Half full or half empty?

PV Vivekanand

ISRAEL has completed its much-heralded withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and sent out a message that its government had taken a major political risk by dragging out many of the Jewish settlers who were living there. The next logical step is for Israel to relax its stranglehold on life in Gaza and also follow up with similar measures in the West Bank. However, Israel itself has created realities on the ground as well as political conditions designed to create deadlocks and forestall any meaningful moves towards ending its occupation of the West Bank. This is in line with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's deceptive designs aimed at freezing the "peace process" with the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
The scenes that erupted in the Gaza Strip after the last Israeli soldier left the area on Monday after 38 years of brutal occupation were described as chaotic by the Israeli and international media while the Arab and Third World media called them celebrations.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, thousands of people crossed the Israel-free crossing point between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. Again, the Israeli media raised concerns that the people coming in were "terrorists carrying arms and explosives" whereas most of them they were actually using their first opportunity to cross into Gaza and vice-versa to meet their family members for the first time in five years, and taste the air of freedom.
Indeed, for many of them it would have been their first visit to Gaza since 1967, when Israel occupied the area; and many Egyptians also crossed into the Gaza Strip to voice their solidarity with the Palestinians.
This kind of contrasting depictions of developments in Palestine will only continue, with Israel trying to highlight "failures" of the Palestinian leadership to administer the Gaza Strip. These "failures" will be cited in the future as a key Israeli argument against returning the West Bank to the Palestinians if negotiations would ever reach that crucial point — a prospect which remains doubtful at this juncture.
Egypt is not spared either. For weeks, the Israeli media had been steadily referring to the July 2005 and October 2004 bombings in Sharm Al Sheikh and Taba and suggesting that Egyptian forces were not capable of ensuring the security of the border with Gaza. Again, that was a build-up that culminated in Israeli accusations that the Egyptian government failed to live up to delivering on its "obligations" under accords worked out by American mediators for co-ordination on post-evacuation security in the area.
The Israeli build-up also included assertions that the Al Qaeda group had set up presence in the region and it was planning Iraq-style attacks in Israel as well as against Palestinians involved in efforts to find a negotiated settlement with the Jewish state.
Most notable was an Israeli suggestion on Wednesday that the spontaneity of Palestinian celebrations "was exploited if not generated by the Hamas and Jihad Islami... groups...
"With the help of Egyptian troops, they used the tide of people to cover the illegal transfer from northern Sinai into the Gaza Strip of hundreds of terrorists with sidearms, Qassam missiles, long-range rockets, and anti-tank and ground-air missiles," it said.
There are two ways of looking at Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, which had always been a source of troubles for Israel.
It was good riddance for Israel to quit Gaza and evacuate the 8,000 and plus settlers from the strip since it no longer has to maintain an army presence there at a high cost. It was also an opportunity for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to tell the world that he was unilaterally withdrawing from an area which was seized in war and it was a gesture that highlighted his "commitment to work out peace" with the Palestinians.
It was known that all Israeli governments since the 70s wanted to quit the Gaza Strip because they had no advantages in continuing to occupy it. Nor did Gaza have any "nationalist" or "religious" importance that prompted Israel not to let it go whereas most Israelis consider the West Bank is part of the "promised land" and would not want to return it to the Palestinians.

Crossroads in Palestine

PV Vivekanand



Israel is out of the Gaza Strip after occupying the area for 38 years. For all technical purposes, the Israeli departure from Gaza should herald an end to the Jewish state's occupation of the West Bank, including Arab East Jerusalem, and make way for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state there. That was what was envisaged when the Arab-Israeli peace process was launched in Madrid in late 1991 under international auspices and co-sponsorship of the US and the then Soviet Union. It was clearly understood that the relevant UN Security Council resolutions would be the basis for an eventual Arab-Israeli peace agreement involving the Palestinains, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
A lot of water has flown under the bridge since then, with the key players being replaced and that leading to a scrambling of the process, mainly because of Israel's refusal to abide by agreements and the principle of land in exchange for peace. Gone are any reference to the UN Security Council resolutions.
Today, we stand at crossroads. Israel left the Gaza Strip only because it was not in its interests to continue its occupation of the Mediterranen costal strip which was a hotbed of Palestinian resistance and it was proving too costly for the Jewish state to maintain its military and civilian presence there.
What we do suspect is that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants to put a fullstop to here and consider the evacuation of the Gaza Strip an end in itself and refuse to apply the same criteria to the West Bank. He has created situations that would create uncertainties and conditions that he could cite as obstacles to any effort to discussing the future status of the West Bank and Jerusalem and thus deadlock the process.
Keeping the Gazans as virtual prisoners and denying them access to the outside world, including the West Bank, is a central pillar of Sharon's strategy to frustrate the Palestinians against their leadership and turn them away from expecting anything positive from negotiations. That is the kind of game the Israelis have always played and there is no reason to expect Sharon to be any different.
At this juncture, the various Palestinian factions face the challenge of unifying their positions and presenting a common front that overrides all Israeli designs and leaves Sharon with no option but to negotiate peace based on Israeli departure from the West Bank. Some compromises would have to be made on both sides, but the essence of land for peace should remain undiluted.
This is the challenge facing the Palestinians today if they were to call Sharon's bluff and foil his plans to close the door on reliquishing the West Bank.
Without the Palestinians rising to the challenge, the so-called peace process would breathe its last at the borders of Gaza.


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Terrorist or freedom fighter?

by pv vivekanand


"The unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organised group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons." This is how the American Heritage Dictionary defines terrorism.
The Oxford Concise Dictionary of Politics defines terrorism with a note that it is a term with "no agreement amongst government or academic analysts," but that "(it is) almost invariably used in a pejorative sense, most frequently to describe life-threatening actions perpetrated by politically motivated self-appointed sub-state groups. But if such actions are carried out on behalf of a widely approved cause, say the Maquis seeking to destabilise the government of Vichy France then the term 'terrorism' is avoided and something more friendly is substituted. In short, one person's terrorist is another person's freedom fighter."
This is precisely what is snagging ongoing efforts at the United Nations to come with a universally acceptable definition for terrorism.
For many years, diplomats at the UN have been grappling with the question, often with the United States pitted against Arab countries' efforts not to allow the "terrorism" label to be attached to legitimate Palestinian resistance against Israel's occupation of Palestinian land.
The debate was particularly sharp during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, where Washington described the mujahedeen and their supporters — including Osama Bin Laden — fighting the Red Army as freedom fighters. The US refused to accord the same status to the Palestinian groups waging a war of resistance to liberate their land from Israel.
How does the US itself define terrorism?
The US National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) describes a terrorist act as one which is "premeditated; perpetrated by a subnational or clandestine agent; politically motivated, potentially including religious, philosophical, or culturally symbolic motivations; violent; and perpetrated against a noncombatant target."
However, there is some small print attached to this definition that is designed to ward off accusations of terror against the US and its allies, particularly Israel. That says terrorism could never be inflicted by a state. Again, keeping in mind that this could be used by states hostile to the US, the American definition also adds that there are states which "sponsor" terrorism but not directly engaged in acts of terror.
Appearing in the US State Department's list of countries "sponsoring" terrorism are Syria and Sudan as well as Libya, which is expected to be removed from the list as part of an American-Libyan deal over the 1988 Lockerbie bombing.
Groups listed as terrorist include Al Qaeda Hizbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad and several other Middle East-based organisations.
A British list of 21 "terrorist organisations" prepared in the last 1990s included six Islamic groups, four anti-Israel groups, eight separatist groups and three opposition groups. The list included Hizbollah, which though armed, is a legal political party in Lebanon and its member are elected to parliament.
Again, the discrimination in approach is further highlighted when it is noted that the Kurdistan Workers Party, which is active in Turkey, was in the list, but other Iraqi groups such as the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, which were active in Iraq against Saddam Hussein, were excluded.
Similarly, the Mujahedeen e-Khalaq, an Iranian dissident group then based in Iraq with Saddam's blessing, was outlawed, but not the Iraqi National Council based in London and similar to the Mujahedeen e-Khalq in concept was not if only because the US supported the anti-Saddam group.
Until now, the United Nations has not accepted any definition of terrorism as being authoritative. A 1988 document titled "academic consensus definition," written by terrorism expert AP Schmid and widely used by social scientists, says:
"Terrorism is an anxiety-inspiring method of repeated violent action, employed by (semi-) clandestine individual, group or state actors, for idiosyncratic, criminal or political reasons, whereby — in contrast to assassination — the direct targets of violence are not the main targets. The immediate human victims of violence are generally chosen randomly (targets of opportunity) or selectively (representative or symbolic targets) from a target population, and serve as message generators. Threat- and violence-based communication processes between terrorist (organisation), (imperilled) victims, and main targets are used to man's terror, a target of demands, or a target of attention, depending on whether intimidation, coercion, or propaganda is primarily sought."
The debate at the UN was reported to have produced a draft resolution on Monday. It calls on all UN states to take steps to "prohibit by law incitement to commit a terrorism act or acts."
Governments will also be committed to "deny safe haven to any persons with respect to whom there is credible and relevant information giving serious reasons for considering that they have been guilty of such conduct."

Mystery apartment

pv vivekanand

THE Feb.14 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Al Hariri was masterminded from a luxury apartment in the heart of Beirut equipped with some of the most advanced equipment that overrode all electronic safety and security measures installed in the convoy carrying Hariri. Also found in the apartment were fingerprints of two former Lebanese security officers and two unnamed Syrian army generals. This is part of the finding of the UN investigations into the Hariri assassination that changed the shape of the Lebanese-Syrian relationship to the benefit of Israel and its allies.
According to sources familar with the UN investigation, the discovery of the advanced gear in the apartment, located in the posh Hamra neighbourhood of Beirut, raises a key question:
The advance jamming gear found inside the apartment as well as the equipment installed in Hariri's vehicles were made in the US and included many key components manufactured and supplied by Israel under secret contracts with the US. Such equipment could not be bought by Lebanon or Syria under American export regulations. That meant the involvement of a third party (or Israel itself. Israel is the only other country which manufacturers such equipment).
Implictly it also suggests that Israel was behind setting up the apartment that was used to control and carry out the bombing that killed Hariri and 20 others, and that Israeli agents the fingerprints of the suspects and planted them inside the premises.
How did the apartment remain intact with all the equipment in position months after the Hariri killing and particularly that it was also known that the pro-Syrian Lebanese generals were under investigation? Someone could have easily removed the equipment and destroyed all evidence that the apartment existed. No one did so, and for all anyone knows those accused in the case were not even aware of the existence of the apartment. Unless of course, the apartment was located and sealed before anyone could tamper with it.
The UN investigation team led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis is said to have "discovered" the secret apartment. It is not clear when, but the UN team had arrived in Beirut in a few days after the blast that blew up Hariri's convoy and killed the former prime minister and 20 others.
The more than 15 vehicles with darkened windscreens that accompanied Hariri wherever he went in Lebanon — with few people knowing which vehicle carried him — were equipped with the latest state-of-the art security equipment. The security level of the convoy was as good as that of the US president.
It had electronic hardware for detecting and defusing explosives, locating suicide bombers or other armed men in the path of the convoy and jamming their firing mechanisms. The equipment could pick up electronic signals emitted from the immediate vicinity of the convoy and listen to telephone calls, including from mobiles and block listening devices homing in on phone or communications devices operating from the convoy.
In July 2001, the Middle East Intelligence Bulletin had reported, “When Lebanon's billionaire prime minister travels around Beirut, everyone takes notice. His limousine is equipped with a device designed to thwart would-be carbombers by deactivating nearby cell phones, leaving a continuous trail of irritated bystanders in its wake.”
The equipment found in the Beirut apartment is said to be more advanced. It was customised to override all the devices fitted in Hariri's convoy as if the same manufacturer had produced it since whoever designed it had to have the right co-ordinates of the Hariri security gear.
This is said to the be the finding of electronic experts the UN investigator requested from the US and France.
How did such equipment end up in Lebanon?
Without official co-operation from Washington and help from US intelligence agencies, the UN team would never be able to get to the bottom of the affair.
It is unlikely that the Bush administration or US intelligence agencies would offer such help to the UN team unless with the predetermined objective of implicating Syria. If the indications are otherwise, then Mhelis, the investigator, would have to leave the question unanswered.
In the meantime, the fingerprints found in the Beirut apartment allowed the Lebanese prosecutor to file a formal case charging four pro-Syrian Lebanese officers, former chief of public security Jamil Al Sayyed, the former head of internal security Ali Al Hajj, former chief of military intelligence Raymond Azar and commander of the Republican Guard Mustafa Hamdan.
Also found were fingerprints identified as belonging to unidentified Syrian generals and linking them directly to the assassination.
However, that is in no way conclusive evidence since technology allows the replanting of fingerprints.
That is the argument of many regional experts who are convinced that Syria was framed and implicated in the killing.

Trap is closing on Syria

September 7, 2005
Trap is closing on Syria

The scenario scripted with the UN Security Council demand issued in September 2004 for Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon and launched with the February 2005 killing of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri is running to the letter, and the noose is tightening around Syria. The question is only peripheral whether Israel alone spurn the rope or whether the US was party to the plot to evict Syria from Lebanon and set it up for regime change, one of the key goals of US President George W Bush's second term. It is not as much of Lebanon that is in play in the scenario. It has more to do with removing Syria as a hurdle in the way of Israeli designs in the region, and the unfolding events, although different in specifics, are very similar to the way Iraq's Saddam Hussein was rail-roaded into the US-led invasion of his country and his ouster. Hariri simply happened to be picked as the sacrificial goat.
On the surface, everything fits in into the jigsaw puzzle, and few could challenge at this juncture the allegation that Syria was behind the Hariri assassination in light of the motivation, circumstances and evidence cited so far. However, these are too pat and convincing that they appear to be orchestrated in a manner similar to the way that the US dealt with Iraq with a bulldozing approach that brushed aside anything and everything that did not fit into its designs and resorted to gross deception in order to justify the invasion of that country in March 2003.
In the case of Syria, the concept is not much different. If Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were the justification for the war against Iraq, it is Syria's alleged role in the Hariri assassination that is providing the pretext for action against Damascus.
The scenario goes: Hariri, once Syria's ally, was turning against Damascus's domination of his country and he revolted and quit office when the Syrian leadership intervened to forcibly extend the term of President Emile Lahoud against the wishes of a majority of Lebanese politicians in late last year.
From that point, Hariri was marked for "elimination." Add to that, carefully placed "leaks" from Israel that it was in secret contacts with Hariri through Washington and that the Lebanese billionaire politician was inclined towards cutting Lebanon away from Syria and enter a separate peace agreement with the Jewish state.
For all technical purposes, it provided all the more reason for Syria to remove Hariri from the scene, especially that he had resigned as prime minister after the row over Lahoud and appeared to be headed for a landslide victory in elections this year.
So, the motive was established. Then came the task of creating the circumstances. It was relatively easy since many people in senior positions in Lebanese security and intelligence agencies were pro-Syrian and all one needed was to pick some them and build a case against them by planting evidence.
It could not be ruled out that some of them might have worked for Israel without them even being aware of it. Or they were bought or persuaded under some pretext. Anyway, it is a safe bet that some of the top people who were handling Hariri's security and Lebanese security and intelligence officers were picked and set up as the culprits even before the assassination was carried out.
On Feb.14, the curtains went up. The multi-vehicle security convoy carrying Hariri exploded in Beirut, killing the former prime minister and 20 others.
It was not even clear whether it was a suicide bombing or someone had set off up to 600 kilogrammes of remote-controlled explosives. First reports that Hariri was killed by a car bomb were challenged by evidence that the explosives could have been buried beneath the seafront avenue where the blasts took place.. A unique photograph handed to The Independent newspaper of London, which was purportedly taken about 36 hours before the bombing. It shows a drain cover in the road at the exact spot where the explosives went off.
One thing was clear: The operation went like a precision surgery and had all the hallmarks of a professional group supported by the resources and intelligence information that would be available only to a government. The description fit on Syria like a glove (if only because it was designed and tailor-made to fit Syria).
Then, it appeared that the chief of Hariri's security was not travelling in the convoy, and that he also removed key evidence — wreckage of the vehicles —  from the scene, or at least that what we have been told. Simultaneously, unsourced reports suggested that the man was a Syrian spy and was passing on information about Hariri's movements to Syrian intelligence and that Hariri had known about it and used to keep him away from key events.
Demonstrations erupted immediately after Hariri's death calling for Syrian departure from Lebanon, the resignation of the pro-Syrian government, including the president himself, and an international investigation into the Hariri killing.
Parallel to that the US and France — the former colonial power which ruled Lebanon and Syria — stepped up international pressure, and eventually Syria had no choice but to withdraw from Lebanon in April in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1569 of September 2004.
Then came stories of how Syrian security and intelligence agents had the run of Lebanon and how brutally they used to treat the Lebanese people and how Damascus dominated every facet of life in Lebanon; and, of course, how the Syrian regime was gaining billions of dollars through its occupation of Lebanon and domination of the business scene plus remittances of hundreds of thousands of Syrian expatriate workers.
All of these came to an end when the last Syrian soldier left Lebanon, ending 29 years of Syrian military presence launched under an Arab League mandate at the height of a civil war in Lebanon.
Under nudging from Washington and Paris, the UN launched an investigation into the Hariri assassination, but the predetermination that Syria was behind the killing was and remains the backdrop to the inquiry.
It reached a decisive point last month when the Lebanese prosecutor filed a formal case charging four pro-Syrian Lebanese officers, former chief of public security Jamil Al Sayyed, the former head of internal security Ali Al Hajj, former chief of military intelligence Raymond Azar and commander of the presidential guard Mustafa Hamdan, with complicity in the Feb.14 bombing.
Parallel to the UN investigations, charges were regularly levelled that Syria was not co-operating with the investigators, led by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis.
Damascus, which has rejected allegations that it had engineered the killing and said it was always ready to co-operate with the investigations, has now invited Mehlis to Syria to possibly question Syrian military officers who served in Lebanon and perhaps others too.
Mehlis' UN mandate runs out on Sept.15 but this is expected to be extended.
That is where the story rests at this juncture in time.
For most observers of the Middle Eastern scene, it never made sense that Syria was behind the Hariri assassination because Damascus could not have but been aware that it stood to lose everything by Hariri's death.
And in fact, it did lose much. As already noted, it had to withdraw its military from Lebanon under humiliating circumstances; several hundred thousand Syrians lost their jobs in Lebanon and the Syrian government was deprived of several billion dollars in annual earnings through Lebanon; and Damascus was internationally condemned and the American allegation that it supports international terrorism was strengthened. Damascus also lost Lebanon as leverage in potential dealings with Israel.
And a staunchly anti-Syrian government has taken office in Beirut after a coalition led by Hariri's family swept elections held in May.
Surely, Syria would have known the repercussions and consequences of assassinating Hariri, particularly at a time when the US was intensifying pressure on Damascus citing the alleged Syrian role in the Iraqi insurgency and its support for Palestinian "terrorism" (read legitimate resistance against occupation).
Most definitely, Syria is the biggest loser in the bargain, and, apart from the people of Lebanon who are now free to exercise their right to self-determination, the only other beneficiaries from the Hariri assassination are Israel and the US.
Therefore, the conclusion of many is that Israel, which has the strongest and sophisticated intelligence network and advanced spying, surveillance and communication equipment, carried out the killing and created and planted evidence that pointed the accusing finger at Syria.
Under this scenario, many believe that Washington had at least known about the plot and endorsed it but might not have played a direct role in it.
While the Israeli motivation was clear — it wanted to separate Lebanon and Syria so that it could work on the former for a separate peace agreement with no Syrian say in it, the US had a military objective, according to Wayne Madsen is a Washington-based journalist and columnist and the co-author of "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II."
Madsen wrote in March that the US wanted to build a military base in northern Lebanon but it would not have been possible while Syria called the shots in Beirut and Hariri himself was opposed to the idea.
Israel and the US were also upset that Hariri was joining hands with the Lebanese Hizbollah movement ahead of the elections that were held in June this year. Hariri had held a series of meetings with Hizbollah meetings since late last year and had appeared to be closing an election deal with the group, an avowed enemy of Israel. So the former prime minister was picked as the sacrifical goat.
Shortly after Hariri's death, it was reported that even without a formal agreement with Lebanon, the contract for the proposed northern Lebanese air base had been granted by the Pentagon to Jacobs Engineering Group of Pasadena, California. Other construction support will be provided by Bechtel Corporation.
The air base — said to be the size of massive American Al Udeid air base in Qatar — is reportedly to be used as a transit and logistics hub for US forces in the region and to monitor movements in the Mediterranean.
There is indeed the chance that someone in the Syria regime, for reasons best known to himself (and definitely not in the service of Syrian interests), had played a role in the Hariri assassination. But, as many veterans in the region observe, in the murky cloak-and-dagger business of intelligence work one could never say who bought whom and when and what elements were at play.
However, that changes little on the ground. The original script-writers are steering the events in Lebanon by the nose towards destabilising Syria and add further to the already fearsome uncertainties in the region.

Corporate media enemy #1

pv vivekanand

HAD a catastrophe like hurrican Katrina hit any part of the ancient Roman empire, it would have taken months for the news to reach other parts of the world and, even at that, the truth about the extent of the disaster would not have been known. It might have taken weeks for the empire to order help for the victims (if indeed if it chose to bother about its subjects). After all, messages had to sent on horseback and only on a need-to-know basis. Such was the status of communications, say 2,000 years ago, and that was perhaps one of the reasons that the Roman empire lasted for about 500 years (BC27-AD476).
In today's era of the American empire, it takes nanoseconds for news to travel. The world knew that a hurricane was expected to hit the US Gulf Coast, saw it when it happened and witnessed the chaos it unleashed, causing thousands of deaths and wreaking havoc in one of the most sensitive area of the American empire within minutes after it occurred.
However, it was not the mainstream media of the US which brought the realities and magnitude of the disaster to the Americans and international community at large. It was through the thousands of blog sites in cyberspace that millions of people realised the gravity of the situation.
Indeed, the mainstream media did have their role, but it could not be compared with the effect that the messages that appeared on the blogsites that raised demands that the US government answer why rescue and relief work was delayed for three days and an array of related questions directly linked the American invasion and occupation of Iraq.
It is no secret that the mainstream or corporate media in the US did not live up to their professional obligations to the public during the build-up to the Iraq war or even after the invasion. If anything, they played along with the administration's campaign to build a case for invading Iraq on false pretexts and many Americans see them even as a party to the war itself because they misled the people by focusing on administration claims and downplaying or simply ignoring facts that belied the government's claims.
That grave shortcoming was highlighted during the Katrina crisis, and it was an opportunity for the "accused" to make amends. And a few of them did grab the chance and started reporting the truth and asking the right questions — for the first time since Sept.11, 2001.
Well, they could not have done otherwise in only becasue the evidence was so clear to everyone.
For the first time since Sept.11, 2001 a handful of reporters from the corporate media institutions — newspapers, radios and television channels — started carrying criticism of the Bush administration that it was being inept, dangerous and deceptive. They refused to play the public relations and spin game organised by the White House.
And those who refused to continue to prop up the smoke-screen for the administration were widely praised, if only because they were seen as doing what they should have been doing since Sept.11, 2001.
However, there is hesitation and reluctance on the part of many others to live up to their professional obligations and they are targeted in a campaign mounted in cyberspace: They are being called the worst name in the US:  Corporate Media — America's #1 Enemy.
"The corprate media have been complicit in criminally deceiving the American people. Never before have Americans been so uninformed and misinformed about so many vital issues," says a comment on www.tvnewslies.com. "It's time to call a spade a spade. This is no laughing matter. The corporate media are undermining democracy by failing to inform the American people of the harm being done to our environment, to our economy, to our rights as citizens and to our humanity. They distract us with trivial stories that we used to have to read about in the supermarket tabloids.
"They have not only failed to inform us, they have actively deceived us. They are our enemy."
In April 2003, one month into the US invasion of Iraq, Kanak Mani Dixit wrote from Nepal:" One casualty of the war on Iraq has been the image of Western media as the exemplar of journalistic accomplishment.....
"It started after September 11, 2001, when television, press and radio began to ply the American public with what it wanted to hear about the rest of the world. This was then force-fed to the rest of the world. In the run-up to Gulf War II, the American press did not question or caution, at one with the weak-kneed representatives and senators who gave George W. Bush carte blanche to misrepresent his way to war.
"Perhaps the worst hour of Western journalism is when its embeds or operatives — hardly journalists — reported on heroics on the desert road to Baghdad, while displaying an unwillingness to present any direct connection between the blazing night sky on television and the death and maiming of civilians on the ground."
Although many have welcomed the newfound "courage" of some corporate media journalists to question the official versions coming out of the White House in the wake of the Katrina disaster, the change is nowhere near the desired level, some others argue.
"The momentary outcry in New Orleans was an anomaly, not a trend," says www.tvnewslies.com. "It was an emotional response to unimaginable suffering that could not be denied by those who saw it up close. That’s all it was."
The article argues: "Even as this is being written, the blame is already shifting in aftermath of Katrina. The Bush administration is throwing the onus of ineptitude onto the local authorities in Louisiana and many in the corporate media are going along with the ruse. At this very moment some reporters have taken to drawn military press releases rather than filing
firsthand reports."
"Had the corporate media shamed the devil from day one, so many people might be alive today. The war against Iraq, like flooding of New Orleans, need never have happened.  So much suffering, so much death and so much destruction might have been avoided if questions had been asked in time and if truthful answers had been demanded.  But they were not asked, and even the simplest truth has yet to emerge.
"The task then, is up to us.  We, alone, must try to shame the devil. At this very moment, because there has been a crack in the wall of silence, we have an opening to do just that. For the first time ever, there was outrage, there was horror, and there was rebellion in the ranks of the corporate media.  Surely it was impulsive and unplanned, but it was real. We can take advantage of this momentary glitch in their armour and storm the media Bastille in its moment of weakness."
And how to go about doing it?
The writer suggests that the American people confront the corporate media.
When and where is the forum to do so?
"The time is September 24, 2005," says the writer referring to the date where tens of thousands of anti-war protesters are expected to converge on the US capital in response to a call made by Cindy Sheehan, an American woman who lost her son in the Iraq war.
"The goal is to show the nation and the world that we will no longer allow this administration, with the complicity of the media, to continue on its path of failure and destruction. The corporate news media will be in attendance, and we can challenge them wherever we see them.
"Ask them the questions they should have asked. Record their answers, or their evasions. Film the media as they film the protesters. Challenge their silence. Challenge their betrayal.  Carry signs that expose the media for the culprits they are. Accuse them of their betrayal and demand that they start asking the questions they have avoided for all this time. Let then know you know what they are and let the nation and world know what they have done. We can do it.  We really can."

Waterloo in Lousiana?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Bush faces fury

These images are from anti-war protests staged in LA on Sept.24, 2005. The article was written on Aug.31, 2005.


pv vivekanand

The American people are increasingly becoming aware that their government misled them into a disastrous war that has cost at least 1,800 American lives and crippled more than 15,000 soldiers -- not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraqis who have died -- and spent hundreds of billions of dollars and planning to spend more of their tax money for the country's military engagement in Iraq. They have realised that the war has only worsened the potential threats to their personal security. They have realised that their country has lost its standing as the leader of the "free world" in following democratic norms, respecting human rights, and staying away from meddling in the internal affairs of other countries. They have realised that their administration has deprived them of their pride in the founding principles of their country. And they are furious that their government is continuing to maintain the false facade and coming up explanations that no longer make sense to them.

Why is the US in Iraq? This is the question that Americans are raising. The international community has been asking this question for some time, and now Americans are picking it up and posing it to their government.

Was it because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, had links with the Sept.11 attacks and posed a threat to the national security of the US?

They know the answers, all of them no.

Was it because Saddam was a brutal dictator who oppressed his people and they needed to be liberated?

Vivid images from Iraq bring home to the Americans the reality that the lot of the Iraqi people is much worse than it was during the reign of Saddam Hussein. They live in perpetual fear, face a critical shortage of basic services, few jobs and have little to look forward to in terms of economic betterment.

Is it because the US wants to bring "democracy" to Iraq?

Not many Americans agree that the US has the right to impose "democracy" on the people of Iraq or any other country. If a situation like that arises, then it is the responsibility of the United Nations to work out an international consensus on what should be done and how it could be done within the parameters of international law and conventions.

Track record

The American track record on democracy under the Bush administration is not exactly the brightest. Bush's victory in the 2000 elections was never accepted as legitimate by a good number of American voters. His re-election in 2004 was even more controversial, with allegations of vote-rigging in several states. This allegation continues to reverberate in cyberspace. Those who are making the charge are asking how could a US president, whose own election remains under a cloud of public rejection, assume a high moral ground and argue for democracy to be imposed on other people.

It has also been reported that Bush was willing to endorse vote-rigging during the Jan.30, 2005 elections in Iraq but for unknown reasons he stopped short of doing so.

Another relevant question is: How could the US president agree to a draft constitution for a country under occupation and force it on its people?

That is what is happening today, critics say. Washington has accepted the demands and impositions of the Shiites and Kurds of Iraq in the draft constitution at the expense of the country's Sunnis whose numbers are as strong as those of the Kurds. And Bush on Tuesday made it clear that he expected the Sunnis to accept the draft.

There goes the democracy argument through the window.

Is the US in Iraq to ensure that the resources of the oil-rich country are used in a way that benefit its people?

Well, the world knows that the only people benefiting from Iraq's oil are the cronies selected by the US and American contractors to whom the interim government in Baghdad is bound under the terms that were dictated by the US when it handed over "sovereignty" on April 28, 2004.

No wonder, Bush is finding it difficult to come up with a coherent answer to the question why the US is in Iraq.

Those asking the questions are also providing the right answers. In summary, they argue that the answers are:

The US invaded and occupied Iraq because of several reasons:

-- It has always been an American objective to gain absolute control over a sizable chunk of the world's oil reserves outside the US. Iraq, with 12 per cent of the world's known reserves of oil and with potential of up to 30 per cent, fits the bill.

-- The idea to invade an Arab country with enough oil resources and occupy it was originally mooted in 1973 -- following the Arab oil embargo -- but shelved because of fears of international opposition to such a move. The plan, first presented by the then secretary of state, Henry Kissinger, following the Arab oil embargo of 1973, was dusted off in the year 2000 and set as a policy objective of the US.

Empire building

The plan for a "global Pax Americana' was drawn up for **** Cheney (now vice- president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz, who is now World Bank president, George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby, who serves as Cheney's chief of staff.

The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century, was written in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

It clearly shows that the military action against Iraq was planned even before Bush took office in 2001.

The plan shows the US intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power.

"The United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security," says the plan. "While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."

The shape of things to come in the region is also spelt out in the plan. It refers to Iran, which is targeted for regime change by the Bush administration -- an objective that Bush promised his neocon supporters before he was re-elected as president last year.

According to the plan "even should Saddam pass from the scene" bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently because "Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has."

-- Saddam, despite having lost his military prowess in the wake of the disastrous war that ended Iraq's seven-month occupation of Kuwait in early 1991, remained a potential threat to the regional hegemony of Israel, the staunchest American ally in the Middle East and which wields immense political influence in the corridors of power in Washington. So he needed to be removed.

The Israeli link to the US action against Iraq is all the more a source of anger for many Americans given revelations that the Jewish state was stealing intelligence information through its spies in key departments like the Pentagon and State Department. Proved connections between some of the key suspects and the neoconservatives have strengthened the conviction of many Americans that the neocons had indeed planned and executed the invasion of Iraq in order to protect and serve Israeli interests more than American interests. The Americans have realised that Israel is the first beneficiary from the war against Iraq.

-- Setting up advanced military bases in the Middle East with enough power to intervene in any country which challenged American interests was key to the neoconservatives' goal of establishing the US as a global empire based on military and political clout. Those bases have to be set up in a country where the regime would be in no position to ask questions. Today, the US is building Iraq as a major military base in the Gulf.

The American military establishment has benefited immensely from the 2001 war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda and the 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq.

War spending

The US is said to have already spent more than $300 billion for the Afghan and Iraq wars and is expected to spend more than $700 billion in 10 years. The bulk of the military orders have gone to huge American companies, with a sizable portion of the money channelled to firms with "political connections" in Washington, according to American critics of the Bush administration.

All these purposes were served with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. However, it would be a much more difficult task to force Bush to admit that these were indeed the reasons that he ordered the invasion and occupation of Iraq and these were the direct results of that action.

The US publicly maintains that the size of the American military contingent in Iraq could be scaled back next year if certain goals are realised.

These include: Agreement on an Iraqi constitution by various groups and its endorsement by the interim assembly elected in January this year to be followed by a national referendum and elections for a new government under that charter.

What should be surprising is that the realities on the ground in Iraq are not conducive to the realisation of the American objectives. Complexities are too dense to be sorted out through military means even if the US were to double the number of forces in Iraq.

The divide among the three main sects in Iraq -- Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis -- is yawning with the Kurds and Shiites moving steadily closer to sedition. The Kurds want northern Iraq, including the oil-rich Kirkuk province, for themselves to set up an "independent Kurdistan" while the Shiites want a federal entity for themselves encompassing central and southern Iraq. The Kurdish-Shiite equation leaves the Sunnis, who account for between 15 and 18 per cent of the 25-million population, high and dry, for nothing to show or claim for themselves after being the dominant power in the country under the Saddam regime.

American fury

In a series of speeches this week, Bush declared that to withdraw the US military from Iraq would hurt that country's fledgling democracy and the United States too.

Bush was seeking to shore up support for the war in the face of the anti-war movement spearheaded by led by Cindy Sheehan, a California woman who first met the president after her son's death in Iraq last year and is now pressing for a follow-up meeting. She is also demanding that the US recall its troops from Iraq.

Bush countered by saying on Tuesday: "I think immediate withdrawal from Iraq would be a mistake" and a "policy that would weaken the United States."

As he addressed the press in Idaho, more than 100 anti-war protesters gathered at a park across from the Idaho Statehouse to read the names of the more than 1,800 US soldiers who have died in Iraq and to erect hundreds of tiny crosses in their memory.

"Nothing is going to justify my husband's death," said Melanie House, 27, of Simi Valley, California, whose husband, John House, was killed in a January helicopter crash in Iraq.

"Why are we there? What is President Bush trying to get out of this? Why must my son be fatherless?" she told the crowd, referring to her eight-month-old son.

Laura McCarthy of Eagle, Idaho, whose son, Gavin, 21, is in Iraq, said: "Guess what? (Bush is) going to find a Cindy Sheehan in every community across the US."

That Bush is losing public backing among Americans was shown in the result of a recent opinion poll conducted by American Research Group, which showed that only 36 per cent of respondents approve of their president's performance, down six points since July.

The approval rating registered by Bush this month is the lowest of his tenure in the Group's survey. The president had his best showing in January 2005 with 51 per cent.

On the political front, there are stirrings in the US Congress against the continued military presence in Iraq, but at this point it is more focused on establishing that the Bush administration lied to the legislature into approving military action against that country. Even some among Bush's own Republican party are supporting moves to hold the administration accountable for lying.

Democrats split

The Democrats seem to be split. A recent Washington Post article, titled "Democrats Split Over Position on Iraq War," said:

"Democrats say a long-standing rift in the party over the Iraq war has grown increasingly raw in recent days, as stay-the-course elected leaders who voted for the war three years ago confront rising impatience from activists and strategists who want to challenge President Bush aggressively to withdraw troops."

Celebrated columnist and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan firmly states that the antiwar movement will continue to grow and it would be an influential factor in the next presidential elections.

He writes:

" The reason Democrats must worry most today is that the antiwar movement taking shape is virulently anti-Bush; it is lodged, by and large, inside their party; it is passionate and intolerant; it has given new life to the Howard Deaniacs who went missing after the Iowa caucuses; and it will turn on any leader who does not voice its convictions....

"This surging antiwar movement will not permit moderates to get away with a stay-the-course, we-support-the-troops position. They will demand a timetable for withdrawal and rally to the candidate who offers one, just as antiwar Democrats rallied to Gene McCarthy, Bobby Kennedy, and George McGovern in 1968 (against the Vietnam war).

"The Democrats' dilemma is hellish. If this war ends successfully, Republicans get the credit. If it ends badly, Bush will be gone, but antiwar Democrats will be blamed for having cut and run, for losing the war, and for the disastrous consequences in the ... Gulf and Arab world."

Gone wrong

Prominent author and commentator Justin Raimundo has ridiculed the administration's acceptance of the Shiite demands in the draft constitution for Iraq and asserted that Washington would not have success in creating a US-friendly regime that country.

Raimundo writes:

"Cindy Sheehan is camped outside George W. Bush's Crawford ranch, demanding to know why her son -- and 1,800-plus other American soldiers, as well as tens of thousands of uncounted Iraqis -- had to die in this bitter war, and the answer is: To install Sharia law in southern Iraq and deliver the country over to parties for whom the Ayatollah Khomeini is a hero."

Raimundo also blasts the US administration for having supported "Kurdish thuggery" in northern Iraq and goes on to say:

"Both the neocon right and the 'centrist' (ie. left-neocon) Democratic Leadership Council denounce the antiwar movement * and any timetable for withdrawal * as 'anti-American.' But how 'pro-American' is the regime we've installed in Iraq by force of arms? When you look at what we've actually done in Iraq * the emerging Islamist-Kurdish tyranny we've empowered * it turns out that the US government is the biggest exponent * and exporter * of true anti-Americanism."

"As Shiite party militias roam the ruins of Iraq's cities killing and beating political dissidents, and whipping women who fail to wear the requisite head-to-toe chador, our "democracy"-crazed neocons cite the country as a "model" * and look forward to the "liberation" of the rest of the Middle East along similar lines," says Raimundo. "The world seen through the prism of neoconservatism is truly a bizarre world, where everything is stood on its head, not just physical laws but also traditional moral precepts as well as the rules of logic.

"Americans are naturally repulsed by the sight of what the Busheviks have wrought in Iraq, but the alternative is not to turn around and make war on the Shiite-Kurdish tyranny we made possible in the first place. A war along those lines would be an act of such incredible hubris that it would make our prior mistakes * beginning with the invasion of Iraq * seem almost benign."

"It's time to face up to the horrific reality: There are places on this earth that in no way resemble the cultural and political landscape of the US, and nothing we do will turn Iraq into a suburb of the American metropolis. Short of wiping out a good portion of the population and imprisoning most of the rest in 're-education' camps where they'll be forced to memorise Robert's Rules of Order and the aphorisms of Emily Post, it simply cannot be done."

However, the Bush administration appears not to have accepted the realities on the ground in Iraq and is determined that the solution to the problem is through continued military presence as affirmed by the top general of the US Army that the military intends to keep the present strength of nearly 140,000 in Iraq for four more years.


Long haul

US General Peter Schoomaker, who said in an interview with the Associated Press that the army was prepared for the "worst case" in terms of the required level of troops in Iraq, spoke in strictly military terms. He did not refer to the politics behind it or the ulterior American objectives.

"We are now into '07-'09 in our planning," Schoomaker said referring to the presence of 138,000 American soldiers in Iraq.

Schoomaker's comments indicated that the US military is in Iraq for the long haul, beyond the term of Bush, which ends in 2007. In military terms, the current rotation of troops for 2005-07 will overlap with the 2006-08 replacements. Beyond that, the army is drawing up the plan for the 2007-09 switch, Schoomaker said.

A close look at the statements made by Bush himself and other senior administration officials since the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 would show that all of them were trying to tell the world that the US military presence in Iraq was a short-term affair and limited to handing over power to an institutionalised political system in the country.

Indeed, it was only recently that Rumsfeld spoke of the possibility of the US presence in Iraq remaining as far ahead as 10 or 12 years. That sounded more realistic, given the almost impossible task the US faces in trying to institutionalise Iraq in a manner that serves American strategic interests in the Middle East.

Bush is perfectly right when he says that withdrawal from Iraq would "weaken" the US as long as it is seen in the context of the neoconservative objective of turning the US into a global empire. Quitting Iraq means removing a key piece from that global picture of the US that the neocons are trying to piece together, and hence ending the American military presence there is not in their agenda, which in turn means "staying the course."

However, the American people are not standing by. The days ahead would see a bitter confrontation between the pro-war and antiwar camps in the US, with the neocons seeking to bulldoze their way through anyone and anything that could cast a cloud on their course. The intense smear campaign levelled against Sheehan is a classical example of how the neocons work.

Given the declarations and affirmations from Bush and other senior administration officials, it is clear that Washington would stay firm against any pressure for withdrawal from Iraq and would continue to take American casualties. As such, the question should shift from "why the US is in Iraq" to "how long would it take for the neocon camp to see the realities as they are and how many American soldiers and Iraqis have to die before they decide Iraq was a misadventure?"

Bush vs Sheehan

August 30 2005

pv vivekanand


SHE IS A "treasonous crackpot" who has nothing better to do than encouraging the insurgents in Iraq. She is out to gain fame and fortune by exploiting her son's death. She has an extremist left-wing agenda for anarchy. She is a tool of the Democratic Party. She is being used by anti-American forces. She is anti-Semitic (anti-Israeli). She is mentally deranged.
These are some of the many descriptions given to Cindy Sheehan, an American mother who has galvanised the anti-war movement in the US by setting up camp near President George W Bush's ranch at Crawford, Texas. She is demanding a meeting with Bush during which she wants to ask him why the US invaded Iraq and why is the US military continuing its occupation of that country despite the rising casualties among American soldiers.
Bush has not only refused to meet Sheehan — obviously because he does not want to face specific questions related to Iraq and be forced to give credible answers — but also seems to have ordered his neoconservative political propaganda machinery to discredit the woman, who lost her young son in action in Iraq in April last year.
"Camp Casey" — named after Sheehan's dead son — drew thousands of visitors and suppporters since it was set up on Aug.6.
Among the prominent visitors were Martin Sheen, Sheila Jackson Lee, Maxine Waters, Steve Earle, Joan Baez, Russell Means, Dennis Banks and Al Sharpton, adding to the pressure on the administration.
Put that mounting pressure against recent polls which show the majority of Americans are concerned about the US quagmire in Iraq, and one could sense the sense of urgency of the neocons to dissuade them from demanding answers to their questions and force the Bush administration to reveal the secret agenda — drawn up and propagated by the pro-Israeli neocons — that prompted Bush to wage war against Iraq, resulting in more than 1,800 American deaths and up to $300 billion spent to run the war machine.
The neocon propaganda machinery has already swung into action, and the descriptions cited here of Sheehan aired through different media outlets and indeed in cyberspace are part of the bitter smearing campaign against the woman.
Clearly, the neocon camp and allies are evading the woman's real questions, assailing her integrity and questioning her patriotism and her motives, her mental health and her ideology and raising issues related to her family.
The neocons might not be willing to acknowledge it, but they should know within themselves that Sheehan campaign has given rise to a situation where many Americans see a confrontation between a government which deceived its people into a disastrous war and the people themselves represented by a grieving woman.
That should be giving nightmares to the neocons, who have consistently went after every critic of some value against the Iraq.
An article appearing on www.prisonplanet.com under the title "Counteroffensive: Bush launches Operation Cindy Sheehan" notes:
"Every critic of this war has taken his lumps. Gen. Eric Shinseki was ushered out of the army for suggesting that the occupation of Iraq required hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers.
"Lawrence Lindsey was dismissed when he estimated that the war would cost up to $200 billion. The neocons berated both men’s estimates as being ‘wildly off the mark.’
"We all know what happened to Ambassador Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. Hans Blix was publicly defamed, Scott Ritter was ignored and General Anthony Zinni was smeared as an anti-Semite. Former treasury secretary Paul O'Neill was labelled a malcontent. And who now remembers Richard Clarke, the anti-terror adviser, who accused both Bush and (former president Bill) Clinton of dropping the ball in confronting (Osama) Bin Laden prior to 9/11."
Definitely, the pattern reveals that there is a group within the neocon camp dedicated to destroying critics of the Bush administration's policies, particularly the Iraq war. Indeed, it could not but be part of the overall neocon strategy for the planning and execution of the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
The article on prisonplanet.com suggests that Bush's close advisor, Karl Rove, who is credited with orchestrating the president's re-election in 2004, is heading the propaganda and counter-propaganda group.
Rove is the same person who is said to have revealed to the media the name of Valerie Plame as a secret operative of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in retaliation for her husband former ambassador Joseph Wilson's public revelations that there was no evidence that Iraq had bought material for nuclear weapons from Niger — a charge that the Bush administration had levelled despite Wilson's official report to the contrary.
Also under fire are mainstream American media organisations, some of which — wittingly and unwittingly — supported Washington's build-up to the invasion of Iraq.
The prisonplanet.com article notes:
"Mass media corporations have transformed themselves into one giant burial ground for this administration’s scandals. In covering the Iraq war, the major media outlets have consistently acted as an echo chamber for the rosy projections originating in the White House. In the last month alone, they have dodged the responsibility to cover the Plame case and the AIPAC spy scandal at the Pentagon. Allegations of war profiteering by Dick Cheney and Paul Bremer have been put aside."
The neocon campaign to discredit Sheehan is countered with growing support for the American mother in many other states, and soon it could reach a point where the neocons would have to mount similar drives against hundreds of anti-war activists. However, the neocons seem to believe that discrediting Sheehan would deal a severe blow to the anti-war protesters.
Indeed, many pro-war activists have also sprung up, some of them genuine believers that whatever the president is doing should be for the good of the country and some others hardcore military people who argue that public expressions indicating mounting pressure for withdrawing the US forces from Iraq would only encourage the insurgents in that country to step their attacks and claim more American casualties.
"Cindy is killing American troops by her anti-American protest," is their key slogan.
Reports in pro-war websites claim growing strength for supporters of those who argue that Bush is doing the right thing in Iraq.
Sheehan is beginning a tour across the US with her "Camp Casey" to Washington on Wednesday when Bush ends his Crawford vacation and returns to the White House.
She and supporters would be regroup n Washington Sept.24.
For many, the tour would make it clear to everyone how strong or weak her campaign has grown and Sept.24 would be "the day" for the anti-war camp since all those who oppose the war are asked to converge in Washington on that day.
In the meantime, trust the neocon camp to pull all the plugs against Cindy Sheehan, who, in the words of a supporter, has come to symbolise the "American conscience against war."

Bush exit through Iran?

pv vivekanand


THE undue and unwarranted haste in the American moves against what Washington describes as Iran's plans to develop nuclear weapons and its alleged role in the insurgency in Iraq is strengthening the belief that the US is inching towards military action against that country.
There are many who believe that destabilising Iran and regime change in Tehran could be part of US President George W Bush's "exit strategy" from Iraq. Those who support this theory argue that it makes better sense because everything else that the Bush administration does and says does not make sense in the Iraqi context.
American casualties are mounting in Iraq, Bush's popularity rating is dipping fast, the anti-war movement in the US is growing in strength, moves are underfoot in Congress to hold the administration responsible for misleading the legislature on Iraq into the disastrous war, several Bush confidants could face criminal charges for deceptive actions bordering on treason, and many critics are even calling for impeaching the president.
Given these problems, Bush's declarations that he had done and is continuing to do the right things in Iraq and his pledges that he would stay the course do not make sense to many unless seen in the wider context of planned action against Iran.
Chris Floyd, a strong proponent of this argument, writes in the Moscow Times: "The 'high' Bush got from his Iraq assault is now wearing off, politically and personally. He needs another hit of blood and destruction. And don't think he's worried about the prospect of a much wider conflagration arising from a bombing strike against Iran. After all, chaos and instability only mean more money for his war-profiteering family and cronies — and greater authority for 'war leaders' seeking to 'secure the Homeland'."

'False flag attack'

According to reports in the US press, Vice-President Dick Cheney has already given the green signal for military action against Iran immediately in the event of a terror attack in the US.
Some reports speak of plans for a "false flag" operation that would point the finger at Iran and justify American military strikes against that country.
In this context, the emerging story of a US general who was relieved of his command is significant.
Reports in cyberspace as well as linked but not-so-explicit articles in mainstream papers suggest that General Kevin P. Byrnes, commander of the army's Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) at Fort Monroe, was relieved of his command because he opposed plans for a "staged attack" in the US that would be used to justify action, both political and military, against Iran.
Officially, the four-star general was relieved of his command because he had an "extramarital affair with a civilian.”
An article under the title "Nuclear Terror Drill to Go Live? Let's Hope Not" (www.rense.com) says "Byrnes was about to lead a coup against the hawks in the military and executive branch determined to lead America into a global conflict, leading to devastating ramifications for the country, as well as financial and social chaos.”
According to the article, the "hawks" were planning to stage a "false attack" at a US military base in Charleston, South Carolina, as part of a routine exercise in September this year.
During that exercise, a real nuclear warhead was to be smuggled off a ship and detonated while the official report would have been that the warhead was a dummy and someone had replaced it with a real one and the suspicion would be pointed at Iran, under this scenario.
This would have allowed the US administration to seek immediate UN Security Council sanctions against Iran and eventual UN approval for US military action against Iran, according to the plot.
Byrnes was commander of the same base where the nuclear terror drill was to occur.
He was said to be among "a growing faction of discontented high-ranking officers are attempting internally to try and stop the Bush administration’s imminent plans for war with Iran in an effort to avert global war.”
Apparently, Byrnes knew in advance of the plot and objected to it, and hence he was relieved of his job.
It was strange that the Pentagon cited "extramarital affair" as the reason for relieving Byrnes whereas there is no precedent to such action. Generals and high-ranking officers in the military are not dismissed from service for sexual affairs. They are given a reprimand and it is entered into their service record.
It was also strange that the Pentagon even refused to say whether it was a male or female who had this "extramarital" affair with Byrnes. Again, that is questioned by many people who point out that the Pentagon has deliberately left it vague in order to silence Byrnes. Under the laws that govern the US military, Byrnes could be sent to jail if he talks about whatever he knew about US military activities while in service. Therefore , the argument goes, Byrnes is not talking about what had actually happened.

***
Multi-pronged approach

Washington has adopted a multi-pronged approach against Iran. On one front, it is trying to have the UN Security Council impose sanctions against Iran for alleged violations of the international nuclear regime. Another front is accusations that Tehran is behind the mounting insurgency in Iraq and is harbouring Al Qaeda militants; and then come charges that Iran is in gross violations of human rights.

The nuclear front

The facts of the so-called Iranian nuclear crisis are largely clear. Iran is exercising its right as any sovereign country to develop nuclear energy, and it is doing so under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which has certified that the country does not have a programme to develop nuclear weapons.
Even if Iran were to deviate from its commitments under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and clandestinely develop nuclear weapons, it is estimated that it would take seven to 10 years before it succeeds in doing so. It means there is enough time for the "feverish diplomacy" that the US says it is trying to use to run its course and arrive at a measure that would pre-empt Iran from acquiring nuclear weapon capability.
If Tehran appears to be defiant, then that attitude reflects its resentment over the US-engineered pressure and bullying tactics. The Iranians know that they are perceived as a hurdle to American strategic objectives in the region and that Washington wants to reshape Iran to suit American interests.
However, Tehran playing into the American hands. Bush wants the Iranian "crisis" to worsen so that he could use military force against Iran, according to seasoned analysts and commentators.
It is no secret that Iran is in American gunsights for "regime change." Bush promised his neoconservative gurus that this would be one of his priorities in his second term during his campaign for the November 2004 elections which gave him another four years in office.
Bush has stated that "all options," including the use of force against, remained open in order to persuade Iran to drop its alleged nuclear weapons ambitions.


Iraq insurgency

The key question that Bush or anyone else in his administration does not answer is: Why should Shiite Iran would want to help Sunni insurgents oust a Shiite-dominated Iraqi government led by Iran's natural allies.
Floyd says: "That's the kind of self-defeating stupidity one might expect from the Bush poltroons, who have spent $300 billion and almost 1,900 American lives to establish an unstable, terrorist-ridden, fundamentalist Islamic state in the centre of the Middle East. But it's unlikely that the subtle Persians, with 3,000 years of statecraft behind them, would be foolish enough to kill the golden goose that Bush has handed them by destroying Saddam and installing their allies in power."
However, that logic seems to have failed to penetrate into the thinking of the Bush administration.
Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week: "It's true that weapons clearly, unambiguously, from Iran have been found in Iraq."
It has to be remembered here that Rumsfeld had once claimed that he knew where Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction were hidden: "They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad, and east, west, south and north somewhat."
Several thousand Iranians are indeed held in detention in Iraq, with many of them facing charges that they were involved in the insurgency and carried out bombings and other attacks against the US forces there and their allies. A few of them have already been convicted and sentenced to death.

The Al Qaeda 'link'

It could not be ruled out that there are Al Qaeda elements present in Iranian territory, having fled there from Afghanistan after the US invasion of that country. However, there could not be much substance to charges that Iran is using them to stage attacks across the border in Iraq and other countries, experts on international terrorism say.
Had there been any truth to such allegations, they point out, the US would have cranked up the pressure on Iran to new heights in the context of the US-led war against terror by naming Tehran as a sponsor of international terrorism.
Tehran has said an unspecified number of Al Qaeda activists are in Iranian detention but has not named them. At one point, it was reported that it handed over some of them to Saudi Arabia after Riyadh made a request.
Of course, the Iranian support for Lebanon's Hizbollah, an avowed opponent of Israel and which is blamed for anti-US attacks during the 1980s in Lebanon, is another bone of contention. Hizbollah, which represents the Lebanese Shiite community, is listed in the US list of "terrorist" organisation and Iran's links with the group would be used by Washington to boost its charge that Tehran supports international terrorism.

Deliberate 'crisis'

Floyd asserts in the Moscow Times:
"The plain fact is that Bush doesn't want diplomacy to work against Iran. He wants the situation to reach a crisis point that will 'justify' military action. It's the only form of politics he knows: You foment (or invent) a crisis, then use deceit, fear and brute force to impose your radical agenda. And the takedown of Iran is a long-held ambition of the corporate militarists behind the Bush Faction's relentless quest for 'full spectrum dominance' over world affairs.
When seen against this assertion, the consistent expressions of US concern over Iran's nuclear programme is explained.
Despite reported findings by scientists that bomb-grade uranium traces found in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment, the State Department insists that the US approach is right and the world shares Washington's concern.
The Washington Post has reported that a panel of scientists from the United States, Russia, France, Japan and Britain, supports Iran's claim that the traces of highly enriched uranium came from contaminated centrifuges imported from Pakistan.
Washington had pointed to the material as evidence that Iran was making bomb-grade ingredients.
It is unlikely that the Bush administration would accept any argument which contradicts its allegations against Iran. That is what happened in the case of Iraq ,and we might yet have to live through a similar experience, perhaps if only because Bush's "exit stragey" for Iraq runs through Iran.

Iran in US gunsights

Ali Khamenei






pv vivekanand

THE US is slipping deeper and deeper into the Iraq quagmire. There is little chance that the US would achieve its goal of institutionalising Iraq into a shape that suits American interests. The insurgency is gaining strength and it is also unlikely that the US military and allied forces would be able to beat it back and contain it into manageable confinements.
More than 1,800 American soldiers have died in action in Iraq, and more than 15,000 American soldiers have been maimed. Dozens of Iraqis are killed every day, adding to the tens of thousands who have already dead.
In summary, the US is fighting a losing war in Iraq.
Add to that the anti-war movement in the US that has found new impetus and is steadily gaining strength in its demand that the American soldiers in Iraq be recalled home. President George W Bush's popularity rating is in the range of 30 per cent and it is steadily declining.
Washington is not willing to accept these realities. US Bush has vowed to stay the course in Iraq.
There is no sign of an American exit strategy. The US cannot withdraw from Iraq without causing major chaos in the short term and a division of that country in the medium term. Its only option is to hang in there, hoping for a miracle to happen.
Effectively, the US is reliving Vietnam, but the Bush administration does not seem to have learnt the lesson its 1960s predecessors learnt in the Far East.
In the meantime, the US Army is planning for another four years of occupation of Iraq, clearly signalling that Washington has long-term military goals in the Middle East.
When all these elements are seen put together, the obvious conclusion is that these goals include military action against Iraq's neighbour Iran on the ground that the Iranians are developing nuclear weapons. All the signs are there, particularly the way Washington is summarily brushing aside all Iranian gestures and insisting that all options remain open, including the use of force, to resolve the perceived crisis. The world is reminded of the way Washington pressed ahead with its objective of invading Iraq, toppling Saddam Hussein and occupying that country.
Well, conventional wisdom says the US, ensnared as it is in Iraq, would shy away from similar action in Iran, but, given that Washington seems to think that the only way ahead is more war, the region is keeping its fingers crossed against any such misadventure.

Quit Iraq? Who you kidding

By PV Vivekanand


THE affirmation by the top general of the US Army that the military intends to keep the present strength of nearly 140,000 in Iraq for four more years is the clearest revelation yet of the American designs in the Middle East. But then, it has always been a known fact in this part of the world that the US was targeting Iraq for keeps.
The general's comments only contribute to the reality that the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq was part of a long-term strategy aimed at global domination while also securing the interests of Israel in the Middle East.
The fact has been proved that the US military action against Iraq had no reasonable justification — except in the context of American and Israeli interests. Saddam Hussein did not have any weapons of mass destruction and did not have any links with Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda or the Sept. 11 attacks in the US.
Well, Saddam was indeed an oppressor of his people, but US President George Bush has no business to claim that the war against Iraq was aimed at "liberating" the people of Iraq. If anyone had anything to do about it, it should have been the United Nations, and the US invaded Iraq without UN approval.
US General Peter Schoomaker, who said in an interview with the Associated Press that the army was prepared for the "worst case" in terms of the required level of troops in Iraq, spoke in strictly military terms. He did not refer to the politics behind it or the ulterior American objectives.
"We are now into '07-'09 in our planning," Schoomaker said referring to the presence of 138,000 American soldiers in Iraq.
Schoomaker's comments indicated that the US military is in Iraq for the long haul, beyond the term of Bush, which ends in 2007.

How long will it take?

Why is the US in Iraq? This is the question that President George W Bush and his coterie of neoconservatives have to answer.
Is it because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, had links with the Sept.11 attacks and posed a threat to the national security of the US?
Bush can no longer hide behind these "justifications" because all of them have been proven to be false and part of the deception that his administration used to mislead and convince the American people and Congress to approve military action against Iraq.
Was it because Saddam was a brutal dictator who oppressed his people and they needed to be liberated?
Bush can longer argue this point because the lot of the Iraqi people is much worse than it was during the reign of Saddam Hussein. They live perpetual fear, face a critical shortage of basic services, few jobs and have little to look forward to in terms of economic betterment.
Is it because the US wants to bring "democracy" to Iraq?
The US has no right whatsoever to impose "democracy" on the people of Iraq or any other country. If a situation like that arises, then it is the responsibility of the United Nations to work out an international consensus on what should be done and how it could be done within the parameters of international law and conventions.
The American track record on democracy under the Bush administration is a subject of international loathing. Bush's victory in the 2000 elections was never accepted as legitimate by a good number of American voters. His re-election in 2004 was even more controversial, with allegations of vote-rigging in several states. So, how could a US president whose own election remains under a cloud of public rejection assume a high moral ground and argue for democracy to be imposed on another people?
It has also been reported that Bush was willing to endorse vote-rigging during the Jan.30, 2005 elections in Iraq but for unknown reasons he stopped short of doing so. What does that speak for Bush as someone who believes in democracy?
If we take it one step further, how could the US president agree to a draft constitution for a country under occupation and force it on its people?
That is what is happening today. Washington has accepted the demands and impositions of the Shiites and Kurds of Iraq in the draft constitution at the expense of the country's Sunnis whose numbers are as strong as those of the Kurds.
There goes the democracy argument through the window.
Is the US in Iraq to ensure that the resources of the oil-rich country are used in a way that benefit its people?
Well, we all know that the only people benefiting from Iraq's oil are the cronies selected by the US and American contractors to whom the interim government in Baghdad under the terms that were dictated by the US when it handed over "sovereignty" on April 28, 2004.
No wonder, Bush is finding it difficult to come up with a coherent answer to the question why the US is in Iraq. He is evading answers and making a real bad of it too.
The right answers to the question, if Bush has the guts to spell them out, would be:

The US invaded and occupied Iraq because of several reasons:
— It has always been an American objective to gain absolutely influential control over a sizable chunk of the world's oil reserves outside the US. Iraq, with 12 per cent of the world's known reserves of oil and with potential of up to 30 per cent, fit the bill.
— The idea to invade an Arab country with enough oil resources and occupy it was originally mooted in 1973 — following the Arab oil embargo — but shelved because of fears of international opposition to such a move. It was dusted off by the Israeli-driven neo-conservative camp in Washington in 2000 and marked as a priority for the Republican administration of Bush who assumed power in 2001.
— Saddam, despite having lost his military prowess in the wake of the disastrous war that ended Iraq's seven-month occupation of Kuwait in early 1991, remained a potential threat to the regional hegemony of Israel, the staunchest American ally in the Middle East and which wields immense political influence in the corridors of power in Washington. So he needed to be removed.
— Setting up advanced military bases in the Middle East with enough power to intervene in any country which challenged American interests was key to the neoconservatives' goal of establishing the US as a global empire based on military and political clout. Those bases have to set up in a country where the regime would be in no position to ask questions. Today, the US is building three of its largest military bases in Iraq.
— The American military establishment wanted enough orders for war-planes, weapons and other gear related to war. The US is said to have already spent more than $300 billion for the Afghan and Iraq war and is expected to spend more than $700 in 10 years. The bulk of the orders have to huge American companies, with a sizable portion of the money channelled to companies with "political connections" in Washington.
All these purposes were served with the invasion and occupation of Iraq. However, it would be a much more difficult task to force Bush to admit that these were indeed the reasons that he ordered the invasion and occupation of Iraq and these were the direct results of that action.
As Iraqi groups continue to wrangle over the draft constitution, this is what prominent author and commentator Justin Raimundo has to say:
"Cindy Sheehan is camped outside George W. Bush's Crawford ranch, demanding to know why her son —  and 1,800-plus other American soldiers, as well as tens of thousands of uncounted Iraqis — had to die in this bitter war, and the answer is: to install Sharia law in southern Iraq and deliver the country over to parties for whom the Ayatollah Khomeini is a hero."
Raimundo also blasts the US administration for having supported "Kurdish thuggery" in northern Iraq and goes on to say:
"Both the neocon Right and the "centrist" (ie. left-neocon) Democratic Leadership Council denounce the antiwar movement – and any timetable for withdrawal – as 'anti-American.' But how 'pro-American' is the regime we've installed in Iraq by force of arms? When you look at what we've actually done in Iraq – the emerging Islamist-Kurdish tyranny we've empowered – it turns out that the US government is the biggest exponent – and exporter – of true anti-Americanism."
"As Shi'ite party militias roam the ruins of Iraq's cities killing and beating political dissidents, and whipping women who fail to wear the requisite head-to-toe chador, our "democracy"-crazed neocons cite the country as a "model" – and look forward to the "liberation" of the rest of the Middle East along similar lines," says Raimundo. "The world seen through the prism of neoconservatism is truly a Bizarro World, where everything is stood on its head, not just physical laws but also traditional moral precepts as well as the rules of logic.
"Americans are naturally repulsed by the sight of what the Busheviks have wrought in Iraq, but the alternative is not to turn around and make war on the Shi'ite-Kurdish tyranny we made possible in the first place. A war along those lines would be an act of such incredible hubris that it would make our prior mistakes – beginning with the invasion of Iraq – seem almost benign."
"It's time to face up to the horrific reality: there are places on this earth that in no way resemble the cultural and political landscape of the US, and nothing we do will turn Iraq into a suburb of the American metropolis. Short of wiping out a good portion of the population and imprisoning most of the rest in "reeducation" camps where they'll be forced to memorise Robert's Rules of Order and the aphorisms of Emily Post, it simply cannot be done."
Against these arguments, which are supported by facts on the ground in Iraq, the question shifts from "why the US is in Iraq" to "how long would it take for Bush to accept the realities and how many American soldiers and Iraq have to die before that?"

Out of Gaza to W Bank

Aug.17 2005
PV Vivekanand
Out of Gaza - to the West Bank

ISRAELI Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is projecting Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip as a major sacrifice by the Jews in favour of peace with the Palestinians and asserting that the Palestinian leadership has to prove itself by containing armed resistance and administering Gaza in a way that does not threaten Israel's security. In reality, Sharon is implemented a carefully drawn-up plan that places the Palestinians in a natural disadvantage to meet his conditions while also allowing him to consolidate Israel's grip on the occupied West Bank to a point where all possibilities of negotiations with the Palestinians are eliminated, with the Jewish state retaining long-term control of the territory,
As Israel launched and continued evacuating its settlements in the occupied Gaza Strip this week, the most asked question remained unanswered: What does the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza hold in store for the Palestinian problem and for the overall Middle East "peace process"? Few are of the opinion that it signals anything positive and most believe that the Israeli departure from Gaza is the key element in a scenario drawn up by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to freeze any movement towards negotiated peace with the Palestinians by refusing to give up a major chunk of the West Bank encompassing all the major Jewish settlements there. The firm conviction in the Arab World is that without major upheavals in the geopolitical realities on the ground in the region coupled with determined international action, there is no prospect for a just and fair solution to the Palestinian problem in the foreseeable future.
Whether from a layman's point of view or an analysis based on the ground realities, there are some key features of the Palestinian-Israeli equation which need to be dramatically altered and certain minimum requirements that have to be met for a generally acceptable solution to the Palestinian problem.

These include:

Return of all territory

With the evacuation of the Gaza Strip, the focus shifts to the West Bank, where more than 400,000 Jews — all of them armed — live in settlements built in violation of international conventions. Sharon has vowed not to dismantle the settlements. If anything, he would only expand these colonies and settle more Jews in the occupied territory.
Apart from the argument that the West Bank is indeed part of the "promised land," Sharon and other right-wing Israeli politicians would never agree to evacuate the settlements from the West Bank because the settlers represent a sizable vote bank.
The Palestinians are demanding that Israel withdraw to the lines it held before the 1967 war and there would not be peace without them securing control of all the land beyond the so-called "Green Lines" of 1967.
A compromise proposal was floated in the air last year where it was suggested Israel might give the Palestinians alternative land equivalent to the size of the settlements, and these included Arab-populated Israeli villages near the Green Line. This "compromise" would also serve Israel's purpose of reducing the number of its Arab citizens since the residents of the villages would automatically come under the jurisdiction — if it could be called that — of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) headed by Mahmoud Abbas.
Arab-Israelis have rejected the proposal outright.
In any event, the idea could be discussed only when the Israelis and Palestinians resume their negotiations, and we are at this point in time far from that prospect.

Arab East Jerusalem:

Israel, which seized and "annexed" the Arab eastern half of the old city in the 1967 war, remains firm on its vow not to relinquish it saying it will remain part of the Jewish state's "eternal and indivisible capital." It is a foregone conclusion that no Israeli leader or politician in power, however moderate he or she could be, would ever agree to let go of the Israeli grip on Arab East Jerusalem in view of the religious and political imperatives of the Jewish state. It would be political suicide for any Israeli leader to even suggest giving up Arab East Jerusalem.
The situation is no different in the Palestinian camp either. No Palestinian leader or politician would agree to accept Israeli sovereignty over Arab East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians see as the capital of their to-be created independent state. There is no magic key to lift this logjam.
Several proposals were made in the past with different formulas like "shared sovereignty" or making Jerusalem an international city with free access to everyone and the states of Israel and (proposed) Palestine both considering the city as their capital. Yet another proposed "compromise" is for Israel to let the Palestinians have their capital in the Abu Dis suburb of Arab East Jerusalem. Again, this could be discussed only in the context of revived peace negotiations, but Sharon has given no sign that he might even agree to listen to the idea.


International Law