Peace and Justice Post

Published on Wednesday, November 21, 2007 by Inter Press Service

by Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS – The Permanent Observer Mission of Palestine to the United Nations has lodged a formal protest against the continued “misrepresentation” of facts in recent U.N. reports on the Israeli-occupied territories.

“There has been a tendency in several reports to portray the prevailing situation (in the occupied territories) as more of a conflict between two equal sides — the Israeli and Palestinian — rather than actually one of occupation,” says Ambassador Riyad Mansour, in a letter to Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon.

The “skewed” reporting, including “certain language usage that overlooks the existence of this occupation, is unacceptable,” he says, virtually accusing the U.N. Secretariat of trying to undermine the Palestinians by its misreporting.

Mansour’s letter to the secretary-general also says: “For sometime now, the delegation of Palestine has been troubled by misrepresentations in several U.N. reports in the recent period, including some issued by the secretary-general, that have had the effect of skewing the context of the situation in the occupied Palestinian territory, including East Jerusalem.”

He points out that Palestinian territories are under an “occupying power”, namely Israel, which is bound by clear obligations under international law, including humanitarian and human rights law.

Keep reading . . .

Rootless Cosmopolitan

By Tony Karon

The rather silly media narrative in which Washington supposedly suddenly faces a dilemma between backing the decrepit dictatorship of General Musharraf, or the Jeanne D’Arc pretensions (Winnie Mandela may be a closer analogy) of the kleptocratic Benazir Bhutto, has mercifully been laid to rest. That narrative’s connection to reality has always been somewhat tenuous, and the visit last weekend of Deputy U.S. Secretary of State John Negroponte — the man you send when there’s fixing to be done among unsavory clients in the troubled provinces, as his track record in Central America reminds us — made clear that business will continue as usual in the U.S.-Pakistan relationship, notwithstanding some ritual scolding of Musharraf for the limits he sets on civilian participation in government.

Continued . . .

AlterNet

By Paul Staniland, MIT Center for International Studies. Posted November 23, 2007.

The conflicts on the Afghan border and within Musharraf’s dictatorship could have a large rippling effect in neighboring countries and abroad.

South Asia has emerged as a strategically pivotal region, from the counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan to the emergence of India as an economic and military power. The current political crisis in Pakistan — with President Pervez Musharraf suspending the constitution and declaring an emergency on November 3 — threatens core interests of South Asia’s major political actors, including the United States.

There are two distinct conflicts within Pakistan’s polity. The first is between rebels along the Afghan border and the Pakistani state, and the second is between pro-democracy forces and Musharraf’s military dictatorship. The outcomes of both struggles will affect the rest of the region, with some implications potentially being felt globally. Who is affected by Pakistan’s turmoil, and why?

Keep reading . . .

McClellan’s Dish

Counterpunch, November 22, 2007

By DAVE LINDORFF

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself.

–Excerpt from Scott McClellan’s forthcoming book “What Happened”
(Public Affairs Books, due out in April 2008)

With that one little statement, released on the Public Affairs Books website this week, all excuses for not impeaching President Bush and Vice President Cheney, not to mention indicting Cheney (who of course has no immunity from prosecution while in office), have evaporated.

Here is rock-solid evidence from a man who, as press secretary, was privy to the inner workings of the White House, of a vile conspiracy involving the two top men in the Bush/Cheney administration, as well as their top three staffpeople, to expose the identity of an important CIA undercover operative, Valerie Plame, and then, when caught, to obstruct a criminal investigation by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, into that crime.

Keep reading . . . 

 Huffington Post

Washington Post   |   November 21, 2007 01:48 AM

President Bush yesterday offered his strongest support of embattled Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying the general “hasn’t crossed the line” and “truly is somebody who believes in democracy.”

Bush spoke nearly three weeks after Musharraf declared emergency rule, sacked members of the Supreme Court and began a roundup of journalists, lawyers and human rights activists. Musharraf’s government yesterday released about 3,000 political prisoners, although 2,000 remain in custody, according to the Interior Ministry.

The comments, delivered in an interview with ABC News anchor Charles Gibson, contrasted with previous administration statements — including by Bush himself — expressing grave concern over Musharraf’s actions. In his first public comments on the crisis two weeks ago, Bush said his aides bluntly warned Musharraf that his emergency measures “would undermine democracy.”

Read entire story here.

From Times  online, November 22, 2007

Pakistan court rules in Musharraf’s favour

President Musharraf could step down as head of the military as soon as the end of this week

Image :1 of 2

Jenny Booth and agencies

Pakistan’s Supreme Court today cleared the last legal hurdle for President Pervez Musharraf to be confirmed in office after winning fresh presidential elections last month.

The court – stuffed with judges sympathetic to General Musharraf – today took less than an hour to throw out the sixth and final legal challenge to the constitutionality of his standing for office while still in the military.

General Musharraf is now expected to doff his uniform and quit as head of the army within days, in order to continue the appearance of moving from military dictatorship to civilian democracy.

“The petition is dismissed,” said chief justice Abdul Hameed Dogar.

Keep reading . . .

The Times of India, 22 Nov 2007

WASHINGTON: Warning that another rigged election would add “even more salt to Pakistan’s open wounds”, a prominent US expert has said political trends lines in the country are likely to grow worse the longer President Pervez Musharraf remains in any position of leadership.

“The longer Musharraf wears either of his two hats, the longer it will take for Pakistan to hold sufficiently credible elections upon which a semblance of political normalcy can resume,” Michael Krepon, the Co-Founder of The Stimson Center, says.

In the article titled, “Pakistan With or Without Musharraf”, he says the longer Musharraf stays, the greater the difficulties Washington can expect on all three fronts– counter-terrorism, control of the country’s nuclear assets, and in handling bilateral ties.

Krepon also argues that the corporate interests of the Pakistan Army with respect to the above three fronts “are unlikely to change appreciably if or when Musharraf goes”.

Pakistan’s domestic politics have become so abnormal that modest remedies now seem insufficient while near-term solutions, including the goal of free and fair national elections in January, appear improbable, he says.

SF Gate

By Anne Flaherty, Associated press Writer
Wed, November 21, 2007

Retired Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top commander in Iraq shortly after the fall of Baghdad, said this week he supports Democratic legislation that calls for most troops to come home within a year.

His comments come as welcomed ammunition for the Democratic-controlled Congress in its standoff with the White House on war spending. This month, the House passed a $50 billion bill that would pay for combat operations but sets the goal that combat end by Dec. 15, 2008. The White House threatened to veto the measure, and Senate Republicans blocked it from passing.

Keep reading . . .

If nothing else, Bush has won admiration, even from some opposed to his policies, for being a man of strong convictions, a modern-day Luther declaiming “here I stand, I can do no other.” Others, however, contend that the touted convictions are nothing more than lies.

But why not give the president the benefit of the doubt? Let us grant that he really believes that the market knows best; that global warming is a crock; that destroying embryos to save lives is wrong; that tax cuts help the poor and swell the nation’s coffers; that the more we are watched, the greater our security; that federally-administered universal health care is a plague on all houses, including those of the uninsured; that a “liberated” Iraq is the short fuse to a democratic Middle East, toppling one tyrannical Muslim regime after another, with peace between Israelis and Palestinians as icing on the cake — the world made safe for American triumphalist values.

Let us grant the president all this and pat him on the back for having convictions. But the road to hell is paved with strong convictions. Page after page of history is a register of crimes and follies perpetrated by strong-willed leaders, blood-soaked affirmations of Nietzsche’s aphorism that “convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies.”

Keep reading . . .

Yahoo News, Wed Nov. 21, 9:51 AM ET BAGHDAD

(AFP) – A US general on Wednesday acknowledged Iran‘s role in helping quell the bloodshed in Iraq, saying Tehran had contributed to stopping the flow of arms across the border into the country.

Lieutenant General James Dubik, who is in charge of training Iraqi security forces, said Tehran was keeping to its pledge of stopping the smuggling of weapons to Iraqi extremists. “We are all thankfull for the commitment Iran has made to reduce the flow in weapons, explosives and training (of extremists) in Iraq,” Dubik told reporters in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

Continued . . .