[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, November 2, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
November 2, 2006

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
Russian and China said they will not support a draft U.N. resolution
imposing tough sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt its nuclear
enrichment program, AP reports. The comments by Russia's foreign
minister and China's U.N. ambassador were their strongest reactions
yet to the draft.

Writing in Public Citizen's blog on the lame duck session, Just
Foreign Policy agrees with former US "diplomat" Roger Noriega that the
extension of U.S. trade preferences to Bolivia and Ecuador would be
good, though we take issue with his reasons.

A substantial majority of Americans expect Democrats to reduce or end
US military involvement in Iraq if they win control of Congress and
say Republicans will maintain or increase troop levels if they hold on
to power, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll. A majority of
Republicans said they want a change in appoach.

61% of US respondents think the US government should establish a
timetable for withdrawal of military forces from Iraq, according to a
poll by Princeton Survey Research Associates released by Newsweek.

Combat veterans are being dismissed from the Marines without the
medical benefits needed to treat post-traumatic stress disorder, USA
Today reports. "The Marine Corps has created these mental health
issues" in combat veterans, a Marine lawyer says, "and then we just
kind of kick them out into the streets."

Civilians, a quarter of them children, make up almost all the victims
of cluster bombs over the last three decades, Handicap International
said Thursday.

Officially, the Bush administration is "pleased" that North Korea has
agreed to resume talks on nuclear disarmament, the New York Times
reports. But behind closed doors at the White House and the State
Department, some are less happy, saying the country's nuclear test
should be answered with isolation.

Press reports out of Mexico indicate the gunmen suspected of murdering
New York journalist Brad Will are missing and not in police custody,
Democracy Now reports. Initially a local mayor said five men had been
detained. But the Mexican papers Milenio and Noticias de Oaxaca are
now reporting that no arrests have been made.

Iran
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards test-fired dozen of missiles,
including the long-range Shahab-3, during the first hours of new
military maneuvers, Iranian state-run television said Thursday.

Iraq
Iraqi leaders have drawn up a set of changes to a UN agreement that
provides some of the legal basis for the presence American troops, the
New York Times reports.  The changes could give the Iraqi government
more control over its own armed forces.

Almost a third of the 102 U.S. troops killed in Iraq in October were
on extended, second or third tours, the Chicago Tribune reports. The
deaths of soldiers on extended or repeat tours of duty has added to
anxiety about the war.

Israel
Israeli volunteers are helping to protect the Palestinian olive
harvest from marauding Jewish settlers, AFP reports in an article
carried by the Washington Times. The effort is led by the Israeli
peace group Rabbis for Human Rights.

Ecuador
The right in Latin America, allied with Washington, believes it has
discovered a winning formula to stop the spread of populist
governments. It's all about fear, writes Mark Weisbrot on Huffington
Post. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, the US polling firm whose activities
in Bolivia are depicted in the documentary "Our Brand is Crisis," is
now working against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua.

Venezeuela
Venezuela will provide heavily discounted heating oil to about 37,000
low-income families in Maryland, Virginia and the District this
winter, Venezuela's ambassador to the US said yesterday, the
Washington Times reports. The program will assist more than 400,000
families in 16 U.S. states and the District. Oil provided under the
expanded program will be offered at 40 percent below the market price.

Guatemala and Venezuela agreed to withdraw from the race for a seat on
the U.N. Security Council and support Panama as a consensus candidate,
Ecuador's U.N. ambassador said. Panama's election to a two-year term
on the Security Council is virtually certain.

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Russia, China won't back Iran sanctions
Associated Press, November 2, 2006, Filed at 4:15 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Nuclear.html
Russian and China indicated that they will not support a draft U.N.
resolution imposing tough sanctions on Iran for its refusal to halt
its nuclear enrichment program. The comments by Russia's foreign
minister and China's U.N. ambassador were the strongest reactions yet
to the draft by the two key U.N. Security Council members, and
signaled difficult negotiations ahead on the resolution drawn up by
Britain, France and Germany.

"We cannot support measures that in essence are aimed at isolating
Iran from the outside world, including isolating people who are called
upon to conduct negotiations on the nuclear program," the Interfax
news agency quoted Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov as saying
Wednesday.

China's U.N. Ambassador Wang Guangya said "there are still different
views on what kind of actions the council needs to do under the
current circumstances." Wang said "the major concern" is that some
members want tough sanctions like those in the resolution that the
council approved on Oct. 14 to punish North Korea for conducting a
nuclear test.

The European draft on Iran orders all countries to prevent the sale
and supply of material and technology that could contribute to
Tehran's nuclear and missile programs. It imposes a travel ban and
freezes the assets of people involved in these programs - and also
orders countries to freeze the assets of companies and organizations
involved in Iran's nuclear and missile programs.

"I think the situation, the cases, are slightly different," Wang said.
"Of course, the main concern is nuclear, but I think that North Korea
had a test and the Iranians always claim that their programs are for
peaceful use." Unlike North Korea, Iran has signed the Nuclear
Nonproliferation Treaty, he said.

Both Russia and China, which have strong commercial ties to Tehran,
agreed in principle to sanctions over Iran's defiance of the council's
ultimatum to freeze uranium enrichment and dramatically improve
cooperation with the U.N. probe of suspect Iranian atomic activities.

But both nations have continued to publicly push for dialogue instead
of U.N. punishment, despite the collapse last month of a European
Union attempt to entice Iran into talks. The EU had proposed that Iran
at least temporarily freeze enrichment as a condition for multilateral
talks aimed at erasing suspicions it may be trying to build nuclear
arms in violation of its treaty commitments.

The five veto-wielding permanent council members - the U.S., Russia,
China, Britain and France - were expected to discuss the resolution
this week at the UN. Lavrov said that Russia would seek to focus the
document on aspects of Iran's program that the International Atomic
Energy Agency has identified as possibly serious risks, including
uranium enrichment and a heavy-water reactor, the ITAR-Tass news
agency reported.

A Russian Defense Ministry official told AP Wednesday his government
would fulfill a contract to supply air defense missiles to Iran unless
Moscow decides to back the international sanctions that would make it
illegal. The official denied an ITAR-Tass report that said Russia had
already started delivering the missiles. Defense Minister Sergei
Ivanov defended the $700 million contract signed last December to sell
29 Tor-M1 air defense missile systems to Iran, saying they were purely
defensive weapons with a limited range.

2) Renewing ATPDEA would be good for relations with South America, but
trashing South American leaders is not
Robert Naiman, Lame Duck Hunt(Public Citizen blog on lame duck session), Nov. 1
http://citizen.typepad.com/lameduckhunt/2006/11/renewing_atpdea.html
The Bush administration is supporting the renewal of "the Andean Trade
Preferences and Drug Eradication Act." It's in the interest of the
majority of Americans and the majority of people in Bolivia and
Ecuador that this deal be extended. The political context is that the
immediate alternative to extending this legislation is putting these
countries under the gun to sign "free trade" agreements with
Washington. Such agreements would be certain to undermine
pro-development policies.

Bolivia in particular has asked for an extension. The Bolivian
government and the social movements there are asking for a different
model for U.S.-Bolivian trade relations than a "free trade" agreement.
But regardless of whether a different model is feasible in the near
future, an extension will be better for the Bolivian government and
the popular movement there than an immediate cutoff of trade
preferences. The opposition would blame the economic dislocation
caused by an immediate cutoff of preferences on the government and use
it to argue that Bolivia cannot afford to chart its own path.

3) With Iraq Driving Election, Voters Want New Approach
Adam Nagourney & Megan Thee, New York Times, November 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/us/politics/02poll.html
A substantial majority of Americans expect Democrats to reduce or end
American military involvement in Iraq if they win control of Congress
next Tuesday and say Republicans will maintain or increase troop
levels to try to win the war if they hold on to power on Capitol Hill,
according to the final New York Times/CBS News poll before the midterm
election.

The poll showed that 29 percent of Americans approve of the way
President Bush is managing the war, matching the lowest mark of his
presidency. Nearly 70 percent said Bush did not have a plan to end the
war, and 80 percent said Bush's latest effort to rally public support
for the conflict amounted to a change in language but not policy.

The poll underlined the extent to which the war has framed the midterm
elections. Americans cited Iraq as the most important issue affecting
their vote, and majorities of Republicans and Democrats said they
wanted a change in approach. Twenty percent said they thought the US
was winning in Iraq, down from a high this year of 36 percent in
January.

4) Most Americans Want Timetable for Iraq War
Angus Reid Global Monitor : Polls & Research, November 2, 2006
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/13658
Most adults in the US think their government should establish a
specific date for the end of the coalition effort, according to a poll
by Princeton Survey Research Associates released by Newsweek. 61% of
respondents think the U.S. should set a timetable for the withdrawal
of military forces in Iraq.

At least 2,819 American soldiers have died during the military
operation, and more than 21,200 troops have been wounded in action.
49% of respondents believe the U.S. did not do the right thing in
taking military action against Iraq.

5) Troubled troops in no-win plight
Gregg Zoroya, USA Today, 11/2/2006 8:39 AM ET
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-11-01-troubled-troops_x.htm
Scores of combat veterans are being dismissed from the Marines without
the medical benefits needed to treat combat stress, says Lt. Col.
Colby Vokey, who supervises the legal defense of Marines in the
western USA.

When classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) arise -
including alcoholism and drug abuse - the veterans are punished for
the behavior, Vokey says. Their less-than-honorable discharges can
lead to a denial of VA benefits. Vokey calls it a Catch-22, referring
to the no-win situation showcased in Joseph Heller's 1961 satirical
war novel Catch-22. "The Marine Corps has created these mental health
issues" in combat veterans, Vokey says, "and then we just kind of kick
them out into the streets."

Characters in Catch-22 were caught in a contradiction. They could be
relieved of dangerous flying missions if crazy. But if they claimed to
be crazy, they were deemed sane for trying to avoid danger and had to
keep flying.

In Iraq, Marines who perform well in combat can be lauded for it. But
if they develop PTSD, they can be punished for stress-related
misconduct, kicked out of the military and denied treatment for their
illness. In recent months, the Marine Corps has begun investigating
the matter, identifying 1,019 Marines who may fall into this group
since the war in Iraq began. All served at least one year in the
Marines and one tour overseas before being discharged for misconduct.

6) Cluster Bomb Victims Overwhelmingly Civilian: Report
Reuters, November 2, 2006, Filed at 4:44 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/world/international-arms-cluster.html
Civilians, a quarter of them children, make up almost all the victims
of cluster bombs over the last three decades, a humanitarian agency
said on Thursday. In a study of 24 countries and regions, Handicap
International said the controversial weapons, which scatter munitions
over a wide area, had killed, wounded or maimed 11,044 people of whom
98 percent were civilians.

The under-reporting of victims in such places as Afghanistan, Iraq and
Vietnam meant the real total could be almost 10 times higher, it said.
Some 27 percent of the victims were children, mainly boys, who were
working or playing in areas where munitions were lying around after
failing to explode on impact.

7) U.S. Debates Value Of North Korea Talks
Helene Cooper, New York Times, November 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/world/asia/02diplo.html
Officially, the Bush administration is "pleased" that North Korea has
agreed to resume talks on nuclear disarmament. But behind closed doors
at the White House and the State Department, some are less happy,
saying the country's nuclear test should be answered with isolation.

When it comes to North Korea, the Bush administration has always found
itself pulled in two directions - confrontation versus engagement -
and has generally settled on a middle course that was neither. To
persuade North Korea to return to the bargaining table, President Bush
agreed last week to a slight softening of his stance against direct
talks with North Korea, a concession that made clear that Secretary of
State Rice was in charge of the policy, at least for now.

But Rice is coming under increased fire inside and outside the
administration from officials and experts who are skeptical about what
diplomacy can achieve in this case, and who argue that there is no
chance a new round of nuclear talks with North Korea will succeed.
"What's a good description? Fantasy? Dreamworld?" said Nicholas
Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute. "All we're doing with
these hapless efforts at conference diplomacy is continuing to talk
while North Korea continues to build nuclear weapons."

A senior Bush administration official was equally pointed in
criticizing the new initiative. "In the past, the one thing we could
never be criticized for was whether our tough talk meant something,"
said the official, who has participated in internal debates. "When we
gave a stick, they knew we were serious. We've lost that credibility."

8) Suspects in Murder of Indymedia Journalist Brad Will On Loose in Oaxaca
Democracy Now, Thursday, November 2nd, 2006
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/02/1450255
Press reports out of Mexico indicate the gunmen suspected of murdering
New York journalist Brad Will are missing and not in police custody.
Will died on Friday after being shot by paramilitaries in Oaxaca. The
36-year-old Indymedia journalist had his videocamera in his hand.
Photos taken at the time of the shooting show the armed men who
carried out the attack. They have been identified as local police
officers and government officials. Initially a local mayor said five
men had been detained. But the Mexican papers Milenio and Noticias de
Oaxaca are now reporting that no arrests have been made.

Iran
9) Iran Tests Fires Longer Range Missile
Associated Press, November 2, 2006, Filed at 9:35 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iran-Missile-Test.html
Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards test-fired dozen of missiles,
including the long-range Shahab-3, during the first hours of new
military maneuvers, Iranian state-run television said Thursday. The
report said several kinds of short-range missiles were also fired in a
central desert area of Iran during the maneuvers, which came two days
after U.S.-led warships finished an exercise in the Gulf that Tehran
described as "adventurist."

"We want to show our deterrent and defensive power to trans-regional
enemies, and we hope they will understand the message of the
maneuvers," said the head of the Revolutionary Guards, Gen. Yahya
Rahim Safavi, in an apparent reference to the US and other western
powers. The general said the 10-day maneuvers, named "Great Prophet,"
would take place in the Gulf, the Sea of Oman and several provinces of
the country.

The Shahab-3 missile is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead and is
believed to have a range of more than 1,242 miles. It can reach Israel
and U.S. forces in the Middle East. The state-run TV said that among
the other weapons tested during the maneuvers was the Shahab-2, which
Iran says has a cluster warhead that can send 1,400 bomblets at the
same time. Solid-fuel Zalzal missiles also were launched, as were
guided missiles as well as Scud-B, Zolfaghar-73 and Z-3, it said.

Iran regularly holds large maneuvers, often using them to test weapons
developed by its arms industry.

Iraq
10) Iraqi Shiites Continue To Exert Independence And Seek Changes To
U.N. Deal On U.S. Troops
Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, November 2, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html
In a continued effort to demonstrate their independence from
Washington, Iraqi Shiites are pressing a fresh set of conditions on
their American supporters, asking for changes in the Iraqi
government's relationship with the US military. In a move that seemed
designed more to placate Iraq's Shiite majority than to influence the
broader management of the war, Iraqi leaders have drawn up a set of
changes to a UN agreement that provides some of the legal basis for
American troops here.

The changes, if enacted, could give the Iraqi government more control
over its own armed forces, something Iraqi leaders want, but were not
likely to change fundamentally the way the war is directed. The UN
agreement, which expires on Dec. 31, is not the only source of legal
justification for continued presence of American troops here. Another
is the Iraqi Constitution. Even if the agreement expired, the status
of the American military here would not change. What is more, no
single Iraqi group truly wants the Americans out.

Iraqi leaders say they cannot accept a continuation of the UN
agreement, which gives the US and 27 other countries "the authority to
take all necessary measures to contribute to the maintenance of
security and stability in Iraq" without attaching some conditions to
the original agreement. They say they want more control over their
military to protect vulnerable areas from insurgent attacks.

A common view among American officers in the field, though, is that
Iraqi troops, more than three years after the American effort to
rebuild the Iraqi forces began, are years away from being able to
fight the war on their own. A 19-member committee of Iraq's top
political leaders, its prime minister and its president has agreed on
six conditions, said one Shiite politician who has participated in
negotiations. The points are being discussed with senior American
military commanders here as well as with officials from the US and
British Embassies.

They will be codified in a memorandum between Prime Minister al-Maliki
and President Bush, Shiite lawmakers said, although the type of
document is still a subject of debate. Iraqis say they will not insist
on reopening the case publicly at the UN to avoid the risk of not
having it extended.

Even so, they could embarrass the Americans by refusing to relent on
changes, even as the deadline for extending the UN agreement nears or
passes. But if that happened, the only serious question would be about
the status of foreign forces from other countries, who provide more
than 17,000 troops and whose legal status for being here is still more
closely bound with the UN agreement.

The changes the leaders seek include speeding up the process of
handing over control to Iraqi regions for their own security sooner,
currently scheduled to be completed in the first half of next year.
Under the current arrangement, American forces have full operational
control nationally until the end of 2007, and political leaders seek
more control over security for portions of the country earlier,
according to Mowaffak al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security adviser.

Maliki remarked bitterly in an interview with Reuters last week that
he could not move one company of Iraqi soldiers without permission
from the American military.

11) Many of October's war dead on extended, multiple tours
James Janega & Sara Olkon, Chicago Tribune, November 1, 2006
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0611010180nov01,1,3952808.story
Almost a third of the 102 U.S. troops killed in Iraq in October - the
fourth deadliest month of the war - were on extended, second or third
tours. At home, that prolonged exposure to danger added heartache to
the deaths and underscored national anxiety over a conflict more
protracted than anyone expected.

Among the first to die in October was Army Staff Sgt. Jonathan Rojas,
27, of Hammond, Ind. "He should have come home," Assistant Principal
Cynthia Warner said of the 1997 Hammond High School graduate, killed
two months after his tour was extended. "He should be home. He
shouldn't be coming home the way he did."

Across the country, the family of Army Sgt. Mario Nelson, also
extended on his first tour in Iraq, spent frustrating weeks crowded
into their Brooklyn, N.Y., two-flat, waiting for the burly sergeant's
body to return. They had expected him to come home alive. "The closer
it came to him being home, the more hopeful we were that he'd make
it," Dyna Nelson, 23, said of her brother.

Enthusiasm faded when he was told his tour was extended, she said.
After a leave to visit his wife and daughter, he returned to Iraq,
tired and resigned. He survived an earlier rocket-propelled grenade
attack. A second found him in the tumultuous town of Hit on Oct. 1.

Israel
12) Israelis protect Palestinian olives from settlers
Jennie Matthew, Agence France-Presse, November 1, 2006
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20061031-104521-6814r.htm
JIT, West Bank - Fearful that radical Jewish settlers will steal their
olives, Palestinians are turning to an unlikely source of protection
to secure this year's harvest. Several hundred Israelis, from
left-wing activists to moderates, regularly volunteer to help
Palestinians pick olives, thinking their presence deters violence.

"I think what we do now is the way of peace. Palestinians and Jews
work hand in hand on the trees and pick fruit together," said Zacharia
Sada, West Bank coordinator of the Rabbis for Human Rights. "It gives
us hope that the other side of the occupation, the Jewish people, are
a peaceful people and want to live together," he said, sitting in the
shade and listening to the soothing sound of olives dropping to the
ground. For Palestinians, the olive symbolizes their attachment to the
land in the occupied West Bank.

"Thank God. That's what there is," said Ahmed Yamiin, smiling and
thanking volunteers profusely for their help as he sews up sacks of
freshly picked olives in this village, where Jewish settlers have
routinely vandalized olive groves. Across the road looms the
settlement of Qedumim, with its red-roofed villas and manicured
gardens. "Normally there are 150 to 200 people [helping] in the
village, but they are too frightened to come here," he said. Only
Yamiin and three other Palestinians were willing to join the
volunteers this day in harvesting the olives nearest the road. "Some
of them come with dogs. When they come along, some drive their cars
very dangerously to scare us off. They throw rocks. They shoo us
away," Yamiin said when asked about the Jewish settlers.

Ecuador
13) Ecuador: Their Brand is Crisis
Media-Based Fear Campaign is Right's Strategy for Latin American Elections
Mark Weisbrot, Huffington Post, November 1, 2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot-and-robert-naiman/ecuador-their-brand-is-c_b_33039.html
The right in Latin America, allied with Washington, believes it has
discovered a winning formula to prevent the spread of left/populist
governments that have won power in Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela,
Bolivia, and Uruguay and come very close to winning this year in Peru
and Mexico. It's all about fear.

In Rachel Boynton's brilliant 2006 documentary, "Our Brand is Crisis,"
she shows how one of America's most powerful polling and public
relations firms, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, used the fear factor to win
the 2002 Bolivian election for right-wing candidacy of Gonzalo Sanchez
de Lozada, who fled the country six months later and is now wanted for
corruption and the killing of dozens of unarmed demonstrators against
his government. The title is a quote from a GQR strategist. (GQR is
currently working against Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua; the election is
November 5. The campaign is running TV ads with corpses from the
1980's war and Ortega in military uniform.)

Venezeuela
14) Venezuela to sell D.C. oil at discount
Nicholas Kralev, Washington Times, Published November 2, 2006
http://www.washingtontimes.com/world/20061102-123527-6184r.htm
Venezuela will provide heavily discounted heating oil to about 37,000
low-income families in Maryland, Virginia and the District this
winter, Caracas' envoy to the US said yesterday.

The local jurisdictions are beneficiaries of a greatly expanded
program that this winter will assist more than 400,000 families in 16
U.S. states and the District, up from eight states and 180,000
families last year, said Ambassador Bernardo Alvarez Herrera. Oil
provided under the expanded program will be distributed through local
governments, community centers and churches, and will be offered at 40
percent below the market price.

15) Rivals for U.N. Council Seat Reach Deal to Back Panama
Associated Press, Thursday, November 2, 2006; A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/01/AR2006110102945.html
Guatemala and Venezuela agreed Wednesday to withdraw from the race for
a seat on the U.N. Security Council and support Panama as a consensus
candidate, Ecuador's U.N. ambassador said. With the backing of the two
countries, Panama's election to a two-year term on the Security
Council is virtually certain. The announcement by Ambassador Diego
Cordovez ends a deadlock between the two countries that dragged on
through 47 votes.

-
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org

Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming
U.S. foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the
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