Go to Original
By Vincent Bugliosi
There is direct evidence that President George W. Bush did not honorably lead this nation, but deliberately misled it into a war he wanted. Bush and his administration knowingly lied to Congress and to the American public — lies that have cost the lives of more than 4,000 young American soldiers and close to $1 trillion.
A Monumental Lie
In his first nationally televised address on the Iraqi crisis on October 7, 2002, six days after receiving the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a classified CIA report, President Bush told millions of Americans the exact opposite of what the CIA was telling him -a monumental lie to the nation and the world.
On the evening of October 7, 2002, the very latest CIA intelligence was that Hussein was not an imminent threat to the U.S. This same information was delivered to the Bush administration as early as October 1, 2002, in the NIE, including input from the CIA and 15 other U.S. intelligence agencies. In addition, CIA director George Tenet briefed Bush in the Oval Office on the morning of October 7th.
According to the October 1, 2002 NIE, “Baghdad for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW [chemical and biological warfare] against the United States, fearing that exposure of Iraqi involvement would provide Washington a stronger case for making war.” The report concluded that Hussein was not planning to use any weapons of mass destruction; further, Hussein would only use weapons of mass destruction he was believed to have if he were first attacked, that is, he would only use them in self-defense.
Preparing its declassified version of the NIE for Congress, which became known as the White Paper, the Bush administration edited the classified NIE document in ways that significantly changed its inference and meaning, making the threat seem imminent and ominous.
In the original NIE report, members of the U.S. intelligence community vigorously disagreed with the CIA’s bloated and inaccurate conclusions. All such opposing commentary was eliminated from the declassified White Paper prepared for Congress and the American people.
The Manning Memo
On January 31, 2003, Bush met in the Oval Office with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. In a memo summarizing the meeting discussion, Blair’s chief foreign policy advisor David Manning wrote that Bush and Blair expressed their doubts that any chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons would ever be found in Iraq, and that there was tension between Bush and Blair over finding some justification for the war that would be acceptable to other nations. Bush was so worried about the failure of the UN inspectors to find hard evidence against Hussein that he talked about three possible ways, Manning wrote, to “provoke a confrontation” with Hussein. One way, Bush said, was to fly “U2 reconnaissance aircraft with fighter cover over Iraq, [falsely] painted in UN colors. If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach” of UN resolutions and that would justify war. Bush was calculating to create a war, not prevent one.
Denying Blix’s Findings
Hans Blix, the United Nation’s chief weapons inspector in Iraq, in his March 7, 2003, address to the UN Security Council, said that as of that date, less than 3 weeks before Bush invaded Iraq, that Iraq had capitulated to all demands for professional, no-notice weapons inspections all over Iraq and agreed to increased aerial surveillance by the U.S. over the “no-fly” zones. Iraq had directed the UN inspectors to sites where illicit weapons had been destroyed and had begun to demolish its Al Samoud 2 missiles, as requested by the UN. Blix added that “no evidence of proscribed activities have so far been found” by his inspectors and “no underground facilities for chemical or biological production or storage were found so far.” He said that for his inspectors to absolutely confirm that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) “will not take years, nor weeks, but months.”
Mohamed ElBaradei, the chief UN nuclear inspector in Iraq and director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the UN Security Council that, “we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq.”
The UN inspectors were making substantial progress and Hussein was giving them unlimited access. Why was Bush in such an incredible rush to go to war?
Hussein Disarms, so Bush … Goes to War
When it became clear that the whole purpose of Bush’s prewar campaign — to get Hussein to disarm — was being (or already had been) met, Bush and his people came up with a demand they had never once made before — that Hussein resign and leave Iraq. On March 17, 2003, Bush said in a speech to the nation that, “Saddam Hussein and his sons must leave Iraq within 48 hours. Their refusal to do so will result in military conflict.” Military conflict — the lives of thousands of young Americans on the line — because Bush trumped up a new line in the sand?
The Niger Allegation
One of the most notorious instances of the Bush administration using thoroughly discredited information to frighten the American public was the 16 words in Bush’s January 28, 2003 State of the Union speech: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The Niger allegation was false, and the Bush administration knew it was false.
Joseph C. Wilson IV, the former ambassador to Iraq, was sent to Niger by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate a supposed memo that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake (a form of lightly processed ore) to Iraq by Niger in the late 1990s. Wilson reported back to the CIA that it was “highly doubtful” such a transaction had ever taken place.
On March 7, 2003, Mohamed ElBaradei told the UN Security Council that “based on thorough analysis” his agency concluded that the “documents which formed the basis for the report of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic.” Indeed, author Craig Unger uncovered at least 14 instances prior to the 2003 State of the Union address in which analysts at the CIA, the State Department, or other government agencies that had examined the Niger documents “raised serious doubts about their legitimacy — only to be rebuffed by Bush administration officials who wanted to use them.”
On October 5 and 6, 2002, the CIA sent memos to the National Security Council, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, and to the White House Situation Room stating that the Niger information was no good.
On January 24, 2003, four days before the president’s State of the Union address, the CIA’s National Intelligence Council, which oversees all federal agencies that deal with intelligence, sent a memo to the White House stating that “the Niger story is baseless and should be laid to rest.”
The 9/11 Lie
The Bush administration put undue pressure on U.S. intelligence agencies to provide it with conclusions that would help them in their quest for war. Bush’s former counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke, said that on September 12, 2001, one day after 9/11, “The President in a very intimidating way left us — me and my staff — with the clear indication that he wanted us to come back with the word that there was an Iraqi hand behind 9/11.”
Bush said on October 7, 2002, “We know that Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy — the United States of America. We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda have had high level contacts that go back a decade,” and that “Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses.” Of Hussein, he said on November 1, 2002, “We know he’s got ties with Al Qaeda.”
Even after Bush admitted on September 17, 2003, that he had “no evidence” that Saddam Hussein was involved with 9/11, he audaciously continued, in the months and years that followed, to clearly suggest, without stating it outright, that Hussein was involved in 9/11.
On March 20, 2006, Bush said, “I was very careful never to say that Saddam Hussein ordered the attack on America.”
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Hizbollah rules west Beirut in Iran's proxy war with US
Go to Original
By Robert Fisk
Another American humiliation. The Shia gunmen who drove past my apartment in west Beirut yesterday afternoon were hooting their horns, making V-signs, leaning out of the windows of SUVs with their rifles in the air, proving to the Muslims of the capital that the elected government of Lebanon has lost.
And it has. The national army still patrols the streets, but solely to prevent sectarian killings or massacres. Far from dismantling the pro-Iranian Hizbollah's secret telecommunications system – and disarming the Hizbollah itself – the cabinet of Fouad Siniora sits in the old Turkish serail in Beirut, denouncing violence with the same authority as the Iraqi government in Baghdad's green zone.
The Lebanese army watches the Hizbollah road-blocks. And does nothing. As a Tehran versus Washington conflict, Iran has won, at least for now. Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader and MP and a pro-American supporter of Mr Siniora's government, is isolated in his home in west Beirut, but has not been harmed. The same applies to Saad Hariri, one of the most prominent government MPs and the son of the murdered former prime minister Rafik Hariri. He remains in his west Beirut palace in Koreitem, guarded by police and soldiers but unable to move without Hizbollah's approval. The symbolism is everything.
When Hamas became part of the Palestinian government, the West rejected it. So Hamas took over Gaza. When the Hizbollah became part of the Lebanese government, the Americans rejected it. Now Hizbollah has taken over west Beirut. The parallels are not exact, of course. Hamas won a convincing electoral victory. Hizbollah was a minority in the Lebanese government; its withdrawal from cabinet seats with other Shias was occasioned by Mr Siniora's American-defined policies and by their own electoral inability to change these. The Lebanese don't want an Islamic republic any more than the Palestinians. But when Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah chairman, told a press conference that this was a "new era" for Lebanon, he meant what he said.
Mr Hariri's Future Television offices were invested by the army after Hizbollah surrounded it on Thursday night, its staff evacuated and the station switched off. When I turned up there yesterday morning, I joined a queue for manouche – Lebanon's hot cheese breakfast sandwiches – at Eyman's bakery in Watwat Street. I patiently waited behind four black-hooded gunmen from Hizbollah's allied (but highly venal) Amal movement only to find uniformed Lebanese soldiers representing the government patiently queuing at the next window. Law and disorder, it seems, both have to eat.
But I found far more powerful symbolism in Hamra Street, one of west Beirut's two main commercial thoroughfares. More than 100 Hizbollah men were standing or patrolling the highway, clad in new camouflage fatigues, wearing new black flak jackets and new black, peaked, American-style baseball caps and – more to the point – what appeared to be equally new American sniper rifles..
No, this is not a revolution. No, this is not a "hijacking" of west Beirut or the airport, which remains cut off by burning tyres on roads guarded by Hizbollah militiamen. But the government's supporters deserve some space. Several pointed out that the Israelis closed Beirut airport in 2006. So what right did Hizbollah have to do the same to the Lebanese now? And, according to Saad Hariri, Mr Nasrallah – when he called Mr Jumblatt "a thief and a killer" – was "authorising his murder and clearly stating that, 'I am the state and the state is me'." No wonder, then, that Mr Jumblatt fears for his life and that Mr Hariri claims the Hizbollah's coup de folie is a form of fitna, the Arabic for chaos. "I invite you, Sayed Nasrallah, to take back your fighters from the streets and to lift the siege of Beirut to protect the unity of Muslims," he said. "Israel will be rejoicing at the blockade of the country and the collapse of its economy."
Marwan Hamade, Mr Siniora's Telecommunications Minister – and victim of an attempted assassination in 2004 – admitted he had turned a blind eye to Hizbollah's underground phone system but could no longer when he realised that Hizbollah now maintains 99,000 numbered lines.
Mr Nasrallah also insisted on the reinstallation of Brigadier General Wafiq Chucair as head of security at Beirut airport, since he was not a member of Hizbollah. General Chucair was suspended after Mr Jumblatt claimed he worked for Mr Nasrallah's outfit, a demand which prompted Mr Jumblatt to say he did not know General Chucair was so important to Mr Nasrallah that it was worth closing the international airport.
And so it goes on. There was an unusually good editorial in the French-language daily L'Orient Le Jour, which asked how the Hizbollah – literally "the party of God" in Arabic – could have war as its raison d'etre yet be a factor of stability and security in Lebanese domestic affairs. "And this party, can it really call itself the 'Party of God' without creating, in the long term, the distrust of all those other children who count themselves to be from the same unique and one God?"
No, this is not a civil war. Nor is it a coup d'etat, though it meets some of the criteria. It is part of the war against America in the Middle East. The Hizbollah "must stop sowing trouble," the White House said rather meekly. Yes, like the Taliban. And al-Qa'ida. And the Iraqi insurgents. And Hamas. And who else?
By Robert Fisk
Another American humiliation. The Shia gunmen who drove past my apartment in west Beirut yesterday afternoon were hooting their horns, making V-signs, leaning out of the windows of SUVs with their rifles in the air, proving to the Muslims of the capital that the elected government of Lebanon has lost.
And it has. The national army still patrols the streets, but solely to prevent sectarian killings or massacres. Far from dismantling the pro-Iranian Hizbollah's secret telecommunications system – and disarming the Hizbollah itself – the cabinet of Fouad Siniora sits in the old Turkish serail in Beirut, denouncing violence with the same authority as the Iraqi government in Baghdad's green zone.
The Lebanese army watches the Hizbollah road-blocks. And does nothing. As a Tehran versus Washington conflict, Iran has won, at least for now. Walid Jumblatt, the Druze leader and MP and a pro-American supporter of Mr Siniora's government, is isolated in his home in west Beirut, but has not been harmed. The same applies to Saad Hariri, one of the most prominent government MPs and the son of the murdered former prime minister Rafik Hariri. He remains in his west Beirut palace in Koreitem, guarded by police and soldiers but unable to move without Hizbollah's approval. The symbolism is everything.
When Hamas became part of the Palestinian government, the West rejected it. So Hamas took over Gaza. When the Hizbollah became part of the Lebanese government, the Americans rejected it. Now Hizbollah has taken over west Beirut. The parallels are not exact, of course. Hamas won a convincing electoral victory. Hizbollah was a minority in the Lebanese government; its withdrawal from cabinet seats with other Shias was occasioned by Mr Siniora's American-defined policies and by their own electoral inability to change these. The Lebanese don't want an Islamic republic any more than the Palestinians. But when Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah chairman, told a press conference that this was a "new era" for Lebanon, he meant what he said.
Mr Hariri's Future Television offices were invested by the army after Hizbollah surrounded it on Thursday night, its staff evacuated and the station switched off. When I turned up there yesterday morning, I joined a queue for manouche – Lebanon's hot cheese breakfast sandwiches – at Eyman's bakery in Watwat Street. I patiently waited behind four black-hooded gunmen from Hizbollah's allied (but highly venal) Amal movement only to find uniformed Lebanese soldiers representing the government patiently queuing at the next window. Law and disorder, it seems, both have to eat.
But I found far more powerful symbolism in Hamra Street, one of west Beirut's two main commercial thoroughfares. More than 100 Hizbollah men were standing or patrolling the highway, clad in new camouflage fatigues, wearing new black flak jackets and new black, peaked, American-style baseball caps and – more to the point – what appeared to be equally new American sniper rifles..
No, this is not a revolution. No, this is not a "hijacking" of west Beirut or the airport, which remains cut off by burning tyres on roads guarded by Hizbollah militiamen. But the government's supporters deserve some space. Several pointed out that the Israelis closed Beirut airport in 2006. So what right did Hizbollah have to do the same to the Lebanese now? And, according to Saad Hariri, Mr Nasrallah – when he called Mr Jumblatt "a thief and a killer" – was "authorising his murder and clearly stating that, 'I am the state and the state is me'." No wonder, then, that Mr Jumblatt fears for his life and that Mr Hariri claims the Hizbollah's coup de folie is a form of fitna, the Arabic for chaos. "I invite you, Sayed Nasrallah, to take back your fighters from the streets and to lift the siege of Beirut to protect the unity of Muslims," he said. "Israel will be rejoicing at the blockade of the country and the collapse of its economy."
Marwan Hamade, Mr Siniora's Telecommunications Minister – and victim of an attempted assassination in 2004 – admitted he had turned a blind eye to Hizbollah's underground phone system but could no longer when he realised that Hizbollah now maintains 99,000 numbered lines.
Mr Nasrallah also insisted on the reinstallation of Brigadier General Wafiq Chucair as head of security at Beirut airport, since he was not a member of Hizbollah. General Chucair was suspended after Mr Jumblatt claimed he worked for Mr Nasrallah's outfit, a demand which prompted Mr Jumblatt to say he did not know General Chucair was so important to Mr Nasrallah that it was worth closing the international airport.
And so it goes on. There was an unusually good editorial in the French-language daily L'Orient Le Jour, which asked how the Hizbollah – literally "the party of God" in Arabic – could have war as its raison d'etre yet be a factor of stability and security in Lebanese domestic affairs. "And this party, can it really call itself the 'Party of God' without creating, in the long term, the distrust of all those other children who count themselves to be from the same unique and one God?"
No, this is not a civil war. Nor is it a coup d'etat, though it meets some of the criteria. It is part of the war against America in the Middle East. The Hizbollah "must stop sowing trouble," the White House said rather meekly. Yes, like the Taliban. And al-Qa'ida. And the Iraqi insurgents. And Hamas. And who else?
War With Iran Might Be Closer Than You Think
Go to Original
By Philip Giraldi
There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action. The decision to go ahead with plans to attack Iran is the direct result of concerns being expressed over the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, where Iranian ally Hezbollah appears to have gained the upper hand against government forces and might be able to dominate the fractious political situation. The White House contacted the Iranian government directly yesterday through a channel provided by the leadership of the Kurdish region in Iraq, which has traditionally had close ties to Tehran. The US demanded that Iran admit that it has been interfering in Iraq and also commit itself to taking steps to end the support of various militant groups. There was also a warning about interfering in Lebanon. The Iranian government reportedly responded quickly, restating its position that it would not discuss the matter until the US ceases its own meddling employing Iranian dissident groups. The perceived Iranian intransigence coupled with the Lebanese situation convinced the White House that some sort of unambiguous signal has to be sent to the Iranian leadership, presumably in the form of cruise missiles. It is to be presumed that the attack will be as “pinpoint” and limited as possible, intended to target only al-Qods and avoid civilian casualties. The decision to proceed with plans for an attack is not final. The President will still have to give the order to launch after all preparations are made.
By Philip Giraldi
There is considerable speculation and buzz in Washington today suggesting that the National Security Council has agreed in principle to proceed with plans to attack an Iranian al-Qods-run camp that is believed to be training Iraqi militants. The camp that will be targeted is one of several located near Tehran. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was the only senior official urging delay in taking any offensive action. The decision to go ahead with plans to attack Iran is the direct result of concerns being expressed over the deteriorating situation in Lebanon, where Iranian ally Hezbollah appears to have gained the upper hand against government forces and might be able to dominate the fractious political situation. The White House contacted the Iranian government directly yesterday through a channel provided by the leadership of the Kurdish region in Iraq, which has traditionally had close ties to Tehran. The US demanded that Iran admit that it has been interfering in Iraq and also commit itself to taking steps to end the support of various militant groups. There was also a warning about interfering in Lebanon. The Iranian government reportedly responded quickly, restating its position that it would not discuss the matter until the US ceases its own meddling employing Iranian dissident groups. The perceived Iranian intransigence coupled with the Lebanese situation convinced the White House that some sort of unambiguous signal has to be sent to the Iranian leadership, presumably in the form of cruise missiles. It is to be presumed that the attack will be as “pinpoint” and limited as possible, intended to target only al-Qods and avoid civilian casualties. The decision to proceed with plans for an attack is not final. The President will still have to give the order to launch after all preparations are made.
US Terrorism Report: Selective Data, Wrong Lessons
Go to Original
By Ramzy Baroud
The data provided in the US State Department's annual terrorism report for 2007 points to some interesting if puzzling conclusions. The much publicised document, made available 30 April via the State Department's website, makes no secret of the fact that Al-Qaeda is back, strong as ever. It also suggests that violence worldwide is nowhere near subsiding, despite President Bush's repeated assurances regarding the success of his "war on terror".
Will the report inspire serious reflection on the US's detrimental foreign policy and its role in the current situation?
Let's look at some of the data. To start with, take Pakistan. Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda-inspired attacks in the country more than doubled (from 375 to 877) between 2006 and 2007. These attacks have claimed the lives of 1,335 people, compared to 335 in a previous report. That is a jump of almost 300 per cent.
Then there's Afghanistan, which was supposedly "liberated" shortly after 11 September 2001. The number of attacks reported there increased a sharp 16 per cent in 2007. Some 1,127 violent incidents killing 1,966 people represent a significant surge in violence compared to 2006's 1,257 deaths.
There have also been many other violent incidents around the world, including but not limited to North Africa, the terrorist bombings in Algeria in particular.
But this is barely half the story -- or 40 per cent of it, if we want to be as specific as the terrorism report. Iraq accounted for 60 per cent of worldwide terrorism fatalities.
Considering the fact that the horrifying violence currently witnessed in Iraq was unheard of prior to the US invasion of 2003, will the Bush administration take a moment to connect the dots? Even a third grader could figure this one out: the US occupation was a major, if not sole factor, in Iraq's relentless bloodbath. In order to right the wrong in Iraq, the US military should clearly just withdraw, and Bush -- or whoever next claims the White House -- should stop fabricating pretexts to justify a prolonged mission.
On 1 May 2003, President Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq. As he stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln a huge banner behind him bore the words "Mission Accomplished". The New York Times then wrote, "the Bush administration is planning to withdraw most United States combat forces from Iraq over the next several months and wants to shrink the American military presence to less than two divisions by the fall."
Instead, more than five years after Bush's speech, the administration seems determined to maintain a military surge, having added 20,000 soldiers. Making no apologies for the war's contribution to an increase in terrorist activities, Bush's officials continue to rationalise the surge as a commonsense response to ongoing violence, conveniently omitting the US's own part in this violence. The State Department report doesn't classify any of the thousands of innocent victims killed by US or coalition forces as victims of terrorism.
Russ Travers, deputy director of the Counterterrorism Centre, stated on the day the report was published, "It's a fair statement that around the globe people are getting increasingly efficient at killing other people." While Travers' assertion is undoubtedly true, there seems to be no intention of providing any context, no connection drawn to the US's direct invasions, or indirect but equally devastating role in campaigns of violence, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan.
But what the State Department's terrorism report didn't fail to do was once again identify Iran as the world's "most active" state sponsor of terrorism. As reported in the Associated Press on 1 May, Iran was responsible for "supporting Palestinian extremists and insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, whereة elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps continued to give militants weapons, training and funding."
The irony is that the report further contributes to the US's long-touted case for war against Iran; ironic because the report's findings, if viewed responsibly, substantiate the claim that the Bush administration's policies have only made the world more unsafe. Wouldn't a war against Iran hike up the number of violent or terrorist incidents?
It also remains unclear how powerful Al-Qaeda really is, and how much of its capabilities were hyped in order to enable the Bush administration to continue its mission. Consider the two occasions Al-Qaeda was back in the news recently.
News media cited official Afghani reports attributing the recent assassination attempt on US-ally Afghani President Hamid Karzai to Al-Qaeda. In other reports, the US rationalised its own assassination of a leading Somali militia leader Aden Hashi Eyrow on 1 May as targeting a key Al-Qaeda member. It's not the logic of the assassination that is key here, but rather the fact that while Al- Qaeda has reached a position of strength that can penetrate several layers of defences in Afghanistan, the US is getting itself involved in a regional feud in Somalia. Why would the Bush administration be chasing Al-Qaeda in Somalia, as in Iraq, if the group is reportedly in the most powerful position in Afghanistan?
Moreover, if Al-Qaeda indeed exists on such a large and influential scale in so many countries, isn't it time to question the logic used by the Bush administration's "war on terror" that was meant to weaken and destroy Al- Qaeda in the first place?
It may be, of course, that Al-Qaeda's power and outreach is inflated for political reasons, where every conflict the US is involved in becomes immediately reduced to those who support, shield or host Al-Qaeda or Al- Qaeda inspired groups, thus justifying US military intervention anywhere.
Instead of dealing with the obvious truths that the terrorism report highlights, the authors of the report have resorted to another logic that places blame squarely on external circumstance, never holding the US government accountable for its actions.
Finally, is there really a need for lengthy reports that cost large sums of money and thousands of work hours if the lessons gleaned are always the wrong ones, leading to more blunders that prompt more violence, and more terrorism reports?
By Ramzy Baroud
The data provided in the US State Department's annual terrorism report for 2007 points to some interesting if puzzling conclusions. The much publicised document, made available 30 April via the State Department's website, makes no secret of the fact that Al-Qaeda is back, strong as ever. It also suggests that violence worldwide is nowhere near subsiding, despite President Bush's repeated assurances regarding the success of his "war on terror".
Will the report inspire serious reflection on the US's detrimental foreign policy and its role in the current situation?
Let's look at some of the data. To start with, take Pakistan. Al-Qaeda or Al-Qaeda-inspired attacks in the country more than doubled (from 375 to 877) between 2006 and 2007. These attacks have claimed the lives of 1,335 people, compared to 335 in a previous report. That is a jump of almost 300 per cent.
Then there's Afghanistan, which was supposedly "liberated" shortly after 11 September 2001. The number of attacks reported there increased a sharp 16 per cent in 2007. Some 1,127 violent incidents killing 1,966 people represent a significant surge in violence compared to 2006's 1,257 deaths.
There have also been many other violent incidents around the world, including but not limited to North Africa, the terrorist bombings in Algeria in particular.
But this is barely half the story -- or 40 per cent of it, if we want to be as specific as the terrorism report. Iraq accounted for 60 per cent of worldwide terrorism fatalities.
Considering the fact that the horrifying violence currently witnessed in Iraq was unheard of prior to the US invasion of 2003, will the Bush administration take a moment to connect the dots? Even a third grader could figure this one out: the US occupation was a major, if not sole factor, in Iraq's relentless bloodbath. In order to right the wrong in Iraq, the US military should clearly just withdraw, and Bush -- or whoever next claims the White House -- should stop fabricating pretexts to justify a prolonged mission.
On 1 May 2003, President Bush declared the end of major combat operations in Iraq. As he stood on the deck of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln a huge banner behind him bore the words "Mission Accomplished". The New York Times then wrote, "the Bush administration is planning to withdraw most United States combat forces from Iraq over the next several months and wants to shrink the American military presence to less than two divisions by the fall."
Instead, more than five years after Bush's speech, the administration seems determined to maintain a military surge, having added 20,000 soldiers. Making no apologies for the war's contribution to an increase in terrorist activities, Bush's officials continue to rationalise the surge as a commonsense response to ongoing violence, conveniently omitting the US's own part in this violence. The State Department report doesn't classify any of the thousands of innocent victims killed by US or coalition forces as victims of terrorism.
Russ Travers, deputy director of the Counterterrorism Centre, stated on the day the report was published, "It's a fair statement that around the globe people are getting increasingly efficient at killing other people." While Travers' assertion is undoubtedly true, there seems to be no intention of providing any context, no connection drawn to the US's direct invasions, or indirect but equally devastating role in campaigns of violence, whether in Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan.
But what the State Department's terrorism report didn't fail to do was once again identify Iran as the world's "most active" state sponsor of terrorism. As reported in the Associated Press on 1 May, Iran was responsible for "supporting Palestinian extremists and insurgents in Afghanistan and Iraq, whereة elements of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps continued to give militants weapons, training and funding."
The irony is that the report further contributes to the US's long-touted case for war against Iran; ironic because the report's findings, if viewed responsibly, substantiate the claim that the Bush administration's policies have only made the world more unsafe. Wouldn't a war against Iran hike up the number of violent or terrorist incidents?
It also remains unclear how powerful Al-Qaeda really is, and how much of its capabilities were hyped in order to enable the Bush administration to continue its mission. Consider the two occasions Al-Qaeda was back in the news recently.
News media cited official Afghani reports attributing the recent assassination attempt on US-ally Afghani President Hamid Karzai to Al-Qaeda. In other reports, the US rationalised its own assassination of a leading Somali militia leader Aden Hashi Eyrow on 1 May as targeting a key Al-Qaeda member. It's not the logic of the assassination that is key here, but rather the fact that while Al- Qaeda has reached a position of strength that can penetrate several layers of defences in Afghanistan, the US is getting itself involved in a regional feud in Somalia. Why would the Bush administration be chasing Al-Qaeda in Somalia, as in Iraq, if the group is reportedly in the most powerful position in Afghanistan?
Moreover, if Al-Qaeda indeed exists on such a large and influential scale in so many countries, isn't it time to question the logic used by the Bush administration's "war on terror" that was meant to weaken and destroy Al- Qaeda in the first place?
It may be, of course, that Al-Qaeda's power and outreach is inflated for political reasons, where every conflict the US is involved in becomes immediately reduced to those who support, shield or host Al-Qaeda or Al- Qaeda inspired groups, thus justifying US military intervention anywhere.
Instead of dealing with the obvious truths that the terrorism report highlights, the authors of the report have resorted to another logic that places blame squarely on external circumstance, never holding the US government accountable for its actions.
Finally, is there really a need for lengthy reports that cost large sums of money and thousands of work hours if the lessons gleaned are always the wrong ones, leading to more blunders that prompt more violence, and more terrorism reports?
Judge Orders CIA to Turn Over "Torture" Memo: ACLU
Go to Original
New York - A U.S. judge ordered the Central Intelligence Agency on Thursday to submit to the court a 2002 memo said to specify harsh interrogation methods used on suspected terrorists held abroad.
The American Civil Liberties Union said the memo was written by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel and sent to the CIA in August 2002. The ACLU described the memo as "one of the most important torture documents still being withheld by the Bush administration."
In a copy of the order posted on the ACLU's Web site, Judge Alvin Hellerstein told the government to produce the memo so he can determine whether it should be made public as part of a lawsuit the ACLU and other organizations filed in June 2004 requesting records concerning the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad.
Hellerstein has scheduled a review of the document for Monday.
"This memo authorized the CIA to use specific torture techniques -- including waterboarding," Jameel Jaffer, ACLU's national security project director, said in a statement.
"CIA agents waterboarded prisoners because this memo told them that they could," he said. "The memo is being withheld not for legitimate security reasons, but in order to protect government officials from accountability for their decisions."
Waterboarding is a simulated drowning technique.
The ACLU said more than 100,000 pages of government documents have been released in response to its lawsuit.
Among those was a declassified 2003 memo, released by the U.S. Justice Department on April 1, that justified the use of harsh interrogation methods for suspected terrorists held abroad.
A subsequent decision overruled the memo, which said President George W. Bush's authority as commander-in-chief superseded international law regarding wartime interrogations.
The U.S. military has banned the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods considered by some rights advocates to be torture. The U.S. intelligence community has not.
Bush authorized the CIA to use waterboarding after the September 11 attacks in 2001, but he has repeatedly insisted that the United States does not torture prisoners.
The CIA has said it used waterboarding during the interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who faces murder charges in the U.S. military court at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
New York - A U.S. judge ordered the Central Intelligence Agency on Thursday to submit to the court a 2002 memo said to specify harsh interrogation methods used on suspected terrorists held abroad.
The American Civil Liberties Union said the memo was written by the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel and sent to the CIA in August 2002. The ACLU described the memo as "one of the most important torture documents still being withheld by the Bush administration."
In a copy of the order posted on the ACLU's Web site, Judge Alvin Hellerstein told the government to produce the memo so he can determine whether it should be made public as part of a lawsuit the ACLU and other organizations filed in June 2004 requesting records concerning the treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody abroad.
Hellerstein has scheduled a review of the document for Monday.
"This memo authorized the CIA to use specific torture techniques -- including waterboarding," Jameel Jaffer, ACLU's national security project director, said in a statement.
"CIA agents waterboarded prisoners because this memo told them that they could," he said. "The memo is being withheld not for legitimate security reasons, but in order to protect government officials from accountability for their decisions."
Waterboarding is a simulated drowning technique.
The ACLU said more than 100,000 pages of government documents have been released in response to its lawsuit.
Among those was a declassified 2003 memo, released by the U.S. Justice Department on April 1, that justified the use of harsh interrogation methods for suspected terrorists held abroad.
A subsequent decision overruled the memo, which said President George W. Bush's authority as commander-in-chief superseded international law regarding wartime interrogations.
The U.S. military has banned the use of waterboarding and other harsh methods considered by some rights advocates to be torture. The U.S. intelligence community has not.
Bush authorized the CIA to use waterboarding after the September 11 attacks in 2001, but he has repeatedly insisted that the United States does not torture prisoners.
The CIA has said it used waterboarding during the interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who faces murder charges in the U.S. military court at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Iraq Contractor in Shooting Case Makes Comeback
Go to Original
By James Risen
Washington - Last fall, Blackwater Worldwide was in deep peril.
Guards for the security company were involved in a shooting in September that left at least 17 Iraqis dead at a Baghdad intersection. Outrage over the killings prompted the Iraqi government to demand Blackwater's ouster from the country, and led to a criminal investigation by the F.B.I., a series of internal investigations by the State Department and the Pentagon, and high-profile Congressional hearings.
But after an intense public and private lobbying campaign, Blackwater appears to be back to business as usual.
The State Department has just renewed its contract to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least another year. Threats by the Iraqi government to strip Western contractors of their immunity from Iraqi law have gone nowhere. No charges have been brought in the United States against any Blackwater guard in the September shooting, either, and the F.B.I. agents in Baghdad charged with investigating whether Blackwater guards have committed any crimes under United States law are sometimes protected as they travel through Baghdad by Blackwater guards.
The chief reason for the company's survival? State Department officials said Friday that they did not believe they had any alternative to Blackwater, which supplies about 800 guards to the department to provide security for diplomats in Baghdad. Officials say only three companies in the world meet their requirements for protective services in Iraq, and the other two do not have the capability to take on Blackwater's role in Baghdad. After the shooting in September, the State Department did not even open talks with the other two companies, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, to see if they could take over from Blackwater, which is based in North Carolina.
"We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq," said Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management. "If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq."
Still, serious risks remain for Blackwater and at least some of its current and former personnel. A federal grand jury continues to consider evidence in the Baghdad shooting. Although the company is not likely to face any criminal charges, people involved in the case say that some Blackwater guards involved in the shooting are cooperating with the F.B.I. as it pursues evidence against other guards.
Separately, a former Blackwater guard is under criminal investigation for the December 2006 shooting death of an Iraqi guard for an Iraqi vice president, and may soon face federal charges. In a third case, two former Blackwater workers pleaded guilty to weapons-related charges, but both received sentences that included no jail time in return for their cooperation with federal prosecutors in a broader investigation.
A House committee has also asked the Internal Revenue Service to begin an inquiry into whether Blackwater has designated its guards as independent contractors rather than employees to in order to avoid paying and withholding federal taxes. The State Department renewed the security contract for only one year - just long enough to take the company into the start of the next administration. And Blackwater's political connections to the Bush administration may not serve it well if the Democrats win the White House in November.
Given the furor that surrounded Blackwater after the September shooting in Baghdad, critics say the decision to renew the company's contract in Iraq is a sign of the Bush administration's inability to curb its reliance on outside contractors in the war.
"The shooting incident was like a hammer blow, but where are the consequences?" said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institute and author of "Corporate Warriors," a book about contractors in Iraq. "I think it points to the fact that the dependence on contractors is like a drug addiction. They just can't help themselves."
Representative Henry Waxman, California Democrat who is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been investigating Blackwater on several fronts, said, "I can't understand why Blackwater's contract was renewed. It seems to me the administration should have looked for others who could do the job, including the U.S. military."
In the past administration officials have dismissed the notion of using military personnel to guard diplomats.
Founded in 1997 by Erik Prince, a former member of the Navy Seals and heir to a family fortune made in the auto parts industry, Blackwater began to generate controversy in Iraq long before last September's shooting. Blackwater had developed a reputation among both Iraqis and American military personnel as a company that flaunted a quick-draw image that led its security personnel to take overly aggressive actions to protect the people they were paid to guard.
Last year the State Department acknowledged that Blackwater had been involved in significantly more shootings per convoy mission than DynCorp and Triple Canopy, which provide security for the State Department outside Baghdad.
The shooting death of the bodyguard for the Iraqi vice president in 2006 rankled the Iraqi government well before last September's shooting. An off-duty Blackwater guard who American and Iraqi officials said had been drinking heavily was the sole suspect. The off-duty Blackwater guard, Andrew J. Moonen, who no longer works for the company and who is a former Army paratrooper, is now under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors in Seattle. Although Mr. Moonen has not been charged, his lawyer, Stewart Riley of Seattle, said that he had recently been in contact about the case with prosecutors from the United States Attorney's Office in Seattle.
People familiar with the case said they believed that the Justice Department had recently concluded that it had found a way to skirt some of the jurisdictional problems that in the past made it difficult to bring charges in American courts for crimes committed by contractors in Iraq.
"I think they may come to a decision on what to do with this case in the next three or four months," said one person familiar with the matter. Mr. Riley says that Mr. Moonen maintains his innocence in the shooting.
In addition, a wrongful death lawsuit against Blackwater filed by the families of four Blackwater guards killed in Falluja, Iraq, in 2004 - an event that prompted the first major battle in Falluja between the American military and insurgents that year - is also still pending.
A federal appeals court is expected to rule this year on whether the families can proceed with their lawsuit or be forced into arbitration with Blackwater, an outcome the company prefers, according to the families' lawyer, Daniel Callahan of California.
Donna Zovko of Cleveland, the mother of Jerko Gerald Zovko, one of the Blackwater guards, says Blackwater has stonewalled the families.
"It is 1,501 days since he was killed, and I don't know one-tenth of what happened to him, and no one seems to care," Mrs. Zovko said in an interview.
Given so many headlines about his company, Mr. Prince until recently seemed eager to tell his side of the story, and there were reports that he planned to write a book. But on Friday, Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said Mr. Prince's book project had been put on hold.
By James Risen
Washington - Last fall, Blackwater Worldwide was in deep peril.
Guards for the security company were involved in a shooting in September that left at least 17 Iraqis dead at a Baghdad intersection. Outrage over the killings prompted the Iraqi government to demand Blackwater's ouster from the country, and led to a criminal investigation by the F.B.I., a series of internal investigations by the State Department and the Pentagon, and high-profile Congressional hearings.
But after an intense public and private lobbying campaign, Blackwater appears to be back to business as usual.
The State Department has just renewed its contract to provide security for American diplomats in Iraq for at least another year. Threats by the Iraqi government to strip Western contractors of their immunity from Iraqi law have gone nowhere. No charges have been brought in the United States against any Blackwater guard in the September shooting, either, and the F.B.I. agents in Baghdad charged with investigating whether Blackwater guards have committed any crimes under United States law are sometimes protected as they travel through Baghdad by Blackwater guards.
The chief reason for the company's survival? State Department officials said Friday that they did not believe they had any alternative to Blackwater, which supplies about 800 guards to the department to provide security for diplomats in Baghdad. Officials say only three companies in the world meet their requirements for protective services in Iraq, and the other two do not have the capability to take on Blackwater's role in Baghdad. After the shooting in September, the State Department did not even open talks with the other two companies, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, to see if they could take over from Blackwater, which is based in North Carolina.
"We cannot operate without private security firms in Iraq," said Patrick F. Kennedy, the under secretary of state for management. "If the contractors were removed, we would have to leave Iraq."
Still, serious risks remain for Blackwater and at least some of its current and former personnel. A federal grand jury continues to consider evidence in the Baghdad shooting. Although the company is not likely to face any criminal charges, people involved in the case say that some Blackwater guards involved in the shooting are cooperating with the F.B.I. as it pursues evidence against other guards.
Separately, a former Blackwater guard is under criminal investigation for the December 2006 shooting death of an Iraqi guard for an Iraqi vice president, and may soon face federal charges. In a third case, two former Blackwater workers pleaded guilty to weapons-related charges, but both received sentences that included no jail time in return for their cooperation with federal prosecutors in a broader investigation.
A House committee has also asked the Internal Revenue Service to begin an inquiry into whether Blackwater has designated its guards as independent contractors rather than employees to in order to avoid paying and withholding federal taxes. The State Department renewed the security contract for only one year - just long enough to take the company into the start of the next administration. And Blackwater's political connections to the Bush administration may not serve it well if the Democrats win the White House in November.
Given the furor that surrounded Blackwater after the September shooting in Baghdad, critics say the decision to renew the company's contract in Iraq is a sign of the Bush administration's inability to curb its reliance on outside contractors in the war.
"The shooting incident was like a hammer blow, but where are the consequences?" said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institute and author of "Corporate Warriors," a book about contractors in Iraq. "I think it points to the fact that the dependence on contractors is like a drug addiction. They just can't help themselves."
Representative Henry Waxman, California Democrat who is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which has been investigating Blackwater on several fronts, said, "I can't understand why Blackwater's contract was renewed. It seems to me the administration should have looked for others who could do the job, including the U.S. military."
In the past administration officials have dismissed the notion of using military personnel to guard diplomats.
Founded in 1997 by Erik Prince, a former member of the Navy Seals and heir to a family fortune made in the auto parts industry, Blackwater began to generate controversy in Iraq long before last September's shooting. Blackwater had developed a reputation among both Iraqis and American military personnel as a company that flaunted a quick-draw image that led its security personnel to take overly aggressive actions to protect the people they were paid to guard.
Last year the State Department acknowledged that Blackwater had been involved in significantly more shootings per convoy mission than DynCorp and Triple Canopy, which provide security for the State Department outside Baghdad.
The shooting death of the bodyguard for the Iraqi vice president in 2006 rankled the Iraqi government well before last September's shooting. An off-duty Blackwater guard who American and Iraqi officials said had been drinking heavily was the sole suspect. The off-duty Blackwater guard, Andrew J. Moonen, who no longer works for the company and who is a former Army paratrooper, is now under criminal investigation by federal prosecutors in Seattle. Although Mr. Moonen has not been charged, his lawyer, Stewart Riley of Seattle, said that he had recently been in contact about the case with prosecutors from the United States Attorney's Office in Seattle.
People familiar with the case said they believed that the Justice Department had recently concluded that it had found a way to skirt some of the jurisdictional problems that in the past made it difficult to bring charges in American courts for crimes committed by contractors in Iraq.
"I think they may come to a decision on what to do with this case in the next three or four months," said one person familiar with the matter. Mr. Riley says that Mr. Moonen maintains his innocence in the shooting.
In addition, a wrongful death lawsuit against Blackwater filed by the families of four Blackwater guards killed in Falluja, Iraq, in 2004 - an event that prompted the first major battle in Falluja between the American military and insurgents that year - is also still pending.
A federal appeals court is expected to rule this year on whether the families can proceed with their lawsuit or be forced into arbitration with Blackwater, an outcome the company prefers, according to the families' lawyer, Daniel Callahan of California.
Donna Zovko of Cleveland, the mother of Jerko Gerald Zovko, one of the Blackwater guards, says Blackwater has stonewalled the families.
"It is 1,501 days since he was killed, and I don't know one-tenth of what happened to him, and no one seems to care," Mrs. Zovko said in an interview.
Given so many headlines about his company, Mr. Prince until recently seemed eager to tell his side of the story, and there were reports that he planned to write a book. But on Friday, Anne Tyrrell, a Blackwater spokeswoman, said Mr. Prince's book project had been put on hold.
The loathsome smearing of Israel's critics
Go to Original
By Johann Hari
In the US and Britain, there is a campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence – and to a large degree, it works. There is nobody these self-appointed spokesmen for Israel will not attack as anti-Jewish: liberal Jews, rabbis, even Holocaust survivors.
My own case isn't especially important, but it illustrates how the wider process of intimidation works. I have worked undercover at both the Finsbury Park mosque and among neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers to expose the Jew-hatred there; when I went on the Islam Channel to challenge the anti-Semitism of Islamists, I received a rash of death threats calling me "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more.
Ah, but wait. I have also reported from Gaza and the West Bank. Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. This isn't controversial. It has been documented by Friends of the Earth, and I have seen it with my own eyes.
The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile "pro-Israel" writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh, while Melanie Phillips even linked the stabbing of two Jewish people in North London to articles like mine. Vast numbers of e-mails came flooding in calling for me to be sacked.
Any attempt to describe accurately the situation for Palestinians is met like this. If you recount the pumping of sewage onto Palestinian land, "Honest Reporting" claims you are reviving the anti-Semitic myth of Jews "poisoning the wells." If you interview a woman whose baby died in 2002 because she was detained – in labour – by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint within the West Bank, "Honest Reporting" will say you didn't explain "the real cause": the election of Hamas in, um, 2006. And on, and on.
The former editor of Israel's leading newspaper, Ha'aretz, David Landau, calls the behaviour of these groups "nascent McCarthyism". Those responsible hold extreme positions of their own that place them way to the right of most Israelis. Alan Dershowitz and Melanie Phillips are two of the most prominent figures sent in to attack anyone who disagrees with the Israeli right. Dershowitz is a lawyer, Harvard professor and author of The Case For Israel. He sees ethnic cleansing as a trifling matter, writing: "Political solutions often require the movement of people, and such movement is not always voluntary ... It is a fifth-rate issue analogous in many respects to some massive urban renewal." If a prominent American figure takes a position on Israel to the left of this, Dershowitz often takes to the airwaves to call them anti-Semites and bigots.
The journalist Melanie Phillips performs a similar role in Britain. Last year a group called Independent Jewish Voices was established with this mission statement: "Palestinians and Israelis alike have the right to peace and security." Jews including Mike Leigh, Stephen Fry and Rabbi David Goldberg joined. Phillips swiftly dubbed them "Jews For Genocide", and said they "encourage" the "killers" of Jews. Where does this come from? She says the Palestinians are an "artificial" people who can be collectively punished because they are "a terrorist population". She believes that while "individual Palestinians may deserve compassion, their cause amounts to Holocaust denial as a national project". Honest Reporting quotes Phillips as a model of reliable reporting.
These individuals spray accusations of anti-Semitism so liberally that by their standards, a majority of Jewish Israelis have anti-Semitic tendencies. Dershowitz said Jimmy Carter's decision to speak to the elected Hamas government "border[ed] on anti-Semitism." A Ha'aretz poll last month found that 64 per cent of Israelis want their government to do just that.
As US President, Jimmy Carter showed his commitment to Israel by giving it more aid than anywhere else and brokering the only peace deal with an Arab regime the country has ever enjoyed. He also wants to see a safe and secure Palestine alongside it – so last year he wrote a book called Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. It is a bland and factual canter through the major human rights reports. There is nothing there you can't read in the mainstream Israeli press every day. Carter's comparison of life on the West Bank (not within Israel) to Apartheid South Africa is not new. The West Bank is ruled in the interests of a small Jewish minority; it is bisected by roads for the Jewish settlers from which Palestinians are banned. The Israeli human rights group B'tselem says this "bears striking similarities to the racist Apartheid regime". Yet for repeating these facts in the US, Carter has widely called "a racist". Several universities have even refused to let the ex-President speak to their students.
These campus battles often succeed. Norman Finkelstein is a political scientist in the US whose parents were both Jewish survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. They lost every blood relative. He made his reputation exposing a hoax called From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters which claimed that Palestine was virtually empty when Zionist settlers arrived, and the people claiming to be Palestinians were mostly impostors who had come from local areas to cash in. Finkelstein showed it to be scarred by falsified figures and gross misreading of sources. From that moment on, he was smeared as an anti-Semite by those who had lauded the book. But it was when Finkelstein revealed two years ago that Alan Dershowitz had, without acknowledgement, drawn wholesale from Peters' hoax for his book The Case For Israel, that the worst began. Dershowitz campaigned to make sure Finkelstein was denied tenure at his university. He even claimed that Finkelstein's mother – who made it through Maidenek and two slave-labour camps – had collaborated with the Nazis. The campaign worked. Finkelstein was let go by De Paul University, simply for speaking the truth.
Are the likes of Dershowitz and Phillips and Honest Reporting becoming more shrill because they can sense they are losing the argument? Liberal Jews – the majority – are now setting up rivals to the hard-right organisations they work with, because they believe this campaign of demonisation is damaging us all. It damages the Palestinians, because it prevents honest discussion of their plight. It damages the Israelis, because it pushes them further down an aggressive and futile path. And it damages diaspora Jews, because it makes real anti-Semitism harder to deal with.
We need to look the witch-hunters in the eye and say, as Joseph Welch said to Joe McCarthy himself: "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? H ave you left no sense of decency?"
By Johann Hari
In the US and Britain, there is a campaign to smear anybody who tries to describe the plight of the Palestinian people. It is an attempt to intimidate and silence – and to a large degree, it works. There is nobody these self-appointed spokesmen for Israel will not attack as anti-Jewish: liberal Jews, rabbis, even Holocaust survivors.
My own case isn't especially important, but it illustrates how the wider process of intimidation works. I have worked undercover at both the Finsbury Park mosque and among neo-Nazi Holocaust deniers to expose the Jew-hatred there; when I went on the Islam Channel to challenge the anti-Semitism of Islamists, I received a rash of death threats calling me "a Jew-lover", "a Zionist-homo pig" and more.
Ah, but wait. I have also reported from Gaza and the West Bank. Last week, I wrote an article that described how untreated sewage was being pumped from illegal Israeli settlements on to Palestinian land, contaminating their reservoirs. This isn't controversial. It has been documented by Friends of the Earth, and I have seen it with my own eyes.
The response? There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile "pro-Israel" writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejadh, while Melanie Phillips even linked the stabbing of two Jewish people in North London to articles like mine. Vast numbers of e-mails came flooding in calling for me to be sacked.
Any attempt to describe accurately the situation for Palestinians is met like this. If you recount the pumping of sewage onto Palestinian land, "Honest Reporting" claims you are reviving the anti-Semitic myth of Jews "poisoning the wells." If you interview a woman whose baby died in 2002 because she was detained – in labour – by Israeli soldiers at a checkpoint within the West Bank, "Honest Reporting" will say you didn't explain "the real cause": the election of Hamas in, um, 2006. And on, and on.
The former editor of Israel's leading newspaper, Ha'aretz, David Landau, calls the behaviour of these groups "nascent McCarthyism". Those responsible hold extreme positions of their own that place them way to the right of most Israelis. Alan Dershowitz and Melanie Phillips are two of the most prominent figures sent in to attack anyone who disagrees with the Israeli right. Dershowitz is a lawyer, Harvard professor and author of The Case For Israel. He sees ethnic cleansing as a trifling matter, writing: "Political solutions often require the movement of people, and such movement is not always voluntary ... It is a fifth-rate issue analogous in many respects to some massive urban renewal." If a prominent American figure takes a position on Israel to the left of this, Dershowitz often takes to the airwaves to call them anti-Semites and bigots.
The journalist Melanie Phillips performs a similar role in Britain. Last year a group called Independent Jewish Voices was established with this mission statement: "Palestinians and Israelis alike have the right to peace and security." Jews including Mike Leigh, Stephen Fry and Rabbi David Goldberg joined. Phillips swiftly dubbed them "Jews For Genocide", and said they "encourage" the "killers" of Jews. Where does this come from? She says the Palestinians are an "artificial" people who can be collectively punished because they are "a terrorist population". She believes that while "individual Palestinians may deserve compassion, their cause amounts to Holocaust denial as a national project". Honest Reporting quotes Phillips as a model of reliable reporting.
These individuals spray accusations of anti-Semitism so liberally that by their standards, a majority of Jewish Israelis have anti-Semitic tendencies. Dershowitz said Jimmy Carter's decision to speak to the elected Hamas government "border[ed] on anti-Semitism." A Ha'aretz poll last month found that 64 per cent of Israelis want their government to do just that.
As US President, Jimmy Carter showed his commitment to Israel by giving it more aid than anywhere else and brokering the only peace deal with an Arab regime the country has ever enjoyed. He also wants to see a safe and secure Palestine alongside it – so last year he wrote a book called Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. It is a bland and factual canter through the major human rights reports. There is nothing there you can't read in the mainstream Israeli press every day. Carter's comparison of life on the West Bank (not within Israel) to Apartheid South Africa is not new. The West Bank is ruled in the interests of a small Jewish minority; it is bisected by roads for the Jewish settlers from which Palestinians are banned. The Israeli human rights group B'tselem says this "bears striking similarities to the racist Apartheid regime". Yet for repeating these facts in the US, Carter has widely called "a racist". Several universities have even refused to let the ex-President speak to their students.
These campus battles often succeed. Norman Finkelstein is a political scientist in the US whose parents were both Jewish survivors of the Warsaw ghetto and the Nazi concentration camps. They lost every blood relative. He made his reputation exposing a hoax called From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters which claimed that Palestine was virtually empty when Zionist settlers arrived, and the people claiming to be Palestinians were mostly impostors who had come from local areas to cash in. Finkelstein showed it to be scarred by falsified figures and gross misreading of sources. From that moment on, he was smeared as an anti-Semite by those who had lauded the book. But it was when Finkelstein revealed two years ago that Alan Dershowitz had, without acknowledgement, drawn wholesale from Peters' hoax for his book The Case For Israel, that the worst began. Dershowitz campaigned to make sure Finkelstein was denied tenure at his university. He even claimed that Finkelstein's mother – who made it through Maidenek and two slave-labour camps – had collaborated with the Nazis. The campaign worked. Finkelstein was let go by De Paul University, simply for speaking the truth.
Are the likes of Dershowitz and Phillips and Honest Reporting becoming more shrill because they can sense they are losing the argument? Liberal Jews – the majority – are now setting up rivals to the hard-right organisations they work with, because they believe this campaign of demonisation is damaging us all. It damages the Palestinians, because it prevents honest discussion of their plight. It damages the Israelis, because it pushes them further down an aggressive and futile path. And it damages diaspora Jews, because it makes real anti-Semitism harder to deal with.
We need to look the witch-hunters in the eye and say, as Joseph Welch said to Joe McCarthy himself: "You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? H ave you left no sense of decency?"
A Secret Afghanistan Mission Prepares for War with Iran
Go to Original
By William M. Arkin
Those predicting war with Iran or some Bush-Cheney October surprise attack on Tehran are constantly looking for signs of military preparations: a B-52 bomber that mistakenly takes off from North Dakota with nuclear-armed cruise missiles; a second or third aircraft carrier entering the Persian Gulf; a B-1 crashing in Qatar.
Since the most likely path to war with Iran is not Marines storming the beach but a strike on nuclear facilities and "regime" targets, signs such as these can often just be mirages. The true strike is not necessarily going to come with any warning, and the U.S. military has developed an entire system called "global strike" to implement such a preemptive strike.
A secret mission conducted last August over Afghanistan caught my eye because it tells us everything we need to know about the ability of the U.S. military to conduct a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack in Iran. It also tells us how useless such a strike might be.
On Aug. 12, 2007, four F-16CJ fighters took off on an 11-hour mission from Iraq to Eastern Afghanistan, crossing the airspace of six different nations, before dropping more than a dozen precision-guided bombs on Taliban targets. The crews of the record-breaking flight received the coveted Clarence MacKay Trophy for 2007, an award given annually for "the most meritorious flight" of the year.
The secret mission had never before been attempted, according to the Air Force, and the pilots were allotted a two-minute window of attack at the end of their 2,100-mile flight. The entire non-stop mission, which took 13 aerial refuelings, was the equivalent of flying from New York to Los Angeles and back.
The mission was a success, according to the Air Force: It resulted in "direct hits" that allowed coalition ground forces to "conduct raids on Taliban positions."
However, a check of the news out of Afghanistan for the week of Aug. 12 reveals no real air strike of significance. On Aug. 12, the wire services reported fighting near the Pakistani border and the death of three U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter from a roadside bomb. Further fighting was reported on Aug. 13 and Aug. 14, but no significant bombing missions in support of U.S. or Afghan forces. On Aug. 15, the Afghan government announced a large scale three-day operation in the area of Tora Bora, an operation launched in response to the killing of three U.S. soldiers by IED earlier that week. Officials said nearly 50 suspected Pakistani and Taliban militants were killed in air and ground operations. Coalition aircraft carried out two sorties to target the Taliban positions in that area, an Afghan official said.
I don't doubt that the F-16CJ night mission was complicated and historic, as well as physically and mentally demanding. The crews, according to the Air Force, worked with new operating instructions and went into the unknown. The squadron commander had only 18 hours to plan and prepare for the attack. The mission was so secret, furthermore, it was not listed on the daily Air Tasking Order, the daily schedule distributed throughout the U.S. military, further complicating aerial refuelings and overflights.
If on Aug. 12, 2007, the United States had killed Osama bin Laden or scored some major victory in Afghanistan, one might fully appreciate the mission and the award of the MacKay Trophy. But I suspect that what was important here is that the mission went like clockwork, not that something important in Afghanistan was destroyed.
None of this is to besmirch the effort or the achievement. But if this was really a rehearsal to attack Iran, it was a mission where getting the airplanes over the target was more consequential than what was actually bombed.
By William M. Arkin
Those predicting war with Iran or some Bush-Cheney October surprise attack on Tehran are constantly looking for signs of military preparations: a B-52 bomber that mistakenly takes off from North Dakota with nuclear-armed cruise missiles; a second or third aircraft carrier entering the Persian Gulf; a B-1 crashing in Qatar.
Since the most likely path to war with Iran is not Marines storming the beach but a strike on nuclear facilities and "regime" targets, signs such as these can often just be mirages. The true strike is not necessarily going to come with any warning, and the U.S. military has developed an entire system called "global strike" to implement such a preemptive strike.
A secret mission conducted last August over Afghanistan caught my eye because it tells us everything we need to know about the ability of the U.S. military to conduct a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack in Iran. It also tells us how useless such a strike might be.
On Aug. 12, 2007, four F-16CJ fighters took off on an 11-hour mission from Iraq to Eastern Afghanistan, crossing the airspace of six different nations, before dropping more than a dozen precision-guided bombs on Taliban targets. The crews of the record-breaking flight received the coveted Clarence MacKay Trophy for 2007, an award given annually for "the most meritorious flight" of the year.
The secret mission had never before been attempted, according to the Air Force, and the pilots were allotted a two-minute window of attack at the end of their 2,100-mile flight. The entire non-stop mission, which took 13 aerial refuelings, was the equivalent of flying from New York to Los Angeles and back.
The mission was a success, according to the Air Force: It resulted in "direct hits" that allowed coalition ground forces to "conduct raids on Taliban positions."
However, a check of the news out of Afghanistan for the week of Aug. 12 reveals no real air strike of significance. On Aug. 12, the wire services reported fighting near the Pakistani border and the death of three U.S. soldiers and their Afghan interpreter from a roadside bomb. Further fighting was reported on Aug. 13 and Aug. 14, but no significant bombing missions in support of U.S. or Afghan forces. On Aug. 15, the Afghan government announced a large scale three-day operation in the area of Tora Bora, an operation launched in response to the killing of three U.S. soldiers by IED earlier that week. Officials said nearly 50 suspected Pakistani and Taliban militants were killed in air and ground operations. Coalition aircraft carried out two sorties to target the Taliban positions in that area, an Afghan official said.
I don't doubt that the F-16CJ night mission was complicated and historic, as well as physically and mentally demanding. The crews, according to the Air Force, worked with new operating instructions and went into the unknown. The squadron commander had only 18 hours to plan and prepare for the attack. The mission was so secret, furthermore, it was not listed on the daily Air Tasking Order, the daily schedule distributed throughout the U.S. military, further complicating aerial refuelings and overflights.
If on Aug. 12, 2007, the United States had killed Osama bin Laden or scored some major victory in Afghanistan, one might fully appreciate the mission and the award of the MacKay Trophy. But I suspect that what was important here is that the mission went like clockwork, not that something important in Afghanistan was destroyed.
None of this is to besmirch the effort or the achievement. But if this was really a rehearsal to attack Iran, it was a mission where getting the airplanes over the target was more consequential than what was actually bombed.
A Wild Day in Beirut
Go to Original
By Franklin Lamb
Street Notes from the Hamra District
"Where did they come from?", the desk clerk at the Royal Plaza Hotel in Rauche by the sea near Hamra wondered out loud. "I have been on duty all night and saw nothing. Suddenly they are everywhere!"
By Franklin Lamb
Street Notes from the Hamra District
"Where did they come from?", the desk clerk at the Royal Plaza Hotel in Rauche by the sea near Hamra wondered out loud. "I have been on duty all night and saw nothing. Suddenly they are everywhere!"
Of course this observer wondered the same thing. The time was around 8:30 am, having ducked into the Hotel to escape a flash shower before the sunny morning returned.
This observer left Haret Hreik neighborhood in Dahiyeh by motorcycle around 6:45 am this morning and headed toward the airport road near the Jnah/Ouzai round-about. Dahiyeh is quiet. Essentially normal. (Around 1 pm returning from Hamra I did notice that none of the Haret Hreik guys were playing football at the local athletic fields—it dawned on me where they were).
After some Hezbollah guys cut a path for me through one of the earthen berms which block the airport road I decided to see how far I could get to Hamra along the sea road past the Coral Beach Hotel, Ramlet el Baida and to the Corniche below the American University of Beirut. No traffic all the way and few signs of life along the sea. When I returned nearly four hours later by the same route, Hezbollah and Amal were all along this route.
According to the Hezbollah people manning the berms on airport road, the airport will stayed closed until the ’three conditions" are met; i.e the pro-US government pledges to keep its hands off the optic fiber telecommunication network of the Resistance; the Government reinstates head of Beirut Airport Security General Wafiq Shouqair; and the Majority agrees to a dialogue. Until that happens, West Beirut and the airport will stay closed.
Just opposite the Movenpick Hotel on the water I cut up a side street leading into Hamra. Unbeknownst to me at the time I nearly drove through this morning’s fire fight near Saad Hariri’s mansion. The very loud noise and the rain forced me back to the Royal Plaza where I bumped into two Middle East Airline crew who said MEA told them no flights will leave until at least Saturday. "The company is negotiating with their insurance people who insist they do not fly. If someone fires a single rocket at the airport it will stay closed".
For the next nearly four hours I toured Hamra (on one of a dozen moving vehicles I saw the whole time).
What I learned was that all of West Beirut is occupied and shut down by Hezbollah and Amal forces. One of the benefits of living in Dahiyeh is that one becomes recognized and so I was given relatively free passage. Fairly candid conversation was assured because of the roughly 70 groups of Hezbollah fighters I saw nearly every third one had someone who recognized me.
Stopping in front of Robert Fisk’s third floor Corniche flat and noticing his veranda door open I knew he was in town. I shouted, "Yala Robert?" "Robert?" No answer. His landlord, who runs the snack shop below appeared and told me Fisk had left a few minutes before and headed east. That guy is never around when you need to see him! No doubt reporting from somewhere at the center of the action. Just like in 1982 during the siege of Beirut the only journalists I encounter actually on the streets when things are ’hot’ are French reporters from Agence France Press with crash helmets and flak jackets. "Just watch out for snipers", they advised, "Geagea’s men killed a woman and her son last night." How they knew is was Geagea’s men in the dark, I don’t know.
The AFP fellows also reported that Hariri’s Al-Mustaqbal newspaper and his radio station Al Sharq were closed by Hezbollah fighters.
The situation as of 1 p.m. May 9:
- Hezbollah and their Amal allies control the geography from the airport up to Hamra and around the Corniche sea road at far as the Beirut Port near Phalange HQ in East Beirut. It appears secured including Verdun, Karolol Druze (Bristol Hotel area), Zaendaniyeh, Ras-al-Nabaa, Basta, and Neweiri. They do not appear to be meeting much opposition although some arms are fired periodically.
Hezbollah appears in complete control of West Beirut.
- According to the guys manning the Berms on airport road the airport will stayed closed until the ’three conditions’ are met i.e the pro-US government pledges to keep its hands off the optic fiber telecommunication network of the Resistance, the Government reinstates head of Airport Security Wafiq Shouqair, and agrees to a dialogue. Until that happens, West Beirut and the Airport will stay closed.
- This observer was amazed to see and learn that Hezbollah/Amal also are deployed all over Mt. Lebanon. Approaching a Druze area, near the Kamal Jumblatt Hospital in Choufeit close to 1 p.m. today I turned down a side road to make a telephone call at one of the phone shops. I was shocked to see approximately 80 heavily armed fighters. "Oh”, I thought to myself, “finally I see Jumblatt’s militia." As I pulled up to the phone store several fighters approached my motorcycle—which is well known in Dahiyeh. "Habibee!", one young man called as he put his free arm around me. Turns out he is a neighbor of mine from Harek Hreik. "What are you doing here with PSP (Druze militia?)", I lamely ask. "No, no, we are all Hezbollah and Amal here!
How is that possible in Jumblatt territory? "Khalas, there is no Jumblatt territory! We and our friends are all throughout the mountains. We are ready to fight both the Zionists and anyone else who wants to fight us. But we are told that in four or five days there may be a solution without violence." Thinking the kid might be hungry and homesick for our ’hood’, I offered him a sandwich I purchased from our neighborhood Halifee Restaurant. He declines and points toward a stack of boxed supplies, presumably including military rations.
The four or five day estimation of stalemate and status quo I was to hear several times today from various Hezbollah and Amal military leaders.
Riding around West Beirut from roughly 8:30 to close to one pm one sees mainly Hezbollah and Amal. Around Hariri’s mansion, the Quoreitim which was hit by a RPG– there is an assortment of fighters who appear to be "contractors". There was a gun battle around 10:30 am near it. Some of Hariri’s guys expressed disgust that some of their fellow Mustaqbal militiamen surrendered to Hezbollah without a fight and also told of their contempt with about 60 or more "fighters" who came down as ’reinforcements’ from North Lebanon to receive $400 monthly payments for "security work". Apparently when the young men arrived yesterday day they were informed by Hariri people that they would be fighters. As one told a local TV station, "That is not our job. I am not a fighter and I am not going to fight Hezbollah!" This morning those who did not leave last night are heading north this morning.
Little sign of the Lebanese army except by Lina’s Restaurant near Bliss St. in front of AUB and below AUB. Others are laying low under awnings of some Hamra shops. I am told they are near the port and staying out of deep Hamra.
Virtually all shops in Hamra are shuttered
After a while, one is able to distinguish in Hamra the difference between Amal and Hezbollah fighters from a block away. The former tend to be smaller, more thin, randomly dressed and sometimes hooded, a bit unkempt, fun-loving and happy to pose for photos and joke. Hezbollah by contrast are polite but all business with an obvious command structure and a tested professionalism. Several this morning look surprised at seeing someone riding around the area and advised: "Please go to your home. We don’t know what will happen".
As in the July 2006 war, one gets the impression that Hezbollah fighters prefer to depend on each other and fight in small groups and not hang around with Palestinians, Marxists etc. or even Amal fighters in close proximity. (There are no Palestinians to my knowledge involved in the current ’situation’).
Around 10:30 am I came upon some fighters who said they were from the Syrian Social Nationalist Party. (Frankly I had not realized they were still around). They appeared to keep to themselves.
Hezbollah guys’ attitude is sort of: "Excuse us but could you take up positions a little distance from us, maybe down over there somewhere?" The message is clear: "Look, we know what we are dong and we are not sure that you do. You can endanger us by hanging around us. We would be grateful if you would do your thing somewhere removed from our location!"
Jumblatt has not just been humiliated in the mountains but also in his Beirut residence at Clemenceau near AUB. When I drove by en route to Hamra Street I saw about 75 fighters outside his home. I was surprised to learn they were not Jumblatt’s protectors but once more Hezbollah/Amal. "Maybe he will invite us to lunch. We have orders not to harm him." I was later to learn that the Army rescued Jumblatt around 11:30 am, and he is said to be rethinking his options. Hassan Nasrallah was tough on Jumblatt at his news conference yesterday and predicted that Jumblatt would switch sides yet again if Hezbollah would pay the price. The young men showed me some of the weapons they collected from what was said to be surrendering or fleeing Hariri mercenaries.
Word on the Street near Saad Hariri’s house is that Geagea may attempt a coup and take the leadership of March 14 for a return of the Lebanese Forces and Kateib. This I find difficult to believe but during this period the rumors are flying like 20th floor broadcast confetti on a windy day!
It is difficult to avoid the tentative conclusion as of the moment that Hezbollah owns Lebanon and will not be dislodged by force. Again they insist that all they want is a fair share of the government and have no interest in "owning" Lebanon. They just are not willing to accept interference with their resistance activities against Israel.
While Michael Young, opinion editor of Beirut’s Daily Star and one of Lebanon’s best political analysts argues today that Hezbollah wants a Shia state within the Lebanese State, Hezbollah denies this.
It appears in order to calm the atmosphere in Lebanon right now and remove the berms of July 2006 rubble blocking the airport road as well as the evacuation of fighters from West Beirut and the Mountains, the Bush administration must order the reversal of Monday’s Lebanese Cabinet decisions. It is widely believed that they ordered them and are responsible to reverse them and to accept a dialogue with the Opposition.
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