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Guantanamo: How many children were held?

November 19, 2008

rinf.com, Nov 18, 2008

The ACLU raises the issue of government lying about the number of children detained at Guantanamo.This follows a release last week on incontrovertible evidence that the Pentagon was distorting the number of children held. It appears that virtually no claim made by US authorities regarding detention and interrogation operations is reliable:

Pentagon Admits Number of Guantánamo’s Children is Higher than Originally Disclosed

An AP article today announced the Pentagon has admitted that 12 children under the age of 18 have been held at Guantánamo since it opened in 2002. The news report comes on the heels of a study released last week by the U.C. Davis Center for the Study of Human Rights in the Americas, showing that the U.S. has held at least 12 juveniles at Guantánamo.

These reports confirm what the ACLU has been saying for months: the U.S. government has been lowballing the number of children it has imprisoned at Guantánamo. In a submission to the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child in May, the U.S. claimed that eight juveniles have ever been held at the detention camp and only two prisoners currently at Guantánamo were children at the time of their transfer to the prison. Yet in an ACLU report we issued that same month, Soldiers of Misfortune, we said that prisoner lists released in response to Freedom of Information Act requests show the number is closer to 23, while some sources estimate the number of youth held at Guantánamo as high as 60.

At a U.N. review session in Geneva, the ACLU also pointed out that the U.S. had failed to count a third prisoner currently at Guantánamo, Mohammed El-Gharani (also known as Muhammed Al-Qarani), who was only 14 when first captured and has reportedly attempted suicide several times while in custody at Guantánamo. U.N. officials of the Committee on the Rights of the Child demanded that U.S. officials explain why discrepancies in the figures of child detainees may exist, pointing out that the U.S. had failed to count El-Gharani. The government delegation’s inadequate answer? It’s tough to determine the number of teens we’ve detained at the Navy base.

In July, the ACLU renewed calls for the U.S. to release accurate numbers for the children imprisoned at Guantánamo, after an attorney for the U.K. non-profit Reprieve said testimonies collected by the NGO, which represents 30 inmates at Guantánamo, indicate the actual number is much higher than 22.

As the number of children whom the U.S. owns up to detaining climbs higher, it is becoming crystal clear that there is no transparency in the government’s Guantánamo detention practices. And as the U.S. government’s past miscalculations of child prisoner statistics are revealed, it proves that there is a profound lack of accountability for Guantánamo policies, even when children are concerned.

Sadly, this is not the first time the Bush administration has misled a human rights body and deflected public and institutional scrutiny to avoid full accountability for its Guantánamo policies. But it is not too late to correct past wrongs: Delay the upcoming trials of two of the remaining detainees who have been held since they were juveniles and assess their eligibility for rehabilitation and reintegration into society. As alleged former child soldiers, the two detainees (Omar Khadr, who was captured when he was 15, and Mohamed Jawad, who was captured when he was 16 or 17), should be treated first and foremost as candidates for rehabilitation and reintegration into society, not subjected to further victimization.

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Bush’s Willing Accomplice

November 19, 2008

by Linda McQuaig | The Toronto Star, Nov 18, 2008

Isolated, repudiated by his people and even shunned by his own party, George W. Bush – the lamest of lame ducks – still seems able to count on the support of at least one world leader: Stephen Harper.

And so it was on the weekend, as it has so often been in the past two years, that our prime minister provided rare support for Bush as the soon-to-be former president battled against a chorus of world leaders urgently calling for a set of badly needed reforms.

Just as Harper backed Bush’s effort to block global progress on climate change, this time he helped Bush stymie European-led efforts at the G20 summit in Washington to restore regulations to international financial markets.

It was the rollback of these regulations that allowed Wall Street to transform itself into a giant casino where tycoons made billions playing fast and loose with the life savings of ordinary citizens.

Harper’s resistance to European calls for tighter regulations is ironic, since he has the luxury of presiding over a country that’s been spared the worst of the financial meltdown, largely because of the Canadian tradition of tighter domestic financial regulations.

This has allowed Harper to ride out the current financial storm politically unscathed, even gaining re-election in the middle of it.

In fact, although Harper’s record on this has received little attention, his government had started to push Canada down the dangerous road toward looser financial regulation.

In its first budget in 2006, the Harper government changed the rules in ways that effectively opened up the Canadian mortgage market to U.S. insurers. Finance Minister Jim Flaherty noted that these “new players” would bring “greater choice and innovation” to the Canadian mortgage market. Unfortunately, they did just that. They introduced risky products – like mortgages amortized over 40 years with little or no down-payments.

The new mortgages quickly caught on. With their lower monthly payments, they made houses seem more affordable. In reality, however, they dramatically increased the cost of a home, roughly tripling it.

As the implosion of the U.S. housing market provided a vivid example of the pitfalls of looser mortgage regulations, Flaherty finally intervened last summer, tightening CMHC’s rules.

The Harper government has been even more aggressive pushing financial deregulation on developing countries.

Ellen Gould, a Vancouver-based trade consultant, notes that Ottawa has pressed developing nations to open their economies to the “supposedly superior services” offered by the financial institutions of the advanced world.

At the World Trade Organization negotiations in 2006, Canada played a leading role in pushing developing nations to accept rules that would allow their domestic banks and insurance companies to be taken over by foreign financial institutions – like the ones that have been collapsing on Wall Street recently.

The Canadian push for “financial liberalization” predates Harper. It was keenly advocated by Liberal governments as well. But the Harper government has continued to push for this sort of deregulation long after it should have known better, as recently as the WTO ministerial in July 2008.

One can draw solace perhaps from the realization that Canada doesn’t shape the course of world events. Still, it’s disappointing to realize that we’re using what little influence we have at organizations like the G20 to help the exiting Bush administration do this last bit of disservice to the world.

© Copyright Toronto Star 1996-2008

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‘US missiles’ hit Pakistan village

November 19, 2008
Al Jazeera, Nov 19, 2008

At least four people have been killed after a suspected US missile attack struck the North West Frontier province of Pakistan, near the Afghan border, security officials said.

A senior security official told the AFP news agency on Wednesday that “the strike overnight destroyed the house of a tribesman Sakhi Mohammad in the Bannu district”.

“At least two foreigners were among five killed,” the official said.

Pakistani security forces often use the term “foreigners” to refer to suspected al-Qaeda or Taliban fighters.

Pakistani officials said the missiles were launched from Afghanistan, where at least 32,000 US troops are fighting the Taliban and other fighters.

Officials also said that several other people were wounded in the attack in Jani Khel, a city in the northwestern district of Bannu just outside the tribal areas where al-Qada and Taliban fighters have found refuge in recent years.

Al Jazeera’s Kamal Hyder in Islamabad said that locals believe that the US was involved in the attack, which comes at a time when “…the Pakistani military chief was visiting Brussels to brief Nato commanders on his country’s apprehensions regarding drone attacks that are shifting public opinion against the US and Pakistani government”.

“There was a report recently in the Washington Post that the Americans had a tacit agreement that they would be able to use Pakistani airspace wherever they thought there were targets,” Hyder reported.

“While the government has been denying that there has been any secret agreement with the Americans, they have not been able to come out with a formula to stop such attacks, and that is likely to cause considerable anger within Pakistan because its own military forces are not in a position to defend its citizens within its territory.”

US ‘blamed’

The US has been blamed for at least 20 missile attacks and a ground assault in northwest Pakistan since mid-August.

Meanwhile, all the attacks since August have been in villages in north and south Waziristan, two semiautonomous tribal regions where the government has a very limited presence.

Islamabad has protested over the raids, saying they are a violation of the country’s sovereignty.

US officers in Afghanistan have stressed improved Pakistani co-operation in squeezing fighters nested along the border.

Colonel John Spiszer, the US commander in northeast Afghanistan, said that pressure on Aghanistan and Pakistan will eventually mean that fighters will be “running out of options on places to go”.

But Pakistani officials said the US missile strikes are counterproductive because they often kill civilians and deepen anti-American and anti-government sentiment.

However, General David Petraeus, the US chief commander, defended them, saying at least three senior fighters, whom he did not identify, have been killed in recent months in the attacks.

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The Washington meeting

November 16, 2008

Reflections by Comrade Fidel

Granma, Nov 15, 2008

According to recent statements, some supportive governments do not cease to say they want to facilitate transition in Cuba. What kind of transition? Transition to capitalism, the only system they have absolute faith in. They do not say a word about the merits of our people, which for almost half a century of harsh economic sanctions and aggressions, has defended a revolutionary cause that together with its morale and patriotism, has given it the strength to put up a resistance.

They seem to forget that after laying down lives and making sacrifices in defense of sovereignty and justice, Cuba cannot be expected to end up on the side of capitalism.

They ingratiate themselves with the United States hoping that it will help them face their own economic problems injecting huge amounts of paper money to their shaky economies which maintain unequal and abusive terms of trade with the emerging nations.

This is the only way they can ensure the multimillion profits of Wall Street and the US banks. The non renewable natural resources of the planet and its ecology are not even mentioned. There is no claim for the end of the arms race and the banning of the potential and probable use of weapons of mass destruction.

None of the participants in the conclave hurriedly convened by the sitting President of the United States has said a word about the absence of over 150 nations facing the same problems or even worse. These will not have the right to speak on the international financial order as the pro tempore President of the UN General Assembly Miguel D’Escoto had proposed, even when they include most of the countries from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

The G-20 meeting will open in Washington tomorrow. Bush is delighted. He has stated that a new international financial order will result from the meeting and that the institutions set up at Bretton Woods should be more transparent, accountable and effective. It’s as much as he would admit. Referring to Cuba’s prosperity in the past, he said that it had once been full of sugarcane fields. By the way, he failed to mention that it was manually cut and that, for over half a century, the empire has deprived us from our quota. Also that this action was taken when the word socialism had yet to be spoken in our country, although we had certainly proclaimed: Homeland or Death!

Many seem to dream that after a simple change of leadership in the empire, this would be more tolerant and less hostile. Apparently, contempt for the incumbent ruler makes some entertain illusions about a probable change in the system.

The innermost ideas of the citizen who will take over the issue are yet unknown. It would be extremely naïve to believe that the good will of a smart person could change what is the result of centuries of selfishness and vested interests.

Let’s watch attentively what everyone says in that major financial conclave. There will be plenty of news. We shall all be a bit better informed.

Fidel Castro Ruz
November 14, 2008

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Washington Post: Pakistan and U.S. Have Tacit Deal On Airstrikes

November 16, 2008

By Karen DeYoung and Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, November 16, 2008; A01

The United States and Pakistan reached tacit agreement in September on a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan, according to senior officials in both countries. In recent months, the U.S. drones have fired missiles at Pakistani soil at an average rate of once every four or five days.

The officials described the deal as one in which the U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan’s government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.

The arrangement coincided with a suspension of ground assaults into Pakistan by helicopter-borne U.S. commandos. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview last week that he was aware of no ground attacks since one on Sept. 3 that his government vigorously protested.

Officials described the attacks, using new technology and improved intelligence, as a significant improvement in the fight against Pakistan-based al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. Officials confirmed the deaths of at least three senior al-Qaeda figures in strikes last month.

Zardari said that he receives “no prior notice” of the airstrikes and that he disapproves of them. But he said he gives the Americans “the benefit of the doubt” that their intention is to target the Afghan side of the ill-defined, mountainous border of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), even if that is not where the missiles land.

Civilian deaths remain a problem, Zardari said. “If the damage is women and children, then the sensitivity of its effect increases,” he said. The U.S. “point of view,” he said, is that the attacks are “good for everybody. Our point of view is that it is not good for our position of winning the hearts and minds of people.”

A senior Pakistani official said that although the attacks contribute to widespread public anger in Pakistan, anti-Americanism there is closely associated with President Bush. Citing a potentially more favorable popular view of President-elect Barack Obama, he said that “maybe with a new administration, public opinion will be more pro-American and we can start acknowledging” more cooperation.

The official, one of several who discussed the sensitive military and intelligence relationship only on the condition of anonymity, said the U.S-Pakistani understanding over the airstrikes is “the smart middle way for the moment.” Contrasting Zardari with his predecessor, retired Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the official said Musharraf “gave lip service but not effective support” to the Americans. “This government is delivering but not taking the credit.”

From December to August, when Musharraf stepped down, there were six U.S. Predator attacks in Pakistan. Since then, there have been at least 19. The most recent occurred early Friday, when local officials and witnesses said at least 11 people, including six foreign fighters, were killed. The attack, in North Waziristan, one of the seven FATA regions, demolished a compound owned by Amir Gul, a Taliban commander said to have ties to al-Qaeda.

Pakistan’s self-praise is not entirely echoed by U.S. officials, who remain suspicious of ties between Pakistan’s intelligence service and FATA-based extremists. But the Bush administration has muted its criticism of Pakistan. In a speech to the Atlantic Council last week, CIA Director Michael V. Hayden effusively praised Pakistan’s recent military operations, including “tough fighting against hardened militants” in the northern FATA region of Bajaur.

“Throughout the FATA,” Hayden said, “al-Qaeda and its allies are feeling less secure today than they did two, three or six months ago. It has become difficult for them to ignore significant losses in their ranks.” Hayden acknowledged, however, that al-Qaeda remains a “determined, adaptive enemy,” operating from a “safe haven” in the tribal areas.

Along with the stepped-up Predator attacks, Bush administration strategy includes showering Pakistan’s new leaders with close, personal attention. Zardari met with Bush during the U.N. General Assembly in September, and senior military and intelligence officials have exchanged near-constant visits over the past few months.

Pakistan’s new intelligence chief, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, traveled to Washington in late October, and Gen. David H. Petraeus, installed on Oct. 31 as head of the U.S. Central Command, visited Islamabad on his third day in office. On Wednesday, Hayden flew to New York for a secret visit with Zardari, who was attending a U.N. conference.

Zardari spoke over the telephone with Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.), a conversation Pakistani officials said they considered an initial contact with the incoming Obama administration. Although Kerry has been mentioned as a possible secretary of state, the officials said he indicated that he expects to continue in the Senate, where he is in line to take over Vice President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr.‘s position as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee.

Despite improved relations with the Bush administration, Zardari said, “we think we need a new dialogue, and we’re hoping that the new government will . . . understand that Pakistan has done more than they recognize” and is a victim of the same insurgency the United States is fighting. Pakistan hopes that a $7.6 billion loan from the International Monetary Fund, announced yesterday, will spark new international investment and aid.

Pakistan, whose military has received more than $10 billion in direct U.S. payments since 2001, also wants the United States to provide sophisticated weapons to its armed forces, Zardari said. Rather than using U.S. Predator-fired missiles against Pakistani territory, he asked, why not give Pakistan its own Predators? “Give them to us. . . . we are your allies,” he said.

Last month, officials confirmed, Predator strikes in the FATA killed Khalid Habib, described as al-Qaeda’s No. 4 official, and senior operatives Abu Jihad al-Masri and Abu Hassan al-Rimi. Three other senior al-Qaeda figures — explosives expert Abu Khabab al-Masri, Abu Sulayman al-Jazairi and senior commander Abu Laith al-Libi –were killed during the first nine months of the year.

Current and former U.S. counterterrorism officials said improved intelligence has been an important factor in the increased tempo and precision of the Predator strikes. Over the past year, they said, the United States has been able to improve its network of informants in the border region while also fielding new hardware that allows close tracking of the movements of suspected militants.

The missiles are fired from unmanned aircraft by the CIA. But the drones are only part of a diverse network of machines and software used by the agency to spot terrorism suspects and follow their movements, the officials said. The equipment, much of which remains highly classified, includes an array of powerful sensors mounted on satellites, airplanes, blimps and drones of every size and shape.

Before 2002, the CIA had no experience in using the Predator as a weapon. But in recent years — and especially in the past 12 months — spy agencies have honed their skills at tracking and killing single individuals using aerial vehicles operated by technicians hundreds or thousands of miles away. James R. Clapper Jr., the Pentagon‘s chief intelligence officer, said the new brand of warfare has “gotten very laserlike and very precise.”

“It’s having the ability, once you know who you’re after, to study and watch very steadily and consistently — persistently,” Clapper told a recent gathering of intelligence professionals and contractors in Nashville. “And then, at the appropriate juncture, with due regard for reducing collateral casualties or damage, going after that individual.”

Two former senior intelligence officials familiar with the use of the Predator in Pakistan said the rift between Islamabad and Washington over the unilateral attacks was always less than it seemed.

“By killing al-Qaeda, you’re helping Pakistan’s military and you’re disrupting attacks that could be carried out in Karachi and elsewhere,” said one official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. Pakistan’s new acquiescence coincided with the new government there and a sharp increase in domestic terrorist attacks, including the September bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

“The attacks inside Pakistan have changed minds,” the official said. “These guys are worried, as they should be.”

Staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations contributed to this report.

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Let the Trials Begin!

November 15, 2008

The Election is Over; Time to Move On to the Recriminations

By DOUGLAS VALENTINE| Counterpunch, Nov 14 / 16, 2008

Amid the euphoria and angst of the Obama apotheosis, the unreality of a mismanaged, two trillion dollar, taxpayer funded bailout of freewheeling capitalists, and the wars of limbo in Iraq and Afghanistan, one little thing is being overlooked.

George W Bush.

The Decider. The psychopath responsible for this appalling mess we’re in. The architect of America’s ignoble descent into moral darkness. The washed up and universally despised pseudo-despot who reveled in torture, kidnapping and assassination. The War-Monger.

“Bring ’em On!”

“Dead or Alive!”

The raving ignoramus whose words will haunt us forever.

The spoiled child of privilege playing with the lives of our sons and daughters, husbands and wives, mothers and fathers, friends and lovers, as if they were his personal toys.

The mass murderer who illegally invaded and occupied a foreign nation, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent people, utterly destroying their cities and bridges, power plants and schools, and scattering millions of them to the wind, as if he were GOD!

The Comic Book Madman obsessed with Death, reading CIA memos about Al Qaeda, sending kidnappers and hit teams and drones around the world, anywhere he wanted, to kill his imaginary enemies, while America burned.

The Super Traitor.

The elections are over, I say. The people have spoken. It’s time to move on to the business at hand – hauling Bush’s sorry ass before a war crimes tribunal of the sort he created. But not one staffed by his political cadre of complicit military officers. One composed of his victims.

Let the recriminations begin!

If there were any justice, the process would begin with his midnight arrest. Bush’s beloved CIA drones and hitmen invariably kill their target’s families in these little snatch operations, and if agreed upon by his inquisitors, I suggest this would be an appropriate touch.

Then the little fucker would be rendered to my basement and put on the waterboard. I’d ask that Joe Liebernut be made to put the wet towel on his face, but Joe would do it just for fun. Same with Limbaugh.

We’ll find someone deserving of the job. Perhaps the boys from Gitmo? And I mean, the boys. The brothers and sisters of innocent Iraqis he killed? I think they’ll be plenty of volunteers.

The whole point will be to make Bush confess. Not to the crimes he has committed. But to explain why he did it. Was it to show up Poppy? To win the love of Barbara?

I really want to know.

This interrogation should last seven years, and everyone Bush names as having followed his orders should be tried as well. That’s Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and everyone in the CIA for starters.

Bush’s kangaroo courtroom trial, presided over by Vincent Bugliosi, should be the highlight of the election campaign of 2016.

The supreme punishments to be broadcast live by Fox News.

Imagine.

Douglas Valentine is the author of four books which are available at his websites http://www.members.authorsguild.net/valentine/ and http://www.douglasvalentine.com/index.html His fifth book, The Strength of the Pack: The Politics, Personalities and Espionage Intrigues That Shaped The DEA, will be published in September 2009 by Trine Day.

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‘US drone’ fires on Pakistan target

November 15, 2008
Al Jazeera, Nov 14, 2008

At least 12 people have been killed in a missile strike said to have been carried out by a US drone in a Pakistani tribal region.

The raid is thought to have killed pro-Taliban fighters, five of them foreigners, Pakistani officials said on Friday.

Previous bombing raids by the US, in which civilians have died, have been condemned by the Pakistani government which argues that they infringe on the country’s sovereignty.

Pakistani officials said the attack targeted a house in a village near the border between North and South Waziristan.

They claim the attack was in an area known to support Baitullah Mehsud, a pro-Taliban commander.

“We have reports that 12 people were killed, including five foreigners,” a paramilitary official told Reuters news agency.

A relative and aides to Mehsud, along with Pakistani government and paramilitary officials, said the attack was shortly before 2am (20:45 GMT), and at least three missiles were fired.

Despite protests by Islamabad, attacks by unmanned drones have continued to hit Pakistan’s tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The attack came a day after the Pakistani foreign ministry said that the US has been violating international law by launching missile attacks on the region.
Source: Agencies
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Joe
Australia 		14/11/2008
Stop whinging
Pakistan has been complaining about US attacks on its soil for a few months now. If they are not going to do something to stop these attacks then just stop whinging. Or is it that internally they condone these attacks?

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Obama’s Victory – Fear and Hope

November 15, 2008

Immanuel Wallesrstein, Commentary No. 245, Nov. 15, 2008


The whole of the United States and indeed the whole world was watching, and almost all of it was cheering, the election of Barack Obama as the next president of the United States. Although, during the electoral campaign, everyone tried to play down the centrality of the racial issue, on Nov. 4 it seemed that no one could talk of anything else. There are three central questions about what most commentators are calling this “historic event”: How important is it? What explains the victory? What is likely to happen now?

On the evening of November 4, an immense crowd assembled in Grant Park, Chicago, to hear Obama’s acceptance speech. All those who were watching U.S. television saw the camera zoom in on Jesse Jackson, who was in tears. Those tears reflect the virtually unanimous view of all African-Americans, who regard Obama’s election as the moment of their definitive integration into the U.S. electoral process. They do not believe that racism has disappeared. But a symbolic barrier has been crossed, first of all for them, and then for all the rest of us.

Their sentiment is quite parallel to the feelings of Africans in South Africa on April 27, 1994 when they voted to elect Nelson Mandela president of their country. It has not mattered that Mandela, as president, did not fulfill the whole promise of his party. It will not matter if Obama does not fulfill the whole promise of his campaign. In the United States, as in South Africa, a new day has dawned. Even if it is an imperfect day, it is a better day than before. The African-Americans, but also the Hispanics and the young people in general, voted for Obama out of hope – a diffuse hope, but a real one.

How did Obama win? He won the way anyone wins in a large, complex political situation. He put together a large coalition of many different political forces. In this case, the gamut ran from fairly far left to right of center. He would not have won without that enormous range of support. And, of course, now that he has won, all the different groups want him to govern as each prefers, which is of course not possible.

Who are these different elements, and why did they support him? On the left, even the far left, they voted for Obama because of deep anger about the damage the Bush regime inflicted on the United States and the world, and the genuine fear that McCain would have been no better, perhaps worse. On the center-right, independents and many Republicans voted for him most of all because they had become aghast at the ever-increasing dominance of the Christian right in Republican party politics, a sentiment that was underlined by the choice of Sarah Palin as the vice-presidential candidate. These people voted for Obama because they were afraid of McCain/Palin and because Obama convinced them that he was a solid and sensible pragmatist.

And in-between these two groups were the so-called Reagan Democrats, largely industrial workers, often Catholics, often racist, who had tended to desert their Democratic party roots in recent elections because they viewed the party as having moved too far left and disapproved of its positions on social questions. These voters moved back to the Democratic party not because their outlook had changed, but because of fear. They were deeply afraid of the economic depression into which the United States has moved, and thought that their only hope was in a new New Deal. They voted for the Democrats despite the fact that Obama was an African-American. Fear conquered racism.

And what will Obama do now? What can Obama do now? It is still too early to be sure. It seems clear that he will move quickly to take advantage of a crisis situation, as his new Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel, put it. I suspect we shall see a dramatic set of initiatives in the traditional first 100 days. And some of what Obama does may be surprising.

Still, there are two situations, the two biggest, that are largely beyond his control – the transformed geopolitics of the world-system, and the catastrophic world economic situation. Yes, the world received Obama’s victory with joy, but also with prudence. It is notable that two major centers of power issued statements on the geopolitical scene that were quite forthright. Both the European Union in a unanimous statement and President Lula of Brazil said they looked forward to renewing collaboration with the United States, but this time as equals, not as junior partners.

Obama will pull out of Iraq more or less as promised, if for no other reason than the fact that the Iraqi government will insist upon it. He will try to find a graceful exit from Afghanistan, which will not be too easy. But whether he will do something significant in relation to the Israel/Palestine deadlock and whether he can look forward to a more stable Pakistan is very unsure. And he will have less to say about it than he may think. Can Obama accept the fact that the United States is no longer the world’s leader, merely a partner with other power centers? And, even if he can, can he somehow get the American people to accept this new reality?

As for the depression, it will no doubt have to play out its course. Obama, like all the other major leaders in the world, is a captain on a very stormy sea, and can do relatively little more than try to keep his ship from sinking altogether.

Where Obama has some leeway is in the internal U.S. situation. There are three things where he is expected to act and can act, if he is ready to be bold. One is job creation. This can only be done effectively in the short run through government action. And it would be best done by investing in reconstructing the degraded infrastructure of the United States, and in measures to reverse environmental decline.

The second is the establishment, at last, of a decent health care structure in the United States, in which everyone, without exception, will be covered, and in which there will be considerable emphasis on preventive medicine.

And the third area is in undoing all the damage that has been done to basic civil liberties in the United States by the Bush administration, but also by prior administrations. This requires an overhauling both of the Department of Justice and the legal and paralegal apparatus that has been constructed in the last eight, but also the last thirty, years.

If Obama acts decisively in these three arenas, then we might say that this was a truly historic election, one in which the change that occurred was more than symbolic. But if he fails here, the letdown will be momentous.

Many are trying to divert his attention into the arenas in which he cannot do much, and in which his best position would be that of a lower profile, the acceptance of new world reality. There is much about Obama’s future actions to fear, and much that offers hope.

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Bush’s last 100 days the ones to watch

November 5, 2008

BY JESSE JACKSON | Chicago Sun-Times, Nov 4, 2008

The air crackles with anticipation. Fingers are crossed. It gets hard to breathe. Hope, for so long locked in a closet, begins pounding on the door.

And throwing caution to the wind, many already are talking about Barack Obama’s first 100 days. Will he move directly to the Apollo investment agenda, providing money to refit buildings, implement the use of renewable energy and generate jobs in the drive to reduce our dependence on foreign oil? Will he put forth a comprehensive health-care plan or begin by covering all children? Will workers finally be given the right to organize once more? How will he handle mortgage relief and/or help cities burdened by poverty?

But even as our minds, against all discipline, look beyond this day to the possible victory and change, we’d better start paying attention to another 100 days — President Bush’s last months in office.

Bush and Vice President Cheney represent a failed conservative era — and they know it. As the administration moves into its last 100 days, there seems to be a flurry of activity: regulations to forestall Obama’s new era of accountability; a flood of contracts to reward friends and lock in commitments; a Wall Street bailout that is pumping money out the door.

Consider: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is handing out $350 billion to the banks, drawing a special circle around nine banks — including Goldman Sachs, the firm he previously headed — as clearly too big to fail. The money apparently has no conditions, even though the entire purpose was to get the banks to start lending once more to one another and to companies and individuals.

Now it appears that banks plan to hoard the cash, to use it to help pay for mergers with other healthy banks (not weak ones), or to pay out dividends and bonuses. And Paulson, instead of publicly rebuking them, has let it be known that mergers would be a good thing.

Instead of getting the banking system working for small businesses and people again, our money is being used to consolidate the strength of a few megabanks.

There has been a rapid increase in military outlays over the last few months. Is the Pentagon being called on to help bolster the economy — and perhaps McCain — in these final weeks? Or, more likely, is the Pentagon pumping out money to reward its friends and lock in spending before the new sheriff gets to town?

The Washington Post reports that the White House is “working to enact an array of federal regulations, many of which would weaken rules aimed at protecting consumers and the environment, before President Bush leaves office in January.”

About 90 new rules are in the works, and at least nine are considered “economically significant” because they would impose costs or promote societal benefits that exceed $100 million annually. Many will make changes that the new administration will find it hard to reverse for years to come. More emissions from power plants; more exemptions from environmental-impact statements; permission to operate natural gas lines at higher levels of pressure — the changes could be the last calamities visited upon us by the Bush administration.

Congress — the old one, not the new one just elected — comes back into special session right after the election. Representatives Henry Waxman and John Conyers would be well advised to convene special hearings to try to curb what Bush has cooked up for his last 100 days. Let’s not let the new dawn that is possible be dimmed by clouds left over from an old era that has failed.

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A new Middle East under Obama?

November 5, 2008
Al Jazeera, Nov 5, 2008
By Firas Al-Atraqchi

Many in Egypt remain sceptical that change will come to the Middle East [EPA]

Even though Barack Obama has been elected the 44th president of the United States, there are some in the Middle East who believe his policies towards the region will differ little from those of his defeated Republican rival, John McCain.

Al Jazeera asked a number of people in Egypt, the Arab world’s most populous country, whether Obama would bring change to the US presidency.

Omar Kamel, musician

“In terms of actual policy, I do not think there is much difference at all when it comes to Obama or McCain’s Middle Eastern viewpoints.They have both committed themselves publicly and explicitly to the Zionist cause, with Obama promising Aipac an ‘undivided Israeli Jerusalem’ as a goal.

More so, they have both said that ‘nothing is off the table’ when dealing with Iran, which implicitly means they both consider a military attack on Iran a strategic option.

That Obama has implied he would not want to use nuclear weapons is a small consolation when we consider the devastation wrought on Iraq by ‘conventional’ warfare.

Obama has also made it quite clear that he is a subscriber to the whole ‘war on terror’ notion – which to the rest of the world simply means he will continue the march of Empire Amerika.

Unfortunately, there is a geist of optimistic negative-racism that chooses to see Obama as an actual opportunity for change – when in fact he offers absolutely nothing new save for his skin colour and relative eloquence.

Obama reminds me far too much of Clinton. Clinton, quite literally, got away with murder simply because the world found him charismatic and charming.

Clinton helped destroy Iraq with sanctions and was an accomplice to the murder of over 500,000 Iraqi children and yet most people in the Middle East still like the murderer, still believe that, somehow, he was a good man.

That is my fear with Obama, that he will pacify the world as he rapes it.

At least with McCain, like Bush, the world would have been acutely aware of its rape.”

Abdel-Rahman Hussein, journalist

“There is an apathy among Egyptians regarding the US election because many say it makes no difference who wins. The US will always pursue the same policies in the region.

Even with a Democratic win in the White house, it is American – and almost by default Israeli – interests which will always come first.

The fulcrum of American policy in the region is support for Israel above all else, and both parties unequivocally adhere to that.

Additionally, as opposed to Great Britain where the divide between left and right has become less pronounced in recent years, the American political spectrum has always been more centrist.

One position both candidates straddled quite comfortably is their staunch support for Israel.

Obama’s promise to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) that Jerusalem will remain the “undivided” capital of Israel does not bode well for the future of the peace process which is currently proposing East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state.

Nevertheless, Jewish and pro-Israel groups remain sceptical about Obama and feel he is merely paying lip service to secure the election, so again it is difficult to surmise exactly how it will pan out.”

Jen Zaki Hanna, university professor

“Unfortunately, I do not believe that Obama will have significantly different foreign and financial policies.

I considered the one person who could have brought about real change in the Middle East, to be Ralph Nader.

Nader dissected the real problem with America’s financial policies – that being the unfettered control of the transnational corporations and their lack of respect for human rights and environmental rights at home and globally.

Unfortunately, every time Nader tries to enter the presidential race he is called a spoiler for the Democrats. This just goes to shows me, and I believe others around the world and in the Middle East, that the Democrats and Republicans are one and the same.

Perhaps Hillary Clinton was the lesser of the two evils than Obama who has changed his mind multiple times on issues such as Iraqi troop withdrawal.

Both parties will always be loyal first and foremost to Israel as a necessary ingredient to US foreign policy and according to most Middle Easterners it has always meant one thing: there will be no progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace.

There has yet to be a Democratic or Republican party in the US which has demonstrated a real significant move on a two-state solution.

I do not think things will change now.”

Yousef Gamal il Din, broadcast journalist with NileTV

“There is also … a belief that the foreign policies of both candidates do not really vary much.The debates did not highlight key differences that will help regional problems in the Arab World, Afghanistan, Sudan, Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine.

My impression from talking to Egyptians who are well-read in international affairs and business is that they perceive McCain to be hawkish (more so than Obama) and that his policies would have been less-suitable for Arab interests.

Obama appears to be better for our region, but the key word here is appears.

The Middle East would look different under Obama but it will be difficult to judge because the rhetoric during the campaign does not necessarily translate into decisions or policies once the candidate reaches the White House.

Once candidates are confronted with certain realities in the White House or realities that emerge later on, they may have to adapt their policies. The international arena is very dynamic, things change very quickly.

It is difficult to accurately predict US foreign policy.”

Ahmed Samy, marketing analyst

“Israel won’t be that happy that Obama won because they might not trust that he would fully back them, even though he has said before that he would fully support them.

As for the Middle East, not much would change with Obama in office.

The situation in the region might stay the same or get a bit better or put on hold till the following elections.

The American people are the only ones to benefit if Obama wins.

Now Obama being the first black president in America is a history-making event; if he stays in office the full term, that is good. But if he gets assassinated or something like that, then it will be a tragedy.”

Ahmed Kafafi, author

“An Obama win doesn’t mean so much to me because whoever comes to power will never dare to change certain basics in the US foreign policy and assuming there will be any, those will be slight changes that would never reverse the situation in the Middle East.

I do not think Egypt and the Middle East will look any different; there is a fear that things will move from bad to worse. The financial crisis has peaked and the wealth of the Middle East is the only way out for the US.

Egyptians see the US as working for its own interests and is a big supporter of Israel. For them the US is a big power that will never ever work for their interest, so it doesn’t matter if Obama or McCain is in power.”

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