Archive for August, 2008

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The Ticking Iraqi Clock

August 5, 2008

The Huffington Post, August 4, 2008 | 02:54 PM (EST)

John Bruhns

This underscores the genesis of this disaster when we forgot about Osama bin Laden and refocused the war on terror to Saddam Hussein who didn’t have WMDs, did not want war with us, and posed no threat to the United States. So while recognizing the success that the surge had from tactical military standpoint, I remain strongly opposed to the war.

I will never dismiss the falsehoods of why we went to Iraq as a moot point. Too many people have suffered and died for the sane and rational to have the cavalier opinion of “to hell with it, forget why we are there, we just need to win.”

I’ll leave that to the people who will forever buy the Bush mantra hook, line, and sinker. They can’t be reached and luckily they are in the lowest of the minority. Their main argument: we have to fight them there so we don’t have to fight them here. Really? Or is that just a way to legitimize sending another soldier or Marine back to Iraq for his fourth or fifth deployment? As if the Iraqi insurgents could possibly come “over here” in the masses to invade America — give me a break. We are fighting the Iraqis “over there” because we are in Iraq — plain and simple.

It’s crucial for us all understand the Iraqi insurgency has been disguised by the Bush Administration as AQI — Al Qaeda in Iraq . Catchy name isn’t it — and oh what a convenient excuse to keep the war going. Let’s justify the last 5+ years of death and destruction by lumping the violent reaction of the Iraqi people to an occupation of their land into the same category as those who orchestrated and carried out 9/11.

This very same crowd living in a “fools paradise” continuously attempt to latch onto some illusion that this tragic episode in American/Iraqi history was a colossal failure that falls on the back of U.S. intelligence agencies. Come on, Bush was going in regardless of what the CIA told him.

Now the latest propaganda being formulated by those in a perpetual state of denial is that the Bush Administration initiated this war and occupation as philanthropists for the Iraqi people. Explain that philanthropy to the 4.5 million Iraqi refugees, the families of the uncountable number of dead Iraqi civilians, and the U.S. troops who had to bear witness to it and died in the process.

The same Iraqi government elected by its people who President Bush proclaims such compassion for are asking us to set a timeline to leave. Why is the blatantly obvious impossible for the average warmonger to grasp? The reality is that their numbskulls deny them the humility to admit it.

I’m well aware that this sounds irresponsible. But if the Iraqis want to do it “John Wayne” style from here on out — why should we interfere? After all, according to the Iraqi government they are just so close to standing up so we can stand down. Sound familiar?

We have tried so many military strategies in Iraq in an effort to clean up President Bush’s mess. The only road we haven’t explored is the road home. Just something to think about.

As an Iraq veteran it’s very hard for me to grip the strong possibility that the troop surge in Iraq was all for naught. So recently I have been focusing on the successes of the surge in Iraq without political or ideological blinders. I recently wrote a piece to touch on a different angle than my usual argument that the war is unjustified and illegal in the eyes of millions of Americans and the world community. However, this was all based on a hypothetical scenario that we actually had a compelling reason to invade and occupy Iraq in the first place.

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FBI was told to blame Anthrax scare on Al Qaeda by White House officials

August 5, 2008

BY JAMES GORDON MEEK
DAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU

Daily News, Saturday, August 2nd 2008, 6:32 PM

WASHINGTON – In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 anthrax attacks, White House officials repeatedly pressed FBI Director Robert Mueller to prove it was a second-wave assault by Al Qaeda, but investigators ruled that out, the Daily News has learned.

After the Oct. 5, 2001, death from anthrax exposure of Sun photo editor Robert Stevens, Mueller was “beaten up” during President Bush‘s morning intelligence briefings for not producing proof the killer spores were the handiwork of terrorist mastermind Osama Bin Laden, according to a former aide.

“They really wanted to blame somebody in the Middle East,” the retired senior FBI official told The News.

On October 15, 2001, President Bush said, “There may be some possible link” to Bin Laden, adding, “I wouldn’t put it past him.” Vice President Cheney also said Bin Laden’s henchmen were trained “how to deploy and use these kinds of substances, so you start to piece it all together.”

But by then the FBI already knew anthrax spilling out of letters addressed to media outlets and to a U.S. senator was a military strain of the bioweapon. “Very quickly [Fort Detrick, Md., experts] told us this was not something some guy in a cave could come up with,” the ex-FBI official said. “They couldn’t go from box cutters one week to weapons-grade anthrax the next.”jmeek@nydailynews.com

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Crawling into the gutter

August 5, 2008

John McCain is turning on the slime machine because he and his staff have concluded they can’t win any other way.

Editorial

Socialist Worker, August 5, 2008

John McCain and supporters (Dan Bennett)

YOU’VE SEEN it dozens of times in movies–the crook commits the crime, then turns around and says he saw the guy who done it, and…he went that-away!

Now, it’s John McCain’s latest strategy in the 2008 presidential election–with his claim that Barack Obama was the first to inject the “race card” into the campaign.

No one could really be surprised that John McCain–his high-minded talk aside–would climb down into the sewer. After all, he’s the presidential candidate of the party that spawned Karl Rove. The only question was how much of the dirty work McCain and his campaign staff would do themselves, and how much they’d leave to blowhards like Rush Limbaugh on right-wing hate radio.

But the other factors to recognize in all this are the lack of a tough response from Obama and the Democrats–and the willing connivance of the “impartial” U.S. media in repeating McCain’s veiled and not-so-veiled appeals to racism.

At least New York Times columnist Bob Herbert was frank about what the Republicans are up to:

Spare me any more drivel about the high-mindedness of John McCain. You knew something was up back in March when, in his first ad of the general campaign, Mr. McCain had himself touted as “the American president Americans have been waiting for.”

There was nothing subtle about that attempt to position Senator Obama as the Other, a candidate who might technically be American, but who remained in some sense foreign, not sufficiently patriotic and certainly not one of us–the “us” being the genuine red-white-and-blue Americans who the ad was aimed at.

Emphasis on “red-white-and-blue Americans.”

Last month, Obama was denounced in a McCain ad for allegedly passing up a visit to a military hospital in Germany to meet with wounded soldiers (reportedly, the McCain campaign had another ad in the can to run if Obama made the trip, which would have accused him of exploiting wounded soldiers for a photo op).

The absurdity of the charge came in the footage the Republicans used in their commerical–of Obama sinking a three-point basket…in front of U.S. troops. But even in that choice of imagery, there was more than meets the eye. “Consider this,” wrote John Heilemann in New York magazine. “Would the ad have featured footage of Obama on a golf course draining a hole-in-one? ‘No, it wouldn’t,’ laughs a GOP media savant. ‘The racial angle is the first thing I thought of when I saw that ad. It fits into the celebrity stuff, too.'”

The “celebrity stuff” was spewed into the airwaves last week in the form of another attack ad–using footage of two white women, Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, with no conceivable relationship to Obama (in fact, the Hilton family are McCain supporters)–depicting Obama as a shallow fame-seeker.

“The Republican National Committee targeted [Tennessee Democrat] Harold Ford with a similarly disgusting ad in 2006 when Mr. Ford, then a congressman, was running a strong race for a U.S. Senate seat in Tennessee,” Herbert wrote. “The ad, which the committee described as a parody, showed a scantily clad woman whispering, ‘Harold, call me.'”

Then, to top it off, who gets accused of “injecting” race into the campaign? Obama.

How so? At a campaign appearance in an almost all-white county in Missouri, Obama said, “What they’re going to try to do is make you scared of me. You know, he’s not patriotic enough. He’s got a funny name. You know, he doesn’t look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills.”

McCain and the Republicans have been complaining ever since that Obama was playing the “race card”–having done so themselves for their own purposes, while loudly denying they did any such thing.

Continued . . .

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“Afghanistan: Shoals Ahead for President Obama”

August 4, 2008

I. Wallerstein, Commentary No. 238, August 1, 2008

Obama has founded his campaign and become attractive to the American voters in large part on the basis of his position on the Iraq war. He opposed it publicly since 2002. He has called it a “dumb” war. He voted against the “surge.” He has called for a withdrawal over 16 months of all combat troops. He has refused to agree that it was wrong to oppose the surge.

While doing all that, he has always argued that the United States should do more in Afghanistan. This explicitly includes sending 10,000 more troops as soon as possible. He does not seem to think that the war there is somehow dumb. He does seem to think that the United States can “win” that war – with more troops and with more assistance from NATO. Once president, he may be in for a rude surprise.

Obama would do well to reflect upon the recent interview in Le Monde given by Gérard Chaliand. Chaliand is a leading geostrategist, specializing in so-called irregular wars. He knows Afghanistan exceedingly well, having been in and out of there over the last thirty years. He spent much time with the mujahidin during their struggle against Soviet troops in the 1980s. He currently spends several months a year in Kabul at the Center for Conflict and Peace Studies, of which he was one of the founders.

He is very clear on the military situation. “Victory is impossible in Afghanistan….Today, one must try to negotiate. There is no other solution.” Why? Because the Taliban control the local powers throughout the east and south of the country, where Pashtun populations prevail. Doubling the number of Western troops, doubling the projected size of the government’s army, and spending far more than the present 10% of outside aid for economic development might change the situation. But Chaliand doubts, and so do I, that this is politically likely for the United States and the NATO countries. The German Foreign Minister has already warned Obama not to press Germany for more troops to fight the Taliban. It is not that the Taliban can win either, says Chaliand. Rather there is a “military impasse.” The Taliban, who are geopolitically astute, are patiently waiting until the West “gets tired of a war that drags on.”

To see how the United States has got itself into this cul-de-sac, we have to go back a little bit into history. Since the nineteenth century, Afghanistan has been the focal point of the “great game” between Russia and Great Britain (now succeeded by the United States). No one has ever gained long-term control over this crucial zone of transit.

Today, Afghanistan has on its border a state called Pakistan, which has a large Pashtun population precisely on the border. Pakistan’s prime geopolitical interest is to have a friendly Afghanistan, lest India – but also Russia, the United States, and/or Iran – come to dominate it. Pakistan has been supporting in one way or another the Pashtun majority, which today means the Taliban. Pakistan is not about to stop doing this.

Under President Carter, the United States decided to try to oust a so-called Communist government deemed too close to Russia. We know now, via the release of archives from the Carter administration as well as via a famous interview given ten years ago by Zbigniew Brzezinski, then Carter’s National Security Advisor, that U.S. support of the mujahidin predated by at least six months the intrusion of Soviet troops. Indeed, one of the objectives was precisely to lure the Soviet Union into intervening militarily on the correct assumption that this would ultimately badly misfire and weaken the Soviet regime at home. Bravo! It did that. But the U.S. policy also at the same time spawned both Al-Qaeda and the Taliban – a classic case of blowback for the United States. In any case, none other than Brzezinski is warning Obama against repeating the Soviet error.

So, Obama is promising something today he is in no position to deliver. It is all very well for him to receive the implicit endorsement of the Iraqi government for his Iraq proposals. He is riding high on that, and will reap credit from the U.S. and world public for his stance. But he can undo that credit by failing to deliver on an impossible promise concerning Afghanistan. His gang of 300 advisors is not serving him very well on this issue. Obama knows how to be prudent when necessary. He is not being very prudent at all on Afghanistan.

by Immanuel Wallerstein

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Spotlight on the lesser evil

August 4, 2008
By Gideon Levy | Haaretz.com, Aug 3, 2008

The Olmert affair has come and all but gone. A few more invoices here and some daggers there will be hurled at the hemorrhaging political corpse hanging in the town square, and Ehud Olmert will disappear into the sunset. A hedonistic, spendthrift prime minister, a relatively small-time, corrupt man who, like many others, did not know where to the draw the line between public and private money and who – like many of his colleagues in the upper crust of government – thought that a politician deserves everything, is going home. Olmert and his transgressions will be remembered as a footnote in history.

Contrary to the typically passionate claims of a few self-styled protectors of the law, Olmert`s conduct did not for one second endanger the rule of law in Israel; it did not threaten its form of government, nor did it undermine the state`s foundations. Far more serious acts of corruption have been committed. Much greater dangers stalk and ultimately threaten the rule of law, and our democracy is fissured and fragile due to other phenomena. It isn`t the Rishon Tours affair, nor the house on Cremieux Street, nor the Talanskys of this world, nor the cronyism and patronage in the Industry, Trade and Labor Ministry that shape the state`s character. On the contrary, the manner in which the relevant instruments of power sprang into action and launched an all-out offensive clearly proves that when it comes to minor corruptible violations, the rule of law is in relatively good shape. The danger we are faced with stems from other, incalculably graver circumstances. Nobody has taken it upon himself to wage a war against these circumstances, because this war demands much more courage.

Like the `investigative journalism` programs we see on television, the self-righteous preoccupy themselves with trifle matters. How great it must be to make a name for yourself as a pursuer of justice as you shine the spotlight of your `investigation` onto a rabbi who got a little too frisky or the mechanic who overcharges his customer. This is a war that is universally satisfying to all sides. After all, who wants to tolerate an adulterous rabbi, a swindling mechanic, or a thief for a prime minister?

It goes without saying that such characters are worthy of ostracism, yet these battles are confined to the tiny space illuminated by a flashlight instead of the larger front where the greatest danger awaits. Olmert failed the Kolbotek (a popular consumer affairs TV show) litmus test, and he deserves to be punished accordingly, but the saintly image of the hell-bent seekers of justice that has been affixed to those who have brought him down is exaggerated, if not ridiculous.

Continued . . .

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Baleful Imperial Power

August 4, 2008

Bases Upon Bases

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY | Counterpunch, August 2 / 3, 2008

What do the following places have in common — Afghanistan, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Iraq, Japan, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and South Korea?

They all have US army bases. There are dozens of them. To which add enjoyment or otherwise of the presence of US Navy headquarters and warships by the Bahamas, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, El Salvador, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Greece, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, plus another score of ports worldwide where USN ships are welcomed by permanently-based staffs who are guests of host governments. These places are not bases. They are not counted in the officially admitted 780 (or so) colonial-style military encampments that Washington has imposed on inferior nations. The US military presence round the world is enormous. It is greater than any other country or empire has ever had. The most expansionist days of Rome and the British Empire, Hitler’s assault on Europe, and Stalin’s domination of the countries on Russia’s borders pale in comparison with the global embrace of what has become a sinister force for destabilisation.

Although it is unlikely that any more South American countries will allow the US to establish military bases (Ecuador will cancel its airbase agreement next year, being so fed up with the arrogance of the northern imperialists), the newly-created US Fourth Fleet is now patrolling off the shores of Venezuela, menacing its democratically elected leader, Hugo Chavez, who has incurred the wrath of US business interests by running his country more efficiently without their presence.

Mr Chavez doesn’t like the idea of giving his country’s natural resources to US companies and he won’t be bribed by them. This is absolutely unforgivable in the eyes of the Cheney-supported Friedmaniac freaks who nearly ruined Russia – and would have done so, had it not been for President Putin taking charge and restoring his country to economic sanity. Little wonder President Chavez has been attacked so viciously by the US and British media, parroting the Right Wing mantra that privatisation might reduce millions to poverty, but that it’s really a good thing in the long run. (Providing you aren’t one of those who have died from starvation meantime, of course.)

Venezuela has lots of oil, which may have added to Washington’s priority in creating a 12 ship fleet to “build confidence and trust among nations through collective maritime security efforts that focus on common threats and mutual interests.” But it isn’t clear what confidence and trust can be created by a nuclear aircraft carrier and amphibious assault ships whose ostensible mission involves countering drug smuggling and, inevitably, taking part in the absurd “War on Terror.”

President Chavez said words to the effect that he wondered what US reaction be if a South American nation sent a fleet to patrol the coast of Virginia, and of course he is perfectly right in fearing the baleful American presence. America sends hundreds of ships, many nuclear-armed and equipped with fearsome missile, to roam the coasts of foreign countries, but imagine the screams of shock, horror and astonished indignation if Russia or China sent a battle group to stroll nautically up and down the coast from Seattle to San Francisco.

As to Venezuela – who knows what special forces knuckle-draggers and CIA psychotics are deployed to assist the US-supported anti-Chavez underground that already exists. (The Fourth Fleet is commanded by Admiral Joseph D Kernan, a former special forces commander ; the signal could not be clearer.) In May a US Navy Viking electronic warfare aircraft “accidentally” flew into Venezuelan airspace, which doesn’t provide much confidence in a navy operating a super-sophisticated plane, with every up-to-date navigation device, that can lose its way so easily. What a load of nonsense. So it can be deduced that the plane was deliberately trailing its coat to assess the effectiveness of Venezuela’s defence radar system – just as is done every day in the Persian Gulf by US aircraft and ships closing up to Iran’s coastline to plot radar and other defence facilities in order to be able to bomb them if Bush decides to encourage Israel to attack Iran.

There is also a US navy, Marine and air force base in Diego Garcia, a British territory, in which there is a CIA prison to which prisoners have been delivered by the wonderful process of “rendition.” (The British government denied knowledge of “rendition” through British territory but had to acknowledge that it lied, following production of evidence that it had lied. Can we trust anyone? Anyone at all?)

Continued . . .

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US Vilifies Faithful Old Ally

August 4, 2008

Bush administration vents against Pakistan’s military intelligence for doing its duty — defending Pakistan

Eric Margolis | Toronto Sun, August 3, 2008

It’s blame Pakistan week. As resistance to western occupation of Afghanistan intensifies, the increasingly frustrated Bush administration is venting its anger against Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s military intelligence agency.

The White House leaked claims ISI was in cahoots with pro-Taliban groups in Pakistan’s tribal area along the Afghan border.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said the White House accuses ISI of warning Pashtun tribes of impending U.S. air attacks. President George W. Bush angrily asked Pakistan’s visiting Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani, “Who’s in charge of ISI?”

In Ottawa, the Harper government dutifully echoed Bush’s accusation against Pakistan, including the so far unsubstantiated claim that ISI agents had bombed India’s embassy in Kabul.

I was one of the first western journalists invited into ISI headquarters in 1986. ISI’s then director, the fierce Lt.- Gen. Akhtar Rahman, personally briefed me on Pakistan’s secret role in fighting Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. ISI’s “boys” provided communications, logistics, heavy weapons, and direction in the Afghan War. ISI played the key role in the victory over the Soviets.

On my subsequent trips to Pakistan I was routinely briefed by succeeding ISI chiefs and joined ISI officers in the field, sometimes under fire.

ISI is accused of meddling in Pakistani politics. The late Benazir Bhutto, who often was thwarted by Pakistan’s spooks, always scolded me, “you and your beloved generals at ISI.” But before Musharraf, ISI was the Third World’s most efficient, professional intelligence agency. It defends Pakistan against internal and external subversion by India’s powerful spy agency, RAW, and by Iran. ISI works closely with CIA and the Pentagon, but also must serve Pakistan’s interests, which often are not identical to Washington’s.

The last ISI director general I knew was the tough, highly capable Lt.-Gen. Mahmood Ahmed. He was purged by the new dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, because Washington felt Mahmood was insufficiently responsive to U.S. interests. Ensuing ISI directors were all pre-approved by Washington. All senior ISI veterans deemed “Islamist” or too nationalistic by Washington were purged, leaving ISI’s upper ranks top heavy with yes men and paper passers.

Even so, there is strong opposition inside ISI to Washington’s bribing and arm-twisting the Musharraf dictatorship into waging war against fellow Pakistanis and gravely damaging Pakistan’s national interests.

ISI’s primary duty is defending Pakistan. Pashtun tribesmen on the border sympathizing with their fellow Taliban Pashtun in Afghanistan are Pakistanis. Many, like the legendary Jalaluddin Haqqani, are old U.S. allies and freedom fighters from the 1980s.

TRIBAL UPRISINGS

Violence and uprisings in these tribal areas are not caused by “terrorism,” but directly result from the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan and Washington’s forcing the hated Musharraf regime to attack its own people.

ISI is trying to restrain pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen while dealing with growing U.S. attacks into Pakistan that threaten a wider war.

India, Pakistan’s bitter foe, has an army of agents in Afghanistan and is arming, backing and financing the Karzai puppet regime in Kabul. Pakistan’s historic strategic interests in Afghanistan have been undermined by the U.S. occupation. The U.S., Canada and India are trying to eliminate Pakistani influence in Afghanistan.

ISI, many of whose officers are Pashtun, has every right to warn Pakistani citizens of impending U.S. air attacks that kill large numbers of civilians.

But ISI also has another vital mission. Preventing Pakistan’s Pashtun (15% to 20% of the population of 165 million) from rekindling the old “Greater Pashtunistan” movement calling for union of the Pashtun tribes of Pakistan and Afghanistan — divided by British imperialism — into a new Pashtun nation. That would tear apart Pakistan and invite Indian military intervention.

Washington’s bull-in-a-china-shop behaviour pays no heeds to such realities.

Instead, Washington demonizes faithful old allies, ISI and Pakistan, while supporting Afghanistan’s communists and drug dealers, and allowing India to stir the Afghan pot — all for the sake of new energy pipelines.

As Henry Kissinger cynically noted, being America’s ally is more dangerous than being its enemy.

Copyright © 2008, Canoe Inc.

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Israel’s secret police pressuring sick Gazans to spy for them, says report

August 4, 2008

· Treatment only offered to would-be informants
· Patients allowed to cross the border drops sharply

A porter pushes a 15-year-old Palestinian cancer patient through the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel

A porter pushes a 15-year-old Palestinian cancer patient through the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel Photograph: Goran Tomasevic

Israel’s secret police are pressuring Palestinians in Gaza to spy on their community in exchange for urgent medical treatment, according to a report released today by an Israeli human rights organisation.

Physicians for Human Rights says the Shin Bet began interrogating Palestinian patients seeking permission to travel from Gaza to Israel for crucial medical help after Israel blockaded and then declared the tiny territory an enemy entity more than a year ago.

Typically, patients are taken to a small, windowless room, underground, beneath the security terminal at Erez, the only passenger crossing that remains open between Gaza and Israel, where they are questioned by Shin Bet agents for hours, the report says.

Refusal to cooperate often results in the denial of medical treatment. Based on the testimonies of more than 30 Palestinians – 11 of which are published – the report says the Shin Bet is using coercion and extortion to force patients to collaborate.

“They took me through underground passages and made me sit in another waiting room for almost 45 minutes. A man approached me and called me to another room for interrogation. He asked me to sit down and presented himself as Moshe,” Bassam al-Wahidi, a Fatah-aligned journalist, said in his affidavit to Physicians for Human Rights.

“After all my responses he said to me: ‘I want to talk to you openly when you return from Israel so that you will have an acceptable reputation on the Israeli side. Either you make contact with me and agree to my demands, or you will not get any medical treatment which will cause you to be blind and you will become a burden to your family and friends,'” Wahidi said in his affidavit.

But he said he refused and was forced to return to Gaza without receiving any treatment. Now the 28-year-old, who married a year and a half ago, is completely blind in his right eye and losing the vision in his overstrained left eye.

“I might divorce because I can’t stand in front of my wife as a disabled person,” Wahidi said .

He is one of an unknown number of patients from Gaza who have been denied medical treatment after refusing to inform on their friends, neighbours and relatives. Many patients feel they are being forced to choose between preserving their life or protecting their community. Physicians for Human Rights says such pressure amounts to coercion and extortion.

International law forbids the use of civilians in conflict to damage an enemy state and collaboration in the Palestinian community is a crime punishable by death.

“The patient knows that refusal to respond to the interrogator’s questions and demands will ruin his chances to access medical treatment,” the report says. While some patients are turned back after they refuse to collaborate, others arrive at the security interview only to be detained and locked in jail, it says.

Applications for help in Israel jumped sharply with Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

Decrepit and deficient hospital services in the besieged territory coupled with the closure of Gaza’s crossing into Egypt forced Palestinians in the besieged territory to increasingly seek help in Israel.

As a result, the number of requests for medical assistance in Israel – which is funded by the Palestinian Authority – jumped from about 600 a month at the beginning of 2007 to about 1,000 a month by the end of the year. As a result, the proportion of sick Gazans permitted to cross into Israel has dropped sharply from 90% in early 2007 to 62% by the end of the year.

Israel’s security services insists that patients are denied entry only on security grounds. It also says that holding Israel responsible for the health of Palestinians in Gaza is “wholly inappropriate and misleading”, arguing that it no longer occupies the coastal territory, having withdrawn its troops and settlers from the area in 2005.

However, in a letter to Physicians for Human Rights in June, Colonel Shlomi Muchtar said: “The state’s obligations are derived, among other things, from the rules of war and from the scope of its control over border crossings between it and the Gaza Strip.”

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Denying the undeniable: Enforced disappearances in Pakistan

August 3, 2008

© Amnesty International.”Amina Masood Janjua holding the photo of her “disappeared” husband in September 2006.

Amina Masood Janjua holding the photo of her “disappeared” husband in September 2006.

© Amnesty International.

>Protests against enforced disappearances, Pakistan

Protests against enforced disappearances, Pakistan

© Private

Amnesty International, July 22, 2008

“For us relief is only when our loved one is safe and sound standing freed before us. […] I believe that my husband Masood is held only three kilometres from my home, yet he continues to suffer unknown ill-treatment and we, his wife, his children and his very old parents cannot even see him. They [the new government] must act now to bring them back immediately.”
– Amina Masood Janjua, July 2008

The last time Amina Masood Janjua saw her husband, Masood Janjua, was on 30 July 2005 when he left home to meet his friend Faisal Faraz. Pakistani security forces apprehended both men on that day while on a bus journey to another city.

Since then, Pakistan’s government has been holding them in secret without charge or trial, repeatedly denying any knowledge of their whereabouts despite eyewitness testimony as to their detention.

Masood Janjua and Faisal Faraz are among hundreds of victims of enforced disappearance in Pakistan, including children as young as nine and ten years old. Many of them were detained after the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001, their detentions justified in the name of the US-led “war on terror”.

The practice, rare before 2001, then spread to activists involved in pushing for greater ethnic or regional rights, including Baloch and Sindhis.

Despite undeniable evidence, the government of President Pervez Musharraf consistently denied subjecting anyone to enforced disappearances.

In the report Denying the undeniable, enforced disappearances in Pakistan, Amnesty International uses official court records and affidavits of victims and witnesses of enforced disappearances to confront the Pakistani authorities with evidence of how government officials obstructed attempts to trace those who have “disappeared.”

New government brings opportunity for change
The report urges the newly elected government of Pakistan – which has pledged to improve Pakistan’s human rights record – to end the policy of denial, investigate all cases of enforced disappearance and hold those responsible to account.

“By holding people in secret detention the government of Pakistan has not only violated their rights, but also failed in its duty to charge and try those suspected of involvement in attacks on civilians”, said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific director.

Crucially, Pakistan’s new government must reinstate deposed judges who had previously been investigating disappearance cases and were deposed by President Pervez Musharraf when he imposed a state of emergency in the country in November 2007.

Complicity of other governments
The report also calls on other governments – most notably the USA – to ensure that they are not complicit in and do not contribute to or tolerate the practice of enforced disappearance in Pakistan.

Many of those unlawfully held at the US detention centre in Guantánamo Bay, and those who have been held in secret CIA custody were arrested in Pakistan. Others were unlawfully transferred from Pakistan to countries where they faced torture and other ill treatment.

Many people who have been secretly held in detention centres in Pakistan say they were interrogated by Pakistani intelligence agencies, but also by foreign intelligence agents.

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Iraq’s antiquities looted

August 3, 2008

Uruknet.info, July 31, 2008

DAUD SALMAN, The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

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BAGHDAD — To most, the scenes of looting and wanton destruction of Iraq’s archaeological treasures that followed the U.S. invasion in 2003 are just a distant memory.

But unfortunately, the country continues to lose its priceless artifacts on a daily basis as a result of theft, illegal excavations and trespassing.

The government estimates that there are around 10,000 archaeological sites in the country. Most of them are located in central Iraq, an area badly hit by the chaos and lawlessness that has gripped the country over the last several years.

While some of the best-known Mesopotamian sites, such as Ur near modern-day Nasiriyah, are well-protected, many others are completely unguarded.

Qais Rashid Hussein, director general of excavations and inspection at the Ministry of Archaeology and Tourism, said there are only 1,200 troops available to protect all of Iraq’s historic treasures. That has created “a huge problem” that has left antiquities vulnerable to gangs and smugglers, he said.

Treasure hunters illegally excavate the sites for valuable items that are then traded on the black market and often smuggled out of the country.

Margarete van Ess, director of Oriental Science at the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, estimated that illegal excavation in Iraq has caused $10 billion worth of damage in recent years.

“Many of the sites are far from town centers and cities and are under the control of tribes,” she said, making them vulnerable to looters.

Former President Saddam Hussein’s regime maintained tight control over most of the country’s archaeological sites and imposed stiff penalties on those caught looting. Those convicted of stealing antiquities faced 15 years in prison, and, in some cases, the death penalty. While many of those laws remain on the books, they are rarely enforced today.

Ancient coins, seals and other gold, silver and bronze pieces can be purchased on the black market in Iraq for as little as $10. But the same item offered for sale in Syria or Jordan can fetch thousands of dollars.

“A (Sumerian) cylinder seal can be bought for less than $100, and gold coins for even less (in Baghdad),” said Said Mahmood, a 52-year-old antiquities collector. “(However) the same cylinder seal can be sold for more than $2,000 outside of Iraq.” Last month, the Iraqi government announced that it was launching a concerted effort to reclaim about 15,000 artifacts believed stolen during the looting on the Baghdad Museum in 2003.

Already, Jordan has returned about 2,000 stolen items, some dating back to 7,000 B.C. In April, Syria turned over around 700 pieces, including gold coins and jewelry, which were seized by Syrian customs officials.

But even as the government reclaims stolen items, additional artifacts are being looted from unguarded sites. Sometimes, ignorance or neglect is behind the damage being done to Iraq’s ancient past.

Last year, officials with the antiquities ministry discovered that a new housing project was about to be built on top of a priceless archeological site; in Baghdad, a similar site was being used as a garbage dump until authorities intervened.

Khalid Sultan, a Baghdad-based archaeology expert, said both the Iraqi government and the international community need to do more to protect the country’s past.

“The destruction of Iraqi antiquities after the 2003 war has been enormous,” he said. “We need a massive effort from the international community to return the stolen pieces and to help us to protect the remaining archaeological sites.”

Daud Salman is a reporter in Iraq who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Readers may write to the author at the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, 48 Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8LT, U.K.; Web site: http://www.iwpr.net. For information about IWPR’s funding, please go to http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?top—supporters.html.

(c) 2008, The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

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