Peace and Justice Post

The Washington Post.
Sunday, January 20, 2008

Don’t buy the hawks’ hype. The war may be off the front pages, but Iraq is broken beyond repair, and we still own it.

By Andrew J. Bacevich

As the fifth anniversary of Operation Iraqi Freedom nears, the fabulists are again trying to weave their own version of the war. The latest myth is that the “surge” is working.

In President Bush‘s pithy formulation, the United States is now “kicking ass” in Iraq. The gallant Gen. David Petraeus, having been given the right tools, has performed miracles, redeeming a situation that once appeared hopeless. Sen. John McCain has gone so far as to declare that “we are winning in Iraq.” While few others express themselves quite so categorically, McCain’s remark captures the essence of the emerging story line: Events have (yet again) reached a turning point. There, at the far end of the tunnel, light flickers. Despite the hand-wringing of the defeatists and naysayers, victory beckons.

From the hallowed halls of the American Enterprise Institute waft facile assurances that all will come out well. AEI’s Reuel Marc Gerecht assures us that the moment to acknowledge “democracy’s success in Iraq” has arrived. To his colleague Michael Ledeen, the explanation for the turnaround couldn’t be clearer: “We were the stronger horse, and the Iraqis recognized it.” In an essay entitled “Mission Accomplished” that is being touted by the AEI crowd, Bartle Bull, the foreign editor of the British magazine Prospect, instructs us that “Iraq’s biggest questions have been resolved.” Violence there “has ceased being political.” As a result, whatever mayhem still lingers is “no longer nearly as important as it was.” Meanwhile, Frederick W. Kagan, an AEI resident scholar and the arch-advocate of the surge, announces that the “credibility of the prophets of doom” has reached “a low ebb.”

Continued . . .

But what kind of mess will the next president inherit, exactly 12 months from today? By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

The Independent, January 20, 2008

Arabia is the land of illusion and desert mirages. And as he jetted last week from kingdom to sheikdom, to be regaled with feasts and falcons, jewels and ornamental swords, George Bush might have imagined that all was well with his presidency. But this, his longest and most ambitious trip to the Middle East, will surely be remembered – if it is remembered at all – as a gaudy, irrelevant footnote to a presidency that has long since failed.

Today is a sombre milestone, marking the start of the last of Mr Bush’s eight years in the White House. This being a leap year, exactly 366 days remain until 20 January 2009, when his successor will be sworn into office. It is a time when incumbents look to their legacies. And for this President the view could scarcely be bleaker.

Is he the worst President in US history? Mr Bush faces stiff competition from the likes of James Buchanan, who watched as America slipped towards civil war, or Warren Harding with his corrupt administration, or Herbert Hoover, who failed to halt the slide into the Great Depression, or, more recently, Richard Nixon, the only President to be forced to resign. But in terms of dogmatism, incompetence, ignorance and divisiveness, Mr Bush surely compares with any of the above.

Continued . . . 

Socialistworker.com

Editorial, January 18, 2008

THE NEW York Times scolded George Bush last week for waiting seven years into his presidency to tackle the thorny problem of brokering peace in the Israel-Palestine conflict. But in the end, its editorial page struck a hopeful note.

“Mr. Bush said he would pressure the two sides when necessary, and he also promised to return to the region in May for Israel’s 60th anniversary–and maybe more often if needed,” read the Times editorial. “We hope that means that the president is finally and truly engaged.”

But this image of Bush as a peacemaker has little to do with the real purpose of the trip–pledging U.S. support for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s policy of starving Palestinians in Hamas-controlled Gaza into submission, propping up Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a powerless mini-state on the West Bank, and rounding up support among Arab regimes for the U.S. campaign against Iran.

Bush reiterated his promise to provide Israel with $30 billion in new military and economic aid–a more than 25 percent increase–over the next 10 years.

Keep reading . . .

Death and Darkness in Gaza

Information Clearing House, January 20, 2008

By Maan

Five patients dead due to electricity cutoffs in Gaza hospitals: Hamas claimed Sunday night that five patients died because of the cutoff of electricity in Gaza hospitals resulting from the Israeli blockade.

Hamas Leader Pleads Help For Gaza From Arab Nations : : The Hamas leadership pleaded with Arab leaders and the rival Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, on Sunday, asking them to forget their differences and help the beleaguered Gazans.

20/01/08 “ICH” — — A humanitarian crisis is underway as the Gaza Strip’s only power plant began to shut down on Sunday, and the tiny coastal territory entered its third full day without shipments of vital food and fuel supplies due to Israel’s punitive sanctions.

The Gaza Strip’s power plant has completely shut down on Sunday because it no longer has the fuel needed to keep running. One of the plant’s two electricity-generating turbines had already shut down by noon.

This will drastically reduce output to 25 or 30 megawatts, down from the 65 megawatts the plant produces under normal conditions. By Sunday evening the plant will shut down completely, leaving large swaths of the Gaza Strip in darkness.

Omar Kittaneh, the head of the Palestine Energy Authority in Ramallah, confirmed that by tonight, the one remaining operating turbine will be powered down, and the Gaza power plant will no longer be generating any electricity at all.

“We have asked the Israeli government to reverse its decision and to supply fuel to operate the power plant”, Dr. Kittaneh said. “We have talked to the Israeli humanitarian coordination in their Ministry of Energy [National Infrastructure]. We say this is totally Israel’s responsibility, and that reducing the fuel supplies until the plant had to shut down will affect not only the electrical system but the water supply, and the entire infrastructure in Gaza – everything.”

After months of increasingly harsh sanctions, Israel imposed a total closure on the Strip’s border crossings, even preventing the delivery of humanitarian aid. The Israeli government says the closure is punishment for an ongoing barrage of Palestinian homemade projectiles fired from the Gaza Strip.

Keep reading . . .

Counterpunch, Weekend Edition, January 19 / 20, 2008

Letter from a Secret Jail

By PATRICK IRELANIn a strange way, the “war on terror” may have claimed another victim, at least for now and perhaps forever.

Safdar Sarki, who earned his medical degree in Pakistan, is a member of the World Sindhi Congress. The congress seeks greater influence for the Sindhi ethnic minority in Pakistan’s Sindh Province.

In February 2006, police and intelligence officers arrested Dr. Sarki at his sister’s apartment in Karachi, Pakistan, and he joined the world’s army of the disappeared.

Dr. Sarki remained with the disappeared until last fall, when a letter from him somehow made its way to Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, Chief Justice of Pakistan’s Supreme Court. In the letter, Dr. Sarki described “complete isolation with a strip of black cloth on my eyes when outside, otherwise in a dark, stuffy and small gravelike cell in severe heat and severe cold. For 24 hours I am handcuffed except 15 minutes during a toilet break.”

Dr. Sarki had found himself among an estimated 4000 prisoners in President Pervez Musharraf’s secret detention network. An article by Jane Perlez in the January 18, 2008, New York Times provided few details about this network. Some prisoners are suspected terrorists. Some are not. Officials announced no charges against Dr. Sarki after his arrest. That’s how secret jails remain secrets.

Keep reading . . .

Albawaba.com, January 20, 2008

A number of Israeli ministers on Sunday called for the assassination of Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. “Nasrallah is a cruel and crazy man,” said Minister Yitzhak Cohen (Shas), during the weekly cabinet meeting in Jerusalem. “I don’t understand why he is still breathing. We should have liquidated him a long time ago. I recommend the cabinet assassinate the man.

On his part, Interior Minister Meir Shitrit echoed the sentiment, saying, “Nasrallah is a person who has crossed all inhuman lines. We don’t need to negotiate with him, we need to destroy him.” Israel’s Absorption Minister Ze’ev Boim called Nasrallah a “sewer rat,” adding, “we must make sure he does not see the light of day.”

Continued . . .

AFP – Monday, January 21

GAZA CITY (AFP) – – Gaza was in darkness early Monday after its only power plant shut down for lack of fuel as Israel kept up a blockade of the Hamas-run territory in retaliation for rocket fire,

The closure of the plant, which accounts for 30 percent of the population’s needs, plunged entire city blocks in Gaza City into darkness, and was set to sharply worsen power cuts already hitting the impoverished coastal strip.

“We have had to close the power plant for want of fuel,” its director Rafiq Mliha told reporters, warning of “very serious consequences for residents, but also for the operation of hospitals and water treatment plants.”

Mliha said he had no word on when Israel might allow in the fuel to enable the power station to resume generating electricity.

The Gaza Strip, where most of the 1.5 million residents depend on aid, remained sealed off for a third consecutive day Sunday as the Israeli cabinet decided to maintain the closure of crossing points amid escalating violence.

The Gaza director of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees called on Israel to reopen the crossings and appealed to the international community to help the civilian population.

The power station’s shutdown has “plummeted Gaza City, which has 600,000 people, into darkness,” John Ging told a news conference, adding that the loss of electricity “affects every aspect of the civilian population’s lives here in Gaza”.

“If you visit any of the hospitals you will find that its generators are only producing enough electricity to keep essential equipment going. They are very cold, all of the wards, adding to the misery of the patients,” Ging said.

Keep reading . . .

The Financial Express, January 12, 2008

Fritz Stern

The United States, with its claims of exceptionalism, is usually thought of as free of historical analogies. But comparisons with the fate of earlier empires are becoming more common. I have recently been struck by an analogy from German history: the disaster of German leadership during World War I, epitomised by Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm assumed the throne in 1888 at age 29, his liberal father having reigned for 88 days before succumbing to throat cancer. His grandfather, Wilhelm I, had presided over Prussia’s military victories, which enabled Bismarck to create the unified Reich in 1871. Within two years, Wilhelm II dismissed Bismarck. Wilhelm II became the leader of a country on the cusp of European mastery. By the 1890s, Germany was the strongest power on the continent. But power generates opposition, and Germany’s alarmed neighbours began to form defensive alliances.

Wilhelm flaunted his absolute power, believing it to be divinely ordained. He was contemptuous of parliament, whose circumscribed powers were set forth in a constitution that he boasted of never having read. He was intelligent, impressed by technological progress, but untutored and impulsive; he reveled in the trappings of power and delighted in uniforms. His ostentation and extravagance were deeply un-Prussian.

He was given to bombastic speeches, once warning newly sworn-in recruits that, if he so ordered, they would have to shoot their parents. He gave astounding orders to soldiers departing to suppress the Boxer Rebellion in China: they should awaken fear as had the Huns of yore. He detested liberal critics. And he spoke disparagingly of foreign nations, especially Great Britain. Some of this had to do with his ambivalent anglophobia and his distrust of his mother, Queen Victoria’s daughter.

Continued . . .

Yahoo News, January 19, 2008

GENEVA (AFP) – Israel‘s targeting of a Hamas government office which caused serious casualties at a nearby wedding party was a “war crime” and those responsible should be punished, a United Nations official said Saturday. John Dugard, UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the Palestinian territories, also slammed the killing of Palestinians in other attacks and the closing of border crossings.

“The killing of some 40 Palestinians in Gaza in the past week, the targeting of a Government office near a wedding party venue with what must have been foreseen loss of life and injury to many civilians, and the closure of all crossings into Gaza raise very serious questions about Israel’s respect for international law and its commitment to the peace process,” Dugard said in a statement.

“Recent action violates the strict prohibition on collective punishment contained in the Fourth Geneva Convention,” Dugard charged in the statement put out by the UN human rights commission.

“It also violates one of the basic principles of international humanitarian law that military action must distinguish between military targets and civilian targets.”

He said that “Israel must have known” about the wedding party in the Gaza Strip near to the interior ministry when it launched missiles at the ministry building on Friday.

The massive air strike destroyed the former interior ministry building in Gaza City, now abandoned, sending a tide of shrapnel crashing against adjacent apartment buildings and killing a 47-year-old woman.

Around 50 people were wounded in the blast, including several children. At least 30 of the victims had been attending the wedding party near the building.

“Those responsible for such cowardly action are guilty of serious war crimes and should be prosecuted and punished for their crimes,” Dugard said.

The United States and other participants in the Annapolis conference in November to relaunch the Middle East peace process “are under both a legal and a moral obligation to compel Israel to cease its actions against Gaza and to restore confidence in the peace process, ensure respect for international law and protect civilian life,” he said.

“We attacked the building and nothing else,” an Israeli army spokeswoman said of Friday’s raid, calling the target a “headquarters” of the radical Hamas movement which controls the Gaza Strip.

On Thursday, Israel announced a complete closure of the Gaza Strip after a sharp escalation in rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militants on Israeli communities across the border and retaliatory raids by the Israeli army.