Israel Rejects Ceasefire, Hits PM Office; Iranian Students attack UK Embassy

The pace of Israel's bombardment of Gaza slowed on Wednesday, with two big airstrikes. One aimed at destroying tunnels that allow Palestinians to smuggle in goods from Egypt. The other targeted the offices of deposed Palestine Authority prime minister Ismail Haniya, who is now in hiding.

Aljazeera English has compelling video of Tuesday's bombardment from the cell phone of one of their correspondents in Gaza.



An Iranian crowd attacked the British embassy in Tehran.

The Israeli government appears to have rejected international calls for a 48-hour truce to allow humanitarian aid to reach Gaza. Lack of electricity, fuel, medicine and even food is threatening to create an even deep crisis there than during the Israeli blockade that has been in force off and on for the past year.

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In fact, an Israeli ship rammed a vessel attempting to deliver medical supplies to Gaza, severely damaging it and endangering the passengers, who included Karl Penhaul of CNN and former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. The boat, which was in international waters, could easily have sunk.

Aljazeera English has video on the ramming:



A Hamas spokesman came on Aljazeera Arabic to denounce the Palestine Liberation Organization of Mahmud Abbas of running an espionage cell in Gaza against Hamas, and of providing key information to Israel for use in its air strikes. The charges are a reminder that there is a sort of Palestinian war between Hamas in Gaza and the PLO on the West Bank, of which Israel is taking advantage.

Aljazeera English reports on the bombardment of Sderot by rockets from Gaza and its effect on every day life for Israelis there. These Qassam rocket attacks are one reason the leadership of the Kadima and Labor Parties decided to attack Gaza.



There have been many wounded, and there has been property damage in Sderot. Rockets and mortars from Gaza killed no Israelis June-Dec. 26, but since 2000 and before Dec. 27, have killed about 25.

Aljazeera English reports on civilian casualties in Gaza:



Nir Rosen considers the Gaza crisis in the context of the history of colonialism and resistance to it.

Aljazeera English reports on the weaponry given to Israel by the US, which supports Israel to the tune of $3 bn. a year in direct aid and much more in indirect aid. It is universally known in the Middle East that Israel attacks its Arab foes with US military equipment, which is one of the wellsprings of hatred for the US in the region.



For those of you who wanted more extended background reading on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, see the SHUR working paper on Israel, Palestine and democratic possibilities. Here are the report's policy recommendations:

' The historic land of Palestine belongs to all who live in it and to those who were expelled or exiled from it since 1948, regardless of religion, ethnicity, national origin or current citizenship status;

•Any system of government must be founded on the principle of equality in civil, political,
social and cultural rights for all citizens. Power must be exercised with rigorous impartiality on behalf of all people in the diversity of their identities;

•There must be just redress for the devastating effects of decades of Zionist colonization in the pre- and post-state period, including the abrogation of all laws, and ending all policies, practices and systems of military and civil control that oppress and discriminate on the basis of ethnicity, religion or national origin;

• The recognition of the diverse character of the society, encompassing distinct religious,
linguistic and cultural traditions, and national experiences;

• The creation of a non-sectarian state that does not privilege the rights of one ethnic or
religious group over another and that respects the separation of state from all organized
religion;

• The implementation of the Right of Return for Palestinian refugees in accordance with UN
Resolution 194 is a fundamental requirement for justice, and a benchmark of the respect for
equality;

• The creation of a transparent and nondiscriminatory immigration policy;

• The recognition of the historic connections between the diverse communities inside the new, democratic state and their respective fellow communities outside;

• In articulating the specific contours of such a solution, those who have been historically excluded from decision-making -- especially the Palestinian Diaspora and its refugees, and Palestinians inside Israel -- must play a central role;

• The establishment of legal and institutional frameworks for justice and reconciliation'

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Top Ten Myths about Iraq, 2008

1. Iraqis are safer because of Bush's War. In fact, conditions of insecurity have helped created both an internal and external refugee problem:

' At least 4.2 million Iraqis were displaced. These included 2.2 million who were displaced within Iraq and some 2 million refugees, mostly in Syria (around 1.4 million) and Jordan (around half a million). In the last months of the year both these neighbouring states, struggling to meet the health, education and other needs of the Iraqi refugees already present, introduced visa requirements that impeded the entry of Iraqis seeking refuge. Within Iraq, most governorates barred entry to Iraqis fleeing sectarian violence elsewhere.'

Am reprinting because people were off last Friday. This post continues: Click below


2. Large numbers of Iraqis in exile abroad have returned. In fact, no great number have returned, and more Iraqis may still be leaving to Syria than returning.

3. Iraqis are materially better off because of Bush's war. In fact, A million Iraqis are "food insecure" and another 6 million need UN food rations to survive. Oxfam estimated in summer, 2007, that 28% of Iraqi children are malnourished.

4. The Bush administration scored a major victory with its Status of Forces Agreement. In fact, The Iraqis forced on Bush an agreement that the US would withdraw combat troops from Iraqi cities by July, 2009,and would completely withdraw from the Country by the end of 2011. The Bush administration had wanted 58 long-term bases, and the authority to arrest Iraqis at will and to launch military operations unilaterally.

5. Minorities in Iraq are safer since Bush's invasion. In fact, there have in 2008 been significant attacks on and displacement of Iraqi Christians from Mosul. In early January of 2008, guerrillas bombed churches in Mosul, wounding a number of persons. More recently, some 13,000 Christians have had to flee Mosul because of violence.

6. The sole explanation for the fall in the monthly death rate for Iraqi civilians was the troop excalation or surge of 30,000 extra US troops in 2007. In fact, troop levels had been that high before without major effect. The US military did good counter-insurgency in 2007. The major reason for the fall in the death toll, however, was that the Shiites won the war for Baghdad, ethnically cleansing hundreds of thousands of Sunnis from the capital, and turning it into a city with a Shiite majority of 75 to 80 percent. (When Bush invaded, Baghdad was about 50/50 Sunni and Shiite). The high death tolls in 2006 and 2007 were a by-product of this massive ethnic cleansing campaign. Now, a Shiite militiaman in Baghdad would have to drive for a while to find a Sunni Arab to kill.

7. John McCain alleged that if the US left Iraq, it would be promptly taken over by al-Qaeda. In fact, there are few followers of Usamah Bin Laden in Iraq. The fundamentalist extremists, if that is what McCain meant, are not supported by most Sunni Arabs. They are supported by no Shiites (60% of Iraq) or Kurds (20% of Iraq), and are hated by Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Jordan, who would never allow such a takeover.

8. The Iraq War made the world safer from terrorism. In fact, Iraq has become a major training ground for extremists and is implicated in the major bombings in Madrid, London, and Glasgow.

9. Bush went to war in Iraq because he was given bad intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction capabilities. In fact, the State Department's Intelligence & Research (I & R) division cast doubt on the alarmist WMD stories that Bush/Cheney put about. The CIA refused to sign off on the inclusion of the Niger uranium lie in the State of the Union address, which made Bush source it to the British MI6 instead. The Downing Street Memo revealed that Bush fixed the intelligence around the policy. Bush sought to get up a provocation such as a false flag attack on UN planes so as to blame it on Iraq. And UN weapons inspectors in Feb.-Mar. of 2003 examined 100 of 600 suspected weapons sites and found nothing; Bush's response was to pull them out and go to war.

10. Douglas Feith and other Neoconservatives didn't really want a war with Iraq (!). Yeah, that was why they demanded war on Iraq with their 1996 white paper for Bibi Netanyahu and again in their 1998 Project for a New American Century letter to Clinton, where they explicitly called for military action. The Neoconservatives are notorious liars and by the time they get through with rewriting history, they will be a combination of Gandhi and Mother Teresa and the Iraq War will be Bill Clinton's fault. The only thing is, I think people are wise to them by now. Being a liar can actually get you somewhere. Being a notorious liar is a disadvantage if what you want to is get people to listen to you and act on your advice. I say, Never AGain.


See also my article in The Nation, "Iraq: The Necessary Withdrawal," and this piece in the Toronto Star.


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Al-Maliki's Party Calls for Boycott of Israel; Nasrallah Calls for Arab summit; Widespread Protests in Arab World

Israel pursued "all out war" on Hamas in Gaza on Tuesday, as the death toll rose to 360, with wounded at over 1000. Already in the morning on Tuesday, 10 Palestinians had been killed.

AP reports that the Islamic Mission Party (Da'wa) of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki called on all Muslim countries to cut off relations with Israel in response to the air strikes on Gaza. Egypt and Jordan have formal peace treaties with Israel, but several other Arab countries have informal relations with it, such as Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

Hizbullah leader Hasan Nasrallah , according to al-Hayat reporting in Arabic, addressed an enormous crowd of thousands in the south Beirut Shiite slums on Monday afternoon in which he called for an urgent Arab summit on the issue, which he said some were attempting to stop. He also called for a third Intifadah or popular uprising. Nasrallah toned down his attacks on the government of Hosni Mubarak in Egypt for not removing the checkpoints that keep Gazans bottled up in Gaza. He had called for massive crowds to pour into Egyptian streets to protest Egypt's compliant attitude toward Israel. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit defended the troops at the Gaza border as guardians of Egypt and said they were capable of taking care of Nasrallah if necessary. Aboul Gheit strongly implied that Nasrallah is an Iranian agent seeking to stir up trouble for non-Arab purposes. Egypt as a relatively secular military dictatorship deeply fears Hamas in Gaza and Khomeinism in Iran as fundamentalist religious ideologies that, if they took hold in Egypt, might lead to substantial instability there.


Beirut, courtesy AP

AP adds, "In the southern Lebanese port city of Sidon, around 3,000 people also staged a demonstration, many of them chanting slogans insulting the leaders of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia for perceived complicity with Israel." Sidon is Muslim Brotherhood territory.

AP says that in the largest rally in Egypt, 3,000 Egyptians protested, mainly Muslim Brotherhood. The military regime in Egypt greatly curbs popular rallies, and the crowds would likely have been much bigger without these security restraints.

The Taliban in Afghanistan called on all Muslims to unite and wage war against Israel.

Farnaz Fasihi reports from Beirut on the building rage in the Arab public toward their political leaders, who have been complaisant toward the Israeli blockade of and strikes on Gaza. The implication is that the Israeli air raids are helping delegitimate moderate Arab governments and so destabilizing the Middle East.

A rally against the Israeli strikes on Gaza held in the northern city of Mosul in Iraq was itself attacked by a suicide bomber on Sunday, who killed one civilian and wounded 16 others. The rally was mainly attended by the Iraqi Islamic Party, which is part of the pro-American Nuri al-Maliki government in Baghdad. From the point of view of Sunni fundamentalist vigilantes, the IIP is just being hypocritical, since it is indirectly working hand in hand with Israel by working closely with the US, and so is itself implicated in the bombings of Gaza. Intra-Sunni conflict may intensify as the provincial elections approach on Jan. 31.

The BBC rounds up Arabic press reaction to the Gaza crisis.

Gershon Shafir examines the bad fit between Israeli policy goals in Gaza and the methods the Olmert government is deploying in an attempt to attain them.

Aljazeera English reports on the further Israeli airstrikes on Gaza:


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Sistani's Fatwa on Gaza

Here is my translation of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani's fatwa or legal ruling issued on Sunday concerning the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Arabic text courtesy of Sawt al-Iraq. Sistani is the spiritual leader not only of Iraqi Shiites but of many other Shiites in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Lebanon and India. He is explicit in asking his followers to take practical steps to stop the Israeli attacks. Note that the Neoconservatives argued for putting the Shiites in control of Iraq on the grounds that, as a religious minority themselves, they would be more sympathetic to Israel, and as Shiites would have less empathy with Sunni and Christian Palestinians.

In the Name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate

The beloved Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip have, since noon yesterday, been subjected to a vicious attack and to continual strikes that have resulted so far in hundreds of victims being martyred or wounded.

This assault comes after a suffocating blockade to which this oppressed people has been subjected for several months. It had resulted in the creation of harsh humanitarian conditions as a result of lack of food, medicine, fuel and other necessities of daily life for the citizens.

Mere verbal expressions of condemnation and disapproval of what is being done to our Palestinian brethren in Gaza, and of solidarity with them, mean nothing before the immensity of this horrific tragedy to which they are being subjected.

The Arab and Muslim worlds are called upon, more than at any past time, to take practical steps in order to stop this continual aggression and to break this cruel blockade that has been imposed on that proud people.

We ask God, the Exalted, the All-Powerful to take the hands of all and lead them to that wherein lies goodness and righteousness. Verily, he is the All-Hearing, the Gracious.

The Office of Sayyid Sistani.
28/12/2008
29 Dhi al-Hijjah 1429
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Sistani Calls for Action on Behalf of Gaza; Third Day of Bombardment; Gaza Hospitals Overwhelmed

Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani of Iraq has called upon Arab and Muslim nations to support the Palestinians in Gaza with more than lip service. Iran's PressTv translated the statement this way:

' "Condemning what is going on in Gaza and supporting our brothers only with words is meaningless, considering the big tragedy they are facing . . . Arab and Islamic nations need to take a decisive stance, now more than ever, to end these ongoing aggressions and to break the unjust siege imposed on the brave people of Gaza . . ."

The relatively secular governments of Egypt and Jordan do not like fundamentalist Hamas, and they are implicitly or in Egypt's case actively cooperating with Israel to weaken Hamas. Iran, which supports Hamas, is seeking a propaganda coup in the Middle East over this issue. That is to be expected. Sistani's forceful call for practical action, on the other, shows an increased militancy and self-assuredness on the part of the Shiite authorities in Iraq. The prospect of a quick US withdrawal may be helping fuel this confidence.

Aswat al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the leader of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the leading Shiite party in parliament, also came out strongly on behalf of the Gazans.

The Israeli bombardment of Gaza entered its third day on Monday, as the prospect of a possible land invasion loomed, with Israel massing tanks on the border.

What I can't understand is the end game here. The Israelis have pledged to continue their siege of the civilians of Gaza, and have threatened to resume assassinating Hamas political leaders, along with the bombardment. The campaign of brutal assassinations launched by Ariel Sharon earlier in this decade were, Sharon, promised us, guaranteed to wipe out Hamas altogether. Do the Israelis expect the population at some point to turn against Hamas, blaming it for the blockade and the bombardment? But by destroying what was left of the Gaza middle class, surely they a throwing people into the arms of Hamas. The US experience of bombing North Vietnam and mining Haiphong Harbor, etc., was that it only stiffened Hanoi's resolve. The massive Israeli bombardment of Lebanon in 2006 did not achieve any significant objectives. In fact, Hezbollah was politically strengthened; it now sits in the Lebanese cabinet and has been recognized as a formal national guard for the south of the country. Its stock of rockets has been replenished. There is a UN buffer now, but in the past such buffers have been removed when hostilities threaten.

If the Gaza population doesn't turn on Hamas, and Israeli measures don't destroy the organization (which they helped create and fund back in the late 1980s when they wanted a foil to the secular PLO), then what? They'll just go on half-starving Gaza's children for decades? Malnourished children have diminished IQ and poor impulse control. That would make them ideal suicide bombers. Plus, sooner or later there will start to be effective boycotts of Israel in Europe and elsewhere over these war crimes. The Israeli economy would be vulnerable to such moves.

Of course, there are only 1.5 million Gazans, and they increasingly are being forced to live in Haiti-like conditions, so in the short term the Israelis can do whatever they want to them. But I can't see this ending well for the Israelis in the long term. Very few insurgencies end because one side achieves a complete military victory (I think it is about 20%). But by refusing to negotiate with Hamas, Israel and the United States leave only a military option on the table. The military option isn't going to resolve the problem by itself. Gaza is a labyrinth. Those Qassam rockets are easy to make. There is so much money sloshing around the Middle East and so many sympathetic Muslims that Gaza will be kept just barely afloat economically, making Hamas hard to dislodge. And the Israeli blockade of Gaza is so distasteful to the world that eventually there is likely to be a painful price to pay for it by the Israelis.

Among the 210 targets hit by Israeli airstrikes this weekend was the campus of the Islamic University. Israel also bombed the Interior Ministry.

The Washington Post reports a growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, where the death toll from Israeli air strikes has reached 300 with 1300 wounded, 235 of them wounded. WaPo writes:

'Humanitarian aid groups sounded the alarm Sunday about what they described as a deteriorating medical situation in the strip and urged the opening of Gaza's borders to allow supplies to flow to hospitals. There are growing shortages of vital medicines and equipment, the aid workers said. "There are hundreds of wounded in the hospitals in the Gaza Strip, and what we have received so far has only been a fraction of our need. Our supplies have been depleted, and we are in desperate need for supplies," said Iyad Nasr, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza. "We ask the parties to avoid striking the civilian population on both sides." '

Aljazeera English gives video on Gaza hospitals struggling to treat civilians wounded by Israeli airstrikes. The hospitals' ability to treat had already been degraded by the long Israeli blockade of Gaza.


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230 Killed, 388 Wounded in 100 Israeli Air strikes on Gaza; Challenge for US, Obama

Aljazeera English reports on the Israeli air strikes on Gaza, which have killed 230 persons, a third of them civilians and wounded 388. The Other 2/3s were largely Palestinian policeman, as targeted 32 police stations, maintaining that they are essentially Hamas foot soldiers. The 100 air sorties killed the Gaza chief of police and other officials, including individuals Israeli intelligence had fingered as masterminds of the rocket attacks on Israel.



The outbreak of hostilities affects Americans, since al-Qaeda hit New York and the Pentagon in some important part over the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians. The airstrikes and large death toll also present a challenge to the incoming Obama administration, which may find peace-making more difficult now.

The UN Security Council held a special evening session on Saturday and issued a call for an immediate ceasefire. The attacks drew a furious response from the Arab world. Egypt, which has collaborated with Israel in blockading the Gazans, branded its partner's air strikes "murder." The US, which for some odd reason holds an irrational hatred of the Palestinians, branded the dead Gaza policemen "thugs" and blamed the massive aerial strikes solely on Hamas, the fundamentalist Muslim party that controls Gaza.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, outgoing president of the European Union, issued among the more measured responses: "The President of the Republic expresses his lively concern at the escalation of violence in the south of Israel and in the Gaza Strip. He firmly condemns the irresponsible provocations that have led to this situation as well as the use of disproportionate force. The president of the republic deplores the significant loss of civilian life and expresses his condolences to the innocent victims and their families."

Sarkozy "requests an immediate cessation of rocket fire directed at Israel as well as of Israeli bombardment of Gaza, and he calls on the parties to exercise self-restraint. He reminds everyone that there is no military solution to Gaza, and demands the implementation of a durable truce.

This statement, which I seem to be the only news source to present in full in English, seems to me to be the best issued by any head of state on this particular incident, and shames the insensitive and one-sided statement issued on behalf of the US by Gordon Johndroe.

Israel blames Hamas for primitive homemade rocket attacks on the nearby Israeli city of Sederot. In 2001-2008, these rockets killed about 15 Israelis and injured 433, and they have damaged property. In the same period, Gazan mortar attacks on Israel have killed 8 Israelis.

Since the Second Intifada broke out in 2000, Israelis have killed nearly 5000 Palestinians, nearly a thousand of them minors. Since fall of 2007, Israel has kept the 1.5 million Gazans under a blockade, interdicting food, fuel and medical supplies to one degree or another. Wreaking collective punishment on civilian populations such as hospital patients denied needed electricity is a crime of war.

The Israelis on Saturday killed 5% of all the Palestinians they have killed since the beginning of 2001! 230 people were slaughtered in a day, over 70 of them innocent civilians. In contrast, from the ceasefire Hamas announced in June, 2008 until Saturday, no Israelis had been killed by Hamas. The infliction of this sort of death toll is known in the law of war as a disproportionate response, and it is a war crime.
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28 Killed in Kadhimiya Bombing

A brazen car-bombing in the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad killed 28 and wounded 55 on Saturday. Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that an Iraqi security official expressed surprise and dismay that Kadhimiya could be bombed that way. He said that the district is very heavily guarded and checkpoint inspections at the entrance to it should have caught a car bomb. He told the pan-Arab London daily that the bombing either indicated that the security forces detailed to Kadhimiya were becoming careless, or the bombing was an inside job.

Kadhimiya is the site of the tomb of Musa al-Kazim, the seventh Shiite Imam or what they believe is a divinely appointed leader directly descended from the Prophet Muhammad. Believers have begun flocking to the shrine, since the first ten days of the Muslim New Year, which have just begun, are a time of ritual mourning for Shiites. The destruction of the tomb of the 10th and 11th Imams in Samarra in February, 2006, kicked off an 18-month Shiite-Sunni civil war in 2006-2007 that led to the ethnic cleansing of most Sunni Arabs from the capital.

In other news, the Shiite-dominated Iraqi government will take over the Sunni Arab "Awakening Councils" in Diyala Province. Diyala is still the scene of a hot struggle between Sunnis and Shiites and that makes the handover of responsibility for these Sunni militias to PM Nuri al-Maliki fraught with danger. Many high-ranking Shiites view the members of the Awakening Councils, many of whom used to be active in the Resistance, to be little more than criminals, and are willing to prosecute them as such where credible eyewitnesses to their previous atrocities come forward.

Thousands of protesters came out in the southern port city of Basra on Saturday to demand regional autonomy similar to what the Kurds enjoy in the north. PM Nuri al-Maliki had just said in Karbala that he would not intervene in such referendums as long as they did not undermine the federal government.
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Dramatic Jailbreak in Ramadi; Sunni Arab Bloc Splits

Sunni fundamentalist guerrillas in Iraqi government custody staged a jail break in Ramadi on Friday, when a ringleader grabbed a guard's gun and shot him, then released other prisoners. In the subsequent melee, six Iraqi policemen were killed and 7 of the escaping prisoners were. Three persons described as "senior al-Qaeda operatives" escaped. Ramadi is in al-Anbar, until 2007 the most dangerous place in iraq, with hundreds of attacks every week. The tribal leadership and Awakening Councils have much reduced violence there.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that in the wake of the forced resignation of the Sunni Arab speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmoud Mashhadani, Sunni Arab politics in Iraq has been thrown into disarray. The largest Sunni Arab bloc, the Iraqi Accord Front (al-Tawafuq), has split. Khalaf al-`Ulyan has decided to leave the IAF to join a non-sectarian coalition.

Sunni Arabs boycotted both the federal parliamentary and the provincial elections in January 2005, in part out of rage at the US destruction of Falluja. In December of 2005, however, they competed for seats. Several smaller parties joined together as the Iraqi Accord Front, which had a fundamentalist Sunni religious orientation, analogous to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. The main components were the Iraqi Islamic Party of VP Tariq al-Hashimi (the Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood); the National Dialogue Council of Khalaf Ulyan; and the General Congress of the Iraqi People of Adnan Dulaimi. Al-`Ulyan called for the resignation of (Kurdish) President Jalal Talabani and condemned the execution of Saddam Hussein. He has been arrested by US troops, and has said that the US is in Iraq on the sufferance of Iraqis.

Al-`Ulyan's National Dialogue Council will join the Sadrists, the Islamic Virtue Party (Fahila), the Front for National Dialogue of secular nationalist Salih al-Mutlak, and the National Iraqi List of Ayad Allawi. Allawi's list, with 25 members in parliament, has apparently been working IAF members in hopes of detaching them and getting them to defect to the new coalition, which opposes distributing government posts on the basis of ethno-sectarian identity.

Al-Hayat says that the split in the IAF weakens the Sunnis and strengthens the four-party alliance that rules Iraq (the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, the Islamic Da`wa Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, and the Kurdistan Democratic Party). The split may also affect the fortunes of the IAF at the ballot box in the upcoming provincial elections. There is a lively competition between the Iraqi Islamic Party, the leading element in the IAF, and the "Awakening Councils" or Sons of Iraq, the tribal levies founded by the US military to fight radical vigilantes that Washington terms 'al-Qaeda in Iraq.'
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Pakistan Moves 20,000 Troops to Indian Border; Gilani Pledges no First Strike

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani pledged no first strike against India on Friday, but said his country was ready to defend itself.

Gilani's statement came after Pakistan was reported to be moving 20,000 troops from the frozen north to Kasur and Sialkot nearer to India. This troop movement appears to be preventative, and to have been made possible by the advent of cold weather in the north, which would have made it impossible for that division to operate in any case.

It may also be that the troop movement is an attempt by Pakistan to put pressure on the US to pressure India to back off. The US wants the Pakistani army fighting the Taliban and their al-Qaeda allies in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan, which abut Afghanistan and serve as bases from the Afghan Taliban. Pakistan could be signalling that if it has to worry about a military challenge from India, it can hardly pursue campaigns like the recent one at Bajaur, a far north tribal agency.

The urgency of the latter was underscored Friday when the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan, led by Maulvi Omar, wounded security personnel and killed a child with a rocket attack.

And, in fact, the US called on Pakistan and India to reduce tensions.

Tensions were provoked deliberately by the terrorist group Lashkar-e Tayiba and its ex-military (and possibly still-military) patrons who oppose better relations between Pakistan and India because they fear a rapprochement would allow Hindu-majority India to retain control of Muslim-majority Kashmir. Violence in Kashmir in 2008 was at a 20-year low. The insurgency in Kashmir, which seeks independence--in polling, Kashmiris say they want independence but few seek to join Pakistan--is widely misunderstood in India to be merely a case of Pakistan making mischief.

If you missed Arundhati Roy's analysis of the terrorist attacks on Mumbai, which kicked off the current crisis, do give it a read.

Pakistan is also facing a severe financial crisis, with dozens of brokers on the Pakistani stock market may be forced out (20 have already been delisted). The Pakistani securities exchange had been suspended, and even when it was open no one was buying. Yesterday there were at least some trades.
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Purohit: "Why Solving Pakistan is the Pivot for Obama’s South Asian Security Strategy"

Raj Purohit writes in a guest op-ed for IC:

In the space of 10 days, two terrorist actions in South Asia highlighted why President-elect Obama’s desire to adopt a regional approach to the interlinked crises of Afghanistan, India and Pakistan may ultimately rank among the most strategically significant decisions of his administration.

Last month, the world watched in horror as militants brought the thriving metropolis of Mumbai to a halt with a multi-faceted attack on its hotel, entertainment and transportation system. The attacks, dubbed India’s 9-11, saw 188 civilians killed and hundreds more injured. A few days later militants in Pakistan attacked a market place killing dozens of civilians.

Although the attack in Peshawar had a devastating impact on the local populace, it drew less media attention than those in Mumbai, in part due to the lack of international media in that city and also because the Peshawar bombing was one in a long line of attacks in Pakistan in recent months.

Despite the variation in media attention and the way in which they were reported as two distinct stories, it is important that the new U.S. administration looks at the two attacks and the related foreign policy questions holistically. A careful appraisal of the situation suggests that, once in office, President Obama’s administration must adopt a regional approach to the instability in South Asia and also recognize that Pakistan is at the heart of both the crisis and any resolution.

The fledgling democratic government of Pakistan is faced with three interrelated challenges. First, they must address the security situation on their border with Afghanistan where the Taliban is in the ascendancy despite a vigorous Pakistani military campaign. Second, the government must also deal internally with the open sore that is Kashmir. Despite the best efforts of both India and Pakistan to deemphasize Kashmir in public and seek to build confidence between the two countries through other measures, it is clear that Kashmir is a priority issue to a substantial number of Pakistanis, including those involved in the Mumbai killings. Third, the authorities must also battle the militancy within its own border that grew quickly during the reign of General Musharraf.

The Obama administration can assist their Pakistani counterparts in all three of these areas. On Afghanistan, it can bolster the Pakistani government in the eyes of its own people by acknowledging the sacrifice of its military fighting against the Taliban. It can also reduce U.S. drone activity, and by extension reduce civilian deaths, by increasing human intelligence cooperation. U.S. non-military aid can also be a valuable tool in
the effort to win the battle for hearts and minds in the tribal border region.

Additionally, the Obama government can force Afghanistan to accept a fixed border between the two countries i.e. the internationally recognized Durand line. Many regional analysts and commentators have urged the U.S. to pressure Afghanistan to accept the line believing that it will increase domestic Pakistani support for vigorous policing of the border and make it harder for the Taliban and others to move freely between the two countries.

President Obama should assign an envoy to begin a dialogue between the two countries on Kashmir. The best efforts of both countries to deemphasize this issue were ended by the Mumbai attacks and it is time to begin a process that resolves the Kashmir question and removes a grievance that militant leaders use to recruit impressionable individuals to their ranks. It is important to note that by endorsing the Durand line and seeking a resolution to the Kashmir crisis, President Obama would also assuage the fears of Pakistani elites who have been nervously sharing a map drawn by U.S.neo-conservatives that sketches out a truncated Pakistan that had lost land to India and Afghanistan. As Jane Perlez noted in the International Herald Tribune:

"One of the biggest fears of the Pakistani military planners is the collaboration between India and Afghanistan to destroy Pakistan," said a senior Pakistani government official involved in strategic planning who insisted on anonymity in accordance with diplomatic rules. "Some people feel the United States is colluding in this."

Finally, early in his administration, President Obama should underscore his support for a democratic Pakistan. Historically, democracy has been an antidote to militancy in Pakistan and it will require the engagement of its people to respond to the militants within its own borders.

----
Raj Purohit is an independent consultant and associate professor at American University, Washington College of Law. He served as the Director and CEO for Citizens for Global Solutions until July 2008. Prior to joining CGS, Raj was Legislative Director for Human Rights First, where he was responsible for leading the organization's advocacy efforts in Congress, with a focus on international relations, judiciary and security issues. Raj helped develop and implement new legislative initiatives and lobbying strategies. He also represented Human Rights First in a range of coalitions, including the Washington Working Group on the International Criminal Court, and was a media spokesperson.

Before joining Human Rights First, Raj served as Legislative Director for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. He has alsoserved as Director of Legal Services at the Center on Conscience and War. Raj received his Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) from Sussex University (1995) and his LL.M. in International Legal Studies from American University, Washington College of Law (1997).
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Little Town of Bethlehem is Littler Now

Even Santa Claus is protesting the walling off of Bethlehem. Some 15 percent of the 10 million Palestinians is Christian, and they are after all the original Christians. Bethlehem has a special place in their hearts because it is the birthplace of Jesus in Christian belief.

Most Americans when polled are not able to say where exactly Bethlehem is or who lives there. Only 1 in 6 know that it is a Palestinian city of 30,000 in the West Bank with a mixed Christian (40%) and Muslim (60%) population. Almost no one in the US knows that the Israeli wall or separation barrier, which has ghettoized many Palestinians and expropriated from them property and farm land, is strangling Bethlehem. The barrier cuts Bethlehem off from Jerusalem and steals private property from its residents. It has created an economic crisis that has caused Palestinian Christians to emigrate from the city. The "Christians of Bethlehem overwhelmingly (78%) blame the exodus of Christians from the town on Israel's blockade . . ."


Bethlehem at Christmas (Life, Dmitri Kessel)

VOA reports:

' Palestinian boy and girl scouts marched through Manger Square in Bethlehem, kicking off Christmas Eve celebrations. They marched past the Church of the Nativity, the traditional birthplace of Jesus, with Palestinian flags waving overhead. . . Palestinians complain about Israel's massive security barrier surrounding Bethlehem. Jihan Anistas is the director of the Bethlehem Peace Center. "The city of peace is encircled by the wall. It is a monster that is killing the city of Bethlehem. It is an open prison. I prefer to say it is a cage," said Anistas.'

Bethlehem at Christmas (Life, Dmitri Kessel)

Kim Sengupta and Donald Macintyre report that the tourist economy has improved somewhat this year, but that the Israeli checkpoints reduce the numbers of tourists staying in hotels in the city where Christ was born to a sixth of what they could be. As the poll cited above suggests, a small part (11%) of the problems Christians have in the city have to do with occasional tiffs with Muslim neighbors. But the Wall and Israeli policies of economic strangulation of the Palestinians are the big problem.

John Kelly explains the way the separation barrier built by the Israelis and the checkpoints they have surrounded the city with are strangling Bethlehem University:

'the Palestinians are being treated like scum by the Israeli guards. Bethlehem resembles a ghetto where the local population is not permitted by the Israeli authorities to leave by the main roads. Illegal though it is by United Nations Charter and the International Bill of Human Rights, this is occupied territory, and it is a very hostile occupation. The distance from Bethlehem to Jerusalem is some 10km, but Palestinians must take a 26km secondary dirt road passing through Israeli checkpoints which are often closed with no warning or explanation. Palestinians in the West Bank are not permitted to enter Jerusalem without a date- and time-limited pass from the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) - more often than not refused. This has made the operation of the small but very courageous Bethlehem University very difficult.'

Aljazeera English reports on the hardships imposed on Bethlehem's residents, including its Christians, by the Israeli separation barrier, by nearby illegal settlements by Israeli squatters in the West Bank, and by house demolitions conducted by Israeli security forces.


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Drug Smuggling and Narco-Terrorism in Iraq

Iraq's parliament accepted the resignation of speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani on Tuesday, and then promptly voted on a bill that provides a legal framework for 4000 British troops and a few other small multinational contingents to operate in Iraq until this summer, when they likely will leave.

Aljazeera English reports on the Iraqi drug smugglers moving Afghanistan's drugs from Iran into the Gulf and Europe. The reports says the Afghans produce 8200 tons of heroin every year. 2500 of that goes into Iran. Iranians consume 500 tons, and the Islamic Republic's security officials confiscate 500 tons. The remaining 1500 tons goes to Iraq, where 500 tons are consumed or intercepted. Some 1000 tons is then shipped to Europe and the Gulf.

It has been alleged that some of these drugs are smuggled by the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) into Turkey for transshipment to Europe, so that the Afghanistan heroin moving through Iraq is helping fuel terrorism in eastern Anatolia.

Given the rising drug problems of soldiers in the Iraqi army, if they turn from prescription drugs to Afghan heroin, it could affect the ability of the Iraqi state to keep order in the country.



Aljazeera English then follows the Iraqi drug smuggling operation from Amara to Samawa and thence across the border to Saudi Arabia. The reporter alleges that camels are being used as involuntary mules, with the drugs surgically inserted in their humps!



The report says that Iraqi authorities are not unduly concerned about the drug smuggling, since Iraq is not for the most part a consuming nation. But the trade must be worth billions of dollars a year, and it is likely going not just to criminal elements but to militias such as the Mahdi Army, thus strengthening a challenger to the state.

Given what has happened to poor Mexico, where 4000 people were killed in drug-related violence last year and major cities such as Tijuana and Juarez are being turned into economic ghost towns, the danger to Iraq of narco-terrorism is great. Ironically, the Mexican drug-smuggling gangs are adopting some of their repertoires of violence from what they have seen on t.v. of Iraqi insurgents!
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US Marine Killed; Zaidi Will not Apologize for Shoe-Throwing; Alleged Conspirators Freed

Reuters reports:

'"The U.S. military said in a statement that a U.S. Marine died on Sunday after being wounded in fighting in Iraq's western Anbar province. MOSUL - Gunmen killed two people in a drive-by shooting in eastern Mosul, 390 km (240 miles) north of Baghdad, police said. MOSUL - One person was killed in a mortar attack in a residential area of eastern Mosul, police said. '

Muntazar al-Zaidi said through his lawyer on Monday that he will not apologize for throwing shoes at Bush. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had said that al-Zaidi admitted what he did was an "ugly act," but his relatives say he was tortured and had not voluntarily said any such thing. Aljazeera reports:

' Dhiya'a al-Sa'adi, al-Zaidi's lawyer, told Al Jazeera on Monday: "Muntazer al-Zaidi considers what he did when he threw his shoes at President Bush as exercising his freedom of expression, in opposing and rejecting the occupation, which has brought misery to Iraq." Al-Sa'adi said al-Zaidi was not considering giving an apology to the US president, "not now, nor in the future".'

His lawyer added of al-Zaidi, ""Medical reports have shown that the beating he was subjected to has led to him losing one of his teeth as well as injuries to his jaw and ears. . . He has internal bleeding in his left eye, as well as bruises over his face and stomach. Almost none of his body was spared."

McClatchy reports that an Iraqi family will try to sue US soldiers over a raid on a grain storage facility last week that left 3 Iraqis dead. They are hoping to invoke the new Status of Forces Agreement, which in some limited ways puts US troops in Iraq under Iraqi sovereignty. The agreement appears to give immunity to troops on authorized combat missions, however, so the lawsuit is a little unlikely to go forward. Still, that any Iraqis are speaking this way is a sign of a huge sea change in the mentality of the occupied.

The UN Security Council has extended the immunity of Iraq's petroleum receipts to claims for damages by those harmed by Saddam Hussein's regime for another year. Iraq has about $60 billion in reserves, which the government is drawing on to run Iraq, pay the army, and so forth.

The NYT reports that a judge has thrown out cases filed against 24 employees of the Ministry of the Interior having to do with forging i.d. badges and suspicions they were involved in a coup plot. The government is now backing down from charges that they had joined the banned al-Awdah party (an attempt to resurrect the Baath Party). The NYT speculates that the al-Maliki government was actually trying to move against the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a Shiite fundamentalist party that more or less controls Interior (which is more like the American Homeland Security Dept.) Al-Maliki's Islamic Mission Party (Da'wa) will compete with ISCI in upcoming provincial elections. The problem with the ISCI theory of the arrests is that most of those incarcerated were Sunnis. I still think that al-Maliki was cleaning house of old appointees by Ayad Allawi that he sees as ex-Baathists who are CIA assets. That Is, I think he is trying in various ways to become less dependent on the US, and to curb US influence.

As Bob Dreyfus notes, critics of al-Maliki are saying his methods are becoming increasingly thug-like and reminiscent of the excesses of the previous regime.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that the conflict is between two government bureaucracies, Interior and Internal Security. The head of Interior, Jawad al-Bulani, is just seen as disloyal by al-Maliki and his supporters, and there are calls to fire al-Bulani before the provincial elections. Under Saddam, the Interior Ministry was in charge of domestic surveillance, and it may be that al-Maliki remembers those days too well to want someone he considers hostile in charge of a ministry that could help throw an election.

The US will begin releasing Iraqi prisoners or turning them over to Iraqi custody in February. The US has 15,600 Iraqis in custody. Until now, the Pentagon could arrest and hold Iraqis at will and indefinitely without charges, but the SOFA will require them to build legal cases against any prisoners they wish to continue to incarcerate.

Al-Zaman reports in Arabic that Brigadier General David Quantock admitted that the US can only build cases against 5,000 of the 15,600. Some observers have credited the arrest of thousands of Iraqis in recent years with the fall in monthly civilian death tolls, raising the specter that a mass release of persons captured at scenes of violence might reignite the conflict. Me, I think the Shiites have won pretty decisively and that most Sunni Arabs ruefully recognize it.
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Lebanese are Phoenicians After All; And so Are Many of the Rest of US

A team of biologists at Lebanese American University estimates that 1 in 17 persons around the Mediterranean carries genetic markers distinctive to the ancient Phoenician people who resided in what is now Lebanon. The Phoenicians spread out in a trade diaspora two millennia ago, establishing colonies from Spain to Cyprus. The team also found that one third of Lebanese have the markers for Phoenician descent, and that these are spread evenly through the population, among both Christians and Muslims. In fact, all Lebanese have broadly similar sets of genetic markers. The lead researcher commented, "Whether you take a Christian village in the north of Lebanon or a Muslim village in the south, the DNA make-up of its residents is likely to be identical . . ."

In a Lebanese context these findings are politically explosive. There is a longstanding conflict among Lebanese as to whether they are Arabs or Phoenicians, with adherents of the Phoenician identity predominantly Christian. This sort of identity politics fed into the civil wars. In fact, Arabic is a language, not a race, and Phoenician descent is a heritage of all humankind by now.

I don't want to sound like a broken record, but the presence those distinctive "Phoenician" haplotypes on the Y chromosome only tells us about a fraction of the descendants of Phoenicians. Let's say you had a Phoenician father in the port of Tyre in 50 BC who only had two daughters and no sons. And let us say he married one daughter to a resident Greek merchant. The sons and male descendants of the Greek merchant would lack the Phoenician signature on their Y chromosome, but would have a genetic inheritance from their Phoenician female ancestor. Since most genes get mixed up in every generation, there just would not be any way, after a while, to tell it.

Almost everyone in the world by now probably has some Phoenician ancestry. What the LAU team is finding is those lineages that retain markers for it. It is conceptually a difficult thing to keep in mind, but I am alarmed that a kind of Y chromosome or mitochondrial DNA fundamentalism will make people divide themselves up on these grounds and create new forms of racism.

On the other hand, any finding that might convince the Lebanese that they are all one family would be all to the good. Many Lebanese Muslims reject the idea that they are descendants of converts to Islam from Christianity and prefer to trace their ancestry to Arabia. The LAU team is finding that the Lebanese don't differ much among themselves.
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Muntazar to be Tried this Week; To Sue Security for Torture

The trial of Iraqi journalist Muntazar al-Zaidi for assaulting W. with a shoe will begin later this week in Baghdad. Al-Zaidi, who became a hero in much of the Muslim world, is planning a lawsuit against the Iraqi security forces for beating him while he was in custody, on the grounds that they tortured him.

The Baydan Shoe Co. in Turkey, which says it manufactured the shoes used by al-Zaidi, has been besieged by orders and has added 100 workers.

Toby Dodge warns that all the pie in the sky talk from George W. Bush and Gordon Brown about the situation in Iraq disguises a country on the brink.

The Iraqi government is planning to expel members of the Mojahedin-e Khalq guerrilla group, to whom Saddam Hussein had given a base, Camp Ashraf. Although the State Department has put the MeK on the terrorist list, the US Pentagon has likely been using the group to spy on and commit dirty tricks against Iran.

Al-Hayat reports in Arabic that a tug of war is going on between Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Interior Minister Jawad Bulani over the officers who were arrested and then released on charges of belonging to the outlawed al-Awda Party (neo-Baathist). Bulani says his people are innocent.

The Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) is worried that Turkey will successfully lobby Iraqi Kurdistan to put limits on the scope of its paramilitary actions against Turkey while it is based on Iraqi soil.
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Rick Warren: "I love Muslims . . . I happen to love Gays and Straights"

I was in Long Beach,Ca. on Saturday for the annual conference of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, where Pastor Rick Warren and I were both headliners.

Also appearing on the stage Saturday evening were Melissa Etheridge and Salman Ahmad, singing Ring the Bells.

Before I go further, I just want to praise MPAC as the most wonderful people. This is the American Muslim community at its best-- socially and spiritually active, deeply interested in civil rights, and insisting on reclaiming their religion from extremists. Many of them are religious and social liberals who dislike fundamentalism. Anyone looking for a worthy charity to donate to in this season of giving should seriously consider MPAC. It is an American organization and only accepts money from Americans, and Homeland Security presented there, so it has all the bona fides.

Back to the conference. There are two stories here of wider interest. One is Rick Warren addressing a Muslim audience. The other is his being at the same event with Etheridge, who is gay.

Warren will read the invocation at President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration, a choice that angered the gay community. Warren supported Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage (and forcibly divorced or 'de-married' 18,000 gay couples already married in California). Warren also has compared legalizing gay marriage to legalizing incest, pedophilia and polygamy.

I was told that Warren's friends among the MPAC Muslim community had urged him to call Melissa Etheridge Friday night in the run-up to their being (serially) on the same stage Saturday night, and that he did so and they talked for half an hour. During his address, Warren mentioned also seeing Etheridge backstage on Saturday.

Local television in Los Angeles showed a short clip of Etheridge after the event asking gay leaders to reach out to Warren, just as they wanted him to reach out to them.

This stance was big of her, since she and her partner had planned to marry but were prevented from doing so by the same Proposition 8 that Warren worked for, and she was so upset she suggested she would refuse to pay California taxes since she is obviously not considered a full citizen by her fellow Californians.

Warren took the stage, friendly and ebullient, and implicitly complained about the bad press he has gotten since Obama announced he would read the invocation. He said that the media likes conflict, and where there is harmony there is nothing for them to report. When there is no conflict, he said, the media will create one.

Warren said, "Let me just get this over very quickly. I love Muslims. And for the media's purpose, I happen to love gays and straights."

He explicitly mentioned meeting Etheridge, and explained that he has been a long time fan of hers, beginning with her self-titled first album of 1988. "I'm enough of a groupie," he said, "that I got her autograph on the Christmas album."

Warren also talked about the increasing rudeness and rancor of public life in the United States, and urged greater civility and willingness to work with people across the spectrum of opinion. He said, "We can disagree without being disagreeable." He also made a point of saying that al-Qaeda is no more representative of Islam than the KKK is of Christianity. Contrast that to the sorts of things Mike Huckabee or Rudi Giuliani said during the presidential campaign.

But just a gentle reminder to Warren that saying for Melissa Etheridge to be married to Tammy Lynn Michaels is equivalent to pedophilia or incest is not actually very civil or nice or humane.

Since I knew both of us would be at MPAC, I bought Warren's book, "The Purpose-Driven Life," and read it on the plane. I was a religion major, so I've read a lot of theology in various religions. It is mostly just standard evangelical talking points.

Warren's book does have some strengths. I was struck that Warren's section early in the book on the notion of "surrender" to God is the best explication I have seen in English of what Muslims mean by Islam. Since he was talking about Christianity, these passages are an unwitting argument for the unity of religions.

So imagine my surprise when I heard Warren talk at MPAC and found that he is a genuine, likeable man. And more than likeable, he seems admirable. A lot of pastors would tell the story of building their congregations and saving souls as the pinnacle of their lives. For Warren, that was only the beginning. He and his wife had an epiphany six years ago when she read an article about there being 12 million children in Africa who had been orphaned by AIDS. They started going to southern Africa, and Warren became devoted to helping those orphans.

But then he began thinking bigger. He has identified 5 major problems he wants to address:
Spiritual emptiness, corrupt leadership, disease pandemics, dire poverty, and illiteracy. He wants to do job creation and job training. He wants to wipe out malaria in the areas where it is still active. He is convinced that religious congregations are the only set of organizations on earth that can successfully combat these ills. And he is entirely willing actively and directly to cooperate with mosques to get the job done.

Warren, in short, is a representative of the turn of some evangelicals to a social gospel. Since evangelicalism is a global movement and very interested in mission, his social gospel not surprisingly becomes a global social gospel. He is active in South Africa, Rwanda and more recently Uganda.

In opinion polls, evangelicals are by far the most bigoted Americans versus Muslims. But that sentiment derives from theological competition (and competition for souls). Once a pastor turns, as Warren did, to a social gospel, then he has social goals to accomplish, and he needs all the help he can get. A social gospel creates a field of practical ecumenism.

Warren's sincere friendship with MPAC founding father, Maher Hathout, was obvious from their body language.

So you begin to see why Obama is reaching out to this man. (In fact, Warren reached out to Obama 3 years ago and had him to his Saddleback Church despite it being a Republican bastion, and says he took heat from his congregants for that step). If Warren is the future of the American evangelical movement, then many more evangelicals might end up Democrats, since it is Democrats who care about poor people, illiteracy, and AIDS victims. And if any significant proportion of evangelicals can be turned into consistent Democrats, the party would more regularly win elections in some parts of the country and even nationally.

Moreover, Warren's work to improve the lives of Africans probably means something to Obama.

I came away liking and looking up to Warren. In fact, I wonder whether with some work he could not be gotten to back off some of the hurtful things he has said about gays and rethink his support for Proposition 8.

Maybe Melissa Etheridge, who is otherwise very angry about Prop 8, saw the same thing in him.

So, then on to Melissa Etheridge. Here is the song that Melissa and Salman sang.

They were introduced by a video of Deepak Chopra talking about their Bells for Peace campaign:

' Join Melissa Etheridge, Salman Ahmad, Deepak Chopra in an experience that will reach the world through critical mass. On Decemeber 21 at noon, where ever you are: at work, home, or school. Get outside, meditate, intention, pray or wish silently for one minute, and then ring a bell for peace for one minute.'

Etheridge said in her remarks before they sang that she started hanging out with Salman about a year ago, and that he had introduced her to Sufism, which accorded with her own spiritual path. They met at the Nobel Peace Prize dinner in December of 2007, and she then invited him to come stay with her in Los Angeles.

I've also been a fan of Melissa Etheridge since 1988, and her encounter with Sufi rock is a twist that fascinates me.

So that was my day in Long Beach. It was an eclectic day. It struck me that it was a very American day, and a good day for America.
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Ghoul's Glossary: Shoewhack

Shoewhack (v.) To assault someone with footwear in such a way as to humiliate that individual, especially at a moment of supposed triumph or obvious hypocrisy. A shoewhacking generally involves an element of surprise. It is especially appropriate for individuals guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors who have for reasons of wealth and power nevertheless escaped any other punishment for their iniquity.
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Iraqi Parliament Defeats Bill on Foreign Troop Presence in 2009

The Iraqi parliament has rejected a draft bill submitted by the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki specifying the rules under which some 4,000 British troops and small contingents from Australia, El Salvador, Estonia and Romania may remain in Iraq past Dec. 31, 2008.

The vote was 80 to 68. The Sadr Movement, which opposes foreign troop presence, appears to have played an important role in defeating the bill and inflicting a humiliation on Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. This move is political payback for the military defeat al-Maliki inflicted on the Sadrist Mahdi Army last spring and early summer in Basra, Amara and Sadr City.

In an ordinary parliamentary system, al-Maliki's government would have fallen over this vote, but the Iraqi system does not work in that way.

Parliament appears to want individual Status of Forces Agreements to be conducted with each of the countries that continues to have forces in Iraq. Since there is no time for such negotiations to be concluded before January 1, this impasse may force the multinational forces out of Iraq. This expulsion is the goal of the Sadr Movement.

US troops may stay through 2011 by the terms of the SOFA passed by parliament in November.
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Officials Charged with Spying* Released

The employees of the Interior and Defense ministries who were arrested earlier this week were released on Friday at the insistence of Interior Minister Jawad al-Bulani, who just returned from abroad. He appears to have seen the arrests as a strike at him and his ministry.

Muntazir al-Zaydi, the journalist who shoebushed the US president, will press charges against the people he said beat him when he was taken into custody. Iraqis in several cities have continued to stage protests over al-Zaidi's imprisonment and prosecution.

The Iraqi government rejected the attempt by the provincial council in Ninevah to post pone the provincial election in that province.
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Bakshi: Polarization Breeds Terrorism

Gitanjali Bakshi writes in a guest op-ed for IC:

"The Mumbai attacks and a potential resurrection of the ‘War on Terror’ threaten to polarize the India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine nexus. If not dealt with carefully, these attacks may exacerbate inter-state rivalries and consequently encourage the growth of terrorist networks instead of actually quelling the problem.

* * *

After the events of November 26th, 27th and 28th, Israel and India both found themselves victim to horrific acts of terror. The indiscriminate massacre of Indians and the capture and murder of Israelis by the terrorists in the Chabad house has brought about a common sense of purpose between these two rising state actors.

Apart from being two of the world’s oldest civilizations, India and Israel have had several successful collaborations in the fields of agriculture, science and technology and yes, even within areas of intelligence and military.

However these two nation states are also the products of the colonial ‘divide and rule’ approach. They both gained independence in 1947/48, yet both their national struggles ended in a vicious partition that haunts the diplomatic and strategic relations in their respective regions till today.

In light of the events that took place on 26/11 there is a potential for further collaboration between India and Israel in their fight against terror. This would perhaps include an exchange of confidential defense information and joint military training exercises, among other ventures.

Yet, although a strong strategic relationship between these two countries would seem reasonable under the circumstances, this move could potentially alienate Pakistan and Palestine and exacerbate inter-state rivalries. Heightened tensions between these neighboring states could lead to a growth of extremism and this is exactly what global terror networks want.

The Mumbai terror attacks were strategically planned and calculated exercises with certain locations and targets in mind. Terrorist organizations are not impulsive and irrational actors but rather their acts are premeditated and deliberate and hence they must be analyzed.

In order to survive, global terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and Lashkar-e-Taiba need to secure a stronghold and build a support structure within states. Failed states or states in conflict have so far been an ideal breeding ground for these organizations.

Take the example of Iraq for instance - Before the 2003 war there was no record of Al Qaida in Iraq. After the US occupation, a death toll of more than 100,000 and a refugee population of 4 million, AQI possesses a membership of more than 1,000 people and poses a real threat to the United States. Lashkar-e-Taiba, the organization accused of the Mumbai attacks, has also managed to establish itself in places of conflict. As a result LeT has a network that spans all the way from Iraq to Chechnya.

These examples stand as glaring evidence to the fact that state to state war is not an option in the fight against terrorism. This is because inter-state conflicts alienate countries and subject them to a series of injustices and security dilemmas that can then be used as fodder and propaganda for future recruitment by global terrorist networks. Inter-state rivalries feed these organizations and strengthen their capabilities.

India and Pakistan as well as Israel and Palestine have to keep this in mind while considering their future actions. The 26/11 attacks are a tactic to segregate Muslim majority nations from their secular counterparts. These terror groups will then use ‘religion’, ‘charity’ and a ‘struggle against occupation’ as a smoke screen in order to gain support in these largely Islamic states.

After the terror attacks in Mumbai, it is likely India and Israel will build a military alliance and that Pakistan and Palestine will perceive this as a threat. India and Israel could resort to disproportionate and unilateral measures against their neighbors and, in the face of this security dilemma, the Pakistani and Palestinian governments could sponsor terrorist organizations in order to gain the advantages of asymmetric warfare, as they have done in the past. Thus by attacking Indians and Israelis, the perpetrators of 26/11 intended to perpetuate the conflict between these historical rivals and thereby ensure their survival in both South Asia as well as the Middle East.

Hence a strategic relationship between India and Israel might eventually sabotage efforts to fight terrorism instead of countering these tyrannical networks. If these four players follow the obvious trajectory that has been laid out for them by the perpetrators of 26/11 and give into old insecurities, they could potentially derail two extremely important peace processes while simultaneously contributing to a fundamentalist world view of a battle between the Islamic world and its secular adversaries.

In order to combat non-state terror networks, we first need to understand that relations between these four countries are not so black and white. The Indian public has always been sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. India, in fact, was the first non-Arab State to recognize the PLO and allowed it to open its office in New Delhi in 1975; Pakistan has been considered one of the US’s greatest allies in the war on terror; and lastly Pakistan and Israel share a common ideology of one state built on the basis of one religion. Most importantly we should not forget that all four of these state actors have been victims to terrorism and hence they share a common problem.

In order to deal effectively with global terrorism we have to weaken inter-state rivalries not strengthen them. We need mechanisms and mindsets that will combat non-state actors instead of state actors. Cooperation is required between India and Pakistan, Israel and Palestine. Transparency of information across state borders is key and above all constant and controlled dialogue is essential in order to combat terrorism. Yet only the future will tell if we can climb out of our historical insecurities and into a post-colonial frame of mind. "

----
Gitanjali Bakshi is a research analyst for a political think tank in Bombay, India called Strategic Foresight Group. She specializes in strategic, political and security issues in the Middle East - with a focus in Conflict Prevention & Resolution

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Top 10 Reasons Obama Should Resist Military Plans for American Bases in Iraq

I present below the top 10 reasons for which President-Elect Obama should stick to his guns and withdraw US troops from Iraq despite any resistance he may get from the US officer corps and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

In fact, it was little noted in the US press that Gen. Ray Odierno, US commander in Iraq, said at Balad on Sunday, "I expect us, frankly, right now, to be out with our military forces by 2011." So what I am saying does not necessarily run counter to the views of the concerned commanders.

Nevertheless, Odierno's comment contradicted the impression he and his colleagues went on to give the rest of this week. Gareth Porter reviews the evidence that the US military command is trying to get around the provisions of the Status of Forces Agreement that Iraq has concluded with the United States.

The agreement, for instance, calls for all US combat troops to be out of Iraqi cities by June 30, 2009. But on Dec.12, Gen. Ray Odierno said that thousands of US troops would remain in the cities. Apparently combat troops doing joint operations with their Iraqi counterparts will just be re-categorized as support troops.

MP Ahmad al-Masoudi, a leader of the Sadr Movement, which has 30 seats in parliament, slammed Odierno's remarks. The Sadrists had been opposed to the SOFA, considering it a Trojan Horse for the legitimation of US troop presence in Iraq.

Porter also points to George Will's report of Gates's views on a long-term US troop presence in Iraq:

' He [Gates] stresses, however, that there is bipartisan congressional support for "a long-term residual presence" of perhaps 40,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and that the president-elect's recent statements have not precluded that. Such a presence "for decades" has, he says, followed major U.S. military operations since 1945, other than in Vietnam. And he says, "Look at how long Britain has had troops in Cyprus." '

Suspicions of US military resistance to both Obama's and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's plans for US troops to withdraw from Iraq were fueled by an NYT report on the withdrawal plan presented by Generals David Petraeus and Ray Odierno to Obama that envisioned combat troops remaining after May, 2010, Obama's own deadline. Still, to be fair, not getting out by May 2010 is not the same as not getting out by December 2011.

It should be noted that what seems to have provoked Odierno's own attempt to keep US troops in Iraqi cities through 2009 is his concern that they are needed to ensure that the referendum and 2 elections scheduled for 2009 actually take place and are aboveboard. My guess is that Odierno is afraid that if the US presence is too diminished by December of 2009 when the federal parliamentary elections are scheduled, Iran might well engage in massive vote-buying and install a government hostile to US interests.

On the other hand, Odierno does not appear to share Gates's hopes that 40,000 troops could stay in Iraq in the medium to long term, given the statement he made at Balad that I started with.

Here are the reasons for which a long-term US presence-- of the sort Gates is said by Wills to have advocated-- is completely impractical.

1. The Status of Forces Agreement passed by the Iraqi parliament explicitly calls for all US troops to be out of Iraq by the end of 2011. In fact, the Iraqi cabinet and parliament and notables such as Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani all wanted a shorter timetable than that. This schedule is the maximum they will put up with.

2. The US military cannot stay in Iraq against the will of the elected government. Those who doubt this principle should look at what happened two decades ago in the Philippines. Or consider Uzbekistan's withdrawal of permission for US to use its bases, in 2005. The diplomatic cost of staying against a country's will is generally too high for Washington to take that risk. Gates can wish for a change of heart on the part of the Iraqi government, but it is highly unlikely to happen.

3. The fatwas or formal legal rulings of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani must be obeyed by all adult Shiites who follow him (the majority in Iraq). He wants US troops out. He pressured al-Maliki to bargain hard over the SOFA, and he was reportedly not happy with the infringement on Iraqi sovereignty in the final version of the SOFA. One fatwa from Sistani could put hundreds of thousands of angry Shiites in the streets protesting any remaining US bases, and there would be no way for the Iraqi government to resist such a demand that it ask the US to leave.

4. The Sadr Movement would never accept a permanent US base in Iraq. The British contingent in Basra took constant mortar and rocket fire from the Mahdi Army, until ultimately the shellshocked Iraqi neighbors of the base in downtown Basra sked the British to move out to the airport. They did so, and went on taking mortar fire out there. They are being withdrawn by June of 2009 by PM Gordon Brown.

5. The Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq and its Badr Corps paramilitary would never accept a long-term US presence, since they want to assert control over Iraq themselves. It was touch and go whether they would accept the SOFA, which gives the US military more prerogatives and leaves them in the country longer than ISCI would like.

6. The Sunni Arab guerrillas will never accept a long-term US base. They would also find ways of hitting it, and its very presence would fuel and prolong the Sunni insurgency.

7. Iran would never put up with a long-term US base in Iraq, and would certainly supply Iraqi guerrillas with the weapons needed to hound and harass US troops.

8. Syria would not want a long-term US base, and the Syrian Baath has enough assets in Iraq to ensure that US troops would be under constant attack.

9. The international Salafi Jihadi movement (what the US tends to call al-Qaeda, but the latter is only one part of this larger movement) will be galvanized by any attempt of the US to stay in Iraq for the long term militarily, and a US base in Iraq will produce constant terrorism. The way the US came to Iraq, as an act of unprovoked aggression, left the US presence without any legitimacy, and the Salafi Jihadis will make use of that condition of Illegality to challenge any base.

10. There is no safe place for an American base. A US base near Baghdad would have to be supplied from Kuwait and southern Iraq, and those supply lines could always be cut by angry Shiites and Iran. A US base near Basra in the south would face the same constant attacks and harassment that the British suffered. A US base in Kurdistan would have to be supplied via Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. But Turkey is in conflict with the Kurds, a conflict that could become hot and result in supplies being cut off to the US base. The US military would be in an impossible situation if Turkish-Kurdistan violence broke out, since Turkey is a NATO ally but the Kurds are the only Iraqis that might want a US presence. Moreover, US backing for Baghdad and Nuri al-Maliki's assertion of authority over Kurdish populations outside Kurdistan in Iraq proper have caused the Kurdistan leadership to rethink whether they really want an interfering US military in their area.

A long-term US base in Iraq is a crackpot Neoconservative fantasy that is highly unlikely to be realized. Like all Neocon fantasies, even if it could be realized, it would cause endless trouble and further wars.

President-elect Obama, keep your pledges and redeem the United States by seeking friendship with Iraq rather than supremacy in Iraq.
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Kurds Object to Iraqi Army in Diyala; Ninevah Seeks to Postpone Elections

The Ninevah Provincial Council has voted to delay provincial elections, scheduled for January 31. The council does not actually have the authority to delay the elections, which have been set by the federal parliament. The move suggests severe Kurdish-Arab tensions in the province. Since Sunni Arabs, the majority in Ninevah and Mosul, boycotted the 2005 provincial elections, Ninevah's governing council is disproportionately Kurdish. It is likely that many of these representatives will be swept from power on Jan. 31, and that Sunni Arabs will take over, including the governorship. That development would heavily interfere with Kurdistan nationalists' hopes to incorporate at least part of Ninevah into the Kurdistan Regional Government.

Anxiety that the state security forces might intervene in the provincial elections is widespread. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq called on Iraqi security forces not to interfere with the voting. There have been rumors that Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki may attempt to use the levers of state to promote his Islamic Mission Party (Da'wa). Al-Maliki is allied with ISCI in parliament and on the cabinet, but in the elections, Da'wa and ISCI are rivals.

Likewise, Al-Hayat writing in Arabic suggests that the arrest of 38 officials from the Interior and Defense ministries was tied to the electoral ambitions of Interior Minister Jawad Bulani, who founded his own party and made his brother the secretary-general. Al-Maliki is said to have been disturbed at the idea of a cabinet minister engaging in electoral politics. Those arrested were accused of belonging to the al-Awdah or "Return" party, a reformulation of the banned Baath Party. These low-level officials, it was admitted on Thursday, could not actually have made a coup.

The USG Open Source Center translates an article on Kurdish concerns over the upcoming provincial elections in Diyala Province. Kurds in Diyala say that they are concerned that the Iraqi Army, which was sent into the province by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, might intimidate Kurdish voters. The Iraqi Army traded fire in late summer with elements of the Kurdistan paramilitary, the Peshmerga, which have deployed to cities such as Khanaqin even though they are not part of the Kurdistan Regional Government. Maliki is eager to regain such territory for the central government in Baghdad. Ironically, Kurds in Diyala see the Iraqi Army as Arab, while Arabs in Mosul see the Iraqi Army as Kurdish.

"Kurdish MP criticizes Iraqi army deployment in Diyala region
Kurdistani Nuwe
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Document Type: OSC Summary

Kurdish MP criticizes Iraqi army deployment in Diyala region

Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) newspaper Kurdistani Nuwe reporter Baban Abd-al-Karim has said that the Kurdistan Alliance had announced its list of candidates for the Diyala Governorate Council in the forthcoming nationwide governorate elections due to be held on 31 January 2009.

In a report published on 14 December, Abd-al-Karim discussed the Kurdistan Alliance's campaign under the slogan of "Peace, fraternity and development", interviewed Arab and Turkoman supporters of the alliance as well Kurdish politicians who expressed concern about the impact of the presence of the Iraqi army in the area on voters.

The report quoted the head of the PUK Khanaqin branch as saying that preparation by PUK, Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and other political parties in the Kurdistan Alliance List had been under way for some time to ensure that the list would gain a large percentage of the votes in the forthcoming provincial elections. The PUK official added that the alliance list aimed to secure Arab and Turkoman as well as Kurdish votes.

The newspaper quoted the chief of Lahib tribe in the Diyala region, Shaykh Yusuf Ali, as saying: "As one of the chiefs of Arab tribes in the Diyala region, I and my tribe reaffirm our support for the Kurdistan Alliance List." He added: "We believe that Kurdistan Alliance List is the best and most solid list in the region and the success of the list will benefit us and other national groups."

Other residents of Diyala, such as the chief of Al-Hayali tribe, Shaykh Ahmad Muhammad Hamudi; Turkoman figure in Khanaqin, Ali Oghlu; and religious figure Shaykh Ahmad Sumaydi'i were also reported to have expressed their support for the Kurdistan Alliance List.

Member of the Iraqi parliament for Khanaqin Pishtiwan Ahmad expressed concern about the impact of the presence of the Iraqi army in the region on the electoral process and was quoted as saying: "Most certainly, the governorate council elections will not be free of problems, particularly in a problematic governorate such as Diyala where a large contingent of the Iraqi armed forces has been deployed in the area under the guise of pursuing terrorists. However, in reality the forces are indirectly affiliated to Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's party and they have created a lot of problems for us."

Pishtiwan Ahmad is further quoted as saying that about 16,000 Kurds who lived in the Khanaqin area had not been listed in the electoral register for the forthcoming elections which would have direct bearing on the outcome of the elections. He urged the Higher Independent Electoral Commission to resolve that problem.

The head of the KDP branch in Khanaqin, Akbar Haydar, was quoted as having said that the continued presence of the Iraqi army in the region would have an adverse effect on the electoral process. He added that most of the voting centres had been put under the control of the armed forces and police forces composed of former Ba'thists, which could force citizens to refrain from exercising their democratic right.

(Description of Source: Al-Sulaymaniyah Kurdistani Nuwe in Kurdish -- daily newspaper published by Iraqi Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK))"
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