Peace and Justice Post

Gulf states no longer want to isolate Iran.

The Gulf has moved away from American arguments for isolating Iran. American policymakers need to do the same.

The states of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) are accommodating themselves to Iran’s growing weight in the region’s politics. They remain key parts of America’s security architecture in the region, hosting massive US military bases and underwriting the American economy in exchange for protection. But as Saudi analyst Khalid al-Dakheel argues, they are no longer content sitting passively beneath the US security umbrella and want to avoid being a pawn in the US-Iranian struggle for power. Flush with cash, they are not interested in a war that would mess up business.

That’s why America’s attempt to shore up containment against Iran increasingly seems to be yesterday’s battle. On Dec. 3, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad addressed the GCC in Doha, Qatar. It was the first time an Iranian leader had addressed the alliance, which was formed in 1981 against the Iranian challenge.

Continued . . .

The Sunday Times, January 6, 2008

Uzi Mahanimi, Tel Aviv

ISRAELI security officials are to brief President George W Bush on their latest intelligence about Iran’s nuclear programme – and how it could be destroyed – when he begins a tour of the Middle East in Jerusalem this week.

Ehud Barak, the defence minister, is said to want to convince him that an Israeli military strike against uranium enrichment facilities in Iran would be feasible if diplomatic efforts failed to halt nuclear operations. A range of military options has been prepared.

Last month it was revealed that the US National Intelligence Estimate report, drawing together information from 16 agencies, had concluded that Iran stopped a secret nuclear weapon programme in 2003.

Israeli intelligence is understood to agree that the project was halted around the time of America’s invasion of Iraq, but has “rock solid” information that it has since started up again.

Continued . . .

Counterpunch, Weekend Edition, January 5 / 6, 2008

What Would a Withdrawal Mean?

By KEVIN YOUNG

No nation that claims to value democracy for the world’s people can maintain a military occupation against the will of the occupied population. Yet despite what seems like a fundamental moral truism-the notion that a military occupation of one country by another can only be justified if the occupied population supports it-mainstream commentators in this country rarely broach the subject of Iraqi attitudes toward the US-led occupation. Iraqi public opinion polls, when they even make it into the newspapers, are accorded astoundingly little weight. Instead, most US politicians and analysts repeat vague slogans about how “Iraqis need us” and how “we’ll leave when they ask us to.”

A brief look at Iraqi attitudes toward the occupation reveals why mainstream commentators in this country opt for such ambiguity rather than dealing with the polls themselves: Iraqis have consistently stated that the occupation is a destabilizing force in their country, that the situation would improve after a US withdrawal, and that the US has ulterior motives for staying in Iraq.

Keep reading  .  . .

PORTLAND – Two Democratic congressional candidates from southern Maine are applauding Rep. Mike Michaud for calling for impeachment hearings on Vice President Dick Cheney.

In a letter sent last month, Michaud, D-Maine, urged House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers to schedule impeachment hearings before the end of current congressional session. The letter cited “serious allegations” that the vice president played a role in mischaracterizing prewar intelligence, outing CIA agent Valerie Plame, and abusing detainees, among other issues.

Michaud’s call is being echoed by state Sen. Ethan Strimling and York County District Attorney Mark Lawrence, both of whom are Democratic candidates for Congress.

“We need an investigation into the abuses of this administration, and there are many of them,” Strimling said in a statement, “and impeachment hearings will provide an opportunity to get facts on the table.”

Lawrence said in a press release: “If Congress does not act to hold our leaders accountable, their unprecedented expansion of executive power will become a dangerous precedent.”

Both Strimling and Lawrence have previously stated their support for impeachment proceedings against the vice president.

They are among six Democratic candidates running to succeed Democratic Rep. Tom Allen, who is challenging [Republican] Sen. Susan Collins.

The other four Democratic candidates are Michael Brennan of Portland, Adam Cote of Portland, Steve Meister of Winthrop and Chellie Pingree of North Haven. The Republican candidates are Dean Scontras of Eliot and Charles Summers of Scarborough.

© 2008 Portland Press Herald

Capitol Hill Blue, January 4, 2008

President George W. Bush Thursday ordered White House lawyers to use claims of executive privilege to prevent senior White House aides from cooperating with the Justice Department’s criminal investigation into destruction of videotapes that showed CIA interrogators torturing terrorism suspects.

White House sources tell Capitol Hill Blue that the claims of executive privilege are just “the first step” in a coordinated campaign to stonewall the investigation and prevent administration aides from giving depositions or submitting to interviews with Justice Department investigators.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey announced the investigation this week, appointing veteran prosecutor John Durham of Connecticut to handle the probe. Democratic leaders and Constitutional law experts, however, say the Justice Department, which ultimately answers to the White House, cannot be expected to fully investigate Bush’s involvement and say the probe needs a special prosecutor.

Constitutional law expert Jonathan Turley, a George Washington University professor, says Bush can block any effective legislation.

Keep reading . . .

The Nation, January 4, 2008
By Amy Wlinetz

Editor’s note: Read Amy Wilentz’s September 2007 interview with Benazir Bhutto here.

In history, documents come and documents go. But sometimes one would dearly love to know the exact provenance of a document and see its pages. It was odd to watch Benazir Bhutto’s will suddenly emerge this week and, as if her hands were shooting out from her elaborate grave, lay the mantle of the Pakistan People’s Party across the unready shoulders of her 19-year-old son, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

Strange, too, to see Bilawal’s supposedly ailing father, the corrupt and despised Asif Ali Zardari, leap with alacrity to declare the boy too young for the job and to assume the chairmanship of the PPP himself until Bilawal is no longer of “tender” age.

Keep reading . . .

Four Marines to Face Lesser Charges After Two-Year Inquiry Into Iraqi Killings

Washington Post, January 4, 2008

By Josh White, Washington Post Staff Writer

After a two-year investigation into the killings of up to 24 civilians in Haditha, Iraq, the Marine Corps has decided that none of the Marines involved in the incident will be charged with murder. Instead, two enlisted Marines and two Marine officers will face trial in coming months for the killings and for failing to investigate them.

The most serious charges have been leveled against Marine Staff Sgt. Frank D. Wuterich, who is scheduled to be arraigned on charges of voluntary manslaughter in California next week, the last step before the case officially moves to trial.

Initially called a massacre by Iraqi residents of Haditha and later characterized as coldblooded murder by a U.S. congressman, the case has turned not on an alleged rampage but on a far more complex analysis of how U.S. troops fight an insurgency in the midst of a population they seek to protect.

The Marine Corps at first charged eight Marines and officers with murder or failing to investigate an apparent war crime. The charges have since been narrowed to four men in the unit, after three were cleared and a fourth was granted immunity to testify.

Wuterich is charged with nine counts of voluntary manslaughter, with the charges alleging that he had an intent to kill and that his actions inside a residential home and on a residential street in November 2005 amounted to unlawful killing “in the heat of sudden passion caused by adequate provocation.” Charging documents released this week say he killed at least nine people without properly obtaining positive identification that they were the enemy in the midst of an attack. 1st Lt. Andrew Grayson has been charged with obstructing the investigation.

Keep reading . . .

 The Independent, January 5, 2008

By Amy Tiebel, Associated Press Writer

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, in an unprecedented public acknowledgement yesterday, called continued Israeli construction in West Bank settlements a breach of Israel’s obligations under a recently revived peace plan.

Olmert’s remarks, which appeared in The Jerusalem Post daily, came just days before US President George W. Bush arrives in the region to build on the momentum created at a recent Mideast peace conference in Annapolis, Maryland. They fell short of the Palestinians’ demand for a total freeze on settlement construction — but were significant because Israel has never openly admitted before that it wasn’t living up to the internationally backed “road map” peace plan.

His comments also built on his recent efforts to defuse frictions over construction in disputed territories. Construction plans announced after the Annapolis conference have antagonized the Palestinians and disrupted fledgling peace talks, renewed after seven years of still-simmering violence.

Continued .

RINF.com, January 4, 2008

In March 2003, Dick Cheney said, “My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.” In May 2003, George W. Bush said, “Major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” In November 2004, Lt. General John Sattler said that U.S. forces (in Fallujah) had “broken the back of the insurgency.” In May 2005, Cheney said, “I think they’re in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.”

These yahoos have turned more corners than a monkey with a Rubik’s cube. Their quotes were not only repeated, ad infinitum, but were portrayed by the media as gospel truth. Yet, with unparalleled naïveté, there are those who constantly rail against the media for their bias in neglecting to report the “progress” being made in Iraq. Some even go so far as to allegedly troll for unbiased statistics on the Department of Defense Web site.

The justification “du jour” for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq, according to Bush appeasers, is the safety and prosperity of that country. Well, it’s nice to see that fictional accounts of WMD and Saddam Hussein/Al Qaeda links have finally been abandoned. How many lies can these Bush/Cheney sycophants swallow before they choke on their own gullibility? How many more American and Iraqi lives must be sacrificed on the altar of their ignorance? —Robert Baruch

Palestinian Information Center, January 4, 2008

GAZA, (PIC)– Two Qassam Brigades fighters were killed Friday morning while confronting invading IOF troops in the northern Gaza Strip bringing the number of those killed by the IOF in the past 24 hours to 11 including 5 Qassam fighters and 5 members of the same family.

The Qassam Brigades mourned, in a statement issued on Friday, two of its fighters in Beit Hanoun. The two were killed in confrontations with IOF troops who invaded Mazra’t al-Basha to the east of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip.

“Despite the siege and the open war against the our resistance and our thriving Brigades, despite the siege and the conspiracy against our cause and our people, the Qassam Brigades remains in the battlefield carving the rocks and fighting an asymmetrical battle to protect the holiness of this land and defend the honour of the Ummah,” the statement read.

The IOF committed a massacre on Thursday morning against the Fayyad family during an incursion to the east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip and when the invading IOF troops shelled the house of Hamdan Fayyad killing five members of the family.

Local sources told PIC that the victims of this massacre were: Karimah Fayyad (55 years), her two sons Ahmad and Sami aged 32 and 23 respectively, her daughter, aged 22 and her nephew aged 17. Other family members were wounded in the shelling.

Two resistance fighters were also killed while confronting the invading IOF troops in Khan Younis.

On Thursday evening one Qassam fighter was killed in an Israeli air raid to the east of Shejaeyyah neighbourhood in Gaza City and three civilians including two children were wounded.

Another civilian was killed and three policemen were wounded on Thursday in an Israeli air raid on Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip