[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, August 4, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
August 4, 2006

In this issue:
1) Malaysia: OIC demands UN impose cease-fire in Lebanon
2) Majority of Voting Congressional Progressive Caucus Members now
support Immediate Cease-Fire in Lebanon
3) Israel Extends Strikes North of Beirut
4) The Overview: Israel Renews Attack on Southern Lebanon
5) 100,000 March Against U.S. and Israel in Baghdad
6) Freeing Prisoners Key Goal in Fight Against Israel
7) Hezbollah's Prominence Has Many Sunnis Worried
8) Bridge Bombing Paralyses Lebanon Aid Pipeline
9) Op-Ed Contributor: Ground to a Halt
10) Israeli Soldier Incarcerated for Refusing to Fight
11) Au Revoir, Freedom Fries
12) The Sound of One Domino Falling
13) The Military: U.S. General Says Iraq Could Slide Into a Civil War
14) Intelligence: Senator Faults Bid to Classify Report on Iraq
15) Hezbollah Chief's Statement Clarifies Strategy
16) Protesters Attack Iran's British Embassy
17) Human Rights Watch Accuses Israel of War Crimes
18) U.S. to Supply Food with One Hand, Arms with Other
19) Officers Allegedly Pushed 'Kill Counts'
20) US Auditor Lists Failures in Rebuilding of Iraq

Contents:
1) Malaysia: OIC demands UN impose cease-fire in Lebanon
BBC Monitoring Asia Pacific - Political
August 4, 2006 Friday
Leaders of 18 Muslim nations yesterday demanded the UN Security
Council call for an immediate stop to Israeli military aggression in
Lebanon, failing which they want all Organization of the Islamic
Conference (OIC) member states to push for the convening of the
meeting of the General Assembly under "Uniting for Peace." The leaders
also want the peacekeeping operations in the Middle East to be led by
Muslim forces. In a declaration on Lebanon issued at the end of the
meeting of the OIC Executive Committee they strongly condemned the
Israeli attacks. "We demand that the UN Security Council fulfils its
responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security
without any further delay by deciding on and enforcing an immediate
and comprehensive ceasefire", said the declaration issued at the end
of the meeting initiated by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad
Badawi, who is also OIC chairman. Besides Malaysia, other countries
attending were Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Brunei, Indonesia, Iran,
Pakistan, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi
Arabia, Senegal, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. They also
supported the Lebanese government's seven-point plan for the immediate
and comprehensive ceasefire, which included an undertaking to release
the Lebanese and Israeli prisoners and detainees through the
International Community of Red Crescent (ICRC), the withdrawal of the
Israeli army behind the Blue Line, and the return of the displaced to
their villages.

Just Foreign Policy did another 3 radio interviews on the Uniting for
Peace call today; one of them, with Stephen Zunes on KGNU Boulder, is
on the web:
http://kgnu.net/audio/Connections_2006-08-04.mp3.

Our petition in support of the call for a General Assembly meeting on
Lebanon under "Uniting for Peace" is here:
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/justforeignpolicy.org/petition.jsp?petition_KEY=325.

2) Majority of Voting Congressional Progressive Caucus Members now
support Immediate Cease-Fire in Lebanon
39 Members of Congress have publicly come out in support of an
immediate cease-fire in Lebanon by cosponsoring resolutions introduced
by Representative Kucinich and Representative Jackson-Lee. Of these
39, 30 are members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, a majority
of the 59 voting members of the caucus. (Reps. Holmes-Norton of DC,
Bordallo of Guam, and Christensen of the U.S. Virgin Islands have not
yet cosponsored either resolution.) To ask your Representative to
co-sponsor these resolutions, you can use this link:
http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/justforeignpolicy.org/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=4697

3) Israel Extends Strikes North of Beirut
John Kifner
New York Times
August 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04cnd-mideast.html
Israel unleashed airstrikes across Lebanon Friday, severing the last
major road link to the outside world and killing more than 30 people.
The bombs destroyed four bridges along the main north-south highway in
what had been the largely untouched Christian heartland north of
Beirut and far from Hezbollah territory. With the road from Beirut to
Damascus already cut at several points, this was the only practical
way to bring in relief and other supplies from Syria, tightening the
sense of siege here. At the steep gorge here cut by the Fidar River,
dozens of Maronite Catholic residents gathered to stare in stunned
silence at a 200-yard stretch of four-lane highway blasted into
rubble. "Where are the Katushas of the Hezbollah here?" asked Joseph
Abihana.

4) The Overview: Israel Renews Attack on Southern Lebanon
Richard A. Oppel Jr. And Steven Erlanger
New York Times
August 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04mideast.html
The Lebanese militia Hezbollah killed 12 Israelis — 8 civilians and 4
soldiers — on Thursday, making it Israel's deadliest day in more than
three weeks of conflict. As Israeli troops tried to create a narrow
buffer zone inside Lebanon and bombed southern Beirut, Hezbollah's
leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, warned that he would send his
long-range missiles into Tel Aviv if the airstrikes continued. But he
also offered to halt Hezbollah's missile barrage into Israel if it
stopped bombing Lebanon. The Israeli defense minister, Amir Peretz,
told the army to begin preparing to push to the Litani River, some 15
miles north of the border, a move that could mean a further call-up of
military reservists. That would expand the security zone Israel is
trying to create. But it is not clear whether he will receive
government approval to do so.

5) 100,000 March Against U.S. and Israel in Baghdad
Damien Cave And Kirk Semple
New York Times
August 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04cnd-iraq.html
More than 100,000 followers of the Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr
marched today to show support for Hezbollah, denouncing Israel and the
United States for the violence in Lebanon. The protesters filled 20
blocks of a wide boulevard and dozens of side streets in the
Shiite-dominated Sadr City section of the capital. Waving Lebanese
flags and posters of Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, the
protesters chanted, "No, no, no, Israel, no, no, no, America,''
challenged Americans to fight them in their neighborhoods, and called
on Hezbollah to strike at Tel Aviv. The fighting in Lebanon has caused
a rift between the United States and the Shiite parties that lead
Iraq's new government, which feel a strong solidarity with Hezbollah.

6) Freeing Prisoners Key Goal in Fight Against Israel
Craig S. Smith
New York Times
August 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04prisoners.html

When Hezbollah guerrillas sneaked into Israel last month, killing and
capturing Israeli soldiers and setting off the current crisis, their
goal was to trade them for a Lebanese man held by Israel. The
prisoner, Samir Kuntar, was part of a cell that in 1979 raided an
apartment building in the northern Israeli town of Nahariya, killing
several members of the Haran family. After Hezbollah made off with two
Israeli soldiers in the raid last month, Israel vowed that it would
not negotiate for their release. But the question of prisoners held by
Israel — nearly all of them Palestinians — is the subtext of this
crisis and is likely to figure in its resolution. It is an issue that
animates Hezbollah and the Palestinians as much as anything else in
their fight with Israel. The prisoners now number about 9,700, about
100 of them women. About 300 are younger than 18, including two girls
and a boy of 14, being held in juvenile detention facilities for acts
against Israel. The Israelis say many of them are terrorists, and some
clearly are. But the Palestinians say that others are wrongfully
accused and that many have never committed a violent act.

7) Hezbollah's Prominence Has Many Sunnis Worried
Neil MacFarquhar
New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04muslims.html
August 4, 2006
A Damascus University professor recoils at the destruction he across
the border, but deeper down he worries that any Hezbollah triumph will
come at the expense of his own Sunni branch of Islam. "Since the
Americans invaded Iraq we have all become aware of the danger from the
Shiites," said the professor. "Ordinary people only think of Hezbollah
as fighting against Israeli aggression. But the educated classes think
that if Hezbollah controls the region, then the Sunnis will be
abused." Intensifying Sunni-Shiite violence in Iraq in the last couple
of years has already raised sectarian awareness across the Middle East
in ways not experienced since the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.
The fighting in Lebanon promises to further increase Sunnis' unease.

8) Bridge Bombing Paralyses Lebanon Aid Pipeline
Michael Winfrey
Reuters
Friday, August 4, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0804-08.htm
Israel's bombing of key bridges in northern Lebanon and strikes at a
Hizbollah stronghold in south Beirut paralysed United Nations aid
convoys on Friday, but other aid continued to arrive by air and sea.
Air strikes against four bridges on the main coastal highway linking
Beirut to Syria stalled an eight-truck convoy carrying 150 tonnes of
relief and cut what the UN called its "umbilical cord" for aid
supplies. "The whole road is gone," said Astrid van Genderen Stort,
senior information officer for the UNHCR refugee agency. "It's really
a major setback because we used this highway to move staff and
supplies into the country."

9) Op-Ed Contributor: Ground to a Halt
Robert Pape, professor of political science at the University of
Chicago, author of "Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide
Terrorism."
New York Times
August 3, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/03/opinion/03pape.html
Israel has finally conceded that air power alone will not defeat
Hezbollah. Over the coming weeks, it will learn that ground power
won't work either. The problem is not that the Israelis misunderstand
the nature of the enemy. Hezbollah is principally neither a political
party nor an Islamist militia, but a broad movement that evolved in
reaction to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982. As more and more
Lebanese came to resent Israel's occupation, Hezbollah expanded into
an umbrella organization that tacitly coordinated the resistance
operations of a loose collection of groups with a variety of religious
and secular aims. In terms of structure and hierarchy, it is less
comparable to a religious cult like the Taliban than to the
multidimensional American civil-rights movement of the 1960's.

10) Israeli Soldier Incarcerated for Refusing to Fight
Aaron Glantz
OneWorld.net
Friday, August 4, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0804-03.htm
Israeli authorities have sentenced an army officer to 28 days in a
military prison for refusing to serve in the Israeli campaign in
Lebanon. Reserve Captain Amir Paster is the first Israeli soldier to
be punished for refusing to serve in the current conflict and has
received harsh criticism from the Israeli military for setting what it
termed a bad example for his troops. According to the soldier support
group Yesh Gvul ("There Is a Limit"), Paster refused to serve on the
grounds that Israeli operations were harming civilians, declaring at
his trial "taking part in this war runs contrary to the values upon
which he was brought up." Supporters say Paster's act was courageous
given that the vast majority of Jewish Israelis support the war.

11) Au Revoir, Freedom Fries
Editorial, New York Times
August 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/opinion/04fri4.html
When Congress renamed the French fries sold in its cafeterias "freedom
fries" before the Iraq war, Bob Ney, whose position as House
Administration Committee chairman put him in charge of the cafeterias,
said the change registered "the strong displeasure of many on Capitol
Hill with the actions of our so-called ally, France." In the real
world, it mainly allowed people to register their strong displeasure
at how juvenile Congress was being.
In the last few weeks, Congress has quietly changed the name back.
"Freedom fries," like the "mission accomplished" banner that President
Bush stood in front of a few months later, is now a stale relic of a
naïve time, when the war's supporters were convinced that Iraqis would
be free right after they finished greeting their liberators with rose
petals.

12) The Sound of One Domino Falling
Editorial
New York Times
August 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/opinion/04fri1.html
It's been obvious for years that Donald Rumsfeld is in denial of
reality, but the defense secretary now also seems stuck in a time
warp. You could practically hear the dominoes falling as he told the
Senate Armed Services Committee yesterday that it was dangerous for
Americans to even talk about how to end the war in Iraq. "If we left
Iraq prematurely," he said, "the enemy would tell us to leave
Afghanistan and then withdraw from the Middle East. And if we left the
Middle East, they'd order us and all those who don't share their
militant ideology to leave what they call the occupied Muslim lands
from Spain to the Philippines." And finally, he intoned, America will
be forced "to make a stand nearer home." No one in charge of American
foreign affairs has talked like that in decades. After Vietnam, of
course, the communist empire did not swarm all over Asia as predicted;
it tottered and collapsed. And the new "enemy" that Mr. Rumsfeld is
worried about is not a worldwide conspiracy but a collection of
disparate political and religious groups, now united mainly by
American action in Iraq.

13) The Military: U.S. General Says Iraq Could Slide Into a Civil War
Thom Shanker
New York Times
August 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04rumsfeld.html
The commander of American forces in the Middle East bluntly warned a
Senate committee on Thursday that sectarian violence in Iraq  had
grown so severe that the nation could slide toward civil war. The
commander, Gen. John Abizaid, also acknowledged that since the
security situation remained so unstable, significant reductions in
American forces were unlikely before the end of this year. Asked by
Senator Carl Levin of Michigan whether Iraq risked falling into civil
war, General Abizaid replied, "I believe that the sectarian violence
is probably as bad as I've seen it, in Baghdad in particular, and that
if not stopped, it is possible that Iraq could move towards civil
war."

14) Intelligence: Senator Faults Bid to Classify Report on Iraq
Mark Mazzetti
New York Times
August 4, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/04/world/middleeast/04intel.html
The Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee lashed
out at the White House on Thursday, criticizing attempts by the Bush
administration to keep secret parts of a report on the role Iraqi
exiles played in building the case for war against Iraq. Senator Pat
Roberts of Kansas chastised the White House for efforts to classify
most of the part that examines intelligence provided to the Bush
administration by the Iraqi National Congress.

15) Hezbollah Threatens Tel Aviv
Chief's Statement Clarifies Strategy
Edward Cody
Washington Post
Friday, August 4, 2006; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/03/AR2006080301435.html
The leader of Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah, threatened Thursday night to
fire rockets at Tel Aviv if Israel expands its bombing attacks against
Beirut. Nasrallah declared that Hezbollah's missile attacks on Israel
are calibrated in response to Israeli air attacks on Lebanon. While
warning of attacks on Israel's most populous city, he also said that
if Israeli airstrikes cease, so will the rocket launchings such as
those that killed eight more Israeli civilians Thursday.

16) Protesters Attack Iran's British Embassy
Associated Press
August 4, 2006
Filed at 11:57 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Mideast-Fighting-Iran.html
About 100 demonstrators threw stones and firebombs at the British
Embassy in Tehran on Friday, damaging the building but not harming
anyone as they accused Britain and the United States of being
accomplices in Israel's fight against Hezbollah. Demonstrators also
smashed some of the building's windows as they called for its closure
and the expulsion of the British ambassador. A British Foreign Office
spokesman said nobody was harmed. ''Protesters were throwing bricks
and at least one petrol bomb but everyone's OK,'' he said. ''There was
just some damage to perimeter of the embassy.''

17) Human Rights Watch Accuses Israel of War Crimes
Jim Lobe
Inter Press Service
Thursday, August 3, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0803-02.htm
In systematically failing to distinguish between Hezbollah fighters
and civilian population in its military campaign in Lebanon, the
Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have committed war crimes, according to a
report released by Human Rights Watch Wednesday. The 50-page report,
"Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in
Lebanon," detailed nearly two dozen cases of IDF attacks in which a
total of 153 civilians, including 63 children, were killed in homes or
motor vehicles. In none of the cases did HRW researchers find evidence
that there was a significant enough military objective to justify the
attack, given the risks to civilian lives, while, in many cases, there
was no identifiable military target. In still other cases cited in the
report, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians.
"By consistently failing to distinguish between combatants and
civilians, Israel has violated one of the most fundamental tenets of
the laws of war: the duty to carry out attacks on only military
targets," according to the report.

18) U.S. to Supply Food with One Hand, Arms with Other
Thalif Deen
Inter Press Service
Thursday, August 3, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0803-01.htm
As Israel's bombing of Lebanon continues, the US says it stands ready
to provide food, medicine and humanitarian assistance to the thousands
of internally displaced Lebanese caught in the crossfire. But
Washington has also decided to accelerate the supply of lethal weapons
to Israel -- ''perhaps intended to kill the very Lebanese the US is
planning to feed and shelter,'' says one Arab diplomat at the United
Nations. ''It is U.S. hypocrisy at its worst,'' he told IPS, speaking
on condition of anonymity, because his country receives millions of
dollars in U.S. economic aid. Irene Khan, secretary-general of Amnesty
International, was equally critical. ''It is ridiculous to talk about
providing humanitarian aid on the one hand, and to provide arms on the
other,'' she says. ''It is imperative that all governments stop the
supply of arms and weapons to both sides immediately.''

19) Officers Allegedly Pushed 'Kill Counts'
Investigators believe the leaders of a unit accused in Iraq detainee
deaths fueled a climate of hate.
Borzou Daragahi and Julian E. Barnes
Los Angeles Times
Thursday, August 3, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0803-07.htm
Military prosecutors and investigators probing the killing of three
Iraqi detainees by U.S. troops in May believe the unit's commanders
created an atmosphere of excessive violence by encouraging "kill
counts" and possibly issuing an illegal order to shoot Iraqi men. At a
military hearing Wednesday on the killing of the detainees near
Samarra, witnesses painted a picture of a brigade that operated under
loose rules allowing wanton killing and tolerating violent, anti-Arab
racism. Some military officials believe that the shooting of the three
detainees and the killing of 24 civilians in November in Haditha
reveal failures in the military chain of command, in one case to
establish proper rules of engagement and in the other to vigorously
investigate incidents after the fact. "The bigger thing here is the
failure of the chain of command," said a Defense Department official
familiar with the investigations.

20) US Auditor Lists Failures in Rebuilding of Iraq
Farah Stockman
Boston Globe
Thursday, August 3, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0803-06.htm
The top auditor of the US reconstruction effort in Iraq yesterday
detailed a series of failures, including a $218.5 million emergency
radio network that doesn't work, a hospital that is turning out to be
twice as expensive as planned, an oil pipeline that is spewing lakes
of crude oil onto the ground, and a prison that was meant to hold
4,400 inmates but can house only about 800. Stuart Bowen Jr. , the
special inspector general for Iraq reconstruction, cited multiple
causes for the failures at a Senate hearing yesterday, among them the
growth of the Iraqi insurgency, poor planning by the US government,
and corruption in the Iraqi government. But he also took aim at the
"cost-plus" contracts given to American construction firms, which
guaranteed profits on top of the cost of the project, even with huge
overruns.

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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org