Part V: No prosecuting; no killing

http://lnk.nu/service.spiegel.de/6y7.html

AP
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has sent US special forces all over the world.

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The fact that the planes are deterred from using neutral airspace was also noticed by Sweden. There has been a great deal of distrust directed at the USA, ever since the CIA brought in two Egyptian asylum seekers from abroad in 2001, in full view of the Swedish police -- although only after the Swedes had arrested the men after a tip-off from the Americans.

Just hours later US agents, in a Gulfstream V business jet (registration N379P), landed at Bromma budget airline airport on the outskirts of Stockholm. Eight masked men climbed out of the private jet, grabbed the Egyptians and cut their clothing off them with knives. They gave them tracksuits to put on and covered their heads with hoods. Swedish protests were cut short by curt gestures.

Within ten minutes the Egyptians, who were thought to belong to the group Islamic Jihad, were on the Gulfstream, and, shortly after that, out of the country. Swedish diplomats reported later that both have since then been tortured.

The in-house airline belonging to the most powerful secret service America has, is the industry's worst kept secret. CIA lawyers and the international air transport authorities demanded that the fleet of aircraft should have proper registration. Once someone has found out the identification numbers of these planes, it doesn't take long to then follow their movements.
The employees of the CIA shuttle company always have run-of-the-mill names like Steven Kent or Audrey Tailor. They never have private telephone numbers or previous employers. Their social security numbers are brand new and their only fixed addresses are postal boxes. These are classic "sterile identities," as the CIA calls them.

Former CIA agent Robert Baer, one of the most successful secret service Middle East experts, described the arrangement with disarming openness: "There is a rule inside the CIA that if you want a good interrogation and you want good information you send the suspect to Jordan, if you want them to be killed or tortured to death you send them either to Egypt or Syria, and you never see them again."

Now hardly any country is willing to take in the sorry caravan of CIA agents and their prisoners. Everyone fears retribution from al-Qaida.

Even before the spread of the latest CIA scandal, the new use of power showed itself to be counterproductive in many ways. Admittedly there has been no major attack on the USA since September 11 - ten attacks have been prevented all over the world, preened Bush in October - but the statements forced out of prisoners under ill-treatment don't help anyone as they would never be admissible in an American court of law. "Even Adolf Eichmann got a trial," warns McCain. Maybe too late. A fair trial after torture is no longer possible.

That puts the CIA between a rock and a hard place. "You can't prosecute these people, but you can't kill them either," said Michael Scheuer, the former head of the CIA special unit which, already under Bill Clinton, was assigned to tracking down Bin Laden. "All we've done is create a nightmare."

How damaging the program of fighting terror has become is shown by the case of the defendant Jose Padilla in Chicago, who was accused, after his arrest, by former Minister of Justice John Ashcroft, of wanting to set off a dirty bomb. But in the end Padilla was only charged with supporting and promoting a terrorist organization. The more serious accusations were based on statements made by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The government is loathe to reveal what has been discovered, out of fear that, during the trial, the method of how these statements were obtained would come out into the open.

There can be no doubt that the political damage caused, on a global level, by the prisoner ill-treatment has long outweighed any possible use intended by such a policy. The CIA torture scandal is on the way to becoming a second Abu Ghraib. The torture carried out in the infamous Iraqi jails has damaged the USA's image across the whole world, and destroyed its moral pretence to bring democracy and freedom to the Middle East.

So for months now Washington has been reeling with a bitter debate on how to bring an end to the unceasing accusations of torture. The camp of Guantanamo is also included in the debate.

National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and Secretary of State Rice demand that UN inspectors to have the right to contact prisoners. In congress parliamentarians of both parties call for the law proposed by Vietnam veteran McCain, which would ban torture by US authorities, be passed.

But Vice President Cheney and CIA Director Goss fight, with rear-cover provided by the White House, to provide the secret service with an exemption from this ban on torture. It is possible however they are fighting a losing battle.

Last Wednesday, while on European trip in Kiev, Secretary of State Rice announced that the UN ban on torture naturally also applied to American state employees. "As a matter of US policy," she said the United Nations Convention against Torture "extend to US personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the US or outside the US." Since then speculations have been made in Washington as to whether the hardliners will step down or fight back as soon as Rice returns.

Now highly respected veterans of the secret service are joining in the debate: Vincent Cannistraro, a former anti-terror head of the CIA and leader of the working group which investigated the Lockerbie crash in 1988, doubts how worthwhile statements made under torture can be. "Detainees will say virtually anything to end their torment," he says. Burton Gerber, the former head of the Moscow unit is convinced that torture "corrupts every society that tolerates it." Larry Johnson, a former CIA agent and foreign ministry anti-terror expert says "What real CIA field officers know firsthand is that it is better to build a relationship of trust ...than to extract quick confessions through tactics such as those used by the Nazis and the Soviets." And ex-agent Baer, whose life was the inspiration for the Hollywood thriller "Syriana," is even certain that "this story will destroy the CIA."

But above all even the interrogators have been left with the nagging doubt as to the legality of their actions -- despite all the assertions made by the government. Why else would Washington be so adamant about keeping prisoners off American soil. Tenet demanded again and again guarantees that his agents will not at some point be hauled in front of a court.

And so arose the infamous seal of approval from the ministry of justice and the White House, in which then Vice Minister for Justice Jay Bybee confirmed that every type of interrogation method was allowed as long as it didn't lead to the prisoner suffering serious injuries, organ failure or death.

Even the current Secretary for Homeland Security Michael Chertoff set up a seal of approval. The former White House legal advisor and current Justice Minister Alberto Gonzales made a speech to the Senate in which he claimed that ill-treatment of prisoners was permissible as long as those affected were not US citizens and the torture took place abroad. All three seal of approvals for torture were supported by Bush.

As a result of remaining uncertainty the CIA demanded that the politicians themselves take over responsibility for the treatment of prisoners in the world-wide war on terror. "We should lock these people up," said the former terrorist hunter Scheuer to SPIEGEL. "They declared war on us, so we are allowed to hold them until the end of the war." He defended the basic principle of the fight against terrorism: "We have to catch these people before they can do more killing."

However Scheuer also admits that the arrogant disdain for prisoner rights has been like "shooting your own leg." He said that in reality there was no need for special powers or new means of interrogation. "This whole story is a massive success for al-Qaida, because we are losing the support of Europe, our most important partner in the fight against terror."

At the same time, however, he sees the definition of torture as relative. "There is a difference between torture and severe interrogation methods. Torture is pulling someone's nails out."

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MANFRED ERTEL, ERICH FOLLATH, HANS HOYNG
MARION KRASKE, GEORG MASCOLO, JAN PUHL

© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2005

http://lnk.nu/news.independent.co.uk/6y3.ece

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12 December 2005 06:09

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Torture victim: 'They would cut me 30 times in two hours'

By Geneviève Roberts

Published: 12 December 2005

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Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi is accused by the US government of planning a dirty bomb attack in America. He says he was tortured until he admitted the crime.

He was arrested at Karachi airport in April 2002, with a passport under the name of Fouad Zouawi, a friend, and with a ticket to Zurich and then on to London.

In documents compiled by the human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, he describes an encounter with someone he believes to be an MI6 officer and details the horror of his torture. Mr Habashi says the officer told him 'I'll see what we can do with the Americans'. "They gave me a cup of tea with a lot of sugar in it.

He said 'Where you're going you need a lot of sugar'."

He was taken to Morocco and questioned, then tortured after refusing to admit links al-Qa'ida links.

"They took the scalpel to my right chest. One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times in maybe two hours. They would do it to me about once a month."

The treatment continued in the so-called "Prison of Darkness" in Kabul, where he was kept from January to May in 2004.

"The US military told us 'Bin Laden had his laugh on 9/11 so it is now our time to have our laugh'," he said. "They would hang me up. I was allowed a few hours' sleep on the second day, then I was hung up, this time for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb.

"Then I was taken off the wall and left in the dark. There was loud music, Slim Shady and Dr Dre, for 20 days. I heard this non-stop over and over, and they changed the sounds to horrible ghost laughter and Hallowe'en sounds. The only light I saw came from guards using flashlights to bring inedible food.

"I lost 20kg in the weeks of my stay. They used to come and weigh us every other day; it seemed like they were making sure we were losing weight."

Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi is accused by the US government of planning a dirty bomb attack in America. He says he was tortured until he admitted the crime.

He was arrested at Karachi airport in April 2002, with a passport under the name of Fouad Zouawi, a friend, and with a ticket to Zurich and then on to London.

In documents compiled by the human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, he describes an encounter with someone he believes to be an MI6 officer and details the horror of his torture. Mr Habashi says the officer told him 'I'll see what we can do with the Americans'. "They gave me a cup of tea with a lot of sugar in it. He said 'Where you're going you need a lot of sugar'."

He was taken to Morocco and questioned, then tortured after refusing to admit links al-Qa'ida links.

"They took the scalpel to my right chest. One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times in maybe two hours. They would do it to me about once a month."

The treatment continued in the so-called "Prison of Darkness" in Kabul, where he was kept from January to May in 2004.

"The US military told us 'Bin Laden had his laugh on 9/11 so it is now our time to have our laugh'," he said. "They would hang me up. I was allowed a few hours' sleep on the second day, then I was hung up, this time for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb.

"Then I was taken off the wall and left in the dark. There was loud music, Slim Shady and Dr Dre, for 20 days. I heard this non-stop over and over, and they changed the sounds to horrible ghost laughter and Hallowe'en sounds. The only light I saw came from guards using flashlights to bring inedible food.

"I lost 20kg in the weeks of my stay. They used to come and weigh us every other day; it seemed like they were making sure we were losing weight."

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© 2005 Independent News and Media Limited

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ALSO...

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http://lnk.nu/washingtonpost.com/6xw.html

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Frist Predicts Deal on Anti-Torture Ban

The Associated Press

Sunday, December 11, 2005; 8:29 PM

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WASHINGTON -- The Senate and the White House will reach agreement on a proposal to ban the use of torture in gaining information from suspected terrorists, Majority Leader Bill Frist predicted on Sunday.

The ban's sponsor, Sen. John McCain, has said he would refuse to yield on his demands that the Bush administration agree with his plan, which passed the Senate by a 90-9 vote.

McCain, R-Ariz., is insisting on his language that no person in U.S. custody should be subject to "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment."

The administration says the U.S. does not torture and follows international conventions on the treatment of prisoners. But the White House is wary of restrictions that might prevent interrogators from gaining information vital to the nation's security.

"I think that there will be _ you say a deal," Frist told "Fox News Sunday."

"I think there will be clarification of what we mean. How aggressive can one be to get information _ not torture, but, you know, what does degrading mean? Do you not want to degrade a terrorist _ not hurt them, but degrade them _ if they're going to take out your family, if they're going to assassinate you? That's the question that's being worked out," said Frist, R-Tenn.

He said he thought both sides "will come to some understanding which will allow us, in ways consistent with our values, that is legal, to get the appropriate information to protect us."

But Sen. Lindsey Graham, a McCain supporter, said, "We're not close to a deal."

Graham, R-S.C., said the U.S. policy on interrogating detainees "has been confusing, misleading, and our own troops have suffered because they don't know what's in bounds and what's not."

Discussing negotiations with the administration, Graham spoke of "a breakdown along how to best protect the troops. There is a philosophical difference here."

Vice President Dick Cheney, arguing for fewer restrictions on prisoner treatment, has lobbied Congress to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency from any anti-torture measure.

"The vice president is not the vice president of torture. He is trying to create exemptions, in my opinion, to protect our people who go too far," Graham told NBC's "Meet the Press."

"Because the way to protect your people is to adhere to the rule of law. The way you win this war is to embrace a value system different than your enemy," the senator said.

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© 2005 The Associated Press

http://lnk.nu/winnipegfreepress.com/6xi.html

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Israel sends powerful signals

Preparations made for possibility that Iran becomes N-power

Tuesday, December 6th, 2005

Samuel Segev

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WHILE the U.S. and its European allies are desperately seeking an agreement with Russia aimed at curbing Iran's nuclear ambitions, Israel last week sent three powerful signals that it is preparing itself for the possibility that Iran does become a nuclear power.

In the presence of Israeli and American scientists, high-tech and air force personnel, Israel launched its improved version of the Arrow anti-missile missile on Friday. The Arrow hit its target over the Mediterranean, at a distance equal to the range of the Iranian "Shihab-3" missile. When it becomes operational, the Shihab-3, equipped with a nuclear warhead, can reach Israel and every American target in the Persian Gulf region.

This was Israel's 14th test of the improved version of the American-financed Arrow and the most successful of them.

After rectifying minor navigation errors and enhancing further its range, the Arrow could become Israel's effective shield against Iran's missiles.

Equally dramatic was the formal German decision to equip the Israeli navy with two additional Dolphin-class submarines. This was one of the last decisions of Gerhard Schroeder before he handed over the chancellery to Angela Merkel. Germany will "gift" a third of the submarines' costs.

The Israeli navy already has three subs of this type. The new Dolphins are to be equipped with torpedo-tubes capable of launching cruise missiles -- with conventional or nuclear warheads. The new subs can be submerged for many weeks. Because of their speed and enhanced technology, the Dolphins are also difficult to detect.

The use of the submarines in the Indian Ocean, off the Iranian coast, could spare Israel the need to fly over Arab countries -- as it did in 1981, when it flew over Jordan to destroy the Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad.

An Israeli attack from a submarine in the Indian Ocean could spare the U.S. and the Arab countries lots of embarrassment.

Finally, the third "signal." Although the "secret" was known to many people, Israel allowed the publication Friday of news that Israeli companies are building in Kurdistan a new military and civilian airport. The building and the modern equipment are financed by the U.S.

Needless to say, should the Bush administration or any future administration decide to strike at Iran's nuclear facilities, this airport in northern-Iraq, close to the Iranian border, could serve as the launching pad for such an attack.

These three signals were accompanied by rare public warnings from Israel's top political and military leaders.

Addressing the chief editors of the Israeli media last Thursday, on the occasion of the 58th anniversary of the 1947 UN Resolution to establish the Jewish state, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said: "Israel would not allow Iran to become a nuclear power. Of course there exists a military option, but we prefer to exhaust first all diplomatic options. Israel is a 'partner' in this effort but does not lead it."

Israel's chief of general staff, Gen. Dan Halutz, was even more blunt. Briefing foreign correspondents in Tel Aviv on Sunday, Halutz said: "Iran's determination to acquire nuclear capabilities is unacceptable. There are, of course, military options but these were not considered yet..."

Israel's public warnings, combined with several operational signals, came against a background of growing Israeli doubts about the outcome of the diplomatic effort that is now being explored by Russia and Europe.

Israeli leaders have become frustrated by Iran's ability to fend off, time after time, the international pressure.

Israel considers Iran's nuclear plans as an "existential threat." Nevertheless, for obvious reasons, Israel preferred until now to keep its doubts to itself. Not anymore. The fact that both Sharon and Gen. Halutz preferred to say at the same time that Israel will not allow Iran to become nuclear, together with the timing of its three signals indicate that Israel cannot remain silent in face of a growing fear that the world -- including the U.S. -- is giving the impression that it has given up on stopping Iran's bomb.

Israel believes that Iran's plans are not only an "Israeli affair" but a subject that affects the security of the U.S. and all the Arab countries.

Therefore, and in an unprecedented move, AIPAC -- the powerful pro-Israeli lobby in Washington, lashed out last week against the American handling of the Iranian file. Attacking the U.S. decision not to refer Iran to the UN Security Council for possible sanctions, AIPAC said: "We disagree with this decision. It poses a severe danger to the U.S. and our allies and puts American national interests at risk. The American decision allows Iran to win a critical round in its game of cat and mouse with the international community."

Nevertheless, the U.S. is unlikely to change its current decision that it will not turn to the UN Security Council unless it is absolutely certain that its draft resolution will not be vetoed by Russia and China. Therefore, the U.S. is now engaged on two parallel diplomatic tracks. Relying on past Russian and Chinese assurances that Moscow and Beijing are opposed to Iran's nuclear plans, the U.S. has joined its European allies in supporting the Russian proposal that Iran be allowed to produce nuclear fuel precursors, but these precursors will be shipped for enrichment in Russia. Should Iran reject the Russian proposal, Washington hopes Russia and China would join in having the security council impose economic sanctions on Iran.

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© 2005 Winnipeg Free Press.

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Bibi’s Election Bluff: Iran Attack

By Kurt Nimmo

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12/11/05 -- -- Is it possible the people of Israel will select Binyamin Netanyahu to be their prime minister again? Like America, in Israel the far right is in firm control of the horizontal and vertical, and in Israel as America the ruling clique is of a particularly rabid Zionist persuasion, unflinching in their warmongering assertions.

For instance, Netanyahu, affectionately nicknamed Bibi, tells us if he “succeeds in becoming Israel’s next prime minister … he will not hesitate to order a military strike against Iran’s nuclear program in order to safeguard his nation from annihilation,” according to MichNews. Notice how the assumptions are stacked up like cordwood against a brutal winter—not only does Netanyahu take for granted Iran has nuclear weapons (or is about to have them), a less than factual assertion, but he also believes if Iran possesses nukes it will most certainly annihilate Israel. Netanyahu would have us believe Iran is not only genocidal and insane, but suicidal as well.

“I will continue the tradition established by Menachem Begin, who did not allow Iraq to develop such a nuclear threat against Israel, and by a daring and courageous act gave us two decades of tranquility,” Netanyahu told Israel’s Maariv daily.

Indeed, Begin attacked Iraq—and earned the condemnation of the world for doing so, not that the Zionists particularly care what the rest of the world thinks (unless the money—much of it holocaust guilt trip money—stops coming in). Imagine the response if the Iraqis had invaded Israel’s Dimona nuclear complex in the Negev. But then, of course, the Israelis consider themselves civilized European people—or the Ashkenazi Jews do anyway—and the Arabs (and the Iranians) are uncivilized and sub-human and as Bibi tells us given half the chance they will nuke Israel.

In fact, as defense Israeli analyst Zeev Schiff told Haaretz: “Too many senior Israeli officials have taken to issuing threatening statements vis-a-vis Iraq and Iran…. Off-the-cuff Israeli nuclear threats have become a problem, even before the onset of the Iraqi crisis…. Washington may decide it wants to distance itself from Israel in order to avoid being accused of having conspired with us on an action we planned exclusively by ourselves.” In other words, according to an analyst who should know, the problem is not Iran but is in fact the racist state of Israel, bristling with modern nuclear weapons and the appropriate delivery technology.

As Livia Rokach (daughter of Israel Rokach, Minister of the Interior in the government of Moshe Sharett, second prime minister of Israel) spelled out in her book, Israel’s Sacred Terrorism, the “Israeli political /military establishment never seriously believed in an Arab threat to the existence of Israel. On the contrary, it sought and applied every means to exacerbate the dilemma of the Arab regimes after the 1948 war. The Arab governments were extremely reluctant to engage in any military confrontation with Israel, yet in order to survive they needed to project to their populations and to the exiled Palestinians in their countries some kind of reaction to Israel’s aggressive policies and continuous acts of harassment. In other words, the Arab threat was an Israeli-invented myth which for internal and inter-Arab reasons the Arab regimes could not completely deny, though they constantly feared Israeli preparations for a new war.” Bibi Netanyahu, as a staunch Jabotinsky Zionist, is playing this old game with Iran.

Of course, Bibi will not go it alone—he has the support and goading (not that he needs much) of the American dual loyalty neocons, the Zionist mafia currently in control of U.S. foreign policy. “The ultimate neocon goal is a U.S. war with Iran over the nuclear issue,” writes Andrew I. Killgore for the Washington Report On Middle Eastern Affairs, “That would serve to postpone indefinitely Washington’s attention to the Palestine question. In ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy For Securing the Realm,’ the 1996 white paper prepared for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu by the neocons/Zionists Richard Perle, David Wurmser and Douglas Feith, the authors envisaged America fighting Israel’s enemies in the Middle East. It contained not a word about the consequences for the United States—raising a question about the judgment, if not the loyalty, of the three authors.”

Not that “consequences for the United States” mean squat to the neocon traitors. As it now stands, Bibi will probably not be Israel’s next prime minister. However, Netanyahu is sending a message to the neocons—Iran is still on the table, front and center, and it is up to America to secure Israel’s nuclear monopoly and sow chaos amidst the Muslims, as per the long-held neocon master plan. Call it a punctual reminder. Of course, the neocons have not forgotten and they will not be dissuaded from calling for mass murder and yet more crimes perpetuated against humanity. It remains to be seen if they can pull it off with the Bush’s Iraq political fiasco pickle (although the plan in Iraq is going as envisioned—destroy Iraqi society for a generation or more, as the Zionists demand).

But then Bush is limping toward the curtains of his second and last (we can only hope) term and he really has nothing to lose in regard to Iran.

It may be bombs away as the Zionists in Israel and Washington demand. One thing is for sure—Israel is not stupid enough to attack Iran on its own, as Bibi threatens, invoking the execrable memory of Menachem Begin, who was so pleased with his blood-spattered historical record of slaughtering 20,000 or more Lebanese and Palestinians he characterized the killing fields to a “new Treblinka,” thus revealing precisely the sort of sociopathic killers allowed to rule nations and decide the fate of millions.

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Copyright Kurt Nimmo - www.kurtnimmo.com

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AND:

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http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1211-28.htm

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Published on Sunday, December 11, 2005 by CommonDreams.org

Should Israel Give Up its Nukes?

by George Bisharat

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In a sudden attack of common sense, a Pentagon-commissioned study released in mid-November suggests an approach to nuclear nonproliferation in the Middle East that might actually be accepted by the people of the region. What is this breakthrough idea? That U.S. policies begin not with a country that currently lacks nuclear weapons - Iran - but rather with the one that by virtually all accounts already has them - Israel.

To avert Iran's apparent drive for nuclear weapons, concludes Henry Sokolski, a co-editor of "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran," Israel should freeze and begin to dismantle its nuclear capability.

This and other recommendations emerged from two years of deliberations by experts on the Middle East and nuclear nonproliferation.

Limiting the spread of nuclear weapons is a pivotal U.S. foreign policy objective. As the sole nation ever to have employed them, we bear a special responsibility to prevent their use in the future. With regard to the Middle East, we rightly worry not only about the potential use of the weapons themselves but about the political leverage bestowed on those who would possess them.

However, there is an Achilles heel in our nonproliferation policy: the double standard that U.S. administrations since the 1960s have applied with respect to Israel's weapons of mass destruction. Israel's suspected arsenal includes chemical, biological and about 100 to 200 nuclear warheads, and the capacity to deliver them.

Initially, the United States opposed Israel's nuclear weapons program. President Kennedy dispatched inspectors to the Dimona generating plant in Israel's south, and he cautioned Israel against developing atomic weapons. Anticipating the 1962 visit of American inspectors, Israel reportedly constructed a fake wall at Dimona to conceal its weapons production.

Since then, no U.S. administration has effectively pressured Israel to either halt its program or to submit to inspections under the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nor has Israel been required to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. The apparent rationale: Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of an ally are simply not an urgent concern.

Yet this rationale neglects a fundamental law of arms proliferation. Nations seek WMD when their rivals already possess them. Israel's nuclear capability has clearly fueled WMD ambitions within the Middle East. Saddam Hussein, for example, in an April 1990 speech to his military, threatened to retaliate against any Israeli nuclear attack with chemical weapons - the "poor man's atomic bomb."

Washington's inconsistency on the nuclear issue in the Middle East has been terribly corrosive of American legitimacy throughout the world, and a reversal of our policy would be widely noted regionally.

Nor is our international legitimacy all that is at stake. During the 1973 Arab-Israeli war, a panicky Israel, facing early battlefield losses, threatened a nuclear strike. This evoked a massive arms shipment from the United States, eventually permitting Israel to turn the tide of the war - demonstrating the kinds of pressures that nuclear powers can apply, even on allies. Although many view Israel's victory with favor, it surely enabled subsequent decades of Israeli intransigence over the fate of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and has contributed to the impasse afflicting the region.

The study's authors include retired Israeli Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom and Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the pro-Israeli Washington Institute for Near East Policy - in short, no enemies of Israel. Their suggestion is comparatively mild: Israel should take small, reversible steps toward nuclear disarmament to encourage Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. Nonetheless, Israeli leaders reportedly have already demurred.

One can anticipate the bipartisan stampede of U.S. lawmakers to denounce the recommendation should it win official U.S. backing. That would be a shame. Sooner or later, common sense must prevail in our Middle East policy. Otherwise, we will continue to run our global stature into the ground.

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George Bisharat is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East.

http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=8233

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December 12, 2005

The Syrian Gambit Unravels

When the main witnesses recant, you don't have a case

by Justin Raimondo

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The effort to demonize Syria and, in effect, Saddamize its ruler, Bashar al-Assad, has run up against a brick wall: the recantation of the prime witness, who says he was bribed, intimidated, and tortured into going along with the narrative being sold by UN prosecutor Mehlis – that Syrian intelligence pulled off the Feb. 14 assassination of Lebanese entrepreneur and politician Rafik Hariri in Beirut. The New York Times reports:

"Hussam Taher Hussam, said he had been held in Lebanon by supporters of Saad Hariri, the son of the former prime minister, and subjected to torture and drug injections to force him to testify. Saad Hariri, he said, offered him $1.3 million if he would lie about senior Syrian officials. …

"He said Mr. Hariri and his associates had asked him to tell investigators that he had seen a truck used in the assassination at a Syrian military camp, and to present false evidence implicating Maher Assad, the younger brother of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria, and Asef Shawkat, the president's brother-in-law, in the killing in February."

Hussam's statement on Syrian television was well-received in Syria, where his references to the vagaries of Alawite minority rule and other details gave it added credibility. Naturally, Syria's enemies rejected this new testimony, just as they had hailed Hussam's previous statements as proof positive of Syria's perfidy. What they didn't – couldn't – acknowledge was that their chief witness is effectively discredited, and he isn't the only one. As the various threads of the "Syria did it" scenario unravel, the whole conspiracy theory is coming apart like a badly made sweater.

In the Mehlis report – or at least the "preliminary" and highly speculative document released last month – Hussam was the "masked" witness whose identity supposedly could not be revealed because his life was in danger from the Syrian authorities. His "evidence" was the key link in tying the highest echelons of the Syrian regime to Hariri's assassination. That he has now shown up on Syrian television – looking presentable, sounding articulate, and showing no signs of having been intimidated or even having a single hair on his head ruffled – has the anti-Syria crowd looking pretty silly. Even worse for them, however, is the news that yet another prominent figure in the narrative woven by Mehlis, Muhammad Zuhayr al-Sadiq, has also been discredited.

According to an article in Le Figaro, a French right-of-center daily associated with the party of Jacques Chirac, the CIA described al-Sadiq as a "fabulist." French intelligence was all too aware of the witness' unreliability but ignored the CIA's skepticism due to political pressure from on high. Mehlis himself didn't believe Sadiq, at least in the beginning, and, according to Le Figaro's reporter, the UN's chief investigator used Sadiq's testimony as a "bluff" to enable the detention of the four Lebanese generals in hopes that they would incriminate themselves. The German newspaper Der Spiegel gives us even more reason to question Sadiq's testimony: they report that he was introduced to Mehlis by Rifaat al-Assad, brother of the late President Hafez al-Assad, who hopes to inherit the Syrian presidency if and when the Americans invade.

One mysterious reference in the Le Figaro story: a "member of the entourage of Saad Hariri" is cited as saying that Sadiq was used to convey information that came from "elsewhere." Der Spiegel also reported Sadiq told his brother in Damascus that "I've become a millionaire" as a result of his testimony – with the money coming, presumably, from that same "elsewhere."

As for Mehlis, he is apparently so sick and tired of this endless probe that he's retiring from the scene having undergone a surprising transformation: he's no longer the stern, no-nonsense Teutonic prosecutor, a Germanic version of Patrick J. Fitzgerald, but shamefaced and subdued in the face of this massive debunking of his "preliminary" report. What a comedown!

That report had been a major bludgeon for the Bush administration and their newfound allies, the French, to hit Syria over the head with in the UN Security Council, and it served the same purpose on the home front: yet more evidence that it was high time for the imposition of sanctions and a little "regime change" in Damascus. The discrediting of Hussam and Sadiq has deprived the War Party of this particular weapon, but they aren't giving up: UN Ambassador John Bolton is demanding that the Mehlis investigation be continued, even without Mehlis.

The official end date of the UN investigation into Hariri's assassination is Dec. 15, but you can be sure that Bolton and the rest of the get-Syria crowd will try to ensure that its life span is extended. They are determined to gin up another war, and they don't care how transparently false the pretext is: these people have raised lying into a sophisticated art form, of which the Mehlis propaganda blitz is just the beginning. They don't care how far-fetched the indictments of their targets appear, nor how often they are debunked: what they're counting on is the residue left by "news" stories trumpeting "evidence" that Syria killed Hariri and is wreaking havoc in Lebanon. The debunking takes place on the back pages, while the initial charges were given front-page headlines.

This is how the propaganda assault works: keep flinging dirt in the hope that at least some of it will stick. If your "evidence" turns out to be false, and your "witnesses" start recanting, then don't backpedal – instead, invent new charges. Attack, attack, attack!

The utter absurdity of UN Security Council resolution 1363 – which calls on Syria to cooperate fully with an international commission investigating the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri or face possible "further action" – can be easily seen if we imagine that the UN had taken a similar interest in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Picture Lyndon Baines Johnson and top members of the U.S. government being called in by a United Nations "prosecutor" for questioning. It's interesting that the same American "conservatives" who waste no opportunity to show their disdain for the UN and would have risen in armed revolt if the UN had intervened in the Kennedy affair, are now upholding the UN's authority to "investigate" the murder of Hariri and pin it on Syria.

Syria is now girding for the imposition of economic sanctions and trying to head off the campaign to destabilize the country on two fronts: by restarting talks with Israel, and by cooperating with the request to permit Syrian officials to be questioned in the Hariri investigation. I have the funny feeling, however, that this is not going to do them a lot of good, as far as their enemies in the West are concerned. As we have seen in the case of Iraq, when the U.S. wants to manufacture a case for war, it can be done pretty easily: Congress is not likely to ask inconvenient questions until it's too late, and the American people can hardly be expected to keep up with arcane doings in faraway Lebanon, the scene of the intrigue and obscure religious-ethnic rivalries that could spark another Mideast war. Acting pretty much without either congressional or public scrutiny, this administration thinks it can get away with anything when it comes to Syria – and in that, they are probably right.

The scenario laid out by the War Party is this: pin the murder of Hariri on Syria, concoct phony "evidence" that high Syrian officials – including members of President Assad's immediate family – were involved, and set up an "international tribunal" under the jurisdiction of the UN, which will then demand that Syria surrender the accused – or else. U.S. troops are waiting just across the Syrian-Iraqi border, ready for the command to cross in full force – or perhaps as part of a scouting expedition in hot pursuit of "terrorists," who will then be set upon by Syrian troops in a Middle Eastern remake of the Tonkin Gulf incident.

Coming soon to a theater of war near Iraq…

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ALSO SEE:

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Another Attempt to set up Syria?

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http://lnk.nu/today.reuters.co.uk/6y6.aspx

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Car bomb kills anti-Syrian MP in Beirut

Mon Dec 12, 2005 10:21 AM GMT

By Alaa Shahine

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BEIRUT (Reuters) - A car bomb blast killed Lebanese newspaper magnate and anti-Syrian lawmaker Gebran Tueni in Beirut on Monday, a day after he returned from Paris, where he had based himself in recent months in fear of assassination.

Police said Tueni, publisher of An-Nahar newspaper, was among four people who died in the explosion that destroyed his armoured sports utility vehicle as it was driving in the Mekalis area of mainly Christian east Beirut. Ten people were wounded.

At least three people inside his car were killed, their bodies charred beyond recognition, witnesses said.

Police sources said a parked car packed with 40 kg (88 pounds) of dynamite was detonated by remote control as Tueni's car passed by.

Tueni was killed just hours before the U.N. Security Council was due to receive a report by chief U.N. investigator Detlev Mehlis, who has been trying to identify those behind the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri.

An interim report by Mehlis in October said the evidence pointed towards the involvement of Syrian officials and their Lebanese allies in Hariri's killing. Syria denies this.

Lebanese Druze leader and politician Walid Jumblatt told Arab satellite television channels that Tueni's killing was linked to the Mehlis report and suggested Syria was behind it.

Asked who was responsible, he told Al Arabiya television: "Gebran Tueni and An-Nahar were being threatened for a long time by the Syrian regime... we got the message. We will persevere."

Jumblatt said: "They killed Gebran Tueni today because Mehlis will present his report today. This is a message to the international community and the Lebanese community."

SYRIA DENOUNCES BOMBING

Syria condemned the latest attack in Lebanon, which has been rocked by more than a dozen bombings and assassinations since the car bomb blast that killed Hariri and 22 others.

"Syria denounces this crime that claimed the lives of Lebanese, irrespective of their political stances," Syrian Information Minister Mahdi Dakhl-Allah told LBC television.

A statement carried by Syria's official news agency SANA said the bombing was timed "to direct accusations at Syria".

The blast set several cars ablaze and damaged nearby shops and buildings. Police and soldiers cordoned off the area as rescue workers ferried casualties to hospitals.

Tueni, 48, a fierce critic of Syria's policies in Lebanon who was elected to parliament this year, said in August he believed he was on a hit-list for assassination.

He had spent much of his time since then in Paris, but was believed to have returned to Beirut late on Sunday.

"Lebanese officials received accurate information from the international investigation committee about an assassination list of several politicians," he told the Arabic-language Radio Orient in Paris in August. "My name is on top of this list."

Tueni's uncle, Druze Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh, survived an attempt on his life in 2004.

Tueni was publisher, chairman of the board and general manager of Lebanon's leading newspaper An-Nahar. A columnist at the daily, Samir Kassir, who also criticised Syrian policies, was killed by a bomb in his car in June.

Tueni was married, with four daughters.

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(Additional reporting by Nadim Ladki and Ayat Basma)

© Reuters 2005

http://lnk.nu/iht.com/6xk.php

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In Latin America, a leftist vision is taking hold

By Juan Forero The New York Times

FRIDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2005

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MOROCHATA, Bolivia In perhaps the quirkiest, most colorful of the many presidential campaigns gathering momentum in Latin America, Evo Morales, the Aymara Indian leader turned congressman, strode into this mountain hamlet on a recent day like a conquering hero.
 
The town's fathers honored him Bolivian-style, placing a heavy wreath of potatoes, roses and green beans around his neck. Crowds of peasants amassed behind him, while a ceremonial escort of indigenous leaders led him across cobblestone streets to a field filled with thousands.
 
There, Morales gave the kind of leftist speech that increasingly strikes a chord with Latin America's disenchanted voters, railing against privatization, liberalized trade and other economic prescriptions backed by the United States.
 
"If we win, not just Evo will be president, but the Quechua and Aymara will also be in the presidency," Morales said, referring to Bolivia's two largest Indian communities. "We are a danger for the rich people who sack our resources."
 
Morales, 46, a former llama herder and coca farmer leader who has a slight lead in the polls for Bolivia's election on Dec. 18, offers what may be the most radical vision in Latin America, much to the dismay of the Bush administration. But the sentiment extends beyond Bolivia. Starting on Dec. 11 in Chile, voters in 11 countries will participate in a series of presidential elections over the next year that could take Latin America further to the left than it already is.
 
Since an army colonel, Hugo Chávez, won office in Venezuela in 1998, three quarters of South America has shifted to the left, though most countries are led by pragmatic presidents like Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva in Brazil and Néstor Kirchner in Argentina.
 
That decisive shift has a good chance of spreading to Bolivia, Ecuador and, for the first time in recent years, north of the Panama Canal.
 
In Central America, the Sandinistas, led by Daniel Ortega, are positioning themselves to win back the presidency they lost in 1990. Farther north in Mexico, polls show that Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a hard-charging leftist populist, may replace the business-friendly president, Vicente Fox, who is barred from another term.
 
Traditional, market-friendly politicians can still win in all of these countries. But at the moment, polls show a general leftward drift that could result in policies sharply deviating from longstanding American economic remedies like unfettered trade and privatization, better known as the Washington Consensus.
 
"The left is contesting in a very practical way for political power," said Jim Shultz, executive director of Democracy Center, a policy analysis group in Bolivia. "There's a common thread that runs through Lula and Kirchner and Chávez and Evo and the left in Chile to a certain degree and that thread is a popular challenge to the market fundamentalism of the Washington Consensus."
 
The shift has not been as dramatic as leaders like Chávez, whose open antagonism toward the United States is rare among other leaders, might like. Presidents like da Silva and Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay practice the kind of fiscal restraints accepted by Wall Street.
 
Still, the prospects for a further turn to the left could signal a broad, popular distancing from the Bush administration, whose focus on fighting drugs and advocating regional free trade has failed to generate much backing.
 
While the Bush administration may be pleased that its most trusted and important ally, President Alváro Uribe in Colombia, will probably win re-election in May, Washington's most fervent adversary, Chávez, is also expected to cruise to victory late next year.
 
And the left may mount a strong challenge in countries like market-friendly Peru. There, a nationalistic cashiered army officer, Ollanta Humala, who compares himself to Chávez, has gained ground and is now second in the polls to a conservative congresswoman.
 
No one, though, quite offers the up-by-the-bootstraps story that Morales does. He grew up poor in the frigid highlands. Four of his six siblings died young, he said. When the mining industry went bust, the family moved to Bolivia's coca-growing heartland, where Morales made his mark as a leader of the coca farmers, who cultivate a shiny green leaf that is the main component used to make cocaine.
 
That made him a pariah to the United States, which has bankrolled the army's effort to eradicate the crop. But under Morales's leadership, the cocaleros have fought back in recent years, paralyzing the country with road blockades and playing a role in uprisings that toppled two presidents in 20 months.
 
Now, Morales travels Bolivia's pockmarked mountain roads in a relentless campaign, blasting Andean music that heralds him ("We feel it, we feel it, Evo presidente," goes a standard line).
 
Morales delights in it all - the ceremonial greetings at isolated, windswept towns, the potluck lunches of potatoes and beef stew that he gobbles down.
 
It may seem improvised, but those who know Morales said his is a calculated campaign that draws its strength from the support he has built across Bolivia through his political party, the Movement Toward Socialism.
 
Using a political opportunity that would have been unthinkable for an indigenous leader a generation ago, Morales vows to sharply veer Bolivia away from the liberalized trade and privatizations that have marked the country's economy for a generation. His own proposals lack specifics, but they tap into the latent discontent of voters upset that market reforms did little to improve their lives.
 
Michael Shifter, who is closely tracking Latin American campaigns for the Washington-based Inter-American Dialogue, said, "Evo is the expression of that frustration, that resentment and the search for answers."
 
In two days of interviews on the campaign trail, Morales complained that open borders had brought in cheap potatoes from Argentina. He offers a range of solutions, like loans to microbusinesses and the creation of more cooperatives. He says his government will demand a bigger take from the foreign corporations that are developing Bolivia's large natural gas reserves.
 
"We will have an economy based on solidarity and reciprocity," Morales said. "We do not dismiss the presence of foreign investment, but we want it be real fresh investment to industrialize our hydrocarbons, all under state control."
 
He seems to relish talking about the United States, noting that criticisms from American officials have boosted his popularity in an increasingly nationalistic country.
 
His talk resonates with people like Herminio López, a leader in the hamlet of Piusilla. "We are sure he will not defraud or fool us, like all the others," he said. "Eighty-percent of us are poor and for us to have someone like him makes us proud."
 
Morales knows well what appeals to his supporters.
 
Aside from an economic transformation, he offers such symbolic proposals as changing the Bolivian flag. Instead of just three bars, the flag of his government would also feature the rainbow squares of the wipala, the indigenous flag of the Andes.
 
"We are very close, my friends," Morales told the crowd here in Morochata. "This moment is not just for Evo Morales. It is for all of us."
 
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"Our mission is socialist because it puts social aspects first. Capitalists put capital first." - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez