Rwanda, the RPF and the Myth of Non-Intervention

originaliy published at lenin's tomb

Jamie reports on a recent UN conference on the doctrine of 'Responsibility to Protect', attended by Gareth Evans, Noam Chomsky, Jean Bricmont and Ngugi wa Thiong’o. In the course of the debate, an interesting one as these things go, the assertion is repeatedly made by Evans, and accepted by others, that the story of the Rwandan genocide was one of non-intervention. The 'West', or the Euro-American powers so designated, demonstrated 'indifference'. They considered it just another example of ancient tribal hatreds finding an outlet in a new blood-letting, failing to accept that what was taking place was a genocide that demanded urgent intervention to protect the innocent. (These racist spiels about ancient tribal hatreds are certainly culpable, but I wonder if the reactionary discourse of 'good-vs-evil' that imperialists are fond of is really any better?) The lesson drawn from this by those advocating 'humanitarian intervention' is that new norms of intervention, mandating the use of military force in emergency cases, have to be elaborated and embedded in international law. Now, even if it were true that the 'West' had not intervened, it would by no means follow that it should: you have to make another series of assumptions to justify that conclusion. But it isn't true, and the widespread acceptance of this idea cultivates the claim of US innocence, the obverse of 'indifference'. Jamie links to this blog, obviously looking for a post where I have dealt with the myth of non-intervention. I did write a bit about the background to the genocide, but the only occasion on which I discussed this particular issue was briefly in this interview. So, this post deals with two themes. The first is the nature and conduct of the RPF before and during the 1990 invasion of Rwanda, and the second is the nature of US support for the RPF. I won't have much to say about French intervention - a crucial part of the story, but one familiar enough to us, I hope.

Our narrative does not conveniently begin on the night of April 6-7, 1994, following the assassination of Habyarimana, when the first massacres were reported by observers. It doesn't begin with the invasion of Rwanda by armed Tutsi exiles from Uganda in 1990, either. As usual, a much wider historical perspective is called for. As the origin of the 'ethnic'* conflict in colonial rule has already been discussed here, though, we can confine ourselves to a number of simple points to start from. (And if you really want a good account of that history and its implications, see Mahmood Mamdani's When Victims Become Killers, Princeton, 2001). First, Belgian rule had created a sort of bipolar order of ethnicity, in which a minority of Tutsis were integrated into the elite, while most Hutus were subject to degrading forms of forced labour, including corvée. Secondly, the Tutsi diaspora was created by the overthrow of a monarchical ruling caste after the defeat of Belgian rule, and the repressive policies pursued by the new Hutu rulers. Thirdly, institutional discrimination against the Tutsi minority was accompanied by several refugee waves in response to state repression: in 1959-1961 immediately after the overthrow of the Belgians; in 1963-64 after an attempted insurgency by Tutsis from Burundi and Uganda, which the government responded to with violent repression; and in 1972-1973, just before Habyarimana's coup d'etat, during the genocide against Hutus in Burundi. The latter was the result of an attempt by a failing regime to brand itself as a friend of Hutus, and was effectively aborted by the coup.

Tens of thousands of Tutsis had been killed in these waves of repression, and hundreds of thousands driven out. For approximately two decades, though, that violence more or less abated. Most of the repression under Habyarimana was class-based. Nonetheless, the forms of institutional discrimination mattered enough to maintain certain forms of separation, discouraging intermarriage for example - if a Hutu's daughter married into a Tutsi family, it was sure that she would suffer from lack of education, jobs and prospects. And Habyarimana did ban the return of refugees based in Uganda in 1986. (See Catherine Newbury, 'Background to Genocide: Rwanda', Issue: A Journal of Opinion, Vol. 23, No. 2, Rwanda, 1995; Mamdani, When Victims Become Killers, pp. 3-18; Mamdani, 'From Conquest to Consent as the Basic of State Formation: Reflections on Rwanda', New Left Review, March-April 1996).

The exiles in Uganda also faced repression and expulsions, particularly under Obote's two presidencies. For that reason a minority allied with the Idi Amin regime from 1971 to 1980, and then with Yoweri Museveni's National Resistance Movement which overthrew the second Obote presidency in 1985. It was in this period that the Rwandese Alliance for National Unity (RANU) was formed as the precursor to the Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). Representing a minority of the exiles, this movement initially tried to build a broad movement that could transform the Rwandan state. They articulated their goals in a quasi-marxist language, though this was later dropped, expressing what they believed were potentialy popular, liberatory aims. By 1987, RANU was still trying to find a mass base, emphasising that it was 'non-political' and merely wanted to unite all Rwandans. It was in that spirit that it re-branded itself the Rwandan Patriotic Front and restricted its agenda to eight core aims, including democracy and national unity. But in private, it seems, the leadership had settled on a military option. And by 1988, Tutsis integrated into the Ugandan army were openly preparing to invade Rwanda. (Alan J Kuperman, 'Explaining the Ultimate Escalation in Rwanda: How and Why Tutsi Rebels Provoked a Retaliatory Genocide', delivered to the American Political Science Association in August 2003; 'Wm Cyrus Reed, 'The Rwandan Patriotic Front: Politics and Development in Rwanda', Issue: A Journal of Opinion, Vol. 23, No. 2, Rwanda, 1995; Mamdani, 2001, pp 159-185). Increasingly, the RPF had became a project for conquering Rwandan state power. The question is, how did this happen? Part of the explanation is that the victory of the NRM in Uganda had proven that a small, self-sustaining military force could defeat an internationally recognised government. But this could not have become a successful strategy had the RPF not become the proxy army of United States intervention in Rwanda.

Increasingly, Museveni was under pressure to expel Rwandans from senior positions in the national government, and the sabre-rattling of the RPF was becoming a liability. For that reason, he dismissed General Rwigenya from his position of army chief-of-staff in November 1989, and relieved General Kagame of his title of military intelligence chief in Kampala. Both of these were RPF leaders, but it was Kagame who then made his way to Fort Leavenworth in Kansas to be trained by the US military. Having spent months in training by Special Forces, he departed to assist the invasion of Rwanda, already in progress. Kagame was not the only RPF member to be trained under the IMET programme, but as the effective leader of the invasion following Rwigenya's death on the battle field, his presence there has been widely noted. (According to journalist and former naval attache Wayne Madsen's testimony to Congress, in 1999, Kagame's subordinates were also given training at Luke Air Force base in Arizona, in such matters as the deployment of surface-to-air missiles.) As far as I can gather, however, the main way in which the US supported the RPF was through the application of its diplomatic muscle - with important consequences, as we will see. The RPF's martial adeptness and armaments mainly derived from the support it received from the Ugandan military (another US ally)

Initiatives undertaken between Museveni and Habyarimana to prevent an invasion resulted in pledges of political liberalisation, the legalisation of opposition parties, and proposals for the staged return of refugees, but these were flatly ignored by the RPF. In fact, it was a trifle inconvenient for them that the Rwandan state was suddenly prepared to, cautiously, address the issues that supposedly motivated the insurgents, for they were no longer interested merely in reforms: they wanted a share of state power. Reportedly, the RPF even went to the extent of assassinating Tutsis who supported compromise deals. The steps taken by the Habyarimana regime could have something to do with the timing of the invasion, which was partially intended to thwart compromises of this kind. (Kuperman, 2003; Newbury, 1995). Three days before the invasion, Habyarimana declared before the UN that Rwanda would grant citizenship documents and travel rights to refugees, and that it would repatriarte those who did return. Again the RPF did not respond. (Mamdani, 2001, p 159). I suppose it's worth highlighting that at the time, the RPF were the 'good guys' as far as the British press were concerned. A report in the Independent claimed that "The rebel movement ... aims to overthrow President Habyarimana and his clique ... and replace it with a democratic, honest non-tribal regime." Ah, bless.

When the invasion was launched, the RPF discovered to their chagrin that Hutu peasants weren't altogether eager to 'liberated', and generally fled from guerilla zones. Habyarimana had responded to the invasion by locking up tens of thousands of political opponents, both Hutu and Tutsi, and launching a violent crackdown that killed hundreds of civilians. This didn't work to the RPF's advantage since they had no base and most, barring a section of the Hutu opposition, resented them for bringing this repression down on them. The RPF began to rely on coercion, driving thousands of refugees into Uganda (irony alert) to create free-fire zones, and engaging in forced recruitment. They could not, unlike Museveni's NRA, form alternative structures of government based on 'resistance councils' because they lacked a mass base. Most Rwandans suspected that the RPF was about to re-impose Tutsi domination, a fact that Hutu nationalists could use to their advantage in opposing Habyarimana's efforts at compromise. (Mamdani, pp 188-189).

It was often assumed in the early literature on the genocide that a lengthy and bloody battle with the Rwandan military was completely unanticipated by the RPF. Thus, Rene Lemerchand wrote: "On the eve of the October 1, 1990 invasion, no one within the RPF had the slightest idea of the scale of the cataclysm they were about to unleash." (Lemerchand, 'Rwanda: The Rationality of Genocide', Issue: A Journal of Opinion, Vol. 23, No. 2, Rwanda, 1995). In retrospect, this was false - perhaps it was an image that the RPF preferred to project at that time. However, since then Alan Kuperman of Johns Hopkins has interviewed a number of senior RPF members who participated in the invasion and subsequent war. He writes that, in fact: "Rwigyema and other senior rebel officials anticipated a protracted struggle against a more numerous and better equipped Rwandan army." (Kuperman, 2003). But just as the RPF was being forced into retreat and looked weakest, the US stepped in and told the Habyarimana government that it should treat the RPF not as an invading army but as a legitimate opposition. This wasn't just friendly advice: it came with America's immense clout, including its ability to disburse aid and loans. In response to Rwandan concessions, Bush's ambassador to Rwanda announced an increase of aid from $11.6m to $20m. (Barrie Collins, 'New Wars and Old Wars? The Lessons of Rwanda', in David Chandler, ed., Rethinking Human Rights: Critical Approaches to International Politics, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, p. 161)

In stressing the concessions and negotiations available to the RPF, I will not imply that the Habyarimana regime was somehow the 'nice guy' of the conflict - far from it. The pogroms and massacres unleashed by the government even in the early years of the insurgency were part of a strategy of attempting to undermine the leverage of the invaders by punishing the Tutsi population. Their sole rationale for making any concessions at all was self-preservation. But the RPF believed they could gain more, and were determined to press for maximum advantage. During the negotiations they had improved their military capability, and they now found that the world's sole superpower was backing them. They launched a new offensive in March 1992 and continued with further attacks throughout the year. At the behest of the US, the Habyarimana government intensified negotiations at Arusha in July 1992. A seven month ceasefire ensued, broken by the RPF in February 1993. Claiming that they were responding to pogroms and massacres of Tutsi civilians by the Rwandan military and death squads (which certainly happened), they doubled the amount of territory under their control, and came within 20 miles of the capital, killing Hutu civilians as they did so and displacing about a million people.

At this point the Habyarimana regime was faced with an internal opposition that considered that he had conceded far too much to the RPF. This sentiment was galvanising the nationalists, increasing their standing among the general population. And after the RPF's attacks in Spring 1993, even those elements of the Hutu opposition that were sympathetic to the RPF expressed a feeling of betrayal, and were forced on the retreat. Faustin Twagiramungu, the leader the opposition MDR party, criticised the RPF for being exactly like Habyarimana's party, seeking total control rather than a negotiated settlement. Even so, the military successes of the RPF ensured further concessions, and the resulting agreement at Arusha was nothing short of a coup for the Front. If the accords had actually succeeded, the RPF would have been given a total of five cabinet seats out of a total of 21, and eleven seats in the transitional national assembly out of a total of 70, putting it on par with the ruling MNRD. This reflected military leverage, not popular support. During the Arusha negotiations, moreover, successful offensives by the RPF enabled [them] to demand that their representation in the army be increased from 40% to 50%. (they gained 50% representation in the officer corps, but 40% in the proposed combined army). (Kuperman, 2003; Collins, p 166).

US negotiators were fully aware that such concessions were impossible for Habyarimana to defend, but insisted that he offer them or risk losing the support of the 'international community' (the US). If he lost the 'international community', he would lose aid, and potentially lose the war. This is a crucial point: the US knew that nothing was surer to drive hardline factions in the army and state into a paranoid abyss than forcing them to accept what amounted to an effective coup. The RPF's "unceasing demand that Habyarimana hand over to them effective political and military control of Rwanda" was hardly balanced by the few concessions on their part. If Habyarimana went through with it, he was sure to wind up dead: so he did the only thing that he could be counted on to do for the sake of his own political survival. He signed, but did everything he could to avoid implementation. He co-opted all the Hutu nationalist currents behind his 'Hutu Power' alliance, and - in light of ongoing attacks - could make a resonant case that success for the RPF represented an existential threat to the country's Hutu population. (This can't be reduced to the propaganda of a dying regime - it was because people could easily believe that this was what was at stake that substantial layers of the Hutu population, well beyond the small circles that planned the genocide, later participated in its execution. ) At the same time, according to former RPF officer Jean-Paul Mugabe, the RPF were advising their soldiers not to take the Arusha accords seriously and to prepare for a 'final' conflict with the Rwandan government. (Kuperman, 2003; Collins, p 167-171).

The RPF at this point had a choice, as Kuperman puts it: "They could finally make concessions in their demands for power – for example, by letting the now dominant Hutu Power wings pick the opposition parties’ representatives in the transitional government – in the hope of averting massive retaliatory violence against Tutsi civilians. Or the rebels could maintain their hard line and prepare a final military offensive to conquer Rwanda. They chose the latter." Their escalation and the atrocities that they certainly committed (especially during their final sweep to power) only assisted the invocation of an existential peril faced by the Hutu population. Even as the genocide was promulgated, they treated "retaliation against Tutsi civilians as the price of achieving" their goals "even as the price climbed much higher than expected." The Front did make some belated efforts to win over those it had expelled or mistreated, and even to try and organise some self-defence for the anticipated victims of the genocide. But that was secondary. As Kuperman argues: "the battle plan was designed to conquer the country, rather than to protect Tutsi civilians from retaliatory violence". The insurgents avoided the areas where genocide was being perpetrated, or where people were at most risk, for fear of the military costs that they would bear. Instead, they swept through the eastern half of the country, bypassing most of the fighting army units, and took the capital as the Hutu military was disintegrating. They accomplished their goal, capturing state power - though, of course, at a tremendous price.

To state the obvious, again, in stressing the RPF's responsibility for its own decisions, there is no attempt to 'balance' their conduct with that of the Hutu Power faction that promulgated genocide. The responsibility for the annihilation of 80% of the Tutsi population of Rwanda lies first and foremost with those who planned it, and those who executed it. Nothing could mitigate that responsibility. But the RPF's role was destructive, and American intervention on its behalf made it far more destructive than it might have been. And the reason for their ruthless conduct was rooted in their nature as an elitist military outfit that sought, through alliances with local and international powers, to impose minority rule on Rwanda regardless of the consequences for the Tutsi population. In fact, this is exactly what it succeeded in doing. The resulting regime continued to benefit from US military training, has become one of the closest allies of the UK and US in the continent, has been party to genocidal violence in the Congo and has violently repressed opponents. If the Rwandan Patriotic Front had been a liberation movement of the kind sought in the early RANU, with popular interests at heart, it would have shown in their strategy, their tactics of war, their relationship to the masses, and their subsequent mode of rule. It did not: they were not. If there had been no 'Western' intervention, as is often asserted, the 'civil war' that resulted from the invasion would probably have resulted in far less bloodshed. But the actual intervention that took place, so far from proving an excellent antidote to genocide, as 'Western' intervention is supposed to be, helped bring it about.

*The category of ethnicity almost always demands scare quotes. In this case it is particularly problematic since the terms 'Hutu', 'Tutsi' and 'Twa' were historically highly changeable in their meaning and tended, under colonial rule, to shade into 'racial' categories. This polysemy has had implications for the course of present history. Mahmood Mamdani recalls that: "one of the issues hotly debated in the Rwandese Alliance for National Unity (RANU), formed by refugees in Uganda in 1979, was whether the difference between Bahutu and Batutsi was one of class or ethnicity". (Mamdani, 'From Conquest to Consent as the Basic of State Formation: Reflections on Rwanda', New Left Review, March-April 1996)

This article is at 3quarksdaily.com, where it was entered in a contest for the best political blog posting of 2008. Visit the site and cast a vote. Hat tip - BAR

Obama Sells Escalation With Vague Pullout Promise

Obama Increases Total Military Outlays 10% Above Bush levels

by Jason Ditz, December 01, 2009

With the Afghan War getting worse all the time it may seem like putting the cart before the horse for the administration to start talking about a timetable for its victory and pullout, but with the war’s popularity cratering all the time it seems the president believes that selling the escalation as an “endgame” strategy is about the only viable public relations strategy possible.

So tonight, President Obama tried to sell the American public on a 30,000 man escalation of the Afghan War with vague assurances that he hopes the escalation will go so swimmingly that he can begin pulling those troops out in July 2011.

Whether this is collective amnesia amongst administration officials who failed to notice that March’s 21,000 man escalation only made matters worse or a shrewd political move designed to placate a war weary public, the comparisons to Iraq cannot possibly be avoided, and were even made directly by the president.

Particularly in length, as both those “start the pullout in July 2011″ claim and the promise to be out of Afghanistan by 2017 came after the administration’s last meeting on Afghanistan and must therefore be seen as part of the same strategy.

This likely spells a glacial pace “drawdown” in Afghanistan, even assuming the escalation can be painted as a success. America’s 2007 surge in Iraq was declared a success by Summer 2007, and only now, on the eve of 2010 are troops at pre-surge levels, with administration officials forever non-committal about meeting the August 2010 goal, let alone the 2011 deadline.

Yet the 2007 “success” in Iraq was largely a function of ethnic and religious cleansing of neighborhoods leading to a drop in violence, something which the administration won’t stumble into in Afghanistan.

Rather in this case the six year drawdown may be more aimed at quieting domestic dissent, as the public appears to have forgotten entirely about Iraq the moment the vague, multi-year drawdown strategy was said to begin, rising violence and enormous American military commitments be damned.

Source

Obama's exceedingly familiar justifications for escalation

By Glenn Greenwald

December 1, 2009

In order to prepare Americans for Obama's Afghanistan escalation speech tonight at West Point (at least he's not wearing a fighter pilot costume), White House officials have been dispatched to speak to the media (anonymously, of course) to preview all of the new and exciting aspects of the President's plan. As a result, media accounts are filled with claims that there are major changes ordered by Obama that will transform our approach there.

But to anyone with a memory that extends back for more than a few weeks, all of this seems anything but new. In December, 2007, George Bush delivered a speech to the nation announcing his escalation in Iraq -- that one only 20,000 troops, compared to the 30,000-40,000 Obama has ordered for Afghanistan. It's worthwhile to compare what Obama officials are excitedly featuring as new and innovative ideas with what Bush said; I'm not comparing the Iraq and Afghan escalations: only the rhetoric used to justify them.

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ABC News: "While tomorrow night's speech will have many audiences ... a senior administration official tells ABC News one key message will resonate with all of them: 'The era of the blank check for President Karzai is over. . . The president will talk about, this not being 'an open ended commitment'..." Bush:

I have made it clear to the Prime Minister and Iraq's other leaders that America's commitment is not open-ended. If the Iraqi government does not follow through on its promises, it will lose the support of the American people -- and it will lose the support of the Iraqi people. Now is the time to act.

The Afghan leader has heard our ultimatum and understands it ("The president was described as heartened to hear that Karzai spent much of his inaugural address discussing corruption"). Bush:

The Prime Minister understands this. Here is what he told his people just last week: "The Baghdad security plan will not provide a safe haven for any outlaws, regardless of their sectarian or political affiliation."

The Afghan government will have strict benchmarks they must meet (Gibbs: "the new strategy will include many of the same benchmarks, but with ramifications to US support to Karzai and his government if they are not met"). Bush:

A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations. Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighborhoods and communities. So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

We're going to ensure that Afghan troops are trained to provide the security which the country needs (Gibbs: "the goal and the purpose of the strategy is to train an Afghan national security force, comprised of an Afghan national army and a police that can fight an unpopular insurgency in Afghanistan so that we can then transfer that security responsibility appropriately back to the Afghans"). Bush:

Our troops will have a well-defined mission: To help Iraqis clear and secure neighborhoods, to help them protect the local population, and to help ensure that the Iraqi forces left behind are capable of providing the security that Baghdad needs. . . . We will help the Iraqis build a larger and better-equipped army -- and we will accelerate the training of Iraqi forces, which remains the essential U.S. security mission in Iraq.

We're going to have a strategy based on funding and strengthening local leaders ("much of it will be targeted at local governments at the province and district level, and at specific ministries, such as those devoted to Afghan security"). Bush:

We will give our commanders and civilians greater flexibility to spend funds for economic assistance. We will double the number of provincial reconstruction teams. These teams bring together military and civilian experts to help local Iraqi communities pursue reconciliation, strengthen moderates, and speed the transition to Iraqi self reliance.

If we don't escalate, Al Qaeda will get us ("The focus of the new strategy, sources say, will be going after al Qaeda and affiliated extremists"). Bush:

As we make these changes, we will continue to pursue al Qaeda and foreign fighters. Al Qaeda is still active in Iraq. Its home base is Anbar Province. Al Qaeda has helped make Anbar the most violent area of Iraq outside the capital. A captured al Qaeda document describes the terrorists' plan to infiltrate and seize control of the province. This would bring al Qaeda closer to its goals of taking down Iraq's democracy, building a radical Islamic empire and launching new attacks on the United States at home and abroad.

We must fulfill our moral responsibility to stand with the Afghan people. Bush:

From Afghanistan to Lebanon to the Palestinian Territories, millions of ordinary people are sick of the violence and want a future of peace and opportunity for their children. And they are looking at Iraq. They want to know: Will America withdraw and yield the future of that country to the extremists -- or will we stand with the Iraqis who have made the choice for freedom?

Obama's decision came only after serious and careful deliberations on all the competing options (ABC: "The decision comes after months of discussions and deliberations with the president's national security team"). Bush:

Our new approach comes after consultations with Congress about the different courses we could take in Iraq. Many are concerned that the Iraqis are becoming too dependent on the United States -- and therefore, our policy should focus on protecting Iraq's borders and hunting down al Qaeda. Their solution is to scale back America's efforts in Baghdad or announce the phased withdrawal of our combat forces. We carefully considered these proposals. And we concluded that to step back now would force a collapse of the Iraqi government, tear that country apart, and result in mass killings on an unimaginable scale. Such a scenario would result in our troops being forced to stay in Iraq even longer, and confront an enemy that is even more lethal. If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.

To keep the asthetics the same, we even have Michael O'Hanlon leading the way, as always, providing the Serious Expertise to justify further war.

This is all to be expected. Ostensible justifications for war are more or less universal, as is the familiar mix of fear, claims of moral necessity (and superiority), and appeals to patriotism and military love that are always hauled out to justify their continuation and escalation. Beyond that, Bush's escalation was based on many of the same counter-insurgency dogmas in which Obama's escalation is grounded, designed by many of the same people. So it's anything but surprising that it all sounds remarkably similar. And it's possible that once we hear the actual speech, rather than the White House's coordinated depiction of it, that there will be new elements.

Still, this pretense that Obama spent months carefully deliberating in order to devise some new and exotic thought pattern about the war seems absurd on its face. At least if his top aides are to believed, what he intends to say tonight should sound extremely familiar.

* * * * *

In The Guardian yesterday, the courageous Malalai Joya -- who might actually deserve the Nobel Peace Prize -- explains why escalation and ongoing occupation are so devastating for her country.

And on that note: Obama is scheduled to receive his Nobel Peace Prize next week in Oslo. No matter your views on Afghanistan, and no matter your views on whether he deserved the Prize, is there anyone who disputes that there is some obvious tension between his escalating this war and his receiving this Prize? Unless one believes that War is Peace, how could there not be?

UPDATE: The most bizarre defense of Obama's escalation is also one of the most common: since he promised during the campaign to escalate in Afghanistan, it's unfair to criticize him for it now -- as though policies which are advocated during a campaign are subsequently immunized from criticism. For those invoking this defense: in 2004, Bush ran for re-election by vowing to prosecute the war in Iraq, keep Guantanamo opened, and privatize Social Security. When he won and then did those things (or tried to), did you refrain from criticizing those policies on the ground that he promised to do them during the campaign? I highly doubt it.

The crazy, irrational beliefs of Muslims

By Glenn Greenwald

November 29, 2009

Tom Friedman, The New York Times, today:

Major Hasan may have been mentally unbalanced -- I assume anyone who shoots up innocent people is.

Tom Friedman, The Charlie Rose Show, May 30, 2003:

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ROSE: Now that the war is over, and there's some difficulty with the peace, was it worth doing?

FRIEDMAN: I think it was unquestionably worth doing, Charlie. I think that, looking back, I now certainly feel I understand more what the war was about . . . . What we needed to do was go over to that part of the world, I'm afraid, and burst that bubble. We needed to go over there basically, and take out a very big stick, right in the heart of that world, and burst that bubble. . . .

And what they needed to see was American boys and girls going from house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying: which part of this sentence do you understand? You don't think we care about our open society? . . . . Well, Suck. On. This. That, Charlie, was what this war was about.

We could have hit Saudi Arabia. It was part of that bubble. Could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could. That's the real truth.

Tom Friedman, NPR's Talk of the Nation, September 23, 2003 (via NEXIS):

That's what I believe ultimately this war was about. And guess what? People there got the message, OK, in the neighborhood. This is a rough neighborhood, and sometimes it takes a 2-by-4 across the side of the head to get that message.

* * * * *

Tom Friedman can declare with a straight face that "anyone who shoots up innocent people is ... mentally imbalanced" without seeing how clearly that applies to himself and those who think like he does. It's that self-absorbed disconnect -- seeing Hasan's murder of American soldiers as an act of consummate evil and sickness while refusing to see our own acts in a similar light -- that shapes most of our warped political discourse. And note the morality on display here: Hasan attacks soldiers on a military base of a country that has spent the last decade screaming to the world that "we're at war!!," and that's a deranged and evil act, while Friedman cheers for an unprovoked war that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians and displaced millions more -- all justified by sick power fantasies, lame Mafia dialogue, and cravings more appropriate for a porno film than a civilized foreign policy -- and he's the arbiter of Western reason and sanity.

But even worse is the glaring dishonesty driving everything Friedman writes here. Our perpetual war cheerleader today laments that there is a "Narrative" plaguing the Muslim world that is a "cocktail of half-truths, propaganda and outright lies about America." These crazy, stupid, irrational Muslims seem to believe "that America has declared war on Islam, as part of a grand 'American-Crusader-Zionist conspiracy' to keep Muslims down," when the reality is that "U.S. foreign policy has been largely dedicated to rescuing Muslims or trying to help free them from tyranny." They see devastating attacks launched by the U.S. and Israel collectively on six Muslim countries in the last decade (including Gaza) -- all of which Friedman (along with his fellow Muslim-condemning NYT colleague) supported, naturally -- and those Muslims simply refuse to understand why they deserved it and why it was all for their own Good. According to Friedman, these benighted Muslims simply refuse to see the truth: that our two post-9/11 wars were "primarily to destroy two tyrannical regimes -- the Taliban and the Baathists -- and to work with Afghans and Iraqis to build a different kind of politics."

Six months into the war, Friedman proudly proclaimed that "the real truth" was that we invaded Iraq to take out our "big stick" and tell them to "Suck On This," to take a 2-by-4 across their heads, and that we attacked them "because we could." In his 2003 explanation with Charlie Rose, did he even mention what he now claims was the war's "primary" purpose: "to destroy two tyrannical regimes ... and to work with Afghans and Iraqis to build a different kind of politics"? No. In a very rare moment of candor for this rank war-loving propagandist, he announced very clearly the real purpose of the war, only for him to now turn around and accuse Muslims of being blind and hateful because they heard his message loud and clear, and because they don't express enough gratitude for all the gracious Freedom Bombs we've dropped -- and continue to drop -- on their homes, their villages, their families, their children and their society. Apparently, they heard deranged, chest-beating bellowing like this from America's Top Foreign Policy Expert and took it seriously:

No, the axis-of-evil idea isn't thought through -- but that's what I like about it. It says to these countries and their terrorist pals: ''We know what you're cooking in your bathtubs. We don't know exactly what we're going to do about it, but if you think we are going to just sit back and take another dose from you, you're wrong. Meet Don Rumsfeld -- he's even crazier than you are.''

There is a lot about the Bush team's foreign policy I don't like, but their willingness to restore our deterrence, and to be as crazy as some of our enemies, is one thing they have right. It is the only way we're going to get our turkey back.

It's certainly true that -- as all government leaders do -- Muslim tyrants and radical Islamists exploit foreign threats to distract attention from their own shortcomings and entrench themselves in power. Being able to depict the U.S. as a war-mongering and aggressive threat to the Muslim world is a benefit to oppressive Arab leaders as well as radical Muslim groups. But nobody fuels that message more than the Tom Friedmans of the world, whose hate-mongering words and bloodthirsty policies endow that message with more than a sufficient amount of truth.

Minarets: Ban Them, or Bomb Them?

By Matt Barganier, November 29, 2009

Well, the Swiss – or, more accurately, a majority of voters in democratic Switzerland – have gone and done something wrong and dumb, approving a referendum that bans the construction of minarets. Libertarian demerits are certainly in order. But one very wrong, very dumb thing the Swiss have not done is launch any wars of aggression against Muslim peoples, or anyone else, for that matter.

Which makes it all the more cringe-worthy to read this libel on Andrew Sullivan’s blog:

Good God. Why not synagogues? Or did a neighboring country try that already?

Wow. Straight to the Nazi jab, huh? Never let it be said that Harvard doesn’t make ‘em like they used to.

For the record, this is the same Andrew Sullivan who penned this epochal gem eight years ago:

[B]in Laden proves that the best form of persuasion in that part of the world is not rhetorical but military. Pummel them and they will respect you. Talk to them nicely and you’ll end up like Robert Fisk. Best of all, pummel them and then talk. The most persuasive piece of rhetoric yet unleashed in this conflict has been the daisy cutter bomb. It’s the only argument that much of this clearly depraved culture actually respects.

Expect more Swiss-bashing from some of the very people who have cheered on the most egregious abuses of Muslims. They’re extremely alert to the dangers of isolationism, you know.

Source

Photo credit - REUTERS/Michael Buholzer

The truth of UK's guilt over Iraq

"Until he calls upon UN weapons inspectors themselves to deliver testimony before his inquiry, Sir John Chilcot perpetuates the perception that Britain simply can't handle the truth"

By Scott Ritter
guardian.co.uk
November 27, 2009

With its troops no longer engaged in military operations inside Iraq, Great Britain has been liberated politically to conduct a postmortem of that conflict, including the sensitive issue of the primary justification used by then Prime Minister Tony Blair for going to war, namely Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, or WMD.

The failure to find any WMD in Iraq following the March 2003 invasion and subsequent occupation of that country by US and British troops continues to haunt those who were involved in making the decision for war. The issue of Iraqi WMD, and the role it played in influencing the decision for war, is at the centre of the ongoing Iraq war inquiry being conducted by Sir John Chilcot.

Among the more compelling testimonies provided to date has been that of Sir Christopher Meyer, the former British ambassador to the US, who served in that capacity during the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq. Meyer convincingly portrayed an environment where the decision by the US to invade Iraq, backed by Blair, precluded any process (such as viable UN weapons inspections) that sought to compel Iraq to prove it had no WMD. Rather, Great Britain and the US were left "scrambling" to find evidence of a "smoking gun" to prove Iraq indeed possessed the WMD it was accused of having.

In short, Saddam had been found guilty of possessing WMD, and his sentence had been passed down by Washington and London void of any hard evidence that such weapons, or even related programmes, even existed. The sentence meted out – regime termination – mandated such a massive deployment of troops and material that all but the wilfully blind or intentionally ignorant had to know by the early autumn of 2002 that war with Iraq was inevitable. One simply does not initiate the movement of hundreds of thousands of troops, thousands of armoured vehicles and aircraft, and dozens of ships on a whim or to reinforce an idle threat.

President George Bush was able to disguise his blatant militarism behind the false sincerity of his ally Blair and his own secretary of state, Colin Powell. The president's task was made far easier given the role of useful idiot played by much of the mainstream media in the US and Britain, where reporters and editors alike dutifully repeated both the hyped-up charges levied against Iraq and the false pretensions that a diplomatic solution was being sought.

The tragic final act of the farce directed by Bush and Blair was the theatre of war justification known as UN weapons inspections. Having played the WMD card so forcefully in an effort to justify war with Iraq, the US (and by extension, Britain) were compelled once again to revisit the issue of disarmament. But the reality was that disarming Iraq was the furthest thing from the mind of either Bush or Blair. The decision to use military force to overthrow Saddam was made by these two leaders independent of any proof that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Having found Iraq guilty, the last thing those who were positioning themselves for war wanted was to re-engage a process that not only had failed to uncover any evidence Iraq's retention of WMD in the past, but was actually positioned to produce fact-based evidence that would either contradict or significantly weaken the case for war already endorsed by Bush and Blair.

The US and Britain had both abandoned aggressive UN weapons inspections in the spring of 1998. UN weapons inspectors were able and willing to conduct intrusive no-notice inspections of any site inside Iraq, including those associated with the Iraqi president, if it furthered their mandate of disarmament. But the US viewed such inspections as useful only in so far as they either manufactured a crisis that produced justification for military intervention (as was the case with inspections in March and December 1998), or sustained the notion of continued Iraqi non-compliance so as to justify the continuation of economic sanctions. An inspection process that diluted arguments of Iraq's continued retention of WMD by failing to uncover any hard evidence that would sustain such allegations, or worse, sustain Iraq's contention that it had no such weaponry, was not in the interest of US policy objectives that sought regime change, and as such required the continuation of stringent economic sanctions linked to Iraq's disarmament obligation.

The British were never willing (or able) to confront meaningfully the American policy of abusing the legitimate inspection-based mandate of the UN inspectors. Instead, London sought to manage inspection-based confrontation by insisting that before any intrusive inspection could be carried out, it would have to be backed by high-quality intelligence. But even this position collapsed in the face of an American decision, made in April 1998, to stop supporting aggressive inspections altogether.

In the end, the British were left with the role of fabricating legitimacy for an American policy of terminating weapons inspections in Iraq, supplying dated intelligence of questionable veracity about a secret weapons cache being stored in the basement of a Ba'ath party headquarters in Baghdad, which was used to trigger an inspection the US hoped the Iraqis would balk at. When the Iraqis (as hoped) balked, the US ordered the inspectors out of Iraq, leading to the initiation of Operation Desert Fox, a 72-hour bombing campaign designed to ensure that Iraq would not allow the return of UN inspectors, effectively keeping UN sanctions "frozen" in place.

As of December 1998, both the US and Britain knew there was no "smoking gun" in Iraq that could prove that Saddam's government was retaining or reconstituting a WMD capability. Nothing transpired between that time and when the decision was made in 2002 to invade Iraq that fundamentally altered that basic picture.

But having decided on war using WMD as the justification, both the US and Great Britain began the process of fabricating a case after the fact. Lacking new intelligence data on Iraqi WMD, both nations resorted to either recycling old charges that had been disproved by UN inspectors in the past, or fabricating new charges that would not withstand even the most cursory of investigations.

The reintroduction of UN weapons inspectors into Iraq in November 2002 was counterproductive for those who were using WMD as an excuse for war. This was aptly demonstrated when, in the first weeks following their return to Iraq, the inspectors discredited almost all of the intelligence-based charges both the US and Britain had levelled against Iraq, while failing to uncover any evidence of the massive stockpile of WMD that Iraq had been accused of retaining.

The decision for war had been made independently of any viable intelligence information on Iraqi WMD. As such, the work of the UN weapons inspectors inside Iraq following their return in November 2002 was not a factor in influencing the lead-up to the actual invasion of Iraq. Having decided that Saddam was guilty of possessing WMD, the failure of the UN weapons inspectors to uncover evidence of such retention made their efforts not only irrelevant, but undesirable. The inconvenience of the UN weapons inspectors when it comes to the truth about the lead-up to the war with Iraq continues to this day.

The parade of British diplomats and officials appearing before the Chilcot hearings rightly point out the absolute lack of any "smoking gun" concerning Iraq and WMD. But until Chilcot receives testimony from those best positioned to speak about Iraq's WMD programmes, namely the UN weapons inspectors themselves, all the hearings will succeed in doing is sustain the false appearance of well-meaning British officials, stampeded into a war with Iraq by an overbearing American ally, looking in vain for a "smoking gun" that would justify their decision to invade. The evidence needed to undermine any WMD-based case for war, derived from the work of the UN weapons inspectors, was always available to those officials in a position to weigh in on this matter, but either never consulted or deliberately ignored.

There is a big difference between searching for a "smoking gun" and searching for the truth. By ignoring and/or undermining the work of the UN weapons inspectors in the lead-up to the war with Iraq, British officials demonstrated that they were not interested in the truth about Iraqi WMD, a fact that testimony provided by the likes of Sir Christopher Meyer alludes to, but falls short of actually stating.

The search for truth can be an inconvenient process, especially when it threatens to expose potentially illegal activities in the prosecution of an unpopular war. Until he calls upon UN weapons inspectors themselves to deliver testimony before his inquiry, Sir John Chilcot perpetuates the perception that Britain simply can't handle the truth when it comes to uncovering the level of official British culpability in the deliberate fabrication of a case for war against Iraq that everyone knew, or should have known, was false.

Is there any other so-called lobby that has its own state department?

by Jeffrey Blankfort on November 20, 2009

From the American Jewish Committee:

An AJC leadership delegation has concluded a four-day visit to Madrid , where it met with Spanish government officials, media and Jewish community leaders.

AJC´s interlocutors included Foreign Minister Miguel Moratinos; Secretary General of the Presidency Bernardino Leon, the key foreign policy advisor to Prime Minister Zapatero; Javier Moreno, director of the leading Spanish newspaper El Pais; the leadership of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Spain (FCJE); and American and Israeli diplomats.

“As Spain assumes the EU presidency in January, consultation with key Spanish officials is particularly constructive,” said AJC Executive Director David Harris, who led the delegation. “Spain will be counted upon to lead Europe in standing firm against Iran´s nuclear ambitions.”

IAEA Hopes to Rescue Third Party Enrichment Deal With Iran

Iran's 'Rejection' Apparently Greatly Exaggerated

by Jason Ditz, November 20, 2009

The persistent reports of Iran’s final rejection of the draft third party enrichment proposal has been greatly exaggerated, it would seem, and officials are scrambling to put forth a last ditch effort to rescue the proposal.

Mohamed ElBaradei

The P5+1 is reportedly expressing disappointment that Iran hasn’t approved the deal yet, and IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei expressed hope that Iran would take a “minimum risk” in the interests of peace and still approve the deal.

At the same time ElBaradei is urging Western officials to hold off on their oft-threatened sanctions against Iran, saying there was still time to rescue the deal.

The nuclear deal has been hugely controversial inside Iran, with many officials expressing doubts about France’s involvement in the third party enrichment process. Iran has sought to alter the deal to a direct exchange, which has met with Western opposition.

Source

Rabbi's Followers 'Terror Cell in Parliament'

Terrorists plan to commemorate Meir Kahane

By JONATHAN COOK
Nazareth - November 20, 2009

A plan by right-wing legislators in Israel to commemorate the anniversary this month of the death of Meir Kahane, whose banned anti-Arab movement is classified as a terrorist organization, risks further damaging the prospects for talks between Israel and the Palestinians, US officials have warned.

A move to stage the commemoration in Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, is being led by Michael Ben-Ari, who was elected this year and is the first self-declared former member of Kahane’s party, Kach, to become a legislator since the movement was banned 15 years ago.

The US Embassy, in Tel Aviv, has sent a series of e-mails to Reuven Rivlin, the parliamentary speaker, asking that he intervene to block the event.

According to US officials, pressure is being exerted on behalf of George Mitchell, the US president Barack Obama’s envoy to the region, who is concerned that it will add to his troubles as Israeli and Palestinian leaders clash over a possible move by the Palestinians to issue a unilateral declaration of statehood.

Some Israeli legislators have warned that Mr Ben-Ari and his supporters are gaining a stronger foothold in parliament, in an indication of the country’s increasing lurch rightwards.

“Ben-Ari and the advisers he has brought with him are unabashed representatives for Kach and Kahane’s ideas,” said Ahmed Tibi, an Arab legislator and the deputy speaker. “What we have is in effect a terrorist cell in the parliament.”

Kahane, a US rabbi who emigrated to Israel in the early 1970s, advocated the expulsion of all Arabs from “Greater Israel”, an area that the far right believes encompasses not only Israel but also the occupied Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and parts of neighbouring Arab states.

Kahane was elected to parliament in 1984 but was barred from standing again four years later. He was assassinated by an Egyptian-American in New York in November 1990.

In 1994 Kach was declared a terrorist organization by Israel and the United States after Baruch Goldstein, a supporter, went on an armed rampage through the Ibrahimi mosque in the Palestinian city of Hebron, killing 29 worshippers and injuring 150.

Despite the ban, Kach is still active in many West Bank settlements, especially in and around Hebron, where shrines to Kahane and Goldstein regularly attract large numbers of devotees.

Mr Ben-Ari, one of four members of the National Union elected to the 120-seat parliament, has included as his parliamentary advisers two former Kach activists, Baruch Marzel and Itimar Ben Gvir, who are leaders of the far-right Jewish National Front. Mr Ben-Ari has never disavowed his support for Kahane, telling the Jerusalem Post newspaper this month that Kahane “dedicated his whole life to Israel … He was a great man and a great leader.”

This month Mr Ben-Ari was the voice on an advertisement on the Israeli radio station Reshet Bet to promote a public memorial service for Kahane held by his family. It was also reported that for the first time posters had been placed in many central areas of Jerusalem publicising the event and declaring “We all know now – Meir Kahane was right”.

The United States has expressed more concern, however, at a commemoration being planned in parliament.

Michael Perlstein, the second secretary at the US Embassy, is reported to have e-mailed Mr Rivlin several times, asking whether the commemoration was likely to be approved. According to e-mails leaked to the Israeli media, he added: “This is something Senator Mitchell and his team are following with some concern.”

An embassy spokesman reiterated those concerns last week: “To stir up controversy at the same time that we are trying to get people back to the [negotiating] table, is not productive of that effort. It is only natural that Senator Mitchell would be paying attention to that – and the US government as well.”

Mr Rivlin has reassured the United States that he has refused Mr Ben-Ari permission to stage a commemoration but has also admitted that it would be difficult for him to stop a “stunt” by Kahane supporters in the chamber.

“We are talking about a provocation,” Mr Rivlin told the Haaretz newspaper. “The man [Kahane] and his outlawed movement cannot be separated. This is an attempt to bring the Kach movement into the Knesset through the back door.”

Last week, Mr Ben-Ari appealed against the speaker’s decision to the House Committee, which rules on issues of parliamentary procedure. Mr Rivlin has said he will abide by the committee’s decision.

Its chairman, Yariv Levine of the ruling Likud Party, said he was not happy with Mr Rivlin’s refusal and is reported to be working with the speaker and Mr Ben-Ari to find a solution.

Mr Ben-Ari responded angrily to the US concern: “I was elected to the Knesset by citizens of the independent state of Israel. The flagrant involvement of Mitchell has crossed a red line and it testifies to the bowed head of the Knesset speaker that is turning the Knesset into a dish rag.”

Mr Ben-Ari is probably not the only former member of Kach in parliament. Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister and leader of the far-right Yisrael Beitenu party, the third largest in parliament, is believed to have joined Kach when he first arrived in Israel in the 1970s. His membership was revealed in February by Yossi Dayan, the movement’s former secretary general.

Last week Mr Ben-Ari had to cancel a trip to the United States, his first overseas visit, after he was refused a US visa. He had intended to speak to American Jewish groups to encourage emigration to Israel.

To date, the only authorized parliamentary commemorations are for Yitzhak Rabin, the prime minister assassinated by a right-wing Jew in 1995, and for Rehavam Zeevi, a former general and leader of a far-right anti-Arab party, who was assassinated by Palestinian gunmen in 2001.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

A version of this article originally appeared in The National (www.thenational.ae)

“Israeli Ministries Funding the Rabbi who Endorses Killing Gentile Babies”

Al Manar

17/11/2009 - Israeli daily Haaretz published a report on Tuesday in which it said that there are Israeli ministries funding Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira, the rabbi who endorsed killing gentile babies.

The Haaretz repost says:
“Right-wing spokesmen, including some elected officials, rushed to place Yaakov “Jack” Teitel in the fringe group alongside Yigal Amir, Eden Natan Zada, Eliran Golan, Asher Weisgan, Danny Tikman and a few other “political/ideological” murderers. True, they acknowledge, there are among us several lunatic rabbis who agitate to violence. Really, just a handful; even a toddler could count them. The more stringent will note that unlike the Hamas government, our government does not pay the salaries of rabbis who advocate the killing of babies.”

“Is that so? Not really,” Haaretz continues.

“For example, government ministries regularly transfer support and funding to a yeshiva whose rabbi determined that it is permissible to kill gentile babies “because their presence assists murder, and there is reason to harm children if it is clear that they will grow up to harm us … it is permissible to harm the children of a leader in order to stop him from acting evilly … we have seen in the Halakha that even babies of gentiles who do not violate the seven Noahide laws, there is cause to kill them because of the future threat that will be caused if they are raised to be wicked people like their parents.”

Lior Yavne, who oversees research at the Yesh Din human rights organization, checked and found that in 2006-2007, the Ministry of Education department of Torah institutions transferred over a million shekels to the Od Yosef Hai yeshiva in Yitzhar.

The Israeli Ministry of Social Affairs has allocated over 150,000 shekels to the yeshiva since 2007, on scholarships for students with financial difficulties studying there. And what can they learn with the help of public funding from the head of the yeshiva, Rabbi Yitzhak Shapira? According to selected items published last week in the media, the boys can learn that Teitel is not only innocent, but also a real saint.”

“Their spiritual leader stated in his book, “Torat Hamelekh” that “a national decision is not necessary in order to permit the shedding of blood of an evil kingdom. Even individuals from the afflicted kingdom can attack them.”

The commandments in the book do not suffice only with gentiles; you can also find in them approval to attack leftist professors: every citizen in the kingdom opposing us who encourages the fighters or expresses satisfaction with their actions is considered a pursuer and his killing is permissible,” wrote the rabbi and adds, “and also considered a pursuer is someone whose remarks weaken our kingdom or have a similar effect.”

Not long ago, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman announced that he would ask European Union countries to halt their support for the Breaking the Silence organization because he was displeased with their publications.

The Israeli minister surely has reservations about the rabbi’s publications. He is invited to approach his colleagues at the Ministry of Education and at the Ministry of Social Affairs.”

CNN on our new "huge, huge bomb" to use against Iran

What could possibly lead Iran to want to hide their nuclear facilities?

By Glenn Greenwald
November 17, 2009

Here is Wolf Blitzer and Barbara Starr talking last night on CNN about the Iranians and what the U.S. might to do them; it's really pitch-perfect:

BLITZER: Regarding Iran, a new report raises some disturbing possibilities about its nuclear program, and that's prompting fears from the United States over how to respond.

Let's bring in our Pentagon correspondent, Barbara Starr.

Barbara, what are you learning?

BARBARA STARR, CNN PENTAGON CORRESPONDENT: Well, Wolf, the latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency suggests Iran could -- could be hiding more secret nuclear sites, and that is raising the stakes on all sides.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

STARR (voice-over): Iran's once secret underground nuclear fuel enrichment plant. The Pentagon is worried Iran is now burying weapons factories so deep, that the current arsenal of bombs can't reach them, leaving the U.S. with no viable military option if a strike was ever ordered.

This new Air Force 15-ton bomb may change that calculation.

JOHN PIKE, GLOBALSECURITY.ORG: We'd certainly be able to take this out with a massive ordnance penetrator, the 30,000-pound boss.

STARR: This is the massive ordnance penetrator, or MOP, now being rushed into development to be carried on B-2 and B-52 bombers. The most likely targets? Iran and North Korea, which are believed to have buried weapons facilities hundreds of feet underground or into the sides of mountains.

PIKE: Some of those would probably require this massive ordnance penetrator simply because they are buried so deep and no other bomb would be able to certainly destroy them.

STARR: At 30,000 pounds, the MOP, some experts say, will be able to penetrate 650 feet of concrete, a significant boost over current bunker-busting bombs like the 2,000-pound BLU-109, which can penetrate just six feet of concrete, and the 5,000-pound GBU-28 which can go through about 20 feet of concrete.

GEOFF MORRELL, PENTAGON SPOKESMAN: This has been a capability that we have long believed was missing from our quiver, our arsenal, and we wanted to make sure we've filled in that gap.

STARR: No air strikes against North Korea or Iran appear to be in the works, but Iran says it could start enriching uranium here in the next two years, and both the U.S. and Israel want to ensure that Iran cannot manufacture and assemble a nuclear weapon.

All of this has now led to more funding for the MOP. The Pentagon plans to have the first bombs available by December 2010, two years earlier than planned.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

STARR: Now, the Pentagon likes to say it's not helpful to speculate on future military targets, but certainly this weapon gives the Pentagon, Wolf, an option it hasn't had before -- Wolf.

BLITZER: It's a huge, huge bomb, Barbara. Thanks very much for that.

• Continue Reading

Wolf was practically breathless with excitement as he marveled there at the end about what a big, big, powerful bomb that is. He looked like he was in need of CPR or some other type of relief. "It's a huge, huge bomb, Barbara."

What possible reason could those crazy, irrational Iranians have for wanting to hide their nuclear facilities? It's not like anyone's threatening them or anything. And remember: the proof that Iran is a unique, Nazi-like threat is that they allegedly have people in their government that threaten other countries with military attacks. No responsible, civilized country would do that.

Iran's evil intent is also demonstrated by their recent decision to allow IAEA inspectors to examine their Qom facility, which proved that there were no active centrifuges there, just as Iran said. Truly peaceful countries would never allow such inspections. So thankfully, we're about to have "a huge, huge bomb" -- bigger and better than all the ones we had before -- that can take care of the Iranian menace once and for all.

If it was a war for oil, the US lost

The "no war for oil" mantra only made average Americans stakeholders in the wars for Israel

By Jeffrey Blankfort
November 15, 2009

Although the Bush administration denied it, the conventional wisdom on the part of the anti-war movement was that the war on Iraq was launched in order for the US to take over Saddam’s oil supplies which would give Washington an even more dominant position in the region. That there was no concrete evidence that the war was supported by the oil companies was discounted and, as it had been in 1991 during the first Gulf War, "No blood for oil!" became the battle cry.

If the war was indeed about oil, then, as the NY Times reported on Friday, the US lost.

Those espousing that theory had company, however. It was the view held by most Iraqis.

"If true," writes the Times’ Rod Nordland. "then the war failed in more ways than some critics charge."

"It wasn’t until last week that the first major oil field exploitation contract was signed with a foreign company–BP in a joint deal with China’s state-run China National Petroleum Corporation.

"Exxon Mobil… has an oil field deal awaiting final approval from Iraq’s oil ministry. The Italian oil giant Eni, whose junior partner is the American-owned Occidental Petroleum is expected to sign a similar deal. These, however, are service contracts so the foreign oil companies don’t actually own the rights to any new oil they may find."

Gordon Brown: Britain can lead new world order

"When Britain is bold, when Britain is engaged, when Britain is confident and outward-looking, we have shown time and again that Britain has a power and an energy that far exceeds the limits of our geography, our population, and our means."

- Gordon Brown

Britain must play key Afghan role

Nov 16, 2009

LONDON - PRIME Minister Gordon Brown said on Monday Britain must play a comprehensive role in 'changing the world' as he defended the country's military mission in Afghanistan.

Mr Brown also said more has been planned in 2009 and 'enacted with greater success' to cripple Al-Qaeda than in any year since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taleban regime in 2001.

The premier is facing mounting pressure at home over Britain's involvement in the war amid waning public support as the number of soldiers killed grows. An increasing majority of Britons want the country's 9,000 troops out of Afghanistan within 12 months, according to the latest opinion poll.

Mr Brown, who is tipped to lose a general election to the opposition Conservatives due by June, said Britain must not retreat 'into isolation' on foreign policy, but be both 'patriotic and internationalist'.

'I believe that Britain can inspire the world. I believe that Britain can challenge the world. But most importantly of all I believe that Britain can and must play its full part in changing the world,' he said in a speech, extracts of which have been released by Downing Street.

'To do so we must have confidence in our distinctive strengths: our global values, global alliances and global actions: because with conviction in our values and confidence in our alliances, Britain can lead in the construction of a new world order.' -- AFP

Copyright © 2007 Singapore Press Holdings.

Israeli military Chief Rabbi: Troops who show mercy to enemy will be 'damned'

Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki

By Anshel Pfeffer
Haaretz - Excerpt
November 15, 2009

The Israel Defense Forces' chief rabbi told students in a pre-army yeshiva program last week that soldiers who "show mercy" toward the enemy in wartime will be "damned."

Brig. Gen. Avichai Rontzki also told the yeshiva students that religious individuals made better combat troops.

Speaking Thursday at the Hesder yeshiva in the West Bank settlement of Karnei Shomron , Rontzki referred to Maimonides' discourse on the laws of war. That text quotes a passage from the Book of Jeremiah stating: "Cursed be he that doeth the work of the Lord with a slack hand, and cursed be he that keepeth back his sword from blood."

Hamas warns of another Israeli assault on Gaza

Source: Press TV

Ismail Haniyah cautions about Israeli plans for another military offensive against the Gaza Strip, reiterating that it is not the Islamic Hamas movement that is after a war.

Hamas is "not looking for more violence," the democratically elected Palestinian prime minster told a visiting delegation from the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza on Wednesday.

Haniyah said he was sure that Israel has plans to target the Gaza Strip once again, recalling the Israeli army's onslaught against the Hamas-run coastal sliver in January, which left more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians, dead and thousands more wounded.

The Palestinian leader, however, expressed hope that his prediction would not materialize, and that "the world will stop Israel from killing more children."

Haniyah also vowed that any Israeli incursion would face strong resistance on the part of the Palestinian nation.

The comments follow a new round of threats from the military officials in Tel Aviv who have said that Israel's next war would be in Gaza.

In one of his notable remarks, the Israeli military Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi declared that the Israeli troops would return to the Gaza Strip "to fight in the villages, cities, mosques, hospitals, kindergartens and schools because the enemies want to impose this method of fighting against Israel."

This is while Israel is struggling to forestall the prosecution in the International Criminal Court of those officials and officers who launched the Gaza war, as a damning UN report highlighting Israel's deliberate killing of civilians is finding its way to the UN Security Council.

Hamas has vowed retaliation against any Israeli attack. "Our people will not surrender; they will fight back," Prime Minister Haniyah's office said, in a statement.

Denying responsibility for the wars one cheers on

The NYT columnist who has supported 4 wars on Muslims in 6 years decries the Islamic disregard for human life.

By Glenn Greenwald
November 10, 2009

David Brooks' column today perfectly illustrates what lies at the core of our political discourse: namely, self-loving tribalistic blindness laced with a pathological refusal to accept responsibility for one's actions. Brooks claims there is a unique evil that one finds in the "fringes of the Muslim world":

Most people select stories that lead toward cooperation and goodness. But over the past few decades a malevolent narrative has emerged.

That narrative has emerged on the fringes of the Muslim world. It is a narrative that sees human history as a war between Islam on the one side and Christianity and Judaism on the other. This narrative causes its adherents to shrink their circle of concern. They don’t see others as fully human. They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so.

This narrative is embraced by a small minority. But it has caused incredible amounts of suffering within the Muslim world, in Israel, in the U.S. and elsewhere. With their suicide bombings and terrorist acts, adherents to this narrative have made themselves central to global politics. They are the ones who go into crowded rooms, shout “Allahu akbar,” or “God is great,” and then start murdering.

• Continue Reading

But Brooks himself was a vehement, vicious advocate for the attack on Iraq, which caused this:

The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq has resulted in the deaths of many Iraqi civilians . . . Many international organizations, governments and non-governmental organizations have counted excess civilian casualties using such methods; however all have reported different numbers. Reports range from 128,000 to 1,033,000.

That's at least 128,000 innocent human beings -- at least -- whose lives were eradicated by the war Brooks repeatedly cheered on. It also resulted in this: "More than 4 million Iraqis have now been displaced by violence in the country." But Brooks accuses Islamic fanatics -- but not himself -- of "causing incredible amounts of suffering."

Brooks also justified the Israeli attack on Gaza, including its worst excesses -- a war that wiped out the lives of 1,400 Palestinians (including 252 children under the age of 16) and that entailed "the shooting of [Gazan] civilians with white flags, the firing of white phosphorus shells and charges that Israeli soldiers used Palestinian men as human shields," all of which, according to a U.N. investigation, were "the result of deliberate guidance issued to soldiers." He also cheered on the Israeli bombing campaign of Lebanon and derided those calling for a cease-fire, even as the war wiped out more than 1,000 Lebanese people, at least 300 of whom were women and children, during which "Israeli warplanes also targeted many moving vehicles that turned out to be carrying only civilians trying to flee the conflict." And Brooks is now demanding escalation of the war in yet another Muslim country, this one in Afghanistan -- making it the fourth separate war on Muslims he's cheered on in the last six years alone.

So here's a person who is constantly advocating and justifying the killing, bombing, and slaughtering of Muslims, including well over 100,000 innocent civilians. And yet today he writes a column saying: Look over there at those radical Muslims; can you believe how degraded and inhumane they are? In fact, he says, "they" -- those Muslims over there -- "don’t see others as fully human. They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so." That's from the same person who cheerleads for the endless deaths of Muslims and destruction of the Muslim world while thinking that it makes him strong, resolute, Churchillian, righteous and noble -- exactly that which he accuses "fringe Muslims" of doing. And even as he blames the U.S. for "absolving" radical Muslims for the "evil" of their choices, Brooks will never make the connection between what he does and its results because he believes he is free from accountability and that his righteousness justifies the killings he desires -- again, exactly that which he says today is the hallmark of Islamic monsters ("They come to believe others can be blamelessly murdered and that, in fact, it is admirable to do so").

The tribalistic narcissism and depraved refusal to accept responsibility for the consequences of one's actions on vivid display here is hardly unique to Brooks. The very same people who express such moral outrage and self-righteous horror over events like the Fort Hood shootings themselves have immense amounts of innocent human blood on their hands, but they simply avert their eyes from what they have caused or believe that they are too inherently Good to be responsible, let alone culpable, for what they unleash.

Seymour Hersh’s latest article only portrays his well-known anti-Pakistan bias: Pakistani FO spokesman

Associated Press of Pakistan

ISLAMABAD, Nov 8, 2009 (APP): Commenting on Mr. Seymour Hersh’s latest article "Defending the Arsenal-In an unstable Pakistan, can nuclear warheads be kept safe?" posted on the website of "The New Yorker" magazine, the Foreign Office Spokesman termed the assertions made in the article as utterly misleading and totally baseless. "The author of the article yet again portrays his well-known anti-Pakistan bias by making several false and highly irresponsible claims by quoting anonymous and unverifiable sources".

"The article is thus nothing more than a concoction to tarnish the image of Pakistan and create misgivings among its people," the Spokesman said in statement here on Sunday.

The Spokesman underlined that Pakistan’s strategic assets are completely safe and secure. The multi-layered custodial controls, which have been developed indigenously, are as foolproof and effective as in any other nuclear weapons state, he added.

"Pakistan therefore does not require any foreign assistance in this regard. Nor will Pakistan, as a sovereign state, ever allow any country to have direct or indirect access to its nuclear and strategic facilities".

"Any suggestion to this effect is simply preposterous. Our second-to-none professional armed forces are fully capable to take care of our nuclear arsenal", he added.

The Spokesman further said, "to set the record straight, no talks have ever taken place on the issue of the security of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal with US officials".

He said it needs to be emphasized that contrary to what Mr. Hersh claims, the US has repeatedly expressed its full confidence in our custodial controls. Most recently, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton herself denied any US concerns in this regard, he added.

The Spokesman said that Mr. Hersh is known to write sensational stories premised in far-fetched and imaginary scenarios. "His latest article is no exception and is, therefore, strongly rejected", he added.