Excite News: "Syria: Israel Shares U.S. Blame in Iraq | Sep 27, 9:56 PM (ET) | By TAREK EL-TABLAWY

UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Syria accused Israel Monday of devising 'flimsy pretexts' to encourage the U.S.-led war against Iraq and deflect attention from its own policies in the region instead of pursuing peace.

Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa, in a speech to the General Assembly, did not mention the assassination of a Hamas member in a car-bombing in the Syrian capital, Damascus, on Sunday. Israeli security sources have said Israel had a hand in the killing.

Instead al-Sharaa accused lsrael of 'inciting Americans, first, and then the West, to wage endless wars in the Middle East.' The minister charged that Israel used its influence over what he described as strategic think-tanks to influence policy.

He said a 'wave of pessimism had taken over the world because of extremist and intolerant policies advanced by some strategic think-tanks' who were searching for a new enemy after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Al-Sharaa said Israel 'has contributed to the making of many of these flimsy pretexts.'
'Israel bears an important share of the responsibility for intensifying and worsening the American predicament in Iraq by avoiding the resumption of the peace process, despite the hand extended in peace by the Palestinians, Syrian and Lebanese,' al-Sharaa said.

He argued that the stagnation in the peace process is a 'major cause of the rejection of American policies in the broader Middle East.'"
- posted by Editor @ 9:33 PM

Brian J. Foley: Bush at the UN: "September 25 / 6, 2004 | The Sound of No Hands Clapping | Bush at the UN | By BRIAN J. FOLEY

The UN General Assembly's reaction to George Bush's speech last Tuesday was begrudgingly polite. Unlike past years, no one clapped during the speech. At the end, applause was subdued. His talk was treated as irrelevant.

What is the sound of no hands clapping? Laughter -- a laughter that rolled around the world. The world laughed when Bush began by extolling 'the equal value and dignity of every human life,' a dignity that is 'dishonored by all violence against the innocent.' The world asked, 'Whose dignity? The dignity of the innocents the US killed and maimed in Afghanistan and Iraq? Of the human beings caged in Guantanamo Bay?'

Did you hear the world laugh when Bush tried to distinguish himself from dictators? 'We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace.' Yes, we know. That's why the US rejected world opinion and abandoned the UN weapons inspections process to bomb and smash its way into Iraq, only to find there had never been any reason for the war in the first place.

Did you hear the world laugh when Bush tried to distinguish American violence from terrorist violence? 'Terrorists,' Bush said, 'believe that suicide and torture and murder are fully justified to serve any goal they declare. And they act on their beliefs.' Yes, we know. The Bush Administration believes it may wage preemptive war against threats that might never materialize, and its lawyers look for loopholes to justify torture. In less than three years the US has invaded two countries. It has tortured and murdered prisoners, some of whom were arrested by careless mistake.
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The world rolled its eyes when Bush warned, 'a terrorist group associated with al-Qaida is now one of the main groups killing the innocent in Iraq today -- conducting a campaign of bombings against civilians, and the beheadings of bound men.' The world knows that THE main group killing people in Iraq is the US, which has killed more people than all the car bombs combined.
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Bush ended his speech by avowing, 'I have faith in the transforming power of freedom.' The world laughed, because Bush's actions show otherwise: He believes in the transforming power of VIOLENCE -- just like the rest of the terrorists and bomb throwers who've soaked the pages of history with other people's blood.

- posted by Editor @ 10:56 AM

The New York Times > Opinion > Op-Ed Columnist: Bush Upbeat as Iraq Burns: "By BOB HERBERT | Published: September 24, 2004

George W. Bush was a supporter of the war in Vietnam. For a while.

As he explained in his autobiography, "A Charge to Keep: My Journey to the White House":

"My inclination was to support the government and the war until proven wrong, and that only came later, as I realized we could not explain the mission, had no exit strategy, and did not seem to be fighting to win."

How is it that he ultimately came to see the fiasco in Vietnam so clearly but remains so blind to the frighteningly similar realities of his own war in Iraq? Mr. Bush cannot explain our mission in Iraq and has nothing resembling an exit strategy, and his troops - hobbled by shortages of personnel and by potentially fatal American and Iraqi political considerations - are certainly not fighting to win.


- posted by Editor @ 10:48 AM

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Iraq: a descent into civil war?: "Luke Harding in Baghdad | Wednesday September 15, 2004 | The Guardian
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It was the deadliest single incident in the Iraqi capital for six months, but there was nothing unique about the explosion; it took place a few hundred metres from Haifa Street, a well-known centre of resistance to the American occupation and the scene of heavy fighting on Sunday. It was embarrassingly close to the green zone and the US embassy.

But it reveals a grim truth about the nature of Iraq's evolving insurgency: Iraqis are killing Iraqis.

In recent months, and especially since the handover of "power" to the unelected interim government, Iraq's resistance has concentrated its efforts on killing those who collaborate with the Americans - the police officers, would-be police officers, translators, governors and government officials.

It is beginning to look like, and feel like, civil war. ...


- posted by Editor @ 10:52 AM

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row: "Colin Powell in four-letter neo-con 'crazies' row

Martin Bright
Sunday September 12, 2004
The Observer

A furious row has broken out over claims in a new book by BBC broadcaster James Naughtie that US Secretary of State Colin Powell described neo-conservatives in the Bush administration as 'fucking crazies' during the build-up to war in Iraq.

Powell's extraordinary outburst is alleged to have taken place during a telephone conversation with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. The two became close friends during the intense negotiations in the summer of 2002 to build an international coalition for intervention via the United Nations. The 'crazies' are said to be Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.

Last week, the offices of Powell and Straw contacted Public Affairs, the US publishers of Naughtie's book, to say they would vigorously deny the claims if publication went ahead. But as no legal action was threatened, the US launch of the book, The Accidental American: Tony Blair and the Presidency, will proceed as planned this week.

Naughtie stands by his claims and is said to be privately delighted that Powell and Straw have reacted so violently to the suggestion that the former US general had fallen out with the 'neo-cons'.

Provocatively, the phrase 'fucking crazies' will be quoted on the jacket of the book, according to a source at the publisher. 'We were surprised to receive calls from the offices of Jack Straw and Colin Powell within 24 hours of each other,' the source said.

Naughtie claims that Powell and Straw spoke on an almost daily basis. Powell's concerns were said to have chimed with Straw's and those of Blair himself - that if America acted without UN sanction, allies would be lost. ...
- posted by Editor @ 6:47 AM

Poll finds Europeans and Democrats think alike | csmonitor.com: "September 10, 2004 edition | Study released Thursday affirms transatlantic rift over Iraq. | By Peter Ford | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
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On one side of the Atlantic, Americans are more and more anxious for Europe to help them run the world. On the other side, though, Europeans are increasingly turning their backs and hoping to carve out an independent role for themselves.
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Seventy-six percent of Europeans disapprove of current US foreign policy, and 58 percent of them want Europe to take a more independent approach to foreign affairs, according to the poll. That is bad news for the 60 percent of Americans who say they would like the US to strengthen its partnership with the European Union.

"If this trend continues, we may be looking at a redefinition of the fundamentals of the transatlantic relationship from a first-choice partnership to an optional alliance when mutually convenient," says Craig Kennedy, president of the German Marshall Fund.

On both sides of the Atlantic, events in Iraq over the past 12 months have set public opinion on diverging paths. The spiraling violence in Baghdad since the war leads 79 percent of Americans to support strong EU leadership in world affairs; a clear majority of Europeans (58 percent), however, finds strong US leadership undesirable, a 9 percent increase from last year.
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The same pattern emerges in attitudes about the war in Iraq: 79 percent of Republicans say the results were worth the loss of life and other costs, while 81 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of Europeans disagree. Democrats and Europeans also harbor the same sorts of doubts about whether military action is the most appropriate tool to fight terrorism. While 86 percent of Republicans believe so, only 49 percent of Europeans and 52 percent of US Democrats agree, the poll finds.
- posted by Editor @ 10:47 AM

Yahoo! News - AP: Thousands of Iraqis Estimated Killed: "Wed Sep 8, 6:54 PM ET | By BASSEM MROUE, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - At Sheik Omar Clinic, a big book records 10,363 violent deaths in Baghdad and nearby towns since the war began last year � deaths caused by car bombs, clashes between Iraqis and coalition forces, mortar attacks, revenge killings and robberies.

While America mourns the deaths of more than 1,000 of its sons and daughters in the Iraq (news - web sites) campaign, the U.S. toll is far less than the Iraqi. No official, reliable figures exist for the whole country, but private estimates range from 10,000 to 30,000 killed since the United States invaded in March 2003.

The violent deaths recorded in the leather ledger at the Sheik Omar Clinic come from only one of Iraq's 18 provinces and do not cover people who died in such flashpoint cities as Najaf, Karbala, Fallujah, Tikrit and Ramadi.
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Iraq Body Count, a private group that bases its figures in part on reports by 40 media outlets, puts the number of civilian deaths since the conflict began at between 11,793 and 13,802.

Hazem al-Radini at the Human Rights Organization in Iraq said his group estimates the toll at more than 30,000 civilian deaths. He said the group didn't have any statistics and based the figure on reports by Iraqi news media.
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"Our work here multiplied by at least 10 times compared to prewar periods," said Dr. Abdul-Razzak Abdul-Amir, head of the Baghdad coroner's office.

Al-Radini at the Human Rights Organization in Iraq agreed. "The main responsibility behind these Iraqi civilians deaths lies with the occupation because those victims would not have fallen had there not be an occupation," he said.


- posted by Editor @ 7:46 PM

Neoconservatism and Espionage- by Justin Raimondo: "September 8, 2004 | AIPAC Spy Scandal: Crimes of the 'Clean Break' Gang

These are bad times for Israeli spy operations. It wasn't enough that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was outed, last week, as a major supplier of U.S. secrets to Tel Aviv: on Monday, Israel's spy satellite – meant to keep an eye on Iran's nuclear ambitions – went kaput on lift-off. Measured in time, money, and diplomatic blowback, the loss of the satellite is a hard blow to the Jewish state – but the AIPAC affair could deliver a knockout punch to one of Washington's most powerful, and feared, lobbying groups. Not only that, it could also destroy the neoconservative wing of the Republican foreign policy establishment by demonstrating, in a court of law, the key link between neoconservatism and espionage.
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Vest and Rozen report that the agents never brought up Franklin's name: they wanted to know about Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith, Ledeen, and Bryen. Another node of interest: the Pentagon's "Office of Special Plans," which is widely credited with funneling enough phony "intelligence" into the White House to expose its occupant to the charge of being a world-class liar. "The only name that didn't come up was Larry Franklin," avers Green.

If the antecedents of AIPAC-gate can be traced back across a span of some 25 years or so, then our sense of déjà vu is further heightened by the circumstances in which Franklin was caught red-handed trying to hand over classified documents to Israeli agents in the presence of an AIPAC employee. As part of a larger investigation, the FBI was listening in on the AIPAC-Mossad meeting at a Washington, D.C., eatery when Franklin walked in on the proceedings "out of the blue" with his awkward offer. Confronting Franklin with the evidence of his treachery, the feds turned him and used him to scope out the deep roots of Israel's secret underground in U.S. policymaking circles.
...
... As of this moment, 1001 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq so far. What did they die for? As I put it in an op ed published in USA Today, in February of last year:

"Our troops will be fighting a proxy war in Iraq, and beyond, not to protect U.S. citizens from terrorist attacks, but to make the world safe for Israel. When the dead are buried, let the following be inscribed on their tombstones: They died for Ariel Sharon."

The neocons' defenders characterize the investigation as a case of political persecution, an act of factional warfare carried out by the CIA and the Brent Scowcroft-Republican realists against their neoconservative rivals. But the Clean Break Gang and their willing accomplices did more than just argue on behalf of Israel's cause. If the scope of the present investigation into AIPAC is any indication, over a period of many years the Clean Breakers acted like a coherent and disciplined cell, implanted in the very heart of the U.S. government. Stealing our secrets and feeding us lies, this cabal operated a two-way transmission belt of treason – subverting our efforts to go after the real perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and diverting attention and resources to the war against Israel's enemies, the Ba'athist regimes in Baghdad and Damascus, and the mullahs of Tehran.




- posted by Editor @ 7:41 PM

Pollardites in the Pentagon? - by Pat Buchanan: "September 8, 2004 | Pollardites in the Pentagon? | by Patrick J. Buchanan

In 1987, Jonathan Pollard, U.S. Navy intelligence analyst, was imprisoned for life for selling a roomful of U.S. secret documents to Israel. Tel Aviv refused to return them. At the Clinton-Netanyahu summit at Wye River, Pollard became a subject of contention.

'Bibi' Netanyahu wanted to fly the American traitor back to Israel where he is a hero. Clinton balked. CIA's George Tenet would resign, Clinton told Netanyahu, if he pardoned Pollard.

This history is recalled for a reason. Washington today is rife with reports the FBI has been investigating whether or not a nest of Pollardites inside the Pentagon has been funneling secrets, through the Israeli lobby AIPAC, to the Reno Road embassy and on to Sharon.

Suspected mole Larry Franklin, a Pentagon Iranian analyst, was reportedly sighted trying to hand over to an AIPAC official a draft copy of a National Security Presidential Directive on Iran. With the mullahs apparently pursuing atomic bombs, Israel wants the United States to attack, denuclearize and bring down its No. 1 enemy, the regime in Tehran.
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According to The Washington Post, the FBI is now interviewing present and ex-officials from Cheney's office and the Pentagon as to whether Feith, Richard Perle, David Wurmser and Paul Wolfowitz might have leaked U.S. security secrets to Israel, AIPAC or Ahmed Chalabi. ...
- posted by Editor @ 6:57 PM

FT.com / World / US - FBI investigates suspected Pentagon security breaches: "By Guy Dinmore in Washington | Published: September 7 2004 20:36 | Last updated: September 7 2004 20:36

An FBI investigation into suspected security breaches involving Pentagon officials and Israel is unlikely to result in prosecution of senior figures following pressure from the White House, according to people familiar with the case.

The investigation has highlighted concerns that a small group of neo-conservatives in the Pentagon not only may have divulged classified information to Israel, but also tried to mount intelligence and foreign policy operations without informing the State Department and Central Intelligence Agency.

Analysts said that although the neo-conservative proponents of regime change in Iraq and Iran had fallen out of favour with the White House, the presidential election in November still afforded them protection.

The White House denied allegations of a cover-up. A spokesman said there was full support for the investigation.

Sources familiar with the investigation said the White House and John Ashcroft, the US attorney-general, had intervened to apply the brakes. “The White House is leaning on the FBI. Some people in the FBI are very upset, they think Ashcroft is playing politics with this,” a former intelligence official said. ...
- posted by Editor @ 6:51 PM

t r u t h o u t - U.S. Concedes 'Rebels' Control Large Regions in IraqBy Eric Schmitt and Steven R. Weisman | The New York Times | Wednesday 08 September 2004

WASHINGTON - As American military deaths in Iraq operations surpassed the 1,000 mark, top Pentagon officials said Tuesday that insurgents controlled important parts of central Iraq and that it was unclear when American and Iraqi forces would be able to secure those areas.

As of late Tuesday night, the Pentagon's accounting showed that 998 service members and three Defense Department civilians had been killed in Iraq operations.
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... In an unusual step for a Pentagon that tends to avoid citing body counts as a measure of success, Mr. Rumsfeld said American and allied forces had probably killed 1,500 to 2,500 insurgents last month.

But other American officials are more pessimistic about the prospects for regaining control of those areas. One noted, for example, that attacks on American forces rose to 2,700 in August, from 700 in March.




- posted by Editor @ 6:32 PM

Excite News: "Marine Guilty of Abusing Iraqi Prisoners | Sep 3, 6:11 AM (ET) | By SETH HETTENA

CAMP PENDLETON, Calif. (AP) - Wearing a khaki-and-green uniform adorned with service ribbons, a Marine reservist stood without reaction as a military jury convicted him of dereliction of duty and abuse of prisoners at a makeshift detention camp in Iraq.
Marine Sgt. Gary Pittman was cleared of two other charges Thursday, including abusing a 52-year-old Iraqi man who died in custody."
- posted by Editor @ 5:09 AM