Counterpunch.org

June 25, 2007

Brothers-in-Arms

By Jennifer Lowenstein

Contrary to the many claims that the Hamas takeover of the Gaza Strip represents the failure of US and Israeli policies in Palestine, the violent civil infighting that has dominated the Gaza Strip over much of the last year and a half and that led directly to the Hamas coup of June 2007, marks yet another major foreign policy victory for the occupiers. Hamas will never be allowed to remain in power in Gaza so we must fear for the future of that tiny, desperately overcrowded strip of land and its 1.4 million inhabitants; additionally, Abbas ­in order to maintain his role as “Good Guy”- will have to accede to the dictates of Israel and the United States or suffer the same fate as his predecessor, Yassir Arafat.

Western nations are standing by in silence as the deadly siege of Gaza and the dismemberment of the West Bank continue unabated. What we are witnessing in full view each day are unprecedented steps taken by the world’s only superpower and its favorite client state, Israel, to ensure the death of a nation. While friction between the two key political factions in the occupied Palestinian territories has long undermined the smooth functioning of internal affairs, it was the direct, cynical involvement of US and Israeli policy-makers in these affairs that guaranteed the breakdown of internal stability and paved the way for the Hamas “coup” in Gaza.

Media reports have been careful to leave out important facts leading up to the coup such as that Hamas was the legitimate, democratically elected ruling party in the Palestinian territories following the January 2006 Palestine Legislative Council elections; that it was the US-Israeli dismissal of those election results that fueled the civil infighting between Hamas and Fatah; that obvious US backing of Fatah against Hamas helped create popular mistrust of Fatah increasing Hamas’ popularity in Gaza and leading directly to Hamas’ takeover of the Fatah military apparatus in the Gaza Strip. In other words, there were real and understandable reasons for the coup. But in the end, Hamas’ seizure of the power it should have had in the first place ends up serving the interests not only of Mahmoud Abbas and the warlord Muhammad Dahlan. It also provides the perfect opportunity for US-Israeli policy in the region to move forward with even fewer objections, if that is possible to imagine, than have heretofore been made. Who will stand up for a “terrorist organization that seeks the destruction of Israel”? The line has been beaten into our heads with every mention of the word “Hamas” for years. We should not expect a change in the behavior of the American public or of other western audiences until, when Israel is mentioned, we immediately say to ourselves, “a terrorist state that seeks the destruction of Palestine.” Seeks and is succeeding in it.

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Weekend Edition
June 23 / 24, 2007

How Could Blair Possibly Get This Job?

The Bumbling Envoy

By ROBERT FISK

I suppose that astonishment is not the word for it. Stupefaction comes to mind. I simply could not believe my ears in Beirut when a phone call told me that Lord Blair of Kut al-Amara was going to create “Palestine”. I checked the date–no, it was not 1 April–but I remain overwhelmed that this vain, deceitful man, this proven liar, a trumped-up lawyer who has the blood of thousands of Arab men, women and children on his hands is really contemplating being “our” Middle East envoy.

Can this really be true? I had always assumed that Balfour, Sykes and Picot were the epitome of Middle Eastern hubris. But Blair? That this ex-prime minister, this man who took his country into the sands of Iraq, should actually believe that he has a role in the region–he whose own preposterous envoy, Lord Levy, made so many secret trips there to absolutely no avail–is now going to sully his hands (and, I fear, our lives) in the world’s last colonial war is simply overwhelming.

Of course, he’ll be in touch with Mahmoud Abbas, will try to marginalise Hamas, will talk endlessly about “moderates”; and we’ll have to listen to him pontificating about morality, how he’s absolutely and completely confident that he’s doing the right thing (and this, remember, is the same man who postponed a ceasefire in Lebanon last year in order to share George Bush’s ridiculous hope of an Israeli victory over Hizbollah) in bringing peace to the Middle East…

Not once–ever–has he apologised. Not once has he said he was sorry for what he did in our name. Yet Lord Blair actually believes–in what must be a record act of self-indulgence for a man who cooked up the fake evidence of Iraq’s “weapons of mass destruction”–that he can do good in the Middle East.

For here is a man who is totally discredited in the region–a politician who has signally failed in everything he ever tried to do in the Middle East–now believing that he is the right man to lead the Quartet to patch up “Palestine”.

In the hunt for quislings to do our bidding–ie accept even less of Mandate Palestine than Arafat would stomach–I suppose Blair has his uses. His unique blend of ruthlessness and dishonesty will no doubt go down quite well with our local Arab dictators.

And I have a suspicion–always assuming this extraordinary story is not untrue–that Blair will be able to tour around Damascus, even Tehran, in his hunt for “peace”, thus paving the way for an American exit strategy in Iraq. But “Palestine”?

The Palestinians held elections–real, copper-bottomed ones, the democratic variety–and Hamas won. But Blair will presumably not be able to talk to Hamas. He’ll need to talk only to Abbas’s flunkies, to negotiate with an administration described so accurately this week by my old colleague Rami Khoury as a “government of the imagination”.

The Americans are talking–and here I am quoting the State Department spokesman, Sean McCormack–about an envoy who can work “with the Palestinians in the Palestinian system” to develop institutions for a “well-governed state”. Oh yes, I can see how that would appeal to Lord Blair. He likes well-governed states, lots of “terror laws”, plenty of security–though I’m still a bit puzzled about what the “Palestinian system” is meant to be.

It was James Wolfensohn who was originally “our” Middle East envoy, a former World Bank president who left in frustration because he could neither reconstruct Gaza nor work with a “peace process” that was being eroded with every new Jewish settlement and every Qassam rocket fired into Israel. Does Blair think he can do better? What honeyed words will we hear?

I bet he doesn’t mention the Israeli wall which is taking so much extra land from the Palestinians. It will be a “security barrier” or a “fence” (like the famous Berlin “fence” which was actually called a “security barrier” by those generous East German Vopo cops of the time).

There will be appeals for restraint “on all sides”, endless calls for “moderation”, none at all for justice (which is all the people of the Middle East have been pleading for over the past 100 years).

And Israel likes Lord Blair. Indeed, Blair’s slippery use of language is likely to appeal to Ehud Olmert, whose government continues to take Arab land for Jews and Jews only as he waits to discover a Palestinian with whom he can “negotiate”, Mahmoud Abbas now having the prestige of a rabbit after his forces were crushed in Gaza.

Which of “Palestine”‘s two prime ministers will Blair talk to? Why, the one with a collar and tie, of course, who works for Mr Abbas, who will demand more “security”, tougher laws, less democracy.

I have never been able to figure out why the Middle East draws the Balfours and the Sykeses and the Blairs into its maw. Once, our favourite trouble-shooter was James Baker–who worked for George W’s father until the Israelis got tired of him–and before that we had a whole list of UN Secretary Generals who visited the region, frowned and warned of serious consequences if peace did not soon come.

I recall another man with Blair’s pomposity, a certain Kurt Waldheim, who–no longer the UN’s boss–actually believed he could be an “envoy” for peace in the Middle East, despite his little wartime career as an intelligence officer for the Wehrmacht’s Army Group “E”.

His visits–especially to the late King Hussein–came to nothing, of course. But Waldheim’s ability to draw a curtain over his wartime past does have one thing in common with Blair. For Waldheim steadfastly, pointedly, repeatedly, refused to acknowledge–ever–that he had ever done anything wrong. Now who does that remind you of?

Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch’s collection, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Fisk’s new book is The Conquest of the Middle East.

Source: Cuban News Agency
June 26, 2007

Another argument for the Manifesto
Reflections by Cuban President Fidel Castro

Why did I once claim, in one of my reflections, that Bush had authorized or ordered my death?
That phrase may appear ambiguous and vague. Perhaps it would be more accurate, though even more confusing, to say that he both authorized and ordered my death.

Allow me to explain immediately:

The denunciation surrounding his plan to assassinate me was made before he snatched an electoral victory from his opponent through fraud.

As early as August 5, 2000, I denounced these plans in Pinar del Rio, before a vast congregation of combative citizens who had gathered there for the traditional July 26 festivities, held in that province, in Villa Clara and Ciudad de La Habana in recognition of their merits that year.

Attempts to identify those responsible for the hundreds of plans to asassinate me meet with a shroud of secrecy. All direct and indirect means have been used to bring about my removal. Following Nixon’s morally forced renunciation Ford forbade the participation of government employees in assassination schemes.

I am convinced that Carter, bound by ethical convictions of a religious nature, would never have ordered any such action against me. He was the only U.S. president who had a gesture of friendship towards Cuba in several important areas, including the establishment of the U.S. Interests Section in Cuba.

I don’t know that Clinton ever ordered my death, so I cannot accuse him of such an action. Unquestionably, he showed respect for the law and acted with political savvy when he accepted the judicial decision that called for the kidnapped child’s return to his father and closest relatives, a decision by then backed by the overwhelming majority of the U.S. people.

However, it is also a fact that, during his administration, Posada Carriles hired Central American mercenaries to place bombs in the hotels and recreational centers of cities like Havana and Varadero in order to strike at Cuba’s economy, hit by the blockade and the special period. The terrorist had no reservations about declaring that the young Italian tourist who perished in one of the explosions was “in the wrong place at the wrong time”, a phrase Bush repeated recently like the line from a poem. The money and even the electronic materials used to assemble those bombs were provided by the Cuban American National Foundation (CANF), which distributed the handsome sums at its disposal through shameless lobbying with members of different parties at the
U.S. Congress.

At the close of 1997, the 7th Latin American Summit of Heads of State and Government, which I was obliged to attend, was to be held on Isla Margarita, Venezuela.

On October 27 that year, a vessel called “La Esperanza” was en route to Isla Margarita. While sailing very close to Puerto Rican coasts, it was intercepted by a patrol boat of the Coast Guard and Customs Service of that occupied island on suspicion of drug trafficking. On the vessel were four Cuban-born terrorists carrying two 50-calibre Barrett semi-automatic assault rifles with infrared-guided telescopic sights, capable of delivering precision rounds to armor-plated vehicles and planes in mid-air or about to take off or land from a distance of over a thousand meters, and 7 boxes of munitions.

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Source: Information Clearing House

June 20, 2007

By Mike Whitney

When Hamas gunmen stormed the Fatah security compounds in Gaza last week they found huge supplies of American-made weaponry including 7,400 M-16 assault rifles, dozens of mounted machine guns, rocket launchers, 7 armored military jeeps, 800,000 rounds of bullets and 18 US-made armored personnel carriers. They also discovered something far more valuable— CIA files which purportedly contain “information about the collaboration between Fatah and the Israeli and American security organizations; CIA methods on how to prevent attacks, chase and follow after cells of Hamas and the Committees; plans about Fatah assassinations of members of Hamas and other organizations; and American studies on the security situation in Gaza.” (Aaron Klein, WorldNetDaily.com)

If the documents prove to be authentic, they will confirm what many critics of Fatah believed from the beginning; that US-Israeli intelligence agencies have been collaborating with high-ranking members of the PA to help crush the Palestinian national liberation movement. The information could be disastrous for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his newly-appointed “emergency government”. It could destroy their credibility before they even take office.

The extent of Fatah’s cooperation with the CIA is still unknown, but an article in The New York Sun, (“Hamas Takes over Gaza Security Services” 6-15-07) suggests that the two groups may have been working together closely. Former Middle East CIA operations officer Robert Baer, who was interviewed in the article, said that the discovery of the documents was “a major blow to Fatah” and will show “a record of training, spying on Hamas”.

Baer added ironically, “Fatah equals CIA is not a good selling point.”

Baer is right. The uncovering of the documents is “big trouble” for Abbas who is already facing a loss of public confidence from his closeness to Israel and for his appointment of Salam Fayyad, the ex-World bank official who the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz calls “everyone’s favorite Palestinian.”

Perhaps more significant is the fact that members of Hamas who spoke with WorldNetDaily claimed that “the files contain, among other information, details of CIA networks in the Middle East” and that Hamas plans to “use these documents and make portions public to prove the collaboration between America and traitor Arab countries.” Imagine what a headache it will be for the Bush administration if Hamas exposes the broader network of US spies and Arab quislings operating throughout region.

Bush Support for “Regime Change” in the PA

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RINF.alternative news. com

June 20, 2007

By Frances Webber

As Blair leaves office, he leaves a country more divided – by race, class and status – than he found it.

As Tony Blair finally relinquishes power, much has been and will be written about the legacy of his ten years. In the fields of immigration and asylum, as in other fields, his reign presents a strange paradox. His government was responsible for bringing in the Human Rights Act 1998, which was designed to ‘bring human rights home’ and which has forced government to confront the impact of legislative, executive and judicial acts on the human rights of those affected. At the same time, his government has been responsible for serious encroachments on fundamental rights, a shift in the balance of power from individual liberty and towards state control; a similar shift as between the executive and the judiciary; entrenchment of xeno-racism and, in particular, erosion of the idea of universality of human rights.

Extending and curtailing human rights

One of the Blair government’s first acts, in 1997, was to abolish the hated ‘primary purpose’ rule which kept thousands of foreign husbands apart from their British wives. Shortly after, cohabitees and same-sex partners were given the right to live in the UK. The Human Rights Act, which came into force in 2000, brought the European Convention of Human Rights, which protects the right to life, the right not to be tortured (or expelled to torture), rights to liberty, fair trial, family life, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly and association, into the law of the United Kingdom. The Act enables executive action to be challenged in UK courts on the basis that it violates one of the protected rights. The Act is a significant achievement. But the government has endeavoured to ensure that it is applied restrictively, on the basis that immigrants do not have the same rights as others. Thus, thousands of families have been broken up by the removal of the foreign partner – the government argues that the ‘imperatives of immigration control’ outweigh the families’ rights.

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Counterbias.com

May 29 2007

by Rosemarie Jackowski

“You’re not supposed to be so blind with patriotism that you can’t face reality. Wrong is wrong no matter who does it or who says it.” – Malcolm X

The big question that has been the sleeping elephant in the national living room has finally been voiced. Rosie O’Donnell was not the first to ask the question, but she is the one who brought it to mainstream television now. The question caused a meltdown at Fox News and resulted in thousands of comments at the ABC News blog. Justifiably so. It might be the most important question facing the United States today.

The question is since 655,000 Iraqi civilians have been killed, who are the terrorists? Rosie made a little mistake. Her question is a bit misleading because the correct number of dead Iraqis is estimated to be more that two million. Rosie’s 655,000 number does not include any of those who were killed prior to the Shock and Awe bombing campaign which started on March 20, 2003. The United States has been bombing Iraq since 1991. In addition to those killed in the bombings, 500,000 Iraqi children died as a result of the U.S. sanctions.

When Rosie asked, “Who are the terrorists?” it resulted in an onslaught of ad hominem attacks against her. There was apparent sexism in much of the criticism. Never have two men who debated an issue been the objects of such viscous attacks. The sexist, degrading, and mean spirited nature of the attacks on Rosie could lead an observer to believe that the dumbing down of the population is worse than anyone had imagined. Those who are not sufficiently informed to make a credible argument in a debate often resort to such mean spirited tactics.

The one thing that was missing from the great surge of public discourse on the airways and in the blogosphere was an intelligent discussion of the issue. The issue is, who are the terrorists? That is the question that CNN, MSNBC, CBS, FOX, and most of the print media have refused to explore. The challenge is now out there. Those who have offered such harsh criticism of Rosie should welcome a debate. Qualified debaters on the other side of the issue could include, but not be limited to, Mickey Z, William Blum, Harry Belafonte, Howard Zinn, and Ramsey Clark. I would bet my best protest poster that this is one debate that Bill O’Reilly and Sean Hannity will avoid by any means necessary.

There may be some questions that are more important, “What is the meaning of life? What is the origin of the universe? Does Ultimate Causality exist? How does the brain function? What is the cure for cancer?” To the families of the slaughtered Iraqis, Rosie’s question might be more relevant: “Who are the terrorists?” It is a question that has been suppressed in the United States, but is a question that has been a topic of conversation elsewhere around the world.

Thanks to Rosie, the sleeping elephant in the living room has been awakened. The big question is now out there. Who are the terrorists? No need for a team of philosophers or military men. No need for a Congressional Investigation. It is not complicated. It is not like trying to explain String Theory, Black Holes, and Anti-Gravity. It is very clear and simple. Just do a body count. The answer is obvious.

==

Rosemarie Jackowski resides in Vermont. She can be reached at dissent@sover.net.

Source: salon.com

Psychologists helped the CIA exploit a secret military program to develop brutal interrogation tactics — likely with the approval of the Bush White House.

By Mark Benjamin

June 21, 2007

WASHINGTON — There is growing evidence of high-level coordination between the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military in developing abusive interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects. After the Sept. 11 attacks, both turned to a small cadre of psychologists linked to the military’s secretive Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program to “reverse-engineer” techniques originally designed to train U.S. soldiers to resist torture if captured, by exposing them to brutal treatment. The military’s use of SERE training for interrogations in the war on terror was revealed in detail in a recently declassified report. But the CIA’s use of such tactics — working in close coordination with the military — until now has remained largely unknown.

According to congressional sources and mental healthcare professionals knowledgeable about the secret program who spoke with Salon, two CIA-employed psychologists, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, were at the center of the program, which likely violated the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. The two are currently under investigation: Salon has learned that Daniel Dell’Orto, the principal deputy general counsel at the Department of Defense, sent a “document preservation” order on May 15 to the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and other top Pentagon officials forbidding the destruction of any document mentioning Mitchell and Jessen or their psychological consulting firm, Mitchell, Jessen and Associates, based in Spokane, Wash. Dell’Orto’s order was in response to a May 1 request from Sen. Carl Levin, the Democratic chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who is investigating the abuse of prisoners in U.S. custody.

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Source: The New York Times

Joao Silva for The New York Times

Hamid Karzai Saturday criticized military operations in Afghanistan.

By BARRY BEARAK

Published: June 24, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan, June 23 — Somber, impatient and angry, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan on Saturday accused the United States military and its NATO allies of carrying out “careless operations” that lead to civilian casualties, asserting that “Afghan life is not cheap and should not be treated as such.”

His remarks, made on the front lawn of the presidential palace, came in response to a week in which more than 100 civilian deaths have been reported from airstrikes and artillery fire against the Taliban.

“The extreme use of force, the disproportionate use of force to a situation, and the lack of coordination with the Afghan government is causing these casualties,” he said. “You don’t fight a terrorist by firing a field gun from 37 kilometers away into a target. That is definitely bound to cause civilian casualties. You don’t hit a few terrorists with field guns.”

Mr. Karzai has made these criticisms before in recent months. While his rebuke on Saturday was more irate in tone, he was still vague about his government’s intended recourse if the civilian deaths continue to mount. “Either this cooperation and coordination will be created and applied, or Afghanistan will take its decision in this regard,” he said.

More than 50,000 foreign troops are operating in Afghanistan, the bulk of them Americans. The Taliban insurgency has employed guerrilla tactics that include attacks on police stations, aid workers and schools. The Taliban commonly hide among civilians, and NATO officials insist that it is the insurgents who deserve blame when innocents die.

Late Saturday, there were fresh reports of civilian deaths, this time in Paktika Province along the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where NATO forces and the United States-led coalition said they had killed 60 insurgents. During the fighting, a rocket landed across the border and hit a house, killing nine civilians, according to a Pakistan Army spokesman quoted by The Associated Press.

Sources: Mathaba.com,

June 23, 2007

By John Nichols(The Nation)

Confidence in Congress has hit an all-time low. A mere 14 percent of Americans tell Gallup pollsters that they have a great deal or quite a lot of faith in the US House and Senate.

Since Gallup began using the current measure of confidence in Congress in 1973, the worst rating had been the 18 percent figure accorded it in the early years of the 1990s, when the House was being rocked by scandals that would eventually see a number of top Democratic lawmakers rejected in their own party primaries and the “Republican revolution” vote of 1994.

To give a sense of just how bad things are for Congress, consider this notion: Americans express more confidence in corporate HMOs–the most despised manifestation of a health-care industry that lends itself to all of the scorn heaped upon it by Michael Moore’s new film Sicko — than in their elected representatives at the federal level.

It is true that confidence in Congress had been sinking in recent years, in large part because of frustration by the American people with the acquiescence by the formerly Republican-controlled House and Senate to the neo-conservative foreign policies of the Bush administration and to the Wall Street-driven domestic policies.

But the shift in control of both chambers after last November elections was supposed to change that.

No one expected Democrats to fix everything that was wrong with the United States, let alone the world.

But there was an expectation of progress–especially on the central issue of the moment: ending the war in Iraq.

That expectation, a basic and legitimate one in a functioning democracy, has not been met. And it has created a sense of frustration, and in many cases anger, on the part of Americans who really did want the Democrats to succeed–not in gaining partisan advantage but in the far more essential work of checking and balancing the Bush administration. Some leading voices of opposition, including anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan, have simply given up on the Democratic Party. And no one should underestimate that, even if Sheehan says she no longer wants to be the face of the anti-war movement, Sheehan’s denunciation of the Democrats for failing to seriously challenge Bush’s management of the war is an honest and clear expression of the sense of betrayal that a great many Americans who voted Democratic in 2006 are now feeling.

That’s the bad news for Democrats.

The good news is that they still have time to change course.

Doing so is easier than political pundits and cautious politicians would have Americans believe.

If Congressional Democrats want to reconnect with the great mass of Americans who want this war to end, they need only turn to Wisconsin Senator Russ Feingold for advice and counsel. Feingold, who voted against authorizing Bush to attack Iraq and has been the steadiest voice of Senate opposition to the war since then, has been calling for the better part of two years for Congress to establish a timeline for withdrawal.

For a long time, Feingold stood alone. But, slowly, he has built a base within the Senate Democratic Caucus for the premise that Congress must lead.

Earlier this year, Feingold got Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, on board with his proposal to begin redeploying US troops from Iraq in 120 days. Under the Feingold-Reid plan, the process of withdrawal would be completed by April 2008.

When the Senate considered the Feingold-Reid proposal in May, as an amendment to a broader war funding measure, it received 29 votes–far short of a majority. The problem then was that leading Democrats in the Senate, particularly Senate Armed Services Committee chair Carl Levin and a key Democratic senator on military matters, Rhode Island’s Jack Reed, actively criticized the plan Feingold had offered. Levin went to far as to echo White House talking points that suggested setting a timeline for withdrawal might undermine both the security of the troops on the ground in Iraq and the prospects for a smooth transition of that country from US to Iraqi control.

But Levin and Reed now seem to be changing their tune. Levin indicated this week that he and Jack Reed would introduce an amendment to the upcoming Defense Authorization bill that is likely to mirror the Feingold-Reid proposal’s call for redeployment in 120 days and the completion of a fuller withdrawal by April 2008. Levin is now trying to suggest that his proposal is an improvement on Feingold’s plan. It’s not. And Levin’s inability to gracefully acknowledge that his colleague from Wisconsin has been right all along is both embarrassing and counterproductive.

But the acceptance by the Senate Armed Services Committee chair of the wisdom on a time a timetable for redeployment with a hard deadline represents genuine progress. For Congressional Democrats it is, as well, essential progress. If they want to win the confidence of the American people, they must do something. And the “something” most Americans want most at this point in an end to a war that should never have been launched in the first place.

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John Nichols’ new book is THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders’ Cure for Royalism. Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson hails it as a “nervy, acerbic, passionately argued history-cum-polemic [that] combines a rich examination of the parliamentary roots and past use of the ‘heroic medicine’ that is impeachment with a call for Democratic leaders to ‘reclaim and reuse the most vital tool handed to us by the founders for the defense of our most basic liberties.'”