Learn from the fall of Rome, US warned
By Jeremy Grant in Washington
Published: August 14 2007 00:06 | Last updated: August 14 2007 00:06
The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.
David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called “chilling long-term simulations”.
These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.
Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.
“Sound familiar?” Mr Walker said. “In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.”
Mr Walker’s views carry weight because he is a non-partisan figure in charge of the Government Accountability Office, often described as the investigative arm of the US Congress.
While most of its studies are commissioned by legislators, about 10 per cent – such as the one containing his latest warnings – are initiated by the comptroller general himself.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Walker said he had mentioned some of the issues before but now wanted to “turn up the volume”. Some of them were too sensitive for others in government to “have their name associated with”.
“I’m trying to sound an alarm and issue a wake-up call,” he said. “As comptroller general I’ve got an ability to look longer-range and take on issues that others may be hesitant, and in many cases may not be in a position, to take on.
“One of the concerns is obviously we are a great country but we face major sustainability challenges that we are not taking seriously enough,” said Mr Walker, who was appointed during the Clinton administration to the post, which carries a 15-year term.
The fiscal imbalance meant the US was “on a path toward an explosion of debt”.
“With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiralling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks,” said Mr Walker, a former senior executive at PwC auditing firm.
Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an “unsustainable path”.
“Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernise everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. The recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a sobering wake-up call.”
Mr Walker said he would offer to brief the would-be presidential candidates next spring.
“They need to make fiscal responsibility and inter-generational equity one of their top priorities. If they do, I think we have a chance to turn this around but if they don’t, I think the risk of a serious crisis rises considerably”.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/80fa0a2c-49ef-11dc...00779fd2ac.html
Full Version: Snuffysmith's Blog - June 26th - September 17th, 2007
Common Ground Common Sense > National & International News > Op-Ed Articles from the Mainstream Media > Op-Ed Articles from the Mainstream Media Archive
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Iranian Unit to Be Labeled 'Terrorist'
U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2007; A01
The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.
The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran's nuclear program, officials said.
The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.
The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that "provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists."
The move reflects escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran over issues including Iraq and Iran's nuclear ambitions. Iran has been on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1984, but in May the two countries began their first formal one-on-one dialogue in 28 years with a meeting of diplomats in Baghdad.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1401662_pf.html
U.S. Moving Against Revolutionary Guard
By Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 15, 2007; A01
The United States has decided to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps, the country's 125,000-strong elite military branch, as a "specially designated global terrorist," according to U.S. officials, a move that allows Washington to target the group's business operations and finances.
The Bush administration has chosen to move against the Revolutionary Guard Corps because of what U.S. officials have described as its growing involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as its support for extremists throughout the Middle East, the sources said. The decision follows congressional pressure on the administration to toughen its stance against Tehran, as well as U.S. frustration with the ineffectiveness of U.N. resolutions against Iran's nuclear program, officials said.
The designation of the Revolutionary Guard will be made under Executive Order 13224, which President Bush signed two weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to obstruct terrorist funding. It authorizes the United States to identify individuals, businesses, charities and extremist groups engaged in terrorist activities. The Revolutionary Guard would be the first national military branch included on the list, U.S. officials said -- a highly unusual move because it is part of a government, rather than a typical non-state terrorist organization.
The order allows the United States to block the assets of terrorists and to disrupt operations by foreign businesses that "provide support, services or assistance to, or otherwise associate with, terrorists."
The move reflects escalating tensions between Washington and Tehran over issues including Iraq and Iran's nuclear ambitions. Iran has been on the State Department's list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1984, but in May the two countries began their first formal one-on-one dialogue in 28 years with a meeting of diplomats in Baghdad.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...1401662_pf.html
Iraq needs new government, says former PM Allawi
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070813/wl_mi...p2rap2Cj5GbOrgF
IDF evidence barred from US terror trial
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lawyers for Muslim charity leaders accused of aiding Middle East terrorists scored a rare win in court Tuesday when a federal judge blocked some evidence seized by Israeli soldiers during raids of Palestinian organizations.
Defense lawyers had objected that some of the documents were not signed or dated, and they cast doubt on Israel's handling of the evidence.
Five former leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development are charged with funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which the US government designated a terrorist organization in 1995. The trial is in its fourth week of testimony.
Federal District Judge A. Joe Fish has ruled in the prosecution's favor on a wide range of issues, from allowing the government to call Israeli secret agents as witnesses to denying defense requests for a mistrial.
On Tuesday, however, Fish ruled against prosecutors and blocked the jury from seeing 12 documents seized from Palestinian charities allegedly linked to Hamas and funded partly by the Holy Land Foundation.
The precise significance of the judge's ruling was difficult to gauge. The judge did not explain his ruling, and lawyers have been barred from talking to reporters about the case.
Also, the judge allowed some evidence from the Israeli raids, including pro-Hamas posters that could bolster in jurors' minds the prosecution's charge that the groups financed by Holy Land Foundation were controlled by Hamas.
Holy Land was the largest US Muslim charity when government agents shut it down in December 2001.
Leaders of the group said they provided humanitarian aid to Palestinian children, victims of the Oklahoma City bombing and others.
But prosecutors have portrayed the charity as part of a broader campaign to support suicide bombings and other attacks by Hamas in Israel.
The five defendants have mostly presented a united front against the charges, although that wall began to crack Tuesday.
A lawyer for one of the men got an FBI agent to admit that the man's name did not appear on a list of Muslim Brotherhood activists or a Hamas official's phone book. Some of the other defendants' names did appear.
The defendants are charged with aiding a terrorist group, conspiracy and money laundering. The men could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty and if deaths resulted from their actions.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull
By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Lawyers for Muslim charity leaders accused of aiding Middle East terrorists scored a rare win in court Tuesday when a federal judge blocked some evidence seized by Israeli soldiers during raids of Palestinian organizations.
Defense lawyers had objected that some of the documents were not signed or dated, and they cast doubt on Israel's handling of the evidence.
Five former leaders of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development are charged with funneling millions of dollars to the Palestinian militant group Hamas, which the US government designated a terrorist organization in 1995. The trial is in its fourth week of testimony.
Federal District Judge A. Joe Fish has ruled in the prosecution's favor on a wide range of issues, from allowing the government to call Israeli secret agents as witnesses to denying defense requests for a mistrial.
On Tuesday, however, Fish ruled against prosecutors and blocked the jury from seeing 12 documents seized from Palestinian charities allegedly linked to Hamas and funded partly by the Holy Land Foundation.
The precise significance of the judge's ruling was difficult to gauge. The judge did not explain his ruling, and lawyers have been barred from talking to reporters about the case.
Also, the judge allowed some evidence from the Israeli raids, including pro-Hamas posters that could bolster in jurors' minds the prosecution's charge that the groups financed by Holy Land Foundation were controlled by Hamas.
Holy Land was the largest US Muslim charity when government agents shut it down in December 2001.
Leaders of the group said they provided humanitarian aid to Palestinian children, victims of the Oklahoma City bombing and others.
But prosecutors have portrayed the charity as part of a broader campaign to support suicide bombings and other attacks by Hamas in Israel.
The five defendants have mostly presented a united front against the charges, although that wall began to crack Tuesday.
A lawyer for one of the men got an FBI agent to admit that the man's name did not appear on a list of Muslim Brotherhood activists or a Hamas official's phone book. Some of the other defendants' names did appear.
The defendants are charged with aiding a terrorist group, conspiracy and money laundering. The men could be sentenced to life in prison if found guilty and if deaths resulted from their actions.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid...icle%2FShowFull
Kucinich: DLC agenda 'indistinguishable' from Neoconservative agenda David Edwards and Muriel Kane
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Kucinich_DLC...eocon_0813.html
http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Kucinich_DLC...eocon_0813.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/15/us/polit...p;en=eb50e38754
09a848&ex=1344830400&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1187193681-Ya9aJXs+mtazyQDbH6tanA
Laying out his views on foreign policy, Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, said he would be open to negotiations with Iran but would not rule out destroying its nuclear facilities as a last resort.
In Magazine Article, Giuliani Details His Policy on Iran
New York Times
09a848&ex=1344830400&adxnnl=1&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss&adxnnlx=1187193681-Ya9aJXs+mtazyQDbH6tanA
Laying out his views on foreign policy, Rudolph W. Giuliani, one of the leading candidates for the Republican presidential nomination, said he would be open to negotiations with Iran but would not rule out destroying its nuclear facilities as a last resort.
In Magazine Article, Giuliani Details His Policy on Iran
New York Times
<h3 class="post-title entry-title"> Escalation by the Numbers by Tom Engelhardt </h3> DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Escalation in Iraq by the numbers
By Tom Engelhardt
Some day, we will undoubtedly discover that, in the term "surge" - as in US President George W Bush's "surge" plan (or "new way forward") announced to his nation in January - was the urge to avoid the language (and experience) of the Vietnam War era. As there were to be no "body bags" (or cameras to film them as the dead came home), as there were to be no "body counts" ("We have made a conscious effort not to be a body-count team" was the way Bush put it), as there were to be no "quagmires", nor the need to search for that "light at the end of the tunnel", so, surely, there were to be no "escalations".
The escalations of the Vietnam War era, which left more than 500,000 American soldiers and vast bases and massive air and
naval power in and around Vietnam (and Laos and Cambodia), had been thoroughly discredited. Each intensification in the delivery of troops, or simply in ever widening bombing campaigns, led only to more misery and death for the Vietnamese and disaster for the United States. And yet, not surprisingly, the US experience in Iraq - another attempted occupation of a foreign country and culture - has been like a heat-seeking missile heading for the still-burning US memories of Vietnam.
As historian Marilyn Young noted in early April 2003 with the invasion of Iraq barely under way: "In less than two weeks, a 30-year-old vocabulary is back: credibility gap, seek and destroy, hard to tell friend from foe, civilian interference in military affairs, the dominance of domestic politics, winning or, more often, losing hearts and minds." By August 2003, the Bush administration, of course, expected that only perhaps 30,000 US troops would be left in Iraq, garrisoned on vast "enduring" bases in a pacified country. So, in a sense, it has been a surge-athon ever since. By now, it's beyond time to call Bush's "new way forward" by its Vietnam War equivalent.
Admittedly, a "surge" does sound more comforting, less aggressive, less long-lasting, and somehow less harmful than an "escalation", but the fact is that we are six months into the newest escalation of US power in Iraq. It has deposited all-time high numbers of troops there as well, undoubtedly, as more planes and firepower in and around that country than at any moment since the invasion of 2003. Naturally enough, other "all-time highs" of the grimmest sort follow.
Next month, General David Petraeus, America's escalation commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, its escalation ambassador there, will present their "progress report" to the US Congress. ("Progress" was another word much favored in US official pronouncements of the Vietnam War era.) The very name tells you more or less what to expect. The report has already been downgraded to a "snapshot" of an ongoing set of operations, which shouldn't be truly judged or seriously assessed until at least November, or perhaps early 2008, or ...
With that in mind, here is the second Tomdispatch "by the numbers" report on Iraq (for the first, see Surging past the gates of hell, Asia Times Online, June 29). Consider it an attempt to put the Iraqi quagmire-cum-nightmare - two classic Vietnam-era words - in perspective.
Few numbers out of Iraq can be trusted. Counting accurately amid widespread disruption, mayhem and bloodshed, under a failing occupation, in a land in essence lacking a central government, in a US media landscape still dizzy from the endless spin of the Bush administration and its military commanders, is probably next to impossible. But however approximate the figures that follow, they still offer an all-too-vivid picture of what Bush's much-desired invasion let loose. No country could suffer such uprooting, destruction, death, loss and deprivation, yet remain collectively sane.
American civilian and military officials now talk about staying in Iraq through 2008, or 2009, or into the next decade, or for undefined but lengthening periods of time. And yet Iraq (by the numbers) has devolved month by month, year by year, for four-plus years. There was never any reason to believe that the latest escalation - or any future escalation, whatever it might be called, and whether accomplished via the US military or by a growing shadow army of guns for hire employed by private security firms - could be capable of anything but hurrying the pace of that devolution. So imagine what Iraq-by-the-numbers will be like in 2008 or 2009, given the clear determination of the Bush administration's "strategic thinkers" to garrison that country into the distant future.
Here, then, is escalation in Iraq by the numbers - almost all of them continue to "surge" - as of mid-August 2008:
Number of US troops stationed in Iraq: 162,000 (plus at least several thousand government employees), an all-time high.
Estimated number of US-(taxpayer)-paid private contractors in Iraq: More than 180,000, again undoubtedly an all-time high. That figure includes about 21,000 Americans, 43,000 non-Iraqi foreign contractors (including Chileans, Nepalis, Colombians, Indians, Fijians, Salvadorans and Filipinos among others), and 118,000 Iraqis, but does not include a complete count of "private security contractors who protect government officials and buildings", according to State Department and Pentagon figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Percentage of private contractors in total US forces deployed in World War II and the Korean War: 3-5%, according to the congressional testimony of human-rights lawyer Scott Horton. In Vietnam and the first Gulf War, that figure reached 10%. Now, it is at least near parity.
Number of private companies working in Iraq on contract for the US government: 630, with personnel from more than 100 countries, according to Jeremy Scahill, author of the best-selling Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Typical pay of a former US Special Forces soldier working for a private security company in Iraq: US$650 a day, according to Scahill, "after the company takes its cut". That rate, however, can hit $1,000 a day.
Number of trucks on the road each day as part of the US resupply operation in Iraq: 3,000.
Number of attacks from June 2006 through May 2007 on US supply convoys guarded by private security contractors: 869, a near tripling from the previous 12 months.
Number of private contractors who have died in Iraq: More than 1,000, according to the US Department of Labor, based on partial figures because private companies do not have to declare their war dead.
Predicted cost of a "surge" of 21,500 US troops into Iraq, according to White House calculations in January: $5.6 billion, a figure offered the month Bush's surge strategy was announced.
Predicted cost of a one-year "surge" of 30,000-40,000 troops, according to Robert Sunshine, assistant director for budget analysis of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO): $22 billion (two years for a cut-rate $40 billion). These figures were offered in testimony to Congress five months after Bush's "surge" was officially launched.
Percentage of dollars annually appropriated by the US government and spent on Iraq-related activities: More than 10%, or one dollar out of every 10, according to the CBO's Sunshine.
Estimated monthly cost of the Iraq (and Afghan) wars: $12 billion - $10 billion for Iraq - a third higher than in 2006, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.
Estimated total cost of the Iraq war, if Robert Sunshine's "optimistic scenario" - 30,000 US troops left in Iraq by 2010 - plays out: More than $1 trillion. (If his less optimistic scenario proves accurate - 75,000 troops in 2010 - closer to $1.5 trillion.)
Number of Iraqis estimated to have fled their country: Between 2 million and 2.5 million. An estimated 750,000 to Jordan; 1.5 million to Syria; 200,000 to Egypt and Lebanon - with another 40,000-50,000 fleeing each month, 2,000 a day, according to United Nations figures. Officials at the central travel office in Baghdad are deluged by up to 3,000 passport applications a week. In addition, though it's anyone's guess, more than 2 million Iraqis may now be internal refugees, uprooted from their homes largely by sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing. About 70% of these are women and children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund.
Number of Iraqi refugees admitted to the United States in July: 57; only 133 for the year to date.
Number of Iraqis held in US prisons in Iraq: About 22,500, according to US military officials, a leap to an all-time high from 16,000 in February when the "surge" began. (US prisons in Iraq also continue to undergo expansion.)
Number of Iraqis released from US incarceration in the past month: 224.
Number of foreign fighters (jihadis) held by the US military in Iraq: 135 (nearly half are Saudis).
Estimated number of bullets fired by US troops for every insurgent killed in Iraq (or Afghanistan): 250,000, according to John Pike, director of the Washington military-research group GlobalSecurity.org. This comes out to 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition yearly. With US munitions factories unable to meet the demand, 313 million rounds of such munitions were purchased from Israel last year for $10 million more than if produced domestically.
Percentage of amputations performed on US war-wounded in Iraq: An estimated 6%. The average in earlier US conflicts, where the equivalents of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and car bombings did not play such a role, was 3%.
Estimated replacement limbs needed yearly for Iraqis in northern Iraq alone: 3,000, according to the Red Crescent Society and the director general for health services in Mosul. (Unlike American soldiers, Iraqis who have lost limbs have access only to limited numbers of outdated prostheses.)
Cost of a coffin in Baghdad: $50-75. Cost of a coffin in Saddam Hussein's time, $5-10.
Number of Iraqi civilians who died in July: 1,652, according to figures compiled by the Iraqi Health, Defense, and Interior ministries; 2,024, according to the tally of the Associated Press; 1,539 according to the Washington Post. All but the Post claim this as a "spike" in casualties. All such figures are, for a variety of reasons, surely significant undercounts.
Approximate number of American civilians who would have died in July if a similar level of killings were under way in the United States: 18,000, according to Middle East scholar Juan Cole.
Estimated number of Iraqi deaths from the invasion of 2003 through June 2007, if the Lancet study's median figure of 655,000 deaths was accurate and similar death rates held true for the year since it was published: Just over a million, according to Just Foreign Policy. (The Lancet study has been the single on-the-ground, scientific report on Iraqi casualties in these years.)
Number of Iraqi civilians killed in July in mass-casualty bomb attacks: 378, a sharp rise over June, according to the Washington Post. The five-month US "surge" has caused "no appreciable change" in vehicle-bomb attacks, according to figures collected by reporters from the McClatchy Newspapers.
Number of unidentified bodies, assumedly murdered by death squads, found on the streets of Baghdad in June: 453, a rise of 41% over January, the month before "surge" operations began, according to unofficial Iraqi Health Ministry statistics taken from morgue counts.
Number of Iraqi civilians killed or wounded in "escalation of force" incidents at US checkpoints or near US patrols and convoys in the past year: 429, according to US military statistics obtained by the McClatchy Newspapers. These statistics, which "spiked" during the recent escalation months, don't include civilian deaths during raids on homes or in the midst of battle (and are considered incomplete in any case, since an unknown number of escalation-of-force deaths go unreported by US units).
Total number of attacks against US and coalition forces, Iraq security forces, Iraqi civilians, and infrastructure targets in June: 5,335. This works out to a daily average of 177.8, an all-time high since May 2003, according to the Pentagon, and 46% more than in June 2006; more than 68% of these attacks - 3,671 to be exact - were launched against US troops, up 7% from May 2007.
Number of attacks in July using the most powerful type of roadside bomb: 99, an all-time high, according to Lieutenant-General Ray Odierno, US second-in-command in Iraq, accounting for one-third of US casualties last month.
Number of US military deaths in the "surge" months, February-July: 572, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualties website. This represents 189 more American deaths than in the same set of months in 2004, 215 more than in 2005, 237 more than in 2006.
Average daytime summer temperature in Baghdad: 43-49 degrees Celsius, though 54 degrees is not uncommon. It rarely drops below 38 degrees even at night.
Number of megawatts of electricity produced daily in Iraq: Less than 4,000, below pre-invasion levels in a country where daily demand is now in the 8,500-9,500MW range.
Hours of electricity normally delivered to Baghdadis by the national electricity grid: One to two hours a day. The only recourse, according to French reporter Anne Nivat, who lived in "Red Zone" Baghdad for two weeks recently, is electricity produced by small local generators, which consume up to 75 liters of gasoline a day.
Number of nationwide blackouts in just two days in July: Four. The Shi'ite holy city of Karbala was without any power for at least three consecutive days last month, during which its water mains "went dry". ("We no longer need television documentaries about the Stone Age. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having," said Hazim Obeid, who sells clothing at a stall in the Karbala market.)
Cost of a bottle of purified water during the present water shortages: $1.60 for a 10-liter bottle, a rise of 33%. (Many Iraqis can't afford to buy bottled water in a country where, according to a recent Oxfam summary study of the Iraqi humanitarian crisis, 43% of Iraqis live in "absolute poverty", earning less than $1 a day.)
Percentage of water engineers who have left Iraq: 40%, according to Oxfam's report. Similar percentages of middle-class professionals - doctors, teachers, lawyers - have evidently fled as well. According to Oxfam, some universities and hospitals in Baghdad have lost up to 80% of their staffs.
Number of Iraqis who have access to clean drinking water: One in three, according to UN figures. (In 2007, waterborne diseases, including diarrhea, "the most prolific killer of children under five", are up in some areas by 70% over the previous year.)
Of the 3.5 million cubic meters of water Baghdad's 6 million people are estimated to need, amount actually delivered: 2.1 million cubic meters.
Number of high-tension lines running into Baghdad that are in operation: Two of 17, thanks to insurgent sabotage, according to an Electricity Ministry spokesman. These are contributing to the worst electricity shortages since the invasion summer of 2003. The country's power grid is reportedly nearing collapse.
Number of ministers still in the cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki: 20.
Number of ministers who have walked out: 17.
Number of senior officers who have recently resigned from the Iraqi Army in protest over the Maliki government: Nine, including chief of staff Major-General Babaker Zebari.
Number of countries for which Iraq's parliamentarians, who adjourned for a month-long August vacation, have departed: At least six, according to the New York Times, including Jordan, Syria, Dubai, Iran, the United Kingdom and Egypt, as well as "a resort in Iraq's safest region, autonomous Kurdistan".
Estimated cost of that vacation time to the US per minute for ongoing operations in Iraq: $200,000, according to Bob Schieffer of CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) News.
Amount of oil Iraq possesses: 115 billion barrels in proven oil reserves, the third-largest reserves in the world (after neighboring Saudi Arabia and Iran). Estimates of possible oil deposits still to be discovered range from 45 billion additional barrels up to 400 billion additional barrels.
Price of 150 liters of gasoline under Saddam Hussein: 50 cents. Price of 150 liters of gasoline in July 2007: $75 on the black market; $35 if a motorist is willing to spend hours, or even days, in line at a fueling station.
Percentage of Iraq's revenues that come from the export of oil: More than 90%, though oil production remains below that of the worst days of Saddam Hussein's rule.
Amount the Iraqi Oil Ministry budgeted for capital expenses to bolster the oil industry last year: $3.5 billion, according to the latest report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
Amount the Iraqi Oil Ministry actually spent: $90 million.
Percentage of allocated capital funds spent by the Iraqi government on oil, electricity and education projects in 2006: 22%.
Amount of money missing because of governmental corruption, as uncovered in investigations by Iraq's top anti-corruption investigator, Judge Rahdi al-Rahdi: $11 billion.
Number of US dollars invested in "standing up" (training) the Iraqi military and police: 19.2 billion. This works out to $55,000 per Iraqi recruit, according to a bipartisan US congressional investigation.
Amount the Pentagon has requested for continued training and equipping of Iraqi security forces: $2 billion.
Percentage of equipment the Pentagon has issued to Iraqi security forces since 2003 that cannot be accounted for: 30%. That includes at least "110,000 AK-47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armor and 115,000 helmets", according to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO). According to the Washington Post, "One senior Pentagon official acknowledged that some of the weapons probably are being used against US forces."
Number of US steel shipping containers in Iraq and Afghanistan now considered "lost": 54,390, or one-third of them, according to the GAO.
Estimated cost of training Iraqi (and Afghan) security forces over the next decade, if present course continues: At least $50 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Number of major US bases in Iraq: More than 75, according to the New York Times.
Cost of US bases in Iraq (which Congress has mandated as not "permanent") and in Afghanistan (which the Pentagon refers to as "enduring"): Unknown. In a prestigious engineering magazine in late 2003, Lieutenant-Colonel David Holt, the US Army engineer "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, was already speaking proudly of "several billion dollars" being sunk into base construction. According to the Washington Post, the Congressional Research Service claims $2 billion went into "military construction" in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2004-06; another $1.7 billion was approved by Congress for 2007. And the Pentagon is still building. For fiscal 2008, $738.8 million was requested "for 33 critical construction projects for Iraq and Afghanistan". (When it comes to base construction, these figures are undoubtedly undercounts.)
Amount that former Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, and Root (now known as KBR) has received so far for a prewar contract to supply the US military with food, fuel, housing and other necessities: At least $20 billion. A Pentagon audit of $16.2 billion worth of KBR's work "found that $3.2 billion in KBR billing was either questionable or unsupported by documentation".
Percentage of Iraqis who cannot afford to buy enough to eat: 15%, according Oxfam.
Percentage of Iraqi children who are malnourished: 28% (compared with 19% before the invasion); percentage of babies born underweight, 11% (compared with 3% before the invasion).
Percentage of Iraqi children now considered to suffer from learning "impediments": 92%, according to one study cited by Oxfam.
The cost of a single Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), armed with two Hellfire missiles: More than $3 million. (At least five Predators have crashed or been shot down in the past year in Iraq and Afghanistan.)
Cost of the latest UAV, the "hunter-killer" MQ-9 Reaper, now being deployed to Afghanistan and soon to be deployed to Iraq: $7 million. The Reaper is four times as heavy as the Predator and can be armed with 14 Hellfire missiles, or four Hellfires and two 500-pound (227-kilogram) Joint Direct Attack Munitions. It is considered equivalent in firepower to the F-16 jet fighter. According to Associated Press reporter Charles Hanley, "Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada."
Number of US planes in Iraqi air space at any moment: 100, according to Hanley.
Increase in bombs dropped in Iraq in the first six months of 2007 compared with the first six months of 2006: Fivefold.
Percentage of Iraqi oil resources around Basra in Shi'ite southern Iraq, where, last September, the British launched their own unsuccessful version of the present US "clear, hold and reconstruct" escalation operation in Baghdad: 66%.
Number of doctors assassinated by "unidentified gunmen" in "peaceful" Basra since 2003: 12.
Number of times the airport base outside Basra, which houses a well-barricaded regional US Embassy office and the last 5,500 of the 40,000 troops the UK dispatched to Iraq, has been attacked by mortars or rockets over the past four months: 600.
Effect of Iraq war spending on the profits of major weapons corporations: Northrop Grumman has just announced a 15% second-quarter increase in sales over 2006 for its information and services division, 7% for its electronics division; General Dynamics' combat systems unit just recorded a 19% rise in sales. Lockheed Martin's profits went up 34% to $778 million, according to Eli Clifton of Inter Press Service.
Estimated cost of deploying an American soldier to Iraq for one year: $390,000, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Cost of flying a soldier home from the war zone: $627.80. That's the price the Pentagon pays Federal Express and United Parcel Service, among other companies, for each soldier brought back to the US.
Estimated tonnage of US equipment that might be driven out of Iraq and shipped home from Kuwait in case of a decision to withdraw: One million tons.
Percentage of Americans in the latest Washington Post-ABC (American Broadcasting Co) News poll who had served in Iraq or "had a close friend or relative who served in Iraq", who approve of President Bush's handling of the Iraq conflict: 38%. In a May New York Times/CBS News poll, fewer than half of military families and military members agreed that "the United States did the right thing in invading Iraq".
Tom Engelhardt is editor of Tomdispatch and the author of The End of Victory Culture. His novel, The Last Days of Publishing, has recently come out in paperback. Most recently, he is the author of Mission Unaccomplished: Tomdispatch Interviews with American Iconoclasts and Dissenters (Nation Books), the first collection of Tomdispatch interviews.
(Copyright 2007 Tomdispatch. Used by permission.)
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH15Ak03.html
Escalation in Iraq by the numbers
By Tom Engelhardt
Some day, we will undoubtedly discover that, in the term "surge" - as in US President George W Bush's "surge" plan (or "new way forward") announced to his nation in January - was the urge to avoid the language (and experience) of the Vietnam War era. As there were to be no "body bags" (or cameras to film them as the dead came home), as there were to be no "body counts" ("We have made a conscious effort not to be a body-count team" was the way Bush put it), as there were to be no "quagmires", nor the need to search for that "light at the end of the tunnel", so, surely, there were to be no "escalations".
The escalations of the Vietnam War era, which left more than 500,000 American soldiers and vast bases and massive air and
naval power in and around Vietnam (and Laos and Cambodia), had been thoroughly discredited. Each intensification in the delivery of troops, or simply in ever widening bombing campaigns, led only to more misery and death for the Vietnamese and disaster for the United States. And yet, not surprisingly, the US experience in Iraq - another attempted occupation of a foreign country and culture - has been like a heat-seeking missile heading for the still-burning US memories of Vietnam.
As historian Marilyn Young noted in early April 2003 with the invasion of Iraq barely under way: "In less than two weeks, a 30-year-old vocabulary is back: credibility gap, seek and destroy, hard to tell friend from foe, civilian interference in military affairs, the dominance of domestic politics, winning or, more often, losing hearts and minds." By August 2003, the Bush administration, of course, expected that only perhaps 30,000 US troops would be left in Iraq, garrisoned on vast "enduring" bases in a pacified country. So, in a sense, it has been a surge-athon ever since. By now, it's beyond time to call Bush's "new way forward" by its Vietnam War equivalent.
Admittedly, a "surge" does sound more comforting, less aggressive, less long-lasting, and somehow less harmful than an "escalation", but the fact is that we are six months into the newest escalation of US power in Iraq. It has deposited all-time high numbers of troops there as well, undoubtedly, as more planes and firepower in and around that country than at any moment since the invasion of 2003. Naturally enough, other "all-time highs" of the grimmest sort follow.
Next month, General David Petraeus, America's escalation commander in Iraq, and Ryan Crocker, its escalation ambassador there, will present their "progress report" to the US Congress. ("Progress" was another word much favored in US official pronouncements of the Vietnam War era.) The very name tells you more or less what to expect. The report has already been downgraded to a "snapshot" of an ongoing set of operations, which shouldn't be truly judged or seriously assessed until at least November, or perhaps early 2008, or ...
With that in mind, here is the second Tomdispatch "by the numbers" report on Iraq (for the first, see Surging past the gates of hell, Asia Times Online, June 29). Consider it an attempt to put the Iraqi quagmire-cum-nightmare - two classic Vietnam-era words - in perspective.
Few numbers out of Iraq can be trusted. Counting accurately amid widespread disruption, mayhem and bloodshed, under a failing occupation, in a land in essence lacking a central government, in a US media landscape still dizzy from the endless spin of the Bush administration and its military commanders, is probably next to impossible. But however approximate the figures that follow, they still offer an all-too-vivid picture of what Bush's much-desired invasion let loose. No country could suffer such uprooting, destruction, death, loss and deprivation, yet remain collectively sane.
American civilian and military officials now talk about staying in Iraq through 2008, or 2009, or into the next decade, or for undefined but lengthening periods of time. And yet Iraq (by the numbers) has devolved month by month, year by year, for four-plus years. There was never any reason to believe that the latest escalation - or any future escalation, whatever it might be called, and whether accomplished via the US military or by a growing shadow army of guns for hire employed by private security firms - could be capable of anything but hurrying the pace of that devolution. So imagine what Iraq-by-the-numbers will be like in 2008 or 2009, given the clear determination of the Bush administration's "strategic thinkers" to garrison that country into the distant future.
Here, then, is escalation in Iraq by the numbers - almost all of them continue to "surge" - as of mid-August 2008:
Number of US troops stationed in Iraq: 162,000 (plus at least several thousand government employees), an all-time high.
Estimated number of US-(taxpayer)-paid private contractors in Iraq: More than 180,000, again undoubtedly an all-time high. That figure includes about 21,000 Americans, 43,000 non-Iraqi foreign contractors (including Chileans, Nepalis, Colombians, Indians, Fijians, Salvadorans and Filipinos among others), and 118,000 Iraqis, but does not include a complete count of "private security contractors who protect government officials and buildings", according to State Department and Pentagon figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times.
Percentage of private contractors in total US forces deployed in World War II and the Korean War: 3-5%, according to the congressional testimony of human-rights lawyer Scott Horton. In Vietnam and the first Gulf War, that figure reached 10%. Now, it is at least near parity.
Number of private companies working in Iraq on contract for the US government: 630, with personnel from more than 100 countries, according to Jeremy Scahill, author of the best-selling Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
Typical pay of a former US Special Forces soldier working for a private security company in Iraq: US$650 a day, according to Scahill, "after the company takes its cut". That rate, however, can hit $1,000 a day.
Number of trucks on the road each day as part of the US resupply operation in Iraq: 3,000.
Number of attacks from June 2006 through May 2007 on US supply convoys guarded by private security contractors: 869, a near tripling from the previous 12 months.
Number of private contractors who have died in Iraq: More than 1,000, according to the US Department of Labor, based on partial figures because private companies do not have to declare their war dead.
Predicted cost of a "surge" of 21,500 US troops into Iraq, according to White House calculations in January: $5.6 billion, a figure offered the month Bush's surge strategy was announced.
Predicted cost of a one-year "surge" of 30,000-40,000 troops, according to Robert Sunshine, assistant director for budget analysis of the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO): $22 billion (two years for a cut-rate $40 billion). These figures were offered in testimony to Congress five months after Bush's "surge" was officially launched.
Percentage of dollars annually appropriated by the US government and spent on Iraq-related activities: More than 10%, or one dollar out of every 10, according to the CBO's Sunshine.
Estimated monthly cost of the Iraq (and Afghan) wars: $12 billion - $10 billion for Iraq - a third higher than in 2006, according to the non-partisan Congressional Research Service.
Estimated total cost of the Iraq war, if Robert Sunshine's "optimistic scenario" - 30,000 US troops left in Iraq by 2010 - plays out: More than $1 trillion. (If his less optimistic scenario proves accurate - 75,000 troops in 2010 - closer to $1.5 trillion.)
Number of Iraqis estimated to have fled their country: Between 2 million and 2.5 million. An estimated 750,000 to Jordan; 1.5 million to Syria; 200,000 to Egypt and Lebanon - with another 40,000-50,000 fleeing each month, 2,000 a day, according to United Nations figures. Officials at the central travel office in Baghdad are deluged by up to 3,000 passport applications a week. In addition, though it's anyone's guess, more than 2 million Iraqis may now be internal refugees, uprooted from their homes largely by sectarian violence and ethnic cleansing. About 70% of these are women and children, according to the United Nations Children's Fund.
Number of Iraqi refugees admitted to the United States in July: 57; only 133 for the year to date.
Number of Iraqis held in US prisons in Iraq: About 22,500, according to US military officials, a leap to an all-time high from 16,000 in February when the "surge" began. (US prisons in Iraq also continue to undergo expansion.)
Number of Iraqis released from US incarceration in the past month: 224.
Number of foreign fighters (jihadis) held by the US military in Iraq: 135 (nearly half are Saudis).
Estimated number of bullets fired by US troops for every insurgent killed in Iraq (or Afghanistan): 250,000, according to John Pike, director of the Washington military-research group GlobalSecurity.org. This comes out to 1.8 billion rounds of small-arms ammunition yearly. With US munitions factories unable to meet the demand, 313 million rounds of such munitions were purchased from Israel last year for $10 million more than if produced domestically.
Percentage of amputations performed on US war-wounded in Iraq: An estimated 6%. The average in earlier US conflicts, where the equivalents of IEDs (improvised explosive devices) and car bombings did not play such a role, was 3%.
Estimated replacement limbs needed yearly for Iraqis in northern Iraq alone: 3,000, according to the Red Crescent Society and the director general for health services in Mosul. (Unlike American soldiers, Iraqis who have lost limbs have access only to limited numbers of outdated prostheses.)
Cost of a coffin in Baghdad: $50-75. Cost of a coffin in Saddam Hussein's time, $5-10.
Number of Iraqi civilians who died in July: 1,652, according to figures compiled by the Iraqi Health, Defense, and Interior ministries; 2,024, according to the tally of the Associated Press; 1,539 according to the Washington Post. All but the Post claim this as a "spike" in casualties. All such figures are, for a variety of reasons, surely significant undercounts.
Approximate number of American civilians who would have died in July if a similar level of killings were under way in the United States: 18,000, according to Middle East scholar Juan Cole.
Estimated number of Iraqi deaths from the invasion of 2003 through June 2007, if the Lancet study's median figure of 655,000 deaths was accurate and similar death rates held true for the year since it was published: Just over a million, according to Just Foreign Policy. (The Lancet study has been the single on-the-ground, scientific report on Iraqi casualties in these years.)
Number of Iraqi civilians killed in July in mass-casualty bomb attacks: 378, a sharp rise over June, according to the Washington Post. The five-month US "surge" has caused "no appreciable change" in vehicle-bomb attacks, according to figures collected by reporters from the McClatchy Newspapers.
Number of unidentified bodies, assumedly murdered by death squads, found on the streets of Baghdad in June: 453, a rise of 41% over January, the month before "surge" operations began, according to unofficial Iraqi Health Ministry statistics taken from morgue counts.
Number of Iraqi civilians killed or wounded in "escalation of force" incidents at US checkpoints or near US patrols and convoys in the past year: 429, according to US military statistics obtained by the McClatchy Newspapers. These statistics, which "spiked" during the recent escalation months, don't include civilian deaths during raids on homes or in the midst of battle (and are considered incomplete in any case, since an unknown number of escalation-of-force deaths go unreported by US units).
Total number of attacks against US and coalition forces, Iraq security forces, Iraqi civilians, and infrastructure targets in June: 5,335. This works out to a daily average of 177.8, an all-time high since May 2003, according to the Pentagon, and 46% more than in June 2006; more than 68% of these attacks - 3,671 to be exact - were launched against US troops, up 7% from May 2007.
Number of attacks in July using the most powerful type of roadside bomb: 99, an all-time high, according to Lieutenant-General Ray Odierno, US second-in-command in Iraq, accounting for one-third of US casualties last month.
Number of US military deaths in the "surge" months, February-July: 572, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualties website. This represents 189 more American deaths than in the same set of months in 2004, 215 more than in 2005, 237 more than in 2006.
Average daytime summer temperature in Baghdad: 43-49 degrees Celsius, though 54 degrees is not uncommon. It rarely drops below 38 degrees even at night.
Number of megawatts of electricity produced daily in Iraq: Less than 4,000, below pre-invasion levels in a country where daily demand is now in the 8,500-9,500MW range.
Hours of electricity normally delivered to Baghdadis by the national electricity grid: One to two hours a day. The only recourse, according to French reporter Anne Nivat, who lived in "Red Zone" Baghdad for two weeks recently, is electricity produced by small local generators, which consume up to 75 liters of gasoline a day.
Number of nationwide blackouts in just two days in July: Four. The Shi'ite holy city of Karbala was without any power for at least three consecutive days last month, during which its water mains "went dry". ("We no longer need television documentaries about the Stone Age. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having," said Hazim Obeid, who sells clothing at a stall in the Karbala market.)
Cost of a bottle of purified water during the present water shortages: $1.60 for a 10-liter bottle, a rise of 33%. (Many Iraqis can't afford to buy bottled water in a country where, according to a recent Oxfam summary study of the Iraqi humanitarian crisis, 43% of Iraqis live in "absolute poverty", earning less than $1 a day.)
Percentage of water engineers who have left Iraq: 40%, according to Oxfam's report. Similar percentages of middle-class professionals - doctors, teachers, lawyers - have evidently fled as well. According to Oxfam, some universities and hospitals in Baghdad have lost up to 80% of their staffs.
Number of Iraqis who have access to clean drinking water: One in three, according to UN figures. (In 2007, waterborne diseases, including diarrhea, "the most prolific killer of children under five", are up in some areas by 70% over the previous year.)
Of the 3.5 million cubic meters of water Baghdad's 6 million people are estimated to need, amount actually delivered: 2.1 million cubic meters.
Number of high-tension lines running into Baghdad that are in operation: Two of 17, thanks to insurgent sabotage, according to an Electricity Ministry spokesman. These are contributing to the worst electricity shortages since the invasion summer of 2003. The country's power grid is reportedly nearing collapse.
Number of ministers still in the cabinet of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki: 20.
Number of ministers who have walked out: 17.
Number of senior officers who have recently resigned from the Iraqi Army in protest over the Maliki government: Nine, including chief of staff Major-General Babaker Zebari.
Number of countries for which Iraq's parliamentarians, who adjourned for a month-long August vacation, have departed: At least six, according to the New York Times, including Jordan, Syria, Dubai, Iran, the United Kingdom and Egypt, as well as "a resort in Iraq's safest region, autonomous Kurdistan".
Estimated cost of that vacation time to the US per minute for ongoing operations in Iraq: $200,000, according to Bob Schieffer of CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) News.
Amount of oil Iraq possesses: 115 billion barrels in proven oil reserves, the third-largest reserves in the world (after neighboring Saudi Arabia and Iran). Estimates of possible oil deposits still to be discovered range from 45 billion additional barrels up to 400 billion additional barrels.
Price of 150 liters of gasoline under Saddam Hussein: 50 cents. Price of 150 liters of gasoline in July 2007: $75 on the black market; $35 if a motorist is willing to spend hours, or even days, in line at a fueling station.
Percentage of Iraq's revenues that come from the export of oil: More than 90%, though oil production remains below that of the worst days of Saddam Hussein's rule.
Amount the Iraqi Oil Ministry budgeted for capital expenses to bolster the oil industry last year: $3.5 billion, according to the latest report by the US Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction.
Amount the Iraqi Oil Ministry actually spent: $90 million.
Percentage of allocated capital funds spent by the Iraqi government on oil, electricity and education projects in 2006: 22%.
Amount of money missing because of governmental corruption, as uncovered in investigations by Iraq's top anti-corruption investigator, Judge Rahdi al-Rahdi: $11 billion.
Number of US dollars invested in "standing up" (training) the Iraqi military and police: 19.2 billion. This works out to $55,000 per Iraqi recruit, according to a bipartisan US congressional investigation.
Amount the Pentagon has requested for continued training and equipping of Iraqi security forces: $2 billion.
Percentage of equipment the Pentagon has issued to Iraqi security forces since 2003 that cannot be accounted for: 30%. That includes at least "110,000 AK-47 rifles, 80,000 pistols, 135,000 items of body armor and 115,000 helmets", according to the US Government Accountability Office (GAO). According to the Washington Post, "One senior Pentagon official acknowledged that some of the weapons probably are being used against US forces."
Number of US steel shipping containers in Iraq and Afghanistan now considered "lost": 54,390, or one-third of them, according to the GAO.
Estimated cost of training Iraqi (and Afghan) security forces over the next decade, if present course continues: At least $50 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Number of major US bases in Iraq: More than 75, according to the New York Times.
Cost of US bases in Iraq (which Congress has mandated as not "permanent") and in Afghanistan (which the Pentagon refers to as "enduring"): Unknown. In a prestigious engineering magazine in late 2003, Lieutenant-Colonel David Holt, the US Army engineer "tasked with facilities development" in Iraq, was already speaking proudly of "several billion dollars" being sunk into base construction. According to the Washington Post, the Congressional Research Service claims $2 billion went into "military construction" in Iraq and Afghanistan, 2004-06; another $1.7 billion was approved by Congress for 2007. And the Pentagon is still building. For fiscal 2008, $738.8 million was requested "for 33 critical construction projects for Iraq and Afghanistan". (When it comes to base construction, these figures are undoubtedly undercounts.)
Amount that former Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg, Brown, and Root (now known as KBR) has received so far for a prewar contract to supply the US military with food, fuel, housing and other necessities: At least $20 billion. A Pentagon audit of $16.2 billion worth of KBR's work "found that $3.2 billion in KBR billing was either questionable or unsupported by documentation".
Percentage of Iraqis who cannot afford to buy enough to eat: 15%, according Oxfam.
Percentage of Iraqi children who are malnourished: 28% (compared with 19% before the invasion); percentage of babies born underweight, 11% (compared with 3% before the invasion).
Percentage of Iraqi children now considered to suffer from learning "impediments": 92%, according to one study cited by Oxfam.
The cost of a single Predator unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV), armed with two Hellfire missiles: More than $3 million. (At least five Predators have crashed or been shot down in the past year in Iraq and Afghanistan.)
Cost of the latest UAV, the "hunter-killer" MQ-9 Reaper, now being deployed to Afghanistan and soon to be deployed to Iraq: $7 million. The Reaper is four times as heavy as the Predator and can be armed with 14 Hellfire missiles, or four Hellfires and two 500-pound (227-kilogram) Joint Direct Attack Munitions. It is considered equivalent in firepower to the F-16 jet fighter. According to Associated Press reporter Charles Hanley, "Its pilot, as it bombs targets in Iraq, will sit at a video console 7,000 miles away in Nevada."
Number of US planes in Iraqi air space at any moment: 100, according to Hanley.
Increase in bombs dropped in Iraq in the first six months of 2007 compared with the first six months of 2006: Fivefold.
Percentage of Iraqi oil resources around Basra in Shi'ite southern Iraq, where, last September, the British launched their own unsuccessful version of the present US "clear, hold and reconstruct" escalation operation in Baghdad: 66%.
Number of doctors assassinated by "unidentified gunmen" in "peaceful" Basra since 2003: 12.
Number of times the airport base outside Basra, which houses a well-barricaded regional US Embassy office and the last 5,500 of the 40,000 troops the UK dispatched to Iraq, has been attacked by mortars or rockets over the past four months: 600.
Effect of Iraq war spending on the profits of major weapons corporations: Northrop Grumman has just announced a 15% second-quarter increase in sales over 2006 for its information and services division, 7% for its electronics division; General Dynamics' combat systems unit just recorded a 19% rise in sales. Lockheed Martin's profits went up 34% to $778 million, according to Eli Clifton of Inter Press Service.
Estimated cost of deploying an American soldier to Iraq for one year: $390,000, according to the Congressional Research Service.
Cost of flying a soldier home from the war zone: $627.80. That's the price the Pentagon pays Federal Express and United Parcel Service, among other companies, for each soldier brought back to the US.
Estimated tonnage of US equipment that might be driven out of Iraq and shipped home from Kuwait in case of a decision to withdraw: One million tons.
Percentage of Americans in the latest Washington Post-ABC (American Broadcasting Co) News poll who had served in Iraq or "had a close friend or relative who served in Iraq", who approve of President Bush's handling of the Iraq conflict: 38%. In a May New York Times/CBS News poll, fewer than half of military families and military members agreed that "the United States did the right thing in invading Iraq".
Tom Engelhardt is editor of Tomdispatch and the author of The End of Victory Culture. His novel, The Last Days of Publishing, has recently come out in paperback. Most recently, he is the author of Mission Unaccomplished: Tomdispatch Interviews with American Iconoclasts and Dissenters (Nation Books), the first collection of Tomdispatch interviews.
(Copyright 2007 Tomdispatch. Used by permission.)
http://atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/IH15Ak03.html
Baghdad set for shake-up
http://archive.gulfnews.com/region/Iraq/10146731.html 08/15/2007 12:05 PM | Gulf News Report
Dubai: Under pressure from the Congress, Arab states and Sunni Iraqi leaders, the US administration on Tuesday set the stage for "major" political changes in Iraq.
The changes will be in "the structure, nature and direction of the Iraqi state," a senior American official in Baghdad was quoted by AP as saying.
He did not give out details, but the plan is expected to be high on the agenda of a 'crisis summit' which would be attended by key Iraqi leaders who seek to save the crumbling national unity government of Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki.
About 50 political leaders had "a friendly meeting" over lunch yesterday at the Baghdad residence of President Jalal Talabani, but the meeting was overshadowed by a suicide attack which killed 10 people in the Iraqi capital.
Also, a key player and one of the most senior Sunni Arabs in the government, Vice-President Tariq Al Hashemi, failed to attend Talabani's luncheon.
Al Hashemi, a critic of Al Maliki's alleged sectarian bias, said members of his Iraqi Islamic Party, part of the Sunni political bloc that quit the government, would hold meetings with leaders from regional Kurdish parties today before the summit, which will be held later this week.
The summit had been in question until a last-minute push from US Ambassador Ryan Crocker who called on Al Hashemi. Sunni leaders and some Arab countries have reportedly accused Al Maliki of sectarian bias and harbouring close ties with Iran.
Meanwhile, more than 50 gunmen dressed in Iraqi security forces' uniforms broke into an Oil Ministry compound in Baghdad and abducted a senior deputy of the oil minister.
http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Iraq/10146731.html
Tancredo's threat to bomb holy sites condemned
http://archive.gulfnews.com/region/Saudi_A...a/10146691.html 08/14/2007 11:35 PM | AP
Riyadh: A Saudi official has condemned a radical US Republican presidential candidate's recent comment that the best way to deter a nuclear terrorist attack on America would be to threaten to retaliate by bombing the Islamic holy sites, Makkah and Madinah.
Abdul Mohsen Al Shaikh, head of Makkah's municipal council, said he was disappointed that the Republican Party did not issue an apology for Representative Tom Tancredo's remarks.
"Neither ... Tancredo nor anyone else can strike the Kaaba in Makkah," Al Shaikh said in a statement released late Monday.
Minimum knowledge
"If this candidate had a minimum knowledge of history, then this site would be holy for him before it being holy for Muslims because no adherent to heavenly religions doesn't know Abraham and [his son] Esmail," he added.
Earlier this month, Tancredo told about 30 people at a town hall meeting in the state of Iowa that he believes a nuclear terrorist attack on the US could be imminent and that the US needs to hurry up and think of a way to stop it. "If it is up to me, we are going to explain that an attack on this homeland of that nature would be followed by an attack on the holy sites in Makkah and Madinah.
Absolutely outrageous
Because that's the only thing I can think of that might deter somebody from doing what they otherwise might do," said the Colorado Republican, whose bid for the White House is considered unlikely to succeed.
Makkah and Madinah, in Saudi Arabia, are Islam's holiest cities.
All able-bodied Muslims are required to make a pilgrimage there at least once in their lives. Islam is the only religion that can be practiced in the kingdom.
The US State Department has distanced itself from Tancredo's comments. "It is absolutely outrageous and reprehensible for anyone to suggest attacks on holy sites, whether they are Muslim, Christian, Jewish or those of any other religion," deputy spokesman Tom Casey told reporters.
Behman and Afzali: Iran wants U.S. stuck in Afghanistan
07:43 AM EDT on Friday, August 3, 2007
SADEQ BEHMAN and SUDABAH AFZALI
HERAT, Afghanistan -- THE YOUNG MAN was quite open about his mission.
“Our purpose is jihad against foreigners and the government of Afghanistan,” he said, asking that he name not be used.
And, he claimed, he was hardly alone in his cause.
“There are a lot of Iranians in our group,” he said. “They say they have come to do jihad against America.”
The comments by this resident of Farah Province, which borders Iran, are just the latest indication that Iran is playing a growing role in the insurgency in Afghanistan. The young insurgent identified himself as a member of Soldiers of Mohammad the Prophet, a jihadi organization that, he said, is supported by Iran.
“Many Muslims from other countries have come here for this,” he said.
For weeks now, both American and Afghan officials have been claiming that Tehran is working to destabilize the Afghan government.
U.S. Ambassador William Wood recently asserted that an increasing number of Iranian weapons were turning up inside Afghanistan. Like U.S. officials reacting to charges of Iranian meddling in Iraq, the envoy stopped just short of implicating the Iranian government of openly arming the insurgency.
“There are clearly some munitions coming out of Iran going into the hands of the Taliban,” he said. “We believe that the quantity and quality of those munitions are such that the Iranian government must know about it.”
Lt. Col. Rahmatullah Safai, regional police commander for western Afghanistan, confirmed that weapons clearly marked as having been made in Iran had been found in Herat Province.
“Recently, we found three anti-vehicle mines that were marked ‘SPI’ (an acronym for the Revolutionary Guard in Iran) that were found by our police in the Tirkash area of Herat Province, which is located less than two miles from the Iranian border,” he said.
Col. Shah Jehan Noori, the police chief of Ghor Province, also said that the authorities had found a weapons depot that included 40 anti-vehicle and anti-personnel mines made in Iran and Russia.
Iran has adamantly denied meddling in Afghan affairs and said such accusations were part of an international smear campaign against the Tehran government.
“The West has been waging a psychological war against Iran since the victory of the Islamic revolution,” said Mohammad Ali Najafi Manesh, a diplomatic official for Iran in Herat Province.
“They have been accusing Iran of interference in the Middle East, of violating human rights, but now that America is losing in Afghanistan, it tries to cover this up by launching a propaganda war,” he said.
So far, Afghan President Hamed Karzai has consistently rebuffed attempts to link Iranians to the insurgency. He recently reiterated that Iran and Afghanistan were good friends and partners.
Members of his own government, however, contradict Karzai, pointing to mounting evidence of cooperation between Iranians and the insurgency — although it remains unclear whether such cooperation has the official backing of the government in Tehran.
A source inside the Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that there was Iranian influence in anti-government efforts in western Afghanistan.
“We have information that Balochis [a sect in Iran] are active from Farah and Herat provinces,” he said.
Harder to prove, however, is direct involvement by the Iranian government. Even the young Afghan claiming to be a member of the Soldiers of the Prophet Mohammad said that his colleagues were acting independently.
“The Balochi people of Iran and other Iranians say that they have come to do jihad against America voluntarily. They were not sent by the government of Iran,” he said.
In fact the Balochis have had their own problems with the Iranian government over the years, And unlike the vast majority of Iranians, who are Shias, Balochis, like most Afghans and the Taliban, are Sunni Muslims.
Col. Sayed Aqa Saqeb, the police chief of Farah province, confirmed that authorities had seen armed Balochi groups from Iran operating in border areas but could not determine if their actions were sanctioned by the Iranian government.
“We are still investigating,” he said.
Mohammad Rafiq Shahir, a political analyst in Herat, thinks that Iran may be trying to have it both ways by, at the very least, turning a blind eye to its citizens’ involvement in Afghanistan.
On the one hand, Shahir said, Iran wants to cooperate and influence the current Afghan government. “The present government of Afghanistan is more beneficial to Iran than the radical Sunni regime of the Taliban,” he said.
On the other hand, Iran is anxious to make life as difficult as possible for the United States in Afghanistan.
“The United States is a strategic enemy of Iran, and Iran is trying to challenge the foreign forces, particularly the American and the British, by giving the opposition weapons and other facilities,” Shahir said.
“Iran is hoping that the war in Afghanistan lasts many years, so that the United States gets bogged down there,” he said. “Iran sees the possibility of an attack from the United States, and is hoping to keep the war on Afghan soil. It would be much less expensive for them than a war inside Iran.”
Sadeq Behman and Sudabah Afzali are journalists in Afghanistan who write for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a London-based nonprofit organization.
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/...D2.19d3165.html
07:43 AM EDT on Friday, August 3, 2007
SADEQ BEHMAN and SUDABAH AFZALI
HERAT, Afghanistan -- THE YOUNG MAN was quite open about his mission.
“Our purpose is jihad against foreigners and the government of Afghanistan,” he said, asking that he name not be used.
And, he claimed, he was hardly alone in his cause.
“There are a lot of Iranians in our group,” he said. “They say they have come to do jihad against America.”
The comments by this resident of Farah Province, which borders Iran, are just the latest indication that Iran is playing a growing role in the insurgency in Afghanistan. The young insurgent identified himself as a member of Soldiers of Mohammad the Prophet, a jihadi organization that, he said, is supported by Iran.
“Many Muslims from other countries have come here for this,” he said.
For weeks now, both American and Afghan officials have been claiming that Tehran is working to destabilize the Afghan government.
U.S. Ambassador William Wood recently asserted that an increasing number of Iranian weapons were turning up inside Afghanistan. Like U.S. officials reacting to charges of Iranian meddling in Iraq, the envoy stopped just short of implicating the Iranian government of openly arming the insurgency.
“There are clearly some munitions coming out of Iran going into the hands of the Taliban,” he said. “We believe that the quantity and quality of those munitions are such that the Iranian government must know about it.”
Lt. Col. Rahmatullah Safai, regional police commander for western Afghanistan, confirmed that weapons clearly marked as having been made in Iran had been found in Herat Province.
“Recently, we found three anti-vehicle mines that were marked ‘SPI’ (an acronym for the Revolutionary Guard in Iran) that were found by our police in the Tirkash area of Herat Province, which is located less than two miles from the Iranian border,” he said.
Col. Shah Jehan Noori, the police chief of Ghor Province, also said that the authorities had found a weapons depot that included 40 anti-vehicle and anti-personnel mines made in Iran and Russia.
Iran has adamantly denied meddling in Afghan affairs and said such accusations were part of an international smear campaign against the Tehran government.
“The West has been waging a psychological war against Iran since the victory of the Islamic revolution,” said Mohammad Ali Najafi Manesh, a diplomatic official for Iran in Herat Province.
“They have been accusing Iran of interference in the Middle East, of violating human rights, but now that America is losing in Afghanistan, it tries to cover this up by launching a propaganda war,” he said.
So far, Afghan President Hamed Karzai has consistently rebuffed attempts to link Iranians to the insurgency. He recently reiterated that Iran and Afghanistan were good friends and partners.
Members of his own government, however, contradict Karzai, pointing to mounting evidence of cooperation between Iranians and the insurgency — although it remains unclear whether such cooperation has the official backing of the government in Tehran.
A source inside the Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security, who spoke on condition of anonymity, confirmed that there was Iranian influence in anti-government efforts in western Afghanistan.
“We have information that Balochis [a sect in Iran] are active from Farah and Herat provinces,” he said.
Harder to prove, however, is direct involvement by the Iranian government. Even the young Afghan claiming to be a member of the Soldiers of the Prophet Mohammad said that his colleagues were acting independently.
“The Balochi people of Iran and other Iranians say that they have come to do jihad against America voluntarily. They were not sent by the government of Iran,” he said.
In fact the Balochis have had their own problems with the Iranian government over the years, And unlike the vast majority of Iranians, who are Shias, Balochis, like most Afghans and the Taliban, are Sunni Muslims.
Col. Sayed Aqa Saqeb, the police chief of Farah province, confirmed that authorities had seen armed Balochi groups from Iran operating in border areas but could not determine if their actions were sanctioned by the Iranian government.
“We are still investigating,” he said.
Mohammad Rafiq Shahir, a political analyst in Herat, thinks that Iran may be trying to have it both ways by, at the very least, turning a blind eye to its citizens’ involvement in Afghanistan.
On the one hand, Shahir said, Iran wants to cooperate and influence the current Afghan government. “The present government of Afghanistan is more beneficial to Iran than the radical Sunni regime of the Taliban,” he said.
On the other hand, Iran is anxious to make life as difficult as possible for the United States in Afghanistan.
“The United States is a strategic enemy of Iran, and Iran is trying to challenge the foreign forces, particularly the American and the British, by giving the opposition weapons and other facilities,” Shahir said.
“Iran is hoping that the war in Afghanistan lasts many years, so that the United States gets bogged down there,” he said. “Iran sees the possibility of an attack from the United States, and is hoping to keep the war on Afghan soil. It would be much less expensive for them than a war inside Iran.”
Sadeq Behman and Sudabah Afzali are journalists in Afghanistan who write for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a London-based nonprofit organization.
http://www.projo.com/opinion/contributors/...D2.19d3165.html
International Herald Tribune
Charity finds that U.S. food aid for Africa hurts instead of helps
By Celia W. Dugger
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
MALELA, Kenya: CARE, one of the world's biggest charities, is walking away from about $45 million a year in federal funding, saying American food aid is not only plagued with inefficiencies, but may hurt some of the very poor people it aims to help.
Its decision, which has deeply divided the world of food aid, is focused on the practice of selling tons of American farm products in African countries that in some cases compete with the crops of struggling local farmers.
"If someone wants to help you, they shouldn't do it by destroying the very thing that they're trying to promote," said George Odo, a CARE official who grew disillusioned with the practice while supervising the sale of American wheat and vegetable oil in Nairobi.
Under the system, the U.S. government buys the goods from American agribusiness, ships them overseas on mostly American-flagged carriers and then donates the goods to the aid groups. The groups sell the products in poor countries and use the money to fund their anti-poverty programs there.
As Congress considers a new farm bill, neither the Bush administration nor representatives are looking to undo the practice, known as "monetization." In fact, some of the nonprofit groups say it has worked well and are pressing for sharp increases in the tonnage of American food shipped for sale and distribution to support development programs.
The Christian charity World Vision and 14 other groups say that CARE is mistaken, that the system works because it keeps hard currency in poor countries, can help prevent food price spikes in them and does not hurt their farmers.
But criticism of the practice is growing. Former President Jimmy Carter, whose Atlanta-based Carter Center uses private money to help African farmers be more productive, says a flawed food aid system has survived partly because the charities that get money from it defend it.
Agribusiness and shipping interest groups have tremendous political clout, but charitable groups are influential, too, Carter said, because "they speak from the standpoint of angels."
"The farm bloc is powerful, but when you add these benevolent organizations, the totality of that has blocked change in the system," said Carter, who is also a Georgia farmer.
Some charities that champion monetization bristle at such suggestions. And their allies in Congress say that maritime and agribusiness interests are essential allies for programs to aid the hungry.
"Sure it's self-interest if staying in business to help the hungry is self-interested," said Avram Guroff, a senior vice president at ACDI/VOCA, which ranked sixth in monetization sales last year. "We're not lining our pockets."
But Peter Matlon, an agricultural economist based in Nairobi and a managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation, said converting American commodities into cash for development was a case of "the tail wagging the dog," with domestic farm policies in the United States shaping hunger-fighting methods abroad.
"The NGOs have been ignoring this evidence for years that there's a negative impact on the prices farmers receive," said Matlon, who is involved in a $150 million effort financed by the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations to increase the productivity of African farmers.
The Government Accountability Office, the non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress, also concluded this year that the system was "inherently inefficient."
CARE and Catholic Relief - who rank first and second in money raised through monetization - say they recover only 70 to 80 percent of what the United States paid for the commodities and shipping.
But while Catholic Relief Services and Save the Children, which ranked fifth last year in such sales, agree with CARE that the system is inefficient, they also say they will not stop converting American food into money unless Congress replaces the lost revenues with cash. They help a lot of poor people with the money, they say.
The experiences of Walter Otieno, a grizzled Kenyan farmer in mud-stained pants, illustrate the paradoxes of paying for rural development through sales of American farm goods.
Over the years, he had watched four of his 12 children die of measles, which is more often fatal for the malnourished. He has had difficulty growing enough to feed his family. "My children were skinny and their skin was dull," he said.
Then last year he began growing a small patch of sunflowers on a hill sloping down to Lake Victoria with help from a program that CARE finances through the sale of American farm goods here.
A CARE extension worker, Rosemary Ogala, has taught him and dozens of farmers in his group where to buy sunflower seed, when to plant it, how to space the rows and when to harvest.
CARE has also connected them to a ready market: the Kenyan company Bidco Oil Refineries, whose managers say they could more than quintuple the amount of sunflower seed they buy from Kenyan farmers to process into vegetable oil.
The profit Otieno earned from the crop rescued his family from dire poverty. Now, with his new earnings, he plays with his sons and daughters, plump on eggs and milk, at the family's general store, a tiny shack stocked with goods financed by the sunflower sales. "Our lives have changed," he said.
The question is whether small-scale sunflower farmers like Otieno would have done better if nonprofit groups had not sold tons of American crude soybean oil, a competing product, to the same Kenyan company that purchased Otieno's meager crop. CARE and some other experts say the answer is a clear yes.
In 2003, Bidco bought almost 9,000 metric tons of crude soybean oil sold to the United States by Bunge, the agribusiness giant. Altogether that year, Bunge sold the United States 15,180 metric tons of oil for resale by the nonprofits in Kenya.
American law requires aid groups to establish that such sales will not discourage production by local farmers, but some critics say it is a conflict of interest to ask nonprofit groups to select experts to make this determination.
In this case, the nonprofit organizations hired a consultant who advised them in 2003 that they could safely sell up to 38,000 metric tons of vegetable oil in Kenya, which mostly depends on imports. That amount, about 10 percent of the country's consumption, was "negligible," he said.
But Odo of CARE disagreed, saying in a memo that "the truth is that the subsidized importation from the U.S. reduces the growth in the local market."
Ultimately, CARE's decision to phase out such sales evolved from a senior manager's change of heart. Daniel Maxwell, a professor of nutrition at Tufts University, was a food security adviser for CARE in Nairobi who saw sales of American food as an imperfect, but useful way to raise money.
He knew firsthand, however, how risky it was to manage projects financed in fluctuating commodities markets. When prices sank, CARE had too little money and was sometimes forced to lay off workers.
Maxwell also strongly suspected that buyers offered too little for the farm goods, knowing they were dealing with aid workers who were novices in commodities trading.
As he and Christopher Barrett, an agricultural economist at Cornell University, researched a book, "Food Aid After Fifty Years," his doubts deepened.
"Not only was it a pain the neck," he said, "but there were potentially serious knock on effects that would be damaging to farmers and trade."
In 2004, Maxwell and Barrett made the case against the practice at CARE headquarters in Atlanta. They recalled that the senior vice president, Patrick Carey, who has since died, cautioned them that leaving the system would be like "an act of partial suicide" for the nonprofits.
Nonetheless, by 2009 CARE will end almost all of its participation in such projects across the developing world. It will try to raise money to replace the lost revenues from philanthropies and other donors, and by making its own aid programs profitable.
One of those programs could be seen in action one recent afternoon in the Kenyan village of Poche. CARE has helped local women bypass local middlemen to sell pineapples at better prices in big supermarkets in Nairobi, 10 hours away by road.
One woman, Doreen Amimo, a 52-year-old grandmother, has seen her weekly earnings rise to $18 from $11. She can now afford to feed and clothe an orphaned niece and nephew.
"And I never lack sugar in the house," she said, "and we can have tea and milk every morning!"
These farmers are selling their fruit to a small company, Vegcare, that CARE and a Kenyan company started with an investment of $170,000 in 2005. Vegcare advises farmers on how to grow pineapples that meet supermarket standards, buys them and trucks them to a wholesaler in Nairobi that supplies Nakumatt, a Kenyan supermarket chain.
CARE's idea is that a profitable business is more likely than a charitable venture to survive when foreign aid runs out. CARE managers here say they hope its renunciation of most of the money from commodity sales will free it to candidly address the flaws in the American strategy to combat world hunger.
"What's happened to humanitarian organizations over the years is that a lot of us have become contractors on behalf of the government," said Odo of CARE. "That's sad but true. It compromised our ability to speak up when things went wrong."
Notes:
International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/14/news/food.php
Charity finds that U.S. food aid for Africa hurts instead of helps
By Celia W. Dugger
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
MALELA, Kenya: CARE, one of the world's biggest charities, is walking away from about $45 million a year in federal funding, saying American food aid is not only plagued with inefficiencies, but may hurt some of the very poor people it aims to help.
Its decision, which has deeply divided the world of food aid, is focused on the practice of selling tons of American farm products in African countries that in some cases compete with the crops of struggling local farmers.
"If someone wants to help you, they shouldn't do it by destroying the very thing that they're trying to promote," said George Odo, a CARE official who grew disillusioned with the practice while supervising the sale of American wheat and vegetable oil in Nairobi.
Under the system, the U.S. government buys the goods from American agribusiness, ships them overseas on mostly American-flagged carriers and then donates the goods to the aid groups. The groups sell the products in poor countries and use the money to fund their anti-poverty programs there.
As Congress considers a new farm bill, neither the Bush administration nor representatives are looking to undo the practice, known as "monetization." In fact, some of the nonprofit groups say it has worked well and are pressing for sharp increases in the tonnage of American food shipped for sale and distribution to support development programs.
The Christian charity World Vision and 14 other groups say that CARE is mistaken, that the system works because it keeps hard currency in poor countries, can help prevent food price spikes in them and does not hurt their farmers.
But criticism of the practice is growing. Former President Jimmy Carter, whose Atlanta-based Carter Center uses private money to help African farmers be more productive, says a flawed food aid system has survived partly because the charities that get money from it defend it.
Agribusiness and shipping interest groups have tremendous political clout, but charitable groups are influential, too, Carter said, because "they speak from the standpoint of angels."
"The farm bloc is powerful, but when you add these benevolent organizations, the totality of that has blocked change in the system," said Carter, who is also a Georgia farmer.
Some charities that champion monetization bristle at such suggestions. And their allies in Congress say that maritime and agribusiness interests are essential allies for programs to aid the hungry.
"Sure it's self-interest if staying in business to help the hungry is self-interested," said Avram Guroff, a senior vice president at ACDI/VOCA, which ranked sixth in monetization sales last year. "We're not lining our pockets."
But Peter Matlon, an agricultural economist based in Nairobi and a managing director of the Rockefeller Foundation, said converting American commodities into cash for development was a case of "the tail wagging the dog," with domestic farm policies in the United States shaping hunger-fighting methods abroad.
"The NGOs have been ignoring this evidence for years that there's a negative impact on the prices farmers receive," said Matlon, who is involved in a $150 million effort financed by the Rockefeller and Bill and Melinda Gates foundations to increase the productivity of African farmers.
The Government Accountability Office, the non-partisan, investigative arm of Congress, also concluded this year that the system was "inherently inefficient."
CARE and Catholic Relief - who rank first and second in money raised through monetization - say they recover only 70 to 80 percent of what the United States paid for the commodities and shipping.
But while Catholic Relief Services and Save the Children, which ranked fifth last year in such sales, agree with CARE that the system is inefficient, they also say they will not stop converting American food into money unless Congress replaces the lost revenues with cash. They help a lot of poor people with the money, they say.
The experiences of Walter Otieno, a grizzled Kenyan farmer in mud-stained pants, illustrate the paradoxes of paying for rural development through sales of American farm goods.
Over the years, he had watched four of his 12 children die of measles, which is more often fatal for the malnourished. He has had difficulty growing enough to feed his family. "My children were skinny and their skin was dull," he said.
Then last year he began growing a small patch of sunflowers on a hill sloping down to Lake Victoria with help from a program that CARE finances through the sale of American farm goods here.
A CARE extension worker, Rosemary Ogala, has taught him and dozens of farmers in his group where to buy sunflower seed, when to plant it, how to space the rows and when to harvest.
CARE has also connected them to a ready market: the Kenyan company Bidco Oil Refineries, whose managers say they could more than quintuple the amount of sunflower seed they buy from Kenyan farmers to process into vegetable oil.
The profit Otieno earned from the crop rescued his family from dire poverty. Now, with his new earnings, he plays with his sons and daughters, plump on eggs and milk, at the family's general store, a tiny shack stocked with goods financed by the sunflower sales. "Our lives have changed," he said.
The question is whether small-scale sunflower farmers like Otieno would have done better if nonprofit groups had not sold tons of American crude soybean oil, a competing product, to the same Kenyan company that purchased Otieno's meager crop. CARE and some other experts say the answer is a clear yes.
In 2003, Bidco bought almost 9,000 metric tons of crude soybean oil sold to the United States by Bunge, the agribusiness giant. Altogether that year, Bunge sold the United States 15,180 metric tons of oil for resale by the nonprofits in Kenya.
American law requires aid groups to establish that such sales will not discourage production by local farmers, but some critics say it is a conflict of interest to ask nonprofit groups to select experts to make this determination.
In this case, the nonprofit organizations hired a consultant who advised them in 2003 that they could safely sell up to 38,000 metric tons of vegetable oil in Kenya, which mostly depends on imports. That amount, about 10 percent of the country's consumption, was "negligible," he said.
But Odo of CARE disagreed, saying in a memo that "the truth is that the subsidized importation from the U.S. reduces the growth in the local market."
Ultimately, CARE's decision to phase out such sales evolved from a senior manager's change of heart. Daniel Maxwell, a professor of nutrition at Tufts University, was a food security adviser for CARE in Nairobi who saw sales of American food as an imperfect, but useful way to raise money.
He knew firsthand, however, how risky it was to manage projects financed in fluctuating commodities markets. When prices sank, CARE had too little money and was sometimes forced to lay off workers.
Maxwell also strongly suspected that buyers offered too little for the farm goods, knowing they were dealing with aid workers who were novices in commodities trading.
As he and Christopher Barrett, an agricultural economist at Cornell University, researched a book, "Food Aid After Fifty Years," his doubts deepened.
"Not only was it a pain the neck," he said, "but there were potentially serious knock on effects that would be damaging to farmers and trade."
In 2004, Maxwell and Barrett made the case against the practice at CARE headquarters in Atlanta. They recalled that the senior vice president, Patrick Carey, who has since died, cautioned them that leaving the system would be like "an act of partial suicide" for the nonprofits.
Nonetheless, by 2009 CARE will end almost all of its participation in such projects across the developing world. It will try to raise money to replace the lost revenues from philanthropies and other donors, and by making its own aid programs profitable.
One of those programs could be seen in action one recent afternoon in the Kenyan village of Poche. CARE has helped local women bypass local middlemen to sell pineapples at better prices in big supermarkets in Nairobi, 10 hours away by road.
One woman, Doreen Amimo, a 52-year-old grandmother, has seen her weekly earnings rise to $18 from $11. She can now afford to feed and clothe an orphaned niece and nephew.
"And I never lack sugar in the house," she said, "and we can have tea and milk every morning!"
These farmers are selling their fruit to a small company, Vegcare, that CARE and a Kenyan company started with an investment of $170,000 in 2005. Vegcare advises farmers on how to grow pineapples that meet supermarket standards, buys them and trucks them to a wholesaler in Nairobi that supplies Nakumatt, a Kenyan supermarket chain.
CARE's idea is that a profitable business is more likely than a charitable venture to survive when foreign aid runs out. CARE managers here say they hope its renunciation of most of the money from commodity sales will free it to candidly address the flaws in the American strategy to combat world hunger.
"What's happened to humanitarian organizations over the years is that a lot of us have become contractors on behalf of the government," said Odo of CARE. "That's sad but true. It compromised our ability to speak up when things went wrong."
Notes:
International Herald Tribune Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/08/14/news/food.php
<h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;">CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR</h1> <h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;">8/14/07</h1> <h1 style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;">Hamas optimism vs. Fatah despair</h1> <h2 style="margin: 0in 0in 6pt;">In Hamas-controlled Gaza, Palestinian militants express a new enthusiasm for the coastal strip, while their Fatah counterparts face growing disillusionment. </h2> Dan Murphy
Gaza City, Gaza; and Ramallah , West Bank
Even in the face of possible economic collapse, Hamas leaders want to figure out a better way to collect garbage in Gaza. The Islamist movement, which now controls the coastal strip, is working out ways to create new jobs and reduce petty crime.
A new enthusiasm has swept through this territory in the aftermath of the violent split in June between the two Palestinian factions. Among many young Gazans there is excitement for a Palestinian enclave that fully embraces the principles of their Islamic Resistance Movement without the interference of Fatah rivals.
"We've taken control, we've gotten rid of people who were collaborating with Israel, and we've restored order," says Khalil al-Haja, a mid-ranking member of Hamas Qassem Brigade militia. "Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] will eventually have to realize that we're hear to stay. In six months, we'll be reunited."
While that vision may indeed be only a Hamas dream, the good spirits among Hamas officials in Gaza are in stark contrast to the low morale of their Fatah counterparts.
In talking to Fatah members in the West Bank, a picture of despair, disorganization, and exhaustion emerges, not only due to what they feel was a humiliating defeat at the hands of their rivals but because Fatah as a movement appears to be losing touch with its own ideological moorings.
The differences call into question the current US strategy for dealing with the Palestinians: give Mr. Abbas legitimacy, prod the Israelis to improve daily life in the West Bank, and isolate Hamas in an economically desperate Gaza.
Though Gaza's economy is weakening, there is every sign that Hamas is inexorably bolstering its position.
"Audiences in the US have a strong feeling of black and white and they're betting on which side will win based on whether it agrees with them," says Mouin Rabbani, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. "But there's an issue that is overlooked: The virtual disintegration of Fatah."
Neither side has shown themselves to be paragons of democracy. In the West Bank, hundreds Hamas activists have been jailed for their political beliefs since June, gunmen out of uniform are frequently seen on city streets, and the local security forces are seen by many average citizens as unruly thugs.
In Gaza, while unarmed volunteers untangle crippling traffic, there have been recent indications that the Hamas-controlled security forces are growing more thuggish. In the past week, they have arrested at least 11 Fatah activists and, on Monday, forcibly tried to disperse a pro-Fatah protest.
Hamas's Executive Force, an offshoot of its Qassem Brigade militia that now acts as the strip's de facto police, has stepped up its own brand of political repression. On Monday, the group said all political demonstrations in Gaza would require licenses before being allowed to go ahead, and the group also recently closed a Fatah-controlled radio station.
Over the weekend, a fight broke out between Executive Force members and guests at a Fatah wedding party. Hamas said it took action because gunshots were fired at the wedding (Hamas has tried to ban this tradition since falling bullets frequently kill bystanders); Fatah supporters said they had merely been singing pro-Fatah songs.
Ahmed Yousef, a senior adviser to Hamas leader and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh who lived for decades in the US, argues that the "coup" in Gaza, as Fatah calls it, was in fact a preemptive strike against a takeover plan by Fatah members loyal to Mohammed Dahlan, the former Palestinian security chief and notorious Gaza strongman.
"Our No. 1 priority was, and is, strengthening law and order, and the [Mohammed] Dahlan group know that when that happens their corruption, conspiracies, and abuse of power would be revealed."
Mr. Yousef says Hamas uncovered documents that prove rampant theft by Mr. Dahlan and other Fatah leaders from the movement's sacked offices in Gaza, though he declined to provide them. "We have all the facts for now, and the people expect us to reveal something, but sometimes the wiser course is to make the argument in private."
Indeed, corruption is the accusation you hear leveled at Fatah again and again from talking with Palestinians in the West Bank.
Despite anger among many Palestinians at Hamas for the Gaza takeover, in which some Fatah activists were executed, the Islamist movement is still seen overwhelmingly as the more "clean" faction, the reason that so many Palestinians voted for Hamas in the January 2006 elections.
"We lost our way years ago," says Azzam al-Ahmad, a former deputy prime minister and Fatah member in the Palestinian parliament. "Too much corruption was tolerated in our ranks, and now we have to find a way to rebuild."
Qadura Fares, a member of Fatah's young guard, is more blunt. "Fatah needs radical surgery, but the patient is very frail. If you meet with 200 Fatah representatives, they'll all tell you the same thing. Corruption is our big problem. But, of course, some of those 200 are among the corrupt. Are they going to give up their positions? It doesn't look like it."
And while one adviser to the Bush administration says that when Fatah leaders come to Washington they invariably talk about what the US should do to weaken Hamas, rather than present new initiatives to further the interests of the Palestinian people, Hamas's leaders say they are mostly focused on their responsibilities at home.
Yousef says Hamas has started providing $100 a month to 20,000 of Gaza's poorest from its own coffers (although he still says Hamas is receiving outside financial support) and that the movement has made great strides in getting gunmen off the streets.
Perhaps Hamas's greatest success so far has been in disbanding criminal clans, most visibly the Dugmush clan, which claimed responsibility for kidnapped and holding BBC reporter Alan Johnston for more than three months earlier this year. Today, many shopkeepers say they no longer have to pay the protection money once demanded by criminal clans.
"We've made the consequences very clear to the clans if they don't keep their weapons at home," says Islam Shawan, the spokesman for the Executive Force. "We still have four of the men involved with Johnston's kidnapping in custody and will arrest more if we have to."
As for any movement toward new negotiations between the two rival Palestinian factions on a possible new unity government, "We made some mistakes, we know that, and we're ready and eager to talk," says Hamas's Yousef.
Mr. Ahmad of Fatah holds a very different position: "Until all the results of the coup are overturned, no discussions will be possible."
Gaza City, Gaza; and Ramallah , West Bank
Even in the face of possible economic collapse, Hamas leaders want to figure out a better way to collect garbage in Gaza. The Islamist movement, which now controls the coastal strip, is working out ways to create new jobs and reduce petty crime.
A new enthusiasm has swept through this territory in the aftermath of the violent split in June between the two Palestinian factions. Among many young Gazans there is excitement for a Palestinian enclave that fully embraces the principles of their Islamic Resistance Movement without the interference of Fatah rivals.
"We've taken control, we've gotten rid of people who were collaborating with Israel, and we've restored order," says Khalil al-Haja, a mid-ranking member of Hamas Qassem Brigade militia. "Abu Mazen [Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas] will eventually have to realize that we're hear to stay. In six months, we'll be reunited."
While that vision may indeed be only a Hamas dream, the good spirits among Hamas officials in Gaza are in stark contrast to the low morale of their Fatah counterparts.
In talking to Fatah members in the West Bank, a picture of despair, disorganization, and exhaustion emerges, not only due to what they feel was a humiliating defeat at the hands of their rivals but because Fatah as a movement appears to be losing touch with its own ideological moorings.
The differences call into question the current US strategy for dealing with the Palestinians: give Mr. Abbas legitimacy, prod the Israelis to improve daily life in the West Bank, and isolate Hamas in an economically desperate Gaza.
Though Gaza's economy is weakening, there is every sign that Hamas is inexorably bolstering its position.
"Audiences in the US have a strong feeling of black and white and they're betting on which side will win based on whether it agrees with them," says Mouin Rabbani, an analyst at the International Crisis Group. "But there's an issue that is overlooked: The virtual disintegration of Fatah."
Neither side has shown themselves to be paragons of democracy. In the West Bank, hundreds Hamas activists have been jailed for their political beliefs since June, gunmen out of uniform are frequently seen on city streets, and the local security forces are seen by many average citizens as unruly thugs.
In Gaza, while unarmed volunteers untangle crippling traffic, there have been recent indications that the Hamas-controlled security forces are growing more thuggish. In the past week, they have arrested at least 11 Fatah activists and, on Monday, forcibly tried to disperse a pro-Fatah protest.
Hamas's Executive Force, an offshoot of its Qassem Brigade militia that now acts as the strip's de facto police, has stepped up its own brand of political repression. On Monday, the group said all political demonstrations in Gaza would require licenses before being allowed to go ahead, and the group also recently closed a Fatah-controlled radio station.
Over the weekend, a fight broke out between Executive Force members and guests at a Fatah wedding party. Hamas said it took action because gunshots were fired at the wedding (Hamas has tried to ban this tradition since falling bullets frequently kill bystanders); Fatah supporters said they had merely been singing pro-Fatah songs.
Ahmed Yousef, a senior adviser to Hamas leader and former Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh who lived for decades in the US, argues that the "coup" in Gaza, as Fatah calls it, was in fact a preemptive strike against a takeover plan by Fatah members loyal to Mohammed Dahlan, the former Palestinian security chief and notorious Gaza strongman.
"Our No. 1 priority was, and is, strengthening law and order, and the [Mohammed] Dahlan group know that when that happens their corruption, conspiracies, and abuse of power would be revealed."
Mr. Yousef says Hamas uncovered documents that prove rampant theft by Mr. Dahlan and other Fatah leaders from the movement's sacked offices in Gaza, though he declined to provide them. "We have all the facts for now, and the people expect us to reveal something, but sometimes the wiser course is to make the argument in private."
Indeed, corruption is the accusation you hear leveled at Fatah again and again from talking with Palestinians in the West Bank.
Despite anger among many Palestinians at Hamas for the Gaza takeover, in which some Fatah activists were executed, the Islamist movement is still seen overwhelmingly as the more "clean" faction, the reason that so many Palestinians voted for Hamas in the January 2006 elections.
"We lost our way years ago," says Azzam al-Ahmad, a former deputy prime minister and Fatah member in the Palestinian parliament. "Too much corruption was tolerated in our ranks, and now we have to find a way to rebuild."
Qadura Fares, a member of Fatah's young guard, is more blunt. "Fatah needs radical surgery, but the patient is very frail. If you meet with 200 Fatah representatives, they'll all tell you the same thing. Corruption is our big problem. But, of course, some of those 200 are among the corrupt. Are they going to give up their positions? It doesn't look like it."
And while one adviser to the Bush administration says that when Fatah leaders come to Washington they invariably talk about what the US should do to weaken Hamas, rather than present new initiatives to further the interests of the Palestinian people, Hamas's leaders say they are mostly focused on their responsibilities at home.
Yousef says Hamas has started providing $100 a month to 20,000 of Gaza's poorest from its own coffers (although he still says Hamas is receiving outside financial support) and that the movement has made great strides in getting gunmen off the streets.
Perhaps Hamas's greatest success so far has been in disbanding criminal clans, most visibly the Dugmush clan, which claimed responsibility for kidnapped and holding BBC reporter Alan Johnston for more than three months earlier this year. Today, many shopkeepers say they no longer have to pay the protection money once demanded by criminal clans.
"We've made the consequences very clear to the clans if they don't keep their weapons at home," says Islam Shawan, the spokesman for the Executive Force. "We still have four of the men involved with Johnston's kidnapping in custody and will arrest more if we have to."
As for any movement toward new negotiations between the two rival Palestinian factions on a possible new unity government, "We made some mistakes, we know that, and we're ready and eager to talk," says Hamas's Yousef.
Mr. Ahmad of Fatah holds a very different position: "Until all the results of the coup are overturned, no discussions will be possible."
Saudi government official at heart of eavesdropping case
By PAUL ELIAS, The Associated Press
2007-08-14 20:45:40.0
Current rank: # 388 of 5,897
SAN FRANCISCO -
Soliman al-Buthi is a prominent religious leader in Saudi Arabia, a father of three, and a ranking government official.
He's also a terrorist, according to the United States and United Nations.
His lawyers argue that much of the evidence against al-Buthi was misinterpreted by National Security Agency officials who eavesdropped on conversations between al-Buthi and his American attorneys. Those intercepted communications are at the heart of a constitutional challenge to the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program, which will be heard Wednesday by a federal appeals court in San Francisco.
Among the dozens of lawsuits alleging civil right violations by the secret surveillance program, legal experts say the one involving the Oregon charity al-Buthi controlled has the best shot of succeeding. That's because al-Buthi and his lawyers claim to have proof their communications were monitored: a top-secret NSA call log accidentally turned over to the defense team by government officials.
Al-Buthi will not attend Wednesday's hearing at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because he remains a fugitive in this country. He's also listed on an Interpol "no fly" list and is subject to arrest and deportation to the United States if he steps outside Saudi Arabia, which does not extradite its citizens.
Despite all this, he was recently promoted by the Saudi government to health department director in charge of inspecting restaurants and drafting plans to combat the spread of bird flu.
"I am a very respected person in Riyadh," al-Buthi said in a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press, referring to Saudi Arabia's most populous city and his hometown.
http://www.examiner.com/printa-880790~Saud...=tool-print-top
By PAUL ELIAS, The Associated Press
2007-08-14 20:45:40.0
Current rank: # 388 of 5,897
SAN FRANCISCO -
Soliman al-Buthi is a prominent religious leader in Saudi Arabia, a father of three, and a ranking government official.
He's also a terrorist, according to the United States and United Nations.
His lawyers argue that much of the evidence against al-Buthi was misinterpreted by National Security Agency officials who eavesdropped on conversations between al-Buthi and his American attorneys. Those intercepted communications are at the heart of a constitutional challenge to the Bush administration's warrantless wiretapping program, which will be heard Wednesday by a federal appeals court in San Francisco.
Among the dozens of lawsuits alleging civil right violations by the secret surveillance program, legal experts say the one involving the Oregon charity al-Buthi controlled has the best shot of succeeding. That's because al-Buthi and his lawyers claim to have proof their communications were monitored: a top-secret NSA call log accidentally turned over to the defense team by government officials.
Al-Buthi will not attend Wednesday's hearing at the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals because he remains a fugitive in this country. He's also listed on an Interpol "no fly" list and is subject to arrest and deportation to the United States if he steps outside Saudi Arabia, which does not extradite its citizens.
Despite all this, he was recently promoted by the Saudi government to health department director in charge of inspecting restaurants and drafting plans to combat the spread of bird flu.
"I am a very respected person in Riyadh," al-Buthi said in a recent telephone interview with The Associated Press, referring to Saudi Arabia's most populous city and his hometown.
http://www.examiner.com/printa-880790~Saud...=tool-print-top
US 'surges', soldiers die. Blame Iran
Growing numbers of US forces in Baghdad are being killed or injured in attacks by Shi'ite militias with links to Iran. The US says this is because of a "surge" in Iranian assistance aimed at ousting the Americans from Iraq, despite there being no new evidence to back up the claim. It could simply be that the US soldiers are dying because they have significantly stepped up operations against Shi'ites in the capital. - Gareth Porter (Aug 15, '07)
Growing numbers of US forces in Baghdad are being killed or injured in attacks by Shi'ite militias with links to Iran. The US says this is because of a "surge" in Iranian assistance aimed at ousting the Americans from Iraq, despite there being no new evidence to back up the claim. It could simply be that the US soldiers are dying because they have significantly stepped up operations against Shi'ites in the capital. - Gareth Porter (Aug 15, '07)
DISPATCHES FROM AMERICA
Billions in waste and not a dime's difference
There is plenty of fodder for Democratic presidential candidates who want to exploit the Bush administration's love affair with the Pentagon. But, in most cases, the Democrats speak of increasing the defense budget or spending "smarter", not slashing it. (Aug 15, '07)
Whom do you believe?
"[T]he possibility of a cascading stream of successive defaults and bankruptcies is hanging over the financial markets like a specter. In the US, it's called 'subprime lending'."
- Julian Delasantellis, Rocking the subprime house of cards, ATol, Mar 6, '07
"Debt securitization is guerrilla warfare against a sound credit system. Unlike a credit-driven economy, a debt-propelled economy will inevitably reach a point where its ability to service the growing debt is exceeded, unless inflation stays ahead of interest charges, in which case the banking system will fail."
- Henry C K Liu, Fed's pugnacious policies hurt economies, ATol, Jan 10, '04
"The fear driving down the big [Wall Street] names is that through the good times they had became way too involved with the subprime market and its now-doomed institutions. As the New Centurys of the world sink, their wake will pull down the big names as well."
- Julian Delasantellis, The subprime dominoes in motion, ATol, Mar 16, '07
"But the most scary part of the ride is what this all means beyond Wall Street. On Tuesday, Countrywide Financial chief executive officer Angelo Mozila warned that the US lending industry has entered what he calls a 'liquidity crisis'. This is a gentle way of stating that the engine that is supposed to provide new housing finance to US homebuyers, and to the US economy, is seizing up."
- Julian Delasantellis, The subprime dominoes in motion, ATol, Mar 16, '07
"While the risk-shifting function of derivatives initially served the useful role of hedging and thereby facilitating fund flows, the prevalence of derivatives is now threatening the stability of the global economy as a whole."
- Henry C K Liu, The dangers of derivatives, ATol, May 23, '02
Or ...
"We have spent a bit of time evaluating the financial implications of the subprime issues ... There is a sense that although there is always a possibility for some kind of disruption ... the financial system will absorb the losses from the subprime mortgage problems without serious problems."
- Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, May '07
"Ben Stein said it well this past Saturday on Fox’s 'Cavuto on Business': The subprime mortgage problem is grossly overstated; the sector is just too small. Smart guy, Ben. Ferris Bueller never should have skipped school that day - he would have learned economics from a master. [Stein played Bueller’s high-school teacher in the pop movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.]
- Jerry Bowyer, Fox News.com, Aug 9, '07
"[T]he possibility of a cascading stream of successive defaults and bankruptcies is hanging over the financial markets like a specter. In the US, it's called 'subprime lending'."
- Julian Delasantellis, Rocking the subprime house of cards, ATol, Mar 6, '07
"Debt securitization is guerrilla warfare against a sound credit system. Unlike a credit-driven economy, a debt-propelled economy will inevitably reach a point where its ability to service the growing debt is exceeded, unless inflation stays ahead of interest charges, in which case the banking system will fail."
- Henry C K Liu, Fed's pugnacious policies hurt economies, ATol, Jan 10, '04
"The fear driving down the big [Wall Street] names is that through the good times they had became way too involved with the subprime market and its now-doomed institutions. As the New Centurys of the world sink, their wake will pull down the big names as well."
- Julian Delasantellis, The subprime dominoes in motion, ATol, Mar 16, '07
"But the most scary part of the ride is what this all means beyond Wall Street. On Tuesday, Countrywide Financial chief executive officer Angelo Mozila warned that the US lending industry has entered what he calls a 'liquidity crisis'. This is a gentle way of stating that the engine that is supposed to provide new housing finance to US homebuyers, and to the US economy, is seizing up."
- Julian Delasantellis, The subprime dominoes in motion, ATol, Mar 16, '07
"While the risk-shifting function of derivatives initially served the useful role of hedging and thereby facilitating fund flows, the prevalence of derivatives is now threatening the stability of the global economy as a whole."
- Henry C K Liu, The dangers of derivatives, ATol, May 23, '02
Or ...
"We have spent a bit of time evaluating the financial implications of the subprime issues ... There is a sense that although there is always a possibility for some kind of disruption ... the financial system will absorb the losses from the subprime mortgage problems without serious problems."
- Fed chairman Ben Bernanke, May '07
"Ben Stein said it well this past Saturday on Fox’s 'Cavuto on Business': The subprime mortgage problem is grossly overstated; the sector is just too small. Smart guy, Ben. Ferris Bueller never should have skipped school that day - he would have learned economics from a master. [Stein played Bueller’s high-school teacher in the pop movie, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.]
- Jerry Bowyer, Fox News.com, Aug 9, '07
INCREASED DOMESTIC ROLE FOR INTELLIGENCE FORESEEN
Spy satellites and other classified intelligence technologies are
poised to play a greater role in domestic homeland security and law
enforcement missions, challenging long-standing legal and policy
barriers against their domestic use.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that the Director of National
Intelligence recently authorized access to intelligence satellite
products by officials of the Department of Homeland Security to help
support border security.
See "U.S. to Expand Domestic Use of Spy Satellites" by Robert Block,
Wall Street Journal, August 15, p.1:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118714764716998275.html
A comprehensive 2005 government study of the use of intelligence
capabilities for domestic applications concluded that "significant
change is needed in policy regimes regulating domestic use of IC
[intelligence community] capabilities" in order to permit their full
exploitation.
"The use of IC capabilities for domestic purposes should be… based on
the premise that most uses of IC capabilities are lawful rather than
treating any use as an exception to the rule requiring a case-by-case
adjudication," the study said.
"There is an urgent need for a top-down, Executive Branch review of all
laws and policies affecting use of intelligence capabilities purposes,"
the report said.
In particular, the 1981 Executive Order 12333 which governs
intelligence activities "should be amended to permit as unfettered an
operational environment for the collection, exploitation and
dissemination [of domestic intelligence data] as is reasonably
possible," the report recommended.
The authors acknowledged that such "unfettered" operation would require
increased oversight, but they suggested that it could be satisfactorily
accomplished by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The
Board has been a minor, not notably influential player in recent
intelligence policy disputes.
The report acknowledged in passing a problematic 2001 U.S. Supreme
Court ruling in the case Kyllo v. United States, which concluded that
the use of infrared sensors to scan a private residence for heat lamps
used in marijuana cultivation constituted an unlawful warrantless
search. The ruling appears to be significantly at odds with the new
domestic intelligence thrust.
"This decision has placed in question the continued viability of past
settled practice of the IC within the domestic domain," the study
delicately observed.
Nevertheless, "to date we are not aware of any clear authoritative
guidance issued on the impact, if any, of this decision."
The 2005 study was first reported by the Wall Street Journal today. A
copy of the unclassified study, which was "produced solely for the use
of the United States Government," was obtained by Secrecy News.
See "Civil Applications Committee (CAC) Blue Ribbon Study," Independent
Study Group Final Report, September 2005:
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/cac-report.pdf
Intelligence support to domestic environmental monitoring and emergency
response has been conducted since the 1970s under the supervision of the
little-known interagency Civil Appplications Committee. A 2001 fact
sheet describing the history and mission of the Committee is available
here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/cac-fs.pdf
Spy satellites and other classified intelligence technologies are
poised to play a greater role in domestic homeland security and law
enforcement missions, challenging long-standing legal and policy
barriers against their domestic use.
The Wall Street Journal reported today that the Director of National
Intelligence recently authorized access to intelligence satellite
products by officials of the Department of Homeland Security to help
support border security.
See "U.S. to Expand Domestic Use of Spy Satellites" by Robert Block,
Wall Street Journal, August 15, p.1:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB118714764716998275.html
A comprehensive 2005 government study of the use of intelligence
capabilities for domestic applications concluded that "significant
change is needed in policy regimes regulating domestic use of IC
[intelligence community] capabilities" in order to permit their full
exploitation.
"The use of IC capabilities for domestic purposes should be… based on
the premise that most uses of IC capabilities are lawful rather than
treating any use as an exception to the rule requiring a case-by-case
adjudication," the study said.
"There is an urgent need for a top-down, Executive Branch review of all
laws and policies affecting use of intelligence capabilities purposes,"
the report said.
In particular, the 1981 Executive Order 12333 which governs
intelligence activities "should be amended to permit as unfettered an
operational environment for the collection, exploitation and
dissemination [of domestic intelligence data] as is reasonably
possible," the report recommended.
The authors acknowledged that such "unfettered" operation would require
increased oversight, but they suggested that it could be satisfactorily
accomplished by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board. The
Board has been a minor, not notably influential player in recent
intelligence policy disputes.
The report acknowledged in passing a problematic 2001 U.S. Supreme
Court ruling in the case Kyllo v. United States, which concluded that
the use of infrared sensors to scan a private residence for heat lamps
used in marijuana cultivation constituted an unlawful warrantless
search. The ruling appears to be significantly at odds with the new
domestic intelligence thrust.
"This decision has placed in question the continued viability of past
settled practice of the IC within the domestic domain," the study
delicately observed.
Nevertheless, "to date we are not aware of any clear authoritative
guidance issued on the impact, if any, of this decision."
The 2005 study was first reported by the Wall Street Journal today. A
copy of the unclassified study, which was "produced solely for the use
of the United States Government," was obtained by Secrecy News.
See "Civil Applications Committee (CAC) Blue Ribbon Study," Independent
Study Group Final Report, September 2005:
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/cac-report.pdf
Intelligence support to domestic environmental monitoring and emergency
response has been conducted since the 1970s under the supervision of the
little-known interagency Civil Appplications Committee. A 2001 fact
sheet describing the history and mission of the Committee is available
here:
http://www.fas.org/irp/eprint/cac-fs.pdf
BALLISTIC MISSILE DEFENSE IN EUROPE
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has published a glossy brochure setting
forth its vision of a missile defense system based in Europe.
See "Proposed U.S. Missile Defense Assets in Europe," Missile Defense
Agency, June 15, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/bmd-europe.pdf
Various perspectives on the missile defense program were presented in a
recently updated report of the Congressional Research Service,
"Long-Range Ballistic Missile Defense in Europe," July 25, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL34051.pdf
___________________________
The U.S. Missile Defense Agency has published a glossy brochure setting
forth its vision of a missile defense system based in Europe.
See "Proposed U.S. Missile Defense Assets in Europe," Missile Defense
Agency, June 15, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/irp/threat/missile/bmd-europe.pdf
Various perspectives on the missile defense program were presented in a
recently updated report of the Congressional Research Service,
"Long-Range Ballistic Missile Defense in Europe," July 25, 2007:
http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RL34051.pdf
___________________________
Giuliani: Toward Realistic Peace
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070901faessay86501/rudolph-giuliani/toward-a-realistic-peace.html ://http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070...tic-peace.html
Edwards: Reengaging With the World
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070901faessay86502/john-edwards/reengaging-with-the-world.html ://http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070...the-world.html
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070901faessay86501/rudolph-giuliani/toward-a-realistic-peace.html ://http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070...tic-peace.html
Edwards: Reengaging With the World
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070901faessay86502/john-edwards/reengaging-with-the-world.html ://http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070...the-world.html
Facebook Helps College Freshmen Get An Early Start On Hating Roommates
Posted on August 15, 2007 at 10:42 AM.
Across the country college administrators said they are getting more pleas than ever from Facebook frazzled parents.
"They call based on the information that they see on Facebook and they say that their son or their daughter can't possibly live with that person," said Deb DiCaprio, Marist College's dean of students.
Syracuse University has formulated a response to such a request.
"Our response to that is, we do not move students. We do not discriminate at all," said Syracuse University housing director Robin Berkowtiz-Smith.
Read the full story »
Posted on August 15, 2007 at 10:42 AM.
Across the country college administrators said they are getting more pleas than ever from Facebook frazzled parents.
"They call based on the information that they see on Facebook and they say that their son or their daughter can't possibly live with that person," said Deb DiCaprio, Marist College's dean of students.
Syracuse University has formulated a response to such a request.
"Our response to that is, we do not move students. We do not discriminate at all," said Syracuse University housing director Robin Berkowtiz-Smith.
Read the full story »
The Role of the Al Quds Force in Iran's Revolutionary Guard
By Douglas Farah
Today's Washington Post brings the welcome news that the Bush administration is about to designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist entity.
The Guard is certainly, in a broad sense, an agent of terror despite being directly and organically part of a state apparatus.
While the Guard itself is heavily involved in businesses, internal repression and security, the al Quds (Jeruselem) Force is a much small cadre of senior Guard leaders who can call on special Guard units if it needs boots on the ground activities. For a good overview, see this somewhat dated but look at Hezbollah and its state ties.
According to U.S. and European intelligence friends, the Quds Force is the group that made the decision to allow senior al Qaeda operatives into Iran, as well as Osama bin Laden's son, Sa'ad. The group also allowed many family member of al Qaeda to exit Afghanistan through Iran in 2001, including at least one of bin Laden's wives. My full blog is here
August 15, 2007 12:28 PM Link
The Peculiar Relationship
"No American President Can Stand Up to Israel"
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
"No American President can stand up to Israel."
These words came from feisty Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations (1967-1970) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1970-1974). Moorer was, perhaps, the last independent-minded American military leader.
Admiral Moorer knew what he was talking about. On June 8, 1967, Israel attacked the American intelligence ship, USS Liberty, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 173. The Israelis even strafed the life rafts, machine-gunning the American sailors leaving the stricken ship.
Apparently, the USS Liberty had picked up Israeli communications that revealed Israel's responsibility for the Seven Day War. Even today, history books and the majority of Americans blame the conflict on the Arabs.
The United States Navy knew the truth, but the President of the United States took Israel's side against the American military and ordered the United States Navy to shut its mouth. President Lyndon Johnson said it was all just a mistake. Later in life, Admiral Moorer formed a commission and presented the unvarnished truth to Americans.
The power of the Israel Lobby over American foreign policy is considerable. In March 2006, two distinguished American scholars, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, expressed concern in the London Review of Books that the power of the Israel Lobby was bending US foreign policy in directions that serve neither US nor Israeli interests. The two experts were hoping to start a debate that might rescue the US and Israel from unsuccessful policies of coercion that are intensifying Muslim hatred of Israel and America. The Israel lobby was opposed to any such reassessment, and attempted to close it off with epithets: "Jew-baiter," "anti-semitic," and even "anti-American." Today Israeli citizens who oppose Zionist plans for greater Israel are denounced as "anti-Semites."
Many Americans are unaware of the influence of the Israel lobby. Instead they think of the US as "the world's sole superpower," a macho new Roman Empire whose orders are obeyed without question or the insolent nonentity is "bombed back to the stone age." Many Americans are convinced that military coercion serves our interest. They cite Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now they are ready to bring Iran and Pakistan to heel with bombs.
This arrogance results in the murder of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of men, women and children, a fate that many Americans seem to believe is appropriate for countries that do not accept US hegemony.
Coercion is what American foreign policy has become. Macho superpatriots love it. Many of these superpatriots derive vicarious pleasure from their delusions that America is "kicking those sand "epithet deleted"' asses."
This is the America of the Bush Regime. If some of these superpatriots had their way every "unpatriotic, terrorist supporter" who dares to criticize the war against "the Islamofacists" would be sent to Gitmo, if not shot on the spot.
These Bush supporters have morphed the Republican Party into the Brownshirt Party. They cannot wait to attack Iran, preferably with nuclear weapons. Impatient for Armageddon, some are so full of hubris and self-righteousness that they actually believe that their support for evil means they will be "wafted up to heaven." [see
It has come as a crippling blow to Democrats that "their" political party is comfortable with Bush's America, and will do nothing to stop the Bush regime's aggression against the Iraqi people or to prevent the Bush regime's attack on Iran.
The Democrats could easily impeach both Bush and Cheney in the House, as impeachment only requires a majority vote. They could not convict in the Senate without Republican support, as conviction requires ratification by two-thirds of Senators present. Nevertheless, a House vote for impeachment would take the wind out of the sails of war, save countless lives and perhaps even save humanity from nuclear holocaust.
Various rationales or excuses have been constructed for the Democrats' complicity in aggression that does not serve America. Perhaps the most popular rationale is that the Democrats are letting the Republicans have all the rope they want with which to produce such a high disapproval rating that the Democrats will sweep the 2008 election.
It is doubtful that the Democrats would assume that men as cunning as Karl Rove and Dick Cheney do not understand the electoral consequences of a low public approval rating and are walking blindly into an electoral wipeout. Rove's departure does not mean that no strategy is in place.
So what does explain the complicity of the Democratic Party in a policy that the American public, and especially Democratic constituencies, reject? Perhaps a clue is offered from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune news report (August 1, 2007) that Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison will spend a week in Israel on "a privately funded trip sponsored by the American Israel Education Federation. The AIEF--the charitable arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)--is sending 19 members of Congress to meet with Israeli leaders. The group, made up mostly of freshman Democrats, has plans to meet with Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and [puppet] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The senior Democratic member on the trip is House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has gone three times. . . . The trip to Israel is Ellison's second as a congressman."
According to the Star-Tribune, a Republican group, which includes Rep. Michele Bachmann (R, Minn), led by Rep. Eric Cantor (R, Va) is already in Israel. According to news reports, another 40 are following these two groups during the August recess, and "by the time the year is out every single member of Congress will have made their rounds in Israel." This claim is probably overstated, but it does show careful Israeli management of US policy in the Middle East.
Elsewhere on earth and especially among Muslims, the suspicion is rife that the reason the war against Iraq cannot end, and the reason Iran and Syria must be attacked, is that the US must destroy all Muslim opposition to Israel's theft of Palestine, turning an entire people into refugees driven from their homes and from the lands on which they have lived for many centuries. Americans might think that they are merely grabbing control over oil, keeping it out of the hands of terrorists, but that is not the way the rest of the world views the conflict.
Jimmy Carter was the last American president who stood up to Israel and demanded that US diplomacy be, at least officially if not in practice, even-handed in its approach to Israel and Palestine. Since Carter's presidency, even-handedness has slowly drained from US policy in the Middle East. The neoconservative Bush/Cheney regime has abandoned even the pretense of even-handedness.
This is unfortunate, because military coercion has proven to be unsuccessful. Exhausted from the conflict, the US military, according to former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, is "nearly broken." Demoralized elite West Point graduates are leaving the army at the fastest clip in 30 years. Desertions are rapidly rising. A friend, a US Marine officer who served in combat in Vietnam, recently wrote to me that his son's Marine unit, currently training for its third deployment to Iraq in September, is short 12-16 men in every platoon and expects to be hit with more AWOLs prior to deployment.
Instead of re-evaluating a failed policy, Bush's "war tsar," General Douglas Lute, has called for the reinstitution of the draft. Gen. Lute doesn't see why Americans should not be returned to military servitude in order to save the Bush administration the embarrassment of having to correct a mistaken Middle East policy that commits the US to more aggression and to debilitating long-term military conflict in the Middle East.
It is difficult to see how this policy serves any interest other than the very narrow one of the armaments industry. Apparently, nothing can be done to change this disastrous policy until the Israel Lobby comes to the realization that Israel's interest is not being served by the current policy of military coercion.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts08152007.html
"No American President Can Stand Up to Israel"
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
"No American President can stand up to Israel."
These words came from feisty Admiral Thomas Moorer, Chief of Naval Operations (1967-1970) and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (1970-1974). Moorer was, perhaps, the last independent-minded American military leader.
Admiral Moorer knew what he was talking about. On June 8, 1967, Israel attacked the American intelligence ship, USS Liberty, killing 34 American sailors and wounding 173. The Israelis even strafed the life rafts, machine-gunning the American sailors leaving the stricken ship.
Apparently, the USS Liberty had picked up Israeli communications that revealed Israel's responsibility for the Seven Day War. Even today, history books and the majority of Americans blame the conflict on the Arabs.
The United States Navy knew the truth, but the President of the United States took Israel's side against the American military and ordered the United States Navy to shut its mouth. President Lyndon Johnson said it was all just a mistake. Later in life, Admiral Moorer formed a commission and presented the unvarnished truth to Americans.
The power of the Israel Lobby over American foreign policy is considerable. In March 2006, two distinguished American scholars, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, expressed concern in the London Review of Books that the power of the Israel Lobby was bending US foreign policy in directions that serve neither US nor Israeli interests. The two experts were hoping to start a debate that might rescue the US and Israel from unsuccessful policies of coercion that are intensifying Muslim hatred of Israel and America. The Israel lobby was opposed to any such reassessment, and attempted to close it off with epithets: "Jew-baiter," "anti-semitic," and even "anti-American." Today Israeli citizens who oppose Zionist plans for greater Israel are denounced as "anti-Semites."
Many Americans are unaware of the influence of the Israel lobby. Instead they think of the US as "the world's sole superpower," a macho new Roman Empire whose orders are obeyed without question or the insolent nonentity is "bombed back to the stone age." Many Americans are convinced that military coercion serves our interest. They cite Libya, Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and now they are ready to bring Iran and Pakistan to heel with bombs.
This arrogance results in the murder of tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, of men, women and children, a fate that many Americans seem to believe is appropriate for countries that do not accept US hegemony.
Coercion is what American foreign policy has become. Macho superpatriots love it. Many of these superpatriots derive vicarious pleasure from their delusions that America is "kicking those sand "epithet deleted"' asses."
This is the America of the Bush Regime. If some of these superpatriots had their way every "unpatriotic, terrorist supporter" who dares to criticize the war against "the Islamofacists" would be sent to Gitmo, if not shot on the spot.
These Bush supporters have morphed the Republican Party into the Brownshirt Party. They cannot wait to attack Iran, preferably with nuclear weapons. Impatient for Armageddon, some are so full of hubris and self-righteousness that they actually believe that their support for evil means they will be "wafted up to heaven." [see
It has come as a crippling blow to Democrats that "their" political party is comfortable with Bush's America, and will do nothing to stop the Bush regime's aggression against the Iraqi people or to prevent the Bush regime's attack on Iran.
The Democrats could easily impeach both Bush and Cheney in the House, as impeachment only requires a majority vote. They could not convict in the Senate without Republican support, as conviction requires ratification by two-thirds of Senators present. Nevertheless, a House vote for impeachment would take the wind out of the sails of war, save countless lives and perhaps even save humanity from nuclear holocaust.
Various rationales or excuses have been constructed for the Democrats' complicity in aggression that does not serve America. Perhaps the most popular rationale is that the Democrats are letting the Republicans have all the rope they want with which to produce such a high disapproval rating that the Democrats will sweep the 2008 election.
It is doubtful that the Democrats would assume that men as cunning as Karl Rove and Dick Cheney do not understand the electoral consequences of a low public approval rating and are walking blindly into an electoral wipeout. Rove's departure does not mean that no strategy is in place.
So what does explain the complicity of the Democratic Party in a policy that the American public, and especially Democratic constituencies, reject? Perhaps a clue is offered from the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune news report (August 1, 2007) that Democratic Congressman Keith Ellison will spend a week in Israel on "a privately funded trip sponsored by the American Israel Education Federation. The AIEF--the charitable arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)--is sending 19 members of Congress to meet with Israeli leaders. The group, made up mostly of freshman Democrats, has plans to meet with Isreali Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and [puppet] Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. The senior Democratic member on the trip is House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, who has gone three times. . . . The trip to Israel is Ellison's second as a congressman."
According to the Star-Tribune, a Republican group, which includes Rep. Michele Bachmann (R, Minn), led by Rep. Eric Cantor (R, Va) is already in Israel. According to news reports, another 40 are following these two groups during the August recess, and "by the time the year is out every single member of Congress will have made their rounds in Israel." This claim is probably overstated, but it does show careful Israeli management of US policy in the Middle East.
Elsewhere on earth and especially among Muslims, the suspicion is rife that the reason the war against Iraq cannot end, and the reason Iran and Syria must be attacked, is that the US must destroy all Muslim opposition to Israel's theft of Palestine, turning an entire people into refugees driven from their homes and from the lands on which they have lived for many centuries. Americans might think that they are merely grabbing control over oil, keeping it out of the hands of terrorists, but that is not the way the rest of the world views the conflict.
Jimmy Carter was the last American president who stood up to Israel and demanded that US diplomacy be, at least officially if not in practice, even-handed in its approach to Israel and Palestine. Since Carter's presidency, even-handedness has slowly drained from US policy in the Middle East. The neoconservative Bush/Cheney regime has abandoned even the pretense of even-handedness.
This is unfortunate, because military coercion has proven to be unsuccessful. Exhausted from the conflict, the US military, according to former Secretary of State and former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, is "nearly broken." Demoralized elite West Point graduates are leaving the army at the fastest clip in 30 years. Desertions are rapidly rising. A friend, a US Marine officer who served in combat in Vietnam, recently wrote to me that his son's Marine unit, currently training for its third deployment to Iraq in September, is short 12-16 men in every platoon and expects to be hit with more AWOLs prior to deployment.
Instead of re-evaluating a failed policy, Bush's "war tsar," General Douglas Lute, has called for the reinstitution of the draft. Gen. Lute doesn't see why Americans should not be returned to military servitude in order to save the Bush administration the embarrassment of having to correct a mistaken Middle East policy that commits the US to more aggression and to debilitating long-term military conflict in the Middle East.
It is difficult to see how this policy serves any interest other than the very narrow one of the armaments industry. Apparently, nothing can be done to change this disastrous policy until the Israel Lobby comes to the realization that Israel's interest is not being served by the current policy of military coercion.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts08152007.html
August 14, 2007
*'This One Is So Hot': The Censorship of Walt and Mearsheimer*
**
I now have a copy of the letter John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt sent
to the board of the Chicago Global Affairs Council after it cancelled
their September appearance there under political pressure. The letter
follows, below.
A couple of comments. This is a sad business. Two distinguished profs
who have both spoken at the Council before are disinvited
regretfully/squeamishly by a respected professional friend, and informed
that they might only speak if someone else comes to counter their
statements. The old "context" argument used against Rachel Corrie and
everyone else. Your views are too toxic to be heard unless we "balance"
them.
Walt and Mearsheimer point out that Michael Oren spoke at the Council
earlier this year on Middle East matters without "context." Oren is a
neoconservative who made aliyah to Israel in the 70s and who served as
an officer in the Israeli army. John Mearsheimer served as an officer in
the United States Air Force. Let us be very clear about this: A former
officer in the Israeli Army who lives in Israel (and has lately served
in the Israeli Reserves) may hold forth about our policy in the Middle
East, but a former officer in our Air Force has no place to do the same.
You don't have to be a nativist to find this mindboggling. Mearsheimer
and Walt are all for Oren speaking, they just want to be able to speak
too. And just compare the literary and analytical work of Oren and
Mearsheimer; there is no comparison. Oren is a polemicist, Mearsheimer a
serious student of American policy. Deeply dispiriting. Where is Alan
Dershowitz, to decry the censorship?
I'm upset. I tell myself that this just shows how afraid the other side
is of the truth, but face it, they're winning. Last night my wife said
at dinner that I am "paying a price" for my views on the Middle East. I
have a long career as a journalist. I lost a blog-job earlier this year
over these issues, I can't get paying assignments to write about these
matters; and they are all that I care about, as my country fumbles
through the aftermath of 9/11 and Iraq. I sense some of that same sorrow
in the Walt and Mearsheimer letter that follows. At the peaks of their
careers, they have devoted themselves to these policy issues out of some
sense of duty; and they're not being allowed to speak. It appears from
the letter that a friendship has ended: the authors' with Marshall
Bouton. How long before the country wakes up from this madness?
August 5, 2007
[Addressed, individually, to board members of the Council, and to
members of Council committees]
We are writing to bring to your attention a troubling incident involving
the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. We do so reluctantly, as we have
both enjoyed our prior associations with the Council and we have great
respect for its aims and accomplishments. Nonetheless, we felt this was
an episode that should not pass without comment.
On September 4, 2007, our book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, one of the most highly
respected publishers in the United States. Through our publisher, the
Council issued an invitation for both of us to speak at a session on
September 27, 2007. We were delighted to accept, as each of us had
spoken at the Council on several occasions in the past and knew we would
attract a diverse and well-informed audience that would engage us in a
lively and productive discussion.
On July 19, while discussing the details of our visit with Sharon
Houtkamp, who was handling the arrangements at the Council, we learned
that the Council had already received a number of communications
protesting our appearance. We were not particularly surprised by this
news, as we had seen a similar pattern of behavior after our original
article on "The Israel Lobby" appeared in the London Review of Books in
March 2006. We were still looking forward to the event, however,
especially because it gave us an opportunity to engage these issues in
an open forum.
Then, on July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton phoned one of us
(Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was cancelling the event. He said
he felt "extremely uncomfortable making this call" and that his decision
did not reflect his personal views on the subject of our book. Instead,
he explained that his decision was based on the need "to protect the
institution." He said that he had a serious "political problem," because
there were individuals who would be angry if he gave us a venue to
speak, and that this would have serious negative consequences for the
Council. "This one is so hot," Marshall maintained, that he could not
present it at a Council session unless someone from "the other
side"—such as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League—was on stage
with us. At the very least, he needed to present "contending
viewpoints." But he said it was too late to try to change the format, as
the fall schedule was being finalized and there would not be sufficient
time to arrange an alternate date. He showed little interest in doing
anything with us in 2008 or beyond.
Several comments are in order regarding this situation.
First, since the publication of our original article on the Israel
lobby, we have appeared either singly or together at a number of
different venues, including Brown University, the Council on Foreign
Relations, Columbia University, Cornell University, Emerson College, the
Great Hall at Cooper Union, Georgetown University, the National Press
Club, the Nieman Fellows Program at Harvard University, the University
of Montana, the Jewish Community Center in Newton, Massachusetts, and
Congregation Kam Isaiah Israel in Chicago. In all but one of these
venues we appeared on our own, i.e., without someone from the "other
side." As one would expect, we often faced vigorous questions from
members of the audience, which invariably included individuals who
disagreed in fundamental ways with some of our arguments. Nevertheless,
the back-and-forth at each of these events was always civil, and quite a
few participants said that they benefited from listening to us and to
our interlocutors.
Second, the Council has recently welcomed speakers who do represent a
"contending viewpoint," and they have appeared on their own. Consider
the case of Michael Oren, an Israeli-American author, who appeared at
the Council on February 8, 2007, to talk about "The Middle East and the
United States: A Long and Complicated Relationship." Oren has a
different view of U.S. Middle East policy than we do; indeed, he gave a
keynote address at AIPAC's annual policy conference this past spring
that directly challenged our perspective. We believe it was entirely
appropriate for the Council to have invited him to speak, and without
having a representative from an opposing group there to debate him. The
Council has also welcomed a number of other speakers on this general
topic in recent years, such as Dennis Ross, Max Boot and Rashid Khalidi,
and none of their appearances included someone representing a
"contending view."
One might argue that our views are too controversial to be presented on
their own. However, they are seen as controversial only because some of
the groups and individuals that we criticized in our original article
have misrepresented what we said or leveled unjustified charges at us
personally—such as the baseless claim that we (or our views) are
anti-Semitic. The purpose of these charges, of course, is to discourage
respected organizations like the Council from giving us an audience, or
to create conditions where they feel compelled to include "contending
views" in order to preserve "balance" and to insulate themselves from
external criticism.
In fact, our views are not extreme. Our book does not question Israel's
right to exist and does not portray pro-Israel groups in the United
States as some sort of conspiracy to "control" U.S. foreign policy.
Rather, it describes these groups and individuals—both Jewish and
gentile—as simply an effective special interest group whose activities
are not substantially different from groups like the NRA, the farm
lobby, the AARP, or other ethnic lobbies. Its activities, in other
words, are as American as apple pie, although we argue that its
influence has helped produce policies that are not in the U.S. national
interest. We also suggest that these policies have been unintentionally
harmful to Israel as well, and that a different course of action would
be better for both countries. It is not obvious to us why such views
could not be included in the Council's schedule.
Although we find it somewhat unseemly to refer to our own careers, it is
perhaps worth noting that we are both well-established figures with
solid mainstream credentials. We are fortunate to occupy chaired
professorships at distinguished universities, and to have been elected
members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. We have both held
important leadership positions at Chicago or Harvard, each of us serves
on the editorial boards of several leading foreign policy journals (such
as Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy), and we have both done consulting
work for U.S. government agencies. Given our backgrounds, the idea that
it would be inappropriate for us to appear on our own at a Council
session seems far-fetched.
Finally, and most importantly, we believe that the decision to cancel
our appearance is antithetical to the principle of open discussion that
underpins American democracy, and that is so essential for maximizing
the prospects that our country pursues a wise foreign policy. In
essence, we believe this is a case in which a handful of people who
disagree with our views have used their influence to intimidate Marshall
into rescinding the Council's invitation to us, so as to insure that
interested members will not hear what we have to say about Israeli
policy, the U.S. relationship with Israel, and the lobby itself. This is
not the way we are supposed to address important issues of public policy
in the United States, and it is surely not the way the Council normally
conducts its business. This is undoubtedly why Marshall, who is a very
smart and decent man, felt so uncomfortable calling us to say that the
event had been cancelled. He knew this decision was contrary to
everything that the Council is supposed to represent.
The Chicago Council is obviously under no obligation to grant us a
venue, and we are not writing in an attempt to reverse this decision.
But given the importance of the issues that are raised in our book, we
are genuinely disappointed that we will not have the benefit of open
exchange with the Council's members, including those who might want to
challenge our arguments or conclusions. The United States and its
allies—including Israel—face many challenging problems in the Middle
East, and our country will not be able to address them intelligently if
we cannot have an open and civilized discussion about U.S. interests in
the region, and the various factors that shape American policy there.
Regrettably, the decision to cancel our appearance has made that
much-needed conversation more difficult.
Sincerely,
John J. Mearsheimer
R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science
University of Chicago
Stephen M. Walt
Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs
Harvard
University
*'This One Is So Hot': The Censorship of Walt and Mearsheimer*
**
I now have a copy of the letter John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt sent
to the board of the Chicago Global Affairs Council after it cancelled
their September appearance there under political pressure. The letter
follows, below.
A couple of comments. This is a sad business. Two distinguished profs
who have both spoken at the Council before are disinvited
regretfully/squeamishly by a respected professional friend, and informed
that they might only speak if someone else comes to counter their
statements. The old "context" argument used against Rachel Corrie and
everyone else. Your views are too toxic to be heard unless we "balance"
them.
Walt and Mearsheimer point out that Michael Oren spoke at the Council
earlier this year on Middle East matters without "context." Oren is a
neoconservative who made aliyah to Israel in the 70s and who served as
an officer in the Israeli army. John Mearsheimer served as an officer in
the United States Air Force. Let us be very clear about this: A former
officer in the Israeli Army who lives in Israel (and has lately served
in the Israeli Reserves) may hold forth about our policy in the Middle
East, but a former officer in our Air Force has no place to do the same.
You don't have to be a nativist to find this mindboggling. Mearsheimer
and Walt are all for Oren speaking, they just want to be able to speak
too. And just compare the literary and analytical work of Oren and
Mearsheimer; there is no comparison. Oren is a polemicist, Mearsheimer a
serious student of American policy. Deeply dispiriting. Where is Alan
Dershowitz, to decry the censorship?
I'm upset. I tell myself that this just shows how afraid the other side
is of the truth, but face it, they're winning. Last night my wife said
at dinner that I am "paying a price" for my views on the Middle East. I
have a long career as a journalist. I lost a blog-job earlier this year
over these issues, I can't get paying assignments to write about these
matters; and they are all that I care about, as my country fumbles
through the aftermath of 9/11 and Iraq. I sense some of that same sorrow
in the Walt and Mearsheimer letter that follows. At the peaks of their
careers, they have devoted themselves to these policy issues out of some
sense of duty; and they're not being allowed to speak. It appears from
the letter that a friendship has ended: the authors' with Marshall
Bouton. How long before the country wakes up from this madness?
August 5, 2007
[Addressed, individually, to board members of the Council, and to
members of Council committees]
We are writing to bring to your attention a troubling incident involving
the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. We do so reluctantly, as we have
both enjoyed our prior associations with the Council and we have great
respect for its aims and accomplishments. Nonetheless, we felt this was
an episode that should not pass without comment.
On September 4, 2007, our book The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy
will be published by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, one of the most highly
respected publishers in the United States. Through our publisher, the
Council issued an invitation for both of us to speak at a session on
September 27, 2007. We were delighted to accept, as each of us had
spoken at the Council on several occasions in the past and knew we would
attract a diverse and well-informed audience that would engage us in a
lively and productive discussion.
On July 19, while discussing the details of our visit with Sharon
Houtkamp, who was handling the arrangements at the Council, we learned
that the Council had already received a number of communications
protesting our appearance. We were not particularly surprised by this
news, as we had seen a similar pattern of behavior after our original
article on "The Israel Lobby" appeared in the London Review of Books in
March 2006. We were still looking forward to the event, however,
especially because it gave us an opportunity to engage these issues in
an open forum.
Then, on July 24, Council President Marshall Bouton phoned one of us
(Mearsheimer) and informed him that he was cancelling the event. He said
he felt "extremely uncomfortable making this call" and that his decision
did not reflect his personal views on the subject of our book. Instead,
he explained that his decision was based on the need "to protect the
institution." He said that he had a serious "political problem," because
there were individuals who would be angry if he gave us a venue to
speak, and that this would have serious negative consequences for the
Council. "This one is so hot," Marshall maintained, that he could not
present it at a Council session unless someone from "the other
side"—such as Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League—was on stage
with us. At the very least, he needed to present "contending
viewpoints." But he said it was too late to try to change the format, as
the fall schedule was being finalized and there would not be sufficient
time to arrange an alternate date. He showed little interest in doing
anything with us in 2008 or beyond.
Several comments are in order regarding this situation.
First, since the publication of our original article on the Israel
lobby, we have appeared either singly or together at a number of
different venues, including Brown University, the Council on Foreign
Relations, Columbia University, Cornell University, Emerson College, the
Great Hall at Cooper Union, Georgetown University, the National Press
Club, the Nieman Fellows Program at Harvard University, the University
of Montana, the Jewish Community Center in Newton, Massachusetts, and
Congregation Kam Isaiah Israel in Chicago. In all but one of these
venues we appeared on our own, i.e., without someone from the "other
side." As one would expect, we often faced vigorous questions from
members of the audience, which invariably included individuals who
disagreed in fundamental ways with some of our arguments. Nevertheless,
the back-and-forth at each of these events was always civil, and quite a
few participants said that they benefited from listening to us and to
our interlocutors.
Second, the Council has recently welcomed speakers who do represent a
"contending viewpoint," and they have appeared on their own. Consider
the case of Michael Oren, an Israeli-American author, who appeared at
the Council on February 8, 2007, to talk about "The Middle East and the
United States: A Long and Complicated Relationship." Oren has a
different view of U.S. Middle East policy than we do; indeed, he gave a
keynote address at AIPAC's annual policy conference this past spring
that directly challenged our perspective. We believe it was entirely
appropriate for the Council to have invited him to speak, and without
having a representative from an opposing group there to debate him. The
Council has also welcomed a number of other speakers on this general
topic in recent years, such as Dennis Ross, Max Boot and Rashid Khalidi,
and none of their appearances included someone representing a
"contending view."
One might argue that our views are too controversial to be presented on
their own. However, they are seen as controversial only because some of
the groups and individuals that we criticized in our original article
have misrepresented what we said or leveled unjustified charges at us
personally—such as the baseless claim that we (or our views) are
anti-Semitic. The purpose of these charges, of course, is to discourage
respected organizations like the Council from giving us an audience, or
to create conditions where they feel compelled to include "contending
views" in order to preserve "balance" and to insulate themselves from
external criticism.
In fact, our views are not extreme. Our book does not question Israel's
right to exist and does not portray pro-Israel groups in the United
States as some sort of conspiracy to "control" U.S. foreign policy.
Rather, it describes these groups and individuals—both Jewish and
gentile—as simply an effective special interest group whose activities
are not substantially different from groups like the NRA, the farm
lobby, the AARP, or other ethnic lobbies. Its activities, in other
words, are as American as apple pie, although we argue that its
influence has helped produce policies that are not in the U.S. national
interest. We also suggest that these policies have been unintentionally
harmful to Israel as well, and that a different course of action would
be better for both countries. It is not obvious to us why such views
could not be included in the Council's schedule.
Although we find it somewhat unseemly to refer to our own careers, it is
perhaps worth noting that we are both well-established figures with
solid mainstream credentials. We are fortunate to occupy chaired
professorships at distinguished universities, and to have been elected
members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. We have both held
important leadership positions at Chicago or Harvard, each of us serves
on the editorial boards of several leading foreign policy journals (such
as Foreign Affairs and Foreign Policy), and we have both done consulting
work for U.S. government agencies. Given our backgrounds, the idea that
it would be inappropriate for us to appear on our own at a Council
session seems far-fetched.
Finally, and most importantly, we believe that the decision to cancel
our appearance is antithetical to the principle of open discussion that
underpins American democracy, and that is so essential for maximizing
the prospects that our country pursues a wise foreign policy. In
essence, we believe this is a case in which a handful of people who
disagree with our views have used their influence to intimidate Marshall
into rescinding the Council's invitation to us, so as to insure that
interested members will not hear what we have to say about Israeli
policy, the U.S. relationship with Israel, and the lobby itself. This is
not the way we are supposed to address important issues of public policy
in the United States, and it is surely not the way the Council normally
conducts its business. This is undoubtedly why Marshall, who is a very
smart and decent man, felt so uncomfortable calling us to say that the
event had been cancelled. He knew this decision was contrary to
everything that the Council is supposed to represent.
The Chicago Council is obviously under no obligation to grant us a
venue, and we are not writing in an attempt to reverse this decision.
But given the importance of the issues that are raised in our book, we
are genuinely disappointed that we will not have the benefit of open
exchange with the Council's members, including those who might want to
challenge our arguments or conclusions. The United States and its
allies—including Israel—face many challenging problems in the Middle
East, and our country will not be able to address them intelligently if
we cannot have an open and civilized discussion about U.S. interests in
the region, and the various factors that shape American policy there.
Regrettably, the decision to cancel our appearance has made that
much-needed conversation more difficult.
Sincerely,
John J. Mearsheimer
R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science
University of Chicago
Stephen M. Walt
Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs
Harvard
University
Published on AfterDowningStreet.org (http://www.afterdowningstreet.org) <h2 class="title"> Is It Time to Rein in AIPAC? </h2> By davidswanson Created 2007-08-15 18:29 By William Hughes
“All of these people [in the Israel Lobby] are pleading a special interest. I am an American.” -- President Harry S. Truman
Grant F. Smith’s latest book, “Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee From The 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal,” reveals the controversial history of the influential lobbying organization, known as “AIPAC”. It comes on the heels of his insightful tome, “Deadly Dogma,” an expose’ of the Neocons, where he evidenced their lethal scheme, which they called “A Clean Break,” to destabilize Iraq. (1) In this new book, “Foreign Agents,” Mr. Smith argues that AIPAC, a corporation, should be required to register as a foreign agent for Israel. He accuses it of morphing into a “secretive political intelligence-gathering and covert operations powerhouse...and Israeli-controlled entity in America.” Naturally, AIPAC disagrees with him.
Mr. Smith begins building his case against AIPAC by referring to Capitol Hill hearings held by the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate. The probe, in 1963, was chaired by the late Democratic Senator from Arkansas, James William Fulbright. He suspected that the precursor to AIPAC, the American Zionist Council, (AZC), was given ”seed money,” via covert means, by “the Israeli government” to run a propaganda front for it in the U.S. At the time, the CEO for AZC, “Si” Kenen, (now deceased), was registered, (since 1948), with the U.S. Justice Department and required by the “Foreign Agents Registration Act” (FARA) to file reports disclosing fully his activities on behalf of Israel-based entities. As the result of Fulbright’s investigation, a supposed “conduit” funding operation run by the AZC was “closed down.” The AZC had reportedly received “more than $5,000,000 from the ‘Jewish Agency’ to create a favorable public opinion...for Israeli government policies.” Kenen stopped filing with FARA in 1971.
Sen. Fulbright, however, paid a heavy price for challenging the opaque operations of the alleged unregistered foreign lobby. He was defeated in his bid for reelection in 1974, with the help of the Israel Lobby. Can anyone imagine this mostly cowardly Congress of today checking the reported excesses of AIPAC?
Mr. Smith also details the testimony of some of the key witnesses, who appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee, and their cross examination by Chairman Fulbright. It makes for fascinating reading. A letter from the head of the Rabinowitz Foundation, one Victor Rabinowitz, to Fulbright, dated July 29, 1963, is also illustrative. Rabinowitz conceded: “I did not know at the time the ‘Jewish Agency’ was a representative of the Israeli government...The [Rabinowitz] Foundation did not wish to be ‘a conduit of funds’ from the Israeli government or the Jewish Agency.” Later, another witness disputed Rabinowitz’s statement. This exchange about potentially using “a conduit” to avoid FARA took place only nine years after an Israeli terrorist attack on U.S. targets in Egypt, known as the “Lavon Affair.” (2) Mr. Smith connects that covert operation directly to one of the putative architects of the U.S. Israel Lobby through original research which this writer hasn’t seen in any other book.
One of the chapters in Mr. Smith’s book focuses on alleged “economic espionage” by Israel in this country. He claims it has led to “major losses and problems for export-oriented industries.” Mr. Smith quotes Professors Joh
“All of these people [in the Israel Lobby] are pleading a special interest. I am an American.” -- President Harry S. Truman
Grant F. Smith’s latest book, “Foreign Agents: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee From The 1963 Fulbright Hearings to the 2005 Espionage Scandal,” reveals the controversial history of the influential lobbying organization, known as “AIPAC”. It comes on the heels of his insightful tome, “Deadly Dogma,” an expose’ of the Neocons, where he evidenced their lethal scheme, which they called “A Clean Break,” to destabilize Iraq. (1) In this new book, “Foreign Agents,” Mr. Smith argues that AIPAC, a corporation, should be required to register as a foreign agent for Israel. He accuses it of morphing into a “secretive political intelligence-gathering and covert operations powerhouse...and Israeli-controlled entity in America.” Naturally, AIPAC disagrees with him.
Mr. Smith begins building his case against AIPAC by referring to Capitol Hill hearings held by the Foreign Relations Committee of the U.S. Senate. The probe, in 1963, was chaired by the late Democratic Senator from Arkansas, James William Fulbright. He suspected that the precursor to AIPAC, the American Zionist Council, (AZC), was given ”seed money,” via covert means, by “the Israeli government” to run a propaganda front for it in the U.S. At the time, the CEO for AZC, “Si” Kenen, (now deceased), was registered, (since 1948), with the U.S. Justice Department and required by the “Foreign Agents Registration Act” (FARA) to file reports disclosing fully his activities on behalf of Israel-based entities. As the result of Fulbright’s investigation, a supposed “conduit” funding operation run by the AZC was “closed down.” The AZC had reportedly received “more than $5,000,000 from the ‘Jewish Agency’ to create a favorable public opinion...for Israeli government policies.” Kenen stopped filing with FARA in 1971.
Sen. Fulbright, however, paid a heavy price for challenging the opaque operations of the alleged unregistered foreign lobby. He was defeated in his bid for reelection in 1974, with the help of the Israel Lobby. Can anyone imagine this mostly cowardly Congress of today checking the reported excesses of AIPAC?
Mr. Smith also details the testimony of some of the key witnesses, who appeared before the Foreign Affairs Committee, and their cross examination by Chairman Fulbright. It makes for fascinating reading. A letter from the head of the Rabinowitz Foundation, one Victor Rabinowitz, to Fulbright, dated July 29, 1963, is also illustrative. Rabinowitz conceded: “I did not know at the time the ‘Jewish Agency’ was a representative of the Israeli government...The [Rabinowitz] Foundation did not wish to be ‘a conduit of funds’ from the Israeli government or the Jewish Agency.” Later, another witness disputed Rabinowitz’s statement. This exchange about potentially using “a conduit” to avoid FARA took place only nine years after an Israeli terrorist attack on U.S. targets in Egypt, known as the “Lavon Affair.” (2) Mr. Smith connects that covert operation directly to one of the putative architects of the U.S. Israel Lobby through original research which this writer hasn’t seen in any other book.
One of the chapters in Mr. Smith’s book focuses on alleged “economic espionage” by Israel in this country. He claims it has led to “major losses and problems for export-oriented industries.” Mr. Smith quotes Professors Joh