Pat Tillman's Death and the Fog of War

The fog of war is a frequent topic in the media these days. There is a dirty little secret about war that is beginning to emerge from the Pat Tillman debacle. It's beginning to look like Pat Tillman was murdered by his comrades while the platoon was under fire by the enemy. It appears that the cover-up began with the platoon, spread to commanding officers, through the Army investigative team, through the command structures right into Rumsfeld office. The higher command, recognizing the high profile nature of Pat Tillman, an NFL football star, rather than tarnish the image of US soldiers in the field, it was decided to paint him as a hero and cover up fratricide. A murder in war time becomes a propaganda tool to protect an illegal war.
The real consequences of war has been covered up by every participant throughout history. The soldier in the field covers his shame for participating, the officer covers to ensure his career advances, top officers cover to protect the image of the soldier in the field, politicians cover to protect the political fall out.
War is hell, more hellish than most of us ever knew. The dirty little secret is all war has been and always will be just like this glimpse we get in this one incident. There have been many recent chapters, including Abu Ghraib, Fallujah, Haditha, and many more untold stories.
Forbes.com

Army medical examiners were suspicious about the close proximity of the three bullet holes in Pat Tillman's forehead and tried without success to get authorities to investigate whether the former NFL player's death amounted to a crime, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press.


"The medical evidence did not match up with the, with the scenario as described," a doctor who examined Tillman's body after he was killed on the battlefield in Afghanistan in 2004 told investigators.


The doctors - whose names were blacked out - said that the bullet holes were so close together that it appeared the Army Ranger was cut down by an M-16 fired from a mere 10 yards or so away.


[..]Tillman's mother, Mary Tillman, who has long suggested that her son was deliberately killed by his comrades, said she is still looking for answers and looks forward to the congressional hearings next week.


"Nothing is going to bring Pat back. It's about justice for Pat and justice for other soldiers. The nation has been deceived," she said.


The documents show that a doctor who autopsied Tillman's body was suspicious of the three gunshot wounds to the forehead. The doctor said he took the unusual step of calling the Army's Human Resources Command and was rebuffed. He then asked an official at the Army's Criminal Investigation Division if the CID would consider opening a criminal case.


[..]It has been widely reported by the AP and others that Spc. Bryan O'Neal, who was at Tillman's side as he was killed, told investigators that Tillman was waving his arms shouting "Cease fire, friendlies, I am Pat (expletive) Tillman, damn it!" again and again.


But the latest documents give a different account from a chaplain who debriefed the entire unit days after Tillman was killed.


The chaplain said that O'Neal told him he was hugging the ground at Tillman's side, "crying out to God, help us. And Tillman says to him, `Would you shut your (expletive) mouth? God's not going to help you; you need to do something for yourself, you sniveling ..."

Must read article by Kevin Tillman, Pat's brother, and also an Army Ranger.

New Poll From Mulsim Countries Finds Views Moderating

Most Muslim countries have been moderating their views towards suicide bombing and Osama bin Ladin. However, signs of impending conflict predominated Lebanese and Palestinian populations.
IPS News

Ironically, while 61 percent of Lebanese felt that Fouad Siniora's national government had "a good influence on the way things are going," only six percent were satisfied with the state of the nation. In the Palestinian territories, a slight majority believed the government had a positive influence on current conditions, yet only six percent were satisfied with the state of affairs. Only a quarter of respondents in both countries were "satisfied with their own life."


In Lebanon, 70 percent of those surveyed viewed crime as a "very big problem", while 75 percent believed corrupt leaders constituted one the most pressing national problems. In Palestinian territories, 73 percent viewed political corruption as main concern.


Egypt, led by President Hosni Mubarak, rated least favourably of all Middle Eastern countries polled, with a meagre 13 percent of respondents stating they approved of the national government.


While the Pew survey generally focused on the mood of respondents in developing countries as a result of economic growth and their hope for a brighter future, in the Middle East, the general tenor of questions reflected more sensational topics of Islamic extremism, support for suicide bombing, and confidence in international terrorist Osama bin Laden.


In Lebanon, just 34 percent of Muslims surveyed said that suicide bombings are often or sometimes justified, compared to 74 percent who expressed the same view in 2002. Only eight percent of those polled in Egypt believed suicide bombing was justified, as did 11 percent in Morocco.


In contrast, 41 percent of Palestinians said such attacks are often justified while another 29 percent said it can sometimes be justified. The poll was conducted between April and May, before Hamas took over the Gaza Strip following violent clashes with Fatah.


The survey also reflected declining support -- identified as "Muslim confidence" -- for Osama bin Laden. The percentage of Jordanian Muslims who support bin Laden dropped from 56 percent in 2003 to just 20 percent in 2007. Support for bin Laden also fell sharply in Lebanon, plummeting to one percent from 20 percent in 2003.


But "few consistent demographic patterns emerge in Muslim attitudes toward suicide bombing," according to the report.


The opinion of the United States in the Muslim world also remains abysmal, as overwhelming majorities in those countries say they "are very or somewhat worried that the U.S. could be a military threat," according to the report. Muslims in Bangladesh (93 percent) and Morocco (92 percent) are most concerned that the U.S. could become a military threat. Surprisingly, in Turkey -- a U.S. NATO ally -- 77 percent of those polled viewed the U.S. as a significant threat.


While the international showdown over Iran's nuclear programme looms, publics in just nine of the 47 countries surveyed most often named Iran as the greatest threat to their own countries. In the Middle East, 52 percent of Kuwaitis, 46 percent of Jordanians, and 42 percent of Lebanese viewed Iran as a threat to their country. Yet even larger majorities of Egyptians (85 percent), Jordanians (81 percent), and Lebanese (74 percent) cited Israel as a great future threat to their countries.


The survey also reflected increased concern by Muslims in the Middle East over sectarian tensions between Sunni and Shia branches of Islam.


Eighty-eight percent of Muslims in Lebanon, and significant majorities in Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and the Palestinian territories believed the tensions between Sunnis and Shias had increased, and that the war in Iraq had exacerbated this tension.


In Lebanon, a majority of Christians (56 percent) and Sunni Muslims (59 percent) named Iran as Lebanon's greatest threat, compared with just 8 percent of Shia Muslims.


The Islamist political organization Hezbollah was cited as a top threat by 66 percent of Christians and 33 percent of Sunnis in Lebanon, while only 7 percent of Shia Muslims viewed the movement as a threat.

Personal vs Collective Self-Interest

How to Save the World
But Wisdom of Crowds author James Surowiecki, who went to such pains to explain in his book the need for a surveyed 'crowd' to be objective and independent of 'groupthink' (if their collective perspectives are to be truly wise), points out in this week's New Yorker that the self-interest of individuals, taken collectively, can be very different from the collective self-interest of the group as a whole.
As an example he notes that, in a market 'undistorted' by regulation, people choose to buy large, gas-gulping, clumsy vehicles (SUVs and light trucks) -- because they (mistakenly, as Malcolm Gladwell points out) believe they are safer, that if your car is bigger and heavier than the other guy's, in an accident you will fare better. But when asked if they would favour regulations that ban such vehicles, they overwhelmingly say yes.
Another example that was reported recently is that, while the majority of business owners want less social and environmental regulation of their industry (because they think it puts them at a competitive disadvantage versus countries that lack such regulation), an overwhelming number would not only support, but would actually prefer, strong social and environmental regulations on business provided they were across-the-board (affecting every competitor equitably) and rigorously enforced.
We can see examples of this everywhere. The expressed self-interest of individual buyers in the absence of regulation is very different from their acknowledged collective self-interest in an equitably regulated environment. It's not regulation we hate -- in our modern crowded society we could not live without regulation (sorry, libertarians, though I like the idea); it's inequitable regulation, and regulation that is clearly arbitrary and not in the collective self-interest, that we are opposed to.
And because of our (often deliberately fostered) skepticism about the competence of government to do anything effectively (and about its honesty), we tend to believe that all regulations will necessarily be inequitable and 'selectively applied'.
So given that skepticism, we tend to prefer to pursue our (unregulated) personal self-interest, and shrug off the fact that our collective self-interest would be better served if that personal self-interest were restricted, and altered, by effective, honest regulation.
Unequivocably anti-regulation forces (the corporatists) prey off this skepticism, playing us off against each other, and profiting from the inequities and the selective application and non-enforcement of regulations. And laugh all the way to the bank.
Bush's orders to regulators not to enforce the law, and to dismantle regulations, have therefore gone largely unchallenged, except by a few brave whistle-blowers, who promptly lost their jobs.
The bottom line is that we need to restore integrity to government, and restore authority to regulators to uphold and enforce regulations equitably and not arbitrarily, before we have any hope of persuading citizens to vote for their collective self-interest over their personal self-interest.
We're smart enough to know that the collective self-interest is better for all of us. The question is whether we're smart enough and committed enough to fix the shattered hulk of dismantled, corrupted North American governments (I can't speak for Europe's governments, though I sense that regulations there are stronger and more or less intact), so that they can make regulation work effectively again in our collective self-interest.

$100 a Barrel Oil Coming?

Looks like $100 a barrel oil is coming our way unless Saudi Arabia opens it's spigots to increase the world's supply of oil. Even if they do, any major disruption of oil production anywhere will result in unprecedented oil prices. Here in the US, with discretionary income diverted to energy costs and crashing home equity, the risk of deflation will loom. Few middle income families will have the money to spend on much anything.
International Herald Tribune

The $100-a-barrel oil that Goldman Sachs Group said would prevail by 2009 may be only a few months away. Jeffrey Currie, a London-based commodity analyst at the largest brokerage firm, said that $95 crude was quite likely this year unless OPEC unexpectedly increased production and that declining inventories were raising the chances for $100 oil. Jeff Rubin at CIBC World Markets said $100 a barrel could come as soon as next year.


[..]A record number of options have been sold that give the buyer the right to buy crude oil at $100. The contracts, covering 50 million barrels, pay off only if oil were to go above the target price.


[..]Currie, Goldman's global head of commodities research in London, is predicting that oil prices will probably touch a record high and stay at unprecedented levels for months or years. The all-time high for the benchmark Nymex crude future is $78.40 a barrel on July 14, 2006. "Ultimately, the key to the outlook going forward is when will Saudi Arabia ramp up production," he said in an interview. "If you have a situation in which inventories globally get drawn to critically low levels, the volatility in this market is likely to explode, which significantly increases the probability of $100 oil."


[..]Oil prices could triple in three months to more than $200 a barrel, given the right circumstances, according to Matthew Simmons, chairman of Simmons, a Houston investment bank.

The Truth About Israel

During the 1948–49 War, 400,000 Palestinian Arabs fled Israel and were settled in refugee camps near Israel's border. Why did they leave? Conventional knowledge would have it that they left voluntarily or at the encouragement of Arab leaders.
Can you really think anyone would voluntarily leave their home, or any respectable Arab leader would deliberately create a refugee problem on their border with a hostile power? I don't think so. They left because of terror, the same sort of terror that has accompanied every war of conquest in world history.
TruthDig

This is the story that Israel's leaders and Jews throughout the Diaspora have clung to for more than half a century. But since the early 1990s a new generation of Israeli historians and investigative journalists--drawing on formerly classified documents as well as recollections of Israeli leaders of the War of Independence--has demolished the traditional Israeli position.


According to their research, the Palestinians fled their villages not in response to a call from Arab leaders but because of a concerted campaign of terror--including massacres and rape--perpetrated by military units of the newly declared Israeli state.


As Gideon Levy, a leading columnist from Haaretz, put it, "1948 was Israel's finest hour, the culmination of a mad dream: the formation of an independent Jewish state." At the same time he declared, "it was our darkest hour, in which we committed war crimes on a large scale. And did so in all good conscience."


The key point, often overlooked, is that in 1948, Resolution 181 of the U.N. General Assembly didn't just call for the creation of the single state of Israel from the British mandate of Palestine. In fact, it recommended dividing Palestine into two separate countries--one predominately Arab, the other Jewish--to be joined by an economic union.

Why would Israel and the US perpetrate this myth? Are the Jews of the Diasporia more worthy refugees than the Palestinians? Is this a matter of prejudice? Has one of the results of the Holocaust undermine the moral fabric of Jews fleeing Hitler that they identified with the aggressor and became like him: any means necessary to justify not just survival, but any risk to it?

Turkish Election Leans the Army Away from Iraq

TURKEY’S mildly Islamist prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has won an impressive election for a second term. This would appear to enhance the future of Turkish democracy and away from a military coop. Turkey would also appear to be headed towards membership talks with the European Union (EU).

Erdogan’s party had won 47% of the vote—a dramatic 12-point rise from the 34% that got him to office in 2002. Laying claim to 340 of the 550 seats in parliament the AK party can comfortably form a government alone. But it failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed to amend the country's authoritarian constitution, drawn up by the armed forces when they last seized power in 1980.


With all of the ballots counted unofficial results suggested that Mr Erdogan’s party had won 47% of the vote—a dramatic 12-point rise from the 34% that got him to office in 2002. Laying claim to 340 of the 550 seats in parliament the AK party can comfortably form a government alone. But it failed to secure the two-thirds majority needed to amend the country's authoritarian constitution, drawn up by the armed forces when they last seized power in 1980.


[..]The other big challenge facing the government is the upsurge in Kurdish separatist violence in the southeastern provinces bordering Iran and Iraq. The army has been backed by the CHP and the MHP in calls for a cross-border operation against some 3,500 rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq. A large invasion would damage Turkey's relations with America and the EU and could scare foreign investors who control 70% of the shares traded by the Istanbul stock exchange. Worse, Turkey could get mired in conflict in Iraq. It will take all of Mr Erdogan's skills to resist pressure to go into Iraq. He will need all the help he can get from America to get the Iraqi Kurdish leadership to clamp down on the PKK.

However, the Turkish, Iranian border is like northern Pakistan. It's heavily mountainous limiting the usefulness of heavy armor and sports many hiding places for guerrilla fighters. The Turkish army may well bog down in a quagmire in Iraq.
AlterNet

Hiding in the high mountains and deep gorges of one of the world's great natural fortresses are bands of guerrillas whose presence could provoke a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq and the next war in the Middle East.


After the election, Ankara may find it impossible to retreat from the bellicose rhetoric of recent weeks and will send its troops across the border, even if the incursion is only on a limited scale.


[..]If the Turkish army does invade, it will not find it easy to locate the PKK guerrillas. Their main headquarters is in the Qandil mountains which are on the Iranian border but conveniently close to Turkey. It is an area extraordinarily well-adapted for guerrilla warfare where even Saddam Hussein's armies found it impossible to penetrate.


[..]The scale of the fighting is small. Pejak launches sporadic raids into Iranian Kurdistan. The PKK stages ambushes and bombings in Turkey and has escalated its attacks this year, killing at least 67 soldiers and losing 110 of its own fighters according to the Turkish authorities. But this limited skirmishing could have an explosive impact. The attacks provide an excuse for Turkish action against an increasingly independent Iraqi Kurdish state. "They [the Turks] want an excuse to overturn what has been achieved in Iraqi Kurdistan," says Mr Dezayee. A referendum is to be held in northern Iraq by the end of 2007 under which the oil city of Kirkuk may vote to join the KRG. The incentive for a Turkish invasion is growing by the day.


"Everything depends on the result of the Turkish election," says Dr Mahmoud Othman, a veteran Iraqi Kurdish politician.


If the Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, wins a two-thirds majority then the pressure for an invasion may be off. But if he believes he lost votes because his anti-PKK and Turkish nationalist credentials were not strong enough then he might want to burnish them by ordering a cross border incursion.


The lightly armed PKK, knowing every inch of the mountainous terrain at Qandil, will be able to evade Turkish troops. But the Iraqi Kurds worry that they and not the PKK are the real target of the Turkish army. After making so many threats before the election, Turkey may find it difficult to back off without looking weak.

Katrina Families Still in Distress

The Bush Administration has engaged in the most incredibly blatant demonstration of class warfare I can recall in my adult life. The poor people of New Orleans were always expendable and they continue to be.
Despite the media hue and cry initially, insufficient efforts continue. Children and families continue to suffer in poisonous FEMA trailers, in need of basic services, too many without school, without extended family support, without treatment for traumatic stress disorders.
Psychiatry News

Children were especially hard hit by Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath, traumatized by loss of their homes and communities and separation from families and friends, said Joy Osofsky, Ph.D., clinical director of Louisiana Spirit and a professor of pediatrics, psychiatry, and public health at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center (LSUHSC) School of Public Health. Louisiana Spirit offers crisis counseling to child and adolescent hurricane survivors in the state.


For children, distress varied with age; their history of trauma and loss; support received from family, school, and community; and by the trauma they experienced directly. All of this was compounded by pre-existing or subsequent poverty.


"These children were resilient if they were supported by their family and community, but those supports were devastated by the storm," said Osofsky. "The old networks of extended families were lost."


The LSUHSC, in collaboration with school systems, has screened 12,000 children, asking about their experiences and feelings in the wake of the storm. About 46 percent of the children interviewed were African American, 44 percent were white, 4 percent Hispanic, and 6 percent other.


By spring 2007, a majority of New Orleans students were still not back in the schools they had attended before the storm. They had moved an average of three times since the storm. Only 41 percent lived in their own homes while 27 percent lived in trailers supplied by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Half of these children had an unemployed parent, 45 percent had homes that were destroyed, and 90 percent had seen hurricane-related damage. Some still don't know where members of their extended families are.


In fall 2006, 41 percent of fourth through 12th graders continued to meet the National Child Traumatic Stress Network (NCTSN) cutoff score indicating a need for mental health services, though only 5 percent had actually received such services.


Among 787 younger children five months after the storm, 32 percent met the cutoff score for referral to mental health services, and 44 percent of parents had asked for counseling services. The LSU team reinterviewed 184 of those parents about 15 months after Katrina and found no significant changes in the children's mental health or the parents' desire for counseling services.

Arab States Supporting the Insurgency in Iraq

Informed Comment
The Iraqi security services clearly think their biggest problem is jihadi volunteers from the Nile Valley. But the picture emerging from the two sets of detainees is that the publics of the two main US allies in the Middle East, Saudia and Egypt, are the most likely to fall under suspicion of supporting the insurgency. While suspicion falls on some Iranians, they appear to be cleared quickly and released. The Daily Star writes:
"He reports that among those still being questioned, "11 were Jordanians; 64 Syrians; nine Saudis; two Algerians; six Moroccans; six Yemenis; two Libyans; 57 Palestinians; 284 Egyptians; 113 Sudanese, two Emiratis; three Lebanese and one Somali."
All these statistics that are coming out completely undermine the discourse in Washington, DC, about the war. The Iranian and Syrian governments are not the problem. Osama Bin Laden is not the problem. Sunni Arabs, mainly Iraqis, objecting to American and Shiite and Kurdish dominance is the problem. The foreign detainees are a miniscule group compared to the 19,000 detainees in Multinational Force prisons.

War in Iraq: How Lost the War Is

AlterNet has a comprehensive balanced assessment of Iraq and interests the US still has there. It is very interesting, explains the behind the scenes perspective of Clinton and Lugar and likely many other rebellious republicans. The article is written by Peter W. Galbraith, a former US Ambassador to Croatia, is Senior Diplomatic Fellow at the Center for Arms Control and a principal at the Windham Resources Group, a firm that negotiates on behalf of its clients in post-conflict societies, including Iraq. It's a good read. Here is an excerpt.

Iraq's mainstream Shiite leaders resist holding new provincial elections because they know what such elections are likely to bring. Because the Sunnis boycotted the January 2005 elections, they do not control the northern governorate, or province, of Nineveh, in which there is a Sunni majority, and they are not represented in governorates with mixed populations, such as Diyala province, northeast of Baghdad. New elections would, it is argued, give Sunnis a greater voice in the places where they live, and the Shiites say they do not have a problem with this, although just how they would treat the militant Sunnis who would be elected is far from clear. The Kurds reluctantly accept new elections in the Sunni governorates even though it means they will lose control of Nineveh and have a much-reduced presence in Diyala.


The American benchmark of holding provincial elections would also require new elections in southern Iraq and Baghdad. If they were held, al-Hakim's Shiite party, the SIIC, which now controls seven of the nine southern governorates, would certainly lose ground to Moqtada al-Sadr. His main base is in Baghdad and new elections would almost certainly leave his followers in control of Baghdad Governorate, with one quarter of Iraq's population. Iraq's decentralized constitution gives the governorates enormous powers and significant shares of the national budget, if they choose to exercise these powers. New local elections are not required until 2009 and it is hard to see how early elections strengthening al-Sadr, who is hostile to the U.S. and appears to have close ties to Iran, serve American interests. But this is precisely what the Bush administration is pushing for and Congress seems to want.


[..]Constitutional revision is the most significant benchmark and it could break Iraq apart. Iraq's constitution, approved by 79% of voters in an October 2005 referendum, is the product of a Kurdish-Shiite deal: the Kurds supported the establishment of a Shiite-led government in exchange for Shiite support for a confederal arrangement in which Kurdistan and other regions like the one SIIC hopes to set up in the south, are virtually independent.


Since there is no common ground among the Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis on any significant constitutional changes in favor of the Sunnis, such changes must come at the expense of the Kurds or Shiites. Since voters in these communities have a veto on any constitutional amendments, they are certain to fail in a referendum. A revised constitution has no chance of being enacted but its failure will exacerbate tensions among Iraq's three groups.


Constitutionally, Iraq's central government has almost no power, and the Bush administration is partially to blame for this. When the constitution was being drafted in 2005, the United Nations came up with a series of proposals that would have made for more workable sharing of power between regions and the central government. The U.S. embassy stopped the UN from presenting these proposals because it hoped for a final document as centralized as (and textually close to) the interim constitution written by the Americans.


[..]With input from the United Nations (belatedly brought back into the process last year), the Iraqi Parliament's mainly Arab Constitutional Review Committee (CRC) is considering amendments that would strip Kurdistan of many of its powers, including its right to cancel federal laws, to decide on taxes applicable in its own territory, and to control its own oil and water. The Sunni Arabs would also like Iraq declared an Arab state, a measure the non-Arab Kurds consider racist and exclusionary.


Thanks to Khalilzad's expedited procedures, constitutional revision may be the final wedge between Kurdistan and Arab Iraq. If approved by the CRC, the constitutional amendments will be subject to a vote in the parliament as a single package and then to a nationwide referendum. Kurdistan's voters are certain to reject the proposed package (or any package affecting Kurdistan's powers), and this could push tense Sunni-Kurdish relations into open conflict. Kurdish NGOs, who ran a 2005 independence referendum, are poised to make a "NO" campaign on constitutional revision a "No to Iraq" vote. In its July 12 report to Congress, the White House graded the CRC's work as "satisfactory," an evaluation that was either grossly dishonest, or, more likely, out of touch with Iraqi reality.


For the most part, Iraq's leaders are not personally stubborn or uncooperative. They find it impossible to reach agreement on the benchmarks because their constituents don't agree on any common vision for Iraq. The Shiites voted twice in 2005 for parties that seek to define Iraq as a Shiite state. By their boycotts and votes the Sunni Arabs have almost unanimously rejected the Shiite vision of Iraq's future, including the new constitution. The Kurds' envisage an Iraq that does not include them. In the 2005 parliamentary elections, 99% of them voted for Kurdish nationalist parties, and in the January 2005 referendum, 98% voted for an independent Kurdistan.


[..]But there will be no Saigon moment in Iraq. Iraq's Shiite-led government is in no danger of losing the civil war to al-Qaeda, or a more inclusive Sunni front. Iraq's Shiites are three times as numerous as Iraq's Sunni Arabs; they dominate Iraq's military and police and have a powerful ally in neighboring Iran. The Arab states that might support the Sunnis are small, far away (vast deserts separate the inhabited parts of Jordan and Saudi Arabia from the main Iraqi population centers), and can only provide money, something the insurgency has in great amounts already.


Iraq after an American defeat will look very much like Iraq today -- a land divided along ethnic lines into Arab and Kurdish states with a civil war being fought within its Arab part. Defeat is defined by America's failure to accomplish its objective of a self-sustaining, democratic, and unified Iraq. And that failure has already taken place, along with the increase of Iranian power in the region.


Iraq's Kurdish leaders and Iraq's dwindling band of secular Arab democrats fear that a complete U.S. withdrawal will leave all of Iraq under Iranian influence. Senator Hillary Clinton, Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Joe Biden, and former UN Ambassador Richard Holbrooke are among the prominent Democrats who have called for the U.S. to protect Kurdistan militarily should there be a withdrawal from Iraq. The argument for so doing is straightforward: it secures the one part of Iraq that has emerged as stable, democratic, and pro-Western; it discharges a moral debt to our Kurdish allies; it deters both Turkish intervention and a potentially destabilizing Turkish-Kurdish war; it provides U.S. forces a secure base that can be used to strike at al-Qaeda in adjacent Sunni territories; and it limits Iran's gains.


In laying out his dark vision of an American failure, President Bush never discusses Iran's domination of Iraq even though this is a far more likely consequence of American defeat than an al-Qaeda victory. Bush's reticence is understandable since it was his miscalculations and incompetent management of the postwar occupation that gave Iran its opportunity. While opposing talks with Iran, the neoconservatives also prefer not to discuss its current powerful influence over Iraq's central government and southern region, persisting in the fantasy -- notwithstanding all evidence to the contrary -- that Iran is deeply unpopular among Iraq's Shiites and clerics.


Lugar concluded his speech by urging that we "refocus our policy in Iraq on realistic assessments of what can be achieved, and on a sober review of our vital interests in the Middle East." After four years of a war driven more by wishful thinking than strategy, this is hardly a radical idea, but it has produced a barrage of covert criticism of Lugar from the administration and overt attack from the neoconservatives.


Lugar's focus on the achievable runs against main currents of opinion in a nation increasingly polarized between the growing number who want to withdraw from Iraq and the die-hard defenders of a failure. We need to recognize, as Lugar implicitly does, that Iraq no longer exists as a unified country. In the parts where we can accomplish nothing, we should withdraw. But there are still three missions that may be achievable -- disrupting al-Qaeda, preserving Kurdistan's democracy, and limiting Iran's increasing domination. These can all be served by a modest U.S. presence in Kurdistan. We need an Iraq policy with sufficient nuance to protect American interests. Unfortunately, we probably won't get it.

Israel preparing for war with Syria, confirms general

Olmert, using a carrot and stick approach, offers direct peace talks with Syria, while preparing a blitzkrieg invasion of Syria. I wonder if Olmert can bring Assad to the table?
IsraelToday.co.ill

A senior Israeli general on Monday confirmed that the army is preparing for a full-scale war with Syria in the very near future.


Speaking at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies, Maj.-Gen. Eyal Ben-Reuven, who served as deputy commander of Israel's northern forces during last summer's war in Lebanon, said that the army is “preparing itself for an all-out war, and this is a major change in the military's working premise” following the 34-day conflict with Hizballah that many Israelis feel their nation failed to win.


The general said that when war breaks out, Syria will be prepared to suffer mass military and civilian casualties, while at the same time playing on Israel's sensitivity to civilian losses by striking Israel's home front with as many missiles as possible.


Syria “will try to hit Israel's home front in order to win diplomatic gains in peace talks that will follow, and also cause another split in Israeli society,” Israel National News quoted Ben-Reuven as saying.


In order to deny Syria this victory, Ben-Reuven said the Israeli army is training for a swift and overwhelming invasion of Syria “to knock out the areas from where missiles are launched against Israel as quickly as possible.”


He lamented that if Israel had responded to Hizballah's rocket attacks in such a manner, the Second Lebanon War would have ended much differently.

Abbas Moves Quickly to Demonstrate Leadership and Relevance

Abbas has never failed to impress me in his leadership of the PLO. He seems to be the man who is willing to do the job, and has effective strategies to diffuse or bring to the table naysayers.
It would appear that Abbas decided he can get a lot done without Hamas and intends to present to Gaza residents all he accomplished in the West Bank to leverage the people away from Hamas.
Los Angeles Times

Israeli officials said the offer went out selectively, to 178 Fatah militiamen, in the expectation that they would join the Palestinian security forces and turn full attention to disarming the rival Hamas movement, which calls for Israel's destruction.


By day's end, Palestinian officials said they believed that all those on the clemency list had agreed to the terms of the deal, which aims to bolster the Fatah-led Palestinian government in the West Bank and help advance peace talks between its leader and Israel.


[..]The clemency deal stopped short of pardon or amnesty. Israeli officials said they could resume efforts to arrest any of the militiamen and charge them with past offenses if a case-by-case review of their actions over the next three months warranted it.


Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, of Fatah, had been lobbying for such an arrangement for months in periodic U.S.-backed negotiations with Olmert.


Initially cool to the idea, Israeli officials embraced it after Abbas turned forcefully against Hamas, his partner in a power-sharing government, following the militant group's takeover of the Gaza Strip last month.


Abbas has vowed to disarm Hamas' clandestine armed wing in the Fatah-controlled West Bank. To do that, he has told Olmert, he needs to beef up his Preventive Security force with Al Aqsa gunmen but cannot recruit them out of hiding unless Israeli troops stop hunting them.

Impeach Cheney

Bill Moyers Journal this past Friday interviewed John Nicoles, a liberal reporter from The Nation and Bruce Fein, an ultra-conservative civil libertarian. Both passionately advocated for impeachment of Bush and Cheney. Look for this show in repeats or watch it on-line. It's well worth it. Here is an excerpt from the show and Fein's main bullet points outline the charges against Cheney that justify impeachment:

A public opinion poll from the American Research Group recently reported that more than four in ten Americans — 45% — favor impeachment hearings for President Bush and more than half — 54% — favored impeachment for Vice President Cheney.

• According to Fein, Cheney has: Asserted Presidential power to create military commissions, which combine the functions of judge, jury, and prosecutor in the trial of war crimes.


• Claimed authority to detain American citizens as enemy combatants indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay on the President's say-so alone.


• Initiated kidnappings, secret detentions, and torture in Eastern European prisons of suspected international terrorists.


• Championed a Presidential power to torture in contravention of federal statutes and treaties.
  # Engineered the National Security Agency's warrantless domestic surveillance programtargeting American citizens on American soil in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978.


• Orchestrated the invocation of executive privilege to conceal from Congress secret spying programs to gather foreign intelligence, and their legal justifications.


• Summoned the privilege to refuse to disclose his consulting of business executives in conjunction with his Energy Task Force.


• Retaliated against Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame, through chief of staff Scooter Libby, for questioning the administration's evidence of weapons of mass destruction as justification for invading Iraq.

(Read Fein's SLATE article)

Bruce Fein is a nationally and internationally recognized expert on Constitutional law. Bruce Fein, photo by Robin Holland Graduating from Harvard Law School in 1972, Fein became the assistant director of the Office of Legal Policy in the U.S. Department of Justice. Shortly after that, Fein became the associate deputy attorney general under former President Ronald Reagan.

Fomenting War Against Iran

The Peninsula On-line
US-led forces shot dead an alleged rogue Mahdi Army militia leader who commanded 120 fighters in eastern Baghdad, the military said in a statement yesterday.
The alleged militant, Said Jaffer, had a "history of terrorising the New Baghdad area by extorting money, kidnapping and carrying out extra-judicial killings on innocent citizens," the statement said.
"As a commander of more than 120 fighters, his cell is responsible for engaging military and police forces with small arms fire and emplacing explosively formed projectiles along travel routes."
US officials have long accused neighbouring Iran of supplying explosively formed penetrators, sophisticated roadside bombs capable of penetrating armoured vehicles, to Shi’ite militants in Iraq.
"Intelligence shows a clear link to his group partnering with outside Persian extremists, whose goal is to destroy the legitimate government of Iraq and create instability in the region," the statement said.
In the June 11 operation, US and Iraqi soldiers attempted to arrest Jaffer, but gunned him down when he drew a pistol on them, according to the statement.
The Mahdi Army of radical Shi’ite cleric Muqtada Al Sadr has spawned rogue groups that operate outside the cleric's control, and which US officials have accused of receiving Iranian aid and support.
Meanwhile, US soldiers discovered a field of rocket launchers near a US army base south of Baghdad armed with 34 Iranian-made missiles, the military said yesterday.
"After several rockets hit FOB (Forward Operating Base) Hammer on July 11, the 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team manoeuvred to find the source of the attack," a statement said.
The next morning an "unmanned aerial vehicle located 46 rocket launchers in the northern section of Besmaya Range Complex aimed at FOB Hammer. Thirty-four of the launchers were armed with Iranian 107mm rockets," it added.
The US army believes the other twelve rockets were launched at the base the day before. US commanders frequently accuse Iran of providing weapons, training and support to Shi’ite militias in Iraq, including many of the rockets launched at Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone.
Earlier this month, US commanders stepped up the charges, claiming that senior leaders of Iran's special forces and of the Lebanese Shi’ite Hezbollah militia have trained Iraqi fighters and provided other support.
Iran has always denied that it is fomenting unrest in its war-torn neighbour, insisting that the US occupation is the cause of Iraq's woes.
Saudis' role in Iraq insurgency outlined - Los Angeles Times
Although Bush administration officials have frequently lashed out at Syria and Iran, accusing it of helping insurgents and militias here, the largest number of foreign fighters and suicide bombers in Iraq come from a third neighbor, Saudi Arabia, according to a senior U.S. military officer and Iraqi lawmakers.
About 45% of all foreign militants targeting U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians and security forces are from Saudi Arabia; 15% are from Syria and Lebanon; and 10% are from North Africa, according to official U.S. military figures made available to The Times by the senior officer. Nearly half of the 135 foreigners in U.S. detention facilities in Iraq are Saudis, he said.
Fighters from Saudi Arabia are thought to have carried out more suicide bombings than those of any other nationality, said the senior U.S. officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the subject's sensitivity. It is apparently the first time a U.S. official has given such a breakdown on the role played by Saudi nationals in Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency.
He said 50% of all Saudi fighters in Iraq come here as suicide bombers. In the last six months, such bombings have killed or injured 4,000 Iraqis.
Dissident Voice
On Wednesday, the Senate voted 97-0 for an amendment written by Joe Bomb Iran Lieberman, whose position on Iran is identical to Dick Cheney’s.
The amendment states that “the murder of members of the United States Armed Forces by a foreign government or its agents is an intolerable act against the United States,” and demands the government of Iran “take immediate action” to end all forms of support it is providing to Iraqi militias. It also mandates a regular report on Iran’s anti-US activity in Iraq .
Charging Iran with killing US troops has nothing to do with the facts. It’s about beating the war drums and trying to convince Americans that in order to “protect our troops” the US must bomb Iran.
The unanimity of the vote is alarming. Hillary and Obama voted for it.
Israel 'Approved' to Strike Iran
Israel’s Minister of Strategic Affairs said he has received approval from the U.S. and Europe for an Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.
"If we start military operations against Iran alone, then Europe and the U.S. will support us,” Avigdor Lieberman said following a meeting with NATO and European Union officials.
Lieberman said the Western powers recognized the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel, Israel Today magazine reported. But military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are "going to prevent the leaders of countries in Europe and America from deciding on the use of force to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities,” and they are sending the message that Israel should "prevent the threat herself.”
Gareth Porter | US Briefing on Iran Discredits the Official Line
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace further underlined the weakness of the administration's case by declaring Monday in an interview with Voice of America, "It is clear that Iranians are involved, and it's clear that materials from Iran are involved," he continued, "but I would not say by what I know that the Iranian government clearly knows or is complicit."

Dispute Over Independence of Kosovo Threatens To Erupt

Russia has a long standing relationship with Serbia based on kinship with the Serbs. Kosovo, it's majority Muslim province has been occupied by NATO and functioning independently for many years. Clearly, the residents of Kosovo will fight for independence.
Serbia will attempt to suppress this latest rebellious province to save face for having lost the unity of Yugoslavia in a bloody civil war. The Russians will support them. But NATO stands in the way. This conflict could reignite the civil war in Serbia and the cold war with Russia. Worse yet, this civil war would quickly escalate to a region conflict fought by proxy within Serbia. There is a real risk of a hot regional war.
Forbes.com

France and NATO appealed for calm on Friday amid rising tensions over the future of Kosovo, while Russia called for an 'impartial' envoy to sort out divisions over the Serbian province's status.


[..]France backs the proposal by UN envoy Martti Ahtisaari for Kosovo to be granted supervised independence -- a move staunchly opposed by Serbia and its powerful ally.


Kouchner arrived in Pristina after a visit to Belgrade where he had insisted that Serbia would have to make an agreement over Kosovo before it could join the European Union. Russia has threatened to use its UN Security Council veto to block any resolution that fails to meet with Belgrade's approval. NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, on a visit to the Serbian capital on Friday, sought to keep a lid on the simmering tensions. 'I would like to repeat my call for calm end restraint from all sides. Then we can have a controlled process,' he said after talks with Serbian Foreign Minister Vuk Jeremi. 'This status quo is not tenable and we should avoid unnecessary delay in finding a solution for the statute of Kosovo.'


In what was seen as a message to Moscow, De Hoop Scheffer added: 'I hope that those who until now have prevented this resolution from being accepted will show the necessary flexibility.'

Is It Franken Vs Normie?

Juan Cole at Informed Comment appraises the Minnesota Senate race. He sees Franken as formidable and Coleman as "hilarious".

Al Franken is proving himself a formidable political fundraiser as he revs up his campaign to be the Democrat who faces Neoconservative Senator Norm Coleman in the '08 elections.

It is tiresome that some observers dismissed Mr. Franken because he is a humorist. Lots of comedians have served in the US Congress, though few had been professional humorists before being elected.

Norm Coleman himself has said the most hilarious things. His positions on various issues are listed at this page (scroll down and look on the right). He wants to increase the number of people carrying concealed weapons in Minneapolis (after what happened at Virginia Tech, is that a good idea?), wants to fund the Iraq War indefinitely and no questions asked, opposes auditing contractors with Defense Department contracts in Iraq, and wants to see Roe v. Wade overturned. Like Joe Lieberman, he seems to be preparing his constituencies for a brutal aggressive war on Iran. He's just a barrel of monkeys.

Mike Ciresi seems to be falling behind on fundraising by a formidable 3 to 1 margin. But he still polls unfavorably against Coleman.

You have to take Franken's candidacy very seriously," said Carleton College political scientist Steven Schier. "He is a political figure with a national network, and being able to draw that money from outside Minnesota is something Mike Ciresi can't do."


There are still significant hurdles. Despite Franken's fundraising success, he has yet to capitalize in the most recent head-to-head poll. A May Mason-Dixon poll showed Coleman leading Franken 54 percent to 32 percent, with independents preferring Coleman by a 16-point margin. A plurality of respondents said they had an unfavorable opinion of Franken.


Franken also faces a challenging path to win the Democratic nomination. In Minnesota, candidates are traditionally chosen through the party's statewide convention -- set for June 2008 -- making the nomination process fairly unpredictable. At the convention, the nomination is determined by a small core of the party's activists. Having strong organization in all of the state's counties is more important than having boatloads of cash. Both Franken and Ciresi -- and four other long-shot candidates -- have said they will abide by the results of the convention.

Ciresi has secured the endorcement of Betty McCullum, but is not getting the attention that Franken is. Time will tell.

Al Qaeda Stronger Than Ever

Thank you Dubya for your bang-em up job taking out Sadaam and creating the conditions that bin Ladin could recruit world wide. Within a loose network of copy cat terrorists, and a new generation of seasoned professionals, Al Qaeda will harass the west for generations to come.
KWTX

The Associated Press has learned that US intelligence analysts believe al-Qaeda has rebuilt its operating capability to a level not seen since just before the 2001 terrorist attacks. The conclusion suggests that the group that launched the most devastating terror attack on the US has been able to rebuild, despite nearly six years of bombings, war and other tactics aimed at crippling it.


Still, numerous government officials say they know of no specific, credible threat of a new attack. A counterterrorism official familiar with a five-page summary of the new government threat assessment calls it a stark appraisal.


The report will be discussed at the White House on Thursday as part of a broader meeting on an upcoming National Intelligence Estimate. The official and others spoke on condition of anonymity because the secret report remains classified.

Olmert Spins Up a Win in Lebanon, Calls for Direct Talks with Syria

In an amazing flurry of spin, Olmert Calls for direct talks with Syria. Claiming Israel won the war with Hizbollah, he expects to negotiate from a position of strength with Syria.
The truth is Olmert is facing repeated calls for his resignation. The Israeli public believes they lost the war with Hizbollah. Olmert seems to be grandstanding hoping to stretch his tenure in office by appearing to be Israel's one last hope for peace. It would appear even the Saudis think the offer of peace may be for real. Egypt's Mubarak and Jordan's Abdullah will meet with Olmert in the Sinai desert, once occupied by Israel and returned to Egypt in their peace agreement.
The Daily Star

Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert urged Syrian President Bashar Assad Tuesday to begin direct peace negotiations between the two countries, and advised him not to wait for US mediation.


Olmert made his comments in a rare interview with the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiyya television station. Such an interview would have never been conducted without the prior approval of Saudi authorities.


In separate interviews with Spanish and Italian newspapers, Olmert listed Israel's "accomplishments" as a result of the summer 2006 war with Lebanon, claiming Hizbullah has "lost its will to fight Israel."


"Bashar Assad, you know that I am ready for direct talks with you," Olmert told Al-Arabiyya television on Tuesday.


"You [Assad] have been saying that you want the negotiations through the Americans. But they do not want to sit with you. I am ready to sit with you and talk about peace not war."


"I will be happy if I could make peace with Syria. I do not want to wage war against Syria," Olmert said.


Speaking of the much-criticized Lebanon war, Olmert spoke of Israeli gains from the conflict. "We are strange, we Israelis. We're sad even when we win at war," Olmert told the Italian newspaper, Corriere Della Sera, in comments also carried out on the Web site of Israel's Yediot Ahronot daily.


"The situation in Southern Lebanon is fundamentally different than it was a year ago. The Lebanese Army is deployed in the areas, along with a multi-national force, UNIFIL," he said.


"Hizbullah no longer threatens residents along the border. They lost their will for an additional fight with Israel. Their leader, [Sayyed] Hassan Nasrallah, and his senior commanders are hiding or not living as free men."

Turkish Invasion of Iraq Imminent

140,000 Turkish troops are massed at the Iraqi border, nearly as many troops as the US has in Iraq. They are poised to invade and secure the Iraqi-Turkish border area from PKK Kurdish extremists.
We may be seeing the beginning of the regional war in the Middle East sparked by the US invasion of Iraq.
The massacre of 152 Turkmen this weekend have riled both the 800,000 Turkmen in and around Kirkuk, but Turkey as well, who see them as unarmed kin they need to protect.
Thank you Dubya for a world of chaos.

Pakistan is Destabilizing Under Failed Bush Afghanistan Policy

Juan Cole has a new group blog with in depth foreign affairs analysis. The lastest post was a historical essay on the development of Islamic fundamentalism in Pakistan. Noting that Pakistan seems to be destabilizing with Musharraf as weak as ever, the author speculates that the confrontation at the Red Mosque was a convenient distraction from the dissatisfaction with the Musharraf. The majority of Pakistanis are not fundamentalists who are suspicious of fundamentalist Islam. The author believes the "Talebanization" of Pakistan is the result of the US pull out of Afghanistan to go to Iraq. The whole article is a good read. Here is the key excerpt.
Informed Comment Global Affairs

The strengthening of militant forces in Pakistan - and their inward gaze - has not come from any radicalization of Pakistani society but from the incomplete operation of US forces in Afghanistan. The war in Iraq drained away any plan for a viable and functioning Afghanistan. The defeated troops carried their tribal allegiances back across the border into the Northern and Western regions of Pakistan - and turned their attention onto Pakistani state. Musharraf, busy consolidating the military's dominion had no viable way of combating these tribes - he has no legitimacy. I could be writing an alternative version of this recent past, if democratic tendencies had actually been allowed to develop in Pakistan since 2001. You may call it 'paradoxical' but the only solution to de-Islamization of Pakistan is democracy - not the support of dictatorships.

Powell: "I Tried to Avoid This War"

Talk about too little, too late. Powell tells Times Online that he tried to talk the President out of the war. What Powell didn't understand is a good soldier is required when in uniform.
A statesman requires much more than blind obedience. Sometimes when the good of the country is at stake, one speaks the truth and forces the hand of others. Powell had an obligation to America to emphatically state his warnings to Congress and the people before this war started. His first loyalty was to the American people, not to Bush.

THE former American secretary of state Colin Powell has revealed that he spent 2½ hours vainly trying to persuade President George W Bush not to invade Iraq and believes today'€™s conflict cannot be resolved by US forces.


"€œI tried to avoid this war,"€ Powell said at the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado. "€œI took him through the consequences of going into an Arab country and becoming the occupiers."€


Powell has become increasingly outspoken about the level of violence in Iraq, which he believes is in a state of civil war. "€œThe civil war will ultimately be resolved by a test of arms,"€ he said. "€œIt'€™s not going to be pretty to watch, but I don't know any way to avoid it. It is happening now."€


He added: "€œIt is not a civil war that can be put down or solved by the armed forces of the United States." All the military could do, Powell suggested, was put "€œa heavier lid on this pot of boiling sectarian stew".


[...]According to Powell, the US cannot “blow a whistle one morning” and have all American forces just leave. The former secretary of state has twice met Barack Obama, the Democratic candidate, to advise him on foreign policy. Despite his antiwar stance, Obama supports a phased withdrawal that could leave a “significantly reduced force” in Iraq for “an extended period”.


Defence experts believe it will be impossible to maintain the surge’s high troop levels beyond February at the latest, given the need to rotate and refresh troops. Powell, who served as chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in the early 1990s, said in Aspen that America’s volunteer army was already overstretched. He predicted that Bush would be forced to “face the situation on the ground” and alter course by the end of this year.

Turkey Ready to Invade Northern Iraq

Conditions in Iraq continue to deteriorate. The US is arming it's former enemies in Anbar, further destabilizing Iraq while in Washington gears up to begin a phased withdrawal that seems to slated to begin next year. I suppose the military plan will be to pull back to the green zone and defend a figurehead government while the militias who already control the country fight it out in a civil war.
Meanwhile, the one so far peaceful part of Iraq is about to explode under an Turkish invasion designed to not only stop cross border incidents with Turkey, but to cast an intimidating pall on the coming vote in Kirkuk to determine it's regional affiliation.
The Daily Star

Turkey's government and military have agreed on detailed plans for a cross-border operation against Kurdish rebels based in northern Iraq, the foreign minister said Friday. Abdullah Gul urged the United States and Iraq, which oppose a Turkish military move into Iraq, to crack down on rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. But he said Turkey was ready to stage an offensive if necessary.


"We have decided how to act, everything is clear," Gul told private NTV television. "We know what to do and when to do it," he said without providing details.


The government has come under pressure from the opposition to launch a military incursion as the country gears up for parliamentary polls on July 22.

Israel Continues to Steal Land on the West Bank

Israel's own peace movement documents continued efforts to steal land on the West Bank. From the Lebanese newspaper The Daily Star:

Nine of every 10 Israeli settlements sprawl beyond their official boundaries in an attempt to grab more land in the occupied West Bank, which the Palestinians claim for a future state, a new report said Friday. Israel's settlements encroach on unallocated land even though most of the area in their own jurisdictions remains empty, according to the report from the dovish group Peace Now.


According to the report, 91 percent of the land allocated to settlements by the government is still empty, indicating that the use of land outside settlement boundaries does not "derive from a land shortage in the settlements" but from "a desire to expropriate more land."


Israeli authorities do little to enforce building laws in the settlements, the report said.

The US Fatal Attraction to Israel

Bush has been the latest and worst example of a US president manipulated by Israeli intelligence. We are caught up in the quagmire that is Iraq largely because the Neo-cons are heavily infiltrated and obviously controlled by Israeli intelligence through Douglas Feith and Franklin. Here is an excerpt from a great article by the former Middle East bureau chief for the New York Times, Chris Hedges at AlterNet.

Washington was once willing to stay Israel's hand. It intervened to thwart some of its most extreme violations of human rights. This administration, however, has signed on for every disastrous Israeli blunder, from building the security barrier in the West Bank, to sealing off Gaza and triggering a humanitarian crisis, to the ruinous invasion and saturation bombing of Lebanon.


The few tepid attempts by the Bush White House to criticize Israeli actions have all ended in hasty and humiliating retreats in the face of Israeli pressure. When the Israel Defense Forces in April 2002 reoccupied the West Bank, President Bush called on then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to "halt the incursions and begin withdrawal." It never happened. After a week of heavy pressure from the Israel lobby and Israel's allies in Congress, meaning just about everyone in Congress, the president gave up, calling Sharon "a man of peace." It was a humiliating moment for the United States, a clear sign of who pulled the strings.


There were several reasons for the war in Iraq. The desire for American control of oil, the belief that Washington could build puppet states in the region, and a real, if misplaced, fear of Saddam Hussein played a part in the current disaster. But it was also strongly shaped by the notion that what is good for Israel is good for the United States. Israel wanted Iraq neutralized. Israeli intelligence, in the lead-up to the war, gave faulty information to the U.S. about Iraq's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. And when Baghdad was taken in April 2003, the Israeli government immediately began to push for an attack on Syria. The lust for this attack has waned, in no small part because the Americans don't have enough troops to hang on in Iraq, much less launch a new occupation.


Israel is currently lobbying the United States to launch aerial strikes on Iran, despite the debacle in Lebanon. Israel's iron determination to forcibly prevent a nuclear Iran makes it probable that before the end of the Bush administration an attack on Iran will take place. The efforts to halt nuclear development through diplomatic means have failed. It does not matter that Iran poses no threat to the United States. It does not matter that it does not even pose a threat to Israel, which has several hundred nuclear weapons in its arsenal. It matters only that Israel demands total military domination of the Middle East.


The alliance between Israel and the United States has culminated after 50 years in direct U.S. military involvement in the Middle East. This involvement, which is not furthering American interests, is unleashing a geopolitical nightmare. American soldiers and Marines are dying in droves in a useless war. The impotence of the United States in the face of Israeli pressure is complete. The White House and the Congress have become, for perhaps the first time, a direct extension of Israeli interests. There is no longer any debate within the United States. This is evidenced by the obsequious nods to Israel by all the current presidential candidates with the exception of Dennis Kucinich. The political cost for those who challenge Israel is too high.


This means there will be no peaceful resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. It means the incidents of Islamic terrorism against the U.S. and Israel will grow. It means that American power and prestige are on a steep, irreversible decline. And I fear it also means the ultimate end of the Jewish experiment in the Middle East.


The weakening of the United States, economically and militarily, is giving rise to new centers of power. The U.S. economy, mismanaged and drained by the Iraq war, is increasingly dependent on Chinese trade imports and on Chinese holdings of U.S. Treasury securities. China holds dollar reserves worth $825 billion. If Beijing decides to abandon the U.S. bond market, even in part, it would cause a free fall by the dollar. It would lead to the collapse of the $7-trillion U.S. real estate market. There would be a wave of U.S. bank failures and huge unemployment. The growing dependence on China has been accompanied by aggressive work by the Chinese to build alliances with many of the world's major exporters of oil, such as Iran, Nigeria, Sudan and Venezuela. The Chinese are preparing for the looming worldwide clash over dwindling resources.


The future is ominous. Not only do Israel's foreign policy objectives not coincide with American interests, they actively hurt them. The growing belligerence in the Middle East, the calls for an attack against Iran, the collapse of the imperial project in Iraq have all given an opening, where there was none before, to America's rivals. It is not in Israel's interests to ignite a regional conflict. It is not in ours. But those who have their hands on the wheel seem determined, in the name of freedom and democracy, to keep the American ship of state headed at breakneck speed into the cliffs before us.

Bush Covers His and Cheney's Butt with Libby

New York Times

It seems clear from the record that Vice President Dick Cheney organized a campaign to discredit Mr. Wilson. And Mr. Libby, who was Mr. Cheney’s chief of staff, was willing to lie to protect his boss.


That made Mr. Libby the darling of the right, which demanded that Mr. Bush pardon him. Those same Republicans have been rebelling against Mr. Bush, most recently on immigration reform, while Democrats in Congress have pursued an investigation into whether Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney lied about Iraq’s weapons programs.


All of this put immense pressure on the president to do something before Mr. Libby went to jail. But none of it was justification for the baldly political act of commuting his sentence.


Mr. Bush’s assertion that he respected the verdict but considered the sentence excessive only underscored the way this president is tough on crime when it’s committed by common folk. As governor of Texas, he was infamous for joking about the impending execution of Karla Faye Tucker, a killer who became a born-again Christian on death row. As president, he has repeatedly put himself and those on his team, especially Mr. Cheney, above the law.


Within minutes of the Libby announcement, the same Republican commentators who fulminated when Paris Hilton got a few days knocked off her time in a county lockup were parroting Mr. Bush’s contention that a fine, probation and reputation damage were “harsh punishment” enough for Mr. Libby.


Presidents have the power to grant clemency and pardons. But in this case, Mr. Bush did not sound like a leader making tough decisions about justice. He sounded like a man worried about what a former loyalist might say when actually staring into a prison cell.

More BS About Iran In Iraq

It seems there is a lot of disinformation in the worldwide press about Iran these days. Much of it can be found in the London based Times Online, but some also turns up in the Moonies' Washington Times. Here is an article from an internet site of a small rural Arizona newspaper. Planted, created or whatever, there is less truth in this that meets the eye.
Bush just met with al-Hakim, leader of SCIRI, now SICI, the strongest Shia party in Iraq. They are close allies with Dawa, the organization that CREATED Hezbollah. Did Dawa bring Hezbollah to Iraq for training? Thats kinda like asking if George has the family over to the ranch! Duh! Is this news? No!
onelocalnews.com

Iranian forces helped plan of the most sophisticated militant assaults of the Iraq war — a January raid in which gunmen posed as an American security team and launched an attack that killed five U.S. soldiers, an American general said Monday.


The claims were an escalation in U.S. accusations that Iran is fueling Iraq‘s violence, which the government in Tehran has denied. It was also the first time the U.S. military has said Hezbollah has a direct role — which, if true, would bring a dangerous new player into Iraq‘s conflict.


Bergner said a senior Lebanese Hezbollah operative, Ali Mussa Dakdouk, was captured March 20 in southern Iraq. Dakdouk, a 24-year veteran of Hezbollah, was sent to Lebanon "as a surrogate for the Iranian Quds Force" to finance and arm militant cells to carry out attacks on U.S. and Iraqi troops, he said.


The general also said that Dakdouk was a liaison between the Iranians and a breakaway Shiite group led by Qais al-Khazaali, a former spokesman for cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Bergner said al-Kazaali‘s group carried out the January attack against a provincial government building in Karbala and that the Iranians assisted in preparations. Al-Khazaali and his brother Ali al-Khazaali were captured with Dakdouk.

Meanwhile Robert Dreyfuss reports on Washington Post and Newsweek articles that details the working relationship the US has with Iran around Iraq. SICI/Dawa control is waning in the south where Sadr has been consolidating control.

Some scattered items in the news today shed yet more light on the oft-overlooked U.S.-Iranian alliance in Iraq. Yes, that would be the same U.S-Iran alliance that many Sunnis in Iraq, including Baathists and resistance leaders, keep talking about.


In an interview with Newsweek, Mohsen Rezai, the grand old man of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, says that Maliki's regime in Iraq "is of strategic importance to us. ... We want this government to stay in power. Rival Sunni countries oppose Maliki. We haven't."


The Post, meanwhile, writes about Amar Abdel-Aziz al-Hakim, the son of. He's taking over SCIRI, now SICI. (In the article, Robin Wright talks about the conference put together by Hakim, Iraq for All Iraqis, at which I spoke. No, she doesn't mention me.) But in addressing SICI's remaining power in Iraq, the Post notes that SICI's power in the south of Iraq is ever less and less. It quotes an Arab diplomat in Iraq thusly:

The only person who has grass-roots support is Sadr. Hakim has Bush receiving him at the White House and the ayatollahs seeing him in Iran. But Hakim's influence in southern Iraq began to ebb at the end of 2006.

So there you have it. Hakim has the support of the White House and the ayatollahs. And the Iranians are calling the survival of the Dawa-SICI regime in Baghdad "of strategic importance."


That's the context in which to view the newly reaffirmed alliance between Dawa and SICI. The New York Times actually had the gall to suggest that this alliance, proclaimed this week, could salvage Iraq, citing unnamed diplomats in Baghdad thus: "If Kurds were included and a true bloc of moderates could be formed, it could break some of the parliamentary paralysis."


How stupid. The fact is that no bloc of American-supporting moderates can rule Iraq, since they'd be opposed by the only forces with any real popular support: Sadr's Shia and the pro-resistance Sunnis.

Medical Professionals Turn Terrorist?

Why would six physicians sacrifice themselves in a terrorist incident? And how could people who are so competent, botch terrorist act so badly. Something is not right about this story. Either these guys really didn't do it, or there is an untold story. At this point the story doesn't hold water. It looks instead as an attempt to find a smoking gun that Iran is behind inspiring Iranian Kurds to attack the west.
Informed Comment

A cell made up of 7 medical personnel from Jordan and Iraq appears to have been behind the attempted bombing at Picadilly Circus on Friday and the actual car bombing at the Glasgow airport this weekend. One is a neurologist, Muhammad Asha, from Jordan. Another is an Iraqi physician, Bilal Abdulla. CNN is reporting that Asha's family back in Jordan is stunned. They are middle class, not religious, and intermarried with Christians.


Why would highly educated and relatively well off professionals behave this way? I think this sort of cell suggests that three kinds of sociological theory need to be synthesized in order to understand contemporary social movements-- Social constructivism, resource mobilization theory and European new social movement theory.


Here I'll just concentrate on one, social construction in the Jurgen Habermas (left) and the Peter Berger/ Thomas Luckmann (right) traditions. Groups construct life-worlds within which social action becomes plausible to them. This cell of highly networked professionals had developed a narrative about the world that required they do these horrible things. They weren't motivated by poverty, or class grievances. Their ideas came out of a logic of self and other, such that they likely included Fallujah in "self" and all British foreign policy in "other."


Gradually the shape of that narrative may emerge, though actually there are impediments to our understanding these hothouse terrorist ideologies. The perpetrators often kill themselves, taking most of the details with them. Mainstream media often are little interested in tracking down the details, and government spokesmen are positively eager to downplay or dispute the internal motivations of the criminals. All this is understandable, but it does law enforcement and the public discourse a disservice.


With regard to the 7/7/2005 underground bombings, one of the perpetrators, Shahzad Tanveer clearly was responding to what he saw as a vast Western/Indian conspiracy to massacre Muslims in Kashmir, Afghanistan and Iraq. The conspiracy-theory aspect of his thinking, which brought together disparate political struggles into a single over-arching plot, is typical of these violent ideologies. We know what he thought in part because journalists from local British newspapers in his home area went to Pakistan to seek out his relatives. But the enormous impact on him of the Iraq War was repeatedly denied by the Blair government.


It is too soon to know what exactly was the little lifeworld constructed by these expatriate physicians in Scotland. It could be al-Qaeda, it could just be garden variety Arab nationalism. Note that such extreme points of view thrive when small numbers of persons are in intensive social action within the group and somewhat isolated from their surroundings. They reinforce each other constantly, without encountering skepticism. (Outsiders would say "You believe what?") Medical personnel with odd hours, who hung out socially mainly with one another, and spoke Arabic with one another while not intensively discussing their ideas with Britons, would fit this profile. They may have received reinforcement from internet chat groups.


The kind of thinking they would be engaged in (I don't know details) would typically be, "Britain and the US are conducting a genocide against Arab Muslims in Iraq, are ethnically cleansing Fallujah, Baqubah, and Baghdad, and this must be stopped and cannot be borne. Something must be done, something dramatic, to draw the attention of an apathetic public to the kind of policies they are supporting."


The narrative will be one-sided, exaggerated, black-and-white, with pure heroes and black-hearted villains. Typically they were not upset when Saddam Hussein was massacring 300,000 Iraqis, or when the Talaban were massacring people in Mazar-i Sharif and Bamiyan. (Baathi or Salafi bombings of Shiites in Baghdad also likely do not disturb them). A foreign/indigenous dynamic informs their outrage, so that indigenous atrocities are not (as) objectionable as what are seen as imperial interventions.

Cheney's Dangerous Influence

Newsweek has an article about an interview with an old friend of Dick Cheney. He says Bush Sr had no faith in his son as president. So Cheney stepped in to be the "ghost" of the old man in the White House. Dubya would have a solid stateman behind him. Apparently, no one anticipated Cheney would become the orchestrator of the greatest executive power grab in US history.There was a Cabal in the White House, but it didn't just supplant the Secretary of State, the President himself was sidelined.

I had lunch with Vic Gold, an old friend of the Cheney’s, on the third day of the Post series. I asked him how he felt reading about Dick’s dark adventures. “A tremendous feeling of validation,” he said. In a recent book, Gold described Cheney as a “mega-maniacal paranoid” whose secret empire within the government had captured the Bush presidency and helped bring the Republican Party to the brink of ruin. Gold’s book, published in April, is titled: “Invasion of the Party Snatchers: How the Holy-Rollers and the Neo-Cons Destroyed the GOP.” (It was originally titled “How the Neo-Cons Took Over the GOP,” but midway through the process, Gold got so angry he changed the verb to “Destroyed.” )


This is a huge turnabout for Gold, 78, a veteran Republican operative. Close to the Bushes and the Cheneys, he once shared office space with Lynne Cheney and in 1996 was prepared to support Dick Cheney for president. When he decided not to run, Cheney told Gold, “I don’t want to spend three quarters of my time running around raising money.” That sounded rational to Gold, who’d been kicking around politics for a long time, having worked for a string of Republicans from Barry Goldwater, his hero, to the disgraced Spiro Agnew and finally “the old man,” George H.W. Bush. Unlike others who’ve known Cheney for 30 years, Gold doesn’t think his erstwhile friend has changed. “Men do not change, they unmask themselves,” he says, quoting a Swiss writer. What happened to Cheney is “opportunity,” says Gold. Pushed forward by George and Barbara Bush, who had no confidence in their eldest son, Cheney was supposed to serve as the ghost of Bush Senior hovering around the White House.


Cheney took on the job and with, George W.’s acquiescence, made himself the locus of power. What nobody anticipated is the extent to which the quiet man with the lopsided mouth would insinuate himself into everything--and the devastating consequences of his influence, particularly the Iraq War. Gold, a slight man with wispy white hair and a hair-trigger temperament calls Bush “President Dodo.” He’s known Bush since the ’80 campaign, and while he doesn’t really think he’s dumb, he knows he can be manipulated. “He’s playing the role of president, strutting around,” says Gold. “He’s the weakest president in my memory.”


The Bushes prize loyalty, but about a year ago, Gold had reached a point where his respect for the elder Bush, whose autobiography he had helped write, was not enough for him to keep quiet. The administration in his view had become a danger to the Constitution and what America stands for in the world. He wrote to tell 41 about the book he was writing, and he got a letter back saying, “We’ve been friends a long time and we’ll continue to be friends. I am sure I will not like what you say about our son.” And then in a grace note typical of the old man, “but I don’t think too much of the neocons myself.”


Cheney’s great selling point was that he did not plan to run for president, setting him apart from most vice presidents who harbor personal ambition. He didn’t have to worry about being popular. But the idea was flawed. In the end, Cheney’s lack of viability as a political figure became his license to do whatever he wants, an outcome nobody foresaw, least of all his unsuspecting patron, George H.W. Bush.

Fox Further Tarnishes It's Credibility

Boston.com has a pretty incredible story about Fox News, taking what it appears as a known parody and presenting it as hard news in some sort of perverse sort of intolerant humor at the expense of Muslims. Talk about the height of bad taste. What's amazing is the teacher who was harassed for days by the crazies that watch Fox News is only asking for $75000!

Lewiston School Superintendent Leon Levesque is seeking $75,000 in federal court in Portland to deter what his attorney Bernard J. Kubetz characterized as irresponsible reporting by Fox News Channel. The parody, on a Web site called Associated Content.com, was of the school district's response to a prank in April at Lewiston Middle School. Levesque suspended a pupil for tossing a ham bone on a table occupied by Somali students, knowing the Muslims would be offended. Muslims consider pork unclean.


The lawsuit contends that Fox reported the parody as fact on its "Fox and Friends" show on April 23. The show's anchors repeated a comment attributed to Levesque, that "These children have got to learn that ham is not a toy," and that there was an effort afoot to create an "anti-ham response plan." A Fox and Friends anchor even assured viewers they were "not making this up," according to the lawsuit.


"It appears to me that Fox News acted in a grossly irresponsible way and took some information that was really not very plausible, did not do any substantial fact-checking, and put it out as hard news," Kubetz said.


Levesque said he was overwhelmed for days with phone calls and hate mail, including threatening calls to his home.


Fox did a brief on-air retraction, but Levesque called it unsatisfactory. A Fox News spokesman in New York said the company does not comment on pending lawsuits.

Sixty Years After World War II

New Evidence of Sarin Exposure During Gulf War I

Remember Gulf War Syndrome? Well, if you haven't there are about 325,000 Gulf War I Vets who live with it every day and have filed for disability with varying degrees of success. It seems there has been little press about the hazards of war that have continued unabated in Gulf War II. I suppose it would be harder to sell a war if the truth were known. Some blame depleted uranium used in bombs and artillery shells. Others blame low levels of chemical weapons exposure.
The Register

A new academic study has suggested that US troops may have been physiologically affected by exposure to low levels of sarin nerve gas in the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf War.


It is believed that US soldiers occupying an Iraqi munitions depot at Khamisiyah mistakenly blew up a stockpile of gas rockets in March 1991, believing them to be ordinary explosive munitions. Nobody noticed any ill effects at the time. It was only two months later, when Iraqi chemical weapons facilities were inspected by the UN as part of the ceasefire agreement, that the US began to realise that nerve gases might have been released into the atmosphere.


There has been no suggestion that any military personnel were exposed to concentrations of sarin high enough to produce immediately noticeable effects. However, meteorological models indicate that 100,000 American troops could have been exposed to very low sarin levels. This possible low-level sarin exposure has been seen by many as a possible cause of Gulf War Syndrome. If it is, however, it can't be the only one: 150,000 US veterans are still listed as sufferers.


Dr Roberta F White led this latest research effort, the results of which are to be published in June's NeuroToxicology journal. An abstract of the study can be seen here. Thirteen soldiers who were in the presumed sarin footprint were compared with thirteen who weren't by imaging their brains with MRI scanners. According to Dr White and her team, the brain scans showed "a significant association between higher levels of estimated sarin/cyclosarin exposure and both reduced white matter...and increased right lateral ventricle...and left lateral ventricle volumes.
The researchers conclude that "these findings suggest subtle but persistent central nervous system pathology in Gulf War veterans potentially exposed to low levels of sarin/cyclosarin".


Dr White has a long history of research in chemical weapons exposure and Gulf War Illness issues. In 2001, she published research concluding that Gulf War veterans who said they had been exposed to chemical warfare agents showed "poorer performance on cognitive tests involving specific functional domains". In 2004, she worked on a project examining 18 people exposed to sarin during the Tokyo subway gas attack of 1995, and concluded that sarin may have unknown, long-term chemical neurotoxic effects other than those already understood. That paper specifically rejected the idea that post-traumatic stress disorder might be involved. In 2003, Dr White was reported in the Veterans' Administration newsletter (pdf) as having done another study which "found Gulf War-deployed vets performed 'significantly worse' on tests of attention, visuospatial skills, visual memory, and mood. The study also found veterans who took the anti-nerve agent pills pyridostigmine bromide during the war performed worse than those who didn't take the drug". Generally speaking, Dr White seems to be a good scientist to go to if you want a positive result.