Obama warns over Pakistan strike US presidential candidate Barack Obama has said he would order military action against al-Qaeda in Pakistan without the consent of Pakistan's government. Mr Obama made the comments in a speech outlining his foreign policy positions.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said any threat to act against al-Qaeda from within its territory should not be used for political point scoring.

Earlier this month, Mr Obama's chief rival, Hillary Clinton, described him as "naive" on foreign policy.

The attack from Mrs Clinton came after a televised debate between Democrat presidential hopefuls.

During the debate Mr Obama said he would be willing to meet leaders of states such as Cuba, North Korea and Iran without conditions.

'Terrible mistake'

In his speech at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, in Washington, Mr Obama said General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's president, must do more to end terrorist operations in his country.




If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will
Barack Obama If not, Pakistan would risk a troop invasion and the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars of US aid during an Obama presidency, the candidate said.

"It was a terrible mistake to fail to act when we had a chance to take out an al-Qaeda leadership meeting in 2005," he said, referring to reports that the US had decided not to launch a strike for fear of harming ties with Pakistan.

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will," Mr Obama said.



The BBC's Jonathan Beale, in Washington, says such comments are clearly designed to bolster his credentials among a domestic audience.

But a spokeswoman for Pakistan's foreign ministry, Tasnim Aslam, told the AFP news agency that talk of military action was a serious matter and political candidates and commentators should "show responsibility".

White House spokesman Tony Snow defended Pakistan's leadership, saying it was working hard to fight al-Qaeda and Taleban fighters within its borders.

Gen Musharraf has been a key US ally in its so-called "war on terror" since the 11 September 2001 terrorist attacks.

But US officials have publicly said recently that they believe Pakistan has let al-Qaeda and Taleban militants reorganise themselves in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

Mr Obama also used his foreign policy speech to criticise the Bush administration's focus on al-Qaeda in Iraq, saying US President George W Bush was "confusing" the mission.

He said Americans were more vulnerable to terrorist attacks than before the 9/11 attacks because of a war in Iraq "that should never have been authorised and should never have been waged".

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/6926663.stm

Published: 2007/08/01 19:47:14 GMT

© BBC MMVII

'Comprehensive Strategy' (and a poll)
by Meteor Blades
Wed Aug 01, 2007 at 07:03:25 PM PDT

Whatever else can be said about Senator Barack Obama's "Comprehensive Strategy to Fight Global Terrorism" speech today, it has certainly put the spotlight on foreign policy in a manner far more suited to get to root of things than the silly media-enhanced spat over whether a Democratic President should dial up the likes of Fidel Castro, Kim Jong-il and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on the afternoon of January 20, 2009.

The screaming started before the verbatim transcript was to be found anywhere. You can find it here.

Among progressives, foreign policy is always difficult to discuss for more than three minutes before the shouting starts. Because progressives (that is, liberals and those of us further to the left) have divergent goals (although these often overlap, as in, say, in Darfur), and we don't have the same analysis, although there is considerable overlap. It's that overlap which makes us allies. Over the past few years, we've been more less united around getting out of Iraq and staying out of Iran, but when the talk turns to the details, and when we go further afield, our differences cannot be submerged. In part, that's because some progressives choose words that make other progressives (and especially the full spectrum of Democrats) squirmy: words like "imperialism" and "hegemony."

This is nothing new obviously; it's essentially where we were during the Vietnam era. It's why many people are asking whether, say, Senator Hillary Clinton is an updated 21st Century version of a Cold War liberal or somebody with a fresher vision. It's why the term "terrorism" itself, much less "global war on terrorism" can kindle the outpouring of fierce debate we've seen today.

That debate is further complicated by the fact that left progressives themselves are divided. There are those who believe that the terrorism promoted by Islamic extremists is purely blowback that would disappear if Western empire building were to be curbed. And there are those of us who take a less sanguine view, but wonder how - given the ferocity of the debate - we can express ourselves in favor of a foreign policy which deals effectively with the violent behavior of extremists (and the retrograde social views of many of the societies in which they operate) without contributing either ammunition or cover to the hegemonists. Hegemonists who are often as bad or worse than the extremists they claim give the U.S. no choice but to act unilaterally and commit atrocities.

What is desperately needed among progressives of all stripes as well as their Democratic allies is a full-throated discussion of the entire panoply of foreign-policy issues, starting with an intense focus on what to do about the military-industrial-congressional complex that was first described nearly half a century ago. Intense, as in in-depth, meaning not getting caught up in the snare and delusion of shallowness toward which the megamedia drives all such discussions.

We need - if you'll excuse the cliche - a shift in the paradigm of U.S. foreign policy that rejects hegemony whether in its NeoCon robes or something more disguised. On the other hand, merely pulling out of Iraq, which we must do, dealing with the Palestinian-Israeli conundrum, which we must do, and backing off from confrontation with Iran, which we must do, does not mean there will be no need to confront and curb foreign extremists who seek to run the world in their image, just as we confront our own extremists and seek to curb them. The situation is more complex than simply "Western imperialism," though I would be the last to downplay its pernicious effects in the Middle East (and, of course, elsewhere), historically and today.

The essential discussion ought be about about how we get from where we are today to where we want to be tomorrow while not engaging in, or encouraging, or enabling violence and subjugation - nor leaving ourselves (and other citizens of the world) open to such. We need to talk about how we can stop the U.S. from being the world's policeman and placing that role firmly in the hands of international bodies of which we are a part. That was supposed to be the U.N.'s job, according to the charter the U.S. not only signed, but also pretty much wrote.
http://www.dailykos.com/

A Push to Rewrite Wiretap Law
White House Seeks Warrantless Authority From Congress
By Ellen Nakashima
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 1, 2007; A04


The Bush administration is pressing Congress this week for the authority to intercept, without a court order, any international phone call or e-mail between a surveillance target outside the United States and any person in the United States.

The proposal, submitted by Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell to congressional leaders on Friday, would amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) for the first time since 2006 so that a court order would no longer be needed before wiretapping anyone "reasonably believed to be located outside of the United States."

It would also give the attorney general sole authority to order the interception of communications for up to one year as long as he certifies that the surveillance is directed at a person outside the United States.

The administration and its Republican allies on Capitol Hill have mounted a full-court press to get the Democratic-controlled Congress to pass the measure before lawmakers leave town this week for the August recess, trying to portray reluctant Democrats as weak on terrorism.

Democratic lawmakers favor a narrower approach that would allow the government to wiretap foreign terrorists talking to other foreign terrorists overseas without a warrant if the communication is routed through the United States. They are also willing to give the administration some latitude to intercept foreign-to-domestic communications as long as there is oversight by the FISA court.

Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) suggested yesterday that a compromise could be reached this week. "The only question," he told reporters, "is how much involvement the attorney general will have" in approving the wiretapping "as compared to the FISA court itself."

The measure faces a number of procedural roadblocks due to the crowded congressional calendar. But the administration, in an effort to speed the process, separated its immediate demands from a more sweeping proposal to rewrite FISA that became tangled in a debate between Congress and the executive branch over access to related Justice Department legal documents.

Civil liberties and privacy groups have denounced the administration's proposal, which they say would effectively allow the National Security Agency to revive a warrantless surveillance program conducted in secret from 2001 until late 2005. They say it would also give the government authority to force carriers to turn over any international communications into and out of the United States without a court order.

In January, the administration announced that the surveillance program was under the supervision of a special FISA court that Congress set up to independently review and judge wiretap requests when it passed FISA in 1978. But critics said that if the proposal succeeds, the court's supervision will no longer be required for many wiretaps.

"It's the president's surveillance program on steroids," said Jim Dempsey, policy director at the Center for Democracy and Technology. Dempsey said that under the new law the government would no longer have to allege that one party to the call was a member of al-Qaeda or another terrorist group. An unstated facet of the program is that anyone the foreigner is calling inside the United States, as long as that person is not the primary target, would also be wiretapped.

"They're hiding the ball here," said Caroline Fredrickson, director of the ACLU's Washington legislative office. "What the administration is really going after is the Americans. Even if the primary target is overseas, they want to be able to wiretap Americans without a warrant."

The measure is intended as an "interim proposal" to close short-term "critical gaps in our intelligence capability," McConnell said in a letter to congressional leaders. It would make clear that court orders are not necessary to "effectively collect foreign intelligence about foreign targets overseas."

Bush, in his Saturday radio address, said that rewriting FISA is necessary because the "the terrorist network that struck America on September the 11th wants to strike our country again." GOP leaders have accused Democrats of blocking changes, suggesting that if another attack happens, Democrats will be to blame.

"With heightened risk of terror attack, why are Democrats holding up critical FISA changes?" read a news release issued yesterday by House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio). "It's time for Democrats to stop ignoring, downplaying and sidestepping our FISA problem and start working with Republicans to keep America safe."

Democratic leaders have been working with administration officials on altering FISA, aides said. "I am committed to giving our intelligence community the tools they need to fight terrorism and am working very hard with the most senior members of the administration to do that as soon as possible," Reid said.

Democrats have said for more than a year that they are willing to make targeted changes, such as making explicit that wiretapping a call between two suspects overseas, where the call that happens to pass through the United States, needs no court order.

But Reid said, "We hope our Republican counterparts will work together with us to fix the problem, rather than try again to gain partisan political advantage at the expense of our national security."

The proposal would also allow the NSA to "sit on the wire" and have access to the entire stream of communications without the phone company sorting, said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies.

"It's a 'trust us' system," she said. "Give us access and trust us."

Staff writer Dan Eggen contributed to this report.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...3101879_pf.html

Why Oblivion Looms for Abbas


Guest Column: Mark Perry offers 10 reasons why Hamas, rather than Abu Mazen and his U.S. backers will prevail in the struggle for Palestinian hearts and minds. The Islamists today represent the Palestinian mainstream, while Fatah is broken from top to bottom. Even more importantly, Abbas is increasingly isolated within his own organization, most of whose grassroots and mid-level leadership want nothing to do with the U.S. schemes on which Abbas has staked his future. By Halloween, expect Abbas to be either back in a unity government with Hamas, or else having departed the scene

By Mark Perry

In the summer of 1997 I found myself seated in the office of Yasser Arafat in Gaza. I had known Arafat for many years, and was a welcome visitor. Being an American and a friend gave me privileges. Others weighed their words, but I was constrained by no such requirement. So as he thumbed through a stack of papers, I pleaded clemency for a friend who had been under house arrest in Gaza for the better part of a year. The man, a prominent security official, had ordered Palestinian security forces to fire on a Hamas demonstration the summer before and Arafat, enraged, had ordered him home. “He made a mistake,” I said. “It’s time to bring him back.” Arafat ignored me.

There was a long moment of silence as Arafat’s aides eyed each other in discomfort. Arafat motioned to one of them and handed him a paper. This was typical of him. You could spend hours with the man in silence. He continued to pretend he hadn’t heard, so I plunged on. “The man is dedicated,” I said. Arafat stopped, his eyes widening, but he still refused to look at me. I waited many moments and pleaded my case again. “He’s a good man.” Finally, he spoke, but he bit off each word, making his point. “This is not your concern.” And he was silent again. “I think that it is,” I said. “He is a friend of mine.” Arafat was suddenly exasperated and locked me in his gaze, to emphasize his point: “He crossed a line.”

Those of us who know and understand something of Palestinian society were saddened by June’s Gaza troubles — the flickering YouTube films of Palestinian gunmen being dragged willy-nilly through the streets of the Strip seemed a talisman of lines crossed so many times they no longer existed. Palestinians have fought each other before — most notably in the Palestinian Civil War that raged in northern Lebanon in 1983 — but nothing like this. Palestinians themselves seemed to draw back, even recoil, from the violence. “Both sides made mistakes,” Hamas official Usamah Hamdan told me in Beirut in late June and there was sadness in his voice. “We are sorry for that.”

In the wake of these troubles, Palestinian President Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) cut ties with Hamas, declared an emergency government, suspended the workings of the Palestinian Legislative Council, arrested dozens of Hamas legislative members, clamped down on anti-government protests, purged critics in his own Fatah movement, and announced he would begin immediate talks with the Olmert government. The U.S reciprocated: it urged Israel to release hundreds of millions of dollars in tax monies, said it would work towards the creation of a Palestinian state, pressured Israel to ease travel restrictions in the West Bank, awarded the Abu Mazen government tens of millions of dollars in economic and security aid, urged Arab nations to support Abu Mazen’s political program, called on the EU to take similar actions, dispatched a team of experts to assess Palestinian needs, called for an international conference to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and conducted high-level talks with Arab nations to make certain their support for these programs was assured. The actions were breathtaking in their scope. They provided, for the first time in nearly a decade, the prospect for a political resolution of the daunting Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

And they have absolutely no prospect of success.

Instead, Abu Mazen will fail to solidify his position as President of the Palestinian Authority; the American program to support him will fail; there will be no international conference; and, within the next sixty to ninety days — and almost certainly by the end of the year — Abu Mazen and his colleagues will either be forced into exile or will take steps to reconstitute the national unity government that they have spent the last 60 days destroying.

And here’s why:

1. Palestinian society is not divided Palestinian society is more united than it has been in years, in spite of what we see on our televisions or read in the American press. The “Gaza coup” was not launched in Gaza, but in Ramallah — and the forces that brought instability to the Strip were funded and armed by the United States. They did not represent Fatah or even a majority in Fatah, but rather a small minority of Fatah radicals. The vast majority of mainline forces in Fatah, and even a significant number in the Fatah Central Committee did not support the arming of the Preventive Security Services. The leader of the PSS, Mohammad Dahlan is now in exile and his opponents are calling for his arrest. The Palestinian people know this. They know their vote was overturned by Abu Mazen and the United States, and they resent it.

<li>2. Hamas remains popular, and it is gaining strength It is true, there have been some dips in the popularity of the movement in some areas, but the losses are not significant. And, remember, there is a tendency in the U.S. to consistently underestimate Hamas’s popularity, which I attribute to:

– a disbelief that Palestinians could support such an organization

– a belief in U.S.-funded Palestinian polling numbers

– the reputed secular nature of Palestinian society

– a tendency to overlook the traditional strength of Hamas during periods of confrontation, and

– the impact of the economic embargo.

My own (admittedly unscientific), belief is that Hamas’s strength is likely to grow. The movement’s base of support has widened significantly — from about 9 percent in the late 1980s to about 25 to 30 percent now, numbers that match up well to any well-established Western political party. While its parliamentary victory in January of 2006 was due largely to Fatah’s poor reputation, Hamas has not repeated Fatah’s mistakes: despite the clear temptations of power, it has provided as good a government as its resources have allowed — no stain of impropriety has touched its senior leadership. This remains its most significant achievement.

<li>3. Hamas represents mainstream Palestinian society Palestinian society is not secular, liberal, progressive and western. It is Arab, traditional, conservative and Muslim. Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayad, Saeb Erakat and Yasser Abed Rabbo are fine people — and they are friends of mine — but they do not represent mainstream Palestinian society. Hamas does. The election of Hamas and its continued strength is not a setback for Palestinian society, but a reflection of its growth. My own Hamiltonian tendencies are humbled. It is possible to understand America by visiting Boston, but I wouldn’t recommend it — any more than I would recommend that an American believe that Hanan Ashrawi is typically Palestinian. Americans aren’t governed from Nantucket but from Natchez, and Palestinians aren’t governed from Ramallah, but from Jubalya — and wishing it so doesn’t make it so. That Fatah was defeated is not simply a comment on their corruption, but on their inability to speak for the people of Palestine. It is for this that Hamas is likely to grow and prosper.

<li>4. Hamas is is not innately or irrevocably wedded to violence Hamas stood for an election and won. We decided to reverse the verdict of a democratic process, not them. There is certainly debate inside of Hamas on the efficacy of continuing the movement’s involvement in electoral politics. The loss of some popular support, the reversion to violence in Gaza, the inability of the movement to break the international boycott, emerging divisions inside Hamas itself, and the closing off of political options have sparked this internal debate. But I doubt that Hamas will abandon its current strategy in favor of violent confrontation, either with Fatah or with Israel. The view from Gaza may seem dark, perhaps the view is even darker in Damascus. But there is another side to the ledger, and it is as significant: Balancing Hamas’s strengths are Fatah’s continuing weaknesses — and those cannot be reversed with a simple infusion of our money.

<li>5. From top to bottom, Fatah is broken Fatah is weak, aging, corrupt, disorganized, and even more divided than Hamas; it is funded exclusively through outside sources; it lacks a clear political program and political vision; its leadership is out-of-touch, conference-bound, tethered to a past era; it is dependent for its survival on the United States and Israel (a fact of which Palestinian society is well aware, at the expense of Fatah’s credibility) it is at war with its own younger cadre (which are abandoning the movement). Its militant Tanzim grassroots are growing in strength, but are alienated from Fatah’s leadership, disenchanted with its corruption and, perhaps most importantly, is cooperating with Hamas. The Fatah grassroots is pushing hard, just now, for the long-delayed General Conference to reform the organization. Abu Mazen can throw Hamas legislators in jail — it will be much more difficult to throw members of his own party in jail, which is why …

<li> The political battle being waged in the West Bank now is being waged inside of Fatah Abu Mazen’s power has been significantly eroded inside of his own organization. The recent meeting of the committee called to make an assessment of the Gaza troubles repudiated Abu Mazen’s appointees: Mohammad Dahlan, Rashid Abu Shabak and Tawfik Tarawi. Abu Mazen is within one vote of losing his Fatah power base. His closest aides (Salam Fayad, Saeb Erakat, Rafiq Husseini, Yasser Abed Rabbo) count for nothing in Fatah, because they have no vote in the organization. Abu Mazen’s plea to the Central Committee last Tuesday, that “my aides have told me my actions are legal,” brought laughter even from his closest supporters. Former Prime Minister Abu Alaa has refused to support him and Hani al-Hassan has denounced him. In response someone shot up Hassan’s house. He laughs: “They made sure I wasn’t here,” he told me. And the former national security advisor, Jabril Rajoub has called for Mohammad Dahlan’s arrest. Abu Mazen’s response has been to say he will hold national elections — but without allowing Hamas to run. And our president has conferred his blessing on this, calling Abu Mazen’s government “legitimate.” Truly, truly, truly, we are a light in the darkness, a city on a hill.

<li>7. Abu Mazen is increasingly isolated The non-payment of governmental salaries to Hamas members in the West Bank is causing deep disenchantment because it cuts across family and tribal lines. So it is that one brother, a Fatah member, is paid while another (a Hamas member) is not. Salam Fayad has thereby proven to be a good bean counter, but not much of a politician. He has set family against family, brother against brother. And doing that is deeply resented in the West Bank. So too, the security services are in a posture of near-revolt over the policy of continuing arrests of anti-Abu Mazen partisans. Posters have begun to appear in the West Bank, styling Abu Mazen a Palestinian Pinochet — or worse, an “Abu Musa” (the man whom Syrian President Hafez Assad sent to kill Arafat in Lebanon). The posters are being designed by Fatah, not Hamas. Do we really believe that the Palestinian police will continue to follow Abbas’s orders: to arrest Hamas activists because they do not meet the conditions of the Quartet? Because Hamas does not “recognize Israel?”



<li>8. The united front of the U.S.-Israel and the Arab regimes is no match for Hamas in the battle for Palestinian support Indeed, the much-vaunted united front being built by the U.S. against Hamas is something of a myth: The Egyptians and Saudis have quietly repudiated the U.S. program to overthrow Hamas, and instead have urged Fatah and Hamas to reconcile. Colin Powell has called for talks with the Hamas leadership, while Israel’s support for Abu Mazen remains predictably indifferent. (They’re no dummies – the Israelis, too, will end up talking to Hamas is my bet.) There are 542 roadblocks in the West Bank — the same number will be there tomorrow and next week and next month. Tell me I’m wrong. Israel has returned tax money collected for the Palestinians to the Palestinians, but not all of it — and it has trickled in. Do we really, really believe that Israel will suddenly rise up as one and say that they intend to endorse UN Resolutions 242 and 338? Or are they now quietly laughing into their tea and shaking their heads: we’re going to support Abu Mazen? We’re going to send him guns? We’re going to conduct talks with him and calculate that he will be able to produce competent and uncorrupt administration — and one that has the support of his people? Or are they will to see what we have failed: that the last time there was an election in Palestine Mr. Abu Mazen’s party lost. The U.S. program in Iraq is in a shambles, calm and stability are returning to Gaza, questions about the American program for Palestine are being raised in Washington. This is not a time for sudden political movement or a shift in strategy, it is a time for political calculation. Hamas knows it. Israel knows it. Egypt knows it. Saudi Arabia knows it. The only person who doesn’t seem to know it is George Bush.



<li>9. Hamas’s reign in Gaza undermines the propaganda of its foes Some U.S. politicians and Abu Mazen’s more alarmist allies like to paint the Hamas administration in Gaza as a kind of pro-Iranian Islamic State, but this hardly stands up to scrutiny. There is no enforcement of the veil or other conservative Islamic social laws, no Sharia council, no compulsion to attend the mosque. Stability has returned to Gaza. People are obeying the law, and feel secure. This is not a lesson lost on either Egypt or the Israelis. Which would they rather have — civil conflict or civil order?



<li>10. Abu Mazen has crossed the line Several years after my mild confrontation with Mr. Arafat in Gaza, I met with him at his headquarters in Ramallah. It was a bright early April morning and quite memorable for its beauty: just one day after the resolution of the Siege of the Church of the Nativity. Those in the church had, the day before, been sent out of the church to Europe — away from their families and into an involuntary exile. Their departure had been emotional: they had walked out of the church as their families, on the rooftops of Bethlehem, cheered and wept.

The next day I traveled very early to Ramallah to see Arafat to talk to him about the siege. When I arrived I was ushered into his upstairs office. It was just after dawn. I was exhausted, but I found Arafat in a good mood and open to my banter. “I think you crossed a line,” I told him. It was something I would not have dared to say at any other time, but he was smiling at me and so he nodded, as if humoring me. “Oh? he asked. “And what line would that be.” I had him, finally, and so I recited the rule, liturgically: “Palestinians do not send other Palestinians into exile,” I said. He looked at me and nodded and then looked down, suddenly sad. “Yes,” he said. “But I have another line,” and he reflected: “Palestinians do not send other Palestinians to Israeli jails.”

There are lines. Palestinians do not send other Palestinians into exile; Palestinians do not shoot other Palestinians; Palestinians do not betray other Palestinians, Palestinians do not resolve their political differences by gunfire, Palestinians do not collaborate with their enemies, do not betray their own people, Palestinians are not traitors to their own cause, Palestinians do not send Palestinians to Israeli jails. And at one time or another each of these lines has been crossed. But at no time, ever, has any Palestinian ever renounced the one principle — the one true commandment that has motivated every Palestinian patriot from Arafat to Abu Musa to Abu Nidal: that the Palestinian people are indivisible; that they cannot be divided.

Until now. By turning his back on the Palestinians in Gaza, but even actively seeking their impoverishment in the United Nations (as he did, shamefully, on Friday, when his diplomats blocked efforts to seek a Security Council statement on the humanitarian situation there), Abu Mazen has set out to divide the Palestinian nation, to set it against itself. And that line, in the end, cannot be crossed. And the fact that Abu Mazen has crossed it will, in the hearts and minds of the Palestinian people, make all the difference. There is only one Palestine and now, Abu Mazen is not a part of it.

http://tonykaron.com/2007/07/31/why-oblivi...-mahmoud-abbas/

Democrats Scrambling to Expand Eavesdropping

By JAMES RISEN
Published: August 1, 2007

WASHINGTON, July 31 — Under pressure from President Bush, Democratic leaders in Congress are scrambling to pass legislation this week to expand the government’s electronic wiretapping powers.

Democratic leaders have expressed a new willingness to work with the White House to amend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act to make it easier for the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on some purely foreign telephone calls and e-mail. Such a step now requires court approval.

It would be the first change in the law since the Bush administration’s program of wiretapping without warrants became public in December 2005.

In the past few days, Mr. Bush and Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, have publicly called on Congress to make the change before its August recess, which could begin this weekend. Democrats appear to be worried that if they block such legislation, the White House will depict them as being weak on terrorism.

“We hope our Republican counterparts will work together with us to fix the problem, rather than try again to gain partisan political advantage at the expense of our national security,” Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, said in a statement Monday night.

Some civil liberties groups oppose the proposed changes, expressing concern that there might be far-reaching consequences.

“Congress needs to take its time before it implements another piece of antiterrorism legislation it will regret, like the Patriot Act,” said Anthony D. Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “The Bush administration clearly has abused the FISA powers it already has and clearly wants to go back to the good old days of warrantless wiretapping and domestic spying. Congress must stop this bill in its tracks.”

The administration says that digital technology and the globalization of the telecommunications industry have created a legal quandary for the intelligence community. Some purely international telephone calls are now routed through telephone switches inside the United States, which means such “transit traffic” can be subject to federal surveillance laws requiring search warrants for any government eavesdropping.

Under the program of wiretapping without warrants, which began soon after the Sept. 11 attacks, the N.S.A. eavesdropped on the transit traffic without seeking court approval. But in January, the administration placed the program back under the FISA law, which meant warrants were required for surveillance of the transit traffic.

In the Senate, talks were under way on Tuesday on proposed legislation among members of the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well as Mr. Reid and the Senate leadership, Congressional aides said. Similar talks are under way in the House.

Mr. McConnell sent Congressional leaders a new legislative plan last Friday, one that was more limited than an earlier administration plan.

The White House has told Democratic lawmakers that it will accept a narrow bill now but will come back later for broader changes, including legal immunity for telecommunications companies involved in the wiretapping program.

Mr. McConnell met with Congressional leaders of both parties on Tuesday to try to reach a compromise, a spokesman for him said.

Representative Heather Wilson, Republican of New Mexico and a member of the House Intelligence Committee, said, “Admiral McConnell has made the case that this change is needed and that it is a serious problem. This is too serious for political games.”

One obstacle to a deal this week is a disagreement between Democrats and the White House over how to audit the wiretapping of the foreign-to-foreign calls going through switches in the United States.

The Democrats have proposed that the eavesdropping be reviewed by the secret FISA court to make sure that it has not ensnared any Americans.

The administration has proposed that the attorney general perform the review, but Democrats are unwilling to give that kind of authority to Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, who is under fire for what some lawmakers describe as his misleading testimony about the dismissals of federal prosecutors and the wiretapping program.

Mr. Gonzalez has insisted that a 2004 dispute between the White House and Justice Department officials that erupted in the hospital room of then Attorney General John Ashcroft related to other intelligence activities. On Sunday, The New York Times reported that the dispute centered on the data mining elements of the N.S.A.’s program, rather than on the eavesdropping, leaving open the possibility that Mr. Gonzalez had been legalistic in his testimony, but had technically not lied.

In a letter Tuesday to Senator Arlen Specter, the Pennsylvania Republican who is the ranking minority member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. McConnell seemed to confirm the Times account though the letter did not mention Mr. Gonzalez or his testimony.

The letter said that “shortly after 9/11, the president authorized the National Security Agency to undertake various intelligence activities designed to protect the United States from further terrorist attack. A number of these intelligence activities were authorized in one order.”

The letter adds that “one particular aspect of these activities, and nothing more, was publicly acknowledged by the president and described in December 2005, following an unauthorized disclosure.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/01/washingt...and&emc=rss

Obama's Terrorism Speech: Another Break With Democratic Party Orthodoxy


Barack Obama's August 1 speech outlining an aggressive anti-terrorist policy is part of the Illinois Senator's larger campaign strategy, demonstrating his willingness to break from liberal orthodoxy -- defying teachers' unions, proponents of racially based affirmative action, and Democratic constituencies wary of the use of force.

Obama, the first African American with a serious shot at winning the Democratic presidential nomination, warned in his Washington address today at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars that as president he would be willing to unilaterally attack al Qaeda targets in Pakistan.

"If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will.... There must be no safe-haven for terrorists who threaten America. We cannot fail to act because action is hard."

In his speech Obama sought to affirm his credentials as a prospective Commander in Chief who would not only end the war in Iraq, but who would also aggressively mount an offensive against Islamic terrorists.

His posture provoked immediate criticism from some quarters.

Chris Bowers, a blogger who writes on Open Left, argues that Obama is mistakenly trying to win the approval of the Washington establishment:

"No Democrat running for President tells the country that he will deploy more troops to Afghanistan and conduct military strikes in Pakistan without Pakistan's approval in order to appeal to the primary electorate."

In a Wednesday interview with American Urban Radio News Networks, Hillary Clinton adopted a similar position to Obama's on unilateral attacks within Pakistan's borders, but with more cautious rhetoric.

"We have to have a much smarter relationship with Pakistan and the military of Pakistan to build credibility and support for their taking the actions that only they can take within their own country. But clearly we have to be prepared.... if we had actionable intelligence that Osama bin Laden or other high-value targets were in Pakistan I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured."

Although little noticed, Obama has been challenging influential Democratic primary constituencies at a rate of about once a month, building what now is a significant record of dissent from key party factions. He has taken on civil rights groups, the National Education Association, and the powerful lobby opposed to any changes in Social Security benefits.

Appearing May 13 on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Obama suggested that he is prepared to consider a major alteration of affirmative action policy to make it less racially based and more economically rooted:

"My daughters should probably be treated by any admissions officer as folks who are pretty advantaged," he said. "I think that we should take into account white kids who have been disadvantaged and have grown up in poverty and shown themselves to have what it takes to succeed."

In the same May 13 interview, Obama said he would consider raising both the retirement age and payroll taxes as part of a package to put Social Security on a stable fiscal basis. "Everything should be on the table," Obama said, although he rules out privatization.

A month later, in a June 7 talk at a Spartanburg, South Carolina Baptist Church, Obama pointedly challenged black men who abandon their children:

"There are a lot of men out there who need to stop acting like boys; who need to realize that responsibility does not end at conception; you need to know that what makes you a man is not the ability to have a child but the courage to raise one,"

And in Philadelphia, at a July 5 National Education Association meeting, Obama endorsed merit pay -- anathema to teachers' unions. "If you excel at helping your students achieve success, your success will be valued and rewarded as well," Obama said, careful to add, "I want to work with teachers. I'm not going to do it to you, I'm going to do it with you."

In some respects, Obama's controversial stands are reminiscent of the 1992 campaign. That year Bill Clinton took on Jesse Jackson, criticizing rapper ("If black people kill black people every day, why not have a week and kill white people?") Sister Souljah, a guest of Jackson's at a Rainbow Coalition meeting. Clinton sought to distance himself from radical currents in the African American community, and the event became known as Clinton's "Sister Souljah moment."

Obama is similarly seeking to establish his political independence from Democratic party interest groups, refuting stereotypes which might encumber his candidacy.

Obama has had unprecedented success in the campaign so far. Despite Hillary Clinton's institutional and organizational advantage, Obama has moved from running 20-plus points behind Clinton at the start of the year to a current deficit of only 12 to 13 points, compared to John Edwards' 18 points lag behind Clinton today.

If nothing else, Obama's speech Wednesday has shaped the entire Democratic presidential debate for at least one news cycle, prompting every major candidate, and some minor ones, to comment on it. Whether Obama succeeded in changing his polling numbers remains to be seen.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/08/01/o...ch_n_58815.html

Obama Says He Would Take Fight To Pakistan

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, August 2, 2007; A01

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama issued a pointed warning yesterday to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, saying that as president he would be prepared to order U.S. troops into that country unilaterally if it failed to act on its own against Islamic extremists.

In his most comprehensive statement on terrorism, the senator from Illinois said that the Iraq war has left the United States less safe than it was before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and that if elected he would seek to withdraw U.S. troops and shift the country's military focus to threats in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won," he told an audience at the Woodrow Wilson Center in the District. He added, "The first step must be to get off the wrong battlefield in Iraq and take the fight to the terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan."

Obama's warning to Musharraf drew sharp criticism from several of his rivals for the Democratic nomination, but not from Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.).

Obama delivered a biting critique of President Bush's conduct of the war in Iraq and of the administration's overall strategy for combating terrorism, while seeking to reassure Americans that his long-stated opposition to the Iraq war would not compromise his commitment to defending the country from the threat of Islamic extremists.

The muscular speech appeared aimed at inoculating him from criticism that he lacks the toughness to lead the country in a post-9/11 world, while attempting to show that an Obama presidency would herald an important shift in the United States' approach to the world, particularly the Middle East and nearby Asian nations.

The speech came a week after Clinton described Obama as "irresponsible and frankly naive" for saying during a Democratic debate that he would be prepared to meet during his first year as president with leaders of rogue nations without preconditions. That set off a days-long argument between the two over diplomacy and the use of the presidency.

Obama described Clinton's approach to diplomacy as "Bush-Cheney light." She described that comparison as "silly." Their differences on the issue of dealing with nations such as Iran, North Korea and Syria, however, appear not to be significant. Both favor a much more energetic and open diplomatic strategy than they say Bush has followed.

Much of Obama's speech yesterday focused on steps designed to reinvigorate U.S. diplomatic efforts to combat terrorism, but the most noteworthy proposals dealt with military actions. Obama said he would deploy at least two more brigades -- about 7,000 troops -- to Afghanistan to combat what he said is the growing Taliban influence there while sending the Afghan government an additional $1 billion in nonmilitary aid.

But he said he would tie U.S. military aid to Pakistan to that country's success in closing down terrorist training camps, in blocking the Taliban from using its territory as a staging ground for attacks on Afghanistan and in getting rid of foreign fighters.

"There are terrorists holed up in those mountains who murdered 3,000 Americans," he said. "They are plotting to strike again. . . . If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will."

Obama offered no direct criticism of his leading rival for the Democratic nomination, but he indirectly rebuked Clinton and other Democrats who voted for the 2002 resolution authorizing the war. "With that vote, Congress became co-author of a catastrophic war," he said.

Clinton did not respond yesterday to the issue of her Iraq vote, but she sought to show her toughness on dealing with terrorist threats without endorsing the idea of raids into Pakistan. In an interview with American Urban Radio News Networks, she said that if there were actionable intelligence showing Osama bin Laden or other prominent terrorist leaders in Pakistan, "I would ensure that they were targeted and killed or captured." She also said she long has favored sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Other Democratic candidates took issue with Obama's tough talk on Pakistan.

"It is dangerous and irresponsible to leave even the impression the United States would needlessly and publicly provoke a nuclear power," Sen. Christopher J. Dodd (Conn.) said in a statement.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, in a telephone interview, said that Obama's threat, if acted upon, could inflame the entire Muslim world. "My international experience tells me that we should address this issue with tough diplomacy first with Musharraf and then leave the military option as a last resort," he said.

Former senator John Edwards (N.C.) said in a statement that he would first apply "maximum diplomatic and economic pressure on states like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia" to do their utmost to combat the spread of terrorism. He also challenged both Obama and Clinton to block a proposed U.S. arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (Del.), chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called Obama's threat misguided. "The way to deal with it is not to announce it, but to do it," Biden said at the National Press Club. "The last thing you want to do is telegraph to the folks in Pakistan that we are about to violate their sovereignty."

Obama said opposition to the war in Iraq should not lead Americans to turn their backs on threats of terrorism. "The terrorists are at war with us," he said. "The threat is from violent extremists who are a small minority of the world's 1.3 billion Muslims, but the threat is real."

Beyond military measures aimed at defeating al-Qaeda, Obama outlined a series of other initiatives he would pursue to combat those threats. He repeated an earlier pledge to double U.S. foreign aid to $50 billion, said he would provide $2 billion to combat the influence of Islamic schools known as madrassas and launch a more ambitious public diplomacy initiative, which he promised to steer.

"As president, I will lead this effort," he said. "In the first 100 days of my administration, I will travel to a major Islamic forum and deliver an address to redefine our struggle."

Obama also called for additional steps to protect the homeland from possible attack and a reassertion of American values, promising to prohibit torture "without exception," close the terrorist prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and ensure that all intelligence gathering is done within the letter of the law.

Rekindling last week's debate with Clinton, Obama said he would bring a new approach to diplomacy. "It's time to turn the page on Washington's conventional wisdom that agreement must be reached before you meet, that talking to other countries is some kind of reward and that presidents can only meet with people who will tell them what they want to hear."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...0101233_pf.html

Fix FISA Fast
by Jed Babbin

US intelligence agencies are missing out on what may be enormous amounts of crucial intelligence on foreign-based terrorists apparently due to a classified ruling of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court in about April 2007.

In a telephone conference call Wednesday morning, Senate Intelligence Committee ranking Republican Sen. Kit Bond (R-Mo) declined to say if such a ruling had come down or -- if one had -- what it said. But Bond did say that some significant action -- which we believe most likely is a ruling by that court -- placed a new and severe limitation on US intelligence agencies’ gathering of electronic intelligence. The new burden -- whatever its source -- was severe enough to propel Adm. Mike McConnell, the Director of National Intelligence, to come to the Senate on April 27 and ask that FISA be amended quickly to remove it.

Bond also said that the necessary legislation had been prepared soon after McConnell’s request, and could have been passed out of committee as early as last May. Democrats have objected, and still are creating obstacles that could prevent the amendments from enactment before Congress goes on its August recess Saturday.

The hang-ups include a proposal drafted by Democratic committee staffers that would require a FISA warrant for authority to intercept and record more than a certain number of telephone calls or e-mails from a foreign terrorist. That would extend the FISA requirements into what has -- up to this point -- always been regarded as the President’s constitutional authority to gather foreign intelligence, even by the original drafters of FISA. Republicans are likely to have that excluded.

It is impossible to analyze the FISA problem or the proposed solutions without resort to what we believe is a classified ruling of the court (which we do not have). But well within our reach are two things.

First, whatever burden on intelligence gathering that was created in April is now actually limiting intelligence collection. In effect, the National Security Agency and other US gatherers of electronic intelligence have been precluded – in whole or in part --from listening in on about 90 days’ of terrorist communications to persons within the United States. No wonder Homeland Security Secretary Mike Chertoff had a “gut feeling” about summer dangers. If the FISA court created an obstacle to gathering essential intelligence, Chertoff’s acid reflux may be all we have.

Second, to allow the obstacle to remain is a fundamental violation of the sovereign’s duty to protect the citizenry. All three branches of government are involved, and two -- Congress and the Executive -- have absolutely no excuse for failing to act.

The Democrats are, typically, more concerned about the “rights” of foreign terrorists and the danger of innocent Americans being listened to than the danger of missing intelligence the interception of which might prevent another 9-11.

There are, in FISA and in the proposed legislation, controls that would prevent innocent communications -- if recorded mistakenly -- to be expunged from government records. The proposed legislation apparently creates more of a role for the Attorney General (which Sen. Bond said was intended as another check and balance on the intelligence gathering) and which now, because of Dems’ disdain for Alberto Gonzales, is another stumbling block.

Several members of the press on the call with Bond tried to blame the administration for injecting Gonzales into the matter. Bond’s answer was that the person occupying the office of AG is irrelevant. That didn’t seem to satisfy the pressies.

What if Congress fails to act? What if it just kicks the FISA problem down the road until September? The choice will then be for the President to assert his constitutional authority to gather foreign intelligence (which FISA, even in its original form wasn’t intended to limit) or -- we guess -- to break the law as determined by the FISA court.

The Democrats would probably rather create a situation where George Bush could be accused of “high crimes and misdemeanors” than fix whatever ails FISA. Ten or twenty years ago, reaching that conclusion would have required appending the adverb “amazingly” to the conclusion about the Dems’ preference. That our politics has descended to the point where that adverb is not only unnecessary, it would be factually incorrect.

But even these Dems aren’t likely to go out for a month’s recess without passing some FISA fix, though what may be done will likely be incomplete. The Dems aren’t so far gone that they’d risk that a terrorist attack would happen in August (after they had failed to fix what’s broken and would have to take responsibility.)

The Democrats Prime Directive -- never do anything related to the war that could give you responsibility for the effects -- will overrule their momentary political instinct. Something will get done, but just enough to give cover for those who don’t want to do all that needs to be done.

Our intelligence community remains mired in bureaucracy. Congressional oversight isn’t too little, but too much. Dozens of committees and subcommittees -- as the 9-11 Commission found -- govern pieces and parts of the intelligence functions. This is one major 9-11 Commission recommendation Congress has willfully ignored.

When Congress returns in September, a fix to whatever problems with FISA won’t be enough. Congress needs to fix itself first. Streamline congressional authorities and then you can really fix what’s broken in our intelligence agencies. Roll back the post 9-11 “reforms” and get about fixing what’s really broken
http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=21780

Obama talks tough on Pakistan, terror
By Paul Richter
He says that as president, he would take action if the U.S. ally failed to fight
terrorism. Liberal Democrats may take issue.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...;track=ntottext

Court puts limits on surveillance abroad
By Greg Miller
The ruling raises concerns that U.S. anti-terrorism efforts might be impaired at
a time of heightened risk.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/na...;track=ntottext

Saudis confront U.S. on criticism over Iraq
By Peter Spiegel
Foreign minister says his country is doing all it can to stop militants from
crossing the border.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...;track=ntottext

Russian crew begins its deep Arctic dive
By David Holley
Mini-subs set off on a journey to the sea floor in what is seen as a bid to
claim territory that may be rich in oil.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/wo...;track=ntottext

D.C. elites want you to shush on Iraq
By Matthew Yglesias
Be afraid when the same centrist consensus that has a lousy track record on the
war lashes out at partisans.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-...;track=ntottext

U.S., Saudi Arabia have drifted apart
By Nancy A. Youssef and Warren P. Strobel | McClatchy Newspapers

Secretary of Defense Robert Gates. | View larger image

JEDDAH, Saudi Arabia — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates failed to bridge differences with Saudi Arabia Wednesday in a growing public dispute over allegations of Saudi support for insurgents in Iraq. Instead, the talks revealed how far the onetime close allies have drifted apart.

Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal expressed astonishment at recent Bush administration charges that Saudi Arabia is providing funding, equipment and manpower to Iraq's Sunni-led insurgency, and he rejected an appeal by Rice and Gates to give public backing to the Shiite-led government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki.

"I think what is needed is action on the other side. The trafficking of terrorists, I can assure you, is more of a concern for us from Iraq, and this is one of the worries our government has," al Faisal said, flanked by Rice and Gates.

In the talks, which began Tuesday evening and concluded Wednesday morning, Rice and Gates made small strides at best on the key issues: Iraq, Iran, tensions in Lebanon and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Al Faisal said Saudi Arabia would consider opening an embassy in Baghdad, something the United States has long wanted to see in order to bolster the shaky U.S.-backed government there. He also said his country would consider attending a U.S.-proposed peace conference, but only if it "deals with the substantive matters of peace."

He reserved his sharpest reaction for Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations and the highest-level U.S. official to charge Saudi Arabia with providing support for the Sunni insurgency in Iraq. Khalilzad, the former ambassador to Iraq, had said in a New York Times opinion piece last month that neighboring countries other than Iran and Syria were pursuing destabilizing policies in Iraq. On Sunday, he said in a television interview that he was referring to Saudi Arabia, among other countries.

"I was astounded by what he said, especially since we have never heard from him these criticisms when he was here," the foreign minister retorted. "He may have been influenced by the atmosphere at the U.N."

The muddled outcome of the meeting comes at a time when President Bush, who dispatched Rice and Gates on a special mission to the Middle East, is under pressure to show results from a diplomatic initiative intended to reverse the precarious U.S. position in the region.

"It wasn't a 'yes', and it wasn't a 'no'," said former State Department official Jon Alterman, now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, of the Saudis' reaction to the Bush administration's requests. The talks, he said, were "diplomatic, rather than definitive."

Vali Nasr, an expert on Shiite Islam at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the trip's results show an increasingly independent Saudi Arabia that's less beholden to Washington's wishes.

It's "a major break in U.S.-Saudi relations. And it shows the Saudis want to follow an independent policy," Nasr said. "They think the U.S. needs their support against Iran. They think the U.S. needs their public support of the Palestinian peace process. And they are taking advantage of that."

Rice and Gates arrived in Jeddah on Tuesday night and dined with Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah at one of his palaces. They discussed policy while facing a wall-length tank filled with fish, including two 10-foot sharks that the Saudis fed throughout the evening.

On Wednesday, Gates headed to Kuwait, his first visit there as secretary of defense. There, he saw the U.S. military installation by helicopter, which the U.S. uses to move troops and equipment to and from Iraq. Rice went on to Israel, her first visit there since the militant Palestinian group Hamas took over the Gaza Strip in a violent June coup.

Saudi Arabia has long declined to establish a diplomatic outpost in Iraq, whose Shiite-led government it views with disdain. Arab nations also have security concerns following the July 2005 kidnapping and assassination of Egypt's ambassador to Iraq.

A senior State Department official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak on the record, welcomed the announcement that Saudi Arabia would send a delegation to Baghdad to explore opening a Saudi embassy. But he cautioned that relations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government remain tense.

"I don't want to overrate it," he said. "They have real concerns about the Maliki government."

Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, also welcomed al Faisal's statement. "I believe the Saudi announcement of today is encouraging," Livni said at a brief press conference with Rice in Jerusalem.

The international meeting — U.S. officials have refused to call it a "conference" — is expected to take place in the fall, after the Muslim holiday month of Ramadan, which begins in mid-September, and the Jewish holidays, said the senior State Department official. But the agenda, attendance list and locale remain unclear.

In Israel, Rice met with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and other top officials to try to encourage a warming of ties between Israel and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas after the Hamas party seized power in Gaza, which prompted Abbas to dismiss the Hamas-led Palestinian unity government.

On Thursday, she'll meet Abbas in Ramallah and is expected to announce initial U.S. aid of about $10 million to help reform Palestinian security services. But no breakthroughs are expected.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/18634.html

<h3 class="post-title entry-title"> Netanyahu: 'Hamastan' in West Bank must be prevented by Sheera Claire Frenkel </h3> Netanyahu: 'Hamastan' in West Bank must be prevented
By SHEERA CLAIRE FRENKEL

Any West Bank land that Israel fails to settle is land made available for another "Hamastan," said Likud chairman Binyamin Netanyahu Wednesday during a tour of Judea and Samaria.

"Any areas we evacuate now will be taken over by Hamas, which is simply a tool of Iran. The only reason this is not also Hamastan, like the Gaza Strip has become, is because the IDF is here," said Netanyahu.

Netanyahu, who will likely be reelected Likud chairman next month, displayed his commitment to settler expansion by then planting a sapling in the unauthorized outpost of Kida, near Shiloh.

"I wish I could plant more than this tree, but that will have to wait," said Netanyahu, as he bent down to tuck earth around the sapling.

Congratulating the young farmers on being true capitalists, in addition to settlers, Netanyahu said that he was reminded of the "early pioneering spirit of Israel."

"I would like to see the maximum possible development, and the maximum possible area kept in any future peace deal," said Netanyahu.

"The current government seems to have give up on much of the territory before they have even begun negotiations."

Netanyahu's decision to visit an illegal outpost was highly controversial, and members of his staff considered canceling the appearance hours before. Likud activists from within the settler movement insisted that he visit the outpost, claiming that it would set the tone for his eventual campaign as prime minister.

"The Likud has received much support from the people here and, God willing, Bibi [Netanyahu] will be elected as the next prime minister with the help of the settlers," said Pinhas Wallerstein, a West Bank settler leader.

Netanyahu's campaign for the premiership appeared to have already begun Wednesday as he announced that under his control, broad economic incentives and state-sponsored businesses would increase in the West Bank.

"The potential in the West Bank is enormous," said Netanyahu. "When you are sitting in the prime minister's office the pressure of the whole world is on you. I have the power to ease that pressure and to make the settlements blossom."

Certain settlements, including Eli and Hebron, must be expanded and given the complete support of the state, he said.

"These areas, like the Jewish settlement Hebron, go back to our people's history," said Netanyahu. "They go back to the essence of Zionism."

Netanyahu also promised to advance a plan to build more Jewish-only roads to link the settlements with Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, affording settlers more business opportunities.

Likud leadership candidates Moshe Feiglin and Danny Danon both criticized Netanyahu's visit to Judea and Samaria.

Danon called on the Yesha Council to boycott the visit, pointing out that during Netanyahu's term as prime minister he had often disappointed the settlers.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull

DEBKAfile Exclusive: Olmert approves American plan for big new Palestinian town on West Bank

August 2, 2007, 4:52 PM (GMT+02:00)



To be situated 20 km south of Nablus and 35 km north of Ramallah on the road linking them, the town is planned for 30-40,000 Palestinian inhabitants in the first stage, expanding in the second to 70,000 ten years hence. It will be located in Area B under Israeli security control.

Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has kept the project, which represents a major strategic restructure of West Bank geography, under his hat. He did not submit the American plan to the cabinet, or even the security-political ministerial forum, before giving the go-ahead to the visiting US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, Wednesday night, Aug. 1.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources report that the new town site will encompass the Palestinian villages of Qabalan, Oseria and Qudela and straddle Trans-Samaria Highway 505 opposite Tapuach junction. The US planners intend the new town to provide territorial contiguity between Nablus and Ramallah. At the same time, it will cut off Israeli villages in the Jordan Valley from the settlement blocs in Samaria.

The new Palestinian urban entity, which our sources reveal Olmert first learned about in his talks with President Bush on June 19, will be the first Arab town to go up in the region in 1,500 years, since the foundation of Ramleh.

During his White House visit, Olmert learned that the Americans regard the Palestinian town as a primary project for consolidating Mahmoud Abbas’ government. It is designed to provide tens of thousands of jobs for West Bankers, whose unemployment rate has soared to 70 percent since the Palestinian uprising was launched against Israel in 2000.

American town planners and architects hired by the US government have prepared initial diagrams after secret visits to the site. During her current tour, Rice showed the plans to the Israeli prime minister, Abbas and Palestinian prime minister Salam Fayyad.

The problem still outstanding is financing. It was hoped that the Saudis would put up part of the initial investment for the foundations. When he brokered the Mecca accord for a Palestinian unity government earlier this year, the monarch pledged $250 million in aid to the Palestinians. However, this hope was dashed, when King Abdullah flatly refused to hear of aid to the Abbas regime in his talks with the US secretary in Jeddah Tuesday.

Click HERE to see the full-size map.

http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=4465

Congress Critters: P2P a Threat to National Security
It is understandable Congress critters are concerned about the existence of peer-to-peer networks as Congress by and large is owned and operated by transnational corporations and the very idea of non-centralized peers operating as equals sans central servers and routers is anathema to them. It should come as no surprise Congress has declared peer-to-peer networks to be a threat to “national security,” that is to say the very concept runs counter to the idea of “public-private partnering in homeland security,” i.e., corporations mandating threats—usually defined as the inability to dominate markets and enforce monopolies—and unleashing federal dogs on “terrorists,” that is to say those who either refuse to accept or resist their dominance.

“According to recent studies by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, and private researchers,” TMCnet reports, federal employees are wont “to share sensitive or classified documents accidentally from their computers,” including “confidential corporate-accounting documents, localized terrorist threat assessments, classified government military orders, as well as personal information such as federal workers’ credit card numbers, bank statements, tax returns and medical records,” and thus there ought to be a law. “Although politicians believed that there are benefits to peer-to-peer technology, they felt that if proper restrictions are not imposed, it will compromise national security, intrude on personal privacy and violate copyright law. Both [Government Reform Committee Chairman Henry Waxman] and Rep. Paul Hodes called P2P networks ongoing national security threats.”

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2..._b_Critters.htm

Saudis buy major supplier to U.S. military
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia has acquired a Massachusetts firm that is a leading supplier to the U.S. military.

The state-owned Saudi Basic Industries Corp. has purchased GE Plastics from General Electric for $11.6 billion. Based in Pittsfield, Mass., GE Plastics, with 11,000 employees, develops and manufactures plastic polymers, composites and polycarbonates used in U.S. military platforms, including fighter-jets, submarines and engines.

"SABIC's intention is to grow globally," SABIC chief executive officer Mohamed Al Mady said.

In May 2007, SABIC announced the acquisition of GE Plastics, regarded as the largest transaction ever completed in the United States by a Gulf Cooperation Council state, Middle East Newsline reported. Seventy percent of SABIC, which employees 17,000 people, is owned by the Saudi government, with Middle East investors accounting for the rest of the company.

SABIC, established in 1976, bested the U.S.-based Apollo Management and the Dutch firm Bassell for the acquisition of GE Plastics. The Saudi company offered $11.6 billion for GE Plastics.

The purchase of GE Plastics must be approved by the Committee on Foreign Investments in the U.S, aligned with the Treasury Department. In March 2006, CFIUS enabled the purchase of Britain's Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Co., which operates the six major U.S. ports, by the United Arab Emirates.

Congress protested the sale of P&O on grounds of national security, and the UAE's Dubai Ports World backed out of the deal. DP World, however, succeeded in its bid to acquire Britain's Doncasters Group Ltd., a manufacturer of precision aircraft engine parts for the U.S. military.

Executives said GE Plastics maintains contracts with the U.S. Defense Department, Homeland Security Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, or NASA. Congress has not raised objections to the SABIC purchase.

http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/W...audis_07_31.asp

<h1 align="left">The New York Times and Iraq</h1> <h1 align="left">Still Getting It Wrong</h1>

“About 8 million Iraqis -- nearly a third of the population -- need immediate emergency aid because of the humanitarian crisis caused by the war.”

Hamas and Islamic Jihad Clash

By Matthew Levitt


According to press reports, the day after a Hamas militant was killed by a member of Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), Hamas responded by killing two militants (one from Islamic Jihad and another from Fatah) and wounding three Islamic Jihad militants.

Tellingly, friction between the two Islamist terrorist groups is not over the wisdom or legitimacy of attacking Israel or undermining the government of Mahmoud Abbas - on those issues they are in complete agreement. Rather, the clash is over edicts - issued by the rogue Hamas government still governing Gaza in the wake of the Hamas coup there - that weapons are not to be carried or fired in public. Clashes began after Islamic Jihad members fired weapons in the air at a wedding earlier this week.

Traditionally, the relationship between Hamas and Islamic Jihad has vacillated between tense rivalry and close cooperation. One periods of tension occurred in 1994 and 1995 when, even as they continued to conduct joint operations, the groups engaged in a mild but public competition over Islamic Jihad leaders' shortlived decision to establish a dawa social welfare network of their own to compete with that of Hamas. More recently, a significant clash between the two groups erupted in late 2004 - early 2005, when Hamas charged Islamic Jihad of upstaging it on the stage of what it called "media jihad."

For a full discussion of the history of cooperation and conflict between Hamas and Islamic Jihad in general, and of the clash over "media jihad" in particular, see Hamas and Islamic Jihad Clash over 'Media Jihad'


August 2, 2007 10:50 AM Link
http://counterterrorismblog.org/

New Al Qaeda Web Ad Threatens 'Big Surprise'
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August 01, 2007 7:34 PM

Rhonda Schwartz Reports:

Newalqaedawe_mn A new al Qaeda propaganda ad, headlined "Wait for the Big Surprise" and featuring a digitally altered photograph of President George Bush and Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf standing in front of a burning White House, was posted on the Internet today.

The brief clip from al Qaeda's "as Sahab" propaganda arm juxtaposes the doctored photo of Bush and Musharraf along with previously seen images of al Qaeda's top leadership -- Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahri and Adam Gadahn -- as well as a photo of an SUV in a motorcade.

There is no additional information provided in the ad, and it closes with the words, "Soon -- God willing," written across the screen and repeated several times.

See the Al Qaeda Web Ad Captured by ABC News

Following the recent failed London-Glasgow terror plot, U.S. intelligence officials have been paying closer attention to the now frequent propaganda releases from as Sahab, studying the videos for hidden clues or signals.

The full video is expected to be released on the Web in the next 24 to 48 hours.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/0...l-qaeda-we.html

William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security



Pat Tillman and the Coming Witch Hunt on Iraq
Interrupting his retirement and in need of a haircut, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld showed up on Capitol Hill yesterday for the first time since leaving the Pentagon. He had been called to testify not about Iraq, Iran, Pakistan or al-Qaeda, but about the death of former NFL star and Army Ranger Pat Tillman.

Rumsfeld said he was sorry for whatever mistakes had been made, but he wasn't responsible for any of them, and the three current or former generals who testified alongside him echoed his remarks. The news media lapped all this up, even as it became clear that the hearing would come to naught. Is this a preview of the post-Iraq witch hunt we will experience after the 2008 elections?

Motivated by a desire for national service, Tillman quit a promising and lucrative job as a safety with the Arizona Cardinals of the NFL to join the U.S. Army Rangers after 9/11. On April 22, 2004, he was killed in a friendly fire incident while operating in the mountain of eastern Afghanistan. His family and the nation were told he was killed by enemy fire. On May 1, 2004, President Bush mentioned Tillman in a speech to the White House Correspondents Association annual dinner. America had a hero, and just in time: Iraq was descending into anarchy. On May 29, the Army announced that Tillman was shot by fellow Rangers in a friendly fire incident.

The case has received national media attention ever since, with the Tillman family heroically and doggedly pushing the Army and the Pentagon to properly investigate the circumstances of the death and the sorry aftermath of exaggeration, misstatement and coverup. Yesterday's hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee included not just Rumsfeld but also former Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard B. Myers, former Commander of U.S. Central Command Gen. John P. Abizaid and former Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command Gen. Bryan Douglas Brown.

Rumsfeld firmly denied any coverup and said that he did not learn that Tillman was killed in Afghanistan by friendly fire until nearly a month after the incident. He said he did not recall ever discussing the death with anyone in the White House. The three blind mice who accompanied the former secretary also said that they learned how Tillman died well after the event and never talked to or coordinated a public relations campaign with the White House.

Badly handled, errors were made, deeply regrettable: We heard it all yesterday. In the end, committee chair Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) admitted a certain defeat: "You've all admitted that the system failed," he said, yet "none of you feel personally responsible."

By now we know that the Army failed to follow its own rules on informing the family of a possible fratricide within 30 days, and we know from documents and Inspector General reports that officers lied and obfuscated and that the Army mishandled the investigation, destroying evidence and fabricating events. The chronology now shows that when Pentagon leaders were told that Tillman might have been killed by fellow troops, they gossiped about the case among themselves but made no particular move to correct the public record.

Anyone who knows anything about Washington and government knows that "the system failed" is the ultimate coverup. The way the system works, of course, is to ensure that government officials -- particularly high-level government officials -- are always insulated from incriminating evidence. Lower-level flunkies know what to tell their bosses and how to use the chain of command to insulate themselves from higher-up decisions. If each person at each level behaves as mandated, decisions can be made without any real responsibility and accountability. After the fact, everyone can marvel that the decision was made by someone else of which they have no personal knowledge.

After all, key decisions about the Iraq war remain enigmas: to limit the number of U.S. troops involved in the assault, to pay less attention to the aftermath, to carry out a de-Ba'athification program in the Iraqi Army, etc., etc. The very description of the events is so passive because we are describing a system that in fact is working. It remains unclear who made the key decisions and why -- because that is how the participants want it.

My bet is that we'll never really find out. The Tillman episode is just a mini-version of what the nation will experience when and if we finally investigate how things went wrong in Iraq.

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Long commutes.
Dirty Water.
Delayed flights.
Failing Dams.
With each passing day, aging and overburdened infrastructure threatens the economy and quality of life in every state, city and town in the nation.

Read about the infrastructure issues in your region and how you can help raise the grade on America's failing infrastructure.

map of United States


ASCE estimates that $1.6 trillion is needed over a five-year period to bring the nation's infrastructure to a good condition. Establishing a long-term development and maintenance plan must become a national priority. But in the short term, small steps can be taken by the 110th Congress, as well as state legislatures and local communities, to improve our nation's failing infrastructure.

Forward or Back? Recent steps on infrastructure issues

July 22, 2007: ASCE Featured on NBC Nightly News, Nation's crumbling infrastructure will take trillions to upgrade, That underground pipe explosion this week here in New York that killed one person and injured dozens has focused new attention on the state of the underpinnings of our cities and towns from coast to coast, systems and structures that many of us use every day, but hardly ever think about. And fixing the problems will cost a lot of money, perhaps more than $1.6 trillion.
Watch the video...

Washington, DC: July 11, 2007, House Transportation and Infrastructure Leaders React to OMB Report on Transportation Trust Fund Shortfall T&I Leaders Question Numbers? Accuracy, Plan Hearing. According to OMB, the Trust Fund will experience considerable funding shortfalls in the next few years. The agency projects that the Highway Account of the Trust Fund will have a deficit of as much as $4.3 billion by the end of FY 2009.
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Washington, DC: June 28, 2007: House Committee Approves $66 Billion Aviation Bill. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee approved a bill on Thursday that would provide $66 billion over the next four years to help rebuild U.S. airports and modernize the aviation system. The legislation would: Provide $15.8 billion in new funding for the Airport Improvement Program (AIP) and authorize $13 billion for the FAA facilities and equipment program, among other things.
Click here to read more...

Baltimore, MD: July 17, 2007, New Thinking Needed On Floods, The Baltimore Sun, Floods are the most destructive, most frequent and most costly natural disasters on earth. And they're getting worse.
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Boston, MA: July 17, 2007, The Road Ahead for Mass. Transportation Policy, The Boston Globe, A look at the system reveals aging infrastructure, insufficient coordination between agencies that shape transportation policy, and a funding structure perpetuated by previous administrations that left a $15 billion to $19 billion shortfall for maintenance alone - before any new projects are considered.
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Sacramento, CA: July 16, 2007, Governor goes where there's flow in bid to tackle state water crunch; Tour will study dams, canal around the Delta and more conservation, Sacramento Bee, As budget wrangling continues at the Capitol, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger will head out to reservoirs and waterways this week to pressure lawmakers into approving water storage, conservation programs and a canal around the Delta later this year.
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Indianapolis, IN: July, 16 2007, Down the drain; City's water system wasted a billion gallons last year, Indianapolis Business Journal, , two of the biggest culprits, amounting to at least 1 billion gallons, are leaky water mains and service line breaks and unknown/invisible water loss.
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Archived Infrastructure Stories

http://www.asce.org/reportcard/2005/index.cfm

Blasting American Infrastructure Away

By Jim Hightower, Hightower Lowdown. Posted November 29, 2006.

http://www.alternet.org/story/44851/

It's not the terrorists who are targeting and destroying the heart of America; it's Bush & Co.! var zflag_nid="600"; var zflag_cid="3/1"; var zflag_sid="1"; var zflag_width="300"; var zflag_height="250"; var zflag_sz="9"; CODE RED, AMERICANS! Screaming, flashing, neon-bright, God Almighty RED!!! Not just a single disaster, but multiple, biblical-level catastrophes are being plotted by a diabolical, heretofore unnamed network of terrorists who're out to destroy America with an unprecedented series of attacks.

They have their sights on our busiest airports. Also our dams, with the potential for horrific mass destruction. In addition, our municipal water systems and unified electric-power grids are on their list. Plus, we have proof that these ruthless cowards, in zealous pursuit of their own narrow ideology, have already spread into every area of our country with copycat plans to bring down countless numbers of America's schools, directly targeting our children.

These terrorists are not connected to Osama, the "Axis of Evil," or any other foreign-based network. Instead, they are homegrown extremists, and they are doing more long-term, systemic damage to our country than al Qaeda could possibly imagine, much less pull off. Their leaders are sitting undetected in the White House, Congress, governors' mansions, and city halls from coast to coast. They do not attack overtly but covertly by passively allowing such essential public works as our highways, bridges, tunnels, dams, levees, water-purification plants, pipelines, chemical-storage tanks, libraries, and schools to deteriorate, erode, corrode, leak, collapse, fossilize, and otherwise come apart, sapping our nation's strength and security.

If there were the merest suspicion that some group of Arabicspeaking Islamic extremists was plotting even a fraction of this damage, George W's hair would burst into flames, Congress would throw open the doors of Fort Knox to fund retaliation, martial law would be declared, and every Muslim in America would be rounded up. But our "leaders" of both political parties are the ones doing this to our country, without paying so much as a political price, much less being shackled and hauled off to Gitmo.

They have escaped public exposure and punishment because (1) "infrastructure" is a non-sexy, mostly silent asset; (2) the destruction of America's vital infrastructure is happening by acts of omission, not commission, and (3) the Powers That Be have found a way to make their assault a point of political pride, spinning it as a valiant effort to cut taxes and defund Big Government.

From George W to George W

Granted, people (including me) don't like Big Government, but as we learned from Bush's Katrina fiasco, we damned sure do want essential government. This has been the case from the start of our nation, and the boneheaded, shortsighted, self-aggrandizing, "kill government" ideologues of today are enemies of history, common sense, progress, and America's public welfare.

The first W--George Washington --was on board with using public funds to provide the new country with a solid infrastructure, including an extensive system of postal roads and canals. Jefferson stepped up with tax dollars for the Louisiana Purchase. Even in a time of civil war, Honest Abe saw the need for a transcontinental railroad, the Homestead Act, and a public system of land-grant colleges. Teddy Roosevelt--a Republican-- pushed for our sterling network of national parks and created the National Forest Service. FDR put America to work building courthouses and dams, planting windbreaks and arbors, creating music and plays--jewels that are still with us. Ike, a fiscal conservative, saw the need to launch the Interstate Highway System. Lyndon Johnson fought for crucial investments in hospitals, schools, water systems, and parks.

From the early 1950s into the 1970s, total public spending on America's physical plant (including money put up by local, state, and federal agencies) amounted to about 3% of our Gross Domestic Product. In the 1980s and 1990s, however, this investment in the public good fell victim to posturing budget whackers and dropped well below 2% of our GDP--a cut of more than a one third.

The situation has worsened under the Bushites, who are sworn enemies of public investment in anything but the military and their corporate cronies. While federal infrastructure outlays in the 1960s were equal to the amounts spent by state and local governments, locals are now putting up three times what the feds spend, with the federal investment shrinking this year to an abysmal 0.7% of GDP.

Of course, George W has a fib to fit every figure, including this deceit: "Infrastructure is always a difficult issue," he said recently. "And I, frankly, feel like we've upheld our responsibility at the federal level with the highway bill." Well, frankly, George, you haven't. Not even close. Experts point out that your $286 billion bill is more than $30 billion short of the bare minimumneeded simply to bring America's once proud highway system up to the low standard of "adequate." And what you provide is way short of what's required for rail, mass transit, smart highways, and other transportation needs.

Instead of offering an overarching vision of a forward-thinking transportation plan for our growing, sprawling population, this blob of a bill is a catchall for special-interest projects funded on the basis of insider influence, not need.

Citizens Against Government Waste reports that the bill so loudly touted by Bush puts $1 out of every $14 into pork projects. Included, for example, is $223 million for a ridiculous "bridge to nowhere" in Alaska, linking the small town of Ketchican to Gravina Island (population 50)--locations which are already linked by a seven-minute ferry ride running every half hour. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens wanted this piece of pricey pork so badly that he threatened to quit Congress if his colleagues did not approve the bridge. Now, there was a golden opportunity to make two gains for the public interest in one stroke! But, alas, Congress and the White House sided with Stevens.

Third World USA

Any homeowner knows that if you ignore a leaking roof, you'll soon find your ceiling buckling, sheetrock crumbling, paint peeling, studs rotting… and a world of misery. The same is true of our national house, and the decay is increasingly obvious and ominous.

• We now know that the ghastly drowning of New Orleans was not the result of Hurricane Katrina, but the failure of presidents, Congress, and the Army Corps of Engineers to fortify the levees--a disaster that had been predicted and was preventable. The people of this iconic American city (60% of whom have yet to return), are victims of right-wing, antigovernment theorists who insist on reducing public safety to "cost-benefit" formulas-- cold calculations that do not count consequences that occur only sometimes. Thus, no need to have a First World levee system (a lá the Dutch), since Category 4 and 5 storms aren't that frequent… even though they are inevitable and catastrophic.
• Two years ago, during what was supposed to be a brief interruption for routine maintenance on locks and a dam on the Ohio River, upstream from Louisville, the system had to be shut down for eight weeks because deterioration was far worse than expected. This meant that coal being barged to power plants that supply electricity throughout the Midwest was stopped. A power blackout was only narrowly averted in this case, but such shutdowns of locks on the Ohio and Mississippi are increasing as infrastructure funds dry up. "If I had more money," the head of civil works says solemnly, "I could reduce these shutdowns to a level that I might consider satisfactory." The Commission on Public Infrastructure reports that half of the Corps of Engineers' 257 locks on our inland waterways are functionally obsolete.
• The bursting of even a small dam can be a disaster. We regularly drive over dams, but we can't see the internal structures, so we don't give dam safety any thought-- until a dam fails. Then the TV has saturation coverage of the issue-- but soon it disappears again. Since 1998, the number of unsafe dams in the U.S. has risen by a third to more than 3,500, with the number of "high-hazard" dams up by 1,000. The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) reports that $10.1 billion is needed over the next 12 years just to fix dams that are in such critical shape they pose a direct risk to human life.
• After the school-shooting horror in Pennsylvania Amish country, George W convened a quickie, made-for-TV "conference" on school safety, designed more for midterm electioneering than for producing any action. No one mentioned, however, that our leaders are letting America's school facilities deteriorate so badly that schoolrooms themselves have become unsafe. Collapsing ceilings, lead paint, crumbling stairways, broken windows, asbestos, radon, malfunctioning heaters and plumbing, lack of insulation, massive overcrowding, toxic waste, and other problems persist and are growing worse as maintenance a