This is a summary of why there are so many recent spy accusations are floating around. Personally I doubt Sec. Gates is in the Middle East to co-ordinate a future attack on Iran.(See 1 below.)
Caroline Glick explains why Britain is the weakest link and why Britain has cost Bush a great deal of leverage. She also goes into some detail about why Britishers must be confused now that they have been humiliated by Iran, saw their pro-Palestinian reporter nabbed and possibly killed all the while their own hatred of Israel grows. What goes around comes around and now the Brits are beginning to find their love affair with Arabs is not paying off as they would have expected. (See 2 below.)
Jonathin Tobin goes after two Pennsylvania politicians for lending their support to CAIR whose policies are deemed anti-democratic and adverse to our national interests (See 3 below.).
A retired pathologist calls attention to the fact that the Iraq War is part of a bigger issue which we apparently still do not fathom. (See 4 below.)
Dick
1)Espionage Galore under a Middle East Nuclear Cloud
It sounded like a contest.
On Tuesday, April 17, the Shin Bet intelligence service reported Iranian intelligence had intensified its efforts to recruit Israelis as spies, targeting former Iranians applying for visas to visit their families. One young man had been snared and paid “expenses” for enlisting a friend in security and collecting information. The Shin Bet detained him on landing home, before he did any harm.
Two hours later, in Cairo, a nuclear engineer Mohammed Gaber, was accused by Prosecutor-General Abdul-Maquid Mahmoud of spying on Egypt’s nuclear program on behalf of the Mossad, which was said to have paid him $17,000. An Irishman and Japanese were sought in connection with the affair. Israel dismissed the charge as another of Cairo’s unfounded spy myths, whose dissemination was not conducive to good relations.
Neither case is isolated. Two days earlier, the Israeli-Arab parliamentarian Azmi Beshara admitted from a safe distance to the Qatar-based al Jazeera TV channel that he was under suspicion of spying for Hizballah during its war with Israel and would not be returning home any time soon.
Add on the US defense secretary Robert Gates’ visits to Jordan, Israel and Egypt this week reportedly to coordinate and oversee preparations connected to a potential military operation against Iran and, in the view of intelligence sources, these espionage rumbles denote a far greater upheaval boiling up below ground.
Most can be traced one way or another to the mysterious disappearance of the Iranian general Ali Reza Asgari from Istanbul in February. Tehran’s job description of the missing general – a former deputy defense minister, who also worked with the Lebanese Hizballah in the 1980 - is correct as far as it goes. But the failure to bring it up to date is an attempt to obfuscate the fact that, at the time of his disappearance, he headed Iran’s Middle East spy networks.
The cases disclosed Tuesday may be just the tip of the iceberg, with more spy dramas on the way. But even at this early stage of a potential intelligence earthquake, certain conclusions are indicated.
Firstly, Israeli will soon have no choice but to declare Iran an enemy state and ban Israeli travel to the Islamic Republic for the first time in the 28 years since Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution. Surprisingly, Israelis are still legally permitted to visit Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s Iran.
The Shin Bet did not need to publicize Iran’s intense hunt for Israeli spies in order to stop those visits; there are other ways. The espionage case would not have been brought out in the open without the knowledge of the relevant ministers – certainly not a graphic account of how the Iranian consulate in Istanbul, whence Gen. Asgari vanished, doubles as the distribution center for visas to Iran and a recruiting center for spies. Israelis applying for visas are obliged to deposit their Israeli passports there and issued with travel documents which gain them entry to Tehran. This process is drawn out to enable Iranian intelligence agents to make their first pitch to the targeted Israeli. It is followed up after he enters Iran.
The Shin Bet’s sudden outburst of transparency indicates that the scene is being set for a major diplomatic, military or intelligence step in the summer. This time, the Israeli government will not repeat at least one of the mistakes committed in July 2006, when it refused to declare that Israel was at war and the Hizballah an enemy, even after its forces crossed in to northern Israel, kidnapped two soldiers and let loose with a Katyusha barrage.
Israel is now putting the horse before the cart and declaring Iran an enemy country before the event.
It is therefore vital to deter Israeli nationals from visiting Iran in advance of potential Middle East hostilities. If Iran is involved, even through its allies or the Hizballah, Israelis in the Islamic Republic would be in danger of being taken captive or hostage.
Israel’s latest posture and precautions are likely to have the dual effect of raising Middle East tensions and placing Iran’s ancient Jewish community, reduced now to 25,000, in jeopardy. “Israeli spy rings” may soon be “uncovered” by Iranian security agents.
Second, the Middle East has embarked on a nuclear arms race. It is no secret that at last month’s Arab summit in Riyadh, the Saudi ruler strongly urged his fellows to unite their national nuclear programs under a single roof. Though played down, this was the summit’s most important decision – not the so-called Saudi peace plan, although it made the most waves. It was a step intended to produce an Arab nuclear option versus the Iranian weapons program.
Every aspect of the unified Arab nuclear program is therefore extraordinarily sensitive and hemmed in with exceptional security measures. Each has become a prime intelligence target - and not only for Israel. Hence the song and dance the Egyptian prosecutor general made Tuesday of an alleged Israeli spy network said to operate out of Hong Kong, with an Irish and a Japanese agent charged with planting Israeli espionage software in Egyptian nuclear program’s computers, together with an Egyptian engineer. Egyptian intelligence was making sure to warn off any Egyptian tempted to work for Israeli intelligence, just as the Shin Bet was cautioning Israelis to beware of falling into Iranian intelligence traps.
The events of a single day brought Iran and its nuclear threat into sharp relief as the most pressing issues for Israel. Relations with the Palestinians and Syria, on which so many words are poured day by day, pale in comparison.
2) Caroline Glick: Britain - the weakest link
The British people could be forgiven if they feel bewildered by the poor
treatment they have been receiving at the hands of the Muslims of late.
Iran places Britain in the category of Satan, along with the US and Israel,
and eagerly kidnapped its servicemen and humiliated Her Majesty's Admiralty
and Government. But for all of Iran's anti-British rantings, the fact of the
matter is that Britain is the mullahs' most effective defender.
By working with France and Germany to fecklessly negotiate with the
ayatollahs regarding their nuclear weapons program, the British were more
responsible than anyone for giving the mullahs three years to work freely on
developing their nuclear weapons. If the French and Germans had engaged Iran
without the British at their side, the Bush administration would have
condemned the talks for the stalling tactic they were and set out to shape a
coherent, effective policy to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear bombs.
When, last summer, it became impossible to ignore the fact that the
Europeans' jaw-jaw had failed, it was once again Britain who curbed
Washington by convincing President George W. Bush to empower the UN Security
Council to deal with Iran's nuclear program. Without Britain pressing the UN
route, it is difficult to imagine Bush agreeing to subordinate US national
security to a body more or less dedicated to demonizing, isolating and
eviscerating America.
THE IGNOMINY Britain suffered at the hands of Iran occurred a week after BBC
Gaza reporter Alan Johnston was abducted by Palestinian terrorists. After a
month of silence, Sunday his kidnappers announced that they had executed
Johnston.
Monday morning, the kidnapers had yet to produce their promised execution
film, and so Johnston's status was still unknown. But with or without a body
bag, the British could be excused for feeling even more confused by their
reporter's plight than by their servicemen's kidnapping in Iraqi coastal
waters.
After all, since the 1920s, the Palestinian Arabs have had no friend more
stalwart than the British. Until Israel declared independence 59 years ago
the British did everything possible to prevent the establishment of the
Jewish state. They even enabled the Holocaust by blocking the doomed Jews of
Europe from escaping to the Land of Israel.
Since Israel declared independence, the British have been unrelenting
detractors of the Jewish state and champions of the Arabs. In recent years,
British support for the Palestinians against Israel has been one of the
rallying cries not only of the Foreign Office but of British society as a
whole.
In a sharp departure from both British and EU official policy, Britain's
consul-general in Jerusalem Richard Makepeace held open talks with Hamas
terror commander and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh on
April 5 in a bid to secure Johnston's release.
Last week, after declaring a "day of action" on Johnston's behalf, BBC
Chairman Mark Thompson went to Ramallah, where he met with Fatah terror
chief and PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. After the meeting Thompson praised
Abbas and announced that Abbas claimed to have "credible evidence that
Johnston was safe and well."
POOR JOHNSTON was so biased in favor of the Palestinians that he could have
been forgiven for believing he would be safe from Palestinian terror. As the
BBC's Middle East Bureau chief Simon Wilson put it, Johnston "is regarded as
a Gaza journalist foremost and a foreign journalist second." The Palestinian
Journalists Syndicate said that Johnston is "famous for his opinions which
are supportive of the Palestinians."
Of course, there is nothing extraordinary about Johnston's anti-Israel
positions. The day before his execution was announced his colleagues in
Britain went out of their way to prove their anti-Israel animus. By a vote
of 66-55, Friday the British National Union of Journalists voted to boycott
Israeli goods.
It will be interesting to see how they manage to implement their boycott and
work as reporters at the same time. Since Israeli engineers developed their
cell phones, their Pentium chip computers, their voicemail and their instant
messenger software, boycotting Israel will involve giving up their ability
to quickly amass their anti-Israel propaganda, vomit it out on their
computers and send it off to their Israel-bashing editors.
But then, even if they figure out a way to work without technology, one can
still only wonder at their decision. After all, their Palestinian colleagues
don't seem too concerned with Israel these days. They have real tyrants to
contend with.
In response to Johnston's disappearance and in protest against the utter
lack of press freedom in the Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian
Journalists Syndicate called a boycott not of Israel, but of the PA.
THE SAD truth is that British journalists are far from the worst
Israel-bashers in Britain. Anti-Semitism has increasingly become the
defining characteristic of British society.
First there are the non-governmental organizations. Last week, Oxfam, one of
Britain's largest charities, chastised Blair, claiming that both his
decision to participate in the US-led campaign in Iraq and his refusal to
side with Hizbullah against Israel in last summer's war have damaged
Britain's international clout. Oxfam is calling for the UK and the EU to
resume their transfer payments to the Hamas-controlled PA.
Yet Oxfam, which claims to "support Israel's right to exist alongside a
viable and independent Palestinian state," could be mistaken as an Israel
advocacy group compared to those tasked with educating British students.
Last year, the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher
Education (NATFHE), the largest university and college trade union in the
UK, and the Association of University Teachers (AUT), agreed to institute a
"silent boycott" of Israeli universities, students and professors.
NATFHE urged its members to consider "the appropriateness of a boycott of
those [Israelis] that do not publicly dissociate themselves [from Israel]."
The organization also castigated the British media and government for their
response to Hamas's victory in the January 2006 Palestinian elections.
NATFHE decried the "hysterical reporting of the [election] result by most of
the British news media and the outrageous bias shown by UK government
statements against the outcome of a democratic process."
BRITAIN TODAY is in the throes of a noxious blend of virulent anti-Semitism
and indifference. An example is the willingness of school teachers to
abandon their professional duties in a bid to appease their Muslim students.
Rather than confront the Muslims' rabid anti-Semitism and Holocaust denial,
their teachers have opted to stop teaching about the genocide of European
Jews.
According to a study just released by Tel Aviv University's Stephen Roth
Institute for the Study of Contemporary Anti-Semitism and Racism, another
product of this mix has been a steep rise in anti-Jewish violence in
Britain.
In one of the 136 "major violent attacks" against Jews last year in Britain,
last August, while riding a London bus, Jasmine
Kranat was brutally beaten by a gang of Muslims. The attackers refused to
believe her when she denied being Jewish. They beat her unconscious, then
continued to stomp on her chest and head, breaking the orbital bone in her
eye.
Not one of the bus passengers or the bus driver came to her defense.
It is true that the Blair government is criticized by the British people for
not following them in labeling Israel the greatest threat to global
security, and the US as the second-greatest threat to global security. But
the fact is that the Blair government has been responsible for turning the
Bush administration into a loud proponent of Palestinian statehood. And it
was Blair who brought the White House on board with both the so-called road
map peace plan and the Saudi peace plan. Were either of the plans to be
implemented, Israel would lose its ability to defend itself or to survive as
a sovereign Jewish state.
YES, IT is more than understandable for the British to wonder why they are
being targeted by the likes of the Iranians and Palestinians, whose
interests they have done so much to advance.
But to answer the question they need to look in the mirror. In their
relentless campaign to advance the interests of the Palestinians and
Iranians who daily call for their destruction, the British have made
themselves the most attractive targets for attack.
They are the weakest link in the alliance of so-called Satans. And as
members of the alliance, the British are in the best position to pressure
the US and Israel. Iran, the Palestinians and their allies understand and
exploit this fact.
The British will continue to be targeted for as long as they champion the
cause of their enemies and then react to attacks against them by redoubling
their pressure on the US and Israel to join them in appeasing those sworn to
our collective destruction.
If it wished, the Bush administration could try using the bully pulpit to at
least stem Britain's societal dementia. For its part, aside from warning
British Jewry to leave before it is too late, the Jewish state can do
nothing to influence England.
THE MOST urgent change that must be made in Israel's policy toward Britain
is to cease viewing it as an ally. As with France, it is possible for Israel
to cooperate with Britain on certain levels, but impossible to trust British
support on any level.
Although they share the same enemies and interests as Israel, the British,
blinded by their bigotry, are incapable of understanding this basic reality.
Until they do, Israel must keep its distance and watch its back when the
British come a-calling.
3) Two Fail Leadership Test on Terrorism
By Jonathan Tobin
Among the most important things public servants can do is to conduct themselves in such a way as to inspire public confidence in their ability to tell the difference between right and wrong. Unfortunately, the grades for this all-too-basic test of behavior for two leading political figures result in a resounding "F."
The men in question are Rep. Joe Sestak, the freshman member of the U.S. House of Representatives from the Philadelphia suburbs, and Ed Rendell, the governor of Pennsylvania. By appearing at a fundraising dinner for the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations this past weekend, the two have allowed their personal prestige to be used to bolster a group whose conduct and goals remain anathema to democracy and the defense of the United States and Israel.
Though CAIR presents itself as a group whose purpose is to advocate for embattled American Muslims, it was founded a decade ago as the public-relations arm of American supporters of Hamas, a terrorist group declared as such by the U.S. government. It raised money for Hamas- front group, the Holy Land Foundation, which has since been deemed illegal by the federal government. Its members and leaders have been known to advocate for terrorist acts against Israel and the United States.
CAIR has declared its opposition to such things, yet it has remained a loyal supporter and apologist for Hamas and Hezbollah. A campaign on its behalf (funded largely by sources in the Arab world, whose antipathy to America and Israel are well-known), has sought to whitewash it. But there is no evading the fact that CAIR is a hate group, as well as a vicious opponent of both Israel and America's war on Islamist terror.
You would think that such a record would render the group's events off-limits to national leaders.
However, Sestak, whose planned speech was a source of controversy for weeks, and Rendell, who made an unscheduled appearance at the same event, defend their behavior as simply a matter of meeting with constituents. In particular, Sestak has claimed that it was his obligation to speak to CAIR, even if he disagreed with it.
To his credit, in his speech the congressman did chide CAIR for refusing to condemn Hamas and Hezbollah. He rightly said that to do so was akin to those who "did not speak out against the perpetrators of Jim Crow laws." But by his presence there, Sestak has lent credibility to CAIR's laughable pretense that it is a "civil-rights group."
The truth is that CAIR has more in common with segregationists and other hate groups than it does with the NAACP. Would he — or Rendell, for that matter — show up at a Ku Klux Klan fundraiser and say it was just a matter of talking to voters?
Their appearance has also unfortunately helped bolster the false argument that the only opponents of CAIR are anti-Muslim extremists. Opposition to the group runs across the board among national Jewish organizations and anti-terror experts. Sadly, Sestak and Rendell's misjudgment also helps stifle the efforts of genuinely moderate American Muslims and Arabs who have been crowded out of the public square by extremists.
It must be clearly stated that although both these men are Democrats, this is not a partisan issue. Leading national Democrats like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and others have stated on the record that they want nothing to do with CAIR. Like most Democrats, Sestak has an established record of support for Israel, as does Rendell, the longtime mayor of Philadelphia. But by helping to sanitize CAIR's image and to boost its already bulging purse, they have materially damaged the fight against terrorism and the efforts to defend the Jewish state.
4) Iraq: Part of a larger conflict
By SABA E. DEMIAN
Except for a handful of informed individuals in the administration and the media, almost all the Western world does not recognize the obvious fact that the events following 9/11 over the past four years, including the coalition’s part in toppling Saddam Hussein and the inevitable consequence of the resumption of the vicious feud between the Shiites and the Sunnis, is only a skirmish within a much more important conflict for the whole world.
The vicious war is the global activities of the Muslim fundamentalists or Islamists, extremists who resort to terrorism to achieve their nefarious goals. The agenda for these goals has been set decades ago, and they bided their time until a propitious moment to resume their activities at a much larger scale that trivializes the 9/11 catastrophe.
The Al-Qaida organization, chased from Afghanistan, found havens in multiple other areas of the world sympathetic to its beliefs and methods, at times despite the authority of the governments of the countries they are harbored in. Unfortunately, the so-called coalition for the Iraqi campaign is indeed composed of a piteous force of the United States, the United Kingdom and symbolic numbers of other militarily minor nations — with the distinct absence of France, Germany and Russia, who will rue the day they stood back and watched us hoist the banner almost single-handedly.
It is absolutely inadvisable to predict the end of a war in the middle of the fight. Not only is it frequently wrong but, more importantly, it can be demoralizing for both our fighting forces and the populace at home, who unfortunately are mostly uninformed about world affairs. On the other hand, it is very important to examine strategies and modify both military and political maneuvers to maximize the chances of victory, but having set the goal at the outset one must continue undaunted to the end to achieve it. Capitulating, retreating or disengaging militarily are not viable options.
A political solution in this morass called Iraq is wishful thinking. There is no alternative to our victory.
Our leaders erred in more ways than one in the recent campaign in Iraq. First, the stated goal for entering the foray was narrow and not well-stated or explained to the people. We cannot excuse the administration for its obvious failings in this regard, whether the sins were that of omission or commission.
I cannot imagine that the administration was unaware of the existence or nature of our real enemy, the terrorist extremists. Furthermore, the failure to recognize the global nature of the ongoing conflict or the vicious goal of our enemies is a more egregious dereliction of duty.
How is it possible to misread what Iran is and what its goals are? What are we waiting for, for Iran to reshape the geography of the Middle East and beyond? Or are we going to, in final desperation, nuke them when we already know that everything short of that will not work?
To commit the same error the Europeans committed, of ignoring the obvious inhumanity of fascist regimes and monsters like Hitler, by our refusing to decipher the obvious global goals of Muslim extremists is nothing short of suicide. It took a sole voice, that of Churchill, who was berated as a warmonger, to wake up nations on both sides of the Atlantic in time to resist these evil regimes.
The senselessness and childishness of the dialogue and confrontations between the administration and Congress in this country are a pitiful sight. The loss of precious time, which would be better-spent in learning the truth and magnitude of our enemies, and rallying the reluctant nations around the world, is an unprecedented fragmentation of leadership.
What we are sorely in need of at this sensitive juncture is understanding and nonpartisan cooperation between the administration and executive branches of government to conduct a successful war against a relentless enemy.
Dr. Demian of Columbia is a retired professor of pathology.
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Monday, April 16, 2007
U.S Clout replaced by U.S rout!
More dithering on Olmert's part as Iran flexes its muscle. (See 1 below.)
If Israel rejects the terms of the Saudi Plan, which if embraced would destroy the nation through diplomacy, the Syrian Information Minister says Arab nations have a right to attack Israel. I realize these are just mouthed words but they suggest the tenor of the continual threat Israel faces. (See 2 below.)
Excerpt from Janes' about polarizing impact of radical Islamists in Maylasia. (See 3 below.)
Caroline Glick writes about the long effort required to fight terrorism as if we still have the stomach for it. Iran and the Radical Islamists have won the first round and I suspect, until we are attacked again or something akin to that happens, they will continue to press forward. Their sails are unfurled and with the positive support they are receiving from Russia and China, the timidity of Europe and the withdrawal message from the Democrats, Iran and Radical Islamists have every reason to feel emboldened. (See 4 below.)
Lebanon to sue Israel. Maybe the World Bank can pay the Lebanese off. (See 5 below and my comments about Wolfowitz and The World Bank.)
I am no particular fan of Mr. Wolfowitz, President of The World Bank, but if there ever was a situation where the pot called the kettle black his is one. He went along with the directives of the Bank's ethics panel after he recused himself vis a vis any action pertaining to a female friend employed by the Bank before he was made head. They told him he must participate in her compensation plan which he then did. He is now being hung for following their advice. He stupidly made an apology and now is being accused of ethical violations because his lady friend was given certain financial considerations.
Wolfowitz has been trying to reform The Bank and hold them accountable for their lending results. That is deemed sinful by the Bank's bureaucracy because The World Bank has a pitiful record of accomplishments and reeks with cronyism and incompetence. It is now pay back time and the Europeans are jealous of the fact that we contribute the most and generally can veto much of its actions. The Europeans want their selection as President so they can continue dolling out dollars, mostly ours, in The Bank's continued historical and wasteful manner.
One more example of how we are being trashed because of our failures in Iraq and it demonstrates how far we have fallen. U.S. clout has been replaced by U.S. rout! (See 6 below.)
History will eventually record that the Bush Presidency was surrounded by a series of hypocrisies that are mind-boggling to which the administration succumbed because it was incapable of mounting any kind of meaningful response. GW is not only inarticulate but he is brain dead when it comes to knowing how to fight back.
Dick
1)Tehran arms Lebanese Hizballah militia with air defense missile wing as part of war build-up.
Iranian Shahab Sagheb anti-air missile based on Chinese FM-80
April 15, on the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, Hizballah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards commanders staged a grand ceremony at the Imam Ali base in northern Tehran to celebrate the launch of Hizballah’s anti-air missile wing. They cheered the 500 Lebanese graduates of a course in the use of three anti-air missiles supplied by Iran:
The Sayyad 1 (Hunter), the Misagh 1 (Convention [with Allah]) and the Shahab Sagheb (Meteor), which is based on the Chinese Feimeng-80 system.
Military sources report that these new weapons will seriously restrict the Israeli Air Force’s tactical freedom over Lebanon. In the event of hostilities, Israeli warplanes will have to evade a dense array of Hizballah-operated anti-air missiles which will also defend the terrorist group’s surface rocket batteries.
Those sources disclose that the Iranian-Chinese missile has already been smuggled into Lebanon and is in Hizballah’s hands. It is designed to shoot down planes and helicopters flying at ultra-low altitudes under radar screens for surprise assaults on ground targets such as military bases, missile positions and artillery. Ordinary radar and air defense missiles are mostly ineffective against these low-flying tactics. The new missile makes up for this shortcoming.
On March 7, the 500 Hizballah trainees flew out of Damascus airport for Tehran aboard two civilian airliners; on April 16, they returned home – again through the Syrian airport - after training in the Imam Ali base under Iranian experts commanded by Iranian Col. Mohammed Mnafi.
Military circles made wry remarks to the effect that, while Israel’s heads of state and chief of staff solemnly declared: “Never again!” in speeches marking Holocaust Remembrance day, they are seriously short on action for curbing Hizballah-Hamas preparations for their next war on the Jewish state. Surface missiles are routinely smuggled into Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, unopposed. But the arming of Iran’s Lebanese proxy with deadly anti-air missiles poses a new and extraordinarily threat to the Israeli Air Force and, moreover, prevents air attacks on the Hizballah batteries shooting rockets into Israel. Questions are being asked about how Israel’s policy-makers and top brass could have allowed 500 Hizballah trainees to fly out of Damascus airport unhindered and return as air defense specialists, highly trained for shooting missiles at the Israeli Air Force and preventing Israeli warplanes from halting surface rockets should they fly against Israeli civilian locations once more.
2) Syria: Without peace, resistance will liberate Golan Heights
Syrian information minister says Damascus wants peace, but will resort to
violence if Israel rejects peace proposal; 'any nation living under
occupation has the prerogative to resist,' he says.
"If Israel rejects the Arab League peace proposal, resistance will be the
only way to liberate the Golan Heights," warns Syrian Information Minister
Muhsen Bilal, at a press conference in Damascus Monday.
The minister explained that Syria had an interest in renewing talks with
Israel with support from America and Russia. "Syria wants to reach a fair,
comprehensive peace," he added. However, he also stated that "any nation
living under occupation has the prerogative to resist. In Lebanon, Palestine
and Iraq, we must liberate all occupied Arab land."
Bilal blamed Israel for causing instability in the Middle East.
He also referred to Ibrahim Soliman's visit to Israel. Soliman, a
Syrian-American, is recognized as someone who reached an understanding with
former Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Liel regarding peace between
Israel and Syria.
"We have nothing to do with his visit," Bilal made clear. "Nobody elected
Soliman to represent Syria. He does not speak for any Syrian institute. It
is not our approach, to conduct underground negotiations."
Damascus announced Monday that it planned to host an international
conference to discuss "media coverage of the Palestinian problem and Iran's
right to have nuclear technology for peaceful purposes."
Bilal told reporters that the conference would focus on "several studies on
the Arab media coverage - professional ethics versus commitment to national
matters - as well as the concept of resistance in the Arab media."
The conference will take place on April 30; it will be headed by Syrian
President Bashar Assad; and 350 journalists, academics and politicians are
planned to attend.
3) The polarising force of Islam in Malaysia
Malaysia has long been noted for its liberal and tolerant interpretation of Islam and hailed by the West as a model for modern Islamic society. However, a series of controversial incidents involving Islamic hardliners has heightened concerns about the creeping Islamisation of the country's multi-racial and multi-faith society.
The recent case of R Subashini, a Hindu Malaysian woman who lost her appeal to prevent her Muslim-convert husband from going to an Islamic sharia court to dissolve their civil marriage and convert their children to Islam, has sparked a blaze of controversy.
Civil rights groups and the Malaysian Bar Council argue that it is unfair to subject a non-Muslim to the jurisdiction of an Islamic court, as sharia only applies to Muslims. They also question why the civil court, which is ostensibly in place to protect the rights of ordinary citizens, failed to intervene. They say the rulings of the Islamic courts should never surpass the right to religious freedom guaranteed under Article 11 of the constitution.
A similar case in 2006 saw the Hindu wife of a Muslim convert lose the right to have her husband buried according to Hindu tradition. Islamic authorities intervened and ordered a Muslim burial, with the Civil High Court refusing to intervene in what it deemed to be an Islamic issue.
Under Article 11, freedom of religion is guaranteed for Malaysia's multi-ethnic population, of which more than half are Malay Muslims but which also includes Chinese and Indian Malaysians who practise other faiths.
4) The long road to victory
By Caroline B. Glick
The common wisdom in Washington these days is that the Americans will leave Iraq by the end of President George W. Bush's presidency regardless of the situation on the ground. This view is based on the proposition that Iraq is unwinnable. It has had a devastating impact on the administration's confidence that it can handle Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Monday's events brought that impact home starkly. On the one hand, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad came as the US wages a seemingly last-ditch attempt to defeat the insurgency in Iraq. On the other hand, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's performance at the Natanz nuclear installation where he said, "With great pride, I announce as of today our dear country is among the countries of the world that produces nuclear fuel on an industrial scale," indicated that he for one, does not believe he has anything to worry about from America.
"Right-thinking" people these days claim that if the US and Britain hadn't invaded Iraq, everything today would have been perfect. The US would have been loved. The Europeans, Arabs and the UN would be standing on line to support the US in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
As British commentator Simon Jenkins put it in *The Guardian* on Tuesday, "If ever [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair hoped to carry his 'western values agenda' on a white charger to the gates of Tehran, that hope vanished in the mire of Iraq."
Yet this is untrue. The US's difficulties with confronting Iran have little to do with the decision to invade Iraq. Rather, America's feckless diplomacy towards Iran to date is the result of the administration's early misunderstanding of Iraq and of Iranian and Arab interests.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration identified certain basic guiding realities and missed others. First there was the issue of Arab tyranny. As Bush recalled last September, "For decades, American policy sought to achieve peace in the Middle East by pursuing stability at the expense of liberty. The lack of freedom in that region helped create conditions where anger and resentment grew, and radicalism thrived, and terrorists found willing recruits."
Yet recognizing this basic reality did not lead the administration to adopt appropriate policies. Rather than promote liberty, which at its core revolves around a certain foundational understanding of human dignity, the administration promoted elections — fast elections — in Iraq and throughout the region.
In so doing, the administration placed the cart before the horse, with predictable results. The legacy of tyranny is hatred and dependence. And the values of hatred and dependence were those that were expressed at the ballot boxes in Iraq, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority. In all jihadists, often allied with Iran, were empowered while those that were considered moderates modified their positions in opposition to the US.
The Americans pushed for elections in the hopes of finding a silver bullet that would instantly solve the problem of tyranny in the Arab world. But in their rush, the Americans trampled the very liberal democrats they sought to empower.
These forces, who receive no money from Iran and Saudi Arabia to buy votes, and have no private militias to intimidate voters, couldn't compete against the likes of the Dawa party in Iraq, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Fatah and Hamas in the Palestinian Authority.
In Iraq, the one openly liberal party, led by Mithal al Alousi won one seat. In the Palestinian elections, all political parties were either directly or indirectly tied to terrorist organizations. And in Egypt, the supposedly liberal Kifaya party one-upped dictator Hosni Mubarak when it demanded to nullify Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.
By pushing fast elections, the US entrapped itself. It inadvertently empowered its enemies and so was unable to embrace the duly elected governments. In opposing the forces it expended so much energy getting elected, the US was perceived as weak, foolish, and hypocritical.
After September 11, Bush explained that the attacks showed that the friend of your enemy is also your enemy. As he put it last September, "Americamakes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror, and those that harbor and support them, because they're equally guilty of murder."
Yet, Bush failed to note is the converse of that reality: the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. Here the distinction generally relates to Sunnis and Shiites. The administration's failure to grasp that just because Shiites and Sunnis are rivals doesn't mean that they will join forces with the US to fight one another, or won't join forces with one another to fight the US, has caused the Americans no end of difficulty.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration did recognize this truth. In its handling of the Iran-Iraq War, the Reagan administration adopted a policy of dual containment. The Americans helped both sides enough to ensure they could keep fighting, but too little to enable either side to emerge the victor. Rather than believing the fiction that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," the Reagan administration advanced US interests by using their rivalry to weaken both.
Rather than follow its predecessor's example, the Bush administration clung to the delusion that Shiites and Sunnis would ally with the US against one another. This fantasy has confounded the administration in every one of its subsequent initiatives towards Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Palestinians.
In Iraq, for three years the Americans treated al-Sadr, Teheran's man in Baghdad as a potential ally due to the fact that he too is an enemy of al Qaida. The delusion only ended finally when al-Sadr moved to Iran in February ahead of the US surge operation in Baghdad.
The Americans' treatment of al-Sadr is similar to its treatment of his state sponsor. Since the fall of Saddam, the Americans have repeated the mantra that Iran and Syria share America's interest in bringing stability to Iraqbecause the current instability destabilizes them.
While it is true that the chaos in Iraq breeds instability in Syria and Iran, it does not follow that the Iranians and Syrians are interested in ending it.
Since Iran and Syria view the US as their enemy, their ideal scenario is for the US to bleed in Iraq while propping up a weak Shiite government that has no inclination or ability to threaten them. That is, for Iran and Syria, the current situation in Iraq aligns perfectly with their interests, (which explains why they are working so diligently to maintain it.)
As for the Arab world, the administration believes that since the Arabs oppose Iran's quest to become a regional nuclear power, they will help the US both in stabilizing Iraq and in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Here too, the administration confuses common interests with common agendas. The fact that the Arabs share common interests with the US does not make them allies. As a young Saudi imam put it this week to the *Wall Street Journal*, "We are waiting for the time to attack [the US]. Youth feel happy when the Taliban takes a town or when a helicopter comes down, killing Americans in Iraq. It is a very dangerous situation for the US in the whole Muslim world."
The fruits of America's disorientation were revealed in last month's three Saudi summits: the Hamas-Fatah summit, the King Abdullah-Ahmadinejad summit, and the Arab League-Iranian summit.
Since last summer's war between Israel and Hizbullah and more intensively since the publication of the Baker-Hamilton Commission report on Iraq last November, the Bush administration has been advancing a vision of an anti-Iranian Arab coalition which will join forces with America to confront and defeat Teheran.
There has been no rational basis for this view since the Saudis, Egyptians and Jordanians responded last year to Iran's nuclear advances by announcing that they will get their own nukes. But it took last month's diplomatic cavalcade in Saudi Arabia to finally destroy the fantasy.
First there was the Hamas-Fatah summit in Mecca where Abdullah undermined the US by promising to pay Hamas terrorists a billion dollars in exchange for their agreement to let Fatah terrorists be their junior partners in government.
If that wasn't sufficient proof that Abdullah is not a friend, there was his warm and fuzzy love-fest with Ahmadinejad.
Their meeting shocked Israeli, American and British intelligence services who perceived it as the culmination of a progressive Saudi estrangement from the US. It was preceded by a massive expansion of Saudi ties with China and Russia.
Any notion that the US could expect assistance from the Arabs in contending with Iran disintegrated a week later when Abdullah and Mubarak enthusiastically signed onto the Arab League and Iranian statement referring to the US presence in Iraq as an "illegal occupation".
Yet for all their overt anti-Americanism and competition with Iran to see who can destroy Israel first, the Arabs have not become Iran's allies. They do not want Iran to win its war against America. They want to play Iran and the US against one another. That is, the Arabs are implementing the double containment strategy that the US should have adopted towards them.
The fact of the matter is that the Americans are capable of learning from their mistakes. This week, the commander of US forces in Iraq General David Petraeus published a letter to the Iraqi people ahead of the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall. In it, he discussed the anti-American rallies that al-Sadr organized from Iran.
As Petraeus put it, "On this April 9th, some Iraqis reportedly may demonstrate against the coalition force presence in Iraq. That is their right in the new Iraq. It would only be fair, however, to note that they will be able to exercise that right because coalition forces liberated them from a tyrannical, barbaric regime that never would have permitted such freedom of expression."
In the end, the protests were ill attended. Now al-Sadr is now whining that he will pull his support for the government as US forces destroy his militia in Diwaniyah and daily release information about Iranian support for the insurgency.
The success the US is now experiencing in Iraq is the result of a process of identifying and correcting mistakes. If such learning could take place regarding the US's regional strategy, there is every reason to believe that it will contend successfully with Iran and the Arab world. But to correct mistakes it is first necessary to recognize them.
The US is not failing to contend with Iran because it went to war in Iraq. It is failing because it is implementing policies that prefer imaginary silver bullets to real solutions to real problems.
There are no shortcuts in this war. But victory is still waiting at the end of the long and difficult road.
5) Lebanon says to seek war reparations from Israel
Finance Minister Jihad Azour says country preparing to go to international tribunal to seek reparations for damage caused during last summer’s war; ‘Israeli aggression was beyond the purpose,’ he says.
Lebanon is preparing to go to an international tribunal to seek reparations from Israel for damage caused during last year’s month-long war, the country’s finance minister Jihad Azour said on Monday.
Speaking at Johns Hopkins University, Azour declined to say which court or international tribunal Lebanon would petition and added that the case is still being prepared.
Israel invaded southern Lebanon in July after Hizbullah guerrillas captured two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid.
The war killed over 1,100 Lebanese, displaced thousands and destroyed swathes of infrastructure, including roads, bridges and power systems.
Azour said Lebanon’s economy had been set back 10 years by the attack. Over a million cluster bombs had been dropped on his country, killing civilians, he added.
“We were attacked. The (extent of the) Israeli aggression was beyond the purpose. Therefore we want to seek reparation, first of all, for the principle that you cannot kill 1,400 individuals, most of them civilians, displace so many people and destroy the economy without being asked for reparations,” he said.
“We are preparing our case,” he added.
'Financial dimension is secondary'
Asked if Lebanon wanted money from Israel or an apology, he said: “Both. It’s not about money but about principle.”
The minister told Reuters after the speech Lebanon’s Justice Ministry had commissioned international lawyers to prepare the case. He said he was not aware of how much compensation would be sought.
“Lebanon’s objective is above all to set a precedent. The financial dimension is secondary,” he added.
In December, a United Nations human rights inquiry said Israel should be made to pay compensation to Lebanon. It suggested setting up an international compensation program similar to the one that paid out billions of dollars to cover losses due to Iraq’s 1990-91 invasion of Kuwait.
Israel, supported by the United States, has rejected the findings, saying it had acted in self-defense.
6) Iraqi Blowback: Explaining why Paul Wolfowitz is a travesty and Sandy Berger is a snooze.
By Victor Davis Hanson
The resigned Scooter Libby did not leak Valerie Plame’s name, a fact known to a special prosecutor charged with finding out who did and if were a crime. After hours of testimony, he was found self-contradictory under oath (though self-contradictory hardly to the extent of a Joe Wilson who said and wrote things about his yellow-cake inquiries that could not be conceivably true), and now faces a possible prison term.
Ditto the exemption given to the Duke accuser who repeatedly lied in her sworn testimonials, but will apparently not be charged with perjury because her stories are so implausible that officials think she must be unhinged — a new rationale that the perjurer is apparently free from indictment when the concoctions exceed possible belief.
Alberto Gonzalez perhaps (emphasize “perhaps,” as yet we don’t know all the facts) showed a lapse in judgment or at least of political savvy by firing politically appointed federal attorneys, something that was not unusual in past Democratic administrations.
Paul Wolfowitz, who sought to curb corruption that undermines support for World Bank aid to Africa, likewise is facing a lynch mob over perhaps a similar one-time lapse of judgment in regard to compensation of a companion — nothing, however, ranking with the various scandals surrounding Kofi Annan, whose son profited by United Nations exemptions given through his family ties. In today’s moral calculus, presiding over a $50-billion-dollar Oil-for-Food scandal that led to frequent death in Iraq and profit among global elites is a misdemeanor, recommending a pay package for an employee one dates is an unforgivable felony.
One could go on with the furor over the misdirected pellets from Dick Cheney’s shotgun, or the clamor for the Rumsfeld resignation. Yet contrast all this hysteria with the slight whimpers surrounding recent controversies over conflicts of interest or lapses in judgment surrounding Richard Armitage, Harry Reid, or Dianne Feinstein. The destruction of federal documents that might well alter history’s consensus by former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger was a snore for most journalists.
What, then, is the one common tie that explains all these furious efforts of the media and partisans to go after these present and former Bush-administration officials?
Payback for Iraq.
If Israel rejects the terms of the Saudi Plan, which if embraced would destroy the nation through diplomacy, the Syrian Information Minister says Arab nations have a right to attack Israel. I realize these are just mouthed words but they suggest the tenor of the continual threat Israel faces. (See 2 below.)
Excerpt from Janes' about polarizing impact of radical Islamists in Maylasia. (See 3 below.)
Caroline Glick writes about the long effort required to fight terrorism as if we still have the stomach for it. Iran and the Radical Islamists have won the first round and I suspect, until we are attacked again or something akin to that happens, they will continue to press forward. Their sails are unfurled and with the positive support they are receiving from Russia and China, the timidity of Europe and the withdrawal message from the Democrats, Iran and Radical Islamists have every reason to feel emboldened. (See 4 below.)
Lebanon to sue Israel. Maybe the World Bank can pay the Lebanese off. (See 5 below and my comments about Wolfowitz and The World Bank.)
I am no particular fan of Mr. Wolfowitz, President of The World Bank, but if there ever was a situation where the pot called the kettle black his is one. He went along with the directives of the Bank's ethics panel after he recused himself vis a vis any action pertaining to a female friend employed by the Bank before he was made head. They told him he must participate in her compensation plan which he then did. He is now being hung for following their advice. He stupidly made an apology and now is being accused of ethical violations because his lady friend was given certain financial considerations.
Wolfowitz has been trying to reform The Bank and hold them accountable for their lending results. That is deemed sinful by the Bank's bureaucracy because The World Bank has a pitiful record of accomplishments and reeks with cronyism and incompetence. It is now pay back time and the Europeans are jealous of the fact that we contribute the most and generally can veto much of its actions. The Europeans want their selection as President so they can continue dolling out dollars, mostly ours, in The Bank's continued historical and wasteful manner.
One more example of how we are being trashed because of our failures in Iraq and it demonstrates how far we have fallen. U.S. clout has been replaced by U.S. rout! (See 6 below.)
History will eventually record that the Bush Presidency was surrounded by a series of hypocrisies that are mind-boggling to which the administration succumbed because it was incapable of mounting any kind of meaningful response. GW is not only inarticulate but he is brain dead when it comes to knowing how to fight back.
Dick
1)Tehran arms Lebanese Hizballah militia with air defense missile wing as part of war build-up.
Iranian Shahab Sagheb anti-air missile based on Chinese FM-80
April 15, on the eve of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day, Hizballah and Iranian Revolutionary Guards commanders staged a grand ceremony at the Imam Ali base in northern Tehran to celebrate the launch of Hizballah’s anti-air missile wing. They cheered the 500 Lebanese graduates of a course in the use of three anti-air missiles supplied by Iran:
The Sayyad 1 (Hunter), the Misagh 1 (Convention [with Allah]) and the Shahab Sagheb (Meteor), which is based on the Chinese Feimeng-80 system.
Military sources report that these new weapons will seriously restrict the Israeli Air Force’s tactical freedom over Lebanon. In the event of hostilities, Israeli warplanes will have to evade a dense array of Hizballah-operated anti-air missiles which will also defend the terrorist group’s surface rocket batteries.
Those sources disclose that the Iranian-Chinese missile has already been smuggled into Lebanon and is in Hizballah’s hands. It is designed to shoot down planes and helicopters flying at ultra-low altitudes under radar screens for surprise assaults on ground targets such as military bases, missile positions and artillery. Ordinary radar and air defense missiles are mostly ineffective against these low-flying tactics. The new missile makes up for this shortcoming.
On March 7, the 500 Hizballah trainees flew out of Damascus airport for Tehran aboard two civilian airliners; on April 16, they returned home – again through the Syrian airport - after training in the Imam Ali base under Iranian experts commanded by Iranian Col. Mohammed Mnafi.
Military circles made wry remarks to the effect that, while Israel’s heads of state and chief of staff solemnly declared: “Never again!” in speeches marking Holocaust Remembrance day, they are seriously short on action for curbing Hizballah-Hamas preparations for their next war on the Jewish state. Surface missiles are routinely smuggled into Lebanon and the Gaza Strip, unopposed. But the arming of Iran’s Lebanese proxy with deadly anti-air missiles poses a new and extraordinarily threat to the Israeli Air Force and, moreover, prevents air attacks on the Hizballah batteries shooting rockets into Israel. Questions are being asked about how Israel’s policy-makers and top brass could have allowed 500 Hizballah trainees to fly out of Damascus airport unhindered and return as air defense specialists, highly trained for shooting missiles at the Israeli Air Force and preventing Israeli warplanes from halting surface rockets should they fly against Israeli civilian locations once more.
2) Syria: Without peace, resistance will liberate Golan Heights
Syrian information minister says Damascus wants peace, but will resort to
violence if Israel rejects peace proposal; 'any nation living under
occupation has the prerogative to resist,' he says.
"If Israel rejects the Arab League peace proposal, resistance will be the
only way to liberate the Golan Heights," warns Syrian Information Minister
Muhsen Bilal, at a press conference in Damascus Monday.
The minister explained that Syria had an interest in renewing talks with
Israel with support from America and Russia. "Syria wants to reach a fair,
comprehensive peace," he added. However, he also stated that "any nation
living under occupation has the prerogative to resist. In Lebanon, Palestine
and Iraq, we must liberate all occupied Arab land."
Bilal blamed Israel for causing instability in the Middle East.
He also referred to Ibrahim Soliman's visit to Israel. Soliman, a
Syrian-American, is recognized as someone who reached an understanding with
former Foreign Ministry Director-General Alon Liel regarding peace between
Israel and Syria.
"We have nothing to do with his visit," Bilal made clear. "Nobody elected
Soliman to represent Syria. He does not speak for any Syrian institute. It
is not our approach, to conduct underground negotiations."
Damascus announced Monday that it planned to host an international
conference to discuss "media coverage of the Palestinian problem and Iran's
right to have nuclear technology for peaceful purposes."
Bilal told reporters that the conference would focus on "several studies on
the Arab media coverage - professional ethics versus commitment to national
matters - as well as the concept of resistance in the Arab media."
The conference will take place on April 30; it will be headed by Syrian
President Bashar Assad; and 350 journalists, academics and politicians are
planned to attend.
3) The polarising force of Islam in Malaysia
Malaysia has long been noted for its liberal and tolerant interpretation of Islam and hailed by the West as a model for modern Islamic society. However, a series of controversial incidents involving Islamic hardliners has heightened concerns about the creeping Islamisation of the country's multi-racial and multi-faith society.
The recent case of R Subashini, a Hindu Malaysian woman who lost her appeal to prevent her Muslim-convert husband from going to an Islamic sharia court to dissolve their civil marriage and convert their children to Islam, has sparked a blaze of controversy.
Civil rights groups and the Malaysian Bar Council argue that it is unfair to subject a non-Muslim to the jurisdiction of an Islamic court, as sharia only applies to Muslims. They also question why the civil court, which is ostensibly in place to protect the rights of ordinary citizens, failed to intervene. They say the rulings of the Islamic courts should never surpass the right to religious freedom guaranteed under Article 11 of the constitution.
A similar case in 2006 saw the Hindu wife of a Muslim convert lose the right to have her husband buried according to Hindu tradition. Islamic authorities intervened and ordered a Muslim burial, with the Civil High Court refusing to intervene in what it deemed to be an Islamic issue.
Under Article 11, freedom of religion is guaranteed for Malaysia's multi-ethnic population, of which more than half are Malay Muslims but which also includes Chinese and Indian Malaysians who practise other faiths.
4) The long road to victory
By Caroline B. Glick
The common wisdom in Washington these days is that the Americans will leave Iraq by the end of President George W. Bush's presidency regardless of the situation on the ground. This view is based on the proposition that Iraq is unwinnable. It has had a devastating impact on the administration's confidence that it can handle Iran's nuclear weapons program.
Monday's events brought that impact home starkly. On the one hand, the fourth anniversary of the fall of Baghdad came as the US wages a seemingly last-ditch attempt to defeat the insurgency in Iraq. On the other hand, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's performance at the Natanz nuclear installation where he said, "With great pride, I announce as of today our dear country is among the countries of the world that produces nuclear fuel on an industrial scale," indicated that he for one, does not believe he has anything to worry about from America.
"Right-thinking" people these days claim that if the US and Britain hadn't invaded Iraq, everything today would have been perfect. The US would have been loved. The Europeans, Arabs and the UN would be standing on line to support the US in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
As British commentator Simon Jenkins put it in *The Guardian* on Tuesday, "If ever [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair hoped to carry his 'western values agenda' on a white charger to the gates of Tehran, that hope vanished in the mire of Iraq."
Yet this is untrue. The US's difficulties with confronting Iran have little to do with the decision to invade Iraq. Rather, America's feckless diplomacy towards Iran to date is the result of the administration's early misunderstanding of Iraq and of Iranian and Arab interests.
In the aftermath of the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration identified certain basic guiding realities and missed others. First there was the issue of Arab tyranny. As Bush recalled last September, "For decades, American policy sought to achieve peace in the Middle East by pursuing stability at the expense of liberty. The lack of freedom in that region helped create conditions where anger and resentment grew, and radicalism thrived, and terrorists found willing recruits."
Yet recognizing this basic reality did not lead the administration to adopt appropriate policies. Rather than promote liberty, which at its core revolves around a certain foundational understanding of human dignity, the administration promoted elections — fast elections — in Iraq and throughout the region.
In so doing, the administration placed the cart before the horse, with predictable results. The legacy of tyranny is hatred and dependence. And the values of hatred and dependence were those that were expressed at the ballot boxes in Iraq, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority. In all jihadists, often allied with Iran, were empowered while those that were considered moderates modified their positions in opposition to the US.
The Americans pushed for elections in the hopes of finding a silver bullet that would instantly solve the problem of tyranny in the Arab world. But in their rush, the Americans trampled the very liberal democrats they sought to empower.
These forces, who receive no money from Iran and Saudi Arabia to buy votes, and have no private militias to intimidate voters, couldn't compete against the likes of the Dawa party in Iraq, the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt or Fatah and Hamas in the Palestinian Authority.
In Iraq, the one openly liberal party, led by Mithal al Alousi won one seat. In the Palestinian elections, all political parties were either directly or indirectly tied to terrorist organizations. And in Egypt, the supposedly liberal Kifaya party one-upped dictator Hosni Mubarak when it demanded to nullify Egypt's peace treaty with Israel.
By pushing fast elections, the US entrapped itself. It inadvertently empowered its enemies and so was unable to embrace the duly elected governments. In opposing the forces it expended so much energy getting elected, the US was perceived as weak, foolish, and hypocritical.
After September 11, Bush explained that the attacks showed that the friend of your enemy is also your enemy. As he put it last September, "Americamakes no distinction between those who commit acts of terror, and those that harbor and support them, because they're equally guilty of murder."
Yet, Bush failed to note is the converse of that reality: the enemy of your enemy is not necessarily your friend. Here the distinction generally relates to Sunnis and Shiites. The administration's failure to grasp that just because Shiites and Sunnis are rivals doesn't mean that they will join forces with the US to fight one another, or won't join forces with one another to fight the US, has caused the Americans no end of difficulty.
In the 1980s, the Reagan administration did recognize this truth. In its handling of the Iran-Iraq War, the Reagan administration adopted a policy of dual containment. The Americans helped both sides enough to ensure they could keep fighting, but too little to enable either side to emerge the victor. Rather than believing the fiction that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," the Reagan administration advanced US interests by using their rivalry to weaken both.
Rather than follow its predecessor's example, the Bush administration clung to the delusion that Shiites and Sunnis would ally with the US against one another. This fantasy has confounded the administration in every one of its subsequent initiatives towards Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the Palestinians.
In Iraq, for three years the Americans treated al-Sadr, Teheran's man in Baghdad as a potential ally due to the fact that he too is an enemy of al Qaida. The delusion only ended finally when al-Sadr moved to Iran in February ahead of the US surge operation in Baghdad.
The Americans' treatment of al-Sadr is similar to its treatment of his state sponsor. Since the fall of Saddam, the Americans have repeated the mantra that Iran and Syria share America's interest in bringing stability to Iraqbecause the current instability destabilizes them.
While it is true that the chaos in Iraq breeds instability in Syria and Iran, it does not follow that the Iranians and Syrians are interested in ending it.
Since Iran and Syria view the US as their enemy, their ideal scenario is for the US to bleed in Iraq while propping up a weak Shiite government that has no inclination or ability to threaten them. That is, for Iran and Syria, the current situation in Iraq aligns perfectly with their interests, (which explains why they are working so diligently to maintain it.)
As for the Arab world, the administration believes that since the Arabs oppose Iran's quest to become a regional nuclear power, they will help the US both in stabilizing Iraq and in preventing Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Here too, the administration confuses common interests with common agendas. The fact that the Arabs share common interests with the US does not make them allies. As a young Saudi imam put it this week to the *Wall Street Journal*, "We are waiting for the time to attack [the US]. Youth feel happy when the Taliban takes a town or when a helicopter comes down, killing Americans in Iraq. It is a very dangerous situation for the US in the whole Muslim world."
The fruits of America's disorientation were revealed in last month's three Saudi summits: the Hamas-Fatah summit, the King Abdullah-Ahmadinejad summit, and the Arab League-Iranian summit.
Since last summer's war between Israel and Hizbullah and more intensively since the publication of the Baker-Hamilton Commission report on Iraq last November, the Bush administration has been advancing a vision of an anti-Iranian Arab coalition which will join forces with America to confront and defeat Teheran.
There has been no rational basis for this view since the Saudis, Egyptians and Jordanians responded last year to Iran's nuclear advances by announcing that they will get their own nukes. But it took last month's diplomatic cavalcade in Saudi Arabia to finally destroy the fantasy.
First there was the Hamas-Fatah summit in Mecca where Abdullah undermined the US by promising to pay Hamas terrorists a billion dollars in exchange for their agreement to let Fatah terrorists be their junior partners in government.
If that wasn't sufficient proof that Abdullah is not a friend, there was his warm and fuzzy love-fest with Ahmadinejad.
Their meeting shocked Israeli, American and British intelligence services who perceived it as the culmination of a progressive Saudi estrangement from the US. It was preceded by a massive expansion of Saudi ties with China and Russia.
Any notion that the US could expect assistance from the Arabs in contending with Iran disintegrated a week later when Abdullah and Mubarak enthusiastically signed onto the Arab League and Iranian statement referring to the US presence in Iraq as an "illegal occupation".
Yet for all their overt anti-Americanism and competition with Iran to see who can destroy Israel first, the Arabs have not become Iran's allies. They do not want Iran to win its war against America. They want to play Iran and the US against one another. That is, the Arabs are implementing the double containment strategy that the US should have adopted towards them.
The fact of the matter is that the Americans are capable of learning from their mistakes. This week, the commander of US forces in Iraq General David Petraeus published a letter to the Iraqi people ahead of the fourth anniversary of Baghdad's fall. In it, he discussed the anti-American rallies that al-Sadr organized from Iran.
As Petraeus put it, "On this April 9th, some Iraqis reportedly may demonstrate against the coalition force presence in Iraq. That is their right in the new Iraq. It would only be fair, however, to note that they will be able to exercise that right because coalition forces liberated them from a tyrannical, barbaric regime that never would have permitted such freedom of expression."
In the end, the protests were ill attended. Now al-Sadr is now whining that he will pull his support for the government as US forces destroy his militia in Diwaniyah and daily release information about Iranian support for the insurgency.
The success the US is now experiencing in Iraq is the result of a process of identifying and correcting mistakes. If such learning could take place regarding the US's regional strategy, there is every reason to believe that it will contend successfully with Iran and the Arab world. But to correct mistakes it is first necessary to recognize them.
The US is not failing to contend with Iran because it went to war in Iraq. It is failing because it is implementing policies that prefer imaginary silver bullets to real solutions to real problems.
There are no shortcuts in this war. But victory is still waiting at the end of the long and difficult road.
5) Lebanon says to seek war reparations from Israel
Finance Minister Jihad Azour says country preparing to go to international tribunal to seek reparations for damage caused during last summer’s war; ‘Israeli aggression was beyond the purpose,’ he says.
Lebanon is preparing to go to an international tribunal to seek reparations from Israel for damage caused during last year’s month-long war, the country’s finance minister Jihad Azour said on Monday.
Speaking at Johns Hopkins University, Azour declined to say which court or international tribunal Lebanon would petition and added that the case is still being prepared.
Israel invaded southern Lebanon in July after Hizbullah guerrillas captured two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid.
The war killed over 1,100 Lebanese, displaced thousands and destroyed swathes of infrastructure, including roads, bridges and power systems.
Azour said Lebanon’s economy had been set back 10 years by the attack. Over a million cluster bombs had been dropped on his country, killing civilians, he added.
“We were attacked. The (extent of the) Israeli aggression was beyond the purpose. Therefore we want to seek reparation, first of all, for the principle that you cannot kill 1,400 individuals, most of them civilians, displace so many people and destroy the economy without being asked for reparations,” he said.
“We are preparing our case,” he added.
'Financial dimension is secondary'
Asked if Lebanon wanted money from Israel or an apology, he said: “Both. It’s not about money but about principle.”
The minister told Reuters after the speech Lebanon’s Justice Ministry had commissioned international lawyers to prepare the case. He said he was not aware of how much compensation would be sought.
“Lebanon’s objective is above all to set a precedent. The financial dimension is secondary,” he added.
In December, a United Nations human rights inquiry said Israel should be made to pay compensation to Lebanon. It suggested setting up an international compensation program similar to the one that paid out billions of dollars to cover losses due to Iraq’s 1990-91 invasion of Kuwait.
Israel, supported by the United States, has rejected the findings, saying it had acted in self-defense.
6) Iraqi Blowback: Explaining why Paul Wolfowitz is a travesty and Sandy Berger is a snooze.
By Victor Davis Hanson
The resigned Scooter Libby did not leak Valerie Plame’s name, a fact known to a special prosecutor charged with finding out who did and if were a crime. After hours of testimony, he was found self-contradictory under oath (though self-contradictory hardly to the extent of a Joe Wilson who said and wrote things about his yellow-cake inquiries that could not be conceivably true), and now faces a possible prison term.
Ditto the exemption given to the Duke accuser who repeatedly lied in her sworn testimonials, but will apparently not be charged with perjury because her stories are so implausible that officials think she must be unhinged — a new rationale that the perjurer is apparently free from indictment when the concoctions exceed possible belief.
Alberto Gonzalez perhaps (emphasize “perhaps,” as yet we don’t know all the facts) showed a lapse in judgment or at least of political savvy by firing politically appointed federal attorneys, something that was not unusual in past Democratic administrations.
Paul Wolfowitz, who sought to curb corruption that undermines support for World Bank aid to Africa, likewise is facing a lynch mob over perhaps a similar one-time lapse of judgment in regard to compensation of a companion — nothing, however, ranking with the various scandals surrounding Kofi Annan, whose son profited by United Nations exemptions given through his family ties. In today’s moral calculus, presiding over a $50-billion-dollar Oil-for-Food scandal that led to frequent death in Iraq and profit among global elites is a misdemeanor, recommending a pay package for an employee one dates is an unforgivable felony.
One could go on with the furor over the misdirected pellets from Dick Cheney’s shotgun, or the clamor for the Rumsfeld resignation. Yet contrast all this hysteria with the slight whimpers surrounding recent controversies over conflicts of interest or lapses in judgment surrounding Richard Armitage, Harry Reid, or Dianne Feinstein. The destruction of federal documents that might well alter history’s consensus by former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger was a snore for most journalists.
What, then, is the one common tie that explains all these furious efforts of the media and partisans to go after these present and former Bush-administration officials?
Payback for Iraq.
Sunday, April 8, 2007
Jerry Lewis for President!
Uzi Benjamin is concerned the new head of the IDF is too macho and will make mistakes trying to avenge the last war against Hezballah should the IDF, because Ashkenazi said he will make sure at the end of the next war there will be no doubt over who won. Note Ashkenazi believes the "next" war is inevitable.(See 1 below .)
Azmi Bashara, an Arab Israeli and KM, reportedly has fled the country because of a Shin Bet interrogation involving matters pertaining to alleged very serious security breaches. His supposed renouncing of his citizenship could soon become the pre-text of concentrated Arab attacks on Israel's justice system and treatment of its non- Jewish citizens. (See 2 and 3 below.)
What the Arab world had to say about Speaker Pelosi's visit to Syria. (See 4 below.)
Has the raising of money become the key issue in determining who will be president? If so Jerry Lewis would qualify hands down! I never thought I would long for the day of hearing that word "Gravitas" again!(see 5 below.)
Truth! What's that? Certainly don't expect it from the media. (See 6 below.)
Dick
1) The IDF's lost honor
By Uzi Benziman
On the eve of Pesach, MK Effi Eitam told the nation that he now sleeps a lot better. This occured after he heard Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi tell the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee about how he will make sure that at the end of the next war there will be no doubt over who won. Until then Eitam was worried about the spirit pervading the IDF command, but the briefing by the new chief of staff filled him with optimism: Ashkenazi's language was lucid, he posed clear objectives and he gave his listeners a sense of confidence that he knows what he's doing.
Fighting moods are a bad thing when they come from the chief of staff. During the 1950s, chief of staff Moshe Dayan told prime minister David Ben-Gurion that he preferred commanders who were noble stallions, ones that needed to be restrained when they exhibited excessive enthusiasm to encounter the enemy. Battalion, brigade and division commanders and their subordinates are indeed expected to be soaked in fighting spirit and ready to carry out the missions assigned to them. The members of the general staff, on the other hand, must be much more level-headed in the way they approach the political-security situation.
The Second Lebanon War has left the IDF damaged. The army feels it failed to meet expectations and has since been obsessed with a wish to make amends. A short while after the cease-fire, circles in the IDF began airing assessments that by the following summer (which is closing in) there will be a second round of fighting. The general staff concluded in a series of meetings last November that it was necessary to prepare for an offensive by Syria and Hezbollah in the summer of 2007.
In December 2006, a dispute emerged between the Mossad and military intelligence over Syria's intentions. In February, Brigadier General Yossi Beiditch, head of research at military intelligence, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Syrian leader is indeed serious about peace with Israel, on his terms, but is preparing for a confrontation because he does not want to be surprised. Last week, the chief of military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, told the cabinet that Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are preparing for an American assault against Iran in the summer, and that Syria is taking into account that Israel is actively involved, and so Damascus is preparing for all eventualities.
All this talk is dangerous. Israel emerged from the Second Lebanon War bruised, and with an eroded deterrent. It recognizes this and its enemies believe it. The mere image of a country whose wings have been clipped entices Syria, Hezbollah and the Palestinians to challenge it. At the same time, the feeling of stained honor has aroused in the IDF a desire to once more raise the flag of victory and teach the hostile neighbors a lesson they will remember for a long time. There is also a feeling of plain vengeance, and a basic desire to restore to Israel its deterrent. This constellation of considerations and motives feeds a dialogue inside the general staff, which echoes beyond the conference rooms and gives Israel's enemies the impression that it is preparing for war in the coming months - whether this takes place in the Gaza Strip or at the northern border. This situation is sufficient to escalate the tension and begin the motion toward a boiling point.
The politicians were burned in the July-August 2006 conflagration, and it is safe to assume that there will be no rush to go to war, as suggested by the prime minister's statement last week that sought to calm Syrian fears of an Israeli offensive. Nonetheless, the fighting spirit now forming in the IDF - whether against Hamas or Hezbollah - has a great force that can affect the views of the prime minister and his cabinet. The chief of staff will make a serious mistake if he looks at the northern and southern fronts solely through the perspective of weapons. It would not be superfluous to remind him that his real test will be more in preventing war by restoring the deterrent capacity of the IDF, instead of ordering the army's divisions once more into battle.
2)Report: MK Bishara to resign from Knesset
Balad chairman has left Israel and is expected to resign from Knesset after
Passover, Israeli Arab newspaper al-Sinara reports; Balad MK Wasil Taha
denies report. Bishara questioned by police several times in past,
particularly following his visits to Syria.
Balad chairman, Knesset Member Azmi Bishara, has left Israel and is expected
to submit his resignation from the Knesset after Passover, the website of
the Nazareth-based newspaper al-Sinara reported Sunday afternoon, quoting
"senior sources."
The police confirmed that Bishara had left the country.
Balad MK Wasil Taha denied the report. "The publication is unfounded," he
told Ynet.
Syria Visit
"Knesset Member Bishara did not leave the country. He was invited to take
part in a number of conventions and important meetings in Qatar, India and
Egypt. In one of the conventions he is expected to be one of the main
speakers, and may also hold meetings regarding his book which is about to be
published," he said.
Asked whether Bishara planned to resign, Taha said, "This is a hypothetical
matter. The resignation issue is his private matter, and we know nothing
about it."
Bishara has been questioned by the police several times in the past,
particularly following his visits to Syria.
According to the short report, the MK left the country two weeks ago and
returned on Thursday for a couple of hours in order to attend a wedding in
Nazareth.
The Israeli Arab newspaper reported that Bishara planned to submit his
resignation letter via one of his colleagues.
According to the report, Bishara is also expected to announce his
resignation on the Qatari-based satellite TV station al-Jazeera, where he
recently appeared several times as a commentator. His party is also expected
to issue a statement on the matter.
Trip to Syria
More than half a year ago, MK Bishara was questioned by the Police
International Investigation Unit after traveling to Syria and Lebanon.
Before he was questioned, Bishara said that those who should have listened
to his impressions from the visit were the prime minister or minister,
rather than the police.
Bishara went on to call the law which prohibits visits to Syria and Lebanon
a political law.
"They are using propaganda here for which principle? For what, for something
they long to do. The law which prohibits trips is a political law made by
small politicians.
"Would Interior Minister Ronnie Bar-On allow me to work politically? He
would like me not to even visit Israel. This is a political struggle, they
are fighting against us. They should take care of their own business and
leave politics for us," he said.
About two weeks ago, the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center organization
petitioned the High Court of Justice, demanding that the citizenships of the
three members of the Balad faction be revoked following their visit to Syria
several months ago.
The petitioners urged Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik to dismiss the MKs. The
petition is based on the Citizenship Law, according to which an Israeli
citizen automatically loses his citizenship if he visits an enemy state.
According to Basic Law: The Knesset, anyone who is not an Israeli citizen
cannot serve as a Knesset member; the petition therefore claims that the
three National Democratic Assembly members could not keep their positions,
as they violated the Citizenship law, and as a result should lose their
citizenship.
The petition emphasized that the MKs were not immune to the law.
"The Knesset Member Immunity Law, which allows Knesset member to leave the
country unrestrictedly, does not allow them to enter enemy states without
permission," it pointed out.
3) Report: Bishara will quit the Knesset
MK Azmi Bishara (Balad) will resign in the coming days, the Nazareth-based A-Sinara newspaper reported on Sunday.
Bishara will resign following "very serious" allegations; however, a gag order prevents releasing any further details.
Bishara is the chairman of Balad and one of the more outspoken Arab MKs in the Knesset.
According to sources, Bishara left the country immediately following the allegations. The MK, who is currently staying in a Jordan hotel, has been overseas for nearly a week and a half. His family joined him in Jordan on Sunday.
Bishara, said the report, planned to announce his resignation in a televised Al Jazeera interview from Jordan in the coming days and would submit his letter of resignation to the Knesset via one of his colleagues after the Pesach holiday.
The MK's reported upcoming resignation could be connected to suspicions that Bishara had violated a 2001 law forbidding political officials from traveling to enemy states.
# Balad MKs questioned over visits to enemy states
Bishara, along with four other Knesset members, was questioned in September 2006 for making visits to both Syria and Lebanon.
4) The visit to the Middle East, and to Syria in particular, by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has provoked mixed reactions in the Arab world. Some wrote that Pelosi's visit challenged the foreign policy of the Bush administration, and that it had improved the U.S.'s image in the Arab and Muslim world. Others took a more skeptical approach, denying that the visit had made any major change. Still others were highly critical, and accused Pelosi of damaging the cause of democracy in Syria.
The following are reactions from the Arab media to Pelosi's visit:
Syrian Journalist: Pelosi Has Opened the Door to a Syria-U.S. Dialogue
Pelosi's visit was well received in Syria. While a number of delegations of U.S. congressmen had come to Syria in recent months, due to her status this visit was understood to be a significant development that could initiate a Syria-U.S. dialogue.
In an interview, Syrian Information Minister Muhsin Bilal told Arab television stations that Pelosi's meeting with Assad was "effective and positive."
He added that the visit had "helped to break the barrier that the American administration wanted to erect around Syria," and that "Pelosi, who represents Congress and the American people, has a spirit of dialogue and understanding for issues in the region and for Syria's important role in the region."(1)
Columnist Muhammad 'Ali Boza wrote in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra that Pelosi's visit was "an important turning point in American public policy, on the level of the street and public opinion, which has begun to act as a pressure on [the government] and to understand – even if belatedly – the severity of the damage that the official policy of the new Republicans [sic] has caused…
"There is no doubt that the diplomacy of dialogue and negotiations with Syria, and listening to the Syrian position on the burning subjects and the numerous issues relating to the region and the conflict, are recognition of the importance and centrality of the Syrian role, and [recognition] that it is impossible to ignore it and leap over it, and that it would be absurd to put forward plans or solutions to which Syria does not agree, and which are not in keeping with Syria's fundamental national and pan-Arab principles…"(2)
Egyptian Press: Pelosi Proved that Isolating Syria is Absurd
The official Egyptian dailies also saw Pelosi's trip to Syria as a positive step. Al-Ahram's Arab affairs editor Mas'ud Al-Hanawi wrote: "The statements by Pelosi, who ignored the White House's criticism of her, were more balanced, sensible, and diplomatic [than the White House's approach] when she said that her visit to Damascus was a good opportunity to gather facts and build confidence… What has greater benefit and influence – the isolation of the president of a large and influential country like Syria, or dialogue with it and getting to know the true Syrian positions from the source?..."(3)
An editorial in the following day's Al-Ahram read: "Pelosi's visit is likely to verify the failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy in the Middle East, and it may be assumed that the visit will cause great embarrassment to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who visited the region three times this year without her talks having yielded any concrete results…
"The visit to Damascus has achieved two important things. First, the opening of a U.S.-Syria dialogue to understand the situation… in the region, [as a step] towards taking affairs [into the hands] of both sides, in matters in which the U.S. believes Syria is involved, and can settle through peaceful means…
"Second, Pelosi's visit to Damascus included the possibility of renewing the peace negotiations between Syria and Israel, which have been frozen since 2000.
"It is clear that Pelosi's talks in Damascus attest to the absurdity of isolating Syria, in that it is a central player in the region."(4)
Qatari Columnist: "It Is As If Lightning Had Struck the White House"
Qatari columnist Mazen Hammad wrote in the Qatari daily Al-Watan: "It is as if lightning had struck the White House. This is how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Damascus could be described. This wise woman, who is considered the third most senior American [official], is not only bringing her country back to sanity, but is also contributing to improving the image of the U.S. in the Arab and Muslim world.
"The talk in the White House of 'mixed signals' sent to Syria by the visit is not true. The visit sends one [single] message – a message of the American people's challenge to the foreign policy adopted by the American administration…
"The important message that Nancy Pelosi has sent, not only to the Middle East but to the entire world, is that the closed-door policy always fails, and that the use of military force and economic violence in order to assure political ends that rely on [American] hegemony is equivalent to robbery… Force that does not open political horizons cannot succeed in forcing solutions.
"Pelosi's visit does not work wonders, but it is a kind of cry that emphasizes that dialogue is important in order [to arrive at] an agreement, and that the colonialist desire that drives people like Bush and Cheney and guides their positions on foreign policy is political sadism, arrogant egoism, and hidden racism that derives pleasure from humiliating others and hearing their groans…"(5)
Saudi Daily: The Visit Breaks No New Ground
An editorial in the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh took a reserved stance on Pelosi's visit: "The exaggerated attention to the differences between the two American parties is illogical, since at the high level, the supreme interests remain, and do not change with a change in leadership, or even with a change of the party [in power]. House Speaker Pelosi's visit to the region breaks no new ground, when she comes to Damascus after a visit to Lebanon and Israel…
"The new visitor needs to understand that delegations that continue to come to visit and present some convoluted solutions with impossible conditions cause the Arabs to place no trust in any new faces, so long as they have not given anything concrete…"(6)
Editor of Arab Reformist Website: "Shame on Ms. Pelosi!"
In an article titled "Shame on Ms. Pelosi for Shaking the Hand of the Damascus Hangman!" Omran Salman, the Bahraini editor of the reformist website Aafaq, wrote that Pelosi had turned her back on Syrian reformists and had harmed the cause of democracy in Syria:
"Of course no observer of Middle Eastern affairs could at all take seriously what Pelosi said [about Syria's willingness to renew the peace process]. The most [such an observer] could do would be to struggle to keep from laughing…
"What the honorable U.S. congresswoman said has no basis in reality. Syria did not say that it would stem the flow of terrorists into Iraq. Likewise, it did not say that it would close the offices of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Damascus and expel their leaders. If it had wanted to do this, it would have done so years ago, in response to American demands and pressures…"
Pelosi Delivered a Blow to the Liberal Opposition in Syria and Frustrated Reformists' Hopes
"The only result that Pelosi achieved in visiting Damascus, and in sitting down with the Syrian president and shaking his hand, was to deliver a blow to the liberal opposition in Syria and frustrate reformists' hopes for change. By breaking through the ring of isolation [surrounding] Bashar Assad's regime, Syria advanced [several] steps towards repression and despotism, and the march of reform and democracy fell behind.
"Is it any secret that the Syrian regime supports terrorism and is the prime suspect in being behind the… Hariri assassination and the assassinations of a number of other Lebanese journalists and politicians?
"Is it any secret that the Syrian regime is one of the most vicious of regimes, and one of the most repressive, in the region…?
"Perhaps Pelosi did not know… that during her visit to Damascus, this regime was specializing in torturing Syrian oppositionists – among them Kamal Al-Labwani, the founder of the Liberal Democratic Rally in Syria…
"What was Kamal Al-Labwani's crime? In October-November 2005, Al-Labwani toured Europe and the U.S. to gather support for the cause of democracy in Syria. In the U.S., Al-Labwani met with members of the U.S. government and Congress and members of Amnesty International…"
Pelosi Rewarded the Hangman and Turned Her Back on the Victim
"Instead of demanding [Al-Labwani's] immediate release [from prison], Pelosi went to reward the hangman, and turned her back on the victim. Did Al-Labwani fall victim to the trust he placed in America's promises to support democracy and those demanding it?
"This is more than saddening; it is disgraceful to the highest degree. But not all of the blame falls on Ms. Pelosi alone. Over the last four months, more than 10 U.S. members of Congress, from both parties… have made the pilgrimage to Damascus and met with Assad… What is certain is that support for reform and democracy in Syria was not on their agenda.
"Any observer cannot help but be astounded how elected representatives of the American people, which loves liberty and humanity and is devoted to democracy, can engage with a first-rate dictatorial regime..."(7)
Endnotes:
(1) Teshreen (Syria), April 5, 2007.
(2) Al-Thawra (Syria), April 6, 2007.
(3) Al-Ahram (Syria), April 6, 2007.
(4) Al-Ahram (Egypt), April 6, 2007.
(5) Al-Watan (Qatar), April 6, 2007.
(6)Al-Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), April 4, 2007.
(7) www.aafaq.org , April 6, 2007.
5) The End of Inevitability:
By Richard Wollfe
The Clinton camp pressed donors to give only to Hillary. Then the strategy backfired.
Obama is a master at working the crowd.
There's a turncoat inside Hillary Clinton's money machine. Over the past several years, Leonore Blitz has helped raise about $250,000 for Clinton's Senate races, and she signed up early to help the new presidential campaign. But in recent weeks the Manhattan marketing consultant has secretly attended finance meetings and fund-raisers for Clinton's archrival, Barack Obama. Under intense pressure from the Clinton team to pick sides, Blitz—who bundled more than $1 million for John Kerry in 2004—felt deeply conflicted. Clinton operatives have warned donors not to contribute to other campaigns, and put a price on disloyalty: early supporters will be valued and latecomers scorned. But now Blitz is coming out of the shadows, ready to test the rules. "I have been a lifelong advocate of women and minorities' participating and running for political office," she told NEWSWEEK last week. "Therefore, I'm supporting both Clinton and Obama."
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The Clinton campaign denies that it has strong-armed anyone, saying the warnings were made in jest. But whatever tactics Clinton is using, she cannot be happy about how they're working. Clinton operatives had described March 31, the reporting deadline for initial fund-raising, as "the first primary." Their aim was to knock out weaker rivals and reinforce Clinton's aura of invincibility. As it happened, Obama won the money contest with $23.5 million for the primaries, while Clinton raised an estimated $20 million. (The remainder of Clinton's cash—an additional $16 million—is either destined for the general election or was carried over from her Senate race last year.) Clinton attracted half the number of donors that Obama recruited, despite the Illinois senator's late start in mid-January. Online fund-raisers contributed about a third less to Clinton than to Obama, giving her $4.2 million, compared with his $6.9 million.
What happened to the Clinton juggernaut? The answer lies partly in her go-for-broke strategy. There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and for some fund-raisers the Clinton team crossed it. "They clearly communicated a message that this candidacy is inevitable because we'll have more experienced consultants, more political insiders, more money and more of every resource that is vital to being nominated," says a prominent New York donor who joined the Obama camp but declined to be named to protect friendships with Clinton supporters. "Therefore, you are politically stupid if you don't get it, if you can't add."
Big donors to any campaign are keenly interested in what their money gets them. Newcomers to Clinton's orbit don't expect to have much influence or access. So they have fewer reasons to call on wealthy friends for more cash. "That tent seemed pretty much full," says Howard Gutman, a D.C. lawyer who was part of the small team that raised $10 million for Mark Warner's aborted presidential effort. Several campaigns courted Gutman, but he chose Obama over Clinton. "I could raise money from now to eternity and not really be on the radar screen. And the Obama camp seemed to offer more upside in terms of personal fun for the next year and change for the country for the future." In that way, the start-up feel of the Obama campaign—even with its lack of manpower and experience—is a selling point for some donors. "The fact that this is new and people are having their input and also having a voice in the process is all part of the attraction," says Penny Pritzker, Obama's national finance chair. (The campaign has mirrored that on its Web site, asking supporters to contribute policy ideas.)
A handful of old friends from Bill Clinton's campaigns are setting aside loyalties to join Obama's camp. Alan Solomont was an overnight guest at the Clinton White House in the first term, and the national party's finance chair in the second. Now he's raising cash for Obama because, Solomont says, he represents change. "People are ready for a new generation, a new face and a new voice," Solomont tells NEWSWEEK. "And Barack Obama is the only candidate who speaks to that."
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Of course, the money race has only just begun: the first real primaries are still nine months away. In the peculiar expectations game of this early phase, Obama must now prove that he's not a one-quarter wonder. His fund-raisers believe they have room for growth among the 45,000 online donors who gave less than $100 last quarter. But they also are bracing for a big comeback from their rivals.
Clinton's network of consultants and deep-pocketed friends may be her best asset in a long, expensive contest. But her big campaign machine is also costly. Clinton spent on average more than $1.4 million a month during her Senate campaign last year, including $400,000 a month on consultants. It's not clear how much cash she's burning now, but her consultants remain the same.
Finding a lot of new donors, even among some of Clinton's natural allies, may not be easy. Blitz founded the National Women Business Leaders Council for the DNC in 2004. But when she called on her group to attend a Clinton fund-raiser last month, less than a third signed up. "I was surprised when I found out this wasn't a greater percentage of women," she says. "I know there are some major New York women donors that are not supporting Hillary to the extent they could." Why not? Hope Winthrop also raised a seven-figure sum for Kerry in '04 and thinks of Clinton as "a great senator." But she's more attracted to what she sees as Obama's freshness. "There was a sense of inevitability around the Clinton campaign that maybe made people a little wary," she says. "Now they will see there are several choices out there and it's not all locked up." That's the problem with inevitability: once the all-powerful aura is gone, it's hard to get it back.
6) America's Broken-Down Media
By Ray Robison
According to Mark Thompson, writer for Time magazine, America's army is broken. While it can not be argued that the military can possibly maintain the same state of readiness in war time as it does in peace time, broken has a certain specific ring to it: incapable, demoralized and poorly trained.
Mr. Thompson begins the article, - featured on the Drudge Report - with the story of Private Matthew Zeimer. Brave PVT Zeimer died within hours of his arrival at a Forward Operating Base in Iraq. Thompson describes PVT Zeimer's training before going on to make the case that the surge cut the young Private's training short. In Mr. Thompson's recounting of PVT Zeimer's tale, he essentially was killed because he had insufficient training.
If Zeimer's combat career was brief, so was his training. He enlisted last June at age 17, three weeks after graduating from Dawson County High School in eastern Montana. After finishing nine weeks of basic training and additional preparation in infantry tactics in Oklahoma, he arrived at Fort Stewart, Ga., in early December. But Zeimer had missed the intense four-week pre-Iraq training-a taste of what troops will face in combat-that his 1st Brigade comrades got at their home post in October. Instead, Zeimer and about 140 other members of the 4,000-strong brigade got a cut-rate, 10-day course on weapon use, first aid and Iraqi culture. That's the same length as the course that teaches soldiers assigned to generals' household staffs the finer points of table service.
Yes No
Yes No
Yes No
Mr. Thompson finds confirmation from Congressman Murtha:
The truncated training-the rush to get underprepared troops to the war zone-"is absolutely unacceptable," says Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and opponent of the war who chairs the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. A decorated Marine veteran of Vietnam, Murtha is experiencing a sense of déjà vu. "The readiness of the Army's ground forces is as bad as it was right after Vietnam."
Sounds like a pretty solid case doesn't it? But something just didn't sit right with me. I immediately knew this wasn't the full story. So I used a journalistic research tool, possibly unavailable to Time, called Google.
You see, this article makes the brave young Matthew Zeimer sound like an infantry soldier. Infantry soldiers go to the Infantry Training Brigade for 14 weeks of intense training after completing basic training. How can it be he didn't go? Is the army so bad off infantry soldiers don't go to Advanced Infantry Training anymore?
In my research, I found this article "Soldier's last days at home memorable" at the Billings Gazette. The article tells the story of the brave Private's short military career as told by his family and friends.
Matthew had come home on leave Nov. 8, after more than five months of basic training
Five months of basic training? What this article means is that he did nine weeks of Basic Training, which every soldier does, and then went for three more months of Advanced Individual Training in which a soldier trains on their MOS (Military Occupational Skill). About.com explains the process well:
Individuals who enlist under the 13X Infantry option attend Field Artillery OSUT (One Station Unit Training), which combines Army Basic Training and Field Artillery AIT (Advanced Individual Training), all in one course.
But most civilians just think of it all as basic training. The point being, this is three more months of a 24 hour a day resident course, tough as nails training that Mr. Thompson has neglected to mention. Three months is a significant amount of training.
And it doesn't stop there. According to the Billings Gazette:
Staff Sgt. Thad Rule, with the U.S. Army Recruiting Office in Glendive, said Matt joined the Future Soldier Program at the start of his senior year of high school, shortly after he turned 17. He spent nearly 10 months learning some of the basics about the Army, preparing him for his training.
Rule said Matt "wanted to do a combat job" and couldn't wait to join the Army. To speed things up, he opted to undergo artillery support training rather than going into the infantry, a move that got him into the Army a month earlier.
Not only did PVT Zeimer do three more months of training than Thompson lets on, he spent ten months of training before he even went in the army. While this certainly does not equate to training in an active duty setting, it is a training opportunity that most soldiers don't get. In real terms, this brave young man was ahead of the training that a typical artillery junior enlisted soldier received when I was an artillery officer in the mid-90s under President Clinton.
So was this truncated training as Murtha called it effective? Was he really ready? The Gazette goes on:
Matt was 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighed maybe 175 pounds when he went in for basic training.
"The kid came back and he was fit," Rule said. "I'd say his confidence was the big thing."
Tessa Hopper, Matt's former girlfriend, noted the same thing when she spoke Sunday evening during a wake service for Matt.
"He was proud as a peacock when he came home for the holidays," she said.
Damon noticed it, too. Matt had always liked to exercise, he said, but he got in excellent shape during basic training.
"He loved the way he looked when he came home from basic," Damon said.
So according to PVT Zeimer's loved ones, he was fit, proud, motivated and anything but broken-down. He was a soldier damn it! Not a victim. Not a political talking point.
Mr. Thompson also tells us:
The Army and the White House insist the abbreviated training was adequate. "They can get desert training elsewhere," spokesman Tony Snow said Feb. 28, "like in Iraq." But outside military experts and Zeimer's mother disagree. The Army's rush to carry out President George W. Bush's order to send thousands of additional troops more quickly to Iraq is forcing two of the five new brigades bound for the war to skip standard training at Fort Irwin, Calif. These soldiers aren't getting the benefit of participating in war games on the wide Mojave Desert, where gun-jamming sand and faux insurgents closely resemble conditions in Iraq.
Thompson tells us that the army callously failed to train the young private in desert warfare (which is not a deployment requirement for US Army soldiers anyway). His writing certainly makes Tony Snow appear flippant about the issue. But we learn this from the Billings Gazette:
After leaving the U.S. on Jan. 13, Damon said, Matt went to Kuwait for additional training before shipping out to Iraq on Jan. 25.
Yet more training? Yes, and it was in the desert just like Tony Snow indicated. But what about that training in Fort Irwin at the National Training Center (NTC) that Mr. Thompson referred to in his article? Would that have helped the brave Private? You bet. More training is always better. But at some point the training stops when the fighting starts (actually, it continues even in combat, but not at a training facility). And a better understanding of what the NTC training mission is makes this clear:
NTC MISSION
Provide tough, realistic joint and combined arms training
Focus at the battalion task force and brigade levels
Assist commanders in developing trained, competent leaders and soldiers
Identify unit training deficiencies, provide feedback to improve the force and prepare for success on the future joint battlefield
Provide a venue for transformation
Take care of soldiers, civilians, and family members
Joint, combined, battalion, brigade, these are all keywords which mean that the NTC is first and foremost a unit trainer. The individual soldier goes to NTC more by providence than by design. Nobody keeps track of your NTC rotations. It is not a training requirement for individual readiness. An individual unit may not be scheduled for rotation to the NTC for as long as two years. It is one facility and there are many brigades. The NTC is not and has never been a requirement for individual deployment.
What happens at NTC? A unit rotation lasts four weeks. The unit typically spends the first week in preparation and the last week in recovery. That means that the unit spends two weeks "in the box". While the training is valuable, and is the best two weeks of training a unit can get in the army, it is only two weeks after all.
While it certainly increases the skills of the individual soldier, you don't have to send a soldier to brigade level training to learn how to clean the sand out of your weapon as Mr. Thompson laments. And dealing with civilians on the battlefield can be taught anywhere.
Mr. Thompson's article also states:
Under cover of darkness, Sunni insurgents were attacking his new post from nearby buildings. Amid the smoke, noise and confusion, a blast suddenly ripped through the 3-ft. concrete wall shielding Zeimer and a fellow soldier, killing them both.
What Mr. Thompson doesn't tell the reader is than the soldier that was killed with PVT Zeimer was "Spc. Alan E. McPeek, a 20-year-old who had been in Iraq for 14 months" according to the Gazette. Of course, it's difficult to make a soldier appear to have died due to lack of training when the soldier who died next to him was a 14 month combat veteran, isn't it?
As disgusted as I am by the absolutely misleading nature of Mr. Thompson's article and how it affects the general public's perceptions, I am far more sickened by these vultures not explaining to the families of men like PVT Zeimer that their son was a hero, not a victim to be used in creating a political talking point for shoddy journalists and opportunist politicians. Army officials should explain what the standards of deployment training are to the families of our brave soldiers before rotten tomatoes like these convince them that heroes like Matthew died for lack of training.
God bless you Private Zeimer.
Azmi Bashara, an Arab Israeli and KM, reportedly has fled the country because of a Shin Bet interrogation involving matters pertaining to alleged very serious security breaches. His supposed renouncing of his citizenship could soon become the pre-text of concentrated Arab attacks on Israel's justice system and treatment of its non- Jewish citizens. (See 2 and 3 below.)
What the Arab world had to say about Speaker Pelosi's visit to Syria. (See 4 below.)
Has the raising of money become the key issue in determining who will be president? If so Jerry Lewis would qualify hands down! I never thought I would long for the day of hearing that word "Gravitas" again!(see 5 below.)
Truth! What's that? Certainly don't expect it from the media. (See 6 below.)
Dick
1) The IDF's lost honor
By Uzi Benziman
On the eve of Pesach, MK Effi Eitam told the nation that he now sleeps a lot better. This occured after he heard Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi tell the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee about how he will make sure that at the end of the next war there will be no doubt over who won. Until then Eitam was worried about the spirit pervading the IDF command, but the briefing by the new chief of staff filled him with optimism: Ashkenazi's language was lucid, he posed clear objectives and he gave his listeners a sense of confidence that he knows what he's doing.
Fighting moods are a bad thing when they come from the chief of staff. During the 1950s, chief of staff Moshe Dayan told prime minister David Ben-Gurion that he preferred commanders who were noble stallions, ones that needed to be restrained when they exhibited excessive enthusiasm to encounter the enemy. Battalion, brigade and division commanders and their subordinates are indeed expected to be soaked in fighting spirit and ready to carry out the missions assigned to them. The members of the general staff, on the other hand, must be much more level-headed in the way they approach the political-security situation.
The Second Lebanon War has left the IDF damaged. The army feels it failed to meet expectations and has since been obsessed with a wish to make amends. A short while after the cease-fire, circles in the IDF began airing assessments that by the following summer (which is closing in) there will be a second round of fighting. The general staff concluded in a series of meetings last November that it was necessary to prepare for an offensive by Syria and Hezbollah in the summer of 2007.
In December 2006, a dispute emerged between the Mossad and military intelligence over Syria's intentions. In February, Brigadier General Yossi Beiditch, head of research at military intelligence, told the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Syrian leader is indeed serious about peace with Israel, on his terms, but is preparing for a confrontation because he does not want to be surprised. Last week, the chief of military intelligence, Major General Amos Yadlin, told the cabinet that Syria, Iran and Hezbollah are preparing for an American assault against Iran in the summer, and that Syria is taking into account that Israel is actively involved, and so Damascus is preparing for all eventualities.
All this talk is dangerous. Israel emerged from the Second Lebanon War bruised, and with an eroded deterrent. It recognizes this and its enemies believe it. The mere image of a country whose wings have been clipped entices Syria, Hezbollah and the Palestinians to challenge it. At the same time, the feeling of stained honor has aroused in the IDF a desire to once more raise the flag of victory and teach the hostile neighbors a lesson they will remember for a long time. There is also a feeling of plain vengeance, and a basic desire to restore to Israel its deterrent. This constellation of considerations and motives feeds a dialogue inside the general staff, which echoes beyond the conference rooms and gives Israel's enemies the impression that it is preparing for war in the coming months - whether this takes place in the Gaza Strip or at the northern border. This situation is sufficient to escalate the tension and begin the motion toward a boiling point.
The politicians were burned in the July-August 2006 conflagration, and it is safe to assume that there will be no rush to go to war, as suggested by the prime minister's statement last week that sought to calm Syrian fears of an Israeli offensive. Nonetheless, the fighting spirit now forming in the IDF - whether against Hamas or Hezbollah - has a great force that can affect the views of the prime minister and his cabinet. The chief of staff will make a serious mistake if he looks at the northern and southern fronts solely through the perspective of weapons. It would not be superfluous to remind him that his real test will be more in preventing war by restoring the deterrent capacity of the IDF, instead of ordering the army's divisions once more into battle.
2)Report: MK Bishara to resign from Knesset
Balad chairman has left Israel and is expected to resign from Knesset after
Passover, Israeli Arab newspaper al-Sinara reports; Balad MK Wasil Taha
denies report. Bishara questioned by police several times in past,
particularly following his visits to Syria.
Balad chairman, Knesset Member Azmi Bishara, has left Israel and is expected
to submit his resignation from the Knesset after Passover, the website of
the Nazareth-based newspaper al-Sinara reported Sunday afternoon, quoting
"senior sources."
The police confirmed that Bishara had left the country.
Balad MK Wasil Taha denied the report. "The publication is unfounded," he
told Ynet.
Syria Visit
"Knesset Member Bishara did not leave the country. He was invited to take
part in a number of conventions and important meetings in Qatar, India and
Egypt. In one of the conventions he is expected to be one of the main
speakers, and may also hold meetings regarding his book which is about to be
published," he said.
Asked whether Bishara planned to resign, Taha said, "This is a hypothetical
matter. The resignation issue is his private matter, and we know nothing
about it."
Bishara has been questioned by the police several times in the past,
particularly following his visits to Syria.
According to the short report, the MK left the country two weeks ago and
returned on Thursday for a couple of hours in order to attend a wedding in
Nazareth.
The Israeli Arab newspaper reported that Bishara planned to submit his
resignation letter via one of his colleagues.
According to the report, Bishara is also expected to announce his
resignation on the Qatari-based satellite TV station al-Jazeera, where he
recently appeared several times as a commentator. His party is also expected
to issue a statement on the matter.
Trip to Syria
More than half a year ago, MK Bishara was questioned by the Police
International Investigation Unit after traveling to Syria and Lebanon.
Before he was questioned, Bishara said that those who should have listened
to his impressions from the visit were the prime minister or minister,
rather than the police.
Bishara went on to call the law which prohibits visits to Syria and Lebanon
a political law.
"They are using propaganda here for which principle? For what, for something
they long to do. The law which prohibits trips is a political law made by
small politicians.
"Would Interior Minister Ronnie Bar-On allow me to work politically? He
would like me not to even visit Israel. This is a political struggle, they
are fighting against us. They should take care of their own business and
leave politics for us," he said.
About two weeks ago, the Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center organization
petitioned the High Court of Justice, demanding that the citizenships of the
three members of the Balad faction be revoked following their visit to Syria
several months ago.
The petitioners urged Knesset Speaker Dalia Itzik to dismiss the MKs. The
petition is based on the Citizenship Law, according to which an Israeli
citizen automatically loses his citizenship if he visits an enemy state.
According to Basic Law: The Knesset, anyone who is not an Israeli citizen
cannot serve as a Knesset member; the petition therefore claims that the
three National Democratic Assembly members could not keep their positions,
as they violated the Citizenship law, and as a result should lose their
citizenship.
The petition emphasized that the MKs were not immune to the law.
"The Knesset Member Immunity Law, which allows Knesset member to leave the
country unrestrictedly, does not allow them to enter enemy states without
permission," it pointed out.
3) Report: Bishara will quit the Knesset
MK Azmi Bishara (Balad) will resign in the coming days, the Nazareth-based A-Sinara newspaper reported on Sunday.
Bishara will resign following "very serious" allegations; however, a gag order prevents releasing any further details.
Bishara is the chairman of Balad and one of the more outspoken Arab MKs in the Knesset.
According to sources, Bishara left the country immediately following the allegations. The MK, who is currently staying in a Jordan hotel, has been overseas for nearly a week and a half. His family joined him in Jordan on Sunday.
Bishara, said the report, planned to announce his resignation in a televised Al Jazeera interview from Jordan in the coming days and would submit his letter of resignation to the Knesset via one of his colleagues after the Pesach holiday.
The MK's reported upcoming resignation could be connected to suspicions that Bishara had violated a 2001 law forbidding political officials from traveling to enemy states.
# Balad MKs questioned over visits to enemy states
Bishara, along with four other Knesset members, was questioned in September 2006 for making visits to both Syria and Lebanon.
4) The visit to the Middle East, and to Syria in particular, by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has provoked mixed reactions in the Arab world. Some wrote that Pelosi's visit challenged the foreign policy of the Bush administration, and that it had improved the U.S.'s image in the Arab and Muslim world. Others took a more skeptical approach, denying that the visit had made any major change. Still others were highly critical, and accused Pelosi of damaging the cause of democracy in Syria.
The following are reactions from the Arab media to Pelosi's visit:
Syrian Journalist: Pelosi Has Opened the Door to a Syria-U.S. Dialogue
Pelosi's visit was well received in Syria. While a number of delegations of U.S. congressmen had come to Syria in recent months, due to her status this visit was understood to be a significant development that could initiate a Syria-U.S. dialogue.
In an interview, Syrian Information Minister Muhsin Bilal told Arab television stations that Pelosi's meeting with Assad was "effective and positive."
He added that the visit had "helped to break the barrier that the American administration wanted to erect around Syria," and that "Pelosi, who represents Congress and the American people, has a spirit of dialogue and understanding for issues in the region and for Syria's important role in the region."(1)
Columnist Muhammad 'Ali Boza wrote in the Syrian government daily Al-Thawra that Pelosi's visit was "an important turning point in American public policy, on the level of the street and public opinion, which has begun to act as a pressure on [the government] and to understand – even if belatedly – the severity of the damage that the official policy of the new Republicans [sic] has caused…
"There is no doubt that the diplomacy of dialogue and negotiations with Syria, and listening to the Syrian position on the burning subjects and the numerous issues relating to the region and the conflict, are recognition of the importance and centrality of the Syrian role, and [recognition] that it is impossible to ignore it and leap over it, and that it would be absurd to put forward plans or solutions to which Syria does not agree, and which are not in keeping with Syria's fundamental national and pan-Arab principles…"(2)
Egyptian Press: Pelosi Proved that Isolating Syria is Absurd
The official Egyptian dailies also saw Pelosi's trip to Syria as a positive step. Al-Ahram's Arab affairs editor Mas'ud Al-Hanawi wrote: "The statements by Pelosi, who ignored the White House's criticism of her, were more balanced, sensible, and diplomatic [than the White House's approach] when she said that her visit to Damascus was a good opportunity to gather facts and build confidence… What has greater benefit and influence – the isolation of the president of a large and influential country like Syria, or dialogue with it and getting to know the true Syrian positions from the source?..."(3)
An editorial in the following day's Al-Ahram read: "Pelosi's visit is likely to verify the failure of the Bush administration's foreign policy in the Middle East, and it may be assumed that the visit will cause great embarrassment to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who visited the region three times this year without her talks having yielded any concrete results…
"The visit to Damascus has achieved two important things. First, the opening of a U.S.-Syria dialogue to understand the situation… in the region, [as a step] towards taking affairs [into the hands] of both sides, in matters in which the U.S. believes Syria is involved, and can settle through peaceful means…
"Second, Pelosi's visit to Damascus included the possibility of renewing the peace negotiations between Syria and Israel, which have been frozen since 2000.
"It is clear that Pelosi's talks in Damascus attest to the absurdity of isolating Syria, in that it is a central player in the region."(4)
Qatari Columnist: "It Is As If Lightning Had Struck the White House"
Qatari columnist Mazen Hammad wrote in the Qatari daily Al-Watan: "It is as if lightning had struck the White House. This is how House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's visit to Damascus could be described. This wise woman, who is considered the third most senior American [official], is not only bringing her country back to sanity, but is also contributing to improving the image of the U.S. in the Arab and Muslim world.
"The talk in the White House of 'mixed signals' sent to Syria by the visit is not true. The visit sends one [single] message – a message of the American people's challenge to the foreign policy adopted by the American administration…
"The important message that Nancy Pelosi has sent, not only to the Middle East but to the entire world, is that the closed-door policy always fails, and that the use of military force and economic violence in order to assure political ends that rely on [American] hegemony is equivalent to robbery… Force that does not open political horizons cannot succeed in forcing solutions.
"Pelosi's visit does not work wonders, but it is a kind of cry that emphasizes that dialogue is important in order [to arrive at] an agreement, and that the colonialist desire that drives people like Bush and Cheney and guides their positions on foreign policy is political sadism, arrogant egoism, and hidden racism that derives pleasure from humiliating others and hearing their groans…"(5)
Saudi Daily: The Visit Breaks No New Ground
An editorial in the Saudi daily Al-Riyadh took a reserved stance on Pelosi's visit: "The exaggerated attention to the differences between the two American parties is illogical, since at the high level, the supreme interests remain, and do not change with a change in leadership, or even with a change of the party [in power]. House Speaker Pelosi's visit to the region breaks no new ground, when she comes to Damascus after a visit to Lebanon and Israel…
"The new visitor needs to understand that delegations that continue to come to visit and present some convoluted solutions with impossible conditions cause the Arabs to place no trust in any new faces, so long as they have not given anything concrete…"(6)
Editor of Arab Reformist Website: "Shame on Ms. Pelosi!"
In an article titled "Shame on Ms. Pelosi for Shaking the Hand of the Damascus Hangman!" Omran Salman, the Bahraini editor of the reformist website Aafaq, wrote that Pelosi had turned her back on Syrian reformists and had harmed the cause of democracy in Syria:
"Of course no observer of Middle Eastern affairs could at all take seriously what Pelosi said [about Syria's willingness to renew the peace process]. The most [such an observer] could do would be to struggle to keep from laughing…
"What the honorable U.S. congresswoman said has no basis in reality. Syria did not say that it would stem the flow of terrorists into Iraq. Likewise, it did not say that it would close the offices of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Damascus and expel their leaders. If it had wanted to do this, it would have done so years ago, in response to American demands and pressures…"
Pelosi Delivered a Blow to the Liberal Opposition in Syria and Frustrated Reformists' Hopes
"The only result that Pelosi achieved in visiting Damascus, and in sitting down with the Syrian president and shaking his hand, was to deliver a blow to the liberal opposition in Syria and frustrate reformists' hopes for change. By breaking through the ring of isolation [surrounding] Bashar Assad's regime, Syria advanced [several] steps towards repression and despotism, and the march of reform and democracy fell behind.
"Is it any secret that the Syrian regime supports terrorism and is the prime suspect in being behind the… Hariri assassination and the assassinations of a number of other Lebanese journalists and politicians?
"Is it any secret that the Syrian regime is one of the most vicious of regimes, and one of the most repressive, in the region…?
"Perhaps Pelosi did not know… that during her visit to Damascus, this regime was specializing in torturing Syrian oppositionists – among them Kamal Al-Labwani, the founder of the Liberal Democratic Rally in Syria…
"What was Kamal Al-Labwani's crime? In October-November 2005, Al-Labwani toured Europe and the U.S. to gather support for the cause of democracy in Syria. In the U.S., Al-Labwani met with members of the U.S. government and Congress and members of Amnesty International…"
Pelosi Rewarded the Hangman and Turned Her Back on the Victim
"Instead of demanding [Al-Labwani's] immediate release [from prison], Pelosi went to reward the hangman, and turned her back on the victim. Did Al-Labwani fall victim to the trust he placed in America's promises to support democracy and those demanding it?
"This is more than saddening; it is disgraceful to the highest degree. But not all of the blame falls on Ms. Pelosi alone. Over the last four months, more than 10 U.S. members of Congress, from both parties… have made the pilgrimage to Damascus and met with Assad… What is certain is that support for reform and democracy in Syria was not on their agenda.
"Any observer cannot help but be astounded how elected representatives of the American people, which loves liberty and humanity and is devoted to democracy, can engage with a first-rate dictatorial regime..."(7)
Endnotes:
(1) Teshreen (Syria), April 5, 2007.
(2) Al-Thawra (Syria), April 6, 2007.
(3) Al-Ahram (Syria), April 6, 2007.
(4) Al-Ahram (Egypt), April 6, 2007.
(5) Al-Watan (Qatar), April 6, 2007.
(6)Al-Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), April 4, 2007.
(7) www.aafaq.org , April 6, 2007.
5) The End of Inevitability:
By Richard Wollfe
The Clinton camp pressed donors to give only to Hillary. Then the strategy backfired.
Obama is a master at working the crowd.
There's a turncoat inside Hillary Clinton's money machine. Over the past several years, Leonore Blitz has helped raise about $250,000 for Clinton's Senate races, and she signed up early to help the new presidential campaign. But in recent weeks the Manhattan marketing consultant has secretly attended finance meetings and fund-raisers for Clinton's archrival, Barack Obama. Under intense pressure from the Clinton team to pick sides, Blitz—who bundled more than $1 million for John Kerry in 2004—felt deeply conflicted. Clinton operatives have warned donors not to contribute to other campaigns, and put a price on disloyalty: early supporters will be valued and latecomers scorned. But now Blitz is coming out of the shadows, ready to test the rules. "I have been a lifelong advocate of women and minorities' participating and running for political office," she told NEWSWEEK last week. "Therefore, I'm supporting both Clinton and Obama."
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The Clinton campaign denies that it has strong-armed anyone, saying the warnings were made in jest. But whatever tactics Clinton is using, she cannot be happy about how they're working. Clinton operatives had described March 31, the reporting deadline for initial fund-raising, as "the first primary." Their aim was to knock out weaker rivals and reinforce Clinton's aura of invincibility. As it happened, Obama won the money contest with $23.5 million for the primaries, while Clinton raised an estimated $20 million. (The remainder of Clinton's cash—an additional $16 million—is either destined for the general election or was carried over from her Senate race last year.) Clinton attracted half the number of donors that Obama recruited, despite the Illinois senator's late start in mid-January. Online fund-raisers contributed about a third less to Clinton than to Obama, giving her $4.2 million, compared with his $6.9 million.
What happened to the Clinton juggernaut? The answer lies partly in her go-for-broke strategy. There's a fine line between confidence and arrogance, and for some fund-raisers the Clinton team crossed it. "They clearly communicated a message that this candidacy is inevitable because we'll have more experienced consultants, more political insiders, more money and more of every resource that is vital to being nominated," says a prominent New York donor who joined the Obama camp but declined to be named to protect friendships with Clinton supporters. "Therefore, you are politically stupid if you don't get it, if you can't add."
Big donors to any campaign are keenly interested in what their money gets them. Newcomers to Clinton's orbit don't expect to have much influence or access. So they have fewer reasons to call on wealthy friends for more cash. "That tent seemed pretty much full," says Howard Gutman, a D.C. lawyer who was part of the small team that raised $10 million for Mark Warner's aborted presidential effort. Several campaigns courted Gutman, but he chose Obama over Clinton. "I could raise money from now to eternity and not really be on the radar screen. And the Obama camp seemed to offer more upside in terms of personal fun for the next year and change for the country for the future." In that way, the start-up feel of the Obama campaign—even with its lack of manpower and experience—is a selling point for some donors. "The fact that this is new and people are having their input and also having a voice in the process is all part of the attraction," says Penny Pritzker, Obama's national finance chair. (The campaign has mirrored that on its Web site, asking supporters to contribute policy ideas.)
A handful of old friends from Bill Clinton's campaigns are setting aside loyalties to join Obama's camp. Alan Solomont was an overnight guest at the Clinton White House in the first term, and the national party's finance chair in the second. Now he's raising cash for Obama because, Solomont says, he represents change. "People are ready for a new generation, a new face and a new voice," Solomont tells NEWSWEEK. "And Barack Obama is the only candidate who speaks to that."
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Of course, the money race has only just begun: the first real primaries are still nine months away. In the peculiar expectations game of this early phase, Obama must now prove that he's not a one-quarter wonder. His fund-raisers believe they have room for growth among the 45,000 online donors who gave less than $100 last quarter. But they also are bracing for a big comeback from their rivals.
Clinton's network of consultants and deep-pocketed friends may be her best asset in a long, expensive contest. But her big campaign machine is also costly. Clinton spent on average more than $1.4 million a month during her Senate campaign last year, including $400,000 a month on consultants. It's not clear how much cash she's burning now, but her consultants remain the same.
Finding a lot of new donors, even among some of Clinton's natural allies, may not be easy. Blitz founded the National Women Business Leaders Council for the DNC in 2004. But when she called on her group to attend a Clinton fund-raiser last month, less than a third signed up. "I was surprised when I found out this wasn't a greater percentage of women," she says. "I know there are some major New York women donors that are not supporting Hillary to the extent they could." Why not? Hope Winthrop also raised a seven-figure sum for Kerry in '04 and thinks of Clinton as "a great senator." But she's more attracted to what she sees as Obama's freshness. "There was a sense of inevitability around the Clinton campaign that maybe made people a little wary," she says. "Now they will see there are several choices out there and it's not all locked up." That's the problem with inevitability: once the all-powerful aura is gone, it's hard to get it back.
6) America's Broken-Down Media
By Ray Robison
According to Mark Thompson, writer for Time magazine, America's army is broken. While it can not be argued that the military can possibly maintain the same state of readiness in war time as it does in peace time, broken has a certain specific ring to it: incapable, demoralized and poorly trained.
Mr. Thompson begins the article, - featured on the Drudge Report - with the story of Private Matthew Zeimer. Brave PVT Zeimer died within hours of his arrival at a Forward Operating Base in Iraq. Thompson describes PVT Zeimer's training before going on to make the case that the surge cut the young Private's training short. In Mr. Thompson's recounting of PVT Zeimer's tale, he essentially was killed because he had insufficient training.
If Zeimer's combat career was brief, so was his training. He enlisted last June at age 17, three weeks after graduating from Dawson County High School in eastern Montana. After finishing nine weeks of basic training and additional preparation in infantry tactics in Oklahoma, he arrived at Fort Stewart, Ga., in early December. But Zeimer had missed the intense four-week pre-Iraq training-a taste of what troops will face in combat-that his 1st Brigade comrades got at their home post in October. Instead, Zeimer and about 140 other members of the 4,000-strong brigade got a cut-rate, 10-day course on weapon use, first aid and Iraqi culture. That's the same length as the course that teaches soldiers assigned to generals' household staffs the finer points of table service.
Yes No
Yes No
Yes No
Mr. Thompson finds confirmation from Congressman Murtha:
The truncated training-the rush to get underprepared troops to the war zone-"is absolutely unacceptable," says Representative John Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat and opponent of the war who chairs the House Appropriations defense subcommittee. A decorated Marine veteran of Vietnam, Murtha is experiencing a sense of déjà vu. "The readiness of the Army's ground forces is as bad as it was right after Vietnam."
Sounds like a pretty solid case doesn't it? But something just didn't sit right with me. I immediately knew this wasn't the full story. So I used a journalistic research tool, possibly unavailable to Time, called Google.
You see, this article makes the brave young Matthew Zeimer sound like an infantry soldier. Infantry soldiers go to the Infantry Training Brigade for 14 weeks of intense training after completing basic training. How can it be he didn't go? Is the army so bad off infantry soldiers don't go to Advanced Infantry Training anymore?
In my research, I found this article "Soldier's last days at home memorable" at the Billings Gazette. The article tells the story of the brave Private's short military career as told by his family and friends.
Matthew had come home on leave Nov. 8, after more than five months of basic training
Five months of basic training? What this article means is that he did nine weeks of Basic Training, which every soldier does, and then went for three more months of Advanced Individual Training in which a soldier trains on their MOS (Military Occupational Skill). About.com explains the process well:
Individuals who enlist under the 13X Infantry option attend Field Artillery OSUT (One Station Unit Training), which combines Army Basic Training and Field Artillery AIT (Advanced Individual Training), all in one course.
But most civilians just think of it all as basic training. The point being, this is three more months of a 24 hour a day resident course, tough as nails training that Mr. Thompson has neglected to mention. Three months is a significant amount of training.
And it doesn't stop there. According to the Billings Gazette:
Staff Sgt. Thad Rule, with the U.S. Army Recruiting Office in Glendive, said Matt joined the Future Soldier Program at the start of his senior year of high school, shortly after he turned 17. He spent nearly 10 months learning some of the basics about the Army, preparing him for his training.
Rule said Matt "wanted to do a combat job" and couldn't wait to join the Army. To speed things up, he opted to undergo artillery support training rather than going into the infantry, a move that got him into the Army a month earlier.
Not only did PVT Zeimer do three more months of training than Thompson lets on, he spent ten months of training before he even went in the army. While this certainly does not equate to training in an active duty setting, it is a training opportunity that most soldiers don't get. In real terms, this brave young man was ahead of the training that a typical artillery junior enlisted soldier received when I was an artillery officer in the mid-90s under President Clinton.
So was this truncated training as Murtha called it effective? Was he really ready? The Gazette goes on:
Matt was 5 feet, 7 inches tall and weighed maybe 175 pounds when he went in for basic training.
"The kid came back and he was fit," Rule said. "I'd say his confidence was the big thing."
Tessa Hopper, Matt's former girlfriend, noted the same thing when she spoke Sunday evening during a wake service for Matt.
"He was proud as a peacock when he came home for the holidays," she said.
Damon noticed it, too. Matt had always liked to exercise, he said, but he got in excellent shape during basic training.
"He loved the way he looked when he came home from basic," Damon said.
So according to PVT Zeimer's loved ones, he was fit, proud, motivated and anything but broken-down. He was a soldier damn it! Not a victim. Not a political talking point.
Mr. Thompson also tells us:
The Army and the White House insist the abbreviated training was adequate. "They can get desert training elsewhere," spokesman Tony Snow said Feb. 28, "like in Iraq." But outside military experts and Zeimer's mother disagree. The Army's rush to carry out President George W. Bush's order to send thousands of additional troops more quickly to Iraq is forcing two of the five new brigades bound for the war to skip standard training at Fort Irwin, Calif. These soldiers aren't getting the benefit of participating in war games on the wide Mojave Desert, where gun-jamming sand and faux insurgents closely resemble conditions in Iraq.
Thompson tells us that the army callously failed to train the young private in desert warfare (which is not a deployment requirement for US Army soldiers anyway). His writing certainly makes Tony Snow appear flippant about the issue. But we learn this from the Billings Gazette:
After leaving the U.S. on Jan. 13, Damon said, Matt went to Kuwait for additional training before shipping out to Iraq on Jan. 25.
Yet more training? Yes, and it was in the desert just like Tony Snow indicated. But what about that training in Fort Irwin at the National Training Center (NTC) that Mr. Thompson referred to in his article? Would that have helped the brave Private? You bet. More training is always better. But at some point the training stops when the fighting starts (actually, it continues even in combat, but not at a training facility). And a better understanding of what the NTC training mission is makes this clear:
NTC MISSION
Provide tough, realistic joint and combined arms training
Focus at the battalion task force and brigade levels
Assist commanders in developing trained, competent leaders and soldiers
Identify unit training deficiencies, provide feedback to improve the force and prepare for success on the future joint battlefield
Provide a venue for transformation
Take care of soldiers, civilians, and family members
Joint, combined, battalion, brigade, these are all keywords which mean that the NTC is first and foremost a unit trainer. The individual soldier goes to NTC more by providence than by design. Nobody keeps track of your NTC rotations. It is not a training requirement for individual readiness. An individual unit may not be scheduled for rotation to the NTC for as long as two years. It is one facility and there are many brigades. The NTC is not and has never been a requirement for individual deployment.
What happens at NTC? A unit rotation lasts four weeks. The unit typically spends the first week in preparation and the last week in recovery. That means that the unit spends two weeks "in the box". While the training is valuable, and is the best two weeks of training a unit can get in the army, it is only two weeks after all.
While it certainly increases the skills of the individual soldier, you don't have to send a soldier to brigade level training to learn how to clean the sand out of your weapon as Mr. Thompson laments. And dealing with civilians on the battlefield can be taught anywhere.
Mr. Thompson's article also states:
Under cover of darkness, Sunni insurgents were attacking his new post from nearby buildings. Amid the smoke, noise and confusion, a blast suddenly ripped through the 3-ft. concrete wall shielding Zeimer and a fellow soldier, killing them both.
What Mr. Thompson doesn't tell the reader is than the soldier that was killed with PVT Zeimer was "Spc. Alan E. McPeek, a 20-year-old who had been in Iraq for 14 months" according to the Gazette. Of course, it's difficult to make a soldier appear to have died due to lack of training when the soldier who died next to him was a 14 month combat veteran, isn't it?
As disgusted as I am by the absolutely misleading nature of Mr. Thompson's article and how it affects the general public's perceptions, I am far more sickened by these vultures not explaining to the families of men like PVT Zeimer that their son was a hero, not a victim to be used in creating a political talking point for shoddy journalists and opportunist politicians. Army officials should explain what the standards of deployment training are to the families of our brave soldiers before rotten tomatoes like these convince them that heroes like Matthew died for lack of training.
God bless you Private Zeimer.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
The Persian Cat has a mile wide smile!
Intelligence sources suggest Ms. Pelosi and entourage were given a four-point plan by Assad which sets forth what the Bush administration has been trying, but unable to achieve, because of Syrian, Iranian and other internal/external opposition and meddling. I have no doubt the Bush administration would love to walk away from Iraq knowing Iraq was secure from external threat by its neighbors, was sufficiently stable internally and sectarianwise constitutionally protective of all the various factions.
One below could be the beginning of a plan on the part of Iran, operating through Syria, to impact the outcome of our '08 election, it could be the beginning sign that Iran is feeling isolated or it could be, as has often been the case, a desert mirage.
It is often important to repeat and recite what has gone before and been documented accordingly so that current diplomatic sleight of hand is seen for just that which it is. As the Saudi Plan becomes the new end all what U.N. Resolution 242 has always meant becomes increasingly relevant. And this, notwithstanding, even Jimmy Carter's purposeful twisting of the facts. (See 2 below.)
My Israeli-Arab friend, reporter Toameh, writes Gaza may have become so lawless even the U.N. is worried about remaining. Is this the consequence of allowing Arabs to self-govern and is this a window into what Iraq will look like and become when we leave? Must Arabs and Muslims always live under the heel of a dictator in order to live in calm and forever without freedom?( See 3 below.)
Keep your eye on Turkey. (See 4 below.)
This past week was a victory by default for Iran. Ahmadinejad created an episode, proved his Royal Guards could carry it out, left no viable option for Britain, proved its own European allies would not come to its aid and then either relented or was forced to by Mullahs in a gracious bow to Christianity's Easter season.
Last seen the Persian cat had a mile wide smile.
Dick
1)Assad handed US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a four-point plan for Syria and Iran to help solve the Iraq crisis.
The plan was presented to Nancy Pelosi when she met president Bashar Assad in Damascus Wednesday, April 4. Sources report Ms Pelosi and members of her delegation were given to understand – although this was not spelled out by Assad – that Tehran was willing to be part of the first stages of the plan’s implementation, but might have reservations at later stages
The four points, according to sources, cover Iraq’s military situation (terror), political situation and the roles played by Iraq’s neighbors in the conflict.
The Syrian ruler rounded off his conversation with the US House Speaker, the highest American official to talk to him in two years, with this comment:
“If the United States decides to reject my plan, then Condoleezza Rice’s talks with Arab intelligence chiefs in Amman and Cairo in the last two months will become ducks’ quacks [in Arabic “geagea” – roughly, ‘meaningless chitchat’].”
This was taken to mean that Rice will fail in her goal of establishing an anti-Syrian, anti-Iranian Arab bloc while also stabilizing Iraq.
The sense of the four-point blueprint, which Assad read out to his American visitors from a piece of paper appears to be:
1. The US must recognize the situation in Iraq has no military solution, only a political one. No indigenous Iraqi group or faction may be shut out of the political process. This point is a demand to reinstate Saddam Hussein’s Baath party in Iraq’s political life as an integral part of the political solution.
2. No religious or ethnic community must be given a sense of victory over the others, and no group feel itself defeated. In other words, neither Shiite nor Sunni Muslims may be allowed triumph over the other.
3. Following point 2., the US must cease its practice of categorizing the various groups in Iraq and treat them all as equals. This means that America will no longer be allowed to regard the Sunni Arabs as enemies.
4. The US must generate circumstances in Iraq that provide its neighbors – Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey – with an interest in achieving an accommodation that guarantees Iraq’s unity, security and stability.
The members of the US congressional delegation, headed by Pelosi, gave the impression that at this stage Tehran concurred with the Syrian president’s plan. They were not clear whether Iran would go along, once implementation began, or even discussion of the practical details. The delegates surmised Tehran might possibly demur once the blueprint entered its operational stages.
2) Buried to this day on the website of the Israel Foreign Ministry is an
excellent presentation of statements made by officials from various nations
that UN Security Council Resolution does not, as the Arabs and their allies
claim, require a total Israeli withdrawal.
It is noteworthy that these remarks all pre-date the Israeli withdrawal from
Sinai - a withdrawal that ceded to the Arabs the overwhelming majority of
the land covered by Resolution 242.
The Sinai, thanks to its great size and specific topography lends itself to
the establishment of security arrangements based on a series of zones with
force restrictions, thus making it possible to maintain that withdrawal from
Sinai could possibly entail a withdrawal to a secure border.
After the Yom Kippur War Israel also carried out a withdrawal in the Golan
from the area of Kuneitra, a move that was defended at the time to be a
redeployment to a secure line, with additional withdrawals not feasible on
security grounds (talk of "technological substitutes" that hinge on the
assumption that the Arabs will never acquire technology to overcome these
substitutes is more window dressing than anything).
With regard to the West Bank, a secure border and a Palestinian state is a
contradiction in terms.
The presentation is repeated below in full as a proper understanding of 242
is an essential building block that, unfortunately, has been lacking in most
public discourse.
How did the Arabs succeed in convincing so many people to accept their
distorted interpretation of 242?
They didn't do it alone.
Israeli officials, for the most part, have shied away from talking about 242
over the years, leaving the field open for the false claims of the Arabs
regarding 242 to be repeated again and again essentially unchallenged.
And when a lie is repeated enough times.
Statements Clarifying the Meaning of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242
www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace%20Process/Guide%20to%20the%20Peace%20Process/Statements%20Clarifying%20the%20Meaning%20of%20UN%20Security%20C
Even before the beginning of the Jarring Mission (the Special Representative
as mentioned in the Resolution), the Arab States insisted that Security
Council Resolution 242 called for a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from
territories occupied in the Six-Day War. Israel held that the withdrawal
phrase in the Resolution was not meant to refer to a total withdrawal.
Following are statements including the interpretations of various
delegations to Resolution 242:
A. United Kingdom
Lord Caradon, sponsor of the draft that was about to be adopted, stated,
before the vote in the Security Council on Resolution 242:
"... the draft Resolution is a balanced whole. To add to it or to detract
from it would destroy the balance and also destroy the wide measure of
agreement we have achieved together. It must be considered as a whole as it
stands. I suggest that we have reached the stage when most, if not all, of
us want the draft Resolution, the whole draft Resolution and nothing but the
draft Resolution." (S/PV 1382, p. 31, of 22.11.67)
Lord Caradon, interviewed on Kol Israel in February 1973:
Question: "This matter of the (definite) article which is there in French
and is missing in English, is that really significant?"
Answer: "The purposes are perfectly clear, the principle is stated in the
preamble, the necessity for withdrawal is stated in the operative section.
And then the essential phrase which is not sufficiently recognized is that
withdrawal should take place to secure and recognized boundaries, and these
words were very carefully chosen: they have to be secure and they have to be
recognized. They will not be secure unless they are recognized. And that is
why one has to work for agreement. This is essential. I would defend
absolutely what we did. It was not for us to lay down exactly where the
border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory
border, it is where troops had to stop in 1947, just where they happened to
be that night, that is not a permanent boundary... "
Mr. Michael Stewart, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
Affairs, in reply to a question in Parliament, 17 November 1969:
Question: "What is the British interpretation of the wording of the 1967
Resolution? Does the Right Honourable Gentleman understand it to mean that
the Israelis should withdraw from all territories taken in the late war?"
Mr. Stewart: "No, Sir. That is not the phrase used in the Resolution. The
Resolution speaks of secure and recognized boundaries. These words must be
read concurrently with the statement on withdrawal."
Mr. Michael Stewart, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
Affairs, in a reply to a question in Parliament, 9 December 1969:
"As I have explained before, there is reference, in the vital United Nations
Security Council Resolution, both to withdrawal from territories and to
secure and recognized boundaries. As I have told the House previously, we
believe that these two things should be read concurrently and that the
omission of the word 'all' before the word 'territories' is deliberate."
Mr. George Brown, British Foreign Secretary in 1967, on 19 January 1970:
"I have been asked over and over again to clarify, modify or improve the
wording, but I do not intend to do that. The phrasing of the Resolution was
very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and complicated exercise
to get it accepted by the UN Security Council. "I formulated the Security
Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the Council, we showed it to
Arab leaders. The proposal said 'Israel will withdraw from territories that
were occupied', and not from 'the' territories, which means that Israel will
not withdraw from all the territories." (The Jerusalem Post, 23.1.70)
B. United States of America
Mr. Arthur Goldberg, US representative, in the Security Council in the
course of the discussions which preceded the adoption of Resolution 242:
"To seek withdrawal without secure and recognized boundaries ... would be
just as fruitless as to seek secure and recognized boundaries without
withdrawal. Historically, there have never been secure or recognized
boundaries in the area. Neither the armistice lines of 1949 nor the
cease-fire lines of 1967 have answered that description... such boundaries
have yet to be agreed upon. An agreement on that point is an absolute
essential to a just and lasting peace just as withdrawal is... " (S/PV.
1377, p. 37, of 15. 11.67)
President Lyndon Johnson, 10 September 1968:
"We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between
them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that
a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be
secure and there must be recognized borders. Some such lines must be agreed
to by the neighbours involved."
Mr. Joseph Sisco, Assistant Secretary of State, 12 July 1970 (NBC "Meet the
Press"):
"That Resolution did not say 'withdrawal to the pre-June 5 lines'. The
Resolution said that the parties must negotiate to achieve agreement on the
so-called final secure and recognized borders. In other words, the question
of the final borders is a matter of negotiations between the parties."
Eugene V. Rostow, Professor of Law and Public Affairs, Yale University, who,
in 1967, was US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs:
a) "... Paragraph 1 (i) of the Resolution calls for the withdrawal of
Israeli armed forces 'from territories occupied in the recent conflict', and
not 'from the territories occupied in the recent conflict'. Repeated
attempts to amend this sentence by inserting the word 'the' failed in the
Security Council. It is, therefore, not legally possible to assert that the
provision requires Israeli withdrawal from all the territories now occupied
under the cease-fire resolutions to the Armistice Demarcation lines."
(American Journal of International Law, Volume 64, September 1970, p. 69)
b) "The agreement required by paragraph 3. of the Resolution, the Security
Council said, should establish 'secure and recognized boundaries' between
Israel and its neighbours 'free from threats or acts of force', to replace
the Armistice Demarcation lines established in 1949, and the cease-fire
lines of June 1967. The Israeli armed forces should withdraw to such lines
as part of a comprehensive agreement, settling all the issues mentioned in
the Resolution, and in a condition of peace." (American Journal of
International Law, Volume 64, September 1970, p. 68)
C. USSR
Mr. Vasily Kuznetsov said in discussions that preceded the adoption of
Resolution 242:
"... Phrases such as 'secure and recognized boundaries'. What does that
mean? What boundaries are these? Secure, recognized - by whom, for what? Who
is going to judge how secure they are? Who must recognize them? ... There is
certainly much leeway for different interpretations which retain for Israel
the right to establish new boundaries and to withdraw its troops only as far
as the lines which it judges convenient." (S/PV. 1373, p. 112, of 9.11.67)
D. Brazil
Mr. Geraldo de Carvalho Silos, Brazilian representative, speaking in the
Security Council after the adoption of Resolution 242:
"We keep constantly in mind that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East
has necessarily to be based on secure, permanent boundaries freely agreed
upon and negotiated by the neighbouring States." (S/PV. 1382, p. 66,
22.11.67)
3)PA fears UN may order all aid workers out of lawless Gaza
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
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Palestinian Authority officials on Thursday expressed fear that the United Nations may formally declare the Gaza Strip a dangerous zone - a move that would result in the evacuation of the remaining foreign nationals from the area and drastically hamper international humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.
PA security sources told The Jerusalem Post that 25 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip last month in internal fighting. Another four were killed in the West Bank, the sources added.
"We're moving very quickly toward such a scenario," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, member of the PLO executive committee and a close aide to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. "The Gaza Strip is full of thugs and gangsters who are responsible for the ongoing anarchy. Soon the Gaza Strip may be declared a dangerous zone, which means that all international organizations would have to leave."
The UN has yet to issue any formal statement to such effect.
Chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that a "dangerous zone" declaration would increase the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and called on the PA security forces to start working to end the state of lawlessness and anarchy.
"The Gaza Strip has become worse than Somalia," a prominent human rights activist in Gaza City told the Post. "Thousands of gunmen continue to roam the streets and the new government hasn't done anything to restore law and order. Every day you hear horror stories about people who are killed and wounded. The situation is really intolerable."
Muhammad Dahlan, who was recently appointed PA National Security Adviser, said it was time to admit that a "curse has hit" the Gaza Strip. "Anyone who does not admit that there's a curse in the Gaza Strip does not know what he's talking about," he said.
Dahlan expressed concern over the wave of kidnappings in Gaza, noting that a local engineer who was abducted several months ago was still being held by his captors. He said that the National Security Council was now preparing a security plan that would end the state of anarchy in the PA-controlled areas.
"The Palestinian security establishment needs to undergo major surgery," he added. "The situation is catastrophic and many young men prefer to work for clans and not the security forces."
Dahlan met earlier with the British consul-general in Jerusalem, Richard Makepeace, and briefed him on the PA's efforts to release kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was snatched by masked gunmen in Gaza City three weeks ago.
Hassan Khraisheh, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that the commanders of the PA security forces knew where Johnston was being held, but were doing nothing to release him. "What's the point in having 85,000 security officers if they can't free a foreign journalist who has been held in the Gaza Strip for three weeks?" he asked.
Dozens of Palestinian journalists demonstrated outside Abbas's office in Gaza City on Thursday to protest against the abduction of Johnston. Addressing the journalists, Abbas said he was doing his utmost to secure the release of the BBC corespondent.
"This case will be resolved very soon," he said without elaborating. "We will not allow such things to recur." Abbas's bodyguards fired into the air to prevent the protesters from approaching his office. No one was hurt.
Abbas and PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh agreed to form a joint "operations command" to follow up on the case of Johnston.
The new PA government is expected to hold an emergency meeting in Gaza City on Saturday to discuss ways of restoring law and order. But many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip expressed pessimism, saying it was too late to talk about ending the state of chaos.
"There are too many gangs and weapons out there," said the human rights activist. "No government will be able to create a new situation."
He pointed out that at least 46 civilians had been kidnapped in the Gaza Strip in the past four weeks. The latest kidnappings took place on Thursday, when unidentified gunmen abducted three people, including one woman, in separate incidents.
Most of the kidnappings were related to family feuds and rivalries between political groups, particularly Fatah and Hamas.
Also Thursday, the bullet-riddled body of a Hamas security official, Muhammad Abu Hajileh, was discovered east of Gaza City. Abu Hajileh was a member of Hamas's "Executive Force" in the Gaza Strip.
4) Tensions Rise in Turkey in Advance of Presidential Election
By: R. Krespin
As the countdown proceeds towards the May 16 presidential election in Turkey, a sense of panic pervades Turkey's secular circles, which fear for the secular and democratic nature of the Turkish republic. The possibility that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will bid for and win the presidency heads the national agenda, with daily polls, wagers, and guessing games.
According to the Turkish constitution, the president is elected by parliament; at present, the AKP party, whose roots are Islamist, holds the majority in parliament.
To date, Erdogan has been secretive about his candidacy, saying that the AKP will disclose its presidential candidate on April 16, a month before the election.
The thought of an Islamist occupying the highest position in the land has thrown the country into turmoil, and has deepened the rift between Islamists and secularists - and this is reflected in Turkey's divided media.
Business circles, NGOs, and the general public have been expressing their wish for nominating a candidate by national consensus, so as to prevent chaos and instability.
Many of the AKP government's Islamization attempts during the past four years have met with rejection and vetoes by the current president, the staunchly secular Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who has acted as a force for checks and balances. This will be lost if he is replaced by Erdogan.
It is thought that if the AKP adds the presidency to its monopoly on the executive and legislative bodies, it will constitute a serious threat to the core principles upon which the modern Republic of Turkey is built. Such absolute, unchecked rule will even give the AKP the power, in the period between the presidential and general elections, to change the constitution and make Turkey into a religious state.
While some secularists are looking to Turkey's strong military, as the custodian of the republic and of the constitution, to intervene as a last resort, the senior commanders are remaining silent on the matter of the presidential election and on internal politics, with reference to the democratic process and in line with demands by the E.U. to lessen the military's influence. [1]
The following are excerpts from Turkish media reports on the upcoming presidential election.
Secular Turkish Daily Cumhuriyet: "Are You Aware of the Danger?"
Two 20-second television ads [2] by the secular Turkish daily Cumhuriyet ("Republic") angered the AKP and led to discussion in AKP group meetings and the parliament floor about suing the paper. [3]
In the first ad, a ticking clock with its hands moving backwards is shown, and a voice-over says: "On May 16, the clocks are being set back 100 years. Are you aware of the danger? [Defend] your republic!"
The second ad opens with the sound of sirens; then the caption "1881-2007" appears [4] and a voice-over says, "In May 2007 the presidential election will be held. Are you aware of the danger? Defend your republic!" (To view the clips, see http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=746296&ak=null ; http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=746291&ak=null ).
Turkish Columnist: Erdogan Will Be President, But Will Act as Prime Minister
Turkish columnist Can Atakli, of the centrist, secular daily Vatan wrote: [5] "With Mr. Tayyip [Erdogan] in his office at AKP headquarters sit four of his cabinet ministers, and they discuss the presidential election. The ministers are certain that Erdogan will be the presidential candidate, and they are also absolutely certain that he will be elected. One of the ministers says, 'Tayyip Bey, there are media speculations that if you become president you will lose your power over the government, if it is a coalition government [after the general elections].' [6]
"Erdogan dismisses the argument with a wave of his hand and says, 'Don't worry, we will again be the only party to form the government' [...] and then continues, 'and how could there be any problem with the government - if I am the president? I will use all my powers [as president]. The constitution gives the president the authority to preside over the cabinet when he deems it necessary. This means that the president can act as the prime minister whenever he deems it necessary [...] Therefore, I can attend and preside over every cabinet meeting, if I want to. And I will definitely do that.'
"One of the ministers says happily: 'This is exactly what everyone [in the AKP] wants. This way you will become president, and act as prime minister too, when necessary.'
"Some of the ministers who attended that meeting shared this conversation with their friends. That is how I learned about it. Even if not every word is exact, the essence of the conversation is true."
Turkish Columnist: "What if Erdogan Acts Like Putin?"
In a column titled "What if Erdogan Acts Like Putin?" columnist Mehmet Tezkan, also of Vatan, described a very different scenario: [7] "If Erdogan becomes the presidential candidate, there will be a crisis... If he gives up [the presidency] and gets to be [prime minister] of a single-party [AKP] government [after the November general elections], he will be another [Russian President Vladimir] Putin...
"Putin designed Russia according to his wishes... With the capital... the businessmen... bureaucrats... [and] media... he built the Russia that he wanted.
"Erdogan will do the same. He will become more firm. He won't tolerate loud speech, let alone criticism. In the last year or year and a half, he has been showing signs of this. In 2003, Erdogan was rather timid and hesitant [...] He didn't know power and was unfamiliar with [affairs of] state... Now he has tasted power... He has begun to attack the president of the Higher Education Board... to reprimand university presidents... to accuse media organs of treason... to completely ignore the opposition...He has begun overreacting to the slightest of protests [...]
"So what will he do if [the AKP] comes to power once again? [The answer] is clear... Currently, 670 critical public positions have [only] acting heads. Why is this? Because the government is unable to override President Sezer's vetoes of its appointments. Erdogan will deal with that first. He will appoint [his men], and [the president] will readily sign... He will then pass the legislation he wants... and the president will readily sign... Then he will assign [his men] to the position of president of the Higher Education Board... [and to positions] of ambassadors... governors... security heads... and even members of the judiciary. All institutions will be manned by the AKP...
"Businessmen will get their share too... Those who support the government will get their business done... Those who don't will be [thrown out], and be run over by the wheels of bureaucracy... Then it will be the turn of the media... The [AKP] newspapers and television channels will grow, while others will be lost.
"Foreign capital loves countries where all authority is held by one man. Didn't they love Putin too? [When this is the case,] all doors open and things are easier for them [...]
"That's why I think Erdogan will not become president, and will send to the presidential residence a man who is pallid and humble, who does not like being at center stage... He [Erdogan] will wait for the November elections in order to be like Putin. A powerful prime minister, who does whatever he wants [...]"
Turkish Columnist: The Presidential Suit "Won't Fit" Erdogan
Columnist Hassan Pulur of the secular, mainstream Milliyet wrote: [8] "Not every garment fits everyone; [people] are short, tall, slim, fat... If you insist on dressing everyone in [a particular garment], it will either be loose and unflattering, or too tight, and will rip.
"The presidency is like a suit, and it must fit the wearer. For example, it will not fit someone who says [as PM Erdogan has said]: 'democracy is a tool, not a goal!.' It doesn't fit someone who yells at simple citizens, and reprimands them and sends them away. It doesn't fit someone who says 'Hitler too was secular' [...] or '[secularism] will obviously go away if our people wish it to.'
"This suit doesn't fit someone who has said [as PM Erdogan has said], 'These people [i.e. former Turkish governments] are racing to join the European Union, while the Europeans are making every effort not to accept us. We [i.e. the AKP] do not want to join. The E.U.'s real name is the Union of Catholic Christian States.'
"[This suit] doesn't fit someone [...] who says [as PM Erdogan has said] of the president of the Higher Education Board, Professor Tezic, that 'his head does not work [...], or someone who says there are 27 ethnic groups in Turkey [...], contemplating an Ottoman-style division [...]
"However, there are those who are trying to dress this person [i.e. PM Erdogan] in this suit [...] and who are trying to make us believe that he can be a centrist president who wants to embrace everyone [...] and protects us all [...]
"It won't be long now. Soon you will see how the suit fits when he wears it. It will either be too big and will fall off, or it will be so tight that it rips open [...]"
Former Chief of Staff: If Erdogan Becomes President "There Will Be Chaos"
The secular, large circulation Turkish daily Hurriyet reported: [9] "Answering journalists' questions on a program on Haberturk [TV], [...] former Chief of General Staff General (ret.) Dogan Gures said: 'The face of Turkey is changing; I look at people in Ankara [and see] more and more in Saudi garb. The moustaches are changing; the clothing is changing; the [verbal] expressions are changing [to Arabic expressions]. There is nervousness [in the air] [...]' He added that secularism was in danger.
"Gen. Gures said that the situation was like the period prior to February 28 [1997, the ousting of former Islamist PM Necmettin Erbakan by military intervention], and added: 'I am telling the present [AKP government] to wise up and shape up.'
"Gures told the journalists that if Erdogan became president, there would be tension in Turkey, [since] the post [of president] acts as a valve to prevent social tension. He said that President Ahmet Necdet Sezer had been very successful, and that by vetoing some of the AKP government's policies he had prevented public reaction. He stated that in the event that Erdogan became president, there would be no such mechanism [of checks and balances]. [...] [He said,] 'The Turkish people is very concerned. Erdogan does not have what it takes to fulfill the duties of the presidency - that is, to ensure that the national institutions and bodies work together in harmony. If he becomes president, there will be chaos.'"
Demonstrations Against an Erdogan Presidency; One Million Expected to March on Ankara
Anti-AKP demonstrations have been held across Turkey, with the largest one on March 31, 2007 in Antalya. Recently, the Association of Ataturkist Thought (ADD) issued a statement calling on its members and concerned citizens everywhere to join forces to protest against the AKP government. In its statement, the ADD committed all its resources to the national goal of bringing down the AKP prior to the elections, and invited all followers of Ataturk and of his principles to participate in a massive demonstration scheduled for April 14, 2007 in Ankara. According to the Turkish media, the Ankara demonstrations are expected to draw one million participants, and are to be followed by other demonstrations across the country.
Actors and artists also organized a demonstration in Istanbul, just prior to World Theater Day on March 27, 2007. What started as a protest against the AKP government's decision to destroy Istanbul's Ataturk Culture Center (AKM) quickly turned into a "Don't Destroy the AKM, Destroy the AKP" demonstration. Some 1,000 actors, singers, dancers, and artists from all the state theaters, operas, and ballet companies met in front of the AKM, gave a performance of "No One is Sleeping" from the Verdi opera Nabucco, read poems, and sang a piece composed for the new Turkish film The Republic. In a statement, which was also signed by the members of 14 private theatre companies, they vowed to fight back against the AKP government, which, they said, was at war with the theater. [10]
*R. Krespin is the director of the Turkish Media Project.
[1] Turkey is a candidate for E.U. membership, and is in the process of implementing E.U. criteria, one of which is to lessen the power and political influence of the Turkish military. However, Turkey's constitution gives the responsibility and duty of guarding the Turkish republic's secular regime to the military.
[2] Broadcast through February 2007 in major Turkish TV channels such as Haberturk, Kanalturk, CNN Turk, StarTV, KanalD. They were stopped by a complaint sent to RTUK [Turkish Radio-TV Supreme Council] by AKP that the ads were discriminatory [against AKP] and an incitement to hatred. However after a short break, Cumhuriyet ads were broadcast for a few more weeks.
[3] During 2006, Cumhuriyet was the target of multiple bomb attacks by Islamists.
[4] "1881" is the year of the birth of modern Turkey's founding father and first president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. "2007" presumably marks the death of Ataturk’s reforms and principles.
[5] Vatan (Turkey), March 12, 2007.
[6] Media organs have been reporting that some in the AKP circles are concerned that if Erdogan wins the presidency, the AKP will lose his charismatic leadership, and thus lose some power in the November 2007 parliamentary elections campaign.
[7] Vatan (Turkey), March 7, 2007.
[8] Milliyet (Turkey), Marc 31, 2007.
[9] Hurriyet (Turkey), March 5, 2007.
[10] Radikal (Turkey), March 27, 2007.
One below could be the beginning of a plan on the part of Iran, operating through Syria, to impact the outcome of our '08 election, it could be the beginning sign that Iran is feeling isolated or it could be, as has often been the case, a desert mirage.
It is often important to repeat and recite what has gone before and been documented accordingly so that current diplomatic sleight of hand is seen for just that which it is. As the Saudi Plan becomes the new end all what U.N. Resolution 242 has always meant becomes increasingly relevant. And this, notwithstanding, even Jimmy Carter's purposeful twisting of the facts. (See 2 below.)
My Israeli-Arab friend, reporter Toameh, writes Gaza may have become so lawless even the U.N. is worried about remaining. Is this the consequence of allowing Arabs to self-govern and is this a window into what Iraq will look like and become when we leave? Must Arabs and Muslims always live under the heel of a dictator in order to live in calm and forever without freedom?( See 3 below.)
Keep your eye on Turkey. (See 4 below.)
This past week was a victory by default for Iran. Ahmadinejad created an episode, proved his Royal Guards could carry it out, left no viable option for Britain, proved its own European allies would not come to its aid and then either relented or was forced to by Mullahs in a gracious bow to Christianity's Easter season.
Last seen the Persian cat had a mile wide smile.
Dick
1)Assad handed US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi a four-point plan for Syria and Iran to help solve the Iraq crisis.
The plan was presented to Nancy Pelosi when she met president Bashar Assad in Damascus Wednesday, April 4. Sources report Ms Pelosi and members of her delegation were given to understand – although this was not spelled out by Assad – that Tehran was willing to be part of the first stages of the plan’s implementation, but might have reservations at later stages
The four points, according to sources, cover Iraq’s military situation (terror), political situation and the roles played by Iraq’s neighbors in the conflict.
The Syrian ruler rounded off his conversation with the US House Speaker, the highest American official to talk to him in two years, with this comment:
“If the United States decides to reject my plan, then Condoleezza Rice’s talks with Arab intelligence chiefs in Amman and Cairo in the last two months will become ducks’ quacks [in Arabic “geagea” – roughly, ‘meaningless chitchat’].”
This was taken to mean that Rice will fail in her goal of establishing an anti-Syrian, anti-Iranian Arab bloc while also stabilizing Iraq.
The sense of the four-point blueprint, which Assad read out to his American visitors from a piece of paper appears to be:
1. The US must recognize the situation in Iraq has no military solution, only a political one. No indigenous Iraqi group or faction may be shut out of the political process. This point is a demand to reinstate Saddam Hussein’s Baath party in Iraq’s political life as an integral part of the political solution.
2. No religious or ethnic community must be given a sense of victory over the others, and no group feel itself defeated. In other words, neither Shiite nor Sunni Muslims may be allowed triumph over the other.
3. Following point 2., the US must cease its practice of categorizing the various groups in Iraq and treat them all as equals. This means that America will no longer be allowed to regard the Sunni Arabs as enemies.
4. The US must generate circumstances in Iraq that provide its neighbors – Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Turkey – with an interest in achieving an accommodation that guarantees Iraq’s unity, security and stability.
The members of the US congressional delegation, headed by Pelosi, gave the impression that at this stage Tehran concurred with the Syrian president’s plan. They were not clear whether Iran would go along, once implementation began, or even discussion of the practical details. The delegates surmised Tehran might possibly demur once the blueprint entered its operational stages.
2) Buried to this day on the website of the Israel Foreign Ministry is an
excellent presentation of statements made by officials from various nations
that UN Security Council Resolution does not, as the Arabs and their allies
claim, require a total Israeli withdrawal.
It is noteworthy that these remarks all pre-date the Israeli withdrawal from
Sinai - a withdrawal that ceded to the Arabs the overwhelming majority of
the land covered by Resolution 242.
The Sinai, thanks to its great size and specific topography lends itself to
the establishment of security arrangements based on a series of zones with
force restrictions, thus making it possible to maintain that withdrawal from
Sinai could possibly entail a withdrawal to a secure border.
After the Yom Kippur War Israel also carried out a withdrawal in the Golan
from the area of Kuneitra, a move that was defended at the time to be a
redeployment to a secure line, with additional withdrawals not feasible on
security grounds (talk of "technological substitutes" that hinge on the
assumption that the Arabs will never acquire technology to overcome these
substitutes is more window dressing than anything).
With regard to the West Bank, a secure border and a Palestinian state is a
contradiction in terms.
The presentation is repeated below in full as a proper understanding of 242
is an essential building block that, unfortunately, has been lacking in most
public discourse.
How did the Arabs succeed in convincing so many people to accept their
distorted interpretation of 242?
They didn't do it alone.
Israeli officials, for the most part, have shied away from talking about 242
over the years, leaving the field open for the false claims of the Arabs
regarding 242 to be repeated again and again essentially unchallenged.
And when a lie is repeated enough times.
Statements Clarifying the Meaning of U.N. Security Council Resolution 242
www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace%20Process/Guide%20to%20the%20Peace%20Process/Statements%20Clarifying%20the%20Meaning%20of%20UN%20Security%20C
Even before the beginning of the Jarring Mission (the Special Representative
as mentioned in the Resolution), the Arab States insisted that Security
Council Resolution 242 called for a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from
territories occupied in the Six-Day War. Israel held that the withdrawal
phrase in the Resolution was not meant to refer to a total withdrawal.
Following are statements including the interpretations of various
delegations to Resolution 242:
A. United Kingdom
Lord Caradon, sponsor of the draft that was about to be adopted, stated,
before the vote in the Security Council on Resolution 242:
"... the draft Resolution is a balanced whole. To add to it or to detract
from it would destroy the balance and also destroy the wide measure of
agreement we have achieved together. It must be considered as a whole as it
stands. I suggest that we have reached the stage when most, if not all, of
us want the draft Resolution, the whole draft Resolution and nothing but the
draft Resolution." (S/PV 1382, p. 31, of 22.11.67)
Lord Caradon, interviewed on Kol Israel in February 1973:
Question: "This matter of the (definite) article which is there in French
and is missing in English, is that really significant?"
Answer: "The purposes are perfectly clear, the principle is stated in the
preamble, the necessity for withdrawal is stated in the operative section.
And then the essential phrase which is not sufficiently recognized is that
withdrawal should take place to secure and recognized boundaries, and these
words were very carefully chosen: they have to be secure and they have to be
recognized. They will not be secure unless they are recognized. And that is
why one has to work for agreement. This is essential. I would defend
absolutely what we did. It was not for us to lay down exactly where the
border should be. I know the 1967 border very well. It is not a satisfactory
border, it is where troops had to stop in 1947, just where they happened to
be that night, that is not a permanent boundary... "
Mr. Michael Stewart, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
Affairs, in reply to a question in Parliament, 17 November 1969:
Question: "What is the British interpretation of the wording of the 1967
Resolution? Does the Right Honourable Gentleman understand it to mean that
the Israelis should withdraw from all territories taken in the late war?"
Mr. Stewart: "No, Sir. That is not the phrase used in the Resolution. The
Resolution speaks of secure and recognized boundaries. These words must be
read concurrently with the statement on withdrawal."
Mr. Michael Stewart, Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth
Affairs, in a reply to a question in Parliament, 9 December 1969:
"As I have explained before, there is reference, in the vital United Nations
Security Council Resolution, both to withdrawal from territories and to
secure and recognized boundaries. As I have told the House previously, we
believe that these two things should be read concurrently and that the
omission of the word 'all' before the word 'territories' is deliberate."
Mr. George Brown, British Foreign Secretary in 1967, on 19 January 1970:
"I have been asked over and over again to clarify, modify or improve the
wording, but I do not intend to do that. The phrasing of the Resolution was
very carefully worked out, and it was a difficult and complicated exercise
to get it accepted by the UN Security Council. "I formulated the Security
Council Resolution. Before we submitted it to the Council, we showed it to
Arab leaders. The proposal said 'Israel will withdraw from territories that
were occupied', and not from 'the' territories, which means that Israel will
not withdraw from all the territories." (The Jerusalem Post, 23.1.70)
B. United States of America
Mr. Arthur Goldberg, US representative, in the Security Council in the
course of the discussions which preceded the adoption of Resolution 242:
"To seek withdrawal without secure and recognized boundaries ... would be
just as fruitless as to seek secure and recognized boundaries without
withdrawal. Historically, there have never been secure or recognized
boundaries in the area. Neither the armistice lines of 1949 nor the
cease-fire lines of 1967 have answered that description... such boundaries
have yet to be agreed upon. An agreement on that point is an absolute
essential to a just and lasting peace just as withdrawal is... " (S/PV.
1377, p. 37, of 15. 11.67)
President Lyndon Johnson, 10 September 1968:
"We are not the ones to say where other nations should draw lines between
them that will assure each the greatest security. It is clear, however, that
a return to the situation of 4 June 1967 will not bring peace. There must be
secure and there must be recognized borders. Some such lines must be agreed
to by the neighbours involved."
Mr. Joseph Sisco, Assistant Secretary of State, 12 July 1970 (NBC "Meet the
Press"):
"That Resolution did not say 'withdrawal to the pre-June 5 lines'. The
Resolution said that the parties must negotiate to achieve agreement on the
so-called final secure and recognized borders. In other words, the question
of the final borders is a matter of negotiations between the parties."
Eugene V. Rostow, Professor of Law and Public Affairs, Yale University, who,
in 1967, was US Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs:
a) "... Paragraph 1 (i) of the Resolution calls for the withdrawal of
Israeli armed forces 'from territories occupied in the recent conflict', and
not 'from the territories occupied in the recent conflict'. Repeated
attempts to amend this sentence by inserting the word 'the' failed in the
Security Council. It is, therefore, not legally possible to assert that the
provision requires Israeli withdrawal from all the territories now occupied
under the cease-fire resolutions to the Armistice Demarcation lines."
(American Journal of International Law, Volume 64, September 1970, p. 69)
b) "The agreement required by paragraph 3. of the Resolution, the Security
Council said, should establish 'secure and recognized boundaries' between
Israel and its neighbours 'free from threats or acts of force', to replace
the Armistice Demarcation lines established in 1949, and the cease-fire
lines of June 1967. The Israeli armed forces should withdraw to such lines
as part of a comprehensive agreement, settling all the issues mentioned in
the Resolution, and in a condition of peace." (American Journal of
International Law, Volume 64, September 1970, p. 68)
C. USSR
Mr. Vasily Kuznetsov said in discussions that preceded the adoption of
Resolution 242:
"... Phrases such as 'secure and recognized boundaries'. What does that
mean? What boundaries are these? Secure, recognized - by whom, for what? Who
is going to judge how secure they are? Who must recognize them? ... There is
certainly much leeway for different interpretations which retain for Israel
the right to establish new boundaries and to withdraw its troops only as far
as the lines which it judges convenient." (S/PV. 1373, p. 112, of 9.11.67)
D. Brazil
Mr. Geraldo de Carvalho Silos, Brazilian representative, speaking in the
Security Council after the adoption of Resolution 242:
"We keep constantly in mind that a just and lasting peace in the Middle East
has necessarily to be based on secure, permanent boundaries freely agreed
upon and negotiated by the neighbouring States." (S/PV. 1382, p. 66,
22.11.67)
3)PA fears UN may order all aid workers out of lawless Gaza
By KHALED ABU TOAMEH
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Palestinian Authority officials on Thursday expressed fear that the United Nations may formally declare the Gaza Strip a dangerous zone - a move that would result in the evacuation of the remaining foreign nationals from the area and drastically hamper international humanitarian aid to the Palestinians.
PA security sources told The Jerusalem Post that 25 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip last month in internal fighting. Another four were killed in the West Bank, the sources added.
"We're moving very quickly toward such a scenario," said Yasser Abed Rabbo, member of the PLO executive committee and a close aide to PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas. "The Gaza Strip is full of thugs and gangsters who are responsible for the ongoing anarchy. Soon the Gaza Strip may be declared a dangerous zone, which means that all international organizations would have to leave."
The UN has yet to issue any formal statement to such effect.
Chief PA negotiator Saeb Erekat warned that a "dangerous zone" declaration would increase the suffering of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and called on the PA security forces to start working to end the state of lawlessness and anarchy.
"The Gaza Strip has become worse than Somalia," a prominent human rights activist in Gaza City told the Post. "Thousands of gunmen continue to roam the streets and the new government hasn't done anything to restore law and order. Every day you hear horror stories about people who are killed and wounded. The situation is really intolerable."
Muhammad Dahlan, who was recently appointed PA National Security Adviser, said it was time to admit that a "curse has hit" the Gaza Strip. "Anyone who does not admit that there's a curse in the Gaza Strip does not know what he's talking about," he said.
Dahlan expressed concern over the wave of kidnappings in Gaza, noting that a local engineer who was abducted several months ago was still being held by his captors. He said that the National Security Council was now preparing a security plan that would end the state of anarchy in the PA-controlled areas.
"The Palestinian security establishment needs to undergo major surgery," he added. "The situation is catastrophic and many young men prefer to work for clans and not the security forces."
Dahlan met earlier with the British consul-general in Jerusalem, Richard Makepeace, and briefed him on the PA's efforts to release kidnapped BBC correspondent Alan Johnston, who was snatched by masked gunmen in Gaza City three weeks ago.
Hassan Khraisheh, deputy speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, said that the commanders of the PA security forces knew where Johnston was being held, but were doing nothing to release him. "What's the point in having 85,000 security officers if they can't free a foreign journalist who has been held in the Gaza Strip for three weeks?" he asked.
Dozens of Palestinian journalists demonstrated outside Abbas's office in Gaza City on Thursday to protest against the abduction of Johnston. Addressing the journalists, Abbas said he was doing his utmost to secure the release of the BBC corespondent.
"This case will be resolved very soon," he said without elaborating. "We will not allow such things to recur." Abbas's bodyguards fired into the air to prevent the protesters from approaching his office. No one was hurt.
Abbas and PA Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh agreed to form a joint "operations command" to follow up on the case of Johnston.
The new PA government is expected to hold an emergency meeting in Gaza City on Saturday to discuss ways of restoring law and order. But many Palestinians in the Gaza Strip expressed pessimism, saying it was too late to talk about ending the state of chaos.
"There are too many gangs and weapons out there," said the human rights activist. "No government will be able to create a new situation."
He pointed out that at least 46 civilians had been kidnapped in the Gaza Strip in the past four weeks. The latest kidnappings took place on Thursday, when unidentified gunmen abducted three people, including one woman, in separate incidents.
Most of the kidnappings were related to family feuds and rivalries between political groups, particularly Fatah and Hamas.
Also Thursday, the bullet-riddled body of a Hamas security official, Muhammad Abu Hajileh, was discovered east of Gaza City. Abu Hajileh was a member of Hamas's "Executive Force" in the Gaza Strip.
4) Tensions Rise in Turkey in Advance of Presidential Election
By: R. Krespin
As the countdown proceeds towards the May 16 presidential election in Turkey, a sense of panic pervades Turkey's secular circles, which fear for the secular and democratic nature of the Turkish republic. The possibility that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan will bid for and win the presidency heads the national agenda, with daily polls, wagers, and guessing games.
According to the Turkish constitution, the president is elected by parliament; at present, the AKP party, whose roots are Islamist, holds the majority in parliament.
To date, Erdogan has been secretive about his candidacy, saying that the AKP will disclose its presidential candidate on April 16, a month before the election.
The thought of an Islamist occupying the highest position in the land has thrown the country into turmoil, and has deepened the rift between Islamists and secularists - and this is reflected in Turkey's divided media.
Business circles, NGOs, and the general public have been expressing their wish for nominating a candidate by national consensus, so as to prevent chaos and instability.
Many of the AKP government's Islamization attempts during the past four years have met with rejection and vetoes by the current president, the staunchly secular Ahmet Necdet Sezer, who has acted as a force for checks and balances. This will be lost if he is replaced by Erdogan.
It is thought that if the AKP adds the presidency to its monopoly on the executive and legislative bodies, it will constitute a serious threat to the core principles upon which the modern Republic of Turkey is built. Such absolute, unchecked rule will even give the AKP the power, in the period between the presidential and general elections, to change the constitution and make Turkey into a religious state.
While some secularists are looking to Turkey's strong military, as the custodian of the republic and of the constitution, to intervene as a last resort, the senior commanders are remaining silent on the matter of the presidential election and on internal politics, with reference to the democratic process and in line with demands by the E.U. to lessen the military's influence. [1]
The following are excerpts from Turkish media reports on the upcoming presidential election.
Secular Turkish Daily Cumhuriyet: "Are You Aware of the Danger?"
Two 20-second television ads [2] by the secular Turkish daily Cumhuriyet ("Republic") angered the AKP and led to discussion in AKP group meetings and the parliament floor about suing the paper. [3]
In the first ad, a ticking clock with its hands moving backwards is shown, and a voice-over says: "On May 16, the clocks are being set back 100 years. Are you aware of the danger? [Defend] your republic!"
The second ad opens with the sound of sirens; then the caption "1881-2007" appears [4] and a voice-over says, "In May 2007 the presidential election will be held. Are you aware of the danger? Defend your republic!" (To view the clips, see http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=746296&ak=null ; http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=746291&ak=null ).
Turkish Columnist: Erdogan Will Be President, But Will Act as Prime Minister
Turkish columnist Can Atakli, of the centrist, secular daily Vatan wrote: [5] "With Mr. Tayyip [Erdogan] in his office at AKP headquarters sit four of his cabinet ministers, and they discuss the presidential election. The ministers are certain that Erdogan will be the presidential candidate, and they are also absolutely certain that he will be elected. One of the ministers says, 'Tayyip Bey, there are media speculations that if you become president you will lose your power over the government, if it is a coalition government [after the general elections].' [6]
"Erdogan dismisses the argument with a wave of his hand and says, 'Don't worry, we will again be the only party to form the government' [...] and then continues, 'and how could there be any problem with the government - if I am the president? I will use all my powers [as president]. The constitution gives the president the authority to preside over the cabinet when he deems it necessary. This means that the president can act as the prime minister whenever he deems it necessary [...] Therefore, I can attend and preside over every cabinet meeting, if I want to. And I will definitely do that.'
"One of the ministers says happily: 'This is exactly what everyone [in the AKP] wants. This way you will become president, and act as prime minister too, when necessary.'
"Some of the ministers who attended that meeting shared this conversation with their friends. That is how I learned about it. Even if not every word is exact, the essence of the conversation is true."
Turkish Columnist: "What if Erdogan Acts Like Putin?"
In a column titled "What if Erdogan Acts Like Putin?" columnist Mehmet Tezkan, also of Vatan, described a very different scenario: [7] "If Erdogan becomes the presidential candidate, there will be a crisis... If he gives up [the presidency] and gets to be [prime minister] of a single-party [AKP] government [after the November general elections], he will be another [Russian President Vladimir] Putin...
"Putin designed Russia according to his wishes... With the capital... the businessmen... bureaucrats... [and] media... he built the Russia that he wanted.
"Erdogan will do the same. He will become more firm. He won't tolerate loud speech, let alone criticism. In the last year or year and a half, he has been showing signs of this. In 2003, Erdogan was rather timid and hesitant [...] He didn't know power and was unfamiliar with [affairs of] state... Now he has tasted power... He has begun to attack the president of the Higher Education Board... to reprimand university presidents... to accuse media organs of treason... to completely ignore the opposition...He has begun overreacting to the slightest of protests [...]
"So what will he do if [the AKP] comes to power once again? [The answer] is clear... Currently, 670 critical public positions have [only] acting heads. Why is this? Because the government is unable to override President Sezer's vetoes of its appointments. Erdogan will deal with that first. He will appoint [his men], and [the president] will readily sign... He will then pass the legislation he wants... and the president will readily sign... Then he will assign [his men] to the position of president of the Higher Education Board... [and to positions] of ambassadors... governors... security heads... and even members of the judiciary. All institutions will be manned by the AKP...
"Businessmen will get their share too... Those who support the government will get their business done... Those who don't will be [thrown out], and be run over by the wheels of bureaucracy... Then it will be the turn of the media... The [AKP] newspapers and television channels will grow, while others will be lost.
"Foreign capital loves countries where all authority is held by one man. Didn't they love Putin too? [When this is the case,] all doors open and things are easier for them [...]
"That's why I think Erdogan will not become president, and will send to the presidential residence a man who is pallid and humble, who does not like being at center stage... He [Erdogan] will wait for the November elections in order to be like Putin. A powerful prime minister, who does whatever he wants [...]"
Turkish Columnist: The Presidential Suit "Won't Fit" Erdogan
Columnist Hassan Pulur of the secular, mainstream Milliyet wrote: [8] "Not every garment fits everyone; [people] are short, tall, slim, fat... If you insist on dressing everyone in [a particular garment], it will either be loose and unflattering, or too tight, and will rip.
"The presidency is like a suit, and it must fit the wearer. For example, it will not fit someone who says [as PM Erdogan has said]: 'democracy is a tool, not a goal!.' It doesn't fit someone who yells at simple citizens, and reprimands them and sends them away. It doesn't fit someone who says 'Hitler too was secular' [...] or '[secularism] will obviously go away if our people wish it to.'
"This suit doesn't fit someone who has said [as PM Erdogan has said], 'These people [i.e. former Turkish governments] are racing to join the European Union, while the Europeans are making every effort not to accept us. We [i.e. the AKP] do not want to join. The E.U.'s real name is the Union of Catholic Christian States.'
"[This suit] doesn't fit someone [...] who says [as PM Erdogan has said] of the president of the Higher Education Board, Professor Tezic, that 'his head does not work [...], or someone who says there are 27 ethnic groups in Turkey [...], contemplating an Ottoman-style division [...]
"However, there are those who are trying to dress this person [i.e. PM Erdogan] in this suit [...] and who are trying to make us believe that he can be a centrist president who wants to embrace everyone [...] and protects us all [...]
"It won't be long now. Soon you will see how the suit fits when he wears it. It will either be too big and will fall off, or it will be so tight that it rips open [...]"
Former Chief of Staff: If Erdogan Becomes President "There Will Be Chaos"
The secular, large circulation Turkish daily Hurriyet reported: [9] "Answering journalists' questions on a program on Haberturk [TV], [...] former Chief of General Staff General (ret.) Dogan Gures said: 'The face of Turkey is changing; I look at people in Ankara [and see] more and more in Saudi garb. The moustaches are changing; the clothing is changing; the [verbal] expressions are changing [to Arabic expressions]. There is nervousness [in the air] [...]' He added that secularism was in danger.
"Gen. Gures said that the situation was like the period prior to February 28 [1997, the ousting of former Islamist PM Necmettin Erbakan by military intervention], and added: 'I am telling the present [AKP government] to wise up and shape up.'
"Gures told the journalists that if Erdogan became president, there would be tension in Turkey, [since] the post [of president] acts as a valve to prevent social tension. He said that President Ahmet Necdet Sezer had been very successful, and that by vetoing some of the AKP government's policies he had prevented public reaction. He stated that in the event that Erdogan became president, there would be no such mechanism [of checks and balances]. [...] [He said,] 'The Turkish people is very concerned. Erdogan does not have what it takes to fulfill the duties of the presidency - that is, to ensure that the national institutions and bodies work together in harmony. If he becomes president, there will be chaos.'"
Demonstrations Against an Erdogan Presidency; One Million Expected to March on Ankara
Anti-AKP demonstrations have been held across Turkey, with the largest one on March 31, 2007 in Antalya. Recently, the Association of Ataturkist Thought (ADD) issued a statement calling on its members and concerned citizens everywhere to join forces to protest against the AKP government. In its statement, the ADD committed all its resources to the national goal of bringing down the AKP prior to the elections, and invited all followers of Ataturk and of his principles to participate in a massive demonstration scheduled for April 14, 2007 in Ankara. According to the Turkish media, the Ankara demonstrations are expected to draw one million participants, and are to be followed by other demonstrations across the country.
Actors and artists also organized a demonstration in Istanbul, just prior to World Theater Day on March 27, 2007. What started as a protest against the AKP government's decision to destroy Istanbul's Ataturk Culture Center (AKM) quickly turned into a "Don't Destroy the AKM, Destroy the AKP" demonstration. Some 1,000 actors, singers, dancers, and artists from all the state theaters, operas, and ballet companies met in front of the AKM, gave a performance of "No One is Sleeping" from the Verdi opera Nabucco, read poems, and sang a piece composed for the new Turkish film The Republic. In a statement, which was also signed by the members of 14 private theatre companies, they vowed to fight back against the AKP government, which, they said, was at war with the theater. [10]
*R. Krespin is the director of the Turkish Media Project.
[1] Turkey is a candidate for E.U. membership, and is in the process of implementing E.U. criteria, one of which is to lessen the power and political influence of the Turkish military. However, Turkey's constitution gives the responsibility and duty of guarding the Turkish republic's secular regime to the military.
[2] Broadcast through February 2007 in major Turkish TV channels such as Haberturk, Kanalturk, CNN Turk, StarTV, KanalD. They were stopped by a complaint sent to RTUK [Turkish Radio-TV Supreme Council] by AKP that the ads were discriminatory [against AKP] and an incitement to hatred. However after a short break, Cumhuriyet ads were broadcast for a few more weeks.
[3] During 2006, Cumhuriyet was the target of multiple bomb attacks by Islamists.
[4] "1881" is the year of the birth of modern Turkey's founding father and first president Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. "2007" presumably marks the death of Ataturk’s reforms and principles.
[5] Vatan (Turkey), March 12, 2007.
[6] Media organs have been reporting that some in the AKP circles are concerned that if Erdogan wins the presidency, the AKP will lose his charismatic leadership, and thus lose some power in the November 2007 parliamentary elections campaign.
[7] Vatan (Turkey), March 7, 2007.
[8] Milliyet (Turkey), Marc 31, 2007.
[9] Hurriyet (Turkey), March 5, 2007.
[10] Radikal (Turkey), March 27, 2007.
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