Author: Mattes

Going bankrupt: The US’s greatest threat
By Chalmers Johnson

The military adventurers of the George W Bush administration have much in common with the corporate leaders of the defunct energy company Enron. Both groups of men thought that they were the “smartest guys in the room”, the title of Alex Gibney’s prize-winning film on what went wrong at Enron. The neo-conservatives in the White House and the Pentagon outsmarted themselves. They failed even to address the problem of how to finance their schemes of imperialist wars and global domination.

As a result, going into 2008, the United States finds itself in the anomalous position of being unable to pay for its own elevated living standards or its wasteful, overly large military establishment. Its government no longer even attempts to reduce the ruinous
expenses of maintaining huge standing armies, replacing the equipment that seven years of wars have destroyed or worn out, or preparing for a war in outer space against unknown adversaries.

Instead, the Bush administration puts off these costs for future generations to pay – or repudiate. This utter fiscal irresponsibility has been disguised through many manipulative financial schemes (such as causing poorer countries to lend us unprecedented sums of money), but the time of reckoning is fast approaching.

READ THE WHOLE THING!
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JA24Ak04.html

….let me see, Bush=0, Bin Ladin=2
Military Keynesianism

Such expenditures are not only morally obscene, they are fiscally unsustainable. Many neo-conservatives and poorly informed patriotic Americans believe that, even though our defense budget is huge, we can afford it because we are the richest country on Earth.

from asiatimes

And from Wiki:

Economic Effects

The economic effects advanced by supporters of Military Keynesianism can be broken down into four areas, two on the demand side and two on the supply side.

On the demand side, increased military demand for goods and services is generated directly by government spending. Secondly, this direct spending induces a multiplier effect of general consumer spending. These two effects are directly in line with general Keynesian economic doctrine.

On the supply side, the maintenance of a standing army removes many workers, usually young males with less skills and education, from the civilian workforce. This demographic group ordinarily faces an especially high level of unemployment; some argue that drawing them into military service helps prevent crime or gang activity. In the United States, enlistment is touted as offering direct opportunities for education or skill acquisition, possibly to target this demographic.

In this sense, the military might act as an employer of last resort – it is an employment opportunity which tends to hire from the bottom (least qualified) part of the workforce, provides a decent standard of living, serves a useful social purpose, and offers jobs regardless of the state of the general economy.

Also on the supply side, it is often argued that military spending on research and development (R&D) increases the productivity of the civilian sector by generating new infrastructure and advanced technology. Frequently cited examples of technology developed partly or wholly through military funding but later applied in civilian settings include radar, nuclear power, and the internet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_Keynesianism

It’s the ideology that has to be refuted. Why not build more vocational schools, and rebuild our crumbing infrastructure. Or how about preparing for climate change? Or raising the standard of living for women so they don’t end up having so many children? How about better access to medical care and birth control? SOOOO, many better ways to spend the money.

And, I don’t think I have to post all the names of politicians that have bought into this neo-con dream.

Plus, accelerating our coming crash, al qaeda’s next target is Saudis oil processing facilities.

Please no evenhandedness allowed!

Internal Memo Takes on Obama’s Approach to Middle East

A confidential memo questioning Senator Barack Obama’s potential approach to Middle East policy was circulated earlier this month among staffers at a major American Jewish organization.

“The Senator’s interpretation of the NIE raises questions,” wrote Debra Feuer, a counsel for the American Jewish Committee, one day after the Illinois Democrat surged to victory in the Iowa caucus.

Referring to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, she added that Obama “appears to believe the Israelis bear the burden of taking the risky steps for peace, and that the violence Israel has received in return does not shift that burden.”
http://www.forward.com/articles/12508/

I see this news in several Jewish newspapers, but so far no mention on MSM.

Obama “appears to believe the Israelis bear the burden of taking the risky steps for peace, and that the violence Israel has received in return does not shift that burden … rather than referring to mutual concessions, such as the reciprocal steps as required by the roadmap,” Feuer writes. She added that Obama’s approach to the Palestinian government “contrasts with the three conditions that the international community has laid down for the resumption of aid,” including acting to stop terrorism and accepting the right of Israel to exist.

After stating that the senator’s interpretation of the latest National Intelligence Estimate on Iran “raises questions,” Feuer includes a half-dozen statements the Illinois lawmaker has made in support of renewed diplomacy with Iran, and notes that “he also calls for negotiating with other rogue states, notably Syria.”

Under a section titled “Of Further Note,” Feuer takes note of Obama’s presence at a fundraiser headlined by the late Edward Said in 1998, and public suggestions by Ali Abunimah, a Chicago-based Palestinian activist, that Obama was more openly critical of the America’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict before his first run for Senate.

The end of the article notes, Obama has not responded to these allegations.

Why do these Jewish group assume the Jewish vote is ALL about Israel?

Livni went to Russia to make her case against Iran:

Livni: Inconceivable that Russia is supplying Iran with nuclear fuel

Foreign affairs minister meets with Russia’s Lavrov in Moscow, slams shipments of fuel to Bushehr nuclear plant despite Tehran’s refusal to stop enriching uranium. Livni also defends Israel’s response to Qassam rocket attacks: ‘Unlike terrorists, the IDF does not aim its weapons towards women, the elderly and children’

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3495713,00.html

And Russia responds, since Israel won’t take nukes off of the table….neither will they:

Russia: We may use nukes if threatened

Russia’s military chief of staff said Saturday that Moscow could use nuclear weapons in preventive strikes in case of a major threat, the latest aggressive remarks from increasingly assertive Russian authorities.

“We have no plans to attack anyone, but we consider it necessary for all our partners in the world community to clearly understand … that to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia and its allies, military forces will be used, including preventively, including with the use of nuclear weapons,” Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky said.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1200572490414&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

So just how far are Israel and Bushco planning to take this war of words?

China, Russia, Pakistan, Iraq, Canada, Germany, Saudis, Egyptians, French just not going with the program.

We’ll nuke Iran – Bush promises Israel

Thu, 01/10/2008 – 16:08 – Wire Services – US President George W. Bush promised Israel’s opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu that the United States will join the Jewish state in a nuclear strike against Iran, Israel Radio reported today.

Former Prime Minister Netanyahu, opposition Likud party’s hardline chairman who opposes the US-backed Annapolis peace process, reiterated to President Bush his stance, that a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran’s nuclear installations was the only way to stop the Islamic nation’s nuclear weapons ambitions.

“I told him my position and Bush agreed,” Netanyahu told Israel Radio.

During their 45-minute meeting at King David hotel in Jerusalem Netanyahu also told Bush that “Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people and will remain under Israeli sovereignty for eternity.”
http://www.veteransforcommonsense.org/?Page=Article&ID=9104

WELL????

What is the hold Netenyahu has over our politicians???

Maybe it’s just wishful thinking….but I see signs.

And here they are in no particular order:

Speaking to Reuters on Thursday, Bush made clear he considers the settlements a serious issue to be raised the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during his visit.

“I will talk about Israeli settlement expansion, about how that is, that can be, you know, an impediment to success,” Bush said. “The unauthorized outposts for example need to be dismantled, like the Israelis said they would do.”

“I hope and assess that in the coming period and thereafter, during the U.S. president’s visit to Israel and afterwards, real steps will be taken to remove those outposts,”

And Olmert acts:

The Israeli government plans an imminent crackdown on unauthorized West Bank settler outposts.

Vice Premier Haim Ramon said Friday that troops and police could be deployed as early as next week for a mass-removal of outposts erected in the West Bank without state approval. He indicated that the operation
could be timed to coincide with President Bush’s visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority on January 9-11.

“I hope and assess that in the coming period and thereafter, during the U.S. president’s visit to Israel and afterwards, real steps will be taken to remove those outposts,” Ramon told Israel Radio.

Peres blasted over left-wing event

Shimon Peres drew right-wing fire for planning to attend an event organized by the Geneva Initiative, an independent Israeli-Palestinian peace movement.

The Yesha settler council on Friday urged the Israeli president to scrap his planned participation next week in a symposium sponsored by the Geneva Initiative, which drafted an “alternative” peace plan at the height of Palestinian violence in 2003.

“President Peres has put the presidential institution to the service of the far-left,” Yesha chairman Danny Dayan told Israel Radio.

Peres’s office had no immediate comment.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/106233.html

Olmert, Abdullah meet in Aqaba

Ehud Olmert met with Jordan’s King Abdullah in an unannounced visit.

Thursday’s meeting in the Jordanian coastal town of Aqaba was arranged to coordinate the Israeli and Jordanian positions on regional issues ahead of U.S. President George Bush’s visit to the region next week, according to Israel Radio. It was not announced in advance for security reasons.

During the meeting the Israeli prime minister told Abdullah that Israel will not build any new settlements nor appropriate any more land claimed by the Palestinians. Olmert repeated his desire to move toward a final peace settlement.

Abdullah urged Israel and the Palestinians to honor their commitments to the current peace process.

According to a statement from the Royal Palace, Abdullah told Israel “to halt unilateral activities that may obstruct progress” toward peace.
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/106233.html

Change in Iran policy

The shadow that Bhutto’s assassination is casting on regional security is of varied hues. That is how it is already being felt in Tehran. In one swift sweep, almost overnight, Pakistan replaces Iran on the Bush administration’s radar screen. Israel may not like what is happening, but Vice President Dick Cheney and company won’t have even a fighting chance of reviving the Iran bogey in the remaining term of the administration.

The Bush administration cannot overlook that the crisis brewing in Pakistan and Afghanistan may turn out to be manifold more serious than all of Tehran’s nuclear program and its support of Hamas in Palestine, Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Iraqi Shi’ite militia in Iraq combined together, let alone the political challenge posed by Iran’s rising regional influence.

For the first time since it expounded the “axis of evil” theory, exactly six years ago – grouping Iraq, Iran and North Korea – the Bush administration is compelled to view Iran with a sense of proportion. The hardline policies aimed at destabilizing the Iranian regime look downright irresponsible in the changed circumstances. A military option is out of the question. A regime change in Tehran? Ridiculous.

But the “Iran question” as such may not fade away from the Middle East, though rhetoric – US and Iranian – has appreciably diminished in recent weeks. Part of the problem is that a bitterly contested parliamentary election looms ahead in March in Iran. Nonetheless, Iran-US relations are poised for a change of course. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s offer to meet her Iranian counterpart Manuchehr Mottaki “any place and any time and anywhere” testifies to that. There is guarded optimism in Tehran about the upcoming fourth round of US-Iran meetings regarding cooperation over Iraq’s stabilization.

Rice said a week ago, “We don’t have permanent enemies … what we have is a policy that is open to ending confrontation or conflict with any country that is willing to meet us on those terms.”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA05Df02.html

France to help Jordan develop nuclear energy program

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, King Abdullah II discuss Mideast peace process, political crisis in Lebanon; agree on development of Jordan’s nuclear energy program for peaceful use
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3490482,00.html

Study: Gaza pullout hurt Israel’s image

Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip did not garner the expected international sympathy, a new study found.

According to the study by two political and communications researchers at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel’s unilateral 2005 removal of troops and settlers from Gaza and four West Bank communities had the effect of presenting Israel in a more negative light in the Western media.

The researchers reached their conclusion after trolling through thousands of American and British press reports and government statements.

“We found that one of the main reasons for this phenomenon is that Israel continues to be viewed by the world as a conquering state,” said Tamir Sheafer, one of the study’s authors. “We also found that the demands from Israel to territorial concessions in the territories not only were not lessened following the disengagement but actually became stronger.”
http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/106215.html

Rabbi wants Olmert hanged

A right-wing Israeli rabbi drew censure after calling for Ehud Olmert and other government leaders to be executed.

Rabbi Shalom Dov Wolpe, a Chabad rabbi in Israel, was shown on television Wednesday addressing a demonstration against the Olmert government’s peace moves with the Palestinian Authority.

“The terrible traitor, Ehud Olmert, who gives these Nazis weapons, who gives money, who frees their murderous terrorists, this man, like Ariel Sharon, collaborates with the Nazis,” Wolpe said in his speech.

He added that the prime minister, Vice Premier Haim Ramon, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak would be “hanged from the gallows” were Israel run properly.

snip

Ramon in a statement said Wolpe’s behavior recalled the incitement that led to the 1995 assassination of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin.

Yoel Hasson, a lawmaker with Olmert’s Kadima party, said he would ask Israel’s attorney general to take legal steps against Wolpe, who leads a messianic faction.

http://www.jta.org/cgi-bin/iowa/breaking/106217.html

Hamas holding back

If they so desire, Palestinian groups are now capable of bombarding Ashkelon regularly, and with an ample number of rockets. They have enough Katyushas and enhanced Qassams, the rockets can be stored for relatively long periods, and the ruins of the former settlements in northern Gaza provide a launching ground from which the rockets can reach northern Ashkelon.

The only reason this has not yet happened is that Hamas does not want a major clash with Israel. Most rockets hitting Ashkelon are launched by Islamic Jihad, albeit with Hamas’ consent. If Hamas decides to attack, it will not make do with a lone Katyusha.

Hamas is still mulling a short-term cease-fire with Israel. It seems that progress has recently occurred in the parties’ indirect negotiations, and until such an agreement is reached (or definitively not reached), both Hamas and the Israel Defense Forces will keep the fighting on a relatively low flame.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/941713.html

Meanwhile Israel National News reports:

 that billboards all over Jerusalem will be plastered with a new poster on the eve of the Bush visit to Israel.

Pictured is a gigantic Bible, towering over the walls of the Old City.

The caption says: “Bush, read your Bible. God gave Israel to the Jews.”

He did, of course. But observers have noted that Israeli governments live more in fear of the White House than in the fear of the Lord.
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2293

Israeli ministers to ‘Condi’ – Go fly a kite

 

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice can think again if she believes that Israel is going to stop building homes in Jerusalem, the Arab-coveted capital of the Jewish people.

This was the thrust of messages delivered at the weekend by Israeli Housing Minister Ze’ev Boim and Vice-Prime Minister Haim Ramon after Rice criticized Israel Friday during a press conference in Brussels.

Speaking after meeting with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the American expressed her displeasure at Israel’s recent issuing of a tender to build a little over 300 new housing units in Jerusalem’s Har Homa neighborhood near Bethlehem.
snip
Rice unsurprisingly earned “Palestinian” support for her position when the PA’s so-called foreign minister slammed Ramon.

“These statements place obstacles before any serious attempts by Palestinian negotiators on Jerusalem,” Riad Malki said. “They aim to create confusion and change the course of negotiations before they begin. They try to pressure Palestinians and the international parties to think of Israeli needs before they begin.”

Failing support:

Ynetnews reports that an annual survey conducted by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) reveals that 70 percent of American Jews prefer Clinton as their next president, while 75% of Republicans want Rudy Giuliani.

The survey identified domestic economic issues and not America’s war on terror as a major influencing factor for that country’s Jews.
snip
By contrast, the spirit of Zionism that once infused great numbers of American Jews is today relatively non-existent. What happens to Israel is of increasingly little concern to them.
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2282

 PM tells Jordan King that Israel won’t build new settlements

Israel will not build any new settlements in the West Bank and will avoid further land appropriations there, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told Jordanian King Abdullah II during a meeting Thursday in Amman.

Earlier this week, Olmert told ministers in his cabinet of his intention to become more involved in the supervision of building in the West Bank.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/941478.html

Iran’s supreme chief says would okay future relations with U.S.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said Thursday that he would approve the restoration of relations between his country and its archenemy the United States if those relations were to serve the interests of the Islamic country.

snip

“I would be the first one to support these relations,” state radio quoted Khamenei as saying at a student group meeting in the central Iranian province of Yazd.

Khamenei, who has final say in all state matters, said he would give the approval if he deemed the relations, severed after the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the U.S. Embassy takeover by militants in Tehran, would be beneficial.

“We never said the severed relations were forever,” added Khamenei. “But for the time being, it [restoring ties] is harmful and we should not pursue it.”
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=941424&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1

 Jerusalem seeks Bush okay for IDF free hand in West Bank

Israel is seeking to reach an understanding with the U.S. administration that would safeguard Israel’s security interests in a future final-status agreement with the Palestinians and during current negotiations, government sources have said.

The sources also said Israel is seeking President George W. Bush’s support for its security demands so that such understandings can serve as a basis for the work of the American special security envoy General James Jones, who has been tasked with formulating the security arrangements for an Israeli-Palestinian agreement.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=941180&contrassID=1&subContrassID=1

Olmert sees ‘hand of God’ in ‘peace’ process

 

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Monday he believes he can almost see “the hand of God” in the coming together of purportedly Israel-friendly countries which are working to create a Palestinian state on the historical homeland of the Jewish people.

In an exclusive interview timed to coincide with the start of 2008, Olmert told The Jerusalem Post he believed the current constellation of key international personalities who were “favorably disposed” to Israel created “comfortable conditions” for negotiations that may not exist again in the future.
http://www.jnewswire.com/article/2286

 Here’s to the ’67 borders, the new middle of the road

There was a time, not long past, that the mere mention of the 1967 borders was seen by many in the Jewish community as an expression of disloyalty, of sacrilege, of foolhardy risk, almost of profanity.

Gradually, remarkably, there are signs that the route of the middle of the road has shifted. That we’ve come a long, long way. At this point, for many on the Israeli side and, in fact, on the Palestinian side as well, the middle of the road passes very, very close to the Green Line, the post-1948 war, pre-1967 war boundary between the West Bank and Israel.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in an interview to be published in the Friday Jerusalem Post, states that “the world that is friendly to Israel… that really supports Israel, when it speaks of the future, it speaks of Israel in terms of the ’67 borders. It speaks of the division of Jerusalem.”

The Arab League has thrown its weight behind the 2002 Saudi-inspired peace initiative, which offers Israel full normalization of relations and comprehensive peace treaties with Arab countries in exchange for withdrawal from the territory captured in 1967, an independent Palestine with its capital in East Jerusalem, and a “just solution” of the Palestinian refugee issue.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/940221.html

And finally I completely agree with this….the Message has been sent:

Sunday, December 16, 2007
The message

It is a mistake to quibble about the NIE on Iran.  The approach of some of the viler neocons is to question the factual basis for the NIE, and even hint that the anti-Semitism of the intelligence agencies is behind it.  Podhoretz even has the chutzpah to question the Iran NIE based on the unreliability of the Iraq NIE, an approach which begs readers to wonder why the Iraq NIE was so unreliable, a line of thought that leads right back to the Jewish neocons who forced the intelligence analysts to make it up.  The 16 American intelligence agencies don’t know that Iran has no nuclear weapons program, any more than they knew two years ago that Iran had a nuclear weapons program.  The fact remains that you can’t start a war against a sovereign country which poses no obvious threat to you based on some iffy intelligence guessing about the possibility of vague future threats, particularly if the guessing is based on a packet of lies from supremely unreliable Israeli intelligence sources.  It is against international law to do so, and highly imprudent, as Americans are finding out.

The NIE on Iran is entirely political, and constitutes a statement by the Old American Establishment that it is not going to be tricked or cajoled into fighting another War for the Jews unless there is a compelling argument that such a war is in the real national interests of the United States.  There is no conceivable scenario in the foreseeable future that a war against Iran could possibly be in the American national interest.  As I’ve been saying all along, it is not going to happen, and the Old American Establishment, angered by the Zionist meddling to ruin the Annapolis conference, threw down the gauntlet to the Jewish Billionaires and their employees.  Decades of Jewish wealth accumulation still can’t match centuries of Old American Establishment wealth accumulation, and the Old American Establishment still controls the American military (non-Jewish as American Jews wisely don’t choose to die for the gentiles), the American intelligence agencies (non-Jewish due to a history of anti-Semitism, coupled with very real – and growing more real – concerns about dual loyalties), and most of the American bureaucracy in the State and Treasury Departments.  The Old American Establishment is making itself clear, and indicating that it is fully engaged on the issue.  No more Wars for the Jews!  Despite some rhetorical flourishes, the Bush Administration has heard the news loud and clear (as has much of the Israeli leadership).

There are indications that the wisest of the Jewish Billionaires are heeding the message, at least from a tactical point of view.  The problem for American Zionism is to arrange to leave open its chances for future covert scheming.  Failure to acknowledge that a message has been delivered is just going to enrage the Old American Establishment, leading to further embellishment of the real background of the Iraq war, and discussions of the entire dual loyalty problem, something which is just starting in the media, and constitutes a threat of what is to come if the Jewish Billionaires continue to press the issue of tricking the United States into attacking Iran.  
http://xymphora.blogspot.com/2007/12/message.html

Even Netenyahu could not have predicted this mess:

Our supply lines for Afghanistan run through Pakistan!

The German weekly Der Spiegel reported in mid-December that at the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Allied Joint Force Command in Brunssum, the Netherlands, and at NATO military headquarters in Mons, Belgium, top-secret strategy games have been held about worst-case scenarios in Afghanistan.

That may turn out to be smart forward thinking. The computer simulations assumed that if the situation in Pakistan were to spin out of control, the Taliban would get a free run on the border regions with Afghanistan, and NATO’s supply lines through Pakistan might be jeopardized.
snip

One of the NATO strategy games apparently simulated the withdrawal of the troops from Afghanistan that had been cut off from supplies.

snip
In November, USA Today quoted Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell as saying that the US military was reviewing contingency plans in case unrest in Pakistan began to affect the flow of supplies for American troops fighting in Afghanistan. He underscored that the supply lines were “very real areas of concern”, since three-quarters of the supplies for the 26,000-strong US military deployment in Afghanistan flowed via Pakistan by land and air. “Clearly, we do not like the situation we find ourselves in right now,” Morrell commented.

No wonder we were really to put a tribal dynasty, supportive of Israel and Netenyahu’s war on terror, in charge of Pakistan.
When it rains it pours….call it BLOWBACK!

The summit is expected to focus on Afghanistan. A troop surge in Afghanistan is most likely in the cards.
snip

On the other hand, NATO allies stubbornly refuse to pay heed to Washington’s calls for increased troop contributions. European opinion is steadily turning against the war in Afghanistan.

snip

But where will the additional troops come from?
snip

NATO allies stubbornly refuse to pay heed to Washington’s calls for increased troop contributions. European opinion is steadily turning against the war in Afghanistan. In Germany, the latest opinion polls, in December, indicated that half the population favored withdrawing troops from Afghanistan. The same is the case in Canada. In the event of an opposition victory in this year’s parliamentary election, a withdrawal of Canadian troops will be likely. The Dutch have already decided to pull out. It may trigger a domino effect. The Czech Republic, Denmark and Norway are already in the process of withdrawing their troops from northern Afghanistan.

NATO’s difficulties mounting

All signs are that the war effort is deteriorating. What is taking place is the syndrome in which the Soviet occupying troops in the 1980s found themselves trapped – tactical achievements but a potential strategic failure.

Contrary to NATO propaganda, the Taliban seem to face no difficulty in recruiting new volunteers from a vast pool of disaffected Afghans. This is quite understandable, since, as an Asia Foundation survey in December assessed, some 80% of Afghans are disillusioned with the Kabul government.
snip

The Washington Post has separately reported that planning for the proposed US military deployment in Pakistan is already underway at the headquarters of the US Special Operations Command in Tampa, Florida. The report characterized the proposed counterinsurgency campaign as a “vivid example of the American military’s asserting a bigger role in a part of Pakistan that the Central Intelligence Agency has overseen almost exclusively since September 11”.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/JA03Df02.html

This can’t possibly help oil prices.

Just in case you have not seen this:

Since her death at an assassin’s hands last Thursday, former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto has been virtually canonized by politicians and pundits alike.

snip

Nowhere to be found in these paeans is any acknowledgment of the slain politician’s far more ambiguous record, a close examination of which reveals the saint to have been all too human: specifically, as authoritarian and venal as any run-of-the-mill Third World despot. During Bhutto’s second government (1993-1996), for example, the human rights advocacy group Amnesty International had cause to publish reports with titles like “Pakistan: Use and Abuse of the Blasphemy Laws”, “Pakistan: The Pattern Persists; Torture, Deaths in Custody, Disappearances and Extrajudicial Executions under the PPP Government”; “Pakistan: Executions under the Qisas and Diyat Ordinance” and “Pakistan: Appeal to Ban Public Flogging.”

With its feudal levy of sharecropper-voters, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) headed by Bhutto (and her father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, before her) has never exactly been a model of democratic practice. As for personal mores, there are the charges of corruption which have persistently dogged both Benazir Bhutto and her plutocratic husband (and environment minister), Asif Ali Zardari, and led to her government falling constitutionally not once, but twice.

Incidentally, the new widower, who will now share the leadership of the PPP with the couple’s 19-year-old son, Bilawal, is still the subject of court proceedings not just in Pakistan but also in England (where a High Court has uncovered ownership of a 365-acre Surrey estate that his family long denied possessing) and Switzerland (where magistrates have frozen more than US$13 million in allegedly illicit proceeds).

The point of recalling these sordid details is not to highlight Bhutto’s political and personal shortcomings, but rather to observe that they produced not insignificant consequences. Without making excuses for President Pervez Musharraf’s less-than-stellar record with respect to dealing with Islamist extremists – much less for the motivations of Bhutto’s assassin – there is no denying that the failure of Benazir Bhutto’s two administrations to make real progress on factors which mattered was a major sin of omission – an oversight that contributed its share to the crisis currently faced by Pakistan and the world.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/S...

And
Bhutto tribe fighting over the leavings:

    The elevation of Benazir Bhutto’s husband and teenage son to replace her as leaders of Pakistan’s largest opposition party is reopening fissures that have divided the powerful political family for decades.

    To Mumtaz Bhutto, the septuagenarian patriarch of the 700,000-strong Bhutto tribe, Asif Ali Zardari and his son, Bilawal, are interlopers. He said the leadership of the Pakistan People’s Party should have gone to “a real Bhutto”.

    snip
    Mr Bhutto’s comments reflect the important roles that family, tribe and ethnicity continue to play in Pakistani politics 60 years after independence from British colonial rule, and one reason why democracy has failed to put down strong roots.
    http://www.theage.com.au/news/...

BETTER late than never…with permission, article in full:

A new Chinese red line over Iran
By M K Bhadrakumar

The conference on the Middle East in Annapolis in the United States last week seemed to be an exercise in self-delusion. Robert Fisk, who has chronicled the Levant for the past 31 years for the British media, somberly noted, “The Middle East is currently a hell disaster and the president of the United States thinks he is going to produce the crown jewels from a cabinet and forget Afghanistan and Iraq and Iran – and Pakistan, for that matter.”

But in the days that followed, crown jewels did indeed begin to

tumble out of President George W Bush’s cabinet. What awaits determination is whether Bush orchestrated it, or just let it happen.

In any case, the morning after the Annapolis shindig, we learnt that Syria and the US had a common choice in General Michel Suleiman (who also happens to be close to Hezbollah) for the unfilled Lebanese presidency. And then we saw on Sunday Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz entering the conference hall of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in Doha flanked by Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad. The GCC, flag-carrier of US regional strategy for three decades, had never before invited Iran to its meetings.

By Monday morning, the Bush administration had released declassified extracts of the sensational National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the Iranian nuclear problem, a report lying in the cabinet in the Oval Office in the White House for some time. The White House said on Wednesday that Bush was told in August that Iran may have suspended its nuclear weapons program. And now we learn that Bush will be packing his bags for his first-ever visit in his presidency to the Holy Land and Palestine.
Of course, the “hell disaster” in the Middle East that Fisk mentioned remains palpable still. Israel said on Tuesday it is seeking bids to build more than 300 new homes in a disputed east Jerusalem neighborhood. By nightfall on Tuesday, 21 rockets and mortars had been fired on Israel from Gaza, bringing the 12-month total to over 2,000. Yet, hardly a week remains for Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the president of the Palestinian National Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, to meet in the first follow-up session of the Annapolis meeting.

It is premature to say whether there is a pattern in all this. There is no credible evidence of a compelling vision at Annapolis either. Between a final-status peace and interim measures, a wide chasm undoubtedly lies. The Middle East sits on plate glass and it is agonizing to contemplate that glass can give way. All we know for sure is that the NIE signals that the Middle East isn’t going to be the same again.

China, Russia vindicated
The NIE means the Bush administration cannot resort to a military strike against Iran during its remaining term in office, as it says that Iran “halted” its secret nuclear weapons program in the autumn of 2003. The military option simply doesn’t exist anymore, no matter US officials’ grandstanding.

Equally, the Bush administration’s diplomatic campaign to get the international community to back tougher sanctions against Iran runs into a cul-de-sac. Washington has been lobbying for a third round of United Nations sanctions against Iran. Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice talked to their Chinese and Russian counterparts. But Beijing and Moscow have taken serious note of the NIE. Probably, their intelligence already knew of its contents. At any rate, they reiterated their aversion for another UN Security Council sanctions resolution.

China’s ambassador at the United States, Wang Guangya, commented, “I think the [UN] council members will have to consider that [NIE], because I think we all start from the presumption that now things have changed.” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “We will assess the situation on proposals for a new resolution in the United Nations Security Council on the basis of [several] factors, including the publication by the United States of data showing that Iran does not have a military nuclear program.”

Lavrov added that Moscow had no intelligence pointing toward any Iranian nuclear weapons program, even before 2003. Lavrov also said separately following a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, at the Kremlin on Tuesday, “We noted the willingness of Iran to adhere to cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA], and Iran again confirmed its adherence to an observation of the [nuclear] Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

China offers mediation
But, having said that, China’s stance on the Iran problem has acquired some unique features. Prominent American strategic thinker and former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote after a recent visit to China that it is “timely and historically expedient” for Washington to enter into a strategic dialogue with Beijing regarding applying their shared experience in dealing with the North Korean nuclear problem to the potential crisis with Iran.

Brzezinski highlighted three points. First, in “wide-ranging private conversations”, Chinese leaders impressed on him their worry about the financial and political fallouts of a US-Iran collision. Second, Chinese leaders pointed out to Brzezinski that Iranian denials of a nuclear weapons program in fact create a window of opportunity for Washington to contrive a face-saving arrangement for an internationally sanctioned, non-threatening Iranian nuclear program. “In China’s view, the United States should avoid being drawn into tit-for-tat salvos” with the Iranian leadership, but should rather focus on a formula that “effectively forsakes the allegedly unwanted nuclear option”. Third, China could help break the US-Iran stalemate, but the US should be “more active in the negotiating process with Iran”.

China’s motivations are completely self-centered. Beijing doesn’t want its economic relationship with Tehran disrupted. Iran is a major supplier of oil to China. China intends to boost its bilateral trade with Iran to over US$100 billion annually in the near future. (There is no reason to doubt China’s capacity to do so.) China supplies weapons and industrial products to Iran and participates in major projects, such as the Tehran metro.

Interestingly, Brzezinski gave a logical explanation as to why the US and China should become equal stakeholders. He pointed out that cascading US-Iran tensions could cause a more dramatic shift in the global distribution of power than what the international system witnessed when the Cold War receded into history. He explained that unlike the US and China, Russia has an “uncertain role” in the Iran crisis. That is because Russia is an increasingly revisionist state, and denying Chinese and American access to Caspian and Central Asian oil is at the core of the Russian geostrategy. Also, Russia fears “potential Chinese encroachments on Russia’s empty but mineral-rich eastern areas and American political encroachments on the populated western areas” of the former Soviet Union.

Therefore, Brzezinski argued that unlike the US and China, Russia might even stand to gain from a political conflict in the Persian Gulf. Russia would certainly stand to gain out of a dramatic spike in oil prices, unlike the US and China, which would be badly hit. More important, high oil prices resulting from Persian Gulf tensions would leave Europe and China with no option but to depend heavily on Russian energy supplies. That is to say, “Russia would clearly be the financial and geopolitical beneficiary” of the Iran crisis. Brzezinski concluded, “A comprehensive strategic dialog between the United States and China regarding

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link

From the Jerusalem Post, they have no shame:

Condoleezza Rice has got some nerve. snip the US Secretary of State had the hutzpa to compare Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to that meted out to US blacks during the bad old days of the segregationist South.

Speaking at a private session at the close of the Annapolis conference, America’s top diplomat said that having grown up “as a black child in the South, being told she could not use certain water fountains or eat in certain restaurants, she also understood the feelings and emotions of the Palestinians.”

“I know what it is like to hear that you cannot go on a road or through a checkpoint because you are Palestinian,” the Washington Post (November 29) quoted her as saying. “I understand the feeling of humiliation and powerlessness,” she added.

How dare she!
And then Condi had the nerve to question where Jews can and cannot live! Does not matter that the land was occupied illegally:

Speaking at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Friday, Rice told reporters that she had raised the issue of Har Homa with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni – not once, but twice! “I did, in fact, bring up Har Homa, both earlier in a phone call and then today in our meeting,” Rice said. “I’ve made very clear about seeking clarification on precisely what this means. I’ve made clear that we’re in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence between the parties and this doesn’t help to build confidence,” she proclaimed.

snip

And yet, when Israel decides to build some new apartments in an already-existing section of Jerusalem, Rice suddenly finds her voice? Who does she think she is kidding? But what was still more troubling about her statement on Har Homa is that it lends credence to the discriminatory notion that certain places should be off-limits to Jews simply because they are Jews.

snip
Were the Secretary of State to suggest that the right of Jews to live and build in Jerusalem, Alabama, should be restricted in any way, she would immediately be denounced as a racist and an anti-Semite, and rightly so.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847313474&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Even Mr. Israel First gets in on the action:

Bolton: Bush must ‘rein in’ Rice

Former American ambassador to UN slams president’s foreign policy, says Bush ‘doesn’t supervise Secretary of State Rice enough’

US President George W. Bush’s foreign policy is in free fall and puts the nation’s security at risk, former ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told a German magazine on Sunday.

Bolton , who was a leading hawk in the US administration and favored a tough stance against Iran, North Korea and Iraq, told the Der Spiegel weekly that Bush needed to rein in Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“His foreign policy is in free fall. The president is acting against his own judgment and instincts (and is) under the influence of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,” he was quoted as telling the magazine.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3483252,00.html

And Israeli politicians are not use to Bushco involvement, they want our money and support but not our advise:

Livni to UN envoy: No need for int’l involvement in peace process

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni met with UN envoy to the Mideast Robert Serry Thursday, and stressed that negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians are bilateral, and do not necessitate international involvement or oversight.

Livni noted, however, that implementing the peace process demands economic and security provisions allowing for the establishment of a Palestinian state, and that international aid is needed to put these into practice
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3482497,00.html

Why….so the IDF can bomb the shit out of the newly foreign funded infrastructure like they did in Gaza??? After all it’s not their money.

But the IDF is good for one thing….protecting the settlers:
The settlers continue their collective punishment of Palestinians under the eye and support of the IDF:

‘This village will be erased’
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/934752.html

And just in case anyone is still questioning one of the reasons we went into Iraq, straight from the Israeli newspapers:

In the 2003 US invasion of Iraq, which Israelis viewed as a kind of proxy war, there was virtual unanimity of support. Aside from the non- or anti-Zionist Left, which, like Israeli Arab opinion, doesn’t count in this country, the only prominent Israeli I recall coming out against the invasion was Amos Oz. Otherwise, Bush had far, far greater support for the war from Israelis than he had from people in any of the 50 states, including Texas.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847321949&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Just for once, I am saying….GO CONDI!

Let it alllll hang out, tell us what you really think!
Israeli Zionists showing true colors:

    Olmert tells Cabinet to mute criticism of US report on Iran nuclear program

    Israel’s prime minister told his Cabinet ministers Sunday to tone down their criticism of a US Intelligence report concluding that Iran has stopped its nuclear weapons program,an attempt to keep the disagreement from getting out of hand.

    Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s instructions came after one of his ministers warned that the US report could trigger a war. At the same time, officials said an intelligence delegation is in the US to press Israel’s case that Iran is still working on a nuclear bomb. (AP)
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articl...

 

It is becoming apparently clear, that it’s Zionists that have been pushing the world community toward war with Iran.
From Israeli newspapers:

Over the last year, a certain hope has developed in Israel that the U.S. would do our dirty work for us; because what is possibly going on, quietly and secretly, between President Bush and his spiritual advisers will lead Bush to the conclusion that his supreme moral obligation is to remove the Iranian nuclear danger threatening Israel before he passes his job on to his successor.

And now we find out the Israelis knew about the report before our own president?

Israel has known about the report for more than a month. The first information on it was passed on to Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and to Shaul Mofaz, who is the minister responsible for the strategic dialog with the Americans. The issue was also discussed at the Annapolis summit by Barak and U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and it seems also between Bush and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

But it looks like this time the intelligence community is fighting back, the new intelligence report, the NIE, a consensus assessment of 16 U.S. intelligence agencies, reported that Iran had ended a nuclear weapons program in 2003.

So are we going to believe Israel now?

The top brass and senior intelligence and defense officials spent most of their day in heated meetings. At the complex intersection of two policies, intelligence and propaganda, the dilemma is now two-fold: Is Israel capable of presenting the Americans with any information that can prove to the Americans their new evaluation is wrong? And what new policy will Jerusalem need to formulate on the Iranian issue, based on the reasonable assumption the U.S. will not change its mind?

I have a suspicion that the report was know by all parties and it was being used to pressure Israel into peace negotiations. Since Israel continued to expand settlements, cut fuel to Gaza and murder farmers and generally being unhelpful to the peace plan, to Israel’s dismay, Bush allowed the release of the report:

What surprised Israel is the sharp turn from the previous line presented by the DNI, and the fact the report was made public. Based on his short comments yesterday, it seems Barak, like Olmert, is trying to avoid open disagreement with the U.S. government.

Haaretz trying to confuse the issue claims the reverse, I think it’s a message to Israel that “it’s no longer business as usual”, Bush is serious:

The report will most likely also have an indirect effect on the Israeli-Palestinian process. If Israel no longer enjoys the full support of the Americans on nuclear matters, then Israel is likely to feel less committed to make concessions and move forward in talks with the Palestinians.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/931216.html

This is the type of shit that WILL derail the peace process:

On Tuesday, Israel announced plans to build more than 300 new homes in Har Homa.

“We’re in a time when the goal is to build maximum confidence between the parties and this doesn’t help to build confidence,” Rice told reporters after a meeting with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni on the sidelines of a NATO meeting.

The new housing would expand the neighborhood of about 4,000 residents in an area Palestinians claim as the capital of a future state. Palestinian officials appealed to the US to block the project.

snip
“The United Nations’ position on the illegality of settlements is well known,” Ban said. “These new tenders for 300 new homes in east Jerusalem so soon after this Annapolis Middle East peace conference, I think, is not helpful. I will be discussing this matter with my Quartet partners.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847280426&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

And Bush will be visiting Israel shortly to let them know just how serious he is:

During his visit, Bush is expected to focus on promoting Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the framework of agreements reached at last week’s Mideast peace conference, held in Annapolis, Maryland,

This visit will be Bush’s first visit to Israel since he took office seven years ago.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/931129.html

Israel now realizing that their goal of demonizing Iran and letting the world do their dirty work has failed, now claims they have secret information they have not shared….right, just like the yellow cake memos?

IDF to show US nuclear data on Iran
Disappointed after failing to make their case on Iran and influence the outcome of the United States’s National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released this week, Military Intelligence will present its hard core evidence on the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program on Sunday to the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff during a rare visit he will be making to Israel.

Admiral Michael Mullen will land in Israel Sunday morning for a 24-hour visit that will include a one-on-one meeting with IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, as well as with Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

And lets not forget how many administration Zionists were close to the intelligence to go to war with Iraq.

I find this very interesting, Cheney might finally be getting tired of being the whipping boy:

Meanwhile, US Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday said he had no reason to doubt the intelligence assessment.

“There’s always the possibility that circumstances will change. But I think they’ve done the best job they can with the intelligence that’s available,” Cheney told Politico.com.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847275418&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

After all he knew in the 1990’s invading Iraq would not be such a good idea, what changed his mind:

Who were the people whispering in Bush’s ear about democratizing the middle east? Idealists like Natan Sharansky:

He was just glad to see her holding a copy of his newly published book, The Case for Democracy.

“I’m already half-way through your book,” Rice said. “Do you know why I’m reading it?”
snip
Rice smiled. “I’m reading it because the president is reading it, and it’s my job to know what the president is thinking.”
snip
For nearly 40 minutes, Rice engaged Sharansky — now an Israeli cabinet member — and co-author Ron Dermer, a former columnist with the Jerusalem Post, in a discussion over how best to help democracy take root in such hard soils as Iraq, Iran, and the West Bank and Gaza.

At precisely 2 P.M., Sharansky and Dermer were ushered into the Oval Office for a private meeting with the president. They were scheduled for 45 minutes. They stayed for more than an hour.
http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/rosenberg200411190851.asp

Meanwhile the democratically elected Hamas tries again to broker a ceasefire:

Militant Palestinian faction discuss ceasefire with Israel
Al-Quds Al-Arabi went on to quote sources close to the Islamic Jihad as saying the Jihad was in favor of a ceasefire proving Israel will stop the targeted assassinations of its operatives – an operation in which some 50 Jihad operatives have been killed in the past month.

The paper goes on to report Egypt has agreed to negotiate the ceasefire and that Hamas politburo chief Khaled Mashaal met last week with the Jihad’s Secretary-General, Ramadan Shallah, to discuss the possible hudna, as well as the consequences of a possible IDF incursion in Gaza.

Meanwhile, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh called for new talks between Hamas and Fatah: “We believe it is essential to launch peace talks immediately, in order to repair the rift within the Palestinian people.”
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3480251,00.html

News coming out from occupied lands continues to make me doubtful of Israel’s good intentions, why the killings:

The 30-year-old farmer, later identified as Bahajadth Abu Daka, was shot from an Israeli army position along the border fence, and another farmer, his cousin, was wounded, according to Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Gaza Health Ministry.

The Palestinians said the farmers were several hundred meters away from the border fence when they were hit, adding that they had not posed any threat to the soldiers.
snip
Two weeks ago IDF soldiers operating in the north Gaza town of Beit Hanoun killed two Palestinian farmers. Sources said the two were killed by a shell from an Israeli tank as they were working on their land.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3480032,00.html

And collective punishment? It’s never worked before:

Five water wells that rely on diesel-operated generators have stopped running, cutting off water for more than 77,000 people, according to Gaza’s water utility. Three others that serve crowded Gaza City neighborhoods regularly shut down for lack of fuel and spare parts.

The aid group Oxfam International has warned that 225,000 Gazans could soon suffer from inadequate water supplies because of the fuel shortage, raising concerns for public health.

The fuel crunch has amplified the problems caused by the sanctions, which Israeli officials say are a response to rocket and mortar attacks that Palestinian militants fire at southern Israel nearly every day.

With exports and most imports halted, factories have closed, construction has halted and store shelves are empty. Government officials believe the poverty rate has jumped to 75 percent, up from 65 percent last summer.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3480004,00.html

Killings and land theft figures come out:

According to the report, the Israeli army conducted 2820 attacks on Palestinians areas so far this year, during which 371 Palestinians were killed, 2065 injured and 5070 kidnapped.

 In addition to the attacks the report also shows that the Israeli army set up 54905 ‘flying’ military checkpoints all over the West Bank.

The report also documented 289 attacks by settlers on Palestinian civilians.

 Fayiz Abu Rizek, a researcher for the Palestinian information committee stated that in the period between November 27th 2007 and December 3rd 2007, there was 87 Israeli military attacks on Palestinian areas which left 22 Palestinians dead and 50 injured as well as 98 kidnapped.
http://www.imemc.org/article/51856

Over the last ten years, the Civil Administration opened 3,449 cases on illegal construction in the West Bank that included demolition orders, but only 107 buildings were actually evacuated – three percent of those ordered to be knocked down, according to a report released Tuesday by Peace Now.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1195546800903&pagename=JPost%2FJPArti

cle%2FShowFull

Israel has even lost Sarkozy stalling on a Palestinian state:

Sarkozy: Lack of Palestinian state an injustice

French President Nicolas Sarkozy pressed the case for Palestinian statehood, saying the lack of a state is “an injustice that France will not accept.”
snip
n his address to students at a university in Constantine, Sarkozy suggested that establishing a Palestinian state would help the fight against terrorism.

“It is from a feeling of injustice that the terrorists derive their greatest strengths,” he said. “Depriving the Palestinians of a nation state is an injustice that France will not accept.”
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull&cid=1196847259536

I think we are closer to a resolution, but not because Israel is coming willingly.

Hamas in their own words:

“Many people make the mistake of presuming that Hamas has some ideological aversion to making peace. Quite the opposite; we have consistently offered dialogue with the US and the EU,” Ahmed Yousef, a senior Hamas official, said Sunday.

In an open letter to US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, Yousef, who serves as senior political advisor to Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, said that his movement did not have any “ideological arguments” with the West.

“We are not anti-American, anti-European or anti-anyone,” he explained, adding that the time has come for Washington and other Western countries to talk to Hamas.

Sources close to Hamas told The Jerusalem Post that Haniyeh and other top leaders of the Islamist movement had given their blessing to the content of the open letter.

Addressing Rice, he wrote: “Meaningful steps toward a resolution cannot take place while the legitimacy of the elected government in Palestine continues to be ignored by your administration. Not only is the policy to isolate Hamas unethical, it is ineffectual as well. Your administration ignores the realities on the ground.

“The Change and Reform Party, the name of the new political party we formed for the Palestinian elections, won an overwhelming majority in the occupied territories. To pretend otherwise is not only futile but detrimental to US interests in the region for many years to come and likely to add to the anti-American sentiment throughout the Middle East and the Muslim world. You cannot preach about exporting democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan and ignore the democratic process in Palestine.”

snip
he added, “should be looking for new solutions instead of reinforcing old stereotypes. On a personal note, we found it amusing that a black person empathizes with Israeli deaths on the one hand and Palestinian segregation on the other – if media reports are accurate. It is a military occupation, Ms. Rice. Their citizens face insecurity and death because that is the situation they have created for themselves. We do not beg you to recognize us. Our party is the legitimately elected party in the occupied territories. You owe it to your sense of fairness to engage meaningfully with all relevant parties to the conflict.”

Yousef complained that the Palestinians were being punished for holding a free and fair election and voting for Hamas. “It is hard to get across the appalling level of privation that the Palestinian people, and in particular the 1.3 million Palestinians who live in Gaza, currently suffer from,” he said.

“Our isolation is complete, confining us in a ghetto (worse than the Jewish ghettos of Warsaw) where our sewage, power and water systems have been destroyed, all normal supplies constrained and even humanitarian aid withheld. Many people have not been paid for nearly two years, over 75% are unemployed and now the Israelis are threatening to cut off fuel and power supplies and to invade us once again.”

He reminded Rice that her predecessor, General Colin Powell, had stated that the US should find a way to engage with Hamas because it won the election and because it continues to enjoy the support of many Palestinians. “If you were even-handed in this conflict, if you engaged with us openly, then the chances of peace would dramatically increase,” he concluded. “As it is, you are setting yourself up for failure and with that failure will come more pain and anguish for the Palestinian people, a further colonization of our lands and a blank space in history for the Bush administration’s role in making peace in the Middle East.”

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847294451&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Meanwhile, today Israel continues beating the war drums:
Olmert: Israel will expose Iranian nuclear weapons program

“Israel will work with the International Atomic Energy Agency to expose the Iranian plan to develop nuclear weapons, despite the limitations that Iran is setting,” Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday.

Olmert said the new US intelligence report concluding that Iran has given up its nuclear weapons program will not change Israel’s view that Iran is trying to develop a nuclear bomb, his first comment on the report.

“Israel has no reason to change the assessments it had all along that Iran is continuing to pursue nuclear weapons and is developing weapons and rockets and enriching uranium,” Olmert told a closed meeting of his Security Cabinet, according to a participant in the session.

The US report reversed years of conclusions that Iran was working on a nuclear weapon. Israeli officials discounted the conclusion, insisting that their intelligence indicated that Iran was still on the course of nuclear weapons capability. For years, Israel has been urging the world community to act to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1196847294698&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

There is nothing on the Hamas letter on the Sunday talk shows. Wonder why?

There can never be a peace settlement without engaging Hamas, and Israel knows it. Every attempt Hamas has made for talks has been rebuffed. I’ve seen it played out over the last couple of years. Maybe this time the American public will finally wise up to the tricks.

We should not be financing Israel’s Greater Israel dreams. Any money going to fund illegal settlements should be outlawed. The hundreds of American non-profits that fund Israel’s illegal occupation should be outlawed, we are funding Israeli terrorism against an almost defenseless people.

Time we stopped funding this conflict.