Palestinian Pundit

War Criminal Benyamin Ben-Eliezer






Contributed by Lucia

Former Meretz leader decries 1967 war crimes
Yossi Sarid tells Egyptian daily that killing of unarmed Egyptian soldiers by Israeli army after 1967 war is war crime

Former Meretz leader Yossi Sarid told the Egyptian daily al-Ahram that the execution of Egyptian captives by Israeli soldiers at the end of the Six Day War in 1967 was a war crime.

Israel 's Channel One television aired a documentary earlier this week in which it was claimed that an elite Israeli army unit commanded by Labor MK Benyamin Ben-Eliezer executed 250 unarmed Egyptian soldiers.

"The killing of Egyptian captives in the Six Day War was a war crime … but the problem in the region is that war crimes are numerous," the newspaper quoted Sarid as saying on Saturday.

The claims made in the documentary received intensive media coverage in Egypt.

Sarid told the newspaper that although he had not seen the documentary he was aware that Israeli soldiers had committed war crimes against Arab soldiers during the Six Day War.

"Punishing those behind those crimes 40 years after the 1967 war is difficult but history will judge those people," Sarid told al-Ahram.

Israeli-Egyptian relations were strained three years ago when the Egyptian Foreign Ministry raised the possibility of demanding that Israel paid compensations for Egypt for the alleged killings."

By GILAD ATZMON
CounterPunch

"......Jewishness is a rather broad term. It refers to a culture with many faces, varied distinctive groups, different beliefs, opposing political camps, different classes and diversified ethnicity. Nevertheless, the connection between those very many people who happen to identify themselves as Jews is rather intriguing. In the paragraphs that follow, I will try to further the search into the notion of Jewishness. I will make an attempt to trace the intellectual, spiritual and mythological collective bond that makes Jewishness into a powerful identity.

Clearly, Jewishness is neither a racial nor an ethnic category. Though Jewish identity is racially and ethnically orientated, the Jewish people do not form a homogenous group. There is no racial or ethnic continuum. Jewishness may be seen by some as a continuation of Judaism. I would maintain that this is not necessarily the case either. Though Jewishness borrows some fundamental Judaic elements, Jewishness is not Judaism and it is even categorically different from Judaism. Furthermore, as we know, more than a few of those who proudly define themselves as Jews have very little knowledge of Judaism, many of them are atheists, non-religious and even overtly oppose Judaism or any other religion. Many of those Jews who happen to oppose Judaism happen to maintain their Jewish identity and to be extremely proud about it[2]. This opposition to Judaism obviously includes Zionism (at least the early version) but it also is the basis of much of Jewish socialist anti-Zionism......

The Book of Esther is a biblical story that is the basis for the celebration of Purim, probably the most joyous Jewish festival. The book tells the story of an attempted Judeocide but it also tells a story in which Jews manage to change their fate. In the book the Jews do manage to rescue themselves and even to mete revenge.

It is set in the third year of Ahasuerus, and the ruler is a king of Persia usually identified with Xerxes I. It is a story of a palace, conspiracy, an attempted Judeocide and a brave and beautiful Jewish queen (Esther) who manages to save the Jewish people at the very last minute......

The moral of the story is rather clear. If Jews want to survive, they better find infiltrates into the corridors of power. With Esther, Mordechai and Purim in mind, AIPAC and the notion of 'Jewish power' looks like an embodiment of a deep Biblical and cultural ideology.......

Since Zionism failed to divorce itself from the Jewish émigré ideology, it lost the opportunity to evolve into any form of domestic culture. Consequently, Israeli culture and politics is a strange amalgam of indecisiveness; a mixture of colonial empowerment together with Galut's victim mentality. Zionism is a secular product of exilic culture that cannot mature into authentic homegrown perception."

Habila's Brain, Ahmad Yousef

A Federal Witchhunt

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
CounterPunch

"One of the first big show trials here in the post-9/11 homeland was of a Muslim professor from Florida, now 49, Sami al-Arian. Pro-Israel hawks had resented this computer professor at the University of South Florida long before Atta and the hijackers flew their planes into the Trade towers, because they saw al-Arian, a Palestinian born in Kuwait of parents kicked out of their Homeland in 1948, as an effective agitator here for the Palestinian cause. As John Sugg, a fine journalist, then based in Tampa, who's followed al-Arian's tribulations for years, wrote in the spring of 2006 on this website:

"When was al-Arian important? More than a decade ago, when Israel's Likudniks in the United States, such as [Steven] Emerson, were working feverishly to undermine the Oslo peace process. No Arab voice could be tolerated, and al-Arian was vigorously trying to communicate with our government and its leaders. He was being successful, making speeches to intelligence and military commanders at MacDill AFB's Central Command, inviting the FBI and other officials to attend meetings of his groups. People were beginning to listen and to wonder why only one side of the Middle East debate was heard here. That was the reason for Al-Arian's political prosecution."......"

By Layla Anwar

".....Well, Nayla and Sami are terribly in Love.
They met in 2004 in Baghdad. She is a sunni, he a shia. That was never an issue for either nor for their respective families.
They are both young adults and knew that this is "It". The search is over.
They got engaged and were eagerly looking forward to their wedding, their final union......

In early 2006, Nayla's family received several death threats and were forced to leave Baghdad. Her father an ex-government employee understood that he was targeted.
He decided he was not willing to turn his wife into a widow. They packed some of their belongings, took the little savings he had put aside for his daughter's wedding and escaped to Amman......

His turn finally came. The passport controller looked at his passport, stared at him, looked at the passport again, shook his head and said in a stern voice "No entry".
"What, why?" exclaimed Sami, "this passport was issued in 2005, it's brand new. I have a clean record. Here is a letter from my employer, this is my I.D, this is where I will be staying in Amman...."
"I said No entry, it is not possible, yalla next!"
"No, wait. What do you mean it is not possible, I have been travelling for 11 hours and waiting in line for over 4 hours...please don't do this to me".
"I said it is forbidden. Orders."
"What orders? What are you talking about?"
" Forbidden, means no entry...yalla next!"
"But please, understand..."
"Don't make me lose my temper, your passport is an M category. Your goverment gave us clear orders that no M category gets in. Only passports issued in 2006 are valid. Government regulations...next"......

The passport controller flips through her passport, looks at her, flips again, looks at her again and says "Sorry no entry."
"What? Why? All my documents are in order. Please..."
"No, sorry, no entry, forbidden. Next!"
"Please, please ...why...tell me why?" Nayla is tears.
"Government regulations" he replies abruptly "Next!"
"What regulations? I have a valid passport"
"Don't make me lose my patience" he snapped back "Your passport was issued in 2004, it is no longer valid"
"But it is valid, look at the date"
His voice grew louder "I said it is no longer valid.Government orders. Next!"
"But please, I beg of you."
"NEXT or else..."......

Love was denied entry, prohibited, forbidden and all it needed was a stamp.
But Love remained stuck at the borders, unable to take root anywhere, unable to flower, unable to reach its ultimate destination.
A Love under occupation, a stolen love...a reflection of the land it emanated from.
Each of the lovers returned to their prisons, away from each other, feeling old and used, with broken dreams and hopes, as broken and as hopeless as the "new" Iraq."

Windbag du Jour
PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas attending a PLO executive committee meeting in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Saturday. (Reuters)
These decrepit old cronies are the leaders of the Palestine "Liberation" Organization; some liberation they have achieved. Celebrate, now!

"Al-Manar special report – Ahmad Ammar – Translated/


Around a 100 Israeli occupation soldiers of elite Golani forces, who took part in Bint Jbeil battles last summer's war, have left their military base protesting against their leaders for not responding to their demands to provide them with psychotherapy to get rid of their nightmares after what they went through in Bint Jbeil fierce battles south of Lebanon. While they are sleeping, the occupation soldiers panicky wake up shouting with their friends killed during Bint Jbeil battles.
The occupation military correspondent, (Nir Devory), said, "Talks focus on soldiers who went to get psychological help after their participation in Bint Jbeil battles, due to the death of 10 soldiers of their battalion, they are demanding psychological help because they are suffering from nightmares during the night and they are taking sleeping pills to be able to go to sleep."

The bad situation of those soldiers due to the fierce battles in Bint Jbeil and their leaders' refusal to meet their demands, led them to mutiny and leaving their military base on foot what forced their leaders to catch up with them trying to persuade them to go back to the base.
The Israeli television described their situation with the real crisis faces the army after the Israeli war against Lebanon.
The Israeli media mentioned before that many soldiers who took part in Lebanon war are suffering from severe psychological crises and third of the north settlers need psychotherapy and they are still afraid of reoccurrence of the war."

Amira is being led by Israeli soldiers at gunpoint [AP]

Israel accused of rights abuses

"An Israeli human rights group has accused the country's government of using Palestinians as human shields during its raids on Nablus.The Israeli supreme court banned the practice two years ago.

The claim from B'tselem, a human rights monitor, came after video footage appeared to show Israeli soldiers forcing a man to walk ahead at gunpoint.

Sameh Amira, a 24-year-old Nablus resident, said he thought he was going to die: "When I was walking ahead of them, I was expecting they would shoot bullets at any time.

"All the time I was scared, terrorised. I was expecting anything from them. That I would be injured and die in front of them.

"[The Israeli soldiers] said 'come here' and they put me ahead of them and took me up to the house. As soon as they were in, they started shooting at the wardrobe," Amira said.

Jessica Montell, executive director of B'tselem - the Israeli information centre for human rights in the occupied territories - said: "It's a clear case - the Israeli supreme court has determined it is illegal and the Israeli military has committed to not using this 'neighbour' procedure or any other kind of human shield by using Palestinians for these dangerous operations."......"

As All American Politicians Must Do, Obama Appeared at the AIPAC Altar on Friday

"We must preserve our total commitment to our unique defense relationship with Israel by fully funding military assistance and continuing work on the Arrow and related missile defense programs. This would help Israel maintain its military edge and deter and repel attacks from as far as Tehran and as close as Gaza" he said. Obama said he was concerned by the agreement reached last month in Mecca between Fatah and Hamas to establish a coalition government in the Palestinian Authority. “This should concern us all because it suggests that Mahmoud Abbas, who is a Palestinian leader I believe is committed to peace, felt forced to compromise with Hamas. However, if we are serious about the Quartet's conditions, we must tell the Palestinians this is not good enough,” he declared.

The U.S. Has Agreed to Attend a Meeting in Baghdad That Includes Iran and Syria
By Steve Bell, The Guardian

Arab "Leaders" Preparing for the Riyadh Summit

A Good Article
By Jim Lobe

"In a move that has surprised many foreign policy analysts here, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has appointed a prominent neoconservative hawk and leading champion of the Iraq war to the post of State Department Counselor.

Eliot A. Cohen, who teaches military history at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) here and has also served on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board (DPB) since 2001, will take up the position next month that was left vacant late last year by Rice's long-time confidant and "realist" thinker, Philip Zelikow.

A close friend and protégé of former Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and advisory board member of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Cohen most recently led the harsh neoconservative attack on the bipartisan Iraq Study Group (ISG), co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker and former Democratic Rep. Lee Hamilton.

Like his fellow neocons, he was particularly scathing about its recommendations for Washington to directly engage Syria and Iran and revive the Israeli-Palestinian peace process – recommendations which Rice herself has explicitly endorsed in the last few weeks.......

Cohen first gained national prominence shortly after the 9/11 attacks when he published a Wall Street Journal column entitled "World War IV" – a moniker quickly adopted by hard-line neocons like former CIA director and fellow-DPB member James Woolsey, former Commentary editor Norman Podhoretz, and Center for Security Policy president Frank Gaffney (on whose board Cohen also sits) – to put Bush's "war on terror" in what he considered to be the appropriate historical context and to define its enemy as "militant Islam."......

Cohen has also been quick to label critics of Israel and the so-called "Israel Lobby" in the U.S. as anti-Semites.

"Only a reshuffling of the deck – through the disappearance of Arafat, or an event, (such as the overthrow of Saddam Hussein) that profoundly changes the mood in the Arab world – will make something approaching truce, let alone peace, possible," he argued in a favorite pre-Iraq war neoconservative theme.

The following summer, Cohen achieved new fame when Bush was photographed carrying Cohen's just-published book, "Supreme Command," which argued that the greatest civilian wartime leaders, such as Abraham Lincoln and Winston Churchill, had a far better strategic sense than their generals. It was a particularly timely message in the months that preceded the Iraq war when a surprising number of recently military brass here were voicing strong reservations about the impending U.S. invasion......

Still, while admitting in a Vanity Fair interview late last year that U.S. choices in Iraq range between "bad and awful," Cohen has called for perseverance and played a key role in selling AEI-hatched plan to add some 30,000 troops to the 140,000 soldiers in Iraq to Bush with whom he met personally as part of a small group of "surge"-boosters at the White House in mid-December.

If the surge should fail, however, Cohen's preferred and "most plausible" option, which he laid out in an October 2006 Journal column titled "Plan B," would be a coup d'etat ("which we quietly endorse") that would bring to power a "junta of military modernizers," a development which, as he noted himself, would call into question the administration's and Rice's avowed goal of democratization.

In any event, he argued in the same column, "American prestige has taken a hard knock [in Iraq]; it will probably take a harder knock, and in ways that will not be restored without a considerable and successful use of American military power down the road."

"The tides of Sunni salafism and Iran's distinct combination of messianism and power politics have not crested, and will not crest without much greater violence in which we too will be engaged," he asserted.

In a Vanity Fair interview last fall, Cohen said, "I'm pretty grim. I think we're heading for a very dark world, because the long-term consequences of this are very large, not just for Iraq, not just for the region, but globally – for our reputation, for what the Iranians do, all kinds of stuff.""

By Kurt Nimmo

"No sooner are we told for the umpteenth time Bush has swept a gob of neocons out of his administration, we get word that Condi the Destroyer has picked PNAC forever war fanatic Eliot Cohen out of a line-up to serve as her “counselor, a key trouble-shooting role in US diplomacy,” according to AFP.

Cohen is known as “the most influential neocon in academe” and came up with the lovely term “World War Four” all on his lonesome, although former CIA director James Woolsey is fond of using the term to scare small children and women with weak constitutions, as well as Muslims and Arabs who are afraid the “fucking crazies” will invade their countries and take out their electrical grids, water treatment plants, hospitals, etc.......

It is interesting, in a perverse sort of way, that Condi would pick as her “counselor,” or have picked for her, the guy who coined the term “World War Four,” a “war”—sort of the same way shooting fish in a barrel might be considered a “war”—to be waged specifically against the Muslim world. Condi apparently cannot be trusted when it comes to making sure the State Department is on cue, especially with the all-important shock and awe of Iran campaign deadline closing in."

تجنيد أمة لأغراض أعدائها...شراء الهزائم بهزيمة جديدة

بقلم د. عادل سمارة

" "الحرب المقبلة هي حرب السنة والشيعة، فأين تقفون؟ هذا ما قيل لأحد القياديين الفلسطينيين في زيارته للعربية السعودية في وقت قريب مضى. هكذا إذن، تحولت السعودية للمرة الثالثة في تاريخها إلى شريك بل مبادر إلى حرب. كانت المرة الأولى في عشرينات القرن الماضي كي يحسم آل سعود السيطرة على الحجاز وبقية ما اسمي إثر ذلك بالعربية السعودية. وكانت الحرب الثانية ضد الجيش المصري في اليمن الذي حمى الجمهورية اليمنية الأولى، وهو التواجد الذي أدى إلى عدوان 1967. فلم يكن للمركز الرأسمالي العالمي أن يطيق وجود جيش أكبر دولة عربية قرب منابع النفط. أما المرة الثالثة، فهي التحشيد السعودي لحرب بين السنة والشيعة في الوطن العربي. وهي حرب، إن حصلت، فهي مثابة كارثة لن تتوقف إلى يوم القيامة، ولن تكون حرب دول بقدر ما هي حرب أسر وعشائر وعائلات حيث هناك ملايين الأسر المكونة من سنة وشيعة. هي حرب سيقود حصولها إلى تخلف أبدي ومطلق للأمة العربية، ودمار على إيران، وقد يكون الكاسب الثاني منه تركيا ومن ثم إثيوبيا.
إن نفس الأنظمة العربية التي استحلفت النظام الأميركي "بالله" أن يدمر عراق صدام حسين عام 1991، وأن يقتل بالحصار أكثر من مليون عراقي، "دون تفريق بين سني وشيعي" ويحتل عراق صدام حسين عام 2003، ويسقط النظام المتهم بانحيازه للسنّة، هي نفسها التي تزعم اليوم الثأر للسنة في العراق ومساندتهم. ألا يثير هذا حفيظة أي إنسان يحترم عقله وإنسانيته؟
لقد استثمرت هذه الأنظمة العربية إعدام الرئيس صدام حسين حيث كان المنسوب العاطفي للجمهور العربي عالياً جداً سواء كعرب أو كمسلمين، هذا مع التذكير بأن الإسلام ليس للعرب ولا للعرب السنة وحدهم. كان الإستثمار خبيثاً أكثر مما كان ذكياً. فالأنظمة نفسها لا تحترم جمهورها الذي تحركه اليوم للثأر لاغتيال الرئيس صدام حسسن، لا بل إن التي لم "تعجبها" طريقة الإعدام، لم تجرؤ حتى على اللوم، وهي نفسها طالما ترجَّت أميركا لإسقاط الرجل ونظامه. نعم بدأ التحشيد العلني ضد إيران فوراً بعد عملية الإغتيال، بمعنى أن التحشيد كان قائماً في السر.
لا شك أن موقف النظام الإيراني من عملية الإغتيال كان سيئاً وبمستوى عقلية عشائرية متعصبة وطائفية. ليس هذا موقف نظام حكم ودولة حتى من وزن المشيخات او جمهوريات الموز. لم يكن مطلوب من إيران أن تحمي صدام حسين، ولكن كان عليها أن تقف موقف دولة لتقول مثلاً: "كان عدونا، وكنا سنعدمه لو قدرنا، ولكننا ندين إعدامه يوم الأضحى، وعلى يد اميركا". فالإعلام المتشفي لا يليق بدولة. وهذا التشفي قد يشِفُّ أو هو امتداد لتربية دابت الدولة على تعبئة مواطنيها بها، وهي تربية طائفية متخلفة، وجد نظام الحكم نفسه في موقف إذا لم يتشفى، فكأنه خان جمهوره الذي اقام علاقته به على مثل هذا المستوى. وفي هذه الحالة فالوضع كارثي.
ما من أحد يستنكر إدانة موقف إيران من الإعدام، ولكن توظيف الأمر ليخدم حرباً إمبريالية في المنطقة، فهذه الكارثة بعينها.
ولعله من ثالثة الأثافي أن يقوم من اغتال الرئيس صدام حسين، اي النظام الأميركي، بتوجيه نقد فوقي لعملية الإغتيال، كمن يقول هكذا فعل عملائي، وما هكذا تورد الإبل!

توظيف الأمر في مشروع الشرق الأوسط
ليس جديداً أن عملية الإغتيال أميركية قلبا وقالباً. وعليه، فإن إثارة نعرة الطائفية، تهدف إلى اصطفاف طائفي على طول الوطن وعرضه، وهذا الإصطفاف إستبدالي بلا مواربة، استبدالي على مستويين على الأقل:
الأول: إستبدال العدو الأميركي والصهيوني بإيران. لا بل إن مجرد مقارنة الطرفين ببعضهما البعض، هو هروب إلى الأمام، وتضييع للهدف ومكافئة للعدو الحقيقي.
والثاني: إستبدال العدو الداخلي، اي الأنظمة العربية بإيران ايضاً.
فالأنظمة العربية تقمع الأمة بأسرها، أو لنقل أهل الوطن كي لا نتهم بالتمييز بين كرد وعرب وأمازيغ وغيرهم، لا بل هي تحتل الوطن، وتعيق التنمية وتمتهن الكرامة، وتتخلى عن ما وقع من الوطن تحت الإحتلال، وتعرض أهل هذا الوطن أمام العالم كما لو كانوا قطعاناً وسائمة وبهائم. صعب هذا الكلام، نعم، ولكنه حقيقي! فهل يخفى بعد هذا أن معركة أهل هذا الوطن هي مع الأنظمة الحاكمة ومع خالقيها وحُماتها من المركز الرأسمالي والصهيوني؟
إن إغراق الوطن في حرب طائفية سيقود إلى تنفيذ مشروع الشرق الأوسط الكبير "كسوق" مفتوح لمنتجات المركز، وتفكيك كل قطر من داخله إلى منعزل طائفي أو إثني متقاتل مع الكانتونات المجاورة، وعندها يتحول الكيان الصهيوني إلى القوة الوحيدة التي تدير شؤون الكانتونات العربية التي قد يربو عددها حينذاك على المئة.

النووي الإيراني
هناك جدل كبير حول حدود ديمقراطية النظام الإيراني. فهو نظام إسلام سياسي يمنع اية تيارات أو رؤى أخرى. لكن هذا شأن إيراني داخلي. فإذا كان لأحد أن ينقد هذا النظام، فليست الأنظمة العربية بكل تأكيد. كما أن إيران مدانة باحتلال الأحواز، وجزر طنب الصغرى والكبرى وابو موسى. هذا مع العلم أن إيران حينما احتلت هذه الجزر كان ذلك بموافقة نفس المركز الرأسمالي الذي يدعو السنة لمحاربة الشيعة، حيث كان لا بد من مكافئة الشاه. ومدانة إيران في موقفها من إغتيال الرئيس صدام حسين. ولكن إيران هي التي سلّحت حزب الله الذي مسح هزيمة خلّفتها أنظمة الحكم السنية! قد يكون في هذا تكتيكاً، لا بأس، ولكن هذا ما حصل حتى اليوم. ومع ذلك، لا نبرر لإيران عدوانها باحتلال الأهواز، ولكننا لا نتصور أنها في مقام العدوان الأميركي والصهيوني، كما أن المعركة بالتأكيد ليست معها.
لا يخفى على أحد الدور الإيراني في العراق، ومحاولاتها لجعل جنوب العراق وحتى وسطه امتداداً حيوياً لها. وهي أمور مدانة ومرفوضة، ولكن السؤال الأهم لماذا تحصل؟ لماذا بوسع إيران أن تشكل ذلك الخطر والتهديد؟ اليس لأن الوطن العربي مجزّء. فلو كان الوطن العربي موحداً، لكان للعرب مجال حيوي داخل إيران، أو على الأقل لكان هناك حسن جوار. من الذي مزق الوطن العربي، ومن الذي حافظ على التجزئة ورعاها، ومن الذي يعمل اليوم على إعادة تمزيق هذا الوطن؟
أليس الإستعمار وأنظمة الحكم العربية؟
لقد اقام النظام الإيراني دولة قوية إقليمياً، لها مصالح وتطلعات وأطماع، وهذه أمور مألوفة في السياسة الدولية. وبالتوازي وفرت لها الأنظمة العربية واقعاً عربياً ممزقاً، اي فراغاً بحجم الوطن العربي. فراغ بحاجة إلى من يملئه، بل فراغ تملئه الراسمالية المركزية المعولمة. وهو ما حفز إيران لترى في نفسها طرفاً بوسعه ملىء هذا الفراغ، أو اقتسامه.
صحيح أنه بالمفهوم الأخلاقي لا يحق لإيران التفكير في هذا. ولكن ما ابعد السياسة والمصالح في المجتمعات الراسمالية عن الأمور الأخلاقية! فلماذا نطالب إيران أن تكون ملاكاً؟ ولا نسأل الشياطين لماذا عرضوا مفاتن هذا الوطن لإيران وغيرها!
بقدرة قادر تنبهت الأنظمة العربية إلى النووي الإيراني، سواء كان مدنياً أم عسكرياً، واصطفت إلى جانب الهجوم الأميركي-الصهيوني المتوقع على إيران. وأغمضت عيونها عن النووي الإسرائيلي المقام في قلب الوطن العربي. هذا من جهة، ومن جهة ثانية، لماذا ليس هناك نووياً عربيا؟ بل ابعد من هذا، أليست نفس الأنظمة السنية العربية هي التي "أخبرت" أميركا أن النظام العراقي يقيم ترسانة نووية؟ وحينما ضرب الكيان الصهيوني مفاعل تموز العراقي، يعلم الله كم دولة عربية فتحت أجوائها للمعتدين. ماذا نقول غير هذا وبعده! .

أخطأت الأنظمة، فهل أخطأ الجمهور؟
حينما يخون إمرؤ وعيه بوعي، هل يُغتفر له ذلك؟ هذا ما ينطبق اليوم على كل عربي يصطف في حرب الطوائف. ما معنى أن ننتقل إلى حرب جديدة، ونحن لم نتخلص من الهزائم المتراكمة منذ قرون؟ وأية حرب، حرب هي داخل الوطن، وليست على الحدود مع إيران. حرب ستكون في لبنان والبحرين والسعودية والعراق بالطبع، وكل قطر عربي.
قد يستغرب البعض أن تيارات إسلامية سلفية تغذي وتحشد لهذه الحرب، وهي تيارات نسي الناس لفترة أنها "حليفة للأنظمة العربية، وأن قادتها طالما أكدوا ان لا خلافات بينهم وبين الولايات المتحدة" يا للمفارقة، هل يمكن لحركة سياسية عربية أن لا تكون في تناقض مع الحكام العرب ومع الطبقة الحاكمة في الولايات المتحدة؟ وفوق هذا، تحاول هذه الحركة فتح حرب مع إيران.
لعل ثالثة الأثافي أن تيارات سلفية تدعو لمحاربة الشيعة في اقطار عربية لا يوجد فيها عدد من الشيعة مثل تونس، وربما لا يوجد فيها شيعي واحد مثل الأراضي المحتلة.
هذه الحرب كأي حرب، سيكون وقودها ملايين الفقراء من العرب، فهل يُغفر لأي مواطن المشاركة فيها؟ المشاركة في حرب ضد الذات وإلى الأبد، ولماذا ؟ لأن أعداء الشعب فتحوا باب هذه الحرب. كيف يمكن لمواطن عربي أن ينجر وراء هذه الأنظمة ولا يرتكب خطيئة ما بعدها خطيئة؟ أليس من المخجل أنه بعد هذا التاريخ الطويل من مصائب وهزائم هذه الأنظمة أن تجر الناس إلى احتراب داخل الديانة نفسها؟ ماذا سيفعل هؤلاء بالعرب المسيحيين طالما هم جاهزون لقتل الآخر على طائفته؟ ولكن هنيئاً لأعداء الشعب بجمهور من الغوغاء!!!
لقد فتحت الولايات المتحدة والغرب الراسمالي والحكام العرب حرباً "دينية" في أفغانستان بحجة مواجهة الشيوعية، وماذا كانت النتيجة ؟ دمار لا قيام بعده لأفغانستان، واستخدام مهين للإسلام في خدمة راس المال، وتوليد ظواهر دموية لم تتوقف ولم تنحصر في افغانستان نفسها. فهل تقل جريمة من أُستخدموا عن جريمة من استخدموهم؟
وها هو الاستخدام يتكرر اليوم ويبدي الكثيرون تجاوبا معه، فهل يُلدغ المؤمن من جحر مراراًً؟ إن من يدعو لقتال إيران هو نفس المعسكر، وفي بعض الحالات نفس الحكام ، وبالطبع نفس الأنظمة.
إن المهزوم فقط هو الذي يفتح معارك جديدة، هروباً من معارك قائمة لم تُغلق بعد. ولا يغير من هذا الأمر وجود لون جديد للحرب المفترضة، اي استشارة النعرة الطائفية (وتركيبها على بعد قومي- اقليمي). مثل هذه التوليفه الخطرة، عائدة إلى اسباب عديدة، منها ضحالة الوعي وسهولة استخدامه، ومنها جهالة، وسطحية ونزوع للتفريغ عن حياة فردية مأزومة في كل المستويات، سواء كانت الأزمة اقتصادية، جنسية حرياتية ثقافية...الخ. ولعل أخطر نتائج الأزمة هي معالجتها بالانفعال وليس بالتحليل، اي معالجتها بالهروب إلى أزمة أخرى، وما أسهل هذا والعدو متنبه لفتح أبواب أزمات أخرى.
بصراحة، نحن الأمة الوحيدة التي ما زال أعداؤها يقودونها إلى حتفها وبادوات قديمة وبالية (الطائفية، الثأر، القبائلية) أدوات فاتها العصر وما زالت تصلح عندنا. يقودها أعداؤها إلى الحرب التي يريدون ويختارون، فهل هناك أجهل من هذا الجهل! وهم الأعداء أنفسهم الذين اقتطعوا الأحواز لإيران والإسكندرون لتركيا وسبتة ومليلة لإسبانيا، وفلسطين للكيان الصهيوني، وأمس اقتطعو الصومال لإثيوبيا. وهم أنفسهم الذين قتلوا الانتفاضة الأولى وحالو دون انتشارها عربياً، واستماتوا كي يُهزم حزب الله ولا ينتشر كظاهرة عربية. وبعد هذا، سنحارب إيران!
وفي خضم استعداد الكثيرون لاستحضار الجاهلية، تنجح الأنظمة العربية نفسها في استحضار العدو الشيوعي السابق، ولكن هذه المرة في ثوب روسيا الجديدة، اي المعادية للشيوعية. يدور الحديث اليوم عن ضرورة مواجهة المحور الروسي-السوري-الإيراني. فهل هذا المحور، إن وجد موجه ضد العرب السنة؟ أو ضد موارنة لبنان، ومسيحيي فلسطين واقباط مصر؟ من الذي يمكن أن يقف ضد هذا التحالف؟ على الأقل لن يكون عربياً."

Habila is always campaigning for "office," any office.
He will be kissing babies soon.

A Long and Informative Interview

Gilbert Achcar
interviewed by Paul D'Amato

"THE PRESS here is portraying the opposition movement headed by Hezbollah in Lebanon, that is attempting to challenge the Siniora government, as a movement that is provoking sectarian conflict. What is your take on that? What is the character of the opposition, and what is it trying to achieve?

IT IS already a fact that the whole conflict is increasingly taking on a sectarian character. But it is not the sectarian or religious divide that we were accustomed to in Lebanon's past -- I'm referring to the fifteen-year civil war of 1975–90, which mainly pitted a predominantly Christian camp against a predominantly Muslim one -- although things were never as pure or as simple as that. The sectarian division this time is taking a form that is unprecedented in Lebanon: it looks more like an extension to Lebanon of the division that prevails in Iraq, opposing the two major branches of Islam, Sunni and Shiite. The tension between the two communities is indeed quite sharp at present in Lebanon itself......

THIS SEEMS like a shift since the Israeli invasion last year. After Hezbollah repulsed the aggression, Hezbollah were the heroes of the hour in Lebanon, and throughout the Middle East. It sounds like what you are saying is that things have shifted back again toward greater division. What accounts for it?

....For Hezbollah, the present political confrontation is absolutely vital. The party has been the target of Israel's attempt to destroy it. The attempt failed, but the project has not been discarded. Washington took over from Israel and is trying to continue the war by other means. It pressed for UN security council resolution 1701, through which it got NATO forces to deploy in southern Lebanon as standby forces to be used in case of domestic confrontation in the country; that is, in order to give a helping hand to Washington's partners. Since then, Washington has been constantly and actively pushing toward civil war in Lebanon. Actually, if one had to summarize Washington's policy toward Lebanon as well as toward Palestine, it could be accurately described as "incitement to civil war": civil war between Palestinians and civil war between Lebanese, not to mention the unfolding civil war in Iraq. In both Lebanon and Palestine, there is a force that Washington sees as a major enemy -- Hamas among Palestinians, Hezbollah in Lebanon. Behind these two forces, Washington targets Iran (Syria, too, but Iran is Washington's main concern). And in both countries there are partners of Washington: the "majority" and the Siniora government in Lebanon, Fatah and Mahmoud Abbas in Palestine.
......
.....(many more good questions and answers) "

An Important Story

"The key figure in Middle Eastern diplomacy is Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi Arabian National Security Adviser. Bandar is the man behind the Mecca agreement between Fatah and Hamas for the establishment of a Palestinian unity government. He was also active in calming the rival parties in Lebanon, and has tried to mediate between Iran and the U.S. administration. Two weeks ago he brought President George W. Bush up to date on his efforts, and last week he participated in a meeting of intelligence chiefs from Arab states with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, which took place in Amman the day after the tripartite meeting between Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Chairman Mahmoud Abbas in Jerusalem.

There are many indications that the prince, who served 22 years as Saudi ambassador to Washington, is behind the quiet slide his country is making toward Israel since the end of the second Lebanon war. In September, Bandar met with Olmert in Jordan. The secret meeting was made public in Israel later.

Since their meeting, Olmert has on a number of occasions commended the Saudi peace initiative of 2002, to which Bandar contributed actively.

Israel opposed the Mecca agreement, but Olmert decided to soften the criticism and describe it as an "internal Palestinian agreement." The Prime Minister justified the decision, in part by expressing concern that strong criticism would be construed as an insult to Saudi Arabia and might lead it to alter its position on Iran.

Not first encounter

Bandar's meeting with Olmert was not the first encounter of the Saudi prince with the Israeli establishment. According to statesmen, senior military officers and former intelligence officers, Bandar has had contact with Israel at least since 1990. Bandar was careful to keep his distance from Israeli ambassadors to Washington, and opted for links to Israel that did not operate along the diplomatic channels. The Saudi prince, who is celebrating his 58th birthday, had dedicated his career to furthering stability in the Middle East, which is in the interest of the Saudi kingdom.

His talks with Israelis focused on two subjects: blocking strategic threats from Iraq during the 1990s and from Iran today, and furthering the peace process between Israel, Syria and the Palestinians. Saudi Arabia is particularly sensitive to the Palestinian issue. The weekly cabinet meetings in Saudi Arabia, which take place every Monday and are led by King Abdullah, always begin with a long report on the "Palestine situation," and only then does the meeting move on to other governmental affairs.

In a biography of Bandar, "The Prince", which was published four months ago in the U.S., there is no mention of his meetings with Israelis. But the prince does explain how his interest in Israel began many years ago. It started when he was undergoing pilot training in Britain in 1969 and met another pilot who presented himself as an Israeli......."

***

Seymour Hersh in his latest article (posted on this blog) identified Bandar as the key figure behind a new and aggressive Saudi role in the region, at the behest of the Bush administration. Saudi money and U.S. intelligence are arming and financing a variety of "Sunni" groups (some linked to Al-Qaida) to fight Hizbullah in Lebanon and conduct terrorist attacks in Iran.

So, the FAMAS "government" is the brainchild of Prince Bandar; what can be bad about that? Celebrate, now!

Israel pushing to improve Saudi peace initiative ahead of Riyadh summit

"Israel is expecting the Arab League to adopt an improved version of the Saudi peace plan at a summit meeting called for the end of this month in Riyadh, senior government sources told Haaretz on Thursday.

"We understand that the intention is to improve the initiative and come up with a better offer," said one.

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni presented Israel's demands Thursday. First and foremost, she said, Israel objects to the document's section on the Palestinian refugees, which was not part of the initial Saudi draft, but was added at the 2002 Arab League summit in Beirut.

"A new summit is in the offing, and they ought to know which parts [of the plan] are acceptable to Israel and what seems to us like an absolute red line," she explained in an interview with Channel 10 television.

Livni said that the original draft presented by King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia "was, in my view, positive." That draft called for a full Israeli withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders in exchange for peace and normalization with the entire Arab world.

"Admittedly, the initiative spoke of the 1967 lines, but I only wish we were in a situation in which the conflict was just a border dispute," she added.

The new article inserted at the 2002 Beirut summit, however, demanded a "just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, to be agreed upon in accordance with UN General Assembly Resolution 194," and that resolution calls for allowing the refugees to return to Israel. It therefore contradicts Israel's vision of a two-state solution, which, explained Livni, calls for a Jewish national homeland alongside a Palestinian national homeland, with the latter serving as the solution for the Palestinian refugees.

Livni said that she has presented this stance in conversations with Palestinian representatives with whom she met over the last month. She reiterated it in an interview that was published in the Palestinian daily Al-Ayyam Thursday, in which she said bluntly, "It is impossible for Israel to accept the Arab peace initiative in its current formulation."

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has said a few times over the last few months that the Saudi initiative contains "positive elements."

The Riyadh summit, which was called by King Abdullah, is slated to take place on March 28 and 29. The agenda includes the Arab peace initiative, the Iranian threat and the communal tensions in Lebanon. Over the last few weeks, Abdullah has tried to mediate on all of these issues, with the goal of promoting regional stability......"

***

Palestinians: Celebrate some more! If you liked the Mecca deal, you are going to love the Riyadh sequel, after you translate the deal from Hebrew to Arabic.

Long live Saudi-Israeli solidarity!

Life is good.....No dieting for these two
The weight of an Arab "leader" is usually proportional to his sense of power

By Ira Chernus
Asia Times

"The Iraq syndrome is headed America's way. Perhaps it's already here.

A clear and growing majority of Americans now tell pollsters that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was a mistake, that it's a bad idea to "surge" more troops into Baghdad, that the US needs a definite timeline for removing all its troops.

The nation seems to be remembering a lesson of the Vietnam War: the US can't get security by sending military power abroad. Every time the US tries to control another country by force of arms, it only ends up more troubled and less secure.

But the Iraq syndrome is a two-edged sword, and there is no telling which way it will cut in the end.

Remember the "Vietnam syndrome", which made its appearance soon after the actual war ended in defeat. It did restrain the US appetite for military interventions overseas - but only briefly. By the late 1970s, it had already begun to boomerang. Conservatives denounced the syndrome as evidence of a paralyzing, Vietnam-induced surrender to national weakness. Their cries of alarm stimulated broad public support for an endless military buildup and, of course, yet more imperial interventions.

The very idea of such a "syndrome" implied that what the Vietnam War had devastated was not so much the Vietnamese or their ruined land as the traumatized American psyche. As a concept, it served to mask, if not obliterate, many of the realities of the actual war. It also suggested that there was something pathological in a postwar fear of taking US arms and aims abroad, that the US had indeed become (in the late president Richard Nixon's famous phrase) a "pitiful, helpless giant", a basket case.

Ronald Reagan played all these notes skillfully enough to become president of the US. The desire to "cure" the Vietnam syndrome became a springboard to unabashed, militant nationalism and a broad rightward turn in the life of the United States.

Iraq - both the war and the "syndrome" to come - could easily evoke a similar set of urges: to evade a painful reality and ignore the lessons it should teach the US. The thought that Americans are simply a collective neurotic head-case when it comes to the use of force could help sow similar seeds of insecurity that might - after a pause - again push US politics and culture back to a glorification of military power and imperial intervention as instruments of choice for seeking "security".......

Put the history of the Vietnam syndrome together with the enduring appeal of America's victory culture, and it's easy to see how the Iraq syndrome could boomerang too. Boomerangs can easily catch you unaware and give you quite a smack. When one might be coming up behind you, it pays to stay very alert."

Contributed by Lucia

"Gaza - Ma'an - Fatah's Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) member, Muhammad Dahlan, who is also head of the interior and security committee in the PLC, affirmed on Thursday that president Mahmoud Abbas will meet with the prime minister designate Ismail Haniyeh next Saturday to discuss the developments in the formation of the coalition government.

Dahlan added, during a meeting with Palestinian journalists and writers in his office in Gaza City, that the Mecca agreement came to comply with Palestinian interests, as well as ending the infighting between rivals. He also welcomed the positive shift in Hamas' stance in preparing for assimilation into the Palestinian political system.

Dahlan updated the journalists on the circumstances that accompanied the Mecca agreement, especially the Saudi endeavors to subdue the obstacles between Fatah and Hamas. He also depicted his relationship with Hamas as positive, referring to the promising atmosphere which prevails in the Hamas-Fatah discussions and sessions in the Gaza Strip. He said that he had been personally calling for the assimilation of Hamas into the Palestinian political arena since 1996.

Israel, explained Dahlan, expresses denial and non-acceptance of the Mecca agreement through incursions and murder. "

***

"the positive shift in Hamas' stance" is a diplomatic way of describing the capitulation of Hamas; all that remains of Hamas is empty and useless rhetoric and praise for the rotten Saudi royals. That is why Hamas and Dahlan are getting along swimmingly. The resistance has ended, except for a few kids throwing rocks at Israeli armor. The only thing this "unity government" will do is to pathetically beg for a "solution." Olmert has his own ideas of what a solution looks like, and that is what the "Palestinian government" will get: reservations with a Palestinian flag.

The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
CounterPunch

"The Bush-Cheney regime is America's first neoconservative regime. In a few short years, the regime has destroyed the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, and the remains of America's moral reputation along with the infrastructures of two Muslim countries and countless thousands of Islamic civilians. Plans have been prepared, and forces moved into place, for an attack on a third Islamic country, Iran, and perhaps Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as well.

This extraordinary aggressiveness toward the US Constitution, international law, and the Islamic world is the work, not of a vast movement, but of a handful of ideologues--principally Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, John Bolton, Philip Zelikow, and Attorney General Gonzales. These are the main operatives who have controlled policy. They have been supported by their media shills at the Weekly Standard, National Review, Fox News, New York Times, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page and by "scholars" in assorted think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute.

The entirety of their success in miring the United States in what could become permanent conflict in the Middle East is based on the power of propaganda and the big lie.....

The Israeli relationship is perhaps even more important. In 1996 Richard Perle and the usual collection of neocons proposed that all of Israel's enemies in the Middle East be overthrown. "Israel's enemies" consist of the Muslim countries not in the hands of US puppets or allies. For decades Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians such that today there is not enough of Palestine left to comprise an independent country. The US and Israeli governments blame Iran, Iraq, and Syria for aiding and abetting Palestinian resistance to Israel's theft of Palestine......

When the American people caught on that the "war on terror" was a cloak for wars of aggression, they put Democrats in control of Congress in order to apply a brake to the regime's warmongering. However, the Democrats have proven to be impotent to stop the neoconservative drive to wider war and, perhaps, world conflagration.

We are witnessing the triumph of a dozen evil men over American democracy and a free press."

A Missile Defense System That Doesn't Work for Missiles That May Not Exist

By CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI
CounterPunch

"It has an appealing symmetry. George Bush is deploying a missile defense system that may or may not work to defend against nuclear weapons that might be fired from Iranian secret weapons sites that may or may not exist. This strategy is of a piece with the rest of George Bush's foreign policy strategies that have produced such successes as, for example, Iraq......

Notwithstanding the success of these tests, if a hostile missile were being fired towards one of our friends there would be a 60% chance of shooting it down. There would be a 40% chance of not affecting it. The good news is that that may not really make much difference. Iran (together with North Korea) is the country against whom the defense system is supposed to defend. It now turns out there may not be all that much to defend against and hence the fact that the system may not work may be of no consequence......

As a result of the foregoing, what the world now knows is that missiles that may not work will end up being deployed to defend against missiles launched from sites that may not exist. It proves, if proof were needed, that George Bush never runs out of ideas for pranks to play on the world. The pranks amuse not only the prankster but the sycophants who consort with him and enjoy playing major roles in George Bush's Theater of the Absurd. The audience is not amused. It's terrified."

To All Palestinians: Celebrate!
Olmert and Abbas Will Meet, Again, in Two Weeks to Continue "Dialogue"....
Meanwhile, Tighten Your Belts Another Notch And Send Congratulations to Habila.

Resheq: Makka agreement historic chance before world to correct mistake

"DAMASCUS, (PIC)-- Hamas’ senior political leader and member of its political bureau Ezzat Al-Resheq said on Thursday that Israel and its ally, the USA, were the main obstacles that hinder peace in the Middle East and not the Palestinians.

“We believe that the Israeli occupation government was and still is the main obstacle before achieving peace in the region for refusing to recognize the legal rights of the Palestinian people; and hence, the international community should exert pressure on it and not on the Palestinian people”, Resheq affirmed.

Resheq’s remarks came in a statement he made where he also asserted that the file negotiations was left to the PLO chairman and PA chief Mahmoud Abbas who, in turn, would present results of his negotiations before the new national council of the PLO or hold general referendum to endorse them.

In this regard, Resheq regarded the recently concluded Makka agreement as “historic chance” before the world to amend its mistake against the unarmed Palestinian people....."

***

Amazing insight! Now the "world" will see the errors of its ways and "correct" them, and the Palestinians will live happily ever after. Why didn't we see that for the past 90 years? I guess we needed the genius of Hamas and its "thinkers."

Support The Troops.....
Send Some More to Iraq.....

(Click on cartoon to enlarge)

The Palestinian Resistance Was in Full Display in Nablus (West Bank) as the IOF Invasion of the City Continued....

By Tom Toles

All is not well in Iran, specifically the health of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. One proposed succession plan involves the appointment of a triumvirate, rather than turning to the next in line, former president Hashemi Rafsanjani. Such a move, though, would lead to the isolation of President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times


"As the dogs of war ominously circle the Persian Gulf, regime change in Iran could become a distinct possibility - but not exactly according to the desires of US Vice President Dick "all options are on the table" Cheney, whose supreme obsessions are oil, war and their mutual intersection.

A leading Western energy consultant, who prefers to remain anonymous, went to Tehran in early February and personally met with President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. He tells Asia Times Online that according to his assessment, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei "has a couple of months at most - prostate cancer".

The Western consultant's top sources also told him the Supreme Leader "will not be replaced, but a triumvirate/council will replace him, consisting of Khatami, Rafsanjani and Kharroubi". Former president Mohammad Khatami is a reformist. Mehdi Kharroubi - the Majlis (parliament) Speaker - is a moderate. And former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, a Machiavellian pragmatist, is in fact the next notable in the line of succession, according to the current rules (he would be chosen by the Council of Experts, of which he is the top member)......

But as the diplomatic neo-colonial ballet at the UN drags on, a deadly quartet, in parallel, develops a covert agenda. The quartet consists of Cheney; Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams; former ambassador to Kabul and Baghdad Zalmay Khalilzad; and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, Saudi national security adviser and ambassador to the US for 22 years. Their objective: the destabilization and fragmentation of Iran.

A new variable - the Supreme Leader's health - is now introduced. The next true deciders may be much more amenable to serious discussion. But will regime change in Iran - not provoked by bombs but by natural causes - be enough to quench the United States' war thirst? "

Leaked reports of a recent Pentagon meeting only add to the mounting evidence that the US is preparing to attack Iran. In this context the recent "surge" of US troops is not meant to pacify Baghdad but to contain Iraqi Shi'ite fury in response to air strikes on Iran. George W Bush doesn't want to have to go to Syria and Iran and "ask for anything.


By Gareth Porter
Asia Times

"WASHINGTON - Two weeks ago, Pentagon officials discussed a strategy to escalate US pressure on Iran with the intention of creating the impression that the United States is ready to go to war, according to an account by one of the participants.

A meeting at the Pentagon in mid-February was said by a participant to have revolved around a plan to ratchet up US rhetoric about an Iranian threat and make further military preparations for war in a way that would be reminiscent of what happened prior to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. The account was described by a source outside the Pentagon who obtained it directly from the participant.

The description of Pentagon thinking suggests a strategy that is much more aggressive than the line represented by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's announcement on Tuesday that the United States would participate in direct talks with Iran in the context of a conference to be convened by the Iraqi government......"

Elite officers in Iraq fear low morale, lack of troops and loss of political will

Simon Tisdall
Thursday March 1, 2007
The Guardian

"An elite team of officers advising the US commander, General David Petraeus, in Baghdad has concluded that they have six months to win the war in Iraq - or face a Vietnam-style collapse in political and public support that could force the military into a hasty retreat.
The officers - combat veterans who are experts in counter-insurgency - are charged with implementing the "new way forward" strategy announced by George Bush on January 10. The plan includes a controversial "surge" of 21,500 additional American troops to establish security in the Iraqi capital and Anbar province.

But the team, known as the "Baghdad brains trust" and ensconced in the heavily fortified Green Zone, is struggling to overcome a range of entrenched problems in what has become a race against time, according to a former senior administration official familiar with their deliberations.......

But the next six months are make-or-break for the US military and the Iraqi government. The main obstacles confronting Gen Petraeus's team are:

· Insufficient troops on the ground

· A "disintegrating" international coalition

· An anticipated increase in violence in the south as the British leave

· Morale problems as casualties rise

· A failure of political will in Washington and/or Baghdad......

Steven Simon, the national security council's senior director for transnational threats during the Clinton administration, said a final meltdown in political and public backing was likely if the new strategy was not seen to be working quickly.

"The implosion of domestic support for the war will compel the disengagement of US forces. It is now just a matter of time," Mr Simon said in a paper written for the Council on Foreign Relations. "Better to withdraw as a coherent and at least somewhat volitional act than withdraw later in hectic response to public opposition... or to a series of unexpectedly sharp reverses on the ground," he said......"

Don't Miss This Interview

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

"Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh joins us to talk about his explosive new article in the New Yorker Magazine. Hersh reports that John Negroponte’s decision to resign as National Intelligence Director was made in part because of the Bush administration’s covert actions including the indirect funding of radical Sunni groups - some with ties to al-Qaeda - to counter Shiite groups backed by Iran. Hersh also reports the Pentagon has established a special planning group to plan a bombing attack on Iran and U.S. military and special-operations teams have already crossed the border into Iran in pursuit of Iranian operatives.

In an explosive new article, the New Yorker Magazine reports that Negroponte’s decision to resign as National Intelligence Director was made in part because of the Bush administration’s covert actions in the Middle East, which so closely echo Iran-Contra. According to investigative reporter Seymour Hersh, the Bush administration, with Saudi Arabia, is secretly funding radical Sunni groups - some with ties to al-Qaeda - to counter Shiite groups backed by Iran. Moreover, this is being done without any Congressional authority or oversight.

Hersh also reports the Pentagon has established a special planning group within the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to plan a bombing attack on Iran. The new panel has been charged with developing a plan that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting the go-ahead from President Bush. Seymour Hersh joins me now from Washington DC."

Click Here to Watch, Listen or Read Transcript

هنية: الاحتلال يسعى بعدوانه لإجهاض جهود كسر الحصار عن الشعب الفلسطيني

"استنكر إسماعيل هنية، رئيس الوزراء الفلسطيني المكلف بتشكيل حكومة الوحدة الوطنية، التصعيد الصهيوني الممارس ضد أبناء الشعب الفلسطيني، مؤكداً على أن التصعيد يهدف إلى "إجهاض الخطوات الفلسطينية والعربية الهادفة إلى كسر الحصار المفروض على الشعب الفلسطيني".

وكانت قوات الاحتلال قد اجتاحت مدينة نابلس (شمال الضفة الغربية)، فجر اليوم الأربعاء (27/2)، بأعداد كبيرة من الآليات والجنود، وحاصرت البلدة القديمة من جميع الجهات، وشنت حملات دهم وتفتيش في منازل المواطنين بعد أن أجبرتهم على الخروج منها.

وقال هنية، في تصريح أدلى به للصحفيين اليوم الأربعاء "إن التصعيد الصهيوني عبر الاجتياحات المتكررة في نابلس واغتيال كوادر المقاومة الفلسطينية، مرتبط بشكل مباشر بالرفض الصهيوني لاتفاق مكة الذي رسّخ الوحدة الوطنية وشُرع (بموجبه في) تشكيل حكومة الوحدة الوطنية على أساس من التوافق الفلسطيني".

وشدد رئيس الوزراء الفلسطيني على ضرورة مغادرة قوات الاحتلال الصهيوني مدينة نابلس والخروج من المدن والقرى والمخيمات الفلسطينية، مطالباً المنظمات الدولية والحقوقية بأن تتحمل المسؤولية الكاملة في "كبح جماح العدوان الصهيوني ووقف حالة التصعيد والمتواصل ضد شعبنا في الضفة الغربية وقطاع غزة"."

***

This man is an utter idiot; he makes Arafat appear as a revolutionary, in comparison.

A Good Article
Contributed by Lucia

By Dr. Salim Nazzal

"Two American meetings in the Middle East, one to agitate, the other to decorate!

Birds of a feather flock together is perhaps the best proverb to describe USA and its friends and allies and in the Middle East, and clearly visible in Rice’s late visit to the Middle East. This opens up the question about the goals of Secretary Rice hoped to reach, in meeting unpopular, if not hated Arab intelligence officers. Also if we apply the saying that says tell me who your friends and I will tell you who you are, we would come to the conclusion that the best friends to the United States is the Israeli apartheid regime and the Arab oppressive regimes. This can easily be seen: America is the oppressor on the global level, the apartheid regime of Israel is the oppressor on the regional level, and the Arab regimes are oppressing their peoples on the local level.

Then, one becomes less surprised to see that the harmony between these three circles is like harmony between the form and the content to use the language of ancient Muslims logicians. This has made some Arabs such as the Lebanese political writer Talal Salman wonder whether the USA will spread democracy with the help of Arab security leaders after it has attempted to spread it in Iraq by the help of the apache and machine guns. While the Palestinian political writer Abd al Bari Atwan observes that the usual thing is that foreign ministers meet and discuss political questions. But when the secretary of the state represents a country various public polls shows that it is hated by most Arabs due to its support of Israel and its occupation to Iraq, meets Arab intelligence leaders known for their ugly records on human rights, the natural question is why the American state secretary meet Arab officers to discuss a political question such as the Palestinian question.

The answer to this does not require thinking about .The Usa looks at the Palestinian question as a security question and not as a question of a nation that seeks to rid it self from occupation. This explains why the American position towards the question of the Palestinian national government has been almost the same position of Israel......"

Big, Slow, Centralized and Dumb

By WILLIAM S. LIND
CounterPunch

"One of the rituals attending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, when our opponents score a goal, is for an American general to materialize before the press and announce, in his best miles gloriosus manner, that "we face a thinking enemy." Wow. Who ever would have imagined that the enemy might think and learn?.....

What characteristics might a non-thinking enemy have?

First of all, such a military would have to be highly centralized. Decisions should be made as remotely from the battlefield as possible, with layers of middle and senior management given a veto over any new ideas or adaptations. Someone, in some headquarters, is bound to veto anything.

It would help if all headquarters were as large as possible. Not only would this maximize veto powers, it would also ensure that all decisions were made on a lowest-common-denominator basis. Usually, all large groups can agree on is maintaining the status quo.

Senior decision-makers should not be focused on the war. Their "real world" should be as disconnected as possible from battlefield results. Over-concern with bureaucratic empire-building, budget politics and personal career success are all useful tools for attaining this important disconnect.

A non-thinking military's feedback mechanisms should ensure that only good news is sent up the chain. The higher the level of command -- including the nation's political leadership -- the stronger the demand to suppress bad news should be. Messengers with bad news should routinely be shot, or at least exiled.

To maintain its opacity of mind, a non-thinking military should be insular. It should be careful not to look at the experiences of other militaries, historical or contemporary. A general spirit of false pride and bravado is always helpful in maintaining insularity. Past failures can be blamed on someone else.

An excellent means to ensure that thought is suppressed is to contract thinking out. Contractors could care less about truth; their measure of success is profits. Since the awarding of contracts is in the hands of senior officers whose desire to avoid adaptation is well known, contractors' unwillingness to suggest new ideas can be guaranteed. If most contractors are retired senior officers to whom any change would be an attack on their "legacies," so much the better. In the cause of not thinking, billions to contractors is money well spent.

Finally, a useful way to discourage thinking among junior leaders is to try to wage war by rote process. Those processes are developed and dictated downward by the same large headquarters whose inherent aversion to thought has already been noted. Better, those same headquarters control training; soldiers and junior leaders who have been trained in obsolete tactics will have more trouble adapting than people with no training.

Despite all these powerful institutional incentives to stifle thought, the regrettable fact remains that junior levels of command, up through company and sometimes battalion, will still want to think and adapt, because they want to stay alive and even to win. Every effort must therefore be made to ensure they have to fight the system each--step of the way in order to change something. The old bureaucratic rule, "Delay is the surest form of denial," is helpful here. This brings us back to the importance of centralization and large headquarters.

Some may object that a military so carefully structured not to think is hard to imagine in the real world. That is true, since its fate would be so sure. What kind of government would be so corrupt, so unconcerned about the security of the state it leads and the vast sums it would be wasting as to tolerate such a military? Simple self-preservation would dictate sweeping military reform.

Of course, it would be anyone's dream to have a non-thinking military like the one I have described as an opponent. Any thinking military, even one with the most paltry of resources, could look forward to victory presented on a silver platter.

Who might have such exquisite good fortune and vast favor of the gods as to acquire a non-thinking military as their enemy? Anyone who fights us."

***

His description of a non-thinking military fits all Arab armies, perfectly!

"Al-Manar special report – Rabab Shamas – Translated /
The new American strategy says that Hezbollah poses most serious threat on US security after Al-Qaeda. This is what US intelligence chief Michael said on Tuesday, while delivering his assessment in an appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee. McConnell was reiterating comments made by US President George W. Bush in his most recent State of the Union address, in which he said that the Americans are facing an escalating threat from whom he call "aggressive Shiite fundamentalists" and added that Hezbollah comes second after Al-Qaeda. This points to an American campaign being launched against Hezbollah suggesting the party has become a direct target for the US under the so called war on terror. It also raises questions about Washington's attempt to directly target Hezbollah after extracting legitimacy from Americans. A series of information, the last of which was reported by the London based "Daily Telegraph" quoting sources from the Congress and US intelligence saying that Bush has authorized operations against Hezbollah under a secret plan, under the pretext of supporting the unconstitutional government of Fouad Saniora."

Israel Demands U.N. Halt Flow Of Arms To Hezbollah

"Jerusalem, Israel (AHN) - Israel on Tuesday insisted the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) do more to stem the flow of arms to Hezbollah via the Lebanon-Syrian border.

The commander of Israel's northern forces, Maj.-Gen. Gadi Eizenkot, informed UNIFIL commander Maj.-Gen. Claudio Graziano of Italy when the two men met in northern Israel that Israel is well aware that weapons continue to reach Hezbollah in violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, which brought an end to last summer's war between the Jewish state and the terror group.

While meeting with military officials in southern Israel earlier in the day, Defense Minister Amir Peretz suggested that if the international community continues to fail in its implementation of 1701, Israel may be forced to take action.

"We demand from all international parties involved to put an end to the smuggling," The Jerusalem Post quoted Peretz as saying. "In the end, however, we will take responsibility and will do everything to defend the State of Israel. We will not allow the situation in southern Lebanon to return to the way it was on the eve of the war."

Meanwhile, Hezbollah's deputy chief, Sheikh Naim Kassem, claimed in an interview with the AP that Israel is preparing to attack Lebanon as part of a broader U.S.-led assault on Iran, and that his group is merely preparing for that day."

"TEHRAN (AFP) - Iran's Revolutionary Guards will pursue Kurdish rebels inside Iraq's borders if Baghdad fails to expel them from border zones, the head of the elite force warned on Wednesday.

"I warn the Kurdish movements of Iraq and Iranian anti-revolutionary armed rebels linked to foreigners that the Iraqi government must expel them from the region," said Yayha Rahim Safavi, according to the Mehr news agency.

"Otherwise, the Revolutionary Guards will view it as its right to chase and neutralise them beyond borders to defend its own security and that of the Iranian people," he said.

Safavi was speaking at the funeral for 14 Iranian military personnel killed in a helicopter crash last week during an operation against rebels close to the Turkish border in West Azarbaijan province.

"The United States and the Zionists seek to incite insecurity in Iran by allocating millions of dollars, equipping and financing satellite televisions and buying arms for these groups," Safavi added.

Iran accuses the United States and Britain of seeking to stir violence in its restive border provinces inhabited by ethnic minorities of Azeris, Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Baluch.

The guards chief called on "Kurds and Azeris in border areas to cooperate with armed forces to annihilate anti-Islamic rebels", adding "more than 30 rebels were killed" in the recent operations in the area.

Iran said on Tuesday it had killed three local chiefs of a Kurdish rebel group Pejak, which claimed shooting down the helicopter and killing 20 soldiers and senior officers.

The group is linked to Turkey's outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)."

Sulta (Authority)
By Ali Farzat

The Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan

By TARIQ ALI
CounterPunch

"It is Year 6 of the UN-backed NATO occupation of Afghanistan, a joint US/EU mission. On 26 February there was an attempted assassination of Dick Cheney by Taliban suicide bombers while he was visiting the 'secure' US air base at Bagram (once an equally secure Soviet air base during an earlier conflict). Two US soldiers and a mercenary ('contractor') died in the attack, as did twenty other people working at the base. This episode alone should have concentrated the US Vice-President's mind on the scale of the Afghan debacle. In 2006 the casualty rates rose substantially and NATO troops lost forty-six soldiers in clashes with the Islamic resistance or shot-down helicopters.

The insurgents now control at least twenty districts in the Kandahar, Helmand, Uruzgan provinces where NATO troops have replaced US soldiers. And it is hardly a secret that many officials in these zones are closet supporters of the guerrilla fighters. The situation is out of control. At the beginning of this war Mrs Bush and Mrs Blair appeared on numerous TV and radio shows claiming that the aim of the war was to liberate Afghan women. Try repeating that today and the women will spit in your face.

Who is responsible for this disaster? Why is the country still subjugated? What are Washington's strategic goals in the region? What is the function of NATO? And how long can any country remain occupied against the will of a majority of its people?.....

Washington's strategic aims in Afghanistan appear to be non-existent unless they need the conflict to discipline European allies who betrayed them on Iraq. True, the al-Qaeda leaders are still at large, but their capture will be the result of effective police work, not war and occupation. What will be the result of a NATO withdrawal? Here Iran, Pakistan and the Central Asian states will be vital in guaranteeing a confederal constitution that respects ethnic and religious diversity. The NATO occupation has not made this task easy. Its failure has revived the Taliban and increasingly the Pashtuns are uniting behind it.

The lesson here, as in Iraq, is a basic one. It is much better for regime-change to come from below even if this means a long wait as in South Africa, Indonesia or Chile. Occupations disrupt the possibilities of organic change and create a much bigger mess than existed before. Afghanistan is but one example."

By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Asia Times

" KARACHI - The Pakistani establishment has made a deal with the Taliban through a leading Taliban commander that will extend Islamabad's influence into southwestern Afghanistan and significantly strengthen the resistance in its push to capture Kabul.

One-legged Mullah Dadullah will be Pakistan's strongman in a corridor running from the Afghan provinces of Zabul, Urzgan, Kandahar and Helmand across the border into Pakistan's Balochistan province, according to both Taliban and al-Qaeda contacts Asia Times Online spoke to. Using Pakistani territory and with Islamabad's support, the Taliban will be able safely to move men, weapons and supplies into southwestern Afghanistan.

The deal with Mullah Dadullah will serve Pakistan's interests in re- establishing a strong foothold in Afghanistan (the government in Kabul leans much more toward India), and it has resulted in a cooling of the Taliban's relations with al-Qaeda.

Despite their most successful spring offensive last year since being ousted in 2001, the Taliban realize they need the assistance of a state actor if they are to achieve "total victory". Al-Qaeda will have nothing to do with the Islamabad government, though, so the Taliban had to go it alone.

The move also comes as the US is putting growing pressure on Pakistan to do more about the Taliban and al-Qaeda ahead of a much-anticipated spring offensive in Afghanistan. US Vice President Dick Cheney paid an unexpected visit to Pakistan on Monday to meet with President General Pervez Musharraf.

The White House refused to say what message Cheney gave Musharraf, but it did not deny reports that it included a tough warning that US aid to Pakistan could be in jeopardy.

A parting of the ways
The Taliban saw that after five years working with al-Qaeda, the resistance appeared to have reached a stage where it could not go much further.

Certainly it has grown in strength, and last year's spring offensive was a classic example of guerrilla warfare with the help of indigenous support. The application of improvised explosive devices and techniques of urban warfare, which the Taliban learned from the Iraqi resistance, did make a difference and inflicted major casualties against coalition troops.

However, the Taliban were unable to achieve important goals, such as the fall of Kandahar and laying siege to Kabul from the southern Musayab Valley on the one side to the Tagab Valley on the northern side.

Taliban commanders planning this year's spring uprising acknowledged that as an independent organization or militia, they could not fight a sustained battle against state resources. They believed they could mobilize the masses, but this would likely bring a rain of death from the skies and the massacre of Taliban sympathizers. Their answer was to find their own state resources, and inevitably they looked toward their former patron, Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda does not fit into any plans involving Pakistan, but mutual respect between the al-Qaeda leadership and the Taliban still exists. All the same, there is tension over their ideological differences, and al-Qaeda sources believe it is just a matter of time before the sides part physically as well......."

The Biggest Windbag of All and Our Windbag du Jour

It Takes a Palestinian to Appreciate This Cartoon by Baha Boukhari; it Loses Something in the Translation.
Promises (empty) are like breaking wind on a tile floor.....
The blockade reality is putting a lid on all that wind.....

By Robert Fisk

".....Well, as usual, nothing is as it seems in Iraq. Within hours of the mass deaths in Ramadi yesterday came a disturbing statement by the US military. They knew of no deaths in Ramadi, although - and here was the sinister part of the whole thing - it was true, the Americans said, that 30 people had been "slightly wounded" in Ramadi when US troops set off a "controlled explosion" near a football field. "I can't imagine there would be another attack involving children without our people knowing," an American officer announced. Quite so.

Then he apparently half-acknowledged that there was another explosion near the soccer field, a "barbaric crime" by al-Qa'ida. The police said it was a car bomb. The American-funded Iraqi television service said it was a roadside bomb. A local tribal leader said that of the 18 dead, six were women - not, presumably, football players......

But such is the level of violence and anarchy in Iraq today that all such events are filtered through pro-American Iraqi security officials or through the US army or through insurgents' websites. Insurgents' victims are claimed to have been killed by the Americans, civilians killed by US troops are said to have been murdered by insurgents. Who knows if that did not happen in Ramadi? In fear of their lives, Western journalists can no longer investigate these atrocities. The Americans like it that way. So, one suspects, do the insurgents. Accurate information in Iraq is like water in the desert: precious, rare, often polluted......

The reality is that Iraq's war now exists in a fog through which we can see only vague figures. They may be insurgents or they may be soldiers. Or they may, for all the Iraqis know, be units from the 120,000 - yes, 120,000 - Western mercenaries now believed to be operating in Iraq for any number of legal and quasi-legal organisations. These hired gunmen constitute a force almost equal to the entire US contingent in Iraq. Who do they work for? What are their rules? The answer to the first may be "everyone". The answer to the second question? None......."

A social revolution is taking place in Venezuela. No wonder the neocons and their friends are determined to discredit it

George Galloway
Wednesday February 28, 2007
The Guardian

"The chilling Oliver Stone film Salvador got a rare airing on television this week. It was a reminder of a time when, for those on the left, little victories were increasingly dwarfed by big defeats - not least in a Latin America which became synonymous with death squads and juntas. How different things seem now. Yesterday US Vice-President Dick Cheney came uncomfortably close to the reality of Afghan resistance to foreign occupation. On the same day Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez delivered a mightier blow to the neocon dream of US domination, announcing an extension of public ownership of his country's oil fields - the richest outside the Middle East.......

The so-called "dictator" Chávez is nothing of the kind. He has won election after election, validating his radical course. Still the fear of a coup - such as in 2002 when Chávez was removed and imprisoned for three days before millions descended to the presidential palace to reinstate him - is everywhere. One Englishman abroad who welcomed the 2002 coup as the "overthrow of a demagogue" was the foreign office minister Denis MacShane - a humiliating correction had to be issued following Chávez's restoration. That tale underscores the importance of the links being forged between revolutionary Caracas and anti-war London. Chávez is well aware that the people were defeated in Chile, the fascists allowed to pass in Republican Spain. Just as in Venezuela, the defence against counter-revolution lies with the poor and the working people who are shaping the world they want; so too must all those internationally who want to see this ferment reach its potential rally to Venezuela's side."

Cheney Survives Bomb Attack
By Steve Bell, The Guardian

"(Angus Reid Global Monitor) - Adults in the United States are disappointed with the human cost of the coalition effort, according to a poll by Ipsos-Public Affairs released by the Associated Press.......

Polling Data

Has there been an acceptable or unacceptable number of U.S. military casualties in Iraq?

Acceptable
19%

Unacceptable
77%

Not sure
4%

Has there been an acceptable or unacceptable number of Iraqi civilian casualties in Iraq?

Acceptable
17%

Unacceptable
77%

Not sure
6%

A number of U.S. military leaders, reportedly including the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have waged an extraordinary behind-the-scenes resistance to what they fear is a secret plan by George W. Bush to wage war against Iran.

By Robert Parry
February 27, 2007

"One intelligence source told me that Joint Chiefs chairman, Gen. Peter Pace, has explored the possibility of resigning if Bush presses forward with air attacks against Iran, a war strategy that might be done in coordination with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

Though Pace has given no public signal on resigning, he has undercut Bush’s case for an expanded Middle East war by challenging the administration claims about Iran’s alleged sponsorship of attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq and by telling Congress that the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have eroded American military capability to confront another crisis.

In a classified report to Congress, Pace warned that there is a significant risk that the U.S. military would be unable to respond quickly and fully to a new threat, the Associated Press reported, citing “senior defense officials.”......

Sources familiar with concerns inside the Pentagon have told me that senior U.S. military commanders, including Pace, have publicized their differences with the White House as part of a shadow bureaucratic battle to head off Bush’s Iran war plans.

Despite assurances from Bush and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates that they have no plan to attack Iran, the steady build-up of U.S. forces in the region – including two aircraft carrier attack groups – have concerned the commanders as well as some members of Congress and the public that Bush is simply waiting for a pretext to attack.

War on Hair Trigger

One intelligence source directed me to a paragraph in Seymour Hersh’s new article in The New Yorker, referring to Bush’s order for hair-trigger preparations on going to war with Iran so he can attack within 24 hours.

In that paragraph, Hersh cites information from a former intelligence official that “a special planning group has been established in the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented, upon orders from the President, within 24 hours.” [New Yorker, Posted Feb. 25, 2007]

By creating such a tight time frame for action, Bush would negate the possibility for the Pentagon brass and Congress to mount any serious opposition to a presidential order on Iran, even if they are convinced Bush’s actions will be catastrophic.

The tradition of the U.S. military is to implement presidential orders regardless of doubts. Perhaps months later, a dissenting commander might quietly resign.

That practice and the 24-hour window may help explain why several U.S. generals are pondering now how to stop Bush from blindsiding them with a new war. One of their tactics appears to be leaking indications of their strong opposition to the press.

On Feb. 25, the Sunday Times of London reported that “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.”

The Times cited one source estimating that four or five generals and admirals are part of this internal revolt, though no names were given......

But one source told me that the resistance – from the Pentagon, Blair and even Democrats in Congress – appears to be having an effect on Bush’s decision-making. This source said he believed Bush had planned to launch an attack on Iran, possibly as early as this week, but was getting “weak knees.”......

Senior commanders also appear to share the same distrust of Bush and his White House advisers as many citizens do. Despite Bush’s repeated assurances that no war with Iran is contemplated, the brass appears to be seeing the same troubling signs as others are......

Not only has Bush dispatched two aircraft carrier strike groups to the region, he has deployed Patriot anti-missile-missile batteries at strategic locations along the Persian Gulf and has British mine sweepers in place. Meanwhile, Israel reportedly is training squadrons of pilots for bombing runs against Iran’s heavily fortified nuclear facilities......

Bush has put together a similar sales package for Iran. By applying broad definitions of “terrorism” to Iranian-supported Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Palestinian territories, Bush has defined Iran as a state sponsor of “terrorism.” Iran’s development of nuclear technology has met the other requirement for a WMD scare......

Yet, in the first weeks of 2007, more and more signs pointed to Bush’s determination to strike at Iran sooner rather than later – and to do so with massive force.

Author Craig Unger reported in Vanity Fair that Bush turned to the U.S. Strategic Command (StratCom) to draw up plans for the bombing campaign against Iran. StratCom oversees nuclear weapons, missile defense, and protection against weapons of mass destruction. “Shifting to StratCom indicates that they are talking about a really punishing air-force and naval air attack [on Iran],” said retired Col. W. Patrick Lang, a former analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency. [Vanity Fair, March 2007]......

In January and early February, my own military and intelligence sources painted a similar picture of an expected U.S. air campaign against Iran, which they said might involve the Israelis as the initiators of the attack to make the U.S. bombing appear more defensive and to ensure more Democratic and media support. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Iran Clock Is Ticking.”]......

It also is conventional wisdom among American neoconservatives – as well as many Israelis – that Bush may be the only U.S. leader who would countenance a preemptive military strike against Iran. So, if the bombing raid is going to happen, these neocons believe it must occur within the next two years, preferably as soon as possible. They want Bush to have the maximum remaining time in office to manage any consequences from the attack......"

"The UN's Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, John Dugard, has issued a harshly critical report on Israel's human rights record in regards to its treatment of the Palestinians in occupied Palestine. "The international community, speaking through the United Nations, has identified three regimes as inimical to human rights - foreign occupation, apartheid and colonialism," Dugard says. In a report posted on the UN Human Rights Council's website, due to be tabled this week, the South African law professor accuses Israeli regime of all three. Below follows an excerpt of the report."

Click Here for the Full Report (pdf)

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman

"In his new book, CIA analyst, distinguished scholar, and best-selling author Chalmers Johnson argues that US military and economic overreach may actually lead to the nation's collapse as a constitutional republic. It's the last volume in his Blowback trilogy, following the best-selling "Blowback" and "The Sorrows of Empire." In those two, Johnson argued American clandestine and military activity has led to un-intended, but direct disaster here in the United States.

Chalmers Johnson is a retired professor of international relations at the University of California, San Diego. He is also President of the Japan Policy Research Institute. Johnson has written for several publications including Los Angeles Times, the London Review of Books, Harper's Magazine, and The Nation. In 2005, he was featured prominently in the award-winning documentary film, “Why We Fight.”

Chalmers Johnson joined me yesterday from San Diego. I began by asking him about the title of his book, “Nemesis.”......"

Click Here to Watch, Listen or Read Transcript

Chief Windbag














Russian FM: Hamas vows to end attacks on Israel

"Hamas' political bureau chief Khaled Meshal has promised that the militant Palestinian group will end missile attacks and other violence against Israel, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Tuesday.

"Hamas should use its authority to stop violence including missile attacks against Israel," Lavrov said at a news conference after his meeting with Meshal. "We received confirmation that such steps will be taken," he added....."

Cheney OK after Afghan blast; 23 killed

"BAGRAM, Afghanistan - A suicide bomber attacked the entrance to the main U.S. military base in Afghanistan on Tuesday during a visit by Vice President Dick Cheney, killing up to 23 people and wounding 20. Cheney was unhurt in the attack, which was claimed by the Taliban and was the closest that militants have come to a top U.S. official visiting Afghanistan. At least one U.S. soldier, an American contractor and a South Korean solder were among the dead, NATO said......."

Al-Manar special report / Translated

"The head of the Democratic Gathering, Lebanese MP Walid Jumblatt continues his tour of US senior officials, on top of which is President George W. Bush. Jumblatt had "accidentally" met Bush for half an hour at the residence of US National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, accompanied by Telecommunication Minister Marwan Hmedeh and former MP Ghattas Khouri. Jumblatt made no statement at the end of the meeting. The Key February 14 figure also met former American Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and said in a lecture at the "American Enterprise" Institute that his visit to the US is to ask for political and military assistance against what he described as an indirect Syrian occupation of Lebanon, accusing Hezbollah of spearheading the Syrian influence in the country. For his part, Mahmoud Qomati of Hezbollah's political council said that any reply to Jumblatt would be futile. Speaking to the Lebanese News Agency, Qomati said that Jumblatt has sold his soul to the devil and undermined the effect of the Druz MP's position on the ongoing efforts to solve the political crisis in Lebanon."

By Kurt Nimmo

".....As we know, the CIA organized the Afghan Mujahideen, with the assistance of Pakistan’s ISI and a large influx of Saudi money, and after the Soviets exited Afghanistan with their tails tucked, the Mujahidden splintered into the Taliban and “al-Qaeda,” the latter comprised of primarily Sunni Wahhabi fanatics.

Once again, the “al-Qaeda” myth will be put to the test, for Mr. Hersh tells us there are “at least three jihadist groups… connected at al-Qaeda” at work in Lebanon against the Shi’a, i.e., Hezbollah, and they are financed by the Saudi monarchy.

Rest assured, Saudi intelligence, Al Mukhabarat Al A’amah, does not act without explicit instructions from the United States. It is no mistake Turki bin Faisal al-Saud, former intelligence head, now comfortably ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland, was Osama bin Laden’s handler in Afghanistan, although the corporate media has turned mighty somersaults to make this relationship appear innocent, if not disappear altogether.

According to Hersh, none other than Bandar bin Sultan, known simply as Prince Bandar here in America, is behind this effort to pass out money to “tough” Sunni groups—apparently associated with “al-Qaeda,” thus connected to U.S. and Saudi intelligence—and tasking them with killing Shi’ites in Iran and Lebanon, much the same way the mythical al-Zarqawi killed Shi’ites in Iraq. It should be no surprise Bandar is so important to the Bush crime family and the neocons, he was informed of the decision to invade Iraq ahead of Secretary of State Colin Powell, or so claims the former military intelligence operative Bob Woodward.

Hersh believes the neocons have made a “policy change,” deciding to put “pressure on the Shi’ites” through Sunni proxies and thus replicate the chaos and misery of Iraq in both Lebanon and Iran, referred to as the “Shi’ite Crescent,” according to the neocons. Hersh believes “his government” is “sitting back” while the Saudis run this operation—a delusional fantasy at best, as there is plenty of evidence “al-Qaeda” and “Sunni jihadists” are not renegade operations but rather under the control of U.S., British, Saudi, and Pakistani intelligence, the latter two acting as liaison offices passing out marching orders, as no self-respecting “jihadist” patsy would take an order directly from the CIA or the Pentagon......"

By Antonia Juhasz and Raed Jarrar
Asia Times

"While debate rages in the United States about the military in Iraq, an equally important decision is being made inside Iraq - the future of its oil. A draft Iraqi law proposes to open the country's currently nationalized oil system to foreign corporate control. But emblematic of the flawed promotion of "democracy" by the administration of US President George W Bush, this new law is news to most Iraqi politicians.

A leaked copy of the proposed hydrocarbon law appeared on the Internet at the same time that it was introduced to the Iraqi Council of Ministers (cabinet). The law is expected to go to the Iraqi Council of Representatives within weeks. Yet the Internet version was the first look that most members of Iraq's Parliament had of the new law......

Many Iraqi oil experts are already referring to the draft law as the "Split Iraq Fund", arguing that it facilitates plans for splitting Iraq into three ethnic/religious regions. The experts believe that the law undermines the central government and shifts important decision-making and responsibilities to the regional entities. This shift could serve as the foundation for establishing three new independent states, which is the goal of a number of separatist leaders........"

By Pepe Escobar

"US President George W Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney might as well declare the Iraq war over and out. As far as they - and the humongous energy interests they defend - are concerned,only now is the mission really accomplished. More than half a trillion dollars spent and perhaps half a million Iraqis killed have come down to this.

On Monday, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet in Baghdad approved the draft of the new Iraqi oil law. The government regards it as "a major national project". The key point of the law is that Iraq's immense oil wealth (115 billion barrels of proven reserves, third in the world after Saudi Arabia and Iran) will be under the iron rule of a fuzzy "Federal Oil and Gas Council" boasting "a panel of oil experts from inside and outside Iraq". That is, nothing less than predominantly US Big Oil executives......

As if this were not enough, the law reduces in practice the role of Baghdad to a minimum. Oil wealth, in theory, will be distributed directly to Kurds in the north, Shi'ites in the south and Sunnis in the center. For all practical purposes, Iraq will be partitioned into three statelets.....

But there was not much to be debated. The law was in essence drafted, behind locked doors, by a US consulting firm hired by the Bush administration and then carefully retouched by Big Oil, the International Monetary Fund, former US deputy defense secretary Paul Wolfowitz' World Bank, and the United States Agency for International Development. It's virtually a US law (its original language is English, not Arabic)......

No big Middle Eastern oil producer works with PSAs. Russia and Venezuela are renegotiating all of them. Bolivia nationalized its gas. Algeria and Indonesia have new rules for future contracts. But Iraq, of course, is not a sovereign country......

The Sunni Arab muqawama (resistance) certainly has other ideas - as in future rolling thunder against pipelines, refineries and Western personnel. Iraq's oil independence will not go down quietly - at least among Sunnis. On the same day the oil law was being approved, a powerful bomb at the Ministry of Municipalities killed at least 12 people and injured 42, including Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi. Mahdi has always been a feverish supporter of the oil law. He's a top official of the Shi'ite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq (SCIRI).

A whole case can be made of SCIRI delivering Iraq's Holy Grail to Bush/Cheney and Big Oil - in exchange for not being chased out of power by the Pentagon. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the SCIRI's leader, is much more of a Bush ally than Maliki, who is from the Da'wa Party. No wonder SCIRI's Badr Organization and their death squads were never the target of Washington's wrath - unlike Muqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army (Muqtada is fiercely against the oil law). The SCIRI certainly listened to the White House, which has always made it very clear: any more funds to the Iraqi government are tied up with passing the oil law.

Bush and Cheney got their oily cake - and they will eat it, too (or be drenched in its glory). Mission accomplished: permanent, sprawling military bases on the eastern flank of the Arab nation and control of some of largest, untapped oil wealth on the planet - a key geostrategic goal of the New American Century. Now it's time to move east, bomb Iran, force regime change and - what else? - force PSAs down their Persian throats. "

The government crisis in Italy over US bases and Afghanistan reflects the increasing gap in Europe between rulers and ruled

Tariq Ali
Tuesday February 27, 2007
The Guardian

"The states of western Europe continue to resist harmonisation. On the same day last week that the chicaneries of every antiquated careerist vying for the New Labour deputy leadership were made public, each justifying his or her grotesque decision to support the war and occupation of Iraq, the centre-left Italian government - not yet a year old - fell after a debate on foreign policy in the upper chamber.

It was not Iraq that was at issue here. Unlike New Labour (protected by undemocratic electoral laws and MPs unmoved by the suffering in Iraq), all of the Italian left and 80% of the population opposed that war. The dispute concerned two issues: Operation Enduring Freedom - the satirical self-description of the Nato occupation of Afghanistan - and the expansion of the US military base in Vicenza in northern Italy......

Nor is this just an Italian disease. The fact that the leaders of the Refounded Communist party cave in to the Washington consensus in return for government posts reflects a far wider problem. Increasingly, official politics in the west ignores public opinion at will. Britain is a striking example. Mass hostility to Blair's wars and the replacement of Trident barely finds an echo in parliament. The BBC had to be neutered and only 12 Labour MPs managed to vote for an inquiry into British involvement in Iraq. It is the increasing distance between rulers and ruled that threatens the functioning of democracy and leads to desperation."

Windbag du Jour: Ismail Radwan, Hamas Spokesman

By Nizar Kabbani

"......We are accused of terrorism…
If we refuse death…
By the bulldozers of "Israel"…
Digging in our soil…
Our history…Our Gospels…
Our Qur’an…
The remnants of our prophets…
If this is our crime
How beautiful is terrorism…

We are accused of terrorism…
If we refuse our extinction…
By Mongols… Zionists… Barbarians…
If we throw a stone on a window of the Security Council…
Seized by the Czars of our time…

We are accused of terrorism…
If we refuse to…
Extend our hand to…
America…
Against human cultures…
Which is without a culture…
Against human civilization…
Which is without a civilization…
America is a gigantic building…
Without walls…......."

Lining Up The Stooges Before The Attack on Iran

A MUST WATCH

"Explosive" new Hersh scoop: Bush funneling money to Al Qaeda-related groups [VIDEO]

"So what could possibly be more "EXPLOSIVE" and "DEPRESSING" than the fact that the president is having a 24 hour attack plan drawn up for targets in Iran?

Why, funding anti-Shiite Sunnis linked to Al Qaeda without Congressional approval and without appropriate appropriation, of course....."

Clich Here to Watch

"Britain’s senior naval officer in the Persian Gulf has revealed that Royal Navy deployments in the region have doubled since October in a build-up that matches the rapid escalation of American maritime firepower.

Commodore Keith Winstanley, who serves as deputy commander of coalition maritime operations for US Central Command, has told The Daily Telegraph that British trade and strategic interests dictate the necessity of a high and sustained commitment to patrol the seas around the Middle East. “If you look at the UK component we have almost doubled it,” he said in an interview aboard HMS Sutherland in Mina al-Salman port.

“Most of these ships are here on training missions but there is no doubt that we could use the warfighting capabilities they possess.”

Cdre Winstanley said there was a message for Iran in the expansion of the coalition fleet in the waters of the Persian Gulf, Sea of Oman and Arabian Sea.

More ships on patrol would have strategic effects that went beyond the operational benefits of increased patrols....."

This is the Extent of Palestinian Resistance in the West Bank Today. Don't Laugh, This Took Only 40 Years to Accomplish.

Windbag du Jour: Yousef Rizqa, Hamas' "Information Minister"

by Michael T. Klare and Tom Engelhardt

"Sometime this spring or summer, barring an unexpected turnaround by Tehran, President Bush is likely to go on national television and announce that he has ordered American ships and aircraft to strike at military targets inside Iran. We must still sit through several months of soap opera at the United Nations in New York and assorted foreign capitals before this comes to pass, and it is always possible that a diplomatic breakthrough will occur – let it be so! – but I am convinced that Bush has already decided an attack is his only option and the rest is a charade he must go through to satisfy his European allies. The proof of this, I believe, lies half-hidden in recent public statements of his, which, if pieced together, provide a casus belli, or formal list of justifications, for going to war......

So we can expect several months of fruitless diplomacy at the United Nations in which the United States may achieve slightly more severe economic sanctions under Chapter 41 but not approval for military action under Chapter 42. Bush knows that this is the inevitable outcome, and so I am convinced that, in his various speeches and meetings with reporters, he is already preparing the way for a future address to the nation. In it, he will speak somberly of a tireless American effort to secure a meaningful resolution from the United Nations on Iran with real teeth in it and his deep disappointment that no such resolution has been not forthcoming. He will also point out that, despite the heroic efforts of American diplomats as well as military commanders in Iraq, Iran continues to pose a vital and unchecked threat to American security in Iraq, in the region, and even – via its nuclear program – in the wider world.

Further diplomacy, he will insist, appears futile and yet Iran must be stopped. Hence, he will say, "I have made the unavoidable decision to eliminate this vital threat through direct military action," and will announce – in language eerily reminiscent of his address to the nation on March 19, 2003 – that a massive air offensive against Iran has already been underway for several hours. "

We're playing the Sunni card in the Middle East – and that means playing footsie with al-Qaeda

A Good Piece
By Justin Raimondo

"The latest Seymour Hersh piece has a lot of new information, some of it shocking, some of it not at all surprising to readers of Antiwar.com and observers of this space. An example of the latter:

"The administration is now examining a wave of new intelligence on Iran's weapons programs. Current and former American officials told me that the intelligence, which came from Israeli agents operating in Iran, includes a claim that Iran has developed a three-stage solid-fueled intercontinental missile capable of delivering several small warheads – each with limited accuracy – inside Europe. The validity of this human intelligence is still being debated.".....

The Mossad has been quite busy, not only in Kurdistan but also in Iran. Although the Iranians indignantly deny it, the Israeli presence in Iran may have been responsible for the recent "accidental" death of a top Iranian nuclear scientist. In any case, the Israelis, according to an earlier report by Hersh, have thoroughly penetrated Kurdistan, where they train the peshmerga. Using the Kurdish rebels in Iran, known as Pejak, they have launched sorties into Iranian territory.

What is less clear – although I've touched on the subject recently – is the extent to which clandestine activities are being carried out by the U.S. in Iran, and, according to Hersh, Lebanon......

Once again we are in league with the Saudis, who were instrumental in setting up the Afghan networks that morphed into al-Qaeda. Bin Laden is their errant son, come back to haunt them – and us. The Kingdom is the worst tyranny in the entire region, steeped in a fanatic version of Islam that is, by regional standards, barbaric. Ruled over by a sclerotic aristocracy more decadent and deserving of overthrow than even the haughty Bourbons or the crazed Romanovs, it is precisely our association with these royal kleptocrats that has generated anti-Americanism and killed the possibility of a genuine liberal movement......

So let's get this straight: U.S. taxpayer dollars are subsidizing al-Qaeda's emerging Lebanese affiliate. Remember that as you fill out your income tax forms this year.

The "war on terrorism" sparked by al-Qaeda's 9/11 attack has ended with the U.S. in alliance with bin Laden's boys against a supposedly emerging Shi'ite threat. Now how bitter is that ironic twist?......

Having handed the Middle East to Tehran on a silver platter, we are mobilizing all available forces in a single-minded effort to snatch it from them. More surrealist than Orwellian, this self-defeating rat-on-a-treadmill policy guarantees one thing: perpetual war. It is just the sort of overly "clever" Machiavellian move that is bound to backfire, and badly. One shudders to imagine the sort of "blowback" playing the Sunni card will entail. The last time we sided with Sunni radicals, we got bin Laden – and 9/11. This time, it's entirely possible we'll reap an even harsher whirlwind."

Cheney holds talks with Oman

US Vice-President Dick Cheney arrived in Oman today and held talks with officials from the US-allied Gulf Arab state.

"An Omani newspaper said earlier today that Mr Cheney was expected to discuss Iraq and Iran's nuclear program.

A US embassy official in the capital Muscat declined to comment on the visit. Mr Cheney has been in Asia and this stopover had not been previously announced as part of his itinerary.

There was no immediate comment from the White House.

Mr Cheney said yesterday Iran's atomic ambitions must be curbed, adding that "all options" were on the table.

Gulf Arab states, including Oman, the northern tip of which faces Iran over the Strait of Hormuz, have expressed concern over Iran's nuclear program, which Tehran describes as peaceful although the West suspects it is trying to make nuclear weapons.

The United States has stepped up pressure on Iran by slapping sanctions on two big Iranian banks and three firms.

It has also deployed a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf with supporting warships, a move widely seen as a warning to Iran.

Washington insists it wants a diplomatic solution and does not want war, but has not ruled out force if necessary.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday Iran had no brake or reverse gear in its nuclear program.

Tehran says Washington is in no position to attack when its troops are bogged down in Iraq but says it is ready in any case.

Mr Cheney arrived in Muscat after a visit to Asia-Pacific Iraq war allies Japan and Australia. His plane underwent minor repairs during a stopover in Singapore yesterday."

***

It should be added that Oman, the UAE and Qatar have given permission to the Israeli airforce to cross their airspace in order to bomb Iranian targets.

All the pieces are falling in place and the attack is around the corner. Just keep your eyes on Mr. Death.

The invasion of Iraq was foolish, illegal and finally catastrophic. The only people who seem not to know this are our rulers

Geoffrey Wheatcroft
Monday February 26, 2007
The Guardian

"Now that everyone apart from Dick Cheney recognises that the Iraq war has been an appalling failure, and now that all the original justifications for the war have long since collapsed, where do those who originally supported it turn? Some just pretend it never happened, or that they really never approved of it.

There is a deafening patter of paws as sundry politicians and pundits rush to the side of this sinking ship, and there have been many displays of selective amnesia worthy of Tony Blair himself. Why, not far from this very page angry voices can be heard condemning as criminal folly a war they once praised enthusiastically. A cynic might even speculate that if the operation had turned into anything that could plausibly be represented as a success, some of these latter-day peaceniks would now be trumpeting victory and denouncing those who always opposed the invasion as fainthearts or traitors........"

Missile Defense
By Martin Rowson, The Guardian

Ian Black
Monday February 26, 2007
The Guardian

"Seymour Hersh's reputation as an investigative journalist means his latest report on US policy in the Middle East will fuel worries that despite Washington's insistence on using diplomatic means to end the nuclear crisis with Iran, confrontation is still on the cards.

Dick Cheney, the vice-president, underlined this at the weekend when he warned that "all options were on the table". Hersh fleshes this out by revealing that a Pentagon special unit is planning a bombing campaign that could be implemented within 24 hours of getting a White House go-ahead.......

Experts will not be surprised by the key role he attributes to the Saudi national security adviser, Prince Bandar, who is close to Mr Cheney, or by the claim that the funding and execution of some clandestine activities is being left to the conservative kingdom. That would mirror Saudi support for the mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

One fascinating revelation is that "budgetary chaos" in Iraq is creating "pots of black money" for covert purposes - with echoes of the Iran-Contra scandal of the Reagan presidency in the 1980s. Another is that some cash for Fuad Siniora's beleaguered pro-western government in Beirut "to enhance the Sunni capability to resist Shia influence" has found its way to Sunni radical groups with ideological ties to al-Qaida.

Walid Junblatt, the Lebanese Druze leader, is quoted as telling Mr Cheney that the US should support the banned Syrian Muslim Brotherhood to undermine the Assad regime in Damascus, and a former CIA officer confirms the US and Saudis are now backing Syrian opposition groups. Syria is Iran's only Arab ally and a key backer of Hizbullah......"

By Eric Margolis
Toronto Sun

"Vladimir Putin's harsh criticism of U.S. military and foreign policy on February 10 should have set off alarm bells in the West, but apparently did not. In a startlingly blunt speech at a Munich security conference, Russia's president accused Washington of seeking world domination, undermining the UN and other international institutions, monopolizing world energy resources, destabilizing the Mideast by its bungled occupation of Iraq, and unleashing a new nuclear arms race by planning to deploy anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe.

Russia has long fumed over NATO's advance to its western borders, and Washington's attempts to replace Moscow's influence in Ukraine, the Caucasus, and Central Asia.

This column has long maintained that while one sympathizes with the desire of Eastern European states to take shelter from old foe Russia by joining NATO, pushing the alliance to Russia's doorstep was dangerously provocative and militarily ill-advised. "He who defends everything," said Frederick the Great, "defends nothing."

The Baltic states are indefensible; Bulgaria and Romania are military liabilities, as Germany found in World War II. Bulgaria and Romania were included into NATO because the U.S. wanted access to their Black Sea air bases as part of its air bridge to the Mideast and Central Asia......

But Putin is absolutely right when he warns that the Bush administration is igniting a strategic arms race by modernizing its nuclear arsenal and planning to deploy ballistic missile defence systems (BMD) in Poland and the Czech Republic.

This week, Gen. Nikolai Solovtsov, chief of Russia's Strategic Missile Forces, warned U.S. BMD plans may compel Russia to withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, a cornerstone of U.S.-Russian detente, and deploy a new generation of intermediate-range missiles aimed at Europe. An over-reaction, but still ominous.

The Russians rightly scoff at U.S. claims the BMD systems in Poland and the Czech Republic are designed to stop missiles from Iran and other unspecified "rogue" states.

These new strategic systems, says Moscow and some western defense analysts, are part of the Bush/Cheney administration's profoundly destabilizing efforts to erect anti-missile defenses in Alaska and Europe that may nullify the nuclear arsenals of Russia and China.

In short, the White House is heading away from the traditional balance of mutually assured destruction to absolute nuclear supremacy.

Given the faked war against Iraq, and Bush and Cheney's strident talk about "pre-emptive strikes against threatening nations," the Russians are understandably uneasy.

Putin's angry speech is a warning that Russia, which remains a great power with a large, capable missile force, will not let the U.S. attain unchallenged world nuclear, political, or energy domination. China echoes this warning.

Ironically, high world oil prices caused in good part by Bush's disastrous invasion of Iraq boosted Russia's oil-based economy, allowing Moscow to modernize its run-down armed forces.

Putin's speech also suggested Russia will take a more active role in the Mideast. This could be a positive development given the striking inability of the Bush/Cheney Administration to separate itself from the interests of Israel's right wing parties and return to its traditional role of at least semi-honest broker.

Some Europeans also quietly welcomed Putin's declamation.

There is growing irritation in the EU and NATO -- what former U.S. National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski cruelly terms "America's vassal states" -- at being brusquely ordered about by Washington and told to send troops to Iraq and Afghanistan. Many Western Europeans are starting to long for the Cold War days and old bi-polar world order.

No one loves Russia, but many Europeans say a strong Russia -- and China -- are necessary to restrain some of America's more overly assertive or unwise instincts."

The Face of the "New Iraq"

Is the Administration’s new policy benefitting our enemies in the war on terrorism?

by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
The New Yorker
Issue of 2007-03-05

"In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims......

Some of the core tactics of the redirection are not public, however. The clandestine operations have been kept secret, in some cases, by leaving the execution or the funding to the Saudis, or by finding other ways to work around the normal congressional appropriations process, current and former officials close to the Administration said......

The key players behind the redirection are Vice-President Dick Cheney, the deputy national-security adviser Elliott Abrams, the departing Ambassador to Iraq (and nominee for United Nations Ambassador), Zalmay Khalilzad, and Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi national-security adviser. While Rice has been deeply involved in shaping the public policy, former and current officials said that the clandestine side has been guided by Cheney.

The policy shift has brought Saudi Arabia and Israel into a new strategic embrace, largely because both countries see Iran as an existential threat. They have been involved in direct talks, and the Saudis, who believe that greater stability in Israel and Palestine will give Iran less leverage in the region, have become more involved in Arab-Israeli negotiations.

The new strategy “is a major shift in American policy—it’s a sea change,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. The Sunni states “were petrified of a Shiite resurgence, and there was growing resentment with our gambling on the moderate Shiites in Iraq,” he said. “We cannot reverse the Shiite gain in Iraq, but we can contain it.”.....

Martin Indyk, a senior State Department official in the Clinton Administration who also served as Ambassador to Israel, said that “the Middle East is heading into a serious Sunni-Shiite Cold War.” Indyk, who is the director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, added that, in his opinion, it was not clear whether the White House was fully aware of the strategic implications of its new policy. “The White House is not just doubling the bet in Iraq,” he said. “It’s doubling the bet across the region. This could get very complicated. Everything is upside down.”.......

The Administration is now examining a wave of new intelligence on Iran’s weapons programs. Current and former American officials told me that the intelligence, which came from Israeli agents operating in Iran, includes a claim that Iran has developed a three-stage solid-fuelled intercontinental missile capable of delivering several small warheads—each with limited accuracy—inside Europe.....

Still, the Pentagon is continuing intensive planning for a possible bombing attack on Iran, a process that began last year, at the direction of the President. In recent months, the former intelligence official told me, a special planning group has been established in the offices of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, charged with creating a contingency bombing plan for Iran that can be implemented, upon orders from the President, within twenty-four hours.....

The Administration’s effort to diminish Iranian authority in the Middle East has relied heavily on Saudi Arabia and on Prince Bandar, the Saudi national-security adviser. Bandar served as the Ambassador to the United States for twenty-two years, until 2005, and has maintained a friendship with President Bush and Vice-President Cheney. In his new post, he continues to meet privately with them. Senior White House officials have made several visits to Saudi Arabia recently, some of them not disclosed.....

This time, the U.S. government consultant told me, Bandar and other Saudis have assured the White House that “they will keep a very close eye on the religious fundamentalists. Their message to us was ‘We’ve created this movement, and we can control it.’ It’s not that we don’t want the Salafis to throw bombs; it’s who they throw them at—Hezbollah, Moqtada al-Sadr, Iran, and at the Syrians, if they continue to work with Hezbollah and Iran.”......

“We have two nightmares,” the former diplomat told me. “For Iran to acquire the bomb and for the United States to attack Iran. I’d rather the Israelis bomb the Iranians, so we can blame them. If America does it, we will be blamed.”.....

In the past year, the Saudis, the Israelis, and the Bush Administration have developed a series of informal understandings about their new strategic direction. At least four main elements were involved, the U.S. government consultant told me. First, Israel would be assured that its security was paramount and that Washington and Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states shared its concern about Iran.

Second, the Saudis would urge Hamas, the Islamist Palestinian party that has received support from Iran, to curtail its anti-Israeli aggression and to begin serious talks about sharing leadership with Fatah, the more secular Palestinian group. (In February, the Saudis brokered a deal at Mecca between the two factions. However, Israel and the U.S. have expressed dissatisfaction with the terms.)

The third component was that the Bush Administration would work directly with Sunni nations to counteract Shiite ascendance in the region.

Fourth, the Saudi government, with Washington’s approval, would provide funds and logistical aid to weaken the government of President Bashir Assad, of Syria. The Israelis believe that putting such pressure on the Assad government will make it more conciliatory and open to negotiations......

“The Saudis understand that if they want the Administration to make a more generous political offer to the Palestinians they have to persuade the Arab states to make a more generous offer to the Israelis,” Clawson told me.....

American, European, and Arab officials I spoke to told me that the Siniora government and its allies had allowed some aid to end up in the hands of emerging Sunni radical groups in northern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and around Palestinian refugee camps in the south. These groups, though small, are seen as a buffer to Hezbollah; at the same time, their ideological ties are with Al Qaeda.....

In January, after an outburst of street violence in Beirut involving supporters of both the Siniora government and Hezbollah, Prince Bandar flew to Tehran to discuss the political impasse in Lebanon and to meet with Ali Larijani, the Iranians’ negotiator on nuclear issues. According to a Middle Eastern ambassador, Bandar’s mission—which the ambassador said was endorsed by the White House—also aimed “to create problems between the Iranians and Syria.” There had been tensions between the two countries about Syrian talks with Israel, and the Saudis’ goal was to encourage a breach. However, the ambassador said, “It did not work. Syria and Iran are not going to betray each other. Bandar’s approach is very unlikely to succeed.”......

There is evidence that the Administration’s redirection strategy has already benefitted the Brotherhood. The Syrian National Salvation Front is a coalition of opposition groups whose principal members are a faction led by Abdul Halim Khaddam, a former Syrian Vice-President who defected in 2005, and the Brotherhood. A former high-ranking C.I.A. officer told me, “The Americans have provided both political and financial support. The Saudis are taking the lead with financial support, but there is American involvement.”......

The government consultant and a retired four-star general said that Jordanian intelligence, with support from the U.S. and Israel, had been trying to infiltrate Shiite groups, to work against Hezbollah......

He (Nasrallah) went on, “I can say that President Bush is lying when he says he does not want Iraq to be partitioned. All the facts occurring now on the ground make you swear he is dragging Iraq to partition. And a day will come when he will say, ‘I cannot do anything, since the Iraqis want the partition of their country and I honor the wishes of the people of Iraq.’ ”......

Partition would leave Israel surrounded by “small tranquil states,” he said. “I can assure you that the Saudi kingdom will also be divided, and the issue will reach to North African states. There will be small ethnic and confessional states,” he said. “In other words, Israel will be the most important and the strongest state in a region that has been partitioned into ethnic and confessional states that are in agreement with each other. This is the new Middle East.”.....

Nasrallah said that he had no interest in initiating another war with Israel. However, he added that he was anticipating, and preparing for, another Israeli attack, later this year......

The Bush Administration’s reliance on clandestine operations that have not been reported to Congress and its dealings with intermediaries with questionable agendas have recalled, for some in Washington, an earlier chapter in history. Two decades ago, the Reagan Administration attempted to fund the Nicaraguan contras illegally, with the help of secret arms sales to Iran. Saudi money was involved in what became known as the Iran-Contra scandal, and a few of the players back then—notably Prince Bandar and Elliott Abrams—are involved in today’s dealings......

The former senior intelligence official also told me that Negroponte did not want a repeat of his experience in the Reagan Administration, when he served as Ambassador to Honduras. “Negroponte said, ‘No way. I’m not going down that road again, with the N.S.C. running operations off the books, with no finding.’ ”......."

Targeted By Tehran?

Newsweek

"March 5, 2007 issue - Increasing tensions between Washington and Tehran have revived New York Police Department concerns that Iranian agents may already have targeted the city for terror attacks. Such attacks could be aimed at bridges and tunnels, Jewish organizations and Wall Street, NYPD briefers told security execs last fall, according to a person with access to the briefing materials who asked for anonymity because of the sensitive subject matter.

NYPD officials have worried about possible Iranian-sponsored attacks since a series of incidents involving officials of the Iranian Mission to the United Nations. In November 2003, Ahmad Safari and Alireaza Safi, described as Iranian Mission "security" personnel, were detained by transit cops when they were seen videotaping subway tracks from Queens to Manhattan at 1:10 in the morning. The men later left New York. "We're concerned that Iranian agents were engaged in reconnaissance that might be used in an attack against New York City at some future date," Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly told NEWSWEEK. A spokesman for the Iranian Mission in New York said he was aware of the allegations but had no immediate comment."

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This is what Zbigniew Brzezinski speculated about to remove any opposition to the war on Iran:

"If the United States continues to be bogged down in a protracted bloody involvement in Iraq, the final destination on this downhill track is likely to be a head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large. A plausible scenario for a military collision with Iran involves Iraqi failure to meet the benchmarks; followed by accusations of Iranian responsibility for the failure; then by some provocation in Iraq or a terrorist act in the U.S. blamed on Iran; culminating in a "defensive" U.S. military action against Iran that plunges a lonely America into a spreading and deepening quagmire eventually ranging across Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.. "

Israel's first ambassador to Egypt, Eliyahu Ben-Elissar presents his credentials to President Anwar El-Sadat, 25 February 1980






Egyptian policeman jailed for refusing duty at Israeli embassy

"CAIRO - An Egyptian police tribunal on Sunday sentenced a police officer to six months in jail for refusing orders to go on guard duty at the Israeli embassy in Cairo, police sources said.

Mohamed Khalaf Hassan Ibrahim, a sergeant in his late 30s, had been in hospital on hunger strike in protest at his detention, but he was able to attend the court session on Sunday.

The Egyptian police force is run on military lines and, as with military courts run by the armed forces, there is no appeal against the verdicts of the police tribunal.

Egypt in 1979 became the first Arab state to make peace with Israel, but many Egyptians still regard Israel as an enemy because of the long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict......"

Israeli forces invade and impose curfew on Nablus

"Nablus - Ma'an - Israeli occupation forces initiated a huge operation in Nablus, in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, considered to be the biggest operation there in two years. Ma'an's correspondent reported that more than 60 Israeli military vehicles and several bulldozers entered the city and imposed curfew.

Palestinian security sources told Ma'an that a large force participated in the incursion, focused on the old city, particularly Al Yasameen neighborhood, where dozens of Israeli soldiers were deployed in the streets. The city resembles something like a military camp, the sources said.

In an unprecedented step the Israeli forces infiltrated the airwaves of the radio stations, seeking to provoke Palestinian resistance. The soldiers distributed lists of 'wanted' Palestinians in the city and arrested six citizens, four of whom are relatives and two are brothers. The arrests took place in Rafidia, west of the city, and followed the besieging of one of the houses.

Ma'an's correspondent reported that the Israelis announced the curfew through the local radio station of An Najah University and warned the citizens against breaking it. The Israeli forces commanded Palestinians to stay home and to keep away from banks and public departments and institutions.

The announcement also said that the curfew will be imposed for no specific time period and that they will be allowed only during specific times to be supplied with food. Citizens expect that the curfew may last for a long time.

The education directorate announced that teaching in the schools will be suspended for the coming period due to the curfew......"

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And where is the mirage of Palestinian "government?" Where are the Palestinian "security forces?" Where is Abbas and his "Presidential Guard" armed and trained by the U.S.?

Hamas issued a "tough" declaration "placing the responsibility on Israel's shoulders" (whatever that means) and decrying Arab and world silence.

Back to the unity celebrations, now!

"Lebanese prominent journalist Joseph Semaha died Sunday in the British capital. Colleague Semaha is the editor in chief of the Al-Akhbar daily. Political, media and popular figures headed to the daily's headquarters in Beirut to pay condolences. Semaha is considered one of the main journalists and authors in Lebanon. He wrote in key Lebanese and Arab newspapers. He was the editor in chief of the Assafir daily before moving months ago to the Al-Akhbar. Al-Manar TV station regrets the loss of colleague Semaha and offers condolences to Al-Akhbar daily and to the late journalist's family."

Report: 3 Gulf states agree to IAF overflights en route to Iran.

"Three Arab states in the Persian Gulf would be willing to allow the Israel Air force to enter their airspace in order to reach Iran in case of an attack on its nuclear facilities, the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Siyasa reported on Sunday.

According to the report, a diplomat from one of the gulf states visiting Washington on Saturday said the three states, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates, have told the United States that they would not object to Israel using their airspace, despite their fear of an Iranian response.

Al-Siyasa further reported that NATO leaders are urging Turkey to open its airspace for an Attack on Iran as well and to also open its airports and borders in case of a ground attack.

According to a British diplomat who spoke to an Al-Siyasa correspondent, Turkey will not repeat the mistake it made in 2003, when it refused to open its airspace to U.S. Air Force overflights en route to attacking Iraq.

British newspaper The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday that Israel is negotiating with the U.S. over permission for an "air corridor" over Iraq, should an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities become necessary......"

Windbag du Jour: Mushir Masri of Hamas.

Overstretched, ill-equipped, the military are caught in the crossfire of a mission impossible.

By Raymond Whitaker
The Independent

"When Tony Blair rose in Parliament last week to announce that 1,600 troops would be withdrawn this spring from Iraq, he did not say that an almost equal number would be sent to Afghanistan at roughly the same time. That news only emerged a day and a half later.

Why did the Prime Minister keep silent? Because to have announced the two deployments simultaneously would have made clear that all the problems the military have been complaining about, notably the "overstretch" caused by sending undermanned, inadequately equipped forces into two hostile environments at once, have not been solved.

What Mr Blair managed to disguise was that his long-awaited announcement of the beginning of the retreat from Iraq was in fact a slowdown. Military chiefs were desperate to pull 3,000 troops out of Iraq by summer; instead they got only half that number. The rest may leave by the end of the year - if conditions allow. But as one officer with experience there said: "The security situation on the ground in Basra is very volatile. Nobody knows what is going to happen day to day."

With talk in military circles of further much-needed reinforcements likely to be sent to Afghanistan in coming months, not least because other Nato members are refusing to provide them, the strain on resources can only increase. That will expose the deficiencies in equipment even more starkly......"

Those sending British troops to Afghanistan should learn the lessons of the Battle of Maiwand

By Robert Fisk

"O ut of the frying pan, into the historical fire. If only our leaders read history. In 1915, the British swept up from Basra, believing that the Iraqis would reward them with flowers and love, only to find themselves surrounded at Kut al-Amara, cut down by Turkish shellfire and cholera. Now we are reinforcing Nato in that tomb of the British Army, Afghanistan.

Hands up any soldiers who know that another of Britain's great military defeats took place in the very sands in which your colleagues are now fighting the Taliban. Yes, the Battle of Maiwand - on 27 July, 1880 - destroyed an entire British brigade, overrun by thousands of armed Afghan tribesmen, some of whom the official enquiry into the disaster would later describe as "Talibs". The Brits had been trying to secure Helmand province. Sound familiar?.......

History, it seems, haunts all our adventures in the Middle East. Who would have believed that after the British reached Baghdad in a 1917 invasion, they would face an insurgency which, in speed and ruthlessness, was an almost exact predecessor to the rebellion which the British and Americans would confront from 2003? Lloyd George, then Prime Minister, stood up in the House of Commons to insist that the British occupation force had to stay in Iraq. Otherwise, he warned, the country would be plunged into civil war. Sound familiar?.......

So now the British are to reinforce Afghanistan yet again. Flying by Chinook to Kandahar will not take as long as General Roberts's 20 days. British soldiers are unlikely even to enter Kandahar's central square. But if they do, they might care to look at the few ancient cannon on the main roundabout: all that is left of General Roberts's artillery."

By Tony Sayegh

The “peace process” will be “back on track” after a “jump start” by the international “quartet” and the Arab “quartet,” soon. The search for an “acceptable” Palestinian partner goes on, as the criteria of acceptability, left to the goodwill of Olmert, are refined further and further. The latest semi-acceptable partner, the man with the flexibility of a rubber band, Abu Mazen, has declared that he accepts those criteria a priori. “It does not matter,” he said, “I accept any conditions Israel demands. I just like to meet Olmert and his gracious wife in their home in Jerusalem. The last time we met we had a wonderful time and a great meal; and boy that Olmert is a great kisser.”

However making peace, like making love, requires careful preparations. The partners must be in the right mood. The setting has to be just right. A certain amount of foreplay is a necessity for really successful peace-making. You have to know your partner well and that takes time. In the case of Israel and the Palestinians this courtship has been going on for only 14 years, and this is not enough.

As a measure of goodwill, all the neighbors and other world leaders are keen on consummating this relationship. They have great hopes for such a union and its off springs. As caring and nosy relatives do in similar situations, each is offering advice on what to do in the lead up to the big night. We see frantic consultations and hear all kinds of whispers from all those concerned neighbors and relatives from across the oceans. But patience is called for. This has to be done right. The whole neighborhood has to welcome this peace making and its results. So, here is the schedule of all the planned consultations:

Abbas meets Abdullah of Jordan. Abbas meets Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. Abbas meets Mubarak. Abbas meets Asad. Abbas meets the rulers of Kuwait and the UAE (the fourth in the quartet). Abbas meets Rice. Abbas meets Blair. Abbas meets Solana. Abbas meets Merkel. Abbas meets Chirac. Abbas meets Putin. Abbas meets Haniyeh. Abbas meets Mish’al. Abbas meets Olmert,

Abdullah (the little one) meets Mubarak. Abdullah meets the other Abdullah. Abdullah meet Abbas. Abdullah meets Blair. Abdullah meets Rice. Abdullah meets Olmert. Abdullah meets Solana.

Mish’al meets Abdullah (the big one). Mish’al meets Mubarak. Mish’al meets Putin. Mish’al meets Ahmedinejad. Mish’al meets Haniyeh.

Anyway, you get the idea. In the meantime, the Palestinians have to remain patient and to tighten their belts a notch or two; these things take time. This peace making has been going on for only 14 years, and may take at least that much longer to consummate a good relationship. Meanwhile, Olmert will be busy building tens of thousands of homes in the West Bank waiting for that blessed day and the off springs of peace.