| Al Jazeera, Nov 29, 2008 | |||||||||
The siege at Mumbai’s Taj Mahal hotel is over after security forces killed the remaining armed men inside the building. The attackers were killed on Saturday, about 59 hours they took part in a string of deadly assaults across India’s financial capital. “All (combat) operations are over. All the terrorists have been killed,” Hasan Gafoor, Mumbai’s police chief, said. More than 195 people have been killed, including at least 21 foreigners, since the attackers began their co-ordinated assaults on Wednesday, officials have said. At least another 295 people have been injured. Among the foreigners who have died are five Israelis, two Americans, two French nationals, two Australians, a German, a Japanese, a Canadian, a British Cypriot, an Italian and a Singaporean. Police said that the attacks had been carried out by 10 people who had travelled to Mumbai, police said. “Ten people had come, we killed nine and one has been captured alive,” Gafoor said. Final operation At least three attackers and one security officer were killed in Saturday’s final raid at the Taj Mahal hotel, Jyoti Krishna Dutt, the country’s commando chief, said.
“Our operations will continue until we check each and every room and floor,” he said. Sniffer dogs were later taken into the hotel as security forces made a final sweep through the rooms of the building. James Bays, Al Jazeera’s correspondent at the scene, said some Indian news journalists had been allowed into the hotel amid the clean-up operations. “The media have been allowed a lot closer to the hotel to see what has gone on here. When you look up close you can really see the kind of battle that has taken place here. You can see glass on the ground, bullet holes … parts of the hotel are burnt out,” he said. “This is a very large hotel, with 600 rooms for guests. I’m told that the back half of the hotel is a real maze and security forces are going through the building to clear every room. This will be a long and painstaking task.” Nariman House siege A day earlier, security forces took control of Mumbai’s Jewish centre, Nariman House, after exchanging gunfire with attackers inside the building. Troops found the bodies of six hostages inside the building after killing the men who had stormed the Jewish centre. Al Jazeera’s Matt McClure, reporting from outside Nariman House, said several armed men were killed in the assault by security forces. Among the bodies recovered from Nariman House were those of Rabbi Gavriel Noach Holtzberg, who ran the centre, and his wife, the Chabad Lubavitch organisation said. Their two-year-old son had earlier managed to escape and is now in the care of his grandparents. Security forces at another hotel, the Trident-Oberoi, found 24 bodies after gaining control of the building on Friday. Attackers ‘remorseless’ Describing Friday’s security operation inside the Taj Mahal hotel, the chief of India’s marine commando force said: “The [attackers] were the kind of people with no remorse – anybody and whomsoever came in front of them, they fired.
“We could have got those terrorists but for so many hotel guests … The bodies were lying strewn here and there. There was blood all over and in trying to avoid the casualty of those civilians, we had to be that much more careful,” he said.Ratan Tata, the Indian business baron who runs the company that owns the hotel, said the attackers had detailed knowledge of the layout of the buildings. The strikes by small bands of armed men starting on Wednesday night shocked Mumbai, the nerve-centre of India’s growing economic might and home to the Bollywood film industry. Pointing the finger The Indian media, citing unidentified police investigators, reported that three alleged attackers had confessed to being members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistan-based group which aims to end Indian rule in Kashmir. Lashkar-e-Taiba, which means army of God, had earlier denied any role in the attacks. Earlier, a little known group calling itself the Deccan Mujahidin claimed responsibility for the attack in emails to news organisations. In a speech on Thursday, Manmohan Singh, the Indian prime minister, blamed “external forces”, a phrase sometimes used to refer to Pakistan-based fighters. RK Raghavan, a former chief of India’s Central Bureau of Investigation, pointed to claims that the police have seized a mobile phone which the “terrorists” used for communication with unidentified contacts in Pakistan. “I think there is irrefutable evidence that elements which have been giving sanctuary in Pakistan are responsible,” he said. “Presumably, initial evidence is that they have been in touch with anti-Indian elements who may or may not have any links to the Pakistani government. These elements are probably acting on their own, but they have been given a lot of freedom to move around in Pakistan.” Raghav also named Pakistan and Bangladesh as nursing grounds for al-Qaeda-influenced groups. Pakistani reaction For its part, Pakistan has condemned the attacks and said it will fully co-operate with an Indian investigation.
However, Islamabad has abandoned its earlier decision to send the head of the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate to India.”A spokesman of the Prime Minister’s House has said that a representative of ISI will visit India instead of the Director General of the ISI to help in investigating the Mumbai terrorism incident,” a government statement, released on Saturday, said. The Associated Press reported on Friday that US officials and Indian diplomats were working out details for the departure of a team of FBI agents to join the investigation into the attacks. In a diplomatic exchange that raised the prospect of renewed tension between India and its neighbour, Pranab Mukherjee, the Indian foreign minister, urged Pakistan to dismantle what he called the infrastructure that supported armed groups. Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said: “More and more people here are inclined to think that this is an indigenous, internal Indian phenomenon and that India is scapegoating Pakistan. “The Indian media have insinuated that elements within Pakistan were involved,” he said. “However, on the Pakistani side there has been relative quiet and also a sense of responsibility shown by the journalists not to jump to conclusions.” |
Siege ends at Mumbai’s Taj hotel
November 29, 2008
You Cannot Pardon a Crime You Authorized
November 28, 2008Statement from the Steering Committee for the Prosecution for War Crimes of President Bush and His Subordinates
Never before has a president pardoned himself or his subordinates for crimes he authorized. The closest thing to this in U.S. history thus far has been Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence. Bush is widely expected to follow that commutation with a pardon. Not only did Libby work for the White House, but he was convicted of obstruction of justice in an investigation that was headed to the president. Evidence introduced in the trial, including a hand-written note by the vice president, implicated Bush, and former press secretary Scott McClellan has since testified that Bush authorized the exposure of an undercover agent, that being the crime that was under investigation.
There are widespread concerns that Bush might pardon other subordinates for various other crimes that he authorized, potentially including torture, warrantless spying, a variety of war crimes, taking the nation to war on fraudulent evidence, and the abuses of the politicized Justice Department. Voices in the media advising Bush to issue such pardons include: Stuart Taylor Jr. (Newsweek 7/12/08) and Alan Dershowitz (Wall St Journal 9/12/08), while many additional voices have urged Obama to commit to not prosecuting.
The idea that the pardon power constitutionally includes such pardons ignores a thousand year tradition in which no man can sit in judgment of himself, and the fact that James Madison and George Mason argued that the reason we needed the impeachment power was that a president might some day try to pardon someone for a crime that he himself was involved in. The problem is not preemptive pardons of people not yet tried and convicted. The problem is not blanket pardons of unnamed masses of people. Both of those types of pardons have been issued in the past and have their appropriate place. The problem is the complete elimination of any semblance of the rule of law if Bush pardons his subordinates for crimes he instructed or authorized them to commit.
If Bush attempts this, here are possible responses:
1. Immediate impeachment of Bush and Cheney and various pardonees, even if they are out of office. (Here are arguments for the permissibility of such impeachments: http://afterdowningstreet.org/node/37834 )
2. Overturning of the pardons by the new president or by Congress, as Bush’s lawyers told him he could do to Clinton’s pardon of Marc Rich, which was a far more minor abuse of the pardon power.
3. Legislation banning self-pardons and pardons of crimes authorized by the president.
4. A Constitutional Amendment banning self-pardons and pardons of crimes authorized by the president.
5. Refusal by the courts to honor the supposed pardons.
6. Prosecution of Bush, Cheney, and their subordinates for their crimes.
With thanks to all who have aided over the past millennia in the establishment of the rule of law.
***
Lawrence Velvel, Dean of Massachusetts Law School, chairs the Steering Committee whose members include Ben Davis, Marjorie Cohn, Chris Pyle, Elaine Scarry, Peter Weiss, David Swanson, Kristina Borjesson, Colleen Costello, Valeria Gheorghiu, and Andy Worthington.
Pakistan condemns Mumbai attack, offers cooperation
November 28, 2008Zeeshan Haider
Reuters North American News Service
Nov 27, 2008 12:53 EST
ISLAMABAD, Nov 27 (Reuters) – Pakistan condemned on Thursday militant attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that killed 107 people and promised full cooperation in fighting terrorism.
Relations between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan have warmed in recent years and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has made moves to improve ties further.
But big militant attacks in India always fan suspicion of Pakistani involvement, either by Pakistan-based militants or even its security agents.
Pakistan bemoans what it sees as knee-jerk blame.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh blamed militant groups based in India’s neighbours, which usually means Pakistan, for the Mumbai attacks, raising fears of renewed tension.
Zardari and his prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, deplored the attacks in separate messages earlier on Thursday.
“President Zardari stressed the need for taking strict measures to eradicate terrorism and extremism from the region,” the state-run APP news agency said. Zardari, widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, came to power after February polls that restored civilian rule.
He wants to push forward a four-year peace process with India, launched after they nearly fought a fourth war in 2002.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, who arrived in India on Wednesday for a four-day visit, said he was shocked and horrified by the “barbaric” attacks in Mumbai.
Noting a spate of attacks in Pakistan, including a suicide attack on one of Islamabad’s top hotels in September, Qureshi said all civilised societies had to work to fight with terrorism.
“Pakistan offers complete support and cooperation to deal with this menace,” he said.
KASHMIR DISPUTE
The use of heavily armed “fedayeen” or suicide attackers in Mumbai bears the hallmarks of Pakistan-based militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba or Jaish-e-Mohammed, blamed for a 2001 attack on India’s parliament.
Both groups are banned in Pakistan. They made their name fighting Indian rule in disputed Kashmir and were closely linked in the past to the Pakistani military’s Inter Services Intelligence agency, the ISI.
Lashkar-e-Taiba denied any role in the attacks, and said it had no links with any Indian group. Instead, the little-known Deccan Mujahideen claimed responsibility.
A militant holed up at a Jewish centre in Mumbai phoned an Indian television channel and complained about abuses in Kashmir.
Pakistani Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar warned against a blame game with India.
“Nobody should blame anyone without any evidence and verification,” Mukhtar told Reuters. “We have nothing to do with these attacks. We condemn these attacks.”
The main dispute between Muslim Pakistan and mostly Hindu India is the Himalayan region of Kashmir, which both claim in full but rule in part.
Pakistan for years supported militants battling Indian forces in the disputed Kashmir region. It also backed the Taliban in Afghanistan.
But after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, then military ruler Pervez Musharraf broke off support for the Taliban and reined in the Kashmiri militants.
Pakistan says it offers political support for what it sees as a freedom struggle by the Muslims of Indian-controlled Kashmir, where troops have been battling an insurgency since 1989. (Writing by Robert Birsel)
Source: Reuters North American News Service
Bush’s Follies Will Destroy Obama If He Lets Them
November 28, 2008Truthdig, Nov 25, 2008
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| USAF / Staff Sgt. Samuel Rogers |
One might think that if Barack Obama believes he can make a success of his new administration by largely reconstituting the Clinton administration, Hillary Clinton included, he should know better than to take on the reckless ambitions and commitments of the George W. Bush administration as well: the government that gave America the Mideast and Asian crises, blunders and humiliations of the past 6 1/2 years.
The world has witnessed a futile, destructive and illegal American invasion of Iraq, a war conducted on false pretenses, supposedly against terrorists, accompanied by worldwide actions that have made American policy in Bush’s “global war on terror” seem to many Muslims an attack on Islamic society itself.
Obama is now taking on the quasi-impossible tasks of bringing to a successful and responsible conclusion the Bush government’s wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as what shows signs of becoming another military intervention of grave and unforeseeable consequences in Pakistan. He is doing so without challenging the assumptions and goals of Bush administration policy.
It has been the mindset of the Bush administration—and, unfortunately, of much of the neoconservative-influenced foreign policy establishment in Washington—that international society’s problems are reducible to wars that American armies will win. They are wrong on both counts. But some still argue that this is the way to a better and more democratic world.
Obama has no choice but to accept responsibility for these American crises. But why should he accept them on the distorted and even hysterical terms by which the Bush administration has defined world affairs since 2001?
Iraq has been a victim of the United States. Washington had no legal or moral justification for invading the country and destroying its infrastructure, killing an uncounted number of Iraqis and displacing half a million or more to ruined lives while setting off the sectarian conflicts that have wracked the country since 2003.
There is a heavy American responsibility to do no more harm, however well-intentioned. The present volatile situation in the country is for the moment a largely political shoving match between the divided and possibly ephemeral Shiite government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his rivals, who include the Shiite radicals of Muqtada al-Sadr, and the Sunni, and largely ex-Baathist, Awakening Movement, sponsored by the U.S. Army to defend Sunni tribal regions against the foreigners of the fundamentalist al-Qaida. In addition, are the two Kurdish movements that together control, and plan to make independent and permanent, a Kurdistan nation incorporating—if they have their way—the oil-rich Kirkuk region.
One can make the political—and moral—argument that as the American invasion is responsible for the Iraqi upheaval, Washington should somehow settle it. The answer is that it’s impossible for Americans to do so. The U.S. cannot do it by continued military occupation and intervention in the country’s affairs.
Only the Iraqis themselves can settle this, and doing so may entail even more religious and ethnic struggle. The neighboring Shiite great power, Iran, will play its cards in the country. The Saudis will play theirs. Israel will do everything in its power to prevent an American withdrawal. All of this will probably add still more tragedies to those of the last six years, but at least the U.S. responsibility will have become only indirect, which is bad enough.
Barack Obama started off his presidential campaign by saying that he would get American troops out of Iraq by mid-2010. That was a strong, simple position that, if resolutely carried out, would make it clear to the Iraqis what they have to do to save themselves, and how long they have in which to do it.
Since the early campaign, the president-elect has been forced to qualify his position, weaken it, blur it, say that actually many U.S. troops probably will stay on, the dates may change, American involvement will continue, and so on. He has been forced back toward the Washington consensus opinion, the centrist and “responsible” position, close to the Bush opinion.
Nearly everyone is against his sticking to his original policy: The Iraq factions all plan to exploit American ambiguities to strengthen their own positions and maneuver the American command to favor them. The Kurds want time to make their proto-Kurdistan even more impregnable (while encouraging their reluctance to deal with Turkish and Iranian hostility to a sovereign Kurdistan, as well as deal realistically with their fellow Iraqis).
In Washington, the Pentagon is against withdrawal on Obama’s terms. It still wants permanent bases in Iraq. It claims Obama’s timetable is logistically impossible. The Republicans will shout “treason” and “betrayal.” American oil companies and the corporations that are already part of the occupation, as well as those that have big ambitions for moving into an American-secured Iraq, will demand that the U.S. stay.
All this must be resisted if Obama is to be his own man. He has to rid himself of George Bush’s folly. He must make Iraq truly independent. If he doesn’t, it could destroy his administration.
Visit William Pfaff’s Web site at www.williampfaff.com.
© 2008 Tribune Media Services Inc.
The truth comes out about Gulf War Illness
November 28, 2008reports on a new study that contradicts the U.S. government’s long-held position that Gulf War Illness doesn’t exist.
Socialist Worker, November 21, 2008
Exposure to chemical weapons may have contributed to Gulf War Illness
AFTER AN agonizing 17 years, the U.S. government will finally have to admit what veterans and their families have long known–Gulf War Illness is a very real and debilitating condition that has affected one-quarter of soldiers who served in the 1990-91 war.
The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses (RAC-GWVI)–a committee of scientists and veterans appointed by Congress in 2002 to investigate the illnesses experienced by veterans of Operation Desert Storm–presented its 450-page report to Secretary of Veterans Affairs James Peake on November 17.
The new report, which chronicles the ailments suffered by some 175,000 Gulf War veterans–including memory and concentration problems, persistent headaches, unexplained fatigue, widespread pain, respiratory symptoms, digestive problems and skin rashes–contradicts previous reports, which denied that Gulf War Illness even existed.
Among those previous reports, a 2006 National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine, claimed that the soldiers were simply suffering from merely suffering from stress disorders typical to any combat zone.
The Research Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans’ Illnesses report is available on the Boston University School of Public Health Web site.
As the RAC-GWVI report plainly states:
Gulf War illness fundamentally differs from trauma and stress-related syndromes described after other wars. Studies consistently indicate that Gulf War illness is not the result of combat or other stressors and that Gulf War veterans have lower rates of posttraumatic stress disorder than veterans of other wars.
According to the committee’s scientific director Roberta White, veterans “have been plagued by ill health since their return 17 years ago. Although evidence for this health phenomenon is overwhelming, veterans repeatedly find that their complaints are met with cynicism and a ‘blame the victim’ mentality that attributes their health problems to mental illness or non-physical factors.”
Lea Steele, who served as RAC-GWVI scientific director, told the Washington Post, “VA docs often know nothing about it and aren’t able to help them. Sometimes, they treat them as if they are head cases or malingering.”
As Anthony Hardie, national secretary for Veterans of Modern Warfare, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, “It really closes one of the darker chapters of the legacy of the Gulf War, and that is Gulf War illness.”
Hardie, a 23-year-old sergeant during the war, now suffers from respiratory problems, fatigue and chronic pain. “The report clearly lays out that Gulf War illness was caused by unique exposures; it lays out clearly that Gulf war illness is not a stress-related or trauma condition, that it is not the same as in wars before or since. It is unique,” he said.
Amy Goodman: Media silence doesn’t mean all’s well in Gaza
November 28, 2008As President-elect Barack Obama focuses on the meltdown of the U.S. economy, another fire is burning: the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
You may not have heard much lately about the disaster in the Gaza Strip. That silence is intentional: The Israeli government has barred international journalists from entering the occupied territory. Last week, executives from the Associated Press, New York Times, Reuters, CNN, BBC and other news organizations sent a letter of protest to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert criticizing his government’s decision to bar journalists from entering Gaza.
Israel has virtually sealed off the Gaza Strip and cut off aid and fuel shipments. A spokesman for Israel’s Defense Ministry said Israel was displeased with international media coverage, which he said inflated Palestinian suffering and did not make clear that Israel’s measures were in response to Palestinian violence.
A cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, the group that won Palestinian elections nearly three years ago and controls Gaza, broke down after an Israeli raid killed six Hamas militants two weeks ago. More Israeli raids have followed, killing approximately 17 Hamas members, and Palestinian militants have fired dozens of rockets into southern Israel, injuring several people.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has criticized Israel over its blockade of the overcrowded Gaza, home to close to 1.5 million Palestinians. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency is warning that Gaza faces a humanitarian “catastrophe” if Israel continues to blockade aid from reaching the territory.
The sharply divided landscape of Israel and the occupied territories is familiar ground for South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. He won the Nobel Peace Prize for his opposition to apartheid in South Africa. Tutu was in New York last week to receive the Global Citizens Circle award. I sat down with him at the residence of the South African vice consul.
Tutu reflected on the Israeli occupation: “Coming from South Africa … and looking at the checkpoints … when you humiliate a people to the extent that they are being — and, yes, one remembers the kind of experience we had when we were being humiliated — when you do that, you’re not contributing to your own security.”
Tutu said the embargo must be lifted. “The suffering is unacceptable. It doesn’t promote the security of Israel or any other part of that very volatile region,” he said. “There are very, very many in Israel who are opposed to what is happening.”
Tutu points to the outgoing Israeli prime minister. In September, Olmert made a stunning declaration to Yedioth Ahronoth, the largest Israeli newspaper. He said that Israel should withdraw from nearly all territory captured in the 1967 Middle East war in return for peace with the Palestinians and Syria: “I am saying what no previous Israeli leader has ever said: We should withdraw from almost all of the territories, including in East Jerusalem and in the Golan Heights.” Olmert said that traditional Israeli defense strategists had learned nothing from past experiences and that they seemed stuck in the considerations of the 1948 War of Independence. He said: “With them, it is all about tanks and land and controlling territories and controlled territories and this hilltop and that hilltop. All these things are worthless.”
Olmert appears to have come closer to his daughter’s point of view. In 2006, Dana Olmert was among 200 people who gathered outside the home of the Israeli army chief of staff and chanted “murderer” as they protested Israeli killings of Palestinians (Archbishop Tutu was blocked from entering Gaza in his U.N.- backed attempts to investigate those killings). Ehud Olmert recently resigned over corruption allegations, but remains prime minister until a new government is approved by parliament.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Riyad al- Maliki criticized Olmert for waiting until now to call for an end to the settlements: “We wish we heard this personal opinion when Olmert was prime minister, not after he resigned. I think it is a very important commitment, but it came too late. We hope this commitment will be fulfilled by the new Israeli government.”
Israel is a top recipient of U.S. military aid. Archbishop Tutu says of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, “When that is resolved, what we will find (is) that the tensions between the West and … a large part of the Muslim world … evaporates.” He said of Obama, “I pray that this new president will have the capacity to see we’ve got to do something here … for the sake of our children.”
Amy Goodman is the host of “Democracy Now!,” a daily international TV/radio news hour airing on 700 stations, including WYOU cable access TV and WORT-FM/89.9 radio here. You can hear her podcast at captimes.com. Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.
THIS IS GAZA – A REPORT BY AMIRA HASS
November 27, 2008
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| Image by David BaldingerUruknet.info, November 27, 2008This is Gaza Amira Hass If it`s not the power getting cut, leaving entire neighborhoods in darkness, then it`s the water not reaching the top floors or the cooking gas running out. If you have an electric generator, some small part of it is bound to be broken and unfixable, because even before the hermetic three-week siege, Israel prohibited bringing in any spare parts for cars, machines and household electric appliances. And if you somehow manage to find the money for a generator that was smuggled through the tunnels (its price has doubled or tripled since last month), it`s at the expense of buying a heater (not electric, of course), English lessons, clothes for the children and visits to the doctor. This is Gaza in November 2008. Just as Gaza is the emptying of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency storehouses and the farmers who sowed and watered, but cannot market, their tomatoes, guavas and strawberries out of the Gaza Strip because Israel forbids it, it is also the calmness with which people receive the sudden darkness and the jokes that there is not much food in the refrigerator to spoil anyway. Gaza is the ability to tell jokes in any situation, and the burning insult of having no running water for three or four days. And yet, the children go clean and neat to school. Gaza is the long Nasser Street which has been blocked to traffic for over a year. Its asphalt is torn out and it is riddled with potholes and mounds of sand. When Israel forbade bringing any construction materials and raw materials into the strip, the renovation work stopped on this thoroughfare, the main access to three hospitals, which are always in danger of equipment failure if some part breaks down. But Gaza is also parents leaving their children alone at home, without fear, or letting them go to a playground far from home, or go by themselves to their grandmother in the Jabaliya refugee camp (in the streets parallel to Nasser Street). Gaza is reports of policemen attacking Fatah supporters at a university, or the police closing a restaurant for one night because its owners didn`t report in advance about a symposium that was held in the restaurant`s hall, in which Hamas speakers participated and was organized by a research center associated with Ramallah authorities. Gaza is the teacher who forces school girls to cover their heads, although senior officials assert that this is not the education ministry`s policy. It is exaggerations and false rumors, and it is also the Fatah detainees` report that cameras were installed in the interrogation room to ensure that the interrogators act within the boundaries of the law. It is the surprise when `Hamas` police restore stolen property, even before it has been reported stolen. Gaza is the feeling among Fatah supporters that the power has been stolen from them, and their fear of the security apparatus, as it is Hamas` self confidence. It is the comparisons made with the intimidation methods in Yasser Arafat`s era and exchanging information about the suppression of Hamas activity in the West Bank. Gaza is the anger of the entire public, including Fatah members, for what appears to be Ramallah`s deliberate neglect and indifference toward the strip and its residents` fate. Gaza is those dreaming to leave it, and those who left years ago for school and work and miss it. Gaza is the people who cannot return to their families here, because even if they could find a crack and enter through the border crossings blocked by Israel, they would remain imprisoned here, and would have to renounce their freedom of movement and choice completely. Everything is so intense here. `We measure our lives in minutes, not in days or weeks,` a Fatah man said. His life has been turned upside down since June 2007, and is turned upside down every day due to the political rupture. He was referring to Fatah men like himself, convinced that Hamas people in the West Bank also `measure their lives in minutes.` But his description suits everyone. The changes are so sudden, violent, swift and frequent that the individual has no control over them – whether it is high politics or laundry times. Gaza is people`s constant attempt to cling to a normal life, although Israel foists on them abnormal terms of imprisonment, isolation from the rest of the world and deterioration to a state of humiliating dependence on international charity programs. |
Karzai Wishes He Could Shoot Down US Planes
November 27, 2008Antiwar.com, November 26, 2008
Afghan President Hamid Karzai used a visit yesterday by a United Nations delegation to hit out at the international forces over their conduct in the war, expressing disbelief that after seven years “a little force like the Taliban” is continuing to flourish.
But today the Afghan President took his complaints to a new level, publicly lamenting that he was unable to shoot down the US planes which have been bombarding Afghan villages. Karzai added that if he had a rock attached to a piece of string, he’d use it to try to down the planes, “but that’s not in my hands.”
Hitting out at the war on terror as “unclear,” Karzai criticized “a war which is unclear what it is for, and what we are doing.” Addressing the media after today’s meeting with NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer he called for a firm timeline for withdrawal, insisting “this war cannot be endless and forever and the Afghan nation cannot burn in a war of which the end is not clear,” and adding “we did not welcome the international community in Afghanistan so that our lives get worse.”
Karzai warned that if a timeline is not set, he feels Afghanistan has “the right to find another solution for peace and security, which is negotiations.” He also accused international troops of having set up a parallel government.
Related Stories
compiled by Jason Ditz [email the author]
Bush’s ‘coalition of the willing’ abandons Iraq
November 29, 2008Britain, Australia, Romania, Estonia and El Salvador are the only nations, apart from the US, that plan to remain after a UN mandate authorising their presence expires on December 31.
London must still reach an agreement with Baghdad, however, to keep its 4,100-strong contingent on the ground into the new year. Failure to do so in time would leave British troops without legal cover and they too would have to leave.
“We are going to say farewell to 13 different nations in the space of two and a half weeks,” said Brigadier-General Nicolas Matern, a deputy commander for Multi-National Corps Iraq, which oversees the US military’s coalition partners.
“We started off with 35 countries but it has steadily been going down … As from December it is going to go all the way down,” he told The Times.
A farewell ceremony took place on Wednesday for 76 Macedonian soldiers. Another is due today for 86 troops from Bosnia and Herzegovina and a third is scheduled for South Korea’s contingent tomorrow. Others set to follow suit include soldiers from Albania, Azerbaijan, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Lithuania and Ukraine.
President Bush and Tony Blair scrambled the coalition together in the build-up to the Iraq invasion in a bid to put an international face on what was fast becoming an unpopular war. But the list of participants drew scorn for failing to include a greater number of powerful states, with the US and Britain the main contributors.
The size of the outgoing contingents ranges from just 4 Lithuanians to 300 South Koreans. Many countries have reduced their presence over the past five years, but it has always been a fraction of the US deployment, now standing at 146,000.
Bulgaria – with only 150 troops left in Iraq – has had forces south of Baghdad since June 2003, taking part in various operations, including patrols and guard duty. Thirteen Bulgarian soldiers have been killed and 81 injured in that time.
Lieutenant Colonel Valeri Kolev Valchanov said: “I think we have contributed somehow towards the stabilisation of the country.”
Bulgaria’s troops are also preparing to pull out next month, a move that triggers mixed emotions for the Bulgarian officer. “I will never forget my friendships with Romanian soldiers, Ukrainian soldiers, Polish soldiers, American soldiers,” he said. “We were in dangerous conditions together and celebrated good moments together.”
Major Mario Ernesto Argueta is from El Salvador, which has 200 troops working on humanitarian projects in Wasit province, south of the Iraqi capital. He too believes that the efforts of a tiny contingent make an impact.
“It doesn’t matter how many we are, the most important part is that you made a difference, not for the whole country but for the person who got the aid,” he said.
El Salvador is one of four coalition countries – excluding the United States and Britain – which have been invited to stay in Iraq beyond the end of the year.
“The US approached the Government of Iraq asking that we consider asking a few countries other than the United Kingdom to continue to provide some specialist forces for non-combat tasks after 31 December,” said Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq’s National Security Adviser. “After considering the request, the Prime Minister agreed and those countries were invited to continue to assist us.”
Formal agreements will be made with El Salvador, Australia, Romania and Estonia once a long-awaited security pact with the United States, which was approved by Parliament on Thursday, becomes law.
Outside the coalition, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, which has 200 troops from 15 countries in Iraq, is also trying to finalise an accord with Baghdad to continue a training mission in the country beyond the end of 2008.
In addition, the United Nations has a number of Fijian troops working in Iraq.
While the coalition is dissolving, another force of foreigners is still thriving in the country: thousands of private contractors from developing countries such as Peru, Uganda, the Philippines and Bangladesh.
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Tags: British troops, Bush and Blair, coalition allies of Bush, invasion and occupation of Iraq, NATO
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