[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, November 7, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
November 7, 2006
Anti-war Election Day Edition

No War with Iran: Petition
More than 3400 people have signed the Just Foreign Policy/Peace Action
petition through Just Foreign Policy's website. Please sign/circulate
if you have yet to do so:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iranpetition.html

Just Foreign Policy News daily podcast:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/podcasts/podcast_howto.html

Summary:
U.S./Top News
The Bush administration's successful effort to have Congress eliminate
the right of Guantánamo prisoners to challenge their detentions before
federal judges is now moving toward what may be an epic battle in the
courts, the New York Times reports. Lawyers for the detainees say
Congress can not take away the right to bring habeas corpus lawsuits
because that would violate the Constitution. The Constitution provides
that Congress may suspend the right only in cases of rebellion or
invasion.

A Halliburton subsidiary charged the Iraqi government as much as
$25,000 per month for each of as many as 1,800 fuel trucks that were
to deliver gasoline to Iraq, but the trucks often spent days or weeks
sitting idle on the border, says a report released by an auditing
agency sponsored by the UN, the New York Times reports.

As the International Criminal Court prepares to begin hearings on its
first case, debate among senior U.S. military officials seems to be
shifting away from staunch opposition, the Washington Post reports.
Court supporters note approvingly that the court has rejected many war
crimes cases against the US.

The international Red Cross called Monday for the abolition of cluster
bombs, saying the indiscriminate deaths they cause outweigh any
military advantages.

As the 2006 campaign staggered to an angry close, national security
and the Iraq war dominated the debate, the Washington Post reports.
Democrats said a vote for them would force change in Iraq strategy,
while President Bush led the GOP charge in warning that the opposition
party cannot be trusted in a time of war.

Controversy over the timing of Sunday's announcement of Saddam
Hussein's conviction provides a fitting finish for an election
campaign that has been as much a contest between competing views of
reality as between two political parties, writes Dan Froomkin for the
Washington Post.

Iran
Iran is ready to share its missile systems with political allies and
neighboring countries, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards said
Sunday. Iran's ambassador to Lebanon said Iran was ready to supply air
defense systems to the Lebanese military.

The US wants a UN Security Council resolution on Iran to say that
Tehran's nuclear ambitions pose a threat to international peace and
security, Reuters reports. Russia and China, on the other hand, want
to remove some of the sanctions in the European draft.

Iraq
The vast majority of American military deaths in Iraq are still being
caused by Sunni insurgents, ABC News reports.

Many in the Middle East said the court verdict against Saddam Hussein
had been a foregone conclusion and questioned whether it had been
fair, the New York Times reported. Amnesty International deplored the
death sentence, describing the proceedings as "deeply flawed and
unfair."

Iraq's Interior Ministry has charged 57 employees, including
high-ranking officers, with human rights crimes for their roles in the
torture of hundreds of detainees jailed in a notorious Baghdad prison.
Shiite officials have said such accusations are exaggerations, the
Washington Post notes. But on Monday, senior Interior Ministry
officials acknowledged there was clear evidence of such abuses.

A high-ranking commission of Iraq's Shiite-led government said Monday
it had prepared a draft law that could return tens of thousands of
former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to their government
jobs.

Afghanistan
Many in Kandahar say their confidence in the government is falling,
and some say that is helping fuel support for the Taliban, AP reports.
Heavy-handed NATO tactics have deepened suspicion of foreign forces.

Palestine
Discriminatory laws, traditional practices and a severe shortage of
emergency shelters combine to perpetuate violence against women by
their family members and intimate partners in the Palestinian
territories, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.

Venezuela
In a letter to the Washington Post, Chuck Kaufman noted that the
Venezuelan presidency is significantly less powerful than the U.S.
presidency. The president does not appoint the judges of the Supreme
Court, who are elected by the legislature. Venezuela has a free,
oppositional press, unlike many US allies.

Nicaragua
The electoral victory of Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua, despite threats
and warnings from US officials, is another example of plummeting US
influence in Latin America, writes Mark Weisbrot on Huffington Post.

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Appeals Court Weighs Prisoners' Right To Fight Detention
Neil A. Lewis, New York Times, November 7, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/washington/07habeas.html
The Bush administration's successful effort to have Congress eliminate
the right of Guantánamo prisoners to challenge their detentions before
federal judges is now moving toward what may be an epic battle in the
courts. And while lawsuits on the topic are spread across the
judiciary, the principal battleground, legal experts say, is the
federal appeals court in Washington. That court has been considering
for three years whether the hundreds of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay,
Cuba, have the right of habeas corpus - that is, the ability to ask a
federal judge to review the reasons for their detention.

But the law passed by Congress last month eliminating the habeas right
supersedes almost all of the arguments that have gone before and is
now the focus of the legal confrontation, government and civil
liberties lawyers agree. In a ruling last June, the Supreme Court had
said that an earlier measure did not eliminate habeas lawsuits that
were already in the courts. However, in October, the administration
used more explicit language, saying the new law retroactively blocked
federal courts from entertaining habeas lawsuits by Guantánamo
detainees.

The three-judge appeals court panel will have to decide whether the
pending lawsuits brought by the 430 or so remaining detainees at
Guantánamo should be thrown out, as the Bush administration has
argued, or whether the new law is unconstitutional, as civil liberties
groups have contended. Whatever resolution is reached by the three
appellate judges - David Sentelle and Raymond Randolph, both
appointees of Republican presidents, and Judith Rogers, appointed by a
Democrat - it will almost certainly end up before the Supreme Court. A
decision could come from the appeals court before the end of the year.

Lawyers for the detainees said in a recent brief that despite the
wording of the new law, Congress could not take away the right to
bring such habeas corpus lawsuits because that would violate the
Constitution. Their brief notes that the Constitution provides that
Congress may suspend the right only in cases of rebellion or invasion,
as President Abraham Lincoln did during the Civil War. Congress may
provide a substitute, but only one that is equivalent to a full-blown
habeas action, the lawyers said in their brief.

2) Cost of Taking Fuel to Iraq Is Questioned in New Audit
James Glanz, New York Times, November 7, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/world/middleeast/07contracts.html
A Halliburton subsidiary charged the Iraqi government as much as
$25,000 per month for each of as many as 1,800 fuel trucks that were
to deliver gasoline to Iraq after the 2003 invasion, but the trucks
often spent days or weeks sitting idle on the border, says a report
released yesterday by an auditing agency sponsored by the UN.

The agency said in a statement that the auditing firm it hired had
found that some of the contract costs that had been questioned earlier
seemed to be justified. But the agency said the findings raised new
questions about hundreds of millions of dollars billed by the company
under a $2.4 billion contract that the Army awarded on the eve of the
conflict to KBR, the Halliburton subsidiary formerly known as Kellogg
Brown & Root.

The new audit gives the first detailed picture of how the company
incurred many of those costs. The audit said the Kuwaiti government
had set the price of its gasoline at $1.13 a gallon. But with the
delivery charges, the effective cost of the gas was calculated to be
much higher, about $8 a gallon, according to a participant in a
meeting in Paris last week at which the audits were presented to the
auditing agency and the Iraqi government.

Questions have been raised about the contract since 2003, when it
first became public that the contract had been awarded without
competitive bidding.

3) A Shift in the Debate On International Court
Some U.S. Officials Seem to Ease Disfavor
Nora Boustany, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 7, 2006; A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/06/AR2006110601269.html

When then-Undersecretary of State John Bolton nullified the U.S.
signature on the International Criminal Court treaty one month into
President Bush's first term, he declared it the happiest moment in his
years of service. Bolton referred to the court as a "product of
fuzzy-minded romanticism ... not just naive, but dangerous." The
bipartisan concern then was that American service members deployed
overseas risked exposure to a foreign tribunal. President Clinton
signed the Rome Treaty on his last day in office in 2000, while
registering strong reservations.

Now, as the court prepares to begin public hearings on its first case,
the debate among senior U.S. military officials seems to be shifting
away from staunch opposition, and a fresh assessment of the court
seems to be underway.

The new attitude has been prompted in part by the court's record since
it began operations three years ago; Chief Prosecutor Luis
Moreno-Ocampo, an Argentine, has dismissed hundreds of petitions for
cases against the US. The cases were turned down for lack of evidence,
lack of jurisdiction, or because of the US' ability to conduct its own
investigations and trials. Out of some 1,500 petitions to the chief
prosecutor, almost half accused the US of war crimes.

In a letter made public last year, Moreno-Ocampo's office said it was
throwing out 240 such cases concerning the war in Iraq. Reviews of
each claim determined that none fell within the court's jurisdiction,
his letter said, because the US is not a signatory. A congressional
study released in August said the ICC's chief prosecutor demonstrated
"a reluctance to launch an investigation against the US" based on
allegations regarding its conduct in Iraq.

To Sen. Patrick Leahy, ranking member of the Appropriations foreign
operations subcommittee, the verdict is already in. "The ICC has
refuted its critics, who confidently and wrongly predicted that it
would be politicized and manipulated by our enemies to prosecute U.S.
soldiers," he said recently.

Officially, the US does not support the court and has no communication
with it. "U.S. policy towards the International Criminal Court has not
changed," a Defense Department spokesman said Monday. "While we
respect the right of other governments to join and support the ICC, we
ask that governments respect the right of the US not to join the ICC."

But court backers have noted what they consider quiet support for what
the court is doing, particularly in the Darfur region of Sudan, in
northern Uganda and in Congo. Court advocates considered it a victory
that the Bush administration abstained, instead of using its veto,
when the U.N. Security Council voted to refer Sudan to the court over
alleged atrocities being committed by Khartoum-backed militias in the
Darfur region.

4) Red Cross Urges Ban on Cluster Bombs
Associated Press, November 6, 2006, Filed at 5:02 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Red-Cross-Cluster-Bombs.html
The international Red Cross called Monday for the abolition of cluster
bombs, saying the indiscriminate deaths they cause - including
children attracted by their bright color and the tiny parachute
sometimes attached - outweigh any military advantages. The
International Committee of the Red Cross said it was stepping up its
campaign against the weapons because of Israel's use of the
scattershot bombs during its monthlong war with Lebanon. The US and
Russia also have resisted efforts to eliminate the weapons.

"The problems associated with cluster munitions are not new," said
Philip Spoerri, director of international law for the ICRC, guardian
of the Geneva Convention on the conduct of war. "In nearly every
conflict in which they have been used, significant numbers of cluster
munitions have failed to detonate as intended and have instead left a
long-term and deadly legacy of contamination."

Cluster bomblets are packed into artillery shells or bombs dropped
from aircraft. A single container fired to destroy airfields or tanks
and soldiers typically scatters some 200 to 600 of the mini-explosives
over an area the size of a football field.

Human rights groups have estimated that Israel dropped as many as 4
million of the bomblets in Lebanon. As much as 40 percent of the
submunitions failed to explode on impact, U.N. officials have said.
Those that do not explode right away may detonate later at the
slightest disturbance, experts say. Children are especially vulnerable
because the bomblets are often an eye-catching yellow with small
parachutes attached. Spoerri said the bomblets continue to kill
innocent Lebanese every week. Much of the suffering, he added, could
have been avoided had more accurate weapons been chosen.

No international treaties specifically forbid the use of cluster
bombs. However, the Geneva Conventions outline laws protecting
civilians during conflict. Because cluster bomblets often cause
civilian casualties after conflicts end - much like land mines - their
use has been heavily criticized by human rights groups.

The Red Cross, the first major organization to call for a ban since
the Israel-Hezbollah war this summer, sought an end to use of cluster
bombs in cities and villages after the 1999 NATO air war against
Serbia. Its call in 2000 for a moratorium on their general use has
been ignored by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq. Human Rights Watch
also has cited cluster bomb use by Hezbollah against targets in
northern Israel, spurring fears that the weapons are becoming more
easily accessible for rogue militias and terrorists.

The U.N. Children's Fund has so far only called for "a freeze on the
use, transfer and sale of the weapons," spokesman Michael Bociurkiw
said. However, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan is expected to issue
a statement Tuesday to countries meeting in Geneva to discuss how to
reduce the threat posed by conventional weapons.

5) Angry Campaigns End on an Angrier Note
Iraq War Remains Paramount Issue as Voters Go to Polls
Jim VandeHei & Dan Balz, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 7, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/06/AR2006110601287.html

As the 2006 campaign staggered to an angry close, national security
and the Iraq war dominated the final-day debate of midterm elections
in which national themes, not simply local choices, have framed the
most competitive races. Democrats said a vote for them would force
change in Iraq strategy, while President Bush led the GOP charge in
warning that the opposition party cannot be trusted in a time of war.

Dozens of too-close-to-call House and Senate races finished on a surly
tone, as the traditional political strategy of shifting to a positive
message at campaign's end gave way this year to a calculation that the
best chance to tip the balance was through continued attacks over
personal character and alleged corruption.

But strategists on both sides said yesterday that national security
broadly - and Iraq specifically - are likely to determine control of
Congress today. Unlike in the 2002 and 2004 elections, when
Republicans held a decisive edge on national security, polls over the
past year have shown the public losing faith in the war and the GOP,
and Democratic candidates nationwide were using their last TV
advertising dollars on spots critical of Iraq policy.

"I think, frankly, people don't believe the president anymore" when it
comes to the war, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean,
echoing other party leaders, said in an interview. "We are telling
people if they want to stay the course, vote Republican. If you want a
change of direction, vote Democrat."

6) Saddam Verdict Surprise?
Dan Froomkin, Washington Post, Monday, November 6, 2006; 2:32 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/blog/2006/11/06/BL2006110600505.html

Controversy over the timing of Sunday's announcement of Saddam
Hussein's conviction provides a fitting finish for an election
campaign that has been as much a contest between competing views of
reality as between two political parties.

Did White House officials manipulate the timing of the verdict for
political gain? Bush critics are skeptical, saying it fits a pattern
and seems awfully convenient. The White House denies it vehemently,
castigating those who would even suggest such a thing as being on
drugs or crazy. The traditional media raises the issue - but leaves it
unresolved.

Peter Baker writes in The Washington Post: "President Bush and
politicians from both parties hailed the conviction of Saddam Hussein
on Sunday but disagreed on its larger meaning as campaign strategists
tried to gauge the political impact just 48 hours before hard-fought
midterm elections.

"Democratic leaders avoided publicly accusing the Bush administration
of orchestrating the verdict's timing but privately some raised
questions, and liberal Internet blogs have been full of angry
discussion about it. The Iraqi court originally planned to render a
verdict in October but delayed it until two days before the election,
prompting a defense lawyer for Hussein to write a letter accusing Bush
of manipulating the proceedings for campaign purposes."

Iran
7) Iran Would Share Missiles
Reuters, November 7, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/world/middleeast/07Iran.html
Iran is ready to share its missile systems with political allies and
neighboring countries, the commander of the Revolutionary Guards said
late Sunday after he showed off missiles. The commander, Maj. Gen.
Yahya Rahim-Safavi, also told the official Arabic-language Al Alam
television that the Guards had thousands of troops trained for suicide
missions in case Iran was threatened.

Iran's ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Reza Sheibani, was quoted by
Iran's semiofficial Mehr News Agency on Sunday as saying Iran was
ready to supply air defense systems to the Lebanese military.

8) U.S. wants U.N. measure to say Iran is threat to peace
Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, Monday, November 6, 2006; 5:53 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/06/AR2006110600818.html
In an effort to toughen a European draft resolution on Iran, the US
wants the text to say that Tehran's nuclear ambitions posed a threat
to international peace and security, diplomats said. U.S. Ambassador
Bolton circulated among a small group a series of amendments,
including stronger language on the threat posed by Iran's nuclear
ambitions.

Similar wording on a "threat to international peace and security" was
included in an October U.N. Security Council resolution imposing
sanctions on North Korea after its nuclear test. Conversely Russia,
backed by China, proposed amendments Friday that would soften the
sanctions and cut some of them.

The U.S. proposals "are very much in the spirit of the resolution we
put down," said one European diplomat, speaking on condition of
anonymity because the amendments have not been made public. "We
certainly think they are in the ballpark of the negotiable," he said.
"However, they point in the other direction from the Russian
amendments."

The draft resolution from Britain, France and Germany demands all
countries prevent the sale and supply of equipment, technology and
financing contributing to Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile
prograIt also would freeze the assets of people and entities involved
in these programs and bar them from traveling.

The rival views of the major powers indicate negotiations will be
lengthy and difficult on the resolution, designed to punish Iran for
not adhering to U.N demands it suspend its enrichment program. The
West believes the program is a cover for bomb-making, but Iran says it
is for peaceful purposes.

Another U.S. proposal was to appoint an outside board of experts to
report to a council sanctions committee on whether the embargoes had
been implemented by member states, according to two European
diplomats. Several Security Council committees now have such an
outside advisory board. Germany, a key negotiator, and the five
permanent council members - the US, Britain, France, Russia and China
- are expected to resume negotiations later this week, possibly
Tuesday or Wednesday.

The draft resolution also excludes any use of force in the future by
pointing to a specific provision in Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter that
applies to sanctions only.

Vitaly Churkin, Russia's U.N. ambassador, said his government wanted
the draft to be redrawn to encourage the Iranians to return to talks
on its nuclear program. Churkin also wants the resolution to exclude
mention of the Bushehr nuclear plant that Russia is building in
southwest Iran. The draft exempts Bushehr construction but not any
nuclear fuel that may be delivered.

Iraq
9) Sunni Insurgents Still Causing Most U.S. Military Deaths in Iraq
Christopher Isham & Elizabeth Sprague, ABC News, November 06, 2006 3:45 PM
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/11/sunni_insurgent.html

The vast majority - more than 80 percent - of American military deaths
in Iraq are still being caused by Sunni insurgents, according to an
ABC News analysis of data released for the month of October by the
Defense Department.

Of the 99 American soldiers killed in hostile action, at least 81 were
killed by IED's or hostile fire in areas that are dominated by Sunni
Arabs and where U.S. forces have been battling Sunni insurgents since
the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

10) Mideast Expected the Verdict but Doubts Whether It's Fair
Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, November 6, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/06/world/middleeast/06arab.html
As news of the verdict against Saddam Hussein and his co-defendants
spread throughout the Middle East Sunday, many in the region said that
the verdict had been a foregone conclusion and questioned whether it
had been fair. "There was no mystery or suspense here; everyone knew
what the result would be," said Daoud Kuttab, founder of Ammannet.net,
an independent internet radio station in Amman. "The only reason
people watched today was to see the reactions on the defendants'
faces."

Many analysts and others in the region who followed the trial said
that what mattered was how the court had reached its judgment and that
the process had seemed highly flawed. But critics and supporters of
Hussein, the former dictator, said they were left with more
frustration than closure.

Most Arabs interviewed Sunday said they did not believe the trial was
fair. They said it had seemed politicized, that the judges had not
seemed to be in control of the process and that rulings about
procedures had seemed contradictory. Almost everyone agreed that the
verdict was unlikely to stop the violence gripping Iraq.

"This is the first trial of its kind of an Arab president in
contemporary history, and it could have had many implications," said
Salah Amer, professor of international law at Cairo University. "They
should have been anxious to make sure it adheres to international
legal standards. But there is a huge question about when this sentence
was issued and in what kind of conditions in Iraq."

Amer and other analysts said the timing of the verdict, on a day of
the week when the special tribunal does not normally hold session, and
just two days before midterm elections in the US, underscored the
perception that the proceedings had been politically charged.

"His sentencing now is a deliberate attempt to boost the Republicans
in the U.S.," said Imad Shueibi, president of the Data and Strategic
Studies Center, a private research organization in Damascus. "They're
expecting big losses in the upcoming elections, and they figure maybe
this sentence might give an illusion of some success. But of course
only the naïve will believe that."

Amnesty International said it deplored Hussein's sentence, describing
the proceedings as "deeply flawed and unfair."

11) 57 Iraqis Charged In Abuse At Prison
Two Probes Implicate Interior Ministry Staff
Sudarsan Raghavan, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 7, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/06/AR2006110601353.html
Iraq's Interior Ministry has charged 57 employees, including
high-ranking officers, with human rights crimes for their roles in the
torture of hundreds of detainees once jailed in a notorious eastern
Baghdad prison known as Site 4, officials announced Monday. The
charges marked the first time the present Iraqi government has taken
criminal action against members of its own security forces for
operating torture chambers inside Interior Ministry prisons, said
Brig. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, a ministry spokesman.

Sunni Arab detainees and human rights groups have long alleged that
members of the ministry's police force, made up mostly of Shiite
Muslims, took revenge on Sunni captives through beatings and other
brutal methods. For months, Shiite officials have said such
accusations are exaggerations, branding them attempts by Sunnis to
discredit the Shiite-led government.

But on Monday, senior Interior Ministry officials acknowledged there
was clear evidence of such abuses, following a probe by three separate
investigative committees that lasted 2 1/2 months.

A U.N. human rights report reached a similar conclusion in the summer,
after Iraqi and U.S. officials uncovered the torture during a visit to
Site 4 in May. More than 1,400 detainees at Site 4 were held in
"overcrowded, unsafe, and unhealthy conditions" and "suffered
systematic physical and psychological abuse" by Interior Ministry
officials, the report said. Investigators also took photos that
"documented lesions resulting from torture as well as equipment used
for this purpose."

12) Proposal Would Rehire Members of Hussein's Party
Tens of Thousands of Sunnis Pushed Out of Government Jobs Could
Benefit From Shiite Measure
John Ward Anderson, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 7, 2006; A17
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/06/AR2006110601321.html
A high-ranking commission of Iraq's Shiite-led government said Monday
it had prepared a draft law that could return tens of thousands of
former members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party to their government
jobs. After toppling Hussein in 2003, the interim U.S. authority that
ran Iraq enacted a plan that purged Baath Party members from their
government jobs, whether or not they had been accused of wrongdoing.
The move threw thousands of Baathists out of work and is blamed by
many for creating a vast pool of unemployed, disenfranchised Sunnis
who later became eligible recruits for insurgent groups.

Thousands of former Baathists have since been allowed to return to
their posts after rigorous vetting, but political and security
analysts say that if the government were to enact more sweeping
measures, it could help soothe rampant sectarian violence and advance
reconciliation between the country's Shiite Muslims and Sunni Arabs.

Ali al-Lami, executive director of the Supreme National Commission for
de-Baathification, said in an interview that the commission had
drafted a law for parliament that would give 1.5 million former
Baathists who "excommunicate" themselves from the party the option of
returning to their former government jobs or drawing a pension for
their past employment. Other estimates have put the number of purged
Baathists in the tens of thousands; the figures could not be
reconciled.

Afghanistan
13) Taliban Support on Rise in Afghanistan
Associated Press, November 6, 2006, Filed at 3:24 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Afghan-Taliban-Support.html
For Ata Mohammad, who lost 19 members of his family during a fight
between NATO and Taliban militants, the choices ahead are bleak. He
has no particular wish to join the Taliban. He could support NATO and
President Hamid Karzai's government, but feels betrayed by the
violence in the Panjwayi district he lives in. His other options
include becoming a refugee in Pakistan or Iran.

Many in Kandahar say their confidence in the government is falling,
and some say that is helping fuel support for the Taliban. "Should we
join the Taliban? Should we join the government? We don't know,"
Mohammad said. "The Taliban, they are causing problems for us, but the
government is causing problems for us too."

"We can hardly feed our family bread. We are struggling for our life,"
he said. "And with the Taliban and the government and NATO fighting,
we are victims, too."

Many in southern Afghanistan had high hopes after the election of
their fellow Pashtun tribesman Karzai in 2004, but two years later
remain mired in poverty and lamenting a lack of security and
development in the south.

Heavy-handed NATO tactics, including recent airstrikes in Panjwayi
that killed civilians - and hundreds of suspected militants - have
only deepened suspicion of foreign forces attempting to crush a
resurgent Taliban resistance five years after its hardline regime was
ousted for hosting Osama bin Laden.

Mohammad Eisah Khan, a former judge and a tribal elder in Kandahar
with a long, white beard, rattled off the reasons support for the
government is slipping. "There is no security, the people are not
safe," he said. The government "is plagued by corruption. There is no
education. There are very few schools. There are no good doctors in
Kandahar province."

The Afghan government is facing a "crisis of legitimacy" because many
appointed administrators "are quite simply thugs," said Joanna Nathan,
the Afghanistan analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank.

Palestine
14) Violence Against Palestinian Women Is Increasing, Study Says
Steven Erlanger, New York Times, November 7, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/07/world/middleeast/07palestinians.html
Discriminatory laws, traditional practices and a severe shortage of
emergency shelters combine to perpetuate violence against women by
their family members and intimate partners in the Palestinian
territories, according to a report to be issued on Tuesday by Human
Rights Watch, a New York-based watchdog group.

The report, "A Question of Security: Violence against Palestinian
Women and Girls," is based on extensive interviews over the last year
with victims, police officers, social workers and officials of the
Palestinian Authority. It says that while there is "increasing
recognition" by the authorities of violence against women and girls,
"little action has been taken to seriously address these abuses." In
fact, the report says, "there is some evidence that the level of
violence is getting worse while the remedies available to the victims
are being further eroded."

The report concedes that there is a significant lack of comprehensive
data on the scale of violence, but notes that studies and statistics
compiled by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and women's
groups, in many cases with help from abroad, "record high levels of
violence perpetrated by family members and intimate partners,
aggravated during times of political violence."

The offenses include domestic violence, rape, incest, child abuse and
violent responses to so-called honor crimes, like adultery, that
embarrass the clan, family or community.

Laws dating from Jordanian and Egyptian administration in the West
Bank and the Gaza Strip, respectively do not fully protect the rights
of women, the report says. It notes, for example, that the laws
provide reduced penalties to men who kill or harm female relatives who
are accused of adultery, allow only male relatives to file incest
charges on behalf of minors and absolve from criminal prosecution
rapists who agree to marry their victims and remain married for three
years.

Rape laws distinguish between victims who are virgins and those who
are not. Husbands may divorce wives at will with verbal notification
while wives must obtain a judicial divorce, and can only initiate
divorce on the basis of inflicted harm. The report also notes that it
is difficult for a female victim to seek redress or help with any
guarantee of privacy. Those who complain to the police or the courts
sometimes put themselves in more danger from an embarrassed family or
clan.

Police officers, lacking a sophisticated system of legal options, and
clan leaders, seeking to protect the reputation of the family,
"regularly 'mediate' and 'resolve' these cases, typically by returning
the abused women to the 'care and protection' of her attacker, without
ever referring the case to the courts or the woman to social or other
services she might need," the report says. There are few women's
shelters in the West Bank and none in Gaza; some women who need
protection are put in women's prisons instead.

The report notes that the Palestinian Authority is not a sovereign
state, that the West Bank is under Israeli occupation and that the
current fighting with Israel, which intensified in 2000, has only
weakened the sway and reduced the resources of the Palestinian
administration and the police.

Still, the report urges the Palestinian Authority to change laws or
enact new ones that criminalize family violence and to repeal
provisions that perpetuate or condone such violence. It also urges
that Palestinian officials survey the rate of violence against women,
set up government-run hot lines and additional shelters, and provide
guidelines and training to the police, health and social workers and
the courts on how to handle crimes of abuse. The report also
recommends a program of public education about the issue. Even more
important, the agency urges the Palestinian Authority to pursue crimes
against women and girls with "effective investigations and
prosecutions."

The report also urges Israel to ease travel restrictions for judges,
emergency workers and social service providers and to help Palestinian
victims of abuse use shelters in Israel, including those used by Arab
citizens of Israel.

"The problem is that no one sees this abuse as a crime," Lucy Mair, a
researcher in the Middle East and North Africa Division of Human
Rights Watch and a co-author of the report, said in an interview.
"It's seen as a family or social problem, and some behavior is not
even criminalized."

The difficulties created by the current political situation, including
travel restrictions and a cutoff of Western budget support and other
funds to a Palestinian Authority led by Hamas, Mair noted, "has led to
the deterioration of existing institutions, erodes available remedies
and makes the situation worse."

Venezuela
15) Hugo Chávez's Limited Power
Chuck Kaufman, Letter, Washington Post, Monday, November 6, 2006; A20
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/05/AR2006110500796.html
In "Chávez's Legal Weapon" [op-ed, Oct. 30], Jackson Diehl condemned
Hugo Chávez, Venezuela's twice democratically elected president, as an
"autocrat" and implied a Chávez hand in the murder of a prosecutor who
was investigating the 2002 failed coup against Chávez.

Diehl would have us believe that Chávez is in control of every facet
of government. In fact, the Venezuelan presidency is significantly
less powerful than the U.S. presidency. Chávez does not appoint the
judges of the Supreme Court or lower courts, unlike the U.S.
president. They are elected by the legislature, as are the rectors of
the National Electoral Council, the branch responsible for conducting
elections.

Venezuela is without question a polarized nation, but it has a free,
mostly anti-Chávez press. Chávez's opponent, Manuel Rosales, is
running a strong campaign without harassment from the government.
Chávez won the 1998 and 2000 presidential elections and the 2004
recall vote by about 60 percent to 40 percent. I recently traveled
with a pre-electoral delegation to Venezuela, and most of the people
we talked with predict a similar outcome on Dec. 3.

Nicaragua
16) US 'Soft Power' in Latin America Continues to Plummet as
Nicaraguans Elect Ortega
Mark Weisbrot, Huffington Post, November 6, 2006
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-weisbrot-and-robert-naiman/us-soft-power-in-latin-_b_33439.html
The apparent electoral victory of Sandinista Daniel Ortega in
Nicaragua, despite threats and warnings from US officials, is another
example - perhaps the most extreme so far - of plummeting US influence
in Latin America. The election attracted over 18,000 observers and
more than 1000 journalists, because of its historic and symbolic
significance.

Ortega first came to power with the Sandinista revolution in 1979
against the US-backed Somoza dictatorship and was elected president in
1984. Although this is never mentioned in the press, there were over
400 observers there at the time from 40 countries, including the main
organization of US Latin America scholars, the Latin American Studies
Association, and they found the election to be free and fair. The
Reagan Administration refused to recognize the election and continued
to sponsor a terrorist war against the Sandinista government,
destroying the economy of the country in the process.

In Sunday's election Washington pulled out all the stops to try to
defeat Ortega's re-election. Four Republican U.S. Members of Congress
threatened to cut off remittances sent home by Nicaraguans living in
the US, which is about the worst thing they could threaten short of an
invasion, if the voters elected Ortega. The US Embassy in Managua also
threatened economic sanctions on Friday. As a result of the 1980s war
and a US commitment to reconstruction that was about as good as in
Iraq (but without the money), Nicaragua is the second poorest country
in the hemisphere and heavily dependent on US aid.

-
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
majority of Americans.