Palestinian Pundit

From The Sunday Times, February 25, 2007

"SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

“There are enough people who feel this would be an error of judgment too far for there to be resignations.”

A generals’ revolt on such a scale would be unprecedented. “American generals usually stay and fight until they get fired,” said a Pentagon source. Robert Gates, the defence secretary, has repeatedly warned against striking Iran and is believed to represent the view of his senior commanders.

The threat of a wave of resignations coincided with a warning by Vice-President Dick Cheney that all options, including military action, remained on the table. He was responding to a comment by Tony Blair that it would not “be right to take military action against Iran”......"

"An American Strike on Iran is Essential for Our Existence"

By GARY LEUPP
CounterPunch

".....Now, as Israeli calls for a U.S. attack on Iran become more shrill by the day, AIPAC recognizes that the American people profoundly distrust Vice President Cheney and the nest of neocon liars he has sheltered. The Bush-Cheney war machine has been pretty well exposed, and that must worry the warmongers within the group. Israeli Defense Force chief artillery officer Gen. Oded Tira has griped that "President Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran," adding that since "an American strike in Iran is essential for [Israel's] existence, we must help him pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and US newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iran issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure." Tira urges the Lobby to turn to "potential presidential candidates. . . so that they support immediate action by Bush against Iran," while Uri Lubrani, senior advisor to Defense Minister Amir Peretz, tells the Jewish Agency's Board of Governors that the US "does not understand the threat and has not done enough," and therefore "must be shaken awake."

Many Americans would find such statements deeply offensive in their arrogance and condescension. President Bush has indeed been weakened by the "Iraq failure" Tira acknowledges, arising from a war that the Lobby once endorsed with enormous enthusiasm. (As Gen. Wesley Clark put it way back in August 2002, "Those who favor this attack now will tell you candidly, and privately, that it is probably true that Saddam Hussein is no threat to the United States. But they are afraid at some point he might decide if he had a nuclear weapon to use it against Israel." Recall that that weapon was imaginary.) So now, the Israeli war advocates aver, the U.S. president needs to be helped to do the right thing and attack Iran by lobbyists who will use their power to force the fools in the Democratic Party, especially presidential candidates. Because Americans don't understand and have to be shaken out of their current skeptical mode.

By who? By AIPAC, of course!....."

Audio, CounterSpin, 24 February 2007

"[The Mecca Agreement] is not an obstacle to peace -- what it is is an obstacle to US and Israelis' railroading of the Palestinians into an unjust, untenable and unsustainable deal. The Israelis and the Americans want the Palestinians basically to capitulate, to give up on what Palestinians see as their most fundamental rights." Ali discusses Condoleezza Rice's latest trip to the Middle East in an interview on CounterSpin.

Click Here to Listen

by Uri Avnery

Global Research, February 24, 2007

""WE ARE ready for the next war," a reserve soldier told a TV reporter this week, on the scene of a brigade-size maneuver on the Golan Heights.

What war? Against whom? About what? This was not stated, and not even asked. The soldier saw it as self-evident that war will break out soon, and it seems that he did not particularly care against whom.

Politicians are used to expressing themselves more cautiously, in words like "If, God forbid, a war should break out…" But in Israeli public discourse, the next war is seen as a natural phenomenon, like tomorrow's sunrise. Of course, war will break out. The only question is against whom.

AND INDEED - against whom? Perhaps Hizbullah again?

Quite possibly. In the Knesset and the media, a lively debate took place this week about whether Hizbullah has already regained all the capabilities it had before the Second Lebanon War, or not yet......

Our commentators reacted by declaring that "no later than this summer" the Israeli army will be compelled to attack in Lebanon in order to remove the danger, and, on this occasion, also to eradicate the shame and restore to the army the "deterrent power" that was lost on the battlefields of that unfortunate war.

OR PERHAPS Syria, this time? That is also possible. After all, this week's brigade maneuver, the first for a long time, was held on the Golan and obviously directed against Damascus......

Preparations go well beyond training the forces on the ground. They also have a psychological dimension. The day before yesterday, an extra-large front page headline in Haaretz announced: "Syrian Arms Race With the Help of Iran". The other media followed suit. It was said that Russia was supplying Syria with huge quantities of anti-tank weapons, of the kind that penetrated even the most advanced Israeli tanks in the recent war. And, as if that was not enough, Russia is also providing Syria with anti-shipping missiles that would be a real threat to our navy, and long-range missiles that can reach every corner of Israel.

The news story puts together three countries - Syria, Russia and Iran - which are, quite fortuitously, the three members of Bush's new "axis of evil"........

Truth is that no danger lurks in that direction. There is not the slightest possibility that Syria would attack Israel. The military capabilities of Syria, even with all the Russian arms they may get, are vastly inferior to those of the Israeli army. That is the considered view of the entire Israeli intelligence community. If Syria rearms, it is for defensive purposes. They are, quite justly, afraid of Israel and the United States.....

AND PERHAPS these are simply diversionary tactics, in order to shift attention away from the real target of the next war - Iran?......

A cynical Prime Minister, entrapped in such a situation, could easily be tempted to start another military adventure, in the hope that it would give him back his lost popularity and divert attention from his private and political troubles. If this is the aim, it really does not matter much against whom - Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians or Iranians. The main thing is that it should happen as soon as possibly, preferably this summer at the latest. What remains is to convince the public of the presence of an existential danger, but in our country that is not too difficult.

ALL THIS reminds one, of course, of another outstanding leader - George W. Bush. Amazing how these two find themselves in almost the same situation......

But it seems that the American system has created a terrifying situation: President Bush has two more years in office - and in this time he can start any war at will, even though now the American public has clearly shown in the congressional elections that it loathes the Iraq war. As Commander-in-Chief of the most powerful military forces in the world, he can widen and deepen the war in Iraq, and at the same time start a new war against Iran or Syria......

Thus, one single person can cause a world-wide catastrophe. He has no brakes, but has a strong drive towards war: to fulfill his "vision" (dictated to him by God Himself in private conversation) and to retouch his image in history......

The neo-cons, who still reign supreme in Washington, are convinced that a rain of many hundreds of smart bombs on all the nuclear, military, governmental and public installations in Iran could "do the job". Their friends in Israel will applaud, since that would relieve Israel of the need to do something similar, if on a smaller scale......

Bush and Olmert and the Next War - HELP!"

The Cultural Connection

A Good Article
By LARRY PORTIS
CounterPunch

"......I agree with Naveh that the US influence over the Zionist enterprise is important. What is less understood is how Israel has become a model for the US. Recently the work of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt has raised the question of how Israel, through the Zionist lobby in the US, has perhaps come to exercise a virtually direct control over US policy in the Middle East. This is an important debate in which others, such as Noam Chomsky and Bill and Kathleen Christison have made important contributions. In this debate, in my opinion, the cultural connections between Zionism and the United States should not be minimized......

The associations envisioned by Jefferson are eloquent: the notion of a chosen people-the Elect-to whom providence has assigned a spiritual mission linked to the conquest of a particular land. All this provides the basis for an affinity that is, in fact, more than elective-it is divine. More specifically, both chosen peoples were, ultimately, "people without a land" called upon to colonize "a land without a people".

When we speak of the colonizers, of America and Palestine, it is logical to forget the indigenous inhabitants of both places, for it was the land that was colonized--not the people living on it. The importance of the American Indians and the Palestinians comes from the fact that they have figured as obstacles to the fulfillment of the missions in question. Both groups have, in different ways, been characterized as lower forms of civilization slowing the march of progress. Both peoples have been described as savage and cruel.......


For all of these reasons, the rhetoric of nationalism in the Israel-Palestine conflict tends to reinforce established cultural values, values stemming from American historical experience. It is also why, in the United States, many people find it difficult to take seriously Palestinian claims, just as they could not take seriously the claims of the "Indian Nations". The similarities, in any case, are striking. One century later, the Palestinian resistance to colonization and ethnic cleansing is being dealt with in much the same ways as that of the Indians: forced evacuation, concentration in "reservations" (which could be called "Bantustans" or "autonomous territories"), periodic massacre and racist humiliations......"

Windbag du Jour: Fawzi Barhoum, Hamas Spokesman.

All Wind...., All The Time....




The New and Improved Hamas.





"CAIRO, (PIC)-- Khaled Mishaal, the political bureau chairman of the Hamas Movement, has affirmed that his Movement would continue to pursue political flexibility but would never bow to pressures......"

"Israel is negotiating with the United States for permission to fly over Iraq as part of a plan to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.

To conduct surgical air strikes against Iran's nuclear programme, Israeli war planes would need to fly across Iraq. But to do so the Israeli military authorities in Tel Aviv need permission from the Pentagon.

A senior Israeli defence official said negotiations were now underway between the two countries for the US-led coalition in Iraq to provide an "air corridor" in the event of the Israeli government deciding on unilateral military action to prevent Teheran developing nuclear weapons.

"We are planning for every eventuality, and sorting out issues such as these are crucially important," said the official, who asked not to be named......

Last week Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, announced that he had persuaded Meir Dagan, the head of Mossad for the past six years and one of Israel's leading experts on Iran's nuclear programme, to defer his retirement until at least the end of next year.

Mr Olmert has also given overall control of the military aspects of the Iran issue to Eliezer Shkedi, the head of the Israeli Air Force and a former F-16 fighter pilot......."

Jordan urges Palestinian compromise

"Jordan's King Abdullah has said that the new Palestinian unity government must adhere to the demands of the Middle Eastern Quartet that include recognising Israel, renouncing violence and abiding by peace deals.

King Abdullah's comments, the first from an Arab leader, came in an interview with Israel's Channel Two, and will air on Saturday. His statements are the first from the region to cast a doubt on the willingness of major Arab donors to side-step a US-led embargo of the Hamas-led government unless it commits to the conditions.

'Not alone'

"You're not alone on this," Abdullah said in the interview when asked about Israeli concerns that the power-sharing deal between Hamas and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president and Fatah leader, fails to meet the Quartet's demands.

"There's international common ground - not just western but also Arab and to an extent Muslim - that believe that there have to be certain criteria that the new government has to accept if we're going to move the process forward," Abdullah said.......

Jordanian officials have privately supported US-led efforts to isolate the Hamas government that took power after winning the January 2006 elections, unless it embraced Middle East peace moves.....

While the unity government agreement contained a vague promise to "respect" previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements it fell short of what the Quartet wants.

"It's not just ... the international players, but also the Arab countries are also expecting the new Palestinian government to adhere to the policies that we have set out in the Quartet, and in the Arab Quartet also," Abdullah said, referring to Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates.

King Abdullah said Abbas should be given "the mandate to start negotiations with the Israelis," and the new government should be in "full compliance with the Arab Accord as well as international commitments"....."

The former Iraqi regime spokesman's boasts seem almost prophetic. Unlike the prime minister's deluded declarations

Marina Hyde
Saturday February 24, 2007
The Guardian

".....And so it was, listening to Tony Blair sing the praises of his Iraq adventure on the Today programme on Thursday, that my mind began to wander. If it wasn't all such a bleeding mess, I thought vaguely, the prime minister's delusions of success would be almost comical......

Listening again to Blair's Today interview, it is easy to imagine his declarations as simply one melody in a discordant symphony, a series of those beloved soundbites that could be spliced with contrapuntal news of actual events. "We should be immensely proud." Crash! A six-hour firefight in Ramadi leaves 12 dead. "What we had to do was rebuild an Iraqi army and police - we did that." Bang! A US soldier dies and three are injured by a roadside bomb in Diwaniya. "It is better now that [Saddam] has gone." Wallop! A car bomb factory is discovered in Baghdad. Just as it was with his apparent inspiration, Comical Ali, it becomes ever more difficult to avoid the suspicion that the prime minister is living in a parallel universe, where success and failure are merely states of mind......

His prime ministerial imitator, however, is assumed to have far loftier plans, with the North American lecture tour a seeming inevitability. Enthralled audiences can no doubt expect more insights such as we gained on Thursday, when the PM appeared to justify Iraq's sprightly journey in the direction of civil war with the observation: "You can't absolutely predict every set of circumstances that comes about." Well quite. You can, however, have a vague punt on possible outcomes, and if you are over the age of 15, not involved in a still-unfathomed platonic infatuation with the US president, and willing to listen to intelligence you didn't pilfer off the internet, you might hazard the road ahead was slightly more pitfall-ridden than seems to have been judged.......

But the smile fades when recalling other pronouncements. "Do not be hasty because your disappointment will be huge," the old crazy warned. "You will reap nothing from this aggressive war, which you launched on Iraq, except for disgrace and defeat." "We will embroil them, confuse them, and keep them in the quagmire," he said later, adding that "they cannot just enter a country of 26 million people and lay besiege to them! They are the ones who will find themselves under siege."

There are, of course, rather fewer than 26 million people in Iraq these days, but even those who dispute the precise extent of the population depletion might agree that it comes to something when, in hindsight, several statements by this preposterous character seem more prophetic than anything spouted by the British government at the time......"

By Linda S. Heard

".......Think about it! As the world goes about its business as usual, the US could well be on the brink of attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities using nuclear-tipped bunker busters. Evidence there is such a plan on the table is coming thick and fast but there is nothing we can do about it......

One of the most disturbing things is the way the new US Defense Secretary Bob Gates keeps insisting his country has absolutely no plans to attack Iran.

Dan Plesch, one of Britain’s leading commentators on defense and security doesn’t believe him. “American military operations for a major conventional war with Iran could be implemented any day,” says Plesch.

“They extend far beyond targeting suspect WMD facilities and will enable President Bush to destroy Iran’s military, political and economic infrastructure overnight using conventional weapons.”

Professor of International Law Francis A. Boyle doesn’t believe him. He wants George W. Bush and US Vice President Dick Cheney impeached before they can start a wider war in the Middle East. “I believe that they [the neoconservatives] would like the opportunity to break the taboo of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and indicate to the world -- we here in the United States are fully prepared to use nuclear weapons and we just used them against Iran,” he recently said on Talk Nation Radio.

Former UN weapons inspector, turned peace activist, Scott Ritter isn’t swallowing Gates’ assurances either. Here’s what he said on the subject during a recent lecture: “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re going to war with Iran. It’s going to happen. There’s nothing we can do to stop it.”......

In truth, there could be method in his madness. Various papers penned by his neocon friends before he took office (“Clean Break” and the Project for the New American Century’s “Rebuilding America’s Defenses”) make clear the Bush administration’s end goal, which is control of this region and its resources to stem the rise of competitors.

There were basically two obstacles to that goal: Iraq and Iran. Iraq has been dealt with and now there is only one. Bush has vowed that he will not leave office with the prospect of Iran achieving a nuclear arsenal any time soon......

Interestingly, former US National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, once a fervent advocate of full spectrum US domination, recently warned a Senate committee that the Bush administration might resort to such tactics. A false flag operation would allow the US to play victim and frame any attack on Iran in a defensive light. Just as it did before going into Iraq, the White House is demonizing the Iranian leadership......"

All Wind...., All The Time.....

مشعل: حماس تحتفظ بمرونة في أدائها السياسي ولكنها لا تخضع للضغوط

"القاهرة - المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام

التقى خالد مشعل، رئيس المكتب السياسي لحركة المقاومة الإسلامية "حماس" عدداً من المثقفين والسياسيين والنواب ورجال الفكر ورؤساء تحرير بعض الصحف في مصر، بغرض إطلاعهم على الرؤى المستقبلية الخاصة بالقضية الفلسطينية، بعد توقيع اتفاق مكة بين حركتي "حماس" و"فتح".

ومن أبرز الذين حضروا اللقاء المستشار طارق البشري، والدكتور محمد سليم العوا الأمين العام للاتحاد العالمي لعلماء المسلمين، والبروفيسور عبد الوهاب المسيري، والكاتب فهمي هويدي والدكتور محمد عمارة.

وقد حرص مشعل، في اللقاء الذي تم مساء الجمعة (23/2) قبل مغادرته القاهرة لاستكمال جولته العربية غير المعلن عن تفاصيلها لأسباب أمنية، وأداره الكاتب والإعلامي فهمي هويدي، على الحديث بلغة متفائلة، محورها أن الموقف العربي ليس كله سيئاً، وأنه ليس صحيحاً أن ننظر إلى الأمور على أن الموقف الرسمي العربي يدار بواسطة الولايات المتحدة.

كما حرص على تأكيد أنه لمسَ مواقف عربية رسمية مشجعة عن ذي قبل، وأن الحالة العربية تتعافى، والموقف العربي بات موحداً أكثر من ذي قبل، خصوصاً بعد توقيع اتفاق مكة والالتزام العربي به، وباعتبار، كما قال مسؤول في وفد حماس لـ "قدس برس"، أن اتفاق مكة المكرمة أظهر الموقف الفلسطيني الموحد الذي تلتزم به الدول العربية، والذي ستتحرك به قبالة العالم الخارجي للمطالبة بوقف حصار الشعب الفلسطيني.

وقد ركز اللقاء على الاستماع لوجهات نظر المثقفين والمفكرين المصريين بشكل أساس في الأحداث بعد إطلاعهم على تطورات الأوضاع الفلسطينية والعربية كما قرأها وفد حماس في اللقاءات الرسمية، ودار حوار حول بعض النقاط بعمق، فيما تم التطرق لبعض النقاط الأخرى بصورة سريعة نظراً لارتباط الوفد الفلسطيني بالسفر.

وقد كان من الحضور أيضاً بعض نواب البرلمان عن جماعة الإخوان المسلمين، والدكتور عصام العريان، ومفكرون يساريون وناصريون، واللواء صلاح الدين سليم، والدكتور حسن نافعة ومجدي مهنا وجمال الغيطاني وعدد آخر من الباحثين والمفكرين.

وقد أظهر اللقاء أن رؤية "حماس" للوضع، خصوصاً ما بعد اتفاق مكة، تدور حول التأكيد على أنه لا يوجد تنازل أو تشدد، حيث أكد مشعل أن الحركة اشتقت لنفسها طريقاً محصلته أن يكون لديها مرونة تتحرك بموجبها، ولكنها لا تتنازل أو تتلقى أوامر أو تخضع لضغوط من أي دول سواء كانت مصر أو إيران أو سوريا أو السعودية.

وأضاف: "إن كل دولة تعلم أن حماس لها أجندتها، وأنه إذا كانت هناك سلبيات في الدور العربي فهناك إيجابيات يجب النظر لها، ولا يجب النظر للأمور نظرة قاتمة".

وقد دار حوار حول التأثيرات المحتملة لضرب إيران على حركة "حماس" والقضية الفلسطينية، وحرص قادة الحركة على تأكيد الفارق بين "التأثير" و"القضاء" على حماس، منوهين إلى أن أي تطور يقع يؤثر، فمحاولة ضرب حزب الله أثرت على "حماس"، وخروج الحركة من الأردن أثر عليها، وكذا غزو العراق، وضمن هذا ضرب إيران لو حدث، فكل تطور سلبي يؤثر على الوضع الفلسطيني، ولكنه لا يعني أنه يقضي على الحركة.

وقد لفت مشعل الأنظار إلى أن غالبية الحديث يدور حول ضرب الولايات المتحدة لإيران وتأثير هذه الضربة عليها، في حين أن لا أحد يتحدث عن قدرة إيران على صدّ هذه الضربة، الأمر الذي فهم منه ضمناً أن مشعل يشكك في قدرة واشنطن علي ضرب إيران لعلمها بقوة هذه الأخيرة وقدرتها على الرد.

وحول الدور المصري في اتفاق مكة، دار حوار مطوّل، لا سيما وأن الأيام الأخيرة قبل وصول وفد "حماس" شهدت مناقشات وكتابات تدور حول ضعف الدور الخارجي للقاهرة الذي تمثل في توقيع اتفاق حكومة الوحدة الوطنية الفلسطينية، وكشف النقاب خلال المناقشات عن أن ما جرى في مكة كان مقرراً أن يجري في القاهرة، لأن قادة "حماس" سبق أن عرضوا فكرة عقد هذا اللقاء بين "فتح" و"حماس" في القاهرة، بيد أن الدور السعودي سبق، وكان مكملاً للدور المصري.

وقد أكد العديد من المتحدثين من الطرفين المصري والفلسطيني أن "حماس" لا تلام للجوئها للسعودية وتوقيع الاتفاق هناك، ونفي مسؤولو الحركة أن يكونوا قد سمعوا لوماً من القاهرة لتوقيع الاتفاق في مكة التي رعت الاتفاقات السابقة، مؤكدين أنه لا "حماس" ملومة ولا القاهرة يجب أن تلام لتوقيع الاتفاق بعيدا عنها خصوصا أنه جرى بالتنسيق معها. "

By Layla Anwar

".......The American cowards bombed Ramadi today.
Many homes were demolished. A family of thirteen was buried under the rubbles. More than 26 civilians were killed, out of which 4 women and several children. Two infants, the youngest was 1 month old.
Men rushed to the ruins trying to rescue whatever human form they can find.
Bare hands, rugged, dust covering their faces and hair, digging and digging...
Most had nothing but a shirt on. No vest, no sweater, no nothing, just a shirt, in this bitter cold.
And I watched their feet, they were wearing plastic slippers in winter, no socks, no shoes...no nothing.
I watched even more carefully and most were very thin and looked malnourished...
They finally managed to pull the little infant out from under piles of thick bricks.
A dust covered baby with an ashen complexion and her tiny lips ripped apart.
A small piece of greyish white cloth was handed and she was wrapped in it in a tiny bundle...

Then the camera zoomed in on the eyes of the onlookers. They all had this one common, identical expression.
A kind of a hollow, lingering gaze like being here and not here.
Then the camera zoomed in even closer... and behind the hollowness in the eyes, lied the utter void, an endless void. A tunnel of despair that seemed to stretch to eternity...
A younger man, not older than 16 wept then stared back at the camera and he kept staring and I saw a lingering death about to explode, in his deep black eyes.......

A lost infant in the ashes, lost faces in the dust, a lost finger in the garbage dumps, a lost mother in the debris, a nation lost in the fire, a country lost in the greed ....and eyes lost in that endless tunnel of helplessness, anguish and despair...
Lost in the total emptiness, in the void of the living dead.

Where is Gilad Atzmon, I need him to hum something to me, I am choking with endless Grief...
You sleep well now."

By Naser Jafari

An Interesting Article That Exposes British Treachery and the Pro-Zionist Arab Kings Who Played a Role in the Creation of Israel.

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 24 February 2007

"It appears to be revisionism on a grand scale. Popular imagination, fed on Peter O'Toole's portrayal in David Lean's film classic Lawrence of Arabia, will have a hard time absorbing the startling assertion by the historian Sir Martin Gilbert that its hero was in fact a "serious Zionist" who believed in a "Jewish state from the Mediterranean shore to the River Jordan".

Sir Martin, who plans to back up his myth-challenging claim in his next book, declared here this week that TE Lawrence, long regarded as the unrivalled prototype of the British Arabist, "had a sort of contempt for the Arabs, actually. He felt that only with a Jewish state would the Arabs make anything of themselves."

The British Jewish historian who has written histories of Israel and the Holocaust, as well as his monumental biography of Winston Churchill, made front-page news here when he told The Jerusalem Post during the city's international book fair: "The most interesting thing from an Israeli perspective is about Lawrence of Arabia. The great Arabist, right? The man who supported the Arabs and pushed for Arab nationhood in the 1920s. He is always pictured wearing Arab robes. What is so astonishing ­ which you'll see in my next book, Churchill and the Jews ­ is that he was a serious Zionist."

Sir Martin revealed last night that a series of minutes written by Lawrence, which he uncovered in the National Archive, demonstrated his sympathy with the Zionist cause. Working for Churchill in 1921, for example, he clearly identified "the area of Palestine from the Mediterranean to Jordan" as the "Jewish National Home".

While the discoveries overturn many popular assumptions about Lawrence in Britain and much of the Arab world, they will come as less of a surprise to prominent historians here.

Norman Rose of the Hebrew University, and a leading expert on the history of Zionism in Britain, leaves little room for doubt about Lawrence's admiration for Chaim Weizmann in his biography of the Belarus-born Zionist who became a British citizen in 1910, was the leading lobbyist for the 1917 Balfour declaration pledging a Jewish homeland, and the first President of Israel.

The biography quotes Lawrence as telling the Archbishop of Jerusalem, a sceptic about Weizmann, that the Zionist leader "is a great man whose boots neither you nor I are fit to black". When Weizmann finally settled in Palestine in 1934, and told his friend Lewis Namier that he regretted not having done so a decade earlier, Namier could not resist replying that Lawrence had remarked to him of Weizmann that "one does not build the National Home by living in a villa in Addison Road". This was hardly, to put it mildly, the sentiment of an anti-Zionist.

Lawrence, who had played a leading part in co-ordinating the Arab revolt against the Turks to serve British interests, mediated and translated at the post war Jewish-Arab accord between the future King Feisal of Iraq and Weizmann, which allowed for "large-scale immigration" of Jews to Palestine and implementation of the Balfour declaration in return for the Arab state promised ­ and then reneged on ­ by the British.

Professor Rose said yesterday: "I am no expert on Lawrence, but this was when many people did not see a contradiction between a Jewish National Home and Arab independence."

In 1921, when Churchill was Colonial Secretary, Lawrence worked closely with him as an adviser from the Department's Middle East Department, travelling with him to the Cairo conference when Feisal was assigned the kingship of Iraq and his brother Abdullah the Emirate of Transjordan.

It was from this period that several of the documents uncovered by Sir Martin originate. Lawrence, for example, wrote that part of Abdullah's job would be to "check anti-Zionism" and prevent infiltration from what is now Jordan into the "Jewish National Home".

It seems logical to imagine that working so closely with the minister, he shared at the time Churchill's warmth to the idea of a Jewish homeland, and probably an eventual Jewish state. "Churchill was pro-Zionist," says Professor Rose. "No question." "

***

It appears that nothing has changed in over 80 years. The Arabs, with their stooge kings and princes, are still doing the bidding of the West and Zionism, while they destroy and colonize the Arab world and finish off what is left of Palestine. The British used the Arabs in the 1920s to fight and expel the Ottomans. For their stupidity, they got rewarded by being divided and colonized and by having Palestine stolen and the Palestinians expelled. Still, most of the Arab world allies itself with the West! Huge U.S. military bases have been established in several Arab countries and these are used to attack and devastate other Arab and Muslim countries. We are told that Iran is the enemy and Israel is our "ally!" Will the Arabs ever wake up from their long stupor and learn?

Cheney hints at Iran strike

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has raised the possibility of military action to stop Iran acquiring nuclear weapons.

"He has endorsed Republican senator John McCain's proposition that the only thing worse than a military confrontation with Iran would be a nuclear-armed Iran.

In an exclusive interview with The Weekend Australian, Mr Cheney said: "I would guess that John McCain and I are pretty close to agreement."

The visiting Vice-President said that he had no doubt Iran was striving to enrich uranium to the point where they could make nuclear weapons.

He accused Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of espousing an "apocalyptic philosophy" and making "threatening noises about Israel and the US and others".

He also said Iran was a sponsor of terrorism, especially through Hezbollah. However, the US did not believe Iran possessed any nuclear weapons as yet.

"You get various estimates of where the point of no return is," Mr Cheney said, identifying nuclear terrorism as the greatest threat to the world.

"Is it when they possess weapons or does it come sooner, when they have mastered the technology but perhaps not yet produced fissile material for weapons?"....."

Abbas to push PA gov't to fulfill Quartet demands

"Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas said Friday he was determined to push the planned Palestinian unity government into complying with Western demands to recognize Israel, renounce violence and abide by previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. Abbas was referring to the three principles drafted by the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators ? the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

"We did not change our position, we did not change our principles," Abbas told reporters after a meeting with the European Union's chief diplomat Javier Solana in Brussels. Abbas met Solana as part of a tour of European nations in efforts to build support for an eventual lifting of a crippling international aid embargo.

Abbas said that his Fatah party remained "committed to the principles of a two-state-solution, renouncing violence and terror and reiterating our commitment to agreements signed."....."

Windbag du Jour
All Wind, All The Time

By Juan Cole
Salon.com

"....In reality, southern Iraq is a quagmire that has defeated all British efforts to impose order, and Blair was pressed by his military commanders to get out altogether -- and quickly. The departure has only been slowed, for the moment, by the pleas of Bush administration officials like Cheney. And far from the disingenuously upbeat prognosis offered by the vice president, the British withdrawal could spell severe trouble for both the Iraqi government and for U.S. troops in that country...."

By Kurt Nimmo

"Over at the Jerusalem Post, unsubstantiated allegation has become bedrock fact, a quite normal state of affairs for the neocon-infested corporate media, determined to set the attack Iran ball in motion.

“Israeli officials Thursday night urged ‘crisper’ and ‘faster’ moves to sanction Iran after a UN report found the Islamic Republic had expanded its program to obtain nuclear weapons,” the newspaper reports.

Last September, the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency made it clear no nuclear weapons program was detected in Iran.

In November, the CIA “found no conclusive evidence, as yet, of a secret Iranian nuclear-weapons program running parallel to the civilian operations that Iran has declared to the International Atomic Energy Agency,” according to Seymour Hersh.....

Confronting a manufactured chimera, “a senior Israeli source in Washington” told the Jerusalem Post “I don’t think we’ve got endless amounts of time to deal with this problem,” in other words Iran must be attacked soon, or sanctions imposed, at least. “This is the time that these things have to be dealt with,” said the anonymous source, citing a recent IAEA report that notes.....

But the Israelis and the American neocons are not keen on accuracy, preferring instead exaggeration, fabrication, distortion, and outright lies—the same sort of fare they produced in late 2002 and early 2003 in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq.

Finally, as the latest IAEA report makes the rounds, the Australian reports “senior British Government officials fear that US President George W. Bush will attack Iran before his final term in office ends,” worries that coincide with “with British Prime Minister Tony Blair declaring himself at odds with hawks [war criminal neocons] in the US administration by saying publicly for the first time that it would be wrong to take military action” against Iran. “I can’t think that it would be right to take military action against Iran…. What is important is to pursue the political, diplomatic channel…. I think it is the only way that we are going to get a sensible solution to the Iranian issue.”

Of course, when it came to Iraq, Blair fell right in with the murderous neocons, preferring mass murder to sensibility.

If ever there is held a Nuremberg-like tribunal for the neocon war criminals—and I’m certainly not holding my breath—Mr. Blair will naturally be right there in the docket along with his buddy Bush and Cheney."

Tehran accuses the US of staging covert operations from Pakistan to provoke ethnic and religious violence, and even the breakup of Iran. Tehran is also angered by what it sees as a US-Pakistan nexus manipulating the Afghan situation. Iran could retaliate against NATO in Afghanistan, or try to make Pakistan accountable. Both are bad options.

A Good Article
By M K Bhadrakumar
Asia Times

"........The Iranian outburst was, conceivably, prompted by the spurt of trans-border terrorism inside Iran's Sistan-Balochistan province, which borders Pakistan. Ten days ago, a militant group called Jundallah killed 11 members of Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards in an attack in the city center of Zahedan. Iranian state media reported that the attack was part of US plans to provoke ethnic and religious violence in Iran. Balochs are Sunnis numbering about 1.5 million out of Iran's 70 million predominantly Shi'ite population.

Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Pour-Mohammadi alleged that in the recent past, US intelligence operatives in Afghanistan had been meeting and coordinating with Iranian militants, apart from encouraging the smuggling of drugs into Iran from Afghanistan. He said the US operatives were working to create Shi'ite-Sunni strife within Iran.

American investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has copiously written about recent US covert operations inside Iran. With reference to the incidents in Zahedan, Stratfor, a think-tank with close connections to the US military and security establishment, commented that the Jundallah militants are receiving a "boost" from Western intelligence agencies. Stratfor said, "The US-Iranian standoff has reached a high level of intensity ... a covert war [is] being played out ... the United States has likely ramped up support for Iran's oppressed minorities in an attempt to push the Iranian regime toward a negotiated settlement over Iraq.".....

A Washington conference last year brought together representatives of Iranian Kurdish, Balochi, Ahvazi, Turkmen and Azeri organizations with the aim of forming a united front against the Tehran regime. An influential US think-tank, American Enterprise Institute (AEI), went a step further and prepared a report from the neo-conservative perspective on what a Yugoslavia-like federated Iran would look like......

"The Pentagon is especially interested in whether Iran is prone to a violent fragmentation along the same kinds of faultlines that are splitting Iraq and that helped to tear apart the Soviet Union with the collapse of communism," Bradley wrote......

The irony is that Afghanistan is being put to use as a launch pad by the US for sponsoring terrorism directed against Iran, when the raison d'etre of the US occupation of Afghanistan during the past five years has been for the stated purpose of fighting a "war on terrorism". Besides, Iranian cooperation at a practical level went a long way in facilitating the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Even Iran's detractors would admit that during the past five years, Tehran has followed a policy of good-neighborliness toward the Kabul government, no matter Washington's dominance over President Hamid Karzai. In fact, Iran figures as a major donor country contributing to Afghanistan's reconstruction......"

By Patrick Cockburn

"The partial British military withdrawal from southern Iraq announced by Tony Blair this week follows political and military failure, and is not because of any improvement in local security, say specialists on Iraq.

In a comment entitled "The British Defeat in Iraq" the pre-eminent American analyst on Iraq, Anthony Cordesman of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, in Washington, asserts that British forces lost control of the situation in and around Basra by the second half of 2005.

Mr Cordesman says that while the British won some tactical clashes in Basra and Maysan province in 2004, that "did not stop Islamists from taking more local political power and controlling security at the neighbourhood level when British troops were not present". As a result, southern Iraq has, in effect, long been under the control of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri) and the so-called "Sadrist" factions.

Mr Blair said for three years Britain had worked to create, train and equip Iraqi Security Forces capable of taking on the security of the country themselves. But Mr Cordesman concludes: "The Iraqi forces that Britain helped create in the area were little more than an extension of Shia Islamist control by other means."......

Why is the British Army still in south Iraq and what good does it do there? The suspicion grows that Mr Blair did not withdraw them because to do so would be too gross an admission of failure and of soldiers' lives uselessly lost. It would also have left the US embarrassingly bereft of allies. Reidar Visser, an expert on Basra, says after all the publicity about the British "soft" approach in Basra in 2003, local people began to notice that the soldiers were less and less in the streets and the militias were taking over. "This, in turn, created a situation where critics claim the sole remaining objective of the British forces in Iraq is to hold out and maintain a physical presence somewhere within the borders of the governorates in the south formally left under their control, while at the same minimising their own casualties.' Mr Visser said.

In other words, British soldiers have stayed and died in southern Iraq, and will continue to do so, because Mr Blair finds it too embarrassing to end what has become a symbolic presence and withdraw them."

Leader
Friday February 23, 2007
The Guardian


"The disappearance of hummus from the shelves after a hygiene problem at a plant supplying supermarkets has revealed the depth of popular addiction to this appealing paste. Its taste, at once earthy and refreshing, now has a large place in the British palate. Its grainy texture offers what food chemists call "mouthfeel" at its best. It is as moreish as chocolate or ice cream, yet its healthy ingredients induce a feeling of virtue not available with those of other foodstuffs. Who could shake a stick at sesame seeds, chickpeas, olive oil, cumin, garlic and lemon juice? And who expects to wake up to find that the British Medical Journal has identified hummus as the cause of some feared disease?

It is best made at home, but bought versions are not to be despised. In the Middle East it is a dip about which there are many schools of thought. The supersmooth hummus of Beirut is different from that of Damascus, lighter than that of Cairo, and a world away from the rougher product of Cypriot kitchens, while the Israelis tend to skimp on the olive oil. Apart from using good oil, the most important difference is to do with the chickpea skins, which must be rigorously rubbed off, or else grittiness ensues.
The process through which hummus, pesto and salsa have become essential lubricants of British life, displacing the old trinity of salad cream, tomato ketchup and brown sauce, has been a beneficial one. But while pesto divides and salsa inflames, hummus soothes. May it soon return to the aisles."

America has deliberately driven hundreds, perhaps thousands, of prisoners insane. Now it is being held to account in a Miami court

Naomi Klein
Friday February 23, 2007
The Guardian

"Something remarkable is going on in a Miami courtroom. The cruel methods US interrogators have used since September 11 to "break" prisoners are finally being put on trial. This was not supposed to happen. The Bush administration's plan was to put José Padilla on trial for allegedly being part of a network linked to international terrorists. But Padilla's lawyers are arguing that he is not fit to stand trial because he has been driven insane by the government......

It's difficult to overstate the significance of these hearings. The techniques used to break Padilla have been standard operating procedure at Guantánamo Bay since the first prisoners arrived five years ago. They wore blackout goggles and sound-blocking headphones and were placed in extended isolation, interrupted by strobe lights and heavy metal music. These same practices have been documented in dozens of cases of "extraordinary rendition" carried out by the CIA, as well as in prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan.......

These standard mind-breaking techniques have never faced scrutiny in an American court because the prisoners in the jails are foreigners and have been stripped of the right of habeas corpus - a denial that, scandalously, was just upheld by a federal appeals court in Washington DC. There is only one reason Padilla's case is different - he is a US citizen. The administration did not originally intend to bring Padilla to trial, but when his status as an enemy combatant faced a supreme court challenge, the administration abruptly changed course, charging Padilla and transferring him to civilian custody. That makes Padilla's case unique - he is the only victim of the post-9/11 legal netherworld to face an ordinary US trial......

There is no need to go so far back to prove that the US military knew full well that it was driving Padilla mad. The army's field manual, reissued just last year, states: "Sensory deprivation may result in extreme anxiety, hallucinations, bizarre thoughts, depression, and antisocial behaviour" - as well as "significant psychological distress".

If these techniques drove Padilla insane, that means the US government has been deliberately driving hundreds, possibly thousands, of prisoners insane around the world. What is on trial in Florida is not one man's mental state. It is the whole system of US psychological torture."

By Steve Bell, The Guardian

Rory McCarthy in Jerusalem
Friday February 23, 2007
The Guardian

"A UN human rights investigator has likened Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories to apartheid South Africa and says there should be "serious consideration" over bringing the occupation to the international court of justice.The report by John Dugard, a South African law professor who is the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, represents some of the most forceful criticism yet of Israel's 40-year occupation.

Prof Dugard said although Israel and apartheid South Africa were different regimes, "Israel's laws and practices in the OPT [occupied Palestinian territories] certainly resemble aspects of apartheid." His comments are in an advance version of a report on the UN Human Rights Council's website ahead of its session next month.

After describing the situation for Palestinians in the West Bank, with closed zones, demolitions and preference given to settlers on roads, with building rights and by the army, he said: "Can it seriously be denied that the purpose of such action is to establish and maintain domination by one racial group (Jews) over another racial group (Palestinians) and systematically oppressing them? Israel denies that this is its intention or purpose. But such an intention or purpose may be inferred from the actions described in this report."

He dismissed Israel's argument that the sole purpose of the vast concrete and steel West Bank barrier is for security. "It has become abundantly clear that the wall and checkpoints are principally aimed at advancing the safety, convenience and comfort of settlers," he said.

Gaza remained under occupation despite the withdrawal of settlers in 2005. "In effect, following Israel's withdrawal, Gaza became a sealed-off, imprisoned and occupied territory," he said......"

By Mike Luckovich

Jonathan Cook* joins a watchdog group on duty in the West Bank, documenting abuses and numberless humiliations that characterise the daily life of ordinary Palestinians under occupation.

Al-Ahram Weekly

See More Photos Here

An Interesting Angle
by Peter Symonds

Global Research, February 22, 2007

"Russian officials suddenly announced on Monday that work on Iran’s nuclear power reactor at the southern port of Bushehr would be slowed due to Tehran’s failure to make scheduled payments on the construction contract. Far from being an ordinary commercial dispute, the delay is another pointer to the extreme tensions produced by the Bush administration’s military threats against Iran.

The Russian announcement came just two days before a UN Security Council deadline for Iran to shut down its uranium enrichment facilities. Tehran, which insists that all its nuclear programs are for peaceful purposes, has refused to comply. The Bushehr reactor, which is being completed by Russian firms, is designed to produce electricity and is not included in the UN resolution......

The BBC reported on Monday that the US Central Command had completed drawing up a list of targets for an air war on Iran, including its nuclear facilities and most of its military infrastructure. Among the list of nuclear targets is the Bushehr reactor, even though its purpose is the provision of electricity and an agreement has been signed to return all spent fuel rods to Russia.

In this context, the Russia’s announced delay in the Bushehr project takes on a more sinister aspect. The most critical component of the timetable is the provision of reactor fuel—enriched uranium—which was due to take place next month. Once the fuel is loaded, any air strike on the reactor has the potential to send a plume of radiated dust and debris into the atmosphere affecting not only Iran but neighbouring countries. Russian technicians employed on the site would also be endangered, threatening to provoke an international incident.

The sudden Russian delay raises the obvious question: just what does the Putin administration know about the Bush administration’s plans for a military attack on Iran?"

All Wind, All The Time

As the voice of reason, from a traditionalist viewpoint, is being hushed or sidelined, the warmongers’ hold on Washington is still as tight as ever, one of whom is Israel and its dedicated friends on Capitol Hill.


By Ramzy Baroud

"The configuration of the New Middle East — as envisaged by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the Israeli war against Lebanon in July-August 2006, most certainly has no place for more than one regional power broker, namely Israel.

Under such an arrangement — subservient Arabs and Iran governed by an all powerful Israel and supervised, even from afar by the seemingly philanthropic United States — would ensure Israel’s ‘security’, which has for long served as a casus belli, and supposed American interests in the region; regardless of what one thinks of such logic, in Washington, it is still prevailing......

It is unlikely that Iran will back down; again the North Korea lesson is too fresh, too poignant to ignore. Moreover, the Islamic Republic has a formidable power base in Iraq and Lebanon: Shia militias and the Hezbollah resistance movement respectively; the former is capable of worsening the US army’s plight in Iraq by several fold if decided to join the ongoing Sunni resistance, and the latter has proved an insurmountable foe to Israel in their latest military showdown last summer.

Naturally, the US — which is caught in an unwinnable war in Iraq, confined and blinded by its bizarre alliance with Israel, which is more of a liability to Washington than a strategic advantage and who is watching its own New World Order faltering under its feet, with Latin America going its separate ways, and China moving into what has been the unchallenged domains of the United States for decades — should be expected to avoid a military confrontation at any cost. Savvy US diplomat and former Secretary of State James Baker had many ominous warnings in his Iraq Study Group recommendations. A traditionalist and a pro-business politician, Baker knows well that without a quick exit from Iraq, chaos will befall the waning empire, which is ultimately bad for business. Baker also knows that without solving the Arab-Israeli conflict, the US regional woes will amplify beyond repair......

Evidently, Israel is a prime cheerleader for war, and most likely Israeli agents are working overtime to provide the needed case for war; at least we know, through news reports that Israeli agents are actively involved in Iraq and there is a possibility that they have penetrated the Iranian domain as well, through the northern Kurdish areas. Last November, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert appointed a major war advocate, Avigdor Lieberman, as the country’s Minister of Strategic Affairs and also as Deputy Prime Minister. Lieberman’s appointment was principally aimed at ‘countering’ the Iranian threat; championing the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, has recently visited Washington to largely discuss the Iranian threat and won standing ovations and endless praise of Democrats and Republicans alike.

Other Israeli politicians have been adamant in their efforts to convince Washington that a war against Iran will yield strategic dividends and will ease the US mission in reigning in occupied Iraq, and will provide Israel with the security it covets. Of course, Israel knows well the disastrous affect that a war on Iran will bring to the waning American empire (even if merely by observing the Iraqi situation) but it matters little in the end, as long as the Iranian threat is eliminated, or so goes the Israeli logic."

By Donald Macintyre in Jerusalem
Published: 22 February 2007

"Around 46 per cent of Gaza and West Bank households are "food insecure" or in danger of becoming so, according to a UN report on the impact of conflict and the global boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority.

The unpublished draft report, the first of its kind since the boycott was imposed when the Hamas government took office last March, says bluntly that the problem "is primarily a function of restricted economic access to food resulting from ongoing political conditions".

The report, jointly produced by the UN's World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation, paints a bleak picture of the impact on food consumption and expenditure throughout the occupied Palestinian territories. It says that the situation is "more grim" in Gaza where four out of five families have reduced their spending - including on food - in the first quarter of last year alone.

The report acknowledges that "traditionally strong ties" among Palestinian families tend to reduce the possibility of "acute household hunger". But it warns that against a background of decreasing food security since the beginning of the Intifada since 2000 and the loss of PA salaries because of the boycott there are now "growing concerns about the sustainability of Palestinians' resilience".

The report is the latest of a series detailing deepening Palestinian poverty as a result of both closures blocking exports from Gaza and the international and Israeli boycott of the PA. Its timing is especially sensitive, coming to light after both Israel and the US indicated that they will maintain the boycott after the planned Fatah Hamas coalition cabinet takes office unless it clearly commits itself to recognition of Israel, renunciation of violence and adherence to previous agreements with Israel.

The UN report says 34 per cent of households - with income below $1.68 per day and/or showing decreasing food expenditures - are "food insecure" . The WFP officially defines "food security" as "the ability of a household to produce and/or access at all times the minimum food needed for a healthy and active life". It goes on to say that 12 per cent of households are "vulnerable" to food insecurity.

The report acknowledges that the findings are broadly similar to those - albeit estimated on a different basis - at the peak of the Israeli Palestinian conflict in 2003 but points out that the number of Palestinians suffering, including children, are much higher because of rapid population growth

While recognising that "significant per capita humanitarian aid" is helping to contain the problem, the report points out that some action taken by families to continue to feed themselves - including the sale of land, jewellery and other assets" - will have an "irreversible impact on livelihoods". It also points out that limitations to PA budget support, the private sector and job programmes because of the boycott are likely to exacerbate Palestinians' dependency on humanitarian assistance and postpone sustainable improvement."......"

By Patrick Cockburn

"It is an admission of defeat. Iraq is turning into one of the world's bloodiest battlefields in which nobody is safe. Blind to this reality, Tony Blair said yesterday that Britain could safely cut its forces in Iraq because the apparatus of the Iraqi government is growing stronger.

In fact the civil war is getting worse by the day. Food is short in parts of the country. A quarter of the population would starve without government rations. Many Iraqis are ill because their only drinking water comes from the highly polluted Tigris and Euphrates rivers.

Nowhere in Mr Blair's statement was any admission of regret for reducing Iraq to a wasteland from which 2 million people have fled and 1.5 million are displaced internally......."

Jonathan Steele
Thursday February 22, 2007
The Guardian

"Tony Blair has always said that there would be no "artificial timetable" for pulling British troops from Iraq. Their departure would depend on conditions. His announcement yesterday of a minor reduction in troop levels this year reveals what those conditions are: the state of his poll ratings and the degree of movement he is allowed by George Bush......."

Layla Anwar At Her Best

".....Rape may come in different forms and shapes, as various as the forms and shapes that commit it.
And just as it disguises itself under different forms, it also has several levels - the several levels of rape.
The mental, the emotional, the spiritual, the political, the geographic, the economic, the social...
All the above categories necessitate de facto the physical realm of which the body is an essential part.
The body thus becomes the recipient, the receiver, the receptacle, the reservoir...of this ultimate act of violence.
The body is an integral part of rape as it is the gate, the entry point, the door, the orifice...of any forceful invasion, penetration. The body and its inner realms, mental, emotional and spiritual are hence, all non consenting recipients of the wrath coming for the "Other".

Seen in that light, rape becomes the ultimate weapon not only of coercion and domination, but also the ultimate weapon of breaking the Spirit of Resistance of its victim(s)......

I trust you took the time to reflect on Sabreen's words. What strikes you most?
For me, it is the "objectification" of the woman. She becomes literally an object of gratification.
And once a person is objectified, they are already stripped of all humanness.
They become a non-person. Hence they can be disposed of, thrown away, killed...

That is why the first thing a rape victim will tell you is "I feel cheap."
Adjectives like cheap are usually used for objects. This object becomes cheap, valueless, worthless...it lost its use so it can be easily gotten rid of, thrown away...

And when a woman becomes an object of pleasure, gratification, desire, lust, power, politics...she loses her sense of self, she irretrievably loses herself.
She becomes anything and nothing at the same time. She becomes the public orifice, the public door, the public entry point, the public gate...A non being.

In this light, the whole of Iraq and its people has become an object of rape under its various forms.
From the collective to the personal. From the public to the private. From the general to the particular...geographically, politically, economically, historically, socially, culturally,individually...raped.
In fact, Iraq has become the ultimate object of gratification.

Since 2003, this country and its women and men have been raped...over and over with no respite until "they" have reached its Soul...to break that resisting Self......

For the most part, all the above victims are sunnis and are related one way or another to the Spirit of the Resistance. The rape is nothing but another mean of breaking that spirit.
The highly despicable,corrupt, sectarian "Iraqi" government and its Iran backed militias are accomplices in this collective act of rape. They are faithfully continuing in the footsteps of their masters, the Americans, who have objectified Iraq and her people, rendered them into things to be coveted, used, abused, pillaged, plundered, raped, vilified, tortured and ...killed......

Iraq and Iraqis have become "the object" of the 21st century.
Stripped of her clothes, beaten, relentlessly raped in her body and soul, raped with their collective hands on her mouth so if she does remember her humanness, she must scream quietly or the neighbors will hear her and we don't want the neighbors to be disturbed...we want to break her Spirit in silence...

Out of curiosity, I did check the dictionary even though I did not need a definition of rape and I found an interesting one.
"the residue of grapes, after the juice has been extracted, used as a filter in making vinegar."

Women of Iraq, you owe it to yourselves for you are Iraq herself.
You are the grapes and the juice that has been forcefully extracted and you have become the sour vinegar...So let your revolt be as sour as that vinegar.

Speak out and scream louder and louder...
Let your screams fill the air and its sky, reaching up to the heavens.
Break it, roar it, thump it, spit it out back at them with full force.
Reach it, feel it and reclaim it ."

***

Bravo Layla; a great comment.

Recommended Reading
Analysis by Jim Lobe

"......Rather, it appears that Rice's own chief Middle East aide when she served as Bush's national security adviser, Elliott Abrams, has become the principal foil in frustrating her efforts to resume a peace process. Until her meeting in Jerusalem last weekend with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the process had been frozen since the last days of Bill Clinton's administration.

Abrams' personal influence over Bush could not possibly match Rice's, but his bureaucratic skills and political connections -- notably to the so-called "Israel Lobby" of pro-Likud Jewish organisations and the Christian Right -- give him considerable clout. According to various sources, Abrams has been working systematically to undermine any prospect for serious negotiations designed to give substance to Rice's hopes -- and increasingly impatient demands by Saudi King Abdullah -- of offering the Palestinians a "political horizon" for a final settlement.

"The Bush administration has done nothing to press Israel to deliver on its commitments, beyond Washington's empty rhetoric about a two-state 'political horizon'," Henry Siegman, the long-time director of the U.S./Middle East Project at the influential Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in the International Herald Tribune just last week.

"Every time there emerged the slightest hint that the United States may finally engage seriously in a political process, Elliott Abrams would meet secretly with Olmert's envoys in Europe or elsewhere to reassure them that there exists no such danger," he complained......

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Abrams has long been identified with his hard-line patrons, such as Perle and Podhoretz, who have strongly opposed the "land-for-peace" formula that, until the younger Bush, had been official U.S. policy since 1967......

Throughout the 1990s, Abrams denounced the Oslo peace process in the strongest terms -- a Likud government was engaged in it. When Palestinians launched the second intifada in September 2000, he lambasted mainstream U.S. Jewish groups for their continued support for peace talks between Israel and the PA as "self-delusion". "The Palestinian leadership," he wrote, "does not want peace with Israel, and there will be no peace..."

Signs of a serious breach between the two, however, surfaced during the first days of last summer's Israel-Hezbollah conflict.

Rice reportedly favoured a request by Olmert for Washington to discreetly contact Syrian President Bashar Assad about securing the release of two Israeli soldiers captured by the Lebanese group. Abrams not only strongly opposed such a move, but in a meeting with a "very senior Israeli official" in Jerusalem within 48 hours of the outbreak of hostilities, also suggested that Washington would have no objection if Israel extended its military offensive from Lebanon to Syria, a well-informed source who received an account of the meeting from one of its participants told IPS.....

But, as in the Israel-Hezbollah war, Rice is up against a formidable adversary in Abrams and his confederates in the vice president's office who appear once again to have established their own direct line to Olmert, this time through Turgeman and another top adviser, Yoram Turbowicz.

It was that channel that was in play last Friday, on the eve of the Jerusalem talks, when Olmert held a personal telephone conversation with Bush and emerged claiming that the U.S. president had promised to boycott any new Palestinian government of national unity that includes Hamas so long as the Islamist party does not explicitly recognise Israel, renounce violence, and pledge to abide by existing agreements between the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO)."The American and Israeli positions are totally identical," Olmert declared,......"

"GAZA (Reuters) - A U.S.-educated economist with close ties to the Bush administration agreed on Wednesday to serve as finance minister in a Palestinian unity government, despite the threat of a boycott by the United States and Israel.

Salam Fayyad met Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas in the Gaza Strip and told reporters afterwards that he had been invited to assume the post of minister of finance. "I have accepted," Fayyad said.

Fayyad, who has previously served in the post, will be taking on a ministry cut off financially since the Islamist Hamas movement came to power in March.

Palestinians hoped Fayyad's return to the ministry would encourage Israel and Western powers to ease an economic boycott after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction signed a power-sharing pact with Hamas earlier this month.....

A former World Bank and International Monetary Fund official, Fayyad served as finance minister from 2002 to 2005 under a Fatah-led administration before creating the Third Way party and running for parliament.

Fayyad has good relations with President Bush. He met Rice before she had talks with Abbas and Olmert in Jerusalem on Monday.

As finance minister, Fayyad initiated reforms of the financial system that won U.S. and international praise......"

All of Iraq Has Been Raped, Not Just Sabrine.
By Naser Jafari

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, February 21, 2007

"DUBAI, UAE, 21 February 2007. Code named by US military planners as TIRANNT, "Theater Iran Near Term" has identified several thousand targets inside Iran as part of a "Shock and Awe" Blitzkrieg, which is now in the final planning stages.

According to the Kuwait-based Arab Times, an attack on Iran under TIRANNT could occur any time between late February and the end of April. This assessment, however, does not take into account the disarray of US ground forces in Iraq as well as the untimely withdrawal of several thousand British troops from the Iraq war theater, many of whom were stationed in Southern Iraq on the immediate border with Iran......

The presumption of this military document, is that a Second 911 attack "which is lacking today" would usefully create both a "justification and an opportunity" to wage war on "some known targets [Iran and Syria]".

Civilian Targets

Press reports in the Middle East confirm that the planned air strikes are by no means limited to Iran's nuclear facilities. Central Command Headquarters in Florida (CENTCOM) has already selected a comprehensive list of military and civilian targets. Industrial sites, civilian infrastructure including roads, water systems, bridges, electric power plants telecommunications towers, government buildings are part of the assumptions underlying the Blitzkrieg. "A single raid could result in 10,000 targets being hit with warplanes flying from the Us and Diego Garcia" (Gulf News, 21 Feb 2007)

Meanwhile, the US has been mustering support for its agenda following the holding of a regional Security Conference in the UAE.....

Redeployment of US Troops

Confirmed by military sources, thousands of US troops are being redeployed from US military facilities in Germany and Italy to undisclosed destinations. One assumes that they are being dispatched to the Middle East war theater in the eventuality that the air strikes will lead into a ground war with Iran......"

Interview, Flashpoints Radio, 21 February 2007

EI co-founder Ali Abunimah was interviewed on Flashpoints Radio on Tuesday, 20 February 2007. He discussed the previous day's talks in Jerusalem with Condoleezza Rice as she presses for Bush's vision for a future Palestinian state. He told host Nora Barrows-Friedman, "The United States and Israel expect Abbas to act as their quisling, really, just a collaborator representing them. And Abbas' transgressions in their books are that he has placed the desire among Palestinians for unity and democracy above the demands of the occupier and the United States."

Click Here to Listen

What Did Begging The British For 90 Years Get Us? Will We Ever Learn?

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

"The White House has dismissed a suggestion from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that Iran would close its nuclear facilities as long as Western nations did the same. His comments came as a deadline set by the UN for Iran to freeze its uranium enrichment program expires today. Meanwhile Iran has accused the US of backing a bomb attack that killed 11 Revolutionary Guards, just one week after the US accused Iran of supplying bombs targeting US troops in Iraq. We speak with retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardiner.A retired Air Force Colonel, he has taught strategy and military operations at the National War College, Air War College and Naval War College.....

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about these latest revelations of plans?

COL. SAM GARDINER: Sure. Actually, I find the BBC article to be completely credible. Let me take the two points that they make and explain why I think they are. The first thing is they talk about the trigger of a high casualty event in Iraq. That is totally consistent with the plans that were drawn up before the invasion of Iraq. We now know from the released plans, which at that time were classified “Top Secret, Polo Step,” that there was a series of triggers, that if they were to be pulled, the United States would go ahead of its plan in the invasion of Iraq. So, having a trigger is both in the way that the Pentagon does planning, and also it makes sense in the argument that the administration is making about what needs to be done with Iran.

The second thing about identifying a nuclear program is even more concerning and probably the one we ought to worry about. We have to remember that the President has said Iran can't be allowed to have a nuclear weapon. But he has always -- or not always -- mostly adds a phrase beyond that, which says, “or the knowledge to produce nuclear weapons.” That's a very important follow-on statement, consistent with what Israel has said. The way that is generally interpreted is that if Iran can put together 3,000 centrifuges for enrichment, they then will have the capability or the knowledge to produce a nuclear weapon. That event, according to the head of the IAEA yesterday, could occur within the next six months, so that if you take the President at his word, and if you take the estimate from the International Atomic Energy Agency, we will cross the US red line within the next six months, and presumably we can't stand that. And when we say that, that means we conduct a military operation against the Iranians.....

AMY GOODMAN: Do you think the 21,000 extra troops, what the President calls the “surge,” could actually be targeted at Iran as much as Iraq?

COL. SAM GARDINER: Well, let me modify that a little bit. We learned over the weekend that there is a surge within the surge. It is not 21,000 anymore. It's gone above that. It was announced on maybe Friday evening or Saturday that an additional headquarters is going to Iraq, consisting of about a thousand additional people. Now, what's fascinating about that is it was on the same day that the commander in Baghdad said, "I don't need any more headquarters." My interpretation of that is that this provides the capability, if the United States were to put some of these new forces into the border area with Iran, to take control of that. This is not meant, I don't think, to invade Iran. I think that this is preparing for the possibility that if a strike is conducted against Iran, that these units could block any sort of an incursion into Iraq....."

Bush Administration Shuns Middle East Peace Talks

A Lousy Article But I Am Posting It Anyway
By NICOLA NASSER
CounterPunch

"Instead of building a diplomatic momentum on the political breakthrough mediated by their Saudi Arabian ally who succeeded in developing an Arab and Palestinian consensus on going along with the U.S.-steered Quartet efforts to revive the deadlocked peace process, the American diplomacy has turned their sponsored Palestinian Israeli summit meeting in Jerusalem on Monday from a promising event into a missed opportunity, thus shaking off a burgeoning potential for a more coordinated regional U.S. Arab front.....

Embarrassing U.S. friends and allies as important as Riyadh, Amman and Cairo, and further antagonizing influential regional players like Syria, who all weighed in heavily to conclude the Mecca deal in order to develop a unified Arab and Palestinian stance that easily could be discerned as distancing them away from Iranian influences, which is a key U.S.-Israeli endeavor, may not harm the U.S. historically-tested strategic alliances with Arabs, but it would certainly put off indefinitely whatever is left for peace-making in the region......"

Celebrate! The Crook Is Back!

The same old crook (Salam Fayad) "accepts" position of "finance minister" in "unity government" "offered" to him by Habila. Who is Hamas kidding? Fayad was dictated by Washington and KSA and Hamas had to swallow hard, and it was Hamas that was forced to accept him. With the purse strings in the hands of the same old crooks, nothing will change, except the slogans. But let us not spoil the mood; let the celebrations continue!

Just wait! Save some celebrations for the other important positions which Habila will "offer" to other crooks: Foreign affairs, interior, etc. I am sure that they will "accept" since they have been dictated already. But please save the biggest celebration for.....(drum roll please)....the position of Deputy Prime Minister. I have a sneaky suspicion that Habila will "offer" that position to our "brother" Mohammad Pinochet Dahlan. Don't ask me how I knew that; I have my sources. I have a hunch that brother Pinochet will accept. Man, that will be an occasion to celebrate! Hell, that would call for torching a few buildings, perhaps including the "parliament" building! That would be a sight. Habila and Pinochet, hand-in-hand and beaming with victory signs, with the parliament building ablaze behind them, and the band playing "Celebrate!".

"غزة - المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام

أعلن سلام فياض، رئيس كتلة الطريق الثالث في المجلس التشريعي الفلسطيني، ظهر الأربعاء (21/2)، قبوله عرضاً من رئيس الحكومة المكلف إسماعيل هنية، بتولي حقيبة وزارة المالية.

ونُقل عن فياض، عقب اجتماعه مع هنية في إطار المشاورات التي يجريها لتشكيل حكومة الوحدة الوطنية الفلسطينية: "إن رئيس الوزراء المكلف عرض عليّ تسلم حقيبة المالية في الحكومة الجديدة، وقد قبلت ذلك".

وقد وصف اللقاء الذي جمعه صباح اليوم برئيس الوزراء إسماعيل هنية في غزة بالجيد والإيجابي. وقال إنه تم بحث موضوع تشكيل الحكومة، معرباً عن أمله بتسريع تشكيل الحكومة للتعامل مع المهام التي سيتم مواجهتها الفترة المقبلة.

من جانبه؛ أكد خليل الحية، رئيس كتلة "التغيير والإصلاح" التابعة لحركة المقاومة الإسلامية "حماس"، وهي أكبر كتلة برلمانية، تصريحات فياض، بشأن قبول حقيبة المالية، مثمناً قبوله في هذا المنصب. "

How the Libby trial could impact US foreign policy

By Justin Raimondo

".......The Fitzgerald probe is a dagger pointed at the dark heart of the administration, the OVP (Office of the V.P.), and the climactic moment of this epic battle is fast approaching. In the early days of the investigation, left-liberal bloggers were exulting in the possibility that they would see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House, but the trial has shown that Rove and Libby were antagonists rather than allies. Before it's all over we may yet see the vice president frog-marched out of the White House – at least metaphorically, in the form of an indictment with Dick Cheney's name on it.

What better way to distract attention away from this coming political bombshell than by dropping some real bombs on Iran?

In the midst of the regional conflagration feared by Brzezinski, prosecuting the Vice President for obstruction of justice and/or perjury would be problematic, at best. In any case, the widening of the war would drive the story off the front pages – think of this as a grand-scale version of Clinton's bombing of the Sudanese pharmaceutical factory just as the Monica Lewinsky was returning to the grand jury.

U.S. war plans against Iran have apparently been in the making for quite some time, but the ratcheting-up of both the rhetoric and the actual war preparations indicates a new level of seriousness on the part of this administration. While most reports reassure us that the decision to go to war has not yet been made, one wonders what turn of events would push the key decision-makers, Bush and Cheney, over the line. A direct threat to one – or both – of them coming out of the Libby trial may be all the impetus they need. A cornered rat is dangerous."

Al-Manar

Contributed by Anonymous

"ذكرت صحيفة «معاريف» الإسرائيلية أمس أن الملك الأردني عبد الله الثاني كان يعمل على خطة سرية للتوصل الى اتفاق نهائي بين الفلسطينيين والإسرائيليين، كان يُفترض أن تؤدي الى استقرار الوضع في المنطقة وكبح «الثورة» الشيعية التي تخيف وتقلق الأردن ومصر أكثر مما تقلق الدولة العبرية، غير أن اتفاق مكة بين حركتي «فتح» و»حماس» بعثر كل الأوراق وأثار غضب ملك الأردن.
وأشارت «معاريف» إلى أنه كان يفترض، وفقاً للخطة، عقد سلسلة من الاجتماعات السرية بين ممثلين إسرائيليين وعن رئيس السلطة الفلسطينية محمود عباس، مع استبعاد حكومة «حماس» عنها، للتوصل الى تسوية دائمة برعايته، مع إمكان عقد هذه الاجتماعات على الأراضي الأردنية.
لكنّ ما حصل، بحسب الصحيفة، هو أن اتفاق مكة عرقل مبادرة الملك الأردني التي طرحها في الاشهر الماضية. وتقضي الخطة بأن يعلن أبو مازن، بعد التفاهم على المسودة المشتركة للتسوية الدائمة، عن اجراء انتخابات عامة في السلطة الفلسطينية على قاعدة التسوية الدائمة، ويتم بذلك إسقاط حكومة «حماس» والقبول بالاتفاق ومن ثم توقيعها.
وتعهد الملك الأردني، في موازاة هذا المسار، العمل على «حث الدول العربية المعتدلة، وتحديداً الأعضاء في الرباعية العربية، السعودية والامارات ومصر والأردن، على الاعتراف بإسرائيل وإقامة علاقات دبلوماسية معها». وينبغي أن يؤدي تنفيذ الخطة، التي تم عرضها على الولايات المتحدة وإسرائيل، الى «استقرار الوضع في الشرق الأوسط وخفض مستوى الإرهاب والتوتر، وتحديداً كبح الثورة الشيعية التي تخيف وتقلق الأردن ومصر أكثر مما تقلق إسرائيل»، بحسب «معاريف». وتشير الصحيفة إلى أن «الملك الأردني غاضب جداً من أبو مازن، الذي بعثر له كل أوراق خطته، لكبح حماس وحل الأزمة بين اسرائيل والفلسطينيين»، بعدما توصل الى اتفاق مع حركة «حماس» يقضي بتأليف حكومة وحدة وطنية من دون ان تعترف الأخيرة بإسرائيل أو بالاتفاقات الموقعة معها.
وتابعت «معاريف» أن «الملك الأردني يدرس خطواته الحالية بعد هذه التطورات: هل يواصل خطته كالمعتاد، أو يتم إلغاء الخطة والتراجع عنها، بانتظار التطورات السياسية؟».
وأضافت إن «الرباعية العربية تحاول الآن بلورة خطة بديلة، تُمكِّن من تقليل تأثير حماس»، مشيرة إلى أن «مخاوف هذه الدول، ومن بينها مصر والأردن والإمارات وجهات عربية معتدلة أخرى، هي من الثورة الشيعية والإيرانية، التي تحولت أخيراً الى رعب حقيقي».
ونفى مستشار عباس، صائب عريقات، لإذاعة فلسطين، وجود مبادرة أردنية كهذه، قائلاً «إن هذا الخبر لا أساس له من الصحة تماماً».
ترجمة صحيفة الأخبار

By Robert Fisk

"How easily the sparks from the American-Israeli fire fall across the Middle East. Every threat, every intransigence uttered in Washington and Tehran now burns a little bit more of Lebanon. It is not by chance that the UN forces in the south of the country now face growing suspicion among the Shia Muslims who live there. It is no coincidence that Israel thunders that the Hizbollah are now more powerful than they were before last year's July war. It is not an accident that Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbollah's leader, says he has brought more missiles into Lebanon.

Why, the Lebanese ask, did President Bashar al-Assad of Syria visit President Ahmadinejad of Iran last weekend? To further seal their "brotherly" relations? Or to plan a new war with Israel in Lebanon?

The images of Iran's new missile launches during three days of military manoeuvres - apparently long-range rockets which could be fired at US warships in the Gulf - were splashed across the Beirut papers yesterday morning, along with Washington's latest threats of air strikes against Iran's military. Be certain that the Lebanese will be the first to suffer.

For the West, the crisis in Lebanon - where Hizbollah and its allies are still demanding the resignation of Fouad Siniora's government - is getting more serious by the hour. Up to 20,000 UN troops - including Nato battalions of Spanish, French and Italian forces - are now billeted across the hillsides of southern Lebanon, in the very battleground upon which the Israelis and the Hizbollah are threatening to fight each other again......"

By Bendib.
(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

Contributed by Lucia

"AMMAN, Jordan (AP) -- Israel said Tuesday it would stop dealing with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas if he goes ahead with plans to join Hamas in a new government, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Arab allies sought a way to break the Hamas logjam and push forward the stalled peace process......

Abbas said Israel may have "misunderstood" the agreement reached in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, between his moderate Fatah faction and the militant Hamas group, according to Jordan's official Petra news agency.

"We told Israel that this agreement was made to protect the unity of the Palestinian people and its national interests," Abbas was quoted as saying. "The agreement is an expression of support for Palestinian interests, but Israel may have misunderstood it."

But in Israel, Miri Eisin, spokeswoman for Olmert, ruled out any talks on a final peace deal with Abbas if he went ahead with plans to form a new Cabinet including Hamas. Israeli talks with Abbas would be limited to matters such as improving living conditions for the Palestinians and ending Palestinian attacks against Israel. "We're not talking about negotiations on final status issues," Eisin said.....

Rice invited security and intelligence chiefs from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the United Arab Emirates to Amman for the talks to ask their advice on what, if anything, can be done further to persuade Hamas to back down.

Tuesday's session at the government security headquarters in Amman included some of the region's wiliest and best-connected heavies, fixers and go-betweens, including Saudi national security adviser Prince Bandar bin Sultan and Egyptian intelligence head Omar Suleiman.

Suleiman has deep ties across Palestinian politics, including with Hamas. Rice has been meeting with him regularly since Hamas won Palestinian parliamentary elections 13 months ago.

Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Emirates have all, in turn, tried their hand in recent months at convincing Hamas to moderate enough to meet Western conditions, with little success....."

The Iraqi blogger Raed Jarrar has obtained a copy of the proposed oil law and has just translated it into English. He discusses the new law with Antonia Juhasz, author of "The Bush Agenda: Invading the World One Economy at a Time.”

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

"What would this new law mean for Iraq? With me now from Washington DC is Raed Jarrar - He is the Iraq Project Director for Global Exchange. He has obtained a copy of the proposed oil law which he translated from Arabic and posted on his website. And Antonia Juhasz is on the phone with us -- She has written extensively about the economic side of the US occupation of Iraq and is the author of the book, “The Bush Agenda: Invading the World One Economy at a Time.” Antonia is a Tarbell Fellow at Oil Change International. We welcome you both to Democracy Now!......

AMY GOODMAN: And explain what it says, now that you’ve finished translating it.

RAED JARRAR: It said so many things. I don’t think we can summarize it this short, because it’s a very long document, around thirty pages. But majorly, there are three major points that I think we should talk about. Financially, it legalizes very unfair types of contracts that will put Iraq in very long-term contracts that can go up to thirty-five years and cause the loss of hundreds of billions of dollars from Iraqis for no cause.

And the second point is concerning Iraq's sovereignty. Iraq will not be capable of controlling the levels -- the limits of production, which means that Iraq cannot be a part of OPEC anymore. And Iraq will have this very complicated institution called the Federal Oil and Gas Council, that will have representatives from the foreign oil companies on the board of it, so representatives from, let’s say, ExxonMobil and Shell and British Petroleum will be on the federal board of Iraq approving their own contracts.

And the third point is the point about keeping Iraq’s unity. The law is seen by many Iraqi analysts as a separation for Iraq fund. The law will authorize all of the regional and small provinces’ authorities. It will give them the final say to deal with the oil, instead of giving this final say to central federal government, so it will open the doors for splitting Iraq into three regions or even maybe three states in the very near future......

AMY GOODMAN: Raed Jarrar, what is the response of Iraqis, of people in Iraq?

RAED JARRAR: No one in Iraq knows about the law. The law has been kept in a very low profile, and there is a huge propaganda campaign by the government trying to portray the law as straight and good for Iraq, a law that will turn Iraq into heaven on earth, because it will bring all of the foreign investments. Even parliamentarians in the Iraqi government, the ones who will have the final say to pass this law, haven’t received a copy of this law yet. I sent them the copy three or four days ago, and I sent a copy to many of the other Iraqi bloggers and journalists, because I think it’s very important to raise awareness about this and make it an issue. The Iraqi government and the Bush administration are trying to keep a very low profile in Iraq on this law. I think they’re planning just to, you know, surprise the parliamentarians one morning and have them vote on it without any knowledge of what the law actually causes.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk, Raed Jarrar, about the control, the dispute over federal or regional control of oil in Iraq?

RAED JARRAR: Most of the control will be under the regional and provincial authorities. They have all of the authority of monitoring and even dealing with small disputes. Now, there is this bigger council that is very complicated, very bureaucratic. This council just has the authority to veto what the regional and provincial authorities decide. So in case the council just stayed silent, everything can go without any interruption. So, you can see that this council is kind of controlled by foreign companies, as well, so the possibilities of the council vetoing what’s happening on the regional level will be very small. So we end up having a situation where Iraqis in different provinces will start signing contracts directly with foreign companies and competing between themselves, among themselves, among different Iraqi provinces, to get the oil companies to go to there without any centralized way in controlling this and thinking of the Iraqi interest and protecting Iraq as a country......."

Click Here to Watch, Listen or Read Transcript

Abbas: Meeting with Rice and Olmert tense and difficult, but not a failure (AP)
Do you trust anything this political whore says?

"DAMASCUS - The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) on Tuesday hailed the halt of infighting in the Gaza Strip between rival Fatah and Hamas, but stopped short of expressing a wish to partake of the soon-to-be formed unity government.

In a statement published Tuesday the group said that the formula reached a week earlier in Mecca "is not binding for us."

In addition to bringing an end to the violent clashes between Hamas and Fatah, the Saudi-brokered Mecca Accord calls for respecting political, security and economic agreements signed between Israel and the Palestinian Liberation Organization.

"This means recognizing Israel's right to exist and halting resistance against occupation, and this what we have repeatedly rejected," the PFLP statement said.

The PFLP called for a serious and responsible dialogue among all Palestinian factions.

Maher Taher, PFLP's overseas spokesman, told reporters at a press conference that the Islamic Jihad movement would not participate in the forthcoming government, raising the possibility that other Palestinian factions would also not participate.

Taher said also that the Palestinians should stop making concessions "as the U.S. and Israel would never change their stands but would rather ask for more concessions."

He stressed that the road to peace was clear and could be reached through the implementation of UN resolutions that call for the full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Arab lands to the borders of 1967."

***

The Famas "unity government" is being exposed, more and more, for the fraud that it is.

by Larry Chin
Global Research, February 20, 2007

"The Bush administration will attack Iran as early as spring 2007. The administration is on total war footing.

Over the next few months, the administration and its allies and functionaries will create and provoke a pretext that forces a political consensus behind an attack on Iran. Any or all of the following may occur:

* Violent resistance to US occupation within Iraq is blamed on Iran. As previously noted, the idea that Iran is arming Iraqi attacks against US forces is a central theme of new Bush administration propaganda. Paul Pillar, former CIA officer and member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is among many critics arguing that Iran is not behind the attacks. This will not stop the Bush-Cheney apparatus from spewing lies to the contrary.

* A major terror attack against US interests is blamed on Iran. In recent testimony before the US Senate, Zbigniew Brzezinski warned that the Bush administration is headed on a “downhill track towards a head-on conflict with Iran and much of the world of Islam” -- and that the conflict may begin with a major terror attack, either domestically or overseas, against Americans by Iran. (See also here, and here.)
In Brzezinski’s words, the Bush administration’s mismanagement of Iraq is an “historic, strategic and moral calamity,” “driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris” that “intensifies regional instability” and (of primary, if not sole concern to Brzezinski) “undermines America’s global legitimacy.” Brzezinski, a chief architect of the US “Grand Chessboard” geostrategy, which laid the foundation for the 9/11 attacks, has been an outspoken critic of the Bush administration’s “mishandling” of the war. The Bush administration has longed for the right moment to set off “the next 9/11.”

* Iraq-Iran diplomacy characterized as terrorist interference by Iran.

* Real and imaginary Iranian responses to Bush administration rhetoric or provocations will be characterized as war provocation by Tehran.

* New evidence of Iranian nuclear “intentions” will be “found,” and presented to the “international community,” in order to sanction punishment.....Continue

New proposal: Transfer-for-cash plan

"A new proposal designed to solve Israel's Arab demographic concerns suggests offering a million Palestinian residents of refugee camps in Judea and Samaria incentives totaling as much as $50 billion to convince them to leave the area.

Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, head of the Ateret Kohanim Yeshiva in Jerusalem, and MK Benny Elon (National Union-National Religious Party) have joined forces to promote the proposed program, which they said would be funded by the state. The two men, who are next door neighbors in Beit El, propose paying the refugee camp residents $50,000 to $100,000 each if they agree to emigrate.

"Those poor people have been suffering for six decades," said Elon. "I believe that if we give them the option of leaving they will grab it."

Elon said that he was astounded to discover that Palestinians who want to leave had difficulty getting to Ben-Gurion Airport, for security reasons.

Elon said many western countries, including Canada as well as some in South America, were open to immigrants, especially if they brought cash with them. He said he hoped to gain the cooperation of western countries for the program by emphasizing its humanitarian dimension.

Aviner, a respected halachic authority, has written an article advocating the transfer-for-payment idea, which appeared this weekend in Be'ahava U'Be'emuna, a pamphlet that is distributed in thousands of synagogues across the nation every Shabbat.

"Arabs are busy killing Jews or providing aid, cover and legitimacy to terrorists," Aviner said in a telephone interview.

"There is no end in sight. I do not want to keep killing them to protect myself. So the best solution is to encourage them to leave," he said. "As soon as the word gets around that Israel is paying compensation to anyone who leaves, it will have a snowball effect."

Aviner quoted the Koran as well as the Bible to demonstrate that the Land of Israel belongs to the Jewish people.

Arabs who agreed to stop all terrorism against Israel and to accept second class citizenship, without voting rights, would be allowed to stay, Aviner said.

MK Ibrahim Sarsour (United Arab List-Ta'al) called the proposal "satanic," "fascist," and "nearly Nazi."

"Palestine is an integral part of Waqf-administered sacred Islamic land," said Sarsour, who is also the head of the Islamic Movement in Israel. "It belongs to the Muslim people. Benny Elon and others like him will have to trample over our dead bodies to remove us from this place."

Sarsour said "Islam" was willing to normalize relations with a sovereign Israel within the Green Line. He said all Jews living in the West Bank or eastern Jerusalem must leave their homes or renounce Zionism and agree to second-class citizenship, without voting rights.

"But Elon is trying to push for the option of conflict and extinction of both peoples," he said.

Sarsour said "zealots" like Elon and Aviner had caused the destruction of the Second Temple, and that history could repeat itself.

"The weak do not stay weak forever, nor do the strong," Sarsour said."

Maliki could at least pretend the rape of a young Iraqi woman is still an outrage in todays Iraq...

"As expected, Al Maliki is claiming the rape allegations are all lies. Apparently, his people simply asked the officers if they raped Sabrine Al Janabi and they said no. I'm so glad that's been cleared up.

"Meanwhile, Prime Minister Nouri al-Makiki moved quickly to try to defuse a scandal after a Sunni woman said she was raped by three officers of the Shiite-dominated police.

The government's response — siding with the officers and trying to discredit the allegations — threatened to bring even more backlash.

A statement by al-Makiki's office accused "certain parties" — presumably Sunni politicians — of fabricating the claims in an attempt to undermine security forces during the ongoing Baghdad security operation, which began last week.
The statement was issued only hours after al-Maliki ordered an investigation into the case Monday night.

The 20-year-old married woman said she was assaulted after police commandos took her into custody Sunday in the western Baghdad neighborhood of Amil, accusing her of helping insurgents. She said she was taken to a police garrison and raped.

"It has been shown after medical examinations that the woman had not been subjected to any sexual attack whatsoever and that there are three outstanding arrest warrants against her issued by security agencies," the government statement said, without giving details.

"After the allegations have been proven to be false, the prime minister has ordered that the officers accused be rewarded," it said without elaborating."

I hate the media and I hate the Iraqi government for turning this atrocity into another Sunni-Shia debacle- like it matters whether Sabrine is Sunni or Shia or Arab or Kurd (the Al Janabi tribe is composed of both Sunnis and Shia). Maliki did not only turn the woman into a liar, he is rewarding the officers she accused. It's outrageous and maddening.

No Iraqi woman under the circumstances- under any circumstances- would publicly, falsely claim she was raped. There are just too many risks. There is the risk of being shunned socially. There is the risk of beginning an endless chain of retaliations and revenge killings between tribes. There is the shame of coming out publicly and talking about a subject so taboo, she and her husband are not only risking their reputations by telling this story, they are risking their lives.

No one would lie about something like this simply to undermine the Baghdad security operation. That can be done simply by calculating the dozens of dead this last week. Or by writing about the mass detentions of innocents, or how people are once again burying their valuables so that Iraqi and American troops don't steal them.

It was less than 14 hours between Sabrine's claims and Maliki's rewarding the people she accused. In 14 hours, Maliki not only established their innocence, but turned them into his own personal heroes. I wonder if Maliki would entrust the safety his own wife and daughter to these men.

This is meant to discourage other prisoners, especially women, from coming forward and making claims against Iraqi and American forces. Maliki is the stupidest man alive (well, after Bush of course…) if he believes his arrogance and callous handling of the situation will work to dismiss it from the minds of Iraqis. By doing what he is doing, he's making it more clear than ever that under his rule, under his government, vigilante justice is the only way to go. Why leave it to the security forces and police? Simply hire a militia or gang to get revenge. If he doesn't get some justice for her, her tribe will be forced to... And the Janabat (the Al Janabis) are a force to be reckoned with.
Maliki could at least pretend the rape of a young Iraqi woman is still an outrage in todays Iraq... "

Translated by Raed Jarrar.

US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned.

"US contingency plans for air strikes on Iran extend beyond nuclear sites and include most of the country's military infrastructure, the BBC has learned. It is understood that any such attack - if ordered - would target Iranian air bases, naval bases, missile facilities and command-and-control centres.

The US insists it is not planning to attack, and is trying to persuade Tehran to stop uranium enrichment. The UN has urged Iran to stop the programme or face economic sanctions.

But diplomatic sources have told the BBC that as a fallback plan, senior officials at Central Command in Florida have already selected their target sets inside Iran. That list includes Iran's uranium enrichment plant at Natanz. Facilities at Isfahan, Arak and Bushehr are also on the target list, the sources say.

Two triggers

BBC security correspondent Frank Gardner says the trigger for such an attack reportedly includes any confirmation that Iran was developing a nuclear weapon - which it denies. Alternatively, our correspondent adds, a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign if it were traced directly back to Tehran.


Long range B2 stealth bombers would drop so-called "bunker-busting" bombs in an effort to penetrate the Natanz site, which is buried some 25m (27 yards) underground.

The BBC's Tehran correspondent Frances Harrison says the news that there are now two possible triggers for an attack is a concern to Iranians. Authorities insist there is no cause for alarm but ordinary people are now becoming a little worried, she says......"

***

"a high-casualty attack on US forces in neighbouring Iraq could also trigger a bombing campaign."

Notice the constant lowering of the threshold (excuse) that will be used to start the war. This second alternative to "justify" a bombing campaign could be as predictable as the shooting down of another U.S. helicopter in Iraq, killing a dozen U.S. troops. The public is also being conditioned and prepared; this is one of the objectives of these constant "leaks."

Folks, the attack on Iran is a certainty and it will happen soon.

HAARETZ

"One of the senior Palestinian Authority officials at Monday's summit sounded upbeat. "The Americans did not raise a white flag and the political horizon is still there. Olmert may reject the unity government but does not reject negotiations with the PLO chairman, Mahmoud Abbas," the senior official told Haaretz.

However, it's hard to tell on what concrete facts the Palestinian official is basing his assessment. Several hours after the meeting, Al-Ayam, a Palestinian daily, published an interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in which she said that there is no certainty that a Palestinian state would emerge during the tenure of President George W. Bush.

For many in the Palestinian camp this statement was regarded as a slap in the face for Abbas, and raised much concern about the future of negotiations. This was proof to them that the American administration was giving up on the two-state vision and on efforts to reach a final status agreement.

The summit also appeared to have been forced. On the eve of the summit, Rice tried to downplay expectations. S., a Palestinian journalist from Ramallah, commented on the Secretary's visit with an Arab idiom - "you left the same way you came over," or in other words, Rice's visit was unnecessary.

Rice promised to return and that the American efforts to renew the negotiations would continue, but for most in the Palestinian leadership this was merely keeping up appearances. In their view, the Americans were going through the motions to appease the Arab world in order to receive support in Iraq, and to appease the European Union so that the Quartet's unity would continue.

And yet, the prevalent approach in Abbas' circle is that the unity government must be formed. Abbas has a new ally - Ismail Haniyeh. Immediately after Monday's summit Abbas even bothered to update Haniyeh on its outcome.

Olmert's statements and Rice's insinuations that there would be no cooperation with the new Palestinian government is less critical than the need to avoid a civil war. The chairman's men insist that once the government is formed, Salam Fayad would be Finance Minister, Ziyad abu-Amar foreign minister, and Hamas would not have a majority - leaving Israel and the U.S. in a much more difficult position in their attempts to persuade the European Union to uphold its economic boycott against the Palestinians.

In Abbas' view, the release of abducted Israel Defense Forces soldier Gilad Shalit and observing the cease fire would also bring Israel to agree to renew negotiations. "What's your alternative?" asks the senior Palestinian official.

"Let's say Olmert refused to talk to the Rais (chairman Abbas) because he formed a unity government. Then what? Will the Palestinians turn Zionist? A unity government is also your preferable option, because a Palestinian civil war will not generate peace and security for the Israelis." "[You see, Abbas' main concern is peace and security for the Israelis.]

The Rape of Sabrine...

"It takes a lot to get the energy and resolution to blog lately. I guess it’s mainly because just thinking about the state of Iraq leaves me drained and depressed. But I had to write tonight.

As I write this, Oprah is on Channel 4 (one of the MBC channels we get on Nilesat), showing Americans how to get out of debt. Her guest speaker is telling a studio full of American women who seem to have over-shopped that they could probably do with fewer designer products. As they talk about increasing incomes and fortunes, Sabrine Al-Janabi, a young Iraqi woman, is on Al Jazeera telling how Iraqi security forces abducted her from her home and raped her. You can only see her eyes, her voice is hoarse and it keeps breaking as she speaks. In the end she tells the reporter that she can’t talk about it anymore and she covers her eyes with shame.

She might just be the bravest Iraqi woman ever. Everyone knows American forces and Iraqi security forces are raping women (and men), but this is possibly the first woman who publicly comes out and tells about it using her actual name. Hearing her tell her story physically makes my heart ache. Some people will call her a liar. Others (including pro-war Iraqis) will call her a prostitute- shame on you in advance......

They abducted her from her house in an area in southern Baghdad called Hai Al Amil. No- it wasn’t a gang. It was Iraqi peace keeping or security forces- the ones trained by Americans? You know them. She was brutally gang-raped and is now telling the story. Half her face is covered for security reasons or reasons of privacy. I translated what she said below.

“I told him, ‘I don’t have anything [I did not do anything].’ He said, 'You don’t have anything?’ One of them threw me on the ground and my head hit the tiles. He did what he did- I mean he raped me. The second one came and raped me. The third one also raped me. [Pause- sobbing] I begged them and cried, and one of them covered my mouth. [Unclear, crying] Another one of them came and said, 'Are you finished? We also want our turn.' So they answered, ‘No, an American committee came.’ They took me to the judge......

I look at this woman and I can’t feel anything but rage. What did we gain? I know that looking at her, foreigners will never be able to relate. They’ll feel pity and maybe some anger, but she’s one of us. She’s not a girl in jeans and a t-shirt so there will only be a vague sort of sympathy. Poor third-world countries- that is what their womenfolk tolerate. Just know that we never had to tolerate this before. There was a time when Iraqis were safe in the streets. That time is long gone. We consoled ourselves after the war with the fact that we at least had a modicum of safety in our homes. Homes are sacred, aren’t they? That is gone too......

Let me clear it up for any moron with lingering doubts: It’s worse. It’s over. You lost. You lost the day your tanks rolled into Baghdad to the cheers of your imported, American-trained monkeys. You lost every single family whose home your soldiers violated. You lost every sane, red-blooded Iraqi when the Abu Ghraib pictures came out and verified your atrocities behind prison walls as well as the ones we see in our streets. You lost when you brought murderers, looters, gangsters and militia heads to power and hailed them as Iraq’s first democratic government. You lost when a gruesome execution was dubbed your biggest accomplishment. You lost the respect and reputation you once had. You lost more than 3000 troops. That is what you lost America. I hope the oil, at least, made it worthwhile."

Where is Muqtada?

ISN'T PALESTINIAN "UNITY" SWEET? MY EYES ARE TEARING!

Global Research, February 19, 2007

Perdana Global Peace Organization, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

"Editor's Note

The following text is the testimony given by Professor Ali Shalal, who was tortured at Abu Ghraib Prison. This statement was presented to the War Crimes Commission set up under the helm of former Prime Minister Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad, as evidence in the procedure launched in Kuala Lumpur directed against US President George W. Bush, Britain's Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australia's Prime Minister John Howard.

Ali Shalal, known to the World as the "man behind the hood", is a man of tremendous courage and determination. I heard his testimony, I had the opportunity of speaking to him on several occasions in the course of the war crimes Conference. We shared our determination to bring the war criminals in high office to justice.

Ali Shalal is a professor of theology. He is a tremendous source of inspiration. It is important to understand that what Ali Shalal experienced is part of a routine process of torture, applied systematically to those arrested. Many of his companions in Abu Ghraib died as a result of torture or were executed upon their release so that they would not reveal the gruesome horrors and atrocities committed on the orders of the Bush administration.

Ali Shalal survived and provided testimony in the name of all those who were tortured to death. His words will go down in history.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 19 February 2007"

Continue

Olmert told Abbas 'you cheated me,' senior PA official says

Palestinian official who attended Jerusalem summit hosted by Rice says Israeli premier told Palestinian leader, 'you cheated me by reaching unity deal with Hamas'; Abbas responded by saying, 'you gave me nothing and didn’t keep your promises,’ official adds. Saeb Erekat: Rice made it clear that any Palestinian government must accept previous agreements, obligations.

""Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, ‘you cheated me by reaching the unity deal with Hamas,'" a senior Palestinian official who attended the summit hosted by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Jerusalem told Reuters on Monday. “President Abbas responded (by saying), ‘you gave me nothing and didn’t keep your promises,’" he added. Olmert’s office declined to comment.

The prime minister said in broadcast remarks to his Kadima party after the meeting that Israel and the United States agreed to boycott the Palestinian government, which has yet to be formed, unless it renounced violence, recognized Israel and accepted existing interim peace accords.

Rice reiterated it was the position of the “Quartet” of Middle East mediators trying to restart peace talks stalled for the past six years that these three conditions be met. “(I thank Washington) for the unequivocal stance that it will not recognize a government that does not accept the Quartet’s principles,” Olmert said of the group composed of the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations.He set out additional conditions for an end to the Israeli boycott of a unity government, demanding Palestinians cease rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip and immediately free an Israeli soldier captured in June.....

Speaking in Gaza earlier, Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas said Washington should change its stance because the unity government agenda “gives a large room for political movement.” ...."

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

"A new book by Chris Hedges called “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War On America” investigates the highly organized and well-funded "dominionist movement." The book investigates their agenda, examines the movement's origins and motivations and uncovers its ideological underpinnings. “American Fascists” argues that dominionism seeks absolute power in a Christian state. According to Hedges, the movement bears a strong resemblance to the young fascist movements in Italy and Germany in the 1920s and '30s. Chris Hedges was a foreign correspondent for the New York Times for many years where he won a Pulitzer Prize. He is also the author of "War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning" and "Losing Moses on the Freeway." Chris has a Master's degree in theology from Harvard University and is the son of a Presbyterian minister. He is currently a senior fellow at the Nation Institute - and he is here with me now in the studio......

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Why did you write this book?

CHRIS HEDGES: Anger. I mean, I grew up in the Church and, of course, as you mentioned, graduated from seminary, and I think these people have completely perverted and distorted and manipulated the Christian message into something that is the very antithesis of certainly what Jesus preached in the Gospels.

AMY GOODMAN: Who are “these people”?

CHRIS HEDGES: These are -- you know, they’re not -- we use terms like “evangelical” and “fundamentalist” to describe them, and I think that those are incorrect terms. Traditional fundamentalists always called on believers to remove themselves from the contaminants of secular society, shun involvement in politics. Evangelical leaders like Billy Graham's always warned followers to keep their distance from political power. He, of course, was burned by Richard Nixon, came to Nixon’s defense and then when it publicly came out that Nixon lied, it taught a lesson to Graham.

This is a new movement, as embodied by people like James Dobson or Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell, who call for the creation of a Christian state, who talk about attaining secular power. And they are more properly called dominionists or Christian reconstructionists, although it’s not a widespread term, but they're certainly not traditional fundamentalists and not traditional evangelicals. They fused the language and iconography of the Christian religion with the worst forms of American nationalism and then created this sort of radical mutation, which has built alliances with powerful rightwing interests, including corporate interests, and made tremendous inroads over the last two decades into the corridors of power....."

Click Here to Watch, Listen or Read Transcript

by Sam Gardiner

"For those concerned about a possible war with Iran should turn up their worry-dials two notches. This morning’s news has a couple dark clouds.

IED’s Inside Iran - If you have not been reading foreign press, you might have missed two explosions this past week in Iran. One of them killed 11 and injured 31 members of the Revolutionary Guard, and the other was near a school.

Although the devices were not IED’s like those found in Iraq, the explosions were in the area a group sponsored by the United States may be operating. The area in Iran is Sistan-Baluchestan near the borders of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Sy Hersh and a number of other reporters have said this is the area in which the MEK (or the mouthful name Mujahedin-e Khalq) have been operating.

This morning a Chinese newswire is reporting that the Iranians have evidence linking the attacks to the United States.

According to the report, “Relevant documents, photographs and film footage, which show that the explosives and arsenals used in the attack were American, would soon be made public, an ‘informed source’ was quoted as saying.”

The issue is not that “informed source” has switched sides, although I find quoting him to be interesting. This, however, ratchets up the tensions between Washington and Tehran.

Even if the United States were behind the operation, it is unlikely the Iranians would find weapons and materials that would be identifiable as American. US organizations that are involved in covert operations are very good about not leaving signatures that can be traced.

That is even more of a concern. The Iranians are choosing to make an issue.

Surge within the Surge - We have known before that five brigades were being sent to Baghdad. On Friday, the Department of Defense announced that an additional 1,000 troops from the 3rd Infantry Division Headquarters were being sent 90 days early. According to the announcement, these additional troops and a two star general were needed to do command and control in Baghdad.

This is a strange announcement because it was the same day that in a video press conference from Baghdad the commander of the division now operating there told reporters saw no command and control problems.

The announcement is a concern because if some of the brigades that are supposedly part of the Iraq surge were to go to the Iranian border, an additional headquarters would be required. We may be seeing that unfold."

Rachel Corrie, American martyr for Palestinian rights

A Review of the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Exhibit

by Michael Carmichael
Global Research, February 19, 2007

"In Kuala Lumpur, we moved forward, after a mass briefing about the War Crimes Commission, to find ourselves in a museum surrounded by human effigies depicting war crimes, mass murders, scenes of torture and atrocity after atrocity.

We sensed the terror of the victims, vividly revealed in the frozen wax faces, and the repulsive horrors wrought by the hands of their assailants, so shocking, so merciless, so monstrous.

On this occasion, I anaesthetized my emotions in order to survey the microcosm of brutality that passed before my eyes as Matthias [Chang], Michel [Chossudovsky], Chris [Busby] and I staggered from room to room.....

The disgusting language of war and its disgusting crimes provided a counterpoint to punctuate the trauma and savagery brought to life before us.

Before my eyes, the effigies of the tortured, maimed, dead and dying came to a form of life. They writhed in agony as they were subjected to brutalities that surpassed the most hellish scenes in Dante’s Inferno.

In the final chambers we witnessed videos of the leading villains of the Bush administration: Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and the rest – uttering their lies of WMDs in Iraq that launched the most disastrously stupid war in American history.

These people had become the gatekeepers of war and peace, life and death as they had lusted after earthly powers. The neocons beamed a haze of smug self-assurance as they focused and preened and premeditated their malignance aforethought.....

Humanity has fallen into a pit, bedevilled by a demonic pendulum with a razor’s edge that lacerates and mutilates and cuts deeply into the innocence of flesh. Women and children, disabled, aged and infirm victims fell into that bottomless pit that was a place beyond all pity. The corpses are surging upward into a mountain, a Himalaya of monstrosity that now lies supine at the feet of the earthly powers.

In the darkest corridors of Abu Ghraib, interrogators tortured and humiliated and defiled the lives of their victims. Many were totally innocent, ordinary and peaceful Iraqis – and none of them deserved the vicious torture that was meted out unto them.

One of the victims of Abu Ghraib, Ali Shalah, would testify to the War Crimes Commission about the unspeakable atrocities that ravaged his body, his mind and his life.

My mission to the War Crimes Conference and War Crimes Commission was leading me more deeply into the spiral of a journey more savage than any I had ever undertaken before......"

The structure of power of the world imperial system can best be understood through a classification of countries according to their political, economic, diplomatic and military organization.

A Good, Long Article
By Professor James Petras
For PalestineChronicle.com

"The imperial system is much more complex than what is commonly referred to as the “US Empire”. The US Empire, with its vast network of financial investments, military bases, multi-national corporations and client states, is the single most important component of the global imperial system (1). Nevertheless, it is overly simplistic to overlook the complex hierarchies, networks, follower states and clients that define the contemporary imperial system (2). To understand empire and imperialism today requires us to look at the complex and changing system of imperial stratification.

Hierarchy of Empire

The structure of power of the world imperial system can best be understood through a classification of countries according to their political, economic, diplomatic and military organization. The following is a schema of this system:

I. Hierarchy of Empire (from top to bottom)
A. Central Imperial States (CIS)
B. Newly Emerging Imperial Powers (NEIP)
C. Semi-autonomous Client Regimes (SACR)
D. Client Collaborator Regimes (CCR)

II. Independent States:
A. Revolutionary
Cuba and Venezuela
B. Nationalist
Sudan, Iran, Zimbabwe, North Korea

III. Contested Terrain and Regimes in Transition
Armed resistance, elected regimes, social movements"

Continue

Habila is Unhappy With Washington
He said that Washington is being "too negative" towards his "unity government" and such a position is "unjustified," according to him. Such acumen, ..... such insight!

Olmert, Abbas, Rice and Another Manufactured Mirage

By MICHAEL F. BROWN
CounterPunch

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will meet today [19 February] with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. Ostensibly, they are to talk of a "political horizon" in order for Abbas to relay to the Palestinian people a "vision" of what could be.

This now appears to be little more than a hallucination put out for public consumption. Borders, Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees cannot be expected to highlight the agenda. Consequently, if these three issues are not central to discussions, this is not a political horizon but a cliff for Palestinians. A horizon, properly viewed, simply cannot omit these three central concerns.... "

Al-Manar

"A senior Israeli army official said that Hezbollah has succeeded in rehabilitating its forces and is now almost at the same strength as it was before last summer's war. Speaking to the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Brigadier General Yossi Baidatz, the head of the Military Intelligence's Research Division, softened his assessment when contradicted by Defense Minister Amir Peretz who charged that Hezbollah's strength cannot be measured and that Baidatz was referring to the group's potential.
Committee members slammed Baidatz's testimony and referred the issue to a subcommittee where discussions are held behind closed doors. Turning his attention to Syria, Baidatz said Damascus is upgrading its military arsenal for fear of confrontation with Israel."

Much of Washington assumes that leaving Iraq will lead to
a bigger bloodbath. It’s time to question that assumption.

By Robert Dreyfuss

"The Bush administration famously based its argument for invading Iraq on best-case assumptions: that we would be greeted as liberators; that a capable democratic government would quickly emerge; that our military presence would be modest and temporary; and that Iraqi oil revenues would pay for everything. All these assumptions, of course, turned out to be wrong.

Now, many of the same people who pushed for the invasion are arguing for escalating our military involvement based on a worst-case assumption: that if America leaves quickly, the Apocalypse will follow.....

Not only is the worst-case scenario far from a sure thing in the event of an American withdrawal, but there is also a best-case scenario. Precisely because the idea of all-out civil war and a regional blowup involving Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey is so horrifying, all the political forces inside and outside Iraq have many incentives not to go there.

Certainly, four years into the war, passions on all sides have been inflamed, communal tensions bared, and the secular, urban Iraqi middle class has either fled or been decimated. The mass terror perpetuated by armed gangs of extremists now occupies center stage. The broken Iraqi state has ceased to exist outside the Green Zone, the economy is devastated, and unemployment is believed to be hovering around 50 percent.

Yet the neoconservatives and the Bush administration weren’t entirely wrong in 2003 when they expressed confidence in the underlying strength of the Iraqi body politic. Though things have gone horrendously awry, there are many factors that could provide the glue to put Humpty Dumpty back together again.

Contrary to the conventional wisdom in Washington, Iraq is not a make-believe state cobbled together after World War I, but a nation united by the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, just as the Nile unites Egypt. Historically, the vast majority of Iraqis have not primarily identified themselves according to their sect, as Sunnis or Shiites......

This shared desire could be another crucial force in helping maintain the integrity of Iraq. The catch-22 of Iraqi politics is that any Iraqi government created or supported by the United States is instantly suspect in Iraqi eyes. By the same token, a nationalist government that succeeds in ushering U.S. forces out of Iraq would have overwhelming support from most Iraqis on most sides of the conflict. With that support, such a government might be able to make the difficult compromises—like amending the constitution to give minority protections to Sunnis—that the Maliki government has been unable or unwilling to make but that most observers believe are crucial to any political settlement that might end the fighting......"

The question is:

In your opinion is it in the interest of the Muslim world, in dealing with the U.S., to choose confrontation or cooperation?

The results of over 1,800 responding:

Confrontation.......80%

Cooperation..........20%

Britain’s Channel 4 News highlights the images and stories from Iraq that have been left out of mainstream news reporting.

"It's a gut-wrenching 49 minutes, but worth your time. Americans, these actions are being done in our name. This is our legacy."

Click Here to Watch

By Raed Jarrar

"Sunday, February 18, 2007
The New Iraqi Oil: Leaked
The last few of weeks were very busy. I spent a couple of weeks in Malaysia and South Korea, and I'll share two of my pictures with you below.

But more importantly, I spent the weekend translating this leaked copy of the Iraqi oil law with niki (thank you salam for sending me the link). Translating legal documents can be really hard!

We just finished the translation, and you can download it by clicking here.

Please feel free to widely distribute this document. It's important to start a stronger debate and to try to educate Iraqis and Americans about this catastrophic law that will facilitate the further looting of Iraqi oil, and will achieve nothing other than increasing the levels of violence and anger in Iraq.

This law legalizes PSAs (production sharing agreements) in Iraq. Iraq will be the only country in the middle east with such contracts privatising Iraqi oil and giving foreign companies crazy rates of profit that may reach to more than three fourth of the general revenue. Iraq and Iraqis need every Dinar that comes from oil sales. In addition to the financial aspects of this law, it can be considered the funding tool for splitting Iraq into three states. It undermines the central government and distributes oil revenues directly to the three regions, which sets the foundations for what Iraq's enemies are trying to achieve in terms of establishing three independent states.

Privatizing Iraq's oil and splitting Iraq into three regions are just two negative features of this 29 pages law. I am translating some important analysis written by Iraqis and other Arabs, and am also working with British and U.S. experts to publish more analysis soon."

By Kurt Nimmo

"Nicholas Burns, under secretary for political affairs for Israel—er, excuse me, the United States—has told the neocon-infested Jerusalem Post “that America and Israel are on the same page when it comes to Iran,” in other words, both agree the Islamic country will be attacked, as Israel has demanded this for years now.

“We have a very clear uniformity of views with the Israelis,” said Burns, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Order of St. John, headed until his death by the former SS official, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands. “One of our major [priorities] is obviously to work very closely with Israel and to be a good partner with Israel.” Burns made the comments while speaking at the Brookings Institute, home of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy (the Israeli-American media-mogul, Haim Saban, has proudly declared, “I’m a one-issue guy and my issue is Israel”)......"

We watch plans for an attack on Iran unfold even as the official narrative for the run-up to the Iraq war unravels

Gary Younge
Monday February 19, 2007
The Guardian

"On December 20 1954, a woman known as Marion Keech gathered her followers in her garden in Lake City, Illinois, and waited for midnight, when flying saucers were supposed to land and save them from huge floods about to engulf the planet.
Keech had received news of the impending deluge from Sananda, a being from the planet Clarion, whose messages she passed on to a small group of believers. Unbeknown to her, the group had been infiltrated by a University of Minnesota researcher, the social psychologist Leon Festinger.

As dawn rose on December 21 with no flying saucer in sight, Keech had another revelation. Sananda told her that the group's advanced state of enlightenment had saved the entire planet. They rejoiced and called a press conference. "A man with a conviction is a hard man to change," wrote Festinger in his book on the cult, When Prophecy Fails. "Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts and figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point."

George Bush is a man of conviction and clearly a hard man to change. When reality confronts his plans he does not alter them but instead alters his understanding of reality. Like Keech and her crew, he stands with a tight band of followers, both deluded and determined, understanding each setback not as a sign to change course but as further proof that they must redouble their efforts to the original goal.

And so we watch the administration's plans for a military attack against Iran unfold even as its official narrative for the run-up to the war in Iraq unravels and the wisdom of that war stands condemned by death and destruction. As though on split screens, we pass seamlessly from reports of how they lied to get us into the last war, to scenes of carnage as a result of the war, to shots of them lying us into the next one.......

"We have to throw away the notion the US could not do it because it is too tied up in Iraq," says Colonel Sam Gardiner, a former US air force officer who has carried out war games with Iran as the target. "It is an air operation."

Like Keech before him, it seems once Bush has got hold of a bad idea he just can't let it go. Just because it is irresponsible, irrational, unpopular and unconscionable doesn't mean he won't do it.

"History does not repeat itself," Mark Twain once wrote. "But it does rhyme." "

That's the reality of American foreign policy

By Justin Raimondo

"Lance Cpl. Robert Pennington was recently sentenced to a mere eight years in jail for the wanton, planned murder of an Iraqi man, in return for his testimony against the other monsters who participated in the crime. He told the judge, at his sentencing, that he felt regret "but that he and other Marines were frustrated by their ill-defined mission in Iraq and the inability to tell friend from foe. 'As callous as it sounds,' he said, every Iraqi was considered 'guilty until proven otherwise.'"

How typically American: he isn't to blame for his actions – certainly not! – it's his "ill-defined mission." But what if carnage – for its own sake, as an end in itself – is the mission? Forget the highfalutin' rhetoric about "democracy," the "war on terrorism," the "weapons of mass destruction" that somehow turned into a desert mirage. The ugly reality is that Iraq has become an arena for American sadists to act out their perverted fantasies, a vast Charenton where the de Sades in charge of American foreign policy have unleashed an army of torturers and murderous thugs on the Iraqi people. The American media doesn't want to show the real face of U.S. "liberators," but they are being outflanked by the new technology that makes the self-appointed "gatekeepers" of journalism increasingly irrelevant.......

Sooner or later, the American people must be made to understand that the choice is between noninterventionism and barbarism. Americans are naïve: they believe in the myth of automatic progress, the illusion of history as an ever ascending stairway to higher levels of civilization, but the truth is far grimmer. Empires rise – and fall. Dark ages follow. The kind of degeneracy we are now seeing acted out in Iraq promises a fall that will plumb new depths of darkness."

To All Palestinians: Tighten Your Belts and Celebrate; Only 199 More Summits Remain before You Are "Transferred!"

Hamad: USA has to change its policy

"GAZA, (PIC)-- Ghazi Hamad, the PA government spokesman, has affirmed that the new national unity government would never pose as obstacle before PA chief Mahmoud Abbas' political moves.

He urged the USA, in an interview with the BBC on Sunday morning, to change its policy towards Palestinian developments.

Hamad said that the PLO recognized Israel and is committed to agreements signed with it but the Palestinian government should not necessarily recognize Israel or abide by those agreements.[playing games with words]

The spokesman affirmed that the new government would comprised of most of the political spectrums in the Palestinian arena.

For his part, Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, the leader of the Palestinian national Mubadara (initiative), said in a press release on Sunday that the American administration would be committing a big mistake if it decided to boycott the new national unity government.

Barghouthi, who is expected to participate in the new government, said, "We have strenuously worked over the past few months to ensure success of this idea"."

***

The U.S. has now been put on notice! Condoleezza must be trembling.

Dual Air Bags.

Hamas calls on U.S. to deal positively PA national unity gov't

"DAMASCUS, Syria - Hamas on Sunday called on the United States and the international community to deal positively and reasonably with the new Palestinian national unity government.

Moussa Abu Marzouk, Hamas deputy leader, accused Washington of fully adopting Jerusalem's policies, and urged the Bush administration to take a reasonable stand toward, and look positively upon, the new Palestinian government.

Abu Marzouk, who lives in exile in Syria along with Hamas' political leader Khaled Mashaal, told reporters that the Palestinians are used to Washington's negative stand, but that the group must deal with the U.S. administration because the U.S. is the only superpower which has influence over Israel......

But he also said he hoped the new government will be able to end the sanctions imposed on the Palestinians over Hamas' refusal to recognize Israel and renounce violence against it.

In the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanun, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas accused the U.S. and Israel on Sunday of trying to sabotage the unity deal.

"The American and Israeli interference today aim to destroy the basic principles and the basis of the Palestinian cause ... and to divert our cause, he told some 2,000 supporters, adding that he would go ahead with forming the coalition government."

***

"....but that the group must deal with the U.S. administration because the U.S. is the only superpower which has influence over Israel"---Marzouk

This statement, almost word for word, was issued by Arafat before. So this is what the Palestinians have to look forward to under Hamas: 40 more years in the wilderness waitng for the U.S. to "influence Israel."

And these clowns call themselves leaders! What is the difference between them and Abbas? Nothing!

A U.S. military humvee guards the scene of a U.S. helicopter crash in the Shahjoi district of Zabul province in southeastern Afghanistan on Sunday Feb. 18, 2007. Eight American troops were killed and 14 were wounded when the CH-47 Chinook helicopter, carrying 22 U.S. service members crashed. Taliban claimed responsibility for downing it (AP Photo)

Palestinian Refugees Expelled When Israel Was Created in 1948




By Gideon Levy

"Who said the Israeli left has disappeared? Thirty intellectuals from the left have published a petition calling for putting an end to the "neglect of the evacuees from Gush Katif and northern Samaria." Amos Oz, A.B. Yehoshua, David Grossman, Uzi Dayan, Shulamit Aloni and Yossi Sarid, the cream of the crop, signed a manifest drawn up by the evacuees that refers to the "law's directive" and "morality's directive." "This is the fundamental tenet of democracy," they write with characteristic pathos, in an outburst of concern for the population that for years did everything it could to undermine the law, morality and democracy in Israel. This petition is a disgrace to its signatories.

In recent weeks, there have been many heartbreaking reports about the evacuees' difficulties, especially in a series of articles by Nadav Shragai in Haaretz. The Gush Katif Committee claimed that 49 percent of them are unemployed (the government's employment service, by contrast, reported 25 percent); that 500 families are experiencing a difficult economic situation; that there were ten cases of eating disorders and 12 cases of attempted or contemplated suicide - and here is the punishment: 90 percent of the evacuees' children will not serve in elite Israel Defense Forces units......

The State of Israel compensated the settlers with NIS 4.5 billion. This amounts to evacuation pampering. The one million French settlers evacuated from Algeria in 1962 only received a grant for living expenses of 450 francs per couple for one month, as well as a loan of 20,000 francs to help them reestablish themselves. They were allowed to take only two suitcases with them. The shepherds in the southern hills of Hebron, whose wretched tin shacks were demolished by the state last week, did not receive any compensation. Those who permitted the scandalous settlement in Gaza finally decided to put an end to it, and this should also be accompanied by putting an end to dealing with their case. "Have we forgotten that refugee camps are a ticking social bomb," the leaders of the left ask sanctimoniously, perhaps hinting at their silence in the face of other, much worse atrocities, which we have created ourselves. It is much more correct to ask: Have the leaders of the left forgotten their moral criteria? "

By Tom Toles

by Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya

Global Research, February 19, 2007

"Both the Iranian government and provincial officials in southeastern Iran have accused the United States and Britain of attempting to create instability in Iran and the Middle East. Since the invasion of Iraq by the United States and Britain, Iran has experienced a relatively new, uncharacteristic, and unfelt phenomenon. This latter is characterised by an increasing number of explosions (or “terrorist attacks”) in Iranian border provinces and areas.

These provinces border Anglo-American occupied Iraq to the West and Pakistan and Afghanistan in the East. Pakistan is within the Anglo-American orbit and has close intelligence links with the United States and Britain, while Afghanistan is under military occupation and Iraq has had cases where Coalition troops have been caught red handed attempting to commit acts of terrorism which have been portrayed as sectarian Iraqi violence or the work of Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

The methodology of terror attacks in the Middle East and around the world is beginning to show a disturbing trend and pattern which is closely related to Anglo-American interests. These "terrorist attacks" directly serve the interests of the US, Britian and Israel. The pattern of terrorist attacks in Iraq, Iran, and even Lebanon, are remarkedly similar.

A study of terrorist incidents and their political outcomes and results will show that on the home front, the United States and its partners have benefited domestically from public outrage which in turn has justified and legitimized their policies. In the Middle East, the incitement of violence and acts of carnage has allowed the United States and Britain to linger in their internationally illegal occupation of Iraq, while spreading sedition amongst the peoples of Iraq and the Middle East.

Creating divisions amongst the different sectarian, religious, and ethno-cultural groups of the Middle East is part of the Anglo-American strategy to balkanize and control the region. The violence in Iraq and the tensions in Lebanon are the direct work of the United States and its partners, which aim to redraw the map of the Middle East in various aspects and ways.

While a link is evident that Iran helped the United States and Britain in establishing the puppet Iraqi government during the questionably Iraqi elections, it is apparent that Washington D.C. and Tehran are no longer on the same wave length with regard to Iraq.....

Terrorist Plot for Assassinating Sunni Leaders Disclosed

Gang members arrested following a terrorist blast in southeast Iran disclosed a wide-scale plot hatched by the US for fomenting religious and ethnic conflicts in Iran through assassinating Sunni and tribal leaders.

An informed security source told FNA that the agents in charge of the recent terrorist attack on a bus full of passengers in Iran's southeastern provincial capital city of Zahedan are mercenaries of the intelligence services of foreign countries and that they have undergone intensive trainings to carry out sabotage operations.

Referring to the reason underlying the terrorist operation on Wednesday, he said, "According to the confessions made by the arrestees, the US is deeply displeased with the Iranians' massive rallies on February 11, where the Iranian Shiites and Sunnites hand in hand chanted slogans against the US and in support of unity and the country's policies, and thus, they have decided to sow seeds of discord between the Iranian Shiites and Sunnites through running several operations of sabotage in Sistan and Balouchestan province."

The source also stated that arrestees have confessed that they intended to martyr a large number of Shiite and Sunnite citizens through frequent blasts in the province followed by several other terrorist operations for assassinating Molavis (Leaders of the Sunnis) and leaders of the different tribes in Sistan and Balouchestan in a bid to sow strong discord in the province and even in the whole country. "

"الحكومة ستنجح في كسر الحصار وكسر الضغط عليها"
البرغوثي يحذّر واشنطن من العمل حسب الأجندة الصهيونية تجاه حكومة الوحدة

"رام الله - المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام

اعتبر الدكتور مصطفى البرغوثي، رئيس كتلة المبادرة الوطنية الفلسطينية، أنه إذا قررت الإدارة الأمريكية مقاطعة حكومة الوحدة الوطنية، "فإنها تكون قد ارتكبت خطأ كبيراً"، مؤكداً أن التهديدات لا يمكنها أن تخيف الإرادة الفلسطينية.

وقال البرغوثي، في تصريحات صحفية الأحد (18/2): "إذا قررت الولايات المتحدة السير في هذا الطريق، فإنها تعمل حسب أجندة صهيونية بحتة، وليست مستقلة عن دولة الاحتلال"، معتبراً هذا القرار بالخطأ الكبير.

وأضاف: "نحن لا تخيفنا التهديدات، وواثقون أن حكومة الوحدة الوطنية ستنجح في كسر الحصار، وكسر الضغط، الذي يمارس عليها، لأن المعركة ليست حول الحكومة، بل إنها حول الإرادة، فدولة الاحتلال تريد أن تكسر الإرادة الفلسطينية".

وأكد رئيس كتلة المبادرة الوطنية، الذي من المتوقع أن يشارك في الحكومة، أنه سيدعم حكومة الوحدة الوطنية، مضيفاً: "عملنا جاهدين على مدار الأشهر الماضية لنجاح هذه الفكرة، ولا يوجد لدينا تردد حول تشكيل حكومة الوحدة الوطنية، حتى لو تشكلت فقط من حركتي فتح وحماس".

وحول مشاركته في حكومة الوحدة أضاف قائلاً: "مشاركتنا في الحكومة ستكون خاضعة للنقاش مع رئيس الوزراء اليوم حول برنامج الحكومة وآلية عملها وتركيبتها، وسنواصل مشاورتنا مع الأطراف الأخرى".

وشدد على أنه "لابد من البحث بعد ذلك في تطوير وتفعيل منظمة التحرير الفلسطينية، وإعادة بنائها بصورة قوية وفعالة، والمهم إنجاز حكومة الوحدة، حتى تستطيع أن ترفع الحصار والمعاناة عن الشعب الفلسطيني".

وأكد البرغوثي أن الحكومة والشعب الفلسطيني سيتصدى لكافة الضغوط الخارجية، مهما كانت. وقال: "يجب على جميع فصائل الشعب الفلسطيني أن تكون جبهة واحدة، من أجل التمكن من التصدي لهذه الضغوط". "

***

This is an example of the bankruptcy of Palestinian "leaders."

This was an "accident".....This was an "accident".....This was an "accident".....This was an "accident".....

"KABUL (AFP) - Eight US servicemembers were killed and 14 injured when a helicopter crashed in southeastern Afghanistan after a "sudden loss of power and control," the US-led coalition said.

The twin-rotor chopper crashed in the southeastern province of Zabul, about 250 kilometres (155 miles) southwest of the capital Kabul, not far from a main highway, residents and officials said on Sunday.

"Eight coalition personnel were killed and 14 others were wounded early Sunday when a coalition CH-47 helicopter had a sudden, unexplained loss of power and control and crashed in eastern Afghanistan," a coalition statement said.

"The helicopter was transporting a total of 22 people, including aircrew, at the time of the crash," it said.

The coalition said an investigation would be launched to verify the cause of the crash. It had said earlier the chopper came down after reporting engine failure.

"Recent reporting indicated a Taliban build-up for operations against the coalition forces in the region," the statement said.

Zabul is a rugged and mountainous area that sees regular clashes between security forces and fighters from the Islamist Taliban movement....."

Another Day at The "Peace" Circus