Agonizing Choices of War - Harlan Ullman, Washington Times
Despite many positive reports about the progress of the military "surge" in Iraq, we, our coalition partners and the Iraqis face agonizing choices about what to do after the long-awaited reports from the ground commander, Gen. David Petraeus, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker are received in three weeks time — choices that at best can only limit and not end the carnage, and, if wrongly implemented, could inflict the entire region with greater violence. The shorthand of "money, boots on the ground and political power" can best explain the reasons for this looming strategic tsunami in Iraq. While any categorization risks oversimplification, the impact and consequences of each are self-evident. This calendar year alone, Congress will appropriate nearly $1 trillion both for running the Defense Department and the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. For the new fiscal year year, which begins Oct. 1, $450 billion goes for the defense budget. Two emergency supplemental spending bills for the war add another $300 billion. And soon the Pentagon will be sending to Congress a bill for the costs of the surge that were never covered by prior spending, and are estimated at $50 billion to $100 billion so far. The approximately $800 billion to $850 billion spent for this year is about 6 percent of GNP, a level that is economically sustainable. However, politically and psychologically, the public and its elected representatives are unlikely to countenance that level of spending and the additional increases that will be needed for these wars for much longer — even as "supporting the troops" has become the new national mantra.
Another Test in Iraq: Our Aid to Refugees – Michael Gerson, Washington Post
The Bush administration correctly asserts that the entire Middle East, from royal palaces to terrorist camps, is watching the eventual outcome in Iraq to determine the state of American resolve. But the region is also taking a more immediate measure of America's commitment to its friends: our response to the Iraqi refugee crisis. And this, too, is a matter of national credibility and honor. About 2 million Iraqis have been displaced within Iraq by sectarian violence and contagious fear; another 2 million have fled the country for Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and beyond. According to the United Nations, a steady flow of new refugees continues at about 50,000 each month. For the most part, these Iraqis are not concentrated in refugee camps but dispersed in poor urban areas of cities such as Damascus or Amman, making it difficult for humanitarian agencies to identify and reach them. The sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis creates tensions -- swamping education and health services, increasing prices and provoking suspicion. According to Kristele Younes of Refugees International, Lebanon has begun deportations. Some refugees in Jordan are in hiding for fear of raids. The eventual danger is clear: As some Palestinians have demonstrated, refugee populations can marinate in their grievances, succumb to radicalism and trigger broader conflict.
An Iraqi Arms Bust - Reuben Johnson, Weekly Standard
The hidden world of arms trafficking was in the spotlight last weekend with an Associated Press report uncovering a $40 million weapons deal that would have sent more than 100,000 automatic weapons of Russian design to Iraq. But, before the contract could be completed and shipments put into motion, the Italian and Middle Eastern middlemen in the deal were swept up by Operation Parabellum, an on-going investigation that was begun two years ago by Dario Razzi, an anti-Mafia prosecutor. This operation targeted against organized crime first began in 2005 when investigators inquired into drug trafficking by Mafia kingpins. The scope of their activity soon widened as the team under Razzi began tracking mafia-linked arms deals first with Libya, and then with Iraq. The AP obtained Italian court documents showing that the proverbial smoking gun (no pun intended) was unearthed early last year when police in Rome, in the course of a drug trafficking investigation, covertly opened the luggage of a suspect they'd been monitoring after he had checked in for a flight to Libya. They were expecting to find a load of narcotics. Instead, the suitcase contained helmets, body armor, and a weapons catalog.
Regaining Their Senses on Iraq - Washington Examiner editorial
They still call for varying forms of what amounts to a politically motivated withdrawal of U.S. forces from Iraq, but there are heartening signs that Democratic lawmakers are regaining their equilibrium. Just a month ago, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., promised renewed efforts after Congress returns from its August recess to force a hasty withdrawal. Now, other Democrats are injecting some much-needed realism into their party’s debate on the war. Most notable among these Democrats are Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who is seeking the presidency. “Clearly, there is momentum there,” Levin said of the surge just before leaving last week for Iraq. On his return this week, he said, “We visited forward operating bases in Mosul and Baghdad. In these areas, as well as a number of others in Iraq, the military aspects of President Bush’s new strategy in Iraq ... appear to have produced some credible and positive results.”
Pressure on for Riskier Role in Iraq - Peter Hartcher, Sydney Morning Herald
An incoming Democratic president of the US would look to Australia to keep its troops in Iraq as long as possible, for up to a further three years, say advisers to the leading candidates, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. A Democratic administration would also welcome Australian military help in training Iraqi troops in riskier deployments than their current duties, says Michele Flournoy, who was a defence strategist in Bill Clinton's administration and has advised the Democratic front-runner Senator Hillary Clinton. Ms Flournoy, the president of the Centre for a New American Security in Washington, told the Herald that "any Democrat president will see Australia as an indispensable ally in the Asia-Pacific and even more so globally". An informal adviser to Senator Obama on foreign policy, Susan Rice, made a similar call for Australia to stand with the US in its efforts around the world and not only in its own region.
AFP Takes Lessons from TNR - Jack Kelly, Real Clear Politics
A great moment in journalism it wasn't. At 6:58 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time on Tuesday, Aug. 14, Agence France Presse distributed a photograph by Wissam al-Okaili, an AFP stringer, of an elderly Iraqi woman holding two cartridges in one hand. The caption that accompanied the photo read: "An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she said hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City." I used the word "cartridges." The caption writer used the word "bullets." Let me explain the difference for the benefit of the photo editors at AFP. A cartridge consists of three elements: the bullet (the pointy thing at one end); the propellant that forces the bullet through the barrel of the gun when the trigger is pulled; and the casing, in which the bullet and the propellant are held together until the cartridge is fired. But once the cartridge is fired, the bullet and the casing go their separate ways. The casing of the cartridges in the woman's hand is clearly visible, which alone should have told AFP's photo editors that the only way these "bullets" could have hit the woman's house was if they'd been thrown at it. They'd obviously never been fired.
France’s Pro-US Turn on Iraq – Amir Taheri, New York Post
One key promise that Nicolas Sarkozy had made during his presidential election campaign last spring was to "correct foreign-policy mistakes" made by his predecessor Jacques Chirac. Chief among these was Chirac's desperate efforts to prevent Iraq's liberation from Saddam Hussein's regime of terror. Chirac failed to save his friend's regime but managed to sour relations with the United States, Great Britain and more than 40 other democracies that joined the Coalition of the Willing to liberate Iraq in 2003. Sarkozy's moves to correct the mistake started before his election, when he met President Bush at the White House in 2006 and described Chirac's policy as "arrogant." The surprise visit paid to Iraq by France's new foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, this week is another move by Sarkozy to shed Chirac's legacy. No better man than Kouchner could have been chosen to signal France's change of policy. For Kouchner is one of a handful of people in the West who recognized the murderous nature of Saddam's regime and called for its overthrow as early as the 1980s.
Breaking Bread in Iraq – Christian Science Monitor editorial
This week, key Iraqi religious leaders are meeting in Cairo to discuss what they can do about violence shredding their country. The press was not invited, since a certain amount of cover was required to assemble this diverse group. That they're gathering is itself remarkable, and welcome. The coming together is largely thanks to the persistent effort of an Anglican priest, Canon Andrew White, who has lived in Baghdad for nearly a decade. Not illness, death threats, nor lack of funds has deterred Canon White from his drive to involve Iraq's clerics – from Muslims to its dwindling minority faiths – in unifying the country. Religious and political issues in Iraq are inextricably linked, and it makes sense to find a way to formally engage Iraq's spiritual leaders in reconciliation. Not that the Cairo gathering will delve into the theological divide of whether Shiites or Sunnis are the rightful heir to the prophet Muhammad. White's goal for this week is far more modest and sensible: to get Iraq's senior clergy to endorse a pledge to reduce violence, denounce Al Qaeda, and deny terrorism, and to support democratic principles, the Iraqi Constitution, and national unity.
The Power to End War - Charles Stevenson, Boston Globe
The debate over whether and how to end the war in Iraq has been muddied by legal disputes over which branch of the federal government has the power to do what. Supporters of a strong presidency can point to court decisions upholding a broad reading of the commander in chief's powers. Constitutional purists who believe in Congress' supreme power to authorize war can quote the Framers and most early presidents in their own behalf. What has been largely ignored in this debate is what Congress has actually done in previous conflicts. In fact, there are many precedents for Congress to act to restrict presidential authority or capabilities to fight the war. The question is whether Congress can muster majorities to enact the necessary laws.
Alarming the Ayatollahs - Claude Salhani, Washington Times
Want to scare the turbans off the heads of Iran's ayatollahs? Don't threaten to bomb them, which will only give them greater popular support. Instead make plans to open a U.S. Embassy in Tehran. A very large embassy. A veteran U.S. diplomat well familiar with the Middle East and particularly the Gulf and Iran, and who requested anonymity, told me over dinner this weekend that if the Bush administration wanted to really upset the apple cart in a greater Middle East it would go ahead with plans to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities. This in turn would rally the vast majority of Iranians behind their government, much as many of them dislike the Islamist regime of the ayatollahs and frown upon Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's antics. Indeed, several reports from Iran indicate many Iranians do not associate themselves with their government, nor see it as the true representative of the people. More than 70 percent of Iran's 65 million people happen to be under 30 years of age. Observers and travelers who have been to Iran recently will attest to the great curiosity and desire by Iran's youth to explore all things Western. Indeed many, including government officials, never miss a chance to ask visiting Westerners about the possibilities of immigrating to Europe, or what is needed to acquire a Green Card to open the magic door to settling in the United States.
The Saudi-Syria Rift - Farid Ghadry, Washington Times
Never in the modern history of relations between Syria and Saudi Arabia have both countries experienced this level of improper public display exploiting the annoyance both have of each other's policies. The harshest attack was published few days ago on al-Arabiya Web site (Saudi-owned) in which an unnamed Saudi official castigated the Syrian leadership and in particular Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Shara'a who, two days earlier, had his own cacophonous words berate the Saudis. It all started when Syria was accused of killing Rafiq Hariri, a Lebanese-Saudi businessman close to the Saudi royal family, which sparked international outrage and led 1.5 million Lebanese to fashion the Cedar Revolution to confront Syria's presence in Lebanon, and, with the help of the West, to drive Syria out of the country by passing U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559. Late in 2005, it looked as if the Assad regime in Syria was on the brink of collapse. Then in early January 2006, and after a much-publicized visit by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to Syria, President Bashir Assad slowly recovered. The Ahmadinejad visit was historic because it exposed the ethnic bearing Syria chose to adopt vs. the Arab bearing it boasted through its membership in the Arab League. As a country run by the Alawite minority split from the Muslim Shi'ite sect, Syria, through its rapprochement with Iran, sealed its fate against its majority Sunni Arab neighbors and opened an ethnic divide that looks like where the Middle East is headed.
Arming Israel Lessens Nuclear Danger - Ariel Ilan Roth, Baltimore Sun
The White House recently announced it had made yet another deal to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia, followed by a comparable sale to Israel. It's a well-worn pattern, showing that once again, the price to be paid for arms sales to our moderate Arab allies always seems to be an equivalent sale, under very favorable terms, to Israel. Critics such as John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt argue in their forthcoming book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, that subsidized sales to Israel, like the one announced in July, are evidence of the chokehold that pro-Israel lobbyists exercise on broader U.S. foreign policy in the volatile Middle East. In reality, these subsidized sales are not so much a chokehold as a cork: Supplying Israel with large quantities of advanced conventional weapons keeps the Mideast nuclear genie in its bottle for a little longer. This is precisely what the United States wants and an incontestable national strategic interest. Without the regular infusion of new American arms, the Israeli air force would atrophy and its capabilities would almost disappear because of Israel's inability to afford to arm itself with advanced air weapons. Without subsidized American airplanes and smart bombs to rely on, Israel would be forced to ask itself how it could stretch its meager budget so as to attain the most security for the least amount of money. That question has long had a temptingly attractive answer - greater reliance on nuclear weapons.
Isolate Beirut's Foes, But Test Their Intentions First - Rami Naser, Daily Star
"We will not sell you out." That is the message the White House continues to repeat to its allies in Lebanon who fear the return of Syrian hegemony. That message is particularly relevant today as Lebanon will soon enter a presidential election period. Washington has publicly stated it will not abandon Lebanon to Damascus for the sake of regional stability. The Bush administration believes isolating Syria has reaped benefits for the Lebanese through the creation of the Hariri tribunal and the passage of UN Security Council Resolution 1701 last summer. In truth, however, American policy has not yet succeeded in securing Lebanon's sovereignty and democratic gains. The country has once again become a battleground for regional conflict. If this situation persists, Lebanon risks deteriorating into a failed state and becoming a safe haven for terrorists. President George W. Bush has several policy options available to him to avoid this ominous scenario and ensure that Lebanon preserves and strengthens its newly restored sovereignty.
Hizballah's 'Big Surprise' and the Litani Line – Andrew Exum, Washington Institute
On August 14, the anniversary of the end of last summer's Lebanon war, Hizballah secretary-general Hassan Nasrallah warned Israel of a "big surprise" if it initiated a new conflict in the South. Analysts immediately began speculating over the nature of the promised surprise. But what is most important to note is that Hizballah, a year after its last war, is making serious preparations for the next one. The most significant development in southern Lebanon since the end of the 2006 war is Hizballah's construction of a defensive line north of the Litani River. Whereas all territory south of the Litani falls under the jurisdiction of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), territory north of the river is off-limits to UNIFIL. As soon as the war with Israel ended, wealthy Hizballah sympathizers began buying up land north of the Litani -- in historically Christian and Druze areas -- at prices well above the market rate. Much of the Christian village of Chbail, for example, has been bought by the Shiite businessman Ali Tajeddine and repopulated with poor Shiites from the south. Another village just south of the Litani has been built entirely from scratch. Such developments have alarmed other Lebanese communities for purely sectarian reasons. But the construction and repopulation of these villages is almost certainly intended to link the traditionally Shiite villages of the western Bekaa Valley with those of southern Lebanon.
Keeping the Blue Line - Jerusalem Post editorial
In May 2000, on the eve of Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Lebanon, the UN carried out painstaking measurements to establish precisely where the international border ran. The boundary it marked is popularly known as the Blue Line. The aim was to make absolutely sure that Israel indeed indisputably retreated from every last centimeter of what was ascribed to Lebanon's jurisdiction. In the end, the UN officially proclaimed its satisfaction that Israel had exited fully and incontrovertibly from Lebanese territory, as per UN Security Council Resolution 425. Beirut agreed to honor the line of withdrawal as certified by the UN. But apparently even the most careful cartography is mutable. What was once determined ostensibly categorically, after the most nitpicking of evaluations, is no longer definitive by rapidly evolving UN standards. Hence UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon is dispatching new surveyors to review the situation around Mount Dov - dubbed the Shaba Farms by Hizbullah.
Islamic Spain: History’s Refrain - Alexander Kronemer, Christian Science Monitor
The past sometimes provides examples of glory and success that serve as models. Other times, as the philosopher George Santayana said, it warns of impending calamity for those who do not learn from it. For the past several years, I've been immersed in a history that does both. As one of the producers for an upcoming PBS documentary on the rise and fall of Islamic Spain, I've witnessed its amazing ascent and tragic fall countless times in the editing room, only to go home and watch some of the same themes playing out on the nightly news. Islamic Spain lasted longer than the Roman Empire. It marked a period and a place where for hundreds of years a relative religious tolerance prevailed in medieval Europe. At its peak, it lit the Dark Ages with science and philosophy, poetry, art, and architecture. It was the period remembered as a golden age for European Jews. Breakthroughs in medicine, the introduction of the number zero, the lost philosophy of Aristotle, even the prototype for the guitar all came to Europe through Islamic Spain. Not until the Renaissance was so much culture produced in the West. And not until relatively recent times has there been the level of pluralism and religious tolerance that existed in Islamic Spain at its peak. Just as the vibrancy and creativity of America is rooted in the acceptance of diversity, so was it then. Because Islam's prophet Muhammad founded his mission as a continuation of the Abrahamic tradition, Islamic theology gave special consideration to Jews and Christians. To be sure, there were limits to these accommodations, such as special taxes levied on religious minorities. But in the early Middle Ages, official tolerance of one religion by another was an amazingly liberal point of view. This acceptance became the basis for Islamic Spain's genius. Indeed, it was an important reason Islam took hold there in the first place.
Breakout from Islam's Mental Prison - Janet Albrechtsen, The Australian
I am sitting in a small book-lined room in Sydney's eastern suburbs with a petite woman in her late 40s dressed in a neat suit and sensible shoes. Can this be the woman recently described as an "international sensation"? The woman who drove an American rabbi to publicly accuse her of being "Islam's Ann Coulter"? The woman who last year made it on to Time magazine's list of 100 most influential people? Is she really the "uncompromising firebrand in the defence of reason and liberty". Yes, she is. Meet Wafa Sultan. Last year, the Syrian-born psychiatrist, who has lived in the US for almost 20 years, catapulted herself into the centre of the critical issue of our time: how will Islam embrace modernity? She entered the battle of ideas in a fiery debate with an Islamic scholar on Al Jazeera television when she criticised Islam for its backwardness, for shunning knowledge and progress, for propagating a "mentality that belongs to the Middle Ages". One question not often asked is why a growing number of Muslim women are speaking out, demanding a reformation of Islam. And the next question is why these brave women are not hailed as heroes and champions by Western leaders at the highest levels. They operate at the fringes on the right side of a crucial battle of ideas. It's still just a handful. Women such Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somalia-born former Dutch MP and author of Infidel, and Irshad Manji, African-born Canadian Muslim and author of The Trouble with Islam. And Sultan. The answer to the latter question is one for us to ponder. Sultan is unapologetically curt as to why Muslim women are rising to the challenge: "Muslim women have lost everything. They have nothing to lose by speaking up.
India’s Nuclear Deal has Growth at its Core - Bronwen Maddox, London Times
The storm over India’s new nuclear pact with the US, which now threatens to bring down the Indian Government, illustrates the only good thing about the deal – it is an antidote to anti-Western reflexes in the country that still run deep. Other than that, the deal is a worry, for all the reasons that the US Congress has asserted: it is an extravagant breach of the spirit of non-proliferation treaties, showering the benefits of US nuclear help on India even though it acquired nuclear weapons. But the row is a reminder that Indian stability and prosperity are surprisingly fragile, given the country’s remarkable growth. If the resolution manages to silence the intense nationalist voices, who put a fantasy of independence ahead of the pursuit of growth, then a bad deal will have had one good result. Who would have thought, in a deal that gives India too much while asking for too few safeguards in return, that the greatest opposition would come from within India itself? Communist allies of the ruling coalition, led by the Congress Party, have threatened to withdraw their support over the civil nuclear cooperation deal with the US.
India's Nuclear Deal with US Could Blow Up – Peter Foster, London Daily Telegraph
India has enjoyed a honeymoon these past five years, feted at the Davos World Economic Forum, invited to attend G8 Summits and touted in the finance markets as the "new China". And so, last month, when India and the US put the finishing touches to a controversial deal to supply the country with civilian nuclear fuel and technologies, there seemed even greater reason to cheer. It was, as India's ambassador to Washington, Ronen Sen, pointed out, an "absolutely unprecedented" deal that recognised India as a de facto nuclear state even though it had never signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). In return for opening its civilian reactors to international inspections, India was to be granted full access to the nuclear fuel and technologies it so badly needs to provide power to its burgeoning population. Even more remarkable, India was to be granted this atomic bounty without submitting its weapons programme to inspection or signing the NPT. Critics of the deal accused President Bush of driving a coach and horses through the non-proliferation regime by making an exception for India, even as sabres were rattled at two other non-signatories of the treaty, Iran and North Korea. To the critics, these looked like dangerously double standards.
Troop Inquest Delays are Unforgivable – London Daily Telegraph leader
The performance of our front-line troops in Iraq and Afghanistan has been, as ever, exemplary. In two very different theatres of operation they have done everything asked of them, and more. If only that level of commitment and professionalism had been reciprocated by their political masters. Instead, the theme running through these campaigns is that this most bellicose of governments has been eager to will the ends, not the means. From the 2003 invasion of Iraq to today's high-intensity warfare in Helmand, our forces have all too frequently had to face the enemy when struggling with inadequate equipment. The wonder is that morale is as high as it is. That is a tribute to the calibre of the men, their training and the comradeship forged by combat. Yet there is one aspect of the neglect of our forces that is quite beyond the pale, and that is the treatment of the fallen. The delays in conducting inquests into soldiers killed in action are unforgivable. Grieving families are routinely waiting a year, two years, or even longer for inquests to be held. Ministers have been aware of the problem since the spring of 2005. Promises have been made to sanction extra resources to end this shameful backlog, to limited effect.
Not so Fast, Christian Soldiers - Los Angeles Times editorial
Maybe what the war in Iraq needs is not more troops but more religion. At least that's the message the Department of Defense seems to be sending. Last week, after an investigation spurred by the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, the Pentagon abruptly announced that it would not be delivering "freedom packages" to our soldiers in Iraq, as it had originally intended. What were the packages to contain? Not body armor or home-baked cookies. Rather, they held Bibles, proselytizing material in English and Arabic and the apocalyptic computer game "Left Behind: Eternal Forces" (derived from the series of post-Rapture novels), in which "soldiers for Christ" hunt down enemies who look suspiciously like U.N. peacekeepers. The packages were put together by a fundamentalist Christian ministry called Operation Straight Up, or OSU. Headed by former kickboxer Jonathan Spinks, OSU is an official member of the Defense Department's "America Supports You" program. The group has staged a number of Christian-themed shows at military bases, featuring athletes, strongmen and actor-turned-evangelist Stephen Baldwin. But thanks in part to the support of the Pentagon, Operation Straight Up has now begun focusing on Iraq, where, according to its website (on pages taken down last week), it planned an entertainment tour called the "Military Crusade." Apparently the wonks at the Pentagon forgot that Muslims tend to bristle at the word "crusade" and thought that what the Iraq war lacked was a dose of end-times theology.
At Stake in Sudan - Václav Havel, Guardian
The critical conditions that prevail in Darfur are causing immense suffering. Both sides of the conflict - the government of Sudan and its allied forces, as well as all the opposition groups in Darfur - must understand that civilians should no longer fall victim to their political disputes. The Sudanese government's consent to the deployment of the UN/African Union mission, which aims to keep peace in the region, is a welcome development. But the mandate of this mission must be strong enough to allow for full protection of civilians. Moreover, the force must have sufficient manpower and funding to put this vital objective into practice. The countries and institutions that have committed additional funds in order to help secure the success of this mission - notably France, Spain, and the European commission - should all be applauded. It is important for international actors to assure Sudan's government that the UN/AU mission will not strive for regime change. At the same time, the Sudanese government must be fully aware that only by adhering to past commitments and by cooperating in helping to prepare, deploy, and maintain the mission will the international community be encouraged to continue its support.
Mr. Chavez’s Power Grab – New York Times editorial
Newspeak is alive and well in Venezuela. Last week, President Hugo Chávez portrayed planned constitutional amendments that would allow him to be re-elected indefinitely as a step toward “participatory democracy.” Mr. Chávez’s plan is just another step in the march to increase his government’s control over Venezuela’s politics and economy. Behind the Orwellian rhetorical tactics, his efforts to amass power and cling to it for as long as he can are undermining Venezuela’s democracy. Mr. Chávez remains, at least technically, a democrat. He has repeatedly beaten Venezuela’s dysfunctional opposition in elections deemed fair by international observers. He won a landslide victory last December, extending his mandate until 2012. His proposed constitutional reforms must be submitted to a vote in the National Assembly and to a referendum. But his government’s veneer of democratic respectability is wearing thin. Every member of the National Assembly is an ally of Mr. Chávez. His allies also run the Supreme Court, all but two state governments and Petróleos de Venezuela, the state oil company.
More FISA Fear-Mongering – Andrew McCarthy, National Review
So, have you heard the latest? Your business records can now be taken away by Big Brother without a warrant, thanks to that Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act-reform bill Darth Bush — an unstoppable force of nature with 30-percent approval ratings — just slammed through the notorious wallflower also known as the Democratic Congress. Yup, all the government has to do is pretend it needs your records — or your phone calls, or even your person — for a national-security investigation of someone overseas and — Presto! — your privacy rights are shredded. It must be true. After all, it’s in the New York Times. The Gray Lady’s latest chapter in FISA fear-mongering came this weekend, a purple page-one report from James Risen and Eric Lichtblau. They, of course, are the correspondents who got this whole ball rolling in late 2005 by informing al Qaeda and the rest of the world about a classified NSA program, fully disclosed to top Democrats in Congress as it ensued for over three years, which eavesdropped on suspected terrorist communications into and out of the United States.
The Warrantless Debate Over Wiretapping – Philip Bobbit, New York Times
Congress just passed, and President Bush hurriedly signed, a law that amends the legal framework for the electronic interception of various kinds of communication with foreign sources. Almost immediately, commentators concluded that the law was unnecessary, that it authorized a lawless and unprecedented expansion of presidential authority, and that Democrats in Congress cravenly accepted this White House initiative only for the basest political reasons. None of these widely broadcast conclusions are likely to be true. All sides agree that some legislative fix is required because of changes in telecommunications technology. Where once it made sense to require warrants when one party to a foreign conversation was in America, this ceased to be the case when American routers became the transit points for foreign conversations that might or might not involve a person in the United States. Once linear, analog, point-to-point communication has been replaced by the disaggregated packets of the Internet, two people talking to each other in Europe could find their conversations going through American switches. It also became difficult to determine the true origin of any communication that was routed through the United States. If a terrorism suspect in Pakistan is having conversations with someone on a computer with a New York Internet protocol address via a chat room run by an Internet service provider in London, where exactly is the intelligence being collected? If the answer is the United States simply because the servers are here, of what possible relevance could that be to the protection of the rights of Americans?
A Poor Plan to Secure our Ports - Deborah Cowen, Toronto Star
Since September 2001, the federal government has spent millions of taxpayer dollars developing a security program for port workers. It is not an accident that most Canadians have never heard of the controversial plan. The feds have deliberately kept the Marine Transport Security Clearance Program, set to come into effect in December 2007, out of the public spotlight. Ottawa has treated the program as a highly technical regulation, rather than a fully political piece of legislation. In the words of International Longshore and Warehouse Union — Canada president, Tom Dufresne, "they are doing through regulation that which they couldn't accomplish through legislation." But it is not just union leaders who have come out against it. The B.C. Maritime Employers Association, leaders from the cruise ship industry and port security directors from Canada's largest ports have all critiqued the proposed regulations. Three city councils in the port-dependent province of British Columbia passed motions calling for the federal government to restructure the program, and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association recently condemned the potential abuse of civil and labour rights that the program sanctions. So what's all the fuss about? What could be wrong with efforts to create a security clearance for maritime workers with the aim of securing the nation's ports?
Cold War Redux? – John Carey, Washington Times
Russia watchers and military analysts say some of Russia's recent military moves speak louder than the words of Russia's leaders. But the words of President Vladimir Putin and others at the top of the Russian hierarchy have sent an icy chill though relations between Russia, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United States. In just the last week:Russia reinstituted long range bomber surveillance patrols of U.S. vital areas including the military installation at Guam and our aircraft carriers at sea. These are the first routine bomber patrols since the Cold War. Russia said it would again deploy naval forces to the Mediterranean. This also is a return to Cold War-style military deployments and operations. Russian Navy chief Adm. Vladimir Masorin said: "The Mediterranean is an important theater of operations for the Russian Black Sea Fleet. We must restore a permanent presence of the Russian Navy in this region." Russia joined with China and several oil-rich Central Asian former Soviet Republics that are members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), to conduct war game maneuvers. For the first time ever, Russia hosted Chinese soldiers in peaceful yet provocative exercise on Russian soil. The U.S. Embassies in Moscow and Beijing said the U.S. had asked to take part but was told any U.S. participation or observers would not be welcome. Finally, President Putin from Russia and President Hu Jintao of China participated in a multinational meeting of the SCO that included nonmember luminaries such as Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Reins on Remembrance - Masha Lipman, Washington Post
This month marks 70 years since the drastic surge of Stalin's terror: In 1937 the Kremlin butcher scrapped even the faintest appearance of court procedures. The infamous "troika trials" -- a system of justice by rubber-stamped death sentences -- killed more than 436,000 in one year. The anniversary observances were intended to honor the victims. But the ceremony held earlier this month at Butovo, the site of mass killings on the outskirts of Moscow, revealed the government's desire to keep the public's mind off reflections about terror and its perpetrators. The Russian Orthodox Church oversaw the ceremony, a religious service focused on the martyrdom of the executed, not on the crimes or who committed them. In an interview about three years ago, the superior of the Butovo church said he thought it best not to differentiate between those who were shot and those who shot them: "One shouldn't search for who was right and who was wrong." Such forgiveness may be appropriate for the church -- as a secular person, I am not in a position to judge -- but it is not good for the nation, at least not until the commemoration has become a national cause and all victims as well as perpetrators have been officially named.
No Room to Deny Genocide - Jeff Jacoby, Boston Globe
Was there an Armenian genocide during World War I? While it was happening, no one called the slaughter of Armenian Christians by Ottoman Turks "genocide." No one could: The word wouldn't be coined for another 30 years. But those who made it their business to tell the world what the Turks were doing found other terms to describe the state-sponsored mass murder of the Armenians. In its extensive reporting on the atrocities, The New York Times described them as "systematic, "deliberate," "organized by government," and a "campaign of extermination." A Sept. 25, 1915, headline warned: "Extinction Menaces Armenia." What the Turks were embarked upon, said one official in the story that followed, was "nothing more or less than the annihilation of a whole people." Foreign diplomats, too, realized that they were observing genocide avant la lettre. American consular reports leaked to the Times indicated "that the Turk has undertaken a war of extermination on Armenians, especially those of the Gregorian Church, to which about 90 percent of the Armenians belong." In July, US Ambassador Henry Morgenthau cabled Washington that "race murder" was underway -- a "systematic attempt to uproot peaceful Armenian populations and . . . to bring destruction and destitution upon them." These were not random outbreaks of violence, Morgenthau stressed, but a nationwide slaughter "directed from Constantinople."
In Beijing, Orwell Goes to the Olympics – Ross Terrill, New York Times
In China, language has long been a test of political orthodoxy. In Mao Zedong’s era, to confuse evil “bourgeois” with virtuous “proletarian” was to face a prison cell. Write the Chinese character for a leader’s name at a wrong angle and you were a class enemy. Now, as Beijing begins the final year of its preparations for the 2008 Olympic Games, a mistake with an English word is taboo. Some lapses are harmless. “Don’t Bother” as a privacy request on a hotel door, for example, or “Chop the Strange Fish” on a restaurant menu. Others could lead to minor trouble. “Please take advantage of the chambermaids,” says a resort brochure. The penalty for “Chinglish” is usually humiliation, not incarceration. Still, citizens are asked to snitch, Mao-era style, on people who shame China with their shaky English. An outfit called the Beijing Speaks Foreign Languages Program issues prefabricated foreign phrases to workers who cannot converse in any foreign tongue. The Olympics have become one more tool in the authoritarian state’s box of tricks.
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