[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, August 17, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

*Just Foreign Policy News
August 17, 2006

In this issue:*
1) Already Falling Behind <#a1>
2) Bombs Aimed at G.I.'s in Iraq Are Increasing <#a2>
3) Hizbullah Rejects Syrian Position <#a3>
4) Lebanon Sends National Army to Patrol South <#a4>
5) Cabinet members spar over proposed weapons compromise <#a5>
6) Stocks Scandal Spells Doom of Embattled Israeli Army Chief <#a6>
7) Deputy PM Prescott denies calling Bush "crap" <#a7>
8) Iranian Says Talks Can Cover Uranium <#a8>
9) President Joins in G.O.P. Attacks on Democrats About Terrorism <#a9>
10) Democrats Counter G.O.P. and Lieberman on Iraq <#a10>
11) Foreign Workers Flee War-Ravaged Country <#a11>
12) South Lebanon Towns Reclaim Their Dead and Hold Funerals <#a12>
13) Afghanistan: U.S. To Pay Families for Deadly Attack <#a13>
14) For Many Israelis, a Bitter Homecoming: Border Areas Reflect National
Sentiment Over Failure to Eliminate Hezbollah <#a14>
15) Iraqi speaker derails Bush's dreams <#a15>
16) Hezbollah vs. Halliburton <#a16>
17) Bloomberg Spins the Bolivia Gas Story: A Good Example of Bad
Journalism<#a17>
18) Poll Shows Lamont Gaining Support, But Still Trailing Lieberman <#a18>

*Contents:
*1) Already Falling Behind
Editorial
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/opinion/17thur1.html
Hezbollah is taking charge of reconstruction in south Lebanon, while the
world is dithering over the makeup of a peacekeeping force. Large swaths of
the country are in ruins. Hundreds of thousands of people are without homes.
Many Lebanese are furiously blaming the United States as well as Israel for
their suffering. Whatever anger they may also harbor toward Hezbollah is
being more than neutralized by the militia's swift on-the-scene response and
the large piles of cash it is handing out, courtesy of Iran. The Bush
administration provided $30 million in relief aid in the midst of the war,
but got little credit while it was doing nothing to stop Israel's bombing.
Last week Washington committed another $20 million, and officials say
they'll pledge a lot more at a conference at the end of this month. Promises
can't compete with the visible aid Hezbollah is already delivering.
Washington's pledges must be quickly translated into tangible on-the-ground
help or Hezbollah will clinch the battle for Lebanese hearts and minds even
before the peacekeepers arrive. It may turn out that the most that can be
hoped for is a slow political marginalization of Hezbollah. Even that will
take all the outside aid, technical support and spine-stiffening for Lebanon's
government that the international community can provide. The race has begun,
and Hezbollah is already ahead.

2) Bombs Aimed at G.I.'s in Iraq Are Increasing
Michael R. Gordon, Mark Mazzetti And Thom Shanker
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17military.html
The number of roadside bombs planted in Iraq rose in July to the highest
monthly total of the war, offering more evidence that the anti-American
insurgency has continued to strengthen despite the killing of the terrorist
leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Along with a sharp increase in sectarian
attacks, the number of daily strikes against American and Iraqi security
forces has doubled since January. The deadliest means of attack, roadside
bombs, made up much of that increase. In July, of 2,625 explosive devices,
1,666 exploded and 959 were discovered before they went off. In January,
1,454 bombs exploded or were found. The bomb statistics compiled by American
military are part of a growing body of data and intelligence analysis about
the violence in Iraq that has produced somber public assessments from
military commanders, administration officials and lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
"The insurgency has gotten worse by almost all measures, with insurgent
attacks at historically high levels," said a senior Defense Department
official. "The insurgency has more public support and is demonstrably more
capable in numbers of people active and in its ability to direct violence
than at any point in time."
A separate report by the Defense Intelligence Agency details worsening
security conditions inside the country and describes how Iraq risks sliding
toward civil war.

3) Hizbullah Rejects Syrian Position
Juan Cole, citing al-Zaman
Informed Comment (Cole's blog)
Thursday, August 17, 2006
http://www.juancole.com/#115580499108906603
Hizbullah declined to adopt the position of Syrian President Bashar al-Asad
in accusing the reformist politicians of standing against Hizbullah and the
resistance in Lebanon. (Bashar has a feud with the 14 March group, but
Hizbullah joined it in a national unity government.) Husayn al-Hajj Hasan, a
Hizbullah member of parliament said, "we reject the idea of considering the
14 March group to be agents of Israel and America."

4) Lebanon Sends National Army to Patrol South
John Kifner And Robert F. Worth
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17mideast.html
The Lebanese Army moved into the country's south on Thursday, but finessed
the delicate issue of disarming Hezbollah. At several points, soldiers
crossed the Litani River into the long-held separate realm of Hezbollah.
Hezbollah fighters were not expected to resist the soldiers, nor to hand
over their weapons. Instead, they probably would simply put their weapons
into hiding and melt away into the civilian population. "Just like in the
past, Hezbollah had no visible military presence and there will not be any
presence now," a Hezbollah field commander said Wednesday. He said Hezbollah
would maintain its presence without displaying its arms and that since
Israeli tanks were still in Lebanon, the guerrillas reserved the right to
respond accordingly. A Hezbollah representative in Parliament said that his
organization would not pull back over the Litani and that the fate of its
arsenal was not open to public debate. In Israel, skepticism about the plan
was evident. Still, the Israeli Army said Wednesday it had started to hand
over positions in Lebanon to UN troops. Hezbollah guerrillas have operated
in the south for years. They are almost entirely local men hardened by 18
years of Israeli occupation after its 1982 invasion. During that time, they
lived and worked in their native villages, building an elaborate
social-service network and extensive underground fortifications and stashes
of modern weaponry that astounded Israel in a month of bitter fighting. "For
the next two or three years, Hezbollah will be like the Salvation Army, tied
up in rebuilding," said Michael Young, the opinion editor at The Daily Star
in Beirut. "But the party cannot put Shiites through such trauma again for
the foreseeable future, maybe a decade, which means its ability to attack
Israel will be limited. The reason Hezbollah is so eager to rebuild is that
they know the condition of Shiites today could turn the community against
them if it's not dealt with effectively." Amid the growing debate in
Israelover the handling of the war,
Israel's defense minister appointed a panel to investigate how the military
and the ministry had performed.

5) Cabinet members spar over proposed weapons compromise
Nada Bakri and Therese Sfeir
Daily Star (Beirut)
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=1&categ_id=2&article_id=74774
A compromise agreement currently being hammered out between Hizbullah and
the Lebanese government is expected to allow the party to keep hidden
weapons in South Lebanon, the London-based Al-Hayat newspaper reported
Tuesday. While Hizbullah would need to keep the weapons it possesses south
of the Litani River hidden, an agreement for areas north of the river would
be "left to a long-term solution," the paper said. If the proposed
compromise is accepted by Premier Fouad Siniora's Cabinet, it would violate
the terms of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. And it is also a violation
of the "one weapon" principle of Siniora's seven-point plan. Resolution 1701
calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a solution based on previous UN
resolutions requiring "the disarmament of all armed groups in Lebanon" apart
from state security forces.

6) Stocks Scandal Spells Doom of Embattled Israeli Army Chief
Marius Schattner
Agence France Presse
Wednesday, August 16, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0816-06.htm
Israel's army chief, under fire for selling shares hours before launching an
offensive in Lebanon, was looking set to become the first head to roll in
the outcry over the state's handling of the month-long war. Israel's media
have piled opprobrium on Dan Halutz since the Maariv newspaper revealed
Tuesday that he had sold shares hours before the start of the Israeli
offensive in Lebanon. The story has focused the anger of many in a country
struggling to come to terms with the less than decisive outcome of its war
against the Hezbollah militia."There's an old Romanian saying that goes like
this: 'the country is burning, but grandma is combing her hair.' The country
was on fire, and all that interested Halutz was his investment portfolio,"
member of parliament Colette Avital said Tuesday. Resignation calls have
come from parliament but also from the highest circles of the defense
establishment.

7) Deputy PM Prescott denies calling Bush "crap"
BBC News
2006/08/17
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/4800827.stm
Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott has denied saying the Bush
administration had been "crap" on the Middle East road map. Labour MP Harry
Cohen said the remark came during a meeting with fellow Labour MPs. The
White House said Bush had been called worse. Asked about Prescott's denial,
Cohen told the BBC he did not think it was a "gaffe" by the deputy PM and
that Prescott should not be embarrassed. Cohen said he believed Prescott's
comment had been "an honest and good point well made". Asked why
Prescottmight deny it, Cohen claimed it might be politically expedient
"not to upset
the Americans". He said he thought many of his fellow MPs and the wider
population would agree that more should have been done by the US in pushing
forward the Middle East road map in recent years. He said Prescott claimed
he had only supported the Iraq war "because they were promised the road
map". Colin Brown, the deputy prime minister's biographer, said "the fact
is, a lot of people are cheering him on." Former ministers were "right
behind him on this", Brown added, and the deputy prime minister had "never
been more popular than he is now" as a result. For the Liberal Democrats,
Norman Lamb said: "John Prescott does not always use the most appropriate
language, but if these reports are to be believed then his instincts
on the Middle
East are certainly preferable to Tony Blair's."

8) Iranian Says Talks Can Cover Uranium
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17iran.html
Iran's foreign minister said Wednesday that Iran was willing to discuss
suspending uranium enrichment during negotiations with European countries
and China. The foreign minister, Manouchehr Mottaki, spoke two weeks before
the Aug. 31 deadline set by the UN Security Council for Iran to halt the
enrichment or face sanctions. Other Iranian officials, including President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, have responded defiantly to the demand to suspend the
program, which Iran says is intended to make fuel for nuclear power plants
and is not a cover for a secret effort to make nuclear weapons. Iran has
said it will respond by Tuesday to a European-led offer of incentives to
suspend enrichment.
"We declared that the best way is to resume negotiations," Mr. Mottaki said.
"We can even discuss the issue of suspension, which is not acceptable based
on any logic," he added. "The Islamic Republic of Iran will not back down
from its rights under any circumstances."

9) President Joins in G.O.P. Attacks on Democrats About Terrorism
Jim Rutenberg
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/washington/17bush.html
President Bush Wednesday picked up his party's attack against Democrats for
having the wrong approach to the fight against terrorism. But his was a
kinder, gentler approach than the one used by Vice President Dick Cheney and
others in recent days. Referring to the war in Iraq, Bush said: "There's
some good people in our country who believe we should cut and run. They're
not bad people when they say that, they're decent people." But he added, "I
just happen to believe they're wrong, and they're wrong for this reason:
this would be a defeat for the US in a key battleground in the global war on
terror." It was Bush's first public political address since news broke last
week that the British had disrupted a major terrorism plot. The White House
and the Republican Party had pounced on that news, along with the defeat of
Joseph Lieberman in the Connecticut Democratic primary by antiwar candidate
Ned Lamont, to paint Democrats as weak on national security. Cheney had gone
so far as to imply that the defeat of Lieberman would embolden "Al Qaeda
types." There was no mistaking the president's target when he said success
in Iraq was crucial in the fight against terrorism, adding, to loud
applause: "They want us to leave. They want us to cut and run." Phil Singer,
a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, responded,
"Misstating the Democrats' position on Iraq doesn't change the fact that the
White House's Iraq policy has been a tragic failure."

10) Democrats Counter G.O.P. and Lieberman on Iraq
Jennifer Medina
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/nyregion/17conn.html
Democratic leaders supporting Ned Lamont's Senate campaign struck back
yesterday at attacks suggesting that their party's support of him portrayed
the Democrats as weak on national security. Lamont's campaign has sought to
identify Lieberman with the Republicans, saying that the senator's criticism
of Lamont shows his alignment with the Bush administration's policy in Iraq.
Senator Hillary Clinton said she had "deep regret that there's any effort to
politicize the war on terror." Lamont held a press conference Wednesday
afternoon specifically to counter the attacks from Republicans, calling them
"outrageous" and "disrespectful" of Connecticut voters. "We don't need any
sermons on the meaning of 9/11," Lamont said of remarks by Vice President
Cheney, adding that Lieberman was "becoming more and more the de facto
Republican candidate." Senator John Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, sent a
fund-raising appeal via e-mail to millions of his supporters, imploring them
to send contributions to Lamont, along with Senator Menendez of New
Jerseyand Senator Akaka of
Hawaii. "Each of these candidates is making the mess in Iraq a central issue
in their campaigns for the Senate," Kerry wrote.
"In the Senate," he added, "Ned Lamont will go head to head with Don
Rumsfeld, and our troops will benefit from Lamont's leadership. He knows
that patriotism isn't reserved for those who defend a president's position;
patriotism is doing what's right for our troops and our country."

11) Foreign Workers Flee War-Ravaged Country
Many Found Themselves Trapped in Lebanon
Nora Boustany
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 17, 2006; A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/16/AR2006081601901.html
At times of peace and at times of war, they are the invisible people. They
are the migrant workers who slog at hard jobs in strange lands. In Lebanon,
they are everywhere. "They are not part of the collective consciousness,"
said Jean-Philippe Chauzy of the International Organization for Migration.
Chauzy has been helping to evacuate foreign workers who were trapped in the
war zone with no means to escape. Some have no legal documents. Chauzy said,
"We have to talk about this migratory dimension in human terms, but unless
they are Canadians or Americans, few people want to hear their story." With
assistance from its member states and the Lebanese authorities, the IOM has
been able to secure the safe passage of about 10,000 people in recent weeks.
But the group's coffers are running dry, and it has said it may be forced to
suspend its evacuations of foreign nationals later this week. It has
appealed for more funding. More foreign workers want to leave. Sister Amelia
Torres, from the Daughters of Charity order, came to Lebanon to tend to
wounded fighters and civilians in the mid-1980s. "Those treated as
second-class citizens have to leave," she told an international relief
worker. "Now, some Lebanese women may have to clean their own toilets."
While some foreign workers describe wretched conditions, others had made
comfortable lives here and earned the gratitude of their employers. One
Lebanese woman was seen carrying her housekeeper's duffel bag to a
collection point; she started crying when she saw that the housekeeper would
have to sleep on the floor as she waited for her turn to leave on a bus.

12) South Lebanon Towns Reclaim Their Dead and Hold Funerals
Hassan M. Fattah
New York Times
August 17, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/middleeast/17burial.html
For weeks the bodies were symbols of the helplessness many felt in the face
of Israel's bombs. But on Wednesday, Lebanon's dead became symbols of
closure as towns and villages throughout the south began burying their loved
ones. Families mourned for relatives and towns honored the bodies of
Hezbollah fighters in ceremonies in the rubble-strewn villages of the south,
vowing never to forget the price they paid in the fight against Israel.

13) Afghanistan: U.S. To Pay Families for Deadly Attack
August 17, 2006
Agence France-Presse
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/17/world/asia/17briefs-003.html
The US military said it would pay $90,000 in compensation to the families of
victims of an air attack in May that killed at least 16 civilians in
Tulokan, in the Panjwayi district of Kandahar. But a military spokesman said
the compensation process — "family assistance, reconstruction and projects
in the village'' — would not start until security in Kandahar improved. The
airstrike came amid intense fighting with Taliban forces. While the military
and the Afghan government put the death toll from the strike at 16, the
Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and local residents say 37 people
were killed.

14) For Many Israelis, a Bitter Homecoming: Border Areas Reflect National
Sentiment Over Failure to Eliminate Hezbollah
Doug Struck
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 17, 2006; A21
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/16/AR2006081601811.html
Thousands of Israelis are returning now to their homes near the Lebanese
border. They are bitter and angry about what many call a futile war, and
what others call an outright loss. "Israel lost big-time," said Ravit
Ben-Simon, glumly reopening her cellphone store on Wednesday in Kiryat
Shemona. "It wasn't a worthwhile war at all. It all started because of the
kidnapped soldiers. Where are they now? Still kidnapped. It was all for
nothing." That view was reflected in a national poll released Wednesday,
showing that public support for the government of Israeli Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert has plummeted. The poll by the Maariv newspaper showed that
Olmert's support had dropped from 78 percent on July 19, shortly after the
war began, to 40 percent.

15) Iraqi speaker derails Bush's dreams
The sunny scenario of Sunni Arab political integration gets dimmer as
speaker al-Mashhadani takes a hard line against Shiites -- and the U.S.
Juan Cole
Salon
http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/08/17/mashhadani/index_np.html
When George Bush met the speaker of the Iraqi parliament, he liked him.
During his June trip to Baghdad, Bush sang the praises of Dr. Mahmoud
al-Mashhadani. "I was impressed by him," said Bush during a press
conference. "He's a fellow that had been put in prison by Saddam and,
interestingly enough, put in prison by us. And he made a decision to
participate in the government. . . . It was interesting to see a person that
could have been really bitter talk about the skills he's going to need to
bring people together to run the parliament." But when the Iraqi parliament
reconvenes next month, the first item on their agenda will be firing
al-Mashhadani. He has put his foot in his mouth too many times. Considering
what he's been saying about the United States since his moment with the
president, the end of his tenure should come as a relief to the Bush
administration. "Who destroyed Iraq? Who plundered Iraq?" exploded
al-Mashhadani in a recent interview. "It is none other than the blue jinn
whose name is: the American Occupation."

16) Hezbollah vs. Halliburton
Robert Weissman
Huffington Post
8.16.2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-weissman/hezbollah-vs-halliburton_b_27370.html
What does it say that Hezbollah can organize efficient reconstruction --
commencing as soon a ceasefire was announced, but the U.S. contractors in
Iraq have utterly botched reconstruction there? Sure, security problems in
Iraq have made the contractors' work extra challenging -- and by now,
perhaps impossible in many cases -- but that's only part of the story. And
it doesn't explain the failure to successfully undertake reconstruction
projects early in the occupation. The real issue is that the
U.S.contractors, on the whole, saw their mission as corruptly
siphoning as much
Iraqi and U.S. taxpayer monies as they could, rather than doing actual
reconstruction. And their U.S. government overseers -- to the extent even
this function wasn't privatized -- didn't care. In fact, they too were
interested in facilitating the cronyism.

17) Bloomberg Spins the Bolivia Gas Story: A Good Example of Bad Journalism
Gretchen Gordon
The Democracy Center
Sunday, August 13, 2006
http://www.democracyctr.org/blog/2006/08/bloomberg-spins-bolivia-gas-story-good.html
Bloomberg posted an article on problems facing the Bolivian government's oil
and gas "nationalization" efforts. The article references a report in the La
Paz-based newspaper La Razon. The Bloomberg article paints an entirely
different picture of Bolivia's oil and gas nationalization. La Razon's says:
"...the participation of [Bolivia's state oil company] in the entire chain
of production of the [oil and gas] sector 'is temporarily suspended, due to
the lack of economic resources.'"Bloomberg says La Razon says:
"Boliviatemporarily suspended a plan to seize oil and natural gas
fields controlled
by foreign companies, saying the state oil company lacks the necessary funds
to execute the process, La Razon reported." Between La Razon and Bloomberg,
Bolivia's state company "participating" in the chain of production becomes
the government "seizing" oilfields and assets. The La Razon article is
devoted to laying out in detail just how little has changed since Bolivia's
"nationalization" decree. The Bloomberg article goes on to tell how
"Bolivian President Evo Morales seized the assets of Petrobras and other
international oil companies on May 1."

18) Poll Shows Lamont Gaining Support, But Still Trailing Lieberman
Associated Press
August 17 2006, 7:42 AM EDT
http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-lamont-lieberman-poll-0817,0,6520516.story

Ned Lamont, whose anti-war campaign rattled the political landscape by
toppling Sen. Joe Lieberman last week in Connecticut's Democratic primary,
is gaining support in November's three-way Senate race, according to a poll
released Thursday. But the Quinnipiac University poll shows Lamont still has
an uphill battle against Lieberman, now running as an independent. Lieberman
leads Lamont among registered voters 49% to 38%. Republican Alan Schlesinger
gets support from 4%. That's an improvement for Lamont, who trailed
Lieberman 51% to 27% in a three-way race in a July 20 Quinnipiac poll. That
survey of registered voters showed Schlesinger with 9%. Thursday's poll
quizzed both registered voters and voters likely to cast ballots in the
general election. The July 20 poll only questioned registered voters. Among
likely voters in Thursday's poll, Lieberman was supported by 53%, compared
to Lamont's 41% and Schlesinger's 4%. Lieberman's advantage comes from broad
support among unaffiliated and Republican voters. "Senator Lieberman's
support among Republicans is nothing short of amazing. It more than offsets
what he has lost among Democrats," poll director Douglas Schwartz said. When
pollsters asked if Lieberman should drop out of the race because he lost the
Democratic primary, 58% of all those surveyed said no, but among Democrats,
56% said he should. Some Senate Republicans are throwing their support
behind Lieberman instead of Schlesinger. Thursday's poll showed Lieberman
with 75% of the Republican vote, compared to 13% for Lamont and 10% for
Schlesinger. Among unaffiliated voters, Lieberman garners 58%, compared to
36% for Lamont and 3% for Schlesinger. Among Democrats, Lamont leads
Lieberman with 63%. Lieberman gets 35% of Democratic voters.

--------
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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