[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, November 21, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
November 21, 2006

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
Pentagon officials conducting a review of Iraq strategy are
considering a substantial but temporary increase in American troop
levels and the addition of several thousand more trainers to work with
Iraqi forces, the New York Times reports.

The U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with
problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack
of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials, the
Washington Post reports. The shortcomings have plagued a program
central to the U.S. strategy. A Pentagon effort to rethink policies in
Iraq is likely to suggest placing less emphasis on combat and more on
training.

Key Democrats said they do not support a resumption of the draft, the
Washington Post reports. Their comments came a day after Rep. Charles
Rangel said he would again introduce a bill calling for a return to
the draft. Rangel's previous bids to reinstate the draft stirred
little interest in Congress but considerable agitation among some
bloggers and talk radio hosts.

An antiterrorist database used by the Defense Department in an effort
to prevent attacks against military installations included
intelligence tips about antiwar planning meetings held at churches,
libraries, and college campuses, the New York Times reports. The head
of the office that runs the military database said Monday that
material on antiwar protests should not have been collected. Once the
problem was discovered, he said, "we fixed it," and more than 180
entries in the database related to war protests were deleted from the
system last year.

In a study at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which serves more
critically injured soldiers than most VA hospitals, doctors found that
62 percent of patients had sustained a brain injury, the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution reported. Veterans for America estimates 10
percent of all soldiers who have served in Iraq have suffered from
some form of brain injury, and says the nation is unprepared to take
care of them.

In a Los Angeles Times op-ed, former CIA analyst Jennifer Glaudemans
recounts her experience with Robert Gates at the CIA, when he was
accused of politicizing intelligence on Iran.

Iraq
Harith al-Dari, who heads the Muslim Scholars Association, is hardly a
radical, writes Robert Dreyfus on TomPaine. But that didn't dissuade
Iraq's interior minister from ordering his arrest, provoking a storm
of outrage from moderate Sunnis.

Iran
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani yesterday agreed to travel to Iran this
weekend for an unprecedented three-way summit with Iranian President
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian leader Bashar Assad to deal with Iraq's
insurgency, the Washington Times reported. The article suggested that
the meeting may be a move to pre-empt an expected shift in U.S. policy
to find a regional solution. [To send a letter to the Washington Times
in support of US talks with Iran and Syria:
http://www.washtimes.com/contact-us/index.php?Department=LetterToTheEditor]

The IAEA has put off until Thursday ruling on Iran's bid for aid for a
project the West fears could yield bomb-grade plutonium, but is still
likely to block such assistance, Reuters reports. Developing nations
argued that a rejection of Iran's request would set a precedent for
withholding technical aid from them for peaceful atomic energy
programs.

Israel/Palestine
Peace Now, using maps and figures leaked from inside the government,
says 39 percent of the land held by Israeli settlements in the
occupied West Bank is privately owned by Palestinians, the New York
Times reports. The data indicate that 40 percent of the land that
Israel plans to keep in any future deal with the Palestinians is
privately owned by Palestinians.

Louise Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, said
yesterday Palestinians living in the Gaza strip had suffered "massive"
human rights violations, the Guardian reports.

Afghanistan
Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain warned Monday that the fight
against the Taliban and Al Qaeda would be a generation-long one, the
New York Times reports.

Syria
Iraq and Syria restored full diplomatic relations on Tuesday after a
24-year rift in a move Iraq hopes can help stem what it says is Syrian
support for militants, Reuters reports. Allies are urging President
Bush to talk about Iraq to Iran and Syria but Washington reacted
warily to the surge in regional diplomacy, Reuters says.

Lebanon
Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, a vocal opponent of Syrian
involvement in the country, was assassinated in Beirut. President Bush
made it plain that he suspects the killing was part of an effort
backed by Iran and Syria to undermine the Lebanese government, the
Washington Post reports. Syria condemned the killing, calling it "a
crime aimed at destabilizing Lebanon."

A team of UN investigators has concluded that Israel engaged in "a
significant pattern of excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate
force" against Lebanese civilians that amounted to "a flagrant
violation" of international law during its war against Hezbollah last
summer, the New York Times reports. The article notes that the Israeli
military said Israel provided maps to UN forces to assist in finding
unexploded cluster bomblets. In a New York Times article on October 6,
Michael Slackman reported that "Israel has said it … provided Lebanon
with maps of potential cluster bomb locations to help with the
clearing process. United Nations officials in Lebanon say the maps are
useless." It's odd that the Times would repeat the claim without
repeating the refutation.

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) U.S. Considers Raising Troop Levels In Iraq
David S. Cloud, New York Times,  November 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/world/middleeast/21troops.html
Pentagon officials conducting a review of Iraq strategy are
considering a substantial but temporary increase in American troop
levels and the addition of several thousand more trainers to work with
Iraqi forces, a senior Defense Department official said Monday. The
idea, dubbed the "surge option" by some officials, would involve
increasing American forces by 20,000 troops or more for several months
in the hope of improving security, especially in Baghdad. That would
mark a sharp rise over the current baseline of 144,000 troops.

But some officials and senior military officers are arguing against
the idea, saying that it could undercut a sense of urgency for Iraqi
units to take on a greater role in fighting the insurgency and
preventing sectarian attacks. Gen. John Abizaid, the head of the US
Central Command, told Congress last week that the military was
stretched so thin that such an increase could not be sustained over
the long term. "There are people who believe that a short-term surge
would have a beneficial impact, but there isn't universal agreement on
that yet," said the senior official.

There is far more consensus within the Pentagon on the need to
increase the number of American trainers, more than 3,000 of whom are
working with Iraqi Army, police and border units. General Abizaid
endorsed that idea in general terin testimony before the Senate Armed
Services Committee last week.
…
The senior Pentagon official said that increasing the number of
American combat troops for an indefinite period "is not on the table."
Nor is there active discussion of a rapid troop drawdown advocated by
some Democrats, the official said, an approach the official called
"turning off the lights and going home." Though a temporary increase
of about 20,000 American troops is under consideration, the plan
envisions the additional troops staying only until security conditions
improve. After that, troop levels could come down, as better-trained
and equipped Iraqi units took on a larger security role.

But even that option would not be easy to accomplish without putting
more strain on already-strapped Army and Marine combat units.
Officials said it could be done by extending the tours of some units
already in Iraq, speeding up the deployment of other units scheduled
to go, and activating more reserve units. "The fact of the matter is
that the US military does have the ability to put more troops on the
ground if we need to have more forces on the ground," Whitman said.

Temporary spikes in troop levels have succeeded in tamping down
insurgent violence in Iraq in the past. But several Pentagon officials
say they are not sure that the Army can achieve the same results
against attacks fueled increasingly by sectarian tension. An increase
in American forces this year to more than 140,000 from 128,000 has
failed to stem the spike in sectarian attacks, they noted.

Representative Duncan Hunter, outgoing chair of the Armed Services
Committee, said that rather than sending more American troops, he
favored redeploying Iraqi units from largely calm areas to Baghdad and
other violence-ridden sections of the country. "The idea of having the
Iraqi battalions that we've stood up and trained 50 to 100 miles away,
in areas that are peaceful, simply staying in their barracks while we
put together new rotations of Americans to take their place, simply
doesn't make sense," he said.

2) Flaws Cited In Effort To Train Iraqi Forces
U.S. Officers Roundly Criticize Program
Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 21, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112100171.html
The U.S. military's effort to train Iraqi forces has been rife with
problems, from officers being sent in with poor preparation to a lack
of basic necessities such as interpreters and office materials,
according to internal Army documents. The shortcomings have plagued a
program that is central to the U.S. strategy in Iraq and is growing in
importance. A Pentagon effort to rethink policies in Iraq is likely to
suggest placing less emphasis on combat and more on training and
advising, sources say.

In dozens of official interviews compiled by the Army for its oral
history archives, officers who had been involved in training and
advising Iraqis bluntly criticized almost every aspect of the effort.
Some officers thought that team members were often selected poorly.
Others fretted that the soldiers who prepared them had never served in
Iraq and lacked understanding of the tasks of training and advising.
Many said they felt insufficiently supported by the Army while in
Iraq, with intermittent shipments of supplies and interpreters who
often did not seem to understand English.

The Iraqi officers interviewed by an Army team also had complaints;
the top one was that they were being advised by officers far junior to
them who had never seen combat.

Some of the American officers even faulted their own lack of
understanding of the task. "If I had to do it again, I know I'd do it
completely different," reported Maj. Mike Sullivan, who advised an
Iraqi army battalion in 2004. "I went there with the wrong attitude
and I thought I understood Iraq and the history because I had seen
PowerPoint slides, but I really didn't."

Gen. John Abizaid, top U.S. commander for the Middle East, told
Congress last week that he plans to shift increasing numbers of troops
from combat roles to training and advisory duties. Insiders familiar
with the Iraq Study Group say next month the panel will probably
recommend further boosts to the training effort. Pentagon officials
are considering whether the number of Iraqi security forces needs to
be far larger than the current target of about 325,000, which would
require thousands more U.S. trainers.

Most recently, a closely guarded military review being done for the
Joint Chiefs of Staff laid out three options for Iraq. It appears to
be favoring a version of one option called "Go Long" that would
temporarily boost the U.S. troop level - currently about 140,000 - but
over time would cut combat presence in favor of training and advising.
The training effort could take five to 10 years.

3) Democratic Leaders Reject Idea Of Draft
Pelosi and Others Predict Cool Reception in Congress for Any Conscription Bill
Charles Babington & Josh White, Washington Post, Tuesday, November 21, 2006; A04
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/20/AR2006112001121.html
The new Democratic-controlled Congress will not seriously consider
reinstating the draft, even if concerns about the military's strength
and resiliency grow, party leaders said yesterday. Key Democrats,
including the incoming House speaker, House majority leader and
chairmen of the House and Senate armed services committees, said they
do not support a resumption of the draft. They predicted that the idea
will gather little momentum in the 110th Congress, which convenes in
January. Pentagon officials also restated their opposition to a draft.

Their comments came a day after Rep. Charles Rangel, who will chair
the Ways and Means Committee, said he would again introduce a bill
calling for a return to the draft, which has been suspended since
1973. Rangel's previous bids to reinstate the draft stirred little
interest in Congress but considerable agitation among some bloggers
and talk radio hosts, who suggested the public was about to be
blindsided. Yesterday, congressional leaders tried to allay such
fears, saying the 2007-08 legislative agenda will not include a
resumption of the draft.

"Rangel will be very busy with his work on the Ways and Means
Committee, whose jurisdiction is quite a different jurisdiction,"
Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi told reporters. Ways and Means handles tax
matters, not military legislation.

4) Military Documents Hold Tips On Antiwar Activities
Eric Lichtblau & Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, November 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/washington/21protests.html
An antiterrorist database used by the Defense Department in an effort
to prevent attacks against military installations included
intelligence tips about antiwar planning meetings held at churches,
libraries, college campuses and other locations, newly disclosed
documents show. One tip in the database in February 2005, for
instance, noted that "a church service for peace" would be held in the
New York City area the next month. Another entry noted that antiwar
protesters would be holding "nonviolence training" sessions at
unidentified churches in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The Defense Department tightened its procedures earlier this year to
ensure that only material related to actual terrorist threats - and
not peaceable First Amendment activity - was included in the database.
The head of the office that runs the military database, which is known
as Talon, said Monday that material on antiwar protests should not
have been collected in the first place. "I don't want it, we shouldn't
have had it, not interested in it," said Daniel Baur, the acting
director of the counterintelligence field activity unit, which runs
the Talon program at the Defense Department.

Baur said that those operating the database had misinterpreted their
mandate and that what was intended as an antiterrorist database
became, in some respects, a catch-all for leads on possible
disruptions and threats against military installations in the US,
including protests against the military presence in Iraq.

"I don't think the policy was as clear as it could have been," he
said. Once the problem was discovered, he said, "we fixed it," and
more than 180 entries in the database related to war protests were
deleted from the system last year. Out of 13,000 entries in the
database, many of them uncorroborated leads on possible terrorist
threats, several thousand others were also purged because he said they
had "no continuing relevance."

5) Unseen Injury: Brain Trauma
'Silent epidemic': 10 percent of soldiers suffer disabling damage.
Moni Basu, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 11/19/06
http://www.ajc.com/search/content/metro/stories/2006/11/19/metbrain1119a.html
Makeshift bombs known as improvised explosive devices are the leading
cause of death and injury among U.S. soldiers fighting in Iraq. The
intense pressure in a blast zone can rattle the brain, as delicate and
mushy as Jell-O, and result in concussions that range from severe to
so mild that they are frequently undiagnosed in initial examinations.

In previous wars, 14 to 20 percent of wounded soldiers suffered
traumatic brain injury, according to the Defense and Veterans Brain
Injury Center. The center, funded by the Department of Defense,
estimates the numbers are much higher in Iraq. In a study conducted at
Walter Reed Army Medical Center, which serves more critically injured
soldiers than most VA hospitals, doctors found that 62 percent of
patients had sustained a brain injury.

Veterans for America, a Washington-based nonpartisan advocacy group,
estimates 10 percent of all soldiers who have served in Iraq have
suffered from some form of brain injury. It says the nation is
unprepared to take care of a whole new generation of soldiers coming
home with an anguish that cannot be readily seen. "Brain injury is
unlike other injury in that it is lifelong," said Dr. George Zitnay,
who helped found the brain injury center. "You don't just put a
Band-Aid on it or give a person a pill and send them home."

6) Has Gates Learned His Lesson?
Robert Gates' nomination as defense secretary will give him a chance
to prove he knows better than to politicize intelligence.
Jennifer Glaudemans, Los Angeles Times, November 21, 2006
http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-oe-glaudemans21nov21,1,3065635.story
No one in my office believed this Cold War hyperbole. There was simply
no evidence to support the notion that Moscow was optimistic about its
prospects for improved relations with Iran. All of our published
analysis had consistently been pessimistic about Soviet-Iranian
relations as long as Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was alive.

We protested the conclusions of the NIE, citing evidence such as the
Iranian government's repression of the communist Tudeh Party, the
expulsion of all Soviet economic advisors and a number of Soviet
diplomats who were KGB officers, and a continuing public rhetoric that
chastised the "godless" communist regime as the "Second Satan" after
the US.

Despite overwhelming evidence, our analysis was suppressed. At a
coordinating meeting, we were told that Gates wanted the language to
stay in as it was, presumably to help justify "improving" our strained
relations with Tehran through the Iran-Contra weapons sales.

Iraq
7) Going Long In Iraq
Robert Dreyfuss, author of "Devil's Game: How the US Helped Unleash
Fundamentalist Islam," TomPaine, November 21, 2006
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/11/21/going_long_in_iraq.php
Last week, the situation in Iraq took another major turn for the
worse. That might seem impossible, since the level of carnage and
destruction is so immense already that it's hard to imagine things
getting worse. But get worse they did, when the ministry of the
interior -the death squad-dominated, Shiite-run agency that has become
a factory for torture and murder-announced that it was seeking the
arrest of Iraq's top Sunni cleric, Harith al-Dari, who heads the
Muslim Scholars Association.

Widely seen as someone who is close to the Sunni-led resistance in
Iraq, Dari is hardly a radical. But that didn't dissuade Iraq's
interior minister. "We have proof that he is involved in terrorism,"
said a ministry spokesman. That announcement provoked a storm of
outrage from those Sunnis, including moderates and centrists, who'd
decided earlier this year to take part in Iraq's political process
rather than remain outside, and many of them immediately threatened to
shut down the Iraqi government and boycott parliament.

Iran
8) Iraq, Iran And Syria Set For 3-Way Talks
David R. Sands, Washington Times, November 21, 2006
http://www.washtimes.com/world/20061120-115756-6329r.htm
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani yesterday agreed to travel to Tehran
this weekend for an unprecedented three-way summit with Iranian
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Syrian leader Bashar Assad to deal
with Iraq's raging insurgency. The Bush administration repeatedly has
refused to deal directly with the Iranian and Syrian leaders, and the
meeting this weekend could be a move by Tehran and Damascus to
pre-empt an expected shift in U.S. policy to find a regional solution
to Iraq's woes.

Key Iraqi lawmakers yesterday confirmed reports swirling in the
Arab-language press of the three-way summit, according to the
Associated Press. Iran's invitation came as Syria and Iraq announced
the restoration of formal diplomatic ties after a break of 24 years,
capping an unexpectedly warm visit by Syrian Foreign Minister Walid
al-Moualem to Baghdad this week. "All three countries intend to hold a
three-way summit to discuss the security situation and the
repercussions for stability of the region," Iraqi lawmaker Ali
al-Adeeb, a close aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, told
reporters in Baghdad. Said al-Moualem, "The stability of Iraq is a
very important part of the stability of Syria."

The US has accused both Syria and Iran of backing groups trying to
undermine Iraq's fledgling democratic government, citing in particular
Tehran's ties to Shi'ite militias not under the control of Iraq's
central government. But there has been intense speculation about a
change of course in Washington since the midterm elections and about
the pending report from an independent panel looking into U.S.
alternatives in Iraq. Former Secretary of State James Baker, head of
the commission, met with al-Moualem for extensive talks in September.
British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bush's closest ally in
the Iraq war, also has lobbied for direct contacts with Syria and
Iran.

9) IAEA Delays Ruling on Disputed Iran Atom Aid
Reuters, November 21, 2006, Filed at 9:47 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-nuclear-iran-iaea.html
A divided U.N. nuclear watchdog has put off until Thursday ruling on
Iran's bid for aid for a project the West fears could yield bomb-grade
plutonium, but is still likely to block such assistance, diplomats
said. They said Western and developing nations had failed to hammer
out a compromise deal on Iran's request at a meeting of the
International Atomic Energy Agency's technical affairs committee,
meeting ahead of an IAEA governing board session. "Efforts to reach
consensus are stuck. So they have decided to send the Iran item to the
full board without the usual recommendation on whether to approve or
not, and let the board decide," said a senior IAEA diplomat.

The US and EU urged delegates at the 35-nation IAEA board committee
session on Monday to deny Iran's request for agency expertise to
ensure the Arak heavy water reactor under construction upholds agency
safety standards. The IAEA board and U.N. Security Council have
already asked Iran not to pursue the Arak project due to concerns
Tehran could derive plutonium from spent uranium fuel used in the
production process. Tehran has said it will launch the Arak plant in
2009.

IAEA board approval of technical aid requests by member states
developing peaceful nuclear energy is usually routine. But Western
members said the Arak case must be rejected due to Iran's record of
evading IAEA non-proliferation inspections and defiance of U.N.
demands to stop enriching uranium - behavior for which Iran now faces
the risk of U.N. sanctions.

Developing nations, however, argued that a rejection of Tehran's
request would set a precedent for withholding technical aid from them
for peaceful atomic energy programs. Iran, which says its nuclear fuel
program is peaceful, has made clear it will produce only
radio-isotopes for medical uses at Arak. It would replace a
light-water reactor that predates Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution.

The compromise under consideration at the closed-door IAEA meeting
would indefinitely defer, but not reject, assistance for Arak while
approving seven other aid requests made by Iran. These itehave mainly
to do with medical and regulatory aspects of civilian atomic energy
which most board members are satisfied would not further Iran's
ability to enrich uranium or reprocess spent fuel for bomb material.

The US, most of its EU allies and some developing nations indicated
they could accept this deal, diplomats said. But some doubters
remained in the Western camp, such as France, still demanding all
eight projects be rejected, while a few Iran allies among developing
nations, such as Cuba, were demanding all eight be approved, they
said.

Iran accused Western states of double standards since they had never
made an issue about similar assistance to Israel, which never joined
the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. "It is shameful that countries
who declare to be strong proponents of the NPT do not even dare to
touch on the issue ... of Israel, which has a long, dark record of
violating all IAEA and U.N. Security Council resolutions and
categorically rejects NPT and agency safeguards," Iran envoy Aliasghar
Soltanieh said. Israel is widely assumed to have the Middle East's
only nuclear arsenal, developed in secret outside the NPT.

Israel/Palestine
10) Israeli Map Says West Bank Posts Sit on Arab Land
Steven Erlanger, New York Times, November 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/world/middleeast/21land.html
An Israeli advocacy group, using maps and figures leaked from inside
the government, says that 39 percent of the land held by Israeli
settlements in the occupied West Bank is privately owned by
Palestinians. Israel has long asserted that it fully respects
Palestinian private property in the West Bank and only takes land
there legally or, for security reasons, temporarily.

If big sections of those settlements are indeed privately held
Palestinian land, that is bound to create embarrassment for Israel and
further complicate the already distant prospect of a negotiated peace.
The data indicate that 40 percent of the land that Israel plans to
keep in any future deal with the Palestinians is private.

The new clairegarding Palestinian property are said to come from the
2004 database of the Civil Administration, which controls the civilian
aspects of Israel's presence in the West Bank. Peace Now, an Israeli
group that advocates Palestinian self-determination in the West Bank
and Gaza Strip, plans to publish the information on Tuesday.

The data - maps that show the government's registry of the land by
category - was given to Peace Now by someone who obtained it from an
official inside the Civil Administration. That person, who has
frequent contact with the Civil Administration, said he and the
official wanted to expose what they consider to be wide-scale
violations of private Palestinian property rights by the government
and settlers. The government has refused to give the material directly
to Peace Now, which requested it under Israel's freedom of information
law.
…
Within prominent settlements that Israel has said it plans to keep in
any final border agreement, the data show, for example, that some 86.4
percent of Maale Adumim, a large Jerusalem suburb, is private; and
35.1 percent of Ariel is.

The maps indicate that beyond the private land, 5.8 percent is
so-called survey land, meaning of unclear ownership, and 1.3 percent
private Jewish land. The rest, about 54 percent, is considered "state
land" or has no designation, though Palestinians say that at least
some of it represents agricultural land expropriated by the state.

The figures, together with detailed maps of the land distribution in
every Israeli settlement in the West Bank, were put together by the
Settlement Watch Project of Peace Now, led by Dror Etkes and Hagit
Ofran, and has a record of careful and accurate reporting on
settlement growth.

The report does not include Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed and
does not consider part of the West Bank, although much of the world
regards East Jerusalem as occupied. Much of the world also considers
Israeli settlements on occupied land to be illegal under international
law. International law requires an occupying power to protect private
property, and Israel has always asserted that it does not take land
without legal justification.

One case in a settlement Israel intends to keep is in Givat Zeev,
barely five miles north of Jerusalem. At the southern edge is the
Ayelet Hashachar synagogue. Rabah Abdellatif, a Palestinian who lives
in the nearby village of Al Jib, says the land belongs to him.

Papers he has filed with the Israeli military court, which runs the
West Bank, seem to favor Abdellatif. In 1999, Israeli officials
confirmed, he was even granted a judgment ordering the demolition of
the synagogue because it had been built without permits. But for the
last seven years, the Israeli system has done little to enforce its
legal judgments. The synagogue stands, and Abdellatif has no access to
his land.

Ram Kovarsky, the town council secretary, said the synagogue was
outside the boundaries of Givat Zeev, although there is no obvious
separation. Israeli officials confirm that the land is privately
owned, though they refuse to say by whom.

Abdellatif said: "I feel stuck, angry. Why would they do that? I don't
know who to go to anymore." He pointed to his corduroy trousers and
said, in the English he learned in Paterson, N.J., where his son is a
police detective: "These are my pants. And those are your pants. And
you should not take my pants. This is mine, and that is yours! I never
took anyone's land."

According to the Peace Now figures, 44.3 percent of Givat Zeev is on
private Palestinian land.

11) UN Condemns Massive Human Rights Abuses in Gaza Strip
-High commissioner calls on leaders to stop violence
-Militants continue to fire rockets into Israel
Rory McCarthy, Guardian, Tuesday, November 21, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1121-05.htm
The top UN human rights official said yesterday Palestinians living in
the Gaza strip had suffered "massive" human rights violations. Louise
Arbour, the UN high commissioner for human rights, travelled to the
town of Beit Hanoun, where Israeli artillery killed 18 members of a
single family two weeks ago as they slept in their house. She said she
would use a five-day trip to the region to call on Palestinian and
Israeli leaders to stop further violence. "The violation of human
rights I think in this territory is massive," Arbour said as she
toured the town in the northern Gaza strip. "The call for protection
has to be answered. We cannot continue to see civilians, who are not
the authors of their own misfortune, suffer to the extent of what I
see."

She met members of the Athamna family who survived the attack and who
showed her photographs of their dead relatives. Even as she travelled
through the town Israeli troops were operating in another area of Beit
Hanoun, tearing up fields from which militants launch crude rockets at
Israel. The Israeli military said a fault in its artillery was
responsible for the shelling of the Athamna family. The incident came
after a week-long Israeli military operation in Beit Hanoun which
itself left more than 50 Palestinians, among them many militants, dead
and which was intended to stop rocket fire into Israel.

However, militants continue to fire their Qassam rockets into Israel,
mostly aimed at the town of Sderot, where a woman was killed last
week. She was the first person to die from a Qassam rocket attack in
more than a year.

Afghanistan
12) Blair, In Kabul, Warns That Fight Against The Taliban Will Take Decades
Carlotta Gall, New York Times, November 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/world/asia/21afghan.html
In his first visit to the Afghan capital, Prime Minister Tony Blair of
Britain warned Monday that the fight against the Taliban and Al Qaeda
would be a generation-long one, and he said NATO had to refocus on its
commitment in Afghanistan until the job was done. "Now is the right
time, with the Riga summit coming up, for NATO to bring into sharp
focus the need for us to stay with the Afghans in their journey of
progress, and rediscover within ourselves the belief and the vision
that took us here and should keep us here until the job is done," he
said, speaking at a news conference with President Hamid Karzai in the
gardens of the presidential palace. NATO leaders are to meet in Riga,
Latvia, on Nov. 28-29.

Syria
13) Syria, Iraq Restore Ties to Combat Militants
Reuters, November 21, 2006, Filed at 1:49 p.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-iraq.html
Iraq and Syria restored full diplomatic relations on Tuesday after a
24-year rift in a move Iraq hopes can help stem what it says is Syrian
support for militants and encourage other Arab states to rally to its
aid. Syria's foreign minister, on a first such visit since U.S. troops
overthrew Saddam Hussein, signed the accord in Baghdad four days
before the Iraqi president flies to Iran for talks with another
neighbor which Washington and Iraqi leaders accuse of backing
militants pushing Iraq into all-out civil war.

Allies are also urging President Bush to talk about Iraq to his
adversaries in Tehran and Damascus but Washington reacted warily to
the surge in regional diplomacy. Sectarian passions boiled in Iraq's
parliament amid fears it may be too late for talking to reverse a
slide into anarchy.

"We have agreed to walk together in measured and quiet steps," Iraqi
Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari told reporters. Like his Syrian
counterpart Walid al-Moualem, he stressed the visit was not the result
of U.S. pressure: "(It) sends an important message to Arab nations
that we are masters of our own decisions ... and did not happen due to
an outside will." Moualem, who had called for a timetable for
withdrawing U.S. forces, agreed they would stay until Iraq no longer
wanted them.

Iraqi officials said three people were killed, including a baby, in a
U.S. air strike on a Shi'ite stronghold in Baghdad during a raid that
seized members of a group suspected of links to the abduction last
month of an Iraqi-born U.S. soldier.
…
Iraq ordered Syrian diplomats out in 1980. Then ruled by rival wings
of the Baath party, the two cut all ties in 1982, when Syria sided
with Tehran during Saddam's long war with Iran. U.S. and Iraqi
officials say Damascus does little to stop al Qaeda Islamist fighters
entering Iraq over its long, desert border. Syria says it does all it
can but needs more support.

Iraqi officials said at least 15 people were wounded in the U.S.
strike in Baghdad's Sadr City slum, a bastion of Shi'ite militias
which Washington says are armed and funded by Iran. The U.S. military
said it was linked to hunt for Specialist Ahmed Kousay Altaie, an
Iraqi-born army translator abducted on October 23 during a visit to
his Iraqi wife in central Baghdad. It said it directed "precision fire
at identified enemy targets."

The dead baby boy had a gaping skull wound. His uncle, Abu Ahmed,
cradled him in his arms: "Where is this loser government? What is the
fault of this child? Is he also militia?"

Lebanon
14) Lebanese Official Assassinated in Beirut
Anthony Shadid, Howard Schneider & Debbi Wilgoren, Washington Post,
November 21, 2006; 2:42 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/11/21/AR2006112100511.html
Lebanese Industry Minister Pierre Gemayel, a vocal opponent of Syrian
involvement in the country and a leader of the country's Maronite
Christian minority, was assassinated in Beirut Tuesday, intensifying
an already volatile situation and pushing the country's government a
step closer to collapse. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora later told the
nation in a televised address that the killing "will not intimidate
us" but will increase the government's determination to go ahead with
an international tribunal to try those responsible for last year's
assassination of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri.

Gemayel, was gunned down Tuesday morning as his car drove through a
Christian suburb, his sedan riddled with bullet holes. He was rushed
to St. Joseph's Hospital shortly after 3 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EST),
and a distraught crowd quickly gathered to wait for information of his
condition. Word soon spread that the young Cabinet minister was dead.
…
President Bush, speaking to U.S. troops in Hawaii, strongly condemned
the killing and made it plain that he suspects that it was part of an
effort backed by Iran and Syria to undermine the Lebanese government.
"We support the Siniora government and its democracy, and we support
the Lebanese people's desire to live in peace," Bush said. "And we
support their efforts to defend their democracy against attempts by
Syria, Iran and allies, to foment instability and violence in that
important country."
…
In Damascus, Syria's official news agency denounced the assassination.
"Syria strongly condemns the killing," the SANA agency said. "This is
a crime aimed at destabilizing Lebanon." It asserted that "Syria is
careful about preserving Lebanon's security, unity and civil peace."
…
Pierre Gemayal's father, former president Amin Gemayel, appealed for
calm. Appearing outside the hospital, he said that his son's slaying
should not touch off the type of retaliation that has characterized
Lebanon's past. "He was serving the cause and he died for Lebanon, for
freedom and for humanity," Amin Gemayel said, according to a
translation provided by CNN. "We should not desecrate his memory by
any irresponsible acts.... We don't want reactions. We don't want
vengeance."

15) U.N. Panel Criticizes Israeli Actions in Lebanon
John O'Neil & Greg Myre, New York Times, November 21, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/21/world/middleeast/22rightscnd.html
A team of UN investigators has concluded that Israel engaged in "a
significant pattern of excessive, indiscriminate and disproportionate
force" against Lebanese civilians that amounted to "a flagrant
violation" of international law during its war against Hezbollah last
summer. "Cumulatively, the deliberate and lethal attacks" by the
Israeli defense forces against civilians and infrastructure "amounted
to collective punishment," the investigators, who were appointed by
the UN Human Rights Council, wrote in a draft report published today.

The investigators focused specifically on Israel's use of large
numbers of cluster bombs, saying that 90 percent of them were dropped
in the final three days of the month-long war. Cluster bombs are not
prohibited in warfare, but much controversy surrounds them because
they disperse many small "bomblets" that explode over a wide area and
may strike unintended targets. In addition, some bomblets do not
explode when they hit the ground, and effectively become land mines
that can be detonated unwittingly by civilians long after fighting has
stopped.

"Their use was excessive, and not justified by any reason of military
necessity," the investigators wrote. They concluded that "these
weapons were used deliberately to turn large areas of fertile
agricultural land into 'no go' areas for the civilian population." The
dropping of cluster bombs also "amounted to a de facto scattering of
anti-personnel mines across wide tracts of Lebanese lands."

On Monday, the Israeli military chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz,
ordered an inquiry to determine whether the armed forces had followed
his orders when it used cluster bombs.
…
The Lebanese government and international charitable groups are
searching the countryside in Lebanon for unexploded bomblets, and say
that thousands have already been found at hundreds of different
locations. Lebanese officials say civilians are still suffering
numerous wounds and deaths caused by bomblets that have detonated
since the war. The UN Mine Action Coordination Center has estimated
that Israel fired as many as four million cluster submunitions, as the
bomblets are also known, and that up to one million may not have
detonated. Israel fired many of the munitions with its Multiple Launch
Rocket System, which can fire 12 rockets in a minute.

In a statement, the Israeli military said that cluster munitions used
in Lebanon were directed only at "legitimate military targets" and
that after the fighting ended, Israel provided maps to UN forces to
assist in finding unexploded bomblets. [In an article on October 6,
the New York Times noted, " Israel has said it … provided Lebanon with
maps of potential cluster bomb locations to help with the clearing
process. United Nations officials in Lebanon say the maps are
useless." It's odd that the Times would repeat the claim without
repeating the refutation. -JFP]
Israel has received cluster munitions from the US for many years, and
makes its own. In August the State Department began investigating
whether Israel used cluster bombs in Lebanon in violation of secret
agreements that restrict their use.

The report issued today by the UN investigators did not examine issues
surrounding the 4,000 rockets that Hezbollah fired into Israel during
the fighting, which lasted from July 12 to Aug. 14. A report by
Amnesty International in September reckoned that those rocket attacks
had killed 43 Israeli civilians, including 7 children, as well as 12
soldiers. Israeli officials have charged that some of the rockets
fired by Hezbollah carried cluster munitions.

The UN investigators did consider Hezbollah's actions within Lebanon,
and said that there was "some evidence" that the Shiite militia used
towns and villages as "shields." But it said that this happened when
most of the civilian population had left the area, and that there was
no evidence of the use of "human shields." They also said they found
no justification for what they said were 30 attacks by Israeli forces
against positions of the UN peacekeeping force, including one strike
that killed four U.N. soldiers.

The report quoted figures from the Lebanese government saying that the
conflict killed 1,191 people, wounded 4,409 and drove more than
900,000 - about a quarter of the country's population - from their
homes. It said that the attacks on the country's infrastructure,
including attacks on agriculture and tourism, would years to rebuild,
even with international help. The investigators said Israel justified
the infrastructure attacks by arguing that the sites could have been
used by Hezbollah, but said that reasoning could not reasonably apply
to the wide range of targets hit. They said they were "convinced that
damage inflicted on some infrastructure was done for the sake of
destruction."

-
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.