Elsewhere Today (405)

Aljazeera:
Full text: US intelligence findings

Wednesday 27 September 2006, 10:33 Makka Time, 7:33 GMT

The full text of the parts of the US National Intelligence Estimate report declassified on Tuesday.

The document was written in April, before the death of al-Qaeda in Iraq leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

United States-led counterterrorism efforts have seriously damaged the leadership of al-Qaeda and disrupted its operations; however, we judge that al-Qaeda will continue to pose the greatest threat by a single terrorist organization to the homeland and US interests abroad.

We also assess that the global jihadist movement, which includes al-Qaeda, affiliated and independent terrorist groups and emerging networks and cells, is spreading and adapting to counterterrorism efforts.

Although we cannot measure the extent of the spread with precision, a large body of all-source reporting indicates that activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in number and geographic dispersion.

If this trend continues, threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide.

Dispersed groups

Greater pluralism and more responsive political systems in Muslim-majority nations would alleviate some of the grievances jihadists exploit.

Over time, such progress, together with sustained, multifaceted programmes aimed at the vulnerabilities of the jihadist movement and continued pressure on al-Qaeda, could erode support for the jihadists.

We assess that the global jihadist movement is decentralised, lacks a coherent global strategy and is becoming more diffuse.

New jihadist networks and cells, with anti-American agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge.

The confluence of shared purpose and dispersed actors will make it harder to find and undermine jihadist groups.

We assess that the operational threat from self-radicalised cells will grow in importance to US counterterrorism efforts, particularly abroad but also in the homeland.

Iraq impact

The jihadists regard Europe as an important venue for attacking Western interests.

Extremist networks inside the extensive Muslim diasporas in Europe facilitate recruitment and staging for urban attacks, as illustrated by the 2004 Madrid and 2005 London bombings.

We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere.

The Iraq conflict has become the "cause celebre" for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world, and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.

Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight.

Unpopular politics

We assess that the underlying factors fuelling the spread of the movement outweigh its vulnerabilities and are likely to do so for the duration of the timeframe of this estimate.

Four underlying factors are fuelling the spread of the jihadist movement:

1. Entrenched grievances, such as corruption, injustice, and fear of Western domination, leading to anger, humiliation and a sense of powerlessness.

2. The Iraq jihad.

3. The slow pace of real and sustained economic, social and political reforms in many Muslim majority nations.

4. Pervasive anti-US sentiment among most Muslims, all of which jihadists exploit.

Concomitant vulnerabilities in the jihadist movement have emerged that, if fully exposed and exploited, could begin to slow the spread of the movement.

They include dependence on the continuation of Muslim-related conflicts, the limited appeal of the jihadists' radical ideology, the emergence of respected voices of moderation and criticism of the violent tactics employed against mostly Muslim citizens.

The jihadists' greatest vulnerability is that their ultimate political solution - an ultraconservative interpretation of Shariah-based governance spanning the Muslim world - is unpopular with the vast majority of Muslims.

Exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadists' propaganda would help to divide them from the audiences they seek to persuade.

Recent condemnations of violence and extremist religious interpretations by a few notable Muslim clerics signal a trend that could facilitate the growth of a constructive alternative to jihadist ideology: peaceful political activism.

This also could lead to the consistent and dynamic participation of broader Muslim communities in rejecting violence, reducing the ability of radicals to capitalize on passive community support.

In this way, the Muslim mainstream emerges as the most powerful weapon in the war on terror.

Al-Zarqawi

Countering the spread of the jihadist movement will require co-ordinated multilateral efforts that go well beyond operations to capture or kill terrorist leaders.

If democratic reform efforts in Muslim-majority nations progress over the next five years, political participation probably would drive a wedge between intransigent extremists and groups willing to use the political process to achieve their local objectives.

Nonetheless, attendant reforms and potentially destabilizing transitions will create new opportunities for jihadists to exploit.

Al-Qaeda, now merged with Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network, is exploiting the situation in Iraq to attract new recruits and donors and to maintain its leadership role.

The loss of main leaders, particularly Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Zarqawi, in rapid succession, probably would cause the group to fracture into smaller groups.

Although like-minded individuals would endeavor to carry on the mission, the loss of these main leaders would exacerbate strains and disagreements.

We assess that the resulting splinter groups would, at least for a time, pose a less serious threat to US interests than does al-Qaeda.

Should al-Zarqawi continue to evade capture and scale back attacks against Muslims, we assess he could broaden his popular appeal and present a global threat.

The increased role of Iraqis in managing the operations of al-Qaeda in Iraq might lead veteran foreign jihadists to focus their efforts on external operations.

Other affiliated Sunni-extremist organizations, such as Jemaah Islamiya, Ansar al-Sunnah and several North African groups, unless countered, are likely to expand their reach and become more capable of multiple and/or mass-casualty attacks outside their traditional areas of operation.

Wider concern

We assess that such groups pose less of a danger to the homeland than does al-Qaeda, but will pose varying degrees of threat to our allies and to US interests abroad.

The focus of their attacks is likely to ebb and flow between local regime targets and regional or global ones.

We judge that most jihadist groups - both well-known and newly formed - will use improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks, focused primarily on soft targets, to implement their asymmetric warfare strategy, and that they will attempt to conduct sustained terrorist attacks in urban environments.

Fighters with experience in Iraq are a potential source of leadership for jihadists pursuing these tactics.

(Chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapon) capabilities will continue to be sought by jihadist groups.

While Iran, and to a lesser extent Syria, remain the most active state sponsors of terrorism, many other states will be unable to prevent territory or resources from being exploited by terrorists.

Anti-US and anti-globalisation sentiment is on the rise and fuelling other radical ideologies.

This could prompt some leftist, nationalist or separatist groups to adopt terrorist methods to attack US interests.

The radicalization process is occurring more quickly, more widely, and more anonymously in the internet age, raising the likelihood of surprise attacks by unknown groups whose members and supporters may be difficult to pinpoint.

We judge that groups of all stripes will increasingly use the internet to communicate, propagandise, recruit, train and obtain logistical and financial support.

AP

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/96B66353-9F35-4685-B6F9-5DF1F25A1C35.htm

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Aljazeera:
Bush for Pakistan-Afghan co-operation

Thursday 28 September 2006, 9:21 Makka Time, 6:21 GMT

The US president has urged the leaders of Pakistan and Afghanistan to put aside their differences and work together to find ways to stop the Taliban and al-Qaeda on their shared border.

Standing between General Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, and Hamid Karzai, his Afghan counterpart, George Bush emphasised "the need to co-operate, to make sure that people have got a hopeful future" in both countries.

The Afghan and Pakistani leaders stood with Bush during a brief appearance outside the White House before a working dinner on Wednesday. The pair shook hands with Bush, but not with each other.

"Today's dinner is a chance for us to strategise together," Bush said.

"These two men are personal friends of mine," Bush said. "They are strong leaders who have an understanding of the world in which we live. They understand that the forces of moderation are being challenged by extremists and radicals."

During the 2 1/2-hour dinner across a round table, Karzai and Musharraf had cordial and frank exchanges, a senior Bush administration official said.

Karzai and Musharraf exchanged warm greetings with good humour earlier in the Oval Office and shook hands before leaving for the night, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Criticism

Karzai and Musharraf have criticised each other's efforts in fighting Islamist fighters along their long, remote, mountainous border.

Afghan officials have claimed that Pakistan is letting Taliban fighters carry out attacks across the border into their country.

Musharraf has said Karzai has bad information and pointed out that 80,000 Pakistani troops have been deployed in the region.

Karzai has accused Musharraf of turning a blind eye to hatred and extremism being bred at Islamic schools in Pakistan.

Musharraf has hit back, saying Karzai was behaving "like an ostrich", refusing to acknowledge the truth and trying to shore up his political standing at home.

After the meal, the White House issued a statement that called the session a "constructive exchange" but outlined no new agreements or initiatives.

Commitment

"They committed to supporting moderation and defeating extremism through greater intelligence sharing, co-ordinated action against terrorists and common efforts to enhance the prosperity of the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan," said the statement from Tony Snow, the White House press secretary.

Khurshid Kasuri, Pakistan's foreign minister, said in an interview before the meeting that Musharraf wanted Karzai to agree to "a verbal ceasefire" and the increased sharing of intelligence.

Musharraf faces little formal political opposition within Pakistan but lives under constant threat of assassination, while Karzai has struggled to extend his authority beyond the Afghan capital, Kabul, and is facing a loss of popular support.

Bush's dinner party came just weeks before congressional elections as he tries to convince voters that the Republicans are the best to lead the efforts to fight terrorism.

Public support in the US for the war in Iraq and the military commitment in Afghanistan has fallen significantly in recent months.

Agencies

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FA42ADAC-46FE-40E6-B91B-B45D86110705.htm

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allAfrica:
Ribadu in Senate - 31 Governors Under Investigation

This Day (Lagos) NEWS
September 28, 2006
Lagos

Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu, yesterday unmasked 31 state governors that the commission had been investigating in connection with sundry offences, including alleged criminal diversion of local government funds.

Ribadu who was admitted into the Senate chamber at 12.04 p.m., had presented a report of the commission's investigations into the activities of state governments to the President of the Senate, Senator Ken Nnamani, who asked for the report, which he proceeded to read through.

According to the EFCC chairman who opened a can of worms in almost all the states of the federation, only six governors had a clean bill of health.

The governors are Donald Duke (Cross River State) Danjuma Goje (Gombe) Bukola Saraki (Kwara), Abba Ibrahim (Yobe) and Adamu Aliero (Kebbi) and Peter Obi (Anambra).

He said none of them had been mentioned in connection with the probe of council funds or any of the other offences, among them money laundering, diversion of funds, embezzlement and corrupt practices.

He said investigations had been concluded in at least14 states and that the commission was either already prosecuting or about to prosecute offenders. The states are Enugu, Abia, Adamawa, Ekiti, Anambra (former Governor Chris Ngige), Jigawa, Kwara (former Governor Mohammed Lawal), Kogi (former Governor Abubakar Audu), Kano, Kaduna, Plateau, Taraba and Zamfara.

States he said investigations were ongoing include Osun, Akwa Ibom, Benue, Borno, Delta, Bauchi, Bayelsa, Edo, Ebonyi, Katsina, Niger, Ondo, Oyo, Lagos, Rivers, Sokoto and Ogun

Ribadu, in declassifying the content of the commission's report of its investigations into alleged monumental corruption in Enugu State consistent with the resolution of the Senate, had begun with Enugu and gone through 32 other states.

He said that the commission had investigated Governor Chimaroke Nnamani, his Special Adviser on Local Government Affairs, Mr. Sam Ejiofor; Mr. Peter Mbah; Mr. Chinanya Ukha; Mr. Fred okoli; Mr. Sunday Onyebuchi and some other officials for financial misappropriation, embezzlement, abuse of office and money laundering.

Ribadu said: "We are ready to prosecute the Enugu case," pointing out that the cases of contract inflation and diversion of state statutory allocations had been confirmed.

He said that the assets of the Governor Nnamani were many while confirming that there were many contracts that were over priced. The EFCC chairman said there were 34 others who the commission was yet to determine whether or not to prosecute.

He said that Governor Orji Uzor Kalu of Abia State had virtually privatized the State, telling the Senate that cases of stealing, misappropriation, forgery, diversion of funds, which the Abia Leaders Forum alleged in their petition, were being thoroughly investigated and great progress had been made.

According to him, "The Governor used his mother's name, his wife's name (Ifeoma), his son's name (Ogbonnaya) to divert the state's funds with which he built his business empire-Slok Shipping, Slok Airline, Reality Organisation, among others. The state's funds diverted in the process are in excess of N65 billion".

He said that the commission was investigating the Adamawa State Governor, Mr. Boni Haruna, on the strength of the petition forwarded to it by Senator Paul Wampana, alleging out that the governor and the Commissioner of Chieftaincy Affairs committed large-scale crime.

In the case of Akwa Ibom State where Governor Victor Attah, a presidential aspirant on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presides, Ribadu said that investigations into the activities of the state government based on the petition received "are on-going".

He said in Anambra State, the commission had investigated the former Governor Chris Ngige and the State House of Assembly for criminal diversion and misappropriation of state funds.

He said that the commission found out that the fund diversion was effected through one Princess Uzor Okonkwo.

Ribadu said that Governors Adamu Muazu of Bauchi, Goodluck Jonathan of Bayelsa and his wife, Modu Ali Sherrif of Borno, Geroge Akume of Benue, James Ibori of Delta, Lucky Igbinedion of Edo, Ayo Fayose of Ekiti, Achike Udenwa of Imo State and Saminu Turaki of Jigawa had also been investigated for sundry allegations on the basis of petitions received against them. He, however, did not disclose the outcome of the investigation.

The commission boss disclosed that Governor Makarfi of Kaduna State and his counterpart in Kano State, Alhaji Ibrahim Shekarau were also under investigation for alleged misappropriation of fund, abuse of office, diversion of und and fertilizer scam with particular reference to Kano.

In Kwara State, he said that the commission was investigating a case of abuse of office by the former Governor, Alhaji Mohammed Lawal, while in Kogi State; he said that there was a petition against a local government chairman just as there were petitions against three local government chairmen in Katsina State.

He said that the commission was on the trail of former Kogi State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Audu, whom he said had escaped out of the country, but assured the Senate that efforts were being made to extradite him back to the country to answer charges of wrongdoings against him.

According to him, "We have filed charges against the former Kogi State Governor. He ran to London and we are working for his extradition."

He said that the commission had also investigated local government funds misappropriation in Osun, Ondo, Oyo, Ogun and Lagos States, just as the petition against Governor Peter Odili and three local government chairmen in the state had been investigated.

In Plateau, he said: "the State House of Assembly participated fully and directly in the fraud and embezzlement of funds in the State along side Governor Joshua Dariye".

He stated that Sokoto State Governor, Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, his Zamfara State counterpart, Alhaji Ahmed Sani, and the Governor of Taraba State, Rev Jolly Nyame, were not free from the commission's inquisition.

Speaking on Zamfara, he quipped: "Zamfara is one of the worst cases. We have charged the governor and his officials to court. It is a tragedy. It could end up as a case of direct stealing; there is no third party."

In Taraba, he said: "We are taking the government and the State House of Assembly to court. In two weeks from now we are going to court."

Going by Ribadu's hints, next month may witness a flurry of legal battles involving the commission and many of the state governments as well as local governments.

Ribadu told the Senate that the commission was at the moment investigating the Nigeria Ports Authority (NPA), adding, "We are going to come out with the report of our findings very soon".

He used the forum to clear the air on the alleged N50million bribe money given to some legislators to promote the ill-fated Third term agenda of President Olusegun Obasanjo, asking the senators with evidence and information to come to him "and you will see what I will do."

Ribadu disclosed that the commission had investigated and found nothing against the Federal Government and the National Assembly.

According to him "We checked the accounts of the Federal Government daily, even the security vote to see where money is taken to settle National Assembly members.

"We have not found any. But in the case of the state government, we were able to trace movement of money from the state governments to State Houses of Assembly".

On the issue of barring candidates from contesting elections, he said: "EFCC does not have the right or power to stop anybody, but we will not shy away from investigating crooks who want to aspire for public offices with a view to stopping and prosecuting them".

Copyright © 2006 This Day. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com).

http://allafrica.com/stories/200609280012.html

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AlterNet:
Fundamentalist Camp Trains God's Little Army

By Evan Derkacz, AlterNet
Posted on September 28, 2006

They have billions in media holdings, the ear of the president, and the ability to make or break a Republican candidacy. To Becky Fischer, however, former manager of a custom sign business and current children's minister, evangelicals are in danger of losing the next generation. Unimpressed by the fact that 43 percent of America's 100 million evangelicals accepted Christ before the age of 13, Fischer set out to ensure that a new generation of Americans are instilled with a "Christian worldview." "If we wait until they are teens," she remarks, "we have waited too late!"

You've probably seen the ads on the internet of an all-American girl, eyes skyward, the spitting image of a beatific Medieval icon painting. Against the backdrop of the Samuel Alito hearings, "Jesus Camp" follows 11-year-old Tory and a pack of young campers at Kids On Fire Summer Camp, which is the basic training for "God's army." Fischer is Kids On Fire's drill sergeant, and her mission is to empower kids to heal "this ... sick old world." Fischer's zeal is infectious, her belief unshakable, and her will strong. It's not difficult to see why the filmmakers were delighted to find her.

The kids, some of whom are jarringly precocious ("Because I just wanted more of life," one says), are respectful and supportive of one another, attentive to their elders and as humorously oblivious about the secular world as most AlterNet readers are about the evangelical reality. A clip over the closing credits features a young girl who approaches a pair of elderly gentlemen in folding chairs to ask if they know where they're going when they die. After they confidently assert that they're going to heaven, the girl wanders away, uttering offhand to her companion that she thought they might be Muslims.

The age of the kids (some as young as 6 years old) combined with Fischer's bellicose language (she openly refers to their mission as "war"), will undoubtedly make some, as filmmaker Heidi Ewing says below, "pretty uncomfortable." In that sense, "Jesus Camp" doubles as a perfectly entertaining horror flick for secular progressives - or anyone outside the evangelical community, for that matter. But to leave it at that would be wildly off the mark and just as parochial as the triumphalist evangelicals depicted.

I've argued in PEEK that, just as progressives urge fearful conservatives to probe the phenomenon of terrorism, so must secular progressives probe the activist evangelical mindset. On the other hand, it's natural for a nonevangelical to be utterly turned off by some of the politically charged elements of the film, most of which are aired without counterpoint.

My response to Jesus Camp is similar to the nagging feeling that followed Errol Morris' brilliant Fog of War. That film, you'll recall, was essentially a conversation with Vietnam-era Secretary of Defense Robert Strange McNamara. The 86-year-old McNamara comes off looking like a contrite old man, consumed by self-deception, peppered with startling statements like, "We were behaving as war criminals."

My desire for a ferocious counterargument and an overarching condemnation left me feeling nervous about whether the proper gravity had been afforded the subject. Likewise, although "Jesus Camp" includes a few clips from Air America's liberal Christian host, Mike Papantonio, the rhetoric of Becky Fischer, Ted Haggard and the rest of the film's cast of characters simply sits on screen; take it or leave it.

In the final tally, access has its price, and art should not be polemical. Filmmakers Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady sought to make art and received access in exchange. That access ironically provides opponents with a great deal of insight into this political powerhouse, should they choose to approach it with courage and the desire to see the community's humanity. As they say below, "If people have a problem with what they're doing then they should take a page out of the playbook and start to get involved themselves." Amen.

In most cases, Ewing and Grady, who are close friends as well as co-directors, spoke as any couple would. Which is to say, over each other and finishing each other's sentences. When it was important to separate their responses, I did so (as in the case with their backgrounds). Otherwise, the answers can be seen as a coming from "the directors." - Ed.

Derkacz: So what inspired you to make "Jesus Camp"? Why now?

Heidi and I were looking for a story about children and faith, and we were inspired by a child from our last film, the "Boys of Baraka," Devon, who was a Baptist preacher, a 12-year-old. He really provoked us to start thinking about where faith comes from: Why is one kid more devout than another? Where does that come from? How does that happen?

Derkacz: What were each of your relationships to religion, spirituality and evangelical Christianity before and after "Jesus Camp"?

Grady: I was raised as a Jew, so my experience with born-again Christians was limited, though it wasn't nothing.

Ewing: I was raised Catholic in a Jewish and Catholic neighborhood, but I didn't have much experience with evangelicals. There was a beginner's eye that we walked into the thing with, for which I'm actually grateful. I think if I walked in with all these negative experiences, or if I'd been a born-again Christian, it would definitely have colored my view of this community.

It was more like being an anthropologist in a way. I don't mean to denigrate anyone by saying this, but it did feel like we were sort of fresh and I'd never seen children exposed to this kind of extreme and intense worship. I was definitely surprised and astonished and confused at first as to what exactly was going on. Of course, the Pentecostal experience and charismatic experience is way more expressive and kind of wild than a lot of other evangelical denominations. So it made it even more gripping for us.

Derkacz: But you felt welcomed by the evangelical community?

Yeah! They were incredibly warm and gracious. It's a caring group of people. I think it was important for Heidi and me to spend time with them. It draws out what people have in common and the humanity of an individual or group of people.

Derkacz: The kids and adults in "Jesus Camp" appear remarkably happy and supportive of each other. Did you feel like they were generally more happy than the population at large?

Well, I wouldn't use the word "happy." They seem ... they don't have a lot of angst. They have a very firm, black-and-white worldview, and I think it simplifies things. They don't have a lot of unanswered questions. They didn't have the anxiety that a lot of Americans are saddled with.

So were you ever tempted to be saved?

Grady: Mmmm, no. Can't say that I was.

Ewing: Nah, not really.

Derkacz: In a blog post I wrote, after first watching "Jesus Camp," one of the commenters wrote that "this film shows 'child abuse,'" a sentiment echoed by others. Do you think the treatment of kids in the film was abusive in any way?

I don't know where the line should be drawn exactly. Terms like "child abuse" and "brainwashing," are loaded terms. When you use a word like "brainwashing," the game is over. It's a difficult question, and I really don't know where I stand on it to this day.

Something may appear abusive or just too intense for a child at first glance, but then you get to know the kids, and you go home with them, have meals with them. When you observe them in their home environment with their brothers and sisters, they seem well-adjusted, willingly reading the Bible.

It's hard for me to just walk away after a year and say, "Yup, this is child abuse. I know it when I see it." What they're going through is extremely intense and pretty radical compared to the mainstream American culture. It's not the norm at all. Some people who see the film will be pretty uncomfortable with the education or indoctrination of these kids. I think it's up to individuals to decide. If we're parsing terms, nobody's doing anything illegal. But I think it's questionable to some people as possibly not good for the kids.

Derkacz: So you had no political agenda?

No, in fact there was nothing political about our initial intentions at all. We were interested in the theology and the faith aspect of this particular group. But after filming several days and seeing the reaction of the community when there was movement in the news or in politics - for example, Sandra Day O'Connor, who resigned two weeks after we started shooting. I had never seen a group rejoice in such an aggressive way - well, not aggressive, just incredibly joyful. It was fascinating. Heidi and I realized that we could not avoid the political ramifications of the community; that in fact, they're so intertwined that these people have become de facto political activists, although they don't see themselves in that way.

Derkacz: The film doesn't take any particular political stance, but you did provide a counterpoint to the rhetoric of the evangelical community in the form of Air America's Mike Papantonio, a liberal Christian and a fierce critic of the Christian right. I'm curious about that decision.

It was important that the critic be a Christian so that it's relevant to the people in the film. As it became obvious to us that there were some pretty strong political overtones going on throughout, we thought that it was important to contextualize what was being shown. For example, in the abortion debate, the evangelical leadership and the constituents are all on the same page.

It was important to include a Christian who does not believe in the politicization of the religion. Without him there'd be a flatness to it; there'd be no one disagreeing with what was being seen on the screen. In a lot of ways, Mike voices what at least 50 percent of our audience is thinking, a necessary element to create a nuanced film.

Derkacz: I understand that you screened "Jesus Camp" with the subjects of the film and the community. What were the reactions from Becky Fischer, the kids, and their parents? How about Ted Haggard's New Life Church?

Everyone portrayed in the film supports and likes it except for Ted Haggard, who is the head of the New Life Church - he's featured at the end of the film. He's a very important, politically active figure.

That's disappointing to most of the people in the film because they really like it, and they feel like it's stinging to them that he would reject the movie, because they think what they were doing was part of the greater evangelical movement and part of his family, though he's rejecting the film on various grounds [For more on this Haggard's rejection go HERE - ed].

But Becky really likes the film, the parents feel they were accurately portrayed. To this day, they don't consider themselves political at all. So they take issue with the concept that they're politically active, although we maintain that what they consider a moral life - you know, doing "God's will" - appears political to a lot of people.

So they understand why we perceive that to be true, but they still don't consider themselves very active even though they know the voting records on all their local congressman and are very knowledgable about the issues. They listen to Focus on the Family and James Dobson. But they just feel like they're doing "what God wants them to do, and if you want to call that political then that's fine with us."

That was the one thing that threw us for a loop. That they're all behind the movie and encouraging their churches and their communities to see it.

Derkacz: I hate to lump them together given what you've just told me, but do you think that this movement somehow endangers America as we know it, as a nation that adheres to the Constitution above any theocratic leadership?

Well, there's an inherent problem here, which is that there is a massive number of Americans who do believe that the founding fathers intended to found a much more Christian state. That the Constitution is based on the Ten Commandments. There are a lot of people who will tell you that, who believe that to be true. I think that when you've got, I think, 67 percent of Americans believing that the founding fathers intended to found something like a Christian state, it's really hard to counteract those numbers.

I do believe in separation of church and state; I do believe it's being blurred. Especially in the last ten years. But that's bound to happen when you've got 50 percent of a population that doesn't vote and most evangelicals who do. So you've got a minority that's starting to feel like a majority because they're involved and politically engaged, and they care, and they're up on the issues, and they're not cynical about their influence, and they believe that their vote counts and that they can make changes, and they're going to do that until further notice. So I think if people have a problem with what they're doing, then they should take a page out of the playbook and start to get involved themselves.

I really do think that unless something changes in the political landscape, unless moderates and liberals decide they want to get active and vote and become knowldedgable, I see that separation between church and state getting even blurrier. I really do. It's something to take notice of.

Evan Derkacz is AlterNet's associate editor and writer of PEEK, the blog of blogs.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at:
http://www.alternet.org/story/42193/

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Asia Times:
Dumbed-down intelligence

By Ehsan Ahrari
Sep 29, 2006

One of the key recommendations of the 9-11 Report after the attacks on the US in 2001 was that intelligence should be depoliticized. The ongoing controversy related to the leaked National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) reminds everyone that this has not been the case.

President George W Bush has accused his critics of playing politics by "selectively" leaking some of the findings of the NIE because they were "motivated in the run-up to the mid-term elections in November". That is one reason he abruptly authorized his director of national intelligence, John Negroponte, to declassify and publicly issue portions of the report.

The NIE is a highly credible estimate, since its conclusions are developed on the basis of consensus among 16 US intelligence agencies. However, in the election season in the United States, no document, no action or governmental statement is free of politics.

Here is one conclusion of the NIE: "We assess that the Iraq jihad is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives; perceived jihadist success there would inspire more fighters to continue the struggle elsewhere. The Iraq conflict has become the cause celebre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement."

The trouble with that professional judgment is that it contradicts Bush's belief, which appears not to be based on fact. Making an appearance with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, Bush said it was a mistake to think that the Iraq war had increased the terrorism threat.

The troubling part of the entire controversy involving the NIE is that its sobering observations are being submerged in the cacophony of partisan bickering that is steadily growing in Washington and in the country at large.

The NIE lists four factors that are popularizing the jihadist movement. The first one is corrupt Muslim regimes; second, "fear of Western domination" and related "humiliation and sense of powerlessness"; third, economic underdevelopment; and fourth, anti-American sentiments.

Even though the NIE does not say so, the most important variables are anti-Americanism and the fear of Western domination. The continuation of authoritarian regimes in the world of Islam is directly linked to Muslim backwardness. In that sense, both these factors contribute to Muslim anger and frustration.

The solution for these problems, according to the NIE, is "democratic reforms". Inside the US, no one would object to that recommendation. However, there is little doubt that those who authored the report were thinking of Western secular democracy when they jotted down that phrase. But that was not what resulted in either Afghanistan or Iraq.

In Iraq especially, there is an Islamist national-unity government. Democracy brought to office an Islamist party, Hamas, in Palestine. The clout of Hezbollah has immensely escalated since its war with Israel in July-August. In fact, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is publicly hinting about ousting the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, through legal means, of course.

Thus the US faces an awesome dilemma in the Middle East. It wishes to create a string of Jeffersonian democracies, while Muslims are determined to bring about Islamic democracy, which, in the US lexicon, is an oxymoron.

What Bush and other US leaders should have paid attention to was the following observation contained in the NIE: "The loss of key leaders, particularly Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and [Abu Musab] al-Zarqawi, in rapid succession, probably would cause the group to fracture into smaller groups. Although like-minded individuals would endeavor to carry on the mission, the loss of these key leaders would exacerbate strains and disagreements. We assess that the resulting splinter groups would, at least for a time, pose a less serious threat to US interests than does al-Qaeda."

It should be noted that Zarqawi was alive when this report was put together. But it was on the right track in observing that the loss of effectiveness for the jihadis emanating from the death or capture of any major leader would be temporary. The Bush administration has not paid any attention to the fact - or maybe it has failed to grasp this reality - that the Islamist or jihadist movement has long been a self-starter.

It needs an effective leader, certainly, but it is not paralyzed in the absence of one. That might have something to do with the Sunni frame of mind - since almost all jihadis are Sunni Muslims - as they are not totally committed to the personality of any one leader. That is not true for Shi'ite Islam, however, where the personality of a grand ayatollah becomes very important in terms of getting religious and political guidance.

Another important point that was raised in the NIE is the following: "Although we cannot measure the extent of the spread with precision, a large body of all-source reporting indicates that activists identifying themselves as jihadists, although a small percentage of Muslims, are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion. If this trend continues, threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide."

The NIE is also right in observing, "The jihadists' greatest vulnerability is that their ultimate political solution - an ultra-conservative interpretation of sharia-based governance spanning the Muslim world - is unpopular with the vast majority of Muslims." It adds, "Exposing the religious and political straitjacket that is implied by the jihadists' propaganda would help to divide them from the audiences they seek to persuade."

But the NIE misses an important fact. The notion of a caliphate has been around for the past 1,400 years. However, in the contemporary era, no one outside the Salafi movement has paid much attention to the concept. Nevertheless, somehow, Bush and his team latched on to the idea and use it to explain to the American people the "real motive" of al-Qaeda.

The most important outcome of the publicity given to the NIE is not that it contains any earth-shattering information. Its significance stems from the fact that it has done a lot of damage by underscoring an already well-known fact: Iraq has become the "cause celebre" of global jihadis, which the US president refuses to acknowledge.

The entire brouhaha about the report thus now revolves around winning the hearts and minds of American voters for November's congressional elections. And Congress might be heading for its own "regime change", in that the Democrats could recapture both chambers from the Republicans. Such a development would make it even harder for Bush to justify staying in Iraq.

That is the essence of the controversy and high-visibility diplomatic maneuvering that Bush is conducting with visiting presidents Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan. In the realm of US foreign policy, the appearance of "doing something" at times becomes more important than its outcome.

None of these activities is likely to save Iraq, however. A recent opinion poll of Iraqis indicates that an overwhelming number of them (with the exception of the Kurds) want US forces out of their country.

It is possible that Iraq has reached a point where the population is edging toward chancing life without occupying forces. As much as such a scenario would be unpalatable to Bush, the Iraqi people, in their collective judgment, might be seeing something that others can't: if Bush has learned the real lesson from the NIE, he will be thinking very hard about an exit strategy for Iraq.

Ehsan Ahrari is the CEO of Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, Virginia-based defense consultancy. He can be reached at eahrari@cox.net or stratparadigms@yahoo.com. His columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online. His website: www.ehsanahrari.com

Copyright 2006 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/HI29Aa02.html

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Clarín: Tailandia: la junta militar escogió
un primer ministro civil, pero mantiene su nombre en secreto

Aunque ya confirmó su elección, recién informará en los próximos días de quién se trata. El jefe de la Marina aseguró que es "alguien que el pueblo puede aceptar". Según se anticipó, gobernará de forma interina hasta que se celebren elecciones en octubre del año próximo.

Clarín.com, 28.09.2006

La junta militar que encabezó el incruento golpe de Estado contra el primer ministro de Tailandia Thaksin Shinawatra anunció que ya escogió al civil que estará a cargo del gobierno hasta que se celebren elecciones en octubre del año que viene, aunque su nombre recién será dado a conocer en los próximos días.

"Los cinco (integrantes de la junta de Gobierno) nos hemos puesto de acuerdo (en la selección del nuevo primer ministro) y garantizo que se trata de alguien que el pueblo puede aceptar", afirmó el jefe de la Marina, Satirapan Keyanon.

La junta militar, que dio el golpe el 19 de setiembre mientras Shinawatra estaba en Nueva York y que ya fue reconocida oficialmente por el rey Bhumidol Adulyadej, anunció que el primer ministro gobernará interinamente hasta que se celebren comicios en octubre de 2007.

Según la prensa tailandesa, entre los candidatos más firmes a ocupar la jefatura de Gobierno están el ex comandante del Ejército Surayud Chulanont y el ex director de la Organización Mundial de Comercio (OMC) Supachai Panitchpakdi.

Copyright 1996-2006 Clarín.com - All rights reserved

http://www.clarin.com/diario/2006/09/28/um/m-01280006.htm

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Guardian:
Intelligent observation

Thursday September 28, 2006

Intelligence services are undergoing something of a renaissance in these dangerous times, recovering from the battering they took because their own careful work was "spun" too often by unscrupulous politicians. Few have forgotten the UK government's notoriously dodgy 45-minute warning of Saddam Hussein's ability to attack with weapons of mass destruction he turned out not to possess, or the spurious accounts from Washington of a link between Baghdad and al-Qaida's 9/11 onslaught on the US. So it is encouraging to hear that it is now the considered view of the 16 different agencies that make up the enormous US intelligence community that the war in Iraq has helped produce a new generation of fanatical jihadists and increased the threat of global terrorism.

Not only does this American finding have the ring of truth about it, but millions of ordinary people in Britain, Europe, the US and far beyond have reached the same bleak conclusion from a daily torrent of news, analysis and information that is freely available to all. It needs neither spy satellites, informers, nor highly trained analysts to observe the rage and fury that has been generated by Iraq: we have heard it in native Yorkshire accents from the young men who brought mayhem to the London underground on 7/7; from public opinion polls; from countless demonstrations across the Arab and Muslim worlds; from Iraqis, Shia as well as Sunnis, who hated the Ba'athist tyrant but who have paid an intolerable price for their liberation from his odious regime. Events in Afghanistan, Palestine and Lebanon, mixed in with Fallujah, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and heavily spiced by anger and resentment at perceived double standards, have added to this poisonous brew.

Obvious though it may be to state that Iraq has become a "cause celebre for jihadists", the importance of this part of the US National Intelligence Estimate is that it flatly contradicts George Bush's upbeat version of the state of play just weeks before the midterm congressional elections, in which Iraq is playing a central role: thus the president's distinctly peevish tone when he was forced, under Democratic pressure, to declassify part of the report in response to a timely leak in the New York Times.

Mr Bush's argument, developed since his absurd "mission accomplished" speech in May 2003, is that Iraq is a central front in the "war on terror" and that a defeat for extremists there will be a serious blow to extremists worldwide. Tony Blair uses the same line, telling the Labour party conference on Tuesday that it would be wrong to abandon Iraq to al-Qaida and sectarian death squads. Both president and prime minister are right to say that jihadists existed before March 2003: there was 9/11 itself of course, but also the attack on the World Trade Centre a decade earlier, the bombing of US embassies in Africa in 1998 and Osama bin Laden's sinister "declaration of war against Crusaders and Jews". What they are both wrong to ignore is the crucial question of whether war in Iraq helped or hindered the legitimate effort to defend democracies from terrorist attack.

Arguing about the past often triggers impatient official responses such as "let's move on" or "we are where we are". But shutting down debate about old mistakes is likely to lead to new ones in the future. Iraq is a bloody and hopeless mess, the situation in Afghanistan deteriorating alarmingly, Iran is a grave worry, and the need for progress between Israel and the Palestinians more urgent than ever. These issues need to be aired. The row about the US intelligence estimate is about honest analysis and political spin. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, is not known for plain speaking: still, his blunt view, expressed in Washington this week, is that the invasion of Iraq has indeed made the world a far more dangerous place. General Musharraf and America's spies are right. Messrs Bush and Blair are wrong.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1882410,00.html

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Harper's Magazine:
First-Person Shooters

[Juvenilia]

Posted on Wednesday, September 27, 2006. From over 900 pages of documents seized at the homes of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, including school assignments and chat-room transcripts, released in July by the Sheriff’s Office of Jefferson County, Colorado, resulting from a motion filed in 2002. On April 20, 1999, Klebold and Harris killed thirteen people and themselves at Columbine High School, near Littleton, Colorado. Originally from Harper's Magazine, September 2006.

Similarities Between Zeus and I

By Eric Harris

The Greek god Zeus is similar to me for many reasons. First, I try to settle problems in a mature, nonviolent manner, and so does Zeus. I often try to create new things, just as Zeus, the ruler of the Gods, creates new rules and animals. Zeus and I both like to be powerful. I usually turn out to be a great leader, just like Zeus. We both get angry easily and punish people in unusual ways, as when Prometheus stole the gift of fire and was then punished. Lastly, like the god Zeus, I am kind to animals and people. That’s why Zeus is the Greek god most similar to me.

Guns

By Eric Harris

Guns! Boy, I loved playing guns as a kid. It is one of the few things I miss from childhood. My brother, two friends, and I were always running around shooting imaginary bad guys. The woods behind my old house in Michigan were vast, empty, and old. My brother, Sonia, Kevin, and I made countless missions in those woods, hunting for enemy troops and stopping invasions. “Fire!” I would scream as we all made fast gun sounds, waving our deadly plastic toys. Almost every time we had a firefight, we would pretend one of us was injured. We would always carry little bandages and tape with us to dress the wounds. Sonia, being her crazy self, would run right into the battle, screaming and firing at all the bad guys, as we gave cover fire. One of these days, real soon, I will call Sonia up and see if she still remembers me. It seemed so vivid, our fighting, and so real. Now that I have actually fired weapons I realize how unrealistic we were, but hey, we were just kids!

The Man in Black

A short story by Dylan Klebold

At 1:00 a.m., as the man dressed in black walked down the street, not a sound was to be heard, except the jingling of his belt chains striking his two guns in their holsters and his large bowie knife slung in anticipation of use. He looked ready for a small war with whoever came his way, fueled perhaps by what Christians would call evil. He smoked a thin cigar. Even though I was unable to see his expressions, I could feel his anger. He noticed my presence but paid no attention, and kept walking toward a popular bar, The Watering Hole. He stopped about thirty feet from the door and waited. For whom? I wondered. A group of preps walked out of the bar, mildly drunk. Seeing him, they stopped in their tracks, paralyzed with fear. “You still want a fight, huh?” said the largest. “Just a fistfight. C’mon, put the guns away. Fuckin’ pussy!” His voice quavered as he spoke these words of attempted courage. The other preps were muttering:

“Nice trench coat, dude.”

“We were just messing around with you the other day. Chill out, man.”

“I didn’t do anything. It was all them.”

“C’mon, man. You wouldn’t shoot us in public.”

The smallest, obviously a cocky, power-hungry prick, said, “Shoot me! Go ahead, I want you to shoot me. Hah, you won’t. Goddamn pussy!”

The man in black laughed. It would have made Satan cringe in Hell. Before I could see a reaction from the preps, the man had pulled out one of his pistols. Three shots were fired. Three shots hit the largest prep in the head. The streetlights caused a reflection off the droplets of blood as they flew away from his skull and showered his buddies. The next few were not executed so systematically, but with uncontrolled rage. He set down the guns and pulled out the knife. One of the two left, the smallest, had pissed his pants. The other one lunged at the man, hoping his football-tackling skills would save his life. The man sidestepped and made two slashes at the prep. A small trickle of blood cascaded onto the concrete. The last one, the smallest one, tried to run. The man quickly reloaded and shot him through the lower leg. He instantly fell and cried in pain.

The man pulled an electronic device from his bag. I saw him tweak the dials and press a button. I heard a faint yet powerful explosion—six miles away, I would guess. Then another. After recalling the night many times, I finally understood that these were diversions, to attract the cops.

The last prep, bawling, was attempting to crawl away. The man walked up behind him, and his left hand came down on the prep’s head. The metal piece did its work. The town was still, except for the distant wail of police sirens. The man came my way again. He stopped and gave me a look I will never forget. If I could face the emotion of a god, it would look like the man. He smiled, and in that instant, through no endeavor of my own, I understood his actions.

An Internet chat between an unidentified correspondent and Eric Harris, writing under the name REB DoMiNe.

[Redacted]: i will get over him

REB DoMiNe: love in my view means something different to everyone. what one person calls true love can be just a cheap thrill to another

[Redacted]: i think i am just obsessed with the idea of a great boyfriend and hes the closest i got. hes a lot like you

REB DoMiNe: damn

[Redacted]: i am just comfortable with him

REB DoMiNe: why do you feel comfortable with him?

[Redacted]: we can goof off or have a deep conversation

REB DoMiNe: it doesnt seem like he can have a deep conv

[Redacted]: it is easier to have a deep conversation with people that i meet in person because i need to look into their eyes. he has such beautiful eyes

REB DoMiNe: you see, i have never had any convs like this in real life so i wouldnt know

[Redacted]: really never?

REB DoMiNe: nope

[Redacted]: do you not have many close girl friends?

REB DoMiNe: no, i hardly have any

[Redacted]: that seems strange to me

REB DoMiNe: heh i have a bigass feeling you would hate quite a few people here

[Redacted]: a lot of fake people

REB DoMiNe: mhm

[Redacted]: that dont think

REB DoMiNe: followers, airheads, losers, dumbasses

[Redacted]: i hate people like that

REB DoMiNe: they only think about social life instead of life life

[Redacted]: i am so glad you are not like that

REB DoMiNe: you and me are the ones who should be running the world, not all these lameass lying politic

[Redacted]: yeah that would be cool wed have all the answers

REB DoMiNe: i would love to be the ultimate judge . . . and say if a person lives or dies

[Redacted]: i would love to hold someones life in my hand

REB DoMiNe: be godlike

[Redacted]: yeah could i be your goddess?

This is First-Person Shooters, a reading, originally from September 2006, published Wednesday, September 27, 2006. It is part of Power, which is part of Readings, which is part of Harpers.org.

Permanent URL
http://harpers.org/FirstPersonShooters.html

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Jeune Afrique: La France répare une "injustice"
de 47 ans envers les soldats coloniaux

FRANCE - 27 septembre 2006 – AFP

Le gouvernement a annoncé mercredi, jour de la sortie du film "Indigènes" qui remet au premier plan le sort des combattants coloniaux, que ces derniers percevraient désormais la même pension que les Français, un "acte de justice", selon le président Jacques Chirac.

Ce geste, salué en Afrique et au Maghreb, répare ce que les anciens combattants d'Afrique noire, du Maghreb, de Madagascar et d'Indochine vivaient comme une injustice depuis 47 ans

Il constitue un nouveau pas dans la reconnaissance des pages oubliées de l'histoire de France, après les débats sur la colonisation et l'esclavage.

"La France accomplit aujourd'hui un acte de justice et de reconnaissance envers tous ceux qui sont venus de l'ex-empire français combattre sous notre drapeau", a affirmé le chef de l'Etat lors du Conseil des ministres.

Le gouvernement a ainsi annoncé que quelque 84.000 anciens combattants coloniaux (57.000 au titre des retraites du combattant et 27.000 à celui des pensions d'invalidité) toucheraient à partir du 1er janvier 2007 les mêmes pensions que leurs anciens frères d'armes de nationalité française.

"Ils percevront exactement en euros ce que perçoivent les nationaux français", a déclaré le ministre des Anciens combattants, Hamlaoui Mékachéra, qui a toutefois exclu toute rétroactivité.

Cette mesure coûtera 110 millions d'euros par an et sera inscrite au projet de loi de finance 2007 par un amendement du gouvernement, a indiqué le ministre du Budget, Jean-François Copé.

"Nous savons ce que nous devons à l'engagement et au courage de tous ceux qui ont défendu notre patrie et ses idéaux dans les conflits du 20e siècle", a déclaré de son côté le Premier ministre Dominique de Villepin, qui s'adressait à des associations "du monde combattant" à Matignon.

Au-delà des réparations, cette revalorisation des pensions est "une abolition des discriminations qui aura des répercussions dans toute la société française aujourd'hui", s'est félicité Rachid Bouchareb, le réalisateur d'"Indigènes", alors que les émeutes de novembre dans les banlieues ont mis en lumière le sentiment persistant d'inégalité chez les jeunes issus de l'immigration.

Après avoir vu le film en avant-première début septembre, Jacques Chirac avait promis à ses producteurs une revalorisation des pensions, a rapporté l'un des interprètes, l'humoriste Jamel Debbouze.

A Bucarest, où il est arrivé mercredi pour une visite officielle puis participer au sommet de la francophonie, le Président de la République a déclaré: "Il n'est pas inexact de dire qu'ayant eu le privilège de voir avant sa sortie le film 'Indigènes', j'ai été particulièrement touché par ce qu'il exprimait et la façon dont il l'exprimait".

"Cela m'a conduit à accélérer et à annoncer un certain nombre de mesures qui sont légitimes, qui étaient souhaitées par beaucoup et notamment dans la communauté militaire et qui étaient à juste titre revendiquées par les anciens militaires qui avaient combattu à nos côtés pour le drapeau français", a ajouté Jacques Chirac.

Les pensions avaient été gelées en 1959, au moment de la décolonisation. Selon des associations, les anciens combattants étrangers reçoivent, au mieux, 30% de la somme versée aux Français.

Les anciens combattants au Mali, en Côte d'Ivoire ou au Maroc se sont immédiatement félicités de la revalorisation des pensions, y voyant la "réparation d'une injustice", mais attendent aussi prudemment de "voir l'argent".

Pour beaucoup, c'est aussi trop tard. "C'est une mesure satisfaisante mais tardive, car deux tiers des camarades ne sont plus", a déclaré à Dakar l'adjudant Touramane Coly, âgé de plus de 80 ans.

© Jeuneafrique.com 2006

http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_depeche.asp?
art_cle=AFP82316lafraxuaino0

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Mother Jones:
The Wrong War

Backdraft: How the war in Iraq has fueled Al Qaeda and ignited its dream of global jihad.

Peter Bergen
July/August 2004 Issue

President Bush's May 2003 announcement aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln that "major combat operations" had ended in Iraq has been replayed endlessly. What is less well remembered is just what the president claimed the United States had accomplished. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001," he declared. The defeat of Saddam Hussein, he told the American people, was "a crucial advance in the campaign against terror." In fact, the consensus now emerging among a wide range of intelligence and counterterrorism professionals is that the opposite is true: The invasion of Iraq not only failed to help the war on terrorism, but it represented a substantial setback.

In more than a dozen interviews, experts both within and outside the U.S. government laid out a stark analysis of how the war has hampered the campaign against Al Qaeda. Not only, they point out, did the war divert resources and attention away from Afghanistan, seriously damaging the prospects of capturing Al Qaeda leaders, but it has also opened a new front for terrorists in Iraq and created a new justification for attacking Westerners around the world. Perhaps most important, it has dramatically speeded up the process by which Al Qaeda the organization has morphed into a broad-based ideological movement - a shift, in effect, from bin Laden to bin Ladenism. "If Osama believed in Christmas, this is what he'd want under his Christmas tree," one senior intelligence official told me. Another counterterrorism official suggests that Iraq might begin to resemble "Afghanistan 1996," a reference to the year that bin Laden seized on Afghanistan, a chaotic failed state, as his new base of operations.

Even Kenneth Pollack, one of the nation's leading experts on Iraq, whose book The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq made the most authoritative case for overthrowing Saddam Hussein, says, "My instinct tells me that the Iraq war has hindered the war on terrorism. You had to deal with Al Qaeda first, not Saddam. We had not crippled the Al Qaeda organization when we embarked on the Iraq war."

The damage to U.S. interests is hard to overestimate. Rohan Gunaratna, a Sri Lankan academic who is regarded as one of the world's leading authorities on Al Qaeda, points out that "sadness and anger about Iraq, even among moderate Muslims, is being harnessed and exploited by terrorist and extremist groups worldwide to grow in strength, size, and influence." Similarly, Vincent Cannistraro, a former chief of counterterrorism at the CIA under presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush, says the Iraq war "accelerated terrorism" by "metastasizing" Al Qaeda. Today, Al Qaeda is more than the narrowly defined group that attacked the United States on September 11, 2001; it is a growing global movement that has been energized by the war in Iraq.

This turn of events is a dramatic shift from the mood in the months following the 9/11 attacks. When the United States went to war against the Taliban, it was understood by many in the global community, including many Arabs and Muslims, as a just war. The war in Iraq not only drained that reservoir of goodwill; it also dragged the United States into what many see as a conflict with the Muslim world, or ummah, in general. Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab politics at Georgetown University, says the Iraq war has convinced "many Muslims around the world, perhaps a majority, that the war on terrorism is in fact a war against Islam." Jason Burke, author of the authoritative 2003 book Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, adds that the Iraq war "appears to be clear evidence to many that the perception of the militants is in fact accurate and that the ummah is engaged in a war of self-defense. This has theological implications - jihad is compulsory for all Muslims if the ummah is under attack."

This is not an arcane matter of Islamic jurisprudence, but a key reason why Americans are now dying in significant numbers in Iraq and an important factor behind the rise of a revitalized Al Qaeda movement. The Koran has two sets of justifications for holy war; one concerns a "defensive" jihad, when a Muslim land is under attack by non-Muslims, while the other countenances offensive attacks on infidels. Generally, Muslims consider the defensive justification for jihad to be the more legitimate. It was, for instance, a defensive jihad that clerics invoked against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan during the 1980s.

To the extent that Sunni Muslims - the vast majority of Muslims - have a Vatican, it is Al Azhar University in Cairo, the pre-eminent center of Muslim thought. Before the Iraq war, Al Azhar released a fatwa, a ruling on Islamic law, to the effect that if "crusader" forces attacked Iraq, it was an obligation for every Muslim to fight back. The clerics of Al Azhar were not alone in this view. The prominent Lebanese Shiite scholar Sheikh Fadlullah also called on Muslims to fight American forces in Iraq. In contrast, after 9/11, Sheikh Fadlullah had issued a fatwa condemning the attacks, as did the chief cleric of Al Azhar. Throughout the Muslim world, leading clerics who condemned what happened on 9/11 have given their blessing to fighting against the occupation of Iraq - and as demonstrated by the attacks in Madrid in March, jihadists are prepared to take that fight to the invaders' home turf.

Harry "Skip" Brandon, a former senior counterterrorism official at the FBI, says the Iraq war "serves as a real rallying point, not only for the region, but also in Asia. We've seen very solid examples of them using the Iraq war for recruiting. I have seen it personally in Malaysia. The Iraq war is a public relations bonanza for Al Qaeda and a public relations disaster for us the longer it goes on." Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak's prediction that the occupation of Iraq would create "a hundred bin Ladens" is beginning to look prescient. We may soon find ourselves facing something akin to a global intifada.

Perhaps the most emblematic failure of the war on terrorism has been the continued ability of Al Qaeda's top leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, to set the agenda for a string of terrorist attacks around the world. A bin Laden call for attacks against Western economic interests in October 2002 was followed by bombings of a French oil tanker and a Bali disco catering to Western tourists. In September 2003, Zawahiri denounced Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf for supporting the U.S. campaign against Al Qaeda; Musharraf narrowly survived two assassination attempts over the months that followed. And after bin Laden called for retaliation against countries that were part of the coalition in Iraq in late 2003, terrorists attacked an Italian police barracks in Iraq, a British consulate in Turkey, and commuter trains in Madrid. According to a May report by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, Al Qaeda is now "fully reconstituted," with a "new and effective modus operandi," a presence in as many as 90 countries, and "over 18,000 potential terrorists still at large."

Yet despite Al Qaeda's undiminished global influence, the United States has pulled vital resources away from the hunt for bin Laden and Zawahiri. Soon after the fall of the Taliban, substantial numbers of Arabic speakers at the CIA and the National Security Agency were directed to focus on Iraq rather than the hunt for Al Qaeda. "By January 2002, serious planning began for the invasion of Iraq," notes Cannistraro, the former CIA counterterrorism chief, "and that meant drawing down Arabic language resources from CIA and electronic intelligence gathering." In addition, says Richard Clarke, who headed counterterrorism efforts under both presidents Clinton and George W. Bush, unmanned Predator spy planes were deployed away from Afghanistan to Iraq in March 2003, and satellites surveying the Afghan-Pakistani border were diverted to the Gulf region.

Special Operations soldiers with critical skills - including Arabic language training - were perhaps the U.S. military's key asset in the effort to capture Al Qaeda leaders. But according to Larry Johnson, who used to work on counterterrorism issues at the CIA and State Department and who now advises the U.S. military on terrorism, those forces were pulled out of Afghanistan in the spring of 2002 to look for Scud missiles in western Iraq. It was only following the capture of Saddam Hussein, last December, that those troops were directed back to searching for Al Qaeda, leaving the pursuit of Al Qaeda's leaders significantly impaired for a year and a half.

Today, the hunt for Al Qaeda and Taliban in Afghanistan is largely a waiting game. Last summer, when I went out with a platoon from the 82nd Airborne on a mission into the badlands along the Afghan border to look for Al Qaeda and other "anti-coalition" forces, I found that the three-day mission did little more than chase shadows. Sergeant Joe Frost, a demolitions expert in his mid-30s, summed it up by noting that U.S. troops often found themselves attacked after sundown but could rarely find their assailants: "They're like shoot and run. We've seen one Al Qaeda person in the last six months." And therein lies the crux of the problem: The United States did not effectively crush Al Qaeda forces in Afghanistan during the war and its aftermath, which meant that those forces were able to slip away in- to the border region, where they can hide and organize attacks both inside Afghanistan and around the world.

Today, only 20,000 U.S. troops are stationed in Afghanistan, a country the size of Texas and nearly 50 percent larger than Iraq, where 140,000 U.S. troops haven't been enough to create sta-bility. Kathy Gannon, who has covered Afghanistan for the past 16 years for the Associated Press, says that the security situation is "as bad as it's ever been" - and that includes the years during and before the Taliban reign. The power of regional warlords has surged, challenging Hamid Karzai's central government and creating space for the Taliban to quietly emerge from the shadows. Taliban leader Mullah Omar and military commander Jalaluddin Haqqani both remain at large, as does Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a Pashtun warlord whose forces are regularly engaging U.S. soldiers. Meanwhile, Afghanistan has become the world's largest source of opium, the raw material for heroin. The country is now one of the world's leading narco-states, and money from the $2.3 billion drug trade is reportedly making its way into Al Qaeda's coffers. According to Barnett Rubin, a senior fellow at New York University and an authority on the region, Afghanistan is "obviously in danger of reverting to a failed state."

But the administration's focus on the war in Iraq has not only caused it to shortchange the hunt for Al Qaeda in Afghanistan - it has also undermined the war on terrorism around the world. A poll taken by the Pew Global Attitudes Project in March 2004 found that bin Laden is viewed favorably by large parts of the population in Pakistan (65 percent), Jordan (55 percent), and Morocco (45 percent), all countries that are key allies in the war on terrorism. These results echo those of a Pew survey taken shortly after the invasion of Iraq in which Indonesians, Jordanians, Turks, and Moroccans all expressed more "confidence" in bin Laden than in President Bush. During the buildup to the war, the polling company Zogby International found that favorable views of the United States had declined from 34 to 10 percent in Jordan, 38 to 9 percent in Morocco, and 12 to 3 percent in Saudi Arabia. Of course, admiration for bin Laden and dislike for the United States do not necessarily translate into a desire to attack Westerners. But the war against bin Laden is in large part a war of ideas - and on that front, the war in Iraq has damaged the United States' cause and broadened the pool of Al Qaeda recruits.

Nowhere is this shift more visible than on the Internet - a significant fact in itself, since Internet chatter reflects the opinions of a rel-atively educated, elite segment of the Muslim world. To the extent that Al Qaeda - "the base" in Arabic - has a new base, it is, to a surprising degree, on the web. According to a U.S. government contractor who specializes in analyzing jihadist chat rooms and websites, web traffic was "tremendously energized" in the period before the Iraq war. "When it was clear that the war was about to occur, there was more participation, more rhetoric, more anger," the contractor says. "The war in Afghanistan provoked some anger, but not as much as the Iraq war." And while such chatter often amounts to mere venting, online discussions can also generate a road map for terrorist acts. Veteran Middle East reporter Paul Eedle, who closely monitors Arabic language websites, points to a document posted on an Al Qaeda site in December 2003 "reflecting the thinking of senior Al Qaeda leaders" that discussed how best to break up the coalition in Iraq. The document noted that countries like the United Kingdom were unlikely to withdraw from Iraq, while Spain was the weakest link in the coalition. Three months later, 191 Spaniards lost their lives in a bombing timed to coincide with Spain's election, and Spain subsequently withdrew its troops from Iraq.

Another shift in Internet traffic came this spring, when visits to websites with information about Iraq - such as Al Jazeera's home page - skyrocketed during the standoff in Fallujah and the prison abuse scandal. "Iraq has become transformed beyond a cause that energized just the jihadists," Eedle says. "It has caused outrage at every middle-class dinner table in the Middle East."

Saddam Hussein's Iraq - despite the administration's arguments to the contrary - was hardly a haven for Al Qaeda. But now, Iraq has become what some experts call a "supermagnet" for jihadists. "We've created the World Series of terrorism," a senior government counterterrorism official told me.

Judith Yaphe, who was the CIA's senior analyst on Iraq during the first Gulf War, says Iraq is "open to terrorism in a way that it was not before. The lack of central authority makes it more amenable to terrorists." Iraq is convenient for Arab militants, who can blend into its society in a way they did not in Bosnia, Chechnya, or Afghanistan. Dr. Saad al-Fagih, a leading Saudi dissident, says that hundreds of Saudis have gone to fight in Iraq; one source of his, he says, compares Iraq to "Peshawar during the 1980s," a reference to the Pakistani city that attracted Muslims from around the world seeking to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan.

Given that large numbers of U.S. forces are likely to be in Iraq for years, it is clear that the country will remain an important theater of operations for Al Qaeda and its affiliates. The irony of this development hardly needs to be stated. A key reason the Bush administration was able to sell the Iraq war to the American people was the widely held belief that Al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime had entered into an unholy alliance and were jointly responsible for the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon - something 2 out of 3 Americans believed, according to a Pew poll released in October 2002. To date, the largest criminal investigation in history has turned up no evidence of Iraq's involvement in 9/11; nor have the occupation of Iraq and the efforts of the entire U.S. intelligence apparatus uncovered any such link. Yet Al Qaeda-like groups, both homegrown and foreign, have now become well established in Iraq. "Prior to 2003 and our invasion, Iraq rarely figured on the international terrorism charts," notes Larry Johnson, the military adviser. "Now Iraq has had the third-largest number of terrorist fatalities after Israel and India."

Some U.S. officials have argued that this development may have an upside: In July 2003, General Ricardo Sanchez offered what has been dubbed the "flypaper" theory, explaining that Iraq "is what I would call a terrorist magnet.... And this will prevent the American people from having to go through attacks back in the United States." But this is an absurd ex post facto rationalization: Before the war, the Bush administration would hardly have made the case that we were going to occupy Iraq so that our men and women in uniform would attract terrorists eager to kill them.

Nor has the Iraqi "flypaper" served to stop jihadists from attacking elsewhere. Over the past year, more than 100 people have died in attacks against Western and Jewish targets in Turkey and Morocco; car bombs in Saudi Arabia have killed scores more; a suicide attacker in August 2003 bombed a Marriott hotel in Indonesia, killing 12; and the train bombs in Madrid left 191 people dead. And these numbers do not take into account the thousands of people who have been killed in the past year in insurgencies in places such as Kashmir, Chechnya, Uzbekistan, Thailand, the Phil- ippines, and Indonesia - all conflicts in which the broader Al Qaeda movement plays a significant role.

Which brings us to an important question: What is Al Qaeda? The network is perhaps best understood as a set of concentric rings, growing more ill defined as they spread outward. At the core is Al Qaeda the organization, which bin Laden and a dozen or so close associates formed in 1989, and which eventually expanded to 200 to 300 core members who have sworn an oath of allegiance to bin Laden, their emir, or prince. It was Al Qaeda the organization that attacked the United States on September 11, 2001.

The second concentric ring consists of perhaps several thousand men who have trained in Al Qaeda's Afghan camps in bomb making, assassination, and the manufacture of poisons. Beyond that ring are as many as 120,000 who received some kind of basic military training in Afghanistan over the past decade. An undetermined number of those fighters are now sharpening their skills as insurgents from Kashmir to Algeria.

The Madrid attacks in March are emblematic of what is emerging as the fourth and perhaps most ambiguous - and potentially most dangerous - ring in the Al Qaeda galaxy. The attacks were carried out by a group of Moroccans with few links to Al Qaeda the organization. Some of the conspirators did try to establish direct contact with the inner core of Al Qaeda, but that effort seems to have been unsuccessful, and they carried out the attacks under their own steam. These attacks may well represent the future of "Al Qaeda" operations, most of which will be executed by local jihadists who have little or no direct connection to bin Laden's group. This is a worrisome development, because it suggests that Al Qaeda has successfully transformed itself from an organization into a mass movement with a nearly unlimited pool of potential operatives.

Even administration officials now seem to acknowledge that the war has not lessened the likelihood of attacks inside the United States. As CIA Director George Tenet tes-tified before the Senate Intelligence Committee in February, Al Qaeda detainees "consistently talk about the importance the group still attaches to striking the main enemy, the United States.... Even catastrophic attacks on the scale of September 11 remain within Al Qaeda's reach." Senior counter-terrorism officials are especially concerned about possible attacks timed to the Republican convention in New York and about attacks aimed to disrupt the November election.

If the Al Qaeda leadership had been wiped out in Afghanistan during the winter of 2001, President Bush might have gone down in history as one of the more adroit wartime presidents. Instead, Al Qaeda's leaders and many of its foot soldiers went on to fight another day. Making matters worse, the president volunteered the nation for a counterproductive war in Iraq that has cost us dearly in blood and treasure. Few mourn the defeat of Saddam, a tyrant who will surely join Stalin, Pol Pot, and Hitler in some especially unpleasant corner of hell. However, the war against Saddam wasn't conducted under the banner of liberating the Iraqi people, but rather under the banner of winning the war on terrorism. And by that standard, it has been a grotesque failure.

What we have done in Iraq is what bin Laden could not have hoped for in his wildest dreams: We invaded an oil-rich Muslim nation in the heart of the Middle East, the very type of imperial adventure that bin Laden has long predicted was the United States' long-term goal in the region. We deposed the secular socialist Saddam, whom bin Laden has long despised, ignited Sunni and Shia fundamentalist fervor in Iraq, and have now provoked a "defensive" jihad that has galvanized jihad-minded Muslims around the world. It's hard to imagine a set of policies better designed to sabotage the war on terrorism.

Peter Bergen is the author of the New York Times best-seller Holy War, Inc.: Inside the Secret World of Osama bin Laden. He is CNN's terrorism analyst and has written for such publications as the New York Times, Foreign Affairs, and The New Republic. A fellow at the New America Foundation, Bergen is also an adjunct professor at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University.

This article has been made possible by the Foundation for National Progress, the Investigative Fund of Mother Jones, and gifts from generous readers like you.

© 2004 The Foundation for National Progress

http://www.motherjones.com/news/feature/2004/07/07_401.html

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New Statesman:
Mother Superior

Alice O'Keeffe
Monday 25th September 2006

In the 1970s, Patti Smith revolutionised rock'n'roll. Now, she tells Alice O'Keeffe, her priorities are the environment, the anti-war movement and good dental hygiene

Patti Smith raises her arms and lets loose a howl. "What is the point?" she wails. "What is the point?" A wall of guitar noise ebbs and screeches, with the occasional crunch of feedback. She blows frantically into a clarinet, eliciting a succession of piercing squeaks, then spits on to the stage floor. We may be a well-heeled crowd at the South Bank in London, but she has conjured us into a smoke-filled poet-hole in Greenwich Village. About half of the audience look like they are on a spiritual journey; the other half are clearly keen to get home and have a stiff whisky.

She may be approaching 60, but Smith has lost none of the bohemian spirit for which she was so well known. Her live performances, during which she draws audiences into an improvised world of pure emotional energy, have been described as "religious", even "shamanic". With her unbrushed tresses of greying hair, outsized cowboy boots and bony, angular features, she is an icon whose name sits comfortably in the rock pantheon alongside the likes of Bob Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison.

The odd thing is that she has not sold very many records. She had one top 20 hit, and that was in 1978 - a duet with Bruce Springsteen called "Because the Night". Smith herself recognises this: when she released Land 1975-2002, a collection of songs from her previous albums, she joked that it wasn't called Greatest Hits because "we would have had to call it Greatest Hit and have the same track 15 times over".

Nevertheless, she maintains an extraordinary influence over popular culture, continuing to play concerts all over the world. When she curated the Meltdown festival at the South Bank last year, it was the hottest ticket in town. It seems a strange paradox: Smith fulfils our desire for a true, pure artist - and yet she is clearly famous for something other than her art.

I put this to her when we meet, a few days before the concert, at the Alison Jacques Gallery in central London. She is launching an exhibition of portraits by Robert Mapplethorpe, her late best friend and sometime lover. In pride of place is the portrait of Smith from the cover of Horses: a familiar, androgynous figure in shirt and braces, staring confrontationally from the frame. This is the image that defined the rock'n'roll female, establishing a tradition that has been kept by everyone from Chrissie Hynde to P J Harvey.

In person, Smith is grounded and mellow. She sometimes takes a surprisingly homespun, motherly tone. "I would like to think that the quality of the work I do with my band merits people still being interested," she says. "Also I'm politically concerned, and I voice my concerns - perhaps that's another reason."

I wonder whether she would agree that people are fascinated by her as a symbol of a more dig nified age - a kind of anti-Paris Hilton. "I think there is a certain amount of truth in that. When I made my first record, rock'n'roll was a new form. I didn't think about making money, I didn't imagine being rich and famous. My motivations were not to get a bunch of cute guys, get drugs and have a limousine. I really wanted to do something important to contribute to the canon of rock'n'roll."

Smith's career has always been driven by a sense of mission. When she first started reading her poetry backed by an electric guitar, in 1970s New York, she wanted to "return rock'n'roll to the people". She was alarmed by the commercialisation of the music industry, as the gen eration of rebel artists of the 1960s either went stellar (the Rolling Stones) or bit the dust (Hendrix and Morrison).

"I came from an era when people felt they could make a difference. We felt that we could stop war. We felt that we could start a revolution, express our poetic and sexual energy, do something positive. That is part of the legacy of rock'n'roll and people can still do that. Some 16-year-old could wake up tomorrow and say, 'I'm going to make a record which will wake up the world.'"

Few artists who spoke for the children of the 1960s or 1970s would still talk so idealistically about the transformative potential of rock mus ic. And yet, unlike so many of her rock peers, Smith has studiously avoided the hedonism and self-importance of many people who work in the music industry. At the height of her fame in the 1970s, she suddenly retired to concentrate on raising a family with her husband, the guitarist Fred "Sonic" Smith.

"She is one of the few performers I know who has actually managed to get off the road," says Glenn Max, contemporary culture producer at the South Bank, who worked closely with Smith on last year's Meltdown. "No male artist I know has ever succeeded in doing that."

Predictably, it has been suggested that her husband demanded that she retire, but Smith herself has always insisted that it was her decision. "I had said everything I knew how to say, so I would either be redundant or merely start getting rich and famous," she told one interviewer when she re-emerged with the album Gone Again in 1996. "I needed to learn more, so I had more to give."

It has proved to be a wise choice. Family life has given Smith a solid foundation from which to continue her work, and a genuine sense of perspective on her fame. "I really don't want you to think that I sit around at home thinking of myself as an icon," she tells me at one point, with great emphasis. "I'm a mother, I'm a normal person, and I never think about myself in those terms, although of course it is flattering to hear it. I believe that fame is fleeting: it is only good work that endures."

Raising children has also given Smith an instinctive sympathy with younger people, who she believes are doing their best in a hostile world plagued by materialism and "devoid of spiritual content". All one can do, she says, is offer them positive alternatives. "You can't judge young people - you have to set an example. Give them tools. Try to inspire them. I know the new gen eration will figure it all out. And if I can answer any questions, if I can be of any help or service, then, you know, I'm around."

When I press her for detail, her counsel takes a somewhat surprising form: "Things like, eating a lot of fast food is really bad for you. All that salt and sugar creates high blood pressure; it makes you overweight, it makes you sluggish. And take care of your teeth, because when you get older it's such a drag. There's nothing worse than feeling creative, wanting to do stuff, and not being able to because you've got teeth problems and you don't have enough money to take care of them." Thus speaks the rock goddess.

While Smith's ability to hang on to her youthful idealism has endeared her to fans worldwide, it has a less cuddly side. She earned the anger of many American liberals for supporting Ralph Nader as Green Party candidate in the US presidential elections in 2000. Nader was blamed for George W Bush's victory when he won nearly 98,000 votes in Florida, where Al Gore lost to the Republicans by a slender margin. I ask her if, with hindsight, she ever regrets that decision. "Absolutely not. Ralph is a great man and if he was president the world would be glowing." She argues that Gore ran his campaign poorly, failing to fight back against corrupt tactics from the Bush camp. "A lot of people find it convenient to blame Ralph Nader. But the truth of the matter is that if Al Gore had fought to the end, the outcome would have been very different."

It is more difficult to justify her insistence that she would do the same again in the 2008 elections. "Would I campaign strategically to get rid of Bush? No. I would always back the candidate I believed in. If I'm voting for someone, I have to feel that I can live with myself about it."

It seems appropriate that our interview ends with that uncompromising statement. While those around her have resigned themselves to realpolitik, Patti Smith is still rooting for her dreams. And even if she sometimes sounds a wrong note, the world is a richer place for it.

"Robert Mapplethorpe - Still Moving & Lady" is at the Alison Jacques Gallery, London W1, until 7 October. [http://www.alisonjacquesgallery.com]


Patti Smith: her life and times

1946 Patricia Lee Smith is born in Chicago to an atheist father and devout Jehovah's Witness mother.

1967 Aged 20, she moves to New York and meets her lifelong friend Robert Mapplethorpe.

1974 She begins her musical career, initially with the guitarist and rock archivist Lenny Kaye, and later with a full band. Financed by Mapplethorpe, the band records a first single, "Piss Factory/Hey Joe".

1975 The Patti Smith Group is signed by Arista Records. Smith's first album, Horses, is released to great acclaim.

1977 While on tour, Smith accidentally dances off a high stage in Tampa, Florida, falling 15 feet into a concrete orchestra pit and breaking several vertebrae in her neck.

1979 Following the release of Wave, Smith meets and then marries Fred "Sonic" Smith, guitarist of the rock band MC5. She passes most of the 1980s in semi-retirement, living in a suburb of Detroit with her family.

1989 Robert Mapplethorpe dies of Aids.

1994 Fred, her husband, and Todd, her brother, die within months of each other. Two years later, Smith releases the album Gone Again and gets back on the road.

This article first appeared in the New Statesman.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200609250035

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Página/12:
Sobre temores y prioridades

Por Mario Wainfeld
Jueves, 28 de Septiembre de 2006

Aunque las expresiones cada vez más angustiadas (y por ende angustiosas) del presidente Néstor Kirchner y del gobernador bonaerense Felipe Solá induzcan a suponer que se conoce el desenlace de la situación de Jorge Julio López, los gobiernos nacional y provincial (de modo oficial y oficioso) insisten en que nada se sabe aún.

Igualmente, según pasan los días, la hipótesis más tranquilizadora en términos políticos (una decisión personal, consciente o no, del testigo de cargo contra Etchecolatz) deviene menos probable. Los temores y las evocaciones del pasado crecen de modo inevitable. La posibilidad de que haya existido un feroz delito con motivaciones políticas no puede darse por probada pero no puede negarse.

En tanto subsista la incerteza, lo aconsejable es ser cauto en las interpretaciones y en las predicciones. Mucho más en el prorrateo de supuestas culpas respecto de un final que sigue abierto.

En ese contexto opresivo sorprenden ciertos debates que empiezan a despuntar. Un dilema es básico: el de saber si un grupo ejerció violencia ilegal contra López por haber atestiguado o para amedrentar a otros testigos, a los jueces y a los fiscales. Si así hubiera sucedido se estaría viviendo no una vuelta al pasado (en rigor la historia nunca se repite) pero sí una nueva etapa histórica signada por la reaparición de un ingrediente aciago que parecía superado.

Toda pregunta subsiguiente a si alguien atentó por móviles políticos contra la vida o la libertad de López es, a los ojos de este cronista, prematura y subalterna. Lo de prematuro es notorio. Lo de subalterno debería serlo pero, como suele ocurrir en la Argentina actual, los ejes de la discusión se desvían y las prioridades se alteran en un mezquino cuadro que pone al Gobierno en el centro de la escena. En el centro de la escena está López y, si ocurrió lo peor, también los canallas que delinquieron contra él. Sobre ellos debería caer el peso del repudio social y político. Todos los demás actores, oficialismo incluido, deberían antes que nada cerrar filas frente a los criminales.

El sistema político y hasta se diría cultural actual es enormemente faccioso. A la inmensa mayoría de los protagonistas les cuesta establecer acuerdos mínimos o reconocer al otro. Sería oprobioso, pero suena verosímil que ese esquema invivible rigiera en el caso de resurgimiento de la violencia política.

Para el Gobierno, para la oposición y para los comunicadores es todo un desafío no caer en bajezas utilitarias. Para las fuerzas de seguridad y de inteligencia, poco habituadas a cumplir sus tareas sin violar la ley o imponer reglas propias, es un reto demostrar que pueden hacerlo en circunstancias muy graves. Todos deben probar que están a la altura de las duras circunstancias y consensuar que, si un enemigo común (un enemigo de la convivencia democrática) ha surgido, lo primero es unirse para enfrentarlo.

© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-73676-2006-09-28.html

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Página/12:
Lula, un blanco de operaciones de prensa

DESDE SU PRIMERA CANDIDATURA HASTA HOY LE FABRICARON MUCHAS ACUSACIONES

En 1989 un supuesto comando guerrillero del PT participó de un sonado secuestro que le costó la elección a Lula, aunque después se comprobó que el PT no tenía nada que ver. También le endilgaron un falso aborto, y ahora lo persiguen con el “dossiergate”.

Por Darío Pignotti
Desde San Pablo, Jueves, 28 de Septiembre de 2006

La bomba noticiosa detonada hace dos semanas involucrando, con pruebas, a miembros del Partido de los Trabajadores (PT) en un escándalo de espionaje político confirma que en Brasil las campañas electorales deparan sorpresas hasta último momento. O hasta última hora. El domingo 17 de diciembre de 1989, cuando millones de ciudadanos aún no habían sufragado, las principales cadenas televisivas interrumpieron sus transmisiones para mostrar a un grupo de secuestradores poco después de ser detenidos y de ser liberada la víctima. Curiosamente, todos los sospechosos llevaban camisetas del PT.

El episodio fue asociado directamente con el candidato Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva y, probablemente, influyó para que parte de los indecisos escogieran a su rival, Fernando Collor de Mello, finalmente vencedor en aquel ballottage. “Fue todo un montaje para perjudicar a Lula”, asegura, diecisiete años después, Humberto Paz, comandante de la célula que raptó al empresario Abilio Díniz, propietario de Pan de Azúcar, la mayor cadena de supermercados brasileña, por quien pretendían obtener un rescate de 30 millones de dólares, destinados a financiar a un brazo del salvadoreño Frente Farabundo Martí de Liberación Nacional.

Entrevistado por Página/12, Paz, que purgó diez años de prisión en Brasil, cuenta: “Nosotros pertenecíamos a algunas organizaciones armadas de El Salvador y Chile, que no teníamos nada, te repito, nada, que ver con el PT. Ellos nunca fueron informados de lo que estábamos organizando y en 1996 el Movimiento de Izquierda Revolucionaria (de Chile) reconoció su responsabilidad en la acción. Pero eso no lo sabían las personas que nos vieron por televisión o en fotos con camisetas del PT”.

Entre algunos dirigentes petistas oídos por este diario, el secuestro de Abilio Díniz en 1989 es citado como un ejemplo de las celadas político-informativas de las que suelen ser víctimas, dicen, hasta en la actualidad. Citan al estudioso Venicio Lima y a su libro Medios, crisis política y poder en Brasil, recientemente publicado, que repasa la actuación de la TV Globo en diversas coyunturas electorales y durante la gestión Lula. El autor concluye que ese oligopolio sigue apegado a prácticas cuestionables, comportándose como una suerte de partido opositor, mucho más lesivo para el gobierno que los partidos propiamente dichos.

Es cierto que esta crisis ha dado lugar a algunas trampas noticiosas para hundir al gobierno. Pero no se puede ignorar que ahora no hay una conspiración como la del ’89. Hay confesiones de importantes miembros del PT y pruebas, como los 1,7 millones de reales encontrados en la maleta de un miembro de ese partido para pagar a un mafioso por un dossier que incrimina al gobierno del ex presidente Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

Además, Lula ya no despierta el pánico que suscitaba entre los poderes establecidos en 1989, cuando en su discurso de campaña se incluía, entre otros puntos, un cuestionamiento el pago de la deuda externa. La campaña sucia en su contra incluyó una publicidad en la que una ex novia lo acusaba de haberla obligado a abortar. Tiempo después se supo que había recibido una buena paga de Collor para el falso testimonio, que fue tomado por los medios como una prueba y no una sospecha contra Lula. En alguna medida, aquellas elecciones fueron el último coletazo de la doctrina de la seguridad nacional en Brasil, y los partidos conservadores, los medios y los organismos de seguridad actuaron en común para abortar la amenaza roja, corporizada en Lula.

Las sesiones de tortura contra el ex guerrillero Humberto Paz comenzaron en la noche del viernes 15 de diciembre, “enseguida después de que nos detuvieron, con picana eléctrica”, recuerda durante su diálogo telefónico con este diario.

“Nos llevan a un lugar que no puedo recordar porque estábamos encapuchados. Estábamos con tres compañeros, nos sacan toda la ropa y nos someten al pau de arara (colgados). Te digo más o menos porque la conciencia se pierde en ese momento. A la madrugada, cuando ya estábamos inconscientes por la paliza y las descargas, nos bajan y nos ponen una camiseta del PT a cada uno. Después vemos que un fotógrafo de la policía saca fotos al armamento que teníamos y le ponen panfletos y materiales del PT al lado.”

Durante años, Lula no quiso ni oír hablar de los secuestradores, pero en 1999, luego de semanas de huelga de hambre, los visitó en el hospital e intercedió para que fueran extraditados.

Paz evoca el encuentro con gratitud. “El estuvo justamente enojado con nosotros muchos años. Cuando conversamos con él le expresamos que por haber priorizado la solidaridad internacionalista habíamos dejado de considerar la realidad de Brasil. Reconocimos que perjudicamos no sólo al PT en las elecciones sino al proceso democrático que estaba volviendo a Brasil.”

© 2000-2006 www.pagina12.com.ar|República Argentina|Todos los Derechos Reservados

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elmundo/4-73655-2006-09-28.html

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Página/12:
Inteligencias

Por Juan Gelman
Jueves, 28 de Septiembre de 2006

Presionado por las reacciones que provocó, incluso entre los republicanos, la noticia que el domingo 24 publicaron el New York Times y el Washington Post acerca del documento que evalúa negativamente el desarrollo de la “guerra antiterrorista”, G.W. Bush dio a conocer el martes una parte del informe que en abril elaboraron los 16 organismos de espionaje de EE.UU. Son cuatro páginas de 30, según los que lo leyeron, y en efecto señala que la actividad terrorista “aumenta en número y en dispersión geográfica” esencialmente a consecuencia de la invasión y ocupación de Irak: “El conflicto iraquí se ha convertido en la cause célèbre de los jihadistas, alimenta un profundo resentimiento contra EE.UU. en el mundo musulmán y cultiva seguidores del movimiento jihadista mundial” (i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006, 26-9-06). La inteligencia del presidente Bush no acepta lo que dicen sus servicios de inteligencia.

En la conferencia de prensa del martes 26 en que anunció la desclasificación parcial del documento, volvió a aseverar que “el único modo de proteger este país es permanecer a la ofensiva” y atribuyó la filtración a funcionarios interesados en “confundir las mentes del pueblo norteamericano” (New York Times, 27-9-06). El informe es taxativo: “Si esta tendencia (el crecimiento del terrorismo) continúa, las amenazas a los intereses de EE.UU. tanto en el propio territorio como en el extranjero se diversificarán y se incrementarán los ataques en todo el mundo... Crece el sentimiento antiestadounidense y contra la globalización, y esto incentiva a otras ideologías radicales. Podría empujar a algunos grupos izquierdistas, nacionalistas o separatistas a adoptar métodos terroristas para atacar los intereses de EE.UU. El proceso de radicalización se desenvuelve con más rapidez, amplitud y anonimato en la era del Internet y abre la posibilidad de ataques por sorpresa de grupos desconocidos cuyos miembros y cómplices sería difícil identificar”.

Es un golpe inesperado para la Casa Blanca a seis semanas de las elecciones del 7 de noviembre en que se elegirán nuevos parlamentarios y algunos gobernadores: descalabra la estrategia electoral de los republicanos, basada en la consigna de que la guerra antiterrorista acrecentó la seguridad de EE.UU. Los demócratas no tardaron en llevar estas aguas a su molino: “La guerra de Irak disminuyó nuestra seguridad”, comentó John D. Rockeller, la figura principal de ese partido en el Comité de Inteligencia del Senado. El senador Edward Kennedy asestó: “Abunda la evidencia de que necesitamos un nuevo curso en Irak mediante el redespliegue estratégico de nuestras tropas para combatir y ganar la verdadera guerra contra el terrorismo. El pueblo estadounidense lo sabe y nuestros líderes militares también. Son los dirigentes republicanos, con la cabeza metida en la arena, los únicos que se niegan tercamente a cambiar el rumbo y así tornan más difícil la guerra antiterrorista” (AP, 24-9-06). La oferta es obvia: los demócratas la harían mejor.

Casi los dos tercios de la opinión pública norteamericana estima que la guerra de Irak va “de algún modo mal” (28 por ciento) o “muy mal” (33 por ciento), según la encuesta que el New York Times y la cadena CBS realizaron a principios de mes. Hasta el mismo credo que profesa G.W. Bush, el de la Iglesia Metodista Unida, se ha unido a la campaña de protesta y desobediencia civil pacíficas contra la guerra: sus representantes firmaron frente a la Casa Blanca la declaración de más de 500 organizaciones –casi la mitad, confesionales– que exige al mandatario la retirada de las tropas. El llamamiento califica la situación en Irak de “incendio interminable que consume vidas, recursos y las frágiles posibilidades de paz”. La obispo Susan Morrison señaló en el acto de la firma: “La demanda de nuestro movimiento es terminar la guerra ya” (Common Dreams News Center, 25-9-06). Se ignora si la postura de su propia iglesia ha creado alguna duda a quien se cree ejecutor de una misión que Dios le encomendó.

La situación del frente militar ennegrece a la Casa Blanca: el número de bajas definitivas de sus efectivos en Irak se acerca a 2700, además de 20.000 heridos –una estimación modesta–, para no hablar de las decenas de miles de civiles iraquíes que siguen muriendo día a día. La guerra les viene costando 300.000 millones de dólares hasta ahora y se ha disipado la ilusión de que la producción petrolera de Irak la financiaría muy pronto. El general Peter J. Schoomaker, jefe del Estado Mayor del ejército, pide al Pentágono un aumento del 41 por ciento del presupuesto militar, que este año es de apenas 98.200 millones de dólares, aumento que considera imprescindible para mantener el actual nivel de combate en el país ocupado (Los Angeles Times, 25-9-06). No es la única esperanza de preguerra que se licuó en la Casa Blanca.

El jefe del Pentágono, Donald Rumsfeld, aseguraba antes de la invasión de marzo del 2003 que a fines de ese año sólo quedarían 30.000 soldados norteamericanos en Irak. Durante todo el 2005 dijo que retiraría 30.000 para custodiar los comicios de noviembre, pero su número aumentó, llega a 145.000 efectivos y los mandos dicen en privado que la única solución para ganar la guerra es enviar 60.000 soldados más, en particular reservistas y guardias nacionales (ABC, 25-9-06). Esto socava las posibilidades electorales del partido republicano: los unos y los otros tienen casa, familia, trabajo y raíces en sus comunidades, y probablemente ninguna gana de morir en Irak. Como dijo un francés anónimo, una guerra no produce 100.000 muertos, sino 100.000 veces una muerte.

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The Independent: Britain becomes 'never, never land'
as personal debt runs out of control

UK borrowers account for one third of unsecured debt in western Europe

On average, a Briton has twice the debt of a European
Total consumer debt in the UK is at a record £1.3 trillion
New debt last year came to an unprecedented £215bn
Citizens Advice faced 1.25 million new debt cases last year - the figure is rising

By David Prosser, Personal Finance Editor
Published: 28 September 2006

Britain's "buy now, pay later" consumer culture has led to unprecedented levels of personal debt. The average Briton now has more than twice as much unsecured borrowing - including overdrafts, personal loans and credit card debt - as the typical European, according to a report published by Datamonitor.

The market research analysts said yesterday that even before mortgage borrowing was considered, the average Briton owes £3,175, compared to the average debt in Europe of £1,588. Datamonitor said Britons had "an insatiable appetite for credit", taking on new unsecured loans of £215bn last year alone.

Borrowers from the UK now account for a third of all unsecured debt in western Europe, Datamonitor added. Paul Marsh, author of the report, said: "While the UK enjoys a buy-now pay-later culture ... many major European countries have a culture of saving and frugality. Countries such as France and Germany are particularly debt adverse."

The boom in unsecured lending has boosted total consumer debt, including mortgages, to almost £1.3trn, close to three times the level of borrowing in 1997, when Labour came to power.

The consumer borrowing crisis is set to become the most pressing concern for Gordon Brown's successor as Chancellor of the Exchequer. George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, said: "Gordon Brown is presiding over an economy increasingly built on debt. This has left many families vulnerable to the triple blow of rising mortgage rates, taxes and energy bills."

The debt crisis is even hitting young borrowers, according to separate research published yesterday by One Advice, the debt advisers. The company said the average 18 to 24-year-old now owes £2,860 in unsecured borrowing. One Advice said the average figures obscured worrying individual cases. It said 108,000 18 to 24-year-olds had credit card debts of more than £5,000.

There are increasingly worrying signs that many borrowers are struggling to stay on top of repayments. The average person has debts that total 150 per cent of their annual income, according to the Bank of England, half as much again as in 1997.

The Bank believes around one million households face problems coping with debt repayments - around 10 per cent of the four in 10 households that have unsecured borrowing.

A report from Citizens Advice earlier this month said 770,000 mortgage borrowers had missed at least one mortgage repayment over the past year, while two million homeowners said they were concerned their finances would not stretch to cover their debts.

The charity said younger people were particularly vulnerable, with mortgage-holders aged 21 to 24 the most likely to default.

The latest figures from the Government's Insolvency Service, published last month, have also unnerved debt campaigners. The numbers becoming insolvent in the second quarter of the year reached 26,000, a 66 per cent rise on the same period in 2005.

Borrowing difficulties have already begun to affect the housing market. Britain's housing boom has saddled newer homeowners with far larger mortgages. Figures from the Hay Group consultancy , published yesterday, showed the typical borrower now spends 51 per cent of monthly pay on mortgage repayments.

The Council of Mortgage Lenders said the number of homes repossessed in the first half of the year was 8,140, the most for more than five years.

At the same time, there is evidence that Britain's biggest banks, which have all reported a rise in bad debt in recent months, are cracking down on consumer credit. Two weeks ago, for example, HSBC said it would introduce annual reviews of all its customers' overdrafts, with cuts to many borrowers' overdraft limits likely to follow.

Alice Douglas, 42, writer: 'We were happy with a £60 TV. Now we spend £1,500'

"Seven years ago, I moved to Wales for a change of lifestyle," says Alice Douglas, 42, a writer from Snowdonia. "I bought a 4,000 sq ft church for £54,000, which was incredibly cheap, because it needed renovation work, but I had never done a big building project before. I thought I'd be able to do the structural work for £80,000 but I've had to spend £300,000. I didn't think of the cost, and even things like floor tiles for the kitchen ended up costing £5,000 because they were limestone, and I spent £25,000 on windows.

"I used every credit card I could get. At one point, I had 10 different credit cards with £8,000 on most of them, so that my debt was up to £60,000. It was all about to collapse until my mortgage company valued my property, which has massively increased in price.

"I still have about £30,000 on my credit cards, but I've just learned to juggle them. Once you've got them, there's too much temptation and you get used to a lifestyle where you want to have lots of things. We used to be happy with a £60 television set, but now we spend £1,500 on a 38-inch LCD.

"You get sucked into it, and get used to spending large amounts without thinking about it, because it's on a card. It does make a different because it doesn't feel like real money. If it did feel real, it would feel obscene. I went to London recently and spent £3,000 in Whistles, on clothes. I'm about to buy another property with an 85 per cent mortgage and I'll get the deposit on credit card.

"It's a gamble but it could pay off. If you're shrewd, you can use it to your advantage. My credit rating is very good because I borrow a lot but I'm able to make my payments. It used to stress me out but now I think, if I lose everything, it wouldn't be the end of the world."

Arifa Akbar

© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article1757264.ece

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The Nation:
Snapshot of a Plutocracy

Howl by Nicholas von Hoffman
[posted online on September 26, 2006]

We can thank moronic editors, who know the hotsie-totsiest places to eat but not the important things of life that ought to go into their publications, for list journalism. To call this genre low-grade filler is to overpraise it. But there are exceptions, and the most valuable is the Forbes 400 list of the richest people in the United States.

The Forbes 400, present and past, constitutes the largest and most reliable trove of data on who owns how much of America. The government does not collect information on wealth, only on income, so the annual Forbes effort is unique. I have been told by IRS people off the record that they have found the 400 a useful tool.

The list is also a useful tool for anyone interested in power, the most important of the blessings great wealth confers. How much money, how much power? These 400 possess an aggregate $1.25 trillion. Imagine how many Congressmen that will buy.

If the first 400 have that kind of money, it looks to me as if the first 4,000 rich people, which includes all those at $900 million and $800 million levels, could presumably own and control most of the wealth in America. This is a disturbing snapshot of plutocracy. It could well be that a nation of 300 million people is run by about 1 percent of its population.

A quick look at this list and there goes the Republican eyewash about the death tax. Four of the ten richest human beings in America inherited their money. Scores of these billionaires got that way thanks to the exertion of their ancestors.

By the same token the income tax, which purportedly has been such a dead weight on entrepreneurial initiative, seems to have no effect on these billionaires. How, pray tell, did Bill Gates amass a fortune of more than $53 billion and Warren Buffett do nearly as well on a confiscatory tax system?

If the income tax is so painfully high, why is it that only twelve of the people on the list live abroad? And of these twelve, how many are tax refugees? How many prefer being someplace else, where it is not so easy to serve a summons?

There are only nineteen billionaire manufacturers on the list, but there are twenty-five from the finance category. And how many billionaires in agriculture? There are seven, six of whom inherited their money. Forbes also has a category for food billionaires. There are twenty-five of them making or inheriting money from fast food (Chick-fil-A), candy, soft drinks, chewing gum and Campbell's soup. All of that tells you something about America. The fact that there are sixteen health business billionaires, including the Frist family, tells you something else about America and the high cost of health insurance.

Some states are too poor, too dull, too much on the decline to harbor a billionaire. You won't find one in New Mexico or North Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, Kentucky, Maine, Mississippi. What about the states with one or two billionaires? Try Idaho, where the Simplot Family, with $3.2 billion in their sporran, rules. Do they practice droit du seigneur there? On the other hand, there are eighty-nine billionaires in California, enough perchance that they might have a falling out and, once divided, give the impecunious masses a chance to make their will known. However, even at the risk of sounding a trifle Marxist, there is such a thing as class solidarity, and if there ever were a class that had reason to band together and stick it to the rest of us, it is the billionaire class and its lesser millionaire allies.

Unlike compiling a list of the ten most eligible bachelors or the ten best or worst doctors to go to for a facelift, compiling the Forbes list is an expensive, exhaustive and impressive work of journalism. It requires sending reporters of judgment, experience and ingenuity to track the super-rich in all corners of the United States.

The Forbes list is not compiled by calling up the Big Rich and asking, "Just how big rich are you?" A lot of these people would shoot a reporter sooner than talk to one. Many of them live in fear of kidnapping, burglary and assassination. The crown of gold does not necessarily ride easy on the head. These people do not pay untold sums for fences, guards and alarm systems only to give it away to some reporter whose shoes are scuffed and whose billfold is flat.

Conversely, some people-probably because they want to impress their bankers-seek to exaggerate their money. Such a one may be Donald Trump, about whom the magazine says, "He's lately put his fortune at $6 billion. We say it's $2.9 billion. We've never faulted Trump for showing a salesman's enthusiasm in his estimate; he's been sporting about our more skeptical one.... While not based on an audited statement, it's the result of many hours of research, fact-gathering and consultation with real estate professionals who've got nothing to gain from helping Trump inflate his wealth."

This is the twenty-fourth edition of the Forbes 400. The longer this list goes, the more valuable it becomes. Someday the Forbes people will surely do a retrospective in which they include the crates of unpublished notes and backup material that goes into creating the list each year. Such a longitudinal look will be hugely worthwhile, but in the meantime we have the annual list, and that gives a look at money and power we cannot get anywhere else.

Copyright © 2006 The Nation

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20061009/howl