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Editorial: 9/11 Conspiracy Doodles

Joe Quinn
Signs of the Times
20/09/2006

Roosevelt was a doodler, so was LBJ, Nixon and a host of other presidents. So says the author of a new book called "Presidential Doodles", an analysis the scribblings of various American presidents in an attempt to plumb the depths of their often depraved psyches: "Just as our dreams and little Freudian slips can mean something about us, doodles can be indicative of the person and issues and things that he is dealing with" according to the editor in chief of the book's publisher, Perseus Books.

Had he been given the chance, Freud would probably have authoritatively proclaimed Theodore Roosevelt's rugged doodle sketch of two dogs staring across a campfire to be evidence of an oedipus complex (or some other myopic interpretation) but one particular scribbling by one of America's most famous presidents would certainly have left him stumped.

JFK was apparently wont to etch the odd box or circle with a few numbers inside, yet among the scraps of presidential paper relinquished by the Kennedy estate to the author's of the book is one particular 'scrawl' that defines the term "presidential foreknowledge". Apparently, at some point during his short tenure, Kennedy had drawn a small circle on a piece of paper with the numbers "9-11" contained within it. Just below and to the left, the word "conspiracy" was underlined.

Of course, there is no particular reason why we should think that Kennedy's subconscious threw up to him, 40 years in advance, the date of the plot by a section of the American and Israeli governments to attack the American people and blame it on a bunch of Arabs; but we can't rule it out. Perhaps the truth is more mundane; perhaps this particular doodle was simply a peronal memo by John Kennedy to remind himself to put the 'kabosh' on the plan by his Joint Chiefs of Staff to hijack American airliners and blow them up over Cuba as a way to precipitate war with Castro, aka "Operation Northwoods":

According to secret and long-hidden documents now released under the freedom of information act, the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1962 drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government. In the name of "antiCommunism", they proposed launching a secret and bloody war of terrorism against their own country in order to trick the American public into supporting an ill-conceived war they intended to launch against Cuba. [Ed: Sound familiar?]

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plan, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war. [Ed: any clearer now?]

As the Kennedy brothers appeared to suddenly "go soft" on Castro, Lemnitzer could see his opportunity to invade Cuba quickly slipping away. The attempts to provoke the Cuban public to revolt seemed dead and Castro, unfortunately, appeared to have no inclination to launch any attacks against Americans or their property Lemnitzer and the other Chiefs knew there was only one option left that would ensure their war. They would have to trick the American public and world opinion into hating Cuba so much that they would not only go along, but would insist that he and his generals launch their war against Castro. "World opinion, and the United Nations forum," said a secret JCS document, "should be favorably affected by developing the international image of the Cuban government as rash and irresponsible, and as an alarming and unpredictable threat to the peace of the Western Hemisphere."

Operation Northwoods called for a war in which many patriotic Americans and innocent Cubans would die senseless deaths, all to satisfy the egos of twisted generals back in Washington, safe in their taxpayer financed homes and limousines.

One idea seriously considered involved the launch of John Glenn, the first American to orbit the earth. On February 20,1962, Glenn was to lift off from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on his historic journey. The flight was to carry the banner of America's virtues of truth, freedom, and democracy into orbit high over the planet. But Lemnitzer and his Chiefs had a different idea. They proposed to Lansdale that, should the rocket explode and kill Glenn, "the objective is to provide irrevocable proof that...the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba [sic.]"

Among the most elaborate schemes was to "create an incident which will demonstrate convincingly that a Cuban aircraft has attacked and shot down a chartered civil airliner en route from the United States to Jamaica, Guatemala, Panama or Venezuela. The destination would be chosen only to cause the flight plan route to cross Cuba. The passengers could be a group of [American] college students off on a holiday or any grouping of persons with a common interest to support chartering a non-scheduled flight."

Lemnitzer and the Joint Chiefs worked out a complex deception:

An aircraft at Elgin AFB would be painted and numbered as an exact duplicate for a civil registered aircraft belonging to a CJA proprietary organization in the Miami area. At a designated time the duplicate would be substituted for the actual civil aircraft and would be loaded with the selected passengers, all boarded under carefully prepared aliases. The actual registered aircraft would be converted to a drone [a remotely controlled unmanned aircraft]. Take off times of the drone aircraft and the actual aircraft will be scheduled to allow a rendezvous south of Florida.
Note particularly this part of the plan where a duplicate aircraft would be used and the original aircraft and its occupants replaced with a remote controlled "drone".

If such a plan was feasible in 1962, with today's "modern technology", including mass media communication and control, just imagine the relative ease with which a similar "false flag" operation could be carried out today. While "Operation Northwoods" was not actually implemented, it serves as an excellent insight into the thinking of a select group of our "leaders", and while today their names may have changed, their attitude towards this planet and the people on it have not.

Despite the lengths that certain members of government are prepared to go to deceive the masses, some members of the public still credit themselves with the ability to easily recognise a government cover up. Yet the glaring contradiction in such a stance is that many of these same members of the public are unwilling to allow for the possibility that their governments would even attempt to deceive them, regardless of the historical evidence pointing to the fact that governments themselves understand that they must deceive the masses in order to remain in power.

When a person precludes the possibility that their government would ever lie to them, no amount of factual evidence will ever convince them of the contrary, much less apparently prescient scribblings by a much-loved American president who was later shot to death in Dallas by shadowy members of his own government.


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Editorial: Imperialism 101 - The US Addiction to War, Mayhem and Madness - Part II

by Stephen Lendman
Sepember 2006

Part I of this article explained that the US was always a warrior, imperial nation, building it in steps and addicted to its madness. First we took it from its original inhabitants; then we expanded it beyond our borders by seizing the half of Mexico we wanted; later we established colonies abroad; and now, our method of choice is to rule the world through compliant leaders in client states everywhere serving our interests. We began doing it gradually following WW II when we emerged as the only dominant nation left standing, unchallengeable as the world's only economic, political and military superpower. Even before the war ended, we planned to take full advantage of that indomitable status once it did. We pursued it throughout the "cold war" and in the 1990s when it was over. Then came 9/11, the gloves came off in the Bush administration, and top officials in it ended any pretense of what our real aims are. The rest, as they say, is history, and the nations we target in our quest for world dominance and our own people at home pay a dreadful price. Below is a case study of our imperial madness in Iraq documenting how painful that price is.

A Case Study In Imperial Mayhem and Madness and Its Disasterous Consequences - First the Victims

If the US had a slogan or motto on how best to fight wars it might be "all's surely fair in war as well as love." The only rules we observe are the ones we make up as we go along. With that code of conduct and with total disregard for the rule of domestic or international law, designated targets can only expect their earth scorched followed by a living hell delivered in the name of democracy and liberation. Iraq, like Southeast Asia in the sixties and seventies and Nicaragua and El Salvador in the eighties, is a classic example with Afghanistan being more of the same. The people on our receiving end of our gunsights know democracy American-style is none at all.

For anyone paying attention to events unfolding in Iraq from the few credible sources available (meaning unembedded journalists, reports from our disillusioned military and leaks including high level ones), there's little doubt the situation on the ground is disastrous and getting worse - for us as well as the Iraqis. From these reports on the ground, we continue learning more of what the Pentagon and administration try to suppress, always with the full cooperation of the corporate-run media. But the truth can't be hidden, the lies are unravelling, and the charade of progress is being seen as a shamless myth.

For 26 million Iraqis, liberation American-style is none whatever. For them it's an endless living hell nightmare since the US first attacked and invaded in January, 1991. At that time we deliberately and illegally destroyed essential infrastructure like power generating stations and clean water facilities vital to the health, welfare and safety of the people. We also wontonly slaughtered many thousands of defenseless civilians and Iraqi military who had given up the fight they wanted no part of in the first place. The likely toll was at least 100,000 killed in just a few weeks of brutal one-sided combat mostly inflicted from the air against a target country we knew was defenseless. Our initial cost was modest for an operation involving 580,000 military personal - 146 killed (including by friendly fire) and 467 wounded. A far greater cost to US forces would show up later that's discussed below.

What followed Operation Desert Storm was a dozen years of continued air-assault bombings along with oppressive and unjustifiable economic sanctions. Combined they destroyed all the institutions of a modern civil society which Iraq was prior to 1991. They left in their wake an epic humanitarian disaster by every measure imaginable including median Iraqi income creating mass poverty. Because of the country's oil wealth, Iraq was once the most advanced and developed country in the Middle East with a per capita income of $2,313 in 1979. By 2003, that income had declined to $255 per capita and in 2004 it had fallen further to about $144. It's easy to understand why based on a study by the college of economics at Baghdad University that estimated the unemployment rate to be about 70%. Even the so-called "oil for food" program did little to relieve the crisis prior to the current invasion and war. It wasn't intended to as the US plan was to inflict the greatest possible hardships on the people hoping it would encourage them to rise up and topple Saddam. In fact, it had the opposite effect despite the severity of the toll. Instead of blaming Saddam, Iraqis relied on him for whatever relief they could get. It wasn't much or nearly enough because the US allowed him little to give.

The combination of war and economic sanctions likely caused the death of at least one million by even conservative estimates including 500,000 children. Other estimates put the number as high as 1.5 million in total by the end of the nineties. When Denis Halliday resigned in 1998 as UN head of Iraqi humanitarian relief he said he did so because he "had been instructed to implement a policy that satisfies the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed well over one million individuals, children and adults." He went on to say 5,000 Iraqi children were dying needlessly every month.

Conditions got far worse following the US illegal aggression beginning in March, 2003. The daily toll of death and destruction from the ongoing endless conflict is unknown precisely, but even honest conservative estimates are appalling and shocking despite efforts by the Pentagon to suppress them. The British Lancet reported in October, 2004 by their "conservative assumptions" an Iraqi toll of about 100,000 "excess deaths" post March, 2003. They then updated their earlier estimate in February, 2006 to a likely 300,000 that seven months later is considerably higher. Other assessments suggest an even greater number, up to 500,000 according to one estimate a few months ago. Whatever the true number, the US inflicted disaster on Iraq and its people is one of epic proportions in all respects.

It's destroyed a once prosperous nation and left in its wake today a surreal lawless armed camp wasteland with few or no essential services like electricity, clean water, medical care, fuel or most everything else needed for sustenance and survival. It shows up in Baghdad's morgue that can't cope with the number of corpses it gets daily while those still living can't get desperately needed care at hospitals unable to provide it. It's also there in the US-run torture-prisons where anyone can be brutalized in a kind of a ritual foreplay for no reason at all. Thing's aren't improving. They get steadily worse as the occupation grinds on and death squads room at will including the US "Salvador option" ones modeled after the types used in the Reagan era against the leftist guerrilla resistance in El Salvador in the 1980s that murdered many thousands. This is what life in most of Iraq is now like, and it clearly warrants the label genocide. It also makes all US officials at the highest levels responsible for it guilty of egregious war crimes and crimes against humanity. Will they ever be held to account for what they've done? Never, as long as the US occupier lives by the rules of victor's justice that insures none at all for the victims.

A notable sign of US-style justice happened at the end of July when the Pentagon awarded the Distinguished Service Medal (DDSM) to retiring General Geoffrey Miller who supervised the infamous US torture-prisons at Guantanamo and later Abu Ghraib. The DDSM was established by Richard Nixon's 1970 Executive Order so the Secretary of Defense could award it to officers of the US Armed Forces "whose exceptional performance of duty and contributions to national security or defense have been at the highest levels." Clearly generals or other officers in charge of torture now qualify for the award.

The Toll of Mayhem and Madness On Our Own Military Forces On the Ground and Reporters

No one should ever believe anything from government sources, especially our own. We practically invented and defined the art of disseminating lies and practicing deceit. We're at it daily, particularly in how and what we report on the war in Iraq. The military holds update briefings at its media nerve center for the war - CentCom. It's a worthless exercise there and whenever else US officials report on the war. Anyone expecting to get a true picture of conditions on the ground won't ever because the most important information known is censored or suppressed. In times of war, the first casualty is truth, and the corporate-run media is always willing to oblige to keep it that way.

The Pentagon is also ready to use its muscle to censor, shut down, or destroy any news source in the country that may reveal what it wants suppressed. It repeatedly harasses and assaults Al-Jazeera closing it down and in 2003 attacked its Baghdad offices by air killing one of its correspondents and injuring another. Previously in Afghanistan in November, 2001, Al-Jazeera's Kabul offices were destroyed by a US missile in a deliberate attempt to stop unfavorable news reports from coming out. Another time a US tank with no provocation fired point blank at the Palestine Hotel in the capitol where most non-embedded international journalists are based killing reporters from Reuters and the Spanish network Telecino. These are just a few examples of the deadly effects of US efforts to silence honest news reporting from the country. The International Press Institute (IPI) keeps a journalist death watch count and reports that including all of 2003 76 journalists have been killed in Iraq by all assailants making this country by far the most dangerous venue in the world for members of the fourth estate. That number has now been updated by other sources that report since March, 2003 to the present 107 journalists and other media workers have been killed in this most dangerous of all places for them to work.

In spite of the danger and toll its taken, much of what Washington and the corporate-run media conceal is being reported from unembedded journalists and a growing number of unofficial accounts emerging or leaking out. They show what conditions are really like on the ground and the effect the conflict has had on US ground forces in the country. They're being increasingly stressed and terrified out of their minds, most are physically and/or psychologically traumatized or ill, many quite seriously from the deadly effects of depleted uranium (DU) poisoning and other toxins that have already disabled as many as 350,000 or more Gulf war veterans according to what can be pieced together from the little information the Veterans Administration (VA) reports (they don't explain from what or make a serious effort to find out). The psychological toll is also growing from witnessing or obeying orders to participate in the daily barbaric slaughter of Iraqi civilians including women, children, the elderly and infirm. The result is the rate of suicides is believed to be rising to alarming levels as is the number of desertions the Pentagon reports to be about 40,000 since 2000 from all branches of the military, half of them from the Army. Over 5,500 of them are Iraq related (the Pentagon keeps this very quiet) with many dozens more joining their ranks each month. In addition, many others are refusing to return to Iraq for another tour of duty after serving there one or more times. Those who do it unannounced are being quietly discharged in most cases, while the ones going public to denounce the war saying they won't serve in it any longer face courts martial, dishonorable discharge and possible prison terms.

Little of the above information has been reported, but most disturbing of all is the true unreported daily death and injury toll of US military personnel that's far higher than the official numbers. Department of Defense (DOD) reports are now being quietly circulated indicating over 12,000 dead, not the current announced total approaching 2,700. That figure includes thousands of previously unreported deaths of US military personnel who died en route to German or other hospitals or after arriving there. There's also evidence from Military Air Transport Service (MATS) manifests that show many more bodies shipped to Dover Air Force Base than are officially reported when there are any reports at all.

The true number of serious injuries has also been grossly understated. It could be twice as high as the official numbers based on reports from the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany alone that has treated over 25,000 wounded military patients even as the DOD only officially acknowledges around 15,000 in total and then quietly at first increased the number to about 19,000. These injuries, rarely discussed, include loss of limbs, brain damage and other debilitations that will scar those affected by them for the rest of their lives if after treatment and recovery they even survive. And there's never any mention of the later physical and/or psychological pain and suffering veterans endure or how many of them had or likely will have their lives shortened as a result of the time they spent in combat theaters "serving their country."

In addition to the stress of trauma, possible death or serious injury US forces face, they must also cope with the problems of daily life on the ground making their lives difficult or too often unbearable. Many of their Forward Operations Bases don't get enough daily drinking water and other necessities such as proper food to eat regularly. It makes an intolerable situation even worse. For many there's also a lack of basic amenities like clean clothes, a daily shower and a comfortable bed to sleep in. In addition, the equipment on the ground is being consumed and not replaced including weapons, vehicles, ordinance, body armor and most everything else. Despite the multi-billions spent on this imperial adventure, too little of it is going to "the boots on the ground," because too much of it is budgeted for corporate friends of the administration feasting on huge no-bid contracts. The situation isn't improving. In fact, it's steadily deteriorating despite official denials.

By the time our forces are finally withdrawn from Iraq, as one day they will, the human disaster will be almost incomprehensible. From just a short one-time deployment during the 1991 Gulf war, hundreds of thousands of our forces sent there are now on some form of disability either from the deadly effects of DU poisoning, the stew of other toxins they were exposed to, the physical injuries they received or the permanent psychological scars they may take to the grave. But the worst is yet to come. Beginning with the Afghanistan war in late 2001 and the Iraq war from March, 2003, over 1.3 million of our military forces have served one or more tours of duty for extended periods in what are beyond question the most dangerous and toxic environments on earth. The best estimates (because the VA won't say) are that between 30 - 70% of Gulf war vets so far are now on some kind of disability. If only that same range is applied to the 1.3 million of our military now serving or having served in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001, between 400,000 and 900,000 of them may end up on disability or die from exposure to the DU munitions used in these wars which we've learned are vastly more toxic than the ones used in the Gulf war. And if they manage to avoid DU poisoning, they may succumb to the effects from the many other toxic pollutants they had to live with or become scarred or maimed for life from the violent environments they had to serve in or the acts they had to commit fulfilling their duty there.

In simple terms, it's likely we can expect an eventual overall catastrophic human disaster and one being covered up because of its enormity. US high officials and Pentagon brass that planned this holocaust to both sides likely knew the human cost to our forces alone would be high but decided anyway the innocent mostly young people we sent to fight were expendable and could be written off to be replaced by new and fresh equally innocent recruits - as long as their dirty secret never gets out. The lives lost or ruined on both sides are dismissed as "collateral damage" or just a "price that has to be paid." It's a human price and one that's paid to enrich well-connected big corporations that love wars because they're so profitable.

The Madness of War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity

Article I, Section 8 of the US Constitution gives the power to declare war solely to the Congress. The Founding Fathers rightfully believed that authority so important they codified it. They wanted to assure that for the single most important issue a nation ever faces, that awesome power would never be placed in the hands of a single individual like the president. They wanted only the legislative branch to have it and only exercise it after careful, deliberative debate. That branch still has it, but for the last 65 years it's abrogated its authority and allowed Presidents from Harry Truman to George W. Bush to usurp it. The result has been the many wars we've fought since WW II along with the many we encouraged, supported and financed plus all the CIA covert mischief and abuse going on at all times.

The result is that every war this country fought in since WW II from Korea to Iraq to the one now planned and "signed off" on by George Bush against Iran and possibly Syria and Venezuela as well to oust President Hugo Chavez to begin on future so far unknown dates was and will be acts of illegal aggression. In each case the US either committed the first overt hostile act or goaded its designated target country enough to do it to provide us with a casus belli for the war we planned and intended to wage. We provoked the North Koreans (through our South Korean proxies) enough in 1950 to get them to respond to give us an excuse to enter a civil conflict between the North and South. We did the same thing again to Iraq (through our Kuwaiti proxies) in 1990-91. In each case, from Korea to the present, we did it against adversaries that never threatened to attack us or had any intention to. Our actions each time were planned, willful acts of illegal aggression, which is what the Nazis were tried for at Nuremburg.

The Tribunal called their crime the "supreme international crime" and specifically said: "To initiate a war of aggression....is not only an international crime, it is the supreme crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." For the last 55 years, the US has repeatedly committed "supreme international crimes" but has yet to be held to account for any of them. In a just world, those in power during each of those illegal wars would have been put in the dock, tried, convicted and either hanged like the most egregious Nazis or given appropriate prison terms for their crimes. The US has also violated the UN Charter that allows a nation the right to use force in its self-defense only under two conditions: when authorized to do it by the Security Council or under Article 51 that permits the "right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member....until the Security Council has taken measures to maintain international peace and security." By attacking another nation without provocation and with no Security Council authorization, the US violated this sacred covenant. It also violated the US Constitution that says...."all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." The Bush administration continues to remind us of its disdain for all laws that conflict with its policies.

It should also remind responsible people that's why the International Criminal Court was established by the Rome Statute of 1998 to which the US is a signatory. The Court's authority became effective after receiving its required number of ratifying signatures in 2002 to be a permanent tribunal to prosecute individuals for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide as defined by the Nuremberg Charter of 1945. However, the Bush administration refuses to participate in the Court unless its military personnel are given immunity from prosecution - an outrageous demand made for obvious reasons. As a result, no US official or military offender will be held to account before the court unless brought there against their will which isn't likely. That's not how things work in a world ruled by victor's justice. Only losers pay the price in that kind of world, even when they're victims.

Besides committing the supreme international crime of illegal aggression, the US is a serial offender in other ways. It violated international law by waging war without restraint using every weapon it chooses including illegal chemical and possibly biological agents. During the 1950s the effects of such agents were ilicitly tested in selected US cities including New York and San Francisco on our own unwitting population. However, through the years post WW I, the 1925 Geneva Convention Gas Protocol and various succeeding Geneva Weapons Conventions outlawed the use of chemical and biological agents in any form for any reason in war. In addition, under various UN Conventions and Covenants that are binding international law for its signatories, the use of any weapons that cause harm after the battle including away from the battlefield, harm the environment, or kill, wound or cause harm inhumanely are illegal and banned.

Since the Gulf war in 1991, the US has routinely used illegal weapons including depleted uranium munitions in four wars that spread deadly toxic irremediable radiation over the target sites attacked and a vast area beyond them. These DU weapons are poisonous under international law and violate all the above conditions. Even the respected Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which is legally non-binding to its signatories, implies a moral duty never to use any weapons as potentially harmful as DU ones or any chemical or biological agents.

In all its wars the US has also willfully violated international law by deliberately attacking non-military targets as a tactical strategy against area "resistance." It's also been callously indifferent to heavy civilian "collateral damage" (words that signify war crimes for some) in attacking military ones. The choice of weapons has been indiscriminate as well and include ones judged illegal and outlawed. In Iraq these have been chemical gases, questionable cluster bombs and a terror weapon called "flashettes" which explode and shoot out 1000s of nails in all directions with deadly results. Two even more deadly terror weapons have been indiscriminately used in Iraq including in civilian areas. One is the napalm-like white phosphorous bombs and shells, known as Willy Pete, that burn flesh to the bone and can't be extinguished by water that only makes it worse when used. The other is an updated version of napalm called Mark 77 firebombs which do about the same thing to flesh.

One other terror weapon likely also is used called a thermobaric bomb which is a modification of still another prohibited weapon called fuel air explosives (FAE) that in their original form are enormously powerful and destroy and incinerate structures and people. The thermobaric update contains polymer-bonded or solid fuel-air explosives in its payload. It's also able to penetrate buildings, underground shelters and tunnels creating a blast pressure great enough to suck the oxygen out from the spaces and lungs of anyone in the vicinity. Used against civilians, these weapons are illegal under the 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. However, George Bush arrogantly dismisses the Geneva Conventions claiming they don't apply in the "war on terror." He echoed the sentiment of his then White House counsel Alberto Gonzales (the current Attorney General) whose memo in early 2002 stated: "The nature of the new war (on terror) places a high premium on other factors such as the ability to quickly obtain information from captured terrorists.....In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions." Such is the language of tyrants and those around them in high places. The Pentagon also acts with disdain for the law and freely uses whatever terror weapons it chooses against any target.

The sum of these actions and policies is that the George Bush's legacy will based on the notion of endless illegal aggression in the "permanent state of war" his administration declared after 9/11 that now has been rebranded as "the long war" against "Islamo-fascism." It also sanctions the use of banned weapons against civilians, and it believes the most sacred international law is quaint, obsolete and out of date. Is it any wonder this administration has laid waste to scores of villages, towns and cities across Iraq and Afghanistan and done it not just to destroy targets but to send a message that no restraint will be shown to crush all resistance against imperial aggression. This scorched earth policy is called the "Fallujah model" which, of course, was the city in al-Anbar province of 350,000 US ground and air forces attacked full-force in November, 2004. It was done using most every terror weapon they had, other than nuclear ones, to inflict maximum destruction including to essential infrastructure like water, electrical power and hospitals to wipe out whatever resistance was there. Now the same model is being used against the people of Ramadi, the capitol of al-Anbar and a city larger than Fallujah that was surrounded and attacked by a large combined US and proxy Iraqi force beginning on June 9. The assault is still ongoing, and in the words of its US commander, it's unclear how long it will take to "pacify" the city.

What the commander meant but left unsaid was that US style pacification means mass killing and destruction like what was done to Fallujah or alternately following the "Leningrad", "Ben Tre" or "Jenin" model. Whether the plan is to break the will of the people and starve it to submission, "destroy the town to save it" or just inflict barbaric retribution in an act of vengeance and do it against innocent people there, these acts are outrageous war crimes and crimes against humanity. What the commander also didn't say is what's been coming from unembedded and leaked reports on the ground - that despite the intense and protracted effort to suppress the resistance, the US military has effectively lost control over all of al-Anbar province west of Baghdad that comprises about one-third of the country. This assessment was confirmed in August by Col. Pete Devlin, the Marine Corps chief of intelligence, who characterized the situation there as beyond repair and that US forces have lost the battle in al-Anbar. It's happened in spite of the intense fighting across areas under US control including the tactical strategy of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The latter crimes are those the Nuremburg Charter cited to explain what Hitler did to the Jews. The UN Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) ruled these actions are the historical and legal precursors to the international crime of genocide as defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. From the 15 year unrelenting assault against the Iraqi people beginning with the Gulf war, the devastating economic sanctions, continued bombings throughout the 1990s up to the 2003 illegal war, occupation and daily crimes committed under it, the US is as guilty of genocide as were the Nazis against the Jews and all others they sought to eliminate.

Add to that the systematic use of torture at the hellhole prisons with names now well-known and many others around the world the CIA and military run or "rendition" victims to so they can learn how American justice works. It's the same way it worked in Nazi Germany and under all other regimes run by tyrants. Victims have no rights and can be treated any way their oppressors choose. International laws that are the supreme law of the land are quaint and ignored, the notion of innocent unless or until proved guilty is a nonstarter, and knowing torture isn't an effective way to break resistance and obtain credible information hardly matters. When you're the world's only superpower, can decide alone what's lawful or not, and are on the rampage, who'll be brave or foolish enough to challenge you? Few, in any, dare.

Is Justice Possible in A World Where Might Makes Right

The rule of law is sacred and should protect us from oppression and injustice. It doesn't because a greater force prevails - the power of the strong over the weak, to write the laws it wants and ignore all others, to recklessly pursue its ends, to pillage and plunder because it can get away with it. It's called the law of might makes right, ruled by the code of victors' justice where only the vanquished are held to account and no one has rights except the powerful who make their own. It's a world of lawlessness, disorder and endless conflict, our world, and it's brought to us by a rogue superpower posing as a model democratic state. Those under its oppressive heel, now and in the past, know it well. For many of them it's the curse of having too much of a valued natural resource the US wants to control and exploit. It was true for Iraq and is no different for Iran and Venezuela that also are on the US target list.

What's clear abroad is also true in the US where sacred constitutional law and the political process are effectively dead letters. So too are long-established international laws and norms that interfere with the plans of the new rulers of the world. The power of the Executive declared it so, and the Congress (a Greek chorus posing as a legitimate legislative body) went along - while a modern-day Rome slowly burns and threatens all humanity with its fallout.

It never should have been this way nor was it intended to following WW I. Because of the frightening horror from that conflict, 63 nations, including the US, were signatories to the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928 that renounced war as an instrument of foreign policy and said never again. The Pact failed to prevent WW II that began 11 years later nor has the UN formed in its aftermath been able to do be any more successful. This world body was established to maintain international order and security and to develop friendly relations among nations to strengthen universal peace. Its stated mission in its Charter was that it was to be an international body "to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has brought untold sorrow to mankind." It hasn't done it and never will as long as it's a wholly owned subsidiary of the reigning superstate (aka predator) that co-opts it to serve its interests and prevents it from functioning as it should. What can all humanity look forward to if the institutions established to protect us don't work, and the only rule of law is the one of the jungle and survival of the fittest and most powerful. More on this below.

A Possible Hidden Economic Connection to the Iraq War and Future Ones Planned

The clear connection to the Iraq war, and likely ones in some form planned against Iran and Venezuela, is the ocean of oil each country literally floats on. Saddam became a target for regime change when he refused to submit and cede control of it to the US demanding he do it. Now the Iranian mullahs and its President Ahmadinejad and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez may be next in our target queue for the same reason. Like Iraq, with only conventional weapons for defense, these two countries are no match militarily against an all out US assault unlike North Korea that may have a nuclear deterrent giving that country a degree of invulnerability only states with that type weapon have against an aggressive superpower. The US picks its targets judiciously, and like a schoolyard bully never attacks an adversary that can put up a decent fight - at least by its military.

There also may be another motive behind our belligerence besides the clear oil related one. It's much less visible, not discussed, and well concealed beneath the radar. It relates to the notion believed by some economists that flawed and/or out of date methodologies are used to compute some of our key economic data like the gross domestic product (GDP), the total employment and unemployment figures known as the monthly jobs report, and the federal deficit. The reasoning goes that if the unemployment rate today was computed by the same methodology used during The Great Depression when it rose to 25% of the working population, the true current figure would be about 12% instead of the reported 4.7% which includes part-time workers and anyone working as little as one hour during the reporting period. It also excludes all those who wish to work but have stopped looking (discouraged workers) because they can't find any.

A cover story just out in the September 25 issue of Business Week magazine lends credence to the notion that official published government data is manipulated and flawed to look better than, in fact, it is. The article is titled: "What's Really Propping Up The Economy." It states since 2001, all newly created private sector jobs (1.7 million) came from one source - the health care industry which includes the drug companies and insurers offering health insurance. This one industry today represents 12% of the workforce and $2 trillion in annual spending (about one-sixth of the nation's GDP and growing). The story goes on to explain that without the private sector jobs from this one source "the nation's labor market would be in a deep coma" so that while some other sectors like construction and areas related to it added 900,000 jobs since 2001, that gain was offset by "the pressures of globalization and new technology (that) have wreaked havoc on the rest of the labor market" resulting in factories closing and shrinkage in other areas. Even information technology, "the great electronic promise of the 1990s," turned into a bust as far as its ability to generate new jobs. Instead of creating any, it lost 1.1 million of them since 2001 and now employs fewer people than in 1998 "when the Internet frenzy kicked into high gear."

This kind of data doesn't reflect a healthy, expanding economy and clearly is a strong indication of one showing very disturbing signs. The current situation is still further complicated by a failing policy of imperial overreach, massive and out-of-control federal deficits discussed below, and the greatest housing boom in history that propped up the economy, became a bubble, and is now unwinding and likely to become painful before it ends. Just how much and how fast won't be known until a future time when an assessment is made of the amount of damage done and what economic conditions are in its wake. It may show things to be lots different than the rosy way they're portrayed now by most analysts.

It may be why at least one economist (maybe an honest one) believes a more accurate calculation of the real GDP indicates it's contracting and not expanding in a healthy fashion as is now reported each quarter. And most disturbing of all is an analysis of the federal deficit, the computation of which has been miscalculated since the Johnson administration began using accounting gimmicks to hide the true costs of the Vietnam war. If the deficit were calculated based on GAAP methodology (the accounting rules required of all publicly traded corporations in preparing their financial statements), the true figure would have been $665 billion for fiscal year 2003 and $760 billion for 2005 instead of the reported $375 billion 2003 figure and $318 billion for 2005. But that greater figure expands to an astonishing $3,700,000,000,000 ($3.7 trillion) for 2003 and a similarly frightening one for 2005 if the annual increase in the net amount of unfunded Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and government pension obligations are included. This shadow deficit has been mounting since the Johnson years and shows that the US government in fiscal year 2003 had a negative net worth of $34,000,000,000,000 ($34 trillion) by one estimate.

Another economist paints an even grimmer picture than the one above. That economist, Boston University Professor Laurence Kotlikoff, prepared a recent detailed report for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis in which he stated, by some measures, the US is already bankrupt and unable to pay its creditors (the ones holding its debt instruments and due its entitlement payments). Professor Kotlikoff wrote that a country's solvency depends on its ability to honor its lifetime fiscal obligations which are the difference between all required future spending and the revenue expected to be received to do it. That gap will widen exponentially as the accumulated US sovereign and other debt obligations plus the amount of revenue needed to cover the bill for retiring Baby Boomers' unfunded liabilities of social security, medicare, medicaid, government pensions and all else rises to an incomprehensible and unmanageable $65,900,000,000,000 ($65.9 trillion) by the calculations he used from a study by two other professors. Professor Kotlikoff explained this figure is over five times the current US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and double the national wealth. He added that if his analysis is right, it means the US is bankrupt, will face a fiscal calamity ahead and will have to default on its debt, entitlements and other obligations.

Professor Kotlikoff had more to say on this matter in a recent extended essay he wrote for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review July/August issue titled "Is the United States Bankrupt?" In it he stated that future US workers would need to be taxed at the rate of 55 - 80% over their working lifetimes to pay for the estimated $80 trillion in unfunded future entitlement liabilities or more than six times the current US GDP. Whichever of his two numbers is more accurate (if either one is), Professor Kotlikoff is beginning to be heard and is gaining some adherents. They believe the US faces a potential future fiscal meltdown even though it's understood the nation's balance sheet isn't static and includes increasing assets as well as liabilities that must be figured into any bottom line calculation of net obligations. So as dire as the current and future situation may be, the true state of the problem likely won't be known precisely until the inevitable day of reckoning arrives revealing how ugly it is.

What is known is that whichever analysis of the problem is right, the future consequences eventually will likely shake the world and change our way of life at home irrevocably at the least. So how does that relate to this country's addiction to war and the current notion of permanent or long ones. Simple. Hot wars stimulate the economy and make it grow - especially extended ones. They require lot's of spending, but so far the funding's there for them from institutional and foreign investors willing to buy our sovereign debt and the Federal Reserve always cooperative by printing up lots of ready cash. But all this comes at a price. Along with shamless tax cuts for the rich and massive corporate welfare subsidies and war-related contracts, it's caused the federal budget and current account deficits to balloon exacerbating an unmanageable fiscal problem since 2001 alone the result of George Bush's reckless policies of excess greed and imperial overreach. The latter is his new "long war" policy, and the more of them we wage, the more positive it is for the economy and corporate profits - in the short run. Without them and their spoils, the economy might not be as healthy or could even be in trouble.

So the nation may face a Hobson's choice: continue our profligate spending ways or see our fiscal house of cards collapse - a conundrum with no solution. The larger our economy gets, the more dependent it is on wars and militarism for economic stimulus. It results in more debt to get the same bang for the bucks we now spend like drunken politicians. It's an unending cycle requiring increasingly greater capital infusions without end in a sort of fiscal game of musical chairs, but one where we dare not let the music stop. Because our economy is so large, we need huge amounts of capital to maintain growth. But finding it becomes harder, and our addiction to it is like being on a treadmill we can't get off of. As a result, we may heading for an eventual day of reckoning, like the one Professor Kotlikoff envisions, no one wants to imagine or confront. It's the same problem a drug addict has needing bigger fixes for the same effect. That behavior guarantees a bad ending, eventually killing the addict. In the same way, no nation can spend and borrow beyond its means forever and always need more for the same results. Nations doing it are like out of control drug addicts and face the same unavoidable fate. They can delay the inevitable but not forever. The penalty for the sins of excess are high, painful and certain. The day eventually comes when the "piper" must be paid. It may not be next month or next year, but "pipers" are very patient and always have the final say. Richard Nixon's former chief economic advisor, Herb Stein, said it well: "Things that can't go on forever, won't." He might have added how unpleasant it is when the day of reckoning comes.

The Road to Hell Is Paved with Endless War, Its Fallout and A Future No One Wants

The US is now at a dangerous watershed moment struggling to save the tattered republic and our sacred constitutional rights. Unless we reverse the present course, our future may be the one Orwell foresaw when he wrote: "If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face....forever...." Like the totalitarian state of Oceania led by Big Brother in his best known book 1984, we're waging a permanent long war; no one is safe anymore - from our own government; we're all being illegally surveilled; anyone may be forcibly taken away, detained, tortured or murdered - all to make the world safe for a brave new world order ruled ruthlessly by capital that's called democracy. It's one without a political process because the Congress gave it up to a "Unitary Executive" with the power to abrogate the separation of powers doctrine, bypass the lawmakers and courts and act as he chooses to protect the nation's security or for whatever other reason he decides.

We're now nearing a crisis because George Bush chose to invoke the wartime contingency "national security initiatives" established during the Reagan years that gives the President the power to suspend the Constitution and declare martial law. Bush did it by signing executive orders post 9/11 giving himself absolute power in times of whatever he alone decides is a "national emergency." If he assumes it, he'll become a dictator, accountable to no one, which he claims the right to do on his say alone. The only sensible recourse is for mass people action (like now ongoing for weeks in the streets of Mexico against authoritarian rule) to prevent our crossing the Rubicon and passing from a shaky republic to the tyranny of a full-blown national security police state and a future no one wants. It can happen here just as it did in ancient Rome and in Weimar Germany when the good people there lost their model democratic state. They allowed Hitler to steal it while they weren't paying attention. They bought into his demonic appeal to his divine mission as the nation's savior (sound familiar?) and his pretense to be protecting them from an outside threat that didn't exist. That history should remind us how fragile our sacred liberties are and how easily they're lost when tyrants are allowed to go unchecked and unchallenged. We're at a moment now when there's still time to act before it's too late to save a nation conceived in liberty that may soon no longer have it. Edmund Burke explained it long ago when he said: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." I'm sure today he'd remember the importance of women.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog address at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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Editorial: Banned in Washington - Where's the Free Speech?

by Ann Wright
CommonDreams.org
Sunday, September 10, 2006

So much for free speech in the nation's capital and capitol. On July, 11, 2006 I was arrested for offering a citizen's voice in the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing against the nomination of one of the Bush administration's architects of torture, William Haynes, former Department of Defense General Counsel (chief civilian lawyer) for a life-time appointment to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Yesterday, September 7, I appeared in the Criminal Division of the Superior Court of the District of Columbia on charges of "Disorderly and Disruptive Conduct on the United States Capitol Grounds on July 11, 2006." During that appearance, I was ordered by the court to "Stay Away" from the US Capitol, all Senate and House Office Buildings and committee hearing rooms and the streets surrounding the Capitol area.

The court papers state that I must abide by this order until my case is disposed of and that "any violation of this condition (order) could result in your prosecution for Contempt of Court, the revocation of your release and/or your detention pending final disposition of this case." I was released on my personal recognizance but instructed in writing that "a warrant for your arrest will be issued immediately upon any violation of a condition of this release. And shall subject you to revocation of the release; an order of detention and prosecution for contempt of court (a fine of not more than $1000 or imprisonment not more than 6 months or both.)

Another paragraph said that "if you are convicted of an offense committed while released, you shall be subject to the following penalties: imprisonment of not less than one year and not more than 5 years if convicted of committing a felony while released; and imprisonment of not less than 90 days and not more than one year if convicted of committing a misdemeanor while released; such to be consecutive to any other sentence of imprisonment."

All of these prohibitions are because I stated in the US Congress that I am opposed to torture and that the Congress should not confirm a person associated with the Bush administration's torture policy. These court orders definitely curtail my ability to voice to the US Congress my concerns and the concerns of much of the American people about important issues they are considering, like the following the Congress will consider next week:

Bush's demand that Congress authorize greater warrantless wiretap authority;

Bush's demand that Congress agree to military tribunals where defendants can be tried and convicted without seeing the evidence; that classified evidence can be used with neither defendants nor their lawyers told about such information; that prosecutors could rely on hearsay or evidence obtained indirectly and evidence obtained by coercion if the panel's chief deemed it reliable and directly related to the accusations;

Bush's demand that Congress agree to keep CIA secret detention sites in other countries operational;

Bush's demand that Congress confirm John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations;

Don't you believe these are issues that we the people must instruct our Congress on how we feel? Of course, you can call, write or email your Senators and Congresspersons.

But I like to go into the committee rooms and look our elected officials in the eyes and tell them what I think. It doesn't take long to tell them because the Capitol police officer in the hearing room usually arrives at your side quickly when you speak out. When you speak out in a committee room, our elected officials, those who serve us, are left with a succinct statement of concerns about the issue. Hearings would probably be a lot better if the Congresspersons had the same police at their elbows demanding shorter statements!

I do understand that committees not take the time generally to hear from the public in their committee rooms; lobbying for an issue is done in the halls and offices. But, I think there is a role for a lightning comment-but it comes with the risk of being arrested for "disrupting" the hearing or at a minimum being escorted out of the hearing and later released.

Now that I am banned from the Capitol area, I hope others will come to the Congress and express their views. We the people must tell the Congress to be brave and courageous in these perilous times-now of all times, we need strong character and moral courage from our Congress. We the people must give them courage.

But tomorrow, Veterans for Peace is marching around the capitol area as a stop the war, treat our veterans right march. I am banned from the area. But what about peaceful, nonviolent marches? Are all rights withdrawn because one speaks out against torture?

Well, this has been a "banner" week for being banned. Besides from being banned from the Capitol area, yesterday the Commanding Officer of Fort Myer, VA denied my request for reconsideration of a one-year ban from Fort Myer, VA and Fort McNair, DC, a ban he ordered in May, 2006 after I placed a few 3"X5" postcards on Fort McNair concerning the limited showing in Washington, DC of "Sir, No Sir," the documentary about GI resistance to the Vietnam war.

I had asked for a reduction to "time served" (two months that I had not been on the base-I didn't know I had been banned as his letter went to my home in Hawaii and I only got the letter once I arrived there in June.). The Commander denied my request and commented that my conduct "clearly violated common standards of good order and discipline on a military installation." As a US Army retired 29 year Colonel, I now am prohibited from entering the two military bases nearest to Washington, DC until May 25, 2007! I would say that's quite remarkable treatment for a three decade veteran!

I am now banned from the Capitol area and from two military bases in the DC area as well as also banned for life (along with Codepink Women for Peace Medea Benjamin) from the National Press Club. In April, 2006 we dared to question to a Press Club speaker and were banned for life for our questions. The speaker was Senator Hillary Clinton and we asked why in her 50 minute energy policy speech she never mentioned the war on Iraq and Iraqi oil.

It surely seems that freedom of speech and the right to question our elected officials in our nation's capital is a dangerously endangered right.

But that's what its all about. If we don't stand up for our freedoms, they will be taken away.

So in the spirit of they can't take our country away from us, I will see you in Congress, the National Press Club and on the military bases---or in jail or detention camps!

You can't ban speech and thought.

It is our country and they are our freedoms. Let's take them back!

Ann Wright is a 29 year retired US Army Colonel and a 16 year US diplomat who resigned in March, 2003 in opposition to the war on Iraq.

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Editorial: Bush's Empty Words to the U.N.

By Robert Parry
September 20, 2006

One of the most striking features of George W. Bush's presidency has been his proclivity to use soaring, idealistic rhetoric that is totally at odds with reality, a tendency that was on display again in his address to the United Nations General Assembly.

Bush framed his Sept. 19 speech in the context of the U.N.'s 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. "The words of the Universal Declaration are as true today as they were when they were written," Bush declared.

But it's hard to believe that Bush had the faintest idea what principles he was embracing - or perhaps he has grown so self-confident in never being challenged on his hypocrisies that he believes he can say anything he wants, no matter how false or deceptive.

Among the 30 rights proclaimed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights are these:

--"Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person."

--"No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment."

--"Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law."

--"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile."

--"Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him."

-- "Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defense."

--"No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honor and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

--"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

--"Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein."

Though Bush is arguably in violation of many if not all the above-cited human rights tenets, he unblushingly cites the Universal Declaration as the foundation for his international policies, from the invasion of Iraq to his handling of the "war on terror."

Even as Bush criticizes the U.S. Supreme Court for stopping his planned kangaroo courts for terror suspects and as he battles members of Congress over his desire for harsh interrogation of detainees, he invokes principles that bar exactly what he seeks to do.

How does subjecting detainees to simulated drowning by "waterboarding" not violate the prohibition on torture? How does stripping suspects naked and soaking them with cold water in frigid rooms not go against the ban on "cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment?"

How does imprisoning an estimated 14,000 people without trial or even charges - and arranging "extraordinary renditions" of others to countries that torture - fit with the U.N. principle barring "arbitrary arrest, detention or exile?"

What about the U.N. mandate that a suspect must get a public trial before an independent tribunal and receive "all the guarantees necessary for his defense?" Instead, Bush wants U.S.-run military tribunals to convict and even execute defendants based on secret evidence that can be withheld from both the public and the defendants.

Bush also insists that his "plenary" - or unlimited - powers as Commander in Chief allow him to tap telephones and spy on Americans and non-Americans without obtaining any form of court warrant. Yet, the Universal Declaration objects to "arbitrary interference with [a person's] privacy, family, home or correspondence."

Bush's hostility toward dissent - even declaring some thinking "unacceptable," as he did at a press conference on Sept. 15 - and the eagerness of his supporters to smear anyone who opposes the President also don't match with the principle that human rights include the "freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information."

So, why would Bush invoke the Universal Declaration of Human Rights when he is flouting many of its core principles?

There would seem to be two possible explanations for Bush's chutzpah: either he's just reading a script without regard to the words or he's confident that he can speak the opposite of the truth knowing that few people of consequence will call him on it.

Either way, Bush's cavalier attitude in hailing human rights while simultaneously trashing human rights represents another classic case of Bush's hubris, which is becoming the defining characteristic of his presidency.

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

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Palestine, Oh!, Palestine


Gaza: The children killed in a war the world doesn't want to know about

19 September 2006
UK Independent

Nayef Abu Snaima says his 14-year-old cousin Jihad had been sitting on the edge of an olive grove talking animatedly to him about what he would do when he grew up when he was killed instantly by an Israeli shell.

He says he clearly saw a bright flash next to the control tower of the disused Gaza international airport, occupied by Israeli forces after Cpl Gilad Shalit was seized by militants on 25 June. "I went two or three steps and the missile landed," said Nayef, 24. "I thought I was dying. I shouted 'La Ilaha Ila Allah' [There is no God but Allah]."

When Jihad's older brother Kassem, 20, arrived at the scene: "My brother was already dead. There was shrapnel in his head. Nayef was shouting 'Allah, Allah'. The missile landed about four metres from where Jihad had been standing. There was shrapnel in his body as well, his legs, everything. He had been bleeding a lot everywhere."
Jihad Abu Snaima was just the most recent of more than 37 children and teenagers under 18 killed [out of a total death toll, including militants, of 228] in the operations mounted by the Israeli military in Gaza since 25 June, according to figures from the Palestinian Centre of Human Rights (PCHR).

Of these, the PCHR classifies 151 as "civilian", although beside non-combatants and bystanders, that total also includes militants or faction members not involved in operations against Israel at the time ­ for example those deliberately targeted in Israeli air strikes because of their involvement in previous attacks. The Israel Defence Forces have always maintained that being under 18 does not automatically exclude a person from taking part in action against them.

The conflict in Gaza has attracted relatively little international attention, not least because for five weeks it was overshadowed by that in Lebanon. But the death toll has continued to rise.

Nayef, who was speaking from his hospital bed, has multiple shrapnel-inflicted cuts on his plaster-covered arms and legs. But he was lucky compared with Jihad. A school caretaker with a five-year-old daughter, Nayef insists the evening of Jihad's death was just a family get-together. It is normal, he said, in this Bedouin community in the Al Shouka hamlet outside the southernmost Gaza town of Rafah to socialise at each other's homes on a summer evening, and that he and Jihad were especially close.

"I was always with him. He was an innocent person, kind. He was talking to me about how he was going to inherit part of his father's land and farm it and how he was going to get married and stay here." Nayef added tearfully: "He was a boy who had hopes. He wanted to live his life." He added: "What is my daughter going to think? She is going to grow up hating the Israelis."

The family say there was no shelling in the area at the time either before or after the incident; and that they therefore presume Jihad and Nayef were targeted by a tank crew. They insist there was no activity by militants against Israeli positions on the day of the attack. "This is an open area," said Nayef. "The resistance would not go there because they would be seen."


By contrast, the Israel Defence Forces said, without specifying Al Shouka, that on 10 September it had identified and hit "two men" moving near its forces in southern Gaza crouching on the ground, and " apparently planting explosives". Nayef is adamant that on the night in question he and Jihad were merely pausing on an evening stroll to his own house.

The PCHR, which seeks to monitor every violent Palestinian death, does not only focus on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. It has, for example, repeatedly condemned the killing and injuring of growing numbers of civilians, also including children, during mounting inter-Palestinian disputes in Gaza; shootings by Palestinian security forces themselves; attacks on Christian churches by Muslims protesting against the Pope; the injury of civilians, including children, by Palestinian-fired Qassam rockets which fall short of targets in Israel; and the kidnapping last month of two Fox TV employees which has deterred journalists from visiting Gaza.

But Hamdi Shaqqura of PCHR's Gaza office ­ which accuses Israel of using repeated closures and destruction of the power supply to operate a policy of "collective punishment" in breach of international law in Gaza, argues that the excuse of "collateral damage" cannot justify the " very high" death toll in the operations since 15 June. He adds: " Israel's forces have been acting excessively and disproportionately, and this explains the high figures for the number of innocent civilians killed by them."

At the other, northern end of Gaza, close to the al-Nada apartment blocks between Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, Aref Abu Qaida, 16, was killed by an artillery shell on 1 August. Sharif Harafin, 15, said: "We had been playing football and we had just finished. I was carrying the ball. I was going to my home, and [Aref] was going to his home. I heard a loud boom and then I saw him cut to pieces."

As his family displayed Aref's shredded red baseball cap, Sharif said he saw his friend's severed head on the ground, adding: "His chest was torn out by the rocket. People were collecting parts of his body. I was crying a lot."

The IDF says that on 1 August it had fired and hit "a number of Palestinians" in "the area of Beit Lahiya" who had " approached a number of rocket launchers placed in the area". Both PCHR and local residents, including Mohammed Abu Qaida, 39, the dead boy's uncle, say that, while three other civilians were wounded, the only other death in this incident was that of Mervat Sharekh, 24, a woman who was visiting relatives from Rafah and who died in hospital an hour later.

Although the area had been shelled before, and some residents had fled in response to Israeli warnings the previous week, Mr Abu Qaida said the area had been quiet on the day ­ except that Qassam rockets had been fired about four hours earlier from northern settlements more than a kilometre away from the flats.

The IDF said last night that, of those killed in Gaza, it had the " positive identities of over 220 gunmen killed in fighting, and can confirm their affiliation with terror organisations". The 220 figure ­ said to be "unbelievable" by Mr Shaqqura ­ coupled with another 20 dead which the military acknowledges as genuine civilians, is all the more strikingly at variance with PCHR figures since it produces a total exceeding the centre's own records.

Mr Shaqqura said that, at the absolute minimum, the IDF figures do not take into account the casualties under 18 ­ which PCHR estimates at 44 and from which he said every effort is made to exclude the "rare" teenagers with militant connections ­ or eight women killed since 25 June. " We do not believe their figures. We do not believe their investigations."

The IDF said: "Since the abduction of Cpl Gilad Shalit by the Hamas and PRC terror organisations, the IDF has been operating in the Gaza Strip against terrorist infrastructure and in order to secure the release of Cpl Shalit. In the course of the operations, the IDF engaged in intense fighting with Palestinian gunmen, who chose heavily populated areas as their battlegrounds. The IDF takes every measure to prevent harm to civilians, often at a risk to its soldiers."

The forgotten war in the Middle East

* 25 June: Palestinian gunmen from the Hamas-linked Izzedine al-Qassam brigades cross from Gaza into Israel and launch a raid on an Israeli military patrol. Two Israeli soldiers are killed, four wounded and one, Cpl Gilad Shalit, is captured and taken back into Gaza.

* 28 June: Israel masses troops before launching a reoccupation of the Gaza Strip under the codename Operation Summer Rains. Civilian casualties mount as Israeli forces search the Khan Younis refugee camp for Cpl Shalit.

* 12 July: Mimicking the tactics of Palestinian militants, Hizbollah launches mortars and rockets into northern Israel from southern Lebanon to divert attention from a cross-border raid that ambushes an Israeli military patrol, killing three soldiers and capturing two others. The raid threatens to draw the whole Middle East into conflict.

* 13 July: International attention is diverted from Gaza as Israel launches a full military invasion of southern Lebanon in response to Hizbollah's attack. The mounting civilian death toll across Gaza pales in comparison to Lebanon as Israeli jets pummel infrastructure.

* 24 July: As world powers frantically search for a UN-backed ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel increases its bombardment of the Gaza Strip in an attempt to force Palestinian militants to release Cpl Shalit. Under the codename Operation Samson's Pillars, Israeli jets pound Gaza's roads and buildings, including the power station.

* 14 August: UN approves a ceasefire for Lebanon after four weeks of fighting which has left approximately 1,500 Lebanese and 150 Israelis dead. International community continues to ignore the conflict in Gaza over fears that Lebanon could slip back into warfare unless a UN peacekeeping force arrives in the region.

* Mid-August-present: Israel continues to carry out air strikes and raids in Gaza. At least 33 civilians have been killed since the beginning of August, 10 of whom were under the age of 18.

Names of children under the age of 18 killed during the operations mounted by the Israeli military in Gaza since 25 June, according to the Palestinian Centre of Human Rights

Bara Nasser Habib, 3 (hit by shrapnel to the head and body, Gaza City, 26 July)
Shahed Saleh Al-Sheikh Eid, 3 days old (bled to death after airstrike, Al-Shouka, 4 August)
Rajaa Salam Abu Shaban, 3 (died of fractured skull in air raid, Gaza City, 9 August)
Jihad Selmi Abu Snaima, 14 (killed by a shell, Al-Shoukha, 10 september)
Khaled Nidal Wahba, 15 months (died of wounds from an airstrike, 10 July)
Rawan Farid Hajjaj, 6 (killed with his mother and sister in an airstrike, Gaza City, 8 July)
Anwar Ismail Abdul Ghani Atallah, 12 (shot in the head, Erez, 5 July)
Shadi Yousef Omar 16 (shot in the chest by IDF, Beit Lahya, 7 July)
Mahfouth Farid Nuseir, 16 (killed by missile while playing football, Beit Hanoun, 11 July)
Ahmad Ghalib Abu Amsha, 16, (killed by missile while playing football, Beit Hanoun, 11 July)
Ahmad Fathi Shabat, 16 (killed by missile while playing football, Beit Hanoun, 11 July)
Walid Mahmoud El-Zeinati, 12 (died of shrapnel wounds, Gaza City, 11 July)
Basma Salmeya, 16 (killed in Israeli airstrike, 12 July, Jabalia)
Somaya Salmeya, 17 (killed in Israeli airstrike, 12 July, Jabalia)
Aya Salmeya, 9 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Yehya Salmeya, 10 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Nasr Salmeya, 7 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Huda Salmeya, 13 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Eman Salmeya, 12 (killed in Israeli airstrike, Jabalia, 12 July)
Raji Omar Jaber Daifallah, 16 (died of shrapnel wounds from missile, Gaza City, 13 July)
Ali Kamel Al-Najjar, 16 (killed by Israeli tank shell, Al-Maghazi refugee camp, 19 July)
Ahmed Ali Al-Na'ami, 16 (killed by Israeli tank shell, Al-Maghazi refugee camp, 19 July)
Ahmed Rawhi Abu Abdu, 14 (killed by drone missile, Al Nusairat refugee camp, 19 July)
Mohammed 'awad Muhra, 14 (killed by Israeli bullet to the chest, Al-Maghazi refugee camp, 20 July)
Fadwa Faisal Al-'arrouqi, 13 (died from shrapnel wounds, Gaza City, 20 July)
Saleh Ibrahim Nasser, 14 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 24 July)
Khitam Mohammed Rebhi Tayeh, 11 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 24 July)
Ashraf 'abdullah 'awad Abu Zaher, 14 (shot in the back, Khan Younis, 25 July)
Nahid Mohammed Fawzi Al-Shanbari, 16 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 31 July)
'aaref Ahmed Abu Qaida, 14 (killed by artillery fire, Beit Hanoun, 1 August)
Anis Salem Abu Awad, 12 (killed by airstike, Al-Shouka, 2 August)
Ammar Rajaa Al-Natour, 17 (killed by drone missile, Al Shouka, 5 August)
Kifah Rajaa Al-Natour, 15 (killed by drone missile, Al Shouka, 5 August)
Ibrahim Suleiman Al-Rumailat, 13 (killed by drone missile, Al Shouka, 5 August)
Ahmed Yousef 'abed 'aashour, 13 (killed by missile fire, Beit Hanoun, 14 August)
Mohammed 'abdullah Al-Ziq, 14 (killed by drone missile, Gaza City, 29 August)
Nidal 'abdul 'aziz Al-Dahdouh, 14 (killed by rifle fire, Gaza City, 30 August)
Jihad Selmi Abu Snaima, 14 (killed by artillery fire, Rafah, 10 September)




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Fatah lawmaker: Hamas fails to meet needs of people

www.chinaview.cn 2006-09-20 20:10:40

RAMALLAH, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- A lawmaker from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement on Wednesday termed the governance of the ruling Hamas movement as a failure and called for a change in the Palestinian political prospect.
"Hamas and its government have failed to meet minimum needs of the people while they still abide by unrealistic factional slogans," Eissa Qaraqe told the Voice of Palestine.

"It is time to make changes in the Palestinian political prospect," he said.

Qaraqe also warned against a possible Hamas retreat from an agreement with Abbas on forming a national unity government, saying "there are many discussions over precautions against what is happening on the ground."

"We are awaiting Abbas to come back from New York and will find solutions if Hamas keeps its stance," he said.

After months of on-and-off talks, Abbas and Prime Minister Is mail Haneya announced an accord last week to form a coalition government, which is to be led by Haneya.

The move was seen as an effort to end international isolation and the West's aid blockade of the Hamas-led government.

According to the deal, incumbent Hamas-led government will be dismissed and replaced with a coalition government consisting of at least Hamas and Fatah, the biggest Palestinian faction. Before heading to New York to attend the UN General Assembly, Abbas has suspended talks on forming a new government until his return.

A spokesman for Fatah legislators threatened on Wednesday to seek a no-confidence vote against the Hamas-led government if it did not resign to pave the way for the formation of the proposed coalition government.

However, a spokesman for Hamas lawmakers said the Fatah parliamentary bloc can not topple the government.

"Practically, Fatah needs 67 votes to pass the vote, but they only have 42 members," said Salah Bardaweel, spokesman for Hamas legislators.

He said that even if Fatah allied with independent lawmakers and smaller blocs, they could only get 51 votes.

Hamas has 70 seats in the parliament, but nearly 30 of them have been taken hostage by Israel in response to kidnapping of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit by Palestinian militants in late June.

Comment: In democratic elections last January, Hamas was democratically elected by the Palestinians. The US, Israel, and Europe immediately shut off funding for this democratically elected government, doing their utmost to put the screws to them.

Moreover, Israel has kidnapped 30 Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament! And then, this guy from Fatah has the gall to come out and say that Hamas isn't doing the job!


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Israeli Army kills two Palestinians one of them a pregnant woman

IMEMC & Agencies
19 September 2006

Two West Bank residents were killed by the Israeli army on Tuesday morning, one of them a pregnant woman who was delayed at an army checkpoint.

Bushra Sultan, 27, from the Saflit region of the West Bank, died at an Israeli military checkpoint - East of Saflit - which had been closed by Israeli soldiers on Tuesday morning. Medical teams tried to revive Sultan but all attempts failed, leading to her death due to being unnecessarily held at the checkpoint.

Israeli soldiers stationed at checkpoints located all over the West Bank delay ambulances for hours as they search Palestinian vehicles. This action often leads to the death of patients in ambulances waiting to cross checkpoints.

Elsewhere Nabile Hanini, 25, from Sanour village south of the West Bank city of Jenin was shot and killed and another four taken prisoner by the Israeli army on Tuesday morning. In the early morning hours more than 20 armored vehicles stormed the village of Sanour and surrounded the house of Mohammed Abdul Latif before showering it with live rounds, when soldiers left the area Hanini was found dead in the house, local sources said he was originally from Beit Fourik near Nablus city.

Medical sources reported that Hanini was killed due to being hit by several live rounds in the chest and head, local residents reported that soldiers had arrested Hanini before killing him.

Abdul Latif, the owner of the house, was taken along with his three sons, by Israeli troops to an unknown location.




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Palestinian woman dies at the Rafah Crossing

IMEMC & Agencies
19 September 2006

Palestinian sources reported on Monday at night that a woman died at the Egyptian side of the Rafah Border Crossing.

The woman, Aghfra Mohammad Al Arja, died as a result of the bad condition the stranded residents at the crossing face after Israeli decided to close it.

The Rafah Border Crossing was closed ton June 25, and was only opened for several short periods enabling some residents to cross back into the Gaza Strip.

At least eight residents died at the Rafah Border Crossing since August after they were stranded there for several weeks due to the Israeli closure and siege imposed on the Gaza Strip after Palestinian fighters captured an Israeli soldier in a raid that targeted a military post near the Gaza borders.




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National boycott action targets Irish stores selling Israeli goods

Electronic Intifada
Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
19 September 2006




IPSC's Raymond Deane addresses shoppers in front of Dunnes Stores on North Earl Street.

Shops and supermarkets across Ireland were picketed on Saturday as the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) commemorated the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres with a National Boycott Israel Day.

IPSC members targetted retail outlets in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Sligo, to send a message to Irish retailers that continuing to trade with Israel while it obliterates Palestine is grossly unethical and gives both financial support, succour and legitimacy to Israel's escalating and unchecked violations of Palestinian human rights. The National Boycott Day was also intended to educate consumers as to the extent of Israeli goods in their shops.


Irish supermakets, all year round, stock a wide range of Israeli fruit and vegetables. Disgracefully, over the last six years, as Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians and devastated the Palestinian economy and society, Irish trade with Israel has increased exponentially. A full 3,000 tonnes of Israeli vegetables have been imported to this country since Israel escalated its violent crackdown on the Palestinian civilian population starting in 2000.

Yet there are impressive precedents for a successful boycott movement in Ireland. Indeed, in 1880, the first person to be placed in this "moral Coventry", to be isolated "from the rest of his kind as if he were a leper of old," was an Irish landlord named Captain Charles Cunningham Boycott. A century later, the Irish Anti-Apartheid Movement led a hugely popular boycott campaign against Apartheid South Africa.

This movement originated in 1984 with the refusal of Dunnes Stores workers to handle South African goods. Today, many of the stalwarts of that campaign, including a number of past chairmen of the IAAM, and some of the original Dunnes Stores strikers, have lent their support to the campaign to isolate Apartheid Israel.

For its associations with this first Anti-Apartheid movement, and because it is the larget Irish-owned supermaket chain, Dunnes Stores has been chosen as the symbolic focus of the IPSC's efforts to remove Israeli goods from Irish shelves. On Saturday the campaign to boycott Israeli goods was re-launched, with guest Palestinian and Israeli speakers, outside a Dunnes Stores outlet in the centre of Dublin.

Speaking at the event, the IPSC's Raymond Deane recalled the example of the courageous strikers of 1984, and called on workers again to refuse to deal with goods tainted by racism and oppression. Ali Abunimah, co-founder of EI, said that nearly 200 Palestinian civil society organizations, including trade unions, professional associations, women's organizations and student bodies had appealed to the world to stand in solidarity with them by taking boycott actions. Abunimah pointed out that there are over 10,000 Palestinian political prisoners including many of their democratically-elected representatives kidnapped and held hostage by Israel, as millions of Palestinians live under Israeli siege and curfew, deprived of food, employment, medical care and other basic freedoms. He said that people in Ireland could through peaceful, principled actions and individual choices help bring freedom to Palestine for all Israelis and Palestinians, just as they helped bring freedom and reconciliation to South Africa.

Finally, Angela Godfrey-Goldstein, of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions, stressed that there was no movement within Israel capable of forcing Israel to relinquish its oppressive control over Palestinians, and that while Israel enjoys impunity from world governments, it falls on civil society to boycott and isolate it in order to ensure its compliance with international law. She added that once this system of oppression is dismantled, there is no obstacle to Palestinians and Israelis living together in harmony and cooperation.

As well as this re-launch, other shops across Dublin and throughout the country were picketed all day by IPSC supporters. Some pickets simply involved leafletting customers as they went into the shops, while others took the form of boycott actions, with volunteers filling baskets and trolleys with Israeli goods, bringing them to the till, and loudly demanding that they no longer be sold.

IPSC members have been encouraged by the sympathetic response to such actions, not only from customers, but in many cases also from staff and even management. Coinciding with a call by Irish academics for a moratorium on EU aid to Israeli academia, National Boycott Day was yet another indication that people are beginning to listen to the call from Palestinians, and that Apartheid Israel is finally en route to isolation.



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Arab MK suspended for calling Peretz 'murderer'

Ynet
20/09/2006

The Knesset Ethics Committee decided on Tuesday to suspend United Arab List-Ta'al MK Ibrahim Sarsur for one day after he refereed to Defense Minister Amir Peretz as a "murderer." Arab MK Jamal Zahalka (National Democratic Assembly) was suspended from the Knesset for three days for making similar remarks.




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Israel's Jewish population decreasing

Ynet
20/09/2006

According to Central Bureau of Statistics data published on Tuesday, the population of the State of Israel at the end of 2005 was comprised of 6,990,700 people, of which 5,313,800 were Jewish (76 percent of the entire population), and 1,377,100 were Arab (19.7 percent) according to data published by the Central Bureau of Statistics.

The data also showed that since 2000, the Jewish population has decreased by 1.8 percent, while the Muslim population has increased during the past five years by 1.1 to 1,140,600.




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Terror Inc


Sources: August terror plot is a 'fiction' underscoring police failures

Nafeez Ahmed
Published: Monday September 18, 2006

British Army expert casts doubt on 'liquid explosives' threat, Al Qaeda network in UK Identified

Lieutenant-Colonel (ret.) Nigel Wylde, a former senior British Army Intelligence Officer, has suggested that the police and government story about the "terror plot" revealed on 10th August was part of a "pattern of lies and deceit."
British and American government officials have described the operation which resulting in the arrest of 24 mostly British Muslim suspects, as a resounding success. Thirteen of the suspects have been charged, and two released without charges.

According to security sources, the terror suspects were planning to board up to ten civilian airliners and detonate highly volatile liquid explosives on the planes in a spectacular terrorist operation. The liquid explosives -- either TATP (Triacetone Triperoxide), DADP (diacetone diperoxide) or the less sensitive HMTD (hexamethylene triperoxide diamine) -- were reportedly to be made on board the planes by mixing sports drinks with a peroxide-based household gel and then be detonated using an MP3 player or mobile phone.

But Lt. Col. Wylde, who was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for his command of the Belfast Explosive Ordnance Disposal Unit in 1974, described this scenario as a "fiction." Creating liquid explosives is a "highly dangerous and sophisticated task," he states, one that requires not only significant chemical expertise but also appropriate equipment.

Terror plot scenario "untenable"

"The idea that these people could sit in the plane toilet and simply mix together these normal household fluids to create a high explosive capable of blowing up the entire aircraft is untenable," said Lt. Col. Wylde, who was trained as an ammunition technical officer responsible for terrorist bomb disposal at the Royal Army Ordnance Corps in Sandhurst.

After working as a bomb defuser in Northern Ireland, Lt. Col. Wylde became a senior officer in British Army Intelligence in 1977. During the Cold War, he collected intelligence as part of an undercover East German "liaison unit," then went on to work in the Ministry of Defense to review its communications systems.

"So who came up with the idea that a bomb could be made on board? Not Al Qaeda for sure. It would not work. Bin Laden is interested in success not deterrence by failure," Wylde stated.

"This story has been blown out of all proportion. The liquids would need to be carefully distilled at freezing temperatures to extract the required chemicals, which are very difficult to obtain in the purities needed."

Once the fluids have been extracted, the process of mixing them produces significant amounts of heat and vile fumes. "The resulting liquid then needs some hours at room temperature for the white crystals that are the explosive to develop." The whole process, which can take between 12 and 36 hours, is "very dangerous, even in a lab, and can lead to premature detonation," said Lt. Col. Wylde.

If there was a conspiracy, he added, "it did not involve manufacturing the explosives in the loo," as this simply "could not have worked." The process would be quickly and easily detected. The fumes of the chemicals in the toilet "would be smelt by anybody in the area." They would also inevitably "cause the alarms in the toilet and in the air change system in the aircraft to be triggered. The pilot has the ability to dump all the air from an aircraft as a fire-fighting measure, leaving people to use oxygen masks. All this means the planned attack would be detected long before the queues outside the loo had grown to enormous lengths."

Government silent on detonators

Even if it was possible for the explosive to have been made on the aircraft, a detonator, probably made from TATP, would be needed to set it off. "It is very dangerous and risky to the individual," Wylde said. "As the quantity involved would be small this would injure the would-be suicide bomber but not endanger the aircraft, thus defeating the object of bringing down an aircraft."

Despite the implausibility of this scenario, it has been used to justify wide-ranging new security measures that threaten to permanently curtail civil liberties and to suspend sections of the United Kingdom's Human Rights Act of 1998. "Why were the public delicately informed of an alleged conspiracy which the authorities knew, or should have known, could not have worked?" asked Lt. Col. Wylde.

"This is not a new problem," he added, noting that 'shoe-bomber' Richard Reid had attempted to use this type of explosive on a plane in December 2001. "If this threat is real, what has been done to develop explosive test kits capable of detecting peroxide based explosives?" asked Wylde. "These are the real issues about protecting the public that have not been publicised. Instead we are going to get demands for more internment without trial."

Lt. Col. Wylde also raised questions about the criminal investigation into the 7th July terrorist attacks in London last year. He noted that police and government sources have maintained "total silence" about the detonation devices used in the bombs on the London Underground and the bus at Tavistock Square. "Whatever the nature of the primary explosive materials, even if it was home-made TATP, the detonator that must be used to trigger an explosion is an extremely dangerous device to make, requiring a high level of expertise that cannot be simply self-taught or picked-up over the internet," Wylde stated.

The government's silence on the detonation device used in the attacks is "disturbing," he said, as the creation of the devices requires the involvement of trained explosives experts. Wylde speculated that such individuals would have to be present either inside the country or outside, perhaps in Eastern Europe, where they would be active participants in an international supply-chain to UK operatives. "In either case, we are talking about something far more dangerous than home-grown radicals here."

Spy slams police inaction against terrorists

Wylde's concerns are echoed by others familiar with British terrorism-related intelligence operations, such as Glen Jenvey, who is profiled in the bestselling book, The Terror Tracker, by terrorism investigator Neil Doyle. Jenvey worked for several military attaches monitoring terrorist groups in London and obtained crucial video and surveillance evidence used by British police to arrest radical cleric Abu Hamza al-Masri, who was convicted last February.

"I've been closely monitoring the internet communications of extremist Muslim groups inside the UK both before and after 7/7, and they are intimately interconnected," said Jenvey, who is affiliated with the London-based terror watch group VIGIL. "We've identified a coordinated leadership of at least 20 and up to 60 people, extremist preachers with blatant international al-Qaeda terrorist connections."

Jenvey noted that even though they are known to the authorities and are monitored while breaking the law with impunity, particularly in their private sermons, the police have failed to take appropriate action against them. "The police don't need to round up and detain thousands of British Muslims. If they only arrested, charged and prosecuted these 20 key terrorist leaders, they will have a struck a fatal blow against the epicentres of al-Qaeda extremism in the UK. But they're sitting on this."

Jenvey points to Omar Bakri Mohammed, a colleague of convicted terrorist Abu Hamza who headed the now-banned Islamist group al-Muhajiroun in the United Kingdom. Despite being exiled to Lebanon, Omar Bakri continues to communicate with UK-based extremist groups which are believed to be successors of al-Muhajiroun operating under new names, including the Saved Sect and al-Ghurabaa. British security sources have confirmed that the 7/7 bombers were associates of Omar Bakri's network, and Bakri himself publicly boasted a year before the London bombings that an al-Qaeda cell in London was planning a terrorist strike.

An investigation by the counterterrorism unit in the New York Police Department found that Bakri's al-Muhajiroun had formed 81 front groups and support networks in six countries, most of them based in London, the home counties bordering London, the Midlands, Lancashire and West Yorkshire. By the time Home Secretary Dr. John Reid moved in July to proscribe the latest incarnation of al-Muhajiroun, al-Ghurabaa, this sprawling interconnected network was fully functioning and continues to operate namelessly, despite proscription. Bakri's network has recently adopted the name "Al Sabiqoon Al-Awwaloon".

Jenvey complains that, despite the arrest in early September of radical cleric Abu Abdullah, convicted terrorist Abu Hamza's successor at the Finsbury Park Mosque, a "hardcore group of 20 or more extremists operating around Omar Bakri" remains at large. "The police have every reason to act, and they know who these people are. Their failure to do so has only exacerbated unjustified demonization of Muslims. These extremists are not Muslims in any meaningful sense, they are simply terrorists obsessed with violence."

MI5, MI6 recruiting extremists?

Even the arrest of Abu Abdullah only occurred after his support for terrorism was widely reported in the British and American media in late August. On 23rd August, he justified the killing of Westerners and told CNN correspondent Dan Rivers that Tony Blair is a "legitimate target" of jihad. The Sunday Times remarked that he "is apparently being allowed to operate unchecked by the authorities five months after a law was passed making it a criminal offence to glorify terrorism."

Torture may have been used to extract evidence for the weekend police raids which resulted in the arrest of 14 British Muslims, including Abdullah. Sources confirm that information came from detainees at Camp X-Ray in Guantanamo, where interrogation techniques classified as torture under international law are routinely used.

The reluctance to take decisive action against the leadership of the extremist network in the UK has a long history. According to John Loftus, a former Justice Department prosecutor, Omar Bakri and Abu Hamza, as well as the suspected mastermind of the London bombings Haroon Aswat, were all recruited by MI6 in the mid-1990s to draft up British Muslims to fight in Kosovo. American and French security sources corroborate the revelation. The MI6 connection raises questions about Bakri's relationship with British authorities today. Exiled to Lebanon and outside British jurisdiction, he is effectively immune to prosecution.

Other London-based radical clerics with terrorist connections also had a relationship to the security services. Abu Qatada, described as al-Qaeda's European ambassador, was, according to French sources a long-time MI5 informant. Pakistani government insiders similarly believe that Ahmed Omar Sheikh Saeed, the British al-Qaeda finance chief from Forest Gate, not only worked with the ISI, Pakistani's military intelligence service, but was also recruited by the CIA as an informant. Saeed, who reportedly wired several hundred thousand dollars to alleged chief 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta, is currently in Pakistani custody for the murder of Wall Street Journal journalist Daniel Pearl.

Omar Bakri regularly uses the internet to communicate from Lebanon with his followers in Britain. On Sunday evening, 3rd September, Omar Bakri told participants in an online chat forum that he had been pulled in by the Lebanese authorities at the request of the US and British governments and questioned in relation to the "terror plot". Although he denied involvement in the plot, he claimed that some of the 24 British Muslim suspects were known to him. When asked to confirm or deny whether Bakri had indeed been arrested at the request of the British, the Foreign Office had no comment. Bakri said that he was regularly questioned by Lebanese officials on behalf of the British government.

The official reluctance to act against Bakri and his active associates in the UK does not match the government's willingness to act pre-emptively to foil a plot of doubtful reality. Official reluctance to acknowledge the significance of the detonators used in the 7/7 terrorist operation suggests that the threat is far more sophisticated than authorities have admitted, and that emphasis on home-grown amateurs is mistaken. Lt. Col. Wylde's observations would seem to indicate that the terror-threat narrative is being manipulated for reasons of political expediency.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Graham Ennis, Nigel Wylde and Glen Jenvey for their research assistance and contribution to this story. They bear no responsibility for any errors therein. An abridged version of this story will be printed in The Muslim News, UK on 29th September 2006.

Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed is the author of The London Bombings: An Independent Inquiry (Duckworth, £9:99) and The War on Truth: 9/11, Disinformation and the Anatomy of Terrorism (Arris, £12:99). He testified in the US Congress about his research on international terrorism in July 2005. He teaches International Relations at the University of Sussex, Brighton.




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Innocent Man Sent to Syria and Tortured; Canada may file protest against US

Sept. 19 2006
AP

TORONTO - The United States "very likely" sent a Canadian software engineer to Syria, where he was tortured, based on the false accusation by Canadian authorities that he was suspected of links to al-Qaida, according to a new government report.

Syrian-born Maher Arar was exonerated of all suspicion of terrorist activity by the 2 1/2-year commission of inquiry into his case, which urged the Canadian government to offer him financial compensation. Arar is perhaps the world's best-known case of extraordinary rendition -- the U.S. transfer of foreign terror suspects to third countries without court approval.

"I am able to say categorically that there is no evidence to indicate that Mr. Arar has committed any offense or that his activities constitute a threat to the security of Canada," Justice Dennis O'Connor said Monday in a three-volume report on the findings of the inquiry, part of which was made public.

Arar was traveling on a Canadian passport when he was detained at New York's Kennedy Airport on Sept. 26, 2002, on his way home from vacation in Tunisia.

Arar said U.S. authorities sent him to Syria for interrogation as a suspected member of al-Qaida, a link he denied.

He spent nearly a year in prison in Syria and made detailed allegations after his release in 2003 about extensive interrogation, beatings and whippings with electrical cables.

O'Connor criticized the U.S. and recommended that Ottawa file formal protests with both Washington and the Syrian government over Arar's treatment.
"The American authorities who handled Mr. Arar's case treated Mr. Arar in a most regrettable fashion," O'Connor wrote. "They removed him to Syria against his wishes and in the face of his statements that he would be tortured if sent there. Moreover, they dealt with Canadian officials involved with Mr. Arar's case in a less than forthcoming manner."

The U.S. is already under intense criticism from human rights groups over the practice of sending suspects to countries where they could be tortured.

U.S. and Syrian officials refused to cooperate with the Canadian inquiry.

The commission found the Royal Canadian Mounted Police shared information about Arar with American anti-terrorist agencies both before and after he was detained.

The RCMP asked the U.S. to put Arar on a watch list as an "Islamic extremist individual" suspected of links to the al-Qaida terrorist movement, the report said.

The request was issued after Arar met with another man who was under surveillance, a meeting Arar has said was about how to find inexpensive computer equipment.

"The RCMP had no basis for this description, which had the potential to create serious consequences for Mr. Arar in light of American attitudes and practices," the report said.

The RCMP described Arar as the "target" of a domestic anti-terrorist investigation in Canada when in fact he was a peripheral figure who had come under suspicion only because he had been seen in the company of the man who was under surveillance, the report found.

O'Connor said that much of the material shared with U.S. authorities had not been double-checked to ensure its accuracy and reliability -- a violation of the RCMP's usual rules for divulging information to foreign agencies.

O'Connor concluded that the inaccurate information passed by Canadian police to U.S. authorities "very likely" led to their decision to send Arar to Syria.

"It's quite clear that the RCMP sent inaccurate information to U.S. officials," Arar said at a news conference in Ottawa. "I would have not have even been sent to Syria had this information not been given to them."

"I have waited a long time to have my name cleared. I was tortured and lost a year of my life. I will never be the same," Arar said. "The United States must take responsibility for what it did to me and must stop destroying more innocent lives with its unlawful actions."

The commission concluded there was no evidence Canadian officials participated in or agreed to the decision to send Arar to Syria. But O'Connor recommended that in the future, information should never be provided to a foreign country where there is a credible risk that it will cause or contribute to the use of torture.

Most of the judge's 23 policy recommendations centered on the RCMP and emphasized the need to improve the force's internal policies for national security investigations and the sharing of information with other countries.

Arar's case has been regularly featured on the front pages of Canadian newspapers and public outcry led to the government calling an inquiry. Canada's federal government established the inquiry in 2004 to determine the role Canadian officials played.

O'Connor also found "troubling questions" about the role played by Canadian officials in the cases of three other Canadians of Arab descent -- Ahmad El Maati, Abdullah Almalki and Muayyed Nureddin. All claim they were tortured in Syria after traveling there on personal business, and all suspect that the RCMP, Canadian intelligence or both collaborated with their captors.

O'Connor said he could not get to the bottom of those cases because of the limited nature of his mandate. But he urged the government to appoint an independent investigator -- something short of a full-fledged public inquiry -- to look into those cases.

O'Connor sifted through thousands of pages of documents and sat through testimony from more than 40 witnesses. He delivered two versions of his report to the government: one classified, the other public. But portions of even the public edition of the long-awaited document were withheld due to security concerns.



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US Police Storm into Wrong House

News Channel 5
19/09/2006

A case of mistaken identity turns a Brownsville family's world upside down.

Lupe Cuellar and his wife Pilar were startled at 1:30 in the morning by a knocking at their door.

The men at the door said they were cops, but Lupe wasn't sure. He said he'd heard about some burglaries in the neighborhood.

He told his wife to call police. She called 911.

Pilar says the 911 operator told her, "We got a call that your husband was beating you."

The officers tried to kick down the door. She told her husband it was the police and he opened the door.

Lupe says the police officer put him in a choke hold, dragged him to the kitchen, and threw him on the floor.

He said officers asked him why he didn't open the door and Lupe says he tried to explain he didn't know who they were.

Lupe's wife and kids watched officers cuff him and haul him outside in nothing but his underwear.

"It's really embarrassing. I feel like a criminal," he says.

Pilar says she pleaded with the police.

"My husband doesn't abuse me," she says, "He doesn't beat me."

Pilar says, "I couldn't believe this was going on."

The police quickly realized there was no domestic violence at this house.

"They looked at me and said, 'Yeah, you're alright.' And they took off,"
Lupe recalls.


He went to a hospital, where a nurse called police to report what happened. A sergeant showed up and told the Cuellars' what had happened.

"He told me the dispatcher gave police the wrong address," says Lupe.

The real domestic violence call was two houses down. Officers arrested another man for assault. Lupe says his daughter is now frightened by police.

NEWSCHANNEL 5 tried to talk to the Brownsville police chief. We're told he's gathering information and will comment tomorrow.

The department is reportedly investigating the incident.



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U.K. Police Deny Breaking Law Over Terror Shooting, Court Hears

Sept. 19 2006
Bloomberg

London's Metropolitan Police denied breaching a health and safety law when its officers shot dead an innocent Brazilian electrician who was mistaken for a suicide bomber.

Jean Charles de Menezes, 27, was gunned down by police on the London Underground on July 22, 2005. Police subsequently established that he was innocent and had no connection to terrorism. [Ed: after lying about the case]

The shooting happened a day after an alleged attempt to cause explosions on the London transport system and two weeks after the July 7, 2005, attacks which killed 56 people, including four suicide bombers, on three underground trains and a bus.

The police force was charged under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. The force is alleged by prosecutors to have failed to ensure the health and safety of de Menezes.
A formal plea of not guilty was entered in front of senior district judge Timothy Workman at London's City of Westminster Magistrates Court today, the police force said in an e-mailed statement.

The case was adjourned until the next hearing on Jan. 16 at the Central Criminal Court, commonly known as the Old Bailey. The force faces an unlimited fine if found guilty.

At the time of the shooting police were operating a controversial policy called Operation Kratos, which was developed after the September 11, 2001, attacks in the U.S. and authorized officers to shoot suspected suicide bombers.

De Menezes was shot seven times in the head by anti- terrorist officers at Stockwell Tube station in south London. The incident was investigated by the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The Crown Prosecution Service then decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute any individual police officer and to pursue the health and safety case against the police force as a whole.

The mistaken shooting happened in the "extraordinarily difficult circumstances'' of July 22, 2005, and there were "compelling evidential grounds'' to defend the case, the Metropolitan Police said following its Not Guilty plea today.

It also questioned whether a law drafted more than 30 years ago, to protect employees in the workplace, was the right way to evaluate the actions of police officers in an emergency situation.

Last week Commander Cressida Dick, a senior officer who was involved in events on the day of the shooting, was promoted to Deputy Assistant Commissioner, the Metropolitan Police Authority announced Sept. 12.



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Revealed: the tough interrogation techniques the CIA wants to use

Ed Pilkington in New York and Clare Dyer
Monday September 18, 2006
The Guardian

Details emerged yesterday about the seven interrogation techniques the CIA is seeking to be allowed to apply to terror suspects. Newsweek magazine reported that a New York lawyer, Scott Horton, who has acted as an adviser to the US senate on interrogation methods, had acquired a list of the techniques. The details were corroborated by information obtained by the charity Human Rights Watch.

The techniques sought by the CIA are: induced hypothermia; forcing suspects to stand for prolonged periods; sleep deprivation; a technique called "the attention grab" where a suspect's shirt is forcefully seized; the "attention slap" or open hand slapping that hurts but does not lead to physical damage; the "belly slap"; and sound and light manipulation.
Several of those techniques chime with information gleaned about interrogation methods used against some serious terror suspects. The New York Times recently reported that Abu Zubaydah, the first al-Qaida member captured after the September 11 attacks, was kept in a freezing cell until he went blue, and later assailed with loud Red Hot Chili Peppers music.

The debate on how far the CIA should be allowed to go in aggressively questioning suspects has divided the Republican party after prominent senators led by John McCain of Arizona rebelled against the administration's plans to change Geneva Convention to meet the CIA's demands. Mr McCain told ABC television yesterday that "there is a war we are losing in some ways and that's our standing in the world because of our treatment in Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo".

The British attorney general warned the US that its plans would face international condemnation. Speaking to lawyers in Chicago at the weekend, Lord Goldsmith said he had thought hard about interfering in a "sensitive, domestic political debate", but had concluded that the Geneva Convention was "an international standard of very considerable importance and its content must be the same for all nations". Guantánamo Bay had become "a symbol" which "the long American tradition of justice and liberty deserves to see removed at the earliest moment".



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Terror suspect zips lip; fears retribution from Pakistani ISI (aka CIA)

Sept. 18 2006
UPI

LONDON -- Claimed fear of retribution by Pakistani security agents has brought a temporary halt to terror trial proceedings in London.

Omar Khyam, accused with six others of plotting a bombing campaign in Britain, stopped testifying at the Old Bailey after saying his family in Pakistan had been threatened by Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Service Intelligence, or ISI. "I just want to say the ISI in Pakistan has had words with my family relating to what I have been saying about them," The Evening Standard quoted Khyam as telling the court Monday. "I think they (ISI) are worried I might reveal more about them, so right now ... the priority for me has to be the safety of my family so I am going to stop (testifying).

"I'm not going to discuss anything related to the ISI anymore, or to the evidence."
Khyam, said to be a member of an al-Qaida-related terror cell, was arrested in March 2004 after more than half a ton of ammonium nitrate fertilizer that could be used as an explosive was found in a London storage facility.

Khyam has denied charges of conspiracy to cause an explosion.

In earlier testimony he described how he had traveled to Pakistan to receive military training and how he had raised money through fraud for Islamists in Afghanistan.



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Asian cycle: An election, then a coup

By Seth Mydans International Herald Tribune
Published: September 20, 2006

The generals billed it as a pro-democracy military coup, and although they had ousted one of the most popular prime ministers in Thailand's history, most commentators here Wednesday tended to agree.

During the night, top military commanders deposed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra in a nonviolent coup while he was in New York, concluding a debilitating political standoff that was increasingly dividing the country.
On Wednesday, the coup's leader, General Sonthi Boonyaratglin, said that he had acted "to bring back normalcy and harmony" and that he intended to "return power to the Thai people as soon as possible."

That, in so many words, was the hope of Thailand's elite, who had accused Thaksin of corruption and of destroying democratic institutions, even as he continued to enjoy the overwhelming support of rural voters, who had given him Thailand's first outright majority in Parliament.

But whatever the hopes and intentions, Thailand is in a dangerous limbo as the generals work to consolidate control in a fragmented political field and Thaksin, now with his family in London, considers his next moves.

And one more Southeast Asian nation has reinterpreted democracy in undemocratic terms, either manipulating or sidestepping constitutional processes to achieve political ends.

"The crisis in the immediate term has been resolved," said Thitinan Pongsudhirak, director of the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University.

"Thaksin is out of the picture for now," he said. "We can move forward with political reforms. But in the medium and longer term he is still around and his supporters are still around. We have been put back at Square 1. We've got to get out of this vicious cycle of constitution, election, corruption and coup."

It had seemed that Thailand had left behind its long era of repeated coups, slowly consolidating constitutional rule over the past 15 years. Sonthi himself said in March, "Military coups are a thing of the past."

Now both Thailand and the Philippines, the region's two exemplars of democracy, have removed democratically elected leaders in coups that followed popular uprisings.

Other Southeast Asian nations are ruled with varying degrees of authoritarianism, while staying close to the rules of the democratic playbook.

In a turnaround, it is Indonesia that has the most thoroughgoing, though fragile, democracy, following 32 years of dictatorship under the former president, Suharto, who was ousted in 1998.

Each nation argues that its adaptations of democracy are necessary responses to local conditions.

Singapore, for example, points to its precarious position as a tiny mainly Chinese nation squeezed between two much larger Malay neighbors, and to the combustible mix of a multiethnic population.

Myanmar, the former Burma, says it must maintain its repressive military rule to keep ethnic tensions from bursting into civil war. But it is nevertheless going through the motions of democratic process, with plans to reopen a constitutional convention next month.

Vietnam and Laos are thoroughly communist nations, following what they call the democratic structures of regular parliamentary votes and five-year plans.

The Philippines, like Thailand, has argued that democratic processes had broken down when President Joseph Estrada was facing impeachment on corruption charges and that only the military could clean house and set the country back on course. The military "withdrew its support" from Estrada, clearing the way for his successor, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Calling the coup Tuesday a hiccup, Kavi Chongkittavorn, a political commentator at The Nation daily newspaper, said, "It was a necessary evil, if you look at it. There were no other options to end this political cul-de-sac."

But he conceded, "It is a contradiction in terms to have a military coup that calls for political reform. That's the dilemma."

The Asian Center for Human Rights, an independent monitoring group, raised the obvious objection in a statement Wednesday.

"If the latest coup d' état in Thailand is justified, similar military interventions in a situation of political flux such as in Mexico will also be justified," it said. "The coup d' état in Thailand is a threat to democracy all over the world."

On Wednesday, Sonthi offered both good news and bad news for those who seek a quick return to democratic rule.

He said he would choose an interim civilian prime minister within two weeks and then, "We step out."

But he said that interim government would have the task of drawing up a new constitution, putting it to a referendum, and then holding parliamentary elections, a process that would take more than a year.

By that time, Thailand's political scene will have changed in unpredictable ways, analysts said.

They said Thaksin himself was unlikely to return to Thailand in the near future, where he could face lawsuits, trial and even prison on various charges of corruption.

But he is a stubborn man and his presence, even abroad, is likely to shadow Thai politics as it goes through its difficult transition.

He still has powerful allies in Thailand, but the analysts said his party, Thai Rak Thai, could well disintegrate without the forceful leader who created it.

One effect of his five years of overwhelming dominance, though, is the absence of any obvious alternative. The main opposition party, the Democrat Party, has been notable in its inability to capitalize on Thaksin's difficulties.

A main task of the interim government will be to heal the rifts that Thaksin has created, avoiding vendettas that could devolve into what Thinatin called "an endless revenge and recrimination cycle."

There is also an urgent need to address a spreading separatist insurgency in the largely Muslim south of the country, where at

least 1,500 people have been killed since January 2004.

Experts attribute much of the growth in violence to Thaksin's no-compromise, militarized policies.

Sonthi, himself a Muslim, has clashed with Thaksin over the handling of the conflict. He recently proposed negotiations with the separatists, and the change in government could lead to a more successful counter-insurgency.

At the same time, Thinatin said, new governments should embrace one of Thaksin's positive legacies, a focus on the needs of the poor, with programs like village development funds, debt forgiveness and low-cost health care.

These populist measures, however calculating and paternalistic, did address long-neglected needs of the majority of the population.

"He did have a positive legacy with the grass roots," Thinatin said. "The mistake will be to reject everything Thaksin did."



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Ukraine Seeks UN Resolution on Soviet Genocide

Created: 20.09.2006 15:16 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 15:16 MSK
MosNews

Ukraine is campaigning for a UN General Assembly resolution that would declare the 1932-33 famine that killed up to 10 million people a genocide, Foreign Minister Borys Tarasyuk quoted by AP said.
Ukraine has the support of several nations and Tarasyuk will use the two-week annual UN General Assembly event now under way to canvass dozens more, he said in an interview with The Associated Press Tuesday. The resolution would accuse Soviet dictator Josef Stalin's regime of deliberately instigating what Ukrainians call the Great Famine.

"We expect that the delegations here at the United Nations will deplore this artificially made famine as an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people," Tarasyuk told The Associated Press. "We would like that the international community pay tribute to those who perished."



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Dismembering Iraq


Verdict In Saddam Case To Be Released Just Before US Elections!

19/09/2006
Guardian

Saddam Hussein's genocide trial resumed Tuesday to hear more Kurdish witnesses recount an alleged chemical attack on their northern Iraqi villages.

It was the ninth day of court testimony since Saddam's trial resumed Aug. 21 on charges of committing atrocities against Kurds during the Operation Anfal crackdown in northern Iraq in the late 1980s.

The prosecution alleges some 180,000 people died in the campaign, many of them killed by poison gas. Saddam and six co-defendants are standing trial and all seven could face death by hanging if convicted.

On Monday, the court heard two witnesses, including a former Kurdish rebel testifying that he temporarily lost his sight in a chemical weapons attack by Saddam's forces in the late 1980s.

Saddam is awaiting a verdict on Oct. 16 in the first case against him - the nine-month-long trial over the killings of 148 Shiites after a 1982 assassination attempt. He and seven other co-defendants could face the death penalty in that case.




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British soldier admits war crime as court martial told of Iraqi civilian's brutal death

Steven Morris
Wednesday September 20, 2006
The Guardian

A corporal in the Duke of Lancaster's regiment became the first British soldier ever to be convicted of a war crime yesterday as a court martial heard that he and his colleagues systematically abused prisoners at a detention centre in southern Iraq.

One civilian was killed and others tormented brutally while officers, including the most senior to be brought before a court martial in modern times, did nothing to stop the abuse, it was claimed.
Corporal Donald Payne, 35, pleaded guilty to the charge at the start of a court martial involving seven British soldiers. But Cpl Payne denied manslaughter and intending to pervert the course of justice. Six others have pleaded not guilty to charges relating to the death of Baha Mousa, 26, a hotel receptionist being held in custody in Basra in 2003.

The historic court martial heard that the prisoners were forced to maintain a "stress position" - backs against a wall, arms stretched out in front - which has been banned by the British army for more than 30 years. If they dropped their arms they were beaten, it was alleged.

One prisoner alleged he was threatened with lighted petrol and another said he was forced to urinate into a bottle which was then tipped over him.

The violence culminated with the killing of Baha Mousa, who died after being so badly beaten that he suffered 93 injuries, including fractured ribs and a broken nose, the hearing was told.

Opening the court martial, Julian Bevan QC, said: "We are not dealing with robust or rough handling, which is bound to happen in the theatre that existed in Iraq, but something far more serious.

"We are dealing with systematic abuse against prisoners involving unacceptable violence against persons who were detained in custody, hooded and handcuffed and wholly unable to protect themselves over a very long period of time."

Mr Bevan said what happened was "only made possible by the negligence of three people" - the commanding officer, Colonel Jorge Mendonca, Major Michael Peebles, the battle group internment review officer, and Warrant Officer Mark Davies, in charge of tactical questioning.

The incident began at 6am on September 14 2003 when members of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment raided hotels in Basra which they believed were being used by insurgents. In one they found ammunition, grenades, bayonets, a sniper scope, timers, forged identity documents and a large amount of money.

A number of people, including the receptionist, Baha Mousa, were arrested, handcuffed and driven to the battle group's headquarters.

Mr Bevan claimed that over 36 hours from the Sunday morning to Monday evening they were badly mistreated. "They were repeatedly beaten when handcuffed and hooded with hessian sacks, deprived of sleep, continually shouted at and generally abused."

Baha Mousa died on the Monday. Another suffered such serious kidney injuries that he had renal failure and almost died.

In immediate charge of the Iraqis was Cpl Payne. According to Mr Bevan, he was "largely responsible for meting out the inhuman treatment". But others also took part. "Some of them, it seems, just did it for fun or feelings of hostility."

In temperatures which soared to almost 60C, the detainees were kept in the stress position. "No one can maintain that position for long without suffering pain and stress," said Mr Bevan. If they dropped their arms they were punched and kicked and shouted at. They were kept awake by being shouted at or having an iron bar banged next to them, the court was told. Some were also struck with the iron bar.

Cpl Payne denies manslaughter and intending to pervert the course of justice by telling colleagues to say that Baha Mousa had died accidentally after banging his head. But he admitted inhumanly treating Iraqi civilians - a war crime under the International Criminal Court (ICC) Act 2001. Col Mendonca, Maj Peebles and WO Davies denied negligently performing a duty by not ensuring that the prisoners were not ill-treated.

But Mr Bevan said the detention centre was only 60 metres from the main operational and living quarters. "The close proximity is highly relevant when you come to consider how openly these Iraqis were abused and how the shouting, bawling, screaming from that facility must have been heard by numerous soldiers and officers in that camp and yet no one appears to have raised it as a concern."

Two others, Lance Corporal Wayne Crowcroft, and Kingsman Darren Fallon, denied a joint charge under the ICC Act of inhumanly treating Iraqi civilians. Sergeant Kelvin Stacey, pleaded not guilty to assault causing actual bodily harm.

The court martial, held at the military court centre at Bulford Camp in Wiltshire, is expected to last for up to 16 weeks.

Legal history was also made when the judge, Mr Justice McKinnon, ruled that images of the soldiers' faces could not be shown for fear that they could become terrorist targets. Nor can their addresses be given in even the vaguest terms.

The charges

All soldiers from the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment (formerly the Queen's Lancashire Regiment) unless stated otherwise

Corporal Donald Payne, 35 Manslaughter of Baha Musa, inhuman treatment of Iraqi civilians, a war crime under the International Criminal Court Act 2001, intending to pervert the course of justice

Colonel Jorge Mendonca MBE, 42 Negligently performing a duty by failing to take such steps ... to ensure Iraqi civilians being held ... under his command were not ill-treated

Lance Corporal Wayne Crowcroft, 22 Inhuman treatment of Iraqi civilians under the ICC Act

Kingsman Darren Fallon, 23 Inhuman treatment of Iraqi civilians under the ICC Act

Sergeant Kelvin Stacey, 29 Assault causing actual bodily harm, alternatively common assault

Major Michael Peebles, 35 Intelligence Corps Negligently performing a duty by failing to ensure that miliary personnel under his effective control did not ill-treat Iraqi civilians

Warrant Officer Mark Davies, 37, Miliary Intelligence Section

Neglecting to perform a duty by failing to take steps to ensure that Iraqi civilians were not ill-treated.

All men pleaded not guilty to all charges save that Cpl Payne admitted inhuman treatment of Iraqi civilians

Comment: What is outrageous is that the culprits in suits in Washington and London who created the conditions for this torture, who encouraged the soldiers to do what was necessary to defeat terrorism, who use fancy terms lile "extraordinary rendition" to cover-up the ugly realities, will never stand before such a court for their crimes.

As usual, it is the grunt who will take the blame, the low man who will be convicted.


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U.S. won't reduce force in Iraq this year

09/20/2006 04:43:12 AM EDT

WASHINGTON - A withdrawal of American forces from Iraq isn't likely through next spring, according to the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, who suggested more troops could be needed in the meantime.

In one of the gloomiest assessments to date, Gen. John Abizaid, commander of U.S. Central Command, said military leaders would consider adding troops, or extending the Iraq deployments of other units if needed.
"If it's necessary to do that because the military situation on the ground requires that, we'll do it," he said. "If we have to call in more forces because it's our military judgment that we need more forces, we'll do it."

The news drew a strong reaction from Connecticut politicians who have pushed the Bush administration to develop a specific timetable for withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

"After more than three years of occupation, it is crystal-clear that military force alone will not bring peace and stability to Iraq," said Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn. "The American people have a right to know the game plan and timetable for Iraq's political leaders taking full responsibility for governing Iraq.

"Announcing the continued presence of U.S. troops at current force levels is neither."

Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-3, also expressed frustration at the lack of progress in Iraq.

"With U.S. troops in Iraq longer than they were in World War II, it is long past time for the Bush administration to put forth a plan for success in Iraq that will allow us to begin to bring our troops home," she said.

Rep. Christopher Shays, R-4, said the Pentagon needs to make clear the level of security forces needed in Iraq so Americans will know when U.S. troops can begin to be withdrawn. There are about 464,000 troops in Iraq now - 150,000 coalition troops, 294,000 Iraq security and 20,000 private security contractors, Shays said.

"It is clear to me that we don't have the number of troops we need collectively," he said. "What I want to do is get that bottom-line number of troops needed. It is a number they should know."

Westport Democrat Diane Farrell, who is running against Shays, said the evidence on the ground in Iraq clearly calls for a change in military leadership and direction.

"Once again, I believe Defense Secretary [Donald] Rumsfeld should resign and there should be a change in strategy," she said.

Farrell also said Congress should demand more intense diplomatic efforts to negotiate a cease-fire between the warring parties in Iraq.

"We should be looking for a third-party intermediary to help," she said.

Sen. Joe Lieberman, D-Conn., said he continues to hope Iraq's military "will progress fast enough to allow significant reductions in American troops in the coming year."

However, he said the judgment of military commanders entrusted with stabilizing Iraq should be taken seriously when assessing when troops can begin to come home.

Lieberman's opponent, Democrat Ned Lamont, has made opposition to the war a centerpiece of his campaign. He could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

Abizaid said the current number of troops "are prudent force levels" that are achieving the needed military effect.

His comments came as U.S. political leaders continue to face declining public support for the war in Iraq as they head into the coming congressional elections. Abizaid, Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Peter Pace are expected to meet with members of Congress later this week.

Late last year, military leaders had said they hoped to reduce troop levels to about 100,000 by the year's end. But Abizaid said Tuesday that the rising sectarian violence and slow progress of the Iraqi government made that impossible.

"I think that this level probably will have to be sustained through the spring," he told military reporters. "I think that we'll do whatever we have to do to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan and use the military power of the U.S. to do that."

Abizaid cautioned that the solution to much of Iraq's violence - both sectarian and insurgent - is not necessarily "throwing more American units at the problem."

Instead, he said it is vital that the Iraqi government improve the political and economic conditions in the embattled country as part of an effort to get the "angry young men" off the streets. And he said there would be more emphasis on U.S. military teams training the Iraqi army and police forces.

There are now 147,000 U.S. forces in Iraq - up more than 20,000 from late June. Rumsfeld extended the one-year deployment of an Alaska-based brigade in July as part of the effort to stem the escalating violence in Baghdad.

Abizaid said Tuesday there are no plans to further extend the deployment of the Alaska Stryker brigade.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.



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From Victim To Accused Army Deserter

By Donna St. George
Washington Post
Tuesday, September 19, 2006

EUGENE, Ore. -- Suzanne Swift remembers standing in her mother's living room, hours away from her second deployment to Iraq. Her military gear had already been shipped -- along with her Game Boy, her DVDs and books, her favorite pink pillow, her stash of sunflower seeds. She had the car keys in her hand, ready to drive to the base. Suddenly, she turned to her mother.

"I can't do this," she remembers saying. "I can't go."

The Army specialist, now 22, recalls her churning stomach. Her mother's surprise. All at once, she said, she could not bear the idea of another year like her first. She was sexually harassed by one superior, she said, and coerced into a sexual affair with another.
"I didn't want it to happen to me again," she said in an interview.

Now Swift is bracing for a possible court-martial. Arrested in June for going AWOL, she detailed three alleged sexual offenses to Army officials, who began an investigation. One incident had already been verified and the perpetrator disciplined. But last Friday, the Army ruled that the two other incidents could not be substantiated. It will soon decide whether to take disciplinary action against Swift for her five-month absence, spokesman Joe Hitt said.

If she is convicted of desertion, Swift faces prison time and a dishonorable discharge.

Swift's case has galvanized antiwar activists and women's organizations, who have started a petition drive and demonstrated near her base at Fort Lewis, outside Tacoma, Wash. With more than 130,000 women deployed since 2001, her case raises uncomfortable questions about how matters between the sexes play out in the military.

It is complicated by the wartime setting and the fact that Swift did not file formal complaints about the first two incidents while she said they took place. (The Army investigation established that she had complained about them privately.) Many female veterans say her case may be an example of a raw fact of military life: that sexual offenses often go unreported, that young, lower-ranking women are especially vulnerable and that those harmed fear hostile treatment if they speak up.

"It's more common than, unfortunately, people realize," said Colleen Mussolino, a founder of Women Veterans of America. "There are literally thousands of women who have gone through similar circumstances."

The Pentagon says that more than 500 sexual assaults involving U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have been reported. But officials acknowledge that the problem is larger than that and is made more complex by a war deployment.

"Sexual assault is the most underreported violent crime in America, and that's going to be true in the military as well," Pentagon spokesman Roger Kaplan said.

Lory Manning, director of the Women in the Military Project, of the Women's Research and Education Institute, pointed out that in the military, sexual liaisons within a chain of command are not viewed as consensual even if a subordinate goes along.

"The presumption is the subordinate might take it as an order and might fear retribution if they say no," said Manning, a retired Navy captain. "The more junior they are, the more unlikely it is that they can say no without fearing the consequences."

19 and Just Out of Boot Camp

Suzanne Swift was 19 years old, one of the least-experienced members of her unit, when she was deployed to Kuwait in February 2004. She had completed boot camp and military-police training six weeks earlier and now was part of the 66th Military Police Company. She gave her version of her military experience during interviews over two days at her mother's home in Eugene.

She said she had signed up with the military police because she thought it would keep her out of Iraq. But when her unit received orders for a year-long deployment, she went.

In Kuwait, she said, a platoon sergeant who had been friendly toward her -- and who had assured her mother, "Don't worry, ma'am, we'll take care of your daughter" -- stopped her as she was headed to the shower and asked her bluntly: "Swift, why do you look like you want to" have sex with me?

Stunned, she said she replied: "You have lost your mind."

A day later, on a convoy, he persisted, she said.

"Dude, no," she told him several times, she said.

Swift said she was unprepared for the come-ons, which had never happened during training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo. "I was like, this actually happens? This goes on and it's okay?"

She said she reported the incidents to a soldier designated to handle equal-opportunity complaints. He seemed receptive, saying he would tell a captain, she said. But nothing happened.

Her unit soon moved on to Iraq, where her 30-member platoon, with three other women, was based at Camp Lima in Karbala, southwest of Baghdad. Their mission was to support Iraqi police.

Earlier, she said, she had noticed unusual behavior by her squad leader, who warned her away from fellow soldiers with such advice as: "Watch out for that guy. He's going to hit on you." At times, she said, he pulled aside other soldiers and asked them: "What's going on with you and Swift?"

She said other soldiers seemed leery of her friendship.

Privately, she said, the sergeant had asked hours of questions about her life and previous relationships. Swift had grown up in a single-parent family, attended an alternative high school and been married briefly.

One night, as they stood near a Humvee at Camp Lima, he grabbed her and kissed her. "I didn't want to have sex with him," she said. "I didn't like him." But she said she feared retaliation if she refused. "I had a choice," she acknowledges, "but it wasn't much of a choice." She said that some nights, he would pound on her door, drunk and pressing her for sex.

When she ended the relationship after several months, she said, the sergeant was vindictive. She contends that he ordered her to do 4 a.m. workouts and to wear a wall clock around her neck and report every hour in full gear. In all, she said, she was written up at least a dozen times by the sergeant and by others whom she felt he encouraged.

One of her closest confidants was former Sgt. Zach Thompson, her team leader, who had heard about the clock punishment from other soldiers. He described Swift in an interview yesterday as positive and reliable.

"I couldn't have asked for a better soldier," he said. Unlike some new privates, Swift did not founder, he said. She was "really intelligent and would catch on really easily."

"She never told me she was being harassed or abused in any way while we were in Iraq," he said. Had he known, Thompson said, "I would have told her to make a formal complaint." He added: "She's never lied to me, so if she said something, I would have to believe it was true."

Another woman who was in Swift's unit, who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said that the same sergeant also propositioned her during her tour in Iraq. She said she had no doubt it had happened to Swift.

Although Swift did not file a complaint, she confided in her mother during phone calls. Her mother, Sara Rich, said she grew so concerned that she finally phoned her congressman, Rep. Peter A. DeFazio (D).

A spokesman for DeFazio said the office's records reflect that Rich phoned in November 2004 to report sexual harassment of her daughter in Iraq and to request help. The office told Rich that it could not help unless Swift signed a privacy waiver.

Swift declined to sign, reminding her mother that she was still under the sergeant's command in Iraq.

Handling Situations Privately

Although Army officials said Swift's allegations "could not be substantiated" after a probe that included interviews with 23 soldiers, they said the investigation found that she had reported incidents about two individuals to a noncommissioned officer who said he would support her if she went forward.

When she declined to make formal charges, he "advised her on how to deal with the situation personally," which, the Army said, "ended what she believed to be inappropriate behavior by two individuals."

The accused sergeant she had sex with is now out of the Army.

Swift's allegations also concern an incident after she returned home from Iraq.

While at Fort Lewis, Swift said, another sergeant in her chain of command made a number of lewd comments to her. One day, when she asked him where to report for duty, he told her: "In my bed, naked."

She said that later, in front of her fellow soldiers, he asked her for sex and she told him to shut up, using an expletive. He ordered her to do push-ups. She reported him to the equal opportunity officer.

The sergeant was given a letter of admonishment and reassigned to another unit. In the Army's news release about her case, officials noted how well the complaint process worked in the incident at Fort Lewis.

The way Swift described it, sexual remarks are part of military life--and she heard many of them. But she said there is a distinct difference when it comes from a superior. "The other soldiers don't have power over you," she said.

Since 2005, the Pentagon has stepped up efforts to aid in reporting such incidents -- posting victims' advocates in many units, for example -- but even so, said Kaplan, the Pentagon spokesman, "when you're in Iraq, you're quite spread out," and soldiers in small units may have difficulties.

Swift had been home from Iraq for eight months when word came about a second deployment in January. After she made her decision to not go, her mother took her to a therapist, who diagnosed post-traumatic stress disorder related to the alleged sexual offenses. (Swift said that the Army later told her that based on its evaluation, she showed stress disorder symptoms but did not have the full-blown disorder.)

Her mother also hired a lawyer, who contacted Fort Lewis to try to arrange a discharge. But the Army said it would not negotiate with deserters, according to Swift's mother. In June, Eugene's police department came knocking at her mother's door.

Swift was arrested in the living room of her mother's home.



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Iraq for Sale

The Nation
Mon Sep 18, 2006

The Bush Administration appointed political cronies to run
Iraq and gave lucrative no-bid contracts to the former employer of our Vice President.

No wonder the occupation is turning out so badly.

Of the $18 billion spent on the now-halted Iraqi reconstruction, half is still missing. Since October 2004, the
Department of Defense has not had one internal investigator on the ground.

Corruption has run rampant under such circumstances, with Halliburton the leading beneficiary.
Today, the Senate Democratic Policy Committee held its tenth hearing on contracting abuses in Iraq. An earlier hearing found that Halliburton had been unable to substantiate $1.4 billion in charges to the government. Today's hearing focused on how Halliburton billed taxpayers for a Super Bowl Party, among other luxuries--and also knowingly sent truck drivers into hotspots without warning or protection.

Yet the Bush Administration has done nothing to curtail such conduct, refusing to investigate these abuses under the False Claims Act. "The last thing the Administration wants, it appears, is more bad news out of Iraq, and it is willing to throw a monkey wrench into the machinery of justice to prevent that," testified attorney Alan Grayson, who Taxpayers Against Fraud recently named lawyer of the year.

Many of the revelations from today's hearing--and more--are featured in Robert Greenwald's new film, "Iraq For Sale." The film opens tonight. Go see it.



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U.S. says AP photog linked to insurgents

By ROBERT TANNER
AP National Writer
Tue Sep 19, 2006

The Pentagon defended its monthslong detention of an Associated Press photographer in Iraq, asserting that it has authority to imprison him indefinitely without charges because it believes he had improper ties to insurgents.

But journalism organizations said that covering all sides in the Iraq war sometimes requires contacts with insurgents. They called on the Pentagon to either bring charges against photographer Bilal Hussein so he can defend himself, or release him.
Hussein, an Iraqi photographer employed by the AP, was captured in Ramadi on April 12 of this year. AP executives, who worked on his case behind the scenes for five months, on Sunday made a public call for the military to transfer him to Iraq's criminal justice system or release him.

Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said on Monday that the military has not changed its position.

"All indications that I have received are that Hussein's detainment indicates that he has strong ties with known insurgents and that he was doing things, involved in activities, that were well outside the scope of what you would expect a journalist to be doing," said Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman. He refused to provide any details.

But AP Associate General Counsel Dave Tomlin said Whitman failed to address the main argument made by the AP, that Hussein get his day in court.

"Mr. Whitman says it would be 'up to the central criminal court of Iraq' to charge Bilal with any wrongdoing. But the Iraqi court can't do that until the U.S. military hands over Bilal and whatever evidence they have against him to Iraqi authorities," Tomlin said.

"This is exactly what AP and Bilal are asking for," he said. "If the evidence isn't strong enough to support charges, however, Bilal should be released."

Hussein is one of an estimated 14,000 people detained as suspected security threats by the U.S. military worldwide - 13,000 of them in Iraq. Few are charged with a specific crime or given a chance before any court or tribunal to argue for their freedom.

Whitman said that Hussein's case has been reviewed three times by U.S. and Iraqi detention authorities. But the AP had only been told of one review, and that had taken place without any representation from Hussein or his representatives, Tomlin said.

Whether it was one hearing or three, none of them provide "due process" because Hussein never got to hear the accusations made against him, see the evidence or argue against any of it, Tomlin said.

The Committee to Protect Journalists said it was "alarmed" by Hussein's lengthy detention, because U.S. officials had promised journalist detentions would be promptly reviewed.

Reporters Without Borders, an international association, called for the U.S. military to charge Hussein or release him, as the AP has.

On Tuesday, the group released a formal statement: "We call on the U.S. authorities to put an immediate end to this violation of the rule of law."

"If they think this journalist was not a journalist but an insurgent, then they have to prove it," said Lucie Morillon, the group's Washington representative. "We don't want as a consequence that journalists should be worried about covering insurgents because they'll be arrested by U.S. forces. We need to know (the story) from both sides."

CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon said photographing insurgents should not be cause for imprisonment.

"There's no way to cover an insurgency without having contact with insurgents," Simon said. "If we're in an environment where any contact or documentation of activities of insurgents is cause for indefinite detention, that really puts a damper on the work of the press."

The AP's decision to reveal the details of Hussein's detention and its efforts to assist him spurred a new round of debate among bloggers. Conservative critics on the Internet raised questions about Hussein's images months before the military detained him.

Conservative bloggers, such as John Hinderaker at Powerlineblog.com, said news of Hussein's detention confirmed their suspicions that the photographer was working with the insurgents, who wanted their photos to reach the Western media for propaganda purposes.

But Will Bunch, a blogger for the Philadelphia Daily News, said such critics "have no respect for the American principle of a free and unfettered press, no understanding of what a photojournalist does or the importance that uncensored photos can play in the political debate half a world away."

The military has said that Hussein was captured with two insurgents. A native of Fallujah, he worked as a photographer in Fallujah and Ramadi, two centers of the Iraq insurgency.

One of Hussein's photos was part of a package of 20 photographs that won a Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography last year. His contribution was an image of four insurgents in Fallujah firing a mortar and small arms during the U.S.-led offensive in the city in November 2004.

In its own effort to determine whether Hussein had gotten too close to the insurgency, the AP reviewed his work record, interviewed senior photo editors who worked on his images and examined all 420 photographs in the news cooperative's archives that were taken by Hussein.

Of those, AP executives said, only 37 photos show insurgents or people who could be insurgents, and only four show the wreckage of still-burning U.S. military vehicles. The military in Iraq has often detained journalists who arrive quickly at scenes of violence, accusing them of getting advance notice from insurgents.

Comment: Did you catch how things work now?
"All indications that I have received are that Hussein's detainment indicates that he has strong ties with known insurgents..."
It isn't proof of the man's alleged ties to "insurgent" groups that put him in prison as an "enemy combatant" with zero rights. He was imprisoned, and the fact that he is in prison indicates that he simply MUST have done something wrong - no trial needed!


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The Cancer


Shock and Awe in Lebanon

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
Washington Post

The southern neighborhoods of Beirut bear a resemblance to some primitive terrain: rubble strewn, broken and scarred

Entire city blocks are devastated. Ten-story apartment buildings are gutted and reduced to concrete stacks.

The scenes in Beirut are stark; they invoke Dresden or Tokyo and a certain brutality.
I just returned from a week touring Beirut and southern Lebanon, and from visiting northern Israel.

What struck me about the bombing, in both countries, was that you could see the destruction and completely misread what it meant. In Beirut, the destruction in reality is efficient and impressive. The destruction in Israel, on the other hand, is random and scattered. When Hezbollah rockets were fired on Israel, landing meant success.

So here is the truth: Israel did not do anything close to what it was capable of doing. Hezbollah did all it could.

Because Israel is hyper-modern and it has the technology to exact such a concentrated result, it is capable of creating visible and jarring images.

And, of course, Israel is Israel. That is why the non-aligned countries condemned "Israeli aggression in Lebanon" this weekend, befuddled about Lebanon and Hezbollah: Such an easy target.

I recognize that one can't analyze what happened in Lebanon in the 34-day, Israel-Hezbollah war without walking into a minefield.

Also, what happened can't be reduced to 1,000 words. There is complex history, the players are not necessarily as they represent themselves, there are intramural battles going on about military force and politics, there are secrets and there is even the difficulty of reading what one is looking at accurately.

One could reduce the conflict to shock and awe: Success on the one hand in what could be exacted in such a short period of time, failure on the other by Israeli political leaders and commanders' intent on doing the job on the cheap.

There is no question though that Israel seems in awe of its effort and its precision. Even though a national commission of inquiry begins a bruising and painful analysis today of government and military shortcomings, Israel's social and cultural demand is for offense and victory. Government officials speak of "annihilating" the enemy: Bush rhetoric that invokes those earlier images of total war and is so jarring to international ears. They will now be assessed on their performance to achieve the goal.

On the other hand, Lebanon is shocked. It is not just the destruction wrought but the powerlessness of the owners of the country. The Lebanese government complains of the destruction and the cluster bombs and the environmental devastation, exaggerating what happened to IT because it can not bear to say that most of what was destroyed was Hezbollah's assets, assets that indeed resided and flourished inside their own country under their own noses with their consent. By focusing outward, on the "other," Lebanon conveniently ignores its failures. Yet the government of Lebanon, a bickering alliance of non-war lords, is fully culpable. The shock seems play-it-again-Sam-style, shocked that there is gambling going on in the casino.

The international community meanwhile is also shocked. It equally complains about cluster bombs and levels of destruction, suggesting that there is an alternative military strategy that could have been pursued. One can't help but be a little cynical that they are really just interested in finding the best arguments to condemn the dominant belligerent. Somewhere in here is an effort to protect the civilian population and the environment from the scourge of war. I wonder though whether the right lessons can be learned to get there.

Hezbollah meanwhile touts its own "divine victory," bloodied and dislodged from its territory yet opaque enough that it can hide the real wounds. The Hezbollah military, because it is largely invisible, is neither accurately assessed nor is it not really held accountable for the war crimes it committed. Worse still is that Hezbollah believes, as do many on the "Arab street," that the attacks on Israel and its citizens were justified, justified and no worse than anything Israel did because Israel in its actions preys upon the civilian population.

No worse, of course, depends on the narrative of vengefulness and indiscriminate attack by Israel. Because of Israel's means, thousands of apartments are gone, selected and meticulously excised by a high-tech military force.

Only a very short drive from the neighborhoods of southern Beirut though, you are back to bustling boulevards; a few neighborhoods over and there are luxury stores and five star hotels. Beyond the "Hezbollah" neighborhoods, the city is normal. Electricity flows just as it did before the fighting. The Lebanese sophisticates are glued to their cell phones. Even an international airport that was bombed is reopened.

An accurate reading of what happened and what south Beirut means might produce a different picture. Israel had the means to impart greater destruction, but that does not mean intrinsically that it is more brutal. If Hezbollah had bigger rockets or more accurate ones, it would have done not only the same, but undoubtedly more.

Israel may have made a grave error in attacking Hezbollah as it did, it may have used the wrong weapons and hit the wrong targets, it may have completely misread the enemy, it may have made its security worse for years to come.

But the fact that one can drive a short distance from Dresden-like south Beirut and return to modern life itself should signal that this is something very different: Israeli bombers did not fly over Beirut and unleash loads of bombs. Each individual building was the quarry; the intent was there, and the technology existed, to spare the rest.

So Israel "won" -- literally a technical knock-out -- and Hezbollah "won" as well.

Hezbollah is weakened and strengthened at the same time.

Israel achieved its military objectives and yet worsened its strategic outlook.

Welcome to post-post-modern warfare.

Comment: What a disgusting piece of apologetics for Israel and their war on the Lebanese people! It was only Hizbulloh neighbourhoods that were attacksd! Whta about the infrastructure, the bridges, the roads that belong to the Lebanese people as a whole? What about the statistics that show that civilian deaths outnumbered combattants by many times?

Nope, the representative of Zionism reporting faithfully back to his bosses doesn't raise those questions. He slips a mention of the cluster bombs in without dealing with the long-term effect, not to mention the moral questions it raises about a government that can unleash such horrendous weapons on a civilian population or the conscienceless people who can support such an act.


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Israelis press charges against Hizbullah men

Compiled by Daily Star staff
Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Israel on Monday charged three Hizbullah fighters arrested in Lebanon during the recent war with murder for involvement in deadly attacks on soldiers. In an indictment police submitted to the district court in the northern town of Nazareth, the three were charged with murder, attempted murder and membership in an enemy organization, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said.

A fourth Hizbullah member arrested during the war yet to be charged, Rosenfeld said.
The three are Hussein Suleiman, 22, Mohammad Srour, 20, and Maher Hourani, 30, Rosenfeld said.

Suleiman was involved in planning the July 12 cross-border raid, in which Hizbullah fighters infiltrated Israel to attack a border patrol, killing three soldiers and capturing two, Rosenfeld said, adding that Suleiman was involved in other deadly attacks on soldiers.

Srour and Hourani also participated in attacks against soldiers along the border, Rosenfeld said.

The three have confessed to participation in the attacks and to receiving military training in Iran, Rosenfeld said.

A Hizbullah spokesperson said Hizbullah does not have access yet to many places where its fighters were based because they are still occupied by the Israeli forces, hence they don't know the exact numbers of the captured fighters.

"We don't have the exact number because there are places still occupied by the Israeli enemy which we did not access yet," the spokesperson told The Daily Star.

Asked whether Hizbullah might ask the Lebanese government to take similar judiciary measures like those taken in Israel against the two Israeli soldiers they captured, the spokesperson said: "Hizbullah does not operate in this way."

Lebanese State Prosecutor Said Mirza declined to comment on the issue of whether Lebanon might initiate any similar procedures.

United Nations chief Kofi Annan announced earlier this month that Israel and Hizbullah have accepted UN mediation on the issue of the prisoners.

Annan has appointed his former special adviser Lakhdar Ibrahimi to mediate a possible agreement for swapping Leb-anese prisoners in return for freeing the reservists Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser.

Free Patriotic Movement leader Michel Aoun had met last week with Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt and proposed to play a role in the swap.

Verhofstadt conveyed the message to Annan who reportedly said that "Aoun's help in the prisoners' exchange deal is not needed as he has already appointed a mediator."
http://www.dailystar.com.lb

Aoun flew to Belgium last Wednesday on board a Belgian military plane accompanied by Monsignor Jean Abboud and met with Belgian officials including Verhofstadt.

In another development, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported Monday that Israeli Military Intelligence (MI) had clear information on an impending capture attempt by Hizbullah shortly before the group carried out its cross-border raid on July 12.

But the paper said the information was not analyzed and passed on to the troops in time, according to an internal inquiry conducted by the Israel Army.

Over the past three days, the Israeli Army press office has refused to either confirm or deny the report, saying that the issue is still being investigated by MI and the Northern Command.

The inquiry into the intelligence aspects of the abduction is being conducted by Brigadier General Avi Ashkenazi.

But even though his investigation, which could alter the entire picture of the abduction, is not yet completed, he will present his report to Chief of Staff Dan Halutz and other senior army officers this week.

The report will apparently focus solely on the events of July 12, and will not deal with previous, similar operations that were foiled.

Another senior Israeli military official said on Monday that old maps and faulty intelligence hampered the army's campaign against Hizbullah in the recent Israeli offensive against Lebanon.

The remarks were the latest to expose what critics of the government and army have said were serious lapses in the military's readiness for the 34-day war that ended August 14.

If the air force had more precise information about Hizbullah's deployment in South Lebanon, it could have better pinpointed the militia in air strikes, the official told journalists.

There was not enough coordination between ground and air forces largely because the branches had different intelligence, the official said. The maps used by the ground forces were from 2000, while the air force had maps from this year, he said.

The Israeli Cabinet authorized an inquiry Sunday into the handling of the war. Critics had called for a more sweeping probe by a state commission with powers to dismiss government and military officials.

Reservists, called up for duty in Lebanon, have complained of poor preparation, conflicting orders and a lack of food and supplies. - Agencies with additional reporting by Nada Bakri

Comment from the Angry Arab News Service: Do you remember when Israeli military claimed that they arrested tens of Hizbullah fighters during the war? Well, they have three. Did the Israeli government tell one truth during the war?

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UN force in Lebanon reaches 5,000

www.chinaview.cn 2006-09-20 05:31:27

BEIRUT, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- The number of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon has reached 5,000, said a spokesman on Tuesday, reaching a level that Israel sees sufficient for its complete withdrawal from Lebanon.

UNIFIL spokesman Alexander Ivanko said the force numbered 4,950 and more UN troops were heading south from Beirut.
Lebanese National News Agency reported that about 150 UN troops and dozens of military vehicles left Beirut on Tuesday for the south to reinforce the peacekeeping mission.

Also on Tuesday, three Spanish warships, within the framework of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), arrived in the southern Lebanese port city of Tyre and were unloaded of military vehicles and logistics.

The reinforcements will help maintain the Aug. 14 ceasefire which halted the war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas.

Israel has said it will complete its withdrawal from south Lebanon once there are at least 5,000 UNIFIL troops on the ground.

Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff Dan Halutz expected on Tuesday that all Israeli troops in south Lebanon would evacuate by Friday.

Fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which broke out on July 12 following the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by the Shiite group, came to an end on Aug. 14 thanks to UN Security Council Resolution 1701.

The resolution calls for Israel's withdrawal and authorizes an increase of the existing UNIFIL to 15,000 troops to help Lebanese troops take control of south Lebanon as Israel withdraws.



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Report: Former IDF commandos secretly trained Kurdish soldiers

Last update - 00:46 20/09/2006 By Reuters

Former Israel Defense Forces commandos secretly trained Kurdish soldiers in Northern Iraq to protect a new international airport and in counter-terrorism operations, the BBC reported on Tuesday.

Former Israeli special forces soldiers crossed into Iraq from Turkey in 2004 to train two sets of Kurdish troops, one of the former Israeli trainers told the BBC's Newsnight program.

The former trainer, whose name was not disclosed, said IDF soldiers trained Kurds to act as a security force for the new airport in the northern Iraqi city of Irbil.
They also trained more than 100 Peshmerga or Kurdish fighters for "special assignments" that included how to use rifles and how to shoot militants in a crowd, he said.

The former soldier said he believed Kurdish officials knew the trainers were Israelis although the troops did not.

"My part of the contract was to train the Kurdish security people for a big airport project and for training, as well as the Peshmerga, and the actual soldiers, the army," the former IDF soldier told Newsnight.

"You know, day by day it's a bit tense because you know where you are and you know who you are. And there's always a chance that you'll get revealed," he added.

Iraqi newspapers have reported that Israeli soldiers have trained Kurdish troops but the Kurdish authorities deny allowing any Israelis into Iraq.

The Kurds' political enemies have long accused them of an alliance with Israel while Israel's critics suspect it wants to use the Kurdish region as a strategic base to get closer to its arch-enemy Iran.

Iraqi Kurdistan sits between Iran to the east and Turkey to the north-west. Both countries have significant Kurd minorities and are worried about a Kurdish state emerging in northern Iraq.

Newsnight also reported that an Israeli security firm called Interop and two Swiss-registered subsidiaries, Kudo and Colosium, were among the main contractors at Irbil airport, providing security fencing and communications equipment.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev told Newsnight Israel had not authorized any firms to do defense work in Iraq. Firms would be prosecuted if police found they had broken export laws, he said.

Khaled Salih, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Regional Government, dismissed the former IDF soldier's claims.

"These are not new allegations for us. Back in the Sixties and Seventies we were called 'the second Israel' in the region and we were supposed to be eliminated by Islamist nationalist and now Islamist groups," he told Newsnight.

The former IDF soldier said he trained Kurds in "anti-terror lessons ... how to shoot first, how to identify a terrorist in a crowd. That's clearly special assignments.

Comment: "How to identify a terrorist in a crowd"??? Along with "how to shoot first"??? Can you see where this is going?

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Speaking the Unspeakable: Can Israeli Survive?

By Richard Reeves
Sep 15th 2006

NEW YORK -- At a book party in New York last Wednesday night, a former newspaperman came up to a Washington Post columnist and said: "So, will there be an Israel in 2020?"

The columnist was Richard Cohen, who was getting holy Internet hell for writing a column, on July 18, that began: "The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. An honest mistake, well-intentioned ... creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims ..."
The point of Cohen's column, "Hunker Down With History," was that this was no time for Israel to try to use military power to regain control of territory it has already given up, the Gaza Strip and the buffer zone in southern Lebanon. It was pertinent analysis by a talented pro-Israel writer. But I'm sure that is not what is being blogged around. One e-mail I read said: "This is the first (current) case of a Jewish pundit desperately trying to feed Israeli Jews to the crocodile in the hope that he will be eaten last."

The man asking the question about 2020 was Peter Osnos, a former foreign correspondent and foreign editor of the Post, who has become an important publishing figure in New York. His tone was light, but he meant it.

"Nobody wants to talk about it, but nothing works anymore for Israel," Osnos said later. "The negotiated settlement narrative that began with Anwar Sadat's visit to Israel in 1977 has been shattered. You have to begin with the demographic facts. Even Israel will have a majority of Arabs within 15 years."

Osnos, who became a vice president of Random House and then founded his own publishing house, Public Affairs, writes his own column, focusing on media coverage of foreign affairs, distributed by the Century Foundation in New York. This is part of what he has written over the past month:

"What we must finally recognize is that the rage of the Middle East -- Arab and Jew, Sunni and Shiite, fundamentalist and pragmatist -- is intractable as other world conflicts are not. ... The historic and political case for Israel's place in the midst of a deeply volatile and insecure region where hundreds of millions are taught to despise it is no different now than it was at the time Israel was created in 1948. ...

"The optimistic view is that Arab pragmatists emboldened (and simultaneously intimidated) by their radical brethren's sense of victory may now be willing again to negotiate broader peace. The pessimists say that Israel is running out of time to secure long-term peace. ... Israel will mark its 60th anniversary in 2008. But it remains surrounded by countries and movements that at worst are sworn to its destruction and at best merely despise it. Nations are not immutable. The Soviet empire marked its 60th anniversary in 1977. Fourteen years later, it was gone, a parenthesis of time in Russian history. ...

"Much of the Western world seems no longer to believe, more than a half-century removed from the Holocaust in Europe, that civilization owes the Jews a homeland anymore. ... The image of Israel has gradually been corroded by the consequences of 40 years of occupation on the West Bank and Gaza. The country is a vibrant democracy with a deeply imbeddded dream of peaceful co-existence with its neighbors. Yet when security and dominance of its borders are at stake, Israel suspends the pleasantries. The image of Israel in the rest of the world focuses on that ferocity."

The bottom line is that, sadly, the survival of Israel depends not on its own valor and might or justice of cause, but on the friendship and support of one friend, the United States. And its friend has made all of these things worse by invading Iraq, spreading ever more chaos and hatred throughout the Muslim world.

Ironically, some of the American planners thought our weapons of shock and awe would make Israel more secure. In fact, our quick-strike aggression has done the opposite, and in many ways. As Osnos pointed out, Israel is richer and stronger, but in terms of security it is no better off than it was in 1948.

Comment: More Israeli propaganda.

This rage is intractable, and the people who put the European Jews into Palestine knew it.

The simple line, containing the simple lie:

"at the time Israel was created in 1948"

belies the fact that Israel was imposed upon the Arabs, counter to agreements made during the Great War of 1914-1918. The Arabs were double-crossed by the British. The Zionist movement put settlers into Palestine, but they were on the verge of failure prior to WW2. Jewish terrorist organizations were armed by the British during the war, and then turned around and used the arms in terrorist acts against them.

The original terrorists in Palestine are the Zionists. They are still the real terrorists. The massacre at Deir Ysin in 1948 was s symbollic act meant to demonstrate to the Arabs that if they didn't leave, they would be killed. Israel was born out of terror and it continues to grow through terror. It is the terrorist state personified.

That terror is now inflicted on other countries, the Western countries that have been its closest friends: the US and Britain. The terrorist Zion will never be satisfied until it has it all.

The leaders of this cancer in the Middle East know that demographics are working against them. They are only too well aware that without massive Jewish immigration, the Arab population will out-number them. Another reason for terror: kill the Arabs so their population doesn't grow; make conditions so onerous and horrific that they will leave.

All the while playing on the guilt they have fostered and manipulated about the treatment of "the Jews" during the Second World War -- as if tens of millions of other people didn't suffer, didn't die, weren't wounded or held in camps. That horror is known as the Second WORLD War, not the Second Jewish War.

Can you see the manipuation? Can you see the tremendous guilt trip the leaders and supporters of Israel are laying on the rest of humanity?

The sick and dreadful irony of it all is that through these means, the same people are enticing Jews from around the world into a single space in which they can all be killed more easily, along with their Arab neighbours, in the war they are provoking.

It should be obvious. The signs are clear. Instead of creating a country were Jews could be safe, they have created a country where they can be more easily slaughtered.

What does that say about the true intentions of the masterminds behind the scheme?


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Pathocrats Against the World


Hungarian leader refuses to bow to rioters

Daniel McLaughlin in Budapest
Wednesday September 20, 2006
The Guardian


- I'm staying and doing my job, says PM
- At least 150 hurt in clashes after economy 'lies' leak

Hungary's prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, refused to step down yesterday, defying rioters whom he condemned for plunging the country into its "longest, darkest night" since the collapse of communism.

At least 150 people were injured when protesters clashed with police and besieged the state TV centre, in a vain bid to broadcast a demand for Mr Gyurcsany's resignation, after he admitted lying about the parlous state of the economy to win re-election in April. Programmes were forced off the air for four hours early yesterday, before police reinforcements with teargas and water cannon restored order in Freedom Square, Budapest, which the television centre shares with the US embassy and the Central Bank.

"We stopped broadcasting at 1.20am when protesters burst through the main doors, and the police asked me to talk to them," said a senior producer, Attila Kert.

"There was no time to be scared. I asked them to leave and told them I couldn't change the government," he said, looking past walls daubed with anti-Gyurcsany slogans and out onto to Freedom Square, where 15 wrecked cars sat amid the shattered glass of the TV station's windows and the cobblestones used to smash them.

Mr Gyurcsany, a former communist youth leader who made a fortune from the privatisations of the 1990s, appealed for calm as journalists surveyed the damage at the smoke-charred TV station.
"Most people could feel nothing else but repulsion, rejection and astonishment at what happened last night," he said. "I ask all Hungarians to not support any illegal acts; to participate in the events as responsible citizens, not as vandals."

Mr Gyurcsany enraged opponents by acknowledging on a leaked recording of a party meeting that the government "lied day and night" to win a second term in office, by covering up the scale of the budget deficit and the cutbacks needed to shrink it.

"You can't show me any significant government measure that we can be proud of," he said on the tape, adding that unpopular reforms such as fees for tuition and health care were now unavoidable. "There is not much choice, because we screwed up. Not a little - a lot. No European country has done something as boneheaded as we have."

The expletive-riddled rant prompted immediate street protests and calls for Mr Gyurcsany's resignation when it was aired on Sunday. He has vowed to stay in power, saying he is proud of the leaked speech because it showed his passion for reform. "I spent three minutes on Sunday night thinking about whether I should step down or whether I had a reason to step down, and the conclusion I came to is that absolutely not," he said yesterday.

"I'm staying and I'm doing my job. I'm extremely committed to fulfilling my programme, fiscal adjustments and reforms. I know it's very difficult for the people, but it's the only direction for Hungary."

The rightwing Fidesz opposition backed down on a threat to boycott yesterday's parliament session, but is still demanding the resignation of Mr Gyurcsany, who has led a Socialist revival since taking control of the party in 2004.

Fidesz supporters were among several thousand demonstrators who gathered yesterday outside a heavily guarded parliament, where they placed a small wooden coffin next to a sign saying: "We will bury the government of Gyurcsany!" Several protesters said the demonstration would continue at least until Thursday's planned student march against tuition fees, while a few pitched tents and vowed to stay put until they dislodged their Socialist prime minister.

"They insulted us. That is why we are here," said Balint Pethes, 27, as he waved a Hungarian flag in the steady rain. We are going to stay here until he resigns."

Another protester added: "Tomorrow twice as many people will come, nothing like this has happened since 1956 [the year of the failed uprising against Soviet rule, which will be commemorated next month]."

But as he surveyed the damage at the TV station, Mr Kert refused to compare the heroes of 1956 revolution with the "rabble" he confronted yesterday.



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Clashes in Budapest as crowds call for PM to quit

Tuesday September 19, 2006
The Guardian

Demonstrators try to storm the headquarters of Hungarian state television in Budapest. Photograph: Bela Szandelszky/AP
Demonstrators try to storm the headquarters of Hungarian state television in Budapest.

Protests against the Hungarian government turned violent last night as police used water cannon and tear gas on crowds demanding the resignation of prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany after he admitted his government had lied repeatedly about the state of the economy.

The second day of protests had been peaceful until late last night when cars were set alight by protesters who marched to the nearby headquarters of state television, intent on airing their demands.


The crowds - dozens of mostly young men - stormed the building's main entrance and it was later reported that it had been damaged by fire. A stone memorial to the Soviet troops who drove the Nazis from Hungary at the end of the second world war was also vandalised.

President Laszlo Solyom said there was a "moral crisis" in Hungary and called on Mr Gyurcsany to recognise that he had jeopardised people's faith in democracy.

In a recording made in May and leaked on Sunday, Mr Gyurcsany told deputies of his Socialist party that they had "screwed up", adding: "It's obvious that we lied throughout the last year-and-a-half, two years. It was totally clear that what we are saying is not true."

Mr Gyurcsany also said that Hungary had managed to keep its economy afloat only thanks to "divine providence, the abundance of cash in the world economy and hundreds of tricks".

Leaders of other parliamentary groups Fidesz and the Christian Democratic People's party said Hungary's democracy was in an "unprecedented crisis" and that they would use all constitutional means available to oust Mr Gyurcsany.

On Sunday the prime minister said that his speech to party members after leading the government coalition to victory in April's elections was meant to warn them about the depth of the problems and the urgent need for reforms.

Before travelling to Russia for a meeting with President Vladimir Putin, Mr Gyurcsany reiterated yesterday on state television that he had no intention of resigning. The Socialist party leadership expressed its support for him.



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Coup as army seizes power in Thailand

Wednesday September 20, 2006
The Guardian

Tanks on streets, martial law imposed

The Thai army has sent in tanks and troops to take control of the government offices in Bangkok.
Thailand's army has sent tanks and troops to take control of the government offices in Bangkok.


Thailand was thrown into turmoil and martial law yesterday when the army sent tanks and troops into the capital to wrest power from the prime minister, Thaksin Shinawatra, as he attended the United Nations general assembly in New York.

In the first military intervention for 15 years in the notoriously coup-prone country, the army threw a cordon of tanks round the government offices in Bangkok, seized control of television stations, and revoked the constitution. The coup leaders ordered all soldiers not involved to remain in their barracks. Hundreds of troops were deployed at crossroads and outside hotels and near the royal palace.


The coup met no resistance and went largely unnoticed in the districts popular with tourists. But street hawkers, fearful of trouble, packed up their wares and headed home early.

The army declared today a holiday and announced that the country's stock market, banks and schools would all be closed. Senior civil servants, the heads of state agencies and the directors of universities in the Bangkok metropolitan area were also summoned to report to the leadership council this morning.

Army officers said the coup had been organised by the commander-in-chief, General Sondhi Boonyaratkalin. It was reported to have been carried out by troops moved from the western province of Kanchanaburi.

Political unrest has been growing in Thailand since Mr Thaksin, democratically elected in 2001, ignited a row in January when he sold a family stake in a telecoms firm. Faced with mass protests amid allegations of corruption and abuse of power, he held a snap election in April but the constitutional court annulled it and called for a new election later this year.

Although a spokesman for Mr Thaksin insisted that the government remained in control, the prime minister cancelled the speech he was to give to the UN last night and it was not clear when he would return to Thailand.

An army spokesman, Colonel Akara Chitroj, said last night: "The government is no longer administering the country. I think Thaksin will not return to Thailand for the time being." The coup leaders last night met King Bhumibol Adulyadej, a revered figure in the country.

The army, in an announcement carried by TV and radio, declared that a "council of administrative reform" had been established, and apologised to the public for "any inconvenience".

Soldiers arrested the deputy prime minister and the defence minister.

Mr Thaksin, in a show of bravado from New York, declared a state of emergency and sacked Gen Sondhi. The prime minister had warned in August that military officers were plotting his overthrow.

Kenneth Bailes, a US state department spokesman, said: "We look to the Thai people to resolve their political differences in a peaceful manner and in accord with the principles of democracy and the rule of law."

Lt Gen Prapart Sakuntanak, on behalf of the coup leaders, promised the takeover would be temporary and power would be "returned to the people" soon.

Last night the Foreign Office was not advising visitors to leave Thailand or cancel trips. It said: "If you intend to travel to or are currently in Bangkok, you should monitor all available information on the local situation. You should also avoid any demonstrations and large crowds. Movements around government buildings and in public may be restricted until the situation becomes clearer."

Among the thousands of Britons in the country are 800 with Thomas Cook. "There is no effect in the main holiday resorts and no apparent threat to tourists," the firm said last night.





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Hungarian police clash with protesters in Budapest

www.chinaview.cn 2006-09-20 12:41:39

BUDAPEST, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Hungarian police early on Wednesday clashed with bottle-hurling demonstrators demanding the prime minister's resignation following the second night of violence in the capital.
Demonstrators torched several police cars and rubbish bins, and a total of 50 people were injured, including a policeman, the state MTI news agency reported.

The latest violence came after hundreds of angry protestors vandalized part of the state television building and more than 10,000 others demonstrated outside the parliament, where an estimated 1,000 policemen were deployed to keep order.

The two-day unrest was triggered by a leaked May recording of Prime Minister Ferenc Gyurcsany's admission that the government had lied to the public about the state of the economy for the past 18 months, in a bid to win the April general election.

The incident sparked riots early on Tuesday, leaving around 150 people injured.

Angry protesters took to streets, asking for the resignation of the prime minister, who steadfastly rejected their demand.



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Thai election next year, coup leader says

Last Updated Wed, 20 Sep 2006 08:44:27 EDT
CBC News

A general election in Thailand won't be held until October 2007 because it will take a year to write a new constitution, the general who led a bloodless military coup there said Wednesday.
Gen. Sondhi Boonyaratglin told a news conference in Bangkok that a new, temporary constitution would be enacted within two weeks.

Sondhi said he will act as prime minister until a leader "who is neutral and upholds democracy" can be found. He said the new government has no plans to stay in power for more than a year.

"It will take a year to draft a new constitution," he said.

After the Thai people vote on the new constitution through a referendum, he said, a general election would follow.

The coup, the country's first in 15 years, was launched late Tuesday while Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra was in New York ahead of a scheduled address this week at the United Nations, an address that was later cancelled.

"I am the one who decided to stage the coup. No one supported me," Sondhi said.

The comment was interpreted to mean that Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej did not instruct him to oust Thaksin.

Immediately following the coup, martial law was put in place and Sondhi declared that the provisional authority would be loyal to the Thai king. Government offices, banks, schools and the stock market were closed on Wednesday. Television and radio stations were seized.

Sondhi said the coup was necessary to heal rifts within Thailand and restore the country to a more normal state.

Asked about corruption in the previous government, he said: "Those who have committed wrongdoings have to be prosecuted according to the law."

The coup, executed without a single shot being fired, began late Tuesday when tanks rolled through the capital's commercial district and surrounded government headquarters. Soldiers quickly seized control of the television stations.

Sondhi, 59, was selected last year to head the army partly because it was felt he was the best commander to deal with Muslim insurgents in southern Thailand.

Thaksin is expected to arrive in London for a private visit on Wednesday, according to the British foreign office. His daughter Pinthongta is a student in London and Thaksin is believed to own property in the city.



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In the Skies and On the Ground


New Evidence Links Stellar Remains To Oldest Recorded Supernova

by Staff Writers
Cambridge MA (SPX) Sep 19, 2006

Recent observations have uncovered evidence that helps to confirm the identification of the remains of one of the earliest stellar explosions recorded by humans. The new study shows that the supernova remnant RCW 86 is much younger than previously thought.

As such, the formation of the remnant appears to coincide with a supernova observed by Chinese astronomers in 185 A.D. The study used data from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton Observatory,
"There have been previous suggestions that RCW 86 is the remains of the supernova from 185 A.D.," said Jacco Vink of University of Utrecht, the Netherlands, and lead author of the study. "These new X-ray data greatly strengthen the case."

When a massive star runs out of fuel, it collapses on itself, creating a supernova that can outshine an entire galaxy. The intense explosion hurls the outer layers of the star into space and produces powerful shock waves. The remains of the star and the material it encounters are heated to millions of degrees and can emit intense X-ray radiation for thousands of years.

In their stellar forensic work, Vink and colleagues studied the debris in RCW 86 to estimate when its progenitor star originally exploded. They calculated how quickly the shocked, or energized, shell is moving in RCW 86, by studying one part of the remnant. They combined this expansion velocity with the size of the remnant and a basic understanding of how supernovas expand to estimate the age of RCW 86.

"Our new calculations tell us the remnant is about 2,000 years old," said Aya Bamba, a coauthor from the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research (RIKEN), Japan. "Previously astronomers had estimated an age of 10,000 years."

The younger age for RCW 86 may explain an astronomical event observed almost 2000 years ago. In 185 AD, Chinese astronomers (and possibly the Romans) recorded the appearance of a new bright star. The Chinese noted that it sparkled like a star and did not appear to move in the sky, arguing against it being a comet. Also, the observers noticed that the star took about eight months to fade, consistent with modern observations of supernovas.

RCW 86 had previously been suggested as the remnant from the 185 AD event, based on the historical records of the object's position. However, uncertainties about the age provided significant doubt about the association.

"Before this work I had doubts myself about the link, but our study indicates that the age of RCW 86 matches that of the oldest known supernova explosion in recorded history," said Vink. "Astronomers are used to referencing results from 5 or 10 years ago, so it's remarkable that we can build upon work from nearly 2000 years ago."

The smaller age estimate for the remnant follows directly from a higher expansion velocity. By examining the energy distribution of the X-rays, a technique known as spectroscopy, the team found most of the X-ray emission was caused by high-energy electrons moving through a magnetic field. This is a well-known process that normally gives rise to low-energy radio emission. However, only very high shock velocities can accelerate the electrons to such high energies that X-ray radiation is emitted.

"The energies reached in this supernova remnant are extremely high," said Andrei Bykov, another team member from the Ioffe Institute, St. Peterburg, Russia. "In fact, the particle energies are greater than what can be achieved by the most modern particle accelerators."

The difference in age estimates for RCW 86 is due to differences in expansion velocities measured for the supernova remnant. The authors speculate that these variations arise because RCW 86 is expanding into an irregular bubble blown by a wind from the progenitor star before it exploded. In some directions, the shock wave has encountered a dense region outside the bubble and slowed down, whereas in other regions the shock remains inside the bubble and is still moving rapidly. These regions give the most accurate estimate of the age.

The study describing these results appeared in the Sepember 1 issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, Ala., manages the Chandra program for the agency's Science Mission Directorate. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Cambridge, Mass., controls science and flight operations from the Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass. XMM-Newton is an European Space Agency science mission managed at the European Space Research and Technology Centre, Noordwijk, the Netherlands for the Directorate of the Scientific Programme.



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New debris spotted near shuttle Atlantis

Last Updated: Wednesday, September 20, 2006 | 9:00 AM ET
CBC News

Astronauts reported seeing three more pieces of debris floating outside the shuttle Atlantis on Wednesday.

A day earlier, NASA officials postponed the shuttle's planned return to Earth after astronauts spotted two other mysterious objects floating near the craft.


Atlantis commander Brent Jett described the newest objects as two rings and a piece of fabric. He told mission control the first object, about 30 metres from the shuttle, was "a reflective cloth or a mechanic looking-cloth ... It's not a solid metal structure."

"It doesn't look like anything I've seen outside the shuttle," Jett said.

He suggested the three objects might have come from the Russian Soyuz vehicle, which docked with the international space station early Wednesday.

The astronauts are continuing to inspect the shuttle's heat shield for damage. They're using a boom equipped with cameras and sensors, attached to the craft's robotic arm.

Atlantis flight director Steve Stitch said all appears normal and, "so far, the inspections are going well."

Stitch said it's common to see pieces of floating debris when astronauts open the payload bay doors at the beginning of the mission, although "it is a little bit unusual to maybe see objects this late in the mission."

Stitch said there are two windows of opportunity for the shuttle to land on Thursday: 6:21 a.m. ET and 7:51 a.m. ET.

"The forecast for tomorrow looks very good," he said.

Col. Chris Hadfield, a Canadian who took part in two previous shuttle missions, said objects floating in the blackness of space stand out when they catch the sunlight.

"It's a little bit the case of the more you look at something, the more you see," he said, adding that he'd seen space debris during both of his missions.

Hadfield said the current mission's astronauts are confident in the health of the shuttle, and are pleased to have an extra day in space.

"We're all very sure this little piece of stuff floating is just normal operations for a vehicle as big and complex and multi-faceted as the shuttle," he said.



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Rising incidence of birth defects in China rings alarm

www.chinaview.cn 2006-09-20 16:03:11

HANGZHOU, Sept. 20 (Xinhua) -- Rising numbers of birth defects in parts of China have sparked a debate on the resumption of compulsory pre-marital health checks and calls for more research into the causes.
Figures released by Zhejiang and Guangdong provinces in advance of the publication of national figures by the Ministry of Health next week show alarming rises in the number of birth defects.

In Zhejiang, the incidence of babies with birth defects was 1.15 percent in 2003 -- the year compulsory pre-marital health checks were scrapped -- rising to 1.33 percent in 2004 and 1.47 percent last year.

About 480,000 babies are born in Zhejiang each year, which means about 7,200 babies were born with defects in 2005.

In the southern province of Guangdong, the incidence has risen from 0.96 percent ten years ago to 2.12 percent today.

In Shanghai, birth defects have been reported as the top killer of babies for the past 10 years.

Cleft palette, neural tube defects, hyperdactylia (excessive numbers of fingers or toes), congenital heart disease and hydrocephalus (water on the brain) are the top five birth defects among Chinese babies.

Experts said hereditary diseases, viral infections, environmental pollution, unhealthy lifestyles and poor nutrition were among the main known causes.

Duan Tao, deputy head of the No. 1 Maternity and Children Care Center affiliated to the Tongji University in Shanghai, said the treatment of chronic diseases, the prohibition of marriage between close relatives and discouraging pregnant women from drinking alcohol and smoking could help reduce birth defects.

Pre-marital tests could also prevent the transmission of hereditary diseases and pre-pregnancy health checks could detect viruses that caused birth defects, said Gu Peibao, an obstetrician at Zhejiang Maternal and Children Health Hospital.

"Some would-be parents pay more attention to smoking and drinking and even avoid living in newly-renovated apartments, but forget or ignore pre-marital tests," Gu said.

The number of would-be couples undergoing the checks has dropped drastically since they were made optional in 2003, after previously being a legal prerequisite for obtaining a marriage license.

Pan Guiyu, deputy director of the State Population and Family Planning Commission, called for the resumption of compulsory pre-marital tests, saying their cancellation in 2003 was a major cause of the rise in birth detects and could affect the "quality" of the population.

To reverse the situation, some local health authorities have begun providing free pre-marital tests to encourage more people to go through the health check, but the outcome was not promising.

However, some experts argued it was uncertain if lack of pre-marital tests had significantly contributed to the rising incidence of birth defects.

"Currently we have no concise figures to support this claim, so the resumption of compulsory pre-marital tests needs more consideration," said Ma Huaide, professor of the China University of Political Science and Law, in an interview with major Chinese Internet portal Sina.com.

According to professor Wang Yifei, of the Shanghai Jiaotong University, 50 to 60 percent of birth defects in humans occurred for no obvious reason.

Chromosomal abnormality contributed to six to seven percent, genetic mutation contributed seven to eight percent, environmental factors seven to 10 percent and the comprehensive effect of hereditary and environmental factors 20 to 25 percent, according to a research revealed by Wang.

He called for the establishment of a monitoring system on birth defects in China linked with international network, while stepping up research on hereditary and environmental factors.

China has about one million to 1.2 million babies born with defects each year, accounting for four to six percent of births, latest official figures show.

Birth defects, also called congenital anomalies, are a major cause of infant mortality and childhood morbidity, affecting two to three percent of all babies around the globe, according to the World Health Organization.

In countries where infant mortality has been reduced to less than 50 per 1,000 births, birth defects are emerging as the most common cause of neonatal deaths. These deaths account for 30 to 50 percent of perinatal mortality and 20 to 30 percent of infant mortality, according to figures released at the second International Conference on Birth Defects and Disabilities in the Developing World held in September 2005.

Reducing mortality by two-thirds among children under five has been set by the United Nations as one of the eight Millennium Development Goals, all 191 U.N. member nations have agreed to meet this goal by 2015.



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Air Pollution Linked to Lung Cancer

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter
Mon Sep 18, 2006

A study of Texas residents suggests that tiny metallic bits of air pollution could account for some cases of lung cancer.

The researchers aren't sure exactly how dangerous the particles are, nor do they fully understand their potential relationship to tobacco smoke.

Still, "It's disturbing that there might be something in the environment causing the problem," said study author Dr. Yvonne Coyle, an associate professor of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas. "It could be these metals, and we need to look at that further."
According to Coyle, 10 percent to 15 percent of lung cancer cases occur among nonsmokers. One possible explanation: Inhalation of air pollution, especially fine particulate matter -- bits of metal that are too small to be seen with the naked eye but can still enter the lungs.

Mining, smelting and petroleum production all produce this type of pollution, Coyle said, as can motor vehicle exhaust.

But while air pollution has been directly linked to respiratory disorders and heart disease, its role in lung cancer is still under debate.

In the new study, Coyle and her colleagues tried to determine if exposure to metallic bits of air pollution was associated with higher levels of lung cancer. To find the answer, they compared lung cancer rates in 254 Texas counties from 1995-2000 to federal reports that companies filed when they released pollution between 1988 and 2000.

The researchers found an "association" between various types of lung cancer and releases of zinc, chromium and copper. When the study results were adjusted to take into account the effects of factors such as gender and race, zinc was still linked to lung cancer.

The findings of the federally funded study appear in the September issue of the Journal of Thoracic Oncology.

The study doesn't say how much more likely it is for people to develop lung cancer if they're exposed to higher levels of the pollutants.

Also, the role of smoking is unclear because the county-by-county statistics didn't reveal whether the individual lung cancer patients smoked. However, Coyle said smoking levels were consistent across the counties studied.

More research needs to be done to confirm the results and "determine who is at the greatest risk, given this exposure," Coyle said.

Dr. Michael Thun, head of epidemiologic research for the
American Cancer Society, suggested that the value of the study is limited because it didn't take into account smoking by the lung cancer patients.

"It's clear that smoking is such a powerful cause of lung cancer that it's very difficult in wealthy countries to identify any separate contributions from air pollution," Thun said. "It's extremely hard to measure, and this study doesn't solve that problem."



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Scientists shocked as Arctic polar route emerges

AFP
Wed Sep 20, 2006

PARIS - European scientists voiced shock as they showed pictures which showed Arctic ice cover had disappeared so much last month that a ship could sail unhindered from Europe's most northerly outpost to the North Pole itself.

The satellite images were acquired from August 23 to 25 by instruments aboard Envisat and EOS Aqua, two satellites operated by the European Space Agency (ESA).

Perennial sea ice -- thick ice that is normally present year-round and is not affected by the Arctic summer -- had disappeared over an area bigger than the British Isles, ESA said.
Vast patches of ice-free sea stretched north of Svalbard, an archipelago lying midway between Norway and the North Ple, and extended deep into the Russian Arctic, all the way to the North Pole, the agency said in a press release.

"This situation is unlike anything observed in previous record low-ice seasons," said Mark Drinkwater of ESA's Oceans/Ice Unit.

"It is highly imaginable that a ship could have passed from Spitzbergen or Northern Siberia through what is normally pack ice to reach the North Pole without difficulty."

Spitzbergen is one of the Svalbard islands, which are Norwegian.

Drinkwater added: "If this anomaly continues, the Northeast Passage, or 'Northern Sea Route' between Europe and Asia will be open over longer intervals of time, and it is conceivable we might see attempts at sailing around the world directly across the summer Arctic Ocean within the next 10 to 20 years."

The images are for late summer. In the last weeks, what was open water has begun to freeze, as the autumn air temperatures over the Arctic begin to fall, ESA said.

Regular satellite monitoring over the last 25 years shows that the northern polar ice cover has shrunk and thinned as global temperatures have risen.

But this year's images are unprecedented, and fierce storms that fragmented and scattered already thin pack ice may be to blame, the scientists believe.

The images were released less than a week after a paper, published in the US journal Science, found that year-round sea ice in the Arctic shrank by one seventh between 2004 and 2005.

Loss of sea ice does not affect global sea levels. Ice that floats in the water displaces its own volume.

However ice that is on land, as an icesheet, glacier or permanent snowcap, adds to sea level when it melts and runs off.

Retreating ice cover also creates a vicious circle, adding to the warming caused by greenhouse gases -- carbon emissions, mainly from fossil fuels, that trap the Sun's heat.

Ice, being white, reflects the Sun's rays. Less ice therefore means the sea warms, which in turn accelerates the shrinkage.

The shrinkage of the Arctic icecap is viewed with alarm by scientists, as it appears to perturb important ocean currents elsewhere, notably the Gulf Stream, which gives western Europe its balmy climate.

It also threaten animals such as polar bears and seals that depend on ice.

There are geopolitical implications, too, as Canada, Russia and the United States jockey to claim rights over transpolar passages that open up within their newly ice-free waters.



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Re-electing George


Video: CNN demonstrates e-vote hacks to tilt midterms

Monday September 18, 2006
Raw Story

CNN explores the possibility of midterm e-vote hacks in the following video clips. In one clip, investigators demonstrate that a single hacker could use a virus to infect large numbers of electronic voting machines.

The Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University has studied the security of one popular electronic voting machine produced by Diebold. The study, titled "Security Analysis of the Diebold AccuVote-TS Voting Machine", located serious security flaws "that undermine the accuracy and credibility of the vote counts".

The Center for Information Technology Policy's website contains the full report, as well as a comprehensive video demonstration a Diebold Accuvote-TS voting machine hack.






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Propaganda Alert! Bush approval rating rebounds in new poll

Reuters
Tue Sep 19, 2006

WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush's approval rating has rebounded to 44 percent, the highest level in a year, in the latest USA TODAY/Gallup Poll, the newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Bush's approval rating jumped five points from 39 percent in the previous poll conducted earlier this month.

The bounce comes with seven weeks before elections to deicide control of Congress amid falling gas prices and a renewed campaign by Bush to boost support for the Iraq war and to portray Republicans as more competent than Democrats on security, the newspaper said.
Bush's approval rating edged up largely on the strength of Republicans coming back to the fold with 86 percent saying they support him now, compared to 70 percent in May, USA Today said.

For the first time since December 2005, a majority of people polled did not say the war in Iraq was a mistake. The respondents were evenly split at 49 percent to 49 percent, the report said.

However, the poll finds that the Iraq war continues to be a problem for Bush. Sixty percent said he does not have a clear plan for handling Iraq and 75 percent said Iraq is in a civil war, USA Today said.

The telephone poll of 1,003 people was conducted September 15-17, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.



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Using Christ's Name in Vain


Church experts say Pope is 'unrepentant'

Thisislondon.co.uk
19/09/2006

Pope Benedict XVI has been on the defensive over the past 24 hours, apologising for the misinterpretation of his speech, the violent reaction to it and has said that the words he quoted did not reflect his own opinion.

But today Church experts have claimed that, far from having made a mistake, it is extremely unlikely that the Pope would have inflamed the feelings of so many Muslims without realising what he was doing.

The Pope on Sunday said he was deeply sorry Muslims had been offended by his use of a mediaeval quotation on Islam and violence, but his words failed to quell the fury of some Islamic groups demanding a full apology.

In the speech, the Pope referred to criticism of the Prophet Mohammad by 14th century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Palaeologus. The emperor said everything the Prophet Mohammad brought was evil "such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached".

Marco Politi, Vatican Expert at La Republicca newspaper, begs to differ. He wrote: "The debacle into which the Holy See has fallen after [the Pope's] speech at the University of Regensburg ... is much more than an accident of communication."

He went on to add that the speech had set back a quarter of a century of efforts by his predecessor John Paul II to improve ties with Islam: "The unhappy anti-Mohammed quotation, followed by the violent reaction of the Islamic world and the bitter indignation of moderate European Muslims, has brought violently to light the rupture completed by the Pope with the strategy conducted for more than two decades with success by John Paul II."

The Pope on Sunday said the quotation did not represent his personal views. But the use of the quotation at all was seen by some Muslims as deeply offensive and some Church experts warned of a breakdown in relations with Islam.

Writing in the Turin newspaper La Stampa, Gian Enrico Rusconi, a professor at Turin University, said the consequences of the speech "signal an irreversible break not only in relations between Islam and the Catholic Church but also of the very image of the Pope in the West."

John Paul, who died last year, was the first Pope to visit a mosque. He travelled to a number of predominantly Muslim countries and welcomed a string of Islamic religious and political leaders to the Vatican during his 27-year-long papacy.

Pope Benedict, however, has indicated that he would not be following his predecessor's example. Politi said: "At his inaugural mass as Pope, Benedict XVI cut out any reference to a fraternal relationship" with Islam.

Last February, Benedict removed the president of the Vatican department for dialogue with Islam and merged it with the Vatican's culture ministry. Archbishop Michael Fitzgerald, one of the Church's most experienced hands at dialogue with Muslims, was sent to Cairo in what was widely seen a demotion.



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Fox launches Christian film wing

Wednesday, 20 September 2006, 11:53 GMT 12:53 UK

Christians in America are the target of FoxFaith, a home video label devoted to the country's church-going audience.
Encouraged by the box-office success of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, the 20th Century Fox unit will acquire Christian-themed films for DVD release.

It will also market the cinema release of up to 12 films a year through a deal with US distributor The Bigger Picture.

"We saw an opportunity to fill a need in an underserved market," said a 20th Century Fox spokesman.

The initiative will begin on 6 October with the release of Love's Abiding Joy - a western directed by Michael Landon Jr, son of the Little House on the Prairie star - in 250 cinemas.

Religious themes

The film explores the notion that some early American pioneers drew on their faith to help them survive the hardships of frontier life.

It is one of several films with religious themes hoping to tap into the audience that helped Gibson's retelling of the crucifixion story make more than $600m (£318m) worldwide.

They include Facing the Giants, a sports film about a struggling high school football team, and The Nativity Story, scheduled for US release in December.

A big-budget film version of Milton's epic poem Paradise Lost is also in the pipeline.



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Birth Pangs of a New Christian Zionism

Max Blumenthal

Over the past months, the White House has convened a series of off-the-record meetings about its policies in the Middle East with leaders of Christians United for Israel (CUFI), a newly formed political organization that tells its members that supporting Israel's expansionist policies is "a biblical imperative." CUFI's Washington lobbyist, David Brog, told me that during the meetings, CUFI representatives pressed White House officials to adopt a more confrontational posture toward Iran, refuse aid to the Palestinians and give Israel a free hand as it ramped up its military conflict with Hezbollah.

The White House instructed Brog not to reveal the names of officials he met with, Brog said.
CUFI's advice to the Bush Administration reflects the Armageddon-based foreign-policy views of its founder, John Hagee. Hagee is a fire-and-brimstone preacher from San Antonio who commands the nearly 18,000-member Cornerstone Church and hosts a major TV ministry where he explains to millions of viewers how the end times will unfold. He is also the author of numerous bestselling pulp-prophecy books, like his recent Jerusalem Countdown, in which he cites various unnamed Israeli intelligence sources to claim that Iran is producing nuclear "suitcase bombs." The only way to defeat the Iranian evildoers, he says, is a full-scale military assault.

"The coming nuclear showdown with Iran is a certainty," Hagee wrote this year in the Pentecostal magazine Charisma. "Israel and America must confront Iran's nuclear ability and willingness to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons. For Israel to wait is to risk committing national suicide."

Despite his penchant for extreme rhetoric, or perhaps because of it, Hagee endeared himself to key members of the Israeli right. With the help of former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who once spoke at a massive pro-Israel fundraiser at Cornerstone Church, Hagee has raised at least $8.5 million for Israeli social work projects. And as a result of Hagee's influence in the Lone Star State, reflected by his enormous wealth--he reportedly rakes in more than $1 million a year from his television ministry--and his close relationship with the previously omnipotent and now disgraced former House majority leader Tom DeLay, Washington's Republican leadership is just a phone call away.

Hagee recently united America's largest Christian Zionist congregations and some of the movement's most prominent figures--including the Rev. Jerry Falwell, Gary Bauer and Rod Parsley, an Ohio preacher instrumental in launching Republican Ken Blackwell's gubernatorial campaign--under the banner of CUFI, creating the first and only nationwide evangelical political organization dedicated to supporting Israel. Hagee says he would like to see CUFI become "the Christian version of AIPAC," referring to the vaunted pro-Israel group rated second only to the National Rifle Association as the most effective lobby in Washington.

But while Hagee is the public face of CUFI, he remains tethered to his ministry in the Texas plains, far from the wheeling and dealing of inside-the-Beltway culture. To advance his agenda on the Hill, Hagee has tapped David Brog, a seasoned and articulate lawyer who has been Republican Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter's chief of staff, and who boasts myriad connections in Republican Washington. Besides Brog's political acumen, there was another characteristic Hagee found appealing: He is Jewish.

"I think while there are some differences between us as far as our religious views," Brog told me about Hagee, "what matters more, and what is of much deeper significance, is everything that we share. We share a love for Israel and a love for America. And we share an understanding of the war on radical Islamic terror, and that makes us brothers."

As Hagee's political point man, Brog has instantly emerged as an important operative on the Christian right and an effective advocate shielding the movement from institutional Jewish criticism whenever an evangelical leader makes a gaffe. After a series of wildly impolitic remarks by Pat Robertson, including the suggestion that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's descent into a comatose state was God's punishment for the Gaza withdrawal, Brog used an interview with the conservative National Review to defend Robertson as "a good man." When Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman lambasted the Christian right as a dire threat to America's Jewish community, Brog scolded Foxman in a lengthy Wall Street Journal op-ed. "There are very serious threats facing American Jews today, and they have nothing to do with social conservatives," he wrote.

Brog says he is more comfortable among evangelicals than most Jews, in large part because he shares their viewpoint on social issues like abortion and homosexuality. "I experienced an evolution in my views," Brog explained. "I was a Democrat as late as law school, and when I started off in the political world I was an Arlen Specter Republican. But over the years I've really continued to become more conservative. I don't think my views on social issues line up with those in the Jewish community anymore."

Brog's first major order of business as CUFI's executive director was to preside over its kick-off banquet on July 18, an unqualified success, with more than 3,000 evangelicals packing the Washington Hilton's main ballroom to hear speeches by speakers ranging from Israeli Ambassador Daniel Ayalon to Republican Senators Rick Santorum and Sam Brownback, to Ken Mehlman, the Republican National Committee chairman who has vowed to peel off Jewish voters from the Democratic Party by highlighting the GOP's unwavering support of Israel.

Though CUFI's banquet was planned months in advance, its timing could not have been more opportune, staged as Israel and Hezbollah exchanged their first salvos over Lebanon's southern border. While international diplomats were ratcheting up pressure on the United States to administer a cease-fire, Falwell used his speech at the banquet to issue a stern warning to the White House. "I will rebuke the State Department for any and every time it told Israel to stand down and show restraint," he boomed, sending gales of applause rippling through the packed crowd.

The next day, thousands of attendees of CUFI's banquet fanned out to Congressional offices to lobby lawmakers in support of Israel's military campaign in Lebanon. CUFI's lobbying push coincided with the nearly unanimous passage of an AIPAC-authored House resolution declaring support for Israel. Though CUFI's efforts on the Hill certainly did not hinder support for the resolution, according to Brog, CUFI's impact has been felt "on a more subtle level."

Brog underscored how the latest Middle East crisis has provided a platform for Christian Zionists to exercise their newfound influence: "There is an ongoing debate in Washington over how long to let Israel continue the campaign against Hezbollah--how long will we let Israel fight its war on terror as we fight our own war on terror? And I think the arrival in Washington at that juncture of thousands of Christians who came for one issue and one issue only, to support Israel, sent a very important message to the Administration and the Congress, and I think helped persuade people that they should allow Israel some more time."

M.J. Rosenberg, director of policy analysis for the Israel Policy Forum, a Washington-based group working to restore US support for an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, dismisses the Christian Zionist lobby as a pilot fish alongside the great white shark of AIPAC. "I think that the only effective pro-Israel lobby is the Jewish pro-Israel lobby," Rosenberg told me. "And that's because the right-wing Christians are Republicans. Israel tends to not even be their main issue; they have abortion and gay marriage higher on their radar. What makes the Jewish pro-Israel lobby more influential is that their people give their donations to anyone who is effective on the issue, Democrat or Republican. These people [Christian Zionists] are locked into Republicans."

But Brog maintains that CUFI represents a novel phenomenon in evangelical politicking. Though CUFI's constituency is almost entirely Republican, Brog says the success of its banquet reflects the increasing importance of Israel to evangelical voters. "It took AIPAC over fifteen years to get over 2,000 people to their annual policy conference. The fact that in five months that we got over 3,000 people to our conference and were turning people away--it sent a message. It's one thing to say, 'Hey, I support Israel among the other issues I support.' It's another to cancel your vacation and fly to Washington and say, 'I'm here, I'm a Christian activist and Israel's more important to me than any other issue.' "

Brog has revealed several "meet and greet" sessions between CUFI and the Bush Administration that highlight the elevated importance of Christian Zionism in GOP-dominated Washington. At the White House, Brog and CUFI's representatives have professed their support for Israel's military campaign in Lebanon and, in Brog's words, "spoke to the Administration about Iran and the need to prevent arms from going to Iran and Hamas, and the need not to let any US aid go to Hamas."

Brog explains that CUFI has become a valuable ally of AIPAC, which helps them coordinate lobbying efforts. "They have a great research staff," he said. Brog has also earned the confidence of the Jewish Federation by making sure to elicit the cooperation of its local chapters before initiating a recruitment drive in the federation's area. "I have absolutely no reservation about working with John Hagee," Houston-area Jewish Federation CEO Lee Wunsch told the Jerusalem Post.

AIPAC spokesman Josh Block declined to answer questions about the extent of CUFI's influence. But he offered a positive, if somewhat canned assessment of their lobbying efforts. "That organization is evidence of the broad American support for the US-Israel relationship that exists in every segment of American society," Block told me. "AIPAC welcomes all organizations working to strengthen the bond between the United States and Israel."

But CUFI is not just any pro-Israel organization.

Toward Tribulation

Brog first encountered Hagee in 2005, shortly after Brog left his job as Senator Specter's chief of staff. Both Brog and Hagee happened to be invited by evangelical publishing magnate Steven Strang to speak at an evangelical mega-church's "Night to Honor Israel" in Orlando, Florida. At the time, Brog was "researching" a book he planned to write on evangelical-Jewish relations. "I was just curious," he said, "are these guys really some evil people working for Armageddon as the media portrays them?"

Any concern in Brog's mind that evangelicals harbored nihilistic motives for supporting Israel was dispelled, he says, once he and Hagee sat down and chatted. It was then that Hagee revealed his vision of a massive new Christian Zionist lobbying organization. Brog expressed enthusiasm for Hagee's idea and touted his political experience. Hagee was sold. It was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. "I thought it was the most important thing I could do, not only for Israel but for America," Brog said of his decision to work for the preacher.

A speech in November 2005 by Anti-Defamation League president Abraham Foxman blasting the Christian right as the "key domestic challenge to the American Jewish community" was the moment for Brog's emergence. During the late 1990s, Foxman had heaped praise on Christian Zionists and paid to reprint a pro-Israel op-ed by Ralph Reed as a prominent ad in the New York Times. Foxman's criticism provoked Brog to step forward in his new identity.

In an op-ed article published on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, he wrote: "There is indeed merit to the agenda pursued by Christian conservatives. Evangelical Christians are rock-solid supporters of Israel--a fact that the Jewish community has belatedly begun to acknowledge and appreciate."

Brog's rebuke to Foxman was echoed with a chorus of Christian-right outrage, including a blunt threat from Don Wildmon of the American Family Association. "The more [Foxman] says that 'you people are destroying this country,' " Wildmon said during a radio broadcast, "[the more] some people are going to begin to get fed up with this and say, 'Well, all right then. If that's the way you feel, then we just won't support Israel anymore.' "

Since the controversy stirred up by his comments, Foxman has muted his criticism of the Christian right. Even more, he has offered his qualified acceptance of CUFI. "On the one hand, we need to welcome him. On the other, we need to be cautious about embracing it," Foxman said last month to the Jerusalem Post about Hagee and his organization.

Brog's recently published book, Standing with Israel: Why Christians Support the Jewish State, expands his case for Jewish acceptance of evangelical political goals. Brog told National Review that his book has universal appeal and will help anyone to "better comprehend the birth pangs of what in time will be a very important alliance." The phrase "birth pangs" is clearly understood by evangelicals as a scriptural citation from Matthew 24, which refers to the apocalyptic struggle that will usher in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

Yet the thrust of Brog's arguments is targeted toward a Jewish audience suspicious of evangelical motives. Brog's thesis rests on the premise that while Islamic anti-Semitism poses an existential threat to Jews, Christian anti-Semitism is a bygone phenomenon that died the moment the Allies seized Hitler's bunker.

To explain the psychology of those Jews who think otherwise, Brog invokes the stereotype of the shtetl Jew. "Many in the American Jewish community are also living in the past, stuck in European ghettos," Brog wrote. "In an alternative reality built on traumatic communal memories, millions of Jews continue to crouch, fingers on their triggers, surrounded by bloodthirsty Christians who view them as a replaced, deicide people. Yet the world has changed dramatically in recent decades, and the enemy they fear has long since become a friend." As proof, Brog cited the outpouring of evangelical support for Israel.

Despite his best efforts, Brog remains dogged by questions about evangelical reasons for backing Israel. Hagee has told his supporters that supporting Israel is a "biblical imperative," and proudly pronounces his belief that Israel is the future site of the Rapture. Hagee has even reveled in events that most Israelis would describe as tragic. For instance, in his 1996 book The Beginning of the End, Hagee described the murder of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin as fulfillment of prophecy and suggested admiration for Rabin's assassin, Yigal Amir.

Imagining Amir's mindset as he prepared himself to kill Rabin, Hagee wrote, "Tonight, if God was good, an opportunity would show itself. No longer would Rabin be able to transfer Israeli lands to Palestinians. The damage he'd done in the West Bank and Gaza was enough. Israel had a divine right to the land, and to give it away was an act of treason against Israel and an abomination against God."

More recently, some of Hagee's allies, such as nationally syndicated evangelical radio host Janet Parshall, became ecstatic when Israel and Hezbollah commenced hostilities last month. "These are the times we've been waiting for," Parshall told her listeners in a voice brimming with joy on July 21. "This is straight out of a Sunday school lesson."

Brog dismisses concerns about the Christian Zionists' fixation on end times as a "misreading of Christian theology. "One sign of the Second Coming is that there will be widespread moral decay in society," Brog told me. "If Christians really thought they could speed the Second Coming, then why aren't Christians out there opening brothels and selling drugs? Quite to the contrary and quite to the chagrin of many liberals, they are doing the opposite."

Thanks to Brog's parrying of Jewish criticism and securing the cooperation of major Jewish organizations, his "brother" Hagee faces few repercussions as he prays for Armageddon. With local CUFI chapters growing across the country, a "rapid response network" of thousands of pastors developing, and an open door to the White House, Brog and Hagee are planning for the long term. "We want to speak to Washington and encourage support for Israel whatever the conflict may be," Brog said. He paused, adding, "Provided of course that Israel's cause continues to be just."

But the renewal of the peace process and rolling back the West Bank settlements would be an unjust cause. For Hagee and for CUFI, all roads lead to a "nuclear showdown: with Iran. Diplomacy would only make God angry. As Hagee warns in Jerusalem Countdown, "Those who follow a policy of opposition to God's purposes will receive the swift and severe judgment of God without limitation."



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Moneymen


Yet another reason to never have

Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Dependable Renegade

an MBA President ever, ever, ever again.

When it comes to cheating in graduate school, a new study finds that M.B.A. students are the champs.

A survey of 5,331 students at 32 graduate schools in the United States and Canada found an "alarming" amount of cheating across disciplines, but more among the nation's future business leaders. Fifty-six percent of graduate business students admitted they had cheated at least once in the last year, compared with 47 percent of non-business students.


more here.




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New treasury secretary sticks with the herd

William Keegan
Wednesday September 20, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

It's terrible, is it not, how one year's nice metaphor is the next year's cliche?

Your correspondent has lost count of the number of times in the past seven days that he has heard references to "the elephant in the room".

Well, I have to say there were no elephants in any of the rooms I entered in Singapore over the weekend during the annual meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.
But if I were to be tempted to use that metaphor in the way it is often employed - to denote a discussion topic that is being studiously avoided - I would say that the elephant in the IMF meeting rooms was George Bush, president of the United States.

Ostensibly, the great and the good of the international financial world - given all those "gIobal imbalances" we hear about, I hesitate to call it the international financial system - were gathered together to discuss the outlook for the world economy; evolving changes in the role and power-structure of the IMF; and what the World Bank is up to.

These annual meetings of the Bank and Fund are preceded by other meetings, followed by further meetings, and accompanied by lots of smaller meetings, not to say parties. You could hardly move in Singapore without bumping into delegates who, as they rushed from one party to another, claimed that all the financial "bulls" were ignoring the elephant which, after all, is a far bigger animal.

Mostly, they did not see the elephant as Mr Bush. No, the elephant was, depending on whom you talked to, the threat of protectionism; the impact of even higher oil prices; the terrible things that lay in store for the world economy if the US slowed down dramatically as a result of a collapse in property prices; the growing threat of inflation; and the even worse outlook for inflation if the US Federal Reserve Board were to panic at the first sight of a serious slowdown in the US and cut interest rates while inflation was still not under control.

A veritable, sorry, metaphorical, herd of elephants.

So why did my elephant answer to the call of the name George W Bush? Simple. Let us take the press conference the new US treasury secretary, Henry Paulson, gave on Saturday night, after the meeting of the Group of Seven finance ministers and central bank governors (the group comprising the US, Japan, Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Canada).

This was the first sighting of Mr Paulson at a G7 press conference. His appointment to the top treasury job had been announced in June, and we had been told that this man, who had risen to the top of Goldman Sachs and made over 70 trips to China on the way, was no pushover. His predecessor, the engaging John Snow, had been seen as a cipher, a mere satellite orbiting the White House. Paulson, by contrast was his own man, and would stand up to Mr Bush on issues such as global warming.

So what happens? After a routine summary of the G7 hopes - that rapid world economic growth will continue; that the oil price will stabilise; that central banks will be "vigilant" in the fight against inflation (ie, that interest rates may have to rise further); and that the Doha trade talks will be resumed - Mr Paulson made it clear that what was really on his mind was encouraging his G7 colleagues to impose financial sanctions on Iran.

Well, I spoke to some of Mr Paulson's European counterparts. They are not at all keen on this. They see Mr Paulson as pursuing a White House agenda. As one senior official said: "We are not going to ask our banks to stop financing road building in Iran simply for fear that one day a terrorist may drive along that road."

I think this was a neat way of epitomising the European view of the paranoia being exhibited by Mr Bush and the neocons about Iran. Of course, one day there could be elephants on the roads in Iran.



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Over Russia's Shoulder


At least 11 dead in Ukraine mine blast

Reuters
September 20, 2006

KIEV - An explosion in eastern Ukraine's Donbass coalfield caused by a build-up of gas killed at least 11 miners and 28 are still missing, officials said on Wednesday.

"As of 9.30 a.m. (0630 GMT), 11 bodies have been found and 10 miners are injured," the Emergencies Ministry said in a statement. "The fate of 28 miners is still unknown."
Earlier statements said 172 miners had been evacuated from the Zasyadko mine in Donetsk, the main town in the heart of Donbass. The number of missing had varied from 10 to 39.

Officials said the explosion was caused by a mixture of coal powder and methane.

Accidents are frequent occurrences in Ukraine's coal mines which are plagued by a lack of cash and poor maintenance.

In August 2001, more than 50 miners died in a blast at the Zasyadko mine. A similar blast at the mine in July 2002 killed more than 20.

In post-Soviet Ukraine's largest pit accident, 80 miners died in March 2000 in a coal dust explosion at a colliery near the eastern town of Luhansk.



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Russia, IAEA to Set up International Uranium Enrichment Center

Created: 20.09.2006 10:51 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 10:51 MSK
MosNews

The IAEA supports Russia's proposal to set up an international uranium enrichment center, the head of the UN's nuclear watchdog said Tuesday, RIA Novosti news agency reports.

Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said he had met with Russia's nuclear chief, Sergei Kiriyenko, to discuss the proposal.

He said it was a step in the right direction.

Kiriyenko said Russia and the IAEA would start work immediately on settling up an enrichment center.

He also said such centers could be created in the United States and Germany. "The more centers there are in the world, the better," the Russian nuclear chief said.

Kiriyenko said earlier the Russian uranium enrichment center could be opened at a plant in Angarsk in east Siberia in 2007.

He proposed granting the status of a special zone to the center to ensure legal guarantees for its functioning.

"We should use all ideas and proposals of different countries today," he said.

Kiriyenko also said the center could have an annual reserve of low enriched uranium.

Russian President Vladimir Putin suggested at the beginning of the year that international uranium enrichment centers be set up in Russia, amid international tensions over Iran's nuclear ambitions.

To mark the 50th anniversary in Vienna of the first IAEA conference, Kiriyenko presented ElBaradei with a model of the legendary Soviet nuclear-powered icebreaker Lenin, which was launched in 1959 and decommissioned 30 years later.



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China, Russia Welcome Central Asian Nuclear-free Zone Treaty

Created: 19.09.2006 16:56 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 16:56 MSK
MosNews

Russia and China have expressed their support to the nuclear-weapon-free zone treaty signed by the Central Asian nations Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan, the Xinhua news agency reports.
"The unique feature of the initiative is that the participating states voluntarily relinquished the former Soviet nuclear infrastructure, and that Kazakhstan gave up the fourth largest nuclear arsenal," Kayrat Abusseitov, Kazakhstan's Ambassador to the UN Office in Geneva, told reporters.

The treaty not only prohibits the acquisition of nuclear weapons and of other nuclear explosive devices by the five signatory states, but also prohibits the stationing in the zone of nuclear forces belonging to any country, he said.

According to Abusseitov, the treaty was signed on Sept. 8 in Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, where several hundred Soviet nuclear explosions had been conducted before the closure of the test site 15 years ago.

By signing the treaty, the states reaffirmed their commitment to the principles of disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation, he said.

He said the treaty was also a significant contribution to the international fight against terrorism and the global campaign to prevent nuclear materials and technologies from falling into the hands of terrorist organizations or other non-state actors.

In addition, an important step has been taken to promote the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to rehabilitate the areas contaminated by radioactivity, the ambassador added.

Parliaments of the signatory states are to ratify the treaty within 30 days of its signing.

Russia and China, the two nuclear powers which border on the Central Asia zone, have expressed their support for the treaty, Abusseitov said. However, the United States, Britain and France still have reservations about the treaty.

The parties to this new regional denuclearization agreement intend to negotiate with the nuclear-weapon powers the text of a protocol committing these powers to respect the non-nuclear status of Central Asia and not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against the states of the zone, Abusseitov said.



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Ahmadinejad Speaks his Peace


UN being abused by West: Iran PM

Last Updated Tue, 19 Sep 2006 21:30:25 EDT
CBC News

Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Tuesday the legitimacy of the UN Security Council has been eroded from abuses by the West's most powerful nations.

Ahmadinejad made his comments in a wide-ranging evening address at the 61st UN General Assembly debate in New York, speaking for nearly twice as long as the amount of time set aside for each country.
The controversial leader accused the U.S. and Britain directly of committing acts of "aggression, occupation and violation of international law," and was clearly referring to Israel at other points.

"The abuse of the Security Council, as an instrument of threat and coercion, is indeed a source of grave concern," said Ahmadinejad.

"It must be acknowledged that as long as the council's unable to act on behalf of the entire international community in a transparent, just and democratic manner, it will neither be legitimate or effective," he said later in his 30-minute address.

Iran's president lashed out at the UN for inaction and delay when the Israeli military abducted Palestinian government officials and launched air strikes that ended up killing Lebanese civilians and UN observers.

"When the power behind the atrocities is itself a permanent member of the Security Council, how then can the council fulfill its responsibilities?" he said.

Ahmadinejad, who has previously denied the Holocaust and called for Israel to be wiped off the map, referred to the country on more than one occasion as a "regime" and again spoke of what he said were its illegitmate origins nearly 60 years ago.

On the subject of Iran's nuclear activities, Ahmadinejad said they were "transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eye" of United Nations inspectors. He questioned why his country was being denied its own nuclear program when others have not.

World gripped in 'great ideological struggle' :Bush

Ahmadinejad wasn't at his country's seats hours earlier when U.S. President George W. Bush spoke at the opening session.

Bush said the world was gripped in "a great ideological struggle" between moderates who work for peace and extremists who use terror to achieve their goals.

"Extremists in your midst spread propaganda claiming that the West is engaged in a war against Islam," said Bush.

"This propaganda is false and its purpose is to confuse you and justify acts of terror. We respect Islam."

The president, who is facing unpopular wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and public support hovering around the 40 per cent mark, said positive developments in the area prove that "a more hopeful world is within our reach."

After years of being ruled by dictators and extremists, Afghanistan and Iraq now send democratically elected representatives to the UN session, said Bush.

He addressed criticism that wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have destabilized the region.

"This argument rests on the false assumption that the Middle East was stable to begin with," said Bush. "The stability we thought we saw was a mirage."

Syria, Iran must change ways: Bush

Midway through his 15-minute address, Bush directed his remarks to the people of the Middle East. He told Afghans they won't again be oppressed by extremists and assured Iraqis they won't be abandoned in their struggle to build a free nation.

He praised the Lebanese people for gaining independence, but warned that extremists are undermining the country's newborn democracy by operating as a state within a state.

Bush warned that Syria's increasing closeness with Iran further isolated it on the world stage and advised Iran's rulers to abandon their nuclear weapons ambitions and end their support of terrorism.

Iran, which has defied a UN order to suspend uranium enrichment activities, says its nuclear program is for energy purposes. Washington maintains Tehran is trying to build a nuclear weapon and has said it favours economic sanctions against the country.

Action needed in Darfur

Bush said speedy international action is needed to prevent a worsening of the humanitarian crisis in Darfur.

"The regime in Khartoum is stopping the deployment of this force," Bush said. "If the Sudanese government does not approve this peacekeeping force quickly, the United Nations must act."

With more than 200,000 people already killed in three years of fighting in Darfur and the violence threatening to increase again, Bush said the "credibility of the United Nations is at stake."

He announced that Andrew Natsios, the former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, would become his special envoy for Sudan to help end the fighting.

While the summit brings together close to 80 prime ministers and presidents, a number of leaders have skipped the gathering. The leaders of Russia, Germany, Britain, Egypt and Spain sent their foreign ministers to the meeting.

Each country is given 15 minutes to address the 192-member body on issues it feels are most important.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in his first address to the UN since taking office, will speak on Thursday.



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Ahmadinejad defends Iran's nuclear program

www.chinaview.cn 2006-09-20 14:22:02

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 19 (Xinhua) -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Tuesday defended Iran's nuclear activities, criticized Washington's Middle East policy and called for the reform of the United Nations.
He stated his stance when addressing the UN General Assembly, saying Iran was committed to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and all of Iran's nuclear activities were "transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eyes" of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

To develop a peaceful nuclear program was Iran's "legally recognized right," Ahmadinejad said.

The UN Security Council passed a resolution in July, calling on Iran to suspend the uranium enrichment activities by the end of August. Iran, however, has refused to abide by the resolution, and the United States has since sought UN Security Council sanctions against the Islamic country.

In his speech, Ahmadinejad also criticized Washington for its Middle East policy. "Not a day goes by without hundreds of people getting killed in cold blood," he said, in an apparent reference to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

"There is no indication that the occupiers have the necessary political will to eliminate the sources of instability," said the Iranian leader.

On the Palestine issue, the Iranian president vehemently accused Israel of constantly posing a threat to and creating insecurity in the Middle East region. He also said Israel had been used by some powers as an instrument of division, coercion, and pressure on the people of the region.

On the recent situation in Lebanon, he criticized the Security Council for sitting idly by while the Lebanese had lived under the barrage of fire for over a month.

"The Security Council was practically incapacitated by certain powers to even call for a cease-fire," he said.

On UN reform, Ahmadinejad said the present structure and working methods of the Security Council were "legacies of the Second World War," which "are not responsive to the expectations of the current generation and the contemporary needs of humanity."

"The persistence of some hegemonic powers in imposing their exclusionist policies on international decision making mechanisms, including the Security Council, has resulted in a growing mistrust in global public opinion, undermining the credibility and effectiveness of this most universal system of collective security," he said.

The Iranian president said that the Security Council most critically and urgently needed legitimacy and effectiveness, adding that as long as the council was unable to act on behalf of the entire international community in a transparent, just and democratic manner, it would neither be legitimate nor effective.

The president said the role of the General Assembly, as the UN highest organ, must be respected.

He suggested that through appropriate mechanisms, the General Assembly could take on the task of reforming the UN and particularly rescue the Security Council from its current state.

In the interim, he proposed, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African Continent should each have a representative as a permanent member of the Security Council, with veto privilege.



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Iranian president labels US a lawbreaker

Ed Pilkington in New York
Wednesday September 20, 2006
The Guardian

The intensifying war of words between Iran and the United States reached the floor of the United Nations last night when the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused America and Britain of violating international law.

Mr Ahmadinejad's speech only once directly referred to the United States, but was infused throughout with criticism of the "exclusionist policies" of what he called the "hegemonic power" and its grip over the UN through its membership of the security council.
"The question needs to be asked: if the governments of the United States or the United Kingdom who are permanent members of the security council, commit aggression, occupation and violation of international law, which of the organs of the UN can take them to account?" he said.

Hours earlier, at the same lectern, President George Bush accused the Tehran regime of supporting terrorism. He told the Iranian people that the greatest obstacle to a free future came from their own rulers, who had "chosen to deny you liberty and to use your nation's resources to fund terrorism, and fuel extremism, and pursue nuclear weapons".

Mr Bush has refused to meet the Iranian president this week. The criticism levelled at each other by the two leaders at the general assembly, separated by only seven hours, highlighted the increasingly tense stand-off between the two countries over Iran's nuclear weapons programme.

Mr Ahmadinejad made no reference to Iran's nuclear activities, instead reminding delegates that America had itself used the bomb.

He accused the US of using terrorism as a "pretext for the continued presence of foreign forces in Iraq". He also criticised Washington's support for Israel, and accused the UN security council of sitting "idly by for many days" while atrocities were committed in Lebanon this summer.

In his 15-minute address, President Bush chose to speak over the heads of several world leaders seated before him in the general assembly chamber in New York and address their people directly. He challenged the delegations not just from Iran, but also Syria and Sudan.

He invoked the interests of "ordinary men and women free to determine their own destiny" and expressed his desire for a world in which "the extremists are marginalised by the peaceful majority".

Mr Bush's speech was the last in a series he has given around the fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The addresses were conceived by the White House as an attempt to regain control of the political agenda and steer it away from the troubles in Iraq towards the need to stand firm in the so-called war on terror.

But Mr Bush spoke against a troubled backdrop. Earlier Kofi Annan, making his last speech to the general assembly as UN secretary general before he steps down at the end of this year, painted a grim picture, saying the past 10 years had "not resolved, but sharpened" the problems of an unjust global economy, disorder, and contempt for human rights. "We face a world whose divisions threaten the very notion of an international community upon which this institution stands," he said.

Mr Bush denied that his administration was anti-Muslim and dismissed criticism that US efforts to spread democracy in the region were backfiring. "The reality is that the stability we thought we saw in the Middle East was a mirage. For decades, millions of men and women in the region had been trapped in oppression and hopelessness. And these conditions left a generation disillusioned and made this region a breeding ground for extremism."

Addressing himself "to the people of Iran", he said he admired their rich history and vibrant culture, and said they deserved an opportunity to determine their own future.

Mr Ahmadinejad's aggressive speech adds further heat to the dispute over Iran's nuclear programme that is dominating discussions at the UN. The French president, Jacques Chirac, told the general assembly that "dialogue must prevail. Our goal is not to call regimes into question."

Mr Chirac met Mr Bush yesterday morning in a bridge-building meeting after cracks in their strategy towards Iran appeared to open up. On Monday Mr Chirac, speaking on French radio, took a notably softer stance on the need for Iran to suspend enrichment before talks could begin - a key demand of Washington. The US and British governments have so far been unbending on this condition.

Following their meeting, the US and French leaders insisted their position was united.



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Old Europe


President Bush looms large on French political scene

PARIS, Sept 19, 2006 (AFP)

US President George W. Bush's ability to polarise electorates and political classes has spread to France, where the two leading candidates in the 2007 presidential election are divided in embracing or in despising him.

Ségolène Royal, the leading left-wing contender, on Tuesday taunted her right-wing rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, for meeting Bush in Washington last week.

"When Nicolas Sarkozy aligns himself with George Bush, that means he supports the criterion of preventive war, that means he accepts this theory of a war between good and evil, that he tolerates all these destabilisation attempts in the world," she told LCI television.
She said there was a difference between an "alliance with the Americans" and "alignment" with Bush and his policies.

"My diplomatic position will not consist of going and kneeling down in front of George Bush," she said.

A trailing left-wing presidential hopeful, Laurent Fabius, has also mocked Sarkozy as Bush's "poodle".

Sarkozy's supporters, however, said the meeting showed that Sarkozy, who has unashamedly brandished pro-US credentials, was being taken seriously on the world stage.

The interior minister - who has even called himself 'Sarko the American' - certainly made segments of the US media swoon, especially after a speech in which he lauded the United States and blasted France's "arrogance".

The Washington Times newspaper said he had the "panache of a matinee idol" and saw in him "a new kind of Frenchman", one who would support US policies rather than oppose them.

The New York Daily News said: "Nicolas Sarkozy is determined to save France from its single biggest enemy - the French."

President Jacques Chirac, who has long been unable to control his ambitious interior minister, took umbrage at remarks Sarkozy also made suggesting Chirac went too far in blocking United Nations approval for the US-led war on Iraq in 2003.

On Monday, Chirac - who on Tuesday was to meet Bush himself before the two give separate addresses to the UN General Assembly - said his position has since been validated by the turn of events in Iraq.

"I adopted a stance on Iraq and I have to say that the way things panned out, it certainly didn't go against the stance I took. What I said has been borne out and I remain very pessimistic about Iraq and its future," Chirac told CNN television.

French newspaper Libération said Chirac was convinced that Sarkozy's overtures towards Bush would rile the French public and saw Sarkozy's speech as "irresponsible".

Although Chirac has not ruled out running for a third mandate in the presidential election due next April, at age 73 that looks unlikely.

Sarkozy and Royal, though not yet confirmed candidates, lead the pack of potential contenders. Polls put them neck-and-neck.

The most recent, carried out by the Ipsos institute and published last week, showed Sarkozy would beat Royal 52 percent to 48 percent in a run-off round if the election were held now.

Comment: Segolène Royal, for her part, runs to London to get advice from the man she admires, Tony Blair. Plus ça change....

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String of murder-suicides starts shock wave

GRENOBLE, France, Sept 19, 2006 (AFP)

A Frenchman is thought to have shot dead his three children aged six to 16 before committing suicide, officials said Tuesday, just 24 hours after a similar murder-suicide in northern France.
The children's mother discovered their bullet-ridden bodies alongside that of her husband early Tuesday morning, at their home in the village of Bouge-Chambalud in the southeastern Alps, the local mayor said.

She had spent the night away from home after a fight with her husband, a 43-year-old employee at a local chemicals factory, according to the mayor Jean Villard.

Ballistics experts were sent to the scene of the killing, which the mayor said was apparently linked to the couple's marital problems.

The tragedy comes a day after a similar incident, in which the father of three children, aged nine, six and four, stabbed them to death before hanging himself from a door handle.

The man, a computer technician from the northern town of Tourcoing, was in the process of divorcing his wife. The children had been staying with their father for the weekend.

In a third incident, the popular French daily France Soir reported that a man had shot dead his 10-year-old son before making a botched suicide attempt, in the western Brittany town of Lorient on Sunday.

The man, a Turkish immigrant in his 50s, was recently separated from his wife and had custody of his son for the weekend, the paper said.



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France to amnesty 7,000 immigrant families

PARIS, Sept 18, 2006 (AFP)

French authorities Monday announced an amnesty for 7,000 illegal immigrants with school-age children after a high-profile campaign to block their deportation, but ruled out a blanket amnesty for tens of thousands more.
The figure fell far short of meeting demands of campaigners, who dismissed it as a token gesture and vowed to fight on against plans to expel thousands of families under a toughening of French immigration policy.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy said 6,924 adults - out of 30,000 who applied for the exceptional measure - would be allowed to remain in France with their children, in an interview to be broadcast on France 2 television.

"This is the final figure ... now we will return to the normal procedure," Sarkozy said. He did not say how many people in total - parents plus children - would be affected.

The French authorities agreed in June to examine residency applications from thousands of illegal immigrant families with children in French schools after parents, schoolteachers, rights groups and left-wing politicians mounted a grassroots campaign in their support.

The Education Without Borders Network (RESF) - which led the campaign against their deportation - said the amnesty was a mere "bluff", handled in a "totally arbitrary" manner.

RESF spokeswoman Brigitte Wieser said families were treated on a first come, first served basis, rather than on individual merit.

"This is causing a lot of anger, because people had placed a lot of hope" in the government, she said.

Cimade, an immigrant support group, said it too was "hugely disappointed".

"The number of people to benefit was fixed in advance by the ministry, before the prefectures even started examining the applications," charged the group's secretary-general Laurent Giovanonni.

"This is an electoral choice, not one taken in people's interests," she said.

"It is too little. It's a drop in the ocean," agreed Fidel Nitiema, a spokesman for a group of hundreds of illegal immigrants who were evicted from a squat near Paris last month.

Sarkozy - who has championed a tough line towards France's estimated 200,000 to 400,000 illegal immigrants - conceded that it was "hard to judge" individual cases, but insisted all were given a fair treatment.

"In France, decisions are not arbitrary," he said.

The minister - a frontrunner for next year's presidential elections in which immigration is shaping up as a major issue - repeatedly rejected campaigners' demands for a blanket amnesty.

Because no papers are needed to register a child in a French school, the government argued that to grant residency rights to all such families would create a new channel for immigration.

To qualify, at least one child had to be born in France or have arrived before the age of 13, he or she must have been at school in France for two years, and have no link with their country of origin.

Families also had to show they had "a real will to integrate" with French society, and that their children had stayed out of trouble with the law.

The government has vowed to step up the pace of deportations to 25,000 this year - from 15,000 in 2004 - and recently scrapped the automatic right to residency papers for migrants who have been in the country at least 10 years.

Sarkozy insisted in the interview that blanket immigrant amnesties in other European countries had proved to be a "catastrophe" and had led to "an explosion in demands" for immigration.

Half a million people are to benefit from a Italian amnesty this year, while Spain last year granted residency rights to 580,000 people. Around 80,000 were given residency rights under a previous Socialist government in France.



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Nearly a third of French people are fat: study

PARIS, Sept 19, 2006 (AFP)

Nearly a third of France's population is overweight or obese, and waistlines are continuing to expand, according to a new survey released Tuesday.

The study, titled ObEpi 2006 and carried out by TNS Healthcare Sofres, found that 19.8 million people out of France's population of 63 million were packing excess weight, and that 5.9 million of them were obese - 2.3 million more than nine years ago.
Overall, the trend was slowing, although the figures showed that some segments of the populations were more at risk than others, low-income earners most notably.

"All generations are affected, but we are becoming obese younger and younger, which raises fears of worsening and earlier consequences for the younger generations," said Professor Arnaud Basdevant, a Paris hospital nutritionalist who jointly coordinated the study.

Obesity is a problem for many countries. The World Health Organisation considers it an epidemic.

According to the French survey, obesity afflicted nearly one person in five earning under EUR 34,800 euros per year compared to just one person in 20 earning more than EUR 63,600.

Women appeared to be more affected than men by obesity.

The survey, the fourth in a triennial study that began in 1997, was carried out on 23,747 people aged over 15.

"We are increasingly seeing major forms of obesity, the ones that are most dangerous to health, especially among the young. The health system should prepare to take on more and more grave obseity cases, including those aged over 65," Basdevant said.

He added that obesity multiplied by 10 the risk of diabetes, high blood pressure and other vascular problems.



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