Heads in the Sand
May 23rd, 2009 § 1 Comment
‘The so-called Sunni Awakening, in which American forces formed tactical alliances with local sheikhs, has been credited with dampening the insurgency in much of Iraq’, writes David Rose. ‘But new evidence suggests that the Sunnis were offering the same deal as early as 2004—one that was eagerly embraced by commanders on the ground, but rejected out of hand at the highest levels of the Bush administration.’
It is worth noting here that Rose, who had played a key role in selling the Iraq war with some of the most credulous reporting (including one piece which purported to confirm the Iraq-al-Qaida link), has since tried to redeem himself with some exceptional journalism. This new story will not come as a surprise to those who have been keeping an eye on neoconservative strategies. Anyone who has read David Wurmser’s follow up to the “A Clean Break” document, “Coping with Crumbling States”, knows that any institution that bridged the sectarian divide, such as the old Iraqi Army, was an obstacle to their plans. They disbanded it so that they can reconstitute it along sectarian lines, which is consistent with the plan to reduce the region to feuding ethnic and sectarian tribes.
Also see this interview with Rose on the story below, and the torture case of Binyam Mohamed and the “007″ agent whose exposes British claims of ignorance about torture as lies.
The history books will record that the so-called Sunni Awakening—when many of Iraq’s Sunni tribes, in return for money and other considerations, began cutting deals with American forces and turned away from their nationalist insurgency—got under way in late 2006. The Sunni tribes, concentrated in Anbar province, had long been the backbone of the insurgency. In the Iraq of Saddam Hussein, Sunni Arabs had exercised a domination far out of proportion to their numbers (some 20 percent of the population), and after the American-led invasion, suddenly excluded from power and influence, they exacted a bloody revenge. After the Awakening, the Sunnis helped obliterate al-Qaeda’s networks in most of Sunni Iraq, a development that many believe did more to dampen the violence than the subsequent “surge” in American troop numbers. Having reached a peak in 2006 and early 2007, the casualty rates for combatants and civilians quickly plummeted.
« Read the rest of this entry »
Blair’s Million Dollar Israeli Peace Prize
May 23rd, 2009 § 5 Comments
Former British Prime Minister and Mideast mediator Tony Blair, right, Israel's President Shimon Peres, center, and Dan David, attend the $1 million Dan David Prizes in Tel Aviv, Israel, Sunday, May 17, 2009.
Last Sunday Tony Blair was presented with a cheque for $1 million, the Dan David prize, at a ceremony at Tel Aviv university. The prize was awarded for his “foresight”, “exceptional intelligence” and “steadfast determination” to end conflicts. It gets better as the BBC report explains his entry to the competition hails him as “one of the most outstanding statesmen of our era” praising his “morally courageous leadership” over Kosovo.
Iraq is conspicuous by its absence, after all it was the beginning of a Neoconservative Likudnik plan to reshape the Middle East in Israel’s interest, killing around 1.5 million Iraqis in an illegal war of aggression. For this act alone, Blair should be recognised as a warmonger ineligable for any kind of peace prize, however, in Israel, the more Arabs you kill, the greater a statesman peacemaker you’re considered. This is the immorality they are celebrating and they only respect Blair’s support in “ending” conflicts through the defeat and total destruction of Israel’s adversaries, such as Iraq.
Words that start with L are confusing
May 23rd, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Libya in 1986 or Lebanon in 2006? (Photo by Amelia Opalinska.)
According to Lebanon-based researcher Franklin Lamb, the opening words of US Vice President Joe Biden’s visit to Beirut yesterday consisted of: “I am happy to be in Libya… I mean Lebanon… this morning!” The confusion was not reported by other media outlets but is nonetheless plausible based on the fact that both nations contain a city called Tripoli.
Lebanon-Libya mix-ups are by no means a novel occurrence. One such mix-up occurred in 2006 among a group of British tourists on the Turkish Mediterranean coast, where the information that I had just been traveling in Lebanon was met with the indignant rejoinder: “But they bombed our plane!” Following a frantic scan of mental archives, I finally determined that the plane in question was Pan Am flight 103, and that Lockerbie also started with L. Iran, however, did not—nor did the USS Vincennes, which had shot down an Iranian airliner with 290 civilians on board shortly before the Lockerbie bombing.
How Long Does It Take?
May 23rd, 2009 § 1 Comment
Yes he can
In his elegantly caustic manner, Alexander Cockburn looks at Barack Obama’s growing affinity for the murderous methods of his predecessors.
Incidentally Cockburn has been criticized by Michael Parenti for his credulity in accepting the official narrative on the JFK assassination. Also, while its true that US support for the Afghan factions started before the Soviet invasion, it was rather meagre enough to be insignificant. The spike only came after Reagan had been in office for a year.
How long does it take a mild-mannered, antiwar, black professor of constitutional law, trained as a community organizer on the South Side of Chicago, to become an enthusiastic sponsor of targeted assassinations, “decapitation” strategies and remote-control bombing of mud houses the far end of the globe?
There’s nothing surprising here. As far back as President Woodrow Wilson in the early twentieth century, American liberalism has been swift to flex imperial muscle, to whistle up the Marines. High explosive has always been in the hormone shot. « Read the rest of this entry »
Palestinian rights deserve Anglican action
May 23rd, 2009 § 3 Comments
Archbishop of Canterbury Dr. Rowan Williams
Ben White writes that “a obsession with even-handedness is stopping Anglicans taking a firm stand on Israel’s disregard for Palestinian rights.”
However I’d argue that the obsession with even-handedness is not a cause but an effect — an effect of paranoia induced by the Israel lobby, strongly represented in the Anglican community by Anglican Friends of Israel.
This group spread the fear that criticising Israel will damage relations with the Jewish community, even if this were so, should it stop the church’s quest for justice? They also use ‘anti-Semitism’ (or Judeophobia) and therefore the Holocaust, to create an atmosphere of intimidation saying Anglican peace activists are “singling out” Israel (thus implying there is no good reason to criticise Israel and the reason must be anti-Jewish racism). No individual or organisation wants to be threatened with anti-Semitism and have themselves compared to some of the worst criminals in history.
It’s sad that these tired old tricks are still accepted and work as a distraction from the real issues of colonialism, occupation, international law, basic morality and justice.
At the 14th Anglican Consultative Council (ACC) meeting, held in Jamaica earlier this month, a resolution on the Middle East was passed, criticising the Israeli occupation. An original version of the resolution was originally submitted by the Anglican Peace and Justice Network (APJN), but as the language was felt by some to be too “strong”, a new resolution was put forward and adopted. « Read the rest of this entry »
Support for Israel Feeds Terrorism
May 22nd, 2009 § 1 Comment
A flag that unites the world...when its on fire.
Here’s Ray McGovern giving credit where it’s due — Cheney has spoken his first true words. Bear in mind that Israel’s fifth column in the United States has long argued that Israel is a ’strategic asset’ because of the service it provides in the war against terrorism. But as John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have noted, the United States has a terrorist problem mainly because of its support for Israel.
If we hear in the coming days that former Vice President Dick Cheney has fired one of his speechwriters — or perhaps grounded Lynne or Liz — it will be clear why.
Oozing out of the sleazy speech he gave Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute was an inadvertent truth regarding the Israeli albatross hanging around the neck of U.S. policy in the Middle East.
I watched the speech, but had missed the gaffe until I went carefully through the written text before a radio interview Thursday evening. It amounts to a major faux pas, though I’ll give you odds that the usual-suspect pundits of the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) will not touch it, because it raises troubling questions about the close U.S. relationship with Israel.
Biden Does Beirut
May 22nd, 2009 § 1 Comment
From friend of PULSE and correspondent in Beirut, Franklin Lamb.
Heeeeeerrrre’s Joe!
It appears that the Biden visit is part of a US bid to supervise the electoral campaign of a Lebanese party, which feels threatened politically, in light of the expected outcome of the legislative vote. We call on all Lebanese, regardless of their political views, to rise up against such meddling that represents a flagrant violation of Lebanese sovereignty. Biden’s visit is part of U.S. efforts to impose its views on the government that will be set up after the elections. They are tracing red lines for the future government but we will rise up to this.
– Hezbollah MP Hassan Fadlallah, Friday morning 22 May 2009 as Joe Biden arrived in Beirut.Let U.S. Vice President Joe Biden hear what Lebanon needs and not listen only to what the U.S. wants
– Hezbollah deputy Secretary-General Sheikh Naim Qassem in a message to President Michel Suleiman (22 May 2009)
How not to win votes for the ‘US team’
U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Beirut with Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman aboard a U.S. military helicopter at 11:50 am this morning. At 12:14 pm Biden arrived at Baabda Palace and went straight to meet President Michel Suleiman ignoring media questions. Biden was greeted at Beirut’s airport by Hezbollah supporter Fawsi Salloukh, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister and one of the key back channels for US-Hezbollah communications. Biden’s Salloukh meeting is likely the extent of any dialogue between Biden and Hezbollah this trip. Biden’s first words, shouted to some journalists outside the Baabda Presidential Palace were, “I am happy to be in Libya…I mean Lebanon…this morning!”
If Biden was having a good morning, many Beirutis were not. Many woke up furious as they learned they will be on “lockdown” from 11 am to 6:30 pm for Vice President Joe Biden’s quick visit. It will be the 14th visit by a US official over the past six months to assure the people of Lebanon that the US will not interfere in the June 7 elections. In fact, US interference has now reached a near fever pitch just sixteen days before the voting.
Shoot the Messenger!
May 22nd, 2009 § Leave a Comment
‘US Colonel Advocates US ‘Military Attacks’ on ‘Partisan Media’ in Essay for Neocon, Pro-Israel Group JINSA’, reports our friend Jeremy Scahill, one of the most courageous and uncompromising journalists out there:
“The point of all this is simple: Win,” writes Col. Ralph Peters. “In warfare, nothing else matters. If you cannot win clean, win dirty. But win.”
In the era of embedded media, independent journalists have become the eyes and ears of the world. Without those un-embedded journalists willing to risk their lives to place themselves on the other side of the barrel of the tank or the gun or under the airstrikes, history would be written almost entirely from the vantage point of powerful militaries, or—at the very least—it would be told from the perspective of the troops doing the shooting, rather than the civilians who always pay the highest price.
In the case of the Iraq invasion and occupation, the journalists who have placed themselves in danger most often are local Iraqi journalists. Some 116 Iraqi journalists and media workers have been killed in the line of duty since March 2003. In all, 189 journalists have been killed in Iraq. At least 16 of these journalists were killed by the US military, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. The network that has most often found itself under US attack is Al Jazeera. As I wrote a few years ago in The Nation:
The United States bombed its offices in Afghanistan in 2001, shelled the Basra hotel where Al Jazeera journalists were the only guests in April 2003, killed Iraq correspondent Tareq Ayoub a few days later in Baghdad and imprisoned several Al Jazeera reporters (including at Guantánamo), some of whom say they were tortured. In addition to the military attacks, the US-backed Iraqi government banned the network from reporting in Iraq.
How I Got Gassed in the West Bank
May 22nd, 2009 § Leave a Comment
‘While Barack Obama met with Benjamin Netanyahu, Max Blumenthal was dodging tear-gas canisters in the West Bank, where a two-state solution seems very, very far away,’ Max Blumenthal reports from the Occupied Palestine (watch videos here).
Fadi Arouri / Reuters
When Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Barack Obama at the White House on Monday, he warned the president that time was running out to stop a nuclear Iran. By impressing upon Obama the immediacy of the threat from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Netanyahu hoped to avoid committing to the two-state solution he and his right-wing governing partners have so far openly and forcefully opposed. While Netanyahu attempts to recalibrate the discussion toward Iran, his government continues a vast expansion of the occupation of the West Bank, creating “facts on the ground” to fulfill the vision of a Greater Israel.
The recognition by the U.S. and the West of a viable Palestinian state in partnership with Israel has never seemed more like a pipe dream. After spending a week on the West Bank, I observed that settlement of the West Bank is being consolidated and expanded. Armed resistance by Palestinian groups lies dormant, while those Palestinians who employ nonviolent means to resist the Israeli government’s plan to divide and annex their land are being met with draconian and sometimes lethal force.
Explosive remnants in Colombia: In the jungle with el Gordo
May 21st, 2009 § Leave a Comment
Former location of temporary cocaine processing lab in Putumayo, Colombia. (Photo by Amelia Opalinska.)
Last month, my friend Amelia and I spent a week on a farm in the southern Colombian department of Putumayo, where our primary objective was to locate a cocaine processing laboratory in the jungle. The farm was inhabited by a family of economic migrants from a neighboring province tasked with looking after a herd of cows on behalf of the farm’s proprietor, who elected to reside in less oppressive temperatures when not serving jail time on narcotrafficking charges.
For the first several days of our stay, Amelia and I concentrated our efforts on slumping across the family’s outdoor patio table and interrogating them while they made cheese as to whether cocaine processing labs were air conditioned. As for the coordinates of the nearest lab, the answer was consistently a wave of the hand and an “está retirado”—“it’s far away,” which was incidentally the answer to most of our other questions, as well, such as how to get to the supermarket or to Bogotá.
Amelia and I persisted with our interrogations, figuring that the wave of the hand in regards to the processing labs was merely a bluffing technique acquired after decades of civil war, and that “están retirados” was probably a common response by farmers to visiting guerrilla or paramilitary delegations in search of their opponents. We eventually won over our first informant when the family’s 20 year old son—referred to as “el Gordo”—collapsed under questioning and offered to take us to a lab he had stumbled upon the other day.
