If Rev. Ted Pike is correct, this blog may soon be illegal.
"For the past eight years, the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith has tried unsuccessfully to pass its Orwellian federal 'anti-hate' bill. It has failed largely for one reason: Republican control of Congress," writes Pike. "Repeatedly, Republican opponents of their hate bill, such as Rep. Roy Blunt and Sen. Bill Frist have been able, with Republican congressional backing, to block passage," but now, with Democrats in control of Congress, "such freedom-saving clout no longer exists. ADL's federal thought crimes bill, 'The Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act,' will be reintroduced soon after January 1. Since no Democrat in Congress has ever voted against the hate bill, it will pass."
According to Rabbi David Saperstein of the Interfaith Alliance Foundation, Americans "cannot stand idly by while our brothers and sisters, parents and children, live in fear that racism, bigotry, homophobia, misogyny, and xenophobia continue to go unchecked. We cannot stand idly by while hate crimes destroy the sense of community that we and so many others have worked so hard to build."
According to Saperstein, hate crimes are not restricted to violence. Hate crimes "are more than murders, beatings, and assaults. Hate crimes are nothing less than attacks on those values that are the pillars of our republic and the guarantors of our freedom. They are a betrayal of the promise of America. They erode our national well being. Those who commit these crimes do so fully intending to tear at the too-often frayed threads of diversity that bind us together and make us strong. They seek to divide and conquer. They seek to tear us apart from within, pitting American against American, fomenting violence and civil discord."
If we buy into this line of reasoning, the First Amendment of the Constitution not only allows but encourages hatred and violence. It may soon become a punishable offense to be a racist, bigot, homophobe, misogynist, and xenophobe. As distasteful as these people and their ideas may be, the Bill of Rights protects them, provided they do not engage in violence against other people.
Simply criticizing Israel is now considered anti-Semitic. According to the ADL, the scholarly article criticizing AIPAC, authored by John J. Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, is "a classical conspiratorial anti-Semitic analysis invoking the canards of Jewish power and Jewish control" and "anti-Israel forces will be citing this study for a long time to come."
"It is evident that the fundamental purpose of the scurrilous onslaught on Mearsheimer and Walt is to prevent honest debate," writes Stephen Sniegoski. "As Michael Scheuer, former chief of the CIA's Bin Laden unit who gained the public's attention in 2004 with his condemnation of the Bush war policy in his anonymously authored Imperial Hubris, writes at Antiwar.com: 'Such a response deep-sixes any chance for a substantive debate on the issue at hand, and submerges it in a blizzard of hate speech directed at the authors from prominent Israel-Firsters, those paragons of virtue who are the chief proponents of First-Amendment-destroying laws against hate speech.'"
The lesson provided by the partisans of Israel is that anyone, no matter how scholarly or influential, who aspires to criticize the activities of the Israel lobby will be smeared and perhaps destroyed. That would be powerfully intimidating for anyone, and it would be the kiss of death careerwise for those who did not hold the prestige, credentials, and tenure of a Mearsheimer or a Walt.... One can understand why the partisans of Israel try to suppress criticism using the most outrageous lies - the role of lobbyists is to support the interests of their client by whatever methods they can get away with. It is less easy to understand why the American people, especially "respectable" educated Americans, allow such an inversion of truth to successfully silence discussion. It is especially ironic in light of the fact that respectable Americans forever preach about the value of freedom of expression and profess to be bringing its blessings to the unenlightened in the rest of the world.
In fact, such "inversion of truth" is now commonly employed to "silence discussion," and if the ADL has its way this silence will be legally enforced.
"If we think that to criticize Israeli violence, or to call for economic pressure to be put on the Israeli state to change its policies, is to be 'effectively anti-semitic', we will fail to voice our opposition for fear of being named as part of an anti-semitic enterprise," explains Judith Butler. "What is needed is a public space in which such issues might be thoughtfully debated, and to prevent that space being defined by certain kinds of exclusion and censorship. If one can't voice an objection to violence done by Israel without attracting a charge of anti-semitism, then that charge works to circumscribe the publicly acceptable domain of speech, and to immunize Israeli violence against criticism."
"English-Turkish cyber-hate expert Prof. Yaman Akdeniz, speaking at a B'nai B'rith conference on how to end dissent on the net, rejoices that David Irving is behind bars," writes Pike, never mind that, when it comes to so-called Holocaust deniers, Irving is fairly wishy-washy. "[Akdeniz] said 'continental European countries such as Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Hungary, Austria and Belgium have strong anti-hate laws, which have resulted in the imprisonment of hate-mongers. In Holland, 657 websites were removed. And in Germany, more than 700 hate websites were shut down.'"
Similar behavior was prevented in America, where the Constitution and the Bill of Rights once held sway. However, now that the ADL-friendly Democrats are ruling the roost, we may see America go the way of Europe, eradicating web sites and blogs that not only criticize Israel but also homosexuality and other subjects that often elicit contentious debate. Comment on this Editorial
"I lost my whole family; is there anyone who is still alive? Anyone?" screamed a Palestinian mother from Beit Hanoun as she fell in the arms of her neighbor.
"God is greater than Israel and America," was the echoing cry of tens of thousands of Palestinians, who descended into the graveyard in grief stricken Beit Hanoun, in the northern Gaza Strip. They congregated in yet another familiar scene to bury their loved ones, killed by Israel's brutal war against the Palestinians.
This time, the loss was too great to bear, even by the standards of the people of Gaza: eighteen ambulances lined up, carrying the mutilated bodies of eighteen members of the same extended family, the majority of whom were women and children; all civilians.
"I will avenge; I will avenge," screamed a relative of one of those who died in the Israeli artillery attack on Beit Hanoun, on November 8.
A man initiated the burial ceremony by stepping forward carrying the lifeless body of his one-year-old baby. The tough posture Gaza's men often wish to exhibit was overshadowed by incomprehensive grief; relatives and friends were collapsing in droves; others reached to the sky, in despair.
Only God could hear them now. Two more tiny bodies swaddled in white made their way through the crowd; more followed.
The total number of those killed in the Israeli bombing of the civilian neighborhood rose to 20, adding to over 50 others killed earlier in the same Israeli military assault dubbed "Clouds of Autumn", which converged mainly on Beit Hanoun. The latest two figures are to be included in the overall count of 350 Palestinians killed since last June, in the wider military operation carried out in Gaza and dubbed "Summer Rains".
The numbers are devastating, but the devastation takes on a new dimension when the limbless, maimed, injured, homeless and the forever scarred are factored in. Not that those spared such classifications are better off; since Israel laid its military siege on Gaza - preceded and further cemented by an international economic and diplomatic boycott against the Palestinians and their elected government - Gaza's misery grows perpetually.
First came the darkness - after the Israeli army bombed the strip's primary power generator - then, poverty augmented, following the intricate plot to impoverish, thus topple the government (Israel refused to hand over tax revenues it collected on behalf of the Palestinian government, denying civil servants their salaries, thus crippling the economy of the occupied territories).
Then the water got polluted, because of the electric shortage. Hospitals and all other public institutions were left in a state of near collapse; naturally, internal chaos prevailed, thanks in part to rogue Palestinian elements [Ed: working for Israel]. Then there was Beit Hanoun, another black spot on the collective memory of this nation already overwhelmed by most tragic occasions.
This latest episode, like the others before it, came courtesy of Defense Minister Amir Peretz - although the weapons technology is courtesy of our ever-generous US government - the rising star of Israel's militancy. He pledged months ago to show his critics what sort of a tough man he was. The "leftist" media in Israel tried to sell him to the public as a populist leader with "socialist" tendencies - can Israel's ideological classification be any more bizarre? Now even right-wing media and politicians are cheering Peretz's terror.
Israel's deputy defense minister, Ephraim Sneh, told The Jerusalem Post that the "moral responsibility" for the deaths rested with Palestinian militants who were "cynically using their civilian population as human shields for terrorist activity", reported Reuters; it also quoted the Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, Dan Gillerman, as saying that the attack hardly represented a "watershed moment (for) war is a dirty business and during war ugly things happen".
Strange that the leaders of a state that lives beyond the fringes of morality and law still speak as if they indeed possessed moral superiority.Even stranger how such wicked disregard for human life is skimmed over in Western media, without the mocking language that often accompanies ridiculous statements often made by war criminals who defend their crimes as moral and human imperatives.
While some Israeli commentators had the courage to recognize the horror put forth by their malicious army, Ben Caspit was hardly one of them. He equated Gaza's homemade rockets - which produced few injuries in many months - with his country's barbaric "response".
"Every other method has been tried, and failed. With scoundrels you behave like a scoundrel, and with murderous, bloodthirsty terrorism that wants to wipe you off the map, you have to respond accordingly: wipe it out."
And with it, wipe out entire families, devastate whole communities, send a whole nation into a perpetual state of grief, loss and despair.
What does the state of Israel hope to achieve from all this? After sixty years of Palestinian revolt against dispossession and occupation, does Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his henchmen expect the Palestinians to raise the white flag of surrender? Haven't they seen the ever-flowing footage of Palestinians burying their dead? Haven't they read the defiance, the tenacity in the faces of the living?
"I lost my whole family; is there anyone who is still alive? Anyone?" screamed a Palestinian mother from Beit Hanoun as she fell in the arms of her neighbor.
"My husband, my sister, my children, my mother ...," she counted what seemed like an endless list, but "I swear in the name of God, we will not surrender; this is our land and here we shall live and die."
But history offers no lesson to Israel; it shall remain isolated in its antiquated, ideologically racist, and inherently theological ideals, operating outside law and morality. But then there should be no surprises when more crude rockets burn their way towards Israel, when many more hideous suicide bombings detonate in crowded Israeli streets, creating further suffering. For, Israel's insistence on living by the sword will continue to create the perfect environment for violence to prevail, for innocent people to die, and for people to lose everything, even their will to live. Comment on this Editorial Editorial: A project of dispossession can never be a noble cause
Ahdaf Soueif
The Guardian
Friday November 17, 2006
Israel's liberal intellectuals lament the malaise that grips their country - but refuse to face up to the ethnicide at the heart of it.
Before Donald Rumsfeld departed from the Pentagon, the "Transformation Group" he worked with an Israeli army team to develop ideas for controlling the Palestinians after Israel withdraws from the occupied territories. Eyal Weizman, an Israeli academic who has written about this cooperation, tells us that they decided to do this through an invisible occupation: Israel would "seal the hard envelopes" around Palestinian towns and generate "effects" directed against the "human elements of resistance". We saw this concept being implemented in Beit Hanoun last week when the Israeli army killed 19 sleeping people with a missile attack.
The world can look forward to more of the same. According to Weizman, the chief of staff of the Israeli armed forces, Dan Halutz, confirms that the Israeli army sees the conflict as "unresolvable". It has "geared itself to operate within an environment saturated with conflict and within a future of permanent violence ... it sees itself acting just under the threshold of international sanctions ... keeping the conflict on a flame low enough for Israeli society to be able to live and prosper within it."So here's another function for the separation wall Israel is building: to shield Israeli society from too close a knowledge of the brutal acts their army carries out in their name.
And yet Israeli intellectuals wonder at the malaise that grips their country. Two Nobel prize laureates, Yisrael Aumann and Aaron Ciechanover, were recently quoted bemoaning the "fatal disease: the depletion of spirit ... [the] cancer that has spread through Israeli society". They attribute it to a kind of generalised "selfishness" which, oddly, they think may be OK in Switzerland but not in Israel. It's nothing to do with "the enemy" they say, because they can handle the enemy with their "wisdom and technology". Again, as we saw in Beit Hanoun.
Einstein, their distinguished predecessor, expressed grave doubts about political Zionism. A letter he signed, published in the New York Times in December 1948, warned against the emergence in Israel of (the future prime minister) Menachem Begin's "Freedom party". It cited Deir Yassin, where Begin and friends, eight months earlier, had killed 240 men, women and children and "were proud of this massacre". "This," the letter goes on, "is the unmistakable stamp of a fascist party for whom terrorism ... and misrepresentation are means, and a 'leader state' is the goal." Professors Aumann and Ciechanover might consider what Einstein would have made of the scenes in Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiye over the last several weeks.
David Grossman seemed to many commentators to be evoking Hamlet in his Rabin memorial address on November 4, published in the Guardian. But when Grossman in effect argued that something was rotten in the state of Denmark he was merely referring to the lack of a "king" in Israel - a leader "to appeal to the Palestinians over the heads of Hamas" to start another peace process. But the peace processes the Palestinians have been subjected to have only led to their further dispossession. The Palestinians elected Hamas last January because two decades of interacting with a variety of Israeli governments has bankrupted the secular Palestinian leadership politically and morally. So the wish to engage in yet more talks, to get the "peace process" back on track, is either catastrophically blind or expresses ill faith. It always comes with lamentations over a "noble" project that has somehow gone wrong.
The secret rotting at the core of the state of Israel is its refusal to admit that the Zionist project in Palestine - to create a state based on the dispossession of the non-Jewish inhabitants of the land - was never noble: the land it coveted was the home of another people, and the fathers of the Israeli nation killed, terrorised and displaced them to turn the project into actuality. But the Palestinian nation lives on - visibly and noisily and everywhere. To make its own denial stick, Israel has to deny and suppress Palestinian history. To impose its design on Palestine, it has to somehow make the Palestinians disappear. "Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill"; and so the ethnicide continues. The new deputy prime minister, Avigdor Lieberman, plots against the Palestinians within Israel. The Israeli army kills and terrorises the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. Zionists and their friends are desperate to silence the voices of and for Palestine. Meanwhile, Israel insists it is civilised, decent, peaceable - a light unto nations.How can a society caught in such delusion thrive? And how can people living within the Zionist project as privileged Jewish citizens bewail their embattled lot or be puzzled by it? Liberal Israelis of the left should heed another couple of lines from the bard: "Glamis hath murder'd sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more."
Israel will not be well until it acknowledges its past and makes amends for it. The process has a name: truth and reconciliation. Israelis cannot remain within the Zionist framework and profit from it and think of themselves as good citizens of the world. Many thoughtful and brave Israelis have made a choice. Some have left Israel, others remain. Practically all have made it their life's mission to expose how Zionism really works - and what it costs.
Since 1988, initiatives, peace talks and road maps have aimed to establish a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza with its capital in Jerusalem, and to do justly by the Palestinian refugees. For 12 years none of this happened, and first-hand accounts of the Camp David talks in 2000 show that Israel did not have the political will then to make the necessary minimum offer. Presumably it still doesn't; hence the "sealed envelopes". But, perhaps because the stakes are now so high, people are once again speaking of the visionary solution: the secular democratic state, a homeland for both Israelis and Palestinians.
The Palestinian social scientist Ali Abunimah and the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé's recent books are the latest to make the case for this. They find hope, as Pappé puts it, in "those sections of Jewish society in Israel that have chosen to let themselves be shaped by human considerations rather than Zionist social engineering" and in "the majority of the Palestinians who have refused to let themselves be dehumanised by decades of brutal Israeli occupation and who, despite years of expulsion and oppression, still hope for reconciliation".
Ahdaf Soueif's latest book is Mezzaterra: Fragments from the Common Ground
A week after winning back control of the U.S. Congress, Democrats in the House defied incoming speaker Nancy Pelosi on Thursday and bypassed a vocal Iraq war critic to elevate her moderate deputy to majority leader.
It marked an embarrassing first defeat for Pelosi, a California liberal who had endorsed Rep. John Murtha of Pennsylvania, a key player in the anti-war effort that helped Democrats sweep to power in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
The secret vote behind closed doors was 149-86.
Democrats embraced Hoyer, a Maryland moderate who has been Pelosi's deputy while she served the past three years as minority leader. The two have had a somewhat strained relationship.
Pelosi, as expected, was officially nominated to be the first woman speaker of the House. A vote by the full House will be held when the 110th Congress convenes in January.
Shortly before the election several Democrats said Murtha had denounced a package of lobby and ethics reforms designed to clean up how the scandal-rocked Congress does business, another key issue in the 2006 elections. He said he was not referring to the Pelosi-backed package.
Pelosi endorsed Murtha on Sunday, ending her neutrality in the contest and getting behind the man who managed her successful 2001 campaign for House minority whip. She defeated Hoyer.
Rep. Barney Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, predicted there would no lasting fallout from the leadership battle.
"A lot of people wished this hadn't happened," Frank said. "There's a sense that we had a little stumble ... (but) I think it will disappear."
Rep. Albert Wynn, a Maryland Democrat, said the battle will fade away and "people will focus" on the party's agenda, which includes pushing for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, raising the federal minimum wage for the first time in a decade, expanding health care and upgrading education.
Today's Democratic Congressional Caucus vote electing Steny Hoyer of Maryland as House Majority leader was, as The Hill (the Washington weekly newspaper covering Congress) put it in a special bulletin, " stunning rebuke to incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi."
Pelosi and one of her closest advisers, veteran California liberal Rep. George Miller, twisted arms and threatened committee chairs with the loss of their posts and perks if they didn't support Pelosi's candidate for Majority Leader, Pennsylvani'a Rep. John Murtha, whom Pelosi surprised everyone by endorsing. But the caucus bitch-slapped Pelosi with a lopsided vote today that wasn't even close -- 149 for Hoyer to 86 for Murtha. As one veteran Congressional insider told me on the phone today, "the caucus simply wasn't going to vote for an old sleaze-bag like Murtha" -- who, just the day before the vote on Majority Leader, in speaking to the conservative Blue Dog Democrats, called the Democratic ethics package "total crap."
Notorious as a water-carrier for the military-industrial complex and a battler for obsolete or badly-performing weapons system the arms-and-aviation lobbyists love (especially those made by firms represented by his brother, a hired-gun lobbyist), Murtha was also caught up in Abscam, the famous FBI sting operation that targeted corrupt congressmen 26 years ago.
Indeed, Murtha was caught on videotape back then telling the FBI agents posing as Arab sheikhs that two other congressman "expect to be taken care of." Here's what Murtha said next, in a summary by Washington Post editorial page staffer Ruth Marcus in her syndicated column proclaiming that Murth'a Abscam conduct "disqualified" him from being considered for the Majority Leader's post:
"' I'm not interested - at this point,' he [Murtha] says of the dangled bribe. 'You know, we do business for a while, maybe I'll be interested, maybe I won't, you know.' Indeed, he acknowledges, even though he needs to be careful - "I expect to be in the (expletive) leadership of the House,' he notes - the money's awfully tempting. 'It's hard for me to say, just the hell with it.'"
"This," Marcus wrote, "is John Murtha, incoming House speaker Nancy Pelosi's choice to be her majority leader, snared but not charged in the Abscam probe in 1980. "The Democrats intend to lead the most honest, most open and most ethical Congress in history," Pelosi pledged on election night. Five days later, she wrote Murtha a letter endorsing his bid to become her No. 2.post."
Not that Steny Hoyer is any prize, mind you -- he's a not very talented hack, and a died-in-the-wool DLCer to boot. But how could Pelosi fool herself into thinking she could put over Murtha? How could she so badly misread the mood of the Democratic caucus she's supposed to be leading? This wasn't the first time Pelosi misread her own caucus -- she did the same thing back at the time of the House vote approving George Bush's invasion of Iraq, when -- as then minority leader of the Democrats -- she dragged her feet and only finally came out firmly against the invasion after it became clear that a significant majority of the Democratic caucus would vote against it.
Just who is Nancy Pelosi, the lawmaker from San Francisco with an exagerrated reputation for liberalism? She's an opportunist and a trimmer, who -- just two days after the Democrats re-took both houses of Congress and her Speakership was assured -- proclaimed, "We must govern from the center." When she was first elected to lead the House Democrats six years ago, I investigated Pelosi's background for the L.A. WEEKLY. And one of the things I found out in my digging was that she just ain't all that smart.
In view of today's debacle for Pelosi, I thought those who don't know where she came from and what she's really all about might profit from a reading of my L.A. Weekly report on Pelosi, so I'm reprinting it here -- this background helps explain why we shouldn't expect very much from the first woman Speaker:
Pelosi's Problems
The San Francisco Democrat carries baggage of money and special interests
By Doug Ireland
L.A.Weekly, Wednesday, November 13, 2002
IS NANCY PELOSI THE ANSWER TO THE Democrats' problems? Forgive me for having a few doubts.
Certainly, it's long past the time when one of the two major parties should have placed a woman in a position of real political power - and by choosing Pelosi as their new leader, House Democrats have punched a hole in the glass ceiling which many other democracies around the world have already punctured. But is that enough?
There's precious little room left for legislative maneuvering by the minority party, especially under the more draconian rules in the House, where Tom DeLay enforces an iron control over what is permitted to come to the floor for a vote. This means - after a midterm congressional campaign in which the Democrats lost by serving up a themeless porridge of accommodationist me-tooisms - that what the party needs more than anything else is a "great communicator" in its House leader (as The New York Times editorialized the other day). And, of course, one with a solid alternative message to communicate.
Pelosi, however, has long been plagued by reservations about her intellectual capacities. She's a dogged inside player whose canny climb up the pole of politics has been greased by money - but she's never been known as a policy innovator and has only a slim record of legislative accomplishment. Moreover, despite an effective White House campaign to portray her as a "left-wing San Francisco Democrat," Pelosi's progressivism often seems more rooted in circumstance than in deep conviction.
Unlike Paul Wellstone, who had an organic connection to the issue-oriented citizen activism whence he came, Pelosi's career is a classic example of checkbook politics. She married money - her husband, Paul, is a former banker who became a wealthy real estate developer - and the Pelosi fortune makes her the richest member of California's House delegation. Her political largesse and fund-raising skills brought her to the attention of the late Congressman Phil Burton, a powerhouse of a man who took her under his wing and guided her ascendance to chair the California Democratic Party. She lost a campaign for Democratic national chairman, but - after serving as fund-raising chair for the Democrats' 1986 U.S. Senate campaign - Pelosi was tapped by Phil Burton's brother John to take over the family House seat which Phil's widow, Sala, had occupied after her husband's death. Her opponent was San Francisco Supervisor Harry Britt, who'd been picked by the gay community as successor to the assassinated Harvey Milk. Pelosi buried Britt in money, and ran a nasty campaign that portrayed him as a "gay socialist." (Years later, her money-raising practices sometimes get her in trouble. Last month, she was forced to shut down one of ä her two political-action committees, which had been operating illegally as a double-dipping laundry, and candidates were asked to return its contributions.)
Before winning the House seat, her only real hands-on electoral experience had been helping Jerry Brown win the 1976 presidential primary in Maryland, where her father had been a congressman and mayor of Baltimore. But in 1992, as chair of the Democratic National Convention's platform committee, she slavishly toed the Clinton/New Democrat line and prevented the dissident Brown - who'd again won several primaries - from speaking to the committee.
Most profiles of Pelosi note her advocacy of AIDS issues and gay civil rights, and her bucking the Clinton administration by opposing most-favored-nation trade status for China on human-rights grounds. But given the huge Chinese-American and gay populations in her district (and lingering resentment in the latter over her defeat of Britt), these positions were a nearly obligatory reflection of local politics.
Aside from those two issues, Pelosi's most notable accomplishment was to spearhead the first privatization of a national park. Under legislation passed by her mentor Phil Burton as part of his legacy to San Francisco, the militarily useless Army base at the Presidio was turned into a national park when it closed. But Pelosi expended her political capital while pushing through a bill that turned the Presidio - 1,500 acres of the most valuable real estate in the world - over to an unelected private trust dominated by her corporate and real estate cronies in the business of raising campaign cash; and the Presidio, with Pelosi's blessing, is now being developed by producer/director George Lucas as headquarters for his film company (with $60 million in tax breaks to finance it). Pelosi even used her clout with Clinton to smother Mayor Willie Brown's plan to convert the former base's 466-unit Wherry Houses into homes for low-income and homeless families, victims of San Francisco's acute housing shortage. That's why, ever since, The Bay Guardian - San Francisco's progressive alternative weekly - symbolically has always refused to endorse Pelosi for re-election to her supersafe seat.
As assistant minority leader and a member of the House's Human Rights Caucus, at the height of Ariel Sharon's bloody offensive in the West Bank this spring - denounced by Amnesty International for criminal violations of human rights - Pelosi chose to ignore the Nobel Prize winning organization and instead supported a hard-line DeLay-sponsored GOP resolution endorsing Sharon's blind use of military force, backing a resolution praising George Bush's "leadership" in tilting toward Sharon, and voting for a GOP initiative to increase military aid to Israel (at a time when the Gallup Poll showed 60 percent of Americans favored suspension of that aid). There are, quite coincidentally, of course, many pro-Israeli fat cats in Pelosi's Rolodex of contributers.
Pelosi is capable of convenient political pirouettes. Right after Dick Gephardt's Rose Garden sellout to Bush on Iraq, Roll Call reported that Pelosi was considering sponsoring an alternative to the Gephardt blank-check resolution giving Bush sole authority to decide on war. That would have shown some real leadership. But Pelosi dropped the plan, apparently because she thought it would hurt her in the inevitable contest to succeed Gephardt. Two weeks later, after it was clear a majority of the Democratic caucus would vote against war, Pelosi joined them - but, of course, her district is overwhelmingly anti-war. Then there was Pelosi's surprising endorsement of scandal-plagued Representative Gary Condit for re-election - an endorsement she was forced to withdraw after a firestorm of protest from women's groups.
Pelosi went ballistic a few years ago when the head of the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education (COPE), in opposing her bid to chair the national Democrats, referred to her as an "airhead." But, says a senior liberal Democratic strategist today, "Pelosi is simply not very articulate. She tends to talk too much - like many people who have limited confidence in their intelligence and tend to make up in verbosity what they lack in veracity." That's why the San Francisco Chronicle recently commented tactfully that in her noteless speeches Pelosi "tends to get sidetracked," that she has a reputation for avoiding the press, and in her infrequent TV appearances she lacks the spontaneous authenticity of, say, Barney Frank or John McCain.
In Bay Area politics, Pelosi is considered an establishment figure. Says S.F. Supervisor Tom Ammiano, the once and future mayoral candidate who's built a successful progressive coalition against the Willie Brown pro-business machine, "I've rarely ever had her support," adding, "We could do worse than Pelosi - but we could also do better." And her close ally Representative Anna Eshoo accurately describes her pal as "first and foremost pragmatic."
Pelosi got her new job as minority leader the old-fashioned way - she bought it, raising some $8 million for House Democrats in the last election cycle and criss-crossing the country handing out the checks. Now, the top staffers who ran the leader's office for both Tom Foley and Gephardt have been asked to stay on by Pelosi. That's more of a signal of continuity than of the sharp break with its past lethargy the Democrats need to win.
By MARK LEIBOVICH
November 15, 2006
New York Times
WASHINGTON, Nov. 14 - Senator Joseph I. Lieberman strode into a Democratic caucus gathering like he owned the place or, at the very least, like someone who is a flight risk and could leave at any minute, taking the Democrats' new majority with him.
In other words, everyone was extra-special nice to the wayward Democrat on Tuesday.
"It was all very warm, lots of hugs, high-fives, that kind of stuff," said Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon marveled, "One senator after another kept coming up and shaking his hand."
And Senator Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas noted, "I gave him a hug and a kiss."
Mr. Lieberman received a standing ovation at a caucus luncheon after Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, who is poised to become the majority leader, declared, "We're all family."
All of which is particularly touching in light of recent history. It was, after all, just three months ago that Mr. Lieberman became something of a party pariah after losing the Democratic primary in Connecticut but continuing his re-election bid as an independent.
Mr. Lieberman won re-election last week without help from most of his Democratic Senate colleagues, who backed Ned Lamont, his Democratic rival, over their "good friend Joe Lieberman."
These would be many of the same good friends "who were happy to leave my dad by the side of the road," as Mr. Lieberman's son, Matthew, put it in an election night speech. These, presumably, would include "friends" like Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, John Kerry of Massachusetts and Christopher J. Dodd of Connecticut, all Lamont supporters.
"It's clear that the Democrats need him at this point more than he needs them," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine, whom Mr. Lieberman genuinely does consider a close friend. "How sweet is this?"
Indeed, it is hard to imagine how Mr. Lieberman could have emerged better from last week's election. He was re-elected comfortably, and the Democratic Party he still belongs to is now in the majority, assuring him the chairmanship of the powerful Homeland Security Committee.
Yet that majority is slim enough, 51 to 49, to turn Mr. Lieberman into arguably the Senate's most influential member. If he defects, the Senate would effectively be under Republican control because Vice President Dick Cheney would cast tie-breaking votes.
"It was very painful to him to have all these people he thought were his friends embrace his opponent," Ms. Collins said. "They just threw him overboard. But now, not only is he re-elected resoundingly, but he is also the key to which party controls the Senate."
Mr. Lieberman's situation underscores the precarious calculus of political friendships. People close to him say he remains miffed, if not bitter, about what he considers the betrayal of allies who supported an unknown, untested and unfamiliar candidate.
In recent months, Mr. Lieberman has frequently invoked the Harry Truman maxim that if you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.
Mr. Lieberman has suggested he has felt especially wounded by Mr. Dodd, Connecticut's senior senator, with whom he had shared a close bond since arriving in the Senate in 1989. Mr. Dodd had supported Mr. Lieberman in the primary, but endorsed Mr. Lamont after he won. Mr. Dodd's appearance with Mr. Lamont at a Democratic "unity" rally and in a campaign commercial infuriated Mr. Lieberman, friends said.
Mr. Dodd said in a brief interview Tuesday, "We all make decisions, and those decisions have consequences."
Earlier in the day, he attended a Capitol Hill news conference that drew every Democrat in Connecticut's Congressional delegation except Mr. Lieberman.
Friends said the strains between Mr. Lieberman and his Democratic colleagues show.
"It will take a little time for the room to really warm up from both ends," said Senator Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana, one of the few Senate Democrats who supported Mr. Lieberman in his general election campaign. "I would not be forthright if I didn't say there was some healing and work that has to be done."
During the campaign, Mr. Lieberman said repeatedly that he would continue to vote with the Democratic caucus, but there were calls from the left for the Democratic leadership to strip him of his seniority and committee assignments if he won.
But as Mr. Lieberman claimed a healthy lead in polls, Mr. Reid reached out to him. Over time, Mr. Reid's and other Democratic leaders' support for Mr. Lamont became half-hearted, or nonexistent, according to Mr. Lamont's campaign.
Mr. Lieberman classifies himself as an "independent Democrat" and has said that recent events left him feeling "liberated" and "unshackled," not exactly reassuring words to Democrats.
He stirred more anxiety Sunday, when in an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press," he refused to rule out becoming a Republican (while adding, "I hope I don't get to that point").
In brief remarks to reporters Tuesday, Mr. Lieberman said he had refused to rule out switching parties largely because Tim Russert, the show's host, "kept pressing me on it."
But Mr. Lieberman also said that while "most of my vote clearly came from independents and Republicans" in Connecticut, "it's fair to say that I couldn't have won without Democratic support."
Mr. Lieberman restated that it was possible he could join Senate Republicans, but he added, "I'm not going to threaten on every issue to leave the caucus."
Clearly, friends say, he is relishing his sudden ascent from Democratic reject in Connecticut to Senate kingmaker in Washington. "He is just sitting there in the catbird seat, and it must be delicious for him," Ms. Collins said.
Mr. Lieberman was asked Tuesday if he viewed his position as similar to a swing vote on the Supreme Court, a role often played by former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor or Justice Anthony M. Kennedy. The parallel had not occurred to him, Mr. Lieberman replied, but he considered it "a complimentary analogy."
He beamed as he said this, as he did for much of the day.
Comment from Jeff Blankfort: The excuse will be that realpolitik requires such behavior, but if one wants to see the true character of the Democratic Party revealed, this article is as good as any for the job. Coupled with the withdrawal of Sen. Russ Feingold, the lone anti-war Democrat from the 2008 race, no doubt because the lobby controlled Demos told him he would get no funds, it should be clear that there will be no anti-war candidate representing the Demos in 2008. If a third party candidate then runs on an anti-war ticket, you can be sure all the liberals will claim that candidate, as they have with Nader in the past, is the "spoiler," when the fault lies not with the candidate but with the party and its owners, namely the Jewish Zionist War lobby, which was last Tuesday's biggest winner.
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 15, 2006; A01
Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.), who was elected Senate majority leader yesterday, said last night that President Bush still has not grasped the urgent need to change course in Iraq. Reid vowed to press quickly for phased troop withdrawals, a more international approach to Iraq's problems and a rebuilding of the depleted U.S. military.
In his first extensive interview since the Senate Democrats' leadership election, Reid also said members of his party will have to think big on the nation's domestic issues. That includes tackling the budget deficit with strict new rules on spending, exploring an eventual expansion of Medicare to address the uninsured, and examining an increase in tax rates on upper-income Americans.
But it was on the issue of Iraq that he was most passionate. Voter anger over the war swept his party to power with the unlikely defeat of six Republican senators, he said. Democrats must respond to that anger, he added, with hearings to keep the heat on the Bush administration, and with calls for a regional Middle Eastern conference and a revitalized Iraqi reconstruction effort.
To that end, he said, one of the first acts of the new Democratic Congress will be a $75 billion boost to the military budget to try to get the Army's diminished units back into combat shape.
Democrats will not try, Reid pledged, to play the strongest hand they have -- using Congress's power of the purse to starve the war effort of money and force the president to move. Such an effort would only elicit a veto from Bush. But he said Democrats will marshal their newly acquired power -- in hearing rooms and on the Senate floor -- to stoke public opinion and drive the debate.
"Three Americans killed yesterday, four British; 150 Iraqis taken out of that building and kidnapped; 1,800-plus went through that one Baghdad morgue but that doesn't count all the dead," Reid recounted. "My displeasure with the president, he doesn't understand the urgency of this. It's all victory for him, but I don't know what that means anymore in Iraq. I do know what we are doing now doesn't work."
Reid said he will be able to work well with Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), the incoming House speaker, whom he described as resilient and "a very astute politician." But he said the Senate will work differently from the House, given the Senate Democrats' very narrow 51 to 49 majority, which will necessitate close cooperation with Republicans.
"The speaker of the House has to be aggressive," Reid said. "It's like the British Parliament. If you've got the votes, you ram it through. But the Senate works differently."
Democrats also elected Sen. Richard J. Durbin (Ill.) yesterday as assistant Senate majority leader. Durbin has been assistant minority leader since January 2005. Senate Republicans will elect their leaders for the 110th Congress today.
In January, after two years as a Senate minority leader who bedeviled the Republican legislative agenda and sharply criticized Bush, Reid will take the helm of a body that has been notoriously difficult to control.
To the casual observer, Reid comes across as a reserved, soft-spoken, deferential politician who appears more comfortable in the backrooms of the Capitol than in the spotlight. But to those who have watched him close up, Reid's reputation is quite different -- that of a brawler who moves with the alacrity he acquired in his days as an amateur boxer.
The consummate pessimist in a political world full of sunny optimism, Reid is fond of saying that he would rather expect the worst and accept the occasional pleasant surprise than forever live with disappointment.
Reid, 66, came by his dour outlook honestly. He grew up in a tin-roofed shack in the gold-mining hamlet of Searchlight, Nev. His father was a hard-rock miner and a hard drinker whose battles with alcoholism and depression ended in suicide at age 58. His mother was a laundrywoman. Reid hitchhiked to high school 40 miles from home.
Upon graduation, local merchants raised money for his college tuition. He helped put himself through George Washington University Law School, working nights as a U.S. Capitol police officer.
But most of Reid's adult life has been in politics, becoming city attorney in Henderson, Nev., in 1964; a member of the Nevada State Assembly in 1968; and lieutenant governor in 1970. He clashed with the mob as head of the state's Gaming Commission, then went to the House in 1982. He reached the Senate in 1986.
In that time, he has been beset by controversies that continue to pose political problems for him. A $400,000 land purchase in Clark County, Nev., that Reid made in 1998 with a friend and business partner grabbed headlines in October when the senator had to amend four years of ethics reports to Congress to more fully explain the transaction. The sale brought in $1.1 million, netting a $700,000 profit in six years.
"Windfall?" he bristled yesterday. "I shouldn't have sold it. That was my big mistake. You know what that property is worth now? Thirteen million dollars."
This week, the Los Angeles Times published a report suggesting that the $18 million that Reid secured for a bridge connecting Laughlin, Nev., to Bullhead City, Ariz., may have boosted the value of land Reid owns nearby. Again, Reid scoffed at any hint of wrongdoing. The bridge, he said, is needed because heavy truck traffic has been limited on the Hoover Dam since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. The land in Arizona has been in his family since the 1960s, he added, noting that he has never seen it, much less thought of boosting its value. He said that it could take until 2013 to build that bridge.
Last month, the National Republican Senatorial Committee cited the controversies around Reid as it goaded Democratic candidates to return the party leader's campaign donations.
Reid's loyalty to the mining industry, which plays an important role in his state's economy, has created run-ins with fellow Democrats who seek to raise royalty fees on federal land and impose stronger environmental standards. He also opposes abortion rights, a position derived from his Mormon religion, which has put him at odds with many other Democrats.
Yet, Senate Democrats have strong faith in their leader.
"We went through combat together; and when you go through combat together, you learn everything," said Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), who heads the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which helped Democrats take control of the Senate.
In the run-up to the Nov. 7 midterm elections, Democrats kept their legislative agenda carefully circumscribed to a set of initiatives that conservatives, moderates and liberals could all agree on. But in yesterday's interview, Reid hinted that Democrats will have to go further to address what he sees as the widening gap between rich and poor, and a middle class squeezed by health care costs and rising tuition.
Budget rules will be passed to require that any new spending or tax cuts will have to be offset by equal spending cuts or tax increases, he said.
"We can do this," he added. "People might not like what we do," but Democrats will stick to the rules.
He pledged an "unalterable commitment" not to touch the middle-class tax cuts Bush secured in his first term. But he said Democrats "would be crazy" to rule out rolling back tax breaks that benefited the top 1 percent of earners. He also spoke volubly about federal health-care programs for the elderly and for veterans that he said should be a model as Congress looks to address the growing problem of the uninsured.
"We have to look at the uninsured because it's bankrupting our country," he said.
Asked about a proposal floated by former president Bill Clinton to expand Medicare for those who could buy into it, Reid said, "we're not there yet," but he added that it should be studied.
"Someday, someday," he said, "what we have to do is cinch up our belts and take on the insurance industry."
Comment: So the way to get the reconstruction effort going is to get another $75 million "to try to get the Army's diminished units back into combat shape"!
It is patently clear that the Dems are just teh same-old, same-old. The Ziocon politics of the US, at the behest of Israel, will continue. Anyone who thinks that the elections were a step forward towards peace or a significant change in US foreign policy is delusional.
By Michael Scherer and Mark Benjamin
11/14/06 "Salon"
Interviews with high-ranking military officials shed new light on the role Rumsfeld played in the harsh treatment of a Guantánamo detainee.
Editor's note: The interview with Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt is available here; the interview with Gen. James T. Hill is available here (both PDF files).
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was personally involved in the late 2002 interrogation of a high-value al-Qaida detainee known in intelligence circles as "the 20th hijacker." He also communicated weekly with the man in charge of the interrogation, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, the controversial commander of the Guantánamo Bay detention center.
During the same period, detainee Mohammed al-Kahtani suffered from what Army investigators have called "degrading and abusive" treatment by soldiers who were following the interrogation plan Rumsfeld had approved. Kahtani was forced to stand naked in front of a female interrogator, was accused of being a homosexual, and was forced to wear women's underwear and to perform "dog tricks" on a leash. He received 18-to-20-hour interrogations during 48 of 54 days.
Little more than two years later, during an investigation into the mistreatment of prisoners at Guantánamo, Rumsfeld expressed puzzlement at the notion that his policies had caused the abuse. "He was going, 'My God, you know, did I authorize putting a bra and underwear on this guy's head?'" recalled Lt. Gen. Randall M. Schmidt, an investigator who interviewed Rumsfeld twice in early 2005.
These disclosures are contained in a Dec. 20, 2005, Army inspector general's report on Miller's conduct, which was obtained this week by Salon through the Freedom of Information Act. The 391-page document -- which has long passages blacked out by the government -- concludes that Miller should not be punished for his oversight role in detainee operations, a fact that was reported last month by Time magazine. But the never-before-released full report also includes the transcripts of interviews with high-ranking military officials that shed new light on the role that Rumsfeld and Miller played in the harsh treatment of Kahtani, who had met with Osama bin Laden on several occasions and received terrorist training in al-Qaida camps.
In a sworn statement to the inspector general, Schmidt described Rumsfeld as "personally involved" in the interrogation and said that the defense secretary was "talking weekly" with Miller. Schmidt said he concluded that Rumsfeld did not specifically prescribe the more "creative" interrogation methods used on Kahtani. But he added that the open-ended policies Rumsfeld approved, and that the apparent lack of supervision of day-to-day interrogations permitted the abusive conduct to take place. "Where is the throttle on this stuff?" asked Schmidt, an Air Force fighter pilot, who said in his interview under oath with the inspector general that he had concerns about the length and repetition of the harsh interrogation methods. "There were no limits."
Schmidt also saw close parallels between the interrogations at Guantánamo, and the photographic evidence of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "Just for the lack of a camera, it would sure look like Abu Ghraib," Schmidt told the inspector general, in the interview that was conducted in August 2005. At the direction of Pentagon officials, Miller led a mission to Iraq in August 2003 to review detainee operations at Abu Ghraib -- a visit that critics say precipitated the abuse of prisoners there.
In April 2005, Schmidt completed his report on detainee abuse at Guantánamo, which he co-authored with Brig. Gen. John T. Furlow. They recommended that Miller be "admonished" and "held accountable" for the alleged abuse of Kahtani. But that recommendation was rejected by Gen. Bantz J. Craddock, the current head of the Southern Command, who said Miller had not violated any law or policy.
On Dec. 2, 2002, Rumsfeld approved 16 harsher interrogation strategies for use against Kahtani, including the use of forced nudity, stress positions and the removal of religious items. In public statements, however, Rumsfeld has maintained that none of the policies at Guantánamo led to "inhumane" treatment of detainees. Jeffrey Gordon, a Pentagon spokesman, told Salon Thursday that Kahtani was an al-Qaida terrorist who provided a "treasure trove" of still-classified information during his interrogation. "Al-Kahtani's interrogation was guided by a very detailed plan, conducted by trained professionals in a controlled environment, and with active supervision and oversight," Gordon said in an e-mail statement. "Nothing was done randomly."
Miller -- who has invoked his right against self-incrimination in courts-martial of Abu Ghraib soldiers -- said that he did not know all the details of Kahtani's interrogation. But Schmidt told the inspector general that he found that claim "hard to believe" in light of Miller's knowledge of Rumsfeld's continuing interest in Kahtani. "The secretary of defense is personally involved in the interrogation of one person, and the entire General Counsel system of all the departments of the military," Schmidt said. "There is just not a too-busy alibi there for that."
The harsh interrogation of Kahtani came to an abrupt end in mid-January 2003. Gen. James T. Hill, Craddock's predecessor as the head of Southern Command, recalled in his interview with the inspector general that he received a call from Rumsfeld on a January weekend asking about the progress of Kahtani's interrogation. "Someone had come to him and suggested that it needed to be looked at," Hill said of Rumsfeld. "He said, 'What do you think?' And I said, 'Why don't [you] let me call General Miller.'"
According to Hill's account of that call, Miller advised that the harsh interrogation of Kahtani should continue, using the techniques Rumsfeld had previously approved. "We think we're right on the verge of making a breakthrough," Hill remembered Miller saying. Hill said he called Rumsfeld back with the news. "The secretary said, 'Fine,'" Hill remembered.
Nonetheless, several days later Rumsfeld revoked the harsher interrogation methods, apparently responding to military lawyers who had raised concerns that they may constitute cruel and unusual punishment or torture.
"My attitude on that was, 'Great!'" said Hill. The general recalled thinking about Rumsfeld and the decision to halt the harsh interrogation, "All I'm trying to do is what you want us to do in the first place and doing it the right way."
More than 7,000 prisoners have been captured in America's war on terror. Just 700 ended up in Guantanamo Bay. Between extraordinary rendition to foreign jails and disappearance into the CIA's "black sites", what happened to the rest?
Sana'a, Yemen. By the gates of the Old City, Muhammad Bashmilah was walking, talking, and laughing in the crowd - behaving like a man without a care in the world. Bargaining with the spice traders and joking with passers-by; at last he was free.
A 33-year-old businessman, Bashmilah has an impish sense of humour; his eyes sparkled as he chatted about his country and the khat leaves that all the young men were chewing. But when I began my interview by asking for the story of his past three years, his mood shifted. His face narrowed, his eyes calmed, and he stared beyond me - as if looking directly into the nether world from which he had so recently emerged.
For 11 months, Bashmilah was held in one of the CIA's most secret prisons - its so-called "black sites" - so secret that he had no idea in which country, or even on which continent, he was being held. He was flown there, in chains and wearing a blindfold, from another jail in Afghanistan; his guards wore masks; and he was held in a 10ft by 13ft cell with two video cameras that watched his every move. He was shackled to the floor with a chain of 110 links.
From the times of evening prayer given to him by the guards, the cold winter temperatures, and the number of hours spent flying to this secret jail, he suspected that he was held somewhere in eastern Europe - but he could not be sure.
When he arrived at the prison, said Bashmilah, he was greeted by an interrogator with the words: "Welcome to your new home." He implied that Bashmilah would never be released. "I had gone there without any reason, without any proof, without any accusation," he said. His mental state collapsed and he went on hunger strike for ten days - until he was force-fed food through his nostrils. Finally released after months in detention without being charged with any crime, Bashmilah was one of the first prisoners to provide an inside account of the most secret part of the CIA's detention system.
On 6 September, President George W Bush finally confirmed the existence of secret CIA jails such as the one that held Bashmilah. He added something chilling - a declaration that there were now "no terrorists in the CIA programme", that the many prisoners held with Bashmilah were all gone. It was a statement that hinted at something very dark - that the United States has "disappeared" hundreds of prisoners to an uncertain fate.
Let's examine the arithmetic of this systematic disappearance. In the first years after the attacks of 11 September, thousands of Taliban or suspected terrorist suspects were captured. Just in Afghanistan, the US admitted processing more than 6,000 prisoners. Pakistan has said it handed over around 500 captives to the US; Iran said it sent 1,000 across the border to Afghanistan. Of all these, some were released and just over 700 ended up in Guantanamo, Cuba. But the simple act of subtraction shows that thousands are missing. More than five years after 9/11, where are they all? We know that many were rendered to foreign jails, both by the CIA and directly by the US military. But how many precisely? The answer is still classified. No audit of the fate of all these souls has ever been published.
Bush's next big scandal.
Since the publications of photographs from Abu Ghraib, the Bush administration has faced a string of scandals concerning its conduct of the war on terror: from abuses of prisoners by the US military, to the rendition of terrorist suspects to jails in places such as Egypt and Syria, where torture is routine, a process first described in the New Statesman in May 2004. International outrage, inquiries launched against CIA activities by prosecutors in Europe, as well as clear instructions from the US Supreme Court that, in its reaction to 9/11, Congress had not issued the president with a "blank cheque", have all challenged the administration's venture into what vice-president Dick Cheney called "the dark side" of warfare.
But if Bush hoped to appease his critics with his public acknowledgement of the CIA's secret programmes, and his promise to bring some of America's most important captives to an open military trial at Guantanamo, then he will be disappointed. After last week's midterm elections, the administration will face legislators more emboldened to probe its conduct. And the issue of disappearances - of the fate of the missing prisoners held by the CIA and the Pentagon - threatens to become the next big scandal.
It was in early 2002, when the camp at Guantanamo Bay was opening up, that I heard from a source close to the CIA that most of the media were missing the point. As cameras showed images of chained prisoners being wheeled across the base on trolleys, there was predictable outrage. But the source described these images as "the press release".
This was what Washington wanted the world to see. Beyond Cuba was a concealed network of prisons around the globe that were becoming home to thousands more prisoners. The CIA had its own secret facilities, but many more were held in jails run by foreign allies. There are some good operational reasons for keeping the arrest of suspected terrorists secret. Sometimes, in the short term, deception makes good tactical sense; staying quiet about an arrest may keep the enemy guessing. Sometimes it can be for diplomatic reasons: secrecy may help to persuade countries such as Egypt to accept a prisoner.
But why is it so sensitive to confirm what happened to these prisoners, to detail how many were transferred where and when? Why should a country receiving prisoners be so embarrassed? And why - when countries such as Egypt have come clean and said "yes, we received 70 to 80 prisoners rendered by the United States" - will the United States itself not confirm what it did? Despite admitting, in general, that the CIA carries out renditions, the US has yet to own up to a single specific case of transferring a prisoner to foreign custody.
The explanation for the secrecy is one that most of the CIA officers involved in rendition will quite freely admit - a transfer to places such as Egypt or Uzbekistan (a country known for boiling prisoners alive) will inevitably involve torture. And knowingly sending a prisoner to face torture is, under both US and international law, an illegal act. Revealing the fate of the missing prisoners may be just too politically embarrassing.
Justifying war with torture
One of those "disappeared", for example, is the former al- Qaeda camp commander Ibn-al Shaykh al-Libi, who was captured in late 2001. Al-Libi was first interrogated by the FBI but, according to those involved, he was then snatched by the CIA and rendered to Cairo. It was while he was under Egyptian interrogation that al-Libi provided an important piece of "testimony": that Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship with al-Qaeda. It was an erroneous claim, since formally withdrawn by the CIA, but was used as part of the justification for the war in Iraq. Al-Libi's anonymous testimony was cited by Colin Powell before the United Nations. But no one mentioned where the intelligence came from.
After his interrogation in Egypt, al-Libi was sent back to US custody in Afghanistan. But now he has disappeared. Perhaps he has been sent to Libya? He is certainly a more important prisoner than the vast majority at Guantanamo. Yet sending al-Libi to the Cuban camp, put ting him on public trial and allowing him to tell his story would be a political disaster. So he remains hidden.
Other key prisoners are missing too - others whose stories would shock the public conscience. The US, for example, has never acknowledged what it did with German citizen Mohammed Haydar Zammar. He was captured in December 2001, one of the first in custody who was connected to the Hamburg cell that carried out the 9/11 attacks. And, again, instead of being held in US hands, he was rendered in secret to Damascus. He has never been brought to a public trial or had any chance to reveal how he was treated.
The cases of al-Libi and Zammar, who according to fellow prisoners in Syria was brutally tortured, illustrate the corrosive effect of the policy of disappearance. While the secrecy may protect the US from legal jeopardy and from political embarrassment, it also makes the threat of torture self-fulfilling. If you send a prisoner to Damascus, Tripoli or Tashkent, how can you hope to protect that prisoner - to ensure a fair trial or see that he stays alive - if you keep that rendition quiet? Secrecy protects the torturer; and it denies those innocent, those wrongly accused of crimes of terrorism and caught up in these renditions, any chance of justice.
Last month, Bush signed into law his new Military Commissions Act, which provides for the trial at Guantanamo of top al-Qaeda leaders. The act grants fewer rights to defendants than the Nazis got at Nuremberg. And yet, in this strange world, the rights now granted to men such as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the man who devised the 9/11 attack and who will now be brought to trial, still rank far higher than the rights of the small fry, those much less significant players behind bars in foreign jails. In this new justice, the big terrorists are granted privileges, and the other missing prisoners, subtracted from the public record, are disappeared off the face of the earth. That's the mathematics of torture.
A soldier was sentenced to 90 years in prison with the possibility of parole in 20 years for conspiring to rape a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and kill her and her family.
Spc. James Barker, one of four soldiers at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, accused over the March 12 rape of Abeer Qassim al-Janabi and the killings, pleaded guilty on Wednesday and agreed to testify against the others to avoid the death penalty.
"This court sentences you to be confined for the length of your natural life, with the eligibility of parole," said Lt Col Richard Anderson, the military judge presiding over the court martial yesterday.
Under the plea agreement, Barker received a life sentence but would not serve more than 90 years in prison, Anderson said. He will be eligible for parole in 20 years.
Barker (aged 23), showed no reaction when the sentence was read.
Earlier, Barker wept during his closing statement, accepted responsibility for the rape and killings and said violence he encountered left him "angry and mean" when it came to Iraqis.
"I want the people of Iraq to know that I did not go there to do the terrible things that I did," Barker said, his voice quivering as he began to weep.
"I do not ask anyone to forgive me today."
After Barker's sentencing, military prosecutors declined to comment because three other soldiers had yet to be tried in the case.
Barker confessed yesterday to the crimes as part of a plea agreement to avoid a possible death penalty. The deal requires him to testify against the others.
In his closing statement, Barker said Iraq made him angry and violent.
"To live there, to survive there, I became angry and mean. The mean part of me made me strong on patrols. It made me brave in firefights," Barker said.
"I loved my friends, my fellow soldiers and my leaders, but I began to hate everyone else in Iraq."
During testimony intended to show the judge that Barker could be rehabilitated, Barker's fellow soldiers described weeks with little support and sleep while manning distant checkpoints.
However, Capt. William Fischbach, the lead prosecutor, told the court that such conditions were no excuse for Barker, who led the group to the family's house, and that no one deserved such unspeakable horrors.
"This burned-out corpse that used to be a 14-year-old girl never fired bullets or lobbed mortars," Fischbach said as he held pictures of the crime scene.
"Society should not have to bear the risk of the accused among them ever again."
The killings in Mahmoudiya, a village about 20 miles south of Baghdad, were among the worst in a series of alleged attacks on civilians and other abuses by military personnel in Iraq.
The defendants are accused of burning the girl's body to conceal the crime.
Sgt Paul Cortez (aged 24), and Pfc. Jesse Spielman (aged 22), members of the 101st Airborne Division along with Barker, have also been charged. Cortez has deferred entering a plea and Spielman will appear in December. Pfc Bryan Howard (aged 19), also deferred entering a plea when he appeared in October.
Private Steven Green (aged 21), pleaded not guilty last week to civilian charges including murder and sexual assault. He was discharged from the US Army for a "personality disorder" before the allegations became known and prosecutors have yet to say whether they will pursue the death penalty against him.
In earlier testimony, Barker described in detail how he raped Abeer Qassim al-Janabi with Cortez and Green before Green killed the girl, her younger sister and parents.
"Cortez pushed her to the ground. I went towards the top of her and kind of held her hands down while Cortez proceeded to lift her dress up," he said. "Around that time I heard shots coming from a room next door."
Cortez and Spielman could face the death penalty if convicted.
Barker did not name Spielman and Howard as participants in the rape and murders but said Spielman was at the house when the assault took place and had come knowing what the others intended to do.
Prosecutors said yesterday Howard had been left behind at a checkpoint.
Comment: We ain't buying it. This guy will be back on the streets in a few years. When it happens, we'll be sure to remind you. Meanwhile, hundreds or thousands of other US troops that have engaged in similar crimes against innocent Iraqis will never see the inside of a court room, and it goes without saying that the politicians and "policy makers" in the US, UK and Israel that are ultimately to blame for the 655,000 dead Iraqi civilians, will continue in their role as our "leaders".
By JENNIFER LOVEN
Associated Press
November 17, 2006
HANOI, Vietnam - President Bush, on his first visit to a country where America lost a two-decade-long fight against communism, said Friday the Vietnam War's lesson for today's confounding Iraq conflict is that freedom takes time to trump hatred.
Embracing a former enemy that remains communist but is allowing capitalism to surge, Bush opened a four-day stay here that was fueling an already raging debate over his war policy. Democrats who won control of Congress say last week's elections validate their call for U.S. troops to start coming home soon, while Bush argues - as he did again Friday - for patience with a mission he says can't be ended until Iraq can remain stable on its own.
A baby boomer who came of age during the turbulent Vietnam era and spent the war stateside as a member of the Texas Air National Guard, the president called himself amazed by the sights of the one-time war capital. He pronounced it hopeful that the United States and Vietnam have reconciled differences after a war that ended 31 years ago when the Washington-backed regime in Saigon fell.
"My first reaction is history has a long march to it, and societies change and relationships can constantly be altered to the good," Bush said after speeding past signs of both poverty and the commerce produced by Asia's fastest-growing economy.
The president said there was much to be learned from the divisive Vietnam War - the longest conflict in U.S. history - as his administration contemplates new strategies for the increasingly difficult war in Iraq, now in its fourth year. But his critics see parallels with Vietnam - a determined insurgency and a death toll that has drained public support - that spell danger for dragging out U.S. involvement in Iraq.
"It's just going to take a long period of time for the ideology that is hopeful - and that is an ideology of freedom - to overcome an ideology of hate," Bush said after having lunch at his lakeside hotel with Australian Prime Minister John Howard, whose country has been one of America's strongest allies in Iraq, Vietnam and other conflicts.
"We'll succeed," Bush added, "unless we quit."
In a day of meetings with Vietnamese leaders, the Vietnam-Iraq comparisons gave way to a focus on areas of cooperation. Those include continuing military-to-military links, work on AIDS and bird flu, trade, and cooperation on information about more than 1,300 U.S. military personnel still unaccounted for from the Vietnam War.
Bush was visiting the U.S. military's Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command here on Saturday.
He met in succession with Vietnamese President Nguyen Minh Triet at the bright orange presidential palace, with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung next door, and with the country's most powerful leader, Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh, at the ruling party headquarters across the street. Each time, he and his hosts sat under a large bronze bust of Ho Chi Minh, the victorious North's revolutionary communist leader.
Nong said the president had "opened a new page in the relationship."
In the evening, Bush was feted at a state banquet.
"For decades, you had been torn apart by war," Bush said, toasting his hosts. "Today the Vietnamese people are at peace and seeing the benefits of reform."
The president's welcome by the public was much less enthusiastic than the rock-star treatment afforded
President Clinton when he came in 2000. Happy crowds thronged Clinton, who normalized relations with Vietnam.
But Bush encountered a country where many with long memories deeply disapprove of the U.S. invasion of Iraq - even as they yearn for continued economic progress to stamp out still-rampant poverty.
With all traffic halted, many Hanoi residents gaped at his long motorcade from their motorbikes. Other clusters of onlookers gathered before storefronts, a few waving but most merely looking on impassively.
Huynh Tuyet, 71, a North Vietnamese veteran who had his hand blown off fighting the Americans, recalled his own lesson.
"Even though the Americans were more powerful with all their massive weapons, the main factor in war is the people," he said. "The Vietnamese people were very determined. We would not give up. That's why we won."
Vietnamese officials eager for their country to take its turn in the global spotlight expressed disappointment that the president arrived without his expected gift - congressional approval of a new pact normalizing trade relations with Vietnam.
Surprising the White House, Congress failed to pass the bill this week as expected, leaving U.S. officials trying to explain to the Vietnamese that it would be sure to go through next month.
The visit was a delicate balancing act for Bush. He was trying to improve relations with a crucial Asian economic force and to urge Vietnam to make further steps toward political, economic and social reforms - even as his mere presence conferred special status on a communist government.
Inside the sprawling Communist Party headquarters, the president gently pressed his hosts on the need for greater political and religious freedoms. He was reinforcing this point Sunday with a visit to a Hanoi church, similar to a stop he made last year on a trip to communist China.
After remaining in Hanoi for a massive summit of 21 Pacific Rim leaders, Bush was traveling on Monday to Ho Chi Minh City, formerly Saigon and the country's economic heart, where he was showcasing Vietnam's booming economy with a visit to its stock exchange and discussions with business leaders. He was also going to a medical institute there that focuses on bird flu and AIDS research and taking in a cultural performance at a local museum.
On the sidelines of the summit, Bush was drawing on his powers of personal diplomacy in one-on-one meeting with Russia's Vladimir Putin, China's Hu Jintao, Japan's Shinzo Abe and South Korea's Roh Moo-hyun.
HARTFORD, Conn. - Two armed thugs tried to rob a line of people waiting for the new Playstation 3 game system to go on sale early Friday and shot a man who refused to give up his money, authorities said.
In other states, customers pushed and shoved their way to the shelves to get at the limited supply, and in Kentucky, four people were grazed by BBs fired from a passing vehicle as they waited for a Best Buy store to open.
The two gunman in the northeast Connecticut town of Putnam confronted 15 to 20 people standing outside a Wal-Mart store shortly after 3 a.m. and demanded money, said State Police Lt. J. Paul Vance.
"One of the patrons resisted. That patron was shot," Vance said.
He said the two gunmen fled after shooting Michael Penkala, 21, of Webster, Mass., in the chest and shoulder. Penkala was in stable condition at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in Worcester, Mass., with injuries not believed to be life threatening, Vance said.
Vance said police were searching for the suspects, both believed to be in their teens. He said one was wearing a ski mask and brandishing a handgun, and the other had what appeared to be a shotgun.
Aside from the police tape, things had returned to normal by midmorning at the Wal-Mart store in rural Putnam, a town of about 9,000 residents near the Massachusetts and Rhode Island borders.
Short supplies of the PS3 and strong demand led to lines of buyers, some waiting for days, outside stores across the country.
In Palmdale, Calif., authorities shut down a Super Wal-Mart after some shoppers got rowdy late Wednesday. In West Bend, Wis., a 19-year-old man was injured when he ran into a pole racing with 50 others for one of 10 spots outside a Wal-Mart.
In Lexington, Ky., someone fired BB pellets from a passing vehicle at people waiting outside a Best Buy store, according to WKYT, whose own reporter said she was among four people grazed while she interviewed buyers in line.
A Best Buy in Boston, aware it had only 140 of the consoles, got smart about the big sale - its employees gave out tickets to the first 140 people in line so everyone could go home until the store opened.
The latest in a recent spate of cellphone videos documenting questionable arrest tactics surfaced Wednesday, this one showing a UCLA police officer using a Taser to stun a student who allegedly refused to leave the campus library.
Grainy video of the Tuesday night incident at UCLA's Powell Library was broadcast Wednesday on TV news and the Internet, prompting a review of the officers' actions and outrage among students at the Westwood campus.
The footage showed the student, Mostafa Tabatabainejad, falling to the ground and crying out in pain as officers stunned him.
According to a campus police report, the incident began when community service officers, who serve as guards at the library, began their nightly routine of checking to make sure everyone using the library after 11 p.m. is a student or otherwise authorized to be there.
Campus officials said the long-standing policy was adopted to ensure students' safety.
When Tabatabainejad, 23, refused to provide his ID to the community service officer, the officer told him he would have to show it or leave the library, the report said.
After repeated requests, the officer left and returned with campus police, who asked Tabatabainejad to leave "multiple times," according to a statement by the UCLA Police Department.
"He continued to refuse," the statement said. "As the officers attempted to escort him out, he went limp and continued to refuse to cooperate with officers or leave the building."
Witnesses disputed that account, saying that when campus police arrived, Tabatabainejad had begun to walk toward the door with his backpack. When an officer approached him and grabbed his arm, the witnesses said, Tabatabainejad told the officer to let go, yelling "Get off me" several times.
"Tabatabainejad encouraged library patrons to join his resistance," police said. "The officers deemed it necessary to use the Taser."
Officers stunned Tabatabainejad, causing him to fall to the floor.
The video shows Tabatabainejad yelling, "Here's your Patriot Act, here's your ... abuse of power," the Daily Bruin reported, adding he used a profanity.
"It was beyond grotesque," said UCLA graduate David Remesnitsky of Los Angeles, who witnessed the incident. "By the end they took him over the stairs, lifted him up and Tasered him on his rear end. It seemed like it was inappropriately placed. The Tasering was so unnecessary and they just kept doing it."
Campus police confirmed that Tabatabainejad was stunned "multiple" times.
By then, Remesnitsky said, a crowd of 50 or 60 had gathered and were shouting at the officers to stop and demanding their names and badge numbers.
Remesnitsky said officers told him to leave or he would be Tasered.
Tabatabainejad declined to comment. He was arrested Tuesday night and cited by campus police for resisting and obstructing a police officer and was released.
The incident was the third videotape of an arrest to surface in the last week in Los Angeles.
One video showed a Los Angeles Police Department officer dousing a handcuffed suspect in the face with pepper spray as the suspect sat in a patrol car.
Belmont is set to make history by becoming the first city in the nation to ban smoking on its streets and almost everywhere else.
The Belmont City Council voted unanimously last night to pursue a strict law that will prohibit smoking anywhere in the city except for single-family detached residences. Smoking on the street, in a park and even in one's car will become illegal and police would have the option of handing out tickets if they catch someone.
The actual language of the law still needs to be drafted and will likely come back to the council either in December or early next year.
"We have a tremendous opportunity here. We need to pass as stringent a law as we can, I would like to make it illegal," said Councilman Dave Warden. "What if every city did this, image how many lives would be saved? If we can do one little thing here at this level it will matter."
Armed with growing evidence that second-hand smoke causes negative health effects, the council chose to pursue the strictest law possible and deal with any legal challenges later. Last month, the council said it wanted to pursue a law similar to ones passed in Dublin and the Southern California city of Calabasas. It took up the cause after a citizen at a senior living facility requested smoke be declared a public nuisance, allowing him to sue neighbors who smoke.
The council was concerned about people smoking in multi-unit residences.
"I would just like to say 'no smoking' and see what happens and if they do smoke, [someone] has the right to have the police come and give them a ticket," said Councilwoman Coralin Feierbach.
The council's decision garnered applause from about 15 people who showed up in support of the ordinance. One woman stood up and blew kisses to the council, another pumped his fist with satisfaction.
"I'm astounded. I admire their courage and unanimous support," said Serena Chen, policy director of the American Lung Association of California.
Chen has worked in this area since 1991 and helped many cities and counties pass no smoking policies, but not one has been willing to draft a complete ban.
"I feel like the revolution is taking place and I am trying to catch up," Chen told the council.
The decision puts Belmont on the forefront of smoking policy and it is already attracting attention from other states.
"You have the ability to do something a little more extraordinary than Dublin or Calabasas. I see what they've done as five or six on the Richter Scale. What the citizens of Belmont, and of America, need is five brave people to do something that's a seven or eight on the Richter Scale," said Philip Henry Jarosz of the Condominium Council of Maui.
"The whole state of Hawaii is watching" he said.
Councilman Warren Lieberman said he was concerned the city will pass a law it cannot enforce because residents will still smoke unless police are specifically called to a situation. Police cannot go out and enforce smoking rules, he said.
"It makes us hypocrites by saying you know you can break the law if no one is watching," Lieberman said.
However, both Feierbach and Warden argued it is the same as jaywalking, having a barking dog or going 10 miles over the speed limit. All are illegal, but seldom enforced.
"You can't walk down the street with a beer, but you can have a cigarette," Warden said. "You shouldn't be allowed to do that. I just think it shouldn't be allowed anywhere except in someone's house. If you want to do that, that's fine."
Comment: Absolutely amazing. With all the air pollution, especially in cities in California, not to mention the polluted water and crap in what passes for food these days (again especially in the US), what "negative effect" could someone smoking in a park or their car have on another person?? One more step - that of banning smoking in the home - and tobacco becomes officially illegal in San Mateo. What then? Police raids on suspected smokers homes and jail time for possession?
By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press
November 7, 2006
HOUSTON - Two former Enron executives whose cooperation with prosecutors helped bring convictions for the architects of the biggest scandal in U.S. corporate history received sharply reduced sentences Friday.
Michael Kopper, once the top aide to Enron chief financial officer Andrew Fastow, received three years and one month in prison Friday. Mark Koenig, Enron's former investor relations director, was sentenced to 18 months.
Prosecutors had asked that Kopper and Koenig be given reduced sentences for their cooperation in helping to convict Enron founder Kenneth Lay and former chief executive Jeffrey Skilling.
The men were sentenced separately by U.S. District Judge Ewing Werlein Jr.
Spain, France and Italy go it alone with initiative Ceasefire and talks deal will be put to EU summit
French President Jacques Chirac and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero give a press conference during a summit in Gerona, Spain.
In a sign of growing frustration at diplomatic inaction as Israeli-Palestinian violence escalates, Spain, France and Italy yesterday unveiled a five-point peace initiative, taking Britain by surprise.
Downing Street confirmed last night that it had not been consulted and had no prior knowledge of the plan, which envisages a leading role for Europe in ending the conflict. Foreign Office sources said they had first learned of it from a news item on the BBC.
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister, announced the initiative at a summit with Jacques Chirac, the French president, in the Catalan city of Girona, near the French border. "We cannot remain impassive in the face of the horror that continues to unfold before our eyes," Mr Zapatero told a news conference after the meeting. "Violence has reached a level of deterioration that requires determined, urgent action by the international community." Italy also backs the initiative, he added.
One particular cause of frustration has been the American veto, last Saturday, of a security council resolution condemning Israel in the wake of an artillery attack in Gaza which killed 18 Palestinian civilians. France, a permanent member of the council, voted in favour, describing its text as "balanced", but Britain abstained.
The plan announced yesterday has five components: an immediate ceasefire; formation of a national unity government by the Palestinians that can gain international recognition; an exchange of prisoners, including the Israeli soldiers whose seizure sparked the war in Lebanon and fighting in Gaza this summer; talks between Israel's prime minister and the Palestinian president; and an international mission in Gaza to monitor a ceasefire.
In Rome, prime minister Romano Prodi described the plan as "a series of actions aimed at achieving concrete results in a situation where suffering has reached intolerable levels", adding that it would use "as its starting point" the presence of international troops in the peacekeeping mission in Lebanon.
Speaking to businessmen and professors after yesterday's meeting, Mr Chirac said: "When I arrived, [Mr] Zapatero said to me: 'We have the same vision of problems and concerns over the Middle East and particularly Palestine. We should take a common initiative.' Our three countries have the sensitivity, the same interests, and the same morals, and maybe we can play a part in working out a solution to the Palestinian problem and putting it into action." France commands the Unifil force in Lebanon that was expanded following the end of hostilities between Israel and Hizbullah in August. Spain and Italy - though not Britain - are also among the group of mainly European countries providing troops there.
Yesterday, Mr Zapatero said that it made sense for the three largest contributors to the UN force to assert themselves for peace. "Someone has to take the first move," he said. The plan would be put to an EU summit in December, and he hoped Britain and Germany would support it. A Foreign Office spokesman said last night: "We look forward to discussing it with EU partners when it is brought forward."
However, the public announcement of the initiative without informing Britain beforehand could be viewed as an attempt by Spain, France and Italy to outflank Tony Blair, whose Middle East policies are closer to those of Washington.
Also, with the Bush administration's policies in disarray following the US elections, Spain, France and Italy may sense an opportunity for Europe to take a more proactive role in reviving the peace process. In 1991, when Mr Bush's father was president, Spain hosted the Madrid peace conference which resulted in the Oslo accords and the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.
There was no immediate reaction from Israel, the Palestinians, or Washington yesterday.
Meanwhile, Iran announced that it had so far donated $120m (£63.6m) to the Hamas-led Palestinian government and was ready to give more.
In Paris, a relief group said that two in three people in Gaza had no running water after Israel's offensive in late June, and chronic illness, trauma and mental health cases had risen sharply; western financial sanctions after Hamas came to power in March after winning elections had caused suffering, along with Israeli strikes, and should stop.
"Gaza is being intentionally kept on artificial respiration, and the population is suffering from collective depression," said Médecins du Monde.
Israeli Foreign Ministry officials rejected the initiative proposed by France and Spain to resuscitate the peace process and renew negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority on Thursday.
"The European Union initiative is not supported by the international community as a whole," the officials explained Israel's rejection of the plan. In addition Israel prefers direct dialogue with the Palestinians over mediation by foreign elements "that will only complicate matters."
Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni addressed the issue of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis during the opening ceremony of a Kadima branch in Rishon Lezion. "Israel will fight the terror threat with the full determination required," Livni stressed. "We have learned the disparity between the slogans and the reality, and we can't forget that reality is more complex," she said.
"Parallel to our duty to provide security and protection to the citizens of Israel, we must communicate the message to moderate elements in the Palestinian Authority that it is time they take responsibility for their lives and for what is going on in their territory. Our aim is not revenge but to advance a process that can bring true peace and security," Livni said.
"I do not accept the comparison between terror attacks and our defense operations," Livni declared, addressing the extensive criticism due to the high civilian death toll in the Beit Hanoun strike last week.
"The terror groups aim their acts at the civilian population, at kindergartens, and think of civilian casualties as a great victory. We do all we can to avoid hitting civilians and we educate our children not to hurt innocents. This is the complex reality we must face. I know that most Israeli citizens understand the complexity of the situation and don't follow empty slogans," she said.
Vice Premier Shimon Peres also commented on the chances of Israel reaching agreements with its neighbors: "We tried to advance peace agreements four times; twice we failed to achieve them - with Syria and the Palestinians - because of them, not us. They are divided, have no army, no diplomacy. The victim killed Wednesday in Sderot is a painful loss for all of us, and anyone looking at the Palestinian side understands that there is terrible collapse. Against this collapse, Hamas is making compromises. Hamas has understood that if it continues with terrorism and doesn't recognize Israel - it will stand alone."
EU proposes new peace plan
Earlier Thursday French President Jacques Chirac announced that his country, in cooperation with Spain and Italy, are drafting a new diplomatic initiative for the Middle East. Chirac said that he held a conference call Thursday with Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero and Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi, in order to reach an agreement on an initiative aimed at finding a solution for the Palestinian problem.
The new plan includes five elements: An immediate ceasefire, the formation of a Palestinian unity government that would be able to receive international recognition, prisoner exchange between Israel and the PA (including the three kidnapped Israeli soldiers), talks between the Israeli prime minister and his Palestinian counterpart, and an international force that will deploy in Gaza and reinforce the ceasefire.
Chirac noted that that in the meeting he held Thursday morning with Zapatero, the two decided to take a joint initiative, as they sharedthe same views regarding the crisis in the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Zapatero said that the program will be presented before the European Union next month, and expressed hope that it will win the support of Britain and Germany as well.
Comment: Israeli politician do not want foreign interference because "that will only complicate matters". You see, Israeli politicians have a very good understanding of what needs to be done - Palestinians are to be terrorised and murdered until they decide to leave Palestine.
JERUSALEM, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Israeli government on Thursday dismissed a new Middle East peace initiative proposed by three European countries which called for an international conference, saying what it wanted direct negotiation with relevant parties.
"The new initiative was most likely Spanish ideas that were not coordinated with the EU or Israel," a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman told Xinhua, commenting on the initiative put forward earlier by Spain, France and Italy.
"Israel's policy is based on direct communication between all the parties involved," she added.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced the initiative at a summit in Spain with French President Jacques Chirac. He said that the plan would be presented to an EU summit next month and that he hoped to win the backing of Britain and Germany as well.
The initiative called for an immediate cessation of all forms of violence at both sides and an exchange of prisoners. It also urged an international peace conference to be held.
Besides, it called for the formation of a national unity government by the Palestinians and an international mission in Gaza to monitor a cease-fire.
In responding to the proposal, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) expressed its welcome to the conference.
Comment: Israel does not want peace. It does not want the violence to cease. Given the huge disparity between the well-equipped IDF and the antiquated weapons in the hands of the Palestinians, violence only works in Israel's favour. One home-made rocket launched from the Occupied Territroies serves as justification for the massacre of dozens, if not hundreds, of Palestinians.
This disparity, as inhuman as it may be, is never discussed in the media. The genocide of the Palestinians is always covered as if it were a fight of equals -- and that is the "best" coverage one can expect. The rest of the time, it is portrayed as the savage and inhuman "Palestinian suicide bombers" against the democratic and civilized Israelis. Get out the sick bag.
Cloak News - Washington, D.C. - Zapata Engineering, an offshoot of Zapata Oil with offices in North Carolina, Hawaii and Tel Aviv, have now been linked to the hiring of private Mossad contractors aka alleged Israeli Engineers in Iraq. Of course that is not the real story.
It can now be reported that Zapata Engineering has hired these Israeli Mossad-types into Iraq for the purposes of alleged counter-insurgency. However, the alleged Israeli engineers have now been fingered for sniping at U.S. Soldiers and the murder of two female American Marines who had their throats slit and then placed in garbage dumps.
These female Marines had been investigating the origins of the I.E.D. (Improvised Explosives Devices). And of course it gets worse. It can now be reported that the origin of the I.E.D.'s, come not from Iran, but come from Zapata Engineering of North Carolina, Hawaii and Tel Aviv.
And now of course, it really gets worse. The projectile's discovered by American Special Forces have depleted uranium tips which connects directly to the Israeli company Rafael, which of course is owned by Zapata Engineering of North Carolina, Hawaii and Tel Aviv.
The first subpoena issued by Senator Levin, Democrat of Michigan, should be for a General Richard Natonski who is the liaison for the alleged Israeli engineers brought into Iraq.
It is clear now that the deaths of various American soldiers and the murder of the female Marines was done by the Israeli Mossad in order to cover up their involvement in I.E.D. sales to alleged Al Qaeda in Iraq.
Reference: Rafael Company, Tel Aviv.
P.S. Zapata Engineering, of course, is an offshoot of Zapata Oil. The same Zapata linked to Daddy Bush, British Permindex and the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy on Nov. 22. 1963.
BEIRUT (AP)--Antiaircraft units of the French U.N. peacekeeping force took what they called "essential preparatory steps" when Israeli air force jets flew low over south Lebanon Friday, a spokesman said.
No hostile action from either side was reported in the incident, which was the second time in three weeks that French forces have come close to firing on Israeli aircraft overflying Lebanon.
Milos Strugar, senior adviser to the U.N. force commander, said the French action came after Israeli aircraft flew low over the French battalion's area Friday.
He would not be more specific on the "steps" taken by the French antiaircraft units.
The French troops are part of a U.N. force mandated to make sure that guerrillas do not use south Lebanon for launching attacks on Israel.
On Oct. 31, Israeli fighter planes nose-dived repeatedly over French peacekeepers' positions in southern Lebanon, French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie told the French parliament on Nov. 8 -when the incident became first became public.
"Our troops barely avoided a catastrophe," Alliot-Marie said.
The planes were "in attack position," a spokesman for the French general staff, Capt. Christophe Prazuck, told reporters. French troops responded by readying an antiaircraft missile, and were seconds away from firing, he said.
After its stalemate in Lebanon last summer, Israel needs new way to fight terrorists. The government has announced a new push into nanotechnology to develop tiny flying robots -- but what would keep guerrilla fighters from using them?
More than anything else, the war against Hezbollah in Lebanon last summer convinced Israel of the need to research new ways to fight terrorists. One idea has now received funding: that of building small flying robots that can navigate streets and alleyways.
The "bionic hornet," writes Israel's daily Yedioth Ahronoth, could chase, photograph and kill, say, a terrorist hiding with a rocket launcher in a civilian neighborhood -- as an alternative to bombing the neighborhood.
The Israeli government plans to invest $230 million in nanotechnology research and development over the next five years, which would make nanoscience one of Israel's most heavily invested R&D fields.
"The war in Lebanon proved that we need smaller weaponry," said Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres. "It's illogical to send a plane worth $100 million against a suicidal terrorist. So we are building futuristic weapons."
Other ideas include miniature sensors to detect suicide bombers and "bionic man" gloves that would give the user super-human strength. Prototypes for the new weapons could be ready within three years, Peres said.
Next-generation drones?
A "bionic hornet" would be an advance on pilotless drone aircraft, which the United States has used already against Al-Qaida in Afghanistan and Iraq. Last year, for example, the CIA killed a senior al-Qaida operative by firing a missile fired from a radio-controlled drone near the Afghan border.
But the problem with such weapons is that insurgents and terrorists can use them, too.
The Colombian military found nine small remote-controlled planes at a base it had taken from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia in 2002, for example, and in April 2005 Hezbollah flew a drone over Israeli territory.
"We are observing an increasing threat from such things as remote-controlled aircraft used as small flying bombs against soft targets," said Michel Gauthier, the head of the Canadian secret services, at a security conference in Calgary last spring.
"Ultra-light aircraft, powered hang gliders or powered paragliders have also been purchased by terrorist groups to circumvent ground-based countermeasures" like radar, Gauthier said.
Dutch NGO platform United Civilians for Peace (UCP) today publishes a research about "Dutch economic links in support of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and/or Syrian territories". This research reveals that dozens of Dutch companies through their activities support or facilitate the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territories.
The investigation, which is presumably not exhaustive, identifies 35 Dutch companies that maintain direct or indirect relations with the occupation of Palestinian and/or Syrian territories: 21 companies with headquarters in the Netherlands and 14 Dutch subsidiaries of Israeli companies. Two of these companies have direct investments in settlements, namely Soda-Club International and Unilever.
The activities of these companies run counter to the answers that the Dutch Minister of Foreign Affairs Ben Bot gave to the Dutch Parliament at the end of 2005. At that time, the Minister stated that he was unaware of any Dutch companies that invest in the occupied Palestinian territories or that have trade relations with companies located in Israeli settlements in these territories.
UCP contracted bureau Profundo to conduct the research in 2005 and 2006. UCP, a NGO platform in the Netherlands of six peace and development organizations, advocates a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in accordance with international law. In the view of UCP, international trade relationships with the occupation obstruct such a resolution, as they contribute to the economic viability of Israel's settlements. The settlements, built in violation of international law, are a source of serious and systematic human rights violations that impact on every aspect of the daily lives of millions of Palestinians and a few thousand Syrians living under occupation. In addition, these settlements constitute a serious obstacle to peace between Israelis and Palestinians: they fragment the Palestinian territories and make claim to fertile ground and water sources, thereby preventing a viable Palestinian state from being established.
UCP's research report is now available in English, supplemented by a briefing document that explains why UCP conducted this research and how the Dutch Foreign Minister and the Dutch parliament deal with the issue of economic links with the settlements.
Submitted by Bill Weinberg on Wed, 11/08/2006 - 03:40.
How ironic. We noted in August that ex-Israeli security chief Uza Dayan was warning the US against emulating Israeli strategies in securing the Mexican border. Now it appears that Elbit Systems, an Israeli firm which is building the "Aparthied Wall" in occupied Palestine, has been awarded a contract, along with Boeing, to build the wall on the Mexican border. From Israel21C, Oct. 15: For possibly the first time ever, the words Israel and border are in the same sentence and it doesn't have anything to do with its own borders. The talent and expertise that Elbit Systems (NASDAQ ELST) has employed for years in protecting Israel's borders will now be put to use on US borders to keep Americans safe.
Kollsman Inc., an American-based subsidiary of Elbit, has been selected as a member of the winning consortium by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for the Secure Border Initiative (SBI) to supply technology to identify threats, to deter and prevent crossings, and to apprehend intruders along the US borders with Canada and Mexico.
Kollsman, headquartered in Merrimack, New Hampshire, is a development, manufacturing and support organization providing advanced electro-optical and avionics systems to the commercial aerospace, military and homeland security markets. The company's expertise includes enhanced vision systems, flight displays, head-up displays, thermal imaging systems, fire control systems, and advanced security and surveillance solutions.
The Secure Border Initiative is the latest attempt by the United States government to use technology to secure its borders, stop smuggling, and prevent illegal immigration. After September 11, illegal immigration is not just seen as a social problem, but also a national security issue. A unique aspect of this initiative was that Homeland Security gave the bidders total freedom to create new ideas of how to apply both new and old technology to secure the US borders.
The DHS awarded the SBI contract for the border security project to prime contractor Boeing over Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman. In addition to Boeing and Elbit, the other members of the $2 billion program are telecommunication heavy-weights Lucent, L3 Communications, Perot Systems and Unisys Global Public Sector.
Elbit was selected because of its ability to bring together global resources with decades of technological experience and capabilities securing borders in extreme cold, mountainous regions, as well as hot, desert terrains.
Kollsman's global parent, Elbit Systems Ltd. has extensive experience with operational border control and management systems combined with command, control and situational awareness for the Israeli government. Elbit's Long Range Reconnaissance and Observation System (LORROS) and advanced turnkey unmanned aerial vehicle systems (UAV) are some of the products and technology that will be utilized.
President and CEO of Elbit Systems of America, Tim Taylor said he was proud of being part of the winning bid and is "motivated to provide the best border protection available."
"US citizens and the federal government are very concerned about the vulnerabilities on the porous US northern and southern borders. The strategic and technological strengths that we bring to the project will help restore the safety and security that Americans have known for so long. Detecting threats along 6,000 miles of border in the US is not the place for experimentation. The experience of our family of companies, along with the substantial credentials of Boeing as a successful prime integrator in the homeland security market enables us to make a significant contribution to protecting the United States."
Wayne Esser, head of the SBInet project for Boeing said: "We are very happy that Elbit is part of the team because there is not one-size-fits-all solution for 6,000 miles of border. Knollsman has the engineering and manufacturing capability to provide at short notice state-of-the-art solutions that will be integrated to support this challenging effort. The result will be a program that safeguards the freedoms that are a cornerstone of our nation."
Based in Haifa, Elbit is the largest non-governmental defense company in Israel.
"Elbit Systems through its Ortek subsidiary is a major player in homeland security in Israel and throughout the world. The electronic deterrence system is key in providing customers in Israel and around the globe with comprehensive solutions for peripheral defense," said Joseph Ackerman, president and CEO of Elbit.
Among its projects are defense systems for Israel's land and sea borders, peripheral security systems of air force bases, major sections of the border security fence, and Jerusalem's detour route.
Boeing's project proposal also included relying on more than 300 radar towers along the borders, some supplemented with cameras developed by Israel's Elbit Systems Ltd. which can spot people nearly 9 miles away and vehicles at distances of up to 12 miles.
Under the program, Boeing and its partners will also work to improve physical infrastructure along the border areas to help agents do their job.
After SBInet is deployed in Arizona, it will be rolled out in segments to other parts of the border based on highest traffic areas, Chertoff said.
Other partners of Boeing in the bid include L-3 Communications Holdings Inc. , Unisys Corp. , Perot Systems Corp. , DRS Technologies , Elbit unit Kollsman Inc., Lucent Technologies , Centech and USIS.
The organizers of an event this Saturday Nov. 11 at New York City's Judson Memorial Church, "Resist the Apartheid Walls, from Palestine to Mexico," note: "Elbit will import Israeli military technology, tested on Palestinians, for use against poor immigrants here."
Jennifer Siegel | Thu. Nov 16, 2006
Forward: The Jewish Daily
Q: Lately there has been a lot of discussion about the role of the 'Israel lobby.' Can you say a little bit about how that impacted you as president? Has it changed over time?
A: Well, I think the Israel Lobby - so-called to use your phrase, that's not my phrase - is much stronger now and much more effective now than it was when I was in office.
President Jimmy Carter's new book, "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid" (Simon & Schuster), hits the shelves this week. In an interview Wednesday with the Forward, the former president discussed the work and his views on the Middle East.
Q: In your book, you often take care to mention that the Palestinians include both Muslims and Christians. Do you have particular concerns about the situation of the Christians in the territories?
A: There has been a tremendous exodus of the Christians from the West Bank and Gaza as a percentage and also in their totality, and this has been a disappointment to me to see that. One of my major commitments in public life for almost 30 years has been to bring peace to Israel, and with its existence accepted by all nations, and, of course, one major step there was to evolve a peace treaty between Israel and its most formidable adversary, Egypt, and I think that this premise has been for Israel to exist within its own legal borders as defined by the United Nations resolutions, by the Oslo agreement, by the Camp David accords, and even by the quartet's recent road map, and to let the Palestinians, and the Syrians, and the Lebanese have their own territory.
Q: In your book, you argue that 'because of powerful political, economic, and religious forces in the United States, Israeli government decisions are rarely questioned or condemned.' Can you explain that more fully?
A: I've been all over the Holy Land, I'll call it, just for a kind of a shorthand description, since the 1970s - the last 30 or 40 years - from Lebanon down to the Sinai. And I've been up into the Golan Heights three times, and I've conducted three elections there - and I've seen the coverage given to Israel's activities in Europe and in Israel itself - a highly contentious debate over [Israel]. There is no such debate in the United States. There's not any debate in the Congress. There's not any debate in the White House, at least since George Bush Sr. and I were there, and in the news media of the United States there is very rarely any editorial comment that would criticize some of the practices of Israel which I consider to be deplorable - and that is the persecution of the Palestinians, and the occupation and confiscation and the colonization of Palestinian land. So there's no open debate in this country if it involves any criticism of the policies of the Israeli government, even though many people in Israel debate and condemn some of the policies of the right-wing governments under Sharon and Netanyahu and others.
Q: Lately there has been a lot of discussion about the role of the 'Israel lobby.' Can you say a little bit about how that impacted you as president? Has it changed over time?
A: Well, I think the Israel Lobby - so-called to use your phrase, that's not my phrase - is much stronger now and much more effective now than it was when I was in office. I felt, for instance, that we should sell F-16 airplanes to Saudi Arabia so Saudis could defend themselves against threats from Iran, and Aipac and others were adamantly against it, but we finally prevailed. And I called within three months of when I went into office for a Palestinian homeland. And I worked for the Camp David accords, which called for Israel's political and military withdrawal from the occupied territories, and so forth, and I think that that kind of independence was also exhibited by George Bush Sr., who condemned Israeli settlements in the West Bank and even withheld funds from Israel, which I never did, by the way.... That's almost an impossibility now in the present political environment of America.
Q: In response to Republican claims that the Democratic Party is weakening in its support for Israel, Democratic leaders - most prominently Nancy Pelosi and Howard Dean - have recently issued statements saying that you do not represent the Democratic Party on Israel. What is your response?
A: They are right. I don't speak for the Democratic Party. In fact, I don't think anybody speaks for the Democratic Party, including Howard Dean or Bill Clinton or Nancy Pelosi. The Democratic Party is an umbrella under which multiple voices exist. I would just refer to my own record as a president - I was the one who negotiated a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt, not a word of which has ever been violated, and I worked throughout the entire four years to bring peace to Israel within its own borders. I don't have to explain my credentials in terms of bringing peace to Israel.
Q: Do you think that most Democrats agree with your views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
A: If you talk about members of the Congress, I would say no, because the Congress members are almost universally silent as far as any criticism of anything that the Israeli government does. But I think that's an anomaly among Democrats in the entire country, and, in fact, among Americans all over. I think there's a tremendous concern that Israel has refused to accept the premise that Israel can have peace if it's willing to define its borders along the official internationally recognized line - that is, the Green Line - modified, if necessary, and I think it would be necessary, by good faith negotiations with the Palestinians on a swap basis. But Israel has not been willing to do that, and I think if Israel doesn't do it, I don't see any possibility that Israel will ever know peace, certainly not in my lifetime, if they insist on confiscation and occupation of Arab land.
Q: Have Democrats in Congress become less willing to criticize Israel since your administration?
A: I think when I was in office, there was a lot of flexibility among Democratic members of the House, and Senate. I had great help from strong Jewish senators, like Senator Jacob Javits, and from Hubert Humphrey, who was a champion of Israel's, and so they all supported me as I went through the process of inducing Israel to withdraw from Egyptian land, that is the Sinai, and of accepting the commitment that Menachem Begin made and the Knesset approved, of Israel's withdrawing its political and military forces from the West Bank, and giving the Palestinians full autonomy, with the right to choose their own government. And so all of that is in the Camp David agreement, which Democrats approved both publicly and privately.
Q: We've talked a lot about criticism of Israel, but you have described the country's existence as 'a moral principle.' How does your faith inform your commitment to the Jewish state?
A: You have to be careful of the so-called Christian evangelicals because the ones who are most vocal support the so-called "left behind" theories - which call for the final days to come, and the Armageddon, and the premise there, which I think is completely erroneous, by the way, is that in order for Christ to come again, to return, the entire Holy Land has to be swept clean of Muslims and others. But the ultimate stage, according to their beliefs, is that all Jews have to be killed or become Christians. But they do support Israel's occupation of the West Bank.... I think that's a completely stupid and ridiculous premise on which to base foreign policy or on which to base support for Israel. My support for Israel is proven and deeply ingrained in my own soul, but I don't think Israel will ever have peace unless they are willing, as I've said earlier, to live within their borders that are reconfirmed even recently with the international quartet's so-called road map, and that says that United Nations Resolution 242 must be implemented and Israel must withdraw from occupied territory.
Q: When you say support for Israel is ingrained in your soul, what does that mean?
A: I've been teaching the Bible since I was 18 years old, and half of each year I teach in the Jewish scriptures, in what we call the Old Testament. The other half of the year I teach in the New Testament, and for the last three months, I've been teaching about God's covenants, with Noah, with Abraham, with Moses, and then with Joshua, and then in the times with the judges, and then going into King David, and Saul and Solomon and so forth. This Sunday, I taught about Josiah. So I've been teaching the Bible and my belief is that God ordained that the Jews should have a homeland there, and I think that international law beginning in 1948 says the same exact thing, and that's what I believe.
Q: For people who don't have a Christian faith, or don't come from that religious background, why should they support Israel?
A: Because it's international law, and because it's been accepted almost unanimously by the whole world. As you know, the Arab League, in 2002, expressed their common belief that Israel should be recognized as a permanent entity in the Middle East, to live in peace within its own borders - that is the Green Line, the 1967 borders - and I believe that that's the only avenue to peace.
Q: What should be our current approach to dealing with Iran?
A: I hope that the strong effort by the European countries, backed up at a distance by the United States, will be successful, and my hope is that China and Russia will join in with that effort and put both pressure on Iran and some enticements on Iran so that perhaps Russia could handle the treatment of nuclear fuels that is now being contemplated by Iran. So I think this is a very important thing. My own belief is that in the future we should reach out and try to negotiate with both Syria and Iran, and get them involved in an overall peace effort in the Middle East and Gulf region.
Q: Some on the right have said that we need to keep all options on the table, including the use of force, and that we have to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. What do you say to that?
A: I think it would be an ill-advised sort of thing. You've seen the results of an unwarranted and unnecessary use of force. In Iraq it's turned into a terrible tragedy and a debacle, and of course, Iran has a much more formidable military capability than Iraq ever did. So I don't think the United States military is at all prepared to make a move against Iran.
Q: Do you have anything to add?
A: I think that my book, which I'm going to promote pretty widely, at least lets people look at the issues and lets people look at what I consider to be the only avenue that I can envision for Israel to have permanent peace recognized by all the other nations in the world, and that's what I tried to describe in the book, and the main purpose is to stimulate that debate and try to bring that into reality.
U.S. President George Bush was informed on Tuesday of an initiative to establish a center under his name in Israel, as a sign of gratitude for his support for the country and its security. Outgoing Israeli Ambassador to the United States Daniel Ayalon asked Bush for the go-ahead to establish such a center during a farewell meeting with the president and his deputy, Dick Cheney.
Rabbinical leaders announced last March that some 6,000 members of the Bnei Menashe tribe in India's northeast were descendants of ancient Israelites or one of the Biblical 10 lost tribes. "A total of 105 people left for Israel on Thursday, while another 103 people went Wednesday with the Israeli Prime Ministers office formally inviting them," Israeli rabbi Hannock Avizedek told AFP.
Comment: What do you do if you're giving a war and there aren't enough people to die? Why, you ship them in from overseas of course!
BAGHDAD, Iraq: The Iraqi Army said police shot and killed a British soldier riding in an unmarked car and wounded a second on Friday near the Kuwait border. The British military denied the report.
Iraqi Maj. Gen. Ali al-Moussawi said police opened fire after the vehicle did not stop at a roadblock. The shooting occurred shortly after 10 a.m. near the border city of Safwan, he said.
But Capt. Tane Dunlop, a British military spokesman, said the incident involved Iraqi police and a men working for a private security company. He said a Briton working for a security company was wounded and that British forces were investigating.
Comment: Hmmm....mysterious British agents driving around Baghdad in unmarked cars... haven't we heard of something like this before? What do British authorities have to say?
BRITISH officials are investigating a shooting in Iraq today amid claims that a Brit soldier was killed by local police.
The Iraqi Army said police shot and killed a British soldier riding in an unmarked car and wounded a second near the Kuwait border.
The claim was denied by the Ministry of Defence.
A spokesman said: "We have not lost any personnel or had anyone injured."
The Foreign Office is looking into the incident. A spokesman said: "We are investigating reports of an incident in southern Iraq."
It is believed that a Briton working for a private security company may have been injured when Iraqi police opened fired shortly after 10am near the border city of Safwan.
Iraqi Major General Ali al-Moussawi said police opened fire after the vehicle did not stop at a roadblock.
British military spokesman Captain Tane Dunlop said the incident involved Iraqi police and a man working for a private security company.
He said a Briton working for a security company was wounded and that British forces were investigating.
Yesterday, a convoy of private security contractors was attacked near Safwan and four Americans and an Austrian civilian were captured.
Comment: Denial? What a surprise! Perhaps a little trip down memory lane is in order to clear things up here...
There is a saying of sorts that "if
you are going to do something, do it well", and
given the serious consequences, nowhere is that more
true than when you plan to engage in criminal activity.
Today in Basra, Southern Iraq, two members of the British
SAS (Special Ops) were caught, 'in flagrante' as it
were, dressed in full "Arab garb", driving
a car full of explosives and shooting and killing two
official Iraqi policemen.
This fact, finally reported by the mainstream press,
goes to the very heart of and proves accurate much
of what we have been saying on the Signs of the Times
page for several years.
The following are facts, indisputable by all but the
most self-deluded:
Number 1:
The US and British invasion of Iraq was NOT for the
purpose of bringing
"freedom and democracy" to the Iraqi people,
but rather for the purpose of securing Iraq's oil resources
for the US and British governments and expanding their
control over the greater Middle East.
Number 2:
Both the Bush and Blair governments deliberately fabricated
evidence (lied) about the threat the Saddam posed to
the west and his links to the mythical 'al-Qaeda' in
order to justify their invasion.
Number 3:
Dressed as Arabs, British (and CIA and Israeli) 'special
forces' have been carrying out fake "insurgent" attacks,
including 'car suicide bombings' against Iraqi policemen
and Iraqi civilians (both Sunni and Shia) for the past
two years. Evidence would suggest that these tactics
are designed to provide continued justification for
a US and British military presence in Iraq and to ultimately
embroil the country in a civil war that will lead to
the breakup of Iraq into more manageable statelets,
much to the joy of the Israeli right and their long-held
desire for the establishment of biblical 'greater Israel'
Coming not long after the botched London bombings
carried out by British MI5 where an eyewitness
reported that the floor of one of the trains had
been blown inwards (how can a bomb in a backpack or
on a "suicide bomber" INSIDE the train ever
produce such an effect), more than anything else today's
event in Basra highlights the desperation that is driving
the policy-makers in the British government.
British intelligence would do well to think twice
about carrying out any more 'false flag' operations
until they can achieve the 'professionalism' of the
Israeli Mossad - they always make it look convincing
and rarely suffer the ignominy of being caught in the
act and having the faces of their erstwhile "terrorists" plastered
across the pages of the mainstream media.
The
REAL face of "Islamic Terror" - Two
SAS agents caught carrying out a false flag
terror attack in Basra, Iraq September 20th
2005.
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A British armored vehicle escorted
by a tank crashed into a detention center Monday
in Basra and rescued two undercover
troops held by police, an Iraqi Interior Ministry
official told CNN.
British Defense Ministry Secretary John Reid confirmed
two British military personnel were "released," but
he gave no details on how they were freed.
In a statement released in London, Reid did not
say why the two had been taken into custody. But
the Iraqi official, who spoke to CNN on condition
of anonymity, said their arrests stemmed from an
incident earlier in the day.
The official said two unknown
gunmen in full Arabic dress began firing on civilians
in central Basra, wounding several, including a
traffic police officer. There were no fatalities,
the official said.
The two gunmen fled the scene but
were captured and taken in for questioning, admitting
they were British marines carrying out a "special
security task," the official said.
British troops launched the rescue about three hours
after Iraqi authorities informed British commanders
the men were being held at the police department's
major crime unit, the official said.
Iraqi police said members of Iraq's Mehdi Army militia
engaged the British forces around the facility, burning
one personnel carrier and an armored vehicle.
Video showed dozens of Iraqis surrounding British
armored vehicles and tossing gasoline bombs, rocks
and other debris at them.
With one vehicle engulfed in flames,
a soldier opened the hatch and bailed out as rocks
were thrown at him. Another photograph showed a British
soldier on fire on top of a tank.
"Many of those present were clearly prepared
well in advance to cause trouble, and we believe
that the majority of Iraq people would deplore this
violence," Reid said. [...]
Iraqi security officials on
Monday variously accused the two Britons they detained
of shooting at Iraqi forces or trying to plant
explosives. Photographs of the two men in
custody showed them in civilian clothes.
When British officials apparently
sought to secure their release, riots erupted. Iraqi
police cars circulated downtown, calling through
loudspeakers for the public to help stop British
forces from releasing the two. Heavy gunfire broke
out and fighting raged for hours, as crowds swarmed
British forces and set at least one armored vehicle
on fire.
Witnesses said they saw Basra
police exchanging fire with British forces. Sadr's
Mahdi Army militia joined in the fighting late in
the day, witnesses said. A British military spokesman,
Darren Moss, denied that British troops were fighting
Basra police.
Iraqi police detained two British
soldiers in civilian clothes in the southern city
Basra for firing on a police station on Monday,
police said.
"Two persons wearing Arab
uniforms opened fire at a police station in Basra.
A police patrol followed the attackers and captured
them to discover they were two British soldiers," an
Interior Ministry source told Xinhua.
The two
soldiers were using a civilian car packed with
explosives, the source said. He added that
the two were being interrogated in the police headquarters
of Basra.
The British forces informed the
Iraqi authorities that the two soldiers were performing
an official duty, the source said. British military
authorities said they could not confirm the incident
but investigations were underway.
Interestingly, on the same day
as this botched covert operation, the CIA and Mossad's
number two bogeyman, al-Zawahri, pipes up and reminds
the world that 'al-Qaeda' was responsible for the London
bombings. How very decent of him.
A long list of crimes against Iraqi civilians has been blamed on sectarian militias, which have become known as "death squads" and which some people say have strong ties to the police and government.
The prime minister has been unwilling to disband them, as he needs their leaders' votes to secure the majority within his parliamentary coalition.
Some Iraqis link the continued existence of those militias to the fight for the premiership this year by Nouri al-Maliki, who won against Adil Abdul al-Mahdi, the nominee of the Iran-backed Sciri (Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq).
Shia parties joined together and formed an alliance, called the Unified Iraqi List, which was the biggest winner in the parliamentary elections in January. This meant that these parties formed the biggest bloc in parliament, occupying 140 of the 275 seats.
Political deals claim
The alliance had to nominate a candidate for the premiership. Al-Maliki's al-Dawa party did not have enough votes within the alliance to back its nominee, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the former Iraqi prime minister, while Sciri ended up in the majority.
Members of parliament from the movement of Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia leader, provided the support al-Dawa party needed.
Dhafir al-Ani, an Iraqi MP from the mainly Sunni Arab Iraqi Accordance Front, said: "Al-Maliki does not want to take action against al-Sadr militias [known as the al-Mahdi Army] because he owes them his post.
"When al-Jaafari lost his Shia coalition support and Sciri wanted their nominee Abd al-Mahdi to take over, a deal was struck between the al-Dawa party and al-Sadr MPs to back the new al-Dawa nominee, Nouri al-Maliki, in return."
Whether or not a deal was done, al-Sadr's movement has enjoyed more power and representation under the new government. It had been regarded as anarchic by Shia parties in the previous administration for refusing to take part in the political process that followed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.
Abd al-Hadi al-Darraji, a spokesman for al-Sadr, said his movement's aim is to establish agreement between factions in Iraq, not argument.
He said: "If we offered support to Mr al-Maliki, then we did so because we believed it would be for the benefit of Iraqi people.
"I believe the problem is not with what have now become known as the militias, but the problem lies in the presence of the occupation forces in Iraq."
Al-Darraji blamed al-Ani for pointing blame at the al-Mahdi Army but not mentioning non-Shia armed groups, such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic Army.
"Whenever there is a religous occasion and Shia visitors go to visit their shrines they get killed if they pass Sunni areas," he said.
"For example, whenever Shia vistors visit al-Kadhim, they get killed in the Sunni neighbourhood of al-Adamiya, which they cannot avoid to get to al-Kadhim."
Al-Ani responded to al-Darraji comments and said: "More than 140,000 US soldiers and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi police and army soldiers are after the Sunni and nationalist armed groups, who is standing against the death squads?
"We have seen how the government reacted to the siege on al-Sadr city, it explains everything."
Killings and kidnappings
On October 25, US and Iraqi forces mounted a ground and air assault against Abu Deraa, a militia leader blamed for a rash of sectarian killings and kidnappings of Iraqi Sunni. Abu Deraa is a commander in the al-Mahdi Army based in al-Sadr's stronghold, al-Sadr city in east Baghdad.
Al-Maliki condemned the raid at the time, saying: "I said we agree on arresting wanted criminals and we do not care whether they are Sunni or Shia, but that was not an arrest operation. Do you send in planes to arrest one person?"
US and Iraqi forces tightened their siege of al-Sadr city after news that a US soldier of Iraqi origin had been kidnapped, allegedly by al-Sadr militias.
A week later, al-Maliki ordered the siege lifted. The prime minister's office said in a statement that this was "to ease the traffic" in and out of al-Sadr city.
Clear decline
Al-Ani, whose Iraqi Accordance Front holds 44 seats in parliament, the biggest Sunni Arab bloc, said: "It clearly shows how closely he works with al-Sadr's people.
"But what I would really like to emphasise here are two facts: Firstly, if we scan news before and after the siege of al-Sadr city we will see a clear decline in the number of unidentified bodies thrown in the streets of Baghdad.
"Secondly, the world must know that the number of people killed by the death squads is far more than the number of those killed by the occupation forces.
"The US army in Iraq itself has been embarrassed that the security level in Iraq has fallen to this shameful level because of the militias' acts."
US forces have recently raided several al-Sadr strongholds in Baghdad, including one this week on al-Shula district in the west of the capital.
Al-Sadr's movement says that there are "rogue" commanders who are misusing their affiliation with al-Mahdi Army to carry out their own agendas.
Sheikh Jaber al-Khafaji, the preacher who speaks for al-Sadr at the al-Kufa mosque, said in a Friday prayer last month: "This disobedience to the leadership has divided us and earned us multiple enemies. The directives of Muqtada al-Sadr in his speech during Eid prayers should not go unnoticed.
"If you do not obey, you will regret it. Indeed, I declare that you will be cursed. Sayid [a religious title meaning that the bearer is a descendant of Prophet Muhammad) Muqtada al-Sadr is a blessing from God upon you and is your protector."
The UN estimated in July that 100 people are killed every day in Iraq. Ali al-Shamari, the health minister, was quoted last week as saying that about 150,000 Iraqis had been killed since the US-led invasion, and up to 500,000 wounded.
This week, Iraq Body Count estimated, based on press reports, that between 46,943 and 52,053 civilians had been killed since the invasion. That figure did not include Iraqi security forces or anti-US fighters.
Comment: Given the large number of murders being carried out by the "death squads", it is very clear that they act with impunity and are therefore sanctioned in some way by that part of the Iraqi government (which is no longer functional) that holds the real power.
Given that the US is essentially a force of occupation and has taken possession of Iraq and established the Iraqi government with people it can control, it is logical and reasonable to assert that the death squads in Iraq are sanctioned and controlled by some section of the US government or one of its agencies in Iraq. See this Signs of the Times article for the inside story.
Kidnappers tortured many of the dozens of hostages seized from a government building and killed some of them, a minister said, warning that Iraq no longer had an effective government.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Iraq's precarious political situation is deteriorating.
The influential Association of Muslim Scholars is urging Sunni politicians to quit Iraq's government and Parliament.
he call comes a day after the Shiite interior minister issued an arrest warrant for the association's leader on charges of inciting terrorism and violence among the Iraqi people.
A spokesman for the association says the central government has proved that it is not a national government.
The head of the association is the top leader of the country's Sunni minority. He's regarded as an extreme hard-liner, but issuing a warrant for his arrest is certain to inflame already raging sectarian violence in Iraq.
Where are you O Whores of the Green Zone who write so prolifically of your love for the US Soldier?
Where are you Bastards of Baghdad who sell your mothers to the invading armies?
Where are you men of religion hiding under your turbans prostituting your Islam in the mosques of Qum and Mecca?
Where are you O Whores of the Green Zone who write so prolifically of your love for the US Soldier?
Where are you Bastards of Baghdad who sell your mothers to the invading armies?
Where are you men of religion hiding under your turbans prostituting your Islam in the mosques of Qum and Mecca?
FORT CAMPBELL, KENTUCKY: One of four U.S. soldiers accused of raping a 14-year-old Iraqi girl last spring showed little remorse and even smiled during a confession to charges he conspired to kill her and her family.
Even before the hearing Wednesday to announce a plea agreement, Spc. James P. Barker, 23, slapped hands with other soldiers and grinned as he smoked a cigarette in the rain. A bailiff scolded him. And when he described for the judge the assault in his own words, he gave vivid details of the rape with a deadpan delivery.
"That's pretty much all I have to say," Barker muttered with a shrug after describing raping the screaming girl.
Barker agreed to plead guilty to the charges to avoid the death penalty, his civilian attorney David Sheldon said.
The agreement requires him to testify against three other soldiers and a former Army private also accused in the March 12 attack in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles (30 kilometers) south of Baghdad.
At one point, the military judge presiding over the case, Lt. Col. Richard Anderson, asked Barker why he had decided with other soldiers to commit the rape and murders.
"I hated Iraqis, your honor," Barker answered. "They can smile at you, then shoot you in your face without even thinking about it." Anderson accepted the plea agreement, which calls for Barker to serve life in prison. The judge will decide Thursday in a hearing whether Barker should be allowed to seek parole.
Sgt. Paul E. Cortez, 24, and Pfc. Jesse V. Spielman, 22, members of the 101st Airborne Division with Barker, also are charged in the case. Cortez deferred entering a plea during his arraignment Wednesday morning. Spielman will be arraigned in December. The fourth soldier, Pfc. Bryan L.
Howard, 19, also deferred entering a plea at his arraignment in October.
A fifth person, former Army private Steve Green, 21, pleaded not guilty last week to civilian charges including murder and sexual assault.
The soldiers were stationed in a violent area known as the "Triangle of Death" because of frequent attacks on soldiers patrolling the roads. Soldiers in Barker's unit, the 502nd Infantry Regiment, were often asked to spend weeks manning remote checkpoints, where several from the unit died.
Sheldon told reporters during a news conference following the hearing that Barker took responsibility for his actions, but he also said the U.S. Army was to blame for the way the war in Iraq was being fought.
"The United States Army did not staff, did not put enough soldiers on the checkpoints," Sheldon said. "It's very important that the public knows that this type of thing can happen again if the Army doesn't take measures to put enough troops on the front line in the war against terrorism, the war in Iraq."
Barker, who whispered frequently during the hearing to his military attorney Cpt. James Culp, told the judge that Green approached him with the plan to attack the family while they were drinking whiskey purchased from Iraqi Army soldiers.
Barker described changing clothes, then climbing through backyards as the five left the checkpoint. He also described in vivid detail raping Abeer Qassim al-Janabi with Cortez and Green before Green killed the girl, her younger sister and parents.
The defendants also are accused of burning the girl's body to conceal the crime, which is considered among the worst in a series of alleged attacks on civilians and other abuses that tarnished the U.S. military mission in Iraq Barker did not name Spielman and Howard as participants in the rape and murders though he said they were at the house when the assault occurred and had come knowing what the others intended to do.
Howard and Cortez, who with Spielman could face the death penalty if convicted, watched with straight faces from the audience as Barker described the assault. They were accompanied by their defense attorneys and declined to comment. Cortez and Spielman are both being held in confinement while Howard is restricted to post.
Barker said he, Green and Cortez raped the girl, and Green killed the girl, her parents and her sister. He said Spielman was in the room, but was holding a door closed during the rape.
Green was discharged from the Army for a "personality disorder" before the allegations became known, and prosecutors have yet to say if they will pursue the death penalty against him.
Where are you who celebrated the death sentence of Saddam? Why are you silent now?
Have you no daughters? Have you no wives? Have you no karama? Have you sold it all for a few dollars?
Have you not been punished enough, has Iraq not been decimated enough?
Have you not learned? Have you not learned that Washington and London will not embrace you? But dispose of you after your charge is fulfilled?
A leading Iraqi lawyer has accused the US army of throwing 211 families, including his, out of their homes.
Rabah al-Alwan, 36, head of the Union of Lawyers in al-Anbar governorate in western Iraq, said that the US army has occupied his family's house and those of with dozens of other families in al-Ramadi, the capital of al-Anbar governorate.
Al-Alwan has accused the US army of seizing the whole neighbourhood of al-Soufiya in the centre of al-Ramadi and using the houses for military purposes.
The press desk of the US army command in Iraq did not respond to repeated requests to comment on the claim made by al-Alwan.
Al-Alwan said: "Ten months ago, the US army seized my house and dozens of houses in the neighbourhood where I live. Residents were not allowed take any of their savings, jewellery, furniture or clothes."
Military zone
Al-Alwan said the US army had installed snipers on the roofs of the houses to prevent anyone approaching the area they have taken over.
He said: "They killed a lot of people, such as Ayad Mutar and Muhamad Ayad, for approaching their houses to try to get some of their families' clothes and belongings."
Al-Anbar is considered to be a trouble spot and a fierce revolt against the US army and the US-backed Iraqi government, has been continuing since the invasion in 2003.
"A delegation representing the evicted families contacted the US army to find out how long they intend to stay in their properties," al-Alwan said.
"In the beginning they [US army] promised to compensate the families, and later on they promised to leave, but here I am talking ten months after the seizure and nothing happened."
Authority
Asked whether the families tried to seek the help of the Iraqi government, he said: "The Iraqi government has no authority over al-Anbar governorate, it is nearly 100 per cent under the control of the resistance and the armed groups."
Al-Alwan said the US seizure of al-Soufiya district has made the neighbourhood a target for attacks by those groups.
"Constant attacks have left the seized houses with major damage resulting from exchanges of gunfire and grenades. We hold the US army responsible for all the damage that happened to the seized houses," he said.
The occupation has pushed some members of the 211 affected families to join the anti-US armed groups, al-Alwan said.
"The world has seen the rising number of US soldiers killed in Iraq and most of them were killed in al-Anbar, definitely the carelessness of the US army units has fuelled the anti-US sentiment in the conservative society of al-Anbar."
About 105 US soldiers were killed in Iraq last month, most of them in al-Ramadi. It was the deadliest month for US forces since January last year.
Military interrogators from the Netherlands abused dozens of Iraqi prisoners following the 2003 invasion, according to a Dutch press report.
Detainees were allegedly subjected to bright lights, soaked with water and exposed to high-pitched sounds, De Volkskrant newspaper said.
The newspaper quoted a defence ministry spokesman as saying things took place "not according to instruction".
The claims were made days before the country's parliamentary elections.
The ruling centre-right coalition currently has a slight lead in the polls.
Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende said that if the allegations were true they were "shocking".
Opposition politicians have demanded a recall of parliament to question the defence minister on the allegations.
"There is a smell of a cover-up coming off this," Labour leader Wouter Bos was quoted as saying by Dutch radio.
The Netherlands had around 1,400 troops in the southern Muthana province but most were withdrawn last year.
'No prosecutions'
De Volkskrant said the abuses were carried out in Samawah south-east of Baghdad in November 2003 by members of the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service.
Dutch troops arrived home from Iraq last year
Prisoners were forced to wear darkened goggles, which were periodically removed to allow them to be exposed to bright light, the report said.
They were kept awake for long periods by being drenched with water and forced to listen to high-pitched sounds, it added.
The report said the incidents were reported to the military police, but there were no prosecutions and the matter was not made public.
Defence Ministry spokesman Joop Veen said, quoted by the newspaper: "Things did happen which are not part of the instructions."
But he said he did not know whether Defence Minister Henk Kamp had been informed.
"It happened a long time ago and you cannot remember everything," he said.
A senior al-Qaida operative deliberately planted information to encourage the US to invade Iraq, a double agent who infiltrated the network and spied for western intelligence agencies claimed last night.
The claim was made by Omar Nasiri, a pseudonym for a Moroccan who says he spent seven years working for European security and intelligence agencies, including MI5. He said Ibn Sheikh al-Libi, who ran training camps in Afghanistan, told his US interrogators that al-Qaida had been training Iraqis.
Libi was captured in November 2001 and taken to Egypt where he was allegedly tortured. Asked on BBC2's Newsnight whether Libi or other jihadists would have told the truth if they were tortured, Nasiri replies: "Never".
Asked whether he thought Libi had deliberately planted information to get the US to fight Iraq, Nasiri said: "Exactly".
Nasiri said Libi "needed the conflict in Iraq because months before I heard him telling us when a question was asked in the mosque after the prayer in the evening, where is the best country to fight the jihad?" Libi said Iraq was chosen because it was the "weakest" Muslim country.
It is known that under interrogation, Libi misled Washington. His claims were seized on by George Bush, vice-president, Dick Cheney, and Colin Powell, secretary of state, in his address to the security council in February, 2003, which argued the case for a pre-emptive war against Iraq.
Though he did not name Libi, Mr Powell said "a senior terrorist operative" who "was responsible for one of al-Qaida's training camps in Afghanistan" had told US agencies that Saddam Hussein had offered to train al-Qaida in the use of "chemical or biological weapons".
What is new, if Nasiri is to be believed, is that the leading al-Qaida operative wanted to overthrow Saddam and use Iraq as a jihadist base. Nasiri also says that part of al-Qaida training was to withstand interrogation and provide false information.
Nasiri said last night he was later sent to London by his French handlers to infiltrate Finsbury Park mosque and spy on its imam, Abu Hamza, as well as another radical cleric, Abu Qatada.
He said MI5 and French intelligence were watching the two clerics in London from as far back as 1997. He said he told them that Abu Hamza was carrying out combat training and how he listened into conversations relaying messages between Abu Qatada and the training camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
"At the time we didn't think that the growing threat from al-Qaida and Osama bin Laden was sufficient to put more resources on it," Bob Milton, a Metropolitan police special branch officer, told Newsnight. "We were monitoring what he was doing, certainly working with the US and European colleagues to do that. But at that time we were still unsure what the threat would be," he said.
Abu Hamza was charged in 2003 and convicted this year for incitement to murder and race hate crimes.
Comment: So now the all powerful yet mythical "al-Qaeda" is responsible for fooling the Bush regime into invading Iraq! Wonders will never cease, and neither will the ridiculous lies of the Bush government. It is interesting however that the other conclusion we draw from this article is that both "al-Qaeda" and the Bush Regime appear to have the same goals. Strange. One would almost think they are more or less the same entity.
A tornado ripped through a North Carolina trailer park on Thursday, killing at least seven people as it tore mobile homes off their foundations and flipped cars into the air, officials said.
Four people were missing, according to North Carolina Gov. Mike Easley, and 20 people with storm-related injuries were taken to hospitals after the twister splintered the mobile homes just west of the town of Riegelwood, North Carolina, and left a trail of debris and strewn clothing.
Kip Godwin, Columbus County commission chairman, told Reuters the death toll of seven could rise as emergency teams searched the area for other casualties, who might have been flung into neighboring woods by the fierce windstorm.
"It was just like a war zone as you would imagine, cars on top of cars, cars on top of houses, people's clothing everywhere," County Commissioner Sammie Jacobs said by telephone. "I noticed a couple of bodies were in a ditch."
Easley sent North Carolina's emergency response team to the area and told a news conference up to 40 homes were destroyed. Up to 20,000 customers lost power, two North Carolina utility companies said.
Jennifer Long, director of the Columbus County tourism board, said the tornado touched down about 7 a.m. and an emergency shelter had been set up for people who lost their homes.
The tornado was created by a storm system that caused havoc across large parts of the South on Wednesday and early on Thursday. Media reports said one person died on Wednesday in Louisiana.
In a separate tornado incident, an elderly man was injured in Iredell County in North Carolina overnight, the Red Cross said.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Signs of warming continue in the Arctic with a decline in sea ice, an increase in shrubs growing on the tundra and rising worries about the Greenland ice sheet.
"There have been regional warming periods before. Now we're seeing Arctic-wide changes," James Overland, an oceanographer at the Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Washington state, said Thursday.
For each of the last five years it was at least 1 degree Celsius (1.8 F) above average over the entire Arctic over the entire year, he said.
The new "State of the Arctic" analysis, released by the U.S. government's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, also reports an increase in northward movement of warmer water through the Bering Strait in 2001-2004, which might be a factor in continuing reduction of sea ice.
During that time there were record lows in sea ice coverage in the region, Overland said. This year there was more normal coverage in the Bering area but a record low on the Atlantic side of the Arctic.
In the past when such a shift occurred, there would have been no net loss of ice overall, just a change in where there was a smaller amount, but now there is both the shift and an overall net loss of ice, he said.
Indeed, the report said Arctic sea ice coverage last March was the lowest in winter since measurements by satellite began.
Jacqueline A. Richter-Menge of the Cold Regions Research and Engineering Laboratory in New Hampshire, said the sea ice decline is now being observed in both winter and summer.
The study was designed to assess the overall impact of climate change in the Arctic and will be updated annually. It was compiled by researchers from the United States, Canada France, Germany, Poland, Norway, Sweden and Russia, she said.
In addition, 2007 has been designated the International Year of the Arctic and that will be marked by intense scientific study of the region.
There have been many changes over the Arctic land areas also, said Vladimir E. Romanovsky, a professor at the geophysical institute of the University of Alaska.
These include changes in vegetation, river discharge into the Arctic Ocean, glaciers and permafrost.
The tundra is becoming greener with the growth of more shrubs, he said, which is causing problems in some areas as herds of reindeer migrate.
At the same time, there is some decrease in the greening of the northern forest areas, probably due to drought. The glaciers are continuing to shrink and river discharge into the Arctic Ocean is rising, Romanovsky said.
There has been a significant warming of the permafrost over the last 30 years, he said.
Much of the damage to the permafrost soil can be blamed on human construction activities and fires, he said, but in many areas this frozen ground is close to the melting point and could soon begin to thaw.
Overland said the changes are affecting wildlife in the Arctic, with those living in the middle levels of the ocean, like pollock, seeming to do well, while those on the surface ice or the sea floor, such as walrus or crabs, not coping so well.
"We're seeing a lot of indicators of climate change in the Arctic, and that may be an indicator for change in other parts of the world," he said.
Most of the heating from sun comes to the equator and subequatorial regions, and a lot of heat leaves by radiation from the Arctic, he explained.
"The temperature difference between the Arctic and equator drives all of our weather," Overland said. If the Arctic should warm up and that difference be reduced, weather could change, though people remain unsure what the changes would be.
LONDON - Oil fell toward $55 on Friday, hitting its lowest level since mid-2005 driven by fund selling across commodity markets on concern of an economic slowdown in the world's largest energy consumer the United States.
Oil drew further downward momentum from high U.S. oil inventories and ahead of the expiry of the front-month U.S. crude contract at the close of trade on Friday.
U.S. crude was down $1.01 at $55.25 a barrel at 1327 GMT after hitting its lowest level since June 14 last year at $54.86. The price has fallen over 29 percent from the record of $78.40 in July.
London Brent crude was 48 cents lower at $58.06.
"There is rising concern that we could be going into a U.S. economic slowdown," said Rick Mueller, senior oil analyst at consultancy ESAI.
"This fall also speaks of a well supplied crude market and a warmer outlook in the U.S., and with those conditions maybe the market is starting to wake up to the fact that prices shouldn't be near $60."
Base metals also slid on concern that if the world's largest economy slows, global demand for raw materials would also suffer. London copper prices slid to their lowest levels since June on Friday.
U.S. industrial output data for October on Thursday was weak, showing signs of a cooling economy.
Oil markets have traded in a roughly $58-$62 barrel range for around six weeks, the longest period of range-bound trading since the same time a year ago.
While the front-month U.S. contract for December was well below that level on Friday, the second-month futures contract for oil in January was still trading near $58. That contract will become the benchmark on Monday.
"We really can't ignore the fact that it is contract expiry," said Mueller. "As things stand, once that contract is off the board, we'll be back where we were on Monday."
Still, some traders say prices may break below the band, dragged down by ample stocks, a relatively mild start to the U.S. winter and doubts about the ability of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to enforce output cuts agreed from November 1.
Lower oil prices have spurred product consumption, BUT warmer than usual weather has sapped heating oil demand.
U.S. stocks of refined products were falling, but overall crude inventories are 13.8 million barrels higher than a year ago.
The U.S. National Weather Service on Thursday forecast warmer-than-normal weather for the U.S. Northeast, the world's top heating oil market, from December until February, although other forecasts are mixed.
OPEC producers agreed at an emergency meeting last month to cut supplies by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) from November 1, although investors doubt the cuts will be fully enacted.
OPEC this week prepared the ground for a further ouptut cut when the group next meets in output in December, citing concern about potentially large rises in inventories next spring if it continues to pump at present levels.
Analysts said the market may be testing the group to find the oil price it wants to defend.
For some longer-term investors who believe that markets will get tighter in the years to come as suppliers struggle to meet rising demand, the fall in price represents a buy opportunity.
"I don't think short-term sentiment is looking anything other than negative," said Mark Matthias, chief executive of British investment specialist Dawnay Day Quantum.
"But taking a three-to-five year view, I would be a buyer of oil below $60.
By MARTIN CRUTSINGER
AP Economics Writer
November 17, 2006
WASHINGTON - Housing construction plunged to the lowest level in more than six years in October as the nation's once-booming housing market slowed further.
The Commerce Department reported on Friday that construction of new single-family homes and apartments dropped to an annual rate of 1.486 million units last month, down a sharp 14.6 percent from the September level.
The decline, bigger than had been expected, was the largest percentage decline in 19 months and pushed total activity down to the lowest level since July 2000.
Applications for new building permits, seen as a good sign of future plans, fell for a ninth consecutive month, the longest stretch on record. The October drop was 6.3 percent, pushing permits down to an annual rate of 1.535 million units, the slowest pace in nine years.
David Seiders, chief economist for the National Association of Home Builders, said he believed construction would fall by about 13 percent this year as builders scramble to deal with plunging sales.
"We had an unsustainable boom in housing in both 2004 and 2005 and now we have a correction on hour hands," he said.
The sharp slowdown in housing this year stands in stark contrast to the past five years, when the lowest mortgage rates in four decades had powered sales of both new and exiting homes to five consecutive records.
The housing weakness trimmed a full percentage point off economic growth in the July-September quarter, when the economy expanded at a tepid 1.6 percent rate.
Housing is expected to continue acting as a drag over the next year but analysts believe the adverse effects of falling sales and construction cutbacks will not be enough to pull the country into a recession.
There were signs that the steep plunge in housing was beginning to level off. The monthly survey of builder sentiment edged up slightly in early November following another small increase in October. It marked the first back-to-back improvements in builder sentiment since June 2005.
The level of building activity in October was 27.4 percent below activity in October 2005, the biggest year-over-year decline since March 1991.
Construction of single-family homes fell by 15.9 percent in October from the seasonally adjusted September level, dropping to an annual rate of 1.177 million units. Construction of multi-family units dropped by 9.1 percent to an annual rate of 309,000 units.
The drop in construction was led by a 26.4 percent decline in the South. Construction fell by 11.7 percent in the Midwest and was down 2.1 percent in the West.
The only region showing strength was the Northeast, where construction jumped by 31 percent.
- Nasa evokes Hollywood in effort to avoid catastrophe
- Mission would bridge gap between moon and Mars
It is the stuff of nightmares and, until now, Hollywood thrillers. A huge asteroid is on a catastrophic collision course with Earth and mankind is poised to go the way of the dinosaurs.
To save the day, Nasa now plans to go where only Bruce Willis has gone before. The US space agency is drawing up plans to land an astronaut on an asteroid hurtling through space at more than 30,000 mph. It wants to know whether humans could master techniques needed to deflect such a doomsday object when it is eventually identified. The proposals are at an early stage, and a spacecraft needed just to send an astronaut that far into space exists only on the drawing board, but they are deadly serious. A smallish asteroid called Apophis has already been identified as a possible threat to Earth in 2036.
Chris McKay of the Nasa Johnson Space Centre in Houston told the website Space.com: "There's a lot of public resonance with the notion that Nasa ought to be doing something about killer asteroids ... to be able to send serious equipment to an asteroid.
"The public wants us to have mastered the problem of dealing with asteroids. So being able to have astronauts go out there and sort of poke one with a stick would be scientifically valuable as well as demonstrate human capabilities."
A 1bn tonne asteroid just 1km across striking the Earth at a 45 degree angle could generate the equivalent of a 50,000 megatonne thermonuclear explosion. Attempting to break it up with an atomic warhead might only generate thousands of smaller objects on a similar course, which could have time to reform. Scientists agree the best approach, given enough warning, would be to gently nudge the object into a safer orbit.
"A human mission to a near Earth asteroid would be scientifically worthwhile," Dr McKay said. "There could be testing of various approaches. We don't know enough about asteroids right now to know the best strategy for mitigation."
Matt Genge, a space researcher at Imperial College, London, has calculated that something with the mass, acceleration and thrust of a small car could push an asteroid weighing a billion tonnes out of the path of Earth in just 75 days.
Gianmarco Radice, an asteroid expert at Glasgow University, said the best approach would be to land a device to dig into the object. "You could place something on the surface to eject material that would push the asteroid in the other direction."
Mirrors, lights and even paint could change the way the object absorbed light and heat enough to shift its direction over 20 years or so. With less notice, mankind could be forced to take more drastic measures, such as setting off a massive explosion on or near the object to change its course. In 2005, Nasa's Deep Impact mission tested a different technique when it placed an object into the path of a comet.
Dr Radice said robots could do the job just as well, doing away with the need for a risky and expensive manned mission. Last year Japan showed with its Hayabusa probe that a remote spacecraft can land on an asteroid.
But with manned missions to the moon and possibly Mars on its to-do list again, Nasa is keen to extend the reach of its astronauts.
Dan Durda, a senior research scientist in the Department of Space Studies at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado said an asteroid landing mission would be a good way test the new Constellation programme spacecraft, the Apollo-style planned replacements for the space shuttle with which Nasa hopes to return to the moon.
He told Space.com: "A very natural, early extension of the exploration capabilities of this new vehicle's architecture would be a "quick-dash" near-Earth asteroid rendezvous mission."
Tom Jones, a former shuttle astronaut, said: "After a lunar visit, we face a long interval in Earth-Moon space while we build up experience and technology for a Mars mission. An asteroid mission could take us immediately into deep space, sustaining programme momentum, adding public excitement and reducing the risk of a later Mars mission."
Europe has its own efforts to tackle asteroids. Its planned Don Quijote mission will launch two robot spacecraft, one to tilt at a harmless passing space rock, and a second to film the collision and watch for any deviation in the asteroid's path.
'Not if, but when...' Hits and near misses
At Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, in California, scientists monitor all "potentially hazardous asteroids" that might one day end up on a collision course with Earth. So far they number 831. The next close-ish shave - at a mere 17 times the distance from the Sun to the Earth - will be asteroid 2004QD14 on November 29.
The Earth has a long history of asteroid strikes. Thirty five million years ago, a 5km-wide asteroid ploughed into what is now Chesapeake Bay, in the US, leaving an 80km crater. In 1908, an asteroid devastated swaths of Siberia when it exploded mid-air with the force of 1,000 Hiroshimas. The theory that the dinosaurs were wiped out by a huge asteroid striking Mexico 65m years ago is controversial since scientists uncovered rocks from the crater predating the extinction of the dinosaurs by 300,000 years.
A near miss, when asteroid QW7 came within 4m km of Earth in September 2000, led Liberal Democrat MP Lembit Opik to declare: "It's not a case of if we will be hit, it is a question of when. Each of us is 750 times more likely to be killed by an asteroid than to win this weekend's lottery."
In January 2002, the former science minister, David Sainsbury, announced the government's response to the threat from hurtling asteroids: a new information centre based in Leicester.
Scientists call for plans to change asteroid's path Developing technology could take decades
In Egyptian myth, Apophis was the ancient spirit of evil and destruction, a demon that was determined to plunge the world into eternal darkness.
A fitting name, astronomers reasoned, for a menace now hurtling towards Earth from outerspace. Scientists are monitoring the progress of a 390-metre wide asteroid discovered last year that is potentially on a collision course with the planet, and are imploring governments to decide on a strategy for dealing with it.
Nasa has estimated that an impact from Apophis, which has an outside chance of hitting the Earth in 2036, would release more than 100,000 times the energy released in the nuclear blast over Hiroshima. Thousands of square kilometres would be directly affected by the blast but the whole of the Earth would see the effects of the dust released into the atmosphere.
And, scientists insist, there is actually very little time left to decide. At a recent meeting of experts in near-Earth objects (NEOs) in London, scientists said it could take decades to design, test and build the required technology to deflect the asteroid. Monica Grady, an expert in meteorites at the Open University, said: "It's a question of when, not if, a near Earth object collides with Earth. Many of the smaller objects break up when they reach the Earth's atmosphere and have no impact. However, a NEO larger than 1km [wide] will collide with Earth every few hundred thousand years and a NEO larger than 6km, which could cause mass extinction, will collide with Earth every hundred million years. We are overdue for a big one."
Apophis had been intermittently tracked since its discovery in June last year but, in December, it started causing serious concern. Projecting the orbit of the asteroid into the future, astronomers had calculated that the odds of it hitting the Earth in 2029 were alarming. As more observations came in, the odds got higher.
Having more than 20 years warning of potential impact might seem plenty of time. But, at last week's meeting, Andrea Carusi, president of the Spaceguard Foundation, said that the time for governments to make decisions on what to do was now, to give scientists time to prepare mitigation missions. At the peak of concern, Apophis asteroid was placed at four out of 10 on the Torino scale - a measure of the threat posed by an NEO where 10 is a certain collision which could cause a global catastrophe. This was the highest of any asteroid in recorded history and it had a 1 in 37 chance of hitting the Earth. The threat of a collision in 2029 was eventually ruled out at the end of last year.
Alan Fitzsimmons, an astronomer from Queen's University Belfast, said: "When it does pass close to us on April 13 2029, the Earth will deflect it and change its orbit. There's a small possibility that if it passes through a particular point in space, the so-called keyhole, ... the Earth's gravity will change things so that when it comes back around again in 2036, it will collide with us." The chance of Apophis passing through the keyhole, a 600-metre patch of space, is 1 in 5,500 based on current information.
There are no shortage of ideas on how to deflect asteroids. The Advanced Concepts Team at the European Space Agency have led the effort in designing a range of satellites and rockets to nudge asteroids on a collision course for Earth into a different orbit.
No technology has been left unconsidered, even potentially dangerous ideas such as nuclear powered spacecraft. "The advantage of nuclear propulsion is a lot of power," said Prof Fitzsimmons. "The negative thing is that ... we haven't done it yet. Whereas with solar electric propulsion, there are several spacecraft now that do use this technology so we're fairly confident it would work."
The favoured method is also potentially the easiest - throwing a spacecraft at an asteroid to change its direction. Esa plans to test this idea with its Don Quixote mission, where two satellites will be sent to an asteroid. One of them, Hidalgo, will collide with the asteroid at high speed while the other, Sancho, will measure the change in the object's orbit. Decisions on the actual design of these probes will be made in the coming months, with launch expected some time in the next decade. One idea that seems to have no support from astronomers is the use of explosives.
Prof Fitzsimmons. "If you explode too close to impact, perhaps you'll get hit by several fragments rather than one, so you spread out the area of damage."
In September, scientists at Strathclyde and Glasgow universities began computer simulations to work out the feasibility of changing the directions of asteroids on a collision course for Earth. In spring next year, there will be another opportunity for radar observations of Apophis that will help astronomers work out possible future orbits of the asteroid more accurately.
If, at that stage, they cannot rule out an impact with Earth in 2036, the next chance to make better observations will not be until 2013. Nasa has argued that a final decision on what to do about Apophis will have to be made at that stage.
"It may be a decision in 2013 whether or not to go ahead with a full-blown mitigation mission, but we need to start planning it before 2013," said Prof Fitzsimmons. In 2029, astronomers will know for sure if Apophis will pose a threat in 2036. If the worst-case scenarios turn out to be true and the Earth is not prepared, it will be too late. "If we wait until 2029, it would seem unlikely that you'd be able to do anything about 2036," said Mr Yates.
LOS ANGELES, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- The Los Angeles city attorney's office has filed charges against a major hospital for dumping patients on skid row, it was reported on Thursday.
It is the first criminal prosecution of a medical center suspected of leaving homeless patients on skid row in Los Angeles.
The charges stem from an incident earlier this year when a 63-year-old patient from Kaiser Permanente hospital in downtown Bellflower street was videotaped as she left a taxi in gown and socks, and then wandered skid row streets.
The suit seeks a judge's order to forbid all Kaiser medical facilities from dumping homeless patients on skid row or impose financial sanctions if it violates the order, according to the City News Service.
Besides Kaiser Permanente hospital, nine other hospitals are under investigation by city prosecutors for allegedly discharging patients to the 50-block area in downtown Los Angeles.
City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo said the Kaiser case was a first step in holding hospitals accountable for dumping.
"We seek to end the inhumane and illegal practice," Delgadillo said. "We believe this is the right action to take and it speaks to this region's values. We are in the right place at the right time to hold Kaiser accountable."
A Kaiser spokeswoman said she was "very surprised" by the charges.
"I can't understand how these charges would be levied based on what I know of the incident," said Diana Bonta, vice president of public affairs for Kaiser Southern California.
She said Kaiser had changed some of its practices since the March incident to better serve discharged homeless patients.
"As soon as we heard about it, we said this is not how we do business," she said. "And we apologized. Since then, we have been talking not only with the city attorney's office, but we've worked with the agencies that service the homeless."
WASHINGTON - It's an achievement that inspires notions of robots with consciousness and independent minds.
Scientists said on Thursday they created a brainy, four-legged robot resembling a starfish that can sense damage to its body and, on its own, think up a way to recover.
Researchers Hod Lipson and Victor Zykov of Cornell University and Josh Bongard of the University of Vermont made a robot that observed its own motion using built-in sensors in its joints and then generated its own concept of itself, or at least its physical structure, in its internal computer.
It used this internal model of itself to figure out how to walk on its four legs and eight motorized joints.
"In the beginning, the robot starts off and does not know what it looks like. You look at it, and you see that it's a four-legged machine. But the robot itself doesn't know that. All it knows is that it could be a snake, it could be a tree, it could have six legs," Lipson said in an interview.
Lipson said the robot used various movements of its joints, first to generate hypotheses and then to formulate an accurate conception of itself.
The researchers then tested the robot's ability to adapt to new situations -- in this case injury -- by shortening one of its legs. "The robot knows something's wrong," Lipson said.
Animals can compensate for injury by changing movements, like limping to favor an injured leg. Machines can be programmed to react to a problem in a certain way. But when they are damaged in unexpected ways, they usually are doomed.
This plucky robot responded by generating on its own a new concept of its structure, accurately sensing it had been altered, and then devising a new way to walk using a different gait to compensate for the injury.
The robot's smarts, awareness of itself and ability to adapt on its own separates it from its mechanical brethren.
'THINKING ABOUT ITSELF'
"We don't really think this is self-consciousness, which is a robot thinking about itself thinking," Lipson said. "But I do think it is moving in the direction of consciousness, like a cat, that kind of level."
Aside from contributing to a philosophical debate, the research has practical implications -- giving hope to people who envision sending robots that can adapt to unforeseen circumstances to explore other worlds or the ocean floor.
"There is a need for planetary robotic rovers to be able to fix things on their own," Bongard said in a statement. "Robots on other planets must be able to continue their mission without human intervention in the event they are damaged and cannot communicate their problem back to Earth."
Christoph Adami of the Keck Graduate Institute of Applied Life Sciences in Claremont, California, wrote a commentary accompanying the research entitled, "What Do Robots Dream Of?" -- an allusion to science fiction writer Philip Dick's 1968 novel, "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?"
Adami described how a robot like this one might perform in unknown territory, exploring the landscape and then "dreaming" of new methods to overcome obstacles it had encountered.
"And even though the robots ... seem to prefer to dream about themselves rather than electric sheep, they just may have unwittingly helped us understand what dreams are for," he said.
Reminded of malicious robots and computers turning on their human masters in movies like "The Terminator" and "2001: A Space Odyssey," Lipson was not worried.
"We just pull the plug out of the robot. That's all," Lipson said. "There are more immediate things to worry about than to worry about that."
By EDDIE PELLS
AP National Writer
Fri Nov 17, 2006
DENVER - It comes in only one flavor - no Fierce Grape or Riptide Rush available - and you certainly won't see your favorite basketball star gulping it down on the sideline during a timeout. But a group of scientists recently discovered that one of the most effective drinks to help athletes recover after exercise is the same thing moms across America have been giving their kids for years. A simple glass of chocolate milk.
To be forthright, the study by the scientists from Indiana University was supported in part by the Dairy and Nutrition Council.
Still, their findings are compelling.
The small group of fit athletes who took part in the study were asked to work out strenuously on a stationery bicycle, then drink low-fat chocolate milk, a fluid-replacement drink like Gatorade and a carbohydrate replacement drink like Endurox R4. A few hours later, they were asked to cycle again until they reached exhaustion.
The test was repeated three times - once with each kind of drink - and the data showed that the cyclists were able to go between 49 and 54 percent longer on the second stint after drinking chocolate milk than when they drank the carbohydrate drink. The difference between the milk and the fluid-replacement drink was not significant.
"My way of explaining it is, there's really nothing magic about the powder in a can that you mix with water," cycling coach Scott Saifer said of the carbohydrate drink. "It's water, carbs, proteins, maybe minerals and electrolytes. What's in chocolate milk? The same thing. There's no reason it shouldn't be as good for recovery as a carb drink."
The milk folks tout their product as a less-costly and healthier alternative to the more traditional energy drinks.
They have some data to back up the physiology of the issue. Among their points are that milk also provides much-needed calcium and might be more efficiently absorbed into the system than the other drinks.
The cost analysis also works in their favor.
To get 75 grams of carbohydrate, you'd need about 18 ounces of chocolate milk, three scoops of a carb drink or about 17 ounces of a fluid-replacement drink. The milk option would cost around 49 cents, which is about 95 cents less than the carb drink and about 9 cents less than a 17-ounce serving of Gatorade.
(Prices were calculated on the basis of a sale-priced $3.50 gallon of chocolate milk, an eight-pack of 20-ounce bottles of Gatorade on sale for $5.50 and a 56-scoop container of Endurox priced at $26.95.)
This latest study by the milk industry is an attempt to get people thinking about one of the world's most basic products in new ways. Of course, it could also be viewed as little more than a ploy to cut into the multibillion-dollar sports-drink market. (According to brandchannel.com, Gatorade topped $2 billion in sales in 2001.)
Dietician Mary Lee Chin, who does public-relations work for the Western Dairy Council, says that either way, there's nothing wrong with this sales pitch.
"It's not like you're talking about some beverage that's really outlandish and recommending that," she said. "Milk should be part of everyone's diet anyhow. It's the fact that you already have a nutritional benefit, and then there's this additional replenishment benefit as an added bonus."
The Indiana study netted different results than an earlier study that found participants exercised 55 percent longer after drinking Endurox than they did after drinking Gatorade. The Indiana study concluded the aberration may have been because of methodological differences in the experiments - most notably that subjects in the other study exercised at a more strenuous pace than in the Indiana study.
Chin acknowledged the Indiana study was not conclusive, but believes the findings merit a more expansive study.
As for the prospect of chugging down a glass of chocolate milk on a hot day after an extensive workout ... well, that's a matter of personal preference.
"If it tastes good enough that you want to reach for a bottle and drink it, it's a good exercise drink," said Saifer, who prefers a fruit and yogurt smoothie to quench his thirst. "If it tastes nasty and you don't want to drink it, there's no way it can help you."
BEIJING, Nov. 16 (Xinhuanet) -- The results of a recent study Neanderthal DNA reveals they and humans diverged from a common ancestor about 700,000 years ago, then split into two separate groups about 300,000 years later.
In a detailed analyses, two teams of scientists separately sequenced large pieces of DNA taken from the femur of a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal specimen found in a cave 26 years ago in Croatia. One team sequenced more than 1 million base pairs of the 3.3-billion-pair genome, and the other analyzed 65,000 pairs.
The new studies confirm the Neanderthal's humanity, and show that their genomes and ours are more than 99.5 percent identical, differing by only about 3 million bases.
"This is a drop in the bucket if you consider that the human genome is 3 billion bases," said Edward Rubin of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who led one of the research teams.
The genomes of chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, differ from humans by about 30 million to 50 million base pairs.
The results tell more about the evolution of the human species, and pave the way for building a complete library of the Neanderthal genome within a few years, the scientists say.
The findings also appear to refute recent speculation that Neanderthals and humans interbred in more recent times.
"We see no evidence of mixing 30,000 to 40,000 years ago in Europe," Rubin said. "We don't exclude it, but from the data that we have, we have no evidence that pages were ripped from one genome and put in the other."
Excavations and anatomical studies have shown Neanderthals were not prehistoric brutes who lost out to modern humans who came from Africa. Neanderthals took of their sick, buried their dead, wore jewelry, used tools, and perhaps sang or spoke much as we do. And their brains were slightly larger than ours.
The successes of the two teams' sequencing projects were made possible by recent advances in DNA sequencing technology, which now allow scientists to sequence DNA more than 100 times faster than in the past.
The researchers say their achievements mark the "dawn of Neanderthal genomics," and they estimate that further advances in DNA sequencing technology could allow the completion of a very rough draft of the entire Neanderthal genome within two years.
"Humans went through several stages of evolution in the last 400,000 years," said study co-author Jonathan Pritchard of the University of Chicago. "If we can compare humans' and Neanderthals' genomes, then we can possibly identify what the key genetic changes were during that final stage of human evolution."
A completed genome will also reveal new insights about Neanderthals, who disappeared mysteriously about 30,000 years ago.
"In having the Neanderthal genome sequence ...we're going to learn about the biology, learn about things that we could never learn from the bones and the artifacts that we have," Rubin said.
The results of Rubin's team are detailed in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature; Paabo's team's results are detailed in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
Comment: Who would have thought that the genetic difference between people like George Bush and the rest of us is only one half of one percent???
BERLIN, Germany (Reuters) -- "We would like to remind passengers that smoking is permitted on this flight."
It has been a long time since most European air travelers heard anything like this, but a German entrepreneur has set up an airline that will give its customers the freedom to chain-smoke from take-off to landing.
Alexander Schoppmann, the 55-year-old founder of Smoker's International Airways -- Smintair -- said he got the idea for a smokers' haven in the heavens after he'd had enough of expensive non-smoking long-haul flights with poor service.
"I got so annoyed that ticket prices were rising while service was getting worse," said Schoppmann, who is a 20-a-day cigarette smoker.
Once Smintair flights begin in October 2007, smoking will be allowed in all 138 seats aboard a spacious Smintair Boeing 747. Normal airlines fit up to 559 passengers in a 747.
"The crew can smoke as well," the former stockbroker said.
Schoppmann came up with the idea as Germany considers toughening its smoking regulations, among the most lenient in Europe. Germans have been loath to ban smoking because of memories of Adolf Hitler, who forbade it in public places.
The center-left Social Democrats, who are part of the grand coalition, have drafted a proposal to ban smoking in many public places.
Berlin, the city-state that is Germany's capital, may go even further. It is considering a ban in all public places.
Large ashtrays
Nicotine-friendly Smintair is already popular, even though tickets are not on sale yet.
"Demand is strong," Schoppmann said. "We get people who say they want to fly with us, even though they have no business in Tokyo or Shanghai," he said.
On daily flights from Duesseldorf to Tokyo and Shanghai, Smintair will offer Cuban cigars, caviar served by flight attendants in designer uniforms, a deluxe on-board entertainment system and large ashtrays at every seat.
There will be a lounge with a duty-free shop.
The extravagance will not cost any more than a flight to Japan with any other airline, Schoppmann said.
A first-class return ticket -- Smintair offers only business and first-class tickets -- from Duesseldorf to Tokyo will cost 10,000 euros ($12,680), while a business-class seat will go for 6,500 euros on the same route, he says.
Schoppmann expects to make profit within the first 12 months. He forecasts a rise in annual sales to 500 million euros and a pre-tax profit of 120 million euros by October 2008.
Airline industry experts are skeptical.
"I don't think an all-business class smoking flight can be run economically from Duesseldorf," said Andreas Kretzschmar, chairman of the Board of Airline Representatives in Germany.
Ernst-Guenther Krause, vice-president of the Non-Smoker Initiative Germany, said Schoppmann's idea would never fly because people were increasingly aware of the risks of smoking.
"Most people have realized by now that tobacco is not good for them," he said.
Nearly one in three German adults smokes regularly and about 140,000 Germans die every year from tobacco-related illnesses.
Schoppmann, who dismisses the effects of second-hand smoking as "nonsense", is not worried about a future smoking ban.
"Quite the opposite. We'll benefit from it," he said.
Smintair does not have an airline licence yet, since it still lacks one crucial piece of equipment -- planes.
Schoppmann said he was taking over three used Boeing 747s from airlines that hoped to replace them with the new Airbus A380 super jumbo, whose delivery is delayed.
Once his airline takes off, the chain-smoking Smintair founder hopes to open a chain of hotels, restaurants, pubs and holiday resorts.
He may also expand the airline's route to the southern hemisphere. Johannesburg and Sao Paulo are on his radar.
WASHINGTON, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Al Qaeda's influence and numbers are rapidly growing in Afghanistan, with fighters operating from new havens and mimicking techniques learned on the Iraqi battlefield for use against U.S. and allied troops, U.S. intelligence officials said.
Five years after the United States drove al Qaeda and the Taliban from Afghanistan, both groups were back, waging a "bloody insurgency" in the south and east of the country, The Washington Post reported Thursday, quoting remarks of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Michael Hayden before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Wednesday.
U.S. support for the Kabul government of Hamid Karzai would be needed for at least a decade to ensure that the country did not fall again, he said.
At Wednesday's Senate hearings, devoted mostly to Iraq, Hayden and Michael Maples, director of the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency, painted a stark portrait of a struggling Afghanistan and a successful al Qaeda capable of operating on two battlefields.
"The direct tissue between Iraq and Afghanistan is al Qaeda," said Hayden. "The lessons learned in Iraq are being applied to Afghanistan."
The Taliban, aided by al Qaeda, "has built momentum this year" in Afghanistan and that "the level of violence associated with the insurgency has increased significantly," the CIA chief said.
Maples said the insurgency "had strengthened its capabilities and influence" with its base among Pashtun communities in the south of Afghanistan, as violence this year had almost doubled since 2005.
Bush administration officials have repeatedly said that the battle against al Qaeda has led to the death or capture of more than half of Osama bin Laden's top people.
Hayden said al Qaeda had lost a series of leaders since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, but the losses had been "mitigated by what is, frankly, a pretty deep bench of low-ranking personnel capable of stepping up to assume leadership positions."
Comment: That's right, al Qaeda is everywhere. And each bomb dropped by the US, each civilian killed, each day the people of Afghanistan and Iraq are forced to submit to imperial rule, the chances grow that the phoney al Qaeda demonized in the Western press will give way to the genuine revolt of the people of this region.
What would you do if a foreign invade was occupying your country? Was killing women and children and non-combatants? Would you stand by and say and do nothing?
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Friday that the U.N. nuclear watchdog should lead efforts to solve Iran's nuclear conflict, The Associated Press reports.
Russia will continue "to seek the swift resumption of talks on the Iranian nuclear program, and not the punishment of Iran," ITAR-Tass quoted Lavrov as saying, again emphasizing Moscow's opposition to sanctions against Tehran.
Speaking at a news conference in New Delhi after talks with his Indian counterpart, Lavrov said that Moscow's suggested alterations in a European-proposed draft resolution are aimed at ensuring that the path of negotiations is not abandoned, Russian news agencies reported.
"Russia introduced amendments in the Security Council on Iran's nuclear program to help the International Atomic Energy Agency renew negotiations," ITAR-Tass quoted Lavrov as saying. He said Moscow does not want potential paths to a resolution to be blocked, the agency reported.
Lavrov said that the Security Council must not take over the role of the Vienna-based IAEA in resolving the mounting dispute over Iran's nuclear program, which the United States and some of its allies believe is aimed at developing atomic weapons.
"The Security Council should ... help provide for Iranian cooperation with the IAEA, but not replace this organization in the settlement process," ITAR-Tass and RIA-Novosti quoted Lavrov as saying.
Russia, not eager for a vote in the Security Council on sanctions, has repeatedly said the IAEA should play the leading role in efforts to resolve concerns about Iran's nuclear program.
After three weeks of talks at the United Nations, the United States and key European countries remain locked in fundamental disagreement with Russia over how to respond to Iran's refusal to rein in its program by halting uranium enrichment.
The U.S. and European nations want tough sanctions to punish Iran, but Russia - which has close trade ties with Iran and is building the nation's first nuclear power plant - says it will agree only to limited measures targeting the nuclear program.
Russia and China have been publicly pushing for dialogue instead of U.N. punishment, despite the collapse last month of a European Union attempt to entice Iran into negotiations. Russian officials joined top Iranian nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani in calling for talks when Larijani visited Moscow last week.
The Europeans circulated a draft resolution late last month that would order all countries to ban the supply of materials and technology that could contribute to Iran's nuclear and missile programs. It would also impose a travel ban and asset freeze on companies, individuals and organizations involved in those programs.
The draft would exempt the plant being built by Russia at Bushehr, Iran, but not the nuclear fuel needed for the reactor.
Russia proposed major changes that would limit sanctions solely to measures that would keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles and would eliminate any travel ban, asset freeze, or mention of Bushehr.
Tehran - Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Ali Larijani said Thursday that Iran was ready to discuss suspension of the uranium enrichment process within negotiations with the West.
"The suspension of the enrichment process could be discussed within negotiations," Larijani told the Mehr news agency.
The reconciliatory tones by Larijani came after his meeting last last Saturday with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow.
While Iran is ready to hold talks with the five member states of United Nations Security Council pls Germany, the so-called "5 plus 1" group would only be willing to talk to Iran if the Islamic state accepted the UN resolution 1696 and suspended all enrichment activities prior to the talks.
Iran has so far rejected the 5+1 pre-conditions and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Wednesday that the West would be eventually forced to give in and Iran would celebrate until the end of the Iranian year (20 March 2007) acknowledgment of its nuclear rights.
The chief nuclear negotiator termed research and development of the enrichment programme as an important issue for Iran "and therefore the course of the enrichment process should be clearly clarified."
Larijani had said last week after his talks in Moscow that suspension of the enrichment process was not the key issue but acknowledgment of Iran's right to pursue nuclear technology."
The Iranian official had several times stressed in the past that the West should clarify for how long Iran should suspend its enrichment programme "and not leave the time-period open-ended."
"We are still willing to hold negotiations which we consider as the only way for finding a settlement? we would then also accept all inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)," said Larijani, who is also secretary of the National Security Council.
"If not, then we would go our own way, accordingly," he warned.
Larijani has warned last week with revising cooperation with the IAEA if the UN Security Council approved sanctions against Iran.
The Islamic state Iran has so far installed two cascades of 164 centrifuges in the Natanz plant in central Iran used for enriching the converted uranium from the neighbouring Isfahan plant. The enrichment level at the current phase is, according to Iran, between 3 to 5 per cent.
Iran's aim is to install 3,000 centrifuges until March 20 next year but eventually needs more than 60,000 centrifuges to start enrichment at industrial level and realise its final plan which is producing fuel for its nuclear plants.
GAZA, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who arrived in Gaza on Thursday, held a meeting with Prime Minister Ismail Haneya in Gaza on the formation of a unity government and agreed to continue their discussions in more meetings.
Official sources at Abbas' Gaza headquarters revealed that Abbas and Haneya meeting was held away from the mass media, adding that the meeting aimed at putting the final touches on the formation of the expected national unity government.
The sources said that Abbas and Haneya agreed at their Thursday meeting to have more meetings in the coming days, and Abbas would stay in Gaza for a while to hammer out an agreement on forming the new government.
"They discussed the results of the dialogues held between Fatah and Hamas movements last week in Gaza on the formation of the government and the delivery of the portfolios to those who would join it," said the sources.
The Hamas-led government insists that the formation of a new national unity government should be after Abbas gets guarantees that the siege imposed on the Palestinians would be lifted.
Palestinian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of High Education Nasser el-Dein al-Sha'er had earlier said that President Abbas had received oral guarantees from several Arab countries that the siege imposed on the Palestinians would be lifted.
Other sources denied that Haneya and Abbas had failed to reach a consensus during their talks on the national unity government, adding that they agreed to resume their talks in Gaza on Saturday.
Palestinian movements of Hamas and Fatah agreed on replacing the Hamas-led government with a broader unity one to get the Palestinian territory out of the current economic and political crisis. Progress has been made on the issue and some Palestinian officials expect the new government to be declared by the end of November.
PARIS, France (AP) -- Segolene Royal won the overwhelming backing of France's Socialists in her bid to become France's first female president, suggesting the party is now ready to put aside internal divisions in its bid to recapture power.
Royal won 60.62 percent of votes in Thursday's ballot, with Dominique Strauss-Kahn far behind on 20.83 percent and former Prime Minister Laurent Fabius on 18.54 percent.
"To be chosen in this way is something extraordinary," Royal said as results were coming in early Friday. "I want to embody this change and make it credible and legitimate. I think that tonight this legitimacy has been given to me."
Her victory over two male rivals from the party's elite avoided the need for a runoff vote, and gave her -- and her long-struggling opposition party -- a running start in the tough campaign for presidential elections in April.
"All the Socialists have won," party leader Francois Hollande, who is also Royal's partner, said Friday.
"Now the Socialists have a candidate and ... we must win against the right," Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who came in second behind Royal in Thursday's three-way-race, said Friday on RTL radio.
The vote also elevated Royal from a poll darling accused of lacking political gravitas to a presidential candidate -- and brought her closer than any woman in history to France's top job.
The Socialists are rife with divisions that stained the unprecedented American-style campaign leading up to the "primary" vote Thursday. But her solid victory suggested that the party is ready to put differences aside to fight the right -- and its front-runner, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy.
"She's the only one who can really unify the left, and the only one who could beat Sarkozy, the right, and the extreme right," said Florian Liscouet, a 19-year-old student voting in Paris.
Royal now faces a formidable challenge.
"She was on the training ground, and now she enters the big stadium," former Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin, a member of the ruling conservative party UMP, said on Europe-1 radio Friday. He cast doubt on her abilities to withstand the fight.
Royal angered many in her party by appealing directly to voters and distancing herself from Socialist party line. She cast doubt on the 35-hour workweek, a landmark Socialist policy, and suggested military training for troubled youth.
"She represents a breath of fresh air for the French. She's really listening to them and their problems," Liscouet said, echoing sentiments of many Royal followers who say her attitude more than her policies won them over.
The success of Royal's tactics suggests that the French Socialists are the latest to shift away from Europe's traditional leftist roots, following Britain's Labour Party transformation under Tony Blair and Italian Premier Romano Prodi's move toward the center.
The Socialists, who dominated the French political scene a generation ago, have been searching for direction since former Prime Minister Lionel Jospin's embarrassing third-place finish in the last presidential vote, in 2002.
"There is a will to change politics as it is done today in France," the French Socialist Party's No. 2 official, Francois Rebsamen, said Friday on Europe-1 radio.
He described the Socialists' campaign, which opened up the party's former closed-door decision-making to the public with televised debates and Thursday's well-advertised vote, as "a good lesson in democracy."
Despite Royal's maverick stance, she remains a leftist who wants to punish companies who shift jobs abroad and has suggested obligatory labor union membership. She supports gay marriage and adoption and has never married Hollande, the father of her four children.
Critics say the Socialists have no feasible recipes for facing a globalizing economy. The party manifesto calls for expanding use of the much-maligned 35-hour workweek law and re-nationalizing utility Electricite de France.
Royal has shaken up the political scene in a nation disenchanted and in need of change. Many say a woman president is the tonic needed.
"That would do us some good," said Socialist Philippe Chleq, 72, one of the 68,000 party members who have joined since June, after voting. "There is so much machismo in politics, it's disgusting. She'll help change that."
French Socialist presidential candidate Segolene Royal has promised to embody change if she becomes France's first female head of state.
Ms Royal, 53, described her win over two rivals in a ballot of party members as "extraordinary", and said she wanted to write a new page in French history.
She won with more than 60% of the vote, avoiding a second round.
The mother-of-four is widely expected to face centre-right hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy in the April poll.
Ms Royal has promoted herself as a political outsider who can shake up a system with which many French people have grown disenchanted.
But BBC Europe editor Mark Mardell says she has so far been decidedly light on policy detail and faces a relentless campaign against Mr Sarkozy.
Speaking to reporters in Poitou-Charente, whose regional council she heads, Ms Royal expressed delight at the result.
"To be chosen in this way is something extraordinary," she said.
"I want to embody this change and make it credible and legitimate.
"I think that tonight this legitimacy has been given to me and for this I want to thank party members from the bottom of my heart."
Race begins
Both rivals, former Finance Minister Dominique Strauss-Kahn and ex-Prime Minister Laurent Fabius, conceded saying it was important for the Socialists to forget their differences and focus on the election, which has been set for 22 April.
Mr Sarkozy has not officially announced that he is a candidate.
Recent polls have suggested Ms Royal would stand an even chance of beating Mr Sarkozy in the presidential poll - but her two rivals would not.
The three contenders made bitter attacks on each other during the campaign.
If no candidate had achieved an overall majority of votes, there would have been a second round next week.
But party officials said 60.6% of the party's 220,000 members had plumped for Ms Royal, a former environment minister.
Mr Strauss-Kahn took 20.8% of the vote and Mr Fabius 18.5%.
Ms Royal's rivals tried to destabilise her campaign during the final days on the election trail.
Teachers reacted angrily after a video appeared on the internet last week featuring a party meeting earlier this year in which she said they should work longer hours in school.
Ms Royal responded by highlighting what she described as "chauvinistic comments" made by her rival candidates, something they strongly denied.
Tony Blair has said he still backs plans to hold terror suspects for up to 90 days without charge.
He said he believed the evidence backed longer detention and that he had not changed his mind since losing a Commons vote on the issue last year.
But the prime minister, in an e-mail question and answer session, said he wanted to "proceed by consensus".
New anti-terror plans could be brought in before Christmas, he added, saying that police wanted longer detentions.
The proposals, he said, would be "based on an analysis now of what has gone on in the past few months and how we make sure we have the most effective laws to deal with the terrorist threat that we face".
He added: "The issue to do with the number of days of detention will be part of that."
The government's plans to bring in a 90-day limit on detentions were voted down by the Commons last year, with MPs and peers eventually settling on 28 days. Previously, the limit had been 14 days.
Mr Blair said: "I supported 90 days before on the basis that, particularly, the police handling terrorism for us thought that that was what was needed.
"But we have got to look at it again."
Home Secretary John Reid said on Wednesday that the UK faced a "wave" of terrorist plots, prepared strategically and directed from abroad by al-Qaeda.
Although no anti-terror bill was included in the Queen's Speech, pending Mr Reid's review of options, the government promised to "fill gaps" in legislation.
Lord Carlile, the government appointed expert who oversees terrorism laws, said on Wednesday that he expected fresh anti-terror plans to be published in the new year.
He told BBC Two's Newsnight the options included "giving police powers to take fingerprints on fingerprint scanners at airports and seaports".
He added: "The government may also include an attempt to return to 90 days' post-arrest detention.
"If they do that it will, as the home secretary has said, have to be on an evidence base."
Compromise
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair has said an extension should be "examined again in the near future", with Chancellor Gordon Brown adding that he "completely" agreed with this analysis.
However, Conservative leader David Cameron accused ministers of peddling the "politics of fear".
'Internment'
The Tories say there should be an extension of the detention limit only if there is "credible evidence" it is needed.
Shami Chakrabarti, director of the civil rights group Liberty, said: "Ninety days is internment - our nightmare but a terrorist recruiter's dream.
"Why have we seen no moves to allow intercept evidence and other tools to bring terror suspects to justice?"
Last week, MI5 chief Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller said the security service knew of 30 terror plots threatening the UK and is keeping 1,600 individuals under surveillance.
Meanwhile ex-Home Secretary David Blunkett has accepted the public was in danger of having "terror fatigue".
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme on Thursday that raising awareness to the correct level, without creating panic, was "almost impossible".
Mr Blunkett also accepted that the fact the government's intelligence had turned out to be "wrong" about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction had "undermined confidence in other parts of the counter-terrorism thrust".
By Vladimir Isachenkov
The Associated Press
Friday, November 17, 2006
The country's nuclear forces must remain capable of guaranteeing the destruction of any potential aggressor, President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.
"Maintaining a strategic balance means that our strategic deterrent forces must be capable of destroying any potential aggressor, no matter what modern weapons systems it has," Putin said at a meeting of senior military officials.
He said Russia needed to build "principally new strategic weapons systems" to maintain the balance of forces.
"We're not going to keep comparing quantities of strategic forces in nuclear powers as we have been doing for decades, although it still makes some sense," Putin said in televised remarks. "In the modern world, it's the quality of weapons that is more important than the number of nuclear warheads."
He said that along with a strong nuclear deterrent, the military should also preserve efficient conventional forces.
Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said a strong military power was essential for Russia to "protect the nation's security and territorial integrity, firmly defend our national interests and, if necessary, adequately respond to any attempts of political pressure and blackmail," Itar-Tass reported.
In his state-of-the-nation address in May, Putin emphasized that Russia needed a strong military to resist foreign pressure. Windfall oil revenues over recent years have allowed the government to increase weapons purchases and fund the development of new weapons.
"The period of patching holes and elementary survival is over," Putin said Thursday in a reference to a cash shortage that followed the Soviet collapse. "The Army and the Navy are again acquiring power and self-confidence."
Ivanov said that of the military's budget of 820 billion rubles ($30.7 billion) next year, 300 billion rubles would be spent on new weapons, including 17 new intercontinental ballistic missiles. That is a significant increase over recent years, when the military was buying just several new strategic missiles per year. Ivanov added that a state weapons program for 2007 to 2015 envisaged spending the total of 5 trillion rubles ($188 billion) on the development and production of new weapons.
In response to broad criticism of poor conditions and rampant bullying of young conscripts by older soldiers, Ivanov pledged Thursday to punish officers who allowed abuses and open the military to more public scrutiny.
Ivanov said there were 473 noncombat deaths in the military in the first 10 months of the year, compared with 876 during the same period last year. Of that number, 20 deaths resulted from bullying compared with 26 during the same period last year, and 167 were suicides, compared with 206 in 2005, he said.
He said the military this year would disband all construction battalions, notorious for the most vicious bullying and other abuses. He added that three generals were fired this year for assigning to soldiers tasks unrelated to service.
Huffington Post has obtained an internal Fox News memo written by the network's Vice President of news. The memo details Fox's game plan the day Democrats won control of both the Senate and the House.
"I have been nervous about this interview with you, because what I feel like saying is, 'Sir, prove to me that you are not working with our enemies.' " Beck added: "I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel, and I think a lot of Americans will feel that way."
President Evo Morales said on Friday that Bolivia is free to decide its relations with any other nations, after US Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, suggested distancing from Venezuela and Cuba.
Burns said the Andean state should have a more integrated approach, which is difficult to maintain with links to president Fidel Castro of Cuba and Hugo Chavez, Venezuela.
But Morales said he could also request from Washington the withdrawal of its troops from Iraq, where it keeps a huge military deployment despite growing international rejection.
He stressed that in Latin America there are few servile or subordinate democracies and respect among all countries is essential.
Concerning ties with Caracas, the Bolivian leader highlighted the unconditional nature of the Venezuelan cooperation in hydrocarbons, education and health.
Bolivia wants to keep good relations with the US but demands that everyone respects its sovereign right to have bonds with any state in the world.
The dignitary underscored he admired the Cuban and the Venezuelan peoples and their leaders for giving unconditional cooperation in health and education.
Nicaraguan president-elect Daniel Ortega assured representatives of international financial bodies that his future government has the priority to eliminate hunger affecting over a million people in his nation.
He made that assertion after meeting in Managua with officials of the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Inter American Development Bank.
According to Ortega, they should create conditions to insert the poor in the economic activity and become them active.
He announced Thursday evening they are setting some tentative dates to meet with finance organizations after his January 10 inauguration.
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