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November 30, 2005

U.S. Will Try to Appease EU Anger Over CIA Prisons

The Washington Post reports in its November 30, 2005 edition that, "The Bush administration pledged yesterday [November 29, 2005] to respond to a formal inquiry from the European Union over reports of covert CIA prisons for al Qaeda captives in Eastern Europe, acknowledging for the first time that the controversy over the secret prison system has upset European allies."

The paper said, "British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, writing on behalf of the European Union, sent Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice a letter yesterday seeking "clarification" about the matter, the British Embassy said."

"Franco Frattini, the union's top justice official, warned Monday [November 29, 2005] that any E.U. country discovered to have hosted CIA prisons will face "serious consequences," including losing its E.U. voting rights," The Post noted.

It will be interesting to see whether those countries providing the U.S. with prison facilities will heed the EU's call or side with the Bush Administration. Also, the administration's tact on the prison issue is in stark contrast to the arrogance of President Bush's first term. Due to its weakened posture at home and abroad, the administration can no longer afford to tell Europe to go to hell.

For more, please see "U.S. Will Address E.U. Questions on CIA Prisons."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)

November 29, 2005

What Can Ramsey Clark Contribute to Saddam's Defense?

Los Angeles Times Baghdad correspondent Borzou Daragahi takes a look at former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and his decision to join the defense team of former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. Some Iraqi officials vehemently oppose his presence.

By the way, I wouldn't be surprised if someone takes a shot a Clark. Two defense attorneys have already been killed. Here's Daragahi's analysis.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:51 AM | Comments (0)

An Arab News Editorial on the Euromed Summit

A November 29, 2005 Arab News editorial says, "The Euromed summit ended yesterday [November 28, 2005] in Barcelona without agreement between EU states, Mediterranean Arab states and Israel, on a clear statement deploring international terrorism. The Arab delegations were not prepared to endorse a document that did not admit the right of a people to fight against occupation by a foreign power," Arab News said.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:36 AM | Comments (0)

Baghdad Buring: 'Who needs Al-Qaeda to Recruit 'Terrorists...'

River Bend at Baghdad Burning asked in a November 25 commentary on the November 24, 2005 assassination of a "Sunni tribal leader and his sons" in Iraq: "Who needs Al-Qaeda to recruit 'terrorists' when you have Daawa, SCIRI and an American occupation?"

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:25 AM | Comments (0)

'Shabaa Farms is to be Officially Ceded to Lebanon'

Shabaa Farms is to be officially ceded to Lebanon, Syria's foreign minister said," according to Syria.Com's Joshua Landis. "This is indeed important," he wrote in a November 29, 2005 post. "It means Israel can now withdraw from the territory, which will take the issue away from Hizbullah, undermining its rational for maintaining an independent militia."

For more, please see "Shabaa Farms to become officially Lebanese: Prisoners."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:14 AM | Comments (0)

Drezner: 'Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad is Off His Medication Again'

Daniel W. Drezner, "currently an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago," says Iranian President "Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad is off his medication again."

Is Ahmadinejad, who has been the subject of many critical articles since becoming president on June 28, 2005, under attack because he is not docile like most leaders in the Middle East? Just asking. Here's a profile of the Iranian leader.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:58 AM | Comments (0)

Bush and the Attack on al-Jazeera: A Perspective

Jihad el Khazen, proprietor of the provocative blog Khazen & Co., takes a critical look at the Daily Mirror's November 22, 2005 report that President George W. Bush had to be persuaded by British Prime Minister Tony Blair not to bomb al Jazeera, which is based in Qatar, a staunch U.S. ally. Writing in the November 28, 2005 edition of Dar Al-Hayat, he opined:

I will start at the beginning. The item about George Bush's considering an attack against al-Jazeera in Qatar, an allied country, is very true. The British government did not deny the news, but prevented newspapers from publishing a secret memorandum about a discussion between Bush and Tony Blair on the topic on 16 April 2004. The government wants to charge the state official who leaked the document and the aide to a British MP who received it.

Bush was not joking, as it is said in his defense. I think this joke adds insult to injury, as they say, and there were those who announced that the American president didn't need a military strike; he could have sent two soldiers to close the station.Two soldiers closing a television station in Qatar? I hope that Prince Hamad bin Khalifa read what I did, and reconsiders the hosting of US troops in its largest military base in the Middle, since they are unaware of the requirements of hospitality.Khazen said, "The topic of George Bush has killed debate in the Arab press; dozens of men and women would have been killed if Blair had not dissuaded Bush from his criminal determination." For more, please see "Bush and the Attack on al-Jazeera."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:42 AM | Comments (0)

November 28, 2005

EC Says Europe Nation's Hosting Secret Prisons Could be Penalized

The Independent Online's Stephen Castle in Brussels and Andrew Buncombe in Washington report in the November 29, 2005 edition of the British publication that, "The dispute over CIA detention centres threatened to open a fresh rift within Europe last night after the European Commission warned that any country found to be hosting the secret prisons [for the United States] could be penalised." Here's their report.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:31 PM | Comments (0)

Helena Cobban's 'Modalities of Imperial Retreat

Helena Cobban at Just World News contends that, "The Bush administration's rush toward repositioning itself as pursuing a policy in Iraq that is both "responsible" and one that involves a certain amount of troop withdrawal has been amazingly speedy." Here's her argument.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:24 PM | Comments (0)

Dresner Looks at Lipsk's Deconstruction of Robert D. Kaplan

On November 27, Daniel W. Dresner, "currently an assistant professor of political science at the University of Chicago," posted a gleeful post about David Lipsk's November 27 New York Times Book Review of "Robert D. Kaplan's latest book, Imperial Grunts -- and, by extension, Kaplan's entire body of work." Dresner highlights what he calls "the good parts."

I've read several of Kaplan's books and concluded that he was one of the most pessimistic writers I've ever encountered.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:21 PM | Comments (0)

Abbas Wants Europe to Play Role in Implementing Road Map

According to the Palestine News Agency (PNA), Palestiniian President Mahmoud Abbas today "called on Europe to continue efforts to play a major role in the implementation of the Road Map and the realization of the vision of President Bush." Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:51 AM | Comments (0)

The Financial Times on EU Achievements in the Middle East

The Financial Times of London opined in a November 28, 2005 editorial that "When President George W. Bush launched his "greater Middle East initiative" for Arab democracy a couple of years ago, many Europeans complained he was ignoring what the European Union had achieved over the past 10 years with its neighbours around the southern and eastern rim of the Mediterranean. But, as the EU takes stock at a 35-nation summit today of this decade-long partnership, one has to ask, what achievement?"

For more, please see "Advancing Barcelona."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:45 AM | Comments (0)

EUobserver:Terror Definition Causes Trouble at Summit

Teresa Küchler notes in a November 28, 2005 EUobserver report that "EU [European Union] ministers and ten Mediterranean nations gathered in Barcelona for a two-day summit failed on Sunday (27 November) to agree on a code of conduct against terrorism and a joint statement on the Middle East peace process." Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:26 AM | Comments (0)

November 24, 2005

Newsweek: Padilla May Be Held Even If He's Acquitted

Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball, reporters for the American magazine Newsweek, posted an article November 23, 2005 on political prisoner Jose Padilla that is ominous in its implications. They wrote:

The Bush administration, determined not to yield any ground on the constitutional issues in the case of Jose Padilla , has indicated it may still hold the accused enemy combatant indefinitely even if he is acquitted of the terrorist conspiracy charges he was indicted on this week.

If this is true, every American, even those red-blooded Republicans who think our president can do no wrong, had better start worrying and work to put a stop to the administration's troublesome, un-American activities. It's bad enough that Padilla, an American citizen, was held for three years without trial in a military brig in Hanahan, South Carolina, under orders from President George W. Bush. Bush labelled him an enemy combatant and not eligible for protection under the Geneva convention.

Interestingly, Padilla, a Muslim of Puerto Rican descent, was indicted November 22, 2005 on for "providing - and conspiring to provide - material support to terrorists, and conspiring to murder individuals who are overseas."

This is not the charge for which he was originally arrested on May 8, 2005, as he returned to the U.S. from the Middle East through Chicago's O'Hare Airport. We were told he was arrested to prevent him for setting off a dirty bomb. Was that a lie? Is the Padilla case like the administration's weapons of mass destruction claim? All lies. My guess is that it is. However, because the administration is so secret, we may not know for quite sometime. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if Padilla's trial is held in secret.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:13 PM | Comments (0)

November 23, 2005

Young Political Leaders in Asia and Europe Meet in Beijing

China Youth Connection reported today that, "About 100 young delegates from 34 countries and other regional organizations gathered together in Beijing Monday [November 21, 2005] for an inaugural conference for young political leaders in Asia and Europe, discussing methods to intensify the youth's role in the partnership between Asia and Europe."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:28 AM | Comments (0)

China: Next UN Secretary-general Should Come From Asia

"The next UN Secretary-General should come from an Asian country, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao told a regular press conference Tuesday [November 22, 2005] in Beijing," according to People's Daily Online. Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:20 AM | Comments (0)

Lee Hamilton: U.S. Should 'Reach Out to Latin America'

"The recent Summit of the Americas highlighted the deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Latin America," according to Lee Hamilton, director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C., and director of the Center on Congress at Indiana University.

The former U.S. representative from Indiana (1965 to 1999) contends that, "As in other parts of the world, this deterioration is partially attributable to widespread opposition to U.S. foreign policy, specifically the war in Iraq. But the roots of Latin America's unease go far deeper."
To read more of Mr. Hamillton opinion on the depth of that alleged discontent, please see his November 22, 2005 IndyStar.Com article headlined "Reach out to Latin America."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:14 AM | Comments (0)

Globalization in Latin America

"Panama is the most globalized country in Latin America, followed by the Dominican Republic. Argentina is the least globalized, the Latin American Globalization Index shows," according to Dominican Today. For more, please see "DR, the most globalized country after Panama."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:59 AM | Comments (0)

Britain Offers Compromise to ACP Sugar Producers

Radiojamaica.com reported November 22, 2005 that, "Britain, which currently holds the presidency of the European Union, has offered a compromise to African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) [sugar] producers over the sugar reform proposals." Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:11 AM | Comments (0)

Caribbean Leaders Meet With Blair

British Prime Minister Tony Blair held a working lunch with prime ministers and presidents from Caribbean countries at Number 10 Downing Street yesterday [November 22, 2005]," according to The Jamaica Observer.

"The leaders are in Europe to attend the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Malta at the end of the week," the publication said. Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:03 AM | Comments (0)

Mauritania's Vall Calls for Western Sahara Solution

On November 22, 2005, during a "two-day visit to Morocco on the invitation of King Mohammed VI," Mauritanian leader Ely Ould Mohamed Vall told the Moroccan MAP news agency:

Mauritania sees that the best way to settle the [Western Sahara] dispute and prevent any recurrence [of armed conflict] is to find a consensus-based solution between the concerned parties.

As Al Jazeera noted in its November 22 report that, "The Mauritanian head of state, who came to power in a bloodless coup in August, said his country wanted a solution that would be acceptable to Morocco and the Algerian-backed separatist movement Polisario."

"Vall's statement reiterated his announcement on 16 October that Mauritania would remain neutral in the dispute," Al Jazeera said.

For more, please see "Mauritania calls for W. Sahara solution."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:58 AM | Comments (0)

Three African Leaders Try to Break Political Stalemate in Cote d'Ivoire

South African President Thabo Mbeki. Presidents Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria and Mamadou Tandja of Niger "flew in to Cote dIvoire on Tuesday [November 22, 2005] to help the world's top cocoa producer hurdle the latest stumbling block to a UN-drafted peace," according Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN).

"Diplomats hope Tuesday's visitors will force a conclusion to feverish discussions that have failed to produce a new prime minister acceptable to all the signatories of a hobbling three-year peace deal," IRIN said. Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:42 AM | Comments (0)

How Will Johnson-Sirleaf Handle the Charles Taylor Affair.

How will Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf deal with the senistive issue of former Liberian President Charles Taylor who is in exile in Nigeria? He is wanted by the "Special Court for Sierra Leone" for his role in the Sierra Leone civil war.

"What we want to do before we can come up with a course of action is to consult with West African leaders because they have had a very important role in bringing peace to our country," The Analyst of Monrovia, Liberia quotes Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf as saying.

She spoke with journalists November 19, 2005 in Kolma Town, upper Montserrado County, Liberia, The Analyst reported. The publication said that Ms. Johnson-Sirleaf "stated that a final solution will be reached which she hopes will satisfy the international community, EU, UN and West African leaders." See "Ellen's Position on Charles Taylor."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:30 AM | Comments (0)

Time Europe's '10 Questions For Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf'

On November 20, 2005, Time Europe published an article headlined "10 Questions For Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf." The 67-year old, Harvard-educated, president's answers are quite revealing. Their brevity seem to suggest that her responses were tightly edited.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:05 AM | Comments (0)

Liberia's Embedded Patronage System

Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia, Africa's first female president, has tough job ahead of her. According to The Liberian Times, one area she must confront is the country's patronage system.

"The government-elect must end Liberia's embedded patronage networks in order to sustain democracy and prosperity," opined Francis W. Nyepon in a November 22, 2005 article. "A lot is at stake for Africa's first female president. She must immediately set an agenda for change, through accountability and transparency, by seizing this opportunity to challenge all Liberians to view education, skill, qualification, experience, and ability as the alternative to misplaced expectation of goodwill and the granting of favor without pragmatic acquisition." Here's the entire article."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:54 AM | Comments (0)

November 22, 2005

James Bamford Profiles Bush's Propagandist

James Bamford, the best-selling author of "A Pretext for War: 9/11, Iraq, and the Abuse of America's Intelligence Agencies" (2004) and other thought-provoking books, has a profile on Rolling Stones' website on James Rendon, U.S. President George W. Bush's "general in the propaganda war" over Iraq.

"Rendon is a man who fills a need that few people even know exists," Mr. Bamford writes. "Two months before [Adnan Ihsan Saeed] al-Haideri, [a forty-three-year-old Iraqi who had fled his homeland in Kurdistan and was now determined to bring down Saddam Hussein"] "took the lie-detector test [on December 17th, 2001, in a small room" in "a chic hotel nestled among the strip bars and brothels that cater to foreigners in the town of Pattaya, on the Gulf of Thailand" that showed he lied about former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction. " the Pentagon had secretly awarded him a $16 million contract to target Iraq and other adversaries with propaganda."

"One of the most powerful people in Washington," Bamford wrote, "Rendon is a leader in the strategic field known as "perception management," manipulating information -- and, by extension, the news media -- to achieve the desired result. His firm, the Rendon Group, has made millions off government contracts since 1991, when it was hired by the CIA to help "create the conditions for the removal of Hussein from power."

"Working under this extraordinary transfer of secret authority," Mr. bamford added, "Rendon assembled a group of anti-Saddam militants, personally gave them their name -- the Iraqi National Congress -- and served as their media guru and "senior adviser" as they set out to engineer an uprising against Saddam. It was as if President John F. Kennedy had outsourced the Bay of Pigs operation to the advertising and public-relations firm of J. Walter Thompson." For more, please see "The Man Who Sold the War."

Thanks to Eric Olsen at Deep Blade Journal for citing the article in his November 21, 2005 post headlined "Deception Bought and Paid For".

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:44 AM | Comments (0)

Syria Comment. Com's November 21, 2005 News Roundup

Joshua Landis at Syria Comment had a very informative "Article Round Up" on Syria on Nov. 21 2005.

I found the following passage revealing: "The United States had no evidence that Syria was involved in the infiltration of insurgents in Iraq," said A top U.S. Air Force general, Lt. Gen. Walter E. Buchanan III, Commander of the 9th U.S. Air Force and U.S. Central Command Air Forces. "Our only concern with Syria is the number of terrorists infiltrating through porous borders with Iraq," he said.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:19 AM | Comments (0)

Reconciliation Conferees Ask U.S. For a Withdrawal Timetable

Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment reports today that, "Al-Hayat gives the original Arabic wording of some articles of the agreement," between parties at the Iraq national reconciliation conference in Cairo, Egypt.

"One provision says," according to Professor Cole:

We demand the withdrawal of foreign forces in accordance with a timetable, and the establishment of a national and immediate program for rebuilding the armed forces through drills, preparation and being armed, on a sound basis that will allow it to guard Iraq's borders and to get control of the security situation . . .

"Sources at the conference told al-Hayat that they envisaged the withdrawal of foreign military forces from the cities within 6 months (i.e. mid-May?). They said that the withdrawal would be completed over a period of two years (i.e. November 2007). This timetable, al-Hayat says, appears actually to have been put forward by the Americans themselves. If that is true, we finally know exactly what George W. Bush means by "staying the course." It is a course that takes us to withdrawal," Professor Cole contends. Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:09 AM | Comments (0)

Iran Holds Talks With Iraq's Jalal Talabani

"The Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, continued his landmark visit to Iran on Tuesday [November 22, 2005] holding meetings with top Iranian officials," reports AKI of Italy.

"The Kurdish leader is the first Iraqi president to visit the country since 1960," the publication noted. "After meeting his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Monday," November 31, 2005, "he was meeting Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the president of the Council for the Discernment of the State, and Ali Larijani, the secretary general of the Supreme Council for National Security on Tuesday," November 22, 2005.

"Security and terrorism will form the basis of talks between Talabani and the Iranian officials," AKI said.

Holding talks with Iran is a logical step whether the U.S. likes it or not. For more, please see "Iran-Irag: Talabani in Tehran to Strengthen Ties."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:13 AM | Comments (0)

U.S. Shuts Down its Military Base in Uzbekistan

Alex Rodriguez of the Chicago Tribune notes that, "The U.S. military yesterday [November 21, 2005] closed its air base in Uzbekistan that was used for Afghanistan operations, a shutdown ordered by Uzbek President Islam Karimov after the United States joined calls for an international inquiry into the authoritarian leader's handling of the Andijan uprising." Here's the article.

Also see "U.S. vacates Uzbekistan military base."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:58 AM | Comments (0)

Azerbaijan Seeks Affiliation With NATO

"Cooperation between the NATO and Azerbaijan is developing on the basis of three key directions--increase of efficiency for finding the ways of cooperation, aid to the republic for best performance of the budget, planning, management of the defense ministry and control over armament, the NATO representative to the South Caucasus Robert Simons said in his interview to Azerbaijani Trend," reports Prime News of Georgia.

I think the report is worth reading.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:46 AM | Comments (0)

Freedom Day in Ukraine

Ria Novosti reported today that, "About half a million people are expected to gather Tuesday," November 22, 2005, " in central Kiev to celebrate the first anniversary of the "orange revolution," now observed as Freedom Day in Ukraine." Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:39 AM | Comments (0)

A Year After the Orange Revolution

"Today marks the first anniversary of the mass protests over election fraud which helped usher Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko into power," notes EuroNews. Also see "Yushchenko suffers disenchantment a year after orange revolution."

The Christian Science Monitor's "Ukraine assesses 'orange' year" provides another perspective. So does Dan McMinn's Orange Ukraine article headlined "Their Own Worst Enemy."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:33 AM | Comments (0)

Deutsche Welle Sees 'Rough Road Ahead' for Merkel

Deutsche Welle said today that, "The relatively slim majority of votes for her chancellorship [of Germany] indicates that" Angela Merkel's "government faces a difficult road in its task to turn around Europe's largest economy."

"Merkel, a conservative, was forced into awkward compromises on taxes and welfare-state reforms that some fear could undermine her coalition with [former German Chancellor Gerhard] Schroeder's left-wing Social Democrats, and slow efforts to fix a lagging economy," Deutsche Welle said, adding: "But Social Democrat parliamentary leader Peter Struck told reporters: "Any woman who can fight her way to the chancellorship of the (Christian Democratic) Union has certain strengths. She has the opportunity to become a good chancellor."

Deutsche Welle quoted Mr. "Struck's CDU counterpart Volker Kauder as saying: "This is an important day for our country. We have elected our first post-War woman chancellor." See

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:16 AM | Comments (0)

'Mr. President, I accept'

"On Tuesday morning," November 22, 2005, "Angela Merkel cleared the final hurdle to becoming chancellor after the German parliament voted overwhelmingly to elevate her to the country's highest political office," according to Der Spiegel Online. "After she is sworn in later in the afternoon, [Ms.] Merkel will begin her new job as Germany's first-ever woman leader."

"At 10:53 CET," Der Spiegel reported, "the president of the Bundestag announced the result of the parliamentary vote, which favored [Ms.] Merkel by 397-202. After the announcement of the results, [Ms.] Merkel, grinning from cheek to cheek, said: "Mr. President, I accept."

For more, please see "Angela Merkel Elected as Germany's First Woman Chancellor." Also see "Bidding Schroder Farewell."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:02 AM | Comments (0)

November 21, 2005

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood is Mubarak's Main Political Challenger

"The Muslim Brotherhood says it has won 13 parliamentary seats in the second stage of Egyptian elections despite a crackdown by authorities, reinforcing its position as the ruling party's main challenger," reports Al jazeera.Net.

For more, please see "Muslim Brotherhood boosts poll tally."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 10:02 AM | Comments (0)

Arab News: "Ban on Expats Aged 60 Draws Mixed Reaction'

Maha Akeel of Arab News reported today that, the Saudi Arabian "Labor Ministry's recent decision banning renewal of work licenses of expatriate workers who have crossed 60 years of age has drawn mixed reactions. Most Saudis welcomed the move, saying it would give a shot in the arm of Saudization," Akeel wrote, adding: "But some others feared that it could affect business as well as training of Saudis." Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 09:55 AM | Comments (0)

Arab League Head to Visit Tehran Soon

"Arab League chief Amr Moussa has said that he would travel to Tehran soon to discuss issues relating to Iraq and the Arab world with Iranian officials," Tehran Times. Com reported November 21, 2005. Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)

Times of London: Sharon Leaving Likud 'Will Reshape Israeli Politics

"It's already been compared to the eruption of a volcano and that's a fair enough description," contends Ian MacKinnon, The Times of London's Jerusalem correspondent, in an analysis of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to leave the Likud Party and fight what The Times calls "a snap election as leader of a new centrist force - a decision that transforms the landscape of Israeli politics."

Mr. MacKinnon said "It's the tectonic plates of Israeli politics shifting, an earthquake - it's huge. This will reshape Israeli politics in a way that's not been seen for decades, with big implications for the peace process and for the direction of any peace process," he said.

For more, please see "Analysis: Sharon move is 'political earthquake'.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:44 AM | Comments (0)

Has Sharon Settled on 'National Responsibility' as a Party Name?

Robert Rosenberg at Ariga describes Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's decision to resign from the Likud Party and form his own as "a watershed moment in Israeli political history." He wrote November 21, 2005:

The political map is being redrawn by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon so he can plunge ahead with his plans to be counted with David Ben Gurion as Israel's great leader. B-G established the state in 1947. Sharon wants to set finally the borders with the Palestinians and possibly the Syrians and Lebanese but first he had to smash his two great political enterprises: the settlements, which he built as an obstacle to a Palestinian state, and the Likud when it proved it preferred its heartfelt ideologies over the pragmatism Sharon discovered in the Prime Ministers Office.

Mr. Rosenberg reported that, "It's being said that Sharon has decided on the name National Responsibility for his new party, which will draw on around 14 or 15 existing MKs some of whom are ministers and new faces: former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter, outgoing president of Ben Gurion University Avishai Braverman, and Shinui eminence grise Uriel Reichman." Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:31 AM | Comments (0)

Arutz Sheva: '22 Likud MK’s Attend Knesset Meeting Without Sharon'

Arutz Sheva reported November 21, 2005 that, "Twenty-two MKs (members of the Israeli Knesset) from the Likud party attended a faction meeting in the Knesset today, the first such meeting without Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as head of the party." Mr. Sharon quit the party November 21, 2005 to form his own. Here's more.

Arutz Sheva also Member of Knesset "Tzachi Hanegbi has been appointed to temporarily replace" Mr.Sharon "as head of the Likud party, according to MK Gidon Saar, head of the Likud Knesset faction." Read about it here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:15 AM | Comments (0)

The Drama of Israeli Politics

The Jewish Telegraph Agency (JTA) says "Israeli politics usually make for fine drama and 2006 is shaping up to be no exception to that rule." See "Labor Party quits Israeli govt, paving the way for early elections."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:54 AM | Comments (0)

Some U.S. Officials Doubt al-Zarqawi is Dead

According to United Press International, "U.S. officials say they doubt reports that al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a confrontation with coalition forces in Mosul," Iraq, on November 19, 2005. See this.

The Associated Press quotes Trent Duffy, a White House spokesman, as saying on November 20, 2005 that reports of al-Zarqawi's death were "highly unlikely and not credible."

Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. Ambassador to Iraq, was quoted as saying, "I don't think we got him." The AP said Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a military spokesman for the U.S. occupation force in Baghdad, said there was "no indication" that al-Zarqawi' had been killed. Here's more on the story.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:30 AM | Comments (0)

November 20, 2005

Academic Seeks Lebanese Presidency

Arabic News. Com says, Shebli al-Mallat, a professor at al-Yasoueyeh university in Beirut, "nominated himself on Thursday [November 17, 2005] for the presidential elections, calling on the USA and the democratic governments to work for isolating the Lebanese President Emil Lahoud from his post." Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:02 PM | Comments (0)

Syria Still Studying Details of Detlev Mehlis, Riad Daoudi Meeting

Leila Hatoum, writing in the November 21. 2005 edition of The Daily Star of Lebanon, reports that, "As Detlev Mehlis prepares to return to Lebanon within the "next few days," Damascus continues to study the details of a meeting between its envoy and the UN's lead investigator."

Ms. Hatoum said, "Sources close to the UN probe told The Daily Star Sunday night [November 20, 2005] that Mehlis "is expected to arrive in Beirut very soon," within "the next few days."

She noted that Mr. Mehlis "met Friday [November 18, 2005] with the Syrian Foreign Ministry's legal adviser Riad Daoudi in Barcelona [Spain]. The two officials tried to reach a settlement on the location for the questioning of six Syrian officials, including Syrian President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law Assef Shawkat, regarding the assassination of former Lebanese Premier Rafik Hariri," Mr. Hatoum added.

For more details, please see "Syria studies interrogation details."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:49 PM | Comments (0)

Most Kurds in Syria Lack Official ID Cards

According to the Integrated Regional Information Networks (IRIN), there are an "estimated 75,000 Kurds living in Syria without an official identification card proving citizenship, and is therefore, technically, stateless." See "Syria: For many Kurds, statelessness remains a way of life."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:25 PM | Comments (0)

'John Murtha is Sort of Like a Living Version of John Wayne'

"Democratic hawk John Murtha is sort of like a living version of John Wayne in Congress," contends Steve Clemons, publisher of the The Washington Note political blog. "He was a marine. He put his life on the line for his country in time of war. He's a guy of few words. He doesn't really like reporters or spinning stories. He hangs out on weekends with soldiers who have had amputations or are recovering from other war wounds at Walter Reed Hospital."

Mr. Clemons said, "To put it simply, Murtha is one of those tough dudes -- out of a Tom Clancy novel -- that is patriotic to the core and yet sees this nation's security, military forces, and economy going over a cliff. And he's now said so."

It takes a man of Mr. Murtha's stature to stand up to Hawks like Vice President Dick Cheney and President Bush. Unlike them, he knows what it's like to be shot at in war.

See Mr. Murtha's November 17, 2005 speech on Iraq.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:57 PM | Comments (0)

Fred Barnes' 'Vietnam Flashbacks'

Fred Barnes, executive editor of the conservative and influential Weekly Standard, asserts in "Vietnam Flashbacks" that "Many have forgotten how the United States lost in Vietnam, but not former Defense Secretary Melvin Laird."

"When the last American military unit was withdrawn in 1973," Mr. Barnes writes, adding: "the Viet Cong had been defeated and the North Vietnamese army checkmated. For the next two years, "South Vietnam held its own courageously and respectably against a better-bankrolled enemy," Laird writes in the current Foreign Affairs," Mr. Barnes claims. "Given enough outside resources, South Vietnam was capable of defending itself." Instead, "we grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory [in 1975] when Congress cut off the funding for South Vietnam that had allowed it to continue to fight on its own. . . . Without U.S. funding, South Vietnam was quickly overrun."

Mr. Barnes said, "It was a stunning and unnecessary defeat for America and for a free Vietnam. And the lesson is clear: A war can be won on the ground overseas and lost in Washington."

If the U.S. wins a war on the ground in Iraq it will have to occupy the country for years in an effort to preserve victory. The bottom line is that a victory cannot be preserved as long as the U.S. presence in Iraq attracts Muslim fighters from surrounding countries.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:47 PM | Comments (0)

Christian Science Monitor: 'Why Iraq War Support Fell So Fast

In an article in the November 21, 2005 edition of Christian Science Monitor headlined "Why Iraq war support fell so fast," staff writer Linda Feldmann reported that:

The three most significant US wars since 1945 - Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq - share an important trait: As casualties mounted, American public support declined.

"In the two Asian wars," she wrote, "that decline proved irreversible. With Iraq, the additional bad news for President Bush is that support for the war in Iraq has eroded more quickly than it did in those two conflicts."

I recommend Feldmann's sober analysis.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)

The Political Debate on Iraq is Far From Over

"The heated rhetoric over prewar intelligence last week drowned out a political debate that defense and policy analysts still consider far more important: when and whether the United States should have invaded Iraq," Michael Hedges of the Houston Chronicles' Washington bureau reported November 19, 2005.

Rest assured, the debate is not finished. Democratic activists will see to that.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:14 PM | Comments (0)

Washington Post: 'Iraq War Debate Eclipses All Other Issues'

Washington Post Reporters Jonathan Weisman and Charles Babington said in a November 20, 2005 report that, "After largely avoiding the subject since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, [U.S.] lawmakers are suddenly confronting the issue of President Bush's handling of the war. The start hasn't been pretty," they said.

The reporters said,

Political stunts by both parties have created an air of acrimony that is infecting the parties' entire agendas. The bitterness reached a new high -- or low -- on Friday when House Republicans forced a late-night vote on a resolution for immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The Post noted that, "The resolution failed, 403 to 3, but only after members nearly came to blows when a GOP newcomer suggested a veteran Democratic military hawk was a coward."

It's good to see Congressmen and women finally getting backbone after initially supporting the war in Iraq out of fear of being called unpatriotic. Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:08 PM | Comments (0)

Is Conciliation Among Iraq's Political Factions Possible at This Time?

According to Agence France Presse (AFP), "Iraqi leaders resumed efforts on Sunday [November 20, 2005] to prepare a reconciliation conference for the war-torn country, facing deep sectarian differences heightened by a wave of violence at home."

The news service said, "The first of the three days of Arab League-sponsored talks on Saturday [November 19, 2005] was marked by bitter recriminations between the war-torn country's factions and a brief walkout from one session by Shiite and Kurdish delegations." Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)

Cole Looks at Political Developments in Iraqi

Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment looks at political developments in Iraqi as various groups vie for political supremacy under U.S. occupation. Also see this.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:30 PM | Comments (0)

Another Leader Will Step Up If al-Zarqawi is Dead

The Associated Press, citing anonymous sources, reported November 20, 2005 that, "A U.S. official said "Sunday [November 20, 2005] that efforts were under way to determine if terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was among the dead" following a November 19, 2005 battle at a house in Mosul, Iraq. The AP said "eight suspected al-Qaida members died in a gunfight some by their own hand to avoid capture."

Look for another leader to step up if al-Zarqawi is dead. For more, please see "Al-Zarqawi May Be Among Dead in Iraq Fight."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)

Family Severing Ties With al-Zarqawi Won't Affect War

A November 20, 2005 report by Al Jazeera says "Family members of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi have renounced the Jordanian-born Al-Qaida in Iraq chief, telling King Abdullah II that they would "sever links with him until doomsday."

If al-Zarqawi is alive, I doubt his family's denunciation will have an impact on him. See "Family severs ties with al-Zarqawi."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:05 PM | Comments (0)

November 18, 2005

'House of Horrors' and 'Conventional Terror'

In commenting on the torture house "recently found in Jadriya [Iraq]," River Bend at Baghdad Burning opined in a November 18, 2005 post:

The whole world heard about the one in Jadriya, recently raided by the Americans. Jadriya was once one of the best areas in Baghdad. It's an area on the river and is special in that it's greener, and cleaner, than most areas. Baghdads largest university, Baghdad University, is located in Jadriya (with a campus in another area). Jadriya had some of the best shops and restaurants- not to mention some of Baghdad's most elegant homes...? and apparently, now, a torture house.We hear constantly about these torture dungeons. Right after the war, certain areas became infamous for them.

River Bend said, " The world knows them as 'torture houses' for the obvious reasons- they were once ordinary homes, and now they've become torture centers for suspects and innocents alike. The Iraqi government conveniently calls them 'detention centers' and the Iraqi Ministry of Interior oversees and funds them."

For more, please see "House of Horrors..." For River Bend's November 17, 2005 take on American soldiers using "White phosphorous in Falloojeh," see "Conventional Terror..."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:17 AM | Comments (0)

Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr: "OK, There Were Signs of Torture,'

John Daniszewski, a Los Angles Times staff writer in Baghdad reported November 18, 2005 that:

In a case roiling Iraq's fragile political system, the nation's Shiite Muslim interior minister sought Thursday to justify the actions of security forces accused of starving and beating 169 mostly Sunni prisoners, while acknowledging that at least seven of the detainees had been tortured.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, who has had ties to a Shiite militia, argued that prisoners found in a bunker-like Baghdad facility that U.S. troops entered Sunday night had been legally arrested based on proper evidence and documents. According to Mr. Daniszewski, Mr. "Jabr added that in many cases, the prisoners were terrorists who had killed scores of innocent Iraqi children."

But does that justify torture? For more, please see 'OK, There Were Signs of Torture,' Iraqi Says."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:41 AM | Comments (0)

November 16, 2005

Special Prosecutor Questions Bob Woodward in CIA Leak Investigation

"Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday, November 14, 2005, "in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed," reports Washington Post staff writers Jim VandeHei and Carol D. Leonnig in the November 16, 2005 edition of The Post.

I would love to read the transcript of that deposition. Woodward is perhaps the ultimate journalistic insider in Washington. It seems that he may have been the first reporter a Bush Administration official told about Valerie Plame's CIA status.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 12:40 AM | Comments (0)

November 15, 2005

Are Republican Senators' Turning Against Iaq War?

Washington Post staff writer Dan Balz takes a look at the dwindling political fortunes of the Bush Administration in a November 16, 2005 article headlined "Tide Turning in GOP Senators' War View."

Mr. Balz noted that,

For the past three years, President Bush has set the course on U.S. policy in Iraq, and Republicans in Congress -- and many Democrats, too -- have dutifully followed his lead. Yesterday the Senate, responding to growing public frustration with the administration's war policy, signaled that those days are coming to an end.

He said, "The rebuff to the White House was muffled in the modulated language of a bipartisan amendment, but the message could not have been more clear. With their constituents increasingly unhappy with the U.S. mission in Iraq, Democrats and now Republicans are demanding that the administration show that it has a strategy to turn the conflict over to the Iraqis and eventually bring U.S. troops home."

I wonder whether the turning tide is based on the political reality that the 2006 midterm elections are less than a year away, and that U.S. citizens are increasingly turning against the Iraq War. The turning tide boys and girls are the same politicians who didn't have the courage to challenge the Bush Administration's plan to invade Iraq in 2003. I think many voters will remember that.

Editor's Note: This article is posted at The National Political Observer and The Opinion Gazette.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:53 PM | Comments (0)

Are Most Syrians Said Apolitical?

"The Damascus government believes that the only way the Syrians will firmly reject the impact of UN Prosecutor Detlev Mehlis's report and Security Council Resolution 1636 is if it creates a timely, thorough internal reform program," notes Sami Moubayed in a report from the Syrian capital published in the November 10-16, 2005 issue of Al-Ahram (The Pyramid).

Mr. Moubayed said, "Judging from the Iraqi precedent, the Syrian government realized that a population that is dissatisfied will not defend its government in times of crisis.

"But the fact is that the majority of Syrians are dissatisfied not because of the lack of political freedoms or because of Syria's current standing in the international community," he added. "On the contrary, most Syrians today are rather apolitical. Rather they are dissatisfied for reasons that merely cosmetic change will not rectify."

See a "Time for change" for Mr. Moubayed's reasons why Syrians are dissatisfied.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:33 PM | Comments (0)

The Latest Revelation About Torture in the 'New Iraq'

Helena Cobban at Just World News says "The latest revelations about torture in the "New Iraq" are really horrific. Reuters has a good (by which I mean very disturbing) account of it..." she wrote. Here's her post.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:14 PM | Comments (0)

Does it Matter Whether It's the U.S. or Iraq Torturing Iraqis?

In its November 15, 2005 article on the "suspected torture center found in Iraq, Aljazeera.Net said, "Late on Sunday, US troops surrounded and took control of the Interior Ministry building in Jadriyah following repeated allegations that Iraq security forces were illegally detaining and torturing people suspected of participating in attacks by groups opposed to the US-led forces."

As I read the above, I wondered who's going to surround and take control of the torture centers run by the U.S. or its allies in Eastern Europe and the Middle East. I also wondered if the Bush Administration intended to now run the Iraq torture center.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:08 PM | Comments (0)

November 14, 2005

Deutsche Welle: 'Future Merkel Government Faces First Major Test'

"The ink is barely dry on the pact for incoming chancellor [Angela] Merkel's grand coalition government, but Germany's major parties will face their first tough test when the deal is put to their rank-and-file for approval" today, according to Deutsche Welle.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:39 AM | Comments (0)

Der Spiegel Profile's France's Most Succesful Son of an Immigrant

"For better -- though most often for worse -- he has been the face of the recent rioting in France. But love him or hate him, French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy is admired for his tough talk and hands-on approach, writes Ullrich Fichtner in the November 14, 2005 edition of Der Spiegel. "Can he solve the problems that generations of French politicians have made worse?"

For the writer's perspective, see "In the Ghetto with Nicolas Sarkozy."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:32 AM | Comments (0)

France Upset With Foreign Coverage of Civil Unrest

Emma-Kate Symons, writing from Paris for The Australian, reported November 14, 2005 that:

The French appear shocked that the eyes of the world are turned to their nation in crisis. They are a proud people who are more accustomed to being being admired for their country's world-class cuisine, intellectual heritage and enviable lifestyle.

The official spokesman of the centre-right Government, Jean-Francois Cope, has called a special meeting today with all international correspondents working in France.
He wants to counteract the alarming global dissemination of the view that France is in flames -- and therefore a dangerous tourist destination"Ms. Symons quotes Le Figaro newspaper as saying: "Since the beginning of the crisis, European and foreign television networks and newspapers have had the tendency to present the country as if it is in a quasi state of war."

She said, "The problem with Cope's argument is that it is the French press, political elite and commentariat who have raised the spectre of "the germs of civil war". Or, as Ivan Riouful argued in Le Figaro on Friday [November 10, 2005], the rioters are committing acts of "urban terrorism."

For more, please see "French rail at foreign 'beat-up'".

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:47 AM | Comments (0)

Why Has Over 7,000 Cars Been Burned in France?

"More than 7,000 vehicles have been set ablaze since the civil unrest began in the suburbs of Paris on October 27," 2005, according to The New York Times. Why? Here is The Times' answer.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:29 AM | Comments (0)

November 13, 2005

A Transcript of Saijida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi's Confession

CNN has a Transcript of the televised "Confession" of Saijida Mubarak Atrous al-Rishawi, an Iraqi national, who "accompanied" her husband to Jordan last week on a suicide mission. The goal: blow up three hotels in Amman. Three teams of bombers succeeded, killing fifty-seven and injuring dozens. Sadjida survived because her belt failed detonate. Her husband, who entered Jordan using the name Ali Hussein Ali, told her to runaway just before he detonated his explosives.

As I watched Saijida, I wondered how many more like her will be sent to various capitals in the Middle East. Any Middle East leader collaborating with the U.S. in Iraq has to be worried.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 02:33 PM | Comments (0)

Jordan Now Says Woman Was Part of Hotel Bombing Teams

Jordan, which originally announced that no woman took part in the bombing of three American-owned hotels in Amman, Jordan on November 8, 2005, "has announced the arrest of a woman who was part of the team of bombers," according to Aljazeera. Her explosives failed to detonate, according to news reports.

Jordanian Deputy Prime Minister Marwan Moasher identified her as "as Sajida Mubarak al-Rishai and said she was the sister of a key aide to al-Qaida's Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a fugitive Jordanian who is Iraq's most wanted man." For more, see "Jordan says would-be bomber arrested." Also see CNN International's "Jordan: 'Failed bomb' woman held."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:11 AM | Comments (0)

November 12, 2005

Syria Had Planned to Honor Mustapha Akkad Later This Month

Mahmoud al-Sayed, Syria's Minister of Culture, said Syria had planned to honour Syrian-born Filmmaker Mustapha Akkad at the Damascus Cinema Festival later this month, according to Reuters. While he is best known in the United States among film buffs for his Halloween movie series, in the Arab and Muslim world he is known primarily for two powerful films: the 1976 epic "The Message," starring Anthony Quinn, and Lion of the Desert, also starring Quinn. The former about the early days of Islam. Quinn played Hamza, an uncle of Prophet Mohammad. No actor played the Prophet, who was represented by a shadow. A depiction of the Prophet would have invited trouble.

"Lion of the Desert, " is a 1981 film. Quinn portrays as Omar al-Mukhtar, a Libyan school teacher-resistance leader who fought the Italians from 1911 to 1931 to end italy's colonial administration in Libya. He was hanged on September 16,1931.

My family own copies of both films and intend to watch them again. Perhaps within the next week.

Meanwhile, according to Morocco Times.Com, Akkad "was also working on filming the historical epic Salah Al-Din, starring Irish actor Sean Connery and Egyptian actor Hussein Fahmi." While I have seen and enjoyed Egyptian director Youssef Chahine's interpretation of the life of Salah A-Din, I can imagine that Akkad's version would have been superb given his mastery of Hollywood filmmaking techniques. Unfortunately, Akkad won't get to make the film. He died November 9, 2005 in a Jordanian hospital from injuries suffered in a bomb blast at one of three hotels hit by suicide bombers in Amman, Jordan. He and his daughter, Reema, were among 57 people to die from the bombings. Akkad was buried in Aleppo, Syria.

Hopefully, another Muslim filmmaker will take up the mantle and do a film on Salah Al-Din, one the greatest Muslim heroes. A documentary on Akkad would be a worthy film project for some student currently studying cinema.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 10:10 PM | Comments (0)

Will Peace in Liberia Depend on George Weah Accepting Defeat?

The person the Bush Administration and many Liberians exiles want to lead Liberia is now president-elect of that failed-state in West Africa.

According to a November 11, 2005 article in the The Liberian Daily Observer, by Cheechiay Jablasone,

The Harvard-trained economist, Madam Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, is poised to become Africa's first woman President. The 67-year-old former World Bank official now has 59.1 percent of the 90 percent of the votes tallied.

The Vanguard of Nigeria took a similar line. It said,

Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, an economist and veteran politician, has been elected the president of Liberia, the National Electoral Commission announced yesterday," November 10, 2005. The announcement, which makes the Harvard-trained Johnson-Sirleaf the first elected woman president in Africa, was made on the basis of 97 percent of votes counted after Tuesday's [November 8, 2005] second round of polls in the west African country.

Meanwhile, on November 12, 2005, Mrs. Johnson-Sirleaf, according to The Associated Press, called on soccer star George Weah, her opponent in the November 8, 2005 presidential run-off, to concede defeat. More than 99 per cent of the vote is counted, and, as Rodney D. Sieh of Frontpage Africa noted on November 11, the gap is too wide to close. Mr. Weah has alleged vote fraud. However, international observers have declared the voting clean and fair.

Mr. Weah has asked the National Elections Commission (NEC) to re-run the vote. This is unlikely despite an ominous sign on November 11, 2005, when "hundreds of Weah supporters marched from his party headquarters toward the center of the capital Monrovia, and some hurled stones at riot police in front of the National Elections Commission (NEC) as U.N. helicopters hovered overhead," according to Reuters in an article headlined "Weah backers stone police in Liberian poll dispute,"

"They chanted "No Weah, no peace," and "No Weah, no president," Reuters added.
.
"I just wish that Mr. Weah would accept the results, that is clearly from the choice of Liberian people," Johnson-Sirleaf told Associated Press Television News.

She also called on Weah to "work with me so that together we can meet the needs of the youth and we can join hands to move our country forward."

The so-called "Iron Lady," who has vowed to serve only one six-year term, will need Mr. Weah's support if his youthful supporters are to be channeled into constructive endeavors. It remains to be seen if Mr. Weah will accept her offer of a sports portfolio.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:42 PM | Comments (0)

Helena Cobban on 'Jordan and Regional Geopolitics

On November 11, 2005, Helena Cobban at Just World News published an insightful article on Jordan headlined "Jordan and regional geopolitics." While I'm fairly informed on Western colonial history in what is now called the Middle East, I found Cobban's article quite revealing.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 03:18 PM | Comments (0)

Senator Harry Reid Accuses Bush of Attacking Patriotic Americans

United States Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada accused President George W. Bush on November 11, 2005 of "Attacking those patriotic Americans who have raised serious questions about the case the Bush administration made to take our country to war does not provide us a plan for success that will bring our troops home" according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Mr. Reid's statement was in response to Mr. Bush's November 11, 2005 speech in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania, in which he said:

While it's perfectly legitimate to criticize my decision or the conduct of the war, it is deeply irresponsible to rewrite the history of how that war began. (Applause.) Some Democrats and anti-war critics are now claiming we manipulated the intelligence and misled the American people about why we went to war.

Mr. Bush said, "These critics are fully aware that a bipartisan Senate investigation found no evidence of political pressure to change the intelligence community's judgments related to Iraq's weapons programs."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

Taking Issue With Bush's Claims on Intelligence Agencies and Iraq

Matthew Rothschild of the The Progressive, a venerable, Madison, Wisconsin-based liberal magazine, which has been published since 1909, takes issue with U.S. President George W. Bush's November 11, 2005 claim that,

Intelligence agencies from around the world agreed with our assessment of Saddam Hussein.

He wrote in a November 11, 2005 post: "But at the time Bush launched the war, many intelligence agencies had severe doubts" about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction, the primary reason the Bush Administration sold to the American people for invading and occupying Iraq.

To read Mr. Rothschild's analysis, please see, "Bush Tries to Gag Critics in Veterans Day Speech."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 02:26 PM | Comments (0)

Is Bush Nearing The Desperation Point on Iraq?

President George W. Bush sounds desperate as polls show his popularity steadily falling and many Americans with growing doubts about the war in Iraq. The speech he delivered November 11, 2005 in Tobyhanna, Pennsylvania commemorating Veterans Day reflects that desperation. His supporters will says he's telling it like it is. A good reading of the address reflects that he is still trying to sell some of same lies that led the nation into war in Iraq in the first place. It's time to come clean, Mr. President.

Here's a White House Transcript of his November 10 speech.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 01:59 PM | Comments (0)

The Attempt to Reshape the U.S. Debate on Iraq

Peter Baker of the Washington Post reported November 11, 2005 on National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley's November 10, 2005 effort to go on the "offensive in the debate over the Iraq war. Mr. Bush's political handlers sent him to the White House briefing room to refute "the notion that somehow the administration manipulated prewar intelligence about Iraq."

Baker quotes Hadley as saying the White Houses judgment on the threat posed by Iraq "represented the collective view of the intelligence community" and was "shared by Republicans and Democrats alike." Hadley added:

Some of the critics today believed themselves in 2002 that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, they stated that belief, and they voted to authorize the use of force in Iraq because they believed Saddam Hussein posed a dangerous threat to the American people. For those critics to ignore their own past statements exposes the hollowness of their current attacks.

Sure, Democrats and Republications went along with the war. It's fair to say most were afraid not to. After all, the Administration's litmus test for patriotism was support of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Following al-Qaida's September 11, 2001 bombings in Washington, D.C. and New York, which Iraq had nothing to do with, a politician would have committed political suicide if he or she had challenged the Administration's fabrications leading up to the war. The rightwing fanatics in the Blogosphere would have hounded them relentlessly.

But no matter what cowardly Democrats did or didn't do, nothing can justify manipulating and lying to the American people just to star a war that has resulted in the death of more than 2000 U.S. troops and many thousand Iraqis. Doing so indicated that the Administration didn't trust their judgement, so it was ok to lie to them. Well, because of those lies, the chickens have begun to come home to roost. In the U.S., the big payback will occur during the 2006 elections.

Here's the White House Transcript of Hadley's press briefing.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 01:51 PM | Comments (0)

The Omani Embassy Killings

Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment made the following observation about the U.S. Secretary of State's visit to Baghdad: "First, Secretary of State Condi Rice called Friday for more Arab states to open embassies in Iraq. Then, guerrillas staged a drive-by shooting at the Omani embassy in Baghdad, killing 2 and wounding 4 persons. I think we may conclude a) that her visit is being monitored by the guerrillas with frightening closeness and b) her forces are not in control of the capital."

It seems plausible to me. Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)

The Second Front in a Two-Front War: An Analysis

Ehsan Ahrari, "CEO of Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, Virginia-based defense consultancy" whose "columns appear regularly in Asia Times Online," opined in a November 11, 2005 article that:

In the deadly game of transnational terrorism, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has proved himself to be a formidable opponent.

He said, "While Osama bin Laden has become a legend within the rank and file of global terrorists, he is living the life of a retired legend. Zarqawi, on the other hand, is fighting a two-front war: one in Iraq and a second one, as Wednesday's [November 8, 2005] attacks on the Grand Hyatt, Radisson and Days Inn hotels in Jordan seem to indicate, in his native country." For more of Ahrari's analysis, see "Jordan bombs a terrorist master-stroke."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)

Jordan Claims Bombings Will Have Minimal Impact on Tourism Industry

"The [November 8, 2005] bomb attacks on three hotels [in Amman, Jordan] will have minimal impact on industry, tourism and hospitality [in Jordan] authorities said on Friday," November 10, 2005, according to Dalya Dajani in the pro-government Jordan Times.

That's what I'd expect them to say. They probably would have been fired if they had done otherwise. Meanwhile, it's too early to tell what the economic impact will be.

See "Terrorist attacks seen having minimal impact on tourism industry."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 12:35 PM | Comments (0)

Who is Sending a Message to Arab Governments?

KM Rakesh, reporting November 12, 2005 from Dubai for the Switzerland-based Center for Security Studies' International and Security Network, said "As the investigation into the bomb attacks that ripped through three American-owned hotels in Amman, Jordan, killing 59 people and wounding 96 others continues, observers say the attacks were intended as a message to Arab governments to rethink their alliance with the US and their support of washington's policies in the Middle East."

While that may be the case, I doubt Washington will allow any of its Arab allies to withdraw their behind the scenes support for its occupation and domination of Iraq. Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:52 AM | Comments (0)

Blowing Up the 'New Middle East'

RIA Novosti political commentator Marianna Belenkaya noted in a November 10, 2005 commentary on the November 8, 2005 bombing of three American hotels in Amman, Jordan:

Jordan has long been a transit route to Iraq. It accommodates representative offices of companies that left Baghdad before the war. Amman frequently hosts diplomatic and economic talks related to Iraq. And it has always supported Baghdad in any circumstances and under any regime. On the one hand, it was the first country to provide asylum to Saddam Hussein's daughters, but on the other hand, it was the first Arab country to send its ambassador to Iraq. Incidentally, the Jordan embassy was among the first foreign missions to be attacked by terrorists.

After enunciating links between Jordan, the U.S. and Israel, Ms. Belenkaya said, "So it is not a coincidence that Jordan was the first target of al-Zarqawi's group after it had announced its intention to expand outside Iraq."

For more, please see "Terrorists in Jordan blow up "New Middle East."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:40 AM | Comments (0)

Was U.S. Partnership With Jordan Targeted in Hotel Bombings?

Los Angeles Times correspondent Ken Silverstein reported November 12, 2005 that:

The suicide bombers who struck three Western hotels in Amman, Jordan, on Wednesday also were targeting the increasingly important U.S. partnership with that country.

Jordan's General Intelligence Directorate, or GID, has surpassed Israel's Mossad as America's most effective allied counter-terrorism agency in the Middle East. Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, its cooperation with the CIA has grown even closer. Silverstein said, "The GID has aggressively hunted Abu Musab Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born head of the extremist group Al Qaeda in Iraq and suspected planner of Wednesday's bombings. Last year, Jordanian agents arrested several Zarqawi associates, reportedly foiling truck-bomb attacks on the U.S. Embassy and government targets in Amman, the capital."

For more, please see "U.S., Jordan Forge Closer Ties in Covert War on Terrorism."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:27 AM | Comments (0)

'The Vagina Dialogue'

Former CBS and CNN news correspondent Reid Collins published an article in the November 11, 2005 online edition of The American Spectator headlined "The Vagina Dialogue." It's about former New York Times Reporter Judith Miller and her alleged, to used Times columnist Maureen Dowd's words, "tropism toward powerful men..."

It's an interesting look at the subtext of the outing of CIA Agent Valerie Plame by someone in the Bush Administration, and Miller's relationship with I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, who was indicted on October 28, 2005. He was charged with perjury and lying in the investigation of the CIA leak case.

Collins' perspective suggests, and I concur, that had a man been in Miller's position, there would have been no speculation about whether he was getting information because he was screwing the source and, consequently, allowing himself to be used because of his emotional entanglement with a powerful individual whose agenda was to influence foreign policy.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:10 AM | Comments (0)

November 11, 2005

A Dastardly Deed in Amman

The International Herald Tribune and publications around the world say Al Qaida in Mesopotamia claimed November 10, 2005 that four Iraqi suicide bombers, which purportedly included a husband and wife team, bombed the Radisson, the Grand Hyatt and the Days Inn hotels in Amman, Jordan on November 8, 2005. Fifty-seven were killed and dozens were injured.

I don't know who did the bombing. But I do know that bombing a hotel that had no military value, as far as I can tell, is to be condemned.

According to reports I've read, Iraqis actually carried out the attacks. As usual, news accounts say Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, was behind it. Sometimes I wonder if the man really exists. I find it interesting that U.S. troops could find former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein--of course money helped--but they can't find al-Zarqawi. Does he really exist? Is he dead? Is he in U.S. custody? Is someone carrying out attacks in his name to create an anti-Zarqawi backlash?

Meanwhile, Jordanians have taken to the streets by the thousands to condemn the bombings. That's good. But anger will soon dissipate until the next bomb goes off. Unfortunately, there will be others. They will continue until the U.S. leaves Iraq.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 09:26 PM | Comments (0)

Mustapha Akkad: May He Rest in Peace

As The Times Online of London notes in its November 12 issue, "It emerged yesterday [November 11, 2005] that one of the 57 victims" of the Amman, Jordan, hotel bombings "was Mustapha Akkad, the producer of the Halloween horror films, and one of few Arabs to have succeeded in Hollywood."

The Times added:

Mr Akkad, 68, emigrated to America at the age of 19 but remained an Arab at heart and was often critical of the way Muslims are depicted in American movies. In Hollywood, Muslims are only terrorists, he said in a New York Times interview in 1998.

Mr Akkad was also known for producing the Oscar-nominated epic The Message: The Story of Islam and The Lion of the Desert funded by the Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi. Mr Akkad's daughter Rima, 33, also died in the blast. I am not a fan of horror films and did not see the Halloween movies. However, I did see The Message: The Story of Islam and The Lion of the Desert. My family owns both movies.

I saw Lion of the Desert in Tripoli, Libya, in the early 1980s, while there to cover an Organization of African Unity conference. It was an inspiring epic. I can remember sitting in a press room with journalist from all over the world. The fight scenes in which Omar Muktar, played by Anthony Quinn, defeated Italian dictator Benito Mussolini's troops in several battles, drew rapt attention. When they were over, the reporters went back to playing cards or whatever they were doing.

May Mustapha rest in peace and Allah forgive him of his sins and grant him paradise.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)

November 10, 2005

Bashar al-Asad 'We Must Fight'

Syria Comment.Com's Joshua Landis, who is in Syria, wrote today:

President Asad [of Syria} just gave his speech to the nation at the University of Damascus. It was tougher than anyone could have imagined. It was a declaration of war.

He said that Syria and the region had only two choices: to resist or chaos. Resistance is the least costly option.We will play the game of Mehlis that they have set out for us and he stressed that the investigation is but a game but we will resist the larger plan that They, America, has set out for us. "In the end we are going to win, even if this struggle lasts a long time," the Syrian President said, according to Mr. Landis. See "We Must Fight," for Landis' report and analysis.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:26 AM | Comments (0)

Juan Cole on 'The Problem with Frenchness'

On November 9, 2005, Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment offered his readers and insightful commentary on the civil unrest that has gripped France for the last two weeks. Mr. Cole noted that:

Readers have asked me for comment about the riots in France that have now provoked emergency laws and a curfew. What I would rather comment on, however, is the myths that have governed many rightwing American comments on the tragic events.

"Actually," he added, "I can only think that the disturbances must produce a huge ice cream headache for the dittoheads. French of European heritage pitted against French of African and North African heritage? How could they ever pick a side?"

See "The Problem with Frenchness" for his analysis"

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:17 AM | Comments (0)

November 09, 2005

Is France Trying to Help Muslims Worship?

Is France trying to help Muslims worship" Elaine Ganley of The Associated Press thinks so.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:24 AM | Comments (0)

Security Council Lets U.S. Stay in Iraq Through 2006

"The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously on Tuesday [November 8, 2005] to let the U.S.-led multinational force in Iraq remain in place through the end of 2006, as requested by Iraq's government," reports Reuters.

That was a U.S. request through its proxy in Iraq.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:20 AM | Comments (0)

Liberians Want a President Who Can Make Things Work

As Liberians went to the polls November 8 in a presidential election run-off between George Weah and Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, their hope was that "the presidential run-off, the first in the West African nation's history, will turn the page on 14 years of civil war and give them a leader who can turn the lights back on, get the water running, and provide education and healthcare for all," according to the United Nation'sIntegrated Regional Information Networks.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:15 AM | Comments (0)

November 08, 2005

U.S. Claims it Won't Interfere in Liberia's Election Run-off

Keith Y. Best reported in the November 7, 2005 edition of the Liberian Daily Observer that "The United States reassured Liberians last night that despite the eleventh hour infusion of money and personnel into the Liberian electoral process, she would not interfere" in the November 8, 2005 "run-off elections."

Well, what was all the money for?

For more, please see "U.S. Will Not Interfere In Liberian Elections - Says US Public Affairs Officer."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:53 PM | Comments (0)

Mubarak Promises Fair Legislative Elections

"Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak promised that the November legislative elections would be free, fair and held under judicial supervision," EgyptElection.Com reports.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:46 PM | Comments (0)

Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood Takes center Stage in Elections

Aljazeera.Net's Amira Howeidy, writing from Cairo, noted in a November 6, 2005 report that, "As 5310 contenders prepare to contest 444 seats in Egypt's parliamentary elections on 9 November, the case of the Muslim Brotherhood and its 150 candidates has overshadowed the nation's legislative elections."

"For the first time in its 77-year history," she added, "the group is openly propagating its agenda, actively promoting its candidates and putting up its slogans, logos and banners just about everywhere."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:39 PM | Comments (0)

Bashar al-Assad to Address the Syrian Nation November 10

Reuters reported November 8, 2005 that, "Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will address the nation on Thursday [November 10] as Damascus faces mounting international pressure over an alleged link to the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

"State-run television said Assad "will tackle current affairs and political issues and aspects of the internal situation,"the Reuters report said.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

Annan Tries to Assures Arabs Syria Won't be Attacked

"UN Secretary General Kofi Annan sought Tuesday [November 8, 2005] in Cairo to assuage Arab fears over possible action against Syria but urged Damascus to cooperate fully with the international probe into the assassination of former Lebanese premier Rafik Hariri," according to an Agence France Presse report in the Daily Times of Pakistan.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)

Syria Comment.Com: 'Rumsfeld tells Mofaz: We'll kick Assad Out'

Joshua Landis at Syria Comment.com has a November 8, 2005 post headlined "Rumsfeld tells Mofaz: We'll kick Assad out."

I guess invading Iraq and kicking out Saddam was not enough. Now Rumsfeld wants to provoke a Jihad on the Syrian front, which would also involve Lebanon.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:14 PM | Comments (0)

What Happened to the Dream of a Democratic Iraq?

River Bend at Baghdad Burning wants to know: "What happened to the dream of a democratic Iraq?" She contends:

Iraq has been the land of dreams for everyone except Iraqis- the Persian dream of a Shia controlled Islamic state modeled upon Iran and inclusive of the holy shrines in Najaf, the pan-Arab nationalist dream of a united Arab region with Iraq acting as its protective eastern border, the American dream of controlling the region by installing permanent bases and a Puppet government in one of its wealthiest countries, the Kurdish dream of an independent Kurdish state financed by the oil wealth in Kirkuk...

River Bend said, "The Puppets the Americans empowered are advocates of every dream except the Iraqi one: The dream of Iraqi Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen... the dream of a united, stable, prosperous Iraq which has, over the last two years, gone up in the smoke of car bombs, military raids and a foreign occupation."

Please see "Movies and Dreams..." for her incisive analysis of the consequence of the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:05 PM | Comments (0)

Iraqi Lawyer Representing Saddam, Co-defendants Work in Fear

The lawyers for co-defendants of ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, "on trial on crimes against humanity," have "put forward 10 conditions" for ending "their suspension of contacts - first announced in late October - with the high tribunal trying the case until they are given better security," according to Nadra Saouli of The Middle East Times.

According to Ms. Saouli, the lawyers want "an independent international investigation" into the November 8, 2005 murder of attorney Adel Mohammed Abbas and the October 20, 2005 murder of attorney Saadun Janabi, who represented "Awad Ahmad Al Bandar, a former chief judge of the revolutionary court and deputy head of Saddam's office."

Ms. Saouli also said the lawyers want "UN protection for meetings of the defense committee and the hiring of 15 bodyguards per lawyer to ensure their protection."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:48 PM | Comments (0)

Just World News Comments on 'Incarceration in Africa'

Back on November 6, Helena Cobban at Just World News told her readers, "The New York Times had an excellent, fairly long piece of reporting today on the situation in many (or most?) of the prisons in Africa. (Also here.) Michael Wines, who wrote it, focuses much of his attention on the situation in one prison in Lilongwe, Malawi-- his dateline. But the article also has some other more general info about the terrible state of people caught in the carceral system elsewhere in Africa."

It's worth reading. For more, see "Incarceration in Africa."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:35 AM | Comments (0)

Is U.S. Using Mechanics in Iraq for Security Purposes

Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment said today that, "The US military in Iraq is so strapped for personnel that it is using mechanics for security purposes. Some officers are angry about it," he wrote.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:27 AM | Comments (0)

Azerbaijani Election Commission Annuls Vote

According to the Associated Press, "Azerbaijan's Central Election Commission on Tuesday [November 8, 2005] annulled the results of the weekend parliamentary vote in one electoral district and ordered a recount in another."

"The rulings followed opposition accusations of massive fraud and an unusually frank critical assessment by a Western-dominated monitoring mission," the wire service said. Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:12 AM | Comments (0)

Will the Uprising in France Spread Through Europe?

The Daily Telegraph of London told its readers on November 8, 2005:

The French have long held up their integrationist approach to immigration as a model. Countries with different policies can be forgiven, therefore, for Schadenfreude at the powerlessness of that model to contain rioting over the past 12 days. Yet the rapid spread of the disturbances from the Parisian suburbs to cities such as Toulouse and Strasbourg offers little ground for complacency to neighbours with large immigrant populations, rigid labour laws, self-serving political elites and sluggish economic growth.

The Telegraph said, "The torching of cars in Berlin and Brussels over the weekend is a warning that the violence could become more generalized."

For more, see "Riots in France could spread through Europe."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:06 AM | Comments (0)

Ehsan Ahrari: 'Why is Paris Burning?'

Ehsan Ahrari,"CEO of Strategic Paradigms, an Alexandria, VA-based defense consultancy," asks in Asia Times Online:

Why is Paris burning? That's the red-hot question. Newsweek, in its latest edition, showed its ignorance and insensitivity by coming up with an Islamophobic slant: "Will the riots swell the ranks of jihadists in Europe?" The question remains, why is Paris burning?

Mr. Ahrari said, "The answer goes to a detailed description of the hypocrisy of French political culture, which gleefully depicts itself as too civilized, too secular and too "sophisticated" to nurture hostility or animus toward any ethnic group or religion, including Islam. The reality, alas, is quite the contrary."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:02 AM | Comments (0)

What's Happening in the France Could Happen in the U.S. Again

"Before we cast off the riots in France as isolated to poor immigrant neighborhoods thousands of miles away, we should think again and look at the very same factors that exist here in the United States," warns The Macon Telegraph in Macon, Georgia USA.

Maybe that's why I haven't seen a lot of ignorant commentary on what's happening in France. Every sane person in the U.S. knows it could happen on a wide scale here. In fact, it happened during the 1960s. And is happening periodically.

For more, please see "The solution to tears in our fragile social fabric."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:30 AM | Comments (0)

No Nation Can Claim Continous, Harmonious Race Relations

The Nation of Bangkok, Thailand, commenting in a November 8 editorial on the violent, civil unrest in France, told its readers:

Behind the facade of Frances democratic idealism Liberte, Egalite and Fraternite frustration among fast-growing ethnic minorities, which make up almost 10 per cent of the total population, over racism, unemployment and police harassment have been brewing for years, if not decades. Impoverished Muslims and North African immigrants and their children have become disillusioned by harsh social and economic realities, particularly structural factors that they feel have trapped them in a never-ending cycle of poverty and destitution.

Such factors include attempts by France to protect its own particular brand of welfare state at the expense of new entrants to the job market, particularly those belonging to ethnic minority groups, who tend to be poorly educated and low-skilled and therefore less employable. Relegating poor minorities to the outer suburbs hardly make fermenting problems go away, as the current violence has shown.The publication said, "Rioting provides a way for these second-class citizens to protest a system they feel is keeping them down. No country in the world can lay claim to a harmonious race-relations model that has worked in the past, continues to work today and will work in the future without regular adjustments and overhauls. The process to correct the injustices may be long and fraught with obstacles, but the time to start is now. And the most crucial first step is the restoration of law and order."

The Nation is correct when it said, "No country in the world can lay claim to a harmonious race-relations model that has worked..." That even applies to the United States, where the nation's poor are virtually hidden away and rarely seen up close by the more affluent.

For more of The Nation's editorial, see "Paris riots expose social ills."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:19 AM | Comments (0)

Sarkozy: 'The Republic Cannot Retreat'

Times Online of London Correspondent Charles Bremner reports in a November 8, 2005 dispatch from Paris that "Nicolas Sarkozy, the French Interior Minister, has "insisted that nothing would halt his Government's drive to restore order."

"We will crack down and we will prevail," he was quote as saying. "The Republic cannot retreat. Either we have Republican order or the rule of gangs," he said.

According to Mr. Bremner, "After that, the State would address the grievances of the ethnic minorities whose teenage boys have been on the rampage for 12 days," Sarkozy said. See "France to fight back with more police and curfews."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:59 AM | Comments (0)

Local Authorities in France Given Power to Impose Curfews

According to the Adnkronosinternational (AKI) news portal of Italy, "Local authorities in France have been given the power to introduce night-time curfews after a twelfth night of rioting around the country. A lull in the violence was reported in the capital Paris, where the unrest began, but it continued around the country," AKI reported November 8, 2005.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 05:44 AM | Comments (0)

November 07, 2005

Der Spiegel: What's Wrong With Europe?

Rüdiger Falksohn, Thomas Hetlin, Romain Leick, Alexander Smoltczyk and Gerald Traufetter, correspondents for Germany's Der Spiegel notes that, "For 11 nights running, French police and firefighters have battled rioters on the streets of Paris suburbs -- and the violence seems to be spreading. But the unrest in France is only the latest chapter in the difficulties Europe has been having integrating its immigrants," they wrote.

Why is integration so difficult?

See "What's Wrong with Europe?" for their perspective

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)

France's Discredited 'Republican' Strategy

Charles Bremner in Paris, writing in the November 08, 2005 edition of The Australian, said "The biggest explosion of street violence in France since the late 1960s has jolted the country into confronting its failure to include its 7 million residents of Arab and African origin in the national mainstream."

"But President [President] Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin seem at a loss to propose anything beyond the "republican" strategy that successive governments of Left and Right have followed since the first riots erupted on the immigrant estates 15 years ago." he added.

For more, please see "French theory of assimilation creates reality of exclusion."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:05 PM | Comments (0)

November 06, 2005

Jonathan Powers: 'Can Africa's Biggest Country Make It?'

International Affairs Columnist Jonathan Powers, writing in the November 7, 2005 issue of Arab News, said:

There are 101 small and not so small things that are starting to go right in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country. But the big thing is not happening persuading the electorate that after twenty years of gross mismanagement followed by the austere belt tightening and pruning of the democratic rule of President Olusegun Obasanjo, that their lives can be better. Obasanjo is not popular. Only if Obasanjo can turn this negative psychological state around in the coming eighteen months of his final term will Nigeria's forward momentum into the future be secured.

"Otherwise," he added, "his successor will be feel pressured to raid the piggy bank where Nigeria's bountiful oil earnings are stored for a rainy day and buy his/her way into cheap popularity by offering to cut petrol prices, subsidize food, boost civil service employment and all the other wasteful expenditures that Obasanjo has done away with." Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:59 PM | Comments (0)

Meles Zenawi Says He Regrets Protest Deaths

Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi said November 6, 2005 while attending a conference in Germany called "Partnership with Africa," that he regretted the deaths of at least 46 Ethiopians killed during demonstrations last week.

"We regret the deaths but it was not a normal demonstration," Meles said, according to The Sudan Tribune. "And I don't want to justify it when policemen get in a panic, but I can understand it when there are people throwing hand grenades and using guns."

The Tribune said, Mr. Meles "has blamed the main opposition Coalition for Unity and Democracy for the violence and vowed that opposition officials would be prosecuted."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:49 PM | Comments (0)

Is Democracy Slipping In Africa?

In a dispatch from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, Christian Science Monitor correspondent Abraham McLaughlin reports in the November 7, 2005 edition that, "In Africa's decade-plus experiment with multiparty democracy, there appears to be significant backsliding, ironically, among some heads of state once heralded as the next generation of great leaders on the continent."

"And the slippage, observers say, is sometimes being abetted by the US and other rich-nation donors - in part because of the war on terror," he added.

Mr. Mclaughlin said, "The most current example is Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, who was a member of British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Commission for Africa and is an important partner in America's terror war. After a disputed election in May, he's mounted a brass-knuckles crackdown on opponents in which at least 76 people have died. He's also edging toward restarting one of Africa's most deadly wars."

For more, please see "In Africa, are 'donor darlings' stifling democracy?"

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:38 PM | Comments (0)

Bush's Failure to Win Summit Trade Pact is No Surprise

The Christian Science Monitor says, "Despite a five-day trip to South and Central America, President Bush was unable to work the same wonders on US-Latin American relations that he did earlier this year on ties to Europe."

Those who closely follow Latin American affairs are not surprised by this. And I doubt the Bush Administration is surprised. For more, see "At Summit of the Americas, no trade pact for Bush."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 02:03 PM | Comments (0)

November 04, 2005

Why 'Riots' Put a Fear in the French Politicians and Citizens

Los Angeles Times Correspondent Sebastian Rotella told that California-based paper's readers in a November 4, 2005, dispatch from Paris that, "The chief precipitating event for the riots [in the suburbs of Paris] came October 27 [2005] in the town of Clichy-sous-Bois when two teenagers died by electrocution while hiding from police in an electrical substation." He added:

One youth was of Tunisian descent, and the other was born in Mauritania. The two were at a soccer game when police arrived; the teenagers reportedly fled to the fatal hiding place, though investigators say police were not chasing them. Nonetheless, neighborhood youths began setting fires, destroying property and attacking police and firefighters. On the same day the teenagers died, police in nearby Epinay arrested three men who allegedly beat a visiting photographer to death. The man worked for a lighting company and had stopped his car at a housing project to take pictures of light fixtures when he was assaulted in front of his family, police said. The incident contributed to generalized tension, the intelligence official said. So did a visit October 26 [2005] to the gritty town of Argenteuil by Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, part of the popular leader's campaign to take back poor areas with tough policing.

Mr. Rotella continues:

A group of youths clashed with Sarkozy's entourage and threw objects at him, an incident instigated partly by known Islamic fundamentalists, the intelligence official said. The minister responded by calling his antagonists "thugs."Because of that comment and similar language after the riots began, Sarkozy has found himself in the spotlight. Residents of affected areas have alternately taken his words as an insult and a challenge. A youth in hard-hit Aulnay-sous-Bois told Le Monde newspaper this week: "This is just the start. We aren't going to stop until Sarkozy resigns."

The correspondent noted that, "Sarkozy is part of [French Prime Minister Dominique] de Villepin's center-right government, but they are longtime rivals and presidential hopefuls."

"Despite their promises to work together," Mr. Rotella wrote, Liberation newspaper calls their shadow feud over the riots a "gang fight in the government." Azouz Begag, the Cabinet minister for equal opportunity, accused Sarkozy of pouring gasoline on the flames with his combative language and televised forays onto rough turf. Urging Sarkozy to avoid "warlike semantics," Begag said:

He needs to stop going with cameras and journalists to poor and sensitive areas.

According to Mr. Rotella, Mr. Sarkozy's allies retorted that Begag acted as a proxy for De Villepin in attacking Sarkozy, who has taken credit for lowering the crime rate during two tenures as interior minister. Sarkozy insisted this week that the response to riots should be law and order, not polite language.

"If someone shoots at the police, he is not a 'youth,' he is a thug," Sarkozy declared. For more, read "Riots Put a Fear in the French."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:40 AM | Comments (0)

Looking for Motives Behind 'Riots' in France

In an attempt to explain the motive or motives behind the nights of rage "touched off a week ago after two African youths were accidentally electrocuted while climbing a fence in a high-voltage power substation in Clichy-sous-Bois, a few miles northeast of Paris,"San Francisco Chronicle's foreign correspondent Elizabeth Bryant reported in the November 4, 2005 edition of the California, USA-based paper that:

Soul-searching over the motives of the rioters is raging across France as politicians, pundits and residents view suburbs like Sevran -- fringed with tree-lined streets and ugly high-rise housing projects similar to inner-city slums in the United States -- as symbols of the nation's failure to integrate millions of immigrants who have been flocking here since the 1950s. Even though their children and grandchildren are French citizens, many families remain mired in communities that are fertile breeding grounds of despair and violence.

Ms. Bryant quotes Dominique Sopo, head of SOS Racism, a Paris-based anti-discrimination group, as saying:

This isn't a question of failed integration, since many of these youths are second- and third-generation immigrants -- they're French. But this situation reflects endemic discrimination -- in jobs, in housing, in education -- that exists against French of immigrant origin.

Stephane Gatignon, Sevran's 36-year-old communist mayor, agrees, according to Ms. Bryant. She said "Gatignon points out that his town of 50,000 inhabitants has an unemployment rate of nearly 19 percent -- almost twice the national average. More than 30 percent of those under 25 are unemployed, a rate "that ranks with underdeveloped nations," Gatignon noted. The riots "are linked to the problems of French suburbs in general: unemployment, ghettoization, the lack of common culture. These young people don't have any goals. And without goals, you can't live."

For more of Ms. Bryant's analysis, see "Rioting angry youth expose French bind Millions of African immigrants yet to be integrated." The truth is they may never be integrated.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:07 AM | Comments (0)

November 03, 2005

The Deep Roots of Civil Unrest in France.

"The ugly, often poorly maintained blocks of public housing that have become a nightly battlefield [outside Paris] are testament to 40 years of [French] government policy that has concentrated immigrants and their families in well-defined districts away from city centers, as housing there became more expensive," contends Christian Science Monitor Correspondent Peter Ford in a November 4, 2005 article explaining the deep roots of the current civil unrest in France.

He said, "The spreading violence has lifted the lid on an ugly stew of poverty, discrimination, and desperation amongst immigrant-descended families that most French citizens have long preferred to ignore."

Most are descendants of citizens of former French colonies primarily in North Africa.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:47 PM | Comments (0)

LA Times: 'Bush War Policy Is Now in Play'

"In the face of solidifying public opposition to the war, a mounting U.S. body count and a renewed focus on the faulty intelligence used to justify the war, Democratic lawmakers and candidates have sharpened their critique of the administration's policy and, in some cases, urged a withdrawal of U.S. troops," opines Los Angeles Times reporters Janet Hook and Ronald Brownstein in a November 3, 2005 analysis of the political fighting mood in Washington, D.C., U.S.A.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:35 AM | Comments (0)

U.S. Senate to Investigate How Case for Iraq War Was Made

Gail Russell Chaddock, staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor, told the publication's readers today that:

By moving the Senate into a secret session for two hours this week, Democrats put a politically charged question back on the table: Did the Bush administration exaggerate the case for war against Iraq?

Emboldened by last week's indictment of former top White House aide I. Lewis Libby, Democrats Tuesday used an obscure parliamentary rule to capture the Senate floor. In doing so, they infuriated Republicans but won a timetable to complete a long-delayed Senate investigation of whether the White House manipulated the intelligence used to justify invading Iraq.

Ms. Chaddock said, "An earlier phase of this probe, completed in July 2004, offered a searing critique of prewar intelligence estimates." For more, please see "Senate to probe how case for war was made."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:25 AM | Comments (0)

Bush Administration Urged to Re-Evaluate Muslim POW Policy

"The Bush administration should re-evaluate its long-term plan for detaining suspected terrorists in light of reports that the CIA has a secret prison system in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, members of Congress and current and former intelligence officials say," according to the Baltimore Sun, an American newspaper. Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:17 AM | Comments (0)

Bush's Approval Rating Continues to Slide

"According to a new CBS poll, President Bush now has only a 35% approval rating, and a whopping 57% disapproval rating," reports Steve Clemons at The Washington Note. Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:35 AM | Comments (0)

Libby Expected to Plead Not Guilty Today

U.S. "Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, Lewis Libby, was expected to plead not guilty on Thursday [November 3, 2005] to charges stemming from the CIA leak probe, raising the specter of a trial that could keep the spotlight on the administration's case for war in Iraq," reporters Adam Entous of Reuters.

A Libby trial could bring out the Administration's dirty little secrets about the war.

For more, please see "Top Cheney aide expected to plead not guilty."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:29 AM | Comments (0)

Why Bush Invaded Iraq Back on the Public Agenda

Edward Alden of The Financial Times' Washington Bureau starts a November 3, 2005 article on the renewed debate in the United States over the Iraq war by noting that:

In his new book on the US in Iraq, New Yorker writer George Packer calls the conflict "the Rashomon of wars" one whose cause, like the brutal crime at the centre of the Japanese film, remains little understood despite multiple retellings.

"Why did the US invade Iraq?" he wrote. "It still isn't possible to be sure and this remains the most remarkable thing about the Iraq war. Mr. Alden noted that, "Two and half years after the US launched the war, with more than 2,000 US soldiers killed and the monthly death toll still rising, questions over how and why the US went to war are again roiling Washington."

For more Mr. Alden's analysis of the growing debate, please see "Debate on case for war in Iraq comes back to top of agenda."

Hopefully, the renewed debate will lead to an independent, indepth investigation of of how and why President Bush led the U.S. into war.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 04:21 AM | Comments (0)

Merkel's Grand Coalition Not Set in Stone

Der Spiegel of Germany said today that, "After the surprise resignation of their party leader Franz Müntefering, Germany's Social Democrats quickly found a replacement. But not quick enough. Economy minister designate Edmund Stoiber has decided to head back to Bavaria."

"It's a crisis for Angela Merkel's cabinet-in-waiting and commentators on Tuesday [November 2, 2005] unload on Stoiber," Der Spiegel said.

It seems as if major party leaders don't want to work with Miss Angela? See "Stoiber Heads Back to Bavaria" for a perspective on the issue.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 03:54 AM | Comments (0)

David Blunkett Delivers a Blow to Blair

British Prime Minister Tony Blair "was struggling to retain his political authority last night after suffering the blows of David Blunkett's resignation and the slashing of his Commons majority to 1 in a vote on the new terror laws," according to Times Online Political Editor Philip Webster.

It seems that the two architects of regime change in Iraq--Mr. Blair and U.S. President George W. Bush--are both in political trouble. Mr. Bush will survive but Mr. Blair may not.

For more, please see "Decline and Fall."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 03:36 AM | Comments (0)

Terror Bill Vote A Sign of Tony Blair's Political Troubles

Greg Hurst, Political Correspondent for The Times Online of London, reported November 3, 2005 that, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's "majority plunged to just one vote yesterday [November 2, 2005] as his counter-terrorism measures came within a whisker of defeat in the Commons."

"The margin of victory in a knife-edge vote on details of proposed anti-terrorism powers was the slimmest since Labour took office in 1997," Mr. Hurst wrote. "The closest that Mr. Blair had previously come to being defeated in the Commons was in January 2003, when the Governments legislation on top-up fees survived by five votes." Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 03:28 AM | Comments (0)

Disturbances in Paris Suburbs Spread

In an effort to quell the civil disturbances among mostly North African immigrants in the suburbs outside Paris, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin has delayed a three-day visit to Canada indefinitely" and Nicolas Sarkozy, the Interior Minister, "has cancelled a visit to Pakistan and Afghanistan that had been planned for next week," The Times Online of London reported November 2, 2005. Here's is The Times' perspective on the disturbances.

See the BBC's "Seventh night of Paris violence" for another perspective. The Washington Post analyzed the disturbances in a November 3, 2005 article headlined "French Rioting Spreads as Government Seeks an Answer."

The Muslim American Society took a look at the crisis in a piece headlined "Riots in Paris Continue Over Deaths of Muslim Teenagers."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 03:18 AM | Comments (0)

Australia to Deploy Drones in Iraq

"Australian troops in southern Iraq will soon deploy small unmanned spy planes to help keep watch over their area of operations," News.com.AU reported today. For more, please read "Australian troops to deploy drones."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 02:43 AM | Comments (0)

Is John Howard Playing Politics With Alleged Terrorist Threat?

Some Australian politicians think Australian Prime Minister John Howard is using the threat of terrorists attack to get his way on anti-terrorist legislation. According to Australia's ABC Online, "The Federal Government has strongly rejected suggestions the warning of "specific intelligence" of a terrorist attack and the urgent legislation to deal with that threat is a political conspiracy."

"The Senate has begun a special sitting to pass urgent legislation expanding the definition of a terrorist act making it easier to prosecute people plotting an attack," ABC added, noting that, "The amendment was passed by the House of Representatives yesterday [November 2, 2005].

Read background information here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 02:38 AM | Comments (0)

November 02, 2005

For Ivory Coast and France, Making Up is Hard to Do

According to The Associated Press, "The tenuous relationship between Paris and its former colony [Ivory Coast] suffered another blow Wednesday [November 2, 2005]when the French Defense Ministry confirmed that troops in Ivory Coast suffocated an Ivorian prisoner in an armored vehicle in May, and commanders knew of the killing but did not notify their superiors." Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)

Joseph G. Bartuah's 'Memo To Fellow Liberians'

I found "A Memo To Fellow Liberians--It's About Our Country's Future" quite thought-provoking. It' was written by Liberian Journalist Joseph G. Bartuah and published in the November 2, 2005 edition of The Liberian Times.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:16 PM | Comments (0)

Liberians Preparing for November 8 Election Run-off

Many partisans who voted for various other political parties in the October 11 [2005] elections [in Liberia] have turned their loyalty to Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of the Unity Party in anticipation of the November 8 [2005] run-off election," according to The Liberian Observer. Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 11:06 PM | Comments (0)

WFP Trying to Feed Millions in Africa Despite $157 Million Shortfall

"It costs just $2.50 per month to save the life of each hungry person in southern Africa, yet the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) still faces a $157 million shortfall as it seeks to feed 9.7 million people until next April, many of them struggling to find food for even one meal a day," according to the U.N. News Centre.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 10:57 PM | Comments (0)

Mining Houses Oppose South Africa's Diamond Law Changes

"South Africa's national assembly approved controversial changes to diamond laws on Tuesday, [November 2, 2004] allowing for a state diamond trader to help lock-in wealth in the world's fourth largest diamond producing nation," according to Reuters South Africa

The wire service said, "The planned shake-up of the sector aims to stimulate more jewellery manufacturing and gem cutting, especially by black South Africans, but has met fierce opposition from major mining houses."

They want to monopolize the trade just as they did under apartheid. Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 10:49 PM | Comments (0)

Bird Flu Fears Dominate African Union Meeting in Kigali

The "Seventh African Union Ministers" responsible for Livestock met October 27 and 28, 2005 at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kigali, Rwanda.

According to James Munyaneza and Noel RukundaKigali of The New Times of Kigali, "Concerns over the looming outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus in Africa overshadowed the ongoing meeting of livestock experts from across the continent, with delegates calling for a collective rather than individual country approach to prevent the trans-boundary disease." Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 10:43 PM | Comments (0)

Thailand's National Reconciliation Commission

Marwaan Macan-Markar, writing in the November 2, 2005 edition of Asia Times Online, said "Prospects for peace in Thailand's troubled south have dimmed due to escalating incidents of violence by shadowy, Muslim-Malay insurgent groups on the one hand and calls for tougher measures by Buddhist monks on the other."

He said, " Caught between the spiraling violence by the insurgent groups and the angry monks is the one hope for a peaceful resolution of the two-year-old ethnic conflict - the National Reconciliation Commission (NRC)."

For more, please see "Fighting for peace in Thailand."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 10:31 PM | Comments (0)

Asians Told Transparency Needed to Combat Bird Flu

According to The Associated Press(AP) on November 2, 2005 , Ong Keng Yong, secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, told the business community in Hong Kong that, "The important thing in combatting the Asian bird flu "is transparency, and this is where some of our member countries are still learning." He added:

They are always very concerned about creating panic in their society, so sometimes the information about an episode or a bird flu outbreak would take some time to reach other parts of the country."

We have to insist on quick information and as much details as possible, so that we can actually identify the kind of problems that cause such an outbreak.According to the AP "Southeast Asian countries agreed in September to start a three-year plan next year to combat bird flu, which has ravaged poultry populations in the region since 2003 and killed dozens of people, mostly in Vietnam and Thailand." Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 10:25 PM | Comments (0)

The Caricom Single Market and Economy

In January 2005, the Caricom Single Market and Economy (CSME) will be initiated, notes The Associated Press. It is "designed to facilitate the movement of goods, services and certain categories of workers between 13 members of the regional bloc," the wire service said.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 10:02 PM | Comments (0)

Eastern Caribbean Leaders to Meet November 7 and 8, 2005

Eastern Caribbean leaders from Anguilla, Antigua, the British Virgin Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Kitts, St Lucia and St Vincent will meet in Anguilla November 7 to 8, 2005, to discuss regional unity and economic integration. They are members of the Organization of Eastern Caribbean States.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)

Sexual Predators From Caribbean to Be Deported

"Law enforcement authorities in Caricom and the Caribbean's consular corps in New York have been put on notice" that "immigrant perverts" from the Caribbean "who prey on children in the U.S." will be deported, according to Carib World Radio. The round up has already begun.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)

Mexico, India to Sign Investment Agreement

Reuters reported October 31, 2005 that, "Talks between Mexico and India for a bilateral investment agreement are going well and the pact should be signed early in 2006." The news agency's source was Alejandro Gomez, Mexico's Deputy Trade Minister. Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)

Congressman Wants 2,000 Mile Fence Along U.S.-Mexico Border

U.S. Representative Duncan Hunter of San Diego, California, "a leading House Republican, wants to build a fence along the entire 2,000-mile U.S.-Mexico border, a plan that could cost billions of dollars and that critics say would do little to stop illegal immigration," reports The Associated Press.

Illegal immigration is a hot political issue in the United States, as it is in Europe and North Africa. Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)

Will Bush Get a Warm Reception at Summit of the Americas?

"If [U.S.] President George W. Bush is expecting some respite from his troubles at home during a four-day visit to Argentina and Brazil that begins Thursday [November 2, 2005], he is in for a very rude awakening," according to Larry Rohter of The New York Times. To read more, please see "Plans for Bush visit displease many in Latin America."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)

The 4th Summit of the Americas

On November 2, 2005, Stephen Hadley, President George W. Bush's National Security Adviser, briefed the White House press corps on President and Mrs. Bush's departure November 3, 2005 for Argentina, "where the President will participate in the 4th Summit of the Americas. The President and Mrs. Bush will make subsequent visits to Brazil and Panama," Mr. Hadley said.

Here is the transcript of Mr. Hadley's briefing.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 09:19 PM | Comments (0)

Bush's National Security Adviser Says Policy Forbids Torture

U.S. President George W. Bush's National Security Adviser, Stephen Hadley, said November 2, 2005 that "while we have to do what is necessary to defend the country against terrorist attacks and to win the war on terror, the president has been very clear that we're going to do that in a way that is consistent with our values."

"And that is why he's been very clear that the United States will not torture," Mr. Hadley said. "The United States will conduct its activities in compliance with law and international obligations."

Mr. Hadley was responding to questions at a White House briefing November 2, 2005. They were prompted by a Washington Post article that said "The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaida captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement." Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:57 PM | Comments (0)

The Bush Administration's Secret Prison System

Washington Post Reporter Dana Priest's November 2, 2005 article revealing that, " The CIA has been hiding and interrogating some of its most important al-Qaida captives at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe, according to U.S. and foreign officials familiar with the arrangement," has gotten widespread coverage around the world. Priest's noted:

The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.

This should not come as a surprise given the Bush Administration's propensity for secrecy and willingness to use practices against Muslim prisoners of war often associated with the old Soviet Union.

Is the fact that the CIA used "a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe" coincidental or the result of the CIA's knowledge of what they were used for? East bloc torturers were widely known for the expertise in extracting information by extraordinary during the Soviet era. Many of those operatives are still around and hire themselves out.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 08:35 PM | Comments (0)

November 01, 2005

Was Amr Moussa's Visit to Iraq Worth it?

Dina Ezzat, the Al-Ahram correspondent who accompanied Arab League secretary-general Amr Moussa on his visit to Iraq this week, said the visit "has made the possibility of a conference of reconciliation closer." Here's her report.

By the way, if the Arab League's past performances on issues can be used as a gauge, not much will come of the visit.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:38 AM | Comments (0)

LaRepubblica Series on Italy and the Iraq War is Compelling

On October 31, 2005, Helena Cobban at Just World News noted that "Nur al-Cubicle has an English translation today of yet another great piece from La Repubblica on the Italian angle to the planning of the US War on Iraq. Like the earlier ones on the Italian origins of the yellow cake fantasy, this article is also by Carlo Bonini and Giuseppi d'Avanzo.

See "Ledeen, Franklin, Rhode, SCIRI, Iranians in key pre-war meeting?" Cobban provides many excerpts from the article.

Since I don't read Italian, I have no way of knowing whether the translations I've read are entirely accurate. If they are, La Repubblica's articles on the Italian connection to the Iraq war are compelling. Unfortunately, most Americans will never read them unless the mainstream press in the U.S. decides to excerpt them.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:28 AM | Comments (0)

October Was a Deadly Month for U.S. Troops in Iraq

Professor Juan Cole at Informed Comment says October was "the deadliest month in Iraq for US troops since the January 30, 2005, elections." Read more here.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:12 AM | Comments (0)

Syrians: Resolution 1636 is 'Very Negative Towards Syria'

Reuters reported today that, "Syria sharply criticized on Tuesday [November 1, 2005] a U.N resolution ordering it to cooperate fully with an international inquiry into the killing of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri or face unspecified action."

"We consider the resolution to be very negative towards Syria and as it is unanimous this makes it more problematic," a Foreign Ministry source said of Monday's [October 31, 2005] Security Council vote.

"It is accusatory and adopts the assumptions that (chief U.N. investigator Detlev) Mehlis had arrived at which we consider hasty and not objective enough," the source said, according to Reuters. Here's more.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 07:06 AM | Comments (0)

How Will Syria Respond to Resolution 1636?

In a November 1, 2005 editorial, The Daily Star of Lebanon opined that:

Through Resolution 1636, Syria has now been put on official notice that it must cooperate with the international probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The resolution adopted by the Security Council on Monday was eerily reminiscent of Resolution 1441, which offered Saddam Hussein "a final opportunity to comply with its disarmament obligations" and threatened "serious consequences" if these demands were not met. It was this resolution, which was adopted unanimously by the Security Council in November 2002, that laid the groundwork for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

The publication said, "If there was any room for doubt before, the Syrians, who served on the Security Council in 2002 and voted in favor of Resolution 1441, ought to now be keenly aware of the gravity of their situation."

Please see "Syria has one last opportunity to read the writing on the wall" for the entire editorial. For Syria's response, see "Syria Labels U.N Resolution Biased." Also see "Syria angrily denies Security Council claim."

"UN Tells Syria to Cooperate" also offers an interesting perspective.

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:26 AM | Comments (0)

The 'Alawites and the Regime' in Syria

Joshua Landis at Syria Comment.Com, whose Fulbright Scholarship in Syria and Lebanon ends in December, contends in an October 31, 2005 post that Washington Post reporter

Anthony Shadid is cleaning up in the race to report from Syria. His deep knowledge of the region, ability to speak Arabic, and sensitivity to his informants means he is getting the real story, as his last two articles, copied below, make clear. He does not get bogged down in tired metaphors like "the mafia inc.," no matter how compelling they are or how useful in short-handing messages to the US audience. Most Middle Eastern states are variations on the Mafia structure. Wealth, jobs and influence are distributed through patronage networks. Syria is no exception to this rule. True democracy, the rule of law, and meritocracy should sweep away such political and economic structures. That is the theory, at least.

"Of course, this is the long-term outcome that Syrians hope for, but they know better than to expect anything like that in the short term," Mr. Landis, who speaks Arabic, wrote. "What will happen, should the Asad family and Alawi hierarchy be displaced, is that another patronage system will be established in its stead. What the pillars of that system are likely to be, or how long it will take before they can be established, no one knows."

For more of the Landis article, please read "Anthony Shadid on Alawites and the Regime."

Posted by Munir Umrani at 06:04 AM | Comments (0)