Tuesday, July 31, 2007

 

Salon: Bush's incompetence gives al-Qaida new life



 

Photo: Reuters TV

Undated footage of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden from a video that CNN said on July 14, 2007, was intercepted before it appeared on radical Islamist Web sites.

 

Bush's incompetence gives al-Qaida new life

The White House hints at military action as the terror organization regroups in northern Pakistan and the Musharraf government begins to wobble.

By Juan Cole

Jul. 24, 2007 | In the past week, worrying signs of a resurgence of al-Qaida surfaced in cyberspace, in Pakistan and in Washington, D.C. The Pakistani military's invasion of a major mosque and seminary complex in the country's capital set off an unprecedented, violent wave of protests and car bombings in the north of the country. A new National Intelligence Estimate warned that al-Qaida was reconstituting itself in those very areas of northern Pakistan. A U.S. threat to send Special Forces into Pakistan in search of al-Qaida roiled relations with the weakened Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf. And a new videotape of Osama bin Laden surfaced.

In a videotape that CNN characterized as having been "intercepted," excerpts of which appeared on an anti-terrorist Web site last week, a grayer bin Laden appears in fatigues against a mountainous backdrop, arguing that the Prophet Mohammed himself wished for martyrdom. In reality, though the Prophet had been prepared to sacrifice his life to defend the early Muslim community, he forbade suicide. Before the 1980s, there had never been a suicide bombing in the Muslim world; the technique was pioneered by the Marxist (and largely Hindu) Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka. Bin Laden's little sermon was intended to hijack the Prophet and Islam for the purposes of al-Qaida.

But the very fact that bin Laden could still deliver his poisonous message to the Muslim world six years after his attack on New York and Washington killed some 3,000 people is first and foremost a remarkable testament to the incompetence and fecklessness of the Bush administration. The tape, the new NIE and events in Pakistan and Afghanistan all suggest that, shockingly, al-Qaida is more deadly now than at any time during the past half-decade.

The new National Intelligence Estimate, released early last week, said that al-Qaida "has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability" inasmuch as it had once again set up a safe haven in northern Pakistan and was reassembling its top leadership. The Iraq war and the success of Salafi jihadis in fighting the U.S. there have, moreover, allowed bin Laden's organization "to recruit and indoctrinate operatives, including for Homeland attacks."

Meanwhile, events in Pakistan show a pro-American dictatorship shaken by demonstrations of fundamentalist Islamic power. President Musharraf has long been a linchpin of the Bush administration's "war on terror."

Musharraf had made a truce with the tribes of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan's northwestern region, where al-Qaida remnants are thought to be hiding out. These vast, rugged regions along the Afghan border have defied central government control throughout history. Even the British Empire at its height never subdued them.

The truce came after the Pakistani military had suffered significant casualties in fighting in the region. Emboldened by Musharraf's seeming retreat, militants of the neo-Deobandi school of radical theology came from the north and established themselves in the Red Mosque and seminary of the capital, Islamabad, seeking to impose themselves as a sort of local Taliban-style morals police. They eventually turned violent, capturing police on May 19, and then taking Chinese acupuncture workers captive on June 23, forcing Musharraf's hand. The subsequent invasion of the mosque and seminary on July 10, which left over 100 dead, outraged other Deobandis in the Pashtun areas of the north, provoking thousands to demonstrate in the North-West Frontier province.

Since the government's seizure of the mosque, dozens of people in the north have been killed by suicide bombers targeting Pakistani security forces. Angered by the government invasion of the mosque and military crackdown in the north, Waziristan tribal leaders canceled their truce with Islamabad on July 15. On Monday, the Pakistani military said it had killed 35 militants near the Afghanistan border in renewed clashes that also left two Pakistani soldiers dead.

And now the U.S. seems to be thinking about operating in the same area. Mike McConnell, U.S. director of national intelligence, said Sunday on NBC television of bin Laden, "My personal view is that he's alive, but we don't know because we can't confirm it for over a year ... I believe he is in the tribal region of Pakistan." Pakistani authorities angrily denied the assertion.

McConnell's comments came in the wake of earlier remarks by Frances Townsend, Bush's homeland security advisor, who, when asked if U.S. Special Forces might go into Waziristan in search of Bin Laden, replied, "There are no tools off the table, and we use all our instruments of national power to be effective."

In the best of times, hunting down an individual in Pakistan's tribal areas would be rather like trying to find a person moving among safe houses in Wyoming, Colorado and Nevada. The current unrest would only make the job of any U.S. Special Forces operating in the region that much harder. But the de facto American threat to invade Pakistan also brought an alarmed reaction from the Musharraf regime. On CNN, Foreign Minister Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri angrily pointed out that Pakistan had sacrificed 700 troops to the fight against extremists in the tribal areas. He warned that any U.S. incursion would enrage the Pakistani public and defeat any hope of Washington winning local hearts and minds.

The Musharraf military regime was rattled by public distaste for the invasion of the Red Mosque and seminary, and further weakened by a Supreme Court ruling on July 20 reinstating the chief justice, whom Musharraf had high-handedly attempted to dismiss. The Islamabad government fears that if the Americans abandon it now, or act precipitately, instability will ensue.

In addition, not only has al-Qaida reconstituted itself in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan, and not only did a sort of Pakistani Taliban make a play for control of some of the country's capital, but the Taliban allies of al-Qaida are resurgent in southern Afghanistan. In recent weeks they have pulled off destructive suicide bombings against NATO troops and Afghan civilians. On Monday, Taliban forces killed six NATO troops, four in a roadside bombing. On July 18 and July 19, they had kidnapped two Germans and 23 Koreans. One of the German hostages was found shot on Saturday. The presence of NATO forces and more than 20,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan has not stopped the Taliban from attempting to regain control of the Pashtun regions.

The resurgence of al-Qaida, and the usefulness of Bush's Iraq war as a recruiting tool, were further demonstrated by events in Europe. On July 21, Italian authorities announced the arrest of three Moroccans, whom they charged with running a terror-training program from a mosque and of being linked to al-Qaida. It is believed that their trainees were placed throughout the world, including in Iraq.

In an ideal world the United States could deal with such a threat by close cooperation with Italian counterterrorism officials. But the 2003 kidnapping of an Egyptian terror suspect named Abu Omar in Italy by Central Intelligence Agency operatives without Italian permission has roiled relations between the two countries.

In February an Italian court indicted 25 CIA employees in connection with the "extraordinary rendition," and Italy has demanded their extradition, saying that Italian authorities had the suspect under surveillance and precipitate U.S. action derailed their efforts to trace his network. The CIA delivered Abu Omar to Egypt, where he was imprisoned and says he was tortured, and he has now been released. In view of this fiasco, how likely are Italian authorities to share all their information on the new Moroccan cell and its links to al-Qaida with Washington? The Bush administration, having failed to learn its lesson in Italy, is now talking about intervening unilaterally in Pakistan.

The Iraq war grabs the headlines, though increasingly it, too, is seen through the prism of the American political campaign for 2008, which is already in full swing. The U.S. public seemed little interested in the bin Laden videotape praising al-Qaida martyrs, the first to appear since October 2004. The Italian arrests barely registered on public consciousness. The connection of the Red Mosque events and the subsequent turmoil in Waziristan to the revitalized al-Qaida presence in Pakistan was seldom recognized by the U.S. press.

Astonishingly, al-Qaida may be back, and the signs of its resurgence are everywhere, but there is little reaction from an American public that has everything to fear from the group. War-weary, bogged down in a fruitless guerrilla war in Iraq, disillusioned with the Bush team (which has lied to it assiduously), the public appears to be taking its eye off al-Qaida. If so, it would be making the same mistake as Bush, who is obsessed with Iraq to the detriment of urgent counterterrorism measures. Those efforts, to be successful, will require international cooperation rather than unilateral grandstanding, not something in which this administration has proved adept.

-- By Juan Cole



# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 9:01 PM 1 comments

Monday, July 30, 2007

 

AFP: NGOs report humanitarian crisis in Iraq




Photo
Iraqi refugees wait to register their names at the U.N. Higher Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) centre in the Douma suburb of Damascus July 19, 2007. Syria hosts more than one million Iraqi refugees who fled their homeland after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. REUTERS/Khaled al-Hariri (SYRIA)


NGOs report humanitarian crisis in Iraq

By THOMAS WAGNER, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 49 minutes ago

About 8 million Iraqis — nearly a third of the population — need immediate emergency aid because of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war, relief agencies said Monday.

Those Iraqis are in urgent need of water, sanitation, food and shelter, said the report by Oxfam and the NGO Coordination Committee network in Iraq.

The report said 15 percent of Iraqis cannot regularly afford to eat, and 70 percent are without adequate water supplies, up from 50 percent in 2003. It also said 28 percent of children are malnourished, compared with 19 percent before the 2003 invasion.

"Basic services, ruined by years of war and sanctions, cannot meet the needs of the Iraqi people," said Jeremy Hobbs, the director of Oxfam International. "Millions of Iraqis have been forced to flee the violence, either to another part of Iraq or abroad. Many of those are living in dire poverty."

The report said more than 2 million people — mostly women and children — have been displaced within Iraq, and 2 million Iraqis have fled the country as refugees, mostly to neighboring Syria and Jordan.

Hobbs urged Iraq's government, the United Nations and the international community to do more to help Iraqis, despite the risk of the war's widespread violence involving coalition forces and insurgents.

"The Iraqi government must commit to helping Iraq's poorest citizens, including the internally displaced, by extending food parcel distribution and cash payments to the vulnerable. Western donors must work through Iraqi and international aid organizations and develop more flexible systems to ensure these organizations operate effectively and efficiently," Hobbs said.

Oxfam has not operated in Iraq since 2003 for security reasons, but a survey it published in April found that more than 80 percent of aid agencies working in the country could do more if they had more money.

Some humanitarian organizations refuse money from governments with troops in Iraq, on the grounds of security and independence.

"The fighting and weak Iraqi institutions mean there are severe limits on what humanitarian work can be carried out. Nevertheless, more can and should be done to help the Iraqi people," Hobbs said.

---------

Hunger, disease spread in Iraq - Oxfam report

Mon Jul 30, 2007 12:47PM IST

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Hunger and disease are spreading in Iraq as violence masks a deepening humanitarian crisis, British charity Oxfam said in a report on Monday.

The charity said 28 percent of Iraqi children are malnourished, 15 percent of Iraqis regularly cannot afford enough to eat and 70 percent lack clean drinking water, all sharp increases since 2003.

"The terrible violence in Iraq has masked the ongoing humanitarian crisis. Malnutrition amongst children has dramatically increased and basic services, ruined by years of war and sanctions, cannot meet the needs of the Iraqi people," Oxfam director Jeremy Hobbs said.

"The fighting and weak Iraqi institutions mean there are severe limits on what humanitarian work can be carried out. Nevertheless more can and should be done to help the Iraqi people," he said.

Two million Iraqis have been forced to flee the country since 2003, and at least as many have been displaced within Iraq.

Oxfam, which pulled out of Iraq along with most other aid agencies because of deteriorating security in 2003, said there are local charities within Iraq that are working to help the poorest Iraqis. But most are under-funded.

Some are afraid to accept aid from countries with troops in Iraq for security reasons, and Oxfam called on countries that have not sent troops to send more money for aid.



# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 8:09 PM 0 comments

Sunday, July 29, 2007

 

Z Magazine: Interview: Jihad: Theirs & Ours, Part 2



INTERVIEW

An interview with Tariq Ali

back

By David Barsamian

Tariq Ali, an internationally renowned writer, was born in Lahore in 1943. It was then a part of British-ruled India, now in Pakistan. For many years he has been based in London where he is an editor of the New Left Review. He's written more than a dozen books on history and politics. In his spare time he is a filmmaker, playwright, and novelist. He is the author of The Clash of Fundamentalisms, Bush in Babylon, and Speaking of Empire & Resistance, with David Barsamian. His latest book is Pirates of the Caribbean: The Axis of Hope. 

BARSAMIAN: What's your assessment of the opposition inside Afghanistan to the occupation forces? The Taliban is now an umbrella for many different groups. 

ALI: I see nothing positive emerging there. I think one has to be very hard-headed and realistic about this, that there are no secular democratic forces in Afghanistan. You basically have rival ethnic groupings. Afghanistan always was a tribal confederation governed by a king on behalf of all the tribes. It has more or less remained that, except there is no king at the head of it as such. The thing is, there will have to be power sharing. Either that or little bits of Afghanistan will be clipped off, like Herat in western Afghanistan. 

I feel that NATO has created a situation in which all these groups are becoming popular again as the only groups resisting. And if the secular democratic forces, tiny though they are, in Afghanistan have been backing NATO, it's been a foolish choice on their part. They could have remained aloof from this and held an independent position, but they didn't. Even many former Communists backed the American and NATO occupation of Afghanistan, and they now have no credibility in that country at all. 

William Butler Yeats's poem "The Second Coming" has gotten some attention in recent years, "The center cannot hold," etc. However, in "Meditations in Times of Civil War" he wrote: "We had fed the heart on fantasies. The heart's grown brutal from the fare." 

That could be a description for all empires as they begin their period of decline. I think the U.S. empire has begun its period of decline. As to when it will collapse is an open question, but certainly that has begun. One can see it in the disasters that they face in Iraq, in Afghanistan. You would have thought, and they thought, that American military and economic power had reached such a stage that they could get away with anything. But it's not as easy as that. And their economic rivals—the Chinese, the Japanese, the Koreans, this is the strongest sector, the Far Eastern sector—watch the American empire stumbling from one disaster into the other and wonder what's going on with the imperial leadership. 

I notice the journalists in the United States, Sy Hersh and others, are saying this is the most brutal and stupid government we've ever seen. I can understand their anger, but historically it's not true. You have had governments in the United States which have been even more brutal. After all, the decision to nuke Japan was not taken by the Republican Party. It was Truman's decision which led to the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. I think it's foolish to say that this particular Administration is that much out of kilter. You go back to the 1840s, when James Polk decided as president to invade Mexico. He invaded Mexico because they refused to sell him California. And his equivalent to the weapons of mass destruction was, "We've invaded Mexico because they've invaded us," which everyone knew was completely false. But he won and got away with it because that was the tide of the rising empire. 

Many people said after the Vietnam War, "This is it." But after the Vietnam War, China became a central ally of the United States, the Soviet Union dissolved, and Vietnam today is a thriving capitalist economy. Hardly a serious defeat for the empire. So I'm careful about what I say. But I do think that the failure in Iraq and Afghanistan point to certain weaknesses in this particular empire. 

On Iraq, Robert Fisk says the United States is in a real quandary there because it has to leave and it can't leave. 

There is no such thing as can't leave. I think it can leave and probably will have to leave, but it will have to decide what it is going to leave behind. This is the big debate going on. Some critics of Bush from the Democratic side, like Peter Galbraith, argue that Iraq should be divided. That, in my opinion, would be disastrous because what you would then create is a series of protectorates, with northern Iraq, the Kurdish area, becoming an Israeli-American protectorate; the triangle, not just Sunnis, because lots of Shi'as live there too, but dominantly Sunni, becoming a Saudi protectorate; and the rest of Iraq being a Shi'ite republic closely allied to Iran.  

Whether this Administration will even go that far or whether this will be implemented by a new Democratic president remains to be seen. But I think that is the solution they will favor to try and save face at home, because simply to withdraw would be a political disaster. 

The scale of the disaster for Iraqis is mind-boggling. Hundreds of thousands have been killed, many more maimed and wounded, two-fifths of the Iraqi professional class has fled the country, the external refugees number something like two million, mostly in Jordan and Syria. The internal refugee crisis may even exceed Darfur. The educational system has collapsed—two out of three children don't go to school, there is very little security. Nevertheless, with this chaotic landscape, the Iraqi government somehow has cobbled together a hydrocarbon law that will allocate the oil resources of the country. 

They've done that because oil is the most important resource the country has, and how it is divided is the central issue. Who has control of oil-rich Kirkuk in the north for instance. The Kurds have been attempting to ethnically cleanse the city of Turkomans and Arabs, and others. I don't think that is necessarily going to work without the backing of the United States, but that is certainly what they're playing at. 

The key thing is that the situation in Iraq is a total humanitarian disaster. The refugee crisis is worse than any we've seen in recent years. It is a wrecked country. And it has been wrecked by the occupation, which is why in every opinion poll which asks people, a majority reply, "We were better off under Saddam Hussein." 

The Western occupation has wrecked it so much that people are now looking nostalgically towards the previous era. Which is hardly surprising because after the first Gulf War, when the electricity system, the water supplies were cut off, it took Saddam Hussein's regime two months to have everything working again. Then they imposed sanctions to try and destroy it. But basically there was no mass starvation, there was no big exodus. They got the country functioning again. These people have not been able to do that. And this, I think, is a damning indictment of this occupation. 

Zalmay Khalilzad, of Afghan origin, was ambassador to Kabul, then to Baghdad, and now has been appointed by Bush to be the representative to the United Nations. He said in invading Iraq,"We have opened Pandora's box." 

He obviously knows this is the case because he's been there and can see it with his own eyes. But does he draw any conclusions from that? That's the important question. This is a guy who wrote a pamphlet when he was an adviser to Bush Sr. in which he first posed the question that, given that the world is now uniform and capitalism is primary everywhere, is it possible to assert U.S. hegemony without the use of force. Or will we have to fight against other capitalist countries to make sure we remain on top? And he said we have to use force. So he is one of the people responsible for this new security strategy. But the fact that he sees it as a disaster is very revealing. 

If you have someone who is armed and has committed aggression, you would expect that pattern would continue. I'm talking now about the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. However, when it comes to Iran, you believe that the United States, even though it has deployed massive military forces to the Persian Gulf region, is not going to attack Iran. 

This is my opinion based on certain irrefutable facts. There are two ways they could do it. There could be a surgical military strike on 150 different nuclear sites that exist in different parts of Iran. They're not all in one place, so it would be a heavy bombing campaign, which would affect the whole country. That is the only thing that is militarily possible. It is not possible to invade Iran because the United States doesn't have enough forces to do so. They don't have enough troops to run Iraq, leave it alone and take over another country. So militarily, a land invasion is totally excluded. 

Second point. What would be the effect of an air strike against the Iranian regime? The immediate effect would be the opening up of two new fronts. The Iranians would then say, "Okay, the gloves are off and they would tell their supporters in Iraq, "Fine, take them on." They would probably say the same to their supporters in Afghanistan. And possibly, though Hezbollah in Lebanon is not totally under their thumb, they would say, "Open a new front there." So you have the likelihood that any attack on Iran would completely destabilize large sections of that part of the world. 

If I were a Pentagon general running the war in Iraq, determined to preserve as many of my troops as I can, and a politician came and said, "Hey guys, we're going to take out the nuclear reactors in Iran," I would say, "Just a sec, Mr. President, or Mr. Vice President, or Secretary of State," or whoever. "Have you any idea of the costs we could incur on the battlefield if this happens? We're not prepared to do that." I think you will probably have a rebellion behind the scenes if this decision is taken. 

Also the bulk of the Europeans are against it. The Germans are against it, the French are against it, and even the British are not for it, to put it mildly. So you would have an even bigger split than you had on the Iraq War. At the same time, the Russians are selling the latest, most advanced anti-aircraft technology to the Iranians quite openly. They've been attacked for that. Because the last thing the old Soviet Union did was to develop very high quality anti-aircraft weaponry, which they were about to give to the Serbs, the Yugoslavs, but didn't because they wanted a settlement. But they're selling it openly to the Iranians. So the Russians will certainly not be in favor of it. The Chinese have signed a 30-year deal with Iran to supply fuel and energy. They're not going to be in favor of it. So it's the one action the United States could take if it wanted to totally isolate itself and create disasters for itself. 

I think one of the aims of this rocket rattling, which we've seen, is regime change in Iran without any invasion of the sort, to say, "Ahmadinejad is a figure who could bring your country close to destruction. Get rid of him." 

Explain the Sunni/Shi'a divide. What is the main issue? 

The Sunni/Shi'a divide is a division for the heritage of the Prophet Mohammed. It's a political dispute over the succession. The people who are now Shi'as say that the caliph who replaced Mohammed should have been Ali, his son-in-law, married to Mohammed's daughter, Fatima. The others argue that the Prophet had always said that the successor should be chosen by the umma, the community as a whole. The community as a whole did meet and they didn't vote for Ali, they voted for Omar, who succeeded him and who was a very gifted political and military leader. Probably the right decision was made. Then these internal, internecine rivalries produced divisions and Mohammed's grandsons, Ali's sons, were then encouraged to rebel against the legal caliph. He did what most rulers do, which is to wipe out the rebellion. That became the big thing—that the Prophet's grandson, Hussein, had been killed. The other wasn't killed at all. He lived and died a normal death. He lived in Medina—he was not even punished—and accepted the caliphate. But these people then carried on a fight. So it was essentially a struggle for power. 

Once you have this division early on in a faith, it is reproduced and reproduced and reproduced. Of course, they have their different customs, different interpretations of Islam. Some of them are so esoteric that it's best not to discuss them on a family show. But these have been carried on. Often, until Khomeini's revolution, the differences were greatly exaggerated. Then the victory of the Iranian revolution brought this up again. But one should remember that Khomeini's victory was welcomed by Muslims everywhere, Sunni and Shi'a. But the use of this particular faction of Islam has meant that the Saudi monarchs and the Gulf States are very nervous, because in Bahrain 80 percent of the population are Shi'a. In Saudi Arabia, in the areas where the oil is, they are dominated by the Shi'a. 

In Pakistan there has been a history of anti-Shi'a violence. Processions are attacked, mosques are burned. 

This is a very recent history. This is something which began in the late 1980s and 1990s. It never existed in the past. The Shi'as were part of the Muslim community. Shi'as rose to quite high positions in the army and the civil service. There were no big problems. This is the development of Salafism and Wahhabism and religious extremism in Pakistan, which is so sectarian that it regards Shi'as as non-Muslims, saying, "How can they be Muslims. They believe in these imams. Islam doesn't. Islam believes in Allah and the Prophet. That's all, nothing else between them." Which technically, of course, whether we like it or not, is accurate, if you study the theology. So they say that Shi'as are not Muslims, they are apostates and should be wiped out. 

There has been a persistence of so-called theories about September 11, 2001. The Guardian recently reported that "more than a third of Americans believe that either the official version of events never happened or that U.S. officials knew the attacks were imminent, but did nothing to stop them." Do you run into these ideas in your talks ? 

I encounter this, but largely in the United States, I have to say. I am giving a talk and at the end there's question time. And a plaintive voice says, "Tariq, do you believe we did it ourselves?" I've argued in my book Clash of Fundamentalisms, and I carry on arguing, that, no, this was not an action carried out by the United States; that it's a sign of total alienation from reality to believe that the United States carried out the attacks on the Twin Towers and the Pentagon. Then the conspiracists say, "But the Pentagon wasn't really hit," and numerous other theories which they have developed, which I find sort of psychologically interesting but politically worthless. 

Psychologically they're interesting as to why do people fall in love with these theories? In the United States there is a deep mistrust of government, for good reason, because this government—not just this government, but historically many governments—have lied in order to get their way. But I don't think any government in the United States has actually carried out actions of this sort against its own country. It would be crazy of them to do so because the one thing about the United States is that it's difficult to keep things totally secret. If this had happened, it would come out sooner or later. And if it actually happened, it would discredit the entire structure of the American system and of politics in this country. 

I certainly don't accept any of these conspiracy theories which say the United States organized these hits. Why the hell should it? It needs excuses to go and make wars? It never needed them before. It's bizarre. 

In the Muslim world it's different. One is blind anti-Americanism, not being able to see that the United States hasn't done that. The second is an element of self-denigration, which is that we aren't intelligent enough to have done this. I remember after 9/11, I was approached after talks by quite intelligent people. Middle-class doctors and teachers would stop me on the street after I had given a talk and say, "Do you really think that we were mentally capable of doing it?" And I said, "Well, actually, the fact that this group did it shows that they were mentally not very strong because it's a foolish thing to have done. It hasn't strengthened them or their cause, it has weakened it. They will realize that one day. But," I said, "yes, technically they are perfectly capable of doing it." After all, the guys who trained these people as pilots said they didn't want to know how to take off or land but how to fly a plane in midair. So, I said, "They knew what they were doing. And that certainly any fool can do it. It's not a big thing to do." 

And then the other argument comes up. "But can this one guy sitting in his cave in the Afghan mountains"—I said, "It's got nothing to do with that. These are middle-class, trained, skilled people. These are not peasants who carried these acts out; they're educated graduates in the sciences and medicine, in engineering. It's a sort of political act, which they've carried out. They are wrong, but they did  carry it out. There is no dispute about that. 

"Why aren't you so worked up about what's happening in Iraq? Why don't you constantly maintain a barrage of propaganda on the streets against that war and the killings there instead of spending so much time and energy on these conspiracy theories?" That's a question these people should be asking themselves. Even if they were right, they should be against the war in Iraq. 

Do you think there is a racist factor at work here—3,000 Americans were killed on September 11? 

Yes, they were Americans. But there were also Indians, Pakistanis, and many others from various countries working in the Twin Towers. But, of course, in the empire, when an American dies, it means much more than anywhere else. I recounted in Clash of Fundamentalisms a story of a taxi driver, his SUV festooned with stars and stripes. When I asked him in October of that year why he was festooned with stars and stripes and what he thought about the whole thing, once he realized that I wasn't an American, he said to me he was pleased it had happened. He was from Central America and so many of their people had been killed by pro-American governments that they know what it feels like. I tried to tell him, "But this is not going to get anywhere." He said, "Yes, I know, but I still feel happy." Latin America is the place where it received the biggest support. The Muslim world was in a state of shock because they knew what was coming. 

The issue of the Armenian genocide lingers 90-plus years since it happened in 1915 in Turkey. On January 19, 2007, Hrant Dink, a prominent, independent journalist, was murdered in Istanbul. Turkey's Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk has been threatened because he has spoken about the Armenian genocide. Another writer and academic, Elif Shafak, has also been threatened. 

I think there are two or three related factors here. One is that the national state created by Kemal Ataturk—or the people even before him, the Young Turks under whom the genocide was carried out on the Armenians—assumed that the only way a national state would survive and be created in Turkey was by removing all extraneous forces. And the Armenians were a large, old, established community, especially in eastern Turkey. But, of course, that imploded because the fact that Turkey became largely a Muslim state after the expulsion of the Greeks, the genocide of the Armenians, etc., didn't save it from that. The fight of the Kurds for their own autonomy, meant that this problem couldn't go away. 

It's now ironic, when you look back on it, that they did this. I said when I was in Eastern Turkey, "Of course, your forefathers wiped out the Armenians, which was a big tragedy, because if the Armenians had still been part of eastern Turkey, how could you have spoken of Kurdistan, because they were a majority? Certainly in Diyarbakir they were—the non-Kurds were a majority. "So you would have been forced to live together and not become narrow nationalists." And, of course, there is no reply to that. There are all sorts of contradictions in how and why that happened. But it was the deadly logic of ultranationalism. That's how it works in most parts of the world when people go down that route. 

Why don't they admit it? One, because for a long, long time they were ultradefensive about it. Now I think the events are so far removed that there is a section of the Turkish elite and political class that would probably admit it. I once said to a senior Turkish civil servant, "Why don't you admit it and apologize? You didn't do it." But say, "Those who did it, it was reprehensible, unacceptable, we apologize, we welcome Armenians to come back and see their villages," etc. He was very blunt with me. He said, "We cannot afford to pay money out. If you accept the use of the word 'genocide,' then—thanks to what the Germans in the reparation agreements with the Israelis over the Holocaust—we are lumbered forever. We just don't have the funds to do that. Do not underestimate what I am telling you." So I said, "What if you referred to it as, 'The mass organized killings of Armenians that took place and were carried out by Kurdish irregulars were a tragedy. We apologize for them'"? He said, "If that were the wording, I think you would find many people in Turkey would accept it." 

The reason for those killings was to drive out a population. It wasn't in the sense that they are inferior, do you see? It wasn't racial but ethnic. They didn't say the Armenians are inferior to us because they married lots of their women. That was fine. But the killings took place for reasons of nationalism and reasons of property. The Kurds were much poorer. They were among the poorer sections of the community. Many Kurds grew rich from the Armenian estates, lands that they had stolen. The great Turkish writer Yasar Kemal has written in many of his novels about what was done by Kurdish militias to the Armenians. So it's something that is accepted and that needs to be done. But I would argue that the Turks should go and say publicly, "The killings took place." If they don't want to use the word "genocide," they should just make that statement and let's see where it goes. 

You're now interested in a topic you're calling the human rights industry. What's that about? 

It's the use of human rights. Obviously, we're all in favor of rights for people. All rights are judicial rights. They have to be fought for and won. But an industry has grown up since the end of communism that uses the concept of human rights—humanitarian interventions, military humanism—essentially as the new ideology of the post-Communist world and to cater to the needs of the U.S. empire. This has developed and mushroomed. 

If you go to U.S. campuses, there are human rights departments. You never had them before. So you have to ask, why at this particular time in American history have these developed? Why didn't Harvard create a center for human rights in the 19th century when the memory of the Indians that had been wiped out was fresh in American minds? Why now? 

I call it the human rights industry after Norman Finkelstein, whose parents were in Auschwitz, who wrote a book called The Holocaust Industry, which is the uses that are made of the Holocaust in order to justify A, B, and C. That, in my opinion, is something which is happening with the human rights industry today, both on an ideological level and in the mushrooming of nongovernmental organizations all over the world. 

These are organizations that I have referred to as WGOs—Western governmental organizations—planted in different parts of the world with money from Western foundations and governments, which have bought over a large layer of the intelligentsia in many countries and which remind me of the activities of the Congress for Cultural Freedom during the Cold War, the money the CIA poured into creating magazines, etc. This is something which needs to be discussed, simply to make available an alternative view of this. Because people say, "How can you be opposed to human rights?" We're not opposed to them. We're opposed to the use that is being made of them and the grotesque double standards that are employed in this situation. 

Z 


David Barsamian is founder and director of Alternative Radio in Boulder, Colorado. He is a radio producer, journalist, author and lecturer. His interviews and articles appear regularly in the Progressive and Z Magazine. His recent books are Imperial Ambitions with Noam Chomsky, Speaking of Empire & Resistance with Tariq Ali, Original Zinn with Howard Zinn, and Targeting Iran. 



# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 6:52 PM 0 comments

Saturday, July 28, 2007

 

NYT: Bomb Kills 25 in Baghdad After U.S. Cites Security Success



Mahmoud Raouf Mahmoud/Reuters

Residents pleaded for help on Thursday as they tried to escape a building set ablaze in a car bombing in Karada, a Shiite section of Baghdad.



July 27, 2007

Bomb Kills 25 in Baghdad After U.S. Cites Security Success

By STEPHEN FARRELL

BAGHDAD, July 26 — A car bomb killed 25 people in a Shiite area of the city during the evening rush hour on Thursday, wounding dozens of shoppers, destroying stores and leaving a pall of smoke hanging over the center of the city.

The attack occurred hours after Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the second-ranking American commander in Iraq, claimed "significant success" for recent security operations in Baghdad and Diyala Province.

General Odierno, who runs day-to-day military operations in Iraq, also accused Iran of being involved in recent deadly attacks on Baghdad's high-security Green Zone, which is regularly hit by rocket and mortar fire from across the Tigris River.

"We have seen in the last three months a significant improvement in the capability of mortarmen and rocketeers to provide accurate fire into the Green Zone and other places," he said in Baghdad.

"We think this is directly related to training that was conducted in Iran," he said. "So we continue to go after these networks with the Iraqi security forces. This is not done independently by U.S. or coalition forces. This is done in conjunction with Iraqi security forces. And we continue to attack those networks, and we will continue to do so" until the weapons are stopped.

On July 10, a barrage killed three people in the Green Zone and wounded 18. The United States has repeatedly accused Iran of arming, supporting and training militias in Iraq. Iran has consistently denied the accusations.

General Odierno said that American casualties in Iraq had declined recently, after a peak in May. But he said he could not yet judge the significance of the drop.

"It is an initial positive sign, but I would argue I need a bit more time to make an assessment of whether it is a true trend or not," he said.

The American military on Thursday announced five more American deaths in Diyala and Baghdad.

In the car bombing, in the Karada area of Baghdad, nine cars were destroyed and a three-story building was set on fire, the police said. It was the deadliest of several attacks on Thursday.

In Kirkuk, a northern city, a car exploded near a restaurant, killing at least six civilians and wounding 25, said Brig. Gen. Sarhat Qadir, of the police.

A suicide bomber also killed seven people, most of them policemen, at the gate of a police station west of Mosul, said Brig. Gen. Muhammad al-Waqaa, of the police.

Bombers also attacked Mosul's main soccer stadium, in what appeared to be a warning to the people who celebrated the Iraqi soccer team's victory on Wednesday in the semifinals of the Asian Cup. No one was in the stands. A room used by broadcasters, journalists and officials was damaged.

An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Mosul.


# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 10:01 AM 0 comments

Friday, July 27, 2007

 

Boston Globe: The world after George W. Bush


GLOBE EDITORIAL
The world after George W. Bush

July 22, 2007

PRESIDENT BUSH has hinted more than once that he expects to leave to his successor the task of ending America's military occupation of Iraq. His reasons for doing so may go beyond calculations about the time needed to establish security and a functioning government in Iraq, beyond a reluctance to enter history as a president who presided over the retreat from a lost war. Perhaps Bush senses that the change of direction required to cut the nation's losses in Iraq would expose the flagrant misconceptions on which his conduct of the Iraq war was based.

If Bush were to accept the need to cut deals with Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia as part of the price of containing the chaos in Iraq, he would be conceding that his grandiose notions of bestowing democracy on a key Arab country by force were delusional.

Were a realistic exit strategy to be carried out on Bush's watch, it would become apparent -- while he was still in office -- that instead of implanting democracy in Iraq and conferring security on the oil-rich Gulf region, he has wrought almost the exact opposite.

A pattern of disasters
Bush called for a humble foreign policy as a candidate. But he and his advisers -- especially Vice President Dick Cheney -- believed from the start that America was so much stronger than all possible competitors that it need not be constrained from acting unilaterally whenever it saw the need. Bush has broken with predecessors of both parties, who sought security in strong alliances, support for the United Nations, diplomatic engagement with dangerous rivals, and respect for international treaties. And when deciding on fateful policies, Bush has often disdained to take into account the cultural and historical conditions specific to key countries.

In practice, that attitude has resulted in one calamity after another: the breakout of Iranian influence, unnecessary tensions with Russia, Bush's refusal to demand a quick halt to last summer's war between Israel and Hezbollah, US disavowal of the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and the Kyoto protocol, and six years of declining to stem the tide of extremism by actively seeking to broker a peace accord between Israelis and Palestinians.

Clearly Iraq is Bush's greatest failure. Whether the many-sided conflicts raging there are the inevitable consequence of the US invasion or whether they stem from incoherent post-invasion policies, the result is the same: Sunni Arabs and Shi'ites are slaughtering each other. Al Qaeda in Iraq, an affiliate of Osama bin Laden's gang, is sending suicide bombers to blow up mosques and markets, police stations, and US vehicles. With jihadist partners, the group has declared an Islamic State of Iraq in the west of the country. Disparate Shi'ite militias, each with its own source of Iranian backing, are killing Sunnis and Americans and fighting each other for local dominance.

A more dangerous world
Bush will be leaving his successor a strategic situation, in a wide arc around Iraq, that is far more dangerous than the one he inherited. Iran and its ally of convenience, Syria, have their hands at the throat of Lebanon. Iran is projecting its power not only through Shi'ite Hezbollah in Lebanon but also through its support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. As Tehran pursues a nuclear weapons capability, frightened Sunni Arab states are considering problematic options: to develop their own nuclear capabilities or to reach accommodations with an ascendant Iran.

Simultaneously, there has been an ominous decline in America's reputation throughout much of the Muslim world and even in Europe. The horrors of Abu Ghraib, the rendition of terrorist suspects to countries that torture, the lack of legal protections for captives in Guantanamo: These and other panicky reactions to the threat of terrorism have made American preaching about the rule of law seem hypocritical. Bush has played into the hands of propagandists who portray America as hostile to all Muslims or a threat to world peace. The result is a loss of soft power, the good will that inclines foreign states and populations to give America the benefit of the doubt.

To cope with the strategic situation Bush will be leaving, his successor will have to disavow the false assumptions underlying many of his policies.

On one key issue, Bush himself has actually begun to show the way -- by departing from Cheney's obtuse refusal to negotiate with North Korea. Originally, Bush and Cheney disdained Bill Clinton's 1994 deal with the North as appeasement. They criticized South Korea's "sunshine policy" of reconciliation with the North, refused to negotiate, and included that despotic regime in a purely rhetorical "axis of evil." And they watched as the North produced enough new plutonium for eight to 10 bombs.

The false hope of regime change
The lesson of North Korea should be that false premises produce failed policies. There never was any realistic prospect that regime change would annul the threat of nuclear weapons in the North. By the same token, regime change in Iraq -- particularly when accompanied by an abhorrence of nation-building -- could hardly establish a stable power balance in the Gulf region, the flourishing of democracy, the encirclement of Iran, or long-term security for oil supplies. And there is virtually no chance that regime change could be the way to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.

In Iraq and elsewhere, Bush's successor will be called on to clean up a staggering mess. Above all, this will mean returning to the principles of US foreign policy as practiced by every other president since FDR. Particularly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Bush and his advisers presumed that this hoary old approach was no longer relevant. But the record shows that Bush has not succeeded in rewriting the rules of statecraft. Proceeding from false premises, he came to false conclusions. His successor, whether a Democrat or a Republican, will need to revive the internationalist traditions of his predecessors to clean up the mess he is leaving behind.


# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 8:28 PM 0 comments

Thursday, July 26, 2007

 

CNN: Baghdad bombers target soccer celebrations, killing at least 50



art.iraq.main.gi.jpg

Iraqis carry the coffins Wednesday of relatives killed Tuesday in a suicide car bombing in Hilla.

Baghdad bombers target soccer celebrations, killing at least 50

  • Story Highlights
  • NEW: U.S. general says troops will be needed in northern Iraq into 2009
  • Death toll from car bombs rises to 50 as thousands celebrate soccer win
  • U.S. soldier dies of "non-battle related" causes, military says
  • U.S.-led coalition raids in three cities detain 20 suspected terrorists, U.S. says

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Car bombers targeted throngs of Iraqis on Wednesday as they spilled into Baghdad streets to cheer a national soccer victory, killing at least 50 people and leaving scores more wounded.

Attacking revelers in the Mansour district of western Baghdad, a suicide car bomber killed at least 30 people and wounded 75, an Iraqi Interior Ministry official said.

Later, in the southeastern neighborhood of Ghadir, a second car bomb killed at least 20 and wounded at least 60, the official said. The attack is near an Iraqi army checkpoint.

Thousands of fans had filled the streets of the capital after Iraqi athletes competing in Malaysia defeated South Korea, catapulting the nation to the Asian Cup finals for the first time.

In addition to the dual Baghdad bombings, random gunfire across the capital led to the deaths of two people and the wounding of 12, the ministry said.

Iraq defeated South Korea 4-3 in a penalty shootout in a semifinal game Wednesday night in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

There had been street violence Saturday after Iraq won its quarterfinal game. Three people died and 25 were wounded during raucous celebrations in which people fired guns into the air.

Iraq and Saudi Arabia play for the championship in Jakarta, Indonesia, on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the top U.S. commander in charge of troops in northern Iraq says that a coalition troop presence will be needed in his region over the next year and a half. But Maj. Gen. Benjamin Mixon told CNN on Wednesday that it is possible the number of troops in the north could drop by sometime next year.

"As I look at my area, I certainly can see we will need some level of troop presence by well into 2009. The numbers will depend on the situation," said Mixon, who has 23,000 troops under his command.

Mixon reported strides in Operation Arrowhead Ripper, the major offensive in and around Baquba that began last month: "We have taken Baquba back from the enemy. We have pushed them into the Diyala River valley and are continuing to attack them in the Diyala River valley."

A U.S. soldier with the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary) died Tuesday of a "non-battle related" cause, the U.S. military said Wednesday. The death put the total U.S. military personnel killed in the Iraq war at 3,637, including seven civilian contractors of the Defense Department. The number of American troop deaths for July is 58.

Also Wednesday, morning raids in three cities by coalition forces targeting al Qaeda in Iraq detained 20 suspected terrorists, according to a U.S. military statement.

"With every operation coalition forces conduct we are further degrading and destroying the al Qaeda in Iraq network," said Maj. Marc Young. "Al Qaeda and its foreign leadership seek only to bring violence and fear to the Iraqi people in its attempt to prevent a secure and democratic Iraq."

The raids took place in Baghdad, Mosul and Tarmiya, according to the statement.

At least 18 slain bodies were found across the capital on Wednesday, the Iraqi Interior Ministry said. The total number of such deaths this month stands at 504. Iraqi authorities suspect the fatalities are the result of sectarian violence.

CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq contributed to this report.



# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 7:24 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, July 25, 2007

 

NYT: Car Bombs Kill 12 People in One of Baghdad’s Safer Neighborhoods


 
 
Johan Spanner for The New York Times

Residents congregated on Monday around the site of a car bomb in the Karrada district of Baghdad. Two car bombs exploded about 15 minutes apart in the area, a largely Shiite neighborhood near the Green Zone. Thirty-eight people were wounded.

 
July 24, 2007

Car Bombs Kill 12 People in One of Baghdad's Safer Neighborhoods

By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and QAIS MIZHER

BAGHDAD, July 23 — Car bombs ripped through what is normally one of Baghdad's least dangerous neighborhoods on Monday morning, killing at least 12 people and wounding 38. Iraqi authorities said most of the victims were people shopping at busy streetside markets.

The bombs struck Karrada, a largely Shiite neighborhood where rents have increased in the past two years as Iraqis who can afford it have fled there from more dangerous areas of Baghdad.

The attacks appeared coordinated and broke the relative calm that sometimes prevails in the bustling area just across the Tigris River from the Green Zone, seat of the Iraqi government and the American Embassy.

The first bomb exploded in a parked car at 10:30 a.m. "It was like the earth was moving under my feet as an earthquake struck," said Abu Ahmad, 35, a shopowner, who said the bomb sent pieces of glass shooting like shrapnel through his store. "Thanks to God I'm still alive."

The next bomb detonated 15 minutes later in a car parked near a government building that handles identification cards. The bomb tore a large hole in the pavement and scorched nine cars.

Abid Ali Majeed, 75, a shopowner, complained that the killers should never have been allowed so close to a populated area. "I blame the police on patrol nearby," he said. "How could they let the car park in such a place?"

As the violence unfolded in Karrada, residents of Hussainiya, on the outskirts of northern Baghdad, said American forces had imposed a vehicle ban and tightened a cordon that has left them without access to food. Hussainiya, a large Shiite district, has a major presence of Mahdi Army militiamen.

The district has been under siege, residents said, since a bloody skirmish Friday night and Saturday morning in which American aircraft attacked houses and killed as many as 18 people from several families. An Iraqi Interior Ministry official put the death toll at 15. American officials dispute those accounts and say troops used rockets and a bomb to kill six people in buildings where gunmen had taken shelter after firing on American troops.

On Monday, Hussainiya residents who fear that a big battle is looming fled the area, said one resident, Hikmat al-Azzawi, in a telephone interview. Iraqi forces were warning residents to stay inside, he said.

"The Iraqi police are telling people, 'Don't sleep on your roofs for your own safety, to protect yourself from bullets,' " he said. Many Iraqis sleep on roofs in the summer to avoid hotter temperatures in their homes.

Mr. Azzawi said American forces had banned food trucks from Hussainiya but had told residents the trucks could park just outside the district, where residents could walk to them.

A statement from the American military command in Baghdad said Iraqi vendors could take food "south of Hussainiya" and that "civilians are authorized to walk to these vendors to buy food. Donkey carts may be used, but no vehicle movement is authorized. The Coalition is also allowing civilians that need medical aid to walk to the Hamid Shaub Hospital for free treatment."

Four American servicemen were reported killed over the weekend in central Iraq and in Anbar Province, bringing to 57 the number of American troops killed in July, according to Icasualties.org, which tracks American deaths.

The military released few details. It said one marine was killed Saturday in Anbar. Also Saturday, a soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad and another, from the 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), died when a bomb exploded near his Humvee south of Samarra. That attack wounded two other soldiers. On Sunday, a soldier from Task Force Marne, which is deployed south of Baghdad, was killed.

Other attacks struck Baghdad on Monday. A car bomb exploded near a popular kebab restaurant close to the Green Zone, killing four people and wounding six. A bomb in central Baghdad killed two people and wounded six.

Two Iraqi guards who worked for the Oil Ministry were killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad. And the Iraqi police found 24 corpses around the capital on Monday. Many bore signs of torture or had been shot execution-style.

Near Ramadi, where Sunni tribal leaders have worked with the American military to drive out Sunni extremists and reduce attacks, a male suicide bomber in women's clothes approached an Iraqi police station and asked about a relative who he said had been detained. Then, as his bag was being searched, he blew himself up, killing one policeman and wounding three, the local police said.

Ali Adeeb contributed reporting from Baghdad, and a New York Times employee from Ramadi.



# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 8:51 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

 

(BN) Al-Qaeda May Use Iraq Tactics in U.S., Report Says

 
Al-Qaeda May Use Iraq Tactics in U.S., Report Says (Update2)
2007-07-17 11:53 (New York)


     (Adds Skelton's comment in fifth and sixth paragraphs,
report's findings after 12th paragraph.)

By Jeff Bliss
     July 17 (Bloomberg) -- Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist
organization may use tactics honed in Iraq to launch an attack in
the U.S., according to domestic intelligence agencies.
     The group ``is and will remain the most serious terrorist
threat to the homeland as its central leadership continues to
plan high-impact plots while pushing'' other extremist Islamic
terrorists to ``mimic its efforts,'' the 16 U.S. intelligence
agencies said in a report released today in Washington.
     ``As a result, we judge that the United States currently is
in a heightened threat environment,'' the agencies reported.
     The report comes almost six years after the U.S. invaded
Afghanistan with the express purpose of wiping out al-Qaeda after
the Sept. 11 2001 attacks on the U.S.
     Ike Skelton, chairman of the House Armed Services Committee,
said the findings show the Bush administration was mistaken to
move forces from Afghanistan to invade Iraq.
     ``We should have concentrated our efforts on al-Qaeda in
Afghanistan from the beginning,'' Skelton, a Democrat from
Missouri, said in an e-mailed statement. ``We must responsibly
redeploy our troops out of Iraq'' and ``concentrate our efforts
on Afghanistan and the al-Qaeda terrorists who attacked us on
9/11.''

                        Debate in Congress

     The report's warning that al-Qaeda will leverage ``contacts
and capabilities'' gained in Iraq to attempt attacks on U.S. soil
comes as President George W. Bush tries to fend off efforts by
Democrats and a growing number of Republicans in Congress to set
conditions for withdrawing troops from Iraq.
     White House spokesman Tony Snow said the report's release
wasn't timed to have an impact on the debate.
     The National Intelligence Estimate, which took three years
to produce, goes ``through a very long process of scrubbing,'' he
told reporters in Washington. ``When it is ready, we put it
out.''
     He repeated administration assertions that there are ``no
specific or credible threats'' to the U.S. now.
     The report says that al-Qaeda's association with its
affiliate, ``al-Qaeda in Iraq,'' will help it raise money and
recruit and indoctrinate terrorist operatives.

                          `Key Judgments'

     Senior U.S. intelligence officials released declassified
``key judgments'' of the report today. These assessments include:
     -- Al-Qaeda is gaining strength in the ``safe haven'' it has
established in tribal areas in western Pakistan along the Afghan
border and is putting in place a stable leadership with top
lieutenants;
     -- Al-Qaeda probably will continue to seek nuclear,
chemical, biological or radiological weapons and ``would not
hesitate to use them'' to inflict mass casualties on ``prominent
political, economic and infrastructure targets;''
     -- Radical Islam is spreading throughout the world and
within the U.S. Militants may justify violent acts as a reprisal
for the recent U.S. arrests and prosecutions of a small band of
extremists. Europe faces a worse problem with homegrown radicals;
     -- While non-Muslim terrorist groups will attempt attacks
within the U.S. in the next three years, they're likely to be on
a scale smaller than those planned by al-Qaeda.
     While ``we have discovered only a handful of individuals in
the United States with ties to al-Qaeda's senior leadership since
9/11, we judge that al-Qaeda will intensify its efforts to put
operatives here,'' the report said.
     The findings generally echo the description of al-Qaeda's
resurgence in a U.S. National Counterterrorism Center report and
testimony to Congress from senior intelligence officials last
week.
     ``In many ways what you're talking about is kind of a mode
of operation that is nothing new for al-Qaeda,'' Snow said. ``But
it at least gives you a glimpse at some of the structural changes
that have taken place since the beginning of the war on terror in
2001.''

--With reporting by Edwin Chen and Tony Capaccio in Washington.
Editor: Schmick (mgf)

Story illustration: For government news, see {GTOP <GO>}.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Tony Capaccio in Washington at +202-624-1911 or
acapaccio@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Michael Forsythe at +1-202-624-1940 or
mforsythe@bloomberg.net

[TAGINFO]

NI GEN
NI US
NI GOV
NI USGOV
NI DEF
NI CIA
NI TERROR
NI EU
NI UK
NI WAR
NI CNG
NI PAK
NI AFGHAN
NI AUD
NI ANZ
NI INDIA
NI UK
NI IRAQ
NI IRAN


#<610728.429298.1.0.38.15369.25>#
-0- Jul/17/2007 15:53 GMT

# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 9:00 PM 0 comments

Sunday, July 22, 2007

 

NYT: 6 Years After 9/11, the Same Threat




July 18, 2007
News Analysis

6 Years After 9/11, the Same Threat

By SCOTT SHANE

WASHINGTON, July 17 — Nearly six years after the Sept. 11 attacks, the hundreds of billions of dollars and thousands of lives expended in the name of the war on terror pose a single, insistent question: Are we safer?

On Tuesday, in a dark and strikingly candid two pages, the nation's intelligence agencies offered an implicit answer, and it was not encouraging. In many respects, the National Intelligence Estimate suggests, the threat of terrorist violence against the United States is growing worse, fueled by the Iraq war and spreading Islamic extremism.

The conclusions were not new, echoing the private comments of government officials and independent experts for many months. But the stark declassified summary contrasted sharply with the more positive emphasis of President Bush and his top aides for years: that two-thirds of Al Qaeda's leadership had been killed or captured; that the Iraq invasion would reduce the terrorist menace; and that the United States had its enemies "on the run," as Mr. Bush has frequently put it.

After years of war in Afghanistan and Iraq and targeted killings in Yemen, Pakistan and elsewhere, the major threat to the United States has the same name and the same basic look as in 2001: Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri, plotting attacks from mountain hide-outs near the Afghan-Pakistani border.

The headline on the intelligence estimate, said Daniel L. Byman, a former intelligence officer and the director of the Center for Peace and Security Studies at Georgetown University, might just as well have been the same as on the now famous presidential brief of Aug. 6, 2001: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S."

The new estimate does cite some gains; known plots against the United States have been disrupted, it says, thanks to increased vigilance and countermeasures.

But the new estimate takes note of sources of worry that have arisen only since 2001. The Iraq war has spawned Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia as the "most visible and capable affiliate" of the original terrorist group, inspiring jihadists around the world and drawing money and recruits to their cause. The explosion of radical Internet sites has created self-generating cells of would-be terrorists in many Western countries. Lebanese Hezbollah, rarely considered likely to attack in the United States, now "may be more likely to consider" doing just that in response to a perceived threat from American forces to itself or its sponsor, Iran.

And if there had been progress after 9/11 in isolating and immobilizing Al Qaeda's leaders in the tribal areas of Pakistan, some of it has come apart in the past year, with Pakistani troops abandoning patrols in North Waziristan and allowing greater freedom of movement to Al Qaeda's core.

All told, despite the absence of any new attack on American soil since 2001, the conclusion that Al Qaeda "will continue to enhance its capabilities" to attack the United States suggests some miscalculation in the administration's basic formula against terrorism: that attacking the jihadists overseas would protect the homeland.

"I guess we have to fight them over here even though we're fighting them over there," said Steven Simon, a terrorism expert who served in the Clinton administration and is the co-author of "The Next Attack."

Democrats proclaimed the document a "devastating indictment" of Bush administration policies, in the words of Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., the Democratic chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee and a presidential candidate. The document's pessimism was striking; it may reflect a determination of the intelligence agencies, accused of skewing some reports to back the president's Iraq invasion plans in 2003, to make clear that their findings have not been tailored to suit the White House this time around.

But Max Boot, a security analyst who has generally supported the president, said the estimate "cuts both ways" politically. Even if some administration policies have been ineffective or have backfired, the estimate also concludes that Al Qaeda will probably try to capitalize on the network built up by its affiliate in Iraq, lending some support to the argument that a rapid exit from Iraq might prove dangerous for American security, said Mr. Boot, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of "War Made New."

"It makes clear that the threat from Al Qaeda in Iraq is not just to Iraqis — it's to the U.S. homeland as well," he said.

The new assessment in some respects harks back to a National Intelligence Estimate in July 1995, which predicted terrorist attacks in the United States, specifying Wall Street, the White House and the Capitol as potential targets. It described "a worldwide network of training facilities and safe havens."

An update of that N.I.E. in 1997 was the last such assessment issued before Sept. 11, a gap that the 9/11 commission decried in its review of the attacks. A new estimate earlier in 2001, as the spy agencies' alarm about a possible attack increased, might have better focused government efforts to detect a plot, the commission argued in its report.

An estimate of the global terrorist threat last September described the emergence of the Iraq war as a "cause célèbre" for jihadists around the world. But that document also highlighted American actions it said had "seriously damaged the leadership of Al Qaeda and disrupted its operations."

The bleak new assessment relegates almost to an aside those achievements, saying that Al Qaeda's ability to attack is "constrained" and that the United States is now seen as a "harder target." And it does not emphasize the absence of successful new strikes against the United States, a development that few security experts would have dared predict in late 2001.

The dreary judgment reflected in the new estimate emerged in part from Britain's discovery in August 2006 of a major plot to take down trans-Atlantic airliners, said Bruce Hoffman of Georgetown University, who has studied terrorism for three decades. Mr. Hoffman said that there were indications that Qaeda leaders may have had a role in the plot, adding, "It became impossible to ignore Al Qaeda's evolution and resilience."

But the same plot underscored one of the notable bright spots for the United States: jihadist sentiment has so far turned out to hold little attraction for American Muslims, by contrast with those in Europe generally and the United Kingdom in particular, with its large population of South Asian immigrants.




# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 10:51 AM 0 comments

Saturday, July 21, 2007

 

CBS: Cops: Iraq-Bound Soldier Hires Hitman To Shoot Him



"There are risks in prison, but as far as getting shot at everyday, I think it's better." -Jonathan Aponte

Bronx Soldier Jonathan Aponte

Jonathan Aponte is accused of hiring a hitman to shoot him in the leg so he wouldn't be sent to Iraq.

CBS

Bronx Soldier Jonathan Aponte

Aponte shows the bullet wound he suffered after being shot.

CBS


Cops: Iraq-Bound Soldier Hires Hitman To Shoot Him

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: Bronx Man Admits He'd Rather Go To Prison Than Back To Iraq

Image

Sean Hennessey
Reporting

(CBS) NEW YORK The death and destruction of U.S. troops fighting in Iraq seems to have become so rampant to one local soldier that he actually staged an attack on himself -- allegedly hiring a hitman to non-fatally shoot him -- so he wouldn't be sent back for another tour of duty.

Now, 20-year-old Jonathan Aponte is under fire at home in the Bronx for his decision that may send him to prison.

"There are some people mentally that can handle it. There are some people who just can't. You need to know when to say enough is enough," Aponte told CBS 2 HD exclusively Friday.

For Aponte, that day was Monday, the very day he was supposed to go back for another tour of duty to serve ten months on the front lines. He admits to CBS 2, however, that he couldn't face another tour of drama and devastation.

"Bullets being shot at me, almost being hit, with car bombs, burning flesh," Aponte recalls of his first tour. Now the soldier, his mother, and lawyer all say his plot for pain proves he's a victim of post traumatic stress disorder caused by the horrific memories of battle.

The proof, they say, is the bullet wound he helped give himself after feelings he described as "desperate."

Aponte's lawyer wouldn't let him talk about the event that's brought criminal charges, but a statement of his in court records bring his confession to light:

"I jokingly said that I should get shot in the leg ... so that it can buy me some extra time away from Iraq," he said.

After his new wife text messaged a hitman who would do the job, Aponte admits, "I asked him what was a good price. He told me $500 would be fine."

The shooting was set to happen under a bridge on Gunhill Road on the very day of the redeployment.

"I decided I wasn't going to go back one way or another," he said.

When Aponte arrived at the appointed time, he smoked a cigarette then closed his eyes because he didn't want to see it coming, he told police. The next thing he knew, he had a gunshot wound to his right knee.

"He was asking for help, but we didn't know what he was asking for. We didn't understand," said Gwen Aponte, his mother.

Now Aponte's mother, father, and lawyer all say a doctor diagnosed him with post traumatic stress disorder, and that's why he should be counseled, not incarcerated.

"If he's ill, he needs to get help," said Martin Goldberg, Aponte's lawyer. "He is as much a casualty of the war as someone struck by a bullet."

Aponte says the pain and potential of prison are a better option than another dose of duty. "There are risks in prison, but as far as getting shot at everyday, I think it's better," he said. "Mentally, I can't do it anymore. I can't handle it anymore."

Both Aponte and his wife are facing charges of conspiracy and filing a false report. The soldier's lawyer says the military will soon evaluate his client and either say he's fit for duty and send him back to Iraq, provide counseling if needed and then send him back, or give him some kind of discharge.


# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 10:41 AM 0 comments

Friday, July 20, 2007

 

WP: Why Bush Is A Loser


Why Bush Is A Loser

By David Corn
Tuesday, July 17, 2007; 7:45 PM

Who knew Bill Kristol had such a flair for satire?

How else to read his piece for Outlook on Sunday, in which he declared, "George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one"? Surely Kristol, the No. 1 cheerleader for the Iraq war, was mocking himself (and his neoconservative pals) for having been so mistaken about so much. But just in case his article was meant to be a serious stab at commentary, let's review Kristol's record as a prognosticator.

On Sept. 18, 2002, he declared that a war in Iraq "could have terrifically good effects throughout the Middle East." A day later, he said Saddam Hussein was "past the finish line" in developing nuclear weapons. On Feb. 20, 2003, he said of Saddam: "He's got weapons of mass destruction.... Look, if we free the people of Iraq we will be respected in the Arab world." On March 1, 2003 -- 18 days before the invasion of Iraq -- Kristol dismissed the possibility of sectarian conflict afterward. He also said, "Very few wars in American history were prepared better or more thoroughly than this one by this president." He maintained that the war would cost $100 billion to $200 billion. (The running tab is now about half a trillion dollars.) On March 5, 2003, Kristol said, "We'll be vindicated when we discover the weapons of mass destruction."

After a performance like this -- and the above is only a partial review; for more details, click here -- Kristol, a likeable fellow, ought to have his pundit's license yanked. But he's back again with a sequel: W. will be seen as a wonderful president. His latest efforts should be laughed off op-ed pages. But in the commentariat, he's still taken seriously. So assuming the joke is indeed unintended, I'll examine Kristol's most recent fantasy as if it's real.

Iraq: Kristol says "we now seem to be on course to a successful outcome." The war has been a mess from the start, and these days even leading Republican senators no longer buy the argument that Bush's so-called "surge" is succeeding or can succeed as promised. Kristol contends that with the recent escalation "we are increasingly able to protect more of the Iraqi population." Many in Iraq would find little comfort in his assurances. Despite the "surge," Iraqi civilian deaths are still running at 2,500 to 3,000 a month. And since the "surge" began, according to the Pentagon's own numbers, the number of attacks on U.S. and Iraqi forces and Iraqi civilians has marginally increased.

Still, Kristol advises, stick with the "surge," train more Iraqi troops, and all will be well. The United States has already spent $19 billion training 346,500 or so Iraqi troops and police officers, and now merely six battalions -- down from 10, according to Gen. Peter Pace -- can function independently. That is, only 3,000 Iraqi troops are operating on their own after all this time and money.

Meanwhile, the Iraqi government is making little, if any, progress on key political matters that must be resolved, and the parliament is taking off August -- while American GIs continue to fight and die. What are they dying for? Kristol and Bush argue the war is a vital part of the battle against al Qaeda and international jihadism, and Kristol claims the U.S. military is "routing al Qaeda in Iraq." But, as the Los Angeles Times recently reported, of the 19,000 insurgents held by the U.S. military in Iraq, only 135 are foreigners. The United States is not fighting al Qaeda in Iraq; it's fighting Iraqis. Kristol is whistling past a graveyard -- filled with the bodies of thousands of American soldiers and probably hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians -- when he insists the United States is heading toward a "messy" victory.

And Kristol keeps arguing the past. The problems that have arisen in Iraq since the invasion, he maintains, have to be judged against what would have occurred had there been no invasion: a nuclear-armed Saddam conspiring with al Qaeda. To justify the war, Kristol is pushing the myth (debunked by U.S. intelligence) that Saddam was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden, and he's ignoring the fact that WMD inspectors were present in Iraq right before the invasion and (as we now know) doing a good job in determining Saddam had no unconventional weapons or nuclear bomb program. Such a policy could have been maintained.

Afghanistan: Steady as she goes, says Kristol. Well, not if you're one of those dozens of civilians who seem to be killed every few days in an errant attack from NATO and western forces. (Even Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is fed up.) And shouldn't this war have been over years ago? Reconstruction is at a crawl The Taliban is resurgent. Opium production is setting new records. And the Bush administration (last time I checked) had no high-level official solely responsible for Afghanistan policy. Afghanistan has been a job neglected and unfinished.

Terrorism: Yes -- thankfully -- there have been no attacks here since 9/11. But recent intelligence reports say that al Qaeda (the real al Qaeda, not al Qaeda in Iraq) is becoming stronger. The man responsible for the worst act of terrorism ever visited upon the United States remains free. And the Bush administration's excesses in combating terrorism -- Guantanamo, warrantless wiretapping of Americans, and more -- have undermined the cause at home and abroad.

Foreign policy: Kristol does not mention that, thanks to Bush's misadventure in Iraq and other missteps, the United States' image abroad is in the sub-basement. He does note that we now have decent relations with Brazil. But he forgets about the worsening conflict between Israel and the Palestinians (and the other Palestinians) -- a conflict arguably exacerbated by Bush administration blunders.

The economy: All is fine, Kristol claims, pointing to conventional indicators and hailing Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy. But most Americans tell pollsters the country is not on the right track. Are they stupid? No, they are coping with various forms of insecurity and stress that Kristol does not recognize. Since 2000, the median income of working-age household has fallen each year. The economy has been growing, corporate profits are up, and the stock market is on the rise, but this recovery has handed working Americans weak growth in wages and salaries. The share of national income going to salaries and wages is at the lowest level since such stats were first compiled in 1929.

Moreover, the high costs of health care and education also worry many Americans. Kristol praises Bush's Medicare drug plan -- which routinely is assailed by critics on the left and right -- but Bush has done nothing to make health care more affordable and more available for most Americans. Forty-five million or so Americans remain uninsured. And while Kristol cheers globalization -- which is causing employment instability for Americans -- we can celebrate by eating tainted shrimp from China.

The Supreme Court: In Kristol's world, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., Bush's contributions to the court, are titans of jurisprudence respected throughout the land. Yet the Roberts court's recent decisions have sparked (justifiably) much controversy and rancor. In two separate decisions, Roberts protected corporate speech but trampled on the free speech rights of students. Roberts was also slammed by Justice Antonin Scalia for not having the guts to admit he was overturning precedent when he was. Bush's Supreme Court has become another battlefront in the partisan wars--not a symbol of accomplishment.

It's remarkable what Kristol leaves out of his bizarro-world view of Bush the Great: Hurricane Katrina, the collapse of the Justice Department, global warming, and much else. An American city was practically destroyed on Bush's watch, but that merits no consideration in Kristol's case for Bush. The Justice Department -- run by Bush cronies accused of corruption, incompetence, or both -- is in tatters. (A former department official tells me the administration is having a hard time finding people willing to fill the vacancies at the top.) And though Bush begrudgingly conceded that global warming is underway and human-induced, he has taken no significant steps to redress this pressing problem. If one wants to peer into the future, it could well be that Bush will be judged a failure more for his inaction on global warming than for his action in Iraq. Vetoing stem cell research legislation, commuting Scooter Libby's prison sentence, rewriting clean air rules to benefit industry, !
pushing tax breaks for oil companies, suppressing the work of scientists, enhancing government secrecy -- Bush has repeatedly placed parochial interests over the public interest.

The Bush-Cheney years have been marked by ineptitude, miscalculation, and scandal. A successful presidency? Bush will be lucky if he gets a public elementary school in his adopted hometown of Crawford, Tex., named after him. He has placed this country in a hole. Yet Kristol, with shovel in hand, points to that hole and says, Trust me -- we're about to strike oil!

If it's true that history repeats first as tragedy and then as farce, Kristol has short-circuited the process and gone straight to parody. His Bush boosterism -- an act of self-justification -- would be amusing were it not for all the damage he has helped Bush to cause.

David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation, is coauthor of "Hubris; The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War." He blogs at www.davidcorn.com.



# posted by I Dislike GWB @ 6:05 PM 0 comments

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?