[Peace-discuss] News notes, 2008-04-20

[C. G. Estabrook]

[1] TORTURE.  In what should be the big story of the week, Bush publicly OKs 
torture, and the media yawn.  His argument: the country is at war, therefore we 
do not torture... [emptywheel.com]
	Pentagon documents released Wednesday show that military interrogators 
assaulted Afghan detainees in 2003, using “investigation methods” they learned 
during what was billed as training for self-defense.

[2] IRAQ. On Saturday, Moqtada Sadr threatened to wage "open war" on the 
U.S.-supported Baghdad government if it does not halt operations against his 
supporters.  Sadr said he was giving the government a "last warning ... Either 
it comes to its senses and takes the path of peace... or it will be [seen as] 
the same as the previous government" [meaning Saddam Hussein's].
	In response, the U.S. killed 12 people in attacks in Sadr city on Sunday. 
Secretary of State Rice arrived in Baghdad on a sudden trip, the reasons for 
which aren't clear; she praised the Iraqi government for its attacks on Sadr's 
Mehdi army.  She will also meet Persian Gulf diplomats in Bahrain and a wider 
group of Arab states and others in Kuwait.  Meanwhile she warned U.S. diplomats 
that they would be forced to go to Iraq unless they volunteered.

[3] AFPAK. The New York Times writes Sunday that American military in 
Afghanistan have been pressing to attack across the border into the tribal areas 
in Pakistan, but the new Pakistani government uncooperatively insists on 
negotiating with militants.  Nevertheless the U.S. has been using remotely 
piloted Predator aircraft to kill people in Pakistan, but the U.S. in addition 
wants more artillery strikes into Pakistan of the sort that so far have killed 
civilians.  This is of course the wider war that Obama and Clinton are 
vigorously advocating.
	Meanwhile, Pakistan's president Musharraf says he is lobbying Chinese leaders 
to build gas and oil pipelines between his country and China -- the sort of 
thing that scares the U.S. government most.

[4] ISRAEL.  Jimmy Carter called the blockade of Gaza a crime and an atrocity 
and said U.S. attempts to undermine Hamas had been counterproductive.  [It also 
gives the lie to the claim that the U.S. seeks to promote democracy in the 
Middle East.]  Carter said Israeli and American efforts to make the quality of 
life in Gaza much worse than in the West Bank "has worked even to strengthen the 
popularity of Hamas and to the detriment of the popularity of Fatah."  [It's 
also a war-crime, which we're paying for.]  Meanwhile, Amnesty International 
calls for a probe into civilian deaths in Gaza.
	Carter met with exiled Hamas leader Khaled Meshal in Syria.
	Reuters news agency urged Israel to conduct a "swift, honest, and impartial 
investigation" of the death of a Reuters cameraman in Gaza as a result of 
Israeli tank fire.  He was killed by a tank shell that sprays darts, a weapon 
the Israeli human rights group B'tselem says is illegal under U.N. conventions.
	The U.N. says Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the West Bank have 
increased this year, while Israel announces the construction of more homes for 
Jews in the West Bank.
	In opposition to the Israel lobby group AIPAC, a new advocacy group for liberal 
Jews called J Street (the name is an inside-the-beltway witticism) describes 
itself as the "political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement" and 
"supports strong American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and 
Palestinian-Israeli conflicts peacefully and diplomatically."
	Meanwhile former Israeli PM Netanyahu describes 9/11 as “good for Israel.”

[5] AFRICA.  On March 3, three Tomahawk cruise missiles were launched against an 
individual in the Somalian town of Dobley, which straddles the border with 
Kenya.  Each cruise missile costs one and half million dollars.
	In Mogadishu, Somalia, at least 50 people were killed this weekend in fighting 
between the remnants of the popular government and the U.S. backed Ethiopian 
invaders, who overthrew it.

[6] LATIN AMERICA.  In what's called an “anti-narcotics plan” now before 
Congress, Bush has proposed sending Mexico more than $200 million in military 
equipment, while in nearly every state where the Mexican army has deployed, 
residents have accused soldiers of grave human rights violations, amid demands 
that the government stop using the military as part of the anti-drug campaign.
	Killings of trade unionists in Colombia have been increasing, making the 
U.S.-Colombia free trade agreement before Congress increasingly scandalous.
	Venezuela sends 364 tons of food to Haiti.
	In Paraguay, Fernando Lugo, the "bishop of the poor," won Sunday's presidential 
vote, ending 61 years of rule by the Colorado party and increasing the trend to 
the left in South America.

[7] POPE.  The bishop of Rome visited the U.S. this week and declined to attend 
the White House dinner in his honor [as he refused to meet Condi Rice last 
summer] – it was suggested, because of the Iraq war and Bush's comments on 
torture.  In a speech at the U.N., hardly reported, he “worried that big powers 
control decision-making" and spent most of his time endorsing the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights; again that was hardly reported, perhaps because 
U.S. courts refuse to recognize the declaration as law.  The pope also echoed 
the American R.C. church in his defense of immigrants.
	Meanwhile, the U.S. defense of freedom of religion in Texas seemed to take a 
page from the Clinton's administration's murderous actions in Waco as 
heavily-armed police raided a Mormon sect and took their children away.

[8] POLLS.  An ABC/Washington Post poll released Friday found that “views on the 
Iraq war have ... turned more negative, with six in 10 [Americans] now rejecting 
the notion that “the United States needs to win there to effectively battle 
terrorism.”  The poll -- which was conducted after Congressional testimony by 
Gen. Petraeus and Amb. Crocker ― found that the majority of Americans (56%), 
including an increasing share of Republicans, “say the United States should 
withdraw its military forces to avoid further casualties” -- which has been the 
majority view at least since January of 2007.
	A poll taken throughout the Middle East in the last month shows that 83% have 
an unfavorable view of the United States; 61% want the U.S. to leave Iraq, up 
from last year.  Eight in 10 Arabs believe that Iraqis are worse off now than 
they were before the U.S. invasion, while only 2% thought that they were better 
off.  Most Arabs never saw Iran as a major threat, and two-thirds said Tehran 
had the right to a nuclear program.  Over 80% of respondents identified the 
Arab-Israeli conflict as a key issue.  The popularity of the president of Syria 
and the leader of Hezbollah grew, while Bush and Israeli PM Olmert were the most 
disliked.

[9] PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN.  McCain: the lies and deception that brought U.S. 
into war in Iraq are now just an "academic argument."
	John McCain and Barack Obama both appeared before the nation's newspaper 
editors this week.  “The putative Republican presidential nominee was given a 
box of doughnuts and a standing ovation.  The likely Democratic nominee was 
likened to a terrorist,” writes Dana Milbank of the Washington Post.  “So much 
for the liberal media.”

[10] THREE HOPEFUL SIGNS FOR LINDA -- 3! -- relating to 3 of the 4 major 
theaters of the Mideast war:
	(a) IRAQ. Joseph Collins, a retired army colonel, was a special assistant to 
former Pentagon no. 2 Paul Wolfowitz and later made Deputy Assistant Secretary 
for Stability Operations under Rumsfeld.  Now at the National Defense 
University, he has penned a scathing assessment  of the Iraq war.  It begins, 
“measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a 
major war and a major debacle ... despite impressive progress in security during 
the surge, the outcome of the war is in doubt.” [Financial Times]
	(b) IRAN.  Admiral Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, says 
Iran is likely to be the top challenge for the U.S. over the next five years, 
but that he was not "arguing that that is where the next conflict occurs," and 
said that the U.S. should engage Iran in dialogue. In fact Iran and the U.S. 
have been engaged in back-channel discussions for the past five years on Iran's 
nuclear program, etc., it was revealed this week.  The revelation of the talks 
coincides with the publication by three of its U.S. members, including former 
diplomat Thomas Pickering, of proposals aimed at overcoming the administration's 
nuclear deadlock with Iran.  The initiative addresses Iran's right to enrich 
uranium on its own soil while providing guarantees that nuclear fuel will not be 
diverted for military purposes.  This diplomatic activity -- obviously to the 
displeasure of the administration's war party -- seems to show the resurgence 
against them of the U.S. foreign policy establishment, of which Pickering, 77, 
is a principal member.
	(c) AFPAK. Hillary Clinton has fallen out with MoveOn.org, because of what she 
sees as its support for her sworn enemy (Obama, not Osama).  MoveOn, a 
Democratic party front, began as a support group for her husband when he was 
impeached.  The spat has reminded us of the position of both in regard to the 
U.S. attack on Afghanistan: neither MoveOn nor Clinton opposed that war, and 
Clinton was actively in favor of it.  The Bush administration attacked 
Afghanistan less than a month after 9/11, after rejecting the Afghan 
government's offer to negotiate the surrender of Osama bin Laden or try him in a 
Muslim court.  (Incidentally, the first major activity of AWARE was a campaign 
against the U.S. attack on Afghanistan.)

	###