Haiti: In Solidarity with its Five Freedoms

October 5, 2008

By James Petras | Information Clearing House, Oct 5, 2008

Today the acid test for all democrats in North and South America is the issue of the military occupation of Haiti, the economic pillage and denial of elementary political and human rights of the Haitian people.

In 2004 a US-led invasion force overthrew the democratically elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide and subsequently promoted and organized an occupation army. This colonial military force has repeatedly violently repressed popular demonstrations, violently raided the neighborhoods of the poor and killed, wounded and arrested Haitians who were affirming their rights of self-determination and an end to foreign occupation.

Since the United States bears major responsibility for the invasion, occupation and subsequent pillage and privatization of essential public services, we have a special responsibility to speak out clearly and forcefully to the United Nations (UN) in support of Haiti’s Five Freedoms:

1. The UN must end its military presence of Haiti through its occupation army (MINUSTAH), action contrary to the very founding principles of the organization. Haiti must recover the right of self-determination and the freedom to govern itself.

2. The Haitian people demand the end of the pillage of its national treasury by official and private banks extracting payments of $1 million USD a week for illegitimate debts contracted by past corrupt dictatorial regimes. Haitians demand freedom from illegitimate elite debts in order to finance basic life-sustaining programs for the 80% of the population living in extreme poverty.

3. Every country, which has suffered massive natural disasters, as the hurricanes that recently devastated Haiti, is entitled to large-scale, long-term humanitarian aid with no strings attached. Haitians demand the immediate fulfilling of aid pledged and its allocation according to needs without MINUSTAH manipulation to perpetuate its occupation.

4. The collapse of the free market model today highlights the disastrous consequences of the IMF-World Bank policies of privatization of public services in Haiti, where ‘private health and education’ effectively excludes the vast majority of Haitians. Haitians must regain the right to re-nationalize public services and all other strategic economic sectors necessary for their well-being.

5. Free elections means the return of deposed, exiled and persecuted political leaders and the end of foreign military occupation and repression of anti-colonial movements. Elections with occupation guns pointed at the heads of the electors and candidates have no legitimacy. We, the American people in North, South and Central America, have a responsibility to demand the end of MINUSTAH and the return national sovereignty to the Haitian people. No government no matter what its political claims and rhetoric can justify its democratic credentials when it acts as a colonial gendarme.

James Petras latest book , Zionism,Militarism and the Decline of U.S. Power – Clarity Press :Atlanta Ga.

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Why Paulson’s Plan is a Fraud

October 5, 2008

Bail Out the Homeowners!

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS | Counterpunch, Oct 3-5, 2008

Is the Paulson bailout itself as big a fraud as the leveraged subprime mortgages?

Yesterday, here on CounterPunch,  I discussed the bailout as proposed and noted that the proposal cannot succeed if it impairs the US Treasury’s credit standing and/or the combination of mark-to-market and short-selling permits short-sellers to prosper by driving more financial institutions into bankruptcy.

A reader’s comment and an article by Yale professors Jonathan Kopell and William Goetzmann raise precisely this question of the fraudulence of the Paulson package.

As one reader put it,“We have debt at three different levels: personal household debt, financial sector debt and public debt.  The first has swamped the second and now the second is being made to swamp the third.  The attitude of our leaders is to do nothing about the first level of debt and to pretend that the third level of debt doesn’t matter at all.”

The argument for the bailout is that the banks will be free of the troubled instruments and can resume lending and that the US Treasury will recover most of the bailout costs, because only a small percentage of the underlying mortgages are bad.  Let’s examine this argument.

In actual fact, the Paulson bailout does not address the core problem.  It only addresses the problem for the financial institutions that hold the troubled assets. Under the bailout plan, the troubled assets move from the banks’ books to the Treasury’s.  But the underlying problem–the continuing diminishment of mortgage and home values–remains and continues to worsen.

The origin of the crisis is at the homeowner level.  Homeowners are defaulting on mortgages.  Moving the financial instruments onto the Treasury’s books does not stop the rising default rate.

The bailout is focused on the wrong end of the problem.  The bailout should be focused on the origin of the problem, the defaulting homeowners.  The bailout should indemnify defaulting homeowners and pay off the delinquent mortgages.  As Koppell and Goetzmann point out,  the financial instruments are troubled because of mortgage defaults.  Stopping the problem at its origin would restore the value of the mortgage-based derivatives and put an end to the crisis.

This approach has the further advantage of stopping the slide in housing prices and ending the erosion of local tax bases that result from foreclosures and houses being dumped on the market. What about the moral hazard of bailing out homeowners who over-leveraged themselves?  Ask yourself: How does it differ from the moral hazard of bailing out the financial institutions that securitized questionable loans, insured them, and sold them as investment grade securities? Congress should focus the bailout on refinancing the troubled mortgages as the Home Owners’ Loan Corp. did in the 1930s, not on the troubled institutions holding the troubled instruments linked to the mortgages. Congress needs to back off, hold hearings, and talk with Koppell and Goetzmann.Congress must know the facts prior to taking action.  The last thing Congress needs to do is to be panicked again into agreeing to a disastrous course.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

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We can’t win Afghanistan war – British Commander

October 5, 2008

The Independent, Oct 5, 2008

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The public should not expect “a decisive military victory” in Afghanistan, Britain’s most senior military commander in the country warned today.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith said the aim was to reduce the uprising to a level at which it could be managed by the Afghan army and made clear that this could involve talking to the Taliban.

It was necessary to “lower our expectations” and accept that it would be unrealistic to expect that multinational forces can entirely rid Afghanistan of armed bands, he suggested.

Brig Carleton-Smith, the commander of 16 Air Assault Brigade, which has just completed its second tour of Afghanistan, told the Sunday Times that his forces had “taken the sting out of the Taliban for 2008”.

But he added: “We’re not going to win this war. It’s about reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat and can be managed by the Afghan army.

“We may well leave with there still being a low but steady ebb of rural insurgency.”

Brig Carleton-Smith said the aim should be to change the nature of the debate in Afghanistan so that disputes were settled by negotiation and not violence.

“If the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and talk about a political settlement, then that’s precisely the sort of progress that concludes insurgencies like this,” he said.

“That shouldn’t make people uncomfortable.”

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Forty percent of children live in poverty in Britain

October 4, 2008

Peter Reydt | RINF.COM, Oct 3, 2008

More than 40 percent of children in the United Kingdom are living in poverty, according to the latest research. That is some 5.5 million children.

Whilst official measures of child poverty are based on a national survey of family income, the new research published by the Campaign to End Child Poverty was compiled using tax credit data. This gives the percentage of children on low incomes in local authorities and constituencies across the UK, as well as at the more local ward level in England and Wales and in local zones in Scotland.

There are two groups of children whose families receive the maximum Child Tax Credit because they have low incomes. Some 2,895,000 children are in families claiming Child Tax Credit, plus a Working Tax Credit entitlement related to their earnings. Another 2,664,000 children live in families claiming tax credits that also depend on benefits, because no one in the family is employed.

In 174 of the 646 parliamentary constituencies across the UK, more than 50 percent of children fall into these categories. Naturally there is a wide discrepancy between affluent and poorer constituencies.

Whilst the constituencies with the lowest levels of families in poverty are Buckingham and the prosperous constituency of Sheffield Hallam, both with 17 percent, the parliamentary constituency with the highest number is in Birmingham Ladywood, with 81 percent or 28,420 children living in poverty.

Other areas with high child poverty are Bethnal Green and Bow in London, with 79 percent (23,450), Bradford West with 75 percent (24,900) and Nottingham East with 68 percent (12,360).

At more localised levels, the poverty rate is even higher. For example, in the London electoral wards of Tower Hamlets, Bethnal Green South and St. Dunstan’s and Stepney Green there are very high levels of child poverty, with 87 percent. When broken down still further, the concentration is even greater. For example, in the two zones selected by the Campaign to End Child Poverty in parts of Glasgow Baillieston—Central Easterhouse and North Barlarnark and Easterhouse South—98 percent of children are living in poverty.

The Centre for Economic and Social Inclusion has compiled the research figures by using data from August 2006. Economic developments since then will have already further increased child poverty. Rising food and energy prices and the slump of the housing market are pushing ever more people to the brink.

The Campaign to End Child Poverty, which is made up of more than 120 organisations including children’s charities, child welfare organisations, social justice groups, faith groups, trade unions and others, will stage a rally in Trafalgar Square as part of its Keep The Promise campaign on Saturday, October 4. The “promise” refers to the pledge to end child poverty made by Tony Blair when the Labour Party came to power in 1997.

At last week’s Labour Party Conference, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced plans described as “ground-breaking legislation” to enshrine in law Labour’s pledge to halve child poverty by 2010 and to end it fully by 2020.

However, Brown gave no concrete details on this legislation or the policies that would be employed by Labour to this end. And there has been no further information forthcoming. Not only is the target of halving child poverty out of reach, but figures show that it has in fact increased over the last two years by 200,000.

In reality, Brown’s pledge was made in recognition of the fact that Labour’s original promise is nowhere near being met. Nor could it be, given that the Labour government is entirely beholden to big business and the super-rich and that all its policies to this end have only increased social inequalities.

While Labour continues to make empty promises, it is fully aware that these cannot be squared with its using billions of taxpayers’ money to bail out billionaire and multimillionaire shareholders and bankers. Brown’s never-ending guarantees to do whatever is necessary to save the system will mean further handouts for failing banks and rising taxes, rising prices and deeper attacks on social benefits for workers, driving even more children into poverty.

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RIGHTS: U.N. Report Castigates Israel for Harassing Journalists

October 4, 2008

By Thalif Deen | Inter-Press Service


UNITED NATIONS, Oct 3 (IPS) – A new United Nations report on the human rights situation in Palestinian territories blasts the Israeli government for its heavy-handed treatment of journalists reporting on the military occupation.

The 20-page report, which will go before the 63rd sessions of the General Assembly currently underway, singles out the mistreatment of award-winning Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer who was stripped, interrogated, kicked and beaten up when he returned from Europe to his home town in the occupied territory of Gaza last June.

A stringer for Inter Press Service (IPS) news agency, Omer, 24, was awarded the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism for “displaying courage and ability in covering war zones”.

The U.N. report, by Richard Falk, the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories, says that Omer was convinced the brutal assault on his person was carried out by personnel from Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency.

The security agents “were fully aware that he had received the Gellhorn Prize while abroad, and were attempting to confiscate the award money, but were frustrated because it has been deposited in a bank account and was unavailable.”

When he left Gaza for Europe to pick up his prize, he was assured of the benefit of a Dutch diplomatic escort on his return.

But the escort arrived late at the Allenby Bridge border, where he was interrogated and beaten up and lost consciousness.

According to Omer’s testimony, he was forced to strip by an Israeli officer wearing a police uniform. He was pinned down on the floor with a boot on the neck. He says he collapsed during interrogation, and when he came round his eyelids were being forcibly opened. He was then dragged along the floor by his feet by officials of Shin Bet.

Omer was taken by ambulance from the Allenby crossing to the Jericho hospital in Palestinian territory in the West Bank. From there he was transferred to Gaza after a few hours.

A note from the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO) denies Omer’s account of physical abuse in Israeli custody. “In contradiction to his claims, at no time was the complainant subjected to either physical or mental violence.”

But an ambulance report of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society says: “We note finger signs on the neck and chest.” A report from the European Gaza Hospital of the Palestinian National Authority’s Ministry of Health includes the following notation following examination of Omer: “Ecchymosis (discolouration caused by bleeding underneath, typically caused by bruising) at upper part of chest wall was found.”

Following the assault, international press freedom groups like the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders called for an immediate and public investigation of Omer’s treatment.

By private communication, Falk was assured by the Dutch Ambassador in Geneva that the incident is being taken “extremely seriously” and that an explanation is being sought from the government of Israel.

But at the time of the U.N. report, no response had been received to either request for an account and an explanation.

Falk says the unfortunate incident “cannot be discounted as an accident or an anomaly involving undisciplined Israeli security personnel.”

“The treatment of Mr. Omer seems to have been motivated by Israeli anger over international recognition of his journalism describing the occupation of Gaza, his willingness to repeat his descriptions abroad and his dedication and intention to continue in the professional role of bearing witness to the excesses of the occupation.”

Falk also points out that all Palestinians are subject to arbitrary harassment and abuse at borders and military checkpoints, “although the hostility towards journalists seems particularly severe.”

During his time in Europe, Omer had also spoken before European parliamentary audiences, describing the suffering in Gaza caused by the Israeli siege, closures and fuel and food shortages.

“It should be noted,” says Falk, “that Mr. Omer was not charged with any offence, nor was he carrying any prohibited materials.”

His treatment, as described, appears to constitute a flagrant violation of article 3(1)(a)(c) of the Fourth Geneva Convention which prohibits “outrages on personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” of persons under military occupation.

Nadia Hijab, senior fellow at the Washington-based Institute for Palestine Studies, told IPS: “Richard Falk is absolutely right.”

She said other journalists have been killed or injured by Israeli security forces, even though they and their vehicles were clearly marked as “press”.

But there are several particularly chilling aspects to Israel’s assault against Mohammed Omer, she added.

“He had just been on a successful European speaking tour and received a prestigious award, and he was being met by European diplomats on his return home,” she noted.

Through its actions, said Hijab, Israel was sending a message that no Palestinian, journalist or otherwise, is safe and that even European diplomats are no match for Israel.

“That is a very chilling message to a defenceless people,” she added.

In his report, Falk also says that although the incident affected only one individual, it inevitably has “a chilling effect, and appears to be part of a broader pattern of Israeli punitive interference with independent journalistic reporting on the occupation.”

Falk says the United Nations has a “clear responsibility and definite obligation to protect independent journalism, especially in war zones and areas under occupation, as part of its commitment to human rights and international law.”

Asked if the United Nations is doing enough to protect reporters covering the occupied territories, Hijab told IPS: “The United Nations is not equipped to protect reporters covering the occupied territories, just as it is not equipped to protect civilians.”

“The only possible protection would be for the U.S. and/or Europe to make it very clear to Israel that they do not condone its violations of international law,” she added.

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Kashmiri leader seeks special UN meet on Kashmir

October 4, 2008

Geelani seeks special UN meet on Kashmir

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Greater Kashmir News Network

Srinagar, Oct 3: The All Parties Hurriyat Conference (G) chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani has sought a special United Nations session to discuss the present situation in Kashmir.

Applauding the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) for supporting the Kashmir cause, the veteran pro-freedom leader asked the body to do more by writing to the United Nation’s secretary general for convening a session on Kashmir.

“We welcome OIC statements which openly express support for the struggle of the people of Kashmir. But people of Jammu and Kashmir want more from the OIC. And time has come when it should do something concrete,” Geelani said in a statement. He said the OIC should write to the UN secretary general Bon Ki Moon and ask him to convene a special session on Kashmir.

The present condition in Kashmir, Geelani said, has necessitated the need for such a session. “Unarmed protesters are being crushed by the Indian troops and the paramilitary forces in Kashmir and they (troops) have crossed all limits and civilized norms,” Geelani alleged.

Strongly opposing handing over of land of joinery mill Pampore to paramilitary forces, Geelani said ‘such moves give credence to our doubts that the Government of India was turning Kashmir into a big garrison.’

Asking people to make Lal Chowk march successful, Geelani said on October 6 people should move towards Lal Chowk without any fear. He asked people to carry black flags with them.

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US announces Taiwan arms sale

October 4, 2008
Al Jazeera, Oct 4, 2008

The proposed arms sale is likely to anger
Beijing [File image, EPA]

The US government has announced plans to sell about $6.5bn of weaponry to Taiwan, a move likely to anger China, which claims sovereignty over the island.

The sale, announced on Friday, includes 30 Apache attack helicopters, 330 Patriot missiles and 32 Harpoon submarine-launched missiles.

The Pentagon’s Defense Security Cooperation Agency told members of the congress that the sale, which still needs to be approved by the politicians, would support Taiwan’s efforts to modernise its military.

“The proposed sale will help improve the security of the recipient and assist in maintaining political stability, military balance, and economic progress in the region,” the agency, which oversees major arms sales, said.

US legislators have 30 days to block the six separate arms deals, although such action is rare since any major arms agreements are carefully vetted before they are made public.

Pentagon proposal

Many of the weapons to be sold were part of a package announced by George Bush, the US president, shortly after he took office in 2001.

They were initially held up by partisan wrangling in Taiwan’s legislature over paying for them.

The Pentagon said the arms sales were consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act, which obliges Washington to help Taipei defend itself.

The deals were announced after what analysts had described as a freeze designed to ease tension between Beijing and Taipei, and were quickly praised by Taiwan.

Taiwan’s economic and cultural representative in the US said the decision marked the end of eight years of “turmoil and confusion” and heralded “the beginning of the new era of mutual trust between our two countries”.

China has claimed sovereignty over Taiwan since 1949, when the Communists, led by Mao Zedong, won the Chinese civil war and the defeated Nationalists fled to the island.

Beijing has vowed in the past to bring Taiwan under its rule, by force if necessary.

The US switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, recognising “one China”, but remains Taiwan’s biggest ally.

Shopping list

The sales include 30 AH-64D Apache Longbow attack helicopters built by Boeing, along with night vision sensors, radar, air-to-air missiles and Hellfire missiles. That deal alone is worth $2.5bn, if all options are exercised.

In addition to Boeing, major contractors will include General Electric for engines, Lockheed Martin Corp, Northrop Grumman Corp, Raytheon Co and Britain’s BAE Systems.

The Pentagon also approved the sale of Patriot advanced capability PAC-3 missiles, radar sets, ground stations and other equipment valued at up to $3.1bn. Raytheon would be the main contractor, along with Lockheed.

Omitted from the arms deal package were two items Taiwan had originally sought – diesel-powered submarines and 60 UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters, Rupert Hammond-Chambers, president of the US-Taiwan business council, said.

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US to Fund Pro-American Publicity in Iraqi Media

October 4, 2008

The Washington Post,  October 3, 2008

By Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus, Washington Post Staff Writers

The Defense Department will pay private U.S. contractors in Iraq up to $300 million over the next three years to produce news stories, entertainment programs and public service advertisements for the Iraqi media in an effort to “engage and inspire” the local population to support U.S. objectives and the Iraqi government.

The new contracts — awarded last week to four companies — will expand and consolidate what the U.S. military calls “information/psychological operations” in Iraq far into the future, even as violence appears to be abating and U.S. troops have begun drawing down.

The military’s role in the war of ideas has been fundamentally transformed in recent years, the result of both the Pentagon’s outsized resources and a counterinsurgency doctrine in which information control is considered key to success. Uniformed communications specialists and contractors are now an integral part of U.S. military operations from Eastern Europe to Afghanistan and beyond.

Iraq, where hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent on such contracts, has been the proving ground for the transformation. “The tools they’re using, the means, the robustness of this activity has just skyrocketed since 2003. In the past, a lot of this stuff was just some guy’s dreams,” said a senior U.S. military official, one of several who discussed the sensitive defense program on the condition of anonymity.

The Pentagon still sometimes feels it is playing catch-up in a propaganda market dominated by al-Qaeda, whose media operations include sophisticated Web sites and professionally produced videos and audios featuring Osama bin Laden and his lieutenants. “We’re being out-communicated by a guy in a cave,” Secretary Robert M. Gates often remarks.

But Defense Department officials think their own products have become increasingly imaginative and competitive. Military and contractor-produced media campaigns, spotlighting killings by insurgents, “helped in developing attitudes” that led Iraqis to reject al-Qaeda in Iraq over the past two years, an official said. Now that the insurgency is in disarray, he said, the same tools “could potentially be helpful” in diminishing the influence of neighboring Iran.

U.S.-produced public service broadcasts and billboards have touted improvements in government services, promoted political reconciliation, praised the Iraqi military and encouraged Iraqi citizens to report criminal activity. When national euphoria broke out last year after an Iraqi singer won a talent contest in Lebanon, the U.S. military considered producing an Iraqi version of “American Idol” to help build nonsectarian nationalism. The idea was shelved as too expensive, an official said, but “we’re trying to think out of the box on” reconciliation.

One official described how part of the program works: “There’s a video piece produced by a contractor . . . showing a family being attacked by a group of bad guys, and their daughter being taken off. The message is: You’ve got to stand up against the enemy.” The professionally produced vignette, he said, “is offered for airing on various [television] stations in Iraq. . . . They don’t know that the originator of the content is the U.S. government. If they did, they would never run anything.”

“If you asked most Iraqis,” he said, “they would say, ‘It came from the government, our own government.’ ”

The Pentagon’s solicitation for bids on the contracts noted that media items produced “may or may not be non-attributable to coalition forces.” “If they thought we were doing it, it would not be as effective,” another official said of the Iraqis. “In the Middle East, they are so afraid they’re going to be Westernized . . . that you have to be careful when you’re trying to provide information to the population.”

The Army’s counterinsurgency manual, which Gen. David H. Petraeus co-wrote in 2006, describes information operations in detail, citing them among the “critical” military activities “that do not involve killing insurgents.” Petraeus, who became the top U.S. commander in Iraq early last year, led a “surge” in combat troops and information warfare.

Some of the new doctrine emerged from Petraeus’s own early experience in Iraq. As commander of the 101st Airborne Division in northern Nineveh province in 2003, he ensured that war-ravaged radio and television stations were brought rapidly back on line. At his urging, the first TV programs included “Nineveh Talent Search” and a radio call-in show hosted by his Arabic interpreter, Sadi Othman, a Palestinian American.

Othman, a former New York cabdriver employed by Reston-based SOS International, remained at Petraeus’s side during the general’s subsequent Iraq deployments; the company refers to him as a senior adviser to Petraeus.

Continued . . .

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Robert Fisk: When it comes to Palestine and Israel, the US simply doesn’t get it

October 4, 2008

Biden and Palin hid like rabbits from the centre of the Middle East earthquake

The Independent, Saturday, October 4, 2008

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Palestinians ceased to exist in the United States on Thursday night. Both Joe Biden and Sarah Palin managed to avoid the use of that poisonous word. “Palestine” and “Palestinians” – that most cancerous, slippery, dangerous concept – simply did not exist in the vice-presidential debate. The phrase “Israeli occupation” was mercifully left unused. Neither the words “Jewish colony” nor “Jewish settlement” – not even that cowardly old get-out clause of American journalism, “Jewish neighbourhood” – got a look-in. Nope.

Those bold contenders of the US vice-presidency, so keen to prove their mettle when it comes to “defence”, hid like rabbits from the epicentre of the Middle East earthquake: the existence of a Palestinian people. Sure, there was talk of a “two-state” solution, but it would have mystified anyone who didn’t understand the region.

There was even a Biden jibe at George Bush for pressing on with “elections” – again, the adjective “Palestinian” went missing – that produced a Hamas victory. But Hamas appeared to exist in never-never land, a vast landscape that gradually encompassed all the vast and black deserts that stretch, in the imagination of US politicians, from the Mediterranean to Pakistan.

“Pakistan’s (nuclear) missiles can already hit Israel,” Biden thundered. But what was he talking about? Pakistan has not threatened Israel. It’s supposed to be on our side. Both vice-presidential candidates seemed to think that our ally in the “war on terror” was now turning into an ally of the axis of evil. Even Islam didn’t get a run for its money.

Indeed, one of the funniest reports of the week, yet another investigation of Obama’s education, came from the Associated Press news agency. The would-be president, the Associated Press announced, had attended a Muslim school but hadn’t “practised” Islam.

What on earth did this mean, I asked myself? Would AP have reported, for example, that McCain had attended a Christian school but hadn’t “practised” Christianity? Then I got it. Obama had smoked Islam but he hadn’t inhaled!

Travelling across the US this week – from Seattle to Houston to Washington and then to New York – I kept bumping into the results of America’s White House-induced terror. A well-educated, upper-middle-class lady at a lunch turned to me and expressed her fear that Islam “wanted to take over America”. When I suggested that this was pushing things a bit, she informed me that “the Muslims have already taken over France”.

How does one reply to this? It’s a bit like being informed by a perfectly sane and rational person that Martians have just landed in Tennessee. So I used the old Fisk trick when confronted by ravers of the “admit George Bush did 9/11” school. I looked at my watch, adopted a shocked expression and shouted: “Gotta go!”

But seriously. There was Biden on Thursday night, telling us that along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan – he was referring, of course, to the old frontier drawn by Sir Mortimer Durrand which most Pushtuns (and thus all Taliban) regard as fictional – “there have been 7,000 madrassas built … and that’s where bin Laden lives and we will go at him if we have actually (sic) intelligence”.

Seven thousand? Where on earth does this figure come from? Yes, there are thousands of religious schools in Pakistan – but they’re not all on the border. In another extraordinary bit of myth-making, Obama’s man told us that “we kicked the Hizbollah out of Lebanon” – which is totally untrue.

And, of course, Israel – a word that must be uttered, repeatedly, by all US candidates – became the compass point of the entire Middle East, this “peace-seeking nation … our strongest and best ally in the Middle East” (quoth Palin) of whom “no one in the United States Senate has been a better friend…than Joe Biden” (quoth Biden).

Israel was “in jeopardy” if America talked to Iran, Palin revealed. “We have got to assure them that we will never allow a second Holocaust.” Thus was the corpse of Hitler dug up yet again – just as McCain resurrected the shadow of the Second World War last week when he blathered on about Eisenhower’s sense of responsibility before D-Day. That Israel can quite adequately defend herself with 264 nuclear warheads went, of course, unmentioned, because acknowledging Israel’s real power undermines the image of a small and vulnerable country relying on America for its defence.

Israelis deserve security. But where were the promises of security for Palestinians? Or the sympathy which Americans would immediately grant any other occupied people? Absent, needless to say. For we must gird ourselves for the next struggle against world evil in Pakistan.

Biden actually demanded a “stable” government in Islamabad, which was a little bit hypocritical only a few days after US troops had crossed its sovereign border to shoot up a Pakistani house allegedly used by the Taliban. As General David Petraeus told The New York Times this week, “The trends in Afghanistan have been in the wrong direction … wresting control of certain areas from the Taliban will be very difficult.”

It’s an odd situation. Obama and Biden want to close down Iraq and re-conquer Afghanistan. The Palin College of Clichés characterised this as “a white flag of surrender in Iraq” while continuing to warn of the dangers of Iran, the name of whose loony president – Ahmadinejad – defeated McCain three times in last week’s pseudo-debate.

But it’s the same old story. All we have learned in America these past two weeks, to quote Joan Littlewood’s Oh! What a Lovely War, is that the war goes on.

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US attacks suspected militant hideouts in Pakistan

October 4, 2008

  • Agencies in Islamabad
  • The Guardian, Saturday October 4 2008

Missiles, believed to have been fired from US drone aircraft, killed as many as 21 people in one part of Pakistan’s tribal area yesterday.

Pakistani intelligence officials said most of the dead were militants, but the attacks will aggravate strains between the two countries over American military assaults on targets in Pakistan.

Pakistani officials said two villages in the North Waziristan area were hit just before dusk by the missiles. News reports identified 16 of the dead as “foreigners”, a term which usually describes fighters from Arab countries or Central Asia.

Two women and a child also were reported to have been killed in the strike, which was the second of its kind in the tribal areas this week and the eighth in the last month. Other sources put the death toll at nine with several more wounded.

The compound targeted yesterday, located in the Momadkhel district, close to the Afghan border, was believed to be owned by two Afghan nationals. The area is about 12 miles west of Miranshah, North Waziristan’s main town.

Another strike this week killed eight people in the nearby village of Khushali Toori Khel.

Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders have complained that missile attacks violate the country’s sovereignty and anger the local population, making it harder to crack down on the extremists.

US commanders have spoken of respect for Pakistan’s sovereignty but have suggested they would not stop cross-border strikes on militants whom they suspect of aiding the Taliban insurgency across the border in Afghanistan.

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