Reading between the lines

It just doesn't make any sense... In the article: Iraq Orders Tough Curfew to Stem Violence

It says:

"We're not seeing civil war igniting in
Iraq," Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, a spokesman for the U.S. command, told reporters.

It also says:

Meanwhile, seven U.S. soldiers died in a pair of roadside bombings north of the capital, and American military units in the Baghdad area were told to halt all but essential travel to avoid getting caught up in demonstrations or roadblocks.

If it is not a civil war, then why aren't the millitary units in the middle of it to restore peace? What are they there for any ways? What ever happened to all those Iraqi units that were trained? If the conflict is so bad that the millitary can't do any thing about it, then why not call it what it is, a civil war.

Trying to be fair to Iraqis

Couple on interesting quote in Mosque Bombing an 'Evil Act,' Bush Says

``We understand its importance to Iraqi society and we want to stand side by side with the government in making sure that beautiful dome is restored,''
President Geroge Bush

And this one...

``I don't think we do the Iraqi people any good or really that we are fair to them in continually raising the specter that they might fall into civil war when it seems that the only people who want a civil war in Iraq are the terrorists,''

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

But we sure did Iraqis a favor by invading and occupying their country eventhough the only people that wanted the war were the Neocons in Washington.

7-Up, never had it never will

In today's daily State department briefing, Adam Ereli, the Debuty Spokesman had this exchange:

QUESTION: Adam, to follow up on that, there's also obviously been several reports of reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques out of anger over this incident. What is your reaction to that?

MR. ERELI: Obviously we condemn them. And I checked before coming out here, there are reports of -- isolated reports of attacks against Sunni targets. Again, I think if you look at the statements by the political leaders of Iraq, they've all said the same thing, which is calling for nonviolence, calling for a period of mourning obviously, but calling for unity and calm in responding to these attacks. And that's something we will be actively promoting over the course of the next couple of days, as we have been, frankly, throughout the political process that has involved Iraq's development. I think we, on our part, are actively working with our partners in the region to speak out publicly to not only condemn the act but also to call on Iraqis to unite in opposition to what the insurgents and terrorists are trying to do.

So yes, we are, obviously, alert to the possibility of violence, but also I think very determined and energetic in acting to contain that threat.

QUESTION: If I can just follow up on that. This is not the first attack on a Shia target. Obviously, it's the most dramatic. You also have reports of death squads on the other side -- death squads. My question is this, are we right now in the midst of a civil war, an incipient civil war?

MR. ERELI: I think that's overstating the situation. Again, there are forces seeking to prevent democracy and obstruct the peaceful political and economic development of Iraq. That shouldn't be news to anybody. They seek to carry out the -- they seek to achieve their goals in a number of ways, but as I said before, promoting sectarian violence is -- and promoting sectarian violence is one of them. There's nothing new here and I think it serves as a reminder to all of us that there are some savaged and unprincipled elements out there that are going to stop at nothing, including attacking one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines, to promote the kind of unrest that the great majority of Iraqis have clearly demonstrated they don't want to see. I don't call that civil war. I call that attempts to undermine understanding an emergent compact among Iraqi society for a peaceful political future. And we don't think -- well, we are committed to preventing them from succeeding.

Yeah.

After reading some of the news items, and blogs on what is happening now in Iraq, I was speech less when I heard the State dept spokesman say: "There is nothing new here"!

If you want to argue that there is nothing new here, then you also have to admit that you have had three years since the fall of the Baghdad to try to resolve this. It is getting worst. So it is admission of failure of George W's policy. Shock and Awe doesn't work, Mission is not accomplished, capturing Saddam is not going to end opposition to occupation, destroying Fallujah didn't solve the insurgency....


But then I think I see his point. There is really nothing new here, Bush administration has no clue on how bad things are in Iraq, just as it never had. There is nothing new in that!

Like 7-Up, never had it never will.

My crystal ball on Iraq.

I think what we see in Iraq is a replay of Iranian post revolution politics.

In my opinion, Khomeni in 1978, just as Sistani in 2005 wanted an Islamic country run by politicians with clergies in the background. May be Khomeni to lesser degree than Sistani, but if you go back to history of Iran right after the revolution (1979) you see similar patterns. In the original Iranian constitution the President of Iran was head of the armed forces and most of the government officials were non clergies. But facing incompetence of the president (Bani Sadr) in facing Saddam's invasion, and the Kurdish rebellion Khomeni had two choices, either to sit on the side line and essentially see the country go up in flames, or take center stage. He choose the later, the president was ousted, the constitution was modified and made himself (with title of “the leader”) to be head of armed forces and the final say on all matters.

I see Sistani being on the same crossroad as Khomeni in 1979. He can sit on the side line and essentially make himself irrelevant or at some point he (or someone like himself) has to become “The Leader”. It is a difficult choice, and has its own set of problems. With clergies in power, it means they are responsible for daily affairs of the population, Sistani wants to avoid that but he may not have a choice. There may not be any other choices if there is to be any future for Iraq. Specially since 3 months after the election, there is no government in place, and US ambassador seems to be eager to micro manage the process for its own goals.

President Bush said: "..And if you believe that, then you have faith in people demanding freedom, if given a chance". To which I have to say... What I see in US policies on Iraq is that there doesn't seems to be any "faith" in Iraqis, and they are not "given the chance" to govern themselves.

We are three years into the occupation, something like 2 trillion dollars have been spend in Iraq (most likely Iraq now owes more to the rest of the world than the end of Saddam regime) and lives of Iraqis is getting worst every day. Three years into Iranian revolution, Iran was fighting Saddam and was able to push back Saddam's army and turn the tied of the war. With the current political leadership in Iraq, and the American/British occupation there is no hope for it dealing with the insurgency and bringing any sense of normalcy to lives to lives of Iraqis.

The Iranian model may not be perfect, but facing a deteriorating situation in Iraq, I would expect the religious leadership to step in and play more assertive role. Thanks to Geroge W's policies, secular voices within the middle east may well be at their weakest point in history.

"life" in Samarra

After reading about the bombing in the Al-Askariya shrine: 'Not just a major cathedral' I decided to Google on the life in Samarra before this incident.

I got to this and it all made sense: Sides blur for U.S. troops trying to secure Samarra .

SAMARRA, IRAQ - The gunfight by the Tigris River was over. It was time to retrieve the bodies.

Staff Sgt. Cortez Powell looked at the shredded jaw of a dead man whom he'd shot in the face when insurgents ambushed an American patrol in a blind of reeds.

Five other soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division scrambled down, pulled two of the insurgents' bodies from the reeds and dragged them through the mud.

"Strap those ... to the hood like a deer," said Staff Sgt. James Robinson, 25, of Hughes, Ark.

The soldiers heaved the two bodies onto the hood of a Humvee and tied them down with a cord. The dead insurgents' legs and arms flapped in the air as the Humvee rumbled along.

Iraqi families stood in front of the surrounding houses. They watched the corpses ride by and glared at the American soldiers

.....

Then you read that US ambassador in Iraq is calling for "Unity" goverment!

If there is one thing to be said about this, you don't want to be the first American that runs into the one of the family members that "watched the corpses ride by and glared at the American soldiers".

"people demanding freedom, if given a chance"

I heard the US ambassador to Iraq call for “unity government”, President Bush also said:

And if you believe that, then you have faith in people demanding freedom, if given a chance. And the Iraqis proved that theory right. Eleven million people went to the polls in the face of unbelievable terror, terrorist threats, and said, I want to be free; let me vote; let me decide my future. And so on the political front, they're making progress because of the courage of the Iraqis.

And now the task at hand is to work with those who won votes in the new parliament to set up a unity government; one that is -- can help deal with the grievances of the past; one that unites under the fabric of democracy. And that's what we're doing. I talked to the Ambassador, Zal Khalilzad, there yesterday. He's spent a lot of time working with making our position known that we want the government to be a unified government

Source

But what is unity government? IT means that the losers of the election, that is the people that got backed by the US and England, should take over the defense and interior miniseries. Why? Well because the Iraqis trust them so much.

It is a real funny argument. I have seen the ads of some of the people that were backed by US like Iyad Alawi, the former hand picked prime minister. It was obvious that he had spend a lot of money on his campaign. After all of that he lost the election by a large margin, may even have come up dead last.

The other funny aspect of this argument is what happened after the 2000 and 2004 elections in US. In both cases Bush victory was as close as any election in US history, Yet George W claimed that the election result gave him “moral mandate”, a political capital that he intended to spend to drive his policies. In run up the supreme court nominations, Democrats had pleaded with Bush to nominate middle of the road judges to help alleviate the sharp divisions in the country. But as far as George W was concern the few thousands of votes that he won the election with was enough to give him a moral mandate. But now Iraqis need “unity” government and we define who should be in the “unity goverment”, what ever happened to “you have faith in people demanding freedom, if given a chance.”

The equivalent of the unity government is to have Ralph Nader or say John Kerry's democrats to run the pentagon, or state department. Somehow when he wins the election “our position known that we want the government to be a unified government” goes to the waist side!

morality, practicality, and standards

Roundtable With Arab Print Journalists

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
February 17, 2006

Let me take this opportunity to say something about what we've just been through, because I'm reading a lot in the papers these days about how -- "Well, you know, you made this mistake, you thought democracy could take hold in the Middle East, you supported elections and what have you done? You've supported elections that brought to power Islamists or extremists or in the case of Hamas, a group that you consider a terrorist group. Aren't you sorry that you supported these democratic processes?"

Absolutely not. It was the only thing to do. It was -- first of all, from the point of view of the United States, the only moral thing to do. The idea that somehow, it is better for people to lack the means and the chance to express themselves, that it's better to support that and to, therefore, support dictatorship or oppression or authoritarianism where people don't have a voice -- it's, I think, morally reprehensible. People have to have a way to express themselves or, if they don't have a legitimate way to express themselves, they express themselves through extremism.

......

So, we have every desire to have Hamas make the right choice. It's just a practical matter that the United States cannot provide assistance to a terrorist organization or to a government that's not committed to peace. It's just a practical matter. And by the way, our assistance, with the exception of humanitarian assistance -- all over the world, we have criteria for who we will assist and who we will not. When a country is pursuing policies that are antithetical to American -- you know, to peace and security, American interests, it wouldn't make sense for us to assist those countries either. But in this case, we have a very specific problem, which is that Hamas is committed to the destruction of Israel and that's got to change in order for -- and they have to renounce violence in order for us to be able to deliver assistance.

....

And so, the international community has to stand firm for the principle that however you came to power by election, you have responsibilities and one of the responsibilities of democracy is that you cannot have one foot in terrorism and one foot in politics. And it has to be the international community that has to insist on that standard. Now, for anybody who gets into power through election we , that is the standard we have to insist upon. [The standard being if you are not "with us" then you are "against us"]

Source

Deja VU

There is an amazing 3 piece documentary made by BBC, The Power of Nightmare.
. Here is an excerpt from the first piece:

....

PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Law and order have broken down in Detroit, Michigan. Pillage, looting, murder…

VO: Only a few years before, President Johnson had promised policies that would create a new and a better world in America. He had called it “the Great Society.”

[ TITLE: President LYNDON JOHNSON, 1964 ]

JOHNSON: The Great Society is in place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind. It is a place where the City of Man…

VO: But now, in the wake of some of the worst riots ever seen in America, that dream seemed to have ended in violence and hatred. One prominent liberal journalist called Irving Kristol began to question whether it might actually be the policies themselves that were causing social breakdown.

IRVING KRISTOL: If you had asked any liberal in 1960, we are going to pass these laws, these laws, these laws, and these laws, mentioning all the laws that in fact were passed in the 1960s and ‘70s, would you say crime will go up, drug addiction will go up, illegitimacy will go up, or will they get down? Obviously, everyone would have said, they will get down. And everyone would have been wrong. Now, that’s not something that the liberals have been able to face up to. They’ve had their reforms, and they have led to consequences that they did not expect and they don’t know what to do about.

VO: In the early ‘70s, Irving Kristol became the focus of a group of disaffected intellectuals in Washington. They were determined to understand why the optimistic liberal policies had failed. And they found the answer in the theories of Leo Strauss. Strauss explained that it was the very basis of the liberal idea—the belief in individual freedom—that was causing the chaos, because it undermined the shared moral framework that held society together. Individuals pursued their own selfish interests, and this inevitably led to conflict. As the movement grew, many young students who had studied Strauss’ ideas came to Washington to join this group. Some, like Paul Wolfowitz, had been taught Strauss’ ideas at the University of Chicago, as had Francis Fukuyama. And others, like Irving Kristol’s son William, had studied Strauss’ theories at Harvard. This group became known as the neoconservatives.

WILLIAM KRISTOL: Well, many of them couldn’t get academic jobs, and the political science and philosophy faculties were not terribly friendly to those of a conservative or moderately conservative disposition. And the truth is that a lot of people who ended up in Washington started out as academics. I did; Paul Wolfowitz did; and decided they probably didn’t have very good prospects in the academy. What we all had in common, I think, was a certain doubt about what once seemed a kind of great certainty and confidence in liberal progress. The philosophic grounds for liberal democracy had been weakened. So I think Straussians who came to Washington, they didn’t think of themselves as Churchill or Lincoln, let me assure you, but they did that, you know, there’s something noble about public life, and about politics, and they tried to make a contribution in many different areas.

VO: The neoconservatives were idealists. Their aim was to try and stop the social disintegration they believed liberal freedoms had unleashed. They wanted to find a way of uniting the people, by giving them a shared purpose. One of their great influences in doing this would be the theories of Leo Strauss. They would set out to recreate the myth of America as a unique nation whose destiny was to battle against evil in the world. And in this project, the source of evil would be America’s Cold War enemy: the Soviet Union. And by doing this, they believed that they would not only give new meaning and purpose to people’s lives, but they would spread the good of democracy around the world.

Professor STEPHEN HOLMES, Political Philosopher: The United States would not only, according to these—the Straussians, be able to bring good to the world, but would be able to overcome the fundamental weaknesses of American society, a society that has been suffering, almost rotting, in their language, from relativism, liberalism, lack of self-confidence, lack of belief in itself. And one of the main political projects of the Straussians during the Cold War was to reinforce the self-confidence of Americans, and the belief that America was fundamentally the only force for good in the world, that had to be supported, otherwise evil would prevail.

VO: But to do this, the neoconservatives were going to have to defeat one of the most powerful men in the world. Henry Kissinger was the Secretary of State under President Nixon, and he didn’t believe in a world of good and evil. What drove Kissinger was a ruthless, pragmatic vision of power in the world. With America’s growing political and social chaos, Kissinger wanted the country to give up its ideological battles. Instead, it should come to terms with countries like the Soviet Union, to create a new kind of global interdependence. A world in which America would be safe.

HENRY KISSINGER, Interviewed 1975: I believe that with all the dislocations we know—now experience, there also exists an extraordinary opportunity to form, for the first time in history, a truly global society, carried by the principle of interdependence. And if we act wisely and with vision, I think we can look back to all this turmoil as the birth pangs of a more creative and better system.

VO: Kissinger had begun this process in 1972, when he persuaded the Soviet Union to sign a treaty with America limiting nuclear arms. It was the start of what was called “détente.” And President Nixon returned to Washington to announce triumphantly that the age of fear was over.

PRESIDENT RICHARD NIXON, June 1, 1972: Last Friday, in Moscow, we witnessed the beginning of the end of that era which began in 1945. With this step, we have enhanced the security of both nations. We have begun to reduce the level of fear, by reducing the causes of fear—for our two peoples, and for all peoples in the world.

VO: But a world without fear was not what the neoconservatives needed to pursue their project. They now set out to destroy Henry Kissinger’s vision. What gave them their opportunity was the growing collapse of American political power, both abroad and at home. The defeat in Vietnam, and the resignation of President Nixon over Watergate, led to a crisis of confidence in America’s political class. And the neoconservatives seized their moment. They allied themselves with two right-wingers in the new administration of Gerald Ford. One was Donald Rumsfeld, the new Secretary of Defense. The other was Dick Cheney, the President’s Chief of Staff. Rumsfeld began to make speeches alleging that the Soviets were ignoring Kissinger’s treaties and secretly building up their weapons, with the intention of attacking America.

DONALD RUMSFELD, US Secretary of Defense, Speaking in 1976: The Soviet Union has been busy. They’ve been busy in terms of their level of effort; they’ve been busy in terms of the actual weapons they’ve been producing; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding production rates; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding their institutional capability to produce additional weapons at additional rates; they’ve been busy in terms of expanding their capability to increasingly improve the sophistication of those weapons. Year after year after year, they’ve been demonstrating that they have steadiness of purpose. They’re purposeful about what they’re doing. Now, your question is, what ought one to be doing about that?

VO: The CIA, and other agencies who watched the Soviet Union continuously for any sign of threat, said that this was a complete fiction. There was no truth to Rumsfeld’s allegations. But Rumsfeld used his position to persuade President Ford to set up an independent inquiry. He said it would prove that there was a hidden threat to America. And the inquiry would be run by a group of neoconservatives, one of whom was Paul Wolfowitz. The aim was to change the way America saw the Soviet Union.

MELVIN GOODMAN, Head of Office of Soviet Affairs CIA, 1976-87: And Rumsfeld won that very intense, intense political battle that was waged in Washington in 1975 and 1976. Now, as part of that battle, Rumsfeld and others, people such as Paul Wolfowitz, wanted to get into the CIA. And their mission was to create a much more severe view of the Soviet Union, Soviet intentions, Soviet views about fighting and winning a nuclear war.

VO: The neoconservatives chose, as the inquiry chairman, a well-known critic and historian of the Soviet Union called Richard Pipes. Pipes was convinced that whatever the Soviets said publicly, secretly they still intended to attack and conquer America. This was their hidden mindset. The inquiry was called Team B, and the other leading member was Paul Wolfowitz.

Professor RICHARD PIPES: And the idea was then to appoint a group of outside experts who have access to the same evidence as the CIA used to arrive at these conclusions, and to see if they could come up with different conclusions. And I was asked to chair it, because I was not an expert on nuclear weapons. I was, if anything, an expert on the Soviet mindset, but not on the weapons. But that was the real key, was the question of the Soviet mindset, because the CIA looked only at—they were known as “bean counters,” always looking at weapons. But weapons can be used in various ways. They can be used for defensive purposes or offensive purposes. Well, all right, I collected this group of experts, and we began to sift through the evidence.

VO: Team B began examining all the CIA data on the Soviet Union. But however closely they looked, there was little evidence of the dangerous weapons or defense systems they claimed the Soviets were developing. Rather than accept that this meant that the systems didn’t exist, Team B made an assumption that the Soviets had developed systems that were so sophisticated, they were undetectible. For example, they could find no evidence that the Soviet submarine fleet had an acoustic defense system. What this meant, Team B said, was that the Soviets had actually invented a new non-acoustic system, which was impossible to detect. And this meant that the whole of the American submarine fleet was at risk from an invisible threat that was there, even though there was no evidence for it.

Dr ANNE CAHN, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1977-80: They couldn’t say that the Soviets had acoustic means of picking up American submarines, because they couldn’t find it. So they said, well maybe they have a non-acoustic means of making our submarine fleet vulnerable. But there was no evidence that they had a non-acoustic system. They’re saying, “we can’t find evidence that they’re doing it the way that everyone thinks they’re doing it, so they must be doing it a different way. We don’t know what that different way is, but they must be doing it.”

INTERVIEWER (off-camera): Even though there was no evidence.

CAHN: Even though there was no evidence.

INTERVIEWER: So they’re saying there, that the fact that the weapon doesn’t exist…

CAHN: Doesn’t mean that it doesn’t exist. It just means that we haven’t found it.

PIPES: Now, that’s important, yes. If something is not there, that’s significant.

INTERVIEWER: By its absence.

PIPES: By its absence. If you believe that they share your view of strategic weapons, and they don’t talk about it, then there’s something missing. Something is wrong. And the CIA wasn’t aware of that.

VO: What Team B accused the CIA of missing was a hidden and sinister reality in the Soviet Union. Not only were there many secret weapons the CIA hadn’t found, but they were wrong about many of those they could observe, such as the Soviet air defenses. The CIA were convinced that these were in a state of collapse, reflecting the growing economic chaos in the Soviet Union. Team B said that this was actually a cunning deception by the Soviet régime. The air-defense system worked perfectly. But the only evidence they produced to prove this was the official Soviet training manual, which proudly asserted that their air-defense system was fully integrated and functioned flawlessly. The CIA accused Team B of moving into a fantasy world.

PIPES: The CIA was very loath to deal with issues which could not be demonstrated in a kind of mathematical form. I said they could consider the soft evidence. They deal with realities, whereas this was a fantasy. That’s how it was perceived. And there were battles all the time on this subject.

INTERVIEWER: Did you think it was a fantasy?

PIPES: No! I thought it was absolute reality.

CAHN: I would say that all of it was fantasy. I mean, they looked at radars out in Krasnoyarsk and said, “This is a laser beam weapon,” when in fact it was nothing of the sort. They even took a Russian military manual, which the correct translation of it is “The Art of Winning.” And when they translated it and put it into Team B, they called it “The Art of Conquest.” Well, there’s a difference between “conquest” and “winning.” And if you go through most of Team B’s specific allegations about weapons systems, and you just examine them one by one, they were all wrong.

INTERVIEWER: All of them?

CAHN: All of them.

INTERVIEWER: Nothing true?

CAHN: I don’t believe anything in Team B was really true.

VO: The neoconservatives set up a lobby group to publicize the findings of Team B. It was called the Committee on the Present Danger, and a growing number of politicians joined, including a Presidential hopeful, Ronald Reagan.

[ TITLE: The Price of Peace and Freedom / Committee on the Present Danger, propaganda film 1978 ]

VO: Through films and television, the Committee portrayed a world in which America was under threat from hidden forces that could strike at any time, forces that America must conquer to survive.

ALEKSANDR SOLZHENITSYN, through interpreter: A concentration of world evil, of hatred for humanity, is taking place. And it is fully determined to destroy your society. Must you wait until the young men of America have to fall defending the borders of their continent?!

VO: This dramatic battle between good and evil was precisely the kind of myth that Leo Strauss had taught his students would be necessary to rescue the country from moral decay. It might not be true, but it was necessary, to re-engage the public in a grand vision of America’s destiny, that would give meaning and purpose to their lives. The neoconservatives were succeeding in creating a simplistic fiction—a vision of the Soviet Union as the center of all evil in the world, and America as the only country that could rescue the world. And this nightmarish vision was beginning to give the neoconservatives great power and influence.

HOLMES: The Straussians started to create a worldview which is a fiction. The world is not divided into good and evil. The battle in which we are engaged is not a battle between good and evil. The United States, as anyone who observes understands, has done some good and some bad things. It’s like any great power. This is the way history is. But they wanted to create a world of moral certainties, so therefore they invent mythologies—fairytales—describing any force in the world that obstructs the United States as somehow Satanic, or associated with evil.

...

Source

The article Danish PM Says Nation Unfairly Portrayed
has some interesting passages. It says:

Denmark's prime minister complained Monday that his nation had been unfairly portrayed as intolerant in the international furor over the Prophet Muhammad cartoons, and his foreign minister said a government apology would be pointless.

After meeting with a newly formed network of moderate Muslims, Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen called for peaceful dialogue to defuse Denmark's biggest international crisis since World War II.

"This meeting just testifies that the Danish government wants a positive dialogue with all groups in the Danish society," he said. "The way forward is peaceful."

Is this "Danish Dialog"?. We know that right after the cartoons came out, the Prime Minister refused to meet the ambassadors of the Muslim countries which could have prevented all the trouble last week. With that in mind, it sounds rather funny to meet "newly formed network" to promote dialog. There is preaching to the choir, echo chamber, but this may go down in history as "Danish Dialog". Find people that think like yourself, organize them into a group, then say we are engaging in positive dialogue.


There is something interesting about radical's common values. Take this from the same article:

In Egypt, thousands of students demonstrated Monday at universities in Cairo and the southern city of Assiut, denouncing the caricatures and warning that those who published the drawings "have opened the gates of hell on themselves."

Anti-riot police stood at the gates of the two universities but did not intervene.

"Revolution everywhere! We are not going to be silent or asleep!" chanted about 1,500 male students demonstrating in Cairo. "Boycott is our duty because they insulted and humiliated our prophet!"

How similar is this to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich statements:

"This is 1935 and [Iranian president] Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as close to Adolf Hitler as we’ve seen. We now know who they are -- the question is who we are. Are we Baldwin or Churchill? " Gingrich said, noting that Churchill recognized the danger from Nazi Germany and urged that Britain prepare to meet it.
Asked what Churchill would do about Ahmadinejad, Gingrich said he had just read the opening passages of Churchill’s book, "The Gathering Storm,” the first volume of his World War II memoir. In the book Churchill recalled that President Franklin D. Roosevelt once asked him "What should they call the war?.” Churchill’s reply: "We should call it "The Unnecessary War,” noting that "had we done simple, practical things in 1935, 1936, we would have saved 100 million lives.”

Source

Iran and Syria ..

I wonder how long it would be before Condi Rice, Rumsfled, Tony Blair, and Jack Straw (UK forign secretery) would blame this on Iran and Syria. British caught on video

Why doesn't the human right organizations require that there be cameras installed in all jails?

Propaganda Tai Chi

Unlike the tao, the chien relies on internal power (soft, nonviolent movement). It is the smoothness in motion which is the sword's forte. This is another reason why only those who have studied tai chi chuan for many years should study sword, for its techniques are similar to "push hands." Push hands, sometimes called "Joined hands," is the foundation of tai chi free fighting. It is a sensitivity teaching technique in which one learns to "feel" the opponent's power and fine changes of movement. One learns to "stick" to the opponent and, later, to use the opponent’s energy against him, rather than expend one's own energy in defense. Source

If you remember in the run up to the Iraq war the “liberal media” were as much part of the propaganda effort, at times even more so, as the right wing TV and radio. Judit Miller's stories were front page items on New York times.

My impression is that the stories that are planted in the “liberal media” tends to be more sophisticated. To feed the fear you have the usual suspects of anonymous sources, unnamed officials, and/or intelligent sources but the plot is usually more hidden. It is not unlike the difference between a Rambo (Fox news) to Hitchcok classic (NPR, New York times..). There is a common theme, real factual data (such as report from UN inspectors) are either completely missing, or discounted in favor of the un-verified information by unnamed “intelligent sources”.

To see the war marketing logic, you first have to see the reality as is today. Then look for potential growth areas. As far as war machinery is concern, the war in Iraq has started and every one is convienced that it must go on until "mission is [again] accopmplished"; It is money in the bank! The war machinery is willing to concede error in the run up on that war if it can get a new war started. It has nothing to lose, so what that so-and-so lied. The misson must go one, and growth is the name of the game, it can give reputation of a politician as long as it helps the bottom line.


It seems to me that the new war is positioned as tool to end the Iranian nuclear weapons program. But there is no real data to back the claims of a real nuclear weapons program. So you have the orthodox Iranian Predsident remarks, which by itself is not enough. It would be kind of strange to say you need to go to war with a country because its president doesn't have the same unerstanding of European history as you would like. Never know, may be this is "War to Teach History". But you don't want to get too fancy here, you need to go back to the basics, and that is to get the project off the gound nothing works like "mushroom cloud" fear, with a few they are Hitler, we are Churchil analogies. There is just one minor problem!

Fact is that IAEA inspectors have been looking at the Iranian nuclear program and haven't concluded that Iran is working on weapons program. So what is the propaganda to do? How about this: “Outed CIA officer [Valerie Plame Wilson] was working on Iran, intelligence sources say”. This is very clever move. My first impression is that there has been a serious improvement in the Bush administration's propaganda war. The nature of propaganda against Iran, at least some of them, tend to be more sophisticated that the ones against Iraq, and this is cream of the crop! The first two paragraph of the article says:

The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.
According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.
....

This is Tai Chi of propaganda, use the opponent's force (agenda) against itself. The "Liberals" want to get Bush, so why not plant a story, theb use their energy to promote the next war. It is a masterfull use of the “liberal media” to propagate the myth. And already others have jumped on the bandwagon: Valerie Plame Leak Sabotaged America's Iran-Watching Intelligence Effort


When you read the original article, at minimum the conclusions are:

there is a significant damage to ability of the CIA to monitor the Iranian activities. Conclusion: We can't trust the CIA assessments, in a way you have (or “it is prudent”) to assume the worst. This is very much like claims that we don't have enough Arabic translators, my guess is that source of weaknesses in the translation department are the neocon circles. If there are not enough translators, then wouldn't you it coause doubts to any analysis that doesn't enforce fear. There is no way you can say Iraq doesn't have WMD, since the other side soon says that you don't have enough translators, it is there you just haven't found the document. Reality is that all the real intelligence and predictions on Iraq were accurate, but the neocons are not interested in reality. They are only after creating an enviornment where their war agenda is promoted.

Reading the article, one would also conclude that Iran must be working on some weapons program. Eevnthough it never says so, it makes arguments taking this assumtion for granted.

Both of which is exactly what the war machinery would like to establish. It enforces the "mushroom cloud" fear, without ever saying it. That is TahiChi!

IAEA has been investigatinvg Iran for last 3 years, they would have known about any nuclear programs Iran may have had. The best they can come up with is that there are some drawings that could be used to build a nuclear weapons. But this was the whole point of NPT (non-prolifiration threaty), it was obvious that you could not keep the information secret, so countries signed treaties so that it would not develop nuclear weapons.

May be Ms Palmer was working on the Iran nuclear issues, I don't know. But one thing I can see is that this story and the timing of it is too fishy. If it writes like Judit Miller, talks like Judit Miller.... Then it is a Judit Miller.

A beautiful day in the neighborhood.

Israel cuts Jordan Rift from rest of W. Bank

Israel lobbies against "Palestine" tag at Oscars

Deception campaign.

Interesting read... Smoking laptop.

"Israel unveils plan to encircle Palestinian state



If the Jewish state were to annex all of the Jordan Valley, which is dotted with small settlements, it would leave a future Palestinian state on the West Bank entirely surrounded by Israel and without a direct link to neighbouring countries.

....


"He [Israeli prime minister, Ehud Olmert] talked about Israel having to maintain a Jewish majority in the state of Israel, meaning that we have to create a new border, what is called final borders. He knows that we can't negotiate with Hamas. So the only conclusion that can be derived from this is that, in order to reach final borders, Israel will have to carry out additional [unilateral] withdrawals," said Mishal.


Creating a border inside a country.... a Jail?

Hypocrisy and Cartoons as I see it

Juan Cole had an interesting post More on the Hypocrisy of the West and Cartoongate

Here is what I see...

Taking one's frustration on innocent is in no way monopoly of the Muslim extremists. If you recall right after 9/11, middle eastern looking individuals and even Sikhs (since they were turban) were target of violent reactions in the US.

For me personally what is more troubling is the coverage of the issue much more so than the cartoons. Here in the fury of comments and justifications, I see deeply racist remarks. Take for example this statement that appeared on many of the news items on the issue:


"We'd take Muslim protests more seriously if they weren't so hypocritical," Berlin's Die Welt wrote as it published a Danish cartoon. "The imams were quiet when Syrian television showed Jewish rabbis as cannibals in a prime-time series."


You think this statement was well thought through, and it wasn't some random off the cuff remark. But did the editor even bother to ask the Imams? The editor seems to have been blessed with gene that "hypocritical" Muslims are lacking. Essentially, I see a superiority complex that has blinded the editor's judgment.

Don't all atrocities start the same place, "we" are good and "they" are for one reason or another lacking that goodness we take for granted? There seems to be two different yard sticks to judge people, one for "us" and anther for "them".

Every time George Bush commits a crime in Iraq, we Americans don't go in the streets to protest it. At times even majority of people support the war claiming it would bring gift of democracy and respect to human right, and Western values to the inferior people. Every nonsense movie that comes out of Hollywood we don't feel the responsibility to be in the street to defend the Muslim characters. At the same time we expect the Muslims to be on the street to oppose the radicals in case of the cartoon incident, or protest Syrian TV shows.

For a mainstream Muslim looking at both side of the issue, what is more ironic is that these radicals for most part behave quite Western, they seems to have learned their lessons quite well, true they do their “Shock and Awe” with rudimentary and inferior tools. But nonetheless the radicals and Westerners believe that violence would bring about the desired political change.


For Editor of the Die Welt every Muslim has to prove himself. As in after 9/11 every Muslim are somehow guilty of the act of handful of people and it is his responsibility to be proactive and clear his reputation. Otherwise it is another indication of their violent nature, and vindication for our own peaceful and civilized gene! Ironically this is just like the Muslim radicals that expect every Danish, or German citizen to prove themselves because of action of few cartoonist. It is for instance expected for the radicals to know that Danish people are for most part tolerant people.

In Western mind set though, hypocrisy has become a family value. For the editor of the Die Welt , without any real data to back up his claim, it is perfectly understandable to justify his action by stereotyping all Muslims, or at least their “imams”, as essentially antisemitic. Even though Muslims have gone to great length to separate religion of Judaism from political ambitions of Zionism in their conflict with Israeli.

In 1945 the Berlin's Die Welt editor would not have seen Jewish Rabbis as individuals, in 2006 it has difficulty realizing that Muslim Imams, just as individual Muslims, each have their own opinions. One can only hope come 2046 we can put these cartoons and editorials in Museums and try to learn about our own faults by communicating with others instead of trying to explain our own prejudices because of our perceived faults of others.

It just doesn't get any funnier than this....

You got to love the Iranian sense of humor. CARTOON CRISIS: IRAN RENAMES DANISH PASTRIES

The War President

The Newsweeks' Devoted and Defiant starts out with this paragraph:


Born to a blacksmith, educated as a revolutionary, trained as a killer and derided by rivals as a mystical fanatic, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is easily cast as the personification of everything there is to fear about a nuclear Iran. But he may be worse than that—not because of how he looks to the outside world, but because of what he represents inside his country. Ahmadinejad plays to a nostalgia for war among parts of Iran's leadership, and even some of its young people: a longing for confrontation, a belief that a quarter century ago, when revolutionary Iran was ready to challenge the world, send countless youths to martyrdom in the fight against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, endure missile attacks on its cities, suffer poison-gas attacks against its troops—in those days the regime of the ayatollahs was purer, more noble, more popular and ultimately more secure.


It goes on to say:

Since he took office in August, Ahmadinejad has shown himself an expert at provoking outrage,...


The authors of the article are no small time experts at "provoking outrage". Ahmadinejad was member of the Revolutionary Guards Corps that found the Saddam's army. The Corp would be equivalent to the US Marines force. Could it be that the authors are trying to provoke outrage by calling one's military career as "trained as a killer".


The authors also say he "plays to a nostalgia for war" as it make the government "more popular and ultimately more secure". That sounds like a chapter out of Karl Rove and George W's play book. What was the name for it? "The War President?"

How one never sees itself

Senator McCain says: Iran "defines itself by hostility to the United States and Israel".

How should one define Senator McCain when he says:

Russia had punished "democratic" Ukraine and Georgia by disrupting energy supplies "while providing cut-rate gas to the dictatorship in Minsk".


I don't get it, on what basis does the US Senator makes comments on trade relationships between Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, and Belarus?


"It (Russia) continues to prosecute a brutal war in Chechnya
that has killed as many as 200,000, radicalizing the Muslim
population, and it actively supports dictatorships in Central Asia."


Interestingly, these same dictatorships in Central Asia US ally and/or are destination of choice for CIA prisoners! US Recruits a Rough Ally to Be a Jailer

I wonder if Senator cares to talk about radicalization of the Muslim population for the Iraq war that the Senator so enthusiastically supports! Here is what it has done in Turkey, a traditional US ally! In Turkish Movie, Americans Kill Innocents

What can you say?

Sometimes you feel truly speechless: RUMSFELD: WMD MAY STILL BE FOUND

IAEA resolution as I see it.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's resolution on Iran among other items says:


Underlines that outstanding questions can best be resolved and confidence built in the
exclusively peaceful nature of Iran's programme by Iran responding positively to the calls for
confidence building measures which the Board has made on Iran, and in this context deems it
necessary for Iran to:
• re-establish full and sustained suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing
activities, including research and development, to be verified by the Agency;
• reconsider the construction of a research reactor moderated by heavy water;
• ratify promptly and implement in full the Additional Protocol;
• pending ratification, continue to act in accordance with the provisions of the Additional
Protocol which Iran signed on 18 December 2003;
• implement transparency measures, as requested by the Director General, including in
GOV/2005/67, which extend beyond the formal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement
and Additional Protocol, and include such access to individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual use equipment, certain military-owned workshops and research and
development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing investigations;




So IAEA defines the "Additional Protocol", Iran accepts it (meaning it would implement its terms, but wont officially ratify it unless the whole issue is resolved) and implemented its requirements for three years. It says:

Recalling that in reports referred to above, the Director General noted that after nearly
three years of intensive verification activity, the Agency is not yet in a position to clarify some
important issues relating to Iran's nuclear programme or to conclude that there are no
undeclared nuclear materials or activities in Iran,


After three years IAEA says Iran may (or may not) have nuclear weapons program. Now if after three years it can't say definitively one way or another, what is the point of the protocol? It seems to me the issue here is IAEA much more so that Iran, it can't define a process to have a firm conclusion one way or another.

The last items is replay of run up to Iraq war..."implement transparency measures..." . IAEA came up with the additional protocol, which some countries have signed, what does it mean to ask for additional measures that extend beyond the formal requirements of the Safeguards Agreement and Additional Protocol. Wouldn't after this there be yet more additional measures, that would extend the already additional measures that extended beyond the formal requirements of the Additional Protocol? Is this about doubling the requirements each time?

These items are rather interesting too:

(j) Recalling that in November 2005 the Director General reported (GOV/2005/87) that Iran possesses a document related to the procedural requirements for the reduction of UF6 to metalin small quantities, and on the casting and machining of enriched, natural and depleted uranium metal into hemispherical forms,

and,

Expresses serious concern that the Agency is not yet in a position to clarify some important issues relating to Iran's nuclear programme, including the fact that Iran has in its possession a document on the production of uranium metal hemispheres, since, as reported by the Secretariat, this process is related to the fabrication of nuclear weapon components; and, noting that the decision to put this document under Agency seal is a positive step, requests Iran to maintain this document under Agency seal and to provide a full copy to the Agency;


So what? Let say Iran even has all the diagrams to make nuclear weapons. What does that mean? Can you be found guilty of a crime if you have a picture of a gun? Are there factual evidence that Iran is building a nuclear weapons or not? IAEA board also wants a copy of this document; does this mean that from that day on every member of the IAEA that has seen the document now is making nuclear weapons?

Fortunately (or may be unfortunately :) )no one listens to me, but if I had anything to say on this I would have advises the Iranian government to open source ALL documents relating to their program, and let the world see it and judge by themselves.


What I see here is politics and bullying without real substance. This reminds me of the run up to Iraq war. I think the biggest casualties of the Iraq war were the:

1. reputation of US and UK,
2. UN Security Council
3. and the Media.

You can see the result of media's one sided approach to the run up to the war, the journalist are seen as party to the war and occupation and they being targeted. Almost every journalist that comes back for Iraq says that this is the first conflict that insurgency doesn't protect them or care to talk to them.

The deception campaign prior to the Iraq war, without a doubt, has ruined the reputation of US/UK and has shown the in-effectiveness of the UN Security Council to bring security to the world.

IAEA agency, for most part, kept its reputation. But the more I look at this resolution I see that this agency is being used more and more as political tool rather than its true intention, to stop proliferation of the nuclear weapons. Truly scary prospect.

By any deception(s) necessary

Bush, Blair 'in deal on Iraq war'

The unelected corrupt many ....

Unraveling the Ties of Abramoff and DeLay

Settlers?

Jewish settlers and their supporters clash with Israeli troops and police, as authorities evacuated the West Bank settlement outpost of Amona, east of the Palestinian town of Ramallah, Wednesday Feb. 1, 2006. Thousands of troops in riot gear and on horseback clashed with hundreds of stone-throwing Jewish settlers holed up behind barbed wire and on rooftops in this illegal West Bank settlement outpost Wednesday, after the Supreme Court cleared the way for the demolition of nine homes at the site.(AP Photo/Baz Ratner)




Israeli policemen clash with Jewish settlers in the unauthorized outpost of Amona, close to the West Bank Jewish settlement of Ofra, February 1, 2006. (Oleg Popov/Reuters)






Why are these people called "settlers"? Isn't Colonizer, Bandits, Robbers.... a more appropriate name?

What does "unauthorized outpost" mean? Who authorizes the authorized outposts?

threat to end the threats

This is an interesting article

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw's threats ("advice") Iran against threatening! Sort of like mother of all threats (or advices?)

It reminds me of the George Bush (or for that matter any American President) we "don't take the military option off the table". It has to do with some cultural values. In some cultures it is bad manner to put your shoes (or foot for that matter) on the table. In US it seems putting the military option off the table is bad manner.

"dogma has no place in a secular society"?

I like this. Paper reprints Islam row cartoons.

Lets express our views using cartoon. It sure beats Political Violence (war, terrorism). The French Soir says: "Yes, We Have the Right to Caricature God".

But let also be honest, Others can draw cartoons. Would the papers print them? Do they have right to for example question and caricature Holocaust? If we say "religious dogma has no place in a secular society", are we ready to say dogma has no place in secular society?

Trying to make sense of the speech

From
President Geroge W Bush's 2006 State of Union Speech

In one part of the speech the President said:

....The Palestinian people have voted in elections. And now the leaders of Hamas must recognize Israel, disarm, reject terrorism, and work for lasting peace. (Applause.)...

He also said:

Tonight, let me speak directly to the citizens of Iran: America respects you, and we respect your country. We respect your right to choose your own future and win your own freedom. And our nation hopes one day to be the closest of friends with a free and democratic Iran. (Applause.)


The question is this...Does President Bush practice what he preaches? Is he willing to show leadership and lead by example? Meaning:

...And now the leader of Free world must recognize Iranian rights, end all sanctions, reject war (take military option off the table) and work for lasting peace through trade and cooperation? (Applause ?)

At the end of the speech he said:


Fellow citizens, we've been called to leadership in a period of consequence. We've entered a great ideological conflict we did nothing to invite. We see great changes in science and commerce that will influence all our lives. Sometimes it can seem that history is turning in a wide arc, toward an unknown shore. Yet the destination of history is determined by human action, and every great movement of history comes to a point of choosing.




This is very confusing. If "the destination of history is determined by human action, and every great movement of history comes to a point of choosing", then how can you say that "We've entered a great ideological conflict we did nothing to invite." It would seem to me that you would need to conclude that the our choices in previous "great movements of history" caused current "idealogical conflicts."

Did I miss something here?

Art of Elections

Interesting article "U.S. will push efforts to isolate Hamas, Rice says"

.....
Rice said the landslide had taken many, including Hamas, by surprise, but she also said it was prompting an internal review of sorts within the administration.

''I have asked why nobody saw it coming,'' she said. ''And I hope that we will take a hard look, because it does say something about perhaps not having had a good enough pulse on the Palestinian population, as opposed to elites in Ramallah and the like.''

Basically, had we known we would have lose (that is losing our corrupt friends), we would not have pushed for election. At some point someone can summarize all of these into Art of Election. This rule sounds very similar to a point in Art of War, By Sun Tzu


15. Thus it is that in war the victorious strategist
only seeks battle after the victory has been won,
whereas he who is destined to defeat first fights
and afterwards looks for victory.


She goes on to say:

''When that happens, it's the responsibility and the role of - particularly the United States, but the international community more broadly - to stay very firmly planted in principle,'' she said. She also said the United States needed to ''make certain that everything that you are doing relates to that set of principles, so that you don't start flagging one way and another.''

It is more like two set of principals, one for "us" and one for "them".

An intersting prespective....

Israel/US says Hamas must recognize Israel's right to exsit before any negotiation.

Hamas: "If Israel is ready to tell the people what is the official border, after that we are going to answer this question."

Full report: http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/01/29/hamas.interview/index.html

Pop Quiz

this is a pop quiz to see if anyone is paying attention.

Instruction: Read the question, try to formulate your answer, then try to see if this matches the "correct" answer.

Q: After victory of Hamas in Palestinian election, what would be the most effective way for US and Europeans powers to radicalize the middle east?

Answer

"The working assumption... is prudent to assume at the least.... they can have the choice at some stage"

WOW! This is the reason why they want to take Iran to Security Council:

"The working assumption in the international community from all sides is that it is prudent to assume at the least that Iran is seeking to develop a nuclear weapons capability so that they can have the choice at some stage ... to activate it."

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw

Source

What if the shoe were on the other foot?

The Big Idea
When things go wrong - whether in your personal or professional life - chances are you resort to quick-fix plans, strategies and techniques for altering and improving your environment. Often, the problem is caused by a misalignment of your actions and decisions with the correct principles. To solve it, you need to alter not the external circumstances but your perspective.

....

Principles are like compasses that point us to our true direction. They are objective, unchanging natural laws that are correct and relevant regardless of the external circumstances. They are timeless, universal behavioral standards that have governed the social values of all the great human societies and civilizations. They apply to all people and all roles at whatever time and place and in whatever situation. Examples are fairness, equality, justice, integrity, honesty and trust. . . .

Principle-Centered Leadership
By Stephen R. Covey

Free Press, 1992
ISBN 0671792806
Soruce

I was listening the President Bush's press conference on his reaction to Hammas, and his statement on what they have to do to be "partner in peace" or get back on the "roadmap" to peace.




Q Mr. President, is Mideast peacemaking dead with Hamas' big election victory? And do you rule out dealing with the Palestinians if Hamas is the majority party?
.....
On the other hand, I don't see how you can be a partner in peace if you advocate the destruction of a country as part of your platform. And I know you can't be a partner in peace if you have a -- if your party has got an armed wing. The elections just took place. We will watch very carefully about the formation of the government. But I will continue to remind people about what I just said, that if your platform is the destruction of Israel, it means you're not a partner in peace. And we're interested in peace.
...




This reminded me of a passage I once read on Vietnam War and the US position during the negotiations to end the war. Then the shoe was on the other foot....






The voices from Hanoi, however, continued to insist otherwise. North Vietnamese President Ho Chi Minh, in his own New Year's message, proclaimed that "this year the United States aggressors will find themselves less able than ever to take the initiative, and will be more confused than ever, while our armed forces … will certainly win many more and still greater victories." At the same time, though, Ho's foreign minister, Nguyen Duy Trinh, said over Hanoi radio that his government would enter talks if the United States would "first unconditionally cease bombing and all other acts of war" against North Vietnam.

At home, pressures were increasingly building on Johnson to do just that. Robert Kennedy in a speech in San Francisco three days later argued that "it would make some sense to go to the negotiating table and see if we can resolve the conflict. It is possible we can go to the negotiating table and they will not be genuinely interested in finding a solution … [but] we have to at least take the first step."

The hawks would have none of it. Chairman L. Mendel Rivers of the House Armed Services Committee urged Johnson "to consider no cessation of bombing unless Hanoi agrees immediately to exchange of American prisoners, or at very least inspection of prisoners by the International Red Cross." And William P. Bundy, the assistant secretary of state for Far Eastern affairs, threw cold water on the idea. "I am not sure that they are anywhere near the point of being ready to yield," he said in a television interview. In the Hanoi statement, he said, there was "no mention of whether they themselves would exercise any kind of restraint." The danger, he warned, was that the enemy could "take advantage of things and pour down more divisions, and play the thing as what they call … fighting while negotiating."

And so there was no bombing halt. Instead, LBJ sent his ambassador to India, Chester Bowles, to Phnom Penh to discuss with the Cambodian chief of state, Prince Norodom Sihanouk, the possibility of American "hot pursuit" over the Cambodian border. Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces were suspected of using Cambodia as a sanctuary. Sihanouk in an earlier interview had indicated he would permit such raids under certain circumstances. But in his conversations with Bowles he resisted the idea and instead joined the call for a halt in bombing North Vietnam.

The Year the dream died

Selling fear

Fear Works:
57% Americans support military action in Iran


Fear is good for the bottom line:
Lockheed Profit Up 53%, but Aircraft Business Was Flat

Must watch

Why we fight?

The Neocons....

You simply can't say it any better:

At a time when the rush to war seems now to have been engineered at least in part by unelected operatives working in the shadows of power at Think Tanks and other interest groups, Eisenhower warns of "the potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power" arising from the "unwarranted influence" of such forces.

Eugene Jarecki, Director of "Why we fight"
Source

What we should do now.

As Sharon sent an armoured column to reinvade Nablus, still ignoring Bush's demand to withdraw his troops from the West Bank, Colin Powell turned on Arafat, warning him that it was his "last chance" to show his leadership. There was no mention of the illegal Jewish settlements. There was to be no "last chance" threat for Sharon. The Americans even allowed him to refuse a UN fact-finding team in the occupied territories. Sharon was meeting with President George W Bush in Washington when a suicide bomber killed at least 15 Israeli civilians in a Tel Aviv nightclub; he broke off his visit and returned at once to Israel. Prominent American Jewish leaders, including Elie Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz, immediately called upon the White House not to put pressure on Sharon to join new Middle East peace talks. "This is a tough time," Wiesel announced. "This is not a time to pressure Israel. Any prime minister would do what Sharon is doing. He is doing his best. They should trust him." Wiesel need hardly have worried.

....

Extracted from The Great War For Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East, by Robert Fisk. Published by Fourth Estate on 3 October 2005


Fast forward to Jan 2006:

"Hamas won," said Nobel Peace Prize winner Elie Wiesel. "Hamas is
surely not a democratic movement. Its ideas are surely not humanistic
ideas. "What do we do now?"

Source


What do we do now? Well as a starter, we should not listen to your advice any more!

Lost in Translation!

In Persian you can say I will cut of the hand of person(s) to mean you are going to stop the influence or interference of the person(s) in your affair. At one point a visibly shaken American friend asked me "Why are they cutting the hands of foreigners in Iran?" Upon further inquiry it became obvious that the reporter either maliciously or out of ignorance did a literal translation and along the way the expression lost its meaning.

Today President Bush said: ...I also want the Iranian people to hear loud and clear, and that is, we have no beef with you.

It would be interesting to see how this gets translated to Persian, as there is no equivalent expression in Persian. President Bush wants to put a sanction on import of beef to Iran?

Bad Intelligence?

I wonder if President Bush realizes that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei shares his views on nuclear weapons also.

• Ayatollah Ali Khamenei issued a fatwa forbidding the production, stockpiling and use of nuclear weapons on August 9, 2005. The full text of the fatwa was released in an official statement at the meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. [2]
  
  Source
  

January 23, 2006

President Discusses Global War on Terror at Kansas State University
Kansas State University
Manhattan, Kansas

.....

Q What is your position, or would you comment on a long-term strategy with respect to the geopolitical ambitions of China and Iran?

THE PRESIDENT: Yes, great question. First, let me start with Iran. I'm deeply concerned about Iran, as should a lot of people be concerned about Iran. I'm concerned, when the country of Iran, their president announces his desire to see that Israel gets destroyed. Israel is our ally. We're committed to the safety of Israel, and it's a commitment we will keep.

Secondly, I'm concerned about a non-transparent society's desire to develop a nuclear weapon. The world cannot be put in a position where we can be blackmailed by a nuclear weapon. I believe it is very important for the Iranian government to hear loud and clear from not only the United States, but also from other nations around the world. I also want the Iranian people to hear loud and clear, and that is, we have no beef with you. We are worried about a government that is not transparent whose aims and objectives are not peaceful. And, therefore, we don't think that you should have the capacity to make a nuclear weapon.

The diplomatic strategy is being led right now by what's called the EU3 -- France, Germany and Great Britain -- and they're doing a good job of keeping together a common message to say to the Iranians that we expect you to adhere to international norm. The next logical step if the Iranians continue not to adhere to international norm or the demands of the free world is to go to the United Nations Security Council.

At the same time, the development of an Iraqi democracy is an important message to people inside of Iran. I told you what I believe. I believe everybody desires to be free. I believe women want to be treated equally. And I think that a message of democracy and freedom in that part of the world will embolden reformers. But this is a serious issue.
China is --....


Source

RNC logic

"Do Nancy Pelosi [(D-Calif.) is the House minority leader] and Howard Dean really think that when the NSA is listening in on terrorists planning attacks on America, they need to hang up when those terrorists dial their sleeper cells in the United States?"

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman
Source

Follow the money

Good point John Do follow the money... Here is where you end up: The War In Iraq Costs . There is no evidence that Iran is working on any nuclear weapons, but folks like yourself are determined to make a buck selling fear. "Because you are really determined to get the dough".

That's My Word.

Brilliant!

"To forestall the need for nuclear force, we need tough action now, including economic sanctions, cultural sanctions, cutting off their supply of gasoline, (arms) sales, those kind of things, to convince the radical leaders of Iran that nuclear weapons are something they just cannot have," Bayh said on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" morning program.

"Getting a worldwide agreement to ban the export of gasoline to Iran could have a major impact on their thinking," Bayh said

Source

Anther word, he condones the use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. Further more by banning sale of gasoline to iron, it justifies the Iranian claim that they can't rely on foreign sources for their energy supply.

What Noncompliance?

Interesting: What Noncompliance?

We deserve better media

When reading news coverage of the Iranian "crisis", it is very difficult to know where media starts and where the government propaganda ends. Everything from the article title, to its pictures, to its content seem to have been designed to condemn Iranian position.

Readers are suppose to read the articles and learn about the events and make up their mind. Just as a judge would have done so. In the media, the coverage is similar to a court room where only the state prosecutor can speak, and the defended is not able to air his defense. Take for example this article: Iran's Rogue Rage.

The article title speaks for itself. It also republishes what must be at least 6 month old picture (if not more) of a few technicians moving a barrel of "Yellow cake" and posing for a picture with it. It is interesting that this article, just like many of the other articles covering the issue, have either anonymous sources, US and IAEA officials. You would be hard press to get the response of the Iranian officials on the matter. There are Iranian negotiators that are involved in these, most likely no one has heard any of their arguments.

The articles generally has a statement like: "....even the atomic weapons the Iranian government officially says it doesn't want...". Followed by a defiant message like: "If they want to destroy the Iranian nation's rights by that course," he said, "they will not succeed.".

It rarely covers the issue from the Iranian perspectives. They negotiated for two years with Europens to come up with a agreement that solves their concerns yet recognizes Iranian right to have nuclear energy as it sees fit. Instead you have "anonymous" comments such as:

Thus far, "the tactic of the Iranians is to give you half of what you need, then when you ask for more, half of the half, then, again, half of that," says a Western diplomat familiar with the inspection process, who asked to remain anonymous because of the sensitivity of the matter.

After what we know from the run up to the Iraq war, the Iranian side can say that "the US tactic is to ask for Iranians to provide them documents, then after they hand in the documents, double the requirements."

Where is the real meat of the negotiation? What was offered, what was the counter offer?

The ending is rather interesting:

The mullahs see this fight as one to ensure the survival of their regime—with American assurances. Would Washington cut that deal? A lot of bargaining remains. But Rice was right; the Iranian people deserve better.

The conclusion might be right, this is really about Iranians ("regime" and its people) being worried about possible US intervention in internal Iranian affairs. Regardless, what Iranian people deserve or don't deserve is really up to Iranians to decide. One thing is certain, we deserve better media than what we are getting.

"Joe Isuzu in the News and How to Listen to Him (Her) (it)".

I can't forget the deception campaign of the British government and its foreign Minister, Jack Straw, in the run up to the Iraq war. Reading his world remind me of the Joe Isuzi

"The onus is on Iran to act to give the international community
confidence that its nuclear programme has exclusive peaceful purposes
-- confidence, I'm afraid, that has been sorely undermined by its
history of concealement and deception."

Source

Does he really believe he is trustworthy himself?

I found this while looking for Joe Isuzu on the web Joe Isuzu on the Witness Stand and How to Examine Him (Her) (it) . We need the "Joe Isuzu in the News and How to Listen to Him (Her) (it)".

Diffrent strokes for different people

CONDOLEEZZA RICE: The government of President Ahmadinejad has done nothing but confront the international system ever since he came into power, confront the international system and their behavior on the nuclear issue, confront the international issue with outrageous statements that I don't think have been made in polite company in many, many, many years.

And so this is about the Iranian regime, and it is the Iranian regime that is isolating Iran.

Online NewsHour Focus

Such a contrast to her view of Ronald Reagan's "undiplomatic" message.

Propaganda Supply Chain

An interesting article on shifting US tactics in the Iraq war. US tries to loosen Shiite grip in Iraq

I find the last paragraph particularly interesting:

In the past, the US tended to refer to Iraq's armed groups as holdouts and terrorists. Now, that rhetoric is changing. After meeting with US officials and officers in Baghdad, columnist Roger Cohen concluded in The New York Times that the Iraqi resistance is "composed for the most part of people who want jobs and a stake in the new Iraq."

In the past, it was the oppression and marginalization of Shiites lamented by columnists such as Mr. Cohen. Not so today.

Today's businesses require supply chain to "adjust as conditions and business goals shift". Out goes Zarqawi, and in comes the Iran.

Why Multiculturalism Matters in America

Why Multiculturalism Matters in America
Dr. Ronald Takaki, professor of Ethnic Studies at UC Berkeley, brings
his distinctive viewpoint to this discussion on multiculturalism.
Takaki's mission is to demonstrate that multiculturalism is not only a
social reality, but also an intellectually stimulating approach to an
array of academic disciplines.

Watch the presnetatio

She said, He said.

Now, I can't judge the motives of the Iranian regime in picking this particular time to pick a fight with the international community. They've been on this path for some time.

I'd go back to March of last year, when our -- yes, of last year, when the United States made the decision to try and give new impetus to the EU-3 negotiations by agreeing, for instance, that the Iranians should be allowed to apply for WTO membership, for removing our objections to that. I talked about potentially spare parts for Iranian aircraft. This was a time when Iran, I think, could see the international community coming together around the strategy that, while recognizing that this was not an issue about their rights to peaceful nuclear energy, would have given them access to peaceful nuclear energy.
We have been on a course, ever since then, where they've not taken repeated opportunities to take the world up on that, so I can't speak to the timing, but I'll say they've been on this course for a good time.

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
January 12, 2006
Source

And some of the Iranian proposals from the same time perid:

• Although Mr. Rohani gave no specific details of Iran's proposed compromise ideas, but diplomats told Iran Press Service on condition of not being named that Tehran is ready for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to install monitoring devices in its uranium enriching facilities making sure that the material is not enriched more than 3.5 per cent, a degree enough for civilian purposes.



• Another Iranian plan is to transform the underground Natanz uranium enrichment plant into an international joint-venture under multinational ownership; Reuters quoted EU diplomats as having indicated.

Source

Kadama = Forward

How half a century gave different meaning to kadima battle cry

Email, Efficency for the honest.

This is an interesting story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20060110/cm_csm/ychinni10_1

Email increases productivity of the honest and the criminals. The evildoers have learned that the email trace would come back to hunt them. At some point they would completely give this up and go back to the old, inefficient methods. One would hope the increased productivity of the honest people would make the outlaws (the big fish at least) as an endanger species.

A rogue regime opposed to peace (and Election results)

"What the Iranian president has shown us today is that he is clearly outside the international consensus, he is clearly outside international norms and international legitimacy, and in so doing he has shown the Iranian government for what it is -- a rogue regime opposed to peace and stability and a threat to all its neighboring countries,"

Mark Regev, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry

Source

Hamas wins 73% of vote in Nablus local elections Source

"If the Hamas was ever to become a dominant force in Palestinian politics, that would be the end of the peace process,"

Mark Regev, spokesman for Israel's Foreign Ministry

Source

"How undiplomatic."

"And I just want to return to the point that I made earlier. In 1989, in 1990 and 1991 when I was lucky enough to be the Soviet specialist at the end of the Cold War. Doesn't really kind of get better than that. (Laughter.) I really looked back and I thought, what we were really doing was harvesting those good decisions that had been taken back in the '40s. And we were, in effect, harvesting good decisions that frankly Ronald Reagan had made in 1982 and '83 and '84 when he held fast and essentially said that the Soviet Union was an artifact of history that was going to go away. And I remember people saying, "How undiplomatic. My goodness. How could you say that about a great power like the Soviet Union. But you know, it was speaking the truth."....

...."But there are so many events in history that one day seemed impossible and now we look back on them as inevitable. And they weren't inevitable. They came about because the United States of America married power and principle together, because the United States understood that its values and its interests were inextricably linked and because the United States was willing to speak the truth, that men and women wherever they are, whoever they are, are endowed by their creator to have these rights"....

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
The Heritage Foundation
Washington, DC
December 13, 2005

Source

Polls and Elections in Iraq.

What do Iraqis think?

An interesting item in the poll is the "Q17 - Which structure should Iraq have in future?". The Constitution that was passed calls for the Federal Iraq, yet the poll says that 70% would like "One unified Iraq with central government in Baghdad" as oppose to 17.6% that call for "A group of regional states with their own regional governments and a federal government in Baghdad".

National Survey of Iraq, Nov 2005

History is repeating itself?

Hamas started by Israelis to fight Yaser Arafat, Afghanistan mujahendines and Al Queida were trained by the US to fight the Soviets. When they turn their guns against the former masters though they become know as Islamic Radicals. I wonder where this folly ends up!

"Special Report"

There are exceptions; but all too often journalism in the west is not much more than propaganda pieces where the goverment thesis is advanced not by facts, rather one sided characterisation and framing of "the other side" as unreasonable, and dishonarable. Case and point is the Gaurdian's Special report on Iran:

As negotiators, Iranians have a reputation for being both skilful and infuriating. They have certainly lived up to that in the three years since their nuclear ambitions became the focus of intense diplomatic attention, drawing in, beside the International Atomic Energy Authority, the EU troika of Britain, France and Germany, with the US warning and fulminating and trying to set terms from a distance.
One tactic that has reduced the best of Europe's diplomats almost to tears is the habit of suddenly discounting concessions which Iran had sought long and hard by announcing, once they have been reluctantly granted, that these concern minor issues of no particular importance to them either way. It is as if you can never build up any bank balance of obligation on the Iranian side. Another has been to violate the conditions under which talks are taking place, and then, when the other side not surprisingly breaks off discussions, to proclaim readiness, even eagerness, to start them again, but without mentioning the original agreed conditions. Yet another has been to obscure the difference between Iran's obligations under the IAEA regime and the agreements underwhich it is conducting talks with the EU. And yet another has been to produce apparent evidence that nuclear "sovereignty" is an issue of such popular importance in Iran as to limit the Iranian government's room for manoeuvre in international negotiations.

It seems this last card was the Iranian choice yesterday, when the parliament in Tehran voted by an overwhelming majority for a bill which would ban intrusive inspections by the IAEA if Iran is referred to the UN security council for its alleged nuclear misbehaviour. The vote was presumably not unrelated to the fact that the board of the IAEA is meeting in Vienna later this week to consider just such a referral, although many already expected it to postpone the decision, perhaps in the context of commendingnew Russian proposals as a basis for discussion. The Majlis tends to do what it is told or expected to do in foreign affairs, especially since the recent consolidation of the right within Iranian political institutions. In truth the vote does not mean much anyway, since Iran has never passed a law agreeing to such inspections, preferring to proceed on a more ambiguous basis, and no doubt there are ways, if it wishes, to preserve that ambiguity whatever the Majlis has supposedly decided.

The coverage of the issue has been so one sided that the Iranian government had to buy a full page advertisement in the New York Times (see full text here) to explain its version of the story. Take for example:

One tactic that has reduced the best of Europe's diplomats almost to tears is the habit of suddenly discounting concessions which Iran had sought long and hard by announcing, once they have been reluctantly granted, that these concern minor issues of no particular importance to them either way.

On what basis does the author make these allegations? What has the Best of Europe's diplomats reluctantly granted the Iranian side? The nature of these propaganda pieces are all too evident when contrasted with the detailed position of the Iranian goverment in An Unnecessary Crisis - Setting the Record Straight About Iran's Nuclear Program piece in the New York time.

The article's characterization of the Iranian Majlis (Parliament):
The Majlis tends to do what it is told or expected to do in foreign affairs, especially since the recent consolidation of the right within Iranian political institutions.

Reading the Guardian article, it appears to me the "do what it is told or expected to do in foreign affairs" is an better characterizations of the Guardian article as oppose to a Iranian parliment. It is truly sad when journalism becomes indistinguishable from government propaganda and and a citizen of western democracy has to get its facts from advertisement piece by a foreign government.

Virtual reality of the occupation.

The New Iraq Strategy or the Old Saddam?

Why US presence in Iraq is doomed.....It simply isn't based on reality, does he think people would forget the use of chemical weapons against their city?

"Once you take a city, you've got to go through it slowly and clear
it," says Capt. William Grube, commander of Fox Company, of the 2nd
Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, whose unit lives in and helps patrol
the city. He says previous operations in Anbar Province, where US and
Iraqi forces attacked and then withdrew, were simply "playing
whack-a-mole."

"At some point, you need to take it, and sit there, and hold it for
real," says Captain Grube, from Emmaus, Pa. In Fallujah, "the longer
we have the place stable, the more chance there is to undermine
support for insurgents."

"When you look at the near term, of course it is going to be
negative," says Grube, about Fallujan views of how badly damaged their
city was by the offensive. So he takes the long view - one that many
Iraqis remain uncertain about.

"I don't think they will wake up one day and say, 'I'm all for
transparency and the rights of man,'" says Grube. "We have to show by
example that you can be powerful, but not a brutal conqueror."

Source

Racing alone

Interesting book:

Racing Alone

US vs Bush Frame!

The headline reads: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4440664.stmUS used white phosphorus in Iraq
. Notice the frame in the title.

When Iraqi Army used Chemical weapons against Kurdish villages it was
attributed to Saddam. We saw headlines such as ....Saddam is using
WMD against its own people. Why isn't the use of Chemical weapons in
Iraq attributed to Bush and Blair as oppose to "US" or "Britain"
troops?

Trying to do something humane....

"dreaming of a peaceful life of freedom,