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Editorial: Why Is The Us Government So Afraid Of Justice In The Case Of Dr. Rafil Dhafir?
By Katherine Hughes
18 December 2006
Urgent Request For Funds To Buy Trial Transcripts in defense of a blessed man wrongfully convicted by the Bush Justice Department for his crime of compassion:
In direct response to the humanitarian catastrophe created by the brutal and unjustifiable U.S. and U.K. sponsored UN embargo on Iraq, Dr. Rafil Dhafir started the charity Help the Needy (HTN). For 13 years he worked tirelessly to help publicize the plight of the Iraqi people and to raise funds to help them.
According to the US government, he donated $1.25 million of his own money. As an oncologist, he was particularly concerned about the effects of depleted uranium and skyrocketing Iraqi cancer rates. Because of this humanitarian work he has been incarcerated since February 26, 2003.
Bankrupting Dr.Dhafir was just one of the many tools the Bush Justice Department employed to make it impossible for him to defend himself. They also held him without bail for 31 months and denied him access to his counsel and his own records. He is now serving 22 years in jail for a crime he was never charged with in a court of law.
Although convicted as a white-collar criminal, the US government touts Dr. Dhafir's case as a success in its war on terror. In the most recent obstruction of justice in the case, the government is attempting to reverse an appeal court decision to grant Dr. Dhafir his transcripts at the court's expense; they are almost certain to be successful.
Transcripts are the bedrock of an appeal process and will cost about $22,000. It is 14 months since Dr. Dhafir's sentencing and we have been unable to move forward with the appeal because we don't have the transcripts or the funds to get them.
The vigor of the government's denial of due process from the outset of this case is appalling and a deliberate act of vengeance against this man. One can only wonder why despite the fact that the odds for a successful appeal are abysmal - a mere 5 percent - the government still feels it necessary to inhibit Dr. Dhafir's quest for justice.
During the McCarthy era, Judge Irving Kaufman warned once we embark on shortcuts by creating a category of obviously guilty whose rights are denied, we run the risk that the circle of the unprotected will grow. It is incumbent upon each of us to defend civil liberties for all, not least because injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
PLEASE HELP US ACHIEVE JUSTICE BY SENDING A DONATION FOR ANY AMOUNT, NO MATTER HOW SMALL OR LARGE, TO: "DHAFIR APPEAL FUND." MAKE CHECKS PAYABLE TO:
PETER GOLDBERGER ESQ., ATTORNEY AT LAW, 50 RITTENHOUSE PLACE, ARDMORE, PA 19003. WRITE "DR. RAFIL DHAFIR APPEAL FUND"IN THE MEMO LINE. PLEASE NOTE THAT DONATIONS ARE NOT TAX DEDUCTIBLE.
Thank you,
Katherine Hughes
For the Dr. Rafil Dhafir Support Committee.
For more information about the case see my recent
Fellowship
(Fellowship of
Reconciliation) article:
http://www.forusa.org/fellowship/nov-dec06/KatherineHughes.html
If you would like to join the Dr. Dhafir Support
Committee contact:
MacGregor Eddy
P.O Box 5789
Salinas CA 93915
Email: mindful@redshift.com
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Editorial: Options after the Deconstruction of Iraq
December 18, 2006
by Rodrigue Tremblay
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."
Dick Cheney, August 26, 2002
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons."
George W. Bush, September 12, 2002
"Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons."
George W. Bush, March 18, 2003
"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."
Paul Wolfowitz, May 28, 2003
"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them.."
George W. Bush, May 30, 2003
Wars of aggression are the most barbarous of all human endeavors and are, more often than not, the instruments of insane tyrants who hear voices. Wars are also waged by warlike gambling leaders who bet their citizens' houses to fulfill their megalomaniac dreams of grandeur -And the illegal military invasion of Iraq was a gigantic gamble from the start. What's more, it is a war that was planned and executed on the basis of fabricated lies. It was a war based on false pretenses and on false perceptions of the Muslim Middle East. For example, it is not true that Middle Eastern Muslims hate the West "because they hate our way of life, our freedom, and our democracy." Polls indicate that such ideas are simply based on ignorant prejudices. This wicked war will be judged by history as one of the most blatant abuses of power by any American administration ever.
In the process, the Bush-Cheney team, through a combination of design and blunder, has inflamed the entire Middle East, from Iraq and Afghanistan, to Palestine and Lebanon, and soon, to Iran, and possibly Syria, Saudi Arabia and even Turkey. In Iraq, nearly four years after the March 20, 2003 invasion of the country, the mess and the destruction are complete, leaving behind a genuine humanitarian catastrophe and a political near-debacle.
United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan, for one, has concluded that the "average Iraqi's life" is worse now than it was under Saddam Hussein and that the situation in Iraq is now "much worse" than a civil war. Even some republican senators now say openly that Bush's war in Iraq may be 'criminal'. Only President George W. Bush and his Rasputin-like vice president, it seems, continue to think that their wrecking-crew Middle East policy makes any sense. Even departing Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld rejects bluntly their stubborn "stay-the-course" and "must-complete-the-mission" policy.
However, departing Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld amazingly listed 20 tactical options for U.S. policy in Iraq, but no strategic option. It seems that among G. W. Bush's sorcerer's apprentices, there are a few tacticians, but no strategist. This may understandable in a government of ideologues. For the Bush-Cheney administration, ideology is a strategy in itself, and it is this neoconservative dogma that cannot ever be questioned or modified without loosing face. Even if all the rosy neocon assumptions about Iraq and the Middle East have turned out to be wrong and wrong-headed, George W. Bush has bet his entire presidency on the foolish enterprise and would need a credible face-saving solution to extirpate himself from the mess he himself created. As an immature person and as the bully-in-chief, as he has recently been labeled by economist Paul Krugman of the New York Times, G. W. Bush cannot face the failure of his adventure in Iraq and will remain in a state of denial as long as he is allowed to do so by Congress.
And now, the 10-member Baker-Hamilton bipartisan commission has made it unanimous and officially concluded that Bush's Iraq policies have failed. But, amazingly, the Commission watered downed its recommendations for fear that Bush would reject them out of hand. As a consequence, its 79-some recommendations deal more with tactical changes than fundamental strategic realignments. For one, the Commission refrained from calling for a timetable for a real withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq or even for a real troops reduction. In this sense, the Baker-Hamilton commission did not produce the face-saving plan of withdrawal from Iraq that the current U. S. President and American politicians from both sides of the isle could have leaned on to extirpate themselves from the blunder they made in the fall of 2002. Secondly, the report did not establish how the Iraq adventure is a costly distraction from the real threat of Islamist al Qaeda-type terrorism, which is in resurgence in Afghanistan and in Pakistan.
But all is not completely bleak, even if you are a Neocon who has been "mugged by reality." Indeed, obliterating Iraq from the map, as a country opposed to Israel, and taking control of its oil reserves, were the core objectives behind the pro-Israel neocon policy of invading that country; they were well camouflaged under the terms "liberation" and "democracy". It's not sure, therefore, that the mess that the Bush-Cheney administration has created in Iraq was solely the result of abysmal ignorance and incompetence.
When George W. Bush invaded Iraq in March 2003, he did not only topple the Saddam Hussein regime, one of George W. Bush's juvenile fantasies, but he made sure that the entire infrastructure of the country was also destroyed: the army was dismembered, security services were abolished, and, the ruling Sunni-dominated Baath Party was dissolved and its members purged from any administrative positions. An enormous political vacuum resulted, opening the gates to a bloody civil war between the Sunnis in the center, the Chiites in the south and the Kurds in the north.
In this sense, the debacle in Iraq was a planned failure. The final chapter of this drama would be the official break-up of the country into pieces along religious and/or ethnic lines, to the great satisfaction of two countries, i.e. Iran and Israel, the only two countries bound to profit directly from the fragmentation of Iraq.
This is probably what we are going to witness in the coming months. But, just as President Richard Nixon promised to get Americans out of Vietnam in 1968, and only succeeded in doing in 1973, after 20,000 more young Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese died there, President George W. Bush will try to temporize and save face, as thousands more Americans and Iraqis die. -It is a terrible shame.
Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com
Also visit his blog site at www.thenewamericanempire.com/blog.
Author's Website: www.thenewamericanempire.com
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Editorial: Tehran's Holocaust Conference: No Matter What Ahmadinejad Does He'll be Portrayed as the New Hitler
By STEPHEN GOWANS
December 16 / 17, 2006
CounterPunch
Was the two-day conference on the Holocaust held earlier this month by the Iranian government intended to cast "doubt on the Nazi Holocaust during the Second World War," (1) or was it Iran's rejoinder to the Jyllands-Posten affair, an attempt "to embarrass the West and say, 'Look, we are practicing what you preach. We are allowing freedom of discussion of just about any issue, including the Holocaust'"? (2)
It's pretty clear how Western journalists summed up the event. The point of the conference was to assemble the world's most notorious Holocaust-deniers and Jew haters, among them KKK kook David Duke, to lend support to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claims that the Holocaust is a myth and to cheer on the Iranian president as he prepares to perpetrate a genocide against the Jews and 'wipe out' Israel.
The problem is, matters aren't quite as black and white as all that. Not even close.
Let's start with the claim that Ahmadinejad "has referred to the Holocaust as a 'myth'" (3), a claim made by almost every major media outlet in North America.
Ahmadinejad may have said the Holocaust is a myth, but if he has, it has escaped my attention. Of course, I don't follow him around with a tape-recorder and babel fish in my ear, so maybe I missed it. Still, the file of Ahmadinejad quotes I have before me, which goes back two years, hasn't a single quote that backs up the near media consensus that Ahmadinejad has "repeatedly called the Holocaust a myth," (4) let alone called it one even once. Which is odd. Considering that demonizing the leader of the next oil-rich country on the White House list of targets slated for take-over has become something of a sport in the Western media, you'd think the "no, there never was a Holocaust" quote would be a simple matter to unearth and thrust before the world, like Iraq's WMD. Oh, right.
In the stories that followed the conference, there were dozens of Ahmadinejad quotes, which, if you read them carefully, played opposite type (they didn't say what the headlines said they said) but not one of them had Ahmadinejad saying "Holocaust? Pshaw -- as phony as an all-beef hotdog."
True, Ahmadinejad has played around the edges of the issue, saying things that amount to "maybe it did or maybe it didn't happen, but either way, it doesn't justify what was done to the Palestinians." Always, the emphasis is on the Holocaust as a political construct, not an historical reality. That's not quite in the same league as David Irving, the writer who was jailed in Austria for denying the Holocaust.
Regarding headlines that misrepresent the story they lead, take the "Israel will be 'wiped out'" headline that appeared in the Toronto Star on December 12, a photo of Ahmadinejad nearby just to make clear who was uttering the alleged threat. Outgoing US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, is using quotes like this to bring a suit against Ahmadinejad before the International Court of Justice on charges of genocide. Bolton, who the north Koreans once called "human scum," accuses the Iranian president of "calling for the destruction of Israel." The Guardian ran the Bolton-accused-Ahmadinejad-of-genocide story on December 13, under the headline "Move to bring genocide case against Ahmadinejad as Iran president repeats call to wipe out Israel." Bolton's suit also refers to "numerous threats against the United States" Ahmadinejad is alleged to have made, which says that what Bolton has oodles of in the human scum department, is matched by equal oodles of in the chutzpah department.
Did Ahmadinejad really threaten to wipe out Israel? No more than scientists predicting the melting of the polar ice caps are threatening to melt them themselves. What Ahmadinejad did say was that, "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon the same way the Soviet Union was" (5) a prediction, not a threat. And since the Soviet Union wasn't wiped out in a hail of nuclear missiles, a storm of terrorist attacks, or an epidemic sparked by biological weapons, it might be safe to conclude that Ahmadinejad expects Israel to collapse through self-inflicted wounds the way the Soviet Union did and not under a barrage of nuclear missiles launched from Tehran.
In the Iranian president's view, the days of Israel, as Zionist state, are numbered because it was founded on injustice, and therefore stands on rotten foundations. When the UN carved a Jewish homeland out of someone else's homeland, and without consulting a single Palestinian, it created a Chimera whose existence would always depend on sponsorship by imperialist powers, and unremitting, massive infusions of aid. In other words, Israel has been artificially kept alive from the start.
Elections, explained Ahmadinejad, should be held among "Jews, Christians and Muslims" in Palestine (by which he means Israel, Gaza and the West Bank together) "so that the population.can select their government and destiny for themselves in a democratic manner." (6) That's a far cry from raining down nuclear missiles on Tel Aviv to wipe out Jews, but is much more compelling a story if your aim is to shape public opinion in ways that favor a possible future intervention in Iran.
The whole sordid business of the Holocaust conference, and earlier, the Holocaust International Cartoon Contest, would never have happened had the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, not run flagrantly racist cartoons mocking the prophet Mohamed, and had Western governments not dismissed the resultant flap as an over-reaction by a bunch of hot-headed Mohammedans. It's a free speech issue, the West's politicos said. You Muslims -- simmer down.
What a crock, retorted Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. "In this freedom, casting doubt or negating the genocide of the Jews is banned, but insulting the beliefs of 1.5 billion Muslims is allowed." (7) Bull's eye.
With the Jyllands-Posten scandal still resonating, Iran's largest newspaper, Hamshari, counterpunched. It would sponsor a carton contest to mock the Holocaust. If you can mock the prophet Mohamed, and say it's a free speech issue, then surely we can mock the Holocaust, and say the same.
As it turned out, the cartoons didn't do much mocking. They didn't present the genocide of Europe's Jews as a myth, or mock its victims. Instead, they explored the themes of Israeli brutality against the Palestinians, use of the Holocaust to justify anti-Palestinian crimes, and parallels between Israel and Nazi Germany.
Judge for yourself. The drawings showed: A vampire wearing a Star of David drinking the blood of Palestinians; Ariel Sharon in a Nazi uniform; three army helmets together, two with swastikas and one with the Star of David; a rabid dog with a Star of David on its side and the word Holocaust around its collar; a dove prevented from flying because it is chained to a Star of David; US president George Bush seated at a desk swatting doves; an Israeli asleep with three Arab heads mounted to the wall above his bed; an Israeli soldier pouring fuel into a tank from a gasoline can that reads Holocaust on the side; a razor blade in the ground, representing the illegal Israeli-built separation wall, bearing the word Holocaust; two firefighters, each with Stars of David on their chests, using Palestinian blood to extinguish flames issuing from the word Holocaust. (8)
While the director of the exhibit correctly pointed out to a New York Times reporter that the drawings were anti-Israeli and anti-Zionist, not anti-Jewish, the newspaper nevertheless ran the story under the headline "Iran exhibits anti-Jewish art." (9) Conflation of Israel and Zionism with Jew, and therefore anti-Israel and anti-Zionist with anti-Jewish, is a handy howitzer to have around whenever you need to blow away opposition to Israel.
This month's conference was similarly described as anti-Jewish and while the conference certainly featured a cast of unsavory Jew-haters, not all the participants were of the same stripe.
Shiraz Dossa, an admirer of Noam Chomsky and Hannah Arendt, who teaches Third World politics at St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia, delivered a paper on the abuse of the Holocaust to justify the war on terror. Dossa calls the Holocaust a reality and says that "anyone who denies it is a lunatic." (10) He accepted the invitation to speak at the conference to help Tehran make its point: That the West's commitment to freedom of speech extends only to insulting someone else's sacred cows.
Last point: If the real aim of the conference was to call the Holocaust into question, it would hardly make sense to assemble a gang of hacks, flakes and whack-jobs whose credibility is nil. On the other hand, if the aim was to show that free speech doesn't justify a repellent, silly, and disgusting display, inviting David Duke and his gaggle of misfits, was the right stroke.
Still, no matter how vigorously Ahmadinejad plays to Western public opinion, he can't win. Some will say his moves are bone-headed, and, in the end, they are, not because they alienate Western public opinion, but because he thinks he can win it over. He can't, unless he can cut through the West's mass media and that won't happen. The point about tolerance of freedom of speech will hardly be grasped by Americans or Britons or Canadians. No matter what he does, he will be portrayed as the new Hitler. That's how many leaders of countries on the US hit list are eventually portrayed. That's how they must be portrayed.
Stephen Gowans is a writer and political activist who lives in Ottawa, Canada. He can be reached at: sr.gowans@sympatico.ca
(1) "Israel will be 'wiped out'", AP, December 12, 2006.
(2) "Canadian prof attends Tehran's gathering of Holocaust deniers," Globe and Mail, December 13, 2006.
(3) AP, December 12, 2006.
(4) "Even a scholar's academic freedom has its limits," The Globe and Mail, December 14, 2006.
(5) AP, December 12, 2006.
(6) Ibid
(7) New York Times, February 8, 2006.
(8) New York Times, August 25, 2006.
(9) Ibid
(10) Globe and Mail, December 13, 2006.
Original
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Zionists - The Final Solution - Part 2
Israeli undercover troops kill two Fatah gunmen in West Bank
By Amos Harel, Haaretz Correspondent and News agenciesLast update - 15:55 19/12/2006
Undercover Israeli security forces in the West Bank shot dead two Palestinian militants in separate incidents on Tuesday, one of them a commander of the Fatah Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade in Tul Karm, Palestinian officials said.
They said Mohammed Minas, 23, an Al-Aqsa commander in northern Tul Karm, was shot down by undercover Border Police troops, and a second man was arrested in the raid.
In the afternoon, an undercover border police unit raided the village of Zayde, northeast of Tul Karm, and infiltrated Minas's garage.
Army sources stated that Minas noticed the troops, drew his pistol and was shot dead by the soldiers. In his car, troops found two explosive devices, which IDF sappers then dismantled.
Earlier in the day, a special undercover Israeli police unit opened fire at three Palestinians near a hospital in the West Bank city of Nablus early Tuesday, killing one and wounding two, medical sources said.
The army said its troops identified a vehicle carrying three wanted men, surrounded it and opened fire when the men attempted to escape.
The special unit shot and killed a gunman identified as Alaa Anav, 24, of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs, and injured two other members of the group, while they were sitting in a car near the Ittihad hospital, the sources said.
Israeli media reported that the Israeli force attempted to arrest
the three and opened fire when they tried to escape.
Witnesses reported that shortly after the shooting, a large army force raided the hospital to arrest the two wounded Palestinians and blocked entrances to the Balata refugee camp while it conducted military operations there.
According to IDF sources, the wanted men were involved in the planning of suicide attacks in Israel and received training from Hizbollah in Lebanon.
Comment: Undercover Israel death squads are at work in the occupied territories. This article chronicles one of their hits. But for every hit that makes the news, how many are being conducted and blamed on one or the other faction of Palestinians?
It would be the height of naivité to think that such false flag black ops are not being carried out. Israel wants civil war among the Palestinians so that they kill each other off and do not unite against the occupier. It is the same tactic being used in Iraq.
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Gunbattles rage in Gaza
AP
Published: 19 December 2006
Gun battles raged between Hamas loyalists and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's forces in Gaza City on Tuesday, killing at least three people and reviving fears the strip was sliding into civil war.
Hospital officials said the bodies of two security men loyal to Abbas's Fatah faction had also been dumped in a street after they were abducted earlier in the day.
Concerned events were spinning out of control, Western and Arab nations urged a halt to the fighting.
The internal violence, the worst in living memory, has escalated since Abbas called for early elections on Saturday in an attempt to break a political deadlock with the Hamas government. Hamas has accused Abbas of launching a "coup".
Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, a senior Hamas leader, was expected to make a speech in Gaza at 6 p.m. (1600 GMT) to respond to Abbas's election call. Hamas has said it would boycott any polls.
In Gaza City, civilians fled for safety and some shops closed as gunmen fought running battles with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades.
"This is madness," said taxi driver Adel Mohammad-Ali, 40. "The streets are divided between Hamas and Fatah gunmen. You never know who is who."
Abbas issued a statement calling on all factions "without exception" to observe a ceasefire agreed late on Sunday but which barely lasted 24 hours.
U.S. Secretary of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the violence had to stop.
"We hope that there will in fact be a ceasefire between the parties. That is very important," Rice said in an interview with Al Arabiya television to be broadcast later on Tuesday.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert traveled to Jordan for unannounced talks with King Abdullah.
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Regional powerhouse Saudi Arabia urged Palestinians to overcome their differences.
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said Egyptian security officials had brokered a deal for members of rival security services to leave the streets and return to their headquarters.
The deal required various factions to also free hostages they were holding, ministry spokesman Khaled Abu Hilal said.
Abbas said on Monday he was committed to early elections but left the door open for the formation of a Fatah-Hamas coalition with a "technocrat" cabinet that could satisfy the West.
Hamas and Fatah tried for months to form a unity government to end a power struggle, but talks foundered, essentially over Hamas's unwillingness to soften its stance toward Israel. Hamas beat Fatah in January elections.
TRADING BLAME
Both Hamas and Fatah blamed each other for the surge in street fighting in Gaza City.
Two security men from a force loyal to Fatah were among those killed, hospital officials said. Five children were wounded after getting caught in crossfire.
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Witnesses and rival factions said a Hamas policeman was killed in an earlier clash at Gaza's main hospital.
Around a dozen people have been wounded in total.
Fatah sources said the two abducted men had been "executed" by a Hamas-led police unit. A Hamas police spokesman denied the force had abducted or killed anyone.
Hamas, which advocates Israel's destruction, has struggled to govern since taking office in March under the weight of Western sanctions imposed because of its refusal to recognize the Jewish state and renounce violence.
The West has sought to bolster Abbas, who favors a two-state solution to end conflict with Israel.
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Policeman killed in hospital gun battle between Hamas and Fatah
AP
19/12/2006
Fierce gun battles erupted in the streets of Gaza City early today between forces of the rival Hamas and Fatah movements, killing one Hamas militant and leaving a shaky truce in tatters.
The sound of automatic gunfire could be heard throughout Gaza City, and a Fatah installation was attacked with mortar fire - the latest unrest in a week of factional fighting that shows few signs of easing despite Sunday's truce declaration.
At least 11 people were wounded and a Hamas gunman was kidnapped, officials said. [...]
Hamas and Fatah representatives reiterated their commitment to preserving Sunday's truce, but the latest fighting signalled the deal has all but collapsed.
"What is going on is a violation and sabotage and I have called on both parties to shoulder their responsibility and to end what is going on in the streets," said Ibrahim Abu al-Najah, a mediator who sponsored Sunday's truce. "No one is taking advantage of what is going on except for the enemy of the nation."
Hamas and Fatah have been locked in a power struggle since the Islamic group defeated Fatah in legislative elections in January. Abbas' Fatah party controls the presidency, while Hamas controls parliament and the Palestinian Cabinet, putting it in charge of most government functions.
Prime minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas planned to deliver a televised speech later today to discuss the situation.
The latest wave of fighting broke out last week, with tensions heightening after president Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah announced plans to call early elections over the weekend. Hamas has condemned the plan as a coup.
Today's fighting began after a member of the Fatah-controlled intelligence service arrived at the hospital with a broken leg. He was accompanied by two armed colleagues. Hamas militiamen guarding the hospital blocked the entry of the armed men and attempted to arrest them.
When more Fatah forces arrived on the scene, they were fired upon, sparking the gunfight, Fatah officials said.
Hamas accused Fatah of storming the hospital, and said a 23-year-old member of a Hamas police unit was killed. It also said one of its men was kidnapped, describing the incident as "an awful crime committed by elements affiliated with the general terror services".
The battle raged for nearly an hour, sending children scurrying for cover as they made their way to school.
Rival gunmen took up positions of rooftops, some firing rocket-propelled grenades at each other.
The fighting later spread to one of the main offices of the intelligence service, which was attacked by mortars and grenades, security officials said. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Supporters of the rival factions each took to the streets in Gaza. Fatah posters condemned the growing chaos. One read: "There is no bread left and no security, what else?" Another showed a woman embracing her child and saying "where are the killers?"
In the northern town of Jebaliya, about 50 pro-Hamas schoolchildren stood on a roadside holding posters that said "No to chaos. Yes to our good government."
The children waved to passing motorists, and Hamas militiamen patrolled major intersections.
Hamas and Fatah representatives reiterated their commitment to preserving Sunday's truce, but the latest fighting signalled the deal has all but collapsed.
"What is going on is a violation and sabotage and I have called on both parties to shoulder their responsibility and to end what is going on in the streets," said Ibrahim Abu al-Najah, a mediator who sponsored Sunday's truce. "No one is taking advantage of what is going on except for the enemy of the nation."
The truce brought a relative lull to Gaza yesterday, but after nightfall the fighting quickly resumed. Gunfire could be heard throughout the night around the area of Abbas' Gaza residence and the pro-Fatah national security compound.
There were no reports of injuries, but Palestinian ambulances said they came under fire in the exchanges. Abbas was at his headquarters in the West Bank.
Another brief gun battle broke out in the morning as masked gunmen opened fire on presidential guards who were manning a roadblock at the entrance to Abbas' home. Abbas was in Ramallah at the time.
Tensions have been high since Abbas' efforts to form a moderate unity government with Hamas collapsed in late November. Abbas had sought a coalition in hopes of ending international sanctions against the Hamas-led government, which has been isolated due to its refusal to recognise Israel.
The tensions turned violent last week after three young sons of a Fatah security officer were gunned down. The fighting worsened after Abbas' announcement on Saturday that he would call new elections to end the impasse.
Prime minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, who has said the party would boycott a new vote, planned to deliver a major speech later today, his office said.
Despite the fighting, Abbas yesterday said he would push ahead with the new elections. With prime minister Tony Blair by his side, Abbas also reached out to Israel in hopes momentum toward peacemaking would provide an electoral edge over Hamas. The United States tentatively endorsed Abbas' call for early elections.
"My understanding of this is that - within the basic law - that this is not prohibited," McCormack said. "It's not specifically accounted for, but it's not prohibited."
An opinion poll indicated Abbas was in a tie with the most popular Hamas politician, prime minister Ismail Haniyeh. Abbas' aides said he hopes his new decisiveness, coupled with progress in negotiations with Israel, will boost his popularity.
Abbas also said he was ready to meet with Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert.
After meeting with Blair late yesterday, the Israeli leader said he hoped to have a summit with Abbas "very soon" and said officials from both sides were working on the preparations.
Comment: Indeed it is sabotage - by Israeli undercover operatives.
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Army abducts eight Palestinian men including three brothers from Hebron
IMEMC & Agencies
18 December 2006
The Israeli army on Monday morning abducted eight Palestinian men from several parts of the southern West Bank city of Hebron.
Israeli troops invaded Hebron, the old city, and also surrounding villages Bani Nu'em, Dora, and Beit Kahil near Hebron. During the invasion, the Israeli soldiers searched and ransacked scores of resident's houses and took the seven men to unknown detention camps, local sources reported.
The house of Hisham Al Ja'fari, in the eastern part of Hebron city, was attacked in the morning. Troops searched the houses, damaged some of the family belongings and abducted three of Hisham's sons, Iyad, 24, Mohamed, 22, Ahmad, 20.
Both Mohamed and Ahmad were released after being detained for several hours and questioned by the Israeli army while Iyad was moved to a detention camp, controlled by the army, the family reported. Also, in the city of Hebron, Israeli troops raided resident's houses in the Al Arob refugee camp and took Khadir Al Najmah, 23, prisoner.
Khalil Al Jundi, 33, his brother Tha'er, 21, and Yousif Al Suwiti, 25, were taken away when Israeli forces invaded Dora village near Hebron city and attacked the resident's houses. Palestinian sources stated that both Khalil and Yousif are security officer in the Palestinian security forces in Hebron city. In addition, troops abducted Khalil Zuhur, 30, after surrounding and searching his house in Beit Kahil village just outside Hebron city.
The Israeli forces also abducted on Monday morning Hamza Izrikat, 23, from nearby Tafuha village, north of Hebron, after Israeli soldiers forced the family of 12 members into one small room of the house, then searched and ransacked it.
Elsewhere, south of Hebron city, troops attacked Sourif village assaulted residents and their houses and searched them before taking Ibrahem Abu Farah to an unknown detention camp, his family reported.
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Israeli Army kills one, wounds two, in abductions in Nablus
IMEMC & Agencies
19 December 2006
Israeli undercover special agents killed one Palestinian and abducted two others in the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank city of Nablus, Palestinian sources reported on Tuesday morning.
Sources stated that Rami Innab, 25, a leader of the Aqsa brigades, the armed wing of Fatah, was killed and his two companions Imad Abu Mussallam and Talal Abu Lail were wounded and taken prisoner near Al-Ittihad hospital in the city.
Eyewitnesses reported that the three were attacked by an Israeli army unit who were traveling in a white civilian car that resembled an ambulance.
Witnesses added that the troops of the undercover unit opened fire after Innab was killed and the other two were wounded, which prevented medics from providing the needed medical treatment for the wounded although they were technically inside the hospital.
The Innab family said Rami is the fourth family member to be killed by the Israeli and they have vowed revenge.
Moreover in the Al Eein refugee camp in the western side of Nablus, medical sources reported that Amar Zaqzuk, 24, died on Tuesday morning due to wounds he sustained last week after being shot by invading Israeli troops into the refugee camp.
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This is an attempt to overturn our elections
Karma Nabulsi
Tuesday December 19, 2006
The Guardian
Mahmoud Abbas declared yesterday: "Let the people decide for themselves what they want." But there already is a national consensus: there must be Palestinian elections, not for a president of the Palestinian Authority, or for members of its legislative council, but for the Palestinian National Council, the institutional body that forms the sovereign base of the Palestine Liberation Organisation and is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. The Palestinian people have already elected a legislative council that represents a proportion of the body politic. They now demand elections for the entire Palestinian population.
When Fatah lost power to Hamas in January, Fatah needed to avail itself of the democratic benefits that accrue to those who lose power in an election: the opportunity to reconnect with their constituents, to learn why it had lost and how to regain their people's trust. Instead, the "international community" told Fatah it was still in power and had to contnue to play this role or take responsibility for abandoning its suffering people to an even crueller fate.
What we are witnessing today is the horrific and inevitable outcome of a process of deliberate coercion, designed to force an occupied people to surrender their elected representatives. That this coercion is being carried out by the military occupier Israel and its neocon backers in the US administration is to be expected - and resisted. What is harder to understand is just how this coercion can be so flagrantly insisted upon by the British and the EU - who should be standing by the Palestinians, if not for the values of decency then as part of their responsibilities as co-signatories to the fourth Geneva convention.
The Palestinian people have indeed already spoken: for elections to the Palestinian National Council; for lifting the economic boycott of a democratically elected authority; for liberty and independence.
- Karma Nabulsi, a former PLO representative, is an Oxford politics fellow commentisfree.co.uk/karma_nabulsi
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A Glimpse at Daily Misery in the Gaza Strip (caused by Israel)
Spiegel
18/12/2006
The 1.5 million inhabitants of the Gaza strip are trapped in poverty and hopelessness. The violence between the Palestinians stems not only from political disagreements, but from deep, daily despair (and Israeli deception).
Barefoot; dressed in a long gray nightshirt; sleep in his eyes: if his uncle hadn't banged away at the door, Ahmed Kahlout would most likely still be asleep. Instead he dragged himself out of bed at 11:30 a.m., opened the door and invited his visitor in.
Like an old man, he then sank back down onto the two mattresses serving as a sofa in his parents' house -- the only piece of furniture in the living room apart from a fake Persian carpet. He sat there and wearily told his story, one of many such stories in the Gaza Strip: A good education at a school set up by an aid organization, followed by a degree. Since then, the reality of living in Gaza City has ruined all his dreams.
"I did a degree in pedagogy, and wanted to be a teacher," the 23-year-old explained. Instead he is unemployed and spends his days sleeping. "I can't marry, because I have no money to feed a family. So I have a lot of time to kill."
And he does that sitting in semi-darkness. The streets of the Shati refugee camp in the north of Gaza City are so narrow that hardly any light shines into his family's two-room apartment. An old man is perched outside, selling moldy bread as feed for chickens and goats. Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh only lives a few streets away. The Hamas leader didn't move out of the slum following his election to the post of prime minister -- a fact that earns him great respect amongst his followers.
But Ahmed Kahlout is too apathetic to become a radical, despite things going so badly for him. In this respect he is like most of the Gaza Strip's 1.5 million inhabitants: they get on with lives that are marked by poverty and despair. They live an existence in which the bloody conflict between radical Hamas and the seemingly corrupt Fatah is just one more misfortune.
The Gaza strip is just 40 kilometers long and 10 kilometers wide (25 by 6 miles) -- and for years it has been a byword for misery. This year has been even harder for its inhabitants to bear. To understand the sheer scale of the misery, one has to visit John Ging. He is the director of the United Nations Refugee and Works Agency (UNRWA), the body that has been dealing with the Palestinians since they were expelled following the foundation of the state of Israel in 1948.
"Living in one big prison"
The statistics that the Irishman reels off speak for themselves: 89 percent of the population is poverty-stricken, living on less than $2 a day. Over 60 percent are unemployed, and since the election of the Hamas government in January, international aid has dried up. It had been used to pay the salaries of public officials. Now, even those who have jobs have been thrown into poverty, meaning that over 860,000 people in the Gaza Strip are now living on food parcels distributed by the UNRWA. Over half of the population.
But the real drama, says Ging, is that the Palestinians are "effectively living in one big prison." After the withdrawal of Israeli troops last year, there was a feeling of optimism -- that just as quickly turned into hopelessness. "Everyone was counting on an economic upswing once the border with Egypt was open," Ging says.
Instead, trade has come to a virtual standstill as the border has remained mostly closed. Israeli pressure has ensured that the border crossing for people at Rafah is only open 14 percent of the time. And only 14 trucks get through the crossing at Kareni every day -- instead of 400 originally planned. It is the only crossing for those goods not produced in Gaza and thus have to be imported from Israel.
"According to the Dec. 5 treaty on the freedom of movement, the Rafah border can be open if European observers are present," says Ging. However, these observers live in Israel and Israel can use their discretion to prevent them from crossing into the Gaza Strip. "That's how you close a border."
Travellers are not the only ones affected. Farmers who used to export their fruit and vegetables to Israel are now stuck with them. That is the daily lunacy of the Gaza Strip: there are plenty of tomatoes in the markets, but no fish. The chunk of land is on the coast, but the fishermen are only rarely allowed to go out to sea by the Israelis. And frozen fish seldom makes it over the border from Israel.
"No one has any money"
Mahmoud Abu Djayab operates a repair shop for electrical goods in the central market, and he has more work than ever. People can't buy any new appliances, so they need to get even the most worn out cooker fixed. "But that's no use to me," complains the 51-year-old. "All that I have earned is a book full of IOUs. Everyone is living on credit. No one has any money to pay me."
The Palestinians are largely dependent on outside aid. In this February file photo, a man prepares bags full of food from the EU for Gaza City residents.
Ging doesn't blame the Israelis for everything. When he speaks about Hamas, his voice is filled with anger: "Hamas knew that the money would stop flowing if they didn't maintain relations with the international community," he said. "But they didn't do it anyway. That was irresponsible. The party took into account the fact that the people would suffer." He says that international donors have the right to stop their aid payments. "But then they can't act surprised when the psychological strain leads to a greater tendency towards violence." The fact that the Palestinian government was 70 percent dependent on foreign aid wasn't considered either. "The absence of aid deliveries caused chaos."
As bad as the economic situation is for the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip, the psychological strain is even worse. "In the past people hoped that the Israelis would leave. Today there is no more light at the end of the tunnel," Ging says. Morale is terribly low. People feel oppressed. Hopelessness leads to despair, which in turn leads to violence. What worries Ging is that a lost generation is growing up. "Just try inspiring a young person to learn, when he knows that after school absolutely nothing awaits him."
Ahmed Kahlout had finally woken up, and he even put on a shirt and trousers for his visitor. But he remained uncommunicative. No, he had no idea what he would be doing in five years time. No, he wasn't political and he hadn't bothered voting. "The civil war will eat everything up anyway," he said. To John Ging "the Palestinians' spirit isn't broken yet, they have the will and the ability to organize their own affairs." But the UN man may be a bit too optimistic.
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Humiliation At Israeli Checkpoints
Palestine Solidarity
18/12/2006
The other day as we were travelling through Zatara checkpoint between Ramallah and Nablus, I witnessed a particularly disgusting display of power by the Israeli army. An extremely public humiliation of a woman, who was taken out of a shared taxi and had her ID and phone removed. She was fighting back the tears, trying to retain her dignity, but was clearly distressed. Everything about the soldiers interaction exuded contempt for her. One in particular was clearly getting something from "punishing" her. We were prevented from speaking to her, which made our ability to intervene somewhat limited. What we were able to do was remain present until she was released. Most of the time I do not feel very effective; the most I can do is be present.
Apparently her ID did not "allow" her to travel to another part of the West Bank. Apart from being extremely punitive, excessively controlling and frankly wrong by any book, it is also arbitary. The rules of the game change. I have been in shared taxis with people who have been turned back.... 'last week' they could make that journey, 'yesterday' they could make that journey, 'next week' they 'may' be able to make it, but today "NO". After a while I feel like I can never hear the word "LO" again (Hebrew for "no"), it is barked and shouted countless times a day, controlling so much of day to day life for Palestinians.
After an hour, on this bitterly cold day, the soldier returned the woman's ID. He simply took it out of his pocket and gave it to her. Clearly she was not a "security threat". Detaining her, frightening her, and publically humiliating her, were blatantly intended to make sure she would not attempt this journey again. I was enraged. The soldiers are boys with guns and egos. They have so much power in a situation that is impossible for them to understand with their conditioning and youth.
At this same checkpoint, in this same period of time, another situation was unfolding. It was hidden away and not for public view. I became suspicious and approached a soldier and border policeman; it was then that I saw a boy of around 15 years, sat hunched behind a concrete bollard, hidden from view, his face wet with tears. He looked petrified. He has good reason to be.
Every single person in Palestine will know someone who has been arrested or detained. Ill treatment is commonplace, and torture is far from being eradicated. I have no idea how long the boy had been held for. He was in tears as the soldiers were speaking to him, but fortunately he was "allowed" to go.
Recently I was travelling through Nablus to a nearby village, the taxi driver pointed out a street where, just half an hour before, the army shot dead a man. Apparently a targetted assasination. Five other people were injured, one seriously. "Normal life" (whatever 'that' is living under
Occupation) continues just a few streets away.
My time here is coming to a close, I am in a quiet, reflective mood. From all the conversations I have had, with countless people, two things are screaming out for attention. One is the overriding sense that things are getting worse. And worse. And worse. I was not here during the bloody years of the Intifada, but I think it is absolutely vital to understand that although the bloodshed and violence is less, the situation is worse. The oppressive control, which works on every level, mental and physical, is steadily going to new levels. One of the women I am working with grew up under Apartheid in South Africa. Along with several other South African activists who are here in the West Bank, she says that Apartheid here is 'even worse' than it was in South Africa. This has not been said lightly. The other thing I am forever requested, "tell people what is happening".
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Knesset okays first reading of bill to extend Citizenship Law
ast update - 16:07 19/12
By Gideon Alon and Shahar Ilan, Haaretz Correspondents
The Knesset on Tuesday approved the first reading of a government proposal to extend the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law (the Temporary Order known as the "Citizenship Law"), by two years, until the end of 2008.
The law restricts reunification of families between residents and citizens of Israel and residents of the Palestinian Authority.
The vote was passed by 46 votes in favor, from the rightwing and centrist parties, while 9 MKs from Meretz and the Arab parties voted against.
The government is seeking the extension despite the harsh criticism leveled at it by the High Court of Justice. Meretz has already informed Attorney General Menachem Mazuz of its intention to petition the High Court if the bill is passed.
The government rushed to bring the bill to a vote as the current Temporary Order is only valid until January 16, 2007, and must either be extended or replaced before that date. Last month, the Ministry of Interior's legal adviser, Yehuda Zameret, issued a memorandum of the new draft law.
The bill also calls for the expansion of the law to cover several "threat states," presumably mainly Arab and Muslim countries.
The bill gives Israel the right to reject an applicant who meets all the criteria "if in the applicant's country of residency or if within his vicinity of residence activities liable to endanger the security of the State of Israel or its citizens take place."
This clause ostensibly gives Israel the right to reject any resident of the Palestinian Authority or any Arab country.
On May 2, 2002 the government decided for the first time to freeze all family reunification proceedings between residents and citizens of Israel and residents of the PA, on the grounds of "increasing involvement by Palestinians from the region [i.e. the PA - Shahar Ilan] with Israeli identification cards as a result of family reunification, who exploited their status in Israel to engage in terror activities."
In mid-2003 the cabinet resolution became a Temporary Order, which has since been extended three times. In mid-2005 certain provisions were relaxed to enable family reunification in cases where the husband is at least 35 and the wife at least 25 years old.
On May 14 of this year, an 11-justice panel of the High Court approved the Temporary Order by a vote of six to five. Former Chief Justice Aharon Barak, siding with the minority, argued that "the appropriate goal of increasing security is not justifying severe harm to many thousands of Israeli citizens."
Zameret's memorandum, on the other hand, claimed that the draft bill is in keeping with the High Court ruling according to which accommodation must be available to deal with exceptional humanitarian cases.
Comment: How could anyone of conscience live in Israel? The land was stolen, the original people were subject to ethnic cleansing and terrorism that continues to this day. How could anyone of conscience stay and live in Israel?
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Interior Min. plans to develop area along Syrian border
By Mazal Mualem
Haaretz
19 December 2006
Interior Minister Roni Bar-On (Kadima) plans to accelerate the process for issuing construction permits in the Golan Heights and to shepherd new projects for the areas adjacent to the Syrian city of Quneitra through the planning committees under his ministry. The decisions follow Bar-On's tour of the Golan last week.
After seeing the heightened pace of building in Quneitra last week, Bar-On concluded that the Syrians are treating the areas near their border with Israel as the future permanent border, focusing on civilian rather than military construction as in the past. The minister said that Israel must take the same approach, and expedite construction in the area.
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Bar-On's hosts in the Golan, Golan Regional Council Head head Eli Malka and Katzrin council head Sami Bar Lev, pointed out the new construction in Quneitra and told the minister that Syria is also conducting a media campaign to attract new residents to the Quneitra area, using incentives.
Bar-On has recently expressed firm opposition to the idea of negotiating with Syria, on the grounds that Syrian President Bashar Assad should not be given support, particularly while he is still part of the "axis of evil."
"Talk about the Golan Heights harms the defensive wall built by the international community and by Israel against the axis of evil," Bar-On said. "The Golan Heights should be treated as a region of Israel in every respect."
Bar-On has said that accelerating the development of the Golan is not a provocation of Syria but rather an expression of both sides' acceptance of the future border.
Comment: "Along the Syrian border". I think not. How about, inside of an illegally occupied Syria? Is that closer to the truth?
And don't you love that last line:
"Bar-On has said that accelerating the development of the Golan is not a provocation of Syria but rather an expression of both sides' acceptance of the future border."
Right. It isn't a provocation, no more than seizing Palestinian land and building illegal settlements is a provocation. Or constructing the apartheid wall. In all cases, it is nothing more than "an expression of both sides' acceptance of the future border".
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Iraq "A Terrible Mistake" - For Iraqis
Iraq was terrible mistake, UK thinktank says
December 19, 2006
Guardian Unlimited
The decision to invade Iraq was a "terrible mistake" that would shape Tony Blair's legacy for years to come, a leading thinktank said today.
A Chatham House paper on 10 years of foreign policy under Mr Blair concluded that its root failure was an inability to influence George Bush.
However, the foreign secretary, Margaret Beckett, defended Mr Blair against the critique, written by the outgoing Chatham House director, Victor Bulmer-Thomas.
Mrs Beckett described the publication as "threadbare, insubstantial and just plain wrong", adding: "Chatham House has established a great reputation over the years, but this paper will do nothing to enhance it."
While the report said there had been qualified successes in Mr Blair's first term, the decision to provide diplomatic cover for Mr Bush's decision to invade Iraq was the defining moment of his foreign policy and premiership.
"It will shape his legacy - for better or for worse - for many years to come," it concluded.
As so often with British prime ministers, Mr Blair thought unwavering public support for the US would bring private influence and lead to changes in US policy favouring British interests, but this had not happened.
Mr Bulmer-Thomas said there had been an "inability to influence the Bush administration in any significant way, despite the sacrifice - military, political and financial - that the United Kingdom has made".
Given the Byzantine complexity of Washington politics, it was always unrealistic to think that outside powers - however loyal - could expect to have much influence on the US decision-making process, he said.
"The bilateral relationship with the United States may be 'special' to Britain, but the US has never described it as more than 'close' ... Tony Blair has learnt the hard way that loyalty in international politics counts for very little," the report said.
It said there was no evidence that British pressure was responsible for Mr Bush's announcement that the US would accept a two-state solution in the Middle East, because this was simply a restatement of policy under the Clinton administration.
The report added that, whoever was the prime minister in future, there would "no longer be unconditional support for US initiatives in foreign policy".
In the absence of UN support for a humanitarian intervention in Iraq, the paper said it had been a "terrible mistake" to emphasise Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction as a justification for war.
"The jury is still out" on the extent to which Mr Blair knew the claims about Iraqi WMD were "overblown or even fabricated", the report said.
The decision to commit British troops in the absence of a UN security council resolution "drove a horse and cart" through the principle Mr Blair himself set out in a speech in Chicago in 1999 setting out a "doctrine of international community".
The report also said it was "unforgivable" that Mr Blair had failed to foresee the consequences of a Taliban resurgence in Afghanistan, given the impact on heroin use on Britain's streets.
In contrast, it said his most positive legacy in foreign affairs would be his determined advocacy of the need to tackle climate change.
Comment: It does not get much more ridiculous than this. An acclaimed British "think tank" finally states that obvious, and we the people, millions of whom opposed the Iraq invasion from the outset, are supposed to be grateful.
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[US-sanctioned] Violence in Iraq hits record high, Pentagon admits
Timesonline
19/12/2006
Violence in Iraq has reached the highest recorded levels for eighteen months and is taking the country towards civil war, the Pentagon concluded yesterday, in a grim report that coincided with the swearing-in of Robert Gates, the new US Defence Secretary.
In its latest quarterly report to Congress on the progress of the Iraq campaign, the US military found that attacks against American troops, their Iraqi comrades and civilians reached 959 per week in the period from August to November, up 22 per cent on the previous three months.
The increase means that 93 Iraqi civilians are killed or injured every day in Iraq, while 33 Iraqi security staff are killed or hurt. An average of 25 US and coalition soldiers were killed or injured every day in the same period, just short of the 2004 high, during the assault on Fallujah, the bloodiest period of the war for US troops in Iraq.
It is the highest number of attacks recorded by the Pentagon since it was ordered to present three-monthly updates to Congress on Iraq in mid-2005.
The Pentagon said that the level of sectarian violence meant that "conditions that could lead to civil war do exist" in Iraq and identified the Mahdi Army, the Baghdad-based Shia militia, as more dangerous than al-Qaeda in Iraq in the current climate of tit-for-tat ethnic killings. [Ed: No mention of the US-sponsored death squads?]<
"The group that is currently having the greatest negative affect on the security situation in Iraq is Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM)," said the report. The conclusion is a blow to the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who has been criticised for failing to crack down on the militia loyal to Hojatoleslam al-Sadr, the radical Shia cleric, which has taken control of several Iraqi government ministries.
"The violence has escalated at an unbelievably rapid pace," said Lieutenant General John F. Sattler, director of strategic plans and policy for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a briefing for journalists. "We have to get ahead of that violent cycle, break that continuous chain of sectarian violence."
Another senior Pentagon official, Peter Rodman, assistant secretary of defence for international security affairs, acknowledged that Iraqi militants with the aim of causing civil war had achieved a "strategic success" by bombing the Shia al-Askariya shrine in Samarra, an event that triggered a massive rise in sectarian warfare.
"The tragedy of Iraq is that in February in Samarra, the insurgents achieved what one could call a partial strategic success -- namely, to trigger what we've been dealing with ever since, which is a cycle of sectarian violence, that indeed is shaking the institutions," he said.
The report was presented to Congress just hours after Robert Gates, a former head of the CIA, was sworn in as America's 22nd Secretary of Defence. At a ceremony at the Pentagon attended by President Bush and Vice President Cheney, Mr Gates said the US could not afford to fail in the Middle East.
"Failure in Iraq at this juncture would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility and endanger Americans for decades to come."
Mr Gates said he intended to travel to Iraq and discuss the situation with commanders on the ground as soon as possible. His first task will be to enter what is being described in Washington as an "intense debate" between the White House and US military officials about the next step to take in the conflict.
The Washington Post reported today that the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the leaders of the various branches of the American armed forces that advise the President on military policy, are unanimously opposed to a White House plan to send an extra 15,000 to 30,000 troops to Iraq for the next eight months.
The military officials say a small surge in US troop numbers will only exacerbate levels of violence in the country, the newspaper reported, without giving the coalition or Iraqi soldiers a decisive advantage over the sectarian militias and militant groups that are driving the fighting.
"The Joint Chiefs think the White House, after a month of talks, still does not have a defined mission and is latching on to the surge idea in part because of limited alternatives, despite warnings about the potential disadvantages for the military, said the officials," the newspaper reported.
"The chiefs have taken a firm stand, the sources say, because they believe the strategy review will be the most important decision on Iraq to be made since the March 2003 invasion."
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U.S. working with Iraq over disappearing minister
Reuters
19/12/2006
The United States said on Tuesday it was cooperating with Iraq to find out how a former Iraqi minister with dual U.S. citizenship was sprung from his Baghdad jail cell, reportedly by armed, plain-clothes Americans.
"We are coordinating with the Iraqi government, which is currently investigating the case. There are conflicting reports surrounding his disappearance and we can't comment further," U.S. embassy spokesman Lou Fintor said.
Ayham al-Samarraie, an electricity minister in the former government of Prime Minister Iyad al-Allawi, has not been seen since Sunday, when he walked out of the police station where he was being held, in the company of a group of armed men.
He had been detained at a police station on the outskirts of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified compound that houses the Iraqi government and the U.S. and British embassies, to await trial in up to 12 corruption cases, a judge said on Monday.
The head of the police station and a second officer have been arrested, said Ali al-Shaboot, spokesman for Iraq's independent Public Integrity Commission, which is investigating nine cases of misuse of public money against Samarraie.
"The warrants of arrest were issued by the investigating judge," Shaboot told Reuters.
The commission says Samarraie was taken from the station by plain-clothes Americans and that the minister had previously employed a private American security firm to protect him.
A judge close to a trial in which Samarraie was convicted of corruption in October and sentenced to two years in jail offered a different version of events.
In October, armed Americans took Samarraie from court shortly after his conviction. He had expressed fears for his life and decried the "political" verdict.
He was handed over to Iraqi police to begin serving his sentence after the government objected to the interference.
Samarraie, who spent years in exile in the United States, said he was being victimized because of his opposition to Iranian influence in Iraq and Shi'ite militias, who are accused of killing thousands of members of his minority Sunni Arab sect.
Comment: Hmmm...misuse of public money by a member of the US-apointed Allawi government, Allawi being a CIA asset. We wonder, would this minister, who was spirited away by CIA agents, have had anything to tell the judge about where Iraqi money was going? Or rather, which particular death squads it was funding? We may never know, but we can damn well make a very accurate guess.
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It's Either Occupation or Education
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily IPS
Dec 18 2006
Iraq's Ministry of Education says attendance rates for the new school year, which started Sep. 20, are at an all-time low.
Statistics released by the ministry in October showed that a mere 30 percent of Iraq's 3.5 million students are currently attending classes. This compares to roughly 75 percent of students who were attending classes the previous year, according to the Britain-based NGO Save the Children.
Just before the U.S.-led invasion in spring 2003, school attendance was nearly 100 percent.
Iraqis are forgetting almost what a child needs. Dr. Ahmed Aaraji of the Baghdad Societal Organisation, an Iraqi NGO which monitors the state of Iraqi schools and families in an effort to assist families where possible, is trying to remind everyone what that should be.
"To build a child's character, the home atmosphere should be appropriate, parents should attend to children, the school environment should be proper, and the whole society should function at the best level," he told IPS. "But none of these factors seems to exist in Iraq any more."
Iraq was awarded The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) prize for eradicating illiteracy in 1982. At that time, literacy rates for women were among the highest of all Islamic nations.
Education today presents a quite different picture. An IPS correspondent visited a primary school in the capital city, located in the volatile al-Amiriyah district in western Baghdad not far from the airport, after making his way through piles of garbage. And these piles grow bigger by the day, residents say.
The two-storey building looks neat enough with a fresh coat of yellow paint, but one step inside reveals years of neglect.
"During the regime of Saddam Hussein, Iraqi schools suffered from the poverty of the state due to the U.S.-backed UN sanctions," the headmaster told IPS. "The main problem now is the corruption of contractors and senior administration staff."
Contracts have been handed out for refurbishment, he said. But in effect, "they just paint the walls and fix some cheap accessories to collect their cash, and go."
The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) declared as early as October 2004 that the education system in Iraq was "effectively denying children a decent education, and the poor quality of the learning environment delivers a major blow to children."
The study also confirmed that thousands of schools lacked the basic facilities to provide children a decent education.
UNICEF representative Roger Wright said in the October 2004 report: "Iraq used to have one of the finest school systems in the Middle East. Now we have clear evidence of how far the system has deteriorated. Today millions of children in Iraq are attending schools that lack even basic water or sanitation facilities, have crumbling walls, broken windows and leaking roofs. The system is overwhelmed."
Two years later, the situation has grown far worse. Now it is so bad that international agencies are not around to survey it any more.
Still, several parents continue to send their children to school. "We have to because what is the alternative," Um Abdulla told IPS at the front gate of a school in Baghdad as she waited to collect her children.
Literacy is declining with school education. UNESCO estimates that the literacy rate in Iraq as of Dec 11 is below 60 percent, meaning six million illiterate adults. The average literacy rate in Iraq 2000-2003 was 74 percent, according to UNICEF in 2004.
In the rural areas illiteracy is worse. Only 37 percent of rural women are literate, and only 30 percent of Iraqi girls of high school age are even enrolled in school. That compares with about 42 percent of boys, according to the UNESCO report this month.
Security is the prime concern, for parents and teachers.
"Roads are unsafe, with all the explosions and abductions that threaten our children on their way to school," mother of three Um Suthir told IPS.
Mothers usually accompany their children to school and bring them back home. With abductions on the rise, neither are safe.
Many schools in the capital have lowered their hours of classes to less than four a day due to shortage of teachers and facilities, and lack of security.
In war-torn Fallujah, many of the schools destroyed in the November 2004 U.S.-led attack on the city have not been rebuilt. This has led to reduced hours of classes being held in sometimes three shifts in makeshift buildings.
Ali al-Ka'abi from the Ministry of Education said the problem is worse in the capital and in cities in al-Anbar province to the west of Baghdad, where up to 30 percent of school buildings are being used by U.S. and Iraqi soldiers. This province, that includes Fallujah and Ramadi, has seen the fiercest resistance to U.S. occupation.
The collapsing economy is also keeping several children away from school. Many children have had to leave school because of family poverty or after the families were evicted from homes and hometowns for sectarian reasons.
"We are now living in a factory building, and there is no school near our shelter," a Baghdad resident told IPS. "I've had to ask for my oldest boy to help cover expenses by working as a cleaner at a mechanic's shop nearby."
The man said he used to own a small supermarket where he also lived; he now works as a porter. And he has no hope his children can ever go to school any more.
Comment: As we keep saying, the goal of the Iraq invasion was the destruction of Iraqi society. Why? Because that is what it has achieved.
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US general issues warning: politics must not interfere with 100-year "war on terror"
By Bill Van Auken
19 December 2006
One of the Pentagon's senior uniformed strategists warned last week that the "global war on terror" will go on for another 50 to 100 years and voiced concern that "politics" not be allowed to interfere with the protracted struggle.
The remarks were made by Brig. Gen. Mark O. Schissler, an Air Force commander and the Defense Department's deputy director for the "war on terrorism." He made them in an exclusive interview with the Washington Times, the right-wing daily owned by the Unification Church of Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
"We're in a generational war," he told the paper. "You can try and fight the enemy where they are and where they're attacking you, or prevent them and defend your own homeland," he said. "But that's not enough to stop it."
The Washington Times went on to report, "Gen. Schissler said he is concerned that Washington politics is weakening the will of the nation."
"I don't care about the politics," he told the newspaper. "I care about people understanding the facts of what our enemy is thinking about, what's our strategy to defeat them, and for [Americans] to understand that it will take a long fight, mostly because our enemy is committed to the long fight." He added, "They're absolutely committed to the 50-, 100-year plan."
"One of my concerns is how to maintain the American will, the public will over that duration," the general said. He described this task as "very difficult."
Difficult indeed. How is the "public will" to wage global warfare for the next century to be maintained, particularly when "politics" gets in the way?
Given the political context of Schissler remarks, his warnings have unmistakable and chilling implications.
Barely six weeks ago, the Bush administration, which initiated the "war on terror" and proclaimed Iraq to be its most important front, suffered a stunning defeat at the polls. The Republican Party's loss of both houses of the US Congress was the result of mass popular opposition to the Iraq war.
This opposition has only deepened in the intervening weeks, as a series of opinion polls have demonstrated. A CBS News poll, for example, found that just 4 percent of Americans believe that terrorism is the most important problem confronting the country. The same poll found that a record 35 percent believe that the war in Iraq is the principal problem, with 71 percent saying the war is going badly and only 9 percent believing that the US is very likely to succeed in Iraq.
A USA Today poll found that two-thirds believe that the costs of the US succeeding in Iraq outweigh the benefits. A clear majority wants all US troops withdrawn from the country within the next year, while 74 percent say all combat troops should be withdrawn by March 2008.
Not only is the American public unwilling to support a century of wars of aggression, it has reached the conclusion that the three-and-a-half-year-old war in Iraq should never have been launched and should be brought to a speedy end. This is the threat to the "American will" about which Gen. Schissler is so concerned.
This supposed "will" to wage war-what could better be described as a temporary and forced acquiescence-was achieved through political deception and intimidation, by terrorizing the population with the supposed threat of attack in the wake of the September 11, 2001 tragedy.
As all of the pretexts used to promote the war-weapons of mass destruction, Baghdad-Al Qaeda ties, etc.-were exposed as lies, and as the war itself turned into an ever-more bloody debacle, claiming the lives of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and either killing or wounding 25,000 US troops, the demand for withdrawal of US forces from Iraq was embraced by millions of Americans, including many in uniform.
The issue posed is not really sustaining the "will" to wage a 100-year war, but suppressing the mass opposition to war that has already found powerful political expression.
Among masses of American working people, there never was a will to wage wars of aggression. That outlook reflected the aims and schemes developed within the corporate and financial elite that rules America. This ruling layer has utilized the "global war on terror," in which Gen. Schissler is a senior strategist, as the pretext for carrying out a military campaign aimed at imposing US domination over the oil-rich regions of the Persian Gulf and Central Asia as part of American capitalism's pursuit of global hegemony.
In the aftermath of the 2006 midterm elections, it has become increasingly apparent that this ruling elite has no intention of bowing to the actual will of the people, as reflected at the polls, by bringing an end to the war and withdrawing US troops from Iraq. It is driven by its own economic necessity to offset a declining position on the world market by means of military force. And it fears that a withdrawal from Iraq will expose the underlying weakness of American imperialism, raising the danger of revolutionary crises both at home and abroad.
In his interview with the Washington Times, Schissler said that the century-long struggle he foresees will be waged against extremists determined to establish a global "caliphate" stretching from Spain to Indonesia. While there are, no doubt, a small number of radical Islamists who believe in such a crackpot scheme, this supposed threat has nothing to do with the military interventions now being carried out by Washington in the regions possessing the largest reserves of petroleum in the world.
The attempt to cast the wars being waged in Afghanistan and Iraq in religious terms has become an increasingly common refrain within the most right-wing sections of the political establishment in Washington, as well as within the military command. There is no doubt that this depiction of events is aimed at solidifying a base of support for war among a layer of Christian fundamentalists.
The most notorious example of this attempt to drum up a religious-based "will" to wage war came to light in 2003 with press reports of speeches delivered by Lt. Gen. William "Jerry" Boykin, the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence, to audiences assembled by the Christian right.
Boykin repeatedly told audiences that the war was being waged by a "Christian army" and a "Christian nation" against Islamic forces aligned with Satan. He proclaimed that his own confidence in victory over a Muslim foe was based on the knowledge that "my God was bigger than his . . . my God was a real god and his was an idol." He likewise declared that George W. Bush was "appointed by God," despite having failed to win the majority of the votes in 2000, and indicated that he saw himself as answerable only to God's commands.
While the general's anti-Islamic bigotry and profoundly anti-democratic remarks provoked outrage, the Republican right and the Bush administration leapt to his defense. The general himself asked that a Pentagon inspector general investigate the controversy. The result was a report that avoided the content of Boykin's remarks, delivering only the mildest rebuke for his failure to assert that they were his personal opinion and to clear them first with superiors.
General Boykin remains to this day the senior uniformed officer in military intelligence and a top policy-maker in the "war on terror," overseeing assassination squads, illegal abductions and torture.
Schissler is not known to have delivered any similar religious-political diatribes. His service record posted on the Defense Department's web site does, however, include the notation that in 1998, while climbing the promotional ladder to the Pentagon's inner circle, the Air Force officer found time to complete a master's degree in "pastoral studies."
The politically protected ravings of Boykin as well as the expressions of concern by Schissler that "politics"-that is, the real will of the people-not be allowed to interfere with the official will to wage war are indicative of the right-wing and authoritarian tendencies that are being nurtured by American militarism and colonial-style occupation.
In the end, imposing upon the American people the "will" to sustain a 100-year war could be achieved only by dictatorial means similar to those utilized by the Nazis in their attempt to generate the "will" of the German people to sustain a 1,000-year Reich.
The danger posed by such right-wing tendencies is not that they have any substantial base of popular support, but that they emerge under conditions of deepening social and political polarization in which the opposition of American working people to war and repression can find no genuine expression within the political establishment and its two-party system.
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Pentagon's new chief pledges to find solutions in Iraq
www.chinaview.cn 2006-12-19 06:15:18
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- Robert Gates, the new U.S. defense secretary, on Monday pledged to go to Iraq soon in search of a solution to the violence and warned that failure in Iraq will be unbearable for the United States.
"I intend to travel quite soon to Iraq and meet with our military leaders and other personnel there," Gates said at his sworn-in ceremony at the Pentagon.
"I look forward to hearing their honest assessments of the situation on the ground and to having the benefit of their advice, unvarnished and straight from the shoulder, on how to proceed in the weeks and months ahead," he said.
Gates stressed that the United States could not afford a failure in Iraq.
"All of us want to find a way to bring America's sons and daughters home again, but, as the president has made clear, we simply cannot afford to fail in the Middle East," he said, noting that "failure in Iraq at this juncture would be a calamity that would haunt our nation, impair our credibility and endanger Americans for decades to come."
Although putting Iraq at the top of his list of major concerns, the new defense secretary said he did not forget Afghanistan, where U.S. forces overthrew the Taliban regime shortly after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
"The progress made by the Afghan people over the past five years is at risk...," he said. "Afghanistan cannot be allowed to become a sanctuary for extremists again."
"The right man to meet challenges"
At the ceremony, U.S. President George W. Bush praised Gates as "the right man to meet the military challenges confronting the United States."
"We are a nation at war," the president said, "and I rely on our secretary of defense to provide me with the best possible advice and to help direct our nation's armed forces as they engage the enemies of freedom around the world."
Bush said he was counting on Gates to bring a "fresh perspective" to the Pentagon as the United States charts "a new way forward in Iraq" to build a country that can govern, sustain and defend itself and be an ally in the war against "extremists and radicals."
The change of guard at Pentagon was taking place at a crucial juncture in the Iraq war, a conflict that cost Donald Rumsfeld the job of defense secretary and will likely define Gates' Pentagon tenure.
When U.S. President George W. Bush announced last month that he will change Pentagon chiefs, he said he wanted "fresh perspective" on Iraq, acknowledging that the current approach was "not working well enough."
Rumsfeld was a chief architect of the war strategy and still defends the decision to invade in March 2003.
Comment: Who believes this stuff? The new, improved Secretary will continue on with the same goal as Rumsfeld: implementation of the neo-con agenda to destabilize and partition Iraq. Bush isn't going to change. The goal is chaos, and chaos is what Bush and his team are delivering and will continue to deliver.
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Bush administration elaborates plans for bloodbath in Iraq
By Bill Van Auken
18 December 2006
Reports on the Bush administration's discussions on a change of course in Iraq indicate that Washington is preparing a major new bloodbath as part of a desperate attempt to salvage its nearly four-year-old bid to conquer the oil-rich country.
The New York Times Sunday carried an article entitled "The Capital Awaits a Masterstroke on Iraq," which indicated that the options under discussion include what amounts to support for a genocidal war against Iraq's Sunni population as well as the deliberate unleashing of a region-wide sectarian conflict between the predominantly Sunni Arab countries and the Shia majorities in Iran and Iraq.
This proposal-known widely in Washington as the "80 percent solution," the percentage of the Iraqi population comprising Shia and Kurds-the Times writes, "basically says that Washington should stop trying to get Sunnis and Shiites to get along and instead just back the Shiites, since there are more of them anyway and they're likely to win in a fight to the death. After all, the proposal goes, Iraq is 65 percent Shiite and only 20 percent Sunni."
The plan reportedly has been promoted by Vice President Dick Cheney, one of the principal architects of the Iraq war from the beginning.
A key consideration, the article adds, is control of Iraq's oil fields. "The longer America tries to woo the Sunnis, the more it risks alienating the Shiites and Kurds, and they're the ones with the oil," the Times states. "A handful of administration officials have argued that Iraq is not going to hold to together and will splinter along sectarian lines. If so, they say, American interests dictate backing the groups who control the oil-rich areas."
An off-shoot of the plan, which the Times cynically describes as something "some hawks have tossed out in meetings," is a suggestion that the US could reap the benefits of a region-wide sectarian conflagration. "America could actually hurt Iran by backing Iraq's Shiites; that could deepen the Shiite-Sunni split and eventually lead to a regional Shiite-Sunni war," the Times writes. "And in that, the Shiites-and Iran-lose because, while there are more Shiites than Sunnis in Iraq and Iran, there are more Sunnis than Shiites almost everywhere else."
At the same time, there are growing indications that a proposed "surge" of tens of thousands more American combat troops into Iraq will have as its first objective taking on the militia loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, meaning a brutal assault on the impoverished Shia masses of Baghdad.
The formulation of such mutually contradictory policies appears to be less the product of diplomatic and military calculation than political insanity. Underlying what seems like madness is the desperation and disorientation at all levels of the American state over the deep crisis that its policy has produced.
What predominates is the conception that provided it carries out a sufficient level of killing-whether in a genocidal slaughter of Sunnis, a bloodletting against the Shia, or a combination of the two-US imperialism can somehow extricate itself from a humiliating defeat in Iraq.
The leaks concerning the strategies now under consideration only underscore the abject criminality of the war as well as the desperate crisis that is gripping the American political establishment, which remains deeply divided over how to confront the political and military debacle confronting the US occupation.
Less than two weeks after the release of the report by the bipartisan Iraq Study Group, the Bush administration has repudiated the panel's prescriptions for reducing the US military role in Iraq and pursuing diplomatic initiatives aimed at winning cooperation from the neighboring countries of Iran and Syria.
The White House, backed by the Republican right and the most ruthless sections of the American ruling elite, is instead preparing what amounts to a re-invasion of the ravaged country and the pursuit of a broader regional war, ultimately aimed at toppling both the Iranian and the Syrian regimes.
It was reported late last week that the Pentagon has already ordered the 3,500 troops of the Second Brigade of the 82nd Airborne Division, currently based at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to prepare for deployment to Kuwait next month. This would be the first contingent for what is anticipated to be a "surge" of between 30,000 and 50,000 additional troops.
Not only is the political establishment deeply divided over the way forward in Iraq, but the US military command as well. Some, such as Gen. Peter J. Schoomaker, the Army's chief of staff, Gen. George Casey, the top commander in Iraq, and Gen. John Abizaid, the senior commander of US forces in the Middle East, have questioned the value of a "surge" of American troops into Iraq, noting that such an increased deployment could not be sustained and warning that it could serve to further delay Iraqi forces taking over security operations.
On the other hand, a number of recently retired senior commanders have advocated the escalation, and the scheme is reportedly supported by Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno, who assumed command of combat troops in Iraq last week. Odierno commanded the Army's 4th Infantry Division in Anbar Province in 2003 and 2004, gaining a reputation for heavy-handed counterinsurgency operations and repression that is credited by many with generating much of the popular support for the Iraqi resistance.
"We are going to go after any-any-individual who attacks the government, who attacks the security forces and who attacks coalition forces no matter who they are and no matter who they are associated with," he said at a ceremony in Baghdad last Thursday.
The remark appeared to be a warning that the immediate target of the new offensive now being prepared will be the Mahdi Army, the Shia militia loyal to Moqtada al-Sadr. According to press reports, the Pentagon's uniformed command has been unanimous on its insistence that any increased deployment in Baghdad be accompanied by unrestricted rules of engagement for US forces going after Sadr's followers.
Such an offensive would signal not only a US-engineered coup against the current Iraqi government, in which Sadr's movement holds substantial power, but also a massive loss of civilian life, as an all-out war would be waged in the crowded Shia slums of Baghdad's Sadr City.
Barely six weeks after growing popular opposition to the war in Iraq produced a stunning defeat for the Bush administration at the polls, there is every indication that the White House intends not only to continue the war, but to escalate it substantially.
The Democratic leadership, meanwhile, exhibits no such conviction or determination as it prepares to assume the leadership next month of both houses of the US Congress.
On Sunday, incoming Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid declared in a television interview that he is prepared to support the proposed "surge" in Iraqi troop deployment if it served as part of a broader strategy to achieve the Baker-Hamilton commission's proposal for reducing the number of troops in Iraq by early 2008.
"If the commanders on the ground said this is just for a short period of time, we'll go along with that," Reid said, adding that an escalation for two to three months would be acceptable, but not one that dragged on for 18 months or 24 months.
The Democratic Senate leader's qualms were dismissed by one of the prominent advocates of the "surge," former Army vice chief of staff Gen. Jack Keane, who pointed out, "It will take a couple of months just to get forces in." Keane said that it would take at least one and half years for an expanded force to suppress Iraqi resistance.
Meanwhile, Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts, considered the most liberal Democrat in the US Senate, appearing on the Fox News channel, voiced opposition to the increased troop deployment, but rejected any move to cut off funding for the war-the only means, short of impeachment, that the Democrats have to rein in the escalating militarism of the Bush administration.
"One thing about the Democrats is we will support the troops," Kennedy declared, adding, "We are not going to pull the line, in terms of the troops."
Pressed by interviewer Chris Wallace as to why he was unprepared to support a vote to defund the war in Iraq, when Democrats had pursued just such a course during the Vietnam War, Kennedy stressed that "This is a different situation than Vietnam" and "we are not at this point at this time."
What is different is that in Iraq, decisive sections of America's ruling elite remain determined to pursue the goal of establishing US domination over one of the largest reserves of petroleum in the world by means of military force and colonial-style domination.
While there are intense divisions over how this goal is to be pursued, the defense of the geo-strategic interests of American capitalism is upheld by every faction of the political establishment. It is for this reason that the Democrats have served as the Bush administration's accomplice in this war since voting to authorize an unprovoked invasion more than four years ago.
The growing threats to escalate the assault against the Iraqi people and potentially unleash a conflagration that could spread throughout the Middle East and worldwide demonstrate that the popular opposition to the war cannot find expression through the present two-party political set up in America.
Even before the new Congress convenes, it has become starkly apparent that the struggle to end the war in Iraq and to hold those who are responsible for launching this war politically and criminally responsible can be advanced only through the emergence of a new independent political movement of working people in opposition to the American financial oligarchy and both of its parties.
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Washington Refuses to End the War: Powell, Baker, Hamilton ... Thanks for Nothing!
By NORMAN SOLOMON
December 18, 2006
When Colin Powell endorsed the Iraq Study Group report during his Dec. 17 appearance on "Face the Nation," it was another curtain call for a tragic farce.
Four years ago, "moderates" like Powell were making the invasion of Iraq possible. Now, in the guise of speaking truth to power, Powell and ISG co-chairs James Baker and Lee Hamilton are refueling the U.S. war effort by depicting it as a problem of strategy and management.
But the U.S. war effort is a problem of lies and slaughter.
The Baker-Hamilton report stakes out a position for managerial changes that dodge the fundamental immorality of the war effort. And President Bush shows every sign of rejecting the report's call for scaling down that effort.
Meanwhile, most people in the United States favor military disengagement. According to a new Wall Street Journal / NBC News poll, "Seven in 10 say they want the new Congress to pressure the White House to begin bringing troops home within six months."
The nationwide survey came after the Baker-Hamilton report arrived with great -- and delusional -- expectations. In big bold red letters, the cover of Time predicted that the report would take the White House by storm: "The Iraq Study Group says it's time for an exit strategy. Why Bush will listen."
While often depicted as a rebuff to the president's Iraq policies, the report was hardly a prescription for abandoning the U.S. military project in Iraq -- as Baker was at pains to repeatedly point out during a whirlwind round of network interviews.
Hours after the report's release on Dec. 6, Baker told PBS "NewsHour" host Jim Lehrer that the blue-ribbon commission was calling for a long-term U.S. military presence: "So our commitment -- when we say not open-ended, that doesn't mean it's not going to be substantial. And our report makes clear that we're going to have substantial, very robust, residual troop levels in Iraq for a long, long time."
Baker used very similar phrasing the next morning in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America" -- saying that the report "makes clear we're going to have a really robust American troop presence in Iraq and in the region for a long, long time."
That was 24 hours into the report's release, when media spin by Baker and Hamilton and their allies was boosting a document that asserted a continual American prerogative to devote massive resources to war in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. And, in a little-noted precept of the report, it said: "The United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise."
In short, the Baker-Hamilton report was a fallback position for U.S. military intervention -- and for using Pentagon firepower on behalf of U.S.-based oil companies. But the report's call for tactical adjustments provoked fury among the most militaristic politicians and pundits. Their sustained media counterattack took hold in short order.
President Bush wriggled away from the panel's key recommendations -- gradual withdrawal of many U.S. troops from Iraq and willingness to hold diplomatic talks with Syria and Iran. War enthusiasts like Sen. John McCain denounced the report as a recipe for retreat and defeat. The New York Post dubbed Baker and Hamilton "surrender monkeys." Rush Limbaugh called their report "stupid."
By the time its one-week anniversary came around, the Baker-Hamilton report looked about ready for an ashcan of history. Bush had already postponed his announcement of a "new strategy for Iraq" until after the start of the new year -- a delay aimed at cushioning the president from pressure to adopt the report's central recommendations. Even the limited punch of the report has been largely stymied by the most rabidly pro-war forces of American media and politics.
But those forces don't really need to worry about the likes of Colin Powell, James Baker and Lee Hamilton -- as long as the argument is over how the U.S. government should try to get its way in Iraq.
"We are losing -- we haven't lost -- and this is the time, now, to start to put in place the kinds of strategies that will turn this situation around," Powell told CBS viewers on Sunday. That sort of talk stimulates endless rationales for continuing U.S. warfare and facilitates the ongoing escalation of the murderous U.S. air war in Iraq.
Powell's mendacious performance at the U.N. Security Council, several weeks before the invasion of Iraq, is notorious. But an obscure media appearance by Powell, when he was interviewed by the French network TV2 in mid-September 2003, sheds more light on underlying attitudes that unite the venture-capitalist worldviews of "moderates" like Colin Powell and "hardliners" like Dick Cheney.
Trying to justify Washington's refusal to end the occupation, Powell explained: "Since the United States and its coalition partners have invested a great deal of political capital, as well as financial resources, as well as the lives of our young men and women -- and we have a large force there now -- we can't be expected to suddenly just step aside."
Norman Solomon is the author of War Made Easy: How Presidents and Pundits Keep Spinning Us to Death.
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Money Makes The World Go...Boom!
US sees UN sanctions against Iran voted within days
Mon Dec 18 2006
AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The UN Security Council will adopt sanctions against Iran within days in response to Tehran's refusal to suspend its uranium enrichment program, a senior US official said.
After months of intense negotiations, the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany were nearing agreement on the text of a resolution, said Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns.
"There will be sanctions passed against Iran in the next several days at the United Nations," Burns said on CNN after
President George W. Bush signed a controversial civilian nuclear deal with India, which is already a nuclear weapons power.
The United States has been leading efforts to impose sanctions against Iran over its refusal to comply with an earlier UN resolution demanding that it stop reprocessing and enriching uranium -- activity that could provide material to produce nuclear weapons.
But drawn-out negotiations with the four other veto-wielding Security Council members -- Britain, China, France and Russia -- along with Germany have so far failed to yield agreement on the exact terms of a sanctions resolution.
Russia, which has close energy and economic ties with Iran, objected to an initial draft resolution as too harsh.
But over the weekend Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said a consensus was forming around a revised draft presented by France and Britain earlier this month.
"I hope that it is entirely realistic to come to a consensus in the days remaining before the New Year if our partners take a realistic approach and do not insist on certain positions which we are convinced have nothing to do with the task before us," Lavrov was quoted by Russian media as saying.
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Dollar dropped in Iran asset move
BBC News
18/12/2006
Iran is to shift its foreign currency reserves from dollars to euros and use the euro for oil deals in response to US-led pressure on its economy.
In a widely expected move, Tehran said it would use the euro for all future commercial transactions overseas.
The US, which accuses Tehran of supporting terrorism and trying to obtain nuclear weapons, has sought to limit the flow of dollars into Iran.
It wants the United Nations Security Council to impose sanctions on Iran.
Dollar squeeze
Analysts said Tehran had been steadily shifting its foreign-held assets out of dollars since 2003 and that Monday's announcement was unlikely to affect the value of the dollar, which has weakened significantly in recent months.
An Iranian spokesman said all its foreign exchange transactions would be conducted in euros and its national budget would also be calculated in euros as well as its own currency.
"There will be no reliance on dollars," said Gholam-Hussein Elham.
"This change is already being made in the currency reserves abroad."
The currency move will apply to oil sales although it is expected that Iran, the world's fourth largest oil producer, will still accept oil payments in dollars.
Nuclear trigger
Washington has sought to exert financial pressure on Iran, which it accuses of flouting international law by trying to acquire nuclear weapons.
Tehran denies this, saying its nuclear research is for purely geared towards civilian uses.
Most international banks have stopped dollar transactions with Iran and some firms have ceased trading with Iran altogether in anticipation of possible future sanctions.
The dollar slipped slightly against the euro in New York trading although analysts said they did not expect the reaction to be too severe.
"It is something they have been saying they are going to do for quite a long time now, so I wouldn't expect any market reaction," said Ian Stannard, an economist with BNP Paribas.
The BBC's Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison said Iranian businessmen were complaining about delays in securing letters of credit and saw current conditions as a prelude to the imposition of sanctions.
Tehran has urged Iranian businesses to open letters of credit in euros in the future.
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Flashback: China's Dollar Reserves set to surpass 1 trillion
China Daily
2006-10-30
China's foreign exchange reserves look set to hit the US$1 trillion mark at the end of this month or beginning of November. But as the figure rises, so does the debate over how to best manage it.
The reserves, already the world's biggest, surged to US$987.9 billion at the end of September, largely driven by a burgeoning foreign trade surplus and massive inflow of foreign direct investment (FDI).
In the first nine months of the year FDI stood at US$42.59 billion, although this was a 1.52 per cent drop year-on-year.
Reserves grew on average US$18.8 billion each month from January to September, statistics from the central bank show.
"How to manage such a huge reserve is a big challenge," said Yi Xianrong, a research fellow at the Institute of Finance Research under the Chinese Academy of Social Science.
"The crux of the problem is that you have to keep the value stable or increasing," Yi said.
The ballooning foreign reserves, many economist say, is a major reason behind the loose money supply. This is because the central bank has to issue additional money to mop up the excess US dollars in the market, resulting in excessive liquidity in the banking system.
And the fluctuating foreign exchange rate also poses a huge risk, economists say.
In a bid to minimize such risks, the central bank should diversify its existing US dollar-dominated foreign reserves structure, and increase its holdings of euros or other major international currencies, said Li Yongsen, a finance professor at Renmin University of China.
The central bank, he said, could also buy more state bonds issued by other major economies and decrease holdings of US Treasury bills.
"It's better to spread the risks, and not put all your eggs in one basket," Li said.
The professor also suggested that the country might consider using the huge foreign reserves to purchase some strategic resource reserves such as oil.
But such a plan should proceed with caution, both Li and Yi warned, citing the huge risks involved due to changing resource prices.
In the short term, increasing imports is an effective way to decelerate foreign reserves, economists said. This would also reduce trade frictions with some countries that have a high trade deficit with China.
Economists also said the country should further relax controls on capital outflow, in order to create a better balance of international payments.
In a bid to ease foreign reserves and broaden investment channels, China has introduced a QDII (Qualified Domestic Institutional Investors) scheme, allowing them to invest overseas.
By October 10, the foreign exchange regulator had granted quotas worth US$11.6 billion to QDIIs.
"This is the right approach for creating a two-way capital corridor," said Yi. "We used to put too much emphasis on attracting foreign investment and feared capital outflow."
China is also shifting from a long-held policy of stockpiling foreign reserves in State coffers, and instead encouraging households and businesses to hold more foreign currency.
Individuals, for example, are now allowed to buy up to US$20,000 in foreign exchange a year, up from the previous US$8,000.
Previously, China invested some foreign exchange reserves in banks.
Central Huijin Investment Company, an investment arm of the central bank, injected a total of US$45 billion in foreign exchange reserves into China Construction Bank and Bank of China in 2003.
It poured another US$15 billion into the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China in 2005.
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Iranian Oil minister: Drilling industry to become indigenous
Ahvaz, Khuzestan prov, Dec 19, IRNA
Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri Hamaneh said on Tuesday that given proper grounds are prepared for production of drilling rigs in the country, it may be claimed that Iran's drilling industry is becoming indigenous.
The minister made the remark while speaking to reporters while touring the fourth drilling exhibition (December 19-22) in Ahvaz on the anniversary of establishment of National Iranian Drilling Company.
Hamaneh said that ever since the establishment of National Iranian Drilling Company, attempts have been made to encourage domestic production and maintenance of drilling rigs and other equipment.
Turning to the fourth drilling exhibition, he lauded the efforts and creativity of domestic producers, given that all participants are showcasing their own products.
The minister said that given the facilities available to National Iranian Drilling Company, proper grounds are prepared for drilling oil wells, adding that the Oil Ministry is willing to support the company's activities.
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Wall Street awards itself billions in Christmas bonuses
By David Walsh
19 December 2006
Wall Street is awarding itself tens of billions in bonuses this winter. The fantastic amounts of money being handed out to investment bankers, securities traders and the like is symptomatic of the vast social divide that blights every aspect of American life.
Investment bank Goldman Sachs is leading the pack. The firm reported an increase in quarterly earnings of 93 percent and will distribute some $16.5 billion in bonuses to dozens of its bankers and traders. The top "rainmakers," as they are called, will each take home as much as $20 to $25 million just in bonuses, "while traders who booked big profits will take home a chunk of those profits, up to $50 million apiece," according to a December 13 article in the New York Times. The report cited the comment of one New York-based investment firm, "Anyone at the bonus line at Goldman Sachs died and went to bonus heaven. It doesn't get any better than this."
Another piece on the December 3 financial page of the Times suggested that bonuses are "expected to be a cash pile of more than $100 billion across the Street this year." That estimate presumably includes companies of all sizes. Last year major investment banks and trading firms handed out $21.5 billion in year-end bonuses. Options Group, a New York executive search firm, predicted 2006 bonuses would rise 15 to 20 percent.
The staggering figure of $100 billion in total bonuses is more than twice the annual budget of the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and nearly twice the US Department of Education budget. Washington spends $20 billion annually on foreign aid to the entire world. The yearly budget of the City of New York, which employs 250,000 people, amounts to $50 billion.
The $16.5 billion in bonuses at Goldman Sachs alone is more than New York City pays to educate 1.1 million children in its schools, the largest local school budget in the US. Goldman Sachs is giving out more in year-end financial rewards than the federal government spends on the nation's largest low-income housing program, the Housing Choice Voucher Program ($15.9 billion), which covers some 2 million households.
Goldman Sachs' top employees are not alone. Investment bank Morgan Stanley awarded its chief executive, John Mack, $40 million in stock and options for 2006, according to a regulatory filing on December 14. When Mack rejoined Morgan Stanley in June 2005 (he was ousted as president of the bank in 2001), he received a new-hire award of 500,000 restricted stock units, valued at $26.2 million. In February 2006, Morgan Stanley announced that it had awarded Mack $13 million in cash, stock and other compensation for his first five months on the job. Aside from his salary, therefore, Mack has received compensation worth nearly $80 million in 18 months at Morgan Stanley.
Mack's $40 million bonus, however, is expected to be eclipsed by the amount eventually handed out to Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein. His 2006 bonus will probably top $50 million, according to analysts. Other executives in the $40-$50 million category include James Cayne of Bear Stearns, Stan O'Neal of Merrill Lynch and Richard Fuld of Lehman Brothers, notes the Wall Street Journal.
Much of the bonus money is paid out for those involved in massive mergers and acquisitions. The New York Times revealed a dirty little secret of corporate mergers: There is "a torrent of multibillion [dollar] takeovers and mergers at the end of every year" to influence bonuses "for all involved in the deal, especially the bankers." The newspaper added, "Corporate America's biggest cheerleaders and boosters need to get paid."
Bankers at Goldman Sachs and the other firms receive bonus money for a deal announced this year, and receive another reward when the deal closes next year. Even if the merger eventually fails to come about, the bankers keep their bonus money.
The nature of Goldman Sachs' activities underscores the parasitic character of modern-day American capitalism. According to the Times, the investment bank has "transformed its business to capitalize on sea changes in the capital markets, particularly new opportunities in far-flung markets and a shift from issuing and trading plain-vanilla stocks and bonds to building and trading complex derivative products."
Two episodes demonstrate how Goldman Sachs makes some of its billions. In the second quarter of 2006, it spent $2.6 billion for a 5 percent stake in the Industrial & Commercial Bank of China, the largest state-owned bank in that country. When the latter went public in October, Goldman Sachs reaped a windfall. For the fourth quarter, it made nearly $1 billion on the investment.
Goldman Sachs earned a further half a billion dollars on the sale of Accordia Golf, a portfolio of Japanese golf courses it began to acquire in 2001. This is a far cry from the manufacturing operations of a Henry Ford or an Andrew Carnegie.
Goldman Sachs is a particularly well-connected financial institution. The present US treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, is a former chairman and CEO. His three immediate predecessors were Jon Corzine, former US senator (and present governor of New Jersey), Stephen Friedman, who became chairman of the National Economic Council (and later chairman of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board, in which capacity he still works) and Robert Rubin, who served as Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration.
The billions in bonuses will have a material impact, in the first place, on New York City, further widening the social gap. Financial industry employees collect more than 50 percent of the wages paid in Manhattan, although their 280,000 jobs represent less than a sixth of the total (1.8 million), and that first figure itself is skewed, considering the relatively small percentage of employees at Wall Street firms who make fabulous amounts. Meanwhile, incomes for restaurant, hotel, retail and health care workers stagnate, in many cases at near-poverty levels.
Real estate brokers, luxury automobile and jewelry dealers salivated at news of the Wall Street bonuses. According to the Times, "There are few things that can gladden the hearts of New York real estate brokers as much as the thought of billions of dollars in bonuses paid on Wall Street, moving from hedge funds and buyout fees to brick and stone, or in some cases, glass and steel, as this uncertain year of wavering condominium and co-op price draws to a close."
The newspaper continued: "Not all buyers, of course, wait for bonus season. Among recent transactions was the $19 million sale of a co-op at 66 East 79th Street to J. Christopher Flowers, a former Goldman Sachs partner who formed his own investment fund, and who is listed by Forbes on its list