Elsewhere Today 429

Aljazeera:
Rival Iraqi groups clash in Diyala

THURSDAY, AUGUST 23, 2007
12:01 MECCA TIME, 9:01 GMT

An armed Iraqi group has clashed with rival fighters and police after attacking the homes of tribal leaders in Diyala province, leaving at least 32 people dead.

Brigadier-General Ali Dilayan, Baquba police chief, said that 200 al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters attacked the small town of Kanan at dawn on Thursday, kidnapping 15 Iraqi women and children.

He said: "The first attack was against a mosque. They blew up the mosque, then they bombed houses crowded with family members."

Three houses were attacked, including those of two local leaders who support US troops and the Iraqi government, he said.

Rival fighters

Police counter-attacked, backed by fighters from the Brigades of the 1920 Revolution, a Sunni Arab armed group previously allied with al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Dilayan said that in one of the houses attacked, Sheikh Yunis al-Tae and an unknown number of his sons were killed, and 17 people were wounded.

He said the attackers shelled the town with mortars before storming it. They also used rocket-propelled grenades and reduced some houses to rubble.

A police officer and 21 locals were among the dead, as were 10 alleged al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters, the chief of police said. The death toll is likely to rise as emergency workers dig through the rubble.

Dilayan said the attackers took 15 people - eight women and seven children - as hostages before retreating.

Police said they arrested 22 of the attackers.

The fighting is an example of the violent power struggle between anti-government fighters and Sunni Arab groups now aligned with US forces and the Shia-led government.

US troops have been cracking down on armed groups who are using the region as launch pad for attacks in Baghdad.

US casualties

In other violence, a roadside bomb killed an American soldier and wounded four more west of the Iraqi capital, the US military said on Thursday.

The latest death, which occurred on Wednesday, brought the military's losses in Iraq since the invasion in March 2003 to 3,721, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

Another 14 US troops were killed when their helicopter crashed in the northern province of Kirkuk on Wednesday, one of the worst such accidents in the four-and-a-half-year old conflict in Iraq.

Source: Agencies

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/D96C24DC-571C-422F-9E5E-1DC7C758EEDA.htm

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AllAfrica:
Security Challenges Yar'Adua Administration

By Katy Gabel, Washington, D.C.
allAfrica.com INTERVIEW
22 August 2007

After nearly three months in office, President Umaru Yar'Adua is promising big improvements for Nigeria's economy, but growth has been hampered by a crippling strike and continuous crime and kidnappings in the country's oil-rich Niger Delta. Security is "the major issue" facing Nigeria today, according to Nnamdi Obasi, the International Crisis Group's senior analyst for West Africa. He spoke to Katy Gabel.

After April's controversial general elections, what is the mood like in the Nigerian capital?

I think that the mood in Abuja is … very sober. In the immediate aftermath of the elections, there were protests against the way that [they] were conducted. I think that in Nigeria you didn't really have an election … It's the most bizarre thing that I have ever seen in my life.

So what is the government trying to do to overcome the negativity surrounding the election?

The government that came out of that process is compromised by a deficit of legitimacy in the eyes of the people. It is not seen as a true product of a democratic process. The government has been trying to do everything possible to buy some legitimacy, first of all by trying to bring on board the opposition candidates and their parties to form what they call a Government of National Unity. But … we still have reservations about it because to some extent it's more about sharing of posts and ministries and offices than marrying the platforms and agendas of the different parties.

Some pundits have commented on the international community's passive reaction after the elections. For example, President Yar'Adua was invited to the Group of Eight [G8] Summit. How is he really being received?

I think that the reports of the observer missions were very well-received in Nigeria as truly reflective of what happened on the ground. But then there was a sense of disappointment that … none of the reports gave a final verdict saying "cancel the elections and rerun the process." I did take up that matter with the head of the team from the NDI [the National Democratic Institute of the U.S.] - Madeleine Albright [a former U.S. Secretary of State]. She said "we have observed, and we have reported what we have observed – as to what is to be done eventually… that depends on the Nigerian people." I think that the international community, to some extent, was waiting for some signals of sustained protests from the Nigerian people. But because the opposition was divided, it was weak.

Having said that, there is also a sense of disillusionment in Nigeria with the seeming haste with which the international community embraced the [new] government, with the G8 summit and all of the envoys that they have sent. There is the feeling that double standards are being applied. If some other country - perhaps Zimbabwe - conducted that kind of election, it would certainly not have been acceptable to the international community, and that Nigeria is being let off very lightly - with just a tap on the wrist.

What does all of this boil down to? You'll find some people who will probably think … it's just an oil issue. The international community believes that as long as we have a semblance of government in Nigeria that allows the oil business to go on, they are okay with that. Nigerians will be left sort out their own problems.

What has the new government done so far?

Well, the president has said his priority will be the economy: the economy first, the economy second, and the economy third - so you'd expect that there are going to be very ambitious economic development plans. But we haven't seen the outline of those plans yet.

He said very good things about improving the power [energy] sector and improving other sectors and so forth... but it's more or less in the nature of similar statements that you've heard before. We need to see a plan that is different from what was done before and procedures by which that plan will be implemented. He did say that he was going to declare a state of emergency in the power sector and that in [his] first 100 days in office he would [release] a plan for dealing with the power sector. Now that the ministers have just been appointed … I don't know how quickly we can get that plan together.

The Niger Delta is becoming a major story in the western media. Are the Niger Delta stories - especially those about kidnappings - overblown in the media here? Are we getting a real picture of what's going on?

I don't think that they are overblown at all. I think even at the local level, there is similar media coverage of the security issues. [They] are very critical and seem to be deepening as the days go by.

Even though Yar'Adua said he was going to consider the Niger Delta a priority, there has not been, from the government, a definite program for what [it] wants to do in the Delta. The indications that he has given sound good, but they seem to be a little different than what the people of the Niger Delta are saying.

What do Delta residents want and how do you think they can get it?

They seem more concerned … about greater ownership and control of the resources from their region. At the moment, the constitution guarantees them 13 percent of the revenues coming from oil. They have - over [several] years - been arguing for between 25 and 50 percent, depending on who you are speaking with. The political reform conference last year that produced proposals for a constitutional amendment actually agreed on 18 percent. So… if you could resurrect that bill… and address that aspect that talks about increasing the revenue, I think that would meet their demands halfway and would pacify a lot of the agitation.

As long as you continue in the path of a master plan by which you give [a determined amount of revenue] to the Niger Delta, they won't think that is a sustainable process. It has to be in the constitution rather than in the [administration's] master plan, which might not be accepted by the next administration, so that the whole process doesn't unravel…

I would say that the Niger Delta is in a fairly delicate situation. It could get better if proactive steps are taken. It could also get worse if there is a lot of delay in seeing progress in a positive direction. There is also now, in addition to the legitimate demands and struggles of militants and the people, an element of criminality, pure and simple, that has nothing to do with either demands for environmental mediation, economic empowerment, political representation...

Among the militants, do we have a situation where the grievances really matter or is the Delta turning into a place where criminals and militants are using this as an excuse to justify their crimes?

In the case of the British girl last month – the three-year-old girl who was taken - there is no economic or political or environmental demand that can justify that kind of action. There was a lot of outrage about that in Nigeria, including [among] the major militant groups. They all denounced it… [it] was a purely criminal act to extort money. I think that also [some of the] major groups [realize] that that kind of activity now tends to damage their case because it denies them sympathy [that] they had built up over time.

If you have a master plan for economic development, and you have a political plan for constitutional reforms, and you have a plan for environmental remediation and so on, you must now begin to focus seriously on a plan for security. Otherwise, you'll finish dealing with the core issues, and you'll find that there is still a residual security issue. The security issue is not really the marginal issue now, it is the major issue. And I don't think that it is overblown in the foreign press.

What can the government do to address the so-called purely criminal elements?

The two things that we think the government can do. First, make some progress in addressing the core issues. That pacifies a lot of people and gives them the sense that their demands are being addressed genuinely. That, to some extent, isolates the criminal elements and denies them of whatever public collaboration they used to have as a cover for the operations.

Secondly, you must deal seriously with your security operations. The military is deployed in the region under what is called the Joint Task Force for the Niger Delta, but it's in a difficult situation [because they] are not just engaged in curbing criminal and other violent activities. [They] are also conducting what they call a "hearts and minds" campaign in order to buy support from the people in the Niger Delta. So you really can't go out with whatever military might that you have. You're not fighting an enemy. It's your own nationals that you are dealing with. You don't want to take actions that will lead to casualties that will damage the government's case.

I think that there are also serious deficiencies in the capacity to police the Niger Delta. The police system is centralized. We have a single, central police force directed from Abuja. In terms of local initiative, it is constrained. It is in demand, it is under-funded, [and] it is under-equipped.

The police don't have the resources necessary to police the Delta?

Yes… that's why, most of the time, you don't find them being able to preempt any of these attacks. Even when hostages are taken, sometimes it is difficult to find anyone within the secret services who has a [clue] as to where the hostages are being kept. It's the local people who bring information…

The Nigerian government has to improve on the capacity of its secret services and their mode of operation. And then they will be able to deal with the security issue more effectively.

Is that possible in the federal system?

We don't think so. We think that there must be greater devolution and control and deployment of police services.

In Bayelsa state, for instance, they have had a local secretariat arrangement that is called Bayelsa Volunteers. It is a volunteer position for local people, but it's funded by the state government. And because it's local people, they know the terrain very well, they know the creeks very well and they have information of that sort. They have been quite effective in limiting the activities of criminals in their area.

They have not been completely effective, but I think that they have done better than having a police force that is directly from Abuja, trained for putting down riots and land-based crime. The police have… equipment for land operations. How many speed boats, for instance, do they have? How many divers and swimmers and so on do you have in the police to be able to operate in the creeks and the swamps of the Niger Delta?

You would eventually have to fall back an agreement with the local communities. We think that a decentralized police system may be more effective in dealing with these kinds of things than a centralized, unitary system that we have now.

Copyright © 2007 allAfrica.com. All rights reserved.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200708220566.html

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Clarín: Bush comparó Irak con la Segunda Guerra Mundial
y Vietnam: "Los ideales e intereses son los mismos"

Dijo que esos conflictos deben servir de "enseñanza" para no aceptar la salida de las tropas del Golfo Pérsico que se impulsa desde el Congreso de EE.UU. La oposición demócrata criticó fuertemente el mensaje.

Clarín.com
22.08.2007

El presidente de Estados Unidos, George W. Bush, considera que existen paralalismos entre la guerra de Irak e intervenciones militares pasadas de su país en Vietnam y otros países asiáticos, en un discurso pronunciado hoy en la ciudad de Kansas, en el estado de Missouri, ante veteranos de guerra. "Los militaristas en Japón y los comunistas en Corea y Vietnam estaban alentados por una visión sin piedad de cómo tiene que funcionar la humanidad", dijo Bush.

Mataron estadounidenses porque se opusieron a esa ideología, señaló. "En la actualidad, los nombres y los lugares son otros, pero el carácter fundamental de la lucha no ha cambiado", afirmó. La Casa Blanca ya adelantó en la víspera algunos extractos del discurso de Bush, que la semana que viene volverá a dar otro discurso en Nevada, en esta ocasión ante la convención de la Legión Americana, que se reúne en Reno.

Con respecto al ejemplo de Vietnam, el presidente estadounidense advirtió en contra de una retirada demasiado pronto de las tropas estadounidenses en Vietnam. "Un legado evidente de Vietnam es que el precio de la retirada de Estados Unidos fue pagado por millones de ciudadanos inocentes". Las consecuencias fueron oleadas de refugiados en barco, los campos de reeducación y el sangriento régimen del Khemer Rojo en Camboya.

Los demócratas rechazan la comparación entre estas guerras en Asia y la de Irak. Existen "diferencias fundamentales", comunicó el líder de la mayoría demócrata en el senado, Harry Reid. "Nuestra nación ha sido engañada con pretextos para conseguir el apoyo a la invasión de Irak", subrayó Reid, quien aseguró que ha conducido a uno de los peores desempeños en política exterior de la historia de Estados Unidos.

A mediados del mes que viene, los máximos representantes de Estados Unidos en Irak, el general David Petraeus y el embajador en Bagdad, Ryan Crocker, presentarán un informe crucial sobre la situación en Irak. El informe recogerá los avances políticos y militares logrados en el país árabe.

Copyright 1996-2007 Clarín.com - All rights reserved

http://www.clarin.com/diario/2007/08/22/um/m-01483203.htm

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Guardian:
Texas executes 400th inmate in 25 years

David Batty and agencies
Thursday August 23, 2007

Texas reached a milestone last night when a man who murdered a convenience store worker became the 400th person executed by the US state since it resumed capital punishment in 1982.

Johnny Ray Conner, 32, who was convicted of the fatal shooting in Houston in 1998, was the 21st prisoner put to death by lethal injection in Texas this year.

Another three Texas inmates are scheduled to die by lethal injection next week, and five more executions are scheduled in September.

Since 1976, 1,091 prisoners have been executed in the US. Texas leads the nation in enforcing the death penalty.

Conner's execution in Huntsville, north of Houston, provoked condemnation from opponents of the death penalty.

Rick Halperin, the president of the non-profit Texas Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, said: "It's a pretty sad day for the progression - or lack thereof - for human rights in this state."

In the death chamber before the deadly drugs took effect, Connor said: "What is happening to me is unjust and the system is broken."

He also asked for forgiveness and told his family and his victim's family that he loved them.

"This is destiny. This is life," he said. "This is something Allah wants me to do. I'm not mad at you. When I get to the gates of heaven I'm going to be waiting for you. Please forgive me."

He was pronounced dead at 6.20pm (12.20am BST), eight minutes after the drugs were injected.

Conner killed 49-year-old Kathyanna Nguyen during an attempted robbery.

Julian Gutierrez, a customer who interrupted the hold-up, was also shot in the shoulder by Conner as he tried to run out of the shop. He survived and was among at least three people to identify Conner, whose fingerprint was also found on a bottle at the shooting scene.

Earlier yesterday Conner's lawyers lost an appeal to the US supreme court to stop the lethal injection. In arguments rejected by the justices, Conner contended that his trial lawyers were deficient for not investigating an old leg injury that left Conner with a limp. The disability would have prevented him running away from the store quickly.

Conner's trial lawyers said the injury was never an issue because he told them his broken leg had healed. The appeals court said there was no testimony at his trial about his limp and none of his lawyers had ever noticed one.

The Texas governor, Rick Perry, also rejected an appeal by the European Union, which has banned the death penalty, to halt Connor's and "all upcoming executions and to consider the introduction of a moratorium in the state".

The governor's spokesman said yesterday: "Texans long ago decided that the death penalty is a just and appropriate punishment for the most horrible crimes committed against our citizens. While we respect our friends in Europe, welcome their investment in our state and appreciate their interest in our laws, Texans are doing just fine governing Texas."

Last year 53 people were executed in the US, putting it behind China, Iran, Pakistan, Iraq, and Sudan in a ranking of countries with the most executions.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian News and Media Limited 2007

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,,2154728,00.html

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Jeune Afrique: Mort d’un Sénégalais dans les locaux de la police,
ses proches réclament "vérité et justice"

SÉNÉGAL - 23 août 2007

Les parents de Lamine Dieng, un jeune franco-sénégalais décédé le 17 juin 2007 alors qu’il était entre les mains de la police française, ont demandé aux autorités françaises, notamment à la justice de faire toute la lumière sur les conditions dans lesquelles leur fils a trouvé la mort.

Lamine Dieng, âgé de 25 ans, aurait été, dans la nuit du 17 juin 2007, interpellé dans le 20ème arrondissement à Paris et embarqué dans une fourgonnette de police en direction d’un commissariat à la suite d’une dispute avec une jeune femme.

Selon la version fournie par la police, le jeune homme aurait, au cours de son transfert, succombé à un arrêt cardiaque provoqué par une overdose consécutive à une prise « exagérée » de cocaïne et de cannabis.

Une version que démentent catégoriquement les proches du défunt pour qui « Lamine était un sportif et en bonne santé » et que par ailleurs, « sa famille et ses amis n’ont pas connaissance qu’il se droguait ».

Pour sa sœur, Fatou Dieng, il y a trop de zones d’ombres dans cette affaire. Notamment le fait que la police ait attendu 36 heures après le décès du jeune homme pour prévenir ses parents, l’impossibilité pour les parents de voir le corps, ou encore le refus d’accorder au père du défunt le droit d’assister à la toilette funéraire.

«On ne nous a pas laissé voir le corps et c’est seulement la face qui nous a été montrée. Ils ont avancé comme prétexte que c’était pour nous éviter le choc émotionnel », a déclaré Fatou Dieng qui souligne qu’il y a des « non dits ».

La preuve, avance t-elle, c’est que « même son père n’a pas été autorisé à faire la toilette funéraire ou à y assister. Ce sont des gens de la mosquée de Paris qui l’ont faite », a-t-elle ajouté.

Selon elle, il n’y a pas de doutes, la police a tout fait pour leur cacher les véritables raisons du décès du jeune homme qui devrait fêter, ce jeudi, son vingt-sixième anniversaire.

La famille ainsi que tous les soutiens réunis au sein du comité « Vérité et justice pour Lamine Dieng » demandent à la justice d’accélérer la procédure afin « de situer les responsabilités » d’autant qu’une plainte contre X a été déposée à l’Inspection générale des services (IGS), la police des polices.

Ils dénoncent également les lenteurs notées dans le traitement de cette affaire d’autant qu’un juge d’instruction a été nommé depuis le 10 juillet dernier. Il n’est pas question, à les en croire, que « cette affaire soit vite classée comme celles d’autres personnes décédées dans des conditions similaires ».

Les parents estiment avoir, à cette fin, adressé des lettres recommandées au chef de l’Etat français, Nicolas Sarkozy, à Michelle Alliot-Marie, à Rama Yade, respectivement ministres de l’intérieur et des droits de l’Homme en France ainsi qu’au président sénégalais, Me Abdoulaye Wade.

«Nous n’avons eu aucune réponse et seule la député Christiane Taubira est venue présenter ses condoléances à la famille », se désole la sœur du défunt qui annonce qu’un appel au témoin a été lancé pour déterminer les circonstances de son interpellation.

APA – Paris (France)

http://www.jeuneafrique.com/jeune_afrique/article_
depeche.asp?art_cle=WEB43147mortdecitsu0#

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New Statesman:
An important marker has been passed

John Pilger
Published 23 August 2007

Those calling for a boycott of Israel were once distant voices. Now the discussion has gone global. It is growing inexorably and will not be silenced.

From a limestone hill rising above Qalandia refugee camp you can see Jerusalem. I watched a lone figure standing there in the rain, his son holding the tail of his long tattered coat. He extended his hand and did not let go. "I am Ahmed Hamzeh, street entertainer," he said in measured English. "Over there, I played many musical instruments; I sang in Arabic, English and Hebrew, and because I was rather poor, my very small son would chew gum while the monkey did its tricks. When we lost our country, we lost respect. One day a rich Kuwaiti stopped his car in front of us. He shouted at my son, "Show me how a Palestinian picks up his food rations!" So I made the monkey appear to scavenge on the ground, in the gutter. And my son scavenged with him. The Kuwaiti threw coins and my son crawled on his knees to pick them up. This was not right; I was an artist, not a beggar . . . I am not even a peasant now."

"How do you feel about all that?" I asked him.
"Do you expect me to feel hatred? What is that to a Palestinian? I never hated the Jews and their Israel . . . yes, I suppose I hate them now, or maybe I pity them for their stupidity. They can't win. Because we Palestinians are the Jews now and, like the Jews, we will never allow them or the Arabs or you to forget. The youth will guarantee us that, and the youth after them . . .".

That was 40 years ago. On my last trip back to the West Bank, I recognised little of Qalandia, now announced by a vast Israeli checkpoint, a zigzag of sandbags, oil drums and breeze blocks, with conga lines of people, waiting, swatting flies with precious papers. Inside the camp, the tents had been replaced by sturdy hovels, although the queues at single taps were as long, I was assured, and the dust still ran to caramel in the rain. At the United Nations office I asked about Ahmed Hamzeh, the street entertainer. Records were consulted, heads shaken. Someone thought he had been "taken away . . . very ill". No one knew about his son, whose trachoma was surely blindness now. Outside, another generation kicked a punctured football in the dust.

And yet, what Nelson Mandela has called "the greatest moral issue of the age" refuses to be buried in the dust. For every BBC voice that strains to equate occupier with occupied, thief with victim, for every swarm of emails from the fanatics of Zion to those who invert the lies and describe the Israeli state's commitment to the destruction of Palestine, the truth is more powerful now than ever. Documentation of the violent expulsion of Palestinians in 1948 is voluminous. Re-examination of the historical record has put paid to the fable of heroic David in the Six Day War, when Ahmed Hamzeh and his family were driven from their home. The alleged threat of Arab leaders to "throw the Jews into the sea", used to justify the 1967 Israeli onslaught and since repeated relentlessly, is highly questionable. In 2005, the spectacle of wailing Old Testament zealots leaving Gaza was a fraud. The building of their "settlements" has accelerated on the West Bank, along with the illegal Berlin-style wall dividing farmers from their crops, children from their schools, families from each other. We now know that Israel's destruction of much of Lebanon last year was pre-planned. As the former CIA analyst Kathleen Christison has written, the recent "civil war" in Gaza was actually a coup against the elected Hamas-led government, engineered by Elliott Abrams, the Zionist who runs US policy on Israel and a convicted felon from the Iran-Contra era.

The ethnic cleansing of Palestine is as much America's crusade as Israel's. On 16 August, the Bush administration announced an unprecedented $30bn military "aid package" for Israel, the world's fourth biggest military power, an air power greater than Britain, a nuclear power greater than France. No other country on earth enjoys such immunity, allowing it to act without sanction, as Israel. No other country has such a record of lawlessness: not one of the world's tyrannies comes close. International treaties, such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, ratified by Iran, are ignored by Israel. There is nothing like it in UN history.

But something is changing. Perhaps last summer's panoramic horror beamed from Lebanon on to the world's TV screens provided the catalyst. Or perhaps cynicism of Bush and Blair and the incessant use of the inanity, "terror", together with the day-by-day dissemination of a fabricated insecurity in all our lives, has finally brought the attention of the international community outside the rogue states, Britain and the US, back to one of its principal sources, Israel.

I got a sense of this recently in the United States. A full-page advertisement in the New York Times had the distinct odour of panic. There have been many "friends of Israel" advertisements in the Times, demanding the usual favours, rationalising the usual outrages. This one was different. "Boycott a cure for cancer?" was its main headline, followed by "Stop drip irrigation in Africa? Prevent scientific co-operation between nations?" Who would want to do such things? "Some British academics want to boycott Israelis," was the self-serving answer. It referred to the University and College Union's (UCU) inaugural conference motion in May, calling for discussion within its branches for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions. As John Chalcraft of the London School of Economics pointed out, "the Israeli academy has long provided intellectual, linguistic, logistical, technical, scientific and human support for an occupation in direct violation of international law [against which] no Israeli academic institution has ever taken a public stand".

The swell of a boycott is growing inexorably, as if an important marker has been passed, reminiscent of the boycotts that led to sanctions against apartheid South Africa. Both Mandela and Desmond Tutu have drawn this parallel; so has South African cabinet minister Ronnie Kasrils and other illustrious Jewish members of the liberation struggle. In Britain, an often Jewish-led academic campaign against Israel's "methodical destruction of [the Palestinian] education system" can be translated by those of us who have reported from the occupied territories into the arbitrary closure of Palestinian universities, the harassment and humiliation of students at checkpoints and the shooting and killing of Palestinian children on their way to school.

British initiatives

These initiatives have been backed by a British group, Independent Jewish Voices, whose 528 signatories include Stephen Fry, Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh and Eric Hobsbawm. The country's biggest union, Unison, has called for an "economic, cultural, academic and sporting boycott" and the right of return for Palestinian families expelled in 1948. Remarkably, the Commons' international development committee has made a similar stand. In April, the membership of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) voted for a boycott only to see it hastily overturned by the national executive council. In the Republic of Ireland, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions has called for divestment from Israeli companies: a campaign aimed at the European Union, which accounts for two-thirds of Israel's exports under an EU-Israel Association Agreement. The UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, Jean Ziegler, has said that human rights conditions in the agreement should be invoked and Israel's trading preferences suspended.

This is unusual, for these were once distant voices. And that such grave discussion of a boycott has "gone global" was unforeseen in official Israel, long comforted by its seemingly untouchable myths and great power sponsorship, and confident that the mere threat of anti-Semitism would ensure silence. When the British lecturers' decision was announced, the US Congress passed an absurd resolution describing the UCU as "anti-Semitic". (Eighty congressmen have gone on junkets to Israel this summer.)

This intimidation has worked in the past. The smearing of American academics has denied them promotion, even tenure. The late Edward Said kept an emergency button in his New York apartment connected to the local police station; his offices at Columbia University were once burned down. Following my 2002 film, Palestine is Still the Issue, I received death threats and slanderous abuse, most of it coming from the US where the film was never shown. When the BBC's Independent Panel recently examined the corporation's coverage of the Middle East, it was inundated with emails, "many from abroad, mostly from North America", said its report. Some individuals "sent multiple missives, some were duplicates and there was clear evidence of pressure group mobilisation". The panel's conclusion was that BBC reporting of the Palestinian struggle was not "full and fair" and "in important respects, presents an incomplete and in that sense misleading picture". This was neutralised in BBC press releases.

The courageous Israeli historian, Ilan Pappé, believes a single democratic state, to which the Palestinian refugees are given the right of return, is the only feasible and just solution, and that a sanctions and boycott campaign is critical in achieving this. Would the Israeli population be moved by a worldwide boycott? Although they would rarely admit it, South Africa's whites were moved enough to support an historic change. A boycott of Israeli institutions, goods and services, says Pappé, "will not change the [Israeli] position in a day, but it will send a clear message that [the premises of Zionism] are racist and unacceptable in the 21st century . . . They would have to choose."

And so would the rest of us.

http://www.newstatesman.com/200708230026

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Página/12:
Evaluaciones

Por Juan Gelman
Jueves, 23 de Agosto de 2007

Más de cien expertos norteamericanos en política internacional consideran que, desde la ocupación de Irak, el mundo se ha vuelto más peligroso, la estrategia de seguridad nacional se ha descarrilado y la guerra misma carece de brújula. Así lo manifiesta la mayoría de los analistas más respetados del país en el tercer “Indice del terrorismo”, el informe semestral de una consulta que realizan el Centro para el Progreso Estadounidense y la revista Foreign Policy (www.americanprogress.org, 20-8-07). Los opinantes –demócratas y republicanos por igual– fueron o son jefes militares, ex secretarios de Estado, asistentes de jerarquía de la Casa Blanca, consejeros presidenciales de seguridad nacional, académicos prestigiosos y agentes de alto rango de los servicios de inteligencia. El 80 por ciento ocupó cargos en el gobierno de EE.UU. –más de la mitad en el Poder Ejecutivo–, el 32 por ciento en las fuerzas armadas y el 21 por ciento en la llamada comunidad de inteligencia. Sus juicios en nada coinciden con el optimismo de W. Bush.

Para empezar: el 84 por ciento sostiene que Washington no está ganando la guerra antiterrorista; apenas el 6 por ciento, lo contrario. El 91 por ciento señala que han aumentado los riesgos para los estadounidenses y para EE.UU. en todo el planeta, diez puntos más que en la misma investigación de febrero pasado. Casi unanimidad respecto de la guerra en Irak: el 92 por ciento estima que influye negativamente en la seguridad de los estadounidenses. Este parecer recorre el espectro político entero: lo comparte el 84 por ciento de quienes se definen como conservadores. Para seguir: la Casa Blanca inició en febrero el “aumento” de sus tropas en Irak, 28.000 efectivos más que debían “pacificar” Bagdad y que elevaron su número al nivel más alto por ahora: son 165.000. W. Bush insiste en que esto está dando frutos y que hay que esperar la evaluación del mes que viene para conocer su alcance. El 83 por cierto de los conservadores consultados –22 por ciento más que hace seis meses– opina que el tan mentado “aumento” no tiene impacto alguno en la situación y, si lo tiene, es negativo. Los expertos adjudicaron un puntaje de 2,9 en una escala de 10 a la actuación general de la Casa Blanca en el conflicto. La aplazaron.

Este estudio tiene sus paradojas, hijas del descreimiento. Aunque un alto número de interrogados cree que se ha incrementado el peligro terrorista para EE.UU., el 88 por ciento afirma que la retirada de las tropas no provocará nuevos atentados en territorio estadounidense o que no hay relación alguna entre las dos cuestiones. Seis de cada diez entrevistados dicen ahora que invadir Irak fue un error. Al mismo tiempo, la mayoría se opone a una retirada inmediata: el 68 por ciento la demanda, pero en términos graduales, en un lapso de año y medio, es decir, sólo a principios de 2009 todos los efectivos habrían regresado a casa. No faltan las sorpresas: entre quienes reclaman la retirada inmediata, los conservadores superan ligeramente a los liberales o moderados. Como se advierte, las contradicciones no brillan por su ausencia. Guerra no, pero sí.

O no. El 80 por ciento considera que EE.UU. debe aplicar sanciones o utilizar la vía diplomática para terminar con el presunto programa iraní de obtención de armas nucleares; sólo el 8 por ciento exige una intervención militar. La mayoría se pronuncia por negociar con organizaciones calificadas de terroristas, pero que han logrado un grado de apoyo popular en las urnas, como Hamas en los territorios palestinos ocupados o Hezbolá en el Líbano. En el informe se subraya que las personas consultadas pertenecieron o pertenecen “a los niveles más altos del establishment nacional en materia de política exterior”. ¿Se les aplicará la Ley Patriótica, que dictamina que quienes disienten con la Casa Blanca deben ser tratados como traidores a la patria? Cosas veredes, Sancho.

Se perciben otras curiosidades. La Casa Blanca insiste en que Irán arma y aun entrena a los insurgentes iraquíes, hecho posible pero no probado. Sólo que es el mando norteamericano el que “alquila” a sunnitas, devotos de Saddam Hussein y ahora ex enemigos, para “pacificar” la provincia de Babil, al sur de Bagdad (The Nation, 17-8-07). Les pagan 350 dólares mensuales –verdes, siempre verdes–, pero quién puede garantizar el éxito de la compra. La Government Accountability Office (GAO, por sus siglas en inglés) o Tribunal de Cuentas de EE.UU., elevó al Congreso un informe en el que destaca que “desaparecieron” 190.000 pistolas y rifles de asalto AK-47 entregados a las nuevas fuerzas de seguridad iraquíes desde el 6 de julio de 2004 hasta diciembre de 2005. También se hicieron humo 135.000 chalecos antibalas y 115.000 cascos (www.gao.com, 31-7-07). El total representa el 30 por ciento de las armas y equipos militares que el Pentágono entregó al régimen fantasma de Bagdad para combatir el “terrorismo”. No parece, sin embargo, que se hayan perdido en el caos iraquí: los insurgentes suelen emplear armas de fuego cortas para obligar al vehículo del ocupante a desviarse hacia donde abundan las bombas que instalaron en la carretera. Como ocurría con el ejército rojo chino en lucha contra Chiang Kai-shek, su mejor proveedor de pertrechos militares es EE.UU.

© 2000-2007 www.pagina12.com.ar|Todos los Derechos Reservados

http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/contratapa/13-90112-2007-08-23.html

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The Independent:
The Iraqis don't deserve us. So we betray them...

Robert Fisk: Published: 23 August 2007

Always, we have betrayed them. We backed "Flossy" in Yemen. The French backed their local "harkis" in Algeria; then the FLN victory forced them to swallow their own French military medals before dispatching them into mass graves. In Vietnam, the Americans demanded democracy and, one by one - after praising the Vietnamese for voting under fire in so many cities, towns and villages - they destroyed the elected prime ministers because they were not abiding by American orders.

Now we are at work in Iraq. Those pesky Iraqis don't deserve our sacrifice, it seems, because their elected leaders are not doing what we want them to do.

Does that remind you of a Palestinian organisation called Hamas? First, the Americans loved Ahmed Chalabi, the man who fabricated for Washington the"'weapons of mass destruction" (with a hefty bank fraud charge on his back). Then, they loved Ayad Allawi, a Vietnam-style spook who admitted working for 26 intelligence organisations, including the CIA and MI6. Then came Ibrahim al-Jaafari, symbol of electoral law, whom the Americans loved, supported, loved again and destroyed. Couldn't get his act together. It was up to the Iraqis, of course, but the Americans wanted him out. And the seat of the Iraqi government - a never-never land in the humidity of Baghdad's green zone - lay next to the largest US embassy in the world. So goodbye, Ibrahim.

Then there was Nouri al-Maliki, a man with whom Bush could "do business"; loved, supported and loved again until Carl Levin and the rest of the US Senate Armed Forces Committee - and, be sure, George W Bush - decided he couldn't fulfil America's wishes. He couldn't get the army together, couldn't pull the police into shape, an odd demand when US military forces were funding and arming some of the most brutal Sunni militias in Baghdad, and was too close to Tehran.

There you have it. We overthrew Saddam's Sunni minority and the Iraqis elected the Shias into power, and all those old Iranian acolytes who had grown up under the Islamic Revolution in exile from the Iraq-Iran war - Jaafari was a senior member of the Islamic Dawaa party which was enthusiastically seizing Western hostages in Beirut in the 1980s and trying to blow up our friend the Emir of Kuwait - were voted into power. So blame the Iranians for their "interference" in Iraq when Iran's own creatures had been voted into power.

And now, get rid of Maliki. Chap doesn't know how to unify his own people, for God's sake. No interference, of course. It's up to the Iraqis, or at least, it's up to the Iraqis who live under American protection in the green zone. The word in the Middle East - where the "plot" (al-moammarer) has the power of reality - is that Maliki's cosy trips to Tehran and Damascus these past two weeks have been the final straw for the fantasists in Washington. Because Iran and Syria are part of the axis of evil or the cradle of evil or whatever nonsense Bush and his cohorts and the Israelis dream up, take a look at the $30bn in arms heading to Israel in the next decade in the cause of "peace".

Maliki's state visits to the crazed Ahmedinejad and the much more serious Bashar al-Assad appear to be, in Henry VIII's words, "treachery, treachery, treachery". But Maliki is showing loyalty to his former Iranian masters and their Syrian Alawite allies (the Alawites being an interesting satellite of the Shias).

These creatures - let us use the right word - belong to us and thus we can step on them when we wish. We will not learn - we will never learn, it seems - the key to Iraq. The majority of the people are Muslim Shias. The majority of their leaders, including the "fiery" Muqtada al-Sadr were trained, nurtured, weaned, loved, taught in Iran. And now, suddenly, we hate them. The Iraqis do not deserve us. This is to be the grit on the sand that will give our tanks traction to leave Iraq. Bring on the clowns! Maybe they can help us too.

http://news.independent.co.uk/fisk/article2886358.ece

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The Nation:
The Real Iraq Progress Report

truthdig by Robert Scheer
[posted online on August 22, 2007]

The parade of political tourists to Iraq in recent weeks, during which easily impressed pundits and members of Congress came to be dazzled by the wonders of the troop surge, probably ensures that this murderous adventure will continue well into the next presidency-even if the Democrats win.

For example, Kenneth Pollack, a top national security adviser in the Clinton Administration whose 2002 book, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq, convinced many Democratic politicians to support the war, now finds renewed optimism after the surge. In a July 30 New York Times op-ed article, "A War We Just Might Win," which he coauthored after spending eight days in Iraq, Pollack gushed, "We traveled to the northern cities of Tal Afar and Mosul. This is an ethnically rich area, with large numbers of Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. American troop levels in both cities now number only in the hundreds because the Iraqis have stepped up to the plate. Reliable police officers man the checkpoints in the cities, while Iraqi army troops cover the countryside."

So much so that a town forty miles northeast of Tal Afar was the scene, on August 15, of the deadliest attack of the war-a quadruple bombing left more than 500 dead and 1,500 wounded, and most of the buildings in ruin. What about those "reliable" police officers and Iraqi army troops whose presence in the area Pollack found so reassuring? If Pollack was asked about that on any of the talk shows that routinely feature him as an expert, I have not found the footage.

Other Democrats brought to Iraq for photo-op visits have similarly descended into total myopia. Take Rep. Jerry McNerney, D-Calif., who is suddenly more upbeat about the future US role in the region: "If anything, I'm more willing to find a way forward," he enthused. Rep. Tim Mahoney, D-Fla., proclaimed that the US troop surge "has really made a difference and really has gotten Al Qaeda on their heels." Odd, then, that Al Qaeda was blamed by the United States for that deadly attack near Tal Afar.

In the past week, two Iraqi governors have been assassinated in incidents attributed to intra-Shiite violence that is dramatically on the rise. But not even this bloodshed stops yet another Democratic lawmaker, Brian Baird (Wash.), from proclaiming that he will no longer support measures to set a deadline for troop withdrawal, because "We are making real and tangible progress on the ground."

Contrast the rosy optimism of those day tourists with the assessment of seven active-duty soldiers coming to the end of their fifteen-month tour of duty on the ground in Iraq. They had an op-ed piece in the August 19 New York Times titled "The War as We Saw It":

"To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched. As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press reports portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day."

Get their article-excerpted quoting cannot do it justice-and hand it to anyone who prattles on about how "our" leaving Iraq will only make matters worse. "Four years into our occupation, we have failed on every promise, while we have substituted Baath Party tyranny with a tyranny of Islamist, militia and criminal violence," they wrote. "In the end, we need to recognize that our presence may have released Iraqis from the grip of a tyrant, but that it has also robbed them of their self-respect. They will soon realize that the best way to retain dignity is to call us what we are-an army of occupation-and force our withdrawal."

In the meantime, the seven soldiers urge that we let "Iraqis take center stage in all matters" and "let them resolve their differences as they see fit. This suggestion is not meant to be defeatist, but rather to highlight our pursuit of incompatible policies to absurd ends without recognizing the incongruities." The plea ends with "We need not talk about morale. As committed soldiers, we will see this mission through."

And sadly enough, they will continue to be sacrificed to a policy that makes no sense to them as well as to most other Americans. As their op-ed piece recounts, "one of us, Staff Sergeant [Jeremy A.] Murphy, an Army Ranger and reconnaissance team leader, was shot in the head during a 'time sensitive target acquisition mission,' on Aug. 12; he is expected to survive." But what about the next good man sacrificed to the whims of politicians and pundits?

Copyright © 2007 The Nation

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070827/truthdig2

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ZNet | Iraq: What is holding
up the delivery of the long-awaited Iraqi oil law?

by Munir Chalabi; August 22, 2007

As deadline after deadline and benchmark after benchmark passes and with all the pressure imposed by the IMF, the US Administration, the US oil lobby and International Oil Companies (IOCs) on the Iraqi government, the oil law, against all the odds, refuses to be born.

Despite all the attempts by the Occupation's Governing Council (GC) and its appointed puppet, Allawi's Government, as well as the efforts by both of the elected governments, several US/IMF deadlines have passed including one in December 2006, then in March, May and the latest one in July 2007, but the draft of the law has not even been presented officially to the Federal Parliament in Baghdad.

In parallel with all these deadlines and benchmarks, we have seen several versions of the drafts for the new Iraqi oil law leaked one way or another to the international press. This includes one in June 2006, another on January 15, then February 15, June 25, and finally July 3, 2007.

Many international political analysts and oil experts cannot comprehend how such unprecedented pressure can fail to produce results.

The answer to this is to be found within the methodology used in investigating the reasons behind the failure of the US Administration in achieving their objectives.

Analysts must not only look for external influences on any US plan in Iraq but they should also study and analyze the internal Iraqi causes affecting the success or the failure of the plan.

A. External factors and influences:

1. External influences were for the most part, behind the approval of a draft of the oil law, which will be the first and major step in the privatization of Iraqi oil wealth and will ensure that the oil will be produced and marketed by the IOCs with enormous profit to them.

2. Neither the US Republican administration nor the Democrats had any disagreement with this policy and made the approval of the oil law a benchmark for future US strategy in Iraq within the Iraqi Study Group report.[1]

3. The IMF made the approval of the oil law one of the main conditions for reducing the Iraqi international debts, as declared in December 1, 2005 in the Paris meetings between the IMF and representatives of the Iraqi Government.

4. The IOCs were united in their approval of the oil law and there were no indications from any of them to the contrary.

5. In addition, we have to remember that Iraq is still under US occupation. Over 180,000 US/multinational troops and over 50,000 active mercenaries are putting all types of pressure on the Iraqi government and parliament to ensure the success of the US oil plans.

6. Several international organizations which oppose the oil Law, including a number of environmental groups, anti-occupational movements and several international trade unions[2] provide vital support to the Iraqi anti-oil law movements and had very positive media campaigns. However, their effectiveness was understandably limited, as they could not influence the international decision-making powers.

B. Domestic influences and factors:

There are several Iraqi factors behind all the delays in the delivery of the oil law and these include:

1. The Disagreement between the Central Government and the Kurdistan Regional Government on several issues of the law including who should control the strategic oil policies and which giant oil fields should be given to the IOCs. The Kurdish Government insisted that several of the major oil fields which are allocated to the Iraqi National Oil Company under annex 2 of the draft, be moved to annex 3 in order to be given to the IOCs.

2. Increased Iraqi public awareness and pressure - the public awareness has increased noticeably in the past year against the oil law. We have seen this public pressure mounting because of:

· An increased awareness by the public of the Iraqi civil society organizations, trade unions, in particular the IFOU ("Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions"[3]), oil experts[4], economists and the Iraqi media concerning the threat of the oil law on the future of the sovereignty of the nation, which has consequently increased the opposition to the law.

· More and more MPs are calling for the law to be carefully studied before its approval. The Iraqi parliament has gone into summer recess without discussing the oil law, but up until now the only members who are openly standing against the oil law are the MPs from Sadr's Movement and some individual members from the "Iraqi Accord," the Dawa Party and some independent MPs.

· The "State Shuraa Council," which is the highest legal office in the Iraqi Ministry of Justice, submitted on July 25, 2007, 13 legal comments on the "Draft Oil & Gas Law" to the Iraqi government. The main points included the need to first re-establish the Iraqi National Oil Company which was dissolved by the Baath regime in 1987 (in their first step to privatize the nation's oil wealth) before the Oil & Gas Law is be put to parliament. Also the Council emphasized the importance of the leading role of the central government in planning the strategic policies concerning the future of the nation's oil and gas wealth in accordance with the needs of article 111 of the Iraqi Constitution. The third vital comment by the Council was their recommendation that all agreements with any international oil companies should be approved by the Iraqi Parliament.

The Council's comments made it more difficult for the Iraqi Government to push the Draft Oil Law through the Iraqi Parliament.

· The latest Oil poll, which was carried out in June and July 2007 by KA Research, has shown that the Iraqis oppose plans to open the country's oil fields to foreign investment by a factor of two to one (63% oppose to 31% for).

3. The security crises: More and more Iraqis are questioning the wisdom of trying to rush the Oil & Gas law through parliament while the country is in such a devastating state.

· Thousands of innocent civilians are slaughtered every month due to suicide bombings by the Al-Qaeda/Baathist terrorists, the occupying forces' military attacks, the secret CIA controlled death squads and the sectarian clashes.

· Most Iraqi cities and towns have either no or severe shortages of electricity, clean water and other basic life necessities

· People are afraid to stay in their homeland and around four million are displaced, many driven from their homes by force.

Conclusions:

1. The legislation of the new Iraqi Oil & Gas Law by the Iraqi parliament has become the most important benchmark of the US Administration, its oil lobbies, the IOCs, the IMF, and the occupying forces. The Bush administration wants this law to be passed as soon as possible, whatever the cost to the Iraqi people.

2. The failure of the US policies in the occupation of Iraq, the success of the Democratic Party in the 2006 elections in controlling both legislative houses in the US, and the presidential elections next year, have made the Bush Administration and its allies more desperate in their attempts to reach a successful conclusion on the oil law in order to prepare the ground for a partial US withdrawal from Iraq, within the lifetime of this administration.

3. This has led to enormous pressure being imposed by the US administration and its forces on the ground in Iraq on Al-Maliki's government in the past eight months. They insisted that the government should go ahead and get this oil law approved by parliament, together with the re-Baathification law, and other privatization laws such as the privatization of the Iraqi oil processing industries which they succeeded in passing through parliament three days before the start of summer session.

4. The Bush Administration and their Ambassador in Baghdad had openly threatened to replace Al-Maliki's government with a new government, headed by their man in Iraq - the old Baathist, Iyad Allawi. Al-Maliki has openly accused Allawi in several speeches of attempting to overthrow his government with the help of some units of the Iraqi army and security generals including the head of the Iraqi security forces, the old Baathist general Mohammed Al-Shahwani. These generals were appointed to their positions during Allawi's appointed government by the last US official administrator Paul Bremer back in May 2004, and are still taking their orders directly from the US embassy in Baghdad.

5. The US administration recognized that a US-led military coup d'etat would not result in any laws being recognized as legitimate by the international community if parliament were to be dissolved. They therefore moved to a new policy, which involved direct interference with the political process in Iraq through their more reliable allies to reorganize the political alliance on which the government relied in order to achieve their goals. They finally succeeded in achieving the establishment of such a front, which was called the "The front of the moderates" on August 15, between the two main Kurdish parties (KDP and PUK), two of the Shiite parties (the SCIRI and Al-Dawa party - the Al-Maliki wing is called the "External organization"), with negotiations still ongoing to persuade the Islamic Party/Accord front - the main Sunni party - to join this new alliance.

The US administration made it clear that the new Iraqi government has important targets to accomplish, and they listed the oil law as the first priority and the re-Baathification law as a second main concern.

6. The claim of the US Administration that the oil and gas law will allow all Iraqis to share the oil revenue is no more than another peace of misinformation, as the "Revenue Sharing Law" is a separate federal revenue law which is still being negotiated between the different Iraqi parties representing all sectors of Iraqi society.

7. The US Administration is aware that time is not on their side, especially when it concerns the oil law. They now recognize that as more people come to understand the law, this will increase the chance of its defeat. This was the main reason behind all the attempted secrecy that surrounded any information about the oil law.

The latest oil poll which was carried out in June and July 2007 by KA Research has shown that the vast majority of Iraqis (91%) did not feel informed enough about the oil law. This included the 33% who said they knew a little information on the law, 30% who said that they were not very informed and 28% that stated that they knew nothing about it.

8. If the formation of the new political right wing alliance succeeds, then this will create for the first time, perilous circumstances which will allow the oil and gas law together with other US benchmarks to be passed through the Iraqi parliament within the next few months.

This danger is very real and should be seriously considered by all the parties who are opposing the law in their future planning.

9. There have been several attempts by some Iraqi groups opposing the law to raise several important issues, in order to prevent the law being approved by parliament within the near future. Issues such as this law should be treated as sovereignty issues due to their affect on the future of the nation and therefore should only be passed by a referendum.

10. It is time for the US administration to recognize that their attempts to get the Iraqi parliament to approve this oil law by using all manner of pressure and threats, will not guarantee their chances of succeeding in implementing a law which does not reflect the interests of Iraqis in any shape or form, in the near and long term future, as was the case with many of their original plans.

11. It is international law which states that the occupying forces have no right to impose laws which reflect their interests only, and do not reflect the interests of the occupied people and that such laws are null and void if any future elected Iraqi parliament declares them to be so.[5]

Notes:

1. Munir Chalabi, "The Future of Iraqi oil as proposed by the Iraqi Study Group," ZNet, Jan. 8, 2007.

2. UK Organizations: PLATFORM; War on Want; US Organizations: Global Policy Forum; Institute for Policy Studies; Oil Change International; US Labor against the War.

3. IFOU, the "Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions," was the first to recognize the threats within the law and started their campaign against the law in May 2005 when they organized the first conference in Basra to discuss the future of the Iraqi oil industry and are in opposition to the PSA type of agreements.

4. Some Iraqi oil experts are having an increase role in raising the awareness of the Iraqi public and the members of the Iraqi Parliament. The letter to parliament from 106 Iraqi oil experts, technocrats is an example of such activities. The Iraqi oil experts Fouad Alamir and Issam Chalabi are leading the campaign.

5. See more details in the analyses of February 2007 draft of the Oil Law in my article "Is Iraq in need of such an oil law," ZNET, March 11, 2007.

Munir Chalabi is an Iraqi political analyst living in UK.

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=13600