Peace and Justice Post

Oped news, October 9, 2007

By Hamad Alomar

Democracy without wisdom and justice is chaos. Democracy is the rule of law and equal opportunity for every one. US democracy is not the ultimate one. It is quite the opposite to what Francis Fukuyama thinks. With the faults, deadlocks and misgivings of American democracy as it unfolds, the history has just begun. Money and the Media play a major role in American democracy .

He who has the money and controls the media can influence the course of the political scene. The number one enemy for democracy is greed. The second one is ignorance. The third is intolerance. We should not be lead by the success of American democracy or discouraged by Iraq failures when we try to evaluate democracy. American democracy has succeeded because of four factors which are not available to any other country in the world. Hence it is a mistake to expect others to follow the American model.

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Common Dreams, October 8, 2007

by Scott Ritter

Iran has never manifested itself as a serious threat to the national security of the United States, or by extension as a security threat to global security. At the height of Iran’s “exportation of the Islamic Revolution” phase, in the mid-1980’s, the Islamic Republic demonstrated a less-than-impressive ability to project its power beyond the immediate borders of Iran, and even then this projection was limited to war-torn Lebanon.

Iranian military capability reached its modern peak in the late 1970’s, during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. The combined effects of institutional distrust on the part of the theocrats who currently govern the Islamic Republic of Iran concerning the conventional military institutions, leading as it did to the decay of the military through inadequate funding and the creation of a competing paramilitary organization, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command (IRGC), and the disastrous impact of an eight-year conflict with Iraq, meant that Iran has never been able to build up conventional military power capable of significant regional power projection, let alone global power projection.

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Source: War in Context.org

By Scott Horton, Harper’s, October 6, 2007

The Bush Justice Department does have an essential law enforcement mission, though sometimes it seems to behave much more like a criminal syndicate. It warmly embraces the crime of torture as a tool for collecting human intelligence notwithstanding both its manifest illegality and immorality and the uniform view of intelligence professionals that torture consistently produces corrupted, inherently unreliable information. In so doing of course it is engaged in a fairly primitive game of self-protection. It can’t acknowledge the fundamental criminality of its conduct, so it turns the Justice Department into its consigliere. Three different lawyers in the office of legal counsel have rendered formal opinions giving a stamp of approval to a universal crime. Indeed, this sort of legal dexterity now seems to be accepted as a rite of passage for “movement” lawyers—a fact which is very revealing of the new character of the “movement.” It has nothing to do with ideals, and everything to do with personal fidelity. In each of these cases, the opinion boils down to the fundamental principle of the authoritarian state, namely: if the Leader authorizes it, then it must be okay.

Complete article . . .

Middle East Online,

First Published 2007-10-06, Last Updated 2007-10-06 10:27:58

Williams: ‘The region is still a tinderbox’
Archbishop of Canterbury says Iraq war caused ‘terrible damage’ to whole Middle East.

LONDON – The Archbishop of Canterbury renewed his criticism of the Iraq war Friday, saying the conflict had done “terrible damage” to the whole of the Middle East.

Rowan Williams, the spiritual head of some 70 million Anglicans worldwide, also reportedly said that any further military action in the region against Iran or Syria would be “potentially murderous folly.”

His comments came after a visit to Armenia, Lebanon and Syria, where he met around 300 Iraqi Christian refugees at the Ma’aret Sednaya monastery in an encounter which he described as “heartbreaking and harrowing.”

“The events of the last few years have done terrible damage in the whole of this region and many people, I know, do not see the cost in human terms of the war which was unleashed,” he said in a statement released by his office.

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The Independent, October 8, 2007

By Andrew Buncombe and Omar Waraich in Islamabad

The depth of British and US involvement in the deal that helps General Pervez Musharraf retain office for another five years emerged yesterday when it was revealed the two countries have worked to secure a “safe return” to Pakistan for the woman he is poised to share power with.

British and American diplomats have met with leaders of a controversial political party long at odds with former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and encouraged it to show restraint when she returns to Karachi in 10 days’ time. The leadership of the MQM party – which this year was blamed for violence in the city which left 41 dead – has vowed to keep off the streets on her return.

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Counterpunch, October 6/7, 2007

“When the President Does It That Means It’s Not Illegal”

Are Presidents Entitled to Kill Foreigners?

By JAMES BOVARD

What is the common term for ordering soldiers to kill vast numbers of innocent people? A war crime.

But not when it is done on the command of the U.S. president.

Killing innocent foreigners seems to be a perk of the modern presidency–akin to the band’s playing “Hail to the Chief” when he enters the room.

Bush is revving up the war threats against Iran. Seymour Hersh reported in the current issue of the New Yorker that the administration is advancing plans to bomb many targets in Iran. British newspapers have confirmed that the Pentagon has a list of thousands of bombing targets. Hardly anyone claims that Iran poses a threat to the United States.

Yet few people in Washington seem to dispute the president’s right to attack Iran. It is as if the presidential whim is sufficient to justify blasting any foreign nation that does not kowtow to the commands of the U.S. government.

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The Washington Post, October 5, 2007

BAGHDAD, Oct. 4 — U.S. military reports from the scene of the Sept. 16 shooting incident involving the security firm Blackwater USA indicate that its guards opened fire without provocation and used excessive force against Iraqi civilians, according to a senior U.S. military official.

The reports came to light as an Interior Ministry official and five eyewitnesses described a second deadly shooting minutes after the incident in Nisoor Square. The same Blackwater security guards, after driving about 150 yards away from the square, fired into a crush of cars, killing one person and injuring two, the Iraqi official said.

The U.S. military reports appear to corroborate the Iraqi government’s contention that Blackwater was at fault in the shooting incident in Nisoor Square, in which hospital records say at least 14 people were killed and 18 were wounded.

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Information Clearing House

By William Blum

10/02/07 “ICH” — — I used to give thought to what historical time and place I would like to have lived in. Europe in the 1930s was usually my first choice. As the war clouds darkened, I’d be surrounded by intrigue, spies omnipresent, matters of life and death pressing down, the opportunity to be courageous and principled. I pictured myself helping desperate people escape to America. It was real Hollywood stuff; think “Casablanca”. And when the Spanish Republic fell to Franco and his fascist forces, aided by the German and Italian fascists (while the United States and Britain stood aside, when not actually aiding the fascists), everything in my imaginary scenario would have heightened — the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Then the Nazis marched into Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland … one could have devoted one’s life to working against all this, trying to hold back the fascist tide; what could be more thrilling, more noble?

Miracle of miracles, miracle of time machines, I’m actually living in this imagined period, watching as the Bush fascists march into Afghanistan, bombing it into a “failed state”; then Iraq: death, destruction, and utterly ruined lives for 24 million human beings; threatening more of the same endless night of hell for the people of Iran; overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti; bombing helpless refugees in Somalia; relentless attempts to destabilize and punish Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Gaza, and other non-believers in the empire’s god-given mission. Sadly, my most common reaction to this real-life scenario, daily in fact, is less heroic and more feeling scared or depressed; not for myself personally but for our one and only world. The news every day, which I consume in large portions, slashes away at my joie de vivre; it’s not just the horror stories of American military power run amok abroad and the injustices of the ever-expanding police state at home, but all the lies and stupidity which drive me up the wall. I’m constantly changing stations, turning the TV or radio off, turning the newspaper page, to escape the words of the King of Lies and the King of Stupidity — those two twisted creatures who happen to occupy the same humanoid body — and a hundred minions.

Continued . . .