Military To Spend $20 Mil On Outsourced Propaganda

Not surprisingly, the military and the Bush Administration is not happy about the bad press they've been getting these days. So they are outsourcing publica relations professionals to create a database of the news and create "products" to get the "official" story out.
It's an old game called "propaganda" or psychological warfare, what's new is that they are outsourcing to professionals. The problem of convincing a reluctant public that war is right and just is still as big a problem as it was in the Vietnam era. How do you convince people what is wrong it their eyes is actually right? By slanting and selectively withholding and misinforming the public until their choices are moot.
WaPo

U.S. military leaders in Baghdad have put out for bid a two-year, $20 million public relations contract that calls for extensive monitoring of U.S. and Middle Eastern media in an effort to promote more positive coverage of news from Iraq. The contract calls for assembling a database of selected news stories and assessing their tone as part of a program to provide "public relations products" that would improve coverage of the military command's performance, according to a statement of work attached to the proposal.


The request for bids comes at a time when Bush administration officials are publicly criticizing media coverage of the war in Iraq. The proposal, which calls in part for extensive monitoring and analysis of Iraqi, Middle Eastern and American media, is designed to help the coalition forces understand "the communications environment." Its goal is to "develop communication strategies and tactics, identify opportunities, and execute events . . . to effectively communicate Iraqi government and coalition's goals, and build support among our strategic audiences in achieving these goals," according to the statement of work that is publicly available through the Web site http://www.fbodaily.com .


A public relations practitioner who asked for anonymity because he may be involved in a bid on the contract said that military commanders "are overwhelmed by the media out there and are trying to understand how to get their information out. "They want it [news] to be received by audiences as it is transmitted [by them], but they don't like how it turns out," he said. As an example, he said, there are complaints that reports from Iraq sometimes quote Shiite cleric and militia leader Moqtada al-Sadr more than military commanders.

Wounded Pride Keeps Bush From Talking to Iran; Carter Will

The Bush Administration is so stuck in it's pride, it would rather go to war against Iran than talk face to face. Iran is in a strong position, perhaps more so than ever before. It makes no sense to avoid comprehensive discussions because we don't trust them. Granted talks may not solve anything. But then again, war should NEVER be an option until all other options are tried. The Bush Administration is caught in its own wounded pride.
WaPo

For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week. Carter's term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days until the day he left office.


[...]The White House said yesterday that Khatami had been invited by private organizations and is not part of the current Iranian government. "Mr. Khatami is free to meet with who he chooses and is able to speak freely in the United States -- the very freedoms that do not exist in Iran," a White House official said on the condition of anonymity. "We expect that Khatami will face tough questions from his audience in the United States about the past and present behavior of the Iranian regime, especially with respect to human rights violations that occurred during his presidency," the official added.


Talks between Carter and Khatami, if they materialize, would be politically poignant. "Carter, who has every reason to be angry about the way in which the Iranian revolution undid his presidency over the hostage affair, is willing to meet, with no hesitation, a person who was president of the Islamic republic and who has never disavowed Ayatollah Khomeini's actions when he was supreme leader," said William Quandt, a national security staffer in charge of the Middle East during the Carter administration.

Fabricating Intelligence On Iran

The Bush Administration has been preparing for war with Iran since 2004 at least. There is no mistake that the US is occupying countries that surround Iran. Iran has always been a primary target, to change it's policies by influence, coersion or by force. Clearly, Iran is the winner in the war in Iraq. Now the US's only course is to isolate Iran as best it can and continue the build up to war. This time however, the Bush Administration may be feeling a well earned sense of impotence.
A new intelligence assessment on Iran was commissioned by Republican leadership. Here is comments by the Newsweek and a former CIA leader on that topic.

Political pressure and sober intelligence analysis don’t mix well. Paul R. Pillar, who served as the CIA’s National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia from 2000 to 2005, took that as a clear lesson from the Iraq war. So when a House intelligence committee issued a sharply worded report on Iran last week, Pillar had concerns. Authors of the study—“Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States”—chastised U.S. spy agencies for “major gaps in our knowledge of Iranian nuclear, biological and chemical programs,” and insisted that intelligence analysts must “not shy away from provocative conclusions.”


The report was immediately controversial. The New York Times said it “seems intended to signal the intelligence community that the Republican leadership wants scarier assessments that would justify a more confrontational approach to Tehran.”


Pillar, who retired from the CIA a year ago, spoke to NEWSWEEK’s Jeffrey Bartholet at the offices of the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University, where he’s on the faculty. Excerpts:


NEWSWEEK: The new intelligence committee report criticizes U.S. spy agencies for not providing enough evidence about Iranian weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs and ties to terrorism. Does this have echoes of Iraq and what you call the “politicization of intelligence”? Is it happening again?


Paul R. Pillar: I see worrisome signs of it happening again. When you have pressures coming from one place on the political spectrum—which seem to be pressures to come up with evidence to support a conclusion that is already there—I take that as a worrisome sign of the same sort of thing. The bright side here is that the unhappiness of Iraq is still fresh enough in all of our minds … we will all be on our guard.

Apparently there were several statements in the report that were on the face typos. Can you imagine a report with a significant typo getting presented to Congress?

Stagnant Wages Fuel "Golden Era of Profitability"

I've never understood why the middle class, especially those working for wages could vote for Republicans. It was hard to accept they had been consistently manipulated by hot button issues like funding national defense, Ronald Reagan's "unworthy poor", i.e. welfare mothers with too many kids, gay rights, flag burning, etc. But the Republican resurgence was largely based on false premises sold to the working class to get them to vote Republican. But perhaps that legacy will come back to roost with the current stagflation, frozen wages, and record profits and productivity.
Hey, middle class, are you awake? Read this:
New York Times

With the economy beginning to slow, the current expansion has a chance to become the first sustained period of economic growth since World War II that fails to offer a prolonged increase in real wages for most workers.


That situation is adding to fears among Republicans that the economy will hurt vulnerable incumbents in this year’s midterm elections even though overall growth has been healthy for much of the last five years.
The median hourly wage for American workers has declined 2 percent since 2003, after factoring in inflation. The drop has been especially notable, economists say, because productivity — the amount that an average worker produces in an hour and the basic wellspring of a nation’s living standards — has risen steadily over the same period.


As a result, wages and salaries now make up the lowest share of the nation’s gross domestic product since the government began recording the data in 1947, while corporate profits have climbed to their highest share since the 1960’s. UBS, the investment bank, recently described the current period as “the golden era of profitability.”


Until the last year, stagnating wages were somewhat offset by the rising value of benefits, especially health insurance, which caused overall compensation for most Americans to continue increasing. Since last summer, however, the value of workers’ benefits has also failed to keep pace with inflation, according to government data.


At the very top of the income spectrum, many workers have continued to receive raises that outpace inflation, and the gains have been large enough to keep average income and consumer spending rising.


In a speech on Friday, Ben S. Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chairman, did not specifically discuss wages, but he warned that the unequal distribution of the economy’s spoils could derail the trade liberalization of recent decades. Because recent economic changes “threaten the livelihoods of some workers and the profits of some firms,” Mr. Bernanke said, policy makers must try “to ensure that the benefits of global economic integration are sufficiently widely shared.”


[...]Economists offer various reasons for the stagnation of wages. Although the economy continues to add jobs, global trade, immigration, layoffs and technology — as well as the insecurity caused by them — appear to have eroded workers’ bargaining power. MORE

Iran Continues to Posture and Threaten

According to the WaPo, Iran has tested a submarine-to-surface missile. Not only does Iran have the ability to design and build their own missles, they are also turning out submarines capable of launching missiles. There was no reference in the article on whether these missiles could launch a nuclear warhead, but I suspect that if the Iranians can produce their own missiles and submarines, they will eventually build a nuclear weapon and an ability to deliver it. The launch was part of the military exersizes Iran is running through October, apparent to dissuade military action by Israel or the US.
Meanwhile, an Israeli Newspaper,Haaretz, reports that Iranian Parliament Vice Speaker Mohammad Reza Bahonar threatened to build nuclear weapons if pressure to prevent a Iranian peaceful program continues. This is of course assumed to be the case by most people who consider the fact that Iran is now surrounded by countries overthrown by it's arch enemy, the US. The other issue is that Israel has been well known to place disinformation in newspapers to serve it's national security. The Iranian President has been misquoted several times saying he advocated sweeping Israel into the sea, but several sources including Juan Cole have confirmed that he was misquoted in translation.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was also quoted saying that his country poses no threat to Israel, but that no one can deprive Iran of its right to nuclear technology. To prove his point, the WaPo reported that Iran inaugurated a heavy-water production plant just days before the threat of censure from world powers. Ahmadinejad signaled that the Islamic Republic would not be cowed.
However, he made deliberate efforts to reassure the world, in particular Israel that Iran presents no threat. "We are not a threat to anybody — even the Zionist regime, which is a definite enemy for the people of the region."
There is further evidence that sanctions will not be forthcoming from the UN Security Council. Russia has stated is opposition recently. Analysts believe that China and Russia are unlikely to change their mind. Haaretz says that the Bush Administration no longer believes the Security Council will act and is planning actions of it's own. However, it is clear that sanctions are unlkely to convince Iran anything, it may in fact create more internal support for it's policies and enable Ahmadinejad to continue to consolidate power.

Radical Islamism, Insecurity and Xenophobia Rampant in Middle East

US frustration with the war in Iraq seems to be at it's peak, even the pro-war hawks are beginning to waver: Tom Friedman is saying Iraq was a bad idea and it's time to pull out. Author of the Belgravia Dispatch, Gregory Djerejian is calling for more troops to stabilize Baghdad that there should be "No More American Deaths Just To 'Hang On and Hand Over'" He has been calling for Rumsfeld to resign for months.
WaPo's OpEd Saad Eddin Ibrahim points out that indeed the Bush Administration has given birth to a new Middle East, but it's not the one we had in mind.

According to the preliminary results of a recent public opinion survey of 1,700 Egyptians by the Cairo-based Ibn Khaldun Center, Hezbollah's action garnered 75 percent approval, and Nasrallah led a list of 30 regional public figures ranked by perceived importance. He appears on 82 percent of responses, followed by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (73 percent), Khaled Meshal of Hamas (60 percent), Osama bin Laden (52 percent) and Mohammed Mahdi Akef of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood (45 percent).


The pattern here is clear, and it is Islamic. And among the few secular public figures who made it into the top 10 are Palestinian Marwan Barghouti (31 percent) and Egypt's Ayman Nour (29 percent), both of whom are prisoners of conscience in Israeli and Egyptian jails, respectively.

A recent Iraqi poll shows that Iraqis are more nationalistic and xenophobic than ever.

The growing sense of insecurity affected all three of Iraq's major ethnic and religious groups. The number of Iraqis who "strongly agreed" that life is "unpredictable and dangerous" jumped from 41 percent to 48 percent of Shiites, from 67 percent to 79 percent of Sunnis and from 16 percent to 50 percent of Kurds. Xenophobia is also pervasive: Ninety percent of Iraqis would not like to have Americans or British as neighbors. Nor were fellow Muslims spared: Sixty-one percent of Iraqis preferred not to have Iranians or Jordanians living next door, while 71 percent hoped to avoid a Turkish neighbor.


There was more bad news for U.S. officials, who have worked hard to convince Iraqis that American intentions in Iraq are noble. The most recent survey, done in April this year, found almost no Iraqis who felt the United States had invaded to liberate their country from tyranny and build a democracy. Asked for "the three main reasons for the U.S. invasion of Iraq," fully 76 percent cited "to control Iraqi oil." That was followed by "to build military bases" (41 percent) and "to help Israel" (32 percent). Fewer than 2 percent chose "to bring democracy to Iraq" as their first choice.

A Vacuum of Global Leadership

The Bush Administration incompetence has unbalenced the global power distribution. The US is all but bogged down in Iraq just when two enemies are flexing their nuclear muscles. The consequences for the world is staggering. While Iran and North Korea don't hold more than a catalytic role in the short term future. North Korea's military might is it's only importance. Iran however sits on 1/3 of the known oil supplies. It's potential power in influencing the events is significant likely throughout the 21st century. All the more reasons to consolidate, build concensus and demonstrate leadership. I have little hope that Bush is up for the job.
Newsweek's Michael Hirsh has similar views.

The world faces more than a security vacuum. What we are suffering is a vacuum of global leadership. That is why the "international community"—always a tenuous concept at best—seems to be coming apart at the seams, why China and Russia are going their own way, why the Europeans are clucking around like headless chickens, why the moderates in the Mideast have fallen silent. Bush must recognize that the world is not following his lead, if it ever did, and that he needs to change his tack. He needs to jump in with both feet.


Despite his "stay the course" reputation, this president has shown he can adapt. For the first year or so of his second term there was a sense that Bush understood how much his first-term unilateralism had cost him. Still, even as he eagerly joined multilateral talks on Iran and North Korea, he remained determinedly disengaged on a personal level. His attitude was: let China take the lead (Korea); let the "EU-3" take the lead (Iran).


Now Bush has a little over two more years left to take the lead himself, to recognize his place in a long U.S. tradition of American presidents who have understood that their global responsibility is to solve the knottiest international problems no one else can master. But to do so Bush must change his whole approach. As he heads off to Kennebunkport, there's reason to doubt that he will.

Israel Cancels Plans to Withdraw from West Bank

A few years ago a series of events made it look like peace was inevitable in Israel and Palestine. The fact that demography and birthrates predicts that Arabs will out number Jews in the territories, and ultimately in all of Israel if the territories are annexed by Israel. Israelis call the captured lands from past Arab Israeli wars the "Territories".
Many a right-wing Israelis have fought for annexing all of the lands that correspond to the Israel of the Torah, the Jewish version of the Old Testament, which includes all of the West Bank and Gaza. Short of the chilling methods of "ethnic cleansing" and even "genocide", Israel has no way of ensuring the country will remain a predominantly Jewish state. This is the only reason Sharon led the political movement to unilaterally give back Gaza and eventually, much of the West Bank.
Therefore, it is inevitable that Israel will revisit this issue eventually. But not now with the major distraction of Lebanon and Gaza in disarray. However, as demonstrated in the unilateral withdrawl of Gaza, Israel must make sure there is an effective government in place before they withdraw to ensure cross border attacks can be contained by the established Palestinian government. Therefore, negotiation with that government, rather than a unilateral withdrawl will be necessary before a West Bank settlement is reached. Many Israelis fear the Palestinians will be much less generous than Olmert could have accompllished unilaterally.
WaPo

The Israeli government's plan to dismantle some Jewish settlements in the West Bank and redraw the country's borders is being shelved at least temporarily, a casualty of the war in Lebanon, government officials said.


The plan, which propelled Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to victory in March elections and was warmly endorsed by President Bush as a way of solving Israel's conflict with the Palestinians, is no longer a top priority, Olmert told his ministers last weekend, according to one of his advisers.


Instead, the government must spend its money and efforts in northern Israel to repair the damage from the war and strengthen the area in case fighting breaks out again, Olmert said.


[...]Even without the financial considerations, the plan for unilateral withdrawal from some settlements is dead, other political figures and analysts said. The seizure of Israeli soldiers and the renewed fighting in the Gaza Strip -- from which Israel withdrew last year -- and in southern Lebanon -- from which Israel withdrew in 2000 -- have left the Israeli public with little appetite for additional pullouts.


[...]Olmert's plan could have required the removal of about 70,000 of the estimated 250,000 West Bank settlers. The exact lines of the proposal were never made public, however, and some in his government talked of evacuating fewer settlers.


[...]Critics said the attacks from southern Lebanon and Gaza showed it was folly to have abandoned those areas without a deal to ensure some authority remained there to curb attacks.

Iran Now Rattling Sabres

The Iranians seem to be prepared for the worst and behaving in provocative ways. They are now consolidating positions, are under full mobilization along the Iraqi and Afghani border. Air defenses are activated around key command and control locations including Tehran. It appears they are planning extended military exersizes that could last well in October.
Today there is news that Iranian military forces have taken an oil platform by force of arms off Iran's Persian Gulf coast. There is no reports of casualties but shots have been fired and the oil platform boarded and seized. Iran has been engaged in a dispute of unclear dimensions with this company for some time. This US friendly Romanian company and oil platform has had ties to Haliburton. It is located near the strategic Straits of Hormuz, through which 20 percent of the world's daily oil supply moves on tankers. Clearly Iran is signaling it's ability to control this vital oil choke point.
Globalresearch.ca

War games and military exercises are now well underway within Iran and its territory. The Iranian Armed Forces—the Regular Armed Forces and the Revolutionary Guards Corps—began the first stage of massive nationwide war games along border areas of the province of Sistan and Baluchistan1 in the southeast of Iran bordering the Gulf of Oman, Pakistan, and NATO garrisoned Afghanistan to the east on Saturday, August 19, 2006. These war games that are underway are to unfold and intensify over a five week period and possibly even last longer, meaning they will continue till the end of September and possibly overlap into October, 2006. It is worth noting that the Iranian war games are taking place within the window of time that has been predicted by analysts for the initiation of an American or of an American-led attack against Iran.

Although the momentous war games are planned to take place in 14 of the total 30 provinces of Iran—most of which are border provinces and simultaneously sensitive and geo-strategically vital positions bordering, some of the most volatile places in the world, adjacent to Anglo-American occupied Iraq, the Persian Gulf, the Caucasus (Armenia and the Republic of Azarbaijan), the Caspian Sea, Turkey, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and Afghanistan—there have been conflicting reports about the initial stage(s) of the multi-dimensioned war games. Chinese sources maintain that the initial stages of the multi-phased Iranian war games have already started in the “northeastern, northwestern, western and southern parts of Iran,”2 meaning all the border provinces adjacent to U.S., American-led Coalition, and NATO forces—including Turkey, a NATO member and strategic Israeli ally—while Iranian and other Middle Eastern sources maintain that the first stages of the war games have been predominately inaugurated in southeast Iran.

Brigadier-General Mohammad-Reza Ashtiani, the deputy commander of the Iranian Army or Land Branch of the Regular Forces, has specifically accented at a press conference that ‘the war games will take place in the provinces of West Azarbaijan, East Azarbaijan, the Khorasans3, Kurdistan, and the province of Sistan and Baluchestan’4—all of these are Iranian border provinces that would be frontlines in any possible war between Iran and the United States and have been experiencing disturbing episodes of terrorist attacks, kidnappings, violence, and recent instability5—which Iran has held both the United States, Britain, and Israel responsible for.

[...]Participating in the war games, so far, from the Iranian Regular Forces—which are a under a separate command structure from the Iranian Revolutionary Guards15—are twelve land (army) divisions along with the Iranian Air Force, Iranian Naval Forces, and Iranian Missile units, which are all involved as complimentary mechanisms of the military exercise(s), which were initiated in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchestan16

Iran has been very conscious for a long time of the hostile American-led forces encircling Iran and on its borders in the occupied territories of its neighbours, Iraq and Afghanistan, and stationed in bases in other Iranian neighbours. It has also reported that the Interior Ministry of Iran also has simultaneously planned to boost border security and all border patrols under the premise of combating smuggling and narcotics trafficking. 17 Military manoeuvres and war games can be multi-faceted and could easily serve many purposes such as being masked military mobilization and formation for an expected attack under the pretext of training and testing.

It seems that the materialization of an escalating level of alert and defensive mobilization of the Iranian Armed Forces is taking place as an inevitable and anticipated showdown over the fate of the Iranian Nuclear Energy Program is drawing nearer and with it are coupled the fates of Palestine, Israel, Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Syria, Sudan, the Persian Gulf, the direction of Central Asia, he strategic balance in the Caucasus, and so much more.

Truly, should this area ignite in war, the US would be hard pressed to impose it's will. The world economy would suffer a major recession and face the prospects of $100 a barrel oil. The Bush Administration blunders in Iraq has enflamed and put at risks all key interests in this volatile part of the world. And the winner so far has been Iran.

Iran Draws a Line In the Sand

Iran is fresh from the victory of Hizbullah in Lebanon. And they are positioning to divide the UN Security Council on sanctions for it's nuclear program. However, the situation is very complex. WaPo would have us believe the West will interpret the position Iran is taking to avoid immediate suspension of enrichment of uranium as unacceptable.

Iran's semi-official news agency reported today that Tehran has "rejected suspension of its nuclear activities" as demanded by the United Nations Security Council but has proposed a "new formula for resolving the issue through talks."


[...]Diplomats in Washington, Tehran and European capitals had said yesterday that the Iranian government is willing to enter negotiations and to consider a freeze of the program, but it will not accept a freeze as a precondition for the talks.


Earlier this month, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution giving Iran 30 days to stop the program or face the threat of sanctions. U.S. officials have said they would push for strong financial sanctions against the Tehran government if it does not cooperate and that they expect support from Europe.


[...]President Bush said yesterday that he would wait for the formal reply, but, anticipating the rejection, he urged the United Nations to respond forcefully. "There must be consequences if people thumb their nose at the United Nations Security Council, and we will work with people in the Security Council to achieve that objective," he said. But even some of Washington's closest allies worried yesterday that the effort was becoming more difficult, complicated by the recent fighting in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah, which is backed financially and militarily by Iran. "The Iranians are extremely confident following the outcome of the Israel conflict," said one senior European official, who agreed to discuss sensitive details in the matter on the condition of anonymity. "Their Syria-Iran-Hezbollah axis has gone from minority player to lionized hero of the Arab street."


A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said senior U.S., French, German and British diplomats agreed during a conference call yesterday to press for sanctions. Even before fighting broke out in Lebanon, many Security Council members seemed skittish about imposing financial measures against a major oil exporter.

The WaPo article could have been cued by White House writers. The NY Times seems to take a more realistic pose, considering the linchpin role of China and Russia on the Security Council.
New York Times

Western diplomats in Tehran said the Iranian reply was lengthy, detailed and would take some time to analyze. They said they were ordered by their home capitals as well as officials with the European Union to keep the details secret. But in the days running up to Iran’s self-imposed deadline to respond to the incentives package, Western diplomats in Tehran said they expected the Iranian response would seek to keep negotiations going, to talk about suspending uranium enrichment rather than actually suspending it. And they predicted that such a strategy would be rejected by the West.


[...]Nasser Hadian, a political science professor at Tehran University, said that if the proposal offers concrete details to ensure that Iran does not divert nuclear material to a weapons program, it is possible that Iran will win some more support from Russia and China. The measures may include intrusive inspections and real-time monitoring of the nuclear facilities with cameras.


[...]But the nuclear issue has also been turned into an important domestic issue, one that has had profound political implications here in Iran. [...]In June 2005, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president, and shortly after taking office he transformed the issue into a matter of national pride. President Ahmadinejad has repeatedly said that peaceful nuclear energy is Iran’s “inalienable right,” and then in defiance of the West in April he announced that Iran had already enriched uranium and would never stop.


The nuclear issue has galvanized the Iranian government, which has been disdainful of the former reformist administration of Mr. Khatami and has slowly moved to consolidate power while promoting a populist, nationalist political ideology, political analysts and diplomats in Tehran said.


[...]The nuclear dispute with the West has helped empower a new administration that trumpets the slogans of the Iranian revolution while cracking down on political descent. The recent war in Lebanon and Hezbollah’s strong showing against Israel has served to further embolden the most radical elements of the Iranian leadership while the United States is bogged down in Afghanistan and Iraq.


“If sanctions are imposed, radical forces will become very happy,” said Hamidreza Jalaipour, a sociologist in Tehran and former government official. “Because no one can breathe when there is the threat of war. Whoever says anything, he will be accused of being a traitor. Intellectuals and wise forces will prefer to remain silent.”

Tehran mullahs will milk this negotiation for everything it can get, even if eventually it may be likely they will compromise. Although the Mullahs would benefit from a massive US airstrike on Iran, the economic consequences would weaken it's role as a regional player with new found influence across the Middle East. And the longer the impasse continues, the more they benefit from the premium price of oil.

Hizbullah’s Leader: Charismatic, Dangerous

Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah, was a relative unknown just ten years ago. This man has been credited as twice forcing the pullout of the Israeli army. He has been hailed as a hero for all of Islam, and made a Shiite Muslim for the first time in hundreds of years a leader in an all Arab cause, the Palestinian people and the domination of the Israelis on it's neighbors. Suddenly, the Israeli army looks much less effective. Who is this man?
Sheikh Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah at one time lived in South Beirut with his wife Fatima Yassin and five children: Muhammad Hadi, Muhammad Jawad, Zeinab, Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Mahdi. His eldest son Muhammad Hadi was killed by Israeli forces in Jabal al-Rafei in southern Lebanon in September 1997.

Nasrallah, born in 1960, grew up in a neighborhood of squatters and refugees called Sharshabouk, in the Karantina area on the eastern outskirts of Beirut. There was no running water and no electricity. Houses were often crude shacks made from tin sheets and wood. [...]Nasrallah's father ran a small grocery, and his former neighbors recall the father as a devout, trustworthy man. But Nasrallah's mother was the force in the family, according to Syrian filmmaker Nabil Mulhim, who interviewed her for a documentary about the Hizbullah leader: "The strong words and the soft face, those are hers," says Mulhim. "And the self-satisfaction. And the toughness."


The boy's parents scraped their money together to send him to private school. Khalid Mustafa, a former classmate, remembers Nasrallah at the age of 12: "He didn't talk without thinking. He was mature, like a 35-year-old." Nasrallah often wore an oversize coat and pants to school and didn't play soccer or other sports. Most kids could tell he was poor, and gangs of Sunni bullies tyrannized everyone in the neighborhood. "All the Shiites were afraid," says Mustafa.

In 1975, when Lebanon's long civil war began, one of it's first battlegrounds was the slums of Karantina. The family was forced the family to move to their ancestral home in Bassouriyeh, near Tyre, where Hassan Nasrallah terminated his secondary education at the public school of Sour. It was during this time, Nasrallah and his brother joined the Amal Movement, a political group representing Shiites in Lebanon. Later, "in the mid-1970s, he moved to a Shiite Hawza (Islamic Seminary) in the Iraqi city of Najaf to study Qura’anic divine sciences, completing the first stage of his studies in 1978 before being forced to leave by the Iraqi authorities." He returned to Lebanon, where he studied at the school of Amal’s leader Sheikh Abbas al-Musawi, later being selected as Amal's political delegate in Beqaa, and making him a member of the central political office.
After the Israeli invasion in 1982, Nasrallah joined Hezbollah which had been formed by Iranian Revolutionary Guard who came to fight the Israelis along side their Shi'a brothers. The resistance was focused on the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.

In 1989 Nasrallah, resumed his efforts to become a religious jurisprudent by moving to the sacred Iranian city of Qom to further his studies. Nasrallah believes that Islam holds the solution to the problems of any society, once saying, “With respect to us, briefly, Islam is not a simple religion including only praises and prayers, rather it is a divine message that was designed for humanity, and it can answer any question man might ask concerning his general and private life. Islam is a religion designed for a society that can revolt and build a state.”

Nasrallah never rose high in the scholarly ranks that confer authority on a cleric. "I was mesmerized," remembers a fellow mullah who knew him in Iran but didn't want to be quoted by name criticizing him. "He is more than charismatic if you listen to him—he is mythic. But as soon as you start asking him [theological] questions, you're surprised how little knowledge he has."


Nasrallah's interests were more pragmatic, more political, more rooted in worldly conflict. "He's a very good student of everything to do with Israel: the politicians, the Army," says Timur Goksel, a former senior adviser to the U.N. forces in Lebanon who has met the Hizbullah leader dozens of times. For religious guidance, Nasrallah relied increasingly on the heads of the Iranian revolution: Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, whom he idolized, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who in 1989 would become Khomeini's successor as Iran's spiritual leader and supreme political authority.

Hizbullah became a rival with Amal, for the leadership of the Shi'a in south Lebanon. The difference between Sunni and Shi'a beliefs revolve around the role and power of the ayatollahs. So disagreements over the ayatollahs role and which to follow led, in 1988, to skirmishes among the militias broke out into open combat and Nasrallah was on Hizbullah's front lines. This conflict was intensely personal because Nasrallah's older brother, who used the nom de guerre Jihad al Husseini, was on the side of Amal.

"He was injured in the fighting with Hizbullah," says Humayed, his face flushing red from the memory. "You can imagine the suffering of the mother and the father. One son on one side and one son on the other side." The fratricidal battles among the Shiites were savage, with reports of corpses being mutilated. "All of Amal against all of Hizbullah," says Humayed.

To this day, the relationship between Nasrallah and his brother is strained and brother now keeps a low profile.
Nasrallah's conduct in the fight against Amal added to his standing within Hizbullah. When, in February 1992, an Israeli "targeted assassination" killed Hizbullah leader Sheik Abbas al-Musawi, and Nasrallah took over as the group's leader at 32 years old.

Within days of Musawi's death and Nasrallah's ascendancy, Hizbullah launched its first Katyusha rocket attacks on Israel. Within weeks, Israel's embassy in Buenos Aires was blown up by a suicide bomber. Although Nasrallah has always denied responsibility not only for that attack but also for a subsequent hit on a Jewish center in Argentina in 1994, those operations are often cited by Israel and the United States as examples of Hizbullah's long reach as a terrorist organization—and of the group's penchant for revenge.

Under Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah became a serious opponent of the Israel Defense Forces in Southern Lebanon, managing to improve the organization's military capabilities and increasing the killing rate to approximately two dozen Israeli soldiers per year. Hezbollah's military campaigns of the late 1990s were believed to be one of the main factors that led to the Israeli decision to withdraw from Southern Lebanon in 2000, thus ending 18 years of occupation. Consequently, Nasrallah is widely credited in Lebanon and the Arab world for ending the Israeli occupation in Southern Lebanon, something which has greatly bolstered the party's political standing within Lebanon.


Nasrallah also played a major role in a complex prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hezbollah in 2004, resulting in hundreds of Palestinian and Hezbollah prisoners being freed and bodies returned to Lebanon. The agreement was described across the Arab world as a great victory for Hezbollah with Nasrallah being personally praised for achieving these gains

.
Nasrallah, in part, built his leadership by leading Hizbullah into social and educational programs, softening the enforcement of strict dress codes for women and bans against drinking and playing cards.

By 1993, Nasrallah was meeting with the Maronite Christian patriarch and trying to shore up relations with all the communities in a country barely beginning its recovery from 15 years of sectarian war. Nasrallah, even then, was staking out his position as a national leader.


But the cornerstone of his politics and his power remained resistance to the Israeli occupation of Lebanese land—a struggle that had gained little ground in the years before he took charge. The military strategy developed under his leadership was one of guerrilla warfare, decentralized and working closely with the local population. Very closely. In September 1997, Nasrallah's own son, 18-year-old Hadi, was killed in a clash against the Israelis, who took his body away with them. The next night Nasrallah spoke at a Hizbullah anniversary rally. "We, in the leadership of Hizbullah, do not spare our children and save them for the future," he told the crowd. "We pride ourselves when our sons reach the front line. And stand, heads high, when they fall [as] martyrs."


It took Nasrallah almost a year to win the return of his son's corpse. The Israelis also freed 60 Lebanese prisoners and handed over the remains of 39 other fighters. In exchange, Nasrallah delivered the body of an Israeli naval commando who had been killed in a 1997 Hizbullah ambush. In 2000, to gain the freedom of still more prisoners, Hizbullah ambushed and captured three Israeli soldiers and abducted a retired Israeli colonel who had been lured to Beirut. The negotiations, through a German intermediary, lasted more than three years, eventually winning the release of 400 prisoners—not only Lebanese but Palestinians and other Arabs as well.


When Nasrallah captured two Israeli soldiers this July, he may have thought new negotiations would begin. But he also knew that his war with Israel is what gave him his power and prestige.


When Israel withdrew from South Lebanon in May 2000, Nasrallah found himself for the first time a hero of the Arab world, the first to "defeat" the Israelis. He was recognized as the equal of any of Lebanon's constitutional leaders. Goksel even arranged a meeting for him with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Nasrallah also developed a close relationship with the late Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, sometimes meeting him two or three times a week. "You can make business with this guy," the billionaire Hariri would say.

So for Israel to commit itself to containing Hizbullah, they are taking on the leading political organization serving the south Lebanese, an overwhelminingly Shi'a population and 40% of the Lebanese population. Hizbullah functions as the de facto government of south Lebanon and has been adding to it's stature by distributing Iranian money and volunteer labor to the residents of south Lebanon now that the Israelis are withdrawing.

What Really Happened 9/11?

The conspiracy theory regarding 9/11 has been around since 9/12. While I don't believe that a large conspiracy like portrayed in this movie is possible, it does review some compelling evidence that is being officially ignored and not investigated. Some polls have said more than half of American's believe there was a conspiracy to kill Kennedy. Someday I think a similar number of Americans will have compelling questions about 9/11. Currently, an independent investigation of the 9/11 incidents cannot be completed. The Bush Administration has it all locked up. The movie is well done and worth viewing with a critical eye.

Loose Change - 2nd Edition

"As the fifth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks approaches, Loose Change has become a magnet for those who have come to believe the worst about their government. Originally posted in April 2005 and already updated in a "second edition," the entire project cost about $6,000 to produce -- a sum that wouldn't cover a day's catering on the set of Oliver Stone's straightforward drama World Trade Center, which opens Wednesday."


-Mark McGuire, Times Union

Play the movie.

For more Arabs, Islam is the answer

The neocon perspective has always been under heavy influence by Likud party in Israel, partly by reputation due to the what I believe is a mistaken perception that Israel has been highly effective in combating the non-symmetrical warefare of the PLO and Hamas. The truth is that the rules of warfare have changed. The growing effectiveness of hand held weapons combined with the sophisticated propaganda tactics of the PLO, Hizbullah, and Iran, have led to a losing hand for the Neocons in general, the Bush and Olmert Administration in particular. The Neocons have over-estimated the power of the military option and sorely neglected the propaganda and diplomatic efforts. The result is world events and political winds headed in the opposite direction than the Neocons intended. Witness the influence of the Arab on the streets:
International Herald Tribune

"I have more faith in Islam than in my state; I have more faith in Allah than in Hosni Mubarak," Mahmoud said, referring to the president of Egypt. "That is why I am proud to be a Muslim."


The war in Lebanon, and the widespread conviction among Arabs that Hezbollah won that war by bloodying Israel, has fostered and validated those kinds of feelings across Egypt and the region. In interviews on streets and in newspaper commentaries circulated around the Middle East, the prevailing view is that where Arab nations failed to stand up to Israel and the United States, an Islamic movement succeeded.


"The victory that Hezbollah achieved in Lebanon will have earthshaking regional consequences that will have an impact much beyond the borders of Lebanon itself," Yasser Abuhilalah of Al Ghad, a Jordanian daily, wrote in the Tuesday issue.


"The resistance celebrates the victory," read the front-page headline in Al Wafd, an opposition daily in Egypt.


Hezbollah's perceived triumph has propelled, and been propelled by, a wave already washing over the region. Political Islam was widely seen as the antidote to the failures of Arab nationalism, communism, socialism and, most recently, what is seen as the false promise of American-style democracy. It was that wave that helped the banned but tolerated Muslim Brotherhood win 88 seats in Egypt's Parliament last December despite the government's violent efforts to stop voters from getting to the polls. It was that wave that swept Hamas into power in the Palestinian government in January, shocking Hamas itself.


"We need an umbrella," said Mona Mahmoud, 40, Jihan's older sister. "In the '60s, Arabism was the umbrella. We had a cause. Now we lack an umbrella. We feel lost in space. We need to be affiliated to something."


The lesson learned by many Arabs from the war in Lebanon is that an Islamic movement, in this case Hezbollah, restored dignity and honor to a bruised and battered identity. Hezbollah's perceived victory has highlighted, and to many validated, the rise of another unifying ideology, a kind of Arab-Islamic nationalism.


"The losers are going to be the Arab regimes, U.S.A. and Israel," said Fares Braizat of the Center for Strategic Studies at the University of Jordan. "The secular resistance movements are gone. Now there are the Islamists coming in. So the new nationalism is going to be religious nationalism, and one of the main reasons is dignity. People want their dignity back."


The terms Islamic nationalism and pan-Islamism have a negative connotations in the West, where they are associated with fundamentalism and terrorism. But that is increasingly not the case in Egypt. Under the dual pressures of foreign military attacks in the region and a government widely viewed as corrupt and illegitimate, Islamic groups are seen by many people as incorruptible, disciplined, efficient and caring.


"Hezbollah is a resistance movement that has given us a solution," said Yomana Samaha, a radio talk-show host in Cairo who identified herself as secular and a supporter of separating religion and government.


[...][During the] voting in Egypt's parliamentary elections, a months-long process [...] was marred by police officers who were ordered to block voters from getting to the polls in many districts. The government grew concerned after candidates affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood began winning in record numbers. The government says that the police did not fire live ammunition at citizens, but many people were killed and doctors and witnesses - including Western diplomats - said that the police did fire live rounds into people trying to vote.

Even the conservative spectrum foreign policy experts are bemoaning the outcome. The Belgravia Dispatch has an outstanding post outline his view about the Lebanon debacle. He calls it "The Israeli-Lebanese Denouement: A Tragicomedy of Errors".

Beating Hezbollah ultimately must rely more on what might be described as counter-insurgency tactics, not some Dresden redux. To beat back Hezbollah one must moderate the 40% of Lebanese who are Shi’a, by over time having them pledge their primary allegiance to a strong central government, one that is sharing the economic fruits of Lebanon’s revival with all ethnic groups, so as to ultimately render the social welfare arm of Hezbollah largely irrelevant. Given this, it is manifestly clear that Israel’s reaction to Hezbollah’s provocation should have always been limited to targets south of the Litani River (save the very exceptional target to the north of truly imperative strategic value). This is so that the greatest pain would have been inflicted solely on the perpetrators of the rocket attacks and kidnapping themselves, rather than Lebanon writ large. (One might have thought, for instance, that some of Israel’s best commandos might have been air-dropped at the Litani, worked their way southwards so as to catch Hezbollah by surprise, and in conjunction with the judicious use of airpower, inflicted some significant pain on Hezbollah guerillas acting near the border. This would have been more by way of an intense 7-10 day security operation, serving to create a deterrent effect, and with the Americans fully briefed on the details and moving swiftly to put a cease-fire in place a week or so into the Israeli action).


Instead, of course, Israel fought a month long war (mostly a rather brutal, too often indiscriminate air campaign) that involved the death of hundreds and hundreds of civilians, as well as: 1) imposition of a total naval and air blockade on the entire country, 2) the destruction of a very significant number of roads and bridge networks, 3) an environmental disaster in the Mediterranean Sea of worrisome scope, 4) a massive pummeling to much of Lebanon’s infrastructure causing billions of dollars of damage, not to mention 5) reducing large swaths of southern Beirut neighborhoods to rubble, as well as so many towns in the south, including important population centers like Tyre.


Such a strategy was doomed to failure, as it has had precisely the opposite effect than that Israel had (or should have) intended. The population of Lebanon, including Sunnis and even Christians and Druze, stand today united in their disgust at Israel’s tactics. To be sure, this pervasive anti-Israeli sentiment will diminish some in coming weeks, as internal fissures increasingly rise to the fore instead.


[...]There is also the fact, however old fogey-like and apparently drearily Scowcroftian this may sound, that getting at the real “root causes”, as our rather impressionable Secretary of State is so fond of saying, means addressing the Arab-Israeli conflict on a comprehensive basis. As for Hezbollah, it means talking to the Syrians in serious fashion (that is to say, no more of the “they know what they need to do” woeful cop-out), lest Hezbollah arms coffers simply be replenished by Damascus going forward—even if mostly to Hezbollah assets north of the Litani. Put simply, to speak of getting to the "root causes" of Hezbollah, without broaching the overall Arab-Israeli peace process, or the Syrian and Iranian role, well, it's just a joke.


[...]Nasrallah is undoubtedly the winner in this sad affair, having outlasted the combined might of the Egyptian, Jordanian and Syrian armies in a head on struggle with Israel. Israel has been shown to be strategically vulnerable to rockets (to which one might query, what is so important about the Golan when rockets can fly over it?), and Assad and Ahmadinejad have surely taken note of same. The French were somewhat winners, flexing some muscle with boots on the ground in the international force and so having a stronger hand to play going forward (if they aren’t attacked and scared away, that is, as in previous Lebanese deployments).


[...]Condi Rice's unfortunate talk referencing the “birth pangs” of a New Middle East, or presence in Jerusalem amidst the carnage in Qana—well, no one could have really divined better blows to America’s image in the region if they had tried mightily.


[...]And so we had a rather big exercise in futility, a futile little war, as I said, only a tragic one too, with all the blood spilled and damage done. The reality is that Lebanese hearts and minds, certainly Shi'a ones, are going to support Nasrallah even more now, not to mention the many in Cairo and Baghdad and points beyond hailing Nasrallah as a new Nasser. Hezbollah is far further from 'eradication', however absurdly unrealistic a goal that was regardless (particularly given the U.S. and Israeli approaches), than before. What we've just witnessed is a (tragi)comedy of errors, really, featuring incompetence (the bungled Israeli military campaign), fake showmanship (Bush and Olmert finally talking four weeks into the war with Olmert thanking the American President for his help with the UN Resolution, in a butt-covering, farcical coup de theatre par excellence!), historical innocence mixed with hubris (that because Israel unilaterally pulled out of Gaza and south Lebanon, in her self-interest more than anything else, this would mean no attacks from either quarter--in the absence of an overarching settlement--so that any attack would demand a hugely asymetrical response, the better so as to discipline the recently liberated ingrates), another low ebb for America's repute in the region (the disasterous Rome Conference where the world judged, correctly, that only the U.S., and perhaps Tony Blair, to the ire of his government colleagues and people, were willing to give Israel's ill-fated campaign additional time), and more. One that occured, to boot, in the midst of an Iraq debacle that grows worse by the day, where Iranian influence is increasing in lockstep with America's mushrooming impotence there. The entire sad spectacle must look almost amusing from Teheran.

It's time for a major reassessment of foreign policy direction. An about face may well be a good metaphor. The world of Islam is falling into bin Ladin's hands. Hizbullah has become the new Nassar and the greatest hope of Islam world wide. I can't think of a worse disaster for the US or Israel.

Please Act Immediately to Save the Internet

Congress is poised to privatize the Internet. A resource created by tax payers dollars is being relegated to a private network controlled by Telcom corporations who have demonstrated an inclination to limit access to information and commerce.
Do you want to allow a handful of multinational corporations to control everything you see and hear? Congress must preserve a free and open Internet by creating enforceable network neutrality and keep tollbooths, gatekeepers, and discrimination off my Internet.
Please act immediately to save the Internet. The bill before Congress today promises to take the greatest resource of our Democratic process and gut it into private conduit controlled by big money and the telcoms, restraining commerce and freedom of speech.
Net neutrality is as basic to Democracy as the Bill of Rights, in fact it is one of the few means to express many of those rights in a level open forum. This bill will kill our world's greatest resource for communication today.
Take Action: Sign the Petition -- Don't Let Congress Ruin the Internet

Key Links

MoveOn petition. (Please include - each signer will get future action items.)

Call Congress today.

Original MoveOn email describing the issue.

How gutting Net Neutrality affects regular people (Ipod users, Google users), and proof that telecom companies abuse their power.

Actress Alyssa Milano blogs on Internet freedom.

Our coalition MySpace profile – including a video explaining this issue (please include).

Coalition website (please include – mentioning our partners Gun Owners of America and Craig from Craigslist).

Coalition blog – good recent developments.

A key House committee already voted against Internet freedom. See if your representative is on this committee.

Find out where your representative stands.

Good Articles

Net Losses," New Yorker, March 20, 2006

"Why You Should Care About Net Neutrality," Slate - Prof. Tim Wu Guest Column, May 1, 2006

"Gun Owners, Librarians Unite Against Bells,"Telephony Online, April 24, 2006

"New Group Aims to ‘Save the Internet’" CNet News, April 24, 2006

"Average Joe And Saving The Internet," Webpronews.com, April 24, 2006  

"Panel Vote Shows Rift Over 'Net Neutrality'" Los Angeles Times, April 27, 2006

Israelis May Be Spoiling For Another Fight

I will be surprised if the cease fire in Lebanon holds. Israelis are already showing signs of looking for another go. Bellicose comments by Hizbullah, Syria and Iran may have provoked the Israelis to look for another fight. Indeed, it may have already begun.
WaPo

Helicopter-borne Israeli commandos raided a Bekaa Valley stronghold of the Hezbollah militia early Saturday in the first major violation of a six-day-old cease-fire. Hezbollah, which battled the Israeli military for 33 days until a truce took hold Aug. 14, said its fighters encountered the Israeli commandos near the town of Boudai and engaged them in a fierce gun battle, inflicting casualties and driving them off.


The Israeli military, confirming the raid, said its commandos carried out the operation as part of an effort to prevent resupply of Hezbollah with weapons and munitions from Iran and Syria. It said one Israeli officer was killed and two soldiers were wounded, one seriously.

One might ask why would the Israelis be so hungry for another battle? It's because their reputation has been tarnished and their enemies emboldened.
WaPo

From the failure to get food and water to the troops, to complaints of an uncertain war plan and overconfident generals, the Lebanon war is fast being viewed within Israel as a major stumble. Military and political leaders already are trading blame; some are expected to lose their posts. Officers say the mistakes show weakness in the military, the Israel Defense Forces, known as the IDF. Many Israelis worry that the failure of the military to squash the Hezbollah militia will make their country more vulnerable to other enemies.


"For four weeks we failed to defend ourselves against daily bombardments against our cities. This is a failure that never happened before," said Yuval Steinitz, a Likud Party member and former chairman of parliament's defense committee. "This is going to send a bad message."


[...]"The destruction in Beirut and southern Lebanon do create anger, but they also create deterrence," Steinberg said. "Israelis are coping with this. It's not a sense of denial. It would be a mistake if Hezbollah or others look at Israel as a weakened society. Israeli society is very determined to see this through, and prepared to fight another war."

The War On Corruption

Now here is a good idea, one that could be duplicated worldwide. Virtually all conflict has it's basis in economics. Often it is the party that has the most to gain that distorts the truth to those who care and makes an economic conflict into one that is based on fear to cover the tracks of the profiteer. The fear can be about religion, race, or any other emotional flash point for the culture. But it's usually about someone taking more than his share at other's expense. It's often nurtured by corrupt political leaders who distort the truth and call on fear, bigotry, and fanaticism.
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner

The same forces of globalization that shrunk the global marketplace also create a larger space for graft and political grand theft - as well as more opportunity and impetus for voters to resist it. As James Surowiecki recently pointed out in The New Yorker, the pressures for modernization in transitional economies create huge openings for corruption. As leaders privatise utilities and establish new regulatory regimes in a globalized economy, public offices have more lucrative opportunities to steer capital flows, provide safe havens for illicit cash, or lend official imprimatur to private schemes. Political elites are often the last to understand that the people mean business in their calls for reforms. More surprising is the critique that has emerged from some scholars of global affairs, who argue that an overwrought focus on corruption detracts attention from more pressing issues. Last year, Moises Naim, the editor of Foreign Policy, wrote in The Washington Post that "the war on corruption is undermining democracy, helping the wrong leaders get elected and distracting societies from facing urgent problems".


Mr Naim and others are right that a focus on corruption does not always produce progressive results. Hamas won December's Palestinian elections in part by crusading against corruption in the ruling Fatah movement. But those who see a "corruption obsession" are wrong to think voters have misplaced priorities. The scale of corruption often runs into billions of dollars, enough to make a real impact on a country's economy and living standards. That is why voters mostly talk about corruption not as a moral failing, but as an economic problem - and in surveys across many countries they tell us it is a bigger cause of low living standards than bad economic policies.


It therefore makes sense for the World Bank and other agencies to make governance reforms a priority in the development agenda. But the rising scale and toll of corruption also means that it will be more of a first order political issue in more and more countries. Those politicians who take the lead on this issue - explaining its costs, identifying its perpetrators and offering solutions - are likely to find themselves in line with most voters in their national elections and marching in front of what is becoming a global demand for transparency and change.

Destroy Lebanon to Make Peace?

Simple solutions make complex problems worse. The Neocon dream of remaking the world in the image of the US national interest rested on the assumption the US Military could intimidate the world into doing it's bidding. The rules of war have changed. We see just how effective the US has been in Iraq and Central Asia. US power and credibility is at it's lowest point in the past 20 years at least.
Intiimidation works only as long you hold a gun to the head of your enemy. The damage done removes credibility and influence for sometimes generations. The US policy has served to create a pool of millions of recruits for Al Qaeda especially in the next generation.
Here, in it's entirety, is a editorial that makes a cohesive proposal for addressing Lebanon. Watch how the Bush Administration ignores these ideas. One can only hope the rest of the Republican party will stand up.
New York Times

WHAT a waste that it took more than 30 days to adopt a United Nations Security Council resolution for a cease-fire in Lebanon. Thirty days during which nothing positive was achieved and a great deal of pain, suffering and damage was inflicted on innocent people.


The loss of innocent civilian life is staggering and the destruction, particularly in Lebanon, is devastating. Human rights organizations and the United Nations have condemned the humanitarian crisis and violations of international humanitarian law.


Yet all the diplomatic clout of the United States was used to prevent a cease-fire, while more military hardware was rushed to the Israeli Army. It was argued that the war had to continue so that the root causes of the conflict could be addressed, but no one explained how destroying Lebanon would achieve that.


And what are these root causes? It is unbelievable that recent events are so regularly traced back only to the abduction of three Israeli soldiers. Few speak of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners held by Israel, or of its Lebanese prisoners, some of whom have been held for more than 20 years. And there is hardly any mention of military occupation and the injustice that has come with it.


Rather than helping in the so-called global war on terror, recent events have benefited the enemies of peace, freedom and democracy. The region is boiling with resentment, anger and despair, feelings that are not leading young Arabs and Palestinians toward the so-called New Middle East.


Nor are these policies helping Israel. Israel’s need for security is real and legitimate, but it will not be secured in any sustainable way at the expense of the equally real and legitimate needs and aspirations of its neighbors. Israel and its neighbors could negotiate an honorable settlement and live in peace and harmony. As often happens in complex conflict situations, however, the parties cannot do it alone. They need outside help but are not getting it.


It is perhaps too early to draw lessons from this month of madness. What is clear, however, is that Hezbollah scored a political victory and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, has become the most popular figure in the Muslim world. As for Israel, it does not seem to have achieved its stated objectives. Should these trends continue, it is hard to imagine stability coming to the region soon.


So what can be done? The international community should take several steps — some concrete, some conceptual — to address the current crisis.


First, priority must be given to ensuring Lebanon’s unity, sovereignty and territorial integrity and the full implementation of the 1989 Taif accord, which I helped negotiate on behalf of the Arab League. This agreement specifically required that the Lebanese government, like all states, have a monopoly over the possession of weapons and the use of force.


Second, we must recall that Hezbollah came into existence as a consequence of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Like all movements, it has evolved: it was initially a militia and a resistance movement against foreign occupation. It then developed into both a political party and a social organization, providing valuable services to its impoverished community.


Rather than trying to isolate Hezbollah, we should be encouraging it to play a responsible role in the internal dynamics of Lebanon. It would then, in turn, be legitimate to expect Hezbollah to accept the Lebanese state’s exclusive right to possess armaments and use force.


Third, it is something of a paradox to ask Iran and Syria to sever relations with Hezbollah while asking them to use their influence to obtain its compliance with the cease-fire resolution. Would it not be more effective to demand that both countries, as well as all other states in the region and beyond, scrupulously respect Lebanon’s sovereignty and abstain from interfering in its internal affairs?


Fourth, the most valuable contribution Israel can make to lasting peace across its northern border is to withdraw its troops from all the territory it currently occupies, including the Shebaa Farms.


Finally, urgent and sustained attention must be focused on the problem that underlies the unrest in the Middle East: the Palestinian issue. A wealth of United Nations resolutions and other agreements already exist that provide a basis for a just and viable solution to the Middle East conflict.


One approach could be for a team of mediators to be mandated by the Security Council and an international conference (including the Arab League) to take on the formidable task of reviving the pre-existing agreements that work best and then seeing that they are put in place.


If the United States and other key countries could see this conflict through a different lens, there could be a real chance for peace. This would be the best way to signal genuine respect and atonement for the suffering inflicted on so many innocent people for so many years.


Lakhdar Brahimi is a former special adviser to the United Nations Secretary General.

Israel is Making Unprecedented Concessions

I'm quite surprised at the Israeli behavior in this cease fire and withdrawl. Hizbullah is behaving very much like the winner, refusing to give up arms despite the UN brokered cease fire that requires them to do so. In the past, that would have led to immediate repercussions by the Israelis. In fact, it might be seen as a way for Israel to assert a strong hand after a public relations fiasco but demonstrating Hizbullah's intransigence and willingness to put their own people in harms way.
But Israel is looking very much like a team player with the UN, something I never thought I'd see in my life time. France's involvement will give the UNIFIL force real credibility. They are not about to let Hizbullah and Israel make fools of them.
This is getting very interesting. Perhaps Israel finally is recognizing it's future is in the community of nations. Perhaps for the first time, they are realizing that they can't fend off their enemies on their own.
WaPo

Breaking an impasse, the Lebanese government on Wednesday ordered army troops to deploy across southern Lebanon under a compromise arrangement that allows the Hezbollah militia to retain some of its arms caches near the border with Israel.


Military authorities said as many as 15,000 troops would begin taking up positions in devastated southern villages, seeking to defuse a threat to the U.N. cease-fire that went into effect Monday morning after 33 days of warfare between Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli military.


[...]Hezbollah welcomed the army deployment and its ministers voted with the cabinet majority. But political sources involved in the decision said Hezbollah did so on condition that the army pledge not to look closely at whether all of the militia's armaments and missile stores were carried out of the border zone.


[...]France has offered to lead the reinforced UNIFIL detachment and contribute troops. The French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, after conferring with Siniora in Beirut, urged swift deployment of Lebanese army troops to provide reinforcement for the international peacekeepers as soon as possible.


Turkey also has offered to send troops. Its foreign minister, Abdullah Gul, also conferred with Lebanese officials in Beirut, along with the foreign ministers of Malaysia and Pakistan. Malaysia has said it, too, might send soldiers, along with Italy and several others. The Bush administration has said no U.S. troops will be involved.

The End Game in Lebanon Has Yet To Be Played

Israelis stopped pulling out of Lebanon yesterday, even though they continue to talk about withdrawl. Hizbullah has refused to pull out or disarm. The UN peace force cannot deploy without both parties cooperation. So much for a cease fire.
Clearly, Hizbullah has begun to play it's political hand internally in Lebanon. The people of south Lebanon are going to happily take the money provided by Iran and rebuild as best they can. Israel has been successfully demonized, as if they needed much help. By hurrying the rebuilding, Hizbullah gets back it's civilian shield. More cannon fodder for Israeli bombs.
I think Nasrallah will settle for nothing less than power sharing with the current government and integration of his fighters into the Lebanese Army. Iran will continue to have a strong ally in Lebanon.
We fighting break out again? It seems likely. Israel is in a bit of better position to root out Hizbullah now that they hold advanced positions and have been able to place many Hizbullah positions. But Israel is also behavior in an unusual way. They are treating the UN and other western powers with respect. They appear to be willing to adhere to their commitments. If they pull out despite Hizbullah intransigence, they are truly playing a different hand. Are they hoping for an invite into NATO with Turkey?
UPDATE: NewsDaily

Israel is prepared to disarm the Lebanese Hezbollah militant group if U.N. peacekeeping forces can't or won't, the Jerusalem Post reports.

WaPo

Hezbollah refused to disarm and withdraw its fighters from the battle-scarred hills along the border with Israel on Tuesday, threatening to delay deployment of the Lebanese army and endangering a fragile cease-fire.


The makings of a compromise emerged from all-day meetings in Beirut, according to senior officials involved in the negotiations, and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora scheduled a cabinet session Wednesday for what he hoped would be formal approval of the deal. Hezbollah indicated it would be willing to pull back its fighters and weapons in exchange for a promise from the army not to probe too carefully for underground bunkers and weapons caches, the officials said.


Thousands of Lebanese families again filled the roads leading south, heeding a call from Hezbollah that they return immediately to their often-shattered villages. Leaflets dropped by Israeli aircraft warned them to stay away, but cars loaded with children and household belongings streamed down the coastal road.


[...]Hezbollah activists provided money for the trip to many refugees leaving centers around the country. In his televised talk, Nasrallah promised they also would receive money on the spot to help them rebuild their homes, starting an immediate aid program for displaced people while the government was still holding meetings and appealing for funds.


The Lebanese army would like UNIFIL troops to deploy first in southern Lebanon and for the Israelis to pull out, which would then remove Hezbollah's reason for remaining there under arms, according to a government minister who spoke on condition that he not be named. Once Hezbollah's militia pulls back from the border zone, he suggested, the question of its full disarmament or incorporation into the army can be debated.

Evil Symbiosis

The war in Lebanon was unnecessary. It accomplished nothing constructive. It killed a lot of innocent civilians and perhaps a couple hundred Hizbullah fighters. It spent billions on bombs and other war material feeding that infernal military industrial complex.
Only evil men benefitted from this war. Bush has had a resurgence in the polls. Olmert, thought of as soft by Hamas and Hizbullah, now has a tough reputation. Cheney continues his march towards a war with Iran. Nasrallah and his Hizbullah has become a political and military force to be reckoned with in Lebanon. They are stronger than ever. And Iranian President Ahmadinejad is the new champion of the Palestinian cause, stronger and more defiant than any other Muslim state and soon to have nuclear weapons.
The Nation

An evil symbiosis does exist between Muslim terrorists and American politicians, but it is not the one Republicans describe. The jihadists need George W. Bush to sustain their cause. His bloody crusade in the Middle East bolsters their accusation that America is out to destroy Islam. The president has unwittingly made himself the lead recruiter of willing young martyrs.


More to the point, it is equally true that Bush desperately needs the terrorists. They are his last frail hope for political survival. They divert public attention, at least momentarily, from his disastrous war in Iraq and his shameful abuses of the Constitution. The "news" of terror--whether real or fantasized--reduces American politics to its most primitive impulses, the realm of fear-and-smear where George Bush is at his best.

Hizbullah Won: 'The Best Guerrilla Force in the World'

The cease fire time has past and refugees have begun a careful walk home. There have been some notable fire fights, but they have been limited to combatants armed and out in the open. It's clear, this cease fire so far is not like past Israeli efforts. The Israeli Army while not beaten, has had to fight bunker by bunker in a style of fighting for which it wasn't prepared.
Hizbullah will be seen as heroes worldwide, but especially in Lebanon. Their political capital is skyhigh. The chance of another militia challenging them to a fight is remote at best. Hizbullah may well dominate Lebanese politics as the largest sect for the forseeable future.
Israel has shot itself in the foot again, so effectively and obviously that even it's people will see the truth. Perhaps the days of armed confrontation in the Middle East has reached a turning point. Lets hope it's for the best.
WaPo

Hezbollah's irregular fighters stood off the modern Israeli army for a month in the hills of southern Lebanon thanks to extraordinary zeal and secrecy, rigorous training, tight controls over the population, and a steady flow of Iranian money to acquire effective weaponry, according to informed assessments in Lebanon and Israel. "They are the best guerrilla force in the world," said a Lebanese specialist who has sifted through intelligence on Hezbollah for more than two decades and strongly opposes the militant Shiite Muslim movement.


Because Hezbollah was entrenched in friendly Shiite-inhabited villages and underground bunkers constructed in secret over several years, a withering Israeli air campaign and a tank-led ground assault were unable to establish full control over a border strip and sweep it clear of Hezbollah guerrillas -- one of Israel's main declared war aims. Largely as a result, the U.N. Security Council resolution approved unanimously Friday night fell short of the original objectives laid out by Israel and the Bush administration when the conflict began July 12. As the declared U.N. cease-fire went into effect Monday morning, many Lebanese -- particularly among the Shiites who make up an estimated 40 percent of the population -- had already assessed Hezbollah's endurance as a military success despite the devastation wrought across Lebanon by Israeli bombing.


Hezbollah's staying power on the battlefield came from a classic fish-in-the-sea advantage enjoyed by guerrillas on their home ground, hiding in their own villages and aided by their relatives. Hasan Nasrallah, the Hezbollah leader, summed up the guerrilla strategy in a televised address during the conflict when he said, "We are not a regular army and we will not fight like a regular army." The group's battlefield resilience also came from an unusual combination of zeal and disciplined military science, said the Lebanese specialist with access to intelligence information, who spoke on condition he not be identified by name.


The fighters' Islamic faith and intense indoctrination reduced their fear of death, he noted, giving them an advantage in close-quarters combat and in braving airstrikes to move munitions from post to post. Hezbollah leaders also enhanced fighters' willingness to risk death by establishing the Martyr's Institute, with an office in Tehran, that guarantees living stipends and education fees for the families of fighters who die on the front. "If you are waiting for a white flag coming out of the Hezbollah bunker, I can assure you it won't come," Brig. Gen. Ido Nehushtan, a member of the Israeli army's general staff, said in a briefing for reporters in the northern Israeli village of Gosherim. "They are extremists, they will go all the way."


Moreover, Hezbollah's military leadership carefully studied military history, including the Vietnam War, the Lebanese expert said, and set up a training program with help from Iranian intelligence and military officers with years of experience in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. The training was matched to weapons that proved effective against Israeli tanks, he added, including the Merkava main battle tank with advanced armor plating.


Wire-guided and laser-guided antitank missiles were the most effective and deadly Hezbollah weapons, according to Israeli military officers and soldiers. A review of Israel Defense Forces records showed that the majority of Israeli combat deaths resulted from missile hits on armored vehicles -- or on buildings where Israeli soldiers set up observation posts or conducted searches. Most of the antitank missiles, Israeli officers noted, could be dragged out of caches and quickly fired with two- or three-man launching teams at distances of 3,200 yards or more from their targets. One of the most effective was the Russian-designed Sagger 2, a wire-guided missile with a range of 550 to 3,200 yards.


In one hidden bunker, Israeli soldiers discovered night-vision camera equipment connected to computers that fed coordinates of targets to the Sagger 2 missile, according to Israeli military officials who described the details from photographs they said soldiers took inside the bunker.


[...]Hezbollah's resistance to penetration by Israeli intelligence was part of a culture of secrecy extreme even by the standards of underground guerrilla forces. The code fit with a tendency toward secrecy in the Shiite stream of Islam, called faqih . It also fit with a sense of solidarity against others that Lebanese Shiites have been imbued with since the beginning of their emergence as a political force in the mid-1970s, when their first organization was called the Movement of the Deprived.

Britain Has Become a Jihadi Recruitment Center

There is great danger in not knowing who our enemy is, the greatest danger is that our actions to protect ourselves will in fact put us in greater danger. Indeed, by adopting Israeli foreign policy and military tactics, the Bush Administration has placed us in greater danger than at anytime since WWII. Before Bush, there was some perception of separation between Israeli foreign policy and the US. The US periodically stepped up pressure to reign in the Israelis' excesses. The Lebanese conflict has marked a turning point. No longer is the US seen as a reluctant supporter of Israel. The world sees America as equally responsible for the carnage in Lebanon. The Bush Administration has never wavered publicly in support of Israel. There does appear to have been some behind the scenes pressure that has led to a less than favorable cease fire agreement.
I've written extensively in the past about the outbreak in Jihadi violence in Europe post 9-11, about France, and Britain. While we may have been winning the battles in turns of casualties, effective weapons, and initiative, Iraq represents the failure of the US foreign policy under Bush. Without a redoubling of efforts in Afghanistan, it seems likely to fall apart as well. Al Qaeda has been winning the war. Each of the problems address below represents a kind of asymmetrical conflict, a long-term intergenerational socio-political kind of warfare. This kind of tactic spreads across generations, with it's primary target being the hearts and minds of a community. This view of conflict can span a period of decades, even centuries. This historical perspective of conflict is required to see the intent of our enemies and in fact defeat them. The rules of warfare have changed and we are losing.
WaPo today has a great article that addresses many of the root causes behind the outbreak of Jihadi terror plots in Britain. I will use the article to illustrate the key issues we face in winning the hearts and minds of Muslim youth world wide.
1. Revenge across generations.

Asghar Bukhari of the Muslim Public Affairs Committee, which advocates Muslim involvement in the democratic process and opposes violence, said, "It's not hard to comprehend the mind of a Muslim." He said young British Muslims look around the world and "everywhere they are getting bombed," so they increasingly respond by saying, "Don't just sit down and take it -- let's fight them."


Harming the United States clearly remains a top priority of al-Qaeda and other radical groups, and the plot uncovered this week allegedly involved planes heading to major U.S. cities. But officials said Britain is an increasingly enticing target for extremists eager to strike back at the West, particularly Bush and Blair.

Blood begets more blood. All long term conflicts carry this primarily passionate and ultimately self-destructive motive. Revenge becomes an end in and of itself. War becomes a perpetual, unending cycle of retaliation and counter-retaliation.
2. An upwardly mobile petite bourgeois leadership that witnesses the suffering of those not so successful around them.

Little is known about the background or motives of suspects in the latest case. The 19 suspects who have been publicly identified all have Muslim names; 14 are from London, including several from Walthamstow; four are from High Wycombe, a quiet suburb west of London; and one is from the city of Birmingham. They range in age from 17 to 35, all but three of them in their twenties. Friends interviewed in Walthamstow said the suspects were either born in England or were from families who have lived for many years in London. Police have released no further information about them.


Hussain said many Pakistani immigrants moved out of tiny apartments cramped with relatives and now own multiple cars and houses and flourish financially. But over the years, he has also seen the seeds of radical Islam grow around him.


Despite the prosperity of some Muslims, statistics released by the government earlier this year showed that unemployment rates were higher among Muslims than for any other religion. Among Muslims aged 16 to 24, almost 28 percent were unemployed, compared with about 12 percent of Britons overall in that age group. Many here argue that isolation and disenchantment among young Muslims provides a fertile environment for extremist groups recruiting new members.


Despite the prosperity of some Muslims, statistics released by the government earlier this year showed that unemployment rates were higher among Muslims than for any other religion. Among Muslims aged 16 to 24, almost 28 percent were unemployed, compared with about 12 percent of Britons overall in that age group. Many here argue that isolation and disenchantment among young Muslims provides a fertile environment for extremist groups recruiting new members.


"Whoever teaches or preaches or brainwashes them, the police need to stop them," Hussain said.

Motivated in part by their guilt about their personal success within a community that perceives itself as discriminated against, the leadership creates a passionate ideology, based largely on glorious visions of revenge and retribution, followed by a fanciful belief in socio-political revolution. That ideology creates the means to brainwash followers to sacrifice their lives for their children's children.
3. Current events create the catalyst and provide "proof" of a grand conspiracy.

Menzies Campbell, leader of the Liberal Democrats and a leading opponent of Blair's government, said the reasons young Muslims turn to violence are more complicated than simply economic and social disadvantages. "I used to think it was about having a stake in society, about people having poor housing and poor education," he said. "But the more you look at it, explaining it away as a lack of a stake in the success of the country might not be the easy answer some people think it is."


[...]"The root is foreign policy," said Bukhari, who has emerged in the past year as a leading voice of the young Muslim community. "Only a half-wit wouldn't understand that this is about" British and American policies in the Middle East.

4. Personal experiences that seem to support the macro event inspired "grand conspiracy". The personal investment comes from witnessing the signs of oppression on themselves and their family and friends.

On Sept. 11, 2001, Hussain was managing a retail electronics shop, surrounded by television sets that replayed the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon over and over. "It is still in my mind," he said. Since that day, and especially since the bombings in London last year, many British Muslims have felt under siege, discriminated against and feared for having a beard or dressing in traditional Muslim clothing. When the news broke this week of the arrests in the alleged bomb plot, one of Hussain's two daughters, Afsheen, 15, asked him: "Why do they call them Muslim terrorists? Are we like that?"


[...]Still, many young Muslims believe they have been unfairly targeted by police. Scotland Yard released statistics on Friday showing that 1,047 people had been arrested under the Terrorism Act between September 2001 and the end of June. Of those, only 158 were eventually charged with offenses covered by the law. Officials did not say how many of those arrested were Muslims. But Muslim officials have complained that the vast majority of those arrested were Muslims, and that the low number of people charged suggests that most of the arrests were unwarranted.

5. The ideology undermines the incentives of joining the broader community and surmounting the obstacles of discrimination.

Blair and other British officials have also lamented the failure of many in the Muslim community to fully integrate into British society, preferring to live instead in neighborhoods where they rarely mix with others. "The identity of Muslims in the U.K. is Muslim first and foremost and British second," Ranstorp said, echoing a recent Pew global survey of Muslim attitudes that found that 81 percent of British Muslims who responded agreed with that sentiment. Only Pakistan had a higher percentage of people who considered themselves Muslims first, the survey showed.

6. The most important part of this perspective is the perception of success. Losing the battle is perceived as another step towards winning the war.
The most recent demonstration of this principle is perhaps the most damaging. Hizbullah is seen as the heroic defenders of Lebanon by the entire Lebanese population. Hamas, by winning the election in Palestine, was seen as winning the war with Israel. But most telling of all is Yasir Arafat's comment I quoted from a recent Newsweek article:

That leaves me to contemplate Yasir Arafat’s comment when the 1973 war ended with the Egyptian Army surrounded in the Sinai and the Israelis at the gates of Damascus. “You forget,” he told me after I remarked that a military solution didn’t look too promising for the Arab nations. “The Crusades took 200 years.” What time frame is anyone contemplating here?

Seeing this conflict as a battle of civilizations beginning with the Crusades is a common perspective in the Muslim world. In the 7th to the 8th century, an Islamic empire spread from the Atlantic Ocean to Central Asia and eventually into the islands south of SE Asia. The singular political entity soon broke up into many held loosely together by a shared religious identity. This identity led to attempts at a return to glory several times by strong Islamic sects including the Ottomans towards creating a pan Islamic "Caliphate". This idea continued to spread through offshoots of the Muslim Brotherhood throughout the 20th century. It eventually rooted itself in the philosophy of Al Qaeda.
It is this grand fantasy of new Islamic glory that we face as our enemy. It is as much a grand illusion of world domination. This is not a war that is won with weapons, but rather with ideals, communication and good will. We have been headed in the wrong direction for nearly six years now!