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

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
September 7, 2006

On the web: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/newsroom/index.html
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Summary:
U.S. Politics
Americans' opinions about how to protect against future attacks have
shifted, says a Pew Research poll. Far more Americans say reducing
America's overseas military presence, rather than expanding it, will
have a greater effect in reducing the threat of terrorism. In calling
for public war-crime trials at Guantánamo Bay, President Bush is
calculating that with a critical election just nine weeks away,
neither angry Democrats nor nervous Republicans will dare deny him the
power to detain, interrogate and try suspects his way, the New York
Times reports, and he is trying to divert voters from the morass of
Iraq and to revive the emotionally potent question of what powers the
president should be able to use to defend the country. Lawmakers at
the European Parliament demanded the U.S. reveal the locations of
secret CIA detention facilities. The U.N. special investigator on
torture has said the use of secret prisons violate anti-torture
commitments because keeping detainees in such places is a form of
enforced disappearance. A new Army manual bans torture and degrading
treatment of prisoners, for the first time specifically mentioning
forced nakedness, hooding and other infamous procedures. The new
manual doesn't cover the CIA. On a 70-30 vote, the Senate Wednesday
rejected a move by Democrats to stop the Pentagon from using cluster
bombs near civilian targets and to cut off sales unless purchasers
abide by the same rules. Senate Democrats failed Wednesday to force a
vote on a resolution calling for the dismissal of Defense Secretary
Rumsfeld after an extended debate that served as a proxy for a
partisan clash over the war in Iraq. Bush continues to peddle the Abu
Zubayda myth, Juan Cole writes. Bush has repeatedly characterized Abu
Zubayda as a high-level al-Qaeda leader, but intelligence community
sources  say he was more like a low level travel agent. And he could
barely pull off that basic job, since he was "insane, certifiable" in
the words of a top FBI official. Public opinion in Europe and the US
is converging against President Bush, according to the Transatlantic
Trends released Wednesday. While 77 per cent of EU citizens disapprove
of Bush's handling of international affairs, the figure in the US is
now 58 per cent.
Iran
One of the reasons that "nobody knows the rules of the road" in this
nuclear standoff is the Bush administration's incoherent and
contradictory nuclear nonproliferation policies, write Kevin Martin
and Gordon Clark of Peace Action in a letter to the Washington Post.
Equally important is the fact that the administration has repeatedly
upped the ante by threatening military action against Iran. Bush
administration officials spoiling for an attack on Iran's nuclear
sites must discredit the intelligence community's conclusions that
Iran is still as many as 10 years away from being able to build a
nuclear weapon and that such a weapon is not an inevitable consequence
of its present uranium enrichment program, Gareth Porter notes.
Iraq
Coalition forces handed over control of Iraq's armed forces command to
the government Thursday. However, it is still unclear how rapidly the
Iraqi forces will be prepared to take over their own security, AP
reports. Shiite lawmakers are pushing ahead with legislation that
would provide a mechanism to carve Iraq into largely autonomous
regions, angering some Sunni Arab lawmakers who say Shiites should
first follow through on a promise to allow Parliament to re-examine
the issue of federalism. The Iraqi government Thursday ordered Arabic
satellite network Al-Arabiya to shut down its Baghdad operations for
one month.
Mexico
Mexico's democratic crisis is only deepening, according to some
Mexican online commentators, Jefferson Morley notes in his Washington
Post blog. The possibility of a violent conclusion to the
confrontation between the government and the demonstrators is now
becoming part of the country's political discussion. A significant
slice of the voting public still believes that the election was marred
by fraud and that the country's electoral institutions are corrupt,
the New York Times reports. A key reason is the history of fraud. But
it is also because Mexicans have a very different notion of electoral
fraud than voters in the US, a notion that goes beyond stuffing ballot
boxes.

In this issue:
U.S. Politics
1) A Diminished Public Appetite for Military Force and Mideast Oil
2) A Challenge From Bush to Congress
3) Use of Secret Jails Draws Mixed Reaction
4) Army Bans Some Interrogation Techniques
5) Senate Rejects Limits on Cluster Bombs
6) Democrats Force a Debate, but Can' t Get a Vote on Rumsfeld
7) Bush, Abu Zubayda and the End of Trust
8) Disapproval of Bush Nears European Levels
Iran
9) It's Time to Talk to Iran
10) Intel Estimate on Iran Blocks Neo-Con Plans
11) Europe Warns Over Iran Nuclear Tactics
Iraq
12) Iraq Takes Military Reins From Coalition
13) Shiites Push Laws to Define How to Divide Iraqi Regions
14) Iraq Closes Down Al-Arabiya in Baghdad
Mexico
15) Mexico Worries About Violence
16) Long History of Vote Fraud Lingers in the Mexican Psyche

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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org