Our blindness and wishful thinking that these things aren't so are an intrinsic part of the system that kills. We are separated from these events by distance and depend on others to tell us what is going on.
The foreign journalists that theoretically exist to report to us the simple facts share these same flaws and make it even harder for themselves to get to the heart of the matter by living almost without exception in Israeli population areas.
As their even more remote editors relentlessly demand the "latest" information rather than insisting on the whole story, they can do no more than skip like stones on the shallow surface of reality, a process as inevitable as knowing a 1,000 kilogram bomb dropped on an apartment building will kill civilians.
Those who slow down, dig deeper, and report the obvious patterns find their stories spiked, their editors' mailboxes filled with angry letters from people who never read a word of their story and, if needed to finish them off, whispered accusations that they are motivated by a hatred of Jews.
 |
| Original AFP caption: A handout photograph released by the Israeli army shows an Israeli navy vessel shelling a beach in the northern Gaza Strip on 09 June 2006. The killing of eight Palestinians at a seaside picnic in Gaza has left Israel's embarrassed government scrambling to control the damage ahead of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's first trip to Europe. (IDF/File) |
 |
| This image taken from TV footage shows Huda Ghalya weeping next to the body of her father who was killed during a beach-side picnic on June 9. (Ramatan News Agency/File) |
After the 9 June 2006 Israeli shelling of the beach in Gaza that killed eight Palestinians, including seven members of the same family, and injured 32 civilians, including 13 children, the Israeli government initially expressed it's "deep regret" at the incident. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert promised an investigation, stating that "there has never been - and there isn't now - a policy of attacking civilians," a blatant but reassuring lie for those of us who want to believe that these things aren't so.
In the days following the event, Israel saw an opportunity and changed its story. Today, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' website prominently has posted a Jerusalem Post article that denies that Israel was responsible and offers the alternate possibility of a Palestinian mine. The media machine kicks in, people start to weigh in on both sides and -- suddenly -- the world is paralyzed, not knowing who or what to believe, however incredible Israel's latest story is.
 |
| The article linked from the Israeli Foreign Ministry's website. |
Today, we saw the full power of Olmert's lie, as another Israeli attack was carried out in Gaza in broad daylight. Witnesses reported that an Israeli aircraft fired a missile at a van on a busy highway. Civilians ran to help the passengers, two members of Islamic Jihad, and the aircraft fired a second missile into the crowd.
 |
| Palestinian medics examine a child wounded in an Israeli air strike at a car carrying militants in the northern Gaza June 13, 2006. A total of ten people, including two children and two militants, were killed in the air strike. (MaanImages/Thaeer al-Hassany) |
Eleven people were killed in total, nine of them civilians, and a further 30 civilians were injured. The dead included two medics and two children. As with the 1,000-kilogram bomb on the apartment building, what result other than this carnage could possibly have happened on a busy highway? With the state of the art targeting systems on an F-16, how could the targeting of the crowd possibly be accidental?
Assassinations carried out with heavy weapons in heavily populated areas are nothing new. From the beginning of the Intifada, until 1 May 2006, 552 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli assassinations. Of this number 181, or a third of the total, were innocent bystanders near the assassination target or simply people that ran to help and were killed when additional missiles were fired. (Source: PCHR).
Israeli occupation forces have killed over 3,000 Palestinian civilians since the Intifada began. Israel's contempt for Palestinian life stretches from the privates in its occupying army to its prime minister. Israel kills Palestinian civilians not only intentionally but also routinely, and this has been true for decades. The patterns speak for themselves.
Nigel Parry is one of the founders of the Electronic Intifada. Based in New York, he offers communications solutions "for clients with something to say", through his business, nigelparry.net.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: New "al-Qaeda in Iraq" Boogieman: Abu al-Masri
Thursday June 15th 2006
Kurt Nimmo
No sooner did the corporate media parade gruesome photos of the freshly killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, or the person we are expected to believe was al-Zarqawi, then it set about arranging his successor, as evil Muslim boogiemen must remain front and center in the forever war against manufactured terrorism. "An Egyptian associate of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claims to have succeeded him as the new leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, even though an Islamic Web site said Monday that another man was in power," reports the Bush Ministry of Scary Campfire Stories, Fox News division. "Brig. Gen. Carter Ham said at a Pentagon news conference on Wednesday that Abu al-Masri, whose name surfaced shortly after reports of Zarqawi's death became widespread as a successor, had claimed to be in charge of Al Qaeda in Iraq." In short, the covert op pseudo-gang "al-Qaeda in Iraq" needs a new face, as the demonization of the resistance must continue.
According to Maj. Gen. William Caldwell, "If you had to pick somebody" as the probable new boogieman, it would be Abu al-Masri. Caldwell did not bother to tell us who would do the picking but this is of course a no-brainer-the picking was accomplished in the PSYOP unit at the Pentagon. Several candidates were bantered around the corporate media prior to al-Masri's selection: most notably Abu Abdul-Rahman al-Iraqi, pegged as an "al-Qaeda" leader or "emir" (since he is dead, al-Iraqi was quickly removed from the candidate list) and Abdullah Rashid al-Baghdadi, who we are told is sort of the CEO of the Iraqi resistance (the Mujahedeen Shura Council). Obviously, for the Pentagon, al-Masri has the most attractive skillset and thus he was appointed. Now it is up to the corporate media to build him up, probably only to eventually tear him down, as al-Zarqawi (or rather his stand-in) was torn down with the help of a couple 500lb bombs.
As is usually the case when the organizational chart is shuffled, a bit of tweaking is in order. "We think that Abu Ayyub al-Masri is in fact, probably, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir [the immigrant]. They are probably one and the same," Caldwell admitted. "Al Qaeda in Iraq's new leader is more violent than his predecessor," warns the Arabic daily Asharq al-Awsat. "No one gets appointed to this position without having earned the group's trust and gained fighting experience. Perhaps Abu Hamza had traveled to Afghanistan or Bosnia to fight, or he took up armed resistance after the US military invaded Iraq. He might have carried out a number of operations famous throughout the organization," Dr. Hani al Sibai, head of al-Maqrizi Center in London, told the newspaper.
Abu Hamza al-Muhajir's CV fits the profile. If he did indeed travel "to Afghanistan or Bosnia to fight," he is surely an intel asset, as both operations were run by the CIA and a smattering of other intelligence services. Although the corporate media suffers from an allergic reaction to the truth and prefers official fairy tales, it is a well-documented fact the Clinton administration, under the sway of then CIA director-designate Anthony Lake working out of the National Security Council, "helped turn Bosnia into a militant Islamic base," thus leading to the recruitment of thousands of Mujahideen from the Muslim world, a repeat of the CIA's Afghan operation a decade before, a fact revealed in a generally ignored congressional press release. "The evidence presented in Brendan O'Neill's article [How we trained al-Qa'eda] in the case of Bosnia confirms that Al Qaeda is not an 'outside enemy' but rather a creation of the US military-intelligence apparatus. The same pattern of collaboration between the US military (and indeed NATO) and the Islamic brigades was replicated in Kosovo (1995-99) and Macedonia (2000-2001)," notes Global Research. As the CIA and Pentagon are not wont to discard successful operations-and the CIA has boasted its Afghan operation was the most successful in its long and sordid history-we can assume with a large degree of accuracy the pattern was replicated in Iraq.
Even though Hamza al-Muhajir, as his name suggests, hails from outside of Iraq, it appears the PSYOP micromanagers in the Pentagon are in the process of domesticating "al-Qaeda in Iraq," thus attempting to taint the entire resistance as criminals of the al-Zarqawi stripe.
Eben Kaplan, a CFR "research associate," explains:
Al-Qaeda in Iraq was already in the midst of a steady transformation at the time of Zarqawi's death. The group was initially composed primarily of foreign fighters, but over the last several months it has begun to incorporate many more native fighters in hopes of creating an indigenous home base. "We can no longer talk about a foreign-born al-Qaeda in Iraq," [Fawaz Gerges, a Middle East expert at Sarah Lawrence College] says. Part of the reason for this shift was many of Zarqawi's foreign-born lieutenants had been killed off and his ability to gain new recruits was diminishing. If speculation that al-Muhajir is a foreigner is correct, it runs somewhat against this trend. As Gerges explains, "Even if you have a foreign-born leader, the rank and file of al-Qaeda in Iraq is becoming more Iraqi."
In other words, as the premier globalist organization informs us, the "rank and file" of the Iraqi resistance is indistinguishable from "al-Qaeda." Of course, the Pentagon has worked long and hard to make this so, or at least make the impression so in the minds of Americans, who need to be inculcated with all manner of fantastical nonsense about the Iraqi resistance. It is Job One for the neocon-infested Pentagon to hitch the Iraqi resistance to "al-Qaeda" and thus the attack on America, never mind there is not a shred of evidence "al-Qaeda" had anything to do with the latter event, that is unless you think "inside job" when the word "al-Qaeda" is mentioned.
Original
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: The War on Children
John Pilger
New Statesman
June 14, 2006
The most vulnerable people in Gaza are suffering the worst acute mental and physical trauma as a result of Israel's actions: almost half the population is under 15.
Arthur Miller wrote, "Few of us can easily surrender our belief that society must somehow make sense. The thought that the state has lost its mind and is punishing so many innocent people is intolerable. And so the evidence has to be internally denied."
Miller's truth was a glimpsed reality on television on 9 June when Israeli warships (1) fired on families picnicking on a Gaza beach, killing seven people, including three children and three generations. What that represents is a final solution, agreed by the United States and Israel, to the problem of the Palestinians. While the Israelis fire missiles at Palestinian picnickers and homes in Gaza and the West Bank, the two governments are to starve them. The victims will be mostly children.
This was approved on 23 May by the US House of Representatives, which voted 361-37 to cut off aid to non-government organisations that run a lifeline to occupied Palestine. Israel is withholding Palestinian revenues and tax receipts amounting to $60m a month.
Such collective punishment, identified as a crime against humanity in the Geneva Conventions, evokes the Nazis' strangulation of the Warsaw ghetto and the American economic siege of Iraq in the 1990s. If the perpetrators have lost their minds, as Miller suggested, they appear to understand their barbarism and display their cynicism. "The idea is to put the Palestinians on a diet," joked Dov Weisglass, an adviser to the Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert.
This is the price Palestinians must pay for their democratic elections in January. The majority voted for the "wrong" party, Hamas, which the US and Israel, with their inimitable penchant for pot-calling-the-kettle-black, describe as terrorist. However, terrorism is not the reason for starving the Palestinians, whose prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, had reaffirmed Hamas's commitment to recognise the Jewish state, proposing only that Israel obey international law and respect the borders of 1967. Israel has refused because, with its apartheid wall under construction, its intention is clear: to take over more and more of Palestine, encircling whole villages and eventually Jerusalem.
The sniper's wound
The reason Israel fears Hamas is that Hamas is unlikely to be a trusted collaborator in subju-gating its own people on Israel's behalf. Indeed, the vote for Hamas was actually a vote for peace. Palestinians were fed up with the failures and corruption of the Arafat era. According to the former US president Jimmy Carter, whose Carter Centre verified the Hamas electoral victory, "public opinion polls show that 80 per cent of Palestinians want a peace agreement with Israel".
How ironic this is, considering that the rise of Hamas was due in no small part to the secret support it received from Israel, which, with the US and Britain, wanted Islamists to undermine secular Arabism and its "moderate" dreams of freedom. Hamas refused to play this Machiavellian game and in the face of Israeli assaults maintained a ceasefire for 18 months. The objective of the Israeli attack on the beach at Gaza was clearly to sabotage the ceasefire. This is a time-honoured tactic.
Now, state terror in the form of a medieval siege is to be applied to the most vulnerable. For the Palestinians, a war against their children is hardly new. A 2004 field study published in the British Medical Journal reported that, in the previous four years, "Two-thirds of the 621 children... killed [by the Israelis] at checkpoints...on the way to school, in their homes, died from small arms fire, directed in over half the cases to the head, neck and chest - the sniper's wound." A quarter of Palestinian infants under the age of five are acutely or chronically malnourished. The Israeli wall "will isolate 97 primary health clinics and 11 hospitals from the populations they serve."
The study described "a man in a now fenced-in village near Qalqilya [who] approached the gate with his seriously ill daughter in his arms and begged the soldiers on duty to let him pass so that he could take her to hospital. The soldiers refused."
Gaza, now sealed like an open prison and terrorised by the sonic boom of Israeli fighter aircraft, has a population of which almost half is under 15. Dr Khalid Dahlan, a psychiatrist who heads a children's community health project, told me, "The statistic I personally find unbearable is that 99.4 per cent of the children we studied suffer trauma...99.2 per cent had their homes bombarded; 97.5 per cent were exposed to tear gas; 96.6 per cent witnessed shooting; a third saw family members or neighbours injured or killed."
These children suffer unrelenting nightmares and "night terrors" and the dichotomy of having to cope with these conditions. On the one hand, they dream about becoming doctors and nurses "so they can help others"; on the other, this is then overtaken by an apocalyptic vision of themselves as the next generation of suicide bombers. They experience this invariably after attacks by the Israelis. For some boys, their heroes are no longer football players, but a confusion of Palestinian "martyrs" and even the enemy, "because Israeli soldiers are the strongest and have Apache gunships".
That these children are now to be punished further may be beyond human comprehension, but there is a logic. Over the years, the Palestinians have avoided falling into the abyss of an all-out civil war, knowing this is what the Israelis want. Destroying their elected government while attempting to build a parallel administration around the collusive Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, may well produce, as the Oxford academic Karma Nabulsi wrote, "a Hobbesian vision of an anarchic society...ruled by disparate militias, gangs, religious ideologues and broken into ethnic and religious tribalism, and co-opted collaborationists. Look to the Iraq of today: that is what [Ariel Sharon] had in store for us."
The new "body count"
The struggle in Palestine is an American war, waged from America's most heavily armed foreign military base, Israel. In the west, we are conditioned not to think of the Israeli-Palestinian "conflict" in those terms, just as we are conditioned to think of the Israelis as victims, not illegal and brutal occupiers. This is not to underestimate the initiative of the Israeli state, but without F-16s and Apaches and billions of American taxpayers' dollars, Israel would have made peace with the Palestinians long ago. Since the Second World War, the US has given Israel some $140bn, much of it as armaments. According to the Congressional Research Service, the same "aid" budget was to include $28m "to help [Palestinian] children deal with the current conflict situation" and to provide "basic first aid". That has now been vetoed.
Karma Nabulsi's comparison with Iraq is apposite, for the same "policy" applies there. The capture of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was a wonderful media event: what the philosopher Hannah Arendt called "action as propaganda", and having little bearing on reality. The Americans and those who act as their bullhorn have their demon - even a video game of his house being blown up. The truth is that Zarqawi was largely their creation. His apparent killing serves an important propaganda purpose, distracting us in the west from the American goal of converting Iraq, like Palestine, into a powerless society of ethnic and religious tribalism. Death squads, formed and trained by veterans of the CIA's "counter-insurgency" in central America, are critical to this. The Special Police Commandos, a CIA creation led by former senior intelligence officers in Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, are perhaps the most brutal. The Zarqawi killing and the myths about his importance also deflect from routine massacres by US soldiers, such as the one at Haditha. Even the puppet prime minister Nouri al-Maliki complains that murderous behaviour of US troops is "a daily occurrence". As I learned in Vietnam, a form of serial killing, then known officially as "body count", is the way the Americans fight their colonial wars.
Put out more flags
This is known as "pacification". The asymmetry of a pacified Iraq and a pacified Palestine is clear. As in Palestine, the war in Iraq is against civilians, mostly children. According to Unicef, Iraq once had one of the highest indicators for the well- being of children. Today, a quarter of children between the ages of six months and five years suffer acute or chronic malnutrition, worse than during the years of sanctions. Poverty and disease have risen with each day of the occupation.
In April, in British-occupied Basra, the European aid agency Saving Children from War reported: "The mortality of young children had increased by 30 per cent compared with the Saddam Hussein era." They die because the hospitals have no ventilators and the water supply, which the British were meant to have fixed, is more polluted than ever. Children fall victim to unexploded US and British cluster bombs. They play in areas contaminated by depleted uranium; by contrast, British army survey teams venture there only in full-body radiation suits, face masks and gloves. Unlike the children they came to "liberate", British troops are given what the Ministry of Defence calls "full biological testing".
Was Arthur Miller right? Do we "internally deny" all this, or do we listen to distant voices? On my last trip to Palestine, I was rewarded, on leaving Gaza, with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering from inside the walled compounds. Children are responsible for this. No one tells them to do it. They make flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and one or two climb on to a wall and hold the flag between them, silently. They do it, believing they will tell the world.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Massacre on a Beach in Gaza
By Mike Whitney
06/15/06
Israel doesn't bother with low-intensity warfare anymore. It goes straight for the jugular. Day after day Israel has launched unprovoked attacks on Palestinian civilians only pausing long enough to assemble the requisite lies to fend off the media.
It's quite extraordinary. One day they blow up a family peacefully touring in their new car; killing 3 generations with one mighty blast, and then a few days later they fire a mortar round at a beach in Gaza wiping out 7 members of another family. The entire incident in Gaza was captured on video providing a heart-wrenching visual-account of a traumatized 12 year old girl running around while the limp and bloodied bodies of her parents are carted off to the morgue.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's response to the tragedy was astonishingly bland:
"The IDF is the most moral military in the world. There has never been, and there isn't now, a policy of attacking civilians."
Olmert's proclamations are meaningless; the IDF is neither more nor less "moral" than any other "organized killing-machine". The IDF simply reflects the prevailing ethos of the Israeli leadership; a leadership steeped in arrogance and racism. If we look at the recent American massacre in Iraq, we see that there's a straight line between the "execution-style" killing of women and children in Haditha and the Bush administration's promiscuous attitude towards torture and cruelty. A fish rots from the head; so it is with the military as well. The culture of impunity begins at the leadership level, not with a few "bad apples".
This explains why the very next day Israel fired off another 3 rockets into Gaza killing 9 more Palestinians including two children and one medic who was attending to the wounded. The policy hasn't changed a lick. The only difference is that the backlash from the Gaza massacre is now be managed by an Israeli public relations team.
According to the Jerusalem Post, "The Israeli Foreign Ministry has launched an information campaign to change the minds of the world that has already blamed Israel. Israel's message is simple: The Palestinians are responsible".
Once again, Israel has decided to invoke the familiar strategy of "blaming the victim". Fortunately, forensic evidence has already proved beyond a doubt that the shrapnel came from a "155 millimeter howitzer shell from a land-based Israeli firing device". On top of that, the last surviving member of the family, 12 year old Huda Ghalia, has provided a lurid description of the Israeli shelling of the beach.
"We were sitting and all of a sudden the shells just started falling on our heads," she said. What could be clearer?
There's no doubt that Israel is responsible. Their PR blitz is bound to fail. Never the less, Israel has drawn up 6 "talking points" that will be reiterated by government officials and agents in the media. The public relations campaign focuses on three main themes:
1 Deny everything
2 Blame the victim (Say that Hamas had land-mined the beach)
3 Create the appearance that Israel was just defending itself.
The Foreign Ministry has added 6 "bullet points" to these general ideas, but they're hardly worth going over except as a way of measuring the real depth of human cynicism. After all, we're talking about the life of one despondent, terrified girl whose parents have just been murdered in a senseless act of violence. Olmert has taken that tragic event and transformed it into an exercise for manipulating public perceptions. That's really scraping the bottom of the barrel.
The broader question that arises from the Gaza Beach Massacre is whether Israel is deliberately killing civilians or not. Certainly Israel has never backed away from its defense of "targeted assassinations", but does that imply that killing innocent Palestinians can be rationalized as a matter of policy?
Here's a statement issued by the Israeli Foreign Ministry on this point:
"Israel does not target innocents, yet must fight terrorists who willingly shield themselves behind their own population in their ongoing campaign to kill and maim Israeli civilians".
The Israeli statement actually creates more questions than answers. It is clear, however, that the fight against terrorism is given priority over the lives of civilians, and that the state claims the right to kill "terror suspects" whether innocent people are sacrificed or not. This is a radical idea and it overturns long-held precedents about the "inalienable" right to life.
But how can the state authorize "targeted assassinations"? Government officials are required to comply with the law. Targeted assassinations are "extra-judicial" by their very nature; it is the deliberate killing of someone who has never been charged with a crime and has been deprived of all due process. The victim has no way to defend himself from completely arbitrary allegations. In Israel's case, the decision for these summary executions is placed in the hands of unreliable militarists, like Sharon, who have a long pedigree of lying and war crimes.
Are these people who can be trusted pronouncing death sentences on Palestinian "suspects"?
Targeted assassination is premeditated slaughter; it has no place in civilized societies. There's no link between justice and murder; the two are polar opposites. Security concerns should not be allowed to transform the law into a weapon for autocrats.
Never the less, targeted assassination is a central part of Israeli policy in the territories. As a result, incidents like the one on the beach in Gaza occur with increasing frequency. This leads us to question whether or not Israel has a policy of killing civilians.
The fact that 12 year old Huda Ghalya and her family were not intentionally fired on makes no difference. The issue is whether Israel has made reasonable assumptions about how many innocent people will be sacrificed in executing their policy.
We assume they have. We assume that Israel knows that from 2001, 552 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli assassinations, and that, 181 of these have been people who just happened to be in the vicinity or tried to help the victims when other missiles were fired. These figures prove that Israel knows "exactly" what the effects of its policy are, and that they still believe it is worth the outcome. Therefore, we can say with certainty that the killing of innocent people is a fundamental part of Israel's calculation. Whether it is intentional or not, makes no difference.
In Nigel Parry's "Does Israel have a Policy of Killing Palestinian Civilians?" the author digs into the larger issues surrounding targeted assassinations.
"After you see someone kill a child, you perceive humans very differently after that. We like to assume that when such a completely inexcusable event takes place that the deaths happened by some kind of "accident" or "error".
"Crossfire" was perhaps Israel's most successful lie at the onset of the Second Intifada, and no amount of statistics showing otherwise really seemed to penetrate our consciousness and make a difference.
It made no difference because inside we desperately want to believe that the murderers and serial killers of this world are aberrations, rare, that they are sick or somehow different. This conclusion is not possible when you witness a common, recurring pattern with your own eyes, across an entire army. At some point something gives way inside, and your fantasies about basic human decency crumble." (Electronic Intifada)
Parry draws from his years of first-hand experience living in the occupied territories and witnessing the violent reaction of the IOF to Palestinians protests. In the many cases when he saw young Palestinians shot dead by Israeli soldiers, he never remembers an incident when any of the soldiers were in a life-threatening situation. Parry continues:
"Out of nowhere, when the energy of the clashes seemed to be dissipating, a soldier would suddenly shoot a child or teenager, 100 feet away from them or more. Let me be clear. The events I am describing, in the clashes where people died, were not the exception. They were the rule. And not one soldier was ever punished."
Parry's description is revealing on many levels. The violence against Palestinians is oftentimes gratuitous, tribal, and steeped in racism. No one was punished in the confrontations he witnessed and no one will be held accountable for the deaths of 8 family members on the beach in Gaza. It is all part of a culture of impunity which has saturated every aspect of the Israeli leadership and trickled down to the soldiers in the field.
Israel's obfuscations mean nothing. They simply reinforce the belief that Israel will not conform to internationally-accepted standards of justice until it elects leaders who are committed to following the rule of law. Targeted assassination is never acceptable. It is a violation of the most essential principle of law; the right to life. No amount of public-relations wizardry or buck-passing can justify firing missiles into crowded areas or the random killing of blameless civilians. The law is written to protect civilians against disasters like the tragedy in Gaza, where a girls' life was ruined in a flash by an errant mortar-round. If the law had been applied, the order would never have been given and young Huda would not have been left wailing inconsolably on the sand.
The law is our only refuge from the terror of the state. We should make sure our leaders comply.
Signs Ed: What happens when the state makes the laws in such a way that they can break them with impunity? As for the shelling of the Palestinian family involving an "errant round"; there was nothing errant about it. As has often been the case in the past, this was another case of premeditated slaughter, designed to perpetuate the killing of the innocents, which in turn ensures that the "war" continues and Israel remains "under threat" and can puruse its murderous policies with impunity.
Comment on this Editorial
Editorial: Comments on John Pilger's New Book Freedom Next Time
by Stephen Lendman
John Pilger is an award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker and one of the truly great ones of our time. For nearly 50 years, he's courageously and brilliantly done what too few others in his profession, in fact, do - his job. John has also been a war correspondent, is the author of 10 books and is best known in his adopted country Great Britain for his investigative documentaries exposing the crimes of US and Western imperialism.
Freedom Next Time is John's newest book just published and the fifth one of his I've read. The others were magnificent, and when I learned a new one was due out, I couldn't wait to read it knowing it would be vintage Pilger and not to be missed. I wasn't disappointed and am delighted to share with readers what it's about. What else, as John himself says in his opening paragraph: "This book is about empire, its facades and the enduring struggle of people for their freedom. It offers an antidote to authorized versions of contemporary history that censor by omission and impose double standards." Indeed it does, and John devotes his book to exposing the crimes of empire in five countries. I'll cover each one in a separate section.
The Introduction - An Explanation of the Imperial Mindset
In his introduction, John explains how the imperial notion of "colonial assumptions have not changed," and to sustain them the great majority of people everywhere "remain invisible and expendable." He poignantly recounts how while on September 11, 2001 a few thousand people tragically died in New York and Washington, the UN Food and Agricultural Organization reported the daily mortality rate of 36,615 children alone from the effects of extreme poverty. Not a word of it was in the news that day or any other. Nor was there any explanation of why these people were denied the bare essentials to survive in a world able to provide them. These and the ones killed daily in Iraq and elsewhere are what John calls the "unworthy victims" as distinguished from the "worthy ones" in the US on 9/11 and those in London on July 7, 2005 who died in a "terrorist" bombing. The only crimes we recognize are the ones committed by others - those we call "terrorists" or label as enemies, never any by us. Nobel laureate Harold Pinter refers to this as "a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed." We only know what our leaders and complicit corporate media (BBC, NPR and PBS included) choose to tell us, and it's never the truth or full disclosure we're entitled to have. What they suppress is far more important than what they report.
Until the fall of the Soviet Union, the notion of imperialism in the US was that it was a European, not an American tradition. It was untrue, of course, but a proper education in the US, like the one I got, never let on. It hid the true history of my country that from inception practiced a policy of imperial expansion west and south and engaged in plunder and genocide against the original inhabitants living there to make it possible. George Washington was its first practitioner, referring to the new nation as a "rising empire." He helped build it by removing and exterminating its native Indians so expansion could proceed as the Founding Fathers and those who followed them wished. Washington believed the Indian peoples were subhumans (no different from how we view Iraqis today) and compared them to wolves and "beasts of prey" who must be destroyed. And our sacred Declaration of Independence contained the language "merciless Indian savages" which left no room for their independence or any justice either.
The tradition begun at the republic's birth never changed but until the end of the "cold war" was well hidden behind a respectable democratic facade and still mostly is. Any notion of imperialism was never something taught in school at any level, discussed in polite society or acknowledged publicly. But all that changed in the 1990s after the fall of the Soviet Union. What never before could be admitted now began to be seen as something respectable and even a matter of national pride. And with the advent of the Bush administration, imperial dominance and expansion began to be portrayed as something positive and contributing to the advance of civilization. How low we've sunk in coming so far.
John explains how fraudulent and dangerous Bush's priorities are based on its policy papers and one conceived a few years before it came to power. It began with a 1997 "messianic conspiracy theory" called The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) written by many of the far right neoconservative ideologues now in power. This document is an imperial plan for US global dominance to extend well into the future and be enforced with unchallengeable military power. It was a blueprint for the current "war on terror" (which John calls a "war of terror') and "preventive war" that began after 9/11 and is now ongoing in Iraq and Afghanistan with further conflicts likely ahead. The Pentagon goes even further in its Vision 2020 that lays out a goal that calls for "full spectrum dominance." By this is meant the total, unchallengeable control of all land, sea, air and space and the self-given right to enforce it with the use of nuclear or any other kinds of weapons.
The British government under Tony Blair is part of the same scheme as a complicit junior partner. It sees it in its own interest to be allied with the US and Bush administration and supports its imperial policies. As a result, John explains, it's no surprise Mr. Blair has taken his nation to war more often than any British Prime Minister in modern times. For him and George Bush, international law, norms and any sense of morality are irrelevant and aren't allowed to stand in the way of their unrestricted political violence portrayed as having a democratic face and purpose. Freedom Next Time exposes this hypocrisy to show that "imperialism, in whatever guise, is the antithesis of the 'benevolent and moralistic.' " It examines the history and events in five countries John knows well as a journalist and filmmaker.
Before beginning, John first addresses the present in his introduction. He quotes those who see the seeds of fascism and disturbing similarities in the US (and UK) today to Nazi Germany and Hitler's demonic appeal to his divine mission as that country's savior that he sold to his people in Christian religious terms. He did it in a country that was the pride of Western civilization and a very model of democracy. If it can happen there, it can anywhere and will unless enough committed people work to prevent it. But John stresses he hasn't written a pessimistic book. He cites the alternate seeds of hope, rebirth of democracy, and social equity in Latin America - especially in Hugo Chavez's Venezuela and the poorest of all the continent's nations Evo Morales' Bolivia. He sees these forces as part of a "worldwide movement against poverty, war and misinformation that has arisen in less than a decade, and is more diverse, enterprising, internationalist and tolerant of difference than anything in my lifetime." John concludes his message of hope saying that the "wisest... know that just as the conquest of Iraq is unraveling, so a whole system of domination and impoverishment can unravel, too."
John's book is divided into five chapters for each nation he covers. Four are well-known, but few readers may know about the first one discussed below in the Chagos archipelago or even know where it is.
Chapter One: Stealing A Nation Called Diego Garcia
Diego Garcia is a small 84 square mile British controlled island in the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean(officially known as British Indian Ocean Territory) that lies strategically half way between Asia and Africa. It was once the home of 2,000 "gentle Creole" people who are British citizens, but between 1967 - 1973 they were tricked and expelled by the UK government so their island home could be given to the US for a military base. They were sent into exile to a very inhospitable new home in Mauritius where seven British governments watched their displaced citizens suffer and perish in the shanties they were forced to live in and the desperate poverty they were forced to endure.
This "act of mass kidnapping" was so devious and deceitful, it was carried out in secrecy, and for almost a decade was concealed from the Parliament and US Congress. The Chagossians were treated with contempt as they not only lost their homeland, they were "deemed not to exist." It was the US that made the demands and cut the deal. Washington wanted the entire population expelled and the whole dirty business covered up. Then as today, the British went along with the ugly scheme. The people had no say, and those who refused were lied to and told they had no choice because "their removal was 'legal' under the rules of the colony."
In their new home, life became a living hell. The Chagossians found themselves in a society foreign to their simple way of life, and they were unable to adjust. On Diego Garcia they had their own home, grew their own food, fished and worked on a plantation. In Mauritius they had to find jobs to survive and most couldn't. The result was by the mid-70s most of the exiles were unemployed, impoverished and began to die. The British Foreign Office and High Commission contemptuously ignored their plight saying the Chagossians should take up their problem with the Mauritian government. It hardly mattered that these people were British citizens and entitled to the same rights as all other Brits. All they got in compensation was 1,000 pounds (about $1,800) in exchange for agreeing to renounce their right ever to return to their homeland and do it on a document they couldn't read.
The history of this disgraceful episode was well hidden until the 1990s when a "treasure trove of declassified documents" was found in the National Archives at Kew in London. It proved there was a conspiracy between two governments that Article 7 of the statute of the International Criminal Court referred to as a "deportation or forcible transfer of a population (and) a crime against humanity." It also violated Article 73 of the UN Charter that obliges a colonial government like Britain to obey its "sacred trust" to protect the human rights of its people. Britain shamelessly did none of this and instead dutifully bowed to the wishes of Washington and obeyed its commands as it still does today. The two countries also engaged is a huge cover-up for a decade that went to the highest level of both governments hoping to hide the truth from ever coming out. Those involved included Prime Minister Harold Wilson, Queen Elizabeth and Presidents Johnson and Nixon among others. Everything was hidden including a secret financial kickback Washington made that was also concealed from the US Congress and British Parliament.
But once the truth began to come out, things changed. On November 3, 2000 the British High Court stunned the government by citing the Magna Carta and annulled the original deportation order. It meant the people were entitled to British passports and had the right to go home. But it was a short-lived pyrrhic victory as one year later the Chagossians were back in the High Court seeking compensation for their ordeal. This time they faced a hostile judge who described their case as "unmeritorious" and denied their claim. Then three months later, the Foreign Office minister responsible for the Chagos sent an "order-in-council" to the Queen for her "rubber-stamped" approval which overturned the High Court 2000 victory and banned the islanders from ever returning home. As John was writing, he reported the Chagossians were back in London for a last chance judicial review before the High Court to annul the government's denial of their right of return to their homeland. Even after all these years, these courageous people were and still are fiercely determined to achieve the justice they so rightfully deserve.
It finally came on May 11, 2006 (after John's book was finished), in a damning High Court verdict that condemned as "repugnant" the decision to remove the Chagossians at the US insistence. It overturned the Blair government "order-in-council" discussed above. The Foreign Office must now decide if it will appeal the verdict and may be pressured to do so by the US. But even if all litigation ends favorably for the Chagossians, it's by no means certain they'll ever be allowed to return as long as Diego Garcia remains an important US military base. The Bush administration is contemptuous of the law, may likely ignore it and a new US administration elected in 2008 may do the same. It thus remains to be seen if justice will ever be served in this long-running tragedy. However, it's likely the Chagossians will never stop seeking it.
Chapter Two: The Last Taboo - The Five and A Half Decade Cover-Up of Israel's Oppression of the Palestinians
John chose the title of this chapter from an essay with that title written by the eminent and courageous Palestinian-born writer, scholar and activist Edward Said shortly before his death in September, 2003. Said was a brilliant man and passionate fighter for justice for his people. In his essay he wrote: "The extermination of the Native Americans can be admitted, the morality of Hiroshima attacked, the national flag (of the United States) publicly committed to flames. But the systematic continuity of Israel's 52-year oppression and maltreatment of the Palestinians is virtually unmentionable, a narrative that has no permission to appear."
It appears boldly and courageously in John's chapter as he recounts the unexplained and irrational hatred most Israelis have for Palestinians, a people whose country they stole and have relentlessly oppressed for many decades. He explains what life is like for these defenseless people under a cruel occupying power in the refugee camps or the world's two largest open-air prisons of Gaza and the West Bank. He recounts how ordinary people who only want to live in peace and have normal lives are denied their most basic personal, economic and political freedoms, dignity and any sort of justice. He shows how Israelis with full financial and political backing from the US and the West have terrorized the Palestinian people with impunity, and when the victims dare defend themselves or resist they're called "terrorists."
I, too, have written about Israeli crimes against the Palestinian people in a recent article I called Life in Occupied Palestine. What John documented on the ground from the people who endure this brutal daily onslaught, I summarized in a few paragraphs I'd like to share here. I wrote as follows:
Try to imagine daily life under these conditions:
You live in limbo in a country occupied by an oppressive foreign army and a system of institutionalized and codified racism. You have no recognized nation, no right of citizenship and no power over your daily life. You live in a constant state of fear. The occupier imposes economic strangulation and collective punishment by restricting free movement; enclosing population centers; closing borders; barring most of your people from working inside their border; imposing regular curfews, roadblocks, checkpoints, electric fences and separation walls and continues to build new settlements in your Occupied Territories (on your land in your country) violating the Geneva Conventions prohibiting an occupier from settling its population on conquered land.
The occupier denies your people their basic human rights including those under the Fourth Geneva Convention which governs the treatment of civilians in war and under occupation. There are 149 articles of this Convention. The occupier's government violates almost all of them and in so doing is committing war crimes according to international law. The UN Human Rights Commission determined it's also committing "crimes against humanity" against your people. This concept comes from the 1945 Nuremberg Charter drafted by the U.S. to try Nazi war criminals. The international notion of a "crime against humanity" was established to define what Hitler did to the Jews. The UNHRC ruled this is what the occupier is doing to your people, and that this act is the historical and legal precursor to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
The occupier also sends its troops, tanks and heavy armor into neighborhoods at will to maraud and destroy. It strikes at will from the air with sophisticated missle-firing attack helicopters and F-16s and deliberately inflicts eardrum shattering and terrifying sonic booms. And it gives its military the right to freely harass, arrest or kill extra-judicially any of your people - man, woman or child on any pretext with impunity. It bulldozes homes and the people in them if they don't escape in time (usually in middle of the night and without warning or notice) as punishment or for lacking a permit to build on their own land, in their own country or for any other reason. It steals land relentlessly hoping it will have it all one day or at least all the parts it wants. It detains, imprisons and tortures thousands of your people for the real or perceived crime of fighting for their freedom against an oppressive occupier.
To enact vengeance and to provide security for its illegal settlers in the Occupied Territories, it restricts or prevents access to essential and emergency health care, education, employment, the right to move goods and services from producer/suppliers to end users, and even enough food and water. It created a state of economic siege forcing up to nearly two-thirds of your people (according to the UN) below the poverty line of $2.20 a day (and half of those two-thirds on $1.60 or less) and over half the work force to be unemployed (the number varying with the intensity of the Israeli lockdown). It destroys your peoples' crops and orchards including more than 1 million olive trees. It imposes punitive taxes and provides few services or withholds them at will as collective punishment. You have no power to stop any of these abuses or receive any redress in the occupier's courts. How can you as a Muslim in a racist Jewish state.
John explains that Britain was the architect of this historic disaster and injustice. In 1917, it wanted a client state in the Middle East to watch over its economic interests and got one with the Balfour Declaration that promised a "national home for the Jewish people" in Palestine. The Declaration also made a hollow promise to the Palestinians who'd been living there for centuries that "nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of the existing non-Jewish communities." It was not to be. The Jewish state came into being in 1948 and was born in the original sin of mass slaughter and forcible expulsion of the people living there, and nothing was ever the same thereafter. Israel systematically defies all international laws and norms, has the full backing and financial support of the US and the West, and the Palestinians are forced to endure the most outrageous abuses without end and with no help from the outside to stop them.
Most people in the West have little knowledge of any of this because the major media refuse to report it and only portray Israel as a beacon of democracy in a region that has precious little of it. It's a myth, but one that's widely believed. Those who dare expose it or Israeli crimes are called anti-semites or self-hating Jews. They also face extreme denunciation and even ostracism. There's an unwritten binding rule no one dare violate in the US especially: Israel can do no wrong and must be fully supported whatever it does. As a result, the myth of a so-called "peace process" that never was and never will be persists as well as the false hope that the Palestinians will ever have a state of their own beyond the bantustans the Israeli's have in mind for them after they've been fully ethnically cleansed or murdered in the areas the Israelis want for themselves.
John also exposes the fraud of the Oslo Accords and later Camp David meetings hosted by Bill Clinton at which Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak offered nothing to Yasar Arafat. The public was fraudulently told otherwise and Arafat was unfairly blamed for turning down a proposal no sane and responsible leader could ever accept. We learned about the many massacres from the hundreds of Palestinians killed at Deir Yassin in 1948, the 18,000 slaughtered when Israel illegally invaded Lebanon in 1982 including the Ariel Sharon ordered massacre of up to 3,000 defenseless men, women and children at the Sabra and Shatila camps, to the rape of Jenin in April, 2002 when the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) invaded this city of 35,000 (including its refugee camp), cut it off from any outside help, destroyed hundreds of buildings (many with people buried alive under the rubble), cut off power and availability of food and water from the outside, prevented outside help from entering the city and murdered an unknown number of Palestinians.
John covers much more including the daily killings of defenseless people, the mass Israeli inflicted unemployment, poverty and deprivation, and the life of unending desperation these people are forced to endure. Yet they do and continue to cling to the hope that one day their stolen land will be returned and their rights fully restored. One of the many untold stories is that many outraged Israeli Jews have the same hope and are courageously defying their government and supporting the Palestinians to achieve it.
Chapter Three: Shining India - The False Facade of A Nation Where Over One Third of the People Live in Desperate Poverty
John explains how India is a nation of stark contrasts, and the country's richest city, Bombay, may show it best. At one extreme is a thriving business community of maritime trade, merchant banks and two stock exchanges. At the other is a city of one million humans per square mile and typified by the "rail roads" district foreigners and outsiders know nothing about. It teems with desperate people living under conditions "barely describable - a packing case for a home with sewage "ebbing and flowing in the monsoon." John asks how can a nation with memories of "great popular struggle" and democracy allow this. The answer is its leaders chose to sell its sovereignty to the neoliberal model of a global economy dominated by giant transnational corporations, especially those in the US.
The rise of the Hindu nationalist (proto fascist) BJP-led government in the 1990s accelerated the process. It removed the barriers in place to protect Indian industry and opened the country to invasion by foreign predatory corporations that took full advantage. The result is a nation that could be a poster child for how an adopted economic model got it all wrong and caused mass human misery. It's seen in an increase in "absolute poverty" to over one third of the population or about 364 million people. John explains that although India's growth rate is high, "this is about capital, not labour, about liberated profits, not people." He also exposes the myth of India being a high-tech juggernaut. While the nation has risen to "pre-eminence" in computer and other technology, the new "technocratic class" is tiny. Also, the so-called consumer boom has benefitted at most about 15% of the population.
Over two thirds of the people live in rural villages and depend on small scale agriculture for their livelihood and survival. These people have been devastated by the nation's embrace of the Western economic model. It's caused a hidden epidemic of suicides among them because they can't compete with agribusiness. Those opting for a less severe solution are forced off their land in a futile attempt to seek refuge among the teeming masses in the cities. The result is growing poverty, deprivation and extreme human misery on a massive scale. Because of its huge population of over one billion, India stands out as a warning of the kind of future people everywhere will face unless a way is found to reverse a failed economic model that enriches the few, devastates the many and is strangling the ability of the planet to continue sustaining the abuse afflicted on it.
Chapter Four: Apartheid Did Not Die - Predatory Capitalism Made It Worse
The hated apartheid may have ended in South Africa about 16 years ago, but the new neoliberal Washington Consensus was even worse. The obsession with race in a white supremacist society was replaced by the dominance and pursuit of wealth allowed only a privileged minority at the expense of the great mostly black majority. The result is that while average household income has risen for about 15% of the population (including some blacks), the overall black majority household income has fallen by about 20% making conditions today far worse than under apartheid.
The new South Africa under its heroic new president Nelson Mandela chose to embrace the Western economic model. He agreed to an "unspoken deal" that allowed the white elite to retain economic control in exchange for black majority rule that would be subservient to the former white government. The current president Thabo Mbeki cut the deal when he led a group of ANC officials in secret meetings in London between 1987 - 1990. They agreed to essentially betray their people and their 40 year struggle for freedom now lost. In came the World Bank and IMF dictating mass privatizations and structural adjustments to cut essential social services in return for financial aid. It's caused an oppressive level of debt, unemployment of about 38%, an HIV infection rate of about 20%, 40% of the schools with no electricity, 25% of the people with no access to clean water and most of those with access unable afford the cost, 60% with inadequate sanitation and 40% with no telephones. The result has been an economic apartheid replacing a legal one with the majority black population worse off today than under the political oppression of the past. It's a disturbing story of what's occurred in all countries that agreed to the Washington Consensus under which they sold their sovereignty to the interests of capital. The difference in South Africa is that the man oppressed blacks thought would win their freedom, in fact, sold them out instead.
John returned to South Africa after a 30 year absence following his expulsion by the apartheid government he abhorred. He interviewed Mandela in retirement and is nearly alone explaining the first ANC president's "ambiguity." He posed tough questions asking how could the ANC that struggled so long for freedom now have embraced "Thatcherism." Why would he allow his long-suffering people to suffer even greater harm under a system where virtually everything, including essential services, is privatized and deregulation allows big business free reign to pursue profit at the expense of the public interest. Mandela responded that "You can put any label on it you like; you can call it Thatcherite but, for this country, privatization is the fundamental policy." A sorrowful answer from a man who knows better. John also confronted Mandela about why he supported and showed deference to oppressive governments in Indonesia, Burma, Algeria, Colombia and Peru and even ordered a bloody invasion of neighboring tiny Lesotho. Again the answer he got was none too impressive and from a man who once was and still is in important ways a giant in the fight for social equity and justice.
Once again John shows how he discovered on his return that the spirit of resistance had survived. He found it among numerous "social movement" and allied organizations that he called the most "sophisticated and dynamic in the world." They've forged links to international human rights and anti-capitalist movements along with independent trade unionists. He said what South Africa has in abundance is a force called "ubuntu" - "a humanism that is never still.....a subtle concept....that says a person's humanity is expressed through empathy and solidarity with others; through community and standing together." It's what Steve Biko called "authentic black communalism." It's in that spirit that John hopes the future of South Africa lies.
Chapter Five: Liberating Afghanistan - the US Inflicted Nightmare on Another Long-Suffering People
John begins describing Afghanistan like it's more a moonscape than a functioning country - Kabul streets with "contours of rubble rather than streets, where people live in collapsed buildings, like earthquake victims waiting for rescue......(with) no light or heat." It's an age-old story for these beleaguered people who've had a long history of conflict and suffering with little relief ever. For almost a century the country was victimized by the "Great Game" of competition between the British empire vying with Tsarist Russia for control of this part of the world. In recent history, it paid dearly again in the 1980s when a US recruited mujahedin guerrilla army battled against a Soviet occupation. It forced the occupiers out but only at the expense of a ravaged country that never recovered throughout the 1990s as a brutal civil conflict followed the Soviet withdrawal. Then came 9/11 and the US inflicted nightmare that continues to this day with no end in sight.
John explains that Afghanistan today is what the CIA called during the Vietnam war "the grand illusion of the American cause." While Kabul has some freedoms denied by the Taliban, the rest of the country has virtually none. In place of the Taliban, who've begun a resurgence, are the brutal regional "warlords" that human rights groups say have "essentially hijacked the country." The nation is a war zone and failed narco-state with regional "warlords" and drug kingpins controlling everything outside the capitol. The country's US selected and nominal president Hamid Karzai (a former CIA asset) is a caricature of a man and willing stooge who's little more than the mayor of Kabul. He has no mandate or support and wouldn't last a day on his own without the heavy protection afforded him round the clock by the US military.
Life was no bed of roses under the Taliban. But despite their ultra-puritanical ways and harsh treatment for the disobedient, at least they kept order and wouldn't tolerate banditry, rape or murder. They also virtually ended opium production. Now all that's changed. The US-British invasion in 2001 ended the ban on opium production, allowed the "warlords" to replant and the result is that 87% of the world trade in this drug is from these fields. In addition, unemployment is soaring at about 45%; there's been little reconstruction; the poverty is overwhelming; there's little electricity, clean water or most other essential services; lawlessness is back; Sharia law has been reinstated; the internal conflict has resumed; and no one is safe either from the country's warring factions or from the hostile occupying force. In addition, the Taliban have reclaimed parts of southern Afghanistan and are gaining supporters among the people fed up with the misery inflicted on them by the US and multinational force invaders. It may just be a matter of time before the violence again explodes into another catastrophic guerrilla war just like in Iraq. Already it seems to be beginning.
So what was the invasion and occupation all about? We now know it was planned before 9/11 and had nothing to do with a Muslim fundamentalist government that treated its people harshly. It had everything to do with an Afghan leadership that wouldn't surrender its authority to US demands and its imperial quest to dominate this strategically important region. It was explained earlier by former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski under President Carter in his 1997 book The Grand Chessboard. He referred to Eurasia as the "center of world power extending from Germany and Poland in the East through Russia and China to the Pacific and including the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. By dominating this region, the US would assure itself control of a vast supply of energy and other essential resources. Afghanistan was a key part of the plan as it was across this country that the US wanted to build the oil pipelines needed to transship the Caspian basin oil to deep water ports where it could easily be shipped to the parts of the world the US would allow it to go.
At first the US was very content to work with the Taliban when they were in power. As long as it was felt a deal with them was possible, their religious extremism and human rights abuses were of no concern. It was only when agreement couldn't be reached that the decision was taken to remove them. And that brings us to the present. The country is in ruins, the conflict continues without end, and the people are suffering more than ever with no visible hope on the horizon for relief.
John wrote his book to document the history of imperial abuse he witnessed first-hand in five countries. But he also wants it to be a message of the hope he found that may one day lead to the same rebirth of democracy and social equity now growing in parts of Latin America like Venezuela. He finds courageous and dedicated people everywhere, even in Afghanistan where conditions are so bad it's hard finding any. He said that "Through all the humanitarian crises in living memory, no country has been abused and suffered more, and none has been helped less, than Afghanistan." It's still that way and seemingly getting worse. Unless it changes, a time of peace and an end to the violence and suffering of the Afghan people is a long way off at best. And yet hope persists. John finds it everywhere in the hearts of people who'll never give up the struggle for the fair and just world they want and are fighting to get.
A Summation
John has once again written a brilliant and magnificent book. Everyone should read it to learn from this great man what was and is ongoing in the five countries he chose to cover from among the many he knows well from having witnessed events around the world first-hand over his long career. He explains what few others do or would dare to help us understand how peoples' lives everywhere have been affected by the US economic model that's based on militarism and imperial expansion to control the world's markets, essential resources and cheap labor with no challengers to its dominance allowed. That's one message the book imparts. But it also breathes a special hope that the human spirit is indomitable and will find a way to overcome adversity and oppression and be able to endure. John believes a time of deliverance is ahead because committed people everywhere will never give up working for it.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
Comment on this Editorial
Faking Terror, Destroying Iraq
Father's Day: The Dangerous Notions of Michael Berg
By Chris Floyd
06/15/06
Part I: A Serviceable Villian and an Idealist Son
After last week's killing of terrorist chieftain Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (or someone just like him) in Iraq, remembrances of his most celebrated alleged victim surfaced briefly in the press: Nicholas Berg, the American businessman whose horrific beheading was publicized in a video fortuitously released less than two weeks after the first revelations of U.S. torture at Abu Ghraib.
It was this video - which featured five surprisingly chubby terrorists, masked, one wearing a gold ring forbidden by extremist Islam, another reading in halting Arabic - that made Zarqawi the Pentagon poster boy for the insurgency. Pentagon documents unearthed by the Washington Post this April revealed that the elevation of Zarqawi's profile was a deliberate, multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign aimed at the American people to foment the lie that the insurgency was largely an al Qaeda terrorist operation, not a native rebellion against the occupation. As one Pentagon general told a group of deception commandos: "The Zarqawi Psy-Op program is the most successful information campaign to date."
Zarqawi - a Jordanian thug who, like so many others, had been radicalized by the American-backed anti-Soviet jihad in Afghanistan - was a White House tool from the beginning. Before the war, his two-bit terrorist wannabe organization in the Kurdish-held Iraqi north had been targeted for destruction by U.S. Special Forces. But as the Atlantic Monthly reports, George W. Bush prevented at least three separate operations that would have eliminated the Zarqawi group - because such a strike would have interfered with that earlier psy-ops attack on the American people: the selling of the Iraq invasion on false pretenses. Although Zarqawi's gang was in U.S.-controlled territory where Saddam had no power, the Regime's war-peddlers used it to "prove" the non-existent link between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Spared by Bush, Zarqawi proved a serviceable villian after the invasion, always there to be blamed for a new terrorist spectacular whenever a spate of bad war news hit the Homeland press - despite, once again, being in the crosshairs of American forces on several occasions. On at least three occasions in the past year, Jordanian intelligence had pinpointed Zarqawi's location in Iraq and passed the intelligence to their close compadres in the American security organs; but every time, the Americans somehow "arrived too late," as the Atlantic reports.
However by this spring, with no amount of psy-ops able to halt Bush's plunge in the polls - and with the horrific sectarian civil war unleashed by Bush's aggression eclipsing all other violence - the "Zarqawi program" was obviously faltering: not enough PR bang for the buck. And so they did his quietus make - not with a bare bodkin but a thousand pounds of bombs: a little bit of "shock and awe" to goose the news cycle. Bush could have stopped him long ago; he could have spared the Iraqi people the ravages of his favored freebooter; but he chose not to.
Who can say if the beheading of Nicholas Berg - which made Zarqawi a "star" and adroitly demonized the whole Iraqi resistance at such a critical moment - was part of that "most successful information campaign to date"? One can only hope not; one can only hope that in this, as in so many other instances, the Bush Regime was just lucky. After all, who can forget that incredible stroke of good fortune on September 11, 2001 - just one year after a group led by Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Jeb Bush declared that only a "new Pearl Harbor" could "catalyze" the American people into accepting their radical militarist program of conquering Iraq, establishing bases in Central Asia, waging "pre-emptive" wars, weaponizing space, gutting nuclear treaties, and larding the war-related industries with pork beyond the dreams of avarice. As Bush himself said while the Twin Towers were still smoldering: "Through my tears, I see opportunity."
Nicholas Berg, on the other hand, was remarkably unlucky. More of an idealist than a chest-thumping corporate predator like ex-CEOs Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, Berg, 26, had developed a method for helping underdeveloped areas build safe, affordable structures where steel is hard to come by, as Wikipedia reports. Progress, not profit, was his motivating force. He was also an idealist in another way: he believed in his government. The president said Iraq had been liberated - "mission accomplished" - and that American companies needed to help the Iraqi people rebuild their land. Berg didn't realize that the president was a liar. Iraq had not been liberated but delivered into a new hell. Mass deaths, house raids, airstrikes, societal collapse and torture had spawned a fierce armed resistance. Bush's invasion had also loosed the most brutal, ignorant religious extremists - like Zarqawi - to prey upon the land. Meanwhile, "reconstruction" was a sick joke: it was just a pipeline for Bush cronies to drain Iraq, and the U.S. Treasury, bone-dry.
Berg came alone: no bodyguard of bristling mercenaries, no Halliburton subcontracts, no Beltway cronies. Work was promised, but without that insider grease, fell through. He decided to go home. Six days before his scheduled departure, he was suddenly seized by Iraqi police and turned over to U.S. forces. For reasons still unclear, he was held for 13 days - during which time the Abu Ghraib revelations ignited the land, and the tinderbox of Fallujah exploded when four mercenaries were killed in retaliation for the American shooting of Iraqi protestors a few days before.
Berg was released into this heightened turmoil one day after his family filed a lawsuit against his illegal detention; he disappeared four days later. His remains were found one month later near a Baghdad highway; the gruesome video appeared three days after that. Abu Ghraib disappeared from the front pages; it was not an issue in the presidential election that year.
Zarqawi - or "Zarqawi" - was the fake emblem of a fake war, the "war on terror" that the Bush Regime is pretending to fight while it goes about its long-planned business of exploiting "opportunities" like 9/11. Nicholas Berg was no emblem; he was just another human being literally ripped to shreds in that dark maw where high politics and low murder feast on the same lies, the same flesh.
Part II: A Dangerous Man
But despite the central role that Berg unwillingly played in the concoction of the Zarqawi legend, he was largely airbrushed from the lurid coverage of its grand finale. That's because any new story on Berg would naturally center around his most outspoken survivor, his father Michael. And Michael Berg is a man with a dangerous message, a radical subversion of every value that the Bush Administration is fighting to preserve.
In many ways, of course, it's an ancient danger, a destabilizing notion that has threatened the guardians of civilization for thousands of years. Its advocates have always been relegated to the lunatic fringe, ignored and forgotten, except in rare cases when their subversion has taken hold, usually among the lower orders. In each such case, however, down through the ages, the civilized world has, like a healthy body, acted swiftly to remove the carriers of disorder. Still, in every generation the bacillus emerges once again, and Michael Berg, no doubt weakened by his grief, has become seriously infected.
It's no wonder, then, that his media appearances last week were so brief and circumscribed. For there he was, father of a victim murdered in the most gruesome fashion imaginable by the terrorist Zarqawi (or someone just like him), a survivor fully entitled to exult in the revenging fury and violent self-righteousness that are among the chief values of the Bush Imperium - and all Berg could talk about was mercy and forgiveness, peace and restoration. He would not even take pleasure in the death of Zarqawi, whom he called a "fellow human being." Instead, he grieved for Zarqawi's family and wished that the brutal killer could have been subjected to "restorative justice" - made to work in a hospital with children maimed by war, for example - setting him on a path where his human decency might have been restored.
Nor would Berg praise the guardian of civilization, George W. Bush, for finally ending the career of the terrorist he had used so cynically to justify aggressive war. Instead, Berg blamed Bush for unleashing mass death on the people of Iraq, and instigating the cycle of violence that had consumed his son. But even for the authors of war, for the state terrorists who kill on an industrial scale, by remote control, ensconced in safety, comfort, privilege and wealth, Berg called for restoration, not revenge: they should be removed from power and compelled to some compassionate labor that might redeem their corrupted humanity.
It goes without saying that Berg's comments were instantly condemned throughout the vast engine of bile-driven groupthink known as the rightwing media. He was reviled as a traitor, a fool, a terrorist-lover, "less than human," a monster whose son will slap his face in the afterlife. He was derided for his quixotic Congressional campaign as the Green Party candidate for Delaware: what place do such weapons of the weak - mercy, forgiveness, non-violence - have in the halls of power? For the mainstream, he was just a blip, a quirky diversion in the flood of triumphant stories on Zarqawi's demise.
And to be sure, it is foolish to oppose the cherished values of our 21st century civilization: violence, bluster, ignorance and fear. It's foolish to take upon oneself the responsibility to break the cycle of violence at last, to say: "Let it end with me, if nowhere else; let it end now, no matter what the provocation; let something new, something more human, some restoration take root in this bloodstained ground."
But what if such folly is the only way for humankind to begin climbing out of the festering pit we have made of the world?
Comment on this Article
Gunmen shoot dead 4 worshippers, wounds 14 in Iraq's Tikrit
China Daily
16/06/2006
Unknown gunmen shot dead four worshippers and wounded 14 others in a pre-dawn attack on Thursday at a Sunni mosque in a town near Tikrit, some 170 km north of Baghdad, a local police source said.
"Masked armed men driving three cars stormed the Imam Muslim mosque in the al-Alam town, some 10 km north of Tikrit, during the Muslim dawn prayer, killing four of them and wounding 14 others," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
Violence has mounted as a power vacuum has continued despite the formation of a new unity government in the war-torn country.
Comment: More evidence of the continuing attempts by US, British and Israeli government employees as they attempt, on behalf of those governments, to create the reality of civil war in Iraq.
Comment on this Article
Mosque terror attack despite Iraq victories against Al-Qaeda
by Jay Deshmukh
AFP
Fri Jun 16, 2006
BAGHDAD - At least 11 people were killed by a suicide bomber inside a Shiite mosque in Baghdad despite a security crackdown in the capital and claims of successes in the battle against Al-Qaeda, police said.
The blast, which also wounded 25 people, came just an hour before the main weekly Muslim prayers, when the Baratha mosque would have been filled with thousands of worshippers.
The mosque, which is used by members of Iraq's Shiite majority, had been targeted by Sunni insurgents before.
On April 7, a triple suicide bombing by men dressed as women targeted worshippers just as they were leaving the mosque, killing 90 and wounding 175.
The police were exploring the possibility that Friday's bombing could have been the work of a man dressed as a woman or as a cleric, the only way to escape security checks put up at the mosque since the April bombings.
Two people were also killed and 16 others wounded when four mortar rounds struck the Sab al-Bur neighbourhood of north Baghdad.
The killing came despite a massive clampdown in the capital ordered by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki that saw vehicles banned from the capital's streets during Friday prayer time and tens of thousands of Iraqi and US soldiers out on patrol.
The crackdown, which began Wednesday and is dubbed Operation Forward Together, is one of the largest since the US-led invasion of 2003. It is aimed at exploiting any power vacuum in insurgent ranks following the death of Al-Qaeda Iraq frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a US air raid last week.
The defence ministry said 160 additional checkpoints had been set up in Baghdad and 26,000 Iraqi soldiers, 23,000 Iraqi police and 7,200 coalition troops deployed on the streets.
The plan includes house-to-house searches in areas suspected of harbouring insurgents as well as a crackdown on civilians carrying weapons.
A night-time curfew in Baghdad has also been extended by two and a half hours.
Ahead of Friday's mosque bombing, the government and its US backers had already been talking up the success of the crackdown.
The US military said Thursday that it had killed 104 rebels and captured 759 in 452 operations since Zarqawi's death.
Iraqi national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said "it was beginning of the end of Al-Qaeda in Iraq."
"We believe Al-Qaeda in Iraq was taken by surprise; they did not anticipate how powerful the Iraqi security forces are and how the government is on the attack now," he said.
Outside the capital, insurgent violence raged on Friday.
Just south of Baghdad, in an area dubbed the triangle of death for the frequency of rebel attacks, four people were killed and 10 kidnapped in separate incidents, police said.
An Iraqi army soldier was shot dead in the northern town of Hawija, while an employee of Northern Gas Company was shot dead in the oil city of Kirkuk.
In the restive city of Baquba, north of the capital, a woman and her four children were killed overnight when a bomb went off in a neighbour's house, police said.
The Washington Post, meanwhile, reported that Iraq had asked the US-led coalition to halt the transfer of detainees to its custody because of fears that its prison service had been overrun by abusive Shiite militiamen.
"We cannot control the prisons. It's as simple as that," the paper quoted Deputy Justice Minister Pusho Ibrahim Ali Daza Yei, a Kurd, as saying.
"Our jails are infiltrated by the militias from top to bottom, from Basra to Baghdad," he said, adding that there was particular concern about interior ministry-run prisons that house 1,797 inmates, 90 percent of them Sunni Arabs.
Yei said he had written to the US officer in charge of coalition-run prisons in Iraq asking him to suspend plans to transfer to Iraqi control five facilities housing more than 15,000 inmates.
Major General John D. Gardner told the daily that the transfer would not take place "until each respective facility and the Iraqi corrections system have demonstrated the ability to maintain" US standards of custody.
Separately, the US military announced it had launched a probe into the deaths of three male detainees in its custody in Salaheddin province around May 9.
And on Thursday, the US Congress approved 66 billion dollars for military operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Comment on this Article
Security firm cleared by US army
BBC
14/06/2006
A British security firm has welcomed the outcome of a US army investigation clearing it of criminal offences.
The US military launched an inquiry after a video showing an Aegis Defence Services contractor firing at civilian cars in Iraq was shown on the internet.
Ageis, which has a Pentagon contract in Iraq said to be worth £157m, said the film had been edited to mislead.
It said the man responsible for the film is now the subject of legal action.
Aegis said its own investigation, which was handed to the US Army's Criminal Investigation Division, had found that the incident shown on the film was within the rules on the use of force by civilian personnel.
The company says its rules of engagement "allow for a structured escalation of force to include opening fire on civilian vehicles under certain circumstances".
In the film, a man is seen leaning out of a speeding car with a machine gun, firing wildly at following civilian vehicles on a highway, hitting some of them.
The footage was posted on a website in November 2005 set up by contractors, but was eventually seen by a wider audience.
The US military investigation concluded that no-one should be charged with any criminal offence.
Comment: Oh! The shock! How surprising that a US military investigation of one the members of its private army would conclude that firing wildly at civilians in Iraq is not a crime! We really need to sit down after this one.
Watch this short video about the abovementioned "Aegis" "security" contractor, where one of its employees states:
"We don't know whether it was an innocent civilian or whether that was an insurgent - we don't know, because we never stop".
Comment on this Article
US Troops Covering Tracks in Samarra
Karen Button
Uruknet
June 15, 2006
In Samarra, where US troops have been accused of shooting two women--one pregnant--while on their way to the hospital, and trying to cover up the wrong-doing, another incident reveals a disturbing trend.
According to surviving family members, US troops killed three unarmed civilians, one a mentally disabled man, in their home on the evening of 4 May and then attempted to cover their tracks.
Around 5pm an IED exploded on Al-Burahman Street. Afterwards, US forces blocked the area and closed the streets. When a sniper shot at troops from a location close the Khalis family home, soldiers stormed the house. Fifteen people were crammed into one room, huddled together for safety. According to witnesses, troops broke down the door to the house when as they raided it, and began "shooting everywhere".
The "Americans were yelling, 'fuck you, shut up,'" says one of the survivors, 36 year-old Shireen, whose mother, brother and sister were killed in the incident. There were mostly women and children in the room, she says.
Shireen's mentally disabled brother, 40 year-old Khalid Zaidan Khalif, put his arms around his 66 year-old father, Zaidan Khalif Habib trying to protect him. Troops shot Khalid and then pushed the father onto the floor, says Shireen.
It all happened so fast she says that, "I couldn't see anything, I just heard the shooting." Her sister, 20 year-old Emam Zaidan, was holding Shireen's 18 month-old son in her arms when the shooting began.
"After the terrible shooting was a terrible silence. I thought they killed my father. I tried to talk to my sister. She was in her last year at school, studying for her final exams. I asked her, 'is my son ok or he is dead?' She didn't respond. She was slumped against the wall. I tried to touch her shoulder and my son's clothes were filled by blood. Then I realized she was dying."
"I tried to talk to my mother, 'why are you laying down like this?' I asked her. When I tried to make her sit up I saw something white hanging from her eyes. It was one of her eyes." Sixty year-old Khairiya N'sses Jasim had also been shot, her "other eye was stuck to the wall".
Her sister didn't die immediately. Shireen says in her last moments Emam begged the soldiers in English to help her. They left, she says, and brought back a military doctor, but Emam died almost immediately.
After the three were killed, Shireen says, the troops apologised, saying
they killed the wrong people.
According to Reuters, a spokesman for the 101st Airborne Division (which controls the area) claimed that soldiers from its 3rd Brigade Combat Team had "killed two unnamed men and a woman in a house who had 'planned to attack the soldiers'".
Yet, according to Iraqi police who said they witnessed the event, the civilians were unarmed. "They were not armed and there were no gunmen in the house," said an officer from the Joint Coordination Center, which acts as liaison between Iraqi and US security forces.
In a statement of what appears to be sheer fabrication, Master Sergeant Terry Webster of the 101st Airborne told Reuters that an injured woman who was taken from the scene "confessed that the three people killed had planned to attack the soldiers as they drove by the house."
Instead, according to survivors, troops attempted to cover up their wrong doing by methods becoming disturbingly more common. Shireen says before leaving, soldiers dragged her brother out into the corridor, shot him in the chest three more times, placed a gun next to his legs to make it appear he was armed, and then took pictures.
US troops were also accused of planting an AK-47 on a disabled man they shot to death in Hamdaniyah on 26 April. It's another case of wildly differing accounts that indicate a cover-up by Marines who executed an unarmed civilian.
Marines say they found 52 year-old Hashim Ibrahim Awad al-Zobaie digging a hole to plant a bomb and killed him in a gun battle. Relatives of the dead man say he was taken from his home at 2am by Marines and that they later heard shots. Too afraid to investigate until morning, they eventually found Hashim with gunshots to his face. A next door neighbor says Marines had taken a shovel and AK-47 from his house the night before.
In another event, Iraqi police and witnesses told reporters of eleven people rounded up and killed by US troops in Ishaqi in March, most of them women and children. Though troops were cleared, according to witnesses soldiers attempted to cover up the massacre by blowing up the house afterwards.
Significantly, in both the Ishaqi and Samarra incidents, Iraqi police stepped forward to contradict US military accounts.
In response to these, and other civilian killings by US troops, even the new puppet-Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said enough is enough. In unprecedented criticisms against the US occupation, al-Maliki said violence against civilians is a "daily phenomenon" by many US troops who "do not respect the Iraqi people".
"They crush them with their vehicles and kill them just on suspicion....There is a limit to the acceptable excuses," he stated. "Those who kill intentionally or through negligence should be tried."
He's right. And there are the laws to do such. Yet, with a US administration that thinks the Geneva Conventions are "archaic," it's not surprising that individual soldiers are committing crimes condoned at the highest levels.
Clearly, some troops are out of control and they know it. Otherwise they wouldn't be covering their tracks. But who is giving the orders that this is ok? This is where the focus of Haditha, Abu Ghraib, and all other investigations of abuse, murder, and torture ought to be. And where an inquiry into the destruction of Fallujah and the massacre of hundreds of unarmed civilians should begin.
Comment on this Article
New documents suggest Pentagon lied about Cheney's role in awarding no-bid contract to Halliburton in 2003
15 June, 2006
Haliburtonwatch.org
WASHINGTON -- Newly-released government documents indicate the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) may have publicly lied about Vice President Dick Cheney's role in awarding a $7 billion no-bid Iraqi oil reconstruction contract to Halliburton in the weeks preceding the March 2003 invasion, the conservative activist group Judicial Watch disclosed today.
Under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), Judicial Watch found an internal USACE email from April 2003 explaining that USACE Chief Counsel, Robert Andersen, told the 60 Minutes television program that, "There was no contact whatsoever (with the VP office)" in awarding the oil contract to Halliburton.
But this information contradicts another email uncovered by Judicial Watch in 2004. The email, dated March 5, 2003, sent by an official of the Army Corps of Engineers whose name was redacted, stated, "We anticipate no issue [with the Halliburton deal] since the action has been coordinated w VP's office."
"These new documents raise questions about the involvement of the Vice President's office in the controversial KBR deal," Tom Fenton, Judicial Watch President, said. "One has to wonder whether the Army was being forthright about the issue."
Judicial Watch was forced to obtain a court order to release the documents because USACE improperly claimed exemptions from the FOIA. One document USACE attempted to exempt from release includes a frank admission by an official who said, "I am copying you on this crap since I honestly believe the competitive procurement will never happen."
"It took the intervention of a federal district judge to force the Army to release the document," a Judicial Watch press release states.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is currently investigating possible criminal behavior in the way the Pentagon has awarded contracts to Halliburton. USACE demoted its highest-ranking civilian employee for blowing the whistle on improper and potentially illegal contracting practices committed by Halliburton and the Pentagon.
Comment on this Article
Divided House rejects Iraq pullout date (one party America now a fact)
CNN
16/06/2006
Rancorous election-year debate in the House culminated today as Republicans forced Democrats to vote on a resolution that praises U.S. troops, labels the Iraq war part of a global fight on terrorism and says an "arbitrary date for the withdrawal or redeployment" of troops is not in the national interest. The House vote comes a day after the Senate rejected a call to withdraw combat troops by year's end.
In a 256-153 vote, the GOP-led House approved the nonbinding resolution.
"Retreat is not an option in Iraq," declared House Majority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio. "Achieving victory is our only option, for the American people and our kids."
House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California countered: "Stay the course, I don't think so Mr. President. It's time to face the facts."
She called for a new direction in the conflict. "The war in Iraq has been a mistake. I say, a grotesque mistake."
Four months before midterm elections that will decide control of Congress, House Republicans sought to force Republicans and Democrats alike to take a position on the conflict that began with the U.S. invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in the spring of 2003.
Democrats denounced the debate and vote as a politically motivated charade, and several prominent Democrats joined Pelosi in saying they would vote against the measure because, they said, supporting it would affirm Bush's "failed policy" in Iraq.
Democrats denounced the debate and vote as a politically motivated sham, and several prominent Democrats joined Pelosi in saying they would vote against the measure even though Republicans could then try to claim that Democrats don't support U.S. troops.
Comment: A one party American political system has been a covert reality for many years, but it is only recently that events such as today's sham vote expose that reality for all to see.
Comment on this Article
Koizumi said to announce Iraq withdrawal next week
AFP
Fri Jun 16, 2006
TOKYO - Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi will announce next week that Japan is ending a military mission in
Iraq, its first since World War II to a country where fighting is underway, reports say.
Japanese troops are constitutionally barred from combat and are protected in part by British troops who have told Tokyo they will transfer authority in the area next week to Iraqi troops, the reports said.
Koizumi expects to announce the pullout on Wednesday, Kyodo News said. The Mainichi Shimbun reported in its evening edition that the withdrawal would be complete by mid-July.
Japanese officials had sent repeated signals that the pullout would take place in the summer as the domestically unpopular deployment would have run its course.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe, the government spokesman, earlier Friday denied that Britain had set a date to leave the southern city of Samawa where the 600 Japanese troops are based.
But Foreign Minister Taro Aso later said that Japan can "decide on the timeframe of a withdrawal fairly soon."
The humanitarian mission first launched in 2003 marks the first time since World War II that Japan has sent armed forces to a country where fighting is underway.
The deployment has been widely viewed as a way for Japan to exert influence as more than an economic power.
The troops have not suffered casualties or even fired their weapons due to Japan's pacifist 1947 constitution and have relied on Australian, British and earlier on Dutch forces for protection.
The mission has aimed to rebuild the area around the southern city of Samawa. As the region is relatively peaceful, Japan calls it a "non-combat zone" in Iraq so as not to violate the constitution.
Comment on this Article
American Democracy
US opens new war front in North Africa
Asia Times
15/06/2006
Despite a setback in Somalia, where anti-Islamist warlords recently lost control of the capital, Mogadishu, to a jihadist militia, the United States is plunging into a far vaster set of commitments, stretching across the "Wild West" of Saharan Africa.
Over the next five years, Washington is expected to spend US$500 million on an overt counter-terror program to secure what it has dubbed the latest front in its "global war on terror". Detractors insist the move could backfire and have the same unintended consequences as in the Horn of Africa, albeit on a much larger scale with even more at stake.
The Trans-Sahara Counter-Terrorism Initiative (TSCTI) kicked off last June to provide military expertise, equipment and
development aid to nine Saharan nations whose vast, ungoverned reaches are considered fertile ground for militant Islamist groups looking to establish Afghanistan-style terror training camps and to engage in smuggling and other illicit activities.
The TSCTI represents a massive upgrade from the Pan-Sahel Initiative, a $7 million forerunner that was initiated in 2002 in what Theresa Whelan, US deputy assistant secretary of defense for African affairs, called "just a drop in the bucket" compared with the region's security needs.
In its campaign to justify the increase, the US military has likened the Sahara to the "Wild West", and the Salafist Group for Call and Combat (Groupe Salafiste pour la Predication et le Combat, or GSPC) is its most wanted enemy. On the US State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations and estimated to have a few hundred remaining members based in Algeria, the group was formed in the late 1990s to overthrow the government in Algiers and create a hardline Islamic state. Its founders broke ranks with the notorious Armed Islamic Group over its policy of killing civilians indiscriminately during Algeria's 1992-99 civil war that left more than 100,000 dead. The GSPC was accused of kidnapping European tourists in 2003 and claimed responsibility for a spate of strikes around the Sahara last year that reportedly killed a total of 40 soldiers from Algeria and Mauritania. But some observers say terrorism in the Sahara is little more than a mirage and that protracted, high-profile US involvement could destabilize the region.
"If anything, the [initiative] ... will generate terrorism, by which I mean resistance to the overall US presence and strategy," said Jeremy Keenan, a Sahara specialist at the University of East Anglia in Britain.
Aside from the 2003 kidnapping issue, US and Algerian authorities have failed to present "indisputable verification of a single act of alleged terrorism in the Sahara", Keenan insists. "Without the GSPC, the US has no legitimacy for its presence in the region," he said, noting that a growing US dependence on African oil, which the administration of President George W Bush has declared a "national strategic interest", has moved the United States to bolster its presence in the region.
A report by the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank, said that although the Sahara is "not a terrorist hotbed", repressive governments in the region are taking advantage of the Bush administration's "war on terror" to tap US largess and deny civil freedoms. The report noted that former Mauritanian president Maaoya Sid'Ahmed Ould Taya - a US ally in West Africa who was deposed last August in a bloodless coup - used the threat of terrorism to justify human-rights abuses.
Taya jailed and harassed dozens of opposition politicians, charging that they were connected to the GSPC; this fed popular discontent, and it is said that the military junta that ousted Taya while he was abroad did so to appease a simmering public. Hundreds of Mauritanians took to the streets of the capital, Nouakchott, to denounce the United States at the start of the TSCTI.
The United States is already under fire for secretly supporting the anti-Islamist warlords who last week lost control of Mogadishu to jihadist militia after a 15-year stranglehold. A number of opponents of the Central Intelligence Agency-administered program claim that enterprising warlords have exploited US fears that the lawless East African country is becoming a terrorist haven. The warlords use this fear to gain funding and arms to reinforce existing criminal operations under the pretense of fighting radicals, they argue.
They also argue that the effect of this policy at the grassroots is a witches' brew of anti-American sentiment and Islamic radicalism among Somalis fed up with US involvement in their affairs, particularly when the Americans are backing forces that have torn the country apart.
Critics say the same scenario threatens to take hold in Saharan Africa, only there the warlords are dictators, and national borders substitute for city blocks.
They also contend that the limited threat the GSPC may have posed on the African continent in recent years has been all but snuffed out. Since the isolated attacks last summer, Algerian authorities have cracked down hard on the group: the latest fatal GSPC strike resulted in just one death and the unexpected surrender two days later of three ranking militants. This supports intelligence reports that the group's leadership is in tatters and on the run. Analysts say a recent threat by one ranking militant that US military installations may come under attack is little more than hot air.
GSPC founder Hassan Hattab, now in government custody, has called on all remaining militants to take advantage of a new government amnesty under which they can give up the gun in exchange for immunity from prosecution, saying those who continue to fight do not belong to his organization, since they harm Muslims. This week the Algerian army killed five GSPC gunmen and destroyed 30 hideouts in eastern Algeria; security sources confirmed that the operation was "based on accurate information given to the army by repenting gunmen". Algeria has freed some 2,200 jailed Islamist militants under the amnesty since February.
A limited number of holdouts still stir occasional trouble in the remote Algerian countryside, but the GSPC has shifted the focus of its operations to Europe, where an elusive network of sleeper cells has shown a willingness, and means, to target civilians. Dozens of operatives have been arrested and a number of major plots foiled over the past year, including a scheme to outdo the attacks of September 11, 2001. US and European intelligence officials also have evidence that Europe-based operatives continue to recruit, train and finance North African jihadists to fight US-led forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. These factors make the GSPC-Europe "the largest, most cohesive and dangerous terrorist organization in the al-Qaeda orbit", according to a report by the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington, DC-based think-tank.
In December, three Algerian members of a GSPC cell in southern Italy were arrested in a sweep and implicated in a plot to kill "at least 10,000 people" and blow up a vessel "as big as the Titanic". More than $22 million is said to have been found in the vehicle used by the three; attacks would have targeted ships, stadiums and railway stations in a deliberate attempt to exceed the September 11 carnage, according to Italian Interior Minister Giuseppe Pisanu. The plan was foreshadowed in a communique issued by the GSPC four days after the twin towers of New York's World Trade Center came crashing down, pledging its support to al-Qaeda and threatening to harm "the interests of European countries and the US". It is still debated as to whether the GSPC has formally aligned itself with Osama bin Laden, but the group has repeatedly avowed a fierce allegiance.
Italy has "evolved from a logistics base" to a "de facto base of operations" for GSPC activities targeting Europe, says the Jamestown report. Algerian GSPC operatives based out of a Milan mosque were first arrested in 2002 for illegally acquiring explosives and weapons. In 2005, Italian police detained five of 11 Algerians suspected of belonging to the GSPC and investigated their involvement in a failed terrorist attack against the Spanish National Court in Madrid, among other incidents. "GSPC cells in Italy employ a dual-track approach to planning terrorist attacks and provide support infrastructure - safe houses, communications, weapons ... and [forged documents] to cells elsewhere in Europe," the report noted.
However, the terror group has singled out France as its primary foreign target. In January 2005, French authorities arrested 11 suspects with ties to the GSPC and charged them with recruiting suicide bombers to send to Iraq. In September, police seized three other Algerians affiliated with the GSPC purported to be preparing to bomb the Paris subway. "The only way to discipline France is jihad and Islamic martyrdom," group leaders said in a statement. "France is our Enemy No 1, the enemy of our religion, the enemy of our community."
Spain, too, has seen a spike in GSPC activity. Authorities there arrested 20 suspected terrorists on January 12 in Barcelona and Madrid. Among them were Moroccan-born Omar Nakhcha, the head of a GSPC cell said to recruit and give logistical support to Iraq-bound militants and suicide bombers. A spokesman for Spain's Interior Ministry said one of the group's recruits was responsible for a suicide attack in November 2003 in Nasiriyah, Iraq, that killed 19 Italians and nine Iraqis. Nakhcha, for his part, is thought to have led a cell of a shadowy GSPC affiliate, the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group, that helped the escape of three suspects in the 2004 Madrid train bombings that killed 191 people and participated in the 2003 Casablanca attacks.
A prominent Spanish judge and the head of France's domestic security service are carrying out extensive inquiries into loose-knit terror networks in both countries. Those arrested have disclosed information on interconnected cells responsible for recruitment, falsifying documents and acquiring explosive materials. At least 50 French Arabs have journeyed to Iraq for suicide operations over the past two years, according to one Spanish research institute.
Western intelligence agencies estimate the GSPC has an exile network of 800-900 active operatives and supporters spread throughout Europe. So far arrests have been made in Italy, France, Spain, Belgium, Britain and the Netherlands, but authorities fear that the group may hold a growing appeal to the thousands of frustrated young Muslims who idle at the fringes of major European cities.
North America has not been bypassed by the GPSC either. A Toronto-based cell that had included an al-Qaeda-trained bomb-maker was broken up in November. Ahmed Ressam, an Algerian militant recruited by the GSPC, was arrested by US authorities in Seattle after crossing from Canada. Tried on charges he planned to blow up Los Angeles International Airport on New Year's Eve 1999, he was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
Comment on this Article
US denies Britain consular access to Hicks
Reuters
15/06/2006
The United States has denied the British Government consular access to David Hicks at Guantanamo Bay. The British Government was seeking access so they could register him as a British citizen.Last year, Hicks won a British High Court ruling that he was entitled to become a UK citizen because his mother was born in England.
Hicks's legal team returned to the High Court yesterday in a bid to enforce the decision and register him as a British citizen immediately.
The legal team representing Hicks complained the process of registering him as a citizen had been delayed.
The court was told that the British Government had tried to gain access to Hicks to deliver the oath needed before he can register for citizenship.
The US has blocked those attempts because he is not a British citizen.
Britain has already won the freedom of all nine of its nationals held at the US detention camp.
The court was given an assurance from the British Government that the matter would be presented to Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett tomorrow and that she will consider "whether and, if so, what representations should be made to the US Government".
Lawyers told the court that the British Government accepts that it is dealing with the case of someone entitled to be registered as a British citizen.
Hicks, originally from Adelaide, has been held at Guantanamo Bay since 2002.
The 30-year-old convert to Islam was captured in Afghanistan where he allegedly fought alongside the ruling Taliban against US-led forces who invaded after the terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001.
He faces charges of conspiracy, attempted murder by an unprivileged belligerent and aiding the enemy.
Comment on this Article
Judge rules in favor of racial profiling and prolonged detention of non-citizens
Center For Constitutional Rights
15/06/2006
Yasser Ebrahim, a plaintiff in the case, described his reaction today: "I am very disappointed and shocked. I can't believe the court would allow this to happen. I am frightened for other Muslims in the United States, who could face the same discrimination and abuse that I suffered."
"This ruling gives a green light to racial profiling and prolonged detention of non-citizens at the whim of the President. The decision is profoundly disturbing because it legitimizes the fact that the Bush Administration rounded up and imprisoned our clients because of their religion and race," said Rachel Meeropol, a CCR attorney in the case.
Yasser Ebrahim, a plaintiff in the case, described his reaction today: "I am very disappointed and shocked. I can't believe the court would allow this to happen. I am frightened for other Muslims in the United States, who could face the same discrimination and abuse that I suffered."
The ruling also states that there are effectively two tiers of rights for citizens and non-citizens. Prolonged detention and discrimination against non-citizens would be flatly illegal if applied to American citizens. In addition, the ruling states that non-citizens who are "out of status" can be imprisoned and criminally investigated without the Constitutional rights afforded to citizens accused of crimes.
"The complexity of U.S. immigration law leaves millions of immigrants vulnerable to this type of abuse, and the Bush Administration has exploited this situation to betray fundamental constitutional principles," said Bill Goodman, CCR Legal Director. "Congress may be debating immigration, but the Bush Administration has already deployed backdoor tactics to marginalize immigrants through detention policies and court filings," he added.
The ruling allowed CCR to proceed on the challenge to the excessively harsh conditions of confinement in which the men were held. The ruling rejected attempts by senior administration officials, including FBI Director Robert Mueller and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, to avoid answering these accusations. Ms. Meeropol added that the ruling regarding the administration officials was a victory in the case: "Top Bush Administration officials orchestrated religious discrimination and cruel conditions. They tried to run from these accusations, but the judge ruled they must answer our clients' claims."
CCR first filed Turkmen v. Ashcroft in April 2002 against Attorney General John Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert Mueller, former INS Commissioner James W. Ziglar, and officials of the Metropolitan Detention Center (MDC) in Brooklyn, New York, on behalf of a class of male Muslim non-citizens from Arab and South Asian countries who were swept up by the INS and FBI in the dragnet that followed September 11. Shortly after September 11, hundreds of Muslim men of Arab and South Asian descent were arrested pursuant to an explicit policy, formulated by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, to use the federal immigration law to detain non-citizens suspected of having possible ties to terrorism. Although the men were arrested and detained on minor immigration violations, because their arrest was made in connection to the terrorism investigation, they were subjected to a blanket "hold until cleared" policy pursuant to which the INS denied them bond without regard to evidence of dangerousness or flight risk, and detained them until the FBI cleared them of terrorist ties. While detained, they were held in incredibly restrictive conditions of confinement and abused by correctional officers.
Comment on this Article
9/11 thefts not prosecuted
By MARGARET EBRAHIM and PAT MILTON
Associated Press
June 16, 2006
NEW YORK - Once-secret documents obtained by The Associated Press show a disaster supply management company went unpunished for Sept. 11 thefts after the government discovered FBI agents and other government officials had stolen artifacts from New York's ground zero.
Kieger Enterprises of Lino Lakes, Minn., dispatched trucks to a Long Island warehouse and loaded hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of donated bottled water, clothes, tools and generators to be moved to Minnesota in a plot to sell some for profit, according to government records and interviews.
Dan L'Allier said he witnessed 45 tons of the New York loot being unloaded in Minnesota at his company's headquarters. He and disaster specialist Chris Christopherson complained to a company executive, but were ordered to keep quiet. They persisted, going instead to the FBI.
The two whistleblowers eventually lost their jobs, received death threats and were blackballed in the disaster relief industry. But they remained convinced their sacrifice was worth seeing justice done.
They were wrong.
As a result, most Americans were kept in the dark about a major fraud involving their donated goods even as new requests for charity emerged with disasters like Hurricane Katrina. And Christopherson and L'Allier were left disillusioned.
"I wouldn't open my mouth again for all the tea in China," L'Allier said. Added Christopherson, a 34-year-old father of two: "I paid a big price."
As firefighters searched for survivors after the Sept. 11 attacks, heat from the World Trade Center's smoldering ruins burned the soles off their boots. They needed new ones every few hours, and Christopherson made sure they got them. The moment that crushed Christopherson's faith was when his employer dispatched the trucks to the warehouse for those supplies, donated by Americans.
The government ultimately gave the whistleblowers $30,000 each after expenses, their share in a civil settlement against KEI. They say the sum was hardly worth their trouble.
Federal prosecutors eventually charged KEI and some executives with fraud, including overbilling the government in several disasters, but excluded the Sept. 11 thefts. Officially, the government can't fully explain why.
KEI had worked for years for the government, providing disaster relief services during tornadoes, floods and other catastrophes. It was picked to manage the New York warehouse for the government's main Sept. 11 relief contractor.
Thomas Heffelfinger, the former U.S. attorney in Minnesota who prosecuted KEI, said he never intended to charge the company for the ground zero theft, and instead referred that part of the case to prosecutors in New York.
"At the heart of the KEI case was financial fraud," Heffelfinger said. "It was so bad we didn't need the theft."
Heather Tasker, a spokeswoman for the U.S. attorney's office in New York, declined to discuss the KEI case. The whistleblowers, however, said they've never been contacted by New York prosecutors.
FBI documents indicate the government, in fact, was preparing to charge KEI with Sept. 11 thefts.
A March 2002 entry in the FBI's "prosecutive status" report states the U.S. Attorney's office in Minnesota intended "to prosecute individuals who were alleged to be involved in the transportation of stolen goods from New York City after the terrorist attack." A followup entry from Sept. 6, 2002 lists the specific evidence supporting such a charge.
The lead investigators for the FBI and the Federal Emergency Management Agency told AP that the plan to prosecute KEI for those thefts stopped as soon as it became clear in late summer 2002 that an FBI agent in Minnesota had stolen a crystal globe from ground zero.
That prompted a broader review that ultimately found 16 government employees, including a top FBI executive and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, had such artifacts from New York or the Pentagon.
"How could you secure an indictment?" FEMA investigator Kirk Beauchamp asked. "It would be a conflict."
While the globe's discovery had been widely reported, its impact on the Sept. 11 thefts had remained mostly unknown.
Prosecutors "and the FBI were very conscious of the fact that if they proceeded in one direction, they would have to proceed in the other, which meant prosecuting FBI agents," said Jane Turner, the lead FBI agent. She too became a whistleblower alleging the bureau tried to fire her for bringing the stolen artifacts to light. Turner retired in 2003.
The FBI declined to discuss Turner's allegation, saying it involved a personnel matter.
"It's illogical" not to prosecute KEI because of the agents' stolen artifacts, said E. Lawrence Barcella, former chief of major crimes in the U.S. attorney's office in Washington. "The fact that FBI agents stole trinkets is an order of magnitude different than a company selling things they steal."
Nick Gess, another former federal prosecutor, said the agents' actions shouldn't have precluded prosecuting the company.
"DEA agents have been found to smoke pot occasionally," Gess said. "That doesn't mean they (the Drug Enforcement Administration) can't still work on drug cases."
The government also didn't prosecute any of its employees for taking souvenirs, claiming it lacked a policy prohibiting such thefts.
Ultimately, the FBI donated the stolen goods found at KEI's warehouse to the Salvation Army.
Joe Friedberg, a lawyer who represented a KEI executive, dismissed the Sept. 11 thefts as "much ado about nothing." Friedberg said KEI took a few pallets of water and T-shirts because they had authorization from a FEMA official to take surplus items.
But that FEMA official, Kathy McCoy, said she never gave Kieger such permission.
Those who work near ground zero today are shocked to learn such thefts went unpunished.
"To take advantage of people at a time of despair, it's probably one of the worst things human beings can do to another person," said Gregory Broms, Sr., a firefighter with Engine Company 10 at the foot of the former World Trade Center site. "It was morally wrong."
Christopherson recalled receiving boxes of white T-shirts stolen from the Long Island warehouse sent back to him after KEI had embossed a Sept. 11 logo on the front. He was instructed by his boss to sell them to firefighters, police and volunteers for $12 a piece. Disgusted, he threw them in the corner and never sold them.
Christopherson and L'Allier went to the FBI in fall 2001. On April 16, 2002, agents raided KEI, recovering at least 15,000 T-shirts and 18,000 bottles of bottled water. Because months had passed, the seized items were a fraction of the total the company had taken, the whistleblowers said.
Both men were threatened and harassed, reporting it to the FBI's Turner. "We all experienced the death threats," L'Allier said. "We all experienced the phone ringing at three in the morning and no one being there. I'd come home and the house would be wide open."
A few months after the raid, prosecutors drafted charges accusing the company of stealing the ground zero relief supplies, seeking an indictment on the one-year anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, Turner said.
But Turner discovered in late August 2002 a cracked Tiffany & Co. globe - lifted from the World Trade Center ruins - on the desk of a colleague. The theft case against KEI sputtered.
Eventually, KEI executives Edward Kieger Jr., Patrick Iwan and Joseph Dreshar were indicted in 2004 by a federal grand jury on charges of scheming to defraud the government. The former executives pleaded guilty, and Kieger and Iwan are serving prison terms. KEI has gone out of business.
Christopherson and L'Allier were stunned when the indictment excluded the ground zero thefts. They spent two years unsuccessfully trying to find new work in disaster relief. Christopherson now runs a landscaping business; L'Allier works as a paramedic.
For years, the two couldn't speak publicly because their whistleblower case remained under seal. They worried similar fraud might have occurred during Katrina.
"If you donated, at your local supermarket, water or canned goods or cleaning supplies and a truck goes down there (to New Orleans), who knows where it is ending up," L'Allier.
Today, the whistleblowers worry their fate might chill others from exposing wrongdoing.
"They felt they had to come forward about the theft because it was so wrong," Turner said. "I've lost my career. They've lost their jobs. The price is so high for telling the truth."
Comment on this Article
New Tool In Maritime Surveillance Launched
NBCSanDiego.com
June 14, 2006
SAN DIEGO -- Drones launched off the San Diego coast Wednesday demonstrated how new imaging technology will make shipping lanes safer.
The new technology, created by Lockheed Martin and General Atomics, allows drones to patrol hundreds of square miles of ocean, NBC 7/39 reported. The imaging technology is so advanced that it can identify people on-board ships. Lockheed Martin and General Atomics say the image quality is good enough to be used in a courtroom prosecution.
"We can take very good high-quality pictures and (get) information from ranges and distances where they don't know they're being observed," said Jim Courtright, of Lockheed Martin. "We can also do electronic signature comparison. If there are radiating radars, we can tell who they are and where they are."
Drones equipped with the new technology are being called Predator B's. The drones launched Wednesday were controlled from the SPAWAR complex on Pacific Highway.
Lockheed Martin says the technology has applications from everything to homeland security to search and rescue.
Comment on this Article
Bush shows his sensitive side, telling blind journalist: 'I'm interested in the shade look'
UK Independent
16 June 2006
Bantering with the reporters who cover him, and assigning them nicknames, is part of George Bush's style. But at his White House press conference this week the joking went a shade too far.
"Are you going to ask that question with shades on?" the President playfully inquired of Peter Wallsten of the Los Angeles Times, who had asked Mr Bush what he had learnt from the CIA leak imbroglio. The reporter offered to take them off but Mr Bush pressed on. "I'm interested in the shade look, seriously," he said, noting for good measure that "there's no sun". Deftly Mr Wallsten replied, "I guess it depends on your perspective." "Touché," Mr Bush said, in a rare lapse into French. But beneath the give-and-take lies a more serious tale. Mr Wallsten, it transpires, is partly blind as a result of macular degeneration, and has to wear sunglasses to protect his eyes from glare.
Pardon, Mr President?
* At a presidential gala in 2002, President Bush spotted the singer Stevie Wonder sitting nearby and tried to attract the blind singer's attention by waving. Unsurprisingly, Wonder did not respond.
* White House aides were forced quickly to correct a Bush remark during Chinese President Hu Jintao's state visit to the US in April after he referred to China as the Republic of China - the official name for Taiwan. China itself is the People's Republic of China.
* During a press conference in Beijing last year, the President's attempt to make a quick but dignified getaway from reporters was thwarted when he tried to exit the room through a locked door. An aide had to show him the way out.
Comment on this Article
Minutemen hire contractor to build fence
AP
Thu Jun 15, 2006
SIERRA VISTA, Ariz. - The Minutemen civilian border-patrol group has hired a contractor to finish building 10 miles of fence along the Mexican border.
Construction on the fence began May 27, when about 150 supporters turned out for the groundbreaking, but the number of volunteers then dwindled.
"We don't want to put up something that will just be a symbol," said Al Garza, the group's executive director. "We want to make sure it's permanent, properly structured and done right."
As few as four people were observed working on the fence recently, said Cecile Lumer of the humanitarian aid group Citizens for Border Solutions.
"From the beginning, the numbers they have projected have always fallen very short of the reality," Lumer said.
One of the ranch owners, Jack Ladd, said he hoped the fence would keep Mexican livestock off his property, but he doubted it would keep people out.
"We want to make it clear that while we oppose illegal immigration, we weren't necessarily trying to keep Mexicans off the land," he said.
Comment: "As few as four people were observed working on the fence recently... From the beginning, the numbers they have projected have always fallen very short of the reality."
It seems that the number of people who are so adamantly opposed to Mexican immigrants are few and far between, and yet they seem to be getting quite a bit of press...
Comment on this Article
Senate packed with senior-citizen senators
By Thomas Ferraro
Reuters
Fri Jun 16, 2006
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate, dubbed "the world's most exclusive club," is also one of the most elderly, with more than a third of its 100 members at or well past 65 with no plans to leave anytime soon.
While most elderly Americans are retiring, senior senators still wield considerable power, tackling tough issues from war to taxes, some more effectively than others.
WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate, dubbed "the world's most exclusive club," is also one of the most elderly, with more than a third of its 100 members at or well past 65 with no plans to leave anytime soon.
While most elderly Americans are retiring, senior senators still wield considerable power, tackling tough issues from war to taxes, some more effectively than others.
"Some of these old people are probably wonderfully wise and some of them, maybe, should have retired a long time ago," said Stephen Hess, a congressional scholar at the Brookings Institution.
A recent survey of experts declared six of the oldest senators as among the chamber's 10 "best," while three of the oldest were among the five "worst."
Senior senators walk -- some shuffle -- the marble halls of power, packing political muscle and legislative know-how as well as a few joint replacements and hearing aids.
The Senate historian says the average age for a senator is 60.3 years, the oldest ever and up six years from 1985. Thirty-seven are at least 65, 19 of whom are in their 70s. Five are in their 80.
The word Senate derives from the Latin senex, meaning old man. The Senate, or council of elders, was a powerful body in ancient Rome.
At 88, Democrat Robert Byrd of West Virginia is the oldest U.S. senator. He walks with two canes yet remains one of the most respected voices in Congress.
"If I could live another 100 years, I'd like to continue in the Senate," said Byrd, running for an unprecedented ninth six-year term.
First elected in 1958, Byrd became the longest-serving senator this month, passing South Carolina's Strom Thurmond, who retired in 2003 at 100, which made him the oldest senator in the 217-year history of the clubby chamber.
Thurmond, while a powerhouse much of his career, seldom joined Senate debates in his final years and used a wheelchair and relied heavily on aides. He died soon after retiring.
'SOME STAYED TOO LONG'
"History documents that some stayed too long," said Virginia Republican Sen. John Warner, still vigorous at 79. "I don't want to be remembered that way."
"I wake up every morning delighted to be on this side of the grass," Warner added.
Dr. Jan Busby-Whitehead, chief of geriatric medicine at the University of North Carolina and a member of the American Geriatrics Society, noted Americans overall were living and working longer.
Those who stay on the job can provide experience and maturity but are also more prone to memory loss and other illnesses.
"The criteria for employment shouldn't be age, but ability. Not everyone ages the same way," Busby-Whitehead said.
In the Senate, old age cuts across party lines and perceived effectiveness.
Time magazine had experts rate senators in its April 24 edition and included six senior citizens among its "10 best senators": Democrats Edward Kennedy, 74, of Massachusetts and Carl Levin, 71, of Michigan, along with Republicans Arlen Specter, 76, of Pennsylvania, Richard Lugar, 74, of Indiana, John McCain, 69, of Arizona, and Thad Cochran, 68, of Mississippi.
Among Time's "five worst" were two older Republicans, Conrad Burns, 71, of Montana and Jim Bunning, 74, of Kentucky, and Democrat Daniel Akaka, 81, of Hawaii.
Why do so many stay in the Senate so late in life?
James Thurber of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University in Washington said reasons varied with each senator.
"In most cases, it's because they have a safe seat and public service ethic," Thurber said. "A cynical view would be they can't do anything else or find it uncomfortable to leave the stage."
In the past decade, nearly 90 percent of senators who ran for re-election won. They are paid $165,200 a year and enjoy generous health and retirement benefits.
Last year, Democratic Sen. Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, now 73, said he was stepping down. "It was not my ambition to stay there until they carried me out."
But 10 of the 29 senators running for re-election this year are at least 70. Life expectancy for someone that age is about 14 years.
Comment on this Article
Genocide By Any Other Name
Lebanon: New evidence Mossad behind assassination
Ynet News
14/06/2006
Lebanese army releases statement citing new evidence that cell nabbed in Lebanon for Majzoub brothers' assassination in May answered to Israeli intelligence agency
A notice published by the Lebanese army Tuesday regarding the assassination on May 25 of the Majzoub brothers in Sidon, revealed apparently new details regarding Israel's involvement in the hit.
"In the last operation, that targeted the Majzoub brother, the network received a prepared booby-trapped door for their car from Israel. They were equipped with photographic and broadcast devices to be sure the brother did leave their house. A raid of the cell members' house uncovered sophisticated spying devices. The investigation is ongoing in an attempt to arrest the remaining cell members and decode additional terror activities. The detained will be judged soon," the statement declared.
Israel has dismissed accusations that it was behind the assassination, which killed senior Islamic Jihad leader in Lebanon Mahmoud Majzoub and his brother Nidal in a car bomb blast.
'Network connected to Israeli Mossad'
The Lebanese army message added: "In continuation of the previous message regarding the exposure of a terror network answering to Israeli intelligence and the arrest of its central members, and in their continued questioning, the Lebanese intelligence authority has discovered those involved in the assassination of the Majzoub brothers."
"From the intelligence administration's inquiries, it has become clear that the network has been connected to the Israeli Mossad for a few years. Its members trained in Israel and outside of it, and received their missions from the Mossad. For the purpose of this assassination, the cell was equipped with communication devices and advanced secret observation devices, as well as with detailed maps of locations in Lebanon, phony documents, suitcases with secret compartments," the statement added.
According to Lebanon, "The cell was headed by Mahmoud Rafeh, who confessed to the assassination as well as to a host of other acts, including the assassination of senior Hizbullah official Ali Hassan Deeb (Abu Hassan Salameh) in 1999; of Ali Salah in 2003; of Jihad Jabril, the son of Ahmad Jabril in Beirut in 2002; planting explosives on the a-Zaharani highway; attempted assassinations of senior Palestinian officials, and more."
Comment on this Article
Congress grossly misled about plight of Palestinian Christians
Electronic Intifada
15 June 2006
In a letter to the American Congress on 13 June, Open Bethlehem's chief executive Leila Sansour, a Christian from Bethlehem, expressed her community's shock at the gross misrepresentation of the threat facing the Christians of the Holy Land. She urged Congress to pay heed to the plight of the oldest Christian community in the world.
 |
| Israeli soldiers detain a Palestinian man during a raid in the West Bank village of Artas near Bethlehem May 16, 2006. (MaanImages/Magnus Johansson |
In a letter to the American Congress on 13 June, Open Bethlehem's chief executive Leila Sansour, a Christian from Bethlehem, expressed her community's shock at the gross misrepresentation of the threat facing the Christians of the Holy Land. She urged Congress to pay heed to the plight of the oldest Christian community in the world.
"We are disappointed by the resolution drafted by Congressman McCaul and Congressman Crowley purporting to act on our behalf. The resolution seriously misrepresents the situation facing Christians in the Holy Land".
The ill-conceived resolution accuses the Palestinians of discrimination towards their own Christian community - and does so without consulting any local churches or Christian organizations. The drafters of the resolution ignored the calls from churches in Jerusalem, as well as the overwhelming body of reports from international organizations warning of the devastating effect of the Israel's system of closures, collective punishment and the construction of the wall. In the Holy city of Bethlehem, the wall forcefully expropriates most of Bethlehem's valuable land and historic landmarks depriving many Christian families from their homes, links to their community in Jerusalem and their income.
The Open Bethlehem campaign was created to address the state of emergency in Bethlehem with full support from the Patriarchs of Jerusalem and all Bethlehem Civil institutions. His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI received the first Open Bethlehem passport, lending his support to the campaign alongside international figures such as Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Jimmy Carter.
Open Bethlehem is deeply encouraged by churches and church leaders across the US and by the work of those US politicians who have joined Rep.Henry Hyde in bringing the plight of Christians in Palestine to Congress and the people of the US.
In a letter to the White House last Friday, Rep. Hyde stated that the Wall and expanding settlements are, "irreversibly damaging the dwindling Christian community."
The report says that "the Bethlehem area is home to over 20 Israeli settlements and there are plans to build more. The settlements and the barrier completely encircle the Christian triangle of Bethlehem, Beit Jala and Beit Sahour (Shepherd's Field)." In addition to causing housing and land shortages, "this construction physically obstructs the Bethlehem community from its spiritual, cultural and economic lifeline in Jerusalem."
Since 2000, approx. 3,000 Christians from Bethlehem have emigrated. The UN states that: "This economic emigration will have a long-term impact on the multi-cultural character that has defined the city of Bethlehem for centuries."
Leila Sansour says: " Palestinian Christians could very soon become unsustainable as a community. Their erosion will mean an end to sacred Christian traditions that go back to the time of Jesus and an end to the presence of Christianity in the Holy Land. At this critical time it is imperative that Christians around the world act and speak responsibly and it is equally imperative that those who want to see an open, democratic peaceful Middle East engage honestly with our plight.
Church leaders across all Christian denominations have criticised the resolution. In the letter to US congress. Open Bethlehem has urged the formation of a fact finding mission from congress that would help representatives be closely informed about the situation.
Open Bethlehem Letter to Congress
13 June 2006
Dear Representative,
I write to you as the Chief Executive Officer of Open Bethlehem, to say that we areencouraged by the latest interest of Congress in the plight of the world's oldest Christian community. Open Bethlehem is an independent city project created to preserve theheritage of our ancient city. Our aim is to ensure that our community survives in the birthplace of Christianity, as part of a diverse, multi-faith society that will be an essential pillar of an open and democratic Middle East.
We are, however, disappointed by the latest resolution drafted by congressman McCaul and congressman Crowley purporting to act on our behalf. The resolution seriously misrepresents the situation facing Christians in the Holy Land. We have contacted the highest officials in the Catholic and Evangelical Churches in the US and in the Holy Land and they strongly oppose this resolution. We understand that the resolution was drafted without consulting Christians living in the region or local Christian organizations. The resolution grossly misleads the Congress as to the real threat that faces our community.
Between the years 2000 and 2004, 357 Christian families (10% of the Christian population) emigrated from Bethlehem alone. Indeed, this massive emigration threatens the existence of the indigenous Christian community, which has been safeguarding sacred Christian traditions since the time of Jesus. This flight is primarily a result of the fear generated by repeated Israeli military incursions, and has been exacerbated by the economic devastation of Bethlehem due to the Israeli closure imposed on the city.
Perhaps the Israeli barrier is most emblematic of the shared fate of both Muslim and Christian Palestinians. The Bethlehem barrier winding in and around our city consists mainly of 25-foot high slabs of concrete, sniper towers, and remote-controlled infantry positions. It is built on privately-owned Palestinian land, resulting in the loss of most of Bethlehem's fertile and economically prosperous agriculture lands and many of our major landmarks. It has also severed our city from Jerusalem, a city with which we have historically enjoyed interdependent kinship, trade, and social relations. Equally, if not more important, the barrier fragments this single, indivisible Christian diocese, threatening the Christian communities of both cities.
We urge you not to sign the resolution and to engage directly with Palestinian Christians. We ask that you consider forming a fact-finding mission this August recess to Bethlehem, to learn first hand about the challenges that we face. We will facilitate your visit, as we believe that only close and transparent relations can help our communities build peaceful and prosperous futures. We also encourage you to meet with church leaders in the United States, in the belief that all Christians share a stake in the survival of Christian communities in the Holy Land.
We look forward to hearing from you and welcome any questions, requests or suggestions. You can contact me directly by email: leilasansour@openbethlehem.org or telephone: +44 (0) 7814 937743.
Thank you.
Yours sincerely,
Leila Sansour
Chief Executive
Comment on this Article
For Arabs Only: Israeli Law and Order
Palestine Chronicle
June 16 2006
The killing of four Palestinian citizens of Israel by Eden Natan Zada, shortly before the disengagement from Gaza, has been quietly forgotten by the world.
Imagine the following scenario. A Palestinian gunman boards a bus inside Israel and rides it to the city of Netanya. Close to the end of the line, he walks over to the driver, levels his automatic rifle against the man's head and pumps him with bullets. He turns and empties the rest of the magazine -- one of 14 in his backpack -- into the passenger behind the driver and two young women sitting across the gangway.
As bystanders in the street outside look on in horror, our gunman then reloads his weapon and sprays the bus with yet more fire, injuring 20 people. He approaches a woman huddled beneath a seat, trying to hide from him, lowers the gun to her head and pulls the trigger. The magazine is empty. As he tries to load a third clip, she grabs the burning barrel of the gun while other passengers rush him.
Seeing their chance, the onlookers storm the bus and fuelled by a mixture of passions -- fury, indignation and fear of further attack -- they beat the gunman to death.
As the news breaks, Israeli TV prefers to continue its coverage of a local football match rather report the killings. Later, when the channels do cover the deaths, they start by showing the picture of the gunman with the caption "God bless his soul" -- in the same manner as they would normally relate to the victim of a terror attack.
Despite the Prime Minister denouncing the gunman as a terrorist to the world, domestically the media and police concentrate instead on the "lynch mob" who killed the gunman. The police launch a secretive investigation which after 10 months leads to the arrests of seven men on charges of murdering him, and the promise of more arrests to come. A police spokesman describes the men's act against the gunman as one of "cold-blooded murder".
Fanciful? Ridiculous? Well, exactly these events have unfolded in Israel over the past year -- except that the location was not the Jewish city of Nentanya but the Arab town of Shafa'amr in the Galilee; the gunman was not a Palestinian but an Israeli soldier using his army-issue M-16; and the victims were not Israeli Jews but Israeli Arabs.
See how it now starts to make sense.
The killing of four Palestinian citizens of Israel by the 19-year-old soldier Eden Natan Zada on 4 August last year, shortly before the disengagement from Gaza, has been quietly forgotten by the world. After the Arab victims were buried, the only question that concerned Israelis was who killed Zada. Yesterday they appeared to get their answer: seven men from Shafa'amr were rounded up by Israeli police to stand trial for his "cold-blooded" murder.
No one was interested in the official neglect of the families of Shafa'amr's dead, all of whom were denied the large compensation payments given to Israeli victims of Palestinian terror. A ministerial committee ruled that, because Zada was a serving soldier, his attack could not be considered a terrorist incident. Apparently only Arabs can be terrorists. To this day the state has not given the families a penny of the compensation automatically awarded to Jewish families.
There was no investigation of why Zada, well-known for his extremist views, had been allowed to go AWOL for weeks from his unit without attempts to trace him. Or how his family's repeated warnings that he had threatened to do something "terrible" to stop the disengagement had been ignored by the authorities. No one questioned why, a few days before his attack, the police had sent Zada away after he tried to hand in his gun.
Even more disturbingly, no one discussed why Zada, who openly belonged to a racist and outlawed movement, Kach, which demands the expulsion, if not eradication, of Arabs from the Holy Land, had been allowed to serve in the army. How had he and thousands of other Kach supporters been left in peace to promote their obscene ideas? Why were these Kach activists, mostly young Israelis, demonstrating openly against the Gaza disengagement, assaulting policemen and soldiers, when the group was supposedly underground?
And why did the authorities not round up and question Zada's Kach friends in his West Bank settlement of Tapuah after the attack? Why was their possible involvement in its planning never considered, nor their role in inciting him to his deed?
The point was that the Israeli authorities wanted Zada to be dismissed as a lone, crazy gunman -- like Baruch Goldstein before him, the army doctor who in 1994 opened fire in the Palestinian city of Hebron, killing 29 Muslim worshippers at the Tomb of the Patriarchs and wounding 125 others.
Although Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister then, denounced Goldstein as an "errant weed", a shrine and park was built for him nearby, in the settlement of Kiryat Arba, venerating him as a "saint" and "a righteous and holy man". Far from being isolated, his shrine regularly attracts thousands of Israeli Jews who congregate deep in Palestinian territory to honor him.
Instead of seeking out and eradicating this growing strain of Jewish fundamentalism in the wake of the Shafa'amr terror attack, Israel claimed that finding and punishing the men who killed Zada was the priority. It was a matter of law and order, said Dan Ronen, the police force's northern commander. He told the Hebrew media: "In a country with law and order, despite the sensitivity, people can't do whatever they see fit. I hope the Arab sector will display maturity and responsibility."
This sounds like an outrageous double standard to the citizens of Shafa'amr, and to the country's more than one million Palestinian citizens. Enforcing the law has never been a major consideration when the offenders are Jewish and the victims are Arabs, even when the killings occur inside Israel.
Arab citizens have not forgotten the massacre of 49 men, women and children by a unit of soldiers who enforced a last-minute curfew on the Israeli village of Kfar Qassem in 1956, executing the villagers -- Arabs, of course -- at the checkpoint one by one as they innocently returned home from a day's work in the fields.
During their trial, the Haaretz newspaper reported that the soldiers received a 50 per cent pay increase and that it was obvious the men were "not treated as criminals but as heroes". Found guilty of an "administrative error", the commander was given a one penny fine.
Nor was anyone held to account when six unarmed Arab citizens were shot dead by the security services in the Galilean town of Sakhnin in 1976 as they protested against another wave of land confiscations that deprived rural Arab communities of their farm land. The prime minister of the day, Rabin again, refused even to launch an investigation.
Some 25 years later, an inquiry was held into the killing by the police of 13 unarmed Arabs in the Galilee in October 2000 as they protested the deaths of Palestinians at the Noble Sanctuary in Jerusalem -- the trigger for the Intifada. Six years on, however, not a single policeman has been charged over the deaths inside Israel. Even the commanders who illegally authorized the use of an anti-terror sniper unit against demonstrators armed only with stones have not been punished.
Israel's Arab citizens are also more than familiar with the story of the "Bus 300 affair" of 1984, when two Palestinian gunmen from the occupied territories were captured after hijacking a bus inside Israel. Led away in handcuffs by the Shin Bet security service, the two men were later reported dead.
No one was ever charged over the killings, even though it was widely known at the time who had killed the men and later one senior Shin Bet operative, Ehud Yatom, admitted breaking the men's skulls with a rock. In 1986, to forestall the threat of any indictments, the president of the day, Chaim Herzog, gave all the Shin Bet agents involved an amnesty from prosecution.
If it is shown in court that Zada was in fact beaten to death after the crowd knew he had been restrained, then this history -- of the state's repeated denial of justice to the Arab victims of its violence -- must be taken into account. No one can reasonably have expected the onlookers to stay calm knowing that Zada, like other Jewish emissaries of the state before him, would receive either no punishment or a few years of jail and a pardon because he killed Arabs rather than Jews.
Israel has shown time and again that it selectively enforces law and order, depending on the ethnicity of killer and victim.
Commander Ronen observed at a press conference after the Shafa'amr arrests: "Since October 2000 we have come a long way in our relations with the Arab sector." If that is true, which is doubtful, the authorities have again made every effort to tear apart what little is left of that trust.
Comment on this Article
Lebanese man confesses to killings on behalf of Israel
Last update - 22:28 13/06/2006
By Reuters
A Lebanese man has confessed to assassinating a series of senior Hezbollah and Palestinian militants over a seven-year period on behalf of Israeli intelligence, the Lebanese Army said on Tuesday.
It said Mahmoud Rafeh, arrested along with three others last week in connection with the May 26 killing of two Islamic Jihad officials, was a leading member of a "terrorist network" behind at least three other major assassinations in Lebanon.
"Investigations by military intelligence showed that the terrorist network that was discovered had links to the Israeli Mossad for several years and that its members underwent training both inside Israel and outside," the army statement said.
"The network was tasked by this agency with carrying out these operations and was given secret communication and monitoring devices for this purpose along with detailed maps of the target... forged documents and bags with secret pockets."
Israel has dismissed accusations it was behind the car bombing last month that killed Mahmoud Majzoub, known as Abu Hamze, and his brother Nidal, both members of the Palestinian group Islamic Jihad, in the southern Lebanese city of Sidon.
Several Palestinian militants and Hezbollah officials have been killed in Lebanon in recent years in attacks their organizations have blamed on Israel.
Two days after the last assassination, rockets fired from southern Lebanon into northern Israel wounded an Israel Defense Forces soldier, prompting the Israel to launch its heaviest air raid against Syrian-backed Palestinian militants and Hezbollah in southern Lebanon since it withdraw from the area in 2000.
Rafeh admitted to the murder of Hezbollah official Ali Hasan Deeb in 1999 in the southern town of Arba, the killing of another Hezbollah official in Beirut in 2003 and the killing of Palestinian militant Jihad Jibreel in 2002, the army said.
Jibreel, killed in a bombing aimed at his car in Beirut, was the son of Ahmed Jibril, head of the Damascus-based Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command.
The army said Rafeh had also confessed to planting other bombs that were either found and defused before they were detonated or missed their targets.
Syrian and Iranian-backed Hezbollah as well as Jibril welcomed the arrests in interviews with Hezbollah's al-Manar TV.
Pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud said they proved that "Israel had not ceased its attempts to sabotage Lebanon."
Television footage released by the Lebanese Army showed equipment it said was used in the latest attack and discovered either at Rafeh's house in the Lebanese town of Hasbaya, on the border with Israel, or in a chalet that he used.
The find included what the army said was an Israeli camera that can be used to take detailed photographs of streets while concealed within a bag, forged driving licences and identity documents it said Rafeh had received from Israel.
The footage also showed an air conditioning unit and a large speaker converted into secret cabinets that the army said were used to transport explosives used in the Sidon bombing.
Other finds included a television cabinet and a table fitted with secret drawers to conceal coded messaging devices.
The army said the attackers had used a car door, packed with explosives before being smuggled from Israel, in the bombing that killed the two Islamic Jihad officials in Sidon.
The army is hunting a Palestinian man also believed to be part of the network, and those arrested will be taken to court, security sources said.
Comment on this Article
Hamas ready to restore truce with Israel
6/15/2006
al-Jazeerah
The Hamas-led government said that it's willing to restore its cease-fire with Israel if the Jewish state ends its military operations in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, a spokesman said on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Hamas ended a 16-month truce with Israel last Friday after a deadly explosion on a Gaza beach killed seven members of a Palestinian family, an attack blamed by the Palestinians on Israel, which denies involvement.
"I spoke today with the prime minister and he said we definitely want quiet everywhere. We are interested in a ceasefire everywhere," Hamas' spokesman Ghazi Hamad said in an interview on Israel Radio.
However, Hamad said the offer was conditional on Israel stopping its "aggression" against the Palestinians.
"We are ready to launch discussions with factions over stopping rocket firing but only if there is an Israeli commitment to cease all military attacks against all Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank."
Israel continued its bombardments of Gaza even after Friday's tragedy. The deadliest attack was on Tuesday when an Israeli missile killed 11 people, including two schoolchildren.
On the other hand, Hamas fired several rockets towards southern Israel after the beach attack, but there has been a sharp drop in anti-Israeli attacks in recent days.
Israeli officials said today that the cessation is due to threats made by top members of Israeli premier Ehud Olmert's party to assassinate senior Hamas leaders, including Prime Minister Ismael Haneya, if the rocket fire continued.
However, Israeli media reported that four rockets struck the southern Israeli town of Sderot on Thursday, lightly wounding two people.
The Islamic Jihad resistance group, which has never accepted the ceasefire, claimed responsibility for the rocket attacks.
Israel, along with the U.S. and Europe, classify Hamas as a terror group and imposed a trade embargo on the Palestinian government following Hamas' election victory in the January legislative polls.
Tensions between Fatah and Hamas escalated since the resistance group formed the government in March. More than 22 people have been killed in clashes between the two parties in the past two months.
One of the major problems between Hamas and Fatah is the control of the security services.
Israel and the West want President Mahmoud Abbas to win the power struggle and have tried to bolster his security forces. Hamas has warned that such attempts would worsen tensions.
According to Israel's daily Yedioth Ahronoth, Olmert approved a shipment of weapons to Abbas, saying that he wanted to help the Palestinian president against Hamas.
The newspaper said that the Israeli government transferred 950 M-16 assault rifles from Jordan to Abbas' security forces.
"Any Israeli intervention in our internal affairs is rejected because the Israelis aim to sow divisions among the Palestinian people," said top Hamas MP Mushir al-Masri.
On the other hand, an Abbas' aide denied the report.
Israel's arms shipment to Abbas' security forces could embarrass the president, especially after he intensified pressure on Hamas by calling for a referendum on a statehood plan that implicitly recognizes Israel.
Hamas argues that the July 26 referendum is unconstitutional, accusing Abbas of engineering a coup against its democratically elected government.
Comment on this Article
UN Security Council extends, widens UN probe of Hariri murder
AFP
Thu Jun 15, 2006
UNITED NATIONS - The UN Security Council has agreed a one-year extension of the UN probe into the murder of former Lebanese premier Rafiq Hariri and widened its mandate to cover other attacks in Lebanon.
The 15-member council unanimously adopted a resolution sponsored by France, the United States and Britain that extends the mandate of the UN panel headed by Belgian prosecutor Serge Brammertz until June 15, 2007.
The one-year extension, which had been requested by the Lebanese government, was approved Thursday just as the Brammertz panel's six-month mandate expired.
Hariri was killed in a massive bomb blast that also killed 22 others on the Beirut seafront in February 2005.
The council resolution also backed the UN enquiry commission's "intention, as it deems appropriate and consistent with its mandate, to extend further its technical assistance to the Lebanese authorities" with regard to 14 other attacks in Lebanon since October 1, 2004, including against anti-Syrian figures.
Wednesday, Brammertz cited "potential linkages" between the Hariri murder probe and the 14 other attacks.
"In light of the potential linkages between the Hariri investigation and the 14 other cases, the (Brammertz) commission believes that a much more concerted and robust effort is needed to move these cases forward," Brammertz then told the 15-member body.
The 14 cases include assassinations and assassination attempts targeting anti-Syrian Lebanese figures, as well as attacks on commercial interests.
The Belgian prosecutor said Lebanese authorities probing the 14 other bombings since October 1, 2004 lacked "significant forward investigative momentum" because they lacked "forensic capacity to collect and analyze evidence effectively."
He said his panel had reached the preliminary conclusion that from an analytical standpoint the 14 cases could be linked, notably in the similarities "in the modus operandi and their possible intent."
But he also cautioned that no evidence had been developed "that would allow identification and linking of the perpetrators."
Noting that "no clear linkages" had been found between the 14 cases and the Hariri probe, he added: "Further coordinated investigative work and additional capacities are required to elicit such evidentiary links."
Among the 14 cases are several assassinations, including the murder of anti-Syrian newspaper boss and MP Gibran Tueni last December, which some Lebanese lawmakers have blamed on Damascus.
Syria, however, denied any involvement.
Tueni, 48, and three other people were killed when a car bomb exploded in a Beirut suburb, just hours after the Christian MP returned from France, where he had taken refuge, fearing his life was in danger.
Syria, which has strenuously denied any role in the Hariri killing, has come under intense international pressure to cooperate with the UN probe.
Brammertz noted Wednesday that cooperation from the Syrians has been "generally satisfactory," with more than 10 requests sent to them answered in a timely manner and currently being evaluated.
His report handed to UN chief
Kofi Annan Saturday, however, said: "Full and unconditional cooperation from Syria to the commission remains crucial."
The UN probe could lead to the establishment of an international tribunal to try those found responsible for the murder.
Brammertz took over as head of the UN probe last January from his German predecessor, Detlev Mehlis.
Two previous reports under Mehlis had suggested top-level Syrian involvement in the assassination plot, and blasted Damascus for failing to cooperate and actively seeking to mislead the investigation.
Comment on this Article
EU approves 100 mln euro Palestinian aid via new mechanism
AFP
Fri Jun 16, 2006
BRUSSELS - EU leaders have endorsed an estimated 100 million euro (126 million dollar) aid package to the Palestinians, to be paid via a new funding mechanism to start operating by next month, a spokeswoman said.
The European Commission spokeswoman said the aid package was divided into three parts, including an element focused on the health sector, extending a current programme through the
World Bank.
The other two parts were an emergency contribution for essential utilities, including fuel, and a "social safety net" to come into effect later which would involve paying money directly into accounts of individuals based on their needs.
Spokeswoman Emma Udwin reiterated that the EU is very close to reaching agreement with its Mideast quartet partners on the temporary funding mechanism for the Palestinians bypassing their Hamas-led government.
"We hope we can see that final endorsement in the coming days," said Udwin, a spokeswoman for EU External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner.
Comment on this Article
As The World Burns
Fires burn in Colo., Ariz., Utah, Alaska
By JON SARCHE
Associated Press
Thu Jun 15, 2006
DENVER - With another tinderbox summer shaping up in much of the West, officials issued red-flag fire warnings for Colorado on Thursday while in Arizona a roaring blaze forced the evacuation of about 1,000 homes.
Wildfires also were burning in Alaska and Utah.
The aggressive 700-acre Colorado blaze had already prompted about 100 people to leave their homes in the rolling hills near Westcliffe, about 100 miles south of Denver.
The fire, which began when falling tree dragged a power line to the ground, left patches of dense trees and brush "totally nuked, completely black," said Steve Segin, a spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Incident Management Team.
No structures were reported lost but a house suffered exterior damage. A six-mile stretch of Colorado 96 was closed.
Judi Coker, who lives about two miles from the fire, said less smoke was visible Thursday than a day earlier. Her subdivision was not threatened and she and her husband, Rod, were not among the residents who left, but their bags were packed just in case.
"It's very dry, more dry than I've seen it since we lived here," said Coker, who has lived in the area for four years.
The Rocky Mountain Area Predictive Services issued a red-flag warning for a huge swath of southern Colorado, meaning conditions were favorable for big, fast-moving fires. The warning spanned the entire width of the state and ranged as far north as the Denver area.
At least 60,604 acres have burned in Colorado this year, said Larry Helmerick, spokesman for the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center. That compares with 41,048 acres for all of 2005. It was still far below the 619,029 that burned in 2002.
"It's so dry out here that it doesn't take more than a spark to start a wildfire," said Jamie Moore, director of emergency management for Douglas County south of Denver, where a passing train apparently sparked a 30-acre fire Wednesday.
In northwestern Colorado, a 3,700-acre fire quieted down after high winds blew in a mild cold front, said fire information officer Pam Wilson. One abandoned cabin burned.
More than half of Colorado is experiencing severe or extreme drought, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center. Arizona is almost entirely under extreme drought conditions.
In Arizona, fire crews quickly responded to a 120-acre blaze that broke out Wednesday afternoon on the west side of Flagstaff, a city of 60,000 people nestled in a thick pine forest. The blaze was contained Thursday morning, but the threat was enough to evacuate 1,000 homes.
Officials credited the quick response of air tankers and extensive forest thinning.
Jim Wheeler, the assistant fire chief in Flagstaff, passed the word to a meeting of evacuees Thursday that all the area's homes were saved.
"Your neighborhoods are in fantastic shape," he said to loud applause.
In Alaska, a wildfire only a few miles northeast of the small town of Anderson grew to 65,500 acres. The town, 75 miles southwest of Fairbanks, was not in immediate danger, fire officials said Thursday.
Nearly 300 firefighters fought a 2,500-acre fire on the Utah side of Navajo Mountain on the Navajo Indian Reservation. The blaze was believed to have been started by lightning Saturday, said Jim Whittington, a U.S. Bureau of Land Management fire information officer in Kingman, Ariz.
So far this year, nearly 2.9 million acres have burned. That is more than three times the average by this time of year, according to the National Interagency Fire Center, but much of the acreage came in huge grass fires that swept Oklahoma and Texas this spring.
Comment on this Article
Drought Plagues Southern Louisiana
AP
Thu Jun 15, 2006
NEW ORLEANS - After most of New Orleans sat submerged in water for weeks after Hurricane Katrina, the eight months since Oct. 1 have been the driest southern Louisiana has been during the 111 years that records have been kept, the state climatologist says.
Since October, most of the southern half of the state has averaged just 21 inches of rain, down from the usual 40-inch average, climatologist Barry Keim said. The National Weather Service says the rest of June promises more of the same.
"We're in what's called extreme drought," Keim said of the state's record-breaking dry spell. "We've really been suffering here, especially since Katrina."
Without the once-dependable daily showers, lawns have browned, rice and sugar cane crops are suffering and residents have emptied store shelves of hoses and other irrigation devices.
The increase in watering could stress city and parish pumping systems, and officials fear they could break because of ground subsidence caused by the lack of rain.
"A tropical storm would do wonders for us right now," Keim said. "A weak one, of course."
The forecast for rest of the month calls for little or no rain, said Mike Shields, senior forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Slidell. Shields said there will be a chance for only spotty showers over the weekend.
"And then until the end of the month, it looks like the same pattern of high pressure still over us and keeping us dry," he said.
Southern Louisiana had been abnormally dry for about five months before the storm made landfall Aug. 29., Keim said.
"The drought was interrupted, if you will, by Katrina, and we went back into the drought pattern. Then we got that deluge from Rita. And as soon as that storm left, we went right back into the drought pattern," he said.
Normally, humidity rises into the sky, forming a cloud and then rain. But Keim said a stable structure of atmosphere is hanging over the region, preventing the moisture from rising, similar to the atmospheric conditions in normally arid states.
"For whatever reason, this dome of upper pressure in the atmosphere seems displaced east by a few hundred miles," Keim said.
The National Weather Service predicts that rain in the area will return to normal levels over the next three months. But Keim said such predictions typically can be way off.
"We're crossing our fingers," forecaster Tim Destri said. "We can't say for sure, but we see some hope of getting back to the typical summer pattern."
Comment on this Article
Small earthquake rattles 4 N.C. counties
AP
Fri Jun 16, 2006
FRANKLIN, N.C. - A small earthquake shook buildings and rattled dishes in at least four western North Carolina counties Thursday night, the seventh noticeable temblor to shake the region in the past year.
There were no reports of damage in the 3.1-magnitude quake, centered 28 miles north of Franklin and felt from Maggie Valley to Bryson City to Cashiers just before 9 p.m.
The quake was considered minor, said Dale Grant, a geophysicist with the National Earthquake Information Center.
"A quake of this magnitude generally won't cause a great deal of damage, if any," he said.
Still, emergency dispatchers took a flood of worried calls from people asking if they had heard an explosion or plane crash.
"Oh Lord, after it happened every line in here lit up," Jackson County dispatcher Belinda Clawson said.
Arthur Buchanan said he didn't hear anything while working inside P.J.'s Fast Food Mart in Sylva, but he felt the store tremble.
"I figured somebody had ran into the side of my building," he said, "because it shook it good."
Over the past year, four of six other noticeable quakes within 60 miles of Thursday's epicenter were bigger, according to the center. They include a 3.7-magnitude temblor in August centered in Madison County that shook houses as far south as Athens, Ga.
Comment on this Article
Two people killed at Indonesian volcano
AFP
Friday June 16, 2006
The bodies of two men trapped in an emergency bunker at Indonesia's rumbling Mount Merapi volcano have been found after they were effectively baked to death, officials said.
The men ran into the shelter when the volcano spewed a hot cloud of gas and ash that reached seven kilometers (four miles) down its southeastern slopes on Wednesday, sparking panic among residents.
"Rescuers found the corpse of the second person near the bathroom while the corpse of the other was found near the bunker's door," said Lieutenant Colonel Mursal, who headed a rescue team that got through to the bunker.
He said rescuers concluded that both men were killed by the heat of the cloud, estimated at around 400 degrees Celsius (750 degrees Fahrenheit).
The pair were helping people evacuate their village when the heat cloud and molten lava struck. They were the first human casualties since Merapi began showing increased activity in April.
The condition of the bodies was similar to having been "baked in an oven," a rescue worker who went inside the bunker using heat-protected clothing told an AFP journalist at the site.
Merapi has been emitting deadly heat clouds that can reach temperatures up to 500 degrees Celsius.
Wednesday's large emission led scientists to place Merapi back on its highest alert, meaning they believe an eruption is imminent, a day after they had downgraded it.
On Friday the volcano emitted three heat clouds five kilometers down its southestern slopes, near the site of the bunker where the men were killed, said Triyani of the volcanology office in nearby Yogyakarta city.
She said the men had had ample time to flee.
"They should have fled when there was a sign that the cloud was coming. We don't know the condition of the bunker, whether it's up to standards," she told AFP.
One man who witnessed Wednesday's eruption and was a friend of one of the victims said the two could have survived if they had fled immediately.
"His motorcycle was on stand-by. He shouldn't have entered the bunker," the man told ElShinta radio.
Sunartono, a local relief official, said the bunker had been designed to protect people from passing heat clouds and that the men had died because the bunker was buried under 2.5 meters (yards) of thick hot molten rock.
"Because the bunker was covered by extremely hot materials, the temperature inside was also very hot," he was quoted as saying by the Detikcom news webiste.
About 15,000 villagers sheltering in makeshift camps in safe areas had just begun returning home Wednesday when the heat clouds appeared. The volcano had been on red alert since May 13.
Merapi has shown fluctuating volcanic activity since mid-May but appeared to stabilise after a lava dome that had been forming at its peak partially collapsed last Friday.
Merapi's deadliest eruption was in 1930 when more than 1,300 people were killed.
Comment on this Article
Floods displace 500,000 people in northeast India
AFP
Fri Jun 16, 2006
GUWAHATI, India - Nearly 500,000 people have fled before floods in the northeastern state of Assam where 16 people have died since monsoon rains hit at the end of May.
"We have alerted the army, paramilitary, police, civil officials and healthcare workers to move to flood hit areas in the shortest possible time when summoned," Assam's rehabilitation minister Bhumidhar Barman said Friday.
The alert was sounded after three more people drowned overnight when their boat capsized.
Five people were killed during the week in neighbouring Tripura state where 10,000 residents were also displaced.
In Assam, where 13 of the 27 districts are flooded, an estimated 485,000 people were displaced and large areas submerged, a government statement said. Many have taken refuge in temporary camps.
Police and rescue workers with boats were deployed in the worst-hit Cachar and Karimganj districts in southern Assam to evacuate villagers.
"The situation is critical and with road links snapped we may have to requisition helicopters to drop essentials to people staying in makeshift camps located in inaccessible areas," Cachar district magistrate Gautam Ganguly said by telephone.
Road and rail communications were disrupted in many parts of Assam with floodwaters covering highways and rail tracks.
The Indian army Thursday rescued scores of passengers from southern Assam after a train in which they were travelling was stranded.
According to a Central Water Commission bulletin, the main Brahmaputra river was flowing above the danger level in at least seven places in Assam.
Floodwaters had entered Kaziranga National Park, home to the endangered one-horned rhinoceros, and forced animals to migrate to higher ground.
The 2,906-kilometer (1,816-mile) river -- one of the longest in Asia -- traverses Tibet, India and Bangladesh before emptying into the Bay of Bengal.
Every year the monsoon causes the river to flood in Assam, a remote state of 26 million people. In 2004, at least 200 people died and millions were displaced.
Comment on this Article
China Builds 51 Dams to Slow Toxic Spill
By ALEXA OLESEN
Associated Press
Jun 16, 2006
BEIJING - Chinese authorities tried to slow the spread of a toxic spill by building 51 makeshift dams along the tainted river and using fire trucks to pump out polluted water before it reaches a reservoir serving a city of 10 million people, state media said Friday.
The spill of 60 tons of coal tar into the Dasha river in north China's Shanxi province was the latest in a series of mishaps fouling the country's already polluted waterways. Officials said there have been at least 76 water pollution accidents in the last six months.
A villager who lives along the river described seeing dozens of dead fish floating in the water.
In a separate incident Thursday, a series of explosions rocked the Longxin Chemical Plant in the city of Longquan, Zhejiang province, destroying two factories and threatening to contaminate the Oujiang river, which empties into the East China Sea, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.
A spring that feeds the Oujiang lies close to the blast site. Large amounts of sand and stones were trucked to the site in an effort to prevent any waste water from contaminating the river, Xinhua said.
One person was injured and two people were reported missing after the blast, it said.
In the Dasha river spill, a truck overloaded with 60 tons of coal tar - a substance linked to cancer - crashed Monday and dumped its contents into the river. Measurements Friday showed that levels of phenol, also known as carbolic acid, were 100 times greater than acceptable levels in some spots.
Cleanup crews scrambled Friday to absorb the toxic substance before it reaches the Wangkuai Reservoir of Baoding, a city of about 10 million people, Xinhua said.
It said a dozen fire engines were pumping polluted water downstream from the spill site and trucking it to a "closed environment" where it could be treated, without giving specifics.
The pollution was said to be traveling about nearly 1 mile per hour downstream toward Baoding, which is about 45 miles from the site of the accident.
The day after the spill, the pollution had reached Hebei's Fuping county, where some 50,000 residents rely on the river for drinking water. Fuping residents were told to take water from nearby reservoirs and seven standby wells until the river could be cleaned, Xinhua said.
Liu Qing, a villager who lives along the Dasha in Fuping, said by telephone that the water was not discolored and did not have any unusual odor but that she had this week noticed dozens of dead fish floating in the river.
Liu said her family normally drinks well water, not water from the river, so they have not been affected.
Another Fuping resident, Li Xingcui, said her family was still using the water to wash vegetables and take baths, ignoring warnings aired on local television. She said the water looked and smelled normal.
Li's family was taking water from a mountain stream for drinking.
Prolonged exposure to coal tar has been linked to increased rates of certain types of cancer but it is also used in small doses as a topical medicine to treat eczema and other skin diseases, according to the World Health Organization's International Agency for Research on Cancer.
Many of China's canals, rivers and lakes are severely tainted by industrial, agricultural and household pollution.
In November, a major chemical spill on the Songhua River halted water supplies to tens of millions in China and Russia. Local authorities were accused of reacting too slowly and delaying public disclosure of the spill.
Comment on this Article
Thawing Permafrost Is A Significant Source Of Carbon
SPX
June 16, 2006
Fairbanks, AL - Permafrost, permanently frozen soil, isn't staying frozen and a type of soil called loess contained deep within thawing permafrost may be releasing significant, and previously unaccounted for, amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, according to authors of a paper published this week in the journal Science.
Preliminary assessments by scientists from Russia, the University of Florida, and the University of Alaska Fairbanks indicate that loess permafrost, which covers more than a million square kilometers in Siberia and Alaska, is a large carbon reservoir with the potential to be a significant contributor of atmospheric carbon, yet it is seldom incorporated into analyses of changes in global carbon reservoirs.
"The unique aspect of the Siberian loess permafrost is that it is quite deep - 20 to 40 meters - and has a surprisingly high carbon concentration at depth for a mineral soil," said Terry Chapin, co-author from the Institute of Arctic Biology at UAF.
"This paper explains the processes that led to the accumulation of large amounts of soil carbon and the processes that could lead to its return to the atmosphere."
The largest carbon reservoir on Earth is the ocean, which scientists estimate holds about 40,000 gigatons; soils contain about 2,500 Gt and vegetation about 650 Gt. According to the authors, about 500 Gt of carbon are contained in the thaw-threatened loess, also called yedoma, of Siberia and Alaska.
"I was surprised, because it is unusual to find major new large carbon stocks," Chapin said. "We have spent more than five years discussing among ourselves all the details of the calculations, because initially I did not believe that the pool could be both so large and so decomposible (once thawed)."
Permafrost has been seldom incorporated into global carbon budgets in part because the "... size of the carbon pool was so poorly quantified ... and in part because global data bases for soils have been standardized to provide data only for the top meter of soil," Chapin said.
"People know about carbon in permafrost - it's not a trivial amount," said Ted Schuur, co-author from the University of Florida. "Normally, scientists look for carbon in the upper layers of permafrost where organic matter decomposes."
Laboratory and field experiments by the scientists demonstrate that the organic matter in yedoma decomposes quickly when it is thawed and produces rates of carbon release similar to those of productive northern grassland soils.
"If these rates continue as field observations suggest, most carbon in recently thawed yedoma will be released within a century - a striking contrast to the preservation of carbon for tens of thousands of years when frozen in permafrost," state the authors.
The National Science Foundation provided financial support for this research.
Comment on this Article
War With Iran - The Slow Setup
Iran's place at summit raises fears of anti-West alliance
15/06/2006
UK Telegraph
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, arrived in China last night for a summit of Asian states and Russia that Washington fears is forming a new anti-western alliance.
Mr Ahmadinejad will seek support for his country's nuclear programme, fuelling US concern that Iran is being protected by its growing friendship with Russia and China, who both sit on the UN Security Council.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in China for the summit
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad arrives in China for the summit
He is also believed to be pushing to join the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, which is holding its annual summit in the city today and tomorrow.
The SCO, under the leadership of China and Russia, is playing an ever-greater role in the jostling for power in Central Asia. The dictatorial nature of some of its membership, which also includes the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, has provoked descriptions of it as an anti-American alliance of despots.
Both China and Russia deny this, and China's vice-foreign minister, Li Hui, this week ruled out early accession by Iran. But Vladimir Putin, Russia's president, said in a newspaper article: "The SCO is not a closed and exclusive club whose lines of demarcation have been clearly drawn."
Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, has expressed concern about the summit, and the presence of President Ahmadinejad as an official observer.
"It strikes me as strange that one would want to bring into an organisation that says it's against terrorism. . . one of the leading terrorist nations in the world," he said.
Hu Jintao, the Chinese president, and Mr Putin are likely to assure the Iranians that they will oppose the use of strong UN sanctions or force against Iran if it refuses to stop enriching uranium that could be used for nuclear weapons. Mr Ahmadinejad, who in speeches at home has repeatedly called for Israel's destruction, will be given a rare opportunity to appear on an international stage.
The importance of the event to China, which is trying to extend its regional clout and exploit America's growing unpopularity, was underlined by an extraordinary security operation in the financial hub of 17 million people. Shanghai has been instrumental in the explosive economic growth of the world's largest country.
Iran factfile
A force of 60,000 security officers has been deployed including armed police, soldiers and bomb-sniffing dogs. Dissidents have been placed under house arrest and many workers given time off.
The SCO comprises the four former Soviet republics plus Russia and China, with Pakistan, India, Iran and Mongolia holding observer status.
Its stated goal is economic co-operation and joint action against terrorism, particularly Islamist groups that have been active in all six countries. But while this provided common cause with the US in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, all have been accused of subordinating human rights to sometimes overblown claims of combating extremism.
Comment on this Article
Terror Ops Underway in Iran
6/15/06
By Devlin Buckley
The American Monitor
Despite the Bush Administration's adamant and continual denunciation of terrorism, the Department of Defense-under Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld's orders-is using a terrorist organization to orchestrate attacks and collect intelligence inside Iran, according to numerous former and current military, intelligence, administration, and United Nations officials.
Government sources-according to reports by Raw Story, UPI, and others-say the militant group is being "run" by the Pentagon in Iran's oil-rich province of Khuzestan-which has been the subject of numerous attacks and terrorist bombings over the past year-and in the opium-smuggling border province of Sistan-Baluchistan, where suspected US operatives attacked and killed several Iranian officials just this March.
Based in Iraq, the group carrying out the reported operations is an Iranian rebel organization that aims to overthrow and replace Iran's clerical regime. Known as the Mujahedeen-e Khalq (MEK or MKO), the group has been officially designated by the US government as a terrorist organization.
Widely regarded as an extremist cult, the MEK has a long history of violence: they murdered several Americans during the 1970s; they were involved with the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Tehran; they killed 70 high ranking officials by bombing the Premier's office and the head office of the Islamic Republic Party in 1981; they helped the Iraqi government violently suppress Shia and Kurdish uprisings during the 1990s; they executed near-simultaneous bombings against Iranian interests in 13 separate countries in 1992; and they have carried out several attacks and assassinations inside Iran over the past decade.
During the first stages of the 2003 invasion, US forces destroyed two MEK bases and confiscated a considerable stockpile of the group's weaponry, by one count: 300 tanks, 250 armored personnel carriers, 250 artillery pieces, and 10,000 small arms.
The MEK was officially expelled from Iraq by the Iraqi Governing Council in 2003, but approximately 3,800 members of the group remained in the country under the watch of US forces. [1]
In 2004, they became the first terrorist organization to be granted "protected" status by the US government.
The MEK captives were supposedly being confined to a US military-run compound northeast of Baghdad, but according to several sources, the Bush Administration and the Department of Defense have been using the group against Tehran. [2]
According to Raw Story, "Although the specifics of what the MEK is being used for remain unclear, a UN official close to the Security Council explained that the newly renamed MEK soldiers are being run instead of military advance teams, committing acts of violence in hopes of staging an insurgency of the Iranian Sunni population."
Suspected US-sponsored MEK operations include the string of terrorist bombings that killed at least 12 people and injured 90 others in Iran just prior to the country's elections in 2005.
US-sponsored MEK militants also attacked and killed 22 Iranian officials in the south-eastern province of Sistan-Baluchistan this March, according to US government officials who spoke to Raw Story.
As early as January of 2005 the MEK were "launching raids" from Camp Habib in Basra on behalf of the US, and had also been given permission by Pakistani President Pervez Musharaff to operate from Pakistan's Baluchi area, according to US officials who spoke to UPI.
"[Undersecretary of Defense Intelligence Stephen] Cambone and those guys made MEK members swear an oath to Democracy and resign from the MEK and then our guys incorporated them into their unit and trained them," one intelligence official told Raw Story. "These guys are nuts," he said.
In addition to carrying out attacks, US-trained MEK units are also reportedly being sent into Iran to collect information and targeting data on the country's alleged nuclear weapons program. [3]
According to former and current intelligence officials interviewed by UPI, the MEK units are entering Iran from the south while Israeli-trained Kurds are carrying out parallel operations from the north.
"Both covert groups are tasked by the Bush administration with planting sensors or 'sniffers' close to suspected Iran nuclear weapons development sites that will enable the Bush administration to monitor the progress of the program and develop targeting data, these sources said," according to UPI.
"There is an urgent need to obtain this information, at least in the minds of administration hawks," one administration official reportedly said.
While 'gathering' intelligence in the past, the MEK has been known to use deception to advance their own agenda-in some cases conspiring with their American supporters.
According to The New York Times, for instance, the MEK "rattled the Iranian government and the arms control community in 2002 when it revealed the existence of two secret Iranian nuclear facilities." The MEK's information, however, according to a CIA official interviewed by Iran Press Service (IPS), was actually given to the group by sources within the Pentagon that were seeking to legitimize the MEK.
In October of 2004 the MEK once again falsely took credit for exposing a 'secret' Iranian uranium processing plant. Far from being secret, the plant had been disclosed to the IAEA two years earlier.
Current and former senior national-security officials told Newsweek that "all the major revelations MEK publicly claims to have made regarding nuclear advances in Iran were reported in classified form-and from other sources-to U.S. policymakers before MEK made them public."
"Except the information...given to them by the Americans, all other material the Mojahedeen gave to the media are open secrets," said a former MEK leader, according to IPS.
"All the information the Mojahedeen provides the western media is pure lies and fabricated to discredit the Iranian regime and help the United States and Israel to put more pressures on Iran," another former MEK leader reportedly said.
'Covert infrastructure'
A "long-time CIA operator" interviewed by UPI revealed even more regarding the US-sponsored operations inside Iran:
"The United States is also attempting to erect a covert infrastructure in Iran able to support U.S. efforts, this source said. It consists of Israelis and other U.S. assets, using third country passports, who have created a network of front companies that they own and staff."
"It's a covert infrastructure for material support," one administration official said, according to UPI. This official said the "network would be able to move money, weapons and personnel around inside Iran."
A former CIA officer interviewed by The Guardian commented, "They are bringing a lot of the old war-horses from the Reagan and Iran-contra days into a sort of kitchen cabinet outside the government to write up policy papers on Iran." This former officer, who reportedly refused a request to oversee "MEK cross-border operations," called the plans "delusional".
Saddam's 'crimes'
The Pentagon and the Bush Administration's use of the MEK is ironically similar to the tactics once used by the regime of Saddam Hussein-tactics the administration actually condemned while attempting to build support for war against Iraq.
In fact, the White House pointed to Saddam Hussein's support for the MEK as evidence that Iraq was violating UN Security Council Resolutions. Specifically, the background paper for President Bush's September 2002 speech before the UN General Assembly accused Iraq of "supporting terrorism" and "allowing terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq," citing the following example:
"Iraq shelters terrorist groups including the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organization (MKO), which has used terrorist violence against Iran and in the 1970s was responsible for killing several U.S. military personnel and U.S. civilians."
Legality
The Bush Administration's reported use of the MEK for special operations-in addition to being hypocritical-may also be illegal.
As the Associated Press reported in February of 2005, "as soon as the State Department created a list of terror organizations in 1997, it named the MEK, putting it in a club that includes al-Qaida and barring anyone in the United States from providing material support [to the group]."
Moreover, in August of 2003, the US Treasury Department officially designated the MEK and its affiliates as "Specially Designated Global Terrorist" entities, "effectively freezing all [of their] assets and properties and prohibiting transactions between U.S. persons and these organizations."
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's reported plan to "convert" the MEK fighters and make them swear an oath to democracy was apparently implemented in order to give the Pentagon a legal justification for using the group against Tehran.
Even if such a justification were to hold up in court, military and intelligence officials, according to Raw Story, say the operations bypass congressional oversights.
An article by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh from January of last year suggests how the Pentagon may be avoiding such standard legal restrictions:
"The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia. ... The President's decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the book-free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A. Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate and House intelligence committees." [4]
Military and intelligence sources, as Raw Story reported, "say no Presidential finding exists on MEK ops. Without a presidential finding, the operation circumvents the oversight of the House and Senate Intelligence committees."
"The Pentagon doesn't feel obligated to report any of this to Congress," a former high-level intelligence official said, according to Hersh. "They're not even going to tell the cincs," he said, referring to the American military commanders-in-chief.
"They are doing whatever they want, no oversight at all," another intelligence official told Raw Story.
According to Raw Story, "Congressional aides for the relevant oversight committees would not confirm or deny allegations that no Presidential finding had been done. One Democratic aide, however, wishing to remain anonymous for this article, did say that any use of the MEK would be illegal."
Speaking with The Asia Times about the reported operations, retired Air Force colonel Sam Gardiner said, "The president hasn't notified the Congress that American troops are operating inside Iran. ... So it's a very serious question about the constitutional framework under which we are now conducting military operations."
Pentagon's priorities
In 2003 the US reportedly rejected a deal with Iran to exchange MEK captives for several top al-Qaeda leaders. According to NBC, among those in Iran's custody at the time was Abu Mussab al Zarqawi, who is now supposedly leading al-Qaeda in Iraq.
In exchange for the MEK captives, Iran was reportedly willing to hand over Zarqawi, along with al-Qaeda spokesman Suleiman abu Gaith and Osama bin Laden's third oldest son Saad bin Laden, but according to Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, "the Bush administration ultimately rejected this exchange, bowing to neoconservatives at the Pentagon who hoped to use the Mujaheddin-e Khalq against Tehran." [5]
In an article published by antiwar.com in August of 2004, Juan Cole, president of the US Middle East Studies Association (MESA), wrote that "[Larry] Franklin, [Harold] Rhode and [Michael] Ledeen conspired with [Manucher] Ghorbanifar and [the Italian intelligence agency] SISMI to stop that trade." [6]
Cole commented, "Since high al-Qaeda operatives like Saif al-Adil and possibly even Saad bin Laden might know about future operations, or the whereabouts of bin Laden, for Franklin and Rhode to stop the trade grossly endangered the United States."
Lobbying
The MEK, in addition to gaining the support of the Bush Administration and the Department of Defense, has conducted a fairly successful lobbying campaign in Washington DC, garnering support from influential foreign policy groups and several members of Congress.
The Iran Policy Committee (IPC), which has been described as a "spin off" of the highly influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), serves as the MEK's primary support group in Washington. [7]
The MEK's lobbying ability is actually "very weak and would be completely ineffectual were it not for the support of the pro-Israel lobby," a former MEK leader recently told The Asia Times. He said "if you need 1,000 lobbying units to influence Iran policy in the US Congress, 999 of these are provided by the pro-Israel lobby or the American administration, and the remainder by the weak and fragmented exiled opposition."
"We knew which members of Congress were influenced by AIPAC, so when we needed signatures we'd go to these congressmen first," the former MEK leader revealed.
According to Front Page Magazine, "MEK supporters roam the halls of Congress asking unsuspecting twenty-something aides if their Member will sign a 'Dear Colleague' letter calling for freedom and democracy in Iran." [8]
Coincidently, in 2002 150 members of Congress reportedly signed a letter advocating the group's removal from the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.
House Representative Tom Tancredo (R-Co), according to The New York Sun, has compared the MEK to "America's Founding Fathers," while Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Fla.) told The Hill that the MEK "loves the United States." "They're assisting us in the war on terrorism; they're pro-U.S.," she said.
"In fairness to those on the Hill, I don't think they have any idea who these people are," State Department spokesman Greg Sullivan said, according to The Hill. He said the MEK's Washington representatives "conceal [the group's nature] by covering it in an anti-Iranian message."
"I don't give a shit if they are undemocratic," Representative Gary Ackerman (D-NY) told the The Village Voice in December of 2001. He said, "OK, so the [MEK] is a terrorist organization based in Iraq, which is a terrorist state. They are fighting Iran, which is another terrorist state. I say let's help them fight each other as much as they want. Once they all are destroyed, I can celebrate twice over."
ADDITIONAL NOTES:
1. This is not the only example of the Pentagon's support for the MEK undermining the Iraqi government's attempts at sovereignty. In the summer of 2005, for example, as part of a new cooperative counterterrorism effort between Iraq and Iran, the Iraqi government promised to prevent MEK from attacking Iranian interests. Such attacks, however, reportedly were, and still are, being launched on behalf of the United States.
2. While most reports have placed the Department of Defense in charge of the MEK operations, former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter reported in June 2005 that the MEK units were working for the CIA's Directorate of Operations.
3. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA counterterrorism official, has corroborated the reports of the MEK being used for intelligence gathering purposes.
4. This April, Hersh reported that "American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. ... If the order were to be given for an attack, the American combat troops now operating in Iran would be in position to mark the critical targets with laser beams, to insure bombing accuracy and to minimize civilian casualties. As of early winter, I was told by the government consultant with close ties to civilians in the Pentagon, the units were also working with minority groups in Iran, including the Azeris, in the north, the Baluchis, in the southeast, and the Kurds, in the northeast. The troops "are studying the terrain, and giving away walking-around money to ethnic tribes, and recruiting scouts from local tribes and shepherds," the consultant said. ..."
"'Force protection' is the new buzzword," one former senior intelligence official told Hersh. This former official, as Hersh notes, was referring to the fact that these clandestine activities are being broadly classified as "military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight."
5. Ignatius' account of the botched MEK/al-Qaeda deal has been corroborated by Flynt Leverett, a former senior CIA official who recently discussed the issue with Time magazine and The American Prospect.
6. Ghorbanifar, a central figure in the Iran-contra affair along with Ledeen, has admitted to having secret discussions with Rhode and Franklin regarding regime change in Iran. Furthermore, an article from the upcoming June 2006 issue of The American Prospect places MEK representatives at one of the meetings.
7. The IPC consists of former military and intelligence officials, most of whom now work in the private sector and four of whom also work as military analysts for Fox News. In addition, the MEK's former U.S. representative is also working for Fox News as a foreign affairs analyst.
Interestingly, in December of 2004, Sasan Fayazmanesh, a professor of economics at Fresno State University, wrote an article for Counterpunch in which he commented on the MEK's activities: "Every few weeks these Chalabi-like, men-in-black characters-and also Fox News commentators-come up with some 'top secret satellite photos' showing non-existent nuclear weapons sites in Iran (how a US designated terrorist organization gets top secret satellite photos is, of course, beyond one's imagination)."
8. The MEK's supporters, operating under a number of fronts, have funneled out more than $204,000 in campaign contributions in an attempt to get their terrorist designation lifted, Front Page Magazine reported.
It should be noted that the article's author, Kenneth R. Timmerman, is the founder of the Foundation for Democracy in Iran (FDI), which shares the goal of "revolution" in Iran with many hawks in Washington. Timmerman, however, disagrees with supporting the MEK. "When making a revolution, it is critical to choose one's allies well," he wrote for the conservative magazine.
Comment on this Article
Senate Backs President's Iran Policies
June 15, 2006
Associated Press
WASHINGTON - The Senate on Thursday endorsed President Bush's "diplomatic" approach to the problem of Iran's nuclear program after rejecting a proposal that would have increased sanctions against the Tehran government and those helping it.
The Senate voted 99-0 to support the decision, announced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on May 31, that the United States would join other Western states in engaging Iran in negotiations and offering a package of incentives if Tehran suspends its uranium enrichment activities.
That vote came minutes after a 54-45 vote to defeat a proposal by Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., that would have imposed mandatory sanctions on entities that help Iran acquire or develop weapons of mass destruction.
Both the Santorum measure, and the vote of support for the administration, introduced by Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., were amendments to a defense spending bill the Senate is debating.
Santorum's proposal was in line with a bill passed by the House last April, over the objections of the administration, that also would impose sanctions on those contributing to Iran's WMD programs and cut off aid to countries investing in Iran's energy sector. It also authorized $100 million to promote pro-democracy efforts in Iran.
The administration said the House bill would limit the flexibility it needed to reach a diplomatic solution to the deadlock over Iran's nuclear program.
Comment on this Article
Iran softens rhetoric over nuclear deal
Jonathan Watts in Shanghai
Friday June 16, 2006
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, praised on Friday a six-nation incentive package aimed at resolving the international dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme.
Raising hopes for a breakthrough, Mr Ahmadinejad said the package - which aims to curtail Iran's uranium enrichment activities - was a "step forward".
But despite the conciliatory tone of his comments, the president said his government had made no decision about whether to accept the proposal, which is backed by the US, Russia, China, France, Britain and Germany.
"Generally speaking, we're regarding this offer as a step forward and I have instructed my colleagues to carefully consider it," he told reporters in Shanghai. "In due time they will give the response."
Under the package proposal, the EU has offered to provide trade and economic benefits to Iran in return for a halting of its nuclear programme. On the table is also a transfer of peaceful nuclear technologies, airplane parts and support for Iran to join the World Trade Organisation.
The package is supported by the US, which believes that Iran is enriching uranium so that it can produce enough high-grade fissile material for warheads.
Comment on this Article
New American Non-Nuclear ICBM Creates Global Dangers
by Viktor Litovkin
UPI
June 16, 2006
Moscow - On May 22, The Washington Post carried an article "A Missile Strike Option We Need" by two former U.S. Secretaries of Defense - Harold Brown, 1977-1981. and James Schlesinger, 1973-1975. Brown and Schlesinger suggested installing non-nuclear warheads on U.S. strategic missiles, first of all, Trident II D5 submarine-launched ballistic missiles, or SLBMs, which have multiple independently targeted reentry vehicles, or MIRVs.
These warheads can hit terrorist bases more effectively than, say, cruise missiles or free-fall bombs. Such precise strikes could be dealt minutes after the military receive information about terrorist bases and their coordinates and would involve no bombers or carrier task forces and submarines operating in direct proximity to hostile areas.
The U.S. establishment is so fascinated with this idea that the U.S. Congress has started discussing the allocation of appropriations for non-nuclear warheads.
But it appears this will not become the ultimate weapon in the fight against international terrorism because, as any sober-minded military expert knows, counter-terrorist operations require more subtle and diverse weapons systems than warheads and strategic missiles.
Then why does the Pentagon need MIRVs for inter-continental ballistic missiles, and why are its high-ranking lobbyists so concerned about this?
The answer may not be as simple as one thinks.
Russian defense industry experts said MIRV warheads were, first of all, needed to conceal nuclear warheads because no early-warning radar could discern between conventional and nuclear weapons.
In this situation, a delayed retaliatory strike would mean a sure victory for the attacker as the defending side would lose precious moments trying to locate high-priority targets. Moreover, it is pointless to install expensive conventional warheads on ICBMs.
Non-nuclear warheads are not covered by strategic arms-reduction documents either, and it would be impossible to find out how many U.S. strategic submarines have such warheads. Under the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty, Russia and the United States will reduce their strategic nuclear warheads to a level of 1,700-2,200 by Dec. 31, 2012.
But Moscow would still think that Washington is playing its own game, and that its strategic missiles retain several dozen or even several hundred nuclear warheads listed as conventional munitions.
Experts say strategic offensive weapons with non-nuclear warheads are intended for some extremely important military objectives, such as hitting enterprises producing nuclear weapons, dumps with solid-state and liquid radioactive waste, as well as other nuclear facilities.
A high-explosive conventional blast at these facilities would cause the same damage as a nuclear warhead. An electromagnetic impulse would knock out all electrical devices and equipment, as well as communications and control networks. Subsequent radioactive fallout would render such enterprises useless for more than a century.
Oil and gas producing enterprises, oil refineries, petroleum depots, hydropower plants, dams, dikes, defense factories, shipyards, plants and other facilities face the same risks. Moreover, non-nuclear hypersonic deep-impact munitions can penetrate a mountain dam and be detonated by the attacker at any moment.
Such an explosion can cause a disaster of unprecedented proportions that would make Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, seem like child's play. National authorities would not be able to cope with the panic in the face of this threat.
Former Pentagon heads Brown and Schlesinger, who advocate such destabilizing weapons, enjoy firm congressional support. The U.S. Armed Forces have outpaced the world's armies by several decades in their development and strive to obtain additional military advantages. Washington also wants to set off a new spiral in the arms race and to undermine the economy of its weaker foreign rivals.
Russian political and military leaders should therefore display common sense in this situation. It is obvious that strategic missiles with non-nuclear warheads are gradually turning into battlefield weapons and losing their role as a political deterrent, which should never be used. These weapons can be launched even during local conflicts.
However, Moscow should resist the temptation to indulge in pointless rivalry. The Kremlin should continue to rely on its relatively small, albeit highly effective nuclear arsenal, which will always protect Russia against any military or political blackmail and pressure.
Any country is free to spend money on new weapons. But Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned in his latest state of the nation address that the launch of a ballistic missile with non-nuclear warheads could provoke an inappropriate response from nuclear powers and a full-scale counterattack using strategic nuclear forces.
There is nothing more to say here.
Comment on this Article
Chavez To Visit Iran, Syria, China and N. Korea
14 June
AKI
Caracas - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has announced he will soon travel to Iran, Syria, Russia, China, North Korea and Vietnam to boost bilateral relations before the beginning of an electoral campaign in September during which he will be seeking a re-election for a second presidential mandate on 3 December. Chavez is supporting Iran's right to a nuclear programme in an standoff sparked by international fears that Tehran is trying to build atomic weapons.
Chavez is also seeking to boost relations with Russia, a country from which it has recently bought 100 thousand kalashnikov rifles. The Venezuelan president would also reportedly like to build a kalashnikov factory in the country.
The trip to Syria is key for Venezuela's ambition to become a non-permanent member of the UN Security Council, a plan supported by Damascus.
Syria's deputy foreign minister Faisal Meqdad has said that Venezuela's wish to join the UN body also enjoys the support of many Arab countries.
Comment on this Article
World Economy Primed For Collapse
Why a Global Economic Deluge Looms
Counterpunch
15/06/2006
People who know the most about the world financial system are increasingly worried, and for very good reasons. Dire warnings are coming from the most "respectable" sources. Reality has gotten out of hand. The demons of greed are loose.
What is that reality? It includes a number of factors. Alone they would be exceedingly serious; combined, they are very likely to be lethal.
First of all, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has been undergoing both a structural and intellectual crisis. Structurally, its outstanding credit and loans have declined dramatically since 2003, from over $70 billion to a little over $20 billion today, leaving it with far less leverage over the economic policies of developing nations--and even less income than its expensive operations require. It is now in deficit.1
A large part of the IMF's problems are due to the doubling in world prices for all commodities since 2003 -- especially petroleum, copper, silver, zinc, nickel, and the like -- that the developing nations traditionally export. While there will be fluctuations in this upsurge, there is also reason to think it may endure because rapid economic growth in China, India, and elsewhere has created a burgeoning demand that did not exist before, when the balance-of-trade systematically favored the rich nations.
The U.S. has seen its net foreign asset position fall as Japan, emerging Asia, and oil exporting nations have become far more powerful over the past decade, and have increasingly become creditors to the U.S.2 As the U.S. deficits mount, with its imports being far greater than its exports, the value of the dollar has been declining -- 28 per cent against the euro from 2001 to 2005 alone.
Equally important, the IMF and World Bank were severely chastened by the 1997-2000 financial meltdowns in East Asia, Russia, and elsewhere, and many of the two institutions' key leaders lost faith in the anarchic premises, descended from classical laisser-faire economic thought, which guided policy advice until then. "{O]ur knowledge of economic growth is extremely incomplete," many in the IMF now admit, and "more humility" on its part is now warranted.3
Worse yet, the whole nature of the global financial system has changed radically in ways that have nothing whatsoever to do with "virtuous" national economic policies that follow IMF advic. These are ways the IMF cannot control. The investment managers of private equity funds and major banks have displaced national banks and international bodies such as the IMF, moving well beyond the existing regulatory structures and they have "reintermediated" themselves between the traditional borrowers, both national and individual, and markets. They have deregulated the world financial structure, making it far more unpredictable and susceptible to crises. They seek to generate high investment returns, which is the key to their compensation, and they take mounting risks to do so.
A "brave new world" has emerged in the global financial structure, one that is far less transparent because there are fewer reporting demands imposed on those who operate in it. Financial adventurers are constantly creating new "products" that defy both states and international banks. The IMF's managing director, Rodrigo de Rato, at the end of May, 2005, deplored these new risks -- risks the weakness of the U.S. dollar and its mounting trade deficits have magnified greatly.4
In March of this year the IMF released Garry J. Schinasi's book, Safeguarding Financial Stability, giving it unusual prominence then and thereafter. In essence, Schinasi's book is alarmist, and it both reveals and documents in great and disturbing detail the IMF's deep anxieties. Essentially, "deregulation and liberalization", which the IMF and proponents of the "Washington consensus" advocated for decades, have become a nightmare, creating "tremendous private and social benefits" but also holding "the potential (although not necessarily a high likelihood) for fragility, instability, systemic risk, and adverse economic consequences."
Anyone who reads the data in Schinasi's superbly documented book will share his real conclusion that the irrational development of global finance, combined with deregulation and liberalization, has "created scope for financial innovation and enhanced the mobility of risks". Schinasi and the IMF advocate a radical new framework to monitor and prevent the problems now able to emerge, but success "may have as much to do with good luck" as policy design and market surveillance.5 Leaving the future to luck is not what economics originally promised. The IMF is desperate, and not alone.
As the Argentina financial meltdown proved, countries that do not succumb to IMF and banker pressures can play on divisions within the IMF membership, particularly the U.S., comprising bankers and others to avoid many, although scarcely all, foreign demands. About $140 billion in sovereign bonds to private creditors and the IMF were at stake, terminating at the end of 2001 as the largest national default in history. Banks in the 1990s were eager to loan Argentina money and they ultimately paid for it. Since then, however, commodity prices have soared and the growth rate of developing nations in 2004 and 2005 was over double that of high income nation, a pattern projected to continue through 2008.
As early as 2003 developing countries were already the source of 37 percent of the foreign direct investment in other developing nations. China accounts for a great part of this growth, but it also means that the IMF and rich bankers of New York, Tokyo, and London have far less leverage than ever. Growing complexity is the order of the world economy that has emerged in the past decade, and with it has come the potential for far greater instability, and dangers for the rich.
High-speed Global Economics
The global financial problem that is emerging is entwined with an American fiscal and trade deficit that is rising quickly. Since Bush entered office in 2001 he had added over $3 trillion to federal borrowing limits, which are now almost $9 trillion. So long as there is a continued devaluation of the U.S. dollar, banks and financiers will seek to protect their money and risky financial adventures will appear increasingly worthwhile. This is the context, but Washington advocated greater financial liberalization well before the dollar weakened. The world now has a conjunction of factors that have created a far greater risk than the proponents of the "Washington consensus" ever believed possible.
There are now many hedge funds, with which we are familiar, but they now deal in credit derivatives and numerous other financial instruments. Markets for credit derivative futures are in the offing. The credit derivative market was almost nonexistent in 2001, grew fairly slowly until 2004 and then went into the stratosphere, reaching $17.3 trillion by the end of 2005.
What are credit derivatives? The Financial Times' chief capital markets writer, Gillian Tett, tried to find out. She failed. About ten years ago some J. P. Morgan bankers were in Boca Raton, Florida, drinking, throwing each other into the swimming pool, and the like, and they came up with a notion of a new financial instrument that was too complex to be easily copied (financial ideas cannot be copyrighted) and which was sure to make them money. But she was highly critical of its potential for causing a chain reaction of losses that will engulf the hedge funds that have leaped into this market.6 It for reasons such as these, as well as others, even more opaque, such as split capital trusts, collateralized debt obligations, and market credit default swaps, that the IMF and financial authorities are so worried.
Banks simply do not understand the chain of exposure and who owns what. Senior financial regulators and bankers now admit as much. The Long-Term Capital Management hedge fund meltdown in 1998, which involved only about $5 billion in equity, revealed this. The financial structure is now infinitely more complex and far larger. The top ten hedge funds alone in March 2006 had $157 billion in assets. Hedge funds claim to be honest but those who guide them are compensated for the profits they make, which means taking risks. But there are thousands of hedge funds and many collect inside information, which is technically illegal but it occurs anyway. The system is fraught with dangers, starting with the compensation structure, but it also assumes a constantly rising stock market and much, much else. Many fund managers are incompetent. But the 26 leading hedge fund managers earned an average of $363 million each in 2005; James Simons of Renaissance Technologies earned $1.5 billion.
There is now a consensus that all this, and much else, has created growing dangers. We can put aside the persistence of imbalanced budgets based on spending increases or tax cuts for the wealthy, much less the world's volatile stock and commodity markets which caused hedge funds in May to show far lower returns than they have in at least a year. It is anyone's guess which way the markets will go, and some will gain while others lose. Hedge funds still make lots of profits, and by the spring of 2006 they were worth about $1.2 trillion worldwide, but they are increasingly dangerous.
A great deal of money went from investors in rich nations into emerging market stocks, which have been especially hard-hit in the past weeks, and if they leave them the financial shock will be great. The dangers of a meltdown exist there too.
Problems are structural, such as the greatly increasing ratio of corporate debt loads to core earnings, which have grown substantially from four to six times over the past year because there are fewer legal clauses to protect investors from loss, and to keep companies from going bankrupt when they should. So long as interest rates have been low, leveraged loans have been the solution. With hedge funds and other financial instruments, there is now a market for incompetent, debt-ridden firms. The rules some once erroneously associated with capitalism -- probity and the like--no longer hold even on paper.
Problems are also inherent in speed and complexity, and these are very diverse and almost surreal. Credit derivatives are precarious enough, but at the end of May the International Swaps and Derivatives Association revealed that one in every five deals, many of them involving billions of dollars, involved major errors. As the volume of trade increased so did errors. They doubled in the period after 2004. Many deals were scribbled on scraps of paper and not properly recorded. "Unconscionable" was outgoing Fed chairman, Alan Greenspan's, description. He was "frankly shocked." Other trading, however, is determined by mathematical algorithm ("volume-weighted average price" it is called) for which PhDs trained in quantitative methods are hired.7 Efforts to remedy this mess only began in June of this year and they are very far from resolving a major and accumulated problem that involves stupendous sums.
Stephen Roach, Morgan Stanley's chief economist, on April 24 of this year wrote that a major financial crisis was in the offing and that the ability of global institutions to forestall it -- ranging from the IMF and World Bank to other mechanisms of the international financial architecture are utterly inadequate. Hong Kong's chief secretary in early June deplored the hedge funds' risks and dangers. The IMF's iconoclastic chief economist, Raghuram Rajan, at the same time warned that the hedge funds' compensation structure encouraged those in charge of them to increasingly take risks, thereby endangering the whole financial system.
* * *
The entire global financial structure is becoming uncontrollable in crucial ways its nominal leaders never expected. Instability is increasingly its hallmark. Financial liberalization has produced a monster, and resolving the many problems that have emerged is scarcely possible for those who deplore controls on those who seek to make money, whatever means it takes to do so. Contradictions now wrack the world's financial system, and if we are to believe the institutions and personalities who have been in the forefront of the defense of capitalism, it may very well be on the verge of serious crises.
Comment on this Article
Discrepancies in America's accounts hide a black hole
Financial Times
June 15 2006
The global financial system seems to have a black hole at its centre. Over the last two decades, US residents have sold a total of about $5,500bn worth of IOUs to foreigners, yet the officially recorded net investment position of the US has deteriorated only by a little more than half of this amount ($2,800bn). The US capital market seems to have acted like a black hole for investors from the rest of world in which $2,700bn vanished from sight - or at least from the official statistics.
How can $2,700bn disappear?
It is often argued that the US can simply make large capital gains on its gross positions because its assets are denominated in foreign currency and its liabilities in dollars. However, the available data indicate that over the last two decades this factor has netted the US at most $300bn-$400bn. This still leaves a loss of well over $2,000bn to be explained.
The explanation comes in two tranches of about $1,000bn each.
The first source of accounting revenues for the US derives from an anomaly in the item "reinvested earnings" on foreign direct investment in the US balance of payments. This item improves the current account by about $100bn a year because foreign companies systematically report abnormally low profits for their US operations to avoid US corporate income taxes. If one assumes that foreign companies earn the same rate of return on their direct investment in the US as on their portfolio investment in equity, the US current account would deteriorate by about $100bn. Properly measured, the country's current account deficit would thus be about 1 per cent of gross domestic product larger than officially reported.
The underreporting of the current account deficit implies that US indebtedness is also underestimated. Over the past two decades the cumulative correction for the anomaly in "reinvested earnings" would lead to a higher US net debtor position of about $1,000bn.
A second source of gains comes from very large residuals - labelled "other changes" by the Bureau of Economic Analysis in its statistics on the evolution of the net US international investment position - the total of which also reaches about $1,000bn over the past two decades.
The US international investment position today should in principle be equal to the sum of past current account balances (mostly deficits). However, this is not the case by far, even taking into account the balancing item "errors and omissions". The quite detailed data available for the period 1989-2004 show that the exchange rate and valuation adjustments mentioned above have netted the US $300m-$400m, still leaving a discrepancy of around $1,000bn.
The discrepancy arises for a simple reason: the current account data are based on actual flows of payments recorded in the balance of payments. By contrast, the data on the US international investment position are based on surveys of depository institutions, which year after year tend to lose sight of US assets held by foreigners, especially portfolio investment and real estate.
Could the discrepancy be due to inaccurate statistics on the balance of payments? This is unlikely because the financial flows are just the mirror image of the current account which can be accurately measured given that it consists mostly of business-to-business transactions. With the improvement in current account statistics, the global current account balance discrepancy has now almost totally disappeared. If the current account figures constitute a more reliable source (except for "reinvested earnings"), it is likely that the true US net external debtor position is around $4,000bn (about 40 per cent of GDP) rather than the $2,500bn reported officially for end-2004. Taking into account the current account deficit of about $800bn for 2005 would bring the net current US debtor position to more than $4,500bn. (The official US net international investment position as of the end of 2005, to be published soon, is likely to again include a significant write-down of foreign assets in the US, so the official data are likely to show a net indebtedness below $3,000bn.)
A closer look at the data thus suggests that both the current account deficit and the net debtor position of the US are even worse than officially reported. This can only mean that the need for a substantial depreciation of the dollar and/or a period of sub-par growth is even bigger than generally accepted.
Comment on this Article
Stocks soar after Bernanke comments
By Emily Chasan
Reuters
Thu Jun 15, 2006
NEW YORK - U.S. stocks rallied on Thursday, as investors were relieved after Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke steered clear of fueling inflation concerns, and strong earnings from investment bank Bear Stearns Cos. boosted financial shares.
Investors extended a late-day rally from Wednesday and snapped up downtrodden shares after weeks of rout. A rise in tech shares, including Qualcomm Inc., Apple Computer Inc. and Yahoo Inc. helped push the Nasdaq Composite Index to its biggest one-day gain in more than two years.
Microsoft Corp. shares were in focus as the company said after the bell that chairman Bill Gates will transition out of a day-to-day role in the company in 2008.
The Dow Jones industrial average rose 198.27 points, or 1.83 percent, to 11,015.19, closing above the 11,000 level for the first time in more than a week. The Standard & Poor's 500 Index made its biggest one-day gain in more than 2-1/2 years, rising 26.12 points, or 2.12 percent, at 1,256.16. The Nasdaq Composite Index was up 58.15 points, or 2.79 percent, at 2,144.15.
"The reason it's up isn't so much that (Bernanke) said anything; it's what he didn't say," said Jim Paulsen, chief investment strategist with Wells Capital Management in Minneapolis, Minnesota. "Leading up to this, people thought he might be more hawkish" given recent data showing an uptick in inflation.
Speaking before the Economic Club of Chicago, Bernanke said inflation expectations had "fallen back somewhat" and that the impact of high energy prices on the economy has been limited. That offset worries from earlier this week when core consumer and producer price data rose above expectations.
His comments suggested the Fed may have room to pause in its two-year-long cycle of interest rate hikes in the next few months, investors said. Fed fund futures have fully priced in an interest rate hike at the Fed's next policy meeting on June 28-29.
Shares of Bear Stearns rose 5.9 percent to $131.56 on the
New York Stock Exchange after the investment bank said quarterly profit rose 81 percent.
Shares of Citigroup Inc., the world's largest financial services company, jumped 1.8 percent to $48.68.
On the technology front, shares of wireless technology company Qualcomm rose 3.8 percent to $44.89 on the Nasdaq. The company raised its quarterly earnings outlook on Tuesday.
"The Nasdaq has a lot of high volatility stocks so it's not surprising that they rebound a bit more rapidly," said Greg Fuss, Managing Director at Deutsche Bank Private Wealth Management. "I'd give you pretty good odds that we've seen the worst."
Apple shares rose 3.1 percent to $59.38 after Citigroup reiterated its "buy" rating on the stock, and Yahoo shares climbed 4 percent to $30.79.
A rise in crude oil prices also boosted energy shares, including Exxon Mobil Corp., which gained 2.3 percent to $59.12. U.S. crude for July delivery rose 36 cents to $69.50 as gasoline demand remained strong despite high prices.
On the economic front, the U.S. Labor Department said jobless claims for unemployment benefits unexpectedly fell to 295,000 last week.
Growth in factory activity in the mid-Atlantic region eased in June, though it was still above expectations, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. A separate report showed an unexpected decline in U.S. industrial output for May.
Trading was active on the New York Stock Exchange as it instituted trading curbs on the upside. Advancing shares beat decliners by about 4 to 1 on both the Nasdaq and New York Stock Exchange.
About 1.9 billion shares were traded on the NYSE, above the 1.61 billion daily average for last year. On Nasdaq, about 2.3 billion shares changed hands, above the 1.8 billion daily average last year.
Comment on this Article
Insurer reports data theft on 930,000
By Joseph B. Treaster
The New York Times
June 15, 2006
The American International Group, one of the world's largest insurers, said Wednesday that a burglar stole computer equipment in March from one of its Midwest offices that contained personal information on 930,000 people.
Chris Winans, a spokesman for AIG, said none of the information had been put to use in any way, "as far as we know." The information was from employees of companies seeking corporate health insurance.
Winans said the data had been on a computer server and protected by a password. It consisted of names and Social Security numbers--sometimes together, sometimes separately -- and, in some cases, fragments of medical information.
The information was provided to AIG by 690 insurance brokers seeking quotes for coverage on special high levels of health insurance for employees of companies around the country. Winans did not identify the companies.
Winans said AIG had a copy of the stolen information and had been trying since the break-in to connect the names with addresses so it could notify people that their data had been taken. Letters to the 930,000 are expected to go out in the next week. AIG plans to open a phone center to respond to their questions.
The burglar also took a laptop computer, a camera and other computer equipment, Winans said, adding that the insurance company thought the burglar's objective was to take the equipment and may not have known about the personal data.
For that reason, Winans said, the insurance company did not announce the theft when it occurred. The theft was first reported Wednesday by MSNBC.com.
"We didn't want to send out a press release and run the risk of alerting the thief that he had something valuable," Winans said.
AIG did not want to give the location of its burglarized office because that information could also be useful to the burglar, he said. The crime occurred March 31 after normal working hours, he said.
Comment on this Article
CPS Energy Sends Over 1,000 Cutoff Notices to Fort Sam Houston
WOAI.com
6/15/2006
SAN ANTONIO (AP) - Fort Sam Houston has received 1,300 utility service termination notices for delinquent bill payments, which officials blamed on a major budget shortfall.
CPS Energy warned commanders at the post to pay $4.2 million by Wednesday or risk losing power. The post is three months behind on its bills, but both Army and utility officials said the two parties were talking and no cutoff was imminent.
"Who would imagine us not paying our bill?" said Col. Wendy Martinson, Fort Sam Houston's garrison commander. "I worry about it. I can't sleep at night."
The post, which trains medics, faces a $26 million budget shortfall this year - a problem that officials said is symptomatic of the financial woes facing posts worldwide.
Only commands at Fort Sam Houston funded by the Army Installation Management Agency are affected, which excludes Brooke Army Medical Center.
The installation management agency is wrestling with a $530 million deficit and is awaiting funding from a $94.5 billion supplemental appropriations bill. The Senate is set to vote on a revised supplemental bill following House approval earlier this week. The funds are intended for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as hurricane relief.
Martinson said the supplemental funding would be a temporary fix. To deal with the budget crunch, the post has fired 100 contract workers, frozen hiring, shut off cell phones and BlackBerry devices, turned in leased cars and stopped troops from using government credit cards.
Steve Oertwig, a spokesman for the installation management agency, said funding allocations from the supplemental bill would be prioritized on the basis of support for troops destined for the war zone, health and safety needs, and civilian payrolls for permanent civilian employees.
In the meantime, officials from CPS Energy and Fort Sam Houston are talking daily.
CPS officials said the shutoff notices were automatically issued by the utility's computer system.
Customer services director Sylvia Arnold said the utility would work to resolve the outstanding debt, as it does with other customers. She described the post as important to the utility and the community, and said it's not a high risk for nonpayment.
Post spokesman Phil Reidinger said CPS is working with post officials until the supplemental budget comes through.
"From my vantage point, they know we're not going anywhere," he said. "We're not going to skip town."
Comment on this Article
Pathocratic Push and Shove
Putin takes swipe at US policy in central Asia
by Nick Coleman
AFP
Thu Jun 15, 2006
SHANGHAI - Russian President Vladimir Putin took a swipe at the US military presence in central Asia, while defending a regional security group that some critics have seen as a rival to NATO.
Referring to Washington's loss of a military base that Uzbekistan ordered closed last autumn, Putin likened the US approach in the region to that of a "bull in a china shop", saying the closure was not at all surprising.
"We call on everyone to be very careful and allow each country to develop in a natural way," the Russian leader told journalists at an informal gathering after a summit of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).
"We need to support them (the Central Asian states).... Don't forget where Uzbekistan is located -- it borders
Afghanistan," he said.
He said outsiders showed they did not understand central Asia when they used "stamps and cliches" to complain about the region, particularly about Uzbekistan, which has been widely criticised for human rights abuses.
Having only gained independence after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian states should not be compared with countries that have had longer to mature, Putin said.
The Russian president met with journalists for two hours in his hotel suite in the early hours of Friday, sipping cranberry juice and cracking the occasional joke.
He rejected claims that the Shanghai group -- which focuses on security issues and economic cooperation -- was emerging as a rival military bloc to the Western-led North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO).
"It's not a military bloc, it's open to all," he said.
"There's a feeling of alarm that Russia and China are combining forces. But this organisation is open. There's nothing covered up," Putin said.
The Shanghai group had been a "good instrument" after the fall of the Soviet Union for settling border demarcation questions that had remained unresolved for decades, he said.
"It was a good instrument for solving them and became a good way for solving other problems. It was a natural process," Putin said.
In addition to China and Russia, the SCO also comprises Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
Putin also reiterated his optimism that a recent set of Western proposals to Iran aimed at resolving the standoff over Tehran's nuclear programme would ease tensions.
"It's a real move forward thanks to the six countries who sought a solution and thanks to Iran which didn't reject the proposals," Putin said of the deal put forward by Britain, China, France, Germany, Russia and the United States.
Putin, who met with Iranian counterpart President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Thursday, also said that Moscow hopes to create a joint venture with Tehran on exploiting natural gas reserves in the two countries.
"We're talking about getting a Russian deposit and an Iranian deposit and creating a joint venture. It is only an idea for now, not worked out at a technical level," he said.
Comment on this Article
Sri Lanka bombs rebels but vows peace
by Amal Jayasinghe
AFP
Fri Jun 16, 2006
COLOMBO - Sri Lanka's president vowed not to allow the killing of 64 bus passengers to scuttle the island's peace bid but air force warplanes bombarded Tamil Tiger positions for a second straight day.
Security was stepped up in the main city of Colombo as the authorities prepared to hold a mass funeral for the victims of Thursday's attack in the north-central village of Kebitigollewa.
President Mahinda Rajapakse insisted the Norwegian-brokered process would not be allowed to fail following Thursday's Claymore mine blast, the deadliest attack on civilians here in 10 years.
"We will not allow incidents like this to scuttle the peace process," the president told survivors and relatives of bus massacre victims on Thursday, an official in his office said.
The government blamed the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) for the carnage, but the guerrillas denied involvement.
"We will not allow this type of barbaric terrorist attack to happen again," the president said. "We must resolve the conflict peacefully. No one can resolve problems through this type of violence."
Police officials said patrols as well as road blocks were intensified across the city and other key towns as part of a security alert amid fears of more Tamil rebel attacks.
"There is a fear that the Tigers will try to do something to disrupt normal civilian life," a police spokesman said. "We have put in place several new measures to increase security."
At first light Friday jets resumed retaliatory attacks against suspected Tiger positions.
"The air force carried out two bombing sorties over Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu," a military source here said, referring to two northern areas held by the Tigers.
"The identified targets of the LTTE are being taken this morning," he said.
The military said there were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.
The pro-rebel Tamilnet website said an aerial attack in the district of Mullaitivu on Thursday was near a tsunami refugee camp, but that there were no casualties.
"At least six bombs were dropped near the refugee camp," Tamilnet said. "Two of the bombs did not explode."
It said people had "escaped injuries from the indiscriminate bombing from a high altitude by supersonic jets."
International condemnation of the massacre mounted.
"This attack is much more than a ceasefire violation. It is a grave breach of the most fundamental tenets of humanity," UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour said.
"The government must urgently investigate this case so that those responsible not only face justice, but the full censure of the international community," she said.
The blast and retaliatory strikes fuelled fears the island's faltering peace process was doomed and that the nation was heading back to full-scale war.
The United States urged the Tigers to "renounce terror and enter into direct negotiations with the Sri Lankan government."
Former colonial ruler Britain condemned the attack and urged all sides to refrain from further "senseless" violence.
The island's main peace broker, Norway's International Development Minister Erik Solheim, described the attack as "horrific" and asked both sides to end the spiral of violence and stop killing civilians.
"The most important now is for everyone in Sri Lanka to put a stop to this violence, where one act of violence creates a response from others and then it goes from one case of violence to another, worse and worse," Solheim said.
Australia, India, Japan and Switzerland also condemned the carnage while nudging the parties to negotiate.
Norway last week failed to arrange a face-to-face meeting between Colombo and the LTTE in Oslo. The spike in violence has left at least 760 people dead since December.
Comment on this Article
France Boosts Purchase Rates To Spur Renewable Energy
AFP
June 16, 2006
Paris - France on Thursday announced major increases in rates for energy from renewable sources that has to be purchased by the state-owned electricity provider, EDF. Since February 2000, Electricite de France has been required to buy power from operators of renewable sources at a price set by the government, under a programme aimed at boosting clean energy.
Energy from waste biomass (rotting refuse from which methane is captured) will see a rate increase of around 50 percent to 14 cents of a euro (17.64 US cents) per kilowatt-hour (kWh), junior industry minister Francois Loos said here.
Payment for geothermal (drawing on heat from the Earth's crust) will rise from 7.6 to 12 euro cents (9.5 to 15.2 US cents) per kWh and from 7.9 to 15 euro cents (9.95 to 18.9 US cents) per kWh, depending on whether the energy is used for electricity or electricity and heating combined.
Loos added that a new tarif had been created for wind generated by offshore turbines, of 13 euro cents (16.4 US cents) per kWh.
The existing rate structure for land-based wind turbines is being reviewed, in order to give incentives to operators who invest in high-efficiency equipment and place generators in areas where winds are average, as the windiest sites in France are already being harvested, he said.
France's goal is to drive renewables' share of electricity generation from 14 percent as of today to 21 percent as of 2010.
Around three-quarters of the country's electricity comes from EDF's nuclear plants, under a vast programme launched in the 1970s after the first oil shock.
Among the projects being launched in the renewables sectors, two stand out for their size or ambition.
One is the France's first offshore windfarm, a facility seven kilometres (four miles) from the small Channel resort of Veulettes-sur-Mer, which is scheduled to start operations in 2008.
It will have a designed capacity of 300 million kWh per year, enough for a town of 150,000 people.
The other is a new-generation geothermal scheme at Soultz-sous-Forets, in the Bas-Rhin department in eastern France.
In Brussels, meanwhile, the European Parliament voted on Thursday to dedicate two-thirds of the European Union's non-nuclear energy research to renewable energy and efficiency, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) said in a press release.
The decision amounts to a major shift away from research into fossil fuels, it said.
If approved by EU ministers, non-nuclear energy research will total 2.4 billion euros (3.024 billion dollars) from 2007-2013. Two-thirds of this for renewables and energy efficency would equal about 226 million euros (284.75 million dollars) per annum, said EWEA.
Comment on this Article
Heads, Eyes and Ears
Two killed in severed head crash in Idaho
By JESSE HARLAN ALDERMAN
Associated Press
Fri Jun 16, 2006
BOISE, Idaho - The severed head of a man's wife flew from his pickup truck Thursday when he crashed into an oncoming car, killing the driver and her child, police said.
The investigation of the deadly wreck and the head, which was tossed onto the roadway by the impact, led police to the decapitated body of 47-year-old Theresa N. Time in the garage of the home she shared with her husband, Alofa Time, said Nampa police Lt. LeRoy Forsman.
A Boise police officer was driving behind Alofa Time's truck on a busy road when he noticed the man's erratic driving and then watched him slam into the car, said police spokeswoman Lynn Hightower.
Time, who was not injured in the crash, told officers that he also was involved his wife's death, officials said.
An autopsy was scheduled next week to determine Theresa Time's cause of death, Canyon County Coroner Vicki DeGeus-Morris said.
Time was being held on two counts of second-degree murder in the deaths of Samantha Nina Murphy, 36, and her 4-year-old daughter Jae Lynne Grimes, both of Boise. Murphy's other daughter was injured and was in stable condition at a Boise hospital.
"It was one of the more horrific and complex crime scenes on memory," Hightower said. "A woman and her child killed in a crash, and a severed head from an earlier homicide: It's nothing short of bizarre and tragic."
Comment on this Article
Serious fungal infections of the eye on the rise
Reuters
Thu Jun 15, 2006
NEW YORK - Investigators in Miami and San Francisco describe clusters of a serious eye infection called ulcerative keratitis, an ulceration of the cornea, among soft contact lens wearers caused by the fungus Fusarium, which until this year had been considered an unusual condition in the U.S. Reports of both clusters are published in the Archives of Ophthalmology.
An editorial note preceding the articles refers to the recent withdrawal by Bausch & Lomb of its ReNu MoistureLoc contact lens cleaner, because of an association with these infections. The note says those cases "appear to be part of a more global emergence of Fusarium as a vision-threatening organism in otherwise healthy patients."
In the first paper, Dr. Eduardo C. Alfonso and colleagues at the Bascom Palmer Eye Institute in Miami, report that their group treated 10 cases of soft contact lens-associated keratomycosis between 1969 and 1992. But between January 2004 and April 2006, they treated 34 cases attributed to Fusarium infection.
The average age of the patients was 34.9 years (range 13 to 92). Medical histories and evaluations failed to turn up any active disease that would predispose the patients to infectious ulceration.
Thirty-one patients (91 percent) were initially treated with antibiotics for presumed bacterial keratitis; four patients were treated with antiviral medications; and only two received antifungal therapy before the final diagnosis was made.
The average time from onset of symptoms to diagnosis was 9.1 days (range 0 to 140 days). At the initial examination, the size of the infiltrates ranged from 1 to 8 mm.
Once the fungus was identified, patients were usually treated with topical natamycin 5 percent and oral voriconazole 200 mg per day was prescribed to three patients. The length of treatment ranged from 21 to 138 days
One case required placement of tissue adhesive glue, and another required a surgical procedure. Most patients needed corneal scraping to remove dead tissue.
Alfonso's team cautions: "Based on the present report, ophthalmic clinicians should have a heightened clinical suspicion for possible Fusarium and other fungal pathogens as causative agents in cosmetic soft contact lens patients with ulcerative keratitis."
They note that cultures and microscopy are valuable diagnostic tools, and early treatment leads to rapid cure with good outcomes. They recommend a polyene antifungal agent, such as natamycin or amphotericin, applied every hour initially.
Meanwhile, in a small case series reported by Dr. David G. Hwang and associates at the University of California, San Francisco, there were four patients with contact lens-associated Fusarium keratitis during a 5-week span in early 2006. Previously, the department had treated eight cases of Fusarium keratitis between 1976 and 2005, only two of which were associated with contact lens use.
Three of the patients -- ages 19 to 24 years -- had no risk factors for fungal keratitis, whereas a fourth woman, 56 years old, was undergoing chemotherapy for non-Hodgkin lymphoma, which may have lowered her resistance to infection.
Initially two of the patients were misdiagnosed with herpes-related keratitis and the other two with bacterial keratitis. One patient whose diagnosis was not made for at least 4 weeks after symptom onset ended up requiring corneal transplant surgery. Seven weeks later, her visual acuity was still poor.
The other three patients recovered with visual acuity of 20/40 or better after treatment with topical antifungal therapy.
In many of the cases, but not all, patients recalled having used Bausch and Lomb contact lens solutions, which have been pulled from the market.
Hwang's team adds that clusters of cases have been reported in other areas of the U.S. and in Singapore.
Comment on this Article
Study: Blacks hear better than whites
WAVY.com
June 15, 2006
ATLANTA A government study says black adults hear better than white adults.
The study also found that women hear better than men, and that overall, hearing in the United States is about the same as it was 35 years ago. That's despite the advent of ear-blasting devices such as the Walkman and the iPod.
Previous research reached similar findings about racial and sex differences. But experts say the new study is the largest national sample to report such a finding.
The racial difference may be related to melanin, a skin pigment. A researcher says some scientists believe black people's larger amounts of melanin protect them from noise-induced hearing loss as the years go by. Scientists suspect melanin plays a role in how the body removes harmful chemical compounds caused by damage to the sensitive hair cells in the inner ear.
Comment on this Article
Up There, Down Here and Up There
Three Trojan Asteroids Share Neptune Orbit
SPX
June 16, 2006
Washington, DC - Researchers announced Thursday they have found three new objects locked into roughly the same orbit as Neptune. The objects - called Trojan asteroids - were found by researchers from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Terrestrial Magnetism and the Gemini Observatory in Hilo, Hawaii.
The discovery offers evidence that Neptune, much like its big cousin Jupiter, hosts thick clouds of Trojans in its orbit, and that these asteroids probably share a common source. It also brings the total of known Neptune Trojans to four.
"It is exciting to have quadrupled the known population of Neptune Trojans," said lead researcher Scott Sheppard. "In the process, we have learned a lot both about how these asteroids become locked into their stable orbits, as well as what they might be made of, which makes the discovery especially rewarding."
The recently discovered Neptune Trojans are only the fourth stable group of asteroids observed around the Sun. The others are the Kuiper Belt just beyond Neptune, the Jupiter Trojans, and the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Evidence suggests the Neptune Trojans are more numerous than either the main asteroid belt or the Jupiter Trojans, but they are difficult to observe because they are so far away from the Sun. Astronomers therefore require the largest telescopes in the world equipped with sensitive digital cameras to detect them.
Reporting in the June 15 online issue of Science Express, the team said the Trojan asteroids cluster around one of two points that lead or trail the planet by about 60 degrees in its orbit, known as Lagrange points.
In these areas, the gravitational pull of the planet and the Sun combine to lock the asteroids into stable orbits synchronized with the planet.
German Astronomer Max Wolf identified the first Jupiter Trojan in 1906, and since then, more than 1800 such asteroids have been identified marching along that planet's orbit. Because Trojan asteroids share a planet's orbit, they can help astronomers understand how planets form, and how the solar system evolved.
Researchers hypothesized that Trojans might also flank other planets, but evidence for this has surfaced only recently. In 2001, the first Neptune Trojan was spotted in the planet's leading Lagrangian point.
In 2004, Sheppard and Chadwick Trujillo of the Gemini Observatory, a co-author of the current study, found the second Neptune Trojan using Carnegie's Magellan-Baade 6.5 meter telescope in Las Campanas, Chile.
They found two more in 2005, bringing the total to four, and observed them again using the 8.2 meter Gemini Telescope in Hawaii in order to accurately determine their orbits. All four of the known Neptune Trojans reside in the planet's leading Lagrange point.
One of the new Trojans has an orbit that is more steeply tilted to the plane of the solar system than the other three. Although only this one has such a steep orbit, the methods used to observe the asteroids are not sensitive to objects so far out of tilt with the rest of the solar system.
The very existence of this Trojan suggests that there are many more like it, and that Neptune's Trojans as a whole occupy thick clouds with complex, interlaced orbits.
"We were really surprised to find a Neptune Trojan with such a large orbital inclination," Trujillo said. "The discovery of the one tilted Neptune Trojan implies that there may be many more far from the solar system plane than near the plane, and that the Trojans are really a "cloud" or "swarm" of objects co-orbiting with Neptune."
A large population of high-inclination Neptune Trojans would rule out the possibility that they are left over from early in the solar system's history, since unaltered primordial asteroid groups should be closely aligned with the plane of the solar system.
These clouds probably formed much like Jupiter's Trojan clouds did: once the giant planets settled into their paths around the Sun, any asteroid that happened to be in the Trojan region "froze" into its orbit.
Sheppard and Trujillo also compared, for the first time, the colors of all four known Neptune Trojans. They are all about the same shade of pale red, suggesting that they share a similar origin and history.
Though it is hard to tell for sure with only four on the books, the researchers think the Neptune Trojans might share a common origin with the Jupiter Trojans and outer irregular satellites of the giant planets.
These objects might be the last remnants of the countless small bodies that formed in the giant planet region, most of which eventually became part of the planets or were tossed out of the solar system.
Comment on this Article
Three New Crop Circles Found
CropCircleConnector.com
June 2006
Three new crop circles have been reported this month.
