British Terror

By Margaret Kimberley
Bar Editor and Senior Columnist
Wednesday, 11 July 2007
BlackAgendaReport

Tony Blair is out as British Prime Minister, but remains an unrepentant racist and sub-imperialist poodle.

He has been given a new job, as Middle East "peace envoy." What a joke.

How can a man who took an unwilling nation into war against Iraq become a peace envoy?

Blair is the worst of the lot, a kiss-ass to George Bush who has placed his country in the cross-hairs of worldwide Muslim anger.

Blair has elevated state terror to a level of British national identity - the terror that superpowers exert on smaller peoples - and now the chickens are coming home to roost, with a British label.

Yet the criminal complains, "Why should anyone feel angry about us?"

"What's more, British troops are risking their lives trying to prevent the killing. Why should anyone feel angry about us? Why aren't they angry about the people doing the killing?" - former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Why is anyone angry at Britain?

Perhaps it is because the British are some of the people doing the killing. Maybe they are angry because Tony Blair left office proclaiming the rightness of occupying Iraq and killing 600,000 people.

Those crazy Arabs and Muslims, they get mad at the strangest things.

It is an understatement to say that Tony Blair left office as Prime Minister of Great Britain under a cloud. He followed George W. Bush like a poodle, or perhaps more like a toad.

Former president Jimmy Carter assigned blamed to Blair along with Bush for causing America's increasing unpopularity throughout the world.

"It's a shameful and pitiful state of affairs and I hold your British Prime Minister to be substantially responsible for being so compliant and subservient."

"Blair followed George W. Bush like a poodle, or perhaps more like a toad."

Blair is shameless in his belief that killing human beings is acceptable as long as it is done by a government run by white people.

Not content to have spent the last six years following Bush like a little shadow, Blair didn't even have the decency to disappear into the sunset and shut up.

After giving Britons a collective sigh of relief upon leaving number 10 Downing Street, Blair again began running for new offices.

After rumors of a Carlyle Group corner office and a European union presidency, Blair assumed the role of Middle East peace envoy.

He will represent Europe, the United States, Russia and the United Nations while simultaneously keeping the rest of the world from laughing or loosing their lunch at the prospect of a true believer in occupation and empire being an honest broker for peace.

The Arab world was unimpressed with Blair's desperate desire to remain employed and a center of world attention.

The Syrian newspaper Tishrin asked,

"How could a liar, who is directly connected with Washington and who is a staunch proponent of the extremist rightist ideology, be a peace envoy?" (*link Tishrin)

Good question.

The damage done by Tony Blair's actions will not disappear over night.

The failed attacks in London and suicide car bombing in Glasgow were reminders that the British have a long way to go in disentangling themselves from Uncle Sam.

The bombings that took place on July 7, 2005 and the recent attempts remind the world that "fighting them over there" does little good in preventing attacks "over here."

When leaders "over here" show contempt for humanity and their right to live, they can't expect peaceful outcomes on their own soil.

Reaction to the terror plots was typically racist and asinine.

Arabs and Muslims were depicted as the only crazed fanatics on earth, when in fact white Christians and Jews are causing more death and destruction than anyone else.

Not only did Blair have the unmitigated gall to claim that he can now be a peace maker, but he disgracefully thumped the bible on his way out the door.

As he left office in a whirl of last minute attention seeking he also announced that he had converted to Catholicism.

While Blair was allowed to profess piety with a straight face, many British Muslims again felt compelled to express their opposition to terror and disassociate their religion from it.

Will British Christians and Jews ever be asked to make similar denunciations?

Will Catholics be asked to denounce Blair and his terrorist acts?

The Archbishop of Canterbury ought to tell the world that he too denounces war and that it is supremely unchristian.

War waged by governments is as much a terrorist act as a suicide bombing.

The victims of soldiers' bullets and bombs dropped from planes suffer as much as anyone caught in a suicide bombing.

Every terror act or even failed act in Britain is an omen for America.

Eight years elapsed between attacks on the World Trade Center. It would be the height of arrogance and denial to think that September 11, 2001 would be the last time that Americans would lose their lives because of anger and hatred directed at their government.

Unfortunately the object of Blair's affection still resides in the White House.

He has adamantly declared that withdrawing from Iraq will be his successor's problem.

Unless he or Dick Cheney are impeached they will find a rationale for bombing Iran.

Americans will have to live with the threat of terror unless their leaders forsake empire building.

The prospect is terrifying, but no more so than for Iraqis or Afghans.

There is some justice involved after all. However, it is unlikely that any lessons will be learned.

Blair's clueless question, "Why should anyone feel angry about us?" is sadly shared by millions of people in his country and in the United States.

Margaret Kimberley's Freedom Rider column appears weekly in BAR. Ms. Kimberley lives in New York City, and can be reached via e-Mail at Margaret.Kimberley@BlackAgandaReport.Com .

Ms. Kimberley' maintains an edifying and frequently updated blog at freedomrider.blogspot.com.

More of her work is also available at her Black Agenda Report archive page.

"Bush Is Leading A Crusade Against Us"

Jul. 16, 2007 20:08
Updated Jul. 17, 2007 9
JPost

"President Bush is leading a new crusade against the Palestinians," Hamas spokesman in Gaza, Sami el-Zuhri, said on Monday night, adding that the group would "neither recognize the occupation nor give up the armed struggle."

Speaking in response to the US president's speech about peace prospects for the Middle East, Zuhri told Al Jazeera that Bush's declarations about the establishment of a Palestinian state were "empty declarations aimed at dividing the Palestinians."

...The US had been looking to build momentum earlier this year on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, but suffered a setback when Hamas took over Gaza.

The speech, initially planned to be delivered closer to the five-year anniversary of Bush's articulation of a two-state solution in June of 2002,was pushed back...But the administration decided to move ahead with it now, partly because of the urgency of the Palestinian situation in the wake of Hamas's growing strength and to bolster the recently tapped Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, in his new office.

...In his speech, Bush portrayed the situation among the Palestinians as a moment of struggle between moderates and extremists which fits into the larger battle America is engaged in the region.

Bush announced that plans to give $59 million to fund security reform will be boosted to $80 million, and that upwards of $225 million will be available in loans to reinvigorate the Palestinian economy. The president also called for the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, in which US, European, Arab and international monetary organizations participate, to convene in order to bolster assistance.

The State Department also indicated that with the US sending money to the Palestinians, other parties would increase their efforts. At the same time, Bush said it was up to the Palestinians to take action.

"This is a moment of clarity for all Palestinians," Bush said. "And now comes the moment of choice."

He also stressed the US commitment to Israel. "They should be confident that the United States will never abandon its commitment to the security of Israel as a Jewish state and homeland for the Jewish people."

...Aaron David Miller, who advised six secretaries of state on Arab-Israeli negotiations and is now a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Center, said that Bush's speech was "too little, too late" when it came to making an impact on the Palestinian reality and helping Abbas.

"To change the situation on the ground, you'd really need a much broader strategy sustained over an 18-month period," he said. Miller, who is writing a book on "The Much Too Promised Land," also questioned the decision to call a conference for the fall.

Meetings of this sort are usually done in order to launch a process or conclude it, and the parties are at neither stage right now, he said.

Ultimately, according to Miller, what matters is how the US acts, and whether those actions are part of a decision to prioritize the Palestinian issue over the year-and-a-half remainder of Bush's term and engage in active diplomacy.

"The talking isn't as important as the doing," he said. "We have very little credibility on this issue. Words aren't enough any more."

Herb Keinon contributed to this report.

After Iraq, Pakistan?

After Iraq, Pakistan?

Is Worrying About Pakistani Nukes Serving To Keep Us In Iraq?

By Charles Knight
Published On Friday, July 13, 2007
CommonDreams

The bloody assault by Pakistani troops on the Islamic militants occupying The Red Mosque in Islamabad just might mark the beginning of the end of the Musharraf regime and the beginning of a period of radical destabilization for Pakistan — a prospect that causes great consternation in the West where commentators remind us that Pakistan is nuclear-armed and bin Laden has remained at large in its untamed northern provinces.

Some...national defense experts have already been imagining the scenario of the US military intervening in Pakistan to prevent nukes from getting into the hands of al Qaeda — scary scenes of terrorists stealing away with a few devices in the chaos that engulfs the country after Musharraf is ousted.

Two such experts are Frederick Kagan, leading neo-con and fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Michael O’Hanlon of Brookings and a likely under-secretary of Defense in the next Democratic administration.

The Stanley Foundation has brought together a series of paired experts to “bridge the divide” between left and right in Washington and reestablish a stable bipartisan center.

Kagan and O’Hanlon have coauthored “The Case for Larger Ground Forces”, The Stanley Foundation, April 2007 ( http://www3.brookings.edu/views/articles/ohanlon/2007april_kagan.pdf ).

In this paper they recommend increasing the size of America’s land forces (Army and Marine Corps) by 100,000. This is, of course, very similar to the current official plan to increase these services by 92,000.

The paper discusses a number of threats and scenarios which might “require” the deployment of ten and hundreds of thousands of US troops abroad.

The most demanding of these scenarios is the radical Islamic Pakistan scenario which is so fanciful and extraordinary that I have quoted that section in it entirety below.

I comment briefly on it afterwards.

“Of all the military scenarios that would undoubtedly involve the vital interests of the United States, short of a direct threat to its territory, a collapsed Pakistan ranks very high on the list. The combination of Islamic extremists and nuclear weapons in that country is extremely worrisome. Were parts of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal ever to fall into the wrong hands, Al Qaeda could conceivably gain access to a nuclear device with terrifying possible results. Another quite worrisome South Asia scenario could involve another Indo-Pakistani crisis leading to war between the two nuclear armed states over Kashmir.”

The Pakistani collapse scenario appears unlikely, given that country’s relatively pro-Western and secular officer corps. But the intelligence services-which created the Taliban and also have condoned, if not abetted, Islamic extremists in Kashmir-are more of a wild card. In addition, the country as a whole is sufficiently infiltrated by fundamentalist groups-as the attempted assassinations against President Mubarak (sic) make clear-that this terrifying scenario of civil chaos must be taken seriously.

Were this to occur, it is unclear what the United States and like-minded countries would or should do. It is very unlikely that “surgical strikes” could be conducted to destroy the nuclear weapons before extremists could make a grab at them.

It is doubtful that the United States would know their location and at least as doubtful that any Pakistani government would countenance such a move, even under duress.

If a surgical strike, a series of surgical strikes, or commando-style raids were not possible, the only option might be to try to restore order before the weapons could be taken by extremists and transferred to terrorists. The United States and other outside powers might, for example, come to the aid of the Pakistani government, at its request, to help restore order.

“Alternatively, they might try to help protect Pakistan’s borders (a nearly impossible task), making it hard to sneak nuclear weapons out of the country, while providing only technical support to the Pakistani armed forces as they tried to put down the insurrection. One thing is certain: given the enormous stakes, the United States would have to do anything it could to prevent nuclear weapons from getting into the wrong hands.

“Should stabilization efforts be required, the scale of the undertaking could be breathtaking. Pakistan is a very large country. Its population is more than 150 million, or six times that of Iraq. Its land area is roughly twice that of Iraq; its perimeter is about 50 percent longer in total. Stabilizing a country of this size could easily require several times as many troops as the Iraq mission-a figure of up to one million is easy to imagine.

“Of course, any international force would have local help. Presumably some fraction of Pakistan’s security forces would remain intact, able, and willing to help defend the country. Pakistan’s military numbers 550,000 Army troops; 70,000 uniformed personnel in the Air Force and Navy; another 510,000 reservists; and almost 300,000 gendarmes and Interior Ministry troops. But if some substantial fraction of the military broke off from the main body, say a quarter to a third, and was assisted by extremist militias, the international community might need to deploy 100,000 to 200,000 troops to ensure a quick restoration of order. Given the need for rapid response, the United States’ share of this total would probably be over half-or as many as 50,000 to 100,000 ground forces-although this is almost the best of all the worst-case scenarios.

“Since no US government could simply decide to restrict its exposure in Pakistan if the international community proved unwilling or unable to provide numerous forces, or if the Pakistani collapse were deeper than outlined here, the United States might be compelled to produce significantly more forces to fend off the prospect of a nuclear Al Qaeda.”

There used to be a popular piece of strategic wisdom that said, “Never get involved in a land war in Asia.” Good advice… and, of course, we are now deep into Afghanistan and Iraq.

It seems once you throw off restraint and reject wisdom you might as well plunge deeper into dangerous territory; at least that seems to be the preference of the nascent bipartisan center now trying to regain its footing after being tripped up in Iraq.

It is tempting to conclude that these guys are just nuts.

Certainly they haven’t learned much from the adventure in Iraq which they both supported.

But we shouldn’t dismiss them; there are some powerful forces in Washington that want this kind of thinking to be part of the “new center”.

Kagan and O’Hanlon greatly underestimate the troops needed to invade and stabilize (read ‘occupy’) Pakistan.

Pakistanis are not fond of Americans and they won’t see us as liberators. They are likely to put up the same sort of fight that Iraqi Sunnis have against occupation.

Hard evidence suggests that the pacification of Iraq would have required 500,000 troops (not the 150,000 that Rumsfeld insisted was sufficient.)

Kagan and O’Hanlon point out that Pakistan is six times are large in population.

So why do they say “a figure of up to one million is easy to imagine” when the Iraq experience indicates that up to three million would be needed in Pakistan?

My guess is that they figured people would stop reading it they included a scenario that requires three million Americans deployed to Pakistan. So instead they offer a Rumsfeldian fantasy.

If the “new center” in Washington were seriously considering interventions abroad that might require up to 3 million troops deployed they would need to start providing basic training to a significant portion of Americans between the ages of 18 and 24 — and that, of course, means conscription. Really!

If Kagan/O’Hanlon Pakistani chaos scenarios require a military response from the U.S. we need to get serious about a major re-make of our Army.

We need a structure much more like we had during World War II — capable of mobilizing millions of soldiers to fight in and occupy territory overseas.

We have a relatively small professional Army these days, fundamentally unsuited for this sort of mission.

It is not for an imagined Pakistani chaos that the Army and Marine Corps are now in the process of growing by 92,000, but rather to make possible the routine extended deployment of 75,000 troops to the Persian Gulf including up to 60,000 in Iraq.

That is what we should expect first and foremost from the ‘new center’. And if we don’t like that prospect (say 50,000 troops still in Iraq in 2020) we should call them on it.

We should also argue strongly to put an end to the American strategy of offensive counter-proliferation wars.

The first one in Iraq has been a disaster.

We must not let Republicans or Democrats lead us into others in Iran, Korea, or Pakistan.

Charles Knight, co-director Project on Defense Alternatives, can be emailed at:

cknight@comw.org

Iraq: Partition Fears Begin To Rise

By Ali al-Fadhily
Jul 17, 2007, 11:03
IPSnews

BAGHDAD, Jul 16 (IPS) - Many Iraqis are now beginning to see the rising sectarian violence as part of a larger plan to partition the country.

"Americans want to alter the shape of our cities, dividing Iraqis into ethnic and sectarian groups living separately from each other," Khali Sadiq, a researcher in statistics at Baghdad University told IPS.

"They are not doing this directly, but they have obviously given room to militias and Iraqi forces to do the job," he said. "We are more than halfway towards a sectarian Iraq."

A recent report has raised further suspicions that there is a U.S.-backed plan to partition the capital city, and possibly the country along sectarian and ethnic lines.

According to the Initial Benchmark Assessment Report issued by the White House Jul. 12, "the government of Iraq has made satisfactory progress towards enacting and implementing legislation on procedures to form semi-autonomous regions."

The report also states that the U.S.-backed Iraqi government formulates "target lists" of Sunni Arabs.

These lists are compiled by the Office of the Commander-in-Chief, which reports directly to U.S.-backed Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.


The report says fabricated charges are brught to purge Sunnis from the Iraqi security forces.

Samara city, 100 km north of Baghdad, seems to be one of the current targets of this demographic change.

The bombing of the shrine of al-Askari in February 2006 ignited a sectarian wave of violence that swept Iraq.

Shia clerics in Baghdad and other Iraqi provinces who are supportive of the occupation began to speak of a need to change the city from predominantly Sunni to predominantly Shia.

Shula and Hurriya in western Baghdad, and most areas on the eastern bank of Tigris River are now purely Shia after years of killings by death squads.

It has been known for over a year now that Shia death squads have been operating out of the U.S.-backed Ministry of Interior, often in the guise of the Facilities Protection Service (FPS).

The FPS was created under extraordinary circumstances.

The U.S. occupation authorities and the Iraqi leaders working with them set up several new army and police forces under the supervision of the Multi National Forces (MNF).

It was decided that each ministry could establish its own protection force away from the control of the ministries of interior and defence.

The FPS was established Apr. 10, 2003, the day after the fall of Baghdad, under Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) order 27.

This document states:

"The FPS may also consist of employees of private security firms who are engaged to perform services for the ministries or governorates through contracts, provided such private security firms and employees are licensed and authorised by the Ministry of Interior."

Global Security.Org, a U.S.-based security research group, says:

"The Facilities Protection Service works for all ministries and governmental agencies, but its standards are set and enforced by the Ministry of the Interior. It can also be privately hired. The FPS is tasked with the fixed site protection of ministerial, governmental, or private buildings, facilities and personnel."

But evidence has emerged that this and other police forces have been taken over by Shia militia.
Capt. Alexander Shaw, head of the police transition team of the 372nd Military Police Battalion, a Washington-based unit charged with overseeing training of all Iraqi police in western Baghdad, has said:

"To be perfectly honest, I'm not sure we're ever going to have police here that are free of the militia influence."

Shaw said about 70 percent of the Iraqi police force had been infiltrated, and that police officers are too afraid to patrol many areas of the capital. Many Iraqis today believe this is part of an intentional plan to divide Iraq along sectarian lines.

"They (death squads) evicted many of our good Sunni neighbours and killed many others," Abu Riyad of the predominantly Shia Shula area told IPS.

"We protected them for a while, but then we could not face the militias with all the support they had from the Iraqi government and the Americans. It is a terrible shame that we have to live with, but what can we do?"

On the other hand, many Sunni Iraqis seemed unwilling to evict their Shia countrymen -- for a while. But people in one mixed area of Baghdad described strange developments.

"It is true that our neighbours did not evict us, but then the Americans swept the area and local fighters had to disappear from the streets," Hussein Allawi, a Shia who lived in a predominantly Sunni neighbourhood told IPS.

"A group of masked strangers then entered the town right under American soldiers' eyes. Only then did we realise that we must leave, and that our good neighbours could not help us any more."

Many such stories are told around Baghdad.

"We had to leave our house in Isskan in the western part of Baghdad," Dr. Fadhil Mahmood, a Sunni, told IPS. "A Shia friend of mine telephoned me to leave the house instantly because he heard some people were heading there to kill me and evict my family."

Mahmood said that his neighbours later told him that death squads arrived half an hour after he left his home.

(*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region) (END/2007)

Dangerous New Philippino Terrorism Law

Philippines: New Terrorism Law Puts Rights At Risk

Source: Human Rights Watch
16 Jul 2007 23:51:16
AlertNet

Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone.
---

New York, July 17, 2007) ? A new counterterrorism law in the Philippines contains overbroad and dangerous provisions which could allow authorities to hold detainees indefinitely and engage in spurious prosecutions, Human Rights Watch said today.

The Human Security Act of 2007, passed by the Philippine Congress in February and signed by President Gloria Arroyo in March, took effect on July 15.

Numerous civil society leaders, religious figures, and human rights advocates have criticized the law, and the UN special rapporteur on human rights and counterterrorism has called for the law to be repealed or for its implementation to be delayed.

"The vague language of the Human Security Act invites the government to misuse it," said Joanne Mariner, terrorism and counterterrorism director at Human Rights Watch.

"The Philippine Congress should repeal or revise the act to comply with human rights standards."

Human Rights Watch said that the new law contains an overly broad definition of terrorism, and overly harsh mandatory penalties applicable even to minor violations of the law.

The law provides for the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects without adequate procedural protections, and permits persons apprehended in the Philippines to be rendered to countries that routinely commit torture, as long as the receiving government provides assurances of fair treatment.

Human Rights Watch said the Philippines was not adequately utilizing its existing legal system to prosecute perpetrators of bombings and other human rights abuses.

Human Rights Watch expressed concern about several of the new law's provisions:

Article 3 defines terrorism as the commission of certain crimes, including murder, piracy, kidnapping, arson, and the destruction of property, that "sow[] and creat[e] a condition of widespread and extraordinary fear and panic among the populace, in order to coerce the government to give in to an unlawful demand." The act sets the mandatory sentence for the crime of terrorism at 40 years without parole.

Human Rights Watch is concerned that this definition is vague and overbroad, and could allow the government to transform less serious offenses, such as vandalism, or legitimate acts of protest, into crimes punishable by a mandatory 40-year sentence.

Under this definition, for example, a political protestor demanding that the president resign, who sets fire to an effigy (committing arson or destruction of property), could conceivably be charged with terrorism and, if convicted, sent to prison for 40 years.

Article 4, defining conspiracy, is likewise overbroad, setting a punishment of 40 years in cases where "two or more persons come to an agreement concerning the commission of the crime of terrorism . . . and decide to commit the same." Because prosecutions under article 4 are possible even where no overt act has occurred, the provision compounds the problems with overbroad language in article 3.

This could have a chilling effect on peaceful critics of the government seeking to hold political protests.

Human Rights Watch is also concerned about article 17 of the act, which allows regional trial courts to declare a group of persons to be a "terrorist and outlawed organization, association, or group," and seize its assets and search its financial records, among other actions.

Such a declaration can be made in cases where it is shown a group has engaged in terrorism (as defined in the overbroad language in article 3) but also in cases in which the government shows the group is "organized for the purpose of engaging in terrorism," another term which is subject to the vague definition of terrorism in article 3.

While the organization is supposed to be given due notice and opportunity to be heard, it and its members face a serious loss of rights without the benefit of a full judicial process.

Human Rights Watch also raised concerns about articles 18 and 19 of the new law, which regulate the detention of terrorism suspects.

Article 18 doubles the period that the police can detain persons without judicial supervision, allowing up to three days of custody before the detainees must be brought before a judge. In a country where mistreatment in detention remains a major concern, this provision opens the door to further abuse.

Article 19, which covers cases of "actual or imminent terrorist attack," (a term that is not defined and could potentially encompass less serious crimes, as discussed above), allows detention beyond three days if the police obtain the written approval of a court or a "municipal, city, provincial or regional official."

Because the provision sets no express limit to the allowable period of detention in such cases, it could conceivably be used to justify indefinite detention.

Notably, the Philippines authorities have a history of holding suspects for extended periods without arraignment or trial, raising concern that the new law might essentially legitimize these abusive practices.

In addition, although the legislation purports to ban the practice of rendition ? the unlawful transfer of a person to another country ? it actually sets out broad exceptions to this ban.

Those exceptions, which allow a detainee to be handed over to another government without a formal extradition proceeding if the detainee's testimony is needed for a terrorism-related trial or police investigation, sanction the handover of terrorism suspects based on official assurances of fair treatment in the receiving state.

As Human Rights Watch has documented in a series of reports, such diplomatic promises are an ineffective safeguard against torture and other human rights abuses.

A positive aspect of the new law is its ban on the use of torture, threats, and coercion against detainees. The law expressly provides that any evidence obtained by such means is inadmissible in any judicial or administrative proceeding.

Human Rights Watch recognizes that the Philippines has experienced numerous bombings and other attacks against civilians in recent years, and that the government has a strong and legitimate interest in prosecuting persons suspected of plotting mass violence.

But Human Rights Watch cautioned that using overbroad and potentially abusive legislation would not advance the counterterrorism agenda.

"What the Philippines really needs is not a new and dangerously broad counterterrorism law, but better efforts to make its current justice system work," Mariner said.

Hezbollah Kidnapping, Not Declaration Of War

Bishara: Hezbollah Did Not Declare War On Israel Last Summer

By Yoav Stern,
Haaretz Correspondent
Last Update - 23;22 16/07/2007
Haaretz

Balad Chairman Azmi Bishara said Monday that Hezbollah did not declare war on Israel last summer, nor did it determine the timing of the war.

The former MK made the comments at a conference in Lebanon marking the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of the war, which erupted July 12, 2006 after Hezbollah killed three Israel Defense Forces soldiers and abducted two others...Five other soldiers were killed in the ensuing rescue attempt.

"Israel is known for planning and deciding in advance on the reason for war," said Bishara, adding that he believed the abduction of IDF troops is a "common type of operation."

...He added that there is no need to continue the debate as to whether Lebanon was victorious in the war, given that it has become a political argument.

He slammed Hezbollah's political rivals, saying they have spent 17 years debating or not they had emerged victorious.

Bishara said that last summer's war brought "liberation, victory, and the endowment of defeat in 33 days."

Diverting Attention, NeoCon Style

We're All Gonna Die

By William Rivers Pitt
T r u t h O u t Columnist
Friday 13 July 2007
TruthOut

We are all wired into a survival trip now.
[Hunter S. Thompson]

Who can forget the incredible scandal that erupted back in May of 2002?

Around about the middle of that month, details began to emerge about the August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing that specifically warned Bush about Osama bin Laden's determination to strike the United States.

Wait. Actually, everyone forgot, because two days later, the Bush administration unleashed a blizzard of dire warnings about impending terrorist attacks. FBI Director Robert Mueller intoned such attacks were "inevitable," and the Department of Homeland Security announced the imminent, explosive destruction of all American railroads, along with the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty.

Who can forget the incredible scandal that erupted back in June of 2003?

Over the course of two days, reports emerged about serious doubts held by the CIA regarding the credibility of the administration's claim Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. On the heels of this, Congress unfurled its 9/11 report, which criticized all levels of the Bush administration for its performance before and during the attacks.

Wait. Actually, everyone forgot, because the Bush administration unleashed another blizzard of warnings about impending terrorist attacks. Specifically, the Department of Homeland Security warned terrorists were, once again, preparing to attack the United States with suicide missions using commercial airliners as bombs.

Who can forget the incredible scandal that erupted back in December of 2003?

9/11 Commission chairman Thomas Keane declared the attacks of 9/11 should have been prevented. The next day, a Federal appeals court ruled against the administration on the case of suspected terrorist Jose Padilla, stating Padilla could not be held indefinitely without being charged.

Wait. Actually, everyone forgot, because the Bush administration increased the terrorism threat level to Orange and claimed more suicide planes were about to come zooming out of the sky. Six international flights were diverted due to potential terrorist actions of some passengers who were later identified as an insurance salesman, an elderly Chinese woman and a five-year-old boy.

Who can forget the incredible scandal that erupted back in May of 2004?

Secretary of State Colin Powell appeared on Meet the Press and stated the intelligence on Iraqi WMD he'd been given for his UN presentation had been "inaccurate and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading." Horrifying new pictures of the torture, rape and murder of prisoners by Americans at Abu Ghraib prison became public. The American military accidentally bombed a wedding party in Iraq, killing 40 civilians.

Wait. Actually, everyone forgot, because FBI Director Mueller and Attorney General John Ashcroft announced they had reports from multiple sources of al Qaeda's "specific intention to hit the United States hard." The threat levels were not raised, but dire warnings of impending catastrophe were offered by the administration for the next several days.

The recipe is simple, like the directions on the back of a shampoo bottle. Damaging reports of Bush administration malfeasance emerge.

Warnings of imminent terrorist-borne doom immediately follow, all spread far and wide by said Bush administration. Lather, rinse, repeat.

There are many more instances of this curious timing to be found, but apparently, no one in the administration is concerned this dubious pattern - spreading fear among the populace to change the subject, an act of terrorism itself - might start to wear thin.

Who is going to forget the incredible scandals of June and July of 2007?

The Bush administration leaves Nixon in the dust by commuting the prison sentence of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

This action strongly suggests the existence of a quid pro quo between Libby and Bush's people to cover up the criminal activities of powerful officials like Vice President Dick Cheney, who had recently claimed his office wasn't part of the executive branch to avoid handing papers over to the National Archives.

The administration deploys spurious claims of Executive Privilege to avoid subpoenas regarding the patently illegal NSA wiretapping of American citizens. That privilege is extended to deny Congressional access to Harriet Miers, former White House counsel, regarding the issue of fired US attorneys. Contempt charges are threatened against Miers, and the NSA subpoena stonewall comes closer to getting openly challenged in court. Alberto Gonzales is exposed as having lied to the Senate in his testimony about FBI abuses of the Patriot Act.

Few of the benchmarks for success in Iraq are met. Desperate to halt a tide of GOP defections from his Iraq policy, Bush again coughs up the totally discredited link between 9/11 and Iraq, saying, "The same people that attacked us on September the 11th is a crowd that is now bombing people, killing innocent men, women and children."

The House again votes to withdraw American troops from Iraq. A new Harris poll on Bush's approval rating is published. The number reads 26 percent.

Wait. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff all but guarantees devastating new terror attacks against the United States this summer. He bases this warning on a "gut feeling." White House spokesman Tony Snow threatens that withdrawal from Iraq would bring terrorism "to a shopping mall near you."

Meanwhile, al Qaeda is alleged to be as secure in Pakistan and Afghanistan as they were before 9/11, yet no one in the administration connects this new security to the drain of resources happening in Iraq.

Additionally, no one in the administration points out the fact that, if Chertoff's gut is indeed correct, and we are indeed attacked again, responsibility for that attack will fall upon those who manufactured war in Iraq.

Never mind the fact that if an attack is allowed to happen, even a minor one, more of our constitutional rights and protections will be eviscerated by the very same people who failed to stop it again.

Will everyone forget about the scandals of June and July 2007 amid these deadly warnings of coming death?

Lather, rinse, repeat.

William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: "War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know" and "The Greatest Sedition Is Silence." His newest book, "House of Ill Repute: Reflections on War, Lies, and America's Ravaged Reputation," is now available from PoliPointPress.

Cracks In Zionism

By Charley Reese
july 17, 2007
AntiWar

One of the myths created by the Israeli lobby is that Jews around the world are unanimous in their support of Israel, regardless of what it does. That's not true and never has been true.
Modern political Zionism, whose ideology demands a Jewish state with a Jewish majority, was invented by an Austrian journalist and for decades struggled desperately.

It wasn't God who created the modern state of Israel. It was British colonialism, the U.S., the Soviet Union, and Zionists.

Only about a third of the world's Jews choose to live in Israel, despite nearly a century of efforts to persuade Jews to immigrate.

There were many early Jewish critics of Zionism, and there still are, despite modern Zionists adopting fascist tactics to silence debate.

Joel Beinin, a Jewish liberal who has been on the receiving end of the campaign to silence critics of Israel, had this to say in a recent article reprinted on Znet:

"Organizations claiming to represent American Jews engage in a systematic campaign of defamation, censorship and hate-mongering to silence criticism of Israeli policies. They hollow the ethical core out of the Jewish tradition, acting instead as if the highest purpose of being Jewish is to defend Israel, right or wrong.

"Why discredit, defame and silence those with opposing viewpoints? I believe it is because the Zionist lobby knows it cannot win based on facts. An honest discussion can only lead to one conclusion: The status quo in which Israel declares it alone has rights and intends to impose its will on the weaker Palestinians, stripping them permanently of their land, resources and rights, cannot lead to a lasting peace.

"We need an open debate and the freedom to discuss uncomfortable facts and explore a full range of policy options. Only then can we adopt a foreign policy that serves American interests."

Avigail Abarbanel, a native-born Israeli Jew who lived there 27 years before emigrating, has even harsher words:

"Palestinian citizens of Israel live under an arbitrary and brutal police state. Their dealings with Israeli bureaucracy are not just frustrating but can be outright dangerous.

"The Palestinians in the Occupied Territories live under a Pinochet-like regime. They can and do disappear in the middle of the night. They are blindfolded, cuffed, beaten, humiliated, taken to unknown locations with no information given to them or their families, tortured physically and psychologically and incarcerated indefinitely, often without charges and regardless of whether they are guilty of anything.

"Israel is not a nice country. It is a powerful police state founded on pathological paranoia with only a veneer of civility, carefully crafted and maintained for the consumption of those who still believe in the myth of Israeli democracy."

You might want to send that paragraph to the next politician you hear repeating AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) propaganda that "Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East."

Abarbanel is a psychotherapist, and her article appeared on the Web site ElectronicIntifada.net, which I highly recommend as a source of information about the Middle East.

America badly needs an open and frank debate, based on facts, with no name-calling.

Our politicians are as timid as an introverted baby when it comes to Israel.

The Israeli lobby likes to boast about defeating candidates who don't toe the Israel-right-or-wrong line.

As a tip to the not-completely-gutless politicians, the way to handle that is to make AIPAC an issue in the campaign.

A group of Zionist leaders is meeting in Israel as I write this, worrying about an increase in criticism of them for stifling debate. They are not invincible.

They can't silence any American unless the American succumbs to fear of being called names, and I learned as a child that sticks and stones can break bones, but words can't hurt you.

Whiping Whom Off The Map???

By: Dr. Elias Akleh
15 July 2007
AMIN

Since the establishment of their terrorist state on usurped Palestinian land Israelis keep regurgitating their phobic mantra “Arabs want to wipe Israel off the map” in order to draw international sympathy, and to cover up their war crimes throughout the Arab World. To build their divinely racist “God’s promised Jewish only” state from Nile to Euphrates Israeli government is conducting the policy of graduated wiping Palestinians off their own existence.

Israel had, so far, successfully wiped Palestine off the map. Palestine had become to be known as occupied territories, disputed territories, and finally West Bank and Gaza Strip. Palestine, a name used for the last three thousand years, to describe the land between Mediterranean shores west to Jordan River east, and from Lebanon north to Egypt south, can no longer be found on any modern map.

PALESTINE HAS BEEN WIPED OFF THE MAP!!!

Israel was established and built on Zionism, a colonialist expansionist political movement based on religiously elitist ideology (God’s chosen people), and a complete denial of the other. Its ultimate goal is to build a super power state, which they hope would eventually exceed the US in controlling the globe, within the heart of the Arab World to control their resource-rich region. Its first step was to establish Israel in place of Palestine and to win (force) its international legitimacy through imperial power (unfortunately might is still right in our age).

Thus Palestinians became the primary target of Zionist terror and occupation to evacuate the land, since an independent viable Palestinian state would negate the essence of Israel’s right to exist on occupied land, and would put an end to the Zionist’s expansionist dreams. The birth of the Zionist entity is based not only on wiping Palestine off the map, but also wiping all Palestinians, their history and their culture off existence. Zionist Israel, thus, had adopted a graduated genocidal policy against Palestinians in specific and against Arabs in general.

Zionists perceived seeds of conflict among Arabs due to the variety of their culture, ethnicity, and religious backgrounds. To build their divinely racist Jewish-only Greater Israel from Nile to Euphrates through the division of Arabs, Zionist Israel developed its own expansionist geopolitical policy inspired from and akin to the German Nazi geopolitical policy of 1890 to 1933 of dividing Europe into smaller states to be swallowed up by strong Germany.

Where Nazi Germans prescribed to a biological elitist ideology of the superior pure Arian blood (the Superman), Zionist Israelis prescribed to a divine elitist ideology of the superior pure Jewish blood (God’s chosen people).

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In occupied Palestine Israel differentiates between Christian and Muslim Palestinians, between Fatah and Hamas, between West Bank and Gaza Strip, and between citizens of one town and the other.

Within the neighboring Arab states (Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq) Israel is inciting conflict and hatred between the citizens of those countries and Palestinian refugees, between Christians and Muslims, between Shiites and Sunni Muslims, between Kurds and Arabs, and between different political parties.

On the Palestinian front Israeli government had adopted a three-dimensional graduated genocidal policy.

First comes uprooting Palestinians from their land and towns and transferring them to neighboring countries.

Second is perpetrating massacres and ethnic cleansing through military incursions, shelling, and air raids against Palestinian communities to coerce the rest of them to immigrate.

Third is the distortion and destruction of all physical, cultural, and historical evidence tying Palestinians to the land.

Palestinian villages have been completely demolished (wiped off existence), Palestinian culture was hijacked and many had been claimed to be Jewish, and history was distorted to reflect Palestinians as invader terrorist Muslim tribes from the Saudi Desert that never had any right in God’s Promised Land.

Israel has sought to negate, falsify, demonize and wipe off every aspect of Palestinian life to a point where ex Israeli PM Golda Meier stated in 1969: “There is no such thing as Palestinians, they never existed.”

The policy of wiping Palestine off the map and wiping Palestinians off existence had been adopted early since the founding of Zionism.

Here follows quotes of only few of noted Zionist leaders:

Theodor Herzl, father of political Zionism, had written in his diaries in 1898, “The Palestinians would be spirited across the border.”

Israel Zangwill, a British Zionist Jew, is known for his slogan “A land without a people for a people without a land” describing Zionist dream of Israeli state in Palestine.

This slogan, though, was invented by a Zionist British Member of Parliament Lord Shaftsbury, who in 1853 wrote to Foreign Minister Aberdeen that Greater Syria was “a country without a nation in need of a nation without a country… the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews”.

Chaim Weitzman, the first president of Israel, saw no room for Palestinians in Palestine. In his autobiography, “Trial and Error”, he wrote “Palestine will become as Jewish as England is English.”

In chapter four of his book, “Birth of Palestinian Refugee Problem”, Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote about Yousef Weitz, the director of the Jewish National Fund’s Land Department, a man noted for his strong Zionist convictions.

Weitz wrote in his diary on December 20th 1940: “It must be clear that there is no room in the country for both people (Palestinians and Jews) … the only solution is a Land of Israel, at least a western Land of Israel without Arabs. There is no room here for compromise … There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries … Not one village must be left, nor one Bedouin tribe.”

In 1948 Weitz was given the task of creating the “Transfer Committee”, which supervised the destruction of evacuated Arab villages, and repopulating others with recent Jewish immigrants in order to make any return of Palestinian refugees to their villages impossible.

Many Palestinian villages, which survived destruction during 1948 war, were later erased (wiped off) after the war.

Records of the Association of Archeological Survey, housed in the Rockefeller Museum in Jerusalem, show that a plan to wipe off Palestinian villages was implemented jointly by the Israeli Lands Administration and the Jewish National Fund in 1965, and was carried on for several years.

The plan intended to wipe off all traces of Palestinian villages in order to destroy any hope for the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes.

The Israeli Association of Archaeological Survey was established in 1964 to issue permits for the destruction of Palestinian villages. By 1967 this association had approved the wiping off of about 100 villages inside 1948-occupied Palestine (Israel). After 1967 the Association turned its attention to destroy Palestinian villages in West Bank and Golan heights.

On December 2006 Roni Bar-On, Israeli Interior Minister declared his ministry’s approval on a plan to demolish more than 42,000 homes of Palestinian Bedouins in Negev Desert. This plan will wipe off 45 Palestinian villages housing more than 86,000 Palestinian Bedouins, who in 1958 were evacuated out of their land and confined to a piece of land in the desert known as the Triangle.

Although paying taxes to Israeli government like any other town, these 45 villages were not recognized by the Israeli government, and received no civil services at all.

The destruction of Palestinian history and culture, and the wiping off Palestinian names of towns and replacing them with Jewish names was accelerated to a point where Moshe Dyan, a previous Israeli Defense Minister, bragged about it in a lecture he gave at the Technion University in Haifa in March 19th 1969.

He stated: “we came here to a country that was populated by Arabs, and we are building here a Hebrew, a Jewish state; instead of the Arab villages, Jewish villages were established.

You even do not know the names of those villages, and I do not blame you because these villages no longer exist.

There is no single Jewish settlement that was not established in the place of a former Arab Village.

You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not here either.

Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul, Kibbutz Gv’at in the place of Jibta, Kibbutz Sared in the place of Huneifis, and Yehushua in the place of Tel al-Shuman.

There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.” (Haaratz, April 4th, 1969).

The policy of wiping off Palestinian names and replacing them with Jewish names was adopted by first Israeli PM David Ben Gurion since the establishment of Israel in 1948 when he established a special committee from historians, geographers, geologists and Torah experts, whose task was to wipe off the Canaanite and Palestinian Arabic names and substitute them with Jewish names.

So Tel Rabi’ became Tel Aviv, Al-Quds became Urushalaim, Um Rashrash became Eilat, Shu’fat became Nevi Yachob, Beit Jala became Gilo, Za’tara became Tabbuch, Beisan became Beit Shean, Qualandia became Atarot, Beit Mahseer became Beit Me’er, Artof became Hartuv, and so on.

---

Israeli government came up with a set of despotic laws to justify its robbery of Palestinian property.

For example the “Expulsion of Invaders” amendment to land laws was designed to allow Israel to expel Palestinians from their land under the excuse that Palestinians are invaders. Palestinian refugees, who tried to return to their land, are considered invaders by Israel.

The law of “Abandoned Properties” is designed to make it “legal” for Israeli government to seize any land belongs to absent (evacuated, transferred) owners.

This law “legalized” the general confiscation of almost 450 Palestinian villages and associated farm land that were later either wiped off or Judaised.

According to a report drawn up in 1952 Israel had succeeded in expropriating all Palestinian quarters in mixed towns, 73,000 rooms in abandoned houses, 7800 Palestinian shops, workshops and warehouses, 5 million Palestinian pounds in bank accounts, and most importantly 300 thousand hectares of land (see Simha Flapan’s “The Birth of Israel; Myths and Realities” p. 107) Israel is intent on destroying all Palestinian and Islamic cultural city landmarks.

Religious places and buildings, especially Muslim mosques, were claimed as Jewish, destroyed, neglected to collapse, and turned into museums, art galleries, whore houses, clubs, senior citizens shelters, and stables for farm animals.

Muslim Palestinians were not allowed to renovate or build new mosques. Renovation and strengthening the bases of Al-Aqsa mosque was hindered by Jerusalem municipality. Building permits were withheld, and building materials were not allowed to pass through old gates to the mosque.

The ancient Islamic Council building and its adjacent Islamic “Ma’man Allah” cemetery in West Jerusalem are important historic and cultural Palestinian landmarks.

The Israeli government is destroying the internals of the Islamic Council building to build western-style apartments, and digging up the cemetery to build a Jewish Museum of Tolerance on its place.

What hypocrisy!!!

---

Israel had always rejected, obstructed, or violated all peace treaties with Arabs since 1948 for fear of establishing permanent borders and repatriating Palestinian refugees, as explained explicitly by their first Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion in his “The War Diary 1948/9”.

For Zionists peace means the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes (a demographic threat to the pure exclusive Jewish state), and specifying permanent borders putting an end to Zionist expansionist dreams.

In December 1948 the UN established a Palestine Conciliation Commission (PCC) with representatives from US, France and Turkey to mediate between Arabs and Israel.

Peace negotiation held in Lausanne, Switzerland on April 26th 1948. Israel was forced to attend negotiation after US threatened to prevent Israel’s admission to the UN.

In the negotiation Arabs offered Israel peace and recognition providing Israel implements UN resolution 194 of returning Palestinian refugees to their homes.

Israel rejected the offer.

Oslo Agreement was forced on Israel by Bush, the father, to appease Arab Gulf states, which joined his first Gulf War against Iraq, knowing very well that Israelis will eventually circumvent the Agreement somehow, and they did.

Benjamin Netanyahu, in June 1996, gave his famous three “NO”s to peace process: no withdrawal, no Palestinian State, and no refugee’s return.

Dov Weisglass, Sharon’s senior adviser and one of the initiator of Sharon’s disengagement plan, stated “The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process. And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda.” (Ha’aretz, October 6th 2004)

Israel has also rejected the generous peace offer of March 2003 by the Arab League, which promised recognition, putting an end to all resistance, and full diplomatic relations with ALL Arab states.

This offer would have fulfilled Israelis’ dreams and aspirations for the peace they claim to always have called for.

Yet Israeli PM Ariel Sharon, at the time, responded by driving his tanks into all major Palestinian cities.

Israel also rejected all Syrian peace offers, and violated all agreements with the Palestinian Authority.

---

Zionist Israeli settlers are worse than their government in their terrorist genocidal attacks against Palestinians.

Zionist settlers have their own underground terrorist militias allegedly formed to protect their settlements.

Given implicit permission by their government, and under the protection of the Israeli army, terrorist militias routinely attack Palestinian farmers, burn their crops, cut and uproot their trees, burn their shacks, poison their water wells, shoot and poison their farm animals, terrorize and assault members of International Solidarity Movement, who travel to Palestine to protect farmers in their fields and students on their way to schools.

Some of these extremist militias (Shlomo Dvir, Yarden Morag and Ofer Gamliel) planted car bombs near Palestinian high schools in Jerusalem’s suburbs in April 2002. Others (Chahr Zliger, Naom Federman, and undisclosed other terrorists) arrested in September 2003, planned to bomb many Islamic mosques, including al-Aqsa mosque, across West Bank at the same day.

The extremist settlers encourage such terrorist acts against Palestinians and consider them religious duty.

This could be seen in the way the settlers of Keryat Arba’ had sanctified the terrorist Baruch Goldstein by building a shrine for him and calling him a saint.

Goldstein had shot 29 Muslim prayers in the back and injured 129 others while praying in the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron in February 1994.

Settlers’ terror increased up to a point where, in April 27, 2005, Amnesty International (AI) urged the Israeli occupation authorities to launch immediate probes into the Jewish settlers' poisoning of Palestinian agrarian fields.

The Israeli government ignored such a request.

Despite all the media cover up, and the Zionist propaganda, the international community, on the civic level, understands and sympathizes with the Palestinian just cause. Many civil walks and protests demanding justice for Palestinians take place in major cities all over the world. People from all over the world join International Solidarity Movement to travel to Palestine to protect Palestinians from Israeli terror, and to protest Israeli imprisoning wall designed to choke Palestinian towns.

Polls, especially in Europe, had shown that Israel is considered the most dangerous threat to world peace even before Iran.

Unfortunately the blackmail of World Zionist Organization and the pressure of the pro-Zionist neoconservative American administration and that of AIPAC made criticizing Israel a “political suicide” as described by previous American President Jimmy Carter.

World leaders and politicians had ignored the plight of Palestinian people.

They had ignored the illegal establishment of the terrorist state of Israel on usurped Palestine, ignored Israeli massacres against Palestinian civilians, the destruction of their villages, and the expulsion of almost 750 thousand Palestinian out of their homes, ignored the right of return for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees and the implementation of UN resolution 194 of 1948 demanding their return to their land, ignored the suffering of Palestinians under Israeli terrorist occupation for the last 60 years, denied the Palestinians’ right of self-defense and resisting occupation, as guaranteed by UN charters, and called this right terrorism, ignored Israeli terrorism, on the other hand, and called it self-defense, ignored and turned against the UN democratic principles when they rejected the Palestinian government that was elected by the most democratic election as witnessed and testified by UN and international well known monitors, and imposed financial and economic siege to starve Palestinians for their democratic process.

As the international political community, alas including some Arab leaders, had shown sympathy for the capture, as a war prisoner, of the Israeli soldier (Shalit), who was sent to Gaza Strip to shell and destroy the homes of Palestinian civilians and to kill their women and children, and expressed their understanding of the Israeli terrorist war against Lebanon (July 2006) in response to the capture of two Israeli soldiers sent across Lebanese borders to incite anticipated trouble, this international “civilized” community expressed no sympathy towards the 12 thousand Palestinian civilians, including women and children, rotting in miserable Israeli jails after being snatched out of their families in the middle of the night from their homes, nor did they express any understanding for the Palestinian attacks against Israeli settlers, who usurped Palestinian land.

The international community knows that Israel is perpetrating ethnic cleansing against Palestinians, yet none of its governments is doing anything about it or objecting it, giving Israel the wrong message that it is OK to kill Palestinians.

That is why wiping Palestinians off existence is still going on until today.

Palestinians have long joined native Australians and Native American Indians in the category of “endangered species”.

Today it is Palestinians; tomorrow it is the rest of Arab nations.

* Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer of Palestinian descent, born in the town of Beit-Jala. Currently he lives in the US.

What Do We Mean By Europe?

By Charles Westin
Professor, Stockholm University
Sun., Sep. 10, 2006 / Sha`ban 17, 1427
IslamOnLine

Europe has different meanings depending on one's focus.

It is first of all a geographical entity, one of the world's six inhabited continents. Europe and Asia differ from the other continents in that they make up one contiguous landmass.

The division between Europe and Asia is not genuinely geographical but rather historical and cultural.

Europeans see Europe as a life-world that is distinctly different from the historical and cultural regions of Asia.

Europe may be seen as a community of values and ideas, the origins of which may be traced back to the forging of the Judeo-Christian religious traditions, Greek philosophy and democracy, and Roman jurisprudence and military organization.

But the European legacy also owes so much to the Moors of Spain and Portugal, and to the Ottomans in the Balkans.

The Renaissance from which modern European thought sprung was a product of Islamic culture and the links that Islamic culture provided back to the knowledge and philosophy of European antiquity.

To some people the European type represent a "racial" category of fair-skinned peoples, which stand out in contrast to the darker skinned peoples of Africa and Asia.

Europe is of course also a political space. Its territory is divided into 43 states and some semi-autonomous regions.

Internal Divisions:

What are the most significant internal divisions of Europe?

The answer pertains to historically rooted power structures and their impact on national self-conceptions and identities today.

A basic East-West divide coincides more or less with the ancient boundary between Orthodoxy and Catholicism dating back to the first council of Nicaea in AD 325.

A somewhat more indistinct North-South divide roughly coincides with the northern boundary of the Roman Empire, which more or less corresponds to the division between Greek and Russian Orthodoxy and the historically more recent one between Catholicism and Protestantism.

The four quadrants of Europe thus outlined are by no means fixed and unchangeable, but highly dependent on power structures and political alignments.

Moreover, these quadrants make sense in terms of historical and political experiences that are fundamental to an understanding of the deeper roots of conflict that have ravaged the continent for centuries.

Peripheral Regions:

We may, moreover, speak of frontier regions in the European peripheral regions.

Spain and Portugal have, for example, extended Europe into Africa and South America, but also brought Africa and South America back into Europe.

The United Kingdom above all, but to some extent also the Scandinavian countries, have extended the European concept to North America (the United States, Canada, and Greenland).

Russia is a frontier region linking Europe with Asia.

And finally, the Balkan states represent historical and cultural linkages between Europe and the Muslim Middle East.

A Long Pattern Of Violence:

Europe has a bad historical record as far as intergroup violence is concerned.

One should, of course, be careful to pass judgment on acts committed far back in time by applying the moral standards that are associated with our own times.

However, one does need to recognize that current expressions of racism, ethnic cleansing, discrimination, etc. are part of a long pattern.

Anti-Semitism manifested itself in the prohibition for Jews to own land. Nor were they entitled to engage in certain professions or to settle in various cities. In Eastern Europe they were forced into ghettos and were repeatedly the victims of brutal pogroms.

The expulsion of the Jews and Moors from Spain in 1492 was of great significance because racial criteria were employed (for the first time) to justify the mass-expulsion and cultural destruction.

The significant point was that even Jews and Moors who had converted to Christianity were expelled.

Some Jewish historians regard this expulsion as a catastrophe (almost) comparable with the Nazi genocide of the European Jewry.

Roma, Sinti, and other traveling people have histories of vicious processes of social exclusion.

In a number of countries, indigenous territorial minorities (Basques, Britons, Celts, Saami, etc.) have fought an uneven battle for recognition and language rights.

The Nazi Holocaust was the culmination, but not the end, of five centuries of radicalized treatment of minority groups in Europe and of non-European peoples in the colonial empires.

Charles Westin is a Professor of Migration and Ethnicity Studies at Stockholm University.

Related Links:

First Muslims in Europe Charter
Muslims in Greater Europe
Muslims In Europe: Germany, France And Great Britain
Immigration And Integration
Daring to Be Euro Muslims (1)
Daring to Be Euro Muslims (2)

IDF Preparing For "All-Out-War"

General who served in Second Lebanon War says army's premise now completely different than before war which 'proved we were wrong in 2000 when our military power was aimed at Palestinian terror; now we realize that we should be preparing for something completely different'

By Haman Greenberg
15:48 , 07.16.07
Ynet

"The IDF is preparing itself for an all-out war, and this is a major change in the military's working premise following the Second Lebanon War," said Major-General (res) Eyal Ben-Reuven, who served as the Northern Command chief’s deputy during the war.

"By preparing for an all-out war, we can also deal with Palestinian terror, and not the other way round, as it was believed so far," Ben-Reuven said at an Institute for National Security Studies conference covering the different aspects of war.

When conflict breaks out with Syria, he said, Israel will face a challenge, because the Syrians "will be willing to take military and civilian hits but will strive to harm the Israeli home front in order to gain future achievements in a political process and to further split Israeli society.

"Therefore, the IDF's mission will be very focused and will have to be quick, in order to neutralize as quickly as possible the strategic areas threatening Israel's soft underbelly, thus preventing Syria reaching its coveted goals."

Ben-Reuven explained that in order to carry out such missions successfully, an extensive ground operation will be needed, and for this purpose the IDF is currently renewing its maneuvering abilities, including training and perfecting technology.

According to the major-general, if such ground operations were carried out during the Second Lebanon War, it would have ended very differently.

The IDF was not defeated in the Second Lebanon War, said Ben-Reuven, but failed in utilizing its strength and realizing its goals due to poor military and political leadership.

"The war was a harsh slap on the face and proved that we were wrong in 2000, when our readiness and military power was aimed at Palestinian terror, and now we realize that we should be preparing for something completely different."

Ben-Reuven, who was recently in charge of training senior military commanders, pointed out that the army must change its view on this matter.

"Someone who was a good regimental commander will not necessarily be a good divisional commander. It doesn't work that way on the modern battlefield. One must undergo the appropriate training in order to understand their job well," he said.

Former Military Intelligence head Major-General (res.) Aharon Ze'evi Farkash also spoke at the conference.

Ze'evi addressed the Lebanese problem, saying Hizbullah was currently dealing with political struggles and strengthening, including arming itself with short and long range rockets.

Farkash also pointed out that the war with Lebanon may actually increase chances of Israel and Lebanon reaching a settlement following the internal processes in Beirut.

Insurgents Adapting Faster To U.S. Defenses

By Peter Eisler - USA Today
Posted : Monday Jul 16, 2007 8:15:07 EDT
ArmyTimes

...The evolution of IEDs in Iraq parallels the evolution of the tools the Pentagon has used to combat them. The placement of the IEDs, the ways they’re triggered, the explosives they employ — all of that has changed time and again as U.S. forces have tried different ways to detect, disable or protect themselves against the devices.

Much of the raw material used by insurgents to make IEDs — artillery shells and explosives, such as TNT and C-4 — was looted from Iraqi military ammunition caches that were not secured by U.S. forces immediately after the invasion, according to a March report by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’ investigative arm.

“Not securing these conventional munitions storage sites has been costly,” the GAO wrote.

The looted material has given insurgents ammunition to “construct IEDs ... and maintain the level of violence.”

Early IEDs were relatively small and straightforward, often a 155mm or 152mm artillery shell hidden in a wall or embankment along a road. Insurgents would run wire from the device to a hand-held trigger, which they could activate from a nearby hiding place.

As U.S. troops figured out how to detect those IEDs, by spotting the wires or a suspicious character nearby, insurgents began using remote triggers — car key fobs, garage door openers, cell phones — to detonate the devices from greater distances.

They also turned to more powerful explosives, sometimes “daisy-chaining” multiple artillery rounds to boost destructive force.

By March 2004, “they were using daisy chains, 155mm rounds, maybe seven, eight in a row,” says Army Maj. Myles Caggins, who led a support company in Diyala province.

“And they had a little ruse: One IED blows up, everyone stops, and as people walk up to investigate, more blow up. The techniques changed.”

In late 2003, as troops scoured Iraqi scrap yards for steel to fashion “hillbilly armor” for Humvees, the Pentagon began ordering add-on armor kits for the vehicles, including hardened steel doors and side panels. By May 2004, under pressure from Congress, the Army had delivered 7,000 kits; more arrived in the months that followed.

Around that time, troops also started getting their first large-scale deliveries of jammers: devices that can be mounted in a vehicle or, in some cases, carried in a backpack, to block the wireless signals insurgents used to set off IEDs.

The Insurgents Adapted Faster.

By early 2004, they’d begun burying IEDs under roads, so they would blast up through the thin floors that proved to be the Achilles’ heel of even the armored Humvees. And the use of those buried IEDs grew steadily over the next 18 months, as more armored Humvees reached the field.

The triggers changed, too. As more jammers arrived, insurgents reverted to hard-wired devices or switched to pressure-plate IEDs, which go off when a vehicle rolls over them.

By 2006, U.S. troops were seeing “baking trays,” in which C-4 is sandwiched between metal plates and set to explode when compressed by a vehicle.

“They have adapted every time we’ve come up with a new way to defeat them,” says Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., a combat veteran and critic of the war.

Now, they’re adapting again, using IEDs that employ explosively formed projectiles. Those devices fire a metal slug that becomes a molten projectile as it travels towards its target. They are so powerful that they’ve been described as capable of slicing through an Abrams tank.

The Pentagon is developing yet another armor kit — this time to put on already armored vehicles, including MRAPs and Humvees — that can protect against EFPs.

From the start, the insurgents “made a decision to attack our tactical mobility ... and they’ve chosen the IED as the way to do that,” says retired Marine Gen. Anthony Zinni, former chief of the U.S. Central Command.

“This is the first war where we’ve faced an enemy that’s adapted better than we have at a tactical and operational level. We had IEDs from Day 1. ... What have we done to adapt? Nothing.

“The best counter to the IED is to get into the head of the guy who’s planting it. If he’s doing it for a buck, give him a better job. If he’s doing it because he’s pissed off, give him some promise of a better life,” Zinni adds.

“If you say there has to be a technical solution, a silver bullet, you’re not going to win.”

Occupation Is Main Problem In Iraq

Monday, July 16, 2007,
Jamadi-us-sani 30, 1428 A.H.
TheNews

HAWIJAH, Iraq: The main problem we have here is the occupation, the Iraqi soldier says before joining Americans troops on a mission to win hearts and minds in his hometown of Hawijah.

If the occupier leaves everything will be better.

Brit Cop Wants Indefinite Internment Back

Lock Terror Suspects Up Indefinitely Say Police

By Mark Townsend and Jamie Doward
Sunday, July 15, 2007
London Observer

One of Britain's most senior police officers has demanded a return to a form of internment, with the power to lock up terror suspects indefinitely without charge.

The proposal, put forward by the head of the Association of Police Chief Officers (Acpo) and supported by Scotland Yard, is highly controversial.

An earlier plan to extend the amount of time suspects can be held without charge to 90 days led to Tony Blair's first Commons defeat as Prime Minister. Eventually, the government was forced to compromise on 28 days, a period which Gordon Brown has already said he wants to extend.

The Observer understands that the Acpo proposal has been discussed in meetings between Brown and senior police officers.

Whitehall sources said the PM was receptive to the association's demands, but believes an upper detention limit is essential to avoid a de facto Guantanamo Bay based in the UK.

Ken Jones, the president of Acpo, told The Observer that in some cases there was a need to hold terrorist suspects without charge for 'as long as it takes'.

He said such hardline measures were the only way to counter the complex, global nature of terrorist cells planning further attacks in Britain and that civil liberty arguments were untenable in light of the evolving terror threat.

Jones, a former chair of Acpo's counter-terrorism committee, said: 'We are now arguing for judicially supervised detention for as long as it takes. We are up against the buffers on the 28-day limit. We understand people will be concerned and nervous, but we need to create a system with sufficient judicial checks and balances which holds people, but no longer than a day [more than] necessary.

'We need to go there [unlimited detention] and I think that politicians of all parties and the public have great faith in the judiciary to make sure that's used in the most proportionate way possible.'

The Proposal Has Provoked Anger Among Civil Rights Groups.

'It is coming to the point when we have to ask serious questions about the role of Acpo in a constitutional democracy,' said Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty.

'We elect politicians to determine legislation and we expect chief constables to uphold the rule of law, not campaign for internment.'

Internment was last used in Britain during the Gulf war against Iraqis suspected of links to Saddam Hussein's army.

It has also been used against terrorist suspects in Northern Ireland and Germans during the Second World War.

Jones said the increasingly international element of the terror threat made evidence-gathering a longer and more difficult process. He argues that a system is required where suspects can be arrested earlier than those suspected of involvement in more traditional crime.

'We can't let the threat develop to the point we ordinarily would, because the potential for a suicide bomber to take hundreds of lives is too awesome to merely contemplate, and so we are into the evidence-gathering phase much earlier,' he said.

'Then we are into judicially supervised detention. The fact is that these cases do take much longer to investigate. The reach of an investigation can be global. We are using a system designed to protect the rights of a suspect of a routine criminal case in the United Kingdom and we are pushing it to its limit.

'We should never have got involved in the 90-day debate. In hindsight, we should have said that we needed an extraordinary mechanism to give us the ability to investigate these complex cases under judicial supervision,' said Jones.

Moves to extend the police's power to hold suspects will be dealt with in a security bill in the autumn.

Jones also admitted Acpo had discussed problems of control orders, used as a form of house arrest for suspects, with the government.

'Clearly it's an idea that does need a refreshed view on it. But the solution of doing nothing is not an option really,' he said of the orders, which have been criticised after a number of those supposedly under their control absconded.

Jones's comments chime with those made by the man in charge of reviewing the government's terrorism laws.

Lord Carlile of Berriew said problems with the immigration service and Passport Agency left terrorists free to move in and out of Britain...

Darfur: Forget About Genocide, There's Oil

By F William Engdahl
May 25, 2007
ATimes

To paraphrase the famous quip during the 1992 US presidential debates, when an unknown William Jefferson Clinton told then-president George Herbert Walker Bush, "It's the economy, stupid," the present concern of the current Washington administration over Darfur in southern Sudan is not, if we look closely, genuine concern over genocide against the peoples in that poorest of poor part of a forsaken section of Africa.

No. "It's the oil, stupid."

The case of Darfur, a forbidding piece of sun-parched real estate in the southern part of Sudan, illustrates the new Cold War over oil, where the dramatic rise in China's oil demand to fuel its booming growth has led Beijing to embark on an aggressive policy of - ironically - dollar diplomacy. With its more than US$1.2 trillion in mainly US dollar reserves at the Peoples' National Bank of China, Beijing is engaging in active petroleum geopolitics. Africa is a major focus, and in Africa, the central region between Sudan and Chad is a priority.

This is defining a major new front in what, since the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, is a new Cold War between Washington and Beijing over control of major oil sources. So far Beijing has played its cards a bit more cleverly than Washington. Darfur is a major battleground in this high-stakes contest for oil control.

China Oil Diplomacy

In recent months, Beijing has embarked on a series of initiatives designed to secure long-term raw materials sources in one of the planet's most endowed regions - Sub-Saharan Africa. No raw material has higher priority in Beijing at present than oil.

Today China draws an estimated 30% of its crude oil from Africa. That explains an extraordinary series of diplomatic initiatives which have left Washington furious. China is using no-strings-attached dollar credits to gain access to Africa's vast raw material wealth, leaving Washington's typical control game via the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) out in the cold. Who needs the painful medicine of the IMF when China gives easy terms and builds roads and schools to boot?

In November last year Beijing hosted an extraordinary summit of 40 African heads of state. They literally rolled out the red carpet for the leaders of, among others, Algeria, Nigeria, Mali, Angola, Central African Republic, Zambia and South Africa.

China has just done an oil deal that links it with two of the continent's largest nations, Nigeria and South Africa. China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) will lift oil in Nigeria, via a consortium that also includes South African Petroleum Co, giving China access to what could be 175,000 barrels a day by 2008. It's a $2.27 billion deal that gives state-controlled CNOOC a 45% stake in a large off-shore oil field in Nigeria. Previously, Nigeria had been considered in Washington to be an asset of the Anglo-American oil majors, ExxonMobil, Shell and Chevron.

China has been generous in dispensing its soft loans, with no interest or as outright grants, to some of the poorest debtor states of Africa. The loans have gone into infrastructure, including highways, hospitals, and schools, a stark contrast to the brutal austerity demands of the IMF and World Bank. In 2006 China committed more than $8 billion to Nigeria, Angola and Mozambique, versus $2.3 billion to all sub-Saharan Africa from the World Bank. Ghana is negotiating a $1.2 billion Chinese electrification loan. Unlike the World Bank, a de facto arm of US foreign economic policy, China shrewdly attaches no strings to its loans.

This oil-related Chinese diplomacy has led to the bizarre accusation from Washington that Beijing is trying to "secure oil at the sources", something Washington foreign policy has itself been preoccupied with for at least a century. No source of oil has been more the focus of China-US oil conflict of late than Sudan, home of Darfur.

Sudan's Oil Riches

Beijing's China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) is Sudan's largest foreign investor, with some $5 billion in oil field development. Since 1999 China has invested at least $15 billion in Sudan. It owns 50% of an oil refinery near Khartoum with the Sudan government. The oil fields are concentrated in the south, site of a long-simmering civil war, partly financed covertly by the United States to break the south from the Islamic Khartoum-centered north.

CNPC built an oil pipeline from southern Sudan to a new terminal at Port Sudan on the Red Sea, where the oil is loaded on tankers bound for China. Eight percent of China's oil now comes from southern Sudan. China takes 65-80% of Sudan's 500,000 barrels/day production. Sudan last year was China's fourth-largest foreign oil source.

In 2006 China passed Japan to become the world's second-largest importer of oil after the United States, importing 6.5 million barrels a day of the black gold. With its oil demand growing by an estimated 30% a year, China will pass the US in oil import demand in a few years. That reality is the motor driving Beijing foreign policy in Africa.

A look at the southern Sudan oil concessions shows that China's CNPC holds rights to bloc 6, which straddles Darfur, near the border with Chad and the Central African Republic. In April 2005, Sudan's government announced that it had found oil in Southern Darfur, which is estimated to be able to pump 500,000 barrels per day when developed. The world press forgot to report that vital fact in discussing the Darfur conflict.

Move To Militarize Sudan's Oil Region

Genocide was the preferred theme, and Washington was the orchestra conductor. Curiously, while all observers acknowledge that Darfur has seen a large human displacement and human misery, with tens of thousands or even as many as 300,000 deaths in the last several years, only Washington and the non-governmental organizations (NGOs) close to it use the charged term "genocide" to describe Darfur. If they are able to get popular acceptance of the charge of genocide, it opens the possibility of drastic "regime change" intervention by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - read Washington - in Sudan's sovereign affairs.

The genocide theme is being used, with full-scale Hollywood backing from the likes of stars like George Clooney, to orchestrate the case for de facto NATO occupation of the region. So far the Sudan government has vehemently refused, not surprisingly.

The US government repeatedly uses "genocide" to refer to Darfur. It is the only government to do so. US Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey, head of the Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration, said during a USINFO online interview last November 17, "The ongoing genocide in Darfur, Sudan - a gross violation of human rights - is among the top international issues of concern to the United States." The Bush administration keeps insisting that genocide has been going on in Darfur since 2003, despite the fact that a five-person UN mission led by Italian Judge Antonio Cassese reported in 2004 that genocide had not been committed in Darfur but grave human rights abuses were committed. They called for war crime trials.

Merchants Of Death

The United States, acting through surrogate allies in Chad and neighboring states has trained and armed the Sudan Peoples' Liberation Army, headed until his death in July 2005 by John Garang, trained at the US Special Forces school at Fort Benning, Georgia.

By pouring arms into first southeastern Sudan and since discovery of oil in Darfur into that region as well, Washington fueled the conflict that led to tens of thousands dying and several million driven to flee their homes. Eritrea hosts and supports the Sudan People's Liberation Army (SPLA), the umbrella NDA opposition group, and the Eastern Front and Darfur rebels.

There are two rebel groups fighting in Sudan's Darfur region against the Khartoum central government of President Omar al-Bashir - the Justice for Equality Movement and the larger Sudan Liberation Army (SLA).

In February 2003, the SLA launched attacks on Sudan government positions in the Darfur region. SLA secretary-general Minni Arkou Minnawi called for armed struggle, accusing the government of ignoring Darfur. "The objective of the SLA is to create a united democratic Sudan." In other words, regime change in Sudan.

The US Senate adopted a resolution in February 2006 that requested NATO troops in Darfur, as well as a stronger UN peacekeeping force with a robust mandate. A month later, President George W Bush also called for additional NATO forces in Darfur.

Genocide? Or Oil?

The Pentagon has been busy training African military officers in the US, much as it has trained Latin American officers for decades. Its International Military Education and Training program has provided training to military officers from Chad, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Cameroon and the Central African Republic.

Much of the arms that have fueled the killing in Darfur and the south have been brought in via murky, protected private "merchants of death" such as the notorious former KGB operative, now with offices in the US, Victor Bout, who has been cited repeatedly in recent years for selling weapons across Africa. US government officials strangely leave his operations in Texas and Florida untouched despite the fact he is on the Interpol wanted list for money laundering.

US development aid for all Sub-Saharan Africa, including Chad, has been cut sharply in recent years while its military aid has risen. Oil and the scramble for strategic raw materials is the clear reason. The region of southern Sudan from the Upper Nile to the Chad border is rich in oil. Washington knew that long before the Sudanese government.

Chevron's 1974 Oil Project

US oil majors have known about Sudan's oil wealth since the early 1970s. In 1979, Jafaar Nimeiry, Sudan's head of state, broke with the Soviets and invited Chevron to develop the country's oil industry. That was perhaps a fatal mistake. UN Ambassador George H W Bush had personally told Nimeiry of satellite photos indicating oil in Sudan. Nimeiry took the bait. Wars over oil have been the consequence ever since.

Chevron found big oil reserves in southern Sudan. It spent $1.2 billion finding and testing them. That oil triggered what is called Sudan's second civil war in 1983. Chevron was the target of repeated attacks and killings and it suspended the project in 1984. In 1992, it sold its Sudanese oil concessions. Then China began to develop the abandoned Chevron fields in 1999 with notable results. But Chevron is not far from Darfur today.

Chad Oil and Pipeline Politics

Condoleezza Rice's Chevron is in neighboring Chad, together with the other US oil giant, ExxonMobil. They've just built a $3.7 billion oil pipeline carrying 160,000 barrels per day from Doba in central Chad, near Darfur, via Cameroon to Kribi on the Atlantic Ocean, destined for US refineries.

To do it, they worked with Chad "President for life" Idriss Deby, a corrupt despot who has been accused of feeding US-supplied arms to the Darfur rebels. Deby joined Washington's Pan Sahel Initiative run by the Pentagon's US-European Command, to train his troops to fight "Islamic terrorism".

Supplied with US military aid, training and weapons, in 2004, Deby launched the initial strike that set off the conflict in Darfur. He used members of his elite Presidential Guard, who come from the province, providing them with all-terrain vehicles, arms and anti-aircraft guns to aid Darfur rebels fighting the Khartoum government in southwestern Sudan. The US military support to Deby in fact had been the trigger for the Darfur bloodbath. Khartoum reacted and the ensuing debacle was unleashed in full, tragic force.

Washington-backed NGOs and the US government claim unproven genocide as a pretext to ultimately bring UN/NATO troops into the oil fields of Darfur and southern Sudan. Oil, not human misery, is behind Washington's new interest in Darfur.

The "Darfur genocide" campaign began in 2003, the same time the Chad-Cameroon oil pipeline began to flow. The US now had a base in Chad to go after Darfur oil and, potentially, co-opt China's new oil sources.

US military objectives in Darfur - and the Horn of Africa more widely - are being served at present by US and NATO backing for African Union (AU) troops in Darfur. There NATO provides ground and air support for AU troops who are categorized as "neutral" and "peacekeepers". Sudan is at war on three fronts, against Uganda, Chad, and Ethiopia, each with a significant US military presence and ongoing US military programs. The war in Sudan involves both US covert operations and US trained "rebel" factions coming in from south Sudan, Chad, Ethiopia and Uganda.

Chad's Deby Looks To China Too

The completion of the US and World Bank-financed oil pipeline from Chad to the Cameroon coast was designed as one part of a far grander Washington scheme to control the oil riches of Central Africa from Sudan to the entire Gulf of Guinea.

But Washington's erstwhile pal, Chad's Deby, began to get unhappy with his small share of the US-controlled oil profits. When he and the Chad parliament decided in early 2006 to take more of the oil revenues to finance military operations and beef up its army, the new World Bank president - and Iraq war architect - Paul Wolfowitz moved to suspend loans to the country. Then that August, after Deby had won re-election, he created Chad's own oil company, SHT, and threatened to expel Chevron and Malaysia's Petronas for not paying taxes owed, and demanded a 60% share of the Chad oil pipeline. In the end he came to terms with the oil companies, but winds of change were blowing.

Deby also faces growing internal opposition from a Chad rebel group, United Front for Change, known under its French name as FUC, which he claims is being covertly funded by Sudan. The FUC has based itself in Darfur.

Into this unstable situation, Beijing has shown up in Chad with a full coffer of aid money in hand. In late January, Chinese President Hu Jintao made a state visit to Sudan and Cameroon among other African states. In 2006, China's leaders visited no fewer than 48 African states. In August 2006, Beijing hosted Chad's foreign minister for talks and resumption of formal diplomatic ties cut in 1997. China has begun to import oil from Chad as well as Sudan.

Not that much oil, but if Beijing has its way, that will soon change.

This April, Chad's foreign minister announced that talks with China over greater China participation in Chad's oil development were "progressing well". He referred to the terms the Chinese seek for oil development, calling them "much more equal partnerships than those we are used to having".

The Chinese economic presence in Chad, ironically, may be more effective in calming the fighting and displacement in Darfur than any AU or UN troop presence ever could. That would not be welcome for some people in Washington and at Chevron headquarters, as they would not secure the oil.

Chad and Darfur are but part of the vast China effort to secure "oil at the source" across Africa. Oil is also the prime factor in US Africa policy today. George W Bush's interest in Africa includes a new US base in Sao Tome/Principe, 124 miles off the Gulf of Guinea, from which it can control Gulf of Guinea oil fields from Angola in the south to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon and Nigeria. That just happens to be the very same areas where recent Chinese diplomatic and investment activity has focused.

"West Africa's oil has become of national strategic interest to us," stated US Assistant Secretary of State for Africa Walter Kansteiner back in 2002. Darfur and Chad are but an extension of the US Iraq policy "with other means" - control of oil everywhere. China is challenging that control "everywhere", especially in Africa. It amounts to a new undeclared Cold War over oil.

F William Engdahl is author of the book, A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics, Pluto Press Ltd. His next book, Seeds of Destruction: The Dark Side of Genetic engineering (Global Research Publishing) will be released this June. He may be contacted via his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

(Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd.)

Lawrence Of Arabia Had It Right About Iraq

TE Lawrence Had It Right About Iraq: ‘Rebellions Can Be Made By 2 Per Cent Active and 98 Per Cent Passively Sympathetic’

By Robert Fisk
Published On Saturday, July 14, 2007 by
The Independent/UK

Back in 1929, Lawrence of Arabia wrote the entry for “Guerrilla” in the 14th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. It is a chilling read - and here I thank one of my favourite readers, Peter Metcalfe of Stevenage, for sending me TE’s remarkable article - because it contains so ghastly a message to the American armies in Iraq.

Writing of the Arab resistance to Turkish occupation in the 1914-18 war, he asks of the insurgents (in Iraq and elsewhere):

“… suppose they were an influence, a thing invulnerable, intangible, without front or back, drifting about like a gas? Armies were like plants, immobile as a whole, firm-rooted, nourished through long stems to the head. The Arabs might be a vapour…”

How typical of Lawrence to use the horror of gas warfare as a metaphor for insurgency.

To control the land they occupied, he continued, the Turks:

“would have need of a fortified post every four square miles, and a post could not be less than 20 men. The Turks would need 600,000 men to meet the combined ill wills of all the local Arab people. They had 100,000 men available.”

Now who does that remind you of?

The “fortified post every four square miles” is the ghostly future echo of George W Bush’s absurd “surge”.

The Americans need 600,000 men to meet the combined ill will of the Iraqi people, and they have only 150,000 available. Donald Rumsfeld, the architect of “war lite” is responsible for that. Yet still these rascals get away with it.

...Oh, how we miss Lawrence. “The printing press is the greatest weapon in the armoury of the modern (guerrilla) commander,” he wrote 78 years ago, accurately predicting al-Qa’ida’s modern-day use of the internet.

For insurgents, “battles were a mistake … Napoleon had spoken in angry reaction against the excessive finesse of the 18th century, when men almost forgot that war gave licence to murder”.

True, the First World War Arab Revolt was not identical to today’s Iraqi insurgency. In 1917, the Turks had manpower but insufficient weapons. Today the Americans have the weapons but insufficient men. But listen to Lawrence again.

“Rebellion must have an unassailable base … In the minds of men converted to its creed. It must have a sophisticated alien enemy, in the form of a disciplined army of occupation too small to fulfil the doctrine of acreage: too few to adjust number to space, in order to dominate the whole area effectively from fortified posts.

“It must have a friendly population, not actively friendly, but sympathetic to the point of not betraying rebel movements to the enemy. Rebellions can be made by 2 per cent active in a striking force, and 98 per cent passively sympathetic … Granted mobility, security … time, and doctrine … victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the end decisive, and against them perfections of means and spirit struggle quite in vain.”

Has the US General David Petraeus read this? Has Bush? Have any of the tired American columnists whose anti-Arab bias is wobbling close to racism, bothered to study this wisdom? ...

The Independent’s award-winning Middle East correspondent regrets that he cannot accept e-mails but letters may be sent c/o Foreign Desk, 191 Marsh Wall, London E14 9RS

© 2007 The Independent

Muslims In America Before Columbus

By Dr. A. Zahoor
(Copyright 1998, All Rights Reserved)
CyberIstan

The Melungeons:

The word 'Melungeon' probably originates from the Arabic ‘Mudajjan’ which means one who is dark, gloomy, tamed, servile, domesticated. A variation of this word ‘Mudajjal’ from which ‘Mudejar’ is derived was widely used in fourteenth century for all the Muslims in Spain who continued to live outside the remaining Muslim kingdom of Granada.

It was originally used as a term of ridicule for the Muslims who made pacts with the Christians and fought their fellow Muslims while siding with the Christians. It was also used to describe all the Muslims who remained in the North after first wave of persecution by the Church, and who worked for the Christian nobles on their large country estates. The Turkish term 'Melun-can' which is pronounced identically to Melungeon means "one who has been abandoned."

It is likely that Muslims who spoke Spanish preferred the term ‘Mudejar’ over ‘Mudajjan’ in view of their prevailing circumstances, and it would have been much preferred by their descendants a few generations later who probably had little if any direct contact with their fellow Muslims in southern Spain before the fall of the Muslim Kingdom of Granada in 1492.

A large population of Muslim Granada knew only Arabic as recorded in the 1499 campaign of Cardinal Ximenes to convert them all to Christianity. These Arabic speaking Muslims and their descendants in their prevailing sad state of affairs would have either used or accepted the term ‘Mudajjan’ to identify themselves wherever they settled.

This would also be the case for those Arabic speaking Muslims - Spanish, North African and Turks - who were taken as captives by sea pirates in the Mediterranean and in the Atlantic close to northwest Africa, and may include some of those who were already settled in the Carribean about whom Christopher Columbus wrote in his travelogue.

Genetic and medical studies suggest that there is no significant difference between Melungeons and populations in the Galician Mountain region of Spain and Portugal, Morocco, Libya, Syria, Northern Iraq, Northern Iran, Turkey and Greece. Cultural and linguistic evidence suggest the Iberian (Moorish) and Ottoman origins.

Many American words originally used by various Indian tribes and Melungeons have close linguistic connection with Turkish and Arabic words, e.g., Allegheny (Allah genis), Alabama (Allah bamya), Arkansas (Ar Kan Sah), Appalachian (Apa-la-che), Cherokee (Shar-kee), Lenni-Lanape (La-ani la-nabi), Micanopy (Mekka-nabi), Meherrin (Muharrem), Marrapough (mar-rah-pooch), Vallah olum (Wallahu Aalam), Kentucky (Kan Tok) and Tennessee (Tenasuh).

THE MORISCOS AND MUDEJARES:

...Louis IV led the sixth crusade in 1248, the same year as the fall of Seville....He then led the seventh and final Crusade in 1254.

By the mid-thirteenth century the Christian army had conquered virtually the whole of Spain with the exception of the kingdom of Granada. Many of the Muslims who were not killed in the fighting, and who could not bear to work as slaves for the Christians, made their way to Granada. This became the last defiant stronghold of the Muslims and the practice of Islam continued to thrive there for another two and a half centuries after the fall of Seville.

The Muslims of Granada regarded all those who had chosen to remain in the territories occupied by the Christians with contempt. They were regarded in no better light by the Christians, who tolerated them only because of their economic usefulness, and who eventually eliminated them in spite of it.

Once the Christians gained power in the land, the story of their subsequent persecution of the Jews and Muslims is not a pleasant one. Navarrte speaks of 2,000,000 Jews and 3,000,000 Muslims having been at various times expelled from Spain, and he is copied by Gil Gonzales Davila, the official historiographer of Philip III and IV.

The institution which was largely responsible for these expulsions was the Spanish Inquisition. Its activities were so horrifying that the majority of historians have chosen to mention it very briefly and to pass on to other matters. Any attempt to cover in detail what amounted to the genocide of two distinct and large communities in Spain is an almost impossible task. The whole story can never be told.

... In order to disguise the fact that Islam once flourished in Spain, the Muslims who once lived there have been given different names by the Catholic Church, in the same way that the Paulicians were given different names whenever they appeared in another country in order to cover the unity of the movement.

A brief summary of the terminology used to describe the Muslims of Spain is necessary at this stage, so that when they are used later on, the different terms will not cause confusion. The most popular synonym for the Muslims is 'the Moors'.

This term is often used by official historians to describe the Muslims either before, during or after their presence in Spain. They are also often referred to as 'the Mudejares' and 'the Moriscos.'These nicknames are indicative of the process of decline and erosion of Islam.

The name 'Mudejar', which originates from the Arab 'mudajjal' was originally used as a term of ridicule for the Muslims who made pacts with the Christians, and even fought their Muslim brothers with the Christians. It was also used to describe all the Muslims who remained in the North after first wave of persecution by the Church, and who worked for the Christian nobles on their large country estates....

When, in the next stages of persecution, the Mudejares were eventually all forcibly baptised, they became known as Moriscos, the 'Christian Moors'. This term was also used to describe the Muslims in the South who, after the fall of Granada in 1492, were also forcibly baptised.
These changes in name, therefore, indicate the main stages in the process by which Islam was watered down until it was no longer a reality in Spain...

-------

The following videos are not from Cyberistan, but were taken from the YouTube site, and included by me:

1. Melungeons: Crucial Info About Your Ancestors





2. Lost: The Ohio Melungeons

Known Terrorist Given Sanctuary By MI5

By David Leppard
Sunday, July 15, 2007
London Times

A SUSPECTED Al-Qaeda operative who is believed by MI5 to have played a key role in the events leading up to the July 21 failed bombings is at liberty and living in east London.

Mohammed al-Ghabra, a 27-year-old Syrian who has been given British citizenship, is said by security sources to have arranged for the leader of the failed 21/7 London suicide attacks to travel to Pakistan for terrorist training.

The sources said al-Ghabra instructed a second terrorist suspect to facilitate a four-month trip to Pakistan by Muktar Said Ibrahim, the leader of the July 21 gang.

Ibrahim learnt how to make bombs while in Pakistan. Four months later, he deployed his training in a bid to kill dozens of people on three London Tube trains and a bus.

Al-Ghabra – who last year was accused by the British and American financial authorities of association with terrorism – lives with his mother and sister in a maisonette in a cul-de-sac in Forest Gate, east London. He is unemployed and regularly attends the local mosque on Romford Road.

Patrick Mercer, the Tory MP and security expert, said: “It is extraordinary that a man who is alleged to be central to a mass murder plot is still at liberty. How can this be?”

Last week Ibrahim and three other bombers were convicted of conspiracy to murder at Woolwich crown court. The judge, Mr Justice Fulford QC, sentenced the gang to life imprisonment with a minimum of 40 years each.

He said they would have murdered at least 50 people and injured hundreds more if their plot had succeeded.

After the court case, it emerged that in December 2004 Ibrahim was followed to Heathrow airport by 10 MI5 undercover agents.

The MI5 team was tailing the man driving him, Rauf Mohammed, an Iraqi taxi driver who was suspected of working with al-Ghabra in helping radical British Muslims travel to Iraq to fight against British and American troops.

Ibrahim and two other passengers were in the car.

A well-placed source said: “MI5 judged they were going to take part in holy war activities in Pakistan. It was thought this might include going to terrorist training camps.”

The source added: “We knew the journey was arranged by Rauf Mohammed, acting on the instructions of Mohammed al-Ghabra.”

The connection with Rauf Mohammed (who was later charged and acquitted of terrorism offences) led Ibrahim and his travelling companions to be questioned by Special Branch before they boarded their flight.

They were found to be carrying thousands of pounds in cash, a military first-aid kit and a ballistics manual. Nonetheless, MI5 allowed Ibrahim to travel to Pakistan.

There he was trained by Al-Qaeda to make explosives and groomed to become a suicide bomber.

Despite his known links to Rauf Mohammed, Ibrahim was not stopped, searched or questioned by police when he returned to Heathrow on March 8, 2005.

The lack of surveillance made it possible for Ibrahim to recruit three other would-be suicide bombers to make unobserved bulk purchases of hydrogen peroxide, used to manufacture the bombs.

Security sources have confirmed that they were alerted to Ibrahim’s return to the country. But they said he was not then classified by MI5 as a priority target.

One source said: “He was regarded as a low-key follower. He wasn’t forgotten. But the intelligence on him was not as worrying as it was on a whole host of others who were being watched at full tilt.”

The decision, according to sources, was based on an assessment by the Pakistanis – who had been asked to track Ibrahim – that he did not pose a terrorist threat.

David Davis, the shadow home secretary, said yesterday: “It is simply extraordinary that the security service did not either prevent Ibrahim travelling abroad or put him under close surveillance when he returned. This is the third occasion in which the security services have failed to identify terrorists before they carried out their attacks.”

Speaking of al-Ghabra’s alleged role, Davis added: “It is also extraordinary, if true, that a prime facilitator of terrorist activity has neither been arrested or charged and is still at large.”

Al-Ghabra said last week: “I am not going to say anything. I say no comment.
My battle is through the courts and I refuse to be tried by the media.”

He was referring to allegations made against him last December when the British Treasury wrote to him saying it had “reasonable grounds for suspecting that you are, or may be, a person who facilitates the commission of acts of terrorism”.

In a statement issued at the time, it said: “Al-Ghabra has organised travel to Pakistan for individuals seeking to meet with senior Al-Qaeda individuals and to undertake jihad training. Several of these individuals have returned to the UK to engage in covert activity on behalf of Al-Qaeda.

“Additionally, al-Ghabra has provided material support and facilitated the travel
of UK-based individuals to Iraq to support the insurgents’ fight against coalition forces.”

The Treasury claimed it had information showing he had undertaken jihadi training at a terrorist camp in Kashmir.

The US Treasury froze his bank accounts, saying it was “designating” al-Ghabra as someone “who provides material and logistical support to Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations”.

Al-Ghabra said when these allegations were made: “If I am a money-maker and this is why they have decided to put the sanctions against me, how could I have so many financial problems myself?”

He denied that he played any role in the so-called pipeline of young Muslim men that were travelling to fight with the insurgents in Iraq.

He said MI5 had repeatedly accused him in interviews with his friends of being a terrorist money man.

“I don’t have the capability of supporting anyone financially, barely myself. If anyone has the evidence, please show it to me. I am not the banker.”

Four years ago, al-Ghabra was charged with fraud and possession of a document or record that could be useful to terrorism. He spent nine months on remand before being acquitted in July 2004.

Iran Readies 600 Israeli Targets For Retaliation

Report: Iran Has 600 Targets For Missile Strike In Israel If Attacked

By Yoav Stern, Barak Ravid and Yossi Melman
Haaretz Correspondents and The Associated Press
Last Update - 14:35 15/07/2007
Haaretz

The Qatari newspaper Al Watan on Sunday quoted diplomatic sources in Damascus as saying that Iran has marked 600 targets in Israel for missile strikes in case it is attacked.

The report said the targets are within reach of Iranian missiles and would be completely destroyed if Israel should attack Iran or participate in an American attack on the country.

Iran's warning refers to talk in Israel and the United States of a possible military strike to prevent the Islamic republic from attaining nuclear capability.

Various channels delivered the Iranian message, which also warns against an attack on Syria.

The sources, which were described as both "international" and Arab, told Al Watan they do not expect a war to break out between Israel and Syria this summer...

France Warns Israel Over Hezbollah Kidnappings

France Warns Israel Over Possible Attempt To Kidnap Hizbullah Members

Kuwaiti newspaper report says France received intelligence information according to which Mossad is planning to kidnap members of Shiite group participating in conference of Lebanese groups near Paris

By Ali Waked
Published: 07.14.07, 18:45 / Israel News
Ynet

France has recently warned Israel not to harm Hizbullah members participating in a convention of Lebanese groups being held near Paris these days.

The Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Seyassah reported Saturday that the French government told Israel an attempt to harm any of the Hizbullah delegates would hinder relations between the countries.

According to the report, the warning was issued after French intelligence received information saying Mossad was planning to attack Hizbullah and Amal (Lebanese Resistance Detachments) representatives at the conference.

Al-Seyassah said the information, received from both Israel and Jordan, said Mossad was planning to kidnap members of the Shiite group with the aim of using them as bargaining chips in future negotiations for the release of Israeli soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, who have been held captive by Hizbullah since July 2006.

More than 400 French officers are securing the venue, the report said.

Race, Islam, and Terrorism

Most African-Caribbean Men Who Become Muslims Do So Because It Gives Their Lives Hope and Meaning...

By Robert Beckford,
The Guardian
7/13/2007
Iviews

I met a refugee from the Democratic Republic of Congo at a university function at the end of the summer term. A well-educated academic, he had escaped the civil war engulfing his country. In the middle of our conversation on the state of Africa, he reminded me that there were "many well-educated white men engaged in acts of terror" in his country.

He was not referring to suicide bombers but to middle-class corporate executives who fund warlords and low-rank politicians in exchange for access to diamonds and other precious minerals.

Their act of terror was to be party to the ethnic cleansing, rape, child abduction, and murder conducted by the renegades they financed.

Conscious of the dangers of stereotyping, I replied, "Surely not all white men involved in business in Africa are bad? I'm certain many get involved in business with the best of intentions but are seduced by the lure of profits."

Introducing the subject of "race" into the analysis of any area of social conflict can enlighten or obscure the real causes of distress. And this perilous pathway has been followed in some of the news coverage of young black men and domestic terrorism.

The Jamaican origins of Jermaine Lindsay, one of the July 7 suicide bombers, has prompted some to ask why a disproportionate number of black men are attracted to extremism.

Lindsay, 19, had spent the vast proportion of his life in England, which made tenuous the tabloid obsession with his place of birth.

Intriguingly there was less of a clamour over the ethnicity of Richard Reid, the notorious "shoe bomber," who had a white mother and a black father. In the case of David Copeland, the white, racist, homophobic nail-bomber, there was no analysis of a potential relationship between ethnicity, extremism, and terror.

Black men converting to Islam should be placed within the religious context of their communities, where religion still matters.

African-Caribbean men and women continue to turn out in large numbers for religious activities. But Islam is able to do what the black church cannot - attract black men.

I have spent most of my working life in conversation with African-Caribbean converts to Islam. Two relationships stand out. I have an ongoing dialogue with an artist who converted in the mid-1990s. His journey began when he listened to tapes of African-American Muslim preachers while at graduate school in America.

The tapes made a clear-cut link between a commitment to Allah and black liberation from poverty, drugs, gangs, and meaninglessness.

His first visit to a predominantly African-American mosque was life-changing.

Hundreds of smartly dressed black men full of self-belief, black pride, purpose, and respect immediately became role models.

This is still the case today. Many black men, including Reid and Lindsay, were impressed by Islam's Africa-centered preaching and positive association with blackness.

After all, one of the most powerful icons of the 20th century, Malcolm X, made the journey from Christianity to Islam in search of black redemption.

My artist friend says mainstream Islam provides him with a social awareness and commitment to justice that is mostly ignored in black churches.

I have a nephew who recently converted while serving a prison sentence. Spending an inordinate amount of time alone in his cell, he took to reading the Bible and the Quran to pass the time. Intrigued by the notion that Islam was the last testament, God's final revelation, he pursued his interest by attending lessons with the imam assigned to the prison chaplaincy. Convinced, he became a devotee.

It was clear to me that the daily regime of Islam provided him with the tools for personal discipline and an interest in intellectual thought.

He gained qualifications while inside and, most importantly, became completely dissociated from criminal activity.

Having left prison, he continues to live devoutly, and is employed in a management position.

---

Most African-Caribbean men converting to Islam do so because it is a religion with a capacity to give their lives hope and meaning.

This is not a new idea.

As long ago as 1888, the Caribbean educator Edward Wilmot Blyden argued that Islam was more respectful of black culture and easier to translate into Caribbean culture than Christianity.

There will always be a few captivated by extremist versions of Islam that exploit the continued disaffection and marginalisation of working-class black youth.

After all, with as little potential for social mobility as their migrant grandparents, it is difficult to sell them Tony Blair's New Labour dream of living in a meritocratic "stakeholder" British society.

As is the case with the white middle-class corporate executives who see no ethical boundaries preventing them from working for exploitative multinationals in Africa, which displace and destroy the lives of tens of thousands, there will always be a small number of impressionable converts, from the poorest communities, who are lured on to the paths of unrighteousness.

Robert Beckford is a lecturer in African diasporan religions and cultures at the University of Birmingham, U.K.

Rules Change When Dictators Serve US

The Rules Change When Dictators Serve US Interests

The mosque siege reveals Musharraf's desperation to appear tough in the war on terror.

But in truth he is a friend to terrorists

By Imran Khan
Wednesday July 11, 2007
Guardian

Over recent days, news from Pakistan has been dominated by the siege at the Red Mosque, which ended late yesterday. Scarcely a mile from the seat of power in Islamabad, the madrasa students and their two leading clerics inside the mosque first claimed attention with kidnappings, threats of suicide bombings and demands for the imposition of sharia law. The Musharraf regime mounted a military operation against the militants which led to the loss of numerous lives, among them one of the clerics, Abdul Rashid Ghaz.

A number of questions arise.

Why was action not taken immediately? How were militants and arms able to get in under the gaze of the police and intelligence services? And why were other measures, including shutting off electricity at the mosque, not exhausted earlier?

The episode appears to have been drawn out deliberately by President Musharraf.

Since he sacked the chief justice in March, a movement led by lawyers, journalists and opposition parties has been clamouring for democracy on Pakistan's streets.

As Musharraf faces his biggest crisis, he is desperate to prove his indispensability to the west in the war on terror.

But this use of force is likely to produce unintended and dangerous consequences, as it has in Baluchistan, Waziristan and Bajaur. It may be salutary to recall how Indira Gandhi's order for troops to attack the Golden Temple, where Sikh militants were holed up, not only failed to subdue the militants but triggered a wave of violence, including her assassination.

While few Sikhs may have sympathised with the militants, many came to deeply resent the government's high-handedness.

Suicide bombing and other noxious forms of terrorism were once alien to Pakistan. After eight years of military dictatorship, radicalism and fundamentalism are in the ascendant everywhere.

Musharraf is perceived among radical elements as the west's instrument in a "war on Islam" - there could be no greater failure in the battle for hearts and minds.

Terrorism requires a political solution.

Extremists can be marginalised through debate and political dialogue in a democracy. Military dictatorship, as we are now seeing, only exacerbates the problem.

It has become obvious to every Pakistani that, far from presiding over a transition to genuine democracy in the country, Musharraf is intent on dismantling every democratic institution in his way.

Over recent months he has assaulted the judiciary, restricted freedom of the press, and put hundreds of members of the opposition behind bars.

The roots of the most shocking incident so far, however, can be found in north London, where the chairman of the Musharraf-allied Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Altaf Hussain, resides.

When Pakistan's chief justice decided to address the bar in Karachi, a vast welcome was expected in the city. This worried Musharraf and his MQM allies, who control the Sindh government - and especially Karachi, the provincial capital. They decided to organise a rival rally the same day, despite protests by the opposition. What followed on the blood-soaked May 12 could be described in two words: state terrorism.

While the police stood aside, the terrorist arm of the MQM sprayed bullets into a peaceful procession of the opposition parties. Some 48 people lost their lives and 200 sustained bullet wounds. Among them were 10 members of my party. Most callously, Musharraf later that evening triumphantly claimed that the people had shown their "force". None of the opposition parties believe MQM's denials that they were involved in turning this peaceful protest violent.

It was then I decided to launch legal proceedings against Altaf Hussain, who has been living in exile in London since 1992 and became a British citizen in 1999.

The MQM came into existence in the mid-1980s as a genuine people's movement in Karachi, representing the immigrant community that had arrived from India shortly after the creation of Pakistan. This community had serious grievances, the most significant being that educated young muhajirs could not get jobs because of imposed quotas. But within a few years it had degenerated into a thuggish mafia outfit, controlled by one man, Altaf Hussain.

Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and even the US state department and the European Union have issued reports about the MQM's terrorist activities. The only independent provincial assembly in Pakistan recently denounced the party as a "terrorist organisation", and last weekend the conference of opposition parties jointly resolved to support the legal proceedings against Hussain.

While Musharraf maintains that he is at the frontline of the war on terror - in which thousands of Pakistani soldiers and citizens have lost their lives - he has allied himself with the country's number one terrorist.

And Tony Blair's government, which was at the fore of this war, gave Pakistan's number one terrorist citizenship.

It is impossible to embark on any quest for the hearts and minds of Pakistanis when these blatant double standards exist.

Are dictators somehow fine when they exist to serve US interests, even if they destroy hopes of democracy in the process?

And are terrorists only a problem when it is western blood that is shed?

· Imran Khan is the leader of the Pakistan Movement for Justice and a member of parliament

niazi73@hotmail.com


Related Material:

The Spreading deMOCKracy Hypocrisy Of The West

ETA Terror Plot To Blow Up UK Ferry Foiled

Press Association
Thursday July 12, 2007 7:18 AM
Guardian

Authorities in Spain say they have scuppered a plot by a suspected member of Eta to blow up a ferry carrying thousands of British tourists.

Aritz Arginzoniz Zubiarre, believed to be a member of the Basque separatist group, was detained at a bus station in the Spanish port of Santander.

Reports were conflicting about where in the UK the ferry would be headed.

Newspaper El Pais's website said the suspect had details of at least two potential targets at the time of his arrest.

One was the ferry linking Santander with Portsmouth and another was a court in Santander.

But the Daily Telegraph reported that Spanish police said the Pont-Aven, which sails twice a week between Plymouth and Santander and carries up to 2,400 passengers, was one of three possible targets.

It said Pont-Aven operator Brittany Ferries insisted there was no threat to the ferry.

Press coverage which cited unnamed police investigators, said Arginzoniz Zubiarre was waiting for the arrival of explosives and a car when he was arrested on Tuesday.

Newspaper El Mundo said Arginzoniz Zubiarre may have been planning suspected attacks with his girlfriend, named as Saioa Sanchez Iturregi.

Arginzoniz Zubiarre had planned to carry out a terror attack on a public building in Spain using a car bomb, interior minister Alfredo Perez Rubalcaba said.

The ministry said he was carrying a pistol, a timer and false identity documents when he was arrested, and had drawn attention to himself because of a backpack he was carrying.

© Copyright Press Association Ltd 2007, All Rights Reserved.

A Primer On Israeli DoubleSpeak

Language As An Instrument Of Crime

By RANNIE AMIRI
July 14 / 15, 2007
CounterPunch

It is indeed a great irony that George Orwell wrote 1984 in 1948, the same year Israel was created. For this nation, above all others, has proven itself most adept in the use and promulgation of doublespeak.

Defined by Webster's Dictionary as "evasive, ambiguous, high-flown language intended to deceive or confuse," Israeli governments have always relied on it to justify the expansionist nature of their state, excuse the confiscation of land and minimize the extent to which its inhabitants have been mistreated or abused.

A Few Examples:

The Security Fence

The monstrosity which Israel is constructing along the entire length of the West Bank is no more for security than it is a fence.

The barrier, started in 2003 and now more than half complete, is scheduled to run over 450 miles and reach a height of 25 feet ­ four times longer than and twice as high as the former Berlin Wall.

Composed of concrete and electrified wire, surrounded by trenches and mounted with strategically positioned sniper towers, calling it a "fence" is more than farcical.

In 2004, the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled construction of the barrier illegal (a verdict, of course, ignored).

Within the last week, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs issued a report indicating that it will "restrict access to workplaces, health, education, and to places of worship."

In addition, it fully recognized that Arab-majority East Jerusalem will be severed from the West Bank by its route.

In another area, 50,000 Palestinians would be completely isolated and restricted to the zone between it and Israel resulting in their inability "to access critical services such as schools, clinics and shops in either Israel or the West Bank without special permits."

More telling is where the barrier is being built. According to the UN report, 80% of it on West Bank land.

The "security fence" is thus an offensive structure rather than the defensive one it purports to be.

It is just one illustration of how Israel attempts to obfuscate a reality ­ in this case, a very expensive land grab - through use of language.

Moderate Physical Pressure and Work Accidents

Israel was at one time the only country to officially sanction the use of torture, euphemistically referred to as "moderate physical pressure."

Lea Tsemel, a defense lawyer and founder of the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) remarked,

"Israel is the only Western country that openly uses torture. This is not some brute in the secret services beating up a prisoner. It's done in the open. There is quiet legitimation by a high-ranking commission and government ministers" (New York Times, May 8, 1997).

The Sunday Times had already arrived at the same conclusion in June 1977:

"Torture of Arab prisoners is so widespread and systematic that it cannot be dismissed as 'rogue cops' exceeding orders. It appears to be sanctioned as deliberate policy."

Whenever a detainee died under torture, it was dismissed as an unfortunate "work accident."

It took a ruling by the Israeli Supreme Court in 1999 to ban the practice. Unfortunately they have now reversed themselves.

A judgment issued this past June allows Shin Bet to use methods regarded by PCATI as torture when in a "ticking bomb" situation. With likely wide interpretation of this circumstance, it appears a green light has just been issued to reinstate the practice.

The Absent Present

This bizarre term was used describe those Palestinians who were not driven out of Palestine in 1948, but remained within what was to later become Israel.

If they temporarily left their homes or were away from their land during the war, they were prevented from reclaiming it.

Confiscation of the property of the "absent present" was then permitted (Haaretz, January 14, 1955).

The Abandoned Areas

"We take the land first and the law comes after."

- Yehoshafat Palmon, Arab Affairs advisor to the mayor of Jerusalem (Guardian, April 26, 1972).

Whether to assuage the conscience of emigrating Jews or not, the Zionists who founded Israel passed a series of discriminatory laws with harmless and protective sounding titles explicitly for the purpose of expropriating inhabited Palestinian land. In some instances, these laws were made retroactive.

They carried such names as the Emergency Defense Regulations, the Abandoned Areas Ordinance, the Emergency Articles for the Exploitation of Uncultivated Lands, and as described above, the Absentee Property Law.

These laws all attempted to reinforce the myth peddled by Zionists depicting Palestine as "a land without a people." Nonetheless, they were aptly described by the Jewish writer Moshe Keren as "wholesale robbery with a legal coating."

Definition of Israeli doublespeak: the use of language to hide crimes of the state.

It would surely make Big Brother proud.

Rannie Amiri is an independent commentator on issues dealing with the Arab and Islamic worlds.

He may be reached at: rbamiri@yahoo.com.

Reference:

1. Zayid, Ismail. Zionism: The Myth and the Reality. American Trust Publications, Indianapolis, 1980.

When Will These Gullible Arabs Understand?

Khalid Amayreh,
In Occupied East-Jerusalem
7/11/07
ThePeoplesVoice

The decision of the Arab League to dispatch a delegation to Israel to discuss the already moribund Arab Peace initiative can only be interpreted as another exercise in futility, gullibility and impotence.

First of all, Israel itself is utterly uninterested in any genuine peace process that would end the Israeli occupation of Palestine and bring about a just resolution of the Palestinian refugee plight.

Indeed, a country that has built hundreds of Jewish-only colonies on stolen land, and is now mutilating the West Bank with a hateful, gigantic wall that is reducing Palestinian population centers to open-air concentration camps, is obviously not interested in peace and reconciliation, neither with the Palestinian people nor with the Arab and Muslim nations.

Hence, it is only logical to expect the Arab initiative, which promises Israel full normalization of relations with Arab countries in return for a total withdrawal from the occupied territories and a just solution for the enduring refugee plight, will eventually face the same failure and same fiasco that other similar initiatives have met since the William Roger's plan in the late 1960s.

This is not to say that Israel will not want to talk with the Arab.

Israel does want to normalize relations with all Arab states and peoples from Mauritanian to Bahrain provided that they come to terms with Israel's Nazi-like colonization of Palestine and ethnic cleansing and attempted national annihilation of the Palestinian people.

The Arab League delegation, which includes Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abu al Gheith and his Jordanian counterpart, Abdul Elah Khatib, was supposed to arrive in occupied Jerusalem Thursday, 12 July. However, the Israeli government has decided to postpone the visit for at least two weeks due to "special considerations" pertaining to Israeli premier Ehud Olmert.

The postponement, some observers suggest, should be seen as a proof of Israel's disinterest, even contempt, of the visit.

Earlier, the Israeli government has asked Egypt and Jordan to expand the Arab "contact group" to include other countries such as Saudi Arabia.

There is only one interpretation of the Israeli request, namely that Israel wants to normalize relations with all Arab states, including Saudi Arabia, while the Nazi-like occupation of Palestine and the Nazi-like treatment of Palestinians remain unchanged.

Olmert, a deceitful man with virtually no moral credibility, has said that he sees "positive points" in the Arab initiative, an allusion to the normalization clause.

However, he and other members of his government have made it very clear that a complete withdrawal from the occupied territories was out of question, that ending the occupation of East Jerusalem was out of question and that allowing significant numbers of Palestinian refugees to return home was out of question.

In a certain sense, Olmert is being honest since Israel doesn't consider the West Bank "occupied" land but rather a "disputed" territory.

The fact that the West Bank is already dotted with hundreds of Jewish-only settlements, inhabited by racist-minded Talmudic fanatics who view non-Jews as animals whose lives have no sanctity or value, makes it extremely difficult if not outright impossible for any Israeli government to leave the entirety of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem..

Moreover, East Jerusalem, the contemplated capital of the contemplated but unlikely Palestinian state, has already been reduced to a ghetto, surrounded on all sides by Jewish settlements.

And given the clear drift toward religious and right-wing chauvinism among Israeli Jews, it would a kind of day-dreaming to expect Israelis to agree to give up the Arab town back to its lawful owners even in return for a 100% -peace.

More to the point, if Jerusalem is "red line" for Israelis, government and peoples alike, the implementation of the right of return for Palestinian refugees is even a redder line.

Indeed, Israel and Zionism are about expulsion and deportation and ethnic cleansing of non-Jews, and allowing the refugees to return home would be Zionism's ultimate antithesis.

Hence, a voluntary and willful acceptance by Israel of the return of a significant number of Palestinian refugees to their former homes and property in what is now Israel would be even beyond day-dreaming.

So, if Israel is going to tell the Arab League delegation "No to Jerusalem, No the right of return and no to withdrawal to the 1967 borderline," then for God's sake why dispatch a delegation to Israel in the first place.

Under such circumstances, one is prompted to ask if the Arab League and Arabs in general have to bear another humiliation at the hands of these war criminals in West Jerusalem?

This is a question I put to the Secretary-General of the Arab League Amr Mousa, who should be acquainted with the smallest details of Israeli intransigence and hostility to peace.

I realize that the Arabs might want to score a public relations achievement by showing the world that they are exhausting all possible efforts for peace and that Israel is the one that rejects peace.

But such a desperate feat will only be an expression of powerlessness and wishful thinking.

The world knows that Israel doesn't want peace, but this hypocritical and immoral world is simply not willing to call the spade a spade whenever it is in Israeli hands.

Hence, it is vital that the Arabs put an end to all these undignified and embarrassing contacts with Israel, and start exploring another strategy that would bring about both peace and freedom for Palestine.

Needless to say, this strategy lies first and foremost in achieving strategic parity with Israel, a country that understands only the language of brute force.

In the final analysis, the Arabs are acting as beggars, and beggars, as we all know, can't be choosers.

Only when the Arab and Muslim states in the Middle East possess a strategic force, will Israel start thinking about peace.

July 11, 2007 © 2007 Khalid Amayreh

Russia Pulls Out Of Arms Control Treaty

By MARIA DANILOVA
(Associated Press Writer)
July 14, 2007 4:08 AM EDT
EarthLink

MOSCOW - Russia on Saturday suspended its participation in a key European arms control treaty that governs deployment of troops on the continent, the Kremlin said.

President Vladimir Putin signed a decree suspending Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty due to "extraordinary circumstances ... which affect the security of the Russian Federation and require immediate measures," the Kremlin said in a statement.

Putin has in the past threatened to freeze his country's compliance with the treaty, accusing the United States and its NATO partners of undermining regional stability with U.S. plans for a missile defense system in former Soviet bloc countries in Eastern Europe.

The treaty, between Russian and NATO members, was signed in 1990 and amended in 1999 to reflect changes since the breakup of the Soviet Union, adding the requirement that Moscow withdraw troops from the former Soviet republics of Moldova and Georgia.

Russia has ratified the amended version, but the United States and other NATO members have refused to do so until Russia completely withdraws.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia could no longer tolerate a situation where it was complying with the treaty but its partners were not, and he expressed hope that Russia's move would induce Western nations to commit to the updated treaty.

"Such a situation contradicts Russia's interests," Peskov told The Associated Press.

"Russia continues to expect that other nations that have signed the CFE will fulfill their obligations."

The treaty is seen as a key element in maintaining stability in Europe. It establishes limitations on countries' deployment of tanks, armored combat vehicles, artillery, attack helicopters and combat aircraft.

Withdrawal from the Conventional Forces in Europe Treaty would allow Moscow to build up forces near its borders.

But Russian military analysts have said the possibility of suspending participation in the treaty was a symbolic rising of ante in the missile shield showdown more than a sign of impending military escalation.

Pavel Felgenhauer, a Moscow-based defense analyst, said the moratorium probably won't result in any major buildup of heavy weaponry in European Russia.

Russia has no actual interest in the highly costly build up of forces because it faces no real military threat and has no plans to launch an attack of its won, he said.

But, he said, it could mean an end to onsite inspections and verifications by NATO countries, which many European nations rely on to keep track of Russian deployments.

For the United States, the moratorium will mostly be a symbolic gesture, he said, since the U.S. has an extensive intelligence network that keeps close track of Russian forces.

But it will still be seen as another unfriendly move in Washington, Felgenhauer predicted.

"This will be a major irritant," he said. "It will seriously spoil relations. The kind of soothing effect from the last summit with Putin and (President) Bush will evaporate swiftly," he said referring a summit between the leaders earlier this month at the Bush family home in Kennebunkport, Maine.

Felgenhauer also said that there is no provision under the treaty for a moratorium, suggesting Russia was acting illegally...

---

Associated Press Writer Doug Birch contributed to this report.

Egypt and The Zionist Plan Of Division

By Hassan Nafaa
12 - 18 July 2007
Issue No. 853
Ahram

In his second article on key principles of Zionist strategy, Hassan Nafaa* describes how keeping Egypt weak is a lynchpin of Israel's regional ambitions

In the first instalment of what I intended would be a short series of articles, I wrote that Oded Yinon's 1982 study entitled "A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s" is the most detailed account so far of the Zionist mindset; how it works and how it aspires to manage conflict with the Arab world in a way that leads to the creation of a dominant Jewish state in the region.

My contention is that Yinon's study should be regarded as a practical manifesto of the Zionist movement, and not just the opinion of an obscure Jewish writer or a former Israeli diplomat.

Yinon's study appeared in Hebrew in Kivunim (or Directions), a publication dedicated to Jewish questions and the Zionist movement in general.

The Association of Arab American University Graduates took a special interest in this study following Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It asked Professor Israel Shahak, a well-known Israeli activist, to translate it into English. The study was republished with a foreword and epilogue by Shahak and given the title "The Zionist Plan for the Middle East", in order to show that Yinon wasn't just expressing a personal opinion.

The most disturbing thing about the Yinon's paper is Egypt's central role in the Zionist movement's strategy to dismember the Arab world.

Although the study was written about five years after former President Anwar El-Sadat visited the Knesset, four years after Egypt signed the two Camp David agreements, and three years after the Egyptian-Israeli peace treaty went into effect, and although Yinon was fully aware that Egypt's signing of a peace treaty with Israel had cost it dearly, isolating it from the rest of the Arab world and undermining its standing in the international arena, this didn't change in any way how the Zionists regarded Egypt.

Yinon was clearly convinced that no strategy to divide the Arab world would succeed without first weakening the one country that has one-third of the Arab population and that is the region's acknowledged leader. So Yinon makes a point of proving that Egypt is weak, divisible, and nothing more than a paper tiger. Egypt, he maintains, won't be able to protect the Arab world against dismemberment and ultimate downfall.

To prove his point, Yinon proffers three assumptions.

The first assumption concerns the nature of the Egyptian political system:

Yinon tries to prove that the Egyptian regime is incompetent, bankrupt and generally hapless. The state apparatus in Egypt is so bureaucratic and complex, according to Yinon, that it couldn't possibly take any initiative or achieve anything significant in any field. Although Yinon admits that the Egyptian army is an exceptional case, as it can sometimes break from the terrible grip of Egyptian bureaucracy, as it did in 1973, he claims that the rest of the country's sectors are in a miserable shape, fighting for mere survival and reproducing past mishaps in a manner that renders the entire country semi-incapacitated.

The second assumption concerns the nature of Egypt's socio-economic system:

Yinon argues that Egypt is overpopulated, short of resources, and technologically and scientifically backward to the point that it cannot provide for its population who live on a tiny geographical slice of the country's total territories. US aid has helped Egypt stay afloat, but this aid is linked to the peace process and therefore temporary. Yinon claims that the Egyptian social system is class-based and so discriminatory that a small part of the population is getting richer while the rest is getting poorer. Because Egypt's system of services, especially in education and health, is barely functioning, the country is unlikely to achieve real development in the foreseeable future, he notes.

The third assumption concerns Egypt's stability and sectarian coexistence:

Egypt, Yinon claims, is unstable because a significant Coptic minority is persecuted, marginalised, and excluded from any participation in public life. The Copts make up almost 10 per cent of the population. They are a majority in some parts of the south and have developed a tendency for isolation following the rise of fundamentalist Islam. The Copts are mostly ready for secession and would consider independence a good option, he concludes.

Based on these three assumptions -- which Yinon treats as indisputable facts -- Yinon surmises that Egypt is superficially a strong country but is actually fragile and weak. The country's weakness became apparent in 1956 and a fact known to all after the 1967 defeat, which slashed Egypt's capabilities by at least 50 per cent. Yinon says that Egypt's restoration of Sinai, with its considerable natural resources, especially in oil and gas, gave it some respite. He adds that Israel should do everything it can to prevent Egypt from fully recovering.

As part of its quest to divide the Arab world, Israel should follow a two-pronged approach to Egypt. First, it should regain control of Sinai. Secondly, it should encourage the creation of a dominantly Coptic state in Upper Egypt, Yinon suggests.

Concerning the first objective, Yinon warns Israel against adopting a policy of compromise and territorial concessions. He advises Israel against giving up any of the land it occupied.

Interestingly, Yinon makes none of the conventional arguments related to Israel's biblical claims. Instead, he offers arguments of a mainly economic nature. He says that Israel needs an increasing supply of energy, especially oil and gas, and some of the mineral resources of Sinai.

Those resources, he argues, are essential to Israel's strategy and independence.

It is not hard, however, to see through this argument. Yinon points, both implicitly and explicitly, to a long-term strategy.

Sinai is a sparsely populated area and suitable for urban development. Sinai is an area that could be used to absorb the population growth among the Palestinians of Gaza, or even to offer a lasting solution to the refugees' problem. Alternatively, Sinai could be used to house those Jewish immigrants who -- once Israel becomes the region's dominant power -- would start arriving from other parts of the world.

---

As to the Coptic issue, Yinon advises Israel to sow sedition between Egypt's Muslims and Copts with the ultimate aim of creating a dominantly Sunni Muslim state in the north and a dominantly Christian one in the south.

Yinon sees this option as the best way to weaken the central state in Egypt and deprive the Arab world of the one country that could hold it together. Once Egypt is divided, Libya and Sudan would fall apart, even without foreign intervention, he says.

I would like the young generations of Arabs, especially in Egypt, to note the timing of Yinon's study.

This study came out in February 1982, which is a few weeks after the assassination of Sadat and ahead of Israel's withdrawal from Sinai, which was completed on 25 April 1982. Israel withdrew from Sinai in the scheduled time but only after it created a phoney dispute over Taba; a dispute that it hoped it could use as pretext to recapture Sinai.

A few months after Yinon's study was released, Israel invaded Lebanon on 5 June 1982. It besieged Beirut, installed one of its allies in power, and forced him to sign a peace treaty on 17 May 1983.

Had things gone according to plan in Lebanon, and had Israel been able to impose its hegemony on the Arab world, it would have turned against Egypt once more and found a pretext to recapture Sinai.

Then it would have interfered in Egyptian domestic affairs and driven a wedge between Copts and Muslims.

I would like to remind the young people in this country that Israel's strategy was foiled only by the steadfastness of the Lebanese resistance, by the ability of that resistance to bring down the May 1983 treaty, and by subsequent Intifadas in Palestine.

This course of events is what protected Egypt, however temporarily, from the designs that Israel had in mind.

Israel's failure in Lebanon has saved the entire region from the partitioning Yinon talks about, and I will discuss this point further in my next article.

But Israel's failure didn't stop it from trying. So it tried its luck once again in Iraq -- also to no avail. Still, Israel hasn't given up, and it is not going to give up.

So I urge all our young people to read what Yinon wrote. Read his exact words and not just the account I am giving here.

* The writer is professor of political science at Cairo University.

© Copyright Al-Ahram Weekly. All rights reserved

Iran's Jews: "Our Identity Not For Sale"

Iran's Jews Reject Cash Offer To Move To Israel

· Expats Offer Families £30,000 To Emigrate

· Our identity is not for sale, say community leaders

By Robert Tait in Tehran
Thursday July 12, 2007
Guardian

Iran's Jews have given the country a loyalty pledge in the face of cash offers aimed at encouraging them to move to Israel, the arch-enemy of its Islamic rulers.

The incentives — ranging from £5,000 a person to £30,000 for families — were offered from a special fund established by wealthy expatriate Jews in an effort to prompt a mass migration to Israel from among Iran's 25,000-strong Jewish community.

The offers were made with Israel's official blessing and were additional to the usual state packages it provides to Jews emigrating from the diaspora.

However, the Society of Iranian Jews dismissed them as "immature political enticements" and said their national identity was not for sale.

"The identity of Iranian Jews is not tradeable for any amount of money," the society said in a statement.

"Iranian Jews are among the most ancient Iranians. Iran's Jews love their Iranian identity and their culture, so threats and this immature political enticement will not achieve their aim of wiping out the identity of Iranian Jews."

The Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv reported that the incentives had been doubled after earlier offers of £2,500 a head failed to attract any Iranian Jews to leave for Israel.

Iran's sole Jewish MP, Morris Motamed, said the offers were insulting and put the country's Jews under pressure to prove their loyalty.

"It suggests the Iranian Jew can be encouraged to emigrate by money," he said.

"Iran's Jews have always been free to emigrate and three-quarters of them did so after the revolution but 70% of those went to America, not Israel."

Iran's Jewish population has dwindled from around 80,000 at the time of the 1979 Islamic revolution but remains the largest of any country in the Middle East apart from Israel. Jews have lived in Iran since at least 700BC.

Jews generally avoid political controversy, but Mr Motamed wrote a letter of protest to Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, last year after he called the Holocaust "a myth".

...Jews are free to practise their religion and have their own schools, although they are forced to open on Saturdays, the Jewish sabbath.

Despite the absence of diplomatic ties with Israel, Iranian Jews frequently go there to visit relatives.

Special Reports:
Iran
Israel and the Middle East

World News Guide:
Iran

The Spreading deMOCKracy Hypocrisy Of The West

Fading U.S. Democracy Agenda Evokes Arab Scorn

By Alistair Lyon,
Special Correspondent - Analysis
Fri Jul 13, 2007 7:37AM EDT
Reuters

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Western backing for the legally disputed emergency government of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has demolished any lingering Arab belief that U.S. President George W. Bush's "freedom agenda" is going anywhere.

Both critics and advocates of the sweeping goals he laid out for his second term in 2005 agree that power politics and the "war on terrorism" have trumped democratic principles.

They say this was clear from the moment the United States and the European Union boycotted the government set up by Hamas in March 2006 after the Islamists trounced Abbas's Fatah faction in free elections that Washington had insisted go ahead.

"That was the hair in the soup in terms of the democracy agenda," said Lebanese commentator Michael Young, who had supported Bush's thesis that invading Iraq in 2003 would undermine undemocratic Arab regimes elsewhere.

"The U.S. response (to Hamas's election win) was: 'we'll accept democracy but not if it means the other side can win'."

Now, Washington has embraced as "legitimate" the cabinet Abbas named after Hamas routed his Fatah forces in Gaza on June 14.

The EU also endorsed Abbas's actions as constitutional.

Yet the main authors of the Palestinian constitution, or Basic Law, say Abbas has exceeded his powers and needs the approval of parliament to keep the government in place.

Many Palestinians feel the West had already trampled on their democracy in its rush to isolate Hamas for its refusal to recognize Israel, abandon violence or accept past peace accords.

"The Palestinians were immediately rewarded by the 'democracies' of the world with an unprecedented crippling siege as a punishment for the exercise of their democratic right," Anis al-Qasem, who led the framing of Basic Law, said this week.

SELECTIVE PRINCIPLES?

Across the Middle East, foes of the West accuse it of double standards. Arab reformers say U.S. actions undercut their cause.

"Issues of legality and legitimacy are completely irrelevant in U.S. eyes," said Rami Khouri, a Beirut-based commentator.

These values had been sidelined in a U.S.-led struggle with two distinct groups -- "al Qaeda terrorist types" and mainstream Islamists engaged at least partly in electoral politics, such as Hamas, Lebanon's Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood, he added.

...While penalizing the elected Hamas government, Bush lauds Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora for defending a "young democracy" against Hezbollah and its patrons, Syria and Iran.

But Hezbollah, while fielding an anti-Israel guerrilla force, also belongs to a strong parliamentary opposition of Christian and Shi'ite factions that challenges the legitimacy of the cabinet backed by Siniora's Sunni, Christian and Druze bloc.

In practice, analysts say, Washington has eased whatever post-9/11 pressure for reform it had exerted on countries like Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Jordan because it wants their help in confronting Iran's nuclear ambitions and stabilizing Iraq.

REALITY MUGS RHETORIC

"The Bush administration's policy toward democracy in the Muslim countries is essentially bankrupt," former State Department official David Mack, who is now Vice President of the Middle East Institute in Washington, told Reuters.

Bush's pledge in his 2005 inaugural speech to promote reform by making U.S. relations with other countries hinge on "the decent treatment of their own people" had proved untenable.

"It never could have happened," Mack said. "All we did, from the point of view of democracy advocates, was raise unachievable expectations and behave in a hypocritical manner."

Bush said the United States would keep reminding its Middle East allies that "we want them to work toward freer societies".

But such ideals had never been the sole driver of U.S. policy, Young argued. "Even in 2003 when they went into Iraq, there was always a large element of power politics.

...Far more Arabs would argue that invading and occupying Iraq, with its echoes of Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, fatally compromised any prospects of igniting liberty elsewhere.

Arab mistrust of U.S. policy is now so deep that dissidents in countries like Syria have to expend much energy dissociating themselves from it to retain any credibility at home.

With the EU largely following Washington's lead, notably towards Hamas, Arab reformers feel their struggle may be forlorn if the West is willing to tolerate corrupt, authoritarian rulers as long as they are U.S.-friendly and cooperative on terrorism.

"The international community has to decide: are we going to barter reforms and democracy for pro-Western (governments)?" asked Khalil Gebara, of the Lebanese Transparency Association.

© Reuters 2007.

India and Israel To Co-Produce Missile System

Report: India, Israel To Jointly Develop $2.4 Billion Missile System

By Haaretz Staff
Last Update - 17:15 13/07/2007
Haaretz

India and Israel will jointly develop a new generation of medium-range surface-to-air missiles in a $2.47 billion project that India hopes will secure its strategic assets, Indian newspapers reported this week.

India's Cabinet Committee on Security approved the joint venture Thursday, according to Indian newspaper The Economic Times.

In an article Friday, The Times of India called the project "yet another indicator that Indo-Israeli strategic ties are zooming full-steam ahead, with India buying Israeli military equipment worth a whopping $1.6 billion just in 2006 alone."

The missile system, which is expected to take four to five years to develop, is capable of detecting and destroying aircraft, missiles and drones at a range of 70 kilometers, the Times of India reported.

It quoted an unnamed source as saying that each of the 18 firing units will come equipped with a command and control center, an acquisition radar, a guidance radar and three launchers with eight missiles each.

The missile system development is an extension of a $480 million Israel Aerospace Industries project, launched in January 2006, to develop a supersonic 60-kilometer missile defense system for the Indian navy, the paper said.

Chertoff's "Gut Feeling"

Keith Olbermann gives us another one of his priceless Special Comments on Michael Chertoff's (Director Of America's Department Of Homeland Security) "gut feeling" speculation regarding another terror attack on U.S. soil...

Were The Dutch Hoodwinked?

Uruzgan, Were The Dutch Hoodwinked?

By Louise Dunne
11-07-2007
RadioNetherlands

Listen to the full report (mp3)

Tuesday's suicide attack in southern Afghanistan, which left at least 17 civilians dead and a number of Dutch soldiers injured, has again raised questions about Dutch involvement in Afghanistan. A year ago, the deployment of Dutch troops in the Afghan province of Uruzgan was widely seen as primarily a reconstruction mission but it's becoming clearer by the day that this is a military operation with all the attendant risks.

It's not the case that NATO's stated aim in Afghanistan has changed but public perception here in The Netherlands has, with reports of deaths and casualties a rude awakening for many. So how did this original misperception arise? Were Dutch voters hoodwinked by the politicians into supporting a fighting force dressed in the sheep's clothing of peacekeepers?

The Original ISAF Mission

The International Security Assistance Force's (ISAF) primary role is to support the government of Afghanistan in providing and maintaining a secure environment in order to facilitate the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

The official NATO statement on the purpose of the ISAF seems clear enough: establish security so rebuilding can begin. And security means fighting. But in the run-up to the 2006 decision to participate in the mission, the government put the emphasis on reconstruction.

While some opposition parties pressed the cabinet on the dangers involved, it was ultimately the prospect of helping to rebuild Afghanistan which won a majority of parliamentarians over.

But was this naivety or a more calculated attempt to "sell" a controversial decision to the voters?

Different Views

Marico Peters, defence spokesperson for the opposition GreenLeft party:

"People are feeling deceived by the government. What they initially thought of as a reconstruction mission is in fact a fighting mission. It is partly a naive idealism, but partly I think it was also political opportunity.

From the outset the mission was controversial and in order to obtain parliamentary approval the government had to redesign the mission to make it look like a reconstruction mission."

Hans van Baalen, of the conservative VVD party, is less critical of this "soft sell" approach. Van Baalen insists that it's impossible to predict what will happen in a war-like situation.

"I don't believe that the Dutch cabinet or NATO tried to mislead the public or parliament in The Netherlands. No, today it is more or less a fighting mission with reconstruction as follow-up. That has nothing to do with misleading but with changing circumstances and trying to look at it from the brightest side instead of being more realistic."

Blind Spot

But Dick Pels, a sociologist and political commentator in The Netherlands, believes both the Dutch public and the politicians have a blind spot when it comes to this sort of decision.

"This has something to do with the Dutch national character, maybe our pacifist history, but we're not prepared to think hard about war. I think we were all shocked by what happened in Srebrenica when the Dutch army was unable to prevent the killing of about 7,000 Muslim men. This made us re-think what our army actually is.

And I think most politicians were not prepared to see that inevitably we would have to fight. The 'yes' to the mission was expressed on the basis of this optimistic notion. But there was also a selling operation, a spin operation going on in order to sell this difficult and costly mission to the Dutch voter."

A Successful Spin

If it was a spin operation, it was a successful one. Dutch troops were deployed in the Afghan province of Uruzgan in August last year, and since then it's become clear that those troops are too busy with security to offer much in the way of assistance.

This makes the debate about extending the mission beyond its current 2008 deadline a controversial one. Now that it's clear the Dutch are in Afghanistan to fight, how will the government persuade the country to accept the dangers of staying on? Van Baalen has no doubts about the importance of the mission:

"We are fighting terrorism in the interests of the West, in the interest of Europe, in the interests of The Netherlands itself. So we're not - and let us be honest - not in Afghanistan for the well-being of the Afghan people. It is essentially a counter-terrorist fight and that's in our own best interest."

Non-Flyer

But is this an argument that will be acceptable to Dutch voters? Dick Pels doesn't think it will fly.

"Afghanistan is a very different country from Iraq and the war in Iraq is very different from the war in Afghanistan. So I don't think it will be successful if Hans van Baalen repeats his argument that we are here at war with al-Qaeda.

"Also, because we started the mission with the humanitarian inspiration and ambition, it will be difficult to switch to that more warlike notion of military intervention in a far-away country."

Finding The Line Between Propaganda and Truth

Opinions on whether the ISAF mission can be seen as an important element of the war on terror will inevitably differ. Mariko Peters isn't convinced by the government's rhetoric and doesn't think the public will be either.

"People have now become a little bit more sceptical about the strategies that the government presents to them because they have seen how what has been earlier sold as a reconstruction mission was in fact not. If you are fighting a war on terror then we should be honest about it.

"And then the government runs into problems because it denies it is solely about terrorism. It wants to sell the mission as a reconstruction mission. So there we run into the problem that democracy often runs into, that whatever is being sold sometimes turns out to be propaganda instead of the truth of what we are doing."

The line between propaganda and truth is sometimes hard to determine, the only sure thing is that there are going to be some fireworks in the Dutch parliament when the extension of the mission is debated later this summer.

Related Articles:

Is it time for regime change in Zimbabwe?
A German Guantanamo?
Dutch ISAF troops 'failing'
Luck runs out for the Dutch in Uruzgan

External Links:

NATO in Afghanistan
International Security Assistance Force
Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs newsflashes

MI5 Left Terrorist To Acquire Explosive & Recruits

How MI5 Left Ringleader Free To Acquire Recruits and Explosives

By Sean O’Neill and Michael Evans
July 11, 2007
TimesOnLine

A ten-man MI5 team followed the ringleader of the 21/7 bombers on the night he left Britain for terrorist training in Pakistan, The Times has learnt.

The Security Service was also alerted when Muktar Said Ibrahim returned to Britain three months later, but allowed him to enter the country unhindered.

Ibrahim, who tried to blow up a No 26 bus on July 21, 2005, will be sentenced with his three accomplices – Yassin Omar, Hussein Osman and Ramzi Mohammed – at Woolwich Crown Court today for conspiracy to murder.

...As new details emerge of apparent security failures that left Ibrahim free to carry out the attacks, there are growing demands for an explanation from the authorities.

Counter-terrorist sources have told The Times that Ibrahim was driven to Heathrow on December 11, 2004, by an Iraqi man who was a high-priority terrorist suspect. Their car was being followed.

The man, Rauf Mohammed, has been named in Home Office documents as being “actively engaged” in providing support to the insurgency in Iraq.

Ibrahim, 29, met the Iraqi through an East London mosque run by an ultra-orthodox Islamic sect and his association with Rauf Mohammed was the clearest indication that he was being turned from a street-corner activist into a possible terrorist threat.

The connection with Rauf Mohammed led to Ibrahim and his two travelling companions – who later died fighting in Iraq – being questioned at the airport by Special Branch.

While they were being interviewed, Rauf Mohammed was tailed as he drove back into London.

In evidence given at his subsequent trial, the surveillance officers reported that he spotted them, abandoned his car and spent several hours trying to shake them off using practised counter-surveillance techniques.

The Iraqi was later subjected to a deportation attempt, charged, tried and acquitted of terrorist offences, and then placed under a strict control order.

Despite his links with this prominent terrorist suspect, Ibrahim was not stopped or questioned when he returned to Heathrow on March 8, 2005, after being trained to make explosives and groomed by al-Qaeda to be a suicide bomber.

Security sources have confirmed that they were alerted to Ibrahim’s return to the country but it seems he was not subjected to round-the-clock surveillance.

One security source said: “He was regarded as a low-key follow-up. He wasn’t forgotten about, but the intelligence on him was not as worrying as it was on a whole host of others who were being watched at full tilt.”

If there was any form of monitoring or intelligence-gathering, it missed that Ibrahim was recruiting a cell of suicide bombers and making bulk purchases of hydrogen peroxide to manufacture bombs.

...Deputy Assistant Commissioner Peter Clarke, head of Scotland Yard’s Counter Terrorism Command, said that the four men convicted of the 21/7 attacks...:

“These men obviously set out to replicate the horrors that had been inflicted on Londoners on July 7, 2005,” Mr Clarke said. “But this was no spur-of-the-moment plan. It had been hatched over several months. They failed to set off their bombs – not through want of trying."

The Warning Signs:

May 04 Muktar Said Ibrahim is photographed by police at a training camp in the Lake District; Yassin Hassan Omar, Hussein Osman and Ramzi Mohammed are also present

Aug 04 Police photograph Ibrahim during a disturbance at the Finsbury Park mosque in North London

Sept 04 Ibrahim is given a British passport despite having a criminal record

Oct 04 He is arrested at extremist bookstall in Oxford Street, London; charged with public order offence

Dec 04 Special Branch officers question Ibrahim as he is en route to Pakistan

Feb 05 A warrant is issued for Ibrahim’s arrest over the Oxford Street charges

March 05 Ibrahim returns to Britain from Pakistan

How Terror Lost Its Meaning

Courtesy Of: CounterPunch
By John Chuckman
Friday, July 13, 2007

Why does terror dominate our headlines and the attention of our governments going on six years after 9/11?

The answer cannot be what George Bush says that it is: it is the fault of people who hate democracy and freedom.

We know this for a great many reasons. One of the world's oldest terrorist organizations, the IRA, had no interest in British government and society. It was interested only in being free of their control.

We know Bush is wrong also because the people who genuinely hate democracy and freedom--the world's oligarchs, dictators, and strongmen--are people who hate terror themselves because it threatens their security.

Strong absolute states have no tolerance for terror. The Soviet Union never had a serious problem with terror, neither did East Germany, nor did Hussein's Iraq.

Absolute states are also frequently supported by, or allied to, the United States, presumably for reasons other than promoting terror. We don't need to go into the long history of the Cold War to find this. It remains true following 9/11. Contemporary examples include Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Egypt.

Bush is wrong, too, because all evidence, whether from polls or interviews or writing, shows that people living in lands without democracy overwhelmingly would embrace freedom were it available to them.

...We also know, despite truckloads of publicity saying otherwise, that terror is not by any measure one of the world's great problems.

The number of people killed in the World Trade Center, the largest terrorist attack by far, was less than one month's carnage on America's highways.

It was equivalent of about two months of America's murdering Americans on the nation's streets.

Terror is intended to frighten and intimidate people, its secrecy and methods calculated to make deaths, even a small number of them, more shocking than everyday deaths.

But if we look at societies that have undergone horrors beyond most people's ability to imagine, horrors greater than any modern terror, we find something very interesting.

Life in London carried on during the Blitz.

Germany maintained a huge armaments production despite thousand-plane raids day and night.

The people of Leningrad, despite 800,000 deaths from being shelled and starved during the German siege, managed to carry on a kind of society.

People in Sarajevo made do through a long and agonizing terror.

Even the seemingly-hopeless inmates of death camps often made remarkable efforts to maintain some semblance of normality.

Perhaps the greatest terror experience in modern history was American carpet-bombing in Vietnam. We know from Vietnamese war veterans that these were their most feared events.

They were horrific, and the United States left Vietnam having killed something like 3 million people, mostly civilians.

But it did leave, and the people it bombed so horribly won a terrible war.

Now all of these experiences, plus many more we could cite, have the elements of randomness for victims and methods that just could not be much more horrible.

They all are experiences in terror in the broadest sense.

What they tell us is that terror does not work, despite its ability to make people miserable.

Terror as we traditionally think of it is a method of redress or vengeance for those without great armies or powerful weapons, those at a great disadvantage vis-à-vis some powerful oppressor or opponent.

Generally the grievances behind terrorist acts are reasonable demands that have been ignored or have even been suppressed for long periods of time.

Although sometimes, they are unreasonable demands, but in this they are no different than the grievances that often lead to wars or invasions or occupations by powerful states.

Terror generally kills innocent people, something no decent-minded person can accept, but what is always forgotten in the press and government treatment of terror as something alien and unimaginably bad, is that war in the contemporary world does precisely the same thing.

We have a powerful trend over the last century shifting the victims of war from armed forces to civilians.

In World War I, there were many civilian deaths, but most of went on at the front was the killing of soldiers.

By the time of Vietnam, and even more so Iraq, literally most of the deaths are civilians, overwhelmingly so.

The fire-bombing and nuclear-bombing of cities during World War II marked the first great shift, returning military operations effectively to the world Before the Common Era when sacking and raping cities was ordinary.

Why has this happened?

The chief reason is increasingly destructive weapons capable of being used from a great distance. Those pressing the buttons not only don't see what they are doing in any detail, but the damage of which they are capable increases every year. A single plane today can drop enough munitions to destroy utterly a small town. In 1917, a plane could carry enough munitions to destroy a small house, if the pilot were lucky about air currents and other variables.

America makes claims about using 'smart' weapons, but these claims are highly deceptive.

First, smart weapons are costly, and most bombs dropped are still 'dumb' ones.

The percentage used in the first Gulf War, a time when there were many press conferences glorifying precision weapons, was on the order of five percent smart weapons.

Second, smart weapons require excellent intelligence, something you cannot have under many circumstances.

The infamous bomb-shelter event in Baghdad during the first Gulf War, which incinerated four hundred civilians in an instant, happened because American officials thought there were party officials hiding there, but they were wrong.

Third, even with intelligence, decisions are made which are poor ones. The Baghdad bomb shelter is an example here, too.

Even were there some party officials there, killing nearly four hundred others to get them was the kind of savage decision Israel so often makes to its shame.

Fourth, smart weapons do make mistakes with chips or programming or flight controls that are faulty.

Fifth, the better the weapons get, the more the temptation to use them, and the more they will be misused by poor judgment and poor intelligence.

There is no prospect in our lifetime that so-called precision weapons can change the tendency towards killing civilians rather than soldiers.

Terrible weapons are under constant research efforts at improvement.'

The United States has developed gigantic flammable-liquid bombs, the size and weight of trucks.
It is busy developing compact nuclear warheads that are, in the view of the kind of people associated with George Bush, both useable and practical.

The problem with modern weapons is not only their great power and complete removal of users from ghastly results, it is their capacity to alter the psychology and morality of those possessing them.

Where great power exists, it tends to be used, sooner or later.

This intuitive idea was part of the reason in the eighteenth century for opposing large standing armies. Expert historians have attributed at least part of the cause of World War I to huge standing armies and a ferocious arms race.

It is hard to think of a horrible weapon that has not been used fairly soon after its development: the flame thrower, poison gas, germ warfare, machine guns, landmines, cluster bombs, napalm, and nuclear weapons.

Imagine the psychology of politicians and war planners in Washington, sitting in air-conditioned offices, perhaps just returned from expense-account lunches, discussing developments in, say, Iraq. They don't see or hear or smell the misery of a people without sanitation or electricity these having been deliberately destroyed by the United States in the previous Gulf War and never repaired. These planners, looking at charts on their expensive laptops, only know from certain graphs that they have what they see as a problem and that they have the ability to reduce it or make it go away, almost like wishing away something you don't like.

The solution comes down to such pragmatic considerations as to whether Tomahawks or B-52s or a wing of fighter-bombers will best meet the need,' and perhaps the availability of each, and perhaps even comparative benefit-cost ratios (kills per buck), also charted on their laptops.

If this isn't the banality of evil, I don't know what is.

And when the planners decide which weapon or combination of weapons will best alter the graph, the orders go out, the buttons are pressed, and no one but the poor half-starved people living in dust and squalor have any idea of what actually happens, which people in the neighborhood have their bodies torn apart or incinerated, which houses are destroyed, which children mutilated.

The people who carry out these acts see only puffs of distant smoke.

This is modern war as practiced by an advanced society.

On a smaller scale than Iraq, we've all read the endless reports of Israeli incursions and assassinations: an entire family wiped out on a beach by distant shelling, an apartment building full of families hit by a missile intended for one resident, pedestrians cut into pieces as a missile hits a targeted car on a crowded street.

All of it is put down to stopping terror, all of it is done from a safe distance, all of it kills mainly civilians, and all of it is indistinguishable from terror.

If challenged today for a definition of terror, I doubt anyone could produce a sound one that limits the meaning to the acts of those constantly in our headlines. Rather those acts are now reduced to special cases of something a great deal larger.

Which was the more ghastly act of terror, 9/11 or the invasion of Iraq?

9/11 killed about 3,000 people and destroyed a building. The invasion of Iraq killed more than 600,000, destroyed the irreplaceable records and artefacts of an ancient civilization, and left a nation of more than 20 million desperate for work, clean water, and electricity.

And it should be stressed that although 9/11 came first, there were no connections between these events, except that the one was used as an excuse for the other.

When we hear the word terror in the news, we are conditioned to think that only civilians have died, but how is it different now for news of an attack by American forces or a reprisal raid from the Israeli army?

It isn't.

We know immediately that civilians die every single time. Indeed, what we often do not know is whether any "bad guys" were killed.

Immigrants Are Better Citizens Than Brits

By JAMES SLACK
Friday, July 13, 2007
Daily Mail

Immigrants are "better citizens" than those born in Britain, a migration expert has said.

The extraordinary attack came from Keith Best, head of the Immigration Advisory Service - a government-backed charity which receives £13million of public money every year.

The former Tory MP was responding to an article in the Mail revealing that a foreigner is granted a UK passport every five minutes.

He said: "These people have actively sought British citizenship because they want to make a contribution to the UK.

"I am not sure how many people born in this country have the same commitment. The tests for citizenship are greater than they have ever been.

"We are now turning immigrants into better citizens than people born with a British passport."

...The IAS recently called for an end to restrictions on the number of Romanians and Bulgarians allowed into the country.

It has also demanded an amnesty for illegal immigrants, despite fears such a move would encourage those who plan to enter the country illegally.

Mr Best unleashed his attack in response to the revelation that more than a million migrants have been handed passports over the past decade - an average of 102,000 every year.

...The row came as the Home Office defended the rate at which citizenship is being granted.

A spokesman said: "The Government strongly believes that the UK should encourage those that are settled in the UK to play a full part in their wider community and that the acquisition of British citizenship is a key part of a successful integration into society.

"The process to citizenship must be a gold standard. Anyone applying for citizenship must first meet the Government's strict criteria."

Minister: Wife Beating Sicilian Custom

Thu. Jul. 12, 2007
IslamOnLine

ROME — Italian Interior Minister Giuliano Amato was in hot water Wednesday, July 11, after asserting that wife-beating, usually associated with Islam, was an old "Sicilian-Pakistani" custom.

"No God authorizes a man to beat his wife," Amato said in a speech cited by Reuters.

"This is a Sicilian-Pakistani tradition which tries to make it seem that the contrary is true."

He later tried to clarify his remarks, saying he was referring to "a Sicily that no longer exists".

Yet the remarks drew heavy fire from politicians.

Sicilian deputy, Ignazio La Russa from the rightist opposition, said that Amato "in order not to offend his Muslim interlocutors had invented that in Sicily there is or was a tradition of permitting violence against women in God's name".

MP Rino Piscitello from the ruling centre-left Rino Piscitello called on the minister to apologize.

"I am sure Giuliano Amato will correct his comments and apologize to Sicilians."

He said that Amato probably had "the best intentions" in his speech.

Amato has been championing efforts to integrate different communities into Italian society.

He wrote a "Charter of Values" for immigrants with guidelines on issues such as women's rights and knowledge of Italian language and culture.

Italy has a Muslim population of some 1.2 million, including 20,000 reverts.

Prejudice:

Amato, who served as premier twice, said that the Islamic culture was still "alien" to Italians, resulting in prejudices against the Muslim minority.

"Italians know what it is like to be confused with Mafiosi and when they first emigrated abroad ... parents changed their children's surnames to avoid them being singled out," he said.

In Islam, the word "beating" of wives does not mean "physical abuse".

"The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) explained the word to mean 'a light tap that leaves no mark'," Muzammil Siddiqi, former President of the Islamic Society of North America, told IslamOnline.net.

He added that the Prophet always discouraged his followers from taking even this measure.

"He never hit any female, and he used to say that the best of men are those who do not hit their wives."

Italians See Mosque As "Occupation"

Courtesy Of: IslamOnLine
Mon. Jan. 22, 2007

COLLE DI VAL D'ELSA, Italy — Despite assurances from Muslims and support by the mayor, the construction of a mosque in Italy's honey-colored town of Colle di Val d'Elsa is being strongly opposed by locals, some seeing the Muslim worship place as a symbol of "occupation".

"This is not a big city and we don't know if there will be an invasion of Muslims," Letizia Franceschi, a lawyer who leads the protests against the mosque, told Reuters on Monday, January 22.

"Unfortunately, it is written in all the national newspapers that in many mosques they preach hatred and teach activities that are illegal in our country."

As construction started last month in the town park, a severed pig's head was found outside the mosque site in an apparent mafia-style intimidation effort against the project.

---

Locals have set up tents outside the site to protest the mosque constructions, welcoming support from many driving by.

"Yes to integration, No to occupation," said a sign carried by the protesters.

"There's just no need for a big mosque here," said resident Tiziana Cervelli.

"This is a little town."

Opponents of the project complain it takes up too much space in a communal park.

The one-million Muslim minority has been frequently attacked by Italy's rightist opposition.

This month, the anti-immigrant Northern League Senator Roberto Calderoli called for a crackdown on the "strange" and "subversive" activities of Islamic centers.

Politicized:

Mayor Paolo Brogioni defended the mosque constructions.

"The Muslims are just as much residents of the town as any other," said the centre-leftist mayor.

The town has rejected two requests for a referendum on the issue.

"A wall between the two communities is the last thing we want," asserted Brogioni.

The 400-strong Muslim minority in Colle di Val d'Elsa, which lies in the heart of Tuscany, also sought to calm down residents' fears.

"The construction of this mosque has unfortunately become politicized, making it easy to create controversies and accusations," said imam Feras Jabareen.

"Rome has the biggest mosque in Europe -- do people think Muslims come to Rome just because it has the biggest mosque? That's absurd."

Jabareen has tried to show locals that they have nothing to fear, to no avail.

Seeking to temper down the locals' fears, the Muslim minority signed Italy's only existing declaration of cooperation with the town hall.

They also planted a Christmas tree at the mosque site in a goodwill gesture.

The Muslim minority also tried to answer the funding questions front-paged by some local newspapers.

Jabareen said that a quarter of the roughly one million euros needed for the mosque comes from a foundation that controls prominent Tuscan bank Banca Monte dei Paschi di Siena.

The information was confirmed by the bank.

The rest of the funds comes from private sources within the country with nothing from abroad, added the Muslim imam.

Muslims have for years been praying in a small, dark room with Oriental rugs on the floor and pictures of the holy city of Al-Madinah on the walls.

If completed, Colle di Val d'Elsa's mosque will become only the fourth major mosque in Italy.

Italian Interior Minister Minister Giuliano has pushed for tighter control of foreign funds for local mosques.

The United Nations racism envoy warned last year that the European country faced a "disturbing and profound trend of xenophobia".

Despite Plots, Britons See Peaceful Islam

By IOL Staff
Thu. Jul. 12, 2007
IslamOnLine

CAIRO — The majority of Britons and Scotts still retain a positive view of Islam as a religion of peace despite the damage done to its image by the recent terrorist plots in London and Glasgow, according to a new poll released Thursday, July 12.

"Despite the failed car bomb attacks, 60 percent of people believe that Islam is fundamentally a religion of peace," said Paul Woolley, director of Theos think tank which conducted the poll.

The Scotts are the most positive of all regions towards Islam, the poll found.

Nearly 69 percent of Scottish respondents believe Islam is a religion of peace against only 7 percent who don't.

"The swift condemnation of the attacks and the active stance taken by Muslim leaders against extremism has clearly helped to build confidence and national solidarity," said Woolley.

...The umbrella Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) organized on Saturday, July 7, a high-profile meeting of senior Muslim community leaders and imams to discuss radicalism in Britain.

A declaration issued by participants strongly condemned the Glasgow and London plots and urged all Britons, Muslim and non-Muslims, to stand united against the threat of terrorism.

A recent Populus survey showed that an overwhelming 93 percent of British Muslims think that suicide attacks on civilians in the UK cannot be justified and 86 percent rejected targeting military establishments.

It found a whooping 98 percent of those polled said they would feel shame if a family member decided to join Al-Qaeda.

Damaged:

The Theos survey, however, found that the failed attacks have harmed the image of the Islamic faith.

More than seven in ten people (71%) believe that the attacks have given Islam a bad name.

Nearly 54 percent also said that the attacks have damaged the reputation of the faith in general.
The survey found that young people are the most group likely to see Islam as a violent religion.

Nearly 28 percent of 18-24 year olds believe Islam is fundamentally a religion of war which sits uneasily with modern Western culture compared with 17 percent of the overall population and only 13 percent of those aged 65.

Less than half of all 18-24 year olds (48%) see Islam as a religion of peace, compared with 60 percent or over for every other age group, the poll found.

"The trend that will alarm the Government and community groups most is that young people, who are generally more positive about spirituality, are so much more negative about Islam than the population as a whole," said Woolley.

He called for closer cooperation between the government and Muslim leaders to help avoid deteriorating ties with the Muslim minority, estimated at nearly 2 million.

"This is something that we should be concerned about if we are to foster social cohesion and avoid any ‘clash of civilizations’," said Woolley.

"We need to build opportunities for mutual understanding and co-operation and avoid simplistic and knee-jerk reactions."

Click to Read the Poll

The West Will Fail

By Sarah Smiles and Brendan Nicholson
July 11, 2007
TheAge

AS PESSIMISM grows in the US about Iraq, the American commander there has warned that the war will take many years to win and a former top CIA officer has told a Sydney conference that defeat is inevitable in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Michael Scheuer, who headed the CIA's bin Laden unit until 2004, said the West was losing the global battle against Muslim insurgents.

Mr Scheuer said the US and its allies had failed to commit enough troops to win and did not understand the grievances motivating Muslim insurgents.

"We in the West are fighting an enemy we have woefully chosen to misunderstand and to whom we are losing hands down and on every front," he said.

Mr Scheuer said the US and its allies continually became involved in Middle East wars because of their reliance on Arab oil supplies and had little other interest in the region.

The US had tried "to do Afghanistan on the cheap" and that defeat there was "just around the corner," he said.

Mr Scheuer's bleak declaration came as the US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said the war in Iraq could last for many years.

General Petraeus said the new "surge" strategy involving 30,000 extra US troops was having a positive effect in parts of Baghdad and the surrounding areas but such operations in places such as Northern Ireland took decades.

"I don't know whether this will be decades but the average counter-insurgency is somewhere around a nine or a 10-year endeavour."

General Petraeus said the big question was how US troops could be reduced to lessen the strain on the army and on the nation.

There is growing pessimism in the US about the chances of success in Iraq and the Washington Post reported yesterday that President George Bush was planning to begin reducing troop numbers next year.

Top officials in Washington had begun explaining to worried Republicans the President's plan for "post-surge" Iraq that would eventually involve bringing troops home.

Mr Scheuer said there was no hope of bringing democracy to Iraq or Afghanistan without a much greater commitment to defeat insurgents.

He said the West's biggest mistake in the war on terror was to ignore the grievances of Islamic insurgents.

He said Western politicians, including Prime Minister John Howard, deceived the public by suggesting that terrorists were motivated only by hatred for freedoms enjoyed in the West.

Mr Howard had "warbled" the "wildly inaccurate ditty" that the London bombers were
motivated by a hatred of Western culture, Mr Scheuer said.

He said Al-Qaeda was motivated by anger towards US foreign policy in the Middle East rather than by hatred for Western culture.

That included the US military presence in the region, its backing of tyrannical Arab regimes and "unqualified" support for Israel.

Mr Scheuer said the United States needed to increase its troops and take a heavy-handed, "brutal" approach to beat insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan — or leave.

Red Mosque Crisis: Beginning Not End

By Aamir Latif,
IOL Correspondent
Thu. Jul. 12, 2007
IslamOnLine

ISLAMABAD — The bloody finale of the lingering Red Mosque crisis that bit controversial scholars and their militant students against the regime is not the end of President Pervez Musharraf's trouble but rather just the start of a more different chapter, analysts believe.

"This is not end of the crisis. Pakistan will have to bear the repercussions of this operation in future," Ishtiaq Ahmad, associate professor of international relations at Quaid-I-Azam International University Islamabad, told IslamOnline.net.

"If government has the same approach to root out religious extremism, then we will see more showdowns like Red Mosque in near future, if not in Islamabad then elsewhere," he anticipated.

...Ghazi's elder brother Abdul Aziz, the leader of the mosque who was captured last week, vowed that the battle was not over.

"I lost my brother, my students, for the enforcement of Islamic Shari`ah," he told mourners.

"Ghazi and all those who died in the mosque are shaheed (martyrs). My wife and daughters are in custody but this will not stop us from struggling for an Islamic system."

Army Protoges:

Experts believe that the Red Mosque standoff would spur more trouble.

"Religious extremism has been posing a potential threat to Pakistan," said professor Ahmad.

"I believe that the Red Mosque operation will fan this extremism. One high-profile operation like Red Mosque cannot root out this threat."

..."It's the beginning of crisis. And if the current status-quo prevails, the situation will further aggravate," Sabihuddin Ghousi, a Karachi-based analyst, told IOL.

He raised various questions about the Red Mosque operation.

"How such a huge quantity of weapons was piled up in Red Mosque, which is located in the heart of capital? Why has the government been turning a blind eye to the issue for so long?

The Red Mosque students, who reportedly built bunkers and trenches to hold off the army commandos, used heavy weapons including rocket launchers and machine guns to combat government forces.

"Who was patronizing Ghazi brothers, who had been challenging the government's writ for last six months under the nose of President House?" asked Ghousi.

"Unless we have answers to these questions, there are least chances of any improvement. The government has to look for answers of these questions no matter, if its own people are found guilty."

Ghousi holds the successive military regimes responsible for increasing religious extremism in Pakistan.

"Military regimes can't be absolved of the responsibility. It began with the proxy war against USSR in Afghanistan, where we were used for US interest. Then the US left us alone to face the consequences of that proxy war in the form of religious extremism, weapons and drugs."

Professor Ahmad shares the same analysis.

"This is the sequel of Jihad against defunct USSR in 1980s, Jihad in Kashmir in 1990s, and the traditional so-called Mullah-military alliance in Pakistan," he said.

The Ghazi brothers were known to have had ties with Pakistan's shadowy intelligence agencies.

They and their late father, who founded the mosque, were claimed to be proteges of Pakistani intelligence during Afghanistan's 1979-89 anti-Soviet jihad and later in supporting the Taliban rise to power.

..."Nobody has emerged as the winner. When so many lives are lost, then those who conducted the operation, and those who miscalculated the situation, both arelooser."

Polarization:

Ghazi Salahuddin, a senior political analyst, believes the Red Mosque operation will deepen the differences between religious and liberal forces in the country.

"There might be a clear-cut polarization in the country's politics following this operation," he told IOL.

"At the moment, the religious and liberal forces are united on one point agenda, i.e. to oust General Musharraf.

"But after this operation, which is supported by the liberal forces like the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP), there are chances of disintegration," he anticipated.

Salahuddin doubts the credibility of the government's version of events regarding the Red Mosque operation.

"There is no credibility of this government. Nobody knows the exact number of casualties, and the mystery of negotiations between militants and government."

The Ulema delegation appointed by the government to negotiate with late Abdul Rashid has blamed the regime for the failure of talks and the "bloodshed."

They said a compromise deal reached with Ghazi with the initial acceptance of the government was rejected when sent to the President House.

"The government is solely responsible for killing of innocent people in the operation. It has hoodwinked us," said Grand Mufti of Pakistan Maulana Rafi Usmani.

Several experts and officials have accused Musharraf of egging on the Ghazi brothers to play up tensions and remind his US allies of his indispensability in the fight against militancy.

"This is not end of the game," maintains Salahuddin.

"Nothing seems to be in favor of Musharraf. All the simmering issues, including the judicial crisis, could not be defused through Red Mosque operation."

Nonsense About Terrorism

By Paul Campos
July 10, 2007
RockyMountainNews

For nearly six years now we've been hearing from politicians and pundits about how Sept. 11, 2001 "changed everything." One especially unwelcome change wrought by that day has been that, ever since, large numbers of otherwise sane and sensible people continue to utter the most ridiculous things regarding the subject of terrorism.

Consider a column last week by The Washington Post's David Ignatius. Ignatius wonders how the nation would react to a future terrorist attack. "Would the country come together to combat its adversaries," he asks, "or would it pull farther apart?"

Ignatius notes that liberals would blame the Bush administration for needlessly inflaming Muslim anti-Americanism by bungling the invasion of Iraq, while conservatives would blame liberals for weakening the nation's anti-terrorism defenses by insisting that, for example, laws requiring warrants for wiretaps and forbidding torture be obeyed.

Ignatius calls this sort of political disagreement "scary," given that "the British car bomb plots uncovered last week remind us of our vulnerability to terrorist attack, wherever we live."

"In a politically healthy nation," Ignatius intones, "the news from Britain would have a galvanizing effect. Politicians and the public would pull together and take appropriate steps to prepare for future terrorist attacks on America."

And just what would these steps include? Ignatius doesn't say! He's strongly in favor of "national unity" - but in order to do what? (All this reminds me of The Simpsons episode in which Willie Nelson invites the family to make a presentation at the New Awareness Awards. "When we heard the goal was to promote awareness," Marge says, we couldn't say no!")

When the subject is terrorism, people like Ignatius seem to have trouble grasping that political disagreement is real. Let me put it as plainly as possible: The reason Americans disagree about how to respond to the threat of terrorism is because they have radically different views on the matter.

For instance, my view is that Ignatius and his ilk have helped create a fear of terrorism out of all proportion to the actual threat terrorism poses; that by doing so they helped drag America into a disastrous war with Iraq; and that they're now helping to create the conditions that may enable an even more disastrous war with Iran.

Nothing better illustrates this than Ignatius' claim that the British car bombing plots "remind us of our vulnerability to terrorist attack." What they remind anyone not already in thrall to the cultural hysteria Ignatius promotes is that all the "terrorists" discovered in America over the past few years were, like the British would-be bombers, thoroughly pathetic figures, who collectively proved themselves incapable of blowing up a phone booth.

In the two hours or so I'm guessing it took Ignatius to crank out yet another 800 words of substance-free alarmism festooned with platitudes about the need for "unity," about 350 Americans died.

Since Sept. 11, 2001, approximately 14 million Americans have died.

Some of these people died agonizing deaths on emergency room floors because they didn't have health insurance. A quarter-million were killed in car crashes. Around 200,000 were shot to death. Several thousand died of acute alcohol poisoning.

In theory, most of these deaths were preventable. In practice, only some of them were preventable at anything like a reasonable cost.

---

Here's a question:

What would be the optimal number of deaths per year in the United States caused by less-than-ideal medical care, or car crashes, or gunshot wounds, or alcohol poisoning?

I'm sure Ignatius understands why anyone who answers "zero" is saying something nonsensical.

So why does he continue to write similar nonsense about terrorism?

Paul Campos is a professor of law at the University of Colorado.

He can be reached at: paul.campos@colorado.edu.

UN Golan Commander "Worried By Israeli Actions"

Major-General Wolfgang Jilke, commander of force observing ceasefire between Israel and Syria, expresses concern over rising tensions, but points finger mainly at Israel for breaking routine in area and acting intensively

By Gil Yaron
Published: 07.11.07, 14:08 / Israel News
Ynet

Major-General Wolfgang Jilke... commands the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force, comprised of 1,300 troops who were charged with maintaining the ceasefire between Israel and Syria on the Golan Heights since 1974.

The UN troops observe the two countries' lineup of forces on a 50-kilometer (31.05-mile) wide strip – 25 kilometers (15.525 miles) east and west of the Yom Kippur War's ceasefire line.

Jilke was appointed to the role on February 2007.

...Contrary to the Israeli view, which regards Syria as a strategic threat, Jilke says that actually Israel bears the brunt of the responsibility for causing the current tensions.

"The tensions on the Golan Heights have not been so high in years. I am worried," he says.

According to him, the Syrians have not stationed any special forces in the area next to the border that would be capable of launching a surprise attacking against Israel.

"On the Syrian side I do not notice any unusual preparations," he says.

"On the Israeli side, however, we see intensive activity… Israel's right to defend itself is self-understood, but its current activities do not contribute to the efforts to diminish the tensions in the region… The actions on Israel's side are not very helpful when it comes to calming the Syrians down."

---

"We must remember that the antitank and antiaircraft missiles Syria is purchasing are not offensive weapons. Syria is renewing its weapon inventory like any other army in the world. I do not view this as something unusual," he says.

In light of the balance of power, Jilke estimates that "the chances the Syrians will surprise Israel are very low, and in any case, the Israelis have prepared and positioned themselves in a way that guarantees their advantage and deny the Syrians any gains."

UNDOF sources, who likened the Golan to a "crowded military camp", told Ynet of the poor state of Syrian forces. "Their trucks barely work, their tanks are rusty," sources said.

"In Syria, you see three soldiers with one shovel trying to prepare trenches in the hard rocks of the Heights. On the Israeli side, we see bulldozers massively altering the terrain," they explain.

...Jilke claims that since March, Israel has changed the rules.

The "Alpha Line" limits the deployment of IDF soldiers to the east. West of the line, the IDF has erected a security fence and a patrol road.

In some areas, the fence is several hundred meters away from the Alpha Line. Through the years, Syrian shepherds and farmers have begun to use the land, which technically is under control of the army, even though IDF soldiers did not use to venture east of the fence.

Since March, however, Israeli troops renewed their patrol between the fence and the "Alpha line", blocking access to Syrian farmers who had worked the land until then. On three occasions, IDF soldiers arrested and questioned Syrian citizens for several hours.

According to Jilke, the situation at the border could potentially erupt.

"I'm worried. In light of the tense atmosphere that has been created here, a little incident could ignite a bushfire in an instant," he says.

...Despite the image of Syria as a warmonger, Jilke said the local residents and the soldiers posted in the area wanted calm.

"When you ask a young Syrian soldier what he thinks of Israel, he won't tell you that he wants to fight in order to return the Golan to his homeland. Quite the opposite; he will say that he is very curious and would like to visit Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as a tourist, to see how people live here.

"This came as no surprise to the seasoned general: "The deeper you delve into the region's history, you learn that people of all origins usually got along much better with each other than their governments," he concludes.

Guantanamo

GUANTANAMO

A Poem By: Gary Corseri

Scratching their poems on styrofoam cups,
The orange jumpsuits pass them along,
Under the scorched-out Cuban sun, through bars,
Telling themselves—and reminding the world—
They are men, and this Inquisition
Also must pass, this auto da fe,
Flushed down history’s manhole,
Must bring shame in the Later Years
When men and women re-tell the past—
La Conquista, the Crusades, the Slaughter
Of the Innocents—all the lost causes.

There in the cups, drops of Christ’s blood
Appear out of nowhere, mingle with the tears
Of God, of Mohammed—the shepherd boys
Tending their flocks, dreaming under white-hot stars.
What distant fires illuminate their lives

On what worlds reaching beyond this hothouse?

Here is grief and love and hatred mixed
In bitter cups to be drunk at once
Tossing the head back carelessly; here is
The taste of this world—what we have become.
Does it go down easy, cause revulsion,
Trip-wire the memory? Does anything
Ever come to anything more than a dream
Of home, struggle, certainties of Truth,
A mother’s, father’s, lover’s, friend’s or child’s embrace?

Gary Corseri has posted/published work at Cyrano’s JournalOnline, Thomas Paine’s Corner, Dissident Voice, Counter Punch, Common Dreams, The New York Times, Village Voice, The Digest and over 200 other venues worldwide.

He can be reached at garycorseri@gmail.com .

West Needs More Terror To Save Doomed Foreign Policy

Canadian Military Analyst: The Western World Needs More Terror Attacks To Save Its Doomed Foreign Policy

The West needs more terror attacks on the scale of 9/11 and 7/7 in order to save its failing foreign policy, according to Lt.-Col. Doug Delaney, chair of the war studies program at the Royal Military College in Kingston, Ontario.

[The Royal Military College of Canada (RMC), is the military academy of the Canadian Forces and is a full degree-granting university," according to Wikipedia ].

Portions of this highly alarming admission (from a long , which was published by Canada's Totronto Star Newspaper) is available, below:

"Why Military Might Does Not Aalways Win"

A New Study Suggests That Involvement In Iraq and Afghanistan Might Be Doomed From The Outset

By Andrew Chung,
Staff Reporter
Jul 08, 2007 04:30 AM
TheStar

...Since World War II, the world's most powerful nations have failed 39 per cent of the time, according to a study by Patricia Sullivan, a professor of international affairs at the University of Georgia. Despite overwhelming military superiority, mounting human and material costs compel them to pull out their troops without achieving their political aims.

Since Vietnam, researchers in the complex field of conflict studies have focused on the outcome of wars, and have looked at how even low-budget insurgents can defeat the world's greatest powers by taxing their political will to fight.

Now, Sullivan's research, which appeared in the June issue of The Journal of Conflict Resolution, tells us why this happens in the first place, and appears to give policymakers a gauge for how well a military intervention will fare. It could have important implications for Canada's foray into Afghanistan.

It turns out that a major power is much more likely to fail when its war aim requires some sort of co-operation on the part of the adversary or the citizens on the ground, in order to change a despised foreign or domestic policy, for example, or quell sectarian violence, or prop up a regime that's on shaky ground.

Objectives that simply require sheer physical force – the purging of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait in 1991, or the toppling of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001 – have a high probability of success because no co-operation is necessary.
"The key factor," says Sullivan, "is the nature of the objective that the state is trying to achieve."

In other words, brute force works until you need the support of the people or the enemy to toe the line, she explains. "You can use brute force to kill terrorists or insurgents, but at some time you need acquiescence and compliance from the population, or every time you kill an insurgent or terrorist, he will be replaced."

The study's war model claims to be accurate in 80 per cent of the conflicts. Ominously, and despite some gains in Anbar province, the current U.S. mission in Iraq has a probability of success of just 20 per cent. (Vietnam, by comparison, had a 22 per cent chance of success.)

There are obvious similarities between Iraq and Afghanistan – an enduring insurgency, an unstable "democratic" government.

One Canadian expert in conflict studies, Patrick James, says Afghanistan is a good example of Sullivan's analysis in that regime change, including the success of a replacement government, is "very likely to fail.

"The good news was that the Taliban was annihilated in a military sense," he reasons, "but when you look at the wider war aim, replacing the Taliban with some kind of respectable, more mainstream government, that's very shaky. You'd put an X rather than a check mark there."

Sullivan's model is quite "intuitive," says James, director of the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California. "Bigger, wider war aims are way harder to pull off. You can't just invade somebody, get rid of a nasty dictator and get rid of everything else that went along with him."

Others are more skeptical about Sullivan's study. "I look at this and see it has a formula, and I'm immediately turned off," says Lt.-Col. Doug Delaney, chair of the war studies program at the Royal Military College in Kingston. "Every situation is different, and you can't reduce it to a series of equations."

Delaney, a historian, says one must account for culture, context, technology, even the weather. "There are so many variables, you can't predict how something is going to turn out.

"Models generate good questions but lousy answers."

SINCE VIETNAM, experts have tried to figure out why powerful militaries often cannot defeat weak opponents or guerrilla insurgencies. The thinking has gone from the size of the military deployments and the strategies involved to the idea of resolve. Insurgent forces tend to have a high tolerance for death; in effect, they have a higher resolve than the democratic state, which may well have to answer to a skeptical public wondering why there is so much carnage.

...One of the first researchers to examine the reasons why the political calculus changes and missions fail is Andrew Mack, who currently leads the Human Security Report Project at the School for International Studies at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C.

He wrote one of the first papers on asymmetric warfare back in 1975. It suggested that because powerful states are fighting a weaker enemy, it's a "limited" intervention, which diminishes the sense of national sacrifice. When the home nation is at no risk of invasion, there is more scrutiny of war tactics – torture, for example – and more of the "moral outrage" that can come with them. And as a war drags on, internal divisions themselves become political costs of war.

Together, these factors destroy "the external power's political capability to wage war."
That's becoming evident in Canada as the political landscape is ignited by more soldier deaths.
Sullivan says the problem lies in states' habitual underestimation of the costs of achieving their political aims, in both human and material terms.

Her model takes the argument one step further, by showing what diminishes resolve in the first place.

The researcher studied all 122 military interventions by the five major powers on the United Nations Security Council from World War II to 2003. A war aim that involved brute force alone, for instance, to defend territory or remove a regime, prevailed 75 to 80 per cent of the time.

A war aim that requires support of the people or cooperation by an adversary is called "coercive." In such a scenario – having Saddam Hussein co-operate with weapons inspectors, for example – the success rate was only 17 per cent. If the war aim is moderately coercive, such as propping up a government that replaced the one that just toppled, the rate was 40 per cent.

SOME RESEARCHERS suggest the issues over which nations fight are no longer being settled by conflict. Take the ongoing problems in Israel despite the decisive victory over Arab states in 1967, or the fact that India and Pakistan's intermittent war over Kashmir still has no solution.

Columbia University scholar Page Fortna says this may have to do with how warfare has changed. It's no longer acceptable to invade and kill indiscriminately or to grab territory, she says. Wars are now more about regime change.

"This shift I've noticed may be caused by the kinds of things that states are trying to get other governments or rebel entities to do," says Fortna, adding that missions are thus less likely to be accomplished.

Does this mean that we should think twice about doing anything that requires more than sheer force?

Does it mean a mission like Afghanistan has so little chance of success in the first place that we shouldn't try?

"There's nothing in a study like this that says: `Oh, well, we shouldn't engage in these things,'" says military historian Delaney.

"It's: `How important is it to you? How much does it contribute to your security?'"

A military intervention is just one tool of government. There are also economic sanctions and diplomacy, for which Sullivan's model doesn't account.

The challenge for the government is maintaining support for a conflict when people don't perceive a threat – of a failed state falling into the hands of extremists, for instance – particularly as Canadian deaths are rising, says Delaney.

It may well be that the key to bolstering Western resolve is another terrorist attack like 9/11 or the London transit bombings of two years ago, he says.

"If nothing happens, it will be harder still to say this is necessary."

By the above logic, if terrorist attacks only boost the geopolitical agenda of Western governments then how is it in their interest to prevent them?

And, of what benefit are such attacks to the actual terrorists - unless the terrorists occupy positions of power , in nation-states?

U.S. & Israel Want Geneva Convention Changes

'New Rules For New Wars'

Conference Brings Israeli, US Experts Together To 'Fine Tune' International Law

By Yaakov Lappin
18:47, 07-09-07
Ynet

The Geneva Convention on armed conflict and the 100 year-old Hague Rules on war need to be "fine tuned" to meet the challenges posed by 21st century asymmetrical warfare, Israeli and American experts said during a conference in Herzliya on Monday.

The two-day conference, 'New Battlefield, Old Laws,' is being held at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) in Herzliya, and was jointly organized by the IDC's International Institute for Counter Terrorism (ICT) and Syracuse University's Institute for National Security and Counter Terrorism.

"This conference is about the application of rules to asymmetrical war," William Banks, Director of Institute for National Security, told Ynetnews.

"It's about finding new ways to look at rules to govern modern warfare. We hope to try and make concrete proposals for the governing of asymmetric conflict," he added.

When asked whether such rules could ever be relevant to terrorists, Banks replied, "This is the most difficult question. We're looking at incentives so that the bad guys may come to the table, but it's a very tricky business."

Boaz Ganor, Executive Director of the ICT, said the conference was mainly aimed at internal dialogues within democracies.

"It's not important whether terrorists respect international laws. The question is, what are our moral constraints as a democracy fighting terrorists?" he said.

"One example is the use by the IDF of disguised commando soldiers in raids. On the face of it, the State is obliged to send soldiers that can be identified. On the other hand, we know that such a tactic allows for a surgical strike, with the least risk to Palestinian civilians. This means we need to fine tune the Geneva Conventions on army uniforms," Ganor added.

"We're not calling for an abandoning of international law or an extreme change, but for an internationally accepted platform," Ganor emphasized.

"We do believe there is a need to go over international law and fine tune it," he added.

Mitchell Wallerstein, Dean of the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, cited the Second Lebanon War as a good example of new types of warfare requiring new rules.

"Last summer, the IDF faced the issue of human shields, and the storing of weapons in civilian areas. We've seen this in other places such as Somalia and the Balkans. We are likely to see this again," Wallerstein said.

"International law does not adequately deal with this issue," he added.

The Herzliya conference will be followed by a meeting in Washington DC in October, in which experts in international law and national security are expected to list recommendations for reforming international law on warfare.

Brazil Yearns To Be World Power

Lula Resumes Nuclear Program To Make Brazil 'World Power'

Courtesy Of: SpaceWar

SAO PAULO, July 10 (AFP) Jul 11, 2007 - President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva on Tuesday relaunched the country's nuclear program, promising to complete a nuclear submarine and a third atomic power plant both mothballed 20 years ago.

"Brazil could rank among those few nations in the world with a command of uranium enrichment technology, and I think we will be more highly valued as a nation -- as the power we wish to be," Lula said at the navy's Technological Center in Sao Paulo.

"If money was lacking, it won't be lacking now," Lula said.

Finishing the nuclear submarine would cost an estimated 68 million dollars over eight years, he said.

"And who knows, with a little more (money), we may build it sooner, because it is running late," Lula said, 20 years after the project was abandoned.

He also confirmed the government would complete the Angra III nuclear plant in Rio de Janeiro state, after the National Committee on Energy Policy approved the project two weeks ago.

"We will complete Angra III, and if necessary, we'll go on to build more (nuclear plants) because it is clean energy and now proven to be safe," Lula said.

The plant will cost 3.5 billion dollars over five and a half years, he said.

"Nuclear energy has been tested and approved in Brazil. It is safe and we have the technology.

So why not go for it?" Lula said.

..."Investing in nuclear energy is a strategic choice because it ensures an energy supply and puts Brazil in that select group of countries that harness nuclear technology for peaceful purposes," Energy Minister Nelson Hubner said last week.

...Brazil has the world's sixth largest reserves of uranium, and completing the nuclear submarine would help Brazil to learn uranium enrichment.

Brazil could then command the complete nuclear fuel cycle, from mining to recycling, navy commander Julio Moura said recently. A submarine-size reactor could also power a small city, he said.

"We have what it takes to become a great energy power and we are not going to give that up," Lula said.

...The 2004 opening of a uranium enrichment facility in Resende, outside Rio de Janeiro, triggered international controversy.

Brazil, a signatory of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, obliged the International Atomic Energy Agency to accommodate Brazil's demand for an inspection regime that protected the plant's technology and trade secrets.

© 2005 Agence France-Presse.

350 U.S. Nukes Around Europe

No More Nuclear Weapons At Ramstein

A longstanding nuclear arsenal at the US Air Force Base in Ramstein, Germany, seems to be gone. But Germany still hosts a number of American nuclear weapons -- in fact Washington still maintains an estimated 350 warheads around Europe.

Courtesy Of: Spiegel

For years, the US nuclear weapons arsenal at the Ramstein Air Force base in Germany has been something of a political bone of contention. Now, though, the Americans may have removed them with hardly a peep. According to a list handed out to US weapons inspectors, the arms may have been removed bombs may no longer be stationed there.

"I think it is fairly certain that they are gone," Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists in Washington, D.C., told SPIEGEL ONLINE. "There are too many things which indicate that they are gone. This fits very nicely."

The Federation of American Scientists, or FAS, conducts regular inspections of US nuclear facilities. It periodically receives a list from the Air Force of bases to be inspected, and the latest list -- from January 2007 -- failed to include Ramstein, which was still included in 2005. Another base in Germany, at Büchel, remains on the list, along with bases in Belgium, Italy, Turkey, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.

About 350 American nuclear warheads remain in Europe. Up to 130 additional warheads had been stored at Ramstein, but DER SPIEGEL reported (more...) in 2005 that the arsenal was cleared during renovation work, and it's possible they never came back to Germany.

Cold War Relics, Deep Underground

Neither the German defense ministry nor the Pentagon will discuss the status of those bombs. The Pentagon, as a rule, never comments on "the number or position of the US military's nuclear weapons." But Kristensen said the list counted as evidence. "This means that the weapons are gone," he said. "They are not allowed to store weapons without this security process and no security process means they are gone ... That is the best evidence you can get in this business."

During the Cold War the number of US warheads stationed in Europe was in the thousands; the estimated number reached a peak of about 7,000 in 1971. Some bombs could be mounted on American as well as allied planes in case of war. It became US policy during the Cold War to let NATO allies like Germany "participate" -- under US command -- in the deployment of nuclear weapons. Even before the Cold War ended, though, many nuclear weapons were pulled out of Europe.

In 2005 two German politicians, then-Defense Minister Peter Struck and then-Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, formally asked NATO why American nuclear weapons had to remain in Germany. A groundswell of popular protest followed, but nothing seemed to result -- in fact Fischer and Struck backed down from their public positions. Now it seems possible that the US removed the weapons anyway.

An estimated 20 nuclear bombs remain underground at Büchel, another Air Force base in the German state of Rheinland-Pfalz. They can be mounted on German Tornado fighters, but not on the planned Eurofighter, a European-built plane which may replace German Tornados starting in 2013.

msm/spiegel

Slaughtering Arafat

By Sami Moubayed,
Special to Gulf News
Published: July 10, 2007, 00:15
Gulf-News

Let us slaughter him our way - not yours" were the words of former Palestinian minister of security Mohammad Dahlan in reference to the late president Yasser Arafat. Dahlan was writing these words to Shaul Mofaz, the former Israeli minister of defence under prime minister Ariel Sharon.

The letter was dated July 13, 2003.

This is the Hamas version of the story. After their takeover of Gaza, the leaders of Hamas found countless documents at the security offices of Fatah, incriminating its leadership in political fraud, embezzlement, and contacts like these with the Israelis.

The Dahlan letter - by far the most outrageous of all documents if proven to be correct - was leaked to a variety of Arabic media outlets, among which was the Lebanese weekly Al-Kifah Al Arabi.

The letter was written when Dahlan was serving as cabinet minister under Mahmoud Abbas.

Back then, Abbas was trying to reach a truce, and eventually disarm Hamas, to implement the Roadmap of US President George W. Bush.

Dahlan starts out his letter saying:

"You must know that we operate according to conviction rather than orders from anyone."

He adds,

"Mr. Minister of Defence. We realised that you are a civilised and democratic state, just like America. You cannot tolerate mafia gangs (he does not mention Hamas by name) and this is your total right. Be assured that this era has gone with no return and an era of law, accountability, and centralised government has began."

He points out,

"all this requires cooperation between us to achieve objectives that are in your interest and ours. That is why I ask that you show more flexibility when dealing with us, for the sake of the objective that we are trying to reach: peace."

This was a time when Arafat was struggling with both Abbas and Dahlan to survive as head of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).

Dahlan mentions Arafat saying:

"The fear now is that Yasser Arafat will merge the Legislative Council to withdraw confidence (from the Abbas cabinet). To prevent him from doing that, I wish to see cooperation from all parties and pressure (on him)."

He adds, "Be certain that Mr Yasser Arafat has been counting his final days. Let us slaughter him our way - not yours."

Promise

This promise he remarks was made before Bush, noting that he would be willing to sacrifice his life to see it materialise.

Dahlan - presumably -signs off "respectfully" sending his regards to Sharon.

Hamas claims that it has many similar documents, which it will reveal in due course, to show the truth behind Dahlan and other members of Fatah.

The Hamas Minister of Interior in Gaza, Khalil Heya, spoke of videocassettes he had discovered at the offices of Fatah, implicating members of Fatah in illegal sexual activity.

These videos had been recorded by Dahlan himself as a way of blackmailing senior officials in Palestine, a tactic first practised in the Arab world by former Egyptian intelligence chief Salah Nasr during the years of president Jamal Abdul Nasser.

Hamas has refused to reveal these videos but Palestinian sources claim they have already been leaked and will eventually surface on the internet.

The existence of these videos, if proven correct, might explain why many senior members of Fatah, who usually appear frequently on Arabic satellite television debate shows, have been quiet in recent weeks. They might be afraid that any anti-Hamas rhetoric would backfire.

Hamas is worried - to say the least - by the unprecedented support that Abbas and Fatah have been getting from the Arab World, the US, and Israel.

Hamas sees Abbas and Dahlan as the architects of the friendship between Fatah and Israel, and are trying to discredit both - at any cost.

...Was the Dahlan-Mofaz document authentic?

We probably will never know the reality behind it. It might be a Hamas fabrication but given Dahlan's record, it might be real, although it is highly doubtful that if such a document existed, Dahlan would leave it at the offices of Palestinian security in Gaza - a region that always, has been dominated by Hamas - even during the Arafat era.

Perhaps the letter was doctored. Perhaps it was true. Or perhaps, parts of it were true and the rest were Hamas "flavour".

History will tell but this adds further proof that Arafat did not die a natural death and that his killers might have been members of his own entourage.

Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.

Iraq War To: "Last For Decades"

Last Updated at 15:16pm on 10th July 2007
Courtesy Of The: DailyMail

Yesterday, the head of US forces in Iraq warned the fight against rebels could carry on for decades.

Lieutenant General David Petraeus said his soldiers were engaged in a tough fight which would get "harder before it gets easier".

He claimed recent troop reinforcements had led to gains against insurgents but he warned stability would not be achieved overnight.

He said: "Northern Ireland, I think, taught you that very well.

"My counterparts in your (British) forces really understand this kind of operation. It took a long time, decades.

"I don't know whether this will be decades, but the average counter insurgency is somewhere around a nine or a ten-year endeavour."

The Real BioWeapons Threat

Lab Accidents, Not Evildoers, Are The Real Bioweapons Threat

By Brandon Keim
July 09, 2007 9:53:37 AM
Wired

Dangerous, unreported infections that caused the CDC to shut down biodefense research at Texas A&M were only the tip of the iceberg, warns the Sunshine Project.

The Project is one of a few activist groups that track US biodefense research -- an endeavor that, says Project founder Ed Hammond, now employs some 20,000 researchers. That's ten times more than before 9/11.

Having so many new researchers working with pathogens riskier than any they've ever handled -- and in many cases doing so without adequate institutional oversight -- could be a recipe for disaster. For years, some scientists and public health experts have warned that biodefense research accidents are a greater threat than bioterrorists.

Hammond's investigations uncovered the infections of Texas A&M scientists with brucellosis and Q fever -- and that's just the beginning:

In mid-2003, a University of New Mexico (UNM) researcher was jabbed with an anthrax-laden needle. The following year, another UNM researcher experienced a needle stick with an unidentifed (redacted) pathogenic agent that had been genetically engineered;

At the Medical University of Ohio, in late 2004 a researcher was infected with Valley Fever (C. immitis), a BSL-3 biological weapons agent. The following summer (2005), a serious lab accident occurred that resulted in exposure of one or more workers to an aerosol of the same agent;

In mid-2005, a lab worker at the University of Chicago punctured his or her skin with an infected instrument bearing a BSL-3 select agent. It was likely a needle contaminated with either anthrax or plague;

In October and November of 2005, the University of California at Berkeley received dozens of samples of what it thought was a relatively harmless organism. In fact, the samples contained Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, classified as a BSL-3 bioweapons agents because of its transmission by aerosol. As a result, the samples were handled without adequate safety precautions, until the mistake was discovered. Unlike nearby Oakland Children's Hospital, which previously experienced an anthrax mixup, UC Berkeley never told the community.

Texas A&M Bioweapons Infections More the Norm than the Exception [Sunshine Project]

The Patriot Act & Civil Liberties Violations

Civil Liberties Violations

Courtesy Of: WashingtonPost

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has said he was surprised and unaware of civil liberties violations committed by the FBI during its exercise of Patriot Act powers — including the use of so-called National Security Letters — until an internal Justice Department report uncovered them in March 2007.

But Gonzales and his predecessor, John Ashcroft, were routinely sent notifications from the FBI when such violations occurred and had to be reported to the president's Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB), according to documents released this month under the Freedom of Information Act. Here is a timeline:

1. 2004:

Attorney General John Ashcroft receives several reports of civil liberties violations from the FBI as they are being transmitted to the president's Intelligence Oversight Board.

FBI Report (PDF)

2. Nov. 10, 2004:

Bush names Gonzales to be his next attorney general, succeeding Ashcroft.

Washington Post story

3. Feb. 3, 2005:

Gonzales is sworn in as the nation's 80th attorney general.

Washington Post story

4. Feb. 10, 2005:

Gonzales is sent an FBI report of an IOB violation involving an intelligence investigations of a U.S. citizen that went on for more than a year without proper notification or oversight.

IOB Violation Report (PDF)

5. Feb. 14, 2005:

Gonzales is sent an FBI report of an IOB violation involving a counterterrorism investigation in which agents continued the collection of electronic surveillance of a U.S. person after a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court's order had expired.

IOB Violation Report (PDF)

6. Feb. 16, 2005:

Gonzales is sent an FBI report of an IOB violation involving the improper search of a peson's property in an intelligence investigation.

IOB Violation Report (PDF)

7. March 18, 2005:

Gonzales is sent an FBI report of an IOB violation involving an error during a counterterrorism investigation.

IOB Violation Report (PDF)

8. March 22, 2005:

Gonzales is sent an FBI report of an IOB violation involving an error made by a telephone carrier during an electronic surveillance operation.

IOB Violation Report (PDF)

9. April 21, 2005:

Gonzales is sent an FBI report of an IOB violation involving the prohibited collection of email contents through a national security letter due to an error by the Internet provider.

IOB Violation Report (PDF)

10. April 27, 2005:

Gonzales testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee in favor of renewing the U.S. Patriot Act, declaring "There has not been one verified case of civil liberties abuse."

Senate Testimony

11. May 6, 2005:

Gonzales is sent an FBI report of an IOB violation involving the unauthorized collection of the wrong person's telephone data under a national security letter because an agent made an error in listing the wrong number.

IOB Violation Report (PDF)

12. Dec. 11, 2006:

Gonzales is sent an FBI report of an IOB violation involving the unauthorized collection of the wrong person's telephone data under a national security letter because an agent made an error in listing the wrong number.

IOB Violation Report (PDF)

13. Dec. 13, 2006:

Gonzales is sent an FBI report of an IOB violation involving the "unintentional, unauthorized interception" of U.S. persons during a counterterrorism invetsigation.

IOB Violation Report (PDF)

14. Feb. 26, 2007:

Gonzales is sent an FBI report of an IOB violation involving the unauthorized collection of the wrong person's telephone data under a national security letter because an agent made an error in listing the wrong number.

IOB Violation Report (PDF)

15. March 9, 2007:

Gonzales gives a speech to the International Association of Privacy Professionals and reacts to the release of a Justice Department inspector general report documenting pervasive problems with the FBI's collection of phone and computer data under the Patriot Act. "I was upset when I learned this, as was Director Mueller. And to say that I am concerned about what has been revealed in this report would be an enormous understatement."

Gonzales Speech

© Copyright 1996-2007 The Washington Post Company

Who Runs The CIA?

Who Runs the CIA? Outsiders For Hire.

Red Alert: Our National Security Is Being Outsourced

By R.J. Hillhouse
Sunday, July 8, 2007; B05
WashingtonPost

The most intriguing secrets of the "war on terror" have nothing to do with al-Qaeda and its fellow travelers. They're about the mammoth private spying industry that all but runs U.S. intelligence operations today.

Surprised? No wonder.

In April, Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell was poised to publicize a year-long examination of outsourcing by U.S. intelligence agencies. But the report was inexplicably delayed -- and suddenly classified a national secret.

What McConnell doesn't want you to know is that the private spy industry has succeeded where no foreign government has: It has penetrated the CIA and is running the show.

Over the past five years (some say almost a decade), there has been a revolution in the intelligence community toward wide-scale outsourcing.

Private companies now perform key intelligence-agency functions, to the tune, I'm told, of more than $42 billion a year.

Intelligence professionals tell me that more than 50 percent of the National Clandestine Service (NCS) -- the heart, brains and soul of the CIA -- has been outsourced to private firms such as Abraxas, Booz Allen Hamilton, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon.

These firms recruit spies, create non-official cover identities and control the movements of CIA case officers. They also provide case officers and watch officers at crisis centers and regional desk officers who control clandestine operations worldwide.

As the Los Angeles Times first reported last October, more than half the workforce in two key CIA stations in the fight against terrorism -- Baghdad and Islamabad, Pakistan -- is made up of industrial contractors, or "green badgers," in CIA parlance.

Intelligence insiders say that entire branches of the NCS have been outsourced to private industry.

These branches are still managed by U.S. government employees ("blue badgers") who are accountable to the agency's chain of command.

But beneath them, insiders say, is a supervisory structure that's controlled entirely by contractors; in some cases, green badgers are managing green badgers from other corporations.

Sensing problems -- and possibly fearing congressional action -- the CIA recently conducted a hasty review of all of its job classifications to determine which perform "essential government functions" that should not be outsourced.

But it's highly doubtful that such a short-term exercise can comprehensively identify the proper "blue/green" mix, especially because contractors' work statements have long been carefully formulated to blur the distinction between approvable and debatable functions.

Although the contracting system is Byzantine, there's no question that the private sector delivers high-quality professional intelligence services.

Outsourcing has provided solutions to personnel-management problems that have always plagued the CIA's operations side. Rather than tying agents up in the kind of office politics that government employees have to engage in to advance their careers, outsourcing permits them to focus on what they do best, which boosts morale and performance.

Privatization also immediately increased the number of trained, experienced agents in the field after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

Even though wide-scale outsourcing may not immediately endanger national security, it's worrisome. The contractors in charge of espionage are still chiefly CIA alumni who have absorbed its public service values.

But as the center of gravity shifts from the public sector to the private, more than one independent intelligence firm has developed plans to "raise" succeeding generations of officers within its own training systems.

These corporate-grown agents will be inculcated with corporate values and ethics, not those of public service.

And the current piecemeal system has introduced some vulnerabilities.

Historically, the system offered members of the intelligence community the kind of stability that ensured that they would keep its secrets. That dynamic is now being eroded.

Contracts come and go. So do workforces. The spies of the past came of age professionally in a strong extended family, but the spies of the future will be more like children raised in multiple foster homes -- at risk.

Today, when Booz Allen Hamilton loses a contract to SAIC, people rush from one to the other in a game of musical chairs, with not enough chairs for all the workers who possess both the highest security clearances and expertise in the art of espionage. Some inevitably lose out.

Any good counterintelligence officer knows what can happen next.

Down-on-their-luck spies begin to do what spies do best: spy. Other companies offer them jobs in exchange for industry secrets. Foreign governments approach them. And some day, terrorists will clue in to this potential workforce.

The director of national intelligence has put our security at risk by classifying the study on outsourcing and keeping the truth about this inadequately planned and managed system out of the light.

Much of what has been outsourced makes sense, but much of the structure doesn't, not for the longer term.

It's time for the public and Congress to demand the study's release.

More important, it's past time for the industry -- an industry conceived of and run by some of the best and brightest the CIA has ever produced -- to come up with the kind of innovative solutions it's legendary for, before the damage goes too deep.

rjh@thespywhobilledme.com

R.J. Hillhouse writes the national security blog the Spy Who Billed Me and is the author of the espionage thriller "Outsourced."

© 2007 The Washington Post Company

Prescribing World Terrorism

Courtesy Of: The Toronto Sun
By Eric Margolis
Published On: Monday, July 9, 2007

Pundits and self-appointed experts on Islam are wringing their hands and trying to explain why two Muslim doctors and at least six other medical workers were involved in this week’s failed bombings in London and Glasgow.

It certainly sounds horrific and counter-intuitive. Physicians, trained to heal, turned into would-be mass murderers with cars packed full of explosive materials and nails.

Since I’m writing a book on why the Muslim world is so angry at the West, let me venture some heretical thoughts.

First, there is nothing sacrosanct about doctors. Behind carefully cultivated veneers of icy detachment, they have the same emotions as ordinary mortals. The most evil, frightening man I ever met — and I’ve met a lot — was Haiti’s tyrant, “Papa Doc” Duvalier, who was a crusading country doctor before he turned into a Voodoo-crazed despot.

Second, the amateur, would-be killers who staged these bungled attacks were not, as many Western pundits claim, driven by some sort of homicidal perversion native to Islam.

An entire cottage industry of publicity-seeking anti-Muslim writers is at work seeking to confirm the increasingly popular prejudice that Islam is a sick, demented, homicidal faith.

These pundits are merely licking the hand that pays them.

The two accused doctors now under arrest in Britain were most likely driven by rage over the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, pure and simple.

Nothing ever excuses killing civilians. Those who stage horrific bombings against Israelis, Europeans, Americans and fellow Muslim civilians are criminals. Nothing excuses their behaviour. But we must understand why it happens and why it will continue.

Right Response

Britain’s new prime minister, Gordon Brown, responded the right way to the London and Glasgow incidents. Unlike Tony Blair, who raised anti-Western attacks to hysterical, apocalyptic levels, declaring civilization in peril, the dour Brown properly characterized the latest outrages as “criminal” acts to be handled by the police.

The two doctors suspected of trying to kill British civilians were most likely motivated by the same ferocious fury as the suicide squads who attacked New York and Washington on Sept. 11, 2001.

Their attacks were not the result of some innate sickness in Islam, misreading the Koran, brainwashing, or hatred of Western shopping habits.

Our governments and media just refuse to face the ugly reality that such attacks are a direct reaction to our own violent actions in the Mideast and South Asia.

We can’t expect to go on bombing and shooting up Iraq, or shredding Afghan villages with cluster bombs and 20mm gatling guns, and not expect violent reaction.

The increasing deaths of civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the ongoing agonies of Palestine, have enraged the Muslim world against the West.

Most Muslims simply complain. But a tiny number, as in Britain, forget rationality, humanity, or common sense and try to strike back at what they believe are the oppressors of the Muslin world.

Such violence is criminal and, worse, to paraphrase Tallyrand, a mistake.

They undermine whatever cause the militants are fighting for, making them into criminals with no possible justifiable grievances.

In the end, innocent Muslims in Britain and other Western nations become victims of these mindless attacks.

But revenge attacks will continue, and even intensify, until the West reassesses its policies in the regions that are generating such anti-Western violence.

Intensified police work is needed at home to prevent more attacks. Muslim leaders must keep telling their people that attacks against civilians are immoral and self-defeating.

But Western governments have to face the fact that the wars they are waging against the Muslim world are the primary generators of terrorism. In the intelligence business, it’s called blowback.

Blaming every violent incident on the shadowy al-Qaida is a handy excuse for avoiding reality and responsibility.

But it won’t change the fact that a good 20% of the world’s population is increasingly enraged at the U.S., Britain and Australia.

And, now, Canada.

© 2007 The Toronto Sun