Go to Original
By Fida Qishta and Peter Beaumont
White flags ignored and houses bulldozed with families inside, claim residents
Israel stands accused of perpetrating a series of war crimes during a sustained 12-hour assault on a village in southern Gaza last week in which 14 people died.
In testimony collected from residents of the village of Khuza'a by the Observer, it is claimed that Israeli soldiers entering the village:
• attempted to bulldoze houses with civilians inside;
• killed civilians trying to escape under the protection of white flags;
• opened fire on an ambulance attempting to reach the wounded;
• used indiscriminate force in a civilian area and fired white phosphorus shells.
If the allegations are upheld, all the incidents would constitute breaches of the Geneva conventions.
The denunciations over what happened in Khuza'a follow repeated claims of possible human rights violations from the Red Cross, the UN and human rights organisations.
The Israeli army announced yesterday that it was investigating "at the highest level" five other attacks against civilians in Gaza, involving two UN facilities and a hospital. It added that in all cases initial investigations suggested soldiers were responding to fire. "These claims of war crimes are not supported by the slightest piece of evidence," said Yigal Palmor, an Israeli foreign ministry spokesman.
Concern over what occurred in the village of Khuza'a in the early hours of Tuesday was first raised by the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem. Although an Israeli military spokesman said he had "no information that this alleged incident took place", witness statements collected by the Observer are consistent and match testimony gathered by B'Tselem.
There is also strong visible evidence that Khuza'a came under a sustained attack from tanks and bulldozers that smashed some buildings to pieces.
Pictures taken by photographer Bruno Stevens in the aftermath show heavy damage - and still burning phosphorus. "What I can tell you is that many, many houses were shelled and that they used white phosphorus," said Stevens yesterday, one of the first western journalists to get into Gaza. "It appears to have been indiscriminate." Stevens added that homes near the village that had not been hit by shell fire had been set on fire.
The village of Khuza'a is around 500 metres from the border with Israel. According to B'Tselem, its field researcher in Gaza was contacted last Tuesday by resident Munir Shafik al-Najar, who said that Israeli bulldozers had begun destroying homes at 2.30am.
When Rawhiya al-Najar, aged 50, stepped out of her house waving a white flag, so that the rest of the family could leave the house, she was allegedly shot by Israeli soldiers nearby.
The second alleged incident was on Tuesday afternoon, when Israeli troops ordered 30 residents to leave their homes and walk to a school in the village centre. After travelling 20 metres, troops fired on the group, allegedly killing three.
Further detailed accounts of what occurred were supplied in interviews given to a Palestinian researcher who has been working for the Observer, following the decision by Israel to ban foreign media from the Gaza Strip. Iman al-Najar, 29, said she watched as bulldozers started to destroy neighbours' homes and saw terrified villagers flee from their houses as masonry collapsed.
"By 6am the tanks and bulldozers had reached our house," Iman recalled. "We went on the roofs and tried to show we were civilians with white flags. Everyone was carrying a white flag. We told them we are civilians. We don't have any weapons. The soldiers started to destroy the houses even if the people were in them." Describing the death of Rawhiya, Iman says they were ordered by Israeli soldiers to move to the centre of the town. As they did, Israeli troops opened fire. Rawhiya was at the front of the group, says Iman.
Marwan Abu Raeda, 40, a paramedic working for the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, said: "At 8am we received a phone call from Khuza'a. They told us about the injured woman. I went immediately. I was 60 or 70 metres away from the injured woman when the Israeli forces started to shoot at me." As he drove into another street, he came under fire again. Twelve hours later, when Rawhiya was finally reached, she was dead.
Iman said she ended up in an area of rubble where a large group of people had sought cover in a deep hole among the debris of demolished houses. It is then, she says, that bulldozers began to push the rubble from each side. "They wanted to bury us alive," she said.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Just Say "No" to the Credit Rating Agencies
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By Gerald Epstein
The credit rating agencies have got us, coming and going. First they help cause the biggest economic calamity since the 1930's. And now they tell us we can't take the fiscal measures needed to get us out of this mess. Meanwhile, they are laughing all the way to the bank (that is, if they can find one that is still solvent). Why are we still listening to them?
The role played by the big credit rating agencies - such as Standard & Poor's and Fitch - in the unfolding financial crisis is now well-known. By giving complex, opaque and ultimately toxic mortgage-backed securities high ratings and therefore, their own ringing stamp of approval, the credit agencies enabled banks to market these destructive securities around the world. We are now all paying the price.
Now, to prevent this very same crisis from turning into a full-blown catastrophe 1930's-style, governments around the world - from Obama to Brown to Merkel and beyond - are finally beginning to do the right thing: they are planning major fiscal spending operations to place a floor on the terrifying downward economic spiral and to begin to turn the world economy toward recovery. Even the austerity-loving IMF is strongly supporting these initiatives.
Yet now, Standard & Poor's and Fitch are sending "credit warnings" to other governments, threatening to downgrade their sovereign debt ratings if they "allow" their fiscal deficits to increase too much. Wednesday, Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece's sovereign credit rating. Explaining the downgrade, Marko Mrsnik, S&P analyst, said: "The global financial and economic crisis has, in our opinion, exacerbated an underlying loss of competitiveness in the Greek economy." (Financial Times, January 14, 2009). And in recent days, three other eurozone countries - Portugal, Ireland and Spain - have been warned by Standard & Poor's to "fix" their public finances or face downgrades. Under the current system, such downgrades would increase the cost of raising funds and be taken as a signal to investors to shy away from these investments.
Most significantly, these public warnings fire a shot across the bow of larger countries - such as Germany, the UK and France - that they had better not go too far down the road of fiscal expansion, or they might face a similar fate.
Yet, increasing spending and fiscal deficits in the short run is exactly what these governments should be doing. And now, after helping to cause the crisis, the credit rating agencies are blocking the way to the solution. The actions by Standard & Poor's are therefore profoundly misguided and potentially destructive.
For starters, the implicit model used by these agencies is fundamentally flawed - especially in this crisis context. As even the IMF, financial market economists, and usual deficit hawks such as Larry Summers now recognize, as the world's economies spiral downwards, fiscal deficits will automatically grow as tax revenues fall and spending on social safety nets increases. This will occur with no increases in discretionary counter-cyclical fiscal policy at all. Such depression-level deterioration surely will put pressure on countries' abilities to service their debts and even risk widespread defaults or debt rescheduling. The only way, then, to improve countries' ability and willingness to service debt in the medium term is to engage in massive fiscal expansions in the short term. But the credit rating agency models do not reflect this truth.
This is true on a country by country case. What is most insidious about the credit agency warnings is the "fallacy of composition" follies it provokes. If collectively countries and investors follow their advice and governments - especially in the largest countries - fail to engage in large enough fiscal expansions - then the prospects for widespread payment problems of sovereign debt surely will occur. A widespread heeding of Standard & Poor's information will almost certainly lead to massive losses for investors.
So what is to be done?
In the short run, prominent policymakers in national as well as international forums should collectively discredit the credit rating agencies. The IMF, the BIS, the European Union and business leaders around the world should denounce this wrong and destructive advice. Second, the rules governing pension funds and other investment funds should be immediately changed - at least for the duration of the crisis - to allow them to discount the weight they give to the agencies' ratings of sovereign debt. In the medium term, substitutes must be found for these agencies' ratings, which by now should have lost all credibility. The creation of a global nonprofit agency, funded with an endowment to protect its political independence, yet one that is transparent and broadly open to scrutiny - should be strongly considered.
Finally, and of fundamental importance, efforts to take more internationally coordinated action to achieve massive fiscal stimulus - supported by central banks - must be taken immediately. This credit ratings fiasco - which picks off the weakest countries one by one and sends warnings to the stronger ones - an anti-Keynesian divide-and-conquer strategy - could not occur if governments coordinated and unified their actions to turn this crisis around.
By Gerald Epstein
The credit rating agencies have got us, coming and going. First they help cause the biggest economic calamity since the 1930's. And now they tell us we can't take the fiscal measures needed to get us out of this mess. Meanwhile, they are laughing all the way to the bank (that is, if they can find one that is still solvent). Why are we still listening to them?
The role played by the big credit rating agencies - such as Standard & Poor's and Fitch - in the unfolding financial crisis is now well-known. By giving complex, opaque and ultimately toxic mortgage-backed securities high ratings and therefore, their own ringing stamp of approval, the credit agencies enabled banks to market these destructive securities around the world. We are now all paying the price.
Now, to prevent this very same crisis from turning into a full-blown catastrophe 1930's-style, governments around the world - from Obama to Brown to Merkel and beyond - are finally beginning to do the right thing: they are planning major fiscal spending operations to place a floor on the terrifying downward economic spiral and to begin to turn the world economy toward recovery. Even the austerity-loving IMF is strongly supporting these initiatives.
Yet now, Standard & Poor's and Fitch are sending "credit warnings" to other governments, threatening to downgrade their sovereign debt ratings if they "allow" their fiscal deficits to increase too much. Wednesday, Standard & Poor's downgraded Greece's sovereign credit rating. Explaining the downgrade, Marko Mrsnik, S&P analyst, said: "The global financial and economic crisis has, in our opinion, exacerbated an underlying loss of competitiveness in the Greek economy." (Financial Times, January 14, 2009). And in recent days, three other eurozone countries - Portugal, Ireland and Spain - have been warned by Standard & Poor's to "fix" their public finances or face downgrades. Under the current system, such downgrades would increase the cost of raising funds and be taken as a signal to investors to shy away from these investments.
Most significantly, these public warnings fire a shot across the bow of larger countries - such as Germany, the UK and France - that they had better not go too far down the road of fiscal expansion, or they might face a similar fate.
Yet, increasing spending and fiscal deficits in the short run is exactly what these governments should be doing. And now, after helping to cause the crisis, the credit rating agencies are blocking the way to the solution. The actions by Standard & Poor's are therefore profoundly misguided and potentially destructive.
For starters, the implicit model used by these agencies is fundamentally flawed - especially in this crisis context. As even the IMF, financial market economists, and usual deficit hawks such as Larry Summers now recognize, as the world's economies spiral downwards, fiscal deficits will automatically grow as tax revenues fall and spending on social safety nets increases. This will occur with no increases in discretionary counter-cyclical fiscal policy at all. Such depression-level deterioration surely will put pressure on countries' abilities to service their debts and even risk widespread defaults or debt rescheduling. The only way, then, to improve countries' ability and willingness to service debt in the medium term is to engage in massive fiscal expansions in the short term. But the credit rating agency models do not reflect this truth.
This is true on a country by country case. What is most insidious about the credit agency warnings is the "fallacy of composition" follies it provokes. If collectively countries and investors follow their advice and governments - especially in the largest countries - fail to engage in large enough fiscal expansions - then the prospects for widespread payment problems of sovereign debt surely will occur. A widespread heeding of Standard & Poor's information will almost certainly lead to massive losses for investors.
So what is to be done?
In the short run, prominent policymakers in national as well as international forums should collectively discredit the credit rating agencies. The IMF, the BIS, the European Union and business leaders around the world should denounce this wrong and destructive advice. Second, the rules governing pension funds and other investment funds should be immediately changed - at least for the duration of the crisis - to allow them to discount the weight they give to the agencies' ratings of sovereign debt. In the medium term, substitutes must be found for these agencies' ratings, which by now should have lost all credibility. The creation of a global nonprofit agency, funded with an endowment to protect its political independence, yet one that is transparent and broadly open to scrutiny - should be strongly considered.
Finally, and of fundamental importance, efforts to take more internationally coordinated action to achieve massive fiscal stimulus - supported by central banks - must be taken immediately. This credit ratings fiasco - which picks off the weakest countries one by one and sends warnings to the stronger ones - an anti-Keynesian divide-and-conquer strategy - could not occur if governments coordinated and unified their actions to turn this crisis around.
Israel's Next War: Today the Gaza Strip, Tomorrow Lebanon?
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By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
The March to War: Today the Gaza Strip, Tomorrow Lebanon...
In the Middle East, it is widely believed that the war against Gaza is an extension of the 2006 war against Lebanon. Without question, the war in the Gaza Strip is a part of the same conflict.
Moreover, since the Israeli defeat in 2006, Tel Aviv and Washington have not abandoned their design to turn Lebanon into a client state.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, in so many words, during his visit to Tel Aviv in early January that today Israel was attacking Hamas in the Gaza Strip and that tomorrow it would be fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon.[1]
Ehud Olmert and Nicolas Sarkozy
Lebanon is still in the cross-hairs. Israel is searching for a justification or a pretext to launch another war against Lebanon.
Washington and Tel Aviv had initially hoped to control Beirut through client political forces in the March 14 Alliance. When it became apparent that these political forces could not dominate Lebanon politically the Israeli military was unleashed on Lebanon with a goal of bringing about the ultimate downfall of Hezbollah and its political allies. [2] Areas where support for Hezbollah and its political allies were strongest saw the harshest Israeli attacks in 2006 as part of an attempt to reduce, if not remove, popular support for them.
After the 2006 war, the second Israeli defeat in Lebanon, Washington and Tel Aviv with the help of Jordan, the U.A.E., Egypt, and Saudi Arabia started arming their clients in Lebanon to wield an internal armed option against Hezbollah and its allies. In the wake of both the short-lived internal violence between the Lebanese National Opposition and the March 14 Alliance and the Doha Accord, which was reached in Qatar on May 21, 2008 as a result of the failure of this internal armed option against Hezbollah and its allies, the Israeli-U.S. objective to subdue Lebanon has been dramatically impaired.
A "national unity government" was formed in which the Lebanese National Opposition — not just Hezbollah — hold veto power through one-third of the cabinet chairs, including that of the post of deputy-prime minister.
The objective in Lebanon is "regime change" and to repress all forms of political opposition. But how to bring it about? The forecast of the 2009 general-elections in Lebanon does not look favourable for the March 14 Alliance. Without an internal political or armed option in Lebanon, which could result in the installation of a U.S.-sponsored "democracy," Washington and its indefictible Israeli ally have chosen the only avenue available: a military solution, another war on Lebanon. [3]
Crossing Arms III: Israel Simulates a Two-Front War against Lebanon and Syria
This war is already in the advanced planning stage. In November 2008, barely a month before Tel Aviv started its massacre in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military held drills for a two-front war against Lebanon and Syria called Shiluv Zro’ot III (Crossing Arms III).[4]
The military exercise included a massive simulated invasion of both Syria and Lebanon. Several months before the Israeli invasion drills, Tel Aviv had also warned Beirut that it would declare war on the whole of Lebanon and not just Hezbollah.[5]
Israel's justification for these war preparations was that Hezbollah has grown stronger and become a partner in the Lebanese government since the Doha Accord. The latter was signed in Qatar between the March 14 Alliance and the Lebanese National Opposition. It is worth noting that Hezbollah was a member of the Lebanese coaltion government prior to the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon.
No doubt, Tel Aviv will also point to Hezbollah's support of Hamas in Gaza as another pretext to wage under the banner of combating Islamic terrorism a pre-emptive war on Lebanon. In this context, Dell Lee Dailey the head of the counter-terrorism section of the U.S. State Department, had told Al-Hayat in an interview that an Israeli attack on Lebanon was "imminent" as part of the fight against terrorism. [6]
Blitzkrieg in the Making
Tel Aviv has been mapping a large-scale blitzkrieg against Lebanon as a whole, which includes an immediate land invasion. [7] Just before the Israeli massacre in the Gaza Strip started, Israeli officials and generals had promised that no Lebanese village would be immune from the wrath of Israeli aerial bombardments, regardless of religion, sect, and/or political orientation. [8]
In substance, Tel Aviv has promised to totally destroy Lebanon. Israel has also confirmed that in any future war against Lebanon, the entire country rather than Hezbollah will be the target. In practice, this was already the case in 2006’s Israeli aerial attacks on Lebanon. [9]
The Jerusalem Post quotes Brigadier-General Michael Ben-Baruch, one of the individuals who oversaw the invasion drills, as saying, "In the last war, we fired to disrupt Hezbollah activity," and, "The next time we will fire to destroy." [10]
In the wake of Israel's 2006 defeat, the Israeli government admitted that its "big mistake" was it exercised restraint rather than attacking Lebanon with the full strength of its military. Israeli officials have intimated that in the case of a future war against the Lebanese that all civilian and state infrastructure will be targeted.
Beirut’s New Defence Doctrine: A Threat to Israeli Interests and Objectives to Control Lebanon
Why is Lebanon in the cross-hairs again?
The answer is geo-political and strategic. It is also related to the political consensus process and the upcoming 2009 general-elections in Lebanon. Following the formation of a unity government in Beirut under a new president, Michel Suleiman (Sleiman), a new proactive defence doctrine for the country was contemplated. The objective of this defence doctrine is to keep Israel at bay and bring political stability and security to the country.
President Michel Suleiman
At the "National Defence Strategy" dialogue, held by the 14 Lebanese signatories of the Doha Accord, all sides have agreed that Israel is a threat to Lebanon.
In the months prior to the Israeli military campaign against Gaza, important diplomatic and political steps were taken by Beirut. President Michel Suleiman accompanied by several cabinet ministers visited Damascus (his first bilateral state visit; August 13-14, 2008) and Tehran (November 24-25, 2008).
President Suleiman and Syrian President Al Assad
In turn, General Jean Qahwaji (Kahwaji) the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces was also in Damascus (November 29, 2008) for consultations with his Syrian counterpart General Al-Habib. While in Damascus, General Qahwaji also met with General Hassan Tourkmani, the defence minister of Syria, and the Syrian President. [11] His trip followed the visit of Lebanon's interior minister, Ziad Baroud, to Syria and was within the same framework. [12] Meanwhile, Lebanon’s defence minister, Elias Murr, went on an official visit to Moscow (December 16, 2008).
What started to emerge from these talks was that both Moscow and Tehran would provide weaponry to the Lebanese Armed Forces, which previously had been the recipients of lower-end U.S. made ordinance. The U.S. has always forbidden the Lebanese military from purchasing any heavy weapons that could challenge Israel's military strength.
It was also revealed that Russia would donate 10 MiG-29 fighter jets to Beirut in line with Lebanon's new defence strategy. [13] The use of the Russian MiG-29s would also entail the required installation of early warning and radar systems. Russian tanks, anti-tank rockets, armoured vehicles, and military helicopters are also being sought by Lebanon. [14]
Mig29
Iran has offered to supply the Lebanese military with medium-range missiles as part of a five-year Iranian-Lebanese defence agreement. [15] While in Iran, Michel Suleiman held talks with Iranian defence officials and went to an Iranian defence industry exposition.
While the talks with Moscow and Tehran aimed at arming the Lebanese Armed Forces, the talks with the Syrians were geared towards establishing and strengthening a joint security and defence framework directed against Israeli aggression. [16]
Integrating Hezbollah into the Lebanese Armed Forces
Moreover, Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement and the Reform and Change Bloc in the Lebanese Parliament also visited Tehran (October 12-16, 2008; ahead of Michel Suleiman's official visit), and later Damascus (December 3-7, 2008). [17] Michel Aoun who is a central figure in the "political consensus" has endorsed and reaffirmed his political alliance with Hezbollah.
Michel Aoun
While calling for the peaceful disarmament of Hezbollah within a Lebanese defence strategy, he has accepted that Hezbollah fighters will eventally integrate into Lebanon's army. This disarmement process would only occur when the time is right and Israel no longer poses a threat to Lebanon. Hezbollah has broadly agreed to this, if and when there no longer exists an Israeli threat to the country's security. This position on Hezbollah's arms is spelled out in clause 10 (The Protection of Lebanon) of the February 6, 2006 memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Hezbollah that Michel Aoun signed on behalf of his political party, the Free Patriotic Movement.
Following his return from Tehran, Aoun also presented his case for the formation of a new Lebanese defence strategy and promised that the outcome of his visit to Iran would materialize in about six months. Aoun has also said that Iran, as the "major regional power between Lebanon and China" is of strategic importance to Lebanese interests. [18]
Hezbollah Paramilitary Forces
Washington's political cohorts in Lebanon are alarmed at the direction Lebanon is taking under its new defence strategy. They have criticized weapons purchases from Iran and defensive cooperation with Syria. This includes attacks on General Jean Qahwaji's visit to Syria, which was mandated by the entire Lebanese cabinet. [19] Additionally, within these pro-U.S. forces in Lebanon there has been a push for a "Swiss-like" "neutral defence policy" for Lebanon within the Middle East. Such a "neutral" position would benefit the U.S. and Israel geo-politically and strategically. Needless to say, with the threat of Israeli military aggression looming, this position is proving to be rather unpopular within Lebanon.
Ending Israeli-American pressure on Beirut to Naturalize Palestinian Refugees
The formation of a new proactive defence doctrine implies that Hezbollah fighters would be incorporated in the Lebanese Armed Forces and that the existing paramilitary forces of Hezbollah would be disbanded once certain conditions are met.
Therefore, one of Lebanon’s key political questions would be resolved. With the integration of Hezbollah fighters into the country's army together with military aid from Russia and Iran, Lebanon would acquire defensive capabilities, which would enable it to confront the threat of Israeli military aggression. These developments, which go against the prevailing pattern of U.S. client regimes in the Middle East modelled on Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have sounded an alarm bell in Tel Aviv, Washington, and London.
In response to Lebanon's rapprochement with Russia and Iran, two senior US State Department officials were rushed to Beirut in December.[20] During this mission, Dell Lee Dailey and David Hale, respectively Coordinator of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism and Deputy-assistant Secretary responsible for Middle Eastern affairs, renewed the veiled threats of an Israeli attack against Lebanon, while casually placing the blame on Hezbollah.[21] These threats are aimed at Lebanon as a whole. They are intended to disrupt the creation of Lebanon's new defence doctrine.
The clock is ticking for Israel, the U.S., and NATO to obstruct the implementation of Beirut's new national defence doctrine.
Israel would no longer have any justifications for carrying out military incursions into Lebanon if Hezbollah were to become a full political party under a new Lebanese defence strategy. Moreover, if Beirut were able, under a new defence arrangement, to protect its borders against Israeli military threats it would not only end Tel Aviv’s ambitions to politically and economically dominate Lebanon, but it would also end Israeli pressure on Lebanon to naturalize the Palestinian war refugees waiting to return to their ancestoral lands that are occupied by Israel.
Clearly the issue of Palestinian naturalization in Lebanon is also tied to Lebanon's political consensus process and new defence strategy and was discussed by Michel Suleiman with Iranian officials in Tehran. [22]
The Middle Eastern Powder Keg: A World War III Scenario?
In 2006, when Israel attacked Lebanon, the war was presented to international public opinion as a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. In essence the 2006 war was an Israeli attack on all of Lebanon. The Beirut government failed to take a stance, declared its "neutrality" and Lebanon's military forces were instructed not to intervene against the Israeli invaders. The reason for this was that the political parties of the Hariri-led March 14 Alliance that dominated the Lebanese government were expecting the war to end quickly and for Hezbollah (their political rival) to be defeated, and eventually excluded from playing a meaningful role on the Lebanese domestic political scene. Exactly the opposite has occurred since 2006.
Moreover, had the Lebanese government declared war on Israel, in response to Israeli aggression, Syria would have been obligated through a Lebanese-Syrian bilateral treaty, signed in 1991, to intervene in support of Lebanon.
In the case of a future Israeli war against Lebanon, the structure of military alliances is crucial. Syria could indeed intervene on the side of Lebanon. If Syria enters into the conflict, Damascus could seek the support of Tehran in the context of a bilateral military cooperation agreement with Iran.
A scenario of escalation is, therefore, possible, which could potentially spin out of control.
If Iran were to enter on the side of Lebanon and Syria in a defensive war against Israel, the U.S. and NATO would also intervene leading us into a broader war.
Both Iran and Syria have military cooperation agreements with Russia. Iran also has bilateral military cooperation agreements with China. Iran is also an observer member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Iran’s allies including Russia, China, the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could all be drawn into the broader conflict.
NOTES
[1] 'We’re fed up with empty gestures’, The Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2009.
[2] The militarization of Lebanon, extinguishing any credible armed resistance in Lebanon to Israel, and targeting Syria were also all factors for the Israeli attacks in 2006.
[3] It should be noted that the fighting between Hamas and Fatah and the Israeli campaign against the Gaza Strip that started on December 27, 2008 has obstructed the Palestinian electoral process.
[4] Amos Harel, IDF concludes large drill simulating double-front war in North, Haaretz, November 6, 2008.
[5] Barak Ravid, Israel: Lebanon is responsable for Hezbollah’s actions, Haaretz, August 8, 2008.
[6] "Hezbollah Terrorist Group; War with Israel Imminent", Al-Manar, December 17, 2008
[7] Yakkov Katz, Preparing for a possible confrontation with Hizbullah, The Jerusalem Post, December 11, 2008.
[8] Andrew Wander, Top Israeli officer says Hizbullah will be destroyed in five days 'next time', The Daily Star (Lebanon), December 17, 2008.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Yakkov Katz, Preparing for a possible, Op. cit.
[11] Ahmed Fathi Zahar et al., President al-Assad Receives General Qahwaji, Underlines Role of Lebanese Army in Defending Lebanon's Security and Stability, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), November 29, 2008.
[12] Lebanese army commander pays visit to Syria, Xinhua News Agency, November 30, 2008.
[13] Wang Yan, Russian donation of 10 Mig-29 fighters to Lebanon raises suspicions, Xinhua News Agency, December, 17, 2008; Yoav Stern, Russia to supply Lebanon with 10 MiG-29 fighter jets, Haaretz, December 17, 208; Russia 'to give' Lebanon war jets, British Broadcasting Corporation News (BBC News), December 17, 2008.
[14] Lebanon defense minister to talk arms in Moscow, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), December 15, 2008.
[15] Zheng E, Lebanese president requests medium weapons from Iran, Xinhua News Agency, November 26, 2008; Kahwaji stresses LAF role, while politicians bicker some more, The Daily Star (Lebanon), November 27, 2008; Russian donation, Op. cit.
[16] Sun, Lebanese army commander returns from Syria, Xinhua News Agency, November 30, 2008.
[17] Sami Moubayed, Former foe a celebrity in Damascus, Gulf News, December 4, 2008.
[18] Aoun: Iran, most powerful country, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), October 21, 2008.
[19] Lebanese ctiticizes army commander's visit to Syria [sic.], Xinhua News Agency, December 1, 2008.
[20] More praise for Russia's promise of 'free' MiGs, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and The Daily Star (Lebanon), December 18, 2008.
[21] War with Israel Imminent, Op. cit.; US envoy warns against rearming Lebanon's Hezbollah, Deutsche Presse-Agentur/German Press Agency (DPA), December 17, 2008.
[22] Kahwaji stresses LAF role, Op. cit.
By Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya
The March to War: Today the Gaza Strip, Tomorrow Lebanon...
In the Middle East, it is widely believed that the war against Gaza is an extension of the 2006 war against Lebanon. Without question, the war in the Gaza Strip is a part of the same conflict.
Moreover, since the Israeli defeat in 2006, Tel Aviv and Washington have not abandoned their design to turn Lebanon into a client state.
Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told France's President Nicolas Sarkozy, in so many words, during his visit to Tel Aviv in early January that today Israel was attacking Hamas in the Gaza Strip and that tomorrow it would be fighting Hezbollah in Lebanon.[1]
Ehud Olmert and Nicolas Sarkozy
Lebanon is still in the cross-hairs. Israel is searching for a justification or a pretext to launch another war against Lebanon.
Washington and Tel Aviv had initially hoped to control Beirut through client political forces in the March 14 Alliance. When it became apparent that these political forces could not dominate Lebanon politically the Israeli military was unleashed on Lebanon with a goal of bringing about the ultimate downfall of Hezbollah and its political allies. [2] Areas where support for Hezbollah and its political allies were strongest saw the harshest Israeli attacks in 2006 as part of an attempt to reduce, if not remove, popular support for them.
After the 2006 war, the second Israeli defeat in Lebanon, Washington and Tel Aviv with the help of Jordan, the U.A.E., Egypt, and Saudi Arabia started arming their clients in Lebanon to wield an internal armed option against Hezbollah and its allies. In the wake of both the short-lived internal violence between the Lebanese National Opposition and the March 14 Alliance and the Doha Accord, which was reached in Qatar on May 21, 2008 as a result of the failure of this internal armed option against Hezbollah and its allies, the Israeli-U.S. objective to subdue Lebanon has been dramatically impaired.
A "national unity government" was formed in which the Lebanese National Opposition — not just Hezbollah — hold veto power through one-third of the cabinet chairs, including that of the post of deputy-prime minister.
The objective in Lebanon is "regime change" and to repress all forms of political opposition. But how to bring it about? The forecast of the 2009 general-elections in Lebanon does not look favourable for the March 14 Alliance. Without an internal political or armed option in Lebanon, which could result in the installation of a U.S.-sponsored "democracy," Washington and its indefictible Israeli ally have chosen the only avenue available: a military solution, another war on Lebanon. [3]
Crossing Arms III: Israel Simulates a Two-Front War against Lebanon and Syria
This war is already in the advanced planning stage. In November 2008, barely a month before Tel Aviv started its massacre in the Gaza Strip, the Israeli military held drills for a two-front war against Lebanon and Syria called Shiluv Zro’ot III (Crossing Arms III).[4]
The military exercise included a massive simulated invasion of both Syria and Lebanon. Several months before the Israeli invasion drills, Tel Aviv had also warned Beirut that it would declare war on the whole of Lebanon and not just Hezbollah.[5]
Israel's justification for these war preparations was that Hezbollah has grown stronger and become a partner in the Lebanese government since the Doha Accord. The latter was signed in Qatar between the March 14 Alliance and the Lebanese National Opposition. It is worth noting that Hezbollah was a member of the Lebanese coaltion government prior to the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon.
No doubt, Tel Aviv will also point to Hezbollah's support of Hamas in Gaza as another pretext to wage under the banner of combating Islamic terrorism a pre-emptive war on Lebanon. In this context, Dell Lee Dailey the head of the counter-terrorism section of the U.S. State Department, had told Al-Hayat in an interview that an Israeli attack on Lebanon was "imminent" as part of the fight against terrorism. [6]
Blitzkrieg in the Making
Tel Aviv has been mapping a large-scale blitzkrieg against Lebanon as a whole, which includes an immediate land invasion. [7] Just before the Israeli massacre in the Gaza Strip started, Israeli officials and generals had promised that no Lebanese village would be immune from the wrath of Israeli aerial bombardments, regardless of religion, sect, and/or political orientation. [8]
In substance, Tel Aviv has promised to totally destroy Lebanon. Israel has also confirmed that in any future war against Lebanon, the entire country rather than Hezbollah will be the target. In practice, this was already the case in 2006’s Israeli aerial attacks on Lebanon. [9]
The Jerusalem Post quotes Brigadier-General Michael Ben-Baruch, one of the individuals who oversaw the invasion drills, as saying, "In the last war, we fired to disrupt Hezbollah activity," and, "The next time we will fire to destroy." [10]
In the wake of Israel's 2006 defeat, the Israeli government admitted that its "big mistake" was it exercised restraint rather than attacking Lebanon with the full strength of its military. Israeli officials have intimated that in the case of a future war against the Lebanese that all civilian and state infrastructure will be targeted.
Beirut’s New Defence Doctrine: A Threat to Israeli Interests and Objectives to Control Lebanon
Why is Lebanon in the cross-hairs again?
The answer is geo-political and strategic. It is also related to the political consensus process and the upcoming 2009 general-elections in Lebanon. Following the formation of a unity government in Beirut under a new president, Michel Suleiman (Sleiman), a new proactive defence doctrine for the country was contemplated. The objective of this defence doctrine is to keep Israel at bay and bring political stability and security to the country.
President Michel Suleiman
At the "National Defence Strategy" dialogue, held by the 14 Lebanese signatories of the Doha Accord, all sides have agreed that Israel is a threat to Lebanon.
In the months prior to the Israeli military campaign against Gaza, important diplomatic and political steps were taken by Beirut. President Michel Suleiman accompanied by several cabinet ministers visited Damascus (his first bilateral state visit; August 13-14, 2008) and Tehran (November 24-25, 2008).
President Suleiman and Syrian President Al Assad
In turn, General Jean Qahwaji (Kahwaji) the commander of the Lebanese Armed Forces was also in Damascus (November 29, 2008) for consultations with his Syrian counterpart General Al-Habib. While in Damascus, General Qahwaji also met with General Hassan Tourkmani, the defence minister of Syria, and the Syrian President. [11] His trip followed the visit of Lebanon's interior minister, Ziad Baroud, to Syria and was within the same framework. [12] Meanwhile, Lebanon’s defence minister, Elias Murr, went on an official visit to Moscow (December 16, 2008).
What started to emerge from these talks was that both Moscow and Tehran would provide weaponry to the Lebanese Armed Forces, which previously had been the recipients of lower-end U.S. made ordinance. The U.S. has always forbidden the Lebanese military from purchasing any heavy weapons that could challenge Israel's military strength.
It was also revealed that Russia would donate 10 MiG-29 fighter jets to Beirut in line with Lebanon's new defence strategy. [13] The use of the Russian MiG-29s would also entail the required installation of early warning and radar systems. Russian tanks, anti-tank rockets, armoured vehicles, and military helicopters are also being sought by Lebanon. [14]
Mig29
Iran has offered to supply the Lebanese military with medium-range missiles as part of a five-year Iranian-Lebanese defence agreement. [15] While in Iran, Michel Suleiman held talks with Iranian defence officials and went to an Iranian defence industry exposition.
While the talks with Moscow and Tehran aimed at arming the Lebanese Armed Forces, the talks with the Syrians were geared towards establishing and strengthening a joint security and defence framework directed against Israeli aggression. [16]
Integrating Hezbollah into the Lebanese Armed Forces
Moreover, Michel Aoun, leader of the Free Patriotic Movement and the Reform and Change Bloc in the Lebanese Parliament also visited Tehran (October 12-16, 2008; ahead of Michel Suleiman's official visit), and later Damascus (December 3-7, 2008). [17] Michel Aoun who is a central figure in the "political consensus" has endorsed and reaffirmed his political alliance with Hezbollah.
Michel Aoun
While calling for the peaceful disarmament of Hezbollah within a Lebanese defence strategy, he has accepted that Hezbollah fighters will eventally integrate into Lebanon's army. This disarmement process would only occur when the time is right and Israel no longer poses a threat to Lebanon. Hezbollah has broadly agreed to this, if and when there no longer exists an Israeli threat to the country's security. This position on Hezbollah's arms is spelled out in clause 10 (The Protection of Lebanon) of the February 6, 2006 memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Hezbollah that Michel Aoun signed on behalf of his political party, the Free Patriotic Movement.
Following his return from Tehran, Aoun also presented his case for the formation of a new Lebanese defence strategy and promised that the outcome of his visit to Iran would materialize in about six months. Aoun has also said that Iran, as the "major regional power between Lebanon and China" is of strategic importance to Lebanese interests. [18]
Hezbollah Paramilitary Forces
Washington's political cohorts in Lebanon are alarmed at the direction Lebanon is taking under its new defence strategy. They have criticized weapons purchases from Iran and defensive cooperation with Syria. This includes attacks on General Jean Qahwaji's visit to Syria, which was mandated by the entire Lebanese cabinet. [19] Additionally, within these pro-U.S. forces in Lebanon there has been a push for a "Swiss-like" "neutral defence policy" for Lebanon within the Middle East. Such a "neutral" position would benefit the U.S. and Israel geo-politically and strategically. Needless to say, with the threat of Israeli military aggression looming, this position is proving to be rather unpopular within Lebanon.
Ending Israeli-American pressure on Beirut to Naturalize Palestinian Refugees
The formation of a new proactive defence doctrine implies that Hezbollah fighters would be incorporated in the Lebanese Armed Forces and that the existing paramilitary forces of Hezbollah would be disbanded once certain conditions are met.
Therefore, one of Lebanon’s key political questions would be resolved. With the integration of Hezbollah fighters into the country's army together with military aid from Russia and Iran, Lebanon would acquire defensive capabilities, which would enable it to confront the threat of Israeli military aggression. These developments, which go against the prevailing pattern of U.S. client regimes in the Middle East modelled on Egypt and Saudi Arabia, have sounded an alarm bell in Tel Aviv, Washington, and London.
In response to Lebanon's rapprochement with Russia and Iran, two senior US State Department officials were rushed to Beirut in December.[20] During this mission, Dell Lee Dailey and David Hale, respectively Coordinator of the State Department's Office of Counterterrorism and Deputy-assistant Secretary responsible for Middle Eastern affairs, renewed the veiled threats of an Israeli attack against Lebanon, while casually placing the blame on Hezbollah.[21] These threats are aimed at Lebanon as a whole. They are intended to disrupt the creation of Lebanon's new defence doctrine.
The clock is ticking for Israel, the U.S., and NATO to obstruct the implementation of Beirut's new national defence doctrine.
Israel would no longer have any justifications for carrying out military incursions into Lebanon if Hezbollah were to become a full political party under a new Lebanese defence strategy. Moreover, if Beirut were able, under a new defence arrangement, to protect its borders against Israeli military threats it would not only end Tel Aviv’s ambitions to politically and economically dominate Lebanon, but it would also end Israeli pressure on Lebanon to naturalize the Palestinian war refugees waiting to return to their ancestoral lands that are occupied by Israel.
Clearly the issue of Palestinian naturalization in Lebanon is also tied to Lebanon's political consensus process and new defence strategy and was discussed by Michel Suleiman with Iranian officials in Tehran. [22]
The Middle Eastern Powder Keg: A World War III Scenario?
In 2006, when Israel attacked Lebanon, the war was presented to international public opinion as a conflict between Israel and Hezbollah. In essence the 2006 war was an Israeli attack on all of Lebanon. The Beirut government failed to take a stance, declared its "neutrality" and Lebanon's military forces were instructed not to intervene against the Israeli invaders. The reason for this was that the political parties of the Hariri-led March 14 Alliance that dominated the Lebanese government were expecting the war to end quickly and for Hezbollah (their political rival) to be defeated, and eventually excluded from playing a meaningful role on the Lebanese domestic political scene. Exactly the opposite has occurred since 2006.
Moreover, had the Lebanese government declared war on Israel, in response to Israeli aggression, Syria would have been obligated through a Lebanese-Syrian bilateral treaty, signed in 1991, to intervene in support of Lebanon.
In the case of a future Israeli war against Lebanon, the structure of military alliances is crucial. Syria could indeed intervene on the side of Lebanon. If Syria enters into the conflict, Damascus could seek the support of Tehran in the context of a bilateral military cooperation agreement with Iran.
A scenario of escalation is, therefore, possible, which could potentially spin out of control.
If Iran were to enter on the side of Lebanon and Syria in a defensive war against Israel, the U.S. and NATO would also intervene leading us into a broader war.
Both Iran and Syria have military cooperation agreements with Russia. Iran also has bilateral military cooperation agreements with China. Iran is also an observer member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Iran’s allies including Russia, China, the member states of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) could all be drawn into the broader conflict.
NOTES
[1] 'We’re fed up with empty gestures’, The Jerusalem Post, January 6, 2009.
[2] The militarization of Lebanon, extinguishing any credible armed resistance in Lebanon to Israel, and targeting Syria were also all factors for the Israeli attacks in 2006.
[3] It should be noted that the fighting between Hamas and Fatah and the Israeli campaign against the Gaza Strip that started on December 27, 2008 has obstructed the Palestinian electoral process.
[4] Amos Harel, IDF concludes large drill simulating double-front war in North, Haaretz, November 6, 2008.
[5] Barak Ravid, Israel: Lebanon is responsable for Hezbollah’s actions, Haaretz, August 8, 2008.
[6] "Hezbollah Terrorist Group; War with Israel Imminent", Al-Manar, December 17, 2008
[7] Yakkov Katz, Preparing for a possible confrontation with Hizbullah, The Jerusalem Post, December 11, 2008.
[8] Andrew Wander, Top Israeli officer says Hizbullah will be destroyed in five days 'next time', The Daily Star (Lebanon), December 17, 2008.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Yakkov Katz, Preparing for a possible, Op. cit.
[11] Ahmed Fathi Zahar et al., President al-Assad Receives General Qahwaji, Underlines Role of Lebanese Army in Defending Lebanon's Security and Stability, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA), November 29, 2008.
[12] Lebanese army commander pays visit to Syria, Xinhua News Agency, November 30, 2008.
[13] Wang Yan, Russian donation of 10 Mig-29 fighters to Lebanon raises suspicions, Xinhua News Agency, December, 17, 2008; Yoav Stern, Russia to supply Lebanon with 10 MiG-29 fighter jets, Haaretz, December 17, 208; Russia 'to give' Lebanon war jets, British Broadcasting Corporation News (BBC News), December 17, 2008.
[14] Lebanon defense minister to talk arms in Moscow, Russian News and Information Agency (RIA Novosti), December 15, 2008.
[15] Zheng E, Lebanese president requests medium weapons from Iran, Xinhua News Agency, November 26, 2008; Kahwaji stresses LAF role, while politicians bicker some more, The Daily Star (Lebanon), November 27, 2008; Russian donation, Op. cit.
[16] Sun, Lebanese army commander returns from Syria, Xinhua News Agency, November 30, 2008.
[17] Sami Moubayed, Former foe a celebrity in Damascus, Gulf News, December 4, 2008.
[18] Aoun: Iran, most powerful country, Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), October 21, 2008.
[19] Lebanese ctiticizes army commander's visit to Syria [sic.], Xinhua News Agency, December 1, 2008.
[20] More praise for Russia's promise of 'free' MiGs, Agence France-Presse (AFP) and The Daily Star (Lebanon), December 18, 2008.
[21] War with Israel Imminent, Op. cit.; US envoy warns against rearming Lebanon's Hezbollah, Deutsche Presse-Agentur/German Press Agency (DPA), December 17, 2008.
[22] Kahwaji stresses LAF role, Op. cit.
Hamas and Israel separately announce Gaza ceasefire
Go to Original
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Hamas announced an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip Sunday and gave Israel, which had already declared a unilateral truce, a week to pull its troops out of the territory following a three-week war.
There was shooting from both sides after their separate announcements, but broadly the ceasefire appeared to be gaining strength and Israeli troops began pulling out of Gaza, which they entered on January 3, a week after an air offensive began.
"We don't want to stay in Gaza, and we intend to leave it as soon as possible," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said after holding talks with European leaders in Jerusalem.
Troops and tanks could be seen streaming back over the border from Gaza from early Sunday, all but ending combat after a 22-day conflict in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians also died.
In Gaza, families began emerging from their places of hiding, including U.N. school compounds where some 45,000 people sought refuge during the fighting, and returning to their homes -- some only to find them damaged or destroyed.
According to the Palestinian Statistics Bureau, some 4,000 residential buildings were reduced to rubble during the conflict. Western diplomats have said it could cost at least $1.6 billion to repair the infrastructure damage in Gaza.
Hamas, whose rocket fire Israel said triggered its assault, announced its ceasefire about 12 hours after Israel's own move and said its Islamist allies in Gaza would also adhere to it.
Hamas's Gaza leader, Ismail Haniyeh, claimed a "popular victory" for Palestinians over Israel. "The enemy has failed to achieve its goals," he said in a speech on Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV.
Israel's spy services struck back, cutting into an Al-Aqsa broadcast with images of air strikes on Palestinian rocket crews and dead gunmen. A final title card read: "Hamas was defeated!"
Hamas officials, during talks with Egyptian mediators, said the faction demanded the opening of all Gaza's border crossings for the entry of "all materials, food, goods and basic needs."
French President Sarkozy -- joined by the leaders of Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic as current president of the European Union for talks with Olmert -- called on Israel to open Gaza's borders to aid as soon as possible.
WAR FALLOUT
Yet despite the signs of the ceasefire gaining momentum, there still remains no formal deal between Israel and Hamas.
The Gazan situation looks much as it did before the conflict -- armed standoff and a dim future for the 1.5 million people fenced inside the territory by a blockade aimed at punishing Hamas for rocket fire and ambitions to destroy the Jewish state.
As scores of bodies of Hamas fighters were recovered from suddenly quiet urban battlefields Sunday, Gaza medical officials said about 700 of the 1,300 dead were civilians.
Israel's leading newspapers put pictures of victorious Israeli troops on their front pages Sunday, but behind the banner headlines some commentators wondered whether the conflict had not worsened the prospects for peace with Gaza.
"This war was a just war," wrote one leading commentator in Ma'ariv, a right-of-center tabloid. "But this was not a wise war. This war presumed to change the situation ... But the situation, regrettably, will change only for the worse."
Some 17 rockets hit southern Israel after the ceasefire Olmert declared went into effect at 2 a.m. (7 p.m. EST). Israel responded with two air strikes against launching sites.
At least three rockets struck southern Israel after Hamas said it was halting attacks, Israeli police said.
Despite the breaches, the United States welcomed the ceasefire and the United Nations expressed its relief.
"The goal remains a durable and fully respected ceasefire that will lead to stabilization and normalization in Gaza," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
A spokeswoman for President-elect Barack Obama said he welcomed the truce and would say more about the situation in Gaza after he is inaugurated Tuesday.
EGYPT MEETING
In Jerusalem, Olmert spokesman Mark Regev offered hope that crossings into Gaza would open if the truce persists:
"If this ceasefire holds, and I hope it does, you'll see the crossings open to an enormous amount of humanitarian support."
In the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, Palestinian ambulances picked up more than 95 bodies, most of them gunmen, that had lain in the rubble of buildings and open areas, Hamas police and health officials said.
Some of those who returned to their homes were distraught to find them destroyed Sunday, but there was also hope.
"Thank God you are alive!" Abu Daoud Amer consoled a friend. "The house can be rebuilt, God willing."
The civilian death toll and destruction in the Gaza Strip brought strong international pressure on Israel to stop the offensive it launched with the declared aim of ending rocket attacks that had killed 18 people over the previous eight years.
Among the criticism leveled at Israel are accusations by senior U.N. officials that it may have committed war crimes with its widespread shelling, including the deaths of 42 people, including women and children, at a U.N. school on January 6.
Israel has dismissed the accusations, saying its army and air force have acted within the rules of war.
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
Hamas announced an immediate ceasefire in the Gaza Strip Sunday and gave Israel, which had already declared a unilateral truce, a week to pull its troops out of the territory following a three-week war.
There was shooting from both sides after their separate announcements, but broadly the ceasefire appeared to be gaining strength and Israeli troops began pulling out of Gaza, which they entered on January 3, a week after an air offensive began.
"We don't want to stay in Gaza, and we intend to leave it as soon as possible," Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said after holding talks with European leaders in Jerusalem.
Troops and tanks could be seen streaming back over the border from Gaza from early Sunday, all but ending combat after a 22-day conflict in which more than 1,300 Palestinians were killed. Ten Israeli soldiers and three civilians also died.
In Gaza, families began emerging from their places of hiding, including U.N. school compounds where some 45,000 people sought refuge during the fighting, and returning to their homes -- some only to find them damaged or destroyed.
According to the Palestinian Statistics Bureau, some 4,000 residential buildings were reduced to rubble during the conflict. Western diplomats have said it could cost at least $1.6 billion to repair the infrastructure damage in Gaza.
Hamas, whose rocket fire Israel said triggered its assault, announced its ceasefire about 12 hours after Israel's own move and said its Islamist allies in Gaza would also adhere to it.
Hamas's Gaza leader, Ismail Haniyeh, claimed a "popular victory" for Palestinians over Israel. "The enemy has failed to achieve its goals," he said in a speech on Hamas's Al-Aqsa TV.
Israel's spy services struck back, cutting into an Al-Aqsa broadcast with images of air strikes on Palestinian rocket crews and dead gunmen. A final title card read: "Hamas was defeated!"
Hamas officials, during talks with Egyptian mediators, said the faction demanded the opening of all Gaza's border crossings for the entry of "all materials, food, goods and basic needs."
French President Sarkozy -- joined by the leaders of Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic as current president of the European Union for talks with Olmert -- called on Israel to open Gaza's borders to aid as soon as possible.
WAR FALLOUT
Yet despite the signs of the ceasefire gaining momentum, there still remains no formal deal between Israel and Hamas.
The Gazan situation looks much as it did before the conflict -- armed standoff and a dim future for the 1.5 million people fenced inside the territory by a blockade aimed at punishing Hamas for rocket fire and ambitions to destroy the Jewish state.
As scores of bodies of Hamas fighters were recovered from suddenly quiet urban battlefields Sunday, Gaza medical officials said about 700 of the 1,300 dead were civilians.
Israel's leading newspapers put pictures of victorious Israeli troops on their front pages Sunday, but behind the banner headlines some commentators wondered whether the conflict had not worsened the prospects for peace with Gaza.
"This war was a just war," wrote one leading commentator in Ma'ariv, a right-of-center tabloid. "But this was not a wise war. This war presumed to change the situation ... But the situation, regrettably, will change only for the worse."
Some 17 rockets hit southern Israel after the ceasefire Olmert declared went into effect at 2 a.m. (7 p.m. EST). Israel responded with two air strikes against launching sites.
At least three rockets struck southern Israel after Hamas said it was halting attacks, Israeli police said.
Despite the breaches, the United States welcomed the ceasefire and the United Nations expressed its relief.
"The goal remains a durable and fully respected ceasefire that will lead to stabilization and normalization in Gaza," said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
A spokeswoman for President-elect Barack Obama said he welcomed the truce and would say more about the situation in Gaza after he is inaugurated Tuesday.
EGYPT MEETING
In Jerusalem, Olmert spokesman Mark Regev offered hope that crossings into Gaza would open if the truce persists:
"If this ceasefire holds, and I hope it does, you'll see the crossings open to an enormous amount of humanitarian support."
In the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya, Palestinian ambulances picked up more than 95 bodies, most of them gunmen, that had lain in the rubble of buildings and open areas, Hamas police and health officials said.
Some of those who returned to their homes were distraught to find them destroyed Sunday, but there was also hope.
"Thank God you are alive!" Abu Daoud Amer consoled a friend. "The house can be rebuilt, God willing."
The civilian death toll and destruction in the Gaza Strip brought strong international pressure on Israel to stop the offensive it launched with the declared aim of ending rocket attacks that had killed 18 people over the previous eight years.
Among the criticism leveled at Israel are accusations by senior U.N. officials that it may have committed war crimes with its widespread shelling, including the deaths of 42 people, including women and children, at a U.N. school on January 6.
Israel has dismissed the accusations, saying its army and air force have acted within the rules of war.
The Duncan Doctrine
Go to Original
By Andy Kroll
The Military-Corporate Legacy of the New Secretary of Education
By Andy Kroll
The Military-Corporate Legacy of the New Secretary of Education
On December 16th, a friendship forged nearly two decades ago on the hardwood of the basketball court culminated in a press conference at the Dodge Renaissance Academy, an elementary school located on the west side of Chicago. In a glowing introduction to the media, President-elect Barack Obama named Arne Duncan, the chief executive officer of the Chicago Public Schools system (CPS), as his nominee for U.S. Secretary of Education. "When it comes to school reform," the President-elect said, "Arne is the most hands-on of hands-on practitioners. For Arne, school reform isn't just a theory in a book -- it's the cause of his life. And the results aren't just about test scores or statistics, but about whether our children are developing the skills they need to compete with any worker in the world for any job."
Though the announcement came amidst a deluge of other Obama nominations -- he had unveiled key members of his energy and environment teams the day before and would add his picks for the Secretaries of Agriculture and the Interior the next day -- Duncan's selection was eagerly anticipated, and garnered mostly favorable reactions in education circles and in the media. He was described as the compromise candidate between powerful teachers' unions and the advocates of charter schools and merit pay. He was also regularly hailed as a "reformer," fearless when it came to challenging the educational status quo and more than willing to shake up hidebound, moribund public school systems.
Yet a closer investigation of Duncan's record in Chicago casts doubt on that label. As he packs up for Washington, Duncan leaves behind a Windy City legacy that's hardly cause for optimism, emphasizing as it does a business-minded, market-driven model for education. If he is a "reformer," his style of management is distinctly top-down, corporate, and privatizing. It views teachers as expendable, unions as unnecessary, and students as customers.
Disturbing as well is the prominence of Duncan's belief in offering a key role in public education to the military. Chicago's school system is currently the most militarized in the country, boasting five military academies, nearly three dozen smaller Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps programs within existing high schools, and numerous middle school Junior ROTC programs. More troubling yet, the military academies he's started are nearly all located in low-income, minority neighborhoods. This merging of military training and education naturally raises concerns about whether such academies will be not just education centers, but recruitment centers as well.
Rather than handing Duncan a free pass on his way into office, as lawmakers did during Duncan's breezy confirmation hearings last week, a closer examination of the Chicago native's record is in order. Only then can we begin to imagine where public education might be heading under Arne Duncan, and whether his vision represents the kind of "change" that will bring our students meaningfully in line with the rest of the world.
The Militarization of Secondary Education
Today, the flagship projects in CPS's militarization are its five military academies, affiliated with either the Army, Navy, or Marines. All students -- or cadets, as they're known -- attending one of these schools are required to enroll as well in the academy's Junior ROTC program. That means cadets must wear full military uniforms to school everyday, and undergo daily uniform inspections. As part of the academy's curriculum, they must also take a daily ROTC course focusing on military history, map reading and navigation, drug prevention, and the branches of the Department of Defense.
Cadets can practice marching on an academy's drill team, learn the proper way to fire a weapon on the rifle team, and choose to attend extracurricular spring or summer military training sessions. At the Phoenix Military Academy, cadets are even organized into an academy battalion, modeled on an Army infantry division battalion, in which upper-class cadets fill the leading roles of commander, executive officer, and sergeant major.
In addition, military personnel from the U.S. armed services teach alongside regular teachers in each academy, and also fill administrative roles such as academy "commandants." Three of these military academies were created in part with Department of Defense appropriations -- funds secured by Illinois lawmakers -- and when the proposed Air Force Academy High School opens this fall, CPS will be the only public school system in the country with Air Force, Army, Navy, and Marine Corps high school academies.
CPS also boasts almost three dozen smaller Junior ROTC programs within existing high schools that students can opt to join, and over 20 voluntary middle school Junior ROTC programs. All told, between the academies and the voluntary Junior ROTC programs, more than 10,000 students are enrolled in a military education program of some sort in the CPS system. Officials like Duncan and Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley justify the need for the military academies by claiming they do a superlative job teaching students discipline and providing them with character-building opportunities. "These are positive learning environments," Duncan said in 2007. "I love the sense of leadership. I love the sense of discipline."
Without a doubt, teaching students about discipline and leadership is an important aspect of being an educator. But is the full-scale uniformed culture of the military actually necessary to impart these values? A student who learns to play the cello, who studies how to read music, will learn discipline too, without a military-themed learning environment. In addition, encouraging students to be critical thinkers, to question accepted beliefs and norms, remains key to a teacher's role at any grade level. The military's culture of uniformity and discipline, important as it may be for an army, hardly aligns with these pedagogical values.
Of no less concern are the types of students Chicago's military academies are trying to attract. All of CPS's military academies (except the Rickover Naval Academy) are located in low-income neighborhoods with primarily black and/or Hispanic residents. As a result, student enrollment in the academies consists almost entirely of minorities. Whites, who already represent a mere 9% of the students in the Chicago system, make up only 4% of the students enrolled in the military academies.
There is obviously a correlation between these low-income, minority communities, the military academies being established in them, and the long-term recruitment needs of the U.S. military. The schools essentially functional as recruiting tools, despite the expectable military disclaimers. The Chicago Tribune typically reported in 1999 that the creation of the system's first military school in the historically black community of Bronzeville grew, in part, out of "a desire for the military to increase the pool of minority candidates for its academies." And before the House Armed Services Committee in 2000, the armed services chiefs of staff testified that 30%-50% of all Junior ROTC cadets later enlist in the military. Organizations opposing the military's growing presence in public schools insist that it's no mistake the number of military academies in Chicago is on the rise at a time when the U.S. military has had difficulty meeting its recruitment targets while fighting two unpopular wars.
It seems clear enough that, when it comes to the militarization of the Chicago school system, whatever Duncan's goals, the results are likely to be only partly "educational."
Merging the Market and the Classroom
While discussing his nomination, President-elect Obama praised the fact that Duncan isn't "beholden to any one ideology." A closer examination of his career in education, however, suggests otherwise. As Chicago's chief executive officer (not to be confused with CPS's chief education officer), Duncan ran his district in a most businesslike manner. As he put it in a 2003 profile in Catalyst Chicago, an independent magazine that covers education reform, "We're in the business of education." And indeed, managing the country's third-largest school system does require sharp business acumen. But what's evident from Duncan's seven years in charge is his belief that the business of education should, first and foremost, embrace the logic of the free market and privatization.
Duncan's belief in privatizing public education can be most clearly seen in Chicago's Renaissance 2010 plan, the centerpiece of his time in that city. Designed by corporate consulting firm A.T. Kearney and backed by the Commercial Club of Chicago, an organization representing some of the city's largest businesses, Renaissance 2010 has pushed hard for the closing of underperforming schools -- to be replaced by multiple new, smaller, "entrepreneurial" schools. Under the plan, many of the new institutions established have been privatized charter or "contract" schools run by independent nonprofit outfits. They, then, turn out to have the option of contracting school management out to for-profit education management organizations. In addition, Renaissance 2010 charter schools, not being subject to state laws and district initiatives, can -- as many have -- eliminate the teachers' union altogether.
Under Duncan's leadership, CPS and Renaissance 2010 schools have adopted a performance-driven style of governance in which well-run schools and their teachers and administrators are rewarded, and low-performing schools are penalized. As Catalyst Chicago reported, "Star schools and principals have been granted more flexibility and autonomy, and often financial freedom and bonus pay." Low-performing schools put on probation, on the other hand, "have little say over how they can spend poverty funding, an area otherwise controlled by elected local school councils… [Local school councils] at struggling schools have also lost the right to hire or fire principals -- restrictions that have outraged some parent activists."
Students as well as teachers and principals are experiencing firsthand the impact of Duncan's belief in competition and incentive-based learning. This fall, the Chicago Public Schools rolled out a Green for Grade$ program in which the district will pay freshmen at 20 selected high schools for good grades -- $50 in cash for an A, $35 for a B, and even $20 for a C. Though students not surprisingly say they support the program -- what student wouldn't want to get paid for grades? -- critics contend that cash-for-grades incentives, which stir interest in learning for all the wrong reasons, turn being educated into a job.
Duncan's rhetoric offers a good sense of what his business-minded approach and support for bringing free-market ideologies into public education means. At a May 2008 symposium hosted by the Renaissance Schools Fund, the nonprofit financial arm of Renaissance 2010, entitled "Free to Choose, Free to Succeed: The New Market of Public Education," Duncan typically compared his job running a school district to that of a stock portfolio manager. As he explained, "I am not a manager of 600 schools. I'm a portfolio manager of 600 schools and I'm trying to improve the portfolio." He would later add, "We're trying to blur the lines between the public and the private."
A Top-Down Leadership Style
Barack Obama built his campaign on impressive grassroots support and the democratic nature of his candidacy. Judging by his continued outreach to supporters, he seems intent on leading, at least in part, with the same bottom-up style. Duncan's style couldn't be more different.
Under Duncan, the critical voices of parents, community leaders, students, and teachers regularly fell on deaf ears. As described by University of Illinois at Chicago professor and education activist Pauline Lipman in the journal Educational Policy in 2007, Renaissance 2010 provoked striking resistance within affected communities and neighborhoods. There were heated community hearings and similarly angry testimony at Board of Education meetings, as well as door-to-door organizing, picketing, and even, at one point, a student walk-out.
"The opposition," Lipman wrote, "brought together unions, teachers, students, school reformers, community leaders and organizations, parents in African American South and West Side communities, and some Latino community activists and teachers." Yet, as she pointed out recently, mounting neighborhood opposition had little effect. "I'm pretty in tune with the grassroots activism in education in Chicago," she said, "and people are uniformly opposed to these policies, and uniformly feel that they have no voice."
During Duncan's tenure, decision-making responsibilities that once belonged to elected officials shifted into the hands of unelected individuals handpicked by the city's corporate or political elite. For instance, elected local school councils, made up mostly of parents and community leaders, are to be scaled back or eliminated altogether as part of Renaissance 2010. Now, many new schools can simply opt out of such councils.
Then there's the Renaissance Schools Fund. It oversees the selection and evaluation of new schools and subsequent investment in them. Made up of unelected business leaders, the CEO of the system, and the Chicago Board of Education president, the Fund takes the money it raises and makes schools compete against each other for limited private funding. It has typically been criticized by community leaders and activists for being an opaque, unaccountable body indifferent to the will of Chicago's citizens.
Making the grade?
Despite his controversial educational policies, Duncan's supporters ultimately contend that, as the CEO of Chicago's schools, he's gotten results where it matters -- test scores. An objective, easily quantifiable yet imperfect measure of student learning, test scores have indeed improved in several areas under Duncan (though many attribute this to lowered statewide testing standards and more lenient testing guidelines). Between 2001 and 2008, for instance, the percentage of elementary school students meeting or exceeding standards on the Illinois Standards Achievement Test increased from 39.5% to 65%. The number of CPS students meeting or exceeding the Illinois Learning Standards, another statewide secondary education achievement assessment, also increased from 38% in 2002 to 60% in 2008.
When measured on a national scale, however, Duncan's record looks a lot less impressive. In comparison to other major urban school districts (including Los Angeles, Boston, New York City, and Washington, D.C.) in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or "The Nation's Report Card," Chicago fourth and eighth graders ranked, with only one exception, in the bottom half of all districts in math, reading, and science in 2003, 2005 and 2007. In addition, from 2004 to 2008, the Chicago Public Schools district failed to make "adequate yearly progress" as mandated by the Bush administration's No Child Left Behind Act.
Even if Duncan's policies do continue to boost test scores in coming years, the question must be asked: At whose expense? In a competition-driven educational system, some schools will, of course, succeed, receiving more funding and so hiring the most talented teachers. At the same time, schools that aren't "performing" will be put on probation, stripped of their autonomy, and possibly closed, only to be reopened as privately-run outfits -- or even handed over to the military. The highest achieving students (that is, the best test-takers) will have access to the most up-to-date facilities, advanced equipment, and academic support programs; struggling students will likely be left behind, separate and unequal, stuck in decrepit classrooms and underfunded schools.
Public education is not meant to be a win-lose, us-versus-them system, nor is it meant to be a recruitment system for the military -- and yet this, it seems, is at the heart of Duncan's legacy in Chicago, and so a reasonable indication of the kind of "reform" he's likely to bring to the country as education secretary.
Why Citi Turned Around on Mortgage "Cramdowns"
Go to Original
By Robert Reich
The latest data show one out of ten homeowners in the United States is either late in making a mortgage payment or in such serious arrears as to risk foreclosure. Last week, congressional Dems breathed a sigh of relief when Citigroup dropped its opposition to a proposed change in the bankruptcy laws allowing distressed homeowners to do what owners of commercial property and second homes can already do when they can't pay up -- use bankruptcy proceedings as a means of working out better deals. (It's called a "cramdown." The practical effect wouldn't be hundreds of thousands of bankruptcy judges striking new deals, as conservative lawmakers predict; the mere option of going into bankruptcy would give homeowners more bargaining leverage with mortgage lenders in striking better deals.)
As long as Citigroup opposed this measure, it didn't stand a chance. Citi's clout in Washington is legendary. But on January 8, Citigroup's CEO, Vikram Pandit released a statement saying that Citi "believes it will serve as an additional tool to the extensive home retention programs currently in place to help at-risk borrowers." The announcement was greeted with kudos by House and Senate Dems. The bankruptcy provision is now moving, and is likely to be attached to the stimulus bill.
What happened? Until last Thursday, Citi had been a leader of the Bankruptcy Coalition of the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry group that had staunchly opposed the bill -- along with Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.
Could it be that Citi's Pandit knew last week that he'd soon need even more help from Congress than the $45 billion bailout the bank already received? Shares of Citigroup had seemed to regain their footing after the bailout. But then, this Monday, all hell broke loose. Citi shares plunged 17 percent, as investors got word of a deal Citi was cooking to sell its valuable Smith Barney brokerage unit to Morgan Stanley. The drop in Citi shares brought the stock back to the lowest level since the government gave Citi its first dollop of bailout funds last November. Citi is losing capital at an astounding rate -- nearly $100 million a day in the fourth quarter alone. Today the firm posted a loss of $8.29 billion for the fourth quarter, completing its worst year in history.
Citi has already got the sweetest bailout deal of any big bank, but the probability seems high that it will want more bailout money. This is the easiest explanation for Pandit's turnaround on the cramdown legislation -- something the Democratic Congress and distressed homeowners very much want.
In other words, the Wall Street bailout has had exactly the same effect for Congress that the proposed bankruptcy provision would have for homeowners -- it has increased its bargaining power over those who ordinarily pull the strings. The massive tax-payer financed bailout of Wall Street, largely a product of Wall Street's power in Washington, seems to be weakening the Street's ability to veto financial legislation it doesn't like. I'm not sure whether this is something we should be celebrating as a small victory for democracy, or condemning as an extortionate price for reducing Wall Street's grip.
By Robert Reich
The latest data show one out of ten homeowners in the United States is either late in making a mortgage payment or in such serious arrears as to risk foreclosure. Last week, congressional Dems breathed a sigh of relief when Citigroup dropped its opposition to a proposed change in the bankruptcy laws allowing distressed homeowners to do what owners of commercial property and second homes can already do when they can't pay up -- use bankruptcy proceedings as a means of working out better deals. (It's called a "cramdown." The practical effect wouldn't be hundreds of thousands of bankruptcy judges striking new deals, as conservative lawmakers predict; the mere option of going into bankruptcy would give homeowners more bargaining leverage with mortgage lenders in striking better deals.)
As long as Citigroup opposed this measure, it didn't stand a chance. Citi's clout in Washington is legendary. But on January 8, Citigroup's CEO, Vikram Pandit released a statement saying that Citi "believes it will serve as an additional tool to the extensive home retention programs currently in place to help at-risk borrowers." The announcement was greeted with kudos by House and Senate Dems. The bankruptcy provision is now moving, and is likely to be attached to the stimulus bill.
What happened? Until last Thursday, Citi had been a leader of the Bankruptcy Coalition of the Financial Services Roundtable, an industry group that had staunchly opposed the bill -- along with Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase, and Wells Fargo.
Could it be that Citi's Pandit knew last week that he'd soon need even more help from Congress than the $45 billion bailout the bank already received? Shares of Citigroup had seemed to regain their footing after the bailout. But then, this Monday, all hell broke loose. Citi shares plunged 17 percent, as investors got word of a deal Citi was cooking to sell its valuable Smith Barney brokerage unit to Morgan Stanley. The drop in Citi shares brought the stock back to the lowest level since the government gave Citi its first dollop of bailout funds last November. Citi is losing capital at an astounding rate -- nearly $100 million a day in the fourth quarter alone. Today the firm posted a loss of $8.29 billion for the fourth quarter, completing its worst year in history.
Citi has already got the sweetest bailout deal of any big bank, but the probability seems high that it will want more bailout money. This is the easiest explanation for Pandit's turnaround on the cramdown legislation -- something the Democratic Congress and distressed homeowners very much want.
In other words, the Wall Street bailout has had exactly the same effect for Congress that the proposed bankruptcy provision would have for homeowners -- it has increased its bargaining power over those who ordinarily pull the strings. The massive tax-payer financed bailout of Wall Street, largely a product of Wall Street's power in Washington, seems to be weakening the Street's ability to veto financial legislation it doesn't like. I'm not sure whether this is something we should be celebrating as a small victory for democracy, or condemning as an extortionate price for reducing Wall Street's grip.
Obama Adviser Urges More Rigorous Global Financial Regulation
Go to Original
By Anthony Faiola
A top economic adviser to the incoming Obama administration unveiled a plan Thursday to radically rethink the global financial system, including measures that would dramatically expand government control over banking and investment in the United States.
The report -- which recommends limiting the size of banks, monitoring executive pay and regulating hedge funds -- offers the first hint of the kind of change to the financial system that President-elect Barack Obama may push for in coming months.
Obama has pledged to present a package of reforms to prevent another round of the financial crisis that began in the United States, ahead of a summit of world leaders in London this April. Observers saw in Thursday's report potential building blocks of Obama's plan. Although issued by the Group of 30 -- an organization of international economists and financial policymakers -- its lead author is Paul Volcker, the chairman of the Federal Reserve during the Carter and Reagan administrations who will serve as a special adviser to the Obama White House. Part of Volcker's role is to help mastermind what could become the biggest overhaul of the U.S. financial system in decades.
"I think this is a clear sign that the new administration is going to push for a major overhaul, for major structural reforms of the regulatory system," said Steven Schrage, the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Having this highly esteemed group backing that proposal is going to put pressure to present those changes before [the] April summit."
The report's recommendations may find support among those in the United States and Europe who have called for tighter regulation over the financial system in the wake of the current economic crisis. But elements of the plan were already opposed Thursday by some in the financial industry, where some worry that the push for tighter government regulation may go too far.
The report offered 18 recommendations that would insert government regulators into the boardrooms of financial institutions as never before. The plan calls for vastly increased oversight of major banks, going as far as to recommend the end of an era of mega banks whose size makes their failure potentially catastrophic to the global financial system. To limit their size and scope, banks, the document states, should be prohibited from managing private-equity or hedge funds. And deposits should not be concentrated in the hands of too few banks.
"Keep them small, so that any failure won't have systematic importance," Volcker said at a news conference.
Money-market mutual funds that offer services similar to banks, including dollar-for-dollar withdrawal at any time, should be subjected to increased government oversight, the report said. Currently, most do not operate that way. But those bank-like mutual funds that want to avoid tighter regulation should sell relatively safe financial instruments and clearly state to customers that the value of their funds may or may not remain stable.
The proposal suggests that the U.S. government should clarify the status of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, either making them government agencies or regulating them as independent mortgage brokers. Credit-rating agencies would also be subjected to greater scrutiny.
Volcker said he would press the new administration to consider the measures, saying major changes are imperative because the financial system is "broken."
"It's a four-letter word," he said. "It's a mess."
Elements of the plan -- such as imposing regulation on hedge funds -- echo calls for closer supervision made by policymakers in the United States and abroad in past months. But Thursday's report was more specific and aggressive in imposing government restrictions on the financial system than a broad outline of changes agreed to by the Bush administration during a meeting of leaders representing the Group of 20 economic powers in Washington last November.
The Obama administration is expected to work closely with key congressional leaders including Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) on legislation that could restructure existing regulatory agencies and impose new guidelines on U.S. financial institutions. The scope of Volcker's proposal, analysts say, suggests that Obama's plan may contain highly ambitious reforms.
Although financial industry officials concede that more regulation is likely needed to prevent a repeat of the current crisis, they also said that some of the measures in the report appeared to go too far. For instance, they opposed the suggestion that banks limit their deposits and size.
"You want to apply the appropriate amount of regulation to address the concern that this kind of crisis never happens again," said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for Financial Services Roundtable, which represents the largest financial institutions in the United States. "But at the same time, you don't want to stifle innovation, creativity or the allocation of resources to take appropriate risks."
Although the report calls for global reform, it acknowledged charges that flaws in the U.S. financial system were to blame for starting the current global economic crisis. Thusly, it noted that "several of the issues and recommendations have a direct U.S. focus."
The report renewed calls for greater international cooperation on regulation, and new laws to oversee exotic financial derivatives, made during the November summit in Washington. With cautious support by President Bush, plans are moving forward, for instance, to enhance international cooperation in overseeing major banks through the Financial Stability Forum in Switzerland. But European leaders have eagerly awaited a signal from Obama on his ideas for new rules for the global financial system.
It is unclear how many of the recommendations will make their way into Obama's final plan, but the report could lift the spirits of Europeans who have called for tighter government oversight on executives' pay and risk management in financial institutions -- an area where the Bush administration has offered tepid support. The report urges the government to enforce systematic board reviews of executive pay as well as new guidelines to measure the level of risk a firm is taking with exotic investments.
By Anthony Faiola
A top economic adviser to the incoming Obama administration unveiled a plan Thursday to radically rethink the global financial system, including measures that would dramatically expand government control over banking and investment in the United States.
The report -- which recommends limiting the size of banks, monitoring executive pay and regulating hedge funds -- offers the first hint of the kind of change to the financial system that President-elect Barack Obama may push for in coming months.
Obama has pledged to present a package of reforms to prevent another round of the financial crisis that began in the United States, ahead of a summit of world leaders in London this April. Observers saw in Thursday's report potential building blocks of Obama's plan. Although issued by the Group of 30 -- an organization of international economists and financial policymakers -- its lead author is Paul Volcker, the chairman of the Federal Reserve during the Carter and Reagan administrations who will serve as a special adviser to the Obama White House. Part of Volcker's role is to help mastermind what could become the biggest overhaul of the U.S. financial system in decades.
"I think this is a clear sign that the new administration is going to push for a major overhaul, for major structural reforms of the regulatory system," said Steven Schrage, the Scholl Chair in International Business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "Having this highly esteemed group backing that proposal is going to put pressure to present those changes before [the] April summit."
The report's recommendations may find support among those in the United States and Europe who have called for tighter regulation over the financial system in the wake of the current economic crisis. But elements of the plan were already opposed Thursday by some in the financial industry, where some worry that the push for tighter government regulation may go too far.
The report offered 18 recommendations that would insert government regulators into the boardrooms of financial institutions as never before. The plan calls for vastly increased oversight of major banks, going as far as to recommend the end of an era of mega banks whose size makes their failure potentially catastrophic to the global financial system. To limit their size and scope, banks, the document states, should be prohibited from managing private-equity or hedge funds. And deposits should not be concentrated in the hands of too few banks.
"Keep them small, so that any failure won't have systematic importance," Volcker said at a news conference.
Money-market mutual funds that offer services similar to banks, including dollar-for-dollar withdrawal at any time, should be subjected to increased government oversight, the report said. Currently, most do not operate that way. But those bank-like mutual funds that want to avoid tighter regulation should sell relatively safe financial instruments and clearly state to customers that the value of their funds may or may not remain stable.
The proposal suggests that the U.S. government should clarify the status of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, either making them government agencies or regulating them as independent mortgage brokers. Credit-rating agencies would also be subjected to greater scrutiny.
Volcker said he would press the new administration to consider the measures, saying major changes are imperative because the financial system is "broken."
"It's a four-letter word," he said. "It's a mess."
Elements of the plan -- such as imposing regulation on hedge funds -- echo calls for closer supervision made by policymakers in the United States and abroad in past months. But Thursday's report was more specific and aggressive in imposing government restrictions on the financial system than a broad outline of changes agreed to by the Bush administration during a meeting of leaders representing the Group of 20 economic powers in Washington last November.
The Obama administration is expected to work closely with key congressional leaders including Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass) on legislation that could restructure existing regulatory agencies and impose new guidelines on U.S. financial institutions. The scope of Volcker's proposal, analysts say, suggests that Obama's plan may contain highly ambitious reforms.
Although financial industry officials concede that more regulation is likely needed to prevent a repeat of the current crisis, they also said that some of the measures in the report appeared to go too far. For instance, they opposed the suggestion that banks limit their deposits and size.
"You want to apply the appropriate amount of regulation to address the concern that this kind of crisis never happens again," said Scott Talbott, senior vice president of government affairs for Financial Services Roundtable, which represents the largest financial institutions in the United States. "But at the same time, you don't want to stifle innovation, creativity or the allocation of resources to take appropriate risks."
Although the report calls for global reform, it acknowledged charges that flaws in the U.S. financial system were to blame for starting the current global economic crisis. Thusly, it noted that "several of the issues and recommendations have a direct U.S. focus."
The report renewed calls for greater international cooperation on regulation, and new laws to oversee exotic financial derivatives, made during the November summit in Washington. With cautious support by President Bush, plans are moving forward, for instance, to enhance international cooperation in overseeing major banks through the Financial Stability Forum in Switzerland. But European leaders have eagerly awaited a signal from Obama on his ideas for new rules for the global financial system.
It is unclear how many of the recommendations will make their way into Obama's final plan, but the report could lift the spirits of Europeans who have called for tighter government oversight on executives' pay and risk management in financial institutions -- an area where the Bush administration has offered tepid support. The report urges the government to enforce systematic board reviews of executive pay as well as new guidelines to measure the level of risk a firm is taking with exotic investments.
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Economy Is in a Depression
Go to Original
By Prof. Peter Morici
The Labor Department reported on Jan. 9 that the economy lost 524,000 payroll jobs in December, and average employment was 1.3 million lower in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter. I believe the economy is already in the jaws of a depression.
Companies have shed 2.6 million jobs since December 2007 as the full weight of the banking crisis, trade deficit with China and burdens imposed by high-priced imported oil are bearing down on manufacturing, construction and the broader economy with unrelenting pressure.
Unemployment increased to 7.2% in December. However, factoring in discouraged workers, unemployment is closer to 9.4%. Add workers in part time positions that cannot find full time employment and the hidden unemployment rate is 14.5%.
Recession or Depression?
The economy contracted at about a 5% annual rate in the fourth quarter. This looks worse than a recession to me.
Recessions are like stock market corrections -- after a time, equity prices rebound without government intervention. Federal Reserve interest rate cuts and stimulus tax rebates and spending have shortened the lives and eased the impact of post-World War II recessions, but those policies did not end them. The economy self-corrected.
A depression is not self-correcting. Roosevelt administration stimulus packages -- huge deficit spending -- eased the pain but failed to end the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s policies did not put the U.S. economy on a sustainable growth path because New Deal policies worsened structural problems that pulled the economy down in the first place. For example, the New Deal proliferated monopoly pricing, extended the life of undersized farms, raised structural savings rates, and created a system of home lending too dependent on federally sponsored banks.
The challenges facing President-elect Barack Obama could not be clearer. The current economic slowdown has two structural causes -- bad management practices at the large money center banks and the huge foreign trade deficit. These problems are not self-correcting.
The economy will not recover without fundamental changes in banking and trade policy. A large stimulus package, though necessary, will only give the economy a temporary lift. Then unemployment will rise again and continue at unacceptable levels indefinitely without successively larger stimulus packages and huge federal budget deficits. The economy is in a depression, not a recession
Obama must ensure that the banks use the trillions of dollars in federal bailout assistance to renegotiate mortgages and make new loans to worthy homebuyers and businesses. Obama must make certain that banks do not continue to squander federal largess by padding executive bonuses, acquiring other banks and pursuing new high-return, high-risk lines of businesses in merger activity, carbon trading and complex derivatives.
Industry leaders like Citigroup have announced plans to move in those directions. Many of these bankers enjoyed influence in and contributed generously to the Obama campaign. Now it remains to be seen if a President Obama can stand up to these same bankers and persuade or compel them to act responsibly.
In addition, Obama must address the huge cost of imported oil and the trade deficit with China. Otherwise any effort to resurrect the economy is doomed to create massive foreign borrowing, another round of excessive consumer borrowing, and a second banking crisis that the Treasury and Federal Reserve will not be able to reverse.
Ultimately, reducing the oil import bill will require higher mileage standards for automobiles and assistance to automakers to accelerate the build-out of alternative, high-mileage vehicles. Fixing trade with China will require a tax on dollar-yuan transactions if China continues to refuse to stop subsidizing dollar purchases of yuan to prop up its exports and shift Chinese unemployment to the U.S. manufacturing sector.
Near term, a stimulus package focused on infrastructure is critical for resuscitating growth. The recent round of tax rebate checks ended up in savings accounts or spent at the Wal-Mart on Chinese goods, and did little to create jobs or accelerate growth. Whereas projects to repair roads, rehabilitate schools and refurbish public buildings would create high-paying jobs at home and provide a legacy in capital improvements that assist growth now and in the future.
But without fixing the banks, energy and trade with China, the lift provided by the stimulus package will be temporary and unemployment will rise again. The economy would then require progressively larger stimulus packages -- and foreign borrowing to finance them -- to keep Americans employed. Eventually, the foreign line of credit would run out, and widespread unemployment, depression and economic decline would follow.
Politically correct promises to create millions of new jobs producing alternative fuels makes effective presidential campaign slogans, but realistic policies for governing require aggressive development of more conventional oil and gas, as well as non-conventional energy sources, and efforts to improve the energy efficiency of personal transportation. If the Democrats are not willing to drill for more oil off shore and take on the automobile industry’s resistance to significantly higher mileage vehicles, the U.S. economy will be even more indentured to Persian Gulf oil exporters at the end of President-elect Obama’s first term than it is today.
Finally, the dollar is too strong against the Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and other Asian currencies. The Chinese government intervenes in foreign exchange markets to suppress the value of the yuan to gain competitive advantages for Chinese exports, and the yuan sets the pattern for other Asian currencies. Similarly, Beijing subsidizes fuel prices and increasingly requires U.S. manufacturers to make products in China to sell there.
Ending Chinese currency market manipulation and other mercantilist practices are critical to reducing the non-oil U.S. trade deficit, and instigating a recovery in U.S. employment in manufacturing and technology-intensive services that compete in trade. Yet neither President Bush nor congressional leaders like House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer have been willing to seriously challenge China on this issue, and Sens. John McCain and Obama appeared comfortable with continuing their approaches during the campaign.
Now Obama must alter his position and get behind a policy to reverse the trade imbalance with China, or preside over the wholesale destruction of many more U.S. manufacturing jobs.
In the end, without assertive steps to fix trade with China, as well as fix the banks and curtail oil imports, the Bush years will seem like a walk through the park compared to the real income losses Americans will suffer during the Obama years.
The choices for the incoming president are simple. It’s either recovery or depression. Fix the banks, energy policy and the trade situation with China or become America’s Nero.
By Prof. Peter Morici
The Labor Department reported on Jan. 9 that the economy lost 524,000 payroll jobs in December, and average employment was 1.3 million lower in the fourth quarter than in the third quarter. I believe the economy is already in the jaws of a depression.
Companies have shed 2.6 million jobs since December 2007 as the full weight of the banking crisis, trade deficit with China and burdens imposed by high-priced imported oil are bearing down on manufacturing, construction and the broader economy with unrelenting pressure.
Unemployment increased to 7.2% in December. However, factoring in discouraged workers, unemployment is closer to 9.4%. Add workers in part time positions that cannot find full time employment and the hidden unemployment rate is 14.5%.
Recession or Depression?
The economy contracted at about a 5% annual rate in the fourth quarter. This looks worse than a recession to me.
Recessions are like stock market corrections -- after a time, equity prices rebound without government intervention. Federal Reserve interest rate cuts and stimulus tax rebates and spending have shortened the lives and eased the impact of post-World War II recessions, but those policies did not end them. The economy self-corrected.
A depression is not self-correcting. Roosevelt administration stimulus packages -- huge deficit spending -- eased the pain but failed to end the Great Depression. Roosevelt’s policies did not put the U.S. economy on a sustainable growth path because New Deal policies worsened structural problems that pulled the economy down in the first place. For example, the New Deal proliferated monopoly pricing, extended the life of undersized farms, raised structural savings rates, and created a system of home lending too dependent on federally sponsored banks.
The challenges facing President-elect Barack Obama could not be clearer. The current economic slowdown has two structural causes -- bad management practices at the large money center banks and the huge foreign trade deficit. These problems are not self-correcting.
The economy will not recover without fundamental changes in banking and trade policy. A large stimulus package, though necessary, will only give the economy a temporary lift. Then unemployment will rise again and continue at unacceptable levels indefinitely without successively larger stimulus packages and huge federal budget deficits. The economy is in a depression, not a recession
Obama must ensure that the banks use the trillions of dollars in federal bailout assistance to renegotiate mortgages and make new loans to worthy homebuyers and businesses. Obama must make certain that banks do not continue to squander federal largess by padding executive bonuses, acquiring other banks and pursuing new high-return, high-risk lines of businesses in merger activity, carbon trading and complex derivatives.
Industry leaders like Citigroup have announced plans to move in those directions. Many of these bankers enjoyed influence in and contributed generously to the Obama campaign. Now it remains to be seen if a President Obama can stand up to these same bankers and persuade or compel them to act responsibly.
In addition, Obama must address the huge cost of imported oil and the trade deficit with China. Otherwise any effort to resurrect the economy is doomed to create massive foreign borrowing, another round of excessive consumer borrowing, and a second banking crisis that the Treasury and Federal Reserve will not be able to reverse.
Ultimately, reducing the oil import bill will require higher mileage standards for automobiles and assistance to automakers to accelerate the build-out of alternative, high-mileage vehicles. Fixing trade with China will require a tax on dollar-yuan transactions if China continues to refuse to stop subsidizing dollar purchases of yuan to prop up its exports and shift Chinese unemployment to the U.S. manufacturing sector.
Near term, a stimulus package focused on infrastructure is critical for resuscitating growth. The recent round of tax rebate checks ended up in savings accounts or spent at the Wal-Mart on Chinese goods, and did little to create jobs or accelerate growth. Whereas projects to repair roads, rehabilitate schools and refurbish public buildings would create high-paying jobs at home and provide a legacy in capital improvements that assist growth now and in the future.
But without fixing the banks, energy and trade with China, the lift provided by the stimulus package will be temporary and unemployment will rise again. The economy would then require progressively larger stimulus packages -- and foreign borrowing to finance them -- to keep Americans employed. Eventually, the foreign line of credit would run out, and widespread unemployment, depression and economic decline would follow.
Politically correct promises to create millions of new jobs producing alternative fuels makes effective presidential campaign slogans, but realistic policies for governing require aggressive development of more conventional oil and gas, as well as non-conventional energy sources, and efforts to improve the energy efficiency of personal transportation. If the Democrats are not willing to drill for more oil off shore and take on the automobile industry’s resistance to significantly higher mileage vehicles, the U.S. economy will be even more indentured to Persian Gulf oil exporters at the end of President-elect Obama’s first term than it is today.
Finally, the dollar is too strong against the Chinese yuan, Japanese yen and other Asian currencies. The Chinese government intervenes in foreign exchange markets to suppress the value of the yuan to gain competitive advantages for Chinese exports, and the yuan sets the pattern for other Asian currencies. Similarly, Beijing subsidizes fuel prices and increasingly requires U.S. manufacturers to make products in China to sell there.
Ending Chinese currency market manipulation and other mercantilist practices are critical to reducing the non-oil U.S. trade deficit, and instigating a recovery in U.S. employment in manufacturing and technology-intensive services that compete in trade. Yet neither President Bush nor congressional leaders like House Ways and Means Chairman Charles Rangel and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer have been willing to seriously challenge China on this issue, and Sens. John McCain and Obama appeared comfortable with continuing their approaches during the campaign.
Now Obama must alter his position and get behind a policy to reverse the trade imbalance with China, or preside over the wholesale destruction of many more U.S. manufacturing jobs.
In the end, without assertive steps to fix trade with China, as well as fix the banks and curtail oil imports, the Bush years will seem like a walk through the park compared to the real income losses Americans will suffer during the Obama years.
The choices for the incoming president are simple. It’s either recovery or depression. Fix the banks, energy policy and the trade situation with China or become America’s Nero.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Future Shock at the Army Science Conference
Go to Original
By Nick Turse
Eco-Explosives, a Bleeding BEAR, and the Armani-Clad Super Soldier
By Nick Turse
Eco-Explosives, a Bleeding BEAR, and the Armani-Clad Super Soldier
[Research support for this article was provided by the Investigative Fund at the Nation Institute.]
On paper, every session looked like gold to me. Technology and the Warfighter. Neuroscience and Its Potential Applications. Lethality Technologies. Autonomous/Unmanned Systems. (Robots!)
But when I got to the luxury hotel in sunny Orlando, Florida, for the 26th Army Science Conference, all that potentially glittered, it often seemed, was nowhere to be found -- except, perhaps, in the threads of the unlikeliest of military uniforms.
I expected to hear about nefarious new technologies. To see tomorrow's killing machines in a dazzling exhibit hall. To learn something about the Army's secret plans for the coming decades. To be awed -- or disgusted -- by a peek at the next 50 years of war-making.
What I stumbled into, however, seemed more like a cross between a dumbed-down academic conference and a weekend wealth expo, paired with an exhibit hall whose contents might not have rivaled those of a regional auto show. I came away knowing less about the next half century of lethal technologies than the last eight years of wheel-spinning, never-winning occupations of foreign lands.
If you didn't know that the Army held its science conference last month -- much less that they've been going on biennially since 1957 -- you can't be faulted. Only a handful of reporters were on the premises, most of them with small defense industry publications.
Officially, according to its own publicity handout, the conference was intended "to promote and strategically communicate that the Army is a high-tech force, enable the public to understand what the Army S&T [science and technology] community does to support the Soldier, and enable conference attendees to better appreciate the potential emerging technologies have to provide disruptive capabilities to our Soldiers in the future."
In reality, it was a junket for Army civilian personnel, enlisted troops, and officers, along with academic researchers from top universities, representatives of defense contractors, a handful of foreign military folks from across the globe, and, for one day, about 100 grade school children. It was a chance for the thousand or so attendees to schmooze and booze, compare notes, and trade business cards.
"Osteomyelitis Treatment with Nanometer-sized Hydroxyapatite Particles as a Delivery Vehicle for a Ciprofloxacin-bisphosphonate Conjugate; New Fluoroquinolone-bisphosphonate Derivatives Show Similar Binding Affinity to Hydroxyapatite and Improved Antibacterial Activity Against Drug-resistant Pathogens."
Then there was the exhibit hall.
A Disembodied Head, a Cobra, and a Bleeding BEAR
With a military budget approaching a trillion dollars, you'd think at least the exhibits would wow you. No such luck. At the entrance to the "Coquina Ballroom" was no futuristic space tank, but an old Canadian Cougar -- a 1970s-vintage general purpose armored vehicle loaned to the U.S. Army by America's northern neighbors for research purposes. The first time I passed it, I was heading for a press-only preview of the latest innovation produced by the Institute for Creative Technologies -- an Army-founded and funded center at the University of Southern California set up in 1999 "to build a partnership among the entertainment industry, army and academia with the goal of creating synthetic experiences so compelling that participants react as if they are real."
The only thing less impressive than the press corps on hand for that day's unveiling (two slightly rumpled "defense" reporters and me) was the unveiled itself: an interactive 360-degree, 3D holographic display. Sure, it sounds impressive, but if, back in 1977, you saw that fake Princess Leia hologram in Star Wars, then you're already, in your imagination, light years ahead of what the military has produced. In fact, if you caught CNN reporter Jessica Yellin appearing by hologram from Chicago in Wolf Blitzer's studio on election night (and you were me), you might have wondered whether you shouldn't have been attending the latest Cable News Science Conference rather than this one.
Basically, what I saw was a man sitting behind a curtain while his head was projected onto a nearby fast-spinning piece of polished metal. In other words, a black-and-white, three-dimensional, disembodied head right out of some campy 1950s sci-fi film "spoke" to us via a perfectly ordinary microphone and speaker set-up. When perfected, claimed ICT, the technology would be used for 3D visual communication, 3D gestures evidently being considered vastly superior to the 2D variant on or off the battlefield.
I walked away convinced that Dick Tracy could have done it a lot better. The only advantage of the current Army system is that it should be fairly cheap to reproduce -- now that they know how to do it -- since it uses relatively low-tech, off-the-shelf (if modded out) components. Why they need to do it in the first place isn't so clear.
But hope springs eternal… so I headed for the nearby robot exhibits where a pitchman was touting one upcoming battlefield model in a slightly defensive fashion: "It's not the T-1000, but we're workin' on it." He was referring, of course, to the morphing late-model Terminator that tried to take out Arnold Schwarzenegger (aka model T-101) in Terminator 2.
The sparse audience was noticeably underwhelmed, as his robot lacked anything approaching a liquid metal structure or even a Schwarzeneggerian android physique. It was, in fact, a little tracked vehicle resembling a slightly bulked up, if markedly slower, radio-controlled toy car. It certainly looked ready for the battlefield -- of my childhood playroom floor, where it could have taken on my Milton Bradley-made programmable, futuristic toy tank, Big Trak.
Another nearby 'bot was BEAR -- the Battlefield Extraction Assist Robot -- a four-foot-tall would-be rescue automaton with tank treads. Its claim to fame seems to be that it can rear up to six feet tall, with its tracks becoming legs, and walk. Of course, with its rudimentary teddy bear head, it's likely to crack up friend and foe alike on any futuristic battlescape.
I'd read about BEAR for years, but had never seen it in person (so to speak). Not only was it remarkably balky, but it bore a disappointing lack of resemblance to the renderings of it on the website of its maker, Vecna Robotics. One of its pitchmen spent a great deal of time kicking very specific objects into a very specific position so BEAR could actually lift them -- not exactly a battlefield likelihood -- while another gave an apologetic spiel explaining the robot's many drawbacks, including its low battery life. "Obviously, this couldn't go on a battlefield," he said. Soon after, red liquid began to pool on the floor just beneath the BEAR. "It bleeds like a human, too," one sarcastic conference-goer remarked as the robot hemorrhaged hydraulic fluid.
Strapped into a Cobra helicopter gunship simulator -- actually the cockpit of an old chopper best known for its service in Vietnam -- I was a BEAR-like bust myself. Pilots, I was assured, can pick up the system within 10 minutes and indeed the woman strapped in when I got there -- the self-proclaimed "world's worst video game player" -- had just done a serviceable job of "flying" the Cobra and knocking out three enemy vehicles on its surprisingly low-tech video game screen. Donning a wired-up flight vest that buzzes your body whenever your helicopter is drifting, I took a seat at the controls. My lower brain, the designer assured me, would take over and I'd steer intuitively.
Not a chance. A "virtual wind" caused the copter to drift and I fired way too wide at the enemy tank and the mobile missile launcher, even with the most generous blast-radius imaginable; then I missed an enemy copter too, which was just getting away when I launched a second rocket that exploded nowhere nearby but somehow caused it to erupt in a fireball anyway. My performance was all too pathetic, given that the simulator struck me as state-of-the-art -- circa 1997. Humbled by the chopped-up chopper with Nintendo 64-quality graphics, I wandered off.
On opening night, I found myself walking in the wake of a French General who seemed to be everywhere at the conference, with her aide de camp always in tow. She was drinking red wine (the aide, a Bud) and their path through a sea of pasta, pork, and turkey-gorging corporate suits, federally-funded professors, and military men and women taking advantage of the one-night-only buffet seemed hardly less aimless than mine.
Still, I pressed on, past a giant orb that looked like a gravitationally-challenged weather balloon -- actually, a DSCT or Deployable Satellite Communication Terminal portable satellite system -- until I stumbled upon the "Future Force Warrior," accompanied by Jean-Louis ("Dutch") DeGay, an Army veteran who serves as a civilian equipment specialist at the U.S. Army Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center.
The Armani-Clad Super Soldier
Early in the decade, the Army began promoting the idea of the "Future Force Warrior" -- then known as the "Objective Force Warrior." It was touted as a robo-suit with on-board computers, advanced armor, and integrated weapons systems that, when introduced around 2020, would revolutionize land warfare. The jet-black suit was going to transform every soldier into an advanced exoskeleton-clad cyborg. The United States would instantly have an army of high-performance Darth Vaders, not pathetically human, ground-pounding grunts.
Today, the date for fielding the super-soldier suit has been pushed to 2030, while the old mock-up, after so many appearances, is starting to show its age. And it's not even black. The tacky-looking tan outfit proved a mix of glittery, gold-flecked clingy fabric and plastic armor pieces -- with a motocross-like helmet that encapsulates the whole head and hides the face behind a visor. It would have been laughed out of the nearest sci-fi convention.
Still, that didn't stop the Army from, once again, formally unveiling the Future Force Warrior during an afternoon panel discussion, and touting the project as a great leap forward, an "F-16 on legs concept." In a corridor behind the scenes, the costumed character was awaiting his moment to stride out in front of the audience. From far away, he might have looked almost ready to take on space aliens à la Master Chief from the Halo video games but, close up, he had a nasty case of static cling and needed an attendant to help keep the suit's stretchy, shimmery fabric from bunching up at the ankles.
"Nobody's gonna want to take your picture without your helmet on," DeGay told the Army's lone costumed character as a woman approached with a digital camera. The poor staff sergeant inside the suit grimaced. He had already taken a day's punishment -- people constantly asking if the suit was too hot (it is!) or uncomfortable (it is!). "I love that everybody asks that. Everybody either asks him that or hits him. That's the two things that always happen," DeGay said with a laugh. "You were on the ground 20 minutes and somebody hit ya and it was a woman."
The super soldier dutifully donned the helmet for the photo. "I've gotten a lot of requests," said DeGay. "Is he available for parties, graduations, bar mitzvahs?" A slightly drunk attendee suddenly began to razz the super-soldier. "How do you feel about the glittery shirt? Does it make you feel tough?"
DeGay promptly interjected that the suit's sparkly fabric had an absurd backstory. "We were trying to find replacements. We did a fabric search and came to find out it's Armani. There were only four yards left. It's about $320 a yard… This is actually an end roll off Armani and we took the last five yards of it that exists. And because it's Armani, we heated it up and dyed it and changed the colors. It's kinda like taking a big poop on the hood of a Ferrari."
The picture taken, the Army's living plastic-clad prop shifted his weight and took off his helmet, while DeGay added a final quip. "At least," he told the sergeant, "you can say for once in your Army career you wore Armani."
Going Green
What explosives can do to a human body isn't pretty. After all, they can turn what once was a foot into an ankle with an unnatural fleshy stump on the end, or a working eye into a useless perpetual wink. When you've seen it all up close, it's hard not to shake your head on first hearing about green explosives, but that's what the Army's working on.
Don't get me wrong. On some level, there is merit in the work. While more people are aware of the deleterious health effects of the depleted uranium (DU) projectiles the U.S. military now regularly uses in its wars, there are many other types of munitions whose chemical components, in addition to their destructive purpose, are dangerous to human health and the environment. Typical would be RDX (Hexahydro-1, 3, 5-trinitro-1, 3, 5-triazine).
Dr. Betsy Rice, a slight scientist who's worked for the Army for about 20 years, explained with a twang, "We are tasked with trying to find replacements for RDX, a conventional explosive that's widely used. RDX is a neurotoxin and it's a major contaminant of training grounds, so there is a great need to replace this with something -- an environmentally friendly alternative." And to that end, the U.S. Army Research Laboratory, where she's a research chemist in the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate, is striving to create the "most environmentally-friendly explosive product known to man."
The would-be green explosive, polynitrogen, is currently too unstable to be used, but her lab is hard at work solving that problem. If you want call it that. Rice doesn't. To her, it's "a really fun project." Fun and green! It was as if the polynitrogen project was going to yield clean, cheap energy, instead of maiming and killing people in an ecologically-friendly way. But nobody seemed to blink and the conference rolled along.
Top Grunt: We Can't Keep Up With al-Qaeda
Through the four days of the Army Science Conference, two obvious elephants -- or were they 800-pound gorillas? -- inhabited every room, corridor, and common area: the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. People regularly talked about both wars without significantly addressing their impact in terms of science and technology, let alone larger issues.
Post-surge, it was certainly easier for the attendees to discuss the younger of the two conflicts in which many seemed to take pride, even though the ongoing, financially ruinous occupation had led to the deaths of huge numbers of Iraqis. That was, after all, about as close as the highest tech military on the planet could actually come to a success story. The formerly successful war in Afghanistan, now raging into its eighth year, was far more wince-worthy, even though attendees clearly preferred to look upon it as an upcoming challenge -- and, of course, testing ground for Army science and technology -- not as a longstanding catastrophe.
But as one panel discussion drew to a close, one of the top-ranking enlisted men in the Army, a highly decorated veteran of the Global War on Terror, made a startling admission. He was discussing the typical pack-laden, weapons-toting, up-armored U.S. soldier "goin' up and down the mountains of Afghanistan right now." As he pointed out, that grunt could not haul one more piece of gear. "Nor is there a soldier," he continued in a burst of candor, "that, currently configured, can keep up with al-Qaeda because we're chasing guys that are armed with AK-47s and tennis shoes."
I asked him later whether it made sense to spend close to $20,000, the average price today to kit up (as the British might say) a soldier who can't keep up with the insurgents he is meant to track down. Has anyone considered, I asked, going back to the $1,900 it cost to outfit a less encumbered grunt of the Vietnam War era who could, assuredly, have kept better pace with today's guerillas.
As I learned at this conference, however, questions like these go nowhere in a big hurry. Instead, he backpedaled quickly, declaring that, in Afghanistan, "we're gettin' it done." A colleague of the same rank, and fellow GWOT veteran, quickly jumped in, pointing out that today's bulky body armor has saved a lot of lives. As for today's insurgents, he said, "Yeah, I can't run the mountain with them, but I'll still get them -- eventually."
The big-picture lesson seemed to be that current Army technology has made American wars feasible, but interminable. Heavy body armor has helped keep U.S. combat deaths down to a level acceptable to the American public; but, of course, the same bulky gear helps ensure that fast-moving insurgents, who already know the land well, live to fight another day. And, since the enemy is unlikely to be caught on foot, U.S. troops become ever more reliant on air or artillery strikes that are likely to kill civilians in rural Afghanistan and so recruit more insurgents. The scenario suggested is one that's already in operation: an endless cycle of American failure and foreign carnage enabled, implemented, and exacerbated by recent technological innovations.
On paper, advances in Army science and technology research tended to sound scary and look impressive. In practice, as the 26th Army Science Conference showed, seeing is believing. I had expected everything to be big, bad, and bellicose; what I found fit better with what we already know about the realities of an over-bloated, over-stressed, over-strained Pentagon. While glossy brochures and programs were festooned with pictures of the black-clad Future Force Warrior, Army robots, and dazzling screen shots of video-game-like simulators, these gilded graphics couldn't obscure the disappointing realities and air of desperation lurking just below the surface of the conference.
So I left Orlando with more questions than answers when it comes to the future of the U.S. Army.
Is there any possibility that holography will really revolutionize Army communications early enough to matter? Or is this just an area where taxpayers are funding needlessly militarized science projects?
Will the mildly absurd dream of an environmentally-safe explosive be realized anytime soon? Will the Army's future consist of battalions of armed Terminators, as many fear, or will the next generation of robots cost a fortune and bleed out like BEAR?
What does it say about the U.S. Army when its prototype future super-soldier models haute couture from a high-priced, glittery foreign fashion house?
And since Armani's run out of the Army's favorite fabric, does Dolce & Gabbana have a shot?
'War on terror' was wrong
Go to Original
By David Miliband
The phrase gives a false idea of a unified global enemy, and encourages a primarily military reply
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai seven weeks ago sent shock waves around the world. Now all eyes are fixed on the Middle East, where Israel's response to Hamas's rockets, a ferocious military campaign, has already left a thousand Gazans dead.
Seven years on from 9/11 it is clear that we need to take a fundamental look at our efforts to prevent extremism and its terrible offspring, terrorist violence. Since 9/11, the notion of a "war on terror" has defined the terrain. The phrase had some merit: it captured the gravity of the threats, the need for solidarity, and the need to respond urgently - where necessary, with force. But ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken. The issue is not whether we need to attack the use of terror at its roots, with all the tools available. We must. The question is how.
The idea of a "war on terror" gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The reality is that the motivations and identities of terrorist groups are disparate. Lashkar-e-Taiba has roots in Pakistan and says its cause is Kashmir. Hezbollah says it stands for resistance to occupation of the Golan Heights. The Shia and Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq have myriad demands. They are as diverse as the 1970s European movements of the IRA, Baader-Meinhof, and Eta. All used terrorism and sometimes they supported each other, but their causes were not unified and their cooperation was opportunistic. So it is today.
The more we lump terrorist groups together and draw the battle lines as a simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil, the more we play into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common. Terrorist groups need to be tackled at root, interdicting flows of weapons and finance, exposing the shallowness of their claims, channelling their followers into democratic politics.
The "war on terror" also implied that the correct response was primarily military. But as General Petraeus said to me and others in Iraq, the coalition there could not kill its way out of the problems of insurgency and civil strife.
This is what divides supporters and opponents of the military action in Gaza. Similar issues are raised by the debate about the response to the Mumbai attacks. Those who were responsible must be brought to justice and the government of Pakistan must take urgent and effective action to break up terror networks on its soil. But on my visit to south Asia this week, I am arguing that the best antidote to the terrorist threat in the long term is cooperation. Although I understand the current difficulties, resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders.
We must respond to terrorism by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, for it is the cornerstone of the democratic society. We must uphold our commitments to human rights and civil liberties at home and abroad. That is surely the lesson of Guantánamo and it is why we welcome President-elect Obama's commitment to close it.
The call for a "war on terror" was a call to arms, an attempt to build solidarity for a fight against a single shared enemy. But the foundation for solidarity between peoples and nations should be based not on who we are against, but on the idea of who we are and the values we share. Terrorists succeed when they render countries fearful and vindictive; when they sow division and animosity; when they force countries to respond with violence and repression. The best response is to refuse to be cowed.
By David Miliband
The phrase gives a false idea of a unified global enemy, and encourages a primarily military reply
The terrorist attacks in Mumbai seven weeks ago sent shock waves around the world. Now all eyes are fixed on the Middle East, where Israel's response to Hamas's rockets, a ferocious military campaign, has already left a thousand Gazans dead.
Seven years on from 9/11 it is clear that we need to take a fundamental look at our efforts to prevent extremism and its terrible offspring, terrorist violence. Since 9/11, the notion of a "war on terror" has defined the terrain. The phrase had some merit: it captured the gravity of the threats, the need for solidarity, and the need to respond urgently - where necessary, with force. But ultimately, the notion is misleading and mistaken. The issue is not whether we need to attack the use of terror at its roots, with all the tools available. We must. The question is how.
The idea of a "war on terror" gave the impression of a unified, transnational enemy, embodied in the figure of Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The reality is that the motivations and identities of terrorist groups are disparate. Lashkar-e-Taiba has roots in Pakistan and says its cause is Kashmir. Hezbollah says it stands for resistance to occupation of the Golan Heights. The Shia and Sunni insurgent groups in Iraq have myriad demands. They are as diverse as the 1970s European movements of the IRA, Baader-Meinhof, and Eta. All used terrorism and sometimes they supported each other, but their causes were not unified and their cooperation was opportunistic. So it is today.
The more we lump terrorist groups together and draw the battle lines as a simple binary struggle between moderates and extremists, or good and evil, the more we play into the hands of those seeking to unify groups with little in common. Terrorist groups need to be tackled at root, interdicting flows of weapons and finance, exposing the shallowness of their claims, channelling their followers into democratic politics.
The "war on terror" also implied that the correct response was primarily military. But as General Petraeus said to me and others in Iraq, the coalition there could not kill its way out of the problems of insurgency and civil strife.
This is what divides supporters and opponents of the military action in Gaza. Similar issues are raised by the debate about the response to the Mumbai attacks. Those who were responsible must be brought to justice and the government of Pakistan must take urgent and effective action to break up terror networks on its soil. But on my visit to south Asia this week, I am arguing that the best antidote to the terrorist threat in the long term is cooperation. Although I understand the current difficulties, resolution of the dispute over Kashmir would help deny extremists in the region one of their main calls to arms, and allow Pakistani authorities to focus more effectively on tackling the threat on their western borders.
We must respond to terrorism by championing the rule of law, not subordinating it, for it is the cornerstone of the democratic society. We must uphold our commitments to human rights and civil liberties at home and abroad. That is surely the lesson of Guantánamo and it is why we welcome President-elect Obama's commitment to close it.
The call for a "war on terror" was a call to arms, an attempt to build solidarity for a fight against a single shared enemy. But the foundation for solidarity between peoples and nations should be based not on who we are against, but on the idea of who we are and the values we share. Terrorists succeed when they render countries fearful and vindictive; when they sow division and animosity; when they force countries to respond with violence and repression. The best response is to refuse to be cowed.
U.S. rabbis urge Obama to push for immediate Gaza truce
Go to Original
By Natasha Mozgavaya
A group of rabbis and other religious leaders bought advertising space in the New York Times this week to call for U.S. president-elect Barack Obama to push for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
The ad, placed by the Network of Spiritual Progressives and claiming to represent more than 2,800 other religious, cultural and community leaders, urges Obama to convene an international Middle East peace conference to "facilitate a lasting and just settlement for all parties."
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, who convened the group, said the group had to buy the advertising space because the national newspapers would not make room for their perspective.
"They feel that AIPAC's choice is overwhelming, and there's no space left for empathy or objective coverage - the media, according to the group, simply ignored the voice of the Jewish opposition to war in Gaza," Rabbi Lerner said.
Eleven prominent British Jews, including Baroness Julia Neuberger, published a letter in The Observer newspaper last weekend expressing their "horror" at the Gaza conflict and calling on Israel to stop its military campaign.
Israel has been waging an offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip since December 27. The operation, launched in order to halt cross-border rocket fire, has come under heavy criticism for the high number of civilian casualties.
By Natasha Mozgavaya
A group of rabbis and other religious leaders bought advertising space in the New York Times this week to call for U.S. president-elect Barack Obama to push for an immediate cease-fire in the Gaza Strip.
The ad, placed by the Network of Spiritual Progressives and claiming to represent more than 2,800 other religious, cultural and community leaders, urges Obama to convene an international Middle East peace conference to "facilitate a lasting and just settlement for all parties."
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun magazine, who convened the group, said the group had to buy the advertising space because the national newspapers would not make room for their perspective.
"They feel that AIPAC's choice is overwhelming, and there's no space left for empathy or objective coverage - the media, according to the group, simply ignored the voice of the Jewish opposition to war in Gaza," Rabbi Lerner said.
Eleven prominent British Jews, including Baroness Julia Neuberger, published a letter in The Observer newspaper last weekend expressing their "horror" at the Gaza conflict and calling on Israel to stop its military campaign.
Israel has been waging an offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip since December 27. The operation, launched in order to halt cross-border rocket fire, has come under heavy criticism for the high number of civilian casualties.
UN headquarters in Gaza hit by Israeli 'white phosphorus' shells
Go to Original
By Sheera Frenkel and Philippe Naughton
The main UN compound in Gaza was left in flames today after being struck by Israeli artillery fire, and a spokesman said that the building had been hit by shells containing the incendiary agent white phosphorus.
The attack on the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) came as Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, arrived in Israel on a peace mission and plunged Israel's relations with the world body to a new low.
Mr Ban expressed his "strong protest and outrage" at the shelling and demanded an investigation, only to be told by apologetic Israeli leaders that their forces had been returning fire from within the UN compound.
"The Israeli forces were attacked from there and their response was severe," Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, told the UN chief, according to a statement released by his office.
"We do not want such incidents to take place and I am sorry for it but I don’t know if you know, but Hamas fired from the UNRWA site. This is a sad incident and I apologise for it."
UNWRA, which looks after around four million Palestinian refugees in the region, suspended its operations in Gaza after the attack, in which three of its employees were injured.
Chris Gunness, a UNRWA spokesman, said that the building had been used to shelter hundreds of people fleeing Israel’s 20-day offensive in Gaza. He said that pallets with supplies desperately needed by Palestinians in Gaza were on fire.
"What more stark symbolism do you need?" he said. "You can’t put out white phosphorus with traditional methods such as fire extinguishers. You need sand, we don’t have sand."
The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus shells in the Gaza offensive, although an investigation by The Times has revealed that dozens of Palestinians in Gaza have sustained serious injuries from the substance, which burns at extremely high temperatures.
The Geneva Convention of 1980 proscribes the use of white phosphorus as a weapon of war in civilian areas, although it can be used to create a smokescreen. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said today that all weapons used in Gaza were "within the scope of international law".
The attack on the UN compound came as Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza City and unleashed their heaviest shelling on its crowded neighbourhoods in three weeks of war. At least 15 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attacks, medical officials said, pushing the death toll up towards 1,100 — a level that Mr Ban described as "unbearable".
It was not clear whether the escalation signalled a new phase in the conflict. Israel has held back from all-out urban warfare in the narrow alleyways of Gaza's cities, where Hamas militants are more familiar with the lay of the land.
Black smoke billowed over Gaza City, terrifying civilians who said that they had "nowhere left to hide" from the relentless shelling.
"I am telling you that Gaza is on fire, everything is under attack. We cannot begin to answer all the calls for help, it is desperate. We cannot reach the people, everyone is trapped and we do not know how to help them," said Doctor Moussa El Haddad at Shifa Hospital.
Maha El-Sheiky, 36, said that she fled her home in the western suburbs of Gaza City two days ago, moving her family into a school in the centre of the city. "We thought it would be safer here. But now there is shelling everywhere. It is schools and mosques and hospitals. We don’t know what will be next," she said. "We are hiding, it is in God’s hands."
There were reports that the al-Quds hospital in the Tal El Hawa district, Gaza's second-largest, had been shelled, while more than 500 patients were being treated inside.
An explosion also blasted a tower block that houses the offices of Reuters and several other media organisations, injuring a journalist working for the Abu Dhabi television channel.
Reuters journalists working at the time said it appeared that the southern side of the 13th floor of the Al-Shurouq Tower in the city centre had been struck by an Israeli missile or shell. Reuters evacuated its bureau.
Several organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, said that they were "certain" that Israel was using white phosphorus shells in Gaza. Human rights workers said that the use of phosphorus in the densely populated Gaza City could constitute a war crime.
Israel launched the offensive on December 27 in an effort to stop militant rocket fire from Gaza that has terrorised hundreds of thousands of Israelis. It says that it will press ahead until it receives guarantees of a complete halt to rocket fire and an end to weapons smuggling into Gaza from neighbouring Egypt.
The attack on the UN compound prompted international protests.
Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office Minister, said that there was "absolutely no excuse" for the shelling, which, he said, reminded him of a similar attack on a UN observation post during the Israeli offensive into Lebanon in 2006.
He told peers: "With over 1,000 people now dead in Gaza, many of them civilians and children, the urgent need for a diplomatic solution is clear. A robust and immediate ceasefire is the only way the current situation in Gaza can be addressed."
William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "The shelling of the UN Headquarters in Gaza is unacceptable. This undercuts efforts to bring relief to the people of Gaza and is against Israel’s own interests. The UNWRA provides food and aid to over a million Palestinian refugees in Gaza.
"The suspension of its operations will bring more misery to civilians. We desperately need a ceasefire by both sides, not further escalation. Both sides must meet their obligations to protect aid workers at all times."
The conflict was also discussed at talks between Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, in Berlin. Aides said that Mr Brown was expected to speak to Mr Ban later today.
By Sheera Frenkel and Philippe Naughton
The main UN compound in Gaza was left in flames today after being struck by Israeli artillery fire, and a spokesman said that the building had been hit by shells containing the incendiary agent white phosphorus.
The attack on the headquarters of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) came as Ban Ki Moon, the UN Secretary-General, arrived in Israel on a peace mission and plunged Israel's relations with the world body to a new low.
Mr Ban expressed his "strong protest and outrage" at the shelling and demanded an investigation, only to be told by apologetic Israeli leaders that their forces had been returning fire from within the UN compound.
"The Israeli forces were attacked from there and their response was severe," Ehud Olmert, the Prime Minister, told the UN chief, according to a statement released by his office.
"We do not want such incidents to take place and I am sorry for it but I don’t know if you know, but Hamas fired from the UNRWA site. This is a sad incident and I apologise for it."
UNWRA, which looks after around four million Palestinian refugees in the region, suspended its operations in Gaza after the attack, in which three of its employees were injured.
Chris Gunness, a UNRWA spokesman, said that the building had been used to shelter hundreds of people fleeing Israel’s 20-day offensive in Gaza. He said that pallets with supplies desperately needed by Palestinians in Gaza were on fire.
"What more stark symbolism do you need?" he said. "You can’t put out white phosphorus with traditional methods such as fire extinguishers. You need sand, we don’t have sand."
The Israeli military has denied using white phosphorus shells in the Gaza offensive, although an investigation by The Times has revealed that dozens of Palestinians in Gaza have sustained serious injuries from the substance, which burns at extremely high temperatures.
The Geneva Convention of 1980 proscribes the use of white phosphorus as a weapon of war in civilian areas, although it can be used to create a smokescreen. The Israel Defence Forces (IDF) said today that all weapons used in Gaza were "within the scope of international law".
The attack on the UN compound came as Israeli forces pushed deeper into Gaza City and unleashed their heaviest shelling on its crowded neighbourhoods in three weeks of war. At least 15 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attacks, medical officials said, pushing the death toll up towards 1,100 — a level that Mr Ban described as "unbearable".
It was not clear whether the escalation signalled a new phase in the conflict. Israel has held back from all-out urban warfare in the narrow alleyways of Gaza's cities, where Hamas militants are more familiar with the lay of the land.
Black smoke billowed over Gaza City, terrifying civilians who said that they had "nowhere left to hide" from the relentless shelling.
"I am telling you that Gaza is on fire, everything is under attack. We cannot begin to answer all the calls for help, it is desperate. We cannot reach the people, everyone is trapped and we do not know how to help them," said Doctor Moussa El Haddad at Shifa Hospital.
Maha El-Sheiky, 36, said that she fled her home in the western suburbs of Gaza City two days ago, moving her family into a school in the centre of the city. "We thought it would be safer here. But now there is shelling everywhere. It is schools and mosques and hospitals. We don’t know what will be next," she said. "We are hiding, it is in God’s hands."
There were reports that the al-Quds hospital in the Tal El Hawa district, Gaza's second-largest, had been shelled, while more than 500 patients were being treated inside.
An explosion also blasted a tower block that houses the offices of Reuters and several other media organisations, injuring a journalist working for the Abu Dhabi television channel.
Reuters journalists working at the time said it appeared that the southern side of the 13th floor of the Al-Shurouq Tower in the city centre had been struck by an Israeli missile or shell. Reuters evacuated its bureau.
Several organisations, including the International Committee of the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch, said that they were "certain" that Israel was using white phosphorus shells in Gaza. Human rights workers said that the use of phosphorus in the densely populated Gaza City could constitute a war crime.
Israel launched the offensive on December 27 in an effort to stop militant rocket fire from Gaza that has terrorised hundreds of thousands of Israelis. It says that it will press ahead until it receives guarantees of a complete halt to rocket fire and an end to weapons smuggling into Gaza from neighbouring Egypt.
The attack on the UN compound prompted international protests.
Lord Malloch-Brown, the Foreign Office Minister, said that there was "absolutely no excuse" for the shelling, which, he said, reminded him of a similar attack on a UN observation post during the Israeli offensive into Lebanon in 2006.
He told peers: "With over 1,000 people now dead in Gaza, many of them civilians and children, the urgent need for a diplomatic solution is clear. A robust and immediate ceasefire is the only way the current situation in Gaza can be addressed."
William Hague, the Shadow Foreign Secretary, said: "The shelling of the UN Headquarters in Gaza is unacceptable. This undercuts efforts to bring relief to the people of Gaza and is against Israel’s own interests. The UNWRA provides food and aid to over a million Palestinian refugees in Gaza.
"The suspension of its operations will bring more misery to civilians. We desperately need a ceasefire by both sides, not further escalation. Both sides must meet their obligations to protect aid workers at all times."
The conflict was also discussed at talks between Gordon Brown and Angela Merkel, the German Chancellor, in Berlin. Aides said that Mr Brown was expected to speak to Mr Ban later today.
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