wenn es die Realpolitik nicht gäbe.

[Joerver]

July 1, 2005
U.S. Pursuing Reports That Link Iranian to Embassy Seizure in `79
By NAZILA FATHI and JOEL BRINKLEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/international/middleeast/0…

TEHRAN, June 30 - Two Iranian leaders of the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran in 1979 dismissed allegations on Thursday by former American hostages that Iran`s president-elect was one of their captors. The Bush administration, however, said it took the charge seriously and vowed to investigate.

"Obviously his involvement raises many questions," President Bush told reporters on Thursday morning, referring to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the president-elect.

[Table align=right]

The administration is investigating whether Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is the hostage-taker second from the right, with a blindfolded American,
when the embassy was seized in 1979.
[/TABLE]
In Tehran, Abbass Abdi, a former student leader involved in the seizure, said Mr. Ahmadinejad had played no role, although he had wanted to. "He was a student at a different university," Mr. Abdi said, "and we kept the plan secret among our own members who we trusted. He called after the embassy was captured and wanted to join us, but we refused to let him come to the embassy or become a member of our group."

Mohammad-Reza Khatami, who was also involved in the hostage-taking, said he never saw Mr. Ahmadinejad at the embassy. "I don`t think he was part of it," he said. "I cannot remember him at all." Mr. Khatami is the younger brother of the departing president, Mohammad Khatami.

A photograph of a blindfolded American hostage being led by a man with some resemblance to a young Mr. Ahmadinejad was posted on various Web sites in recent days. But his office posted a photograph of him in that era seeking to show there was little resemblance. A close aide to Mr. Ahmadinejad, Kaveh Ejtetehadi, called the claims of his involvement "absurd."

Stephen J. Hadley, the American national security adviser, said the White House was examining old photographs and looking "back to see what you have in the files."

In separate interviews, four former hostages who were military or intelligence officers at the embassy and identified the president-elect as a leader among their captors did not waver. Though they shared their impressions, they said they had reached their conclusions independently. One of them, William J. Daugherty, a former intelligence officer, said: "I recognized him right off. When you`re in a situation where your life is in jeopardy, where you know your family is going through hell because of what you`re in, and your country is being humiliated, you don`t forget the people who cause it. I remember so much his hatred of Americans. It just emanated from every pore of his body."

Mr. Daugherty said he saw Mr. Ahmadinejad 8 to 10 times in the first 19 days of captivity, before the hostages were separated.

At 6:45 p.m. Monday, after seeing the picture on the Web site of The Washington Post, Mr. Daugherty sent an e-mail message to three other former hostages, Charles Scott, Donald Sharer and David M. Roeder, which began: "I assume you`ve noticed that the new Iranian president was one of" - here he inserted an expletive - "who was behind the takeover of the embassy and our incarceration. Not to mention having expressed a determination to pursue a nuclear program that will allow them to develop a nuclear weapon."

Less than 90 minutes later, according to Mr. Daugherty, Mr. Scott, who was a colonel in 1979, responded that he remembered Mr. Ahmadinejad as the man who had dressed down the students guarding Mr. Scott and Mr. Sharer, a commander. "He`s not on my Christmas card list," he concluded.

A few minutes later, Mr. Roeder sent an e-mail message saying: "Hey guys, I thought I recognized that S.O.B. when I saw him on TV last night. He was one of the interrogators in the room with Mary the translator when they threatened me with my son`s kidnapping." Mr. Roeder was a lieutenant colonel.

Another former hostage, Kevin Hermening, 45, a financial planner in Mosinee, Wis., who was a Marine guard at the embassy, remembered Mr. Ahmadinejad as an interrogator and "higher-rank security official."

Relations between Washington and Tehran remain bitter and brittle 26 years after the embassy was seized, particularly because of American and European efforts to close Iran`s nuclear production facilities. The countries do not have diplomatic relations. The Bush administration`s response to the allegations is likely to drive the two further apart.

Sean McCormack, the State Department spokesman, said Thursday: "We, as a government, are working to establish the facts surrounding this story. But I do want to say one thing, and that is to underscore the fact that we have not forgotten - we have not forgotten - the fact that 51 of our diplomats were held for 444 days, that they were taken hostage."

Student militants stormed the embassy on Nov. 4, 1979, and seized the hostages, then held them until the day President Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in January 1981.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was a student activist before the 1979 Iranian revolution, according to his Web site.

In an interview, Mr. Roeder, 66, the former deputy Air Force attaché at the embassy, said he remembered Mr. Ahmadinejad working in a supervisory role in one-third or more of the 44 interrogations he underwent.

"The interrogator and the interpreter always deferred to him, so he was clearly in charge," he said.

Colonel Scott, who was an Army military attaché, said, "There`s no doubt from the way the guy moves, it`s the same guy." Several other former hostages said they did not recall Mr. Ahmadinejad, but added that they did not find this surprising because the hostages were held in isolated rooms.

Paul M. Needham, 54, a hostage and now a professor at the National Defense University who lives in northern Virginia, said he did not recognize Mr. Ahmadinejad. "I remember four specific individuals," Mr. Needham said. "He is not one of them."

But, like others who said they did not recall Mr. Ahmadinejad, Mr. Needham added that those who did remember him should be believed.

"If they say that yes, they recognize him," he said, "there`s about a 99.9 percent probability that it is right."

Speaking at a White House news briefing on the president`s trip next week to the Group of 8 summit meeting in Scotland, Mr. Hadley emphasized, as Mr. Bush did, that the government had not yet determined whether the allegations were true, but that they would be investigated seriously.

Mr. Scott, Mr. Roeder and Mr. Sharer were plaintiffs in the most recent of several lawsuits that sought, unsuccessfully, to force the current Iranian government to pay compensation for what the hostages endured during 444 days of captivity.

Their lawsuit, brought in 1998 after Congress passed legislation allowing such action, was opposed by the State Department, which argued that such compensation would violate the agreement that freed the hostages.

A United States District Court judge dismissed the suit in a decision that was upheld two years ago by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, but new Congressional action could allow the plaintiffs to revive their efforts.

In the e-mail exchange on Monday, Mr. Daugherty asked, "Does this provide any additional leverage for you all in terms of the Bush administration`s unwillingness to go along with any compensation?"

Nazila Fathi reported from Tehran for this article, and Joel Brinkley from Washington. Reporting was contributed by Felicity Barringer, David E. Sanger and John Files from Washington, and Terry Aguayo from Miami.


* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 1, 2005
America Held Hostage
By PAUL KRUGMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/opinion/01krugman.html

A majority of Americans now realize that President Bush deliberately misled the nation to promote a war in Iraq. But Mr. Bush`s speech on Tuesday contained a chilling message: America has been taken hostage by his martial dreams. According to Mr. Bush, the nation now has no choice except to keep fighting the war he wanted to fight.

Never mind that Iraq posed no threat before we invaded. Now it`s a "central front in the war on terror," Mr. Bush says, quoting Osama bin Laden as an authority. And since a U.S. withdrawal from Iraq would, Mr. Bush claims, be a victory for Al Qaeda, Americans have to support this war - and that means supporting him. After all, you wage war with the president you have, not the president you want.

But America doesn`t have to let itself be taken hostage. The country missed the chance to say no before this war started, but it can still say no to Mr. Bush`s open-ended commitment, and demand a timetable for getting out.

I know that this argument will be hard to sell. Despite everything that has happened, many Americans still want to believe that this war can and should be seen through to victory. But it`s time to face up to three realities. First, the war is helping, not hurting, the terrorists. Second, the kind of clear victory the hawks promised is no longer possible, if it ever was. Third, a time limit on our commitment will do more good than harm.

Before the war, opponents warned that it would strengthen, not weaken, terrorism. And so it has: a recent C.I.A. report warns that since the U.S. invasion, Iraq has become what Afghanistan was under the Soviet occupation, only more so: a magnet and training ground for Islamic extremists, who will eventually threaten other countries.

And the situation in Iraq isn`t improving. "The White House is completely disconnected from reality," said Senator Chuck Hagel, referring to upbeat assessments of progress. "It`s like they`re just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we`re losing in Iraq."

Mr. Hagel claims to believe that we can still win, but it`s hard to see how.

More troops might help, but pretty much the whole U.S. Army is already in Iraq, on its way back from Iraq or getting ready to go to Iraq. And the coalition of the willing is shrinking.

Helping Iraqis rebuild their country could help win hearts and minds. But for all the talk of newly painted schools, the fact is that reconstruction, originally stalled by incompetence and corruption, is now stalled by the lack of security. When Ibrahim al-Jafaari, the Iraqi prime minister, visited Washington, he was accompanied by Iraqi journalists. One of them asked Mr. Bush, "When will you begin the reconstruction in Iraq?"

Meanwhile, time is running out for America`s volunteer military, which is cracking under the strain of a war it was never designed to fight.

So what would happen if the United States gave up its open-ended commitment to Iraq and set a timetable for withdrawal?

Mr. Bush claims that such a step would "send the wrong signal to our troops, who need to know that we are serious about completing the mission." But what the troops need to know is that their country won`t demand more than they can give. He also claims that it would encourage the insurgents, who will "know that all they have to do is to wait us out." But the insurgents don`t seem to need encouragement.

It`s far more likely that if the Iraqi government knew that our support had an expiration date, it would both look to its own defenses and, more important, try harder to find a political solution to the insurgency.

The Iraq that emerges once U.S. forces are gone won`t bear much resemblance to the free-market, pro-American, Israel-friendly democracy the neocons promised. But it will pose less of a terrorist threat than the Iraq we have now.

Remember, Iraq wasn`t a breeding ground for terrorists before we went there. All indications are that the foreign terrorists now infesting Iraq are there on the sufferance of a homegrown insurgency that finds them useful for the moment but that, brutal as it is, isn`t interested in an apocalyptic confrontation with the Western world. Once we`re no longer targets, the foreign terrorists won`t be welcome.

The point is that the presence of American forces in Iraq is making our country less safe. So it`s time to start winding down the war.

E-mail: [e-mail]

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

They have no idea how to win their war

Bush and Blair demand support over Iraq but have no strategy
Robin Cook
Friday July 1, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1518751,00.ht…

Guardian
Just after George Bush was awarded the presidency for the first time by the US courts, I was invited to Downing Street for a chat on the sofa with the prime minister to work out an approach to the new administration. I was struck by how troubled Tony Blair was that the Conservatives would make their pitch that only a Tory prime minister could do business with a Republican president. He was therefore determined to stick even more closely to the new White House incumbent than he had to Bill Clinton.

Ironically, the success of the prime minister`s strategy in making himself George Bush`s best mate has turned out not to be a political asset but a colossal albatross around his neck. It proved such a liability at the last election that even the Conservative party ran election adverts exploiting negatives shots of Blair and Bush standing shoulder to shoulder.

At least Tony Blair used to be able to claim that his friend George Bush may not be much respected in Britain but was popular in the US and could deliver America. Not anymore. Tony Blair now finds himself chained to a US president who is more unpopular than any other second-term president since Nixon, and, worst of all, the major cause of the collapse in his ratings is their joint adventure in Iraq.

George Bush is discovering that the first law of wars of occupation is that they are more often lost at home than on the ground. It is a measure of the sinking support for his policy in Iraq that he chose to offer his defence of it to an audience of red berets, who would be court-martialled if they heckled their commander in chief.

At least though the US president has addressed his nation on their doubts. The same cannot be said for our prime minister, who has famously "moved on" from Iraq. Tony Blair again demonstrated his solidarity with George Bush by offering a late evening interview to Associated Press. It was released at 9pm, perfectly judged to catch the deadlines of the papers in the US while missing the morning press in Britain.

In that interview, Tony Blair professes himself "astonished" at the debate in America over the leaked Downing Street memorandum of July 2002, which revealed that the president had "made up his mind to take military action" long before he told the public. But what should really astonish the rest of us is that there is no such debate going on in Britain. The memorandum that is causing such a stir in America is, after all, a minute of our government, and our nation is entitled to some answers. Most notably, how could our prime minister go on publicly claiming that no decision had been made when he had privately committed himself a year before to "back military action" and was asking ministers to "create the conditions" that would make war legal.

Nor can we let either leader shrug off questions about how we stumbled into this quagmire by telling us that we must win this battle against terror. There were no international terrorists in Iraq until Bush and Blair insisted on invading it, creating the perfect conditions for terrorism - weak central authority, porous borders and an alienated population. The CIA has concluded that Iraq has been turning into the breeding ground for the next generation of terrorists, which is precisely what the British intelligence agencies warned the prime minister in advance of the invasion.

Not that any rational person would disagree that we need to make Iraq a more stable country. The problem with responding to their appeal for support is that, demonstrably, they have no credible strategy of how to win. Their present approach is fatally flawed by two delusions.

The first is the belief that they will win if only they can kill, capture or bury under rubble every insurgent. After relentlessly pursuing this approach for two years, the US military is worse off than when it started. In June there were more casualties among coalition troops and Iraqi forces than a year ago in the same month - before the handover of sovereignty that we were promised would transform security. We will continue to lose this conflict until US forces grasp that they breed more insurgents by the indiscriminate use of firepower and by putting higher priority on killing rebels rather than protecting civilians.

The second delusion is the insistence that military occupation of Iraq is the solution to the violence and not a large part of its cause. No strategy to end the insurgency is going to succeed unless it includes an exit plan for foreign troops.

Both George Bush and Tony Blair appealed this week for strong nerves from everyone else. But they also have a responsibility. Peace in Iraq will only be possible if they show the humility to admit the mistakes of the past and to accept that the recent strategy is not working.

[e-mail]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Feindliche Übernahme?

[Joerver]

Thursday, June 30, 2005
War News for Thursday, June 30, 2005

http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Mortar attack reported near Japanese troops in Samawah.

Bring `em on: Two Iraqi police commandos killed, six wounded as insurgents rampage in Samarra.

Bring `em on: Two Polish soldiers wounded in grenade attack near Diwaniya.

Bring `em on: Four Iraqi civilians killed by mortar attack in Tal Afar.

Bring `em on: Two Iraqis wounded by mortar fire in central Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Five Iraqis killed by car bomb in Baquba.

Bring `em on: One US soldier killed by car bomb near Balad.

Bring `em on: Iraqi assemblyman assassinated near Baghdad.

Bring `em on: US Marines launch counterinsurgency offensive near Hit.

Bring `em on: Oil pipeline ablaze near Kirkuk.

Two more Marines reported dead from ambush in Fallujah.

I wonder what this is all about. "In Saddam Hussein`s home base of Tikrit, witnesses reported a Wednesday-morning demonstration against the arrest of regional police commander Maj. Gen. Mizher Taha Ghanam, who was lured to the capital and detained. Protesters said the arrest would only exacerbate tensions between Sunni and Shiite Muslims. Ghanam, a Sunni and former intelligence officer, stands accused of killing Shiites in the southern city of Amarah during Saddam`s rule."


Police training.

Three weeks ago 200 Iraqi cadets rioted, smashing windows and overturning cars in protest at conditions and rumours that cadets who drop out are sent back to Iraq by road, risking death from insurgents waiting to ambush them. The disturbances were quelled but grievances persist. More seriously, instructors admit that until three months ago the centre’s classroom-based training was wholly unsuited to the violence of Iraq.

Although instructors say that it has improved since April, they still complain of a lack of direction from Baghdad.
Ali Mackenzie, a Lothian and Borders policeman, said: “In my opinion there should be a lot more input from Iraq, especially the military. You get a lot of good quality policemen coming here and it is limited by funding. We have to pretend that rubbish bins are cars. It doesn’t take much to mock up a couple of homes or streets to do realistic searches.”

Charles Riordan, a retired inspector from Northern Ireland, questioned the need for community police training for police working in cities, “where simply to show themselves on the street leaves them open to ambush”, and was incredulous that despite huge losses of police to roadside bombs there is still no training ground to rehearse life-saving drills.


Commentary

Editorial:

Much of what Bush said Tuesday night has been similar to statements he`s made in the past. In addition to stressing the importance of training and eventually substituting Iraqi troops with international forces, Bush also said the Iraqi people need confidence in the democratic process in order for victory to be possible.

"Like most Americans, I see the images of violence and bloodshed," Bush said. "Every picture is horrifying - and the suffering is real."

We agree, but rather than just listening to Tuesday night`s speech, we ask you to see it yourself.

We find these images unbearably graphic, but these are the images that these people are faced with day to day. They don`t have the choice to turn the page or change the channel. To them these photos are real.

We ask you to take a minute to look over these images, which are often violent and often distressing. But this is the reality of the war President Bush has told us we will "fight until the fight is won."

Is it worth it?


Thanks to alert reader Russ.

Opinion:

Finally, Bush descended to Vietnam-speak. This is the language used by the Johnson and Nixon administrations to obscure the truth by emitting a fog of numbers. Thus Bush cited the "8 million Iraqi men and women" who voted, the "30 nations" with troops in Iraq (a total joke, and the president knows it), the "40 countries" and "three international organizations" that have pledged "$34 billion" in reconstruction assistance (another joke), the "80 countries" that recently met in Brussels to aid Iraq, and the "160,000 security forces trained and equipped for a variety of missions" -- one of them being, clearly, to stay out of harm`s way.

The war Bush declared to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction is not the war being waged. The two have only one thing in common: rhetorical sleight of hand. Yet the consequences of pulling out of Iraq would be awful. The day Saigon fell I was ashamed for my country -- an ugly, disgraceful retreat. I don`t want that to happen again. But unless Bush rethinks his strategy, fires some people who long ago earned dismissal, examines his own assumptions (what`s the point of continuing to isolate Iran and Syria when we need them both to seal Iraq`s borders?) and talks turkey to the American people, he will lose everything good he set out to do, including the example Iraq could set for the rest of the Middle East. I know Iraq is not Vietnam. But Tuesday night it sure sounded like it.


Opinion:

The president who displayed his contempt for Iraqi militants two years ago with the taunt "bring `em on" had to go on television Tuesday night to urge Americans not to abandon support for the war that he foolishly started but can`t figure out how to win.

The Bush crowd bristles at the use of the "Q-word" - quagmire - to describe American involvement in Iraq. But with our soldiers fighting and dying with no end in sight, who can deny that Mr. Bush has gotten us into "a situation from which extrication is very difficult," which is a standard definition of quagmire?

More than 1,730 American troops have already died in Iraq. Some were little more than children when they signed up for the armed forces, like Ramona Valdez, who grew up in the Bronx and was just 17 when she joined the Marines. She was one of six service members, including four women, who were killed when a suicide bomber struck their convoy in Falluja last week.

Corporal Valdez wasn`t even old enough to legally drink in New York. She died four days shy of her 21st birthday.

On July 2, 2003, with evidence mounting that U.S. troop strength in Iraq was inadequate, Mr. Bush told reporters at the White House, "There are some who feel that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, Bring `em on."

It was an immature display of street-corner machismo that appalled people familiar with the agonizing ordeals of combat. Senator Frank Lautenberg, a New Jersey Democrat, was quoted in The Washington Post as saying: "I am shaking my head in disbelief. When I served in the Army in Europe during World War II, I never heard any military commander - let alone the commander in chief - invite enemies to attack U.S. troops."


Opinion:

My class, that of 1969, set a record with more than 50 percent resigning within a few years of completing the service commitment. (My father`s class, 1945, the one that "missed" World War II, was considered to be the previous record-holder, with about 25 percent resigning before they reached the 20 years of service entitling them to full retirement benefits.)

And now, from what I`ve heard from friends still in the military and during the two years I spent reporting from Iraq and Afghanistan, it seems we may be on the verge of a similar exodus of officers. The annual resignation rate of Army lieutenants and captains rose to 9 percent last year, the highest since before the Sept. 11 attacks. And in May, The Los Angeles Times reported on "an undercurrent of discontent within the Army`s young officer corps that the Pentagon`s statistics do not yet capture."

I`m not surprised. In 1975, I received a foundation grant to write reports on why such a large percentage of my class had resigned. This money would have been better spent studying the emerging appeal of Scientology, because a single word answered the question: Vietnam.

Yet my classmates were disillusioned with more than being sent to fight an unpopular war. When we became cadets, we were taught that the academy`s honor code was what separated West Point from a mere college. This was a little hard to believe at first, because the code seemed so simple; you pledged that you would not lie, cheat or steal, and that you would not tolerate those who did. We were taught that in combat, lies could kill.

But the honor code was not just a way to fight a better war. In the Army, soldiers are given few rights, grave responsibilities, and lots and lots of power. The honor code serves as the Bill of Rights of the Army, protecting soldiers from betraying one another and the rest of us from their terrifying power to destroy. It is all that stands between an army and tyranny.

However, the honor code broke down before our eyes as staff and faculty jobs at West Point began filling with officers returning from Vietnam. Some had covered their uniforms with bogus medals and made their careers with lies - inflating body counts, ignoring drug abuse, turning a blind eye to racial discrimination, and worst of all, telling everyone above them in the chain of command that we were winning a war they knew we were losing. The lies became embedded in the curriculum of the academy, and finally in its moral DNA.

By the time we were seniors, honor court verdicts could be fixed, and there was organized cheating in some units. A few years later, nearly an entire West Point class was implicated in cheating on an engineering exam; the breakdown was complete.

The mistake the Army made then is the same mistake it is making now: how can you educate a group of handpicked students at one of the best universities in the world and then treat them as if they are too stupid to know when they have been told a lie?


The officer corps is sounding off and we should listen.

Casualty Report

Local story: Washington State sailor killed in Iraq.

Note to Readers

Today is the second anniversary of Today in Iraq. I intended to post a rant appropriate for the day, but today`s Casualty Report contains the name of a former co-worker.

So I`ll celebrate instead. I`ll probably go get drunk and sleep in a dumpster.



Happy fucking birthday, Today in Iraq. I once wanted to be a historian, but this history sucks.

YD

# posted by yankeedoodle : 4:50 AM
Comments (25) | Trackback (0)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Friday, July 01, 2005

US Troops Die at Increased Rate in Iraq
Two PUK Employees Killed in Mosul

USA Today reports that the death rate for US troops in Iraq rose by about a third during the past year over the previous year.

The LA Times reports on the humanitarian implications of US military operations in Anbar province, for the displaced townspeople caught in the fighting. It also reports:


` In Baghdad, gunmen killed the cousin of national security adviser Mowafak al-Rubaie. The victim, Taher Kadhem al-Rubayee, was working at his eyeglass shop in the Ameriyah district last night when gunmen stormed in and killed him, an employee, and three customers, an interior ministry official said.

In Baqubah, 45 miles north of the capital, gunmen in a Daewoo sedan attempted to assassinate Colonel Shalaan Abdul-Khaleq, head of the city`s elite Rapid Intervention Force. The colonel`s brother and two civilians were killed in ensuing hourlong gunfight. Khaleq was severely wounded.

In Hawija, a Sunni-dominated city southwest of Kirkuk, an Iraqi Army officer who was kidnapped Tuesday was found dead, police said. `



Mariam Karouny explores the ways in which Kirkuk`s oil riches have not actually translated into it being a wealthy city.

FBIS translates the following report:


` Two Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Employees Killed in Iraq`s Mosul
KURDSAT
Thursday, June 30, 2005 T14:10:27Z
Journal Code: 8060 Language: ENGLISH Record Type: FULLTEXT
Document Type: FBIS Translated Text
Word Count: 80

Two employees of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) Coordination Center in Mosul were killed this morning in Al-Bakr area in the city. The victims are two sisters called Narmin Husayn Rahman and Namam Husayn Rahman. They were murdered while on their way from home to work, at the PUK Naynawa Center. They were two loyal and bright employees serving their nation.

(Description of Source: Al-Sulaymaniyah KurdSat in Sorani Kurdish --Iraqi Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) satellite TV)

Compiled and distributed by NTIS, US Dept. of Commerce. All rights reserved.
City/Source: Al-Sulaymaniyah `



Meanwhile, FBIS also translated the Baath Party of Iraq`s reaction to George W. Bush`s speech on Iraq:



` Iraqi Ba`th Party Reacts to Bush Speech . . ."
FBIS Translation
AL-QUDS AL-`ARABI
Thursday, June 30, 2005 T13:12:26Z

London, Al-Quds al-Arabi--Reacting to President Bush`s speech, the (Iraqi) Ba`th Party has issued a statement stressing that the initiative is in its hand and that the armed confrontation will continue and escalate until liberation.

The statement said the strategic initiative is in the Ba`th`s hand and its repercussions are demonstrated by the political, security, and moral fighting against the occupation, its agents, and after them the Arab regimes that are integrated in the occupation`s political and security plans in occupied Iraq.

It stressed that the Ba`th has made the US administration face successive failed political stands in occupied Iraq so that this administration has become, firstly, the prisoner of these failed stands and, secondly, the repercussions of these stands are impacting on its agents and traitorous authority in occupied Iraq. It added that the US occupation presence in Iraq is moving from a political and strategic crisis to the stage of entering the state of total collapse.

Addressing the Iraqis, the Arab nation`s sons, humanity`s free, the Ba`thists, the resistance fighters, and the mujahidin, it stressed that the resistance is continuing and escalating and that the process will take its required time and over a period of time that the resistance action requires in an intermediary targeting stage for destroying the agent authority with its structures and persons and which precedes the routing and defeat of the US occupation and the humiliation of its armed forces.

The statement went on to say that the political and security achievements that the US President keeps reiterating are in fact failed political stands and frequent and constant security defeats. President Bush addressed the American people and their armed forces with new excuses that linked the justification for non-withdrawal or its timetable "to the global war on terror" and the need to continue it. It stressed that continuing the fight according to Bush`s justifications and his defense secretary`s expectations is attributed to the factor of the preponderance of the armed resistance choice, which will not subside until Iraq is liberated and which was formulated by the Ba`th and adopted by the Iraqi resistance, over the collapse and retreat of the original excuses for the aggression and the occupation.

It added that the Iraqi armed resistance`s calculations are not linked in the first place to Bush`s failed war on "terror" because his war on terror has become an invalid excuse that the American people and their armed forces will discover in record time as a result of the constant defeat that the Ba`th and Iraqi resistance are inflicting on the US occupation forces in the battle to liberate all of Iraq.

(Description of Source: London Al-Quds al-Arabi in Arabic -- London-based independent Arab nationalist daily . . .) `

posted by Juan @ [url7/01/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/us-troops-die-at-increased-rate-in.html[/url]

Guest Editorial: Irani on Erbil



A JOURNEY OF HOPE: CONFLICT RESOLUTION TRAINING IN IRAQ

by George Emile Irani, Ph.D.


` Following the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, many American and international NGOs flooded Iraq peddling their wares to the weary and traumatized Iraqis. For almost a year, I have intermittently received offers from various US-based NGOs to go to Iraq and do conflict resolution and governance training work due to my background and linguistic capabilities. Given the violence wracking Iraq, especially Baghdad, I decided to turn down most of these calls to my heart’s chagrin. I have had extensive experience in rebuilding postwar societies especially in Lebanon and the Middle East.

In 1994, together with my wife and professional partner, Dr. Laurie King-Irani, I organized a conference-workshop in Lebanon on “Acknowledgment, Forgiveness, and Reconciliation: Lessons from Lebanon.” The conference, funded by the U.S. Institute of Peace, was the second gathering in the world dealing with the importance of forgiveness at that time (the first one was held in South Africa). The meeting was attended by several sectors of civil society in Lebanon and featured on CNN. This meeting and our follow-up work in Lebanon was of great help when I decided to accept an invitation to visit bilaad ar-raafidayn, the country of the two rivers—Tigris and Euphrates—as Iraq is known in Arabic.

Last April, I accepted an invitation by the Washington-based International Foundation for Election Systems (IFES) to offer two workshops on conflict mitigation in Erbil (Northern Iraq). IFES is an NGO that concentrates its work on the monitoring and reduction of election-related violence and corruption. They have offices in several countries and two offices in Iraq, one in Baghdad and the other in Erbil, the capital of Iraq’s Kurdish area.

Reaching my destination was an adventure in and of itself. I was initially told to leave Victoria and head towards Amman, Jordan. From there I would then board a plane that flies directly to Erbil via Baghdad. On my way to Amman I was told that the flight to Baghdad was cancelled due to political bickering between the central Iraqi government in Baghdad and the Kurdish authorities in Northern Iraq where the Erbil airport is located. I was not looking forward to board this plane because I had heard that it lands by diving in tight, spiraling circles above Baghdad’s airport to avoid insurgent missiles!

My alternative route was then to fly to Istanbul and then to Diyarbakir in Southeastern Turkey. Here I was on my third day of constant travel and my energies were very low. Thankfully, in Istanbul I had to wait a whole day to board the evening plane to Diyarbakir. After a short nap I went out to visit the famous Blue Mosque, which was formerly the Aya Sophia Church, built by Emperor Constantine. This cathedral-turned-mosque is a live example that a dialogue between religions and cultures is very much alive and well despite some Ivy Leaguer’s wrong claim that we are living through an inevitable and bloody “clash of civilizations”! I then walked around the old city quarters dotted with stores selling all kinds of knick-knacks, music CDs and valuable carpets.

At around 6 p.m. I boarded my plane for Diyarbakir ( a Kurdish-dominated city in Southeastern Turkey. By the way, in Turkey, Kurds are known as “Mountain Turks” as Turkey has not yet policed its past in terms of its violent and turbulent relations with its Kurdish population. The same applies also to Turkey’s role and refusal to officially acknowledge the Ottoman responsibility in perpetrating the Armenian genocide). In Diyarbakir I spent the night at a small downtown hotel. Early next morning I was picked by Shaval—a Kurdish petroleum engineer—who in his free time used his car as a taxi to drive “internationals” to the border between Turkey and Iraq. Shaval spoke English fluently and was pretty much into the cyber culture now pervading most of the planet. A true “middle-man”, he will always do well.

In Erbil, I offered two consecutive workshops on conflict resolution training, one in English (four days) for IFES’s field officers who came from Basra (Southern Iraq), Baghdad, Mosul, Kirkuk and Erbil in the North. The second workshop (three days) was delivered in Arabic for various civil society organizations in Iraq. These intensive workshops were designed to help participants identify and appreciate some of the techniques and approaches to conflict resolution. These workshops were based on a hands-on approach and with relevance to the Iraqi experience. I covered topics such as the dynamics of conflict and the role of culture in conflict management and resolution. Other topics covered included communications skills (such as active listening, paraphrasing, summarizing, “I” messages, and open questions), negotiation culture, and collaborative problem solving. I decided, despite the objections of the Chief of Party (a retired Canadian army officer who was brought to head IFES’s work in Iraq), to dedicate a whole day to discuss issues of gender, culture, and conflict resolution.

My Lebanese background and North American experiences—both in the USA and Canada—came in handy for communicating and interacting with my Iraqi brothers and sisters. In my writings on conflict resolution and its application in non-Western cultures I have always advocated that the best approach was to allow the parties themselves to come up with the best solutions—if any—to control and mitigate their conflicts. The current situation in postwar and occupied Iraq reminded me a lot of Lebanon after the civil war ended (1990). Similar to the situation in Iraq today, several US-based NGOs “parachuted” themselves into Lebanon in the early 1990s, a society that was totally different from major cities such as Chicago, New York City and Los Angeles.

These US NGOs came with a specific agenda in mind (mostly designed and set by the US government) for the purpose of implementing some form of “civil society building” and “pacification” through social engineering. In the Arab Middle East, the purpose of conflict resolution training was to force some kind of peaceful relationships between Arabs and Israelis without paying attention to the pervasive feeling of victimization arising from the ongoing and festering Palestinian issue and other vestiges of the colonial and post-colonial eras. Issues of justice, rule of law, and accountability were shunted aside to be replaced by Roger Fishers’ famous (or infamous book), Getting to Yes.

Western, but foremostly US-based NGOs are doing a lot of harm in Iraq because they are driven by money, US politics, and the objectives of their funders such as USAID (U.S. Agency for International Development). One such NGO came to Iraq set up offices in Baghdad and throughout Iraq and began paying huge salaries (1300 US Dollars per month) when the monthly salaries in Iraq did not even reach $200 a month for a university professor or medical doctor! This inflated the expectations of young Iraqis who thought that by playing the American game they would suddenly become rich and famous. Adding insult to injury, those Iraqis who attended and still attend US-inspired training believe that after a 4-day workshop they will become “experts” in conflict resolution! My philosophy throughout my academic career is that the teacher ought to be a learner’s “guide by the side” not the front seat driver or an imparter of doctrine.

My experience in Iraq was very positive. I did not mind the long trip to reach Erbil (almost 4 days of travel by plane and car). Iraqi participants—both men and women—were very eager to learn more about conflict resolution techniques. Unfortunately, time was limited and my hosts did not appreciate the cultural and gender-oriented dimension I imparted to the participants. In both the English and Arabic language workshops, the day dedicated to women was highly appreciated in spite of some Iraqi men’s objections to the concerns that Iraqi women were raising.
To my mind, this is the tragedy of postwar reconstruction in Iraq. Occupiers are behaving like bullies in a china shop without paying any attention to the Iraqi people’s real and complex needs.

During a session on active listening, many Iraqis told me that it was very hard for them to apply such concept. I told them that I fully understand where they were coming from. I told them that they were like someone who was in jail and tortured for almost 30 years. Now, Iraqis are trying to come out and deal with their traumas. The needed space to express themselves and require institutional facilitation and nurturance of collective empowerment to tackle the many challenges facing their society: economic deprivation, the legacy of a horrible dictatorship, clan and tribal politics, discrimination against women and their rights as active members in Iraqi society, the American occupation and violation of the Geneva Convention and basic human rights (Abu Ghraib for instance) and the relentless insurgency.
In her evaluation of one of the workshops, an Iraqi woman lawyer wrote that what Iraq needed at this stage of its history was 1) a constitution and laws to be approved by a referendum; 2) putting Saddam Hussein and his followers on trial in front of fair courts) compensating the dictatorship’s victims; d) create lijaan musaalaha (committees of reconciliation); and, e) the formation of a government devoid of former members of the Baath Party.

All in all Iraqis are in desperate need to be empowered and learn how to explore and develop their own techniques to manage and resolve their conflicts. Training provided by the U.S. Institute of Peace in Amman or other locations will not satisfy the nascent civil society in Iraq. USIP is offering a five days simulation workshop called SENSE (“The Strategic Economic Needs and Security Simulation Exercise”). This simulation was created by a former member of the US military, Richard White, of the Institute of Defense Analysis (IDA) and is mostly focused on rebuilding the economies of postwar societies without any consideration to the history, contexts or cultures of Iraqi society. This institute and other US-based organizations are merely tools in the hands of a neoconservative regime that has totally lost control of the situation in Iraq and public opinion support at home, while violating international humanitarian law daily.

I am confident that Iraqis have the wherewithal and resources to rebuild their society. They will need all the help they can get. Canada and Canadian NGOS and professional conflict resolution associations can play a crucial and less imperial role.


George E. Irani is a core faculty in the Masters in Conflict Analysis and Management (MACAM) program at Royal Roads University. In August, he will be leaving for his new job at the Toledo Center for International Peace in Madrid, Spain. He can be reached at georgeirani a_t_ hotmail d_o_t com `

posted by Juan @ [url7/01/2005 06:26:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/guest-editorial-irani-on-erbil-journey.html[/url]
Thursday, June 30, 2005

Samarra` Assaulted by Guerrillas

The LA Times reports that guerrillas launched a major attack in Samarra on Wednesday. Carloads of gunmen came into the city and attacked a building used by security forces with rocket propelled grenades. They then attacked the hospital, until US and Iraqi government forces responded to attacks. When ten carloads of guerrillas can just drive into town and shoot it up, you know no one is really in control of the place. Samarra is an important city north of Baghdad, with a population of nearly 200,000. Its early Islamic monuments make it symbolically important.

The LA Times says that guerrillas also killed Kamal Khalid Zebari, a Kurdish security chief of Mosul.

The murder two days ago of a Shiite parliamentarian has set off a debate among Shiites about using paramilitary forces to defend themselves from Sunni guerrilla actions. The debate was made especially bitter by US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld`s admission last Sunday that the US is talking behind the scenes to leaders of the Sunni guerrilla movement, a move that many Shiites denounce.

The Arab News reports from wire services:


` Furious Shi`i deputies suggested that the time had come to counter relentless attacks that have targeted their community. Khodr Al-Khozai of the Shi`i-dominated United Iraqi Alliance (UIA) appealed to the three biggest Sunni organizations in Iraq: “We call on the Committee of Muslim Scholars, the Waqf (state-run endowment group) and Iraqi Islamic Party to take a clear stand regarding murders and attacks on Shi`is.

“We are on the edge of a precipice that could swallow us all. The ministries of interior and defense have proved incapable of defending us and in this case the people have the right to self-defense,” Khozai said.

A deputy from the Mehdi Army of Shi`i cleric Moqtada Sadr suggested neighborhood committees be created with religious and community leaders to work with the interior and defense ministries. “These committees would know how to find the terrorists,” Fatah Al-Sheikh promised." `



Meanwhile, the movement for southern autonomy is growing, according to Ed Wong of the New York Times. The movement is opposed by the hard line Shiite nationalists of the Sadr movement, and not especially favored by Grand Ayatollah Sistani, either. Although Wong highlights the secularists arguing for regional autonomy, there are Shiite religious figures who want it, as well, as reported by al-Zaman.

posted by Juan @ [url6/30/2005 07:55:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/06/samarra-assaulted-by-guerrillas-la.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Time Inc. Yields to Judge in Anonymous Source Case
By Richard B. Schmitt
Times Staff Writer
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-reporte…

July 1, 2005

WASHINGTON — The publisher of Time magazine, declaring it had no choice but to obey the law, said Thursday that it would turn over internal documents to a federal prosecutor in the hope that one of its reporters would not have to go to jail for refusing to reveal his sources in a Justice Department investigation.

Time Inc.`s decision, made by editor in chief Norman Pearlstine, was seen as a major setback for journalists in what has become a rare and dramatic showdown between the government and press over protecting confidential sources.

"It`s pretty shocking," David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author, said of Time Inc.`s decision. "I don`t think the country realizes what`s at stake when the government starts going after reporters."

Time Inc., the publishing arm of media giant Time Warner Inc., acted a day after a federal judge threatened it with what he called a "very large" fine if it did not comply with a court order to turn over records sought in an investigation into how the name of a covert CIA operative ended up in a syndicated newspaper column written by Robert Novak.

Time Inc. is expected to relinquish the documents today.

Pearlstine`s decision was criticized by media observers and the other news company involved in the case, the New York Times Co.

Chairman Arthur Sulzberger Jr. noted that the New York Times had refused to comply with a similar court order in 1978, paid heavy fines and saw its reporter jailed for 40 days.

"We are deeply disappointed by Time Inc.`s decision to deliver the subpoenaed records," Sulzberger said in a statement.

Time Inc.`s decision raised the possibility that the government`s investigation was close to a resolution. Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has said the only thing holding up the inquiry was the refusal of the reporters to cooperate. He had no comment Thursday.

Time and its reporter, Matthew Cooper, had been held in contempt for refusing to cooperate in the investigation into the revealing of CIA agent Valerie Plame`s identity. Judith Miller of the New York Times was also found in contempt, but her newspaper was not. Cooper and Miller refused to reveal their sources in their investigations of Novak`s naming of Plame.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected the reporters` final appeal. On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan told the journalists that "the time has come" — he gave them a week to comply with his order to meet the prosecutor`s demands for information or go to jail. They face up to four months behind bars.

In a statement, Pearlstine said he had reluctantly decided to comply.

"In declining to review the important issues presented by this case, we believe that the Supreme Court has limited press freedom in ways that will have a chilling effect on our work and that may damage the free flow of information that is so necessary in a democratic society. It may also encourage excesses by overzealous prosecutors," his statement said.

"Despite these concerns, Time Inc. shall deliver the subpoenaed records to the Special Counsel in accordance with its duties under the law," it continued. "The same Constitution that protects the freedom of the press requires obedience to final decisions of the courts and respect for their rulings and judgments. That Time Inc. strongly disagrees with the courts provides no immunity."

Pearlstine added that he believed the decision "obviates the need for Matt Cooper to testify and certainly removes any justification for incarceration."

Cooper, a Time magazine White House correspondent, indicated through his lawyer in court Wednesday that he personally would not supply notes or information identifying his sources to Fitzgerald and that he was prepared to go to jail.

It was not clear whether Time Inc.`s cooperation would affect Miller`s case. Some lawyers close to the matter suggested that the court might treat Miller more harshly now that Time Inc. had acquiesced. An attorney for Miller, Robert Bennett, said he was "hopeful that Time`s disclosure will eliminate the need for Judy`s testimony and that this crisis can be ended."

Time Inc.`s move drew criticism from some media watchers, who said that by bending to the courts and the Justice Department under threat of a stiff fine, the magazine`s publisher had put money over principle.

"It is a corporate response," said Jane Kirtley, professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota.

"It sends a message to judges and prosecutors seeking journalists` testimony that a fine may be a very effective way to overcome the scruples of a news organization." But Pearlstine said in an interview that money had nothing to do with it.

"Given the size of Time Warner, the fine would have to be of a level where it would frankly violate due process before it would make a material difference in the company," he said.

Pearlstine said the decision was "mine and mine alone." He said he notified Time Warner Chief Executive Richard Parsons by phone Wednesday night.

The Supreme Court, Pearlstine said, ruled in 1972 that journalists had no special status under the law to refuse to testify when called before a federal grand jury. Time and other news organizations had hoped the justices might reexamine that ruling in the current case.

"From my own personal analysis of the situation," Pearlstine said, emerged "a firm conviction that the journalistic integrity and credibility of Time Inc. was better served by following the law" rather than trying to assert that journalists had a right that put them above the law.

Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard University, said: "A public corporation that defies this kind of ruling is putting itself in an extremely dangerous position, because the judge could have imposed truly ruinous fines.

"There are limits within the law," Jones said, "and even the strongest advocates of press freedom respect them."

He noted that during the 1971 Pentagon Papers case, the New York Times, when ordered by a federal court, agreed to stop publishing classified documents obtained from a confidential source.

The New York Times was not held in contempt in the current case and was not facing a fine, because officials at the paper said they possessed no documents that bore on the inquiry.

Time Inc. has declined to describe in detail the documents it was turning over and whether they included the notes Fitzgerald was seeking from Cooper. Pearlstine said they included internal company documents that Time Inc. considered its property rather than the reporter`s.

Sulzberger said the New York Times was prepared to stand behind Miller and support her "during this difficult time."

He said the paper had faced similar pressures in 1978, when reporter Myron Farber and the Times Co. were held in contempt for refusing to provide names of confidential sources in a series of stories.

Pearlstine rejected that comparison, saying: "The fact that they were going to a New Jersey state case from 1978 to find an analogy, I think, just reflects the fact that they are not a defendant in this case."

Fitzgerald has been investigating possible criminal action in the wake of a July 14, 2003, column by Novak. In it, Novak revealed Plame`s identity. She is married to Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former envoy who had accused the Bush administration of making bogus claims about Iraq`s nuclear intentions.

It is a federal crime to knowingly expose the identity of a covert operative. Some have alleged that the White House leaked the information to numerous journalists, including Novak. Each such disclosure could be considered a violation of federal law.

Novak has declined to say whether he has spoken to Fitzgerald or revealed his sources.

*

Times staff writer Josh Getlin in New York contributed to this report.



Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

As Usual, Rumsfeld Stares Down the Storm
The Defense chief`s role as point man in the effort to explain Bush`s Iraq policy shows his continued influence and political durability.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-rums…

By Mark Mazzetti
Times Staff Writer

July 1, 2005

WASHINGTON — At the darkest moment of his Pentagon tenure, when the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal was gathering steam and many in Washington were betting on his swift exit, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld boarded a C-17 cargo plane last year and made an emergency trip to Baghdad.

There, Rumsfeld told a throng of U.S. troops that he had no intention of going down without a fight.

"It`s a fact," Rumsfeld said. "I`m a survivor."

Back home, Rumsfeld`s trip became fodder for late-night television.

"Yeah, a survivor about to be voted off the island," Jay Leno cracked on "The Tonight Show."

Yet in Washington`s own brand of reality television, where Machiavellian intrigue is not a ratings game, Rumsfeld has done far more than survive. Five months into President Bush`s second term, Rumsfeld`s influence within the administration shows no sign of waning.

Even as the war in Iraq casts a long shadow over the reform agenda that Rumsfeld is pushing at the Pentagon, the Defense chief who remains a magnet for controversy is staying on the offensive.

With public support for the Iraq war declining and the number of critics on Capitol Hill growing, Rumsfeld in the last week emerged again as the Bush Cabinet`s most prominent spokesman for the war effort. Three days before appearing on talk shows last Sunday, the 72-year-old Defense secretary withstood eight hours of congressional questioning — peppered with lawmakers` harsh criticism about the war`s progress.

Afterward, aides said Rumsfeld spent little time worrying about critics such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who characterized Iraq as a "quagmire" and called for the Defense secretary`s resignation.

"He doesn`t dwell and is always looking ahead to the next thing. This is not a guy who looks back and agonizes," said Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita, who is also one of Rumsfeld`s closest advisors.

Beyond Iraq, the White House has given Rumsfeld an unusually long leash that allows him to hold forth on issues far outside his portfolio as Defense secretary.

During the first stop of a two-continent tour last month, Rumsfeld caused a sensation when he delivered a speech in Singapore to Asian defense ministers warning of the threat that China`s military poses to the balance of power in the Pacific.

The speech was the buzz of the two-day conference, and not just because Rumsfeld chose to fire a warning shot at China right in the emerging giant`s backyard. Straying from purely military issues, the Defense secretary urged the Chinese to speed the pace of political reforms and pressed China to lean on North Korea to return to diplomatic talks about its nuclear program.

Even Bush administration critics who attended the conference were amazed at the breadth of topics the White House allows Rumsfeld to weigh in on — and at a time when the Bush administration is wrestling with the question of how hard a stance to take toward China.

"He`s not just speaking as the defense minister. It`s like a super minister, … speaking on trade, diplomatic and other economic issues," said Kurt Campbell, the head of Asia policy at the Pentagon during the Clinton administration who attended the speech in Singapore. "It`s really quite remarkable, and it`s something we really haven`t seen before in the past."

In his sixth decade of government service, Rumsfeld still earns his reputation as one of Washington`s most adept bureaucratic warriors.

For example, the creation of a director of national intelligence to oversee the nation`s $40-billion intelligence apparatus led to predictions that the power of the Defense secretary — who historically has controlled most of the intelligence budget — would greatly diminish.

Bush has indeed given John D. Negroponte, the spy chief, unprecedented power. Yet Rumsfeld is vastly expanding the Pentagon`s role in clandestine espionage operations, sending special operations troops and civilian Defense Department personnel on intelligence missions that traditionally have been the work of CIA spies.

This effort has rankled some State Department officials, who say U.S. embassies abroad have not been kept informed about the Pentagon missions. Yet the Defense Department has not surrendered its prerogatives. The White House recently signed off on procedures allowing Pentagon spies on clandestine missions to report directly to regional military commanders, not U.S. embassies.

Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, Negroponte`s deputy, said Wednesday that the Pentagon and CIA are in the process of forging a "memorandum of understanding" regarding intelligence operations. According to one senior intelligence official, the two departments are negotiating how soldiers and spies can both run intelligence missions against adversaries without encroaching on each others` turf.

At home and abroad, Rumsfeld`s role in the military and political battles of the past four years has assured him a spot as one of America`s most important Defense secretaries. What remains unclear, however, is how history will judge his tenure at the Pentagon.

Despite all of Rumsfeld`s initiatives to transform the Pentagon, many agree that his ultimate legacy will hinge on two outcomes: whether Iraq can emerge from its crucible of violence before the American public pushes in earnest for a troop withdrawal, and whether a drawdown in Iraq can occur before the all-volunteer military buckles under the weight of its global demands.

"If things turn out well in Iraq, he will be the man known for reforming the military and this building," said a senior military officer at the Pentagon. "If Iraq goes south, fair or not, he will go down as the man who bullied the military into an unpopular war."

John F. Lehman, secretary of the Navy during the Reagan presidency and a member of the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, said the "jury is still out" on how Rumsfeld will be regarded by history, yet Rumsfeld has found the perfect formula for longevity in an often-brutal job.

"He knows that you can`t accomplish anything in the bureaucracy unless you have the confidence of the president. He clearly does," Lehman said. "And you have to stay there a long time, because the bureaucracy can always just wait you out."

Lehman added: "I think he`s settled in for the duration."

Rumsfeld`s much-publicized battles with the generals over the pace of Pentagon reform have largely died down, in part because Rumsfeld`s long tenure has allowed him to promote officers who accept his vision of a lighter, leaner military. Unlike many of his predecessors, Rumsfeld devotes much of his time to scrutinizing the candidacies of one- and two-star generals and admirals for lower posts — an influence over the Pentagon`s "farm system" that ensures a legacy at the Pentagon years after he is gone.

The height of the Abu Ghraib scandal, a period during which Rumsfeld twice submitted his resignation to President Bush, was hardly the only moment when many in Washington predicted that Rumsfeld`s days at the Pentagon were numbered.

During the summer before the Sept. 11 attacks, when top military leaders were protecting prized weapons and blocking Rumsfeld`s push to transform the military, conventional wisdom was that Rumsfeld had been outmaneuvered by an entrenched military bureaucracy and that he had lost the White House`s confidence.

More recently, during a trip to Kuwait in December, one soldier sharply questioned Rumsfeld about why reservists heading into Iraq lacked proper equipment and were resorting to "hillbilly armor" to protect their combat vehicles. Rumsfeld`s reply — "You go to war with the army you have" — was widely perceived as callous and out of touch. It led Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona to declare he had no confidence in Rumsfeld`s leadership.

Rumsfeld weathered all these storms, emerging each time with his clout inside the White House intact.

Even with the ascension of Condoleezza Rice as a secretary of State who, unlike predecessor Colin L. Powell, has Bush`s ear, Rumsfeld is undiminished. Some administration officials point out that the difference is that while Rumsfeld used to dominate the meetings of Bush`s war cabinet, Rice now shares the spotlight.

Rumsfeld often says the judgment of history means more than the daily musings of pundits and editorial writers. And even as the violence in Iraq shows no sign of abating, he evinces little doubt that, in the end, he will be proved right.

During the surprise May 2004 trip to Baghdad after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, Rumsfeld told the assembled troops that he had stopped reading newspapers and that on the plane to Iraq he instead passed the time reading a book about the Civil War to put the current struggles in context.

During last week`s contentious hearings on Capitol Hill, amid flagging public support for the U.S. mission in Iraq, Rumsfeld drew parallels between the Iraq war and the dark days of America`s Revolutionary War. He also quoted Abraham Lincoln telling Union soldiers, "I beg of you, as citizens of this great Republic, not to let your minds be carried off from the great work we have before us."

"That was good advice," Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld`s prickly, often-abrasive style has at times rankled longtime U.S. allies.

He has taken a more diplomatic tack in recent months, even remarking during a European trip this year that it was "Old Rumsfeld" who made the infamous comments about "Old Europe" concerning French and German criticism of U.S. preparations for the 2003 war in Iraq.

Yet, he has little hesitation about barreling down paths where diplomats often fear to tread.

One recent target of Rumsfeld`s verbal barbs has been Russia. The Defense secretary has criticized the Russian government for its close financial ties with Syria and for selling 100,000 AK-47 rifles to President Hugo Chavez`s government in Venezuela.

The issues were expected to come up when Rumsfeld met with Russian Defense Minister Sergei B. Ivanov last month in Brussels.

As the two men shook hands amid popping flashbulbs, video cameras and boom microphones, the smiling Ivanov fired the first shot.

"Mr. Rumsfeld, where is your Kalashnikov?" Ivanov asked.

Rumsfeld pretended to look inside the jacket of his dark flannel suit, looked back up at Ivanov, and shot back.

"I must have given it to Venezuela," he said, grinning.

The two men turned, walked into a conference room and shut the door.



Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]
[urlCELESTIAL FIREWORKS
NASA prepares to crash craft into comet for sake of science ]http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/01/MNGOCDHPPD1.DTL[/url]
[/TABLE]

CELESTIAL FIREWORKS A two-stage spacecraft called Deep Impact will send its 820-pound "impactor" slamming into the comet Tempel 1 around 10:52 p.m. Sunday, blowing some of its innards into space for scientists to study. If the $333 million mission is successful, Deep Impact will be the first spacecraft to touch the surface of a comet. Sunday Impact around 10:52 p.m. PDT 1. Autopilot will be engaged two hours before impact. 2. The force of the 23,000-mph collision would be equal to about 4.5 tons of TNT. The resulting crater could range from the size of a house to that of a football stadium. 3. Minutes after the collision, the fly-by craft will return to within 310 miles of the comet and quickly snap pictures before it is pelted with debris. How to track Deep Impact If you want to follow NASA`s mission to blast a crater in the distant Tempel 1 comet, go to the mission`s Web site at www.nasa.gov/deepimpact Astronomers at Oakland`s Chabot Space and Science Center will provide background and commentary on the mission from 10 p.m. to midnight Sunday. Chabot`s telescopes will be aimed at the comet during the evening. Tickets for the event are $8 for non-members and $6 for members. Information is available at [phone]. Sources: NASA; space painting by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp.; University of Hawaii, false color photo of Tempel 1 courtesy of K.J. Meech; Associated Press; Sky and Telescope

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Baghdad Fire Leaves Millions Without Water
- By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer
Friday, July 1, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/07/01/i…

(07-01) 04:07 PDT BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) --

A fire broke out Friday at a power station that supplies a Baghdad waterworks, shutting it down and leaving millions of residents without drinking water, officials said.

The blaze came a day after Baghdad`s mayor decried the capital`s crumbling infrastructure and the lack of clean water and threatened to resign if the Iraqi government won`t provide more money.

Friday`s fire began at about 7 a.m. local time and it affected the Karkh water station in Tarmiyah, which serves northern and western Baghdad, officials said.

The water project`s director, Jassim Mohammed, said he believed the fire started after insurgents set off a bomb. He said it would take at least three days to get spare parts and repair the damage, which has completely halted all water distribution from the plant.

A municipal official said the blaze was still under investigation.

"It`s not clear if it was an explosion (caused by insurgents) or a technical problem," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information.

While militants frequently target infrastructure, loud explosions can occur when a transformer blows.

Iraqi engineers told the U.S. military the fire resulted from a blown transformer and was not the result of an insurgent attack, said Sgt. 1st Class David Abrams, a spokesman for Task Force Baghdad. "We verified with engineers on the site that it was a blown transformer," Abrams said.

Efforts to expand Baghdad`s water supplies were set back earlier this month when insurgents sabotaged a pipeline near Baghdad.

Mayor Alaa Mahmoud al-Timimi`s threat to resign over the dismal state of the capital`s infrastructure was an indication of the daily misery that Baghdad`s 6.45 million people still endure more than two years after the U.S.-led invasion. They are wracked not only by unrelenting bombings and kidnappings, but by serious shortages in water, electricity and fuel.

"It`s useless for any official to stay in office without the means to accomplish his job," al-Timimi told reporters Thursday.

Al-Timimi wants $1.5 billion from the Iraqi national government for Baghdad in 2005 but so far has received only $85 million, said his spokesman, Ameer Ali Hasson.

Some complain the water they do get smells bad, and Hasson acknowledged in some areas, the water gets mixed with sewage. "The problem is escalating," said al-Timimi, a Shiite who took office in May 2004.

According to City Hall, Baghdad produces about 544 million gallons of water per day, some 370 million gallons short of its required amount. Some 55 percent of the water is lost through leakage in the pipes.

Iraqis also complain of shortages of power and fuel.

Electrical shortfalls were common during Saddam Hussein`s regime and attributed to a poor distribution network, but the situation has worsened due to sabotage and lack of maintenance. Before the U.S.-led invasion, Baghdad residents had about 20 hours of electricity a day. Today, they get about 10, usually broken into two-hour chunks.

In addition, Iraq is not able to refine enough oil, so must import gasoline. Convoys carrying fuel are often attacked by insurgents and the ensuing shortage has led to a black market in Baghdad.

Meanwhile, a roadside bomb struck a police patrol at a checkpoint on Baghdad`s outskirts on Friday, wounding two policemen, 1st Lt. Mohammed al-Hayali said. Elsewhere, another roadside bomb missed a U.S. military convoy in the New Baghdad district of the capital, killing one civilian and wounding three others, police Capt. Mohammed Izz al-Deen said.

At least 1,743 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. At least 1,341 died as a result of hostile action. Of those, 75 were killed in June, one of the deadlier months.

___

Associated Press writer Ahmed al-Dulaimi contributed to this report from Tarmiyah.

[Joerver]

Burn, Canada And Spain, Burn!
Look to the skies, see the wrath of God rain down on married gays! Will hockey and tapas survive?
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, July 1, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/20…

Oh, but it will be fun to watch Spain and Canada burn in hell. I mean, we`re right next door to Canada. We have the best possible view.

It will be fun to watch their societies crumble, their moral fiber rend and shred, their sense of justice and humanity wither and die in the white-hot sun of sin and impudence and blasphemy, Canada`s no-longer-manly hockey teams spontaneously combust into a billion meaty bloody God-splattered bits, Spanish children drop their jamon sandwiches in terror and scream and shriek and turn into instant puddles of fiery confused goo.

Why all the vicious carnage? Why the reign of terror? Simple, silly: Canada and Spain have done the unthinkable, the unconscionable. They have legalized gay marriage, everywhere, in their respective countries. Oh my God, they are so going to burn.

It`s true. The good news was a bit buried under stories about BushCo`s latest mangled speech, wherein the Bumbling One once again debased the tragedy of 9/11 in a desperate attempt to convince war-weary Americans that his vicious string of lies about Iraq are justified and all those dead Americans are worth it and all the tens of thousands of innocent civilians we`ve killed are just a pesky afterthought to our snarling machinations of pillage and empire, but there it is, shining like a beacon, a ray of hope from those godless heathens up north and across the globe.

Morford honored by columnists` group - SFGate.com Staff Report Friday, July 1, 2005 Mark Morford has won first place in the online columns division of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists` annual contest. The award covers columnists whose work appears primarily in online newspapers, as Mark`s does for SFGate.com, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle. This marks the second time in three years that Mark has won in this division. Morford, 38, has written his twice-weekly column since 2000 and recently began contributing items to the site`s new Culture Blog. "Mark`s witty and irreverent column is one of the most popular and distinctive features of our website, and we`re grateful that his fellow columnists have recognized his talents," said SFGate.com News Director Vlae Kershner. URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/g/a/2005/07/01/m…

Canada`s gay marriage bill finally made it through the contentious House of Commons and is expected to sail through the Senate almost immediately and become federal law by July, and then gay marriage will be perfectly legal across the entire country, doubtlessly and permanently and forevermore.

And Spain, oh my God Spain, Spain defied endless years of a Roman Catholic choke hold and infuriated religious conservatives and basically did the equivalent of opening a giant Starbucks in downtown Salt Lake City or maybe a huge bikini warehouse in downtown Riyadh. Which is to say, they flipped a well-timed bird to the ruling dogma and voted for joy and bliss and love. Gay Spanish couples can be married as soon as the law is printed in the government registry, within two weeks. Imagine.

Surely, locusts are at hand. Surely, a rain of fire and death shall smite both countries from above, any minute now. Go outside right now and watch. You should be able to see at least some of Canada go down. It should be quite the spectacle, all bloodshed and screaming and shards of exploded hockey sticks flying through the air like toothpicks. Bring an umbrella.

Already, Spanish and Canadian religious zealots and conservative hatemongers are wringing their hands and scowling heavily and heading for the gay-free bomb shelters, well stocked as they are with Bibles and potatoes and canned corn and secret stashes of German fetish porn and Spanish tapas and Canadian bacon and joylessness.

These people are, as you might imagine, deeply pissed and frustrated and wishing they could all be living anywhere but Canada or Spain (or Belgium, or the Netherlands, the only other nations that have legalized gay marriage to date), and many are possibly right now praying they could be magically transported straight to that glorious nexus of sexless homophobia and rabid religious sanctimony, Colorado Springs, a.k.a. "the evangelical Vatican," "the Mecca o` Intolerance," "Jerusalem for Dummies."

Alas, they are stuck in mellow, war-free, healthy, gay-happy Canada and sunny, friendly, party-riffic Spain. Poor dears.

Already, the vast majority of Canadian and Spanish children are crying, trembling, sensing something is amiss, aware that the precious balance has been altered, their potential fates as imminent homophobes and conservative ideologues being thrown into question. I mean, what will they become? Who will teach them to hate gays and loathe anyone who is different and where will they learn to be all sexually uptight and sanctimonious and misguided? Oh, right. America.

This, after all, is the biggest question of all, the one thrown up like a mantra every time a large cultural question of sex and gender pops up: Who -- pray, who -- will save the children?

Children are going to be horribly affected by legal gay marriage, somehow. This is what the ideologues wail. Children are going to be psychologically damaged and morally mauled and sexually preyed upon by those deviant homos with their crazy beliefs and bizarre sexual practices and their whips and chains and weird paraphernalia and gay agitprop literature and creepy homosexual hand puppets.

This is what they sincerely believe, even though no one, not any Canadian, Spaniard or church leader, nor any homophobic U.S. senator, can exactly say how kids will be harmed. Just, of course, that they will. Will kids become premature alcoholics? Sexual deviants? Godless heathens? Wiccans and porn addicts and Danielle Steele fans? Will they get tattoos and pierce their labias and vote Green? Or will they merely suffer a ridiculously high divorce rate, 29 percent higher than the U.S. average, like they already do in the "morally virtuous" red states?

Kids will, they certainly fear, be aggressively harvested, recruited, converted to homosexuality much in the same way other dark forces siphon off our youth -- like, oh, the U.S. Army sucking up lost lower-class teens or Billy Graham working for over 50 years to convert millions of Christians to a certain narrow worldview and rigid lifestyle. Yes, gays will treat kids just like that.

Do we need to say it? The gay-recruitment thing is, of course, utter BS, a sad joke, demeaning and wrongheaded and heartbreakingly ignorant. Kids will be fine. Kids will be happy and perky and heavily Ritalined, as always.

And the next generation of Canadian and Spanish kids will see homosexual couples get married and they will say to themselves, huh, look mommy, two people in love, holding hands, laughing and crying and arguing and bitching about how damned cold it is in Quebec or why the Bilbao doesn`t stay open until 6 am for all-night partying, trying to make their way in the world, paying taxes and doing the shopping and receiving free health care and arguing over carpet samples and struggling to understand a very convoluted and torturous but potentially shockingly beautiful, love-drenched world.

Either that, or the kids will just shrug and go watch more TV. Oh the horror.

Regardless, conservative Spaniards and Canadians are up in arms, aghast, terrified to their very cores. Especially in Alberta, a.k.a. "Texas north," a.k.a. "the one place in Canada you never need to visit." One Canadian hand-wringer called the vote to legalize gay marriage "an onerous breach of trust and the deconstruction of so much that is dear to our hearts." One Spanish conservative wailed, "I think the prime minister has committed a grave act of irresponsibility."

Actually, that`s not so bad. In fact, that`s downright mild and articulate, relatively speaking, nowhere near the American brand of alarmism and hate, a Rick Santorum-grade level of horror and homosexual fantasy that brands gay unions as one tiny step removed from bestiality and necrophilia and in-breeding and screwing your ficus plant and filming it and putting it up on your family blog. Damn, even their homophobia is nicer than ours.

Perhaps this is the good news for Canada and Spain. Now that the entirety of the two countries (Alberta happily, snarlingly excepted) are so open to godlessness and sexual deviance and raw gay love, well, it`s a virtual lock than no God-fearing conservative American will move there, much in the same way they now refuse, in their terror and misery and unhappy shoes, to move to those heathen tofu-sucking sexually open liberal American strongholds of San Francisco, or New York, or Chicago, et al.

In other words, Canada and Spain are now essentially much like any major American city that happens to be home to world-class universities and actual culture and decent bookstores and progressive ideologies, places where people seem to understand that, at least while we`re all trapped in these odd human shells for such a brief, glimmering eyeblink of time, allowing love to progress and evolve as it sees fit does not, somehow, equal epic doom, decay or moral annihilation.

In fact, the realization is now more apparent than ever that allowing such delicious evolution equals, well, the exact opposite. Wild kudos to Spain and Canada for welcoming it. And what a deep and pathetic shame that most of the U.S., despite claims of spiritual freedom and tolerance, isn`t even close.


Mark Morford`s Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters.


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/200…

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
WASHINGTON (IWR News Parody) - President Bush today ordered thecreation of a domestic spy agency called the National Security Service that would track the 42% of Americans,who think Mr. Bush should be impeached.

"We all know that Osama bin Laden is behind this goddam Impeach [urlthe Codpiece movement]http://www.internetweekly.org/photo_cartoons/cartoon_bush_impeach.html that is sweeping the country.

Come on. Only a towel headed terrorist would want to get rid of Cheney and me!

So that`s why I told my buddy Fredo to put all these millions of suspects under surveillance," said Bush.
Note: This image was pilfered from Propaganda Images From Soviet Magazines[/url]
[/TABLE]
[Table align=center width=300]
IMPEACH THE CODPIECE!
[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center width=300]
America Deserves a Break Today:

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center width=300]

From McWar, McWMD, McLies,
McJobs, McWages, McRove
And Just Plain Old McBS!

Isn`t it Time That You Told
Your Elected Officials
To Get Cracking,

And
[/TABLE][Table align=center width=300]
IMPEACH THE CODPIECE!
[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]
http://www.internetweekly.org/photo_cartoons/cartoon_bush_co…
[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Diesen Artikel aus dem Guardian hatte ich ibn #29484 eingestellt. Dazu als Ergänzung in #29499 einen weiteren Artikel von Hobsbawn: `Die Ausbreitung der Demokratie. Die gefährlichsten Ideen der Welt`.
Hier nun die Übersetzung des Guardian Artikels von Z-Net.


Der Neue Imperialismus
von Eric Hobsbawm
http://www.zmag.de/artikel.php?id=1472

Z-Net 26.06.2005
Drei Kontinuitäten verbinden die USA des Kalten Krieges mit jener welche seit 2001 versucht ihre Vormachtstellung in der Welt geltend zu machen. Die erste ist ihre internationale Dominanz außerhalb der Einflußsphäre der kommunistischen Länder zur Zeit des Kalten Krieges, und weltweit seit dem Zusammenbruch der UdSSR. Diese Hegemonie basiert heute nicht mehr auf der schieren Größe der US-Wirtschaft. Groß wie sie ist, hat sie doch seit 1945 relativ abgenommen, und dieser relative Abstieg geht weiter. Sie ist nicht länger der Gigant der globalen Industrieproduktion. Das Zentrum der industrialisierten Welt verschiebt sich rapide in die östliche Hälfte Asiens. Anders als ältere imperialistische Länder, und anders als die meisten übrigen entwickelten Länder, hat die USA damit aufgehört ein Nettoexporteur von Kapital zu sein; sie hat sogar damit aufgehört der größte Akteur beim internationalen Spiel des Kaufens und Gründens von Firmen in anderen Ländern zu sein, und die finanzielle Stärke des Staates basiert auf der anhaltenden Bereitschaft anderer Länder, hauptsächlicher asiatischer, ein sonst unhaltbares Defizit aufrechtzuhalten.

Der Einfluß der amerikanischen Wirtschaft basiert heute hauptsächlich auf ihrerem Erbe aus der Zeit des Kalten Krieges: von der Rolle des US-Dollars als Weltwährung, der internationalen Vernetzungen von US-Firmen, welche während dieser Zeit eingerichtet worden sind (besonders die Militärindustrien [im O.: defence]) und den Umgestaltungen der internationalen Wirtschaftstransaktionen und Geschäftspraktiken gemäß amerikanischer Richtlinien, oft unter der Aufsicht von amerikanischen Firmen. Das sind Besitzungen welche viel Macht verleihen, und die sich wahrscheinlich nur langsam vermindern werden. Andererseits basierte der enorme politische Einfluß der USA auf andere Länder, wie der Irakkrieg gezeigt hat, auf einer echten „Koalition der Willigen“ gegen die UdSSR und hat seit dem Fall der Berliner Mauer kein ähnliches Fundament mehr. Nur die enorme militärisch-technologische Macht der USA ist konkurrenzlos. Durch diese ist die USA heute die einzige Macht welche dazu fähig ist auf kurzfristige Entscheidung hin an jedem Ort der Welt militärisch zu intervenieren, und sie hat zweimal ihre Fähigkeit gezeigt kleine Kriege sehr rasch gewinnen zu können. Und dennoch ist, wie der Irakkrieg zeigt, nichteinmal diese unvergleichliche Zerstörungskapazität ausreichend, um die tatsächliche Kontrolle über ein sich wehrendes Land zu gewinnen, und viel weniger, über die Welt. Dennoch ist die Vorherrschaft der USA echt, und der Zusammenbruch der UdSSR hat diese global gemacht.

Das zweite Element der Kontinuität ist der besondere Hausstil des US-Imperiums, der anstatt formaler Kolonien immer Satellitenstaaten oder Protektorate bevorzugt hat. Der Expansionismus welcher im Namen steckt den die 13 unabhängigen Kolonien der Ostküste des Atlantiks sich gaben (Vereinigte Staaten von Amerika) war kontinental, nicht kolonial. Der spätere Expansionismus gemäß der „manifest destiny“ [,also ihrer „offenkundigen Bestimmung“ dazu,] war sowohl hemisphärisch, als auch nach Ostasien ausgerichtet, und war der global dominierenden Handels- und Seemacht des Britischen Imperiums nachempfunden. Man könnte sogar sagen, daß die USA mit ihrer Zielsetzung der totalen Vorherrschaft über die westliche Hemisphäre zu ambitiös war, um sich auf die koloniale Verwaltung von Teilen dieser zu beschränken.

Das amerikanische Imperium bestand dementsprechend aus technisch gesehen unabhängigen Staaten, die auf Washington hörten; aber wegen deren Unabhängigkeit bedurfte es immer der Bereitschaft Druck auf ihre Regierungen auszuüben, auch Druck zum „Regimewechsel“ und, wo gangbar (wie in den Minirepubliken der Karibikzone), periodischer militärischer US-Interventionen.

Die dritte Kontinuität verbindet die Neokonservativen George Bushs mit der Überzeugung der puritanischen KolonistInnen, Gottes Werkzeug auf Erden zu sein, und mit ihrer Amerikanischen Revolution – welche, wie alle großen Revolutionen, weltweite missionarische Bestrebungen entwickelte, die nur durch den Wunsch begrenzt worden sind, die neue Gesellschaft der potentiellen universellen Freiheit von der Korruption der unveränderten alten Welt abzuschirmen. Der effektivste Weg um innerhalb dieses Konflikts von Isolationismus und Globalismus zu manövrieren sollte im 20. Jahrhundert systematisch ausgenutzt werden, und leistet Washington auch im 21. Jahrhundert noch gute Dienste. Es galt einen äußeren Feind zu entdecken, welcher eine akute tödliche Gefahr für den American Way of Life und die US-BürgerInnen darstellt. Das Ende der UdSSR entfernte diesen offensichtlichen Kandidaten, aber mit den frühen 90ern wurde mit einem „Zusammenstoßen“ von westlichen und anderen Kulturen, hauptsächlich der islamischen, welche erstere nicht akzeptieren wollten, gefunden. Deswegen wurde das enorme politische Potential der Gräueltaten al-Kaidas am 11. September von den Weltherrschern in Washington sofort erkannt und ausgenutzt.

Der Erste Weltkrieg, welcher die USA zu einer globalen Macht emporhob, sah den ersten Versuch diese weltumbauenden Visionen in die Realität umzusetzen, aber Woodrow Wilsons Versagen war spektakulär; möglicherweise sollte es eine Lektion für die derzeitigen IdeologInnen der Weltvorherrschaft in Washington sein, welche, ganz richtig, in Wilson einen ihrer Vorgänger sehen. Bis zum Ende des Kalten Krieges legte die Existenz einer anderen Supermacht ihnen Grenzen auf, aber der Fall der UdSSR entfernte diese. Francis Fukuyama verkündete vorfrüh „das Ende der Geschichte“ – der universelle und permanente Triumph der US-Version einer kapitalistischen Gesellschaft. Gleichzeitig spornte die militärische Übermacht der USA einen Staat an der mächtig genug war um sich selbst für fähig zu halten die Welt zu beherrschen, wie es das Britische Imperium zu seiner Zeit nie getan hat. Und tatsächlich hatten die USA, als das 21. Jahrhundert begann, mit ihrer globalen Macht und ihrem Einfluß eine historisch einzigartige Stellung. Heute ist sie, wenn man den traditionellen Kriterien der internationalen Politik folgt, die einzige Großmacht; und sicherlich die einzige, deren Macht und Interessen den ganzen Erdball bedecken. Sie thront über allen anderen.

Alle großen Mächte und Imperien der Geschichte wußten, daß sie nicht alleine waren, und daß niemand in einer Position ist um echte globale Herrschaft zu erlangen. Keine glaubte an ihre eigene Unverwundbarkeit.

Und dennoch erklärt dies nicht vollständig den offensichtlichen Größenwahn der US-Politik seit eine Gruppe von Washington-Insidern beschlossen hatte, daß der 11. September ihnen die ideale Möglichkeit dafür gäbe zu verkünden, daß die USA die Welt ohne fremde Hilfe beherrschen werde. Zum einen mangelte es diesen an Unterstützung durch die traditionellen Säulen des US-Imperiums seit 1945, dem State Department, dem Militär, den Geheimdiensten und der Staatsmänner und Ideologen aus der Zeit des Kalten Krieges und der damaligen Vormachstellung der USA– Männer wie Kissinger und Brzezinski. Diese Leute waren genauso rücksichtslos wie die Rumsfelds und Wolfowitzs. (Es war zu ihrer Zeit, als in den 80ern in Guatemala ein Genozid an den Mayas stattfand). Diese Männer hatten für zwei Generationen eine Politik der imperialen Hegemonie über den Großteil des Globus entwickelt und verwaltet, und waren nur zu bereit dazu, diese auf die ganze Erde auszuweiten. Sie waren und sind den Pentagonplanern und neokonservativen Weltvorherrschaftlern gegenüber kritisch, da diese offensichtlich überhaupt keine konkreten Ideen haben, außer eben, daß sie durch militärische Übermacht ihre Vorherrschaft ohne Hilfe anderer aufzwingen wollen, und nebenbei die ganze angehäufte Erfahrung der US-Diplomatie und der militärischen Planung über Bord werfen. Das Debakel im Irak wird sie in ihrer Skepsis zweifellos bekräftigen.

Sogar jene welche nicht die Ansichten der alten Generäle und Prokonsule des US-Weltimperiums teilen (welche sowohl von Regierungen der Demokraten als auch der Republikaner stammten) werden zustimmen, daß es keine rationale Rechtfertigung der derzeitigen Politik Washingtons geben kann, was die imperialen Interessen Amerikas betrifft, oder auch die Interessen des US-Kapitalismus.

Es könnte sein, daß dies nur mit Kalkulationen welche auf die amerikanische Innenpolitik abgestimmt sind, was Wahlen oder anderes betrifft, Sinn macht. Es könnte sein, daß dies die – man kann nur hoffen kurzlebige – Kolonialisierung der Macht in Washington durch eine Gruppe von quasi-revolutionären Doktrinen ist. (Zumindest ein enthusiastischer ex-marxistischer Unterstützer Bushs hat mir nur halb im Scherz gesagt: „Schließlich ist dies die einzige Chance einer Weltrevolution welche mir über den Weg zu laufen scheint.“) Solche Fragen können noch nicht beantwortet werden. Es ist ziemlich sicher, daß ihr Projekt scheitern wird. Aber während es weitergeht wird es die Welt für jene welche direkt einer militärischen Besatzung der USA ausgesetzt sind unerträglich machen, und zu einem unsicheren Ort für den Rest von uns.

Eric Hobsbawm ist der Autor von Zeitalter der Extreme: Das kurze 20. Jahrhundert 1914-1991. Dies ist ein bearbeiteter Auszug aus seinem Vorwort zu einer neuen Auflage von V.G. Kiernans America: The New Imperialism

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[coke]

An alle Antiamerikaner!
Nennt mir ein Land das in seiner Geschichte ein Weisenknabe war. Ich finde es schon ein Stück Ignoranz, wenn man den Amerikaner vorwirft, sie wollten die Welt beherrschen. Wenn ich mich recht erinnere, war und ist doch Europa der Kontinent, auf dem die meisten Kriege stattgefunden haben. Und schauen wir uns dann noch die sogenannten Kulturstaaten (Deutschland, England, Russland, Frankreich) an, so fällt die Bilanz noch negativer aus.
Also seit ein wenig mehr Ehrlicher anstatt mit billiger Polemik aus der Nazizeit hier Hetze zu betreiben.

coke

[Joerver]

-

Unbelievable...
http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_riverbendblog_a…

“Not only can they not find WMD in Iraq,” I commented to E. as we listened to the Bush speech, “But they have disappeared from his speeches too!” I was listening to the voiceover on Arabiya, translating his speech to Arabic. He was recycling bits and pieces of various speeches he used over two years.

E., a younger cousin, and I were sitting around in the living room, sprawled on the relatively cool tiled floor. The electricity had been out for 3 hours and we couldn’t turn on the air conditioner with the generator electricity we were getting. E. and I had made a bet earlier about what the theme of tonight’s speech would be. E. guessed Bush would dig up the tired, old WMD theme from somewhere under the debris of idiocy and lies coming out of the White House. I told him he’d dredge up 9/11 yet again… tens of thousands of lives later, we would have to bear the burden of 9/11… again.

I won the bet. The theme was, naturally, terrorism- the only mention of ‘weapon’ or ‘weapons’ was in reference to Libya. He actually used the word ‘terrorist’ in the speech 23 times.

He was trying, throughout the speech, to paint a rosy picture of the situation. According to him, Iraq was flourishing under the occupation. In Bush’s Iraq, there is reconstruction, there is freedom (in spite of an occupation) and there is democracy.

“He’s describing a different country…” I commented to E. and the cousin.

“Yes,” E. replied. “He’s talking about the *other* Iraq… the one with the WMD.”

“So what’s the occasion? Why’s the idiot giving a speech anyway?” The cousin asked, staring at the ceiling fan clicking away above. I reminded him it was the year anniversary marking the mythical handover of power to Allawi’s Vichy government.

“Oh- Allawi… Is he still alive?” Came the indolent reply from the cousin. “I’ve lost track… was he before Al Yawir or after Al Yawir? Was he Prime Minister or did they make him president at some point?”

9/11 and the dubious connection with Iraq came up within less than a minute of the beginning of the speech. The cousin wondered whether anyone in America still believed Iraq had anything to do with September 11.

Bush said:
“The troops here and across the world are fighting a global war on terror. The war reached our shores on September 11, 2001.”

Do people really still believe this? In spite of that fact that no WMD were found in Iraq, in spite of the fact that prior to the war, no American was ever killed in Iraq and now almost 2000 are dead on Iraqi soil? It’s difficult to comprehend that rational people, after all of this, still actually accept the claims of a link between 9/11 and Iraq. Or that they could actually believe Iraq is less of a threat today than it was in 2003.

We did not have Al-Qaeda in Iraq prior to the war. We didn’t know that sort of extremism. We didn’t have beheadings or the abduction of foreigners or religious intolerance. We actually pitied America and Americans when the Twin Towers went down and when news began leaking out about it being Muslim fundamentalists- possibly Arabs- we were outraged.

Now 9/11 is getting old. Now, 100,000+ Iraqi lives and 1700+ American lives later, it’s becoming difficult to summon up the same sort of sympathy as before. How does the death of 3,000 Americans and the fall of two towers somehow justify the horrors in Iraq when not one of the people involved with the attack was Iraqi?

Bush said:
“Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. … The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."

He speaks of ‘abroad’ as if it is a vague desert-land filled with heavily-bearded men and possibly camels. ‘Abroad’ in his speech seems to indicate a land of inferior people- less deserving of peace, prosperity and even life.

Don’t Americans know that this vast wasteland of terror and terrorists otherwise known as ‘Abroad’ was home to the first civilizations and is home now to some of the most sophisticated, educated people in the region?

Don’t Americans realize that ‘abroad’ is a country full of people- men, women and children who are dying hourly? ‘Abroad’ is home for millions of us. It’s the place we were raised and the place we hope to raise our children- your field of war and terror.

The war was brought to us here, and now we have to watch the country disintegrate before our very eyes. We watch as towns are bombed and gunned down and evacuated of their people. We watch as friends and loved ones are detained, or killed or pressured out of the country with fear and intimidation.

Bush said:
“We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who exploded car bombs along a busy shopping street in Baghdad, including one outside a mosque. We see the nature of the enemy in terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul…”

Yes. And Bush is extremely concerned with the mosques. He might ask the occupation forces in Iraq to quit attacking mosques and detaining the worshipers inside- to stop raiding them and bombing them and using them as shelters for American snipers in places like Falluja and Samarra. And the terrorists who sent a suicide bomber to a teaching hospital in Mosul? Maybe they got their cue from the American troops who attacked the only functioning hospital in Falluja.

“We continued our efforts to help them rebuild their country. Rebuilding a country after three decades of tyranny is hard and rebuilding while a country is at war is even harder."

Three decades of tyranny isn’t what bombed and burned buildings to the ground. It isn’t three decades of tyranny that destroyed the infrastructure with such things as “Shock and Awe” and various other tactics. Though he fails to mention it, prior to the war, we didn’t have sewage overflowing in the streets like we do now, and water cut off for days and days at a time. We certainly had more than the 8 hours of electricity daily. In several areas they aren’t even getting that much.

“They are doing that by building the institutions of a free society, a society based on freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and equal justice under law.”

We’re so free, we often find ourselves prisoners of our homes, with roads cut off indefinitely and complete areas made inaccessible. We are so free to assemble that people now fear having gatherings because a large number of friends or family members may attract too much attention and provoke a raid by American or Iraqi forces.

As to Iraqi forces…There was too much to quote on the new Iraqi forces. He failed to mention that many of their members were formerly part of militias, and that many of them contributed to the looting and burning that swept over Iraq after the war and continued for weeks.

“The new Iraqi security forces are proving their courage every day.”

Indeed they are. The forte of the new Iraqi National Guard? Raids and mass detentions. They have been learning well from the coalition. They sweep into areas, kick down doors, steal money, valuables, harass the females in the household and detain the men. The Iraqi security forces are so effective that a few weeks ago, they managed to kill a high-ranking police major in Falluja when he ran a red light, shooting him in the head as his car drove away.

He kept babbling about a “free Iraq” but he mentioned nothing about when the American forces might actually depart and the occupation would end, leaving a “free Iraq”.

Why aren’t the Americans setting a timetable for withdrawal? Iraqis are constantly wondering why nothing is being done to accelerate the end of the occupation.

Do the Americans continue to believe such speeches? I couldn’t help but wonder.

“They’ll believe anything.” E. sighed. “No matter what sort of absurdity they are fed, they’ll believe it. Think up the most outrageous lie… They have people who’ll believe it.”

The cousin sat up at this, his interest piqued. “The most outrageous lie? How about that Iraq was amassing aliens from Mareekh [Mars] and training them in the battle art of kung-fu to attack America in 2010!”

“They’d believe it.” E. nodded in the affirmative. “Or that Iraq was developing a mutant breed of rabid, man-eating bunnies to unleash upon the Western world. They’d believe that too.”


Mykeru has a fantastic post about the speech, as do Juan Cole (as usual), and TomDispatch.


- posted by river @ 3:21 AM

[Joerver]

@coke
Du wünscht Vergleiche, bitte!
Achtung Bild ist nur verlinkt!
[Table align=center width=300]
Hess Can Cook
[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
http://www.internetweekly.org/images/hess_can_cook.jpg
[/TABLE]

WASHINGTON (IWR News Parody) - CPB Chairman Ken Tomlinson announced today a new cooking show called "Hess Can Cook", which will present an alternative cuisine for the extreme right authoritarian loonies in this country. "You know, it`s not only liberals, who enjoy eating gourmet food! If PBS is really going to be a fair and balanced network, people in the Ku Klux Klan and Nazi Skinheads will need to have a cooking show too," said Tomlinson. In addition to "Hess Can Cook", Chairman Tomlinson announced the following changes effective immediately: * Ann Coulter will replace Gwen Ifill on "Washington Week" * Karl Rove will be the new host on "This Old House" * Jerry Falwell will have complete control over PBS science programming, e.g., Nature and Nova. * "Now" will be renamed "Yesterday" and be hosted be Rush Limbaugh * The award winning "Frontline" documentary series will be replaced with canned pro-Bush propaganda films. * John Ashcroft will join the Sesame Street staff and encourage children to inform on their neighbors and classmates

Eine Satire zur Übernahme des public broadcasting PBS and NPR durch die GOP.
[urlThe Armstrong Williams NewsHour]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/26/opinion/26rich.html?hp[/url]
PBS Scrutiny Raises Political Antennas,
[urlHands Off Public Broadcasting,]http://mediamatters.org/handsoff[/url]
[urlThe lies of Ken Tomlinson]http://mediamatters.org/items/200506220009[/url]

Achtung Bild ist nur verlinkt!

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
Latest Coalition Fatality: Jun 30, 2005
Military Fatalities US, UK, Other: : Total: 1934 ,US: 1745 , June05: 82, May05: 88, Jan05: 127


Iraker Jun-05: Civilian: 477 Police/Mil: 296 Total: 773
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

[urlCoalition Fatalities By Location Across Time]http://www.obleek.com/iraq/index.html[/url]

Regelmäßige Updates von Meldungen aus dem Irak:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Joerver]

Darüber wurde in den letzten Tagen schon öfter berichtet, dass den USA einige Soldaten abhanden gekommen sind im Zusammenhang mit dem Hubschrauberabsturz.

July 1, 2005
Team of U.S. Soldiers Missing in Afghanistan
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Afghan-US-H…

Filed at 3:04 p.m. ET

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- U.S. forces desperately scoured rugged Afghan mountains Friday for an elite American military team missing in the same area where a U.S. helicopter was shot down.

A purported Taliban spokesman claimed militants captured one of the men.

In central Afghanistan, Taliban rebels kidnapped and killed Afghan nine tribal leaders and sent a boy to offer to exchange the bodies for those of dead militants, an official said. The tribal leaders were among 25 people killed in three days of fighting in Uruzgan province -- yet another troubling sign for a nation hit by an upswing in violence as September elections near.

The loss of the American military team in the remote eastern mountains worsened the already stinging blow suffered by the U.S. military after 16 troops were killed Tuesday aboard the MH-47 Chinook chopper.

It comes as the United States is scrambling to deal with an insurgency that threatens three years of progress toward peace.

U.S. forces were using ``every available asset`` to search for the missing men, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O`Hara said.

``Until we find our guys, they are still listed as unaccounted for and everything we got in that area is oriented on finding the missing men,`` he said.

The missing troops are a small team from the special operations forces, said military officials, speaking Friday on the condition of anonymity because rescue operations were still under way.

Though the team has been missing since Tuesday, the military had refrained from discussing their situation to prevent the Taliban from setting out in search of them.

The downed helicopter had been trying to ``extract the soldiers`` Tuesday when it went into the mountains near Asadabad, close to the Pakistani border, O`Hara said.

The Taliban claim to have kidnapped one of the men came from purported spokesman Mullah Latif Hakimi. ``One high-ranking American has been captured in fighting in the same area as the helicopter went down,`` he told The Associated Press. ``I won`t give you any more details now.``

Reacting to the claim, O`Hara said, ``We have no proof or evidence indicating anything other than the soldiers are missing.``

Hakimi, who also claimed insurgents shot down the helicopter, often calls news organizations to take responsibility for attacks, and the information frequently proves exaggerated or untrue. His exact tie to the Taliban leadership is unclear.

At the Pentagon, Lt. Gen. James Conway, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military did not yet have a full account of all ground troops involved in the operation, but he said no one had been classified as officially missing.

Rescuers -- struggling against stormy weather, insurgents and the rugged terrain -- recovered the remains of the 16 and were trying to identify them, the military said. A rocket-propelled grenade appears to have hit the chopper, Conway said, calling it ``a pretty lucky shot.``

The loss of the helicopter follows three months of unprecedented fighting that has killed about 477 suspected insurgents, 47 Afghan police and soldiers, 134 civilians, and 45 U.S. troops.

In Uruzgan province, violence erupted when insurgents attacked a police checkpoint and an hour-long gunbattle left seven rebels dead Wednesday, provincial Gov. Jan Mohammed Khan said.

On Thursday, the militants assaulted a nearby village in retaliation, kidnapping nine tribal elders and a 10-year-old boy, he said.

The elders later were killed and the boy sent to the authorities with a message: If police hand over the bodies of the seven militants, the insurgents will release the bodies of the nine, Khan told The Associated Press.

The police did not respond to the offer. ``We have started operations and we are going to hunt them down,`` the governor said.

On Friday, rebels attacked another Uruzgan police post, and five insurgents and four officers were killed, Khan said.

Only eight months ago, Afghan and U.S. officials were hailing a relatively peaceful presidential election as a sign that the Taliban rebellion was finished.

But remnants of the former Taliban regime have stepped up attacks, and there are disturbing signs that foreign fighters -- including some linked to al-Qaida -- might be making a new push to sow an Iraq-style insurgency.

Afghan officials say the fighters have used the porous border with Pakistan to enter the country, and officials have called on the Pakistani government do more to stop them.

------

Associated Press reporters Amir Shah in Kabul and John J. Lumpkin in Washington contributed to this report.

* Copyright 2005 The Associated Press

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

27/2005

Aber was, wenn Bush doch Recht hätte?

Der Glaube Thomas Jeffersons an die amerikanische Freiheitsmission ist die letzte imperiale Ideologie der Welt, die noch übrig geblieben ist . Ein Essay
http://www.zeit.de/2005/27/Essay_Ignatieff?page=all

Von Michael Ignatieff

Als Thomas Jefferson im Juni 1826 auf seinem Landsitz Monticello im Sterben lag, schrieb er den Bürgern der Stadt Washington einen Brief. Darin teilte er ihnen mit, er sei zu krank, um den Feierlichkeiten zum 50. Jahrestag der Unabhängigkeitserklärung beizuwohnen. Aber Jefferson wollte den Teilnehmern der Veranstaltung dennoch eine erbauliche Botschaft zukommen lassen. Darum schrieb er ihnen, dass sich das Experiment, welches er und die übrigen Väter der Verfassung begonnen hätten, eines Tages über die ganze Welt ausbreiten werde: »In manchen Teilen früher, in anderen später, aber schließlich überall« werde die amerikanische Version der Selbstregierung zum Geburtsrecht aller Nationen werden. Der weltweite Triumph der Demokratie stehe deshalb fest, fuhr Jefferson fort, weil »die unbegrenzte Ausübung von Vernunft und Meinungsfreiheit« bald alle Menschen davon überzeugen werde, dass sie nicht geboren seien, um beherrscht zu werden, sondern um in Freiheit über sich selbst zu bestimmen.

John F. Kennedy nahm sich Jefferson zum Vorbild, als er 1961 in einer Rede sagte, die Ausbreitung der Freiheit in der Welt sei angetrieben von der »Macht des Rechts und der Vernunft«. Aber, so fügte er pragmatisch hinzu, »die Vernunft erscheint unvernünftigen Menschen nicht immer attraktiv«. Der Kontrast zwischen Kennedy und dem gegenwärtigen Bewohner des Weißen Hauses ist scharf. Der Texaner hat sein Amt darauf verwettet, sich seinen Platz in den Geschichtsbüchern unter einem Leitmotiv zu sichern, das er im vergangenen März öffentlich darlegte: Jahrzehntelang hätten amerikanische Präsidenten durch ihr »Entschuldigen und Verharmlosen der Tyrannei« im Nahen und Mittleren Osten den Hass der Fanatiker erst entfacht, die dann am 11. September 2001 die Flugzeuge ins New Yorker World Trade Center steuerten. Das dürfe nie wieder geschehen. Der Kampf für die Freiheit sei nun das Ziel der Politik.

Sollte die Demokratie im Irak tatsächlich Wurzeln schlagen und sich überall im Mittleren Osten ausbreiten, wird die Welt Bush als einen Visionär mit klarer Sprache in Erinnerung behalten. Wenn der Irak hingegen scheitert, wird er Bushs Vietnam sein – und nichts anderes wird von seiner Amtszeit übrig bleiben. Allerdings steht Bush einer Administration vor, die sich weniger als jede andere neuzeitliche Regierung vor ihr darum schert, ob ihr Reden und ihr Tun in Übereinstimmung stehen. Die tatsächlich für die Förderung der Demokratie im Mittleren Osten aufgewendeten Mittel sind unbedeutend. Der Präsident mag den Haushalt der Nationalen Stiftung für Demokratie (National Endowment für Democracy) verdoppelt haben, aber immer noch handelt es sich dabei um nur 80 Millionen Dollar pro Jahr.

Dann sind da noch die Gefangenen. Und jener Mann mit der Kapuze auf dem Kopf und den Kabeln, die von seinem Körper herabhingen: die universelle Ikone für die Lücke zwischen den Idealen der amerikanischen Freiheit einerseits und der schäbigen, ja kriminellen Wirklichkeit amerikanischer Haft- und Verhörpraktiken andererseits. Es ist das widerliche Beispiel dieser Vergehen, das das amerikanische Gerede von Demokratie so hohl klingen lässt. Es wird unmöglich sein, der Herrschaft des Rechts in Ägypten zum Durchbruch zu verhelfen, wenn die Vereinigten Staaten Hosni Mubarak gefesselte Gefangene zum Foltern schicken. Und es wird unmöglich sein, den demokratischen Wandel in Marokko, Afghanistan oder wo auch immer voranzutreiben, wenn die Muslime glauben, amerikanische Sicherheitskräfte hätten den Koran geschändet.

Heute glauben nur wenige islamische Demokraten im Mittleren Osten und anderswo, dass sie freiheitliche Fortschritte Amerika verdanken – nicht die Demonstranten im Libanon, die den Abzug der Syrer fordern; nicht die irakischen Hausfrauen, die beim Verlassen der Wahllokale stolz ihre lilafarbenen Finger in die Höhe recken; nicht die Afghanen, die in ihren Dörfern friedlich Schlange stehen, um ihre Stimmen abzugeben; nicht die Ägypter, die »Genug!« skandieren und den Rücktritt von Präsident Mubarak fordern. Aber viele von ihnen wissen immerhin, dass sie deshalb nicht – oder zumindest noch nicht – zum Schweigen gebracht worden sind, weil die Vereinigten Staaten tatsächlich auf Menschen wie sie bauen und nicht auf die Autokraten, denen sie gegenüberstehen. Das war nicht immer so. Lateinamerikaner können sich noch gut an die Zeit erinnern, als die Anwesenheit von Vertretern der Vereinigten Staaten die Unterstützung von Todesschwadronen und Militärjunten bedeutete.

Was das Anliegen der Freiheit fremder Menschen in fernen Ländern und das nationale Interesse der Vereinigten Staaten zusammengeführt hat, ist der Terrorismus. Aber nicht jeder glaubt daran, dass Amerika durch Demokratie im Mittleren Osten tatsächlich größere Sicherheit gewinnen wird. Kurzfristig könnte es sein, dass die Demokratisierung beispielsweise in Ägypten die radikalen Muslimbruderschaften an die Macht bringt. Und abgesehen davon: Die Freiheit zum göttlichen Plan für die Menschheit zu erklären, wie es der amerikanische Präsident getan hat, schafft noch keine freiheitlichen Verhältnisse. Es gibt einstweilen keinen Beweis dafür, dass eine Welle der Demokratie und Freiheit den Mittleren Osten erfasst hat. Gut möglich ist etwa, dass in Ägypten nach einigem pseudodemokratischen Hin und Her erneut Mubarak zum Präsidenten gewählt wird. Und doch, und doch… Von mehr als nur einem internationalen Politiker heißt es, er habe erst unlängst seine Berater gefragt: »Was, wenn Bush Recht hätte?«

Anderen demokratischen Staatsmännern mag tatsächlich der Verdacht kommen, Bush liege richtig. Aber das bedeutet nicht, dass sie sich seinem Kreuzzug anschließen. Niemals zuvor gab es so viele Demokratien auf der Welt – und niemals zuvor war Amerika so allein damit, das demokratische Versprechen zu verbreiten. Zurückhaltend sind selbst jene Nationen, die ihre eigene Demokratie dem Einsatz amerikanischer Waffen verdanken. Den Deutschen wurde die Freiheit durch das amerikanische Imperium geradezu auferlegt – von der Entlassung ehemaliger Nazis über die Beseitigung von antisemitischem Unfug aus Schulbüchern bis hin zum Entwurf eines Grundgesetzes für die neue Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Trotzdem intoniert Bundeskanzler Gerhard Schröder immer noch die Melodie, die Demokratie könne »diesen Gesellschaften nicht von außen aufgezwungen« werden. Das ist nicht die einzige Merkwürdigkeit. Wie Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff, Korrespondent der ZEIT in Washington, hervorhebt, brachten die heute regierenden Achtundsechziger ihre jungen Jahre allesamt damit zu, die amerikanische Unterstützung für Tyranneien überall auf der Welt anzuprangern: »Jahrelang haben sie über den Atlantik gerufen: Pinochet! Somoza! Mubarak! Schah Palewi! König Faisal! Nun, zu guter Letzt, scheint es, erhört sie ein amerikanischer Präsident… Doch was ist aus Deutschland zu hören? Nichts.«

Das ohrenbetäubende Schweigen geht nicht nur von Deutschland aus. Wie die Deutschen haben auch die Kanadier den Krieg im Irak ausgesessen. Fragt man sie, warum sie sich nicht dem amerikanischen Kreuzzug zur Verbreitung der Demokratie anschlössen, dann bietet ein aktueller außenpolitischer Bericht der kanadischen Regierung folgende Antwort: »Die Kanadier nehmen ihre Werte wichtig, legen es aber nicht darauf an, sie anderen aufzunötigen. Das ist nicht der kanadische Weg.« Warum ist dies nicht der kanadische Weg? Unter anderem deshalb nicht, weil die Rede amerikanischer Präsidenten von der Freiheit als Gottes Plan für die Menschheit sogar gottesfürchtige Kanadier zu der Frage veranlasst, wann eigentlich Gott damit angefangen habe, Präsidenten seinen Plan zu eröffnen.

Dasselbe Unbehagen an dem amerikanischen Projekt hat auch die Nation erfasst, die sich einst in der herausragenden Persönlichkeit des Marquis de Lafayette dem amerikanischen Freiheitskampf anschloss. Die Franzosen sprachen früher viel davon, Liberté, Egalité und Fraternité zu exportieren. Inzwischen aber scheint es ihnen nichts mehr auszumachen, abseits zu stehen und zuzusehen, wie sich irakische Demokraten bei dem Versuch aufreiben, Chaos und Anarchie in Schach zu halten. Amerika geht also einer bestenfalls losen Allianz von Demokratien voran, deren politische Anführer zumeist der Auffassung sind, sie sollten das Werben für Freiheit und Demokratie besser den eifernden Imperialisten in Washington überlassen. Den Vorwurf, das Eintreten für die Demokratie sei nur eine andere Bezeichnung für Imperialismus, finden viele Amerikaner schlichtweg verblüffend: Wie könnte es imperialistisch sein, anderen Menschen zu helfen, ihre Ketten abzuwerfen?

Tatsächlich ist am Jeffersonschen Traum einzigartig, dass er die letzte noch übrig gebliebene imperiale Ideologie der Welt ist, die einzige Überlebende unter den konkurrierenden nationalen Beteuerungen universeller Bedeutsamkeit. Das Problem ist, dass zwar niemand den Imperialismus siegen sehen will, zugleich aber auch kein klar denkender Mensch das Scheitern der Freiheit befürworten kann. Sollte das amerikanische Vorhaben, die Freiheit zu fördern, auf Grund laufen, dürfte sonst niemand mehr da sein, der es mit denselben Mitteln, derselben Energie und demselben – für diese Aufgabe erforderlichen – Maß an Selbsttäuschung auf sich nimmt. Doch nur sehr wenige Länder können ihre Freiheit ohne Hilfe von außen erkämpfen und erhalten. Sicher ist, dass sich die Europäer nicht gerade damit hervorgetan haben, der Freiheit in ihren Nachbarregionen zum Durchbruch zu verhelfen. Zur Zeit des Kalten Krieges, als die meisten Westeuropäer die Teilung ihres Kontinents stillschweigend akzeptierten, waren es amerikanische Präsidenten, die aufstanden und das Einreißen der Mauern forderten. Und als ein anonymer Graffitikünstler eine Botschaft an die Berliner Mauer sprayte – »Diese Mauer wird fallen. Aus Überzeugung wird Wirklichkeit« –, da war es kein europäischer Politiker, sondern Präsident Reagan, der die Worte aufgriff und erklärte: »Die Mauer kann der Freiheit nicht widerstehen.« Eben deshalb kam in der Irak-Frage der größte Anteil der europäischen Unterstützung für George W. Bush von Menschen, die hinter dieser Mauer aufgewachsen sind.

Es ist wahr, dass Westeuropa seit dem Fall der Mauer ein eigenes Demokratieförderungsprojekt betrieben hat: Die jungen osteuropäischen Regime sollten in die Europäische Union hereingeholt werden. Diese in der Tat beträchtliche Leistung ist nun durch die Nein-Voten in Frankreich und in den Niederlanden zurückgeworfen worden. Im Osten für die Demokratie zu werben und den islamischen Riesen Türkei auf seinen Beitritt zur EU vorzubereiten – genau das wollten die Neinstimmen dieser beiden Referenden beenden. Wer wird also noch da sein, um den Durchbruch von islamischem Fundamentalismus oder militärischem Autoritarismus in der Türkei zu verhindern, nachdem die Europäer den Türken erklärt haben, sie müssten für immer im Wartesaal sitzen bleiben? Wenn es so ist, dass Demokratie im Inneren der Förderer von außen bedarf, dann heißt der einzige verbliebene Förderer heute Amerika.

Charakteristisch für Amerikaner ist, dass sie die Sehnsucht der Welt überschätzen, so zu leben wie sie selbst. Gleichzeitig aber ist es vernünftig, wie die Amerikaner anzunehmen, dass sich die meisten Menschen gern ihre eigenen Regeln geben würden, wenn sie nur die Chance dazu bekämen. Dies zu glauben ist nicht imperialistisch. Amerikanern fällt es allerdings schwer zu verstehen, dass diese Sehnsucht viele verschiedene Formen annehmen kann, zu denen auch diejenige der islamischen Demokratie gehört. Die Demokratie an sich mag ein universeller Wert sein, einzelne Demokratien jedoch sind verschieden.

Amerikanische Politiker machen sich zuweilen hörbar Gedanken darüber, als eine Art Alternative zu den Vereinten Nationen eine »Gemeinschaft der Demokratien« zu schaffen. Sie vergessen allerdings, dass Amerika und seine demokratischen Freunde weiterhin nicht derselben Meinung darüber sind, welche fundamentalen Rechte eine Demokratie zu schützen habe und welche Grenzen seiner Macht der Staat anerkennen solle. In dem Maße, wie Europa im Hinblick auf Themen wie Homoehe, Todesstrafe und Abtreibung nach links driftet und die amerikanische Politik nach rechts, schwindet die Möglichkeit, dass Amerika bei der Förderung eines gemeinsamen Kerns von Überzeugungen die Führung übernehmen könnte. Darin liegt das Paradox des Jeffersonschen Traums: Amerikanische Freiheit als Universalmoral wirkt gerade aus der Sicht derjenigen Demokratien immer unverständlicher, die sich einst von diesem Traum inspirieren ließen. Im Kalten Krieg war Amerika anerkannt als Anführer der »freien Welt«. Doch die freie Welt – der Westen – ist auseinander gefallen. Übrig geblieben ist nur ein hitziger und an Schärfe zunehmender Streit um das Wesen der Demokratie.

Die Tatsache, dass viele Ausländer mit der amerikanischen Version der Förderung von Demokratie nicht viel anfangen können, mag nicht überraschend sein. Bemerkenswert jedoch, wie viele eher linke Amerikaner diese Sicht der Dinge ebenfalls nicht teilen. In dieser Frage hat in der amerikanischen Politik ein enormer Rollentausch stattgefunden. In den sechziger und siebziger Jahren des vorigen Jahrhunderts zählten die Republikaner Richard Nixon und Henry Kissinger zur realistischen Schule der internationalen Politik. Ihnen war Stabilität wichtiger als Freiheit. Deshalb unterstützten sie den Schah von Persien, seiner abscheulichen Geheimpolizei zum Trotz. Deshalb halfen sie auch, in Chile Präsident Salvador Allende zu beseitigen. Kissingers Leitstern hieß nicht Jefferson, sondern Bismarck. Kissinger behauptete, dass es sich bei Menschen, die Freiheit und Demokratie für Osteuropa verlangten, um Sentimentalisten handele – unfähig, die Landkarte richtig zu lesen und sich mit der ewigen Wahrheit der russischen Macht abzufinden.

Es war Ronald Reagan, der im Jahr 1982 mit seiner Rede im Londoner Palast von Westminster die Neuausrichtung der amerikanischen Politik begann. Diese Rede leitete die Verwandlung der Republikaner in internationalistische Jeffersonianer ein. Zu dieser Zeit plädierten viele konservative Realisten noch für Abrüstung, Risikovermeidung und die Beschwichtigung des sowjetischen Bären. Konfrontiert mit der Übernahme einer Jeffersonschen Außenpolitik durch die Republikaner, entschied sich die Linke für Rückzug oder Hohn. Bill Clinton brachte diesen Rückzug partiell zum Stillstand; in Bosnien und im Kosovo ging er widerwillig Risiken ein, um die Freiheit zu verteidigen. Doch seit dem Ende der Ära Clinton hat Amerika eine bestürzende Flucht der amerikanischen Linken vor den Fragen der Verteidigung und der Förderung der Freiheit in der Welt erlebt.

Relativismus, Komplexität und Realismus mögen die Themen anderer Nationen sein. Die Vereinigten Staaten sind die letzte verbliebene Nation, deren Bürger nicht laut auflachen, wenn ihr Präsident Gott darum bittet, das Land zu segnen und sein großes Werk zugunsten der Freiheit zu unterstützen. Amerika ist das letzte Land mit einer Mission, mit einem Auftrag, das letzte Land mit einem Traum, der genau so alt ist wie die Gründerväter der Nation.

Das alles mag gefährlich sein oder sogar irreführend, aber es ist auch unvermeidlich. Es ist nicht möglich, sich Amerika ohne diese Fähigkeiten zum Glauben an sich selbst vorzustellen. Natürlich ist der amerikanische Selbstglaube keine ewige Größe. Jefferson pflegte die luftige Annahme, die Demokratie werde auf den Flügeln von Aufklärung, Vernunft und Wissenschaft emporgetragen. Das behauptet heute niemand mehr. Nicht einmal Bush. Er spricht zwar von der Freiheit als »Plan des Himmels für die Menschheit und die beste Hoffnung für den Fortschritt hier auf Erden«, aber in nüchterneren Augenblicken räumt er ein, dass die Förderung der Freiheit harte Arbeit ist, die sich über Generationen hinzieht und keinen sicheren Ausgang kennt.

Die Aktivisten, Fachleute und Bürokraten, die die harte Arbeit der Demokratieförderung betreiben, reden manchmal so, als sei die Demokratie ein Stück Technik – so wie eine Wasserpumpe, die nur richtig eingestellt werden muss, um auch in fremden Klimazonen zu funktionieren. Andere erläutern, weshalb die Förderung von Demokratie anthropologisches Einfühlungsvermögen erfordere, ein tiefes Verständnis des unendlich komplizierten Brettspiels der internationalen (oder im aktuellen Fall irakischen) Politik.

Doch die Freiheit des Iraks hängt noch von etwas anderem ab: davon nämlich, welchen Preis, gemessen in den Menschenleben seiner Soldaten, das amerikanische Volk zu bezahlen bereit ist.

Der amerikanischen Öffentlichkeit wird erklärt, es sei besser, die Terroristen im Irak zu bekämpfen als zu Hause. Man sagt den Amerikanern, der Sieg im Irak werde Demokratie und Stabilität für den gesamten Bogen von Algerien bis Afghanistan bringen. Man sagt ihnen, wenn dieser Zustand erst einmal eingetreten sei, würden »sie« die Amerikaner nicht mehr so sehr hassen, wie sie es jetzt noch tun. Es ist schwer zu sagen, ob das amerikanische Volk diese Behauptungen glaubt oder nicht. Eine wichtige Messgröße hierfür ist allerdings die Zahl der jungen Männer und Frauen, die bereit sind, sich in den Rekrutierungsstellen der vorstädtischen Einkaufszentren einzufinden. Die neuesten Meldungen besagen, dass die Rekrutierungsziffern rückläufig sind.

Bereits heute macht das beständige Eintreffen der Toten- und Verletztenmeldungen das leise Hintergrundrauschen der amerikanischen Politik aus. Wird dieses Rauschen lauter, dürfte es schon bald alle anderen Geräusche übertönen. In Flaggen drapierte Särge werden in der Dover Air Force Base die Laderampen der Frachtmaschinen hinuntergeschoben und für ihre letzte Fahrt auf die Friedhöfe von Amerika vorbereitet. In irgendeinem Teil des Gehirns lösen diese Särge bei jedem einzelnen Amerikaner, bei jeder einzelnen Amerikanerin die Frage aus: Ist die Freiheit des Iraks das wert? Es gibt nichts Schlimmeres als das Gefühl, der eigene Sohn oder die eigene Tochter, der Bruder oder die Schwester, Vater oder Mutter seien umsonst gestorben. Selbst wer von Anfang an gegen den Krieg im Irak gewesen ist, selbst wer glaubt, die Hoffnung auf das Einpflanzen der Demokratie habe Amerika in einen verbrecherischen Irrsinn hineingelockt, möchte den Gestorbenen nicht nachsagen, sie hätten ihre Leben für nichts gegeben. Das ist der Punkt, an dem Jeffersons Traum funktionieren muss. Der Sinn dieses Traums für das Leben der Amerikaner besteht letztlich darin, Verluste erträglich zu machen. Er besteht darin, Opfer vor Vergessen und Vergeblichkeit zu bewahren.

Die wirkliche Wahrheit über den Irak ist: Wir wissen ganz einfach – noch – nicht, ob der Traum diesmal seine Wirkung tun wird. Das ist die düstere und unbeantwortete Frage, mit der die Amerikaner am 4. Juli ihren Nationalfeiertag begehen werden.

Aus dem Englischen von Tobias Dürr

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
Kurds, Emboldened by Lebanon, Rise Up in Tense Syria
[/TABLE]

In a tent in Qamishli, Kurds paid respects to Muhammad Mashouk al-Khaznawi, a cleric who was killed after denouncing the Syrian government.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/international/middleeast/0…

July 2, 2005

By HASSAN M. FATTAH

QAMISHLI, Syria - Here on the fringes of Syria`s agricultural heartland, the veneer of normalcy is all around.

A statue of former President Hafez al-Assad, which was brought down during riots last year, has been rebuilt in a traffic circle. Slogans scrawled on walls still call out for him. Few signs remain of the violence that struck the city just weeks ago.

But as Syria endures heavy international and domestic pressure to change, storm clouds are gathering here once again. In this predominantly Kurdish city on Syria`s border with Turkey, a growing movement of Kurds is demanding recognition and representation in Syria`s government.

Emboldened by their brethren in Iraq and inspired by Lebanon`s opposition movement, which helped force Syria out of that country, some advocates are even calling for Kurdish administration of Kurdish areas.

"There is a kind of anxiety and restlessness now," said Hassan Salih, secretary general of the Yekiti Kurdish party based in Qamishli. "We are disappointed with all the unfulfilled promises."

Tensions in this city of 150,000 reached new levels this month after the body of a prominent cleric, Sheik Muhammad Mashouk al-Khaznawi, was found halfway between here and Damascus. Days later, protesters calling for an international investigation of the sheik`s killing clashed with security forces, who beat women and fired at demonstrators, Kurdish politicians say.

One police officer was killed, a dozen protesters were wounded, dozens more remain in custody, and Kurdish businesses were looted, they say. A day after, Kurdish hopes were dashed when Syria`s governing Baath Party passed on calls to grant Kurds more rights and freedoms at its 10th Congress, ending the meeting with little more than platitudes, Mr. Salih said.

"Lebanon affected us a lot, and we learned from it that demonstrating can achieve many things without violence," he said. After riots flared in Qamishli in 2004 after a brawl at a soccer match, he said, "the regime sought to frighten us, but the assassination of the sheik has made us rise up again."

Syria`s 1.5 million Kurds are the country`s largest ethnic minority and historically its most downtrodden. Eschewing the Arab identity at the core of the Baath Party, the Kurds have become the most organized opposition to the embattled government.

But tensions have simmered since 1962, when a census taken by the government left out tens of thousands of Kurds, leaving them and their children - now hundreds of thousands in all - without citizenship and denying them the right to obtain government jobs or to own property. They now carry red identification cards identifying them as "foreigner."

The government also resettled thousands of Arabs from other parts of the country into areas along the border to build a buffer with Kurdish areas in neighboring Iran, Iraq and Turkey, pitting Kurds against Arabs. A long-running drought has not helped, as many in the farming region, especially Arab sharecroppers, have seen their incomes and tolerance for one another plummet.

In 2004, a soccer game incited the brawl between Arab and Kurdish fans that grew into the country`s worst civil unrest in decades, spreading to many other cities in Syria and leaving at least 36 people dead, some of them policemen. President Bashar al-Assad, in an effort to cool tempers, visited the region for the first time and called for national unity, while pardoning 312 Kurds who were accused of taking part in the violence. But Kurds say the ethnic rifts remain.

Sheik Khaznawi, a charismatic 47-year-old cleric who began denouncing the Syrian government in sermons in recent months, came to embody the Kurdish political opposition. To some, he was a reformer who pushed a more thoughtful, inclusive brand of Islam; to others, he was an apostate willing to reach out to other faiths and challenge long-held Islamic mores.

But to Syria`s government, he was the ultimate threat: a religious figure who appeared to be seeking to tie Syria`s listless Kurds to the feared Muslim Brotherhood, which led a ferocious revolt in Syria in the 1980`s.

"He was able to play a moderating role and create dialogue between Kurds and Arabs," said Ammar Abdelhamid, a Syrian political analyst. "They saw him setting up a real opposition to the regime."

Sheik Khaznawi rattled nerves in February when he met with leaders of Syria`s Muslim Brotherhood in Brussels, signaling even deeper collusion between the two forces.

"The sheik used to say that he was surrounded by a minefield and that his role was to dismantle the mines," said Murshid al-Khaznawi, the sheik`s son. "He crossed many red lines that others did not cross."

On May 10, the sheik disappeared while on a trip to Damascus. Rumors circulated that he had been arrested by the Syrian secret police, and demonstrators in Qamishli called for his release. But the government denied having him in custody.

Then on June 1, the authorities led his sons to a grave in the predominantly Sunni Arab town of Deir ez Zor. A government statement said the sheik had been kidnapped and killed by radical Islamists who were against his reformist approach.

Days later, the authorities broadcast a 15-minute recording of interviews with two suspects in the killing, one identifying himself as an imam from Deir ez Zor and a graduate of Sheik Khaznawi`s institute. They said they had smothered the sheik with a pillow and buried him at the cemetery.

"There wasn`t just one reason for his kidnapping; there were many," said Muhammad Habash, a member of Syria`s Parliament and confidant of the sheik, who pointed to differences between the sheik and his relatives as one possible reason. Mr. Habash added that the political parties in Qamishli were capitalizing on the death of the sheik, insisting that there are few clear indications of a government hand in the killing.

But the sheik`s sons, who acknowledge that there have been financial disagreements in the family, countered that Mr. Habash was serving the interests of the government, which they blame for the killing. They said, for instance, that the sheik`s body showed few signs of decomposition, though the government has said he had been buried for more than two weeks. They added that his teeth were broken and his skin burned when they found him, not the signs of suffocation.

Days later, the demonstration in Qamishli met fierce resistance from the government. The Khaznawi sons and others said security forces encouraged an Arab mob to help beat the protesters and loot Kurdish storefronts, though there was no confirmation of those assertions.

"There are issues and problems, and it`s time they are solved," Mr. Salih said. "As a Kurdish society, we have gotten past the culture of fear."

Even the sheik`s sons, who said they were not overtly political before, have taken a hard political stand.

"After the assassination of the sheik, we have begun to support Kurdish movements from the bottom of our hearts," Mr. Khaznawi said.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Blair pressed to isolate US over climate change
By Colin Brown Deputy Political Editor
Published: 02 July 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/environment/article29625…

Jacques Chirac, the French President, and Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, have joined forces to press Tony Blair to isolate the Americans over climate change at next week`s G8 summit.

The French and Germans would prefer a 7-1 split over the final communiqué on the issue, which is being negotiated this weekend by officials in London, rather than bow to pressure by the US for it to be watered down.

A leaked draft of the communiqué yesterday showed that the Americans are still resisting a tough wording on the scientific evidence that human activity is causing climate change. British negotiators are seeking a compromise to keep the US on board, but France and Germany are insisting on an explicit reference to the scientific evidence, with wording on the urgency of the threat from global warming.

The US is seeking to remove a paragraph stating "climate change is a serious and long-term challenge that has the potential to affect every part of the globe". A reference in an earlier draft to a joint declaration in early June by top scientists from all G8 nations that human activities were a significant contributor to global warming has already been removed.

Another paragraph refers to a predicted 60 per cent growth in global energy demands over the next 25 years, but a section stating "we know that we need to slow, stop and then reverse the growth in greenhouse gases" is also under question.

"If anything this draft is weaker than the one that was on the table before," Jennifer Morgan, climate change expert at the World-Wildlife Fund said.

French negotiators are demanding the inclusion in the communiqué of an explicit reference to the Kyoto agreement, which the US has refused to sign. That could leave the US isolated.

A senior French diplomat said: "We are aware that the US has not signed up to Kyoto. This is a fact of life.

"We would like to see clear references to the Kyoto protocol in the communiqué. The EU has taken a very united stance on Kyoto. It was very influential in getting Russia to sign up."

Mr Blair hinted yesterday that he would try to sidestep the issue by seeking agreement with the US on future action. He said in a webchat on the G8: "We have had a disagreement with America over Kyoto. The question is, in 2012 can we put in place a new process that informs America and establishes a consensus for action involving both the developed world and the emerging economies like India and China? I hope the G8 can make progress here."

Downing Street signalled last night that Britain would resist being forced to join France and Germany in a 7-1 standoff against Mr Bush at the summit. A senior cabinet minister said Britain would adopt the role of honest brokers as hosts of the G8 conference.

The Prime Minister`s official spokesman said: "We are approaching this as the president of the G8. Serious negotiations are going on."

However, President Chirac is determined to hold Mr Blair to the principles for climate change that the UK has set out in the past. "We are very supportive of the UK on the G8," said the French source. "We share the view with Blair that the two main topics of development aid and climate change are equally important and are linked.

"It is in Africa that the effects of climate change will be felt most. The two go hand in hand. It doesn`t make sense to increase development aid if that effort is going to be wasted as a result of unchallenged climate change."

On the development issue, Gordon Brown will reinforce the commitment to cutting African debt in a speech today. Mr Blair said he would be wearing the "Make Poverty History`` white wrist band at the G8.

However, the charity Oxfam has warned that an attempt in the G8 to delay aid delivery from 2006 until 2010 would leave almost a $100bn (£56bn) gap that could see 55 million children die from poverty.

"There have been reports that the US is saying it will increase aid, but the delivery date will be delayed to 2010. Our figures show that if the aid were delivered next year, it would be nearly $100bn more," Oxfam said.

Mr Blair will also push for a statement on the Middle East at the G8 Summit in an attempt to reinforce progress on the "road map" for Israel and Palestine.

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Bush gets chance to leave legacy at Supreme Court
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 02 July 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article296250.e…

Sandra Day O`Connor, the first woman to sit on the US Supreme Court and often its crucial swing vote, resigned yesterday - triggering an epic battle that could reconfigure the high court at a moment when its importance in American life has never been greater.

The departure of Ms O`Connor, 75, marks the first change to the Court since 1994, an 11-year era of stability without precedent since the early 19th century. Nominated by Ronald Reagan in 1981, she has been the vital swing vote among the nine Justices. With all but one of the justices well above retirement age, the political parties and a host of interest groups have been gearing up for months for a nomination battle. Nonetheless the news came as a bombshell in Washington.

The expectation had been that the first to step down would be William Rehnquist, the Chief Justice, who is 80 years old, increasingly frail and suffering from thyroid cancer. Instead it is Ms O`Connor, the fulcrum of a Court that frequently splits between right and left.

She has cast the decisive vote in a host of 5-4 decisions on issues ranging from abortion and gay rights to affirmative action, in an era when the Supreme Court, not Congress, has refereed the culture wars that divide America. The same happened in the December 2000 ruling that gave George Bush the Presidency.

Replacing Mr Rehnquist with another unwavering conservative would little change the court`s ideological make-up. Now however Mr Bush has an opportunity to reshape it, by appointing an outright conservative to succeed the moderate and pragmatic Ms O`Connor. "This is much bigger news than if Rehnquist had gone," David Garrow, a Supreme Court historian said.

Ms O`Connor has been one of the most admired women in America, rising from a modest background in Texas and Arizona to become one of the country`s most respected jurists.

Yesterday Mr Bush paid tribute to "a public servant of great integrity" saying her "intellect, wisdom and decency" had inspired all Americans. He promised to be "deliberate and thorough" in his search for a successor, and consult with the legal specialists and key Senators on Capitol Hill.

The White House has long had ready a short list of potential candidates, and some have been interviewed. They are believed to include Alberto Gonzales, a former White House counsel, now Attorney General. He would fulfil Mr Bush`s ambition to appoint the first Hispanic to the court.

A moderate conservative like Mr Gonzales would win speedy approval from the Senate. But Mr Bush has expressed admiration for the two most conservative justices Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia.

If he follows his instincts and goes for a right-wing nominee, the battle could eclipse in ferocity and bitterness the hearings of 1991 when Mr Thomas was ultimately confirmed - but only after complaining that the procedure was like a "high-tech lynching of an uppity black".

Mr Bush said he would announce his choice soon, so the new judge could be confirmed by the time the Court`s new term begins in autumn. Mindful of the fracas over Mr Thomas, the President appealed for a "dignified process of confirmation". But whether his wish is granted depends not only on his choice, but also on the mood of a partisan Capitol Hill. Vicious battles over a handful of Bush nominees to the federal appeals courts have already led to Democratic filibusters and the threat by the Senate`s Republican leadership to retaliate with the "nuclear option" of changing the rules so that a candidate could be approved by a majority of 51, instead of 60.

That showdown, which would paralyse the legislature, has been averted by a deal made by a "Gang of 14" Republican and Democrat centrists. But the deal may not survive the supercharged climate of a Supreme Court confirmation battle.

John McCain, an architect of that arrangement, sounded moderately hopeful yesterday. "It won`t be a day at the beach, but I`m guardedly confident it won`t be a filibuster situation," he said. The O`Connor resignation however may be only the beginning. Mr Rehnquist is still expected to step down in the next year, while another Justice, John Paul Stevens, is even older, at 85.

Next in line?

* JUDGE EMILIO GARZA

Potential nominee in 1991 to the Supreme Court seat that went to Clarence Thomas. Liberals fear that he could vote to overturn the 1973 ruling that legalised abortion. Popular with fellow Hispanics.

*ATTORNEY GENERAL ALBERTO GONZALES

A Bush favourite but maybe not conservative enough for the Supreme Court, particularly on abortion. Helped form policies linked to Guantanamo Bay torture.

* JUDGE MICHAEL LUTTIG

Appointed in 1991 to the very conservative 4th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia. His father was killed by a carjacker in Texas.

* JUDGE JOHN ROBERTS

Joined the US Circuit Court of Appeals for DC in May 2003 after a fight in the Senate. Has a (contested) reputation for being a moderate conservative.

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
CHANGE AT THE U.S.-SUPREME COURT
[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]
[urlPotential Successors]http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/20050701_NOMINATION_GRAPHIC/index_02.html
Eight people have been mentioned as possible nominees to the Supreme Court to replace the departing Justice Sandra Day O`Connor.
• [urlO`Connor`s Swing Vote]http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/20050701_NOMINATION_GRAPHIC/
• [urlAgreements Among Justices]http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/20050701_NOMINATION_GRAPHIC/index_03.html[/url][/url][/url]
[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
U.S. Searches for Troops In NE Afghan Mountains
Officials Say Team`s Fate Still Unknown
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07…

By N.C. Aizenman
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, July 2, 2005; A01

KABUL, Afghanistan, July 1 -- U.S. forces continued a massive hunt Friday for a missing military team in the mountains of northeastern Afghanistan, three days after a Special Operations helicopter bringing troops to rescue the men crashed amid enemy fire, killing all 16 service members aboard.

A man claiming to speak for the Taliban militia called news organizations Friday to say that Taliban fighters had captured one of the men and killed seven others. But U.S. military officials said there was no evidence to support the claim. The missing team was made up of fewer than 10 soldiers, one officer in Washington said.
[Table align=right]

U.S. troops set up a checkpoint in Konar province,
near Pakistan.
[/TABLE]
"All we have to date is that our guys are missing," said Lt. Col. Jerry O`Hara, a U.S. military spokesman here. "We don`t have any positive proof that shows us they were injured, they were captured, or they are just in a hiding spot, waiting for our forces."

The incident in Konar province began Wednesday, when a small team of Special Operations forces were hiking through the region as part of Operation Red Wing, a mission against al Qaeda fighters, according to the military officer in Washington. The officer said none of the team members had been found, nor was it known whether any had been killed or captured.

"They could be hiding under a rock, waiting," the officer said. "There`s an ongoing operation searching for them."

According to O`Hara, U.S. commanders last heard from the team on Tuesday afternoon after it started taking fire. The downed Chinook helicopter, a Special Operations aircraft, was one of at least two sent to extract the team, O`Hara said.

The Chinook appeared to have been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade as it approached its intended landing site, causing it to smash into a mountainside, Lt. Gen. James T. Conway, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday.

He said the troops on board -- eight members of a Navy SEAL team and eight Army airmen -- appeared to have died in the crash. On Thursday, U.S. forces were finally able to reach the site and recover the bodies, but the ground team was not found in the area.

O`Hara said "all available assets" were being used to find the men, but that the search had been hampered by the steep, forested terrain and the possibility that "at any turn the search can turn into a fire fight if we encounter enemy forces."

Military officials said it was unclear who had fired on the helicopter. In addition to al Qaeda fighters, insurgents linked to the Taliban militia and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a fugitive former Afghan official, are also reportedly operating in the area.

The incident came as U.S. and Afghan forces face growing violence from insurgent groups that appear to be numerous, well-equipped and intent on undermining Afghanistan`s modicum of stability after two decades of civil strife, foreign military occupation and religious repression.

At the same time, an increase in street crime, gang violence, kidnappings of foreign aid workers, murders of Afghans who support the U.S.-backed government and continued high levels of drug crop cultivation and trafficking have added to a sense of insecurity in the country. Afghan officials have been struggling to rebuild their country since the Taliban militia was ousted by a U.S.-led military campaign at the end of 2001.

International aid organizations have pulled out of large swathes of the country, and in the capital, many foreign workers are largely confined to their compounds and offices. The chill deepened after Clementina Cantoni, 32, an Italian working for the United Nations, was kidnapped in the capital May 16 and held for three weeks before officials negotiated her release.

After successfully holding a presidential election last October, officials have begun preparing for a parliamentary vote in September, but the pre-election atmosphere this time is tense. Ethnic rivalries, the continuing power of regional militia bosses, and widespread corruption have marred election preparations.

Among all of the country`s problems, the most serious appears to be the re-emergence of armed guerrillas. In the past three months, there have been dozens of attacks and clashes in several provinces. More than 400 suspected insurgents have been killed, along with several hundred Afghan civilians and soldiers. The U.S. military has suffered 45 deaths, including the 16 killed in the helicopter crash.

Until recently, the guerrillas have mainly clashed with troops in remote, rugged areas near the border with Pakistan, which, according to Afghan officials, they use as a haven. But the insurgents are increasingly targeting Afghan civilians.

On Thursday armed fighters kidnapped and killed a group of tribal elders in central Uruzgan province, then sent a boy to offer to exchange the bodies for those of dead militiamen who had been killed Wednesday while attacking a police station.

In other recent incidents, an Afghan election worker was shot in the face; six anti-drug workers were killed while driving the body of a slain colleague to Kabul; a prominent moderate Islamic cleric was assassinated; and, a suicide bomber killed 20 people at the cleric`s funeral.

Staff writers Bradley Graham and Pamela Constable in Washington contributed to this report.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Friday, July 01, 2005
War News for Friday, July 1, 2005

http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Relatives of Shi`ite legislator assassinated in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Iraqi policeman and two relatives assassinated in Mosul.

Bring `em on: Turkish truck driver killed in ambush near Beiji.

Bring `em on: One Iraqi killed in suicide bombing of Iraqi Prime Minister`s office in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Power station bombed in Baghdad, city water supply shut down.

Baghdad. "According to City Hall, Baghdad produces about 544 million gallons of water per day, some 370 million gallons short of its required amount. Some 55 percent of the water is lost through leakage in the pipes. Iraqis also complain of shortages of power and fuel. Electrical shortfalls were common during the Saddam Hussein era and attributed to a poor distribution network, but the situation has worsened due to sabotage and lack of maintenance. Before the U.S.-led invasion, Baghdad residents had about 20 hours of electricity a day. Today, they get about 10, usually broken into two-hour chunks. In addition, Iraq is not able to refine enough oil, so must import gasoline. Convoys carrying fuel are often attacked by insurgents and the ensuing shortage has led to a black market in Baghdad."

Progress report. "Insurgent attacks in the last six months have killed more than 8,000 Iraqi civilians, police and troops, according to Iraq`s interior minister."

More "progress." "The Iraqi Red Crescent Society says 6,000 families have been displaced across Anbar province in the fighting and are suffering in heat that regularly exceeds 110 degrees. The society has dispatched five convoys carrying relief supplies including tents and medical equipment to the region over the past few days. Medical teams are assessing potential cholera outbreaks caused by bodies buried in rubble. `It`s a tragedy,` said Ferdous Abadi, spokeswoman for the society. `There is a shortage of medical supplies and clean water.` The society is the local equivalent of the Red Cross. Its president, Dr. Said Hakki, is an adviser on humanitarian affairs to Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari. The US military did not respond to questions about the humanitarian situation. It has maintained in news releases that displaced families have begun to return home."

Last throes. "At the close of 2003, U.S. commanders put the number of insurgents at 5,000. On Thursday in Baghdad, U.S. Brig. Gen. Donald Alston said there were between 15,000 and 20,000 insurgents, though he said not all of them fight every day. As of June 27, insurgents launched more than 70 car bombings during the month, according the U.S. military. While that figure was below that of the two prior months - at 81 each - it`s more than any other month since the war began in March 2003…The number of daily attacks against troops with the U.S.-led coalition had dropped to the 30s after national elections in January, but they`re now back at about 70 a day. Attacks on Iraqis have also increased. A blistering round of car bombs and assassinations killed more than 1,675 Iraqis after the nation`s interim government was seated April 28, according to icasualties.org."

Chickenhawks squawk.

Several Senate Republicans denounced other lawmakers and the news media on Thursday for unfavorable depictions of the Iraq war and the Pentagon urged members of Congress to talk up military service to help ease a recruiting shortfall.

Families are discouraging young men and women from enlisting "because of all the negative media that`s out there," Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, said at a U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee hearing.

Inhofe also said that other senators` criticism of the war contributed to the propaganda of U.S. enemies. He did not name the senators.

Army Chief of Staff Peter Schoomaker urged members of Congress to use "your considerable influence to explain to the American people and to those that are influencers out there how important it is for our young people to serve this nation at a time like this."

The Army on Wednesday said it was 14 percent, or about 7,800 recruits, behind its year-to-date recruitment target even though it exceeded its monthly target in June. With extended deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, recruiting also is down for the National Guard and the Reserves.


Those mean Democrats and the liberal media are giving delicate young conservative Paul a case of the vapors.

Media Analysis:

“Dad, guess what?”

My daughter is 14. As she spoke she was a couple of weeks away from graduating from middle school to high school. Her tone was serious, almost solemn, which could mean something serious or solemn had happened, or she’d forgotten a permission slip.

“Remember that soldier . . .”

Crocker was killed on May 26. By the time the news got to the kids at school, he’d been dead for a few days. Vizzi said that students’ reactions ranged from a nod to an “Oh, how sad.”

A lot of the kids, she said, “were really interested in how he died.”

Crocker was killed in a rocket-propelled grenade attack during combat in the Iraqi city of Hadithah. His death was reported by newspapers, usually in a single paragraph that noted he was a 10-year veteran of the Santa Monica Police Department, was on his second tour of duty in Iraq, was single, was 39. About the only difference from one brief obituary to the next was his residency—variously listed as Mission Viejo, Redondo and Hermosa. The Los Angeles Times ran a longer piece about how Crocker’s death had affected the Santa Monica PD. That story told how the police chief had been so impressed with Crocker after interviewing him in 1995 that he held a position for six months until he finished his original Marine service. It told about how the cops kept around the office a life-size cutout of Rick in combat gear.

The Times story was long but ran on an inside page. This wasn’t like the early days of the war, when deaths shocked whole towns. When Costa Mesa’s Jose Garibay died early on, papers, radio and TV stations were alive with tales of his bravery, how he purposely hadn’t told his mother he was going to Iraq to save her the worry, how he’d been posthumously awarded American citizenship.

But by the time Crocker died, there was a certain amount of, not acceptance, but resignation. American deaths no longer led newscasts or were front-page news. Many times they were lumped in with stories that tended to begin, “Two American soldiers and 19 Iraqi civilians were killed in a wave of attacks that . . .”

On May 30, Memorial Day, ABC’s Nightline broadcast the names of American servicemen and women killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, a list of nearly 1,000, in chronological order of their passing. Crocker had died just four days before, but he made the list. So did four other soldiers—Alfred Siler, Mark Maida, Matthew Lourey, Joshua Scott—who died after him.

Before anchor Ted Koppel began reading the names, he addressed the furor that had followed Nightline’s reading of the names of fallen soldiers the year before. Some had complained that the show was simply being sensational or chasing ratings—Memorial Day falls within the May sweeps. Others questioned the patriotism of Koppel and ABC and insinuated they were attempting to embarrass the country, administration, even the soldiers by recognizing their sacrifice. The sting of it hit Koppel so hard that he felt compelled this year to take the extraordinary step of saying about the war in Iraq, “I am not, in fact, opposed to it.”

Still, it seemed a bit unnecessary this year. There was no fuss or controversy over the program this time, which made Koppel’s comments at the end of the broadcast especially poignant:


Commentary

Editorial:

President Bush`s pep talk to the nation Tuesday night was a major disappointment. He again rewrote history by lumping together the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and the need for war in Iraq, when, in fact, Saddam Hussein`s Iraq had no connection to al-Qaida. Bush spoke of "difficult and dangerous" work in Iraq that produces "images of violence and bloodshed," but he glossed over the reality of how bad the situation is. He offered no benchmarks to measure the war`s progress, falling back on exhortations to "complete the mission" with a goal of withdrawing troops "as soon as possible."

Bush spoke at Fort Bragg, N.C., and offered proper respect and thanks to U.S. troops, more than 1,700 of whom have been killed in Iraq. But his address on the first anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty to Iraq gave no glimpse of how much longer 140,000 U.S. troops must remain there. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld gave no timetable either but did say Sunday that the insurgency could last a dozen years. That realistic analysis marked quite a change from Vice President Dick Cheney`s claim a few weeks earlier that the insurgency was in its "last throes."


Opinion:

The coalition government relied heavily on a revolving door of diplomats and other personnel who would leave just as they had begun to develop local knowledge and ties, and on a large cadre of eager young neophytes whose brashness often gave offense in a very age- and status-conscious society. One young political appointee (a 24-year-old Ivy League graduate) argued that Iraq should not enshrine judicial review in its constitution because it might lead to the legalization of abortion. A much more senior Iraqi interlocutor (a widely experienced Iraqi-American lawyer) became so exasperated with the young man`s audacity that he finally challenged him:

"You must have thoroughly studied the history of the British occupation of Iraq."

"Yes, I did," the young American replied proudly.

"I thought so," said the Iraqi, "because you seem determined to repeat every one of their mistakes."

Throughout the occupation, there was a profound tension between the idealistic goal of building democracy and the desire on the part of the Americans to retain control, to shape a particular kind of Iraqi democracy.

The dilemma struck me almost immediately after my arrival, when one of our colleagues stormed into the office after a late-night meeting of the Iraqi Governing Council, uttering: "We have a problem. And no one wants to deal with it. The Governing Council is issuing orders and the ministers are starting to execute them." Several of us burst out laughing. We were fostering a transition to sovereignty and democracy. We had established the Iraqi Governing Council. But God forbid it should actually seek to start governing!


Opinion:

The president said nothing new about America`s strategy. We are in Iraq as long as we are needed, and there can be no timetable for withdrawal. It was advertised that he would give a pitch for military service, but all he said was that if any of those watching were considering a military career, "There is no higher calling."

That will be of little help to the Army recruiters who are becoming desperate in their efforts to meet their quota of enlistments. Stories are legion of recruiters violating military guidelines, hiding police records and medical histories of potential recruits, showing one young man how to falsify a high school diploma and clear illegal drugs from his system. Parents are organizing to keep military recruiters off high school and college campuses, complaining that they are hustling youngsters with free iPods and video games and making exaggerated promises about bonuses, education and jobs. The most frequent complaint is that recruiters are making the false promise that new enlistees will not be sent to Iraq.

How we populate the military for America`s open-ended stay in Iraq is becoming more and more problematic. The Army hasn`t made its recruitment quota since January even with relaxed requirements on age and education. Of the 3,900 former soldiers ordered to mobilize, one-third resisted their call-ups. Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, the man in charge of Army recruiting, says that less than 10 percent of the 80,000 new active-duty soldiers the Army needs next year will actually be in the pipeline.

Americans are losing their appetite for this war in Iraq. Think about all this. Especially if you have draft age children.


Opinion:

Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for 27 years, has written frequently about the visits of Cheney and his surrogates, notably his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, to the CIA to talk with analysts about intelligence findings on Iraq. The visits, according to McGovern, were unprecedented and intended to influence intelligence judgments. McGovern is an unapologetic critic of the vice president, which may or may not be reason to discount his charges. But Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA officer, backs McGovern`s charges.

Cannistraro, citing current CIA analysts, maintains that the Bush White House pressed the agency to produce evidence linking Saddam to al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden -- a clear misuse of the 9/11 tragedy. Cheney and Libby visited midlevel analysts at CIA headquarters, seeking support for a war in Iraq, according to Cannistraro. Cheney, in particular, he has written, "insisted that desk officers were not looking hard enough for the evidence."

Cheney, for all his shrewdness, has become a liability as a spokesman on Iraq, not only because of suspicions about his relations with the CIA and its analysts but because of his long list of lousy judgments.

They began with his claim that Saddam had "reconstituted" his arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. There was his prediction that U.S. troops would be greeted as "liberators." Later he found -- no one else has -- "mobile laboratories" for making chemical and biological weapons. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary -- the 9/11 commission report, for one -- Cheney regularly has implied that Saddam was somehow implicated in 9/11: "There was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda that stretched through most of the 1990s," as he told one interviewer.

More recently, a day before some 30 Iraqis were killed in car bombings, he pronounced the insurgency as in its "last throes." Bad timing, that.

The sad part of Cheney`s tattered credibility is that one claim he makes incessantly is the absolute truth -- that if we lose in Iraq we will fuel the fires of terrorism. Sure it was the Bush-Cheney war that made Iraq a recruitment poster for terrorism. But that doesn`t diminish the truth of his warning. Trouble is, he`s damaged goods as a spokesman for the cause.

What it all adds up to is this: Dick Cheney or someone on his staff was unhappy with my first account of his role in fashioning the intelligence product used to justify the war in Iraq and wanted a more balanced version. Now they`ve got it.


Hot damn, a journalist with balls!

Opinion:

In his speeches, George W Bush regularly calls for a return to or the reinforcement of traditional, even eternal, family values and emphasizes the importance of personal "accountability" for our children as well as ourselves. ("The culture of America is changing from one that has said, if it feels good, do it, and if you`ve got a problem, blame somebody else, to a new culture in which each of us understands we are responsible for the decisions we make in life.")

And yet when it comes to acts that are clearly wrong in this world - aggressive war, the looting of resources, torture, personal gain at the expense of others, lying and manipulation among other matters - Bush and his top officials never hesitate to redefine reality to suit their needs. When faced with matters long defined in everyday life in terms of right and wrong, they simply reach for their dictionaries.

You want to invade a country not about to attack you. No problem, just pick up that Webster`s and rename the act "preventive war". Now, you want an excuse for such a war that might actually panic the public into backing it. So you begin to place mushroom clouds from nonexistent enemy atomic warheads over American cities (Condoleezza Rice: "[W]e don`t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."); you begin to claim, as our president and other top officials did, that nonexistent enemy UAVs (unmanned airborne vehicles) launched from nonexistent ships off our perfectly real East coast, might spray nonexistent biological or chemical weapons hundreds of miles inland, and - voila! - you`re ready to strike back.

You sweep opponents up on a battlefield, but you don`t want to call them prisoners of war or deal with them by the established rules of warfare. No problem, just grab that dictionary and label them "unlawful combatants", then you can do anything you want. So you get those prisoners into your jail complex (carefully located on an American base in Cuba, which you have redefined as being legally under "Cuban sovereignty", so that no American court can touch them); and then you declare that, not being prisoners of war, they do not fall under the Geneva Conventions, though you will treat them (sort of) as if they did and, whatever happens, you will not actually torture them, though you plan to take those "gloves" off.

Then your lawyers and attorneys retire to some White House or Justice Department office and, under the guidance of White House counsel Alberto Gonzales (now attorney general), they grab those dictionaries again and redefine torture to be whatever we`re not doing to the prisoners. (In a 50-page memo written in August 2002 for the Central Intelligence Agency - CIA - and addressed to Gonzales, assistant attorney general Jay S Bybee, now an Appeals Court judge, hauled out many dictionaries and redefined torture this way: "Must be equivalent in intensity to the pain accompanying serious physical injury, such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death.")

And if questioned on the subject, after e-mails from Federal Bureau of Investigation observers at the prison lay out the various acts of abuse and torture committed in grisly detail, the vice president simply insists, as Dick Cheney did the other day, that those prisoners are living the good life in the balmy "tropics". ("They`re well fed. They`ve got everything they could possibly want. There isn`t any other nation in the world that would treat people who were determined to kill Americans the way we`re treating these people.")


Analysis:

As calls to set a timetable for withdrawing American troops from Iraq grow with each new casualty, President George W Bush and other critics of such a move argue vigorously that announcing such a deadline would grant the insurgents a major political and strategic victory: the former by vindicating the violent, even terroristic methodology of the insurgency itself, the latter by allowing rebels to bide their time and overwhelm government troops once American forces depart.

However convincing at face value, these arguments raise the question: are the only options in Iraq maintaining an unpopular and costly occupation, or handing the country over to "former members of Saddam Hussein`s regime, criminal elements and foreign terrorists" (as Bush describes them)?

The answer is manifestly no, and the fact so few people within the corridors of power can imagine an alternative policy reveals a powerful yet fallacious line of reasoning at the heart of arguments to "stay the course" in Iraq: that a US troop withdrawal would automatically leave a security vacuum in its place.

But such an outcome is by no means a foregone conclusion; the problem is that few Americans, especially politicians, are willing to consider the alternative: apologize to the Iraqi people for an invasion and occupation that (whatever our intentions) has gone terribly wrong; ask the United Nations to take over the management of the country`s security, lead negotiations to end the insurgency, and oversee redevelopment aid; and leave as soon as a sufficient number of replacement forces are in place.

There are four reasons why such a development, however distasteful to the Bush administration and many Americans, is the best hope for achieving the peace and democracy most everyone wants to bring to Iraq.


Casualty Reports

Local story: Oklahoma soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: Pennsylvania soldier killed in Iraq.

Local story: Indiana Marine wounded in Iraq.

Local story: New Jersey Marine wounded in Iraq.

# posted by yankeedoodle : 6:20 AM
Comments (24) | Trackback (0)

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Ein Staat der solche Machenschaften auf Dauer duldet oder sie noch fördert, kann weder ein Rechtstaat noch eine rechtstaatliche Demokratie sein.

[Table align=center]
Wie die US-Regierung Folter legitimiert

Der lange Weg zur Grausamkeit

Die US-Juristen Karen Greenberg und Joshua Dratel haben über Jahre hinweg eine umfangreiche Materialsammlung aus offiziellen Memoranden hochrangiger Regierungsmitglieder zum Thema Gefangenen-Folter erstellt. Sie fügen sich zu einer grausigen Chronologie amerikanische Rechtfertigungen für Guantanamo und Abu Ghraib. Hier sind exklusive Auszüge aus dieser Dokumentation.

[/TABLE]


[Table align=center]
>"Wir kommen zu dem Schluss, dass ein Akt, der als Folter gewertet wird, . . . Schmerzen verursachen muss, die nur schwer auszuhalten sind. . . . Physischer Schmerz, der als Folter gewertet werden kann, muss die gleiche Intensität von Schmerz haben, wie er mit ernsthaften physischen Verletzungen -- etwa dem Versagen eines Organs, der Behinderung von Körperfunktionen oder sogar dem Tod -- einhergeht."
(Memorandum von Jay S. Bybee, Staatssekretär im Justizministerium, an Alberto Gonzales, 1. August 2002)
[/TABLE]

Die Folter von Gefangenen in den Lagern von Guantanamo Bay und im Irak gehört zu den umstrittensten Themen der jüngeren amerikanischen Geschichte. Diese Woche tagte der Rechtsausschuss des amerikanischen Senats, um darüber zu beraten, ob das Gefangenenlager von Guantanamo Bay geschlossen wird.
Der republikanische Senator Mel Martinez forderte eine sofortige Schließung. Der demokratische Senator Edward Kennedy erklärte: „Durch Guantanamo wurden die USA vor der ganzen Welt bloßgestellt – um so schwerer ist es, den Krieg gegen den Terror zu gewinnen.“ Die Regierung blieb diese Woche weiter auf Kurs. Vizepräsident Cheney verteidigte die Praktiken in Guantanamo mit der Behauptung, Gefangene würden dort „besser
behandelt als von jeder anderen Regierung auf der Erde“.
Verteidigungsminister Donald Rumsfeld sieht „keine Alternative zu Guantanamo Bay“. Pentagonsprecher Lawrence di Rita wirft den Guantanamokritikern „Ignoranz“ vor. Insgesamt bekräftigt die Regierung die Notwendigkeit, Gefangene ohne zeitliche Begrenzung in Guantanamo festhalten zu können. Die Beweise, die belegen, dass die Folterungen nicht Einzelfälle, sondern Folgen einer schrittweisen Legalisierung von Übergriffen gegen Gefangene aus den Kriegen in Afghanistan und im Irak
waren, sind inzwischen erdrückend. Die Juristen Karen Greenberg und Joshua Dratel haben über Jahre hinweg eine umfangreiche Materialsammlung aus offiziellen Studien und Memoranden hochrangiger Regierungsmitglieder erstellt. 1250 Seiten davon erschienen unter dem Titel „The Torture Papers“ im Verlag Cambridge University Press. Karen Greenberg leitet das
Center on Law and Security an der New York University School of Law. Joshua Dratel ist einer der Leiter der National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers und verteidigt unter anderem Gefangene von Guantanamo Bay. Karen Greenberg hat für die Süddeutsche Zeitung eine komprimierte Chronologie der Memoranden erstellt, die zur aktuellen Situation geführt haben. SZ

» Das Individuum soll nicht das Privileg genießen, direkt oder indirekt Rechtsmittel oder Verfahren vor einem Gericht der Vereinigten Staaten oder jedem anderen Staat, einem Gericht einer anderen Nation oder einem internationalen Tribunal einzufordern oder einfordern zu lassen. «

In diesen Tagen werden Amerikaner wieder mit Berichten über Folterungen überschwemmt, die von ihren eigenen Mitbürgern begangen wurden. Fernsehmagazine, Nachrichtensendungen und Zeitungen erzählen von einer Grausamkeit nach der anderen, von so genannten "außerordentlichen Auslieferungen", wie man die Überstellung von Verdächtigen an Drittländer nennt, in denen sie bei Verhören oft gefoltert werden. Viele Amerikaner fragen sich inzwischen "Wann, wo und warum hat das begonnen?"

Die Antwort ist, dass die Regierung Bushs den Weg zur Folter seit dem 11. September 2001 beschritten hat. Unter dem Druck, Informationen zu erhalten, die einen weiteren Terroranschlag verhindern, begann sich die Regierung juristisch auf einen Krieg gegen den Terror vorzubereiten, der die üblichen Grenzen der Legalität weit überschreiten sollte.

Es war am 25. September, als Anwälte des Justizministeriums das erste Memorandum einer Serie herausgaben, das die Machtbereiche des Präsidenten angesichts der Angriffe und des Kriegs gegen den Terror neu definierte.

"Dem Präsident gibt die Verfassung das Recht, Vergeltung gegen jede Einzelperson, jede Organisation und jeden Staat zu üben, die verdächtigt werden, an Terrorangriffen gegen die Vereinigten Staaten beteiligt zu sein, aber auch gegen Staaten, die verdächtigt werden, solchen Organisationen Unterschlupf zu gewähren oder sie unterstützen."


(Memorandum von John Yoo an den stellvertretenden Rechtsberater des Präsidenten, Timothy Flanigan, 25. September 2001)

Die Konsequenz dieses und folgender Memoranden im Herbst 2001 war, dass dem Präsident weitreichende Exekutivgewalten zugestanden wurden, über die der Kongress keinerlei Kontrolle beansprucht. Im November autorisierte der Präsident daraufhin, dass für Terrorverdächtige, die sich in amerikanischem Gewahrsam befinden, Militärgerichte zuständig seien, die nicht den Regeln der amerikanischen Strafjustiz unterliegen.

"Kraft meiner Amtsgewalt die mir die Verfassung und die Gesetze der Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika . . . als Präsident und Oberbefehlshaber der Streitkräfte der Vereinigten Staaten übertragen haben, ordne ich folgendes an:

. . .

IV. a) Jedes individuelle Subjekt soll gemäß dieser Verordnung für alle und jede Straftat . . . von einer Militärkommission abgeurteilt und mit allen Strafmaßnahmen, die vom betreffenden Recht vorgesehen werden, inklusive lebenslanger Haft und Tod, bestraft werden.

. . .

VII, b, 2) Das Individuum soll nicht das Privileg genießen, direkt oder indirekt Rechtsmittel oder Verfahren vor einem Gericht der Vereinigten Staaten oder jedem anderen Staat, einem Gericht einer anderen Nation oder einem internationalen Tribunal einzufordern oder einfordern zu lassen."

(Federal Register, Volume 66, Nummer 2, Memorandum von Präsidenten Bush, 13. November 2001)

Ende Dezember und Anfang Januar legte das Justizministerium seine Auffassung nieder, dass die Gefangenen vom Schutz der Genfer Konventionen ausgenommen seien.

» Übermitteln Sie ..., dass Individuen der al-Qaida und der Taliban im Gewahrsam des Verteidigungsministeriums kein Anrecht auf den Status als Kriegsgefangener gemäß der Genfer Konventionen von 1949 haben. «

"Al-Qaida ist lediglich eine gewalttätige politische Bewegung oder Organisation und kein Nationalstaat. Daraus folgt, dass sie als Unterzeichner eines Abkommens nicht in Frage kommt. Wegen der neuartigen Art dieses Konfliktes glauben wir nicht, dass al-Qaida in solche Formen des bewaffneten Konflikts verwickelt sind, für welche die Genfer Konventionen gelten könnten. Weder die Genfer Konventionen noch die WCA regeln also die Haftbedingungen für al-Qaida-Gefangene, die während des Konfliktes in Afghanistan gefangen genommen wurden.

. . .

Afghanistans Status als gescheiterter Staat ist Grund genug für die Folgerung, dass Mitglieder der Talibanmilizen kein Anrecht auf den Status eines Kriegsgefangenen gemäß der Genfer Konventionen haben.

. . .

Der Präsident hat als Oberbefehlshaber das verfassungsgemäße Recht, übliche und allgemeine Kriegsrechte so zu interpretieren und anzuwenden, dass sie auf Handlungen von al-Qaida und Taliban und auch auf Interaktionen zwischen US-Streitkräften und Mitgliedern dieser Gruppen . . . erweiterbar sind."

(Memorandum von John Yoo und Robert J. Delahunty an William J. Haynes, Berater des Verteidigungsministers, 9. Januar 2002).

Im Januar gab Donald Rumsfeld gegenüber den Befehlshabern der Streitkräfte die offizielle Richtlinie aus, dass die Gefangenen nicht als Kriegsgefangene zu betrachten seien.

"Übermitteln Sie folgendes an alle Gefechtskommandanten: Die Vereinigten Staaten haben bestimmt, dass Individuen der al-Qaida und der Taliban im Gewahrsam des Verteidigungsministeriums kein Anrecht auf den Status als Kriegsgefangener gemäß der Genfer Konventionen von 1949 haben."
(Richtlinie von Donald Rumsfeld vom 19. Januar 2002)

Als die ersten Gefangenen in Guantanamo ankamen, widersprachen Außenminister Colin Powell und der Rechtsberater des Außenministeriums, William Taft IV, der von John Yoo entwickelten Position. Powell bestand darauf, dass die Abweichung von den Genfer Konventionen zur Behandlung von Kriegsgefangenen den Grundsatz der Gegenseitigkeit verletzen und die rechtmäßige Behandlung amerikanischer Soldaten im Ausland aufs Spiel setzen würde. Abgesehen davon würde eine solche unilaterale Politik die weltweite Glaubwürdigkeit der USA als Beschützer von Rechtsstaatlichkeit und demokratischem Rechtsverständnis in Frage stellen.

"Sollte die Genfer Konvention nicht auf diesen Konflikt angewendet werden, würde das die über ein Jahrhundert währende US-Politik und Praxis umkehren, die Genfer Konventionen zu unterstützen und nicht nur in diesem Konflikt, sondern generell den Schutz unserer Truppen nach dem Kriegsrecht untergraben."

(Memorandum von Colin Powell an den Rechtsberater des Präsidenten, Alberto Gonzales, 26. Januar 2002)

Gonzales fand die Argumente von Powell und Taft "nicht überzeugend" und erklärte dem Präsidenten, dass die Genfer Konvention angesichts der Umstände des Krieges gegen den Terror nicht mehr zeitgemäß sei.

Dies ist ein neuer Typus der Kriegsführung, der nicht berücksichtigt wurde, als die Kriegsgefangenenregelungen der Genfer Konventionen 1949 verfasst wurden, und der einen neuen Ansatz für unsere Maßnahmen gegen gefangene Terroristen verlangt.

. . .

Ich möchte anmerken, dass unsere Gegner in mehreren jüngeren Konflikten von den Kriegsgefangenenregelungen der Genfer Konventionen nicht von Misshandlungen gefangener US-Mannschaften abgeschreckt wurden, und dass Terroristen den Kriegsgefangenenregelungen der Genfer Konventionen niemals folgen werden."

(Memorandum von Alberto Gonzales an Präsident Bush, 25. Januar 2002)

Nach dieser Logik begannen US-Behörden den Einsatz von harten "Techniken zur Überwindung

» Unsere Streitkräfte werden in Verhörtechniken auf einem Niveau ausgebildet, das eine Tradition der Zurückhaltung widerspiegelt. «

von Widerständen" zu erproben, um Gefangene zur Herausgabe von Informationen zu bringen.

Im August 2002 hatte der juristische und politische Dialog, der sich bis dahin zwischen dem Justizministerium, dem Verteidigungsministerium und dem Außenministerium abgespielt hatte, zu einem Memorandum geführt, das Folter und damit unrechtmäßige Behandlung von Gefangenen neu definiert: Erst wenn es "beinahe um das Versagen von Organen" gehe, sei Folter. Alle anderen Formen grausamer oder erniedrigender Behandlung, die nicht dazu führen, seien nicht als Folter einzustufen.

"Wir kommen zu dem Schluss, dass ein Akt, der als Folter gewertet wird, . . . Schmerzen verursachen muss, die nur schwer auszuhalten sind. . . . Physischer Schmerz, der als Folter gewertet werden kann, muss die gleiche Intensität von Schmerz haben, wie er mit ernsthaften physischen Verletzungen -- etwa dem Versagen eines Organs, der Behinderung von Körperfunktionen oder sogar dem Tod -- einhergeht."

(Memorandum von Jay S. Bybee, Staatssekretär im Justizministerium, an Alberto Gonzales, 1. August 2002)

Am 2. Dezember 2002 genehmigte Rumsfeld in einem von ihm genehmigten und abgezeichneten Memorandum von William Haynes offiziell den Einsatz außergewöhnlicher Verhörmethoden, zu denen nach den Richtlinien des Pentagons auch das Verharren in Körperhaltungen bis zu vier Stunden gehört.

"Der Befehlshaber des US Southern Command hat den Antrag des Befehlshabers der Joint Task Force 170 (Guantanamo Bay) für die Bewilligung von Techniken zur Brechung von Widerständen zur Unterstützung von Vernehmungen von Gefangenen in Guantanamo Bay weitergeleitet.

. . .

Während alle Techniken der Kategorie II von Rechts wegen eingesetzt werden dürfen, glauben wir, dass eine generelle Bewilligung von Techniken der Kategorie III aus politischer Sicht nicht eingeräumt werden sollte. Unsere Streitkräfte werden in Verhörtechniken auf einem Niveau ausgebildet, das eine Tradition der Zurückhaltung widerspiegelt."

. . .

(Neben seiner Unterschrift in der Sparte `bewilligt‘ hat Donald Rumsfeld, der wegen eines Rückenleidens an einem Stehpult arbeitet, folgende handschriftliche Notiz angefügt): "Trotz alledem, ich stehe acht bis zehn Stunden pro Tag. Warum ist Stehen auf vier Stunden beschränkt? D. R."

(Memorandum von William Haynes an Donald Rumsfeld, 27. November 2002)

Im Januar widerrief Rumsfeld den weiten Spielraum, den er gegeben hatte, doch die Erlaubnis, Verhöre unter Gewaltandrohung durchzuführen und aggressive sowie erniedrigende Techniken einzusetzen, blieb erhalten.

"Meine Bewilligung, bei Vernehmungen in Guantanamo Bay sämtliche Techniken der Kategorie II und eine Technik der Kategorie III einzusetzen, ist hiermit aufgehoben. Sollten Sie befinden, dass bestimmte Techniken dieser Kategorien in Einzelfällen von Nöten sind, sollten Sie dieses Anliegen an mich weiterleiten."

(Memorandum von Donald Rumsfeld an den Befehlshaber des Southern Command, Memo Nummer 23, 15. Januar 2003)

Während der nächsten zwei Jahre, in denen rund 800 Gefangene nach Guantanamo kamen und die USA im Rahmen des Irakkrieges auch dort eine Reihe von Gefängnissen einrichtete, interessierte sich die Öffentlichkeit so gut wie nicht für die Behandlung von Gefangenen. Ab und zu machten Gerüchte über so genannte Phantomgefängnisse die Runde, die Presse berichtete über die Auslieferung des kanadischen Staatsbürgers Maher Arrar nach Syrien, der dort gefoltert wurde. In amerikanischen Think Tanks und an Universitäten wurden daraufhin politische Debatten über die theoretische Möglichkeit von Folter geführt. Doch erst im Frühjahr 2004 wurde der Öffentlichkeit die Misshandlung und Folterung von Gefangenen in amerikanischen Lagern bewusst. Im März und April veröffentlichten der Journalist Seymour Hersh und das Nachrichtenmagazin 60 Minutes Fotos von den Erniedrigungen und physischen und sexuellen Misshandlungen in Abu Ghraib. Gleichzeitig veröffentlichte General Anthony Taguba einen Bericht über die Misshandlung von Gefangenen in diesem Gefängnis, den er für die US Army erstellt hatte.

"Bezüglich des ersten Teiles unserer Untersuchungen gebe ich hiermit folgenden faktischen Befund:

. . .

5. Dass zwischen Oktober und Dezember 2003 in der Haftanstalt von Abu Ghraib mehrere Gefangene zahlreichen Vorfällen sadistischer, offensichtlicher und mutwillig krimineller Misshandlungen ausgesetzt wurden.

. . .

Wir kommen zu dem Ergebnis, dass

1. Mehrere Soldaten der US Army in Abu Ghraib und Camp Bucca/Irak ungeheuerliche Taten und schwere Verletzungen des Völkerrechts begangen haben. Zudem haben in der Zeit vom August 2003 bis Februar 2004 Führungsoffiziere der 800. Brigade der Militärpolizei und der 205. Aufklärungsbrigade es versäumt, Vorschriften, Richtlinien und Befehlsdirektiven zur Vermeidung von Misshandlungen Gefangener in Abu Ghraib und Camp Bucca zu befolgen." (The Taguba Report, März 2004)

Sechs Monate vor den amerikanischen Präsidentschaftswahlen im Jahr 2004 begann die Bush-Regierung eine Publicitykampagne, in der sie die Geschichten aus Abu Ghraib als Übergriffe einiger "fauler Äpfel" innerhalb eines ansonsten legalen und gerechten Umfeldes darstellten. Gleichzeitig setzte das Justizministerium ein Memorandum auf, das die Überführung von Gefangenen aus dem Irak in Drittländer erlaubte, damit sie dort verhört werden können.

"Wir kommen zum dem Schluss, dass die Vereinigten Staaten mit Rücksicht auf Artikel 49 . . . der IV. Genfer Konvention . . . (1) ,geschützte Personen‘, die illegale Ausländer sind, gemäß der örtlichen Einwanderungsgesetze aus dem Irak entfernen dürfen; und (2) "geschützte Personen" (ob sie illegale Ausländer sind oder nicht) für eine kurze, aber nicht unbegrenzte Zeit aus dem Irak an ein anderes Land überstellen dürfen, um eine Vernehmung zu ermöglichen."

(Memorandum von Jack Goldsmith, Staatssekretär im Justizministerium, an Alberto Gonzales, Memo Nummer 28, 19. März 2004)

Immer öfter wurden nun Berichte von Misshandlungen und Folterungen veröffentlicht, die von aus Guantanamo entlassenen Gefangenen oder von Vernehmungsbeamten, die von dem, was sie erlebt hatten, beunruhigt waren, an die Presse lanciert wurden. Doch der Wahlkampf des Präsidenten, der gleichzeitig stattfand, sparte das Thema Folter aus.

Wenige Wochen vor der Wiederwahl von George W. Bush kamen auf Grund der Regeln des Freedom of Information Act plötzlich tausende Seiten von Zeugenaussagen an die Öffentlichkeit, welche die Misshandlungen in Guantanamo in aller Deutlichkeit beschrieben: Misshandlungen, zu denen das so genannte Waterboarding gehörte (bei dem ein Gefangener auf ein Brett gefesselt und bis kurz vor dem Erstickungstod unter Wasser gehalten wird), Todesdrohungen gegen Gefangene und deren Angehörige, der Einsatz von scharfen Hunden und unzählige sexuelle Übergriffe, deren Hauptzweck es war, muslimische Männer zu demütigen.

Anfang Januar war offenkundig dass die inzwischen wiedergewählte Bush-Regierung eine Politik der Misshandlung verfolgte, um aus Gefangenen Informationen herauszupressen. Die Misshandlungen waren alles andere als singuläre Übergriffe einer Nachtschicht in einem einzelnen Gefängnis -- bei sämtlichen Gefangenen und in sämtlichen Lagern gab es unverkennbare Parallelen. Die Politik war grausam, unmenschlich, jenseits der Rechtsstaatlichkeit und im Geheimen über Jahre hinweg praktiziert.

» Die Debatte hat erst begonnen. «

Heute wagt kaum noch ein Mitglied der Regierung, Folter öffentlich zu dulden. Am 30. Dezember 2004 veröffentlichte das Justizministerium ein Memorandum, das erklärte, die US-Regierung sei gegen Folter -- ohne aber dem Präsidenten die Befugnis abzusprechen, Entscheidungen zum Einsatz von Folter zu fällen. Nach wie vor vertreten Berater der Regierung die Auffassung, dass es weiterhin legitim sei, eine gesetzliche Regel für Folter zu schaffen.

Doch viele Politiker, die die Dokumente und Berichte über die Misshandlungen gelesen haben, sind zu dem Schluss gekommen, dass die Vereinigten Staaten ihren Weg korrigieren müssen. Der demokratische Kongressabgeordnete Edward J. Markey aus Massachusetts hat einen Gesetzesentwurf vorgelegt, der die Praxis der außerordentlichen Auslieferungen verbieten soll. Die demokratische Kongressabgeordnete Jane Harmon aus Kalifornien arbeitet an einem Gesetzesentwurf, der den Einsatz begrenzter Folter definiert, um wenigstens Exzesse in Zukunft auszuschließen. Andere wie Senator fordern den Einsatz eines unabhängigen Untersuchungsausschusses gefordert, um den praktizierten Misshandlungen und ihren Rechtfertigungen auf den Grund zu gehen.

Das Verteidigungsministerium bleibt ungerührt und veröffentlicht den "Church Report" , der behauptet, dass alle Maßnahmen in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo und weiteren Lagern im Rahmen der Gesetze blieben; in keinem Fall habe es eine Politik der systematischen Misshandlungen gegeben. Regierungssprecher verteidigen die "außerordentliche Auslieferung" weiterhin als wichtige Taktik im Krieg gegen den Terror. Alberto Gonzales wurde zum Justizminister berufen. Der Autor einiger Foltermemoranden, William Haynes, wurde von Bush zum als Bundesrichter nominiert.

Die amerikanische Öffentlichkeit reagiert auf das Thema Folter unterdessen relativ passiv. Darum bleibt weiterhin fraglich, ob ein endgültig informierter Kongress und eine ebenso informierte Öffentlichkeit ein Ende der Folter fordern werden. Die Debatte hat erst begonnen.


(SZ vom 18.6.2005)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Saturday, July 02, 2005

Breaking News: Iraq UN Ambassador Charges Marines with Murder of his Nephew
Suicide Bomber Kills 20 at Police Recruitment Center

Iraq`s ambassador to the UN, Samir Sumaidaie, said Saturday that US Marines shot his 21-year-old nephew as he was helping them carry out a search of his residence in Anbar province. The nephew had been asked if there were any weapons in the house and were shown a rifle with no ammunition (most Iraqi families have guns at home). The nephew was arrested by the Marines and then found dead with a bullet in his neck.

Sumaidaie said that the implications of this "serious crime" were enormous for the US and Iraq. The US military is investigating the incident.

A suicide bomber in Baghdad struck a police recruitment center at Yarmouk, killing at least 20 persons and injuring dozens.

posted by Juan @ [url7/02/2005 11:40:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/breaking-news-iraq-un-ambassador.html[/url]

European Parliament Committee Calls for UN Command in Iraq
Sistani Aide Killed in Baghdad

The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament has called for all foreign troops in Iraq to be replaced by a United Nations-led peace keeping force. It urged a trans-Atlantic (i.e. US and European) sharing of burdens in Iraq. It said that the troops currently in Iraq should gradually be replaced by a UN force. Moreover, it called for many more countries to begin training Iraqi troops, perhaps bringing them to their own countries for that purpose. The proposal will be debated on the floor of the European Parliament in Strasburg next month.

As regular readers know, this proposal resembles the one Informed Comment put forward about two weeks ago.

A Zogby poll shows that Bush got no bounce from his Tuesday speech on Iraq. Worse for him, 42% of voters now say they would favor impeaching the president if he was found to have deliberately misled the US public on his reasons for going to war.

Guerrillas shot and killed Kamal al-Din al-Ghuraifi, a key aide of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, on Haifa Street as he was on his way to lead Friday prayers at the al-Durin Center in the Alawi district of Baghdad (-al-Hayat). He is the third such Sistani local representative to be cut down in recent weeks.

The Washington Post explains,


`Last week, gunmen killed Samir al-Baghdadi, who represented al-Sistani in Baghdad`s predominantly Shiite al-Amin district. In May, attackers assassinated Shiite cleric Mohammed Tahir al-Allaq, al-Sistani`s representative in the Jurf al-Nadaf area near Madain, about 14 miles southeast of Baghdad. `



In the same neighborhood, masked guerrillas raided the Sunni mosque of Saad bin Abi Waqqas and kidnapped Sheik Amer al-Tikriti, the Friday prayers leader there.

It is not clear if these two incidents are instances of Shiite-Sunni reprisals against one another, or if the Sunni Arab Baathists, nationalists and Islamists are manufacturing them so as to provoke Sunni-Shiite violence. The aim would be to make Iraq ungovernable so that the Americans would have to depart.

Wire services report that ` "A US embassy official in Baghdad, who spoke on condition of anonymity, warned of "the real threat" of a sectarian war in Iraq after the killing of Sistani`s aid. `

A suicide bomber targeted the al-Da`wa Party offices in Baghdad, killing a bystander and wounding four security guards. The offices belong to the party headed by Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, but he was not on the premises.

Al-Hayat: Sadr al-Din al-Qubanji, Friday prayers leader in Najaf and a leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq said Friday that the Shiite grand ayatollahs in Najaf believe that the execution of Saddam Hussein would put an end to terrorism in Iraq. He bitterly criticized the United States for opening a back-channel dialogue with the guerrillas, and for dealying the trial of Saddam and the other symbols of his regime.

Bombs in Ramadi and Baghdad aimed at US military convoys missed, leaving 2 civilians dead and 5 wounded. Two policemen in Baghdad were wounded by a roadside bomb.

Some 20 persons died in Iraq violence on Friday. Clashes between guerrillas and Iraqi police and soldiers at Samarra left 14 of the latter dead and another 15 wounded.

Guerrillas assassinated Tahir al-Ruba`i, the nephew of the Shiite parliamentarian and former national security adviser Muwaffaq al-Ruba`i, the proprietor of an opthalmology shop in Amariyah district. They killed three of his customers and a store employee, as well.

A power station that runs a Baghdad water works was bombed by guerrillas, leaving several districts of the city without running water for the next several days.

The mayor of Baghdad, Alaa Mahmoud al-Tamimi, threatened to resign if the central government did not give him the money ($1.5 bn.) needed to do something about Baghdad`s water and electricity services, which are woefully inadequate.

The New York Times reports that the Shiites are raising new issues with the Sunni Arab members of the constitutional writing committee. They now charge that some had been Baath Party members. The names will now be submitted to the "Debaathification Committee."

This controversy will likely derail the writing of the constitution for a while, and won`t improve Sunni-Shiite relations. There should be an amnesty for Baath Party members who cannot be proved to have committed criminal acts. Iraq can never move forward without this step.

The Khaleej Times does an exclusive investigation of unemployment, poor wages, illiteracy, and governmental corruption in Basra, in the Shiite south. The reporters allege that many feel the economy is worse than under Saddam and has not improved.

The Washington Post profiles the new governor of Anbar province, the center of the Iraqi guerrilla movement. One predecessor was forced to resign when his sons were kidnapped, and another was himself abducted and killed.

Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid al-Tantawi, the Grand Imam of al-Azhar Seminary in Cairo (among the foremost clerical authorities in the Sunni world), called Friday for a one-month ceasefire in Iraq. He said that restoration of peace for 30 days would encourage the US and its coalition partners to leave the country.

posted by Juan @ [url7/02/2005 07:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/european-parliament-committee-calls.html[/url]

The UN Option for Iraq: Guest Comment by Carl Nyberg

Carl Nyberg, a former UN peacekeeper in Cambodia, writes:



"I`m skeptical of putting much hope into a UN solution for Iraq`s security problems.

I was a UN peacekeeper in Cambodia, but don`t want to lean too heavily on my personal experience. What I learned from my experience is that it is almost impossible for one person to capture the full story of something as complex as a UN peacekeeping mission.

Iraq is about twice as large as Cambodia, but Cambodia was 25-30% smaller in the early `90s. Cambodia was the largest UN peacekeeping mission ever.

In Cambodia the Paris peace accords of `91 were supported by all four armed factions. This allowed UN peacekeepers to hold individual commanders accountable to agreements that their factions nominally supported.

Part of these agreements were to put the heavy weapons in cantonments.

Iraq wouldn`t have an agreement supported by all factions. I doubt any of the factions in Iraq will give up their weapons.

Also, the UN peacekeepers had a huge advantage in communication over the Khmer Rouge, the chief spoiler in Cambodia. In Iraq the spoilers would have instant communication and therefore could engage in a coordinated strategy to foil the UN that the KR
couldn`t.

Iraq is a tough situation.

My best attempt to solve it would include:

1. US military withdrawing gradually, but noticably with a commitment for complete withdrawal.

2. Generous bribes to the people that can cause trouble with strings attached that they can`t cause trouble and keep the gravy train flowing.

3. Creating a political process that is perceived as legitimate. (This is where the UN can help.)

4. Apologizing for specific mistakes and asking for patience and goodwill.

5. Engaging in a global effort to reduce tensions between Islam and the Neo Liberal-led West.

The United States has to express contrition and clearly state that it has abandoned its selfish objectives for invading Iraq. (Part of this is admitting the United States had selfish objectives.) Anything else will be seen as trying to repackage the
same agenda."

Carl Nyberg

posted by Juan @ [url7/02/2005 07:20:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/un-option-for-iraq-guest-comment-by.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Solche Texte liebe ich:
Perhaps he is dutifully preparing America for the "rapture". Perhaps Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice ARE the four horsemen of the Apocalypse.

The Extremely High Price of Bushism
by Stan Moore
http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/16297

(Saturday July 02 2005)

"Bush has greatly harmed the people, greatly harmed the environment, greatly harmed democracy, greatly harmed the constitution, greatly harmed the prestige of the nation, and he smiles and smirks and acts as if he is proud of himself."

The Presidency of George W. Bush is without a doubt the most catastrophic presidency in the history of the American republic. The cost and the level of layers of cost are almost beyond accounting, but gradually we are realizing what a catastrophic presidency this one is and has been.

Even today, word is out that the Bush administration is suspected of playing politics with the numbers of American soldiers killed in Iraq, and only listing numbers of soldiers who actually died in battle as war dead, but not including those who died in hospitals or from war wounds after being shipped to Germany or even to the United States. Some are saying that the Bush deception is concealing an estimated 9000 deaths of American soldiers in the Bush War of Aggression in Iraq, a much higher cost than the 1800+ deaths the Bushites are publicly acknowledging.

After Bush is out of power, the American military will have to leave Iraq and will have to leave Afghanistan, and the proxy governments installed and vetted by American to prop up American interests will be removed by the native peoples. Their countrymen will either kill these puppet rulers or they will have to emigrate to the U.S. or elsewhere. Iraq and Afghanistan are already lost wars of aggression by the U.S. in its devil`s bargain of blood for oil. It is just a matter of time before the Americans must withdraw, but the high price of lost American soldiers will certainly grow higher before the carnage is over.

But let no one believe that American soldiers will only pay the extremely high cost of Bushism. Obviously, dead Iraqis and Afghans greatly outnumber dead Americans. Grieving families from those nations will forever remember the high cost of Bushism.

The international diplomatic community will always grieve the high cost of Bushism, not in lives lost, but in opportunities lost, in diplomatic potential discarded needlessly, in hard feelings and estrangement from allies. Bushism is the untoward synergy of arrogance and ignorance, and it harms good will between men and nations and has forestalled productive problem-solving in the United Nations and elsewhere.

As terrible as Bushism has been for the outside world, the tragedies of Bushism will forever mostly harm America herself and her people. Working people will forever be harmed by the obscenely insane Bush-led increase in national debt. Bush has heavily engaged in class warfare, and the further transferal of wealth to the wealthiest elite, who have received almost unlimited tax advantages, wealth transfers, removal of business regulations and other stipends to their already excessive accumulations of wealth.

Bush has greatly harmed the people, greatly harmed the environment, greatly harmed democracy, greatly harmed the constitution, greatly harmed the prestige of the nation, and he smiles and smirks and acts as if he is proud of himself. Perhaps George W. Bush is truly insane. Perhaps he is dutifully preparing America for the "rapture". Perhaps Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld and Rice ARE the four horsemen of the Apocalypse. Nothing else even begins to make sense. Bushism has had an extremely high price for America and promises to leave America bankrupt, environmentally damaged, unsafe, and insecure.

Can it get any worse? Well, rumor is that Jeb Bush would love to complete the job his brother started. The American people are so complicit in their own demise that it would not be a major surprise to see Jeb Bush emerge as a major presidential candidate in 2008. The Bush Curse on America is far from over.


>Source:

by courtesy & © 2005 Stan Moore

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

The Independent
We should have listened to Bin Laden
Saturday, 2nd July 2005, by Robert Fisk
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article296254.ece

The American ’experts’ waffled about whether he was alive - not what he said

I belong to that generation of undergraduates who cut their teeth on linguistics. Lancaster University in its second year of existence: Class of ’67, if I’m not mistaken - was as innovative as it was a bit odd. "Digs" were on the Morecombe seafront, lectures in a converted chapel, and tutorials in an old linen factory. But the books we studied invariably included the immensely boring Zelig Harris and the stunningly brilliant Noam Chomsky.

Less famous then than now, he it was who introduced me to the "foregrounded element". "Foregrounded" is when someone places words in such an order that a new meaning is attached to them or deliberately leaves out a word that we might expect. The big bad man emphasises the meanness of the man. But the bad big man makes us think of size. "Big" has been "foregrounded". Real linguists won’t like the above definition but journalists, I fear, sometimes have to distort in order to make plain.

Presidents too, it seems. Because I did a little linguistic analysis on George W Bush’s Fort Bragg address to Americans on 28 June - and came up with some pretty strange results. First, of course, was his use of the words "terrorism" and "terror" 33 times.

More interesting was the way in which he deployed these massed ranks of terrorists. If you divided his speech up into eight parts, "terrorists" or "terror" popped up eight times in the first, eight times in the second, three times in the third, nine in the fourth, two in the fifth, none at all in the sixth, a measly three in the seventh and again none at all in the eighth.

The columns in which "terror" disappeared were full of different clichés. Challenge, a good constitution (an Iraqi one, of course), a chance to vote, a free society, certain truths (I won’t insult you by telling you where that was snitched from), defending our freedom, flying the flag, great turning points in the story of freedom, prevail (one of Churchill’s favourite words) and no higher call.

Put through Chomsky’s machine, Bush’s speech begins by frightening the audience to death with terrorism and finishes triumphantly by rousing them to patriotic confidence in their country’s future victory.

It wasn’t actually a speech at all. It was a movie script, a screenplay. The bad guys are really bad but they’re going to get their comeuppance because the good guys are going to win.

Other elements of the Bush speech were, of course, woefully dishonest. It’s a bit much for Bush to claim that "terrorists" want to "topple governments" when the only guys who’ve been doing that - in Afghanistan and Iraq - were, ahem, ahem, the Americans.

There are plenty of references to the evil nature of "the enemy" - tyranny and oppression, remnants, the old order - and a weird new version of the Iraqi-11 September lie. Instead of Saddam’s non-existent alliance with al-Qa’ida, we now have the claim from Bush that the Iraqi "terrorists who kill innocent men, women and children on the streets of Baghdad are followers of the same murderous ideology that took the lives of our citizens" on 11 September, 2001. Whoops! It’s no longer the Saddam regime that was involved in these attacks, it seems; it’s now the post-Saddam insurgents who are part of the same gang.

It’s strange that for a White House that writes screenplays, the words of Osama bin Laden appear so uninteresting. Whenever Bin Laden speaks, no one bothers to read through his speech. The questions are always: Was it him? Is he alive? Where is he? Never: What did he say?

There are real perils in this. Let me show you why. On 13 February, 2003, Bin Laden’s latest audiotape was broadcast by the Arabic satellite channel, al-Jazeera. This, remember, was five weeks beforethe Anglo-American invasion.

In that message, Bin Laden made a statement in which he said that "it is beyond doubt that this crusader war is ... directed against the family of Islam, irrespective of whether the Socialist party and Saddam survive or not ... Despite our belief and our proclamation concerning the infidelity of socialists, in present-day circumstances there is a coincidence of interests between Muslims and socialists in their battles against the Crusaders."

And there you have it. Bin Laden, who hated Saddam - he told me this himself, in person - made a call to his followers to fight alongside an Iraqi force which included Saddam’s Iraqi Baathist "Socialists". This was the moment when Iraq’s future guerrilla army fused with the future suicide bombers, the message that would create the detonation that would engulf the West in Iraq. And we didn’t even notice. The US "experts" waffled about whether Bin Laden was alive - not what he said. For once, Bush got it right - but he was too late. Always, as they say, read the text.

© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Bush administration to keep control of internet`s central computers
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/news/0,12597,1519551,00.htm…

Gary Younge in New York and agencies
Saturday July 2, 2005

Guardian
The Bush administration has decided to retain control over the principal computers which control internet traffic in a move likely to prompt global opposition, it was claimed yesterday.

The US had pledged to turn control of the 13 computers known as root servers - which inform web browsers and email programs how to direct internet traffic - over to a private, international body.

But on Thursday the US reversed its position, announcing that it will maintain control of the computers because of growing security threats and the increased reliance on the internet for global communications. A Japanese government official yesterday criticised the move, claiming it will lend momentum to the debate about who controls the information flow online.

"When the internet is being increasingly utilised for private use, by business and so forth, there is a societal debate about whether it`s befitting to have one country maintaining checks on that ... It`s likely to fuel that debate," said Masahiko Fujimoto, of the ministry of internal affairs and communications` data communications division.

The computers serve as master directories that contain government-approved lists of the roughly 260 suffices used, such as .com or .co.uk. Anyone who uses the web interacts with them every day. But a policy decision by the US could, at a stroke, make all sites ending in a certain suffix unreachable.

Despite many doomsday scenarios, the most recent US decision will have little if any immediate effect on internet users, and given the internet`s anarchic nature it may simply represent a desire to assert state control even when it is not possible to do so.

Claudia Bernett, 32, a digital design analyst in New York, said: "Scary as it seems, because of the nature of the internet, I think they`ll be hardpressed to create a coherent system that is capable of the kind of monitoring they hope for ... Eventually, the people participating in the system will find the technological means to evade the watchful eye."

Experts say that in the worst-case scenario, countries that refused to accept US control of the main computers could establish their own separate domain name system, with addresses in some places that others would not be able to reach, making the world wide web give way to discrete, regional web domains.

Mr Fujimoto said that is also unlikely because of its complexity, but the US decision will raise serious concerns that will not be assuaged easily. The announcement comes just weeks before a UN panel is set to release a report on internet governance. Some nations want international oversight of the issue but historically the US has maintained the role because it was such a key player in the early years of the internet`s development.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Saturday, July 02, 2005
War News for Saturday, July 2, 2005

http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Twenty Iraqis killed by suicide bomber at Baghdad police station.

Bring `em on: Six US Marines wounded by vehicle mine in western Iraq.

Bring `em on: Two Iraqi policemen wounded by roadside bomb near Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Sunni cleric kidnapped by gunmen at Baghdad mosque.

Bring `em on: Sistani aide assassinated in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Iraqi TV producer abducted and killed in Mosul.

Bring `em on: Iraqi police colonel assassinated in Mosul.

Bring `em on: Two Iraqis killed in bomb ambush of US convoy in Ramadi.

Bring `em on: One Iraqi killed by roadside bomb targeting US convoy in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Iraqi police colonel assassinated in Al Musaib.

British soldier dies from accidental discharge.

Baghdad drought. "A mortar attack sparked a fire Friday that forced authorities to shut down a water plant, leaving millions of weary Baghdad residents with dry taps in 100-degree heat, Iraqi officials said. Just a day earlier, the mayor of the capital threatened to quit because of mounting infrastructure problems – including a lack of clean drinking water. The blaze at a power station north of Baghdad cut off electricity to a water plant serving northern and western parts of the capital, officials said. The fire halted all distribution from the waterworks, and project director Jassim Mohammed said repairs could take three days."

Today`s Baghdad weather report.

Nice going, Rummy.

Chiara Dezzi-Bardeschi, the head of Unesco’s International Committee for the Safeguard of Iraq’s Cultural Heritage, said that nobody knew the extent of the thefts. Among the most damaged areas was Umm al-Aqarib, a Sumerian site near Umma.

Lawlessness and poor communications also hinder a full assessment of the damage. Dr Abdul Aziz Hameed, the chairman of Iraq’s State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, said: “In Iraq we have between 10,000 and 15,000 archaeological sites that people have been interfering with without our knowledge.”

He said that of 15,000 artefacts looted from the National Museum after the US invasion 3,627 pieces had been recovered inside the country, including the Warka Vase, a three-foot alabaster container from 3000BC. It was broken, but had been restored.

A further 3,156 items from the museum and other looted sites were being kept safe in Jordan, America, Italy, Syria, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Dr Hameed said. “We hope the Iranians will give more assistance to us to stop smuggling Iraqi antiquities through the Iranian border.”

Some Iraqi officials believe that cash from stolen artefacts is being used to fund insurgent groups. Donny George, director of the Baghdad Museum, said: “Rich people are buying stolen material. Money is going to Iraq, and they’re buying weapons and ammunition.” (Emphasis added.)




Why does FOXNews hate the troops?

FOXNews.com has spoken to several contractors and their families who, while completely supportive of the mission at hand and the military men and women carrying it out, say they have had run-ins with a handful of military personnel in Iraq that took them by surprise.

Darla Russell`s husband, a former military man and current security contractor in Iraq, encountered one such incident with a Marine officer about a month ago. The officer allegedly kicked her husband and his colleagues out of their living and working area, saying, `We don`t like contractors.`

“[Contractors are] all over there for one thing, and if the contractors weren`t over there, a lot of the stuff they`re [the military] doing wouldn`t get done. In my view, they all need to stand together,” Russell said.

Many military officials and contractors say their working relationship is productive and great 99 percent of the time, but they acknowledge that tensions arise in the midst of war.


Note: This is the third part of the three part FOXNews series blaming the troops for mistreating contractors. You can read part one here, and part two here. If those poor, suffering break your heart, break out the Kleenex swallow a band-aid.

Paging John Bolton. "Iraq`s ambassador to the UN has demanded an inquiry into what he said was the `cold-blooded murder` of his young unarmed relative by US marines. Samir Sumaidaie said his 21-year-old cousin was shot as he helped marines who were carrying out searches at his village in the restive Anbar province. Mr Sumaidaie said the ramifications of such a `serious crime` were enormous for both the US and Iraq."

This is how to support the troops. "Love him or hate him, Garry Trudeau, the man responsible for the “Doonesbury” comic strip, is doing his part to help wounded troops and their families. Trudeau is donating all his proceeds from the sale of his newly released book `The Long Road Home: One Step at a Time` to the Fisher House Foundation. Also, Andrews McMeel Publishing, the book’s publisher, is contributing 10 percent of its take from the book to Fisher House. Considering that the $9.95 book has been out less than a month and already has sold thousands of copies, the financial benefit for the Fisher House could be substantial. Fisher House offers family members of wounded troops temporary housing at little or no cost during their loved one’s hospitalization. With locations at 32 veterans and military hospitals throughout the United States and in Landstuhl, Germany, Fisher House is largely funded through private donations."

Death gratuity increased. "The U.S. military will immediately begin paying a major increase in death benefits to survivors of troops killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and boost life insurance coverage for those serving in combat zones, the Pentagon said on Friday. The move, approved by Congress in May, will hike tax-free cash payments to $100,000 from a previous $12,420 for survivors of troops who die as a result of hostile action in a designated combat operation or zone, or while training for combat or performing hazardous duty. The payments, which will be made retroactive to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, follow complaints from Congress and from military families that survivor payouts were far too low to compensate for loss of income, and pain and suffering."

Commentary

Opinion:

Having served as a doctor in the Army Medical Corps early in my career and as presidential physician to George H.W. Bush for four years, I might be expected to bring a skeptical and partisan perspective to allegations of torture and abuse by U.S. forces. I might even be expected to join those who, on the one hand, deny that U.S. personnel have engaged in systematic use of torture while, on the other, claiming that such abuse is justified. But I cannot do so.

It`s precisely because of my devotion to country, respect for our military and commitment to the ethics of the medical profession that I speak out against systematic, government-sanctioned torture and excessive abuse of prisoners during our war on terrorism. I am also deeply disturbed by the reported complicity in these abuses of military medical personnel. This extraordinary shift in policy and values is alien to my concept of modern-day America and of my government and profession.

The military prides itself, as do physicians, on being professional in every sense of the word. It fosters leadership and discipline. When I served as White House physician, my entire professional staff was drawn from the military, and they were among the best and most competent people I have met, without qualification.
The military ethics that I know absolutely prohibit anything resembling torture. There are several good reasons for this. Prisoners should be treated as we would expect our prisoners to be treated. Discipline and order in the military ranks depend to a large extent on compliance with the prohibition of torture -- indeed, weak or damaged psyches inclined toward torture or abuse have generally been weeded out of the military, or at the very least given less responsibility. In addition, military leaders have long been aware that torture inflicts lasting damage on both the victim and the torturer. The systematic infliction of torture engenders deep hatred and hostility that transcends generations. And it perverts the role of medical personnel from healers to instruments of abuse.


Opinion:

In convincing networks to carry the president`s address, the White House trumpeted a new speech containing bold, new directions in Iraq. Networks should sue for false advertising. There was nothing new in the whole speech. Not one single line. It was pure recycled campaign garbage. Bush repeated the same arguments he made while running against John Kerry: The war in Iraq began on Sept. 11. The war in Iraq is but the latest battleground in the war on terror. We`re fighting the terrorists over there so we don`t have to fight them over here.

Nonsense! It wasn`t true then and it`s not true today. Bush must think either we`re stupid or have short memories. Or, if he repeats a lie often enough, Americans will believe it. No, we won`t be fooled.

Let the truth be told one more time: Bush`s war in Iraq had nothing to do with Sept. 11. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden were not allies and did not work together. Nor was Iraq involved in the planning, funding or execution of the Sept. 11 attacks. That`s now a matter of official record. After spending a year investigating all the allegations of a Hussein-bin Laden connection, the 9-11 Commission concluded there is "no credible evidence that Iraq and al-Qaida cooperated on attacks against the United States."

Let the truth be told one more time: The war on terror began in Afghanistan, in the rightful pursuit of those who attacked us on Sept. 11. Unfortunately, it also ended there. Suddenly, we abandoned efforts to hunt down Osama bin Laden, who`s still on the loose. We left huge parts of Afghanistan in the hands of hostile warlords. And instead of moving on to countries where the al-Qaida were active, we headed to Iraq, where they were not.


What is surprising about this piece is the source.

Casualty Reports

Local story: New York Guardsman killed in Iraq.

Local story: Georgia Guardsman dies in Iraq.

Local story: Minnesota Guardsman wounded in Iraq.

# posted by yankeedoodle : 7:35 AM
Comments (3) | Trackback (0)

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

July 3, 2005
The Two Wars of the Worlds
By FRANK RICH
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/opinion/03rich.html?hp

ON the morning after George W. Bush spoke to the nation from Fort Bragg, Americans started marching off to Steven Spielberg`s "War of the Worlds." Both halves of this double feature invoked 9/11, perfectly timed for this particular holiday. Ever since "Jaws," a movie set on the July Fourth weekend, broke box office records 30 summers ago, Independence Day has come to stand for terror as much as for freedom.

Decide for yourself if "War of the Worlds" is more terrifying than "Jaws." Either way, it`s scarier than the president`s speech. Yet the discrepancy between Mr. Spielberg`s ability to whip up fear and Mr. Bush`s inability isn`t merely a matter of aesthetics. On Independence Day 2005, this terror gap is an ideal barometer for gauging the waning political power of a lame-duck president waging what increasingly looks like a lame-duck war.

As we saw on Tuesday night, doomsday isn`t the surefire hit it used to be for Mr. Bush. Now that the rhetorical arsenal of W.M.D.`s and mushroom clouds is bare, he had little choice but to bring back that oldie but goodie, 9/11, as the specter of the doom that awaits us if we don`t stay the course - his course - in Iraq. By the fifth time he did so, it was hard not to think of that legendary National Lampoon cover: "If you don`t buy this magazine, we`ll kill this dog."

Planned or not, the sepulchral silence of Mr. Bush`s military audience was the perfect dazed response to what was literally a summer rerun. The president gave almost the identical televised address, albeit with four fewer 9/11 references, at the Army War College in Pennsylvania in May 2004. It`s so tired that this time around even the normally sympathetic Drudge site gave higher billing to reviews of "War of the Worlds." Fewer TV viewers tuned in than for any prime-time speech in Mr. Bush`s presidency. A good thing too, since so much of what he said was, as usual, at odds with reality. The president pledged to "prevent Al Qaeda and other foreign terrorists from turning Iraq into what Afghanistan was under the Taliban" a full week after Newsweek and The New York Times reported on a new C.I.A. assessment that the war may be turning Iraq into an even more effective magnet and training ground for Islamic militants than Afghanistan was for Al Qaeda in the 1980`s and 90`s.

"War of the Worlds" makes as many references to 9/11 as Mr. Bush did. The alien attack on America is the work of sleeper cells; the garments of the dead rain down on those fleeing urban apocalypse; poignant fliers are posted for The Missing. There is also a sterling American military that rides to the rescue. Deep in the credits for "War of the Worlds" is a thank-you to the Department of Defense and some half-dozen actual units that participated in the movie, from the Virginia Army National Guard to a Marine battalion from Camp Pendleton, Calif. Indeed, Mr. Spielberg seems to have had markedly more success in recruiting extras for his film than the Pentagon has had of late in drumming up troops for Iraq.

That`s not the only way that "War of the Worlds" shows up Mr. Bush. In not terribly coded dialogue, the film makes clear that its Americans know very well how to distinguish a war of choice like that in Iraq from a war of necessity, like that prompted by Al Qaeda`s attack on America. Tim Robbins - who else? - pops up to declare that when aliens occupy a country, the "occupations always fail." Even Tom Cruise`s doltish teenage screen son is writing a school report on "the French occupation of Algeria."

Mr. Spielberg`s movie illuminates, too, how Mr. Bush has flubbed the basic storytelling essential to sustain public support for his Iraq adventure. The president has made a tic of hammering in melodramatic movie tropes: good vs. evil, you`re with us or you`re with the terrorists, "wanted dead or alive," "bring `em on," "mission accomplished." When you relay a narrative in that style, the audience expects you to stick to the conventions of the genre; the story can end only with the cavalry charging in to win the big final battle. That`s how Mr. Spielberg deploys his platoons, "Saving Private Ryan"-style, in "War of the Worlds." By contrast, Mr. Bush never marshaled the number of troops needed to guarantee Iraq`s security and protect its borders; he has now defined "mission accomplished" down from concrete victory to the inchoate spreading of democracy. To start off sounding like Patton and end up parroting Woodrow Wilson is tantamount to ambushing an audience at a John Wayne movie with a final reel by Frank Capra.

Both Mr. Bush`s critics and loyalists at times misunderstand where his failure leaves America now. The left frets too much that the public just doesn`t get it - that it is bamboozled by the administration and won`t see the light until it digests the Downing Street memo. But even if they couldn`t bring themselves to vote for John Kerry, most Americans do get it. A majority of the country view the Iraq war as "not worth it" and going badly. They intuitively sense that as USA Today calculated on Friday, there have been more U.S. military deaths (roughly a third more) in the year since Iraq got its sovereignty than in the year before. Last week an ABC News/Washington Post survey also found that a majority now believe that the administration "intentionally misled" us into a war - or, in the words of the Downing Street memo, that the Bush administration "fixed" the intelligence to gin up the mission.

Meanwhile, the war`s die-hard supporters, now in the minority, keep clinging to the hope that some speech or Rovian stunt or happy political development in the furtherance of democratic Iraqi self-government can turn public opinion around. Dream on. The most illuminating of all the recent poll numbers was released by the Pew Research Center on June 13: the number of Americans who say that "people they know are becoming less involved emotionally" with news of the war has risen from 26 percent in May 2004 to 44 percent now. Like the war or not, Americans who do not have a relative or neighbor in the fight are simply tuning Iraq out.

The president has no one to blame but himself. The color-coded terror alerts, the repeated John Ashcroft press conferences announcing imminent Armageddon during election season, the endless exploitation of 9/11 have all taken their numbing toll. Fear itself is the emotional card Mr. Bush chose to overplay, and when he plays it now, he is the boy who cried wolf. That`s why a film director engaging in utter fantasy can arouse more anxiety about a possible attack on America than our actual commander in chief hitting us with the supposed truth.

If anything, we`re back where we were in the lazy summer of 2001, when the president was busy in Crawford ignoring an intelligence report titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" and the news media were more preoccupied with a rash of "Jaws"-like shark attacks than with Al Qaeda. The sharks are back, and the "missing girl" drama of Natalee Holloway has echoed the Chandra Levy ur-text. Even the World Trade Center is making a comeback, if we are to believe that the new Freedom Bunker unveiled for ground zero might ever be built.

AS those on all sides of the Iraq argument have said, the only way for Mr. Bush to break through this torpor is to tell Americans the truth. Donald Rumsfeld did exactly that when he said a week ago that the insurgency in Iraq might last as long as 12 years. If that`s so, then what? Go ahead and argue that pulling out precipitously or setting a precise exit timetable is each a bad option, guaranteeing that Iraq will become even more of a jihad central than this ill-conceived war has already made it. But what is Plan C?

Mr. Bush could have addressed that question honestly on Tuesday night. Instead of once more cooking the books - exaggerating the number of coalition partners, the number of battle-ready Iraqi troops, the amount of non-American dollars in the Iraq kitty - he could have laid out the long haul in hard facts, explaining the future costs in manpower, money and time, and what sacrifices he proposes for meeting them. He could have been, as he is fond of calling himself, a leader.

It was a blown opportunity, and it`s hard to see that there will be another chance. Iraq may not be Vietnam, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the current war`s unpopularity now matches the Gallup findings during the Vietnam tipping point, the summer of 1968. As the prospect of midterm elections pumps more and more genuine fear into the hearts of Republicans up for re-election, it`s the Bush presidency, not the insurgency, that will be in its last throes. Is the commander in chief so isolated in his bubble that he does not realize this? G.W.B., phone home.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

Zu dem vorhergehenden Posting ein Link aus der Times.
FRANK RICH der jeden Sonntag in seiner Kolumne ein kulturelles Ereignis mir der aktuellen Politik in Verbindung bringt, hat diesmal den neuen Spielberg Film "War of the Worlds." als Vergleich zu der Rede Bush`s in dieser Woche und zu dessen Handeln im Irak benutzt.
Es wird auch in anderen Kritiken, die ich über den Film gelesen habe z.B Spiegel der Vergleich zwischen dem Irak-Krieg und dem Krieg der Welten hergestellt.

 Fear itself is the emotional card Mr. Bush chose to overplay, and when he plays it now, he is the boy who cried wolf...Iraq may not be Vietnam, but The Wall Street Journal reports that the current war`s unpopularity now matches the Gallup findings during the Vietnam tipping point, the summer of 1968. As the prospect of midterm elections pumps more and more genuine fear into the hearts of Republicans up for re-election, it`s the Bush presidency, not the insurgency, that will be in its last throes. Is the commander in chief so isolated in his bubble that he does not realize this? G.W.B., phone home.

June 22, 2005
Iraq May Be Prime Place for Training of Militants, C.I.A. Report Concludes
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/22/international/middleeast/2…
Correction Appended

WASHINGTON, June 21 - A new classified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency says Iraq may prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan was in Al Qaeda`s early days, because it is serving as a real-world laboratory for urban combat.
[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
The assessment, completed last month and circulated among government agencies, was described in recent days by several Congressional and intelligence officials. The officials said it made clear that the war was likely to produce a dangerous legacy by dispersing to other countries Iraqi and foreign combatants more adept and better organized than they were before the conflict.

Congressional and intelligence officials who described the assessment called it a thorough examination that included extensive discussion of the areas that might be particularly prone to infiltration by combatants from Iraq, either Iraqis or foreigners.

They said the assessment had argued that Iraq, since the American invasion of 2003, had in many ways assumed the role played by Afghanistan during the rise of Al Qaeda during the 1980`s and 1990`s, as a magnet and a proving ground for Islamic extremists from Saudi Arabia and other Islamic countries.

The officials said the report spelled out how the urban nature of the war in Iraq was helping combatants learn how to carry out assassinations, kidnappings, car bombings and other kinds of attacks that were never a staple of the fighting in Afghanistan during the anti-Soviet campaigns of the 1980`s. It was during that conflict, primarily rural and conventional, that the United States provided arms to Osama bin Laden and other militants, who later formed Al Qaeda.

The assessment said the central role played by Iraq meant that, for now, most potential terrorists were likely to focus their energies on attacking American forces there, rather than carrying out attacks elsewhere, the officials said. But the officials said Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries would soon have to contend with militants who leave Iraq equipped with considerable experience and training.

Previous warnings of this kind have been less detailed, as when Porter J. Goss, the director of central intelligence, told Congress earlier in the year that jihadists who survive the continued fighting in Iraq would leave there "experienced in and focused on acts of urban terrorism," and form "a potential pool of contacts to build transnational terrorist cells, groups and networks in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries."

The officials who described the new assessment said they could not be identified by name because of the classified nature of the document. The officials came from three different government organizations, and all said they had read the document.

The officials said the document did not address whether the anti-American insurgency in Iraq was indeed in the "last throes," as Vice President Dick Cheney said recently.

In an interview in the current issue of Time magazine, Mr. Goss is quoted as saying that he believed that the insurgents were "not quite in the last throes, but I think they are very close to it," though he did not say such a view was based on a formal intelligence assessment.

"I think that every day that goes by in Iraq where they have their own government, and it`s moving forward, reinforces just how radical these people are and how unwanted they are," Mr. Goss was quoted as saying of the insurgents. The interview was the first granted by Mr. Goss since he took over as C.I.A. chief last September.

The officials who described the new intelligence report would not say specifically which regions of the world were described as particularly vulnerable to a spillover from Iraq. But they noted that the combatants in Iraq, whether Iraqis or foreign fighters, have primarily been Arabs who would fit in most easily in other Arab societies. Many of the combatants from Afghanistan came from South Asia and Central Asia, and many went on to campaigns in the 1990`s in Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and other locations.

In an interview last week, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., Democrat of Delaware, said he had been told by American officials during a recent trip to Iraq that a "disproportionate number" of the foreign fighters now active there came from Saudi Arabia. A former American intelligence official who visited Saudi Arabia recently said officials there had grown increasingly worried that young Saudis who were leaving to fight Americans in Iraq, traveling by way of Damascus, the Syrian capital, would pose an increased threat to Saudi stability if and when they returned home.

Correction: Tuesday, June 28:

An article on June 22 about a classified assessment by the Central Intelligence Agency saying said that Iraq might prove to be an even more effective training ground for Islamic extremists than Afghanistan omitted a reference to an earlier account of the document. An editor at Newsweek has pointed out that the magazine wrote about the document on its Web site on June 19.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

http://news.google.com/news?ned=us&ncl=http://www.washington…
Google News hat bis jetzt 816 Artikel über die Enttarnung eines CIA-Agenten im Zusammenhang mit der Aufdeckung der Uran-Nigeria Connection als Märchen.

Der ehemalige Botschafter Wilson hatte diese Geschicht über Yellow Cake überprüft und festgestellt, dass an der Geschichte, dass Saddam aus Nigeria Uran hatte kaufen wollen, nichts dran war.

Das entsprach nicht den Wünschen der Bush-Regierung, die diese, von Anfang an, zweifelhafte Quelle als Beweis angeführt hatte für die Behauptung Saddam war kurz vor der Fertigstellung einer Atombombe.(kommt bekannt vor)

Als Rache hatte man Wilsons Frau Valerie Plame als CIA-Agentin enttarnt.

Dieses Enttarnen eines CIA-Agenten ist ein Verbrechen nach dem Bundesgesetz.

Seit Jahren versuchen FBI-Agenten die Quelle des Lecks zu entdecken, aber die beiden Reporter einmal Judith Miller von der NYTimes und Matthew Cooper von Time haben bis jetzt die Aussage verweigert, nachdem auch der Autor des ersten Berichts über diese Geschichte Robert Novak sich geweigert hatte auch bei Strafe die Quelle im White House preiszugeben.

Sie konnten das auch, da sie durch ein Urteil des höchsten US-Gerichtes geschützt waren.

Nun hat aber ein Richter entschieden und will die beiden Reporter für 120 Tage ins Gefängnis stecken, wenn sie nicht ihre Quellen preisgeben.

Daraufhin hat Time seine Dokumente an den Staatsanwalt übergeben.

Die beiden Reporter weigern sich weiterhin und stehen unter Hausarrest.

Als Quelle wird Karl Rove der Präsidentenberater vermutet, aber das sind nur Gerüchte.

Entscheidender ist aber, ob der Quellenschutz wegfällt, denn alle großen Enthüllungen in de USA in den letzten Jahrzehnten sind durch Leakers and whistle-blowers aufgedeckt worden.


Pass shield law for press
Don`t punish journalists for keeping sources` names confidential
July 2, 2005
http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpsco024327857jul02,0…[/B]

The legal battle to keep the identities of confidential news sources confidential suffered a body blow this week. The Supreme Court declined to take up the case of two reporters facing jail for refusing to reveal the names of sources they`d agreed to keep secret to a grand jury investigating who outed covert CIA agent Valerie Plame.

It`s now left to Congress to ensure that journalists will be able to protect skittish sources who tell tales powerful people would rather the public not hear. Most states have "shield laws" allowing journalists to protect confidential sources, but there`s no comparable federal statute. To remedy that, Congress should pass the Free Flow of Information Act now pending in both the House and the Senate.

What`s at stake is not just a special privilege for news reporters. Leakers, like whistle-blowers, need protection. It`s the public`s right and need to know what its government is up to that will be endangered if sources with sensitive information stop talking. And they will stop talking if reporters can`t reliably deliver anonymity.

The Supreme Court`s refusal to hear the case of reporters Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matthew Cooper of Time, left as its final word on the subject a 1972 decision that the Constitution provides no shield for reporters. Time magazine has unfortunately decided to acquiesce and give Cooper`s notes identifying his confidential source to the grand jury. As a news organization, Newsday is not strictly objective here. But the preferred course for Time would have been to hold out in the time-honored tradition of civil disobedience.

Pending legislation, if enacted, would spare news organizations such agonizing choices. It would require that law enforcement officials exhaust all other reasonable means of getting the information they need before forcing journalists to testify. And it would unambiguously prohibit forcing journalists to reveal the identity of a confidential source.

The courts might decide to carve out exceptions to that absolute shield. But the strong presumption should always favor confidentiality. This is no small problem.

Courts are currently pressing more than two dozen journalists to reveal confidential sources.

A federal shield law would not just protect reporters and their sources. It would protect democracy.

Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.

San Francisco Chronicle:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/…
"The same Constitution that protects the freedom of the press requires obedience to final decisions of the courts and respect for their rulings and judgments,`` he said. "That Time Inc. strongly disagrees with the courts provides no immunity.``

Time`s decision to break ranks with the New York Times and cooperate with the courts will put more pressure on other media companies dealing with the growing refusal of courts and prosecutors to recognize any right to keep a reporter`s sources secret, industry analysts said.

The decision came a day after District Court Judge Thomas Hogan threatened to send Time reporter Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller of the New York Times to jail for 120 days if they didn`t say who had leaked them the information that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent. Revealing the identity of an undercover agent is a federal crime.

Reporters in Leak Case Argue for Home Detention
From Associated Press
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-reporte…
July 2, 2005

WASHINGTON — Time magazine and New York Times reporters, held in contempt for refusing to name sources, tried to stay out of jail by arguing for home detention after Time Inc. surrendered its reporter`s notes to a prosecutor Friday.

Producing the documents makes it unnecessary for Time reporter Matthew Cooper to testify to the federal grand jury investigating the leak of a CIA officer`s identity, Cooper`s attorneys argued in papers filed with a federal judge.

"The decision of Time Inc. to comply with the special counsel`s demand should obviate the need to enforce the subpoena served on Mr. Cooper and the contempt citation against him," the court papers state. "Mr. Cooper submits that his testimony would be duplicative and unnecessary."

Attorneys for New York Times reporter Judith Miller wrote that she would never reveal her sources and depriving her of her freedom offered "absolutely no realistic likelihood" that she would tell the prosecutor what she knew.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan found the two reporters and Time Inc. in contempt for refusing to cooperate in the investigation of who in the Bush administration disclosed the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Plame`s name was first published in a 2003 syndicated column by Robert Novak, who cited two unidentified senior Bush administration officials as his sources. Novak has refused to say whether he has testified or been subpoenaed.

Cooper, who wrote a subsequent story naming Plame, and Miller, who gathered material but never wrote an article, could be ordered to jail at the conclusion of a hearing before Hogan on Wednesday.

Time turned over the documents four days after the Supreme Court refused to consider the case. Cooper has indicated that he personally will not identify his sources.

If Hogan refuses to lift his civil contempt order, home detention is appropriate for Cooper and Miller, their lawyers argue in the court papers. In the alternative, Cooper should be sent to the federal prison camp in Cumberland, Md., and Miller to the federal prison camp for women at Danbury, Conn., their lawyers said. Home detention would restrict Cooper`s activities "without unduly punishing" his wife and young son, his lawyers said.

Nine members of the Army with whom Miller spent time when she was covering the war in Iraq submitted letters on her behalf, saying that she keeps her word and would never reveal confidential sources. One letter was from Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, who is in command of training Iraqi security forces.


Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[SittinBuII]

Als Quelle wird Karl Rove der Präsidentenberater vermutet, aber das sind nur Gerüchte.



Falsch. Es gibt mittlerweile 2 Quellen, die genau das aussagen. Und von Roves Anwalt wird ein Interview mit der Time in der fraglichen Zeit zugestanden.

Lies auch mal andere Threads...

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Sit das ist alles was an Fakten da ist. Das sind Gerüchte und Vermutungen.
Du läßt dich mal wieder von deinen Wunschträumen leiten.

Und für mich ist es immer noch wichtiger, dass der Quellenschutz für Journalisten erhalten bleibt, als dass Rove enttarnt wird und die Presse ihre Zuträger offen legen muß.

The Rove Factor?
Time magazine talked to Bush`s guru for Plame story.
By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek/
July 11 issue - Its legal appeals exhausted, Time magazine agreed last week to turn over reporter Matthew Cooper`s e-mails and computer notes to a special prosecutor investigating the leak of an undercover CIA agent`s identity. The case has been the subject of press controversy for two years. Saying "we are not above the law," Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine decided to comply with a grand-jury subpoena to turn over documents related to the leak. But Cooper (and a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller) is still refusing to testify and faces jail this week.

At issue is the story of a CIA-sponsored trip taken by former ambassador (and White House critic) Joseph Wilson to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. "Some government officials have noted to Time in interviews... that Wilson`s wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," said Cooper`s July 2003 Time online article.

Now the story may be about to take another turn. The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper`s sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Rove`s lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article. It is unclear, however, what passed between Cooper and Rove.

The controversy began three days before the Time piece appeared, when columnist Robert Novak, writing about Wilson`s trip, reported that Wilson had been sent at the suggestion of his wife, who was identified by name as a CIA operative. The leak to Novak, apparently intended to discredit Wilson`s mission, caused a furor when it turned out that Plame was an undercover agent. It is a crime to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA official. A special prosecutor was appointed and began subpoenaing reporters to find the source of the leak.

Novak appears to have made some kind of arrangement with the special prosecutor, and other journalists who reported on the Plame story have talked to prosecutors with the permission of their sources. Cooper agreed to discuss his contact with Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney`s top aide, after Libby gave him permission to do so. But Cooper drew the line when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked about other sources.

Initially, Fitzgerald`s focus was on Novak`s sourcing, since Novak was the first to out Plame. But according to Luskin, Rove`s lawyer, Rove spoke to Cooper three or four days before Novak`s column appeared. Luskin told NEWSWEEK that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." Luskin declined, however, to discuss any other details. He did say that Rove himself had testified before the grand jury "two or three times" and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him. "He has answered every question that has been put to him about his conversations with Cooper and anybody else," Luskin said. But one of the two lawyers representing a witness sympathetic to the White House told NEWSWEEK that there was growing "concern" in the White House that the prosecutor is interested in Rove. Fitzgerald declined to comment.

In early October 2003, NEWSWEEK reported that immediately after Novak`s column appeared in July, Rove called MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews and told him that Wilson`s wife was "fair game." But White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters at the time that any suggestion that Rove had played a role in outing Plame was "totally ridiculous." On Oct. 10, McClellan was asked directly if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with any reporters. McClellan said he had spoken with all three, and "those individuals assured me they were not involved in this."
© 2005 Newsweek, Inc.

© 2005 MSNBC.com

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek/

HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: National


July 3, 2005, 12:51AM

Rove denies outing CIA agent
Time reporter spoke with adviser a few days before the operative`s identity surfaced
Los Angeles Times
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3250943

WASHINGTON - Karl Rove, one of President Bush`s closest advisers, spoke with a Time magazine reporter days before the name of a CIA operative surfaced in the media but did not leak the information, a lawyer for Rove said Saturday in a new admission in the case.


Rove spoke to Time reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003, during the week before published reports revealed the identity of operative Valerie Plame, the wife of Bush administration critic and former U.S. envoy Joseph Wilson.

Cooper is one of two reporters who has been held in contempt of court for not cooperating with an investigation into who revealed Plame`s identity.

Although Wilson once said he suspected Rove played a role in destroying his wife`s CIA cover, the White House has dismissed questions about Rove`s actions.

In confirming the conversation between Rove and Cooper, Rove attorney Robert Luskin emphasized that the presidential adviser did not reveal any secrets. But the disclosure raised new questions about Rove and the precise role of the White House in the apparent national security breach as Cooper and another reporter, Judith Miller of the New York Times, face imminent jail terms.

Time Inc., under pressure from a federal judge and over Cooper`s objections, turned over e-mail records and other internal documents to a special prosecutor Friday, identifying sources Cooper used to report and write on the politically charged case.

A Time spokeswoman declined to say Saturday whether Rove was among the sources that were revealed.

Cooper and Miller could be jailed as soon as Wednesday for refusing to cooperate in the investigation. Time, which was separately held in contempt in the case, has said that it hopes its cooperation will mean Cooper will not be incarcerated.

Rove has testified before a grand jury investigating the Plame case on three occasions.

His latest appearance was in October 2004, which is about the same time the prosecutor investigating the case has said his investigation was complete with the exception of the testimony of Cooper and Miller.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating the alleged outing of Plame by syndicated columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003.

Some suspect that the White House leaked her name in retaliation for a July 6, 2003, article in the New York Times written by Wilson, her husband, accusing the administration of using bogus intelligence to justify the war in Iraq.

Fitzgerald has interviewed many other White House officials and journalists, including Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney.

Novak was the first to publish Plame`s name, but Fitzgerald has indicated that whoever leaked the information to Novak also might have leaked the information to other journalists, which could constitute separate violations of a federal law protecting covert agents.

Prosecutions under that law are rare because they require a showing that the leak was intentionally disclosed and that the person leaking the information knew the government was trying to conceal it.

Fitzgerald had asked Cooper and Time for documents and testimony relating to conversations Cooper had with "official sources" about Wilson or Plame or her ties to the CIA, before the Novak column was published.

HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: National
This article is: http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/nation/3250943

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
[url]http://www.nytimes.com/pages/magazine/index.html[/url]
[/TABLE]
THE NEW YORK TIMES MAGAZINE jeden Sonntag, mindestens einen großen Artikel.

A Church-State Solution

Heute:
[urlA Church-State Solution]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/magazine/03CHURCH.html?pagewanted=print[/url] Siehe #29624, wurde schon am Do veröffentlicht

QUESTIONS FOR CHUCK HAGEL
Fighting Words

[urlThe Mall That Would Save America]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/magazine/03PHENOM.html
A real-estate developer`s vision of an environmentally correct shopping-and-tourist megalith.[/url]

[urlThe Congo Case]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/magazine/03CONGO.html
As world leaders meet this week and discuss increasing aid to Africa[/url]

[urlNo Rest for the Weary]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/03/magazine/03WWLN.htmlJust what`s so wrong with the 35-hour week?[/url]






June 12, 2005
Interrogating Ourselves
By JOSEPH LELYVELD
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/12/magazine/12TORTURE.html?ex…

I. The Silence After Abu Ghraib

In order to get to the nub of the question of what we as citizens really expect and require of American interrogators facing supposed terrorists -- how far we`re prepared to allow those asking the questions to venture into the dark realm of brutalization and coercion -- let`s for argument`s sake put aside the most horrific, shameful cases, those of detainees who died under interrogation: that of Manadel al-Jamadi, for instance, whose body was wrapped in plastic and packed in ice when it was carried out of an Abu Ghraib prison shower room a year and a half ago, where he`d been handcuffed to a wall; or Abed Hamed Mowhoush, who, elsewhere in Iraq, appears to have been thrust headfirst into a sleeping bag, manhandled there and then, finally, suffocated. By anyone`s definition of torture -- even that of the Bush administration, which originally propounded (and later withdrew) a strikingly narrow definition holding that torture occurs only when the pain is ``of an intensity akin to that which accompanies serious physical injury such as death or organ failure`` -- these cases answer the question of whether torture has been committed by our side in what`s called the global war on terror. No one steps forward to condone what`s plainly illegal under United States and international law. And although we`ve seen no indication that blame will attach to any official or command officer at any level for these killings, there are small signs that conclusions have been drawn somewhere between the Pentagon and White House, signs of an overdue housecleaning, or maybe just a tidying up. By the coldest cost-benefit calculation, a dead detainee is a disaster: he cannot be a source of ``actionable intelligence,`` only fury. So there`s now a new policy, ``Procedures for Investigations Into the Death of Detainees in the Custody of the Armed Forces of the U.S.,`` that was duly conveyed last month to the Committee Against Torture, a United Nations body, in a subsection of a longer report. The subsection`s heading even carried a whiff of contrition. It was ``Lessons Learned and Policy Reforms.`` Also, the Pentagon has let it be known that it`s preparing a new manual for interrogators that prohibits physical and psychological humiliation of detainees. What interrogation techniques it does allow are listed in a classified annex as, presumably, are any hints of what can happen when those techniques fail to produce the desired results. Can the detainee then be handed over to another agency, like the Central Intelligence Agency, that may not be constrained by the new directives? Or to units of a foreign government like the counterterrorism units now being financed and coordinated in Iraq by the United States?
[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
In other words, if there has been a housecleaning, to how much of the shadowy counterterrorism edifice constructed since Sept. 11 does it now apply? The cases we know about, after all, are mostly old cases, even if we recently learned about them. We`ve been told little about what`s now going on in interrogation rooms at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib -- what the limits are now supposed to be. While Defense Department investigators are still kept busy looking into detainees` complaints of abuse in Iraq, it has to be acknowledged that we`ve yet to hear of any fatalities under interrogation in 2004 or 2005.

It has been more than a year now since we (and, of course, the region in which we presume to be crusading for freedom) were shown a selection of snapshots from Abu Ghraib with their depraved staging of hooded figures, snarling dogs and stacked naked bodies. For all the genuine outrage in predictable places over what was soon being called a ``torture scandal`` -- in legal forums, editorial pages, letters columns -- the usual democratic cleansing cycle never really got going. However strong the outcry, it wasn`t enough to yield political results in the form of a determined Congressional investigation, let alone an independent commission of inquiry; the Pentagon`s own inquiries, which exonerated its civilian and political leadership, told us a good deal more than most Americans, so it would appear, felt they needed to know. Members of Congress say they receive a negligible number of letters and calls about the revelations that keep coming. ``You asked whether they want it clear or want it blurry,`` Senator Susan Collins, a Maine Republican, said to me about the reaction of her constituents to the torture allegations that alarm her. ``I think they want it blurry.``

One result is that we`ve insulated ourselves from the really pertinent, really difficult question: How do we feel about coercive techniques that are commonly, if somewhat cavalierly, held to fall short of torture? These methods are variously known as C.I.D. (for ``cruel, inhuman and degrading`` treatment) or H.C.I. (for ``highly coercive interrogation``); or, in blander Pentagon-speak, ``counterresistance strategies`` (ranked in order of severity in two groups, Class II and Class III); or ``professional interrogation techniques,`` to use the postmodern gloss recently offered by the director of Central Intelligence, Porter J. Goss, to describe ``waterboarding`` (a refinement of the ancient practice of water torture, with which American troops first experimented a hundred years ago on Philippine insurgents). All these terms are sometimes loosely subsumed in opinion articles under the heading ``torture lite`` (though you might wonder what`s so ``lite`` about waterboarding). None of them would be remotely legal in an investigation of an American on American soil.

This broad category of abuse was originally deemed by agile government lawyers to be just inside the realm of what`s legal for foreigners held abroad so long as there`s no intent on the part of interrogators to cause permanent physical or psychic harm; in other words, if no conspicuous scars are left by techniques from sleep deprivation to solitary confinement in a filthy windowless cell to the denial of toilet facilities and medical assistance to the pouring of icy water on a body that may be naked, hooded or lightly clothed to shackling that same body in positions of stress -- or, possibly, all of the above, combined in an atmosphere of general menace, suggesting to the prisoner that, however long it has lasted, what he has experienced may be only the beginning. How widely torture lite is practiced now and who authorizes it is a matter of pure guesswork for anyone who doesn`t happen to be an official with a high security clearance or a ranking member of a Congressional intelligence committee.

Discussion by human rights lawyers tends to assume that nothing has been learned by policy makers except more effective methods of covering up. On the right, occasional complaints can now be heard that Donald Rumsfeld`s Pentagon has lost its nerve. (``Red tape now entangles the interrogation process,`` Heather Mac Donald complained early this year in The City Journal, a publication of the Manhattan Institute, a conservative policy organization. She went on: ``Interrogation plans have to be triple-checked all the way up through the Pentagon by officials who have never conducted an interrogation in their lives.``) Meanwhile, torture lite has been the subject of a little-noticed but intense debate involving rights groups, law professors, ethicists, counterterrorism theorists and military lawyers, all vying for the attention of a tiny minority of the Congress, Republican as well as Democrat -- a minority that feels frustrated, in some cases even incensed, by the resolute unwillingness of the majority to probe glaring questions of who really authorized what once ``the gloves came off`` (to use an oft-repeated phrase) in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. At issue are the questions of whether torture lite can ever be legal and who, if anyone, reviews the rules a president makes in secret.

The answer, at present, often seems to be no one. An implicit understanding has been reached, or so I would argue, between the governed and those who govern: that the prime task is the prevention of future attacks on our own soil as opposed to the punishment of past attacks; that extralegal excesses, not excluding kidnappings and physical abuse, may be necessary in the effort to suppress terrorists seeking to implant sleeper cells in our midst and equip them with deathly substances and bombs; that in pursuit of this goal, much can be forgiven, including big mistakes (the abuse and indefinite detention of innocent people, the tacit annulment -- for foreigners, anyway -- of legal guarantees, not to mention a costly war of dubious relation to the larger struggle); and that the less we know as a people about our secret counterterrorism struggles and strategies, the less we contemplate the possibly ugly consequences, the easier it will be for those in authority to get on with the job of protecting us.

When it comes to imminent threats of terrorism, the democratic process doesn`t demand open debate. I offer that judgment regretfully as an empirical conclusion, not a moral argument. It`s easy to see why the Abu Ghraib scandal didn`t intrude for even a moment on last year`s presidential campaign: if John Kerry had tried to raise it, he not only would have been castigated for calling our troops torturers, he`d also have invited questions about how far he was willing to go to resist terror. Politicians, driven by fear, know they`re far more likely to be held accountable after the next catastrophe for what they didn`t do to prevent it than they are to be made to justify their passivity on detention issues now.

For the same reasons, civil libertarians of all stripes -- those who would extend constitutional rights and the protections of international law to foreign detainees wherever they`re held -- don`t get much traction because they have no ready answer to the question of how this would make Americans safer. Specifically, they mostly don`t say what kind of interrogation they would conduct, under what rules, if they were charged with preventing the next terrorist attack. Would they, for example, give presumed Al Qaeda terrorists Miranda warnings in Arabic about their rights to a lawyer and to remain silent?
[Table align=left]

Fotos: Andres Serrano for The New York Time
[/TABLE]
All of which leaves no easily agreed-on answer to the question of where we should draw the line on the use of coercive force in interrogation. As matters stand, that`s up to an administration that after the Sept. 11 attacks entertained an argument that any attempt to enforce the United Nations Convention Against Torture (ratified by the United States, with reservations, in 1994) would be an unconstitutional interference with the powers of the commander in chief; an administration that says it abhors torture but prefers not to be pinned down on what it now considers torture to be. That`s an issue, we`re led to understand, for private negotiation between the C.I.A. and the attorney general. The rest of us can be forgiven if we draw the implication that we`re expected to butt out if we can`t accept at face value the pious promises of humane treatment for detainees that are regularly served up by administration spokesmen. Instead of worrying about what`s real but unknowable, we get to watch the Fox TV counterterrorism serial ``24,`` in which torture is just another tool the good guys have to wield and clean-cut technicians are always on call to administer electric shocks to recalcitrant conspirators.

Here I have to admit to what may seem a moral debility. As a journalist who had reported on torture and torture victims, and who therefore thought he knew something about the subject, I was surprised that I was finding it harder than most commentators and most people I knew to take a fixed view of coercive force in interrogation. I didn`t know whether it was effective, whether it had any potential, as sometimes claimed, to save thousands of lives by preventing a catastrophic attack. If it did, I wondered if coercive force could be considered unthinkable. And I wondered whether it was more reprehensible morally than accepting the ``collateral damage`` in dead and maimed innocents that occurs when you target a house or cave with a missile or a bunker-buster bomb in order to extinguish a terrorist. At the same time, I strongly suspected that it wasn`t controllable, that it would have its own collateral damage -- to innocent people, to the interrogators themselves and to our ideas about the rule of law. It made me uncomfortable to hear our own leaders telling us what a security police chief in apartheid-era South Africa long ago said to me -- that we should ``let the experts fight it out with the terrorists in the shadows.`` (``We also have to work . . . sort of the dark side, if you will,`` Vice President Dick Cheney said shortly after Sept. 11, 2001. ``We`ve got to spend time in the shadows in the intelligence world. A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion. . . . ``)

Basically, I accepted the point, at least as far as the struggle against Al Qaeda and its imitators was concerned, but it`s striking how often the hard men who make the hard decisions to fight it out in the shadows snatch the wrong people, then fail to follow through. Only after a new commanding officer had arrived and official inquiries had issued their reports did we learn that 40 percent of those penned up at Guantanamo never belonged there in the first place. At Abu Ghraib in Iraq, the record was even worse: two-thirds of the detainees were eventually said to have been innocent of terrorist links. At least when they were picked up. Who knows what leanings they developed or links they forged during and after their interrogations?

A life spent mostly as a reporter had left me unfit for deep thought of a sedentary kind. So, uncomfortable with both absolutist positions -- the trusting ``do what you have to do in secret`` carte blanche versus the pure ``no coercive force ever`` position held by those who are strict constructionists when it comes to laws against torture lite as well as torture -- and equally dubious about the feasibility of a decent middle ground, I set out with notebook in hand several months ago to speak to politicians on Capitol Hill, spymasters, interrogators and legal experts. My hopes were that their experience and conclusions would shed light on the ingredients of a successful interrogation, whether these included coercion and, if so, how much, and whether there was anything that ordinary citizens could safely be told about what goes on in the shadows. My itinerary wasn`t arduous. It involved traveling to Washington for conversations on Capitol Hill; then to Cambridge, Mass., to talk to law professors with a range of strong views on my subject; and finally to Israel, a country whose Supreme Court had asserted its jurisdiction and declared in 1999 that not only torture but all forms of ``cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment`` -- the term for torture lite used in the Convention Against Torture -- were illegal under Israeli law. At least there, it seemed, the security services that conduct interrogations had adapted themselves over many years to the idea that some legal standards might actually apply on the dark side. That was more or less the American view until just after 9/11.

II. What the Interrogators Know

When the prisoner is important enough and the interrogator has time to invest in the subtle task of undermining his resolve, the best practitioners perform like accomplished actors fully inhabiting their roles. Recounting their successes, they show some of the same dramatic flair. Chatting in a lounge of a Tel Aviv hotel, a former chief interrogator of the Israeli security agency, Shin Bet, briefly acted out his part in order to make the point that violence was seldom necessary. It can be enough to just lay the latest Amnesty International report on the table, he said, drumming his fingers in pantomime on the imagined document. ``Have you read this?`` he said as if speaking to a detainee. ``It tells the sort of things we can do.`` Dramatic pause. ``And it doesn`t include the answers of those who were afraid to speak to Amnesty International.`` Second dramatic pause, meaningful stare, husky whisper. ``Or the answers of those who can no longer speak.``

In the telling of the former chief interrogator -- who insisted that he be identified only by his initials, H.B.A. -- an interrogation was a contest of brains, of personalities. An unequal contest, by definition: one party determines the rules and may change them at any moment -- manipulation in pursuit of a moral end, saving lives (even if an archly implied threat is, strictly speaking, illegal under international law that`s formally accepted by both Israel and the United States).

A celebrated former station chief for the C.I.A. reminisced at his Washington club about a series of interrogations in Khartoum, Sudan, nearly two decades ago in which a recalcitrant Libyan agent was eventually coaxed into giving up a full accounting of the apparatus in which he`d worked. All it took was the painstaking deconstruction, bit by bit, of the prisoner`s worldview. This was done by giving him a peek at unpredictable intervals, as if by accident, at Arabic newspapers portraying conditions of unrest and then revolt in Tripoli, leading finally to a front page that bannered the death of Qaddafi and the collapse of the regime. The prisoner had no way of knowing that the papers had been specially printed by the agency for his eyes only. So he drew the intended conclusion that there was no one left to whom he owed allegiance except his friendly interrogator. Start to finish, I was told, the interrogation took the better part of a year.

Jack Cloonan, a recently retired F.B.I. agent with a reputation for uncanny success in conveying a sense of warm, fatherly protectiveness and concern to suspects he encountered, acted out for me his first moments with Abdel Ghani Meskini, a young Algerian living in Brooklyn, where he specialized in credit-card fraud. Meskini had been assigned a role in the so-called millennium plot to explode a bomb at Los Angeles International Airport on or about Jan. 1, 2000. Cloonan began by asking the man whether he`d had a chance to pray; he then indicated the direction of Mecca. Next he asked whether the prisoner had been served halal food. Then the agent inquired softly after his parents and the concern they must now be feeling for the welfare of their son. Soon Meskini had relaxed to the point that Cloonan, sliding into the role of surrogate father, could start guiding him to a conclusion about what his real father would want him to do in this predicament: help the investigator prevent bloody carnage in the hope that he could be reunited one day with his family. The would-be terrorist was not immune to a soft approach. It took just one afternoon for Meskini to start talking.

So, yes, these impressive veterans of different services had excellent stories to tell, which, like most stories that are brought back from the dark side, the hearer has no real way of verifying. Still, I was soon persuaded of the point they were making with the accounts they offered as parables: that in the best of cases, violence may sometimes have to be alluded to as a distasteful option but needn`t be used. But what about the everyday cases, where hours of interrogations yield fragments of information that help fill in the jigsaw puzzle that analysts are trying to assemble? If I pressed my question about violence in these and other conversations, the almost invariable answer, as if learned by rote in the same school, was that too much violence produced unreliable information because people will say anything, admit to anything, as a way of gaining surcease from unbearable pain. Torture, in other words, is a useful tool for gaining confessions when the facts are deemed not to matter. (Or as a former political prisoner I knew in South Africa said to me, making the same point as he recounted his own experience of electric-shock torture, ``You`ll have to prepare many yeses.``)

Only occasionally did I hear examples cited of what might be termed, if you can stomach neutral language, the efficacy of torture. There`s the case of Abdul Hakim Murad, an Arab living in Manila who was picked up and reportedly tortured by Philippine interrogators who, so the story goes, inserted burning cigarettes into his ears. That, it`s sometimes said, led to the foiling of Operation Bojinka -- a 1995 plot to set off bombs on 11 passenger jets. It also may have led to the arrest of Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the original attempt in 1993 to bomb the World Trade Center. (Actually, others say the key leads came not from the interrogation but from the painstaking ``mirror imaging`` of deleted files in what`s termed ``slack space`` in the hard drive of a laptop captured at the Manila apartment.)

Then there was the waterboarding in 2003 of Yousef`s uncle, the putative mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, who`s invariably referred to as ``K.S.M.`` rather than his name, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. K.S.M., we`re led to believe, was soon broken and soon talked. However, official sources again differ on a key point -- whether he talked about the past or future, about the plot he led or plots that had yet to surface. One former official who had seen the complete record of the interrogation told me it ``saved thousands of American lives.`` I found that hard to believe. My own feeling was that my source was getting carried away either by my promise of anonymity or his wish to demonstrate his own effectiveness. If a plot on such a scale had been demonstrably foiled, I can`t help believing, we`d have heard of it at some point during the 2004 presidential campaign.

So, on the basis of the scant amount of information available to those of us who will never be shown interrogation logs, I still think the case for actual torture remains shaky even by the most amoral and pragmatic standard. What then of torture lite? What about the crudely brandished threat of unbearable pain or the carefully calibrated administration of somewhat bearable pain as routine techniques for shocking and disorienting a prisoner, conveying to him a sense of hopelessness from which there is only one possible escape? It`s a question that few theorists care to debate openly. How many lives would have to be demonstrably saved before such intimidation and punishment achieve a kind of moral sanction? If it could be shown with some certainty that, say, 10,000 lives would be saved, few purists would argue against the infliction of pain. If the number was a much smaller multiple of 10 and the degree of uncertainty candidly acknowledged, the true murkiness of the issue in the real world would have to be faced.

Agencies that employ interrogators on the counterterrorism front are loath to say anything in public that might be taken by prospective detainees or their handlers as suggesting that there could be limits to what they do, boundaries they won`t cross, on the theory that resistance is easier if the prisoner has an idea of what he will have to withstand. For home consumption, they`d like to avoid suggesting that there are no limits. That puts a premium on purposeful ambiguity, on double talk. Commentators and editorial writers who deplore torture use the ``slippery slope`` argument to avoid facing the issue of lesser forms of coercion. Any breach in the norms of due process, they contend, is sure to be taken as license for the grossest abuse. That argument may be true, even profoundly true, but it`s also something of a dodge, for it leaves unanswered the question of whether coercive interrogation ``works.``

In Israel, I was repeatedly told that coercive interrogation had effectively thwarted missions of would-be suicide bombers, saving lives. (I also heard that restrictions on the use of coercive interrogation had cost innocent lives in at least two cases.) But no one would describe a specific case. Weeks after I left Jerusalem, I finally received a communication from a high security source willing to get into particulars. The source made a sweeping claim that ``hundreds of terror attacks . . . intended to cause the deaths of an inestimable number of innocent civilians`` had been prevented by intelligence revealed in interrogations. The single example out of these hundreds that I was given turned out to be the same one that the Israeli Justice Ministry cited in a letter to Human Rights Watch a couple of months earlier. It was the case of Nasim Za`atari, a Jerusalem resident who scouted out potential targets for Hamas, then helped suicide bombers with their disguises and guided them to targets. Za`atari had already had a hand in two bus bombings -- one of them killed 23 Israelis on Aug. 19, 2003 -- when he was detained and interrogated the following month. Before his capture, he`d also agreed to guide three bombers from Hebron to new targets in Jerusalem. Soon after he was broken in interrogation, Israeli security forces assassinated the Hamas recruiter who had prepared the candidates for suicide bombing and seized the bomb belts they would have worn, which were concealed in an ordinary washing machine that a moving company had picked up in Hebron. I wasn`t explicitly told whether force was actually used to break Za`atari, only that if it was, it did not ``fall within the definition of torture in international law.`` Left to draw my own conclusion, I concluded that force had been deemed essential.

Legal theorists debate the question of what`s called the ticking-bomb scenario and whether it can ever exist in the real world. Here was a concrete Israeli answer. It was reasonable to imagine that a dozen or maybe several dozen lives were saved in this instance by the timely use of force. The plain fact seems to be that, sooner or later, most forms of interrogation work with most prisoners who have been deprived of comrades, a reliable sense of time, of whether it`s night or day and any external reason for resistance.

``The only difference is the time factor,`` said Danny Rothschild, now a security consultant in Israel and the United States, formerly a high official in the Israeli security service, expressing with some distaste the minimal case for the occasional use of coercion. ``And sometimes time is precious.``

III. Restraining the Leviathan

The premise that coercive force may have its uses in the interrogation of suspected terrorists was accepted as a given by a task force that gathered at Harvard last year. Made up largely of lawyers with government experience in key jobs on the security side, the task force`s mission was to address the issues that are usually ducked in hopes of drawing a plan for balancing security needs with freedoms we used to take for granted. (The project, sponsored jointly by the Kennedy School and the Harvard Law School, was underwritten in part by the Department of Homeland Security.) The lawyers wanted rules on the use of coercive force, a code with declared limits, a process of oversight and accountability, none of which clearly exist now in the Bush administration`s approach to interrogations in its so-called global war. In other words, they were proposing a tightly supervised, highly qualified license for the application of torture lite.

The final version of the report was written by Prof. Philip B. Heymann of the law school, a former deputy attorney general, and Juliette N. Kayyem of the Kennedy School, a former legal adviser to Attorney General Janet Reno. Judge Michael Chertoff, who has since become secretary of Homeland Security, was among the participants who didn`t dissent from the team`s assumption that torture lite works. (Only one did, a San Francisco lawyer named Michael Traynor, who wrote that he remained ``highly skeptical that degradation and humiliation of human beings is an effective means for eliciting truthful information.``) For a brief time early this year there was a slight hope among the report`s adherents that its approach might be embodied in legislation that could attract bipartisan support. What it attracted instead was the wrath of human rights groups and the cold indifference of an administration that had little interest in limiting its authority or submitting its tactics to review.

So it was just a lifeless concept, a mere pedagogic example by the time Kayyem visited Prof. Sanford Levinson`s course, ``Torture, Law and Lawyers,`` at Harvard Law School in April. ``You think that if it works and it`s something less than torture, it`s O.K.,`` Levinson said, challenging Kayyem to declare the guiding principle on which the task force would have permitted a limited use of coercive force in interrogations involving terrorists.

``If it comes with a process,`` she replied, meaning a legal process. ``Cut to the chase, we were a room full of people who think it works.``

It`s worth dwelling on the proposals as they touch on coercive interrogation, if only because their failure to gain support is a fair index of how much (meaning how little) concern exists today beyond law schools, human rights groups and the military`s own uniformed lawyers for making our laws consistent with our practices. The idea was not to remove highly coercive interrogation, or H.C.I., from the American counterterrorism arsenal but to set strict legal limits on its use. Blatant torture would have been absolutely out; ditto forms of torture lite that ``shock the conscience``; ditto the farming out (in official jargon, ``rendition``) of terrorist suspects to foreign governments that practice torture, even, presumably, if they were being swapped for intelligence the United States couldn`t otherwise get. The president would have had to sign off on permitted coercive techniques, on whether they could be combined and for how long; Congressional committees would have had to be briefed; and before these techniques were used in any particular case, senior officials would have to make a determination in writing that there was ``probable cause`` to believe significant information could be obtained. All of this would be done in secret, but if these standards were not met, a victim would be able to sue for civil damages, even a foreigner held outside the United States. So, you see, it would all have been legal, according to the book.

In exceptional instances under this proposal, where lives were clearly at stake, only the president could have authorized more extreme methods of coercion, methods that might ``shock the conscience.`` He would have had to do it in writing and tell oversight committees ``within a reasonable period.``

One of the main sponsors of last year`s Intelligence Reform Act, Representative Jane Harman, a California Democrat and the ranking minority member on the House Intelligence Committee, found merit in the Harvard approach. I asked her whether she thought a line could be drawn distinguishing acceptable forms of coercive force from unacceptable ones. ``We have to try,`` she said. ``If you`re serious about trying to get information in advance of an attack, interrogation has to be one of the main tools. It has to be made to work. I`m O.K. with it not being pretty.`` But when it came to giving legislative sanction for the limited use of torture lite, there wasn`t anything like a consensus among those few in Congress who had worried aloud about the American way of interrogation.

Senator John McCain has the heavy distinction of being the only member of the Senate who has ever suffered torture. He says he was ``stunned`` last year when the White House resisted an amendment he helped sponsor to the Intelligence Reform Act that declared simply that the C.I.A. was obliged to respect all laws and international treaties against cruel and inhuman interrogation practices and torture. McCain seems to find it impossible, however, to speak of his own trauma when addressing the issue. So he won`t be drawn into a comparison of the Hanoi Hilton with Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib. Plainly this is a matter of intense personal resistance rather than political calculation, a refusal to revisit his darkest memories merely to score a debating point. Asked about the use of force in interrogation, he avoids eye contact and stares at the wall. Fidgeting with his pen, he finally speaks in a constricted voice, as if he`s not getting enough air, saying he couldn`t support any provision in law for an approved list of coercive techniques.

``You don`t need to get into questions of whether its O.K. to break someone`s right arm but not his left foot,`` he says, his voice trailing off. That morning I`d read the pages in McCain`s autobiography about the savage beatings to which he`d been subjected in Hanoi. I knew that his right arm had been broken.

IV. The Prohibition Experiment

The Israeli Supreme Court`s landmark decision didn`t attempt to weigh broken arms against broken feet, sleep deprivation against stress positions, torture lite against torture heavy. It declared categorically that no form of highly coercive interrogation is authorized by Israeli law, that all forms were illegal under international covenants Israel had signed. ``Human dignity,`` wrote Aharon Barak, the president of the court, ``also includes the dignity of the suspect being interrogated. . . . Violence directed at a suspect`s body or spirit does not constitute a reasonable investigation practice.`` What`s illegal in a police station in an ordinary criminal case, the ruling said plainly, is illegal in one of the security service`s interrogation rooms in a case of terrorism.

Barak`s court didn`t lightly or swiftly come to this conclusion in 1999. The issue of torture lite had been put squarely on the table as early as 1987 by a commission headed by Moshe Landau, one of Barak`s predecessors as head of the highest court and the judge who 26 years earlier had presided over the Eichmann trial. Landau found that the agents of the security service had routinely perjured themselves in court on issues of abuse and coercion and that they were behaving outside the law. Landau was merely saying out loud what was already widely known. ``Everyone knew -- they knew we were lying,`` said Ami Ayalon, who was head of the General Security Service (another name for Shin Bet) when the Supreme Court finally rendered its 1999 decision. ``Members of the Knesset knew, ministers all knew, the judges knew.``

Yet Landau`s commission frankly acknowledged that ``moderate physical pressure`` -- yet another way of describing torture lite -- might sometimes be necessary as an interrogation tool. His report came, or so it`s widely believed, with a secret annex specifying which coercive techniques might be permissible. For more than a decade -- the decade that saw the first intifada and the start of the Oslo peace process -- ``moderate physical pressure`` became an elastic byword in Israeli interrogation rooms. Landau had inadvertently given the interrogators a provisional license for a list of humiliating and brutal coercive techniques like violent shaking, in which the detainee would be grabbed by his shirt front and jerked back and forth with his head bobbing spasmodically (a method that proved to be lethal in at least one case). ``Moderate physical pressure`` also came to cover the introduction of the notorious shabach position, in which the detainee was hooded and placed on a low chair with a seat tilting down, pitching him forward while his arms were tightly handcuffed behind him in an unnatural, contorted way so that they had to support his weight, for two or three hours at a stretch. This could be augmented by other stressful standing and squatting positions including the qambaz, or frog position, or accompanied by loud music and verbal abuse full of crude sexual innuendos about the prisoner`s mother, sister or wife. The combination of all these methods over prolonged periods produced a regime sometimes known as shabeh.

The respected Israeli human rights organization B`Tselem contended that the combination was nothing less than torture. In 1998, in a relatively quiet period, more than two years before the start of the second intifada, B`Tselem estimated that at least 850 Palestinians and possibly more than 1,200 were being tortured annually. According to its figures, this was about 85 percent of all Palestinians in interrogation. The figures were not seriously challenged. Finally, in 1999, the court said this was all illegal.

Israel is a small country in constant conversation with itself at all levels of society, including the upper echelons of government, on the subject of its perpetual security crisis. Ami Ayalon, the security chief, said he was privately in touch with Barak before the decision and even invited him to speak to his agents on issues of international law. Not surprised when the decision was finally handed down, the security chief promptly announced that his interrogators would obey the court.


That may sound like a happy ending, a triumph for the rule of law. But what actually changed? Not as much as the sweeping judicial edict seemed to promise, according to the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, a human rights group that seeks to monitor what happens to detained Palestinians. The committee maintains that Ayalon`s pledge to abide by the Supreme Court`s decision was never wholly enforced and seriously broke down after the outbreak of the second intifada. Torture remains routine in Israeli detention centers, the committee contended, offering affidavits taken within the last year from prisoners like Bahij Mahmoud Bader, who, in a statement summarized by the group, said that after his arrest last July, his interrogators actually ``put before him a list of the methods of torture that they later used.`` Then they worked down the list, forcing him to stand facing a wall with his hands tied behind his back and his knees bent for hours at a time; blindfolding him and slapping him; seating him backwards on a chair with his hands and feet bound in a painful position while two interrogators, one behind and one in front, shoved his upper torso back and forth as if playing catch with a medicine ball. As usual, curses, threats and denial of sleep were all chapters in his story. Later, so he testified, he was informed that his wife and mother had been arrested and that his family home might be demolished if he failed to cooperate.

The committee had a batch of affidavits taken within the last year that describe coercive interrogations. I was told it could easily gather more if it had enough lawyers to interview prisoners.

The human rights group B`Tselem takes a different view. It asserts that the number of Palestinian prisoners subjected to what are sometimes now called ``special methods`` or ``military interrogation`` remained comparatively low, measured by the dozens rather than the hundreds over the course of a year, and that the actual methods used are now somewhat less severe than in the past. (The chairs to which detainees are shackled are usually normal chairs, not the special short stools with a forward tilt that the Supreme Court proscribed. The suffocating hoods have mostly been replaced by blackened goggles. Suspects may be shoved back and forth, but they`re not routinely subjected to the bone-rattling shakings that were part of the old drill.) Bassem Eid of the Palestinian Human Rights Monitoring Group, which focuses on abuses in the territories under the Palestinian Authority, agreed. He said in an interview in Jericho that no one in his right mind would prefer a Palestinian jail to an Israeli one. During the first intifada, he noted, 20 Palestinians died in Israeli prisons; during the second, none did. Over the whole period, there were more deaths in detention in the jails of the Palestinian Authority than in Israeli jails.

``Here Israel has a very important lesson to teach the United States,`` said Jessica Montell, the American-born executive director of B`Tselem. She was making a point diametrically opposed to a contention that turns up regularly in Arab media and on the Internet without much evidence to support it, that the Pentagon has schooled itself on Israeli interrogation methods and manuals. She was not speaking as an apologist for present practices; she was acknowledging a new restraint in Israel since the Supreme Court`s ruling.

A new generation of Israeli interrogators has been trained. Discipline in the ranks and close monitoring of detailed interrogation plans -- characteristics already attributed to the security service -- became even stricter. Most, if not all, interrogations are now videotaped and subject to review. Interrogators always have partners; they are seldom left alone with prisoners. And, of course, they all speak Arabic. The great majority of Palestinians passing through Israeli interrogation rooms may still be subjected to dire threats of actual physical abuse. The ordinary prisoner might still be isolated, deprived of sleep, chilled or stifled by a drastic temperature change in a windowless cell until thoroughly disoriented. But then after some days, he`s likely to be put in a cleaner cell with fellow Palestinians. They may tell him they don`t trust him, that they`re afraid he`s an Israeli spy. Actually they`re the asafeer, or ``birds,`` the stool pigeons who will coax him into talking. He may suspect as much, but he`s so glad to be speaking softly with fellow Palestinians after the shouting, curses and crude sexual innuendoes to which the interrogators frequently resort, he usually talks. The cell, of course, is bugged. No one has touched him. This sort of approach, I was told, is just as effective as the old stress positions, which are meant to be reserved now for extraordinary cases.

``You know what?`` asked Danny Rothschild, the security veteran. ``The results are the same. Which shows you could have done without brutal interrogation.``

Nowadays no interrogator can resort to physical means without approval from on high. Theoretically, this comes only in ``ticking bomb`` situations, in which there`s a chance of forestalling an actual plot. If it comes, the permissible duration for the application of the designated coercive technique will be clearly indicated; time logs are then kept, hour by dreary hour, and regularly reviewed. ``It`s frightening the way everything is done and reported,`` said Lea Tsemel, a Jewish defense lawyer who specializes in Palestinian political cases. ``It`s very professional now.``

Such approval from the security chief for the use of ``special methods`` is a matter of administrative discipline. It has no standing in law. The Supreme Court said so explicitly. Still, the security chief continues to give his approval in important cases, and six years after the court declared itself, no one has brought a case alleging ``cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment`` back to the Supreme Court. The court broadly hinted that its prohibition on coercive methods could be waived in an extreme circumstance if a case were brought after the abuse had occurred. It suggested that an interrogator might then be able to avail himself of the old common-law defense of ``necessity`` -- in essence, that he acted to avert a greater evil. Without any cases, the defense has yet to be tested.

Hannah Friedman, executive director of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, explained why her group had yet to bring such a case to the Supreme Court. She had been warned that if the committee brought a new case alleging torture at a time when suicide bombings had aroused public opinion, it might provoke a decision that would weaken the legal standard that had just been raised. Under those circumstances, even the committee against torture must have felt it had to be realistic. If the present lull in the conflict continues, she said, the committee may yet bring a case.

V. Candor and Complicity

Viewed through an Israeli prism, the United States still has a lot to learn about the uses and consequences of coercive force, of torture lite, in interrogations. A lot to learn as practitioners: Israeli security specialists are amazed by the multiplicity of commands engaged in the American interrogation scramble, by the short tours of duty and high turnover of interrogators, by the reliance on interpreters and outsourcing to contractors and foreign governments. ``Unprofessional`` is the mildest word they use.

And a lot to learn on the judicial side where, it might be said, we`re a decade or more behind the Israeli experience. Cases that may lead our courts to confront the issue and decide whether they have jurisdiction are still only in preparation. If eventually some federal court asserts its authority, the government can be expected to appeal. It could be years before such a case made its way to our Supreme Court. Israel, by contrast, upholds a clear legal standard, which it makes some effort to observe, at least more than it did in the past. Is this really a difference? Perhaps only to the degree that the Israeli service is now looking over its shoulder at the court, knowing that recourse to the judges is readily available.

Had my journey then taught me anything?


It taught me that democracies are more than likely to evade the basic question of whether torture lite can ever truly be justified for as long as they feel threatened. So they shrink from authorizing it by law, as Professor Heymann`s Harvard group proposed that Congress do and as the Supreme Court in Israel invited the Knesset to do. Democracies` self-regard as communities that are supposed to be on the side of human rights inhibits the candor such statutes would require. Even if the intent is actually to limit the use of coercive techniques, what government wants to be the first since the Enlightenment to proclaim such a draconian code? And what politician wants to shed his carefully maintained ``deniability`` in order to secure the antagonistic value of accountability? By definition, that could be personally costly.

Still, it seemed to me that the idea of legislating standards for the application of torture lite is one of the two available positions that meet any test of intellectual honesty. It offered a form of due process for torture lite (the lawyerly prescription, it might be said, of people out of power brooding on the authoritarian temptation facing people now in power). But if intellectual honesty were the only test, the more satisfying position would be an insistence on obeying existing legal standards of due process, an absolutist refusal to stretch the law in order to legitimize torture lite. Any time the authorities then felt that a compelling national interest left them no choice but to sanction the use of force in an interrogation, they`d know they were breaking the law and could conceivably be prosecuted. Very rarely, upholders of this position conceded, breaking the law could be the right thing to do. The Israeli example can be taken to show that the threat of prosecution would then be largely theoretical.

I found myself bouncing back and forth between the two positions -- the unattainable ideal that brooked no compromise of the law and the unattainable compromise. Since both were unattainable, it didn`t seem to matter where I came out. I preferred the ideal, but if coercive force was inevitable under both regimes, I had to admit, not being a lawyer, to a sneaking regard for the one that acknowledged as much. But, of course, the position that rules doesn`t get hung up on intellectual tests. It says we`ll do what we have to do: don`t ask, don`t tell. Even when clear evidence of the effectiveness of torture lite is hard to come by, democracies threatened by terrorism shrink from laying down the weapon. Should the threat ever pass, we can be expected to repress any memory of its use as we now try to do in daily life while it persists. Then we`ll discover how much gratitude or resentment has accrued to us in the places where we`ve operated, among the descendants of those we`ve detained.

Joseph Lelyveld is the author of ``Omaha Blues: A Memory Loop,`` which was excerpted in the magazine earlier this year. He is a former executive editor of The New York Times.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Sunday, July 03, 2005

Saturday Toll 26 Killed, Nearly 50 Wounded
Hilla Bombings Kill 6, Injure 26

Guerrilla violence killed 26 and injured nearly 50 altogether on Saturday. In Ramadi, a US helicopter caught fire while refueling, slighly injuring a crewman. The incident is being investigated.

Associated Press reports that a guerrilla with a suicide bomb belt detonated his payload in downtown Hilla while he was being searched by Interior Ministry gendarmes of the Scorpion Brigade, killing 6 of them. It adds:


` About 10 minutes later, the second suicide attacker blew himself up in a crowd of police and civilians who had rushed to the scene, Ali said. `



Al-Hilla is a largely Shiite city that has suffered from violence at the hands of Sunni guerrillas, and was enraged by a massive bombing last spring done by a Jordanian terrorist.

Al-Hayat:: Shiite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, head of the United Iraqi Alliance that dominates parliament called Saturday for the defense of "clerics and holy sites" in confronting "a war of extermination" launched by extremists and by the supporters of Saddam on the Shiites. He warned that "Iraqis are losing their faith in the [new] regime." He emphasized "the need to guard against" falling eventually into the sectarian struggle "that the enemy desires." He called for the security forces to redouble efforts to hit the "armed groups."

Al-Hayat reads the speech rather more darkly than does AP, which leads with this last call to Shiite restraint. But Mariam Fam notes that he also continues to call for punitive measures against Baath Party members, which implies an exclusion of most Sunni Arabs from civil life. He has also called for Shiite neighborhoods to form vigilance committees to watch for (Sunni) infiltrators.

The US released Shaikh Muhammad al-Tabataba`i without comment Saturday, after holding him for a year. A senior aide of clerical nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr, al-Tabataba`i had been arrested during the Sadrist Shiite uprising of spring, 2004. Sadrists have been demonstrating in places like Kut and Najaf for the US to release the Sadrist leaders it holds, most often without charge.

Al-Hayat says that the head of the Sunni Endowments Board, Muhammad Salman al-Dulaimi, called Saturday for the government to guarantee the safety of prayer leaders in their mosques, emphasizing that 60 prayer leaders and hundreds of worshippers have been assassinated in Iraq since the fall of the Baath regime. He condemned the kidnapping Friday of Sunni cleric Shaikh al-Takriti, as well as the assassination of Shiite cleric al-Ghuraifi.

A mixed force of Iraqi military and US Marines will remain at Hit after a sweep of the city, rather than withdrawing altogether as in the past. Local officials, rather than welcoming the promise of the establishment of security, complained that a permanent military presence would paralyze the ordinary workings of the city.

posted by Juan @ [url7/03/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/saturday-toll-26-killed-nearly-50.html[/url]

Iranian-Iraqis returning, Expelling New Owners

A reader writes from Iraq:



"I picked up this document [Arabic pdf] from a disgruntled Iraqi in the Baghdad airport about a week ago."



[Cole: The Arabic petition complains that a regulation issued by Paul Bremer is having the effect of tossing him and many others out of their homes, as Iranian-Iraqis return to demand their old property back. They only have 60 days to vacate, and often are large extended families having lived there for many years. With a housing shortage, they don`t have much of anywhere to go. Although they receive compensation, it is only about a third what their home is worth and not enough to get a proper replacement. Iranian-Iraqis had been expelled in the tens of thousands by Saddam, even though many of their families had been resident in Iraq for centuries. If hundreds or thousands of Sunni Arab families are being displaced now, in favor of the previous residents who had been in exile in Iran, one suspects it helps fuel the guerrilla war.

Back to the letter from Iraq:]



"When Iranians were kicked out of Iraq some years ago, their homes were confiscated and sold to Iraqis. Now the new government has granted but 60 days to those now occupying those homes to vacate, so that they can be returned to the original Iranian owners.

This is causing a lot of consternation in Baghdad for at least two reasons:

1) there is a property claims order and commission that could be utilized to mediate and find an equitable solution to this problem, which all admit is difficult; and

2) this again exemplifies the close position of the government to Iran. As the weeks go on, we are becoming more and more convinced that Iran and the Badr Brigade are running the country. Your blog has been particularly helpful at making that trend known.

In the meantime, here in my exile in [the North], the days are hot and there is again fear on the street following the bomb the other day. My contacts say that it is difficult for the Barzani government to get good information from the population because so few like or pay any attention to his regime. Last month we discovered that the security forces in Erbil were highly infiltrated with Ansar Al-Islam. Since then, the forces have cleaned house, but everyone has been put on notice that things are not so perfect here as some may think."

posted by Juan @ [url7/03/2005 06:27:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/iranian-iraqis-returning-expelling-new.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

`We don`t want charity, what we want is justice`
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1520185,…

Euan Ferguson watches an extraordinary day unfold when the world joined a chorus for Africa
Euan Ferguson
Sunday July 3, 2005

Observer
The quietest and most damnably effective presence in Hyde Park at two o`clock yesterday afternoon was that of Richard Curtis. In the most magical stroke of his career, he actually managed to turn being a Briton, in this cloying July of 2005, into being part of a movie.

Everyone felt it. Suddenly, at that moment, doubt and cynicism seemed to flee. Buttons, damnably effective buttons, were pushed inside us. Queues forgotten, quibbles forgotten, phones forgotten, left to warble gently and die in pockets. Images flashed on the screen, flashed around the world. Status Quo. Bowie. Daft old queen Freddie. And suddenly Paul McCartney was on stage before us, the amicable old dervish, telling us, in his first throaty words, that it was, indeed, 20 years ago today ... and, suddenly, tears were coursing down my cheeks.

Because it has been 20 years. Twenty years of life, for all of us, since the last time; years that we and those we love have been granted, and years denied to so many. I felt ridiculous even thinking this, as one can feel ridiculous - mawkish, childish, slovenly of intellect - getting a lump in the throat at a Richard Curtis movie. Then you wonder why your cheeks are suddenly so damp.

Around me, before the stage in Hyde Park, others exuded a similar confusion. There were cheers, of course, and a vague sense of awe, and a couple of very annoying Cypriot lovers feeding each other stinky chips and asking which one on stage had been in the Beatles... but, as the tale of reunion and belonging that is `Sergeant Pepper`s Lonely Hearts Club Band` belted out its simple glee, looks were swapped. We`re here, aren`t we, really here, today. Something is happening, and we`re part of it.

Precisely what is happening is going to be harder to pin down, and terribly reliant on events of the next few days. But the remarkable thing about yesterday`s Live8 concerts was the speed with which all cynicism fled. A group of teenage girls from Somerset outside Green Park tube station who, in three minutes` chat, demonstrated that they know more about Africa than most. The publican the night before who, although saying he `probably` wouldn`t watch it - he hates U2 - has found himself reading more and more about debt. Candy from Reading and Utah, who was on her way to take tea at the Ritz and hated the crowds, could `hardly believe` the sudden passion aroused over the past few weeks.

`Overcoming poverty is not a gesture of charity, it is an act of justice,` the world`s most famous African, Nelson Mandela, told us yesterday when he appeared at the Johannesburg concert, echoing remarks made by Bono in front of the London crowd.

Justice was one of the day`s simplest and most pervasive themes.Time after time, as singers and guest stars struggled to cram their messages and songs into the allotted time - ironically, the rigid agenda was only blown by the unscheduled singing appearance of Mr Robert Frederick Xenon Geldof - there was hammered home the idea of unjust death, solvable death, with the likes of Brad Pitt showing genuine anger and quieting the screams of adoration in a second.

And time and again, those I spoke to in the crowd repeated themselves: this won`t be over until Wednesday, maybe until long after Wednesday. Everyone is looking forward. Everyone is, suddenly, globally, politicised.

In three days` time, the eight most powerful men in the world will meet in a rather twee glen in Perthshire, hidden from the proper grandeur of Scotland`s Highlands and more than hidden from the millions who this weekend have shouted to them. They will negotiate and pontificate and, maybe, come to a deal on two issues: Africa and climate change. Perhaps the plates are moving, slowly. Last night, as exhausted officials from the G8 countries - the `sherpas` designed to hack out the way to the summit - met in London, there were signs of movement, particularly from across the Atlantic.

America may have been far from the fore yesterday in Hyde Park, but it is, of course, the most thunderous power of all. The White House this weekend officially recognised, for the first time, that climate change is at least partly the fault of the human race. There may, crucially, be a deal on greenhouse gas emissions. No targets, of course - too dangerous and probably open to easy criticism - but some movement, at least.

On Africa, a debt and aid deal looks imminent. Figures, when they emerge, will be pored over and analysed by many, many millions more - from the north of Canada to Tokyo, by all the people exercised and catalysed by this, the greatest co-ordinated event the planet has seen - than would have wanted to do so 20 years ago, when it was enough to simply hand over your money.

We are, despite ourselves, despite the obvious media-savvy manipulation that has gone into promoting this message, witnessing the birth of something. It is undeniable that, after yesterday, people will know, and continue to know, things about Africa: in the way they once learnt to know and worry about racism and global war and sexual prejudice. There were problems, of course. As with any Curtis movie - do you remember Andie McDowell at the end of Four Weddings with `Is it raining? I hadn`t noticed ...`? - there were cringes. Chris Martin`s reedy needfulness, trying to work `Rockin` All Over The World` into one of his dirges. Bono, changing his lyrics to `God speed your love to ... Africa ...` the hushed tones of which had me thinking of the fine words of Homer Simpson: `Rock stars. Is there anything they don`t know?`

But then, suddenly, there was more great music, and more astonishing people, and it just went on. Kofi Annan. Bill Gates, who confused us somewhat by wishing for the world to become a better place before inexplicably introducing Dido. And then Will Smith in Philadelphia, getting every concert to say hello to each other, talking with style and gusto about interdependence, and winning astonishing cheers from around the world.

And, as twilight drew in, the power of music itself; despite all the new names on stage, unheard of if not unborn back in 1985, it was Madonna who really kick-started the Hyde Park concert with some good old thumpy, dancy stuff rather than what I think modern musicians refer to as `maundering jangles`.

The eight of the G8 would, of course, be fools to ignore it. They may say it was a rock concert. They may question aspects of the commitment. But in six months` time, long after the Sun has taken Africa off its front page and the Mail has stopped fighting for Zimbabwean asylum seekers, the millions who witnessed this weekend will remember.

It might not be instantly obvious. The aftermath of Live8 may well be like coming out of the cinema and having the usual desultory argument: pizza, or a last drink, or just home? But we will, assuredly, remember the mood of the film. And a great, great deal of the script.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[SittinBuII]

Joerver: Falsch. Es ist ein Unterschied, ob du von Gerüchten sprichst, oder ob zwei unabhängige Quellen die gleiche Aussage machen, nämlich dass die Quelle Karl Rove war, also sowohl der Mann von MSNBC als auch der von der Newsweek.

Denk dran, Verleumdung ist auch ein Straftatbestand. Meinst du wirklich, sie würden diese "Gerüchte" so weit nach vorne bringen, dass sie eine persönliche Anschuldigung machen, wenn sie sich nicht sicher wären?

Sie riskieren alles, ihren Job, ihre Freiheit, ihr Leben.

[SittinBuII]

Karl der Böse.


Ist "Karl der Böse", Brain der Bushmaschine, Experte für schmutzige Politik und W.`s engster Berater - Karl Rove - eines Verbrechens überführt ? Das Medienfachblatt "Editor & Publisher" zitiert zwei renommierte Reporter, die offenbar die Dokumente kennen, die dem Gericht im Fall des "Time" - Journalisten Matt Cooper von seiner Redaktion zugestellt wurden. Wie auch die Propaganda-Prinzession Judith Miller von der "New York Times" ist Cooper vom Supreme Court aufgefordert worden, die Quellen seiner Berichte zu „Yellowcakegate“ offenzulegen. Nachdem der Diplomat Joe Wilson im Auftrag der CIA in den Niger gereist war, um Gerüchte über den Kauf unranhaltigen Materials (Yellowcake) durch den Irak zu überprüfen, die sich defintiv als unwahr herausstellten, hatte die Bush-Regierung seine Berichte ignoriert, und dies vor der Öffentlichkeit und der UN weiterhin als Begründung der von Irak ausgehenden potentiellen Atomgefahren angeführt. Als Wilson daraufhin mit einem Artikel in der New York Times die Wahrheit über die angeblichen tonnenweisen Einkäufe atomarer Rohstoffe an die Öffentlichkeit brachte, wurde seine Frau, Valerie Plame, von Mitarbeitern des Weißen Hauses als CIA-Agentin enttarnt. Der „Washington Post“-Kolumnist Bob Novak, Cooper im „Time“-Magazin und Miller in der NYT hatten dies ohne Namesnennung ihrer Quellen publiziert. Da die Enttarnung verdeckter Agenten eine schwere Straftat darstellt, ermittelt die Staatsanwaltschaft seit über zwei Jahren, doch bisher hatten sich die Journalisten bzw.ihre Redaktionen geweigert, ihre Quellen offenzulegen. Mit der Begründung „Wir stehen nicht über dem Gesetz“ ist die „Time“-Chefredaktion jetzt dem Begehren des Gerichts gefolgt und hat die Unterlagen ihres Reporters ausgehändigt, aus denen die Quelle hervorgeht: Buhs’s Guru Karl Rove. Er selbst und seine Anwälte streiten noch alles ab – so ohne Weiteres wird sich der oberste aller Spindoktoren nicht in einen orangen Overall stecken lassen… Dass die Forderungen des Gerichts an die Journalisten, ihre Quellen zu offenbaren, eine Gefahr für die Pressefreiheit darstellen, wie in den US-Medien immer wieder kolportiert, ist im übrigen Unsinn. Es geht hier nicht um den Schutz journalistischer Arbeit, sondern um die Ahndung einer Straftat, zu deren Ausführung Journalisten benutzt wurden.


Mathias Bröckers, Blog

[Joerver]

Das sind die Artikel, die E&P über die Geschichte gebracht hat. Nichts anderes steht in der AP Meldung und bei Newsweek.
Das ist der Satz der immer gegenseitig als Beweis angeführt wird:

"The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper`s sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House," Isikoff writes on the Newsweek web site. "

[urlReports Reveal Karl Rove Named in Matt Cooper Documents ]http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000972841[/url]
[urlLawyer Tells Newspapers Rove Did Nothing Wrong]http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000972855[/url]
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/index.jsp

Lawrence O`Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst schreibt in einem Blog, aber alles nur Vermutungen

"Since I revealed the big scoop, I have had it reconfirmed by yet another highly authoritative source. Too many people know this. It should break wide open this week. I know Newsweek is working on an `It`s Rove!` story and will probably break it tomorrow."

Weiter wird laut des Artikels von O`Donnell in McLaughlin Group political talk show gesagt:

"I know I`m going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine`s going to do with the grand jury."

[urlMSNBC Analyst Says Cooper Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case ]http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000972839[/url]

Warten wir ab, ob Newsweek mit der großen Revanche heute auf den Markt kommt, bis jetzt ist es alles noch sehr vage.
Ich verfolge die Geschichte schon von Anfang an, die ersten Artikel von Wilson kamen wohl schon vor 2 Jahren und stehen hier im Thread.

Sit
verschone mich bitte mit Bröckers Postings.
Besonders wenn sie so schizophren sind wie #734.
Es gibt kein zweierlei Maß.
Wenn in diesem Fall der Schutz der Zuträger nicht gilt, gilt er in anderen Fällen auch nicht.
Auch Watergate ging ein Verbrechen voraus, nämlich Einbruch.
Es ist und bleibt ein Angriff auf die Pressefreiheit, auch wenn er in diesem Fall dir auch genehm ist.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Justice Sandra Day O`Connor

[Joerver]

IRAQ
I Wrote Bush`s War Words -- in 1965
By Daniel Ellsberg
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/suncommentary/la-op…

Daniel Ellsberg worked in the State and Defense departments under Presidents Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon. He released the Pentagon Papers to the press in 1971.

July 3, 2005

President Bush`s explanation Tuesday night for staying the course in Iraq evoked in me a sense of familiarity, but not nostalgia. I had heard virtually all of his themes before, almost word for word, in speeches delivered by three presidents I worked for: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson and Richard M. Nixon. Not with pride, I recognized that I had proposed some of those very words myself.

Drafting a speech on the Vietnam War for Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara in July 1965, I had the same task as Bush`s speechwriters in June 2005: how to rationalize and motivate continued public support for a hopelessly stalemated, unnecessary war our president had lied us into.

Looking back on my draft, I find I used the word "terrorist" about our adversaries to the same effect Bush did.

Like Bush`s advisors, I felt the need for a global threat to explain the scale of effort we faced. For that role, I felt China was better suited as our "real" adversary than North Vietnam`s Ho Chi Minh, just as Bush prefers to focus on Al Qaeda rather than Iraqi nationalists. "They are trying to shake our will in Iraq — just as they [sic] tried to shake our will on Sept. 11, 2001," he said.

My draft was approved by McNamara, national security advisor McGeorge Bundy and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, but it was not delivered because it was a clarion call for mobilizing the Reserves to support an open-ended escalation of troops, as Johnson`s military commanders had urged.

LBJ preferred instead to lie at a news conference about the number of troops they had requested for immediate deployment (twice the level he announced), and to conceal the total number they believed necessary for success, which was at least 500,000. (I take with a grain of salt Bush`s claim that "our commanders tell me they have the number of troops they need to do their job.")

A note particularly reminiscent in Bush`s speech was his reference to "a time of testing." "We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America`s resolve," he said.

This theme recalled a passage in my 1965 draft that, for reasons that will be evident, I have never chosen to reproduce before. I ended by painting a picture of communist China as "an opponent that views international politics as a whole as a vast guerrilla struggle … intimidating, ambushing, demoralizing and weakening those who would uphold an alternative world order."

"We are being tested," I wrote. "Have we the guts, the grit, the determination to stick with a frustrating, bloody, difficult course as long as it takes to see it through….? The Asian communists are sure that we have not." Tuesday, Bush said: Our adversaries "believe that free societies are essentially corrupt and decadent, and with a few hard blows they can force us to retreat."

His speechwriters, like me, then faced this question from the other side. To meet the enemy`s test of resolve, how long must the American public support troops as they kill and die in a foreign land? Their answer came in the same workmanlike evasions that served Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon: "as long as we are needed (and not a day longer) … until the fight is won."

I can scarcely bear to reread my own proposed response in 1965 to that question, which drew on a famous riposte by the late U.N. Ambassador Adlai Stevenson during the Cuban missile crisis:

"There is only one answer for us to give. It was made … by an American statesman … in the midst of another crisis that tested our resolution. Till hell freezes over."

It doesn`t feel any better to hear similar words from another president 40 years on, nor will they read any better to his speechwriters years from now. But the human pain they foretell will not be mainly theirs.



Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Travel industry fears tougher security
Already tight precautions discourage foreign visitors and are about to get tighter
- David Armstrong, Chronicle Staff Writer
Sunday, July 3, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/03/B…

Foreign visitors, who pump billions of dollars into the U.S. economy, are not arriving in hoped-for numbers due to tighter post-Sept. 11 security rules, according the latest travel industry figures.

That is slowing the recovery of hotels, airlines and other businesses that are counting on a surge in commerce from the weak U.S. dollar.
[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
What`s more, industry executives say planned federal passport and visa rules and other measures intended to safeguard the nation are creating the perception of a Fortress America overseas, tarnishing this country`s reputation for hospitality and personal freedom.

As a consequence, visa applications from foreign travelers have dropped by one-third from pre-Sept. 11 levels, and fewer foreign students are applying to U.S. schools. Moreover, travel agents report booking foreign travelers away from the United States, and airlines that serve overseas hot spots say business is down on their routes to the United States.

Even some casual visitors say they are coming to this country less often and leaving sooner, citing a hassle factor at U.S. borders and airports.

Norman Fong said his wife`s sister, who lives in Canada, is treated with suspicion "whenever she comes to visit us because they believe she might overstay her visa. She is originally from Hong Kong, and her English is not perfect. She said here during her last brief visit, `I don`t want to come here too often because they always harass me at the airport.` She was so upset, she only stayed three days and returned to Canada. She was going to stay longer.``

Washington officials counter that entering the United States is becoming easier and quicker for foreign tourists, business executives and academics and that the notion of a Fortress America is an aftereffect of the confusion and anxiety following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

After Sept. 11, Washington mandated the collection of more information about travelers to confirm their identities and necessarily subjected travelers to closer scrutiny, said Janice Jacobs, assistant secretary of state for visa service. Consequently, some people were delayed or barred from the United States, sometimes without understanding why.

Entering the country is much easier now, Jacobs said, thanks to recent steps the government has taken. Washington has created 350 positions at U.S. consulates, where visa applicants undergo in-person interviews. It also has allowed visa-holders to stay longer, upgraded its Web site (www.travel.state. gov) and slashed the waiting period for approved visas to 14 days from 75 days for the 3 percent of applicants who get extra screening.

"Now, 97 percent of the people who are approved for visas get them in one or two days,`` the State Department said.

All travelers to the United States, whether or not they require visas, are photographed and have digitalized prints taken of both index fingers as part of the U.S.-Visit program operated by the Department of Homeland Security. The department`s officials say the procedures add only seconds to screening.

Nevertheless, conflicting opinions about the ease or difficulty of travel are roiling America`s $600 billion tourism industry at the start of the peak summer season, thus costing the nation money as well as goodwill, industry figures say.

Overseas travel to the United States this year will be 15 percent below the peak year of 2000 -- 22 percent below, if you don`t count visitors from Canada and Mexico. The numbers of Japanese travelers are down 21 percent since 2000, German travelers down 20 percent and French travelers down 24 percent, according to the Travel Industry Association.

The number of international visitors should have been well above this year`s expected 46 million, said Roger Dow, the association`s president and CEO. "It should be more like 60 million, when you consider America is on sale, `` he said referring to a weak U.S. dollar, which makes this country a bargain for foreign travelers.

Foreigners spend billions

Foreign visitors spent $74.8 billion in the United States last year, according to the association. If 60 million arrive this year and spend their euros, yen and pounds at the same rate, this country would harvest an additional $16 billion.

The stakes are especially high in tourism-dependent cities such as San Francisco. Some 2.83 million foreign visitors arrived at San Francisco International Airport in 2000, but only 1.69 million passed through SFO in 2003, the latest year for which statistics are available.

Foreign travelers, who often spend more than domestic tourists, light up cash registers at restaurants, theaters, department stores and souvenir shops. They also contribute a big chunk of the $150 million in hotel room occupancy taxes that are expected to flow to City Hall this year. Tourism is worth $7 billion a year to San Francisco, according to the San Francisco Convention and Visitors Bureau.

While the number of foreign visitors is climbing from the slump years of 2001 through 2003, there would be many more arrivals if not for the unintended consequences of heavy-handed security rules, the travel association`s Dow said.

"We need to strike that delicate balance`` between security and prosperity, he said. "The question is: Have we overreacted since Sept. 11?``

Dow said he has asked to meet with new Department of Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff to express his concerns.

Airport concierges proposed

Dow also said he will propose placing concierges` from the lodging industry in busy airports to assist harried travelers and will offer to help train federal security officials in international protocol.

Upcoming passport and visa changes Oct. 25: Travelers from 27 mostly European nations that do not need visas to enter the United States will be required to carry passports with tamper- proof digital photographs of themselves. Jan. 1: American citizens re-entering this country after visits to Caribbean nations will be required to carry U.S. passports to get back in. Currently, a driver`s license or birth certificate will do. Oct. 26, 2006: Citizens of 27 nations who do not need visas to enter the United States will be required to carry machine-readable passports from their home countries, embedded with biometric data such as their digital fingerprints and iris scans. (This requirement has been postponed twice, most recently last week.) Jan. 1, 2008: American citizens re-entering this country from Canada and Mexico will be required to carry U.S. passports. Sources: U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Department of State

In the meantime, the effects of tighter security are playing out in different ways among companies that do extensive international business.

"I had to book Chinese academics headed to Brazil away from San Francisco or Los Angeles airports`` because they would have had to secure U.S. visas just to change planes here, said Janice Hough, a travel agent at All Horizons Travel in Los Altos. "I booked them through Frankfurt instead. That put their business-class tickets up to $8,700 apiece from $6,600.``

Hough said foreigners` trepidation about traveling to the United States hasn`t cost her agency any overseas business as far as she can tell. "but it does reduce the options we can offer clients.``

For companies doing business in the Middle East, the Muslim world, Russia and other unsettled places, business has been affected more substantially.

Singapore Airlines, for example, has seen a steep drop in passengers to the United States from Indonesia, a predominately Muslim country that has experienced domestic terrorism, said Subhas Menon, regional vice president for the Americas.

"Executives from Indonesia used to comprise 15 to 20 percent of our business-class traffic to the West Coast,`` Menon said. "Now it`s less than 5 percent.`` He attributed the drop to the suspicion that Muslim travelers encounter at airports and their difficulties in getting visas to this country.

However, for Au Pair Care, which places foreign child care providers with American families, tighter security rules "have had no effect at all,`` according to Heidi Woehl, vice president of the San Francisco company.

For Au Pair Care, which places vetted caregivers for periods of up to a year, getting qualified candidates from mainstays such as Poland and the Czech Republic got tougher after those countries joined the European Union last year, opening more job opportunities in Western Europe.

The company doesn`t recruit from more troubled parts of the world, she said.

Foreign students, especially young men from the Middle East and South Asia, are under suspicion, some academics say.

At Humboldt State University`s English Language Institute, which trains international students in English speaking and reading skills for periods of several weeks to four years, enrollment fell from an average of 30 students before Sept. 11, 2001, to about 10 now, said Don Andrews, program director.

"I used to be a full-time director. Now I am (also) teaching classes,`` he said, referring to downsizing of the program after enrollment fell.

Visitors become U.S. fans

The irony is that most students go home as fans of this country, he said. "They go back as so pro-American. They`re our best ambassadors, even (students) from Saudi Arabia and Qatar,`` Andrews said.

This is in accord with an April opinion poll by the travel association that found that foreigners were more likely to hold high opinions of this country if they had been here than if they hadn`t.

Only 38 percent of Canadians, Britons, Japanese, Germans, French and Brazilians who had never visited this country had a positive image of the United States, the poll found. Of those who have been in this country, 54 percent had a positive impression.

Washington officials say they are doing all they can to get out the word that security requirements are being streamlined and made more transparent and predictable than they were a year or two ago. "We are engaged in a very aggressive outreach program,`` said the State Department`s Jacobs.

State Department statistics show the refusal rate for visa applications - - about 1 applicant in 5 -- has remained consistent since 2000. The big difference is the number of applicants: down by about a third, from 10.1 million in 2000 to 6.6 million in 2004. This suggests that some would-be travelers have given up and are not bothering to apply.

That`s a problem, according to the travel association`s Dow. The United States is losing its share of the expanding global travel market as newly middle class people in the developing world bypass the United States and travel where they feel more welcome.

"There are 500 million people in China and India combined who have enough money now to come to the U.S. if they can get visas. If we get 10 percent of them, it will make a huge difference.``


E-mail David Armstrong at [e-mail].

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/07/03/B…
©2005 San Francisco Chronicle

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Sunday, Jul. 03, 2005
When to Give Up a Source
In surrendering a reporter`s notes, TIME Inc.`s top editor says the rule of law trumps the promise of confidentiality. Where does journalism go from here?
By BILL SAPORITO
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1079464,00.…

For journalists, confidential sources can be as essential as ink.

That`s why so many were surprised last week when Norman Pearlstine, editor-in-chief of TIME Inc., said he would reveal some confidential information about a big story. In a case involving TIME Magazine White House correspondent Matthew Cooper, Pearlstine agreed to comply with a federal subpoena and surrender Cooper`s notes and files relating to a story he had written that is part of an investigation into the disclosure of a CIA operative`s identity. TIME Inc. had appealed the case all the way to the Supreme Court, but when the court declined last week to hear the case, Pearlstine made the decision he calls "the most difficult I have made in more than 36 years in the news business."

Many in the media world quickly criticized the move as a capitulation to government pressure that could scare off future sources. "I can`t think of a time," said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, "when a news organization has done something like this." Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said TIME Inc.`s decision signals that sources—and reporters—will now have to worry about media companies in addition to government prosecutors. "How will sources believe that journalists can keep their word?" he asked.

But others pointed out that TIME Inc. had run out of venues to fight the case. "TIME Inc. fought this as hard as anyone could, with great lawyers, at great expense," said Newton Minow, former FCC chairman and professor emeritus at Northwestern University School of Law.

"Once that happens, you have to obey the law."

The Cooper case evolved from an investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who set out to identify the unnamed Bush Administration sources cited by journalist Robert Novak in a July 2003 column that outed CIA officer Valerie Plame. Cooper subsequently wrote a piece for TIME`s website saying that "some government officials" had provided him with information similar to what Novak had reported. Cooper suggested in his article that the sources were seeking to discredit Plame`s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who found evidence contradicting the Administration`s prewar claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa for nuclear weapons.

Judith Miller of the New York Times may have spoken to the same sources, though she didn`t publish anything. (Nonetheless, she, like Cooper, could face jail time for declining to reveal her contacts.)

The New York Times criticized TIME Inc.`s decision to hand over material—publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. said he was "deeply disappointed"—and said it backed Miller`s refusal to testify. Cooper was stoically diplomatic: "There`s honor in obeying an order backed by the Supreme Court. There`s honor in civil disobedience. I wish TIME Inc. had tried to hold out longer against handing over papers that identified my sources. But there`s surely principle in both decisions."

After TIME Inc. agreed to turn over the requested materials to Fitzgerald`s office, speculation quickly surfaced over whose names would be identified. Much of that focused on Karl Rove, senior adviser to President George W. Bush. Rove`s lawyer, Robert Luskin, said Cooper called Rove during the week before Novak`s story appeared but declined to say what they discussed. Luskin said Rove "has never knowingly disclosed classified information." The lawyer said he has received repeated assurances from Fitzgerald`s office that Rove is not a target in the case.

The investigation has been bizarre from the start. For one thing, it`s still unclear whether any laws were broken in the Plame revelation. (Deliberately disclosing an operative`s name is illegal but only if the government is actively trying to conceal its relationship with that person.) Yet Fitzgerald`s wide-ranging investigation has involved subpoenas of at least five journalists, and several, including Cooper, NBC`s Tim Russert and the Washington Post`s Walter Pincus, have testified on at least a limited basis. The courts have repeatedly denied Cooper and Miller privilege to protect their sources. After the Supreme Court refused to hear the case, Pearlstine says he concluded that TIME Inc. had an obligation to follow the law and obey the ruling. "An organization that prides itself on pointing its finger at people shouldn`t be breaking the law itself," he said.

Some pundits have countered that an act of civil disobedience by TIME Inc.—declining to follow an "unjust" ruling while being prepared to suffer the legal consequence—wouldn`t be the same as placing oneself above the law. In Pearlstine`s view, "when the courts rule that a citizen`s obligation to testify before a grand jury takes precedence over the press`s First Amendment right, to me, going against that finding would put us above the law." Others have questioned whether TIME Inc. was putting corporate priorities over journalistic ones.

Continued refusal to cooperate with the judge would have meant increased fines (well above the current $1,000-a-day penalty).

Pearlstine vehemently dismissed the idea of any such calculation. "I am solely responsible for this decision, and the threat of fines never figured into my thinking," he said. He added that he did not consult with TIME Inc. CEO Ann Moore or Richard Parsons, CEO of TIME Warner, TIME Inc.`s parent.

In handing over the requested materials, Pearlstine and TIME Inc. made the argument that there was now no need for Cooper to testify because Cooper`s files contain at least some of the information Fitzgerald has been seeking. In the interim, Cooper and Miller have asked Judge Thomas F. Hogan to sentence them, if it comes to that, to home confinement or, barring that, to federal prison camps, as opposed to maximum-security prisons or the notorious Washington jails.

Will TIME Inc.`s actions alter the rules of journalism? Some think so. "This is going to be open season on journalists," says Dalglish.

"Litigators are out there thinking, Why not subpoena them? I`m probably going to win." In Pearlstine`s view, TIME Inc.`s decision is a narrowly framed one that applies only to a case that involves a federal grand jury with access to secret testimony about a national-security issue. He says he still believes in the value of confidential sources—and fighting to keep them that way as far as the law allows.

Another way in which this case differs from a typical one is that unlike in a traditional whistle-blower scenario in which a source is being protected from potential retaliation, the source or sources being protected in the Cooper case may well have been retaliating against Wilson. "This was leading into a blind alley," says Jim Wheaton, who teaches media law at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley. "If the Supreme Court had taken the case, it was likely to say there`s no privilege, period." Jay Rosen, chairman of New York University`s journalism department, understood the logic of TIME Inc.`s ultimate decision. "I find it hard to get worked up into the same outrage as others about the TIME decision, which seems to me to be a practical decision," he told the Wall Street Journal.

In the future, the best hope for journalists may be a federal shield law, now in Congress, which would let reporters keep sources confidential under any circumstances. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have shield laws, while 18 additional states have similar protections. A federal law has been proposed by Senator Richard Lugar and Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, who have signed up dozens of co-sponsors. It`s not that legislators love the media. But when it comes to advancing their politics, legislators can be world-class leakers and could have as much to lose as journalists.

Copyright © 2005 Time Inc. All rights reserved.
Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[SittinBuII]

Joerver: Jetzt übertreibst du aber. SIE halten sich NullkommaNull an irgendwelche Gesetze, wenn ihnen diese nicht passen. Und wir müssen das?

Erinnert irgendwie an die Weimarer Republik.

PS:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/03/cooper.rove/index.html

[Joerver]

Sit
nur weil andere foltern, willst du auch foltern.

Nur weil andere das Gesetz nicht einhalten, willst du auch keine Gesetze einhalten.

Wir zerstörten ein Land, um es zu retten.

Wir zerstören die Freiheit des Einzelnen, um die Freiheit zu retten.

Das ist das Ideologie der Neocons, Freiheit und Demokratie mit Gewalt zu verbreiten.

Einen Kreuzzug für westliche Werte.

Das wird nicht funktionieren, sondern wird uns zerstören.

Es ist der größten Militärmacht, die es jemals gegeben hat, nicht gelungen ein relativ kleines Land mit gerade mal 24 Mio. Einwohnern zu befriedigen.

Darum geht es in der Diskussion, Clash of Civilisation, ob der Westen seine Werte in anderen Teilen der Welt, notfalls mit Gewalt durchsetzen kann und darf, oder ob mam den anderen Kulturen das Recht einräumt, ihren eigenen Weg zu finden.

Diese Diskussion wird die nächsten Jahrzehnte bestimmen und ein Ausgang ist ungewiss.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Published on Sunday, July 3, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
Celebrating Independence in the Era of Empire
by Medea Benjamin
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0703-25.htm

This Fourth of July, while Americans are marching in parades and oohing and aahing at the fireworks, it would be a patriotic gesture to also spend some time thinking about what independence means today.

Our nation was founded on a determination to be free of domination by the British empire. The US Declaration of Independence proclaimed the need to fight the War of Independence against Britain because King George III had `kept among us standing armies` that committed intolerable `abuses and usurpations.` Today it is our government whose standing army is committing abuses and usurpations in foreign lands. Today it is our government that is in the business of empire-building. Even before 9/11, the US military maintained over 700 foreign military bases and installations and almost 250,000 troops in 130 countries.

George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison all warned that the invasion and occupation of other lands would turn America into precisely the sort of empire against which they had so recently rebelled. "We should have nothing to do with conquest," asserted Jefferson in 1791.

Unfortunately, subsequent leaders of this nation have refused to heed this advice - invading other countries to control their land, their oil, their people. From the 1890s to the 1930s alone, the US intervened 23 times in the Western hemisphere.

Building and maintaining a vast empire is expensive in both lives and money. The human cost in Iraq alone tops 1,700 US soldiers dead, tens of thousands severely injured both physically and psychologically, with much greater death and suffering endured by the Iraqi people.

Our out-of-control military budget will, by 2006, equal that of the rest of the world combined. This enormous cost is draining money from our schools, our hospitals, our public transportation. Martin Luther King`s words that `a nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense then on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death` resonate today. According to the organization National Priorities, the $200-plus billion we`re spending on the war in Iraq could have provided health care to over 46 million Americans, affordable housing to almost 2 million families, or renewable energy for some 360 million homes.

The imperial ambitions of this administration have also cost us dearly in terms of international prestige. A survey of public opinion in 16 countries released by the Pew Global Attitudes Project on June 23 found a dismal opinion of the U.S. Most said the world was more dangerous after the downfall of Saddam Hussein, rated China more favorably than the U.S., and said the world would be better off if a group of countries emerged as a rival to U.S. military power. And while 94 percent of Canadians and 83 percent of Indians said their countrymen were well-liked by the global community, seven in 10 Americans said Americans were ``generally disliked`` abroad -- the most downbeat assessment of global popularity given by any country in the survey.

Most Americans have come to understand that the cost of empire in lives, money and prestige is unacceptable. Recent polls show that the majority believes we should never have attacked Iraq, we should begin to withdraw our troops, and that the war in Iraq has not made us safer at home. Six out of ten Americans say that our nation is headed down the wrong path.

In 1821, then Secretary of State John Quincy Adams warned that if America went abroad in search of `monsters to destroy - the fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force.` While she might become the dictatress of the world, he predicted, `she would be no longer the ruler of her own spirit.`

This July 4, let us reflect on how empire-building is destroying the soul of our nation. Let us recommit to getting our soldiers out of Iraq, dismantling our foreign bases, preventing new conquests, rejoining the international community and, in the process, becoming the rulers of our own spirit.

Medea Benjamin ([e-mail]) is cofounder of Global Exchange and CODEPINK: Women for Peace.

###

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

July 4, 2005
Quiet Killings Split Neighborhood Where Sunnis and Shiites Once Lived Side by Side
By SABRINA TAVERNISE
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/international/middleeast/0…

BAGHDAD, Iraq, June 30 - The night before he was shot to death outside a mosque last month, Qasim Azawi talked with his wife about leaving the neighborhood. Two fellow Sunni worshipers had been killed in previous weeks, and he was afraid.

Less than 10 hours later, he was dead, the ninth Sunni to be killed since March in Ur, a neighborhood in northeast Baghdad.

In the shifting landscape of the new Iraq, Ur, with a population more than 80 percent Shiite, is a troubling example of how lethal the sectarian divide can become. Since late March, at least 12 religious Sunnis, most of them worshipers at Ur mosques, have been killed, according to relatives of the dead and to Sheik Ahmed al-Ani, an imam from Ur who is tracking the deaths. Tallied together with an adjoining neighborhood - Shaab - the death toll is 26.

It is a quiet kind of killing, beneath the radar of car bombs and other headline-grabbing violence. But block by block, battle lines are being drawn, with religious Sunnis and Shiites lining up on opposite sides.

In the past, Ur, made up of tidy, treeless blocks, was, like most other Baghdad neighborhoods, the domain of Sunnis. Shiites endured decades of repression and killing under Saddam Hussein, a Sunni Arab, and were treated as second-class citizens. Now, with an Iraqi insurgency driven mostly by the fringes of the Sunni Arab community, Shiites bear the brunt of the attacks. Insurgents have driven car bombs into Shiite mosques and restaurants.

But attacks are carried out quietly against Sunnis as well, particularly in mixed neighborhoods, like Ur. Since March, some 56 families, according to Sheik Ani`s count, have moved from Ur to areas where Sunnis predominate.

"There is a lot of fear," said Muhammad Azawi, 20, Mr. Azawi`s son, who has moved out of Ur with his family. "Sunni families are leaving. It`s not safe."

The Firdos mosque, where Mr. Azawi was killed, is open to the street in the back. It has been repeatedly strafed from passing cars.

"They want to frighten people," said Hassan Falah Hassan, the mosque`s 57-year-old caretaker, who showed reporters the bullet holes.

A short distance from Al Firdos, where Mr. Azawi was killed, is a former Baath Party headquarters building. After the ouster of Mr. Hussein, it was taken over by a Shiite mosque, Al Shohada. It is a meeting place for followers of the radical Shiite cleric, Moktada al-Sadr and his militia, the Mahdi Army.

Two people who live next to the Shohada mosque said attendance had risen in recent months. They reported seeing men, often armed, enter the building in the early evening and leave before evening prayers. Inside is a court, where defendants are judged according to Islamic law. Cars without license plates are frequently parked in the lot outside.

The mosque has claimed more space in the neighborhood, blocking off the roads immediately around it with barbed wire and blast walls, said one resident whose house is within the blocked area. Men from the mosque enforce Baghdad`s 11 p.m. curfew in the area.

"Shiites now have everything, like the sun has the day," said a Shiite man who lives inside the roadblocks near the mosque and who agreed to speak on the condition that his name not be printed, because he is afraid of repercussions from the mosque. "The government now is Shiite. If I want a job somewhere, I`m Shiite. I`m No. 1. It`s easy."

Not so for the neighborhood`s Sunnis. A Sunni Arab in Ur, who agreed to speak only if he was referred to by his nickname, Abu Diyar, said he moved out of Ur in early June, after his nephew was killed. Men dressed like soldiers took the young man, he said; the body was found in a dump.

More than two dozen bodies have surfaced in the same area, near a Shiite slum, during the past two months. In May, a bulldozer unexpectedly unearthed 14 bodies. Sheik Ani said the victims, who were blindfolded and had their hands tied behind their backs, were those of farmers from a town south of Baghdad who had come to Baghdad to sell vegetables.

Now living in a majority Sunni neighborhood, Abu Diyar said he kept a close-cut beard to try to look more Shiite. He contends that Shiites are doing the killing. "The Shiites feel that for 35 years, they were victims," he said. "Saddam put them down. Now they have power and they are taking revenge. They think the solution is to kill Sunnis."

In contrast to the Shohada mosque, the Sunni mosque, Al Firdos, has seen attendance drop to almost nothing. Mr. Azawi told his wife in early April that there were only eight men at prayers. Gone are classes for children. The door to the women`s section is ajar, the inside dusty.

It is not entirely new that Sunnis are being killed in Ur. Three brothers were shot to death outside Al Khulafa mosque in December 2003. But the violence intensified in March, when, as Sunni residents were quick to point out, religious Shiites took control of the government.

On the morning of May 19, Qasim Azawi`s wife cooked him fried cheese and helped him choose a tie. He left for work and as he walked past the Firdos mosque, he was shot to death by gunmen in a white Daewoo sedan. The police, mostly Shiites, were slow to follow the car. They never made an arrest.

Suspicions focused on the Mahdi Army. Residents, Shiite and Sunni, circulate accounts that bolster the case against the group.

One Shiite man who said he witnessed the killing said he recognized two attackers as Mahdi members. In another clue, a man believed to be a Baathist was killed, and the getaway car eluded the police by maneuvering through checkpoints around the Shohada mosque, a route that only those familiar with the mosque could know.

A spokesman for Mr. Sadr, Abdel Hadi al-Daraji, denied that the Mahdi Army had been involved. He said in an interview, "Even if we arrest criminals or terrorists, we always turn them over to the Iraqi police."

Shiites in majority Sunni neighborhoods face similar problems, sometimes because they are assumed to be hostile.

Fatma Rakabi, 34, moved her Shiite family from a heavily Sunni area in Dora last year, after neighbors warned them that they had been marked as members of an informal Shiite militia, the Badr organization. Many Sunnis see it as a symbol of Iranian influence and of their own fall in status.

Ms. Rakabi said they had to hide their religion. On a trip to the hairdresser just before national elections in January, she was drawn into conversation with other women who were praising the insurgents, and hid her intention to vote.

She ultimately registered in another neighborhood, out of sight of Sunni neighbors. Ms. Rakabi said she winced when the women referred to insurgents as holy warriors. "To me," she said, "they were terrorists."

Maryam Mohamed al-Obeidi, a religion teacher who moved out of Ur two months ago, now gives lessons in a mosque in Monsour.

"So many assassinations," she said, with several young girls kneeling in a reading group beside her. "Why are they making problems for us under the cover of religion?"

Qais Mizher, Zaineb Obeid and Layla Isitfan contributed reporting for this article.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
With Congress`s Blessing, a Border Fence May Finally Push Through to the Sea
[/TABLE]

The Fence Goat Canyon, just west of Smuggler`s Gulch, is also part of the proposal for finishing the fence along the Mexican border. Here, the fence ends just before the large hill.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/national/04fence.html

By JOHN M. BRODER

IMPERIAL BEACH, Calif., June 29 - The Border Patrol truck lurches along a rutted road paralleling the Mexican border and comes to a stop on a mesa above Smuggler`s Gulch, a 300-foot-deep gully that has been a prime route for bandits, border jumpers and raw sewage from Tijuana to Southern California for more than 150 years.

Michael D. Hance, a supervisory Border Patrol agent and a 17-year veteran of the border wars in the San Diego sector, hauls his considerable frame from the driver`s seat and peers at the network of switchback dirt roads running down the gully and up the other side.
[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
The roads are a nightmare for Border Patrol officers and a huge advantage for the border crossers who slip through here every night. The solution, Mr. Hance says, is to cut down the hillsides and use the dirt to fill a portion of the bottom of the gulch, creating a 90-foot-wide roadway across the top that can be fenced and lighted and patrolled 24 hours a day.

"At some point in time we have to have an enforcement zone here," he said. "There`s a problem at the border, and it needs to be fixed. Ignoring it is not going to make it go away."

Since 1997, the Border Patrol has been building a barrier wall extending 14 miles inland from the point along the coastline where Mexico and the United States meet. It started as a 10-foot-high wall made of military surplus steel landing mats used for aircraft in Vietnam. Over the years, the wall has been supplemented by a second fence made of steel mesh, with a lighted roadway between the two fences that is constantly monitored and patrolled by Border Patrol vehicles.

But 3.5 miles of the project remain to be completed, and Smuggler`s Gulch is the most vulnerable spot along that span between the ocean and the San Ysidro border station, five miles inland. The Border Patrol wants desperately to complete the last section, but has been stymied until now by environmental and regulatory roadblocks.

This spring, as part a military spending bill, Congress gave the Border Patrol a green light to complete the fence, essentially pre-empting the state laws and federal environmental regulations that opponents had used in court to stall the project.

The act left some state officials powerless, and fuming.

"You cannot build that thing in that way and be consistent with California`s coastal protection law," said Peter Douglas, the executive director of the California Coastal Commission, one of the most outspoken opponents of the border fence. "The exemption based on the so-called terrorist threat is a backdoor way of achieving what they couldn`t do legally. Now I guess in the name of security from terrorism, you can do anything you want. It is a monument to the politics of fear."

Mr. Douglas and other environmental foes of the project object to the scale of the wall along its entire length and its impact on land forms, vegetation and wildlife. But they are particularly opposed to the Border Patrol`s plans for Smuggler`s Gulch, which involve shaving off the tops of two mesas and moving 2.2 million cubic yards of dirt to create the roadway.

Opponents say that not only would such a project alter the landscape, it would also create a huge problem of silt buildup in the Tijuana River Estuary, which runs from the gulch northwest to the Pacific shore. The estuary is a federally protected wetland and wildlife refuge that is home to a number of endangered bird species, including the light-footed clapper rail, the California least tern, the least Bell`s vireo and the American peregrine falcon.

Michael A. McCoy, a veterinarian and an officer of the Southwest Wetlands Interpretive Association, said the Smuggler`s Gulch project would denude large areas of hillside, allowing silt and sand to drain into the estuary, essentially choking the life out of it. Dr. McCoy said that his group and others fighting the Border Patrol did not object to a single well-policed fence along the border but that they were trying to stop the large earth-moving project the government proposes.

"They say their job is to protect the American public, and I`m sure it is," Dr. McCoy said as he walked along a trail through the estuary. "But environmental laws protect the welfare, health and interests of the people of the United States as well."

He said the erection of the primary barrier beginning in 1997 had a decidedly favorable impact on the estuary. Before the fence went up, tens of thousands of Mexicans streamed across the undefended border, trampling the marsh grasses that were the habitat of the birds, leaving garbage in the area and even eating eggs from the birds` nests.

"The fence stemmed that kind of destruction," Dr. McCoy said. But he said that a double or triple fence, with all the rearranging of the land involved, would do more harm to the environment than it was worth as a deterrent.

The project divides the area`s Congressional delegation as well. The primary sponsor of the barrier is Representative Duncan Hunter, a San Diego Republican and chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. Representative Bob Filner, a Democrat, represents the district that includes the border and is a staunch opponent of the project, at least as currently designed.

Mr. Filner said the border fence would take $50 million to complete, money better spent elsewhere defending the border.

"It ain`t worth the cost," he said. "It`s just a rip-off of the environment and the taxpayer."

He said he was particularly incensed by the provision in the recent law that exempts the border project from state and federal environmental, safety and labor laws. He also said the law was based on what he called the specious argument that international terrorists were using the Mexican border as a means of access to the United States. "I have never been told that somebody suspected of terrorism has been arrested along that border," Mr. Filner said.

But Mr. Hunter, who has been agitating for tighter security along the border for more than a decade, said the fence was necessary to protect the security of the nation. "There`s just no sense in having that big a hole just a few miles south of the biggest naval base in the country," he said.

"Security concerns should override what I now consider to be frivolous opposition to this project," Mr. Hunter said. "I think it`s time to move ahead and get this thing built."

The San Diego border fence has undeniably reduced the illegal traffic across the border in the southwest corner of California. In the early 1990`s, the Border Patrol apprehended an average of 500,000 illegal border crossers a year in the San Diego sector, representing half of all apprehensions along the entire 2,000-mile border with Mexico. Last year, the total was 138,000.

But as the traffic in San Diego has decreased, there has been an exponential rise in crossings in the Arizona desert, a far more hazardous route, as immigrants have sought a less fortified path. In 1997, before construction of the San Diego barrier, the Border Patrol recorded 129 deaths among illegal immigrants. Since then, the average has been close to 400 deaths a year, largely attributable to the more dangerous routes through the desert and mountains of Arizona and eastern California.

"The fences themselves have simply diverted the flow," said Wayne A. Cornelius, director of the Center for Comparative Immigration Studies at the University of California, San Diego. Professor Cornelius said his research showed that 92 percent of Mexicans seeking to enter the United States illegally eventually succeed.

"Bottom line," he said, "there is no evidence that fence per se has been an effective deterrent. They have helped to jack up smugglers` fees and forced crossings into more remote and dangerous spots."

Fences, Professor Cornelius said, "are simply a symbolic show of force."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Es zeigt sich, dass die gefährlichen Idioten der Neocons, wie Wolfowitz, Bolton, Feith u.a. entweder die Treppe raufgefallen sind oder aussortiert wurden. Das könnte die US-Aussenpolitik normalisieren.

July 4, 2005
Signs of Life at State
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/04/opinion/04mon1.html

Critics of the Bush administration`s foreign policy tended to see Secretary of State Colin Powell as a man with the right instincts who lacked the White House pull to get anything done. Many of them expected an even worse performance from his successor, Condoleezza Rice. But in some areas, at least, American foreign policy seems to be changing for the better, and Ms. Rice can take some of the credit.

John Bolton was a destructive presence in the State Department under Mr. Powell, and his administration fans were lobbying to see him promoted to the No. 2 job. Ms. Rice avoided that disastrous possibility by backing Mr. Bolton instead for the job of ambassador to the United Nations. She chose the far more stable and grounded-in-reality Robert Zoellick, the former trade representative, as her deputy. Granted, siccing Mr. Bolton on the rest of the world at the United Nations isn`t exactly the best way to sideline him, but at least he has been removed from dangerous areas like North Korea policy.

And Ms. Rice has set about undoing some of the messes Mr. Bolton made. The Washington Post reported last month that several initiatives that had been in limbo because of Mr. Bolton`s my-way-or-the-highway style are moving again. American and Russian negotiators have reached an agreement - to be sealed by President Bush and President Vladimir Putin this week- to eliminate enough plutonium to make 8,000 nuclear bombs, potentially keeping it out of terrorists` hands. The Bush administration and Ms. Rice have also dropped Mr. Bolton`s ridiculous campaign to get rid of Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Last month it was heartening to hear Ms. Rice deliver long-overdue warnings to two querulous Muslim allies, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. "For 60 years, my country, the United States, pursued stability at the expense of democracy in this region here in the Middle East, and we achieved neither," she said.

This page has not been shy about criticizing Ms. Rice, or in voicing its disappointment with her record as national security adviser. She had the president`s ear, but she seemed to use it to tell him only what he wanted to hear. Her staff knew the evidence that Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons was dubious at best, yet Ms. Rice fanned those fears to promote her boss`s ill-advised invasion. In her new job, she has wrested Iraq policy from the Pentagon, and has demanded that the various religious and ethnic groups in Iraq work together. But Mr. Bush`s delusional Iraq speech last week suggests the basic problems are as deep as ever.

The small encouraging steps Ms. Rice is taking to restore credibility to America`s image will not matter much if she remains unable, or unwilling, to get her boss to start seeing Iraq, and the world, as it is, and not as he would like it to be.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Bush says: I put US interests first

Tania Branigan, Luke Harding and Owen Gibson
Monday July 4, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g8/story/0,13365,1520827,00.html

Guardian
George Bush sounds a warning today to those hoping for a significant deal on Africa and climate change at Wednesday`s G8 summit, making clear that when he arrives at Gleneagles he will dedicate his efforts to putting America`s interests first.

The president will adopt a stance starkly at odds with the idealism professed by the performers at Saturday`s Live 8 concerts around the world and their television audience of 2 billion.

"I go to the G8 not really trying to make [Tony Blair] look bad or good; but I go to the G8 with an agenda that I think is best for our country."

Further difficulties for the G8 negotiations came as Gerhard Schröder, the German chancellor, expressed opposition to Britain`s plans to double aid over the next five years.

Berlin is refusing to increase its aid budget for Africa from €1.8bn (£1.2bn) a year to €2.4bn - as Mr Blair hoped - and has expressed scepticism over a proposed tax on air tickets to be earmarked for aid.

A Downing Street spokeswoman said: "Let`s be judged on the outcome of G8 rather than anything which happens beforehand. We are still making progress."

Jacques Chirac, the French president, sounded a slightly more promising note yesterday by saying G8 leaders were "heading towards" an agreement on climate change after a meeting with Mr Schröder and Vladimir Putin in Svetlogorsk, Russia. He did not, however, say what the deal was.

Bob Geldof, the Live 8 organiser, and stars including Sir Paul McCartney, have urged the 205,000 who attended the concert in Hyde Park, London, to step up the pressure by attending the mass demonstration in Edinburgh on Wednesday. "For God`s sake, take this seriously. Don`t behave normally. Don`t look for compromises. Be great," they said, in a message to G8 leaders. They declared the concerts, which took place in every G8 country, an unqualified success.

Gordon Brown described Live 8 supporters and the 250,000 Make Poverty History campaigners who marched through Edinburgh as "Britain at its best" yesterday, telling the BBC they were proof that people could have power if they made their views felt.

In an interview for ITV1`s Tonight With Trevor McDonald, recorded last week and to be screened this evening, Mr Bush accepted that climate change is "a significant, long-term issue that we`ve got to deal with" and is man-made "to a certain extent". But asked if other countries can expect US support for a binding commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions, he replied: "If this looks like Kyoto, the answer is no. [Kyoto] would have destroyed our economy."

He sought to focus on clean technologies instead.

Guy Thompson of the Green Alliance described it as a rebuff to meaningful action on climate change, while Catherine Pearce of Friends of the Earth International said: "As much as we want to see [a deal] happening, it is clear that the US just isn`t moving."

Asked if he would make a special effort to help Mr Blair in return for his support over Iraq, Mr Bush replied: "I really don`t view our relationship as one of quid pro quo.

"Tony Blair made decisions on what he thought was best for keeping the peace and winning the war on terror, as I did."

Mr Bush also said that the rich world had an "obligation" to make trade fairer, but made it clear he would not slash farming subsidies unless the European Union did the same.

He said America was "leading the world when it comes to helping Africa", despite the fact that it gives only 0.2% of its GDP in overseas aid - well below the UN`s 0.7% target.

Oxfam said the development deals agreed to date fell well short of what was required.

"Given the events of this weekend, there are millions of people expecting G8 to come up with something extraordinary, and this isn`t it," said Oxfam`s Max Lawson.

With British-German relations at an all-time low after the failed EU budget summit, there is little incentive for a wounded Mr Schröder to support the prime minister next week. His officials blame Mr Blair for wrecking the budget deal and accuse him of exploiting the summit to improve his public image at home.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Der Wahlkampf für 2008 in den USA hat schon lange begonnen!

The nearly man
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1520780,00.html

US senator John McCain is a vocal critic of Guantánamo Bay, thinks George Bush was wrong on Kyoto and was even asked by John Kerry to be his Democratic running mate. So why do so many people think he will be the next Republican president? He talks to Julian Borger
Julian Borger
Monday July 4, 2005

Guardian
John McCain`s Senate offices hum like a government in exile, emitting a constant stream of alternative policy pronouncements and a whiff of indignant disbelief that the man at the centre of it all is not wielding power. Senator McCain, a Vietnam war hero, remains far more popular across the country than George Bush, the man who beat him to the 2000 Republican nomination with the help of a well-financed campaign in South Carolina that is still a byword for dirty tricks.

McCain insists he has not made up his mind whether to run in 2008, when he will be 72, but he talks like a man who intends to. Most polls, for what they are worth this far in advance, show him beating Hillary Clinton, John Kerry or any other potential Democratic challenger with ease. So the man who is in London today to give the Alistair Cooke memorial lecture represents both the administration that might have been, and one that may yet come to pass.

Among those feeling wistful may well be Tony Blair, who could have done with his support this week at the G8 summit. Unlike George Bush and many on the Republican right, McCain has become an earnest advocate of action against global warming, and believes walking out of the Kyoto accord was a significant blunder.

As a route to repairing transatlantic relations, McCain says: "I think we should work more closely with all European countries under the leadership of Prime Minister Blair on the issue of climate change. If I were directing the policy, I would say we would offer to enter a revised Kyoto agreement as long as India and China were included." One of America`s major gripes about the original Kyoto accord was that it exempted developing countries from curbing their greenhouse gas emissions. McCain has sympathy for this position, but does not believe that it justified the Bush administration`s decision in 2001 to abandon talks altogether and allow the issue to drift. "I think that in return for the United States` membership, a country that emits 25% of greenhouse gases, [the Europeans] would be willing to make concessions."

Ultimately, however, McCain believes the future of the transatlantic alliance will be decided in Iraq, a war he supported. He admits that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction has severely weakened traditional alliances and strained public trust in government, in the US as well as Britain.

"I think if we can show success and bring about a flawed but functioning democracy, and that spreads throughout the region, then, WMD or no WMD, our involvement would have been worth it," he says. "If, however, we fail, and Iraq falls prey to factionalism or radical Islamic extremism, then I think the critics are fully justified in their condemnation of what we did."

The only way to avoid that "catastrophic" failure, the Arizona senator has long argued, is to commit more troops. "It`s one of the major mistakes that have been made that has caused us to experience some of the difficulties we`ve experienced. The assessment of any objective observer of the situation on the ground, particularly after our initial successes, is that we didn`t have enough troops to control the country. Every indication is that we didn`t have enough troops to stabilise the country. I might add, I heard that more than two years ago from a British colonel in Basra."

McCain, who was a prisoner of war in the infamous "Hanoi Hilton" for more than five years of the Vietnam war, has also been highly critical of the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo Bay, calling for them to be tried or released, and pointing out that "even Adolf Eichmann got a trial". As well as chiding the administration on its conduct of the war and on its detainee policy, McCain has been a constant thorn in its side over campaign finance reform, leading the charge to try to drain some of the corporate money from the political swamp.

These high-profile stands, and his disdain for the party whip, have inevitably endeared McCain to Democrats. A recent poll by the Pew Research Centre in Washington found he had a 66 % popularity rating among liberals, higher than Howard Dean, the former presidential candidate and current chairman of the Democratic National Committee. His crossover power is such that John Kerry, a friend and fellow veteran, even asked him to be his running mate against President Bush and Dick Cheney. McCain turned down the offer, which he sees as a case of mistaken identity.

"I think of myself as a strong conservative," McCain says slowly and with some emphasis, in response to the suggestion he could be described as "middle of the road". He is every inch a war veteran, who believes in the exercise of American military might in support of the country`s values. He was calling for Saddam Hussein to be toppled long before Bush started thinking about it. He is also a fiscal conservative, sceptical of government social spending, and most importantly in America`s ceaseless cultural war, he is anti-abortion.

Some have argued that America`s liberals have allowed McCain`s plain-spoken, maverick style to blind them to his thoroughly conservative credentials. But his cross-party appeal may say more about how far the American political landscape has shifted over the past decade. Under Bill Clinton, Democrats became converts to fiscal discipline at home and humanitarian intervention abroad. Since losing twice to Bush, and having been almost driven out of the broad Christian heartland, the Democratic party is even re-evaluating its hitherto uncompromising stand on a woman`s right to abortion. (Its leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, is "pro-life".) In the current climate McCain is able to appear moderate merely because he has not made the crusade against abortion the central organising principle of his life, and because of his readiness occasionally to break party ranks.

The senator himself, however, explains his bipartisan support as being more a question of style than substance. "My approval ratings may have something to do with the desire of a majority of Americans for less divisiveness ... I don`t believe in personal attacks or disrespect to people who hold opposing views."

Certainly the senator knows something about personal attacks. In the 2000 Republican primary elections, his low-budget "Straight Talk Express" campaign upset the heavily financed Bush juggernaut in independent-minded New Hampshire by 19 percentage points. For a brief moment, it looked possible that the grizzled war veteran could wrest the nomination from the party`s callow dauphin. But the next stop on the primary trail was South Carolina, the conservative heartland, where the Bush campaign and its supporters pulled out all the stops.

Pat Robertson, America`s pre-eminent television evangelist, swung his Christian broadcasting network against McCain, as did the National Rifle Association and the National Right to Life Committee. They were nervous about McCain`s commitment to campaign finance reform, which threatened to cut, or at least weaken, the link between their financial clout and their political influence. "In South Carolina, estimates are that in three weeks something between $13m and $20m were spent and most of that was in attacks," McCain says.

The onslaught was extraordinary even by modern campaign standards. Flyers started appearing on car windshields suggesting he had fathered a black child (an apparent reference to Bridget, a Bangladeshi girl whom McCain and his wife Cindy adopted). Others claimed he had committed treason while imprisoned in Hanoi or was mentally unbalanced as a result of his experiences.

His tendency to give straight answers, which charmed voters in New Hampshire, got him into trouble in South Carolina, where a battle was brewing over whether the Confederate flag should be flown from the state capitol. Bush dodged the issue, saying it was purely a matter for the state. McCain waded straight in, telling a television interviewer the flag was "a symbol of racism and slavery". It was a message that the state`s white Republicans were not ready to hear.

McCain is clearly determined that should he run in 2008, he will not trip up in South Carolina a second time. He has close political allies in the governor`s mansion and in the state`s congressional delegation who have helped him burnish his image there. He has also been more careful than he was in 2000 about what he says about the Christian right. But the senator maintains he has not yet made up his mind about running, and will not until the 2006 congressional elections. "I`d like to know the mood of the country after those elections," he says. "I`d like to be able to gauge the mood of the country and my chances at that time."

He will then be 70. He remains an extra-ordinarily dynamic figure for his age, clocking more international miles than most of his Senate colleagues, but a scar on the left side of his face serves as a reminder that he might have died from skin cancer five years ago had a melanoma not been spotted in time. He is checked every three months for a possible recurrence. His wife, Cindy, recently had a stroke, and her health may also be a factor.

Many US Democrats and centrists are trudging towards 2008 without great hopes. The conventional wisdom is that Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination but then lose the presidential election, because she will galvanise the people who hate the Clinton name more than those who love it.

Many eyes are on John McCain as the sole alternative to a continuation of the Bush revolution. The ideological religious right will be out to stop him, but by 2008, after another few years of ideological battles at home and counterinsurgency abroad, the Republicans could be ready for a change of style.

· The Alistair Cooke memorial lecture will be broadcast live on BBC Radio 4 tonight at 8pm and on BBC World Service at 10.30pm (BST) 4 July and 11.30pm (BST) on 5 July. bbc.co.uk/radio4
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]
WASHINGTON (IWR News Satire) - Karl Rove`s lawyer [urlRobert Luskin today said]http://www.sciencedaily.com/upi/?feed=TopNews&article=UPI-1-20050702-23462000-bc-us-leak-2ndld.xml that he was going to use the insanity defense in Rove`s upcoming Valerie Plame trail.

"Look, it must be clear to just about everybody by now that the entire Bush team, including my client Karl Rove, is composed entirely of [urlsociopaths]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociopath and paranoid schizophrenics.

Karl is a nutcase, OK.

He has no basic sense of morality or compassion for his fellow human beings.

And what person in his right mind would talk to Robert Novak about anything?

So you see there`s not a jury in the land that would convict a crazy bag of horse manure like Karl here for lying about and outing that CIA agent Valerie Plame.

After all, he was only being loyal to the president.

That`s what his job is after all - to lie, cheat and justify the corporate pillaging of America," said Luskin, who then received a big briefcase full unmarked hundred dollar bills from a sympathetic group of lobbyists. [/url][/url]
[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/

Monday, July 04, 2005

Egyptian Envoy Kidnapped
Sunni Arab Demonstrations against SCIRI in Tikrit, Baghdad

The chief of mission of the Iraqi embassy in Iraq was kidnapped late Saturday when he drove out to buy a newspaper, by two carloads of guerrillas who pistol-whipped him and accused him of being an American agent. Egypt was pressured by the US and the elected Iraqi government to appoint an ambassador, and Sherif was expected to assume the title. Jordan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia had been set to follow suit. Al-Jazeera is reporting that the Egyptians have issued a statement expressing hopes that Ihab Sherif will be treated as befits someone who has worked for Arab interests.

In Tikrit, according to al-Zaman, 3000 Sunni Arab demonstrators rallied Sunday in front of the Governor`s mansion to vow revenge on the (Shiite) Badr Corps, and threatening to cut off water and electricity to Baghdad, in response to the arrest by the Ministry of the Interior of Col. Muzhir Taha al-Ghannam, the provincial chief of police. The head of Interior (similar to the US Federal Bureau of Investigation) is Bayan Jabr, a long-time political representative of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), for which the Badr Corps functions as a private party militia. The deputy governor of Salahuddin, Abdullah Husain Jabbarah, said that al-Ghannam had been detained because of his background in working for the old Baath military as an intelligence officer concerned with combatting Iranian influence in Iraq. (Since SCIRI was the main agent of Iranian influence in Baathist Iraq, the Interior Minister presumably has an old grudge with Ghannam). The demonstrators charged that the Badr Corps was now purging from the Iraqi army all officers who fought bravely against Iran during the Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988. During that war, SCIRI was based in Tehran and the Badr Corps carried out what many Iraqis considered terrorist attacks against Iraq. That it did so from enemy territory is still held against it by many. (It would be sort of as though the Christian Coalition had planned and carried out bombings of abortion clinics from Hanoi in the early 1970s).

Hamza Hendawi of AP discusses in more detail the rising tensions between Sunnis and Shiites. Sabrina Tavernisse of the New York Times reports on the ethnic cleansing going on in some mixed Sunni-Shiite neighborhoods.

In Baghdad, al-Zaman says, thousands of demonstrators were organized by the Union of Mesopotamian Tribes to protest the detaining of Shaikh Wahid Zuaibil al-Hamidi, the Union`s secretary-general, by the ministry of the interior.

Sabotage of oil pipelines and other facilities has cost Iraq $11 billion in the past two years.

In Amara, al-Zaman reports, lawyer activists have met and are demanding explicit guarantees in the new constitution of personal liberty, human rights, and freedom of opinion. (These seem to be a small group of middle class activists, and I fear not very representative of Maysan province, which put the Sadrists (hard line Shiites) in control of the provincial government.

ash-Sharq al-Awsat: In Mosul on Sunday afternoon, guerrillas targeted a convoy of Ninevah provincial gendarmes with a bomb under a bridge. Two policeman and one other were killed, and two policemen were wounded. A fierce gunbattle ensued between the gendarmes and the guerrillas, with Mosul police coming to the aid of the gendarmes. The guerrillas fled into side streets in the end.

Near Baquba (an hour northeast of Baghdad), police discovered four bodies of persons who had been kidnapped Friday night by persons wearing police uniforms.

Reuters rounds up other "security incidents" in Iraq on Sunday:

Riyad (half an hour west of Kirkuk): A guerrilla detonated a car bomb near a police patrol, killing two policemen and wounding another. (The guerrillas were targeting the local police chief but missed).

Kirkuk: Three headless bodies were discovered in the city`s streets.

Ramadi: A suicide car bomber wounded two US soldiers and 4 civilians when he swerved into a house after failing to penetrate a US checkpoing.

Miqdadiya: Guerrillas fired mortar shells at an Iraqi army base northeast of Baghdad, wounding 10 civilians.

Baghdad: Guerrillas assassinated Abdul Kadhim Abdullah, a member of the Badr Corps (Shiite paramilitary originally trained by Iran`s Revolutionary Guards).

Hilla: The death toll from Saturday`s bombings rose to 9, with over 31 wounded.

It was revealed (via al-Zaman) that on last Thursday, a military intelligence officer in Basra, Zain al-Abidin Husain, was assassinated.

Switzerland demanded an explanation on Saturday of the shooting by US forces of one of its nationals, a Kurdish Iraqi with dual citizenship. His car appears to have made the mistake of getting too close to a nervous US military convoy. (US convoys are routinely targeted by suicide bombers in civilian cars).

Al-Zaman reports that US troops opened fire on a civilian car that was heading toward Jordan, killing a woman and her child. Again, the car appears to have gotten too close to a US convoy.

(These incidents show a benefit to the guerrillas of their car bomb attacks on US convoys, insofar as they create an atmosphere in which US soldiers and marines tend to shoot first and ask questions later, alienating ever more Iraqis by killing innocents).

posted by Juan @ [url7/04/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/egyptian-envoy-kidnapped-sunni-arab.html[/url]

Ahmadov on Iraq and Chechnya

Guest comment from Azerbaijan comparing the Iraq and Chechnya Guerrilla Wars, by Dr. Alpay Ahmadov in Baku:



. . . You cite Newsweek reports that Iraqi officials admit that the new security services are infiltrated and in detailed comment it.

I would like to inform you that, the same happens in Chechnya. Probably you know that, Chechen resistance soldiers (or mujaheeds) fight against Russia army as well as so-called pro-Russian Chechen militia (police) and soldiers. The former accuse latter of the betrayel of Chechen interests. There are people among pro-Russian Chechens, who in reality work for mujahids.

Another curious fact, that, as I know, doesn`t occur in Iraq, for the time being. The heads of some districts (governors), ethnically Chechens, appointed by Russian administration secretly pay tribute to the field commanders of mujahids to escape assasination against themselves. And other amazing fact, that can hardly happen regarding American forces in Iraq. Russian commanders sell weapons to mujahids with the aim of gain.

My conclusion: The conflicts in Iraq, Chechnya (Russia) and Afghanistan will hardly be solved in near future. Because the ideological bases of conflicts are too sharp and contradictory. And secondly, both US and Russia to some extent achieved Iraqization and Chechenization of the conflict, which also make these conflicts more protracted. Thirdly, there are secret forces who are interested in prolongation of such conflicts. Third aspect, truly saying, is unclear for me.

With best regards

Dr. Alpay Ahmadov
PH.D.,
lecurer of department of International Relations and Regional Studies,
Baku Slav University.

posted by Juan @ [url7/04/2005 06:20:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/ahmadov-on-iraq-and-chechnya-guest.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]
http://www.burningman.com/
[/TABLE]



[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]


[Table align=center]
[url2005 Art Theme]http://www.burningman.com/art_of_burningman/bm05_theme.html
Burning Man`s 2005 Art Theme will be "Psyche: the Conscious, the Subconscious and the Unconscious[/url]
[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]
[url]http://www.sfgate.com/burningman/
San Francisco Chronicle[/url]
[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/230949_thomas03.html

Cut our losses in Iraq and get out
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/230949_thomas03.html

Sunday, July 3, 2005

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- President Bush should cut our losses and pull out of Iraq before more Americans -- and Iraqis -- are forced to make the ultimate sacrifice.

If he does, he would be a hero and save lives.

Instead, his reaction to the present fiasco in Iraq seems to be "full speed ahead."

The president could gracefully withdraw from Iraq by asking the United Nations to take on a peacekeeping role in Iraq.

If we were to pull out, as we should, the United States would be required to open its doors to scores of Iraqis who would no longer be safe in their homeland because they had collaborated with the U.S. occupation. We took in the Vietnamese who allied with us in that war, after the North Vietnamese took over South Vietnam.

U.S. troops departed Vietnam when the American people no longer supported our continued presence in a no-win war. The comparison with our involvement in Iraq is irresistible.

Americans have not hit the streets to protest but a prolonged unpopular war is bound to evoke widespread protests.

In an AP-Ipsos poll released a week ago, some 53 percent of people surveyed say the United States made a mistake going to war in Iraq in March 2003. That is the highest number who have said the war was a mistake since the invasion.

Even the benign Congress might stir itself and say enough is enough.

In a prime-time speech Tuesday night at Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the 82nd Airborne Division, Bush said the U.S. sacrifice of remaining in Iraq "is worth it, and it is vital to the future security of our country."

He is asking other Americans to do what no one in his inner circle was willing to do during the Vietnam War. For example, Vice President Dick Cheney won five Selective Service deferments to stay out of the Vietnam War. As he famously put it, "I had other priorities."

The president said, "The violence in Iraq is being carried out by ruthless killers who are converging on Iraq to fight the advance of peace and freedom."

Well, he`s got that right. The Associated Press had a story out of Baghdad earlier this week that quoted U.S. military leaders as saying that the vast majority of suicide attackers in Iraq are foreigners -- mostly Saudis and other Gulf Arabs, with North Africans also streaming in to carry out deadly missions.

Bush said, "There is only one course of action against" the insurgents: "To defeat them abroad before they attack us at home."

Bush`s remark led Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., to wryly observe that Bush is suggesting that he "really staged an elaborate trap to lure in thousands of terrorists into Iraq so they could be destroyed there and not here in the streets of the United States." Reed said he worried that this "elaborate trap" might really have been an "ambush that we walked into, unprepared."

You have to have a very short memory not to recall that the president`s main pitch to invade Iraq was because it had an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. After two task forces scoured Iraq, we now know that was a bogus reason but it gave him the leeway to attack the oil-rich Gulf nation.

After months of trying to avoid mentions of Iraq, the president and his team apparently realized recently that the American people weren`t buying the silent treatment, as witnessed by his slump in the polls.

That led to his Fort Bragg speech, which amounted to a pep talk to the nation.

"There are difficult days ahead," Bush said. "We have more work to do, and there will be tough moments that test America`s resolve."

"As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down," Bush said.

It was a "stay the course" Vietnam-style speech like those voiced so often by Presidents Johnson and Nixon. At least Bush didn`t claim that there was a "light at the end of the tunnel."

His speech offered no new strategies and no hope for an end to the bloodshed.

There are precedents for the United States to retreat from danger zones. In 1983, President Reagan withdrew from Lebanon after 241 servicemen were killed when their barracks was bombed near the Beirut airport.

President Clinton also pulled out of Somalia in 1993 after 18 U.S. soldiers were killed.

Neither president suffered any lasting public repercussions. In fact, the country heaved sighs of relief.

Bush should follow suit and leave Iraq to the Iraqis under a protective U.N. umbrella.

Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: [e-mail]. Copyright 2005 Hearst Newspapers.

© 1998-2005 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Today in Iraq
Sunday, July 03, 2005
July 4, 2005

Two Year Anniversary

"There are some who, uh, feel like that, you know, the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring `em on. We got the force necessary to deal with the security situation. “ - George W. Bush, July 2, 2003.

Bring ‘em on:

Viel Text und einige Bilder!

http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

[Joerver]

July 5, 2005
Pentagon Weighs Strategy Change to Deter Terror
By THOM SHANKER and ERIC SCHMITT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/politics/05strategy.html?h…

WASHINGTON, July 4 - The Pentagon`s most senior planners are challenging the longstanding strategy that requires the armed forces to be prepared to fight two major wars at a time. Instead, they are weighing whether to shape the military to mount one conventional campaign while devoting more resources to defending American territory and antiterrorism efforts.

The consideration of these profound changes are at the center of the current top-to-bottom review of Pentagon strategy, as ordered by Congress every four years, and will determine the future size of the military as well as the fate of hundreds of billions of dollars in new weapons.

The intense debate reflects a growing recognition that the current burden of maintaining forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, along with the other demands of the global campaign against terrorism, may force a change in the assumptions that have been the foundation of all military planning.

The concern that the concentration of troops and weapons in Iraq and Afghanistan was limiting the Pentagon`s ability to deal with other potential armed conflicts was underscored by Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a classified risk assessment to Congress this spring. But the current review is the first by the Pentagon in decades to seriously question the wisdom of the two-war strategy.
[Table align=right]

Pentagon planners say the situation in Iraq is influencing the discussion about the future of the military. Above, An American soldier patrolled a market
in Baghdad
[/TABLE]
The two-war model provides enough people and weapons to mount a major campaign, like the Persian Gulf war of 1991 or the invasion of Iraq in 2003, while maintaining enough reserves to respond in a similar manner elsewhere.

An official designation of a counterterrorism role and a shift to a strategy that focuses on domestic defense would have a huge impact on the size and composition of the military.

In a nutshell, strategies that order the military to be prepared for two wars would argue for more high-technology weapons, in particular warplanes. An emphasis on one war and counterterrorism duties would require lighter, more agile forces - perhaps fewer troops, but more Special Operations units - and a range of other needs, such as intelligence, language and communications specialists.

Civilian and military officials are trying to decide to what degree to acknowledge that operations like the continuing presence in Iraq - not a full-blown conventional war, but a prolonged commitment - may be such a burden that it would not be possible to also fight two full-scale campaigns elsewhere.

In effect, the unusual mission in Iraq, which could last for years, has not just taken the slot for one of the two wars; it has upended the central concept of the two-war model. It is neither a major conventional combat nor a mere peacekeeping operation. It does not require the full array of forces, especially from the Navy and the Air Force, of a conventional war, and it takes far more troops than peacekeeping ordinarily would.

The force of 138,000 troops in Iraq is only 13,000 smaller than it was at the height of the offensive on Baghdad two years ago, yet the administration describes the campaign not as a major conventional war, but as the leading effort in the nation`s fight against terrorism.

"The war in Iraq requires a very large ground-force presence," said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a policy research center in Arlington, Va. "War with China or North Korea or Iran, the other countries mentioned in the major review scenarios, would require a much more capable Navy and Air Force."

Mr. Thompson added that "what we need for conventional victory is different from what we need for fighting insurgents, and fighting insurgents has relatively little connection to stopping the spread of nuclear weapons. We can`t afford it all."

The Pentagon`s sweeping study, called the Quadrennial Defense Review, is not due to be completed until early next year, when it will be submitted to Congress with the administration`s annual budget request. Yet debate over the review cannot ignore the mounting costs of the war in Iraq, approximately $5 billion a month.

A description of the major issues discussed in the classified review was gathered from interviews with more than a half-dozen civilian officials and military officers from across the armed services who are directly involved in the process.

The current military strategy is known by a numerical label, 1-4-2-1, with the first number representing the defense of American territory. That is followed by numbers representing the ability to deter hostilities in four critical areas of the world, and to swiftly defeat two adversaries in near-simultaneous major combat operations The final number stands for a requirement that the military retain the capability, at the same time, to decisively defeat one of those two adversaries, which would include capturing a capital and toppling a government.
[Table align=left]

A soldier kept watch at a village police station in Afghanistan.
[/TABLE]
"We have 1-4-2-1 now, and we are going to look at that," said Ryan Henry, who serves as principal deputy under secretary of defense for policy.

Asked where the military`s heavy commitment to the fight against terrorism fits into the current strategy formula, Mr. Henry said, "It wasn`t there when they came up with 1-4-2-1." If a new strategy emerges from the review, he said, it might be "something that doesn`t have any numbers at all."

Several officials involved in the review characterized the debate as "an effort to create a construct that will bring a better balance" among domestic defense, the antiterrorism campaign and conventional military requirements.

After years of saying American forces were sufficient for a two-war strategy, "we`ve come to the realization that we`re not," said another Defense Department official involved in the deliberations, who was granted anonymity because he could not otherwise discuss the talks, which are classified. "It`s coming to grips with reality."

Senior leaders are trying to develop strategies that will do a better job of addressing the requirements of antiterrorism and domestic defense, while acknowledging that future American wars will most likely be irregular - against urban guerrillas and insurgents - rather than conventional.

Tentative proposals by midlevel staff members on holding a summer summit on the review have been shelved, and the debate is now driven by weekly meetings that officials say have brought new discipline to a sprawling process.

Under Gordon R. England, nominated to succeed Paul D. Wolfowitz as deputy defense secretary, more than 150 questions that the review should address have been sorted into 36 major themes. They include such things as balancing reserve and active-duty forces; the role of other agencies in domestic security; combat medicine; the ability of foreign coastal powers to keep American forces at a distance; and the ability to attract people with important skills, such as a knowledge of the Arabic language.

The review is analyzing in detail what would happen if the United States had to fight China, North Korea or Iran.

In preparing for the review`s presentation to Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the highest-level decisions are made at round-table discussions held about three times a month and managed by Mr. England and Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nominee to succeed General Myers as the chairman. Although no draft of the review has been presented to Mr. Rumsfeld, he already has, in broad terms, endorsed efforts that would transform the military into a lighter, more mobile force.

General Pace declined through a spokeswoman on Friday to discuss the review.

"Whether anybody believed we could actually fight two wars at once is open to debate," one senior military officer said. "But having it in the strategy raised enough uncertainty in the minds of our opponents that it served as a deterrent. Do we want to lose that? We don`t want to give any adversary the confidence that they could take advantage of us while we`re engaged in one major combat operation."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]
MORGANTOWN, WV (IWR News Satire) - President George W. Bush was attacked by flock of angry penguins following his Independence Day message on climate change while visiting West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, July 4, 2005.

The penguins, which were part of a promotion for the March of the Penguins movie, attacked Bush after he said that he would not support a Kyoto style agreement on global warming.

Although Mr. acknowledged that some of global warming was caused by human activity, he blamed the majority of the problem on "smelly, dirty animals like penguins, sea otters and capybaras".

Mr. Bush, who is known to have a severe bird phobia since childhood, fainted and then regained consciousness later after being treated with smelling salts.

Bush was then carried off on stretcher while sobbing and asking for his teddy bear until he was sped off in an ambulance.
[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[urlReturn of the Angry Man]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/gallery/2005/07/01/GA2005070100682_metaRefresher.htm[/url]

washingtonpost.com
Return of the Angry Man
He might have simply disappeared after the Scream ended his presidential hopes. But as head of the Democratic Party, Howard Dean is still going to go to New Hampshire. And South Carolina. And Oklahoma ...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06…

By Sally Jenkins
Post
Sunday, July 3, 2005; W08
[Table align=right]


[/TABLE]
At some point in the next five minutes, Howard Dean is going to say something that somebody won`t like. He will say it in words chesty and rough, with a voice that is raked out of the bottom of his throat. He might call Republicans "plunderers," or he might call them "brain-dead." Whatever he says, the sound of a politician speaking his actual mind will cause his admirers and detractors alike to react as if they just heard an explosion. The chatter fills the air like scattering flocks of jackdaws: Check me on this, but did Howard Dean just call half the country stupid?

Dean could stop saying these things -- but he won`t. "Most of that stuff, I don`t regret," he says. It`s mid-May, and the highly charged chairman of the Democratic National Committee, a man described by his own brother as "radioactive," sits in a room at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston, tilted backward in a chair. A crowded itinerary has taken him from a union hall in Oklahoma City to a fundraiser in the Back Bay in the space of a day, and he has been talking the whole way. "Of course, I`m not always right," he says. "And I almost never take a poll before I speak."

His eyes are winter blue, the shade that is buried in a block of ice. His temples are white. His complexion is a burnished outdoor red. He has a face like a flag. Dean`s color tends to rise when he speaks, which only reinforces what he calls "the caricature" of him as the Angry Man of his party. When he is exercised by a crowd, the flush creeps up his neck, and he turns into the guy who stood on podiums during his failed bid for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination and roared, "I want my country back! . . . I don`t want to listen to fundamentalist preachers anymore!" When Dean revisits some of his performances, he says, "even I`m appalled. The veins are popping out. I look like a lunatic up there."

His former deputy campaign manager, Bob Rogan, understood that the Dean candidacy had a serious problem the day he turned on the TV and saw even the weatherman imitating the Scream, Dean`s thundering non-concession speech after he finished third in Iowa. The weatherman reported the conditions from state to state with a mock Deanian roar, "And New Hampshire! And Wisconsin!" The Scream, Rogan says, "will probably be in his obituary."

Howard Brush Dean III, the political insurgent and former governor of Vermont who became the flash candidate for president and fodder for cartoonists everywhere, would seem to be the worst possible choice to chair his party. It`s a party that has lost control of Congress and the majority of governorships, and that hasn`t won a majority of the popular vote but once in the last 10 presidential elections. The selection of such a remorseless firebrand as chair would seem, on the face of it, to confirm Republican charges that the Democrats are a party lapsed into confusion and hotheadedness. Dean represents "loony left redundancy," says former RNC chair Rich Bond, who also calls Dean`s ascent "a disaster" and "a joke." Former House speaker Newt Gingrich has said Dean represents "a true death wish" on the part of Democrats.

But Dean is also the guy who made speaking up fashionable again for Democrats. And that is one reason his party is wagering on him. If Dean says things that are ill-considered, he also remains his party`s leading rebel -- one with enough fresh fight in him to take on not only Republicans but also those change-resistant Democrats who would rather be titular heads of a dying party than less relevant figures in a renewed one. The hope for Democrats is: Dean will be the antidote for a party that is lacking a strong message and that needs somebody, anybody, to say something. Dean likes to quote his political hero, Harry Truman. "I don`t give `em hell," Truman said in 1948. "I just tell the truth, and they think it`s hell." And the truth, as Dean sees it, is that mushmouthedness is killing the party, and so is voter neglect. "Somebody has to take those right wingers on," he says, "and I enjoy doing it."

In fact, it was another blunt statement that helped him get this job. Dean has vowed not to run for president in 2008, "and one of the reasons I`m not running," he told DNC delegates, "is because if we don`t change this party, it won`t matter who the nominee is."

The outsider-insurgent has taken on the ultimate insider`s job. The gamble is that Dean, underneath the rhetoric, is a politician of real capabilities with clear ideas about how to fix the DNC. At his best, Dean is disarmingly direct; he cuts through the clutter, and, as he proved in his campaign, he has an ability to make people like him for his flaws. "I don`t think you can win if you don`t have backbone," he says, "and I don`t think you can win if you`re afraid of who you are."

The job of party chair in the best of circumstances is thankless, a matter of tedious mechanics accompanied by an endless circuit of chicken-dinner glad-handing. It has three components: fundraising, organizing the party and energizing voters. Democrats have faltered on the latter two. Basically, Dean has descended into the basement of the party to fix the broken pipes. It`s a lousy role, and a potentially risky career move, because it makes him a walking bull`s-eye. If candidates win, he will get none of the credit, and if they lose, he will get the blame.

"Howard," former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe said early this year, "you`re about to become a human fire hydrant."

Dean`s task would seem to be this: to take back his party from the left without pandering to the right or infuriating various Democratic "constituencies" -- from George Soros, to labor, right down to and including unlicensed ceramicists -- while also rebuilding dilapidated party infrastructure in 50 states. All without making himself the message or the star. Right now, you`re probably feeling better about your own job. "Dean may think he`s got the world on a string," says one political strategist, "but what he`s really got is a yo-yo with the initials DNC on it."

Why would he want such a job? The short answer is that he was looking for work. And he`s got the guts to try it. "I looked at the DNC chairmanship, and it ain`t the presidency," he says, "but it was the best I could do, in order to contribute to making sure that this country got back on a path I think will lead to its greatness for another century, and not another 10 minutes."

In his first four months, Dean visited 23 states, 10 of them Republican "red." A testament to the mileage he has covered, and to his Yankee frugality, are the loafers he is balancing against a desk. Two perfect half moons have been worn deep into the heels. The shoes suggest the man.

Dean`s motto could be the Gadsden flag`s "Don`t Tread on Me." He refuses to submit to the opinion of others, and he insists on leading by his own lights. He is an old-fashioned Yankee fiscal conservative with moderate social values, the strictly reared son of one of New York`s first families, whose anti-Republican rhetoric comes from a genuine loathing of deficits and resentment of governmental intrusions. "They`re undermining American values," he snaps. At times, he resembles the kind of Democrat that existed pre-Great Society, in the mode of Truman. Dean so identifies with Truman that he used to read from David McCullough`s biography to his children, Anne and Paul, at bedtime. "He stood for common sense, common decency. He spoke the common tongue."

Then again, sometimes he doesn`t resemble a Democrat at all. Sometimes he sounds like a Rockefeller Republican, who preaches individual rights "but also responsibilities." It`s a Deanian irony that the only people he angers more than conservatives are liberals. In fact, Dean resists simple ideology or box politics. What to do with a pro-choice, civil-unions, fiscal-conservative, antiwar, NRA-endorsed law-and-order-pro-death-penalty Democrat who won`t keep quiet? He`s a maverick.

"Maverick just implies someone who doesn`t toe the party line, and I don`t," he says. "And I don`t toe the expected line."

One would not expect the DNC chair to fly coach. But he does. He rides the New York subway and the Washington Metro. He generally refuses car service, because he doesn`t like to waste money or time in traffic. Also, he can`t stand luggage carousels. "Anyone who travels with me has to do carry-on," he says. His travel bag is a beaten up Tumi with red masking tape jacked around the handle. It contains exactly one suit.

"The joke around here is that Howard needs a visit from `Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,` " says Betsey Krumholz, a longtime acquaintance from Burlington, Vt.

One would also expect the DNC chair to spend considerable time in the capital. But Dean spends two days a week max at the DNC office here, preferring instead to visit state parties. Recently he had lunch with, as he described them, some "very old influential heavy-hitter lobbyists." They gently suggested that he ought to do more time in Washington.

"I can`t," he said. "No votes in Washington."

That is the sort of smart and spiny thing Dean likes to say, and, when it`s accompanied by rolled-up sleeves and a tie askew, he radiates a sense of possibility for his party. But he`s also capable in the next instant of making a statement that forces staffers to roll their eyes and rush back to their offices to control the fallout. It has become a weekly ritual: Dean says something, such as calling Republicans "pretty much a white, Christian party," angering conservatives and scaring the wits out of centrist Democrats, who promptly distance themselves from him.

Yet Dean resists efforts by his advisers to discipline his frankness, or to groom him. According to Tom McMahon, the DNC executive director, when aides would prep Dean for debates during the campaign, they could never teach him to dodge questions artfully. He charges straight into his answers.

"Pivot," McMahon said he told Dean. "You don`t always have to answer the question. Pivot."

"When I hear the question, I just feel like I have to answer it," Dean replied.

"Well," McMahon said, "I guess that`s a strategy."

According to former campaign manager Joe Trippi, spontaneity is Dean`s great strength and weakness. It lends him sincerity, but it proved his downfall as a candidate, because it obscured his abilities and more moderate convictions, allowing opponents to paint him as extreme. "He was caricatured, but in the end a lot of the caricature was ammo that he provided," says Trippi, who believes Dean almost reflexively defies any attempt to Washingtonize him.

"It almost got to the point where, if you wanted him to go out through that door," Trippi says, "you had to point to the other door."

Dean rarely speaks from a prepared text, preferring to jot thoughts on an index card, which he then barely refers to. Exasperated aides urge him to stick to a script. "Give the speech," says media consultant Tom Ochs, a member of Dean`s DNC transition team. "That`s why it`s called a `speech.` " But Dean gives speeches only on his terms. If Dems thought they were hiring a servile functionary, they were mistaken.

Dean has arrived at the Park Plaza in Boston to address the annual state Democratic convention.

He pulls out an index card, which he hardly glances at, and launches into a rousing delivery. ("We`re not going to let Republicans define us anymore! We`re going to say what Democrats are about!") Then three-quarters of the way through his remarks, he puts the card in his breast pocket. Things have gone smoothly.

Until he arrives at the subject of Tom DeLay. The House majority leader is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for taking trips paid for by lobbyists. Dean lights into him. DeLay needs to go back to Houston, "where he can serve his jail sentence down there courtesy of the Texas taxpayers!" Dean thunders.

Check me on this: Did Howard Dean just throw the Republican House majority leader into prison?

Nashville:

Dean`s first weeks as DNC chair were strangely quiet -- for him. While debates raged about privatizing Social Security and the Terry Schiavo case, Dean was absent from the Sunday talk shows. Where was he?

He was doing the red states. In late March, he was in Nashville. The day before he arrived, there were reports that local Democrats would duck him. Gov. Phil Bredesen helped him out by stating that if Dean wanted to meet, "I`d be happy to do so." But a county commissioner, Curtis Adams, told the Nashville Tennessean, "Howard Dean will take this party down."

Also heralding Dean`s arrival was conservative commentator Ann Coulter, who was in the area for a speaking engagement. She called him "the gift that keeps on giving."

Dean introduced himself to the party by visiting regional party offices, where he held confidential meetings and listened to complaints. His conviction is that the party has deserted its outposts in too many states. As the candidate who broke new ground in Internet fundraising and grass-roots motivating, he believes he`s uniquely qualified to fix the gap.

One of his stops was at Vanderbilt University, where he faced a standing-room-only class. For the next 45 minutes, Dean lectured, bantered and spoke like a candidate. ("I do not believe that you can run enormous deficits year after year after year and not have consequences. I do not believe you can run a foreign policy based on petulance.") But Dean was almost as critical of Democrats. The class evolved into his first lengthy public explication of his view of the party, and his "idears" for fixing it, as he pronounces the word. "It is socially unacceptable in some parts of the country to be a Democrat," he observed. "The first thing we have to do is show up in 50 states and compete in 50 states. Second thing we`re going to do is talk in a way that is not condescending."

Message has been a major problem for Democrats. "You ask people what Republicans stand for, they stand for less taxes, more defense and less government. If I ask you what Democrats stand for, there`s going to be a poll in here," he said. If the Democrats` agenda is not clear, the party`s liabilities are, at least to Dean. National security, he said, "is our biggest weakness." And as long as Democrats sound as if they are defending abortion, he declared, "we`re going to lose the argument every time."

A student raised her hand. What was his specific plan for recovery? Dean ticked off several points. First, he would infuse state parties with cash and organizing help. The difference between the

Democratic and Republican operations in Ohio, where the presidential election turned, Dean hazarded, was that Democrats brought in thousands of volunteers from out of state. Republicans had thousands of volunteers in state, knocking on the doors of their neighbors. This lack of neighbor-to-neighbor presence, Dean suggested, was alienating.

Also, Democrats must contest races in all states, at all levels, in all years, not just presidential ones. "It is disrespectful not to come to Tennessee and Mississippi and Alabama as well as California and Michigan and Ohio . . . We need to come to Tennessee because what you could think of Democrats by watching [Republican] ads is all you`re going to think of us unless we show up and make our case in person."

A young man stood up and asked what he could do to help the party, other than give money, which he didn`t have. Dean bobbed on his feet, delighted with the question, because it allowed him to show off his best side -- the side that grew a presidential candidacy from a small Vermont operation with seven employees into a national campaign with 600,000 supporters.

"The number one thing you can do is run for office."

[Class giggles]

"I`m absolutely serious. I am not kidding."

The class grew quiet. Here was Dean as a Johnny Appleseed, sowing civics in the young. While Democrats have conceded parts of the country considered hostile, Republicans have left no office untested, he pointed out. The result is that Dems have no farm system, no ability to find young political talent in red states and groom it.

Run, he urged the students. Run for county road commissioner. Run for city council. "If you don`t have people running for offices like county commissioner, who do you think is going to run for Congress a generation from now?

"You may not win the first time," he said, "or the second time or the third time . . . If you lose, so what? It`s worth the investment if we can have somebody there who gives the message, who`s articulate and thoughtful, and respectful of the voters, because they`ll get a better impression of Democrats than they would otherwise if there was no opposition whatsoever. That`s the great failure, one of the great failures, of the party. Because we were in power for so long, we didn`t think we had to appeal to places like that. Well, we do. And we will."

Washington, March 23:

Dean`s debut as DNC chair in Washington was not going well. The microphone didn`t work.

A day after leaving Tennessee, he had his "coming out" party in the nation`s capital, a fundraiser for $50-to-$100 small donors. Three hundred or so of them packed into the H2O Lounge on the Potomac.

On Dean`s arrival here, he found a plush office at the brand-new Democratic headquarters on Capitol Hill awaiting him, complete with calf-colored leather sofas. This was thanks to McAuliffe, who despite his limo-driven, Hay Adams-lunching persona did some heavy lifting for the party. In 2001, McAuliffe took over an organization carrying decades-old debt. He lacked basic equipment and a voter file, thanks to years of insolvency, complacency and neglect. "We never invested because we had always been broke," he says. "And when Bill Clinton was in office he was such a great communicator that the lack of capability wasn`t apparent because he was so good. Once he was gone . . ."

Over his four-year tenure, McAuliffe made the party solvent and professionalized operations. He raised more than $500 million, invested in computer technology and compiled a 175-million-voter database. But according to McAuliffe and Dean, much remains undone. The party is woefully inadequate when it comes to smaller, equally crucial aspects of party building. And that is where Dean takes over.

Example: Go to a Web site for Republicans in Oklahoma, Tulsagop.org. A crisp page appears, with a slide show that covers each issue of the day, from judicial nominees to stem cells. There are links to local GOP clubs, sharp color photos and an invitation to "participatory leadership training."

Go to Tulsademocrats.org, and you find an unpolished red-and-blue site with a handful of tabs. One of them says "Photos." Sounds promising. Click on it, and three words pop up.

"Flag Day 2003."

Dean and the Democrats can fashion whatever message they want, but if they don`t have the infrastructure to get it across, it won`t matter. "We have real problems as a party on just every level," Trippi says. "It`s hard to point to something we`re beating the Republicans at."

So it was perhaps fitting that Dean`s Washington debut would be marred by a small but telling communications breakdown. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) took the stage at the H2O Lounge to introduce Dean, starting with a simple, "Good evening." Only it came out, "Good ev -- --"

Norton paused, and tapped the microphone. She blew on it, and tried again. "Good ev -- --"

More tapping and blowing.

"You know, I thought Democrats owned this place," Norton said. "Sabotage."

Only it came out, "sab-t-a -- "

Dean sidled up next to Norton. "We`re holding off for a few minutes," he said. He turned and handed the mike to a technician. More tapping offstage.

From somewhere in the back of the room, a man`s beery voice rang out.

"Don`t scream, Howard!" he hollered.

You can see the problem.

Dean`s most explicit quality is audacity. What makes a former governor from Vermont, a quaint nonconformist agrarian state of 610,000 that lacks the swat of even a New Hampshire, think he could run for president? Or that he can save Democrats from going the way of the Whigs?

One answer is that if Howard Brush Dean III is an outsider, William F. Buckley Jr. is a bounding arriviste. Dean may be a political interloper, but his social pedigree is one of pure entitlement. Ralph Wright, longtime speaker of the Vermont House, wrote a not-entirely-flattering description of Dean in his memoir, All Politics Is Personal: "Howard Dean never walked into a room with the slightest doubt that everyone who gathered there loved him."

He was born on November 17, 1948, the first of four boys, to Howard Brush Dean II, a stockbroker, and Andree Maitland Dean, an art appraiser. He is descended from the Rev. Nathaniel Huntting, the second minister of East Hampton, N.Y., who settled in the Long Island town at the end of the 17th century after studying at Harvard under Cotton and Increase Mather. Another ancestor, Benjamin Huntting, outfitted whalers in nearby Sag Harbor. His immense white-pillared mansion is now the town museum.

Dean comes from the old Eastern code that treats wealth as ethic. His father, "Big Howard," reared his sons along the lines of John D. Rockefeller, who once said, "Every right implies a responsibility; every opportunity, an obligation; every possession, a duty." Big Howard made his living dutifully, and served his country dutifully. He suffered from diphtheria as a youth, and, when he was rejected for military service during World War II, he ran freight to the Allies in North Africa, Nigeria and Sudan, and helped resupply the Chinese nationalist air force against the Japanese.

Big Howard, who died in 2001, was a character, a stocky man with a deep voice and rigid rules but an antic sense of humor. He was a gagster who carried a collection of plastic bugs in his pocket. He couldn`t stand stuffiness or ostentation. He was a staunch Republican and a member of the select Maidstone Club in Easthampton, yet he didn`t seem class-conscious. His sons remember him playing golf at Maidstone one day, and hunting with local plumbers the next. "He didn`t give a damn what the difference was," Dean says. He insisted that status was irrelevant and that his sons should pay their own way. "He earned every nickel and was a real penny pincher," Dean says. "We all were."

(Dean has passed it down to his children. A couple of years ago, friend Betsey Krumholz was working a ticket booth at Burlington High School, selling $40 passes for the football season. Dean and his wife, Judy Steinberg, came by, with son Paul trailing behind. Dean pulled out his checkbook and asked for two passes.

"Do you want a ticket for Paul, too?"

"No," Dean said. "He can pay his own way.")

The Dean family divided its time between an apartment on Park Avenue and a second home on Hook Pond Lane in East Hampton. But it`s a peculiarity of a New York childhood that wealth doesn`t entirely cosset you. The Dean brothers, Howard, Charlie, Bill and Jim, rode the bus and subway to their private, all-boys grade school, Browning. Bill remembers being mugged regularly for his bus pass.

The Dean household was noisy, and belligerent. "We were always competing to be heard," says Bill. "The only way I could do it was I just had to be louder than everyone else." Card games became wrestling matches. A family story has it that on the bus one day, some kid smacked Howard. His younger brother Charlie smacked the kid back. Just then, their grandmother happened to pass by. When a woman on the street said, "Look at those boys fighting, that`s disgusting!" their grandmother said, "Those are my grandsons!" and smacked the woman with her pocketbook.

The Dean boys were encouraged to debate over family dinner and to be politically engaged. Charlie, younger than Howard by 15 months, was by all accounts the most ambitious of the Deans, a gregarious, take-charge kid who had his eye on office-seeking as a teen. "He was counting votes by the age of 14," says Jim. Charlie worked for the mid-1960s campaign of New York Mayor John Lindsay, a Republican, and dragged his brothers to headquarters to help. He did so much work for Richard Nixon`s 1968 presidential campaign, Jim says, that he got an invitation to the inaugural. "He was the one you`d of thought of as a future prez," Bill says.

Howard was less outgoing, quiet but earnest. "I was a do-gooder," he says. At St. George`s, a prep school in Rhode Island, where study hall and chapel were mandatory, he was elected prefect, a student leader in charge of discipline. He supervised bed-making and study, and comforted and advised younger boys. His self-description in a yearbook reveals an intense, and perhaps argumentative, young man. "From the outside looking in I am: a Prefect making a thousand announcements in assembly, a dorm prefect with a big stick . . . a big brother, a solid conservative defending the powers of the Student Council and lashing out at cynics and opponents . . . If you`re the curious type who can put up with a temper, join the few who know me as I know me -- from the inside looking out."

When Dean was admitted to Yale, his father urged him to put college off for a year to travel. Big Howard believed his war experience had made him, and wanted to cultivate the same fearless independence in his sons. In 1966, Dean shipped off to Felsted, an English boarding school. The experience was more than his father intended. Dean departed a shorn young Republican in a coat and tie, "mindlessly for the war in Vietnam," he says. He returned with a mop of hair, in jeans and dusty boots. He had turned against the war and become preoccupied with social justice. "I remember him leaving," Jim Dean says, "and he didn`t come back a year later."

In his travels, Dean found he couldn`t defend the U.S. presence in Vietnam, or explain the civil rights injustices at home. He spent that Christmas in Tunisia. He and a group of classmates drove a Land Rover to Turkey, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia in the spring of `67. "I had a very rapid and comprehensive education in social justice," he says now.

The Dean who entered Yale in the fall of `67 had decided he wanted something different from what he grew up with, "for reasons I`m not entirely in touch with," he says. He was curious enough about the civil rights movement that when he filled out a questionnaire asking his residential preference, he replied that he wanted a black roommate. He was assigned to a four-person suite in Wright Hall. Two of his roommates were blacks from the Deep South, and a third was an Italian American from Pennsylvania.

One of them was Ralph Dawson, the son of a sheet metal worker and one of 12 children, from Charleston, S.C. Dawson, who is a partner with Fulbright & Jaworski in New York, recalls that Dean had a searching mind, and hair "that got longer all the time." Dean inquired freely about race and wasn`t afraid to debate it, either. "He had a keen interest in getting to know what different people were about," Dawson says. "He was willing to engage, not afraid to step on toes. Not afraid to put forward his thoughts and let them be received however they`d be received in an exchange. He was much more willing to disagree with you than some other people."

In Dean`s freshman year neckties were required at meals. By spring, the rule was gone, and Yale had become a cultural cauldron. "Yale brought a lot of freedom for Howard," Dawson says. "I think he had grown up in a situation where he was encouraged to conform." In the spring of 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy were assassinated, and, a couple years later, there were mass demonstrations and fears of rioting when Bobby Seale and several other Black Panthers were put on trial for murder in New Haven.

Dawson and Dean, who remain friends, talked late into the nights about militancy. As upperclassmen, they lived across the courtyard from each other in Pierson College, where Dean was famous for his stereo, which he would blast from his window. He was only a fair-to-middling student, preferring to drink beer and talk politics. He was suspicious of ideologues and espoused King`s confrontational nonviolence. Dawson, meanwhile, went militant; he joined the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, quoted Stokely Carmichael and got arrested at demonstrations. "We discussed the pros and cons of that ad nauseam," he says.

At the Dean home, family dinner discussions were getting testy. Charlie had also turned against the war, and he and Howard argued with their father. Big Howard believed in the system and didn`t want to hear about racism and societal double standards. "There were times when his blood pressure rose and he would leave the room," Bill remembers.

Howard`s graduation day became the occasion of another family story. Big Howard was proud of his son for getting through Yale, since he himself had flunked out before going to North Africa. He drove the entire family to New Haven for graduation, insisting everyone wear their best suits. It was a summer day, and the campus was boiling with unrest. A local union was on strike, and a huge student protest was underway. When the Deans arrived at Howard`s room, it was occupied by a collection of long-haired, tattooed strangers.

During commencement, Big Howard stared aghast at the ragged students. "There are at least three different demonstrations going on," Jim remembers. "And it`s hot. And we`re sitting in our chairs watching this parade of seniors, and most of them have caps and gowns and not much else, bare legs, shorts, long stringy hair. And you can hear the catcalls from the demonstrations, `Capitalist pigs!` And I`m looking at Dad, and he`s getting redder and saying, `These people never worked a day in their life.` "

At which point 15-year-old Bill piped up. "Congrats, Dad," he said. "This is your first Yale graduation." Big Howard dissolved in laughter.

Dean was slow to find himself after graduation. Exempted from the draft with misaligned vertebrae, he went to Aspen, Colo., and washed dishes while he skied for a year. On returning, he dutifully took a job on Wall Street, but selling securities to rich people wasn`t his calling. He naively told friends he wanted to do something "morally unimpeachable," according to the campaign biography Howard Dean: A Citizen`s Guide to the Man Who Would Be President.

"When I was in college I had the usual relatively immature ideology that students have," he now says. "But I believed that if you want the world to work properly, you have to have everybody getting a reasonably fair shake. And I think that has really driven my career."

Dean began volunteering at a hospital near his Greenwich Village apartment, St. Vincent`s, and, out of the blue, announced he would go to medical school. Dean`s resolve may have been deepened by family tragedy. Charlie had become steeped in politics, throwing himself into George McGovern`s 1972 presidential campaign after graduating from the University of North Carolina. Crushed when McGovern lost 49 states, he set off on a backpacking adventure to console himself. He hopped a freighter to Japan, went to Bali and Australia and then into Southeast Asia. Why is a mystery. The Deans never saw him again. He and a friend were riding a ferry on the Mekong River between Laos and Thailand when communist guerrillas took them into custody. Accused of spying, they were executed. The Deans did not recover his remains until last year.

Charlie`s death left a hole in the universe for the family. "It`s a little easier to talk about now that we got him back," Bill Dean says. "Howard and Charlie, there was a real partnership there in a lot of ways. Howard felt that, well, here we had this terrible loss, what were we going to do? We talked about it, and we figured the best face you can put on losing a sibling that young is make more of your life. And try to carry on the spirit of what he was trying to do. And so I think we kind of all figured, we`ll do a little more."

Dean wears Charlie`s belt every day. It`s a wide black leather strap meant for jeans, and it doesn`t go with a business suit, but Dean cinches it around his waist. Dean is not certain that Charlie was a specific impetus of his medical and political careers; all he knows is that the grief was murky and depthless. "I actually don`t think it made us dig a little deeper in terms of achieving," he says. "It made us dig a lot deeper in terms of understanding the roads other people have to walk."

In Vermont, Dean is just a rumpled guy who paints his own house. You`ll know the place by the dented yellow mailbox. It`s a handsome but modest cream-colored home with picture windows and a minivan in the driveway. Once, during the 2004 campaign, Rogan stopped by early one morning to pick him up for a trip to Iowa. It was 7 a.m., and Dean was in the front yard mowing the lawn in his suit.

In his autobiography, You Have the Power, Dean says, "When I graduated from college I turned my back on much of what was expected of me -- a certain kind of marriage, a certain kind of Wall Street career." The answer as to why a Park Avenue mainliner would flee to Vermont is clear when you round a curve and see the alluring scenery. Rivers twine around verdant mountainsides, and Lake Champlain shimmers in the distance like God`s own mirror. Burlington retains a turn-of-the-century charm, with spires, green squares and rows of red-brick buildings. White sails waft past a pair of old lighthouses, and fog comes and goes like a sigh. Vermont, for its residents, is a true love.

Dean arrived in Burlington in 1978 to take up his residency at the University of Vermont teaching hospital. He was joined the following year by Judy Steinberg, a woman he met in medical school. They wed in 1981 and set up a family practice. Steinberg is a slight woman with a mass of brown hair who shrinks from public life and declined to be interviewed for this article. Steinberg, Dean tells friends, is the superior doctor and intellect, and he cites one of their medical school final exams. The curve was so severe that a passing grade was 30. Dean got a 34. Steinberg scored a 92.

Dean retreats to Burlington on weekends. On the day after he threw DeLay into jail, he could be seen in old green sweats, as he strolled along a lakeside path deep in conversation with Steinberg. On most Sunday afternoons, Dean and Steinberg walk or bicycle along the shore of Lake Champlain on a path Dean is partly responsible for building. It was his first political engagement, and if it`s one of the more quaint aspects of his résumé, it`s also a monument to his stubbornness.

Shortly after he came to Burlington, he helped found the Citizens Waterfront Group and led what became a years-long legal and legislative battle to preserve the lakeshore from aggressive development. The path, several miles long, was built in excruciatingly piecemeal fashion, and not without hard feelings. Dean pulled up old railroad ties, laid paving stones and even preserved an old tree that was being gnawed on by beavers by putting a fence around it. He gathered petition signatures in supermarkets. He quit his Episcopal diocese when it considered siding with developers.

Vermont politics is intensely neighbor-driven, and it was a neighbor, Esther Sorrell, who fostered Dean`s interest. Sorrell was the state coordinator for Jimmy Carter, and her house was a hive of Democratic activity. Her son Bill -- who would become Dean`s chief of staff and now is Vermont`s attorney general -- remembers piles of leaflets and voter lists around the house. "I was 16 before I realized the dining room table was for meals," he says. Dean met Esther in 1978 on the sidewalk while she was tending her flowers, and was drawn in. On Friday evenings, Dean sat in her living room and ate her brownies while they watched "Washington Week in Review." One Friday evening around that time, Bill stopped by, and there was Dean "feeding his face" and absorbing political gossip. "This guy needs to get a life," Bill Sorrell thought.

Dean started at the bottom, stuffing envelopes and sponging stamps. "He wasn`t too big or too good for anything," Sorrell says. But Dean`s ambition accelerated: He became county chair after Carter`s failed 1980 reelection campaign and, by 1983, was a freshman in the Vermont House of Representatives. There he developed his reputation for political audacity. Wright, in his memoir, remembers Dean as cheekily dismissive of protocol, leapfrogging elders to go for the job of minority whip. By 1986, he was lieutenant governor. Wright recalls Dean becoming bluntly livid when a rival legislator`s committee slashed the salary of his administrative assistant. "He`s a no-good sonofabitch," Wright quotes Dean as saying. "I swear to God if it takes a lifetime I`ll get the bastard." Dean admits in his autobiography that he needed chastening. A senior Democrat, Marie Condon, cautioned him. "Someone had gotten my blood boiling, and I must have said I was going to retaliate," Dean wrote. "Marie took me aside and said: `You`re going to do really well here, but you`ve got to get over this chip on your shoulder that tells you to fix somebody`s wagon if they cross you.` "

Dean was seeing a patient one August morning in 1991 when he got the call telling him that Republican Gov. Richard Snelling had died and that he was the new governor. Dean immediately reassured the state by keeping Snelling`s staff and his policies in place, setting a tone of pragmatism he would maintain for most of the next 12 years, as he became the longest-serving governor in the country.

Dean endeared himself to Vermonters with his oddball informality. He eschewed inaugural balls and wore either a $125 J.C. Penney suit or a hockey jacket and hiking boots to the governor`s office in Montpelier. He drove carpool for his kids and, while Steinberg maintained her medical practice, often watched the kids in the governor`s office.

Wright was struck by Dean`s unaffectedness when the two of them visited Washington in 1993, for President Clinton`s address on health care to a joint session of Congress. Dean was invited to sit behind the first lady in the gallery and to stay over at the White House. The next morning Wright picked up Dean. "Awaiting our arrival was this boyish guy, looking for all the world like he was waiting for a bus to take him to summer camp," Wright wrote. "[H]e had a suitcase I`m certain was made out of cardboard. His hair looked like he had simply run his hands through it and had a pronounced cowlick sticking up in the back. He had buttoned his shirt unevenly and the knot in his tie was closer to his shoulder than his adams apple."

How did it go? Wright wanted to know.

"I was tired. I went right to sleep," Dean said.

Well, did he see the Clintons for breakfast? "I didn`t see anyone. I just got up, and showered, and came down here to wait for you guys."

"Governor," Wright said, incredulously, "you didn`t even get to have a cup of coffee this morning?"

"I don`t drink coffee. Besides, I wasn`t sure where I was, and I didn`t want to bother anybody."

Dean wore his clothes until they were threadbare, and he favored cheap suits and shoes. "Don`t look at the socks," says Ochs. "If they match." He kept the office refrigerator stocked with generic soft drinks. "No name sodas. You couldn`t find a brand you ever heard of," Sorrell says. His bicycle was a junker he bought at a garage sale for about $5, and, as Steinberg jokes to their friends, "he thinks he overpaid for it."

When the Clintons hosted a dinner for governors in 1996, Dean went into his closet and pulled out a tux he had worn in high school, and insisted it still fit him. "It didn`t," Rogan says. "He looked like a sausage." Dean was suffering from a cold and, toward the end of the night, he had a particularly violent coughing fit -- and the tuxedo split open. "The whole front exploded," Rogan says. "It came apart." Dean had to borrow an overcoat to leave the White House. "And he went back and had that thing fixed," Rogan says. "He had it repaired."

As governor, Dean treated the citizens` money like his own. Sorrell remembers him pounding the arms of his chair in anger over the fact that he and the legislature had to assess a small sales tax. When he took over, Vermont was running a $65 million deficit. For 12 years, he was a fanatical balancer of the budget and also managed to lower taxes (helped by the Snelling policies he inherited).

Dean`s management style in doing so was brisk, to put it charitably. He was impatient with procedure. Sorrell remembers Dean calling him in the early days of trying to erase the deficit. "Listen, I`m thinking about an income tax cut," he said.

"Whoa, Howard," Bill Sorrell said. "Whew. I got to chew on that one."

"Well you better chew fast, because I want to announce it today."

His style meant his staff was always trying to catch up with his policy, or his off-the-cuff pronouncements. At times, it bred confusion and discord. Dean liked to toss an issue on the table without warning and pit aides against each other. He`d sit back and listen to both sides. Sorrell, who controlled funding for programs, was often at war with the human services secretary, Con Hogan. "Howard would out of the blue throw an issue on the middle of table, knowing we`d be at each other," Sorrell says. Finally Sorrell called him on it. "What did you do that for?" he asked.

"I wanted to watch two gladiators go at it," Dean replied.

Dean`s record shows a pragmatic doer who balanced budgets, cut taxes, extended health care to all of the state`s children, was tough on crime and favored business growth. Vermonters are baffled at portrayals of him as a wild-eyed lefty. "That`s not the Howard we know," says attorney Rick Sharp, a partner in the Citizens Waterfront Group. Dean was pegged as liberal for opposing the war in Iraq when 70 percent of the country favored it, but his position now looks more moderate.

There is considerable debate in Vermont about the extent of Dean`s political courage. He tended to favor incremental measures and aggravated the left, the right, environmentalists, developers, farmers and gay rights activists equally. His most overtly courageous act was signing a civil unions bill in 2000, but his hand was forced by a state Supreme Court ruling. He signed it behind closed doors, refusing a public ceremony. Still, he signed it. Afterward, he was subject to screaming vitriol and wore a flak jacket when he marched in local parades. When he attended an annual maple festival in St. Albans, an elderly woman approached him and said, "You . . . queer-loving son of a bitch." Dean replied, "You should clean up your mouth, lady. You certainly didn`t learn how to talk like that in Franklin County."

Christopher Graff, the AP bureau chief in Montpelier who covered Dean throughout his tenure, summarized his record this way in 2003. "He defies labels, following a pragmatic not partisan path . . . He hates dependency -- whether it is drinking or drugs or welfare -- and abhors debt . . . He is, by his own admission, `an odd kind of Democrat.` "

His time as governor was the period in which Dean`s backbone was formed, and his mouth, too. Initially a wooden speaker, as he grew comfortable he became extemporaneous and outrageously frank. He once called his own legislature "a zoo." In 1994, when Democrats lost control of Congress, he took on Gingrich over school lunch programs. "They must be smoking opium in the speaker`s office," he said.

Jim Dean contends that his brother`s habit of blurting things out results from the fact that, as governor, he continued to think and act like an everyday citizen. Dean, he says, is no different from you and me: Politics makes him angry. "Most Americans, of any political persuasion, get up in the morning and read the newspaper, and they get a little cranky about some of the stuff they read," he says. "I don`t consider him any different."

The crash of the Dean presidential campaign was by all accounts emotionally harrowing. Never had a campaign come from so far behind to get so far ahead and then collapse so quickly, Trippi says. It left everyone exhausted, and bitterly disappointed, and with the predictable recriminations that come with a losing campaign. "It was the greatest experience I`ve ever had in my life, and please, God, don`t ever let me do that again," Trippi says. "I would gladly change my name and give every dollar I`ve ever made in my life not to have done it."

The person who took it best was Dean. He rehabilitated himself by puttering around the house in Burlington, doing chores and attending Paul`s hockey games. It helped that the rest of the Dean family treated the whole affair with their usual wryness. Jim Dean`s son said, "So, Dad, if Howard`s not going to be president, does that mean we don`t get our own tour of Area 51?"

In the fallow period, Dean and Jim launched the political action committee Democracy for America, and Dean lectured at Dartmouth College. Within a few weeks, Dean was making new plans. Supporters approached him about forming a third party, and he considered it. "I actually toyed around with whether a third party would make any sense," he says. "I concluded I didn`t want to do that for two reasons: First, it would take forever. And there`s only been one successful one in the history of the country, and I didn`t think I was ready to compete in Abraham Lincoln`s league."

When Dean instead decided to run for DNC chair, his brothers were appalled. Jim wrote him a letter urging him to reconsider, worried that his brother would disappear in the Washington "cesspool." He thought too many separate self-interests were pulling the party apart, arguing "over that 6 percent of political turf they have left."

But Dean considered the job doable, and winnable, even if others didn`t. It was an act of sheer political will that he got himself elected, despite widespread opposition. Among those who opposed him was Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. "He wasn`t my first choice," Reid says, "but I admire the way he got the job." An example of Dean`s determined buoyancy came when he requested a meeting with Reid to make his pitch. After Dean emerged from Reid`s office, Ochs recalls asking anxiously, "How did it go?"

Dean said, "Oh, it went great."

"Really?"

"Yeah, he`s not for me."

"Okaaaay," Ochs said. "So, why did it go great?"

"Well, I like him," Dean said. "He just told me right off. He was real straight up about it. He doesn`t think I`m the right guy. He doesn`t think I should do it. But I like that. When I win this, we`ll be able to work together."

Dean burrowed deep into the DNC membership with a grass-roots campaign that echoed his presidential bid. He outworked eight other candidates with a one-on-one charm assault on the committee`s 447 members, lobbying for votes with phone calls and visits. "He got the job the old-fashioned way," Reid says. Dean won critical endorsements from three Southern state party chairs: Florida, Oklahoma and Mississippi. One chair he won over was Oklahoma`s Jay Parmley, who initially opposed him. "The last person I thought should be chairman of this party," Parmley says, "was Howard Dean."

But Parmley was also disillusioned by the attitude at national headquarters and was willing to listen. Though Oklahoma is a so-called red state, it`s not as red as all that. Parmley had managed to help elect a Democratic governor, Brad Henry. And yet, Parmley had few resources from the DNC and couldn`t direct-dial anyone in Washington. "The DNC didn`t even seem interested, except for 16 to 18 states in a presidential cycle," he says.

Dean convinced Parmley that he wasn`t afraid to fight in red states. And he was the only candidate with a specific plan, who understood the logistical and financial help needed. "He just made a lot of sense," Parmley says. "He understood that we were out here in the middle of nowhere and oftentimes stranded."

The result was that Dean, once marginalized and scorned after the primaries, outflanked his rivals. In the end, the powers that be of the party acquiesced. He was unanimously elected DNC chair on February 11. "The fact that he is now the DNC chair should tell people who don`t understand Howard Dean a lot about him," says Rogan. "Everyone totally underestimates him. But he`s a very smart guy, and a hard worker, and he`s got a phenomenal political instinct. I realize a lot of Democrats are nervous about him, but they should just relax, and he will reenergize this party."

Early reviews of Dean`s performance suggest he gets a good grade for reviving benighted local operations. "I think the job he`s doing is remarkably positive," says Reid. Dean already has organizers at work in 16 states. Oklahoma, for instance, has four new ground workers, paid for by the DNC, who will be there for four years, not just for one campaign. "I don`t think he`s made a big mark on his chairmanship yet," says Scott Reed, Bob Dole`s 1996 presidential campaign manager. "I do credit him for going back to some basics in blocking and tackling, as far as what a party should do in assisting state operations. That`s a smart way to build a party instead of spending all of his time inside the Beltway running his mouth. To his credit he`s gotten in there."

As for fundraising, the signals are mixed. There are grumbles that some large donors are chilly to Dean or that he is too focused on the Internet-based small donors. May reports showed Republicans had raised $43 million for the year, compared with $19 million for the DNC. But, the DNC says, Dean has raised more in his first few months -- about $1 million a week -- than any other DNC chair during an off-election year, and is ahead of the pace set by McAuliffe in 2001. Dean believes the small-donor base is sustainable, and that it`s the best way to keep the party out of the hands of special interests. In two weeks alone online, the DNC raised more than $500,000 to help build state parties. Dean has passed the cash to Missouri, North Carolina, North Dakota, West Virginia, Wyoming, Nevada, Nebraska, Mississippi and Kansas, among others.

He acknowledges that he is still getting to know the large donors, many of whom he had never met. He predicts that once he`s better acquainted, he can close the gap with Republicans. "I think it`s hard to call up somebody and ask them for a big C-note without knowing anything about them," he says. "We`re doing the things we have to do."

But message remains a problem. It`s one thing to let Republicans poison their own water on Iraq or Social Security. But voters continue to have a soft view of what Democrats stand for. "If the message they have to carry, and messengers they have to support, are repackaging lousy-tasting liberalism, the people still aren`t going to swallow it, and that`s the issue," says former RNC chair Rich Bond.

The DNC plan is to shape a cogent message around three or four issues party leaders can agree on over the summer. "We`re going to get together and find out what they think they ought to run on to win, what is it they really believe," Dean says. "And the list isn`t going to be the same in Alabama as it is in Minnesota. But there will be some things in common." Dean at least seems to have an inkling of what the message will sound like: His speeches are a drumbeat of jobs, fiscal conservatism, gas prices, national security, health care and getting lawmakers out of your living rooms. "Common-sense concerns," Reid says.

In the meantime, Democrats are left with Dean`s blunt rhetoric. The prevailing view among party leaders seems to have become, Howard is Howard, and this is what he does. "The DNC chair and the RNC chair, part of their position is to stir the pot, to get party faithful running," says Reid. "I`m not going to comment on his statements. I`m going to comment on the positive agenda we`re working on. We`re looking at what he`s accomplished, and it`s significant." If Dean comes in for criticism, it`s worth pointing out that McAuliffe endured similar criticism at the same point in his tenure, for being a soulless money man, or too much the attack dog.

It`s all speculative. Dean`s effectiveness can`t really be judged until the 2006 elections and the next presidential cycle. Much of his first few months has been spent on transition. And it`s important to note that Dean is not a one-man solution, or wrecking crew, either, for Democrats. Nobody is. It will take many people at all levels to make the party healthy again. Some Democrats remain lulled, or star-struck by the Clinton presidency, convinced that all they need is one strong candidate or leader. "They think there`s some political Messiah who`s going to come back and make everything right, and that`s just fantasy," Jim Dean says. "They`re hallucinating."

Dean continues to eat at his desk and ignores the Washington "whisper campaigns" about how he is doing or what he`s saying. "My sense about those things is that, if you have enough staying power, those all go away," he says. If the chair makes him a target for detractors, it also is an opportunity for him to show, over time, that he can talk straight and still connect the party to the mainstream.

"I know what I want," he says. "I know what my vision of the world looks like, and I`m working to try to get it. Now, to the extent that there are a lot of externalities that you got to deal with every day, that`s fine. But I have a pretty strong sense of who I am and what I think is right. And I`m not often put off."

If the presidential run did anything for Dean, it toughened his skin. "I mean, if you`ve been put on televisions 750 times in a single week, it kind of makes everything else pale by comparison," he says. "The interesting thing about American politics is that notoriety matters a lot, I`ve discovered." If even the Scream is survivable, surely a few firebrand, off-the-cuff remarks are, too.

"It`s survivable -- if that`s what you think is important," Dean says. "I mean, if my life was about sculpting some big image for the rest of the country, then it wouldn`t be survivable. My life isn`t about that. I`m very anchored in things that have nothing to do with politics, which is basically my family. And so I always have that, a set of values to go back to that is much more important than what happens in the political sphere."

Oklahoma City, May 12:

As his flight landed, Dean collected his belongings. Behind him, passengers murmured.

"That`s the guy who ran for president."

"A Democrat in Oklahoma," somebody else said, "there`s a tough row to hoe."

At party headquarters Dean met up with state chair Parmley and a few of his aides, most of whom wanted their pictures taken with him. The offices were typical fluorescent-lit affairs, with piles of papers and blinking computers. Against one wall was a map of Oklahoma. Dean studied it. He pointed to the panhandle. "What`s that area like?" he asked.

"Pretty red," Parmley said ruefully.

From there, Dean went to a union hall, where about 250 loyals awaited him, as did the local press. Dean met in an anteroom with reporters and launched into his sales pitch. "I`m serious about a new message," he said. A reporter named Michael McNutt from the Oklahoman raised his hand. He wanted to know where Dean was taking the party on gay rights and abortion.

"These are not our issues; they`re Republican issues," Dean said. "They`re the ones who talk about them all the time. We believe a woman has the right to make up her own mind about what kind of health care she needs, and that ought not to be done by Tom DeLay and the boys back in Washington."

McNutt was unmoved.

"So, the Democratic Party is for abortion rights, is that what you`re saying?"

You can see the problem.

Dean moved to the main hall. Among the crowd were long-suffering Democrats like Jean Morgan of Norman, Okla., who regularly attends $3.50 beans-and-cornbread fundraisers at Furr`s Cafeteria. Also in attendance was Chris Metcalf, a former Republican from Jenks, Okla., who grew disaffected when his party moved too far right. "I know my Bible like other folks," he says. Metcalf is interested in working for the Democrats in Tulsa, but he is appalled by the disrepair he found the party in there. "It`s really bad," he says. "In fact, I`d say bad would be good in this instance."

Parmley introduced Dean by saying, "He`s a different chairman -- he`s better." Dean took the podium and launched into one of his extemporaneous speeches. "I don`t think this is such a Republican state. I think it`s a state of common-sense values!" [Applause] "We ought never to run away from the values debate. We ought to be in the values debate!" [Applause] In closing, he tried to remind his listeners that he`s not the wild liberal they think he is. After all, he said, he won eight endorsements from the NRA.

"See, I can talk about that in Oklahoma," Dean joked. "Maybe I won`t talk about that so much in Massachusetts." [Laughter] Pause.

"Actually, I will," he said, grinning widely. "That`s the problem."

Sally Jenkins, a Washington Post sports columnist, is a regular contributor to the Magazine. She will be fielding questions and comments about this article Tuesday at 1 p.m. at washingtonpost.com/liveonline.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Für die, die es interessiert, ein Bericht von der NYTimes über die Arbeitslosigkeit in D.
[urlIn Germany, the Jobless Work to Keep Their BenefitsIn Germany, the Jobless Work to Keep Their Benefits]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/business/worldbusiness/05euro.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Bahrain Diplomat Wounded in Baghdad
Bombing Near Iran Embassy

The Bahraini charge d`affaires in Baghdad was shot in the hand while he was on his way to work Tuesday morning. He was taken to Yarmouk Hospital. This was likely an assassination attempt by guerrillas. Guerrillas also set off a bomb that targeted a US convoy but missed, near the Iranian embassy. They kidnapped the chief Egyptian diplomat in Iraq this past weekend, but have yet to present any demands.

Reuters rounds up guerrilla actions on Monday. These come as the US military and Iraqi troops launched a sweep of houses near Baghdad airport, a notoriously insecure area where many guerrillas are presumed to be based.

Mosul: Guerrillas assassinated Jarjees Mohammad Amin, a Kurdish official of the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

Falluja: Guerrillas in a car bomb tried to hit an Iraqi army convoy, but missed, killing 2 civilians and wounding 7.

Baghdad: Guerrillas used a remote control to detonate a car bomb near a US patrol in the south of Baghdad, killing 2 civilians and wounding another.

Juruf al-Sakhir: Guerrillas wearing police uniforms abducted three persons in this town lying about one hour`s drive south of the capital.

Stirling Newberry knowledgeably discusses the similarities between the problems faced by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and those facing the United States in Iraq.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari will visit Iran. One item of discussion is a proposed oil pipeline from Basra to Iran. Iran would refine Iraqi petroleum.

Al-Hayat: Adnan Dulaimi, head of the Sunni Endowments Board, called on Sunni Arabs to come out to vote in the next Iraqi elections and to participate in the referendum on the Iraqi constitution. He said it was the only way to combat an "ethnic movement" or "shu`ubiyyah" that threatened the Arab and Islamic character of Iraq. The word he used, `shu`ubiyyah`, refers to medieval controversies about the resurgence of a Persianizing tendency among some scholars and communities after the Arab Muslim conquest of Iraq and Iran in the seventh century. In this context, it implies that the Iraqi Shiites are actually Persians (not true) and in the US I think it would be termed a form of racism. It is a rhetoric that was used in Baath times.

The Daily Telegraph reports, via US military officers, several clashes in Western Iraq between Iraqi tribesmen and jihadi infiltrators around Qaim, especially at Husaibah. It should be noted that there were often severe tensions between Afghans and Arab volunteers in Afghanistan, and instances of Afghans quietly killing troublesome Arabs. But tribal societies are marked by ongoing internal feuds as well as an ability to suddenly patch up differences and unite against outsiders. It remains to be seen whether the Husaibah fighting is a long-term trend or a temporary and localized situation.

"The Islamic Army in Iraq" and "Jaish al-Mujahidin," two guerrilla organizations thought to be staffed largely by ex-Baathists, have appointed Ibrahim Yusuf al-Shamari to be their political spokseman, according to a communique released on the internet. Shamari said on al-Jazeerah that his groups would not accept any initiative that did not stem officially from the US Congress and which did not involve a strict timetable or was indecisive.

From Sistani.org: Sources in the United Iraqi Alliance, the ruling coalition in parliament, have revealed that Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani has rejected the establishment of a federation in southern Iraq on the model of Kurdistan. The sources said that Sistani informed a delegation representing the parliament, which visited his residence in Najaf recently, of the necessity to safeguard the unity of Iraq and to work earnestly to increase national unity so as to guarantee the interests of the Iraqi people. Earlier, a number of parliamentarians had called for the establishment of a confederation in the south, to be called "Sumer," which would comprise the provinces of Basra, Amara and Nasiriyah, in accordance with a provision in the interim constitution.

Radical Muslim fundamentalists in places like Karachi and Kabul have long terrorized modern Muslim women by throwing acid at them for not covering up. This form of gender terrorism has now appeared in American Iraq. One of the outcomes of the US destruction of the secular Baath Party has been the rise to power of Muslim revivalists, especially in the provinces, many of them militant or thuggish.

Syrian security forces clashed Monday with Iraqi militants hiding out near Damascus, some of them said to have been bodyguards for Saddam Hussein, according to Hassan Fattah of the New York Times.

A Tunisian court sentenced Mohamed Bajouya to 20 years in jail and gave five other members of a terror ring between 5 and 10 years for helping round up militants to go fight US troops in Iraq.

Al-Zaman: King Abdullah II of Jordan addressed a conference of Muslim thinkers and notables in Amman on Monday, condemning extremism among some Muslims for giving foreigners a pretext to intervene in Muslim affairs. He also condemned "takfir," the pronouncement by some Muslims that others are not really Muslims.

In the context, this statement referred to the tendency of Salafi and other revivalist Sunni groups to declare Shiites not really Muslims. But it also served to criticize the tradition of Sayyid Qutb, the Muslim Brotherhood thinker who declared the Egyptian government "pharaonic" and staffed by "non-Muslims" such as then President Gamal Abdel Nasser (who would certainly have considered himself a Muslim).

Al-Zaman says that at this conference a new fatwa or ruling by Grand Ayatollah Sistani would be unveiled concerning brotherhood among Muslims.

posted by Juan @ [url7/05/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/bahrain-diplomat-wounded-in-baghdad.html[/url]

British Operations in Southern Iraq

A British reservist writes:



With regard to your recent comment regarding the South of Iraq:


"Most of that area has fallen into the hands of religious Shiite militias anyway, and I doubt the British get out of their barracks all that much."



I returned last April from Basra after serving 6 months as a reservist in the British army so I am very intimately aware of how utterly unfounded your statement is . . .

For your information large numbers of patrols operate daily (and nightly) in all areas. Occasionally patrols adopt more a low key presence such as during funerals, religious holidays or at a politically sensitive moments. However I can personally assure you overt and other types of patrols and collaborative work with the Iraqi army and police continue during these times as well.

I learnt to read, write and speak arabic to a first year university level and spoke to a large number of Iraqis in both the Basra province and the Maysan province. The major concern of people was fear that we would leave soon.

Regarding the Maysan province you may or may not be aware that the current governor was the former local commander/leader of the Office of the Martyr Sadr. Thus it is unremarkable for him to announce things like a "non-cooperation campaign against the British". Before becoming governor he was doing a lot more than "non-cooperation" against the British presence. The huge difference now in Basra and Maysan since the elections is that the OMS organisation is adopting a far more political approach to their behaviour than we could have ever imagined. The statement for "non-cooperation" is an example, previously these self same individuals would have called for out and out war and attacks on the British now they are reduced to making bold statements about "non-cooperation".

In addition you need to be aware about the character of the people in Maysan and in particular Al Amarah and Majar al Kabir. Many Iraqis from the Basra area have repeatedly told me that the people in these cities don`t like strangers from anywhere let alone foreigners. So this is why there tend to be more attacks in the area. There are many dissaffected former Marsh Arabs and people involved in various smuggling activities.

Traditionally various tribal groups get involved in stopping people passing through their areas and demand money from them. It has been quite common for people to have their cars stolen or be killed if they do not pay. The British and Iraqi forces have seriously inhibited these groups from operating and this is one of the main reasons for the attacks that occur on the route between Basra and Al Amarah. Indeed the most recent deaths in the British area were due to attacks occuring most probably were because of this.

Just because there are significantly fewer British casualties does not mean that the British army hides in its garrisons. In fact, on the contrary, if it did, you would hear about far more incidents and activity in the south.

One aspect that is rarely discussed is the vast difference between the British and American rules of engagement. You will quickly respond by saying `oh but things are so much safer in the South because it is predominantly Shia`. Yes but if we used the American rules of engagement then I am positive that there would be far far more attacks against us. It is ridiculous for British soldiers to be ordered not to overtake any of the huge American convoys on the Kuwait-Baghdad motorway because they risk being shot at by the Americans!

The main reason for attacks in Baghdad is mostly foreign Salafists responding to the general disquiet among Sunnis that, for probably the first time in the history of Islam, a predominantly pro Shiite government is in the process of installing itself in Iraq, the centre of Shiism. There is also serious disquiet in Iran because its system is categorically not endorsed by the Marja in Iraq.

The other main problem in Baghdad is the former Saddam/Baathist secret service which has transferred its talents for abduction under Saddam to abduction for personal gain.

None of these factors will be easliy overcome however surely you must see the importance of Iraq as more than just somewhere with large oil reserves.

We all fuss about American losses but the Iraqis have had far greater losses. You talk about militias and yet you know that after every bombing more and more Iraqis nevertheless move to join the Police and the Army. It is more than just because of high unemployment.

posted by Juan @ [url7/05/2005 06:21:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/british-operations-in-southern-iraq.html[/url]

Legalistic War

A US military reader in Iraq writes:



You wrote

"These incidents show a benefit to the guerrillas of their car bomb attacks on US convoys, insofar as they create an atmosphere in which US soldiers and marines tend to shoot first and ask questions later, alienating ever more Iraqis by killing innocents".



` I agree this may be happening. However, in my area . . . I have talked to many soldiers who are experiencing somewhat the opposite. There is an intense scrutiny of any shooting by soldiers, and because of it soldiers say they are very reluctant to shoot. Soldiers report that they have to do multiple statements for every engagement. The statements are gone over and frequently rejected as inadequate. The standard is not of soldiers in a war, but of policemen. The focus after a shooting is on gathering evidence of what happened. They are held accountable for their actions . . . This is a very legalistic war.

I was in a convoy this morning and civilian vehicles got into it, off and on. Unless there is some clear compelling reason to shoot at a car, we can`t. Soldiers were throwing rocks at Iraqi cars getting to the convoy, and some used slingshots, but this was stopped. Some were throwing water bottles, until some genius figured out how to throw it cap first and punch a hole in a windshied. Water bottle throwing was also stopped. Today we just waved at the cars, and they moved out of the way.`

posted by Juan @ [url7/05/2005 06:10:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/legalistic-war-us-military-reader-in.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Chirac als Feinschmecker!
Es ist keine Satire, soweit ich das feststellen kann.

Chirac keeps row boiling with British food gibe
By Andrew Grice and John Lichfield in Paris
http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article296896.ece

Published: 05 July 2005
Chirac keeps row boiling with British food gibe "You can`t trust people who cook as badly as that` - Chirac in British food gibe
[Table align=right]

"You can`t trust people who cook as badly
as that` - Chirac in British food gibe
[/TABLE]
The rift between Britain and France reached new depths when Jacques Chirac extended the battle over the Olympics and the EU`s future to the quality of the two nations` cooking.

The French President fired a broadside at traditional British cuisine by joking: "The only thing the British have given to European farming is mad cow disease." He added: "You can`t trust people who cook as badly as that. Apart from Finland, [Britain] is the country where you eat the worst."

M. Chirac added that France`s differences with Nato began after its Scottish former secretary general Lord Robertson offered him a local Scottish speciality, believed to be haggis.

His light-hearted remarks came during talks with the German Chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, and the Russian President, Vladimir Putin, in Kalingrad, Russia, on Sunday, but surfaced in the French newspaper Liberation after being overheard by journalists. The "private" jokes appear to have been intended for a wider audience. French journalists said he knew that microphones were lurking nearby.

The British Government was not amused. "There are some things better not commented on," a Downing Street spokeswoman said.

Mr Blair made a pointed reference to the comments when asked whether the G8 summit at Gleneagles would be an anticlimax after the International Olympic Committee meeting in Singapore, where he is lobbying for London`s bid to stage the 2012 Games, and M. Chirac will press the case for the favourite, Paris. "I won`t say the G8 Summit would be an anticlimax to it because that would be undiplomatic, and I know when I go there I will be in the presence of very diplomatic people," Mr Blair said.

In Kalingrad, President Putin objected to M. Chirac`s suggestion that British cuisine was the lowest of the low. "What about hamburgers?" he asked. "No, no," M. Chirac replied. "Hamburgers are nothing [by comparison]."

M. Chirac`s comments echo remarks made by French journalists in recent days as they defended the Common Agriculture Policy (CAP) against Mr Blair`s criticism. The newspaper Le Parisien said that a nation which eats "boiled beef with mint" had no right to comment on anything to do with food. However, French farmers have adopted a more positive approach, greeting British tourists arriving at Channel ports with free cheese, fruit and tomatoes.

Even if the French President`s remarks were light-hearted, they come at a time when relations between the two leaders are in the deep freeze. They criticised each other after the collapse of the EU`s summit in Brussels last month, when Mr Blair refused to surrender Britain`s £3bn-a-year rebate on its EU contributions unless France agreed to cuts in the EU`s farm subsidies.

The latest diplomatic rift could sour the atmosphere at Gleneagles, where the G8 leaders will gather after the IOC announces its decision tomorrow. Ironically, Britain and France are probably closer than any two other G8 members on the two main issues on the agenda: Africa and climate change. Despite that, British officials are braced for an outburst from M. Chirac, especially if London pulls off a surprise victory over Paris.

Mr Blair also had potential problems over the Gleneagles summit yesterday. Although he is confident of hitting his target of doubling aid to Africa, battles over the wording of the summit communiqué remain. A government source said: "It`s not a done deal yet."

One issue is over the timing of the aid boost. Campaigners want an immediate injection of $25bn (£14bn), but the G8 may spread the payment over five years. There are also disputes over the precise figure to be announced.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

A fiction as powerful as WMD

It is not withdrawal that threatens Iraq with civil war, but occupation
Sami Ramadani
Tuesday July 5, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1521384,00.ht…

Guardian
Most people in Britain want troops withdrawn from Iraq - and so do most Iraqis, according to opinion polls. Trade unions are calling for early withdrawal, as are some Labour MPs and the Liberal Democrats. But many well-intentioned people argue that the US-led occupation must end only when the country is stable. A swift withdrawal, they fear, would plunge the country into civil war.

In one sense this position is the same as that of Bush and Blair, who consistently say troops will not stay in Iraq "a moment longer than necessary" and will withdraw when asked to do so by a democratically chosen government. In reality, with over 200,000 foreign troops and auxiliaries in control of Iraq, even an elected government will owe its survival to the occupation.

It was a reflection of Iraqi popular hatred of the occupation that 82 of the national assembly`s 275 members signed a petition calling for a speedy withdrawal, after the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, appeared to be breaking his election promise to insist on a scheduled pullout. Jaafari went on to renege in the most humiliating fashion, standing next to George Bush at the White House as the US president declared: "I told the prime minister that there will be no scheduled withdrawal."

It would be wrong to dismiss the fears of those who argue for "withdrawal but not now" just because it is also the position of Bush and Blair. But those who are genuinely concerned about withdrawal should examine the facts on the ground before giving support to continued occupation.

Some pro-war commentators warned early on that the country would be blighted by sectarian violence: oppressed Shias would take revenge on Sunnis; Kurds would avenge Saddam`s rule by killing Arabs; and the Christian community would be liquidated.

What actually happened confounded such expectations. Within two weeks of the fall of Baghdad, millions converged on Karbala chanting "La Amreeka, la Saddam" (No to America, no to Saddam). For months, Baghdad, Basra and Najaf were awash with united anti-occupation marches whose main slogan was "La Sunna, la Shia; hatha al-watan menbi`a" (no Sunni, no Shia, this homeland we shall not sell).

Such responses were predictable given Iraq`s history of anti-sectarianism. But the war leaders reacted by destroying the foundations of the state and following the old colonial policy of divide and rule, imposing a sectarian model on every institution they set up, including arrangements for the January election.

When it became clear that the poorest areas of Baghdad and the south were even more hostile to the occupation than the so-called Sunni towns - answering the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr`s call to arms - Bush and Blair tried to defeat the resistance piecemeal, under the guise of fighting foreign terrorists. Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was promoted to replace Saddam as the bogeyman in chief, to encourage sectarian tension and isolate the resistance.

This propaganda has been more successful abroad than in Iraq. Indeed, Iraqis habitually blame the occupation for all acts of terrorism, not what is fondly referred to as al-muqawama al-sharifa (the honourable resistance). But in Britain and the US many people feel ambivalent or antagonistic towards the mainstream popular resistance.

The occupation`s sectarian discourse has acquired a hold as powerful as the WMD fiction that prepared the public for war. Iraqis are portrayed as a people who can`t wait to kill each other once left to their own devices. In fact, the occupation is the main architect of institutionalised sectarian and ethnic divisions; its removal would act as a catalyst for Iraqis to resolve some of their differences politically. Only a few days ago the national assembly members who had signed the anti-occupation statement met representatives of the Foundation Congress (a group of 60 religious and secular organisations) and the al-Sadr movement and issued a joint call for the rapid withdrawal of the occupation forces according to an internationally guaranteed timetable.

There is now broad agreement in Iraq to build a non-sectarian, democratic Iraq that guarantees Kurdish national rights. The occupation is making the achievement of these goals more difficult.

Every day the occupation increases tension and makes people`s lives worse, fuelling the violence. Creating a client regime in Baghdad, backed by permanent bases, is the route that US strategists followed in Vietnam. As in Vietnam, popular resistance in Iraq and the wider Middle East will not go away but will grow stronger, until it eventually unites to force a US-British withdrawal.

How many more Iraqis, Americans and Britons have to die before Bush and Blair admit the occupation is the problem and not part of any democratic solution in Iraq?

· Sami Ramadani, a political refugee from Saddam Hussein`s regime, is a senior lecturer at London Metropolitan University.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[urlAfrica`s new best friends]http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1521387,00.html[/url]
July 5 2005 The US and Britain are putting the multinational corporations that created poverty in charge of its relief, writes George Monbiot.
[urlSpecial report: G8]http://www.guardian.co.uk/g8/0,13365,967228,00.html[/url]

[Joerver]

Nachdem in einer Spiegel Kritik 2 Egomanen aufeinandergetroffen sind, einer der das Zusammentreffen mit dem Absinth-Wagen am Wochenende gut überstanden hat, und der andere dem auch alle Plagiatvorwürfe der letzten Jahre nichts anhaben konnten, möcht ich doch noch einen anderen Buch-Kritiker zu Wort kommen lassen.
http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/0,1518,363612,00.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.spiegel.de/kultur/literatur/0,1518,363612,00.html



Koloß auf tönernen Füßen
Amerikas Spagat zwischen Nordkorea und Irak
http://www.buchkritik.at/kritik.asp?IDX=3166

Peter Scholl-Latour Koloß auf tönernen Füßen Amerikas Spagat zwischen Nordkorea und Irak Propyläen 2005 352 Seiten ISBN: 354907252X € 24,-

Von Richard Niedermeier am 23.06.2005
Zeitenwende der Politik. Peter Scholl-Latour analysiert die Schwachstellen amerikanischer Hegemonie

Wer die Welt bereist, kann sich eine weltfremde Ideologie nicht leisten. Wie kein anderer ist Peter Scholl-Latour ein Weltreisender, der die großen Krisenherde des Nahen, Mittleren und Fernen Ostens aus langjähriger Erfahrung kennt und in seiner Beurteilung nicht auf vorgefaßte Meinungen, sondern auf die eigene Anschauung setzt. Was er sagt, entspricht darum nicht immer der „political correctness“ oder den vorgestanzten Meinungen, wenn er z.B. das Engagement deutscher Truppen in Afghanistan für ein Spiel mit dem Feuer hält, das entgegen den Planungen unserer Schreibtisch-Strategen sehr leicht in einem Desaster enden kann.
In seinem neuesten Buch klopft der Autor die USA als einzig verbliebene Weltmacht ab und und befindet sie mit einem Bild aus dem Alten Testament als „Koloß auf tönernen Füßen“. Das übertrifft freilich sogar die Szenarien, die die Liberalen und Linken beiderseits des Atlantik entwerfen, wenn sie einseitig einen Demokratie- und Glaubwürdigkeitsverlust fokusieren. Für Scholl-Latour ist das nicht das eigentliche Problem. Er sieht eine global verfahrene Situation Amerikas, ein Überschätzen der eigenen Kräfte, ein Nichtverstehen seiner Gegenspieler, ein – bei Politikern wie auch beim einfachen Soldaten oder Bürger vorhandenes – mentales Defizit, das zwar noch das Gefühl einer unbeugsamen Stärke zuläßt, aber deren Mangel an Wandlungs- und Anpassungsfähigkeit verkennt.
Daß diese Krise Amerikas keine kurzzeitige Erscheinung ist, die man durch einen Regierungswechsel oder eine kleine politische Kurskorrektur beseitigen könnte, zeigen die drei Themenkomplexe, denen sich Scholl-Latour in diesem Buch hauptsächlich widmet: neben dem aktuellen Irak-Konflikt der schon längst aus dem Bewußtsein verschwundene Koreakrieg und schließlich Vietnam, das trotz oder gerade wegen seiner traumatischen Übersteigerung noch keineswegs zu einer hinreichenden Lehre der Geschichte geworden ist.
Was allen drei Brandherden der neueren Geschichte gemeinsam ist: Amerika hatte bzw. hat es hier mit Gegnern zu tun, die militärtechnisch und zahlenmäßig weit unterlegen sein mochten, dennoch aber von einer Idee begeistert waren, denen der amerikanische Pragmatismus nichts entgegensetzen konnte. Das gilt selbst dann, wenn die GI’s für Freiheit und Demokratie gekämpft haben. Denn jenseits des Gegensatzes von (oft kommunistischer) Diktatur und (westlicher) Demokratie macht Scholl-Latour andere, viel stärkere Kräfte aus, die jede ideologische oder politisch-weltanschauliche Waage gänzlich aus dem Gleichgewicht bringen: die nationale Selbstbestimmung und kulturelle Identität und schließlich – ablesbar besonders am Irak – die Religion. Es sind Kräfte, die einen ganz anderen, unbedingten Siegeswillen im Gefolge haben, der unvorstellbare Entbehrungen auf sich nimmt und auch vor dem massenhaften Selbstopfer nicht zurückscheut.
Natürlich ist auch Amerika, wie der Autor in einem ersten Kapitel zeigt, schon längst nicht mehr – und war es vielleicht auch nie – ein völlig säkularisiertes Land. Die evangelikale Massenbewegung ist politisch so bestimmend geworden, daß wohl auch ein Regierungswechsel diesen Trend nicht völlig umkehren könnte. Aber dann, so könnte sich mancher fragen, ist ja das Gleichgewicht wieder hergestellt; wozu sich also noch Sorgen machen?
Es ist charakteristisch für dieses Buch, daß es solche Fragen, die seiner Titelthese auf den ersten Blick widersprechen, nicht abwürgt oder in der Vielzahl der Fakten, denen der Daheimgebliebene (und in diesem Sinne Unerfahrene) ausgesetzt ist, ertränkt. Scholl-Latour erzählt, berichtet und regt an, überläßt aber das Urteil dem Leser. Dennoch legt er zwei Konklusionen nahe.
Da ist zum einen, auch wenn es um Amerika geht, doch Europa im Blick; Europa, das ungemein tiefer und nachhaltiger säkularisiert ist als Amerika, dennoch aber sich anschickt, weltpolitisch eine Rolle zu spielen. Ob das eine reale Möglichkeit oder – wie Scholl-Latour meint - ein Truggebilde ist, darüber kann man streiten. Für ihn ist die Weltmacht Europa schon deshalb gescheitert, weil die Europäer sich selbst mit Blindheit geschlagen haben und die Zeichen der Zeit nicht erkennen. Wer die Wurzeln seiner Kultur vergessen hat, wer Lebenssinn und Werte verloren hat, treibt ziellos auf dem Ozean der Geschichte. Europa ist daran, die Welt und auch seinen früheren Partner Amerika zu verlieren! Eine doppelte Isolation also, verursacht durch einen geistigen, kulturellen und auch religiösen Identitätsverlust.
Zum zweiten gebraucht Scholl-Latour das Wort „Religion“ oder „Kultur“ nicht unterschiedslos. Er ist zwar kein Religionswissenschaftler oder Theologe, aber er kennt den Isalm wie er auch aus eigener Erziehung (sowie vor – und nachkonziliarer Erfahrung) das Christentum kennt, vor allem wie beide die Mentalität ihrer Gläubigen prägen. Und er kennt auch ihre Geschichte. Überhaupt stößt er in jedem Land, das er bereist, in dessen historischen und kulturellen Tiefen vor, was sogar seine hochrangigen Gesprächspartner mit Erstaunen und einer unerwarteten Offenheit goutieren. So sind es nie nur Ansichten, die Scholl-Latour liefert, sondern echte Einblicke, in denen sich die Gegenwart unversehens in die Vergangenheit hinein weitet und zum Moment eines Zeitenstroms wird, der auch einen Blick in die Zukunft wagen läßt. Deshalb können auch so markige Worte wie „Kreuzzug“ oder „Kampf gegen die Achse des Bösen“ ihn nicht täuschen: Die Kreuzzüge endeten in einer Katastrophe, die auch noch das Reich von Byzanz geschwächt und damit letztlich zu Fall gebracht hat. Und nur der Heilige kann – mit seinen ihm eigenen Waffen – gegen das Böse kämpfen. Religiöser Eifer genügt da, zumal in einer ökonomisch wie politisch hochkomplexen und daher auch vielfach anfälligen Gesellschaft, wohl nicht.
Manche sehen in Scholl-Latours Büchern einen latenten Antiamerikanismus. Das ist, auch wenn die Hilflosigkeit des amerikanischen Weltengagements bisweilen sehr drastisch vor Augen geführt wird, Unsinn. Im Gegenteil, zumindest in diesem Buch ist die Warnung an Europa versteckt, Amerika allein zu lassen. Das heißt nicht, ihm in seinem religiösen Welterlösungseifer blind zu folgen. Aber es ist ein unausgesprochenes Plädoyer für eine Politik mit Augenmaß und Tiefenschärfe, die nur aus einer geistigen Erneuerung des Alten Kontinents heraus möglich ist. Oberflächlichkeit (ein flaches, geschichtsloses Denken), Populismus und Hedonismus (Wohlstandswahrung und Urlaubsglück für alle Bürger), Indifferentismus und Relativismus – diese Liste könnte man noch lange fortsetzen - führen nicht weiter. Und vielleicht liegt darin der eigentliche Skopus dieses Buches: daß eine ganze Generation von Politikern (gleich welcher Coleur) und „Meinungsmachern“ wird abtreten müssen, wenn Europa unter den neuen Herausforderungen eine Chance haben soll.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

ROBERT SCHEER
Bush Is Serving Up the Cold War Warmed Over
Robert Scheer
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-schee…

July 5, 2005

The "war on terror" is turning out to be nothing more than a recycled formulation of the dangerously dumb "domino theory." Listen to the way President Bush justifies the deepening quagmire of Iraq: "Defeat them abroad before they attack us at home." If we didn`t defeat communism in Vietnam, or even tiny Grenada, went the hoary defense of bloody proxy wars and covert brutality in the latter stages of the Cold War, San Diego might be the next to go Red.

Now, the new version of this simplistic concept seems to say, "If we don`t occupy a Muslim country, inciting terrorists to attack us in Baghdad, we`ll suffer more terror attacks at home." The opposite is the case. Invading Iraq has, like the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan before, proved to be a massive recruiting tool for Muslim extremists everywhere. Even the embattled CIA, which the White House is struggling to neuter as a semi-objective voice on foreign affairs, recently declared the Iraq occupation to be a boon to terrorists.

Yet the president stumbles on, demanding that we support his Iraq adventure lest we sully the memory of the victims of Sept. 11, 2001. "We fight today because terrorists want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand," said Bush last week. Actually, no. We fight in Iraq today because Bush listened to a band of right-wing intellectual poseurs who argued America could create a reverse domino effect, turning the Middle East into a land of pliable free-market, pro-Western "democracies" through a crude use of military force. This is rather like claiming a well-placed stick of dynamite can turn a redwood forest into a neighborhood of charming Victorians.

Furthermore, it is not Bush and his band of neocons who are fighting — and dying — for the Iraq domino, but rather raw 19-year-old recruits, hardworking career military officers and impoverished or unlucky Iraqis. And foreign terrorists linked to Al Qaeda are in Iraq because it is a field of opportunity, not because it is their last stand.

For four years the White House has framed the war on terror as an open-ended global battle against a monolithic enemy on many fronts, rather than employing a modern counterterrorism model that sees terrorism as a deadly pathology that grows out of religious or ethnic rage and must be isolated and excised.

From the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Bush has systematically sought to parlay the public`s shock over a singular, if devastating, terrorist assault by a small coterie of extremists into what amounted to a call for World War III against a supposed "axis of evil." But these countries — Iran, Iraq and North Korea — shared only a clear hostility to the United States, rather than any real alliance or ties to 9/11 itself.

In the process, Bush has justified an enormous military buildup, spent tens of billions of dollars in Iraq, reorganized the federal government, driven the nation`s budget far into the red and assaulted the civil liberties of Americans and people around the world, all without bothering to seriously examine the origins of the 9/11 attacks or compose a coherent strategy to prevent similar ones in the future. Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden remains at large, as do his financial and political backers in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

But why has the White House pursued this nonsensical approach over the loud objections of the country`s most experienced counterterrorism and Islamic experts? Because it allows the administration all the political benefits the Cold War afforded its predecessors: political capital, pork-barrel defense contracts and a grandiose sense of purpose.

And because the war on terror has no standard of victory, it can never end — thus neatly replacing the Cold War as a black-and-white, us-against-them worldview that generations of American (and Soviet) politicians found so useful for keeping the plebes in line. It`s a one-size-fits-all bludgeon.

The terrible, unspoken truth of the war on terror is that the tragedy of 9/11 has been exploited as a political opportunity by George W. Bush, Halliburton, the Pentagon and the other pillars of what President Eisenhower dubbed the "military-industrial complex" in his final speech as president.

The former general who led us in World War II warned of the dangers of an unbridled militarism. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex," said Eisenhower, a Republican, in 1961. "The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

Consider yourself warned.


Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Fisherman`s Wharf

Fisherman`s Wharf, Cable Car

San Francisco waterfront

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
Latest Coalition Fatality: Jul 03, 2005
June05: 83
Jul.05: 1


Latest Fatality 07/05/05
Iraker: Civilian: 37 Police/Mil: 38 Total: 75

Deaths Since April 28th
Shiite-led government announced):
Police/Mil: 630
Civilians: 1124
Total: 1754
http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Regelmäßige Updates von Meldungen aus dem Irak:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Jul 6, 2005

The perils of colonial justice in Iraq
By Ashraf Fahim
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG06Ak02.html

Among its more vociferous opponents, the American project in Iraq is characterized as a classic colonial adventure, indistinguishable in nature or intent from the deepest, darkest chapters in Northern oppression of the South: America is to Iraq as Britain was to India or Belgium to the Congo. Proponents, on the other hand, argue the inherent benevolence of American empire - the export of democracy and egalitarianism in contrast to the transparent racist imperialism of yore.
[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
One possible way to arbitrate this dispute is by observing the dispensation of justice with regard to American servicemen accused of the "unlawful killing" (in military parlance) of Iraqi civilians. In this area, as with the infamous cases of torture in Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, impunity is the rule of thumb for both the rank and file and their superiors. In the overwhelming majority of cases over the course of the war, prosecutions have either not taken place, or if court martials have occurred, there have been acquittals or token sentences dispensed.

No matter how profound the inequities of US military justice, the transitional Iraqi government of Ibrahim Jaafari has no means to challenge them. The trend towards impunity, therefore, would seem to validate the grievances of the opponents by demonstrating the uneven distribution of power that defines relations between the US and the transitional Iraqi government.

It is difficult to determine the precise number of US servicemen accused or convicted of unlawful killings during the war. A June 6 Associated Press article concluded that "since the Iraq war began, at least 10 US military personnel have been convicted of a wide array of charges stemming from the deaths of Iraqi civilians. But only one sentence has exceeded three years." Those 10 convictions do not reflect the dozens of investigations that have not produced court martials nor the large number of prosecutions that have led to acquittals.

The case of Ilario Pantano is typical of the way the scales of justice tip in occupied Iraq. Pantano was a Marine lieutenant accused of killing two Iraqi captives, Hamadaay Kareem and Taha Ahmed Hanjil, in April 2004, after the platoon he commanded captured them as they drove away from a house the Marines had just raided as a suspected insurgent hideout. The two officers with Pantano at the time allege that he ordered the captives` handcuffs removed, had them assume defensive positions, instructed his soldiers to look away, then shot Kareem and Hanjil in the back. Pantano emptied two magazines into them.

One of the officers present, Sergeant Daniel Coburn, stated that Pantano had become agitated when weapons were discovered in the suspected hideout and apparently wanted to "teach [the insurgents] a lesson". Pantano`s defense, which has been successful in similar cases (such as the execution of a wounded insurgent in a Fallujah mosque famously captured by an NBC television reporter) was that the unarmed Iraqis moved suddenly, leading him to fear they were about to carry out an attack. Pantano faced the death penalty on charges of premeditated murder, but was cleared in a pretrial hearing in late May, and resigned from the military.

Terrorizing the natives, poisoning the well
M Cherif Bassiouni, a renowned professor of international law at Depaul University, is as familiar as any jurist with the legal dimension of US-Iraqi relations. Bassiouni is currently the director of a project to reform Iraq`s legal system, as well as a project to aid the transitional government`s drafting of a permanent constitution. Also, as the United Nations` Independent Expert on the Situation of Human Rights in Afghanistan in 2004, Bassiouni was apparently a little too effective, as his mandate was not renewed after heavy US pressure.

There is nothing unusual in American soldiers being judged under US jurisdiction (and by their peers, as they are in the military justice system) rather than the Iraqi courts, Bassiouni says. Such matters are usually covered by a so-called Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) that defines relations between US forces and their host country - like the one between the US and Japan. "In the SOFA the US has the primary jurisdiction to prosecute," Bassiouni told Asia Times Online, "but it has the obligation to prosecute." If it fails to do so, the host country gets the opportunity. "But the Bush administration has refused to have a SOFA not only with Iraq but with Afghanistan," Bassiouni notes. This affords American soldiers total impunity from Iraqi or Afghani courts.

Bassiouni points out that the issue surfaced on Afghan President Hamid Karzai`s June 15 pilgrimage to the White House. "[When] Karzai was here he raised the question once again. He said we need a SOFA, you have no right to detain Afghani citizens in Afghanistan," says Bassiouni. "And Bush says absolutely not. I mean, that arrogance of power." Instead, a "memorandum of understanding" for a long-term security "partnership" was signed, offering only joint "consultation" on military operations.

Michael Ratner, who heads the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) in New York, has tackled the issue of impunity head on. CCR is currently trying to prosecute US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and the former top military officer in Iraq, General Ricardo Sanchez, for their roles in the Abu Ghraib torture scandal. Ratner says the policy of giving US servicemen and high officials impunity to order or carry out torture or killings is no accident.

"I think it`s intentional," Ratner told Asia Times Online. "The military is saying, in Afghanistan and Iraq, `if you mess with us you`re going to die and no one is going to be held accountable`." The motivation is twofold, he believes. "Part of it is terrorizing the population and part of it is they want our army to be killers. They`re frightened that if they discipline or prosecute them, they`ll hold back."

If the intention is to terrorize the population, ordinary Iraqis are apparently getting the message. Reports from Iraq indicate that Iraqis stay as far away as possible from trigger-happy convoys of US troops, which are a prime target of insurgent attacks. But the use of excessive force and concomitant impunity is also poisoning what little remains in the well of Iraqi goodwill towards America.

"What we are doing politically through the Abu Ghraib situation, through the non-punishment of people, through the policy of basically giving plausible deniability to all of the officers," says Bassiouni, "is reinforcing the popular perception of anti-Americanism and that`s the strongest support we`re giving to the resistance."

The lonesome death of Zaidun Hassun
The demise of Zaidun Hassun in the depths of the river Tigris at 11pm two days after New Year, 2004, is surely one of the war`s most arbitrary killings. Hassun and his cousin Marwan Fadil were stopped at a checkpoint by US troops near a bridge in Samarra for breaking curfew. Once detained, Sergeant Tracy Perkins ordered his men to throw them into the river, apparently to teach them a lesson. Hassun drowned, but Fadil survived to tell their harrowing tale. There was a subsequent investigation and then a court martial that cleared Perkins and his men of involuntary manslaughter. Perkins was found guilty of assault and obstruction of justice, however, charges that held a maximum penalty of 11 years in prison. He got 45 days.

One reason for Perkins` exoneration on the manslaughter charge was because the defense argued that Hassun might not really be dead, since no US doctor had examined his body. Oddly, no one bothered to exhume Hassun`s grave, and photographic evidence of his corpse provided by his family, as well as the testimony of Fadil, held little weight among the soldiers sitting in judgment of their colleague. When soldiers judge soldiers, says Ratner, a slanted outcome is always a risk. "The theory of military tribunals is that military officers understand the combat situation best and therefore you want those people to judge," he says. "So first, they`re sympathetic already, and second they probably see themselves in that situation."

The Hassun case illustrates the hierarchies of race that corrupt the dispensation of US military justice and indeed the wider Iraqi-US relationship. As such, the US is reproducing the kind of colonial justice practiced by the British in India, the French in Algeria or the Israelis in Occupied Palestine. Overt racism is rife in the military`s internal investigations, says Ratner.

"One of the things that comes out from the CID [Criminal Investigations Division] of the army investigations is that they`re shoddy and they never believe the victim or the witnesses who were Iraqi," he says. "It`s almost like what we had in the American south during the post-civil war period, where they never believed the black witness in a trial against a white." US soldiers, says Ratner, "have been taught that Muslims are terrorists, so it doesn`t take a big leap to say `I`m not going to believe their testimony`."

It is not only Iraqis who feel hard done by Bush-era US military justice. When Italian special forces agent Nicola Calipari was shot dead by US soldiers on March 4 while driving towards a checkpoint as he attempted to deliver Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to Baghdad airport (after apparently freeing her from her insurgent kidnappers) , many assumed America`s relations with its key coalition ally would ensure due diligence. But despite evidence that little warning was given before US soldiers fired on the Italian convoy, a joint US-Italian investigation - the conclusions of which the Italians refused to cosign - found no US soldier at fault.

The Calipari case shows that the US is willing to go to great lengths to hold its soldiers above the law, says Ratner. "Right now the Bush administration is not about to prosecute anybody for any crime in a serious way," he says. "Even with someone who politically they had to get along with like the Italians, it didn`t make any difference to their bigger aim, which is to protect their soldiers and basically have them be looked at as a killing force that`s just not accountable."

The high cost of impunity
That American soldiers are perceived by Iraqis as being above the law has serious implications for the US-Iraqi relationship. It feeds Iraqi cynicism about the legitimacy of the transitional government and reinforces assumptions that Americans are the ultimate arbiters of Iraq`s purported sovereignty.

"[Iraqis] have absolutely no illusions that the present government has very little ability to exercise sovereignty," says Professor Bassiouni. "Thirty years under Saddam`s regime brought people a certain type of realism. Power, control - corrupt absolutely. Saddam controlled absolutely, now the Americans are controlling absolutely."

While the Jaafari government is amenable to the US presence for now, that writ is not eternal. Jaafari`s administration "obviously receives its policy directives from [Grand Ayatollah Ali] al-Sistani," Bassiouni notes. "And Sistani`s basic position has been made very clear. He wants a government to be in place, an orderly transition made, and the Americans out. The US has to leave, period."

Once the constitution is in place, elections are held and the word "transitional" erased from government stationary, the colonial relationship demonstrated by the impunity US soldiers on Iraqi soil could begin to chafe unbearably. And sovereign Iraq`s rulers may not be as patient in demanding jurisdiction over foreign forces as the ever-genial Hamid Karzai. Sooner rather than later, Iraqis will tire of US soldiers hurling their young men into the Tigris and getting off scott free.

Ashraf Fahim is a freelance writer on Middle Eastern affairs based in New York and London. His writing can be found at www.storminateacup.org.uk.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Tomgram: Dahr Jamail on the Zarqawi Phenomenon
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=4481

Just in the last few days, according to USA Today, a "propaganda video purportedly made by al-Qaeda-linked terror suspect Abu Musab al-Zarqawi" has been released showing suicide attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq supposedly inspired by or ordered by him. Since George Bush first mentioned him in October 2002 in a speech in Cincinnati as proof of an al-Qaeda presence in Iraq, and so of Saddam Hussein`s essential al-Qaeda-ness, Zarqawi has moved ever more front and center as Iraq`s main terrorist threat. He now has an enormous bounty on his head and is cited regularly by the President as well as other administration officials as our enemy of enemies in that land, proof positive that Iraq is "the central theater in the war on terror." In the U.S., he has come to personify the war in Iraq, his presence both a kind of instant why-we-fight explanation for our being there and a living justification for everything we are doing there.



Zarqawi has indeed been a strange phenomenon of the ongoing war. Sometimes he seems to be everywhere at once in that country, blamed for (or, through jihadist websites, taking credit for) everything from the latest IED attacks on U.S. troops to mortar barrages against U.S. bases, suicide car-bomb assaults on Shiite civilian targets, kidnappings, beheadings, even a string of bombings stretching from Morocco to Turkey in 2003, not to speak of the resistance of whole Iraqi cities to the American occupation, If it happens and it`s horrific, he seems to be the one responsible. His name has more or less replaced Saddam`s and Osama Bin Laden`s as the enemy of choice for the United States. He is a literal whirling dervish of an enemy. His lieutenants or aides fall constantly into American hands; he is reportedly at every hotspot all over Iraq -- or not in Iraq at all. His organization seems to take credit for just about every attack, every suicide bomb, every explosion in the country. The search for Zarqawi has become an –- if not the -– organizing theme of the American war in Iraq. At one point recently, the blogger Billmon posted the following set of typical Zarqawi headlines:



    June 16, 2005: U.S. Says It Has Captured Al Qaeda Leader for Mosul Area



    June 5, 2005: Militant linked to Zarqawi arrested



    May 25, 2005: Top aide to al-Zarqawi arrested north of Baghdad



    May 25, 2005: US: al-Zarqawi aides arrested



    May 9, 2005: Gains seen after new arrest of al-Zarqawi aide



    April 19, 2005: Iraqi Security Forces Capture Two Zarqawi Associates



    March 9, 2005: A Zarqawi cell "prince", six others captured in Baquba



And he suggested the following template for the basic we-almost-got-Zarqawi story in our press, a kind of Iraqi variant on America`s Most Wanted:

(Iraqi/US/US and Iraqi] forces have [nabbed/captured/ arrested] [a/one/two] [senior/middle/] [figure(s)/operations chief(s)/terrorist operative(s)] of [Jordanian/al-Qaeda-linked/Iraq`s most wanted] terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi.

And yet, as far as anyone can tell, Zarqawi`s actual organization or network is, at best, modest in nature and no one writing about it or him even really knows whether the man is alive or dead, in or out of Iraq. A look at basic press accounts of Zarqawi finds them filled to the brim with words like "purportedly," "allegedly," "claims," and "the CIA believes with a high degree of confidence." And the unnamed sources who tell us what is supposedly known about Zarqawi are invariably anonymous "American officials" or "intelligence officials," the same people who once assured us that he had a leg amputated in one of Saddam`s Baghdad hospitals. (He is now believed to be two-legged.)



How to put together this conveniently satanic figure -- capable of personalizing all the horrors of Iraq in a single monstrous body and bringing them home to the American public in a way that the Bush administration has found convenient -- with what little is known about a possibly not-too-bright small-town thug is a curious challenge. Independent journalist Dahr Jamail, who wrote for Tomdispatch (among other places) from Baghdad and then came home for a break, is now back in the Middle East and, from Amman, Jordan, he went on his own search for the truth behind the Zarqawi phenomenon.

Tom

The Zarqawi Phenomenon
By Dahr Jamail

A remarkable proportion of the violence taking place in Iraq is regularly credited to the Jordanian Ahmad al-Khalayleh, better known as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and his organization Al Qaeda in Iraq. Sometimes it seems no car bomb goes off, no ambush occurs that isn`t claimed in his name or attributed to him by the Bush administration. Bush and his top officials have, in fact, made good use of him, lifting his reputed feats of terrorism to epic, even mythic, proportions (much aided by various mainstream media outlets). Given that the invasion and occupation of Iraq has now been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be based upon administration lies and manipulations, I had begun to wonder if the vaunted Zarqawi even existed.

In Amman, where I was recently based, random interviews with Jordanians only generated more questions and no answers about Zarqawi. As it happens, though, the Jordanian capital is just a short cab ride from Zarqa, the city Zarqawi is said to be from. So I decided to slake my curiosity about him by traveling there and nosing around his old neighborhood.

"Zarqawi, I don`t even know if he exists," said a scruffy taxi driver in Amman and his was a typical comment. "He`s like Bin Laden, we don`t even know if he exists; but if he does, I support that he fights the U.S. occupation of Iraq."

Chatting with a man sipping tea in a small tea stall in downtown Amman, I asked what he thought of Zarqawi. He was convinced that Zarqawi was perfectly real, but the idea that he was responsible for such a wide range of attacks in Iraq had to be "nonsense."

"The Americans are using him for their propaganda," he insisted. "Think about it -- with all of their power and intelligence capabilities -- they cannot find one man?"

Like so many others in neighboring Jordan, he, too, offered verbal support for the armed resistance in Iraq, adding, "Besides, it is any person`s right to defend himself if his country is invaded. The American occupation of Iraq has destabilized the entire region."

The Bush administration has regularly claimed that Zarqawi was in -- and then had just barely escaped from -- whatever city or area they were next intent on attacking or cordoning off or launching a campaign against. Last year, he and his organization were reputed to be headquartered in Fallujah, prior to the American assault that flattened the city. At one point, American officials even alleged that he was commanding the defense of Fallujah from elsewhere by telephone. Yet he also allegedly slipped out of Fallujah either just before or just after the beginning of the assault, depending on which media outlet or military press release you read.

He has since turned up, according to American intelligence reports and the U.S. press, in Ramadi, Baghdad, Samarra, and Mosul among other places, along with side trips to Jordan, Iran, Pakistan and/or Syria. His closest "lieutenants" have been captured by the busload, according to American military reports, and yet he always seems to have a bottomless supply of them. In May, a news report on the BBC even called Zarqawi "the leader of the insurgency in Iraq," though more sober analysts of the chaotic Iraqi situation say his group, Jama`at al-Tawhid wal Jihad, while probably modest in size and reach is linked to a global network of jihadists. However, finding any figures as to the exact size of the group remains an elusive task.

Former US Secretary of State Colin Powell offered photos before the U.N. in February, 2003 of Zarqawi`s "headquarters" in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, also claiming that Zarqawi had links to Al-Qaeda. The collection of small huts was bombed to the ground by U.S. forces in March of that year, prompting one news source to claim that Zarqawi had been killed. Yet seemingly contradicting Powell`s claims for Zarqawi`s importance was a statement made in October, 2004 by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who conceded that Zarqawi`s ties to Al Qaeda may have been far more ambiguous, that he may have been more of a rival than a lieutenant to Osama bin Laden. "Someone could legitimately say he`s not Al Qaeda," added Rumsfeld.

The Eternal Netherworld of Zarqawi

For anyone trying to assess the Zarqawi phenomenon from neighboring Jordan, complicating matters further are the contradictory statements Jordanians regularly offer up about almost any aspect of Zarqawi`s life, history, present activities, or even his very existence.

"I`ve met him here in Jordan," claimed Abdulla Hamiz, a 29 year-old merchant in Amman, "Two years ago." However, Hajam Yousef, shining shoes under a date palm in central Amman, insists, "He doesn`t exist except in the minds of American policy-makers."

In fact, what little is actually known about Zarqawi sounds like the biography of a troubled but normal man from the industrial section of Zarqa. Thirty-eight years old now, according to the BBC, Zarqawi reportedly grew up a rebellious child who ran with the wrong crowd. He liked to play soccer in the streets as a young boy and dropped out of school when he was 17. According to some reports, his friends claimed that in his teens he started drinking heavily, getting tattoos, and picking fights he could not win. According to Jordanian intelligence reports provided to the Associated Press in Amman, Zarqawi was jailed in the 1980`s for sexual assault, though no additional details are available. By the time he was 20 he evidently began looking for direction, and ended up making his way to Afghanistan in the last years of the jihadist war against the Soviets in that country. While some media outlets like the New York Times claim that he did not actually fight in Afghanistan, there are people in Jordan who believe he did.

He is reported to have returned to Jordan in 1992 where he was arrested after Jordanian authorities found weapons in his home. Upon his release in 1999, he left once again for Pakistan. When his Pakistani visa expired, expecting to be arrested as a suspect in a terror plot if he returned to Jordan, he entered Afghanistan instead.

After supposedly running a weapons camp there, he was next sighted by Jordanian authorities, crossing back into Jordan from Syria in September of 2002. Sometime between then and May 11, 2004, when he was reported to have beheaded the kidnapped American, Nick Berg, in Baghdad, Zarqawi entered Iraq. Many news outlets have reported that his goal in Iraq is to generate a sectarian civil war between the Sunni and Shia.

In September, 2004, the BBC, among others, reported, "U.S. officials suspect that Zarqawi…is holed up with followers in the rebellious Iraqi city of Fallujah," though their sources, as is true of more or less all sources in every report on Zarqawi, were nebulous. During the second siege of Fallujah, last November, Newsweek reported that "some U.S. officials say that Zarqawi may actually be directing or instigating events in the town by telephone from elsewhere in Iraq." Though they too cited no specific sources and provided no evidence for this, Newsweek then summed Zarqawi`s importance up in this way: "His crucial role in the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, however, cannot be underestimated." Meanwhile, the BBC was reporting that his "network is considered the main source of kidnappings, bomb attacks and assassination attempts in Iraq" -- another statement made without much, if any, solid evidence.

In the end, the vast mass of reportage on Abu Musab al-Zarqawi amounts to countless statements based on anonymous sources hardly less shadowy -- to ordinary readers -- than him. He exists, then, in a kind of eternal netherworld of reportage, rumor, and attribution. It could almost be said that never has a figure been more regularly written about based on less hard information. While we have a rough outline of who he is, where he is from, and where he went until he entered Iraq, evidence that might stand up in a court of law is consistently absent. The question that begs to be answered in this glaring void of hard information is: Who benefits from the ongoing tales of the mysterious Zarqawi?

The Search for Zarqawi`s Past

My own little journey only seemed to repeat this larger phenomenon on a more modest scale. It was the sort of story where, from beginning to end, no one I met ever seemed willing to offer his or her real name (or certainly let a real name be used in an article). From second one, Zarqawi and an urge for anonymity were tightly -- and perhaps appropriately -- bound together. Abdulla (not his real name, of course), the man who agreed to drive my translator Aisha and me to Al-Zarqa for this excursion was a Jordanian, by the look of things about 30 years old, who chain-smoked nervously throughout the trip. We decided to go with him after running into him while I was conducting my own informal Zarqawi reality poll in Amman.

"I know him personally because we fought together in Afghanistan in the early ‘90`s," insisted Abdulla , "If you like, I can show you where he is from."

When he picked us up on the late afternoon of the next day in his beat-up, rusting taxi, he agreed to a modest fee that was to be paid at the end of our excursion. As we puttered up a hillside on our venture to Zarqawi`s hometown of Al-Zarqa, he promptly pulled out a small stack of photos. I flipped through them as we drove towards Zarqawi`s neighborhood and noted Abdulla standing in front of the huge Faisal Mosque in Islamabad, Pakistan, a giant beard (no longer present) dominating his flowing dishdasha.

Another picture had him in Peshawar, Pakistan, a city near the Afghan border known as a recruiting and staging area for the Taliban. Others seemed to have him in the Philippines standing amid dense forest with a gun slung over his shoulder. In none of them -- why should I have been surprised -- did he have a companion with the now so globally recognizable Zarqawi sneer.

A little while into our journey, out of nowhere Abdulla suddenly said, "Anyone collaborating with the Americans in Iraq should be killed!"

I took this as a sign that he felt like talking, and asked him what he knew of Zarqawi. According to him, he met the mythic terrorist in Peshawar before being sent with him to a training camp on the border of Afghanistan in 1990. "There are several well known training camps in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan," he explained, "And we were in one of those, along with freedom fighters from Syria, Jordan, Palestine, and Lebanon."

Only fighters for "jihad" were allowed into the camps, he continued proudly. Only fighters who were identified by other well known mujahideen were granted permission to enter, in an effort to safeguard those camps against spies. After three months of training with machine guns and rocket launchers, Abdulla claims that he and Zarqawi headed for Afghanistan to fight the Russians who remained there.

When I looked at him quizzically -- since the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan in February of 1989 -- he replied, "Many of them stayed after their government announced they had withdrawn -- so we were pushing the rest of them out."

This was already a questionable tale, but he went right on. They were given the choice, he claimed, of where to go in Afghanistan, and Abdulla proudly stated that most of the mujahideen went to the "hot" areas where they expected to find fighting. Our discussion was then interrupted because we had completed the hop to Zarqa and arrived in the neighborhood, so rumor has it, where Zarqawi`s brother-in-law lives. We were dropped off near a small mosque where Zarqawi supposedly used to pray.

Abdulla says it isn`t safe for him to linger here -- though he doesn`t bother to explain why -- and we agree instead that he will call us on my cell phone in an hour to see if we need more time or not.

So Aisha and I begin to walk around the quiet, middle-class neighborhood asking people if they know where the brother-in-law lives. Small children play in the streets. Behind them young men and parents sit eyeing us suspiciously. The wind whips plastic bags along the roads between the usual stone houses of Jordan. Finally, we find an old man with a white, flowing beard and tired eyes sitting in a worn chair at the front of a small grocery stall. He admits to being the Imam of the mosque, but when asked if he remembers Zarqawi he dodges the question artfully.

"It is probably true that he used to pray in my mosque," he responds tiredly, "but I can`t say for sure, as my back is to the people whom I lead in prayers."

After this he looks away, down the road. I assume he`s wishing we were gone -- undoubtedly like so many Zarqawi seekers before us. So we thank him and walk on.

Next, we find a woman -- no names given -- who assures us that Zarqawi is from the Beni Hassan tribe, the largest tribe in Jordan, before pointing to a two-story white house with a black satellite dish on top.

"That is Ahmed Zarqawi`s home," she says softly, referring to one of his brothers before warning, "But don`t go there because they will throw rocks on your head. They are sick of the media."

After being sidetracked by being shown his brothers` home, we keep doggedly asking for his brother-in-law, but everyone insists that they simply don`t know where he lives, which seems odd. Just up the hill from his brother`s home, we stumble upon a middle-aged man who is willing to be interviewed. He`s a rare find in this village that has certainly been inundated with media, not to speak of far more threatening visits from the intelligence and police personnel of various countries.

Like our taxi driver, this man agrees to be interviewed on condition of anonymity. These are, it seems, a reasonably media-savvy group of villagers. He tells us that Zarqawi`s brother doesn`t know much about the mythic legend of the Jordanian jihadi outlaw, due to the fact that he keeps his distance from all the hoopla. He then laughs and adds, "But all the media went to his brother`s house anyway to film it, because they thought it was Zarqawi`s home!"

He then points across a shallow valley where lines of homes sit bathed in the setting sun. "He [Zarqawi] is from that village, lives near a cemetery, and his father is mayor of that district, which is called al-Ma`assoum quarter."

He claims to have known Abu Musab since he was seven years old, as they went to Prince Talal Primary School together. "He was a trouble maker ever since he was a kid," he explains, "What the media is saying about him is not true, though. Abu Musab is a normal guy. What the Americans are saying is not true. Most of us who know him here and in his neighborhood don`t believe any of this media."

He tells us that Zarqawi left the neighborhood in the early 1990`s to go to Afghanistan, but that he doesn`t believe he is in Iraq. Along with others in the neighborhood, he is convinced that Zarqawi was killed in the Tora Bora region of Afghanistan during the U.S. bombings that resulted from the attacks of September 11th.

"His wife and their three children still live over there," he adds, "But don`t go talk to them. They won`t allow it." He believes Zarqawi was killed, "100%," and then says emphatically, "If he is still alive, why not show a recent photo of him? All of these they show in the media are quite old."

Like so many Jordanians, he supports the Iraqi resistance, "All Muslims should fight this occupation because everyday the Americans are slaughtering innocent Iraqis." Zarqawi, he tells us, wasn`t a fighter until he went to Afghanistan. "Then his wife covered herself in black and has worn it ever since." According to this man, Zarqawi has two brothers named Ahmed and Sail. He says with a smile, "Most of the media coming here are westerners because I think most of the Arab media know this is all a myth."

He holds up his hands when one of his sons brings us coffee and asks, "When they show hostages in Iraq, why doesn`t he put himself in the film? There is simply no proof he is alive offered by the Americans or the media."

We engage in some small talk while drinking our strong Arabic coffee as we sit under grape vines lacing the terrace over our heads. As the sun begins to set, we thank him for the talk and the coffee, and head off as our taxi driver phones.

I am walking quickly through the streets to meet him when Aisha, whom I`ve worked with often in Baghdad, reassures me: "You can slow down, Dahr, we are not in danger here. This isn`t like Baghdad where we`ll be killed after dark."

Shortly thereafter we meet our driver. "They didn`t tell you where his brother-in-law is because his home has been raided so many times," he states as a matter of fact. "By both Jordanian and US intelligence."

Our driver insists that Zarqawi is alive and well in Iraq. "I`m certain of it, because if he was dead they would show his picture and make the announcement. He has always been so strong. When we were in Afghanistan, any time we got a new machine to learn or French missiles, he was the first to learn them."

He drives us by another mosque Zarqawi is also supposed to have attended. We are in the al-Ma`assoum quarter now and our driver tells us that a sister of Abu Musab is the head of the Islamic Center of the district. He then adds, somewhat randomly, that he himself has been in different prisons for a total of seven years -- one of those statements you can`t decide whether you wished you had never heard or are simply relieved you didn`t hear hours earlier just as you were beginning.

"In Afghanistan when we beheaded people it was to show the enemy what their fate was to be. It was to frighten them."

I think to myself grimly: Well, it works.

He adds, "The jihad in Iraq is not just Zarqawi. It is up to Allah if we prevail, not dependent on the hand of Zarqawi. If he is killed, the jihad will continue there."

I ask him about civilian casualties. Does he think Zarqawi cares about the killing of innocent people?

"I have had so many discussions with Iraqis to tell them that Zarqawi doesn`t instruct his followers in the killing of innocent people. If he did this, I would be the first to turn against him. He only targets the Americans and collaborators."

He`s still chain smoking as we drive through the darkness back to Amman. I pay him as we thank him for taking us to Zarqa, and then his beat up taxi rolls off down the busy street.

The Eerie Blankness of Zarqawi

After discussions with our driver and other Jordanians, the only thing I feel I can say for sure is that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is a real person. Whether or not he is alive and fighting in Iraq or not, or what acts he is actually responsible for there, is open to debate. On one point, I`m quite certain, however: Reported American claims that Zarqawi has affiliations with the secular government of Syria make no sense. Just as Saddam Hussein opposed the religious fundamentalism of Osama Bin-Laden, the Syrian government would not be likely to team up with a fundamentalist like Zarqawi.

As Bush administration officials have falsely claimed Saddam Hussein had links to Bin-Laden and to Zarqawi, they have also conveniently linked Zarqawi to a Syrian government they would certainly like to take out. Similarly, Bush officials continue to link Zarqawi to the Iraqi resistance -- undoubtedly another bogus claim in that the resistance in Iraq is primarily composed of Iraqi nationalists and Baathist elements who are fighting to expel the occupiers from their country, not to create a global Islamic jihad.

Thus, even if Zarqawi is involved in carrying out attacks inside Iraq and is killed at some future moment, the effect this would have on the Iraqi resistance would surely be negligible. It would be but another American "turning point" where nothing much turned.

Right now, when you try to track down Zarqawi, a man with a $25 million American bounty on his head, or simply try to track him back to the beginnings of his life`s journey, whether you look for him in the tunnels of Tora Bora, the ruined city of Fallujah, the Syrian borderlands, or Ramadi, you`re likely to run up against a kind of eerie blankness. Whatever the real Zarqawi may or may not be capable of doing today in Iraq or elsewhere, he is dwarfed by the Zarqawi of legend. He may be the Bush administration`s Terrorist of Terrorists (now that Osama Bin-Laden has been dropped into the void), the Iraqi insurgency`s unwelcome guest, the fantasy figure in some Jihadi dreamscape, or all of the above. Whatever the case, Zarqawi the man has disappeared into an epic tale that may or may not be of his own partial creation. Even dead, he is unlikely to die; even alive, he is unlikely to be able to live up to anybody`s Zarqawi myth.

Whoever he actually may be, the "he" of Jihadist websites and American pronouncements is now linked inextricably with the devolving occupation of Iraq and a Bush administration that, even as it has built him up as a satanic bogeyman, is itself beginning to lose its own mythic qualities, to grow smaller.

I`m sure we`ll continue to hear of "him" in Iraq, in Jordan, or elsewhere as his myth, perhaps now beyond anyone`s control, continues to transform itself as an inextricable part of the brutal, bloody occupation of Iraq where the Bush Administration finds itself fighting not primarily Zarqawi (or his imitators) but the Iraqis they allegedly came to liberate.

Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist from Anchorage, Alaska. He has spent 8 months reporting from occupied Iraq, and recently has been reporting from Jordan and Turkey. He regularly reports for Inter Press Service, as well as contributing to The Nation, The Sunday Herald and Asia Times among others. He maintains a website at: dahrjamailiraq.com.

Copyright 2005 Dahr Jamail

Print this Post

E-mail to a Friend

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
posted July 5, 2005 at 1:47 pm

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

Bush`s gay hooker opens a golf course near DC.
[/TABLE]

[SittinBuII]

Zarkawi = Goldstein

Mehr gibt es dazu nicht zu sagen, jedenfalls bedarf es keiner 25 DIN A4 Seiten...obwohl ich Dahr Jamail mag...

[Joerver]

JAMES CARROLL
The day after the fireworks
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/arti…

By James Carroll | July 5, 2005

WE KNOW what July 4th is. What about July 5th? After the fireworks, the music, the rhetoric of freedom -- what then? The party is over. Can we think about what, exactly, we were celebrating? Today`s date puts the question of how high-flown American ideals square with the quotidian reality of what the nation is becoming.

No need to rehearse here the red-blue arguments over youth-slaying wars (first Iraq, now Afghanistan?) that are justified by the banner of red, white, and blue. The roster of illusions that pass for national security doctrine -- preventive war, nuclear posture, unilateralism -- has slipped beyond debate by now, with citizens and politicians alike having signed onto one slate or another. The growing US awareness, sharply reflected in polls, that the Iraq war is a loser (or perhaps even wrong) is simultaneously stymied by a mounting drumbeat for more American troops to fight insurgents whose only casus belli is the presence of American troops. From such contradiction we, the people, last night took refuge in the treasured euphoria of patriotic display.

But what about today? In assessing post-celebration realities of the national moment, it may help to recall that America has never been an innocent nation, which is seen in its having constantly sought to appear as one. Indeed, the planting of the flag in self-affirming virtue is how the hallowed standard comes most readily under fire. The most poignant honoring of the flag of which I know is the US Marine Corps Memorial in Arlington, the magnificent bronze rendering of the famous Joe Rosenthal photograph of five weary leathernecks and a Navy medic raising the flag on Iwo Jima. That statue, not the Mussolini-like showcase of plinths, pillars, wreaths, and fountains that now despoils the Mall, should be the nation`s memorial to World War II.

The Iwo Jima image is sacred precisely because the men lifting up the fallen flag are all but unable to do so. The extremity of their exhaustion, their nearness to defeat, the horrors of what they have been through and of what awaits them are all implied in the painful stretch of limbs, in the rough gear of armored clothing, in the absolute investment each has made in a symbol of something better than himself. Even as the valor of what they did on one beachhead after another is properly honored, the American fighters of the Pacific War were not heroes. The desperation of island combat included exchanged barbarities of which no one would willingly speak for a generation. On the American side, there were foul racism, vengeful refusals to take prisoners, a generalized brutality that extended to a savage air war. To raise the flag at Iwo Jima was to lift the transcendent symbol out of the total hell that the war had become. Few if any men who survived it came home speaking of virtue.

As much as the defeat of militarized Japanese fascism was a victory, the war was also a tragedy, and the Iwo Jima image of desperate men around the flag acknowledges that, too. A new American tragedy is unfolding in Iraq. Not even its supporters pretend to see glory in this war now, and who imagines anything like ``victory" any more? But if an iconic American image of the Iraqi struggle emerges, it will probably not resemble the Iwo Jima statue because amputation and mutilation have become hallmarks of the GI experience of the ``improvised explosive devices" that ambush them. What would the Rosenthal image be if the Marines had lost their arms? For each of the roughly 70 American soldiers killed in the month just past, many others are gravely maimed. What of them?

The ``bursting in air" of July 4th is an implicit glorification of war. On the day after, can we think of those combat survivors who will carry the real cost of the Iraqi war in their bodies forever? And how can we think of those American daughters and sons without thinking of their even more numerous Iraqi sisters and brothers?

What kind of nation does our flag fly over now? Not a less innocent one, because American innocence was never the truth. Not one less reluctant to go to war without a good reason, because we have foolishly credited bad reasons in the past. But now the nation lacks even that. As our president demonstrated last week, we have become a people who wage unending war -- killing and maiming our young ones and theirs -- without being remotely able to say why.

James Carroll`s column appears regularly in the Globe.
© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Published on Tuesday, July 5, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
The Summer of Love this Ain`t: America in its Season of Amnesia
by Steven Laffoley
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0705-23.htm

What is it about summer in America that loves to forget?

Is it the warm weather? The vacations away? Or maybe it`s the barbecues and beer. Whatever the reason, summer in America is the season of amnesia: a default desire to forget war and third world hunger, to forget over-consumption and impending ecological disaster. Summer in America is a time to swim in the warm nostalgia of summer break from school. A time to bare annual witness to the rockets` red glare of the 4th of July fireworks, and a time to admire the waving majesty of the stars and stripes forever while the boys of summer play baseball at Fenway Park.

In America, during the season of amnesia, all is good.

Remember the summer of `67? Now that was a summer: the Summer of Love - the season of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, of the Beatles` Sgt. Pepper and the Doors` Light My Fire. It was the summer of Timothy Leary promoting psychedelic acid trips, and of free love and finding yourself. In the summer of `67 we travelled with the searching spirit of Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, and travelled with the free spirits of Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde. And south of Boston, we placed our hopes in the swinging bat of Carl Yastrzemski and the Red Sox - all the way to the World Series against the St. Louis Cardinals.

Of course, it was also the season of amnesia. In 1967, America fought a far away war in Southeast Asia. In that year alone - by July of 1967 - 2,566 American soldiers had been killed in the jungles of Vietnam. How many Vietnamese died, killed by American bombs and bullets? Thousands? Tens-of Thousands? Who knows? It was the season of amnesia, after all.

And yet, strangely, it was during the season of amnesia when - for the first time during the war - a bare majority of Americans thought the Vietnam War was a mistake. Imagine that. And when the season of amnesia finally gave way to the cool weather of fall that year, the political tide in America turned against the Vietnam War - and against its chief agent, President Lyndon B. Johnson.

Now, it`s the season of amnesia again - 2005.

But the Summer of Love this ain`t. In 2005, America`s drug of choice isn`t acid - it`s fear. But what a trip fear it is. Dig the psychedelic colours of our fear: Code Orange, Yellow, and Red - and even alerts in Amber. It`s also the summer of Tom Cruise dissing Paxil and the psychiatric "lies" of bad body chemistry (but, man, just don`t ask him about those lies on Oprah`s couch.) This summer, we fear angry terrorists from other planets in Tom Cruise`s War of the Worlds, and also witness our retaliatory ability on Internet real time: America`s Fourth of July fireworks on an asteroid a million miles away. What a summer trip, man.

Of course, this is still the season of amnesia. Already this year, in 2005, 405 American soldiers have been killed on the sands of Iraq, and another 54 Americans have been killed in the mountains and plains of Afghanistan. How many Iraqis and Afghans have died, killed by American bombs and bullets? Thousands? Tens-of Thousands? Who knows? It`s still the season of amnesia, after all.

But dig this: for the first time - during this war - a bare majority of Americans think the Iraq War is a mistake. Imagine that. And when the season of amnesia finally gives way to the cool weather of fall this year, will the political tide in America turn against this war - and against its chief agent, President George W. Bush?

Well, if summer in America is the Season of Amnesia, then maybe fall is the Season of Reason.

Let`s hope so.

Steven Laffoley is an American writer living in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. You may e-mail him at [e-mail] or [e-mail].

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 5, 2005
Prosecutor Urges Judge to Jail Reporters Who Refused to Testify
By ADAM LIPTAK
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/politics/05cnd-leak.html?h…

Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of The New York Times should be jailed for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. operative, the special prosecutor in the case said in court papers filed today.

Last week, Time magazine provided Mr. Cooper`s notes and other documents to the special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, after the United States Supreme Court refused to hear appeals filed by the magazine and the two reporters. In today`s filing, Mr. Fitzgerald said he had reviewed the documents and determined that Mr. Cooper`s testimony "remains necessary."

The reporters, who have consistently refused to testify about conversations with their sources, filed papers on Friday suggesting that they be sentenced to home confinement if incarceration is required. In the alternative, Ms. Miller asked to be sent to a federal prison camp in Danbury, Conn., and Mr. Cooper to one in Cumberland, Md.

Mr. Fitzgerald opposed those requests today, saying that the local jail in the District of Columbia "or some other nearby federal facility" would be more appropriate.

Judge Thomas F. Hogan of Federal District Court in Washington will hold a hearing on Wednesday to consider the question.

Mr. Fitzgerald, whose public filings to date have been restrained, was harshly critical of the legal position taken by Ms. Miller and of The New York Times`s statements in support of her. His response to Mr. Cooper was barely 4 pages; to Ms. Miller, 21 pages.

In October, Judge Hogan held the reporters in civil contempt, sentencing them to up to 18 months in jail. He suspended the sentences while the reporters appealed and last week said that the maximum time the reporters now face is 120 days, as the term of the grand jury will expire in October.

Civil contempt is meant to be coercive rather than punitive. In today`s filing, though, Mr. Fitzgerald suggested that criminal prosecution is also a possibility.

"The court should advise Miller that if she persists in defying the court`s order that she will be committing a crime," Mr. Fitzgerald wrote. "Miller and The New York Times appear to have confused Miller`s ability to commit contempt with a legal right to do so."

He added: "Much of what appears to motivate Miller to commit contempt is the misguided reinforcement from others (specifically including her publisher) that placing herself above the law can be condoned." The Times`s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., has repeatedly said that the newspaper supports Ms. Miller.

Mr. Fitzgerald quoted at length from news accounts concerning Time`s decision to show that journalists and others are not of one mind about news organizations` and reporters` obligations to obey final court orders concerning their confidential sources. He also quoted from opinion columns, essays and a Los Angeles Times editorial suggesting that reporters should not take absolutist positions.

Mr. Fitzgerald urged Judge Hogan to reject the reporters` requests for home confinement. "Forced vacation at a comfortable home is not a compelling form of coercion," he wrote.

"Certainly one who can handle the desert in wartime," he added, referring to Ms. Miller`s role in covering the war in Iraq, "is far better equipped than the average person jailed in a federal facility."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Da gerade mal wieder Karl Rove im Gespräch ist. Der meist gelesene Artikel der heutigen Times.

[Table align=center]
Straight, Gay or Lying? Bisexuality Revisited
[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/health/05sex.html?incamp=a…

By BENEDICT CAREY

Some people are attracted to women; some are attracted to men. And some, if Sigmund Freud, Dr. Alfred Kinsey and millions of self-described bisexuals are to be believed, are drawn to both sexes.

But a new study casts doubt on whether true bisexuality exists, at least in men.

The study, by a team of psychologists in Chicago and Toronto, lends support to those who have long been skeptical that bisexuality is a distinct and stable sexual orientation.

People who claim bisexuality, according to these critics, are usually homosexual, but are ambivalent about their homosexuality or simply closeted. "You`re either gay, straight or lying," as some gay men have put it.

In the new study, a team of psychologists directly measured genital arousal patterns in response to images of men and women. The psychologists found that men who identified themselves as bisexual were in fact exclusively aroused by either one sex or the other, usually by other men.

The study is the largest of several small reports suggesting that the estimated 1.7 percent of men who identify themselves as bisexual show physical attraction patterns that differ substantially from their professed desires.

"Research on sexual orientation has been based almost entirely on self-reports, and this is one of the few good studies using physiological measures," said Dr. Lisa Diamond, an associate professor of psychology and gender identity at the University of Utah, who was not involved in the study.

The discrepancy between what is happening in people`s minds and what is going on in their bodies, she said, presents a puzzle "that the field now has to crack, and it raises this question about what we mean when we talk about desire."

"We have assumed that everyone means the same thing," she added, "but here we have evidence that that is not the case."

Several other researchers who have seen the study, scheduled to be published in the journal Psychological Science, said it would need to be repeated with larger numbers of bisexual men before clear conclusions could be drawn.

Bisexual desires are sometimes transient and they are still poorly understood. Men and women also appear to differ in the frequency of bisexual attractions. "The last thing you want," said Dr. Randall Sell, an assistant professor of clinical socio-medical sciences at Columbia University, "is for some therapists to see this study and start telling bisexual people that they`re wrong, that they`re really on their way to homosexuality."

He added, "We don`t know nearly enough about sexual orientation and identity" to jump to these conclusions.

In the experiment, psychologists at Northwestern University and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health in Toronto used advertisements in gay and alternative newspapers to recruit 101 young adult men. Thirty-three of the men identified themselves as bisexual, 30 as straight and 38 as homosexual.

The researchers asked the men about their sexual desires and rated them on a scale from 0 to 6 on sexual orientation, with 0 to 1 indicating heterosexuality, and 5 to 6 indicating homosexuality. Bisexuality was measured by scores in the middle range.

Seated alone in a laboratory room, the men then watched a series of erotic movies, some involving only women, others involving only men.

Using a sensor to monitor sexual arousal, the researchers found what they expected: gay men showed arousal to images of men and little arousal to images of women, and heterosexual men showed arousal to women but not to men.

But the men in the study who described themselves as bisexual did not have patterns of arousal that were consistent with their stated attraction to men and to women. Instead, about three-quarters of the group had arousal patterns identical to those of gay men; the rest were indistinguishable from heterosexuals.

"Regardless of whether the men were gay, straight or bisexual, they showed about four times more arousal" to one sex or the other, said Gerulf Rieger, a graduate psychology student at Northwestern and the study`s lead author.

Although about a third of the men in each group showed no significant arousal watching the movies, their lack of response did not change the overall findings, Mr. Rieger said.

Since at least the middle of the 19th century, behavioral scientists have noted bisexual attraction in men and women and debated its place in the development of sexual identity. Some experts, like Freud, concluded that humans are naturally bisexual. In his landmark sex surveys of the 1940`s, Dr. Alfred Kinsey found many married, publicly heterosexual men who reported having had sex with other men.

"Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual," Dr. Kinsey wrote. "The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats."

By the 1990`s, Newsweek had featured bisexuality on its cover, bisexuals had formed advocacy groups and television series like "Sex and the City" had begun exploring bisexual themes.

Yet researchers were unable to produce direct evidence of bisexual arousal patterns in men, said Dr. J. Michael Bailey, a professor of psychology at Northwestern and the new study`s senior author.

A 1979 study of 30 men found that those who identified themselves as bisexuals were indistinguishable from homosexuals on measures of arousal. Studies of gay and bisexual men in the 1990`s showed that the two groups reported similar numbers of male sexual partners and risky sexual encounters. And a 1994 survey by The Advocate, the gay-oriented newsmagazine, found that, before identifying themselves as gay, 40 percent of gay men had described themselves as bisexual.

"I`m not denying that bisexual behavior exists," said Dr. Bailey, "but I am saying that in men there`s no hint that true bisexual arousal exists, and that for men arousal is orientation."

But other researchers - and some self-identified bisexuals - say that the technique used in the study to measure genital arousal is too crude to capture the richness - erotic sensations, affection, admiration - that constitutes sexual attraction.

Social and emotional attraction are very important elements in bisexual attraction, said Dr. Fritz Klein, a sex researcher and the author of "The Bisexual Option."

"To claim on the basis of this study that there`s no such thing as male bisexuality is overstepping, it seems to me," said Dr. Gilbert Herdt, director of the National Sexuality Resource Center in San Francisco. "It may be that there is a lot less true male bisexuality than we think, but if that`s true then why in the world are there so many movies, novels and TV shows that have this as a theme - is it collective fantasy, merely a projection? I don`t think so."

John Campbell, 36, a Web designer in Orange County, Calif., who describes himself as bisexual, also said he was skeptical of the findings.

Mr. Campbell said he had been strongly attracted to both sexes since he was sexually aware, although all his long-term relationships had been with women. "In my case I have been accused of being heterosexual, but I also feel a need for sex with men," he said.

Mr. Campbell rated his erotic attraction to men and women as about 50-50, but his emotional attraction, he said, was 90 to 10 in favor of women. "With men I can get aroused, I just don`t feel the fireworks like I do with women," he said.

About 1.5 percent of American women identify themselves bisexual. And bisexuality appears easier to demonstrate in the female sex. A study published last November by the same team of Canadian and American researchers, for example, found that most women who said they were bisexual showed arousal to men and to women.

Although only a small number of women identify themselves as bisexual, Dr. Bailey said, bisexual arousal may for them in fact be the norm.

Researchers have little sense yet of how these differences may affect behavior, or sexual identity. In the mid-1990`s, Dr. Diamond recruited a group of 90 women at gay pride parades, academic conferences on gender issues and other venues. About half of the women called themselves lesbians, a third identified as bisexual and the rest claimed no sexual orientation. In follow-up interviews over the last 10 years, Dr. Diamond has found that most of these women have had relationships both with men and women.

"Most of them seem to lean one way or the other, but that doesn`t preclude them from having a relationship with the nonpreferred sex," she said. "You may be mostly interested in women but, hey, the guy who delivers the pizza is really hot, and what are you going to do?"

"There`s a whole lot of movement and flexibility," Dr. Diamond added. "The fact is, we have very little research in this area, and a lot to learn."

Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]


I just noticed that`s Bob Novak sitting in the cell!

[urlLike A Moth To A Plame]http://www.theillustrateddailyscribble.com/daily.scribble.pages.05/07.05.05.html[/url]


[Table align=center]
"In my country we go to prison first and then become President."-- Nelson Mandela
[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 5, 2005
U.S. Walls Off Its Corner of Baghdad, Annoying Some Neighbors
By JAMES GLANZ
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/international/middleeast/0…

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 4 - Iraqis call it Assur, the Fence. In English everyone calls it the Wall, and in the past two years it has grown and grown until it has become an almost continuous rampart, at least 10 miles in circumference, around the seat of American power in Baghdad.
[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
The wall is not a small factor in the lives of ordinary Iraqis outside it. Khalid Daoud, an employee at the Culture Ministry, still looks in disbelief at the barrier of 12-foot-high, five-ton slabs that cuts through his garden.

A few months ago, he said, the American military arrived with a crane and tore up the trees in his garden, smashed the low wall surrounding it, swung the slabs into place and topped them with concertina wire.

Later they put up a 24-hour guard tower and a brilliant floodlight on the other side. With their privacy gone, his wife and daughter must now tend the garden in their abayas, or cloaks, and the family no longer sleeps outside when electricity failures at night shut down the air conditioning.

"I feel like it`s going to choke me," Mr. Daoud said of the wall.

This is one snapshot of life for countless Iraqis who live, work, shop and kick soccer balls around in the shadow of the structure. Many despise the wall, a few are strangely drawn to it, but no one can ignore it. Fortifications of one kind or another abound in the city, but there is nothing that compares to the snaking, zigzagging loop that is the wall.

Sometimes likened to the Berlin Wall by those who are not happy about its presence, the structure cleanly divides the relative safety of the Green Zone that includes Saddam Hussein`s old palace and ministry complex, now used by the American authorities and heavily patrolled by American troops, from the Red Zone - most of the rest of Baghdad - where security ranges from adequate to nonexistent.

But for all the problems faced by residents across the city, the neighborhoods within a few blocks of the wall have become a world apart. Mortar rounds and rockets fired at the Green Zone fall short and land there. Suicide bombers, unable to breach the wall, blow themselves up in shops just outside it. And the maze of checkpoints, blocked streets and American armor may be thicker here than anywhere else in Baghdad.

"We are the new Palestine," said Saman Abdel Aziz Rahman, owner of the Serawan kebab restaurant, by the northern reaches of the wall.

Two weeks ago, a man walked into a restaurant near the Serawan and blew himself up at lunchtime, killing 23 people, wounding 36 and sending pieces of flesh all the way to Mr. Rahman`s establishment.

Lt. Col. Steven A. Boylan, director of the main press information center in Baghdad, said construction of the wall was guided by "an overall force protection plan."

An American contractor, Kellogg Brown & Root, builds sections of the wall, Colonel Boylan said. He said he was not sure how complaints about the wall were handled. But whatever the official protocol, residents said it was no use trying to slow the placement of the slabs.

Mr. Daoud, whose garden was ruined, said he had complained and had simply been told that the city had approved the work and there was nothing he could do.

But one of the paradoxes of the wall is that while many are repelled by it, others are drawn by the feeling that they will be protected by the overwhelming might that lies just on the other side. American foot patrols, rarely seen elsewhere in Baghdad, are fairly routine along the outside of the wall, and residents know that any sustained guerrilla incursion near the zone would draw a swarm of Apache helicopters and Humvees, as well as a tank or two if necessary.
[Table align=left]


Abdul Kareem Jabbar, with family members in his backyard, as the newly fortified barrier loomed over them. He sometimes finds it a nuisance.
[/TABLE]
"It`s good and it`s not good," said Abdul Kareem Jabbar, a government employee whose backyard, swarming with clucking chickens and his extended family`s children, abuts the wall not far from the Serawan restaurant.

"What`s good about it - it`s a safe and secure area," Mr. Jabbar said. "And what`s bad about it," he said, pointing over his shoulder toward the house next door, "a mortar fell over there the other day."

Other than that, the biggest nuisance Mr. Jabbar has faced is what he said were empty liquor bottles tossed over from the Green Zone onto his family`s cars.

The stretch of wall near the Serawan, which is faced with a stucco- like material, is not new. It is there that the wall encloses the Assassin`s Gate, the bulky arch above a boulevard leading to Mr. Hussein`s former Republican Palace. Even though the Americans doubled its height with a chain-link fence, barbed wire and a green tarpaulin on top, there is little sense that the structure has blighted the neighborhood.

Soad Harb, an engineer who lives next to the July 14th Bridge in an apartment that senior officials in Mr. Hussein`s government abandoned in 2003, said she was happy to live so close to the southern boundary of the Green Zone, where she sometimes finds work with Fluor, a big American contractor.

Ms. Harb said that while the American checkpoint at the end of the bridge made the neighborhood dangerous and noisy, the soldiers who walked through the area talking with children made the barrier seem less intimidating.

But the same cannot be said in the middle-class district of Harithiya, just beyond the western edge of the Green Zone, where the concrete slabs arrived about two months ago.

Sometimes called T-walls because they splay outward at their base to form a pedestal, and sometimes called blast walls because the steel reinforcing inside is designed to withstand explosions, the slabs are a looming, sinister presence facing a long line of family homes from across Al Shawaf Street in Harithiya.

Haider al-Shawaf, a 35-year-old businessman who grew up here, first described the unpleasantness of the wall with a crude American expression. Then, as helicopters clattered to and fro overhead, Mr. Shawaf said nervously, "I am afraid of the Americans here - afraid of this wall."

Boys and young men playing soccer in a dusty field nearby echoed that thought. "There are seven teams in Harithiya," said Faddal Munder, 21, who wore a bright orange jersey. "Four teams are afraid to come here to play because it`s next to the walls."

There are also places where the wall passes through grim uninhabited places, like the wasteland along the bank of the Tigris on the eastern side of the Green Zone. The wall - or walls, since they sometimes form a double line - follow the contours of the terrain like the parapets of some medieval castle, seemingly with the aim of thwarting an insurgent amphibious attack.

But it is in the city`s neighborhoods that the wall, so important to the security of Americans and the Iraqis who work with them, also cuts with such ease through the hearts and the thoroughfares of everyday citizens.

"It was very nice street," Mr. Shawaf said with the dismay of someone who loves his tiny corner of the urban plan. "It was very nice street."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

June 30, 2005
Cordesman: Crucial to Bring Sunnis Into Government and Give Iraqis More Control Over Aid Money
http://www.cfr.org/publication.php?id=8233


Anthony H. Cordesman has just returned from a two-week fact-finding trip to Iraq. He reports that there has been "a great deal of progress" in improving Iraqi military capabilities, but argues that much more emphasis must be placed on political and economic areas. "I think what we`re talking about is an inclusive government that finds a way to share power so that Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds feel secure and find ways to distribute the nation`s oil wealth."

Asked about President Bush`s June 28 speech, Cordesman says, "What the president did not touch on at all is the fact that the economic effort is an almost total failure. We talk about the number of projects we started and we brag about a few completions, but we`ve had almost no real impact on the overall economy."

Cordesman, who holds the Arleigh A. Burke chair in strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor of cfr.org, on June 30, 2005.

You`ve just returned from a two-week trip to Iraq. What is your impression of the progress being made toward an Iraqi military force that`s capable of stabilizing the country?

I think a great deal of progress is being made. But one issue, which people who are not familiar with the military need to understand, is that this takes time. The effort didn`t really begin until July 2004. There were no meaningful efforts made under the CPA [Coalition Provisional Authority], and the police efforts, which are just as important as the military efforts, have lagged behind.

Put this in perspective. There was one operational regular army battalion in July 2004. Now, with the reorganization of the assistance effort, they were up to 27 battalions by January and 37 battalions by June. You had a handful of useful National Guard and special police battalions last summer, and now you`re up to more than 27 battalion equivalents. You`ve created things like SWAT teams, personal-protection forces, and many of the advanced police elements that are needed, but most of these are going to require at least a year or more to fill out in terms of proper training and gaining some kind of experience.

When we talk about the total forces here, we`re talking well over 100 battalion equivalents. Those are about 700 men each. That`s a large force, but most of that force is just beginning to acquire mission capability, and only about 20 percent of it has significant, though limited, mission capability for more demanding roles.

What is the force level now?

Whenever anybody talks about total manpower in the military, unless they`re talking manpower in policy and recruiting, it`s a sure sign they haven`t the faintest idea of what they`re talking about. If you look at this on paper, there are about 160,000 people who can be described as trained and equipped. That doesn`t tell you anything about mission capability. Out of between 100 and 130 battalion equivalents, you probably have something on the order of 10 battalion equivalents with significant mission capability--but they don`t have artillery, they don`t have armor, they don`t have support, and they don`t have air power. So obviously, these are not units who can take on first-line missions without coalition help.

You have another 20 to 30 battalions that can play a very significant security role and that over time are going to reduce the strain on U.S. forces and coalition forces and allow some of those to be withdrawn. But we`re talking about a process that isn`t going to really be critical mass, in terms of deployed forces, until sometime in 2006. For it to be completed, we`re talking about sometime in 2007. And then it isn`t going to have all the fire power, support, and air power to deal with a major insurgency, if this continues.

Does that presuppose the U.S. force level will remain about what it is now?

No, not at all. As Iraqi forces come on line, in many areas they should be able to replace coalition forces, which obviously are dominated by U.S. forces, with British, Italian, and Australian forces involved in significant numbers. You also aren`t just talking troops. A lot of what`s needed in counterinsurgency is to have Iraqi government elements, such as Iraqi police, that can protect areas and provide day-to-day security with lighter special police units so people don`t constantly see military forces in the field.

Where it`s at all possible, you want Iraqi troops because they speak the language, they know the culture, and they will help make the government inclusive and legitimate in Iraqi eyes. Those troops will probably move in over time, but nobody, at this point, can tell you when those numbers will be enough to start to reduce U.S.-Coalition forces by 10,000-to-20,000 troop [increments]. There is no way to establish any kind of calendar or deadline, and any effort to do so isn`t going to motivate anybody. It`s simply going to break up the effort of improving the Iraqi forces` quality. We`ll go back to having Iraqi force quantity without capability.

That`s basically the administration view. The other night, the president essentially said, "We`re in there until we don`t need to be there," right?

The president made two other peculiar statements. One, he focused on foreign insurgents, which are probably about 5 percent of the problem, although the most bloody and visible part of the problem. This is a national insurgency. Ninety percent or more of the people involved are Iraqi, and they`re not Islamist extremists or terrorists. There has to be a political solution. No matter what happens, neither our forces nor the Iraqi forces could win in terms of sheer force; that means there has to be an inclusive government. It means finding ways to deal with the economic and political dimension, not just the military. The other thing he implied was that the three new measures he outlined--embedding U.S. advisers in Iraqi units, having Iraqi units fight along with coalition units, and organizing counterinsurgency resources --were new. In fact, most of those measures were at least a year old, and embedding U.S. advisers in Iraqi units was a result of the General [Gary] Luck mission in January. Nothing the president described as new was actually new.

But his general strategic policy agrees with yours?

No, it doesn`t. The president tied all of this to 9/11, to outside threats, and to Islamists. He didn`t say a word about the problems of the risk of civil war between Shiite and Sunni, or Arab and Kurd, which everyone in Iraq sees as the critical problem at this point. He talked about the level of effort and he talked about total withdrawal of U.S. forces. But at this point, there really aren`t any plans to accomplish that, because you aren`t going to be providing the heavy weapons or the air power or the level of support for Iraqi forces under current demands to make a total withdrawal possible.

Did you find on your visit to Iraq that senior American and Iraqi officials recognize the need for a political settlement?

I think what we`re talking about is an inclusive government that finds a way to share power so that Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds feel secure and find ways to distribute the nation`s oil wealth. And yes, the senior political leaders and the new government understand that, and the U.S. Embassy is making a major effort to support this. You`ve had visits from the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, the deputy secretary of state, who tried to encourage this kind of inclusiveness, to have the constitutional process be inclusive, and all of these efforts are having a very major effect.

But the problem is that the Iraqis who have this kind of vision at the top, and they include key religious figures like [Grand Ayatollah Ali] al-Sistani, are not always the people who are out in the field. There are certainly Shiites who want revenge, there are Kurds who want independence, and there are Sunnis who don`t want to give up the power and influence their minority has had throughout Iraq`s existence. There is violence going on, there probably are Shiite elements killing Sunnis. There are certainly Sunnis killing Shiites and Kurds, trying to stop the government from operating and breaking up the political process. One of the key targets of the Islamist extremists is the kind of car bombing and suicide bombings, which are deliberately designed to provoke something approaching civil war. Now this is a real risk, even though these insurgents are fairly limited in number. Do people at the top have the right goals? Yes. Is it clear that Iraq can avoid civil war, or certainly the kinds of internal violence that will make a constitution and election very difficult? No. That`s at least the 50/50 risk.

Who are the leaders of the Sunni insurrection? Do the people in Iraq know who these people are?

No. And one of the problems here is that the most visible groups are the Islamist extremists, particularly the ones under [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi. About 50 Sunni groups have claimed to have an identity in the insurgency. There are other Sunni groups, which are in association with the clergy--which is not supporting the insurrection but has at least some claim to being the leader of the Sunni community. You have secular Sunnis who are in the government, and it`s important to note that about a third to 40 percent of the commanders of Iraq`s forces--particularly the top commanders--are Sunnis. This is not a Shiite and Kurdish force versus a Sunni force, although some of the dominant battalions are largely Kurdish or Shiite.

One problem we have is, because this is so complex and unstable, because so many of these movements rely on cells or groups that are almost franchised, we keep looking for easy dominant themes that really don`t exist in the field. There is definitely a very dangerous element supported by [Osama] bin Laden, supported by other religious extremists, largely neo-Salafist, that rejects the legitimacy of Shiites as Muslims and the West and secular values. There is certainly a group of ex-Baathists, some of them tied to Saddam`s [Hussein] inner circle and even his family, that have some kind of sanctuary, or at least a source of money and operations in Syria. But a lot of this is basically a matter of cadres, which have somewhat different goals and objectives, supported by financers and organizers that don`t have a clear central direction. But very large numbers of sympathizers, with some kind of support from Sunni criminal elements, often have the ability to buy young men in areas where unemployment is 40 to 60 percent of the population of Iraqis under 25.

What is your suggestion on how to proceed?

The effort to move toward an inclusive government, to have the elections, to make the constitution work, is absolutely critical. At this point, we can`t reinvent that process. All we can do is try to help the Iraqis make it work. Their success is fundamentally up to them. In terms of force-building, I think the key message--the one the president didn`t give--is that we still have several years before the Iraqis will be ready. There are going to be thousands more Americans killed and wounded and tens of thousands more Iraqis. We`re going to be spending $4 billion to $7 billion a month for at least another year on average, so there`s a major financial sacrifice, and most of that money has to go to the police and security.

What the president did not touch on at all is the fact that the economic effort is an almost total failure. We talk about the number of projects we started and we brag about a few completions, but we`ve had almost no real impact on the overall economy. There`s profiteering, there`s money flowing in from the aid process, but probably only 40 percent of that aid, at most, is getting to the Iraqis, and most of it in the wrong areas, where there`s profiteering rather than real success. We haven`t seen progress in creating an effective oil industry.

Basically, there is so much effort going into defending the existing structure that no real improvement has been made; renovation hasn`t taken place. We`ve demonstrated rather conclusively that the United States has almost no real capability for nation-building in terms of an effective aid effort, whether it`s run by the State Department or the military. One of the most important [goals] is to take money out of the hands of the U.S. government in Washington, out of the hands of U.S. and foreign contractors and put it into the hands of the Iraqi government so it takes responsibility for its actions and does the planning. We should vet it, and we should worry about corruption. But the clear warning here is that we don`t know what we`re doing with something this large in a country of 27 million people. Whether the Iraqis do or not, putting the money in their hands will at least do something to stabilize Iraq.

You seem rather gloomy about the prospects.

I`m not gloomy. I think the problem is that there this is a major ongoing counterinsurgency campaign. A lot of the measures we`re taking are early on. We don`t know how well the Iraqi political process will do, although we can influence it and there`s a good chance of success. We`ve corrected most of the problems in the military, the special police, and police effort. The U.S. military has done an outstanding job.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

Monkey entertains troops wearing big skirt
[/TABLE]

[SittinBuII]

Save the First Amendment--from Karl Rove


A man who taught with Rove, and considers him a friend, writes that in the Valerie Plame case, Rove is using journalists, and the First Amendment, "to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law." That`s why neither reporters Cooper and Miller, nor their publications, should protect Rove (or anyone else) "through an undiscerning, blanket use of the First Amendment that weakens its protections by its gross misuse."

By Bill Israel

(July 05, 2005) -- In 99.9 percent of cases I know, journalists must not break the bonds of appropriate confidentiality, to protect their ability to report, and to defend the First Amendment. I’ve testified in court to that end, and would do so again.

But the Valerie Plame-CIA case that threatens jail time for reporters from Time and The New York Times this week is the exception that shatters the rule. In this case, journalists as a community have been played for patsies by the president’s chief strategist, Karl Rove, and are enabling him to abuse the First Amendment, by their invoking it.

To understand why this case is exceptional, one must grasp the extent of Rove’s political mastery, which became clearer to me by working with him. When we taught "Politics and the Press" together at The University of Texas at Austin seven years ago, Rove showed an amazing disdain for Texas political reporters. At the same time, he actively cultivated national reporters who could help him promote a Bush presidency.

In teaching with him, I learned Rove assumes command over any political enterprise he engages. He insists on absolute discipline from staff: nothing escapes him; no one who works with him moves without his direction. In Texas, though he was called "the prime minister" to Gov. George W. Bush, it might have been "Lord," as in the divine, for when it came to politics and policy, it was Rove who gave, and Rove who took away.

Little has changed since the Bush presidency; all roads still lead to Rove.

Consequently, when former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson challenged President Bush’s embrace of the British notion that Saddam Hussein imported uranium from Niger to produce nuclear weapons, retaliation by Rove was never in doubt. While it is reporters Matthew Cooper of Time and Judith Miller of The New York Times who now face jail time, the retaliation came through Rove-uber-outlet Robert Novak, who blew the cover of Wilson’s wife, CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The problem, as always, in dealing with Rove, is establishing a clear chain of culpability. Rove once described himself as a die-hard Nixonite; he is, like the former president, both student and master of plausible deniability. (This past weekend, in confirming that Rove was indeed a source for Matthew Cooper, Rove`s lawyer said his client "never knowingly disclosed classified information.") That is precisely why prosecutor Fitzgerald in this case must document the pattern of Rove’s behavior, whether journalists published, or not.

For in this case, Rove, improving on Macchiavelli, has bet that reporters won’t rat their relationship with the administration’s most important political source. How better for him to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law, than under the cover of journalists and journalism, protected by the First Amendment?

Karl Rove is in my experience with him the brightest and most affable of companions; perhaps I have been coopted, for I genuinely treasure his friendship. But neither charm nor political power should be permitted to subvert the First Amendment, which is intended to insure that reporters and citizens burrow fully and publicly into government, not insulate its players from felony, or reality.

Reporters with a gut fear of breaching confidential sources must fight like tigers to protect them. But neither reporters Cooper nor Miller, nor their publications, nor anyone in journalism should protect the behavior of Rove (or anyone else) through an undiscerning, blanket use of the First Amendment that weakens its protections by its gross misuse.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bill Israel ([e-mail]) teaches journalism at the University of Massachusetts (Amherst). He has worked for several leading newpapers.


http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_dis…

[Joerver]

Es sind schon seltsame Bettgenossen, die im Kampf gegen Hunger in der Welt zusammenstehn.

July 6, 2005
A Pat on the Back
By SARAH VOWELL
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/06/opinion/06vowell.html

Since I have been hired, temporarily, to write about the news, here`s some: seeing Pat Robertson on television cheered me up. Until recently, about the nicest thing I would have said about this televangelist is that he isn`t boring. Remember when he wanted to boycott the "Satanic ritual" that is Halloween? Or when he said, "The husband is the head of the wife"? Or when he warned the city of Orlando that the flying of homosexuals` upbeat rainbow flags might incite divine retribution in the form of hurricanes or "possibly a meteor"? Yep, good times.

Nevertheless, when I spotted Robertson in a lineup of celebrities including Brad Pitt, Bono, George Clooney and the also-never-boring Dennis Hopper, I was delighted to see him. He was in the One Campaign`s television ad asking for help in the crusade against poverty, starvation and AIDS in Africa and elsewhere.

In the commercial, Robertson says, "Americans have an unprecedented opportunity," and then Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, of all people, finishes his sentence, concluding that "we can make history."

On a recent "Nightline," Robertson showed up with his new best friend, Clooney. When asked if his group Operation Blessing would promote "the responsible use of condoms" along with abstinence in its AIDS education program in Africa, Robertson answered, "Absolutely." Pat Robertson!

"I just don`t think we can close our eyes to human nature," he continued, adding that with regard to teaching proper condom use, "you have to do that, given the magnitude." I could have hugged him.

Robertson is one of the people in this dream I`ve had for 20 years, a nightmare I call "the handshake dream." In it, I am attending some G.O.P. all-star party. (A girl can dream.) And I have to decide whose hand I deign to shake. Bob Dole and John McCain: of course (war heroes). Orrin Hatch: fine (stem cells). But Robertson? He`s always been a solid "No way!" as he sulks by the punch bowl with Strom.

Seeing Robertson in that commercial with Bono - and Bono`s hair - is a little like listening to Paul Anka`s new recording of Nirvana`s "Smells Like Teen Spirit." At first, it`s jarring to hear the guy who wrote "Puppy Love" for Donny Osmond sing Kurt Cobain`s lyrics: "a mosquito, my libido." But listen hard and you can hear what Anka hears. He doesn`t hear the ranting of weirdos. He hears the poetry, the architecture of a justifiably standard song like "Autumn in New York," like "Fly Me to the Moon."

My soft spot for strange bedfellows aside, I am a capital-D Democrat who still believes in the value of partisan politics. And I hold onto that belief despite the fact that I belong to a party whose only true talent is writing exceedingly eloquent concession speeches.

On Monday, anticipating an epic dust-up regarding his new nominee for the Supreme Court, President Bush said he hoped that special-interest groups on both sides would "tone down the heated rhetoric." They shouldn`t, though.

This is about the lifetime appointment of a person who will be making life and death decisions for millions of people for decades to come, not about some petty time waster like - come on, again? - flag burning. It`s so important that we should agree to melt together on the slopes of a Kilauea of issue-ad spew.

Not every public problem, however, is Roe-v.-Wade and lifetime-appointment complex. Some problems are as black and white as the photography in that silvery One Campaign ad Robertson is in. "Every three seconds, one person dies," the ad says. And so it was repeated at the Live 8 concert by performers hoping to get the attention of the men in Scotland today for the G-8 summit meeting.

That fact, that every three seconds an African human being dies from hunger or AIDS or, honestly, mosquito bites in this day and age, is literally the dumbest thing I`ve ever heard. Way, way, way dumber than that thing about Orlando and a meteor from God. That every-three-seconds statistic is so moronic, and having the richest countries in the world do something about it is such a total no-brainer, that Pat Robertson will join up with Dennis-bloody-Hopper of "Blue"-bloody-"Velvet" to spread the word.

I don`t know what will happen in Scotland today. But I do know that tonight, if I have the handshake dream - Pat Robertson, put `er there.

Sarah Vowell, a contributor to public radio`s "This American Life," is the author, most recently, of "Assassination Vacation."

E-mail: [e-mail]

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Dulaimi to Iran: No attack by US from Iraq
AMS Repudiates Call for Sunni Votes

Al-Hayat reports that Iraqi Minister of Defense Saadoun Dulaimi is now in Iran for consultations with his opposite number, in preparation for the visit next week of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari to Tehran. Sources close to Jaafari told al-Hayat that Jaafari and Dulaimi will be offering Iran a pledge that Iraqi soil will not be used as a base for any American attack on Iran. They will affirm that Baghdad "is not a part of any American enmity toward Tehran." The sources said that Dulaimi`s consultations concern in part better Iranian policing of the border so as to prevent the infiltration of militants into Iraq. He will also discuss the Iranian role in training Iraqi armed forces.

I repeat: Dulaimi is discussing with the Iranians their training of Iraqi troops! The Iranian Revolutionary Guards did train the Badr Corps paramilitary, the main militia of the Iraqi Shiite community. But surely the Americans cannot want such strong Iranian influence in the new Iraqi military.

AP reports that the wounding of the Bahrain embassy official early Tuesday morning came as part of an attempt to kidnap him. Just a little later, guerrillas tried to kidnap the chief Pakistani diplomat in Baghdad, but failed. He is being sent to Amman, Jordan, for the time being. The guerrillas are seeking to isolate Iraq internationally as a way of weakening its government in preparation for eventually overthrowing it.

AP also says:


` Two suicide car bombers wounded four U.S. Marines in the western town of Hit . . . [One of the four later died.]

– Gunmen ambushed a minibus taking seven Baghdad airport employees to work, killing four women . . .

– A roadside bomb blast and subsequent firefight killed two Iraqi soldiers on Baghdad`s outskirts . . .



The Washington Post reveals that the Association for Muslim Scholars has rejected an appeal by Adnan Dulaimi, head of the Sunni Endowments Board, for Sunni Arabs to participate in the forthcoming elections. The AMS is among the more respected Sunni parties, and its rebuke to Dulaimi (who is a much less significant player) is a blow for those who saw Dulaimi`s call as a hopeful sign. Since Dulaimi believes that Sunni Arabs are a majority in Iraq, and that the Shiites have illegitimately Persianized the country, I did not find his statements particularly positive to begin with. He was calling for Sunnis to vote for the same reasons that Jean-Marie Le Pen in France calls for the white French to vote, as a strike against Arabs and Jews.

Reuters says that "Thieves armed with guns . . . raided a U.S.-flagged cargo ship close to Iraq`s main port of Umm Qasr . . ."

The British plan to draw down their forces in Iraq from the current 9,000 to 2,000 by next May. They soon plan to turn Maysan and Muthanna provinces over to the Iraqi government. In practice, this move will probably deliver the provinces to Shiite party paramilitaries such as the Badr Corps of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Mahdi Army of Muqtada al-Sadr. (See the comments of a British reservist yesterday at Informed Comment by scrolling down.) The six southernmost Shiite provinces are probably not so insecure as to require a major British presence.

KarbalaNews.net [Arabic] reports that Grand Ayatollah Ishaq al-Fayyad (a slightly junior colleague of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani) has called for the Jaafari government to expedite the trial of Saddam and other high Baathists, punishing them as soon as possible. He made the comments during a recent meeting in Najaf with a number of Shiite thinkers and notables in Najaf. He said, "The massacres perpetrated against the Shiites in Iraq are a clear indication that there is a carefully-studied plan to repress them and usurp their rights, and the dominance over the future of Iraq again by a minority at the expense of the majority. That the symbols of the infidel regime have still not been tried gives the criminals high hopes and encourages them in their crimes." The "minority" he was denouncing is the Sunni Arabs.

He added, "Those who stand behind the killing and bombing operations are the supporters of the Baath and the [former] domestic intelligence apparatus, in addition to hateful sectarians known as "excommunicators" (takfiriyin)."

He also called on the members of parliament to draft the permanent constitution in accordance with what Islam has commanded, and not to contravene it in any article or paragraph.

Visitor Azhar al-Khafaji described the grand ayatollah as deeply disturbed by the killing of 37 Shiite youths in Husaybah near the Syrian border, as well as the assassinations of elderly Shiite parliamentarian Dhari al-Fayyad (head of the Al-Bu-Amir tribe) and the Sistani aide Sayyid Kamal al-Din al-Ghurayfi.

Al-Fayyad might well succeed Sistani if the latter were to die or be killed. He is said to be very pro-American, to have a vendetta against the Sadr movement, to reject altogether Khomeini`s theory of the rule of the clerics-- and at the same time to be more insistent than Sistani on the full implementation of Islamic law as the law of the land in Iraq.

Borzou Daragahi of the Los Angeles Times explores the question of why Iraqi Sunnis have not thrown up a political leadership. It seems to me obvious that most Sunni Arabs with leadership ambitions had joined the Baath Party, and that they are now excluded from civil and political life by the Shiites and the Kurds. That leaves a handful of long-time exiles, and some scruffy Salafi fundamentalists, neither of which had any real experience in political maneuvering. Only an amnesty for Baath party members who cannot be proved to have committed crimes could begin to change the current situation.

Iraq will buy 250,000 tons of wheat from Iran, along with major purchases from the US and Australia. The deal shows, according to analysts, that Iran is not lacking for supporters in the new, Shiite-dominated government. Iraq also appears to wish to diversify its wheat purchases so as not to be too dependent on a single supplier.

Agence France Presse reports that Salafis or hard line Sunnis are targeting barber shops in Baghdad that offer a shave. Some interpretations of Islamic law require that men wear beards rather than being clean-shaven. Customers looking for a shave and a hair cut are increasingly going to Sadr City, a Shiite quarter where there has been no violence against barbers or their customers.

posted by Juan @ [url7/06/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/dulaimi-to-iran-no-attack-by-us-from.html[/url]

Russia, China, Central Asia Call for US Withdrawal

The members of something called the Shanghai Cooperation Council are trying to push the United States back out of Central Asia. The SCO consists of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, China, and Russia. The US essentially came into their territories or spheres of influence in 2001 to prosecute its war on al-Qaeda and the Taliban. At the time, China and Russia appear to have acquiesced in part because of their own struggles with Muslim radical movements in Chechnya and Xinjiang, which al-Qaeda was encouraging. In part, the Americans may have more or less bribed them behind the scenes. For the post-Soviet Central Asian states themselves, an American military presence had the attractions not only of protecting them from radical Islamists (who are a tiny, tiny minority in long-Communist Central Asia), but also of providing a counterweight to Russia, the military power in the region since the mid-nineteenth century.

Islam Karimov and the other Central Asian rulers assumed that they were dealing with the old realist Washington, which would trade them acquiescence in their authoritarianism for use of bases.

In fact, the Bush administration has a messianic commitment to destabilizing the area, under the rubric of "democratization." Apparently it prefers failed states such as American-dominated Afghanistan and Iraq to stable, even pro-American dictatorships. This policy creates a key contradiction. Bush needs authoritarian states such as Syria and Uzbekistan to fight radical Muslim groups. But even as it seeks their help in this endeabor, it announces that it hopes to toss their leaders out of power.

The persistent rumors that the United States ran a covert operation to produce the crisis in the Ukraine, helping install the Yushchenko supporters and to ensure the ouster of Kuchma and his would-be successors, appears to have given leaders like Uzbekistan`s Karimov and Kazakhstan`s Nursultan Nazarbayev a bad chill. The last straw for them came when crowds overthrew Askar Akaev in Kyrgyzstan in March. From the point of view of Astana and Tashkent, this event looked suspiciously like the Ukraine reprised, and they appear to have seen an American hand in it.

Whatever benefits the US is offering the Central Asians for use of their bases are far outweighed by this new fear of the revolutionary impact of Bush administration policies. Just as Syria abruptly ceased helping the US against al-Qaeda when the Neocons pushed through new sanctions on that country in Congress, so the Central Asians now want out. Bush has not handled the Russians and the Chinese very diplomatically, either, so they have every reason to cooperate with Karimov and Nazarbayev in beginning a push for getting rid of the US.

There is a real question as to whether an elected Afghan parliament, which will certainly be dominated by Muslim fundamentalists, will want a US presence much longer, either. Even the pro-American Karzai government offered scathing criticism over the recent civilian deaths in a US air attack on suspected terrorist safe houses in eastern Afghanistan.

Message to Bush: You just can`t have it all.

posted by Juan @ [url7/06/2005 06:09:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/russia-china-central-asia-call-for-us.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

http://nobodycouldhavepredicted.blogspot.com/

[Joerver]

Der Preis der Freiheit. Freiheit muß man sich leisten können.

The price for a Supreme Court judge? $100m
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
Published: 06 July 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article297135.e…

Competing liberal and conservative interest groups are set to spend anything up to $100m (£58m) to sway opinion in the forthcoming battle over a successor to the retiring Supreme Court justice Sandra Day O`Connor.

The sums involved, which threaten to rival the most expensive re-election races to the Senate, are a measure of the passions raised by a struggle which has electrified Washington, whose outcome could set the ideological slant of the US high court for a generation.

Two other justices, including the ailing chief justice, William Rehnquist, are likely to step down in the next year or two. But Ms O`Connor was the critical swing vote in a court whose nine members often split five to four. Her replacement thus represents the most important domestic decision President George Bush is likely to take during his eight years in office.

Mr Bush has indicated he will not announce a nominee until after he returns from the G8 summit in Scotland - but in today`s culturally polarised America, left and right have been at undeclared war for months. Ads that could belong in the most bitter political campaign proliferate on cable television channels, while the interest groups have set up war rooms to rival a presidential campaign.

The spending is being focussed on the Senate, whose 100 members will vote on any nominee. With one right-wing group - Progress for America - alone planning to spend $18m on television advertising, analysts say that spending is certain to reach $50m, and could approach double that if Mr Bush picks a particularly contentious nominee.

The mechanics are those of a political campaign. Right-wing groups, who urge the President to go for a conservative opposed to abortion and affirmative action, are concentrating their fire on Democratic senators running for re-election in 2006 in states that voted Republican in 2004 presidential vote.

Their liberal counterpart, a loose coalition stretching from trade unions and trial lawyers to gay, abortion and civil rights groups, is doing the reverse, zeroing in on Republican senators - many of them moderates anyway - who must fight for re-election in states won by John Kerry last November.

The message could hardly be plainer. The senator in question should vote as they wish - or risk facing an even larger tide of hostile spending when they come up for re-election. The one chance of averting such a showdown would be for Mr Bush to nominate a candidate acceptable to both sides. Not only, however, is it debatable whether such a person exists, Mr Bush is not one to seek compromise, except on his terms.

He has promised to "consult" the interested parties, including key Senate Democrats, but almost everyone expects him to choose a conservative. Mr Bush has already identified Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia - the two most conservative members of the current court - as models for his own nominees.

But the President does not only have Democratic opposition to contend with.

Some Christian conservative groups, for example, have let it be known they would oppose Alberto Gonzales, the current Attorney General and a widely tipped potential nominee. Mr Gonzales is a longtime friend of Mr Bush, and if confirmed would be the first Hispanic member of the court - thus fulfilling a declared ambition of the President. But conservatives have been alarmed by his pro-abortion voting record as a member of the Texas supreme court.

The case underlines the dilemma facing Mr Bush. A comparatively moderate nominee such as Mr Gonzales would probably be spared a bruising confirmation battle in the Senate. But Mr Bush would incur the wrath of social conservatives, his most important electoral constituency.


© 2005 Independent News & Media (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Jul 6, 2005

Do Muslims worship idols?
By Spengler
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG06Ak01.html

Is what divides Islam and the West a minor misunderstanding, or an incipient war of civilizations? One`s answer often depends on whether one sees Islam as a variant of Christianity or Judaism, or a pagan conqueror cult. Pat Robertson, the prominent American evangelical, claims, "The struggle is whether Hubal, the Moon God of Mecca, known as Allah, is supreme, or whether the Judeo-Christian Jehovah God of the Bible is Supreme."

President George W Bush and his advisors, by contrast, aver that Christians and Muslims worship the same God, an argument restated recently by Daniel Pipes, a neo-conservative Middle East analyst. "However hostile political relations may be, a common `children of Abraham` bond does exist and its exploration can one day provide a basis for interfaith comity," wrote Pipes.[1]

No individual can speak for Christendom in such matters, but the most prominent voice belongs to the pope, the leader of the oldest and largest Christian denomination. Although Benedict XVI has expressed sympathy for Islam, he states quite plainly that the "martyr ideology" of Islamist terrorists amounts to an odious form of idol worship. Most Muslims, and emphatically the Muslim clergy, support this "martyr ideology".

The pope made these comments at the anniversary celebrations of the Allies` Normandy landing, at Caen Cathedral on December 6, 2004 [2], and included them in a German-language volume released last March [3], just as he was elected to the papacy. The title translates as "Values in Times of Upheaveal". Had these remarks appeared in English, they no doubt would have stirred up controversy, but it is surprising that they were ignored in the world press.

Benedict argues that peace flows from the informed conscience, which in turn causes men to band together to share responsibility for justice. With the prostration of European Christianity, conscience turns into an instrument of secular ideology, whose cynicism and self-interest leads men to turn on their neighbors. Quite the opposite of a pacifist pladoyer (final speech) , Benedict`s book warns that the West must strengthen its own values in order to achieve peace:

The graves of World War II present us with a mandate. It is to strengthen the forces of the good, to support, work, live and suffer for those values and truths which God has established to hold the world together. God promised Abraham that he would not destroy the city of Sodom if 10 just men were to be found there. We should make every effort to make sure that the 10 just men are not lacking who might save a city.

As a practical matter, Benedict XVI stands closer to Robertson than to Bush. He did not say that Muslims worshipped idols, but he denounced the "martyr ideology of terrorists", which "turns God into an idol by which man worships his own will". Given that the great majority of Muslims, and particularly Muslim clerics, support suicide bombing, the pope in effect averred that idol-worshippers comprise the Islamic mainstream.

Unlike American evangelicals, the pope does not eschew Islam as such. On the contrary, in a May 13 speech before the Italian senate, he stated:

The rebirth of Islam is not only bound up with the new material riches of the Muslim lands, but also it is fed by the knowledge that Islam is in a position to offer a spiritual base that is valid for the life of a people. The traditional Christian basis that made Europe seems to be fleeing from the land of the old Europe, which, notwithstanding the persistence of its political and spiritual power, has come to be seen ever more as condemned to decline and crumble.

Benedict`s respect for Islam does not vitiate his abhorrence of religious terror, however. Here is the full citation from the December 2004 speech:

God, or divinity, can turn into the means to make absolute one`s own power and one`s own interests. An image of God that has been turned thus into an instrument of partisan interests, that identifies God`s absoluteness with one`s own community or its set of interests, destroys law and morality, by elevating what is relative into the absolute. The good then becomes whatever serves one`s own power. The actual difference collapses between good and evil. Morality and law become instruments of partisan policy. This gets even worse when religious fanaticism, the fanaticism of the absolute, informs the will to put everything in the service of one`s own interests, and thus turns completely blind and brutal. God has become an idol by which man worships his own will. That is what we see in the martyr ideology of the terrorists, which, to be sure, in isolated cases simply expresses desperation at the injustice of the world. By the way, we also have before us Western sects that are examples of irrationalism and perversion of the religious, and show how dangerous religion becomes when it loses its compass. [4]

We may assume that the pope is well aware that the vast preponderance of Muslim opinion supports the "martyr ideology of the terrorists". Last year, the Pew Global Attitudes Project [5] polled Muslims in four countries, all nominally allied to the United States, as to whether suicide bombings were justifiable. In three of the four countries, substantial majorities declared that suicide bombings were justified not only by Palestinians against Israelis, but also by Iraqis against American soldiers.

Response to Pew Global Attitudes Survey question: "Are suicide bombings justifiable?"

Country	"No"	"Yes"
By Palestinians against Israelis	-	-
Turkey	67	24
Pakistan	36	47
Morocco	22	74
Jordan	12	86
Against Americans and Westerners in Iraq	-	-
Turkey	59	31
Pakistan	36	46
Morocco	27	66
Jordan	24	70

Because Islam has no centralized religious leadership, it is hard to quantify the extent to which Muslim clergy promote terrorist "martyr ideology", but anecdotal evidence is overwhelming that the great majority of Muslim religious leaders support suicide bombings, for example. Among Sunni Muslims, the leading authority is Mohammed Sayed Tantawi, the Grand Sheikh of Cairo`s al-Azhar mosque. Sheikh Tantawi has gone back and forth on the issue several times, but his most recent pronouncement (in May 2004) held that circumstances warranted Palestinian suicide attacks against Israelis, adding that anyone who blew himself up while defending Islam against an aggressor died a martyr`s death. [6] A survey of the debate among Muslim clerics about suicide attacks by Haim Malka appeared in the Spring 2003 issue of the Middle East Quarterly, concluding:

Since the outbreak of the current Palestinian intifada, in September 2000, the Palestinian resort to suicide attacks has won widespread Arab public acceptance as a legitimate form of resistance against Israeli occupation. Some Muslim clerics and other commentators justify them on political, moral and religious grounds. Even those attackers who bomb and kill women and children are hailed as martyrs for their heroism in confronting the enemy. [7]

Benedict XVI does not set out to attack Islam, but to preach to the secularized West. His mission is evangelical, not political. He warns against raising the banner of secular enlightenment against "fanatical" Islam:

It appears that two great cultural systems are crashing against each other - the "West" and Islam. To be sure, they embody quite different forms of power and moral orientation. But what is this "West"? And what is this "Islam"? Both are multi-layered worlds with great internal differences - worlds which act upon each other in many ways. The crude contraposition of the West and Islam is inappropriate. Many commentators tend to deepen the contrast by counterposing enlightened reason to a fanatical, fundamentalist form of religion. That would make the order of the day to destroy fundamentalism in all of its forms and help reason to its ultimate victory, which would tolerate enlightened forms of religion, but only because it recognizes them to be enlightened, because they subject themselves to the criteria of reason. [8]



The failings of Islam as practiced by Muslims are a mirror in which the West can see its own failings, in the pope`s account. Secular ideology, which in its extreme forms produced fascism and communism, worships the brute will with the same idolatrous fervor that drives the Islamist suicide bomber. Benedict ignores the critique of Islamic theology produced by such Catholic writers as Alain Besancon (see Has Islam become the issue? Asia Times Online, May 4, 2004). Rather, he holds accountable Islam as well as the West for the perversion of moral purposes in the service of the will.

No one should mistake for sentimentality Benedict`s demand that the West hold itself accountable for its own flaws, however. The present pope sees the world with brutal clarity and makes no excuses for an Islamist ideology that recalls the ideology of the Germany of his youth.

"Im Deutschen luegt man, wenn man hoeflich ist," said J W Goethe - if you are polite in German, you are lying. In his mother tongue, the pope writes with Teutonic candor; it might be a good thing that few Muslims read German.

Notes
[1] [urlIs Allah God?]http://www.danielpipes.org/article/2714[/url] by Daniel Pipes, New York Sun, June 28

[2]See [urlAuf der Suche nach dem Frieden.]http://www.die-tagespost.de/Archiv/titel_anzeige.asp?ID=9319[/url] No English translation of this address appears to have been circulated on the Internet.

[3] Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) Werte in Zeiten des Umbruchs (Verlag Herder: Freiburg in Breisgau 2005). 156 pages, euro 8.90. Page 142 (my translation).

[4] op cit, page 131.

[5] [urlA year after Iraq war]http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=206[/url] , released March 16, 2004.

[6] "Anatomy of a Flip-Flop," by Hadia Mostafa, in Egypt Today, June 2004.

[7] [urlMust Innocents Die? The Islamic Debate over Suicide Attacks]http://www.meforum.org/article/530[/url]

[8] Benedict XVI, op. cit, page 130.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Ein Thema in den USA seit Tagen.
Mark Morford nimmt sich dieses Themas an und fragt wieso ein mittelmäßig begabter Schauspieler mit schwulem Touch und Verbindungen zu Scientology sich in kurzer Zeit sein Image total versauen kann.

Tom "Not yet as weird as Mel Gibson, but getting close" Cruise, sucking the skin from the face of poor, young Katie "I used to have a career" Holmes, while secretly passing on some glowing alien DNA via his magic Scientology-infused saliva.
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[urlThe Great Tom Cruise Backlash / Will this annoying phase pass, or will Tom become the next super-rich, Mel Gibson-like nutball?]http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2005/07/06/notes070605.DTL[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

War News for Monday, July 04 and Tuesday, July 05, 2005

Heute mit einem anderen Link in ganzer Länge:
http://readercontributions.blogspot.com/2005/07/good-news-yo…

Bring ‘em on: One Iraqi civilian wounded in roadside bomb attack on a convoy of Western security guards outside the Iranian embassy in Baghdad. “Several casualties” were transported to a hospital after a roadside bomb attack on a US patrol in southeastern Baghdad, no other details available. (Thanks zig for the link)

Bring ‘em on: Bahrain’s top envoy to Iraq wounded in attempted kidnapping in Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Four US Marines wounded in two suicide car bombings in Hit. Four women killed and three men wounded when gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying Baghdad airport employees to work. Two Iraqi soldiers killed and seven wounded in a roadside bomb and small arms attack in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib district. One 13-year-old girl killed and four civilians wounded in mortar attack that missed a US base in Samarra. Two sisters killed in a mortar attack in Ramadi. US and Iraqi forces clashed with insurgents in Ramadi, no details available. (Thanks bob for the link)

Bring ‘em on: Gunmen attempted to kidnap the Pakistani Ambassador to Iraq and fired on his convoy. The Ambassador was uninjured, no word on other casualties. The Ambassador will be relocated to Amman, Jordan, out of concern for the security situation in Iraq.

Bring ‘em on: One US soldier killed and two wounded when their vehicle struck an explosive device near Baghdad.

Bring ‘em on: Leader of the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution shot dead in Baghdad drive-by shooting. US and Iraqi joint patrol targeted by a roadside bomb in the Al Amal neighborhood of Baghdad, two fatalities and one wounded reported, no word on nationality or military status of casualties.

Bring ‘em on: Japanese military base under mortar attack in Samawa, no casualties. Four mortar rounds landed on a US military base north of Najaf, no immediate reports of casualties. Eight Iraqis kidnapped by armed men as they drove to work at a US base in Baquba. Two civilians killed by a car bomb in western Baghdad. Senior member of the Kurdish Democratic Party’s Mosul branch assassinated in Mosul. Bodyguard of Nineveh province’s governor killed in Mosul. Indeterminate number of Iraqi soldiers killed and wounded in a car bombing in Fallujah. Local council member assassinated in Tal Afar.

Must be reading too much mainstream media: "Two of my soldiers have been killed in six weeks," says Lieutenant Colonel Andrew Williams, 43, the senior British commander at Abu Naji, which is home to around 1,000 soldiers. "To you Americans, that`s nothing. But in the previous six months, not one British soldier was killed here. The security situation is worse than it was two, three months ago."

Williams`s assessment comes at a time when the Iraqi insurgency seems to be gaining in strength and reach.

On May 30, Vice President Dick Cheney said that the war in Iraq would be won by 2009, confirming what many skeptics have long believed. No matter that Cheney later described the insurgency as being in its "last throes." The conflict is far from over, and despite some qualified successes such as the January elections, the fight against the insurgency is not going as well as the Bush administration says. That the violence has shattered even the relative peace and quiet of Al Amarah is perhaps proof that the insurgency has only spread.

And it has Williams reconsidering the coalition presence here.

On June 2, still reeling from Brackenbury`s death, Williams tells two visiting reporters that much of the violence in the province targets foreign soldiers. He openly speculates that in Maysan, the coalition ("multinational forces," or MNF, in militaryspeak) perhaps causes more violence than it prevents.

Weiter über den Link.

[Punk24]

Bin ja eigentlich nur treuer Leser , aber einen hab ich jetzt auch, leider nur in deutsch


Bush: Keine Hilfe für korrupte Regime

Kopenhagen (dpa) - Korrupte Regime haben nach Ansicht von US-Präsident George W. Bush keinen Anspruch auf internationale Hilfe. Vor allem rechtsstaatliche Länder, in denen die Hilfe der Bevölkerung zu Gute käme, müssten belohnt werden.

Das sagte Bush am Mittwoch in Marienborg bei Kopenhagen nach einem Gespräch mit dem dänischen Ministerpräsidenten Anders Fogh Rasmussen. Beim anstehenden G8-Gipfel in Schottland gehe es zwar um eine Verstärkung der internationalen Unterstützung vor allem für Afrika. Notwendig sei aber, dass die Hilfe auch wirklich die Menschen erreiche.

Auch Rasmussen betonte, dass korrupte Diktaturen wie die in Simbabwe keine Hilfe bekommen dürften. Er forderte die G8-Teilnehmer in Gleneagles auf, nach dem Vorbild Dänemarks die finanzielle Hilfe für die Entwicklungsländer drastisch zu erhöhen.

Bush machte erneut deutlich, dass das Umweltabkommen von Kyoto für die USA nicht akzeptabel sei. Er gestand zwar ein, dass von Menschen verursachte Treibhausgase zur Erderwärmung beigetragen haben. Aber eine US-Unterstützung des Kyoto-Abkommen hätte «die US-Wirtschaft beschädigt ... und viele Arbeitsplätze und Unternehmen gefährdet», meinte er. Zudem hätten große und wichtige Entwicklungsländer - damit meinte er Indien und China - keine Verpflichtung zur Rezuzierung der Treibhausgase auferlegt bekommen. «Kyoto funktioniert nicht für die USA und funktioniert, offen gesagt, auch für die Welt nicht.» Beim Gipfel in Schottland werde es darum gehen, eine «Nach-Kyoto-Ära» einzuleiten, in der vor allem die Entwicklung und der Einsatz neuer Technologien im Kampf gegen eine Klimaerwärmung im Vordergrund stehe....

komplettet Text hier
http://de.news.yahoo.com/050706/3/4ltkk.html

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

[posting]17.152.188 von Punk24 am 06.07.05 14:29:30[/posting]Ich wäre froh, wenn es in deutsch nicht nur verquarzte Agenturmeldungen von Spiegel-Online u.ä. geben würde.
Ich nehme die englischen Artikel, weil die meisten Meldungen in D nicht veröffentlicht werden oder mit sehr viel Verspätung.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Latest Coalition Fatality: Jul 05, 2005


Iraker: Civilian: 40 Police/Mil: 45 Total: 85

http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Regelmäßige Updates von Meldungen aus dem Irak:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[SittinBuII]

Seifenoper um die Pressefreiheit.

"Im Streit um die Pressefreiheit spitzt sich die Lage für die beiden US-Journalisten Miller und Cooper zu", meldet Spiegel Online über den Fall der von Mitarbeitern des Weissen Hauses enttarnten CIA-Agentführerin Valerie Plame. (Siehe Blog vom 3.Juli). Zwar ist es keine Frage, dass Quellenschutz und Zeugnisverweigerungsrecht zu den Grundbedingungen der Pressefreiheit gehören, weil die Medien nur so ihrer verfassungsgemäßen Aufgabe als "vierte Gewalt" und Kontrollinstanz nachkommen können. Müßte ein "Whistleblower", der einem Journalisten über Gesetzesverstöße in seiner Behörde berichtet, befürchten, mit Namen genannt zu werden, kämen solche Informationen noch seltener an die Öffentlichkeit als ohnehin. Hätten die Watergate-Reporter Woodward & Bernstein ihre Quellen zu Nixons Machenschaften nicht anonym halten können, wäre der Skandal nie aufgeflogen. Doch im Fall Cooper/Miller liegen die Verhältnisse genau umgekehrt: es geht nicht um den Schutz eines Zeugen, der über Straftaten berichtet; es geht um ein Straftat - der mit 10 Jahren Haft bedrohte Verrat verdeckter Agenten - die mit journalistischem Zeugenschutz vertuscht werden soll. Wenn ein Bankmitarbeiter die Kontodaten und PIN eines Kunden einem Journalisten verrät, der sie dann veröffentlicht und so dafür sorgt, dass das Konto des Kunden leergeräumt wird, kann sich dieser Journalist nicht auf den Schutz seiner Quelle berufen.
Insofern hat auch dieser Fall mit einem "Streit um die Pressefreiheit", wie die Mainstream-Medien suggerieren, gar nichts zu tun - vielmehr wurde hier die Presse benutzt, um eine Straftat zu begehen.Die Seifenoper um die "Pressefreiheit" dient nur dazu, dies weiterhin zu vertuschen.

Mathias Bröckers, Blog.

Dass es sich hier nicht nur um eine "Meinung" eines deutschen "Verschwörungstheoretikers handelt, bitte hier nachlesen:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=…


@ Joever: An deiner Verteidigung vom 1st Amemdment in diesem Falle kann man sehen, wozu eine Steuerung gewisser Medien, auf die man sich verläßt, fähig ist. Auch du hast den Fall genau falsch herum gedeutet.
Schäm dich. Wenn du selbst denken könntest und nicht auf das Vertrauen würdest, was du in Big-Media jeden Tag lesen würdest, wärest du selbst drauf gekommen.

[Joerver]

Sit
Herr Bröckers und du auch machen es sich etwas zu einfach.

Ich möchte nicht euer Geschrei hören, wenn es gegen jemand ginge, der Bush in die Pfanne gehauen hätte.

Ich habe so viel Vertrauen in die US-Juztiz, dass sie diesen Fall lösen wird. Gerechtigkeit wird schwer zu erreichen sein, vielleicht aber eine angemessene Bewertung.

Für die Reporter ist es wichtig ihre Quellen zu schützen, dafür müßten sie auch notfalls ins Gefängnis gehen, wenn ein Gericht entscheidet, dass das Enttarnen eines CIA-Agenten schwerwiegender ist, als der Schutz eines Informanten eines Journalisten.

Ich glaube, es gehört zu de Aufgaben der Gerichte solche Dinge abzuwägen.

Nur das Verraten der Alarmanlage einer Bank oder von Geheimzahlen, hat mit dem Thema nichts zu tun.
Da versucht Herr Bröckers dich mal wieder vorzuführen.


ROSA BROOKS
The Judy Miller Media Hug-Fest
ROSA BROOKS
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-brooks6…

July 6, 2005

In the midst of the media`s love-fest for Judith Miller, 1st Amendment Martyr, it`s easy to forget that Miller`s questionable journalistic ethics left her in the doghouse only a year ago. Indeed, when it came to leaks, the only people busier than White House staffers last year were the denizens of the New York Times` newsroom, who fell all over themselves to excoriate Miller to competing publications.

According to a June 2004 story in New York magazine, for instance, one anonymous co-worker said: "When I see her coming, my instinct is to go the other way." By many accounts, Miller is rude, competitive and heartless, willing to pursue a hot story at any price. In at least one instance, she reportedly used the name of a source who had provided information only on condition that her name not appear.

It was Miller, more than any other reporter, who helped the White House sell its WMD-in-Iraq hokum to the American public. Relying on the repeatedly discredited Ahmad Chalabi and her carefully cultivated administration contacts, Miller wrote story after story on the supposedly imminent threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Only problem: Her scoops relied on information provided by the very folks who were also cooking the books. But because Miller hid behind confidential sources most of the time, there was little her readers could use to evaluate their credibility. You know: "a high-level official with access to classified data." Ultimately, even the Times` "public editor" conceded the paper`s coverage of Iraq had often consisted of "breathless stories built on unsubstantiated `revelations` that, in many instances, were the anonymity-cloaked assertions of people with vested interests."

That`s what makes the Judy Miller Media Hug-Fest so astonishing. Miller`s refusal to testify to the grand jury investigating the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame`s name has catapulted her back into favor. Ironically, as it becomes ever more likely that she`ll be jailed for contempt of court, the very affection for anonymous sources that landed Miller in hot water last year has become her route to journalistic rehabilitation. The Houston Chronicle rhapsodizes that "reporters such as Miller … are the front line in the struggle to maintain a free and independent press." Back at the New York Times, Miller`s publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., assures us that everyone is busy "supporting her in this difficult time."

I`m as big of fan of the 1st Amendment as anybody, but I don`t buy the new Miller-as-heroine story. When Judge David Tatel concurred in the D.C. Circuit`s refusal to find any absolute journalist privilege shielding Miller from testifying, he noted, sensibly, that "just as attorney-client communications `made for the purpose of getting advice for the commission of a fraud or crime` serve no public interest and receive no privilege … neither should courts protect sources whose leaks harm national security while providing minimal benefit to public debate." Few legal privileges are absolute, and it`s appropriate for the courts to decide in cases such as this whether the harm of requiring a journalist to divulge confidential information is outweighed by the public interest in prosecuting a crime.

Reasonable people can disagree on the appropriate scope of journalistic privilege. But we should keep the legal question — when should journalists be compelled by law to divulge their sources? — distinct from the ethical question: Is a journalist ever ethically permitted to break a promise and divulge a source? However we answer the first question, the answer to the second must be a resounding yes.

Should Miller have refused to offer anonymity to all those "high-level" sources who sold us a bill of goods on Iraq? Yes.

If it becomes apparent to a journalist that a source lied to him on a matter crucial to the public good, should he be ethically permitted to expose the lie and the liar, despite any prior promises of confidentiality? Yes.

If a source with a clear political motivation passes along classified information that has no value for public debate but would endanger the career, and possibly the life, of a covert agent, is a journalist ethically permitted to "out" the no-good sneak? You bet. And if the knowledge that they can`t always hide behind anonymity has a "chilling effect" on political hacks who are eager to manipulate the media in furtherance of their vested interests, that`s OK with me.

But Miller still won`t testify. Even though, ethically, there should be no obligation to go to jail to cover for a sleazeball.

It`s possible (though not likely) that Miller is covering for a genuine whistle-blower who fears retaliation for fingering, gee, Karl Rove, for instance, as the real source of the leak.

But I have another theory. Miller`s no fool; she understood the lesson of the Martha Stewart case: When you find yourself covered with mud, there`s nothing like a brief stint in a minimum-security prison to restore your old luster.



Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

It`s imperialism, stupid
By Noam Chomsky
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article9387.htm

07/05/05 "ICH" - - IN his June 28 speech, President Bush asserted that the invasion of Iraq was undertaken as part of "a global war against terror" that the United States is waging. In reality, as anticipated, the invasion increased the threat of terror, perhaps significantly.

Half-truths, misinformation and hidden agendas have characterised official pronouncements about US war motives in Iraq from the very beginning. The recent revelations about the rush to war in Iraq stand out all the more starkly amid the chaos that ravages the country and threatens the region and indeed the world.

In 2002 the US and United Kingdom proclaimed the right to invade Iraq because it was developing weapons of mass destruction. That was the "single question," as stressed constantly by Bush, Prime Minister Blair and associates. It was also the sole basis on which Bush received congressional authorisation to resort to force.

The answer to the "single question" was given shortly after the invasion, and reluctantly conceded: The WMD didn`t exist. Scarcely missing a beat, the government and media doctrinal system concocted new pretexts and justifications for going to war.

"Americans do not like to think of themselves as aggressors, but raw aggression is what took place in Iraq," national security and intelligence analyst John Prados concluded after his careful, extensive review of the documentary record in his 2004 book "Hoodwinked."

Prados describes the Bush "scheme to convince America and the world that war with Iraq was necessary and urgent" as "a case study in government dishonesty ... that required patently untrue public statements and egregious manipulation of intelligence." The Downing Street memo, published on May 1 in The Sunday Times of London, along with other newly available confidential documents, have deepened the record of deceit.

The memo came from a meeting of Blair`s war cabinet on July 23, 2002, in which Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British foreign intelligence, made the now-notorious assertion that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of going to war in Iraq.

The memo also quotes British Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon as saying that "the US had already begun `spikes of activity` to put pressure on the regime."

British journalist Michael Smith, who broke the story of the memo, has elaborated on its context and contents in subsequent articles. The "spikes of activity" apparently included a coalition air campaign meant to provoke Iraq into some act that could be portrayed as what the memo calls a "casus belli."

Warplanes began bombing in southern Iraq in May 2002 — 10 tons that month, according to British government figures. A special "spike" started in late August (for a September total of 54.6 tons).

"In other words, Bush and Blair began their war not in March 2003, as everyone believed, but at the end of August 2002, six weeks before Congress approved military action against Iraq," Smith wrote.

The bombing was presented as defensive action to protect coalition planes in the no-fly zone. Iraq protested to the United Nations but didn`t fall into the trap of retaliating. For US-UK planners, invading Iraq was a far higher priority than the "war on terror." That much is revealed by the reports of their own intelligence agencies. On the eve of the allied invasion, a classified report by the National Intelligence Council, the intelligence community`s center for strategic thinking, "predicted that an American-led invasion of Iraq would increase support for political Islam and would result in a deeply divided Iraqi society prone to violent internal conflict," Douglas Jehl and David E. Sanger reported in The New York Times last September. In December 2004, Jehl reported a few weeks later, the NIC warned that "Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are `professionalised` and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself." The willingness of top planners to risk increase of terrorism does not of course indicate that they welcome such outcomes. Rather, they are simply not a high priority in comparison with other objectives, such as controlling the world`s major energy resources.

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Zbigniew Brzezinski, one of the more astute of the senior planners and analysts, pointed out in the journal National Interest that America`s control over the Middle East "gives it indirect but politically critical leverage on the European and Asian economies that are also dependent on energy exports from the region." If the United States can maintain its control over Iraq, with the world`s second largest known oil reserves, and right at the heart of the world`s major energy supplies, that will enhance significantly its strategic power and influence over its major rivals in the tripolar world that has been taking shape for the past 30 years: US-dominated North America, Europe, and Northeast Asia, linked to South and Southeast Asia economies.

It is a rational calculation, on the assumption that human survival is not particularly significant in comparison with short-term power and wealth. And that is nothing new. These themes resonate through history. The difference today in this age of nuclear weapons is only that the stakes are enormously higher.

Noam Chomsky is a professor of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the author, most recently, of Hegemony or Survival: America`s Quest for Global Dominance.

Copyright: . All rights reserved. You may republish under the following conditions: An active link to the original publication must be provided. You must not alter, edit or remove any text within the article, including this copyright notice.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[SittinBuII]

@ Joerver: Seit wann ist es eine politische Entscheidung, ob eine Straftat verfolgt wird?

Ich gebe dir mal einen gutgemeinten und ernsten Tip. Lese mal ein halbes Jahr keine amerikanischen MSM mehr.

[Joerver]

Sit
jetzt verdrehst du meine Aussage.
Meine Aussage ist, es ist keine politische Entscheidung, sondern es ist eine Güterabwägung, was höher zu bewerten ist, einmal für den Journalisten und auch dann für das Gericht.
Einmal ist es die freie Entscheidung des Journalisten eine Meldung, die ihm zugespielt wird, zu veröffentlichen, wenn er meint diese Veröffentlichung hat einen höheren Wert für die Allgemeinheit, als der mit der Herausgabe und der Veröffentlichung einhergehende Tatbestand einer Straftat.
Dann hat ein Gericht die Möglichkeit das anders zu sehen, und u.U den Journalisten dazu zu zwingen, seine Quelle zu benennen und ggf. den Reporter in Beugehaft zu nehmen, um den Straftäter zu ermitteln und zu bestrafen.
Und das darf nicht nach Kriterien erfolgen, ob es dir oder mir oder Herrn Bröckers politisch genehm ist.
Diese Güterabwägung erfolgt heute auf vielen Gebieten, ich möchte Terrorismus, Drogenhandel usw. anführen.
Dabei kann man sehr häufig darüber streiten, ob der Staat in seinem Kampf gegen vermeintliche oder bestehende Gefahren in seiner Einschränkung von Freiheitsrechten nicht zu weit geht.
In diesem Fall geht es `nur` um das Recht der freien Meinungsäußerung und dem Schutz der Informanten und dem Sicherheitsinteresse des Staates, das beeinträchtigt wurde.
Hier da es gegen Rove geht, ist es für dich und Herrn Bröckers politisch opportun, dass die Quelle genannt wird, und deshalb wird es gefordert.

[Joerver]

Jul 6, 5:18 PM EDT

Judge Orders Jail for N.Y. Times Reporter
http://www.ap.org/
By PETE YOST
Associated Press Writer


WASHINGTON (AP) -- A federal judge on Wednesday jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller for refusing to divulge her source to a grand jury investigating who in the Bush administration leaked an undercover CIA operative`s name.

"There is still a realistic possibility that confinement might cause her to testify," U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan said of the showdown in a case that has seen both President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney interviewed by investigators.

Miller stood up, hugged her lawyer and was escorted from the courtroom.

Earlier, Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, in an about-face, told Hogan that he would cooperate with a federal prosecutor`s investigation into the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame. He said he would do so now because his source gave him specific authority to do so.


"Last night I hugged my son goodbye and told him it might be a long time before I see him again," Cooper said as he took the podium to address the court.

"I went to bed ready to accept the sanctions" for not testifying, Cooper said. But he told the judge that not long before his early afternoon appearance, he had received "in somewhat dramatic fashion" a direct personal communication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep the source`s identity secret.

As for Miller, unless she decides to talk, she will be held until the grand jury ends its work in October. The judge speculated that Miller`s confinement might cause her source to give her a more specific waiver of confidentiality, as did Cooper`s.

Cooper, talking to reporters afterward, called it "a sad time."


"My heart goes out to Judy. I told her as she left the court to stay strong," Cooper added. "I think this clearly points out the need for some kind of a national shield law. There is no federal shield law and that is why we find ourselves here today."

"Judy Miller made a commitment to her source and she`s standing by it," New York Times executive editor Bill Keller told reporters.

Floyd Abrams, a prominent First Amendment lawyer who represented Miller, told reporters: "Judy is an honorable woman, adhering to the highest tradition of her profession and the highest tradition of humanity."

"Judy Miller has not been accused of a crime or convicted of a crime," Abrams said. "She has been held in civil contempt of court."

The prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald had responded in court to Miller`s refusal to name her source by saying "we can`t have 50,000 journalists" each making their own decision about whether to reveal sources.

"We cannot tolerate that," he said. "We are trying to get to the bottom of whether a crime was committed and by whom."

Another Miller attorney, Robert Bennett, said earlier that prosecutors traditionally have shown great respect for journalists and "have had the good judgment not to push these cases very often."

Hogan held the reporters in civil contempt of court in October, rejecting their argument that the First Amendment shielded them from revealing their sources. Last month the Supreme Court refused to intervene.

In court documents filed Tuesday, Fitzgerald urged Hogan to take the unusual step of jailing the reporters, saying that may be the only way to get them to talk.

"Journalists are not entitled to promise complete confidentiality - no one in America is," Fitzgerald wrote.

Fitzgerald had disclosed Tuesday that a source of Cooper and Miller had waived confidentiality, giving the reporters permission to reveal where they got their information. The prosecutor did not identify the source, nor did he specify whether the source for each reporter was the same person.

Cooper said he had been told earlier that his source had signed a general waiver of confidentiality but that he did not trust such waivers because he thought they had been gained from executive branch employees under duress. He told the court that he needed not a general waiver but a specific waiver from his source, which he did not get until Wednesday.

"I received express personal consent" from the source, Cooper told the judge.

Hogan and Fitzgerald accepted Cooper`s offer.

"That would purge you of contempt," Hogan said.

Prior to the hearing, Miller argued that it is imperative for reporters to honor their commitments to provide cover to sources who will only reveal important information if they are assured anonymity. Forcing reporters to renege on the pledge undercuts their ability to do their job, she said.

Last week, Time Inc., last week provided Fitzgerald with records, notes and e-mail traffic involving Cooper, who had argued that it was therefore no longer necessary for him to testify. Time also had been found in contempt and officials there said after losing appeals it had no choice but to turn over the information.

The case is seen as a key test of press freedom and many media groups have lined up behind the reporters. Thirty-one states and the District of Columbia have shield laws protecting reporters from having to identify their confidential sources.

Fitzgerald is investigating who in the administration leaked Plame`s identity. Her name was disclosed in a column by Robert Novak days after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, impugned part of President Bush`s justification for invading Iraq.

Wilson was sent to Africa by the Bush administration to investigate an intelligence claim that Saddam Hussein may have purchased yellowcake uranium from Niger in the late 1990s for use in nuclear weapons. Wilson said he could not verify the claim and criticized the administration for manipulating the intelligence to "exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

Novak, whose column cited as sources two unidentified senior Bush administration officials, has refused to say whether he has testified before the grand jury or been subpoenaed. Novak has said he "will reveal all" after the matter is resolved and that it is wrong for the government to jail journalists.

Disclosure of an undercover intelligence officer`s identity can be a federal crime if prosecutors can show the leak was intentional and the person who released that information knew of the officer`s secret status.

Cooper spoke to White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove after Wilson`s public criticism of Bush and before Novak`s column ran, according to Rove`s lawyer, Robert Luskin, who denies that Rove leaked Plame`s identity to anyone. Cooper`s story mentioning Plame`s name appeared after Novak`s column. Miller did some reporting, but never wrote a story.

Among the witnesses Fitzgerald`s investigators have questioned besides Bush and Cheney are Cheney`s chief of staff, Lewis Libby; and former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, who is now the attorney general.

Fitzgerald has said that his investigation is complete except for testimony from Cooper and Miller.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Learn more about our Privacy Policy.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Es geht weiter in der Geschichte um die Presse und die Justiz.
Die NYTimes bereitet die ganze Geschichte auch mit dem USüblichen Pathos auf.
Es ist natürlich eine willkommene Gelegenheit für die Times von ihrer nicht sehr ehrenvollen Berichterstattung vor oder zu Beginn des Irakkrieges abzulenken. Die Times hatte sich dafür halbherzig vor einiger Zeit entschuldigt.
Auch Judith Miller`s Rolle in der Berichterstattung über die Gründe, die zum Irak Krieg führten ist sehr umstritten. Sie war das Sprachrohr für die unseriösen Quellen der Berichte über WMD u.ä. von den Neocons und den Exilirakischer um Chalabi.
Dazu siehe #29816 den Artikel der LATimes über die Verstrickungen von Miller in die aufgebauschten Berichte des Pentagon und der Spezialtruppe von Cheney.

July 7, 2005
Judith Miller Goes to Jail
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/opinion/07thu1.html?pagewa…

This is a proud but awful moment for The New York Times and its employees. One of our reporters, Judith Miller, has decided to accept a jail sentence rather than testify before a grand jury about one of her confidential sources. Ms. Miller has taken a path that will be lonely and painful for her and her family and friends. We wish she did not have to choose it, but we are certain she did the right thing.

She is surrendering her liberty in defense of a greater liberty, granted to a free press by the founding fathers so journalists can work on behalf of the public without fear of regulation or retaliation from any branch of government.

The Press and the Law

Some people - including, sadly, some of our colleagues in the news media - have mistakenly assumed that a reporter and a news organization place themselves above the law by rejecting a court order to testify. Nothing could be further from the truth. When another Times reporter, M. A. Farber, went to jail in 1978 rather than release his confidential notes, he declared, "I have no such right and I seek none."

By accepting her sentence, Ms. Miller bowed to the authority of the court. But she acted in the great tradition of civil disobedience that began with this nation`s founding, which holds that the common good is best served in some instances by private citizens who are willing to defy a legal, but unjust or unwise, order.

This tradition stretches from the Boston Tea Party to the Underground Railroad, to the Americans who defied the McCarthy inquisitions and to the civil rights movement. It has called forth ordinary citizens, like Rosa Parks; government officials, like Daniel Ellsberg and Mark Felt; and statesmen, like Martin Luther King. Frequently, it falls to news organizations to uphold this tradition. As Justice William O. Douglas wrote in 1972, "The press has a preferred position in our constitutional scheme, not to enable it to make money, not to set newsmen apart as a favored class, but to bring to fulfillment the public`s right to know."

Critics point out that even presidents must bow to the Supreme Court. But presidents are agents of the government, sworn to enforce the law. Journalists are private citizens, and Ms. Miller`s actions are faithful to the Constitution. She is defending the right of Americans to get vital information from news organizations that need not fear government retaliation - an imperative defended by the 49 states that recognize a reporter`s right to protect sources.

A second reporter facing a possible jail term, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, agreed yesterday to testify before the grand jury. Last week, Time decided, over Mr. Cooper`s protests, to release documents demanded by the judge that revealed his confidential sources. We were deeply disappointed by that decision.

We do not see how a newspaper, magazine or television station can support a reporter`s decision to protect confidential sources even if the potential price is lost liberty, and then hand over the notes or documents that make the reporter`s sacrifice meaningless. The point of this struggle is to make sure that people with critical information can feel confident that if they speak to a reporter on the condition of anonymity, their identities will be protected. No journalist`s promise will be worth much if the employer that stands behind him or her is prepared to undercut such a vow of secrecy.

Protecting a Reporter`s Sources

Most readers understand a reporter`s need to guarantee confidentiality to a source. Before he went to jail, Mr. Farber told the court that if he gave up documents that revealed the names of the people he had promised anonymity, "I will have given notice that the nation`s premier newspaper is no longer available to those men and women who would seek it out - or who would respond to it - to talk freely and without fear."

While The Times has gone to great lengths lately to make sure that the use of anonymous sources is limited, there is no way to eliminate them. The most important articles tend to be the ones that upset people in high places, and many could not be reported if those who risked their jobs or even their liberty to talk to reporters knew that they might be identified the next day. In the larger sense, revealing government wrongdoing advances the rule of law, especially at a time of increased government secrecy.

It is for these reasons that most states have shield laws that protect reporters` rights to conceal their sources. Those laws need to be reviewed and strengthened, even as members of Congress continue to work to pass a federal shield law. But at this moment, there is no statute that protects Judith Miller when she defies a federal trial judge`s order to reveal who told her what about Valerie Plame Wilson`s identity as an undercover C.I.A. operative.

Ms. Miller understands this perfectly, and she accepts the consequences with full respect for the court. We hope that her sacrifice will alert the nation to the need to protect the basic tools reporters use in doing their most critical work.

To be frank, this is far from an ideal case. We would not have wanted our reporter to give up her liberty over a situation whose details are so complicated and muddy. But history is very seldom kind enough to provide the ideal venue for a principled stand. Ms. Miller is going to jail over an article that she never wrote, yet she has been unwavering in her determination to protect the people with whom she had spoken on the promise of confidentiality.

The Plame Story

The case involves an article by the syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who revealed that Joseph Wilson, a retired career diplomat, was married to an undercover C.I.A. officer Mr. Novak identified by using her maiden name, Valerie Plame. Mr. Wilson had been asked by the C.I.A. to investigate whether Saddam Hussein in Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger that could be used for making nuclear weapons. Mr. Wilson found no evidence of that, and he later wrote an Op-Ed article for The Times saying he believed that the Bush administration had misrepresented the facts.

It seemed very possible that someone at the White House had told Mr. Novak about Ms. Plame to undermine Mr. Wilson`s credibility and send a chilling signal to other officials who might be inclined to speak out against the administration`s Iraq policy. At the time, this page said that if those were indeed the circumstances, the leak had been "an egregious abuse of power." We urged the Justice Department to investigate. But we warned then that the inquiry should not degenerate into an attempt to compel journalists to reveal their sources.

We mainly had Mr. Novak in mind then, but Mr. Novak remains both free and mum about what he has or has not told the grand jury looking into the leak. Like almost everyone, we are baffled by his public posture. All we know now is that Mr. Novak - who early on expressed the opinion that no journalists who bowed to court pressure to betray sources could hold up their heads in Washington - has offered no public support to the colleague who is going to jail while he remains at liberty.

Ms. Miller did not write an article about Ms. Plame, but the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, wants to know whether anyone in government told her about Mr. Wilson`s wife and her secret job. The inquiry has been conducted with such secrecy that it is hard to know exactly what Mr. Fitzgerald thinks Ms. Miller can tell him, or what argument he offered to convince the court that his need to hear her testimony outweighs the First Amendment.

What we do know is that if Ms. Miller testifies, it may be immeasurably harder in the future to persuade a frightened government employee to talk about malfeasance in high places, or a worried worker to reveal corporate crimes. The shroud of secrecy thrown over this case by the prosecutor and the judge, an egregious denial of due process, only makes it more urgent to take a stand.

Mr. Fitzgerald drove that point home chillingly when he said the authorities "can`t have 50,000 journalists" making decisions about whether to reveal sources` names and that the government had a right to impose its judgment. But that`s not what the founders had in mind in writing the First Amendment. In 1971, our colleague James Reston cited James Madison`s admonition about a free press in explaining why The Times had first defied the Nixon administration`s demand to stop publishing the Pentagon Papers and then fought a court`s order to cease publication. "Among those principles deemed sacred in America," Madison wrote, "among those sacred rights considered as forming the bulwark of their liberty, which the government contemplates with awful reverence and would approach only with the most cautious circumspection, there is no one of which the importance is more deeply impressed on the public mind than the liberty of the press."

Mr. Fitzgerald`s attempts to interfere with the rights of a free press while refusing to disclose his reasons for doing so, when he can`t even say whether a crime has been committed, have exhibited neither reverence nor cautious circumspection. It would compound the tragedy if his actions emboldened more prosecutors to trample on a free press.

Our Bottom Line

Responsible journalists recognize that press freedoms are not absolute and must be exercised responsibly. This newspaper will not, for example, print the details of American troop movements in advance of a battle, because publication would endanger lives and national security. But these limits cannot be dictated by the whim of a branch of government, especially behind a screen of secrecy.

Indeed, the founders warned against any attempt to have the government set limits on a free press, under any conditions. "However desirable those measures might be which might correct without enslaving the press, they have never yet been devised in America," Madison wrote.

Journalists talk about these issues a great deal, and they can seem abstract. The test comes when a colleague is being marched off to jail for doing nothing more than the job our readers expected of her, and of the rest of us. The Times has been in these fights before, beginning in 1857, when a journalist named J. W. Simonton wrote an editorial about bribery in Congress and was held in contempt by the House of Representatives for 19 days when he refused to reveal his sources. In the end, Mr. Simonton kept faith, and the corrupt congressmen resigned. All of our battles have not had equally happy endings. But each time, whether we win or we lose, we remain convinced that the public wins in the long run and that what is at stake is nothing less than our society`s perpetual bottom line: the citizens control the government in a democracy.

We stand with Ms. Miller and thank her for taking on that fight for the rest of us.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Q& A
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07…
Post
Thursday, July 7, 2005; A13

Q: Why was New York Times reporter Judith Miller jailed?

Miller and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper were found in civil contempt of court in Octoberfor defying a federal court judge`s order to answer questions in a grand jury investigation. Late last month, their appeals ran out when the Supreme Court refused to hear their case.

Q: Why was Cooper spared jail?

He agreed to testify yesterday after his source called him and specifically released him to answer special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald`s questions. Over Cooper`s objections, Time magazine last week turned over his notes and e-mails to the prosecutor, revealing his sources.

Q: What is Fitzgerald investigating?

Fitzgerald is trying to determine whether a government official violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 by knowingly revealing the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame to the news media. Plame`s name was first revealed in a July 14, 2003, column by Robert D. Novak. The column appeared eight days after Plame`s husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, wrote an opinion piece in the Times accusing the Bush administration of twisting intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq. Wilson has suggested his wife`s cover was compromised in retaliation.

Time magazine lawyers have also suggested that Fitzgerald is investigating whether anyone committed perjury during his probe. Fitzgerald has not confirmed that.

Q: Doesn`t Fitzgerald know the identities of Miller`s and Cooper`s sources? Haven`t the sources signed waivers that allow the reporters to talk to the prosecutor?

Yes and yes. But Miller, who did some reporting but never wrote a story, says that the waiver is not voluntary under these circumstances and that she is upholding the journalistic principle of never breaking a promise of confidentiality to a source. Cooper said yesterday that he could not be sure that his source had not been pressured to waive confidentiality until the source called him.

Fitzgerald has said the reporters are no longer protecting anyone. Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan, who found the reporters in contempt, has chided them for behaving as if they have a special right not to testify that other citizens do not enjoy. Fitzgerald has raised the possibility of seeking criminal contempt charges against Miller.

At least four reporters -- including Cooper and two Washington Post journalists who were released from confidentiality agreements by their sources -- previously answered limited questions from Fitzgerald.

Q: If Fitzgerald knows who the government officials are, why does he need to question Miller and Cooper?

Some lawyers believe that Fitzgerald wants to corroborate information he has gathered during his investigation. And, as a general rule, prosecutors say they would never rely solely on notes taken by someone without also interviewing the note-taker.

Q: Why isn`t Fitzgerald focusing on Novak?

Novak`s role in the investigation has never become clear. Many people associated with the case presume he has cooperated in some fashion.

Q: What happens now?

Miller will remain in jail for as long as four months -- the time remaining in the grand jury`s term -- or until she agrees to cooperate. Fitzgerald`s investigation is continuing, and he will probably wait for some time to see if detention persuades Miller to talk. In court filings, he has indicated that he is ready to wrap up the probe after that.

The grand jury is expected to convene soon to hear Cooper testify.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 7, 2005
Halliburton`s Iraq Job
By REUTERS
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/international/middleeast/0…

WASHINGTON, July 6 (Reuters) - The United States military has signed a work order with Halliburton to do nearly $5 billion in new work in Iraq under a giant logistics contract that has so far earned the company $9.1 billion, the Army said Wednesday.

Linda Theis, a spokeswoman for the United States Army Field Support Command in Rock Island, Ill., said the military signed the work order with Kellogg Brown and Root, a unit of Halliburton, in May.

The new deal, worth $4.97 billion over the next year, was not made public when it was signed because the Army did not consider that such an announcement was necessary, she said.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Thursday, July 07, 2005

16 Killed, 39 Wounded in Guerrilla Violence

Foreign Jihadis Target Shiite Badr Corps


Al-Zaman: A statement attributed to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has announced the formation of a radical Sunni "Umar Brigades" to target the Shiite "Badr Corps". His group also threatened to execute Egyptian diplomat Ihab Sherif for "apostasy" from Islam. (Radical Salafis accept the doctrine of Sayyid Qutb that secular governments like that of Egypt are "pharaonic" and working for them makes you "not a Muslim." In some versions of medieval Islamic law, having been Muslim and then deserting the faith incurs the death penalty.)

Reuters rounds up guerrilla attacks on Wednesday:

In Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, guerrillas used a roadside bomb to kill one US soldier and wound two others.

In Jbeila near Hilla, two suicide bombers killed 11 persons and wounded 19.

Guerrillas in Baghdad assassinated Raqim al-Hilfi, a member of the Shiite Badr Corps paramilitary.

Also in Baghdad, this time in the east, guerrillas attacked an Iraqi police patrol, killing one policeman and wounding 11.

In the Shiite holy city of Karbala, guerrillas targeted a US military vehicle with a bomb, but missed, wounding an Iraqi civilian. (This attack may well have been carried out by radical Shiites rather than by the ex-Baath guerrilla movement, since the latter would find it difficult to operate in Karbala).

In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, a suicide bomber drove on Tuesday into a military checkpoint, killing 1 Iraqi soldier and wounding 4 others.

On Wednesday in Kirkuk, a man accidentally blew himself up while constructing a car bomb. He also wounded two relatives. (Hint: Pretty much everyone this man hung out with or even knew well should be put under some scrutiny.)

Iran`s Defense Minister has called for "a stable, secure and united Iraq which maintains good neighborly relations with countries of the region . . ." He also urged the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq. He also urged that no permanent military bases be given to the US in Iraq.

More on the suggestion by a European Union parliamentary committee that the United Nations serve as a bridge between the withdrawal of the Americans and ability of Iraq to provide its own security.

USA Today profiles the new chief justice of Iraq`s Supreme Court. His main concern remains security.

Michael Jansen does her usual excellent job in profiling the massive ongoing looting of Iraq`s precious archeological sites.

Forty-nine percent of Americans in a recent poll think the war in Iraq has made the US safer. Only 15 percent think that it has made the US less safe. The American public annot entirely be blamed for this level of ignorance, since their mass media has not told them the truth about the dangers created for the US by all the mistakes Bush has made in Iraq. The CIA believes that the place is a virtual incubator of anti-American terrorism, as do many other analysts.

On the other hand, Forty-nine percent are skeptical that Iraq will become peaceful and democratic. I suppose that they just have not connected the dots there. Friends, if Iraq remains violent and a failed state, that just cannot be good for US security.

By the way, I remember reading in several trusted sources that the State Department had ceased listing Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism in the late 1990s. I have been challenged on this by an unkind reader, and wonder if someone can explain to me why there should be a controversy on this matter.

posted by Juan @ [url7/07/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/16-killed-39-wounded-in-guerrilla.html[/url]

103 Iraqi Parliamentarians Demand Withdrawal of US Troops

Gilber Achcar kindly shares his translation of an al-Hayat article:



`[More than] 103 MPs Demand a Timetable for the Withdrawal of Foreign Troops

Baghdad – Abdel-Wahed Tohmeh – Al-Hayat, July 4, 2005

103 members of the National Assembly (the Parliament) have demanded the adoption of a resolution cancelling the request made by the Government to the UN Security Council to extend the presence of multinational forces, and urging the Government to put “a clear plan for army building and a timetable for the withdrawal of occupation troops” from Iraq.

Falah Hassan Shneishel MP (of the “Independent National Bloc”) [the INB is the parliamentary bloc of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Current, which plays a prominent role in the organization of the political fight against the occupation] explained that the number of MPs demanding a timetable for the withdrawal of occupation troops has exceeded 103 after more than 20 additional MPs have adopted the statement issued two weeks ago in this regard.

[See my translation of a previous report by Tohmeh.]

Shneishel threatened to call for popular demonstrations in case “the authorities were not serious about the implementation of the demands of the Iraqis for an end to occupation.”

posted by Juan @ [url7/07/2005 06:21:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/103-iraqi-parliamentarians-demand.html[/url]

More on Exit Strategies

An informed reader writes, regarding the issue of an exit strategy from Iraq:



` First, most reasonable proposals run up against the immovable object of the Bush admin’s unwillingness to admit that it has been wrong about four things – its stated reasons for going to war, the evidence that it provided to support those stated reasons, the Rumsfeld military strategy, and the lack of any clear or consistent political strategy in Iraq. However, most writers seem to ignore the reason that the admin won’t admit that it was wrong about these things: to do so would undermine what it hopes to accomplish politically, which is to advance its domestic agenda while running out the clock on opponents who would like to change various things before Bush steps down after the 2008 election. The Democrats have almost no hope of taking control of either house of Congress in 2006 because of the numbers; the House is sufficiently gerrymandered that only a very large popular vote swing would allow the Dems to capture the 30-odd seats they need, while in the Senate there are 18 Dems up for re-election versus only 15 Reps – the inverse of the overall Senate ratio of 55% Republicans. That means that the Bush strategy is centered on not admitting to things regarding which the Republicans who are in control of both houses of Congress would have to launch investigations or force policy changes. The fact that some Republicans are now breaking with the White House anyway is probably mostly attributable to a mix of fear for their own jobs in 2006 or (in the case of Hagel, for instance) positioning for the 2008 primaries. But Rove probably figures that he can keep enough of the party in line with the current strategy (especially with issues like the Supreme Court dominating headlines for the next several weeks) and lose few enough seats in 2006 that the alternative is worse. These guys know the history of second terms very well, and are determined to hold back the deluge until “après moi”.

I tend to think that political strategies are followed as long as they are working and the costs of the alternatives are not seen as worse. So far, it seems to me that Bush/Rove do not have much reason to change strategy, though the cost of the current strategy is rising.

Second, the election in Iraq in many ways made things worse, as you have been one of the few to point out. In particular, it gave power to Shiites that really do want to run the entire country and that are willing to risk years of civil war to do so. Perhaps more importantly, it has meant that the U.S. cannot now do what it should have done earlier, which is to try to force a constitutional framework with high levels of regional autonomy. I have always thought that some version of the “three state option” made the most sense, though it would have to be done as three largely independent units within a weak sovereign nation. I also acknowledge the point that . . . that really there should be five states, with communally diverse Baghdad and Kirkuk being separate entities.

Proposals now for a bicameral legislature with an upper house elected by region are in many ways too late, because the election has emboldened SCIRI and Dawa to think that they can control the entire country. Sistani may be able to influence many Shiites in favor of compromise, but his power must be much less than before the election, now that there are elected leaders who can claim to represent the Shiites. In past examples of countries with determined communal insurgencies, the dominant group has usually needed at least several years of intractable conflict before it has been willing to admit its errors and begin to compromise; that is part of the reason that many insurgencies have lasted so long.

The third point is that the first two points militate strongly against any end to the current stalemate. The Bush admin has strong motivations for not wanting to change anything, the Shiite politicians have strong motivations for refusing to allow a constitution that prevents them from achieving and sustaining dominance, and the Sunni insurgents have no reason to stop fighting. As you point out, sometimes you are just screwed.

So, what is to be done? Well, I actually think that there is an approach that might work here. As you linked, both the Egyptians and the Europeans are concerned enough to consider getting involved with troops on the ground if the political conditions are right. So long as all initiatives start in Washington, the political conditions will not be right. But suppose that the EU, the Arab League, and the UN work together on a proposal that would be hard for either the Bush admin or the Shiites to refuse? Suppose that they offer to get involved so long as there is a constitution with certain provisions (strong regional autonomy and bicameralism) by a certain date? Popular opinion in the U.S. has now reached a point at which it would be hard for the Bush admin to ignore any opportunity to offload casualties to others. At the same time, SCIRI and Dawa would find it hard to oppose a reasonable proposal that came from non-U.S. sources including other Arab countries, and that offered boots on the ground; my guess is that opposition to such a proposal would not be at all popular among most Shiites.

Of course, the chance of this happening is about 2%. Very few Europeans or Arabs really want their kids to die in Iraq, so even if their leaders want to head off disaster, the people probably won’t agree. But international initiatives and discussion may accelerate the U.S. domestic shift that is going on already, which would be progress.

I think that the most likely outcome, as you and Hagel have pointed out, is another 1975. This will be on a smaller scale than that catastrophe, but still a big disaster. (It won’t be, as Marx said about history repeating, farce.) The really scary thing is what happens when the well-trained jihadis leave Iraq, victorious, and head south to destroy the Saudi oil infrastructure and west, to Mexico and Canada, to slip into the U.S. and create many more 9/11s. `

posted by Juan @ [url7/07/2005 06:12:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/more-on-exit-strategies-informed.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Nach der Meldung, dass Halliburton wieder Aufträge in Höhe von $5 Mil. bekommen hat, ist es gut daran zu errinnern, wieviel Geld bis jetzt während der US-Okkupation im Irak verschwunden ist.

So, Mr Bremer, where did all the money go?

At the end of the Iraq war, vast sums of money were made available to the US-led provisional authorities, headed by Paul Bremer, to spend on rebuilding the country. By the time Bremer left the post eight months later, $8.8bn of that money had disappeared. Ed Harriman on the extraordinary scandal of Iraq`s missing billions
Thursday July 7, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1522983,00.html

Guardian
When Paul Bremer, the American pro consul in Baghdad until June last year, arrived in Iraq soon after the official end of hostilities, there was $6bn left over from the UN Oil for Food Programme, as well as sequestered and frozen assets, and at least $10bn from resumed Iraqi oil exports. Under Security Council Resolution 1483, passed on May 22 2003, all these funds were transferred into a new account held at the Federal Reserve Bank in New York, called the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), and intended to be spent by the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) "in a transparent manner ... for the benefit of the Iraqi people".

The US Congress also voted to spend $18.4bn of US taxpayers` money on the redevelopment of Iraq. By June 28 last year, however, when Bremer left Baghdad two days early to avoid possible attack on the way to the airport, his CPA had spent up to $20bn of Iraqi money, compared with $300m of US funds. The "reconstruction" of Iraq is the largest American-led occupation programme since the Marshall Plan - but the US government funded the Marshall Plan. Defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Bremer have made sure that the reconstruction of Iraq is paid for by the "liberated" country, by the Iraqis themselves.

The CPA maintained one fund of nearly $600m cash for which there is no paperwork: $200m of it was kept in a room in one of Saddam`s former palaces. The US soldier in charge used to keep the key to the room in his backpack, which he left on his desk when he popped out for lunch. Again, this is Iraqi money, not US funds.

The "financial irregularities" described in audit reports carried out by agencies of the American government and auditors working for the international community collectively give a detailed insight into the mentality of the American occupation authorities and the way they operated. Truckloads of dollars were handed out for which neither they nor the recipients felt they had to be accountable.

The auditors have so far referred more than a hundred contracts, involving billions of dollars paid to American personnel and corporations, for investigation and possible criminal prosecution. They have also discovered that $8.8bn that passed through the new Iraqi government ministries in Baghdad while Bremer was in charge is unaccounted for, with little prospect of finding out where it has gone. A further $3.4bn appropriated by Congress for Iraqi development has since been siphoned off to finance "security".

Although Bremer was expected to manage Iraqi funds in a transparent manner, it was only in October 2003, six months after the fall of Saddam, that an International Advisory and Monitoring Board (IAMB) was established to provide independent, international financial oversight of CPA spending. (This board includes representatives from the United Nations, the World Bank, the IMF and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development.)

The IAMB first spent months trying to find auditors acceptable to the US. The Bahrain office of KPMG was finally appointed in April 2004. It was stonewalled.

"KPMG has encountered resistance from CPA staff regarding the submission of information required to complete our procedures," they wrote in an interim report. "Staff have indicated ... that cooperation with KPMG`s undertakings is given a low priority." KPMG had one meeting at the Iraqi Ministry of Finance; meetings at all the other ministries were repeatedly postponed. The auditors even had trouble getting passes to enter the Green Zone.

There appears to have been good reason for the Americans to stall. At the end of June 2004, the CPA would be disbanded and Bremer would leave Iraq. There was no way the Bush administration would want independent auditors to publish a report into the financial propriety of its Iraqi administration while the CPA was still in existence and Bremer at its head still answerable to the press. So the report was published in July.

The auditors found that the CPA didn`t keep accounts of the hundreds of millions of dollars of cash in its vault, had awarded contracts worth billions of dollars to American firms without tender, and had no idea what was happening to the money from the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), which was being spent by the interim Iraqi government ministries.

This lack of transparency has led to allegations of corruption. An Iraqi hospital administrator told me that when he came to sign a contract, the American army officer representing the CPA had crossed out the original price and doubled it. The Iraqi protested that the original price was enough. The American officer explained that the increase (more than $1m) was his retirement package.

When the Iraqi Governing Council asked Bremer why a contract to repair the Samarah cement factory was costing $60m rather than the agreed $20m, the American representative reportedly told them that they should be grateful the coalition had saved them from Saddam. Iraqis who were close to the Americans, had access to the Green Zone or held prominent posts in the new government ministries were also in a position personally to benefit enormously. Iraqi businessmen complain endlessly that they had to offer substantial bribes to Iraqi middlemen just to be able to bid for CPA contracts. Iraqi ministers` relatives got top jobs and fat contracts.

Further evidence of lack of transparency comes from a series of audits and reports carried out by the CPA`s own inspector general`s office (CPAIG). Set up in January 2004, it reports to Congress. Its auditors, accountants and criminal investigators often found themselves sitting alone at cafe tables in the Green Zone, shunned by their CPA compatriots. Their audit, published in July 2004, found that the American contracts officers in the CPA and Iraqi ministries "did not ensure that ... contract files contained all the required documents, a fair and reasonable price was paid for the services received, contractors were capable of meeting delivery schedules, or that contractors were paid in accordance with contract requirements".

Pilfering was rife. Millions of dollars in cash went missing from the Iraqi Central Bank. Between $11m and $26m worth of Iraqi property sequestered by the CPA was unaccounted for. The payroll was padded with hundreds of ghost employees. Millions of dollars were paid to contractors for phantom work. Some $3,379,505 was billed, for example, for "personnel not in the field performing work" and "other improper charges" on just one oil pipeline repair contract.

Most of the 69 criminal investigations the CPAIG instigated related to alleged theft, fraud, waste, assault and extortion. It also investigated "a number of other cases that, because of their sensitivity, cannot be included in this report". One such case may have arisen when 19 billion new Iraqi dinars, worth about £6.5m, was found on a plane in Lebanon that had been sent there by the American-appointed Iraqi interior minister.

At the same time, the IAMB discovered that Iraqi oil exports were unmetered. Neither the Iraqi State Oil Marketing Organisation nor the American authorities could give a satisfactory explanation for this. "The only reason you wouldn`t monitor them is if you don`t want anyone else to know how much is going through," one petroleum executive told me.

Officially, Iraq exported $10bn worth of oil in the first year of the American occupation. Christian Aid has estimated that up to $4bn more may have been exported and is unaccounted for. If so, this would have created an off-the-books fund that both the Americans and their Iraqi allies could use with impunity to cover expenditures they would rather keep secret - among them the occupation costs, which were rising far beyond what the Bush administration could comfortably admit to Congress and the international community.

In the few weeks before Bremer left Iraq, the CPA handed out more than $3bn in new contracts to be paid for with Iraqi funds and managed by the US embassy in Baghdad. The CPA inspector general, now called the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (Sigir), has just released an audit report on the way the embassy has dealt with that responsibility. The auditors reviewed the files of 225 contracts totalling $327m to see if the embassy "could identify the current value of paid and unpaid contract obligations".

It couldn`t. "Our review showed that financial records ... understated payments made by $108,255,875" and "overstated unpaid obligations by $119,361,286". The auditors also reviewed the paperwork of a further 300 contracts worth $332.9m: "Of 198 contract files reviewed, 154 did not contain evidence that goods and services were received, 169 did not contain invoices, and 14 did not contain evidence of payment."

Clearly, the Americans see no need to account for spending Iraqis` national income now any more than they did when Bremer was in charge. Neither the embassy chief of mission nor the US military commander replied to the auditors` invitation to comment. Instead, the US army contracting commander lamely pointed out that "the peaceful conditions envisioned in the early planning continue to elude the reconstruction efforts". This is a remarkable understatement. It`s also an admission that Americans can`t be expected to do their sums when they are spending other people`s money to finance a war.

Lack of accountability does not stop with the Americans. In January this year, the Sigir issued a report detailing evidence of fraud, corruption and waste by the Iraqi Interim Government when Bremer was in charge. They found that $8.8bn - the entire Iraqi Interim Government spending from October 2003 through June 2004 - was not properly accounted for. The Iraqi Office of Budget and Management at one point had only six staff, all of them inexperienced, and most of the ministries had no budget departments. Iraq`s newly appointed ministers and their senior officials were free to hand out hundreds of millions of dollars in cash as they pleased, while American "advisers" looked on.

"CPA personnel did not review and compare financial, budgetary and operational performance to planned or expected results," the auditors explained. One ministry gave out $430m in contracts without its CPA advisers seeing any of the paperwork. Another claimed to be paying 8,206 guards, but only 602 could be found. There is simply no way of knowing how much of the $8.8bn has gone to pay for private militias and into private pockets.

"It`s remarkable that the inspector general`s office could have produced even a draft report with so many misconceptions and inaccuracies," Bremer said in his reply to the Sigir report. "At liberation, the Iraqi economy was dead in the water. So CPA`s top priority was to get the economy going."

The Sigir has responded by releasing another audit this April, an investigation into the way Bremer`s CPA managed cash payments from Iraqi funds in just one part of Iraq, the region around Hillah: "During the course of the audit, we identified deficiencies in the control of cash ... of such magnitude as to require prompt attention. Those deficiencies were so significant that we were precluded from accomplishing our stated objectives." They found that CPA headquarters in Baghdad "did not maintain full control and accountability for approximately $119.9m", and that agents in the field "cannot properly account for or support over $96.6m in cash and receipts". The agents were mostly Americans in Iraq on short-term contracts. One agent`s account balance was "overstated by $2,825,755, and the error went undetected". Another agent was given $25m cash for which Bremer`s office "acknowledged not having any supporting documentation". Of more than $23m given to another agent, there are only records for $6,306,836 paid to contractors.

Many of the American agents submitted their paperwork only hours before they headed to the airport. Two left Iraq without accounting for $750,000 each, which has never been found. CPA head office cleared several agents` balances of between $250,000 and $12m without any receipts. One agent who did submit receipts, on being told that he still owed $1,878,870, turned up three days later with exactly that amount. The auditors thought that "this suggests that the agent had a reserve of cash", pointing out that if his original figures had been correct, he would have accounted to the CPA for approximately $3.8m more than he had been given in the first place, which "suggests that the receipt documents provided to the DFI account manager were unreliable".

So where did the money go? You can`t see it in Hillah. The schools, hospitals, water supply and electricity, all of which were supposed to benefit from these funds, are in ruins. The inescapable conclusion is that many of the American paying agents grabbed large bundles of cash for themselves and made sweet deals with their Iraqi contacts.

And so it continues. The IAMB`s most recent audit of Iraqi government spending talks of "incomplete accounting", "lack of documented justification for limited competition for contracts at the Iraqi ministries", "possible misappropriation of oil revenues", "significant difficulties in ensuring completeness and accuracy of Iraqi budgets and controls over expenditures" and "non-deposit of proceeds of export sales of petroleum products into the appropriate accounts in contravention of UN Security Council Resolution 1483".

In the absence of any meaningful accountability, Iraqis have no way of knowing how much of the nation`s wealth is being used for reconstruction and how much is being handed out to ministers` and civil servants` friends and families or funnelled into secret overseas bank accounts. Given that many Ba`athists are now back in government, some of that money may even be financing the insurgents.

Both Saddam and the US profited handsomely during his reign. He controlled Iraq`s wealth while most of Iraq`s oil went to Californian refineries to provide cheap petrol for American voters. US corporations, like those who enjoyed Saddam`s favour, grew rich. Today, the system is much the same: the oil goes to California, and the new Iraqi government spends the national wealth with impunity.

· Bremer maintained one slush fund of nearly $600m in cash for which there is no paperwork: $200m of it was kept in a room in one of Saddam`s former palaces

· 19 billion new Iraqi dinars, worth about £6.5m, was found on a plane in Lebanon that had been sent there by the new Iraqi interior minister

· One ministry claimed to be paying 8,206 guards, but only 602 could be found

· One American agent was given $23m to spend on restructuring; only $6m is accounted for

This is an edited version of an article that appears in the current issue of the London Review of Books (lrb).
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Bei all dem Wirbel, das durch die Inhaftierung der NYTimes Reporterin verursacht wird, darf eine viel wesentlicherer Punkt für die Richtung, in der sich die USA in der nächsten Zeit entwickeln wird, nicht übersehen werden, das ist die Besetzung des Supreme Court.

All the president`s men

With O`Connor`s retirement from the US supreme court, the Republican counter-revolution sees the chance of a lifetime
Sidney Blumenthal
Thursday July 7, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1522919,00.ht…

Guardian
Ever since Franklin D Roosevelt breached the conservative fortress of the US supreme court, Republicans have dreamed of restoration. Every Republican president attempted to fill the court with judges who would stall, overcome and even reverse change in the law and in American society. President Eisenhower felt that appointing Earl Warren as chief justice was the "biggest damn-fool mistake I ever made". Warren became the leader of liberal jurisprudence, using the law to advance social equality and rights. "Impeach Warren!" became the cry of the right.

President Nixon attempted to pack the court with two southern segregationists who were rejected by the Senate. His choice for chief justice, Warren Burger, as conservative as he was, disappointed him and he took to calling him "a dumb Swede". At last, he selected William Rehnquist, the farthest-right candidate he could find, a judge who had personally intimidated blacks and Hispanics from voting at polling places and written a memo in favour of segregation. Before his confirmation hearing Nixon instructed him to "be as mean and rough as they said you were".

Rehnquist`s consistent conservatism made him President Reagan`s natural choice for chief justice. Reagan, too, hoped to pack the court with justices who would play well with Rehnquist. He appointed Antonin Scalia, even further to the right than Rehnquist, and Robert Bork, perhaps even to Scalia`s right, a dyspeptic reactionary rejected by the Democratic Senate. And Reagan named Sandra Day O`Connor, gaining credit for appointing the first woman, who also happened to be a conservative former state senator from Arizona, such a close friend of fellow Arizonan Rehnquist that they had once dated.

President George HW Bush believed that he was filling the court with traditional conservatives, but played two wild cards. David Souter has aligned himself with the moderates and liberals. Clarence Thomas has been consumed with a bottomless ideological fervour fed by rage and resentment; he appears not to have recovered from his confirmation hearing, where he was accused of sexual harassment, which he decried as a "hi-tech lynching". Initially Thomas walked in the shadow of Scalia, but he has emerged on an even farther shore of the right.

With only two out of nine justices appointed by a Democratic president, the Republican right still considered the court a bastion of betrayal and temple of the left. O`Connor often turned out to be the swing vote in decisions going five to four against the conservatives. She is a classic literal conservative who believes that tradition and precedent have their own claims. She is small-bore, rests on evidence and case law, while Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas veer erratically in hot ideological pursuit of the "original understanding" of the constitution as they divine it, a mystical seance summoning shades of the founding fathers who bear little resemblance to their actual historical selves. With O`Connor, Roe v Wade legalising abortion has been preserved; affirmative action and campaign finance reform have been upheld.

Conservative frustration at their inability to remake the country through Republican domination of the supreme court has risen exponentially during O`Connor`s ascendance. The Federalist Society, a tightly knit group of conservative lawyers created during the Reagan period, now operates as a controlling network throughout the Bush administration. There is simply not a single presidential appointee in a position of legal responsibility who is not a card-carrying member. Among them, the regnant doctrine is called the "constitution in exile" - a belief that the true constitution has been suppressed since Roosevelt and can be restored by the uniform appointment of "originalists" to the court.

With O`Connor`s retirement, the Republican counter-revolution sees the opportunity of a lifetime to shift the court once and for all. While the fate of abortion has aroused the most controversy, national security will undoubtedly occupy the court in making new law even more. A host of new questions are unresolved. What power does the president have to keep information secret? What is the extent of executive privilege as applied to war powers? Should free speech be infringed when national security is supposedly at risk? What is the president`s power to detain? Can due process be suspended? What is the president`s power to torture?

Indeed, the notion of torture is alive in the executive branch. Bush`s lawyers, in the office of legal counsel of the justice department, have concluded that the president "enjoys complete discretion" and any limitation on his power to torture is unconstitutional. Thomas`s logic is the same as the logic of the OLC in granting the right of the president to torture as part of his inherent authority as commander in chief. In his dissent in Hamdi v Rumsfeld, Thomas argued thatdetainees have no right to due process of law, assigning "unique" powers to the executive in national security, and none to Congress, contrary to the constitution. The extremity of advocating legalisms for the suspension of rights and torture is not unrelated to a broader extremism.

The spirit animating the Bush administration and the conservatives on the court is the illusion of omnipotence. It is the opposite of that of Justice John Paul Stevens (a Republican appointed by President Ford, who has recently expressed his pride in doing so). In his dissent last year in Rumsfeld v Padilla, Stevens argued that an American citizen could not be detained without due process. "Even more important than the method of selecting the people`s rulers and their successors," he wrote, "is the character of the constraints imposed on the executive by the rule of law."

· Sidney Blumenthal, a former senior adviser to President Clinton, is author of The Clinton Wars

[e-mail]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Hier noch ein Beispiel, dass der Spiegel auch zu etwas anderem fähig ist als die krampfhaft auf Ironie getrimmten Ergüße von Broder zu PSL und Absinth.
Für mich bleibt bei der Broder Kolumne über Peter Scholl-Latour die Frage offen, ob er das Buch überhaupt gelesen hat.

SPIEGEL ONLINE - 06. Juli 2005, 21:28
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/0,1518,364046,00.html

Olympia-Glosse

Schnaps für den Trinker
Von Matthias Matussek, London
http://www.spiegel.de/sport/sonst/0,1518,364046,00.html

Die Vergabe der olympischen Spiele nach London ist eine Katastrophe, die den Weltfrieden bedrohen kann. Jeder, der in Zukunft eine Entscheidung gegen London treffen wird, muss mit einer Nation rechnen, die das Verlieren endgültig verlernt hat.

Ein Brite feiert Olympia-Entscheidung: Das falsche Signal
Man darf schon jetzt davon ausgehen, dass eine zweifelhafte Entscheidung gegen das britische Basketballteam zu Massenverhaftungen führen wird. Verlieren, das ist nicht mehr drin auf der Insel. Schon lange nicht.

Vor gerade mal zwei Wochen feierten die Briten den Sieg über die Franzosen, vor einer winkenden Queen, mit 150 Schiffen bei Trafalgar. Nachts projizieren sie derzeit Bilder von Churchill und der königlichen Familie und den siegreichen RAF-Bombern auf die Fassade des Buckingham Palace, um den Sieg im Zweiten Weltkrieg zu begehen. Restaurants? 15 der 50 besten auf der Welt sind britisch. Fußball? Liverpool holte gerade den Champions-League-Pott auf die Insel. Charity? Am Wochenende besiegte Bob Geldof mit Pink Floyd im Hyde Park die Armut auf der Welt. Ich war dabei, ich kann es bestätigen, wohin man auch schaute, nirgends Armut. Es gelingt ihnen alles.

Was hindert die Briten jetzt eigentlich daran, Schleswig-Holstein anzugreifen? Nicht, dass es schade wäre um Schleswig-Holstein, aber hier geht es ums Prinzip.

Diese Olympia-Vergabe ist das falsche Signal. Sie ist die zusätzliche Pulle Schnaps für den Trinker, der eigentlich trockengelegt werden sollte. Sie peitscht die Nerven einer selbstverzückten Nation, statt sie in begütigenden therapeutischen Gesprächen zu beruhigen. Alle anderen wären dran gewesen. Selbst Leipzig. Denn alle anderen sind seit Jahren nur Verlierer. Und jetzt geht die Sause wieder an den, der die reichsten Eltern hat und den keiner leiden kann. Wieder an den, der bereits alles hat: Wirtschaftswachstum, Pink Floyd, Rachel Weisz.

Es dürfte auch dem letzten klar sein, dass diese kleine Insel in der Nordsee, von der man vor knapp 30 Jahren annehmen durfte, dass sie an einen Schrott-Händler aus New Jersey verkauft werden würde, denkt, sie sei wieder das Empire und Nabel der Welt.

Das tut sie ständig und tut sie schrill.

Großbritannien ist das Land der neureichen Slobs. Es ist laut, fährt dicke Autos und trinkt zuviel. Es ist das Land, das die meisten Pillen schluckt. Rosa Trainingsanzüge werden hier für Mode gehalten. Doch die Zeitungsartikel schwärmen von der Mode-Hauptstadt der Welt.

Olympia? Dabei sein ist alles? Lachhaft. Das Mantra dieser neureichen Brutalo-Gesellschaft könnte unolympischer nicht sein: Nur der Reichste, der Größte, der Rücksichtsloseste zählt. Eventuell noch der mit dem Adelstitel. London ist ein einziger Verstoß gegen die olympische Idee. Die Engländer mögen niemanden. Sie mögen noch nicht mal sich selber. Um das zu kompensieren, müssen sie sich dauernd anhören, wie gut und weltoffen sie sind. Und jetzt haben sie es noch einmal in Singapur gehört. Im Sport wird so was Eigendoping genannt. Auch das ein Verstoß gegen die olympische Idee.

Sie glauben an ihre eigenen Lügen. Beispiele dieser Verzerrungen in der Selbstwahrnehmung? Die Sache mit den Restaurants ist das wohl lachhafteste. Jeder weiß, dass Engländer an grauenhaft zerkochte Eintöpfe gewöhnt sind. Nun tauchte diese ominöse Welt-Besten-Liste auf, mit der sich die Insel wochenlang in ihren Leitartikeln selber feierten: "Wir sind endlich Kulturnation wie die Franzosen" Die triste Wahrheit: Die Liste war nicht etwa das Ergebnis eines Fachgremiums, sondern wurde von zwei gelangweilten Guardian-Redakteuren in einer Fish-and-Chips-Bude zusammengestellt und von ernsthaften Restaurant-Kritikern vom Kontinent kurz darauf in der Luft zerfetzt.

Lauter Wahrnehmungsfehler. Und Glück. Und Chuzpe. Beispiel Fußball: Jeder hat gesehen, dass AC Mailand spielerisch besser war als Liverpool. Und darüber hinaus sahen die Spieler Mailands besser aus, und das gleiche galt für ihre Frauen. Aber wer gewann? Eben. Beispiel Saddam Hussein: Natürlich gab es nie die Bedrohung durch Massenvernichtungswaffen. Es gab nur den Wunsch Tony Blairs, die Welt zu retten. Jeder auf der Insel weiß, dass sich Blair nachmittags, wenn Cherie arbeiten ist, vor dem Spiegel als Supermann verkleidet und dann heimlich mit Georg Bush telefoniert und über Krypton-Waffen fachsimpelt.

Nein, die traurige Wahrheit dieser olympischen Entscheidung ist, dass niemand in Singapur an ihr interessiert war. Alle glaubten Blairs Augenaufschlägen und Beteuerungen, dass es "große Spiele" werden würden, "diesmal wirklich, kein Scheiß, und vielleicht finden wir auch Massenvernichtungswaffen".

Dabei weiß jeder, der schon mal in London war, dass diese Spiele nur scheitern können. Wie sollen die Sportler pünktlich sein bei U-Bahnen, die ständig in Tunneln steckenbleiben? Wie sollen sie ihr inneres Gleichgewicht finden, wenn sie umgeben sind von gepiercten übergewichtigen betrunkenen Teenagern, die String-Tangas über ihren Beckenfettwülsten tragen, und von ihren Freunden, die sich mit ihren Fotohandys filmen, während sie jemanden vermöbeln?

Wo sollen die Athleten und ihre Betreuer und ihre Familien wohnen, wenn die Londoner Übernachtungs- und Restaurantpreise sämtliche Entschuldungsprogramme der armen Drittwelt-Länder zur Makulatur werden lassen? Wie sollen sie mit der abgrundtiefen Gemeinheit und Gehässigkeit des englischen Publikums und seiner Presse umgehen, für die Siegesfeiern nur dann schön sind, wenn der Unterlegene auch wirklich gedemütigt und in den Dreck getreten wurde?

Fair play? Darüber hat man sich schon im letzten Jahrhundert schief gelacht, wenn der Treter Nobby Stiles dem deutschen Helden Karl-Heinz Schnellinger unter dem Johlen der Ränge die Beine weggesichelt hat. Nun also veranstalten die von sich selbst betrunkenen Engländer die olympischen Spiele. Das ist so gespenstisch wie ein englischer Premier, der behauptet, er wolle Europa retten.

Armes Schleswig-Holstein.

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Nach dem Ausflug in die British Hype, wieder zurück zur USA.

DIE ZEIT

28/2005

Amerika zerstört seine Selbstachtung

Die Lager in Guantánamo haben die Vereinigten Staaten weltweit in Verruf gebracht. Zu Recht
Von Ronald Dworkin
http://www.zeit.de/2005/28/Guantanamo

Die Art und Weise, wie das amerikanische Militär seine Gefangenen in Guantánamo Bay und anderen Lagern behandelt und verhört, ist weltweit Gegenstand heftiger Kritik. Glaubt man einigen Journalisten, dann waren die Folterungen im Bagdader Gefängnis Abu Ghraib keine Einzelfälle, wie die Regierung Bush behauptet, sondern Ausdruck systematischer Übergriffe. Wenn das stimmt, dann haben sich die Vereinigten Staaten schockierender Menschenrechtsverletzungen schuldig gemacht. Unstrittig ist indes, dass Amerika Hunderte von Menschen in Guantánamo und anderswo gefangen hält, ohne sie eines Verbrechens anzuklagen oder ihnen den Prozess zu machen. Doch verletzt diese Praxis bereits die Menschenrechte?Grundausstattung einer Hochsicherheitszelle in Guantanamo© Richard Ross/AP BILD

Meine Frage zielt nicht darauf, ob die US-Regierung gegen die Menschenrechtskonventionen verstößt. Das ist eine juristische Frage, in der die Völkerrechtler uneins sind. Mir geht es vielmehr um eine moralische Frage: Verletzt die unbegrenzte Haft ohne Gerichtsverfahren jene grundlegenden moralischen Rechte, um deren Kodifizierung sich die Menschenrechtskonventionen bemühen?

Das grundlegendste Menschenrecht, dem alle anderen entspringen, ist das Recht eines jeden Menschen, von den jeweiligen Machthabern mit einer Haltung behandelt zu werden, die von Achtung zeugt und von der Überzeugung getragen ist, dass jedes menschliche Leben an sich und objektiv wertvoll ist. Was daraus im konkreten Einzelfall folgt, darüber sind viele Regierungen natürlich unterschiedlicher Meinung. Sie haben entsprechend unterschiedliche Auffassungen darüber, welche Rechte den Menschen zukommen. Doch Folter und Völkermord sind evidente Belege dafür, dass eine Regierung nicht einmal den Versuch unternommen hat, Menschen mit Achtung zu behandeln. Sie verletzen die Menschenrechte.

Nationen haben sehr unterschiedliche Vorstellungen davon, wie sie Gefangene behandeln müssen, um den Anspruch auf grundlegende Achtung und Respekt zu erfüllen. Sobald aber eine Nation in dieser Frage einmal Position bezogen hat – durch die Art und Weise, wie sie ihre eigenen Bürger behandelt, die eines gewöhnlichen Verbrechens angeklagt sind – , versagt sie, wenn sie Ausländern nicht mit derselben Achtung begegnet. Die US-Verfassung verbietet die Vorbeugehaft. Sie verbietet es, Bürger ohne Gerichtsverfahren einzusperren, selbst wenn diese eines Mordes oder eines anderen schrecklichen Verbrechens verdächtigt werden.

Zweifellos beeinträchtigt dieses Prinzip in einem gewissen Maß die Sicherheit amerikanischer Bürger. Sie wären bestimmt sicherer, wenn ihre Gesetze es erlaubten, all jene unbegrenzt einzusperren, die die Polizei für gefährlich hält, mangels Beweisen aber keines Verbrechens überführen kann. Doch die amerikanische Nation hat sich nun einmal dazu entschlossen, das Risiko einzugehen, denn andernfalls würde sie Menschen grundlegende Rechte vorenthalten. Mit diesem Prinzip bringt Amerika zum Ausdruck, worin die Achtung gegenüber Menschen konkret besteht. Übertragen auf Guantánamo heißt das: Amerika verletzt sehr wohl die Menschenrechte, wenn es Ausländer für unbestimmte Zeit in Internierungslagern festhält. Es behandelt sie nicht wie Menschen, deren Schicksal ebenso wichtig ist wie das eines jeden anderen.

Nun behauptet die Regierung Bush, die Staatsangehörigkeit mache einen wichtigen Unterschied aus. Um die Würde ausländischer Staatsbürger zu wahren, müssten wir die polizeiliche und militärische Macht weniger einschränken als bei amerikanischen Bürgern. Robert Jackson, ein herausragender Richter am Obersten Gerichtshof und Ankläger bei den Nürnberger Prozessen, hielt die Annahme für albern, feindliche Staatsangehörige besäßen denselben rechtsstaatlichen Anspruch auf ein ordentliches Gerichtsverfahren wie amerikanische Staatsbürger. Aber Jackson hat Unrecht. Menschenrechte gelten für alle Menschen, nicht nur für die eigenen Bürger.

Es stimmt zwar, dass ein Staat nicht jedermann so behandeln muss wie seine eigenen Bürger. Aber dieses Vorrecht ist kein Freibrief. Natürlich kann man sich an der Regierung des Landes nur beteiligen, wenn man Staatsbürger ist und somit wählen oder ein Amt bekleiden kann; andernfalls wäre die Unterscheidung zwischen Staatsangehörigen und Ausländern witzlos. Darüber hinaus hat eine Regierung noch andere Verpflichtungen gegenüber ihren Bürgern, zum Beispiel in der Wirtschaftspolitik. Sie mag darauf ausgerichtet sein, zunächst ihren Bürgern Vorteile zu verschaffen. Auch soziale Leistungen wird sie ihren Bürgern gewähren und Menschen aus anderen Ländern vorenthalten. Bei dieser Bevorzugung geht es aber nicht darum, anderen willentlich Schaden zuzufügen. Eine Regierung darf das Leben von Ausländern nicht durch eine Internierungspraxis beeinträchtigen, von der sie zugibt, dass sie die grundlegenden Rechte ihrer eigenen Bürger verletzen würde. Damit weigert sie sich, Menschen so zu behandeln, wie sie ihrer eigenen offiziellen Position nach behandelt werden müssen.

Die US-Regierung verteidigt ihre Internierungspolitik noch mit einem weiteren Argument. Das gewöhnliche amerikanische Strafrecht sei für friedliche Zeiten entwickelt worden, und selbst Menschenrechte könnten nicht absolut gelten. Die neue terroristische Bedrohung hingegen verlange ein neues »Gleichgewicht zwischen Menschenrechten und Sicherheit« – ein fürchterliche Redewendung, die sich leider größter Beliebtheit erfreut. Das Gedankenspiel, mit dem die Bush-Regierung zeigt, dass kein Recht absolut ist, geht so: Angenommen, wir fangen einen Terroristen, von dem wir wissen, dass er in Manhattan eine Atombombe deponiert hat, die in Kürze explodieren wird. Es wäre absurd, den Mann nicht zu foltern, wenn wir dadurch das Versteck der Bombe rechtzeitig finden können.

Nehmen wir einmal an, es sei moralisch zulässig, bei einem so schweren Notstand die Menschenrechte zu verletzen. Wir stehen dann vor der Frage, wie gravierend dieser Notstand sein muss. Denn wir fügen uns selbst, nicht nur unserem Opfer, Schaden zu, wenn wir über seine Menschenwürde hinweggehen. Und zwar schaden wir uns auf eine besonders schwerwiegende Weise: Wir setzen unseren eigenen Wert herab und kompromittieren unsere Würde und Selbstachtung. Also muss die Schwelle des Notstands sehr hoch angesetzt werden. Wir müssen sorgfältig darauf achten, einen Notstand nicht nur als Gefahr zu definieren; wir müssen uns vor dem Glauben hüten, dass alles, was unsere Gefährdung angeblich mindert, gerechtfertigt ist.

Stattdessen müssen wir an einer anderen Tugend festhalten: an der Tugend des Mutes. Wenn wir angesichts einer Gefahr unsere Selbstachtung opfern, dann handeln wir feige. In unserer Strafrechtsgesetzgebung und -praxis beweisen wir Amerikaner Mut: Wir lehnen die Vorbeugehaft ab und bestehen auf einem fairen Gerichtsverfahren für jeden, der eines Verbrechens angeklagt ist. Dadurch nehmen wir statistisch gesehen eine größere Gefährdung durch Gewaltverbrechen hin. Wir sollten denselben Mut an den Tag legen, wenn die Gefahr aus dem Ausland kommt. Unsere Würde steht nämlich dabei in derselben Weise auf dem Spiel.

Kommen wir noch einmal auf das Beispiel der in Manhattan versteckten Atombombe zurück. Es droht eine Katastrophe entsetzlichen Ausmaßes; wir wissen, dass unser Gefangener für die Bedrohung verantwortlich ist, und wir nehmen an, dass er unter Folter das Versteck preisgibt. Nichts von alldem trifft auf die Gefangenen zu, die wir ohne Anklage in Guantánamo festhalten. Natürlich besteht die Gefahr eines weiteren verheerenden Terrorangriffs. Aber wir haben bislang nicht den geringsten Grund zu glauben, dass es unweigerlich zu einem solchen Angriff kommen wird. Wir haben keinen Grund zu glauben, dass unsere Menschenrechtsverletzungen diesen Angriff ausschließen oder ihn unwahrscheinlicher machen.

Wahllos haben wir Gefangene gemacht und Menschen festgesetzt, die wir nicht hätten festsetzen dürfen. Jeder, den wir für potenziell gefährlich hielten oder in dem wir einen möglichen Informationsträger sahen, geriet in unser Netz. Unter diplomatischem und gerichtlichem Druck haben wir bereits zahlreiche Menschen nach monatelanger Gefangenschaft freigelassen und in jedem Einzelfall behauptet, über die Gewissheit zu verfügen, eine weitere Festsetzung sei unnötig. Natürlich weiß die Öffentlichkeit nicht, was die Befragungen ergeben haben. Doch war die Kritik an unserer Vorgehensweise so groß, dass die Regierung gewiss genauere Angaben zum Wert ihrer Erkenntnisse gemacht hätte – falls sie dazu in der Lage gewesen wäre.

Die Gefahr, die uns heute droht, ist eine ganz andere: Es ist der Glaube, dass alles, was die amerikanische Sicherheitslage nur geringfügig verbessert, gerechtfertigt ist. Die Vorsicht wird zum einzigen Wert, den wir anerkennen; Mut und Würde werden dem Vorurteil geopfert, unsere Sicherheit sei das Einzige, was zählt. Die Terrorismusgefahr ist insgesamt nicht eindeutig größer als die Gefährdung durch Drogen, Serienmorde und andere Verbrechen, mit denen zu leben wir gelernt haben. Noch größer allerdings ist die Gefahr, in welche unsere Würde durch unser eigenes Handeln gerät. Die Rede vom »neuen Gleichgewicht zwischen Sicherheit und Rechten« führt wahrlich in die Irre: Sie wägt unsere Sicherheit nicht gegen unsere eigenen Rechte ab, sondern gegen die Rechte anderer Menschen. Viel wichtiger wäre es, wir würden unsere Sicherheit gegen unsere Ehre abwägen.

Ronald Dworkin ist einer der prominentesten Rechtsphilosophen der Vereinigten Staaten und lehrt an der New York University

Aus dem Englischen von Michael Adrian

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Explosionen in London

Blair spricht von Terroranschlägen

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Die Terrororganisation al Kaida hat sich zu den Anschlägen von London bekannt. Eine Gruppe namens "Geheimorganisation - al Kaida in Europa" hat nach Informationen von Spiegel Online auf einer von Islamisten frequentierten Internetseite ein Bekennerschreiben veröffentlicht.

Bis jetzt ist es alles noch etwas dürftig, was man weiß und Bekennerschreiben gibt es bei solchen Vorfällen zu Hauf.

Ich werde abwarten, ob es wirklich ein Anschlag war.
Der Trend alles zu übertreiben ist zur Zeit auch bei den seriöseren Medien allgemein üblich.

Der Terrorismus-Experte Rolf Tophoven sieht in den Explosionen in der Londoner Innenstadt mögliche Hinweise auf einen Anschlag einer islamistischen Gruppierung. Die Gleichzeitigkeit und die Auswahl von Verkehrsmitteln wie U-Bahnen und Bussen als Ziel würden für das Terrornetzwerk al Kaida oder eine ähnliche Gruppe sprechen, sagte Tophoven am Donnerstag der Nachrichtenagentur AP.



"Bei mehreren Explosionen an mehreren Orten in einer Stadt ist von einem Anschlag auszugehen", sagte Tophoven. Eine endgültige Einschätzung, ob die Explosionen absichtlich herbeigeführt wurden und es sich um einen Anschlag handelt, könne aber zunächst nicht getroffen werden.

http://www.stern.de/politik/panorama/:Explosionen-U-Bahn-Net…

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Man darf nicht vergessen, was heute in London passiert ist, passiert im Irak jeden Tag seit fast 2 1/2 Jahren.

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Latest Coalition Fatality: Jul 05, 2005

Military Fatalities US, UK, Other: : Total: 1941 , US: 1751 , Jul.05: 6


Iraker: Civilian: 58 Police/Mil: 48 Total: 106

http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Regelmäßige Updates von Meldungen aus dem Irak:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Article Last Updated: 7/02/2005 07:43 PM
colorado voices
Another liberal column. Right?
George McClure
Fort Collins
DenverPost.com
http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_2833971

The mainstream media in this country are dominated by liberals.

I was informed of this fact by Rush Limbaugh. And Thomas Sowell. And Ann Coulter. And Rich Lowry. And Bill O`Reilly. And William Safire. And Robert Novak. And William F. Buckley, Jr. And George Will.

And John Gibson. And Michelle Malkin. And David Brooks. And Tony Snow. And Tony Blankely. And Fred Barnes. And Britt Hume. And Larry Kudlow. And Sean Hannity. And David Horowitz. And William Kristol. And Hugh Hewitt.

And Oliver North. And Joe Scarborough. And Pat Buchanan. And John McLaughlin. And Cal Thomas. And Joe Klein. And James Kilpatrick. And Tucker Carlson. And Deroy Murdock. And Michael Savage. And Charles Krauthammer. And Stephen Moore. And Alan Keyes.

And Gary Bauer. And Mort Kondracke. And Andrew Sullivan. And Nicholas von Hoffman. And Neil Cavuto. And Matt Drudge. And Mike Rosen. And Dave Kopel. And John Caldara.

The mainstream media in this country are dominated by liberals. For instance, did you know there is an ultra-leftist professor at the University of Colorado named Ward Churchill who wrote an essay three years ago in which he called victims of Sept. 11 "little Eichmanns"? Bet you never heard of him, as the liberal media elite likes to put the kibosh on embarrassing stories like this.

The mainstream media in this country are dominated by liberals. Look at how they all gave Bill Clinton a pass on the whole Monica Lewsinsky affair. Remember? It was never in the news. We never heard any of the salacious details. The work of his presidency never came to a virtual halt while he defended himself.

The mainstream media in this country are dominated by liberals. They have so poisoned the electorate that no Republicans can get elected. Republicans don`t control the presidency. Republicans don`t control both houses of Congress. Republicans don`t control 28 of 50 governorships.

Last year, a lot was made of a report released by The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The report found that 34 percent of national journalists identified themselves as liberal, 54 percent identified themselves as moderate and 7 percent identified themselves as conservative. Twenty-three percent of local journalists identified themselves as liberal, 61 percent identified themselves as moderate and 12 percent identified themselves as conservative.

These figures can be interpreted in a number of ways. First of all, if you actually read the whole report, you`d come across commentary that specifically warned against drawing any easy, across-the-board conclusions: "We would be reluctant to infer too much here. The survey includes just four questions probing journalists` political attitudes, yet the answers to these questions suggest journalists have in mind something other than a classic big government liberalism and something more along the lines of libertarianism."

But pretend you`re doing a story on the Pew report, and the nuanced comments above are not sufficiently dramatic for your medium. You need to reduce things into some digestible sound bites. If you wanted to sound the alarm bells on the right, you could say that national journalists were nearly five times as likely to identify themselves as liberal than as conservative. This would be literally true but perhaps a little misleading, as the same poll results tell us that 61 percent of national journalists identified themselves as moderate or conservative.

If you`re John Gibson of Fox News, you just make up your own statistics and claim that "80-some percent of reporters are self-described liberals." If you`re Rush Limbaugh, you offer up the same lie a day later and specifically cite the poll that proves you wrong: "most of them (journalists) are liberals. Eighty percent of them will admit it in the latest press poll ... ."

Just for the sake of argument, let`s assume that the media in America really are predominantly recalcitrant leftists. Say you`re a conservative media mogul named Rupert and you have the wherewithal to do something about it. Here are three paths you might take:

1. You could announce your belief that the reporting of news is always subjective and therefore biased, so you are going to start a news network that comes at things from your own perspective in order to balance out what you perceive to be the bias of the left.

2. You could set up your own news network that actually is fair and balanced.

3. You could set up your own news network that`s consistently and demonstrably partisan, but call yourself fair and balanced.

Guess which one he chose.

This just in at Fox News ... the mainstream media in this country are dominated by liberals.

George McClure is a former stand-up comic who now works as general manager of a Denver marketing firm.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Herzlichen Glückwunsch!

[Joerver]

Jul 8, 2005

THE COMING TRADE WAR, Part 3
Trade in the age of overcapacity
By Henry C K Liu
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GG08Dj01.html

(For other parts in the series, [urlclick here]http://atimes.com/atimes/others/trade-war.html[/url])

Neo-liberals have created a false dichotomy between so-called command economies and market economies. The spurious distinction is propagated by ideologue free-traders in order to give market fundamentalism an aura of truth beyond reality.
[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
Market fundamentalism is the belief that the optimum common interest is only achievable through a market equilibrium created by the effect of countless individual decisions of all market participants each seeking to maximize his own private gain, and that such market equilibrium should not be distorted by any collective measures in the name of the common good. It is summed up by Margaret Thatcher`s infamous declaration that there is no such thing as society.

The fact is that in a world of sovereign states, all economies are command economies. The United States, the mecca of market fundamentalism, commands its alleged market economy in the name of national security. While the US tirelessly advocates free trade, foreign trade is a declared instrument of US foreign policy. President George W Bush declares that "open trade is a moral imperative" to spread democracy around the world. The White House Council of Economic Advisers is organizationally subservient to the National Security Council. National-security concerns dictate trade policies the US adopts for its economic relations with different foreign countries. World trade today is free only to the extent of being free to support US unilateralism. For the US imperium, the line between foreign policy and domestic policy is disappearing to make room for global policy. The sole superpower views the world as its oyster, and global trade is to replace foreign trade in a global economy the rules for which are set by a World Trade Organization dominated by the sole superpower.

Free trade and national security
US trade policy with regard to China, the world`s fastest-growing and most populous economy, is a case in point.

The US is undecided on whether China is a strategic partner or a strategic competitor, or a potential foe. National-security concerns envelop the current controversy over the bid from a Chinese 70% state-owned enterprise, China National Offshore Oil Corp (CNOOC), to acquire Unocal, a US-based independent oil company, even though 70% of Unocal assets and operations are located in Asia. The proposed deal is subject to review and approval by the secretive Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), a federal multi-agency group chaired by the treasury secretary that rules on foreign investment on national-security grounds. In 1988, Congress enacted the Exon-Florio legislation authorizing the president of the United States to suspend or prohibit foreign acquisitions, mergers or takeovers of US companies when there is credible evidence that a foreign controlling interest might threaten national security and when other legislation cannot provide adequate protection. The president of the day, Ronald Reagan, delegated authority to review foreign investment transactions to an interagency group, the CFIUS.

Some members of Congress have publicly served notice to the White House that they expect the proposed deal by CNOOC to be dealt with as one with serious geopolitical dimensions that directly impact US national security. The CNOOC/Unocal deal is precedent-setting because it moves the CFIUS beyond its normal high-tech concerns into strategic commodities. It is also a signal of a trend of more to come.

In 1989, president George H W Bush ordered China National Aero-Technology Import and Export Corp, a People`s Republic of China aerospace company, to divest from MAMCO, which involved a US aircraft-parts manufacturer. This was the only case blocked out of 1,500 CFIUS notifications in 15 years.

In 2003, a negative review by the CFIUS caused Hong Kong-based Hutchison-Whampoa Ltd (HWL), a publicly traded multinational corporation, to withdraw from a joint bid in partnership with Singapore Technologies Telemedia Ltd (STT) for Global Crossing (GC), a distressed telecom carrier in bankruptcy, leaving STT as the sole acquirer of GC. STT was allowed to acquire GC because Singapore is considered an ally of the US.

Richard Perle, assistant secretary of defense for international security policy under Reagan, and later one of the key architects of the "war on terrorism" and the Iraq war, had to resign from the chair of the US Defense Policy Board after it became known that he was lobbying on behalf of GC. Perle was reported to be helping to make it possible for HWL to overcome US national-security concerns in order to buy the bankrupt GC. The Federal Bureau of Investigation found at the time that selling GC to HWL would give it control of the world`s largest fiber-optic network, and allow it to oversee existing contracts for secure Pentagon communications. Perle was to receive a total payment of US$725,000 for his advisory work, $650,000 of which would be contingent on the sale going through. The neo-conservatives in the current US administration, while aggressively militant toward China on security issues, are solidly in bed with the neo-liberals in the US business community with regard to trade with China.

According to New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, Perle might have had a conflict of interest in that he was chairman of the Pentagon`s Defense Advisory Board. Perle defended himself: "Maureen Dowd`s view of this is very misleading. Ms Dowd`s recent editorial suggested that I was retained to `help overcome Pentagon resistance` to the proposed sale of Global Crossing to Hutchison Whampoa. That is not why I was retained." Perle asserted: "I have not been retained by Hutchison Whampoa, nor have I been retained by Global Crossing to represent them in any way with the US government. I have been retained by Global Crossing to help them put together a security arrangement that is acceptable to the US government." In March 2003, an expose in The New Yorker by Seymour Hersh reported that Perle had improperly represented Saudi interests. Perle, in turn, vowed to sue Hersh and The New Yorker for libel. The suit was never filed.

In an effort to address national-security concerns, the prospective purchasers offered to place GC`s US assets within a "secure" domestic subsidiary staffed by US persons. When that proposal did not persuade CFIUS, the parties withdrew their application and re-filed after formulating a new plan whereby HWL`s ownership interest in GC would be held in trust by a proxy group of four distinguished US citizens who would exercise HWL`s voting and corporation governance rights. This arrangement would reduce HWL to a mere passive investor in GC, an option that caused many foreign investors in previous deals to abandon their proposed acquisitions. Usually, such concessions have been sufficient to garner CFIUS approval. However, CFIUS decided to conduct a full 45-day investigation of the GC transaction, which implies that CFIUS was not satisfied with the latest arrangements. After this announcement, HWL dropped its bid, leaving STT to proceed alone.

HWL, a venerable century-old China trade firm dating back to the British Empire, is now controlled by Hong Kong tycoon Li Ka-shing, who has just donated $40 million to the University of California at Berkeley. HWL is a leading international corporation with businesses spanning the globe. Its diverse array of holdings ranges from some of the world`s biggest retailers to property development and infrastructure to the most technologically advanced and market-savvy telecommunications operators. HWL reported consolidated revenue of $23 billion for 2004. With operations in 52 countries and about 200,000 employees worldwide, Hutchison has five core businesses: ports and related services, telecommunications, property hotels, retail and manufacturing, and energy and infrastructure.

In 1991, HWL acquired the United Kingdom`s busiest port, the Port of Felixstowe, without political opposition. Reflecting its global expansion and internationalization, Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) was formally set up in 1994 to hold and manage HWL`s ports and related services worldwide. Since 1994, HPH has expanded globally to strategic locations in 19 countries throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe and the Americas. Today, HPH operates a total of 219 berths in 39 ports along with a number of transportation-related service companies. In 2004, HPH handled 47.8 million TEUs (twenty-foot-equivalent-unit containers).

HWL is a leading global telecommunications and data-services provider operating with a high growth strategy in 17 countries and territories. Hutchison Telecommunications International Ltd (Hutchison Telecom) has been listed on the Hong Kong and New York stock exchanges since last October, but not on any Chinese exchanges. Hutchison Telecom has a significant presence, and in many cases is a market leader, in developed or rapidly growing markets in eight countries and territories, operating mobile networks in Hong Kong and Macau, Ghana, India, Israel, Paraguay, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Vietnam. HWL sold 1 billion euros ($1.19 billion) in 10-year bonds on June 22, making it the largest euro-denominated bond from Asia this year.

When the United States gave Panama full control of the canal on December 31, 1999, critics raised concerns about foreign influence and control over the canal`s operation, particularly during an international crisis. Republican Congressman John Mica gave a speech on April 27, 1999, titled: "China`s Interest in the Panama Canal" in which he asserted: "Hutchison has worked closely with the China Ocean Shipping Co, COSCO ... [which] you may remember is the PLA, and the PLA is the Chinese army, PLA-controlled company that almost succeeded in gaining control of the abandoned naval station in Long Beach, California." The offer by HWL and COSCO to purchase the decommissioned military port of Long Beach failed after the US Department of Defense raised national-security concerns over the proposed sale.

A June 1997 Rand report, "Chinese Military Commerce and US National Security", stated: "Hutchison Whampoa of Hong Kong, controlled by Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing, is also negotiating for PLA wireless-system contracts, which would build upon his equity interest in PLA arms company Poly Tech-owned Yangpu Land Development Co, which is building infrastructure on China`s Hainan Island."

Prompting the national-security concern was the alleged potential strategic reach of the Chinese military through the financial interests of Li Ka-shing, whose fortune and power were inaccurately linked by misinformed US politicians to the Chinese government. Panama Ports Co, a subsidiary of Hutchison Port Holdings of HWL, began a 25-year lease (with a 25-year renewal option) in 1999 to operate port facilities at Balboa (the Pacific end of the canal) and Cristobal (the Atlantic end). This arrangement produces more efficient handling of shipping that benefits all shipping nations, including China, which is the third-largest user of the canal and sells more than $1 billion in goods a year through the Colon Free Zone.

A headline in the Miami Herald on August 25, 1999 read: "Canal deal gives strategic edge to China, critics charge China-Panama Canal deal draws scrutiny". According to the Herald, "Li and his business empire are linked to several companies known as fronts for Chinese military and intelligence agencies. One of the companies has been indicted for smuggling automatic weapons into the United States ... Li has also been accused of helping to finance several deals in which military technology was transferred from American companies to the Chinese army."

All these accusations were subsequently proved baseless by official US investigations. Anyone with knowledge about the history of the business world in Hong Kong knows that Li was a favorite son of British colonialism long before his cozying up to China. Li got his start in business exporting plastic flowers from Hong Kong to the United States in the 1950s and later became a real-estate tycoon in Hong Kong with the help of the British-owned Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank (HSBC), which saw Li as a promising leader of a new generation of the comprador class the British were looking to nurture in postwar colonial Hong Kong. Li`s friendly overture to China was embarrassingly belated and undeniably opportunistic, and his sympathy for communism totally non-existent even today. Following the mode of many other successful international businessmen, Li has donated more than $100 million to medical research institutions in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom.

In October 1999, the Bill Clinton White House publicly denied that Li Ka-shing was "working for the communists in Beijing". The White house press secretary labeled such accusations "silly" and dismissed them as "the kind of thing you see around here from time to time". Most US corporations active in China are working hard to develop the same degree of cooperative relationship with the Chinese government and its state-owned enterprises. This includes IBM, General Electric, General Motors, Microsoft, United Technology, Boeing and many other big-name defense and space contractors. Nevertheless, the propaganda effect on a US public long conditioned to view China with hostility has lingered.

Taiwan also has a container-handling operation at Coca Solo, at the Caribbean end of the Panama Canal, and the Evergreen Group of Taiwan, which runs it, also has construction, port and hotel projects there. Ten Taiwanese companies are installed in the Fort Davis industrial park, and the Taiwanese construction company King Hsin submitted a bid to build a second bridge over the canal, at a cost of $270 million. But the US is not concerned with Taiwan because it is a virtual US protectorate.

In reality, HWL investment in the canal is reflective of its attraction to commercial opportunities in Panama, rather than a threat from China to control the operations of the waterway. Besides, the constitution of Panama reserves direct authority and control over the canal. Chinese officials dismissed the idea that China is attempting to influence or take over the Panama Canal as "sheer fabrication with ulterior motives". Chinese residents in Panama are descendants of immigrants who originally formed the main source of forced labor on the trans-isthmian railroad. They now represent between 4% and 8% of the local population, depending on the definition of ethnicity, as much integration has occurred through inter-ethnic marriages. This is about the same number of citizens as Panama`s indigenous peoples of the Kuna, Guaymie and Chocoe tribes. There are more US citizens living and working in China than there are Chinese citizens in Panama. With a history of being a main target of US embargo for more than three decades, China`s interest in Latin America is unrestricted access to trade and natural resources for all countries. From a Panamanian point of view, intervention by the United States is a more credible threat than a Chinese takeover.

No free trade for oil
While the current rise in oil prices reflects systemic dynamics in oil economics (see The real problem of $50 oil, May 26), many in US political circles find it convenient to blame it on a single component of increased demand by China and India. On April 26, President George W Bush, meeting at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, told the press that "the price of crude is up because not only is our economy growing, but economies such as India and China`s economies are growing as well", notwithstanding that the announced purpose of the US-Saudi summit was to get Saudi Arabia to increase production, the shortfall of which was driving oil prices up.

The vice chairman of Chevron, the rival bidder for Unocal, publicly suggested that "this is sort of geopolitics we are playing here, not commercial business". He explained that Chevron would put oil on the market for sale to the highest bidder whereas Chinese-owned CNOOC would use the oil it produces for domestic consumption that would yield "less oil on the world market, which meant higher prices for US consumers". Yet CNOOC`s interest in Unocal is mainly in its natural-gas reserves in Asia, which pose no national-security threat to the United States. The North American gas supply, counting both the US and Canada, faces no shortage. Both the US and China are rich in coal, which generates more than half of the electricity in both economies. In a public statement, Fu Chengyu, chairman and chief executive officer of CNOOC, reaffirmed that substantially all of the oil and gas produced by Unocal in the US will continue to be sold in the US, and the development of properties in the Gulf of Mexico will provide further supplies of oil and gas for US markets. Fu also repeated the commitment on behalf of CNOOC to retain the jobs of substantially all Unocal employees, as opposed to Chevron`s plan to lay off redundant employees after the merger, especially in the United States. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a director of Chevron for a decade before joining the Bush team, and even had a Chevron tanker named for her.

It`s a toss-up how the CFI will eventually rule, assuming CNOOC can put together the winning financials to request a CFI ruling. There are reservations in China that CNOOC may be forced to pay too much for a company that is worth less than $1 billion even at high current energy prices. But the CNOOC/Unocal deal is an early signal of a rising trend, which has already ignited a visible split between anti-China forces in some factions in the US political establishment and the pro-trade forces in the US business community that view China as a great market the US cannot afford to pass up. To China, a negative ruling will look as if the US will welcome China to buy as much oil as it needs at market prices, but will not welcome it to own any oil resources even if such resources are not critical to US national security. Yet the history of the US using the supply of oil as a geopolitical weapon is long and obvious. Further, even on a commercial basis, the US for decades has restricted the export of domestic oil to keep domestic prices lower than world prices. Now it is trying to prevent China from doing the same.

In the two decades since China began to integrate its economy into the global economy, China has received far more foreign direct investment (FDI) than it has made overseas. In 2004, China received $61 billion of FDI, while Chinese companies invested only $3.6 billion overseas, even when China has become the world`s second-largest creditor nation, with foreign-exchange reserves of more than $660 billion by the end of March 2005. The US Congress is heading toward a vote to impose a 27.5% tariff on Chinese goods if China does not revalue the yuan at the command of the US, despite Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan`s public warning that the yuan`s revaluation would have no significant impact on the US trade deficit and job loss and that protectionism against China would put the US economy at risk for no discernable purpose or advantage.

There are those who argue that Chinese companies would be welcome to participate freely in the US market if they were not state-owned enterprises (SOEs) controlled by the Chinese government. The counter-argument is that allowing Chinese SOEs to invest abroad would accelerate the withdrawal of government control over commerce in China. Besides, European and OPEC-member state-owned enterprises routinely participate in international mergers and acquisition. Every US oil company, including Chevron, is also eyeing business opportunities in the development of Chinese offshore oil exploration. Many major US corporations are aggressively trying to invest and acquire Chinese government-owned companies in China. It is hard to argue that Chinese government-owned companies should not be allowed to acquire US corporations. Thus the argument of a two-way street is a strong one.

British Nuclear Fuels plc (BNFL), owned by the British government, acquired without controversy Westinghouse Electric Co, the commercial nuclear-power business of CBS, in 1999. (Westinghouse acquired CBS in 1995.) Britain is of course an ally of the US.

On a trip to China last April to discuss high-stakes issues of terrorism and North Korea nuclear proliferation, US Vice President Dick Cheney made a pitch for Westinghouse`s nuclear-power technology. At stake could be billions of dollars in business in coming years and thousands of jobs in the US. The initial installment of four reactors, costing $1.5 billion apiece, would also help narrow the huge US trade deficit with China. China`s latest economic plan anticipates more than doubling its electricity output by 2020 and the Chinese government, facing enormous air-pollution problems, is looking to shift some of that away from coal-burning plants. Its plan calls for building as many as 32 large 1,000-megawatt reactors over the next 16 years.

The US Department of Energy reported this March that Chinese industries were energy-intensive with significant economy-wide waste. The country uses three times as much energy per dollar of its gross domestic product (GDP) as the global average and 4.7 times as much the United States. Westinghouse faces French and Russian competition in contracts for third-generation China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) plants at Sanmen, Zhejiang, and Yanjiang, Guangdong, to be awarded this year. Recognizing that nuclear technology sales to China would help address massive US trade imbalance with China, the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has cleared the transfer of technology, while the US Export-Import Bank has approved $5 billion in loan guarantees for the Westinghouse bid. Domestic political opposition to US participation in the China nuclear power program is mounting to stop the pending deal. Meanwhile, Chinese planners are warning investor to exercise caution to avoid blindly over-investing in the Chinese energy sector.

The reason the United States never gets excited about Japanese and German acquisition of US assets is that these countries, as once-defeated nations and now-subservient allies, know their place in the pecking order in geopolitics enough to restrict their acquisitions voluntarily to non-strategic real estate, and stay clear of strategic sectors such as oil. The Japanese and Germans have dutifully kept themselves restricted to oil trading and refrained from aspiring to be owners of oil assets, a sector reserved exclusively for Anglo-US interests as war trophies. But the Chinese, encouraged by US neo-liberal advisers to imitate the US model of globalized business strategy, are beginning to accept the propaganda of free trade to the extent of assuming the audacity of daring to buy into US strategic assets with the fiat dollars they earned in their trade surpluses with the United States. China appears to be tired of merely holding US papers, and want some real assets for a change in return for shipping real wealth created by cheap Chinese labor to the US. The zealous convert who has become a fervent believer in the god of free trade is challenging the pope. US policymakers are beginning to realize that a capitalist China in a neo-liberal world order is by far more of a threat to US national interests as a superpower than a communist China in the Cold War.

The June 24 Wall Street Journal reported that celebrated economist Kenneth Courtis, vice chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia and outside director of CNOOC, caused a postponement of the initial planned $16.7 billion offer in April. The delay opened the way for Chevron to strike a deal to buy Unocal instead, causing CNOOC to have to bid in June $2 billion more than it had contemplated in its initial offer in April. Courtis, an expert on Asian economies, had been humbled by facts divergent from his optimistic pronouncements on the Japanese economy at its strongest in 1989 with regard to strong future prospects, which promptly began a downhill slide in which it has been ever since. His bullish projections on the continuing growth of Asia just before the Asian financial crisis of 1997 proved to be another embarrassment. But economists are like cats with nine lives who can afford to leave clients who followed their bad advice to perish while they themselves move on to new theories.

Courtis, the free-trade enthusiast, resurrected his tarnished reputation by playing a revisionist role against market fundamentalism in the decision of the Hong Kong government to make a defensive "market incursion" to ward off manipulative speculation of the Hong Kong market by overseas hedge funds. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority, with a war chest of more than $100 billion, easily demolished the hedge funds by using $18 billion in three days to stabilize the Hong Kong equity market, where the normal daily trading volume was only about $1 billion. For three days, Hong Kong, consistently voted by the Heritage Foundation as the world`s freest market economy, reverted to a command economy to protect its stock market from the destructive effects of manipulation by hedge funds on the fixed exchange rate of its currency.

While no outsider knows why Courtis recused himself on the CNOOC decision, it would not be unreasonable to suspect that geopolitics was part of the consideration. For a Chinese state-owned enterprise to buy a US oil company might have been a bridge too far at this time of rising hostility in US domestic politics toward China. After all, do the Chinese, with thousands of years of sophisticated political culture, and decades of exposure to Marxist theories, not know that free trade is merely a slogan in US policy? Or is China, advised by US neo-liberals, simply making the US face its own music?

General Motors and China
China has also become something of a whipping boy in the US debate about job loss to nations with super-low wages, based on a misguided conclusion springing from the recent growth of China`s trade surplus with the United States to $124 billion in 2004. Total US trade deficit for 2004 with all countries was $666.2 billion, $164 billion of which was in oil imports at an average price of $32 per barrel. What has happened is that other Asian exporting economies, notably Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Hong Kong, have moved much production to mainland China on products destined for export to the United States. So China`s trade surplus with the US has soared while the US balance of trade with other Asian economies has flattened or dipped slightly.

The chairman of Toyota Motor Corp, Hiroshi Okuda, is urging Japanese auto makers to raise prices or find other ways to level the playing field for ailing US rivals General Motors and Ford in hopes of heading off a possible protectionist backlash in the crucial North American market. The world`s largest auto maker, General Motors, had $52.6 billion in cash and marketable securities on its balance sheet at the end of the first quarter 2005, even as it reported a $1.1 billion net loss for the quarter. The GM finance unit, GMAC, made $729 million profit in the first quarter. And even though GMAC commercial paper was cut to junk-bond status along with the debts of the rest of the company, the finance unit still has sufficient access to cheap capital to keep posting strong profits going forward. But GM has serious enough problems that its executives would not even project when it might return to profitability. The downgrade to junk-bond status is one warning sign. Another is its market capitalization sliding below $19 billion, well below its cash on hand of $52 billion, with a debt of $300 billion. This means investors are saying that the company has negative value if its cash is taken out. By contrast, and as an indication of a bubble economy, Google`s market capitalization, less than 11 months since its initial public offering (IPO), has topped $81 billion, trading at 50 times estimated earnings, compared with 22 times for Time Warner, 21 times for Disney and 19 times for Viacom. Google sales in 2004 totaled just $3.2 billion, while Time Warner stood at $42 billion. GM sales in 2004 totaled $193.5 billion with net income of $2.8 billion, yielding a market capitalization of only 6.8 times earnings.

The problem is that GM`s key products - its gas-guzzling sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) - are seeing declining demand that has forced the company to step up the cash-back offers needed to maintain sales. That should not have been a surprise, given rising gasoline prices that, because of a shortage of refining capacity, are not expected to moderate. But GM has not responded effectively to sudden market changes. Instead of introducing new vehicles to fit new market conditions, it has tried to keep sales of unpopular vehicles strong through ever-increasing financial incentives. It is very unwise for a high-cost producer to lead a price war. The result was financial loss accompanying market-share loss to more cost-effective foreign competitors.

GM is in talks with the United Auto Workers union (UAW) over its health-care costs, which cost GM an average of $1,500 more per vehicle than those of foreign competitors, even on cars and trucks made at the Japanese auto makers` US plants. Some observers think the best alternative could be to file for bankruptcy protection, and try to have the court force health-care savings and other cutbacks on the UAW. Another alternative is that only the auto operations file for bankruptcy, thus preserving the corporation`s finance unit and other assets, such as its horde of cash. The rating agencies and stock market are sending a clear message that they think GM will continue to lose money for the foreseeable future and eventually go bankrupt. Bankruptcy is a defensive strategic option or an unavoidable eventuality.

But even the profitability of GMAC, the finance unit, will be under threat as the Fed raises short-term interest rates. The rising cost of funds will make it more difficult for GMAC to offer attractive financial incentives to sell unpopular GM cars. GM has been following the strategy of GE, to try to turn itself into a global finance company that incidentally also manufactures, selling its uncompetitive manufactured products with aggressive compensatory vendor financing. This finance game has overtaken the entire US economy, where all the profit is being made by the financial sector, while its manufacturing base in the US falls into decay through outsourcing to low-wage locations overseas. GM`s strategy now is to be the finance and marketing arm of an auto sector in the process of being relocated from Detroit to China, while maintaining its profit margin from finance.

When the outspoken Toyota chairman said he feared the possibility that US policy could turn against Japanese auto makers if domestic giants such as GM and Ford were to collapse, he was not being truly outspoken. "Many people say the car industry wouldn`t revisit the kind of trade friction we saw in the past because Japanese auto makers are increasing local production in the United States, but I don`t think it`s that simple," Okuda said in a press conference. "General Motors Corp and Ford Motor Co are symbols of US industry, and if they were to crumble it could fan nationalistic sentiment. I always have a fear that that in turn could manifest itself in policy decisions," he said, speaking as the head of the nation`s biggest business lobby, the Japan Business Federation. But what was not said was that Toyota has a more serious hidden apprehension than a revival of US protectionism from the collapse of GM or Ford. What Toyota really wants is to keep GM manufacturing in the US, where it can never achieve cost competitiveness, and not move its manufacturing to China with a new business paradigm to compete with Japanese auto makers there.

Okuda raised eyebrows and invited criticism on both sides of the Pacific with his call for fraternal aid to US auto makers, such as by raising Japanese product prices, as US producers reel under massive health-care costs and sliding sales. It is a call for price-signaling if not outright price-fixing. According to US anti-trust laws, inviting competitors to match your price increases can be illegal price-signaling, says lawyer Jim Weiss, former head of an antitrust unit at the Justice Department.

GM has announce plans to cut at least 25,000 manufacturing jobs and close more US assembly and component plants over the next few years. Both GM and Ford have been cutting back output as they lose sales to Asian brands led by Toyota, which now controls 13.4% of the US car market, the world`s biggest to date. But the Chinese market is looming large as a new opportunity for GM, which ended 2004 with a market share of 9.3% in China. The GM China Group includes seven joint ventures and two wholly owned enterprises in China. In 2004, GM`s vehicle sales in China grew 27.2% on an annual basis to 492,014 units, an all-time high. China`s market is still in its infancy, with less than 5% of the population able to afford even a tiny car. GM chairman and CEO Rick Wagoner predicts China will overtake Japan as the world`s second-largest car market within five years.

Detroit Free Press columnist Tom Walsh reports that in 2003, GM and its Chinese partners made $2,267 per car sold in China while in North America, GM made about $145 per vehicle. GM and its Chinese partners had a combined net profit of nearly $875 million. In North America, GM`s net profit last year was only $811 million on sales of 5.6 million cars and trucks in the United States, Canada and Mexico. That means GM China was nearly 15 times as profitable, per vehicle sold, as GM North America. GM, for example, is selling Buick Regal models in China for more than $40,000 each that are less powerful than a 3.8-liter Regal four-door sedan that costs about $24,000 in the US.

"GM is making money hand over fist in China, selling cars as fast as they can make them, at very attractive prices," said Kenneth Lieberthal, a University of Michigan professor and China expert who was senior director for Asian affairs on the US National Security Council under president Bill Clinton. "Most of the jobs lost to Asia were lost years ago. Now they`re moving around Asia," said Lieberthal. "If what`s good for General Motors is good for America, as former GM president Charlie Wilson once said, China`s emergence as an economic powerhouse can`t be all bad," writes columnist Walsh.

Okuda told the press: "If you think about GM`s current output volume and vehicle lineup, laying off 25,000-30,000 employees is inevitable." But within a decade, GM could be again the world`s largest profitable car producer if its China strategy is successful. And its success is dependent on whether it can become a truly multinational corporation instead of merely a transnational US corporation active in China. Chinese consumers will relieve the global overcapacity problem in the auto industry, but they cannot do so if transnational corporations keep robbing them of consumption power by keeping Chinese wages low to siphon profits home.

GM has been closing and idling plants over the past four years and will have to cut its annual North American assembly capacity to 5 million vehicles by the end of 2005 from 6 million in 2002. Meanwhile, top Japanese auto makers are adding jobs and assembly lines in North America to meet shifting demand there at the expense of GM and Ford, but not the US economy, prompting executives, including Toyota president Fujio Cho, to dismiss concerns that their success would reignite a political backlash. Thus Okuda`s concern is not about US protectionism, a concern refuted by Toyota`s own president. It is about GM plans in China.

Car companies now are merely brand-name designers and assemblers of a generic world car. All cars today are assembled from parts produced all over the world, wherever they can be produced at the lowest cost. Different band-name designs package the same world car for varying appeals in different market segments, some for speed and power, some for styling and luxury, some for economy, etc. As US car-assembling giants face market resistance, US auto-parts companies have begun to fall like rows of dominoes, made worse by rising material and energy prices and uncompetitive wages. Recently, auto-parts supplier Collins & Aikman Corp became the latest to file for bankruptcy protection, lining up behind fellow suppliers Meridian Automotive Systems, Tower Automotive Inc and Intermet Corp. Whether those companies and the others that might join them at the bankruptcy court will recover - and what form they will take after bankruptcy - is an open question. A restructuring of the entire US auto-manufacturing industry and its supplier network is shifting the center of gravity outside the US, possibly to China.

Japan has its own ambitious plans for China, where Japanese car makers have already invested more than $5 billion. Honda Motors just announced that its joint venture in China has begun exporting made-in-China Hondas to Europe. This is why the Japanese, with their own ambitious plans in China, are thinking about helping Detroit, to keep a terminally ill competitor on anemic life support, not to ward off US protectionism, but to preempt unwanted US competition in China. A trade war between the US and China will play directly into Japanese hands, not to mention the European Union.

The sudden decline in the popularity of SUVs - on the basis of which US auto companies have for more than a decade clocked big profits in the era of cheap oil - has joined with rising material costs, mounting worker-benefits costs and expensive unionized workforces to eat into huge chunks of the sector`s profits. Add to that the relentless pressure from foreign auto makers, and the result has been a steep slide for any company that relies on the Detroit auto makers for its bread and butter. In April, while North American auto sales rose, both GM and Ford sales of SUVs dropped - as did their total sales.

As the supply sector shrinks along with declining US auto makers` market share, an industry that once seemed ripe for consolidation is now plagued by the question of who would want to acquire companies in a sector that has had such a hard time making money lately and will in the foreseeable future. The pool of likely acquirers from within the sector is also dwindling as virtually the whole sector slides in concert. It is hard to consolidate when earnings are weak to non-existent, with no access to capital markets, and equity merger and acquisition funds dry up. Buying auto-supply companies that are dependent on the struggling US auto makers for business is not the most attractive proposition at this time for other companies. The only exception is a Chinese acquirer who may buy to facilitate opportunities in the Chinese domestic market and eventual entrance to the US market to increase long-term global market share rather than immediate return. But with current political controversy over Chinese acquisition of Maytag and Unocal, China will likely adopt a wait-and-see posture on how US domestic politics on free trade plays out. This delay will make bankruptcy more likely to a host of distressed US companies in many sectors besides autos.

With General Motors` significant cash reserves, it could be several years before the company is forced to face the music, despite its dwindling market share and mounting loss. With more than $50 billion in cash, even with losses at the rate of $5 billion a year, it will take 10 years before GM runs dry. Long before that, GM`s China strategy may bear fruit if no trade war erupts to derail its plan.

The US steel and airline industries have dumped under-funded pension plans on the federal government`s Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp (PBGC). The auto industry may be next. Beyond the airline industry, the federal insurance program faces tremendous exposure from the auto sector. PBGC says the pension assets of auto makers and parts companies fall short of the pension promises they have made to workers by up to $50 billion, more than the $31 billion shortfall in the airline industry`s pension plans. A Credit Suisse First Boston analysis of pension plans in 54 US industries, based on 2003 public filings, ranks the auto industry`s plans the weakest of all. Half a dozen auto-supply companies recently sought protection under Chapter 11 of the Federal Bankruptcy Code, which is likely to result in $837 million in unfunded pension obligations being transferred to the PBGC. A total of 26 companies in the auto industry have pension plans with assets that fall at least $50 million short of obligations.

The company that worries the PBGC most to date is Delphi Corp, the Troy, Michigan, parts operation of GM that was spun off in 1999. Delphi`s plans have pension obligations valued at $11.4 billion but assets of only $7.4 billion. Delphi relies on GM for about half of its $28 billion in annual revenue and is saddled with high labor and raw-materials costs at the same time that GM`s production is falling. PBGC calculates pension liabilities based on what it would cost to pay retirement benefits if the plans were terminated; companies give snapshots of the current health of their plans, often a rosier view. PBGC says that if Delphi were to turn over its pension plan to the agency today, the under-funding would total $5.1 billion rather than the roughly $4 billion indicated by Delphi. UBS suggested in a recent report that Delphi should consider a Chapter 11 filing, in part to shed its pension obligations and to pressure the UAW to help it cut costs. "Bankruptcy has become a management tool these days," the UBS report noted.

Bush administration proposals to bolster PBGC finances could intensify the pressure on companies with low credit ratings. The plan calls for flat-rate premiums for companies to jump to $30 annually from $19 for each employee covered by a pension plan, and higher for companies with low credit ratings. It also seeks to limit the ability of financially weak companies to make new pension promises to workers.

Overcapacity and trade
Tapping into a growing Chinese market will significantly contribute to less painful resolutions of these problems, both for the auto giants and for the government pension agency. This is one of the reasons Greenspan says anti-China protectionism hurts the US economy more than it helps, and why the White House is dodging the CNOOC/Unocal controversy.

In an age of global overcapacity, the economies with large populations and massive untapped consumer power hold the key to the future. This presents a dilemma for US policy toward such countries as China and India. On one level, the world economy needs to develop these populous markets to relieve global overcapacity; on another level, the rise of income necessary for such expanded consumption translates into a leveling of the power differential long enjoyed by the world`s sole superpower. Suddenly, the needs of the global market to overcome global overcapacity with new consumers are turning against the traditional security and economic interests of the United States. In response, the US is turning back toward its own history of command economy. Emotional debates have emerged within US policy circles on the merits of globalized neo-liberal market fundamentalism versus the need for protectionist economic nationalism.

In some economies, such as the US, policymakers traditionally achieve their command objective through macro-management, while in other economies, such as Japan until the 1980s, and South Korea and Taiwan even today, policymakers prefer to do so through micro-management. China has recently moved toward macro-management of its economy, reportedly with some success, while the US, as exemplified by the ruling authority of FICUS that leads to presidential actions, appears to be reverting to a micro approach to deal with command economy objectives on a case by case basis.

Policymakers in self-proclaimed market economies normally manage their policy objective through monetary and tax policies in accordance to macro-economic theories, but even then they do so with national objectives in mind. Such national objectives are known as national interests in policy nomenclature. For example, the Fed defers to the Treasury on determination of the proper exchange rate for the dollar. When market forces move against the Treasury`s view, moving the dollar either too high or too low in relation to other currencies, the Fed supports the Treasury as a matter of national security in its effort to intervene in the market to bring the dollar back in line, or at least moderate the volatility. All nations employ industrial policy when it comes to defense and defense-related sectors. And as military/civilian dual-use definition expands, more and more of research and development, high-tech production, heavy manufacturing and strategic materials are removed from free trade to rely on government subsidies and procurement contracts. Dual-use restriction is one of the major factors contributing to trade imbalances between the US and China. Beyond dual-use technology, the US has very little to sell. Free trade in the US perspective is not remotely the same as freedom to trade.

Market economies and privatization
The idea that market economies are governed by the unseen hand of the market is pure fantasy. The US has been relying on its petroleum reserves to moderate the rise in oil prices since 1973 and China is only beginning to realize the need of a national petroleum reserves. And the idea that market forces always produce the best possible social outcomes or the best protection of national security is blatantly false. Without government control, markets merely become command economies that are commanded by powerful special interests. The aim of government command in all economies is to protect the interests of all the people fairly within the nation and to protect national interests beyond a nation`s borders. No nation will allow the market to threaten its national interests or security.

The idea that market economies require privatization to operate effectively is also pure fantasy. Markets can operate quite well in socialist economies. All they need is a different framework from capitalist economies. Some economies are privatized more than others. Even in capitalist economies, privatization is never total. Mutual funds are a sector of voluntary collective ownership. The insurance sector in the US used to be predominantly mutually organized companies, as were credit unions. They operated very well until laws protecting them were rescinded for ideological rather than economic reasons.

Privatization of social security is an oxymoron. It is either private security or social security, but not both simultaneously. Historically, Social Security was introduced in the United States after private security failed the average worker in the 1930s depression. How on Earth can private security in a market economy be expected to save Social Security when Social Security grew out of the failure of private security in a business cycle? There is an iron law of the market: when sellers outnumber buyers, prices go down. Now, actuary problems of Social Security arise when the number of living retirees is growing faster than the number of tax-paying young workers, causing a bigger draw on the Social Security trust fund than concurrent contributions. So if young workers buy stocks during their working years to provide for their future retirement and retirees must sell the shares they have accumulated over their previous earning years in order to live in retirement, and if retirees outnumber young workers by a wider margin with every passing year, how is the market going to rise with more sellers than buyers?

Even in the privatized sectors in capitalist economies, the government still decides what is profitable. In fact, it even decides what profit is, and how much to tax it. Much of the recent issues on corporate fraud have to do with illegally booking debt as profit to mislead the market. Free markets are free only to the extent within the rules of the game set by government. When governmental rules stay for long periods, they become invisible tradition and are accepted by market participants as natural conditions.

Generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) have a large measure of government-defined concepts and measures in them. Most governmental rules that can be changed easily without political difficulty are changed rather forthrightly. What are left are rules that for all kinds of political reasons cannot be changed easily by government. War provides opportunities for governments to change these undesirable, obsolete or dysfunctional rules that are politically difficult to change in peacetime. The private sector cannot launch wars to bring about preferred rules for enhancing profitability, but it can co-opt government policy toward war. This is the economic basis for all wars.

Next: Scarcity economics and overcapacity

Henry C K Liu is chairman of the New York-based Liu Investment Group.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

It`s Up to the Anti-War Movement to Restrain the Thirst for More Blind Revenge
Message from London
http://www.counterpunch.org/

By Mike Marqusee

07/07/05 "Counterpunch" - - This morning, the suffering, grief and terror that have visited so many innocents in recent years came to London. We have not paid the kind of price that people have paid in Fallujah, Najaf or Jenin, but it is a steep price nonetheless. And its root causes are the same.

The bomb blasts were grimly predictable. Indeed, they had been widely and repeatedly predicted ­ not least by rank-and-file Londoners, who knew that by taking Britain into Iraq side-by-side with the USA, Tony Blair had placed their city in the firing line.

As I write, the wreckage is being cleared and the casualties counted. But Blair has already appeared on television to address the nation, pledging to defend "our values" and "our way of life" against those who would "impose extremism on the world". He spoke of the unity of "civilised nations" in resisting "terrorism". While the delivery may be slicker, his "us" vs "them" world-view was indistinguishable from Bush`s. Even by Blair`s standards, it was a performance of nauseating hypocrisy, as he sought to seize the moral high ground in relation to violence and destruction that he himself helped unleash.

The Labour government, egged on by the Conservative opposition and the right-wing press, will now seek to play on fear and drum up vindictive feelings. At this stage, however, it is unclear how the British population will respond. Will the mood more resemble post 9/11 USA or Spain in the wake of the Madrid carnage?

Coming the day after London`s Olympic triumph, the attacks are a grim reminder that media-hyped feel-good boosterism will do nothing to mitigate the UK`s plummeting global standing. Blair`s closeness to Bush, his championship of the US neo-liberal model in the European Union, his aggressive pursuit of the "war against terror" have all diminished Britain in the eyes of Europe and the world.

This is a reality of which many people in Britain are acutely aware. Opposition to the invasion of Iraq spread across every sector of British society, and was overwhelming in London. Subsequent revelations concerning the bogus claims about Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction have further embittered public opinion ­ and made the Prime Minister, according to every poll, one of the least trusted and most disrespected individuals in the country.

Of course, Blair was able to overcome this decided disadvantage and get himself re-elected in May thanks to the absence of meaningful opposition within the established political system. That absence will be felt acutely in the days to come as Britain wrestles with the consequences of the bomb blasts.

The Blair government will doubtless seek to use this morning`s atrocity to escalate its alarming attacks on civil liberties. The country`s 1.5 million strong Muslim population, already subject to police harassment, will come under increased pressure. (Commentators have been quick to claim that the bombs may be the work of people hiding anonymously within the "law-abiding Muslim community".) Anti-globalisation protesters ­ currently gathered outside the G8 summit at the Gleneagles Hotel in Scotland ­ will be branded as "terrorists" and dealt with accordingly.

Fomenting and exploiting fear has been a speciality of the Blair regime. Asylum seekers, teenagers wearing hoods, militant Muslims, anarchists, paedophiles the list of targets is lengthy and frighteningly flexible. Whenever there is a need to distract people from the impact of the government`s neo-liberal economic policies, from its failure to rebuild the public sector, from its misbegotten foreign adventures, a new scapegoat is conjured up. The bomb blasts may aid this process, but there is also reason to hope that this time there will be substantial public resistance.

On 15th February 2003, some two million people gathered in London to demonstrate against the imminent attack on Iraq. I remember speaking to a neighbour who told me proudly that he was going on the march ­ his first ever protest march ­ because he was damned if he was going to let Tony Blair endanger his children`s lives by making London a prime target for attack.

Everything that has happened since then ­ the exposure of lie after lie, the deaths of British soldiers, the refusal of ground realities in Iraq to conform to Blair`s scenario - has further entrenched popular resentment of the war, widely seen as a result of Blair`s determination to court favour with George Bush. The prime minister calculates that the bomb blasts will unite British people behind their government and that a touch of well-rehearsed statesman-like gravitas will refresh his image. Much of the media will pump out the message that we are all under threat from faceless barbarians irrationally opposed to "our way of life". It will be up to the anti-war movement to articulate a different analysis, to remind people that this attack is a consequence of our role in dishing out brutality in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine, and to insist that no amount of moralistic posturing by our leaders can substitute for a desperately needed change in policy.

Mike Marqusee is the author of Chains of Freedom: the Politics of Bob Dylan`s Art and Redemption Song: Muhammed Ali and the Sixties. He can be reach through his website: www.mikemarqusee.com

[Joerver]

ANKLICKEN[urlWith Karl Rove`s treachery finally hitting the news, it seemed like this animation from late 2003 had new relevance. It also makes a guess as to who is the second `senior White House official` implicated in the case.]http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/get_stupid.htm

[/url]

[Joerver]

Published on Thursday, July 7, 2005 by TomPaine.com
Why London, Why Now?
by Patrick Doherty
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050707/why_london_why_now…

As I write this, the reports are still coming inon the extent of the casualties from the London subway bombings. The latest AP report says 40 have been killed and 1,000 wounded. There can be no justification for such an attack, which must be condemned and the perpetrators must brought to (British) justice. My condolences go out to the people of London and I can only hope that my friends and former colleagues there are safe.

That said, now is the time for progressives to lead and not just wait for Bush. It is imperative that the narrative that emerges from the devastation in London is not one that plays into the hands of Al Qaeda or into the hands of the neocons, as happened after 9/11.

Don`t Repeat Past Mistakes

That post-9/11 narrative said that America was attacked because "they hate our freedoms." This turned out to be the first of many lies that paved the way to our current strategic disaster. In fact, America was attacked because Al Qaeda hated our policies in the Middle East and, given their relative inability to strike effectively at either the Saudi or Israeli governments—their main enemies—they struck at those governments` primary sponsor, the United States.

Yet that simple narrative, "because they hate our freedoms," constructed carefully by the White House communications team, laid the foundation for the war on Iraq and the expansion of the war on terrorism well beyond the justifiable and proportionate retaliation on the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Americans believed Al Qaeda was targeting the United States because we stood for democracy, when, in reality, they hated us because we massively supported oppressive regimes in the Middle East.

This time, with that narrative already established, the work of interpreting the London subway bombings through the Bush worldview is a much simpler matter. Regrettably, Tony Blair has already begun the spin in his statement from Gleneagles:

"It`s important, however, that those engaged in terrorism realize that our determination to defend our values and our way of life is greater than their determination to cause death and destruction to innocent people in a desire to impose extremism on the world."

We must remember that fear is the primary objective of terrorist attacks. Violence is merely a means—and it works. In the best of circumstances, it is difficult for elected representatives to effectively address the fears of a terrorized constituency and produce effective policies. That`s because when people are insecure, they want to see action, and counterterrorism requires an incremental strategy of covert intelligence and law enforcement work that targets active terrorist cells combined with political and economic development strategies that drain the swamp of support for the terrorist networks. It`s slow, under-the-radar work.

It`s also difficult because most people only understand traditional military operations that are designed to destroy or control a given objective. A terror attack in a democracy is much more complex: It uses fear to distort debate and decision making. Look at America: after 9/1, we went to war in Iraq without questioning the president. To make matters worse however, the Bush administration has tried to conflate the Cold War nuclear threat and the war on terror in order to create an existential fear that, so far, has resulted in a blank check from Congress.

Democrats cannot afford to parrot the White House narrative again. Luckily, Americans are more aware of terrorism, terrorists and international affairs. That provides the space we need to defuse the fearmongering. But we also need to understand why and produce an alternative response.

Why London? Why Now?

For the moment, I am assuming this was the work of Al Qaeda. If that is the case, the timing of the attack is significant. The G8 Summit has, as its primary focus, two issues that could strike at the heart of Islamic extremism by draining the swamp: climate change and poverty.

Addressing climate change requires radically improving transportation fuel efficiency and transitioning off fossil fuels as a source of energy. To the extent that the United States and the rest of the world adopts sensible climate change policies, the strategic importance of the Persian Gulf diminishes and America has more room to promote real democratic and economic reform in the region. Al Qaeda`s strategy, however, requires American dependence on Persian Gulf energy, to ensure that America continues to wage war to protect its energy supply.

To show just how dire our global energy situation is, Saudi Arabia announced today that OPEC will not be able to meet Western demand for oil by 2015, only 10 years out. Given the timing, this is Saudi Arabia effectively saying that the time has come to turn toward more efficient use of oil, which is also one of the main ways of dealing with climate change. Saudi Arabia just undercut the Bush administration`s position in Gleneagles. That should have been a major blow to the United States, but it will now be swept away by the bombings.

Addressing poverty in the developing world, particularly in Africa, also hurts Al Qaeda`s side. To the extent that America is seen as an imperial aggressor, planting strings of military bases to protect access to economic resources, the Al Qaeda propaganda is reinforced. Significant progress on global poverty, however, also "drains the swamp" of the recruits, resources, territory and cooperation that these groups need to operate.

But the decisions on what would come out of Gleneagles were made well before the summit meeting. Changing those decisions would be diplomatically quite difficult. Odds are that the terrorists knew this. Therefore the attacks are about changing the direction of the momentum, about destroying the narrative of progress and hope that the G8 Summit has produced. The terrorists want to stop the climate change and poverty focus of the international community and bring it back to terrorism. Ultimately, Al Qaeda wants to keep the West distracted from advancing the policies that will deal a heavy blow to Islamic extremism.

Unfortunately, with Bush still resisting any progress on climate change, that job was not going to be too difficult. Sadly, with American neocons still chomping at the bit to attack Iran and Syria, Al Qaeda will find willing accomplices for their fearmongering in the think tanks of the right. How neocons will spin this into calls for military strikes on Iran and Syria is yet to be seen. But call they will.

Looking Forward

So now it is time for progressives to keep the focus on draining the swamp, not on counterproductive military adventures that will only reinforce Al Qaeda propaganda. Aggressive and innovative policies to address climate change and poverty are two of the most powerful ways accomplish this. So is a smart exit strategy from Iraq and a final settlement between Israelis and Palestinians.

© 2005 TomPaine.com

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Tomgram: Chalmers Johnson on Robbing the Cradle of Civilization
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=4710

Another successful landmark has been reached in our occupation of Iraq: The World Monuments Fund has just placed the country on its list of the Earth`s 100 most endangered sites. ("Widespread looting, military occupation, artillery fire, vandalism, and other acts of violence are devastating Iraq, long considered the cradle of human civilization.") This is the first time that the Fund has ever put a whole nation on its list and so represents a singular accomplishment for the Bush administration, which knew not -- and cared less -- what it wrought.



The destruction began as Baghdad fell. Words disappeared instantly. They simply blinked off the screen of Iraqi history, many of them forever. First, there was the looting of the National Museum. That took care of some of the earliest words on clay, including, possibly, cuneiform tablets with missing parts of the epic of Gilgamesh. Soon after, the great libraries and archives of the capital went up in flames and books, letters, government documents, ancient Korans, religious manuscripts, stretching back centuries -- all those things not pressed into clay, or etched on stone, or engraved on metal, just words on that most precious and perishable of all commonplaces, paper -- vanished forever. What we`re talking about, of course, is the flesh of history. And it was no less a victim of the American invasion -- of the Bush administration`s lack of attention to, its lack of any sense of the value of what Iraq held (other than oil) -- than the Iraqi people. All of this has been, in that grim phrase created by the Pentagon, "collateral damage."



Worse yet, the looting of antiquity, words and objects, not only never ended but seems to have accelerated. From well organized gangs of grave robbers to American engineers building bases to American soldiers taking souvenirs, the ancient inheritance not just of Iraqis but of all of us has simply headed south. According to Reuters, more than 1,000 Iraqi objects of antiquity have been confiscated at American airports; priceless cylinder seals are evidently selling on-line at eBay for a few hundred dollars apiece; and this represents just the tiniest fraction of what`s gone. The process is not only unending, but in the chaos that is America`s Iraq beyond counting or assessing accurately.



Though less attended to than the human costs of the war (which, in turn, have been poorly attended to), such crimes against history are no small matter, as Chalmers Johnson indicates below. Johnson, who produced Blowback, a now classic account of how we got to September 11, 2001 (though published well before those attacks occurred), and a singular study of American militarism, The Sorrows of Empire, is now working on the third volume of his Blowback Trilogy, Nemesis: The Crisis of the American Republic. The piece that follows offers an early glimpse into that book (not due to be published until late 2006).

Tom

The Smash of Civilizations
By Chalmers Johnson

In the months before he ordered the invasion of Iraq, George Bush and his senior officials spoke of preserving Iraq`s "patrimony" for the Iraqi people. At a time when talking about Iraqi oil was taboo, what he meant by patrimony was exactly that -- Iraqi oil. In their "joint statement on Iraq`s future" of April 8, 2003, George Bush and Tony Blair declared, "We reaffirm our commitment to protect Iraq`s natural resources, as the patrimony of the people of Iraq, which should be used only for their benefit."[1] In this they were true to their word. Among the few places American soldiers actually did guard during and in the wake of their invasion were oil fields and the Oil Ministry in Baghdad. But the real Iraqi patrimony, that invaluable human inheritance of thousands of years, was another matter. At a time when American pundits were warning of a future "clash of civilizations," our occupation forces were letting perhaps the greatest of all human patrimonies be looted and smashed.

There have been many dispiriting sights on TV since George Bush launched his ill-starred war on Iraq -- the pictures from Abu Ghraib, Fallujah laid waste, American soldiers kicking down the doors of private homes and pointing assault rifles at women and children. But few have reverberated historically like the looting of Baghdad`s museum -- or been forgotten more quickly in this country.

Teaching the Iraqis about the Untidiness of History

In archaeological circles, Iraq is known as "the cradle of civilization," with a record of culture going back more than 7,000 years. William R. Polk, the founder of the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Chicago, says, "It was there, in what the Greeks called Mesopotamia, that life as we know it today began: there people first began to speculate on philosophy and religion, developed concepts of international trade, made ideas of beauty into tangible forms, and, above all developed the skill of writing."[2] No other places in the Bible except for Israel have more history and prophecy associated with them than Babylonia, Shinar (Sumer), and Mesopotamia -- different names for the territory that the British around the time of World War I began to call "Iraq," using the old Arab term for the lands of the former Turkish enclave of Mesopotamia (in Greek: "between the [Tigris and Eurphrates] rivers").[3] Most of the early books of Genesis are set in Iraq (see, for instance, Genesis 10:10, 11:31; also Daniel 1-4; II Kings 24).

The best-known of the civilizations that make up Iraq`s cultural heritage are the Sumerians, Akkadians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Parthians, Sassanids, and Muslims. On April 10, 2003, in a television address, President Bush acknowledged that the Iraqi people are "the heirs of a great civilization that contributes to all humanity."[4.] Only two days later, under the complacent eyes of the U.S. Army, the Iraqis would begin to lose that heritage in a swirl of looting and burning.

In September 2004, in one of the few self-critical reports to come out of Donald Rumsfeld`s Department of Defense, the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication wrote: "The larger goals of U.S. strategy depend on separating the vast majority of non-violent Muslims from the radical-militant Islamist-Jihadists. But American efforts have not only failed in this respect: they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended."[5] Nowhere was this failure more apparent than in the indifference -- even the glee -- shown by Rumsfeld and his generals toward the looting on April 11 and 12, 2003, of the National Museum in Baghdad and the burning on April 14, 2003, of the National Library and Archives as well as the Library of Korans at the Ministry of Religious Endowments. These events were, according to Paul Zimansky, a Boston University archaeologist, "the greatest cultural disaster of the last 500 years." Eleanor Robson of All Souls College, Oxford, said, "You`d have to go back centuries, to the Mongol invasion of Baghdad in 1258, to find looting on this scale."[6] Yet Secretary Rumsfeld compared the looting to the aftermath of a soccer game and shrugged it off with the comment that "Freedom`s untidy. . . . Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes."[7]

The Baghdad archaeological museum has long been regarded as perhaps the richest of all such institutions in the Middle East. It is difficult to say with precision what was lost there in those catastrophic April days in 2003 because up-to-date inventories of its holdings, many never even described in archaeological journals, were also destroyed by the looters or were incomplete thanks to conditions in Baghdad after the Gulf War of 1991. One of the best records, however partial, of its holdings is the catalog of items the museum lent in 1988 to an exhibition held in Japan`s ancient capital of Nara entitled Silk Road Civilizations. But, as one museum official said to John Burns of the New York Times after the looting, "All gone, all gone. All gone in two days."[8]

A single, beautifully illustrated, indispensable book edited by Milbry Park and Angela M.H. Schuster, The Looting of the Iraq Museum, Baghdad: The Lost Legacy of Ancient Mesopotamia (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2005), represents the heartbreaking attempt of over a dozen archaeological specialists on ancient Iraq to specify what was in the museum before the catastrophe, where those objects had been excavated, and the condition of those few thousand items that have been recovered. The editors and authors have dedicated a portion of the royalties from this book to the Iraqi State Board of Antiquities and Heritage.

At a conference on art crimes held in London a year after the disaster, the British Museum`s John Curtis reported that at least half of the forty most important stolen objects had not been retrieved and that of some 15,000 items looted from the museum`s showcases and storerooms about 8,000 had yet to be traced. Its entire collection of 5,800 cylinder seals and clay tablets, many containing cuneiform writing and other inscriptions some of which go back to the earliest discoveries of writing itself, was stolen.[9] Since then, as a result of an amnesty for looters, about 4,000 of the artifacts have been recovered in Iraq, and over a thousand have been confiscated in the United States.[10] Curtis noted that random checks of Western soldiers leaving Iraq had led to the discovery of several in illegal possession of ancient objects. Customs agents in the U.S. then found more. Officials in Jordan have impounded about 2,000 pieces smuggled in from Iraq; in France, 500 pieces; in Italy, 300; in Syria, 300; and in Switzerland, 250. Lesser numbers have been seized in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Turkey. None of these objects has as yet been sent back to Baghdad.

The 616 pieces that form the famous collection of "Nimrud gold," excavated by the Iraqis in the late 1980s from the tombs of the Assyrian queens at Nimrud, a few miles southeast of Mosul, were saved, but only because the museum had secretly moved them to the subterranean vaults of the Central Bank of Iraq at the time of the first Gulf War. By the time the Americans got around to protecting the bank in 2003, its building was a burnt-out shell filled with twisted metal beams from the collapse of the roof and all nine floors under it. Nonetheless, the underground compartments and their contents survived undamaged. On July 3, 2003, a small portion of the Nimrud holdings was put on display for a few hours, allowing a handful of Iraqi officials to see them for the first time since 1990.[11]

The torching of books and manuscripts in the Library of Korans and the National Library was in itself a historical disaster of the first order. Most of the Ottoman imperial documents and the old royal archives concerning the creation of Iraq were reduced to ashes. According to Humberto Márquez, the Venezuelan writer and author of Historia Universal de La Destrucción de Los Libros (2004), about a million books and ten million documents were destroyed by the fires of April 14, 2003.[12] Robert Fisk, the veteran Middle East correspondent of the Independent of London, was in Baghdad the day of the fires. He rushed to the offices of the U.S. Marines` Civil Affairs Bureau and gave the officer on duty precise map locations for the two archives and their names in Arabic and English, and pointed out that the smoke could be seen from three miles away. The officer shouted to a colleague, "This guy says some biblical library is on fire," but the Americans did nothing to try to put out the flames.[13]

The Burger King of Ur

Given the black market value of ancient art objects, U.S. military leaders had been warned that the looting of all thirteen national museums throughout the country would be a particularly grave danger in the days after they captured Baghdad and took control of Iraq. In the chaos that followed the Gulf War of 1991, vandals had stolen about 4,000 objects from nine different regional museums. In monetary terms, the illegal trade in antiquities is the third most lucrative form of international trade globally, exceeded only by drug smuggling and arms sales.[14] Given the richness of Iraq`s past, there are also over 10,000 significant archaeological sites scattered across the country, only some 1,500 of which have been studied. Following the Gulf War, a number of them were illegally excavated and their artifacts sold to unscrupulous international collectors in Western countries and Japan. All this was known to American commanders.

In January 2003, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq, an American delegation of scholars, museum directors, art collectors, and antiquities dealers met with officials at the Pentagon to discuss the forthcoming invasion. They specifically warned that Baghdad`s National Museum was the single most important site in the country. McGuire Gibson of the University of Chicago`s Oriental Institute said, "I thought I was given assurances that sites and museums would be protected."[15] Gibson went back to the Pentagon twice to discuss the dangers, and he and his colleagues sent several e-mail reminders to military officers in the weeks before the war began. However, a more ominous indicator of things to come was reported in the April 14, 2003, London Guardian: Rich American collectors with connections to the White House were busy "persuading the Pentagon to relax legislation that protects Iraq`s heritage by prevention of sales abroad." On January 24, 2003, some sixty New York-based collectors and dealers organized themselves into a new group called the American Council for Cultural Policy and met with Bush administration and Pentagon officials to argue that a post-Saddam Iraq should have relaxed antiquities laws.[16] Opening up private trade in Iraqi artifacts, they suggested, would offer such items better security than they could receive in Iraq.

The main international legal safeguard for historically and humanistically important institutions and sites is the Hague Convention for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, signed on May 14, 1954. The U.S. is not a party to that convention, primarily because, during the Cold War, it feared that the treaty might restrict its freedom to engage in nuclear war; but during the 1991 Gulf War the elder Bush`s administration accepted the convention`s rules and abided by a "no-fire target list" of places where valuable cultural items were known to exist.[17] UNESCO and other guardians of cultural artifacts expected the younger Bush`s administration to follow the same procedures in the 2003 war.

Moreover, on March 26, 2003, the Pentagon`s Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA), headed by Lt. Gen. (ret.) Jay Garner -- the civil authority the U.S. had set up for the moment hostilities ceased -- sent to all senior U.S. commanders a list of sixteen institutions that "merit securing as soon as possible to prevent further damage, destruction, and/or pilferage of records and assets." The five-page memo dispatched two weeks before the fall of Baghdad also said, "Coalition forces must secure these facilities in order to prevent looting and the resulting irreparable loss of cultural treasures" and that "looters should be arrested/detained." First on Gen. Garner`s list of places to protect was the Iraqi Central Bank, which is now a ruin; second was the Museum of Antiquities. Sixteenth was the Oil Ministry, the only place that U.S. forces occupying Baghdad actually defended. Martin Sullivan, chair of the President`s Advisory Committee on Cultural Property for the previous eight years, and Gary Vikan, director of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore and a member of the committee, both resigned to protest the failure of CENTCOM to obey orders. Sullivan said it was "inexcusable" that the museum should not have had the same priority as the Oil Ministry.[18]

As we now know, the American forces made no effort to prevent the looting of the great cultural institutions of Iraq, its soldiers simply watching vandals enter and torch the buildings. Said Arjomand, an editor of the journal Studies on Persianate Societies and a professor of sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, wrote, "Our troops, who have been proudly guarding the Oil Ministry, where no window is broken, deliberately condoned these horrendous events."[19] American commanders claim that, to the contrary, they were too busy fighting and had too few troops to protect the museum and libraries. However, this seems to be an unlikely explanation. During the battle for Baghdad, the U.S. military was perfectly willing to dispatch some 2,000 troops to secure northern Iraq`s oilfields, and their record on antiquities did not improve when the fighting subsided. At the 6,000-year-old Sumerian city of Ur with its massive ziggurat, or stepped temple-tower (built in the period 2112 - 2095 B.C. and restored by Nebuchadnezzar II in the sixth century B.C.), the Marines spray-painted their motto, "Semper Fi" (semper fidelis, always faithful) onto its walls.[20] The military then made the monument "off limits" to everyone in order to disguise the desecration that had occurred there, including the looting by U.S. soldiers of clay bricks used in the construction of the ancient buildings.

Until April 2003, the area around Ur, in the environs of Nasiriyah, was remote and sacrosanct. However, the U.S. military chose the land immediately adjacent to the ziggurat to build its huge Tallil Air Base with two runways measuring 12,000 and 9,700 feet respectively and four satellite camps. In the process, military engineers moved more than 9,500 truckloads of dirt in order to build 350,000 square feet of hangars and other facilities for aircraft and Predator unmanned drones. They completely ruined the area, the literal heartland of human civilization, for any further archaeological research or future tourism. On October 24, 2003, according to the Global Security Organization, the Army and Air Force built its own modern ziggurat. It "opened its second Burger King at Tallil. The new facility, co-located with [a] . . . Pizza Hut, provides another Burger King restaurant so that more service men and women serving in Iraq can, if only for a moment, forget about the task at hand in the desert and get a whiff of that familiar scent that takes them back home."[21]

The great British archaeologist, Sir Max Mallowan (husband of Agatha Christie), who pioneered the excavations at Ur, Nineveh, and Nimrud, quotes some classical advice that the Americans might have been wise to heed: "There was danger in disturbing ancient monuments. . . . It was both wise and historically important to reverence the legacies of ancient times. Ur was a city infested with ghosts of the past and it was prudent to appease them."[22]

The American record elsewhere in Iraq is no better. At Babylon, American and Polish forces built a military depot, despite objections from archaeologists. John Curtis, the British Museum`s authority on Iraq`s many archaeological sites, reported on a visit in December 2004 that he saw "cracks and gaps where somebody had tried to gouge out the decorated bricks forming the famous dragons of the Ishtar Gate" and a "2,600-year-old brick pavement crushed by military vehicles."[23] Other observers say that the dust stirred up by U.S. helicopters has sandblasted the fragile brick façade of the palace of Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon from 605 to 562 B.C.[24] The archaeologist Zainab Bahrani reports, "Between May and August 2004, the wall of the Temple of Nabu and the roof of the Temple of Ninmah, both of the sixth century B.C., collapsed as a result of the movement of helicopters. Nearby, heavy machines and vehicles stand parked on the remains of a Greek theater from the era of Alexander of Macedon [Alexander the Great]."[25]

And none of this even begins to deal with the massive, ongoing looting of historical sites across Iraq by freelance grave and antiquities robbers, preparing to stock the living rooms of western collectors. The unceasing chaos and lack of security brought to Iraq in the wake of our invasion have meant that a future peaceful Iraq may hardly have a patrimony to display. It is no small accomplishment of the Bush administration to have plunged the cradle of the human past into the same sort of chaos and lack of security as the Iraqi present. If amnesia is bliss, then the fate of Iraq`s antiquities represents a kind of modern paradise.

President Bush`s supporters have talked endlessly about his global war on terrorism as a "clash of civilizations." But the civilization we are in the process of destroying in Iraq is part of our own heritage. It is also part of the world`s patrimony. Before our invasion of Afghanistan, we condemned the Taliban for their dynamiting of the monumental third century A.D. Buddhist statues at Bamiyan in March, 2001. Those were two gigantic statues of remarkable historical value and the barbarism involved in their destruction blazed in headlines and horrified commentaries in our country. Today, our own government is guilty of far greater crimes when it comes to the destruction of a whole universe of antiquity, and few here, when they consider Iraqi attitudes toward the American occupation, even take that into consideration. But what we do not care to remember, others may recall all too well.

NOTES

[1.] American Embassy, London, " Visit of President Bush to Northern Ireland, April 7-8, 2003."

[2.] William R. Polk, "Introduction," Milbry Polk and Angela M. H. Schuster, eds., The Looting of the Iraq Museum: The Lost Legacy of Ancient Mesopotamia (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 2005), p. 5. Also see Suzanne Muchnic, "Spotlight on Iraq`s Plundered Past," Los Angeles Times, June 20, 2005.

[3.] David Fromkin, A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall of the Ottoman Empire and the Creation of the Modern Middle East (New York: Owl Books, 1989, 2001), p. 450.

[4.] George Bush`s address to the Iraqi people, broadcast on "Towards Freedom TV," April 10, 2003.

[5.] Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, Technology, and Logistics, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication (Washington, D.C.: September 2004), pp. 39-40.

[6.] See Frank Rich, "And Now: `Operation Iraqi Looting,`" New York Times, April 27, 2003.

[7.] Robert Scheer, "It`s U.S. Policy that`s `Untidy,`" Los Angeles Times, April 15, 2003; reprinted in Books in Flames, Tomdispatch, April 15, 2003..

[8.] John F. Burns, "Pillagers Strip Iraqi Museum of Its Treasures," New York Times, April 13, 2003; Piotr Michalowski (University of Michigan), The Ransacking of the Baghdad Museum is a Disgrace, History News Network, April 14, 2003.

[9.] Polk and Schuster, op. cit, pp. 209-210.

[10.] Mark Wilkinson, Looting of Ancient Sites Threatens Iraqi Heritage, Reuters, June 29, 2005.

[11.] Polk and Schuster, op. cit., pp. 23, 212-13; Louise Jury, "At Least 8,000 Treasures Looted from Iraq Museum Still Untraced," Independent, May 24, 2005; Stephen Fidler, "`The Looters Knew What They Wanted. It Looks Like Vandalism, but Organized Crime May be Behind It,`" Financial Times, May 23, 2003; Rod Liddle, The Day of the Jackals, Spectator, April 19, 2003.

[12.] Humberto Márquez, Iraq Invasion the `Biggest Cultural Disaster Since 1258,` Antiwar.com, February 16, 2005.

[13.] Robert Fisk, "Library Books, Letters, and Priceless Documents are Set Ablaze in Final Chapter of the Sacking of Baghdad," Independent, April 15, 2003.

[14.] Polk and Schuster, op. cit., p. 10.

[15.] Guy Gugliotta, "Pentagon Was Told of Risk to Museums; U.S. Urged to Save Iraq`s Historic Artifacts," Washington Post, April 14, 2003; McGuire Gibson, "Cultural Tragedy In Iraq: A Report On the Looting of Museums, Archives, and Sites," International Foundation for Art Research.

[16.] Rod Little, op. cit..; Oliver Burkeman, Ancient Archive Lost in Baghdad Blaze, Guardian, April 15, 2003.

[17.] See James A. R. Nafziger, Art Loss in Iraq: Protection of Cultural Heritage in Time of War and Its Aftermath, International Foundation for Art Research.

[18.] Paul Martin, Ed Vulliamy, and Gaby Hinsliff, U.S. Army was Told to Protect Looted Museum, Observer, April 20, 2003,; Frank Rich, op. cit.; Paul Martin, "Troops Were Told to Guard Treasures," Washington Times, April 20, 2003.

[19.] Said Arjomand, Under the Eyes of U.S. Forces and This Happened?, History News Network, April 14, 2003.

[20.] Ed Vulliamy, Troops `Vandalize` Ancient City of Ur, Observer, May 18, 2003; Paul Johnson, Art: A New History (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), pp. 18, 35; Polk and Schuster, op. cit., p. 99, fig. 25.

[21.] Tallil Air Base, GlobalSecurity.org,.

[22.] Max Mallowan, Mallowan`s Memoirs (London: Collins, 1977), p. 61.

[23.] Rory McCarthy and Maev Kennedy, Babylon Wrecked by War, Guardian, January 15, 2005.

[24.] Owen Bowcott, Archaeologists Fight to Save Iraqi Sites, June 20, 2005.

[25.] Zainab Bahrani, "The Fall of Babylon," in Polk and Schuster, op. cit., p. 214.

This essay is extracted from Chalmers Johnson`s Nemesis: The Crisis of the American Republic, forthcoming from Metropolitan Books in late 2006, the final volume in the Blowback Trilogy. The first two volumes are Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire (2000) and The Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic (2004).

Copyright 2005 Chalmers Johnson



- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
posted July 7, 2005 at 4:37 pm

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Friedman beschreibt gut den Ist-Zustand, aber wie alle rechten US-Schreiber findet er keine Lösungsansätze.
Sonst sind sie immer gut im zitieren der Bibel.
Ich will es auch ein mal versuchen, das gilt für beide Seiten. Wer Wind säht, wird Sturm ernten.

July 8, 2005
If It`s a Muslim Problem, It Needs a Muslim Solution
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/08/opinion/08friedman.html

Yesterday`s bombings in downtown London are profoundly disturbing. In part, that is because a bombing in our mother country and closest ally, England, is almost like a bombing in our own country. In part, it`s because one assault may have involved a suicide bomber, bringing this terrible jihadist weapon into the heart of a major Western capital. That would be deeply troubling because open societies depend on trust - on trusting that the person sitting next to you on the bus or subway is not wearing dynamite.

The attacks are also deeply disturbing because when jihadist bombers take their madness into the heart of our open societies, our societies are never again quite as open. Indeed, we all just lost a little freedom yesterday.

But maybe the most important aspect of the London bombings is this: When jihadist-style bombings happen in Riyadh, that is a Muslim-Muslim problem. That is a police problem for Saudi Arabia. But when Al-Qaeda-like bombings come to the London Underground, that becomes a civilizational problem. Every Muslim living in a Western society suddenly becomes a suspect, becomes a potential walking bomb. And when that happens, it means Western countries are going to be tempted to crack down even harder on their own Muslim populations.

That, too, is deeply troubling. The more Western societies - particularly the big European societies, which have much larger Muslim populations than America - look on their own Muslims with suspicion, the more internal tensions this creates, and the more alienated their already alienated Muslim youth become. This is exactly what Osama bin Laden dreamed of with 9/11: to create a great gulf between the Muslim world and the globalizing West.

So this is a critical moment. We must do all we can to limit the civilizational fallout from this bombing. But this is not going to be easy. Why? Because unlike after 9/11, there is no obvious, easy target to retaliate against for bombings like those in London. There are no obvious terrorist headquarters and training camps in Afghanistan that we can hit with cruise missiles. The Al Qaeda threat has metastasized and become franchised. It is no longer vertical, something that we can punch in the face. It is now horizontal, flat and widely distributed, operating through the Internet and tiny cells.

Because there is no obvious target to retaliate against, and because there are not enough police to police every opening in an open society, either the Muslim world begins to really restrain, inhibit and denounce its own extremists - if it turns out that they are behind the London bombings - or the West is going to do it for them. And the West will do it in a rough, crude way - by simply shutting them out, denying them visas and making every Muslim in its midst guilty until proven innocent.

And because I think that would be a disaster, it is essential that the Muslim world wake up to the fact that it has a jihadist death cult in its midst. If it does not fight that death cult, that cancer, within its own body politic, it is going to infect Muslim-Western relations everywhere. Only the Muslim world can root out that death cult. It takes a village.

What do I mean? I mean that the greatest restraint on human behavior is never a policeman or a border guard. The greatest restraint on human behavior is what a culture and a religion deem shameful. It is what the village and its religious and political elders say is wrong or not allowed. Many people said Palestinian suicide bombing was the spontaneous reaction of frustrated Palestinian youth. But when Palestinians decided that it was in their interest to have a cease-fire with Israel, those bombings stopped cold. The village said enough was enough.

The Muslim village has been derelict in condemning the madness of jihadist attacks. When Salman Rushdie wrote a controversial novel involving the prophet Muhammad, he was sentenced to death by the leader of Iran. To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden.

Some Muslim leaders have taken up this challenge. This past week in Jordan, King Abdullah II hosted an impressive conference in Amman for moderate Muslim thinkers and clerics who want to take back their faith from those who have tried to hijack it. But this has to go further and wider.

The double-decker buses of London and the subways of Paris, as well as the covered markets of Riyadh, Bali and Cairo, will never be secure as long as the Muslim village and elders do not take on, delegitimize, condemn and isolate the extremists in their midst.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Friday, July 08, 2005

Iraq Comes to London
In Iraq, Car Bombs and Attacks Kill 24, Wound Dozens in 24 Hours

Al-Sharq al-Awsat reports that [Arabic URL] its contacts in the radical fundamentalist community of British Muslims maintain that the July 7 attacks on London were undertaken by one of several al-Qaeda sleeper cells in Europe, which had been planted there by Ayman al-Zawahiri and his lieutenants in preparation for a decades-long war with the West.

The London Times collects some brave and touching survivors stories. Londoners have long been exemplars for the rest of us in how to face such danger from bullying cowards unflinchingly and with iron resolve. (If the terrorists had been brave, they would have fought British troops, not blown up innocent women, children and men on a subway or bus.) The examples given by the Times also underline the city`s multicultural character (one of the bombings was in a heavily Arab neighborhood). Turks, Iranians, Eastern Europeans and others could be heard on television talking about their experiences.

Outspoken British MP and Iraq war opponent called Thursday`s terrorist bombings in London "despicable" but went on to say that he was sure that al-Qaeda was behind the attacks:

` He argued that the bombings had not come out of the "clear blue sky" - the background was the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq, photographs of abuses by US troops at Abu Ghraib prison and the continuing confinement of people by America at Guantanamo. Mr Galloway said the West was in danger of making the same mistakes over and over again, continuing with "war and occupation as the principal instrument of our foreign and defence policy". He added: "And if we do then some people will get through and hurt us as they have hurt us today." `



In his response, Foreign Minister Jack Straw said that September 11 had not come in response to any Western attack, and was itself in part responsible for the Iraq War. Straw seems unaware that according to the September 11 Commission report, al-Qaeda conceived 9/11 in some large part as a punishment on the US for supporting Ariel Sharon`s iron fist policies toward the Palestinians. Bin Laden had wanted to move the operation up in response to Sharon`s threatening visit to the Temple Mount, and again in response to the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp, which left 4,000 persons homeless. Khalid Shaikh Muhammad argued in each case that the operation just was not ready. As for Straw`s contention that September 11 caused the Iraq war, he should be reminded that Paul O`Neil reported that the very first Bush cabinet meeting he attended, in late January 2001, was "all about Iraq" and that the 9/11 Commission found no evidence for operational cooperation between Saddam`s Iraq and al-Qaeda.

Russian analyst Col. Leonid Ivashov agreed with Galloway: ` "One can say the Iraqi resistance forces have taken military operations to enemy territory, Britain." `

Egypt will close its diplomatic mission in Iraq in the wake of the execution of its chief diplomat in Baghdad. Terrorists calling themselves "Mesopotamian al-Qaeda" claimed on Thursday that they had killed Ihab al-Sherif, and said that they would begin targeting other embassy personnel.

A large riot involving a thousand persons broke out in Tikrit on Wednesday. When a member of the local council showed up dead, his relatives and supporters accused the police chief of having had him killed. They then stormed the police station. One policeman was killed and three civilians were injured in the course of the protest.

Reuters rounds up other deaths in the ongoing guerrilla war:

Guerrillas fired 10 mortar rounds into a bustling market in central Mosul on Thursday, killing 3 and wounding 52. Then they fired more rounds later on, killing 2 and wounding 7.

In Baiji, guerrillas shot an Iraqi soldier and a civilian.

In Mashru, a town near Hilla south of Baghdad, two car bombs killed 18 persons and wounded dozens more late on Wednesday.

Guerrillas in Baghdad killed 3 barbers on Tuesday, it was announced early Thursday. Salafi radicals consider it a crime to shave a Muslim man, who they think should wear a beard in imitation of the Prophet Muhammad.

The bombings in London on Thursday underlined what absolute hell Iraqis are living through, who suffer the equivalent every other day.

The Financial Times reports on negotiations between Iraq and Iran about mutual aid. Iran will give Iraq $1 billion in foreign aid, and will help train the new Iraqi military (as reported here from al-Hayat a couple of days ago). Everyone is doing a double-take about these developments. But they were predictable, given that the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and the Dawa Party won the January 30 elections that the American public was so excited about. This is what that victory really means. Iran in some sense as much won those elections as the Bush administration lost them.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr (Solagh) announced Wednesday that he had uncovered 8 officers who were members of a terrorist cell, plotting against their own ministry. The Interior Ministry (which is like the US Federal Bureau of Investigation) had been controlled by Falah al-Naqib, an ex-Baathist from Samarra, in the cabinet of Iyad Allawi last year. Shiites allege that al-Naqib packed the ministry with Baathist officers. Jabr is a member of the Shiite Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq and is now purging the ex-Baathists (who are mostly Sunnis). Long story short, a person cannot be sure if Jabr found a terrorist cell in the ministry, or if he just found Sunni ex-Baathists whom he wanted to remove. If the latter, it is the sort of thing that is driving the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement.

Russian Premier Vladimir Putin is pushing the other members of the G8 to give the United Nations a leading role in Iraq and setting a timetable for US withdrawal. As regular readers know, the first part of this plan is one that I have also endorsed. The Russians have explored a role as intermediaries in Iraq, having their ambassador in Baghdad meet with Shiite nationalist Muqtada al-Sadr last month.

Michael Jansen dissects the failures of the G8 conference, most of which she lays at the feet of Bush`s unilateralism.

posted by Juan @ [url7/08/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/iraq-comes-to-london-in-iraq-car-bombs.html[/url]

Cole at Salon.com, Beliefnet

My article at Salon.com, "The Time of Revenge Has Come, discusses the way Bush`s incompetent crusade in Iraq has made us all less safe. Short excerpt:


"The United Kingdom had not been a target for al-Qaida in the late 1990s. But in October 2001, bin Laden threatened the United Kingdom with suicide aircraft attacks if it joined in the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan. In November of 2002, bin Laden said in an audiotape, "What do your governments want from their alliance with America in attacking us in Afghanistan? I mention in particular Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia." In February of 2003, as Bush and Blair marched to war in Iraq, bin Laden warned that the U.K. as well as the U.S. would be made to pay. In October of 2003, bin Laden said of the Iraq war, "Let it be known to you that this war is a new campaign against the Muslim world," and named Britain as a target for reprisals. A month later, an al-Qaida-linked group detonated bombs in Istanbul, targeting British sites and killing the British vice-consul. Although bin Laden offered several European countries, including Britain, a truce in April of 2004 if they would withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, the deadline for the end of the truce ended in mid-July of that year . . .

The global anti-insurgency battle against al-Qaida must be fought smarter if the West is to win. To criminal investigations and surveillance must be added a wiser set of foreign policies. Long-term Western military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is simply not going to be acceptable to many in the Muslim world. U.S. actions at Abu Ghraib and Fallujah created powerful new symbols of Muslim humiliation that the jihadis who sympathize with al-Qaida can use to recruit a new generation of terrorists. The U.S. must act as an honest broker in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And Bush and Blair must urgently find a credible exit strategy from Iraq that can extricate the West from bin Laden`s fly trap.

Chicago political scientist Robert Pape argues in his new book, "Dying to Win," that the vast majority of suicide bombers are protesting foreign military occupation undertaken by democratic societies where public opinion matters. He points out that there is no recorded instance of a suicide attack in Iraq in all of history until the Anglo-American conquest of that country in 2003. He might have added that neither had any bombings been undertaken elsewhere in the name of Iraq.

George Bush is sure to try to use the London bombings to rally the American people to support his policies. If Americans look closer, however, they will realize that Bush`s incompetent crusade has made the world more dangerous, not less. "




An interview with me by Deborah Caldwell about the possibility that an al-Qaeda-linked group was behind the London bombings is at beliefnet.com. An excerpt:


What was the aim of this particular terrorist attack?

"The Al Qaeda ideology believes that the Muslim world is weak and oppressed and dominated by the wealthy capitalist West. And that this West uses things like the establishment of Israel or the setting of Muslim against Muslim in Iraq or Afghanistan as a way of keeping the Muslim world weak. Ideally, all the Muslims should get together and establish a United States of Islam, which would revive the Caliphate. (In medieval Islam the Caliph was a kind of pope figure, a central spiritual authority.) Under the Caliphate, you’d have the wealthy Egyptian writers and engineers and you’d have the wealthy oil states come together to make the Muslim world into a united superpower.

Does that dream spring specifically from Salafi theology?

No, you could be a Salafi and not share that particular ideology.

So where does the idea come from?

It goes back to the 19th century. The Ottomans, when they were facing British and French incursion, put together this idea of pan-Islam back in the 1880s. They think that for the last 200 years or so, since Bonaparte invaded Egypt in 1798, Europe has been invading their countries, raping their women, subjecting their men, and stealing their wealth.

So they have a two-fold plan. In order to establish a united Muslim country, you’d have to overthrow the individual secular regimes that now exist—Algeria and Egypt, and so forth. Then you’d have to unite them all under Salafi Islam. And every time they’ve tried to overthrow the Egyptian government, they’re checked, in part because the Americans back [Egyptian President] Hosni Mubarak.

So then they put forward the theory in the 1990s of hitting the foreign enemy first. Basically there are two major impediments to their plan. One is the local secular military governments, which resist being dissolved into this Islamic state. The other is the Western superpowers that back the military regimes. So they became convinced that in order to go forward with their plans, they would have to find a way of pushing the United States and the other powers out of the Middle East—make them timid about intervening, make them pick up stakes and go home, leaving Mubarak and others to their fate. So the attack on London is part of this strategy—getting the British out of Iraq and Afghanistan, weakening British resolve for having a strong posture in the Middle East a la supporting the United States. Having gotten rid of Western dominance, they believe, they can then polish off the secular enemies and go forward with their plans for a revolution of the global south.

If the West pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan, would that end the terrorism or slow it down?

The people who already hold these ideas are unlikely to have their minds changed. They look around and see Western influence everywhere. Certainly the U.S. occupation of Iraq is a great recruiting tool for al Qaeda. They can go to the mosques and find unemployed angry young men and say they are oppressed by Westerners and say, “Look what they’re doing in Fallujah.” So the images are very good recruitment tools.

Why do they think terrorism will work, since it’s unlikely Britain will change its policies?

The British were already planning to draw down their troops from 9,000 to 2,000 in the next nine months. I think the British will do that, and these bombings will not change British policy. The British have been bombed before and have not been timid; they’ve soldiered on in their activities. I don’t think Spain withdrew from Iraq mainly because of the Madrid bombings, either. The Iraq war had always been enormously unpopular—-92 percent of the population didn’t want it.

But these people don’t do these bombings for immediate political purposes. Sacred terror has a lot to do with symbology. They’re like big theatrical events. As I said, they couldn’t even operate in Cairo; they would be arrested. So they feel very powerless. All the powers in the world are against them, and they feel very sure God is with them. What do you do if you’re a tiny fringe who is completely right and indeed only if your plan succeeds is the world saved? And you’re opposed by all of these massive states and powers? One of the things they’re doing is giving themselves heart. They’re saying we can make a difference, we can intervene in history, the enemy is not invulnerable, and we can strike it . . ."

posted by Juan @ [url7/08/2005 06:24:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/cole-at-salon.html[/url]

Japan in Iraq

Reposted by permission:



`Shingetsu Newsletter No. 33 July 7, 2005

Japan`s GSDF mission to Samawa has continued to produce a steady drumbeat of news over the past two weeks. Picking up from where Shingetsu Newsletter No. 26 left off, the political responses to the June 23rd attack ultimately fell along expected lines. MOFA asserted that the attack was not "real terrorism" and that there was nothing to get excited about. Senior officials of the Koizumi administration echoed this same basic line.

Events on the ground in Samawa have continued to show deterioration, however. On June 26th, a road sign that had a picture of the Hinomaru on it was found to be blacked out with paint. On June 28th there was a demonstration in Samawa city by angry unemployed men that was fired on by the local police. Several were killed. Then, on July 3rd, a local sports group had planned to bring six busloads of Iraqi children to the GSDF camp to express support for the Japanese mission. However, threatening letters led to the cancellation of the event. Many speculated that these particular threats emanated from Muqtada al-Sadr loyalists.

In spite of these kinds of events, on June 29th the GSDF resumed limited activities outside the base camp. The first of these excursions was a visit to a British and Australian military camp about 7 km away from the Japanese base.

More has also come to light about the re-extension debate. It appears that the American request to extend the GSDF mission past its December 14, 2005, deadline came via the State Department to MOFA sometime in June, before the 23rd. This request has upset Japan`s prior plans. Apparently, the announcements that MOFA has been making in June about building an electric power plant for Samawa and the reopening of yen loans to Iraq was meant to be the opening moves in shifting the emphasis from the GSDF mission to purely civilian support for Iraq. The US request for a GSDF extension and the deterioration in local security since June 23rd has disrupted these efforts.

Two papers recently carried some interesting information of which I was not previously aware. After their arrival in Samawa in March 2004, the most significant aid activity undertaken by the GSDF was to provide purified water to local residents. However, early this year Japan provided the local authorities with purification equipment of their own through ODA funds. As a result, the GSDF discontinued their water supply service in early February 2005. Since that time, they have focused their aid activities on repaving roads and repairing schools. However, that work too is basically completed now. At the moment, the GSDF really has very little to do in Samawa, and inside the Japanese government this is a well-known fact. The newspapers produced two interesting anonymous quotes:

A Defense Agency official: "From the point of view of Iraq support, there`s already not much meaning in the GSDF mission."

A Foreign Ministry official: "After February the SDF mission has mostly been a simple case of symbolic support for the United States."

I always knew that the main purpose of the GSDF mission was to simply put "boots on the ground" in solidarity with Washington. I was not aware, however, that the GSDF was running out of useful things to do in Samawa.

In spite of all this nonsense, however, there is a good chance that the GSDF mission may in fact be extended. PM Koizumi has indicated that he is leaning toward accepting Washington`s request. MOFA, as expected, is arguing that Japan must continue to show solidarity with the Bush administration in order to strengthen the US-Japan security alliance. Also, the reflexively pro-American editorial page of the Yomiuri Shinbun has already come out in support of extending the mission. The argument they used, however, was a rather dishonest one about Japan needing to rebuild Iraq and to show that it is a "member of international society" (and avoiding any mention of the United States).

Adding their own peculiar voice to the debate, at about 11:15 pm on July 4th, four or five mortars or rockets were fired at the GSDF camp for the first time since January. They were fired from the northwest, flew over the Japanese camp, and landed about 1 km from the base. No Japanese were hurt. Shortly after that, local Iraqi police found a suspicious vehicle several kilometers away and got in a gunfight with unknown men. The details are still sketchy. Koizumi administration officials once again have minimized these local events.

The final decision on the GSDF extension is expected in August or September. Right now the government is too busy fighting over the post office reform plans in Japan. However, the Defense Agency has underlined the fact that they need several months notice if they are to withdraw in December. It is thus thought that September is an effective deadline for a decision to be made.

Sources:

posted by Juan @ [url7/08/2005 06:02:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/japan-in-iraq-reposted-by-permission.html[/url]

Thursday, July 07, 2005

Statement of Qaeda al-Jihad in Europe

This is my translation of the statement posted at the al-Qal3ah website claiming credit for the London bombings. - JRIC

---------------



` Thursday 30/5/1426 = 7/7/2005

The Group of the Secret Organization
The Organization of Qaedat al-Jihad in Europe

In the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate. Blessings and peace be upon the mirthful warrior, our lord Muhammad--may the blessings and peace of God be upon him.

As to the rest:

Community of Islam: rejoice at the good news! Community of Arabism: rejoice at the good news! The time of revenge has come for the crusader, Zionist British government.

In response to the massacres that Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan, the heroic holy warriors have undertaken a blessed raid (ghazwah)in London. Behold Britain now, ablaze with fear and terror, horrified from its north to its south, from its east to its west.

We had warned the British government and the British people over and over again.

Behold, we have made good on our pledge, and have carried out a blessed military raid in Britain after strenuous efforts that the heroic holy warriors have undertaken continuously over a long period of time, so as to guarantee the success of the raid.

We continue to warn both the governments of Denmark and of Italy and all the crusader governments that they shall partake of the same retribution if they do not withdraw their forces from Iraq and Afghanistan. He who has given a warning is thereafter excused.

God, may He be exalted, said, “If you aid God, God will aid you, and will plant your feet firmly.”

Thursday 20/5/1426 = 7/7/2005

The Group of the Secret Organization
The Organization of Qaedat al-Jihad in Europe `

posted by Juan @ [url7/07/2005 04:55:00 PM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/statement-of-qaeda-al-jihad-in-europe.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

The reality of this barbaric bombing
If we are fighting insurgency in Iraq, what makes us think insurgency won’t come to us?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article297623.ece
By Robert Fisk - 08 July 2005


"If you bomb our cities," Osama bin Laden said in one of his recent video tapes, "we will bomb yours." There you go, as they say. It was crystal clear Britain would be a target ever since Tony Blair decided to join George Bush’s "war on terror" and his invasion of Iraq. We had, as they say, been warned. The G8 summit was obviously chosen, well in advance, as Attack Day.

And it’s no use Mr Blair telling us yesterday that "they will never succeed in destroying what we hold dear". "They" are not trying to destroy "what we hold dear". They are trying to get public opinion to force Blair to withdraw from Iraq, from his alliance with the United States, and from his adherence to Bush’s policies in the Middle East. The Spanish paid the price for their support for Bush - and Spain’s subsequent retreat from Iraq proved that the Madrid bombings achieved their objectives - while the Australians were made to suffer in Bali.

It is easy for Tony Blair to call yesterdays bombings "barbaric" - of course they were - but what were the civilian deaths of the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq in 2003, the children torn apart by cluster bombs, the countless innocent Iraqis gunned down at American military checkpoints? When they die, it is "collateral damage"; when "we" die, it is "barbaric terrorism".

If we are fighting insurgency in Iraq, what makes us believe insurgency won’t come to us? One thing is certain: if Tony Blair really believes that by "fighting terrorism" in Iraq we could more efficiently protect Britain - fight them there rather than let them come here, as Bush constantly says - this argument is no longer valid.

To time these bombs with the G8 summit, when the world was concentrating on Britain, was not a stroke of genius. You don’t need a PhD to choose another Bush-Blair handshake to close down a capital city with explosives and massacre more than 30 of its citizens. The G8 summit was announced so far in advance as to give the bombers all the time they needed to prepare.

A co-ordinated system of attacks of the kind we saw yesterday would have taken months to plan - to choose safe houses, prepare explosives, identify targets, ensure security, choose the bombers, the hour, the minute, to plan the communications (mobile phones are giveaways). Co-ordination and sophisticated planning - and the usual utter ruthlessness with regard to the lives of the innocent - are characteristic of al-Qa’ida. And let us not use - as our television colleagues did yesterday - "hallmarks", a word identified with quality silver rather than base metal.

And now let us reflect on the fact that yesterday, the opening of the G8, so critical a day, so bloody a day, represented a total failure of our security services - the same intelligence "experts" who claim there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when there were none, but who utterly failed to uncover a months-long plot to kill Londoners.

Trains, planes, buses, cars, metros. Transportation appears to be the science of al-Qa’ida’s dark arts. No one can search three million London commuters every day. No one can stop every tourist. Some thought the Eurostar might have been an al-Qa’ida target - be sure they have studied it - but why go for prestige when your common or garden bus and Tube train are there for the taking.

And then come the Muslims of Britain, who have long been awaiting this nightmare. Now every one of our Muslims becomes the "usual suspect", the man or woman with brown eyes, the man with the beard, the woman in the scarf, the boy with the worry beads, the girl who says she’s been racially abused.

I remember, crossing the Atlantic on 11 September 2001 - my plane turned round off Ireland when the US closed its airspace - how the aircraft purser and I toured the cabins to see if we could identify any suspicious passengers. I found about a dozen, of course, totally innocent men who had brown eyes or long beards or who looked at me with "hostility". And sure enough, in just a few seconds, Osama bin Laden turned nice, liberal, friendly Robert into an anti-Arab racist.

And this is part of the point of yesterday’s bombings: to divide British Muslims from British non-Muslims (let us not mention the name Christians), to encourage the very kind of racism that Tony Blair claims to resent.

But here’s the problem. To go on pretending that Britain’s enemies want to destroy "what we hold dear" encourages racism; what we are confronting here is a specific, direct, centralised attack on London as a result of a "war on terror" which Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara has locked us into. Just before the US presidential elections, Bin Laden asked: "Why do we not attack Sweden?"

Lucky Sweden. No Osama bin Laden there. And no Tony Blair.

www.independent.co.uk

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Iran, Iraq to OK Military Pact, Including Troop Training Help
From Reuters
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-fg-foes…

July 8, 2005

TEHRAN — Former foes Iran and Iraq said Thursday that they would sign a military cooperation agreement that would include Iranian help in training Iraq`s armed forces, despite likely U.S. opposition.

The agreement marks a breakthrough in relations between the two countries, which fought a bitter 1980-88 war. And it comes in spite of repeated U.S. accusations that Shiite Muslim Iran has undermined security in Iraq since Saddam Hussein`s fall in 2003.

"It`s a new chapter in our relations with Iraq. We will start wide defense cooperation," Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani said at a news conference with his visiting Iraqi counterpart, Saadoun Dulaimi.

"We`re going to form some committees which will be involved in mine clearance, identifying those missing from the war and also … to help train, rebuild and modernize the Iraqi army."

Iran last year offered to train Iraqi border guards, but Iraq declined the offer. Relations have steadily improved since Iraq`s Shiite majority sealed its political dominance in elections this year.

A large Iraqi government delegation, headed by Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, is to visit Tehran next week.

Dulaimi said Iran had offered $1 billion in aid to show its support for Iraq`s quest for postwar recovery. He did not give further details.

Asked about possible U.S. opposition, Shamkhani said, "No one can prevent us from reaching an agreement."


Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
"The time of revenge has come"
[/TABLE]

A fellow commuter snapped this image of passengers being evacuated from an underground train Thursday near London`s King`s Cross station.

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/08/blowback/

Blowback from Bush and Blair`s incompetently pursued war on terror has hit London. When will the U.S. figure out how to fight smart?

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Juan Cole


July 8, 2005 | Credit for the horrific bombings of the London Underground and a double-decker bus on Thursday morning was immediately taken on a radical Muslim Web site by a "secret group" of Qaida al-Jihad in Europe. By Thursday afternoon, as the casualty toll rose above 40 dead and 700 wounded, British Foreign Minister Jack Straw was saying, "It has the hallmarks of an al-Qaida-related attack." Although U.S. President George W. Bush maintains that al-Qaida strikes out at the industrialized democracies because of hatred for Western values, the statement said nothing of the sort. The attack, the terrorists proclaimed, was an act of sacred revenge for British "massacres" in "Afghanistan and Iraq," and a punishment of the United Kingdom for its "Zionism" (i.e., support of Israel). If they really are responsible, who is this group and what do they want?

The phrase "Qaida al-Jihad" refers to the 2001 decision made by Ayman al-Zawahiri, a leader of the Egyptian terrorist group al-Jihad al-Islami, to merge his organization into bin Laden`s al-Qaida ("the Base"). The joint organization was thus renamed Qaida al-Jihad, the "Base for Holy War." (Zawahiri and bin Laden had allied in 1998.) The group claiming responsibility for the London bombings represents itself as a secret, organized grouping or cell of "Qaida al-Jihad in Europe." It is significant that they identify themselves as "in Europe," suggesting that they are based on the continent and have struck from there into London. This conclusion is bolstered by their description of the attack as a "blessed raid." One raids a neighboring territory, not one`s own. Whether this group carried out the attack or not, the sentiments they express do exist among the radical fringe and form a continued danger. Jihadi internet bulletin boards expressed skepticism about the group, and pointed to an inaccuracy in the quotation from the Quran. But al-Qaida wannabes are often engineers without good Arabic or Islamics training.

Most probably, then, this group consists of a small (and previously obscure) expatriate Muslim network somewhere in continental Europe, which has decided to announce its allegiance to Qaida al-Jihad. It is highly unlikely that al-Qaida itself retains enough command and control to plan or order such operations. They could have found many cues in al-Qaida literature, however, that London should be attacked.

The United Kingdom had not been a target for al-Qaida in the late 1990s. But in October 2001, bin Laden threatened the United Kingdom with suicide aircraft attacks if it joined in the U.S. campaign in Afghanistan. In November of 2002, bin Laden said in an audiotape, "What do your governments want from their alliance with America in attacking us in Afghanistan? I mention in particular Britain, France, Italy, Canada, Germany and Australia." In February of 2003, as Bush and Blair marched to war in Iraq, bin Laden warned that the U.K. as well as the U.S. would be made to pay. In October of 2003, bin Laden said of the Iraq war, "Let it be known to you that this war is a new campaign against the Muslim world," and named Britain as a target for reprisals. A month later, an al-Qaida-linked group detonated bombs in Istanbul, targeting British sites and killing the British vice-consul. Although bin Laden offered several European countries, including Britain, a truce in April of 2004 if they would withdraw from Afghanistan and Iraq, the deadline for the end of the truce ended in mid-July of that year.

Ayman al-Zawahiri recently issued a videotape, excerpts of which appeared on al-Jazeera on June 17, which stressed the need for violent action as opposed to participation in political reform. True reform, he said, must be based on three premises: The rule of Islamic law, liberating the lands of Islam from the Occupier, and the freedom of the Islamic community in managing its own affairs. He thundered that "expelling the marauder Crusader and Jewish forces cannot be done through demonstrations and hoarse voices." Al-Zawahiri`s videotapes have often been issued just before major terrorist actions, and some analysts believe that they are intended as cues for when they should be undertaken. Abdel Bari Atwan, the London editor of the Arab newspaper al-Quds, warned that the appearance of the tape signaled an imminent attack.

The communiqué on the London bombing is unusual in appealing both to the Muslim community and to the "community of Arabism." "Urubah," or Arabism, is a secular nationalist ideal. The diction suggests that the bombers are from a younger generation of activists who have not lived in non-Arab Muslim countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan, and think of Arabism and Islam as overlapping rather than alternatives to one another. The text makes relatively few references to religion, reading more as a statement of Muslim nationalism than of piety.

In accordance with al-Zawahiri`s focus on violence as the answer to the "marauding" of occupying non-Muslim armies in Muslim lands, the statement condemns what it calls "massacres" by "Zionist" British troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of them Muslim lands under Western military occupation (and, it is implied, similar in this regard to Gaza and the West Bank under Israeli control). These bombings, it says, are a form of revenge for these alleged predations. The language of revenge recalls tribal feuds rather than Islamic values.

The terrorists refer to the bombings, which they say they carefully planned over a long period, as a "blessed raid." They are recalling the struggle between the wealthy, pagan trading entrepot, Mecca, and the beleaguered, persecuted Muslim community in Medina in early seventh century west Arabia. The Muslims around the Prophet Mohammed responded to the Meccan determination to wipe them out by raiding the caravans of their wealthy rivals, depriving them of their profits and gradually strangling them. The victorious Muslims, having cut the idol-worshipping Meccan merchants off, marched into the city in 630. Al-Qaida teaches its acolytes that great Western metropolises such as New York and London are the Meccas of this age, centers of paganism, immorality and massive wealth, from which plundering expeditions are launched against hapless, pious Muslims. This symbology helps explain why the City of London subway stops were especially targeted, since it is the economic center of London. A "raid" such as the Muslim bombings is considered not just a military action but also a religious ritual.

If the communiqué of Qaida al-Jihad in Europe proves authentic, the London bombings are the second major instance of terrorism in Europe directly related to the Iraq war. In March of 2004, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (French acronym: GICM) launched a massive attack on trains in Madrid in order to punish Spain for its participation in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, following on their bombing of Casablanca the previous year.

From the point of view of a serious counterinsurgency campaign against al-Qaida, Bush has made exactly the wrong decisions all along the line. He decided to "unleash" Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rather than pressing for Israeli-Palestinian peace and an end to Israeli occupation of the territories it captured in 1967. Rather than extinguishing this most incendiary issue for Arabs and Muslims, he poured gasoline on it. His strategy in response to Sept. 11 was to fight the Afghanistan War on the cheap. By failing to commit American ground troops in Tora Bora, he allowed bin Laden and al-Zawahiri to escape. He reneged on promises to rebuild Afghanistan and prevent the reemergence of the Taliban and al-Qaida there, thus prolonging the U.S. and NATO military presence indefinitely. He then diverted most American military and reconstruction resources into an illegal war on Iraq. That war may have been doomed from the beginning, but Bush`s refusal to line up international support, and his administration`s criminal lack of planning for the postwar period, made failure inevitable.

Conservative commentators argue that Iraq is a "fly trap" for Muslim terrorists. It makes much more sense to think of it as bin Laden`s fly trap for Western troops. There, jihadis can kill them (making the point that they are not invulnerable), and can provoke reprisals against Iraqi civilians that defame the West in the Muslim world. After Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, many Muslims felt that Bin Laden`s dire warnings to them that the United States wanted to occupy their countries, rape their women, humiliate their men, and steal their assets had been vindicated.

These claims were not credited by most of the world`s Muslims before the Iraq war. Opinion polls show that most of the world`s Muslims have great admiration for democracy and many other Western values. They object to the U.S. and the U.K. because of their policies, not their values. Before Bush, for instance, the vast majority of Indonesians felt favorably toward the United States. Even after a recent bounce from U.S. help with tsunami relief, only about a third now do.

The global anti-insurgency battle against al-Qaida must be fought smarter if the West is to win. To criminal investigations and surveillance must be added a wiser set of foreign policies. Long-term Western military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq is simply not going to be acceptable to many in the Muslim world. U.S. actions at Abu Ghraib and Fallujah created powerful new symbols of Muslim humiliation that the jihadis who sympathize with al-Qaida can use to recruit a new generation of terrorists. The U.S. must act as an honest broker in resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And Bush and Blair must urgently find a credible exit strategy from Iraq that can extricate the West from bin Laden`s fly trap.

Chicago political scientist Robert Pape argues in his new book, "Dying to Win," that the vast majority of suicide bombers are protesting foreign military occupation undertaken by democratic societies where public opinion matters. He points out that there is no recorded instance of a suicide attack in Iraq in all of history until the Anglo-American conquest of that country in 2003. He might have added that neither had any bombings been undertaken elsewhere in the name of Iraq.

George Bush is sure to try to use the London bombings to rally the American people to support his policies. If Americans look closer, however, they will realize that Bush`s incompetent crusade has made the world more dangerous, not less.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Juan Cole is a professor of modern Middle Eastern and South Asian history at the University of Michigan and the author of "Sacred Space and Holy War" (IB Tauris, 2002).

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 08, 2005[urlLondon Terrorist Attack Increases Worries Among Americans]http://www.gallup.com/poll/content/?ci=17221[/url]
But most say attack does not indicate terrorists are winning the war
by David W. Moore
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

Die im Artikel angesprochen Umfrage stammt vom 05.07. und ist nicht frei zugänglich bei Gallup.

POLITICS:
London Hit as Scepticism Grows on ”Terror War”
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=29423

Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON, Jul 8 (IPS) - Thursday`s terror attacks against London`s public transportation system, which reportedly killed at least 37 people, came amid indications of growing scepticism here about the effectiveness of U.S. President George W. Bush`s ”war on terrorism,” the policy initiative that has earned him his highest public-approval ratings since September 2001.

The Gallup organisation released a new survey just two days ago which found that a plurality of 41 percent of U.S. respondents believe that neither the U.S. and its allies nor the ”terrorists” are currently winning the war and that a two-and-a-half year high of 20 percent of the public believe that the ”terrorists are winning.”

Thirty-six percent of respondents, nearly two-thirds of whom described themselves as Republicans, said the U.S. was winning the war, down sharply from 66 percent after the U.S.-supported ouster of the Taliban in Afghanistan in January 2002, and 65 percent after U.S. troops captured Baghdad in April 2003.

”Not only did the poll reveal increasing public frustration with the war in Iraq and flagging presidential approval ratings,” said Darren Carlson, Gallup`s Government and Politics editor, ”but it also showed the public is not too confident that the United States and its allies are winning the war against terrorism.”

Whether Thursday`s attacks will add to that scepticism and further erode public support for Bush`s leadership remains to be seen, although, as noted by Carlson, the growing pessimism about the Iraq war makes him more vulnerable than at any other time since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

Previous major bomb attacks give little clue. According to a Newsweek poll taken a week after the Madrid train bombings on Mar. 11, 2004, a small majority of respondents said the attacks did not shake their confidence in Bush`s strategy.

But in October 2002, just days after the bombing of a Bali nightclub that killed more than 200 people, mostly Australian tourists, public confidence in Bush`s approach fell to an all-time low: just 32 percent of respondents said they thought Washington was winning the war at the time.

Adding to Bush`s vulnerability at the moment, however, is the fact that most Democrats, who generally stood by the president on foreign-policy matters between the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon and the onset of last year`s presidential election campaign in the spring of 2004, have been arguing for more than a year now that Bush`s invasion of Iraq had diverted key resources and attention from the war against al Qaeda and other hard-line Islamist groups, effectively undermining that effort.

Analysts here clearly believe that al Qaeda or an offshoot was indeed responsible for the London attacks. ”It has all the earmarks of al Qaeda,” noted Dennis Ross, director of the Washington Institute on Near East Policy (WINEP) and a top U.S. Middle East negotiator under former presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton.

He and other analysts noted the well-planned nature of the attacks, their simultaneity, and the timing to coincide with the first day of the Group of Eight (G-8) Summit at Gleneagles, Scotland -- the world`s central news event of the week -- as hallmarks of an al Qaeda-like operation.

The BBC reported that a previously unknown group calling itself ”The Secret Organisation of al-Qaeda in Europe” had claimed responsibility for the explosions. The group reportedly warned the ”Danish and Italian government and all other crusaders” to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and Iraq and that the attacks were carried out in ”revenge from the British Zionist Crusader Government in retaliation for the massacres Britain is committing in Iraq and Afghanistan.”

Some analysts pointed to a letter by Osama bin Laden himself that first surfaced Jun. 20 in which he stated that he was ”preparing for the next round of jihad.”

”We want to give the good news to the Muslim ummah that, with the blessing of Almighty Allah, we have been successful in re-organising ourselves and are going to launch a jihadi programme that is absolutely in accordance with the changed situation.”

In the same communique, he warned the leaders of Muslim countries cooperating with enemy efforts that they would be targeted. Over the past week, high-ranking diplomats from the Baghdad embassies of Egypt, Bahrain, and Pakistan -- all countries that have been publicly urged by Washington to fully normalise relations with Iraq -- were attacked by insurgents.

On Thursday, the al Qaeda in Iraq group, reportedly led by Abu Mus`ab al-Zarqawi, announced that it had executed the charge d`affaires at the Egyptian mission who had been tapped to the first Arab ambassador accredited to Baghdad, Ehab al-Sharif, who was abducted from near his home earlier this week.

Michael Chertoff, the Secretary for Homeland Security, indicated he also believed that an al Qaeda-like group was involved but stressed that Washington had no ”specific credible information of an imminent attack here.” His department raised the terrorism warning alert to ”orange” and ordered extra precautions on public transportation systems, especially the rail system.

At the same time, he said London`s bombings were ”not an occasion for undue anxiety” in the United States.

Bush, who arrived at Gleneagles Wednesday, expressed his solidarity with the British and repeated an oft-used line that ”the ideology of hope” will win over ”the ideology of hate.” He also said the bombings showed that ”the war on terror goes on.”

While the latter observation was unquestionably accurate, it begged the larger question of how that war is defined and carried out. With polls over the last two months showing a sharp plunge in public approval for the way Bush has carried out the war in Iraq, the president last week tried to rally the nation once again in a prime-time speech that was clearly designed to frame U.S. efforts in Iraq -- an issue on which the public shown greater scepticism -- as central to the ”war on terror”, the issue on which his approval ratings have been highest.

Just before the speech, a New York Times/CNN poll, for example, found that public approval for his handling of Iraq was just 37 percent, while approval for his ”campaign against terrorism” stood at 52 percent, 15 percentage points higher.

Bush`s renewed efforts to associate the Iraq war with the war on terror, which drew loud complaints from Democrats and the media, may not be as effective as in the past. However, a succession of polls in recent months has shown that the public has come increasingly to see the two wars as separate.

Indeed, for the first since the U.S. invasion of Iraq, a plurality of the public, by a 50-47 percent margin, sees Iraq as distinct from the war on terrorism, according to a USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll released last week. The same poll found that a similar plurality believes the war in Iraq has made the U.S. less safe from terrorism, and 53-percent majority now believes that the Iraq invasion was itself a mistake.

The fact that al Qaeda or one of its affiliates has now struck in the heart of another western capital -- and Washington`s closest ally, no less -- could add to the growing sense that the Iraq war was and remains a diversion from the fight against al Qaeda, despite the reportedly growing participation of radical Islamists in that conflict.

At the same time, according to Steven Kull, director of the University of Maryland`s Program of International Policy Attitudes (PIPA), the attacks could favour Bush, at least in the short term.

”Whenever there are bombings close to home, it generates fear, and fear intensifies concern about terrorism and makes people marginally more receptive to the kind of frames that Bush has used,” he said.

*Corrects name of Egyptian charge d`affaires Ehab al-Sharif. (END/2005)



Copyright © 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service. All rights reserved.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Jul 9, 2005

SPEAKING FREELY
A twist in the `war on terror`
By Aruni Mukherjee
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GG09Aa01.html

Instead of celebrations at winning the 2012 Olympics Games hosting bid, London sank into turmoil on the morning of July 7 as the "war on terror" came home, weaving deadly dreams for the British people.

The bombing of the underground transport system and a double-decker bus in London, which resulted in at least 37 deaths and nearly 700 injuries, was supposedly carried out by a group associated with the dreaded name of al-Qaeda. Whatever the facts, the symbolic significance, besides the terrible human and material tragedy, cannot be ignored.

While the leaders of the world`s most powerful country planned to determine the fate of Africa and the world environment in the Group of Eight summit at Gleneagles, Scotland, this attack has thrown it into disarray. It shows that the terrorist have the capability to carry out sophisticated and simultaneous attacks in the heart of the Western world, on the doorsteps of world`s corridors of power. New York, Madrid and now London. By targeting the important cities of the countries which were most active in the allied operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, surely a point is being made as well.

What will be the immediate and long-term significance of the attacks? At the time of writing this article, Britain`s MI5 and MI6 intelligence agencies seem to have had no prior warnings about this specific attack. British intelligence had long shown an attack on the isles as inevitable since September 11, 2001. The attacks on British consulates in Yemen and Istanbul had given further hints, but still Thursday`s attack went unintercepted.

To be fair to Scotland Yard and other agencies, it is entirely ludicrous and impractical to even consider security checks for every individual using the public transport in London. Therefore, a leeway for terrorists has, is and will always remain. The more important point is that no arrests have been made till date, and past experience shows that the most effective counter-terrorism operations rely on early arrests when the perpetrators try to clear out from the affected area.

The reaction from the British and global political heavyweights throws more light on the prospective outcome of this debacle. A visibly shocked and defiant British Prime Minister Tony Blair promised to do "all he can" to "confront and defeat" the perpetrators of these attacks. A more passionate Ken Livingston, the mayor of London, challenged the jihadis that "however many you kill, you will fail".

These were strong responses, suggesting that stern action may follow against some of the "suspect" countries in the Middle East, and perhaps even Pakistan. The more brazen and perhaps typical of such responses were those by President George W Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, both of whom insisted that the "civilized world" must not yield to such arm-twisting by extremists.

An important aspect of these reactions is the adamant insistence on ensuring that such response is not targeted towards Muslims per se, but only towards their extremist brethren. Immediately on hearing of the attacks, the Archbishop of Canterbury made a public announcement that complemented the condemnation of the attacks by the Muslim Council of Britain. To prevent mass xenophobia, cynicism and perhaps even racism against Muslims in Britain and elsewhere, even Blair and Livingston included an insistence on maintaining communal harmony in their statements.
Amid all the war cries of "we shall prevail" by Blair, shadow home secretary and prime minister aspirant David Davies raised an important question. He appealed against surrendering the fundamental beliefs on which modern Western society is built on in view of these attacks. For that he argued would be a victory for the terrorists - they would have managed to change the way in which the British people live. This is bound to add fire to the already heated debate on identity cards in the House of Commons.

When it boils down to it, the word "civilization" seems to hold the key to unraveling the complicated web of possible post-attack reaction by the West. Rice termed this attack a "war against the ideals" of Western civilization. Blair termed it "an attack on civilized people" and insisted with confidence that "our values will long outlast theirs". The bells of the "clash of civilizations" predicted by Samuel Huntington seem to be ringing loudly in this discourse.

America and Britain will find it frustrating and hopeless to try and negotiate with the terrorist organizations. For one, it will be hard to sell to the public back home, which has seen soldiers (and now civilians) , die in the war against these same terrorists. For another, the positions of these extremist organizations are rather inflexible, for the slightest of compromise will render their legitimacy as vanguards of Islam futile. Both would rather have a settlement on entirely their terms, or none at all. This will make the likely scenario for further conflict in the Middle East even more probable.

The attacks on a controversial perhaps-to-be-built temple site in Ayodhya, India on July 5 were possibly conducted by a Pakistan-based terrorist outfit. No one knows for sure, but it was perhaps the minor ripples of a terror tsunami that was to be unleashed in London two days later. When India mobilized its army in response to the attack by extremist groups on its parliament in 2001, America preached restraint. Will it do the same to its most valued ally? Unlikely.

For America, the attacks will ensure closer British collaboration in future operations in the Middle East and elsewhere, as Blair will probably rise in the popular ratings, as most leaders do in a crisis.

We all live in an increasingly inter-connected world where turmoil in one part affects those in another. Markets fluctuated not only in London, but also throughout Europe in view of the London bombings. The preferable solution would be a multilateral and peaceful one, but these attacks in London will harden attitudes on both sides and might deal a mortal blow to that ideal.

Aruni Mukherjee is based at the University of Warwick, UK and takes a deep interest in the political economy of the Indian sub-continent. He is originally from Kolkata, India.

(Copyright 2005 Aruni Mukherjee)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 9, 2005
Al Qaeda`s Smart Bombs
By ROBERT A. PAPE
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/09/opinion/09pape.html?

Chicago

WHILE we don`t yet know who organized the terrorist attacks in London on Thursday, it seems likely that they were the latest in a series of bombings, most of them suicide attacks, over the past several years by Al Qaeda and its supporters. Although many Americans had hoped that Al Qaeda has been badly weakened by American counterterrorism efforts since Sept. 11, 2001, the facts indicate otherwise. Since 2002, Al Qaeda has been involved in at least 17 bombings that killed more than 700 people - more attacks and victims than in all the years before 9/11 combined.

[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
To make sense of this campaign, I compiled data on the 71 terrorists who killed themselves between 1995 and 2004 in carrying out attacks sponsored by Osama bin Laden`s network. I was able to collect the names, nationalities and detailed demographic information on 67 of these bombers, data that provides insight into the underlying causes of Al Qaeda`s suicide terrorism and how the group`s strategy has evolved since 2001.

Most important, the figures show that Al Qaeda is today less a product of Islamic fundamentalism than of a simple strategic goal: to compel the United States and its Western allies to withdraw combat forces from the Arabian Peninsula and other Muslim countries.

As the chart on bottom shows, the overwhelming majority of attackers are citizens of Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf countries in which the United States has stationed combat troops since 1990. Of the other suicide terrorists, most came from America`s closest allies in the Muslim world - Turkey, Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia and Morocco - rather than from those the State Department considers "state sponsors of terrorism" like Iran, Libya, Sudan and Iraq. Afghanistan produced Qaeda suicide terrorists only after the American-led invasion of the country in 2001. The clear implication is that if Al Qaeda was no longer able to draw recruits from the Muslim countries where there is a heavy American combat presence, it might well collapse.

As the top chart shows, what is common among the attacks is not their location but the identity of the victims killed. Since 2002, the group has killed citizens from 18 of the 20 countries that Osama bin Laden has cited as supporting the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.

There is good evidence that this shift in Al Qaeda`s scheme was the product of deliberate choice. In December 2003, the Norwegian intelligence service found a lengthy Qaeda planning document on a radical Islamic Web site that described a coherent strategy for compelling the United States and its allies to leave Iraq. It made clear that more spectacular attacks against the United States like those of 9/11 would be insufficient, and that it would be more effective to attack America`s European allies, thus coercing them to withdraw their forces from Iraq and Afghanistan and increasing the economic and military burdens that the United States would have to bear.

In particular, the document weighed the advantages of attacking Britain, Poland and Spain, and concluded that Spain in particular, because of the high level of domestic opposition to the Iraq war, was the most vulnerable.

"It is necessary to make utmost use of the upcoming general election in Spain in March next year," the document stated. "We think that the Spanish government could not tolerate more than two, maximum three, blows, after which it will have to withdraw as a result of popular pressure. If its troops still remain in Iraq after these blows, then the victory of the Socialist Party is almost secured, and the withdrawal of the Spanish forces will be on its electoral program."

That prediction, of course, proved murderously prescient. Yet it was only one step in the plan: "Lastly, we emphasize that a withdrawal of the Spanish or Italian forces from Iraq would put huge pressure on the British presence, a pressure that Tony Blair might not be able to withstand, and hence the domino tiles would fall quickly."

No matter who took the bombs onto those buses and subways in London, the attacks are clearly of a piece with Al Qaeda`s post-9/11 strategy. And while we don`t know if the claim of responsibility from a group calling itself the Secret Organization of Al Qaeda in Europe was legitimate, an understanding of Al Qaeda`s strategic logic may help explain why that message included a threat of further attacks against Italy and Denmark, both of which contributed troops in Iraq.

The bottom line, then, is that the terrorists have not been fundamentally weakened but have changed course and achieved significant success. The London attacks will only encourage Osama bin Laden and other Qaeda leaders in the belief that they will succeed in their ultimate aim: causing America and its allies to withdraw forces from the Muslim world.

Robert A. Pape, a professor of political science at the University of Chicago, is the author of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Saturday, July 09, 2005

London Bombing by Less Sophisticated Group

London began digging out on Friday, dealing with the aftermath of the attacks. AP reports:


` Much of London was eerily quiet. Bombed stations were shrouded in security curtains, and refrigerated trucks waited outside to carry away bodies. Bouquets of fresh flowers and cards scribbled with thoughts for the victims of London`s worst attack since World War II piled up outside the stations near the bombed lines. "Yesterday, we fled this great city, but today we are walking back into an even stronger, greater city," said one card near St. Pancras Church, near where a bomb shredded the bus. "The people who did this should know they have failed. They have picked the wrong city to pick on. London will go on." `



Recovery of bodies and clean-up was impeded by structural damage in the tube system.

Muslims across the United Kingdom prayed Friday for the victims of the July 7 bombings. Many feared reprisals. The Muslim Council of Britain, which represents the UK`s 1.6 million Muslims, said it received 30,000 hate emails. One organization suggested that Muslims just stay home for the time being to avoid being beaten up. Wire services reported, ` “The whole world now will point at me and say I am an Arab and Muslim terrorist,” said Zakaria Koubissi, a 29-year-old manager of a Lebanese restaurant. `

Two physical attacks on Muslims and suspicious fires at a mosque and a Sikh temple were reported on Friday. Prime Minister Tony Blair and other UK officials were stressing the country`s multi-cultural character and Britain`s traditions of tolerance and human rights.

Muslim organizations in the US vocally denounced the London bombings. Many fear a backlash against their communities in America, as well.

Oxford Analytica argues convincingly that the London cell that carried out the July 7 bombings was much less sophisticated logistically and tactically than the Moroccan Islamic Combatants Group that pulled off last year`s Madrid bombings.

Investigators continue to argue that the attack has all the hallmarks of the al-Qaeda modus operandi. But the cheap plastic explosives used were nothing like as powerful as semtex, and are fairly easily available on the black market. Investigators are speculating that the bomber on the double decker bus had gotten late and could not get on the Underground because the others had already closed it down, and that he was fiddling with the bomb in his bag, accidentally setting it off and blowing himself up.

By the way, if the communique issued by Qaeda al-Jihad in Europe is authentic, then this attack cannot be linked to Zarqawi. They say they are taking revenge for British troops` "massacres" of Muslims in Afghanistan and Iraq. But Zarqawi`s Salafi group would never celebrate "Arabism" or speak of "heroes" (abtal) when referring to the "holy warriors" or mujahidin. Urubah and batal, Arabism and hero, are typical of the vocabulary of secular Arab nationalism-- in, say, the tradition of Gamal Abdel Nasser. That message is coming from a group of terrorists that is much more comfortable with this language than are typically the extremist Salafis like Zarqawi. "Hero" would sem a term of humanistic pride to them, and Arabism would seem narrow and idolatrous as a competitor with Islam. There are Muslim thinkers who meld political Islam and Arabism-- this is common in Egypt, e.g. But they belong to a different religious and intellectual tradition than Zarqawi.

Michael Kanell explores the economic implications of the London attack. So far they appear slight. Although tourism and the airline industry could be hurt, analysts point out that tourists were out and about in London already on Friday, and that New York and Madrid recovered quickly in that regard.

Iraqi clerics roundly condemned the bombings in London in their Friday prayer sermons. Al-Jazeera repofts:


"Muslims oppose attacks targeting civilians, whether they are Muslims or non-Muslims," said Shaikh Abd al-Ghafur al-Samarrai, during Friday prayers at the Sunni Umm al-Qura mosque in Baghdad.



Other clerics were also condemnatory. But some criticized the British government, as well. One Shiite said the British were giving asylum to Iraqi Baathists, an unwise move given that the latter were dedicated to terrorist violence. Another complained that the world deeply mourned a single bombing in London, but seemed not to care about daily bombings in Iraq. It writes:

` Another preacher, Shaikh Zakaria al-Tamimi, speaking at the Ibn Taimiyah mosque - home to the Salafist orthodox brand of Sunni Islam - wondered why the world would not react to the daily killing of innocent people in Iraq, just as it did to the latest London bombings. "This is because Iraqis are like chicken and nobody cares about the killing of a chicken, but the British are the lords of this world." `



Sheldon Rampton carefully examines the opportunistic uses to which the Right blogosphere has been putting the London bombings.

posted by Juan @ [url7/09/2005 06:35:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/london-bombing-by-less-sophisticated.html[/url]

Italians to Begin Withdrawal
Roadside Bomb Kills US Soldier in Iraq

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi announced Saturday morning that the three thousand Italian troops would begin pulling out of Iraq in September. Some 300 will leave that month. The Italians have been stationed at Nasiriyyah, a Shiite area in the south that has been relatively quiet since the Sadrist uprisings of spring and summer, 2004. Italian commanders appear to be thinking as British ones are, that the Shiite south in Iraq simply no longer needs foreign troops to see to its security. Instead, the new, majority-Shiite government and the elected provincial councils should be able to maintain order, even if they have to rely on party militias.

Although Berlusconi denied that the London bombings were a factor in the decision, the only possible explanation for his announcing the decision now is to calm the nerves of Italians, who have twice been threatened by jihadi groups over the presence of their troops in Iraq. The Italian public all along overwhelmingly opposed involvement in Bush`s illegal Iraq war. But involvement in the US-led Coalition has been made even more difficult by the US killing of Italian secret agent Nicola Calipari last spring, and by the recent controversy over the kidnapping just before the war of an Egyptian imam from Milan by the CIA.

Many members of Bush`s ad hoc coalition in Iraq are planning to leave Iraq by December, when the current United Nations authorization for their presence ends. It appears that by next year this time, the US will be in Iraq virtually alone, still in all likelihood facing the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement.

Reuters gives security incidents for Friday:

Guerrillas near Balad used a roadside bomb to kill one US soldier and wound three others.

Guerrillas in Baghdad attacked a water pipe yet again. This is the third time in three weeks, and each such attack has left several districts of the capital without running water for many days in the midst of a sweltering summer.

Three guerrillas were killed while trying to set a roadside bomb near Mahaweel south of Baghdad. Reuters adds:



` BASRA - The body of Basra University Arabic Language professor Karim Khamass was found a day after he was kidnapped on his way home from work, a police officer said.

BAQUBA - US forces arrested Hamid Selman sl-Sadoun, chief of the Benni Zeid tribe of Sunni Arabs, in the town of Kanan, near Baquba on Thursday, relatives said. `



Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that late on Thursday a Shiite cleric, Shaikh Hasan Atiyah al-Fadali, and his brother were killed at a Baghdad bridge.

Iraq historian Toby Dodge of the UK explains the Iraqi guerrilla movement to veteran journalist Rami Khoury. It consists of dozens of small groups and is in the majority directed by ex-Baathists.

Chalmers Johnson tells the heartrending tale of the destruction of much of Iraq`s history under the glazed eyes of the Bush administration`s criminally inept administration of the country.

The London Review of Books asks where the money went in Iraq.

The addition of Sunnis to the Constitution drafting committee appears to be causing tensions. FBIS translates the article from al-Ta`akhi:


` Iraq: Kurdish Deputy Unhappy About Sunni Contribution in Drafting Constitution Report: "Kurdish MP Abd-al-Khaliq Zangana: The Sunni members of the constitutional commission try to take us back to square one", p 1

AL-TA`AKHI

Thursday, July 7, 2005 T16:19:23Z
Journal Code: 9091 Language: ENGLISH Record Type: FULLTEXT
Document Type: FBIS Translated Excerpt

Abd-al-Khaliq Zangana, member of the Iraqi National Assembly said: We presented a picture about the six committees to the newly appointed Sunni Arab members, who paid attention and put forward some remarks.

In an interview to Al-Ta`akhi yesterday, Zangana added: The Sunni brothers participating (in the drafting of the constitution) try to take us back to square one during the discussions with them. In the first session with them they objected to some paragraphs that have been agreed upon in the draft constitution. However, we hope we could cooperate together in writing the constitution for the federal republic of Iraqi. But they objected to it and to naming it as the federal Iraq. But this point is no longer up to discussions as far as the Kurdish members are concerned as the subject has already been agreed on since 4 October 1992, so it is impossible to go backward or go back to a tyrannical regime. `



The United States and India have signed a 10-year military security pact that might facilitate the provision of Indian troops to peace-keeping efforts in places like Iraq. The Indian left is suspicious that the defense minister signed the pact under duress from Washington during a trip to the US capital, and worry that it appears to sign India up to US operations without a United Nations framework.

posted by Juan @ [url7/09/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/italians-to-begin-withdrawal-roadside.html[/url]

Friedman Wrong About Muslims Again
And the Amman Statement on Ecumenism

Tom Friedman is a Middle East expert who knows a lot about Islam. Why, then, does he keep saying misleading things? He wrote in his latest column, "To this day - to this day - no major Muslim cleric or religious body has ever issued a fatwa condemning Osama bin Laden."

A "fatwa" is simply a considered opinion of a Muslim jurisconsult. Such opinions are numerous. First of all, almost all the major Shiite Grand Ayatollahs have condemned Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. You could say that is easy, since Shiites don`t generally like Wahhabis. But they are the leaders of 120 million Muslims (some ten percent of the 1.2 billion). So that is one. Tracking these things down is time-consuming, but this should do:
Ayatollah Muhammad Husain Fadlallah of Lebanon condemns Osama Bin Laden.

So then what about the Sunni world? The leading moral authority for Sunnis is the rector or Grand Imam of the al-Azhar Seminary/ University in Cairo, Egypt. Al-Azhar is perhaps the world`s oldest continuous university and has been since the time of Saladin a major center of Sunni religious authority. The current incumbent is Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi. So what about Tantawi and Bin Laden?

Grand Imam of Al-Azhar seminary, Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, condemns Osamah Bin Laden. And:

The Grand Imam of al-Azhar Seminary, Shaikh Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, condemns Osamah Bin Laden.

What about Pakistan? Admittedly, it has some clerics who are fans of Bin Laden, or at least who would avoid condemning him. But the allegation Friedman is making is that no major cleric has condemned him. Try this: Prominent Pakistani Cleric Tahir ul Qadri condemns Bin Laden.

I don`t personally care for Yusuf al-Qaradawi. He is an old-time Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood preacher who fled to Qatar and now has a perch at al-Jazeera. But he does have some virtues. He is enormously popular among Muslim fundamentalists. And, he absolutely despises Bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Al-Qaradawi has repeatedly condemned the latter. He even gave a fatwa that it was a duty of Muslims to fight alongside the US in Afghanistan against al-Qaeda! See also:
Yusuf al-Qaradawi condemns al-Qaeda.

There are also substantial Muslim communities in Europe with leaderships that have explicitly condemned Bin Laden. E.g.:

Spanish Muslim Clerical authorities Issue Fatwa against Osamah Bin Laden. There are on the order of 250,000 Muslims in Spain.

High Mufti of Russian Muslims calls for Extradition of Bin Laden. The Russian Muslim community is about 20 million strong, or 15 percent of Russia`s 143 million population, and is growing rapidly, so that in a century Russia may be 50 percent Muslim. So this is not a pro forma thing here.

A good round-up on this sort of issue has been put up by al-Muhajabah.

Friedman also does refer to a major conference of Muslim clerics, thinkers and notables wound up just Wednesday that made a powerful statement about religious tolerance and condemned everything Osama Bin Laden stands for. But he seems oddly unaware of the significance of having Grand Ayatollah Sistani, Grand Imam of al-Azhar Seminary Muhammad Sayyid Tantawi, and many other great Muslim authorities sign off on this epochal statement of Muslim ecumenism.

The statement forbids one Muslim to declare another "not a Muslim" if the believer adheres to any of the mainstream legal rites of Sunnism and Shiism. The whole basis of al-Qaeda is to call the Muslim leaders of countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, as well as Shiites, "not Muslims." The statement also demands that engineers should please stop pretending to issue fatwas, which should be left to trained clerical jurisconsults. This para. is also a slam at Bin Laden.

posted by Juan @ [url07/09/2005 06:15:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/friedman-wrong-about-muslims-again-and.html[/url]

Iraq and State Dept. Terrorism Watch List

Intrepid readers write about the checkered history of the US designation of Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism:

1.



`Here is some info on Iraq and the State Sponsored Terror List.

As far as I can tell Iraq was removed from the list 1982 as thanks for going against Iran, added in 1990 and removed in 1991 in conjunction with a $80 bn. emergency bill for military operations and reconstruction efforts. Language in the 1991 bill evidently had to remove Iraq from the terror list although I could not find that particular clause. The clause was used to deny POW`s from collecting a judgment against Iraq as allowed by 1996 legislation granting the right to sue any countries on the State Terror List. Also, Iraq was removed in 2004, which may be connected to reconstruction allocations earmarked for Haliburton et.al..


Whole PDF. Excerpt: "Iraq. On September 13, 1990, Iraq was placed once again on the terrorism list, after having been removed in 1982. Iraq’s ability to support terrorist activities has been limited by U.S. and U.N. sanctions which were imposed after the Kuwait invasion."

From: this article:

Zelikow: "Notably, 2004 was also marked by progress in decreasing the threat from states that sponsor terrorism - state-sponsored terrorism. Iraq`s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism was formally rescinded in October 2004.

In April 2002, the Washington law firm of Steptoe & Johnson filed suit on behalf of the 17 former POWs and 37 of their family members. The suit, Acree vs. Republic of Iraq, sought monetary damages for the "acts of torture committed against them and for pain, suffering and severe mental distress of their families."

Usually, foreign states have a sovereign immunity that shields them from being sued. But in the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1996, Congress authorized U.S. courts to award "money damages ... against a foreign state for personal injury or death that was caused by an act of torture, extrajudicial killing, aircraft sabotage [or] hostage taking." On July 7, 2003, the judge handed down a long opinion that described the abuse suffered by the Gulf War POWs, and he awarded them $653 million in compensatory damages. He also assessed $306 million in punitive damages against Iraq. Lawyers for the POWs asked him to put a hold on some of Iraq`s frozen assets.

No sooner had the POWs celebrated their victory than they came up against a new roadblock: Bush administration lawyers argued that the case should be thrown out of court on the grounds that Bush had voided any such claims against Iraq, which was now under U.S. occupation. The administration lawyers based their argument on language in an emergency bill, passed shortly after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, approving the expenditure of $80 billion for military operations and reconstruction efforts. One clause in the legislation authorized the president to suspend the sanctions against Iraq that had been imposed as punishment for the invasion of Kuwait more than a decade earlier.

The president`s lawyers said this clause also allowed Bush to remove Iraq from the State Department`s list of state sponsors of terrorism and to set aside pending monetary judgments against Iraq.



2.



` Not sure if this is what you are looking for, but the pre-911 US State
Department "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report for 2000 can be found here.

The section on "State-sponsored Terrorism"
does include a mention of Iraq as being a state sponsor of terrorism, though it "focused on antidissident activity overseas". Significantly, it mentions several
terrorist organizations maintaining offices in Baghdad including Abu Nidal.
The Iranian terrorist group MEK merits a mention.

Arguably, according to the pre-911 US definition, Iraq was a state that actively sponsored terrorism, primarily against overseas dissidents, but also Israel and Iran. That cannot, however, be used as a justification for the invasion of Iraq, since it has not been demonstrated that other means were attempted to pressure Iraq to stop sponsoring terrorism. Military means should be a last resort, both from a humanitarian and a cost point-of-view. `



3.



` It appears, unfortunately, that your critics were correct that Iraq remained on the State Department’s list through the late 1990s. However, the text on Iraq is quite mild during that period; the 1997 report says that they had not actually done anything in the West since 1993, for example. So a fair reading is probably that your critics are technically correct, but that from a practical perspective the State Department probably did not see Iraq as creating a terrorism problem for the U.S. during that period.

Here are the relevant sites that I found:


here;

and

here.



4.


` In response to your question about controversy over designation of Iraq as a state sponsor of terrorism: I went to this site:

and in a statement dated April 2001, found this:

"Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Cuba, North Korea, and Sudan continue to be the seven governments that the US Secretary of State has designated as state sponsors of international terrorism".

This report refers to terrorist activities in 2000 -- before Mr. Bush came to office -- although presumably it was prepared after the election.

It may be that you remember statements like this, which appear later in the same report:

"Iraq planned and sponsored international terrorism in 2000. Although Baghdad focused on antidissident activity overseas, the regime continued to support various terrorist groups. The regime has not attempted an anti-Western terrorist attack since its failed plot to assassinate former President Bush in 1993 in Kuwait."

To me, it`s pretty clear that, by the time of the 2001 report, Iraq was no longer at least an active terrorist threat to the US. The State Department designation remained, nonetheless. `



5.
Another reader pointed to this piece by John Pilger on statements of Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice in spring of 2001:



"An investigation of files and archive film for my TV documentary Breaking The Silence, together with interviews with former intelligence officers and senior Bush officials have revealed that Bush and Blair knew all along that Saddam Hussein was effectively disarmed.

Both Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush`s closest adviser, made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America, Europe or the Middle East.

In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

This is the very opposite of what Bush and Blair said in public.

Powell even boasted that it was the US policy of "containment" that had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years". America, he said, had been successful in keeping him "in a box".

Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

So here were two of Bush`s most important officials putting the lie to their own propaganda, and the Blair government`s propaganda that subsequently provided the justification for an unprovoked, illegal attack on Iraq. The result was the deaths of what reliable studies now put at 50,000 people, civilians and mostly conscript Iraqi soldiers, as well as British and American troops. There is no estimate of the countless thousands of wounded. `



In sum: My statement that Iraq was not on the State Department list of state sponsors of terror in the late 1990s was incorrect. It was based on something I had read more than once but appear to have misunderstood.

What is correct is that Iraq was removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism by the Reagan and first Bush administrations, and apparently again briefly in the early 1990s by the Clinton administration (for technical legal reasons). It was on the list in the late 1990s and early zeroes, however it was explicitly noted that it was on the list for its persecution of Iraqi dissident expatriates abroad, and not because it had the habit of getting up terrorism against the United States, which it had not done for a decade at the time of the Iraq War.

The person who originally wrote me snarkily seemed to assume I would have difficulty acknowledging this error. I don`t know why in the world, except maliciousness, he would come to that conclusion. I am always glad to set the record straight, and since I`m such an inquisitive person, get real joy from getting to the bottom of things. I am deeply grateful to the readers who dug up the record on this one.

posted by Juan @ [url7/09/2005 06:07:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/iraq-and-state-dept.html[/url]

Friday, July 08, 2005

Death Toll in London climbing toward 50

The death toll in the horrible London bombings seems headed toward 50 or higher as some severely wounded passengers have succumbed.

The driver of the double decker bus that was bombed has given his account.

All the Muslim governments condemned the bombings of London, including Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, along with Iran, as well as Turkey, and even Hamas and Hizbullah. Hamas has long foresworn violence against American and European targets, and has been holding talks with the UK, for which it has been condemned by the al-Qaeda-linked groups. Note that only at ArabicNews.com and the Chinese sites will the unadorned truth of these Arab and Muslim condemnations be reported in detail. The Financial Times mentioned it but then discussed a few negative individual responses in chat rooms, as though the Egyptian foreign minister was only as important as some guy in an internet cafe. All the Muslim governments are as vulnerable as London, and most of the Arab and Muslim capitals have been bombed by radical fundamentalists-- Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad, Riyadh, Tehran, Jakarta, etc. Sometimes it has been the country`s second city, as with Casablanca or Istanbul.

Spain is sending its experts on radical Muslim terrorism to London to help with the investigation. Madrid`s train system was bombed by a Moroccan terrorist group in March of 2004.

AP reports,


` A senior U.S. counterterrorism official acknowledged Thursday that the Internet posting by al-Qaida in Europe was considered a ``potentially very credible`` claim, in part because the message appeared soon after the attacks and didn`t appeared rushed. But nobody was certain. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because investigations were ongoing. `



An MSNBC television translator maintained that there was "an error" in the quotation of one of the Quran verses in the statement posted to the Qal3ah website claiming credit for the bombing for a secret cell of Qaeda al-Jihad in Europe. I can`t figure out what Mr. Keryakes is talking about, and wish the report had been more specific.

The only obvious quotation from the Quran is at the end, where the statement says,


"God, may He be exalted, said, “If you aid God, God will aid you, and will plant your feet firmly.”



This is Quran 47:7, in transliteration: "Ya ayyuha alladhina amanu in tansuru Allaha yansurkum wayuthabbit aqdamakum."

The last part of the verse is quoted in the text, and correctly quoted as far as I can see.

Anyway, I do not agree with Keryakes` point to begin with. Muslims often misquote the Quran, as Kenneth Cragg once pointed out, just as Christians often do not quite get biblical verses right. Moreover, al-Qaeda types are often not clerics, indeed are engineers without a good liberal arts education.

In the "Doomsday Document" apparently authored by Muhammad Atta, the phrase "pious forebears" (al-salaf al-salih) is misspelled. The author used a "sad" or heavy "s" for salaf, which actually takes a light "s." I was initially so shocked by this that I wondered if the document had been written by a non-Arab. But Egyptian scholars assured me that an Arab engineer could easily make such an error.

posted by Juan @ [url7/08/2005 05:30:00 PM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/death-toll-in-london-climbing-toward.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

This terror will continue until we take Arab grievances seriously
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1524756,00.ht…

Our focus must now be on the conditions that allow Bin Ladenists to recruit and operate
David Clark
Saturday July 9, 2005

Guardian
It must now be obvious, even to those who would like us to think otherwise, that the war on terror is failing. This is not to say that the terrorists are winning. Their prospects of constructing the medieval pan-Islamic caliphate of their fantasies are as negligible today as they were four years ago when they attacked America. It is simply to point out that their ability to bring violence and destruction to our streets is as strong as ever and shows no sign of diminishing. We may capture the perpetrators of Thursday`s bombings, but others will follow to take their place. Moreover, the actions of our leaders have made this more likely, not less. It`s time for a rethink.

The very idea of a war on terror was profoundly misconceived from the start. Rooted in traditional strategic thought, with its need for fixed targets and an identifiable enemy, the post-9/11 response focused myopically on the problem of how and where to apply military power. Once the obvious and necessary task of tackling Bin Laden`s presence in Afghanistan had been completed, those charged with prosecuting the war needed a new target to aim at.

In his book Against All Enemies, the former White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke chronicles the inability of senior administration officials to grasp the nature of the threat directed against them. Even before 9/11 they were fixated with the notion that behind a successful terrorist network like al-Qaida must be state sponsorship; destroy the state, destroy the threat, ran the theory. In this environment it was easy for the neoconservatives to win approval for their prefabricated plan to attack Iraq.

But al-Qaida has never depended on state sponsorship, except in the wholly unintended sense that the US-funded campaign against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan brought its members together and gave them their first taste of jihad. Indeed it is a mistake even to regard al-Qaida as an organisation in the traditional sense of the term. At most it is now little more than an idea, fusing ideology with operational method, both of which can be accessed freely via the internet. It is quite meaningless to talk about destroying the "terrorist infrastructure", unless we propose to carpet bomb Microsoft. We have entered the era of do-it-yourself terrorism.

Bin Laden must be brought to justice, but he has become a strategic irrelevance in the struggle against terrorism. Wherever he is - on the run in the badlands of Waziristan or holed up in someone`s cellar - he is not directing operations. He doesn`t need to. He has provided the inspiration and example for a new generation of terrorists who have never been to his training camps in Afghanistan and whose only connection to al-Qaida is a shared desire to lash out at the west.

It should be clear by now that we cannot defeat this threat with conventional force alone, however necessary that may be in specific circumstances. Even good policing, as we have found to our cost, will have only limited effect in reducing its capacity to harm. The opposite response - negotiation - is equally futile. How can you negotiate with a phenomenon that is so elusive and diffuse? And even if you could, what prospect would there be of reaching a reasonable settlement? The term "Islamofascism" may be a crude political device, but those who coined it are right to see in Bin Ladenism a classic totalitarian doctrine that accepts no limits in method or aim. What they want, we cannot give.

An effective strategy can be developed, but it means turning our attention away from the terrorists and on to the conditions that allow them to recruit and operate. No sustained insurgency can exist in a vacuum. At a minimum, it requires communities where the environment is permissive enough for insurgents to blend in and organise without fear of betrayal. This does not mean that most members of those communities approve of what they are doing. It is enough that there should be a degree of alienation sufficient to create a presumption against cooperating with the authorities. We saw this in Northern Ireland.

From this point of view, it must be said that everything that has followed the fall of Kabul has been ruinous to the task of winning over moderate Muslim opinion and isolating the terrorists within their own communities. In Iraq we allowed America to rip up the rule book of counter-insurgency with a military adventure that was dishonestly conceived and incompetently executed. Tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed by US troops uninterested in distinguishing between combatant and noncombatant, or even counting the dead. The hostility engendered has been so extreme that the CIA has been forced to conclude that Iraq may become a worse breeding ground for international terrorism that Afghanistan was. Bin Laden can hardly believe his luck.

The political dimensions of this problem mean that there can be no hope of defeating terrorism until we are ready to take legitimate Arab grievances seriously. We must start by acknowledging that their long history of engagement with the west is one that has left many Arabs feeling humiliated and used. There is more to this than finding a way of bringing the occupation of Iraq to an end. We cannot seriously claim to care for the rights of Arabs living in Iraq when it is obvious that we care so little for Arabs living in Palestine. The Palestinians need a viable state, but all the indications suggest that the Bush administration is preparing to bounce the Palestinians into accepting a truncated entity that will lack the basic characteristics of either viability or statehood. That must not be allowed to succeed.

At its inception post-9/11, the war on terror was shaped by the fact that it was American blood that had been shed. This gave President Bush the moral authority to tell the world "you`re either with us or against us". Having stood with America, and paid a terrible price for doing so, it is now time to turn that demand back on Bush. We have a vital national interest in defeating terrorism and we must have a greater say in how that is done. The current approach is failing and it`s time for a change. If Tony Blair cannot bring himself to say this, he owes it to his country to make way for someone who can.

· David Clark is a former Labour government adviser

[e-mail]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Es sieht so aus, als ob die katholische Kirche will unter dem neuen Papst ins Mittelalter zurück.

Auf Veranlassung des damaligen Nochkardinal Ratzingers haben die US-Bischöfe und auch auch einige US-Kardinäle eine Wahlempfehlung für Bush gegeben.

Dieses hat dazu geführt, dass gerade auch in den Staaten des Südwestens durch viele katholische Latinos Bush gewählt wurde als bei früheren Wahlen.

Zusätzlich zu den mobilisierten Evangelikalen, die normalerweise wenig politisch sind, haben diese zusätzlichen Bushstimmen einen Swing bewirkt und dadurch die Bush-Wiederwahl ermöglicht.

Vor der Wahl ist davon ausgegangen worden, dass die höhere Mobilisation der Wähler sich zu Gunsten Kerrys auswirken würde. Im Nachhinhein waren diese Mehrwähler aber eher die christlichen Fundamentalisten und die katholischen Swingwähler.

Nun scheint sich die katholische Kirche auch in anderen Bereichen den Wiedertäufern anzunähern.

Die Ablehnung der Evolution ist auch ein Thema, das im Mittelpunkt der Diskussionen der christlichen Fundamentalen der USA steht. Das ist auch eine der Forderungen der Fundis als Gegenleistung für die Wahlhilfe für Bush. Eine der andere Forderungen sind u.a. die Besetzung der Richterposten mit Extrem-Konservativen.

Das sind also die neuen Werte, auf die wir uns zurückbesinnen sollen, um uns in dem Kampf mit den Extremisten des Islams behaupten zu können.

Das nannte man mal den Teufel mit Belzebub austreiben.

Man sollte schon mal damit beginnen die Scheiterhaufen aufzuschichten und die Öfen anzuheizen.



[Table align=center]
Leading Cardinal Redefines Church`s View on Evolution
[/TABLE]

[urlLeading Cardinal Redefines Church`s View on Evolution]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/09/science/09cardinal.html?hp&ex=1120968000&en=c1d22e12f70c2ef1&ei=5094&partner=homepage[/url]
[Table align=left]

Cardinal Christoph Schönborn
[/TABLE]
By CORNELIA DEAN and LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: July 9, 2005

An influential cardinal in the Roman Catholic Church, which has long been regarded as an ally of the theory of evolution, is now suggesting that belief in evolution as accepted by science today may be incompatible with Catholic faith.

The cardinal, Christoph Schönborn, archbishop of Vienna, a theologian who is close to Pope Benedict XVI, staked out his position in an [urlOp-Ed article in The New York Times on Thursday, writing,]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/opinion/07schonborn.html[/url] "Evolution in the sense of common ancestry might be true, but evolution in the neo-Darwinian sense - an unguided, unplanned process of random variation and natural selection - is not."
In a telephone interview from a monastery in Austria, where he was on retreat, the cardinal said that his essay had not been approved by the Vatican, but that two or three weeks before Pope Benedict XVI`s election in April, he spoke with the pope, then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, about the church`s position on evolution. "I said I would like to have a more explicit statement about that, and he encouraged me to go on," said Cardinal Schönborn.

He said that he had been "angry" for years about writers and theologians, many Catholics, who he said had "misrepresented" the church`s position as endorsing the idea of evolution as a random process.

Opponents of Darwinian evolution said they were gratified by Cardinal Schönborn`s essay. But scientists and science teachers reacted with confusion, dismay and even anger. Some said they feared the cardinal`s sentiments would cause religious scientists to question their faiths.

Cardinal Schönborn, who is on the Vatican`s Congregation for Catholic Education, said the office had no plans to issue new guidance to teachers in Catholic schools on evolution. But he said he believed students in Catholic schools, and all schools, should be taught that evolution is just one of many theories. Many Catholic schools teach Darwinian evolution, in which accidental mutation and natural selection of the fittest organisms drive the history of life, as part of their science curriculum.

Weiter auf der Seite:
[urlLeading Cardinal Redefines Church`s View on Evolution]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/09/science/09cardinal.html?hp&ex=1120968000&en=c1d22e12f70c2ef1&ei=5094&partner=homepage[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

The reality of this barbaric bombing
If we are fighting insurgency in Iraq, what makes us think insurgency won’t come to us?
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/article297623.ece
By Robert Fisk - 08 July 2005
Übersetzung des gestrigen Artikel. Siehe #29859

Bombardiert wurde die Allianz Blairs mit Bush
von Robert Fisk
http://www.zmag.de/artikel.php?print=true&id=1482

ZNet 08.07.2005

"Wenn ihr unsere Städte bombardiert, werden wir eure bombardieren", sprach Osama bin Laden kürzlich auf einem Video. Es war seit Premiereminister Tony Blairs Entscheidung sich Präsident Bushs "Krieg gegen den Terror" und seiner Invasion des Iraks anzuschließen klar, daß Großbritannien ein Angriffsziel sein werde. Wir wurden, wie sie sagten, gewarnt. Der G-8 Gipfel war offensichtlich schon lange im Voraus als Angriffstag gewählt worden.

Es bringt nichts, daß Blair uns sagt, "Sie werden es nicht schaffen, daß zu zerstören was wir wertschätzen". Sie versuchen nicht zu zerstören "was wir wertschätzen". Sie versuchen die öffentliche Meinung dazu zu bringen Blair zum Rückzug aus dem Irak zu zwingen, aus dieser Allianz mit den Vereinigten Staaten, aus seiner Hörigkeit auf Bushs Politik im Nahen Osten. Spanien zahlte den Preis für ihre Unterstützung Bushs - und Spaniens nachträglicher Rückzug aus dem Irak bewies, daß die Bombenanschläge in Madrid ihr Ziel erreicht hatten -- während die Austrialier auf Bali leiden mußten.

Es ist einfach für Blair die gestrigen Bombenanschläge "barbarisch" zu nennen -- das waren sie ---, aber was waren denn die zivilen Toten der Angloamerikanischen Invasion des Iraks 2003, die von Streubomben auseinandergerissenen Kinder, die unschuldigen IrakerInnnen die an amerikanischen Militärkontrollpunkten niedergeschossen wurden. Wenn diese Menschen sterben, wird das "Kollateralschaden" genannt, wenn `wir` sterben, ist es "barbarischer Terrorismus".

Wenn wir einen Aufstand im Irak bekämpfen, was macht uns glauben, daß der Aufstand nicht auch zu uns kommen wird? Eine Sache ist klar: Wenn Blair wirklich glaubt, daß wir durch die "Bekämpfung des Terrorismus" im Irak Großbritannien besser verteidigen können, ist dieses Argument nicht länger gültig.

Diese Bombenanschläge zum Zeitpunkt des G-8 Gipfels durchzuführen, wenn die Welt sich auf Großbritannien konzentriert, bedurfte keiner genialen Eingebung. Man muß keinen Doktortitel haben um einen weiteren Handschlag Bushs mit Blair zu wählen, um die Hauptstadt mit Sprengsätzen ins Chaos zu stürzen und ihre BürgerInnen zu massakrieren. Der G-8 Gipfel wurde so lange im Voraus bekanntgegeben, daß die Bombardierer genug Zeit hatten sich vorzubereiten. Ein koordiniertes System von Angriffen wie wir sie am Donnerstag sahen braucht Wochen um geplant zu werden; wir können die idiotische Fantasie ignorieren, daß sie mit der Olympischen Entscheidung zusammenfallen sollten. Bin Laden und seine Unterstützer planen nicht auf der unwahrscheinlichen Chance basierend, daß Frankreich sein Gastgeberangebot für die Olympischen Spiele abgelehnt sehen könnte, keine derartige Operation. Al-Kaida spielt nicht Fußball.

Nein, das muß Monate gedauert haben -- sichere Unterkünfte zu finden, die Vorbereitung der Sprengsätze, die Auswahl der Ziele, die Sicherheitsvorkehrungen, die Auswahl der Bombardierer, die Planung der Kommunikation.

Koordination und ausgeklügelte Planung -- und die übliche totale Ignoranz gegenüber den Leben Unschuldiger -- sind für typisch für Al-Kaida.

Denken wir nochmal über die Tatsache nach, daß dieser Tag -- der Tag der Eröffnung des G-8 Gipfels -- ein totales Versagen unserer Sicherheitseinrichtungen darstellt. Das sind die gleichen Sicherheits-"Experten" welche behaupten, daß es im Irak Massenvernichtungswaffen gab, als es tatsächlich keine gab, und die nun vollkommen dabei versagten, einen monatelang vorbereiteten Plan zur Ermordung von Londonern aufzudecken.

Züge, Flugzeuge, Busse, Autos, U-Bahnen. Der Verkehr scheint die Wissenschaft von Al-Kaidas dunkler Wissenschaft zu sein. Niemand kann täglich 3 Millionen Londoner Pendler durchsuchen. Niemand kann jeden Tourist aufhalten.

Und dann kommen die MuslimInnen Großbritanniens, welche auf diesen Alptraum lange gewartet haben. Nun wird jeder unserer Muslime einer der üblichen Verdächtigen, der Mann oder die Frau mit brauenen Augen, der Mann mit dem Bart, die Frau mit dem Schleier, der Junge mit der Perlenschnur, das Mädchen das sagt sie surde rassistisch Angegriffen.

Ich erinnere mich daran als ich den Atlantik am 11. September 2001 querte-- mein Flugzeug drehte über Irland, als die Vereinigten Staaten ihren Luftraum schlossen -- wie der Chefsteward und ich durch den Gang Schritten um zu sehen ob wir verdächtige Passagiere identifizieren konnten. Ich fand etwa ein Duzend, natürlich total unschuldige Männer, die alle braune Augen oder lange Bärte hatten, oder mich "böse" ansahen. Und so geschah es also, daß bin Laden den lieben, liberalen, freundlichen Robert innerhalb einiger Sekunden zu einem antiarabischen Rassisten machte.

Und das ist eine Absicht der gestrigen Bombardierungen: die britischen Muslime von den britischen nicht-Muslimen zu trennen (vermeiden wir die Bezeichnung christlich), um gerade jene Art von Rassismus anzutreiben, welche Blair abzulehnen vorgibt.

Aber hier liegt das Problem. Um vorzugeben, daß die Feinde Großbritanniens zerstören wollen "was wir wertschätzen" spornt den Rassismus an; was wir hier konfrontieren ist ein spezifischer, direkter, zentralisierter Angriff auf London als ein Ergebnis des "Kriegs gegen den Terror" den Blair uns aufgezwungen hat. Kurz vor den Präsidentschaftswahlen in den USA frage bin Laden: "Warum greifen wir Schweden nicht an?" Glückliches Schweden. Kein Osama bin Laden, und kein Tony Blair.

Robert Fisk schreibt in London für The Independent

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Nachdem ich lesen mußte, dass immer mehr User damit drohen ein Buch zu schreiben, möchte ich hier schon mal die ultimative Anleitung für kreatives Schreiben reingestellen.

[urlLanguage Is A Virus]http://languageisavirus.com/

[/url]
Here are some "writing toys" for you creative writers out there.
[Table align=center]

William S. Burroughs
[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Published on Saturday, July 9, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
When Flies Swat Back
London, terrorism, war, and the continuing insanity of it all
by Eric Folkerth
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0709-24.htm

Ever since the attacks on London yesterday morning, I`ve been curiously monitoring my own emotional reaction. I have a memory of how I reacted to both 911 and Madrid, and I`ve been wondering if my reaction here would be much the same. Strangely, it has not been the same, and I`m puzzling as to why that`s the case.

I find that I`m unable to cry. That`s what a did after 911. Just days and days of crying, every time the images of that horrific event came on TV. But that didn`t happen this time.

I find that I`m not shocked either. That`s what happened to me after Madrid. I just went into a state of shock that such an horrific attack could happen in a European country. But that`s not happening this time either.

Yesterday and today, I find that I cannot cry. I cannot seem to be shocked. I find that I`m just NUMB.

I`m numb to the whole thing....numb to the senselessness of it....numb to the point where --and I hate to admit this-- I really don`t want to know much more about this London attack. It feels callous and uncaring to say this. But I have no desire to watch the 24-hour news cycle spin out their stories over the next weeks and months. I`m pretty sure I know what they`re going to say already. I`m pretty sure I know what our president is going to say too.

Now, I know that another portion of my numbness is different from this. It`s emotionally defensive. This is a terrorist attack. Everyone knows the terrorists WANT there to be pain, suffering, shock, etc, etc.... So, there is some part of my psyche that says "don`t react to this...don`t give them what they want."

To that end, it strikes me that London is a strangely ironic place for this to happen, in that the British are incredibly resilient people. If the terrorists think the British will shrivel up and fall apart over this, they didn`t study World War II very well. And they`ve forgotten that Britain has been dealing with terrorist attacks for thirty-years, at the hands of the IRA. I think they (the terrorists) will be sorely disappointed in how the British react. And that is good.

But, beyond all my numbness, there is something else more surprising.

There is a seething anger and a growing hopelessness. The anger is that, once again, this terrorism is so damn predictable given the ongoing war in Iraq. The hopelessness is that I fear it will once again strengthen the "resolve" of our President to fight the wrong enemy in the wrong way; and to, once again, take all the wrong lessons from this attack.

Let me tell you where the majority of my anger comes from this morning....

It`s from remembering how President Bush himself once described the fight against Al Qaeda. In fact, the title of this blog entry is taken from a quote from President Bush himself. Perhaps you will remember that President Bush told some of his closest advisors that, when it came to fighting terrorism, he was "tired of swatting at flies."

Well, Mr. President, how does it feel today to know that those flies can still swat back? How does it feel to know that after spending billions in Iraq, a small group of unknown Al Qaeda affiliated terrorists can still act with impunity, and behind the backs even the most capable terrorism experts?

From the beginning, one of my chief concerns about the Iraq War is that it took valuable resources away from the real War on Terror. Before it began, I believed that the Iraq War would make us LESS safe, not more so. And I believed this because I felt it would divert our attention and resources away from Al Qaeda. I also believed it would make us less safe because it would help to create the next generation of Al Qaeda operatives. Both these fears have come true, in wholly predictable and pitiful fashion.

The Administration continues to deny that either of these has happened. But the facts are irrefutable. No less a pro-military organization than the Army War College released a report saying that resources HAVE been diverted away from the fight against terrorism.

Dick Cheney may claim that the insurgency is on its last legs. (The army doesn`t seem to buy this...) But Al Qaeda --which the 911 Commission clearly showed had NO operational connection to Iraq-- now operates freely in that country. Security experts say that a new generation of terrorist is learning the trade in Iraq itself in numbers that shock everyone who studies it.

Were those some of the "flies" we all heard from yesterday, Mr. President?

Because resources have been diverted, not everything that COULD be done to protect our country HAS been done. For example, ABC News has done several undercover reports on our nation`s security in the past few years. In one such report, they successfully shipped depleted uranium into our country, without it being detected. They also showed how several unclaimed backpacks were allowed to stay on American commuter trains, one of them making it all the way to Penn Station in New York...again, without detection.

Now, in naming these concerns, I certainly do not mean to criticize the hard work of local homeland security officials. They ARE working hard, and these kinds of security breaches trouble them greatly. But the fact is that we are not spending enough on security in these areas, and we are spending too much on this war in Iraq. As I heard Richard Clarke say last night on PrimeTimeLive, what if we spent just ONE TENTH of what we`re spending in Iraq on improving our domestic security on trains and in our sea ports? The fact is, we`re not and we need to.

We`ve dangerously taken our eye off the ball. Actually, the better metaphor is that we`ve chosen to ignore the "flies" in favor of fighting the war in Iraq. And in doing so, we`ve created a rotting stench of death that attracts more and more flies every day.

It`s exactly where I feared we`d be after the Iraq War. And there seems to be no clear plan on the part of our president to stop it.

It`s all so pathetically predictable.

So, I find myself angry and with a growing hopelessness. I don`t want to watch the news stories or what President Bush has to say about it, because I`m pretty sure I know what they`re going to say and I`m tired of hearing the same old thing.

They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Well, that`s what we`ve been doing in both Iraq and the War on Terror for the past four years.

Since it`s so close and so tender to so many this morning, I hate to reduce London down to one small "meaning." But what it feels me to me is that London is just one more hopeless example of the insanity of our current policies.

Will we ever find the will to stop the insanity?

Eric Folkerth is a Methodist Minister and singer-songwriter from Dallas.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 10, 2005
We`re Not in Watergate Anymore
By FRANK RICH
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/opinion/10rich.html?hp=&pa…

WHEN John Dean published his book [url"Worse Than Watergate"]http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B02E1DB153AF931A35756C0A9629C8B63&n=Top%2fFeatures%2fBooks%2fBook%20Reviews[/url] in the spring of 2004, it seemed rank hyperbole: an election-year screed and yet another attempt by a Nixon alumnus to downgrade Watergate crimes by unearthing worse "gates" thereafter. But it`s hard to be dismissive now that my colleague Judy Miller has been taken away in shackles for refusing to name the source for a story she never wrote. No reporter went to jail during Watergate. No news organization buckled like Time. No one instigated a war on phony premises. This is worse than Watergate.

To start to see why, forget all the legalistic chatter about shield laws and turn instead to [url"The Secret Man,"]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/06/books/06kaku.html?n=Top%2fFeatures%2fBooks%2fBook%20Reviews[/url] Bob Woodward`s new memoir about life with Deep Throat. The book arrived in stores just as Judy Miller was jailed, as if by divine intervention to help illuminate her case.

Should a journalist protect a sleazy, possibly even criminal, source? Yes, sometimes, if the public is to get news of wrongdoing. Mark Felt was a turncoat with alternately impenetrable and self-interested motives who betrayed the F.B.I. and, in Mr. Woodward`s words, "lied to his colleagues, friends and even his family." (Mr. Felt even lied in his own 1979 memoir.) Should a journalist break a promise of confidentiality after, let alone before, the story is over? "It is critical that confidential sources feel they would be protected for life," Mr. Woodward writes. "There needed to be a model out there where people could come forward or speak when contacted, knowing they would be protected. It was a matter of my work, a matter of honor."

That honorable model, which has now been demolished at Time, was a given in what seems like the halcyon Watergate era of "The Secret Man." Mr. Woodward and Carl Bernstein had confidence that The Washington Post`s publisher, Katharine Graham, and editor, Ben Bradlee, would back them to the hilt, even though the Nixon White House demonized their reporting as inaccurate (as did some journalistic competitors) and threatened the licenses of television stations owned by the Post Company.

At Time, Norman Pearlstine - a member of the board of the Committee to Protect Journalists, no less - described his decision to turn over Matt Cooper`s files to the feds as his own, made on the merits and without consulting any higher-ups at Time Warner. That`s no doubt the truth, but a corporate mentality needn`t be imposed by direct fiat; it`s a virus that metastasizes in the bureaucratic bloodstream. I doubt anyone at Time Warner ever orders an editor to promote a schlocky Warner Brothers movie either. (Entertainment Weekly did two covers in one month on "The Matrix Reloaded.")

Time Warner seems to have far too much money on the table in Washington to exercise absolute editorial freedom when covering the government; at this moment it`s awaiting an F.C.C. review of its joint acquisition (with Comcast) of the bankrupt cable company Adelphia. [url"Is this a journalistic company or an entertainment company?"]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/01/politics/01comply.html[/url] David Halberstam asked after the Pearlstine decision. We have the answer now. What high-level source would risk talking to Time about governmental corruption after this cave-in? What top investigative reporter would choose to work there?

But the most important difference between the Bush and Nixon eras has less to do with the press than with the grave origins of the particular case that has sent Judy Miller to jail. This scandal didn`t begin, as Watergate did, simply with dirty tricks and spying on the political opposition. It began with the sending of American men and women to war in Iraq.

Specifically, it began with the former ambassador [urlJoseph Wilson`s July 6, 2003, account on the Times Op-Ed page]http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html[/url] (and in concurrent broadcast appearances) of his 2002 C.I.A. mission to Africa to determine whether Saddam Hussein had struck a deal in Niger for uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons. Mr. Wilson concluded that there was no such deal, as my colleague Nicholas Kristof reported, without divulging Mr. Wilson`s name, that spring. But the envoy`s dramatic Op-Ed piece got everyone`s attention: a government insider with firsthand knowledge had stepped out of the shadows of anonymity to expose the administration`s game authoritatively on the record. He had made palpable what Bush critics increasingly suspected, writing that "some of the intelligence related to Iraq`s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

Up until that point, the White House had consistently stuck by the 16 incendiary words in President Bush`s January 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The administration had ignored all reports, not just Mr. Wilson`s, that this information might well be bogus. But it still didn`t retract Mr. Bush`s fiction some five weeks after the State of the Union, when Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, announced that the uranium claim was based on fake documents. Instead, we marched on to war in Iraq days later. It was not until Mr. Wilson`s public recounting of his African mission more than five months after the State of the Union that George Tenet at long last released a hasty statement (on a Friday evening, just after the Wilson Op-Ed piece) conceding that "these 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president."

The Niger uranium was hardly the only dubious evidence testifying to Saddam`s supposed nuclear threat in the run-up to war. Judy Miller herself was one of two reporters responsible for a notoriously credulous [urlfront-page Times story about aluminum tubes]http://www.nytimes.com/2002/09/08/international/middleeast/08IRAQ.html[/url] that enabled the administration`s propaganda campaign to trump up Saddam`s W.M.D. arsenal. But red-hot uranium was sexy, and it was Mr. Wilson`s flat refutation of it that drove administration officials to seek their revenge: they told the columnist Robert Novak that Mr. Wilson had secured his (nonpaying) African mission through the nepotistic intervention of his wife, a covert C.I.A. officer whom they outed by name. The pettiness of this retribution shows just how successfully Mr. Wilson hit the administration`s jugular: his revelation threatened the legitimacy of the war on which both the president`s reputation and re-election campaign had been staked.

This was another variation on a Watergate theme. Charles Colson`s hit men broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg`s psychiatrist, seeking information to smear Mr. Ellsberg after he leaked the Pentagon Papers, the classified history of the Vietnam War, to The Times. But there was even greater incentive to smear Mr. Wilson than Mr. Ellsberg. Nixon compounded the Vietnam War but didn`t start it. The war in Iraq, by contrast, is Mr. Bush`s invention.

Again following the Watergate template, the Bush administration at first tried to bury the whole Wilson affair by investigating itself. Even when The Washington Post reported two months after Mr. Wilson`s Op-Ed that "two top White House officials" had called at least six reporters, not just Mr. Novak, to destroy Mr. Wilson and his wife, the inquiry was kept safely within the John Ashcroft Justice Department, with the attorney general, [urlaccording to a Times report,]http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/22/politics/22LEAK.html[/url] being briefed regularly on details of the investigation. If that rings a Watergate bell now, that`s because on Thursday you may have read the obituary of L. Patrick Gray, Mark Felt`s F.B.I. boss, who, in a similarly cozy conflict of interest, kept the Nixon White House abreast of the supposedly independent Watergate inquiry in its early going.

Political pressure didn`t force Mr. Ashcroft to relinquish control of the Wilson investigation to a special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, until Dec. 30, 2003, more than five months after Mr. Novak`s column ran. Now 18 more months have passed, and no one knows what crime Mr. Fitzgerald is investigating. Is it the tricky-to-prosecute outing of Mr. Wilson`s wife, the story Judy Miller never even wrote about? Or has Mr. Fitzgerald moved on to perjury and obstruction of justice possibly committed by those who tried to hide their roles in that outing? If so, it would mean the Bush administration was too arrogant to heed the most basic lesson of Watergate: the cover-up is worse than the crime.

"Mr. Fitzgerald made his bones prosecuting the mob," intoned the pro-Bush editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, "and doesn`t seem to realize that this case isn`t about organized crime." But that may be exactly what it is about to an ambitious prosecutor with his own career on the line. That the Bush administration would risk breaking the law with an act as self-destructive to American interests as revealing a C.I.A. officer`s identity smacks of desperation. It makes you wonder just what else might have been done to suppress embarrassing election-season questions about the war that has mired us in Iraq even as the true perpetrators of 9/11 resurface in Madrid, London and who knows where else.

IN his original Op-Ed piece in The Times, published two years to the day before Judy Miller went to jail, Mr. Wilson noted that "more than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already," before concluding that "we have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons." As that death toll surges past 1,700, that sacred duty cannot be abandoned by a free press now.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Saturday, July 09, 2005
War News for Saturday, July 9, 2005
http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Operation Scimitar begins near Fallujah.

Bring `em on: Iraqi family killed by insurgents in Beiji.

Bring `em on: One US soldier killed, three wounded by roadside bomb near Balad.

Bring `em on: US convoy ambushed by roadside bomb in Samarra.

Bring `em on: Iraqi Army convoy ambushed in Fallujah.

Bring `em on: Baghdad oil refinery ablaze after mortar attack.

Bring `em on: Three US soldiers wounded by in ambush near Suwayrah.

How many times have I heard this shit? "The U.S. commander of military forces in and around the Iraqi capital said Friday that insurgents apparently are no longer capable of carrying out more than sporadic attacks in Baghdad after a seven-week-old security crackdown. Maj. Gen. William Webster, who heads 30,000 U.S. and foreign troops and 15,000 Iraqi soldiers known collectively as Task Force Baghdad, cautioned that `there are some more threats ahead. I do believe, however, that the ability of these insurgents to conduct sustained high-intensity operations, as they did last year -- we`ve mostly eliminated that.`"

Mission creep. "The US military and Iraqi government are discussing plans under which American and other troops might begin helping protect foreign diplomats in Baghdad, a senior US general said. Army Major General William Webster, commander of multinational forces in the Baghdad area, told Pentagon reporters in a teleconference from Baghdad that something needed to be done "very quickly" to counter attacks against foreign diplomats in the Iraqi capital."

Theocrats. "Several Iraqi women have been burned by acid attacks during recent weeks in Baghdad and the western province of Anbar. Acid attacks are a form of violence against women where acid is thrown at or sprayed on women’s faces, legs, or other exposed body parts, in order to punish women in this case for not wearing the ‘abaya,’ a long black cloak that only reveals the nose, mouth, eyes, and hands. Hania Abdul-Jabbar, a university student, had acid thrown on her face and legs by three men for not wearing the veil out in public. `They cut all my hair off while hitting me in the face many times, telling me it’s the price for not obeying God’s wish in using the veil,` according to IRIN News. Today Abdul-Jabbar is blind in one eye, and her face is completely deformed due to the acid attack."

Italy announces withdrawal timetable. "Italy plans to begin withdrawing some of its troops from Iraq in September, Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Friday. Berlusconi, who was a strong supporter of President Bush on Iraq, sent 3,000 troops to the country after the ouster of Saddam Hussein to help rebuild the country. He had previously indicated he hoped a pullout could begin in September. `We will begin withdrawing 300 men in the month of September,` Berlusconi said at the G-8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland. But he added the decision would depend on security conditions on the ground and could change."

Inside job.

The Iraqi minister of the interior announced the detention of members of what he called a secret organization linked to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi "intending to blow up the whole of the Iraqi Ministry Of Interior."

The minister said in a press conference that there was an attempt to infiltrate the "Maghaweer" forces by a military secret organization inside the second mechanical contingent "affiliated to the ministry" with the aim of implementing assassination operations of many officers inside contingents and thereby blowing up the whole of the Ministry Of Interior."

He explained that this organization includes 8 senior officers and members in the second mechanical contingent which belongs to the ministry. He said that those officers were appointed in the ministry one year ago "before I came to the ministry and they are now under detention," in remarks to the former government of Eyad Allawi.


Flypaper strategy. "Islamic extremists have been using Iraq as a planning center for attacks around the world since losing Afghanistan as their base in 2001, the government`s chief spokesman said Friday. Speaking about Thursday`s blasts in London that killed more than 50 people, Laith Kubba said `we don`t know exactly who carried out these acts but it is clear that these networks used to be in Afghanistan and now they work in Iraq.`" It`s worth remembering that there were no Islamic extremists operating terror networks from Iraq before Lieutenant AWOL started his vanity war.

Commentary

Opinion:

If you`re anything like me, you want to say "basta!" -- enough, already to the extensive news coverage given to the story of Natalee Holloway.

The 18-year-old Alabama girl`s disappearance while on spring break in Aruba was a terrible personal tragedy for her family and friends. Period.

The confirmed deaths, however, of American women serving in Iraq recently and throughout the war are a national tragedy that has garnered but a fraction of the media attention of Holloway`s apparent murder.

Since the war began, 36 servicewomen have been killed this despite the fact that law forbids female soldiers from serving in combat. The latest deaths included those of two women with Camp Lejeune ties, Marine Cpl. Ramona M. Valdez and Navy Petty Officer 1st Class Regina R. Clark.


Casualty Reports

Local story: Kentucky Guardsman killed in Iraq.

Local story: Maine Guardsman wounded in Iraq.

Local story: Guam soldier wounded in Iraq.

# posted by yankeedoodle : 7:05 AM
Comment (0) | Trackback (0)

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

July 10, 2005
As a Gold Mine Prepares to Close, Montana Argues Over the Hole in the Ground
By KIRK JOHNSON
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/national/10gold.html?pagew…

WHITEHALL, Mont. - First, there was Bull Mountain. Through all the ages of human striving and much that came before, it sat here in southwest Montana, silently enshrouding a treasure in fine-particle gold buried deep beneath its flanks.

Then, beginning in 1982, came the hole - an open-pit gold mine called the Golden Sunlight that has scooped out 400 million tons of Bull Mountain rock. The Chrysler Building and the Washington Monument could slide down the gullet of the great pit, one atop the other, and would only just peek above the old ridgeline like a periscope.
[Table align=right]

At the Golden Sunlight mine, the open pit reaches a depth of 1,500 feet.
[/TABLE]
But what happens next, as the Golden Sunlight mine approaches the end of its working life, is not so obvious or stark, though it is a question likely to echo across the West as older mines close: should the mountain be put back together again or left an open hole for all time?

Many environmentalists say the hole should be filled, but Montana state environmental regulators are leaning toward leaving the pit open, and expect to reach a decision this fall that may ultimately be reviewed by the State Supreme Court.

The mine`s owner, Placer Dome Inc., based in Vancouver, British Columbia, has already pledged $54 million for mine closing and cleanup beginning in 2009, when it expects that most of the gold will be gone. But the company would see its costs double if it had to backfill. It also says filling in the mine would be a bad idea because of grave risks to groundwater.

History, many people here in southwest Montana say, is the invisible mover in the debate, because either option - to fill, or not to fill - touches the deep and ragged scars that the mining industry has left over the last century on the state`s landscape, economy and psyche.

"Montana is full of examples where a company came in and got its money and the public is paying for the reclamation," said Kim Wilson, a lawyer for a coalition of environmental groups that is suing the state to force backfilling. "Our basic position is that if you can`t reclaim, it you shouldn`t mine it."

No national standards exist for how to close down the nation`s 140 or so open-pit metal mines, most of which are in the West. Only California, since 2002, has required backfilling of such mines.

Coal mining operations in the United States, by contrast, have been required by federal law since the 1970`s to fill their pits. But the law on metal mining, which was passed by Congress 133 years ago, remains silent on the question, and that has created a regulatory vacuum.

Montana`s struggle over the Golden Sunlight mine has also been compounded by legal uncertainty. The State Constitution, redrafted in the early 1970`s, says that all mine lands must be "reclaimed." The State Legislature, meanwhile, has given greater latitude to mine regulators. A lawsuit filed by environmentalists hoping to force backfill of the mine is now before the State Supreme Court, which has agreed to hold off on a ruling until the state, along with the federal Bureau of Land Management, reaches a decision.

Either way the case goes, the millions of tons of rock and earth that came out of Bull Mountain are still here, some piles of it weathered and reseeded with grasses, others fresh and raw from recent extraction.

But most environmentalists also agree that backfilling does not make sense in every instance, and that some mines - in wet areas with certain kinds of rock - certainly should not be filled. An open-pit mine in Colorado backfilled in the late 1990`s, for example, almost immediately began leaking water contaminated by the mine`s waste rock.

Whether that process - what one scientist has called "the Mr. Coffee effect," as water and rock percolate in a closed space - would happen at the Golden Sunlight is at the center of the scientific debate.

Rocks disturbed during the mining process, especially if they contain sulfides, react with water and oxygen to produce sulfuric acid, scientists say. The acid is a pollutant in itself, and it also eats away at the rock to free other polluting substances like arsenic and mercury. The problem, called acid mine drainage, is prevalent across the West, and has plagued metal mines since at least the days of the Romans.

"The material that would go back in is highly reactive" said Warren McCullough, the chief of the environmental management bureau at the Montana Department of Environmental Quality. "The last thing you want to do is expose it to atmospheric oxygen and water by moving it to the pit."

What bothers some environmental groups is that in 1998, regulators concluded that backfilling was the best option. The state rejected the idea then as being economically unfeasible. The environmentalists argued that the cost to the company - which had said that the Golden Sunlight lost money through much of the 1990`s - was not the state`s concern, and a judge agreed. The state began a new study and in a preliminary decision came down against backfilling.

Environmentalists who are pushing to have the pit refilled say state officials are still watching out for the company`s welfare.

"It`s pure, unadulterated spin," said James D. Jensen, the executive director of the Montana Environmental Information Center, a group based in Helena and one of the plaintiffs in the backfilling lawsuit. "The only reason they don`t want to reclaim the land there is that it will cost them money."

The chief technical adviser to Mr. Jensen`s group on the Golden Sunlight case, James R. Kuipers, a former mining industry engineer who is now a consultant in Butte, said he believes the state is using scientific uncertainty about acid drainage as a screen to reach a result that would not cripple one of the state`s oldest industries. "This isn`t science, this is industry science," Mr. Kuipers said. "When they want to do something they find a way, and when they don`t want to do it, they argue that the uncertainty is too much."

Mr. McCullough at the Montana Department of Environmental Quality said that new research was driving the process. "We were learning more about the reactivity of the rock, the groundwater quality and quantity and the material that would be used for the backfill," he said. "Our scientific position has changed."

The Environmental Protection Agency, in its formal comments about the closing plan earlier this year, declined to take a position. But the agency`s letter pointed out that the concerns expressed by the state and the company could probably be addressed with more effort.

"E.P.A. believes that with improved mitigation, water management and model assumptions that more accurately reflect what is known of the area, adverse impacts from pit backfill to water quality might be avoided," the letter said.

The debate inherent in the Golden Sunlight case, about the costs and consequences of mining, goes back at least a generation in Montana.

In the early 1980`s, an open-pit copper mine, the Berkeley Pit, half an hour away in Butte, polluted 120 miles of the Clark Fork River with acid drainage, and became one of the nation`s first Superfund cleanup sites. In 1998, a Canadian company called Pegasus went spectacularly bankrupt, leaving the state with tens of millions of dollars in cleanup costs for three open-pit mines.

That same year, Montana voters passed a referendum banning the use of cyanide to recover fine-particle gold, the type of open-pit chemical process that was used by Pegasus mines and that are also used at the Golden Sunlight.

Since the Golden Sunlight was already operating, it was exempt from the ban. But if the law survives the various legal challenges that have been lodged against it, legal experts and engineers say, the kind of mine that ate Bull Mountain could probably never open again.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Secret Plan To Quit Iraq
EXCLUSIVE By Simon Walters, Mail on Sunday
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.htm…

Britain And America are secretly preparing to withdraw most of their troops from Iraq - despite warnings of the grave consequences for the region, The Mail on Sunday has learned.

A secret paper written by Defence Secretary John Reid for Tony Blair reveals that many of the 8,500 British troops in Iraq are set to be brought home within three months, with most of the rest returning six months later.

The leaked document, marked Secret: UK Eyes Only, appears to fly in the face of Mr Blair and President Bush`s pledges that Allied forces will not quit until Iraq`s own forces are strong enough to take control of security.

If British troops pull out, other members of the Alliance are likely to follow. The memo says other international forces in Southern Iraq currently under British control will have to be handled carefully if Britain withdraws. It says they will not feel safe and may also leave.

Embarrassingly, the document says the Americans are split over the plan - and it suggests one of the reasons for getting British troops out is to save money. Mr Reid says cutting UK troop numbers to 3,000 by the middle of next year will save £500 million a year, though it will be 18 months before the cash comes through.

The document, Options For Future UK Force Posture In Iraq, is the first conclusive proof that preparations for a major withdrawal from Iraq are well advanced.

The British Government`s public position is that UK troops will stay until newly trained Iraqi forces are ready to take control of security. Less than a fortnight ago, Mr Blair said it was "vital" the US-led coalition stayed until Iraq stabilised, and Mr Bush endorsed his comments.

`Military drawdown`

Mr Reid`s memo, prepared for Mr Blair in the past few weeks, shows that in reality, plans to get them out - "military drawdown," as he puts it - are well advanced.

It says: "We have a commitment to hand over to Iraqi control in Al Muthanna and Maysan provinces [two of the four provinces under British control in Southern Iraq] in October 2005 and in the other two, Dhi Qar and Basra, in April 2006.

"This in turn should lead to a reduction in the total level of UK commitment in Iraq to around 3,000 personnel by mid 2006.

"This should lead to an estimated halving in the costs of around £1 billion per annum. Though it is not exactly clear when this reduction might manifest itself, it would not be before around the end of 2006."

Mr Reid states that his proposal is not yet a "ministerially endorsed position" - or Government policy - though he clearly believes it should be.

Significantly, he underlines the serious impact on other Allied troops in the area now under British control, including 550 Japanese engineers rebuilding the infrastructure and 1,400 Australian soldiers: "The Japanese will be reluctant to stay if protection is solely provided by the Iraqis. The Australian position may also be uncertain."

Mr Reid says he will produce "further and more specific proposals" for the Cabinet`s Defence and Overseas Policy (Iraq) Committee, which is chaired by Mr Blair.

But some British Army chiefs are opposed to Mr Reid`s plans. One senior officer claimed the Minister had no option but to recall 3,000 British troops in October as Britain has already promised to send an extra 3,000 personnel to southern Afghanistan to replace US soldiers.

"The momentum for this is more to do with pressure from America and the woefully overstretched British Army than whether Iraq is ready to look after itself," said the source. "The timing seems very convenient.

British wait for American lead

"The view of most of our military people in Iraq is that we must not leave until the Iraqis are ready to cope, and it is by no reckoning certain that they are."

The memo leaves little doubt that the British plan to take their lead from the White House, where an increasingly unpopular Mr Bush is under huge pressure from the US public to bring American troops home fast.

The paper says it "sets out what we know of US planning and possible expectations on the UK contribution, and the impact on UK decision making".

It says Mr Bush`s allies in the Pentagon and Centcom, or Central Command, are at odds with Army chiefs in Iraq, who fear it is too soon to withdraw in such large numbers.

The document states: "There is a strong US military desire for significant force reductions.

"Emerging US plans assume 14 out of 18 provinces could be handed over to Iraqi control by early 2006, allowing a reduction in [Allied troops] from 176,000 down to 66,000. There is, however, a debate between the Pentagon/Centcom, who favour a relatively bold reduction in force numbers, and the multinational force in Iraq, whose approach is more cautious."

A Downing Street source said: "We have always said we will scale down our presence in Iraq when the Iraqis are capable of providing security. But we will not do it before then."

The Ministry of Defence last night confirmed the leaked document was genuine. Mr Reid said: "This is but one of a number of papers produced over recent months covering various scenarios. We have made it plain we will stay in Iraq for as long as is needed. No decisions on the future of UK forces have been taken.

"But we have always said it is our intention to hand over the lead in fighting terrorists to Iraqi security forces as their capability increases. We therefore continually produce papers outlining possible options. This is prudent planning."

According to a BPIX survey for The Mail on Sunday, 52 per cent of Britons think UK troops should return home only when Iraq is a peaceful democracy, which could take years. Eighteen per cent said our soldiers should return immediately and 23 per cent said they should withdraw in six months.


Find this story at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.htm…
©2005 Associated New Media

[Joerver]

Die Rache der USA für den Airbus?
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[urlFor American Bikes, a Takeover de France and All of Europe]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/weekinreview/10aust.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 10, 2005
Facing Terror After London
By THE NEW YORK TIMES
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/weekinreview/10questions.h…

THE terror attacks in London last week, in which bombs tore apart three subway trains and a double-decker bus, raise a number of questions about the nature and future of the struggle against terrorism.

Here are a few.

How will the attack affect Prime Minister Tony Blair`s standing in Britain, and as a European leader?

Among his European peers at the Group of 8 summit meeting, the attacks produced a public display of solidarity, but in private European leaders who had opposed the war in Iraq were more likely concluding that they were right to have avoided a similarly close association with President Bush.

At home, Mr. Blair won a near-unanimous display of cross-party support in Parliament, which accompanied universal praise for the rescue and security crews who had assisted the wounded. But the bombings nonetheless raised the specter of Iraq, which haunted Mr. Blair through his recent election campaign.

By Friday, critical voices on the left and the right assailed him for having drawn Britain into a war on terrorism - "whether we like it not," in the words of the historian and former newspaper editor Max Hastings, writing in the Conservative-leaning Daily Mail.

The most serious hazard for Mr. Blair`s political standing would, of course, be another such deadly attack.

ALAN COWELL

The attacks caught British officials off guard. What might that mean?

British officials said Thursday that they had had no warning that attacks were impending, and that they were going over their data to look for missed signals.

By Friday, they were exploring the possibility that the attack was the work of a cell of homegrown Muslim extremists, previously unknown to them, rather than of highly trained terrorists exported to England.

Without ruling out other theories, they cited these signs: an evident lack of sophistication in the bombs used; a comparatively low level of deadliness once the bombs went off; a likelihood that the explosion on the bus was an accidental detonation of a bomb intended for another location; the planting of the bombs as trains passed below Muslim neighborhoods, into which the bombers could presumably fade after leaving the trains; and the very fact that investigators were developing few early leads or possible suspects among known extremist groups and cells in Britain and the rest of Europe.

European intelligence officials say their British counterparts have enjoyed a reputation for effectively keeping tabs on Muslim radicals within their country, and have foiled previous plots. Given the size of Britain`s well-established Muslim population, if it turns out that these bombings were the work of a homegrown and secretive small group, its ability to remain hidden from MI5`s view could represent a whole new level of danger for Britain, however amateurish its bomb-making skills.

Will this attack bring Europe and America closer in their approach to fighting terror?

Not really.

Europeans - with their long experience of terrorism by the Red Army Brigade, the Irish Republican Army, Basque separatists and other groups - tend to view these acts as a matter for law-enforcement, security and intelligence agencies, rather than as a clash of civilizations. Whatever enthusiasm Europe might have had for President Bush`s war on terrorism after the September 2001 attacks, it curdled when the United States cited the war on terror as a rationale for invading Iraq. "In France or Germany, we never speak about the war against terrorism because that means the war against Iraq," said Jean-Luc Marret, research fellow at the Foundation for Strategic Research in Paris. "We speak about the fight against terrorism, and we don`t necessarily mean by military force."

Certainly, the attacks last week will encourage closer coordination of police, security, and intelligence efforts across the Atlantic. But it will not make Europeans more receptive to American-style measures, like the detention and coerced interrogations of suspected terrorists at Guantánamo Bay. "There`s a deeper-rooted debate here about how far we are willing to go in sacrificing our values," said Karsten Voigt, who coordinates trans-Atlantic relations for the German government.

MARK LANDLER

Is there evidence that the war in Iraq has aggravated the threat of terror attacks in Europe and America?

President Bush describes the war in Iraq as a battle against terrorists, intended "to defeat them abroad before they can attack us at home." Baghdad does appear to have become the jihadists` favorite destination. But the new attacks in London also raise the question of whether the war in Iraq is already fanning broader flames. Many in Europe believe it is.

There is evidence on both sides of the debate. A classified intelligence assessment circulated by the Central Intelligence Agency in May says that Iraq is proving so powerful a lure that, for now, it has dampened dangers elsewhere.

But that assessment also warns of an inevitable terrorist spillover from Iraq into other killing fields. The war has already proven useful as a rallying cry for militants, and was the declared justification, at least, by groups claiming to have staged the attacks not only in London but in Madrid in March 2004.

"It is past time to face the fact that the nature of the threat has changed," said Representative Jane Harman, the California Democrat and an expert on terrorism, last week. "It is not confined to a battle zone, like Iraq or Afghanistan. It is everywhere."

DOUGLAS JEHL

Have American officials adopted a new style for the danger warnings they issue when attacks like this happen overseas?

The message from Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff last week seemed a bit paradoxical: There is not a stitch of credible evidence that an attack against a mass transit system in the United States is imminent, but the terror alert level for mass transit in some cities has been ratcheted up a notch to "high."

If anything, the mixed message from the Homeland Security chief served as an illustration of the still very tenuous progress that has been made in securing the United States against terrorism. The capacity of spies and investigators to find a window into the dark world of Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups is still limited. But one thing Homeland Security can do is to step up vigilance when terrorists take action elsewhere.

Still, a perhaps maturing, more nuanced and even forthright compact with the American public seemed to be developing. Mr. Chertoff admitted that Homeland Security is somewhat in the dark. He and his team did not whisper about obscure threads of intelligence that might have merited the escalation here in the United States of the alert.

Instead, Mr. Chertoff said the nation must simply be prudent, acting on what information it has, taking a measured response that targets the one sector - mass transit - that had been struck in Britain.

"The fact remains, we`ve had an incident in London," Mr. Chertoff said Thursday. "We feel that at least in the short term we should raise the level here because, obviously, we`re concerned about the possibility of a copycat attack."

ERIC LIPTON

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
The Enigma of Damascus
[/TABLE]By JAMES BENNET
Published: July 10, 2005

President Bashar al-Assad and his wife, Asma, at their private office overlooking Damascus

Damascus, at once politically isolated and culturally connected

Ein langer Artikel, aus dem NYTimes Magazine:
[urlThe Enigma of Damascus]http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/magazine/10SYRIA.html[/url]

[Joerver]

July 10, 2005
Fit to Print
By RANDY COHEN
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/magazine/10ETHICIST.html

I work for a small print shop where a customer placed an order for bumper stickers that read, ``Defend American Against the Communist/Vote Republican.`` I think his faulty grammar suits his ridiculous message, and I do not want to correct it. I`d rather save my energy for helping those who mean well. What should I do? Susannah Myers, Asheville, N.C.

You should do your job according to the usual professional standards, ensuring that the printing isn`t blurry and the ink doesn`t run in the rain. You have no obligation to provide extra services -- correcting this customer`s solecisms, improving his prose, painting his house. He employs you to perform a skilled mechanical operation, not to be his literary collaborator.

You may, if your boss consents, reject the job altogether. But given the place printers hold in a free society, such a tactic should be used only rarely, when a job is profoundly offensive. You would have no duty to print racist screeds, for example.

This opt-out choice is not available to everyone. A public librarian`s professional responsibility forbids withholding books he or she disdains. In my view, pharmacists have an ethical obligation to fill all legal prescriptions and should not interpose their personal opinions between a doctor and a patient. There are circumstances, however, in which some professionals may turn away a client.

The American Medical Association permits physicians to accept or turn down would-be patients (although not in emergencies). The doctor-patient relationship is so intimate that in the rare case that openness is impossible and a physician can not perform effectively, he or she may decline to take on a patient.

Still, a loopy appeal to vote Republican hardly seems like such an extraordinary case. There is also an aesthetic argument for printing these bumper stickers as written. You should not deny us the joys of the unintentionally comic -- the president`s quirky pronouncements, the ridiculous descriptions of the chef`s specials on some menus or, a favorite of mine, this warning on the package of a toy made in China: ``It`s forbidden from eating, and users must be above age of five. Don`t be dismounted by kids.``

But why doubt that your customer means well? One`s ideological foes often want what they (foolishly) think is best for our country; it`s their (horrible) politics, not their sincerity, that discredits them. And your guy might be right about one thing: given the state of the left in America, perhaps only a single communist remains.

I am a green-card holder looking into becoming a United States citizen. The process includes an oath to support the Constitution, obey the law, renounce foreign allegiances and bear arms when required. All fine by me. The oath ends ``so help me God,`` however, and there is no provision for skipping these words. As a discreet but committed atheist, may I say these words without meaning them or perhaps just skip them? Hundreds of applicants often take the oath at once, and my short silence would not be noticed. M.G., El Paso, Tex.

Sometimes what seems an insoluble ethical problem turns out to be an ordinary error of fact. That`s the case here. Indeed, there is a provision for nonbelievers: the Immigration and Nationality Act (Section 337.1b) allows you to omit the reference to God and instead ``solemnly affirm`` your allegiance, much as can be done in court when a witness is sworn in.

Even in its theistic version, that tag line is meant to emphasize integrity, to show that you take the oath with deep conviction. It is not a religious test. It would be distinctly un-American if citizenship were reserved for those who believe in God.

Send your queries to [e-mail] or The Ethicist, The New York Times Magazine, 229 West 43rd Street, New York, N.Y. 10036, and include a daytime phone number.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Sunday, July 10, 2005

22 Killed in Iraq Guerrilla Violence
US, UK, to Massively Draw Down Troops during Next Year

Reuters has picked up on a report that first appeared in The Guardian on July 6, that the British are planning to draw down from 8,000 to 9,000 troops in Iraq now to 2,000 to 3,000 by spring-summer of 2006. But it has gotten hold of a leaked memo from the British Ministry of Defense that reveals that the US plans to draw down its forces from 138,000 to 66,000 by July of 2006, as well. The Pentagon is expecting to be able to turn security duties in 14 of the 18 provinces over to the Iraqi government by then.

Presumably the British force would be centered at Basra and used sparingly in security emergencies in the Shiite south. They may be bolstered by some Australian troops, whose officers will actually take over the command of the Shiite south from a Coalition point of view.

The remaining 66,000 US troops would presumably be responsible for the most turbulent, largely Sunni Arab provinces, such as Baghdad, Anbar, and Salahuddin.

I remain unconvinced that the new Iraqi army will actually be able to take up the slack, even if the Australians help out.

What in the world, then is actually going on? In practice, I think the withdrawal plan implies a willingness to turn the five northern provinces over to the Kurdish Peshmerga paramilitary, and the 9 southern provinces over to a combination of Shiite militias and new Iraqi government security forces (Interior Ministry gendarmes and regular army). And, I think this obviously desperate plan really risks damaging the integrity of Iraq as a nation-state. But, it is unlikely that for the US to remain at its present force levels would help maintain that integrity, anyway.

Ironically, the peace groups who have been demanding a rapid US withdrawal have in recent months been closer to Pentagon thinking than they could have imagined.

Of course, it should be remembered that the Pentagon has wanted to draw down its troop numbers radically in the past. In April of 2003, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz told Congress that the US would be down to about a division (20,000 troops) by October of 2003! Wanting to draw down and being able to are not the same thing.

Meanwhile, constitution-making in Iraq has bogged down. The Shiites and the Kurds might have been able to do a deal, but the addition of Sunni Arabs to the mix appears to have thrown the timetable off. The Sunni Arabs don`t like the first sentence of the draft, which proclaims Iraq a federal state. They want a centralized, France-style government, not federalism, and certainly not the loose Swiss-style federalism favored by the Kurds. Even the Shiites balk at some Kurdish demands, like the ability of the provinces to maintain their own standing armies! (Many Kurds also want to permanently exclude Federal troops from their territory).

Al-Sharq al-Awsat also says that the Kurds are rejecting any language in the constitution that recognizes Iraq as "part of the Arab nation." I hear Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish president, on al-Jazeera a couple of days ago, making the argument that the Iraqi state is part of the Arab nation but that the Iraqi people are multicultural and not necessarily Arabs. These Kurds who are objecting appear to have a harder line on the issue than Talabani.

That a whole constitution can be written in a month (Aug. 15 was the deadline) seems highly unlikely, especially when there is no agreement on first principles. I`d say that most probably the government will have to take advantage of the clause in the interim constitution that allows a 6-month postponement in drafting the permanent constitution.

Reuters summarizes deaths in the Iraqi guerrilla war:

Guerrillas shot down 11 Iraqis in Mosul in separate incidents, including 2 soldiers and a police officer.

Guerrillas invaded a home in Baiji on Saturday and killed all 4 family members living there. The man of the house may have been employed by a foreign company.

An Iraqi civilian in Baquba was killed by a roadside bomb.

Guerrillas in the Shiite holy city of Karbala detonated a bomb, killing a police officer and his son and wounding 4 of their relatives.

In Baghdad, police stopped a car at a checkpoint, but the driver tried to get away. Police killed him and two passengers, then discovered that the car was packed with explosives.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that a high-ranking police officer, Saad Muslim Abdul-Amir, in was assassinated by guerrillas in West Baghdad.

BBC correspondent Jon Leyne talks about what an upside-down place American-occupied Iraq is, and how poor Bush adminsitration decision-making helped make it that way.

posted by Juan @ [url7/10/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/22-killed-in-iraq-guerrilla-violence.html[/url]
Saturday, July 09, 2005

Update on London Bombing Investigation
Cole: Unlikely to be by British Muslims

AP is reporting that London police have issued new conclusions about the July 7 London bombings. The three subway bombings were virtually simultaneous, suggesting that they were coordinated somehow (or maybe the timers had just been set for the same time). It is a little unlikely that they used cell phone detonators since the phones don`t always work in the Underground. This AP report is now saying that the plastic explosives were in fact powerful and sophisticated, contrary to earlier reports. The 49 dead cannot even be identified because of the force of the blasts.

CNN ran a piece Saturday in the US with Peter Bergen, speculating on the "chilling" possibility that the bombers were Muslim British subjects with UK passports. I have to say that I was outraged and appalled by this piece of potentially destructive speculation.

First, we still have no idea who did this. It is very likely the "Qaeda al-Jihad in Europe" group that claimed responsibility immediately. Their statement appeared very quickly after the bombings and yet had none of the appearance of being rushed. That suggests it was carefully composed before the fact. The rumors that the statement has errors in the Arabic or the Quran citation are absolutely incorrect, and al-Sharq al-Awsat came to the same conclusion in its Saturday edition.

The statement was in Arabic. The instances of British Muslim participation in terrorism given in the CNN piece were all non-Arabs: Richard Reid and several South Asian British, all of whom undertook operations abroad rather than in the UK. None of them probably even knew Arabic well or could compose a statement in it. Britain`s South Asian Muslim community is almost certainly not the origin of this attack. The statement celebrated Arabness or `urubah along with Islam. No Bangladeshi-Briton or Pakistani-Briton wrote that.

The statement was probably not written by a second-generation Arab Briton or even by a long-term, integrated Arab Briton resident.

So, if the statement is a guide to the identity of the attackers, this bombing could not have emanated from the British Muslim community.

I did a keyword search in OCLC Worldcat, an electronic database with 40 million volumes, for `urubah and Islam. Virtually all of the hits came from Egyptian Muslim thinkers publishing in Cairo and Giza during the past 30 years, roughly in a Muslim Brotherhood tradition. Egyptian Muslim revivalist intellectual Muhammad Amara wrote the big book on Uruba and Islam. Likewise, there was a book on Islam and uruba in Darfur, presumably supporting the Sudanese government (the Fur of Darfur are Muslims and often know Arabic, and the Arabic-speaking Sudanese living there are a minority, with whom the Fur will intermarry. The Arabic speakers, who look just like the Fur in being black Africans, have engaged in predations against the Fur in the past few years, with tens of thousands killed, even as some of the Fur sought greater regional autonomy from Khartum).

My guess is that the author of the statement is Egyptian or Sudanese, with some sort of intellectual genealogy in the radical fringes of the Muslim Brotherhood, perhaps al-Zawahiri`s al-Jihad al-Islami.

Of course, all of this is premised on the statement being a guide to the perpetrators, which we cannot know for sure. But everything else above follows pretty tightly if it is.

posted by Juan @ [url7/09/2005 05:46:00 PM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/update-on-london-bombing-investigation.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[SittinBuII]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek

[SittinBuII]

Ich verstehe es immer noch nicht: Es geht hier um die Aufdeckung des größtmölichen Verbrechens, das eine Regierung überhaupt begehen kann: Das Lügen und Betrügen um einen Krieg zu inszenieren, in dem hunderttausende Menschen zu Opfern werden.
Für das wir immer mehr Sources haben, siehe meinen Masterminds-Thread.

Und die NYT macht einen Freiheitskampf für Journailisten draus. Einen größeren Spin hat diese Welt noch nicht gesehen.

Mit der NYT würde ich noch nicht mal mein Grillfeuer anzünden wollen.

[Joerver]

10 July 2005 17:12

Police hunt `mercenary` terror gang recruited by al-Qa`ida
By Sophie Goodchild, Severin Carrell and Raymond Whitaker
Published: 10 July 2005
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/crime/article298105.ece

Police and intelligence agents areinvestigating the theory that a gang of white "mercenary terrorists" was hired by al-Qa`ida to carry out last week`s devastating attacks on London.

The Independent on Sunday can reveal today that investigations into the bombings of three Tube trains and a bus, which left at least 49 people dead, are focusing on the possibility that criminal gangs were paid to mount the worst atrocities in British history.

Last night, amid fears of further attacks, police evacuated the centre of Birmingham after receiving intelligence of a threat. A spokesman estimated up to 30,000 people were being cleared from the Broad Street area, packed with clubs, bars and restaurants.

Among new revelations about the highly sophisticated nature of Thursday`s attacks, intelligence officials disclosed that they were examining the prospect that so-called "clean skins" - who could have been Muslims from the Balkans with no previous links to terror groups - were recruited to evade heightened security in the capital.

The theory was given credence by the fact that the security services had no advance warnings, suggesting that the bombers were not known extremists. Police and intelligence agencies admitted yesterday they were caught off guard.

The Metropolitan Police`s investigation team is analysing hours of CCTV footage from around the targeted train stations and from the bus wreck, as well as checking lock-ups and garages for any clues that may lead them to the bombers. There is growing fear that the cells involved could be about to carry out further attacks. There was also alarm at the sophisticated nature of the explosives.

Alarm about the terrorists` expertise sharply increased after it emerged yesterday that all three of the Underground bombings took place within seconds of each other.

Detectives ruled out the possibility that suicide bombers were involved, but police sources indicated there was the risk that attackers had further supplies of explosives amid reports that up to four cells could be active in the UK.

A global search is under way for a number of known Islamist radicals and terrorist suspects, such as Mohammed al-Garbuzi, a Moroccan accused of involvement in the bombing of Casablanca killing 33 people in 2004.

The claims by the so-called Secret Organisation of the al-Qa`ida Jihad in Europe, posted on the internet on Thursday, are being taken seriously. Two other groups have also claimed responsibility. The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade posted the claim on an Islamist website where similar claims for responsibility have appeared in the past. Its authenticity could not be verified, but the statement promised more attacks on London.

The little-known Organisation of al-Qa`ida - Jihad in the Arabian Peninsula also claimed responsibility, and threatened to attack Rome.

The Met said they now had new evidence which clearly indicated that the blasts on the Tube trains had happened "almost simultaneously".

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said this indicated that the terrorists would have used timing devices to trigger the bombs. Mr Paddick said, "We are not looking for any specific individuals at this stage. We are pursuing a whole series of investigative lines."

Senior officers have said they received no warning from the intelligence services. Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said that intelligence gathering was "an imperfect science".

His comments were echoed by Tony Blair who cleared the police and intelligence services of any blame. In an interview with the BBC`s Today programme yesterday, he said: "If people are actually prepared to go on to a Tube or a bus and blow up wholly innocent people ... you can have all the surveillance in the world and you couldn`t stop that happening. That is why ultimately the underlying issues have to be dealt with too."

He also denied that he had made London a terrorist target by sending British troops into Afghanistan and Iraq.

Forty-nine people have been confirmed dead, but it is expected to be several days before an exact death toll can be provided because there are still bodiesat least 500 feet underground at King`s Cross.

The IoS has learnt that Britain`s leading Muslim scholars are to issue a "fatwa" condemning the terrorists behind Thursday`s bombings.

Police and intelligence agents areinvestigating the theory that a gang of white "mercenary terrorists" was hired by al-Qa`ida to carry out last week`s devastating attacks on London.

The Independent on Sunday can reveal today that investigations into the bombings of three Tube trains and a bus, which left at least 49 people dead, are focusing on the possibility that criminal gangs were paid to mount the worst atrocities in British history.

Last night, amid fears of further attacks, police evacuated the centre of Birmingham after receiving intelligence of a threat. A spokesman estimated up to 30,000 people were being cleared from the Broad Street area, packed with clubs, bars and restaurants.

Among new revelations about the highly sophisticated nature of Thursday`s attacks, intelligence officials disclosed that they were examining the prospect that so-called "clean skins" - who could have been Muslims from the Balkans with no previous links to terror groups - were recruited to evade heightened security in the capital.

The theory was given credence by the fact that the security services had no advance warnings, suggesting that the bombers were not known extremists. Police and intelligence agencies admitted yesterday they were caught off guard.

The Metropolitan Police`s investigation team is analysing hours of CCTV footage from around the targeted train stations and from the bus wreck, as well as checking lock-ups and garages for any clues that may lead them to the bombers. There is growing fear that the cells involved could be about to carry out further attacks. There was also alarm at the sophisticated nature of the explosives.

Alarm about the terrorists` expertise sharply increased after it emerged yesterday that all three of the Underground bombings took place within seconds of each other.

Detectives ruled out the possibility that suicide bombers were involved, but police sources indicated there was the risk that attackers had further supplies of explosives amid reports that up to four cells could be active in the UK.

A global search is under way for a number of known Islamist radicals and terrorist suspects, such as Mohammed al-Garbuzi, a Moroccan accused of involvement in the bombing of Casablanca killing 33 people in 2004.

The claims by the so-called Secret Organisation of the al-Qa`ida Jihad in Europe, posted on the internet on Thursday, are being taken seriously. Two other groups have also claimed responsibility. The Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade posted the claim on an Islamist website where similar claims for responsibility have appeared in the past. Its authenticity could not be verified, but the statement promised more attacks on London.

The little-known Organisation of al-Qa`ida - Jihad in the Arabian Peninsula also claimed responsibility, and threatened to attack Rome.

The Met said they now had new evidence which clearly indicated that the blasts on the Tube trains had happened "almost simultaneously".

Deputy Assistant Commissioner Brian Paddick said this indicated that the terrorists would have used timing devices to trigger the bombs. Mr Paddick said, "We are not looking for any specific individuals at this stage. We are pursuing a whole series of investigative lines."

Senior officers have said they received no warning from the intelligence services. Sir Ian Blair, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said that intelligence gathering was "an imperfect science".

His comments were echoed by Tony Blair who cleared the police and intelligence services of any blame. In an interview with the BBC`s Today programme yesterday, he said: "If people are actually prepared to go on to a Tube or a bus and blow up wholly innocent people ... you can have all the surveillance in the world and you couldn`t stop that happening. That is why ultimately the underlying issues have to be dealt with too."

He also denied that he had made London a terrorist target by sending British troops into Afghanistan and Iraq.

Forty-nine people have been confirmed dead, but it is expected to be several days before an exact death toll can be provided because there are still bodiesat least 500 feet underground at King`s Cross.

The IoS has learnt that Britain`s leading Muslim scholars are to issue a "fatwa" condemning the terrorists behind Thursday`s bombings.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

GLOBALIZATION`S NEXT VICTIM: US
Production, wealth, power, services and technology are slip-sliding away to the East
- Clyde Prestowitz
Sunday, July 10, 2005
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archiv…" target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archiv…


President Bush says the U.S. economy is the envy of the world, and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan insists economic growth is solid despite a bit of froth, but the truth is that the global economic scene is now more troubled that at any time since the trade wars with Japan 20 years ago.

The U.S. trade deficit was considered unsustainable at around $25 billion annually by the Reagan administration. It is now nearing $700 billion, an unprecedented 6 percent of our gross domestic product.

As a result, the U.S. economy is on life support. Our lifeline to finance this deficit is huge infusions of foreign lending, much of it from the central banks of China and Japan. Congress is calling for China`s scalp, and Treasury Secretary John Snow is demanding that Beijing revalue its currency. The new U. S. Trade representative is promising to get tough with China just as I and other U.S. trade officials promised to do with Japan in the past.

Former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker is forecasting a 75 percent probability of a major international financial crisis within five years.

How, if the United States is the envy of the world, can we be having all these problems? Easy.

Although the world, as characterized by columnist and author Tom Friedman, is getting flatter as a result of removal of trade and other barriers, it is also being tilted at an increasingly steep angle.

Think of it as a sliding board, very flat and smooth but inclined to speed the move of production, services, technology, wealth and power from West to East and often from open, democratic systems to more opaque, authoritarian regimes.

In short, despite the miracles it has accomplished in the past and may bring in the future, globalization is distorting the world economy in ways that pose increasing risks to the United States and the rest of the international community. This is an issue that didn`t make it onto the agenda of the world leaders at the G-8 meeting in Scotland last week, but should make it onto future agendas.

Part of what`s wrong is illustrated in recent statements by the chief executive officers of Intel and IBM. In testimony to a presidential advisory panel, Intel`s Paul Otellini said his company might build some future factories overseas. After selling his company`s personal computer division to China`s Lenovo, IBM`s Sam Palmisano told the New York Times that he had gotten a blessing on the deal from China`s top leaders and added that "IBM wants to be part of China`s strategy."

Remember now, we`re talking about Intel and IBM, two of the three or four top technology companies in the world, both based in the United States.

According to our elite economists, America`s future lies with high tech - - with companies like Intel and IBM. Yet here are two of U.S. high-tech industry`s top CEOs saying the future may lie abroad, especially in China.

Add the fact that U.S. trade in high-tech products has swung from a surplus to a deficit, and it is not at all clear that this country`s future will be in high tech.

At the heart of the problem is the false assumption that all the countries in the globalization contest are playing the same game. They`re not: Some countries have strategies, but others don`t have a clue. The United States is in the latter category.

Otellini`s concern is not U.S. labor or capital or other costs. In fact, he emphasized that from an operating point of view, a U.S. factory location would be advantageous, as the theories say it should be.

The difference is that countries like Israel, Malaysia, China and Ireland are offering capital grants, tax holidays, free land and infrastructure, as well as other financial incentives for companies to build factories in their countries despite less attractive operating conditions.

Such strategically advanced countries also foster business relationships. They initiate technology sharing arrangements and establish technical standards that give a leg up to producers operating within their borders.

This all creates a painful dilemma for U.S. executives like Intel`s Otellini. American companies may prefer to resist the pull of foreign subsidies, but with fiduciary responsibility to maximize returns to their shareholders, doing so may mean committing career suicide.

Or take IBM`s Palmisano. Of course he wants to be part of China`s strategy. He`d be a fool not to. China is big and going to get a lot bigger, and IBM needs to be part of its development. The missing link for Palmisano is that he can`t be part of an American strategy, too, because the United States doesn`t have one.

The United States, which might be said to have more or less invented globalization, has been complacent about its leadership in world trade while other countries have sought innumerable advantages. The United States has also insisted on the validity of theoretical trade models while other countries have been beating us in real-world deals.

Think of the world as divided into two groups: the strategic traders such as Japan and China, and the free traders who maximize consumption and have no real strategy for keeping or attracting new companies.

Joining the United States in this latter group are countries like Canada, the United Kingdom and Chile. They`re not totally pure, but they usually play by free trade rules. In principle, they believe in markets, operate under a rule of law, are reasonably transparent and have rising consumer welfare as their primary economic objective.

The other group, the strategic traders, especially many nations in Asia, are characterized by unusually high savings rates, relatively low consumption, lack of transparency, absence of or gaps in the rule of law, extensive formal and informal government intervention in markets, managed exchange rates, programs to promote strategic industries, and explicit policies aimed at accumulating trade surpluses and large dollar reserves in order to gain financial sovereignty and a degree of geopolitical leverage.

In this mix, the United States is unique as the printer of the dollar, the world`s primary reserve currency. Because most international goods are priced in dollars, the United States is able to buy simply by printing its own money. All other countries must first produce and sell something in order to earn the dollars necessary to buy abroad.

As long as others will accept dollars in payment and reinvest them in U.S. assets, America is relieved of any need to be fiscally responsible by balancing its budget and trade deficits.

Perversely, the rest of the world also finds fiscal responsibility unnecessary. The Americans can buy and borrow without concern for saving, investment and production.

Perversely, the rest of the world also finds it unnecessary to be fiscally responsible. By managing exchange rates to keep the dollar strong and their export prices low, the rest can over-save and over-invest because excess production can be exported to the U.S. market. Combined with financial incentives, these policies facilitate a steady move of production, technology, and know-how to the countries that have a trading strategy.

The combination of these various globalization games has tilted the Earth and created today`s hugely unbalanced global economy.

The United States is the only net consumer. Global growth depends on a steady increase in its already unprecedented trade deficit, which in turn depends on a steady rise in foreign lending, particularly from China and Japan.

Already the United States is absorbing 80 percent of available world savings. The system is unsustainable. This lending can obviously not go beyond the totality of savings. But even if it were sustainable for a long time, the accumulation of debt would be a threat to future U.S. and world growth.

The notion that floating exchange rates will somehow smoothly adjust Earth`s tilt is equally flawed. When Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan speaks soothingly of a soft landing in which revaluation of China`s yuan leads to a surge of U.S. exports to rebalance the trade deficit with no slowing of U. S. growth, he ignores the fact that the United States no longer has export production capacity sufficient even to cut the trade deficit in half.

In the real world, plants can`t be built instantaneously, and production doesn`t expand overnight. And even if floating rates worked in principle, they won`t as long as most Asian countries, not just China, are actively managing their exchange rates through so-called dirty floats. It may be that these countries are hurting themselves, but they also hurt their trading partners.

Finally, there is the view that we shouldn`t worry too much about how other countries grow because their growth will inevitably result in their buying more from us, increasing our growth as well. But we have now had 50 years of globalization during which a number of countries such as Japan and South Korea have experienced the miracle of going from poor to rich. If the theory were correct, they should have become big buyers by now. But they have not. The United States remains the consumer of last resort.

The fact is that the strategic trading system becomes hard-wired, and these countries do not easily or suddenly shift to consumption from saving, producing and exporting. Nor does the United States show any capability for going in the opposite direction from its role as the world`s No. 1 consumer.

Until we all accept economic reality and start to change it, the world economy will continue to head full steam for Niagara Falls. We desperately need to reinvent globalization. For starters, Washington might become as interested in keeping Intel and IBM building factories at home as Beijing is eager to lay down the red carpet for them.

Clyde Prestowitz is the author of "Three Billion New Capitalists: The Great Shift of Wealth and Power to the East" and president of the Economic Strategy Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan Washington research organization focused on globalization and competitiveness. He also is an adviser to Intel Corp. E-mail us at [e-mail].

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archiv…
©2005 San Francisco Chronicle

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Sunday, July 10, 2005
War News for Sunday, July 10, 2005

http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Suicide bomber kills sixteen and wounds forty in attack on recruiting centre in western Baghdad.

Bring `em on: Three Iraqis killed and ten wounded in car bomb attack in Kirkuk.

Bring `em on: Casualties reported in bomb attack on police convoy in Mosul.

Bring `em on: Fierce clashes between US forces and insurgents reported in Tal Afar.

Bring `em on: Iraqi karate official kidnapped in Latifiyah.

Report says that the Iraq war was one of the key causes of young British Muslims turning to terrorism.

Fatwa:

Britain`s top Muslim scholars are to issue a "fatwa" which will condemn the terrorists behind Thursday`s bombings, in an unprecedented move to repudiate the Islamist militants suspected of the atrocities.

It is expected that the religious ruling, which will be drafted this week, will effectively outlaw the bombers among Muslims by stating the attacks were a breach of the most basic tenets of Islam.

Senior community leaders believe they must try to deflect another wave of revenge attacks by undermining the religious basis of the terrorists` alleged Islamist ideology and, significantly, by questioning their right to describe themselves as Muslims.

The move follows a decision taken late on Friday night at an emergency summit attended by about 100 of the country`s most prominent Muslim leaders, held in private at East London Mosque.


Options For Future UK Force Posture In Iraq:

Mr Reid`s memo, prepared for Mr Blair in the past few weeks, shows that in reality, plans to get them out - "military drawdown," as he puts it - are well advanced.

It says: "We have a commitment to hand over to Iraqi control in Al Muthanna and Maysan provinces [two of the four provinces under British control in Southern Iraq] in October 2005 and in the other two, Dhi Qar and Basra, in April 2006.

"This in turn should lead to a reduction in the total level of UK commitment in Iraq to around 3,000 personnel by mid 2006.

"This should lead to an estimated halving in the costs of around £1 billion per annum. Though it is not exactly clear when this reduction might manifest itself, it would not be before around the end of 2006."

Mr Reid states that his proposal is not yet a "ministerially endorsed position" - or Government policy - though he clearly believes it should be.

Significantly, he underlines the serious impact on other Allied troops in the area now under British control, including 550 Japanese engineers rebuilding the infrastructure and 1,400 Australian soldiers: "The Japanese will be reluctant to stay if protection is solely provided by the Iraqis. The Australian position may also be uncertain."

Mr Reid says he will produce "further and more specific proposals" for the Cabinet`s Defence and Overseas Policy (Iraq) Committee, which is chaired by Mr Blair.

But some British Army chiefs are opposed to Mr Reid`s plans. One senior officer claimed the Minister had no option but to recall 3,000 British troops in October as Britain has already promised to send an extra 3,000 personnel to southern Afghanistan to replace US soldiers.

"The momentum for this is more to do with pressure from America and the woefully overstretched British Army than whether Iraq is ready to look after itself," said the source. "The timing seems very convenient."


Robin Cook


The breeding grounds of terrorism are to be found in the poverty of back streets, where fundamentalism offers a false, easy sense of pride and identity to young men who feel denied of any hope or any economic opportunity for themselves. A war on world poverty may well do more for the security of the west than a war on terror.

And in the privacy of their extensive suites, yesterday`s atrocities should prompt heart-searching among some of those present. President Bush is given to justifying the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that by fighting terrorism abroad, it protects the west from having to fight terrorists at home. Whatever else can be said in defence of the war in Iraq today, it cannot be claimed that it has protected us from terrorism on our soil.


# posted by Friendly Fire : 4:15 AM
Comments (8) | Trackback (0)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Terrorismus, “Krieg gegen den Terror”, Botschaften des Schreckens
von Norman Solomon
http://www.zmag.de/artikel.php?id=1483&PHPSESSID=fa6264824a9…

ZNet Kommentar 09.07.2005
Die französische Regierung schlug eine diplomatische Initiative vor, die die Kriegspläne des Weißen Hauses eventuell hätte aufhalten können. Der US-Präsident reagierte mit der Bemerkung, das vorgeschlagene Szenario käme einer “Ratifizierung des Terrors” gleich. Die Rede ist vom 24. Juli 1964, es ging um den Vietnamkrieg, und der Präsident war Lyndon B. Johnson.

Vier Jahrzehnte später ist das ‘Antiterror‘-Argument nicht mehr nur eines von vielen, wenn es darum geht, die amerikanische Kriegsmaschinerie in Gang zu setzen. Nein, der Kampf gegen den “Terror” ist mittlerweile zur zentralen Kriegsbegründung geworden.

“Der Kontrast könnte nicht klarer sein - zwischen den Intentionen und Herzen jener, denen Menschenrechte und menschliche Freiheit zutiefst wichtig sind und jenen, die töten, jenen, die soviel Böses in ihrem Herzen tragen, dass sie unschuldigen Leuten das Leben nehmen”, so Präsident Bush am letzten Donnerstag, nach den Bombenannschlägen von London: “Der Krieg gegen den Terror geht weiter”.

Es ist eine Grundvoraussetzung in diesem selbstgerechten Krieg, dass unbequeme Geschichte samt und sonders als irrelevant abgetan wird. “Indem wir das einfache Klischee akzeptieren, dass der derzeitige Kampf gegen den Terrorismus ein Kampf gegen das Böse sei, indem wir die, die gegen uns kämpfen, einfach als Barbaren brandmarken, lehnen wir es ebenso wie diese ab, unsere Schuld anzuerkennen”, so der Journalist Chris Hedges. “Wir ignorieren wirkliche Ungerechtigkeiten, die viele von denen, die sich gegen uns verbündet haben, in ihre Wut und Verzweiflung gestürzt haben”.

Kurz nach dem 11. September kritisierte die Autorin Joan Didion “den ermüdenden Enthusiasmus, mit dem all jene verurteilt wurden, die sagten, es wäre vielleicht sinnvoll, ein Mindestmaß an historischem Bezug zu diesem Ereignis herzustellen”. Fast alle Politiker und Pundits waren sich sehr schnell einig gewesen, alle Stimmen der Vernunft zu verurteilen, die uns versicherten, “ein Ereignis hat immer eine Geschichte, das politische Leben Konsequenzen - und die Leute, die dieses Land führten bzw. die Leute, die darüber schrieben und sprachen, wie dieses Land geführt wird, haben sich der Infantilisierung der Bürger schuldig gemacht, sofern sie etwas anderes behaupteten”.

Die Stimme der Vernunft wurde selbst dann ignoriert, wenn sie aus dem US-Militärestablishment kam. Ende November 2002 sagte der pensionierte Armeegeneral William Odom auf C-SPAN zu den Zuschauern: “Der Terrorismus ist kein Feind. Er kann nicht besiegt werden. Er ist eine Taktik. Wäre in etwa so sinnvoll zu sagen, wir erklären dem Nachtangriff den Krieg - und dabei zu glauben, wir könnten den Krieg gewinnen. Wir werden den Krieg gegen den Terrorismus nicht gewinnen. Er peitscht die Angst hoch. Terrorakte haben noch nie eine liberale Demokratie zu Fall gebracht, Parlamentsgesetze hingegen schon einige”.

Zwei Jahre nach dem 11. September stellte Norman Mailer folgende Frage: “Was nützt es uns, wenn wir extreme Sicherheit gewinnen und dabei unsere Demokratie verlieren? Es war ja nicht so, dass Saddam Hussein im Irak jedem die Hände und/oder Ohren abschnitt. Im Mittel dieser Gesellschaft gab es jede Menge Iraker, die die Sicherheit hatten, die sie brauchten - wenngleich es für sie keine Freiheit gab, außer der von Diktatoren in reichem Maße gewährten Freiheit, sie mit übertriebenem Hosianna zu preisen. Ja, es gibt wichtigere Dinge als Sicherheit, und eines dieser Dinge ist der Schutz der massiv belagerten Integrität unserer Demokratie. Die letztendliche Frage zu diesem Thema versteht sich von selbst: Sind Führer, für die Lügen der ‘way of life’ ist, in der Lage, irgendeinen anderen ‘way of life’ zu schützen?”

Jener US-Präsident, der mit Lügen eine Irakinvasion erreicht hat, missbraucht nun die Gräuel, die sich am Donnerstag in London ereigneten, um eine US-Politik zu verteidigen, die dem Irak tagtäglich neue Gräuel beschert. Bush lässt die Kriegsanstrengungen des Pentagon weiterlaufen, um so “den Terroristen” eine neue Botschaft zu senden.

Kommunikation durch Töten - ein bekanntes Konzept. Eine angeblich gerechte Botschaft mittels Kugeln und Bomben zu überbringen, ist durchaus nichts Neues.

In seinem Buch ‘War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning’ beschreibt der ehemalige Kriegskorrespondent Chris Hedges diesen Vorgang, den er aus nächster Nähe beobachten konnte: “In Kriegszeiten sind Leichen häufig Überbringer von Botschaften. In El Salvador luden die Todesschwadronen eines morgens drei Leichname auf dem Parkplatz des Camino Real Hotels in San Salvador ab. In diesem Hotel hatten die Journalisten ihre Basis. In den Mündern der Toten befanden sich Todesdrohungen an uns.” Hedges weiter: “Auch Washington setzt Morde und Leichen ein, um seiner Wut Ausdruck zu verleihen - in größerem Maßstab allerdings. Wir waren die Überbringer dieser Hetzbotschaften - in Vietnam, Irak, Serbien und Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden hat die Sprache der modernen, industriellen Kriegsführung gelernt”.

Hedges: “Im Sommer 1965 war Robert McNamara US-Verteidigungsminister. Er war zuständig für die Bombardierungen, denen schließlich Hunderttausende Zivilisten nördlich von Saigon zum Opfer fielen - eine Botschaft an das kommunistische Regime in Hanoi.”

Vierzig Jahre später ist das Versenden tödlicher Botschaften für die USA und ihre militärischen Verbündeten zur Routine geworden - mit dem “Krieg gegen den Terror”, der zum Kern der Kriegspropaganda wurde. Wen wundert es, wenn die Post zurück an den Absender geht?

Zu diesem Artikel siehe Norman Solomons neues Buch: ‘War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death’. Kostproben unter www.WarMadeEasy.com

www.WarMadeEasy.com

"… THIS WAR WILL NOT END IN ANY OF OUR LIFETIMES … "Click he…
Norman Solomon talks to Adrian Zupp . . .

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]
[urlBush bruised in bicycle crash,]http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4658327.stm
Allawi: this is the [urlstart of civil war]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-1687910,00.html
and [urlSecret Plan To Quit Iraq]http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=355291&in_page_id=1770&in_a_source=[/url][/url][/url]
[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]
The Harder They Come
by Jimmy Cliff

Well they tell me of a pie up in the sky
Waiting for me when I die
But between the day you`re born and when you die
They never seem to hear even your cry

CHORUS:
So as sure as the sun will shine
I`m gonna get my share now of what`s mine
And then the harder they come the harder they`ll fall, one and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they`ll fall, one and all

Well the officers are trying to keep me down
Trying to drive me underground
And they think that they have got the battle won
I say forgive them Lord, they know not what they`ve done

CHORUS

ooh yeah oh yeah woh yeah ooooh

And I keep on fighting for the things I want
Though I know that when you`re dead you can`t
But I`d rather be a free man in my grave
Than living as a puppet or a slave

CHORUS

Yeah, the harder they come, the harder they`ll fall one and all
What I say now, what I say now, awww
What I say now, what I say one time
The harder they come the harder they`ll fall one and all
Ooh the harder they come the harder they`ll fall one and all[/b]
[/TABLE]
1992 Madness performance of The Harder They Come in Moscow
[urlMadness Downloads]http://www.mis-online.net/html/body_downloads.html[/url]

[Joerver]

Tomgram: Making the World Unsafe for Democracy
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=5249

Boy President in a Failed World?
By Tom Engelhardt

On Thursday morning, with the London bombings monopolizing the TV set, I watched our President take that long, outdoor, photo-op walk from the G-8 summit meeting to the microphones to make a statement to reporters. Exploding subways, a blistered bus, the dead, wounded, dazed, and distraught just then staggering through our on-screen morning, and there he was. He had his normal, slightly bowlegged walk, his arms held just out from his side in a fashion that brings the otherwise unusable word "akimbo" to mind. It`s a walk -- the walk to the podium at the White House press conference, to the presidential helicopter, to the Rose Garden microphone -- that is now his well-practiced signature move. For some people, a tone of voice or a facial expression can tell you everything you need to know; that`s how the President`s walk acts for him. And nothing puts spine in that walk the way the war on terror does. Each horror is like a shot of adrenalin.

As he approached the microphones on Thursday, while ambulances and police cars rushed through the streets of London, everything about him radiated a single word: resolve. It was a word that came to mind even before he used it making his brief statement, and then turned, no less resolutely, to walk away just as the word "Iraq" came out of the mouth of some reporter as part of an unfinished question. This was definitely our War (on Terror) President back in the saddle.

He said nothing to surprise. He offered "heartfelt condolences to the people of London, people who lost lives"; he spoke of defending Americans against heightened dangers ("I have been in contact with our Homeland Security folks. I instructed them to be in touch with local and state officials about the facts of what took place here and in London, and to be extra vigilant, as our folks start heading to work."); he extolled the strength of resolve of the other G-8 leaders by comparing it to his own ("I was most impressed by the resolve of all the leaders in the room. Their resolve is as strong as my resolve."); and he presented for the umpteenth time his Manichaean vision of a world of good and evil in which he and his administration are unhesitatingly the representatives of all goodness. ("[T]he contrast couldn`t be clearer between the intentions and the hearts of those of us who care deeply about human rights and human liberty, and those who kill -- those who have got such evil in their heart that they will take the lives of innocent folks.")

There`s something so confoundingly dream-like about all this, so fantastic, even absurd, especially set against the background of the murder of random people taking public transportation in one of the globe`s great cities. As reality grows ever darker, our President never ventures far from his scripted version of a fictional world that is nowhere to be seen. Let`s keep in mind that this was the same President who, only the day before in Denmark, had launched a vigorous, completely ludicrous defense of his Guantánamo prison complex. Just two weeks earlier, his Vice President had pointed out -- as if he were making one of those Caribbean tourist ads -- that the prisoners there were lucky to be housed and fed so admirably in the balmy "tropics." Now, the President was practically proffering tickets to those tropics for Europeans who wanted to check the situation out for themselves. ("[T]he prisoners are well-treated in Guantánamo. There`s total transparency. The International Red Cross can inspect any time, any day. And you`re welcome to go. The press, of course, is welcome to go down to Guantánamo… There`s very few prison systems around the world that have seen such scrutiny as this one. And for those of you here on the continent of Europe who have doubt, I`d suggest buying an airplane ticket and going down and look -- take a look for yourself.")

It was certainly a unique vacation package he was offering. As it happens, magazine[urlJane Mayer of the New Yorker]http://www.newyorker.com/online/content/articles/050711on_onlineonly01[/url] took one of those tickets and, even getting a military dog-and-pony show at the prison, was struck by "the utter lack of due process" in the one trial-like proceeding she saw. ("It looked like a court hearing, but there were no lawyers.") The place -- despite having its own Starbucks for the Americans -- struck her as a giant dystopian experiment in mind manipulation.

A number of FBI agents took these tickets a while ago and sent back harrowing tales of mistreatment and torture ([url"The documents]http://www.thehawaiichannel.com/helenthomas/4023757/detail.html[/url] showed that FBI agents were particularly upset with what they saw as physical and mental abuse of the detainees, including the sticking of lighted cigarettes in their ears, choking, beatings, temperature changes, hooding, the use of dogs and other forms of harassment."); or simply consider what the elder President Bush`s White House physician, a former doctor in the Army Medical Corps, [urlhad to say recently]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/06/30/AR2005063001680_pf.html[/url] on this Bush administration`s treatment of prisoners:

"Today, however, it seems as though our government and the military have slipped into Joseph Conrad`s ‘Heart of Darkness.` The widespread reports of torture and ill-treatment -- frequently based on military and government documents -- defy the claim that this abusive behavior is limited to a few noncommissioned officers at Abu Ghraib or isolated incidents at Guantanamo Bay. When it comes to torture, the military`s traditional leadership and discipline have been severely compromised up and down the chain of command. Why? I fear it is because the military has bowed to errant civilian leadership."

Of course, that`s just reality and means nothing to our President, who assures the world that he`s the defender of "human rights" against the forces of evil. Guantánamo is but the tip of the offshore archipelago of injustice sponsored with enthusiasm by him, his top officials, his lawyers, et al. In fact, the "human rights and human liberties" President and his men have created such an ungodly mess at home and in the world that trying to tackle any of his tightly held fantasies point by point is a nearly impossible task, the equivalent of cleaning out the Augean stables. But put that aside for a moment. Whatever he may be -- and it`s worth saying this exactly at such a moment -- George Bush is simply not the representative of good. While holding up the banner of democracy, he and his men, experts in vote suppression and gerrymandering on their home turf, have created an ever less democratic, more intolerant, more police-ridden, more liberties-impaired America. That`s simply their record on the ground. But after a while, as you watch the carnage from London to Baghdad, you say these things -- or write them -- and then you just throw up your hands in despair. Why write more?

"The War on Terror Goes On"

Now, we know, of course, that George`s people read the opinion polls and check their focus groups and that, amid his increasingly [urlpoor polling figures]http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/070805D.shtml[/url] (including a recent Zogby poll, hardly covered in the mainstream press, that showed [url42% of Americans willing]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2005/07/06/BL2005070601211_pf.html[/url] to consider his possible impeachment for lying about going to war with Iraq), he hangs onto one thing: the war on terror. It`s his. Americans still believe, though in smaller numbers than before, that he`s handling it well. Before the attacks of September 11, 2001, before he proclaimed his war on terror -- though that period now seems almost beyond memory -- his presidency looked dead in the water. After a brief, embarrassing moment of fear and flight on Air Force One that long ago day, he clambered aboard the September 11th jet and flew it for all he was worth. That day made the man and his advisors undoubtedly believe that, in the end, it is likely to make or break his presidency.

Before the war in Iraq, and again before the recent election, he, his handlers, and his top officials played the war-on-terror card domestically with impressive effectiveness. All of this is well known. So why wouldn`t they return to it as the early months of his second term begin to look much like those in-the-doldrums early months of his first one? As London demonstrated all too painfully -- as his policies in Iraq and elsewhere help to ensure -- we now live in a Kamikaze world. After all, as he always says with a strange pride, he made Iraq into "the central theater in the war on terror." Remember, [urlwhatever else Iraq was,]http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/salon-cole-revenge.html[/url] before the invasion it was a country that had never experienced a suicide car bombing ([urlthough Baghdad]http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0609-02.htm[/url] was evidently car-bombed by the CIA in the 1990s via the Iraqi National Accord, the exile organization of the future prime minister of occupied Iraq, Iyad Allawi) or sent a suicide car bomber anywhere else on Earth; and don`t forget our now seemingly endless and bloody occupation of unreconstructed Afghanistan, and so many grim policies elsewhere, most of which impact heavily on the largely Arab oil heartlands of the planet. All of this has so far been, speaking purely practically, as London may demonstrate once again, useful to the President domestically, even if his policies are helping produce it, even if those of us who live in the large cities of the world are never again likely to get on a subway or a bus without suppressing that second or two of doubt about what might happen next.

In [urlSuperpower Syndrome,]http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1560255129/nationbooks08[/url] an insightful paperback published in 2003, psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton wrote of how, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, the Bush administration "responded apocalyptically to an apocalyptic challenge"; of how, facing Islamist fanaticism, it offered its own version of a fundamentalist "world war without end"; of how it perversely partnered up with al-Qaeda in a strange global dance of animosity. Once again, the London bombs may bolster Bush`s waning support domestically, just as his acts globally reinforce the evidently growing support for various al-Qaeda linked or identified groups. All of this activity -- from those color-coded alerts at electorally appropriate moments to the President`s speeches -- can seem quite cynical and manipulative, and yet there was a moment, a line, in the President`s statement in Scotland which spoke of something quite different. Near the end, he said, quite simply, "The war on terror goes on." It was one of those moments filled with resolve, but with something else as well.

"The war on terror goes on..." You might imagine that such a sentence, especially at that moment, would have been the most mournful, the saddest of statements. But in the President`s mouth it had none of that quality. Though far more subdued, what it hinted at was one of the President`s most childish comments, now almost forgotten. Back in July, 2003, when the Iraq War that should have ended was just turning into an insurgency that wouldn`t end, [urlhe taunted the Iraqi insurgents,]http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/02/sprj.nitop.bush/[/url] saying, "Anybody who wants to harm American troops will be found and brought to justice... There are some who feel like the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring `em on."

"Bring ‘em on." As then, so in Scotland, you could feel the way George Bush had absorbed his own Global War on Terror into his political and personal bloodstream. It was indeed, to use [urlBoston Globe columnist James Carroll`s word]http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/02/sprj.nitop.bush/[/url] for it, his personal crusade. In that context, each terror attack is, for him, strangely like a shot of adrenaline (as it is, piety aside and for quite different reasons, for the TV news channels which ride such attacks for all their worth). Each attack somehow bucks him up, sets him walking more resolutely. I have no doubt that, serially, they give meaning to his life. This, after all, was the man who, according to [urlthe Washington Post`s Bob Woodward,]http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=1119[/url] kept in his Oval Office desk drawer "his own personal scorecard for the war" in the form of photographs with brief biographies and personality sketches of those judged to be the world`s most dangerous terrorists, each ready to be crossed out by the President as his forces took them down. This is the Osama Bin Laden (or now Zarqawi)"dead or alive" President.

Playing at War

More than anything else, as I watched him that morning in Gleneagles, Scotland, I was filled with a sense of sadness that we had reached such a perilous moment with such a man, or really -- for here is my deepest suspicion -- such a man-child in power. Yes, he genuinely believes in his war on terror, even as he and his advisors use it to his own advantage. And yes, he`s good at being, or rather enacting with all his being, the role of the War on Terror President. And yet there`s something so painfully childlike in the spectacle of him. Here, after all, is a 59 year-old who loves to appear in front of massed troops, saying gloriously encouraging and pugnacious things while being hoo-ah-ed -- and almost invariably he makes such appearances dressed in some custom-made military jacket with "commander in chief" specially stitched across his heart, just as he landed on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln back in May 2003 in a Navy pilot`s outfit. Who could imagine Abe himself, that most civilian of wartime presidents, or Franklin D. Roosevelt, or Dwight D. Eisenhower, a real general, wearing such G.I. Joe-style play outfits?

Let`s face it. George Bush likes dress-up. What a video game is to a teenager, the Presidency seems to be to this man. It`s a free pass to the movies with him playing that brave warrior part. All in all, I`m afraid to say, it must be fun. When he so cavalierly said, "Bring ‘em on," he was surely simply carried away by the spirit of the game. What it wasn`t, of course, was the statement of a mature human being, an adult.

I don`t usually say such things, but there`s something unbelievably stunted about all this. He and his top officials seem almost completely divorced from any sense of the actual consequences of their various acts and decisions. They live in some kind of dream world offshore of reality, which would perhaps not be so disturbing if they didn`t also control the levers of power in what, not so long ago, was regularly referred to as the "lone" or "last superpower" or the globe`s only "hyperpower." (Even in their own terms, it`s a sign of their failed stewardship that almost no one uses such phrases any more or, say, Pax Americana, another commonplace of 2002 and 2003.)

It may be that nations deserve the leaders they get and perhaps it`s no mistake that George Bush ended up as our leader -- twice no less -- in a period that otherwise seemed to cry out for having your basic set of grown-ups in power, or that his Secretary of Defense likes to play stand-up comic at his news conferences, or that his first Attorney General just loved to sing songs of his own creation to his staff, or that none of them can get it through their heads that it`s not just the terrorists who, in our world, have been taking "the lives of the innocent."

I keep thinking: Who let these children out in the world on their own? Obviously the American people, in some state of global denial, did. It`s strange, but I can`t get out of my mind an image that Bush administration officials, from the President on down, were using regularly back in 2003-2004. They often quite publicly compared the Iraqis to a child taking his first wobbly bike ride (assumedly on a democratic path) under the administration`s tutelage. There was Washington, the kindly adult, stooped over, helping balance that ungainly kid, or trying to decide whether this was the moment to take off those training wheels and let the child take an initial spin on his own, chancing of course a spill.

In May of 2004, for instance, the President, [urlaccording to a CBS News report,]http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/19/iraq/main594228.shtml[/url] "sought to rally Republican lawmakers around his Iraq plan..., saying Iraqis are ready to ‘take the training wheels off` by assuming some political power." Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld spoke similarly in March of that year: [url"Getting Iraq straightened out,]http://www.sundayherald.com/40703[/url] he said, was like teaching a kid to ride a bike: ‘They`re learning, and you`re running down the street holding on to the back of the seat. You know that if you take your hand off they could fall, so you take a finger off and then two fingers, and pretty soon you`re just barely touching it. You can`t know when you`re running down the street how many steps you`re going to have to take. We can`t know that, but we`re off to a good start.`" And from Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to L. Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, others chimed in similarly.

Of course, all of this was a lie of an image and not just because it was classically patronizing and colonial. After all, if you wanted to extend the image, you would have to say that the American parent helping that sweet child learn how to bike was also plundering [urlthe child`s future college fund]http://www.lrb.co.uk/v27/n13/harr04_.html[/url], looting his future patrimony, and turning his life into a swirl of deadly chaos. Take off those wheels and let him wobble around that first corner and he was likely to be knocked off his bike by an RPG round and find himself in a hospital without supplies run by doctors who were either being assassinated or fleeing the country.

Perhaps this image, now retired by the administration, came back to me as the President spoke because, only the day before, on a wet and slippery Scottish road, riding his own special sports bike, George had crashed into a policeman guarding him, scraping his hands and arms, and sending that policeman briefly to the hospital.

Now, anyone can fall off a bike, but I had to wonder who had taken those training wheels off the Bush administration bike -- al-Qaeda by its 9/11 attacks, would assumedly be the answer -- and let its officials careen off on their first wild rides, all of which have left them skidding off the road and someone else in the hospital. I wondered what the inhabitants of Baghdad, the capital of our failed state of Iraq, might have been thinking about the President`s statement on the London bombings or all the media attention that was given over to them. After all,7 to 8 car bombings a week now take place in Baghdad alone -- and this figure is held up proudly by the American military as an accomplishment of the moment (being down from 14 to 21 before a recent offensive in that city). And yet in our press there are never stories about how Baghdadis keep stiff upper lips or carry on with life amid the carnage, though somehow they evidently do.

If you`ll excuse another image, it was as if our child leaders had taken off, ridden directly into someone else`s neighborhood, seen a wasp`s nest, promptly stomped on it, and then stood around praising themselves and waiting to be stung. If you judge a war by its results, then our president`s war on terror has led only to ever more terror and ever more war. Just the other day, the Bush administration did some new figuring and reported that terrorist incidents globally in 2004 had increased five-fold over the previous figures it had released to the public. For that year, [urlthe National Counterterrorism Center]http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-1684077,00.html[/url] now counts up 3,192 attacks worldwide, with 28,433 people killed, wounded, or kidnapped -- and Iraq led the list by a mile even though attacks on the U.S. military were not counted in the tally.

In the meantime, as Dilip Hiro points out, [urlbombing attacks]http://comment.independent.co.uk/commentators/article298048.ece[/url] -- Bali, Turkey, Madrid, London -- are moving ever closer to the heartland of our particular world, of George Bush`s imperium. Once upon a time it was a trope of American presidents to claim that we were fighting there, wherever there might be -- in the case of Lyndon Johnson Vietnam, in the case of Ronald Reagan Central America -- so that we might not fight on the beaches of San Diego or in the fields of Texas. When a president said such a thing, It sounded fierce and threatening -- and it was inconceivable. Armed Nicaraguans were never going to punch through Texas, nor were Vietnamese guerrillas going to slip ashore in Southern California, nor Panamanians in Atlanta; nor Grenadans in Key West; nor, for that matter, Iraqis of the First Gulf War era in Boston.

George Bush now uses the same punch lines as those former presidents, just as he did recently in his national television address to the nation on Iraq. But for the first time, they have an actual meaning. They have perhaps even more meaning over "there." Riverbend, the eloquent, young Baghdad Blogger, recently put the matter this way from the perspective of a resident of the Iraqi capital:

"Bush said: `Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war. … The commander in charge of coalition operations in Iraq, who is also senior commander at this base, General John Vines, put it well the other day. He said, "We either deal with terrorism and this extremism abroad, or we deal with it when it comes to us."`

"He speaks of ‘abroad` as if it is a vague desert-land filled with heavily-bearded men and possibly camels. ‘Abroad` in his speech seems to indicate a land of inferior people -- less deserving of peace, prosperity and even life. Don`t Americans know that this vast wasteland of terror and terrorists otherwise known as ‘Abroad` was home to the first civilizations and is home now to some of the most sophisticated, educated people in the region? Don`t Americans realize that ‘abroad` is a country full of people -- men, women and children who are dying hourly? ‘Abroad` is home for millions of us. It`s the place we were raised and the place we hope to raise our children -- your field of war and terror".

Failed-State World

"The war on terror goes on..." What a thing to say. We are now in a destabilizing world, and it will undoubtedly only get worse as George Bush`s "war" to stop terror goes on and on and on. TheBush administration will never cease to lend a hand -- no matter what it thinks it`s doing -- to those evil ones who will take innocent lives without a blink. It is ever ready to destabilize the oil heartlands of our planet, what not so long ago was regularly called "the arc of instability" (before any of our pundits really knew what instability was all about). The two countries the Bush administration has occupied are both dismally failed states effectively ruled by no one. One is now proudly held up by the President as the central theater in the war on terror, the other is the prime narco-state on the planet. And it`s clear that only the revealed weakness of a military giant that turned out to be incapable of imposing its will on two of the weaker states on Earth has prevented further radical acts of "decapitation," armed "regime change," and thoroughgoing destabilization.

Remember when neocons authors were writing about a world of "failed states," that jungle out there just beyond our civilization? Where are they now that we need them? The bombings in London signal that, in such a failed-state world, failure --– and the carnage that goes with it -- only spreads like so many ripples in a pond into which someone is catapulting boulders. Nor will our leaders hesitate to destabilize our own country, turning it from the ultimate hyperpower into the ultimate failed state in a failed world.

There is a similar piece, I have no doubt, to be written about the maniacs -- and yes, they have their strategies and their reasons and their grievances, including George Bush`s Iraq War -- who are willing to climb into a car in Iraq, or take an underground ride in London with a backpack filled with explosives, or smash a plane into a tall building, or blow up a synagogue, or... They believe no less than our President in their fictional version of reality and are no less eager to impose it on the rest of us. They too, given half a chance, would create their own failed states in a failed-state world.

It is perhaps an insult to children to compare the Bush administration to them, but I`m at a loss for images. I`m a deeply civil person. If I had my choice, like so many people in this world of ours, I would simply wash my hands of their apocalypts and ours. Unfortunately, that`s not possible. Theirs, at least, are someone else`s responsibility, but George and his malign fictional worlds are, it seems, mine.

The sad thing is that the truth is relatively simple. What people using terror in the fashion of London are quite capable of doing is killing and maiming randomly and in large numbers – and perhaps in the process revealing to us both how fragile and how strong our world actually is. What they are completely incapable of doing, no matter what George Bush says, is taking our liberties and freedoms away. They can`t take anything away. Only we can do that.

Tom Engelhardt, who runs the Nation Institute`s Tomdispatch.com ("a regular antidote to the mainstream media"), is the co-founder of the American Empire Project and the author of The End of Victory Culture, a history of American triumphalism in the Cold War.

[Special thanks go to Nick Turse for his invaluable research aid.]

Copyright 2005 Tom Engelhardt


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
posted July 10, 2005 at 4:17 pm

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 11, 2005
For Time Reporter, Decision to Testify Came After Frenzied Last-Minute Calls
By ADAM LIPTAK
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/11time.html?pagew…

This article was reported by David Johnston, Jacques Steinberg and Adam Liptak and was written by Mr. Liptak.

WASHINGTON, July 10 - Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, stood before a federal judge on Wednesday, facing up to four months in jail for refusing to testify about a confidential source. But he told the judge that he had just received a surprising communication from his source that would allow him to testify before a grand jury investigating the disclosure of the identity of a covert C.I.A. operative.

"A short time ago," Mr. Cooper said, "in somewhat dramatic fashion, I received an express personal release from my source."

But the facts appear more complicated than they seemed in court. Mr. Cooper, it turns out, never spoke to his confidential source that day, said Robert D. Luskin, a lawyer for the source, who is now known to be Karl Rove, the senior White House political adviser.

The development was actually the product of a frenzied series of phone calls initiated that morning by a lawyer for Mr. Cooper and involving Mr. Luskin and the special prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald. And the calls were the culmination of days of anxiety and introspection by a reporter who by all accounts wanted to live up to his pledge to protect his confidential source yet find a way to avoid going to jail as another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, was about to do.

Mr. Cooper and his personal lawyer, Richard A. Sauber, declined to comment on the negotiations, but Mr. Sauber said that Mr. Cooper had used the word "personal" to mean specific. Representatives of Mr. Fitzgerald did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

In the days before, Mr. Cooper viewed his situation as in many ways different from Ms. Miller`s.

While Ms. Miller had consistently refused to testify, Mr. Cooper had already given testimony once in the investigation, in August 2004, describing conversations he had had with I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney`s chief of staff.

And while Ms. Miller had the support of her employer, Time had handed over documents that identified Mr. Rove as one of Mr. Cooper`s sources, after the United States Supreme Court refused to hear appeals from the reporters and the magazine last month. "The question that was on his mind," said Steven Waldman, a college classmate and former national editor at U.S. News and World Report, "and this is my words, is: do you go to jail to protect the confidentiality of a source whose name has been revealed, and not by you but by someone else?"

Mr. Waldman, editor in chief of Beliefnet, a religion and spirituality Web site, exchanged several e-mail messages with his friend in the days leading to Mr. Cooper`s decision to end his resistance.

"I remember saying to him," Mr. Waldman continued, " `Look, there are two principles you`re trying to balance. One is the confidentiality of sources. The other is an obligation to your family. They`re both moral principles. It`s totally appropriate to view that as a balance.` "

Mr. Cooper was resistant to that notion, Mr. Waldman said.

Later, Mr. Waldman asked whether Time`s disclosures and a blanket waiver form his source had signed were enough to allow him to testify. In an e-mail message on Tuesday night, Mr. Cooper said he believed the forms could have been coerced and thus worthless.

The only thing that would do, Mr. Cooper wrote, was a "certain, unambiguous waiver" from his source.

Around 7:30 on Wednesday morning, Mr. Cooper had said goodbye to his son, resigned to his fate. His lawyer, Mr. Sauber, called to alert him to a statement from Mr. Luskin in The Wall Street Journal.

"If Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source," Mr. Luskin told The Journal, "it`s not Karl he`s protecting."

That provided an opening, Mr. Cooper said. "I was not looking for a waiver," he said, "but on Wednesday morning my lawyer called and said, `Look at The Wall Street Journal. I think we should take a shot.` And I said, `Yes, it`s an invitation.` "

In court shortly after 2, he told Judge Thomas F. Hogan of the Federal District Court in Washington that he had received "an express personal release from my source."

That statement surprised Mr. Luskin, Mr. Rove`s lawyer. Mr. Luskin said he had only reaffirmed the blanket waiver, in response to a request from Mr. Fitzgerald.

"Karl was not afraid of what Cooper is going to say and is clearly trying to be fully candid with the prosecutor," Mr. Luskin said.

A report on Newsweek`s Web site on Sunday, that the magazine said was based on a document Time produced to the special prosecutor, added other elements to the puzzle. While Mr. Rove did identify the operative in a conversation with Mr. Cooper, Mr. Rove did not use her name - Valerie Plame, as she has been called in news accounts, or Valerie Wilson, as she prefers - or refer to her covert status, Newsweek said. Lawyers involved in the negotiations did not dispute the accuracy of the document Newsweek cited.

The information may bear on whether Mr. Rove violated the 1982 law forbidding the knowing identification of covert agents, the basis of Mr. Fitzgerald`s grand jury investigation.

"A fair reading of the e-mail as well as the context in which the conversation took place makes it clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame`s identity," Mr. Luskin said.

Mr. Cooper was never shy about telling friends that he desperately wanted to avoid jail, for his own sake and because his absence would be so confusing to his son. But they say he was resolute in the last days and hours, though hoping for a satisfactory waiver from his source.

A look at the last time Mr. Cooper testified in the investigation suggests that how to determine whether a source`s waiver is authentic can be a judgment call.

Mr. Cooper`s statements on Wednesday echoed his rationale for testifying last summer. "Mr. Libby," a statement issued by the magazine at the time said, "gave a personal waiver of confidentiality for Mr. Cooper to testify."

In an interview Friday, Mr. Libby`s lawyer, Joseph A. Tate, disputed that.

"Mr. Libby signed a form," Mr. Tate said. "He gave it back to the F.B.I. End of story. There was no other assurance."

At most, Mr. Tate said in a separate interview last year, he had answered entreaties by lawyers for Mr. Cooper and other reporters by repeating what was in the waivers.

"I told them they had nothing to hide and could rely upon the waiver," Mr. Tate said last year.

Mr. Cooper was one of four reporters who testified in the investigation last summer. All of them said they were satisfied that Mr. Libby had given them earnest and uncoerced permission to talk.

"I personally called Libby about a waiver," Mr. Cooper said, "and he said that if it was O.K. with his lawyer it was O.K. with him."

But the other three reporters - Glenn Kessler and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post and Tim Russert of NBC - all said afterward that they had not discussed Ms. Wilson with Mr. Libby. Mr. Cooper was more cryptic. According to a statement from Time, the earlier testimony focused "entirely on conversations Mr. Cooper had with Mr. Libby."

Ms. Miller has been jailed for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury subpoena directing her to testify about "a specified executive branch official" whose identity is known to the special prosecutor in the case, according to court papers. But Ms. Miller refuses to rely on the waiver the source signed or the sort of assurances that have satisfied other reporters.

After testifying about Mr. Libby, Mr. Cooper was surprised to receive a second subpoena, in September of last year. That subpoena was focused, it now appears, on a single conversation with Mr. Rove on July 11, 2003.

Mr. Cooper was not an obvious vehicle for a sensitive leak. He had become one of the magazine`s White House correspondents only the month before the conversation and is married to a prominent Democratic strategist, Mandy Grunwald.

The conversation took place a few days before Ms. Wilson`s identity became public in the form of her maiden name, Valerie Plame. Robert Novak first disclosed it in a syndicated column published on July 14, 2003, attributing the information to "two senior administration officials." Mr. Novak has refused to say whether he cooperated with Mr. Fitzgerald`s investigation.

Three days later, Mr. Cooper and two other reporters wrote that "some administration officials have noted to Time in interviews" that "Valerie Plame is a C.I.A. official."

Ms. Wilson`s husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat, had written an opinion article for The New York Times critical of the Bush administration based on a trip he had taken for the Central Intelligence Agency to Africa. The disclosure of Ms. Wilson`s identity was, the Time article said, either retaliation for the article or an effort to undermine its conclusions, by suggesting that his trip was his wife`s idea.

The widely divergent outcomes of Mr. Cooper`s case and Ms. Miller`s case reflected an evolving split in their legal strategies. At first the two reporters shared a legal team, led by Floyd Abrams, a noted First Amendment lawyer.

But after a federal appeals court refused to block Mr. Fitzgerald`s subpoenas, Time and Mr. Cooper replaced Mr. Abrams with a team led by Theodore B. Olson, a former United States solicitor general in the Bush administration who is now with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher.

In an interview on Friday, Norman Pearlstine, the editor in chief of Time Inc., which is owned by Time Warner, said he hired new lawyers to bring a fresh perspective and complementary talents, not to seek a deal.

George Freeman, an assistant general counsel of The New York Times Company, said the organizations` lawyers worked well together in the months before the Supreme Court`s refusal of their appeals.

Unlike Time, however, The New York Times was not held in contempt.

When Mr. Pearlstine told Mr. Cooper that Time was turning over his documents, Mr. Cooper did not make a scene or threaten to quit.

"I don`t think Matt`s a screamer," Mr. Pearlstine said. "He was pretty resolute. He thought we should resist this."

Even in the final hours, Mr. Pearlstine said: "I did not know whether Matt was going to testify or not. No matter what he did our comment was going to be that we respect him as a journalist and we respect his decision."

David Johnston and Adam Liptak reported from Washington for this article, and Jacques Steinberg from New York.


* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Compan

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 11, 2005
It Just Gets Worse
By BOB HERBERT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/opinion/11herbert.html

Back in March 2004 President Bush had a great time displaying what he felt was a hilarious set of photos showing him searching the Oval Office for the weapons of mass destruction that hadn`t been found in Iraq. It was a spoof he performed at the annual dinner of the Radio and Television Correspondents` Association.

The photos showed the president peering behind curtains and looking under furniture for the missing weapons. Mr. Bush offered mock captions for the photos, saying, "Those weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere" and "Nope, no weapons over there ... maybe under here?"

If there`s something funny about Mr. Bush`s misbegotten war, I`ve yet to see it. The president deliberately led Americans traumatized by the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, into the false belief that there was a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and that a pre-emptive invasion would make the United States less vulnerable to terrorism.

Close to 600 Americans had already died in Iraq when Mr. Bush was cracking up the audience with his tasteless photos at the glittering Washington gathering. The toll of Americans has now passed 1,750. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have died. Scores of thousands of men, women and children have been horribly wounded. And there is no end in sight.

Last week`s terror bombings in London should be seen as a reminder not just that Mr. Bush`s war was a hideous diversion of focus and resources from the essential battle against terror, but that it has actually increased the danger of terrorist attacks against the U.S. and its allies.

The C.I.A. warned the administration in a classified report in May that Iraq - since the American invasion in 2003 - had become a training ground in which novice terrorists were schooled in assassinations, kidnappings, car bombings and other terror techniques. The report said Iraq could prove to be more effective than Afghanistan in the early days of Al Qaeda as a place to train terrorists who could then disperse to other parts of the world, including the United States.

Larry Johnson, a former C.I.A. analyst who served as deputy director of the State Department`s counterterrorism office, said on National Public Radio last week: "You now in Iraq have a recruiting ground in which jihadists, people who previously were not willing to go out and embrace the vision of bin Laden and Al Qaeda, are now aligning themselves with elements that have declared allegiance to him. And in the course of that, they`re learning how to build bombs. They`re learning how to conduct military operations."

Has the president given any thought to leveling with the American people about how bad the situation has become? And is he even considering what for him would be the radical notion of soliciting the counsel of wise men and women who might give him a different perspective on war and terror than the Kool-Aid-drinking true believers who have brought us to this dreadful state of affairs? The true believers continue to argue that the proper strategy is to stay the current catastrophic course.

Americans are paying a fearful price for Mr. Bush`s adventure in Iraq. In addition to the toll of dead and wounded, the war is costing about $5 billion a month. It has drained resources from critical needs here at home, including important antiterror initiatives that would improve the security of ports, transit systems and chemical plants.

The war has diminished the stature and weakened the credibility of the United Sates around the world. And it has delivered a body blow to the readiness of America`s armed forces. Much of the military is now overdeployed, undertrained and overworked. Many of the troops are serving multiple tours in Iraq. No wonder potential recruits are staying away in droves.

Whatever one`s views on the war, thoughtful Americans need to consider the damage it is doing to the United States, and the bitter anger that it has provoked among Muslims around the world. That anger is spreading like an unchecked fire in an incredibly vast field.

The immediate challenge to President Bush is to dispense with the destructive fantasies of the true believers in his administration and to begin to see America`s current predicament clearly. New voices with new approaches and new ideas need to be heard. The hole we`re in is deep enough. We need to stop digging.

E-mail: [e-mail]

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Compan

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 11, 2005
Un-Spin the Budget
By PAUL KRUGMAN
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/opinion/11krugman.html

Later this week the White House budget director plans to put on an aviator costume, march up to a microphone and declare Mission Accomplished in the war on deficits. O.K., I`m not sure about the costume bit.

Seriously, the administration is poised to do the same thing on the budget that it has done again and again in Iraq: claim that a modest, probably temporary lull in the flow of bad news shows that victory is around the corner and that its policies have been vindicated.

So let me do some pre-emptive de-spinning and debunking.

To understand where the budget deficit came from, you can`t do better than the Jan. 18, 2001, issue of the satirical newspaper The Onion, which predicted the future with eerie precision. "We must squander our nation`s hard-won budget surplus on tax breaks for the wealthiest 15 percent," the magazine`s spoof had the president-elect declare. "And, on the foreign front, we must find an enemy and defeat it."

And so it has turned out. President Bush has presided over the transformation of a budget surplus into a large deficit, which threatens the government`s long-run solvency. The principal cause of that reversal was Mr. Bush`s unprecedented decision to cut taxes, especially on the wealthiest Americans, while taking the nation into an expensive war.

Where`s the good news? Well, for the past four years actual tax receipts have consistently come in below expectations, so that the deficit is even bigger than one might have predicted given the administration`s don`t-tax-but-spend-anyway policies. Recent tax numbers, however, finally offer a positive surprise. The Congressional Budget Office suggests in its latest monthly budget review that the deficit in fiscal 2005 will be "significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion." Last year the deficit was $412 billion.

The usual suspects on the right are already declaring victory over the deficit, and proclaiming vindication for the Laffer Curve - the claim that tax cuts pay for themselves, because they have such a miraculous effect on the economy that revenue actually goes up.

But the fact is that revenue remains far lower than anyone would have predicted before the tax cuts began. In January 2001 the budget office forecast revenues of $2.57 trillion in fiscal 2005. Even with the recent increase in receipts, the actual number will be at least $400 billion less.

And nonpartisan budget experts, such as Ed McKelvey of Goldman Sachs, believe that even the limited good news on the budget is a temporary blip, not a turning point. Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the director of the Congressional Budget Office, warns us to take the new revenue figures with a "grain of salt," and declares that "if you take yourself to 2008, 2009 or 2010, that vision is the same today as it was two months ago."

A close look at the tax data explains why these experts believe that we`re seeing a temporary uptick in revenues, not a sustained change in the trend. Taxes that are closely tied to the number of jobs and the average wage, such as payroll taxes and income taxes automatically withheld from paychecks, aren`t showing any big pickup. This confirms other data showing that the economy as a whole is, if anything, doing worse than one would expect at this stage of an economic recovery.

It turns out that all of the upside surprise in tax receipts is coming from two sources. One is tax payments from corporations, up both because last year corporate profits grew much more rapidly than the rest of the economy and because the effective tax rate on corporations went up when a temporary tax break, introduced in 2002, expired. Both are one-time events

The other source of increased revenue is nonwithheld income taxes - taxes that aren`t deducted from paychecks but are instead paid by people receiving additional, nonsalary income. The bounce in nonwithheld taxes probably reflects mainly capital gains on stocks and real estate, together with bonuses paid in the finance and real estate industries. Again, this revenue boost looks like a temporary blip driven by rising stocks and the housing bubble.

In other words, we`re still deep in the fiscal quagmire, with federal revenues far below what`s needed to pay for federal programs. And we won`t get out of that quagmire until a future president admits that the Bush tax cuts were a mistake, and must be reversed.

E-mail: [e-mail]

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

!

Dieser Beitrag wurde vom System automatisch gesperrt. Bei Fragen wenden Sie sich bitte an [e-mail]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

The label of Catholic terror was never used about the IRA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1525714,00.ht…

Fundamentalism is often a form of nationalism in religious disguise
Karen Armstrong
Monday July 11, 2005

Guardian
Last year I attended a conference in the US about security and intelligence in the so-called war on terror and was astonished to hear one of the more belligerent participants, who as far as I could tell had nothing but contempt for religion, strongly argue that as a purely practical expedient, politicians and the media must stop referring to "Muslim terrorism". It was obvious, he said, that the atrocities had nothing to do with Islam, and to suggest otherwise was not merely inaccurate but dangerously counterproductive.

Rhetoric is a powerful weapon in any conflict. We cannot hope to convert Osama bin Laden from his vicious ideology; our priority must be to stem the flow of young people into organisations such as al-Qaida, instead of alienating them by routinely coupling their religion with immoral violence. Incorrect statements about Islam have convinced too many in the Muslim world that the west is an implacable enemy. Yet, as we found at the conference, it is not easy to find an alternative for referring to this terrorism; however, the attempt can be a salutary exercise that reveals the complexity of what we are up against.

We need a phrase that is more exact than "Islamic terror". These acts may be committed by people who call themselves Muslims, but they violate essential Islamic principles. The Qur`an prohibits aggressive warfare, permits war only in self-defence and insists that the true Islamic values are peace, reconciliation and forgiveness. It also states firmly that there must be no coercion in religious matters, and for centuries Islam had a much better record of religious tolerance than Christianity.

Like the Bible, the Qur`an has its share of aggressive texts, but like all the great religions, its main thrust is towards kindliness and compassion. Islamic law outlaws war against any country in which Muslims are allowed to practice their religion freely, and forbids the use of fire, the destruction of buildings and the killing of innocent civilians in a military campaign. So although Muslims, like Christians or Jews, have all too often failed to live up to their ideals, it is not because of the religion per se.

We rarely, if ever, called the IRA bombings "Catholic" terrorism because we knew enough to realise that this was not essentially a religious campaign. Indeed, like the Irish republican movement, many fundamentalist movements worldwide are simply new forms of nationalism in a highly unorthodox religious guise. This is obviously the case with Zionist fundamentalism in Israel and the fervently patriotic Christian right in the US.

In the Muslim world, too, where the European nationalist ideology has always seemed an alien import, fundamentalisms are often more about a search for social identity and national self-definition than religion. They represent a widespread desire to return to the roots of the culture, before it was invaded and weakened by the colonial powers.

Because it is increasingly recognised that the terrorists in no way represent mainstream Islam, some prefer to call them jihadists, but this is not very satisfactory. Extremists and unscrupulous politicians have purloined the word for their own purposes, but the real meaning of jihad is not "holy war" but "struggle" or "effort." Muslims are commanded to make a massive attempt on all fronts - social, economic, intellectual, ethical and spiritual - to put the will of God into practice.

Sometimes a military effort may be a regrettable necessity in order to defend decent values, but an oft-quoted tradition has the Prophet Muhammad saying after a military victory: "We are coming back from the Lesser Jihad [ie the battle] and returning to the Greater Jihad" - the far more important, difficult and momentous struggle to reform our own society and our own hearts.

Jihad is thus a cherished spiritual value that, for most Muslims, has no connection with violence. Last year, at the University of Kentucky, I met a delightful young man called Jihad; his parents had given him that name in the hope that he would become not a holy warrior, but a truly spiritual man who would make the world a better place. The term jihadi terrorism is likely to be offensive, therefore, and will win no hearts or minds.

At our conference in Washington, many people favoured "Wahhabi terrorism". They pointed out that most of the hijackers on September 11 came from Saudi Arabia, where a peculiarly intolerant form of Islam known as Wahhabism was the state religion. They argued that this description would be popular with those many Muslims who tended to be hostile to the Saudis. I was not happy, however, because even though the narrow, sometimes bigoted vision of Wahhabism makes it a fruitful ground for extremism, the vast majority of Wahhabis do not commit acts of terror.

Bin Laden was not inspired by Wahhabism but by the writings of the Egyptian ideologue Sayyid Qutb, who was executed by President Nasser in 1966. Almost every fundamentalist movement in Sunni Islam has been strongly influenced by Qutb, so there is a good case for calling the violence that some of his followers commit "Qutbian terrorism." Qutb urged his followers to withdraw from the moral and spiritual barbarism of modern society and fight it to the death.

Western people should learn more about such thinkers as Qutb, and become aware of the many dramatically different shades of opinion in the Muslim world. There are too many lazy, unexamined assumptions about Islam, which tends to be regarded as an amorphous, monolithic entity. Remarks such as "They hate our freedom" may give some a righteous glow, but they are not useful, because they are rarely accompanied by a rigorous analysis of who exactly "they" are.

The story of Qutb is also instructive as a reminder that militant religiosity is often the product of social, economic and political factors. Qutb was imprisoned for 15 years in one of Nasser`s vile concentration camps, where he and thousands of other members of the Muslim Brotherhood were subjected to physical and mental torture. He entered the camp as a moderate, but the prison made him a fundamentalist. Modern secularism, as he had experienced it under Nasser, seemed a great evil and a lethal assault on faith.

Precise intelligence is essential in any conflict. It is important to know who our enemies are, but equally crucial to know who they are not. It is even more vital to avoid turning potential friends into foes. By making the disciplined effort to name our enemies correctly, we will learn more about them, and come one step nearer, perhaps, to solving the seemingly intractable and increasingly perilous problems of our divided world.

· Karen Armstrong is author of Islam: a Short History

[e-mail]
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

UK Ambassador to Italy: George Bush is the "best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda"
http://wordsfromiraq.com/

Sunday, Jul. 10, 2005
Why Iraq Has Made Us Less Safe ...
By DANIEL BENJAMIN
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1081392,00.…

Sir Ivor Roberts, Britain`s Ambassador to Italy, declared last September that the "best recruiting sergeant for al-Qaeda" was none other than the U.S. President, George W. Bush. With the American election entering its final furlongs, he added, "If anyone is ready to celebrate the eventual re-election of Bush, it is al-Qaeda." The remarks, made at an off-the-record conference, were leaked in the Italian press, and Sir Ivor, facing the displeasure of his Foreign Office masters for committing the sin of candor, disowned the comments. But now, as the soot settles in the London Underground, the words hang again in the air.

It is, of course, bad manners to point the finger at anyone but those responsible for the killings in London. They shed the blood; they must answer for it. But as the trail of bodies that began with the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 continues to lengthen, we need to ask why the attacks keep coming. One key reason is that Osama bin Laden`s "achievements" in standing up to the American colossus on 9/11 have inspired others to follow his lead. Another is that American actions--above all, the invasion and occupation of Iraq--have galvanized still more Muslims and convinced them of the truth of bin Laden`s vision.

The conflict between radical Islam and the West, like all ideological struggles, is about competing stories. The audience is the global community of Muslims. America portrays itself as a benign and tolerant force that, with its Western partners, holds the keys to progress and prosperity. Radical Islamists declare that the universe is governed by a war between believers and World Infidelity, which comes as an intruder into the realm of Islam wearing various masks: secularism, Zionism, capitalism, globalization. World Infidelity, they argue, is determined to occupy Muslim lands, usurp Muslims` wealth and destroy Islam.

Invading Iraq, however noble the U.S. believed its intentions, provided the best possible confirmation of the jihadist claims and spurred many of Europe`s alienated Muslims to adopt the Islamist cause as their own. The evidence is available in the elaborate underground railroad that has brought hundreds of European Muslims to the fight in Iraq. And the notion that the West would enhance its security by occupying Iraq has proved utterly illusory. Coalition forces in Iraq face daily attacks from jihadists not because Saddam Hussein had trained a cadre of terrorists--we know there was no pre-existing relationship between Baghdad and al-Qaeda--but because the U.S. invasion brought the targets into the proximity of the killers.

Those who bombed the Madrid commuter lines last year were obsessed with Iraq. They delighted in the videotape that showed Iraqis rejoicing alongside the bodies of seven Spanish intelligence agents who were killed outside Baghdad in November 2003; they spoke of the need to punish Spain (their adoptive country) for supporting America; they recruited others to fight in the insurgency. They began work on their plot the day after hearing an audiotaped bin Laden threaten "all the countries that participate in this unjust war [in Iraq]--especially Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy." It had been the first time Spain had been mentioned in an al-Qaeda hit list.

We may learn that the London bombers were, like the Madrid crew, a bunch of self-starter terrorists with few or no ties to bin Laden. U.S. and partner intelligence services have done such a good job running to ground members of the original group that there may be no connection with the remnants of al-Qaeda`s command on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. We may also learn that the killers belong to a network being built by Abu Mousab al-Zarqawi, who has emerged in Iraq as bin Laden`s heir apparent.

Or we may find that the bombings were engineered by returnees from Iraq. Muslims from Britain, France, Germany and elsewhere--along with several thousand from Arab countries--have traveled to Iraq to fight in what has become a theater of inspiration for the jihadist drama of faith. A handful are known to have trickled back to Europe already. Western intelligence services fear that more are on the way and will pose a bigger danger than the returnees from Afghanistan in the 1980s and `90s, the global jihad`s first generation of terrorists. The anxiety is justified; the fighters in Iraq are, as the CIA has observed, getting better on-the-job training than was available in al-Qaeda`s camps in Afghanistan.

Britain has been on al-Qaeda`s target list since the group`s earliest days in the 1990s; the country`s appointment with terror was ensured. But now, because of the invasion of Iraq, it faces a longer and bloodier confrontation with radical Islam, as does the U.S. America has shown itself to be good at hunting terrorists. Unfortunately, by occupying Iraq, it has become even better at creating them.

Benjamin is co-author of The Next Attack: The Failure of the War on Terror and a Strategy for Getting It Right, to be published this fall

Copyright © 2005 Time Inc.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Wenn man das liest, fragt man sich, was von uns dem Westen noch übrig ist, wenn sie mit uns fertig sind.
Augenblicklich werden wir noch gebraucht als Mastschweine und Überbringer unserer Technik.
Wenn man bedenkt wieviel junge gut ausgebildete Menschen aus diesen Ländern, besonders in den USA, die Entwicklungen vorangetrieben haben, werden wir auch bei der Forschung bald überholt werden und gemeinsam mit unseren so arg strapazierten Werten auf der Müllhalde der Geschichte landen.

COLUMN ONE
Driven to Be Made in China
The young have things their parents only dreamed of. But there`s a lot of hand-wringing. They want wealth, and they want it now.
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-angst11…
By Mark Magnier
Times Staff Writer

July 11, 2005

BEIJING — Across Chinese society, signs of stress and restless energy are everywhere.

Jiaolu, or anxiety, a new buzzword, produces nearly a million hits on Google China. A recent survey by the newspaper China Youth Daily found that 66% of young people considered themselves under heavy pressure and fewer than 1% felt stress-free.
[Table align=right]

Conspicuous consumption has become all the rage in urban China.
[/TABLE]
Youngsters have little time for anything but class and homework, and as jiaolu builds, teen suicide rates rise. "Dear parents, I can hardly express my gratitude for bringing me up," read a note left by Tian Tian, a 12-year-old girl in the northern province of Shanxi. "But I feel under such pressure. There is too much homework for me. I have no choice but to die."

Late last year, the southern city of Shenzhen opened the mainland`s first hotline for students feeling left behind, in a nation where parents often sit in on their children`s intense college prep classes to urge them on. "Help for Underachievers Just a Phone Call Away," blared a headline about the new service, first detailed in the Guangzhou Daily.

When Shanghai-based Want Want Co. ran an ad recently with the tag line "If you eat this cracker, you`ll get rich," demand for the snacks skyrocketed until government watchdogs pulled the plug. Their move followed complaints by consumers worried that turning down a Want Want might undercut their shot at wealth.

Young urban Chinese enjoy a lifestyle their parents only dreamed of. Car and apartment ownership is at an all-time high, and conspicuous consumption is all the rage. Many people are earning huge sums through job skills that would have landed their parents in reeducation camps during the Cultural Revolution — such as a global mind-set, a command of foreign languages and an intuitive understanding of capitalism. The Communist Party`s grip on their lives is weakening as Beijing increasingly supervises rather than controls the roaring economy, allowing those with talent to get ahead.

So why is there so much angst?

Experts say the very forces that provide unprecedented opportunity for young people in the new China are also delivering unprecedented stress, particularly though not exclusively in urban areas. Common among young Chinese is a feeling that they`re living in a once-in-a-few-centuries era when dynasties topple and individual fortunes are made — and that they`re missing out.
[Table align=left]

Shoppers check out the bargain bin at a Beijing store. The Chinese economy is in the midst of a 180-degree
turn from communism to a market system.
[/TABLE]
"The whole society is impatient, especially the young people," said Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor of sociology at People`s University in Beijing. "President Hu Jintao said recently we Chinese must be modest and cautious and avoid arrogance. Of course, that means we`re none of these things."

Though pressure to do well is evident almost everywhere in the world, experts say it`s greater in China in part because people here think the nation has arrived late to the global economic party and needs to make up for lost time. Catching up economically with rich neighbors such as Japan and South Korea is seen as a way of "regaining" China`s rightful place on the international stage.

Insecurity among young professionals, often manifest in frenzied job-hopping, is fueled by media coverage of the super-rich, such as online-game mogul Chen Tianqiao, worth an estimated $1.05 billion at age 31. Or Huang Guangyu, founder of electronic retailer GoMe, estimated to be worth $1.3 billion at 35. Or thirtysomething Ding Lei of Internet portal NetEase, at $668 million.

By most measures, Wang Sujun is doing well. The 32-year-old has a master`s degree from Peking University, China`s Harvard, and a prestigious job with Beijing Mobile, a major telecommunications company. He says he`s happily married and in March welcomed the arrival of a healthy daughter, Zizuo. In a country where the average annual salary is less than $1,000, he`s making more than 11 times that much.
[Table align=right]

A couple look at a Volkswagen Bug at a recent Beijing car show. Car ownership is at an all-time high in China.
[/TABLE]
But Wang doesn`t feel successful.

"Life is so stressful, I feel enormous pressure on my shoulders all the time," he said, his words tumbling out in a series of rapid bursts. "If I could only do better somehow, I might become rich and happy."

When he meets with his three best friends, they talk about what they need to be more successful. Wang wants more money, and he worries that his peers have better jobs, nicer apartments, fancier cars.

"Each dog has its barking day," he said. "I keep asking, when is my day? I`m older and older. I know I should catch up. But I worry there isn`t much time left."

Three wrenching transitions are battering Chinese society, and experts say that any one would be enough to jolt people`s mental equilibrium: The economic system is in the midst of a 180-degree turn from communism to a market system. Hundreds of millions of people are migrating to the cities from the countryside. And where stability and duty once reigned, risk-taking is now the order of the day.

Most Chinese are far better off than they were before the government opened up the economy. Hundreds of millions have been lifted from poverty; they have more choice as consumers and greater opportunity for education. About 350 million people own cellphones and 95 million can access the Internet. But where once everyone suffered together, today they are watching the gap widen between the haves and the have-nots.

"Many people our age are psychologically unbalanced," said Zhou Pei, 48, a truck driver in Beijing. "What`s so great about letting a few get rich while so many more are dragged into poverty? I really miss the Mao period when things were equal, and wish we could bring back the good old days."

Sociologists have a name for this syndrome: relative deprivation.

"This is especially true when it`s personal — people see a neighbor get rich even though they used to be classmates and just the same," said Wang Zhenyu, a sociologist with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. "Chinese impatience is perhaps most pronounced when it comes to money."

Aware of the potential for political instability, the current leadership of Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao has placed a priority on balanced economic development.

It`s easy to see what they`re afraid of. Multibillionaire Bill Gates consistently ranks at the top of the list when schoolchildren are asked to name the person they most admire. Relatives used to burn fake money to mourn the dead and help them in the afterlife, but now they add modern status symbols to the pyre: mock credit cards, paper replicas of luxury cars and cardboard cellphones. Seductive images of wealth and status blanket the airwaves.

Young people looking for some way to balance the materialism find little comfort from a society that defines success in dollar signs, with few nods to personal contentment, scholarship or ethical behavior. Religion, a counterweight in many other societies, is discouraged by a Communist Party wary of its potential to galvanize political opposition.

China`s get-rich-quick obsession has taken drastic forms. A 15-year-old girl recently kidnapped one of her relatives and demanded a $25,000 ransom before she was caught. "She sought to earn the most money in the shortest time," explained the Eastern Morning Post.

In a study of the sex industry in rural China, sociologist Zhou found similar dynamics. "A lot of young girls want to get rich so badly and want to make use of their beauty before it slips away. They consider working hard a waste of time and feel their looks are a waste if they don`t take advantage of them immediately," he said. "People want to become fat in one bite."

Added to the mix are the drive and energy that Chinese families have passed down through generations, a prodigious force that is easily seen in the prosperity of overseas Chinese communities around the world.

Family experts say that drive to succeed is particularly strong in China now, as more parental frustration, wealth and expectations are channeled to the young. This is because many parents, sometimes referred to as the "tragic generation," had their most promising decade stolen when the Cultural Revolution threw society into chaos, shuttering schools and destroying careers.

In many cases, China`s one-child population policy has meant more money for young people. But these single offspring also have two parents and four grandparents focused like laser beams on their success, projecting collective insecurities, fears and hopes on them in an effort to live through the younger generation.

"My mother says, `If only I was born in this age, I could be someone,` " Wang Sujun said. " `I could have even been a college teacher. Instead I was forced to be a common laborer.` "

As such pressures bear down, many young people feel they have already failed at a tender age.

"Where`s my dream?" media planner Anan, 25, said on the Shenzhen News Net website, speaking on condition that her first name not be used. "Where are all the expectations I had just two years ago? I don`t know how to go on with my life."

*

Yin Lijin in The Times` Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.


Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
Reverse Discrimination
[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE][Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

Latest Coalition Fatality: Jul 10, 2005
Jul.05: 10



Latest Fatality: Jul 10, 2005

Iraker: Civilian: 119 Police/Mil: 85 Total: 204

http://www.icasualties.org/oif/IraqiDeaths.aspx

Regelmäßige Updates von Meldungen aus dem Irak:
http://icasualties.org/oif/

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Jul 12, 2005
THE ROVING EYE
Blowback
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GG12Ak02.html

BRUSSELS - It`s blowback time. There had to be a day when Baghdad, Fallujah, Najafa and Jenin reached London, and the "collateral damage" was on "our side". If one of the concentric circles in the al-Qaeda nebula really did perpetrate the synchronized London bombings, this spells a failure in the "war on terror".

But maybe things are not as clear-cut as they seem.

The invisible enemy within
European intelligence services are initially considering the working hypothesis that a previously unheard-of group - The Secret Organization of al-Qaeda in Europe - was behind the bombings in retaliation for British Prime Minister Tony Blair toeing the Bush line in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

The claim of responsibility was online last Thursday only for a short time, at an alleged Islamist website. Analysts at a European Union counter-terrorist cell in Brussels warn that the claim, if it is to be taken seriously, would have to be addressed via the usual channels, ie major Arab-language media (al-Hayat, al-Quds al-Arabi, al-Sharq al-Awsat) or via a communique to al-Jazeera. In Dubai, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades - which claimed the Madrid bombings - also claimed the London bombings, once again not using the usual channels and not following al-Qaeda`s trademark ideological and linguistic style.

On paper, the EU deals with terrorism via a special unit in the heart of Europol, based in The Hague and staffed with 500 officials. But this unit is still subordinate to national police systems. The pre-eminent intelligence body is the G5 - grouping France, Great Britain, Germany, Italy and Spain - which exchanges qualified intelligence not available to the remaining 20 EU members. The G5 operates a sophisticated analysis center of satellite data in Stockdorf, Germany, and has built an extensive list of European-based jihadis, including dozens who left for Iraq via Syria or Jordan, and has set up an alarm system that pinpoints the disappearance of weapons and explosives susceptible of being employed in terrorist attacks.

EU analysts agree on the attackers` extremely sophisticated strategy - wrong-footing the British police, whose attention was concentrated on the Group of Eight (G8) summit in Scotland, simultaneously dissolving the impact of the G8 and the atmosphere of euphoria after London was awarded the 2012 Olympic Games, and going for an uncomplicated bombing strategy in a city they know very well. The analysts also agree that after New York, Madrid and London, Rome and Copenhagen (as the attackers mentioned) are now under threat, not to mention Paris because of its high global visibility.

EU analysts knew an attack on Britain was inevitable, at least since they learned, in 2004, that 70 British Muslims, most of them originally from Pakistan, had joined the Iraqi resistance. Once their skills have been sharpened in the field, so-called "internationalist jihadis" inevitably come back home, to Europe, where they are much more valuable. Dozens of terrorist sleeper cells are scattered around Europe. Great Britain has long been considered a preferential target for a terrorist strike, along with the US, Israel, Italy and Denmark. The second line of targeting includes assorted "infidel" countries like Spain, France, Belgium and Germany.

Scotland Yard`s terrorist branch, as well as MI-5, MI-6 and EU experts, are concentrating on the picture of a master bomber - probably trained in, or taught by someone trained in, Afghanistan in the 1990s - operating a four to 12-person cell, using timed, synchronized explosives (the three London Underground blasts were separated by 50 seconds). They tend to believe the cell is basically British (up to 3,000 British-born or British-based operatives have passed through Afghan training camps).

But the cell could also be a mix of British and Northern African jihadis - some previously based in France, Germany or Spain. The EU is actively pursuing the so-called "Moroccan trail". The key suspect in this is Moroccan Mohammed al-Gerbouzi, also a British citizen, wanted in connection with the Casablanca and Madrid bombings. In an unusual development, Gerbouzi showed up on al-Jazeera this past weekend, in a London setting, his face away from the lights, denying any involvement. The most worrying possibility is that the bombers - British-born and Northern African - in the "mixed cell" could have come straight from the current Harvard of jihad: Iraq. In this case, they would be part of the new, lethal international jihadi generation (See Asia Times Online, The US`s gift to al-Qaeda, May 21).

`Our values`
London was still smoldering as the Blair government and British think-tanks instantly blamed al-Qaeda, based on the bombers` modus operandi. Some sectors of British right-wing media went one step further, blaming British Muslims as a whole.

Blair`s emphatic denials that he compromised London`s safety by following Bush to Afghanistan and Iraq are virtually identical to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice`s. In the next few days and weeks, the way the British people respond is crucial. It could be just like the US after September 11. Or it could be "Blair brought this on us" - as Blair continues to side with Bush in the "war on terror". Opposition to the war on Iraq has always been overwhelming in London.

Unanswered questions
Many elements in the London scenario don`t add up. Questions were raised about the unheard-of group claiming responsibility for the bombings so quickly. The translation of their communique was nothing less than dodgy; and they even misquoted the Koran.

The stations where the bombs went off - Liverpool Street, Edgware Road, Kings Cross - are not exactly part of wealthy London. Al-Qaeda would have caused much more economic havoc by going for the financial center (the City of London), the commercial center (Oxford Street) and the modern Jubilee line - even though the FT 100 index lost more than US$80 billion in only one hour and a half. Bin Laden, in his late 2004 videotape, made it clear that al-Qaeda`s strategy is to bleed dry the economies of "crusader" countries.

But a much stranger development was an Associated Press report, later retracted, according to which Scotland Yard warned the Israeli Embassy in London only minutes before the explosions. Former Israeli prime minister and hardliner Benyamin Netanyahu was in town to address an economic conference in a hotel over one of the attacked underground stations. He did not leave his room. The Israeli government denied it had been forewarned. But it could not explain why Netanyahu didn`t leave his room. Then Netanyahu said Scotland Yard did indeed warn the Israeli Embassy. Scotland Yard denied it. The Israelis then said Netanyahu was warned only after the first blast. According to Russian intelligence reports, there was frantic telephone traffic between the Israeli Embassy and the US immediately before the bombings. Some EU diplomats dismiss the whole story, saying that "Scotland Yard didn`t have a clue an attack was coming".

The `Londonistan` factor
Sheikh Abu Qutada, preaching in London, used to define al-Qaeda as "the group of winners" which would follow the way envisaged by the Prophet, much like the primordial community of Islamic believers in the 7th century. In this framework, it does not matter what happens to bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri: the new Salafi-jihadi (or Islamist) generation will keep the struggle alive.

Since early 2002, al-Qaeda has not been an organization: it`s a virtual community comprising concentric circles, all of them with their own operational capability. The London bombings bear all the hallmarks of a franchised organization.

Both Scotland Yard and the MI-5 amassed plenty of information on Salafi clerics operating in "Londonistan". The ideological media icons may have been neutralized. Sheikh Abu Qutada, the master ideologue, first arrested in 2002, remains under house arrest. The invalid, one-eyed Egyptian Abu Hamza, founder of the Supporters of Sharia group, arrested in May 2004, has not been extradited to the US as Washington wanted, and is still being prosecuted in the UK. Syrian Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammad, leader of the al-Muhajiroun, remains on the loose.

Last February, the Finsbury Park mosque in London was finally "captured" by London police. This might have meant, in their view, the end of "Londonistan". But in fact it was a big bang that set free the Salafi-jihadi ultra-radicals. Now the British are bound to be attacked on two fronts: because of Blair being aligned with Bush, and because of the repression of Salafi jihadis in London. For Islamists in Britain, Marble Arch prison in London is nothing less than the British Guantanamo.

There`s a crucial dissidence currently playing out between well-established Salafi jihadis (like the London clerics) and the "deterritorialized", ultra-radical, new generation jihadis. For the new generation, it`s not a question of liberating Islamic lands anymore (Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as Kashmir and Chechnya). The point now is much more ambitious: armed struggle against "infidel regimes", be they Western (US, Great Britain, Israel) or Muslim (Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan, Shi`ite-dominated Iraq).

One just has to look at what the EU analysts call "the jihadi road map" - a July 2004, 20-odd page document - where the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades make it clear that both Great Britain and Italy would inevitably meet their own "Madrid" fate. This document repeatedly demands the liberation of Sheikh Abu Qutada. A thorough investigation may conclude that London was indeed like Madrid: the work of a totally independent cell.

A sort of online International Islamic Information Front has also been in place since mid-2004. A new institution, al-Sahab (The Cloud) publishes communiques by jihadi groups in Iraq and produces propaganda videos of al-Qaeda-related operations in both Iraq and Saudi Arabia. This is how al-Qaeda usually communicates (and where analysts expect to see an authentic communique claiming the London bombings). "Instructions" for operations tend to appear in discreet, fleeting but increasingly proliferating websites. This is how aspiring jihadis, for instance, can get a copy of the massive Encyclopedia of Jihad - the 650-page remix of a volume widely available in the Afghan training camps. The encyclopedia teaches how to make explosives, biological and chemical weapons, and dissects methods of recruitment and infiltration, military techniques in urban settings and manipulation of new technologies.

Delocalized jihad
British writers like Ian McEwan are on the wrong track, lamenting that "we have been savagely woken from a pleasant dream". In the eyes of the new generation of jihadis, no dream is possible: the Anglo-American coalition - as well as civilians - must live in fear, just like people live in fear in Iraq or Palestine. It`s not a question of "how much freedom will we be asked to trade for our security". It`s the foreign policy of governments that have led to blowback - and then to these same governments restraining freedom in the name of security. Hardcore repression - which means Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, anti-terrorist legislation that infringes on civil liberties - only serves to encourage the new jihadi generation.

Only two developments might prevent another bombing in another European capital, and the spread of delocalized, apocalyptic Islamist ideology: the US leaving Iraq and a decent, internationally-accepted agreement between Israelis and Palestinians. That`s it - or jihad, and blowback, will go on forever.

(Copyright 2005 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us for information on sales, syndication and republishing.)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

War News for Monday, July 11, 2005

http://dailywarnews.blogspot.com/

Bring `em on: Two US marines killed by indirect fire in Hit.

Bring `em on: Nine Iraqi soldiers killed in coordinated checkpoint attack in Khalis.

Bring `em on: Four bullet ridden bodies found in the river in Latifiyah.

Bring `em on: Nine bricklayers, arrested as suspect insurgents, suffocate in the back of a police van in Baghdad.

Bring `em on: IED attack on US convoy involved in Operation Sword in Fallujah.

Bring `em on: One Iraqi soldier shot dead on patrol in Baquba.

Bring `em on: Three Iraqi security personnel wounded in bomb attack in Tuz.

Bring `em on: Three Iraqi truck drivers, believed to be working for the US, found murdered in Baghdad.

Opinion and Commentary

[urlBring `em Home:]http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/12104908.htm[/url]

Why are we there? The average American cannot clearly explain it. That may be the most telling comment of all.

The people are paying a political price for the war. The president declared certain American citizens "unlawful combatants" with no constitutional rights, and sent his attorney general to the Supreme Court to justify it. And at the first suggestion of the war, the president said it did not require a vote of Congress. He has had to back down on some of these assertions of executive authority, but not all.

He justified the invasion of Iraq on a pretext, "weapons of mass destruction," that turned out to be false. After conquest, he gave a new reason to stay - creating Iraqi democracy - that matters far less to the American people than their own safety, and turns out to be a hazardous and uncertain road.

The supporters of war say, "Support the troops." We support them. We are proud of them. Our soldiers` performance in combat has been superb. If it were a matter of winning the war, the discussion would be over. Now, it is a matter of securing a peace and that is where our soldiers` civilian masters made many mistakes.

Now that the people think of bringing the troops home, they are told we cannot because it would make America look weak. We remember that argument from Vietnam, from Somalia and other places. It is a phony argument. We can bring our troops home. We have done it before and can do it again.


[urlFailed Peace:]http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/newssentinel/news/editorial/12104929.htm[/url]

The Bush administration`s failed peace in Iraq draws its most stinging rebuke from a former insider, Larry Diamond, a Stanford professor and Hoover Institution senior fellow, who was recruited by a former colleague, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, to work for the Coalition Provisional Authority and help Iraq prepare to govern itself.

Diamond believes democracy can yet prevail in Iraq but efforts have been compromised by arrogance, ignorance, isolation and incompetence. Fundamentally, the failure to plan for the peace meant never having enough military and civilian resources to manage.

A primary failing was taking the job of post-conflict reconstruction and nation-building from the State Department and handing it to the Pentagon, which left the plans untouched. Disbanding the Iraqi military and purging Saddam`s Baath Party from the civil service destroyed the economy and put skilled people - including teachers - out of work.

A U.S. attitude of occupation and impulse for control fueled deep resentments among Iraqis who want Americans out. Diamond says the U.S. failed to consult early and often enough with Iraqis and the failure of planning included translators, interpreters, secure vehicles and helicopters to get Americans out to build support.

Diamond opposes a snap withdrawal from Iraq, but he believes the U.S. has to be clear about eventual plans to leave, and that means no permanent military bases. He argues exiting will require more troops on the ground and a heavier financial commitment.

Americans who doubt they were told the full truth about the Iraq war can know for certain their government failed to plan for, and be candid about, the full cost in blood and treasure.


Oil:

Iraqi oil was once considered the golden goose that would provide the $55 billion the United Nations and World Bank have estimated it will cost to rebuild Iraq. Not much is heard about that now. That`s because Iraq is a long way from being a large and reliable oil supplier. The country`s oil reserves are estimated to be either the second- or third-largest in the world. But efforts to tap them are hampered by antiquated equipment and sabotage.

Large swaths of Iraq remain untouched by oil exploration. Only 17 of the country`s 80 known oil fields have been developed, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Only 2,300 oil wells have been drilled in Iraq, compared with Texas, which has about 1 million.

Contributions from other countries also either have not been generous or have not arrived as promised. A conference held last month on Iraq`s reconstruction - sponsored by the United States and the European Union - received mostly rhetorical support from 80 countries in attendance. The newly installed Iraqi government has received only a fraction of the $13 billion pledged at a similar conference two years ago.

It is time to face this reality: The lives and dollars paying for the war are coming from America. The longer we stay, and the longer we fight, the more it will cost.


[urlWhat is Victory?]http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/opinion/2005/July/opinion_July29.xml§ion=opinion&col=[/url]

To realise victory, we have to understand this struggle is more complex than we have been led to believe. Simple slogans telling us we fight terrorists in Iraq so that we will not have to fight them here in US, are just that: slogans, not comprehensive policies. In fact, as London shows, terrorists can fight in two places at the same time. Or three. Or 10. And the great danger, of course, is that they can fight with dangerous weapons. The calculus of terror would change irrevocably if one of these splinter groups were ever to get its hands on nuclear materials or biological pathogens. So far the Bush administration has not given this danger the priority it urgently requires.

The broader shift that needs to take place, however, is a better definition of victory. America’s political leaders continue to give their citizens the impression that victory means ensuring that there will be no other attack on American soil as long as we go on the offence abroad, get perfect intelligence, buy fancy new technologies at home, screen visas and lock some people up. But all these tough tactics and all the intelligence in the world will not change the fact that in today’s open societies, terrorism is easy to carry out. The British authorities, perhaps the world’s best at combating terror, admit they had no warning about last week’s attack. The American response to the London bombs has been a perfect example of US grandstanding. We immediately raised the alert level, scaring Americans, with no specific information about terror attacks in America. Why? Because were something to happen here, politicians and bureaucrats want to be able to say, "Don’t blame us, we told you."


# posted by Friendly Fire : 3:16 AM
Comments (10) | Trackback (0)

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 11, 2005
Rove Comes Under New Scrutiny in C.I.A. Disclosure Case
By DAVID STOUT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/11cnd-rove.html?e…

WASHINGTON, July 11 - The White House went on the defensive today amid a barrage of questions from Democrats and reporters about the presidential adviser Karl Rove and whether he had disclosed the name of a covert intelligence operative in retaliation for criticism of the administration`s Iraq policy.

President Bush`s chief spokesman, Scott McClellan, declined to repeat his earlier assertions that Mr. Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff, had nothing to do with leaking the name of the operative, Valerie Plame of the Central Intelligence Agency, to get back at her husband, a former United States ambassador who had publicly challenged Bush administration policy.

Nor would Mr. McClellan repeat his earlier statements that any White House staff person who had leaked the name should be fired.

"The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren`t going to comment on it while it is ongoing," Mr. McClellan said at a news briefing.

His comments came as Democrats began to intensify the pressure on the White House.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the minority leader, said President Bush should follow his promise to preside over an ethical administration, and Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York demanded that Mr. Rove tell the public in detail what his role was.

Senator Frank Lautenberg of New York said the intentional disclosure of a covert agency`s identity amounted to an "act of treason," while Representative Henry Waxman of California, the ranking Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee, called for a Congressional hearing.

The spotlight was focused on Mr. Rove over the weekend, when Newsweek reported on its Web site that Mr. Rove had spoken with at least one reporter about Ms. Plame`s role at the C..I.A., although without identifying her by name, a few days before the columnist Robert D. Novak identified her in a column about her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Newsweek`s weekend disclosure seemed, at the very least, to call into question Mr. Rove`s own earlier statements, and the White House`s, that he had nothing whatever to do with disclosing Ms. Plame`s identity shortly after her husband wrote in a 2003 Op-Ed article in The New York Times that he had found no evidence that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger to further its nuclear ambitions.

The affair has been brewing in Washington for two years. It reached a new intensity this month with the jailing of a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller, who never wrote an article about the affair but resisted demands from prosecutors to reveal whom she had talked to about it.

Another reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, avoided jail when his company yielded a demand to turn over his notes on the matter. Mr. Novak, meanwhile, has appeared to be under no threat of jail, for reasons that are not clear. He has said he will be able to clear things up one day.

Meanwhile, several Democratic lawmakers demanded action immediately.

"I agree with the president when he said he expects the people who work for him to adhere to the highest standards of conduct," Mr. Reid said. "The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration. I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true, this rises above politics and is about our national security."

Mr. Schumer, in his letter to Mr. Rove, said it was time for him to tell all. "I urge you to come forward to honestly and fully discuss any and all involvement you have had with this incident," Mr. Schumer wrote to Mr. Rove. "I believe this is a very serious breach of trust with a woman who has spent her career putting her life on the line to protect our country`s freedom."

Mr. Lautenberg said President Bush "should immediately suspend Karl Rove`s security clearances and shut him down by shutting him out of classified meetings or discussions," Reuters reported. And Mr. Waxman told Reuters that "the recent disclosures about Mr. Rove`s actions have such serious implications that we can no longer responsibly ignore them."

Mr. McClellan declined repeatedly, in response to hostile questions, to go beyond his statements that he could not discuss the Plame affair while the investigation into the disclosure of her name was continuing. Mr. McClellan would not budge even as he was reminded of his, and the president`s, previous expressions of confidence in Mr. Rove.

Democrats are virtually certain to keep up the pressure, given the White House`s earlier categorical denials about Mr. Rove, and given Mr. Rove`s status as a key presidential adviser who helped to devise Mr. Bush`s successful re-election strategy.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Gut vorbereitet zum Kreuzzug!

July 12, 2005
Evangelicals Are a Growing Force in the Military Chaplain Corps
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/national/12chaplains.html?

COLORADO SPRINGS - There were personal testimonies about Jesus from the stage, a comedian quoting Scripture and a five-piece band performing contemporary Christian praise songs. Then hundreds of Air Force chaplains stood and sang, many with palms upturned, in a service with a distinctively evangelical tone.

It was the opening ceremony of a four-day Spiritual Fitness Conference at a Hilton hotel here last month organized and paid for by the Air Force for many of its United States-based chaplains and their families, at a cost of $300,000. The chaplains, who pledge when they enter the military to minister to everyone, Methodist, Mormon or Muslim, attended workshops on "The Purpose Driven Life," the best seller by the megachurch pastor Rick Warren, and on how to improve their worship services. In the hotel hallways, vendors from Focus on the Family and other evangelical organizations promoted materials for the chaplains to use in their work.

The event was just one indication of the extent to which evangelical Christians have become a growing force in the Air Force chaplain corps, a trend documented by military records and interviews with more than two dozen chaplains and other military officials.

Figures provided by the Air Force show that from 1994 to 2005 the number of chaplains from many evangelical and Pentecostal churches rose, some doubling. For example, chaplains from the Full Gospel Fellowship of Churches and Ministries International increased to 10 from none. The Church of the Nazarene rose to 12 from 6.

At the same time, the number of chaplains from the Roman Catholic Church declined to 94 from 167, and there were declines in more liberal, mainline Protestant churches: the United Church of Christ to 3 from 11, the United Methodist Church to 50 from 64.

Other branches of the military did not make available similar statistics, but officials say they are seeing the same trend.

The change mirrors the Air Force as a whole, where representation is rising from evangelical churches. But there are also increasing numbers of enlistees from minority religions as well as atheists. It has all created a complicated environment and caused tensions over tolerance and the role of the military chaplain.

Some conflicts have already become public. A Pentagon investigation into the religious climate at the Air Force Academy here found no overt discrimination, but it did find that officers and faculty members periodically used their positions to promote their Christian beliefs and failed to accommodate non-Christian cadets, for example refusing them time off for religious holidays.

Other conflicts have remained out of the public eye, like the 50 evangelical chaplains who have filed a class action suit against the Navy charging they were dismissed or denied promotions. One of the chaplains said that once while leading an evangelical style service at a base in Okinawa he was interrupted by an Episcopal chaplain who announced he was stepping in to lead "a proper Christian worship service."

There is also a former Marine who said that about half of the eight chaplains he came into contact with in his military career tried to convince him to abandon his Mormon faith, telling him it was "wicked" or "Satanic."

A Complex Religious Environment

Part of the struggle, chaplains and officials say, is the result of growing diversity. But part is from evangelicals following their church`s teachings to make converts while serving in a military job where they are supposed to serve the spiritual needs of soldiers, fliers and sailors of every faith. Evangelical chaplains say they walk a fine line.

Brig. Gen. Cecil R. Richardson, the Air Force deputy chief of chaplains, said in an interview, "We will not proselytize, but we reserve the right to evangelize the unchurched." The distinction, he said, is that proselytizing is trying to convert someone in an aggressive way, while evangelizing is more gently sharing the gospel.

Certainly, the religious environment encountered by the chaplains is complex. Statistics on enlistees provided by the Air Force show there are now about 3,500 who say they are either Hindus, Buddhists, Muslims, pagans, druids or shamans. There are 1,600 who say they are atheists and about 50,000 who say they have no religious preference, out of a total of 280,000. Roman Catholics number about 60,000.

There are also growing numbers of enlistees from evangelical churches. In 2005, there were 1,794 members of the Assemblies of God in the Air Force, 597 from the Church of the Nazarene and 108 from the Christian and Missionary Alliance. Because so many churches cannot be comfortably categorized as evangelical or nonevangelical, and because so many enlistees identify themselves simply as "Christian," it is difficult to ascertain cumulative numbers.

Military officials say the government is not promoting the change in the chaplain corps. Instead religious leaders who recruit for the military attribute it to factors including the general shortage of Catholic priests, the liberal denominations` discomfort with military interventions abroad, the "don`t ask, don`t tell" policy on gay men and lesbians, and evangelicals` broad support for the military.

The military is trying to grapple with the fallout. Gen. John P. Jumper, the Air Force chief of staff, sent a personal message to commanders on June 28, warning them against promoting their religious beliefs, saying, "The expression of personal preferences to subordinates, especially in a professional setting or at mandatory events, is inappropriate."

"Our chaplains," General Jumper wrote, "should set the example for mutual respect among different faiths and beliefs."

`We Are Not Generic Chaplains`

Air Force officials contend that the Spiritual Fitness Conference was not evangelical, pointing to the participation of a Catholic band leader and a Mormon expert on families. There was also an interfaith worship service in which all the chaplains planned to recite a Hebrew prayer together. They said that 10 Jewish chaplains stayed in the same hotel and were bused to the Air Force Academy for a separate program each day.

"We are not generic chaplains," said Col. Bob V. Page, who helped organize the conference. "We say, `cooperation without compromise.` I cannot compromise my faith."

Chaplains are the often unsung members of the clergy who pray, counsel and go to war alongside American troops. Whatever their church or creed, when they join the military they pledge to serve the spiritual needs of every faith.

The military recruits chaplains through endorsing agents who work for about 100 different churches or religious denominations. The agents select potential candidates and refer them to the military, a system created to avoid the constitutional problem of government endorsement of religion.

In the Air Force, chaplain candidates must be under 40 and have a college degree. They must also have several years of ministry experience and be able to pass a physical fitness test. They also must attend an Air Force training program for chaplains.

The churches that once supplied most of the chaplains say they are now having trouble recruiting for a variety of reasons. Many members of their clergy are now women, who are less likely to seek positions as military chaplains or who entered the ministry as a second career and are too old to qualify. The Catholic Church often does not have enough priests to serve its parishes, let alone send them to the military.

There are also political reasons. Anne C. Loveland, a retired professor of American history at Louisiana State University and the author of "American Evangelicals and the U.S. Military, 1942-1993," said the foundation for the change in the chaplaincy was laid during the Vietnam War.

"Evangelical denominations were very supportive of the war, and mainline liberal denominations were very much against it," Ms. Loveland said. "That cemented this growing relationship between the military and the evangelicals."

Chaplain Edward T. Brogan, director of the Presbyterian Council for Chaplains and Military Personnel, who recruits and recommends chaplain candidates for several Presbyterian churches, calls the change "a supply and demand issue."

"I regularly am contacted by military recruiters who would like to have more Presbyterians because they need baby baptizers," he said. Many evangelical ministers, according to their tradition, only baptize older children or adults.

The Presbyterian Church USA, a more liberal denomination, has had a 10-year drop in its Air Force chaplains from 30 in 1994 to 16 in 2005. For the same period, the Presbyterian Church in America, which is more conservative, has increased the numbers of its Air Force chaplains to 15 from 4.

The Air Force had a total of 611 chaplains at the start of 2005.

Though Chaplain Brogan has had problems finding chaplains to meet demands of the military, the Rev. Maurice J. Hart, the endorsing agent for the Full Gospel Fellowship of Churches and Ministers International, an evangelical church based in Irving, Tex., has not.

"It`s been easy," Mr. Hart said. "They realize the men are really stressed out and in danger and harm`s way, and they just feel like, `that`s my calling - I`d like to go and be a blessing.` "

In 1994, the Full Gospel Fellowship had no Air Force chaplains, but by 2005 it had 10 (and that with only 58 members on the Air Force rolls at that time). The number is impressive because many of the 100 denominations supply only a handful of chaplains each.

The evangelical chaplains are changing the concept of ministry in the military, said Kristen J. Leslie, an assistant professor of pastoral care and counseling at Yale Divinity School, who has observed chaplains at the Air Force Academy.

Evangelicals administer "Bible-centered care" in which "the notion is that the religious message is core, and you bring everybody to it and that`s how you create healing," Ms. Leslie said. If someone is struggling with a supervisor, a spouse or depression, an evangelical chaplain urges them to turn their life over to Christ and look for answers in the Scriptures, she said.

That is fine for a church setting, Ms. Leslie said, but what is required in a diverse religious environment like the military is the "pastoral care" approach: "You walk with the person in the midst of their brokenness, using the resources of their faith to help heal them."

A Push for Inclusiveness

Still, many evangelical chaplains say they understand the distinct nature of their work for the military, recounting in interviews that they have helped arrange Seders, the ritual Passover supper, for Jewish sailors or solstice celebrations for Wiccan marines.

General Richardson, the deputy chief of chaplains, said that although his faith required him to evangelize, he would help accommodate the faiths of others. "I am an Assemblies of God, pound-the-pulpit preacher, but I`ll go to the ropes for the Wiccan," he said, if that group wanted permission to celebrate a religious ritual.

In the Navy some evangelical chaplains say they are the ones discriminated against. Chaplain Gordon James Klingenschmitt, of the Evangelical Episcopal Church, says he was warned by commanders that his approach to the ministry was not inclusive enough. When a Catholic sailor on his ship died, Lieutenant Klingenschmitt said he preached at a memorial service and emphasized that for those who did not accept Jesus, "God`s wrath remains upon him."

After that and several other incidents, Lieutenant Klingenschmitt`s commanding officer recommended that the Navy not renew his chaplain contract.

The lieutenant is fighting to remain in the military. "The Navy wants to impose its religion on me," he said. "Religious pluralism is a religion. It`s a theology all by itself."

Lieut. Cmdr. David S. Wilder, a 20-year Navy chaplain who is a plaintiff in the class action suit against the Navy, said that his troubles began on Okinawa after the more senior Episcopal chaplain stepped in and interrupted his worship service. He says that that chaplain has blocked his promotion.

"There`s a pecking order in the Navy chaplain corps," Commander Wilder said, "and at the very top is the Roman Catholics and just below them are the Episcopals and Lutherans. And if you`re an evangelical non-liturgical Christian of some type you`re down on the bottom."

A Navy spokeswoman said that many of the chaplains in the class action lawsuit were not promoted for reasons other than religious discrimination.

For the Mormon in the Marine Corps, interactions with chaplains made him decide to become one himself. A 29-year-old who left the service in the late 1990`s, he is now applying to become a military chaplain with the intent, he said, of providing the troops a more "inclusive" form of pastoring. He insisted on anonymity so as not to undermine his application.

He said that his faith was frequently denigrated by fellow marines, and even by some of his commanders.

"What compounded it was when the chaplains would agree with them," he said. "That`s what makes me want to become a military chaplain - not just that my faith and other minority faiths were underrepresented, but to make it a more spiritually accepting environment."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Iraqi Official Says Iran Will Not Train Troops
Defense Minister Contradicts His Tehran Counterpart
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07…

By Andy Mosher
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 12, 2005; A16

BAGHDAD, July 11 -- Iraq`s defense minister said Monday that a military agreement reached with Iran last week does not include any provision for the Iranian armed forces to help train Iraqi troops, contradicting reported assertions by his Iranian counterpart.

Defense Minister Sadoun Dulaimi said during a news conference here that the five-point memorandum of understanding that he and Iran`s defense minister, Adm. Ali Shamkhani, signed Thursday in Tehran contained "no agreement" on military training.

Asked whether Shamkhani had misrepresented the content of the accord, Dulaimi said only that "he has the right to mention what he wants. We, as Iraqis, are not responsible for that."

The training of Iraq`s armed forces, which are being built from scratch after American occupation officials ordered the country`s military disbanded in May 2003, has been one of the primary tasks undertaken by U.S. forces here.

With insurgents continuing to carry out car bombings, ambushes, mortar attacks, kidnappings and other violence in much of central and northern Iraq, U.S. officials have identified the Iraqi army`s capacity for establishing security as a key indicator of when American troops might begin to withdraw from the country.

Iraqi troops at a checkpoint in the town of Khalis, about 35 miles north of Baghdad, were struck in a two-pronged attack near dawn Monday that left 10 soldiers dead. Insurgents first pounded the checkpoint with gunfire and mortar shells, killing eight soldiers, police Col. Mahdi Saleh told the Associated Press. Then they exploded a car bomb next to an army patrol, killing two more soldiers.

Less than 15 miles away, in Buhriz, a suicide car bomber struck an Iraqi army headquarters building, killing one soldier and wounding another, said Nouri Ahmed, a physician at a hospital in nearby Baqubah.

The U.S. military announced that two Marines were killed in combat Sunday in the western town of Hit. A Marine spokesman attributed the deaths to "indirect fire," which typically refers to a mortar or rocket attack.

Iraq`s police forces, meanwhile, were again accused of abusing prisoners. The Association of Muslim Scholars, one of the most influential groups among Iraq`s Sunni Arab minority, charged Monday that nine construction workers died in Baghdad when police arrested them Sunday on suspicion of being insurgents and locked them in a shipping container for 14 hours in the searing summer heat. Three other men survived.

The association said in a statement that the men, who were all Sunnis, had been tortured before they were locked away. Government officials did not comment on the allegations.

In his news conference, Dulaimi hailed the military agreement with Iran as a crucial step toward repairing relations between two countries that were at war from 1980 to 1988. "What we lost by war," he said, "we will win by peace and dialogue. We have no option but to live peacefully with each other."

Reacting to anger among some Iraqis that he had apologized to Iran for the massive loss of life it suffered in the conflict, Dulaimi maintained that the war had been the fault of former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein. "Before God, we are free from Saddam`s actions, and we apologize for all the victims," he said.

Dulaimi also said that the eight-day visit by his Defense Ministry delegation established that there were no surviving Iraqi prisoners of war still in Iran. "Those who are thought to be prisoners of war are only missing, but we are going to look for their bodies so their families can be comforted," he said.

While asserting that training of troops was not covered under the agreement, Dulaimi said it did call for Iran to give $1 billion in reconstruction aid to the Iraqi government, some of which would go to the Defense Ministry. But the Iraqi army was satisfied with the training provided by the U.S. military, he said, and Iraq was dependent on the protection provided by American troops.

"What is the alternative to them? Zarqawi?" Dulaimi said, referring to insurgent leader Abu Musab Zarqawi. Noting that the new Iraqi armed forces were scarcely a year old, he added: "When Iraqis are able to establish security, I will ask the multinational forces to leave."

Special correspondent Salih Saif Aldin contributed to this report.

© 2005 The Washington Post Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 12, 2005
Worse Than Death
By JOHN TIERNEY
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/opinion/12tierney.html

Last year a German teenager named Sven Jaschan released the Sasser worm, one of the costliest acts of sabotage in the history of the Internet. It crippled computers around the world, closing businesses, halting trains and grounding airplanes.

Which of these punishments does he deserve?

A) A 21-month suspended sentence and 30 hours of community service.

B) Two years in prison.

C) A five-year ban on using computers.

D) Death.

E) Something worse.

If you answered A, you must be the German judge who gave him that sentence last week.

If you answered B or C, you`re confusing him with other hackers who have been sent to prison and banned from using computers or the Internet. But those punishments don`t seem to have deterred hackers like Mr. Jaschan from taking their place.

I`m tempted to say that the correct answer is D, and not just because of the man-years I`ve spent running virus scans and reformatting hard drives. I`m almost convinced by Steven Landsburg`s cost-benefit analysis showing that the spreaders of computer viruses and worms are more logical candidates for capital punishment than murderers are.

Professor Landsburg, an economist at the University of Rochester, has calculated the relative value to society of executing murderers and hackers. By using studies estimating the deterrent value of capital punishment, he figures that executing one murderer yields at most $100 million in social benefits.

The benefits of executing a hacker would be greater, he argues, because the social costs of hacking are estimated to be so much higher: $50 billion per year. Deterring a mere one-fifth of 1 percent of those crimes - one in 500 hackers - would save society $100 million. And Professor Landsburg believes that a lot more than one in 500 hackers would be deterred by the sight of a colleague on death row.

I see his logic, but I also see practical difficulties. For one thing, many hackers live in places where capital punishment is illegal. For another, most of them are teenage boys, a group that has never been known for fearing death. They`re probably more afraid of going five years without computer games.

So that leaves us with E: something worse than death. Something that would approximate the millions of hours of tedium that hackers have inflicted on society.

Hackers are the Internet equivalent of Richard Reid, the shoe-bomber who didn`t manage to hurt anyone on his airplane but has been annoying travelers ever since. When I join the line of passengers taking off their shoes at the airport, I get little satisfaction in thinking that the man responsible for this ritual is sitting somewhere by himself in a prison cell, probably with his shoes on.

He ought to spend his days within smelling range of all those socks at the airport. In an exclusive poll I once conducted among fellow passengers, I found that 80 percent favored forcing Mr. Reid to sit next to the metal detector, helping small children put their sneakers back on.

The remaining 20 percent in the poll (meaning one guy) said that wasn`t harsh enough. He advocated requiring Mr. Reid to change the Odor-Eaters insoles of runners at the end of the New York City Marathon.

What would be the equivalent public service for Internet sociopaths? Maybe convicted spammers could be sentenced to community service testing all their own wares. The number of organ-enlargement offers would decline if a spammer thought he`d have to appear in a public-service television commercial explaining that he`d tried them all and they just didn`t work for him.

Convicted hackers like Mr. Jaschan could be sentenced to a lifetime of removing worms and viruses, but the computer experts I consulted said there would be too big a risk that the hackers would enjoy the job. After all, Mr. Jaschan is now doing just that for a software security firm.

The experts weren`t sure that any punishment could fit the crime, but they had several suggestions: Make the hacker spend 16 hours a day fielding help-desk inquiries in an AOL chat room for computer novices. Force him to do this with a user name at least as uncool as KoolDude and to work on a vintage IBM PC with a 2400-baud dial-up connection. Most painful of all for any geek, make him use Windows 95 for the rest of his life.

I realize that this may not be enough. If you have any better ideas, send them along.

E-mail: [e-mail]

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Der Artikel passt zu dem gestrigen Artikel über China und zu dem, was ich gestern geschrieben habe:
Wenn man bedenkt wieviel junge gut ausgebildete Menschen aus diesen Ländern, besonders in den USA, die Entwicklungen vorangetrieben haben, werden wir auch bei der Forschung bald überholt werden und gemeinsam mit unseren so arg strapazierten Werten auf der Müllhalde der Geschichte landen.

July 12, 2005
A Passage From India
By SUKETU MEHTA
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/12/opinion/12mehta.html

ACCORDING to a confidential memorandum, I.B.M. is cutting 13,000 jobs in the United States and in Europe and creating 14,000 jobs in India. From 2000 to 2015, an estimated three million American jobs will have been outsourced; one in 10 technology jobs will leave these shores by the end of this year. Stories like these have aroused a primal fear in the Western public: that they might soon need to line up outside the Indian Embassy for work visas and their children will have to learn Hindi.

Just as my parents had to line up outside the American consulate in Bombay, and my sisters and I had to learn English. My father came to America in 1977 not for its political freedoms or its way of life, but for the hope of a better economic future for his children. My grandfathers on both sides left rural Gujarat in northwestern India to find work: one to Calcutta, which was even more remote in those days than New York is from Bombay now; and the other to Nairobi. Mobility, we have always known, is survival. Now I face the possibility that my children, when they grow up, will find their jobs outsourced to the very country their grandfather left to pursue economic opportunity.

The outsourcing debate seems to have mutated into a contest between the country of my birth and the country of my nationality. Of course I feel a loyalty to America: it gave my parents a new life and my sons were born here. I have a vested interest in seeing America prosper. But I am here because the country of my ancestors didn`t understand the changing world; it couldn`t change its technology and its philosophy and its notions of social mobility fast enough to fight off the European colonists, who won not so much with the might of advanced weaponry as with the clear logical philosophy of the Enlightenment. Their systems of thinking conquered our own. So, since independence, Indians have had to learn; we have had to slog for long hours in the classroom while the children of other countries went out to play.

When I moved to Queens, in New York City, at the age of 14, I found myself, for the first time in my life, considered good at math. In Bombay, math was my worst subject, and I regularly found my place near the bottom of the class rankings in that rigorous subject. But in my American school, so low were their standards that I was - to my parents` disbelief - near the top of the class. It was the same in English and, unexpectedly, in American history, for my school in Bombay included a detailed study of the American Revolution. My American school curriculum had, of course, almost nothing on the subcontinent`s freedom struggle. I was mercilessly bullied during the 1979-80 hostage crisis, because my classmates couldn`t tell the difference between Iran and India. If I were now to move with my family to India, my children - who go to one of the best private schools in New York - would have to take remedial math and science courses to get into a good school in Bombay.

Of course, India`s no wonderland. It might soon have the world`s biggest middle class, but it also has the world`s largest underclass. A quarter of its one billion people live below the poverty line, 40 percent are illiterate, and the child malnutrition rate exceeds that of sub-Saharan Africa. There`s a huge difference between the backwater state of Bihar and the boomtown of Bangalore. Those Indians who went to the United States, though, have done remarkably well: Indians make up one of the richest ethnic groups in this country. During the technology boom of the late 1990`s, Indians were responsible for 10 percent of all the start-ups in Silicon Valley. And in this year`s national spelling bee, the top four contestants were of South Asian origin.

There is a perverse hypocrisy about the whole jobs debate, especially in Europe. The colonial powers invaded countries like India and China, pillaged them of their treasures and commodities and made sure their industries weren`t allowed to develop, so they would stay impoverished and unable to compete. Then the imperialists complained when the destitute people of the former colonies came to their shores to clean their toilets and dig their sewers; they complained when later generations came to earn high wages as doctors and engineers; and now they`re complaining when their jobs are being lost to children of the empire who are working harder than they are. My grandfather was once confronted by an elderly Englishman in a London park who asked, "Why are you here?" My grandfather responded, "We are the creditors." We are here because you were there.

The rich countries can`t have it both ways. They can`t provide huge subsidies for their agricultural conglomerates and complain when Indians who can`t make a living on their farms then go to the cities and study computers and take away their jobs. Why are Indians willing to write code for a tenth of what Americans make for the same work? It`s not by choice; it`s because they`re still struggling to stand on their feet after 200 years of colonial rule. The day will soon come when Indian companies will find that it`s cheaper to hire computer programmers in Sri Lanka, and then it`s there that the Indian jobs will go.

Of course, it`s heart-wrenching to see American programmers - many of whom are of Indian origin - lose their jobs and have to worry about how they`ll pay the mortgage. But they are ill served by politicians who promise to bring their jobs back by the facile tactic of banning them from leaving. This strategy will ensure only that our schools stay terrible; it`ll be an entire country run like the dairy industry, feasible only because of price controls and subsidies.

But we have a resource of incalculable worth right here to help us compete: the immigrants who`ve been given a new life in America. There are many more Indians in the United States than there are Americans in India. Indian-Americans will help America understand India, trade with it to our mutual benefit. Just as Arab-Americans can help us fight Al Qaeda, Indian-Americans can help us deal with the emerging economic superpower that is India. This is the return of the gift of citizenship.

And just in case, I`m making sure my children learn Hindi.

Suketu Mehta is author of "Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

!

Dieser Beitrag wurde vom System automatisch gesperrt. Bei Fragen wenden Sie sich bitte an [e-mail]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Faced with this crisis

Instead of denying climate change is happening, the US now denies that we need proper regulation to stop it
George Monbiot
Tuesday July 12, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1526415,00.ht…

Guardian
One day we will look back on the effort to deny the effects of climate change as we now look back on the work of Trofim Lysenko, a Soviet agronomist who insisted that the entire canon of genetics was wrong. There was no limit to an organism`s ability to adapt to changing environments. Cultivated correctly, crops could do anything the Soviet leadership wanted them to do. Wheat, for example, if grown in the right conditions, could be made to produce rye.

Because he was able to mobilise enthusiasm among the peasants for collectivisation, and could present Stalin with a Soviet scientific programme, Lysenko`s hogwash became state policy. He became director of the Institute of Genetics and president of the Lenin Academy of Agricultural Sciences. He used his position to outlaw conventional genetics, strip its practitioners of their positions and have some of them arrested and even killed. Lysenkoism governed state science from the late 1930s until the early 1960s, helping to wreck Soviet agriculture.

No one is yet being sent to the Guantánamo gulag for producing the wrong results. But the denial of climate science in the US bears some of the marks of Lysenkoism. It is, for example, state-sponsored. Last month the New York Times revealed that Philip Cooney, a lawyer with no scientific training, had been imported into the White House from the American Petroleum Institute, to control the presentation of climate science. He edited scientific reports, striking out evidence of glacier retreat and inserting phrases suggesting that there was serious scientific doubt about climate change. Working with the Exxon-sponsored PR man Myron Ebell, he lobbied successfully to get rid of the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, who had refused to accept the official line.

Cooney`s work was augmented by Harlan Watson, the US government`s chief climate negotiator, who insisted that the findings of the National Academy of Sciences be excised from official reports. Now Joe Barton, the Republican chairman of the House committee on energy and commerce, has launched a congressional investigation of three US scientists whose work reveals the historical pattern of climate change. He has demanded that they hand over their records and reveal their sources of funding.

Perhaps most pertinently, the official policy of climate-change denial, like Lysenkoism, relies on a compliant press. Just as Pravda championed the disavowal of genetics, so the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Times, the Daily Mail and the Daily and Sunday Telegraphs champion the Bush team`s denial of climate science. Like Pravda, they dismiss it without showing any sign that they have read or understood it.

But climate change denial, like Lysenkoism, cannot last forever. Now, as the G8 communique shows, the White House is beginning to move on. Instead of denying that climate change is happening, it is denying that anything difficult needs to be done to prevent it. The other G8 leaders have gone along with this.

Faced with the greatest crisis humanity has ever encountered, the most powerful men in the world have meekly resolved to "promote" better practice and to "encourage" companies to do better. The R-word is half-mentioned twice: they will "improve regulatory ... frameworks". This could mean anything: most of the G8 governments define better regulation as less regulation. Nowhere is there a clear statement that they will force anyone to do anything to stop destroying the conditions which sustain human life.

Instead they have agreed to "raise awareness", "accelerate deployment of cleaner technologies" and "diversify our energy supply mix". There is nothing wrong with these objectives. But unless there is regulation to reduce the amount of fossil fuel we use, alternative technologies are a waste of time and money, for they will supplement rather than replace coal and oil and gas burning. What counts is not what we do but what we don`t. Our success or failure in tackling climate change depends on just one thing: how much fossil fuel we leave in the ground. And leaving it in the ground won`t happen without regulation.

They agreed to support energy efficiency, which would be a good thing if it didn`t rely on a "market-led approach". Otherwise, they will cross their fingers and place their faith in a series of techno-fixes, some of which work, and some of which cause more problems than they solve. They will study the potential of "clean coal", which so far remains an oxymoron, and accelerate the burial of carbon dioxide, which might or might not stay where it`s put. They will promote "carbon offsets" (you pay someone else to annul your sins by planting trees or building hydroelectric dams), which have so far been a disastrous failure. They will encourage the development of hydrogen fuel cells, which do not produce energy but use it, and the production of biofuels, which will set up a competition for arable land between cars and people, exacerbating the famines that climate change is likely to cause. Not bad for six months of negotiations.

We can`t blame only the Americans. While Bush`s team has been as obstructive as possible, the UK has scarcely been doing the work of angels. Like Bush, Blair will contemplate anything except restraining the people who are killing the planet. While the UK produces 2.2% of the world`s greenhouse gases, companies that extract fossil fuels responsible for over 10% of global emissions are listed on the London stock exchange. One of the reasons they find London attractive is that, thanks to our lax financial regulations, they are not obliged to reveal their potential greenhouse liabilities to investors. Far from doing anything about this, Blair complains that our financial rules are "hugely inhibiting of efficient business".

Our problem is that, just as genetics was crushed by totalitarian communism, meaningful action on climate change has been prohibited by totalitarian capitalism. When I use this term I don`t mean that the people who challenge it are rounded up and sent to break rocks in Siberia. I mean that it intrudes into every corner of our lives, governs every social relation, becomes the lens through which every issue must be seen. It is the total system which leaves no molecule of earth or air uncosted and unsold. And, like Soviet totalitarianism, it allows no solution to pass which fails to enhance its power. The only permitted answer to the effects of greed is more greed.

I don`t know how long this system can last. But I did see something in Scotland last week that I hadn`t seen before. At the G8 Alternatives meeting in Edinburgh and the People and Planet conference in Stirling, climate change, until recently neglected by campaigners, stirred fiercer emotions than any other topic. People are already mobilising for demonstrations planned by the Campaign against Climate Change on December 3. I saw a resolve to make this the biggest issue in British politics. If we succeed, the new campaign will crash head-on into the totalitarian system. But as more people wake up to what the science says, it is not entirely certain that the system will win.

· www.monbiot.com
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

ROBERT SCHEER
The real Rove scandal
Robert Scheer
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-rsche…

July 12, 2005

If you can`t shoot the messenger, take aim at his wife.

That clearly was the intent of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in leaking to a reporter that former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV`s wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent. To try to conceal the fact that the president had lied to the American public about Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction program, Rove attempted to destroy the credibility of two national security veterans and send an intimidating message to any other government officials preparing to publicly tell the truth.

Rove`s lawyer now says that Rove didn`t break the law against naming covert agents because he didn`t know Plame`s name and therefore couldn`t have revealed it. Perhaps he can use such a technicality in court, but in the meantime he should resign immediately — or be fired by the president — for leaking classified information, trying to smear Wilson and possibly endangering Plame`s life.

"The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). "I trust they will follow through on this pledge."

The background on this story is crucial. Ambassador Wilson had been honored as a patriot by President George H.W. Bush for standing up to Saddam Hussein in a face-to-face confrontation in Baghdad on the eve of the Persian Gulf War. But in 2003, Wilson committed an unpardonable crime in the eyes of the second Bush White House. He exposed its lies about Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction programs.

In 16 now infamous words in Bush`s 2003 State of the Union speech, the president — desperate to gain support for an invasion he was dead set on initiating — tried to scare Americans into believing Iraq was close to making nuclear weapons. "The British government," he told the nation, "has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." But the key documents that the claim was based on had already been proved to be fakes, and other intelligence reports along these lines were extremely speculative.

In fact, it was a CIA-organized mission by Wilson to the African country of Niger (where he had served as ambassador) that determined the reports were false. Wilson was therefore shocked to hear the uranium claims in the president`s speech. When he exposed the chicanery in a New York Times commentary, Wilson became a prime target for a White House smear job.

According to e-mails that Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper sent to his editor (which were revealed by Newsweek over the weekend), Rove told Cooper that Wilson`s devastating expose should be discounted because the Niger fact-finding trip had been authorized by Wilson`s wife, who worked at the CIA.

This was three days before Robert Novak, citing two White House sources, outed Plame as a CIA agent in his column and put forward the same notion: that Wilson`s information was suspect because the CIA had hired him on the advice of his wife.

In the end, though, what Rove`s leak and Novak`s column really exposed was the depravity of the administration`s deliberate use of a false WMD threat and its willingness to go after anyone willing to tell the truth about it.

It`s ironic that the expertise of this couple should be turned against them by a White House that has demonstrated nothing but incompetence in dealing with the WMD issue. But clearly truth and competence are virtues easily shed by the Bush administration in the pursuit of political advantage, even when this partisan game jeopardizes national security.

This is the most important issue raised by the Plame scandal. It has been unfortunately obscured by the secondary debate in the case: whether reporters should ever reveal their sources. Yet what the emerging Rove scandal demonstrates is the ease with which a wily top White House official can subvert the Bill of Rights` protection of the free press to serve the tawdriest of political ends.


Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times


[urlA Nazi`s Day of Judgment]http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-nazi12jul12,1,7718650.story?coll=la-headlines-frontpage Josias Kumpf, 80, faces deportation. The former SS soldier denies killing Jews.[/url]
Los Angeles Times

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/12/rove/print.html

Smelling like a Rove
The Bush administration said it would fire anyone involved in outing Valerie Plame. Even Karl Rove?
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/12/rove/print.html
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Farhad Manjoo


July 12, 2005 | Karl Rove, George W. Bush`s chief political strategist, has not been having an especially happy second term. His boss`s political fortunes are in the dumps, and nothing Rove plans -- the Terri Schiavo fight, or the Social Security whistle-stop tour, or the president`s recent prime-time speech, offering more non-answers on Iraq -- has righted Bush`s sinking ship. Now Rove himself has the law breathing down his neck.

The law in this case is Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor appointed by the Justice Department a year and a half ago, to determine who leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent to Robert Novak, the conservative syndicated columnist. The undercover operative is Valerie Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who questioned the veracity of Bush`s claim that Saddam Hussein had been seeking uranium in Africa. In the summer of 2003, Wilson wrote an Op-Ed column for the New York Times, revealing that in 2002 he`d been sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate the uranium claim -- and found nothing.

The leak to Novak of Plame`s identity looked like an attempt by the White House to punish Wilson for speaking out, and Wilson has accused Rove of being involved in the effort to reveal Plame`s identity. In the fall of 2003, the Justice Department opened an investigation into the matter. Since then, Fitzgerald has been quietly assembling his case. But the public has only begun to get some hint of investigation`s status in the past few months, as Fitzgerald has pressed two Washington journalists -- Matthew Cooper of Time and Judith Miller of the New York Times -- to testify about their conversations with White House sources regarding Wilson`s claims. Miller was sent to jail last week when she refused to speak.

It`s what Rove said to Cooper -- who suddenly agreed, under mysterious circumstances, to testify -- that`s now got the strategist in trouble. According to reports of conversations between Rove and Cooper, Rove appears to have disclosed Plame`s identity -- while not specifically her name -- to Cooper. But what this means for Rove -- whether he`ll be fired, or jailed for what he did -- is a matter of furious speculation. This doozy of a case is not, as you may have guessed, easy to get your mind around. So we`ve prepared this handy primer.

Is Karl Rove going to jail?

Don`t know yet. It`s clear from recent reports in Newsweek and the Washington Post that Rove was involved in, and possibly headed, a White House effort to discredit Wilson. What`s not clear is whether Rove committed a crime, either by leaking Plame`s identity, or by lying to investigators who are trying to determine whether he leaked Plame`s identity. Even if Rove did violate the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which prohibits divulging an intelligence agent`s identity, investigators may lack the necessary evidence to charge him. Rove continues to deny any wrongdoing.

What do we know about Rove`s involvement?

We know that on July 11, 2003 -- the Friday after Wilson`s article, What I Didn`t Find in Africa," was published in the Sunday New York Times -- Matthew Cooper, who`d just started covering the White House for Time magazine, called Rove to ask what he made of Wilson`s story. After the conversation, Cooper sent his editor an e-mail describing what Rove had said. Cooper, who moonlights as stand-up comedian in Washington, labeled the e-mail "double super secret background." Newsweek obtained it after Time decided to hand it to prosecutors.

The e-mail suggests that Rove gave Cooper an earful. Rove warned the reporter not to "get too far out on Wilson" -- that is, not to put too much stock in what Wilson had written -- because Wilson`s trip to Africa, Rove attested, had not been authorized either by George Tenet, the director of the CIA, nor Vice President Dick Cheney. Wilson had only been sent to Niger to check out claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking uranium there because, Rove told Cooper, "wilson`s wife, who apparently works at the [Central Intelligence] agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues" had "authorized the trip." In other words, Rove was telling Cooper, Wilson only got the assignment because of nepotism, so there`s no reason to believe what he`s saying about Saddam.

Rove, Cooper added, said that not only was the "genesis of [Wilson`s] trip ... flawed an[d] suspect," but so were Wilson`s conclusions about Saddam`s WMD search in Africa. Rove "implied strongly there`s still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger."

Close readers will spot what Rove did not tell Cooper: Valerie Plame`s name. It`s not clear whether Rove went into detail about Plame`s status at the CIA; she was an operative who often worked undercover and so needed her identity to remain cloaked. In the legal case against Rove, this omission is key, as Rove`s attorney says that because Rove didn`t name Plame, Rove didn`t do anything wrong.

Is that true? Or did Rove violate the Intelligence Identities Protection Act?

Again, it`s not cut and dried. As the Washington Post pointed out, "To be considered a violation of the law, a disclosure by a government official must have been deliberate, the person doing it must have known that the CIA officer was a covert agent, and he or she must have known that the government was actively concealing the covert agent`s identity."

Based on Cooper`s e-mail with Rove, it isn`t clear that Rove knew Plame`s name. But even if Rove did know Plame`s name, which is likely, that fact is not as important as knowing her CIA status. In pointing out her occupation and association to Wilson, Rove was clearly identifying Plame. Was he then knowingly and deliberately disclosing a CIA operative? For that, Rove would have had to know that Plame was undercover. If he didn`t know that fact -- if Rove knew Plame simply as Wilson`s wife who happened to work on WMD at the CIA -- he didn`t commit a crime.

So to stay out of the slammer, can`t Rove simply say he didn`t know who Plame was?

Yes, and that`s essentially Rove`s defense. Robert Luskin, Rove`s attorney, told the Washington Post on Sunday that Rove had no idea who Plame was, other than that she was Wilson`s CIA wife. Luskin says that Rove`s conversation with Cooper "was not an effort to encourage Time to disclose her identity. What he was doing was discouraging Time from perpetuating some statements that had been made publicly and weren`t true." Those untrue "statements" are claims made by some at the time that Wilson`s trip was Cheney`s idea; according to Luskin, Rove only mentioned Wilson`s wife to show that it was her idea, not Cheney`s, for Wilson to go to Africa.

That said, we don`t know what Rove told other reporters; specifically, we don`t know whether Rove gave Plame`s name to Robert Novak, the first journalist to name Plame, who appears to have talked to the prosecutor. But it`s a fair guess when you look at the similarity between what Rove told Cooper and what Novak said Bush administration sources told him, and the fact that Cooper spoke to Rove on July 11, a Friday, and Novak`s column was published the next Monday.

Here`s what Novak wrote in his column outing Plame: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson`s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report [which suggested an effort by Saddam to buy uranium in Africa]. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."

To recap: Novak was talking to "senior administration officials" around the same time that Cooper was talking to Rove. Novak got the same story from "senior administration officials" that Cooper got from Rove. As we`re pretty sure they don`t say in Texas, the whole thing sure does stink of turd blossom. And here`s where it could get hairy for Rove. If Novak did get Plame`s identity from Rove, and if Novak has said as much to special prosecutor Fitzgerald, with whom he`s allegedly cooperating, Rove may yet face legal troubles.

So if Novak sings, does Rove go to jail?

Could be. But there are caveats to that, too. Even if Rove -- or anyone else in the White House -- did reveal Plame`s name and undercover status to the media, that act may still not qualify as a technical violation of the law. Victoria Toensing and Bruce W. Sanford, two Washington lawyers who helped draft the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, wrote in the Washington Post in January that the law was meant to protect agents who were truly "covert," meaning that the agent`s "status as undercover must be classified, and she must have been assigned to duty outside the United States currently or in the past five years. This requirement does not mean jetting to Berlin or Taipei for a week`s work. It means permanent assignment in a foreign country." But because Plame had been "living in Washington for some time when the July 2003 column was published, and was working at a desk job in Langley (a no-no for a person with a need for cover), there is a serious legal question as to whether she qualifies as `covert,`" Toensing and Sanford wrote.

Even if the prosecutor determines that outing Plame was a crime, he will have to prove that Rove did so knowingly and deliberately. And many on the right argue that Rove`s defense on this point -- that he was only mentioning Plame to show that Wilson wasn`t recommended for the job by anyone really important, like Cheney -- was corroborated by last year`s Senate intelligence committee report on Iraq-war intelligence failures. That report quoted the CIA as saying that Wilson was sent to Niger only because Plame "offered up" his name for the job, which Rove would argue is essentially what he told Cooper about Wilson.

Yet the Senate report doesn`t completely support Rove`s tale because it still leaves the possibility, as Wilson argued, that Cheney asked the CIA to look into the Niger case, and the CIA then asked Wilson to look into it. In his book, "The Politics of Truth," Wilson described his meeting with the CIA to arrange his Niger trip. "My hosts opened the meeting with a brief explanation of why I had been invited to meet with them," he writes. "A report purporting to be a memorandum of sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq had aroused the interest of Vice President Dick Cheney. His office, I was told, had tasked the CIA to determine if there was any truth to the report. I was being asked now to share with the analysts my knowledge of the uranium business and of the Nigerian personalities in power at the time the alleged contract had been executed, supposedly in 1999 or 2000."

Wilson says that his wife had nothing to do with CIA`s decision to send him to Niger. He asserts that the White House had no right to talk about his wife in its discussions with reporters regarding his Niger claims.

Even if Rove didn`t knowingly divulge Plame`s name, isn`t inadvertently disclosing her identity bad enough?

Well, yes. In talking to Cooper, Rove disclosed Plame`s occupation to a reporter in the service of a political hit job on a White House critic. At the very least, he was careless with sensitive information, which isn`t a quality to be prized in a deputy White House chief of staff. To punish Rove`s carelessness, Sen. Frank Lautenberg, the New Jersey Democrat, said in a statement today, "the President should immediately suspend Karl Rove`s security clearances and shut him down by shutting him out of classified meetings or discussions."

Or as Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, recommended in a statement today, Bush should fire Rove. "I agree with the President when he said he expects the people who work for him to adhere to the highest standards of conduct," Reid said. "The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration. I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true, this rises above politics and is about our national security."

Reid`s right. Looking at Bush`s statements on the case, you`d expect that Rove might be in some trouble with his boss. "If there`s a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush said last year. Bush has never discussed the details of the case, but he`s suggested that he believes that leaking an operative`s name, perhaps even accidentally, is not something he`d tolerate. "I want to know the truth -- leaks of classified information are bad things," he said last year.

Any chance that Bush would fire Rove?

Who knows what Bush will do. Scott McClellan, Bush`s press secretary, has decided not to answer any questions on the case. In a remarkable press briefing on Monday -- remarkable for the tenacity with which reporters kept at McClellan -- the press secretary refused to say whether he believed Rove had committed a crime, whether Bush had lost confidence in Rove, and whether Bush was aware that Rove had spoken to Cooper about Wilson. McClellan, citing the ongoing investigation of the case, repeatedly declined to answer anything. "Well, those overseeing the investigation expressed a preference to us that we not get into commenting on the investigation while it`s ongoing. And that was what they requested of the White House. And so I think in order to be helpful to that investigation, we are following their direction," McClellan said.

As Tim Grieve points out in Salon`s War Room, this excuse hasn`t stopped McClellan from commenting on the case in the past. The press secretary has previously cleared Rove of any involvement in the case: "Let me make it very clear," McClellan said in October 2003, "as I said previously, he was not involved, and that allegation is not true in terms of leaking classified information, nor would he condone it. So let me be very clear."

Today, reporters pointed that out to him. "You`re in a bad spot here, Scott," one reporter told McClellan, "because after the investigation began -- after the criminal investigation was under way -- you said, October 10th, 2003, `I spoke with those individuals, Rove, [deputy national security advisor Elliott] Abrams, and [Dick Cheney`s chief of staff I. Lewis] Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this.` From that podium. That`s after the criminal investigation began. Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?"

McClellan responded: "And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this, because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the President of the United States. I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point, I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I`m just not going to do that."

So where does that leave us?

Lawyers observing the case have said that the prosecutor, who`s known for being tough, may be looking to charge someone for some lesser crime than leaking an undercover operative`s name, namely perjury or obstruction of justice. But because we don`t know what Rove has said to the grand jury or to investigators, it`s impossible to tell whether he`s the subject of these investigations, either.

At this point, then, it`s distinctly possible that Rove -- the same Rove who recently called liberals soft in their response to the 9/11 attacks -- may face no punishment at all for outing the identity of a CIA agent.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

About the writer
Farhad Manjoo is a Salon staff writer.

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[SittinBuII]

[SittinBuII]

Plame Games Originated with Judith Miller
by Ahmed Amr
www.dissidentvoice.org
July 12, 2005


The pundits are slobbering all over their keyboards writing odes to Judith Miller -- currently in jail for refusing to identify confidential sources. Perhaps these editorial writers have yet to digest that the administration insiders in question are not “whistleblowers” out to expose a government scandal. In fact, these individuals are felons who committed a national security crime to punish one Joseph Wilson -- the first whistleblower to reveal that the intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq was fixed.



Weiter:

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Amr0712.htm

[Joerver]

Published on Tuesday, July 12, 2005 by CommonDreams.org
The Game of Tag and `He Started It`
by M. Phillips
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0712-23.htm

This won`t sit well with anyone who sees terrorism as inherently evil and the battle against it as unquestionably good, but there`s a startling string of similarities between the motivations and even the methods of Islamic terrorists and those of the neoconservative hawks who orchestrated America`s war in Iraq.

American leaders believe the global spread of democracy is essential to peace. Islamic terrorists believe peace and harmony come only with life under fundamental Muslim doctrine. Each sees the other as dangerously wrong and a grave threat, both to its way of life and to world order. Each believes it stands upon the moral high ground, that God is on its side and that the other is evil. America had no more earthly authority to invade Iraq, beyond its self-bestowed right to do so, than terrorists had in blowing up London buses and trains.

Both are so driven to export and foist their world visions onto other nations that they`re willing to kill innocent people to achieve, as each side sees it, a greater good. Each side relies on emotionally charged rhetoric and propaganda to convince its public that its cause is just and noble. Terrorist leaders tell Muslims that Western culture and capitalism are the devil`s work, that the "infidels" want to control their land and oil. President Bush tells Americans terrorists are "cold-blooded killers" who "hate our freedoms."

Christian Rapturists who see this as a holy war believe they will reach higher, everlasting spiritual planes upon death. So do suicide bombers. American leaders foster a "they started it" argument, that 9/11 provoked the invasion of Iraq. Terrorists cite support for Israel, the World Bank and other Western entrees into the Middle East to say "No, they started it." Both point to the blood on each other`s hands and tell their publics "See?"

Many call the invasion of Iraq an "illegal war." American leaders label terrorists "illegal combatants" in that war. Should the leaders of either side ever be captured by the opposition, they will be prosecuted in courts of foregone conclusions and put to death for crimes against humanity. Many believe terrorists exist only to wreak violence.

But if terrorists believed they could more effectively rid their societies of Western influence through nonviolence, they would do so. President Bush has said as much about his own rationale for invading Iraq - if Saddam Hussein would have resigned his dictatorship and fled into exile, opening Iraq to democracy, America wouldn`t have invaded.With neither scenario plausible, rather than curtail its goals, each side resorts to violence to see its worldview to fruition.

Regardless which side "started it," the bombings in London prove America can`t "finish it" through military might. As it is, people too easily paint this war in black and white (and, invariably, as their own side in white). Our very peace, and peace of mind, depends on stepping outside one`s nationalist, religious and ideological perspectives to paint both sides the same color. Without the convenient borders separating good from evil, we`re left with two distinct, sincere, flawed, incompatible systems - capitalist-fueled democracy and Islamic fundamentalism.

They come into conflict only when one encroaches on the other`s perceived territory, geographical or otherwise. America can best neutralize terrorism through its own behavior. With a foreign policy divested of arrogance and sense of divine right, America would drop the notions of establishing military bases in the Middle East, leveraging poorer nations through forced economic reforms and imposing democracies on sovereign nations. Yes, this is exactly what terrorists want, but if that route leads to a true and deep peace, is that too much to ask? America can continue doing business with the Middle East without injecting itself into the Middle East. Middle Eastern nations and their citizens would struggle and succeed on their own terms toward social, political and religious equilibrium, and the gasoline fueling Islamic terrorism toward the West would evaporate. Until then, in this game of tag, neither is good nor evil. We are both simply "it," and much the deader for it.

M. Phillips is the pseudonym for a writer on the staff of a daily newspaper in Minnesota`s Twin Cities. Email him at [e-mail].

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Tomgram: Nick Turse on Cyberstalking the Recruitable Teen
http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=5322

At some level, the situation is simple enough. As retired Lt. Col. Charles A. Krohn, former Army deputy chief of public affairs at the Pentagon and in Baghdad, put it recently in the Washington Post, the Bush administration has "basically committed most of the Army`s active forces (including much of the National Guard), rotating them to the point of exhaustion." Eric Schmitt and David S Cloud, in a front-page story in the Monday New York Times (Part-Time Forces on Active Duty Decline Steeply) sum up part of the problem this way:



    "The Army says it has found ways to handle the dwindling pool of reservists eligible to fill the support jobs (in Iraq), but some members of Congress, senior retired Army officers and federal investigators are less sanguine, warning that barring a reduction in the Pentagon`s requirement to supply 160,000 forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, or a change in its mobilization policy, the Army will exhaust the supply of soldiers in critical specialties.



    "`By next fall, we`ll have expended our ability to use National Guard brigades as one of the principal forces,` said Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army commander who was dispatched to Iraq last month to assess the operation. ‘We`re reaching the bottom of the barrel.`"



All of this has come in the course of fighting two small, ugly, colonial-style wars. And just because Iraq in particular is increasingly, in Krohn`s phrase, a "sustained and unpopular war," refilling the ranks has proved no small problem for the Pentagon, which has recently found itself scraping the bottom of that recruitment barrel in all sorts of ways. This may sooner or later result in what Krohn calls a "hollow army." Add to this, the near-guaranteed loss of much of what`s left of the none-too-impressive "coalition" in Iraq in the next year -- the Italians announced their first withdrawal of forces this week (to begin in September), the Brits are planning a major drawdown relatively soon, the stay of the Japanese troops (already largely locked inside their base in southern Iraq) is in question -- and the Bush administration is soon likely to find itself, like the cheese of children`s song, standing very much alone in its mission, with a major domestic and international recruitment crisis on its hands.



In fact, we may be watching a new phenomenon: withdrawal by military overstretch. Now, thanks to one of those documents that seem to leak constantly from crucial file drawers in England these days -- a memo written by British Defense Minister John Reid -- we know that not just the Brits, but the Pentagon has been seriously considering a major draw-down of forces in Iraq by early 2006, a near halving of American troop strength there. According to the Washington Post, "The (British) paper, which is marked ‘Secret -- UK Eyes Only,` said ‘emerging U.S. plans assume that 14 out of 18 provinces could be handed over to Iraqi control by early 2006,` allowing a reduction in overall U.S.-led forces in Iraq to 66,000 troops… The undated memo, which was reported in the newspaper The Mail on Sunday, stated that ‘current U.S. political military thinking is still evolving. But there is a strong U.S. military desire for significant force reductions to bring relief to overall U.S. commitment levels.`" Of course, given that it`s Iraq we`re talking about, between planning document and reality there are likely to be many pitfalls.



And the "withdrawal" is conceptual as well. The American imperial mission is visibly buckling under the strain. (The 19th century Brits must be turning over in their graves as American power crumbles under the weight of small wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.) Until recently, the Pentagon, in its congressionally mandated Quadrennial Defense Review, has stuck to a two-war model of global dominance -- our military should, in essence, be able to mount a decisive invasion of Iraq and fight a second major campaign elsewhere on the planet almost as decisively at more or less the same moment (while still being capable of defending what is now commonly referred to as "the homeland"). Just last week, however, Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt of the New York Times reported (Pentagon Weighs Strategy Change to Deter Terror) that the "Pentagon`s most senior planners" were challenging that model in fierce internal debates and were opting instead for being prepared to wage but a single invasion-of-Iraq-style war combined with smaller counterinsurgency operations and a bolstering of domestic anti-terrorism defenses. As Fred Kaplan recently commented in Slate on-line (The Doctrine Gap), this will probably make no actual difference in the size, shape, or staggering cost of our military. But it is significant nonetheless. It represents a downsizing of ambitions, what the ancient Chinese might have called "the rectification of names" -- or the bringing of the naming of things back into line with reality.



And inside the Pentagon that reality couldn`t be clearer right now. After all, with the civilian leadership of the Bush administration proving itself almost incapable of finding willing natives out there in the imperium to fight its wars for it, military representatives have been discovering in the last year that the natives at home are restless as well. The services have responded to this situation by trolling desperately for future troops, thinking about a draft, and, as we know from recent news reports, starting to cut endless corners. Recruiters, for instance, preying on the supposed naïveté and susceptibility to bullying tactics of adolescents, have been discovered instructing teens in lying to their parents, forging documents, and beating the Army`s drug-test system. When all else failed, jail time seems to have been a threat of choice. Interestingly, some of those teens have fought back, going public with a spate of scandalous revelations that forced a one-day "values stand-down" during which the military`s recruiting standards were to be reviewed.



But, as Dr. Seuss might have said, that is not all… oh no, that is not all. As Nick Turse shows below, the military has ramped up its operations not only out there in the real world, but in the ether of the Internet where that handsome, friendly civilian you might just happen to run across may turn out to be none other than your local recruitment officer on the prowl.

Tom

An Army of (No) One
An Inside Look at the Military`s Internet Recruiting War
By Nick Turse

It`s been a tough year for the U.S. military. But you wouldn`t know it from the Internet, now increasingly packed with slick, non-military looking websites of every sort that are lying in wait for curious teens (or their exasperated parents) who might be surfing by. On the ground, the military may be bogged down in a seemingly interminable mission that was supposedly "accomplished" back on May 1, 2003, but on the Web it`s still a be-all-that-you-can-be world of advanced career choices, peaceful pursuits, and risk-free excitement.

While there has been a wave of news reports recently on the Pentagon`s problems putting together an all-volunteer military, or even a functioning officer corps, from an increasingly reluctant public, military officials are ahead of the media in one regard. They know where the future troops they need are. Hint: They`re not reading newspapers or watching the nightly prime-time news, but they are surfing the web, looking for entertainment, information, fun, and perhaps even a future.

In addition to raising the maximum enlistment age, no longer dismissing new recruits out of hand for "drug abuse, alcohol, poor fitness and pregnancy," allowing those with criminal records in, and employing such measures as hefty $20,000 sign-up bonuses (with talk of proposed future bonuses of up to $40,000, along with $50,000 worth of "mortgage assistance") to coerce the cash-strapped to enlist in the all-volunteer military, one of the military`s favorite methods of bolstering the rolls is targeting the young -- specifically teens -- to fill the ranks.

What the military truly values is green teens. Not surprisingly, the Pentagon pays companies like Teenage Research Unlimited (TRU), which claims it offers its "clients virtually unlimited methods for researching teens," to get inside kids` heads. It was also recently revealed that the Department of Defense (DoD), with the aid of a private marketing firm, BeNow, has created a database of twelve million youngsters, some only 16 years of age, as part of a program to identify potential recruits. Armed with "names, birth dates, addresses, Social Security numbers, individuals` e-mail addresses, ethnicity, telephone numbers, students` grade-point averages, field of academic study and other data," the Pentagon now has far better ways and means of accurately targeting teens.

(Military) Culture JAMRS

BeNow and TRU, however, are just two of a number of private contractors working through JAMRS -- the Pentagon`s "program for joint marketing communications and market research and studies" -- to fill the ranks of our increasingly-less-eager-to-volunteer military. JAMRS claims that it`s only developing "public programs [to] help broaden people`s understanding of Military Service as a career option." However, it also hires firms to engage in all sorts of not-for-public-consumption studies that are meant to "help bolster the effectiveness of all the Services` recruiting and retention efforts." Put another way, behind the scenes the military is in a frantic search for weak points in the public`s growing resistance to joining the armed services. Some of this is impossible to learn about because access to the studies via the JAMRS web portal is restricted. Should you visit and inquire about examining their research, you are told in no uncertain terms that "access is currently limited to certain types of users" -- none of which are you.

What we do know, however, is that JAMRS is currently focusing on the following areas of interest in an attempt to bolster the all-volunteer military:

*Hispanic Barriers to Enlistment: a project to "identify the factors contributing to under-representation of Hispanic youth among military accessions" and "inform future strategies for increasing Hispanic representation among the branches of the Military."

*College Drop Outs/Stop Outs Study: a project "aimed to gain a better understanding of what drives college students to… ‘drop out` and determine how the Services can capitalize on this group of individuals (ages 18-24)."

*Mothers` Attitude Study: "This study gauges the target audience`s (270 mothers of 10th- and 11th-grade youth) attitudes toward the Military and enlistment."

During the Vietnam War, Hispanics took disproportionate numbers of casualties and similar disparities have been reported in Iraq. JAMRS, apparently, is looking to make certain that this military tradition is maintained. Additionally, eyebrows ought to be raised over a Pentagon that is looking at ways to influence the mothers of teens to send their sons and daughters off to war and at a military eager to study what it takes to get kids to "drop out" of school and how the military might then scoop them up. Perhaps the most intriguing line of research, however, is the "Moral Waiver Study" whose seemingly benign goal is "to better define relationships between pre-Service behaviors and subsequent Service success." What the JAMRS informational page doesn`t make clear, but what might be better explained in the password-protected section of the site, is that a "moral character waiver" is the means by which potential recruits with criminal records are allowed to enlist in the U.S. military.

Future Shock

Another of JAMRS` partners is Mullen Advertising which "works with JAMRS on an array of marketing communications, planning, and strategic initiatives. This work includes public-facing, influencer-focused joint offline and online advertising campaigns." One Mullen effort is the very unmilitary-sounding MyFuture.com. It`s a slick website with information on such topics as living on your own, writing a cover letter, or finding a job and includes tips on dressing for success. ("Take extra time to look great.") Without the usual tell-tale ".mil" domain name, MyFuture offers what seems like civilian career advice (albeit with some military images sprinkled throughout). You can, for instance, take its Work Interest Quiz in order to discover if you should "go to college or look for a job." However, the more you explore, the more you see that the site is really about steering youngsters towards the armed forces. For example, when you take that quiz, you are prompted to ask your school guidance counselor "about taking the ASVAB Career Exploration Program if you`d like to know more about your aptitudes, values, and interests…" Not mentioned is that the ASVAB is actually the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery -- a test developed during the Vietnam War as "the admissions and placement test for the US military."

When I took the quiz I was told: "Based on your responses to the activities listed, here are the work styles that may be appropriate for you: Investigative [and] Artistic." To follow up on my investigative aptitude, MyFuture.com offered eight civilian career suggestions, ranging from veterinarian to meteorologist. It also recommended eight military counterparts including Law Enforcement and Security Specialist. For my artistic aptitude, MyFuture suggested that I "may like activities that: ‘Allow [me] to be creative [and] Let [me] work according to [my] own rules.`" Apparently, there are eight military jobs that will allow me to stretch my imagination and do just what I want, artistically speaking. Who knew, for example, that the perfect move for an artistic, freethinker would be joining an organization based on authority and conformity -- and then becoming a "Food Service Specialist"?

MyFuture.com claims that its "website is provided as a public service," while the JAMRS site refers to it as a "public site for potential military candidates to discover more about career opportunities appropriate for their interests." Of course, it`s really an effort to recruit kids.

Tomorrow`s Military, Today?

Another Mullen Advertising-created site is aimed at a different population. Like MyFuture, Today`sMilitary.com is a polished-looking site that lacks a ".mil" in its web address, but instead of targeting teens, the website announces that it "seeks to educate parents and other adults about the opportunities and benefits available to young people in the Military today." In JAMRS-speak that means it`s a "public site targeted at influencers."

Today`sMilitary.com is filled with information on financial incentives available to those who join the military and webpages devoted to "what it`s like" to be in the armed forces and how the military can "turn young diamonds in the rough into the finest force on the face of the earth." We learn that Army basic training is "[m]ore than just pushups and mess halls." In fact, quite the opposite of a torture test, it`s actually a "nine-week-long journey of self-discovery." The Marines` boot camp comes across as an even more routine, though less introspective, affair with nary a mention of its rigors aside from "a final endurance test of teamwork." Scanning through the pages, we even learn that life in the military is not just "exciting, challenging and hugely rewarding," but that in their off-time, military folk "go for walks… and they even shop for antiques" (which may account for some of the antiquities that seem to go missing from Iraq).

Today`s Military even takes the time to dispel "myths" like: "People in the Military are not compensated as well as private sector workers." According to Today`s Military they are -- just don`t tell it to the Marines who recently roughed up their highly-paid mercenary counterparts in Iraq. "One Marine gets me on the ground and puts his knee in my back. Then I hear another Marine say, ‘How does it feel to make that contractor money now?`" So reported a former Marine now working in the war zone as a "private security contractor." Mercenaries in Iraq generally rake in $100,000 to $200,000 per year. Earlier this year, under pressure from Congress, the Pentagon announced that it, too, would start paying out this type of cash. One caveat -- you`ve got to be dead.

Such unpleasantries as death and combat go largely unmentioned on Today`sMilitary.com (or on any of the other sites mentioned in this article). In fact, the only such allusion is on a webpage that coaches parents on ways to push their children to consider the military. It instructs parents to "[e]ncourage them with subtle hints" to foster conversation on the subject and offers talking points to refute the possible trepidations of your own little potential enlistee about the armed forces. Among the "tough questions" a child might raise is a simple fact, driven home nightly on the news: "It`s dangerous." Today`s Military offers the following answer:

"There`s no doubt that a military career isn`t for everyone. But you and your young person may be surprised to learn that over 80% of military jobs are in non-combat operations… A military career is often what you make of it."

Tell that to non-combat troops like Jessica Lynch, the late Corporal Holly Charette (seen here delivering mail for the Marines) and her fellow fourteen casualties from a recent suicide car-bomb attack on a Marine Corps Civil Affairs team in Fallujah, or the large number of other troops in support roles who have found themselves directly in harm`s way. As a Voice of America article recently put it, "Increasingly, there is a fine line between combat and non-combat jobs, especially in a place like Iraq, where there is no front line, and any unit can find itself in a firefight at any moment."

Assault and (Aptitude) Battery

Maj. Gen. Michael Rochelle, head of the Army Recruiting Command, recently stated, "Having access to 17- to 24-year-olds is very key to us. We would hope that every high school administrator would provide those lists [of student phone numbers and addresses] to us. They`re terribly important for what we`re trying to do." In the wake of the revelation of the Pentagon`s massive new database of America`s youth, Chief Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita claimed, "We are trying to use appropriate methods to make ourselves competitive in the marketplace for these kids who have a lot of choices." But as Nation magazine editor Katrina vanden Heuvel recently wrote in her Editor`s Cut blog, it isn`t just choices keeping the kids away:

"The debacle in Iraq has made recruiting an impossibly difficult job and recruiters are sinking to new lows in the face of growing pressure to fulfill monthly quotas as well as fierce opposition from parents who don`t support the President`s botched Iraq war mission."

One of the military`s new lows brings us back to the subject of ASVAB and the methods of the Vietnam-era. Faced then with the need for expendable troops, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara instituted an unholy coupling of the War on Poverty and the War in Vietnam -- Project 100,000. Project 100,000 called for the military, each year, to admit into service 100,000 men who had failed its qualifying exam. The program claimed that it would outfit those who failed to meet mental standards, men McNamara called the "subterranean poor," with an education and training that would be useful upon their return to civilian life. Instead of acquiring skills useful for the civilian job market, however, "McNamara`s moron corps," as they came to be known within the military, were trained for combat at markedly elevated levels, were disproportionately sent to Vietnam, and had double the death rate of American forces as a whole.

Today, a desperate Pentagon seems to be following a strikingly similar path. As Eric Schmitt of the New York Times has written, the Army is increasingly turning to high-school dropouts, has already almost doubled last year`s number of recruits scoring in the lowest level on the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery and is "accepting hundreds of recruits in recent months who would have been rejected a year ago." Meanwhile, those who happen upon the Pentagon`s ASVAB website will find another slick design, with few military trappings, no ".mil" web-address, and lots of objective career counseling. You have to troll around the site to discover in the fine print that it`s offered as a "public service by the U.S. Department of Defense, Defense Manpower Data Center."

Like Today`sMilitary.com, the ASVAB site makes a pitch to parents, exhorting them to "[e]ncourage your teen to take the ASVAB." It also tries to influence teachers to "(i]ntegrat[e] the ASVAB Program Into the Classroom," even recommending that portions be "assigned as homework" to students.

Strapped for bodies, the Pentagon is putting on a full court press to fill the ranks. Its new package of promotion includes: big signing bonuses and drastically lowered standards; NASCAR, professional bull-riding, and Arena Football sponsorships; video games that double as recruiting tools; TV commercials that drip with seductive scenes of military glory or feature The Apprentice host Donald Trump; disingenuous career counseling websites; and an integrated "joint marketing communications and market research and studies" program actively engaged in measures to target Hispanics, "drop outs," and those with criminal records for military service. The Department of Defense, in short, is pulling out all the stops, sparing no expense, and spending at least $16,000 in promotional costs alone for each single soldier signed up.

Obviously the Pentagon wants recruits badly and cash-strapped teens represent one of the best chances to fill uniforms. The military clearly thinks that America`s youth couldn`t really pass your basic intelligence test. Its websites downplay danger and its slick TV commercials show bloodless scenes of adventure and heroism that don`t square with images (and news) now coming home from Iraq to anybody`s neighborhood. From hiccupping recruitment rates, it`s clear, however, that America`s teens already know these ads and websites are missing a few critical elements -- scenes of American troops acting as foreign occupiers, killing civilians, torturing detainees, fanning the flames of discontent, and failing to deliver basic safety or security not just for Iraqis but for their own troops.

Nick Turse works in the Department of Epidemiology at Columbia University. He writes for the Los Angeles Times, the Village Voice and regularly for Tomdispatch on the military-corporate complex and the homeland security state.

Copyright 2005 Nick Turse


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
posted July 12, 2005 at 2:31 pm

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]
"I sometimes feel that Alfred E. Neuman is in charge in Washington." Hillary Rodham Clinton
[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Table align=center]
"Hillary! I am deeply offended by your total lack of respect for Alfred E. Neuman." -- Nancy Gerver
[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]
UNNAMED WHITE HOUSE SOURCE DENIES LEAK
White House Denies Leaking Denial

An unnamed White House source last night vigorously denied leaking classified information about a CIA operative, sending the White House scrambling to identify the source of the leaked denial.

The unnamed source, who identified himself only as “Rarl Kove,” leaked a strongly worded denial of the previous leak in phone conversations with over two hundred newspaper columnists across the country.

“We are not in the business of leaking information,” the unnamed source said.

Ben Trimble, a political columnist for the Canton (OH) Star-Ledger, attempted to STAR-69 the call in order to identify the source of the leaked denial, but to no avail.

“It wouldn’t disclose the phone number or the location,” Mr. Trimble said. “That kind of made me think it was Cheney.”

White House Scott McClellan said that the Administration would launch a “full investigation” into the leaked denials.

“If someone is out there denying leaks, that is very serious business,” Mr. McClellan said. “Denying leaks is my job.”

But moments after Mr. McClellan spoke, columnists received a new round of anonymous phone calls, this time denying that the White House had been the source of the earlier denials.

As the number of anonymous leaks from the White House mounts to a dozen or more a day, newspaper columnists are increasingly signing up for the Federal “do not call” list to keep unnamed White House sources from bothering them at home.

“The first couple of leaks I didn’t mind,” said the Star-Ledger’s Trimble. “But these guys keep calling me at dinnertime.”

Elsewhere, filmmaker Oliver Stone announced that he would direct a movie about 9/11 in which the attacks are masterminded by former president Richard M. Nixon.
http://www.borowitzreport.com/default.asp

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]


[Table align=center]
"The president`s top political adviser, Karl Rove, is spending all his time working on Bush`s next Supreme Court nominee. Well sure, that`s because this judge could decide if Rove is going to prison or not."
[/TABLE]


[Table align=center]
"And the White House announcing next month Dick Cheney will get a colonoscopy. You know, it`s important to get those on a regular basis. You need to get that. In fact, the last time he had one they found one polyp and three oil company executives up there." -- Jay Leno
[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

Das Wunder des verschwindenden US-Haushaltsdefizits.

Ein der Hauptgründe ist $61 BIl groß:
the expiration of a temporary tax break that allowed companies to write off their investment in new equipment much more rapidly than normal.
That tax break reduced revenue by about $61 billion in 2004, but it merely postponed taxes that companies would have to pay once their equipment was fully depreciated.

July 13, 2005
Sharp Increase in Tax Revenue Will Pare U.S. Deficit
By EDMUND L. ANDREWS
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/business/13deficit.html?hp…

WASHINGTON, July 12 - For the first time since President Bush took office, an unexpected leap in tax revenue is about to shrink the federal budget deficit this year, by nearly $100 billion.

On Wednesday, White House officials plan to announce that the deficit for the 2005 fiscal year, which ends in September, will be far smaller than the $427 billion they estimated in February.
[Table align=right]

[/TABLE]
Mr. Bush plans to hail the improvement at a cabinet meeting and to cite it as validation of his argument that tax cuts would stimulate the economy and ultimately help pay for themselves.

Based on revenue and spending data through June, the budget deficit for the first nine months of the fiscal year was $251 billion, $76 billion lower than the $327 billion gap recorded at the corresponding point a year earlier.

The Congressional Budget Office estimated last week that the deficit for the full fiscal year, which reached $412 billion in 2004, could be "significantly less than $350 billion, perhaps below $325 billion."

The big surprise has been in tax revenue, which is running nearly 15 percent higher than in 2004. Corporate tax revenue has soared about 40 percent, after languishing for four years, and individual tax revenue is up as well.

Most of the increase in individual tax receipts appears to have come from higher stock market gains and the business income of relatively wealthy taxpayers. The biggest jump was not from taxes withheld from salaries but from quarterly payments on investment gains and business earnings, which were up 20 percent this year.

That was similar, though much smaller than a sharp rise in tax revenue during the stock market boom of the late 1990`s, which was followed by plunges in revenue when the market bubble burst.

But many independent analysts cautioned that the improvement, though notable, could prove ephemeral and that it did little to eliminate much bigger fiscal problems just over the horizon. "Lawmakers who allow themselves to be lulled into thinking that the economy is growing its way out of the deficit," wrote Edward McKelvey, an economist at Goldman Sachs in New York, "are unlikely to support the painful measures needed to reach a more lasting solution."

For one thing, analysts note, federal spending has continued to climb rapidly, about 7 percent this year. Despite cutbacks in many domestic programs, spending has surged for the war in Iraq as well as in certain benefit programs providing health coverage.

In addition, while a lot of the increase in tax revenue flows from the improving economy and higher incomes, part of the jump stemmed from a special factor: the expiration of a temporary tax break that allowed companies to write off their investment in new equipment much more rapidly than normal.

That tax break reduced revenue by about $61 billion in 2004, but it merely postponed taxes that companies would have to pay once their equipment was fully depreciated.

Other financial hurdles may be down the road. Mr. Bush`s intention to extend his tax cuts indefinitely, and to add new ones, would drain more than $1.4 trillion from government coffers over the next 10 years.

As the Medicare expansion into prescription drugs begins to take effect, the cost is estimated at about $33 billion in 2006, with increases every year after that. In 2015, the annual cost of the program is expected to be about $137 billion.

A senior White House official cautioned that it was too early to make definitive judgments about whether the tax cuts had fulfilled the promises of "supply side" economics, a Reagan era concept that posits a direct relationship between lower tax rates and faster economic growth.

"We need to wait for more data," said Ben S. Bernanke, who took over this month as chairman of President Bush`s Council of Economic Advisers, at a conference on Tuesday at the American Enterprise Institute.

But Mr. Bernanke said the tax cuts had undoubtedly contributed to economic growth, which in turn bolstered tax receipts.

"One consequence of strong income growth is that we are enjoying higher-than-expected levels of tax collections," he said.

Critics of Mr. Bush`s fiscal policies said the budget outlook seemed good only in comparison with the dire state of affairs a year ago. Given that the recession formally ended nearly four years ago and that overall growth has been quite strong for the last two years, they said, the budget ought to be in much better shape.

"It`s only good if you set the bar at $400 billion," said Richard Kogan, a senior economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research organization here. A $300 billion deficit, he said, was "really bad if you remember that we`ve recovered from a recession and you think we are at or near full employment."

Mr. Bush has faced rising budget deficits almost from the moment he took office in 2001. Though the budget had a surplus of more than $100 billion that year, tax revenue plunged as the economy headed into a recession and as Mr. Bush increased military and related spending.

Deficits shot up for each of the next three years, reaching $412 billion last year or, nearly 3.5 percent of the gross domestic product.

Mr. Bush has pledged to cut the budget deficit by 2009 to about $260 billion, and that goal could be within future grasp. If current trends hold, the deficit could amount to less than 3 percent of the gross domestic product - less than in many West European countries that have been hobbled by slow growth and the heavy cost of supporting social welfare programs.

Democrats, expecting the Republicans to trumpet the good news, said on Tuesday that the long-term fiscal outlook remained almost as grim as before.

The immediate challenge is in the continuing costs of the war in Iraq, which are on track to cross the $200 billion level by the end of this year.

A much bigger problem is the impending retirement of baby boomers, with the oldest in that group eligible for Social Security payments starting in 2008.

Social Security`s annual surpluses, which have been running around $150 billion a year, have been a major source of operating cash for the government. But those surpluses will start to decline before the end of the decade, and the program is expected to start running annual deficits in 2017.

Mr. Bush has proposed cutting the growth in future benefits, and has also called for letting people divert some of their payroll taxes to private retirement accounts. House Republicans are pushing a separate proposal to use the Social Security surplus for financing private retirement accounts.

Both proposals would send budget deficits soaring in the next few decades, though supporters say that the government would eventually recoup the money by reducing its benefit costs in the future.

The biggest fiscal threat of all comes from Medicare, the government`s health care program for the elderly. Health costs are growing much faster than the economy as a whole, partly because of new technologies and drugs and partly because of the aging population.

"Future presidents and future Congresses," said Senator Kent Conrad of North Dakota, the ranking Democrat on the Budget Committee, "are going to be faced with pressure to drastically cut Social Security and Medicare because of the decisions being made now."

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Table align=left]

[/TABLE]
[Table align=center]
Informed Comment
[/TABLE][Table align=center]
Thoughts on the Middle East, History,and Religion
[/TABLE]

Juan Cole is Professor of History at the University of Michigan

http://www.juancole.com/
Wednesday, July 13, 2005

Breaks in the London Bomb Case

British police on Tuesday began revealing the contours of their investigation of the London Underground bombings of July 7. The details were heart-wrenching. It appears that the foot soldiers for the operation, at least, were 4 British citizens of South Asian Muslim heritage from the city of Leeds, aged from 19 to 30. Police sent a SWAT team into a house there, after evacuating 500 neighbors, to look for explosives; apparently that was where the bombs were assembled, that were used in the attack. The British police believe that the operational cell would have had a control above it, which still may be operative. They detained one man, apparently a relative of one of the bombers.

Two bombers were named by police, 19 year old Hasib Hussein and 22 year old Shehzad Tanweer. The four were what is called in counter-terrorism parlance "cleanskins," i.e. operatives recruited for a mission who do not have a record and are not known to the authorities, so that they can more easily avoid surveillance.

Al-Sharq al-Awsat says that British authorities have issued 6 arrest warrants based on their searches of houses in Leeds on Tuesday. Via the Daily Mirror it says there are reports that the 4 bombers received al-Qaeda-type commando training, and that another 100 persons have been put under surveillance. Via the Times of London it says that the explosive used were "military" and may have come from the Balkans. [The bomb-maker may have run the cell and may be at large.]

Either the two Arabic-language claims of responsibility for the bombings posted to jihadi web sites last week are frauds, or the Leeds cell was working on behalf of an Arab one.

Police have videotape of the four young men arriving at King`s Cross rail station, wearing huge camper backpacks and seeming relaxed and full of camaraderie. At least three of them died in the explosions. The 19-year-old had gone missing the previous day, and his worried family in Leeds had filed a missing persons report with the police. He appears to have become disoriented and to have missed his chance to enter the subway system, which was closed down when the other three bombs went off. That may be why he took the double decker bus, which is where his bomb went off. Earlier reports mention passengers seeing him fiddle with something in his backpacke. Perhaps his timer had malfunctioned.

A Guardian poll last year showed that British Muslims were angered by "the war on terror" and the Iraq War, that many were deserting the Labour Party en masse, and that about a quarter (up from a sixth) believed British Muslims were too integrated into UK society.

According to this market research newsletter:


` 1. According to the 2001 Census there are 747, 285 Pakistanis living in Britain. Pakistanis are the second largest ethnic minority group behind Indians and make up 1.3% of the total UK population.

2. Pakistanis have settled in large cities all over the UK. Interestingly, unlike many other ethnic minorities, London does not have the largest concentration of Pakistanis. They are found in large numbers in Humberside and Yorkshire, West Midlands and the North West. Glasgow also has a sizeable Pakistani community.

3. Since 9/11, many Pakistanis have faced an increase in racism, especially young men, who are now more likely to be stopped and searched than any other ethnic minority group. They feel that people now view them as terrorists and that the media has become anti-Muslim. Thus in the current political climate, UK born Pakistanis can be more radical and into Islam than those born in Pakistan.

4. Pakistanis in Britain consume both mainstream and specialist television. Among the specialist television channels that are popular within this community are Prime TV and Ary Digital (which are aimed at primarily Pakistani viewers). Zee TV, Star TV and B4U are also popular; these are aimed at the whole of the South Asian community (ie Indians and Bangladeshis as well).`



One important point to note here is that satellite channels like Zee TV and B4U concentrate on South Asian popular culture and Mumbai [Bombay] films, with lots of dancing and flirting, and if they are popular it shows that a lot of the community is not interested in Muslim fundamentalism.

Leeds residents were shocked at the involvement of the Leeds 4, and said that Muslims in Yorkshire were normal and the local mosque moderate. Few could believe these young men could have been the perpetrators. Scratch deeper and you`ll find they had been meeting quietly with a local al-Qaeda recruiter, who instructed them not to display overt piety, so as to throw potential police monitors off the trail.

This Open Society report looks at British Muslims and the labor market.

Readers who have followed this story with me during the past week will know that I was skeptical that British Muslims would have been the perpetrators, since they would have known that their actions would endanger their relatives. But, obviously, the cult these young men joined managed to manipulate their minds to the point where they were no longer capable of thinking about the consequences of their actions for their loved ones, or for the victims, for that matter.

Legislators in democratic societies who are thinking about how to respond to this problem should give serious thought to RICO-like laws that could be used to curb religious cults, which typically isolate members, indoctrinate them, manipulate them, and sometimes coerce them. Cults avoid scrutiny by harassing critics and whistleblowers, often in ways that police find it difficult to respond to. The enormous problems modern societies have had with groups like Christian Identity, the Koreishites, Aum Shinrikyo, and now al-Qaeda, suggests that current legal frameworks are inadequate to address this problem. Ex-members, victims and critics of cults need a legal basis for protection from the cults. The American Family Foundation is doing excellent work in this regard.

posted by Juan @ [url7/13/2005 06:30:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/breaks-in-london-bomb-case-british.html[/url]

Talk of Foreign Troop Withdrawals as Bombs strike Kirkuk, Tal Afar

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari said on Tuesday that some Iraqi cities were secure enough so that US and Coalition troops could withdraw from them soon. He defended, however, a US military presence in the short term, and opposed a precise timetable for US withdrawal.

Al-Hayat says that its sources say the US will begin withdrawing troops at the end of 2005 from provinces where the Iraqi military and security forces can keep the peace. The withdrawal is dependent on the Iraqis being able to finalize a constitution an adopt it through a national referendum, however.

The same source says that two Sunni members of the parliamentary committee for drafting the constitution have received death threats.

In Jalowla near the Iranian border, terrorists detonated a bomb at a Sunni mosque, killing two persons and wounding 16. There have been several bombings of Shiite mosques by Sunni guerrillas, and this action may have been payback. It may also be a further sign that there is an unconventional sectarian civil war in Iraq.

Reuters sums up attacks in Iraq on Tuesday:

In Kirkuk, a suicide bomber killed 3 persons and wounded 15. The victims were civilians, but the bomber had apparently been trying to strike a US military convoy, which had just passed through.

In west Baghdad, guerrillas invaded the offices of a construction company and killed 4 persons, wounding one. The head of the company was killed, along with a human rights worker. In central Baghdad, guerrillas shot Col. Amr Mozer, an Interior Ministry official. A US soldier died in Baghdad of wounds he received earlier in the week from a roadside bomb.

In Musayyib south of the capital, police found the headless body of a man. In this area of Iraq, Sunni-Shiite killings have been common.

In Tel Afar, a roadside bomb killed an Iraqi man and wouned four women and children.

In Basra, a thousand protesters fought riot police in front of the governor`s mansion, and four were injured when the scene turned ugly. The governor had banned automobiles with the steering wheel on the right side (British style), requiring that cars be left-hand-drive. Iraqis have imported tens of thousands of used cars since the fall of Saddam, and one suspects that there is a certain amount of smuggling. Was the law passed by the governor getting in the way of profits?

The Christian Science Monitor reports on the gradual Talabanization of Basra by militant Shiite militias. There has also been a murder wave in the past three months, with over 300 persons killed a month. Some have been Sunnis or Sunni clerics. The article quotes, ` "No alcohol, no music CDs, woman forced to wear hijab, people murdered in the streets - this is not the city I remember," says Samir, an editor of one of Basra`s largest newspapers. `

Iraq has backed off plans to have Iran train some of its military forces. One can only imagine that the pressure from Washington was enormous.

posted by Juan @ [url7/13/2005 06:25:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/talk-of-foreign-troop-withdrawals-as.html[/url]

Daily Kos Must Diaries

Daily Kos`s Mike Pridmore has started an informed and enlightening discussion of Kramer`s attack on Middle East Studies professors in the US.

See also Susan Hu`s diary on the indications that some military bases may be blocking Informed Comment and presumably other similar sources of information on Iraq. I have a lot of .mil readers, and know for a fact that the blog is valued by many intelligence professionals in DC, so it is a shame if it is not available at some bases.

posted by Juan @ [url7/13/2005 06:06:00 AM]http://www.juancole.com/2005/07/daily-kos-must-diaries-daily-koss-mike.html[/url]

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 13, 2005
10 Sunnis Suffocate in Iraqi Police Custody
By JOHN F. BURNS
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/international/middleeast/1…

BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 12 - Iraq`s widely feared police commandos were struggling on Tuesday to explain how at least 10 Sunni Arab men and youths, one only 17, suffocated after a commando unit seized them from a hospital emergency ward and locked them in a police van in summer temperatures exceeding 110 degrees.

As relatives collected the bodies from Baghdad`s main morgue and drove them to a village near Abu Ghraib for burial, Interior Minister Bayan Jabr was meeting with two police generals who run the commando units, preparing for a government statement that Mr. Jabr`s office said would be made Wednesday.

One of the officers, Brig. Gen. Rashid Flaieh, acknowledged in a telephone interview that the victims suffocated inside what he described as "an armored van." But he denied accounts by one survivor that the victims had been kept in the van for more than 12 hours, saying it was "only two hours." He also rejected assertions by doctors who examined the bodies that the victims, in addition to suffocation, had been subjected to torture with electric shocks.

"The van had an air-conditioning system," he said, "but they had a problem with it, and it was the lack of oxygen that caused the deaths."
[Table align=right]

The bodies of Arab laborers lay
outside the morgue of a Baghdad
hospital Monday. Their deaths in
police custody have raised tensions
in Iraq.
[/TABLE]
For the commandos, many of them veterans of Saddam Hussein`s army, police and intelligence units, the incident was the latest in a long series of incidents in which they have been accused of using brutal techniques learned during Mr. Hussein`s years of terror. Doctors who witnessed the victims being dragged from the hospital ward identified the government men as members of the notorious First Brigade of the commandos, but General Flaieh said that the unit involved was a separate police paramilitary force known as the Special Security Force.

What was certain was that the deaths provided a new flashpoint in relations between the American-backed transitional government, in office for 10 weeks, and the country`s Sunni Arab minority, which is already angry and frustrated over the transfer of power to the Shiite majority that the new government represents. Charges of abuse by the police commandos have been one of many obstacles the new government has faced in attempting to draw Sunni Arab groups into the process of writing a new constitution and preparing for fresh elections in December. The commandos have some Sunni commanders, but most of the rank and file is Shiite.

American officers involved in the $11 billion effort to train and equip Iraq`s army and police have privately acknowledged that they know of instances in which police commandos have violated detainees` rights, using various forms of physical abuse. One senior officer said American commanders have insisted to Iraqi generals that the abuse plays into the hands of the insurgents and that it should stop. "But in the end, this is an Iraqi war, and the Iraqis will fight it in their own way," the officer said, in a discussion that he agreed to on condition that he not be named.

Many of the abuses were chronicled in a report issued in January by Human Rights Watch, which found that Iraqi security forces were committing "systematic torture and other abuses."

Among these, it listed cramming detainees "into small cells with standing room only," and depriving detainees of food and water. The report said other torture techniques used by the Iraqi forces included electric shocks to sensitive parts of the body, including earlobes and genitals, and beatings with cables, hosepipes and other implements.

Among the Sunni groups that issued bitter protests on Tuesday about the suffocation deaths were several that were closely involved in negotiations that mitigated the Sunni boycott of January`s elections by adding 15 Sunni Arabs to the 55-member committee that will write the constitution.

That deal, concluded last week, has already proven fragile, and Shiite leaders like Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari have been eager to limit new strains between Shiites and Sunnis as discussions begin over divisive issues like the role of Islam in Iraqi law, and, outside the constitution-making process, over Sunni demands for a timetable for American troop withdrawals.

A disputed point in accounts of Sunday`s events was what the men who died were doing in Baghdad. Officials of a major Sunni group, the Muslim Clerics` Association, said Tuesday that they had spoken with one survivor, whom they identified as Diya Adnan Saleh, who said he was one of 12 bricklayers from Abu Ghraib, who had driven into Baghdad in a minibus early Sunday and headed for a site in the district of Amariya where building contractors hire men for casual work. Officials at the clerics` group refused to give contact information for Mr. Saleh, saying he was among mourners attending the funerals at the village of Krosheen near Abu Ghraib.

The officials said the minibus carrying the men, including three high school students, one of them 17, four college students, and an older man with two of his sons, ran into gunfire from Iraqi troops in Amariya.

Another account, by a police officer who said he had spoken with some of the commandos after the victims suffocated, said the gunfire had come from American troops after a Humvee convoy had been hit by a roadside bomb. A spokesman for the Third Infantry Division, responsible for overall security in Baghdad, said there was no record of any such incident involving American troops in Amariya on Sunday.

But General Flaieh, the police official, insisted that the men in the minibus were insurgents and that they had fled Amariya after taking fire from Iraqi troops that left them with three casualties, including one man who was killed.

Officials at the Interior Ministry who said they were familiar with an investigation into the men`s deaths, and who spoke on condition that they not be named, noted that the victims came from two Sunni Arab tribes, the Dulaimis and the Zobaas, that have been deeply involved in the insurgency. The officials also noted that the Abu Ghraib area, where the men came from, has been a major insurgent stronghold. All accounts agreed that after the shooting, the minivan drove about seven miles back across northwestern Baghdad to Noor Hospital in Shuala, a mainly Shiite district that is close to Abu Ghraib. General Flaieh said men from the Special Security Unit, with casualties of their own from the Amariya shooting, arrived soon after and were told by hospital guards that there were wounded insurgents being treated in the emergency ward.

"When the commanders entered the ward with their injured men, they recognized the faces and the clothes of some of the other men there and said that they were the ones who had attacked them," said Dr. Khudair Abbas Muhammad, the hospital director.

"At that point, some of the men from Abu Ghraib began to run off," he said, "but the commandos set off after them, and there was chaos. Eventually, the commandos captured them all, including the injured men, and took them away. That was all we knew until we heard that the dead bodies of most of the men were delivered on Monday to the Yarmouk Hospital in Baghdad."

An officer in a police unit attached to Yarmouk Hospital who requested anonymity because he feared reprisal said that an officer with the police commandos` First Brigade, Col. Muhammad Hmood, arrived at the hospital late on Sunday night, about 14 hours after the arrests at Noor Hospital. The officer said Colonel Hmood led attendants to four closed Chevrolet pick-ups carrying eight bodies and four men who were unconscious, two of whom subsequently died. "The colonel said the men were terrorists who had attacked an American convoy, and that they had accidentally suffocated," the police officer said.

The officer said that one of the men who arrived at Yarmouk hospital unconscious but later recovered was Mr. Saleh, the survivor quoted by the Muslim Clerics` Association. "Diya Saleh told us, `The Interior Ministry commandos who arrested us at Noor Hospital put us in a van, and then took us out and tortured us,` " the officer said. "We called for doctors to look after the men still breathing, and then a pathologist came and looked at the bodies. He said that they had been tortured, with injuries caused by electric shocks."

Before dawn on Monday, the police officer said, four other police commandos arrived in a black Daewoo sedan, three of them wearing the commandos` black uniforms and a fourth in civilian clothes. The officer said that when the commandos demanded to know where Mr. Saleh was, the men assigned to the hospital police unit assumed they had come to kill him, to eliminate him as a witness. "So we called the officers at Mahmoun," the officer said, naming a local police station, "and asked them to help us. When they heard that, the commandos disappeared."

The police officer added, "What happened to those men from Abu Ghraib was a crime against the Iraqi people. When their relatives arrived to claim the bodies, I heard them saying many bad things about the police. With crimes like this, it`s not hard to see why the insurgents keep on attacking the police. Those in authority should do something to stop it."

Reporting for this article was contributed by Khalid al-Ansary, Layla Isitfan, Thayer Aldaami, Qais Mizher, Ali Adeeb and Mofeed Agha.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

July 13, 2005
A Few Thoughts on Karl Rove
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/13/opinion/13wed1.html

Far be it for us to denounce leaks. Newspapers have relied on countless government officials to divulge vital information that their bosses want to be kept secret. There is even value in the sanctioned leak, such as when the White House, say, lets out information that it wants known but does not want to announce.

But it is something else entirely when officials peddle disinformation for propaganda purposes or to harm a political adversary. And Karl Rove seems to have been playing that unsavory game with the C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, a career diplomat who ran afoul of President Bush`s efforts to justify the invasion of Iraq. An e-mail note provided by Time magazine to the federal prosecutor investigating the case shows that Mr. Rove`s aim in talking about Ms. Wilson to Matthew Cooper, a Time reporter, was to discredit Mr. Wilson, perhaps to punish him.

Mr. Wilson had published an Op-Ed article in The Times about being assigned to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from Niger - a claim that was popular among the White House and Pentagon officials eager to make the case for war with Iraq. Mr. Wilson said the allegation was unsupported by evidence, and it was later withdrawn, to Mr. Bush`s embarrassment.

Before that happened, Mr. Rove gave Mr. Cooper a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Mr. Rove said the origins of Mr. Wilson`s mission were "flawed and suspect" because, according to Mr. Rove, Mr. Wilson had been sent to Niger at the suggestion of his wife, who works for the Central Intelligence Agency. To understand why Mr. Rove thought that was a black mark, remember that the White House considers dissenters enemies and that the C.I.A. had cast doubt on the administration`s apocalyptic vision of Iraq`s weapons programs.

Mr. Cooper`s e-mail note does not say that Mr. Rove mentioned the name of Mr. Wilson`s wife, which later appeared in a column by Robert Novak. White House supporters are emphasizing that fact in an effort to argue that Mr. Rove did not illegally unmask a covert officer. We don`t need to judge that here. But there remains the issue of whether the White House used Mr. Wilson`s wife for political reasons, and it`s obvious that Mr. Rove did.

The White House has painted itself into a corner. More than a year ago, Mr. Bush vowed to fire the leaker. Then Scott McClellan, the president`s spokesman, repeatedly assured everyone that the leaker was not Mr. Rove, on whom the president is so dependent intellectually that he calls Mr. Rove "the architect."

Until this week, the administration had deflected attention onto journalists by producing documents that officials had been compelled to sign to supposedly waive any promise of confidentiality. Our colleague Judith Miller, unjustly jailed for protecting the identity of confidential sources, was right to view these so-called waivers as meaningless.

Mr. Rove could clear all this up quickly. All he has to do is call a press conference and tell everyone what conversations he had and with whom. While we like government officials who are willing to whisper vital information, we like even more government officials who tell the truth in public.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

[Table align=center]

[/TABLE]

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

Drei Artikel aus der WaPost, nur als Link:


[urlGOP on Offense in Defense of Rove]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/12/AR2005071200093.html?nav=hcmodule[/url]

Die unterschiedlichen rechtlichen Auffasungen zum Quellenschutz:
[urlLegal Analysts Critical of N.Y. Times Reporter`s Stance in Leak Probe]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/12/AR2005071201402.html?nav=hcmodule[/url]

Dann, wer erinnert sich noch an den bis jetzt gescheiterten Versuch Bolton die Treppe zum UN-Botschafter raufzuschubsen und die Ablehnung im Ausschuß. Nun würde der Neocon-Hardliner sogar eine Nominierung auf Zeit akzeptieren, eine `Recess Appointment`, d.h. eine Benennung durch den Präsidenten während der Senatferien. Solch eine Ernennung würde ohne Zustimmung vom Senat erfolgen können, aber nur für einen befristeten Zeitraum.
[urlBolton May Accept Recess Appointment]http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/12/AR2005071201319.html?nav=hcmodule[/url]