[Peace] News notes 2008-04-27

[C. G. Estabrook]

SUNDAY 27 APRIL 2008

[1] TORTURE. The NYT reports this morning that the Geneva Conventions' ban on 
"outrages against personal dignity" does not apply to terrorism suspects, 
according to the Justice Department. The Bush administration continues to 
consolidate America's reputation as the world's leading torture state.
     The CIA on Thursday revealed possession of 7,000 secret torture documents 
-- and they didn't want to show us any of them.
     Detainees at Guantanamo Bay say they were injected with unknown drugs 
against their will before interrogations.  They say they believe the drugs were 
intended to coerce confessions. A 2003 Justice Department memo explicitly 
condoned the use of drugs on detainees.
     FBI Director Robert Mueller on Wednesday recalled warning the Justice 
Department and the Pentagon that some U.S. interrogation methods used against 
terrorists might be inappropriate, if not illegal.  FBI rats leaving the sinking 
we hope Bush torture ship.

[2] WAR. Congressional Democrats plan to take some window-dressing votes on 
troop withdrawal timelines, then negotiate a deal with the Senate and the White 
House that would combine money for the war with some modest domestic spending. 
They continue to betray the voters who elected them to end the war.  (Pelosi at 
least now has some anti-war opposition in the person of Cindy Sheehan.)
     Meanwhile, the Army expands involuntary extensions of duty, and SecDef 
Gates says curiously that the Air Force is not doing enough in the Iraq war effort.
     The US military claimed that nearly three-quarters of the attacks that kill 
or wound US soldiers in Baghdad are carried out by Iranian-backed Shiite groups 
connected to the Mahdi Army
     Many Lebanese, worried about civil war, are purchasing weapons. The price 
of small arms has skyrocketed in Beirut.
     Dana Milbank reports on Douglas Feith in the Washington Post: as no. 3 in 
the Pentagon, Feith decided that a US attack on Iraq would help Israel secure 
the West Bank.  Feith had been a leading Likud activist in the United States -- 
he is no more a Republican than Ariel Sharon was. Feith was all about "securing 
the realm" (his term for defending the Israeli occupation).

[3] IRAQ. Moqtada al-Sadr on Friday called upon his followers and security 
forces to stop the bloodshed a week after he warned of "open war" against the 
government. He confined his threats to the occupation forces. Fierce fighting in 
northeast Baghdad was accompanied by mortar attacks on the Green Zone.
     In the Iraqi government's fight against Sadr's militia in Basra, the U.S. 
and Iran are on the same side. Iran favors the crackdown because it favors a 
plan for an autonomous Shiite region in the south, supported by the US-allied 
and Iran-allied Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the Times says. Sadr's 
organization is opposed to the plan.
     Britain said Thursday it will keep its troop withdrawals from Iraq on hold 
until security improves.
     Ordinary Iraqis are angry about the construction of the 104-acre US 
embassy. Many see it as a symbol of occupation, perhaps long-term occupation; it 
will cost $1 billion annually to run.

[4] IRAN.  General Petraeus was promoted to head of CENTCOM, with his deputy as 
Iraq commander.  The appointment probably locks them in for the next US president.
     The chairman of the JCS, generally seen as hesitant on attacking Iran, says 
that  the government of Iran continues to supply weapons and other support to 
extremists in Iraq, despite repeated promises to the contrary, and is 
increasingly complicit in the death of U.S. soldiers. Admiral Michael Mullen 
said, "I have reserve capability, particularly in our Navy and our Air Force, so 
it would be a mistake to think that we are out of combat capability."
     Meanwhile Senator Hillary Clinton said she would "obliterate" Iran if it 
attacks Israel.

[5]AFPAK. The Pakistani government says it is close to an agreement to end 
hostilities with the most militant tribes in the border region. The draft accord 
calls for an end to militant activity and an exchange of prisoners in return for 
the gradual withdrawal of the Pakistani military from the area. An important 
militant leader, Baitullah Mehsud, has already ordered his fighters to cease 
their activities. The US is of course outraged.
     The US is threatening a widening of the war with American attacks from 
Afghanistan on indigenous Pakistani militants in the tribal areas inside 
Pakistan.  This is of course the war Obama and Clinton are urging.

[6] ISRAEL The Bush administration released photographs it said support its 
assertion that the building in Syria that Israel bombed last year was a nuclear 
reactor constructed with North Korean help.  The head of the UN atomic watchdog 
agency angrily criticized Israel for bombing the alleged Syrian nuclear facility 
and the US for withholding information on the site,. The IAEA was not given 
information about the site until Thursday, the same day a briefing was given to 
some Members of Congress and reporters. ElBaradei said he views “the unilateral 
use of force by Israel as undermining the due process of verification that is at 
the heart of the non-proliferation regime.”
     The Israeli prime minister has reportedly sent a message to the Syrian 
president saying Israel would be willing to withdraw from the Golan Heights in 
return for peace with Syria. The US is probably  no happier with Israeli 
peace-making that Pakistani peace making -- so perhaps they released the Syrian 
photographs and indicted an Israeli spy in response.  How did the Federal 
government suddenly put together enough evidence to arrest Ben-Ami Kadish for 
spying, when he allegedly committed these crimes 20 years ago?
     Meanwhile, the Israelis say that George Bush gave them written permission 
to expand settlements in the West Bank . . . Colin Powell says he never made 
such an agreement ... The final settlement came in an agreement with Iran-Contra 
alum Elliott Abrams. . . Would it surprise anyone that Elliott Abrams concluded 
some super-secret, cross-my-fingers, Neocons-only deal with the Israelis? Or 
that Condi Rice, agreed to that settlement, but now pretends she didn't?
     Israel dismissed a Hamas proposal for a six-month ceasefire – an offer 
adjusted to Israeli requirements --  and the UN, having no fuel,  halts aid to Gaza.

[7] PALESTINE.  Bush met Thursday at the White House with the Palestinian 
president, Mahmoud Abbas, part of a flurry of high-level meetings aimed at 
shoring up the flagging Middle East peace talks. The president said afterward 
that he remained confident that the talks could produce parameters for a 
Palestinian state.  “I assured the president that a Palestinian state’s a high 
priority for me and my administration: a viable state, a state that doesn’t look 
like Swiss cheese, a state that provides hope,” Mr. Bush said, adding, “I’m 
confident we can achieve the definition of a state.”
	Juan Cole points out, “Bush's remarks on Thursday that he is seeking a viable 
Palestine that does not look like Swiss cheese revealed some of what the 
administration must have been pressing the Israelis on in recent months in 
preparation for Bush's trip in May.”

[8] ECONOMY. Driven by rising demand and stagnant supply, world grain prices are 
skyrocketing to levels not seen since the 1970s. Since 2005, food prices have 
climbed 80 percent, an ascent produced by an unhappy coincidence of events: a 
weak harvest in the United States and Europe, soaring oil prices in Argentina 
and Ukraine, and a fiscal crisis that has led investors to move funds out of 
mortgages and into grain futures. The dietary deficit has sparked "food-related 
violence" in at least 14 nations, including riots in Haiti that led to the 
resignation of the country's Prime Minister.

[9] LATIN AMERICA.  Bolivian President Evo Morales said to Paraguayan 
President-Elect Fernando Lugo, “Welcome to the Axis of Evil.”
	The Pentagon announces that it is reestablishing a “Fourth Fleet” to patrol the 
Caribbean, Central and South America where the Bush administration has in recent 
months been systematically undermining democracy and inciting class warfare.

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