[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, August 28, 2006

Mon Aug 28 16:11:40 CDT 2006

Just Foreign Policy News
August 28, 2006

Summary:
U.S. Politics
600 protesters in Kennebunkport, Maine Saturday called for an
immediate end to the Iraq war. The rally coincided with President
Bush's first trip here in two years.
Iran
Italy's government wants to join nuclear negotiations with Iran,
currently being led by the permanent members of the UN Security
Council and Germany. Iran's leaders view the conflict over Iran's
nuclear program as a fight for survival, the New York Times reports.
Iran Monday dismissed a U.S. threat to form an independent coalition
to impose sanctions if the U.N. Security Council failed to act over
Tehran's nuclear program. In a speech Saturday, President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad's said, "Iran is not a threat to any country, and is not
in any way a people of intimidation and aggression." He said that Iran
does not even pose a threat to Israel, and wants to deal with the
problem there peacefully. Western pundits, journalists and politicians
maintain that Ahmadinejad threatened "to wipe Israel off the map," but
he never said those words.
Iraq
Fuel and electricity prices are up more than 270 percent from last
year's. Tea in some markets has quadrupled, egg prices have doubled.
The inflation rate has reached 70 percent a year, up from 32 percent
last year. Few US troops in Iraq are prosecuted for killing civilians,
according to a Washington Post review of concluded military cases. A
recent survey of Iraqi public opinion indicates that 91.7 percent of
Iraqis oppose the presence of US troops in their country. 84.5% are
"strongly opposed."
Lebanon
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan arrived in Lebanon today, opening an
11-day tour of the Middle East on which he will press for support of
the Security Council resolution that ended the fighting between Israel
and Hezbollah and set a path for securing Lebanon's independence.
Israel's blockade of Lebanese waters goes on, and its most direct
victims are fishermen. The blockade has left them at the brink of
destitution. Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah said in an interview
televised Sunday that he would not have ordered the capture of two
Israeli soldiers if he had known it would lead to such a war.
Palestine
The war in southern Lebanon has overshadowed Israel's second front, a
military and economic siege of the Gaza Strip that is deepening the
poverty and desperation in this dense area of 1.4 million people. More
than 200 Palestinians, at least 44 of them children, have been killed
in the past 8 1/2 weeks. Three Israeli soldiers have been killed. Two
Fox News journalists kidnapped in Gaza were released unharmed on
Sunday. Israeli forces rocketed an armored car belonging to Reuters,
wounding five people.
Mexico
Mexico's electoral court rejected some of the opposition candidate's
legal challenges to last month's disputed presidential vote on Monday
as it began a session to rule on his allegations of massive fraud. The
court's judges were expected to reject most of the fraud claims and
confirm the victory of ruling party candidate Felipe Calderon.
Cardinal Norberto Rivera of Mexico City is now immersed in a nasty
political tussle that illuminates the sensitivity in Mexico about
mixing religion and politics. Supporters of López Obrador accuse
Rivera of siding with ruling party candidate Felipe Calderón. Rivera
calls protesters who have disrupted Mass at the cathedral "crazies."

In this issue:
U.S. Politics
1) Kennebunkport Antiwar Protest Attracts 600
Iran
2) Italy wants to join Iran nuclear talks
3) An Ex-Official Offers Glimpse of Iranian Views of U.S.
4) Iran Dismisses U.S. Threat of Sanctions Coalition
5) Ahmadinejad: We are Not a Threat to Any Country, Including Israel
Iraq
6) Weary Iraqis Face New Foe: Rising Prices
7) Homicide Charges Rare in Iraq War
8) 91.7 percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of US troops in their country
Lebanon
9) Annan Arrives in Beirut, Beginning Mideast Tour
10) Wake of War Idles Lebanon's Fleet, and Its Fishermen
11) Hezbollah Chief Revisits Raid
Palestine
12) Israeli Siege Leaves Gaza Isolated and Desperate
13) Fox News Journalists Free After Declaring Conversion
Mexico
14) Judges rule on Mexico's bitter presidential vote
15) In Mexico, the Cardinal and the 'Crazies'

Contents:
U.S. Politics
1) Kennebunkport Antiwar Protest Attracts 600
Trevor Maxwell, Maine Sunday Telegram, Sunday, August 27, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0827-05.htm
About 600 protesters in Kennebunkport, Maine on Saturday called for an
immediate end to the Iraq war. The rally near the Bush family compound
followed march through the town center. It coincided with President
Bush's first trip here in two years. "Cut the funding for the war,
bring our troops home now," the protesters chanted. "Enough is
enough," said Jack Bussell of Portland, a member of Maine Veterans for
Peace. "This is an illegal war. The point was weapons of mass
destruction, which weren't there. The connections to terrorism weren't
there." Carrying banners and handwritten signs, the crowd began to
gather on Saturday morning. "It's time to speak up against this war,"
said Pat Clark of Biddeford, who said this was her first involvement
in a political protest. "It's time to think about how to get out of
Iraq without losing face, and without losing thousands of more lives,"
she said.

Iran
2) Italy wants to join Iran nuclear talks
Reuters, August 28, 2006
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=8/28/2006&Cat=2&Num=011
Italy's government wants to join nuclear negotiations with Iran,
currently being led by the permanent five members of the UN Security
Council and Germany, Italy's Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema said.
D'Alema said the Iran talks fit neatly into Italy's deepening
diplomatic role in the Middle East, after it committed last week up to
3,000 troops to a UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon. Italy's troop
commitment is the biggest by any nation so far and it will lead the UN
mission starting early next year. "We also have the right to be
included, when dealing with the Iranian question," D'Alema was quoted
as saying on Sunday in Italy's La Repubblica newspaper, reprinting an
interview with a German publication. Italy has strong trade ties with
Iran.

3) An Ex-Official Offers Glimpse of Iranian Views of U.S.
Michael Slackman, New York Times, August 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/world/middleeast/28iran.html
A former high-ranking Iranian official wants Americans to see his
cracked thumbnails. They were torn out, he said, after Washington's
friend, Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, put him in prison in the 1970's.
His point is instantly clear: look at what happened when we had close
ties to the United States. "I was a medical student," said Ali
Muhammad Besharati, a former interior minister and deputy foreign
minister. "But they put me in prison because I opposed American
dominance in Iran." In the conflict over Iran's nuclear program, there
are disputes over enrichment of uranium, discussions of heavy water
reactors, and accusations over the government's intentions. But to
listen to Dr. Besharati is to hear the fight described as Tehran's
effort to block American influence in the region and to never again
allow Washington to have an upper hand in Iran. That attitude is
obvious among Iran's current leaders, who see this not just as a
battle over nuclear weapons but a fight for survival against a far
more powerful enemy that has lumped them into an "axis of evil" and
allocated millions of dollars to oust the government. Dr. Besharati
said that giving in on the nuclear front would not solve Iran's
problems with Washington, only aggravate them. "If we backed down on
the nuclear issue, the U.S. would have found fault with our medical
doctors researching stem cells."

4) Iran Dismisses U.S. Threat of Sanctions Coalition
Reuters, August 28, 2006, Filed at 8:35 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-nuclear-iran.html
Iran said Monday a U.S. threat to form an independent coalition to
impose sanctions if the U.N. Security Council failed to act over
Tehran's nuclear program was an insult to the council's work. The Los
Angeles Times reported Saturday that the U.S. ambassador to the UN,
John Bolton, had indicated Washington was prepared to act
independently with allies to freeze Iranian assets and restrict trade
if the council did not. The US has previously called for a swift
response if Iran does not heed the Security Council's Thursday
deadline to halt uranium enrichment. The LA Times said Washington
planned to introduce a resolution imposing penalties soon after the
August 31 deadline if Iran's position did not change. Opposition from
veto-wielding powers Russia and China could delay any move. Bolton
said Washington was working on a parallel diplomatic track outside the
UN if Russia and China did not accept the resolution, the LA Times
reported. The US has had broad restrictions on almost all trade with
Iran since 1987. Iran has shrugged off the threat of sanctions, saying
such a move would push already high oil prices higher still, hurting
economies in industrialized countries more than Iran. Iran says it
will press ahead with its atomic plans which it says are to produce
electricity. It inaugurated a heavy-water production unit southwest of
the capital on Sunday.

5) Ahmadinejad: We are Not a Threat to Any Country, Including Israel
Juan Cole, Informed Comment, Sunday, August 27, 2006
http://www.juancole.com/#115667003954079356
Believe it, don't believe it, that's up to you. But at least we should
know what exactly he said, which is not something our US newspapers
will tell us about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech on Saturday.
Ahmadinejad said, "Iran is not a threat to any country, and is not in
any way a people of intimidation and aggression." He described
Iranians as people of peace and civilization. He said that Iran does
not even pose a threat to Israel, and wants to deal with the problem
there peacefully, through elections: "Weapons research is in no way
part of Iran's program. Even with regard to the Zionist regime, our
path to a solution is elections." Ahmadinejad seems to be explaining
what his calls for the Zionist regime to be effaced actually mean. He
says he doesn't want violence against Israel, despite its own acts of
enmity against Middle Eastern neighbors. I interpret his statement on
Saturday to be an endorsement of the one-state solution, in which a
government would be elected that all Palestinians and all Israelis
would jointly vote for. The result would be a government about half
made up of Israeli ministers and half of Palestinian ones. Whatever
one wanted to call such an arrangement, it wouldn't exactly be a
"Zionist state," which would thus have been dissolved. The schlock
Western pundits, journalists and politicians who keep maintaining that
Ahmadinejad threatened "to wipe Israel off the map" when he never said
those words will never, ever manage to choke out the words Ahmadinejad
spoke on Saturday, much less repeat them as a tag line forever after.
Supreme Jurisprudent Khamenei's pledge of no first strike against any
country by Iran with any kind of weapon, and his condemnation of
nuclear bombs as un-Islamic and impossible for Iran to possess or use,
was completely ignored by the Western press and is never referred to.
Indeed, after all that talk of peace and no first strike and no nukes,
Khamenei at the very end said that if Iran were attacked, it would
defend itself. Karl Vicks of the Washington Post at the time ignored
all the rest of the speech and made the headline, 'Khamenei threatens
reprisals against US." On Iran, the US public is being spoonfed
agitprop, not news.

Iraq
6) Weary Iraqis Face New Foe: Rising Prices
Damien Cave, New York Times, August 26, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html
For Mehdi Dawood, Iraq's failures have leached into the cucumbers, a
staple of every meal that now devours a fifth of his monthly pension.
Fuel and electricity prices are up more than 270 percent from last
year's. Tea in some markets has quadrupled, egg prices have doubled,
and all over the country the daily routine now includes a new
question: What can be done without? "Meat, I just don't buy it
anymore," said Dawood. Going to the market already requires courage -
after repeated bombings there - and now life's most basic needs are
becoming drastically more expensive. Three months into the
administration of Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki, the inflation
rate has reached 70 percent a year, up from 32 percent last year.
Wages are flat, banks are barely functioning and the consensus among
many American and Iraqi officials is that inflation is most likely to
accelerate.

7) Homicide Charges Rare in Iraq War
Few Troops Tried For Killing Civilians
Josh White, Charles Lane & Julie Tate, Washington Post, Monday, August
28, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700770.html
The majority of U.S. service members charged in the unlawful deaths of
Iraqi civilians have been acquitted, found guilty of relatively minor
offenses or given administrative punishments without trials, according
to a Washington Post review of concluded military cases. Charges
against some of the troops were dropped completely. Though experts
estimate that thousands of Iraqi civilians have died at the hands of
U.S. forces, only 39 service members were formally accused in
connection with the deaths of 20 Iraqis from 2003 to early this year.
Twenty-six of the 39 troops were initially charged with murder,
negligent homicide or manslaughter; 12 of them ultimately served
prison time for any offense. Some say the small numbers reflect the
caution and professionalism exercised by U.S. forces. Others argue the
statistics illustrate commanders' reluctance to investigate and hold
troops accountable when they take the lives of civilians. "I think
there are a number of cases that never make it to the reporting stage,
and in some that do make it to the reporting stage, there has been a
reluctance to pursue them vigorously," said Gary Solis, a law
professor at Georgetown University and a former Marine prosecutor.
"There have been fewer prosecutions in Iraq than one might expect."

8) 91.7 percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of US troops in their country
Marc Lynch, Abu Aardvark, August 23, 2006
http://abuaardvark.typepad.com/abuaardvark/2006/08/what_the_iraqi_.html
In yesterday's press conference, President Bush insisted that there
would be no withdrawal of American troops from Iraq as long as he was
president.  He gave a long, scattered list of reasons.  Among them was
a claim put forward in a number of different ways that boiled down to
this:  "it's what the Iraqi people want." Really? Mark Tessler and
Mansoor Moaddel recently released some of the data from their latest
survey of Iraqi public opinion. The survey asked a direct question
about the presence of American troops in Iraq (which for some reason
was not included either in the US News story or in the University of
Michigan press release). The bottom line:  91.7% of Iraqis oppose the
presence of coalition troops in the country, up from 74.4% in 2004.
84.5% are "strongly opposed". It isn't just that Iraqis oppose the
American presence - it's that their feelings are intense:  only 7.2%
"somewhat oppose" and 4.7% "somewhat support."
http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2006/Jun06/r061406a

Lebanon
9) Annan Arrives in Beirut, Beginning Mideast Tour
Warren Hoge, New York Times, August 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/world/middleeast/28cnd-diplo.html
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan arrived in Lebanon today, opening an
11-day tour of the Middle East on which he will press for support of
the Security Council resolution that ended the fighting between Israel
and Hezbollah and set a path for securing Lebanon's independence. The
trip will take Annan to Lebanon, Israel, the West Bank and Gaza,
Jordan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey and Qatar, the Arab
representative on the Security Council. Annan has meetings with
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran and President Bashar al-Assad of
Syria, each of whom is shunned by the US. Annan will face the
contentious matter of whether to station UN troops along the border
with Syria to enforce the resolution's call for an embargo on illegal
arms shipments. Annan's position is that UN forces will go there if
the government of Lebanon requests it. Asked if Annan would seek that
outcome, his spokesman said, "The secretary general is going to be
saying, tell me what you need and the UN will assist you in whatever
way we can." The spokesman said, "The secretary general is focused on
establishing Lebanon's sovereignty and the ability of the government
to exercise its authority throughout the country," he said. "That
includes the lifting of the blockade of ports and assuring that
southern Lebanon will not be used for renewed rocket attacks on
Israel."

10) Wake of War Idles Lebanon's Fleet, and Its Fishermen
Robert F. Worth, New York Times, August 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/world/middleeast/28fishermen.html
Every morning, the fishermen gather at a grimy outdoor cafe
overlooking the docks of this ancient port town. It is the height of
the fishing season, but their boats sit at the water's edge like
abandoned cars, rusting. "We have been sitting here for 50 days," said
Muhammad Ibrahim Bauji."I am living on borrowed money." Israel's
blockade of Lebanese waters goes on, and its most direct victims are
fishermen. They have been unable to put their boats out since the
conflict began July 12. The fishermen depend on their summer earnings
to sustain them through the slow winter, and the blockade has left
them at the brink of destitution. For now, Sidon's 600 fishermen are
living mostly on handouts from the town and nonprofit groups. The
fishermen say the aid is not enough to feed their families. The
situation is the same, or worse, for the thousands of fishermen who
work along the coast, from Naqoura, in the south, to Tripoli, in the
north. Some have been reduced to begging.

11) Hezbollah Chief Revisits Raid
Associated Press, Monday, August 28, 2006; A09
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700769.html
Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah said in an interview televised Sunday
that he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers if
he had known it would lead to such a war. "You ask me, if I had known
on July 11 . . . that the operation would lead to such a war, would I
do it? I say no, absolutely not," he said in an interview with
Lebanon's New TV station. He also said Italy and the UN had made
contacts to help mediate a prisoner swap with Israel.

Palestine
12) Israeli Siege Leaves Gaza Isolated and Desperate
Doug Struck, Washington Post, Monday, August 28, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700768.html
Khitam Shahleen glumly picked through a pile of cheap pencil
sharpeners, searching for something -- anything -- she could afford to
buy her two sons for the start of the new school year. "We don't have
money," she said. Her husband, who works as a laborer in Israel, has
been trapped inside the Gaza Strip by a blockade. "We are imprisoned
here," she said. The war in southern Lebanon has overshadowed Israel's
second front, a military and economic siege of the Gaza Strip that is
deepening the poverty and desperation in this dense area of 1.4
million people. More than 200 Palestinians, at least 44 of them
children, have been killed in the past 8 1/2 weeks. Three Israeli
soldiers have been killed. Huge Israeli bulldozers and "pinpoint"
missiles have razed at least 40 houses and dozens of other buildings,
according to the army, leaving many families homeless. Daily
skirmishes regularly result in new casualties.

13) Fox News Journalists Free After Declaring Conversion
Steven Erlanger, New York Times,August 28, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/28/world/middleeast/28mideast.html
Two journalists kidnapped in Gaza were released unharmed on Sunday
after being forced at gunpoint to say on a videotape that they had
converted to Islam. The two journalists for Fox News, Steve Centanni,
an American correspondent, and Olaf Wiig, a freelance cameraman from
New Zealand,  were held for 13 days as hostages of a previously
unknown group calling itself the Holy Jihad Brigades. After their
release, the two men met with the prime minister of the Palestinian
Authority, Ismail Haniya of Hamas, who had called for their captors to
free them. Wiig said he hoped the kidnapping would not prevent foreign
journalists from covering Gaza. "That would be a great tragedy for the
people of Palestine and especially for the people of Gaza," he said.
In Gaza Sunday, Israeli forces rocketed an armored car belonging to
Reuters, wounding five people. The car was clearly marked on the sides
and roof and was being used to cover an Israeli raid. An Army
spokeswoman said that the vehicle was in a combat area during a night
raid and that the Army had not seen the markings. The Foreign Press
Association of Israel rejected the army's "excuses" and called for a
full investigation.

Mexico
14) Judges rule on Mexico's bitter presidential vote
Kieran Murray, Reuters, Monday, August 28, 2006; 10:42 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/28/AR2006082800109.html
Mexico's electoral court rejected some of the opposition candidate's
legal challenges to last month's disputed presidential vote on Monday
as it began a long session to rule on his allegations of massive
fraud. The court's seven judges were expected to reject most of the
fraud claims and confirm the victory of ruling party candidate Felipe
Calderon. The judges dismissed some of the 240 separate complaints
lodged by Lopez Obrador. But they did not say whether Calderon's
razor-thin victory in the July 2 vote would stand, and it was still
possible that they would accept some of Lopez Obrador's allegations.
Lopez Obrador says there were serious irregularities at more than half
the polling stations. He has demanded a full recount of all 41 million
votes cast and has launched street protests that have shut down
central Mexico City. Lopez Obrador insists he won the election and
that a court ruling in favor of Calderon would merely complete the
fraud. The court has until September 6 to formally declare a
president-elect. The electoral court judges are expected to rule on
whether some polling station results should be annulled, and also on a
wider complaint by the left that funding from business leaders and
Fox's vocal support for Calderon's campaign warrant scrapping the
entire election. Their decisions are final and cannot be appealed. If
Calderon's victory is confirmed by the court, Lopez Obrador says he
will either lead a civil resistance movement against his rival or set
up some kind of parallel government. "We are going to create our own
institutions," he said on Sunday.

15) In Mexico, the Cardinal and the 'Crazies'
Religion Colors Politics as Catholic Leaders Take Stand on Presidential Fight
Manuel Roig-Franzia, Washington Post, Monday, August 28, 2006; A08
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/27/AR2006082700689.html
At the height of Catholic Mass in the baroque Metropolitan Cathedral,
a man interrupted the service by brandishing a political protest sign
at the country's most respected religious figure. Outside,
demonstrators chanted, "Norberto Rivera, hell awaits you." Rivera, a
cardinal, oversees the world's largest archdiocese here in Mexico
City, the center of religious life in a country where nine in 10
people are Catholic. Rivera is now immersed in a nasty political
tussle that illuminates the hair-trigger sensitivity here about mixing
religion and politics. On one side, supporters of Andrés Manuel López
Obrador, the populist presidential candidate who is challenging the
results of the July 2 election, accuse Rivera of siding with the
apparent winner, Felipe Calderón. On the other side, Rivera calls
protesters who have disrupted Mass at the cathedral "crazies," and
other Catholic leaders condemn López Obrador supporters for placing
the image of Mexico's most revered saint, the Virgin of Guadalupe, on
political posters.
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org