[Peace-discuss] Fw: JFP 1/3: Taliban agree to Qatar office; Pentagon to give up two war capacity

Fri Jan 6 10:44:32 CST 2012

Too important to keep to myself -- the highlighting is mine. This is the last one I'll forward for a while, I promise. Meanwhile, JFP deserves yr attn and $upport.  --Jenifer

--- On Tue, 1/3/12, Just Foreign Policy <naiman at justforeignpolicy.org> wrote:

        Just Foreign Policy News, January 3, 2012

Taliban agree to Qatar office; Pentagon to give up two war capacity

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I) Actions and Featured Articles

JFP responds to press coverage of Santorum threat to bomb Iran

"Rick Santorum told NBC's David Gregory on 'Meet the Press' that, unlike President Obama, he would 'be saying to the Iranians, you either open up those [nuclear] facilities, you begin to dismantle them and, and make them available to inspectors, or we will degrade those facilities through airstrikes and make it very public that we are doing that.' Mr. Gregory did not challenge this statement. Surely Mr. Gregory knows that Iran's nuclear facilities are already under the inspection of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Politicians will say whatever they can get away with but journalists have an obligation to correct serious misstatements of fact.'"

http://www.accuracy.org/release/26333/

Juan Cole: Will his New Sanctions on Iran Cost Obama the Presidency?

The new Iran sanctions law, pushed by AIPAC on behalf of Netanyahu, might hurt Obama's election chances. Iran's military exercises in the Persian Gulf, aimed at reminding the world that it can play the spoiler and stop one-sixth of the world's petroleum from reaching the market, helped put Brent crude up to $108 a barrel.

http://www.juancole.com/2012/01/will-his-new-sanctions-on-iran-cost-obama-the-presidency.html

Glenn Greenwald: End of the pro-democracy pretense

One benefit of the Arab Spring: exploding the pretense that the US foreign policy elite wants to see democracy flourish in the Arab world.

http://www.salon.com/2012/01/02/end_of_the_pro_democracy_pretense/

ACLU Liberty Watch: Candidate Report Card on Civil Liberties

"The better a candidate's positions on civil liberties the brighter Lady Liberty's torch shines." Ron Paul and Barack Obama tie on categories. 

http://www.aclulibertywatch.org/ALWCandidateReportCard.pdf

Dean Baker: Putting Keystone Pipeline Job Claims in Context

A 10 percent reduction in the value of the dollar would have roughly the same impact on employment as 500 Keystone pipelines.

http://www.truth-out.org/keystone-jobs-versus-competitive-dollar-jobs/1325519341

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II) Summary:

U.S./Top News

1) The Afghan Taliban announced it had struck a deal to open a political office in Qatar that could allow for direct negotiations with the U.S. over the endgame in the Afghan war, the New York Times reports. A spokesman for the Taliban said that along with a preliminary deal to set up the office in Qatar, the group was asking that Taliban detainees held at Guantánamo be released. US officials said another idea under consideration was the establishment of cease-fire zones within Afghanistan.

2) Pakistani Islamist militants pledged to cease their insurgency against Pakistani security forces, and join the Afghan Taliban's war against NATO troops in Afghanistan, McClatchy reports. 

3) Defense Secretary Panetta is set this week to reveal his strategy that will guide the Pentagon in cutting hundreds of billions of dollars from its budget, the New York Times reports. Panetta is expected to outline plans that will make it clear that the Pentagon will not maintain the ability to fight two sustained ground wars at once. 

4) The Obama Administration and Congress, acting at the behest of the US airline industry, are trying to obstruct European efforts to regulate European airline emissions, the New Yorker reports. The heads of several of the nation's leading environmental groups noted that the Administration is "actively thwarting other countries' efforts to effectively and efficiently reduce greenhouse gas emissions," a position that is incompatible with the Administration's own stated commitment to avoiding "a dangerous rise in global average temperatures."

Iran

5) Iran's army chief warned that a US aircraft carrier that left the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz last week should not return, the New York Times reports. General Salehi did not say what action Iran would take if the carrier were to re-enter the Persian Gulf.

6) A Russian defense official said Iran has no long-range missiles, AFP reports. Iran reported testing three missiles on Monday. Two of the missiles can fly a maximum 200 kilometres (120 miles), generally considered short-range weapons, although Iranian media and a navy spokesman described one of them as "long-range."

Mexico

7) According to tallies by Mexico's leading media outlets, about 12,000 people were slain last year in Mexico's drug violence, the Washington Post reports. More than 50,000 people have been killed during President Calderon's U.S.-backed military confrontation with organized crime and drug trafficking, which began in 2006.

- 

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