Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/europe/31start.html
March 30, 2010
Arms Control May Be Different on Paper and on the Ground
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th Congress, 2nd session] [nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence] [Obama’s announced preference to end nuclear weapons and arsenals, etc] [not clear what this is but may be resistance from bureaucracy] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [practical considerations and differences over interpretations of agreements] [this is pretty typical of the last 40 years of agreements and continuity in USFP] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — An official photograph of a B-52 bomber at Barksdale Air Base in Louisiana shows it with a formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons it can carry all at once — 14 air-launched cruise missiles, four B61-7 gravity bombs and two B83 gravity bombs.
But when it comes to the new arms control treaty to be signed next month by the United States and Russia, those 20 warheads count as just one. [*]
The history of arms control is replete with quirky counting rules that do not easily correspond to reality on the ground, and the “New Start” treaty completed last week is no different. In this case, independent experts said, each side will be able to comply with the treaty while cutting

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/europe/31start.html
March 30, 2010
Arms Control May Be Different on Paper and on the Ground
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th Congress, 2nd session] [nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence] [Obama’s announced preference to end nuclear weapons and arsenals, etc] [not clear what this is but may be resistance from bureaucracy] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [practical considerations and differences over interpretations of agreements] [this is pretty typical of the last 40 years of agreements and continuity in USFP] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — An official photograph of a B-52 bomber at Barksdale Air Base in Louisiana shows it with a formidable arsenal of nuclear weapons it can carry all at once — 14 air-launched cruise missiles, four B61-7 gravity bombs and two B83 gravity bombs.
But when it comes to the new arms control treaty to be signed next month by the United States and Russia, those 20 warheads count as just one. [*]
The history of arms control is replete with quirky counting rules that do not easily correspond to reality on the ground, and the “New Start” treaty completed last week is no different. In this case, independent experts said, each side will be able to comply with the treaty while cutting fewer nuclear weapons than it might appear on paper. [it always has had to be finessed at certain sensitive spots on either side of relationship] [constituents in either] [political necessity is the enemy of the unambiguous and clear agreement (the perfect)] [*]
In fact, by some estimates, the United States and Russia together could still deploy some 1,300 warheads beyond the 3,100 ceiling imposed on the two countries by the new treaty. Under some configurations, experts argued, the two sides could deploy nearly as many warheads as permitted by the treaty signed in 2002 by President George W. Bush that will be superseded by this new pact.
“It’s creative accounting,” said Pavel Podvig, a longtime arms researcher from Russia who is now on leave from Stanford University. “They found a way of making reductions without actually making them, and they were happy to accept that because nobody wanted to go to more serious measures.” [typical of past ones] [the symbolic has frequently outweighed the actual] [*]
The Obama administration rejected that interpretation, saying that the arms experts themselves were using creative accounting to argue for deeper cuts and that the numbers they cite are not complete — that the real figures are classified. In any case, they said, the important thing to focus on was the legal limit to be imposed by the new treaty, which brings down the binding cap on deployed warheads by 30 percent.
“We think that is a very significant reduction,” said Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman.
A senior administration official involved in the talks said that was the lowest Russia would go. “We wanted to go lower,” the official said on the condition of anonymity because of White House restrictions. “This was a negotiation with the Russians, not the Arms Control Association.”
To be sure, this treaty was never supposed to be about deep reductions. From the start, the administration’s main goal was to extend and update a verification, inspection and monitoring regime from the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991, or Start, that expired in December, and to build the foundation for a better relationship between the United States and Russia that could lead to deeper reductions later.
Still, when President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia announced their agreement on Friday, the White House emphasized the reductions. The limit on deployed strategic warheads in the new treaty will be set at 1,550 for each country, down from 2,200 in the Treaty of Moscow signed by Mr. Bush. [*]
But it may not mean that many warheads will have to be cut to meet that limit.
“On paper, the White House has been saying it’s a 30 percent cut in warheads” said Kingston Reif, deputy director of the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington. “Well, it is on paper. But when you break it down, you see that the cut isn’t quite as significant.” [*]
The nub is how to count warheads. While the treaty will count the actual number of warheads deployed on land- and sea-based ballistic missiles, it will count each heavy bomber as a single warhead, even though they can carry far more. [interesting: a heavy bomber that carries many is counted as one] [*]
“It’s nuts,” said Hans M. Kristensen, an expert at the Federation of American Scientists. “It’s totally nuts.”
Although the United States now has about 2,100 deployed strategic warheads, about 450 would not be counted, Mr. Kristensen estimated. Similarly, 860 of Russia’s 2,600 warheads would not count. To meet the treaty limit, he said the United States would need to cut just 100 warheads and Russia just 190. [so once all the smoke clears, the US has cut 100 and Russia nearly 200 from START I’s levels of 2300 (contrary to piece that cites 2200)] [*]
That means that while some conservatives like Senator Jon Kyl, Republican of Arizona, express concern that the treaty cuts too much, others, like former Ambassador John R. Bolton, suggested the administration might be overstating the impact.
“If tomorrow after this treaty is ratified we’re still basically at the level we were at yesterday before it was ratified, what does it do for all our soaring rhetoric about getting rid of nuclear weapons and getting others to do the same?” asked Mr. Bolton, who negotiated the Treaty of Moscow for Mr. Bush. “You can’t have it both ways.” [sure you can as he should know from Bush’s time and especially Bush41] [*]
Of course, the Moscow treaty did not have firm counting rules, so the United States counted bombers by the number of warheads stationed with them while Russia did not count bombers at all.
Obama administration officials say the new rule is a distinct improvement and, moreover, bombers are not the most important part of arms control since they are not destabilizing first-strike weapons.
The arms control experts who said the treaty would not impose deep reductions emphasized that they still support it because it extends verification and should lead to more ambitious cuts. “Confidence-building, that’s what it’s about,” Mr. Kristensen said. “This is a step that will help repair relations.” [symbolic versus actual] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/middleeast/31prexy.html
March 30, 2010
Obama Expects U.N. Sanctions on Iran to Be Approved Soon
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [NSC and bureaucracy] [111th congress 2nd session] [Iran] [confluence of June elections with Iran’s apparent drive for nuke weapon] [the intense internal dynamics of the various factions and Iran’s nuclear-enrichment processes-plants] [bureaucracy] [growing debate on whether Iran may be contained] [Obama’s administration in UN, P5: sanctions imminent?] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama predicted on Tuesday that he would be able to persuade the United Nations to “move forcefully” against Iran with new sanctions within weeks, not months, as he turned up the pressure on Tehran to back off its nuclear program.
“We think that we can get sanctions within weeks,” Mr. Obama told reporters after meeting at the White House with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who has been pressing for an aggressive approach to Iran. [*]
But Mr. Obama acknowledged that there was still no consensus among the members of the Security Council. “Now, do we have unanimity in the international community?” he asked

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/middleeast/31prexy.html
March 30, 2010
Obama Expects U.N. Sanctions on Iran to Be Approved Soon
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [NSC and bureaucracy] [111th congress 2nd session] [Iran] [confluence of June elections with Iran’s apparent drive for nuke weapon] [the intense internal dynamics of the various factions and Iran’s nuclear-enrichment processes-plants] [bureaucracy] [growing debate on whether Iran may be contained] [Obama’s administration in UN, P5: sanctions imminent?] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama predicted on Tuesday that he would be able to persuade the United Nations to “move forcefully” against Iran with new sanctions within weeks, not months, as he turned up the pressure on Tehran to back off its nuclear program.
“We think that we can get sanctions within weeks,” Mr. Obama told reporters after meeting at the White House with President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, who has been pressing for an aggressive approach to Iran. [*]
But Mr. Obama acknowledged that there was still no consensus among the members of the Security Council. “Now, do we have unanimity in the international community?” he asked rhetorically. “Not yet. And that’s something we have to work on.”
Mr. Obama’s remarks came hours after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton met in Canada with foreign ministers from the Group of 8, who issued a statement casting doubt on Iran’s claims that it is seeking a peaceful energy source rather than nuclear arms. [*]“We see a growing awareness on the part of many countries, including China, as to the consequences of a nuclear-armed Iran to regional and global stability,” Mrs. Clinton said.
The American assertiveness may reflect growing confidence that the administration can persuade China to let a tough sanctions resolution through the Security Council, where it has a veto. China so far has resisted the harshest measures proposed by the Americans and Europeans, but in recent days has begun engaging in more talks.
Mr. Sarkozy, in his first visit to the White House since Mr. Obama took office, made clear his desire for “strong, tough sanctions,” gently prodding Mr. Obama to move decisively. “The time has come to take decisions,” he said. “Iran cannot continue its mad race.” [I heard a little on either CNN or MSNBC: incredibly positive stuff on Franco-US relationship] [*]
Facing political problems at home after his party’s defeat in regional elections this month, Mr. Sarkozy arrived in the United States with a sharp message urging more leadership in creating global financial regulations to prevent another economic crisis. In a speech on Monday at Columbia University, he said that America “should reflect on what it means to be the world’s No. 1 power” and that the world needed “an America that listens.” [*]
Mr. Sarkozy softened his tone at the White House, where he and his wife, Carla Bruni-Sarkozy, were to join the president and the first lady, Michelle Obama, for a private dinner. Mr. Sarkozy again pushed for a “new world international monetary order” but praised Mr. Obama, saying “there’s a lot of trust” despite their differences. “There may be disagreements but never for the wrong reasons,” he said. [*]
Mr. Obama passed off Mr. Sarkozy’s comments at Columbia with a joke. “I listen to Nicolas all the time,” he said. “I can’t stop listening to him.”
Ian Austen contributed reporting from Gatineau, Quebec.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/opinion/31wed2.html
March 31, 2010
Editorial
The Moscow Bombings
[editorial] [Moscow’s recent problems with apparent jihadis attacks from Caucases] [and Moscow’s responses: Putin vs. Medvedev and implications] [use psci 350, 355, 455, 469] [*]
Russians, and all of the world, were reminded again of the cruelty and senselessness of terrorism on Monday morning after two rush-hour bombings on the Moscow subway killed 39 people and injured more than 70 others. We share the horror and remember our own anguish. [*] Nearly 10 years after the 9/11 attacks, the memory of innocent lives taken in the midst of a morning’s routine moments has not faded.
No one has claimed responsibility. But two female suicide bombers are believed to have set off the explosions in two subway stations, including Lubyanka near the Russian security service headquarters. The brazenness raised fears that, after six years of relative calm, the country may be facing a renewed campaign of attacks by extremists from the Caucasus. [*]
Russia’s leaders have an obligation to protect their people. And President Obama was right

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/opinion/31wed2.html
March 31, 2010
Editorial
The Moscow Bombings
[editorial] [Moscow’s recent problems with apparent jihadis attacks from Caucases] [and Moscow’s responses: Putin vs. Medvedev and implications] [use psci 350, 355, 455, 469] [*]
Russians, and all of the world, were reminded again of the cruelty and senselessness of terrorism on Monday morning after two rush-hour bombings on the Moscow subway killed 39 people and injured more than 70 others. We share the horror and remember our own anguish. [*] Nearly 10 years after the 9/11 attacks, the memory of innocent lives taken in the midst of a morning’s routine moments has not faded.
No one has claimed responsibility. But two female suicide bombers are believed to have set off the explosions in two subway stations, including Lubyanka near the Russian security service headquarters. The brazenness raised fears that, after six years of relative calm, the country may be facing a renewed campaign of attacks by extremists from the Caucasus. [*]
Russia’s leaders have an obligation to protect their people. And President Obama was right to offer American assistance as Russian authorities work to track down the organizers behind these cowardly acts. We are concerned, however, that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will use Monday’s horror as another excuse to further consolidate his authoritarian control of the country. [*]
After extremists from Chechnya executed a series of bloody attacks in 2004, then-President Putin pushed through “reforms” supposedly intended to improve Russians’ security. Their effect was to hand the Kremlin, Mr. Putin and the state security services, from which he came, far too much power to silence a free press and undercut nearly all political challengers.
Relying overwhelmingly on brute force and repression, Mr. Putin staked his reputation on ending the conflict in Chechnya. And he persuaded Russians, who have little access to independent reporting, that he had broken the back of the resistance. What he failed to tell them was that the violence in Chechnya ignited again last year and has spread to neighboring republics. [he’s still popular in Russia for his iron-fist approach] [*]
If Russia is to have any hope of defeating extremism, Mr. Putin is going to have to focus less on promoting his own power and more on the root causes of the conflicts in the Caucasus. He can start by heeding his protégé, Dmitri Medvedev, the current president who has urged that the Kremlin address the underlying inequities that feed militancy, including poverty, joblessness and official corruption. Brute force alone will not work this time either.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:48 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31climate.html
March 30, 2010
U.K. Panel Calls Climate Data Valid
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [UK] [London (probably Greenich)] [UN] [IPCC] [global climate change] [global commons] [UK makes its own determination that the data used by IPCC were valid and methods also?] [followup] [*]
LONDON (AP) — A parliamentary panel investigating allegations that scientists at one of the world’s leading climate research centers misrepresented data related to global warming announced Wednesday that it had found no evidence to support that charge. [*]
But the panel, the Science and Technology Committee of the British House of Commons, did fault scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and its director, Prof. Phil Jones, for the way they handled freedom of information requests from skeptics challenging the evidence of climate change. [*]
The panel said that Professor Jones and his colleagues could have saved themselves a great deal of trouble by aggressively publishing all their data instead of worrying about how to stonewall their critics. [*]
The lawmakers’ inquiry is the first of three to be opened in Britain since the dissemination in November of e-mail messages and data between the scientists that were apparently hacked from a computer system.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/science/earth/31climate.html
March 30, 2010
U.K. Panel Calls Climate Data Valid
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [UK] [London (probably Greenich)] [UN] [IPCC] [global climate change] [global commons] [UK makes its own determination that the data used by IPCC were valid and methods also?] [followup] [*]
LONDON (AP) — A parliamentary panel investigating allegations that scientists at one of the world’s leading climate research centers misrepresented data related to global warming announced Wednesday that it had found no evidence to support that charge. [*]
But the panel, the Science and Technology Committee of the British House of Commons, did fault scientists at the University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit and its director, Prof. Phil Jones, for the way they handled freedom of information requests from skeptics challenging the evidence of climate change. [*]
The panel said that Professor Jones and his colleagues could have saved themselves a great deal of trouble by aggressively publishing all their data instead of worrying about how to stonewall their critics. [*]
The lawmakers’ inquiry is the first of three to be opened in Britain since the dissemination in November of e-mail messages and data between the scientists that were apparently hacked from a computer system.
The lawmakers emphasized that nothing in the more than 1,000 stolen e-mail messages or in the ensuing controversy challenged the scientific consensus that “global warming is happening and that it is induced by human activity.” [*]
At the same time, the lawmakers stressed that their report, written after only a single day of oral testimony, did not cover all the issues and that two other inquiries into the integrity of the science would be more thorough.
The lawmakers expressed sympathy with Professor Jones, whom Phil Willis, the committee’s chairman, said had been made a scapegoat for conflicts within the sphere of climate science.
“The focus on Professor Jones and the C.R.U. has been largely misplaced,” the report said.
The publication of the e-mail messages ahead of an international conference in Copenhagen on climate change set off an online furor, in which skeptics of human-made climate change referred to the controversy as “Climategate.”
The lawmakers noted that they decided to investigate the matter because of “the serious implications for U.K. science.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:47 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/europe/31serb.html
March 30, 2010
Serbia Apologizes for 1995 Massacre
By REUTERS [Serbia] [Yugoslavia] [part of the old Soviet Bloc, though always somewhat uncomfortably so] [during 1990s, Serbia at war with Yugo piece by piece: Slovenia, followed by Croatia, then Bosnia, then Kosovo] [use psci350] [use ir text] [followup] [in West generally Serbs were blamed for all] [in truth, it was complex with Serbian aggression but plenty of misdeeds by other leaders in Croatia, Bonsian, and Kosovo] [here Serbs attempt to forestall future problems by taking responsibility for some of it?] [*]
BELGRADE, Serbia (Reuters) — Serbia’s Parliament voted early on Wednesday to issue an apology for the 1995 killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, but the debate and voting also highlighted how deeply polarized Serbia remains about its wartime past. [*]
The resolution expressed sympathy to the victims and apologized for not doing enough to

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/europe/31serb.html
March 30, 2010
Serbia Apologizes for 1995 Massacre
By REUTERS [Serbia] [Yugoslavia] [part of the old Soviet Bloc, though always somewhat uncomfortably so] [during 1990s, Serbia at war with Yugo piece by piece: Slovenia, followed by Croatia, then Bosnia, then Kosovo] [use psci350] [use ir text] [followup] [in West generally Serbs were blamed for all] [in truth, it was complex with Serbian aggression but plenty of misdeeds by other leaders in Croatia, Bonsian, and Kosovo] [here Serbs attempt to forestall future problems by taking responsibility for some of it?] [*]
BELGRADE, Serbia (Reuters) — Serbia’s Parliament voted early on Wednesday to issue an apology for the 1995 killing of thousands of Bosnian Muslims in Srebrenica, but the debate and voting also highlighted how deeply polarized Serbia remains about its wartime past. [*]
The resolution expressed sympathy to the victims and apologized for not doing enough to prevent the massacre, but it also stopped short of calling the killings genocide.
The ruling coalition of pro-Western Democrats and Socialists hopes to win favor with the European Union and Western investors with the measure, which was adopted after a debate that lasted nearly 13 hours and was broadcast on live television.
“We are taking a civilized step of politically responsible people, based on political conviction, for the war crime that happened in Srebrenica,” said Branko Ruzic of the Socialist Party. [*]
Bosnian Serb forces killed about 8,000 Bosnian Muslim men and boys after taking over the enclave in Srebrenica, which had been under the protection of the United Nations. The massacre was Europe’s worst atrocity since World War II.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/europe/31briefs-franceveil.html
March 30, 2010
France: Warning Over Veil Ban
By STEVEN ERLANGER [France] [EU3] [elsewhere in Europe] [immigration challenges and in France the maniefestation in public policy against the veil] [generalizable to Europe, though case by case] [banning the veil?] [followup] [use psci 469?] [*]
France’s top legal advisory body, the Council of State, warned Tuesday that a ban on the full facial veil would most likely be unconstitutional and contravene the European Convention on Human Rights. [*]“There appears to the Council of State to be no legally unchallengeable justification,” the report said in addressing a request by Prime Minister François Fillon,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/europe/31briefs-franceveil.html
March 30, 2010
France: Warning Over Veil Ban
By STEVEN ERLANGER [France] [EU3] [elsewhere in Europe] [immigration challenges and in France the maniefestation in public policy against the veil] [generalizable to Europe, though case by case] [banning the veil?] [followup] [use psci 469?] [*]
France’s top legal advisory body, the Council of State, warned Tuesday that a ban on the full facial veil would most likely be unconstitutional and contravene the European Convention on Human Rights. [*]“There appears to the Council of State to be no legally unchallengeable justification,” the report said in addressing a request by Prime Minister François Fillon, above, about how best to carry out a ban. President Nicolas Sarkozy has said the full facial veil has no place in French society. [it’s also simply a bad idea] [the sentiment is understandable but it’s bad public policy] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/middleeast/31mideast.html
March 30, 2010
Several Wounded in Gaza by Israeli Gunfire
By FARES AKRAM and ISABEL KERSHNER [Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [Gaza or Fathstine] [another round of tit-for-tat violence?] [amid the changed public perceptions in Israel and the gap that’s growing between US and Israel?] [*]
GAZA — Several Palestinians were wounded by Israeli army fire in Gaza on Tuesday as they demonstrated close to the border with Israel, according to Palestinian medical officials and the Israeli military. But it was unclear who was responsible for the death of a Palestinian youth, 14, who was apparently shot in another part of the border area. [*]
Palestinian officials said the youth, Muhammad al-Farmawi, was killed by Israeli soldiers close to his home in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. The military denied having fired at anybody in that area, however, and local Palestinians said the boy had been missing since Monday, raising questions about whether he could have been the victim of internal violence. [it almost doesn’t matter who was responsible as he will likely become a cause célèbre irrespective of whose fault] [*]
The military often fires warning shots in the area to warn Palestinians away from the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/middleeast/31mideast.html
March 30, 2010
Several Wounded in Gaza by Israeli Gunfire
By FARES AKRAM and ISABEL KERSHNER [Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [Gaza or Fathstine] [another round of tit-for-tat violence?] [amid the changed public perceptions in Israel and the gap that’s growing between US and Israel?] [*]
GAZA — Several Palestinians were wounded by Israeli army fire in Gaza on Tuesday as they demonstrated close to the border with Israel, according to Palestinian medical officials and the Israeli military. But it was unclear who was responsible for the death of a Palestinian youth, 14, who was apparently shot in another part of the border area. [*]
Palestinian officials said the youth, Muhammad al-Farmawi, was killed by Israeli soldiers close to his home in the southern Gaza town of Rafah. The military denied having fired at anybody in that area, however, and local Palestinians said the boy had been missing since Monday, raising questions about whether he could have been the victim of internal violence. [it almost doesn’t matter who was responsible as he will likely become a cause célèbre irrespective of whose fault] [*]
The military often fires warning shots in the area to warn Palestinians away from the border fence. By nightfall Tuesday, Palestinian ambulances were still waiting to coordinate their entry into the border area with Israel in order to retrieve the boy’s body, according to Dr. Muawiya Hassanein, director of emergency medical services in Gaza, the Palestinian territory controlled by the Islamic militant group Hamas.
Elsewhere along the border dozens of Palestinians held protests Tuesday to mark Land Day, the anniversary of the 1976 protests against Israeli land expropriation in northern Israel, during which six Israeli Arab citizens were killed in confrontations with Israeli security forces.
Dr. Hassanein said nine demonstrators were wounded on Tuesday, one critically, when soldiers fired at them from observation towers and vehicles across the border fence. The military said the number of injured was lower, and that the soldiers had operated in accordance with army procedures to deter the protesters from reaching the fence.
Demonstrators set fire to tires and waved Palestinian flags. A handful of protesters planted flags in the sand a few yards from the security fence. [sadly fairly typical of last couple years where both sides seize on such events as propaganda] [*]
A military official, speaking on condition of anonymity in line with army rules, described the area along the border of Gaza as “practically a war zone.” On Friday, an Israeli officer and a soldier and two Palestinian militants were killed in clashes in the border area. The military said an Israeli force had entered Gaza territory after spotting Palestinians laying explosives near the border fence. [that’s hardly surprising] [rage in Gaza over Dec 2008 offensive continues unabated to date] [resultant rage in Israel] [and cycle continues] [*]
In the West Bank, the prime minister of the Palestinian Authority, Salam Fayyad, joined farmers and protesters for a Land Day protest in Qarawat Bani Hassan, a village where the agricultural lands lie mostly in an area under Israeli control.
Fares Akram reported from Gaza and Isabel Kershner from Jerusalem.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/asia/31india.html
March 30, 2010
Suicides, Some for Separatist Cause, Jolt India
By LYDIA POLGREEN [India] [Mumbai, previously known as Bombay, anniversary just passed] [SAsia] [subcont.] [communal violence within and between that has led to the precipice of regional war multiple times] [followup] [the 1992 incident that nearly blew India to pieces] [now, it’s 20 years later] [the odd but interesting phenom in India of suicide by young for regional nationalistic causes?] [*]
HYDERABAD, India — Sai Kumar Meegada, a 20-year-old straight-A chemical engineering student at a prestigious university here, came home from breakfast one morning early this month, slipped a length of clothesline around his neck, tied it to the ceiling fan in his dorm room and hanged himself. [*]
“For the people of Telangana, this is my final salute,” said a note he left, referring to the decades-old struggle to create a separate region in Andhra Pradesh, a large state in southern India. “My final and last request is take my body to the legislative assembly. Goodbye.” [*]
With that, Mr. Meegada became one of a surprising number of people — many of them young and educated, with bright futures awaiting them — to have committed suicide over the battle to carve out India’s 29th state

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/asia/31india.html
March 30, 2010
Suicides, Some for Separatist Cause, Jolt India
By LYDIA POLGREEN [India] [Mumbai, previously known as Bombay, anniversary just passed] [SAsia] [subcont.] [communal violence within and between that has led to the precipice of regional war multiple times] [followup] [the 1992 incident that nearly blew India to pieces] [now, it’s 20 years later] [the odd but interesting phenom in India of suicide by young for regional nationalistic causes?] [*]
HYDERABAD, India — Sai Kumar Meegada, a 20-year-old straight-A chemical engineering student at a prestigious university here, came home from breakfast one morning early this month, slipped a length of clothesline around his neck, tied it to the ceiling fan in his dorm room and hanged himself. [*]
“For the people of Telangana, this is my final salute,” said a note he left, referring to the decades-old struggle to create a separate region in Andhra Pradesh, a large state in southern India. “My final and last request is take my body to the legislative assembly. Goodbye.” [*]
With that, Mr. Meegada became one of a surprising number of people — many of them young and educated, with bright futures awaiting them — to have committed suicide over the battle to carve out India’s 29th state. Some estimates have attributed more than 200 suicides to the cause. [*]
But these politically motivated deaths are just one aspect of a troubling trend. Suicide has become something of a phenomenon in India, especially in the south, which now has one of the highest suicide rates in the world — a fact that has both puzzled and alarmed public health experts.
Suicides by indebted farmers are frequently reported in the news media and pointed to as a sign that India has forgotten its rural poor. But according to Indian government statistics, bankruptcy or poverty provoke less than 5 percent of Indian suicides. A family conflict, a broken love affair or an illness is a more likely spur. [*]
Then there are politics. The number of ideologically motivated suicides in India doubled between 2006 and 2008, the last year for which statistics were available, according to the government. While the overall number remains small, mental health experts say these deaths illustrate the increasing stress on young people in a nation where, [*]elections notwithstanding, the masses often feel powerless.
“Young people see this as a way to give meaning to what seem like meaningless lives,” said Sudhir Kakar, a prominent psychoanalyst and novelist who has written extensively about mental health in India. “It is a way to become a hero, to take a stand.”
Suicide is generally considered taboo in Hinduism, the religion of most Indians, because it disrupts the cycle of reincarnation that is central to the soul’s progress, Mr. Kakar said.
But the willingness to die for a cause, as exemplified by Gandhi’s epic fasts during the struggle for independence, is seen as noble and worthy. Ancient warriors in Tamil Nadu, in southeastern India, would commit suicide if their commander was killed, Mr. Kakar said. And the practice of sati, or widow burning, although outlawed, remains a potent symbol of wifely devotion. [*]
In modern, democratic India, however, such drastic measures seem like a bizarre and troubling throwback that has shattered many families.
The political causes that spur multiple suicides can seem remarkably provincial. When Andhra Pradesh’s popular chief minister, Yeduguri Sandinti Rajasekhara Reddy, died in a helicopter crash last year, the news media reported suicides by dozens of his supporters, though such reports are difficult to verify.
Other suicide epidemics have had nothing to do with politics. When a gangster kidnapped the Indian actor Rajkumar, one of the biggest stars of Kannada-language films, in 2000, it was reported that dozens of his fans had committed suicide out of despair for their hero’s safety.
The fight for statehood for Telangana, an inland region that sees itself as marginalized by coastal elites, gained attention when a fast brought the movement’s leader, K. Chandrasekhara Rao, to the brink of death in December. [*]
Since then, confusing political brawling has left the region’s statehood hopes in limbo, but dozens of young people besides Mr. Meegada, the engineering student, have succumbed to the emotional pull of the issue.
M. Sunil Kumar was a 25-year-old reporter at a local newspaper in the provincial town of Warangal. His older brother Anil had dropped out of high school to run the family’s mutton shop when their father died so that Sunil could go to college.
Mr. Kumar apparently became obsessed with the statehood movement, attending every meeting of the local activist group. One day in early March, the family went to a distant temple, but Mr. Kumar stayed behind. His mother discovered him hanging from a beam, one of her shawls around his neck.
“I am sacrificing my life for Telangana, to wake up our leaders,” he wrote in a suicide note.
But his family has also sacrificed, losing not only a son but also their biggest breadwinner. “I lost my son because of Telangana,” his mother, Swarupa, wailed. “Don’t burn your mother’s womb,” she shouted, imploring other statehood supporters not to commit suicide.
Nevertheless, local political leaders have exploited Mr. Kumar’s death. Outside the family’s two-room house hangs a banner with Mr. Kumar’s photograph superimposed over his suicide note. “Those who commit suicide for Telangana, we salute you,” the text on the poster says. “Wake up people and fight for Telangana.” [*]
Political leaders of the movement said that they tried to discourage young people from committing suicide. “We tell them, don’t die for Telangana, live and fight for Telangana,” Mr. Rao said. [little to do with Islam] [much more related to southern nationalism?] [*]
But other leaders seem less wary about celebrating suicide for the cause. “They are real heroes,” said Peddi Sudarshan Reddy, a member of the governing council of the main pro-statehood party. “But we are not glorifying that heroism.”
Glory is perhaps what Karunakar, 20, a lower-caste eighth-grade dropout, was looking for when he doused himself in kerosene and set himself alight in January.
He instantly became an icon in his village. A poster of him in a tough, Bollywood-style pose of defiance hangs in the village square, next to a small temple to the monkey god Hanuman. In life, he was unheralded: a day laborer who grew up in a part of town notorious for prostitution. In death, he was a hero.
“He was all the time talking of Telangana, Telangana, Telangana,” said his 70-year-old grandfather, Musku Hanumanthu. “I tried to persuade him not to get too involved. But he used to say, ‘I will sacrifice everything for Telangana.’ ”
He survived for three days in the hospital, expressing no regrets despite the pain of his burns, his grandfather said.
“Even in the hospital he kept saying, ‘Long live Telangana,’ ” Mr. Hanumanthu said.
Hari Kumar contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/30/AR2010033004090.html
U.S. forces set sights on Taliban bastion of Kandahar
By Karen DeYoung and Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 31, 2010; A01 [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [military strategy unfolds vis-à-vis Kandahar] [use psci 469] [followup] [pentagon, Gen McChrystal staff] [cross in govt] [*]
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- U.S. forces have begun the initial phases of a political-military offensive in this Taliban bastion and hope to control the city and surrounding areas by late summer, [*]according to senior U.S. military officials.
Officials have pressed local leaders and tribal elders over the past several weeks to begin holding shuras, or conferences, in Kandahar city and outlying districts, telling them that they must improve governance, address corruption and eject the Taliban. [*]Otherwise, their areas will be the focus of expanding military operations scheduled to begin in June with the arrival of 10,000 new U.S. troops, the officials have said.
Among those specifically warned by U.S. military commanders is Ahmed Wali Karzai, [*]the

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/30/AR2010033004090.html
U.S. forces set sights on Taliban bastion of Kandahar
By Karen DeYoung and Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, March 31, 2010; A01 [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [military strategy unfolds vis-à-vis Kandahar] [use psci 469] [followup] [pentagon, Gen McChrystal staff] [cross in govt] [*]
KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- U.S. forces have begun the initial phases of a political-military offensive in this Taliban bastion and hope to control the city and surrounding areas by late summer, [*]according to senior U.S. military officials.
Officials have pressed local leaders and tribal elders over the past several weeks to begin holding shuras, or conferences, in Kandahar city and outlying districts, telling them that they must improve governance, address corruption and eject the Taliban. [*]Otherwise, their areas will be the focus of expanding military operations scheduled to begin in June with the arrival of 10,000 new U.S. troops, the officials have said.
Among those specifically warned by U.S. military commanders is Ahmed Wali Karzai, [*]the elected head of Kandahar's provincial council. American officials have for years accused Karzai, the unquestioned power broker in the province and brother of President Hamid Karzai, of administering a corrupt regime and protecting narcotics traffickers. He was also accused of orchestrating voter fraud in August's presidential election. [*]
On a visit here Tuesday, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called Kandahar the "center of gravity" for U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and compared the importance of the offensive to the 2007 "surge" of U.S. troops that helped turn the tide in the Iraq war. [*]
In interviews, senior U.S. military and civilian officials stressed the difference between the operations in Kandahar, an urban area that is the Taliban's heartland, and operations in neighboring Helmand province, where Marines have taken control of the Marja district and installed government officials appointed by the central government in Kabul.
"Marja is rural and was ungoverned," said Frank Ruggiero, the senior U.S. civilian official in southern Afghanistan. "Kandahar city is controlled by the Afghan government." But 80 percent of the Zhari district to the west is controlled by the Taliban, as is 40 percent of the Panjwayi district, to the southwest. There are scattered insurgent operations in the Arghandab district to the northwest, [*]Ruggiero and other officials said.
Together, the three districts and the city proper have a population of 2 million, making Kandahar Afghanistan's second-largest population center, after Kabul. [*]
U.S. officials, including President Obama during a surprise visit last weekend, have pressed the Afghan president to take long-promised action against his brother and other allegedly corrupt officials. But they acknowledge that their limited knowledge of tribal politics here, the power wielded by Ahmed Wali Karzai and a few others and President Karzai's reluctance to act have made it an uphill battle.
Senior administration officials in Washington said overall transition to stability and vastly improved governance in Kandahar must be completed by December, when Obama has asked Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, for an overall review of how the new strategy he announced last fall is faring. The strategy calls for U.S. military withdrawals to begin in July 2011.
"We really don't have much time," said a senior military official on McChrystal's staff [*]of the Kandahar operation.
The political side of the offensive began in earnest last week with a shura in Arghandab organized by the provincial governor, Tooryalai Wesa. When an unrepresentative group of tribal leaders showed up, Ruggiero said, Wesa sent them home with instructions to widen the net of participation. Similar meetings are scheduled throughout the region over the next several weeks.
U.S. officials have urged President Karzai to travel here next month for a provincial shura. The pitch they have made to him, one official said, is “Mr. President, we’ve got to get going on Kandahar, and we need your help.”
As they constructed the operational timeline for the Kandahar offensive, officials said, they undertook a “deep dive” into the collected intelligence on the area and concluded that “it’s amazing what we don’t know,” a senior military official said. “Our knowledge of the enemy is pretty darn good.” But the key to success, he said, “is understanding the tribal nature of what’s going on in Kandahar, and we’re not there yet.” [*]
Ahmed Wali Karzai "presents a huge challenge for us, that's for sure,"[*] another senior military official said. Added a Western diplomat in Kabul: "Is it a campaign to liberate Kandahar city from the Taliban or to liberate it from Wali Karzai? The two come together." [*]
One senior U.S. military official described a personal visit he said he made two weeks ago to Karzai in Kandahar to threaten him with arrest or worse. "I told him, 'I'm going to be watching every step you take. If I catch you meeting an insurgent, I'm going to put you on the JPEL,' " the Joint Prioritized Engagement List, [*]reserved for the most wanted insurgents. "That means," the official said he told Karzai, "that I can capture or kill you." [sometimes you have to admire the military approach] [*]
But this official and others acknowledged that they have no real evidence to back up allegations that Karzai has contacts with insurgents and that the threat is largely an empty one.
"We'd rather not have him," the military official said, "but there's nothing we can do unless we can link him to the insurgency." As an elected official, Karzai cannot simply be removed from office, and officials said the only option is to persuade his brother to ease him out of office by sending him to an overseas embassy, something the president has thus far refused to do. He has said that he has repeatedly demanded U.S. officials provide him with proof of specific wrongdoing by his brother, but that none has been forthcoming. [*]
Ahmed Wali Karzai has proved to be a deft political operator, both within Afghanistan's complicated tribal networks and inside the U.S. government. [*]
While he has earned the ire of U.S. military officials and diplomats, he has reportedly cultivated a longtime relationship with the CIA. The New York Times reported last fall that he had received regular payments from the CIA for several years and helped recruit a Kandahar-based militia that works on behalf of the U.S. spy agency. [not good the IC is working at cross purposes with military!] [*]
"No intelligence organization discusses publicly who it may or may not deal with overseas," CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano said Tuesday. "But if anyone thinks this agency is supporting drug dealers, they're wrong."
A U.S. official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, noted that allegations of Ahmed Wali Karzai's ties to narcotics traffickers had never been proved. "He's a key tribal leader," the official said. "If you take out Karzai, you don't have good governance, you have no governance. He's done very good things for the United States. He's effective." [*]
Karzai has also consistently denied allegations of corruption and wrongdoing. He did not return phone calls and text messages seeking comments for this report. Other senior officials in Kandahar also have refused to take a stand against him, either from conviction or fear.
"He's the guy who will keep Kandahar stable," Wesa, the governor, said Tuesday after holding a shura of tribal leaders with Mullen. "If he's not here on the scene," Wesa said of Karzai, "you don't want to see what's going to happen."
For now, the strategy is to try to reduce the influence of Karzai and other power brokers by increasing that of other tribal and political leaders and providing them with the economic and good-governance tools to succeed.
The military aspects of the operation began about two months ago with targeted operations leading to the detention of about 70 mid- and senior-level Taliban leaders, with a slightly smaller number killed, according to U.S. officials. The next stage, an official said, will involve a "body blow" to areas under Taliban control, with the arrival of two U.S. combat brigades and Special Forces contingents that will move quickly to take control of the main highway into the city, through Zhari, [*]to the west.
The bulk of U.S. troops will remain outside the city, while a trained and uncorrupt police force -- yet nonexistent -- will be installed inside Kandahar city.
"We have about four months," a military official said. "In that time, we have to flow our forces in and stay on that timeline." If U.S. and Afghan officials have retained and expanded security control in Helmand, while "moving toward a solution in Kandahar that the people support . . . then we've got the momentum," the official said.
The timeline also has larger goals, including a new police training structure and increased recruitment, as well as continued growth in the strength and competence of the Afghan army. [*]
By fall, an additional 5,000 U.S. troops will be deployed to eastern and northern Afghanistan, for a total of 98,000 in the country, with about 40,000 from international partners. At the same time, the four-region command structure under McChrystal, with a U.S. command in the east, British in the south, Italian in the west and German in the north, is to be grown to five regions. [*]
Helmand and the rest of the southwest will be broken off to form a new U.S. command with the Marines and British troops. The British commander in the south, scheduled to depart in November, will be replaced by a U.S. general, leaving the United States in command of three of the five regions.
Whitlock reported from Washington. Correspondent Keith Richburg and special correspondent Javed Hamdard in Kabul and staff writer Greg Miller in Washington contributed to this report. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:44 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/europe/31moscow.html
March 30, 2010
Blasts Could Derail Medvedev’s Softer Tack in the Caucasus
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [apparent 2nd wave and effect on Medvedev’s position] [followup] [use psci 350 [*]
MOSCOW — When two bombs ripped through Moscow subway stations at rush hour on Monday morning, Russia’s leaders reached for the kind of hunt-them-down-and-kill-them statements that propelled the country through two brutal wars in the Caucasus.
President Dmitri A. Medvedev boasted that previous bombers had been “annihilated to ashes,” calling them “beasts, simply.” [*]Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin told the police to “drag them out of the bottom of the sewer and into the light of God.” [oh my] [that makes Bush’s bring ‘em on look quaint] [*]
So it was a surprise, barely a day after images of bloodied commuters flooded Russian airwaves, when Mr. Medvedev made a point of publicly discussing poverty and

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/europe/31moscow.html
March 30, 2010
Blasts Could Derail Medvedev’s Softer Tack in the Caucasus
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [apparent 2nd wave and effect on Medvedev’s position] [followup] [use psci 350 [*]
MOSCOW — When two bombs ripped through Moscow subway stations at rush hour on Monday morning, Russia’s leaders reached for the kind of hunt-them-down-and-kill-them statements that propelled the country through two brutal wars in the Caucasus.
President Dmitri A. Medvedev boasted that previous bombers had been “annihilated to ashes,” calling them “beasts, simply.” [*]Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin told the police to “drag them out of the bottom of the sewer and into the light of God.” [oh my] [that makes Bush’s bring ‘em on look quaint] [*]
So it was a surprise, barely a day after images of bloodied commuters flooded Russian airwaves, when Mr. Medvedev made a point of publicly discussing poverty and unemployment in the North Caucasus, which he has said are the root causes of violence there. He said that resolving those problems was “even harder than looking for and destroying terrorists,” but that he planned to continue pursuing both aims.
“People want a normal and decent life, no matter where they live,” he said, in a meeting with his top human rights adviser. “The federal authorities, along with the authorities in the Caucasus region, are obliged to create these conditions.”
Monday’s bombings came at an uncertain moment for Russia’s Caucasus policy, which had been wavering between the muscular clampdown championed by Mr. Putin as president and the cautious liberalization introduced after Mr. Medvedev took office.
If attacks become a regular occurrence in Moscow, as they were for most of Mr. Putin’s presidency, “it means war, war against terrorism,” [*]said Aleksei V. Malashenko, a Caucasus specialist at the Carnegie Moscow Center. If they are not repeated, he said, Mr. Medvedev could continue to steer away from Mr. Putin’s approach, which relied almost entirely on force.
Mr. Malashenko pointed especially to a decision Mr. Medvedev made early this year, when he appointed the businessman Aleksandr G. Khloponin — not a general or a veteran of the F.S.B. security service — as his special envoy to the region, giving him the task of creating new jobs.
“It meant they recognized the old approach was failing,” he said. “I think this is the last hope. If it fails once again, it is over.” [*]
No group has claimed responsibility for the bombings, which killed 39 people, but the authorities have said they believe that the attackers were from the North Caucasus, the restive border region that includes Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan.
A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Interfax news agency on Tuesday that two female suicide bombers and their male companion had arrived in Moscow on Monday morning on a bus that carried shuttle traders from the North Caucasus. [*]
The official said the bus driver had identified the women from photos. He said suicide bombers had used the bus system to carry out two subway attacks in 2004, since “the passenger flow on private buses, unlike trains and planes, is virtually impossible to control,” according to Interfax.
Russian politicians on Tuesday pressed their leaders to take a tougher line on terrorism. State prosecutors revived a proposal to collect fingerprints and DNA samples from all citizens of the North Caucasus.
Aleksandr Gurov, a deputy in the State Duma, complained that political correctness was tying authorities’ hands when dealing with ethnic minorities.
“How much can we play at so-called tolerance?” said Mr. Gurov, who sits on the Duma’s security committee, to the Web site GZT.ru. “How many cases have there been when Caucasians beat up policemen and the police could do nothing about it? What is this outrage?” [*]
Magomed Mutsolgov, who heads a nonprofit organization in the republic of Ingushetia that documents abductions and killings during antiterrorist operations, said he worried that policies in the region were bound to swing back to patterns set under Mr. Putin. [it’s a normal reaction, even more so for Russians] [*]
One of Mr. Medvedev’s first major appointments was Yunus-Bek Yevkurov, who succeeded Ingushetia’s hard-line leader. Mr. Yevkurov reached out to the opposition and invited citizens to tell him their grievances. The new leader, Mr. Mutsolgov said, “really does have liberal views, but he is not supported by the law enforcement structures.” [*]
Asked if Monday’s attacks meant the experiment was coming to an end, Mr. Mutsolgov said, “I don’t think so, and I certainly don’t want it, but it is absolutely possible.”
The choice of Mr. Khloponin, too, has underlined the difference between Mr. Medvedev and Mr. Putin, who was willing to extend extraordinary benefits in exchange for security guarantees. At a meeting with senators last month, Mr. Khloponin publicly challenged Chechen strongman Ramzan A. Kadyrov, saying he traveled internationally as if he were the president of an independent country.
“Did he think Saudi Arabia was going to give him money?” Mr. Khloponin asked about Mr. Kadyrov, according to the newspaper Kommersant. “We have a Foreign Ministry for that kind of negotiation.”
Such a rebuke would have been unlikely under Mr. Putin, who honored Mr. Kadyrov with the Hero of Russia medal, the country’s highest honor, even as human rights organizations documented his forces’ use of intimidation and torture. [*]
“The policy that Putin used in the North Caucasus was pure force,” said Tanya Lokshina, who researches the region for the Moscow office of Human Rights Watch. “Today, what we see is a bunch of confusing tendencies. On the one hand the policy of force continues, but at the same time Khloponin is appointed, who is no man of force, and whose task is to focus on the social infrastructure.” [somewhat like in US, public became apathetic and policy began to become unfocused?] [*]
Thomas de Waal, the co-author of a book about the first Chechen war from 1994 to 1996, said he had watched Russia’s Caucasus policy evolve gradually since the days of Boris N. Yeltsin.
“They have realized that complete colonial subjugation is not an option,” said Mr. de Waal, now a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington. Since that approach demanded too much manpower and resources, Russia adopted the model the British used in India, Mr. de Waal said, “co-opting the locals to run your strategy.” [*]
“The strategy is cleverer, but a long-term strategy means having a different idea of what it means to be Russian, and that they are ‘us’ and not ‘others,’ ” he said. “I think they are a million miles away from that kind of understanding, which is what is needed to make the North Caucasus part of Russia.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/world/europe/01dagestan.html
March 31, 2010
Suicide Attacks Strike at Police in Southern Russia
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [now comes the 2nd wave?] [followup] [use psci 350] [*]
MOSCOW — Two bomb attacks aimed at the police killed at least 12 people in the volatile North Caucasus region of Russia on Wednesday, according to the Russian prosecutor’s office, [*]further heightening security concerns two days after deadly suicide bombings struck the Moscow subway.
Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said he did not rule out that Wednesday’s attacks in Dagestan, near the border with Chechnya, could have been organized by “the same group” [even if not coordinated, simpatico] [*] behind the Moscow subway bombings. Dmitri A. Medvedev, Russia’s president, called the two sets of attacks “links of the same chain.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/01/world/europe/01dagestan.html
March 31, 2010
Suicide Attacks Strike at Police in Southern Russia
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [now comes the 2nd wave?] [followup] [*]
MOSCOW — Two bomb attacks aimed at the police killed at least 12 people in the volatile North Caucasus region of Russia on Wednesday, according to the Russian prosecutor’s office, [*]further heightening security concerns two days after deadly suicide bombings struck the Moscow subway.
Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said he did not rule out that Wednesday’s attacks in Dagestan, near the border with Chechnya, could have been organized by “the same group” [even if not coordinated, simpatico] [*] behind the Moscow subway bombings. Dmitri A. Medvedev, Russia’s president, called the two sets of attacks “links of the same chain.”
“All this is the manifestation of the same terrorist activity which has recently started to resurface in the Caucasus,” Mr. Medvedev said. [*]
Neither leader offered any evidence of a connection between the attacks in Moscow and Dagestan.
Law enforcement agencies throughout Russia have been on heightened alert since Monday, when two women set off explosions in the Moscow subway during the morning rush, killing 39 people in attacks that that shattered a sense that Muscovites were isolated from the continued terrorist violence in Russia’s south.
Although no one has claimed responsibility for any of the attacks, the North Caucasus region has been marked for particular scrutiny. [*]
Russian officials have said the two suicide bombers on Monday likely came from Chechnya or a neighboring region in the North Caucasus. [*]
For years Russia has been trying — unsuccessfully — to stamp out a lingering Muslim insurgency in the North Caucasus, including in Chechnya, where federal forces fought two bloody wars against Muslim separatists. Russian forces have killed several top militant leaders in recent months, and there has been speculation that a spate of recent attacks, including those in Moscow, were acts of revenge.
On Wednesday, the first of the bombs exploded in a parked car, killing two police officers who had pulled up beside it in their vehicle, according to a statement on the Web site of the prosecutor’s investigative wing. [*]
As rescue workers and police officials gathered at the scene, a man wearing a police uniform walked up and set off his explosives, killing several more people, including the police chief of Kizlyar, the town where the attacks occurred. At least two dozen people were injured. [that’s an old play out of al Qaeda’s playbook (m.o.)] [*]
Channel 1 television showed what appeared to be cell phone video of police and firefighters wandering amid the wreckage of the first explosion when the second blast occurred, sending up a fireball and plume of smoke.
Such attacks, which are not uncommon in the region, are typically aimed at police and government officials, though civilians are often injured and killed. At least three of those killed in Wednesday’s attack were bystanders.
In the Moscow bombings, however, civilians appeared to be the prime targets. [*]The bombers set off their explosives at two subway stations during the Monday-morning rush hour, the first such attacks in the capital in years. [very little question that the motive was terrorize population with view of demonstrating how Caucases have been terrorized] [*]
Rashid G. Nurgaliyev, Russia’s interior minister, on Wednesday renewed a call for police to increase security in public places like theaters, schools and universities.
“These attacks show that terrorists can target anywhere,” he said.
Investigators have identified Daud Dzhabrailov, a local resident, as the bomber in the police uniform, the Interfax news agency reported.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032903578.html
As missions are added, Stratcom commander keeps focus on deterrence
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 30, 2010; A23 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [US strategic command] [aka, stratcom] [dod, Pentagon] [USFP] [followup] [use psci 355, 455] [discuss: deterrence conceptually] [General Kevin P. Chilton] [cross in individual-role] [*]
"We continue to strengthen and sharpen our focus on deterrence while at the same time preserving our freedom of action in space and cyberspace," Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, head of Strategic Command (Stratcom), said in last week's appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee. [?] [*]
Increasingly, however, Stratcom has been assigned heavy and varied responsibilities. It began with strategic deterrence, nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. In 2002 came space operations, including global command and control (those communication and early-warning satellites in space) and missile defense. Cyber operations recently were added,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032903578.html
As missions are added, Stratcom commander keeps focus on deterrence
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 30, 2010; A23 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [US strategic command] [aka, stratcom] [dod, Pentagon] [USFP] [followup] [use psci 355, 455] [discuss: deterrence conceptually] [General Kevin P. Chilton] [cross in individual-role] [*]
"We continue to strengthen and sharpen our focus on deterrence while at the same time preserving our freedom of action in space and cyberspace," Gen. Kevin P. Chilton, head of Strategic Command (Stratcom), said in last week's appearance before the Senate Armed Services Committee. [?] [*]
Increasingly, however, Stratcom has been assigned heavy and varied responsibilities. It began with strategic deterrence, nuclear weapons and their delivery systems. In 2002 came space operations, including global command and control (those communication and early-warning satellites in space) and missile defense. Cyber operations recently were added, [interesting as I thought NSA had grabbed most of it?] [*] followed by combating weapons of mass destruction, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR aircraft), and finally information operations (IO). [*]
Chilton has the right background for such a multifaceted job.[*]
He's an Air Force Academy graduate, an engineer (master of science from Columbia University), test pilot (F-15), NASA astronaut (three space trips) and manager (operations for the international space station program).
In 2007, when he was appointed Stratcom commander, he said at an Air Force Association symposium that he had "multiple missions, more than I could get my small mind around." He said he had to prioritize -- and he did. [*]
He looked at missile defense, ISRs, WMDs and IO and put them lower on the list. "What struck me right away is, we had no forces assigned to conduct operations in those areas," he said. [*]
In short, Stratcom's job was to advise: how to bring together missile-defense concepts of operations; with ISR, how best to use those high-demand/low numbers of aircraft; with WMD, help synchronize planning by the regional combatant commanders; and with IO, to "work in support of just about everybody around the world," [*]Chilton said.
Then, he listed his top priorities. "There are three areas where we [Stratcom] actually have forces assigned . . . where I have three-star general officers who run our command and control centers and promulgate orders daily to the folks that work" for each of the generals. Chilton concluded by delineating those three focus areas: "cyberspace, space and global strike in the form of certain nuclear deterrence."
Last week, in defending Stratcom's growing budget, Chilton kept his focus on those areas. As a former astronaut, he spoke extensively about the need for space awareness and a next-generation space-based surveillance system to prevent collisions between satellites, manned spacecraft and debris. [sounds like a good person for the job] [good fit?] [**]
In addition, he said, "I don't think we can imagine military operations today without the advantages we have obtained from missile warning in space, global communications, GPS . . . navigation and tracking."
A new Cyber Command is in the works, awaiting confirmation of its nominated commander, Lt. Gen. Keith B. Alexander, currently the director of the National Security Agency. The new subcommand of Stratcom will combine offensive and defensive military cyber operations. Individual services -- the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines -- have created their own cyber commands, which Chilton will coordinate.
Because so much depends on Defense Department information networks, Chilton said protecting and improving them have become "interdependent imperatives -- with new and expanded cyber capabilities." [*]But he reminded senators that Stratcom's responsibility is to "operate and defend military networks only," not other government or civilian systems, which "fall under the responsibility of the Department of Homeland Security." [*]
In the nuclear area, Chilton said his people had input in the 2011 Nuclear Posture Review, which has yet to be released. [*]They also provided support for the arms-control negotiators whose work resulted in the announcement last week of the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). Chilton told the panel that his command will help design the strategy and plans that implement new limits in that agreement.
Meanwhile, he said, Stratcom carries on some old business. Last June, it held Global Thunder 2009, what Chilton told senators was "the most extensive nuclear command, control and communications field exercise in over a decade." It involved strategic submarines, aircraft sorties including B-52s, an intercontinental ballistic missile test launch, and continuous airborne command and control. [*]
In August, Air Force Global Strike Command became operational, showing new Air Force attention to its nuclear responsibilities in the wake of the September 2007 fiasco: B-52s took off from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota with pilots and others unaware that they were carrying an armed air-launched cruise missile across the United States to Louisiana.
Chilton has also become a student of deterrence.
"Since the end of the Cold War, the serious study of deterrence theory and strategy has been inadequate," he said. An entire generation of policymakers, academics and military professionals skipped studying the evolution of deterrence. The preliminary work on the nuclear posture review and START "revealed this shortage of human capital," he said.
To fill the gap, Stratcom last summer held its first annual Deterrence Symposium. Chilton gave the senators an interesting thought to ponder: "Throughout the 65-year history of nuclear weapons, no nuclear power has been conquered or even put at risk of conquest, nor has the world witnessed the globe-consuming conflicts of earlier history." [*]
It's a thought others in government ought to ponder as they watch Iran and North Korea seek to develop nuclear capability. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:29 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032903304.html
Obama administration may send U.S.-Russia arms treaty to Congress by late April
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 30, 2010; A13 [Obama white house] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model; Obama’s team and the president’s gritty determination] [nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence] [while Bush made them part of the NSC process also, only insofar as National Security Strategy of United States] [appears some change but mostly continuity?] [evolution after CW was toward bureaucracies: energy department, defense department, nuclear regulatory commissions, etc.] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [use psci 350] [followup] [US-Russia relations] [cross in external] [*]
The Obama administration plans to send the new arms-control treaty package with Russia to Congress by the end of April, hoping for ratification by year's end, officials said Monday as they laid out details of the proposed agreement.
Ellen Tauscher, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said that work was still being done in Geneva on the treaty, including details on inspections and

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032903304.html
Obama administration may send U.S.-Russia arms treaty to Congress by late April
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 30, 2010; A13 [Obama white house] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model; Obama’s team and the president’s gritty determination] [nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence] [while Bush made them part of the NSC process also, only insofar as National Security Strategy of United States] [appears some change but mostly continuity?] [evolution after CW was toward bureaucracies: energy department, defense department, nuclear regulatory commissions, etc.] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [use psci 350] [followup] [US-Russia relations] [cross in external] [*]
The Obama administration plans to send the new arms-control treaty package with Russia to Congress by the end of April, hoping for ratification by year's end, officials said Monday as they laid out details of the proposed agreement.
Ellen Tauscher, undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, said that work was still being done in Geneva on the treaty, including details on inspections and exchanges of data.
Despite the administration's hopes for Senate ratification this year, several Republican senators have expressed concern about moving too quickly on a vote. [*]
Tauscher said the United States and Russia are working on "unilateral statements" that each side would attach to the treaty. The statements would become part of the package reviewed by the Senate and Russian Duma before ratification. Such statements, including some attached by both countries' legislative bodies, have no effect on the treaty itself but can be useful in solving issues outside of the treaty.
For example, in 1991 the Soviets attached a unilateral statement to the START I treaty that Moscow would be able to withdraw if it deemed that the U.S. missile defense program upset strategic stability. In response, the United States put together its own statement saying Moscow's position was without legal foundation. [so there’s a precedent?] [*]
Tauscher said that the new treaty would not affect the administration's plan to phase in a missile system to protect Europe and the United States against Iranian missiles. She said there "are no limits or constraint to our ability to put the phased approach forward." The plan would phase in over a 10-year period and, Tauscher said, could involve interceptor missiles deployed "over 2011 in the sea in the Mediterranean, 2015 in Romania, 2018 in Poland," and with land-based radars elsewhere.
The Russians have said they view the shields as a threat. But Tauscher called it a "limited system . . . not formed against Russia," adding that Russian missiles could "overwhelm a system like [this] in seconds." [*]
Tauscher said the data on exchange of telemetry, the electronic signals, from testing of new missiles were less than the earlier treaty, but "over time it's been clear it's not necessary," given the new regime.
She also said that under the new treaty the United States would not have staff at the factory in Votkinsk, where Russian missiles are made. "We do not have the same kind of oversight at Votkinsk as we did," Tauscher said, but she added that inspections, data exchanges and "national technical means" -- meaning U.S. intelligence satellites -- would fill the gap. [that proved really sensitive for Russians] [*]
She also said the treaty would have no effect on the United States if it decided to put a conventional warhead on either submarine-launched or ground-launched intercontinental ballistic missiles as part of the new global strike concept. That would give the United States the ability to hit a target anywhere in the world -- such as a terrorist camp -- within an hour without having to turn to the nuclear ICBM arsenal. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032902905.html
What the Iraqis are building
Tuesday, March 30, 2010; A24 [editorial] [on –ir recent elections] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
IN THE three weeks since Iraq held elections, many news stories have focused on the negative or the uncertain -- on the gains made by followers of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, for example, and on how long it will take for a ruling coalition to take shape. None of this is wrong: There's plenty to worry about. But a complete picture should include a few other points.[*]
First, Iraq held a competitive election that puts most of its neighbors to shame. On Iraq's borders are, among others, a despotic theocracy in Iran, a despotic monarchy in Saudia Arabia and a despotic hereditary fiefdom in Syria. In Iraq, more than 6,000 candidates vied for 325 legislative seats. They represented parties of wide ideological range. Turnout was higher, proportionately, than for U.S. presidential elections. The voting and counting, according to international observers, were generally free and fair. [absolutely agree] [Bush

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/29/AR2010032902905.html
What the Iraqis are building
Tuesday, March 30, 2010; A24 [editorial] [on –ir recent elections] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
IN THE three weeks since Iraq held elections, many news stories have focused on the negative or the uncertain -- on the gains made by followers of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, for example, and on how long it will take for a ruling coalition to take shape. None of this is wrong: There's plenty to worry about. But a complete picture should include a few other points.[*]
First, Iraq held a competitive election that puts most of its neighbors to shame. On Iraq's borders are, among others, a despotic theocracy in Iran, a despotic monarchy in Saudia Arabia and a despotic hereditary fiefdom in Syria. In Iraq, more than 6,000 candidates vied for 325 legislative seats. They represented parties of wide ideological range. Turnout was higher, proportionately, than for U.S. presidential elections. The voting and counting, according to international observers, were generally free and fair. [absolutely agree] [Bush deserves credit for “surge” but not necessarily the 2003 decision] [*]
Second, the top two vote-getters were the coalitions that rejected ethnic and sectarian politics in favor of a more national, multi-sectarian vision. Most seats were won by the Iraqiya List, which is headed by a Shiite politician, former prime minister Ayad Allawi, and which did well in Sunni areas. In second place came the State of Law slate, headed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite who decided not to join an explicitly Shiite alliance, which ended up in third place. A Kurdish alliance placed fourth. These results are a defeat for Iran's efforts to unify Iraq's Shiites into one bloc and then control Iraq through that bloc. [*] The vote is at least potentially a victory for an Iraq in which members of all sects believe their voices can be heard.
Finally, despite the bloodshed of the past decade and Iraq's inexperience in democratic politics, all major participants have acted within the legal framework and have pledged to do so in the future. It's worrying when Mr. Maliki says he won't accept defeat, but he has talked about legal challenges only. On Monday, the pernicious Iranian-backed Accountability and Justice Commission piped up again, seeking to purge six winners it considers tainted by past association with Saddam Hussein; not coincidentally, the purging could be useful to politicians who run the commission. But this jockeying, too, is at least taking place within a legal framework. [*]
It's been understood from the start that the most difficult period would start now -- after the votes were counted, and before a government was seated. Iraq bequeathed to this next government some of its toughest issues, such as how to divide oil revenue between the provincial and central governments and where to draw the boundary of the Kurdish region. [*] As parties and factions jockey for control of the ministries, a lot is at stake, and accordingly bare-knuckled politics will ensue. The U.S. government rightly has expressed strong support for a peaceful process while remaining absolutely neutral with regard to the outcome. U.S. engagement, both military and civilian, will remain crucial as the bargaining shifts into high gear. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:28 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/opinion/30kuznetsov.html
March 30, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor
Moscow Under Attack
By SERGEY KUZNETSOV
Moscow [oped] [Russia’s subway attacks yesterday] [use psci 469] [*]
EVERY time some disaster hits the Moscow subway, I remember that Soviet propaganda used to call this the most beautiful subway in the world.
Incredibly, in this one case, it wasn’t lying: Moscow subway stations are marble palaces with pillars, mosaics and statues of happy swimmers and oarswomen.
Despite all this decoration, I was afraid of the subway as a child. I felt that there was some hidden terror in the gap between the sparkling stations and the dark noisy tunnels with

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/opinion/30kuznetsov.html
March 30, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor
Moscow Under Attack
By SERGEY KUZNETSOV
Moscow [oped] [Russia’s subway attacks yesterday] [use psci 469] [*]
EVERY time some disaster hits the Moscow subway, I remember that Soviet propaganda used to call this the most beautiful subway in the world.
Incredibly, in this one case, it wasn’t lying: Moscow subway stations are marble palaces with pillars, mosaics and statues of happy swimmers and oarswomen.
Despite all this decoration, I was afraid of the subway as a child. I felt that there was some hidden terror in the gap between the sparkling stations and the dark noisy tunnels with their all-too-obvious symbolism.
Most of my life has been spent along the same subway line. Its official name is Frunzenskaya, but since Muscovites nickname their subway lines according to their color on the map, everybody just calls it Red Line.
This morning when I made my way to the nearest station, Park Kultury, I heard sirens and saw fire trucks, ambulances and police cars near the entrance.
“What the hell is that?” my wife asked. I got my iPhone and read the news.
“It’s an explosion at the Lubyankya station,” I told her. “Forty minutes ago.”
“We must have had a second one,” she said. She was right: five minutes later, the news agencies reported an explosion inside Park Kultury.
Moscow, understandably, was in a panic. Monday was the first day after spring break. The Beslan school hostage crisis of 2004 took place on the first day after summer vacation. [*]
Out of the panic came conspiracy theories. It was said that Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was starting his next presidential campaign. After all, his rise to power in 1999 began with his fierce response to a series of explosions that destroyed Moscow apartment buildings. [*]Others said the explosions had been set by Mr. Putin’s foes, using a terrorist attack to rock the boat. The majority blamed Chechens and Islamic terrorists.
In addition to the political conspiracy theories, the explosions carried symbolic force: the first station to be bombed was near the former K.G.B. building. “Lubyanka” is an informal term for state security and the symbol of Soviet state terror. [*]
I don’t know why nobody has thus far pointed out that Park Kultury — the Park of Culture and Recreation — is a symbol of the Grand Totalitarian Style, the almost joyous aesthetic of Stalin’s era, [*]represented by those statues of happy swimmers and oarswomen in the station.
In fact, Park Kultury and Lubyanka are two sides of the Soviet epoch. The contrast between them represents the gap between the marble stations and the dark tunnels that frightened me.
Of course, this analogy is the same rubbish as most conspiracy theories ....
I am writing about the history of the Moscow subway, my childhood, the two sides of the Soviet epoch because I don’t want to think about the dead and injured, about their loved ones, their families.[*]
In the end, nobody knows who is responsible for this attack. They have simply reminded Muscovites: Evil exists, and horror is always right beside you. [*]
Tomorrow, we will wake up and live with these truths. At least, until we forget them again, as we have many times before.
Sergey Kuznetsov is the author of the novel “Butterfly Skin.”
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:27 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/opinion/30tue1.html
March 30, 2010
Editorial
President Obama in Kabul
[editorial] [Karzai’s extremely unfortunate behavior and Obama’s apparent attempt to read him the riot act?] [use psci 469] [*]
President Obama’s visit to Afghanistan on Sunday was a long overdue, and desperately needed, attempt to persuade President Hamid Karzai to clean up his act.
American officials have repeatedly warned Mr. Karzai that unless he truly commits to eradicating corruption (including among his own family members), improving governance and institutionalizing the rule of law, there is no chance of defeating the Taliban. Mr. Karzai has repeatedly shrugged off those warnings.
We hope that hearing it directly from the American president will finally make the difference. There is certainly no more time to waste. [coming as it did after Obama stood up to congress

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/opinion/30tue1.html
March 30, 2010
Editorial
President Obama in Kabul
[editorial] [Karzai’s extremely unfortunate behavior and Obama’s apparent attempt to read him the riot act?] [use psci 469] [*]
President Obama’s visit to Afghanistan on Sunday was a long overdue, and desperately needed, attempt to persuade President Hamid Karzai to clean up his act.
American officials have repeatedly warned Mr. Karzai that unless he truly commits to eradicating corruption (including among his own family members), improving governance and institutionalizing the rule of law, there is no chance of defeating the Taliban. Mr. Karzai has repeatedly shrugged off those warnings.
We hope that hearing it directly from the American president will finally make the difference. There is certainly no more time to waste. [coming as it did after Obama stood up to congress on health care (at least that perception) may have helped?] [*]
Mr. Karzai has a long history of telling the international community what it wants to hear — while he and his aides continue to do whatever they choose.
The most outrageous example was the brazen attempt by Mr. Karzai’s loyalists to steal last year’s presidential election. After Washington — belatedly — cried foul, Mr. Karzai seemed inclined to mend his ways. His inaugural speech in November resonated with high-minded purpose, with promises to end the “culture of impunity.” But as Gen. James Jones, Mr. Obama’s national security adviser, said en route to Kabul, the administration wanted Mr. Karzai to “understand that in his second term, there are certain things that have not been paid attention to, almost since Day 1.”[*]
Mr. Karzai has strengthened the government’s anticorruption commission, and his attorney general is pressing forward on some cases involving former government figures. Still, corruption remains rife, including in Kandahar, where American and NATO forces are about to begin a major operation to rout the Taliban.
Mr. Karzai’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, is the main power broker in Kandahar and reportedly has strong ties to the opium trade. If he is truly committed to rooting out corruption, President Karzai can start by pushing his brother to step aside as leader of the Kandahar provincial council. [especially since the US military is openly planning Kandahar as the next big showdown!] [*]
He must also cut ties with many other corrupt officials and warlords and ensure that war criminals and human rights abusers are held accountable. His recent decision to sign a law giving amnesty to some of the worst offenders is especially worrying.
The United States and others rightly cried foul — the administration even canceled Mr. Karzai’s planned White House visit — after the Afghan president issued a decree that would allow him to appoint all of the members of the election watchdog commission that exposed the fraud in last year’s election. Mr. Karzai should reverse that decree and return to the previous and far more credible formula under which the United Nations chose three of the five members.
Mr. Obama made the right decision to send another 30,000 troops to help drive the Taliban out of important strongholds. But there is no way to hold those cities and towns without an effective Afghan government (at both the federal and local level) to take over. And after eight years of fighting, more than 1,000 American lives lost and more than $200 billion from American taxpayers spent, Mr. Karzai’s failure to build a credible, honest and even minimally effective government remains the Taliban’s No. 1 recruiting tool.
Mr. Karzai’s failure to devote maximum effort to fix his government is self-destructive. So is his recent cozying up to Iran’s repressive government — a clear effort to spite his American critics. We hope Mr. Obama told Mr. Karzai all of that in no uncertain terms. He will have to keep telling Mr. Karzai in the months ahead. [*]
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:26 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/asia/30korea.html
March 29, 2010
Sinking of Ship Feeds South Koreans’ Fears of the North
By CHOE SANG-HUN [South Korea] [ROK, South Korea] [now the authorities have backed off and denied that they ever cleared DPRK?] [ROK naval ship sinks?] [as I speculated on day 1, if it’s a mine of DPRK, that’s going to big!] [there’s some rumors circulating that it was a sea mine of DPRK’s] [followup] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — The mystery of what caused a South Korean warship to sink in disputed waters may not be solved for days, with rescuers still hunting for 46 missing sailors, and a recovery crane slowly being moved to the site.
The South Korean military announced on Tuesday that one of the divers taking part in the rescue effort had died, The Associated Press reported.
In the meantime, the political pressure will remain high on the South Korean government,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/asia/30korea.html
March 29, 2010
Sinking of Ship Feeds South Koreans’ Fears of the North
By CHOE SANG-HUN [South Korea] [ROK, South Korea] [now the authorities have backed off and denied that they ever cleared DPRK?] [ROK naval ship sinks?] [as I speculated on day 1, if it’s a mine of DPRK, that’s going to big!] [there’s some rumors circulating that it was a sea mine of DPRK’s] [followup] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — The mystery of what caused a South Korean warship to sink in disputed waters may not be solved for days, with rescuers still hunting for 46 missing sailors, and a recovery crane slowly being moved to the site.
The South Korean military announced on Tuesday that one of the divers taking part in the rescue effort had died, The Associated Press reported.
In the meantime, the political pressure will remain high on the South Korean government, which has been unable to offer a convincing explanation for the explosion that broke up the 1,200-ton ship, the Cheonan, [*]within minutes late Friday night.
South Korean officials, while careful not to point directly at North Korea, allowed speculation regarding its culpability to rage, speaking volumes about South Korea’s current state of uneasiness with the North. [*]
“The government or our Defense Ministry has never said it ruled out [*]the possibility of North Korean involvement,” [*]Defense Minister Kim Tae-young of South Korea said Monday during a grilling in Parliament.
Asked about mines, Mr. Kim said that it was “possible” that the Cheonan was hit by one of thousands of mines North Korea deployed near its coasts during the Korean War, from 1950 to 1953. He also kept open the possibility that a North Korean submarine might have launched a torpedo, [that would be far less amibiguous than a mine] [*]an initial focus of suspicion. North Korea has used difficult-to-detect submersibles to insert spies into the South.
Other theories mentioned at Parliament and in domestic media included an on-board saboteur and something exploding inside the warship, which reportedly carried torpedoes, depth charges, missiles and other weaponry. [*]
The two Koreas remain technically at war, since the Korean War ended only in a truce. But relations, relatively warm for years, have grown ever more tendentious with the North’s confrontational stance on its nuclear weapons program and the South’s election of President Lee Myung-bak, who took office in 2008 with a hard line against the North.
The fragility of peace on the divided Korean Peninsula is most evident along the disputed western maritime border in the Yellow Sea, where the two navies fought skirmishes in 1999 and 2002 and briefly exchanged fire again last November. North Korea has repeatedly warned of a “clash” and “retaliation” in these waters. [*]
On Monday, the North kept silent on the sinking of the South Korean ship, but its state-run news media criticized the United States and South Korea over their annual joint military exercise, calling them “war maniacs [*]running amok to prepare an invasion of the North.” It also warned of a “loss of lives” if the United States and South Korea did not stop allowing journalists inside the heavily armed buffer zone separating the two Koreas.
Mr. Kim suggested that North Korea was silent on the Cheonan “either because it did something and wanted to hide it, or because it didn’t want to cause any misunderstanding, or because it sought to maximize” [*]South Koreans’ speculation and fear of North Korean provocation.
Navy divers, battling a rapid current and poor visibility, reached the sunken rear half of the ship 132 feet down on Monday, but received no response after rapping it with hammers, said Lee Ki-shik, a navy brigadier general.
Fifty-eight sailors were rescued in the hours after the explosion, but none have been found since, alive or dead.
Any navy crewmen who initially survived and managed to seal themselves inside watertight cabins would most likely have run out of air by Monday night. Military officials estimated that the supply of oxygen in the cabins would last only up to 69 hours.
South Korea’s military has often been accused of whitewashing investigations into soldiers’ deaths, adding complexity to the Cheonan mystery. [*]
The sinking is South Korea’s worst peacetime naval disaster since a navy landing ship capsized off the south coast in stormy weather in 1974, killing 159 sailors and coast guard personnel.
It is also the largest disaster to hit South Korea since President Lee took office. His ruling party will face crucial mayoral and gubernatorial elections in June. [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:26 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/middleeast/30allawi.html
March 29, 2010
Iraqi Ex-Premier Looks to Past in Fighting Critics
By ROD NORDLAND and TIM ARANGO [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [renewed sectarian tensions and fault lines] [success of “surge”] [as well as it worked, the issue still looms regarding how the Awakening to be situated in government in future?] [elections appear to occur with little disruption despite the attempts] [good news for US and Iraq?] [followup] [at long last some election results are released] [Maliki doing everything within his power to hold on while new power centers have emerged] [including Sunni as Shi’a split their power by disparate Shi’a coalitions] [*]
BAGHDAD — Ayad Allawi has seldom spoken publicly about the night more than 30 years ago when a pair of ax-wielding assassins turned his London bedroom into an abattoir.
Now, determined to counter charges by his political enemies that he won Iraq’s national elections by appealing to Baathists, and locked in a struggle with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to assemble a government, he offered up that story in the middle of an interview on Monday. [*]
“I was sleeping, you know, I just opened my eyes by sheer luck and saw a shadow by the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/middleeast/30allawi.html
March 29, 2010
Iraqi Ex-Premier Looks to Past in Fighting Critics
By ROD NORDLAND and TIM ARANGO [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [renewed sectarian tensions and fault lines] [success of “surge”] [as well as it worked, the issue still looms regarding how the Awakening to be situated in government in future?] [elections appear to occur with little disruption despite the attempts] [good news for US and Iraq?] [followup] [at long last some election results are released] [Maliki doing everything within his power to hold on while new power centers have emerged] [including Sunni as Shi’a split their power by disparate Shi’a coalitions] [*]
BAGHDAD — Ayad Allawi has seldom spoken publicly about the night more than 30 years ago when a pair of ax-wielding assassins turned his London bedroom into an abattoir.
Now, determined to counter charges by his political enemies that he won Iraq’s national elections by appealing to Baathists, and locked in a struggle with Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki to assemble a government, he offered up that story in the middle of an interview on Monday. [*]
“I was sleeping, you know, I just opened my eyes by sheer luck and saw a shadow by the bed,” he said, describing the early morning hours of Feb. 4, 1978, when he was living in Kingston upon Thames as an exile and medical student after breaking with Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party.
Mr. Allawi said he kicked out at the man there just as he swung an ax, nearly severing Mr. Allawi’s leg. A bloody struggle ensued, his wife jumping on one of the men’s backs, Mr. Allawi wresting one of the axes away and attacking back, until the second attacker chopped at his head. His wife, Ettor, later died of her wounds. Mr. Allawi was so badly wounded that they left him for dead, though not before he yelled at them as they left, as he recalls it, “You tell Saddam I am going to survive this, and I’ll take your eyeballs out.” He laughs nervously now at how brutal those words sound from long ago. [*]
It is a story that seems designed to resonate with Iraqis who remain suspicious of a man who attracted a large percentage of the Sunni vote, and who needs to thwart the efforts of Shiite coalitions that threaten to combine to preclude him from again becoming prime minister. He and Mr. Maliki are each trying to assemble enough seats to win a majority in the 325-seat Parliament.
Mr. Allawi’s attackers were never found; he said that Scotland Yard told him they were Iraqi intelligence agents. It took him a year and 10 operations to recover from that 1978 attack, as well as another year of physical therapy. Later on there were a series of failed attempts by his exile political group, the Iraqi National Accord, working with the C.I.A., [understandable but hardly a good partner] [*] to overthrow Mr. Hussein.
Along the way, he became a rheumatologist, working as a specialist in spinal surgery during his exile in London. When the Americans occupied Iraq, he was appointed as the country’s interim prime minister in 2004, but he then finished a distant third in Iraq’s first national elections, in January 2005.
Now Mr. Allawi’s surprising comeback has pitted him against Mr. Maliki, whom he defeated by a 91-89 plurality, even though the country’s Accountability and Justice Commission — formerly known as the De-Baathification Commission — invalidated the candidacies of hundreds of his supporters, claiming they were former Baathists, and the government’s antiterrorism forces arrested several of his candidates. [Maliki-Allawi history] [*]
He confirmed that the commission was trying to invalidate another 10 of his Iraqiya list parliamentary winners, which potentially could cut away his narrow plurality. The commission says that means their seats will be canceled, while Iraq’s Independent High Electoral Commission maintains Iraqiya will be able to replace those who are removed with others from their alliance. The matter seems likely to end up in court. [*]
Hatred of Baathists among Shiite politicians runs deep, and suspicion of Sunni motives run equally deep; many Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the population, see Sunni support for Mr. Allawi as a disguised form of support for the old government. [they should have thought about that before they split their power into disparate factions competing with unified Sunni vote] [*]
“They know this is not true,” Mr. Allawi, 64, said. “They know I fought Saddam and his regime for more than 30 years, more than anyone else in this government. They know I fought the Baathists, the idea of the Baathists.
“Those who committed crimes should go to face justice, and the hundreds and millions of people who never committed crimes, they should be pardoned and should be part and parcel of the Iraqi society,” he said. [*]
It does not help either that some of his supporters have favorably compared him to Mr. Hussein, and that at his rallies enthusiasts could be heard chanting, “We will sacrifice our blood and our souls for you, Allawi.” That was the Hussein chant, first coined during the Iran-Iraq war.
Even some of his supporters admiringly repeat stories that show him as a strong man with some of the Hussein-like qualities many Iraqis seem to admire. While prime minister, they say, he personally shot several captured insurgents to death. “I don’t kill people,” he said. “It was all a fabrication.” Then he added, “I am tough on people who break the law, because I believe in the supremacy of law.” [*]
He also has a well-earned reputation as sometimes hardheaded and volatile; when he first visited the United States as prime minister, his forearm was bandaged and many said it was because he had angrily smashed his fist on his desk.
American officials have carefully avoided expressing any preference for either Mr. Allawi or Mr. Maliki, but they had a friendly relationship with him during his tenure. “Allawi demonstrated the ability to make and execute tough decisions in security and other matters,” said Meghan O’Sullivan, [*]then an American occupation official who is now a professor at Harvard.
Mr. Allawi was critical of the arrests of his followers by Mr. Maliki’s government, particularly that of Najim al-Harbi, who was his Iraqiya list’s top vote-getter in the mixed Shiite and Sunni province of Diyala. He is being held in a secret location without access to a lawyer, Mr. Allawi said, on terrorism charges. “The De-Baath Commission is working very hard, probably they will de-Baathify the 91 guys who won,” he said, predicting that the commission would invalidate his candidates. [*]
“I can tell you with confidence if they have their way and start twisting things, I can assure you this country will be engulfed with violence and this violence will not remain inside of Iraq, it will spread,” he said. [hard to tell if it’s veiled threat or prediction?] [**]
Whether he succeeds in forming a government or not, his family is not likely to join him in Iraq, he said. “I have my children and my wife in London because they can’t come here,” he said. He remarried after his first wife died. “What schools could they go to here? The children of Ayad Allawi, what would they do to them? They would kill them.”
His conversation returned again to that night in Kingston upon Thames. “When I fought these guys who tried to kill me and then when I fought against Saddam, I had a very tough time,” he said, “but I’m not frightened easily.”
Sa’ad al-Izzi contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:25 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/africa/30shabab.html
March 29, 2010
Somalis Protest Against Shabab in Mogadishu
By MOHAMMED IBRAHIM and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN [Somalia] [the chaos in Somalia] [East Africa; south of Horn] [relatively stable state until 2007-2008 when wheels came off] [looked somewhat like a state toying with failed-state status] [failed state: clans and other configurations that fill power void] [followup] [growing opposition to Shabab’s tactics and harline ideology?] [*]
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Hundreds of enraged protesters marched through the streets of Mogadishu on Monday to protest against the Shabab, a militant Islamist insurgent group, in one of the largest demonstrations in recent years. [*]
Men, women and children flooded the rubble strewn center of town and shouted out slogans against the Shabab, who have steadily alienated the population by imposing

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/africa/30shabab.html
March 29, 2010
Somalis Protest Against Shabab in Mogadishu
By MOHAMMED IBRAHIM and JEFFREY GETTLEMAN [Somalia] [the chaos in Somalia] [East Africa; south of Horn] [relatively stable state until 2007-2008 when wheels came off] [looked somewhat like a state toying with failed-state status] [failed state: clans and other configurations that fill power void] [followup] [growing opposition to Shabab’s tactics and harline ideology?] [*]
MOGADISHU, Somalia - Hundreds of enraged protesters marched through the streets of Mogadishu on Monday to protest against the Shabab, a militant Islamist insurgent group, in one of the largest demonstrations in recent years. [*]
Men, women and children flooded the rubble strewn center of town and shouted out slogans against the Shabab, who have steadily alienated the population by imposing amputations and digging up the graves of revered Islamic clerics.
“We don’t want grave diggers and we don’t want the Shabab!” the protesters yelled.
The protest was led by a moderate Islamist group of Sufi clerics who have driven the Shabab out of several towns in central Somalia. Sheik Abdulkadir Mohamed Somow, one of the Sufi clerics, told the crowd that their group, AhluSunna Wal Jama, “will not tolerate further the Shabab’s grave excavation activities in Mogadishu” and he called upon Somalis to wage holy war against the Shabab. [incredible?] [we’re against its extremist ideology so we are going to wage “holy war” on it???] [*]
Ahlu Sunna Wal Jama recently signed a power sharing agreement with the transitional federal government, which controls only a small fraction of the Mogadishu, the capital. The agreement was intended to help the government go on the offensive against the Shabab in a planned upcoming military operation, which will most likely involve thousands of African Union peacekeepers.
The Shabab recently dug up at least seven graves of renowned Sufi clerics, according to Somali media reports. In 2008, the Shabab desecrated the graves of renowned Sufi clerics in areas under their control, pushing Sufi followers to take up arms. The Sufi version of Islam, which is more mystical and centered on an “inner jihad,” is one of the more popular sects in Somalia.
The recent grave desecrations in some of Mogadishu’s neighborhoods seemed to make more people turn against the Shabab, who were already losing popular support because of their harsh interpretations of Islam. The Shabab and their allies control more than half of south-central Somalia and have amputated the hands of thieves, stoned adulterers and flogged women for not being fully veiled. They have also killed many civilians, including students, with suicide bombs, and have recruited foreigners, including Americans, to fight for them. [**]
Somalia has been mired in chaos since 1991, when clan militias toppled the central government and then turned on each other.
Mohamed Ibrahim reported from Mogadishu and Jeffrey Gettleman from Nairobi, Kenya

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:24 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/asia/30karzai.html
March 29, 2010
Afghan Leader Is Seen to Flout Influence of U.S.
By DEXTER FILKINS and MARK LANDLER [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [one might think after the visit he just experienced he’d think to temper rather than flout the relationship?] [use psci 469] [followup] [is he hopelessly out of touch?] [cross in govt] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — This month, with President Hamid Karzai looking ahead to a visit to the White House, he received a terse note from aides to President Obama: Your invitation has been revoked. [*]
The reason, according to American officials, was Mr. Karzai’s announcement that he was

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/asia/30karzai.html
March 29, 2010
Afghan Leader Is Seen to Flout Influence of U.S.
By DEXTER FILKINS and MARK LANDLER [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [one might think after the visit he just experienced he’d think to temper rather than flout the relationship?] [use psci 469] [followup] [is he hopelessly out of touch?] [cross in govt] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — This month, with President Hamid Karzai looking ahead to a visit to the White House, he received a terse note from aides to President Obama: Your invitation has been revoked. [*]
The reason, according to American officials, was Mr. Karzai’s announcement that he was emasculating an independent panel that had discovered widespread fraud in Mr. Karzai’s re-election last year. [*]
Incensed, Mr. Karzai extended an invitation of his own — to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who flew to Kabul and delivered a fiery anti-American speech inside Afghanistan’s presidential palace. [*]
“Karzai was enraged,” said an Afghan with knowledge of the events, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue. “He invited Ahmadinejad to spite the Americans.” [I hope Obama read him the riot act] [he must understand he’s not going to be allowed to be the tail wagging the US dog] [*]
The dispute was smoothed over only this week, when Mr. Obama flew to Kabul for a surprise dinner with Mr. Karzai. White House officials emphasized that the most important purpose of Mr. Obama’s trip to Afghanistan was to visit American troops there.
But the red carpet treatment of Mr. Ahmadinejad is just one example of how Mr. Karzai is putting distance between himself and his American sponsors, prominent Afghans and American officials here said. Even as Mr. Obama pours tens of thousands of additional American troops into the country to help defend Mr. Karzai’s government, [as I predicted last fall, the more US engages the less control over Karzai] [this was predictable] [but how it’s handled is critical] [*]Mr. Karzai now often voices the view that his interests and the United States’ no longer coincide.
Neither Mr. Karzai nor his spokesman, Waheed Omar, could be reached Monday. But according to Afghan associates, Mr. Karzai recently told lunch guests at the presidential palace that he believes the Americans are in Afghanistan because they want to dominate his country and the region, and that they pose an obstacle to striking a peace deal with the Taliban. [perhaps the CIA ought to begin circulating rumors that it’s looking for new leadership?] [*] During the recent American-dominated military offensive in the town of Marja — the largest of the war — Mr. Karzai stood mostly in the shadows.
Indeed, the recent behavior by Mr. Karzai offers the latest illustration of the central dilemma that faces the Obama administration in Afghanistan: how to influence the actions of an ally who they increasingly regard as unreliable, without undermining America’s ultimate goals here. [it’s an age-old problem] [the US learned this in Vietnam and apparently has not thought of effective ways to mitigate] [*]
“We’re trying to find this balance of keeping pressure on him, without setting up bluffs that can be called,” said a senior official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the matter. “We’re coming to terms with dealing with the Karzai we have.”
Perhaps the clearest example of the American dilemma is the graft in Mr. Karzai’s government. American officials have repeatedly pushed Mr. Karzai to clean up his government, as Mr. Obama stressed during his dinner with the Afghan leader. But Mr. Karzai has resisted all but the most feeble gestures.
Some prominent Afghans say that Mr. Karzai now tells associates that the Americans’ goal here is not to build an independent and peaceful Afghanistan, but to exercise their power.
In January, Mr. Karzai invited about two dozen prominent Afghan media and business figures to a lunch at the palace. At the lunch, he expressed a deep cynicism about America’s motives, and of the burden he bears in trying to keep the United States at bay.
“He has developed a complete theory of American power,” said an Afghan who attended the lunch and who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retribution. “He believes that America is trying to dominate the region, and that he is the only one who can stand up to them.” [omg, is this guy that f**ked up?] [*]
Mr. Karzai said that, left alone, he could strike a deal with the Taliban, but that the United States refuses to allow him. The American goal, he said, was to keep the Afghan conflict going, and thereby allow American troops to stay in the country.
The description of the lunch was largely affirmed by two other Afghans who attended and who also declined to be identified. The person who described the meeting said some of the participants urged Mr. Karzai to reconsider his views and his plans to be more assertive with the United States. “We are a poor country,” he said. “We are depending on the United States.”
Mr. Karzai’s ultimate motives are not always clear. It may be that while Mr. Karzai supports the Americans presence here, he believes that distancing himself from the United States plays well among average Afghans. [*]
Though Mr. Karzai won another five-year term last August, he emerged as a badly bruised leader. Amid widespread allegations of fraud, the Election Complaint Commission nullified nearly a million votes counted in his favor. He won after his nearest opponent dropped out of the race.
For their part, officials in the Obama administration have tried to work with Mr. Karzai even as they have seethed over his failure to crack down on corruption. Plans for him to visit Washington were well under way in February, two officials said, when Mr. Karzai issued an order allowing him to handpick all five members of the election panel, which uncovered so much fraud in his re-election. [*]
The move would have deprived the United Nations of any oversight over future Afghan elections. The Obama administration, which had floated several dates for a Karzai visit but not decided on one, decided to delay it, several officials said.
“We wanted to have a great visit,” one official said. “But in order to have a great visit, we needed to see four or five things happen.”
Last week, under Western pressure, Mr. Karzai backpedaled slightly and agreed to appoint two non-Afghan members to the election commission. Still, Mr. Karzai is reserving the right to appoint the foreigners himself; before, that authority rested with the United Nations. And Mr. Karzai did not restore the spaces once reserved for two other independent members.
Iran is a neighbor of Afghanistan, and American officials say they do not object to the two countries discussing issues of mutual interest. “He can be close to us, have a cooperative bilateral relationship with us, and a good working relationship with his neighborhood,” a senior American official said.
But the recent visit by Mr. Ahmadinejad seemed designed to generate as much attention as possible — including in Washington. With Mr. Karzai standing at his side in Kabul, Mr. Ahmadinejad accused the United States of promoting terrorism. [*]
Dexter Filkins reported from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Mark Landler from Washington.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:23 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/asia/30pstan.html
March 29, 2010
Limits Eased on Pakistani Scientist
By SALMAN MASOOD and WAQAR GILLANI [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [Obama white house] [USFP] [bureaucracy and NSC] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [apparently letting AQ Khan back into polite society?] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani court on Monday eased some travel restrictions on Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist and pioneer of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal who admitted six years ago that he had been running an illicit proliferation network. But the court maintained a prohibition on news interviews with him about his past nuclear activities, according to lawyers involved in the case.
Mr. Khan, who is revered in Pakistan, had been put under house arrest in 2004 by former President Pervez Musharraf after Mr. Khan offered an apology to the nation for his nuclear proliferation activities. [*]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/asia/30pstan.html
March 29, 2010
Limits Eased on Pakistani Scientist
By SALMAN MASOOD and WAQAR GILLANI [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [Obama white house] [USFP] [bureaucracy and NSC] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [apparently letting AQ Khan back into polite society?] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A Pakistani court on Monday eased some travel restrictions on Abdul Qadeer Khan, the scientist and pioneer of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal who admitted six years ago that he had been running an illicit proliferation network. But the court maintained a prohibition on news interviews with him about his past nuclear activities, according to lawyers involved in the case.
Mr. Khan, who is revered in Pakistan, had been put under house arrest in 2004 by former President Pervez Musharraf after Mr. Khan offered an apology to the nation for his nuclear proliferation activities. [*]
The details were never publicly disclosed, but Western intelligence officials had said that Mr. Khan created a black market that sold nuclear technology to North Korea, Iran and other countries.
He was declared a “free man” by a court in February 2009 as travel restrictions were lifted and he was allowed to interact with friends and family. But later that year, another court reinstated those restrictions. [*]Pakistan has sought to describe Mr. Khan’s proliferation activities as a “closed chapter” in its history. That effort has come against the backdrop of meetings recently between the country’s powerful army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, and American officials over improving the relationship between Pakistan and the United States. [*]
Pakistan wants a civilian nuclear deal with the United States structured along the same lines as the American agreement with India, but there is continued apprehension among lawmakers in Washington over Mr. Khan’s proliferation record. The safety of the nuclear arsenal in Pakistan, where the military has been fighting militants, is also an underlying concern. [please!] [*]
Privately, Pakistani officials have assured American officials of continued monitoring of Mr. Khan’s activities while emphasizing that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are completely secure.
The court decision Monday on Mr. Khan in the eastern city of Lahore was announced after the government and Mr. Khan had reached an agreement that allowed him limited freedom, according to interviews with the lawyers for both sides.
Syed Ali Zafar, Mr. Khan’s lawyer, characterized the court decision as a reiteration of Mr. Khan’s status as a “free man.” Unlike earlier conditions, Mr. Khan will now be able to travel within the country without prior approval from Pakistani authorities, but will still have to advise of his movements in advance.
“A. Q. Khan will tell the government at least 30 minutes before he leaves his home for moving within Islamabad,” Mr. Zafar said. “And, he will have to tell the government at least one day before he schedules to move outside Islamabad.” [*]
Ahmer Bilal Soofi, a government lawyer, said that under the agreement, Mr. Khan would not issue any statement or interact with any members of the media on the issue of nuclear proliferation.
A restriction on foreign travel for Mr. Khan remains in effect, lawyers for both sides said.
A metallurgist by profession, Mr. Khan admitted in a tearful public apology in 2004 that he had sold nuclear technology to several countries, although he did not identify them.
Pakistani officials have rebuffed demands by Western officials to investigate Mr. Khan over his proliferation activities.
Within the country, Mr. Khan remains a highly popular figure, exalted by nationalists and Islamist activists who portray him as a hero in the country’s rivalry with nuclear-armed India. [*]
Salman Masood reported from Islamabad, and Waqar Gillani from Lahore, Pakistan.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:22 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/europe/30mood.html
March 29, 2010
Attacks Reawaken Worry of Guerrilla War in Caucasus
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [appears to have originated from southern Russia, Caucases] [followup] [*]
MOSCOW — Investigators were still marching in and out of the Lubyanka subway station on Monday morning, but Nina Ivanovna, a 57-year-old retiree, was not waiting around to hear their conclusions.
She stared coldly at the staircase where wounded and weeping passengers had streamed away from the chaos of the suicide bombing, and said, with a curl of her lip, who she thought was behind it.
“It’s the Chechens, they will never let us live in peace,” she said. “We should build a Great

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/europe/30mood.html
March 29, 2010
Attacks Reawaken Worry of Guerrilla War in Caucasus
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [appears to have originated from southern Russia, Caucases] [followup] [*]
MOSCOW — Investigators were still marching in and out of the Lubyanka subway station on Monday morning, but Nina Ivanovna, a 57-year-old retiree, was not waiting around to hear their conclusions.
She stared coldly at the staircase where wounded and weeping passengers had streamed away from the chaos of the suicide bombing, and said, with a curl of her lip, who she thought was behind it.
“It’s the Chechens, they will never let us live in peace,” she said. “We should build a Great Wall of China to keep them away from us. They should be walled away. They hate us, and they will always hate us.”
During the six years since the last suicide bomb attack on the Moscow subway, Muscovites came to think of themselves as comfortably insulated from the guerrilla warfare in the North Caucasus. They lost the jittery reflexes of a decade in which Russians refused to board airplanes beside a veiled woman, or waited for the last train car because they assumed suicide bombers would get on at the front.
That fear reshaped the Russian state at the beginning of the decade. Vladimir V. Putin, then president, used the terrorist threat to justify a sweeping consolidation of power, and won enormous popularity for apparently bringing the years of violence to an end. But old anxieties rushed back to the surface on Monday, when commuters handed over wads of cash to taxis rather than descend into the subway. Many were asking the same question: Is it starting again?
“Supposedly the war is over and people have been living well” in the Caucasus, said Lyudmila Margulis, 60, an edge of sarcasm in her voice, as she made her way through the Park Kultury subway station on Monday afternoon. The station was still dripping from a thorough washing after the attack, but on the white floor tiles you could still make out a faint trail of bloody boot prints.
“You know, I don’t think it ever actually stopped,” said Aleksandr Zharkov, 22, a graduate student. He said he had started seeking out information about fighting in the Caucasus on Internet news sources, and had been surprised to discover much was still going on there, despite government claims that the insurgency had been brought to heel.
“As long as it’s still going on there,” he said, “it can happen anywhere.”
Monday morning’s attacks almost seemed intended to puncture Moscow’s sense of calm. [*]Statistics from the North Caucasus — including Chechnya, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, North Ossetia and Dagestan [*]— showed that clashes between militants and government forces jumped last year, nearly doubling the number of fatalities and quadrupling the number of suicide bombings. [*]
But those statistics are abstractions to Muscovites, said Sergei Markedonov, a Caucasus specialist at the Institute for Political and Military Analysis.
“The Caucasus is far away, it’s way over there, ‘those dummies who keep blowing themselves up,’ that’s what Uncle John says — it doesn’t involve us,” he said. “An explosion in Moscow, that involves us directly.”
On Monday, the city felt a punch to the gut. Outside Hospital No. 33, a 70-year-old woman sobbed hysterically, saying her granddaughter had not answered her phone all day. Pyotr V. Novikov kept trying to explain that it was his usual train, that he would have been on it when it was bombed, except that on this morning, “I lay around, and here I am.”
Yekaterina Solovyova, 36, stepped off at Lubyanka station, where shrapnel had broken tiles and carved golf-ball-size chunks out of the marble walls of the station. Glass littered the tracks, and red carnations had been laid near the spot where the bomb exploded.
“This is simply monstrous,” she said.
It was, for many, a reminder of the city Moscow was eight or 10 years ago, when terrorist attacks became, awfully, a routine part of life. [*]
Yelena Knizhnikova’s son was performing in the musical “Nord-Ost” in 2002, though he happened not to appear in it the night Chechen terrorists seized the theater, taking about 850 people hostage. On Monday, she had dropped off her daughter at school and taken the subway to work when she heard about the suicide bombings.
She said she immediately re-experienced the sense of fear, followed by a panicky round of phone calls, then rage at the difficulty of finding information on who had died — it was “impossible to find anything, anywhere.” She could not help worrying that once again Muscovites would take out their anger on ethnic minorities. The randomness of it all struck her. [*]
“At some moment, you understand that — probably since we had gone through this before — you start to perceive things differently, that such is life,” she said. “Who knows why they chose those stations and not others? Like in ‘Nord-Ost,’ we were lucky in terms of timing.”
Michael Schwirtz, Andrew Kramer and Sophia Kishkovsky contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/europe/31moscow.html
March 30, 2010
Russia Mourns Attack Victims and Considers Its Response
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [Moscow only reporting region generally and Chechnya specifically but it’s early] [followup] [*]
MOSCOW — Russians held impromptu memorial services on Tuesday at two subway stations in Moscow where suicide bombers conducted brazen attacks a day earlier that killed 39 people and stirred fears of a revival of terrorism here.
The city’s entire subway system was open for the morning rush hour, but it was less crowded than usual as some nervous commuters delayed trips to work or stayed home altogether. At the landmark stations that were bombed within 40 minutes of one another during the Monday morning rush, people deposited candles and flowers to honor those who

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/31/world/europe/31moscow.html
March 30, 2010
Russia Mourns Attack Victims and Considers Its Response
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [Moscow only reporting region generally and Chechnya specifically but it’s early] [followup] [*]
MOSCOW — Russians held impromptu memorial services on Tuesday at two subway stations in Moscow where suicide bombers conducted brazen attacks a day earlier that killed 39 people and stirred fears of a revival of terrorism here.
The city’s entire subway system was open for the morning rush hour, but it was less crowded than usual as some nervous commuters delayed trips to work or stayed home altogether. At the landmark stations that were bombed within 40 minutes of one another during the Monday morning rush, people deposited candles and flowers to honor those who died. [*]
“The mood of the city is evident on people’s faces,” said Maria Anzhaurova, 21, a student, at the Lubyanka station, the site of the first attack on Monday. “People are watching each other closely. It is clear that people are afraid, very afraid.” [*]
The authorities offered no new information on Tuesday on the search for the organizers of the attacks, carried out by two women, but they said they continued to suspect Muslim extremists in the Caucasus region of southern Russia, [*]which includes Chechnya.
The attacks have confronted Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin with a grave challenge to his record of curbing terrorism, and raised the possibility that he would respond as he has in the past, by significantly tightening control over the government. [*]
The bombings seemed all but designed to taunt the security services, which have been championed by Mr. Putin in the decade since he took power in Russia. [*]The Lubyanka station lies next to the headquarters of the Federal Security Service, also known as the F.S.B., the successor agency to the Soviet-era K.G.B. that was led by Mr. Putin in the late 1990s.
On Tuesday, Mr. Putin said the organizers of the bombings were hiding but would be captured. He said they needed to be “dragged out of the sewers into the broad daylight. And it will be done.” [iron-fist response] [Russian ethos] [*]
Mr. Putin, the former president and still Russia’s paramount leader, has built his reputation in part on his success in bottling up the Muslim insurgency in southern Russia and preventing major terrorist attacks in the country’s large cities in recent years. If the bombings on Monday herald a renewed campaign by insurgents in major cities, then that legacy may be tarnished.
The attacks could also throw into doubt the policies of Mr. Putin’s protégé, President Dmitri A. Medvedev, who has spoken in favor of liberalizing the government, increasing political pluralism and dealing with terrorism by addressing the root causes of the insurgency. [*]
While Mr. Medvedev has not yet put in place many major changes, Mr. Putin has generally allowed him to pursue his course. More terrorism, though, could cause Mr. Putin to shove Mr. Medvedev aside and move the security-oriented circle of advisers around Mr. Putin to the forefront.
“Putin said, ‘One thing that I definitely accomplished was this,’ and he didn’t,” said Pavel K. Baev, a Russian who is a professor at the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo.
“My feeling is this is not an isolated attack, that we will see more,” Mr. Baev said. “If we are facing a situation where there is a chain of attacks, that would undercut every attempt to soften, liberalize, open up, and increase the demand for tougher measures.” [*]
Mr. Putin on Monday limited his comments largely to vows to destroy the terrorists who organized the attacks, who have not been identified, but who the Russian authorities said they suspect came from Chechnya or neighboring regions in the Caucasus Mountains. But when he last faced a spate of such violence, in 2004, he reacted with a sweeping reorganization of the government that he said would unite the country against terrorism, [*]but also concentrated power in the Kremlin.
He pushed through laws that eliminated the direct election of regional governors, turning them into presidential appointees, and made it all but impossible for political independents to be elected to the federal Parliament. He also increased the strength of the security services.
Boris I. Makarenko, chairman of the Center for Political Technologies in Moscow, a research organization, cautioned that it was too soon to speculate whether Mr. Putin might feel the need to clamp down. Mr. Makarenko said he believed that Mr. Putin’s reputation had not suffered badly because of terrorist attacks early in his tenure as president.
But Mr. Makarenko noted that the bombings in the Moscow subway came as Russia’s financial problems had been agitating the government. Protests have broken out in some major cities, and the opposition, while still relatively weak, has been gaining some support. [*]
“The public has become more skeptical about the government in general in recent months, due to the government’s limited ability to tackle the effects of the economic crisis, to the inefficiency and misbehavior of the police, and other issues,” he said. “These terrorist attacks might be another piece in the efforts of those who want to go after the government.”
The subway system in Moscow is one of the world’s most extensive and well managed, and the bombings on Monday spread anxiety that is unlikely to dissipate for some time. [*]For many people here, the day’s events recalled the tense times in the early part of the last decade when the city, including the subway, was hit with several terrorist attacks.
While the Muslim insurgency has not subsided in recent years, major attacks outside the Caucasus region had been unusual, and in April 2009, the Kremlin even announced what it described as the end of special counterterrorism operations in Chechnya. [*]
But in November 2009, terrorists bombed a luxury passenger train that was traveling in a rural area from Moscow to St. Petersburg, killing 26 people. Last month, a Chechen rebel leader, Doku Umarov, threatened in an interview on a Web site to organize terror acts in Russian population centers. [*]
“If Russians think that the war is happening only on television, somewhere far off in the Caucasus, and it will not touch them, then we are going to show them that this war will return to their homes,” he said. [*]
Mr. Medvedev, who took office in 2008, has called for a somewhat different tack on the insurgency, saying that the government should aggressively hunt down the terrorists, but also focus on the poverty and government malfeasance that he contended nurtured extremism.
Last June, Mr. Medvedev visited the Caucasus and gave an unusual speech in which he seemed to offer an implicit rebuff to the uncompromising Putin strategy.
“It is no secret to anyone here that these problems in the North Caucasus, and in the south of our country in general, are systemic,” Mr. Medvedev said. “By saying that, I am referring to the low living standards, high unemployment and massive, horrifyingly widespread corruption.” [*]
Mr. Medvedev also appointed a new leader of Ingushetia, a Muslim region, who echoed his belief that hard-line measures would only stir a backlash.
On Monday, though, some senior members of Mr. Putin’s political party, United Russia, were already suggesting that the government needed to adopt a stern new plan to combat terrorism. [*]
Vladimir A. Vasilyev, chairman of the security committee in Parliament, lashed out at law-enforcement authorities, saying that they should be punished for allowing the attack.
“I am convinced that all those who failed to carry out their duty will bear responsibility,” he said, adding that current laws were “ineffective.”
For his part, Mr. Medvedev voiced only a determination to catch those behind the attacks. “We will continue our counterterrorist operations with unflinching resolve,” he said, “until we have defeated this scourge.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:21 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032802743.html
Defense investigates information-operations contractors
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 29, 2010; A17 [Obama white house] [residuals from long past: Iran-Contra, Vietnam, more recent] [bureaucracy] [111th congress 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [defense department’s sometimes awkward efforts to control information] [understandable when context is the battlefield and the enemy] [often, the military has become confused about that fundamental and has sought to confuse the American people and its civilian overseers, and there big problems arise] [followup] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [privatization of USFP issues also in spades] [to date it’s mostly been covered by NYTs Mazzetti, et al.] [followup] [*]
An expanding network of Pentagon contractors with professed expertise in information operations has become the focus of an investigation ordered last week by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. [*]
Gates's action was prompted by news reports that Michael D. Furlong, a senior civilian Defense Department employee, had used $25 million in funds from the Pentagon's program against roadside bombs to hire private contractors to gather information on suspected insurgents in Afghanistan -- activities that Furlong says were authorized by top U.S. military commanders. [*]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032802743.html
Defense investigates information-operations contractors
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, March 29, 2010; A17 [Obama white house] [residuals from long past: Iran-Contra, Vietnam, more recent] [bureaucracy] [111th congress 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [defense department’s sometimes awkward efforts to control information] [understandable when context is the battlefield and the enemy] [often, the military has become confused about that fundamental and has sought to confuse the American people and its civilian overseers, and there big problems arise] [followup] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [privatization of USFP issues also in spades] [to date it’s mostly been covered by NYTs Mazzetti, et al.] [followup] [*]
An expanding network of Pentagon contractors with professed expertise in information operations has become the focus of an investigation ordered last week by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. [*]
Gates's action was prompted by news reports that Michael D. Furlong, a senior civilian Defense Department employee, had used $25 million in funds from the Pentagon's program against roadside bombs to hire private contractors to gather information on suspected insurgents in Afghanistan -- activities that Furlong says were authorized by top U.S. military commanders. [*]
But Furlong's now-halted operation is just one example of units in every branch of the armed forces spending millions of dollars on private contractors -- many of them retired military, CIA and other intelligence specialists -- to satisfy military commanders' new interest in information operations. [while I’ve nothing against the efficieny of privatization—au contraire I’m generally in favor—there exist functions that only govt can do with govt’s complex oversight capabilities, plausible deniability, and so forth] [intelligence is usually among them] [so is interrogation and national security] [though parts may be privatized so long as somebody’s providing requisite oversight] [*]
"Information operations is the hot thing, and somebody turned on a hose of money," said W. Patrick ("Pat") Lang, a retired senior Defense Intelligence Agency officer who served in Army Special Forces. "Retired colonels and senior executive service officers are forming teams to compete." [Lang was the DIA guy who called Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait correctly (and was lonely that way)] [he’s moved well beyond but I like to read his view as it tends to be grounded and not especially ideological] [*]
Gates told reporters Thursday that such operations are "critical" to the war in Afghanistan, albeit in need of "an overall strategy or perhaps adequate oversight." Beyond the Furlong case, he said, "there are broader problems in terms of oversight in these important areas that need to be corrected, and that's what I'm focused on." [**]
Based in Lackland Air Force Base, Tex., the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center is the 435-person lead unit that "plans, integrates and synchronizes information operations in direct support of joint forces commanders . . . across the Defense Department," according its mission statement. Those operations may include "psychological operations . . . and military deception," according to a 2006 publication from the office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Because senior military officers have had little experience in those areas, they frequently have relied on private contractors.
The Warfare Center, where Furlong is based, has a relatively small budget of its own. But it also gets funding from across the Defense Department, from the Joint Forces, Special Operations, Air Combat and Army's 1st Information Commands, wrote Navy Lt. Cmdr. Steve Curry, chief of media operations for Strategic Command, in answer to a question.
Between 2006 and 2008, Central Command alone had 172 contracts worth $270 million just for information operations in Iraq, according to a Defense Department inspector general report released in September.
Purchases of products and services made through major contracts included "military analysts, development of television commercials and documentaries, focus group and polling services, television air time, posters, banners, and billboards," the inspector general reported. Smaller individual purchases under information-operations programs included "magazine publishing and printing services, newspaper dissemination, television and radio airtime, text messaging services, internet services and novelty items," the report said. [?][*]
Another aspect of information operations is the complicated chain out of which they develop. One such chain was illustrated on Jan. 9, 2009, by JB Management of Alexandria.
JBM announced it was part of a winning team selected by the Warfare Center to provide "Human Network Analysis and Information Operations Support" for one year with "three additional year-long option periods."
JBM's president, Harry Gibb, is a retired Army colonel and its chief operations officer, Andy L. Vonada, is a retired Marine Corps officer whose last assignment was as "lead politico-military planner for the strategic plans and policies directorate for the Joint Chiefs of Staff." Alex J. Johnson, chairman of the JBM board of directors, is another Army veteran.
And the firm's director of capture and strategy, Robert Cordray, is a West Point graduate who left the Army after five years, went to work for another private contractor and was deployed to Iraq to assist with information operations. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/middleeast/29mideast.html
March 28, 2010
Rift Exposes Split in Views on Mideast
By ETHAN BRONNER [Obama white house] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [NSC principal and SecState Clinton’s recent speech at AIPAC meeting same day as Bibi’s] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [this debate must be put in context of changes in Israeli public opinion: it’s shifted from clear majority for 2-state solution to possibly one for doing nothing] [though Israel did not do it to screw up USFP, the result puts US at cross purposes with Israel] [followup] [Friedman’s weekend oped explained it better than I have] [*]
JERUSALEM — When Israel announced new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem at the start of a visit this month by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the timing and expressed regret at the embarrassment. Mr. Biden accepted his explanation, and the two sides seemed prepared to move on. [synopsis] [*]
Since then, though, that event has remained lodged at the center of American-Israeli relations. How it got there, and why it remains, sheds light on the growing divide between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government. The current discord, ostensibly

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/middleeast/29mideast.html
March 28, 2010
Rift Exposes Split in Views on Mideast
By ETHAN BRONNER [Obama white house] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [NSC principal and SecState Clinton’s recent speech at AIPAC meeting same day as Bibi’s] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [this debate must be put in context of changes in Israeli public opinion: it’s shifted from clear majority for 2-state solution to possibly one for doing nothing] [though Israel did not do it to screw up USFP, the result puts US at cross purposes with Israel] [followup] [Friedman’s weekend oped explained it better than I have] [*]
JERUSALEM — When Israel announced new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem at the start of a visit this month by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for the timing and expressed regret at the embarrassment. Mr. Biden accepted his explanation, and the two sides seemed prepared to move on. [synopsis] [*]
Since then, though, that event has remained lodged at the center of American-Israeli relations. How it got there, and why it remains, sheds light on the growing divide between the Obama administration and the Netanyahu government. The current discord, ostensibly over Jerusalem housing, is really over the role of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as well as over differing perceptions of the Palestinians’ capacity for self-rule. [yes, it is] [*]
While Mr. Biden seemed satisfied with the Israeli explanation, others were clearly not. Among them was Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League. A week earlier, he reluctantly announced his organization’s approval of indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, had requested the support, feeling unable to renew talks without pan-Arab cover. Arab foreign ministers in Cairo offered a tepid go-ahead despite their skepticism about Israel’s intentions. [*]
After the plans for more Jerusalem housing were announced, however, Mr. Moussa called Mr. Abbas to say the talks should not proceed. Mr. Abbas called Washington to describe his predicament, which produced a phone call from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to Mr. Netanyahu, demanding steps to keep the indirect talks alive. The sequence of calls was described by an American advocate for Israel and confirmed by a senior Palestinian leader. [and the entire chain of events serve to affirm Israeli general view that Palestinians have been encouraged to demand more] [and it’s probably true] [but the last 10 years has seen issue after issue do the opposite: demonstrate to Palestinians that Israelis were encouraged to never get enough concession from Palestinians, etc] [**]
On Sunday, in his first public comment on the issue, Mr. Netanyahu told his cabinet officials that any divide with the United States could be managed.
“Even if there are disagreements,” he said, “these are disagreements between friends, and that’s how they will stay.” [that’s somewhat heartening] [*]
But two main issues are keeping American-Israeli tensions on the front burner: disagreement on the effects of what happens in Jerusalem on the rest of the Middle East, and the strength of the Palestinian leadership.
The Obama administration considers establishing a Palestinian state central to other regional goals; it also believes that the Palestinians, led by Mr. Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, are ready to run a country. [not just the Obama administration but it was policy under Bush, though partisans now try to pretend otherwise] [Bush was most explicit ever in USFP on 2-state solution] [*]The Netanyahu government disagrees on both counts. It thinks the issue of Palestinian statehood has little effect on broader American concerns and is also dubious about the ability of the Palestinians to create an entity that can resist a radical takeover. [*]
The centrality of the dispute over Jerusalem is the clearer of the disagreements.
Last fall, Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, told a liberal American Jewish group that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict was central to easing international tensions. [broader than NSC advisor Jones] [it’s pentagon’s view and essentially a premise of USFP and counterinsurgency-terrorism policy] [*]
The Netanyahu government and its supporters reject this argument.
“To me, this puts into question the administration’s sense of reality,” said Sallai Meridor, who was Israel’s ambassador to Washington toward the end of the administration of George W. Bush. “To think that what happens here has a major impact on the state of affairs in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq is, in my view, quite far from accurate.” [fundamentally, the Israeli view of their region versus American view of global responsiblities] [*]
Other top American security officials agree that solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a strategic American concern and that the dispute is a cause of regional instability affecting Washington’s interests.
Gen. David H. Petraeus, head of United States Central Command, made this point recently in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, adding that a perception of an American tilt toward Israel made it harder for the United States. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates broadly endorsed his point. [*]
Lt. Gen. Keith W. Dayton, who heads an effort to train Palestinian security forces in the West Bank, likes to tell a story about his work in Iraq after Saddam Hussein was deposed in 2003.
He was leading a team sent to find illegal weapons but discovered something else in the barracks of the Republican Guard: On many walls he saw drawings of Al Aksa Mosque in Jerusalem. Strangling its dome was a serpent with the word “Israel” on it.
General Dayton said he was amazed to see such fervor for the issue so many hundreds of miles away. He realized then, he said, the significance of the Israeli-Arab dispute beyond its borders.
Since arriving here, he has championed Palestinian security skills. Where Israeli generals say the forces are doing fine work but could not keep down violence without Israeli actions, General Dayton gives the Palestinians far more credit and wants the Israelis to cut back on their incursions. [*]
This highlights the other significant disagreement between the two governments: the readiness and reliability of the Palestinian leadership of Mr. Abbas and Mr. Fayyad. Obama administration officials say they believe that the Palestinian leadership is the best in history, focused on nonviolence, institution building and prosperity. Israelis are skeptical. [of course they are and with some reason] [and understandably] [I fear one of President Bush’s results—though not his intention—was in caving to Israel on Arafat-then subsequent PA iterations, Israelis got impression they could stop process by veto vote] [and that cannot be true of US interests; that is, Israel cannot be allowed to veto US interests] [might complex] [*]
Jonathan Spyer, a senior research fellow at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, argued the Netanyahu perspective in a recent opinion piece in the English version of the newspaper Haaretz. In it, he accused the Obama administration of living with illusions, because with Hamas rule in Gaza it is “past time to acknowledge that a single, united Palestinian national movement no longer exists.”
He added that throughout the Palestinian areas, “the anti-Western and antimodern element is flourishing, and has state backers in Iran and Syria.” [surely true] [and the US thinks a big though not only reason is Israel’s acts] [*]
While many Israeli leaders take Mr. Fayyad more seriously than that, they still argue that the timetable the Obama administration posits to begin establishment of a state — two years — is illusory because Hamas remains a threat.
“One needs to see what has taken place here during the past 17 years,” Moshe Yaalon, a top government minister, said in an interview last week in an Israeli newspaper. “The belief of land for peace has failed. We got land in return for terror in Judea and Samaria and land in return for rockets in Gaza. What, the Americans don’t see this?” [*]
Israelis are upset that Washington does not publicly criticize the Palestinian leadership for anti-Israel incitement in its media, and over the recent naming of a public square for a woman who took part in the hijacking of an Israeli bus in 1978 that led to the deaths of dozens. [Israel is understandably upset that what was good for the goose in past years has now been presumed good for gander] [*]
It remains unclear how the Americans and Israelis will settle their dispute. But the longer the dispute goes on, the more isolated Israel becomes, because much of the world disagrees with it.
As Michael Young wrote in The Daily Star newspaper of Lebanon, “More countries than ever before see Israel as the problem.”
He added that the “hardening perception is that Israel’s irresponsible settlement expansion plan is destroying all prospects for a mutually satisfactory accord with the Palestinians, and that the ensuing instability will harm everyone.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/us/politics/29force.html
March 28, 2010
Obama Team Is Divided on Tactics Against Terrorism
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [gsave] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC level, politicos, and bureaucracy] [last fall’s split over counterterrorism verses counterinsurgency] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [Obama seemingly settled parts of it but in Washington, old turf fighters never die but live to fight another day!] [USFP] [continuity and change] [*]
WASHINGTON — Senior lawyers in the Obama administration are deeply divided over some of the counterterrorism powers they inherited from former President George W. Bush, [presumably the unitary theory of executive power] [my prediction has been that Obama would find much of it too irresistible to jettison wholesale] [and so far that’s been borne out but battles continues] [*]according to interviews and a review of legal briefs.
The rift has been most pronounced between top lawyers in the State Department and the Pentagon, though it has also involved conflicts among career Justice Department l

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/us/politics/29force.html
March 28, 2010
Obama Team Is Divided on Tactics Against Terrorism
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [gsave] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC level, politicos, and bureaucracy] [last fall’s split over counterterrorism verses counterinsurgency] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [Obama seemingly settled parts of it but in Washington, old turf fighters never die but live to fight another day!] [USFP] [continuity and change] [*]
WASHINGTON — Senior lawyers in the Obama administration are deeply divided over some of the counterterrorism powers they inherited from former President George W. Bush, [presumably the unitary theory of executive power] [my prediction has been that Obama would find much of it too irresistible to jettison wholesale] [and so far that’s been borne out but battles continues] [*]according to interviews and a review of legal briefs.
The rift has been most pronounced between top lawyers in the State Department and the Pentagon, though it has also involved conflicts among career Justice Department lawyers and political appointees throughout the national security agencies. [sounds like the IC too] [*]
The discussions, which shaped classified court briefs filed this month, have centered on how broadly to define the types of terrorism suspects who may be detained without trials as wartime prisoners. [*]The outcome of the yearlong debate could reverberate through national security policies, ranging from the number of people the United States ultimately detains to decisions about who may be lawfully selected for killing using drones.
“Beyond the technical legal issues, this debate is about the fundamental question of whom we are at war with,”[*] said Noah Feldman, a Harvard law professor who specializes in war-power issues. [wasn’t it Feldman who was helpful to Bush team on Iraq?] [democracy and how to build it in Iraq?] [I wish there was more standard on labeling these folks who’ve been in former administrations then come back as experts on something?!!] [*]“The two problems most plaguing Obama in the war on terrorism are trials for terrorists and taking the fight beyond Afghanistan to places like Pakistan and Yemen. This issue of whom we are at war with defines both of them.”
In the years after the 9/11 attacks, Mr. Bush claimed virtually unlimited power as commander in chief to detain those he deemed a threat — a view so boundless that his Justice Department once told a court that it was within the president’s lawful discretion to imprison as an enemy combatant even a “little old lady in Switzerland” who had unwittingly donated to Al Qaeda. [affirmed that it’s part of unitary theory of executive’s plenary powers during wartime] [my own view is the important caveat when congress declares war must be made explicit!] [congress went out of that constitutional business, strangely enough, after WWII] [thus, things don’t simply shift to executive but easy to see how some would see it differently] [**]
But President Obama and his team, which criticized such claims as an overreach, have sought to demonstrate that the executive branch can wage war while also respecting limits imposed on presidential power by what they see as the rule of law.
In March 2009, the Obama legal team adopted a new position about who was detainable in the war on terrorism — one that showed greater deference to the international laws of war, including the Geneva Conventions, than Mr. Bush had. But what has not been known is that while the administration has stuck to that broad principle, it has been arguing over how to apply the body of law, which was developed for conventional armies, to a war against a terrorist organization. [Obama has made same demands but on different constitutional claims] [in short, he’s tried to have a distinction with little or no difference] [a big cause of continuity in USFP (role)] [*]
An examination of that conflict offers rich insight into how the team of former law professors and campaign lawyers, nearly all veterans of the Clinton administration, is shaping important policies under Mr. Obama.
In February 2009, just weeks after the inauguration, John D. Bates, a federal judge overseeing several cases involving detainees in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, asked a provocative question: Did the new administration want to modify Mr. Bush’s position that the president could wield sweeping powers to imprison people without trial as wartime detainees?
Career Justice Department lawyers handling Guantánamo lawsuits feared that rolling back the Bush position might make it harder to win. And the new acting head of the department’s Office of Legal Counsel — David Barron, a Harvard law professor and co-author of a lengthy law review critique of Bush administration claims that the commander in chief can override statutes — worried that Judge Bates had given them too little time to devise the answer. [*]
But the White House counsel, Greg Craig, a campaign adviser to Mr. Obama who had been a foreign policy official in the Clinton administration, saw this as an important opportunity to demonstrate a break with Mr. Bush. And at a White House meeting, Mr. Obama weighed in, declaring that he did not want to invoke unrestrained commander-in-chief powers in detention matters. [but Greg Craig got run out did he not?] [*]
With the president’s directions in hand, Mr. Obama’s Justice Department came back on March 13, 2009, with a more modest position than Mr. Bush had advanced. It told Judge Bates that the president could detain without trial only people who were part of Al Qaeda or its affiliates, or their “substantial” supporters. [*]The department rooted that power in the authorization granted by Congress to use military force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks. And it acknowledged that the scope and limits of that power were defined by the laws of war, as translated to a conflict against terrorists. [I frankly favor their much less startling claims but it’s curious how they build their claims?] [*]
But behind closed doors, the debate flared again that summer, when the Obama administration confronted the case of Belkacem Bensayah, an Algerian man who had been arrested in Bosnia [I vaguely remember this case] [thoiugh it’s easy to confuse with landmark habeus case of boumediene vs. Bush] [dictum: detainees have habeus rights effectively] [*]— far from the active combat zone — and was being held without trial by the United States at Guantánamo. Mr. Bensayah was accused of facilitating the travel of people who wanted to go to Afghanistan to join Al Qaeda. A judge found that such “direct support” was enough to hold him as a wartime prisoner, and the Justice Department asked an appeals court to uphold that ruling. [a bit sweeping to think the US can go get some citizen of another state because he vaguely supports aspects of al Qaeda’s resurrection of caliphate!?!] [but it’s sufficiently complex not to make sweeping statements based on it] [*]
The arguments over the case forced onto the table discussion of lingering discontent at the State Department over one aspect of the Obama position on detention. There was broad agreement that the law of armed conflict allowed the United States to detain as wartime prisoners anyone who was actually a part of Al Qaeda, as well as nonmembers who took positions alongside the enemy force and helped it. [*]But some criticized the notion that the United States could also consider mere supporters, arrested far away, to be just as detainable without trial as enemy fighters.
That view was amplified after Harold Koh, a former human-rights official and Yale Law School dean who had been a leading critic of the Bush administration’s detainee policies, became the State Department’s top lawyer in late June. Mr. Koh produced a lengthy, secret memo contending that there was no support in the laws of war for the United States’ position in the Bensayah case. [*]
Mr. Koh found himself in immediate conflict with the Pentagon’s top lawyer, Jeh C. Johnson, a former Air Force general counsel and trial lawyer who had been an adviser to Mr. Obama during the presidential campaign. Mr. Johnson produced his own secret memorandum arguing for a more flexible interpretation of who could be detained under the laws of war — now or in the future. [yikes, looks as nasty as some of the Bush infighting] [*]
In September 2009, national-security officials from across the government packed into the Office of Legal Counsel’s conference room on the fifth floor of the Justice Department, lining the walls, to watch Mr. Koh and Mr. Johnson debate around a long table. It was up to Mr. Barron, who sat at the head of the table, to decide who was right. [*]
But he did not. Instead, days later, he circulated a preliminary draft memorandum stating that while the Office of Legal Counsel had found no precedents justifying the detention of mere supporters of Al Qaeda who were picked up far away from enemy forces, it was not prepared to state any definitive conclusion. [why they thought they’d be any better at throny issues is typical of candidate and campaign hubris] [once they get into office and are responsible, role tends to dominate] [*]
So with no consensus, the legal team decided on a tactical approach. For as long as possible they would try to avoid that hard question. They changed the subject by instead asking courts to agree that people like Mr. Bensayah, looked at from another angle, had performed functions that made them effectively part of the terrorist organization — and so were clearly detainable. [*]
The appeals court has not yet ruled on Mr. Bensayah’s case. But the hours and effort that high-level officials expended on wrestling over adjustments to the reasoning in his case — only to reach the same outcome, that he was detainable without trial — dovetailed with a pattern identified by critics as varied as civil libertarians and former Bush lawyers. [shocker, not] [*]
“I think the change in tone has been important and has helped internationally,” said John B. Bellinger III, a top Bush era National Security Council and State Department lawyer. “But the change in law has been largely cosmetic. And of course there has been no change in outcome.” [spot-on analysis] [*]
But at a recent American Bar Association event, Mr. Koh argued that the administration’s changes — including requiring strict adherence to anti-torture rules and ensuring that all detainees are being held pursuant to recognizable legal authorities — have been meaningful. The United States, he said, can now defend its national-security policies as fully compliant with domestic and international law under “common and universal standards, not double standards.”
“We are not saying that we don’t have to fight battles,” he said. “We’re just saying that we should fight those battles within the framework of law.”
Last week, in another speech, Mr. Koh also for the first time outlined portions of the administration’s legal rationale for targeted killings using drone strikes, which some scholars have criticized. His remarks, however, focused on issues like whether it was lawful to single out specific enemy figures for killing — not defining the limits of who may be deemed an enemy.
But Mr. Feldman, the Harvard professor, said the detention debate also had “serious consequences” for the targeted killings policy because, “If we’re at war with you, then we can detain you — but we can also try to kill you.” [sort of interesting given Feldman’s previous affiliations that are going wholly unstated in this piece!] [*]
That said, he cautioned, additional factors complicate the analysis of selecting lawful targets. Among them, it is not clear whether Mr. Obama is more willing in classified settings to assert that, as commander in chief, he can use drone strikes to defend the country against perceived threats that cannot be linked to the Congressionally authorized war against Al Qaeda.
And even in detention matters, Bush-era theories have remained attractive to some. This January, two appeals court judges appointed by Mr. Bush — Janice Rogers Brown and Brett M. Kavanaugh, both of whom had been singled out by Democrats after their nominations as too ideological — reopened the debate by unexpectedly declaring, in another Guantánamo case, that the laws of armed conflict did not limit the president’s war powers. [*]
In the Justice Department, career litigators who defend against Guantánamo lawsuits wanted to embrace that reasoning, arguing it would help them win. Judges have sided with detainees seeking release in some 34 of 46 cases to date — though the decisions largely turned on skepticism about specific evidence, not the general legal theory about who was detainable. [presumably under both Bush and Obama] [judges don’t care who’s the president but what’s the law] [*]
But political appointees — including Mr. Barron, Mr. Koh and even Mr. Johnson — criticized the reasoning of the appeals court ruling as vulnerable to reversal and argued that the administration should not abandon its respect for the laws of war. [*]
In classified briefs filed in several detainee cases this month, officials said, the Justice Department adopted an ambivalent stance. It cited the ruling as a precedent while also reasserting its own contradictory argument that the laws of war matter. The debate would go on.
“We’ll see how the cases develop,” Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said in an interview in February, in the midst of that latest round. But, he added, “I don’t think we are going to deviate from our argument.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/europe/29europe.html
March 28, 2010
Europeans Woo U.S., Promising Relevance
By STEVEN ERLANGER [Europe] [EU] [home of euro parliament, Brussels] [Belgium] [interesting eagerness to get back to closeness with US of past?] [the perception that US and Europe are not as close as once were?] [in my view it’s as simple as mistaken perception: US simply has global interest and in multipolar (versus CW bipolarity) it’s US working on many fronts simultaneously] [overreacted to Bush administration’s “old Europe” and now to Obama’s perceived slights] [Euro ethos] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [use ir text] [followup] [*]
BRUSSELS — Stung by a perception of America’s indifference to its historical alliance with Europe, senior European leaders are calling for a rebalancing of the relationship, promising the Obama administration that the Europeans can be partners for global challenges ranging from security to climate change. [that’s a nice change: Europe fretting over pleasing US?] [*]
A high-level conference here on Sunday was dominated by European efforts to get

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/europe/29europe.html
March 28, 2010
Europeans Woo U.S., Promising Relevance
By STEVEN ERLANGER [Europe] [EU] [home of euro parliament, Brussels] [Belgium] [interesting eagerness to get back to closeness with US of past?] [the perception that US and Europe are not as close as once were?] [in my view it’s as simple as mistaken perception: US simply has global interest and in multipolar (versus CW bipolarity) it’s US working on many fronts simultaneously] [overreacted to Bush administration’s “old Europe” and now to Obama’s perceived slights] [Euro ethos] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [use ir text] [followup] [*]
BRUSSELS — Stung by a perception of America’s indifference to its historical alliance with Europe, senior European leaders are calling for a rebalancing of the relationship, promising the Obama administration that the Europeans can be partners for global challenges ranging from security to climate change. [that’s a nice change: Europe fretting over pleasing US?] [*]
A high-level conference here on Sunday was dominated by European efforts to get Washington’s attention, with promises of new, concerted action that were met with polite skepticism. American officials and European experts largely see European national leaders as focused on their own debates about Greece and the debt crisis afflicting the group of countries that use the euro, divided over China and Russia and tired of Afghanistan. Europe is seen just now as not a problem for the United States, but not much help, either.
But the European message here was striking, both as a response to criticism from Washington and as an effort by Europe’s new leadership, put in place under the Lisbon Treaty, to articulate a new foundation for an old relationship that most take for granted. [*]
The European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, urged Europeans to “think global and act trans-Atlantic.” After President Obama’s postponement of a European Union-United States summit meeting, which caused resentment in Europe, Mr. Barroso, speaking to the conference here, the Brussels Forum of the German Marshall Fund, called for future summit meetings to be more substantive, less scripted and “much more efficient and results-oriented.”
The new president of the European Union, Herman Van Rompuy, said it was vital “to translate this shared history and our shared values into a shared future.” Both Europe and the United States “are entitled to ask the other: ‘What do you bring to the table?’ ” he said. “The only easy relationship is an empty relationship.”
The NATO secretary general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, said he had his own cure for the trans-Atlantic marital blues — construction of a missile-defense system over Europe in cooperation with Russia. Stung by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates’s recent criticism of “the demilitarization of Europe” and Europe’s “aversion to using military force and the risks that go with it,” Mr. Rasmussen insisted that the burden of fighting in Afghanistan was shared by Europe, and that non-American forces made up 40 percent of the troops there and had taken 40 percent of the casualties. [what they perceived as stinging most Americans perceived as appropriate and perhaps a tad overdue?] [*]
A missile-defense system is “an opportunity for Europe to demonstrate again to the United States that the allies are willing and able to invest in our common defense,” he said, though many Europeans question the need for such a missile defense system, which would be aimed at deterring Iran. Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s new foreign policy chief, said that “we are not trying to get the attention of the U.S. because we need help. We want to work together with the U.S. in order to see how we can help.” [cool] [*]
Anne-Marie Slaughter, the State Department’s director of policy planning, was polite, saying that her boss, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, found it “enormously important to pick up the phone and immediately talk to her E.U. counterpart,” Ms. Ashton, “and also to the prime ministers and foreign ministers she would talk to.” [*]
The big shift, Ms. Slaughter said later, “is how much we measure the relationship in terms of what we do together in the world instead of how much we focus on Europe. It’s not about the relationship as an end in itself, but what we can do together, and there is work to be done on that issue.”
That is the problem, said R. Nicholas Burns, a former senior American official and ambassador to NATO, now a professor at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. “We heard a lot of platitudes,” he said. “Many to me sound very hollow.” Most European nations are spending less on defense than they promised and are avoiding the main battles in Afghanistan, he said. [okay, that’s a little more pointed than usual] [and that’s coming from a US professional diplomat, at least former one] [bush administration heavy weight] [but again it’s perhaps more reflective of small group of peeved Americans in first Bush term (mostly over Iraq but somewhat broader) rather than current US or Obama sentiment?] [*]
After Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Burns said, with Europe enlarged and the Balkan wars over, “U.S. vital interests shifted” to the Middle East, Afghanistan, China and Iran. “We shifted eastward and Europe didn’t,” he said. “Europe should be our natural ally, if we can get together on the Middle East, Russia and China. But we can’t seem to find that strategic consensus.” [hardly surprising without a USSR to rally disparate pieces together] [and the Franco-American relation has been this strong in decades?] [*] NATO itself is “faltering,” he said. “It’s being hollowed out and not performing up to par.” The United States, he said, “is not getting the support it needs.”
The construction of the European Union has been a marvel, Mr. Burns said, and Europeans talk about it as a global power. “But can they develop a collective European idea of global power? They talk about it a lot, but they don’t do it.”
François Lafond, director of the German Marshall Fund’s Paris office, said that “Europeans asking for more attention is a way of asking ourselves what we bring to the table.” The supposed Obama indifference has been a kind of alarm bell. “Both sides are defining what is important, and there is no answer yet, but they know there is a problem.”
But Europe is not ready for a serious discussion with Washington, said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, a research group based in London. “You can’t build a good trans-Atlantic relationship unless you have a Europe that knows what it wants,” he said. [so very true] [*]
On the issues that Washington cares most about, Mr. Grant said, the Europeans are divided or their common position weak. And the euro crisis, he said, “means we’re introspective.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:50 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032802879.html
Some in Indonesia praise, seek to replicate China's fight against United States
By Andrew Higgins
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 29, 2010; A09 [Indonesia] [SEA] [“extremism” competing with traditional SEA culture in archipelago] [democratization] [followup] [Indonesia (world most populous Islamic country), Pakistan (2nd most), India’s 151 million (3rd most) and Bangladesh (4th most)] [the top 4 most populous Muslims countries are Asia] [followup March 9 and Feb.] [*]
Amid cries of "God is Great," the former chief of staff of the Indonesian army joined hard-line Muslim activists in a Jakarta ballroom last week to denounce the United States -- and praise China as a model of how to stand up to Washington.
"We should do what China has done; America must follow our rules," declared retired Gen. Tyasno Sudarto. Veiled women and bearded men, seated separately to avoid mingling of the sexes, shouted praise for Allah and jabbed their fists in the air. Another speaker hailed China for defying Washington's "neo-liberal" economic creed. [strikes me as odd that an Indonesian general would call for following China’s path!] [China has cracked down on Muslims (Uighurs and others); add Indonesia’s history with ethnic Chinese?] [*]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032802879.html
Some in Indonesia praise, seek to replicate China's fight against United States
By Andrew Higgins
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 29, 2010; A09 [Indonesia] [SEA] [“extremism” competing with traditional SEA culture in archipelago] [democratization] [followup] [Indonesia (world most populous Islamic country), Pakistan (2nd most), India’s 151 million (3rd most) and Bangladesh (4th most)] [the top 4 most populous Muslims countries are Asia] [followup March 9 and Feb.] [*]
Amid cries of "God is Great," the former chief of staff of the Indonesian army joined hard-line Muslim activists in a Jakarta ballroom last week to denounce the United States -- and praise China as a model of how to stand up to Washington.
"We should do what China has done; America must follow our rules," declared retired Gen. Tyasno Sudarto. Veiled women and bearded men, seated separately to avoid mingling of the sexes, shouted praise for Allah and jabbed their fists in the air. Another speaker hailed China for defying Washington's "neo-liberal" economic creed. [strikes me as odd that an Indonesian general would call for following China’s path!] [China has cracked down on Muslims (Uighurs and others); add Indonesia’s history with ethnic Chinese?] [*]
The boisterous event, organized by an Islamic organization called Hizb ut-Tahrir, brought together two groups of Indonesians that don't usually mix -- fervent champions of an Islamic state and zealous secular nationalists. [*]What united them was a shared fury at Washington and the hope that Beijing can put America in its place. [*]
Their take on China -- a country ruled by an atheistic Communist Party -- marks a curious shift in thinking by Islamists and hard-core nationalists who have traditionally viewed Beijing, as well as each other, with deep distrust. The new thinking is a sign of how Beijing's growing economic and diplomatic power is scrambling old assumptions and alliances, sometimes in volatile and unlikely ways. [well fine, but it seems somewhat ignorant of Indonesia’s own and certainly China’s history] [*]
For more than four decades -- ever since Beijing armed and financed Indonesian communists plotting to seize power in 1965 -- China has been viewed by many here as a menace. Fear of China was reinforced by a widespread suspicion, and also jealousy, of Indonesia's economically powerful ethnic Chinese minority. In 1998, pro-democracy protests that toppled Suharto degenerated into an anti-Chinese pogrom. It used to be illegal in Indonesia to publicly display Chinese writing, and Chinese New Year lion dances were banned. [exactly; 5th column cries and the like] [*]
Such wariness of China has far from vanished but is now balanced by esteem for its economic achievements and its role in shifting the balance of power in world affairs in Asia's favor. "Lingering suspicion of China is still present but this is offset by admiration for China's successes," said Juwono Sudarsono, a former defense minister and professor of international relations at the University of Indonesia.
The fervently anti-American speakers in the Jakarta ballroom don't represent the mainstream here but their view of China tracks with a broader shift in attitudes. China has won a particularly strong following among those upset with the free-market policy prescriptions of the so-called "Washington consensus," which many Indonesians blame for a severe economic crisis in the late 1990s. The Washington-based International Monetary Fund is widely loathed in Indonesia. Islamists, right-wing nationalists and activists on the left routinely denounce the IMF.
The rival policy, the so-called "Beijing consensus," which puts the state at the center of economic development, is seen as a promising alternative "even among some educated Indonesians," Sudarsono said. But, he added, many realize "it is very hard to imitate the Communist Party of China" in Indonesia, which has spent the last decade building a vibrant democracy on the ruins of Suharto's authoritarian system.
While China enjoys emotional appeal as an alternative to American power and "neo-liberal" economics, it has struggled to win over constituencies more concerned with reality than ideology. [*]For example, Indonesian industrialists and farmers, worried by the prospect of a surge in Chinese imports, have complained about a new free trade agreement that creates a huge free-trade zone comprising China, Indonesia and other members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN. They want the agreement, known as CAFTA, which went into force Jan. 1, renegotiated.
In a recent speech in Jakarta to the Indonesian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, China's ambassador to Indonesia, Zhang Qiyue, voiced frustration at what she said is alarmist talk that "the Chinese dragon is coming." Indonesia, she said, "is lagging behind." [*]
Washington, for its part, has worked to strengthen already close ties with Jakarta's leadership and lift the United States' reputation with the general public, which plummeted during the Bush administration. This effort hasn't been helped by President Obama's decision to twice postpone visits to Jakarta, where he lived for four years as a boy. But, unlike his predecessor, the president is hugely popular among many Indonesians. [*]
While China has emphasized economics in its ties with Jakarta, Obama has focused on Indonesia's credentials as a democracy -- the third biggest after India and the United States. Washington doesn't say so publicly, but Indonesia and Asia's two other big democracies, India and Japan, are seen by U.S. officials as a bulwark against the rising influence of authoritarian China.
Indonesia, wary of upsetting China, insists that it's not going to gang up on anyone and will pursue a foreign policy guided by what, in a recent speech in Australia, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono described as the principle of a "million friends and zero enemy." [*]
A few hours after the White House announced that Obama would put off a March trip to Jakarta until at least June, Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa held a press conference and said his government had no hard feelings. And anyway, he added, Jakarta has its hands full preparing for the arrival of another important visitor -- the prime minister of China. "We have very good relationships with China and the U.S.," Natalegawa said. [*]© 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:49 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/middleeast/30mideast.html
March 29, 2010
Ministers Reaffirm Jerusalem Stance
By ETHAN BRONNER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [some of the context of Israeli domestic politics and how jumbled with religious zealotry it’s become!] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [I’ve attempted to frame the crisis ongoing in Israel where the settlers have become mainstream and Israel has shifted away from 2-state solution majority] [Bibi’s govt reflects that reality] [*]
JERUSALEM — Senior Israeli ministers have publicly rejected American demands for curbs on Jewish building in East Jerusalem and other concessions to the Palestinians, indicating no imminent end to the rift between Jerusalem and Washington. [*]
Benny Begin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner cabinet — which has met twice since Mr. Netanyahu returned from Washington last week — said Monday on Israel Radio that the status of East Jerusalem should be resolved in direct negotiations with the Palestinians, not in advance.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/middleeast/30mideast.html
March 29, 2010
Ministers Reaffirm Jerusalem Stance
By ETHAN BRONNER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [some of the context of Israeli domestic politics and how jumbled with religious zealotry it’s become!] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [I’ve attempted to frame the crisis ongoing in Israel where the settlers have become mainstream and Israel has shifted away from 2-state solution majority] [Bibi’s govt reflects that reality] [*]
JERUSALEM — Senior Israeli ministers have publicly rejected American demands for curbs on Jewish building in East Jerusalem and other concessions to the Palestinians, indicating no imminent end to the rift between Jerusalem and Washington. [*]
Benny Begin, a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s inner cabinet — which has met twice since Mr. Netanyahu returned from Washington last week — said Monday on Israel Radio that the status of East Jerusalem should be resolved in direct negotiations with the Palestinians, not in advance.
“It’s irritating and certainly a cause of concern,” Mr. Begin said of the American request. “This change will definitely bring about the opposite of the declared goal. It will bring about a hardening in the policy of the Arabs and of the Palestinian Authority.” [his sentiment is understandable, but contrary to US interests] [at these times the US must think of its interests first and Israel’s second (just as Israelis must do reverse)] [*]
Mr. Netanyahu, who met with President Obama in the White House last week, has promised answers to his requests regarding Jerusalem and other confidence building measures aimed at starting indirect talks with the Palestinian Authority. But with Passover starting Monday night, the prime minister was not expected to convene his inner cabinet again till midweek to fashion a reply. [see today’s govt] [*]
Avigdor Lieberman, the foreign minister and another member of the inner group of seven ministers, said in a newspaper interview that the Obama demands included a building freeze in most of the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem. He added: “I have not seen anyone among the seven who has consented to this. The past few days have taught me that there is no point to further concessions.”
Mr. Netanyahu himself has said that he could not see acceding to any request that slowed down or interfered with construction of Jewish homes in East Jerusalem which Israel annexed in 1967, a move unrecognized by the rest of the world. [*]
Ehud Barak, the defense minister and Labor party leader, also in the group of seven, the only member from a left-of-center party, told military reporters on Sunday that Israel alone was responsible for its safety but said keeping strong relations with the United States was vital. [demonstrates how far the societal view has moved in Israel] [*]
He also said that the specifics of the American requests were less important than the message from Israel that it was “with them and serious about the peace process.”
Mr. Lieberman’s comments in Maariv newspaper took nearly the opposite approach, saying he had opposed from the start the mission of George J. Mitchell, the American envoy to the region, and his position had now been validated.
“I warned the government that in the end, we would be maneuvered into the corner, and would stand in it alone against the whole world,” he said of the Mitchell approach. “Now a year later, we have reached exactly the situation that I feared.” [well yes, because the US is firmly for 2-state solution] [Bush explicitly said so and now Obama has] [*]
Mr. Lieberman heads the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party and although he holds the foreign affairs portfolio, he has been essentially kept out of direct dealings with Washington or relations with Arab countries because of his positions. Still, as a member of the inner seven minister group and leader of the country’s third largest party, he has influence.
He does not give many newspaper interviews, preferring public comments and speeches. In Maariv, his radical views were on display. He said, for example, that the only hope for the Israeli-Palestinian dispute was not a negotiated two-state solution but a land swap and population exchange in which Palestinian citizens of Israel would end up in a Palestinian state.
Asked how he expected the international community to accept that, he said, “The world will accept anything that we rally around.” He added: “The world is fed up with us. They want a solution by all possible means. We have become a global headache.” [ya got that right] [*]
Mr. Lieberman, who lives in a West Bank settlement, said he had no intention of taking his party out of the coalition even if his approach was rejected by the government. He predicted that in the next election, his party would become dominant by doubling its number of seats in parliament.
On the question of Washington’s demands regarding East Jerusalem, he said he was certain Israel could convince the administration that curbing Jewish building was unreasonable. Asked what he would do if he was unsuccessful, he replied, “There will be no choice but to insist, to pay the price even if it is high.” [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:48 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/asia/29news.html
March 28, 2010
North Koreans Use Cellphones to Bare Secrets
By CHOE SANG-HUN [DPRK] [North Korea] [US and 6-way talks] [DPRK-US relations] [hartening to hear resistance to that awful regime] [however, typically when resistance has formed the regime has cracked down brutally—expect some horrible crackdown] [followup] [more evidence of North Koreans saying “enough”?] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea, one of the world’s most impenetrable nations, is facing a new threat: networks of its own citizens feeding information about life there to South Korea and its Western allies.
The networks are the creation of a handful of North Korean defectors and South Korean human rights activists using cellphones to pierce North Korea’s near-total news blackout. To build the networks, recruiters slip into China to woo the few North Koreans allowed to travel there, provide cellphones to smuggle across the border, then post informers’ phoned and texted reports on Web sites. [*]
The work is risky. Recruiters spend months identifying and coaxing potential informants,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/asia/29news.html
March 28, 2010
North Koreans Use Cellphones to Bare Secrets
By CHOE SANG-HUN [DPRK] [North Korea] [US and 6-way talks] [DPRK-US relations] [hartening to hear resistance to that awful regime] [however, typically when resistance has formed the regime has cracked down brutally—expect some horrible crackdown] [followup] [more evidence of North Koreans saying “enough”?] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea, one of the world’s most impenetrable nations, is facing a new threat: networks of its own citizens feeding information about life there to South Korea and its Western allies.
The networks are the creation of a handful of North Korean defectors and South Korean human rights activists using cellphones to pierce North Korea’s near-total news blackout. To build the networks, recruiters slip into China to woo the few North Koreans allowed to travel there, provide cellphones to smuggle across the border, then post informers’ phoned and texted reports on Web sites. [*]
The work is risky. Recruiters spend months identifying and coaxing potential informants, all the while evading agents from the North and the Chinese police bent on stopping their work. The North Koreans face even greater danger; exposure could lead to imprisonment — or death.
The result has been a news free-for-all, a jumble of sometimes confirmed but often contradictory reports. Some have been important; the Web sites were the first to report the outrage among North Koreans over a drastic currency revaluation late last year. Other articles have been more prosaic, covering topics like whether North Koreans keep pets and their complaints about the price of rice. [*]
But the fact that such news is leaking out at all is something of a revolution for a brutally efficient gulag state that has forcibly cloistered its people for decades even as other closed societies have reluctantly accepted at least some of the intrusions of a more wired world.[*] “In an information vacuum like North Korea, any additional tidbits — even in the swamp of rumors — is helpful,” said Nicholas Eberstadt, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute who has chronicled the country’s economic and population woes for decades.
“You didn’t used to be able to get that kind of information,” he said of the reports on the currency crisis. “It was fascinating to see the pushback from the lower levels” of North Korean society.
Taken together, the now-steady leak of “heard-in-Korea” news is factoring into ever swirling intelligence debates about whether there is a possibility of government collapse, something every American president since Harry S. Truman has wished for, and none have witnessed. [*]
The news the informants are spiriting out is not likely to answer the questions about the North’s nuclear program or leadership succession that the United States cares about most. There is no evidence so far that these new sources have any access, or particular insight, into the North Korean leadership or military elite.
The informers themselves remain of limited use to American and South Korean spymasters, in part because the North has no broad cellphone network, making it easier for the authorities to eavesdrop on calls and harder for handlers to direct operatives in real time.
As one senior American intelligence official put it, “You’re not going to find the North Korean uranium project from these guys.” So the traditional methods of intelligence collection — using satellite imagery, phone and computer intercepts, and informants and agents of South Korea’s intelligence service — remain the main sources of information.
Still, the Web sites appear to have inflicted damage. North Korea’s spy agencies, which almost never admit to weaknesses, recently warned that South Korea’s “plot to overthrow our system, employing all manners and means of spying, is spreading from the periphery of our territory and deeply inland.” They vowed retaliation, especially against “human trash,” [**] an apparent reference to the North Koreans who have betrayed their leaders’ code of silence out of principle or for pay to supplement their usually meager wages.
The informers’ networks are part of broader changes in intelligence gathering rooted in the North’s weaknesses. The first breakthrough came in the 1990s, when famine stoked by a breakdown in the socialist rationing system drove defectors out of the country and into the arms of South Korean and American intelligence agencies. The famine also led North Korea to allow traders to cross the border into China to bring home food, leaving them vulnerable to foreign agents, the news media and, most recently, the defectors and activists intent on forcing change in the North. [*]
The first of their Web sites opened five years ago; there are now five. At least three of the sites receive some financing from the United States Congress through the National Endowment for Democracy. [always assumed so but confirmation] [congress regularly provides funds for covert programs in the worst pariah states: Iran, DPRK, Cuba, others][*]
The Web reports have been especially eye-opening for South Koreans, providing a rare glimpse of the aptly named Hermit Kingdom untainted by their own government’s biases, whether the anti-Communists who present the North in the worst light or liberals who gloss over bad news for fear of jeopardizing chances at détente.
“I take pride in my work,” said Mun Seong-hwi, a defector turned Web journalist with the site Daily NK, who works with the informers and uses an alias to protect relatives he left behind. “I help the outside world see North Korea as it is.”
Even in the days of the Iron Curtain, North Korea was one of the world’s most closed societies. There were few Western embassies where spies could pose as diplomats. And with citizens deputized to watch one another for suspicious activities, strangers could not escape notice for long.
Of the 8,400 agents South Korea sent over the border between the end of the Korean War in 1953 and 1994, just 2,200, or about 1 in 4, made it home. Some defected, according to former agents, but many were killed.
As recently as 2008, when the North’s leader, Kim Jong-il, reportedly had a stroke, it was long-distance sleuthing rather than on-the-ground spying that broke the news. South Korean agents intercepted a government e-mail message containing his brain scans, [*]according to the Monthly Chosun magazine.
The Web sites have not uncovered news that delicate, although the implications of their reports on the currency crisis, later confirmed by South Korean government officials, were far-reaching. They said that the North was requiring people to exchange old banknotes for new ones at a rate of 100 to 1, [beggar thy society instead of neighbor] [*]as well as limiting the amount of old money that could be swapped. That suggested that officials in the North were cracking down on the few glimmers of private enterprise that they had tolerated, dashing hopes that the country might follow China’s lead of at least opening its economy anytime soon.
Still, the Web sites are plagued with challenges. The cellphones work on China’s cellular networks, so they operate only within several miles of the Chinese border. Because North Koreans cannot travel freely in their country, the Web sites are forced to depend mostly on people who live near China.
Beyond that, Ha Tae-keung, who runs one of the Web sites, says that some sources are prone to exaggerate, possibly in the hopes of earning the bonuses he offers for scoops. He and other Web site operators, meanwhile, are vulnerable to “information brokers” in the North who sell fake news.
But Mr. Ha said that the quality of the information was improving as Web sites hired more defectors who left government jobs and remained in touch with former colleagues, often by cellphone. “These officials provide news because they feel uncertain about the future of their regime and want to have a link with the outside world,” he said, “or because of their friendship with the defectors working for us, or because of money.”
While such contacts would have been unimaginable 20 years ago, one thing has not changed: the danger.
Mr. Mun of Daily NK says his informers engage in a constant game of cat and mouse with the authorities. The North Korean government can monitor cellphone calls, but tracing them is harder, so the police rove the countryside in jeeps equipped with tracking devices.
The informants call him once a week; they never give their names, and they hide the phones far from their homes.
Despite those precautions, they are sometimes caught. This month, Mr. Ha’s Web site reported that an arms factory worker was found with a cellphone and confessed to feeding information to South Korea. A source said the informant was publicly executed by firing squad. [*]
David E. Sanger contributed reporting from Washington.
An earlier version of this article was published in print in the International Herald Tribune on Jan. 25, 2010, and was published on nytimes.com on Jan. 24, 2010.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:47 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032802722.html
Fear of more terror attacks drives demand for sniffer dogs in India
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 29, 2010; A10 [India] [Mumbai, previously known as Bombay, anniversary just passed] [SAsia] [subcont.] [communal violence within and between that has led to the precipice of regional war multiple times] [followup] [the 1992 incident that nearly blew India to pieces] [now, it’s 20 years later] [slow but changes nonetheless?] [India too is expecting attacks soon though India is nearly always in said stance] [I’ve been expecting something since recent announcment that talks to get underway again] [*]
Aman in a camouflage uniform held a leash and ordered, "Sniff! Search!"
A black Labrador retriever began sniffing immediately at items piled on the ground: dolls, toy cars, a plastic dump truck. When his nose rubbed a gray briefcase, he stopped, wagged his tail and sat down. A hidden explosive had been discovered.
The 16-month-old Lab, curiously named Boom, is an ace sleuth in India's battle against terrorism and one of hundreds of dogs at India's largest military-run training center.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/28/AR2010032802722.html
Fear of more terror attacks drives demand for sniffer dogs in India
By Rama Lakshmi
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 29, 2010; A10 [India] [Mumbai, previously known as Bombay, anniversary just passed] [SAsia] [subcont.] [communal violence within and between that has led to the precipice of regional war multiple times] [followup] [the 1992 incident that nearly blew India to pieces] [now, it’s 20 years later] [slow but changes nonetheless?] [India too is expecting attacks soon though India is nearly always in said stance] [I’ve been expecting something since recent announcment that talks to get underway again] [*]
Aman in a camouflage uniform held a leash and ordered, "Sniff! Search!"
A black Labrador retriever began sniffing immediately at items piled on the ground: dolls, toy cars, a plastic dump truck. When his nose rubbed a gray briefcase, he stopped, wagged his tail and sat down. A hidden explosive had been discovered.
The 16-month-old Lab, curiously named Boom, is an ace sleuth in India's battle against terrorism and one of hundreds of dogs at India's largest military-run training center.
Sniffer dogs are in high demand in India as officials boost security in the aftermath of the deadly Mumbai attacks in November 2008. The army has long used dogs to battle separatist violence in the states of Kashmir and Punjab. [*]But as insurgents and terrorists expand their targets across the country, dogs are also being deployed to malls, metro stations, luxury hotels and other public places in India's booming new cities. [Punjab in Pakistan and India] [India fears, understandably, the spread last year of insurgency to Punjab] [*]
The country's handful of sniffer dog training centers are run by the military. The institute here in the northern city of Meerut supplies trained dogs to the army, paramilitary forces, commando squads and police departments across India. Officials say the 50-year-old center has never had such a high volume of orders.
"The demand for sniffer dogs is colossal, and it has grown multi-fold since the Mumbai terror attacks. Every city wants more and more sniffer dogs now," said Commandant M.L. Sharma, chief of the Remount and Veterinary Corps, the army's premier training institute, which breeds, rears and trains dogs like Boom. "To meet this demand, we have to urgently grow 2 1/2 times in our capacity in the next two years."
New Delhi's police department has 32 sniffer dogs and has ordered 50 more ahead of the Commonwealth Games in October. Major airports have increased the number of sniffer dogs by at least 50 percent since 2008. The National Security Guard, an elite commando force, needs dog teams at its new regional hubs. [*]
"We had to wait a long time for our dogs," said Rajan Bhagat, a senior police officer in New Delhi. "The pressure on the government and private breeders and trainers is too much."
Until the Mumbai attacks, private security in India meant a uniformed guard standing at the gate with a baton.
"Every bomb blast is a new wake-up call. Malls, cinemas, five-star hotels and offices now want their private security agencies to bring the dogs to sanitize their sites daily. India cannot afford expensive electronic explosive-detection devices, so dogs are a cheaper alternative," said Paramjit Singh, head of Taser India, an Arizona-based company that makes non-lethal stun guns and set up an office here after the Mumbai attacks.
India's private security industry is largely unregulated, and Singh said many companies "are fooling their clients by walking untrained Labradors." [*]
Private security agencies say they do not have enough qualified trainers, and, because they lack access to explosives, they use firecrackers to train their dogs.
Anil Dhawan, president of the Asian Professional Security Association, India, said the country has become "a big market right now for international security companies specializing in trained sniffer dogs. Companies from Israel and the U.K. are looking to come here.
"But bringing the dogs and the handlers from abroad will be very expensive" for private establishments such as hotels and malls, Dhawan said.
At the military academy, dogs go through rigorous basic obedience training, take puppy aptitude tests and speed-walk on treadmills. One of the academy's star graduates, Bhanu, won a national medal for his work during the Mumbai attacks. [*]
The training is not without hazard to the dogs. Dogs who sniff explosives constantly during training often have lung damage and a shorter life span, dog trainers say.
"It becomes like a smoker's chest. It brings down their vitality," Col. Sanjiv Bhalla said at the army's training center here. "The sniffer dogs live for about eight years, whereas a regular pet dog lives for 12 years." Beginning next month, Bhalla said, the center will begin testing with samples of non-hazardous explosives imported from the United States.
India's torrid summer months pose another problem for Labs. Their effective work hours are reduced, they get severely dehydrated and their noses bleed. Some Indian trainers are planning to import U.S.-made jackets with cooling packs for the dogs. [*]
On a recent morning, six spiffy sniffer dogs in New Delhi's police department lined up for their day's duties, which included sniffing for explosives on the routes taken by VIP politicians' cars, at the railway station and in a stadium where the World Cup Hockey tournament was being played.
Sub-Inspector Digvijay Singh looked fondly at the dogs from a room with peeling walls adorned with plastic flowers and dog medals. "These dogs are patriotic Indians," Singh said. "They are better than our men, because they don't take bribes." [*] © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:47 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/europe/30mood.html
March 29, 2010
Attacks Reawaken Fear of Caucasus Rebels
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [Moscow only reporting region generally and Chechnya specifically but it’s early] [*]
MOSCOW — Investigators were still marching in and out of the Lubyanka subway station on Monday morning, but Nina Ivanovna, a 57-year-old pensioner, was not waiting around to hear what they were going to say.
She stared coldly at the staircase where wounded and weeping passengers had streamed away from the chaos of a suicide bombing, and said, with a curl of her lip, who she thought was behind it.
“It’s the Chechens,” she said. “They will never let us live in peace. Solzhenitsyn correctly said that we should build a Great Wall of China to keep them away from us. They should be locked away. They hate us, and they will always hate us.” [*]
During the six years since the last suicide bomb attack on the Moscow metro, Muscovites

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/europe/30mood.html
March 29, 2010
Attacks Reawaken Fear of Caucasus Rebels
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [Moscow only reporting region generally and Chechnya specifically but it’s early] [*]
MOSCOW — Investigators were still marching in and out of the Lubyanka subway station on Monday morning, but Nina Ivanovna, a 57-year-old pensioner, was not waiting around to hear what they were going to say.
She stared coldly at the staircase where wounded and weeping passengers had streamed away from the chaos of a suicide bombing, and said, with a curl of her lip, who she thought was behind it.
“It’s the Chechens,” she said. “They will never let us live in peace. Solzhenitsyn correctly said that we should build a Great Wall of China to keep them away from us. They should be locked away. They hate us, and they will always hate us.” [*]
During the six years since the last suicide bomb attack on the Moscow metro, Muscovites came to think of themselves as comfortably insulated from the guerrilla war going on in the Caucasus. They lost the jittery reflexes of a decade when Russians refused to board airplanes beside a veiled woman, or waited for the last train car because they assumed suicide bombers would get on at the front. [*]
That fear reshaped the Russian state at the beginning of this decade. Vladimir V. Putin, then president, used the terrorist threat to justify a sweeping consolidation of power and was credited with bringing the years of violence to an end. But old anxiety rushed back to the surface on Monday, when commuters handed over wads of cash to taxis rather than descend into the subway. [Russia’s or Putin’s fortuitous embrace of Bush doctrine] [*]
Many were asking the same question: Is it starting again?
“You know, I don’t think it ever actually stopped,” said Aleksandr Zharkov, 22, a graduate student in mathematics, standing near one of the bombing sites. He said he had sought out information on the Internet about fighting in the Caucasus, and been surprised by how much was still going on.
“As long as it’s still going on there,” he said, “it can happen anywhere.”
Last year saw a sharp uptick in clashes between government forces and militants in the republics of Chechnya, Dagestan and Ingushetia — and, ominously, the return of suicide bombings as a common tactic. In November came the first major attack outside the Caucasus in years, when a remote-controlled bomb killed 26 people aboard the Nevsky Express train on its way from Moscow to St. Petersburg. [*]
This month, federal forces carried out a series of major raids and claimed to have killed two major figures in the insurgency: Aleksandr Tikhomirov, who is said to have recruited and trained waves of young suicide bombers, and Anzor Astemirov, who is believed to have planned major attacks on federal forces in 2004 and 2005.
Some onlookers on Monday said it was clear what was needed — a crackdown. Tamerlan Khaloyev, 69, a retired teacher who is from the Caucasian region of North Ossetia himself, stood in the teeming square and mourned the iron order of the Soviet Union.
“In the Soviet time there were no suicide bombers,” he said. “Stalin took care of all them. They did as he said.” [ethos] [pining for Stalin!] [*]
Then he turned regretfully to the hump of land in the middle of square, which for decades housed a towering statue of Feliks E. Dzerzhinksy, the founder of the Bolshevik secret police. In 1991 a cheering anti-Communist crowd pulled down the monument. If it was still standing, Mr. Khaloyev said, “none of this would be going on.”
A retiree who would only give his first name, Boris, was standing by a row of ambulances at the corner of the square. He, too, was thinking about Mr. Dzerzhinsky.
“They took him down and look what happened,” he said. “They should put him back.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/europe/30moscow.html
March 29, 2010
Subway Blasts Kill Dozens in Moscow
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [Moscow only reporting region generally and Chechnya specifically but it’s early] [*]
MOSCOW — Female suicide bombers set off huge explosions in two subway stations in central Moscow during the Monday morning rush hour, Russian officials said, killing more than three dozen people [*]and raising fears that the Muslim insurgency in southern Russia was once again being brought to the country’s heart.
The first attack occurred as commuters were exiting a packed train at a station near the headquarters of the F.S.B., [*]the successor to the Soviet-era K.G.B. Officials said they suspected that the attack there was intended as a message to the security services, which have helped lead the crackdown on Islamic extremism in Chechnya and other parts of the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/30/world/europe/30moscow.html
March 29, 2010
Subway Blasts Kill Dozens in Moscow
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [Islamic insurgencies in Caucasus] [use ir text and use psci350] [what looks to be jihadi attacks on Moscow] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [Moscow only reporting region generally and Chechnya specifically but it’s early] [*]
MOSCOW — Female suicide bombers set off huge explosions in two subway stations in central Moscow during the Monday morning rush hour, Russian officials said, killing more than three dozen people [*]and raising fears that the Muslim insurgency in southern Russia was once again being brought to the country’s heart.
The first attack occurred as commuters were exiting a packed train at a station near the headquarters of the F.S.B., [*]the successor to the Soviet-era K.G.B. Officials said they suspected that the attack there was intended as a message to the security services, which have helped lead the crackdown on Islamic extremism in Chechnya and other parts of the Caucasus region in southern Russia. [Chechnya appears to come up as default; could easily be Dagestan, Ingushetia, elsewhere] [*]
The two explosions spread panic throughout the capital as people searched for missing relatives and friends, and the authorities tried to determine whether more attacks were planned. The subway system is one of the world’s most extensive and well-managed, and it serves as a vital artery for Moscow’s commuters, carrying as many as 10 million people a day.
“The terrorist acts were carried out by two female terrorist bombers,” said Moscow’s mayor, Yuri M. Luzhkov. “They happened at a time when there would be the maximum number of victims.” [*]
Mr. Luzhkov said 23 people were killed in the first explosion, at the Lubyanka station, and 12 people were killed 40 minutes later at the Park Kultury station. At least two others died later. More than 100 people were injured. [famous spot due to infamous KGB prison there] [*]
There were no immediate claims of responsibility. [*]
Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, the country’s paramount leader, cut short a trip to Siberia, returning to Moscow to oversee the federal response. Mr. Putin built his reputation in part on his success at suppressing terrorism, so the attacks could be considered a challenge to his stature.
Mr. Putin vowed that “the terrorists will be destroyed.” [*]
President Dmitri A. Medvedev, Mr. Putin’s protégé, was in Moscow and was briefed on the blasts by top law enforcement and security advisers. Photographs showed scenes of devastation, with bodies strewn across subway cars and station platforms.
Pavel Y. Novikov, 25, an electrician, said he was evacuated from the Park Kultury station about 15 minutes after the explosion.
“It smelled like burned rubber,” he said. “I saw blood, and I saw bloody clothes on the ground. It was so horrible.”
Kirill Gribov, 20, a university student, said he was on a train that arrived at the Park Kultury station just as the suicide bomber detonated her explosive belt on the train across the platform.
“The explosion was so loud that we all were deafened,” Mr. Gribov said. “Then I remember a cloud of gas coming from the wrecked train in front of us, colored in pink, maybe because of blood. Some people were in panic, some stood still, but all of us somehow found our way outside the station. It was only at the street when I realized what had just happened. Mobile service was blocked, I couldn’t even call my parents, and I had to walk several kilometers because of the traffic.”
In the early part of the last decade, the subway system suffered several attacks related to the separatist war in Chechnya. With the explosions on Monday, Muscovites expressed renewed concerns that they might again become targets. [*]
The earlier raft of attacks had repercussions far beyond the security situation in the Caucasus and rest of the country. In 2004, Mr. Putin, the president at the time, responded by greatly tightening control over the government, saying that the country had to be united against terrorism. He pushed through laws that eliminated the election of regional governors, turning them into appointees of the president, and that made it harder for independents to be elected to Parliament.
Officials said the first explosion on Monday occurred at 7:50 a.m. in second car of a train at the Lubyanka station, killing people on the platform and inside the train.
The authorities closed off the station and the surrounding Lubyanka Square, formerly the site of the notorious Lubyanka prison, which was connected to the headquarters of the K.G.B. [*]
About 40 minutes later the second attack took place, in the third car of a train at the Park Kultury station, officials said.
Yuri Syomin, the Moscow city prosecutor, said investigators believe that both explosions were set off by female suicide bombers wearing belts packed with explosives.
Crowds of people rushed to both stations in an effort to locate relatives, and cell phone networks became jammed. Streets in central Moscow were blocked with traffic as people avoided the subway system.
At Lubyanka, a dark-haired woman stood helplessly at a subway station exit and dialed her sister over and over. She said she had been dialing for two hours. Her sister — like her, a recent immigrant from neighboring Kazakhstan — had left for her work at a laundry that morning and not been heard from since.
A middle-aged man, still searching for his wife, barked into a cell phone that the injured had been taken to the emergency room at Sklifosovsky Hospital.
Lyudmila Samokatova was stationed at her newspaper stand a few feet from the subway station around 8 a.m. — the height of rush hour — when shaken passengers suddenly began to stream out of the station. One man, she said, was weeping and crossing himself, repeating, “Thank God, I’m alive.” She said they were more shocked than panicked, walking rather than running.
“I wanted to cry when I found out what happened,” Ms. Samokatova said. “There were women with children on that subway.” [*]
The attacks marked the second major upsurge in terrorism on the Russian transportation system in the last year. In November 2009, a bomb in a rural area derailed a luxury train traveling from Moscow to St. Petersburg, killing 26 people. The authorities have linked the attack to Muslim insurgents in the Ingushetia region, which is near Chechnya.
In February, a Chechen rebel leader, Doku Umarov, threatened in an interview on a Web site to organize terror acts in Russian population centers.
“If Russians think that the war is happening only on television, far from the Caucasus, and it will not touch them, then we are going to show them that this war will return to their homes,” he said. [there’s a small but potent skinhead movement that has beat up “colored” or “blacks” from Caucases] [*]
The Russian government has sought to suppress violent Muslim extremism in the south since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Two brutal wars in Chechnya and a guerrilla insurgency gave rise to numerous bombings and acts of terror in southern Russia throughout the 1990s. Starting in 2002, Chechen separatists then began to export their bombing campaign to Moscow. [*] [*]
That October, a group of Chechen terrorists stormed into a Moscow theater during a performance and took some 850 actors, musicians and theatergoers hostage. After 57 hours of negotiations, Russian special forces launched an assault, killing all the militants and 117 of the hostages. [*]
About 20 of the militants involved the theater siege were women, and several were wearing explosive vests. The following year, Chechen tacticians began using female suicide bombers in Moscow. [*]
The first of those attacks came in July 2003, when the Russian authorities said a Chechen woman exploded a suicide belt at a rock concert, killing more than a dozen people. In what was to have been a coordinated attack, the police said, another woman’s explosives failed to detonate nearby.
In December 2003, a woman blew herself up in central Moscow, killing six people and injuring dozens. She was identified as the widow of a Chechen guerrilla commander, and the female bombers soon came to be known in Russia as the “black widows.”
In August 2004, a suicide bomber killed at least 9 other people and wounded more than 50 outside the Rizhskaya subway stop. In February of that same year, a woman carrying a bomb destroyed another subway car, killing at least 41 people as the train moved between the Paveletskaya and the Avtozavodskaya stations at one of the busiest times of the day.
Ellen Barry, Andrew E. Kramer, Michael Schwirtz and Yulia Taranova contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/asia/29prexy.html
March 28, 2010
In Afghan Trip, Obama Presses Karzai on Graft
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and HELENE COOPER [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [per Bush custom, Obama makes another “secret” visit to AfPak] [cross in govt] [continuity in USFP] [use psci 469] [followup] [gsave] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Obama personally delivered pointed criticism to President Hamid Karzai in a face-to-face meeting on Sunday, flying here for an unannounced visit that reflected growing vexation with Mr. Karzai as America’s military commitment to defeat the Taliban insurgency has deepened. [good so Karzai cannot get comfortable doing too little] [*]
Mr. Obama’s visit was shrouded in secrecy and lasted only a few hours, but included a boisterous pep rally with American troops. It was his first trip as president to the scene of an eight-year-old war he has stamped as his own. [*]
While Mr. Obama said “the American people are encouraged by the progress that has been

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/29/world/asia/29prexy.html
March 28, 2010
In Afghan Trip, Obama Presses Karzai on Graft
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and HELENE COOPER [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [per Bush custom, Obama makes another “secret” visit to AfPak] [cross in govt] [continuity in USFP] [use psci 469] [followup] [gsave] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Obama personally delivered pointed criticism to President Hamid Karzai in a face-to-face meeting on Sunday, flying here for an unannounced visit that reflected growing vexation with Mr. Karzai as America’s military commitment to defeat the Taliban insurgency has deepened. [good so Karzai cannot get comfortable doing too little] [*]
Mr. Obama’s visit was shrouded in secrecy and lasted only a few hours, but included a boisterous pep rally with American troops. It was his first trip as president to the scene of an eight-year-old war he has stamped as his own. [*]
While Mr. Obama said “the American people are encouraged by the progress that has been made,” as he stood beside Mr. Karzai at the heavily fortified presidential palace, Mr. Obama also emphasized that work remained to be done on the governance issues that have frustrated American officials over the past year. “We also want to continue to make progress on the civilian process,” Mr. Obama said. He mentioned several areas, including anticorruption efforts and the rule of law. [*]
The trip highlighted how far the administration believes the Afghan government has to go to make good on promises that Mr. Karzai has made on governance and even reintegration with certain reconcilable members of the Taliban insurgency. [*]
The language used by Mr. Obama and Mr. Karzai in their private discussions was not disclosed. But Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, told reporters on Air Force One en route to Afghanistan that the administration wanted Mr. Karzai to “understand that in his second term, there are certain things that have not been paid attention to, almost since Day 1.” [*]
General Jones said that the Afghan president “needs to be seized with how important” the issue of corruption, in particular, is for American officials.
The visit capped a high-profile week for Mr. Obama, in which he achieved a singular victory domestically — signing health care legislation — and reached an arms control agreement with Russia that calls for the two nuclear powers to slash their nuclear arsenals to the lowest levels in half a century.
Mr. Obama’s visit to Afghanistan came against a backdrop of tension between Mr. Karzai and the Americans that has not substantially abated since Mr. Karzai was declared the winner of an election tainted by fraud. In the wake of last August’s election, the United Nations and the United States, as well as other NATO countries, demanded that Mr. Karzai make major overhauls in the electoral system, tacitly indicating that they might withhold money for the next election if they did not see changes.
Mr. Karzai recently overhauled the Afghan election complaint commission, but made it less neutral by claiming the right to appoint all five members. Currently, three of the members are appointed by the United Nations. The move infuriated some Western diplomats here who saw it as almost a taunt. [*]
Further aggravating tensions was a conference in London at the end of January at which corruption was a major topic and Western officials again made clear that they felt Mr. Karzai had fallen short. [*]Recently, he has strengthened the anticorruption commission, and the attorney general appears to be moving forward on a handful of high-profile cases involving former government figures. Corruption remains pervasive, however, and Mr. Karzai has not used his position as a bully pulpit to change the culture.
“He’s slipping away from the West,” said a senior European diplomat in Kabul. [*]
Mr. Karzai warmly received one of America’s most vocal adversaries, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran, on an official visit to Kabul in early March. Mr. Karzai met with him again this past weekend in Tehran, when the two celebrated the Afghan and Iranian New Year together.
Mr. Karzai returned to Kabul only hours before Mr. Obama landed.
Last week, Mr. Karzai made a three-day trip to China, a country that is making economic investments in Afghanistan, notably in its copper reserves, taking advantage of the hard-won and expensive security efforts of the United States and other Western nations.
Air Force One landed at nighttime at Bagram Air Base after a 13-hour nonstop flight, for a visit kept secret for security reasons. Mr. Obama quickly boarded a helicopter for the trip to Kabul.
White House officials did not give advance notice of the trip, and even went as far as to inform reporters that Mr. Obama would be spending the weekend at Camp David with his family. [*]In fact, the president’s trip occurred during the Afghan night, and he was flying back to Washington before most Afghans awakened Monday morning.
Besides General Jones, Mr. Obama was accompanied by Rahm Emanuel, his chief of staff, and a number of other officials from the White House and the Defense Department.
Mr. Obama also met with some of the tens of thousands of American troops who have been sent to Afghanistan since he took office. His visit with the troops was particularly significant because American combat casualties in Afghanistan have risen sharply while he has been commander in chief.
In the first three months of 2010, at least 83 American service personnel have died in Afghanistan, versus 43 in the first three months of 2009, according to icasualties.org, a database of casualties in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts.
The number of soldiers wounded in combat has also risen strikingly. Military officials have warned that casualties are likely to continue to rise sharply as the Pentagon completes the deployment of 30,000 additional soldiers, under the strategy that Mr. Obama announced in November. The reason for the spike, military officials said, is that American forces are aggressively seeking out Taliban insurgents in the country’s population centers. A major operation is planned in Kandahar, the spiritual home of the Taliban, in the coming months.
At Bagram Air Base, Mr. Obama told the cheering troops that he had no doubt they would be successful in their efforts to stop the Taliban from regaining power.
“Al Qaeda and their extremist allies are a threat to the people of Afghanistan and a threat to the people of America, but they’re also a threat to people around the world,” Mr. Obama said. “My main job here today is to say thank you on behalf of the entire American people. You are part of the finest military in the history of the world. And we are proud of you.” [*]
The visit with American troops from their commander in chief was a long time coming. While Mr. Obama visited troops at Camp Victory in Iraq three months after he was inaugurated, the White House had put off a presidential trip to Afghanistan as Mr. Obama went through months of rigorous review of Afghanistan strategy, and as that country endured the twists and turns of the disputed election.
Even after Mr. Karzai was inaugurated and Mr. Obama announced that he would send 30,000 more American troops, Mr. Obama still put off the visit as he focused on his domestic priorities, including a health care bill.
Indeed, some members of the military have privately expressed concern that since announcing the Afghanistan troop increase, Mr. Obama has not talked much about the war there.
He appeared to be trying to address that on Sunday in his remarks with Mr. Karzai.
“One of the main reasons I’m here is to just say thank you for the incredible efforts of our troops and our coalition partners,” he said. “They make tremendous sacrifices far away from home, and I want to make sure they know how proud their commander in chief is of them.” [good for Obama; Bush did likewise and I thought likewise] [*]
Alissa J. Rubin reported from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Helene Cooper from Washington.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/weekinreview/28cooper.html
March 26, 2010
Obama: A Giant-Killer, Feeling His Oats
By HELENE COOPER [president obama] [white house, congress, NSC and larger bureaucracy] [but this is really about Obama and his battle over health care and the repercussions elsewhere in policy] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
WASHINGTON — Is this it, then? He hath slain the health-care Goliath. Does that mean, a year and a half into the job, that President Obama has acquired the political savvy and tactical confidence to take on other juggernauts? [*]
Amidst all the euphoria at the White House last week, that question hovered; and not just in Washington. More than a dozen foreign leaders called to congratulate Mr. Obama on his historic achievement. Editorial pages around the world lauded Mr. Obama — a British magazine swooned that he could perhaps “out achieve” even Franklin Roosevelt. A Financial Times cartoon depicted Mr. Obama as Superman. [*]
But, at the risk of killing the White House buzz, remember President Bush’s Mission

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/weekinreview/28cooper.html
March 26, 2010
Obama: A Giant-Killer, Feeling His Oats
By HELENE COOPER [president obama] [white house, congress, NSC and larger bureaucracy] [but this is really about Obama and his battle over health care and the repercussions elsewhere in policy] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
WASHINGTON — Is this it, then? He hath slain the health-care Goliath. Does that mean, a year and a half into the job, that President Obama has acquired the political savvy and tactical confidence to take on other juggernauts? [*]
Amidst all the euphoria at the White House last week, that question hovered; and not just in Washington. More than a dozen foreign leaders called to congratulate Mr. Obama on his historic achievement. Editorial pages around the world lauded Mr. Obama — a British magazine swooned that he could perhaps “out achieve” even Franklin Roosevelt. A Financial Times cartoon depicted Mr. Obama as Superman. [*]
But, at the risk of killing the White House buzz, remember President Bush’s Mission Accomplished appearance on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln? Political fortunes can turn quickly, especially since, in Mr. Obama’s case, he still has another two and a half years to go in his first term — plenty of time for other things to go wrong that could stain his presidency. [absolutely!] [if Obama is dumb enough to believe this carries over to everything he’ll deserve what he’ll almost certainly get] [*]
The trick now for Mr. Obama, presidential scholars say, will be to turn the lessons he has learned in the health care fight to the other big, intractable issues that loom, from climate change to unemployment, to Iran, and even to the ultimate behemoth that has bedeviled American presidents since 1967: Middle East peace. [this will be interesting at least] [may you live in interesting times] [*]
We’ll come back to that in a second.
Mr. Obama could retire into the history books, many presidential scholars say, on the health care achievement alone. But there is a swagger emanating from the White House that suggests he may now have acquired a liking for the benefits of sticking his neck out to lead. [careful] [*]
Just days after the health vote, Mr. Obama completed a landmark arms control accord with Russia that had eluded negotiators for months. The Start agreement took far more time to reach than Mr. Obama had expected, exceeding the deadline by four months. But in the end, Russia backed down on the last contentious point. That was after Mr. Obama refused to yield to Russian demands on missile defense, even though he risked missing another looming deadline, the nuclear security summit he will host in April. [recent govt] [but I thought the same thing: the charge that foreign leaders thought he could be rolled will likely be adjusted] [*]
“Had Obama lost the health care vote, he would have been politically damaged,” said David Rothkopf, a Clinton administration official now who writes on foreign policy. “And that would have had an effect on everything else. But the major transformational consequence of winning isn’t a political boost, but the fact that he is now learning on the job. The message is that he is starting to come of age as a leader.”
How Mr. Obama applies the lessons of health care to other issues will be a big part of determining his success, many presidential historians say. Tenacity isn’t necessarily enough; there has to be patience and a willingness, at some point, to draw a line in the sand.
After the fractious Copenhagen climate change summit in December, Mr. Obama sounded much more willing to accept compromise and the imperfect. After pushing and prodding, he reached a deal with China, India, Brazil and South Africa that codified commitments by those countries to act on their own to tackle global warming. But the agreement failed to set a 2010 goal for reaching a binding international treaty to seal the provisions of the accord. Nor did it commit either the industrialized or the developing nations to firm targets for mid- or long-term reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. [*]
For Mr. Obama, it was, at best, the equivalent of hitting a single in baseball. He defended the pact as a flawed but essential step forward, saying he was “making the best of the situation that you’re in at this point, and then continually trying to improve and make progress from there.”
Fast forward three months to Friday, post health-care victory, as Mr. Obama took his second victory lap of the week, on the Russian arms control agreement, the equivalent of a double in baseball. “It took patience, it took perseverance,” Mr. Obama said. “But we never gave up.” [*]
Nor, this week, did Mr. Obama settle for a smaller compromise with Israel. Instead, he shocked even the most hardened Middle East peace negotiators by swinging for the fence, demanding of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a firm commitment to rein in settlement construction in East Jerusalem. [I frankly think there are limits to how much this may be generalized to foreign policy] [however, I imagine that Bibi is meeting with his cabinet and re evaluating Obama, at least for the short term?] [*]
The stakes on this issue are sky-high. Most Middle East experts say there can be no final Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement without resolving Jerusalem. [*]Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition views the city, east and west, as the undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish people, in which they can build where they want. The Palestinians and supporters throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds see East Jerusalem as holy, and rightfully under Palestinian sovereignty. [I simply fail to see how anything good can come unless Israelis share Jerusalem?] [*]
In refusing last week to settle for Mr. Netanyahu’s compromise offers, including restrictions on Israeli troop activities in the West Bank, the freeing of Palestinian prisoners and further efforts to bolster the Palestinian economy, Mr. Obama sent Mr. Netanyahu back to Israel empty-handed, lengthening the deepest crisis between the two allies in years. The Israeli press has written that Mr. Netanyahu was ambushed, Mr. Obama has come under fire from the pro-Israel lobby in Washington and from Republican lawmakers. [I agree relations took substantial hit but only relative to Bush 43] [the norm before Bush was for US presidents to distinguish between US and Israeli interests] [it was Bush 43 who made the distinction meaningless] [*]Even some Democrats have privately questioned whether he has gone too far.
It no doubt will be months, if not years, before anyone will know how the Israel standoff will end. But Mr. Obama, in pushing Mr. Netanyahu, is forcing the Israeli prime minister into a stark choice, argues Martin Indyk, a former United States ambassador to Israel and the vice president and director of foreign policy at the Brookings Institution: “He’s pushing the issue for Bibi, and forcing him to answer this question: Do you want to be Bibi, the politician?” Mr. Indyk said, using Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname. [*]
“Or do you want to be a statesman?”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/politics/28recess.html
March 27, 2010
Obama Bypasses Senate Process, Filling 15 Posts
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [not foreign policy per se] [general: the health-care reform battle] [but one interesting sidebar is the antics of critics (I’ve discussed Obama haters and Bush haters many times and how pernicious they are) is a stronger president?] [use psci 355, 455] [see today’s individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama, making a muscular show of his executive authority just one day after Congress left for spring recess, said Saturday that he would bypass the Senate and install 15 appointees, including a union lawyer whose nomination to the National Labor Relations Board was blocked last month with the help of two Democrats.
Coming on the heels of Mr. Obama’s big victory on health care legislation, Saturday’s move suggests a newly emboldened president who is unafraid to provoke a confrontation with the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/us/politics/28recess.html
March 27, 2010
Obama Bypasses Senate Process, Filling 15 Posts
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [not foreign policy per se] [general: the health-care reform battle] [but one interesting sidebar is the antics of critics (I’ve discussed Obama haters and Bush haters many times and how pernicious they are) is a stronger president?] [use psci 355, 455] [see today’s individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama, making a muscular show of his executive authority just one day after Congress left for spring recess, said Saturday that he would bypass the Senate and install 15 appointees, including a union lawyer whose nomination to the National Labor Relations Board was blocked last month with the help of two Democrats.
Coming on the heels of Mr. Obama’s big victory on health care legislation, Saturday’s move suggests a newly emboldened president who is unafraid to provoke a confrontation with the minority party. [what else would he do when they have openly said they will not cooperate on anything?] [frankly, they haven’t cooperated on much anyway so it’s hardly surprising Obama is taking this potentially dangerous—I’m speaking as a person whose interest is US foreign policy and consensus historically necessary for same—lesson from his experience with GOP in health-care debates] [*]
Just two days ago, all 41 Senate Republicans sent Mr. Obama a letter urging him not to appoint the union lawyer, Craig Becker, during the recess. Mr. Obama’s action, in defiance of the Republicans, was hailed by union leaders, but it also seemed certain to intensify the partisan rancor that has enveloped Washington.
“The United States Senate has the responsibility to approve or disprove of my nominees,” Mr. Obama said in a statement. “But if, in the interest of scoring political points, Republicans in the Senate refuse to exercise that responsibility, I must act in the interest of the American people and exercise my authority to fill these positions on an interim basis.” [this is what Bush eventually did with Bolton in UN, for instance] [terrible precedent but it’s there] [I think both sides need to reconsider letting these domestic things poison foreign policy!] [to be clear, Dems were the obstacles for Bush and some of this is turnabout] [but I also have little question the GOP has made this its formal postiton on everything] [I was sad but understood McCain’s recent comments on same] [*]
It was the first time the president has used his constitutional authority to fill vacant federal positions by making recess appointments, thus avoiding the requirement for the advice and consent of the Senate. Mr. Obama, who currently has 217 nominees pending and 77 awaiting action on the Senate floor, said Republicans had given him little choice. [*]
“At a time of economic emergency, two top appointees to the Department of Treasury have been held up for nearly six months,” Mr. Obama said. “I simply cannot allow partisan politics to stand in the way of the basic functioning of government.”
With lawmakers back in their home states and Mr. Obama spending a quiet family weekend at Camp David, the White House issued the statement announcing the president’s intent to appoint Mr. Becker, and 14 others, mostly to fill positions on his economic and homeland security teams. [*]
The White House said the 15 nominees had been waiting, on average, seven months to be confirmed. They are expected to begin work over the next week; the president’s action will enable them to serve without Senate confirmation until the chamber adjourns at the end of 2011.
Republicans, who have cast Mr. Becker as a pro-labor radical, issued a flurry of angry statements. They wasted little time in reminding reporters that when George W. Bush was president, then-Senator Obama had railed against the recess appointment of John R. Bolton as ambassador to the United Nations, saying that Mr. Bolton would be “damaged goods” and lacked credibility without Senate confirmation.
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, called the president’s move “yet another episode of choosing a partisan path despite bipartisan opposition.” [McConnell and his cohort have little basis for complaints given their acts of irresponsibility] [they are acting like 7 year olds throwing tantrums] [*]
Another Republican, Senator Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, said in an interview that he could understand Mr. Obama’s frustration; he said that most of the other nominees were noncontroversial and that his concern was centered primarily on Mr. Becker. “He has a precedent,” Mr. Coburn said of the president, “Others have done it, so I’m not critical of him doing it. But I am critical of the Becker appointment because he doesn’t have the votes.” [that’s interesting and instructive: Coburn is a hardcore conservative but note that he’s at least consistent on the precendent Bush and others set] [*]
Recess appointments are a common tool for presidents frustrated by the confirmation process. Mr. Obama’s action puts him on a par with Mr. Bush, who had made 15 recess appointments by this point in his presidency. Mr. Bush had an especially intense tussle with Democrats over judicial appointees; [*]during the course of his two terms in office, he made a total of 171 recess appointments, although 72 were to part-time positions, according to the Congressional Research Service. President Clinton made 139 recess appointments. [**]
With the exception of Mr. Becker, the White House said most of the 15 nominees being installed by Mr. Obama have bipartisan support. Indeed, in a sign that Mr. Obama did not want to go too far in inflaming partisan passions, he resisted using his executive powers to install one of his most contentious candidates, Dawn Johnsen, [*]an Indiana University law professor, to lead the Office of Legal Counsel at the Justice Department. Ms. Johnsen has drawn the ire of Republicans for her work as a lawyer for NARAL Pro-Choice America as well as her outspoken opposition to the Bush administration’s counterterrorism policies.
Saturday’s announcement is certain to cheer some of Mr. Obama’s strongest supporters, who have been arguing that the president should take on Republicans in a more forceful way. Gay rights advocates were elated to see Chai R. Feldblum, a Georgetown University Law professor who advocates on gay issues, claim a spot on the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission as a result of Mr. Obama’s action.
But perhaps no group will be as heartened as union leaders.
For months they had complained that Mr. Obama was too timid in responding to Republican opposition to Mr. Becker, a former associate general counsel for the A.F.L.-C.I.O. and the Service Employees International Union. Labor leaders were also unhappy that the labor relations board has been largely paralyzed since January 2008 because only two of its five seats have been filled since then. Mr. Obama also appointed Mark Pearce, a New York labor lawyer, on Saturday to fill a fourth seat on the board. [it’s certainly hardened some on the left] [I heard Bill Maher’s take on Obama’s health care victory] [Maher is not typical of left on all things but on some and I suspect his sentiment is popular on left] [*]
Last month, the Democrats fell eight votes short of the 60 needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster of a vote for Mr. Becker. Two Democrats, Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska, joined Republicans in the 52-to-33 vote. [*]
In their letter to the president, Republicans wrote that Mr. Becker, a former law professor at U.C.L.A. and the University of Chicago, “could not be viewed as impartial, unbiased or objective” in labor board cases. A law review article he wrote, saying that employers should not have a voice in unionization elections, angered many businesses and Republicans. But in Congressional testimony, Mr. Becker said that those were his personal views and as a labor board member, he would follow the letter of the law. [frankly I don’t follow domestic politics much] [but it’s hard to understand how being pro union would disqualify when being anti union (Reagan forward) has been accepted?] [*]
Two other candidates who are getting recess appointments, Jeffrey Goldstein, the nominee for a high-level job at the Department of Treasury as under secretary for domestic finance, and Alan D. Bersin, the nominee for commissioner of the Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland Security, [former San Diego darling of both parties] [*]were still being vetted by the Senate Finance Committee. Mr. Obama’s decision to bypass the vetting drew criticism Saturday from the senior Republican on the panel, Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa.
Mr. Grassley said Mr. Goldstein was still answering the panel’s questions about his work for a private equity firm, and Mr. Bersin was answering questions about “what appeared to be conflicting information about his documentation and disclosure” of household employees — questions that, the senator said, were “directly relevant” to the positions they will hold.
Steven Greenhouse contributed reporting from New York.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28friedman.html
March 28, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Hobby or Necessity?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN [oped] [columnist] [Friedman is almost always insightful, in my view, on Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [I generally agree with his analyses] [important one here] [the ongoing dustup with Obama-Bibi] [use psci 350, 355, 455, 469] [*]
If you think this latest Israeli-American flap was just the same-old-same-old tiff over settlements, then you’re clearly not paying attention — which is how I’d describe a lot of Israelis, Arabs and American Jews today.
This tiff actually reflects a tectonic shift that has taken place beneath the surface of Israel-U.S. relations. [*]I’d summarize it like this: In the last decade, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — for Israel — has gone from being a necessity to a hobby. And in the last decade, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — for America — has gone from being a hobby to a necessity. [*] Therein lies the problem. [as I have made clear in multiple archived piece

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28friedman.html
March 28, 2010
Op-Ed Columnist
Hobby or Necessity?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN [oped] [columnist] [Friedman is almost always insightful, in my view, on Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [I generally agree with his analyses] [important one here] [the ongoing dustup with Obama-Bibi] [use psci 350, 355, 455, 469] [*]
If you think this latest Israeli-American flap was just the same-old-same-old tiff over settlements, then you’re clearly not paying attention — which is how I’d describe a lot of Israelis, Arabs and American Jews today.
This tiff actually reflects a tectonic shift that has taken place beneath the surface of Israel-U.S. relations. [*]I’d summarize it like this: In the last decade, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — for Israel — has gone from being a necessity to a hobby. And in the last decade, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process — for America — has gone from being a hobby to a necessity. [*] Therein lies the problem. [as I have made clear in multiple archived piece and the comments therein, I agree with the Israeli part: necessity to hobby] [as I explained it, the settler movements have become so maintstream and so influential in Israeli politics that their (fundamentally non secular) agenda has become mainstream] [consequently, Israelis are less eager to cut a deal with Palestinians] [this is reflected in Bibi’s policies] [in my view it’s counterproductive for both US and Israel] [for Israel cannot remain Jewish and democratic state at same time without 2-state solution] [Sharon realized it but unclear how Bibi conceptualizes things] [*]
The collapse of the Oslo peace process, combined with the unilateral Israeli pullouts from Lebanon and Gaza — which were followed not by peace but by rocket attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas on Israel — decimated Israel’s peace camp and the political parties aligned with it. [important codicle to my comments in recent days] [it helps explain why Israelis have turned against dealing with Palestinians] [but if we go there, we must also acknowledge how many times Israel has thrown up obstancles (to scuttle?) and that PA refused a deal at least once] [*]
At the same time, Israel’s erecting of a wall around the West Bank to prevent Palestinian suicide bombers from entering Israel (there have been no successful attacks since 2006), along with the rise of the high-tech industry in Israel — which does a great deal of business digitally and over the Internet and is largely impervious to the day-to-day conflict — has meant that even without peace, Israel can enjoy a very peaceful existence and a rising standard of living. [to believe that can continues strikes me as willful ignorant bliss?] [*]
To put it another way, the collapse of the peace process, combined with the rise of the wall, combined with the rise of the Web, has made peacemaking with Palestinians much less of a necessity for Israel and much more of a hobby. Consciously or unconsciously, a lot more Israelis seem to believe they really can have it all: a Jewish state, a democratic state and a state in all of the Land of Israel, including the West Bank — and peace. [to believe that one would need to believe demographics are going to change magically] [Arabs are repopulating more than Jews!] [at some point what we call Israel will perfoce have more Arabs (Muslims, Christians, seculars) that Jews and for Israel to stay democratic would mean to forgo Jewish majority, and Jewish state] [I have no problem with that but I’m guessing a lot of Jews would?] [*]
Why not? Newsweek’s Dan Ephron wrote in the Jan. 11, 2010, issue: “An improved security situation, a feeling that acceptance by Arabs no longer matters much, and a growing disaffection from politics generally have, for many Israelis, called into question the basic calculus that has driven the peace process. Instead of pining for peace, they’re now asking: who needs it? ... Tourism hit a 10-year high in 2008. Astonishingly, the I.M.F. projected recently that Israel’s G.D.P. will grow faster in 2010 than that of most other developed countries. In short, Israelis are enjoying a peace dividend without a peace agreement.” [*]
Now, in the same time period, America went from having only a small symbolic number of soldiers in the Middle East to running two wars there — in Iraq and Afghanistan — as well as a global struggle against violent Muslim extremists. With U.S. soldiers literally walking the Arab street — and, therefore, more in need than ever of Muslim good will to protect themselves and defeat Muslim extremists — Israeli-Palestinian peace has gone from being a post-cold-war hobby of U.S. diplomats to being a necessity. [the basis of diverging US-Israel interests] [**]
Both Vice President Joe Biden and Gen. David Petraeus have been quoted recently as saying that the festering Israeli-Palestinian conflict foments anti-U.S. sentiments, because of the perception that America usually sides with Israel, and these sentiments are exploited by Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran to generate anti-Americanism that complicates life for our soldiers in the region. I wouldn’t exaggerate this, but I would not dismiss it either.
The issue that should make peacemaking a necessity rather than a hobby for both the U.S. and Israel is confronting a nuclear Iran. Unfortunately, Israel sees the question of preventing Iran from going nuclear as overriding and separate from the Palestinian issue, while the U.S. sees them as integrated. [understandable because they are separate and the same concomitantly] [that’s the problem] [*] At a time when the U.S. is trying to galvanize a global coalition to confront Iran, at a time when Iran uses the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli conflict to embarrass pro-U.S. Arabs and extend its influence across the Muslim world, peace would be a strategic asset for America and Israel.
Ari Shavit, a columnist for the Israeli daily Haaretz, last week argued that Israel should adopt a more integrated view — which he calls a “Palestine-Iran-Palestine” strategy: Israel should take the initiative with an overture to the Palestinians, which would make progress on that front easier, which would strengthen the U.S. coalition against Iran, which could ultimately weaken Tehran and its allies, Hamas and Hezbollah, which would open the way for more progress on the Palestine-Israel front. [exactly] [but with things so positive in Israel for Israeli citizens (at least Jewish one and even some Arab ones), little impetus to think such hard thoughts] [*] He suggests that Israel reach an interim agreement with Palestinians on the West Bank or even consider a partial, unilateral withdrawal there.
“One way or another,” said Shavit, “Netanyahu should have made a genuine move on the Palestinian front that would have made genuine moves on the Iranian front possible, that would have made dealing with the core of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute possible at a later stage.” [**]
Indeed, Jerusalem, settlements, peace, Iran — they’re all connected and pretending you can treat some as a hobby and one as a necessity is an illusion. [quite right but sadly what’s happening] [nobody is to blame; everybody is to blame; it doesn’t matter much] [*]
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:17 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28sun2.html
March 28, 2010
Editorial
Arms Control’s New Era
[editorial] [on Obama administration’s moves on arms control] [c.f., yesterday’s Post editorial] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [*]
The negotiations took a lot longer and were more grueling than anyone expected, but the United States and Russia have finally agreed on a nuclear weapons agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Although the deal makes only modest cuts in both countries’ arsenals, President Obama deserves credit for reviving an arms control process that his predecessor disparaged as a cold-war relic. [*]He is now leading the way on reducing the nuclear threat. [I suppose I would quibble with them and say he is now making important symbolic progress without actually moving much closer to the day the US gives up its nuclear deterrent] [there’s no will to do so yet and way too much resistance] [and frankly, many of us are worried about what would replace the deterrent?] [I don’t think that particularly takes away from Obama’s accomplishment with Russia—a good deal for both]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/opinion/28sun2.html
March 28, 2010
Editorial
Arms Control’s New Era
[editorial] [on Obama administration’s moves on arms control] [c.f., yesterday’s Post editorial] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [*]
The negotiations took a lot longer and were more grueling than anyone expected, but the United States and Russia have finally agreed on a nuclear weapons agreement to replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. Although the deal makes only modest cuts in both countries’ arsenals, President Obama deserves credit for reviving an arms control process that his predecessor disparaged as a cold-war relic. [*]He is now leading the way on reducing the nuclear threat. [I suppose I would quibble with them and say he is now making important symbolic progress without actually moving much closer to the day the US gives up its nuclear deterrent] [there’s no will to do so yet and way too much resistance] [and frankly, many of us are worried about what would replace the deterrent?] [I don’t think that particularly takes away from Obama’s accomplishment with Russia—a good deal for both] [*]
This new accord will substantially strengthen his hand to press for tighter controls on nuclear materials at a nuclear security summit meeting next month, and then for tighter penalties on nuclear scofflaws like Iran and North Korea at a Nonproliferation Treaty review conference in May. [yes, I agree] [I don’t know about substantially but it will strengthen] [*]
Mr. Obama cannot rest there. We hope he quickly sends his negotiators back to the table to get going with Russia on a follow-on deal that would make even deeper reductions in deployed weapons and, for the first time, in both the number of stored warheads and tactical nuclear weapons — the thousands of smaller bombs that are frighteningly vulnerable to covert sale or theft. That is expected to take years to thrash out, rather than the months this latest agreement took.
The United States and Russia cannot credibly argue for restraining other countries’ nuclear programs if they are not moving ahead on reducing their own combined total of some 20,000 nuclear weapons. [a major premise of all with nukes under NPT, the nuclear club] [*]
The broad outlines of the agreement — to be signed by Mr. Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev in Prague on April 8 — are encouraging. It calls for both countries to reduce their deployed strategic warheads from the current ceiling of 2,200 to 1,550 within seven years after the treaty enters into force. Delivery vehicles — missiles, bombers and submarines — would be cut from 1,600 each to 800.
We, like others, are keen to see the details, which may not be available for a while as negotiators complete technical annexes. That work must not be allowed to drag out. It will only encourage doubts about what was agreed to in the main treaty text and postpone putting the deal before the Senate for ratification.
Three previous arms control treaties — Start I (1992), [Bush 41] [*] Start II (1996) [Clinton] [*] and the Moscow Treaty (2003) [Bush 43] [*]— were ratified with substantial bipartisan support. (Start I expired in December. Start II never took effect because Russia withdrew after the Bush administration abrogated the ABM Treaty in 2002 to pursue missile defense. The Moscow Treaty set the current ceiling of 2,200 deployed warheads.) [good chronology of arms control] [talk about continuity] [now two dems and two repubs] [*]
Winning approval of this new deal in Washington’s nasty political climate, when Republicans are refusing to cooperate on much of anything, is less certain. Ratification requires a two-thirds vote in the Senate. [*]
The administration must convince senators that the verification regime is credible and that the text does not limit America’s ability to pursue missile defense. Administration officials are confident they can win both arguments, but President Obama must be prepared to make the case himself. [*]
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:16 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/world/africa/28congo.html
March 27, 2010
Weakened Rebel Group Kills Hundreds of Congolese
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN [Africa] [Congo] [DRC] [Africa] [Sub-Sahara Africa] [seemingly on the verge of perpetual war] [residual from Hutu-Tutsi bloodbath in early 1990s] [former Belgium colony] [residuals of that awful massacre and it seems to be beginning again] [though unclear if it ever stopped] [followup, last fall] [*]
TAPILI, Congo — Depleted by an American-backed offensive and seemingly desperate for new conscripts, the Lord’s Resistance Army, one of the most infamous armed groups in Africa, has killed hundreds of villagers in this remote corner of Congo and kidnapped hundreds more, [*] marching them off in a vast human chain, witnesses say. [these are the scary ones who apparently believe god makes them invisible to their enemies if they douse in water, etc] [*]
The massacre and abductions are a major setback to the effort to stamp out the remnants

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/world/africa/28congo.html
March 27, 2010
Weakened Rebel Group Kills Hundreds of Congolese
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN [Africa] [Congo] [DRC] [Africa] [Sub-Sahara Africa] [seemingly on the verge of perpetual war] [residual from Hutu-Tutsi bloodbath in early 1990s] [former Belgium colony] [residuals of that awful massacre and it seems to be beginning again] [though unclear if it ever stopped] [followup, last fall] [*]
TAPILI, Congo — Depleted by an American-backed offensive and seemingly desperate for new conscripts, the Lord’s Resistance Army, one of the most infamous armed groups in Africa, has killed hundreds of villagers in this remote corner of Congo and kidnapped hundreds more, [*] marching them off in a vast human chain, witnesses say. [these are the scary ones who apparently believe god makes them invisible to their enemies if they douse in water, etc] [*]
The massacre and abductions are a major setback to the effort to stamp out the remnants of the group, a primarily Ugandan rebel force that fielded thousands of soldiers in the 1980s and ’90s. But in recent years it has degenerated into a band of several hundred predators living deep in the bush in Congo, Sudan and the Central African Republic with child brides and military-grade weaponry.
The United States is providing the Ugandan Army with millions of dollars’ worth of aid — including fuel, trucks, satellite phones, night-vision goggles and contracted air support — to hunt the fighters down. [*]
It is one of the signature programs of Africom, the new American military command for Africa, which is working with the State Department to employ what officials call “the three D’s” — defense, diplomacy and development — to help African nations stabilize themselves. [*]
These efforts appeared to be succeeding, eliminating up to 60 percent of the Lord’s Resistance Army fighters in the past 18 months, American officials said. But that may have been why the fighters tore off on their raid, late last year, to get as many new conscripts as possible, along with medicine, clothes and food. [*]
They also kidnapped nurses from hospitals, witnesses said, and stripped blood-splattered clothes off corpses for themselves, a sign they are increasingly desperate. [*]
Human Rights Watch, which sent a team to investigate the killings in February, said the L.R.A. killed at least 320 people in this area, calling the massacre one of the worst in the group’s 23-year, atrocity-filled history.
Witnesses said that the number of dead could be several hundred more, and that most victims had been taken from their villages, tied at the waist and forced into the jungle, often with enormous loads of looted food balanced on their heads. Along the way, fighters randomly selected captives to kill, usually by an ax blow to the back of the head.
“They only scream once,” said Jean-Claude Singbatile, a high school student who said that he spent 14 days in captivity and witnessed dozens of killings. [incredibly gruesome] [it’s actually difficult to fathom what levels of bizarre treatment of fellow humans] [*]
What the attack shows, said Anneke Van Woudenberg, a Human Rights Watch researcher who was recently in Congo, “is that whether they are weakened or not, the L.R.A.’s capacity to kill remains as strong as ever.”
The events expose another troubling reality: Even as Congo’s leaders are pushing the United Nations to begin withdrawing peacekeepers, partly to make the government look more independent from the West, this immense nation of nearly 70 million people remains as vulnerable as ever. [*]
This particular patch of northeastern Congo is so cut off from the rest of the country — there is no electricity, no cellphones and no roads, save 18-inch-wide footpaths barely passable by motorbike — that only now, more than three months later, is the scale of the massacre becoming clear. Human Rights Watch is planning to release an extensive report on the killings soon. [*]
Residents here said that they had heard warnings for months.
“ ‘We are going to feast with you for Christmas’ — that what’s the L.R.A. kept telling people,” said Papa Adam Matsaga, the leader of a local human rights group that also documented the recent killings. Mr. Matsaga keeps a notebook log of the dead, including Merci Zunane, a 3-year-old. The list, in neat capital letters, covers page after page.
The massacre also had a clear precedent. Nearly a year before, more than 800 civilians were killed in revenge attacks after an American-backed air raid that went awry. [I’m not sure AFRICOM should be so closely involved?] [I understand the imperative not to allow another Rwanda to occur but at what cost?] [*]
At the time, the American military had sent advisers to Uganda to help plan an attack on the headquarters of the Lord’s Resistance Army in Garamba National Park, in northeastern Congo. Ugandan helicopters strafed the camp, narrowly missing Joseph Kony, the group’s leader, who has been indicted by the International Criminal Court on crimes against humanity. Afterward, the fighters scattered and vented their outrage on nearby villagers.
This time, the L.R.A. seemed to have had a different strategy.
Instead of storming into villages and burning down huts (as it did in 2008 and early 2009), the group sent in relatively clean-cut soldiers dressed in proper military fatigues.
“They came in saying they were the national army and they wanted to know where were the churches and schools, so they could protect them,” said the Rev. Joseph Nzala, a priest in Tapili. [*]
Eastern Congo has been a dumping ground for various armed groups for years, so it is not surprising that the villagers might have been confused. But as soon as they gathered, the roughly two dozen fighters roped them up at gunpoint and took them away. The band repeated the ruse in village after village, steadily expanding but eliminating hundreds along the way. [*]
There were no peacekeepers or real government soldiers around, and when the killing started Dec. 14, all the people could do was run. Several men who escaped said the fighters must have had their own secretive selection process because there was no way of knowing who was about to die. [*]
“Was it someone walking slow or someone old? No,” said Charles Emabe, who managed to slip away one night.
Today, all along the paths that the L.R.A. traveled, in the shadows of freakishly tall palm trees and gigantic tangles of bamboo, lie the heaped-dirt graves of the men, women and children who were pulled out of line. [*]
Thousands of displaced villagers are now camping in Niangara, the one town in this area, itself a study in decay. During the Belgian colonial days, Niangara was a major hub for cotton and coffee trade. Today, all that is left are faint outlines of cobblestone roads barely perceptible under the red dirt paths and brick mansions sinking into the weeds. [*]
Even before the news of this attack emerged, American officials had been increasingly concerned about the Lord’s Resistance Army, which has not had a discernible political agenda for years and has become infamous for its brutality. [Obama administration doing precisely what Bush administration did] [the policymaking seems to be by default, the bureaucracy] [reason: no one in NSC is active in behalf of Congo—same in Bush] [and this will likely lead to similar results as Rwanda in early Clinton (though doubtfull the same huge scale?)] [*] The Senate recently passed a bill calling for a more coherent strategy against it, and American officials in Uganda have been pushing for more support for the Ugandan military, seen as the most capable and disciplined in this area.
“As long as the L.R.A are out there, this is exactly what they will do — kill a lot of people,” one American military official said.
According to American and Ugandan Army officers, the rebels are still split among small groups. Mr. Kony and a band of hard-core fighters have crossed into the Central African Republic and possibly to Darfur in Sudan. [*]
But many analysts say the desert is not for them. They need a jungle to hide in, and people to prey on. The villages outside Niangara, in hindsight, were an obvious target. There was a lot of food, a lot of people and no soldiers.
The last time Cecilia Nendu saw her three sons, they were bound with rope and being marched off toward a wall of green.
“I think they are dead,” she said.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/world/middleeast/28egypt.html
March 27, 2010
Mubarak Returns to Egypt; Succession Debate Persists
By MONA EL-NAGGAR [Egypt] [broader middle east] [northern Africa to horn] [democratization] [President Mubarak’s health and age questions and the rumors] [Mohamed ElBaradai has the magic ability to improve Mubarak’s health!] [followup] [*]
CAIRO — President Hosni Mubarak arrived back in Egypt on Saturday, three weeks after undergoing an operation in Germany, ending a period of intense speculation over the state of his health but maybe not about the future of his country’s leadership.
Mr. Mubarak, who is 81 and has been president since 1981, has “fully recovered,” according to the final medical report issued by the team that removed his gallbladder and a benign growth.
He did not, however, walk down the stairs of the plane. He descended, alongside the first lady, on an escalator. He then walked to shake hands with some of the country’s highest officials, who were waiting to greet him, including the chiefs of the armed forces and intelligence, leading members of his political party, and top Muslim and Christian figures.
Mr. Mubarak flew in to the Egyptian seaside city of Sharm el Sheik, where he is expected to

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/world/middleeast/28egypt.html
March 27, 2010
Mubarak Returns to Egypt; Succession Debate Persists
By MONA EL-NAGGAR [Egypt] [broader middle east] [northern Africa to horn] [democratization] [President Mubarak’s health and age questions and the rumors] [Mohamed ElBaradai has the magic ability to improve Mubarak’s health!] [followup] [*]
CAIRO — President Hosni Mubarak arrived back in Egypt on Saturday, three weeks after undergoing an operation in Germany, ending a period of intense speculation over the state of his health but maybe not about the future of his country’s leadership.
Mr. Mubarak, who is 81 and has been president since 1981, has “fully recovered,” according to the final medical report issued by the team that removed his gallbladder and a benign growth.
He did not, however, walk down the stairs of the plane. He descended, alongside the first lady, on an escalator. He then walked to shake hands with some of the country’s highest officials, who were waiting to greet him, including the chiefs of the armed forces and intelligence, leading members of his political party, and top Muslim and Christian figures.
Mr. Mubarak flew in to the Egyptian seaside city of Sharm el Sheik, where he is expected to continue to recuperate.
“I have recommended that the president continues his convalescence back home during the coming two weeks before he gradually returns to his full and normal activity,” said Dr. Markus Büchler, who led the medical team that performed the operation, in a televised statement upon releasing Mr. Mubarak from Heidelberg University Hospital on Saturday morning.
Although Mr. Mubarak is now expected to resume full authority of the presidency, it is still not clear how quickly he will be able to manage those responsibilities. The prime minister, Ahmed Nazif, who had been temporarily filling in, is representing Egypt now at a summit meeting of the Arab League in Libya.
In Egypt, power is concentrated in the hands of the president. Because Mr. Mubarak has held the position for almost three decades, it is widely accepted that he will continue to lead the country until he willingly steps down or dies. That is why his recent health crisis amplified the national debate over the question of succession.
“The most important consequence of the operation that Mubarak went through, and his absence from the scene, was to raise again the debate about who should be the future president of Egypt,” said Mustapha Kamel El Sayed, a political science professor at American University in Cairo.
Mr. Mubarak’s fifth term as president ends in 2011, and he has not announced whether he plans to run for another six-year term. He has not appointed a vice president, and there is no clear successor in sight, though it is widely believed that he has been grooming his younger son, Gamal, to be the candidate of the governing National Democratic Party.
In the meantime, there is rising opposition to the prospect of another term for the father or a new term for the son. There are broad demands across the political spectrum for constitutional amendments that would allow for a more democratic process.
At the center of this is Mohamed ElBaradei, the former chief international nuclear watchdog and Nobel Peace Prize laureate. He returned to Egypt last month and embraced a nascent movement led by a group of academics and young activists asking him to run for president.
He made a public appearance on Friday, one day ahead of Mr. Mubarak’s homecoming, by attending the midday prayer at a popular mosque in Cairo.
But according to the Constitution, it is virtually impossible for Dr. ElBaradei or anyone else who is not a member of any party to run as an independent candidate.
Mr. Mubarak’s health, which was always considered a taboo subject, pushed the reality of his age and condition to the forefront of the political debate, although there continues to be a great deal of cynicism regarding the prospect for change now that he has returned home.
“Nothing will change,” said Salama Ahmed Salama, the leader of the editorial board of the independent Egyptian daily newspaper Shorouk. “People thought he might come back from his illness and revise his decisions, but he is coming back stronger than he was before and he will continue to lead without relenting to any of the public demands.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/27/AR2010032703105.html
Foreign digest
Sunday, March 28, 2010; A06
MIDDLE EAST
Arabs told to prepare alternative to talks
[Libya] [Arab League, Amr Moussa (an Egyptian)] [on real possibility of no deal between Israel and Palestine] [and what Arabs need to begin to prepare to do next] [this should be a serious wakeup call to Bibi and some of his coalition in Israel] [many times I’ve explained in this archive why Israel cannot remain both a Jewish state and a democratic one without a 2-state solution] [look for Israel’s response to this idea in coming weeks?] [*]
Arab states should prepare for the possibility that the Palestinian-Israeli peace process may fail and come up with alternatives, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said Saturday.
The troubled peace process suffered a setback this month when the Palestinians said indirect talks with the Israelis would not take place unless Israel canceled a decision to build 1,600 homes in a disputed area of Jerusalem.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/27/AR2010032703105.html
Foreign digest
Sunday, March 28, 2010; A06
MIDDLE EAST
Arabs told to prepare alternative to talks
[Libya] [Arab League, Amr Moussa (an Egyptian)] [on real possibility of no deal between Israel and Palestine] [and what Arabs need to begin to prepare to do next] [this should be a serious wakeup call to Bibi and some of his coalition in Israel] [many times I’ve explained in this archive why Israel cannot remain both a Jewish state and a democratic one without a 2-state solution] [look for Israel’s response to this idea in coming weeks?] [*]
Arab states should prepare for the possibility that the Palestinian-Israeli peace process may fail and come up with alternatives, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa said Saturday.
The troubled peace process suffered a setback this month when the Palestinians said indirect talks with the Israelis would not take place unless Israel canceled a decision to build 1,600 homes in a disputed area of Jerusalem.
Underscoring the obstacles to reviving negotiations, two Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian were killed in a clash in the Gaza Strip on Friday, the bloodiest fighting in the enclave in 14 months.
Moussa, speaking to leaders at an Arab League summit in Sirte, Libya, did not say what the alternatives to the peace process might be, but one option is to revive an 8-year-old initiative under which Arab states would normalize ties with the Jewish state in exchange for Israeli concessions on territory. [*]
Others are for the Palestinians to declare a state unilaterally or to propose a single bi-national state for Israelis and Palestinians.
-- Reuters
THE VATICAN
. . . .
-- Associated Press
[South Korea] [ROK, South Korea] [I’m not sure most Americans understand how hair-trigger things are in peninsula?] [ROK naval ship sinks?] [as of now, no indication it was DPRK but location is suggestive!] [*] S. Korea says North did not sink ship: South Korea on Saturday all but ruled out the chance that North Korea was involved in the sinking of one of its navy vessels near their disputed border Friday. "It is the government's judgment that the incident was not caused by North Korea, although the reason for the accident has not been determined yet," the Yonhap news agency quoted a senior government official as saying. The Defense Ministry said 46 of the 104 crew members on board were still missing. [**]
NATO reports death in Afghanistan: An international service member was killed Saturday by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan, NATO said, raising the number of alliance troops who have died in the country this month to at least 36. A NATO statement did not identify the victim's nationality, but Britain's Defense Ministry said a British soldier was killed Saturday in a blast in the southern province of Helmand.
Two journalists slain in Honduras: Two journalists have been shot to death in eastern Honduras, bringing to five the number of media workers killed in the Central American country this month. Radio journalists Jose Bayardo, 52, and Manuel de Jesus Juarez, 55, were slain while driving on a highway in the rural province of Olancho.
Massacre in Congo killed hundreds, U.N. says: Ugandan Lord's Resistance Army rebels killed at least 290 people in Congo's remote northeast in a previously unreported massacre in December, U.N. officials said.
U.S. drone strike kills 4 in Pakistan: A missile fired by a U.S. drone aircraft in North Waziristan killed four people in a suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban hideout, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
-- From news services © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/weekinreview/28sangerintro.html
March 26, 2010
Imagining an Israeli Strike on Iran
By DAVID E. SANGER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [some of the context of Israeli domestic politics and how jumbled with religious zealotry it’s become!] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [the “imminent” strike rumored at by the end of 2008 then again in 2009] [now again by end of 2010?] [followup] [cross in govt] [c.f., today’s societal (Friedman) and individual-role on Obama] [*]
In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak, declaring it could not live with the chance the country would get a nuclear weapons capability. In 2007, it wiped out a North Korean-built reactor in Syria. And the next year, the Israelis secretly asked the Bush administration for the equipment and overflight rights they might need some day to strike Iran’s much better-hidden, better-defended nuclear sites. [Bush told them no way, incidently] [*]
They were turned down, but the request added urgency to the question: Would Israel take the risk of a strike? And if so, what would follow?
Now that parlor game question has turned into more formal war games simulations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/weekinreview/28sangerintro.html
March 26, 2010
Imagining an Israeli Strike on Iran
By DAVID E. SANGER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [some of the context of Israeli domestic politics and how jumbled with religious zealotry it’s become!] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [the “imminent” strike rumored at by the end of 2008 then again in 2009] [now again by end of 2010?] [followup] [cross in govt] [c.f., today’s societal (Friedman) and individual-role on Obama] [*]
In 1981, Israel destroyed Iraq’s nuclear reactor at Osirak, declaring it could not live with the chance the country would get a nuclear weapons capability. In 2007, it wiped out a North Korean-built reactor in Syria. And the next year, the Israelis secretly asked the Bush administration for the equipment and overflight rights they might need some day to strike Iran’s much better-hidden, better-defended nuclear sites. [Bush told them no way, incidently] [*]
They were turned down, but the request added urgency to the question: Would Israel take the risk of a strike? And if so, what would follow?
Now that parlor game question has turned into more formal war games simulations. [hardly “Now” as it’s been going on for couple years now] [in this archive I have a piece on the 3 likilest routes and if I recall correctly the “northern” one up above Haifa was likeliest] [*] The government’s own simulations are classified, but the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution created its own in December. The results were provocative enough that a summary of them has circulated among top American government and military officials and in many foreign capitals. [one thing Americans need to understand: whether Israel tells US a priori or not, the US will be presumed by Muslim world to have known and treated accordingly] [thus US interests are intimately involved] [and they don’t necessarily dovetail with Israel’s (though they mostly do on Iran)] [**]
For the sake of verisimilitude, former top American policymakers and intelligence officials — some well known — were added to the mix. They played the president and his top advisers; the Israeli prime minister and cabinet; and Iranian leaders. They were granted anonymity to be able to play their roles freely, without fear of blowback. (This reporter was invited as an observer.) A report by Kenneth M. Pollack, who directed the daylong simulation, can be found at the Saban Center’s Web site. [*]
A caution: Simulations compress time and often oversimplify events. Often they underestimate the risk of error — for example, that by using faulty intelligence leaders can misinterpret a random act as part of a pattern of aggression. In this case, the actions of the American and Israeli teams seemed fairly plausible; the players knew the bureaucracy and politics of both countries well. [*]Predicting Iran’s moves was another matter, since little is known about its decision-making process. [*]—DAVID E. SANGER
1. ISRAEL ATTACKS
Without telling the U.S. in advance, Israel strikes at six of Iran's most critical nuclear facilities, using a refueling base hastily set up in the Saudi Arabian desert without Saudi knowledge. [*](It is unclear to the Iranians if the Saudis were active participants or not.)
Already-tense relations between the White House and Israel worsen rapidly, but the lack of advance notice allows Washington to say truthfully that it had not condoned the attack. [that will matter little?] [everyone will believe US must have known in advance!] [*]
2. U.S. STEPS IN
In a series of angry exchanges, the U.S. demands that Israel cease its attacks, though some in Washington view the moment as an opportunity to further weaken the Iranian government, particularly the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. [*]
Telling Israel it has made a mess, Washington essentially instructs the country to sit in a corner while the United States tries to clean things up. [it’s tremendously plausible and will be viewed as a conspiracy all along] [*]
3. U.S. SENDS WEAPONS
Even while calling for restraint on all sides, the U.S. deploys more Patriot antimissile batteries and Aegis cruisers around the region, as a warning to Iran not to retaliate. Even so, some White House advisers warn against being sucked into the conflict, believing that Israel's real strategy is to lure America into finishing the job with additional attacks on the damaged Iranian facilities. [not terribly plausible in my view put possible] [*]
4. IRAN STRIKES BACK
Despite warnings, Iran fires missiles at Israel, including its nuclear weapons complex at Dimona, but damage and casualties are minimal. Meanwhile, two of Iran's proxies, Hezbollah and Hamas, launch attacks in Israel and fire rockets into the country. [alas, this is exceptionally plausible even likely] [not just on Israel but potentially on US assests abroad] [now, this could really muck things up as Hezbollah has not attacked America’s assets since 1983] [and this would put Hezbollah on level with global jihadism?!?] [in any case, proxies would do everthing possible to create plausible deniability to protect Iran but?] [*]
Believing it already has achieved its main goal of setting back the nuclear program by years, Israel barely responds.
5. IRAN SEES OPPORTUNITIES
Iran, while wounded, sees long-term opportunities to unify its people - and to roll over its opposition parties - on nationalistic grounds. Its strategy is to mount low-level attacks on Israel while portraying the United States as a paper tiger - unable to control its ally and unwilling to respond to Iran. [plausible] [I don’t doubt Iran has game out this possibility, or I should say one or two factions in the thugocracy have gamed it out as way to gain control of same] [*]
Convinced that the Saudis had colluded with the Israelis, and emboldened by the measured initial American position, Iran fires missiles at the Saudi oil export processing center at Abqaiq, and tries to incite Shiite Muslims in eastern Saudi Arabia to attack the Saudi regime. [implausible] [Iran can ill afford to alienate further the Sunni-Arab world] [that would also put Syria in difficult spot and could provide pretext for Syria leaving the Iranian fold and returning to Arab fold] [*]
Iran also conducts terror attacks against European targets, in hopes that governments there will turn on Israel and the United States. [plausible—it’s done minor ones in Europe in past] [*]
6. IRAN AVOIDS U.S. TARGETS
After a meeting of its divided leadership, Iran decides against directly attacking any American targets - to avoid an all-out American response. [*]
7. STRIFE IN ISRAEL
Though Iran's retaliation against Israel causes only modest damage, critics in the Israeli media say the country's leaders, by failing to respond to every attack, have weakened the credibility of the nation's deterrence. Hezbollah fires up to 100 rockets a day into northern Israel, with some aimed at Haifa and Tel Aviv. [*]
The Israeli economy comes to a virtual halt, and Israeli officials, urging American intervention, complain that one-third of the country's population is living in shelters. Hundreds of thousands flee Haifa and Tel Aviv. [I suppose it’s plausible] [sort of depends on when and what else happening in global recovery] [*]
8. ISRAEL FIRES BACK
Israel finally wins American acquiescence to retaliate against Hezbollah. It orders a 48-hour campaign by air and special forces against Lebanon and begins to prepare a much larger air and ground operation. [plausible] [*]
9. IRAN PLAYS THE OIL CARD
Knowing that its ultimate weapon is its ability to send oil prices sky high, Iran decides to attack Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, an oil industry center, with conventional missiles and begins mining the Strait of Hormuz. [plausible, perhaps likely] [*]
A Panamanian-registered, Americanowned tanker and an American minesweeper are severely damaged. The price of oil spikes, though temporarily.
10. U.S. BOOSTS FORCES
Unable to sit on the sidelines while oil supplies and American forces are threatened, Washington begins a massive military reinforcement of the Gulf region. [with what?] [US is tied down in Iraq and AfPak] [*]
11. REVERBERATIONS
The game ends eight days after the initial Israeli strike. But it is clear the United States was leaning toward destroying all Iranian air, ground and sea targets in and around the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran's forces were about to suffer a significant defeat. Debate breaks out over how much of Iran's nuclear program was truly crippled, and whether the country had secret backup facilities that could be running in just a year or two. [plausible] [*]
A REPORTER'S OBSERVATIONS
1. By attacking without Washington's advance knowledge, Israel had the benefits of surprise and momentum - not only over the Iranians, but over its American allies - and for the first day or two, ran circles around White House crisis managers. [likely but it will not matter for practical purposes because America’s allies and enemies will presume Washington tacitly cooperated] [*]
2. The battle quickly sucked in the whole region - and Washington. Arab leaders who might have quietly applauded an attack against Iran had to worry about the reaction in their streets. The war shifted to defending Saudi oil facilities, and Iran's use of proxies meant that other regional players quickly became involved.
3. You can bomb facilities, but you can't bomb knowledge. Iran had not only scattered its facilities, but had also scattered its scientific and engineering leadership, in hopes of rebuilding after an attack. [*]
4. No one won, and the United States and Israel measured success differently. In Washington, officials believed setting the Iranian program back only a few years was not worth the huge cost. In Israel, even a few years delay seemed worth the cost, and the Israelis argued that it could further undercut a fragile regime and perhaps speed its demise. Most of the Americans thought that was a pipe dream. —D.E.S.
Illustrations by Alicia Cheng and Sarah Gephart, Mgmt. Design.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html
March 27, 2010
Maliki Contests the Result of Iraq Vote
By ROD NORDLAND [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [renewed sectarian tensions and fault lines] [success of “surge”] [as well as it worked, the issue still looms regarding how the Awakening to be situated in government in future?] [elections appear to occur with little disruption despite the attempts] [good news for US and Iraq?] [followup] [at long last some election results are released] [Maliki doing everything within his power to hold on to power and challenge election results, which doubtless involved some cheating] [on other hand, how can the US lecture –ir? Manuvers and clinging was big part of US presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 and current lunatic fringe’s lack of letimacy of Obama presidency (you’ll reap the whirlwinds you sow)] [*]
BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s party lost the Iraqi election, but a day after the results were announced it became clear that he would fight to hold on to his post — and had taken steps to do so even before the outcome became public.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/world/middleeast/28iraq.html
March 27, 2010
Maliki Contests the Result of Iraq Vote
By ROD NORDLAND [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [renewed sectarian tensions and fault lines] [success of “surge”] [as well as it worked, the issue still looms regarding how the Awakening to be situated in government in future?] [elections appear to occur with little disruption despite the attempts] [good news for US and Iraq?] [followup] [at long last some election results are released] [Maliki doing everything within his power to hold on to power and challenge election results, which doubtless involved some cheating] [on other hand, how can the US lecture –ir? Manuvers and clinging was big part of US presidential elections in 2000 and 2004 and current lunatic fringe’s lack of letimacy of Obama presidency (you’ll reap the whirlwinds you sow)] [*]
BAGHDAD — Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s party lost the Iraqi election, but a day after the results were announced it became clear that he would fight to hold on to his post — and had taken steps to do so even before the outcome became public.
On Thursday, a day before the results were announced, he quietly persuaded the Iraqi supreme court to issue a ruling that potentially allows him to choose the new government instead of awarding that right to the winner of the election, the former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi.
On another front, officials in charge of purging the government of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party said Saturday that they still expected to disqualify more than 50 political candidates, many of them members of Mr. Allawi’s Iraqiya Party. That could strip Mr. Allawi of his plurality, 91 parliamentary seats compared with 89 for Mr. Maliki’s State of Law party.
And if all that does not work, the prime minister still is clamoring for a recount, and he said he planned to file a legal appeal even though the United Nations, the elections commission and international observers have declared the election valid. Ultimately, the same Supreme Federal Court, which is nominally independent but has proved friendly to Mr. Maliki in the past, will decide the recount issue.
“They’re still going to take advantage of all the means at their disposal to eke out a victory,” said Gary A. Grappo, the top political officer in the United States Embassy here, referring to Mr. Maliki and his supporters. “They’re all politicians.”
Minutes after the United Nations and the Independent High Electoral Commission announced the results on Friday, Mr. Maliki went on television to counterattack, and he pulled few punches. Referring to members of Parliament elected on Mr. Allawi’s list, he said, “Some of them are terrorists held in Iraqi prisons.”
Mr. Grappo said that United States officials had no knowledge backing that claim.
Mr. Maliki vowed to fight back.
“No way we will accept the results,” he said. Language like that, as well as his statements a week earlier that, as commander in chief, he had a responsibility to make sure that election fraud did not occur, has led many to worry that he might forcibly hold onto power, or even stage a coup.
American officials said they were confident that Mr. Maliki would behave lawfully.
“He made clear in his statement that he will work within the Constitution and within the rule of law,” Mr. Grappo said. “We will be watching very closely as the whole process unfolds.”
Mr. Allawi, a secular Shiite, put together a coalition that included many Sunni parties, and his list won heavily in their parts of the country. Mr. Maliki, whose Dawa Party broke with other Shiite religious parties, ended up splitting the vote of the Shiites, who make up 60 percent of the population.
Neither candidate, however, won anywhere near the 163 seats needed for a majority in Parliament. In the days leading to the announcement of results of the March 7 poll, it was widely assumed that the candidate who won the most seats would be given the advantage of the first attempt at forming a government, and be given 30 days to do so.
However, on Thursday, the day before the results were announced, the prime minister’s office asked the Supreme Federal Court for “a definition of the term, ‘the parliamentary bloc with the most members’ ” in Article 76 of the Iraqi Constitution. The court issued its 211-word decision speedily — and in Mr. Maliki’s favor — but it did not become publicly known until late on Friday. With little explanation, the court ruled that the leader of the bloc with the most followers once Parliament convenes — probably in June — would be the one who forms a government.
That gives both candidates until June to maneuver to win over candidates from other alliances; winning candidates are free to switch parties at will.
“We have a lot of people who want to join us,” Mr. Maliki said Friday. “If some blocs that exist within the Iraqiya list wanted to come, we would welcome them.” [*]
Mr. Allawi responded similarly at a news conference on Saturday. “The Iraqiya list is open to all slates, starting with the State of Law list and the Iraqi National Alliance and the Kurdistan Alliance,” he said. He ruled out, however, making an alliance with Mr. Maliki himself. [*]
Legal experts have said the court’s interpretation of Article 76 is binding.
Mr. Allawi was dismissive of the legal challenge. “The Iraqi people have honored the Iraqiya list and chose it to be the basis of forming the new government,” he said at a news conference on Saturday. [incredibly reminiscent of US pres elections in 2000!] [-iraqis as good student of US politics] [*]
With Mr. Allawi winning not only the most seats in Parliament, but also the most popular votes, there could be widespread dissatisfaction if Mr. Maliki were given the first opportunity to form a government. In final results, Mr. Allawi’s Iraqiya list won 2,851,823 votes, with the next closest list, Mr. Maliki’s, gathering 2,797,624 votes.
Just as problematic for Mr. Allawi will be efforts by the government’s Accountability and Justice Commission — formerly known as the De-Baathification Commission — to disqualify 52 candidates for Parliament, most of them from the Iraqiya list.
The election commission has still not released the names of the winning candidates, only their total numbers by party affiliation, so it is unclear how many of those 52 might be among the winners.
An Iraqiya lawmaker, Mustafa al-Hiti, said he was sure at least one winning candidate from Iraqiya would be subject to disqualification. However, he said that person would be replaced by another Iraqiya candidate.
The deputy head of the electoral commission, Amal al-Bairiqdar, also said that would probably be the outcome. “If that case happens, the election commission will decide,” she said.
But Ali Faisal al-Halami, the executive director of the accountability commission, said that the party would not necessarily have a say in replacing a disqualified candidate.
“No, you can’t do that, you should discount their votes for that candidate and his list, they should be nullified totally,” he said. That needs to happen to only two candidates to strip Mr. Allawi of his plurality.
Even if the process goes according to schedule, the earliest that a new government is likely to be formed is July, according to Iraqi and international analysts.
Protracted legal disputes might further delay the process, raising the prospect that Iraq will remain under a caretaker government still led by Mr. Maliki when the August deadline arrives for the withdrawal of all United States combat troops from Iraq.
“We don’t expect it to affect the withdrawal schedule at this point in time,” Mr. Grappo said.
Riyadh Mohammed and Sa’ad al-Izzi contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:06 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/03/28/world/international-us-iraq-violence.html
March 28, 2010
Party Official Among 6 Killed by Bombs in Iraq
By REUTERS
Filed at 8:11 a.m. ET [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [renewed sectarian tensions and fault lines] [success of “surge”] [as well as it worked, the issue still looms regarding how the Awakening to be situated in government in future?] [elections appear to occur with little disruption despite the attempts] [good news for US and Iraq?] [followup] [at long last some election results are released] [what appears to be AQI and possibly other ex Baathists unleash targeted violence] [*]
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - A series of explosions in western Iraq killed six people on Sunday, including an official of a political faction in former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's electoral coalition, [*]police said.
They said four bombs went off near the house of Ghanim Radhi, a member of the Development and Reforms movement, early Sunday in the town of Qaim, 300 km (185 miles) west of Baghdad in Anbar province. Radhi and one of his brothers, who is a junior member in the movement, were killed.
The first two bombs went off and when people gathered in the area after the blast, two

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2010/03/28/world/international-us-iraq-violence.html
March 28, 2010
Party Official Among 6 Killed by Bombs in Iraq
By REUTERS
Filed at 8:11 a.m. ET [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [renewed sectarian tensions and fault lines] [success of “surge”] [as well as it worked, the issue still looms regarding how the Awakening to be situated in government in future?] [elections appear to occur with little disruption despite the attempts] [good news for US and Iraq?] [followup] [at long last some election results are released] [what appears to be AQI and possibly other ex Baathists unleash targeted violence] [*]
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - A series of explosions in western Iraq killed six people on Sunday, including an official of a political faction in former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's electoral coalition, [*]police said.
They said four bombs went off near the house of Ghanim Radhi, a member of the Development and Reforms movement, early Sunday in the town of Qaim, 300 km (185 miles) west of Baghdad in Anbar province. Radhi and one of his brothers, who is a junior member in the movement, were killed.
The first two bombs went off and when people gathered in the area after the blast, two more exploded, said Luai Mohammed, a relative of Radhi's who was at the scene.
"The street was full of people, some were lying motionless and others were screaming in pain," he told Reuters.
Police said four other people were killed but gave no details of their identities. They said 15 people were wounded.
Radhi did not stand in the parliamentary election on March 7 but his movement is a minor faction in Allawi's secular Iraqiya list which emerged with the most seats, according to preliminary results released on Friday.
Two days before the explosions, Iraqiya premises were damaged by fire in the southern province of Kerbala, a Shi'ite religious center. [*]
The cause of the fire, which was on Friday night after the release of the election results, was not immediately known. Iraqiya officials said an investigation was under way to determine whether it was sabotage or an electrical failure.
The Development and Reforms movement won three seats in the election in predominantly Sunni Anbar province.
Overall, violence in Iraq has dropped sharply in the past few years but a series of explosions in recent weeks has illustrated the fragility of security in the country.
Anbar had been relatively quiet since 2006 when Sunni Muslim tribal leaders turned on Sunni Islamist groups such as al Qaeda, which had once dominated it, but insurgents continue to operate in the vast desert province. [a clever but potentially problematic part of President’s Bush “surge”] [more than historical as President Obama’s “surge” in AfPak largely premised on similar reconcilables] [*]
On Friday, few hours before election results were released, two bombs struck a crowded market in Iraq's mainly Sunni northern Diyala province killing 59 and wounding 73, in one of the country's deadliest attacks in months.
(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami and Muhanad Mohammed; Writing by Rania El Gamal; editing by Andrew Dobbie)

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/world/middleeast/28nuke.html
March 27, 2010
Agencies Suspect Iran Is Planning New Atomic Sites
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD [UN] [Iran] [confluence of June elections with Iran’s apparent drive for nuke weapon] [the intense internal dynamics of the various factions and Iran’s nuclear-enrichment processes-plants] [strong suspicions of what Iran is up to on WMD] [followup] [so P5 cannot help but be aware of said suspicions?] [cross in govt] [*]
WASHINGTON — Six months after the revelation of a secret nuclear enrichment site in Iran, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies say they suspect that Tehran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands. [*]
The United Nations inspectors assigned to monitor Iran’s nuclear program are now searching for evidence of two such sites, prompted by recent comments by a top Iranian official that drew little attention in the West, and are looking into a mystery about the whereabouts of recently manufactured uranium enrichment equipment. [*]
In an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, the official, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered work

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/28/world/middleeast/28nuke.html
March 27, 2010
Agencies Suspect Iran Is Planning New Atomic Sites
By DAVID E. SANGER and WILLIAM J. BROAD [UN] [Iran] [confluence of June elections with Iran’s apparent drive for nuke weapon] [the intense internal dynamics of the various factions and Iran’s nuclear-enrichment processes-plants] [strong suspicions of what Iran is up to on WMD] [followup] [so P5 cannot help but be aware of said suspicions?] [cross in govt] [*]
WASHINGTON — Six months after the revelation of a secret nuclear enrichment site in Iran, international inspectors and Western intelligence agencies say they suspect that Tehran is preparing to build more sites in defiance of United Nations demands. [*]
The United Nations inspectors assigned to monitor Iran’s nuclear program are now searching for evidence of two such sites, prompted by recent comments by a top Iranian official that drew little attention in the West, and are looking into a mystery about the whereabouts of recently manufactured uranium enrichment equipment. [*]
In an interview with the Iranian Student News Agency, the official, Ali Akbar Salehi, head of Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization, said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had ordered work to begin soon on two new plants. The plants, he said, “will be built inside mountains,” presumably to protect them from attacks. [there’s no question Iran is moving forward on enrichment] [it has admitted as much] [the only questions remain regarding how long before a bomb is technically feasible? Whether or not Iran has mastered the engineering? If and for what reason Iran has decided to stop close but short of bomb for reasons of self preservation?] [see today’s external for piece on Israel’s plans-potential for stopping Iran] [*]
“God willing,” Mr. Salehi was quoted as saying, “we may start the construction of two new enrichment sites” in the Iranian new year, which began March 21. [*]
The revelation that inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, now believe that there may be two new sites comes at a crucial moment in the White House’s attempts to impose tough new sanctions against Iran.
When President Obama publicly revealed the evidence of the hidden site at Qum last September, his aides had hoped the announcement would make it easier to win international support for a fourth round of economic sanctions, particularly from a reluctant China and Russia. [*]Since then, however, the White House has been struggling to persuade those countries to go along with the toughest sanctions and the administration is now being forced to scale back its proposed list of sanctions. [mostly the Chinese as Russia has nearly conceded said sanctions are necessary] [and I still don’t understand why an abstain is not sufficient with China?] [why go for their vote if they will abstain?] [they abstained back in 1991] [*]
The United Nations inspectors operate separately from the diplomats who are developing sanctions. Still, the disclosures may be intended, at least in part, to underscore the belief of Western officials that the Iranian efforts are speeding ahead, and the assertions could aid in efforts to press Iran to open up locations long closed to inspectors. [I presume at least part of the disclosure is the US IC and I’m frankly glad they’re doing it] [*]
This article was based on interviews with officials of several governments and international agencies deeply involved in the hunt for additional nuclear sites in Iran, and familiar with the work of the I.A.E.A., the only organization with regular access to Iran’s known nuclear facilities. All the officials insisted on anonymity because the search involves not only satellite surveillance, but also intelligence gleaned from highly classified operations.
American officials say they share the I.A.E.A.’s suspicions and are examining satellite evidence about a number of suspected sites. But they have found no solid clues yet that Iran intends to use them to produce nuclear fuel, [*]and they are less certain about the number of sites Iran may be planning.
In any case, no new processing site would pose an immediate threat or change the American estimates that it will still take Iran one to four years to obtain the capability to build a nuclear weapon. Given the complexity of building and opening new plants, it would probably take several years for the country to enrich uranium at any of the new sites. [Israelis have apparently concluded otherwise] [that doesn’t make Israel right but it must be considered] [*]
One European official noted that “while we have some evidence,” Iran’s heavy restrictions on where inspectors can travel and the existence of numerous tunneling projects were making the detection of any new enrichment plants especially difficult. [and of course Iran simply says the tunneling is to protect themselves against evil US or Israeli preventive-preemptive strikes] [*]
Iran boasted several months ago, after the disclosure of the Qum site, that it would build 10 more enrichment plants in coming years. That number was dismissed by American officials and others as a fantasy, far beyond Iran’s abilities, or its budget. [but pretty good evidence that they plans to build a couple more!] [*]
But I.A.E.A. inspectors in Vienna now believe that Mr. Salehi was probably accurate when he referred to two sites. [*]
According to American officials, in recent weeks Israel — which uncovered some of the evidence about Qum — has pressed the case with their American counterparts that evidence points to what one senior administration official called “Qum look-alikes.” [confirmation that US is part of this leak or disclosure] [*]
The most compelling circumstantial evidence, people familiar with the inspectors’ view say, is that while Iran appears to be making new equipment to enrich uranium, that equipment is not showing up in the main plant that inspectors visit regularly. Nor is it at the Natanz site in the desert, or the new facility at Qum, which inspectors now visit periodically. [*]
That has heightened suspicions that the equipment, produced in small factories around Iran, is being held in a clandestine storage area for later shipment or installed elsewhere. [*]
The small manufacturing factories, spread around Iran to avoid detection and sabotage, are a particular target of American, Israeli and European intelligence agencies. Several of the plants appear to have been penetrated by intelligence agencies, which are receiving sporadic reports about what Iran is producing and troubles it has encountered in manufacturing centrifuges, the machines that spin at very high speeds to enrich uranium. [*]
Assessments of the potential for hidden enrichment sites beyond Qum, and the continued production of centrifuges, is one of the main subjects of an update to the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. That update is being prepared for distribution to President Obama, his top national security team, and selected members of Congress. [new NIE on Iran is due soon] [*]
Drafts of the highly classified document are now being circulated inside the intelligence community, officials say, but its broader publication has been delayed, in part because of concerns that the early drafts failed to deal with key decisions that Mr. Obama must soon address, especially if long-delayed sanctions fail to change Iran’s current course. [cross in govt] [*]
When the last intelligence estimate was published, in November 2007, officials did not know about the Qum plant. Evidence of the plant was discovered later, and contributed to criticism of the report, which also concluded that Iran had halted work on designing nuclear weapons in 2003. [NIE tries to get it right] [only so much may be expected when they are working with conflicting evidence, given the history of overcorrections, so forth] [*]
That conclusion, officials say, is also being rewritten, with the United States now joining European and Israeli assessments that research and development work, if halted seven years ago, has probably resumed. [*]“The new report walks away, carefully, from many of the key conclusions of the previous version,” said one person familiar with its contents.
Besides Qum, it is unclear whether the new conclusion is based on new intelligence breakthroughs, or a revised interpretation of the existing evidence. [either way, these NIEs must not be treated as political documents (though politics gets involved] [they must be seen for what they are: IC’s best informed guess at given time] [*]
Iran revealed the existence of the Qum plant to the I.A.E.A. last September, apparently after learning that its existence was now known to the West. Iran subsequently told inspectors that it began work on the plant in 2007 and planned to complete it by 2011, and that it would be filled with 3,000 centrifuges.
Though Tehran’s leaders insist the plant, like their entire program, is for peaceful purposes, that is considered too few centrifuges for a commercial site but ideal for a clandestine military plant meant to make bomb fuel. [*]
But little progress has been made. In their most recent report, the inspectors said that some construction at the Qum site was continuing, adding, however, that “no centrifuges had been introduced” as of Feb. 16.
But officials note that for all the digging, nuclear fuel production in Iran is behind schedule. While the Qum plant is only partly built, its main enrichment plant, at Natanz, operates at a tiny fraction of its intended capacity. [which has led some of us to conclude there are engineering problems that have presented obstacles and others to conclude there are additional political problems that have caused leaders to move ahead on separate tracks—enrichment, miniaturization, weaponizations, and coupling with delivering—but stopping short of build and detonation typical of a new entrant to nuclear club] [*]
If Iran is indeed making plans to build new facilities, it would be in violation of its agreement with the I.A.E.A. In reports and interviews, inspectors have said they received no notice of new Iranian preparatory activity.
In 2003, Iran signed an agreement with the agency to turn over design information on new facilities. Iran repudiated the agreement in March 2007 [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:04 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/27/AR2010032703202.html
In Pakistan, reform school attempts to offer child fighters chance at a new life
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 28, 2010; A01 [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [Obama white house] [USFP] [bureaucracy and NSC] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [Pakistan finally taking steps to render, eventually, madrassas obsolete to Pakistani masses] [followup] [public schools of sorts that offer alternative to Koran-only education] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
PIRANO, PAKISTAN -- In mountains not far from this village, Pakistani authorities say, terrorists are preparing their newest generation of spies, shooters and suicide bombers. In the village, under razor wire and the watch of soldiers, Pakistan is trying to give some of the recruits back their childhoods. [it’s about time] [hope it works as Pakistan’s fates is locked in struggle with jihadi Frankenstein monstor it keep recreating] [*]
At a new school tucked near the fragile peace of the Swat Valley, peach-fuzzed veterans of

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/27/AR2010032703202.html
In Pakistan, reform school attempts to offer child fighters chance at a new life
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 28, 2010; A01 [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [Obama white house] [USFP] [bureaucracy and NSC] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [Pakistan finally taking steps to render, eventually, madrassas obsolete to Pakistani masses] [followup] [public schools of sorts that offer alternative to Koran-only education] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
PIRANO, PAKISTAN -- In mountains not far from this village, Pakistani authorities say, terrorists are preparing their newest generation of spies, shooters and suicide bombers. In the village, under razor wire and the watch of soldiers, Pakistan is trying to give some of the recruits back their childhoods. [it’s about time] [hope it works as Pakistan’s fates is locked in struggle with jihadi Frankenstein monstor it keep recreating] [*]
At a new school tucked near the fragile peace of the Swat Valley, peach-fuzzed veterans of Taliban camps wear burgundy sweaters to math classes, counseling sessions and religion lessons, where they hear that Islam favors democracy over suicide. Teachers work in fear of militant attacks and of hardened students -- but also in hopes of de-radicalizing the gangly boys who make up a growing part of Pakistan's insurgency. [*]
Analysts say there is an urgent need. Pakistan is home to the toxic mix of a significant youth population, few job prospects and a rising Islamist insurgency. Military officials say most suicide bombings are now carried out by males younger than 20. The 86 adolescents at this army-sponsored school are a drop in that ocean, [*]a fact that its director, neuropsychologist Feriha Peracha, said she tries not to dwell on.
"It can have a ripple effect," Peracha said, as her students, ages 12 to 18, quietly took exams. "We are a time bomb if we don't do this." [couldn’t agree more] [*]
Though child soldiers have toted guns in conflicts worldwide, international experts say their indoctrination and reform has been poorly researched. [*]Organizers of this boarding school -- the first of its kind in Pakistan -- say it is providing a valuable, if small, window into the backgrounds of Pakistan's young fighters and the triggers that vault them into the hands of militants. [*]
All of the students came to the school after being captured by the army, or were brought here by their families. Some had been trained by insurgent groups as slaves or thieves, some as bombers. [tremendously important experiement with breaking the indoctrination cycle] [*]
One teen watched children vanish from his camp until a commander directed him, too, to strap on a suicide vest, then relented when he refused. Another named Saddam Hussain -- a common name in a region where people admire the former Iraqi leader -- was surrendered by his own relatives to the militants, who had controlled Swat until last summer. [*]
"Three people in our area refused to send their family members, and they were killed," Saddam's uncle told Peracha during a recent meeting that she allowed a reporter to observe. Insurgents taught his nephew to shoot and "promised him heaven, vehicles, guns and authority." [*]
Saddam, a gawky 16-year-old who, like many of the students, was angry and aggressive when the school was launched last fall, cracked his knuckles.
"When will we be playing football and cricket?" [sounds relatively normal] [*]he quietly asked Peracha.
The patterns among the boys have been revealing, Peracha said. Few attended the Islamic schools, or madrassas, often blamed for fueling radicalism in Pakistan. Though all trained in the Swat Valley, they pledged allegiance to different insurgent leaders, indicating the mixing of Pakistan's many militant groups. [and indicating what a bloody mess Pakistan is after all these years] [modernity has come only to Pakistan’s elites while the teeming masses languish in radical Islam and effective feudalism] [*]
More significantly, she and other teachers said, most of the boys are middle children who have been lost in the shuffle of large, poor families with absent fathers. Few had much formal schooling, many are aggressive, and most score poorly on educational aptitude tests.
In that regard, Peracha said they seem more like the juvenile delinquents she has counseled in Pakistan and Britain than religious zealots -- an observation that points to Pakistan's even more deeply entrenched problems of dismal schooling and profound poverty. [*]
"The civil society and the rest of Pakistan, we didn't really react until it nearly hit Islamabad," Peracha said of the militant movement that last year seized territory located within 60 miles of the capital. "And we still aren't reacting [in] the education system, which is frozen in time." [*]
That has created a vacuum that militants are increasingly exploiting. In lawless South Waziristan, poor boys attended an insurgent school painted with murals of the paradise awaiting martyrs, [*]said Brig. Syed Azmat Ali, a military spokesman. In Swat, where the main Taliban leader [known as radio Fallulah] [*] rose to prominence through radio sermonizing, children were ill-equipped to challenge the notion that Pakistani troops were infidels who deserved death.
"They knew extremely little about the world or about Islam," said Mohammed Farooq, a Swat University vice chancellor and religious scholar in charge of Islamic education at the school for former militants. "They had just a superficial knowledge that we are Muslims and we have to fight America and their stooges." [*]
He and Peracha said they believe the program, which combines tough love and discipline with a standard curriculum and regular counseling, is working. To assess the boys' risk levels, Peracha performs standardized neuropsychology tests and gently pries out their stories over several meetings.
Students regularly have "brawls," she said, but they have become more manageable. After exams on a recent warm afternoon, one boy meticulously combed his hair in a hallway mirror. Others watched cricket on TV in a recreation room. Some napped on bunk beds, their small sneakers carefully placed underneath.
In a courtyard, Peracha met with Khair Hussain, 15, a new student just released from army detention. In a near-whisper, he said he was the son of a laborer working in Saudi Arabia. He went to a Pakistani public school until it was bombed, then a madrassa. It was there that militants tied his hands and blindfolded him, he said, as they took him to a 100-person camp somewhere amid Swat's picturesque peaks. [*]
There, boys prepared the morning tea, he said. Militants, many of them foreign, sometimes prayed but mostly lectured about the evils of Pakistan's army, [*]he said.
"They were asking me, convincing me to do a suicide. . . . They said, 'Be ready,' " Khair said. "I could not do such a thing, but when I said something they did not like, they beat me with a rubber whip." [*]
In a telephone interview, a Taliban fighter in the border area of North Waziristan denied that militants abduct children or force them to carry out bombings, saying young boys "come to us willingly to present their own lives."
Pakistan army officials say they doubt that. After rounding up several traumatized children during a military operation in Swat last summer, they asked Peracha to evaluate some, said Lt. Col. Aamer Najam, a Swat battalion commander. That sparked the reform school, which is expanding to take on child militants from South Waziristan, the site of a recent military offensive. [**]
Peracha said she eventually wants to take de-radicalization programs to Pakistan's prisons. For now, her mission is to create some sort of future for her first charges. [*]
The boys do not always make that easy. Many offer halting and partial information about their histories. Khair, for example, had no explanation for why militants abducted only him from his seminary, a detail Peracha deemed odd. He said he escaped after his captors took him out to a road to free him and were killed by soldiers along the way.
"He's not telling all the truth. I think he was far more involved than he's saying," Peracha said after dismissing Khair with a handshake and instructions to write in a journal.
She labeled him "high-risk" and told a staff psychologist to wait a few weeks before probing again.
Special correspondent Haq Nawaz Khan contributed to this report. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:03 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/us/27nuke.html
March 26, 2010
Nuclear Labs Raise Doubts Over Viability of Arsenals
By WILLIAM J. BROAD [Obama white house] [111th Congress, 2nd session] [nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence] [Obama’s announced preference to end nuclear weapons and arsenals, etc] [not clear what this is but may be resistance from bureaucracy] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [whatever it is, to be expected] [any strategy that has existed for decades has vested interests] [expect labs that conduct dod-doe research to raise objections and that’s ultimately for the good] [*]
In a challenge to the White House, the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories have warned Congress that federal programs to extend the life of the nation’s aging nuclear arsenal are insufficient to guarantee the viability of the weapons for decades to come. [*]
The warning, which implicitly endorsed the idea of creating an expensive new generation

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/us/27nuke.html
March 26, 2010
Nuclear Labs Raise Doubts Over Viability of Arsenals
By WILLIAM J. BROAD [Obama white house] [111th Congress, 2nd session] [nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence] [Obama’s announced preference to end nuclear weapons and arsenals, etc] [not clear what this is but may be resistance from bureaucracy] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [whatever it is, to be expected] [any strategy that has existed for decades has vested interests] [expect labs that conduct dod-doe research to raise objections and that’s ultimately for the good] [*]
In a challenge to the White House, the nation’s nuclear weapons laboratories have warned Congress that federal programs to extend the life of the nation’s aging nuclear arsenal are insufficient to guarantee the viability of the weapons for decades to come. [*]
The warning, which implicitly endorsed the idea of creating an expensive new generation of more reliable nuclear warheads, has no direct bearing on the new arms control agreement reached this week by the United States and Russia. [*]
Rather, it addresses a long-simmering debate on what steps the United States should take to ensure confidence in the destructive capacity of its shrinking nuclear arsenal.
President Obama came into office vowing to end a Bush administration initiative to build a new generation of nuclear arms. [*]In a speech last month to the National Defense University, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. praised the labs for maintaining the arsenal and promised an additional $5 billion over the next five years to support that work.
The new warning about the arsenal’s reliability came in letters from the directors of the nation’s three nuclear weapons labs to Representative Michael R. Turner, an Ohio Republican who is the ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on strategic forces. He had asked the directors for their opinions about a federal report, made public late last year, that suggested programs to extend the life of the nation’s nuclear weapons were good enough to guarantee their potency for decades to come. [*]
That finding, from an independent group of scientists that advises the federal government on issues of science and technology, could influence whether the Senate ratifies another nuclear treaty, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty — a prime objective of the Obama administration — or whether the nation instead prepares for the design of new nuclear arms. [*]
Republicans on Capitol Hill have argued that concerns over the reliability of the aging stockpile and the possible need for new designs compel the nation to retain the right to conduct underground tests of new weapons.
The three laboratory directors all criticized the report from the group of independent scientists, which is known as the Jason panel. [*]Michael R. Anastasio, director of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, said he “did not agree” with the report’s conclusion about maintaining the nuclear arsenal for decades with existing methods.
“Some materials and components in the current stockpile cannot be replicated in a refurbishment,” he wrote, adding that available ways to mitigate aging were “reaching their limits.”
George H. Miller, director of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said the main findings of the panel’s report “understate, in my view, the challenges and risks encountered in ensuring a safe and reliable nuclear force.” [*]
Although the three letters were all written in January, Mr. Turner’s office released them now amid reports of an agreement on the new arms reduction treaty. [shocker: a congressman times the release with recent progress with Russia] [it’s amazing how entrenched these political attitudes are] [in sense, US still fighting the CW] [**] Arms control advocates dismissed the letters from the nuclear laboratories, which employ many thousands of nuclear specialists, as blatant attempts to protect their turf, rather than to air objective assessments. [I don’t think so though that’s part of it] [*]
“They are calculating that the administration does not have the courage to do battle with them, and they may be right,” said Greg Mello, executive director of the Los Alamos Study Group, a private organization that monitors the nuclear laboratories.
“Stepping back,” he added, “it appears the White House and liberals in Congress have been outmaneuvered — again — by the nuclear weapons establishment.” [*]
In a statement on Thursday, Mr. Turner said that he was making the letters public “to further inform the public discussion on U.S. nuclear weapons policy and strategy” and that he planned to raise the reliability issue at a coming hearing with the director of the National Nuclear Security Administration, which runs the weapons laboratories. [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032604570.html
Pakistan-born cabdriver in Chicago accused of helping al-Qaeda
Saturday, March 27, 2010; A06 [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo] [bureaucracy] [another, apparently, in a spate of US domestic cases in 2009] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [*]
A Chicago taxi driver born in Pakistan was arrested Friday on two charges of providing material support to terrorists -- allegedly attempting to funnel money to al-Qaeda and discussing an attack on a U.S. stadium.
Raja Lahrasib Khan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, does not pose an imminent danger to Americans, prosecutors said. But they said Khan, 56, had claimed he knew Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistan-based extremist leader with close ties to al-Qaeda. [*]
Kashmiri faces criminal charges in the United States for allegedly conspiring with another Chicagoan, David C. Headley, to kill employees of a Danish newspaper that published derogatory cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
The court papers in Khan's case describe a March 11 phone call in which he appeared to

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032604570.html
Pakistan-born cabdriver in Chicago accused of helping al-Qaeda
Saturday, March 27, 2010; A06 [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo] [bureaucracy] [another, apparently, in a spate of US domestic cases in 2009] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [*]
A Chicago taxi driver born in Pakistan was arrested Friday on two charges of providing material support to terrorists -- allegedly attempting to funnel money to al-Qaeda and discussing an attack on a U.S. stadium.
Raja Lahrasib Khan, a naturalized U.S. citizen, does not pose an imminent danger to Americans, prosecutors said. But they said Khan, 56, had claimed he knew Ilyas Kashmiri, a Pakistan-based extremist leader with close ties to al-Qaeda. [*]
Kashmiri faces criminal charges in the United States for allegedly conspiring with another Chicagoan, David C. Headley, to kill employees of a Danish newspaper that published derogatory cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.
The court papers in Khan's case describe a March 11 phone call in which he appeared to discuss attacking an unnamed U.S. stadium in August with bombs that go "boom, boom, boom, boom."m [did they get this from Headley???] [*]
Authorities sent an undercover agent to meet with Khan and give him $1,000 to send to Kashmiri, the court papers said.
-- Carrie Johnson © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/europe/27start.html
March 26, 2010
Twists and Turns on Way to Arms Pact With Russia
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model; Obama’s team and the president’s gritty determination] [nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence] [while Bush made them part of the NSC process also, only insofar as National Security Strategy of United States] [appears some change but mostly continuity?] [evolution after CW was toward bureaucracies: energy department, defense department, nuclear regulatory commissions, etc.] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [use psci 350] [followup] [see Post’s editorial today] [cross in individual-role] [*]
President Obama was angry. He was on the phone with President Dmitri A. Medvedev last month to finalize a new arms control treaty with Russia, only to be confronted with new demands for concessions on missile defense. A deal that was supposed to be done was unraveling.
“Dmitri, we agreed,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Medvedev with a tone of exasperation, according

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/europe/27start.html
March 26, 2010
Twists and Turns on Way to Arms Pact With Russia
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model; Obama’s team and the president’s gritty determination] [nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence] [while Bush made them part of the NSC process also, only insofar as National Security Strategy of United States] [appears some change but mostly continuity?] [evolution after CW was toward bureaucracies: energy department, defense department, nuclear regulatory commissions, etc.] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [use psci 350] [followup] [see Post’s editorial today] [cross in individual-role] [*]
President Obama was angry. He was on the phone with President Dmitri A. Medvedev last month to finalize a new arms control treaty with Russia, only to be confronted with new demands for concessions on missile defense. A deal that was supposed to be done was unraveling.
“Dmitri, we agreed,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Medvedev with a tone of exasperation, according to advisers. “We can’t do this. If it means we’re going to walk away from this treaty and not get it done, so be it. But we’re not going to go down this path.” [*]
Mr. Obama hung up and vented frustration. Some of his advisers had never seen him so mad. [*]A picture taken by a White House photographer captured his grim face in that moment of uncertainty. For a year he had been trying to forge a new relationship with Russia, starting with a treaty to slash nuclear arsenals. And for a year Russia had been testing him, suspecting he was weak and certain it could roll over him. [*]
If Mr. Obama overestimated his powers of persuasion in reaching quick agreement with the Russians, they misjudged how far they could get him to bend. [Russians read the US press so of course that’s what they thought] [*] In the end, they compromised on nonbinding language. And so, after all the fits and starts, all the miscalculations, the vodka toasts that proved premature and the stare-downs that nearly sank the whole enterprise, Mr. Obama hung up the phone again with Mr. Medvedev on Friday, this time having finally translated aspiration into agreement.
The president then stepped before cameras to tell the world that next month the United States and Russia would sign a “new Start” treaty paring back their still formidable nuclear arsenals, cutting the legal limits on deployed strategic warheads by 30 percent and on launchers by half. Just as important, it will establish an inspection regime to replace one that expired in December. [people will nitpick as they should] [but it basically looks solid] [*]
The announcement culminated a negotiation that sprawled across time and space in ways that Mr. Obama hardly expected when he kicked it off, a process that dragged on four months past its deadline and leapt from London to Moscow to Geneva to Singapore to Copenhagen to Washington. For a new president, the effort became a crucible of diplomacy and a tutorial in the complexities of international security.
This account of how Mr. Obama reached agreement is based on interviews with American officials and Russian insiders, many of whom requested anonymity to discuss confidential negotiations. [*]It is a story with twists and turns that included 10 rounds of talks by full-time negotiators in Geneva but ultimately kept coming around to intense personal negotiations between Mr. Obama and Mr. Medvedev, who met or talked by telephone 14 times to hash through disputes.
“When President Obama’s domestic positions were weakened in recent months and he was completely consumed in his crusade for health care reform, making all other issues irrelevant, it is surprising how much attention he kept on Start,” [*]said Sergei M. Rogov, director of the Institute for U.S. and Canada Studies in Moscow, referring to the treaty. “Even being 24-hours-a-day busy on health reform, he had a 25th hour for Start.”
And a 26th and maybe a 27th. [clearly a cool customer] [on foreign policy, he’s able to multitask, in today’s argot] [*]
“It’s been much harder than we anticipated,” said a senior Obama administration official involved in the process. “We thought it would be relatively easy.”
It was not.
The treaty was born in the days after Mr. Obama’s election as president in 2008, when he decided to “reset” strained ties with Russia. Since he also harbored dreams of eventually eliminating the world’s nuclear weapons, arms control was an obvious way to pursue two goals at once.
Mr. Obama first met Mr. Medvedev last April at an economic summit meeting in London, and they agreed to draft a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991, or Start, which was scheduled to expire in December. With so little time, the goal was to extend and update inspection and verification systems while enacting modest weapons cuts as a down payment on deeper reductions later.
The two sides picked arms control veterans to lead talks in Geneva. Rose Gottemoeller, who worked on nuclear issues in the Clinton administration and later lived in Russia as director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, [proably was critical on both sides] [*] was appointed assistant secretary of state for verification, compliance and implementation. Anatoly Antonov, a veteran ambassador and director of security and disarmament at the Russian Foreign Ministry, would lead Moscow’s delegation. But Mr. Obama would find again and again that he had to step in, that the Russians would not resolve the big issues until they had taken his measure.
“He has been personally involved in this in a way I don’t think other presidents have been,” said Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff. And along the way, he forged a bond with Mr. Medvedev that he hopes will prove useful in the future. [that’s what one would expect Rahm to say] [but all indications are that it is accurate] [*]
Mr. Obama used a visit to Moscow in July to narrow differences over treaty goals, with American negotiators pushing to announce specific targets for arms cuts. The Russians balked, wanting to leave them undefined. In the end, they compromised by declaring a target range for warheads and delivery vehicles, defining the parameters of future talks.
The Russians raised American plans for missile defense, long a sore point. [*]How could Moscow cut its arsenal deeply if the Americans built a system that could negate the smaller nuclear force? Mr. Obama agreed only to a general statement acknowledging that the decisions about deploying offensive and defense weapons were interrelated. [*]
Missile defense was not the only point of contention. Mr. Obama’s team assumed that the Kremlin would agree to an updated version of the Start treaty’s verification program. But they were surprised to discover that Russian officials resented that system, viewing it as part of a treaty negotiated in weakness as the Soviet Union was collapsing. [Russia ethos] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [*]
Under Start, American inspectors had been based at Russia’s Votkinsk missile production factory. The Kremlin wanted them out and told the Obama team that the Bush administration, before leaving office, had already agreed. Ms. Gottemoeller was disturbed but found she could not reopen the issue. “They kept saying, ‘It’s the reset. Why do we need inspectors? We’re all friends now,’ ” another American official recalled.
Russia wanted deeper cuts in American launchers because Moscow already had unilaterally pared back its costly missiles. During a meeting in Singapore, Mr. Medvedev pressed the point, but Mr. Obama resisted, worrying that it would compel him to abandon one of the legs of the American nuclear triad: ballistic missiles, nuclear-armed submarines and strategic bombers.
The two sides also split over sharing missile data known as telemetry. Moscow was adamant that the new treaty not require telemetry exchange. The topic came up so frequently that Mr. Medvedev joked, “My favorite word in English now is ‘telemetry.’ ” [they routinely scoop up the other’s telemetry all the time so what’s the issue?] [*]
With those issues unresolved, Start expired in December. The Russians calculated that Mr. Obama would be so eager to have a new treaty by the time he traveled to Oslo later that month to accept his Nobel Peace Prize that he would accept concessions, so they took a hard line.
Mr. Obama held out. But at a meeting on climate change in Copenhagen, he met Mr. Medvedev again and thought he finally made a breakthrough.
The climate change meeting was held in an emptied shopping mall. Mr. Obama met his team in a dress shop surrounded by unclothed mannequins. He and Mr. Medvedev finally agreed on most of the major issues: They would cut deployed warheads to 1,550 per side, down from the current limit of 2,200. They would cut deployed heavy bombers and missiles to 700 each. They would conduct 18 inspections a year, up from 10 originally proposed by Moscow.
Even on the technical telemetry issue, they found agreement.
“Let’s just do it on an annual basis,” Mr. Obama proposed spontaneously.
“I don’t see any problem with that,” Mr. Medvedev said. [**]
Mr. Obama turned to his own advisers and asked, “You guys good with that?”
The Americans left Copenhagen feeling good with that.
“We thought we had all the major things agreed on,” an Obama adviser said. But nothing was in writing. A team went to Moscow in January to iron out final details. It included Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser; Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Ms. Gottemoeller; Michael McFaul, the president’s Russia adviser; and Gary Samore, his nonproliferation adviser.
The negotiators finalized one last weapons limit, capping launchers, deployed or not, at 800 each. The meeting went so well that the Americans returned to their hotel and exchanged high fives. Waiting to leave at a Moscow airport, they treated themselves to a vodka toast, only to be surprised at the $270 bill for nine shots. [*]Mr. Obama was pleased when he later ran into Mr. McFaul and Mr. Samore.
“How’d we do, guys?” Mr. Obama asked.
“We’re done, sir,” one said.
Not yet.
Missile defense had faded as an issue after Mr. Obama scrapped the Bush architecture and reformulated it to focus initially on short- and medium-range Iranian missiles. But the day after the Moscow meeting, Mr. Antonov of the Russian delegation suddenly reintroduced the issue to Ms. Gottemoeller, insisting the treaty include a commitment not to change missile defense plans further. [typically Russian manuver] [*] The renewed dispute intensified two weeks later when Romania unexpectedly announced that it would host interceptors from the new system, putting the reconfigured missile defense system right in Russia’s geopolitical backyard. That led to the tense phone conversation with Mr. Medvedev on Feb. 24 that left Mr. Obama so angry. [*]
Mr. Medvedev insisted on issuing a joint statement that would bind missile defense. Mr. Obama refused but said he was open to separate unilateral statements that would detail each side’s position without any binding effect. Ellen O. Tauscher, the under secretary of state for arms control, flew to Geneva to join Ms. Gottemoeller for a final push.
Dmitri V. Trenin, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, said that the Kremlin thought Mr. Obama would back down out of eagerness to finish the treaty before coming international nuclear summit meetings.
“They believed Obama could be put under pressure and concessions could be extracted from him,” Mr. Trenin said. “He needed the treaty more than the Russians in the short term.” [*]
Ultimately, Russia backed down. Mr. Medvedev called Mr. Obama on March 13, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton then traveled to Moscow. Negotiators finished drafting their separate statements on Tuesday, with Russia warning that it reserved the right to withdraw from the treaty if it deemed American missile defenses a threat, while the United States said it would build the defenses as it saw fit but was not making a target of Russia. [they couldn’t roll him!] [*]
By Friday, the two presidents set aside the discord underlying those statements. Speaking on the phone, according to an American official, they congratulated themselves on breaking through the mistrust. “If you want something done right,” Mr. Medvedev began in English, and Mr. Obama finished his thought: “you do it yourself.”
Ellen Barry contributed reporting from Moscow.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032604410.html
A worthy U.S.-Russia arms control treaty
Saturday, March 27, 2010; A12 [editorial] [recent US-Russia arms control deal] [continuity: SALT, START, others] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [*]
THE NEW U.S.-Russian arms control treaty was described Friday by the Obama administration as a step toward the achievement of a host of ambitious goals: a "strong partnership" with the regime of Vladimir Putin; multilateral action to stop or reverse the nuclearization of Iran and North Korea; and not least, as President Obama put it, "a world without nuclear weapons." But it's not necessary to share the president's long-term vision, or his expansive estimation of the new treaty's influence, in order to celebrate what appears to be a solid diplomatic achievement. [agreed] [it’s symbolically important and probably helps NPT work better] [*]
A year in negotiation, the accord mandates a trim of about 30 percent in the deployed

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032604410.html
A worthy U.S.-Russia arms control treaty
Saturday, March 27, 2010; A12 [editorial] [recent US-Russia arms control deal] [continuity: SALT, START, others] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [*]
THE NEW U.S.-Russian arms control treaty was described Friday by the Obama administration as a step toward the achievement of a host of ambitious goals: a "strong partnership" with the regime of Vladimir Putin; multilateral action to stop or reverse the nuclearization of Iran and North Korea; and not least, as President Obama put it, "a world without nuclear weapons." But it's not necessary to share the president's long-term vision, or his expansive estimation of the new treaty's influence, in order to celebrate what appears to be a solid diplomatic achievement. [agreed] [it’s symbolically important and probably helps NPT work better] [*]
A year in negotiation, the accord mandates a trim of about 30 percent in the deployed strategic weapons of the two countries, to 1,550 warheads on each side. Launchers -- land and sea-based missiles as well as bombers -- would be reduced to 800. [my recent caculation was 30% on warheads and 50% on launchers] [*] Russia is already near that figure and will almost certainly fall well below it during the treaty's 10-year term. The United States will have to cut launchers by several hundred, though it will be able to convert some to carry conventional weapons. That's one reason why the treaty is more important to Moscow, and its ambitions of remaining on a par with the United States, than it is to U.S. national security. [but c.f., today’s external where Russia ethos causes Russians to view it suspiciously] [e.g., why’d Russia make concessions and how bad?] [*]
Mr. Putin also hoped to use the accord -- dubbed New START, for Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty -- to curtail U.S. plans to deploy a missile defense system in Europe. Administration officials insisted Friday that the bid failed, and that "the treaty does not contain any constraints on . . . planned U.S. missile defense programs," as a White House statement put it. There is, however, language linking offensive and defensive weapons in a nonbinding preamble. Republican senators -- at least eight of whom will be needed for ratification -- can be expected to form their own opinions about whether or not it could constrain a vital defense program.
There will also be questions about verification: Past procedures for the monitoring of missile tests have been weakened. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Friday that the United States would have all the data it needed to verify the treaty. The administration will argue that, unless it is ratified, there will be no inspections of Russian weapons, since the previous regime expired in December. [*]
As described Friday, the accord sounds worthy; the United States still deploys more nuclear weapons than it needs. Mr. Obama's broader vision of what can be achieved through arms control is more open to question. He hopes the deal will add momentum to two upcoming summit meetings, on the control of nuclear materials and on revisions in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty; that seems possible. Officials say they expect Russia will now cooperate in imposing sanctions on Iran, [though critics will complain, it appears that his engagement is starting to pay dividends] [**] though Moscow is still resisting strong measures. Still, it's hard to see how new treaties will bring about the disarmament of North Korea or stop Tehran's centrifuges.
As for the notion that Mr. Obama has begun a march toward a nuclear-free world, we are with Mr. Gates, who said: "I don't think anyone expects us to come anywhere close to zero nuclear weapons anytime soon." [my assessment as recently noted in archive exactly the same] [*] Given the threats the United States and its allies still face, that is a good thing. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:34 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/opinion/27sat1.html
March 27, 2010
Editorial
Mr. Obama and Israel
[editorial] [USFP, Obama administration, continuity] [US-Israeli relations of late] [use psci 350, 355, 455][*]
After taking office last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel privately told many Americans and Europeans that he was committed to and capable of peacemaking, despite the hard-line positions that he had used to get elected for a second time. Trust me, he told them. We were skeptical when we first heard that, and we’re even more skeptical now. [*]
All this week, the Obama administration had hoped Mr. Netanyahu would give it something to work with, a way to resolve the poisonous contretemps over Jerusalem and to finally restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. It would have been a relief if they had succeeded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/opinion/27sat1.html
March 27, 2010
Editorial
Mr. Obama and Israel
[editorial] [USFP, Obama administration, continuity] [US-Israeli relations of late] [use psci 350, 355, 455][*]
After taking office last year, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel privately told many Americans and Europeans that he was committed to and capable of peacemaking, despite the hard-line positions that he had used to get elected for a second time. Trust me, he told them. We were skeptical when we first heard that, and we’re even more skeptical now. [*]
All this week, the Obama administration had hoped Mr. Netanyahu would give it something to work with, a way to resolve the poisonous contretemps over Jerusalem and to finally restart Israeli-Palestinian peace talks. It would have been a relief if they had succeeded. Serious negotiations on a two-state solution are in all their interests. And the challenges the United States and Israel face — especially Iran’s nuclear program — are too great for the leaders not to have a close working relationship. [*]
But after a cabinet meeting on Friday, Mr. Netanyahu and his right-wing government still insisted that they would not change their policy of building homes in the city, including East Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope to make the capital of an independent state. [*]
President Obama made pursuing a peace deal a priority and has been understandably furious at Israel’s response. He correctly sees the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a factor in wider regional instability.
Mr. Netanyahu’s government provoked the controversy two weeks ago when it disclosed plans for 1,600 new housing units in an ultra-orthodox neighborhood in East Jerusalem just as Vice President Joseph Biden Jr. was on a fence-mending visit and Israeli-Palestinian “proximity talks” were to begin.
Last year, Mr. Netanyahu rejected Mr. Obama’s call for a freeze on all settlement building. On Tuesday — just before Mr. Obama hosted Mr. Netanyahu at the White House — Israeli officials revealed plans to build 20 units in the Shepherd Hotel compound of East Jerusalem. [*]
Palestinians are justifiably worried that these projects nibble away at the land available for their future state. The disputes with Israel have made Mr. Obama look weak and have given Palestinians and Arab leaders an excuse to walk away from the proximity talks (in which Mr. Obama’s Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, would shuttle between Jerusalem and Ramallah) that Washington nurtured. [let’s be clear] [for whatever reasons, Obama is ot popular in Israel and that gives Bibi cause to resist] [*]
Mr. Obama was right to demand that Mr. Netanyahu repair the damage. Details of their deliberately low-key White House meeting (no photos, no press, not even a joint statement afterward) have not been revealed. We hope Israel is being pressed to at least temporarily halt building in East Jerusalem as a sign of good faith. Jerusalem’s future must be decided in negotiations. [*]
The administration should also insist that proximity talks, once begun, grapple immediately with core issues like borders and security, not incidentals. And it must ensure that the talks evolve quickly to direct negotiations — the only realistic format for an enduring agreement.
Many Israelis find Mr. Obama’s willingness to challenge Israel unsettling. We find it refreshing that he has forced public debate on issues that must be debated publicly for a peace deal to happen. He must also press Palestinians and Arab leaders just as forcefully. [*]
Questions from Israeli hard-liners and others about his commitment to Israel’s security are misplaced. The question is whether Mr. Netanyahu is able or willing to lead his country to a peace deal. He grudgingly endorsed the two-state solution. Does he intend to get there?
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:34 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/middleeast/27briefs-Egyptbrief.html
March 26, 2010
Egypt: Former Nuclear Official Makes First Public Appearance After Return
By REUTERS [Egypt] [broader middle east] [northern Africa to horn] [democratization] [President Mubarak’s health and age questions and the rumors] [Mohamed ElBaradai in news again?] [followup] [*]
Hundreds of worshipers greeted Mohamed ElBaradei, a potential presidential candidate, when he attended midday prayers on Friday at a Cairo mosque in his first public appearance since he returned in February to much fanfare after serving 12 years as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Until then, Dr. ElBaradei had not made a public appearance, instead hosting opposition leaders and academics and giving interviews at his house on Cairo’s outskirts. Dr. ElBaradei’s return has energized the political scene in Egypt, [*]which had been weakened by decades of autocratic rule under President Hosni Mubarak

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/middleeast/27briefs-Egyptbrief.html
March 26, 2010
Egypt: Former Nuclear Official Makes First Public Appearance After Return
By REUTERS [Egypt] [broader middle east] [northern Africa to horn] [democratization] [President Mubarak’s health and age questions and the rumors] [Mohamed ElBaradai in news again?] [followup] [*]
Hundreds of worshipers greeted Mohamed ElBaradei, a potential presidential candidate, when he attended midday prayers on Friday at a Cairo mosque in his first public appearance since he returned in February to much fanfare after serving 12 years as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Until then, Dr. ElBaradei had not made a public appearance, instead hosting opposition leaders and academics and giving interviews at his house on Cairo’s outskirts. Dr. ElBaradei’s return has energized the political scene in Egypt, [*]which had been weakened by decades of autocratic rule under President Hosni Mubarak, who is expected to return this weekend after undergoing medical treatment in Germany.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:33 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/asia/27korea.html
March 26, 2010
S. Korean Navy Ship Sinks in Disputed Waters
By CHOE SANG-HUN [South Korea] [ROK, South Korea] [I’m not sure most Americans understand how hair-trigger things are in peninsula?] [ROK naval ship sinks?] [as of now, no indication it was DPRK but location is suggestive!] [if it turns out it was DPRK, this will have been colossal bonehead move] [followup Dec 22 when shots fired] [wait for more info] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean Navy patrol ship sank near the disputed western maritime border with North Korea early Saturday after suffering damage to its hull, South Korea’s military said.
The sinking immediately raised suspicions about the possible involvement of North Korea, whose navy has skirmished with South Korean ships in the waters off the Korean Peninsula. But South Korean officials said it was not clear whether the ship had been

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/asia/27korea.html
March 26, 2010
S. Korean Navy Ship Sinks in Disputed Waters
By CHOE SANG-HUN [South Korea] [ROK, South Korea] [I’m not sure most Americans understand how hair-trigger things are in peninsula?] [ROK naval ship sinks?] [as of now, no indication it was DPRK but location is suggestive!] [if it turns out it was DPRK, this will have been colossal bonehead move] [followup Dec 22 when shots fired] [wait for more info] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — A South Korean Navy patrol ship sank near the disputed western maritime border with North Korea early Saturday after suffering damage to its hull, South Korea’s military said.
The sinking immediately raised suspicions about the possible involvement of North Korea, whose navy has skirmished with South Korean ships in the waters off the Korean Peninsula. But South Korean officials said it was not clear whether the ship had been attacked by the North. [sounds like mine of shot from ship] [could it have been friendly fire?] [*]
South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, ordered an emergency meeting of security-related cabinet ministers at an underground bunker at his office, the Blue House, in Seoul, and he ordered the military to focus on rescue efforts, according to South Korean news reports.
“It is premature at this stage to discuss the cause of the sinking,” said a presidential spokeswoman, Kim Eun-hye. “It has not been determined whether this incident is related to North Korea.”
By early Saturday morning, 58 of the ship’s 104 crew members had been rescued, Commodore Lee Ki-shik of the South Korean Navy said during a news briefing. More navy ships were headed to the scene to assist in the rescue efforts.
The commodore did confirm reports in the South Korean news media that another South Korean ship had fired warning shots around the time the first ship was damaged after detecting an unidentified object on its radar. He cautioned that the object could have been a flock of birds.
“All we can say for now is that one of our patrol ships is sinking after it suffered a rupture in its bottom created by an unidentified cause,” said a spokesman at the South Korean Office of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because South Korea had not made a formal announcement. [*]
The ship was in the Yellow Sea near Baengnyeong, a South Korean island eight miles from the North Korean coast and 120 miles from the South Korean mainland.
The waters in the disputed western sea near the two Koreas make up the most volatile section of the border between North and South Korea and were the site of naval clashes in 1999 and 2002. [**]
North Korea rejects a maritime border unilaterally drawn by the United Nations at the end of the 1950-53 Korean War and defended by the South Koreans.
In November, naval patrol boats from the North and South exchanged fire after a North Korean boat crossed that sea border, called the northern-limit line.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/europe/27russia.html
March 26, 2010
As Obama Hails Arms Pact, Applause in Kremlin Is Faint
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [democratization in the former USSR—now the “Near Abroad”] [use ir text and use psci350] [Russian ethos and others] [Russia exercising its hegemony over its constituent parts?] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455] [c.f., Baker piece in today’s govt] [*]
MOSCOW — On a Friday that began in Washington with a triumphant presidential news conference about the conclusion of arms talks with Russia, Moscow seemed to have its mind on other things.
President Dmitri A. Medvedev was in Sochi, scolding Olympic trainers over their athletes’ dismal showing in Vancouver. Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin gave a speech on the dangers posed by spring flooding. The highest-ranking Russian official to address reporters about the treaty was Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, who hastily gathered the press at dinnertime in a tiny ministry conference room. [*]
Mr. Lavrov called the agreement “real progress” in the relationship between Russia and the United States, but added that Russia could pull out if it concluded that the American missile

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/europe/27russia.html
March 26, 2010
As Obama Hails Arms Pact, Applause in Kremlin Is Faint
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia-US relations] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [northern Caucasus, transcaucases] [democratization in the former USSR—now the “Near Abroad”] [use ir text and use psci350] [Russian ethos and others] [Russia exercising its hegemony over its constituent parts?] [followup] [recent arms deals with Obama administration] [use psci 355, 455] [c.f., Baker piece in today’s govt] [*]
MOSCOW — On a Friday that began in Washington with a triumphant presidential news conference about the conclusion of arms talks with Russia, Moscow seemed to have its mind on other things.
President Dmitri A. Medvedev was in Sochi, scolding Olympic trainers over their athletes’ dismal showing in Vancouver. Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin gave a speech on the dangers posed by spring flooding. The highest-ranking Russian official to address reporters about the treaty was Foreign Minister Sergey V. Lavrov, who hastily gathered the press at dinnertime in a tiny ministry conference room. [*]
Mr. Lavrov called the agreement “real progress” in the relationship between Russia and the United States, but added that Russia could pull out if it concluded that the American missile defense plans had compromised its nuclear deterrent. Indeed, unease over missile defense was seeping into commentary even as officials hailed a mutual success. [*]
Mikhail V. Margelov, the chairman of the foreign affairs committee in the upper house of Russia’s Parliament, said the document was “neither a Russian gift to America nor an American gift to Russia.” He acknowledged that the reception had been quiet, saying that was because negotiators were focused on finishing the job.
“We are on the edge of signing a treaty, so why make noise?” Mr. Margelov said. “I mean, speaking in colloquial language, let us drink Champagne when we accomplish the task.”
In recent months Russian leaders — notably Mr. Putin — have pushed openly for a pact that explicitly links reductions in strategic weapons to limits on the American missile-defense program. Aleksei K. Pushkov, the host of the political talk show “Post-Scriptum,” said he feared that the text of the treaty included only a “soft linkage” between offense and defense. For many Russians, the first question will be, “Where have we made concessions to the United States?” he said, and they will look for the answer in those phrases. [ethos] [*]
“The treaty will be criticized by a number of people — people who are connected to the military, and political experts who will say it is a fig leaf which allows Russia to save face, but does not allow Russia to ask anything of the U.S., at least anything of substance,” Mr. Pushkov said.
“Should we have signed a treaty which does not give us any kind of serious guarantee?” he said. “This is something which will be debated.”
But if that conversation had begun on Friday, it was a quiet one. As Russia’s arsenal ages, the treaty will allow Moscow to maintain parity with the United States, which can afford a larger force, and arms talks serve to reassert its status as a nuclear superpower.
Gen. Nikolai Y. Makarov, the chief of Russia’s general staff, spoke in favor of the pact, saying it “will eliminate concerns on both sides and is fully in line with the security interests of Russia.” [*]
One reason for Russian caution is the looming ratification vote in the United States Senate, where any note of Russian triumphalism might play badly. Russia’s opposition is too weak to block ratification here, though Mr. Margelov said he expected vigorous criticism from Communists in Parliament, for whom, as he put it, “any agreement with the United States is considered a kind of betrayal of the motherland.” [Russia ethos] [*]
He said he hoped they would all come to see the agreement for what it was: a compromise.
“All foreign policy is compromise,” he said. “I don’t think we have to report to our public that it was a great diplomatic victory for Russia. And our American colleagues should not deceive their public by saying it was a great American victory. It was a compromise. There is nothing wrong with that word.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/middleeast/27baghdad.html
March 26, 2010
Blasts Kill Dozens at Cafe and Restaurant North of Baghdad
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [renewed sectarian tensions and fault lines] [success of “surge”] [as well as it worked, the issue still looms regarding how the Awakening to be situated in government in future?] [elections appear to occur with little disruption despite the attempts] [good news for US and Iraq?] [followup] [at long last some election results are released] [America’s old “friend” Allawi appears to have done well?] [*]
BAGHDAD — A day of high drama here was marred by a pair of explosions that ripped through a cafe and a restaurant in a violent town north of Baghdad on Friday, [*]killing 43 people and wounding at least 65 others, the authorities said.
The blasts in the Diyala Province town of Khalis occurred hours before the government released the results of the country’s March 7 parliamentary election, which showed the former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, posting a narrow victory over the incumbent prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. [*]
Victims of the bombing quickly overwhelmed health care facilities in Khalis, and many of the wounded were taken to a hospital in Baquba, the provincial capital.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/middleeast/27baghdad.html
March 26, 2010
Blasts Kill Dozens at Cafe and Restaurant North of Baghdad
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [renewed sectarian tensions and fault lines] [success of “surge”] [as well as it worked, the issue still looms regarding how the Awakening to be situated in government in future?] [elections appear to occur with little disruption despite the attempts] [good news for US and Iraq?] [followup] [at long last some election results are released] [America’s old “friend” Allawi appears to have done well?] [*]
BAGHDAD — A day of high drama here was marred by a pair of explosions that ripped through a cafe and a restaurant in a violent town north of Baghdad on Friday, [*]killing 43 people and wounding at least 65 others, the authorities said.
The blasts in the Diyala Province town of Khalis occurred hours before the government released the results of the country’s March 7 parliamentary election, which showed the former interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, posting a narrow victory over the incumbent prime minister, Nuri Kamal al-Maliki. [*]
Victims of the bombing quickly overwhelmed health care facilities in Khalis, and many of the wounded were taken to a hospital in Baquba, the provincial capital.
“I don’t know what happened,” said Mustafa Hamid, 22, who suffered a head injury. “I was in the market bringing breads for my family and suddenly there was a big explosion. I saw a fire rising up to sky, then I lost consciousness. I didn’t wake up until I heard the ambulance honking its horn.”
Mahmoud Salih, a 44-year-old store owner, was lying on a bed, bleeding from wounds on his hands and abdomen. Beside him a woman was crying.
Mr. Salih blamed Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, a Sunni extremist group, for the attack. The group has been responsible for dozens of attacks in the town during the past several years. [*]
“God curses Qaeda and whoever is behind it,” he said. “God burns them with hellfire.”
Shahied Ali, 55, who was hit by shrapnel that lodged in his chest and legs, said he could barely remember anything.
“I don’t know what happened,” he said. “There were only corpses that filled the street around me. It’s a tragedy. I can’t describe it with simple words. All that I can say is it was a massacre.”
Zaid Thaker contributed reporting from Baghdad, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Baquba.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/asia/27afghan.html
March 26, 2010
Tighter Rules Fail to Stem Deaths of Innocent Afghans at Checkpoints
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [US and coalition changed rules of engagment still not working properly] [use psci 469] [followup] [gsave] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul.
“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. [he’s obviously aware] [*] His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.
Though fewer in number than deaths from airstrikes and Special Forces operations, such

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/asia/27afghan.html
March 26, 2010
Tighter Rules Fail to Stem Deaths of Innocent Afghans at Checkpoints
By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [US and coalition changed rules of engagment still not working properly] [use psci 469] [followup] [gsave] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — American and NATO troops firing from passing convoys and military checkpoints have killed 30 Afghans and wounded 80 others since last summer, but in no instance did the victims prove to be a danger to troops, according to military officials in Kabul.
“We have shot an amazing number of people, but to my knowledge, none has ever proven to be a threat,” said Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, who became the senior American and NATO commander in Afghanistan last year. [he’s obviously aware] [*] His comments came during a recent videoconference to answer questions from troops in the field about civilian casualties.
Though fewer in number than deaths from airstrikes and Special Forces operations, such shootings have not dropped off, despite new rules from General McChrystal seeking to reduce the killing of innocents. The persistence of deadly convoy and checkpoint shootings has led to growing resentment among Afghans fearful of Western troops and angry at what they see as the impunity with which the troops operate — a friction that has turned villages firmly against the occupation. [*]
Failure to reduce checkpoint and convoy shootings, known in the military as “escalation of force” episodes, has emerged as a major frustration for military commanders who believe that civilian casualties deeply undermine the American and NATO campaign in Afghanistan.
Many of the detainees at the military prison at Bagram Air Base joined the insurgency after the shootings of people they knew, said the senior NATO enlisted man in Afghanistan, Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Hall.
“There are stories after stories about how these people are turned into insurgents,” [I don’t know whether true or not but even if not they turn against the US cause] [*] Sergeant Major Hall told troops during the videoconference. “Every time there is an escalation of force we are finding that innocents are being killed.”
One such case was the death of Mohammed Yonus, a 36-year-old imam and a respected religious authority, who was killed two months ago in eastern Kabul while commuting to a madrasa where he taught 150 students.
A passing military convoy raked his car with bullets, ripping open his chest as his two sons sat in the car. The shooting inflamed residents and turned his neighborhood against the occupation, elders there say.
“The people are tired of all these cruel actions by the foreigners, and we can’t suffer it anymore,” said Naqibullah Samim, a village elder from Hodkail, where Mr. Yonus lived. “The people do not have any other choice, they will rise against the government and fight them and the foreigners. There are a lot of cases of killing of innocent people.” [US must get this under control] [it’s hard as troops have right to protect themselves] [but it’s McChrystal’s job and why it gets the big bucks] [*]
After assuming command last summer, General McChrystal moved to reduce the killing of civilians through directives that, according to United Nations human rights researchers, have led to a 28 percent reduction in such casualties last year by American, NATO and Afghan forces. The biggest impact was reducing deaths from aerial attacks, which fell by more than a third in 2009, the United Nations found.
More recently, General McChrystal moved to bring nearly all Special Operations forces in Afghanistan under his control. NATO officials said concern about civilian casualties caused by these forces was partly behind the decision, along with the need to better coordinate units and ensure that local commanders were aware of what was happening.
One unit could be doing counterinsurgency, while another carried out “a raid that might in fact upset progress,” General McChrystal explained during the videoconference. [*]
He also challenged criticism that some of the new rules might hinder troops’ safety. “Nothing has changed to limit your right or responsibility to defend yourself,” he said.
Shootings from convoys and checkpoints involving American, NATO and Afghan forces accounted for 36 civilian deaths last year, down from 41 in 2008, according to the United Nations. With at least 30 Afghans killed since last June in 95 such shootings, according to military statistics, the rate shows no signs of abating. [he appears to be trying] [*]
And those numbers do not include shooting deaths caused by convoys guarded by private security contractors. Some tallies have put the total number of escalation of force deaths far higher.
A spokesman for the Afghan Interior Ministry, Zemary Bashary, said private security contractors sometimes killed civilians during escalation of force episodes, but he said he did not know the number of instances.
A NATO military spokesman in Kabul emphasized that commanders were not second-guessing troops, but urging them to practice “courageous restraint” and recognize that “you are more likely to be hurting someone who is confused rather than dangerous if you open fire” during an escalation of force episode. [troops have to understand such instances make them less safe over the medium term] [*]
Sharifullah Sahak and Abdul Waheed Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/asia/27kandahar.html
March 26, 2010
Kandahar, a Battlefield Even Before U.S. Offensive
By CARLOTTA GALL [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [Karzai pushing reconcliation with Taliban] [use psci 469] [followup] [UN envoy meets with Taliban leaders—but which ones?] [gsave] [*]
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — American forces have begun operations to push back Taliban insurgents in this most important southern province, the birthplace and spiritual home of the Taliban, and a full-scale offensive is expected in coming weeks. [*]
But the Taliban have already turned this city into a battlefield as they prepare for the operation, which American officials hope will be decisive in breaking the insurgency’s grip on southern Afghanistan. [*]
When American forces all arrive, they will encounter challenges larger than any other in

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/asia/27kandahar.html
March 26, 2010
Kandahar, a Battlefield Even Before U.S. Offensive
By CARLOTTA GALL [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [Karzai pushing reconcliation with Taliban] [use psci 469] [followup] [UN envoy meets with Taliban leaders—but which ones?] [gsave] [*]
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — American forces have begun operations to push back Taliban insurgents in this most important southern province, the birthplace and spiritual home of the Taliban, and a full-scale offensive is expected in coming weeks. [*]
But the Taliban have already turned this city into a battlefield as they prepare for the operation, which American officials hope will be decisive in breaking the insurgency’s grip on southern Afghanistan. [*]
When American forces all arrive, they will encounter challenges larger than any other in Afghanistan. Taliban suicide bombings and assassinations have left this city virtually paralyzed by fear. The insurgents boldly walk the streets, visit shops and even press people into keeping guns and other supplies in their houses for them in preparation for urban warfare, [*]residents say.
The government, corrupt and ineffective, lacks almost any popular support. Anyone connected to the government lives in fear of assassination. Its few officials sit barricaded behind high blast walls. Services are scant. Security, people say, is at its worst since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001. [*]
“They are focusing on the city,” said Hajji Agha Lalai, a provincial councilor and former head of the peace and reconciliation commission in Kandahar, who has extensive contacts with the Taliban. “The Taliban want to show themselves to the world, to show, ‘We are here,’ ” he said.
The intensifying Taliban campaign is a measure of the importance the insurgency places on Kandahar, where the bulk of the 30,000 additional American forces arriving this year are being deployed. That is a sign of its value to the Americans, too. [*]
The scale of the coming American offensive is expected to dwarf the recent operation in Marja, in neighboring Helmand Province, where 15,000 American, NATO and Afghan forces were deployed to secure an area much smaller than this provincial capital of 500,000 people.
American forces have been preparing for Kandahar since last year, building a presence around this city and along the border with Pakistan to try to secure the province. But as a result, in the most important urban center in southern Afghanistan, life has rapidly deteriorated, [*]residents say.
On March 13, suicide bombers killed 35 people, and the Taliban have issued repeated warnings that they are in the city and planning more attacks.
“We do not feel safe in town, and even for the men it is dangerous to go out,” said a female human rights worker who asked not to be named for fear of being singled out by the insurgents.
In the week before the bombings, officials said, the Taliban conducted a series of attacks on the police and other officials in the city, killing one or two police officers every night for several days and seizing their weapons.
A government official, the well-liked head of the province’s Information and Culture Department, Abdul Majeed Babai, was gunned down on his way to work on Feb. 24. He had received threats from the Taliban, who wanted him to leave his position, relatives said.
“The Taliban can walk around, and government officials cannot,” Hajji Lalai said.
The man nominally in charge of Kandahar Province, Gov. Tooryalai Wesa, sat alone in his office reading papers on a recent afternoon. The spacious lawns and rooms of his palace, thronged by tribal elders and petitioners a few years ago, stood empty and silent.
Outside the city, it is worse. Government services barely exist. Only 5 of 17 districts in the province are accessible for government officials. Four districts are completely under the control of the insurgents, according to Nader Nadery, deputy head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission.
Administrators and police chiefs are appointed to the districts, but they have so little backup and so few resources, they can do little. With 40 to 60 police officers in each district, they can barely guard the district center.
Health services and education are virtually absent outside the towns, and two-thirds of the province’s schools are closed, human rights officials say.
“If a single nurse or midwife is working in the districts, you can call me bad names,” a women’s activist, Shahida Hussain, said. “Even in the city, they don’t have enough equipment — forget the districts.”
Afghan officials in the district of Spinboldak on the Pakistan border said their area was more secure since American soldiers of the Stryker Brigade were deployed there last year to try to close down Taliban infiltration routes, or “rat lines,” as soldiers call them. [*]The road to Spinboldak had grown safer, and a radio tower had been installed that would allow the government to reach Afghans throughout the border region, the governor, Mr. Wesa, said on a recent visit.
Yet the Taliban have repeatedly hit Stryker units in another strategic district, Arghandab, just to the north of Kandahar city with roadside bombs. [*]
In Malahjat and Panjwai, agricultural districts to the west and southwest of Kandahar city, farmers say they are under constant threat from mines laid by the militants, as well as from American drones and helicopters combing the skies. [*]
Villagers described at least three instances in recent weeks when drone strikes killed farmers digging ditches or bringing goods home from the market, as well as other cases when Taliban fighters were hit.
American helicopters swoop in on villagers who are on motorbikes or are working in the fields and hover over them until the men remove clothing and stand with their arms aloft to show they are not militants, said one man who frequently visits his village by motorbike from the city. He asked not to be named for fear of trouble from any side.
In addition to the dangers, residents say they are despairing about the political crisis gripping the province.
Real power rests with just two families who have prospered under the presence of American forces in the past eight years. One of them is the family of President Hamid Karzai, who is represented here by his brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, who heads the provincial council. [*]
The other belongs to Gul Agha Shirzai, the former governor of Kandahar, and his brothers Bacha Shirzai and Razziq Shirzai, who have gotten lucrative security and construction deals with NATO forces.
Residents and elders accuse the families of persecuting rivals and excluding all other tribes from access to power. Their domination has undercut any popular backing for the government or the foreign forces supporting them.
“The first thing Afghans fear is the coming of more foreign troops, and the second thing they fear is the empowering of the current leadership and administration,” [that’s awful] [what a mess] [*] said Shahabuddin Akhunzada, a tribal elder from Kandahar city. His Eshaqzai tribe has complained of repeated arrests and political exclusion. The West’s acceptance of Mr. Karzai’s re-election despite widespread fraud was the last straw, he said.
“The Americans, the international community, all the military forces have lost the people’s trust,” he added. “We don’t trust what they say anymore.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:29 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032602916.html
India pushes for access to Headley, Pakistani American tied to Mumbai plot
By Emily Wax
washington post foreign service
Saturday, March 27, 2010; A06 [India] [Mumbai, previously known as Bombay, anniversary just passed] [SAsia] [subcont.] [communal violence within and between that has led to the precipice of regional war multiple times] [followup] [India’s “demand” for access to Mr. Headley?] [will be interesting to see what US does as plea deal for cooperation precludes death sentence] [use psci 469] [cross in govt] [*]
NEW DELHI -- India is demanding unfettered access to David C. Headley, an American citizen who pleaded guilty in a U.S. court last week to scouting targets for the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. [*]
New Delhi's interest in interrogating Headley is causing a diplomatic rift with the United States. American diplomats have offered conflicting signals on whether Indian investigators will be able to question Headley, 49, a Pakistani American who has agreed to provide the

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/26/AR2010032602916.html
India pushes for access to Headley, Pakistani American tied to Mumbai plot
By Emily Wax
washington post foreign service
Saturday, March 27, 2010; A06 [India] [Mumbai, previously known as Bombay, anniversary just passed] [SAsia] [subcont.] [communal violence within and between that has led to the precipice of regional war multiple times] [followup] [India’s “demand” for access to Mr. Headley?] [will be interesting to see what US does as plea deal for cooperation precludes death sentence] [use psci 469] [cross in govt] [*]
NEW DELHI -- India is demanding unfettered access to David C. Headley, an American citizen who pleaded guilty in a U.S. court last week to scouting targets for the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. [*]
New Delhi's interest in interrogating Headley is causing a diplomatic rift with the United States. American diplomats have offered conflicting signals on whether Indian investigators will be able to question Headley, 49, a Pakistani American who has agreed to provide the United States with intelligence about possible future terrorist targets. [India ought to worry about the near future] [I suspect jihadis are preparing to attack India any week now] [since it was announced India and Pakistan had taken steps to beging talks again, set aside since Mumbai, I’ve felt an attack was near] [*]
Authorities have described Headley as one of the most dangerous and informed terrorist operatives apprehended on U.S. soil. He pleaded guilty to a dozen criminal charges related to the Mumbai attacks and acknowledged making five trips to the city from 2006 to 2008 to videotape possible targets. The attacks killed 165 people, including six Americans.
Although counterterrorism experts in Washington have lauded his arrest, Indian officials have bristled at the United States' decision to keep them at a distance. [I understand India’s interests] [*]
"In India, there is still residual suspicion that Americans are not cooperating with us wholeheartedly on terrorism," [that’s life: the US must balance its interests with India against its interests in S. Asia (AfPak) against its other interests?] [*] said Lalit Mansingh, a retired ambassador to the United States. "Washington should clarify this issue as quickly as possible so we don't slide further into a full political tizzy." [I agree that Washington ought to say something to attempt to lower tensions] [I’m just not sure what admin can do given plea deal?] [*]
Relations between India and the United States have warmed in recent years, especially after the 2008 signing of a landmark civilian nuclear deal, a key policy achievement for the George W. Bush administration. But tensions have risen recently with the Obama administration, especially over concerns that Washington is favoring Pakistan, India's arch rival, in its battle against terrorism. [not Obama but has always been the case since CW era] [if US does anything positive with Paksitan, India thinks US has sold India out?] [*] Among New Delhi's fears is that the United States is providing Pakistan with sophisticated weaponry that could one day be used against India.
Despite the mixed signals on Headley, U.S. officials said it was likely that India would eventually gain access to him. As part of his plea, Headley agreed to an interrogation by Indian officials. [?] [*]
Still, Indian newspapers this week were filled with breathless headlines and editorials emphasizing the perceived slight by the United States.
"US leaves India red-faced on Headley access," said a front-page headline in the New Delhi tabloid Mail Today. [*]
Indian officials are also pushing the United States to extradite Headley so he can be tried in an Indian court. But as part of his plea bargain, the United States agreed not to send him to India. [*]That has infuriated many Indians, who are quick to note that India let the FBI interrogate Ajmal Amir Kasab, the lone surviving gunman in the Mumbai attacks.
"Since the Mumbai attacks claimed the lives of six Americans, the FBI felt it had an automatic entitlement to that meeting. But the murder of more than a hundred Indians in the same attack, one that left India naked and vulnerable forever, does not apparently give us the same right," [understandable and I’m not quite sure why US hasn’t given access in US?] [*]Barkha Dutt, a national talk show host, said in a recent column in the Hindustan Times.
The Indian media have also noted that Headley once worked as an informant in Pakistan for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. He agreed to do so in exchange for a lighter sentence on drug-trafficking charges in the 1990s. Many Indians have speculated that, before the Mumbai siege, Headley was a CIA operative who went rogue, [well, that explains it] [say CIA almost anywhere and all sorts of conspiracy theories begin] [*] an assertion Washington has denied.
"If the shoe was on the other foot and the Indian authorities had in their custody an Indian citizen involved in major terrorist attacks in the U.S., Washington would no doubt expect to be given direct access to this person. So India is justified in expecting to question David Headley directly," said Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington.
"Until India gets direct access to Headley," she said, "there will be an underlying suspicion that the U.S. is trying to cover something up." © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/asia/27pstan.html
March 26, 2010
Pakistani Forces and Militants Clash at Border
By ISMAIL KHAN [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [Obama white house] [USFP] [bureaucracy and NSC] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [more on recent changes to relationship that Pakistanis declared satisfactory!] [question remain about how satisfactory Pakistan is as ally] [followup] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Taliban militants battled Pakistani security forces for control of a security outpost in a tribal region near the Afghan border, [*]leaving five Pakistani security officials and dozens of Taliban fighters dead, Pakistani authorities said Friday.
The Taliban captured the outpost in the Orakzai tribal region on Thursday night after more than 100 militants bombarded it with mortars and automatic-rifle fire, [*]said a Pakistani

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/asia/27pstan.html
March 26, 2010
Pakistani Forces and Militants Clash at Border
By ISMAIL KHAN [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [Obama white house] [USFP] [bureaucracy and NSC] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [more on recent changes to relationship that Pakistanis declared satisfactory!] [question remain about how satisfactory Pakistan is as ally] [followup] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Taliban militants battled Pakistani security forces for control of a security outpost in a tribal region near the Afghan border, [*]leaving five Pakistani security officials and dozens of Taliban fighters dead, Pakistani authorities said Friday.
The Taliban captured the outpost in the Orakzai tribal region on Thursday night after more than 100 militants bombarded it with mortars and automatic-rifle fire, [*]said a Pakistani security official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the news media.
A lieutenant colonel of the paramilitary Frontier Corps and four other security officials were killed, he said.
Pakistani security forces counterattacked and recaptured the outpost after hours of gunfire and aerial bombardment by military jets. Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan of the Frontier Corps said that 32 foreign fighters, some of whom appeared to be Uzbeks, [*]had been killed.
Violence in Orakzai, long a militant stronghold, has increased as Pakistani forces clash with Taliban fighters who have sought refuge there from the army’s continuing operations against militants in South Waziristan.
The area has become a second base to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, [Orakzai tribal region] [*] an umbrella organization of militant groups operating in Pakistan’s western tribal regions.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that airstrikes by Pakistani jets hit a school used by the Taliban and a seminary in the region, killing almost 50 people.
The Pakistani security official said that the militants who attacked the outpost appeared to have been isolated from other groups of fighters. “Looks like these guys were stuck and could not get away,” [*]he said.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26contractor.html
March 25, 2010
U.S. Official Defends Contractors’ Mission
By GINGER THOMPSON and MARK MAZZETTI [Obama white house] [residuals from long past: Iran-Contra, Vietnam, more recent] [bureaucracy] [111th congress 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [defense department’s sometimes awkward efforts to control information] [understandable when context is the battlefield and the enemy] [often, the military has become confused about that fundamental and has sought to confuse the American people and its civilian overseers, and there big problems arise] [followup] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [privatization of USFP issues also in spades] [*]
SAN ANTONIO — A Defense Department official who is suspected of using private contractors in Afghanistan to help track and kill militants has denied that he did anything wrong, and he asserted that all his work had been approved by top American military commanders.
In an interview with The San Antonio Express-News, the official, Michael D. Furlong, said his work was limited to managing contractors who gathered information intended to

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26contractor.html
March 25, 2010
U.S. Official Defends Contractors’ Mission
By GINGER THOMPSON and MARK MAZZETTI [Obama white house] [residuals from long past: Iran-Contra, Vietnam, more recent] [bureaucracy] [111th congress 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [defense department’s sometimes awkward efforts to control information] [understandable when context is the battlefield and the enemy] [often, the military has become confused about that fundamental and has sought to confuse the American people and its civilian overseers, and there big problems arise] [followup] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [privatization of USFP issues also in spades] [*]
SAN ANTONIO — A Defense Department official who is suspected of using private contractors in Afghanistan to help track and kill militants has denied that he did anything wrong, and he asserted that all his work had been approved by top American military commanders.
In an interview with The San Antonio Express-News, the official, Michael D. Furlong, said his work was limited to managing contractors who gathered information intended to inform troops about their environment and to protect them from roadside bombs.
He flatly denied claims that his team, which included former operatives of the C.I.A. and military Special Operations units, fed information to military intelligence agencies for possible lethal action in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Spying for the military by a private contractor is generally considered illegal.
Mr. Furlong told The Express-News in interviews last week, parts of which were quoted in an article posted on its Web site on Wednesday, that the allegations were meant to cover up a turf war between the Pentagon and the C.I.A., which saw his activities as an infringement on their work. He said he had been locked out of his office at Lackland Air Force Base here, which prevented him from having access to e-mail messages and other documents that could prove his innocence. [no idea] [but it’s certainly more than plausible that turf wars are involved] [*]
Mr. Furlong, a civilian employee of the military and a retired Army officer, complained that he was being treated as a “fall guy,” and he said no one on his team was ever involved with combat operations like kicking in doors or firing on militant targets. His work, he said, was aimed only at “providing the best force protection we can provide all those 20-somethings in the foxholes.” He added, “It’s about saving lives.”
His comments came as the Defense Department ordered a two-week investigation into his activities, which were first reported in The New York Times earlier this month. Geoff Morrell, a Pentagon spokesman, said Tuesday that Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates had ordered a small group of military and Defense Department officials to assess the department’s information operations, which cost about $528 million this year, and particularly whether information gathered and disseminated for defensive efforts was being used inappropriately to help stage offensive operations.
“The secretary wants to make sure the programs that execute that money are being done according to our guidelines and with proper oversight, and that we’re getting our money’s worth out of it,” Mr. Morrell said.
Separately, the Pentagon’s inspector general is also investigating Mr. Furlong’s work and whether he inappropriately diverted money from an information-gathering program to pay contractors who acted as spies. [*]
Mr. Furlong has extensive experience in so-called psychological operations, those used to confuse or deceive an adversary. His résumé says he served in Bosnia from the mid-to-late 1990s, and in 2003, he served briefly as the director of an American-operated media consortium in Iraq that was set up to help improve Washington’s image after the invasion of Iraq.
In 2008, Mr. Furlong was part of a program called Capstone, which was run by the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center at Lackland Air Force Base. [Capstone?] [is its lineage connected to Talon or CIFA?] [*]
Although the center falls under the jurisdiction of the United States Strategic Command, based in Nebraska, officials there have distanced themselves from Mr. Furlong’s work, saying he was on loan to the United States Central Command, which controls operations in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Officials at Central Command would not comment on the case. A Defense official said that the department’s investigation would determine who was overseeing Mr. Furlong and whether there was anything improper about his work.
Mr. Furlong told The Express-News that his team filed more than 260 “atmospheric protection reports” and that their work helped thwart the assassinations of Afghan allies.
“I can categorically say none of (the contractors) ever took part in an operational action,” [*] he said in The Express-News interview. “We were purely information gatherers.”
Ginger Thompson reported from San Antonio, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26start.html
March 25, 2010
Treaty Advances Obama’s Nuclear Vision
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model] [nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence] [while Bush made them part of the NSC process also, only insofar as National Security Strategy of United States] [appears some change but mostly continuity?] [evolution after CW was toward bureaucracies: energy department, defense department, nuclear regulatory commissions, etc.] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [use psci 350] [followup, March 6] [*]
WASHINGTON — The arms control treaty being completed by the United States and Russia represents another step toward closing the books on the defining struggle of the final half of the 20th century. But it also marks the opening of a broader campaign to counter the emerging threats of the 21st century. [*]
The treaty that the two sides hope to finalize as early as Friday will require hundreds of

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26start.html
March 25, 2010
Treaty Advances Obama’s Nuclear Vision
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [Obama’s president-NSC-policymaking model] [nuclear strategy, nuclear deterrence] [while Bush made them part of the NSC process also, only insofar as National Security Strategy of United States] [appears some change but mostly continuity?] [evolution after CW was toward bureaucracies: energy department, defense department, nuclear regulatory commissions, etc.] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [use psci 350] [followup, March 6] [*]
WASHINGTON — The arms control treaty being completed by the United States and Russia represents another step toward closing the books on the defining struggle of the final half of the 20th century. But it also marks the opening of a broader campaign to counter the emerging threats of the 21st century. [*]
The treaty that the two sides hope to finalize as early as Friday will require hundreds of nuclear weapons to be shelved or destroyed, still just a fraction of the formidable arsenals maintained by the former cold war adversaries. But perhaps more important than the numbers is the tangible evidence of a new partnership with Russia and momentum toward a revamped nuclear security regime. [*]
If President Obama signs the treaty with President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia in Prague on April 8 as expected, it will give Mr. Obama a stronger hand heading into two back-to-back nuclear summit meetings where he wants to push toward the nuclear weapons-free world he envisions. At the two meetings, Mr. Obama hopes to forge international consensus to limit the spread of weapons and secure materials that could be vulnerable to terrorists, efforts that could be accelerated by the new treaty. [part of gsave] [per Bush now Obama] [*]
“The larger meaning is the delegitimization of nuclear weapons,” said Kenneth N. Luongo, president of the Partnership for Global Security, a nonprofit group pushing for aggressive efforts at the approaching meetings. “Obama will be able to go, and Medvedev as well, and say, ‘Here’s what we did on disarmament. Now we need to get serious about nuclear terrorism and nuclear materials.’ ”
Stephen Sestanovich, a veteran Russia expert who was ambassador-at-large to the former Soviet republics during the Clinton administration, said that the White House viewed the new treaty as “the key that turns a great many other locks.” But writing on the Web site of the Council on Foreign Relations, he cautioned that the deep mistrust between the United States and Russia stubbornly remained. “The new treaty will not put it to rest,” [agreed; the relationship takes work and for understandable reasons (mostly) the last few years of Bush did not see the requisite work] [*] he wrote.
The specific arms reductions embedded in the new treaty amount to a continuing evolution rather than a radical shift in the countries’ nuclear postures.
According to people in Washington and Moscow briefed on the new treaty, it will lower the legal limit on deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 each from the 2,200 allowed as of 2012. It would lower the limit on launchers to 800 from the 1,600 now permitted. Nuclear-armed missiles and heavy bombers would be capped at 700 each. [same numbers reported yesterday] [about 30% and 50% decrease warheads and launchers respectively] [*]
The United States currently has 2,100 deployed strategic warheads, and Russia 2,600, according to the Federation of American Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council, so each side will have to cut hundreds within seven years after the treaty is ratified. But both sides have been cutting their launchers unilaterally for years, with the United States already down to below 1,200 and Russia already at just 800 as allowed in the new treaty. Moreover, the treaty does not limit the thousands of tactical nuclear bombs and stored strategic warheads.
The notion that “this is somehow great news or a breakthrough” in fact “is hardly the case,” said Peter Huessy, president of GeoStrategic Analysis, a national security consulting business. As a matter of percentages, Mr. Huessy noted that the treaty cut warheads only half as much as did the Treaty of Moscow signed in 2002 by President George W. Bush. [only politicos are claiming it’s a big deal] [but this guy obviously doesn’t even think it’s important symbolically, which is sort of surprising] [the US did get some substantial cooperation from Russia from Bush 41 and even Bush 43 agreements but they ran into problems with gsave in latter and that put kabbosh] [he should know that the fruits are seen only over time; also, 9/11s don’t come along that often but when they do disruptions should be expected] [he seems to have an agenda that is hardline on Russia, which is fine but don’t dress it up as objective analysis?] [*]
“What did we get out of the deal?” Mr. Huessy asked. “Nothing that I can see, and I have been doing nuclear stuff, including arms control, since 1981.”
The Obama administration readily acknowledges the limitations of the new treaty, but from the beginning described it as an effort aimed especially at building a foundation of trust with Moscow and establishing an inspection regime to replace the one that expired in December with the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, or Start.
After a successful first round, Mr. Obama plans to open another round of negotiations to cut arsenals even further, including stored warheads and tactical weapons. And eventually he envisions bringing other nuclear powers like China, Britain and France into the discussions.
Disarmament is only part of the agenda. Four days after the treaty’s signing in Prague, Mr. Obama will host the leaders of as many as 45 countries in Washington to discuss how to prevent nuclear materials from falling into the wrong hands. [let’s be clear: Obama’s aspiration to see nuclear-free world is just that] [nobody in the admin seriously thinks they will get there while Obama is president] [rather, it’s important movement in changing world that sets proper tone] [and it’s a premise of NPT that US has signed twice now] [the status quo nuke club is supposed to be working toward nuclear free] [*]
And then a month after that, world leaders will gather in New York for the regular review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, where they will consider how to keep more countries from developing weapons like North Korea has done and, according to Western leaders, Iran is doing.
Mr. Obama also wants to negotiate a treaty on fissile materials and plans to press the Senate to finally ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
“If we get a Start deal done, it will demonstrate a strong partnership between the United States and Russia being able to address not just the problems of nuclear security in their two countries, but the deadly spread of nuclear weapons throughout the world,” said Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary.
Nikolai Sokov, a former Soviet arms negotiator now at the Monterey Institute of International Studies in California, said the new pact was “both modest and essential” to more lasting accomplishments.
“So much effort has been spent in the last several months that there is a tendency to see it as a major step forward,” he said. “I think 10 years from now, we will see it for what it is — a small bridge treaty, without which subsequent, much bigger, achievement would not have been possible.”
Clifford J. Levy contributed reporting from Moscow.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26binladen.html
March 25, 2010
Bin Laden Threatens Any Americans Held
By SCOTT SHANE [obama white house] [bureaucracy] [IC] [AfPak?] [suddenly, bin Laden finding it useful to make pronouncments from caves again?] [I suspect he craves the attention and he simply enjoys heaping invective on US-West] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [same m.o as past where audio tape disseminated via al Jazeera] [his position is hardly a surprise?] [they ransom or kill Americans anyway?] [*]
WASHINGTON — In a 74-second audio message released on Thursday, Osama bin Laden threatened to kill any Americans held by Al Qaeda if Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, is executed.
American counterterrorism officials said they thought the recording, addressed to the American people and broadcast on Al Jazeera television, was authentic. [*]
Mr. bin Laden denounced the United States for imprisoning Qaeda members, “first and foremost among them the holy warrior and hero, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,”[*] according to

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26binladen.html
March 25, 2010
Bin Laden Threatens Any Americans Held
By SCOTT SHANE [obama white house] [bureaucracy] [IC] [AfPak?] [suddenly, bin Laden finding it useful to make pronouncments from caves again?] [I suspect he craves the attention and he simply enjoys heaping invective on US-West] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [same m.o as past where audio tape disseminated via al Jazeera] [his position is hardly a surprise?] [they ransom or kill Americans anyway?] [*]
WASHINGTON — In a 74-second audio message released on Thursday, Osama bin Laden threatened to kill any Americans held by Al Qaeda if Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks, is executed.
American counterterrorism officials said they thought the recording, addressed to the American people and broadcast on Al Jazeera television, was authentic. [*]
Mr. bin Laden denounced the United States for imprisoning Qaeda members, “first and foremost among them the holy warrior and hero, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed,”[*] according to a translation by the Middle East Media Research Institute in Washington.
“The White House declared that it wanted to execute them,” Mr. bin Laden said. “The day the United States makes this decision, it will have made the decision to execute those of you who fall prisoner to us.” [how’s that different?] [*]
The message was undated, but it appeared to be referring to statements in recent months by Obama administration officials that Mr. Mohammed, who is awaiting trial on murder charges, is likely to be convicted and executed. The officials were defending the administration’s initial plan, now under review, to give five people accused of being Sept. 11 conspirators civilian criminal trials.
Asked in an interview with NBC News in November about Americans who were offended that Mr. Mohammed would get the same rights as any other criminal defendant, President Obama said such critics would not find it “offensive at all when he’s convicted and when the death penalty is applied to him.” He added that he was not trying to prejudge the outcome of any trial. [*]
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, have made similar statements. [*]
Since January, when New York City officials objected to the disruption and cost of a trial for Mr. Mohammed in federal court in Manhattan, the administration has been considering its options. Opponents of a criminal trial have called for the suspects to face military commissions at the prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where they are now being held.
In the new recording, Mr. bin Laden repeated a recurrent theme of Qaeda messages since Mr. Obama’s election: that he had not reversed the policies toward the Muslim world of former President George W. Bush. “Your master in the White House continues to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor in many important matters, like his escalation of the war in Afghanistan,” [bin Laden agrees with me on continuity in USFP] [bonus] [*] Mr. bin Laden said.
No Americans are known to be held directly by Al Qaeda, officials said, though Taliban fighters are believed to be holding Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, who was kidnapped after walking off his Army base in southern Afghanistan last summer.
An American counterterrorism official who discussed the bin Laden statement on the condition of anonymity called it the “height of absurdity” for Al Qaeda to threaten now to harm captives, given that the group’s operatives have routinely tortured and beheaded prisoners, [*]including the American journalist Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502675.html
What we can learn from the Christmas Day bombing attempt
By Brian Michael Jenkins, Bruce Butterworth and Cathal Flynn
Friday, March 26, 2010; A23 [oped] [on Xmas Plot] [nice bipartisan group of experts] [may help re-establish consensus?] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
President Obama's nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this week that he would like U.S. airport screening to more closely resemble the Israeli process. Perhaps attention is turning to what really matters about the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253: what it can teach us about aviation security. [*]
The Christmas Day attack represented a double failure: first to keep accused bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab off the flight and, second, to detect the crude explosive he allegedly carried. [*]Fortunately, Abdulmutallab could not detonate his device, which probably wouldn't have brought down the plane. But our response to the "underpants bomber" won global notoriety for al-Qaeda in Yemen and reminded Americans of their vulnerabilities.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/25/AR2010032502675.html
What we can learn from the Christmas Day bombing attempt
By Brian Michael Jenkins, Bruce Butterworth and Cathal Flynn
Friday, March 26, 2010; A23 [oped] [on Xmas Plot] [nice bipartisan group of experts] [may help re-establish consensus?] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [*]
President Obama's nominee to lead the Transportation Security Administration told the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee this week that he would like U.S. airport screening to more closely resemble the Israeli process. Perhaps attention is turning to what really matters about the attempted bombing of Northwest Flight 253: what it can teach us about aviation security. [*]
The Christmas Day attack represented a double failure: first to keep accused bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab off the flight and, second, to detect the crude explosive he allegedly carried. [*]Fortunately, Abdulmutallab could not detonate his device, which probably wouldn't have brought down the plane. But our response to the "underpants bomber" won global notoriety for al-Qaeda in Yemen and reminded Americans of their vulnerabilities.
U.S. leaders should stop posturing and adjust intelligence collection and aviation security to better confront our adversaries. Here are some key lessons to keep in mind: [indeed: Obama haters criticize the precise problems Bush admin also had; Obama and his backers, try to create substantive dinstinctions between how they operate and Bush’s teacm of incompetents (at least that’s the implication)] [this destroys opportunity for consensus and is harmful to USFP] [*]
-- Airliners will remain targets. Since the first hijackings and airline bombings four decades ago, terrorists have remained obsessed with planes. Yes, aviation is the best-protected form of transportation. But terrorists constantly adapt as we deploy new security measures. [*]In fact, tentative, privacy-respecting pat-downs probably led to the underpants bomb. Our efforts have driven terrorists toward smaller and less detectable but less reliable explosives that have to be assembled in the air. Such adaptations increase their chances of failure. But we must do more than accept that flights are always at risk. [an important points] [and generally in agreement with my latest conclusion about serendipity being so incredibly key in both stopping attacks and in jihadis effecting said ops] [*]
-- Study what screening works -- and what doesn't. The screening process, a 37-year accumulation of hardware and practices, should be overhauled. Wide-scale deployment of whole-body scanners today will add marginally to screening capabilities but will also increase the pressures on an already overburdened system. Such scanners, particularly when programmed to provide "privacy," would have missed the Christmas Day bomber's explosives, while less expensive trace detectors probably would have detected them. Post-attack testing eight years ago indicate that trace detectors almost certainly would have stopped "shoe bomber" Richard Reid. [*]
We should not simply add on to our screening framework but systematically reconfigure security checkpoints to integrate several technologies and procedures based on the most likely threats and real-world detection capabilities. The TSA should conduct a thorough review of the effectiveness of technology and screening procedures in this country and abroad. [*]Additionally, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano should -- much like the armed services might -- commission two separate, independent efforts. She should compare the results of all three and implement the most effective system based on real-world testing. [good advice] [*]
-- Don't treat all passengers alike. [it’s just common sense] [moreover, it can be doen without uneccessarily treating Arabs or some other group as pariah] [and most of them will be understandable so long as it is done with some discretion] [*] Detecting bomb components will require the integration of several technologies. There are no technical panaceas. Screening all passengers identically means that nearly all passengers will be screened inadequately. Stringent screening can be used on only a fraction of passengers, so intelligence must help define who they will be. A registered-passenger program would allow frequent fliers and others who submit to background checks to be screened less rigorously, [period, irrespective of their name or ethnicity or how they look] [*] letting authorities focus resources elsewhere.
-- Listen to the intelligence experts. The debate about who should have interrogated Abdulmutallab and whether he should be tried in civilian court does not address the fundamental issue of what Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair needs to prevent future Abdulmutallabs from boarding. Congress should be asking whether he needs clearer authority, different resources or both. [hear, hear] [apropos my point at top about both sides behaving shamefully] [*] Moreover, the phrase "connect the dots" trivializes the difficulty of intelligence work. It is easy to look back when you know what happened and who did it; it is much harder to sift through data that include thousands of names and fragments of information to detect a plot in advance. The president has said intelligence failures were systemic. Adjustments should be systemic and precise. [he admitted his people screwed up and the US dodged a bullet] [unless reasonable people allow for that sort of admission followed by what should be learned, future leaders won’t bother] [is that what’s good for the US in gsave?] [clearly not] [*]
We should keep in mind that the last major reorganization of the government "intelligence community" proliferated intelligence centers, scattered precious talent and imposed complicated protocols. It would be better to streamline the system by placing a critical mass of talent at one location. The administration should remember this as it implements the results of its Homeland Security Quadrennial Review. [agreed] [I think the IRTPA was incredibly important but like 1947 NSA it amended, adjustment and changes have been made as needed] [1949 reorg act, Kennedy changes following Scoop Jackson report at end of Ike, 1986 GNA, so forth] [*]
-- Intelligence and security mutually reinforce. Besides warning of plots, intelligence should identify trends that lead to changes in security tactics, such as looking for bomb components in new places. Changed security measures could cause terrorists to stumble across tripwires. [*]
America is in a long-term struggle with al-Qaeda and its affiliates. In a war, the enemy may win some battles and cause some casualties. The task now is to calmly focus and reduce the risk to all who fly. [I agree] [for those who think the recent success equals victory, they need to think a little] [recent success means al Qaeda and others will adapts and come at the US from adapted direction] [get ready to adapt to their adjustments!] [*]
Brian Michael Jenkins, [was influential during Reagan era and I think a Republican] [*] a senior adviser at Rand Corp., was a member of the 1996 White House Commission on Aviation Security and Safety and is co-author of "Aviation, Terrorism and Security." Bruce Butterworth [sounds familiar but?] [*] was director of civil aviation security policy and operations at the Federal Aviation Administration from 1991 to 2000. [so, served in Bush42 and Clinton!] [*]He has co-authored several works with Jenkins. Cathal Flynn was associate administrator for civil aviation security at the Federal Aviation Administration from 1993 to 2000. [Clinton admin] [*] © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:12 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/opinion/26fri3.html
March 26, 2010
Editorial
Records in Real Time
[editorial] [FOIA legislation] [changes and more transparency] [while legitimate secrets exist, bureaucracy has made tradition out of classifying anything that’s slightest bit embarrassing or critical—in short, abuse of the secrecy criteria] [*]
The Freedom of Information Act has done a lot to make government more transparent. But in Washington — where need-to-know is the favorite status symbol — most agencies still ignore the legal deadlines and take months, even years, to respond to requests. [*]
Senators Patrick Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont, and John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, have introduced a bill that would push the bureaucracy to release information more quickly. It is an important and needed fix.
The Freedom of Information Act, which became law in 1966, was intended to open up most government records to the public. It contains some necessary exemptions, including for material that would compromise national security or reveal personal information. And over the years, it has become a critically important tool for public interest groups, journalists, and others seeking to hold government accountable. The American Civil Liberties Union used the law to obtain secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/opinion/26fri3.html
March 26, 2010
Editorial
Records in Real Time
[editorial] [FOIA legislation] [changes and more transparency] [while legitimate secrets exist, bureaucracy has made tradition out of classifying anything that’s slightest bit embarrassing or critical—in short, abuse of the secrecy criteria] [*]
The Freedom of Information Act has done a lot to make government more transparent. But in Washington — where need-to-know is the favorite status symbol — most agencies still ignore the legal deadlines and take months, even years, to respond to requests. [*]
Senators Patrick Leahy, a Democrat of Vermont, and John Cornyn, a Texas Republican, have introduced a bill that would push the bureaucracy to release information more quickly. It is an important and needed fix.
The Freedom of Information Act, which became law in 1966, was intended to open up most government records to the public. It contains some necessary exemptions, including for material that would compromise national security or reveal personal information. And over the years, it has become a critically important tool for public interest groups, journalists, and others seeking to hold government accountable. The American Civil Liberties Union used the law to obtain secret Bush administration legal memos authorizing the use of torture.
Agencies are supposed to answer requests within 20 business days, but they often take far longer. The Department of Homeland Security reported a backlog of 18,918 Freedom of Information Act requests at the end of 2009. The Justice Department had nearly 5,000.
Delays of months or years mean that information is often not available when it is needed to shed light on a current problem or controversy. Slow response times also discourage people from filing requests. [*]
Senators Leahy and Cornyn introduced the Faster FOIA Act last week to coincide with Sunshine Week, which is dedicated to educating the public about the importance of government transparency. The bill would create a bipartisan commission to investigate the causes of delays in responding to information requests, and make suggestions to Congress for speeding things up. [good bipartisan approach?] [*]
This is only the latest effort by Senators Leahy and Cornyn to strengthen the law. Their Open FOIA Act, which became law last fall, was aimed at fixing another problem: the use of overly broad interpretations of the act’s exemptions to deny legitimate requests.
The two senators usually find themselves on opposite sides of most debates. They deserve credit for putting partisanship aside and working to make a good law better. Most of all, they deserve credit for championing the principle that citizens have a right to know what their government is doing. [*]
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:11 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/opinion/26fri2.html
March 26, 2010
Editorial
Loosening the ‘Don’t Ask’ Shackles
[editorial] [don’t ask, don’t tell] [yesterday’s announcement by SecDef Gates] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
The Pentagon is taking a major step to ease the discriminatory burdens on gay and lesbian service members by ending the pernicious use of anonymous tips and biased hearsay to drum them from the military.
With the backing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid down enlightened enforcement changes to provide “a greater measure of common sense and common decency” to a military burdened by the onerous and damaging “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. [*]
The changes, effective immediately, point toward the full repeal of the law that unjustly

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/opinion/26fri2.html
March 26, 2010
Editorial
Loosening the ‘Don’t Ask’ Shackles
[editorial] [don’t ask, don’t tell] [yesterday’s announcement by SecDef Gates] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
The Pentagon is taking a major step to ease the discriminatory burdens on gay and lesbian service members by ending the pernicious use of anonymous tips and biased hearsay to drum them from the military.
With the backing of the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Robert Gates laid down enlightened enforcement changes to provide “a greater measure of common sense and common decency” to a military burdened by the onerous and damaging “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy. [*]
The changes, effective immediately, point toward the full repeal of the law that unjustly forces able lesbians and gay men to hide their sexual orientation or be dismissed from serving. More than 13,000 skilled and needed Americans have been driven from the ranks since the law was passed in 1993 in a wrongheaded episode in the culture wars of Congress.
Secretary Gates favors repeal, as does his commander in chief, President Obama, but Congress will have to change the law. [*]In the meantime, he ordered “fairer and more appropriate” enforcement to strike down some blatant injustices. Chief among them is the requirement that third-party complaints about members must henceforth be given under oath. [*]Tighter standards were spelled out for what constitutes a “reliable person” whose accusations can instigate discharge proceedings.
In particular, Mr. Gates promised “special scrutiny on third parties who may be motivated to harm the service member.” This signaled a welcome retreat from the aggressive pursuit of discharge cases against people whose sexuality is disclosed by jilted romantic partners and others with some secret barracks agenda. [*]
To show the brass’s determination behind the new policy, the secretary said that only generals and naval flag officers will be authorized to initiate fact-finding inquiries. He also struck down the outrageous practice of allowing service members’ confidential conversations with lawyers, clergy, physicians and therapists to be used against them in fact-finding inquiries. [that was downright un American] [it’s difficult to see how it became policy in first place] [*]
The changes are heartening progress toward the day when the American military is the equal of those in Britain, Israel, Canada and other nations where gays serve openly. The repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” is favored by a majority of Americans. But with Congress in such turmoil, a considerable push by President Obama is needed to end a shameful era in which gay men and lesbians have been denied standing as patriots defending the nation.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:11 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/26briefs-Unbrief.html
March 25, 2010
Past Decade Was Warmest on Record, Meteorological Agency Reports
By LESLIE KAUFMAN [UN] [IPCC] [global climate change] [global commons] [UN says deforestation has slowed] [hard to tell whether this is from things improving or better calculations?] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [how will pretty simple calculations be greeted after revelation that sophisticated methods involve gimmicks?] [*]
The last decade was the warmest on record, the World Meteorological Organization said in a report on Thursday. The finding by the association, a United Nations agency, corroborates research by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which has already said that its measurements show that the period from 2000 to 2009 was the warmest since modern instrumental recording of temperatures began in the 1850s. [Goddard is solid and few can quibble with its calculatioins whatever they may think of IPCC’s consortium] [*]

[full article above jump] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26kaliningrad.html
March 25, 2010
Restlessness in Russia’s Western Outpost
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ [Russia] [former USSR] [Kaliningrad, a special piece of land wedged in the Baltic states] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [democratization and modernity and Russia’s struggle at times with either] [use ir text and use psci350] [Russian ethos and others] [Russia exercising its hegemony over its constituent parts?] [followup] [*]
KALININGRAD, Russia — Amid the sagging Soviet-era apartment blocks and hulking government buildings here, it can be difficult to imagine that this was once a German city graced with gingerbread-style facades and Teutonic spires. [I wanted to get in but had difficulty getting proper visa] [*]
About all that remains of the 700-year-old city once called Königsberg — which was bombed to oblivion in World War II, then taken over by the Soviet Union and renamed in 1946 after the death of a Bolshevik hero, Mikhail Kalinin — are some weathered houses

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/europe/26kaliningrad.html
March 25, 2010
Restlessness in Russia’s Western Outpost
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ [Russia] [former USSR] [Kaliningrad, a special piece of land wedged in the Baltic states] [Russia-“Near Abroad” relations] [democratization and modernity and Russia’s struggle at times with either] [use ir text and use psci350] [Russian ethos and others] [Russia exercising its hegemony over its constituent parts?] [followup] [*]
KALININGRAD, Russia — Amid the sagging Soviet-era apartment blocks and hulking government buildings here, it can be difficult to imagine that this was once a German city graced with gingerbread-style facades and Teutonic spires. [I wanted to get in but had difficulty getting proper visa] [*]
About all that remains of the 700-year-old city once called Königsberg — which was bombed to oblivion in World War II, then taken over by the Soviet Union and renamed in 1946 after the death of a Bolshevik hero, Mikhail Kalinin — are some weathered houses and a few reconstructed cathedrals. But that does not mean residents of this island of Russian territory wedged between Poland and Lithuania do not entertain certain European expectations.
“I would like to bring Königsberg back to Europe,” Rustam Vasiliev, a local blogger and political activist, said, intentionally using the former German name of this city. “I’ve got no Kremlin in my head.” [*]
People like Mr. Vasiliev have become a headache for the Kremlin, as some of the largest antigovernment protests in Russia in recent years have broken out here, in part because of the failure of officials to bring the region more in line with the standards of Western Europe. [*]
The Kremlin has had similar problems in other far-flung regions, notably in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok, [*]where the economy has been drawn into the orbit of local Asian powers.
Here in Russia’s western extreme, people take pride in their European cars but complain about their city’s pocked roads. Advertisements for concerts in Warsaw and Berlin hang on the crumbling facades of long-neglected apartment buildings. When local people talk of Russia, they often seem to mean not their own country, but some foreign land to the east. [*]
“We are located outside of Russia’s borders and within the borders of the European Union,” said Vytautas V. Lopata, a cafe owner and local independent politician. “Here, people are freer. They see how people live in Europe; they have heightened demands.”
When it comes to politics, Kaliningrad is by no means a thriving democracy. People here have nevertheless come to enjoy a level of openness not found elsewhere in Russia. There are independent television stations and real opposition politicians in the local Parliament (though their influence is minimal). Small street protests are not uncommon and are generally tolerated by the authorities. [*]
By contrast, even the tiniest antigovernment demonstrations in Moscow are quashed by riot troops, sometimes violently. And when protests broke out in Vladivostok last year, the authorities sent those same Moscow riot troops to suppress them. [*]
But officials both here and in Moscow were clearly caught off guard in January when as many as 10,000 people poured into a central Kaliningrad square to demand the resignation of the regional governor and other officials from Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin’s political party, [*]United Russia.
Since then, the authorities have been scrambling to contain the damage lest the dissatisfaction in Kaliningrad spread to the rest of the country. They were able to head off another protest scheduled for last weekend, in part by making serious promises to opposition leaders to resolve their major complaints.
Still, it is unclear how long the tentative peace will hold, especially given that there has been no shortage of unfulfilled promises here.
Though Kaliningrad remained under Moscow’s control after the Soviet collapse, its location outside contiguous Russia seemed to hold out the promise that the formerly sealed military zone would be opened to the prosperity of the West. [*]
But membership in the European club has always been elusive, to the dismay of many here. The region remained relatively poor, even as its neighbors — until recently, at least — prospered. Like all Russians, Kaliningraders must submit to the lengthy process of applying for visas to visit cities a few hours’ drive away. [*]
“Here we are like fish in an aquarium,” said Konstantin Doroshok, one of the leaders of the January protests. “And the water has not been changed in a while, and we are going extinct.”
Things did not always feel this constricted, Mr. Doroshok, 40, said. Just a few years ago, he and many others were doing good business importing European cars into Kaliningrad to resell to Russians farther east, one of many similar professions that thrived here because import tariffs from European countries into Kaliningrad were cheaper than those for the rest of Russia.
A year ago, however, the Kremlin sharply increased customs duties on imported cars, which Mr. Doroshok said effectively killed his business. He was also slapped with what he said were fabricated charges of failing to pay customs duties and fined about $600,000. [*]
“One fine day it seems that one of the oligarchs calculated how much he failed to earn as a result of the fact that citizens of Russia were importing automobiles independently,” he said, “and decided to try to push us out of this business.”
It was then that Mr. Doroshok and others angry over Kremlin interference in their way of life decided to push back. [*]
A series of demonstrations culminating in the large January protests compelled Kaliningrad’s Kremlin-appointed governor, Georgy V. Boos, for the first time to hold serious talks with opposition leaders, including Mr. Doroshok. Though protest leaders called off a planned demonstration last week, several hundred people gathered in central Kaliningrad, shouting “Down with Boos!”
“There was an underestimation by us and me personally of the need to devote more time to communicating with people,” Mr. Boos said of the protests at a news conference here last week.
To deflect some of the ill will directed at the governing authorities here, some local United Russia leaders have even floated the idea of relinquishing some of the party’s near monopoly on power — something that might be considered blasphemous elsewhere in the country. [*]
“That would lower some of the political strain and allow for more democratic governance,” said Konstantin I. Poliakov, the deputy head of United Russia’s faction in the regional Parliament.
Many, like Mr. Lopata, the cafe owner, say that it makes little difference to the people of Kaliningrad who their leaders are as long as their region remains cut off from their real neighbors and under Moscow’s thumb.
“We live within the European Union,” Mr. Lopata said. “But it turns out that we live behind a fence.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/middleeast/26mideast.html
March 25, 2010
Conflicting Demands Test Netanyahu
By ETHAN BRONNER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [some of the context of Israeli domestic politics and how jumbled with religious zealotry it’s become!] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [on the one hand, I feel for Bibi for bind in which he finds himself] [on other, he knew better more than most yet kept encouraging the most extreme elements; he now reaps the whirlwinds] [followup] [*]
JERUSALEM — After contentious meetings in the White House, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, returned home on Thursday with the politically explosive task of responding to an unyielding American demand that he limit Israeli building in East Jerusalem. [*]
The details of the American requests are tightly held. But indirect peace talks with the Palestinians have been in jeopardy since Israel announced 1,600 new housing units in an

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/middleeast/26mideast.html
March 25, 2010
Conflicting Demands Test Netanyahu
By ETHAN BRONNER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [some of the context of Israeli domestic politics and how jumbled with religious zealotry it’s become!] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [on the one hand, I feel for Bibi for bind in which he finds himself] [on other, he knew better more than most yet kept encouraging the most extreme elements; he now reaps the whirlwinds] [followup] [*]
JERUSALEM — After contentious meetings in the White House, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, returned home on Thursday with the politically explosive task of responding to an unyielding American demand that he limit Israeli building in East Jerusalem. [*]
The details of the American requests are tightly held. But indirect peace talks with the Palestinians have been in jeopardy since Israel announced 1,600 new housing units in an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood on land wanted by the Palestinians for their future capital, marring a visit here by Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. two weeks ago. The goal of the current American effort is to get those talks started. [*]
Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition, anchored by his Likud Party, views Jerusalem, west and east, as the undivided, eternal capital of the Jewish people, where it can build where it wants. [that’s essentially untenable for US (Obama) and reneges on several rounds of negotiations of previous US administrations] [US position is shared Jerusalem] [*] The Palestinians and their supporters throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds view East Jerusalem as holy and as rightfully under Palestinian sovereignty.
Since the disrupted Biden visit, the Obama administration has been telling Mr. Netanyahu that Israel needs to rein in its Jewish construction in East Jerusalem and offer other signs of good will to the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas. [somebody needed to remind him of that months ago] [and frankly, years ago, at least as far back as Clinton] [*]
Mr. Netanyahu has brought up several possible gestures, [*]including restrictions on Israeli troop activities in the West Bank, the freeing of Palestinian prisoners, some latitude for reconstruction in Gaza and further efforts to bolster the Palestinian economy.
The Americans have welcomed those gestures. The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, said Thursday, “We’re making progress on important issues.”
But building in Jerusalem remains the sticking point. Mr. Netanyahu is expected to meet on Friday with his top seven cabinet ministers to begin to form his response. It may be some days or longer before it is complete. [that will be contentious as hell] [*]
The Arab League is scheduled to meet this weekend in Libya and is likely to repeat demands for a freeze on Israeli building in occupied areas before giving a final endorsement to the return of the Palestinian Authority to peace talks with Israel. Mr. Abbas, the Palestinian president, has sought pan-Arab cover for his decision to return to the talks. [one negative result of Obama telling Bibi to get real is encouraged Arabs partners to demand even more] [Israel has done same many time so turnabout is fair] [but that won’t make it any less grating to most Israelis] [*]
Mr. Netanyahu returned to an overheated political atmosphere fed in part by news coverage of his Washington trip, describing his treatment at the White House as deeply humiliating because neither photographs or ceremony marked his visit. [tough luck: when Bibi neglected to slap down his minister for public humiliation of Obama administration, Bibi earned a little payback] [*]
There is little doubt that Obama administration officials thought it was appropriate to reciprocate the embarrassment felt by Mr. Biden here and to send a tough message about the need for commitment regarding Jerusalem, American officials said.
“People keep saying that the Israelis, by building these settlements, are creating an impediment to negotiations,” said David J. Rothkopf, a former Clinton administration official who has written about the shaping of American foreign policy. “My reaction is, no they’re not. They’re negotiating. They’re sending a message. And Obama is sending a message right back.” [I agree, more or less] [but the atmospherics are all wrong] [*]
In Israel, officials said they could not imagine how Mr. Netanyahu could agree to a substantial reduction in building in Jerusalem and still expect to hold on to his office. “The expectation and demand that there be no more construction in Jerusalem is unreasonable,” said Limor Livnat, culture and sports minister and a member of Likud, on Israel Radio. “It is an expectation that the Israeli prime minister cannot accede to.” [the political culture has shifted to pretty rightwing zealotry] [something has to give] [*]
In an interview with Yom Yom, an ultra-Orthodox newspaper, Eli Yishai, who leads the Interior Ministry, which pushed forward the 1,600 units during Mr. Biden’s visit, said, “I thank God I have been given the opportunity to be the minister who approves the construction of thousands of housing units in Jerusalem.” [exactly—this crap with god in politics is likely to end badly for everyone] [*]
American officials said that their goal was not to make the government collapse, but that without a real reduction in Jewish building in East Jerusalem, peace talks with the Palestinians would be imperiled.
Helene Cooper contributed reporting from Washington.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/middleeast/27iraq.html
March 26, 2010
Iraq to Release Long-Awaited Election Results
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and TIM ARANGO [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [renewed sectarian tensions and fault lines] [success of “surge”] [as well as it worked, the issue still looms regarding how the Awakening to be situated in government in future?] [elections appear to occur with little disruption despite the attempts] [good news for US and Iraq?] [followup] [at long last some election results are released] [America’s old “friend” Allawi appears to have done well?] [*]
BAGHDAD — Iraq was poised to announce long-awaited parliamentary election results on Friday, capping what has become an unexpectedly tight race between Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and Ayad Allawi, a former interim prime minister. [*]
Results from the nationwide March 7 elections, which drew some 12 million voters despite deadly bombings, have been released in dribbles by Iraq’s election authorities. But their release has been plagued by allegations of fraud and calls for a recount by some high-ranking government officials. [that’s still pretty impressive, considering] [*]
Jawad al-Bolani, Iraq’s interior minister and himself a candidate, has called for a delay in

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/27/world/middleeast/27iraq.html
March 26, 2010
Iraq to Release Long-Awaited Election Results
By TIMOTHY WILLIAMS and TIM ARANGO [-ir] [hydra] [insurgency] [renewed sectarian tensions and fault lines] [success of “surge”] [as well as it worked, the issue still looms regarding how the Awakening to be situated in government in future?] [elections appear to occur with little disruption despite the attempts] [good news for US and Iraq?] [followup] [at long last some election results are released] [America’s old “friend” Allawi appears to have done well?] [*]
BAGHDAD — Iraq was poised to announce long-awaited parliamentary election results on Friday, capping what has become an unexpectedly tight race between Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki and Ayad Allawi, a former interim prime minister. [*]
Results from the nationwide March 7 elections, which drew some 12 million voters despite deadly bombings, have been released in dribbles by Iraq’s election authorities. But their release has been plagued by allegations of fraud and calls for a recount by some high-ranking government officials. [that’s still pretty impressive, considering] [*]
Jawad al-Bolani, Iraq’s interior minister and himself a candidate, has called for a delay in announcing the vote totals, saying that tensions between competing political groups could spill over into street violence.
But Qassim al-Aboudi, a member of the Independent High Electoral Commission, which oversees elections, said the date would not be changed, referring to Friday as being “sacred” for the long-awaited release of the results.
Mr. Aboudi said that the most serious charges of fraud will have been examined by the commission by the time results are announced Friday evening.
Results released earlier this week showed that with about 95 percent of the vote counted, Mr. Allawi led by some 11,000 votes over all, but that Mr. Maliki was winning in more provinces.
The provincial vote is of primary importance because seats in Parliament are awarded based on provincial totals rather than on the national vote. The number of seats in each province is based on its population.
On Friday, several hundred supporters of Mr. Maliki and his State of Law coalition gathered with a heavy military presence in central Baghdad to demand a recount. [for current PM to do so with military legions strikes me as height of irresponsible acts] [*]
They shouted slogans alluding to Mr. Allawi’s membership in the Baath Party during the 1970s.
“No No to Baathists! No No to Allawi!” they chanted.
While fraud allegations have sprouted from nearly every political organization here, Western diplomats and observers have said they have seen little evidence of it.
One United States diplomat, who spoke this week on condition of anonymity as a ground rule for a briefing on the Iraqi election results, said the perception of fraud among many candidates stemmed from the variations in their own polling data and the results of the election.
The diplomat said the results of the vote so far had generally tracked with the pre-election polling conducted for Western organizations. But in many cases the candidates’ own polling was inaccurate and overly optimistic.
“People reached a point on Election Day and were too confident,” the diplomat said.
But many Iraqis — especially supporters of Mr. Maliki — are convinced that vote manipulation was pervasive. [*]
“Iraqis know a lot about democracy now, and what we will not accept is that the results are being changed,” said Hassan Jassim, 27, an unemployed college graduate in Baghdad.
The days leading to the nationally televised announcement have kept the country in a state of high suspense. Speculation as to who might have won has filled the airwaves, is being discussed in cafes and in public squares, and even between American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
Many Baghdad residents stocked up on groceries and other supplies due to fears of public disturbances or the imposition of government curfews. [and Maliki’s show of force certainly makes that possibility even more likely] [*]
Concerns about unrest intensified after Mr. Maliki released a statement last week that said the election commission must respond to demands for a recount in order to prevent “a return of violence.” [**]
The statement pointedly noted that Mr. Maliki remained the country’s commander in chief of the armed forces.
Duraid Adnan and Sa’ad al-Izzi contributed reporting from Baghdad.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26briefs-Afghanbrf.html
March 25, 2010
Afghanistan: Envoy Meets Insurgents
By REUTERS [Afghanistan] [hydra] [UN] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [Karzai pushing reconcliation with Taliban] [use psci 469] [followup] [UN envoy meets with Taliban leaders—but which ones?] [gsave] [*]
The United Nations envoy to Afghanistan, Staffan de Mistura, met delegates from one of the country’s main insurgent groups in Kabul on Thursday, the first Western diplomat to meet them since they arrived in the capital for peace talks with the government. The insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, has said its leadership is ready to make peace and act as a “bridge” to the Taliban if Washington fulfills plans to start pulling out troops next year. [*]

[full article above jump] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26policy.html
March 25, 2010
U.S. and Pakistan Agree to Reinforce Strategic Ties
By MARK LANDLER [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [Obama white house] [USFP] [bureaucracy and NSC] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [more on recent changes to relationship that Pakistanis declared satisfactory!] [question remain about how satisfactory Pakistan is as ally] [followup] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [see today’s other external on Paksitan] [*]
WASHINGTON — Pakistan and the United States wrapped up two days of high-level talks on Thursday, with a raft of economic development initiatives, an agreement to hasten deliveries of military hardware and a promise to put their often mistrustful relationship on

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26policy.html
March 25, 2010
U.S. and Pakistan Agree to Reinforce Strategic Ties
By MARK LANDLER [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [Obama white house] [USFP] [bureaucracy and NSC] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [more on recent changes to relationship that Pakistanis declared satisfactory!] [question remain about how satisfactory Pakistan is as ally] [followup] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [see today’s other external on Paksitan] [*]
WASHINGTON — Pakistan and the United States wrapped up two days of high-level talks on Thursday, with a raft of economic development initiatives, an agreement to hasten deliveries of military hardware and a promise to put their often mistrustful relationship on a new footing.
In a communiqué issued after the talks, the countries said they would “redouble their efforts to deal effectively with terrorism” and would work together for “peace and stability in Afghanistan.” [*]
Administration officials said Pakistan was likely to get swifter delivery of F-16 fighter jets, naval frigates and helicopter gunships, as well as new remotely piloted aircraft for surveillance missions. But the United States was silent about Pakistan’s most heavily advertised proposal: a civil nuclear agreement similar to the one the Bush administration signed with Pakistan’s archrival, India. [frankly, Obama ought to be cautious and reluctant to race into such an agreemtn with Pakistan] [Pakistan has not, so far, demonstrated the responsibility India has; further, Pakistan still has not allowed US official to question AQ Khan about his network of WMD proliferation] [*]
Given Pakistan’s history of selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and North Korea, such an agreement would realistically be 10 or 15 years away, a senior administration official said Thursday. [I quite agree] [*] Still, the administration was careful not to dismiss the idea out of hand.
“This is a new day,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in greeting Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi. “For the past year, the Obama administration has shown in our words and our deeds a different approach and a different attitude toward Pakistan.” [let’s hope so] [if so, the US should be able to expect some consistency from Paksitan’s govt: that does not mean elements won’t continue to aid LeT and others but the govt’s policy ought to be clear] [*]
The “strategic dialogue” was by itself meant to send a message: The administration used the term reserved for the substantive, wide-ranging exchanges it carries on with important countries like China and India. Pakistan and the United States held three such dialogues during the Bush administration.
But last year, Mr. Qureshi asked Mrs. Clinton to upgrade the exchange to the level of foreign minister. On Wednesday, he said he hoped the two days of higher-level talks would help Pakistan and the United States overcome a history that “did not always enjoy a sunny side.”
Mr. Qureshi said the United States had agreed to put on a fast track some longstanding Pakistani requests for military hardware. [reminiscent of Clinton, Bush 41, and even Reagan] [*]
Although Mrs. Clinton deflected a question about civil nuclear cooperation, she said, “We’re committed to helping Pakistan meet its real energy needs.”
Among specific announcements was an agreement for the United States Agency for International Development to help Pakistan upgrade three thermal power plants. The administration said it would try to push through legislation creating so-called reconstruction opportunity zones in Pakistan. And it hopes to set up a fund to stimulate direct foreign investment.
Pakistan’s military campaign against Taliban insurgents in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan has improved the tenor of its relationship with Washington. [*]But success on the battlefield cuts both ways for Pakistan, analysts said. It gives the country’s government in Islamabad a more credible argument for increased military aid. But it also imposes greater expectations from the United States about Pakistan’s counterinsurgency efforts and military cooperation. [bingo] [*]
“Yes, you get a pat on the back,” said Bruce O. Riedel, an expert on Pakistan at the Brookings Institution. “But now that you’ve shown you can do something, you’ve got to do more.”
Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan also remains a subject of intense scrutiny in the United States. The Pakistani authorities cooperated with the Central Intelligence Agency to capture the Taliban’s military chief, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. But some analysts question whether the Pakistanis are rounding up other Taliban leaders, including shadow Afghan governors, simply to make sure that Pakistan has leverage in any future political bargaining in Kabul. [no question Pakistan continues to view Afghan as special providence of theirs] [*]
Mr. Qureshi insisted that Pakistan wanted Afghanistan to lead this process. “If they feel we can contribute, if we can help, we’ll be more than willing to help,” he said. “But we leave it to them.”
On this subject, however, administration officials are more interested in hearing from Pakistan’s chief of army staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who was part of the delegation. General Kayani recently held talks in Islamabad with Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai, and the general is viewed as critical to determining the role Pakistan will play.
Of all the raw nerves in the relationship, Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions may be the most sensitive. [*]Islamabad yearns for an agreement with the United States because it would confer legitimacy on Pakistan’s existing program.
But Washington does not formally recognize Pakistan as a nuclear power. The selling of nuclear secrets by the father of its nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and the country’s refusal to allow American investigators to have access to him ensures that this recognition may be a long way off.
“The question is, can you move somewhere toward giving legitimacy to a Pakistani nuclear program?” said Daniel S. Markey, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations. “Is there space between a civil nuclear deal and just saying ‘no’?”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26briefs-Pstanbrf.html
March 25, 2010
Pakistan: Strike Said to Kill Nearly 50
By REUTERS [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [another massive attack in tribal belt] [this appears to be Pakistani military force] [followup] [interesting] [use psci 469] [c.f., Headley saga in today’s external: mixed bag at best] [*]
Pakistani jets carried out two attacks on Taliban targets in a tribal region in the northwest

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26briefs-Pstanbrf.html
March 25, 2010
Pakistan: Strike Said to Kill Nearly 50
By REUTERS [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [another massive attack in tribal belt] [this appears to be Pakistani military force] [followup] [interesting] [use psci 469] [c.f., Headley saga in today’s external: mixed bag at best] [*]
Pakistani jets carried out two attacks on Taliban targets in a tribal region in the northwest on Thursday, killing nearly 50 people, officials said. The attacks struck a school used by the Taliban as well as a seminary in the Mamuzai area of the Orakzai Agency, an ethnic Pashtun region where many militants fled to escape an army offensive farther south. [*]Asghar Khan, a government official, said 25 militants were killed at the school and 13 at the seminary, but the 10 killed in the nearby center of Tablighi Jamaat were members of a nonviolent group. [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:46 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26pstan.html
March 25, 2010
American Terror Suspect Traveled Unimpeded
By JANE PERLEZ [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [some info on Mr. Headly’s circuitous route in AfPak and India!] [use psci 469] [followup] [once again federal court records reveal new info] [cross in govt] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An American charged with helping plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, moved effortlessly between the United States, Pakistan and India for nearly seven years, training at a militant camp in Pakistan on five occasions, [*]according to a plea agreement released by the Justice Department last week.
The odyssey of David C. Headley, 49, included scouting targets in several cities in India and meeting with a senior operative of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas. [*]These and other new details of Mr. Headley’s activities, contained in the plea agreement, raise troubling questions about how an American citizen could travel for so long undetected from his home base in Chicago to well-established terrorist training camps in Pakistan. [yes, indeed] [*]
The document shows that Mr. Headley made two trips to North Waziristan, the heart of Qaeda operations in the tribal area where the United States is still pushing Pakistan for a

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/26/world/asia/26pstan.html
March 25, 2010
American Terror Suspect Traveled Unimpeded
By JANE PERLEZ [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [some info on Mr. Headly’s circuitous route in AfPak and India!] [use psci 469] [followup] [once again federal court records reveal new info] [cross in govt] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — An American charged with helping plan the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, India, moved effortlessly between the United States, Pakistan and India for nearly seven years, training at a militant camp in Pakistan on five occasions, [*]according to a plea agreement released by the Justice Department last week.
The odyssey of David C. Headley, 49, included scouting targets in several cities in India and meeting with a senior operative of Al Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas. [*]These and other new details of Mr. Headley’s activities, contained in the plea agreement, raise troubling questions about how an American citizen could travel for so long undetected from his home base in Chicago to well-established terrorist training camps in Pakistan. [yes, indeed] [*]
The document shows that Mr. Headley made two trips to North Waziristan, the heart of Qaeda operations in the tribal area where the United States is still pushing Pakistan for a military offensive to clear out militants. His handlers, the document reveals, included a former Pakistani military commander with ties to a Pakistani extremist group and even Al Qaeda.
From there, Mr. Headley not only helped plan the Mumbai attack, it says, but he was put in contact with a Qaeda cell in Europe that may still be operative. The document shows the cell was well supplied with weapons and money and primed for an attack until the moment Mr. Headley was arrested by the F.B.I. at O’Hare airport last October.
Mr. Headley divulged details of his life as a spy and militant as part of a plea agreement that will spare him the death penalty, [*]his lawyer, John T. Theis, said this week. Mr. Headley’s maximum sentence would be life imprisonment, he said. As part of his plea, Mr. Headley has volunteered to talk to the authorities in India, Pakistan and Denmark, where he was plotting with a Qaeda cell to attack the Copenhagen offices of the newspaper that had printed derisive cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, [*]the agreement says.
The revelations around the European cell were particularly disturbing, [**]said Bruce Riedel, who was a member of the National Security Council in the Clinton administration and is now at the Brookings Institution. They showed that “Al Qaeda still has a significant operational infrastructure somewhere in Europe,” [*]he said. Mr. Headley’s story also showed in clear contours the close relationship between Al Qaeda and the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba, [hardly a scoop] [we’ve known that for some time: at least when it comes to Kashmir] [anything new?] [*] he said.
Mr. Headley was able to use his Pakistani and American heritage to great advantage, playing up his American descent on his mother’s side in India, and then behaving as a Pakistani in Pakistan, where his father was born.
As he became more intensely involved in the web of militant activities in Pakistan — sometimes training for months at a time — and then making five trips to Mumbai from 2006 to 2008 to scout locations, Mr. Headley kept his base in Chicago, [interesting that apparently nobody thought anything odd about him or at least not odd enough to tip federal authorities] [part of it may be Americans’ sense of privacy and reluctance to go to authorities about a neighbor who should have privacy?] [*] the document says.
Mr. Headley started his career as a militant scout with Lashkar-e-Taiba, a terrorist group established decades ago with the help of the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies to fight against India’s control of disputed territory in Kashmir. [at some point Pakistan’s ISI-army must forswear its relationship with LeT!] [*]
Lashkar was supposed to have been outlawed in Pakistan in 2002, but it remains active behind the veil of a public charity in Pakistan and, according to Mr. Headley’s plea, continued to be assisted by former Pakistani military officials in recent years. [the more sunshine as infectent that can be focused on said relationship the more pressure will build for these elements to let go] [*]
From 2002 to 2005, Mr. Headley trained at Lashkar camps on five occasions, learning about explosives, small arms and countersurveillance techniques.
The plea names a retired Pakistani military officer, Col. Abdur Rehman Hashim Syed, known as Pasha, [*]as Mr. Headley’s main contact with Lashkar. Earlier prosecution documents said that Colonel Syed was arrested last year in Pakistan on unspecified charges, but then released. In early 2009 Colonel Syed introduced Mr. Headley to Muhammad Ilyas Kashmiri, a Qaeda operative in North Waziristan, [lovely ally in gsave?] [*]according to the document.
Colonel Syed then served as the go-between for the men, who all met together in North Waziristan, according to the document.
The visit in February 2009 may finally have put Mr. Headley on the radar of the American authorities, who started tracking him in the late spring of last year, Mr. Riedel said. Mr. Kashmiri is considered to be one of Al Qaeda’s most dangerous commanders. The Long War Journal, a Web site that specializes in reports on militancy, says he is a former member of Pakistan’s elite commando Special Services Group, [wouldn’t be a shock as top operatives have infiltrated US military on occasion] [Ali Mohammad] [*] though Pakistani intelligence officials deny that. He was the target of a drone attack last September. After initial reports that he was killed, it appears that he survived, according to Pakistani officials and militants.
It was Mr. Kashmiri who asked Mr. Headley to help plan the attack against the Danish newspaper, the plea document says. [so Pakistani member of LeT initiated Headley’s strange oddessy in Danish cartoon controversy] [*]
After Mr. Headley’s second trip to North Waziristan in May of last year, he was told by Mr. Kashmiri that the “elders” had approved the attack in Denmark, a remark that Mr. Headley understood to mean the Qaeda leadership, [*]the agreement says.
The attack against the newspaper, which involved a Qaeda cell already in place in Europe, was planned to be particularly gruesome, with suicide attackers trying to kill everyone in the building, the plea says. [*]
As the planning for the Copenhagen attack unfolded, Mr. Headley returned to Denmark for a final scouting mission last August.
He then met with the Qaeda team in Europe, according to the agreement. The precise location of that meeting with Qaeda operatives is not specified in the document, apparently in deference to investigations by Western intelligence agencies. [*]When Mr. Headley was arrested on Oct. 3, 2009, he was headed to Pakistan once again to meet Mr. Kashmiri in North Waziristan to hand over 13 surveillance videos he had taken in Copenhagen.
Mr. Headley’s plea agreement with the government was not his first. After being sentenced for drug trafficking in the 1990s, he served as an informant in Pakistan for the Drug Enforcement Agency as part of a deal for a lighter sentence. He was in Pakistan for the drug agency from the late 1990s until at least 2001. [such complex, fundamentally cross purposes relations with disparate parts of federales have previously proved disastrous and well might have here] [*] By 2002, he was training with Lashkar, raising the possibility that he had made contact with the militants while still working for the drug agency. [to wit] [*]
In addition to sites in Mumbai, Mr. Headley scouted targets in Pune and Goa, the document says. He was sent to Mumbai several times, it says. There, he made videos of the targets, including the Taj Mahal Hotel, took coordinates with a GPS unit, and scouted sites in the harbor where 10 Lashkar militants landed Nov. 26, 2008, in inflatable boats. They killed 163 people.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:45 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/middleeast/25odierno.html
March 24, 2010
General Works to Salvage Iraq Legacy
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOM SHANKER [Obama white house] [Conress, 111th, 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [defense, Pentagon, others] [General Ray Odierno] [use psci 355, 455] [cross in govt] [*]
JOINT SECURITY STATION LOYALTY, IRAQ — In the muddled aftermath of Iraq’s election, the American commander here, Gen. Ray Odierno, landed at this base on the edge of Baghdad and reviewed the plan to close it.
An Iraqi police division has moved its headquarters to the base, once the fortified enclave of Americans alone. The outcome of Iraq’s election, the torturous effort to form a new government, remained in doubt, but the withdrawal of American troops in this part of the country — “the thinning” of them, as the general put it — proceeded, seemingly irrevocably.
“How we redeploy, how we turn this over,” General Odierno told the officers who gathered

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/middleeast/25odierno.html
March 24, 2010
General Works to Salvage Iraq Legacy
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and THOM SHANKER [Obama white house] [Conress, 111th, 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [defense, Pentagon, others] [General Ray Odierno] [use psci 355, 455] [cross in govt] [*]
JOINT SECURITY STATION LOYALTY, IRAQ — In the muddled aftermath of Iraq’s election, the American commander here, Gen. Ray Odierno, landed at this base on the edge of Baghdad and reviewed the plan to close it.
An Iraqi police division has moved its headquarters to the base, once the fortified enclave of Americans alone. The outcome of Iraq’s election, the torturous effort to form a new government, remained in doubt, but the withdrawal of American troops in this part of the country — “the thinning” of them, as the general put it — proceeded, seemingly irrevocably.
“How we redeploy, how we turn this over,” General Odierno told the officers who gathered to brief him in a room crowded with flat-panel television screens and wallpapered with maps, “will go a long way to determining how this turns out.” [*]
“This” is the end of the war in Iraq, a conflict that General Odierno has shaped as much as any other American commander.
From the 2003 invasion to the capture of Saddam Hussein, from the bloodiest days of sectarian carnage to the counteroffensive known as the surge, he has served the administration that started the war and now the one whose president campaigned to end it.
As the senior American officer in Iraq since the fall of 2008, he has struggled against popular anger and apathy at home and fought internally for Iraq’s share of matériel increasingly flowing to Afghanistan. Ultimately, he is laboring to salvage the legacy of a deeply unpopular war. [*]
“People have to get past why we came here,” he said in an interview after his briefings, referring to the bitterly disputed reasons for invading Iraq seven years ago this month. [I quite agree] [that’s for history to analyze and re analyze] [some 130-plus thousand US troops there and that must be the point at which discussion begins else does them greet disservice] [that doesn’t mean that people cannot or should not discuss the reasons the US went there but in different conversations] [*]
“You have to stay away from that argument and understand we’re here,” he went on. “We have an opportunity. It could be better not only for the United States, but for overall stability in the Middle East. And we should take advantage of that.”
Results from an election considered crucial to Iraq’s democratic evolution suggest a potentially explosive split in power, but General Odierno said he would meet President Obama’s deadline to reduce the number of American troops in Iraq to 50,000, from 98,000 today, by the end of August. Among those expected to leave Iraq then is the general himself. [*]
As the officer who must carry out Mr. Obama’s order to “responsibly withdraw from Iraq,” General Odierno plays a role that is changing over time: from a commander who ran military operations across the country to one who now must give way to local security forces — even as he exerts influence behind the scenes. In the months ahead, the general said, he anticipates that he will focus less on combat missions and more on trying to build Iraq’s still feeble security, political and economic institutions. That, he said, will require a sustained effort extending beyond the troop withdrawal. [interesting how history repeats] [I can recall reading Patton lamenting commanders having to be diplomats, economists, civic engineers, etc. versus strictly military commanders] [I seem to recall something simlar, though less visceral, with McCarther] [*]
During a visit to Washington before the election, the general said he was advocating the establishment of an Office of Military Cooperation within the American Embassy in Baghdad to sustain the relationship after the Dec. 31, 2011, deadline for withdrawing all American troops. He expressed doubts that the Iraqi government would request the presence of American ground forces after the deadline, although the bilateral treaty leaves open the possibility.
“We have to stay committed to this past 2011,” he said. “I believe the administration knows that. I believe that they have to do that in order to see this through to the end. It’s important to recognize that just because U.S. soldiers leave, Iraq is not finished.” [*]
Or as Col. David M. Miller, commander of the 10th Mountain Division’s Second Brigade, told the general as he described plans to keep financing water and greenhouse projects on Baghdad’s outskirts even after his troops pulled back to a more remote base in the desert: “We’re not just cutting and running.”
General Odierno has now been in Iraq for 45 of the 84 months of the war, a period of his career that parallels the uneven narrative of the conflict, for better and worse.
His tactics as commander of the Fourth Infantry Division in Salahuddin in the months after the invasion in 2003, which were criticized as overly aggressive, created a public impression of him as a heavy-handed, even brutish, leader.
Thomas E. Ricks, the military writer who has waged what amounts to an argument of years with the commander, stridently criticized General Odierno’s first tour in Iraq for what he said were ogre-like tactics and bitingly called him “Shreko” in an online column last month.
Many people dispute such characterizations, portraying him as a skilled commander who helped devise and then carried out the counterinsurgency strategy that, with the increase in soldiers that President George W. Bush announced in January 2007, helped stem the sectarian violence. The senior commander at the time, Gen. David H. Petraeus, received most of the public attention, but officers and analysts say that General Odierno made the strategy a success.
“Petraeus fought the war ‘up,’ but Odierno fought it ‘down,’ since he was responsible for implementing the new counterinsurgency strategy, which he did very, very well,” said John A. Nagl, an Iraq veteran who now is president of the Center for a New American Security, a nonpartisan policy institute in Washington. He said General Odierno’s contributions remained “underappreciated.” [*]
General Odierno navigated the transition from the Bush administration to the Obama administration far better than his counterpart in Afghanistan, Gen. David D. McKiernan, who was forced into retirement in May 2009 because President Obama and the Pentagon leadership felt he had not done enough to reverse the drift in a war long overshadowed by Iraq. [*]
The Obama administration’s focus on Afghanistan has created tensions behind the scenes as General Odierno has lobbied to keep as many troops and weapons as possible, while still reducing the force here to meet Mr. Obama’s planned withdrawal. [*]
In secret video-teleconferences at the Pentagon, he has animatedly resisted the transfer of too many intelligence drone aircraft, essential for surveying the battlefield and defending American and Iraqi forces when necessary. [ironic: that’s precisely what Bush did to AfPak to gear up for invasion of –Iraq] [now Odierno trying to prevent Obama from making reverse mistake?] [*]
“His argument is: ‘I still have a job today. I still have this geography to cover. I have to manage the risk,’ ” a senior Department of Defense official said, speaking on condition of anonymity in order to discuss the classified strategy sessions. “He’s like a pit bull on a poodle. He’s just not going to let go.”
In two recent interviews, though, General Odierno acknowledged that he was preparing for a day when the Iraq campaign — and his role in it — ended. Asked if the war in Iraq was effectively over, he replied with some hesitation, then at length.
“War is a very different concept,” he said. “This is a — I call it more of an operation, not a war. We won’t know if we were successful, as I said the other day, for 3, 5 or 10 years. And successful will be what the government of Iraq does with what we’ve given them, and how we continue to support them and the relationship that we develop with them post-2011.”
By the time he leaves, he will have spent more than four years in Iraq, like tens of thousands of soldiers, at great personal cost.
In 2004, his son, Lt. Anthony Odierno, lost an arm when a grenade slammed into his Humvee while he was on a patrol in Baghdad.
Family members do not discuss it publicly, although the experience no doubt deepened their commitment to wounded soldiers. The general’s wife, Linda, put the family’s golden retriever, Tootsie, through a special program to be trained as a “therapy dog,” and they regularly visit troops at Walter Reed Army Medical Center. [*]
General Odierno’s remarks to soldiers at the base here suggested that each casualty affected him deeply.
In a recent meeting with the Second Brigade’s commanders, General Odierno brought up an accident the day before that had killed two soldiers. Their armored vehicle rolled over, possibly as a result of reckless driving. “It’s a waste,” he told the officers.
He later pinned Purple Hearts on two soldiers wounded when a rocket-propelled grenade struck their guard post.
“Even when you are a general,” he told dozens of soldiers attending the medal ceremony, “this business is very personal.” [*]
Steven Lee Myers reported from Baghdad, and Thom Shanker from Washington.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:03 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/us/25military.html
March 24, 2010
Military to Revise ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Rules
By THOM SHANKER [Obama white house] [Conress, 111th, 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [defense, Pentagon, others] [reportedly SecDef Gates to announce a loosening of tossing those outed as gay or lesbian] [followup] [don’t ask, don’t tell] [followup, see feb 1, 22, March 24, for example] [use psci 355, 455] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will announce measures on Thursday to make it more difficult for the military to expel openly gay service members, an interim plan while the Pentagon examines repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, [*]officials said.
Officials said the new steps would include a requirement that only a general or admiral could initiate action in cases where service members were suspected of violating the prohibition against openly gay service in the armed forces.
The guidelines would also raise the standard required for evidence to be presented in such

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/us/25military.html
March 24, 2010
Military to Revise ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Rules
By THOM SHANKER [Obama white house] [Conress, 111th, 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [defense, Pentagon, others] [reportedly SecDef Gates to announce a loosening of tossing those outed as gay or lesbian] [followup] [don’t ask, don’t tell] [followup, see feb 1, 22, March 24, for example] [use psci 355, 455] [cross in individual-role] [*]
WASHINGTON — Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates will announce measures on Thursday to make it more difficult for the military to expel openly gay service members, an interim plan while the Pentagon examines repeal of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, [*]officials said.
Officials said the new steps would include a requirement that only a general or admiral could initiate action in cases where service members were suspected of violating the prohibition against openly gay service in the armed forces.
The guidelines would also raise the standard required for evidence to be presented in such cases, an effort to prevent “malicious outing” by a third party or jilted partner, officials said.
Congressional action would be required to repeal the ban.
But the new measures, expected to be announced Thursday at a Pentagon news conference, would make good on Mr. Gates’s pledge to Congress last month that the military would move toward enforcing the current policy in a fairer, more humane manner. [*]
“We believe that we have a degree of latitude within the existing law to change our internal procedures in a manner that is more appropriate and fair to our men and women in uniform,” Mr. Gates said last month.
A review is to be completed by the end of the year on how the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy might be ended. President Obama has called for Congress to repeal the law. [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:02 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/middleeast/25diplo.html
March 24, 2010
U.S. Presses Israel on Housing as Dispute Widens
By HELENE COOPER and ISABEL KERSHNER [Obama white house] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [NSC principal and SecState Clinton’s recent speech at AIPAC meeting same day as Bibi’s] [USFP] [cross in external] [followup] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [few days ago it looked like both sides were trying to rachet down emotions—now?] [*]
WASHINGTON — With Israeli officials saying that construction on a contentious Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem could begin at any time, President Obama pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to give a written commitment to rein in any further building and to move ahead on peace talks with the Palestinians.
Israeli and American negotiators huddled in Washington for a second straight day, after

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/middleeast/25diplo.html
March 24, 2010
U.S. Presses Israel on Housing as Dispute Widens
By HELENE COOPER and ISABEL KERSHNER [Obama white house] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [NSC principal and SecState Clinton’s recent speech at AIPAC meeting same day as Bibi’s] [USFP] [cross in external] [followup] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [few days ago it looked like both sides were trying to rachet down emotions—now?] [*]
WASHINGTON — With Israeli officials saying that construction on a contentious Jewish housing project in East Jerusalem could begin at any time, President Obama pressed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Wednesday to give a written commitment to rein in any further building and to move ahead on peace talks with the Palestinians.
Israeli and American negotiators huddled in Washington for a second straight day, after two sessions at the White House on Tuesday night ended in an impasse. [*]
Mr. Netanyahu continued to balk at American demands that he find a way to reverse another East Jerusalem housing plan: the one in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood that was announced during Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s trip to Israel this month, igniting a diplomatic storm.
The Obama administration also wants Mr. Netanyahu to allow scheduled negotiations with the Palestinians to focus on substantive issues like borders and security. [*]
After a session with Mr. Obama in the Oval Office on Tuesday night that lasted an hour and a half, Mr. Netanyahu met with his own negotiators for another hour and a half in the White House Roosevelt Room.
Then he returned to the Oval Office for a final 30-minute session with Mr. Obama before returning to his hotel.
Having delayed his departure, Mr. Netanyahu on Wednesday continued the talks, which included a session with Mr. Obama’s Middle East envoy, George J. Mitchell. [full-court press apparently] [but Bibi has resisted Bill Clinton before so unlikely to be bowled over by Obama] [*]
United States and Israeli officials said they would continue to negotiate.
“The president has asked the prime minister for certain things to build confidence,” the White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said.
In a sign of how hard it may be to resolve the dispute, Israeli officials confirmed Tuesday that another East Jerusalem project was under way, this one for 20 residential units in the Shepherd Hotel compound in a neighborhood populated mostly by Palestinians.
Jerusalem City Hall gave the project the final go-ahead on March 18, days after city officials said the landowners had paid the required fees.
Tommy Vietor, a White House spokesman, said Wednesday that the United States was seeking clarification on the building project.
In New York, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, told the Security Council, “All settlement activity is illegal, but inserting settlers into Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem is particularly troubling.”
“This leads to tensions and undermines prospects for addressing the final status of Jerusalem,” Mr. Ban said.
News of the latest project was first published by an Israeli news Web site, Ynet, on Tuesday night, shortly before Mr. Netanyahu was scheduled to begin his meeting with Mr. Obama.
In Israel, officials described the Ynet report as “distorted” and intended “to stir up a provocation” during Mr. Netanyahu’s visit. [*]The plan received final approval last July, the officials said.
Israel captured East Jerusalem from Jordan in the 1967 war, but its annexation was never internationally recognized. The Palestinians claim East Jerusalem as the capital of a future state.
The Obama administration had been close to starting indirect talks, called proximity talks, between the Israelis and Palestinians, with an American envoy shuttling between the two sides, but the talks were put off after the row over the 1,600 new housing units in Ramat Shlomo, an ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of East Jerusalem.
Mr. Netanyahu has apologized for the bad timing of the announcement during the vice president’s visit but continues to insist publicly on Israel’s right to build anywhere in Jerusalem. The Obama administration, for its part, is now insisting on public assurances from Israel that it will take constructive steps to resuscitate the peace talks. [*]
Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, said Wednesday in a statement that “Israel is digging itself into a hole that it will have to climb out of if it is serious about peace.”
The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, will decide whether he is willing to go through with the proximity talks after he receives a report from the White House about the discussions with Mr. Netanyahu, Palestinian officials said.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25start.html
March 24, 2010
Russia and U.S. Report Breakthrough on Arms
By PETER BAKER and ELLEN BARRY [Obama white house] [president Obama and national-security team][111th congress, 2nd session] [Russia, US-Russia relations, US-Russia arms control agreements] [test ban treaty and others] [from NSC principals to broad bureaucracy] [state, defense, Pentagon, IC, others] [followup] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [continuity since late 1950s?] [followup] [Russians apparently satisfied with Obama’s concessions to Russia’s hurt feelings?] [*]
WASHINGTON — The United States and Russia have broken a logjam in arms control negotiations and expect to sign a treaty next month to slash their nuclear arsenals to the lowest levels in half a century, officials in both nations said Wednesday. [*]
After months of deadlock and delay, the two sides have agreed to lower the limit on deployed strategic warheads by more than one-quarter and launchers by half, the officials said. The treaty will impose a new inspection regime to replace one that lapsed in December, but will not restrict American plans for missile defense based in Europe.
President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia plan to talk Friday to complete

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/europe/25start.html
March 24, 2010
Russia and U.S. Report Breakthrough on Arms
By PETER BAKER and ELLEN BARRY [Obama white house] [president Obama and national-security team][111th congress, 2nd session] [Russia, US-Russia relations, US-Russia arms control agreements] [test ban treaty and others] [from NSC principals to broad bureaucracy] [state, defense, Pentagon, IC, others] [followup] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [continuity since late 1950s?] [followup] [Russians apparently satisfied with Obama’s concessions to Russia’s hurt feelings?] [*]
WASHINGTON — The United States and Russia have broken a logjam in arms control negotiations and expect to sign a treaty next month to slash their nuclear arsenals to the lowest levels in half a century, officials in both nations said Wednesday. [*]
After months of deadlock and delay, the two sides have agreed to lower the limit on deployed strategic warheads by more than one-quarter and launchers by half, the officials said. The treaty will impose a new inspection regime to replace one that lapsed in December, but will not restrict American plans for missile defense based in Europe.
President Obama and President Dmitri A. Medvedev of Russia plan to talk Friday to complete the agreement, but officials said they were optimistic that the deal was nearly done. [*]The two sides have begun preparing for a signing ceremony in Prague on April 8, [interesting symbolism?] [*]timing it to mark the anniversary of Mr. Obama’s speech in the Czech capital outlining his vision for eventually ridding the world of nuclear weapons.
The new treaty represents perhaps the most concrete foreign policy achievement for Mr. Obama since he took office 14 months ago and the most significant result of his effort to “reset” the troubled relationship with Russia. [*]The administration wants to use it to build momentum for an international nuclear summit meeting in Washington just days after the signing ceremony and a more ambitious round of arms cuts later in his term.
“This gives a boost” to the administration’s efforts to build better ties to Russia, said Steven Pifer, a top State Department official under President George W. Bush who specialized in Russia and arms control issues. “There’s still a ways to go and there are still difficult issues. But the last six months, it seems to be going pretty well and this adds to the positive in the relationship.” [over time Obama’s outreach is likely to pay dividends] [but it’ll be slow and not always linear] [*]
More broadly, the White House hopes the treaty will build on the president’s victory in the fight to overhaul health care, demonstrating progress on both the international and domestic fronts after months of frustration over unmet goals.
The new 10-year pact would replace the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty of 1991, or Start, which expired in December, and further extend cuts negotiated in 2002 by Mr. Bush in the Treaty of Moscow. [*]Under the new pact, according to people briefed on it in Washington and Moscow, within seven years each side would have to cut its deployed strategic warheads to 1,550 from the 2,200 now allowed. Each side would cut the total number of launchers to 800 from 1,600 now permitted. The number of nuclear-armed missiles and heavy bombers would be capped at 700 each. [as if that’s not plenty to destroy the entire planet] [*]
Neither the White House nor the Kremlin formally announced the agreement on Wednesday, pending the final telephone call between the presidents. A Kremlin official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there was an agreement on the text of the pact, although not all the wording had been given final approval. Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said, “We’re very close.”
Arms control proponents hailed the progress. Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, called it “the first truly post-cold-war nuclear arms reduction treaty.” Richard Burt, a former chief Start negotiator who now heads a disarmament advocacy group called Global Zero, said that the two presidents “took a major step toward achieving their goal of global zero.”
The breakthrough ended nearly a year of tumultuous negotiations that dragged on far longer than anticipated. The two sides quarreled over verifying compliance, sharing telemetry and limiting missile defense programs. Mr. Obama restructured Mr. Bush’s plans for an antimissile shield in Europe, but Moscow objected to the new version as well and wanted restrictions. Mr. Obama refused. [*]The two presidents cut through disagreements during a telephone call on March 13. [recall Obama offered to move up implementation calendar by stationing on ships rather than Poland and Czech Republic] [but hitch was infrastructure in Ukraine, symbolically possibly even more nettlesome] [*]
The treaty will go for ratification to the legislatures in both countries, and the politics of Senate ratification could be tricky, coming at a polarized moment with a midterm election on the horizon. Republican senators have already expressed concern that Mr. Obama might make unacceptable concessions. Ratification in the Senate requires 67 votes, meaning Mr. Obama would need support from Republicans.
Senators Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican leaders, wrote Mr. Obama last week warning him that ratification “is highly unlikely” if the treaty contained any binding linkage between offensive weapons and missile defense, reminding him of his position “that missile defense is simply not on the table.” [*]
Administration officials describing the draft treaty said its preamble recognized the relationship between offensive weapons and missile defense, but that the language was not binding. [*]The treaty establishes a new regime of inspections, but the American monitoring team that was based at the Votkinsk missile production factory until Start expired would not be allowed to return on a permanent basis.
Russian analysts said Moscow was happy to have reduced what it saw as the overly intrusive inspection regime mandated by Start but disappointed not to have secured restrictions on missile defense. The military was pressuring the Kremlin not to agree to arms reductions without limits on the American missile shield, even though both Mr. Bush and Mr. Obama have described it as aimed at Iran, not Russia. [understand that in both countries, military constituents need to be assuaged] [*] In the end, the Kremlin overruled the military because it wanted a foreign policy achievement. “The military does not have the influence that it did during Soviet times,” said Anton V. Khlopkov, director of the Center for Energy and Security Studies in Moscow. “Back then, the military people, if they didn’t run, they were among those who led the arms control negotiations from the Soviet side. Now, they have less of a role.”
Vladimir Z. Dvorkin, a retired major general and arms control adviser, said Moscow would retain the ability to scrap the new treaty if American missile defenses became a threat. “If, for example, the U.S. unilaterally deploys considerable amounts of missile defense, then Russia has the right to withdraw from the agreement because the spirit of the preamble has been violated,” he said.
Mr. Obama met at the White House on Wednesday with Senators John Kerry of Massachusetts and Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, [Lugar always a Republican moderate on USFP] [Lugar Nunn, consensus and others] [*] the senior Democrat and Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, to brief them on the negotiations. Mr. Kerry later said he would hold hearings between Easter and Memorial Day on the history of arms control and promised action by year’s end. “I assured the president that we strongly support his efforts and that if the final negotiations and all that follows go smoothly, we will work to ensure that the Senate can act on the treaty this year,” Mr. Kerry said.
Peter Baker reported from Washington, and Ellen Barry from Moscow. Clifford J. Levy contributed reporting from Moscow.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/25briefs-Unbrf.html
March 24, 2010
Deforestation Continues, but More Slowly, Report Says
By REUTERS [UN] [IPCC] [global climate change] [global commons] [UN says deforestation has slowed] [hard to tell whether this is from things improving or better calculations?] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [it stresses, perhaps, that while the scientific community has vast majority who accept that humans are causal link, they simply don’t know to what extent?] [use psci 350] [*]
Deforestation slowed in the past decade, in the first sign that global conservation efforts are bearing fruit, but an area the size of Costa Rica is still being destroyed each year, the United Nations said on Thursday. A report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization found that about 32 million acres of forest a year were converted to other uses or lost through natural causes in the past decade, down from more than 39 million a

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/25briefs-Unbrf.html
March 24, 2010
Deforestation Continues, but More Slowly, Report Says
By REUTERS [UN] [IPCC] [global climate change] [global commons] [UN says deforestation has slowed] [hard to tell whether this is from things improving or better calculations?] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [it stresses, perhaps, that while the scientific community has vast majority who accept that humans are causal link, they simply don’t know to what extent?] [*]
Deforestation slowed in the past decade, in the first sign that global conservation efforts are bearing fruit, but an area the size of Costa Rica is still being destroyed each year, the United Nations said on Thursday. A report by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization found that about 32 million acres of forest a year were converted to other uses or lost through natural causes in the past decade, down from more than 39 million a year in the previous 10 years. The net loss of forest area slowed to about 13 million acres a year from 2000 to 2010, down from more than 20 million a year in the 1990s thanks largely to ambitious tree-planting programs in Asia. [*]Efforts by major offenders like Indonesia and Brazil to reduce deforestation also helped reverse the trend.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/25/business/AP-EU-Europe-Financial-Crisis.html
March 25, 2010
Spain, Greece Call for Bailout Fund
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:21 a.m. ET [Greece and Spain respond to IMF and Merkel’s recent suggestions?] [IMF] [global economic meltdown] [debt crisis in Europe] [almost certain to create similar pain in US as some point?] [followup] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [*]
BRUSSELS (AP) -- Spain and Greece called on the European Union to use an existing euro50 billion ($67 billion) bailout fund to offer cheap loans to Greece or other struggling eurozone governments.
The fund has raised money at low rates by borrowing from bond markets and passing the loan on to Hungary, Latvia and Romania as part of rescue packages led by the International Monetary Fund.
The fund is used to help EU members that haven't adopted the euro, but Spanish and Greek leaders said its mandate could be broadened to assisting eurozone countries.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/25/business/AP-EU-Europe-Financial-Crisis.html
March 25, 2010
Spain, Greece Call for Bailout Fund
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 10:21 a.m. ET [Greece and Spain respond to IMF and Merkel’s recent suggestions?] [IMF] [global economic meltdown] [debt crisis in Europe] [almost certain to create similar pain in US as some point?] [followup] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [*]
BRUSSELS (AP) -- Spain and Greece called on the European Union to use an existing euro50 billion ($67 billion) bailout fund to offer cheap loans to Greece or other struggling eurozone governments.
The fund has raised money at low rates by borrowing from bond markets and passing the loan on to Hungary, Latvia and Romania as part of rescue packages led by the International Monetary Fund.
The fund is used to help EU members that haven't adopted the euro, but Spanish and Greek leaders said its mandate could be broadened to assisting eurozone countries.
Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou said the proposal drawn up by Europe's socialist party ''is a solution that could be decided even today.''
''It is on the table and I think it opens up a new future for Europe,'' he said after a meeting of socialist leaders ahead of a two-day summit of European Union heads of state. ''It's a clear solution and a simple one. It shows that if there is a will, there is a way.'' [*]
Only five of the EU's 27 countries are led by socialist governments: Spain, Greece, Austria, Hungary, Slovenia. [*]
The head of Europe's socialist party Poul Nyrup Rasmussen said they were proposing ''to change the regulation on the community facility for non-eurozone member states in order to cover eurozone members.''
He said the EU's executive commission could then take out loans on the market and offer the loan to Greece and others.
''I can tell all German taxpayers, this will not cost you one euro,'' he told reporters.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/asia/25malaysia.html
March 24, 2010
Report Says Migrants in Malaysia Face Abuse
By LIZ GOOCH [Malaysia] [SEAsia] [jihadis in SEA] [political Islam] [generally, activities in SEAsia have waned] [Malaysia’s complex election rules given Malaysia’s interesting multi-cultural cauldron] [ethnic mixing pot with positives and a few negatives over time; also colonian history] [followup] [complex immigration issues] [*]
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Amnesty International said in a report released on Wednesday that migrant workers faced exploitation and widespread abuse in Malaysia, and it accused the government of not doing enough to protect them. [*]
Malaysia, a country of 28 million, relies heavily on foreign labor, with an estimated two million working legally and a million more illegal workers from countries like Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar.
More than 200 migrant workers were interviewed last July for the Amnesty report, which

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/asia/25malaysia.html
March 24, 2010
Report Says Migrants in Malaysia Face Abuse
By LIZ GOOCH [Malaysia] [SEAsia] [jihadis in SEA] [political Islam] [generally, activities in SEAsia have waned] [Malaysia’s complex election rules given Malaysia’s interesting multi-cultural cauldron] [ethnic mixing pot with positives and a few negatives over time; also colonian history] [followup] [complex immigration issues] [*]
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Amnesty International said in a report released on Wednesday that migrant workers faced exploitation and widespread abuse in Malaysia, and it accused the government of not doing enough to protect them. [*]
Malaysia, a country of 28 million, relies heavily on foreign labor, with an estimated two million working legally and a million more illegal workers from countries like Indonesia, India, Bangladesh, Nepal and Myanmar.
More than 200 migrant workers were interviewed last July for the Amnesty report, which found that some workers were being lured to Malaysia by agents, only to find that the jobs they had been promised did not exist. [*]
Others complained of physical, verbal and sexual abuse, saying employers held passports, forced them to work long hours and did not pay the wages promised. [*]
Researchers spoke to migrants working in restaurants, construction sites, factories and homes. They visited three detention centers around Kuala Lumpur, where they found overcrowding and a lack of beds, access to clean water and medication.
Amnesty said that many migrants were victims of human trafficking, and that in some cases immigration officials were involved. Last year, the State Department listed Malaysia among countries not complying with minimum standards for combating trafficking. [*]
The report also condemned caning of illegal migrants, stating that almost 35,000 migrants were caned between 2002 and 2008.
The nation’s human resources minister, S. Subramaniam, denied that foreign workers faced discrimination, telling The Associated Press that they had the same rights and protection as Malaysian workers.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/can-an-undivided-jerusalem-be-shared/
[Accessed 3/25/10 7:30 AM]
The Lede
The New York Times News Blog
March 25, 2010, 9:19 am
Can an Undivided Jerusalem Be Shared?
By ROBERT MACKEY [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [Jerusalem as special case of occupied territory] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [couple days ago it looked as though both sides trying to rachet down] [followup] [now?] [*]
Ronen Zvulun/Reuters Control of Jerusalem’s holy sites have been a stumbling block in pat negotiations.
As my colleagues Helene Cooper and Isabel Kershner report, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, left Washington after a long meeting with President Obama apparently failed to persuade him to halt the building of homes for Jews in East Jerusalem. [*]

http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/can-an-undivided-jerusalem-be-shared/
[Accessed 3/25/10 7:30 AM]
The Lede
The New York Times News Blog
March 25, 2010, 9:19 am
Can an Undivided Jerusalem Be Shared?
By ROBERT MACKEY [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [Jerusalem as special case of occupied territory] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [couple days ago it looked as though both sides trying to rachet down] [followup] [now?] [*]
Ronen Zvulun/Reuters Control of Jerusalem’s holy sites have been a stumbling block in pat negotiations.
As my colleagues Helene Cooper and Isabel Kershner report, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, left Washington after a long meeting with President Obama apparently failed to persuade him to halt the building of homes for Jews in East Jerusalem. [*]
American and Israeli negotiators will continue to talk about how to revive peace talks, but Mr. Netanyahu’s vice prime minister, Silvan Shalom, said on Thursday that the Obama administration’s focus on Jerusalem puzzled him. Mr. Shalom told Israel Radio that construction in the city was “unconditional,” and asked, “How did we get to the point that building in Jerusalem has turned into a stumbling block?” [*]
For all the other difficulties confronting negotiators in the Middle East, the diplomatic storm that began this month during a visit there by America’s vice president has made it clear that the thorniest problem to be solved is finding some way for Israelis and Palestinians to live in two separate states but still share one capital, Jerusalem. [it’s sort of strange because negotiators from Ehud Barack period negotiated down to the particular house on the particular street in Jerusale,] [it’s unclear whether Bibi’s govt is trying to supplant that with something different??] [*]
The tension between the United States and Israel began with the announcement, on a day Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was in Jerusalem, that Israel would build 1,600 more homes for Jews in a part of the city it seized from Jordan during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war. That disregard for the possibility that parts of Jerusalem might be placed under Palestinian sovereignty under a peace agreement threatened to derail new talks before they even began.
Then the Israeli Web site Ynet News reported on Tuesday night, just before Mr. Netanyahu met with President Obama at the White House, that another controversial building project would go ahead in East Jerusalem.
Responding to criticism from the American government, Mr. Netanyahu has repeatedly suggested, as he did during a speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) in Washington on Monday, that the status of the city is not up for negotiation. [but of course it is] [it’s been negotiated just not implemented?] [*] “Jerusalem is not a settlement; it’s our capital,” he told Aipac, a pro-Israel lobbying group.
As Laura Rozen noted on Politco’s Web site, the prime minister also said that his position on the city was no different than that of his predecessors: [that’s what’s confusing] [it’s hard to tell whether this is making a principle out of Jewish parts or trying to through out past administration’s negotiations?] [*]
In Jerusalem, my government has maintained the policies of every single Israeli governments since 1967, including those led by Golda Meir, Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin. …. Everyone knows — everyone: Americans, Europeans, Israelis certainly, Palestinians — that these neighborhoods will be part of Israel in any peace settlement. Therefore, building them in no way precludes the possibility of a two-state solution.
In his book “1967” the Israeli historian Tom Segev explained that Israel’s government quickly made the decision to annex the parts of Jerusalem it took during a week of fighting that year, and from the start treated the city differently from the other territory it occupied in Gaza and the West Bank. He added that officials were initially careful to incorporate East Jerusalem quietly:
The demand to Judaize the city became a popular signifier of patriotism. But the process required restraint, caution and intelligence, so as not to anger “the world” — meaning the Vatican, the U.S. State Department, the U.N., or, God forbid, The New York Times. [*]Israel often tried to mislead “the world.” Minister of Justice Shapira once suggested announcing that the Jewish Quarter had not been expropriated but rather evacuated “for survey needs.” The world, including the United States, was indeed opposed to the annexation of East Jerusalem. Administration officials said so more than once.
That said, Mr. Segev also noted that “the United States did not take action against the de facto annexation, trying only to downplay it as much as possible.”
The New York Times A map showing Israeli settlements in parts of Jerusalem beyond the “Green Line,” those areas captured in fighting in 1967. The dotted red line indicates the boundary of the city. [go to original URL per above] [*]
While Israeli Israeli officials have become considerably less reticent about acting as if the question of Jerusalem has been settled since 1967 — and while more than 150,000 Jews have moved into housing in the part of the city annexed that year — the international community still generally sees the status of the city as an open question. [*]On Wednesday, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, told the Security Council, “All settlement activity is illegal, but inserting settlers into Palestinian neighborhoods in Jerusalem is particularly troubling.”
As Mr. Segev explained in “One Palestine, Complete,” a history of the era leading up to the creation of the Jewish state, on Nov. 29, 1947, when the United Nations voted to divide Palestine into two states, the question of what to do about the holy city was left open: “Jerusalem was to remain under international control.”
In 1995, Yitzhak Rabin, the Israeli prime minister who signed the Oslo Accords as a step towards a two-state solution to the conflict with the Palestinians, told the Israeli Parliament:
I said yesterday, and repeat today, that there are not two Jerusalems; there is only one Jerusalem. From our perspective, Jerusalem is not a subject for compromise. Jerusalem was ours, will be ours, is ours and will remain as such forever. [this was assumed to mean Jewish Jerusalem since his and subsequent govts negotiated the dividing lines between East and West and historic sites] [*]
Many of the delegates at this year’s Aipac conference may have wondered how this idea that Jerusalem should remain under Israeli control had become a stumbling block in Israel’s relations with the Obama administration. After all, the president himself, when he was running for office, had assured them that he agreed with that position. To rapturous applause, Mr. Obama told Aipac in 2008:
Let me be clear. Israel’s security is sacrosanct. It is nonnegotiable. The Palestinians need a state that is contiguous and cohesive, and that allows them to prosper — but any agreement with the Palestinian people must preserve Israel’s identity as a Jewish state, with secure, recognized and defensible borders. Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided. [again, this is per previous negotiations and understandings] [*]
Almost immediately, that speech caused problems for Mr. Obama. Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian negotiator, told Al Jazeera that next day, “This is the worst thing to happen to us since 1967.” The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, complained that Mr. Obama was talking about something that was not yet settled as it were, telling reporters, “Jerusalem is part of the six points that are subjects on the negotiations’ agenda.” [certainly previous Israeli govts had acted as if that were the case] [*]He added:
The whole world knows that holy Jerusalem was occupied in 1967 and we will not accept a Palestinian state without having Jerusalem as the capital. [now that’s every bit as dogmatic as Bibi’s govt and most unhelpful] [is it as simple as getting the two principals to qualify their intemperate talk with “historic Arab-East” Jerusalem and “historic Jewish-West” Jerusalem?] [*]
Days later, Mr. Obama backtracked, telling CNN that he simply meant that the city would not be physically divided, although it could be shared, in the way President Bill Clinton suggested during negotiations a decade ago: [this has been assumed for 15 years] [*]
You know, the truth is that this was an example where we had some poor phrasing in the speech. And we immediately tried to correct the interpretation that was given. The point we were simply making was, is that we don’t want barbed wire running through Jerusalem, similar to the way it was prior to the ‘67 war, that it is possible for us to create a Jerusalem that is cohesive and coherent.
I was not trying to predetermine what are essentially final status issues. I think the Clinton formulation provides a starting point for discussions between the parties. [*]
Robert Malley, an adviser to President Clinton who participated in the Camp David summit meeting in 2000, explained in an article on the negotiations — written with Hussein Agha for The New York Review of Books in August 2001 — that while both sides arrived in the United States that year with stated positions claiming Jerusalem for themselves, both also showed some flexibility on the core issue during the talks. [and this negotiators subsequently hammered it out street by street, house by house] [my recollection is there were even Christian houses on streets?] [*]
Of the Palestinians, Mr. Malley and Mr. Agha wrote, “Despite their insistence on Israel’s withdrawal from all lands occupied in 1967, they were open to a division of East Jerusalem granting Israel sovereignty over its Jewish areas (the Jewish Quarter, the Wailing Wall, and the Jewish neighborhoods) in clear contravention of this principle.” As for Ehud Barak, who was then Israel’s prime minister and now serves as the country’s defense minister, they noted: “Coming into office on a pledge to retain Jerusalem as Israel’s ‘eternal and undivided capital,’ he ended up appearing to agree to Palestinian sovereignty—first over some, then over all, of the Arab sectors of East Jerusalem.”
Yet, when push came to shove, the question of who would rule one small part of the city — the holy site known as the Haram al-Sharif to Palestinians and the Temple Mount to Jews — seemed impossible to resolve. [*]At Camp David, Mr. Malley recalled, a fair amount of attention was devoted to was called the “divine sovereignty” compromise: [**]
The Americans spent countless hours seeking imaginative formulations to finesse the issue of which party would enjoy sovereignty over this sacred place—a coalition of nations, the United Nations Security Council, even God himself was proposed. In the end, the Palestinians would have nothing of it: the agreement had to give them sovereignty, or there would be no agreement at all.
Even after the Camp David talks ended, President Clinton tried to keep the idea of letting God rule that sensitive part of Jerusalem alive. [*]After a meeting between the president and Yasir Arafat in New York in September 2000, my colleague Jane Perlez reported:
[T]he Americans were trying desperately to move the discussion away from any form of exclusive sovereignty and toward the concept of shared sovereignty between Israel and the Palestinians, or better still, the concept of ”divine sovereignty.”
According to this idea, the two Muslim shrines at the site, the Dome of the Rock and Al Aksa, and the area under the earth where the First and Second Jewish temples stood, would be under the sovereignty of God, an idea that was once broached by King Hussein during his reign in Jordan.
Later that same month, my colleague Deborah Sontag reported that the proposal was still on the table, but explained that the talks seemed deadlocked on the issue because neither leader was willing to be seen as giving away a site holy to both Muslims and Jews:
Gershom Gorenberg, an expert on the mount, said the site had predictably ended up as the core of the conflict not only because of its religious importance to both sides but also because of its ”mythic value” in their historical narratives. [*]
For secular Israelis, capturing the mount was a pinnacle of Zionism, which made the Jewish homeland more solid by reclaiming the sacred center of Judaism after two millenniums. [symbolism even for secular Jews] [*] Religious Jews saw it as the first step toward redemption. For the Palestinians, in contrast, losing the mount became emblematic of all the other losses; regaining it became a driving goal of their nationalist movement. [...] [Arab symbolism] [*]
No Arab leader, Mr. Arafat said, could give away the rock from which Muhammad is said to have leapt to heaven. No Jewish leader, Mr. Barak said, could give away the rock that more or less marks where the temple once stood. [**]
As The Guardian reported that year, Jerusalem’s Roman Catholic Patriarch also came out in favor of the plan to draw God into the talks.
While agreement on the status of the holy city’s holiest site was not reached before the end of Mr. Clinton’s presidency, if the Obama administration hopes for a breakthrough, it may return to the idea of “divine sovereignty.” That said, it is worth remembering that the idea provoked fierce opposition from some Jewish groups when it was proposed a decade ago. [perhaps that’s what’s happened: Bibi learned the lesson and intends not to repeat it?] [*]In “Divided We Stand: American Jews, Israel,and the Peace Process,” Ofira Seliktar wrote that the Zionist Organization of America sponsored full-page ads in American newspapers saying, “Israel must not surrender Judaism’s holiest site.” The ads said that “no Israeli leader has the right to give away the essence of the Jewish people that is embodied in the Temple Mount.”
The Palestinians, too, resisted the plan. As Ms. Sontag reported in late September 2000:
The Palestinians, however, refused to enter into a long-term lease arrangement for their holy space. They also questioned Israeli historical claims that the site was home to the First and Second Temple as well as Jewish traditional beliefs that Adam was created there and that Abraham nearly sacrificed Isaac there.
As Mr. Gorenberg, the expert on the holy site, said at the time, the true stumbling block was and remains the need for followers of both religions to accept the legitimacy of the claims of the other: [either that or religion entirely banned from talks?] [*] ”If an agreement is reached, then in religious and national terms, the two sides will have agreed to the idea of more than one truth existing in Jerusalem — that there’s more than one way up God’s mountain,” Mr. Gorenberg told Ms. Sontag nearly ten years ago. ”But,” he added, “that’s a big if.”
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Company

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/americas/25briefs-canadabrf.html
March 24, 2010
Canada: Quebec Bans Veils in Dealings With Officials
By IAN AUSTEN [Canada] [NAmerica] [Canada struggles with multiculturalism in ways similar to Europe?] [I wonder if banning veil is not more trouble than it solves?] [followup] [I don’t think even most hardline in US would stand for it due to religious freedom as civil liberty in Bill of Rights, so forth?] [followup] [*]
In the latest of a series of measures related to religious displays, the province of Quebec introduced legislation on Wednesday requiring people to show their faces to receive government services. The bill does not make specific reference to Muslim women, but Premier Jean Charest told reporters that the law “respects the principle of equality between men and women.” [US wants same goal but I doubt it would approach this way?] [*] Although Muslim women who cover their faces are not prominent in Quebec, there has been considerable controversy in the province about the practice.

[full article above the jump] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html
March 24, 2010
China and Russia Pressed Iran to Accept U.N. Deal
By ELLEN BARRY and ANDREW KRAMER [Iran] [Russia and China] [Russia-Iran and China-Iran relations] [confluence of June elections with Iran’s apparent drive for nuke weapon] [the intense internal dynamics of the various factions and Iran’s nuclear-enrichment processes-plants] [Tehran’s intense factionalism] [both Russia and China pressure Iran’s thugocracy to accept UN’s compromise?] [good luck] [*]
MOSCOW — Russia disclosed on Wednesday that Russian and Chinese envoys had pressed Iran’s government to accept a United Nations plan on uranium enrichment during meetings in Tehran early this month but that Iran had refused, leaving “less and less room for diplomatic maneuvering.” [*]
“The clouds are piling up,” said a top Russian Foreign Ministry official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, following diplomatic protocol. He said Russia would consider supporting sanctions tailored to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, though it “is certainly

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/middleeast/25iran.html
March 24, 2010
China and Russia Pressed Iran to Accept U.N. Deal
By ELLEN BARRY and ANDREW KRAMER [Iran] [Russia and China] [Russia-Iran and China-Iran relations] [confluence of June elections with Iran’s apparent drive for nuke weapon] [the intense internal dynamics of the various factions and Iran’s nuclear-enrichment processes-plants] [Tehran’s intense factionalism] [both Russia and China pressure Iran’s thugocracy to accept UN’s compromise?] [good luck] [*]
MOSCOW — Russia disclosed on Wednesday that Russian and Chinese envoys had pressed Iran’s government to accept a United Nations plan on uranium enrichment during meetings in Tehran early this month but that Iran had refused, leaving “less and less room for diplomatic maneuvering.” [*]
“The clouds are piling up,” said a top Russian Foreign Ministry official, briefing reporters on condition of anonymity, following diplomatic protocol. He said Russia would consider supporting sanctions tailored to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, though it “is certainly against any paralyzing sanctions that are aimed not at nonproliferation but at punishing Iran or, God forbid, regime change.” [*]
At the United Nations, Mark Lyall Grant, the British ambassador, confirmed that political directors from the six countries that could approve sanctions against Tehran had consulted by telephone on Wednesday and that China had finally “agreed to engage substantively on the issue.”
Li Baodong, the new Chinese ambassador, emphasized that China is committed to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. “We think it’s very important to maintain stability and peace in the Middle East,” he told reporters, but he left ambiguous exactly what China is committing to. [*]
The Russian official’s comments came after Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton chided Russia for announcing the start-up of a new nuclear power plant it had built at Bushehr, in Iran, which she said muddied the international effort to press Tehran on weapons development. The remarks suggested that China and Russia — the two holdouts among the six countries — are themselves feeling the pressure as demands for sanctions mount. [*]
Locking in Russian support for sanctions was a central goal of the Washington’s “reset” with Moscow. But Russia has long resisted measures that would strain its ties with Tehran — a point underscored last week when, during a visit to Moscow by Mrs. Clinton, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin said that the Bushehr’s first reactor would begin operating this summer.
At the Wednesday briefing, the Foreign Ministry official said that sanctions would have no effect on the Russian-built plant. He also said Iran had such a limited ability to enrich uranium that he doubted it could build a nuclear weapon soon. [*]But he said Russia had a clear security interest in monitoring the nuclear programs of all countries near its borders.
“I don’t want to say that Iran would inflict a nuclear strike on Russia, but any conflict between a nuclear Iran and a third party would have shattering negative consequences for our security interests and for our neighboring territories,” he said.
Also on Wednesday, Lukoil, Russia’s largest private oil company, said it was pulling out of a mid-size oil field development in Iran called Anaran because of “international sanctions” against the country. Lukoil made the announcement in a briefing on its results for 2009, saying restrictions on investment had cost the company $63 million last year.
Grigory Volchek, a Lukoil spokesman, would not say which sanctions had compelled the pullout from the Anaran project, which includes several oil fields. Oil analysts in Moscow said Lukoil might have decided to adhere to American sanctions because the company owned a chain of gas stations in the United States.
A concurrent announcement on Wednesday by Gazprom, a Russian state-owned energy giant, suggested that the authorities are trying to avoid the impression of bending to United States law when doing business with third parties. Gazprom said it would invest in two development blocks within the Anaran project, Interfax reported.
Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from the United Nations.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/asia/25afghan.html
March 24, 2010
After Arrests, Taliban Promote a Fighter
By DEXTER FILKINS and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH [Afghanistan] [hydra] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [Karzai pushing reconcliation with Taliban] [use psci 469] [followup] [Mullah Omar makes some changes in leadership?] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban’s supreme leader has replaced his top deputy with a relatively young but hardened fighter, an indication of the Taliban’s determination to push ahead with its insurgency despite the recent arrests [*]of a handful of high-level commanders in Pakistan, according to Afghans and Pakistanis close to the Taliban.
The new deputy, Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, a former detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who is believed to be in his mid-30s, has a reputation as a tough fighter with few political skills. [*]He was most recently the Taliban’s commander in southern Afghanistan, but he was pulled back into Pakistan, the Taliban’s rear base, earlier this year out of fear that he would be killed or detained, [*]a senior NATO officer said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/asia/25afghan.html
March 24, 2010
After Arrests, Taliban Promote a Fighter
By DEXTER FILKINS and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH [Afghanistan] [hydra] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [Karzai pushing reconcliation with Taliban] [use psci 469] [followup] [Mullah Omar makes some changes in leadership?] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Taliban’s supreme leader has replaced his top deputy with a relatively young but hardened fighter, an indication of the Taliban’s determination to push ahead with its insurgency despite the recent arrests [*]of a handful of high-level commanders in Pakistan, according to Afghans and Pakistanis close to the Taliban.
The new deputy, Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir, a former detainee at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, who is believed to be in his mid-30s, has a reputation as a tough fighter with few political skills. [*]He was most recently the Taliban’s commander in southern Afghanistan, but he was pulled back into Pakistan, the Taliban’s rear base, earlier this year out of fear that he would be killed or detained, [*]a senior NATO officer said.
He replaces Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, who was arrested in late January in Karachi, Pakistan, in a joint operation by American and Pakistani intelligence agents. Most of the Afghans and Pakistanis interviewed for this article spoke on the condition of anonymity out of concern for their safety.
Mr. Baradar is one of a number of Taliban leaders captured recently in Pakistan, where the government has historically granted the group sanctuary. He had been the leader of the Taliban leadership council known as the Quetta Shura, named for the Pakistani city where many of the group’s leaders are believed to be hiding. [*]
American officials believe that the Taliban’s leadership is still brimming with confidence about their position inside Afghanistan, making it unlikely that the movement’s chieftains would be inclined to enter substantive negotiations in the near term.
“The Taliban still believe they are winning and can wait us out,” said one senior American intelligence official. “They are not inclined to accept a bargain.” [*]
Still, the arrests in Pakistan have sown nervousness among Taliban leaders. The Taliban’s supreme leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, appointed Mr. Zakir as his deputy himself, without convening the leadership council, according to Waheed Muzhda, a former Taliban official in Kabul who speaks regularly with Taliban leaders.
The Quetta Shura members, Mr. Muzhda said, felt too insecure to gather in large numbers. “Everyone is worried,” he said. [results of “surge”?] [*]
In addition to Mr. Baradar, Pakistani authorities recently detained Mullah Kabir, another member of the Quetta Shura, and two of the group’s “shadow governors” in Afghanistan. Mullah Kabir was later released, however, for reasons that are unclear, [what?] [*]according to a Western diplomat in Pakistan and a Pakistani with close ties to the group.
Pakistan also detained another member of the Taliban’s inner circle, Agha Jan Motasim, who was a former finance minister of the Taliban government before it was driven from power in 2001, according to a Pakistani with close ties to the Taliban. Mr. Motasim, a son-in-law of Mullah Omar, was captured in Karachi late last month, the Pakistani said. [*]
There were conflicting reports, meanwhile, about the status of another senior Taliban leader, Mullah Mansour, the brother of one of the most brutal of the Taliban commanders, Mullah Dadullah, who was killed by American and British troops in 2007. [*]
A Pakistani with close ties to the Taliban said Wednesday that Mr. Mansour had also been promoted to serve as a deputy alongside Mr. Zakir, though some Afghans disputed that.
The arrests appear to represent a significant shift in tactics by Pakistani security officials, [*] who have allowed Taliban leaders to operate freely in their country for years. The Pakistani military and intelligence services helped create the Taliban in the mid-1990s, and elements of their security services have maintained a shadowy relationship with the group ever since.
Pakistan’s policy of supporting the American mission in Afghanistan and simultaneously aiding the Taliban has been a source of extreme tension for American officials. They have pressured the Pakistanis to cut their ties to the Taliban and, at least, to shut down the sanctuaries used by the Taliban’s leaders and fighters.
American officials say they are encouraged by some of the recent Pakistani actions — but not all of them. The exact motives of the Pakistani government are murky. [*]
Many people here, in Pakistan and in the United States speculate that Pakistani officials have been detaining the Taliban’s senior leaders to gain a measure of influence over any peace negotiations that may begin between the Afghan government and the Taliban. [?] [it’s plausible] [*]
There were signs that those Taliban leaders still at large were taking extreme precautions to avoid being detained. Mr. Muzhda, the Afghan analyst who follows the Taliban, said that some Taliban leaders hiding in Pakistan had vanished.
It was unclear, he said, whether the Taliban leaders have been arrested or whether they have gone into hiding, afraid that they will be.
Among those Taliban leaders whose whereabouts are unknown, he said, were Mullah Hassan Rahmani, the former Taliban governor of Kandahar and a member of the Quetta Shura, and Mullah Afghan Tayyib, a longtime spokesman for the group.
“When I talk to the Taliban, they say they have disappeared,” [*]Mr. Muzhda said of the leaders.
In 2001, the new Taliban deputy, Mr. Zakir, then known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, was captured on the battlefield and sent to the American detention camp at Guantánamo Bay until 2007, when he was turn over to the Afghan government and later released. [*]
“The fighters who have been to Guantánamo are seen as heroes,” [one way gitmo hurts America’s overall cause] [*] Mr. Muzhda said.
According to transcripts of a hearing in 2007, Mr. Zakir told American officials that he had no intention of returning to the battlefield. “I want to go back home and join my family and work in my land and help my family,” he said, according to a transcript reviewed by The Associated Press.
Dexter Filkins reported from Kabul, and Pir Zubair Shah from Peshawar, Pakistan. Abdul Wahid Wafa and Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul; Taimoor Shah from Kandahar, Afghanistan; and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/middleeast/25saudi.html
March 24, 2010
Saudis Arrest 113 Militants
By MONA EL-NAGGAR and JACK HEALY [Saudi] [middle east proper] [proximity to horn of Africa and numerous activities there] [jihadis and Islamists in Saudi peninsula] [possibly al Qaeda] [global-jihadis hydra] [clear connections with al Qaeda] [both Saudi and even more Yemen have seen fair number of such incidents recently] [use psci469b] [followup Jan] [*]
CAIRO — Saudi Arabia said Wednesday that its security forces had arrested 113 militants with ties to Al Qaeda who had been planning attacks against oil operations and security facilities in the eastern part of the kingdom. [the big scenario with take down of processing plant, cascading economic cataclysms, etc.?] [*]
Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, said the arrests were conducted over the last five months and were aimed at three independent militant groups

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/world/middleeast/25saudi.html
March 24, 2010
Saudis Arrest 113 Militants
By MONA EL-NAGGAR and JACK HEALY [Saudi] [middle east proper] [proximity to horn of Africa and numerous activities there] [jihadis and Islamists in Saudi peninsula] [possibly al Qaeda] [global-jihadis hydra] [clear connections with al Qaeda] [both Saudi and even more Yemen have seen fair number of such incidents recently] [use psci469b] [followup Jan] [*]
CAIRO — Saudi Arabia said Wednesday that its security forces had arrested 113 militants with ties to Al Qaeda who had been planning attacks against oil operations and security facilities in the eastern part of the kingdom. [the big scenario with take down of processing plant, cascading economic cataclysms, etc.?] [*]
Gen. Mansour al-Turki, a spokesman for the Saudi Interior Ministry, said the arrests were conducted over the last five months and were aimed at three independent militant groups linked to the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda, which has been implicated in numerous attacks across the region, [more evidence the Yemen resources of al Qaeda active] [*]as well as a failed attempt on Dec. 25 to bring down a commercial flight over Detroit.
Officials said most of the suspects had been captured near Saudi Arabia’s border with Yemen, and said they had seized weapons and ammunition, as well as cameras, prepaid phone cards and computers. They did not specify which Saudi facilities were potential targets of an attack, or say more precisely when the suspects had been arrested.
“This is a job that has been done in five months,” General Turki said in a telephone interview. “We usually can’t announce it until we make sure we deal with others related to this organization. We announce it after we make sure that we got everybody. This is part of our job, to combat Al Qaeda.” [*]
He said the arrests were precipitated by a confrontation in which Saudi security forces killed two militants who had been on a wanted list. Security forces found four explosive belts in the men’s possession, “which indicated there were more people involved with them,” General Turki said.
General Turki said that most of those arrested were from Saudi Arabia or Yemen, and that Saudi forces had arrested one person from Bangladesh, one from Somalia and one from Eritrea, which lies just across the Red Sea from the Arabian Peninsula. [transnational] [*]
The authorities did not provide further information about interactions among the three militant groups or their suspected ties to Al Qaeda.
Saudi Arabia from time to time announces the arrests of dozens of suspected militants as it tries to thwart terrorism within its borders. The country rounded up 207 suspected militants said to have Qaeda ties in late 2007, and announced the arrest of 11 others last April.
Mona El-Naggar reported from Cairo, and Jack Healy from New York.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/us/politics/24lawyer.html
March 23, 2010
Ex-Times Lawyer, an Army Nominee, Is Queried on Leaks
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [appointees still getting raked over coals on occasion] [payback sucks] [obama’s choice for army’s general counsel] [cross individual] [*]
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Tuesday grilled President Obama’s nominee to be the Army’s general counsel, Solomon B. Watson IV, over the publication of two articles in The New York Times disclosing classified information when Mr. Watson was the newspaper’s chief legal officer.
At a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, a series of Republicans portrayed the articles as jeopardizing national security and questioned whether Mr. Watson could be trusted to protect classified secrets.
The ranking Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, asked how Mr. Watson “would respond to public disclosures that endanger U.S. citizens, neutralize the effectiveness of classified defense programs and harm national security.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/us/politics/24lawyer.html
March 23, 2010
Ex-Times Lawyer, an Army Nominee, Is Queried on Leaks
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [appointees still getting raked over coals on occasion] [payback sucks] [obama’s choice for army’s general counsel] [cross individual] [*]
WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Tuesday grilled President Obama’s nominee to be the Army’s general counsel, Solomon B. Watson IV, over the publication of two articles in The New York Times disclosing classified information when Mr. Watson was the newspaper’s chief legal officer.
At a confirmation hearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, a series of Republicans portrayed the articles as jeopardizing national security and questioned whether Mr. Watson could be trusted to protect classified secrets.
The ranking Republican, Senator John McCain of Arizona, asked how Mr. Watson “would respond to public disclosures that endanger U.S. citizens, neutralize the effectiveness of classified defense programs and harm national security.”
Mr. Watson, a Vietnam veteran who spent 32 years at The Times before retiring in 2006, said he would “take aggressive action” against anyone in the Army who leaked classified information.
“I believe in national security,” he said. “I’m a patriot. I do not, as a professional, abide people leaking classified information. I certainly wouldn’t be a leaker, if that’s the question for me. As general counsel for the Army, I certainly wouldn’t abide anyone within my jurisdiction leaking classified information.” [*]
Mr. Watson also initially expressed discomfort about talking in detail about the two Times articles.
One article, published in December 2005, disclosed that President George W. Bush had authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans’ international phone calls and e-mails without a warrant, bypassing a 1978 law requiring court approval. The article was later awarded a Pulitzer Prize. [I remember it: my impression was leakers were truly disturbed that Bush was doing illegal things—and that proved somewhat prescient] [still not reason to leak] [*]
The other, published in June 2006, disclosed that a Belgium-based banking cooperative was secretly providing United States counterterrorism agents with access to vast databases of international financial transfers without individual warrants.
Mr. Watson said the newspaper’s publisher and its top editor had made the decision to run the articles. He said that he had not personally played a role in vetting their legality because he focused more on corporate matters, but that another Times lawyer who dealt with newsroom issues had decided it was lawful for the articles to be published.
“There was not a violation of the law to publish those stories,” Mr. Watson said.
But, pressed repeatedly by Mr. McCain to say whether he thought their publication was justified, Mr. Watson eventually criticized that decision. [*]
“Senator, my opinion is that the decision was justified,” he said. “Were it my decision to make, I would not have made that decision. So I think, that is to say that — no.”
Diane McNulty, a spokeswoman for The Times, defended the publication of the articles.
“The stories were important pieces of journalism, done responsibly and protected by the First Amendment,” she said. “Editors, not lawyers, make editorial decisions at The New York Times, and Mr. Watson didn’t make any editorial decisions with these or any other stories that ran in The Times. We also believe that Mr. Watson would be an outstanding public servant.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:37 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032303766.html
After the Fort Hood shootings, a Muslim American soldier battles on friendly ground
By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 24, 2010; A08 [Obama white house] [residuals since 9/11] [111th congress 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [pentagon’s struggle at times with Muslim troops] [cross in societal] [the US needs their cultural, linguistic, and other skills but looks askance at them as society sometimes does] [*]
At 2 o'clock on a Monday morning, the sound of angry pounding sent Army Spec. Zachari Klawonn bolting out of bed.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Someone was mule-kicking the door of his barracks room, leaving marks that weeks later -- long after Army investigators had come and gone -- would still be visible.
By the time Klawonn reached the door, the pounding had stopped. All that was left was a note, twice folded and wedged into the doorframe.
"F--- YOU RAGHEAD BURN IN HELL" read the words scrawled in black marker. [*]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032303766.html
After the Fort Hood shootings, a Muslim American soldier battles on friendly ground
By William Wan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, March 24, 2010; A08 [Obama white house] [residuals since 9/11] [111th congress 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [pentagon’s struggle at times with Muslim troops] [cross in societal] [the US needs their cultural, linguistic, and other skills but looks askance at them as society sometimes does] [*]
At 2 o'clock on a Monday morning, the sound of angry pounding sent Army Spec. Zachari Klawonn bolting out of bed.
THUD. THUD. THUD.
Someone was mule-kicking the door of his barracks room, leaving marks that weeks later -- long after Army investigators had come and gone -- would still be visible.
By the time Klawonn reached the door, the pounding had stopped. All that was left was a note, twice folded and wedged into the doorframe.
"F--- YOU RAGHEAD BURN IN HELL" read the words scrawled in black marker. [*]
The slur itself was nothing new. Klawonn, 20, the son of an American father and a Moroccan mother, had been called worse in the military. But the fact that someone had tracked him down in the dead of night to deliver this specific message sent a chill through his body. [that it happened on base is troubling] [*]
Before he enlisted, the recruiters in his home town of Bradenton, Fla., had told him that the Army desperately needed Muslim soldiers like him to help win the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. [*]
Yet ever since, he had been filing complaint after complaint with his commanders. After he was ordered not to fast and pray. After his Koran was torn up. After other soldiers jeered and threw water bottles at him. After his platoon sergeant warned him to hide his faith to avoid getting a "beating" by fellow troops. But nothing changed. [*]
Then came the November shootings at Fort Hood and the arrest of a Muslim soldier he'd never met: Maj. Nidal M. Hasan, who is charged with killing 13 people and injuring more than 30 in a massacre that stunned the nation. And with it, things only got worse. [we have got to get to the point where we stop generalizing about Muslims] [imagine if we did about Christians from Christiondom’s bloody past?] [we threaten to tear ourselves apart with such myoplic prejudices—America is a complex melting pot and we need to embrace it] [*]
Staring at the note in his hands that dark February morning, Klawonn trembled with panic and frustration. His faith, he believed, had made him a marked man in the Army. Now the November rampage had only added to his visibility.
Most painful slur
For Klawonn, this is what it means to be a Muslim soldier in the wake of the Fort Hood shootings: You hide your flowing jalebi robes in your closet. You watch your words and actions, censoring anything that could be interpreted as anger. You do so even as you try to ignore the names piled on you. [*]
Sand monkey. Carpet jockey. Raghead. Zachari bin Laden. Nidal Klawonn.
But the hardest to shake off -- the name that cuts deepest, especially for a man who defied his family and community to become a U.S. soldier -- is this one:
Terrorist.
"To be looked upon by the people you serve with, by people you've trusted your life with, as the enemy," Klawonn says, sitting in his barracks a month after receiving the note. His voice trails off as he struggles to describe the anger he feels. "It's not right." [*]
For months, Hasan has been locked up in a Texas jail, awaiting trial. Yet his presence lingers. Nearly everyone on base knows someone who was scarred physically or mentally by the violence of that November day. Nearly everyone has a story of where they were, when they first learned what happened and how they still struggle to understand it. [some of it is understandable but it’s counterproductive] [the military must be proactive!!!] [*]
Klawonn was there, too, a slim stick of a man with muscles wiry from running marathons. His unit had just returned from Korea and was headed to the site of the shootings, a soldier processing center, when the killing began.
Locked down in their battery building, soldiers gleaned details through text messages, e-mail and news alerts. When the identity of the suspected shooter emerged -- a Muslim major -- the response was almost instant.
"Hey, Klawonn, your brother just shot them up."
"We better check Klawonn for weapons."
"Don't piss him off, he's gonna go Hasan on us." [*]
Even the more well-meaning soldiers pressed him to explain a brutal act and extremist philosophy that he himself couldn't fathom. Instead, he denounced the shootings to anyone and everyone.
But as details of Hasan's life began trickling out -- his frustrations with the military, the harassment he endured, his odd medical presentations on Islam and efforts to make himself heard -- Klawonn secretly felt an understanding of at least some of the pressures Hasan faced. [*]
When asked to describe this shred of understanding, Klawonn sits silent in his black Ford truck for a while, trying to find the right words. He says he wants to be careful and doesn't want what he says to be misunderstood. The deaths of fellow soldiers and the pain caused to their families weigh on his mind. So does the threatening note, the urgent pounding at his door.
"I don't sympathize with him. What he did was heinous, wrong, unforgivable," he says, pausing. "But when I read about the discrimination he experienced, I have to say, I can believe it. It doesn't excuse what he did, but it explains maybe a tiny part of it. He was a high-ranking officer. A major. At that level, you demand respect. . . . " [*]
He doesn't finish this thought. It hangs in the air and slowly takes the shape of a question: What do you do when you don't get the respect you think you deserve?
Anti-Muslim climate?
The path of a Muslim soldier in the U.S. Army is often not an easy one.
There are 3,540 Muslims on active duty in the military, a tiny fraction of 1 percent of the nation's nearly 1.5 million active-duty personnel. Maj. Dawud Agbere, one of six Muslim Army chaplains, says he thinks the number is actually higher, because some Muslims avoid identifying their faith for fear of discrimination. [*]
"It's frustrating, because most of it comes from a very small group on the fringes," [*]says Agbere, who serves at Fort McPherson, Ga.
In the Army, he adds, Muslims can also face difficulties fasting during the holy month of Ramadan, performing Islam's five daily prayers or finding a Friday prayer service on base.
Muslim soldiers often talk about three seminal events that altered how they are perceived in the military. [*]First came the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, which many feared would forever link Islam and terrorism in the minds of fellow troops. Then came the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, which made Muslims in the military assets and Arabic speakers the target of recruiting programs. Then, on Nov. 5, 2009, came the Fort Hood massacre.
Afterward, Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey worried aloud about a backlash against Muslim troops. "As great a tragedy as this was, it would be a shame if our diversity became a casualty as well," he said on CNN.
The military doesn't have statistics on Muslim harassment since the shooting. But outside groups say they have seen evidence of a backlash.
Within 72 hours of the rampage, reports of discrimination against Muslims increased by 20 percent, according to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, a watchdog group. [*]"There were soldiers calling in crying on the phone," founder Mikey Weinstein said. "They were hearing things like, 'You can't be trusted,' 'Go back to your own country.' "
Within weeks, five Muslim soldiers at Fort Jackson, S.C., were accused of plotting to poison food at the base. The allegations were dropped, but the five were still discharged from active duty.
"Everything was fine until Fort Hood," says one of the soldiers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for the safety of his family in an Arabic-speaking country. "Then all of a sudden the hatred began, the accusations, suspicion."
At Fort Hood, commanders say they are still trying to find out who left the menacing note at Klawonn's door but declined to go into more detail while the incident is being investigated.
Base spokesman Christopher Haug responded to Klawonn's broader allegations about an anti-Muslim climate by saying, "Strong policies are in place that prohibit harassment and encourage equal-opportunity programs and procedures." He also provided interviews with two other Muslim soldiers at Fort Hood who said they agree with that assessment.
"I've never really encountered anything negative because I'm Arab or Muslim," said Capt. Rhana Kurdi, a Lebanese American who observes Ramadan but doesn't attend a mosque regularly or pray during the day because doing so interferes with her duties.
Sgt. Fahad Kamal, a Pakistani-born combat medic who does pray daily and attend mosque, says he worried about a backlash after the shootings, "but everyone -- all my commanders -- have been supportive. I haven't had any problems." [encouraging but must be replicated over and over] [*]
A father's footsteps
For Klawonn, the problems began almost the second he arrived for boot camp at Fort Sill, Okla.
He had enlisted behind his mother's back during his senior year of high school. He knew she'd object. When he called her from a recruiter's office in Tampa to tell her the news, she hung up on him. That night, as he walked into the living room, she collapsed in tears.
When she finally spoke, she laid into him with questions: Have you thought this through? What if you go to Iraq?
Friends and others at his mosque grilled him, too: Are you really going to kill fellow Muslims? Is this not haram, forbidden? [*]
His decision to enlist had surprised everyone, even himself. For most of his life, there had been only school and golf. He had started playing with his father at age 7, and by the time he reached high school, he was competing in professional tournaments. College coaches began reaching out.
Then Klawonn's father was told he had cancer and died just weeks later. Golf suddenly seemed so trivial. Klawonn thought back to how his dad, a convert to Islam, had always talked about his five years in the Air Force. How he had enlisted straight out of his Kansas high school. How it had given his life purpose and molded him into the man he was.
He could be like his father: one of his country's proud defenders. There were Muslims to protect in the United States, just as there were in Iraq.
At boot camp, Klawonn didn't exactly hide his faith, but it wasn't something he advertised until that first Sunday, when his drill sergeant began calling out a long list of religious services: Baptist, Catholic, Pentecostal . . .
"Oh, yeah," the sergeant said with a laugh as he reached the end. "And let me know if any of you need Islamic services."
When Klawonn raised his hand, the sergeant, in disbelief, called him out of formation and pressed him in detail in front of about 400 other trainees. The slurs started soon after. [that’s just stupid] [probably one idiot but consider how much it hurts military cohesiveness] [this has got to be far worse than gay and lesbians in the military?] [*]
The worst humiliation came during a field exercise at the culmination of boot camp. For weeks, his commanders had sold it as the decisive test -- a scenario that involved capturing a high-value terrorist in Iraq and using him as an informant.
You, his commanders pointed to Klawonn, you're the terrorist.
"Not only did I not get this final, ultimate training they said was so important," he said, "all I got to do was be a terrorist, all day long. Unit after unit."
By his count, he has reported more than 20 complaints with the Army's equal opportunity officers, a number that Fort Hood and Army officials said they could not immediately disprove or verify because the complaints occurred at different bases and units. Complaining about harassment, Klawonn says, often intensified it.
At Fort Bliss in El Paso, he spoke up about his problems at a unit-wide equal opportunity training session. Two days later, in an episode that other soldiers saw, he walked into the barracks to find the Koran from his locker ripped apart and strewn across the laundry room floor.
At Fort Hood, after another string of incidents, he finally broke down, sobbing in the offices of his two direct commanders. Their solution -- confirmed by his current commanders at Fort Hood -- was to send him to Korea, selling it as a fresh start with a new unit in a foreign culture.
On his first day there, his sergeant responded to his request to pray and fast this way: "If I catch you praying during a duty day, I'm going to smoke the dog piss out of you. You understand me?"
Pfc. Chad Jachimowicz, a former roommate of Klawonn's, was being processed by the same sergeant and heard what he said.
"I mean, I understand this is the Army. And I swear as much as the next guy," said Jachimowicz, who has known Klawonn since basic training. "But the kind of [stuff] he gets, the things people say to him, it just pisses me off."
Klawonn's current roommate, Spec. Arnold Mendez, said: "The crazy part about all of this is, he's probably the best soldier we got. I've seen him run a marathon while fasting. I mean, that kind of commitment and smarts. When they told me what he's been through, I asked him, 'Why do you even want to be a soldier anymore?' "
A model soldier
In his 23 months in the Army, Klawonn has consistently earned among the highest physical training scores in his unit. He's at the top in weapons qualifications and is the only one in his battalion to be invited to try out for the Special Forces. But the thing that stands out most, says Capt. Christopher Arata, his commander, is Klawonn's impossibly clean record.
Not one reprimand. Never even late to a morning formation.
There had been an incident at high school where police discovered a gun in his brother-in-law's car, which Klawonn had parked at school. No charges were filed, and he said he voluntarily transferred to another school.
Klawonn now gets flak about his carefully regimented life: His 9 p.m. lights-out policy. His four-mile run every morning at 4:30. His protein-shake meals, along with meat, greens and little else.
When he's alone, however, he says his world sometimes feels as though it's collapsing.
He experiences bouts of mild depression. He has seen a psychologist six times since enlisting. After the note was left at his door and a similar one on his truck, he has had trouble sleeping. He lies in bed, trying to figure out who left the notes and why. How did the person know where he lives? Was it someone in the battalion? Is it just one guy or a group of them? Are they outside now, waiting on the other side of the door?
During 10 days of home leave last month, Klawonn finally told his family members about what he has endured.
They were livid. His mom called the base and, in broken English, berated anyone she could reach by phone. His older sister was more methodical, yelling her way up the chain of command. She could see what all the stress had done to him. [*]
"He's quiet now. Not the happy-go-lucky guy anymore," says Meriem Klawonn. "Last time he visited, he said he just wanted to stay at my house and laid all the time on my couch."
While he was home, his mother heard about Muslims gathering for a lobbying event in Tallahassee and sent Klawonn to join them. What he saw there changed him.
"A guy got up and talked about how we have to stop acting like second-class citizens, like guests in this country," Klawonn says. "He said the only way to get your constitutional rights is to stand up for them. It was powerful, riveting."
He returned to Fort Hood this month a different man, no longer content to stay inside the lines of command with his complaints. He had the Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil rights group in Washington, send a letter to Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. He also agreed to meet with a reporter from The Washington Post.
Commanders at Fort Hood -- quickly sensing a storm of controversy approaching -- called him in for a series of meetings. Officials at the base declined to comment in detail about what was discussed. But Klawonn said that at least two high-ranking officers told him to tread carefully.
This is Fort Hood, they said, where no one has forgotten the November shootings. You need to be cautious about the attention you're getting because you fit a similar mold as the suspect: Frustrated Muslim soldier, talking about Islam and the Army's lack of respect.
This only fired him up more. "You're looking at me as the problem?" Klawonn vented after one meeting. "What about the real problem: the soldiers threatening me, the ignorant slurs? What about the lack of cultural training?"
A future unfolding
On a cloudless afternoon last Thursday, the barracks were unusually quiet. While Klawonn's unit had the day off, he was in his room packing.
In the end, his commanders' response to the threatening note was to give him a housing allowance and encourage him to move off base for his own safety.
So from under his bed, he pulled two dark green duffel bags and began filling them with his military gear. Into an old shoebox, he carefully placed his letter from the Special Forces, two marathon medals and all his unit membership coins. He folded up a Moroccan flag that hung above his bed and placed it, along with his Koran, beside him in his pickup.
He still owes the Army two more years. And as he started up the truck, he vowed he would spend that time fighting for the rights of Muslims in the military. Beyond that, who knows. Perhaps he'll go to college, like his mom has always wanted. Maybe even return to golf.
For so long, he said, he felt as though he was living under a shadow. But now, as he drove toward the base exit, a sense of relief washed over him. For the first time in a long time, he saw possibility ahead -- a life waiting for him just outside the gates of Fort Hood.
Staff researcher Madonna Lebling contributed to this report. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:36 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032302787.html
Defense secretary orders review of military information programs
By Craig Whitlock
Wednesday, March 24, 2010; A04 [Obama white house] [residuals from long past: Iran-Contra, Vietnam, more recent] [bureaucracy] [111th congress 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [defense department’s often awkward efforts to control information] [understandable when context is the battlefield and the enemy] [often, the military has become confused about that fundamental and has sought to confuse the American people and its civilian overseers, and there big problems arise] [followup] [see Ignatius in today’s societal and past month’s govt where I’ve made comments and connections] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [privitization of USFP issues also in spades] [*]
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has ordered a review of the military's information operations programs in response to allegations that private contractors ran an unauthorized spy ring in Afghanistan. [*]
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday that Gates had instructed a small group of senior officials to determine whether there were any "systemic problems" with the operations, which include electronic warfare, psychological operations and other noncombat programs

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032302787.html
Defense secretary orders review of military information programs
By Craig Whitlock
Wednesday, March 24, 2010; A04 [Obama white house] [residuals from long past: Iran-Contra, Vietnam, more recent] [bureaucracy] [111th congress 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [defense department’s often awkward efforts to control information] [understandable when context is the battlefield and the enemy] [often, the military has become confused about that fundamental and has sought to confuse the American people and its civilian overseers, and there big problems arise] [followup] [see Ignatius in today’s societal and past month’s govt where I’ve made comments and connections] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [privitization of USFP issues also in spades] [*]
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has ordered a review of the military's information operations programs in response to allegations that private contractors ran an unauthorized spy ring in Afghanistan. [*]
Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Tuesday that Gates had instructed a small group of senior officials to determine whether there were any "systemic problems" with the operations, which include electronic warfare, psychological operations and other noncombat programs and have a budget this year of more than $500 million. [defense budget so big half billion gets moved around into slush funds too easily] [*]
Gates's decision was prompted by reports that a senior Defense Department official, Michael D. Furlong, hired contractors to run a $24 million intelligence-gathering program to track down suspected insurgent leaders in Afghanistan. The program was shut down late last year after the CIA and some military officials complained that Furlong was operating an off-the-books spy network. [when pentagon runs off-the-books ops not even the gang of 8 are told!] [rat hole of problems] [Furlong and Clarridge came up in same pieces!] [*]
The Defense Department's inspector general and other Pentagon officials have already launched investigations into Furlong's activities. But Gates wanted a broader review, Morrell said.
The review is "designed to provide the secretary with a factual baseline from which to determine whether or not systemic problems exist, and if so, the proper scope and focus of subsequent corrective action," Morrell said at a news conference.
Gates has given the team of senior officials 15 days to conduct the review. Morrell declined to identify the officials involved. "It's certainly not unusual for the secretary to task people in his office to look into something for him, and you never know who it is who's doing it," he said. [*]
Furlong has denied wrongdoing. He told the San Antonio Express-News last week that all his activities had been requested and approved by top U.S. military commanders in Afghanistan. [he may be right but that may still be wrong] [the US govt simply does not work properly without civilian oversight—it’s a fundamental principle] [*]
Furlong works as a strategic planner and civilian adviser to the Joint Information Operations Warfare Center, based at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
Military officials said he remains employed by the Defense Department, although Furlong told the Express-News that he had been locked out of his office. Details of his work in Afghanistan were first reported last week by the New York Times. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:35 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032302838.html
Caution lights for the military's 'information war'
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, March 24, 2010; A17 [oped] [columnist] [c.f. with piece in today’s govt on Gates’ reorganizations] [defense dept and IC] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
It has become commonplace since Sept. 11, 2001, to speak of the "war of ideas" between Muslim extremists and the West. But there has been too little attention paid to the U.S. military's mobilization for this war, which is often described by the oxymoronic phrase "information operations."
To populate this information "battle space," the military has funded a range of contractors, specialists, training programs and initiatives -- targeted on the hot wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the broader zone of conflict in the Middle East and Central Asia. [*]Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander who oversees that region, has been one of the military's most vocal proponents of aggressive information operations.
The potential problems were highlighted on March 14, when the New York Times revealed that a Pentagon official from the "strategic communications" realm had funded contractors to gather intelligence in Afghanistan. Last week also brought a report by The Post's Ellen Nakashima

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032302838.html
Caution lights for the military's 'information war'
By David Ignatius
Wednesday, March 24, 2010; A17 [oped] [columnist] [c.f. with piece in today’s govt on Gates’ reorganizations] [defense dept and IC] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
It has become commonplace since Sept. 11, 2001, to speak of the "war of ideas" between Muslim extremists and the West. But there has been too little attention paid to the U.S. military's mobilization for this war, which is often described by the oxymoronic phrase "information operations."
To populate this information "battle space," the military has funded a range of contractors, specialists, training programs and initiatives -- targeted on the hot wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the broader zone of conflict in the Middle East and Central Asia. [*]Gen. David Petraeus, the Centcom commander who oversees that region, has been one of the military's most vocal proponents of aggressive information operations.
The potential problems were highlighted on March 14, when the New York Times revealed that a Pentagon official from the "strategic communications" realm had funded contractors to gather intelligence in Afghanistan. Last week also brought a report by The Post's Ellen Nakashima that the military, in an offensive information operation, had shut down a jihadist Web site that the CIA had been monitoring for intelligence purposes. In both cases, it seemed the military was wandering into the covert-action arena [*]traditionally reserved for the CIA. [why is this troubling?] [because the military is not well positioned for covert tradecraft] [when US soliders are caputured or otherwise compromised, plausible deniability goes out the window] [there are many other issues—Pentagon’s huge budget and ability to hide covert stuff which precludes congressional oversight…—but this one is key] [*]
This murky area should be marked with a flashing yellow warning light, meaning: "Slow down!" The United States should be careful about encouraging, in effect, the militarization of information -- and it should be especially cautious when these efforts bleed into the intelligence world. We are a nation that has prospered uniquely from open, untainted information flows. As I watch the covert contractors get their arms around this topic, it makes me nervous. [me too] [I have little problem with military’s JSOC doing innovative things or DARPA pushing technological envelope] [but there’s a pretty bright line or several on covert stuff] [*]
An early alarm was sounded last year by Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In an article in the Joint Force Quarterly, he wrote: "It is time for us to take a harder look at 'strategic communication.' Frankly, I don't care for the term. . . . It is now sadly something of a cottage industry." [good for Mullen] [*]
Mullen's critique was amplified this week by a senior military official, who argued that these information operations had become "public affairs on steroids" with what he said was only "limited oversight." [*]He explained: " 'Strategic communication' has an air of respectability to it that propaganda and influence do not. The problem is that it's a slippery slope, because the information environment is so instantaneously global today. . . . You put something out there and it goes worldwide in a flash, making each influence activity suspect to a much wider and more skeptical audience." [in past when military has conducted such communications they have often forgot whom they are supposed to be propaganidizing and it has become congress and American public] [those are problems] [*]
Defense Secretary Bob Gates this week ordered a quick, two-week assessment of Pentagon information operations programs. Gates said he "would have concerns" about "contractors collecting intelligence on the battlefield." [today’s govt] [*]
There's a gusher of money available to fund these loosely monitored operations. For the current fiscal year, Congress approved a budget of $528 million for information and for psychological-warfare operations (psy-ops). For next fiscal year, the Pentagon budget request is $384 million.
You can get the flavor of these activities by trolling the Internet. You will find an array of contractors offering their expertise in everything from "cultural engagement" to "clandestine operations." It's a world of PowerPoint presentations about how to spread pro-American messages while rebutting and demoralizing the enemy. [and strangely often by former officials who got in trouble with similar issues in Iranamouk or elsewhere] [I don’t think they are evil, just zealous] [but they turn up time and again] [Poindexter, D. Clarrige, et al.] [*]
A February 2006 report on information operations by the military's joint staff defined the goal as "to influence, disrupt, corrupt or usurp adversarial human and automated decision-making while protecting our own." An October 2003 Defense Department "Information Operations Roadmap" noted in an appendix that one component could be "Radio/TV/Print/Web media designed to directly modify behavior." This doesn't sound much like Petraeus's frequent and appropriate invocation: "First with the truth." [*]
Problems arise in part because activities are lumped together. [*]Take Afghanistan: Rear Adm. Gregory Smith has a budget of roughly $100 million to support the information operations he commands, which include about $30 million for psy-ops, $30 million for reporting on local "atmospherics," $10 million for public affairs and another $30 million for smaller programs.
Smith told me by telephone from Kabul: "I have tried to bring a more disciplined view of what IO is, [Info Ops] [*]and make certain that we do not have activities bleeding into one another." His bosses at the Pentagon need to make sure that these necessary controls are, in fact, in place. This is an area where too much money and too little oversight have produced an information morass. [good piece and important points I’ve tried to make elsewhere in archive] [*]
davidignatius@washpost.com © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:34 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/opinion/24ohanlon.html
March 24, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor
Pakistan’s War of Choice
By MICHAEL E. O'HANLON
Peshawar, Pakistan [oped] [Brooking’s O’Hanlon with rare piece in NYTs instead of Post] [dateline Peshawar?] [who’s paying for this juncket?] [anyway, I usually agree with his stuff though some differences over –ir “surge” back then] [*]
WHAT are Americans to make of all the good news coming out of Pakistan in recent weeks?
First, the Afghan Taliban’s military chief, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was arrested in a raid in February. Around the same time, several of the Taliban’s “shadow governors” who operate out of Pakistan were captured by Pakistani forces. Last week, the C.I.A. director, Leon Panetta, announced that thanks in large part to increased cooperation from Pakistan, drone strikes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border are “seriously disrupting Al Qaeda,” and one killed the terrorist suspected of planning an attack on an American base in December that caused the deaths of seven Americans. Meanwhile, Pakistan has mounted

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/opinion/24ohanlon.html
March 24, 2010
Op-Ed Contributor
Pakistan’s War of Choice
By MICHAEL E. O'HANLON
Peshawar, Pakistan [oped] [Brooking’s O’Hanlon with rare piece in NYTs instead of Post] [dateline Peshawar?] [who’s paying for this juncket?] [anyway, I usually agree with his stuff though some differences over –ir “surge” back then] [*]
WHAT are Americans to make of all the good news coming out of Pakistan in recent weeks?
First, the Afghan Taliban’s military chief, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, was arrested in a raid in February. Around the same time, several of the Taliban’s “shadow governors” who operate out of Pakistan were captured by Pakistani forces. Last week, the C.I.A. director, Leon Panetta, announced that thanks in large part to increased cooperation from Pakistan, drone strikes along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border are “seriously disrupting Al Qaeda,” and one killed the terrorist suspected of planning an attack on an American base in December that caused the deaths of seven Americans. Meanwhile, Pakistan has mounted major operations against its own extremists in places ranging from the Swat Valley in the north of the country to Bajaur on the Afghan border to South Waziristan further south. Yes, extremists continue to do great damage, as at Lahore on March 14 when about 40 civilians were killed in bombings. But after traveling across the country in recent days as a guest of the Pakistani military, I was convinced that Pakistan has become much more committed to battling extremists over the last couple of years, [we better hope so?] [*]as the country felt its own security directly threatened.
Things are complicated, as always in this fractious land. Pakistan’s resolve is clearest against its own internal enemies. And while its will to pursue the Afghan Taliban has grown, its policies are changing incrementally, not fundamentally. [correct] [*]It is rebuilding trust with America only slowly. And its obsession with India will continue to constrain its ability and willingness to act against the groups that threaten the NATO mission across the Afghan border. [Pakistan tail has long wagged the US dog as Bush also discovered] [*]
First, though, give credit where credit is due. Pakistan has become deadly serious about its own insurgency, loosely referred to as the Tehrik-i-Taliban. Total Pakistani troops in the North-West Frontier Province, Baluchistan and the tribal areas now number about 150,000, up from 50,000 in 2001. [*]In addition, there are 90,000 paramilitary troops of the Frontier Corps in the area, and they are far better equipped, paid and led than in years past.
As I toured the nerve center of the Pakistani military in Rawalpindi, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the army’s spokesman, recited an impressive list of statistics. The army now has 821 posts on the Afghan-Pakistan border, as opposed to just 112 manned by NATO and Afghan forces on the other side. Pakistan carried out 209 operations in 2009 of brigade size or larger (that is, involving at least 3,000 troops), twice as many as in the previous two years combined. Convoys bringing supplies for the NATO mission in Afghanistan used to be preyed on frequently by terrorists and thieves; but as a result of the improved security, NATO is now losing only about 0.1 percent of the goods it ships across Pakistan. [*]
Carrying out all these operations has been very costly, though. The Pakistani military says it had some 800 soldiers killed in operations last year, in contrast with NATO’s total losses in Afghanistan of 520. Thousands of Pakistanis have lost their lives in terrorist attacks, and several hundred village elders, critical figures in any efforts to pacify the tribal areas, have been killed as well. [it important that Pakistan’s losses be considered] [that’s a better indicator of their will than outposts-garrisons and others] [*]
Most Pakistanis feel, with some justification, they have suffered all this as the result of American decisions and interests. Pakistan didn’t experience suicide bombings until the overthrow of the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001. [*]Pakistanis do not begrudge us that act of self-defense, but do expect us to appreciate the sacrifices they have made. [*]And, while Pakistanis acknowledge American economic help, they consider the $17 billion or so that we have provided since 9/11 to equal only about half their total costs, direct and indirect, from the war on terrorism. [I don’t know where the calculations originate but it’s that attitude that the US should bear all the costs that bothers me] [what about Pakistan and the frankenstien monstors it has created?] [it’s also in most Pakistanis’ interests not to become fundamental Islamic state where ulema are politicians?] [**]
Still, Pakistan is hitting the terrorists hard. As a top commander of the Frontier Corps told me from his centuries-old fort here in Peshawar, since 2007 or 2008 he has known that there has been “no turning back.” This means ensuring that militants — or “miscreants,” as Pakistanis like to say — do not return to those areas that have been cleared in recent months. [*]
This won’t be easy. Often, Pakistani military tactics amount to notifying the local population of a pending mission and asking people to leave before the assault. Afterward, the population is allowed to return — but any extremists who had snuck out with the people can then try to sneak back in with them. [then shouldn’t they contemplate change in tactics?] [*]
Pakistan also doesn’t want to fight over too much of its territory at any one time. The other day I visited a camp for the displaced near here, with about 100,000 residents. Most fled from recent military operations in Bajaur and Khyber, near the Afghanistan border. Fortunately, the camp’s previous residents, from Swat, were able to go home before the new influx. Conditions at the camp are tough but tolerable, partly because Pakistan has not launched additional operations recently. Islamabad’s deliberateness makes Washington impatient at times, but there is a strategic logic to it. [*]
In the near term, any progress will be fitful. Pakistan seems unwilling to move much more of its army away from the Indian border, meaning a further delay before operations commence in North Waziristan — home to the Haqqani network, a radical group headed by the Taliban commander Maulavi Jalaluddin Haqqani, which is believed to be behind some of the largest attacks in recent years. [*]
I did not meet any Pakistanis who actually seemed to wish to see the Afghan Taliban back in power. But the country simply does not have the military capacity to make major moves against the Afghan fundamentalists. And, less understandably, Pakistanis tend to see Indian conspiracies behind what is happening in Afghanistan, and fear being trapped between their longtime nemesis on one side and an Indian puppet on the other. [it’s mostly inexplicable to us but no more so than some of America’s obsessions to Pakistanis?] [*]
At the headquarters of the Pakistani spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, I was told that India was suspected of providing explosives to Tehrik-i-Taliban extremists through Afghanistan. Many Pakistanis claim that the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai is essentially a reincarnation of the old Northern Alliance [?] [*]from the Afghan civil war — a union largely made up of ethnic Tajiks and Uzbeks and partly financed by India. (This despite the fact that Afghanistan’s ministers of defense and interior are Pashtun, as is President Karzai.)Pakistanis wonder why India is building so many consulates in Afghanistan, and even Indian-subsidized health clinics are considered suspicious. [their suspicions are understandable but India has every right in the world to purchase piece of mind in Afghanistan] [on other hand, India needs to realize how much this fuels Paksitani preoccupation with India, so forth] [**]
As he departed for a “strategic dialogue” this week in Washington, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mehmood Qureshi, announced that “it’s time for the United States to do more.” [this same attitude dates back to Carter-Reagan administrations and Wilson’s “wear”] [I find it rather odd but there it is] [*]This isn’t what America wants to hear from an oft-unreliable ally. But we must bear in mind that the Pakistani government rules one of the most anti-American populations in the world, and even its elites see us as oft-unreliable ourselves. Washington must stay realistic, and patient, about what can be expected of Pakistan.
Michael E. O’Hanlon is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:34 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/opinion/24wed3.html
March 24, 2010
Editorial
Fixing Missile Defense
[editorial] [Obama’s announcements and tweaks of missile defense from Bush] [not a lot different though he gave Putin’s Russia a slight break if Russia chooses to seize it as such?] [Times thoughts on improvements] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
It is always encouraging to see a commitment to the Sisyphean task of getting the most out of America’s gargantuan defense budget and reining in costs on expensive, badly managed or poorly performing programs.
The Obama team killed the anachronistic F-22 combat jet and is cracking down on the way overbudget F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Now it is looking at the long-troubled missile defense program. Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, the program’s chief, told a conference on Monday that some contractors continue to produce poor quality components for missile interceptors.
That is not a good deal for American taxpayers, especially when there are huge and growing

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/opinion/24wed3.html
March 24, 2010
Editorial
Fixing Missile Defense
[editorial] [Obama’s announcements and tweaks of missile defense from Bush] [not a lot different though he gave Putin’s Russia a slight break if Russia chooses to seize it as such?] [Times thoughts on improvements] [use psci 355, 455] [*]
It is always encouraging to see a commitment to the Sisyphean task of getting the most out of America’s gargantuan defense budget and reining in costs on expensive, badly managed or poorly performing programs.
The Obama team killed the anachronistic F-22 combat jet and is cracking down on the way overbudget F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Now it is looking at the long-troubled missile defense program. Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, the program’s chief, told a conference on Monday that some contractors continue to produce poor quality components for missile interceptors.
That is not a good deal for American taxpayers, especially when there are huge and growing demands on the national budget. The missile defense agency is asking for a budget increase of $700 million, to $9.9 billion. [with Obama’s changes it should be holding steady at most] [*]
General O’Reilly said he is withholding a portion of the profits from contractors responsible for the shoddy work. He neither identified the firms nor revealed the amount of the contract set aside, apparently because his decision is now subject to appeal. The Boeing Company, the Raytheon Company and the Lockheed Martin Corporation are the primary contractors for many weapons programs. In 2006, the Pentagon withheld some $108 million from Boeing because of shortcomings on a ground-based missile intercept. [Gates has demanded performance and properly so] [*]
Penalizing contractors is sensible because profits are a strong motivator. But the penalty must be carefully structured so it does not boomerang. If contractors know profits will be reduced if a missile test is unsuccessful, experts say this could create a strong incentive for them to ensure the tests are (falsely) successful by conducting more scripted, less realistic tests.
The Pentagon also needs to structure contracts more effectively. The Government Accountability Office said in 2009 that defense contractors typically get up to 84 percent of their promised profits just for “satisfactory” performance. That leaves only a small incentive for contractors to perform above-satisfactory work. [it sort of depends on how terms such as satisfactory are operationalized?] [*]
General O’Reilly has urged defense companies to fire employees who fail to accept the need for more quality control. A hiring is also in order. To ensure the strongest team to address the program’s deficiencies, the Senate needs to overcome conservative opposition and confirm Philip Coyle, a leading advocate of reforming missile defense, as a White House science adviser.
Copyright 2010 The New York Times Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:33 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/americas/24briefs-Venezbrf.html
March 23, 2010
Venezuela: Arrest of Opposition Figure Is Criticized
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Venezuela] [Chavez continues to self destruct—at best, terribly boorish and hamfisted] [he’s fundamentally an authoritarian personality and tolerates little dissent] [while I consider his regime awful, it has accomplished some positives—though most were early] [his trajectory is self destruction] [*]
The arrest of an outspoken government opponent for making critical remarks on a television talk show drew condemnation on Tuesday from opposition parties and human rights advocates, who said the arrest showed that basic liberties were being eroded in Venezuela. The opposition politician, Oswaldo Álvarez Paz, was detained by the police on Monday and charged with conspiracy and spreading false information, among other things. A coalition of more than a dozen opposition parties said in a statement that Mr. Álvarez Paz

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/americas/24briefs-Venezbrf.html
March 23, 2010
Venezuela: Arrest of Opposition Figure Is Criticized
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Venezuela] [Chavez continues to self destruct—at best, terribly boorish and hamfisted] [he’s fundamentally an authoritarian personality and tolerates little dissent] [while I consider his regime awful, it has accomplished some positives—though most were early] [his trajectory is self destruction] [*]
The arrest of an outspoken government opponent for making critical remarks on a television talk show drew condemnation on Tuesday from opposition parties and human rights advocates, who said the arrest showed that basic liberties were being eroded in Venezuela. The opposition politician, Oswaldo Álvarez Paz, was detained by the police on Monday and charged with conspiracy and spreading false information, among other things. A coalition of more than a dozen opposition parties said in a statement that Mr. Álvarez Paz had been arrested for a “crime of opinion” in an attempt to silence criticism and encourage a climate of self-censorship.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:32 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/americas/24mexico.html
March 23, 2010
U.S. and Mexico Revise Joint Antidrug Strategy
By GINGER THOMPSON and MARC LACEY [Mexico] [US-Mexico relations] [the Americas] [Latin America] [American-fueled drug wars] [consider this: Mexico is losing the equivalent of an –ir war of KIA each year in the drug war] [that’s all the 3-thousand-plus KIA since 2003 but in Mexico’s case they are losing those in a year’s time] [followup] [Obama admin appears to be trying to increase US help?] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [*]
MEXICO CITY — Responding to a growing sense that Mexico’s military-led fight against drug traffickers is not gaining ground, the United States and Mexico set their counternarcotics strategy on a new course on Tuesday by refocusing their efforts on strengthening civilian law enforcement institutions and rebuilding communities crippled by poverty and crime.
The $331 million plan was at the center of a visit to Mexico by several senior Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Defense

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/americas/24mexico.html
March 23, 2010
U.S. and Mexico Revise Joint Antidrug Strategy
By GINGER THOMPSON and MARC LACEY [Mexico] [US-Mexico relations] [the Americas] [Latin America] [American-fueled drug wars] [consider this: Mexico is losing the equivalent of an –ir war of KIA each year in the drug war] [that’s all the 3-thousand-plus KIA since 2003 but in Mexico’s case they are losing those in a year’s time] [followup] [Obama admin appears to be trying to increase US help?] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [*]
MEXICO CITY — Responding to a growing sense that Mexico’s military-led fight against drug traffickers is not gaining ground, the United States and Mexico set their counternarcotics strategy on a new course on Tuesday by refocusing their efforts on strengthening civilian law enforcement institutions and rebuilding communities crippled by poverty and crime.
The $331 million plan was at the center of a visit to Mexico by several senior Obama administration officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton; Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates; Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano; Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and Dennis C. Blair, the director of national intelligence. [full-court effort?] [*]
The revised strategy has many elements meant to expand on and improve programs already under way as part of the so-called Mérida Initiative that was started by the Bush administration three years ago, including cooperation among American and Mexican intelligence agencies and American support for training Mexican police officers, judges, prosecutors and public defenders.
Under the new strategy, officials said, American and Mexican agencies would work together to refocus border enforcement efforts away from building a better wall to creating systems that would allow goods and people to be screened before they reach the crossing points. The plan would also provide support for Mexican programs intended to strengthen communities where socioeconomic hardships force many young people into crime.
The most striking difference between the old strategy and the new one is the shift away from military assistance. More than half of the $1.3 billion spent under Mérida was used to buy aircraft, inspection equipment and information technology for the Mexican military and police. Next year’s foreign aid budget provides for civilian police training, not equipment. [*]
Military-to-military cooperation was expected to continue, officials said, despite reports by human rights groups of an increase in human rights violations by Mexican soldiers. Experts at the Washington Office on Latin America, an organization that advocates for human rights and social justice, said that Pentagon assistance to Mexican counter-narcotics efforts amounted to $78.2 million in 2009 and 2010. [*]
In a news conference, Mrs. Clinton echoed comments she made a year ago, when she acknowledged that it was Mexicans who bore the brunt of drug-related violence, which was driven in large part by American demand.
“Yes we accept our share of the responsibility,” Mrs. Clinton said. “As I said when I first came here a year ago, I think standing right here on this stage, the United States is your partner and your supporter.
“We know that the demand for drugs drives much of this illicit trade, that guns purchased in the United States are used to facilitate violence here in Mexico. The United States must, and is doing its part to help you, and us, meet those challenges.”
This revised strategy, officials said, would first go into effect in Tijuana and Ciudad Juárez, the largest cities on Mexico’s border with the United States. Ciudad Juárez, a city of 1.7 million, has become a symbol of the Mexican government’s failed attempts to rein in the drug gangs. [*]
Around 3,400 people were killed there in the last year, including an American employee at the United States Consulate and her husband, [*]as well as the Mexican husband of another consulate employee.
The public outcry generated by the violence in Ciudad Juárez forced President Felipe Calderón of Mexico to acknowledge that the drug war would not be won with troops alone.
American officials defended President Calderón and the Mexican military. President Obama expressed his confidence in Mexico in a telephone call with President Calderón on Monday night.
“We know that in a violent situation like the one created by the drug cartels, it is necessary to work even harder to protect and promote human rights,” Mrs. Clinton said. “And when you deal with people who engage in beheading, who murder children who won a football game, who are total nonrespecters of life and human rights, you have to work extra hard to maintain human rights, to maintain the rule of law.”
Ms. Napolitano said she had made several trips to the border in recent months to work with Mexican authorities on new law enforcement techniques, including the kind of community policing efforts credited with significantly reducing violent crime in Los Angeles and Chicago.
In the coming months, State Department officials said, the United States and Mexico would open a joint command center in Mexico City.
“We are looking at everything that can work,” Mrs. Clinton said. “Our goal in this intensive consultation is to see what works and pursue it, and to see what doesn’t and improve it.”
Elisabeth Malkin and Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/middleeast/24egypt.html
March 23, 2010
Questions Linger in Egypt as Leader Heals
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN [Egypt] [broader middle east] [northern Africa to horn] [democratization] [President Mubarak’s health and recent surgery in Germany] [is change in the air?] [followup] [*]
CAIRO — President Hosni Mubarak’s health continues to improve after surgery 17 days ago to remove his gallbladder, easing anxiety in this nation of 80 million people where uncertainty fueled rumors that the president was seriously ill, or even dead.
For the moment, political commentators and many Egyptians appear to have returned to their default position: that little or nothing will change in the priorities or administration of the state and that President Mubarak will keep power for years to come. [*]
“He will run for president again, and nothing will change,”’ said Mohamed Salmawy, president of the Egyptian Writers Union.
But while the mood has calmed here since President Mubarak appeared on television and in photographs, his illness and public absence underscored the extent of confusion over the future of the largest Arab nation, and one of Washington’s most important allies in the Middle

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/middleeast/24egypt.html
March 23, 2010
Questions Linger in Egypt as Leader Heals
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN [Egypt] [broader middle east] [northern Africa to horn] [democratization] [President Mubarak’s health and recent surgery in Germany] [is change in the air?] [followup] [*]
CAIRO — President Hosni Mubarak’s health continues to improve after surgery 17 days ago to remove his gallbladder, easing anxiety in this nation of 80 million people where uncertainty fueled rumors that the president was seriously ill, or even dead.
For the moment, political commentators and many Egyptians appear to have returned to their default position: that little or nothing will change in the priorities or administration of the state and that President Mubarak will keep power for years to come. [*]
“He will run for president again, and nothing will change,”’ said Mohamed Salmawy, president of the Egyptian Writers Union.
But while the mood has calmed here since President Mubarak appeared on television and in photographs, his illness and public absence underscored the extent of confusion over the future of the largest Arab nation, and one of Washington’s most important allies in the Middle East. There are laws intended to guide the transition of power, but there is also a broad understanding here that the decision will be made by those who wield power even before voters cast a ballot. [*]
“The theoretical and official discourse is one thing, and the political reality is something totally different,” wrote Saad Hagrass recently in the independent daily Al Masry Al Youm.
That has led to a level of anxiety here because only the president knows exactly what each of the most powerful institutions — the military, the security services and the governing National Democratic Party [*]— is thinking or planning, said political experts.
In normal circumstances, the security and military forces prefer to operate in the background, ceding the appearance of authority to the civil institutions. But on the issue of the presidency, they are likely to push for a decisive say.
“Mubarak is an excellent orchestrator,” said Mr. Salmawy, of the writers union. “If he is not there, you can expect a kind of power struggle between all these forces, and who will dominate we don’t know.” [*]
President Mubarak will be 82 years old in May and will have served as president for nearly 30 years. His term expires next year, and no one is sure if he plans to serve another five years, allow another candidate to represent the National Democratic Party or step down earlier.
All of those questions, central to the future of the state, became amplified in importance on March 6, when the government announced that Mr. Mubarak had his gallbladder removed at Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany. In a follow-up statement, the government announced that surgeons had also removed a small growth, but that it had proved benign.
Then the rumors began.
Officials said that they were aware of the growing public anxiety and had encouraged the office of the president to release something, video, still images, anything, to help calm nerves. [*]
But nothing was promptly released.
“I feel like I’m watching a performance and I’m being deceived, there is no credibility,” said Muhammad Abdel Kader, 27, a makeup artist in Cairo. “O.K., I saw the news on television but I don’t know what to believe and what not to believe. The whole country is messed up.”
About a week after the surgery, a rumor spread rapidly on the Internet and by text message and on social networks, that the president was dead. The report was quickly denied by the government, and pulled from a Web site, but the damage had been done. The stock market dropped and public cynicism grew over government reports that the president was improving. [*]
Mr. Mubarak’s absence became a focus of political satire, often with a mocking tone, like the “Mubarak Is Dead” song that circulated on the Internet.
“Dear citizens, the nation lost one of the bravest men, one of the wisest men, a man who was known for his stances and was human,”’ the song went. “The Mubarak Garden has been closed, and Mubarak Hospital and the Mubarak Warehouse and Mubarak Road and the Mubarak Center for Children, and the funeral will be in Mubarak Mosque and the Mubarak Ceremonial Hall, and a Mubarak will succeed Mubarak.”
On March 16, 10 days after the surgery, Egyptians saw a short, silent video of their president in a bathrobe chatting with his doctors. He looked thin and tired, but very much alive. [*]
That helped restore investor confidence, and the stock market began to recover. The state has followed up with daily updates, a recording of the president’s voice, pictures of the president dressed and working at a table and presidential decrees issued from the hospital. All of that has helped restore calm. It has not, however, answered any of the long-term questions facing Egyptians and their government.
“The question has not changed: ‘What happens after Mubarak?’ ” said Ghada Shahbandar, a human rights advocate. “We have a president who is in his 80s and has undergone surgery, so of course people are curious. They want to know what’s going on. And no one is immortal. That is a fact.”
Mona El-Naggar contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:31 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/middleeast/24diplo.html
March 23, 2010
Israel Absorbs Twin Rebukes From Top Allies
By HELENE COOPER and JOHN F. BURNS [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [NSC principal and SecState Clinton principally] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [Netanyahu gave AIPAC speech yesterday before meeting with Obama last night] [seemed pretty defiant in it but it could have been the crowd?] [Jews have been building in Jerusalem for 3,000 and they’ll build today] [true, but so have Arabs, semitic peoples of all sorts] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — Israel found itself at odds with its two most stalwart allies on Tuesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu culminated a tense visit to Washington with a face-to-face session with President Obama that apparently failed to resolve the impasse between the two over a comprehensive Middle East peace plan. [*]
Even as Mr. Netanyahu met with Mr. Obama at a session during which the White House

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/middleeast/24diplo.html
March 23, 2010
Israel Absorbs Twin Rebukes From Top Allies
By HELENE COOPER and JOHN F. BURNS [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [NSC principal and SecState Clinton principally] [USFP] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [Netanyahu gave AIPAC speech yesterday before meeting with Obama last night] [seemed pretty defiant in it but it could have been the crowd?] [Jews have been building in Jerusalem for 3,000 and they’ll build today] [true, but so have Arabs, semitic peoples of all sorts] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — Israel found itself at odds with its two most stalwart allies on Tuesday as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu culminated a tense visit to Washington with a face-to-face session with President Obama that apparently failed to resolve the impasse between the two over a comprehensive Middle East peace plan. [*]
Even as Mr. Netanyahu met with Mr. Obama at a session during which the White House pointedly withheld the usual trappings of a visit by the head of a government, Israel’s other ally, Britain, expelled an Israeli diplomat. It was a rare move by a friendly government, meant as a rebuke for what appeared to be the use of a dozen fake British passports by assassins [*] suspected of being Israeli agents in the killing of a Hamas official in Dubai.
“Such misuse of British passports is intolerable,” the British foreign secretary, David Miliband, said in the House of Commons. “The fact that this was done by a country which is a friend only adds insult to injury.”
The British decision was the latest turn in Israel’s recent frictions with its closest allies. It comes as Mr. Netanyahu, struggling to balance diplomacy with a fractious domestic political alliance that put him in power, has seen a cooling of ties with the United States after his government’s decision this month to approve new Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem. [he had notoriously hostile relationship with President Clinton; is he really prepared to repeat that?] [*]
While White House officials said that they were seeking to put the two weeks of public fighting behind them, several administration officials acknowledged that a larger confrontation was looming as Mr. Obama sought to make good on his promise to pursue a peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians.
Mr. Netanyahu finds himself at odds with the United States and Britain partly because of the coalition he is having to manage at home. [*]He has personally moved even farther to the right, while driving a political alliance with even more conservative elements. But some analysts say that Mr. Netanyahu has more leeway than it appears, that he could build a more centrist coalition if he chose to. [?] [*]
Meanwhile, both Britain and the United States have become increasingly frustrated with these Israeli political currents, with officials in both countries expressing doubts about whether such a conservative alliance could ever move forward on a peace plan.
Mr. Netanyahu’s difficult position was on display during an unusually testy visit to Washington. He and Mr. Obama did not appear side by side before reporters or even pose for cameras before their meeting. [*]
Just hours after delivering a defiant speech in which he told a pro-Israel lobby that “Jerusalem is not a settlement; it’s our capital,” Mr. Netanyahu refused to budge on an American demand that he reverse a housing plan in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in East Jerusalem. [*]
He did pledge to adhere to more rigid controls over announcements of construction in East Jerusalem, carrying from meeting to meeting here a diagram that he said laid out how much red tape Israelis must go through before they could expand housing there.
But it remained unclear whether he would even allow scheduled negotiations with the Palestinians to focus on substantive issues like borders and security, another American demand. [SecState Clinton gave a rousing and brave speech before same AIPAC crowd] [I was impressed] [*]
The impasse leaves Mr. Obama in the same position that he was in last fall, when Mr. Netanyahu defied American demands for a full freeze on settlements in the West Bank, causing the White House to set that issue aside as a first step toward restarting Middle East peace talks.
But this time, White House officials and even many Middle East analysts say that Mr. Obama, by allowing the dispute over the East Jerusalem construction to spill over publicly, has laid down a marker signaling that the United States is likely to press Israel hard on Jerusalem in future peace talks with the Palestinians. [something was necessary to let the Bibi govt understand the US has its interests too] [*] Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their eventual state.
Still, both the Obama administration and Israeli officials are trying to lower the temperature.
“The prime minister has a great deal of respect for the president, and is looking forward to working with him in the future,” Ron Dermer, a senior adviser to Mr. Netanyahu, said in an interview on Tuesday.
But Mr. Obama was furious when Israel announced the housing construction in East Jerusalem two weeks ago just as Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. was in the country for a visit meant to mend ties and jump-start indirect talks with the Palestinians, officials said.
While the two countries are now trying to put the fight behind them, “the writing is on the wall that Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu” and the Israeli political right with whom he has formed a governing coalition “are going to clash on final status,” [*] said Robert Malley, the director of the Middle East program at the International Crisis Group, referring to the entrenched issues like Jerusalem and borders that have bedeviled peace negotiators since 1979. [I suppose there’s some question as to whether Bibi agrees to fundaemtnal two-state solution?] [it’s difficult for me to understand how that could be but those who follow it full time say it’s a distinct possibility] [when Sharon converted I assumed all Israeli nationalist right (except some extremes in settlers movements) had accepted the logic?] [perhaps not] [*]
In Britain on Tuesday, a host of lawmakers used harsh language to excoriate Israel on the floor of Parliament, calling for the expulsion of the Israeli ambassador, urging criminal prosecution of those involved in the Dubai operation and going so far as to say that Israel was becoming a “rogue state.” [*]
The Israeli government was shaken by the expulsion but chose to issue only a curt official expression of regret and to take no countermeasures against Britain, [*]top officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk publicly.
“The relationship between Israel and Britain is mutually important,” Yigal Palmor, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said by way of official reaction. “We therefore regret the British decision.”
Other officials suggested, however, that Britain should have let the issue of the forged passports die quietly, out of friendship and the shared goal of fighting radical Islamists. [I don’t think they should have let it die quietly but I’m ont sure they should have expelled either] [*] The fact that it chose to pursue the case and to take the very public step of expelling a member of the Israeli diplomatic mission in London showed ill will, they said.
In his remarks, Mr. Miliband, the foreign secretary, refused calls from British lawmakers to identify the expelled Israeli official by name or title, or to say how he was connected with the faked passports. But he said that “a state intelligence service” was most likely behind the forgeries, apparently a reference to the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency. [circumstantial but probably true?] [*]
British news reports speculated that the diplomat being ordered to leave was the London station chief of Mossad.
Officials in Dubai have accused Mossad of being behind the Jan. 20 killing of the Hamas operative, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, in a luxury hotel room there.
The Dubai officials say they have identified at least 26 suspects of what has been called an Israeli hit squad that traveled to Dubai on fake identities and forged British, Irish, French, German and Australian passports. Interpol has issued a wanted list of 27 people in connection with the killing.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in Mr. Mabhouh’s killing, but Israeli officials have described the Palestinian as an important figure in Hamas terrorist operations against Israel and have said that he was deeply involved in smuggling arms for the Hamas government in Gaza.
On Tuesday, the Israeli foreign minister, Avigdor Lieberman, told reporters in Brussels that Israel had been presented with no concrete proof regarding its connection to the forged passports, but he did not go so far as to deny Israel’s role. [interesting] [*]
Mr. Miliband, himself the son of Jewish immigrants, emphasized the importance of relations between Israel and Britain on Tuesday and said the uproar over the forged passports should not be used to weaken ties between the countries.
Helene Cooper reported from Washington, and John F. Burns from London. Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Mark Landler from Washington.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:30 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/europe/24briefs-Turkeybrf.html
March 23, 2010
Turkey: Sharp Divisions Over Constitutional Changes
By SEBNEM ARSU [Turkey] [former Ottoman Empire] [the sizable conspiracy case brought against multiple military officers, and others from Turkey’s secular institutions] [is the conspiracy complaint falling apart?] [was the Erdogan govt wrong on its descriptions of the massive conspiracy?] [proposed constitutional changes in view of recent allegations of military coup plot?] [followup] [some backlash?] [*]
Turkey’s Islamic-oriented governing party and the country’s staunchly secular judiciary traded barbs on Tuesday over whether to overhaul the country’s Constitution. [*]Senior judicial bodies, responding to constitutional changes proposed Monday by the leadership of the governing Justice and Development Party, called the proposals unlawful and a direct challenge to the judiciary’s independence. But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, argued that the proposals derived from international practices and would promote a more democratic state. [*]
The party has proposed major structural changes to the Constitutional Court and the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/europe/24briefs-Turkeybrf.html
March 23, 2010
Turkey: Sharp Divisions Over Constitutional Changes
By SEBNEM ARSU [Turkey] [former Ottoman Empire] [the sizable conspiracy case brought against multiple military officers, and others from Turkey’s secular institutions] [is the conspiracy complaint falling apart?] [was the Erdogan govt wrong on its descriptions of the massive conspiracy?] [proposed constitutional changes in view of recent allegations of military coup plot?] [followup] [some backlash?] [*]
Turkey’s Islamic-oriented governing party and the country’s staunchly secular judiciary traded barbs on Tuesday over whether to overhaul the country’s Constitution. [*]Senior judicial bodies, responding to constitutional changes proposed Monday by the leadership of the governing Justice and Development Party, called the proposals unlawful and a direct challenge to the judiciary’s independence. But Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, left, argued that the proposals derived from international practices and would promote a more democratic state. [*]
The party has proposed major structural changes to the Constitutional Court and the Supreme Council of Judges and Prosecutors, both strongholds of the secular state; these would give the government more oversight authority over the courts. Both bodies have been critical of the governing party’s roots in political Islam and criticized what they called government infringement on the judiciary. [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:29 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032304035.html
Resistance against N. Korean regime taking root, survey suggests
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 24, 2010; A11 [DPRK] [North Korea] [US and 6-way talks] [DPRK-US relations] [hartening to hear resistance to that awful regime] [however, typically when resistance has formed the regime has cracked down brutally—expect some horrible crackdown] [followup] [*]
TOKYO -- There is mounting evidence that Kim Jong Il is losing the propaganda war inside North Korea, with more than half the population now listening to foreign news, grass-roots cynicism undercutting state myths and discontent rising even among elites. [*]
A survey of refugees has found that "everyday forms of resistance" in the North are taking root as large swaths of the population believe that pervasive corruption, rising inequity and chronic food shortages are the fault of the government in Pyongyang -- and not of the United States, South Korea or other foreign forces. [it may well be true] [but understand how terribly unreliable refugee reports tend to be] [*]The report will be released this week by the East-West Center, a research group established by Congress.
The report comes amid unconfirmed accounts from inside North Korea of a rising number of

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/23/AR2010032304035.html
Resistance against N. Korean regime taking root, survey suggests
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, March 24, 2010; A11 [DPRK] [North Korea] [US and 6-way talks] [DPRK-US relations] [hartening to hear resistance to that awful regime] [however, typically when resistance has formed the regime has cracked down brutally—expect some horrible crackdown] [followup] [*]
TOKYO -- There is mounting evidence that Kim Jong Il is losing the propaganda war inside North Korea, with more than half the population now listening to foreign news, grass-roots cynicism undercutting state myths and discontent rising even among elites. [*]
A survey of refugees has found that "everyday forms of resistance" in the North are taking root as large swaths of the population believe that pervasive corruption, rising inequity and chronic food shortages are the fault of the government in Pyongyang -- and not of the United States, South Korea or other foreign forces. [it may well be true] [but understand how terribly unreliable refugee reports tend to be] [*]The report will be released this week by the East-West Center, a research group established by Congress.
The report comes amid unconfirmed accounts from inside North Korea of a rising number of starvation deaths caused by a bad harvest and bungled currency reform that disrupted food markets, caused runaway inflation and triggered widespread citizen unrest. [*]
Last week, North Korea reportedly executed the top finance official responsible for the currency fiasco, and several top officials have publicly apologized -- a remarkable turn for a dictatorship that enslaves and executes its political enemies in labor camps. [one was reported here recently] [‘*]
The number of starvation deaths in South Pyongan province, in the center of the country, is in the thousands since January, [*]according to Good Friends, a Seoul relief group with informants inside North Korea. It said bodies of malnourished elderly people were being found in the streets of Pyongyang, the capital, and it quoted unnamed party officials as saying that starvation has risen in some areas this winter to levels unseen since the 1990s, when famine killed as many as 1 million North Koreans. [**]
This mix of deadly food shortages, bureaucratic bumbling and rising cynicism presents a potentially destabilizing threat to Kim's government. It comes at a delicate time, when the ailing 68-year-old leader has launched a secretive process to hand power over to his untested 27-year-old son, Kim Jong Eun. [*]
"Once a government has so badly damaged trust, it may be very difficult, if not impossible, to restore its credibility," said Marcus Noland, co-author of "Political Attitudes under Repression," the new report on a survey of North Korean refugees.
Although Kim's government appears to be losing the hearts and minds of North Koreans, there is little or no indication that organized opposition has emerged inside the country, [*]said Noland, deputy director of the Washington-based Peterson Institute for International Economics.
But signals of internal stress are growing, according to another new report on conditions inside North Korea. The International Crisis Group, an independent group that advises many Western governments and U.N. agencies, said last week that pressure from the deteriorating food supply and "disastrous" currency reform "could have a number of unanticipated consequences for regional international security. A sudden split in the leadership, although unlikely, is not out of the question." [*]
The refugee survey suggests that the ground beneath Kim's government has shifted considerably in the past decade, as private markets have exploded in size and influence -- and as most North Koreans are no longer dependent on the dysfunctional central government for food or work.
The results in the report are based on a November 2008 survey of 300 North Korean refugees living in South Korea. The refugees in the survey -- parts of which were first publicized last fall -- include new arrivals as well as those who fled during the height of the 1990s famine.
"Evaluations of the regime appear to be getting more negative over time," the report said. "Although those who departed earlier were more willing to entertain the view that the country's problems were due to foreigners, respondents who left later were more likely to hold the government accountable."
Noland and his co-author, Stephan Haggard, [*]an Asian specialist at the University of California in San Diego, concede that the survey -- with its reliance on a self-selected group that made the perilous choice to flee North Korea -- might overrepresent those who abhor the leadership in Pyongyang. But they note that most refugees fled the North for economic reasons and that their demographic background roughly mirrors the shape of North Korean society.
The survey found that cynicism about the government -- and willingness to crack jokes about its failures -- was higher among refugees who come from elite backgrounds in the government or military. It also found that distaste for the government was strongest among those deeply involved in the markets. [*]
The most striking finding of the survey was the reach of those markets across all strata of North Korean society, with nearly 70 percent of respondents saying that half or more of their income came from private business dealings. [*]
In addition, more than half of refugees who have fled North Korea since 2006 said they listened or watched foreign news reports regularly. [*]North Korea outlaws radios and TVs that can be tuned to foreign stations, but consumer electronics have flooded into the country from China.
"Not only is foreign media becoming more widely available, inhibitions on its consumption are declining as well," the report said, referring to broadcasts from South Korea, China and the United States. "The availability of alternative sources of information undermines the heroic image of a workers' paradise and threatens to unleash the information cascade that can be so destabilizing to authoritarian rule." [the notion that there’s anything heroic about DPRK in last 30 years belies common sense] [*] © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/africa/24somalia.html
March 23, 2010
Somali Backlash May Be Militants’ Worst Foe
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN [Somalia] [the chaos in Somalia] [East Africa; south of Horn] [relatively stable state until 2007-2008 when wheels came off] [looked somewhat like a state toying with failed-state status] [failed state: clans and other configurations that fill power void] [followup] [multiple gradations of insurgents from jihadi to pseudo Islamist] [*]
MOGADISHU, Somalia — For the past three years, the Shabab, one of Africa’s most fearsome militant Islamist groups, have been terrorizing the Somali public, chopping off hands, stoning people to death and banning TV, music and even bras in their quest to turn Somalia into a seventh-century-style Islamic state. [Shabab] [*]
At the same time, they have drawn increasingly close to Al Qaeda, deploying suicide bombers, attracting jihadists from around the world and prompting American concerns that they may be spreading into Kenya, Yemen and beyond. [*]
But could Somalia finally be reaching a tipping point against the Shabab?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/africa/24somalia.html
March 23, 2010
Somali Backlash May Be Militants’ Worst Foe
By JEFFREY GETTLEMAN [Somalia] [the chaos in Somalia] [East Africa; south of Horn] [relatively stable state until 2007-2008 when wheels came off] [looked somewhat like a state toying with failed-state status] [failed state: clans and other configurations that fill power void] [followup] [multiple gradations of insurgents from jihadi to pseudo Islamist] [*]
MOGADISHU, Somalia — For the past three years, the Shabab, one of Africa’s most fearsome militant Islamist groups, have been terrorizing the Somali public, chopping off hands, stoning people to death and banning TV, music and even bras in their quest to turn Somalia into a seventh-century-style Islamic state. [Shabab] [*]
At the same time, they have drawn increasingly close to Al Qaeda, deploying suicide bombers, attracting jihadists from around the world and prompting American concerns that they may be spreading into Kenya, Yemen and beyond. [*]
But could Somalia finally be reaching a tipping point against the Shabab?
Not only is Somalia’s transitional government gearing up for a major offensive against the Shabab — with the American military providing intelligence and logistical support — but Mogadishu’s beleaguered population, sensing a change in the salt-sticky air, is beginning to turn against them. [*]
Women who have been whipped and humiliated by morality police for not veiling their faces are now whispering valuable secrets about the Shabab’s movements into the ears of government soldiers. Teenage students outraged that Shabab-allied fighters hoisted a black flag in front of their school recently pelted the fighters with stones. Defectors are leaving the Shabab in droves, including one 13-year-old who said that he was routinely drugged before being handed a machine gun and shoved into combat. [*]
Since 1991, when Somalia’s central government collapsed, the people here have endured one violent struggle after another, which has reduced the capital, Mogadishu, to ruins and this nation to the archetypal failed state. But never before has the Somali public had such a vested interest in who wins as they do in the coming showdown against the Shabab.
“They are like rabid dogs,” said Dahir Mohamed, a shopkeeper, who still has puffy, oddly circular scars on his face from where he says young Shabab fighters bit him.
The Shabab have defied expectations in the past and proved resilient, determined and formidable. Some Somalia analysts fear that even if the government dislodges the Shabab and ends their ability to operate in the open, they can still wreak havoc with suicide bombs and other guerrilla tactics. [*]
“They will pull out and leave people behind the lines,” said Mark Bowden, head of United Nations humanitarian operations in Somalia. [same Bowden as Blackhawk Down?] [*]
But if Somalis, who possess considerable firepower of their own, decisively turn against the Shabab, and the government provides people with an alternative to rally behind, it could be difficult for the militants to reconstitute themselves, even as a guerrilla army.
The best example of that backlash is already happening in Medina, a neighborhood a few miles from the center of Mogadishu. Just past the airport, it is a place of sandy streets and once beautiful homes now chewed up by gunfire and mold.
Shabab fighters, in their trademark green jumpsuits and checkered scarves, used to control parts of Medina. But in the last year or so the neighborhood, dominated by a single clan, banded together to drive them out.
Young men joined the local militia. Old men raised money for guns. Women and girls hauled ice, rice and milk to the front lines and braved gunfire to evacuate the casualties.
“We hate the Shabab,” said one mother, Amina Abdullahi Mohamed. “They misled our youth.” [interesting backlash] [*]
Medina is now one of Mogadishu’s safest areas, and while still not particularly safe, an unmistakable beat of life has returned.
There has not been a suicide attack for months. The markets are packed, protected by baby-faced militiamen in polo shirts and Kalashnikov rifles over their shoulders. Beat-up old minibuses cruise the streets, and there is even something close to traffic. A tight clan network keeps a watchful eye and last month, a teacher of the Koran recruiting children for the Shabab was promptly arrested.
Medina is a picture of Somalia’s past and possibly its looming future. Clan militias carved this country into fiefs in the 1990s, which lasted until 2006, when an Islamist alliance, which included the Shabab, took over and held most of Somalia relatively peacefully. The Ethiopian military then invaded, sparking an intense guerrilla war, with the Shabab spearheading the resistance.
But after the Ethiopians pulled out last year and Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, an Islamist cleric, was selected as the transitional government’s president, grass-roots support for the Shabab began to fade. It has sunk ever since, though the Shabab and their allies still control more than half of south central Somalia. [*]
But if government troops retake areas in the offensive, they will need the help of clan militias, like Medina’s, to hold them. A similar arrangement is also in place in parts of central Somalia, where a moderate Islamist militia pushed out the Shabab last year.
“I’m not saying Somalia’s going to be a modern state,” said one American official “But it won’t be a radical Islamic state either.”
The Shabab seem to be rapidly ruining any chances of that. Defections, double-crossings and internal strife are increasingly plaguing their movement, according to many Somalis.
A few weeks ago, Somali security officials said that an explosion rocked a Shabab hide-out, leaving dozens dead. Somali security services said it was one Shabab faction trying to wipe out another, evidence of a possible new rift between Somali Shabab and the several hundred foreign jihadists who had joined their movement.[*]
The Shabab also seem short of cash to support their estimated 3,000 hard-core fighters and 2,000 allied gunmen. They recently began taxing aid convoys, causing the United Nations World Food Program to leave several Shabab areas in January, but new recruits seem to be another problem. Defectors said the Shabab have begun plucking children off soccer fields, taking them to secret training camps, brainwashing and drugging them. [*]
The Shabab seem to be traveling down the same degenerative path of countless other African rebel groups that began with a discernible ideology, but then turned to terrorizing the very people they were supposed to liberate. [they’re mostly thugs, just happen to be Islamic thugs] [*]
Public executions and gruesome amputations are ways they hold the population in check. Most Somalis are conservative Muslims, but they chafe under the Shabab’s austere Salafi version of Islam. [*]
One 17-year-old boy remembered the day last June when Shabab fighters chained him to a gurney and dragged him in front of a huge crowd.
“Ismael Khalif Abdallah,” the fighters said, reading out the boy’s name, “is a thief. He has been robbing people. It’s time to punish him.”
For the next 10 minutes, the men sawed through Ismael’s wrist bones. Then they cut off his foot. Just recounting the pain and terror makes Ismael’s hairless face break out in sweat. [*]
“Now what?” he says, struggling to light a cigarette with his stub of an arm.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:28 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/asia/24afghan.html
March 23, 2010
Insurgent Faction Presents Afghan Peace Plan
By CARLOTTA GALL [Afghanistan] [hydra] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [Karzai pushing reconcliation with Taliban] [use psci 469] [followup] [Hekmatyar reaches out to coalition?] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — Representatives of a major insurgent faction have presented a formal 15-point peace plan to the Afghan government, the first concrete proposal to end hostilities since President Hamid Karzai said he would make reconciliation a priority after his re-election last year. [*]
The delegation represents fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, 60, one of the most brutal

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/asia/24afghan.html
March 23, 2010
Insurgent Faction Presents Afghan Peace Plan
By CARLOTTA GALL [Afghanistan] [hydra] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [Karzai pushing reconcliation with Taliban] [use psci 469] [followup] [Hekmatyar reaches out to coalition?] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — Representatives of a major insurgent faction have presented a formal 15-point peace plan to the Afghan government, the first concrete proposal to end hostilities since President Hamid Karzai said he would make reconciliation a priority after his re-election last year. [*]
The delegation represents fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, 60, one of the most brutal of Afghanistan’s former resistance fighters who leads a part of the insurgency against American, NATO and Afghan forces in the north and northeast of the country. [*]
His representatives met Monday with President Karzai and other Afghan officials in the first formal contact between a major insurgent group and the Afghan government after almost two years of backchannel communications, which diplomats say the United States has supported.
Though the insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, or Islamic Party, operates under a separate command from the Taliban, it has links to the Taliban leadership and Al Qaeda and has fought on a common front against foreign forces in Afghanistan. [*]
A spokesman for the delegation, Mohammad Daoud Abedi, said the Taliban, which makes up the bulk of the insurgency, would be willing to go along with the plan if a date was set for the withdrawal of foreign forces from the country. [there’s already been a tentative date set?] [*] Publicly, a Taliban spokesman denied that.
The plan, titled the National Rescue Agreement, a copy of which was given to The New York Times, sets that date as July 2010, with the withdrawal to be completed within six months.
Those dates are ahead of the schedule outlined by President Obama, who set a target of July 2011 to start drawing down American troops. [*]But the representatives said the dates were a starting position and could change.
“This is a start, this is not the word of the Koran that we cannot change it,” Mr. Abedi said.
Despite the Taliban’s hard-line public statement, he also said he was confident that the Taliban would be willing to countenance the plan.
“They have said if the U.S. announces a withdrawal date, they are ready to support our plan,” said Mr. Abedi, an Afghan-American businessman. “I promise that personally, this is my own connection and I personally promise that. I have said that to the U.S. all along.”
A spokesman for the Taliban said, however, that they had had nothing to do with the Hezb-i-Islami plan and would not accept such conditions. [?] [*]
“What we want is expulsion of foreign occupation forces unconditionally,” the spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said when contacted by telephone. “They have to leave Afghanistan now, and no condition is acceptable for us.”
An American Embassy spokesman said the United States supported Mr. Karzai’s effort to reach out to members of the Taliban and Hezb-i-Islami through a reconciliation process, as long as the insurgents accepted the Afghan Constitution, renounced violence and renounced links to Al Qaeda and other insurgents.
“Our policy is that it is an Afghan-led process, and we completely support reintegration and reconciliation,” said the spokesman, Brendan O’Brien. [*]
Members of Hezb-i-Islami have held meetings with State Department officials, who have urged the Afghans to make peace among themselves if they want American troops to withdraw, said Mr. Abedi, the spokesman for the delegation.
Mr. O’Brien said American officials would not be meeting with the Hezb-i-Islami delegation while it was in Kabul, but diplomats here have said that the United States gave the green light for Mr. Karzai to open contacts with Mr. Hekmatyar nearly two years ago. [*]
The Hezb-i-Islami proposal, while categorical about the demand for foreign forces to leave Afghanistan, and to end military operations and detentions, goes some way toward meeting the demands of Western nations and the Afghan government on other issues.
It accepts having the current government to stay in power, and having the Afghan police, army and intelligence services assume responsibility for security, while a seven-member national security council is formed as the ultimate decision-making body until foreign forces leave and new elections are held.
A future elected parliament would have the right to review the Constitution, and the Afghan courts would prosecute those accused of corruption, drug smuggling, theft of the national wealth, and war crimes.
Although the provision is not stated in the document, Mr. Abedi said his party wanted international assistance for rebuilding Afghanistan to continue, and for the United Nations and the Organization of the Islamic Conference to help broker the peace. [*]
The plan also declares that no foreign fighters would be present in the country after the departure of the international forces, a wording unlikely to please Western countries concerned about the influence of Al Qaeda and other foreign militant groups. [*]
Mr. Abedi, a former fighter, said his party had no links with Al Qaeda, nor did it need to make use of foreign fighters. But Mr. Hekmatyar is named on the United Nations sanctions list of Taliban and Al Qaeda figures. [*]
In drafting the document and sending his envoys, Mr. Hekmatyar was responding to Mr. Karzai’s offer of peace talks as well as to the messages from President Obama’s administration that it wanted to withdraw forces and end the war, Mr. Abedi said.
Pakistan, which has long been a supporter of Mr. Hekmatyar’s bid for power in Afghanistan, has been demanding a role in negotiations between the insurgents and the Afghan government. [interesting that Pakistan is out in front of Karzai on matters internal to Afghanistan] [*]
Mr. Abedi emphasized that Hezb-i-Islami was putting its plan to the government to establish a stable transition when foreign troops left and prevent the chaos and infighting that occurred after the departure of the Soviet troops and the collapse of the Communist government in the 1990s.
“We want, this time, the departure of international forces to be organized so they leave something behind after they leave and not to destroy what is achieved now,” he said. “This is the goal. We want to have this government in its position and we are ready to assist them with the security situation.”
The delegation met with Mr. Karzai and his brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, who is a powerful figure in southern Afghanistan. It also met separately with figures from the northern opposition movement, longtime opponents of Mr. Hekmatyar: the Parliament speaker, Younus Qanooni; a lawmaker, Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf; and Vice President Marshall Mohammad Qasim Fahim. [*]
Mr. Abedi described their reception in Kabul as “fabulous” and said “the president was very, very gentle, very, very friendly.”
Politicians familiar with Mr. Hekmatyar warned that any agreement would be a long way off. Yet the document clearly had Mr. Hekmatyar’s fingers all over it, said Daoud Sultanzoi, a member of Parliament who met with Mr. Hekmatyar’s delegation on Tuesday.
“The gist of the whole is very important,” he said. “He senses a fatigue in American and European public opinion and he is seizing on that,” he said. [*]
Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting from Kabul.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:27 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/22/AR2010032203327.html
Chief lawyers named for Guantanamo Bay defense, prosecution teams
By Peter Finn
Tuesday, March 23, 2010; A17 [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo] [bureaucracy!] [groups such as gitmo 5 pr 7, gitmo 50 out of nearly 200?] [in past couple days, supremes declined to hear their case?] [problems ahead for military tribunals and why the US ought to be less dogmatic and more practical: use what works in given cases and what’s comports with basic rule of law] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [administration continues to move forward even as it seeks compromise with Senator Graham] [followup] [*]
As the Office of Military Commissions, the Defense Department entity that administers military tribunals, gears up for the first trials under the Obama administration, the prosecution and defense teams have gotten new chiefs. [*]
Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, an assistant U.S. attorney seconded from New Orleans, will oversee the prosecution of Guantanamo Bay detainees, and Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, a

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/22/AR2010032203327.html
Chief lawyers named for Guantanamo Bay defense, prosecution teams
By Peter Finn
Tuesday, March 23, 2010; A17 [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo] [bureaucracy!] [groups such as gitmo 5 pr 7, gitmo 50 out of nearly 200?] [in past couple days, supremes declined to hear their case?] [problems ahead for military tribunals and why the US ought to be less dogmatic and more practical: use what works in given cases and what’s comports with basic rule of law] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [administration continues to move forward even as it seeks compromise with Senator Graham] [followup] [*]
As the Office of Military Commissions, the Defense Department entity that administers military tribunals, gears up for the first trials under the Obama administration, the prosecution and defense teams have gotten new chiefs. [*]
Navy Capt. John F. Murphy, an assistant U.S. attorney seconded from New Orleans, will oversee the prosecution of Guantanamo Bay detainees, and Marine Col. Jeffrey Colwell, a career officer, will command the military defense lawyers.
Both men have previously worked as military lawyers at the detention facility in Cuba, where Murphy prosecuted Salim Ahmed Hamdan, Osama bin Laden's driver, and Colwell represented Ahmed Ghailani, a Tanzanian accused of helping to organize the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa.
The two Boston area natives don't know each other but plan to have their first meeting in the coming weeks. And both say their roles are critical to the administration of justice for terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay.
"Our job is to ensure that the United States has the very best representation," Murphy said.
"It is our job to make the government do what the law and the Constitution requires," Colwell said. [*]
In 2007, when the Justice Department advertised internally for prosecutors to work at Guantanamo Bay, Murphy, who earned his law degree from Northeastern University in Boston and his master of laws from Emory University in Atlanta, signed up.
"I saw the opportunity as a real marrying of my military experience and my federal trial experience," said Murphy, who supervises more than 100 personnel, including about 50 lawyers.
Murphy, 50, spent his first three years of active duty in the Philippines, prosecuting and defending cases throughout Southeast Asia. He joined the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Orleans in 1992 and, like a number of prosecutors at Guantanamo, has experience prosecuting complex drug and violent-crime cases. Murphy served with Central Command for 13 months immediately after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, joined the commissions office in April 2007 and became chief military prosecutor last May, when proceedings were suspended on order of the president. [*]
Ten months later, not only are tribunals about to restart, but Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants accused of organizing the Sept. 11 attacks might be returned to a military commission for trial, after plans to prosecute them in federal court in Manhattan collapsed. [*]
Murphy declined to discuss the possibility of Mohammed returning to a military tribunal. Nor would he respond to comments that military prosecutors under his command do not have the requisite experience to handle such a complex terrorism case.
But a military lawyer at the Office of Military Commissions, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media about the matter, said: "We have the A-team now to prosecute that case. Those attorneys are ready, and some of those folks have worked on [that case] for four or five years." [*]
Before becoming chief defense counsel, Colwell represented the only Guantanamo detainee to be transferred to federal custody for trial. With little fanfare, Ghailani was moved to New York in June, where he pleaded not guilty to terrorism charges.
Colwell, who was appointed this month, said he will take no position on the merits of military commissions as the forum to try Guantanamo detainees.
"It's not appropriate for me to vocalize a position, as I am not representing a client," he said, adding that he will focus on getting military lawyers the resources they need to vigorously defend their clients.
Colwell, 44, who supervises about 80 people, including about 40 military lawyers, said, "We have great people in a very unique mission."
A veteran of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Colwell, who earned his law degree from Suffolk University in Boston, has held various positions in the Marine Corps as a prosecutor, defense counsel and military judge. Before joining the Office of Military Commissions in 2008, he was a secretary of defense corporate fellow at 3M in St. Paul, Minn, for one year.
"I'm proud to have been selected," he said. "Without us, there is no rule of law."
Colwell, like others in his office, bristles at recent attacks on Justice Department lawyers who have been labeled unpatriotic for representing Guantanamo Bay detainees. [this refers to Ms. Cheney’s bizarre verbal assault recently on lawyers who defend alleged gitmo jihadis] [*]
"I would invite anyone to come in here and look me in the eye and question my patriotism," he said. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/22/AR2010032203441.html
Graham proposes framework for handling terrorism suspects
By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 23, 2010; A03 [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo] [groups such as gitmo 5 pr 7, gitmo 50 out of nearly 200?] [in past couple days, supremes declined to hear their case?] [problems ahead for military tribunals and why the US ought to be less dogmatic and more practical: use what works in given cases and what’s comports with basic rule of law] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [*]
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) has submitted draft legislation to the White House in an effort to create a broad framework for handling terrorism suspects, mapping out proposals that appeal to the administration and others that do not, [*]officials said.
Senior White House officials have begun briefing leading Democrats on Capitol Hill on the Graham proposal, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter under negotiation.
President Obama opposes some items that Graham has promoted publicly, such as the

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/22/AR2010032203441.html
Graham proposes framework for handling terrorism suspects
By Anne E. Kornblut
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, March 23, 2010; A03 [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo] [groups such as gitmo 5 pr 7, gitmo 50 out of nearly 200?] [in past couple days, supremes declined to hear their case?] [problems ahead for military tribunals and why the US ought to be less dogmatic and more practical: use what works in given cases and what’s comports with basic rule of law] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [*]
Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) has submitted draft legislation to the White House in an effort to create a broad framework for handling terrorism suspects, mapping out proposals that appeal to the administration and others that do not, [*]officials said.
Senior White House officials have begun briefing leading Democrats on Capitol Hill on the Graham proposal, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a matter under negotiation.
President Obama opposes some items that Graham has promoted publicly, such as the creation of a national security court to handle detainees, but the White House is urging Democrats to treat the proposal seriously as a way to break the logjam over the closure of the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other detainee-related issues. [*]
Certain ideas under discussion appear likely to yield a compromise, administration officials said. One promising area involves creating standard procedures for addressing detainees' petitions for habeas corpus, which force the government to make its case for continued detention, rather than leaving those decisions up to individual judges. [potentially a positive idea] [*]
Other matters, particularly rules governing the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects, are more complicated and might not get resolved immediately, officials said.
Administration officials said that the talks were preliminary and that they were deciding whether to begin a more formal negotiation with other members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. But as they struggle with major legal dilemmas, such as where to try those accused of carrying out the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, officials said they are eager to try to reach a bipartisan agreement on detainee policy overall. [potentially positive] [when either side moves beyond its standard dogma on same and seeks common ground, probably good for US] [*]
Initially, the discussions revolved around whether Graham would help the administration rally support for closing the Guantanamo facility in exchange for trying Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-confessed Sept. 11 mastermind, in a military commission instead of federal court. Graham opposes a civilian trial for Mohammed.
The talks are now much broader, participants said. It appears unlikely that Graham would settle for the narrower deal, and officials said the White House and the senator would prefer to reach what some have termed a "grand bargain." [good for Senator Graham] [as much as he confounds me sometime, he also confounds his conservative collagues and seems genuinely interested in seeking consensus] [*]
Graham, who has met with top White House officials several times in recent months, declined to comment. Conservatives and liberals have criticized him for his effort to strike a deal with the Obama administration. But Benjamin Wittes, a Brookings Institution scholar who has advised Graham's staff on the proposal, lauded him for trying to create an overarching detainee framework. [see Wittes and Goldsmith recent oped on trials verus tribunals] [*]
"This is a conversation that the legislature much more broadly should have been having many years ago," Wittes said.
White House officials have expressed concern that if they fail to reach a comprehensive agreement, Democratic and Republican members of Congress will block funding for closing Guantanamo and civilian terrorism trials. At the same time, a senior Obama aide said the president is seeking a "coherent and durable" framework for handling terrorism suspects, a polarizing issue that has confounded his top advisers as they have struggled to relocate detainees and shut the prison.
With its broken promise to close Guantanamo in the first year of Obama's term and its abandoned effort to try Mohammed and others in federal court in Manhattan, the White House has stumbled in handling the politics of such issues. [to put it kindly] [*]
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. was scheduled to testify Tuesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee, but the hearing was postponed because of Obama's signing of the health-care bill. When Holder does appear, he will testify that the original decision on holding a trial in Manhattan was a "close call," a Justice Department official said, a phrase that he has used before but that in the current debate would signal an impending White House decision in favor of a military commission.
Such a signal would disappoint civil libertarians and government prosecutors who thought Holder was fighting to keep the case in federal court. Critics of the military commissions say that federal courts are a superior venue because they have a longer history of handling terrorist cases and because they represent a more transparent form of American justice. [if such a deal disappoints folks on the far left and folks on far right, it’s almost certainly a good consensus position] [*]
Supporters of the military system, including some in the White House, say that Obama worked with Congress to add more due process and transparency through the Military Commissions Act of 2009, which the president signed in October.
Administration officials said they are aware of the dissent in the Justice Department over the idea of sending high-profile terrorism cases to military courts. [*]
On Monday, a federal judge in Washington granted the habeas petition of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian detained at Guantanamo who knew some of the Sept. 11 hijackers. At one time, he was regarded as a potentially invaluable source on al-Qaeda and was subject to brutal treatment at Guantanamo, [*]according to a Senate investigation.
Staff writers Peter Finn and Carrie Johnson contributed to this report. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/business/global/23enron.html
March 22, 2010
India’s Woes Reflected in Bid to Restart Old Plant
By VIKAS BAJAJ India] [South Asia] [India’s masses] [with India becoming integrated into the global economy, array of issues has appeared] [followup] [more on elites in India and tremendously stratified polity-society] [*]
VELDUR, India — “Wherever there is a lamp, there is darkness below it,” said Bava Bhalekar, a fisherman and local leader in this village roughly a hundred miles south of Mumbai. “The tragedy is that while our village has this project, we ourselves don’t have electricity.”
“This project” is the power plant that Enron built.
A decade after Enron withdrew from the project, the Indian government and two Indian companies are promising to bring the plant to full capacity. The tragedy, as Mr. Bhalekar and his fellow villagers see it, is that even after the plant is fully operational, their daily blackouts — now from 3 to 7:30 p.m. — will still occur, with just slightly fewer hours without electricity.
State authorities promise to have the plant running at 100 percent by the end of the month.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/business/global/23enron.html
March 22, 2010
India’s Woes Reflected in Bid to Restart Old Plant
By VIKAS BAJAJ India] [South Asia] [India’s masses] [with India becoming integrated into the global economy, array of issues has appeared] [followup] [more on elites in India and tremendously stratified polity-society] [*]
VELDUR, India — “Wherever there is a lamp, there is darkness below it,” said Bava Bhalekar, a fisherman and local leader in this village roughly a hundred miles south of Mumbai. “The tragedy is that while our village has this project, we ourselves don’t have electricity.”
“This project” is the power plant that Enron built.
A decade after Enron withdrew from the project, the Indian government and two Indian companies are promising to bring the plant to full capacity. The tragedy, as Mr. Bhalekar and his fellow villagers see it, is that even after the plant is fully operational, their daily blackouts — now from 3 to 7:30 p.m. — will still occur, with just slightly fewer hours without electricity.
State authorities promise to have the plant running at 100 percent by the end of the month. But, so far, this plant remains a monument not to the problems of Enron, but to India’s own corruption, cronyism and weak economic policies — some of the reasons that India remains a perpetual second fiddle to China, its increasingly powerful rival.
For all the progress India has made in information technology and service-sector jobs, the country is still unable to provide reliable power, water, roads and other basic infrastructure to most of its 1.2 billion people. For instance, about 40 percent of the country’s population is not connected to the electricity grid.
This energy deficit is also an impediment to development. Here in Maharashtra, India’s most industrialized state and the home of its commercial capital, Mumbai, formerly Bombay, the demand for electricity will exceed supply by about 30 percent this year, up from 4.5 percent in 1992.
And if industrial companies that set up here can get electricity, they will pay more for it than elsewhere in the world, according to the Prayas Energy Group, a research organization.
India’s slow progress on power has kept some foreign companies away and has led many of them to largely shun the electricity business, in particular. The failure of the Enron plant in 2001, then known as Dabhol Power, was a turning point. [*]
No large power plants have started in Maharashtra since Dabhol.
“Our problem today is power,” Ashok Chavan, Maharashtra’s chief minister, the equivalent of an American state governor, said late last year when asked about the state’s biggest challenges. But he said that his administration would eliminate blackouts that afflict most of the state outside Mumbai within three years.
For villagers here in Veldur, the Enron-built plant’s revival — it has been running at below capacity for four years now — is bittersweet. While some people have been hired at the plant as it has ramped up, the lack of reliable electricity means that the ice that the fishermen in the village need to preserve their daily catch has to be trucked in from farther away.
Experts said Mr. Chavan’s goal was, like many promises made by Indian policy makers, high rhetoric that is not backed up by real action. State and federal governments reduced red tape in 2003 to help add more generation capacity, but many of those reforms have not been fully put in place.
“These problems, which we have been talking about for the last 10, 15 years, there is no real solution to them,” said Madhav Godbole, a retired civil servant who led a committee that studied the problems of Dabhol. “It’s the political will that is wanting.” [ppor constituencies in India tend to have little clout at elections[] [*]
Many of India’s utilities, for instance, are financially frail because policy makers look the other way as power is stolen, or because politicians dole out subsidized power to win the votes of farmers. Power plants typically operate below their capacity because the government bureaucracy allocates coal and natural gas, the fuel of power plants, to favored companies. Furthermore, cronyism often dictates who receives permission to build plants because laws requiring competitive bids are not enforced. [*]
As with other projects, the success of the expanded plant here, now known as Ratnagiri Gas and Power, will depend on whether the government sees fit to allocate more natural gas to it from domestic fields to the plant. The plant will be competing with other power, fertilizer and chemical companies that also want and need more gas.
It was with an eye to solving India’s power problem that the country turned to Enron and several other foreign companies like AES, based in Virginia, and EDF of Paris in the early 1990s. The country pursued eight so-called fast-track projects to jolt the economy out of its long socialist-economy slumber.
All but one of the projects ran into trouble. The Enron Dabhol project was the most spectacular failure of all.
In 1992, Enron agreed to build a state-of-the-art power plant and liquefied natural gas terminal on the Arabian Sea. In return, the Maharashtra state promised to buy all the power the plant produced and to even pay for electricity it had no use for. To persuade banks to lend money for the $3 billion project, India’s federal government promised to make payments if the state defaulted.
As envisioned, the project was supposed to meet about 3 percent of the country’s energy needs.
The agreement was negotiated secretly, because policy makers and company officials said it would be faster that way. The deal promised the company a guaranteed rate of return in dollars, which meant that the price of power to India would most likely rise because the government was depreciating the rupee against the dollar.
To make the project’s math work, the state would have to jack up retail power prices and crack down on theft of power; neither of which happened. Maharashtra ended up paying Enron 4.67 rupees for each unit of power, even though it was collecting only 1.89 rupees from its customers.
“This was a classic case of what should never be done,” said Suresh Prabhu, who was India’s power minister when Enron shut down the plant in 2001 after Maharashtra and the company fought about what they owed each other.
The plant was closed for five years as negotiations dragged on between bankers; the Indian government; the American agency Overseas Private Investment Corporation, which had guaranteed some of the loans; and Enron’s partners in the deal, General Electric and Bechtel. (Enron sold its stake to G.E. and Bechtel after declaring bankruptcy in 2001.)
Dabhol reopened as Ratnagiri Gas and Power in 2006 under the tutelage of two Indian government-owned firms: NTPC, the country’s largest power producer, and GAIL, an operator of gas pipelines.
But the revival proved difficult. The drawings and documents needed to restart the plant were missing. G.E.’s power equipment had three catastrophic breakdowns, requiring expensive, months-long repairs in Singapore. (G.E. Energy India declined to discuss what caused the breakdowns, but said that the repairs “will help to ensure reliability in the future.”)
“Frankly, when we took over the plant, I never thought this was possible,” said Chandan Roy, chairman of Ratnagiri Gas and Power and a director at NTPC, referring to getting it up to 100 percent.
The plant is even planning an expansion that will start in the coming weeks.
One way it hopes to do better this time is with its fuel supply. The plant, when first restarted, was running on expensive gas imported from the Middle East. Since October it has received cheaper offshore Indian gas thanks to an allocation from the fields being developed by Reliance. But if the project here cannot receive more Indian gas for the expansion, power will be too expensive and the project will be in the same situation as Enron once was: charging the state more than the state can recoup from customers.
Surya Sethi, a former World Bank official who turned down a request to finance the Dabhol project, said recently that India had learned many lessons from that debacle. But he added that it would take the country a while to deal with the numerous other challenges that bedevil the power sector.
“You can’t suddenly make India a China,” he said.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/europe/23briefs-Francebf.html
March 22, 2010
France: Sarkozy Reshuffles Cabinet
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [France] [EU3] [elsewhere in Europe] [socialism has been waning in France in recent years] [apparently that is more generalizable to Europe] [interesting info] [EU, Euro ethos?] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [followup Sept 29 last year] [*]
President Nicolas Sarkozy, left, dismissed his labor minister and reshuffled several other cabinet posts on Monday after leftists trounced his conservatives in regional elections. Labor Minister Xavier Darcos lost his job after being soundly defeated in an election in the Aquitaine region. Twenty of Mr. Sarkozy’s cabinet members ran for regional posts, and all lost.

[full article above the jump] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/europe/23turkey.html
March 22, 2010
Turkey’s Governing Party Proposes Changes in the Constitution
By SEBNEM ARSU [Turkey] [former Ottoman Empire] [the sizable conspiracy case brought against multiple military officers, and others from Turkey’s secular institutions] [is the conspiracy complaint falling apart?] [was the Erdogan govt wrong on its descriptions of the massive conspiracy?] [proposed constitutional changes in view of recent allegations of military coup plot?] [followup] [*]
ISTANBUL — Members of Parliament from Turkey’s religious conservative governing party proposed constitutional changes on Monday that would make it harder to ban political parties and easier to prosecute military officials in civilian courts. [*]
The proposals come after months of political turmoil and the arrest and detention of dozens of current and former military officers accused of plotting a coup against the governing Justice and Development Party in 2003.
In Turkey, the military has long been seen as the guardian of the secular order and the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/europe/23turkey.html
March 22, 2010
Turkey’s Governing Party Proposes Changes in the Constitution
By SEBNEM ARSU [Turkey] [former Ottoman Empire] [the sizable conspiracy case brought against multiple military officers, and others from Turkey’s secular institutions] [is the conspiracy complaint falling apart?] [was the Erdogan govt wrong on its descriptions of the massive conspiracy?] [proposed constitutional changes in view of recent allegations of military coup plot?] [followup] [*]
ISTANBUL — Members of Parliament from Turkey’s religious conservative governing party proposed constitutional changes on Monday that would make it harder to ban political parties and easier to prosecute military officials in civilian courts. [*]
The proposals come after months of political turmoil and the arrest and detention of dozens of current and former military officers accused of plotting a coup against the governing Justice and Development Party in 2003.
In Turkey, the military has long been seen as the guardian of the secular order and the enforcer of a strong separation between Islam and the state, but it has been severely weakened by the coup plot case.
The proposed changes largely focus on the judiciary and the military, still the strongest pillars of the secular state establishment, which remain suspicious of the government’s conservative, religious politics. [*]
Opponents of the proposals said they were an attempt by the party to strengthen its own hand and to deepen the encroachment of religious conservatism.
The party said the changes were meant to further democratize Turkey and bring its Constitution in line with European norms to help it pursue full European Union membership.
The Justice and Development Party has long promised to replace the 1982 Constitution, drafted under the auspices of the military after a coup in 1980. But the party had failed to win enough support, given widespread mistrust of its motivations in the secular establishment.
With the revelations about the alleged 2003 coup plot, which was never carried out, the party seemed to sense a new opening.
“Our objective with these changes is not to strengthen our government,” Cemil Cicek, the deputy prime minister, said in a televised news conference. “The aim of these constitutional amendments is to establish people’s sovereignty in every field and strengthen the rule of the people.”
One of the most important changes, and one that may gain some support, would make it harder for the country’s Constitutional Court, a supreme judicial body, to ban political parties for undermining secularism and the unity of the country. The court threatened the Justice and Development Party with such a ban in 2008, and it has banned at least 25 parties over the years to safeguard constitutional integrity.
The governing party also wants Turkey’s president to appoint most of the judges on the Constitutional Court, which would be restructured to limit its powers.
Hasan Gerceker, the head of the Supreme Appeals Court, said the package of changes contradicted the Constitution and undermined judicial independence and separation of powers.
“The suggested changes mean more than besieging the judiciary,” Mr. Gerceker said. “It’s capturing the judiciary as a whole.”
The governing party also proposed more government oversight of the Supreme Board of Judges and Prosecutors, an important body within the judiciary that appoints court officials.
The board has criticized the governing party for interfering in the judiciary, particularly regarding the trial of the suspected coup plotters, who are accused of taking part in a network called Ergenekon.
As part of the continuing investigation, 10 more people were detained in six cities on Monday, joining hundreds of others, including academics, intellectuals and military officers, indicted in the Ergenekon case since 2008.
Among other constitutional changes, the reform package would allow former generals who took part in the military coup in 1980 to be tried, annulling a clause that granted immunity. [ex post facto reversal of immunity???] [*]
It would also allow military officers to appeal against exclusion from the army for alleged links to radical Islamic or other religious groups, and open the way for officers to be tried in civilian rather than military courts for plotting against civilian governments.
Two leading opposition parties in Parliament, the Republican People’s Party and Nationalist Movement Party, have rebuffed the reform package on the premise that it was drawn up without consultation in Parliament.
In his news conference, Mr. Cicek said the government was open to consultation before a draft of the proposals is sent to the floor of the Parliament in the next two weeks.
If the proposed constitutional changes fail to win the two-thirds majority needed to pass in Parliament, the government will hold a referendum to ratify them, Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin said.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:10 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/middleeast/23diplo.html
March 22, 2010
Netanyahu Takes Hard Line on Jerusalem Housing
By MARK LANDLER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [NSC principal and SecState Clinton principally] [USFP] [cross in govt] [followup] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [last day or two it appeared both Israel and Obama admin making concerted efforts to rachet down?] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, under extraordinary pressure from the Obama administration to curb the construction of Jewish housing in Jerusalem, served notice on Monday that his government would not yield easily to American demands. [*]
In a speech to a pro-Israel lobbying group, Mr. Netanyahu reiterated that Israel had no plans to freeze housing in Jerusalem, the trigger for a recent dispute between Israel and the United States. He rejected the administration’s contention that Israel’s policies were impeding the peace process. [*]
“The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years, and the Jewish people are

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/middleeast/23diplo.html
March 22, 2010
Netanyahu Takes Hard Line on Jerusalem Housing
By MARK LANDLER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [NSC principal and SecState Clinton principally] [USFP] [cross in govt] [followup] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [last day or two it appeared both Israel and Obama admin making concerted efforts to rachet down?] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel, under extraordinary pressure from the Obama administration to curb the construction of Jewish housing in Jerusalem, served notice on Monday that his government would not yield easily to American demands. [*]
In a speech to a pro-Israel lobbying group, Mr. Netanyahu reiterated that Israel had no plans to freeze housing in Jerusalem, the trigger for a recent dispute between Israel and the United States. He rejected the administration’s contention that Israel’s policies were impeding the peace process. [*]
“The Jewish people were building Jerusalem 3,000 years, and the Jewish people are building Jerusalem today,” Mr. Netanyahu said to the group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “Jerusalem is not a settlement; It’s our capital.”
Earlier Monday, Mr. Netanyahu met for 75 minutes with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, in the first of a series of meetings expected to reveal whether the United States sticks to its hard line with Israel on settlements. He later met with Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., and he was scheduled to meet President Obama on Tuesday. [*]
The flurry of meetings is designed to calm the waters after nearly two weeks of tension between the United States and Israel, amid a diplomatic row that both countries have portrayed as the gravest in years. But judging by Mr. Netanyahu’s comments, it is far from clear that he plans to satisfy the demands that Mrs. Clinton made of him in a phone call 10 days ago. [*]
The State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, said that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Netanyahu had “had a further discussion of the specific actions that might be taken to improve the atmosphere.” He did not give details.
The prime minister’s remarks were a pointed bookend to an earlier address to the same group by Mrs. Clinton. She warned that the Obama administration would push back “unequivocally” when it disagreed with the Israeli government’s policies. But she reaffirmed that America’s support for Israel was “rock solid, unwavering, enduring and forever.” [*]
Mrs. Clinton sought to build solidarity with Israel on one area where they clearly have common ground, the potential nuclear threat from Iran. In the most enthusiastically received part of her speech, she pledged to stop Iran from getting a nuclear weapon.
She said the Obama administration was seeking sanctions with “bite.” That characterization is a modest, but noticeable, retreat from the administration’s language from last year, when Mrs. Clinton said the United States was seeking “crippling sanctions.”
“There must be no gap between the United States and Israel on security,” she said to loud applause.
The crowd of 7,000 quieted down quickly when Mrs. Clinton bluntly warned that the status quo in the Middle East was unsustainable, and that Israel’s continued construction of Jewish housing was undermining the prospect for peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians. [sooner rather than later the Israeli public is going to have to decide] [does it want a Jewish State or a Democratic one?] [given demographics and Israeli policy making 2-state solution all but impossible, Israel defaults to one state and it ceases to remain democratic as Arab population out grows Jewish] [**]
Mrs. Clinton defended her rebuke of Mr. Netanyahu’s government over its announcement of 1,600 housing units in East Jerusalem during Mr. Biden’s visit. The move, she said, jeopardized indirect talks that the administration is trying to broker between Israelis and Palestinians.
“Our credibility in this process depends in part on our willingness to praise both sides when they are courageous, and when we don’t agree, to say so, and say so unequivocally,” she said.
In her call to Mr. Netanyahu, she demanded that Israel reverse the housing plan in the neighborhood of Ramat Shlomo; that the Israelis avoid further provocations in Jerusalem during planned peace talks; and that Mr. Netanyahu commit to substantive rather than procedural negotiations with the Palestinians, as Israel has said it would prefer.
Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former American ambassador to Israel, said that Mrs. Clinton’s speech had succeeded in reaffirming the strategic importance of the United States-Israel relationship while not backing down on settlements. But he said the administration had not laid out a broader proposal for what comes next.
“There’s a choice being made here that the U.S. doesn’t want to put forward its own views,” Mr. Kurtzer said.
Still, after a week in which many pro-Israel observers worried that their country and the United States were on the brink of a breakdown in relations, Mrs. Clinton’s speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee seemed reassuring for Israel. Despite predictions that she would be booed, the audience greeted her politely.
“I thought she was excellent,” said Hal Rosnick of Easton, Conn. “She wants the parties to get back to indirect negotiations.” But Diane Hornstein of Chicago, said, “I would like her to recognize that Jerusalem is not a settlement. There’s no evenhandedness in the demands made of Israel.”
On one topic — Iran — Mr. Netanyahu and Mrs. Clinton seemed largely in agreement. “Iran’s brazen bid to develop nuclear weapons is first and foremost a threat to my country, Israel,” the prime minister said, “but it is also a grave threat to the region and to the world.” The Israeli people, he said, “always reserve the right of self-defense.”
In making her own tough statements on Iran, Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that the process of building support for sanctions in the United Nations was taking longer than expected. “Our aim is not incremental sanctions, but sanctions that will bite,” she said.
Mrs. Clinton praised Mr. Netanyahu for his 10-month moratorium on the building of settlements on the West Bank, and noted that the future status of Jerusalem would be hashed out at the bargaining table.
Mrs. Clinton condemned those who incite violence against Israelis, including Palestinians who whipped up anger after Israel rededicated a synagogue in the Jewish quarter of Jerusalem. [*]
But Mrs. Clinton also made clear that the dispute over Mr. Biden’s visit might not be an isolated incident. The administration, she said, will continue to speak out against decisions it views as jeopardizing the peace process. [*]
“As Israel’s friend,” she said, “it is our responsibility to give credit when it is due and to tell the truth when it is needed.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/23/world/AP-EU-Britain-Dubai-Slaying.html
March 23, 2010
Britain to Expel Israeli Diplomat Over Dubai Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:47 a.m. ET [Israel] [UK] [Israeli-British relations] [in both states, domestic politics intersects foreign policy] [UK-Israeli relations; broadly, EU-Israeli relations] [followup] [unlike the left in US, in Europe and certainly in UK it tends to be harder on Israeli recalcitrance on peace with Palestinians] [the case where british passports (forged ones) used to enter and exit Dubai to murder Palestinian] [rumors include Mossad payback?] [followup] [*]
LONDON (AP) -- Britain will expel an Israeli diplomat on Tuesday to rebuke Israel for its alleged use of forged British passports in the assassination of a Hamas operative in a suspected Mossad hit, [*]a U.K. government official said.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband was scheduled to address Parliament over the issue,

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/23/world/AP-EU-Britain-Dubai-Slaying.html
March 23, 2010
Britain to Expel Israeli Diplomat Over Dubai Case
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:47 a.m. ET [Israel] [UK] [Israeli-British relations] [in both states, domestic politics intersects foreign policy] [UK-Israeli relations; broadly, EU-Israeli relations] [followup] [unlike the left in US, in Europe and certainly in UK it tends to be harder on Israeli recalcitrance on peace with Palestinians] [the case where british passports (forged ones) used to enter and exit Dubai to murder Palestinian] [rumors include Mossad payback?] [followup] [*]
LONDON (AP) -- Britain will expel an Israeli diplomat on Tuesday to rebuke Israel for its alleged use of forged British passports in the assassination of a Hamas operative in a suspected Mossad hit, [*]a U.K. government official said.
Foreign Secretary David Miliband was scheduled to address Parliament over the issue, following an investigation into the use of 12 fake U.K. passports in the incident.
Britain's Foreign Office would not provide any details of Miliband's statement in advance.
''The foreign secretary will make a statement to the House of the Commons this afternoon,'' a spokeswoman said, on customary condition of anonymity in line with government policy.
However, the U.K. official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment ahead of the statement, confirmed that one Israeli diplomat will be expelled.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown's office confirmed that Israel's ambassador to Britain, Ron Prosor, met with Peter Ricketts, Britain's senior diplomat, on Monday to discuss the case. [*]
Israel's foreign ministry declined to provide details of the talks. There is no suggestion the ambassador himself would be expelled; the diplomat ordered out of Britain is likely to be a lower-ranking official.
In London, Israel's embassy said Miliband had been due to attend a reception Tuesday to mark the refurbishment of the embassy building, but would not now be present. The embassy would not comment on whether a diplomat would be expelled.
''We can neither confirm nor deny,'' said an embassy spokesman, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media on the issue.
Dubai authorities have accused Israel's Mossad spy agency of being behind the Jan 20. slaying of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in a luxury hotel room, and have identified at least 26 suspects of an alleged hit squad that traveled to Dubai on fake identities and forged European and Australian passports.
Interpol has unveiled a wanted list of 27 people in connection with the slaying. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied any involvement in al-Mabhouh's killing. [*]
At least 15 of the names used by the suspected killers match those of Israeli citizens who are dual nationals of western countries – including eight Israeli-British dual nationals. All have denied involvement, saying their identities were stolen.
Shortly after he was named as one of the British suspects, dual national Melvyn Adam Mildiner told The Associated Press that he thought he was picked because ‘’I don’t have a Jewish-sounding name.’’
It is suspected Mossad specifically targeted the identities of dual nationals. It is relatively easy for British Jews – and Jews from other nations – to qualify for Israeli passports if they meet the basic requirements set out by the Israeli government. It is common for people to carry valid passports from both nations. [*]
In a recent speech, Eliza Manningham-Buller -- the ex-head of Britain's MI5 -- said forged British passports had previously been used by the same country behind the Dubai slaying, though she declined to specifically name Israel. [*]
Arieh Eldad, a lawmaker from Israel's National Union -- a hardline opposition party -- called Friday for the military attache of the British Embassy in Israel to be expelled in response. ''Nobody nominated them as the judges in our war against terror,'' he told the AP.
Diplomatic expulsions are a rare sanction against foreign governments. Britain kicked out four Russian diplomats in 2007 over the country's refusal to extradite to London a suspect in the poisoning death of Alexander Litvinenko.[*]
The country's Serious and Organized Crime Agency has conducted an inquiry into the use of forged British passports, but is not involved in wider inquiries by Dubai police into the killing.
--------------
Associated Press writers Raphael G. Satter and Gregory Katz in London and Aron Heller and Ian Deitch in Jerusalem contributed to this report

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/asia/24korea.html
March 23, 2010
N. Korea Identifies American Being Held
By CHOE SANG-HUN [DPRK] [North Korea] [US and 6-way talks] [SPRK-US relations] [I’m not sure most Americans understand how hair-trigger things are in peninsula?] [the slow but perhaps inexorable process toward substantive talks?] [regime finally announces trial for and affirms identify of prisoner it seized, Christian missionary] [followup] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — An American citizen facing trial in North Korea for entering the country illegally was a Christian who taught English at a South Korean primary school, former colleagues said on Tuesday.
On Monday, North Korea identified the man as Aijalon Mahli Gomes, 30, of Boston, and said he would be put on trial because the North Korean authorities had “confirmed criminal

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/world/asia/24korea.html
March 23, 2010
N. Korea Identifies American Being Held
By CHOE SANG-HUN [DPRK] [North Korea] [US and 6-way talks] [SPRK-US relations] [I’m not sure most Americans understand how hair-trigger things are in peninsula?] [the slow but perhaps inexorable process toward substantive talks?] [regime finally announces trial for and affirms identify of prisoner it seized, Christian missionary] [followup] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — An American citizen facing trial in North Korea for entering the country illegally was a Christian who taught English at a South Korean primary school, former colleagues said on Tuesday.
On Monday, North Korea identified the man as Aijalon Mahli Gomes, 30, of Boston, and said he would be put on trial because the North Korean authorities had “confirmed criminal evidence.” He was arrested in January. [*]
“Mr. Gomes was a quiet man and was very diligent in church activities,” said Kang Hyang-seon, a teacher who worked with him at Sinbong Elementary School in Pocheon, a town north of Seoul near the border with North Korea.
Mr. Gomes flew into South Korea in the spring of 2008 for a one-year teaching contract with Sinbong. South Korea draws thousands of native speakers every year from the United States, Canada and elsewhere to teach English at schools. His contract with Sinbong expired on March 31 last year and he did not renew it, the school said.
At Sinbong, he taught 20 hours a week helping third- to sixth-graders learn English.
Mr. Gomes told his colleagues that he wanted to move to a town closer to Seoul so it would be easier for him to attend a foreigners’ church in the industrial district of Guro . They remembered him talking about doing volunteer community work with other Christians.
“He was a polite man and was very nice toward children,” said Chung Pil-gyu, another Sinbong teacher.
No one at Sinbong knew what had happened to Mr. Gomes after he left the school a year ago. Officials at the American Embassy in Seoul were not immediately available for comment on Tuesday.
The State Department has not confirmed the man’s identity. It has been working with Swedish diplomats in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang, to contact the man now identified as Mr. Gomes. Washington and the North have no diplomatic ties.
Last year, North Korea arrested two American journalists — Laura Ling and Euna Lee — and sentenced them to 12 years of hard labor for illegally entering the North. The women were pardoned and released five months later, after former President Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang in August and met the nation’s leader, Kim Jong-il, to negotiate their release.
Robert Park, a Christian missionary from Tucson, illegally entered North Korea on Dec. 25 carrying a letter urging Mr. Kim to shut down prison camps and free political prisoners. North Korea released him last month, saying that Mr. Park had recognized his wrongdoings and repented.[*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:08 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/middleeast/23briefs-Yemenbf.html
March 22, 2010
Yemen: Ban on Child Brides Is Imperiled
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Yemen] [democratization, at least can be thought of as such in relative terms for Yemen] [cultural-qua-religion issues of child brides] [followup] [*]
Some of Yemen’s most influential Muslim leaders have declared supporters of a ban on child brides to be apostates. [*]The religious decree, issued Sunday, imperils efforts to salvage legislation that would make marriage illegal for people younger than 17. [*]A committee,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/middleeast/23briefs-Yemenbf.html
March 22, 2010
Yemen: Ban on Child Brides Is Imperiled
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [Yemen] [democratization, at least can be thought of as such in relative terms for Yemen] [cultural-qua-religion issues of child brides] [followup] [*]
Some of Yemen’s most influential Muslim leaders have declared supporters of a ban on child brides to be apostates. [*]The religious decree, issued Sunday, imperils efforts to salvage legislation that would make marriage illegal for people younger than 17. [*]A committee, which includes some of the clerics who signed the decree on Sunday, is expected to make a final decision on the legislation next month.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:07 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/asia/23afghan.html
March 22, 2010
Afghan President Meets With Insurgents
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and SANGAR RAHIMI [Afghanistan] [hydra] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [Karzai pushing reconcliation with Taliban] [use psci 469] [followup] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — A delegation from one of the most important insurgent groups fighting Afghan and NATO forces met for the first time with President Hamid Karzai on Monday for preliminary discussions on a possible peace plan with the government.
Spokesmen for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the insurgent group, the Islamic Party, and Mr. Karzai confirmed the meeting, saying the delegation was also meeting with others in the government and leaders of other political movements. [*]
Mr. Karzai is planning a peace jirga, or assembly, for the end of April, and he is inviting a number of insurgent groups, as well as various factions in Parliament and representatives

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/asia/23afghan.html
March 22, 2010
Afghan President Meets With Insurgents
By ALISSA J. RUBIN and SANGAR RAHIMI [Afghanistan] [hydra] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [Karzai pushing reconcliation with Taliban] [use psci 469] [followup] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — A delegation from one of the most important insurgent groups fighting Afghan and NATO forces met for the first time with President Hamid Karzai on Monday for preliminary discussions on a possible peace plan with the government.
Spokesmen for Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the insurgent group, the Islamic Party, and Mr. Karzai confirmed the meeting, saying the delegation was also meeting with others in the government and leaders of other political movements. [*]
Mr. Karzai is planning a peace jirga, or assembly, for the end of April, and he is inviting a number of insurgent groups, as well as various factions in Parliament and representatives of Afghan civil society organizations.
While the peace jirga is nominally about ending the fighting between the government and antigovernment forces, which include a variety of insurgent groups, it is equally about how power would be shared. No one here expects that the insurgents will give up the fight unless they get a measure of political control. [*]
Not all senior officials in Mr. Karzai’s government have fully endorsed negotiations with such prominent enemies as Mr. Hekmatyar. The first vice president, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, was cautious in an interview on Monday, saying, “We believe in peace and reconciliation, but step by step.”
Mr. Fahim, an ethnic Tajik, fought Mr. Hekmatyar, an ethnic Pashtun, in the period after Soviet rule collapsed. For him and many others in the Afghan government and outside it, the peace discussions are shadowed by past enmities and battles, and as a result, it will be hard to reach agreements that everyone can live with.
Mr. Fahim said that he had not yet seen the Islamic Party delegation’s peace proposal, but others who were familiar with it said it included a demand for a timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
Abdul Jabar Sholgari, a Parliament member representing a moderate offshoot of the Islamic Party, said the proposal also sought a halt to military operations against Afghans and the establishment of an interim government as soon as foreign troops left, followed by new elections.
American officials have not indicated to what extent they would support talks with high-ranking members of the Taliban or with Mr. Hekmatyar, although in the 1980s, he was a staunch anti-Soviet fighter and received American backing. [*]
In the past several years of fighting here, however, Mr. Hekmatyar has launched some of the more audacious attacks on NATO troops, including one on French forces in 2008 in Sarobi, a district east of Kabul. Ten French soldiers were killed and 21 wounded in fighting that lasted from late afternoon until the middle of the next day.
Mr. Hekmatyar is widely viewed as one of the most brutal of the former resistance leaders. He was Afghanistan’s prime minister before the Taliban takeover in 1996 and led one of four factions that all but destroyed Kabul in the early 1990s. [*]
Unlike some other mujahedeen figures, who formed political movements and sent representatives to Parliament, Mr. Hekmatyar has continued to sponsor fighters in eastern and northern Afghanistan, although he does not live in the country.
In separate episodes on Monday, two NATO service members were killed in southern Afghanistan by improvised explosive devices.
Carlotta Gall contributed reporting

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:06 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/22/AR2010032202103.html
Pakistani Parliament expected to approve curbs on President Zardari's powers
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 23, 2010; A10 [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [parliament moves to check President Zardari’s powers—struggle continues] [followup] [*]
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- Pakistan's Parliament is expected to pass constitutional changes in coming weeks that would vastly curtail the powers of President Asif Ali Zardari, [*]effectively sidelining the unpopular leader of the nation's weak civilian government.
Zardari inherited far-reaching powers, including the ability to dissolve Parliament's lower house and to appoint the army chief, that were put in place under military ruler Pervez

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/22/AR2010032202103.html
Pakistani Parliament expected to approve curbs on President Zardari's powers
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, March 23, 2010; A10 [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [mounting evidence that some of the more important insitutions in said govt—military and ISI—are fickle friends at best] [parliament moves to check President Zardari’s powers—struggle continues] [followup] [*]
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- Pakistan's Parliament is expected to pass constitutional changes in coming weeks that would vastly curtail the powers of President Asif Ali Zardari, [*]effectively sidelining the unpopular leader of the nation's weak civilian government.
Zardari inherited far-reaching powers, including the ability to dissolve Parliament's lower house and to appoint the army chief, that were put in place under military ruler Pervez Musharraf. The likely changes would shift those powers to the prime minister, though many analysts say true authority in Pakistan would remain with the influential security establishment.
Strengthening Pakistan's civilian government is a priority of the Obama administration, which views Pakistan as vital to U.S. military success in Afghanistan. The changes, which have unusually broad-based support, could stabilize Pakistan's volatile political landscape by appeasing some of Zardari's many critics. [*]
Zardari has faced demands to give up the powers since he took office in late 2008, and he has reluctantly pledged to do so. A committee on the constitutional changes is slated to present them and other recommended amendments this week to Parliament, which is expected to pass them by early April.
The changes would make Zardari's position far more ceremonial, and they could embolden Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani or power-seekers within the military. But analysts said that in practical terms, the shift would be mostly symbolic -- both because Zardari is already weak and because he will remain the head of the ruling party. [*]
"At the end of the day, it's his government in power," said Cyril Almeida, a columnist for Dawn, an English-language newspaper. "And he still controls the prime minister by virtue of the fact that he's his party boss."
Zardari is expected to address Parliament this week in a speech that, according to Pakistani media, will cast the constitutional changes as a victory for democracy. The changes would also limit Zardari's ability to appoint judges or impose emergency rule. [*]
Those adjustments would further enfeeble a president whose role has steadily weakened. The opposition has regularly threatened demonstrations, accusing Zardari of dodging corruption allegations and delaying the constitutional changes. Several of his efforts to exert control -- including his recent defiance of the popular chief justice -- have backfired. In November, he ceded his position in Pakistan's nuclear command structure to Gillani.
"The credibility of this government is so low that I've heard people in the party in the last two days saying, 'Fingers crossed, we hope this comes through,' " said Moeed Yusuf, South Asia director for the U.S. Institute of Peace, who has spent the past several weeks in Pakistan.
Gillani is viewed as a consensus-builder who is palatable to the opposition, military and public but is unlikely to defy ruling party wishes even after gaining enhanced powers. [*]
Analysts noted that Pakistan's many military coups have all taken place when the president does not control the elected government, but they said there is little possibility of one at this stage. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:06 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/asia/23pstan.html
March 22, 2010
Pakistan May Investigate Nuclear Scientist’s Ties to Iran
By SALMAN MASOOD [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [AQ Khan network] [WMD turnkey units sold to unsavory regimes] [Pakistan is finally looking into what he sold to Iran, the Islamic bomb?] [followup] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani government has filed a petition in the nation’s High Court seeking to investigate Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who has confessed to running the world’s largest nuclear proliferation network, over recent reports about his ties to Iran’s nuclear program, [*]a government lawyer said Monday.
The petition was filed on Monday, hours before a court in Lahore was to announce a verdict on Mr. Khan’s petition to have his travel restrictions relaxed.
The court is expected to issue its ruling Wednesday on both, according to lawyers for the government and Mr. Khan.
The government filed its request in an effort to investigate Mr. Khan regarding recent news reports in which he was said to have confessed to supplying Iran with information related to the nuclear program. [*]
A copy of the government petition obtained by The New York Times cited two articles

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/23/world/asia/23pstan.html
March 22, 2010
Pakistan May Investigate Nuclear Scientist’s Ties to Iran
By SALMAN MASOOD [Pakistan] [Pakistan as central hub in AfPak wheel] [AfPak] [even as US commits much money and support to Pakistan’s govt] [AQ Khan network] [WMD turnkey units sold to unsavory regimes] [Pakistan is finally looking into what he sold to Iran, the Islamic bomb?] [followup] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Pakistani government has filed a petition in the nation’s High Court seeking to investigate Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist who has confessed to running the world’s largest nuclear proliferation network, over recent reports about his ties to Iran’s nuclear program, [*]a government lawyer said Monday.
The petition was filed on Monday, hours before a court in Lahore was to announce a verdict on Mr. Khan’s petition to have his travel restrictions relaxed.
The court is expected to issue its ruling Wednesday on both, according to lawyers for the government and Mr. Khan.
The government filed its request in an effort to investigate Mr. Khan regarding recent news reports in which he was said to have confessed to supplying Iran with information related to the nuclear program. [*]
A copy of the government petition obtained by The New York Times cited two articles published on March 10 and 14 by The Washington Post that “have national security implications for Pakistan as they contain allegations related to nuclear program and nuclear cooperation. Further they have likelihood of adversely affecting friendly ties with the government of Iran and Iraq.” The petition requested the court to direct Mr. Khan to “refrain from interacting with foreign media.” [*]
The article published on March 14 reported that Mr. Khan had disclosed in a written document that Pakistan gave Iran drawings related to a nuclear bomb, parts of centrifuges to purify uranium and a secret worldwide list of suppliers. [*]The article published on March 10 cited a nuclear weapons expert who said members of Mr. Khan’s network had reached out to Saddam Hussein’s government in 1990. Both Mr. Khan and the Pakistani government have denied these claims.
The government appeared to have filed its request partly to stall the court ruling on Mr. Khan’s petition, and it came as Pakistan’s powerful army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, was in the United States for high-level security talks. [*]
Syed Ali Zafar, the lawyer for Mr. Khan, called the government’s petition “irrelevant.”
“Today’s government application is mischief by the government, as it wants to defer the case,” Mr. Zafar said. He added that Mr. Khan had been given a public affidavit saying that his hands are clean.
The government lawyer, Naveed Inayat Malik, declined in a telephone interview to offer further information on how the court had handled the government’s request.
“The court proceedings were held in camera,” he said, referring to a term used here to describe classified proceedings. “It is, therefore, not possible for me to talk about the proceedings.”
A government spokesman told local news outlets last week that the Khan network was a “closed chapter.”
Pakistani authorities have continuously rebuffed international nuclear investigators who want to interview Mr. Khan about his proliferation activities. [*]
Mr. Khan was placed under house arrest in 2004 by President Pervez Musharraf, after confessing to selling nuclear technology to various countries. American officials say they believe that among them were Iran, Libya and North Korea. [*]
But Mr. Khan’s role in developing Pakistan’s nuclear program also gave him the status of a national hero within the country. Right-wing and Islamist political parties continue to praise him as the “father of the bomb.” [*]
Waqar Gillani contributed reporting from Lahore, Pakistan.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:05 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/business/22plane.html
March 21, 2010
U-2 Spy Plane Evades the Day of Retirement
By CHRISTOPHER DREW [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [change and bureaucratic innovation, a rarity] [*]
The U-2 spy plane, the high-flying aircraft that was often at the heart of cold war suspense, is enjoying an encore.
Four years ago, the Pentagon was ready to start retiring the plane, which took its first test flight in 1955. But Congress blocked that, saying the plane was still useful.
And so it is. Because of updates in the use of its powerful sensors, it has become the most sought-after spy craft in a very different war in Afghanistan.
As it shifts from hunting for nuclear missiles to detecting roadside bombs, it is outshining even the unmanned drones in gathering a rich array of intelligence used to fight the Taliban.
All this is a remarkable change from the U-2’s early days as a player in United States-Soviet espionage. Built to find Soviet missiles, it became famous when Francis Gary Powers was shot down in one while streaking across the Soviet Union in 1960, and again when another U-2 took the photographs that set off the Cuban missile crisis in

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/business/22plane.html
March 21, 2010
U-2 Spy Plane Evades the Day of Retirement
By CHRISTOPHER DREW [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [change and bureaucratic innovation, a rarity] [*]
The U-2 spy plane, the high-flying aircraft that was often at the heart of cold war suspense, is enjoying an encore.
Four years ago, the Pentagon was ready to start retiring the plane, which took its first test flight in 1955. But Congress blocked that, saying the plane was still useful.
And so it is. Because of updates in the use of its powerful sensors, it has become the most sought-after spy craft in a very different war in Afghanistan.
As it shifts from hunting for nuclear missiles to detecting roadside bombs, it is outshining even the unmanned drones in gathering a rich array of intelligence used to fight the Taliban.
All this is a remarkable change from the U-2’s early days as a player in United States-Soviet espionage. Built to find Soviet missiles, it became famous when Francis Gary Powers was shot down in one while streaking across the Soviet Union in 1960, and again when another U-2 took the photographs that set off the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. Newer versions of the plane have gathered intelligence in every war since then and still monitor countries like North Korea.
Now the U-2 and its pilots, once isolated in their spacesuits at 70,000 feet, are in direct radio contact with the troops in Afghanistan. And instead of following a rote path, they are now shifted frequently in midflight to scout roads for convoys and aid soldiers in firefights.
In some ways, the U-2, which flew its first mission in 1956, is like an updated version of an Etch A Sketch in an era of high-tech computer games.
“It’s like after all the years it’s flown, the U-2 is in its prime again,” said Lt. Col. Jason M. Brown, who commands an intelligence squadron that plans the missions and analyzes much of the data. “It can do things that nothing else can do.”
One of those things, improbably enough, is that even from 13 miles up its sensors can detect small disturbances in the dirt, providing a new way to find makeshift mines that kill many soldiers.
In the weeks leading up to the recent offensive in Marja, military officials said, several of the 32 remaining U-2s found nearly 150 possible mines in roads and helicopter landing areas, enabling the Marines to blow them up before approaching the town.
Marine officers say they relied on photographs from the U-2’s old film cameras, which take panoramic images at such a high resolution they can see insurgent footpaths, while the U-2’s newer digital cameras beamed back frequent updates on 25 spots where the Marines thought they could be vulnerable.
In addition, the U-2’s altitude, once a defense against antiaircraft missiles, enables it to scoop up signals from insurgent phone conversations that mountains would otherwise block.
As a result, Colonel Brown said, the U-2 is often able to collect information that suggests where to send the Predator and Reaper drones, which take video and also fire missiles. He said the most reliable intelligence comes when the U-2s and the drones are all concentrated over the same area, as is increasingly the case.
The U-2, a black jet with long, narrow wings to help it slip through the thin air, cuts an impressive figure as it rises rapidly into the sky. It flies at twice the height of a commercial jet, affording pilots views of such things as the earth’s curvature.
But the plane, nicknamed the Dragon Lady, is difficult to fly, and missions are grueling and dangerous. The U-2s used in Afghanistan and Iraq commute each day from a base near the Persian Gulf, and the trip can last nine to 12 hours. Pilots eat meals squeezed through tubes and wear spacesuits because their blood would literally boil if they had to eject unprotected at such a high altitude.
As the number of flights increases, some of the plane’s 60 pilots have suffered from the same disorienting illness, known as the bends, that afflicts deep-sea divers who ascend too quickly.
Relaxing recently in their clubhouse at Beale Air Force Base near Sacramento, Calif., the U-2’s home base, several pilots said the most common problems are sharp joint pain or a temporary fogginess.
But in 2006, a U-2 pilot almost crashed after drifting in and out of consciousness during a flight over Afghanistan. The pilot, Kevin Henry, now a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel, said in an interview that he felt as if he were drunk, and he suffered some brain damage. At one point, he said, he came within five feet of smashing into the ground before miraculously finding a runway.
As a safety measure, U-2 pilots start breathing pure oxygen an hour before takeoff to reduce the nitrogen in their bodies and cut the risk of decompression sickness. Mr. Henry, who now instructs pilots on safety, thinks problems with his helmet seal kept him from breathing enough pure oxygen before his flight.
Lt. Col. Kelly N. West, the chief of aerospace medicine at Beale, said one other pilot had also been disqualified from flying the U-2. Since 2002, six pilots have transferred out on their own after suffering decompression illnesses.
Still, most of the pilots remain undeterred, and the Air Force is taking more precautions. Holding an oxygen mask to his nose, one pilot, Maj. Eric M. Shontz, hopped on an elliptical machine for 10 minutes before a practice flight at Beale to help dispel the nitrogen faster. Several assistants then made sure he stayed connected to an oxygen machine as they sealed his spacesuit and drove him to the plane.
Major Shontz and other U-2 pilots say the planes gradually became more integrated in the operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. But since the flights over Afghanistan began to surge in early 2009, the U-2s have become a much more fluid part of the daily battle plan.
Major Shontz said he was on the radio late last year with an officer as a rocket-propelled grenade exploded. “You could hear his voice talking faster and faster, and he’s telling me that he needs air support,” Major Shontz recalled. He said that a minute after he relayed the message, an A-10 gunship was sent to help.
Brig. Gen. H.D. Polumbo Jr., a top policy official with the Air Force, said recent decisions to give intelligence analysts more flexibility in figuring out how to use the U-2 each day had added to its revival.
Over beers at the clubhouse, decorated with scrolls honoring the heroes of their small fraternity, other U-2 pilots say they know their aircraft’s reprieve will last only so long.
And the U-2’s replacement sits right across the base — the Global Hawk, a remote-controlled drone that flies almost as high as the U-2 and typically stays aloft for 24 hours or more. The first few Global Hawks have been taking intelligence photos in Iraq and Afghanistan.
But a larger model that could also intercept communications has been delayed, and the Air Force is studying how to add sensors that can detect roadside bombs to other planes. So officials say it will most likely be 2013 at the earliest before the U-2 is phased into retirement.
“We’ve needed to be nimble to stay relevant,” said Doug P. McMahon, a major who has flown the U-2 for three years. “But eventually it’s bound to end.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/us/politics/22immig.html
March 21, 2010
At Rally, Call for Urgency on Immigration Reform
By JULIA PRESTON [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [“comprehensive immigration reform” and its painful processes] [both capitol hill sources and SIGs fret over Obama’s lack of bona fides on progressive agenda items] [cross in societal] [this is actually pretty common stuff in USFP process: continuity] [*]
WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of immigrants and activists rallied here on Sunday, calling for legislation this year to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants and seeking to pressure President Obama to keep working on the contentious issue once the health care debate is behind him.
Demonstrators filled five lengthy blocks of the Washington Mall, down the hill from the Capitol where last-minute negotiations were under way on the health care bill. The immigrant activists, chanting Mr. Obama’s campaign slogan of “Yes we can” in Spanish and English, tried to compete with their numbers for public and media attention which were mainly focused on the climactic health care events in the House of Representatives.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/us/politics/22immig.html
March 21, 2010
At Rally, Call for Urgency on Immigration Reform
By JULIA PRESTON [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [“comprehensive immigration reform” and its painful processes] [both capitol hill sources and SIGs fret over Obama’s lack of bona fides on progressive agenda items] [cross in societal] [this is actually pretty common stuff in USFP process: continuity] [*]
WASHINGTON — Tens of thousands of immigrants and activists rallied here on Sunday, calling for legislation this year to give legal status to millions of illegal immigrants and seeking to pressure President Obama to keep working on the contentious issue once the health care debate is behind him.
Demonstrators filled five lengthy blocks of the Washington Mall, down the hill from the Capitol where last-minute negotiations were under way on the health care bill. The immigrant activists, chanting Mr. Obama’s campaign slogan of “Yes we can” in Spanish and English, tried to compete with their numbers for public and media attention which were mainly focused on the climactic health care events in the House of Representatives.
The rally brought the return to major street action by immigration activists, who turned out hundreds of thousands of protesters in marches and rallies in 2006. After an immigration overhaul measure was defeated in Congress in 2007, the pace of enforcement raids picked up and many immigrants, especially those without legal status, preferred to lay low.
But immigrant advocates decided to gamble by calling the march, to give a show of force that might impress Mr. Obama and also to vent the frustration of many immigrants who have taken to heart his repeated promises that he would move an immigration bill in Congress by early this year.
Mr. Obama addressed the crowd via a videotaped message displayed on huge screens, promising to keep working on the issue but avoiding a specific time frame.
“I have always pledged to be your partner as we work to fix our broken immigration system, and that’s a commitment that I reaffirm today,” Mr. Obama said.
He expressed his support for the outline of an immigration bill presented last week by Senator Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, and Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. While pledging to help build bipartisan support, Mr. Obama warned, “You know as well as I do that this won’t be easy, and it won’t happen overnight.”
But speaker after speaker rose to demand immigration legislation sooner rather than later, leaving aside any mention of the acrid political environment in Washington in the aftermath of the health care battle.
“Every day without reform is a day when 12 million hard-working immigrants must live in the shadow of fear,” said Representative Nydia M. Velázquez, a Democrat from New York who is the chairwoman of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus.
“Don’t forget that in the last presidential election 10 million Hispanics came out to vote,” she said. She told the crowd to tell lawmakers “that you will not forget which side of this debate they stood on.”
Representative Luis V. Gutierrez of Illinois, a Democrat who has been a leader of the immigrants’ movement, said he was optimistic that Mr. Obama would try to get an immigration bill this year.
“I see a new focus on the part of this president,” Mr. Gutierrez said. “That’s why we are here to say we are not invisible.”
The urgency was echoed by church leaders who spoke, including Roman Catholic Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles, and Reverend Samuel Rodriguez, the leader of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, the largest organization of Latino evangelical churches.
“The angst and trepidation in our communities is unprecedented,” Mr. Rodriguez said. He compared the mood among Latinos to the hard days of the civil rights movement. “This is our Selma,” he said.
Echoing that thought were an array of African-American leaders who turned out for the event. Speakers included the Rev. Jesse Jackson; Benjamin T. Jealous, president of the N.A.A.C.P; Cornel West, a Princeton scholar, and Marc H. Morial, a former mayor of New Orleans and the president of the National Urban League.
Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum and a leading organizer of the event, said that rallies were planned in several cities on April 10, the last day of the Congressional recess. On May 1, Mr. Noorani said, immigrant groups would release a report card of every lawmaker and where they stand on the immigration overhaul.
Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, said he thought an immigration bill could pass at the end of the year, after the storm of the November elections had passed.
The crowd, overwhelmingly Latino immigrants, arrived on buses from California, Ohio, Texas, Michigan, Colorado and many other places. Unions brought thousands of members, including dozens of workers from a meat-packing plant in Tar Heel, N.C.
While a few demonstrators waved flags from other countries, most flew American flags overhead, recalling the negative reaction from American voters to earlier protests where Mexican flags dominated. Farm workers from Florida held one billowing flag overhead and propped it with sticks, forming a tent.
In the crowd, frustration with Mr. Obama was strong. Rudy Romero, 19, and Andrea Rentaria, 23, said they boarded buses early Friday in Colorado with 54 other people, and 36 hours later, arrived in Washington. They said they were disappointed with the pace of progress on immigration.
“We’ve been waiting for so long,” Mr. Romero said. “I know it takes time, but a promise is a promise. We are demanding it today.”
Ms. Rentaria added, “We want to step up and say, ‘Hey, wake up. We’re here. We’re still waiting. We’ve given you time to settle in. When is this going happen?’ ”
“I understand you have to take care of health care,” Ms. Rentaria said. “As soon as we’re done with that,” she said, immigration should be next.
Although there were a few jeers for Mr. Obama during a morning rally, the crowd roared when he appeared on video.
Adrian Vasquez, 32, held up a sign reading “Support Our President, Immigration Reform Now!” Mr. Vasquez, who has been in the United States for 20 years and is now an illegal immigrant, admitted that the push for an overhaul “could not come at a worse time” for Mr. Obama.
But he said, “I’m eager for change. I think we can get it done.”
Theo Emery contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/22/world/AP-US-US-Israel-Clinton.html
March 22, 2010
Clinton to Assure Israel of U.S. Bond After Spat
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:48 a.m. ET [Obama white house] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [NSC principal and SecState Clinton speaks up: she and husband are long-time friends of Israel os this may be particularly important] [USFP] [cross in govt] [followup] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [interesting Walt oped yesterday] [*]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to assure Israel on Monday that the Obama administration's commitment to its security and future is ''rock solid'' despite a severe diplomatic dispute that emerged this month.
In remarks prepared for delivery to a pro-Israel group, Clinton defended recent harsh U.S. criticism of Israel over a Jewish housing project on land claimed by the Palestinians. She said America must tell the truth to Israel but would give it credit when it was due.
''For President (Barack) Obama, for me, and for this entire administration, our

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/03/22/world/AP-US-US-Israel-Clinton.html
March 22, 2010
Clinton to Assure Israel of U.S. Bond After Spat
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:48 a.m. ET [Obama white house] [US-Israeli relations] [most recent dustup] [they still need each other more than their suspicions] [NSC principal and SecState Clinton speaks up: she and husband are long-time friends of Israel os this may be particularly important] [USFP] [cross in govt] [followup] [use psci 350, 355, 455] [interesting Walt oped yesterday] [*]
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton is to assure Israel on Monday that the Obama administration's commitment to its security and future is ''rock solid'' despite a severe diplomatic dispute that emerged this month.
In remarks prepared for delivery to a pro-Israel group, Clinton defended recent harsh U.S. criticism of Israel over a Jewish housing project on land claimed by the Palestinians. She said America must tell the truth to Israel but would give it credit when it was due.
''For President (Barack) Obama, for me, and for this entire administration, our commitment to Israel's security and Israel's future is rock solid,'' Clinton said.
Her comments come as U.S. and Israeli officials try to ease one of the worst-ever crises between Washington and its top Mideast ally that erupted when Israel announced plans for new Jewish homes in east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of a future state.
The announcement was made while Vice President Joe Biden was visiting Israel and just a day after the administration hailed the beginning of indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. Those talks are now on hold.
Clinton called the announcement an insult that damaged President Barack Obama's attempts to relaunch stalled negotiations. On Monday, she stressed that the U.S. is determined to achieve broad Middle East peace but said all parties, including Israel, must make difficult choices.
And, she said that the U.S. had a duty to call Israel out if its actions hurt peace efforts.
''As Israel's friend, it is our responsibility to give credit when it is due and to tell the truth when it is needed,'' she said in a text of her speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that was released by the State Department.
Clinton has demanded that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is to address the same group later Monday and see Obama on Tuesday, move to restore trust and confidence in the peace process, including a halt to projects in east Jerusalem.
Netanyahu met on Sunday with U.S. peace envoy George Mitchell and has apologized for the timing but not the content of the announcement. And, just hours before leaving for Washington, Netanyahu said Israel would not freeze construction in east Jerusalem.
However, in a Friday call to Clinton, he outlined some measures his government would take. Some Israeli officials say that while there will be no formal freeze, construction in Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem may be restricted, like Netanyahu's partial 10-month West Bank construction freeze.
The package has not been made public, but officials say another element is agreement to discuss all outstanding issues in the proximity talks that Mitchell is to mediate. Those would include the future of Jerusalem, borders, Jewish settlements and Palestinian refugees.
In her remarks, Clinton said the existing situation between Israel and the Palestinians is ''unsustainable'' and offers nothing but violence.
''There is another path,'' she said. ''A path that leads toward security and prosperity for all the people of the region. It will require all parties including Israel to make difficult but necessary choices.''
Compromise over Jerusalem will be key to peace. Israel captured the city's eastern sector from Jordan during the 1967 Middle East war and annexed it, a move not recognized by any other country. Over four decades, Israel has built a string of Jewish neighborhoods around the Arab section of the city.
Most Israelis consider them part of the Jewish state, but Palestinians equate them to West Bank settlements, considered illegal under international law.
European Union foreign ministers on Monday condemned Israel's intent to continue building in east Jerusalem, saying it represents an obstacle to international peace efforts.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the settlements were ''illegal as well as being a roadblock'' in the effort to achieve peace through a two-state solution

Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:23 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR2010032101708.html
A familiar obstacle to Mideast peace: Mahmoud Abbas
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, March 22, 2010; A17 [oped] [columnist] [on US-Israeli brohaha of recent] [*]
U.S. diplomats had labored for months to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace negotiations. Just as it appeared they had succeeded, there came a provocation: Israel took a step toward expanding a Jewish settlement in Jerusalem. Headlines appeared around the globe; the European Union protested; Palestinians cried foul. Some threatened to boycott the new talks unless the decision were reversed.
No, Joe Biden was not in Jerusalem that week of December 2007 -- he was busy running for president. Instead it was Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state of the Bush administration, who managed that mini-crisis. How she did so, and what followed, offers some lessons for her successors in the Obama administration -- who are proving to be remarkably slow learners when it comes to Middle East peacemaking. [*]
Rice and her old boss have been much maligned for failing to pursue Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during most of their time in office. But during her last two years as secretary of state, Rice doggedly pushed for a final settlement -- and, in the end, arguably came as close as any U.S. broker before her. She was fortunate in having,

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR2010032101708.html
A familiar obstacle to Mideast peace: Mahmoud Abbas
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, March 22, 2010; A17 [oped] [columnist] [on US-Israeli brohaha of recent] [*]
U.S. diplomats had labored for months to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to resume peace negotiations. Just as it appeared they had succeeded, there came a provocation: Israel took a step toward expanding a Jewish settlement in Jerusalem. Headlines appeared around the globe; the European Union protested; Palestinians cried foul. Some threatened to boycott the new talks unless the decision were reversed.
No, Joe Biden was not in Jerusalem that week of December 2007 -- he was busy running for president. Instead it was Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state of the Bush administration, who managed that mini-crisis. How she did so, and what followed, offers some lessons for her successors in the Obama administration -- who are proving to be remarkably slow learners when it comes to Middle East peacemaking. [*]
Rice and her old boss have been much maligned for failing to pursue Israeli-Palestinian negotiations during most of their time in office. But during her last two years as secretary of state, Rice doggedly pushed for a final settlement -- and, in the end, arguably came as close as any U.S. broker before her. She was fortunate in having, in Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a partner who was more interested in striking a deal than is Binyamin Netanyahu. But she also studied closely the history of previous peace processes, which maybe explains why she avoided some of President Obama's flagrant mistakes. [*]
As Rice might have told the current White House, lesson No. 1 from history is that there will always be a provocation that threatens to derail peace talks -- before they start, when they start and regularly thereafter. Israeli settlement announcements are among the most common, along with the orchestration by West Bank Palestinians of violent demonstrations and attacks from Gaza by Hamas. [*]The Obama administration saw all three in the past 10 days: It went ballistic over one and barely registered the other two. [I don’t think they went ballistic but they overreacted which is, I imagine, what he’s saying, however, hyperbolically] [so that aside, I agree: I kept writing over personalized it in my various comments] [*]
The trick is not to let the provocation become the center of attention but instead to insist on proceeding with the negotiations. That is what Rice did when news of the Jerusalem settlement of Har Homa broke. In public, she delivered a clear but relatively mild statement saying the United States had opposed the settlement "from the very beginning." In private, she told Olmert: Don't let that happen again. For Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, the message was equally blunt: You can come to the table and negotiate a border for a Palestinian state, making settlements irrelevant. Or you can boycott and let the building continue. [okay, few details aside I agree] [*]
Not surprisingly, Abbas -- who has taken Obama's public assault on Israel as a cue to boycott -- showed up for Rice's negotiations. The Bush administration privately offered him an assurance: Any Israeli settlement construction that took place during the talks would not be accepted by the United States when it came time to draw a final Israeli border. On settlements, Rice adopted a pragmatic guideline she called the "Google Earth test": A settlement that visibly expanded was a problem; one that remained within its existing territorial boundary was not.
The virtue of all this is that Rice got the Israelis and Palestinians talking not about settlements but what they really needed to be discussing -- the future Palestine. Olmert and Abbas went over everything: the border, the future of Jerusalem and its holy sites, security arrangements, how to handle the millions of Palestinian refugees still living in camps. Privately, they agreed on a lot. Eventually, Olmert presented Abbas with a detailed plan for a final settlement -- one that, in its concessions to Palestinian demands, went beyond anything either Israel or the United States had ever put forward. Among other things it mandated a Palestinian state with a capital in Jerusalem and would have allowed 10,000 refugees to return to Israel. [*]
That's when Rice learned another lesson the new administration seems not to have picked up: [lesson 2] [*]This Palestinian leadership has trouble saying "yes." Confronted with a draft deal that would have been cheered by most of the world, Abbas balked. He refused to sign on; he refused to present a counteroffer. Rice and Bush implored him to join Olmert at the White House for a summit. Olmert would present his plan to Bush, and Abbas would say only that he found it worth discussing. The Palestinian president refused. [he’s absolutely correct] [it’s politically tough for PA leaders, just as it is for Israeli democratic one, and he makes almost no effort to understand it from that perspective] [but I more or less agree with him point] [*]
Behind Obama's deliberate fight with Netanyahu last week seemed to lie a calculation that a peace settlement will require the United States to bend or break Israel's current government. That might be true; it's almost certainly the case that Netanyahu would not accept the terms that Olmert offered. But behind that obstacle lies another -- the recalcitrance of Abbas -- that the new administration has been slow to recognize. It's all there in the annals of Rice's diplomacy -- but then, that was the Bush administration. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:22 PM | Permalink

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR2010032102627.html
Principles of national security
Monday, March 22, 2010; A16 [editorial] [Post’s editorial board somewhat necon orientation?] [here its pretty supportive of recent Obama moves on trial for jihadis] [use psci 455, 469] [*]
IN A SPEECH at the National Archives last May, President Obama laid out a vision for handling terrorism cases that was at once thoughtful and bold.[*] "We are indeed at war with al-Qaeda and its affiliates," Mr. Obama said. "We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process, in checks and balances and accountability."
Mr. Obama's prohibition of harsh interrogation techniques, his rigorous review of

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR2010032102627.html
Principles of national security
Monday, March 22, 2010; A16 [editorial] [Post’s editorial board somewhat necon orientation?] [here its pretty supportive of recent Obama moves on trial for jihadis] [use psci 455, 469] [*]
IN A SPEECH at the National Archives last May, President Obama laid out a vision for handling terrorism cases that was at once thoughtful and bold.[*] "We are indeed at war with al-Qaeda and its affiliates," Mr. Obama said. "We do need to update our institutions to deal with this threat. But we must do so with an abiding confidence in the rule of law and due process, in checks and balances and accountability."
Mr. Obama's prohibition of harsh interrogation techniques, his rigorous review of detainee cases and the progress made in relocating prisoners cleared for release are apt applications of the principles he articulated. But failures also have marked the past year. Mr. Obama declined to expend political capital to push for rules to govern habeas corpus proceedings; none also exist for the detentions of prisoners who his administration said could not be tried but were too dangerous to release. The Sept. 11 suspects still have not been held accountable, and the administration is wavering on where and how to try accused mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four co-defendants. The military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, remains open some two months past the president's self-imposed deadline to shutter it. [*]
Mr. Obama inherited a legal mess from the Bush administration, and some of the failures -- primarily Guantanamo -- can be fairly laid at the feet of Republicans. [Bush inherited a mess period] [but yes, Obama inherited a mess] [*]Yet Mr. Obama has only himself to blame for the backlash that he is experiencing from even his own party for deciding to try the Sept. 11 defendants in Manhattan; city officials were not consulted in advance and opposed the venue because of security costs.
That trial has now become a bargaining chip in discussions with Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.). Mr. Graham is said to be willing to help Mr. Obama push for the closing of the Guantanamo prison if the Sept. 11 defendants are tried in a military commission. [*]A bipartisan agreement would be welcome but it must be governed by principle -- not just political expedience. It also should be comprehensive.
The legitimacy of U.S. federal courts is unparalleled, which is why terrorism suspects should be tried in these courts when possible. [*]But if a Manhattan trial is untenable and no other federal court venue is suitable, the newly reconstituted military commissions provide a fair alternative, with robust protections for defendants and secure procedures to guard against leaks of national security information. The president should reject any deal that would demand military trials for all current and future terrorism suspects; these decisions must be made on a case-by-case basis, and the president's options should not be curtailed.
Congress and the president should hammer out a set of rules to guide judges on how to handle the Guantanamo habeas cases still wending their way through the system. And they need to agree on a legal framework to govern indefinite detentions now and in the future.
The threat of terrorism is not going to evaporate soon. There undoubtedly will be more instances in which intelligence indicates that a suspect is too dangerous to release but prosecution is not an option. Mr. Obama has acknowledged as much, yet he has insisted, as did his predecessor, that the president has the authority to hold these prisoners unilaterally without interference from the nation's courts. That might be right legally, but it is bad policy. These detentions must be governed by law and overseen by judges authorized to release improperly detained suspects. [*]
Mr. Obama embraced these principles in his National Archives speech. He should not abandon them now. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:21 PM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/world/americas/22mexico.html
March 21, 2010
Mexican Traffickers Sow Chaos With Blockades
By MARC LACEY [Mexico] [US-Mexico relations] [the Americas] [Latin America] [American-fueled drug wars] [consider this: Mexico is losing the equivalent of an –ir war of KIA each year in the drug war] [that’s all the 3-thousand-plus KIA since 2003 but in Mexico’s case they are losing those in a year’s time] [followup] [so-called narco-bloqueos] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [*]
MEXICO CITY — Traffic jams are nothing new in Mexico’s largest cities, but drug traffickers intent on frustrating the authorities have added them as a new weapon to their arsenal, blocking city streets and creating long lines of frustrated motorists, law enforcement officials said.
The center of the action last week was the bustling commercial city of Monterrey, where the authorities said criminals commandeered dozens of tractor-trailer trucks

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/world/americas/22mexico.html
March 21, 2010
Mexican Traffickers Sow Chaos With Blockades
By MARC LACEY [Mexico] [US-Mexico relations] [the Americas] [Latin America] [American-fueled drug wars] [consider this: Mexico is losing the equivalent of an –ir war of KIA each year in the drug war] [that’s all the 3-thousand-plus KIA since 2003 but in Mexico’s case they are losing those in a year’s time] [followup] [so-called narco-bloqueos] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [*]
MEXICO CITY — Traffic jams are nothing new in Mexico’s largest cities, but drug traffickers intent on frustrating the authorities have added them as a new weapon to their arsenal, blocking city streets and creating long lines of frustrated motorists, law enforcement officials said.
The center of the action last week was the bustling commercial city of Monterrey, where the authorities said criminals commandeered dozens of tractor-trailer trucks and other vehicles on Thursday and Friday to block more than 30 streets and highways. The blockades, called narcobloqueos by the Mexican news media, resulted in traffic chaos, with the trucks parked horizontally across highways and vehicles jammed up behind them. [*]
Luis Carlos Treviño Berchelmann, head of public security for the state of Nuevo León, which encompasses Monterrey, described the blockades as a response by the drug cartels to recent antidrug offensives by the government. Other government officials agreed, labeling the stealing of vehicles and abandonment of them on busy highways as a desperate attempt by drug gangs to show their power. [*]
The chaotic scenes that the criminals created did give the impression they had the upper hand. Local newspapers described young men carrying stones, baseball bats and, in some cases, even more deadly weapons, assaulting drivers and stealing their vehicles, only to leave the cars abandoned at odd angles on roadways. In some cases, the vehicles were shot up or burned.
Across northern Mexico, rival drug gangs have been clashing fiercely among themselves and with the authorities.
On Friday, the army said it had killed two trafficking suspects during a shootout at the front gates of a prestigious private university in Monterrey. Over the weekend it emerged that the two victims were students. On Saturday, there were 53 killings across the country, making it one of the deadliest days in the past three years, Mexican newspapers reported.
The sense of lawlessness around Monterrey, a main commercial hub in Mexico’s northeast and home to many American business operations, prompted the State Department to recommend recently that Americans avoid using highways that run between the city and the United States border.
Friday’s traffic problems in Monterrey began early, about 3 a.m., when a bus was left blocking a bridge at the intersection of two large avenues, the newspaper Milenio reported.
Later, abandoned vehicles were found scattered across the city and surrounding municipalities, the authorities said. As of Friday, one state official was quoted in the local media as saying that two men had been detained.
Such mass actions by Mexico’s drug gangs are not unprecedented. Eager to encourage the authorities to back off, drug gangs have organized street protests in Monterrey in the past and blocked some of the bridges running between Mexico and the United States, Mexican authorities said. [one thing even a casual observer would likley conclude is Calderon govt is getting to them like few others have been able to do] [his efforts probably deserve considerable US support] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR2010032101025.html
On Guam, planned Marine base raises anger, infrastructure concerns
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 22, 2010; A01 [Japan] [Guam] [use ir text] [followup] [Democratic Party (as opposed to Liberal Democratic Party) has vacillated between notions of doing things considerably different including relations with US to “hey US (wink, nod) don’t fret because we too know how important the relationship is”] [followup] [the drama continues] [use psci 350?] [a mayor who’s against the move of US base!] [stay tuned!] [*]
HAGATNA, GUAM -- This remote Pacific island is home to U.S. citizens who are fervent supporters of the military, as measured by their record of fighting and dying in America's recent wars.
But they are angry about a major military buildup here, which the government of Guam and many residents say is being grossly underfunded. They fear that the construction of a new Marine Corps base will overwhelm the island's already inadequate water and sewage systems, as well as its port, power grid, hospital, highways and social services.
"Our nation knows how to find us when it comes to war and fighting for war," said Michael W. Cruz, lieutenant governor of Guam and an Army National Guard colonel

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/21/AR2010032101025.html
On Guam, planned Marine base raises anger, infrastructure concerns
By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, March 22, 2010; A01 [Japan] [Guam] [use ir text] [followup] [Democratic Party (as opposed to Liberal Democratic Party) has vacillated between notions of doing things considerably different including relations with US to “hey US (wink, nod) don’t fret because we too know how important the relationship is”] [followup] [the drama continues] [use psci 350?] [a mayor who’s against the move of US base!] [stay tuned!] [*]
HAGATNA, GUAM -- This remote Pacific island is home to U.S. citizens who are fervent supporters of the military, as measured by their record of fighting and dying in America's recent wars.
But they are angry about a major military buildup here, which the government of Guam and many residents say is being grossly underfunded. They fear that the construction of a new Marine Corps base will overwhelm the island's already inadequate water and sewage systems, as well as its port, power grid, hospital, highways and social services.
"Our nation knows how to find us when it comes to war and fighting for war," said Michael W. Cruz, lieutenant governor of Guam and an Army National Guard colonel who recently returned from a four-month tour as a surgeon in Afghanistan. "But when it comes to war preparations -- which is what the military buildup essentially is -- nobody seems to know where Guam is."
The federal government has given powerful reasons to worry to the 180,000 residents of Guam, a balmy tropical island whose military importance derives from its location as by far the closest U.S. territory to China and North Korea.
The Environmental Protection Agency said last month that the military buildup, as described in Pentagon documents, could trigger island-wide water shortages that would "fall disproportionately on a low income medically underserved population." It also said the buildup would overload sewage-treatment systems in a way that "may result in significant adverse public health impacts."
A report by the Government Accountability Office last year came to similar conclusions, saying the buildup would "substantially" tax Guam's infrastructure.
President Obama had planned to visit Guam on Monday as the brief first stop of an Asia trip, but he delayed his travel because of Sunday's health-care vote in the House. Obama is aware of the problems here and had planned to promise some federal help, White House officials said.
"We're trying to identify and understand the current conditions on Guam and the potential impact of the relocation," said Nancy Sutley, head of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, who on Tuesday will lead a delegation to the island. "There's no question that the environmental conditions on Guam are not ideal."
Besides a new Marine base and airfield, the buildup includes port dredging for a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a project that would cause what the EPA describes as an "unacceptable" impact on 71 acres of a vibrant coral reef. The military, which owns 27 percent of the island, also wants to build a Marine firing range on land that includes one of the last undeveloped beachfront forests on Guam.
'Should not proceed'
In a highly unusual move, the EPA graded the buildup plan as "environmentally unsatisfactory" and said it "should not proceed as proposed."
"The government of Guam and the Guam Waterworks cannot by themselves accommodate the military expansion," said Nancy Woo, associate director of the EPA's western regional water division. She said Guam would need about $550 million to upgrade its water and sewage systems. White House officials said the EPA findings are preliminary.
Guam government officials put the total direct and indirect costs of coping with the buildup at about $3 billion, including $1.7 billion to improve roads and $100 million to expand the already overburdened public hospital. On this island -- where a third of the population receives food stamps and about 25 percent lives below the U.S. poverty level -- that price tag cannot be paid with local tax revenue.
"It is not possible and it is not fair that the island bear the cost," Woo said.
At the peak of construction, the buildup would increase Guam's population by 79,000 people, or about 45 percent. The EPA said the military plans, so far, to pay for public services for about 23,000 of the new arrivals, mostly Marines and their dependents who are relocating from the Japanese island of Okinawa. Ceded to the United States by Spain in 1898, Guam is a U.S. territory. Its residents are American citizens, but they cannot vote in presidential elections and have no voting representative in Congress.
The Marine Corps is sensing a populist backlash on Guam, which is three times the size of the District of Columbia and more than 6,000 miles west of Los Angeles.
"I see a rising level of concern about how we are going to manage this," Lt. Gen. Keith J. Stalder, the Hawaii-based commander of Marine forces in the Pacific, said in a telephone interview. "I think it is becoming clearer every day that they need outside assistance."
The White House said Obama included $750 million in his budget to address the civilian impact of the relocation and has asked Congress for $1 billion next year, but Guam officials say they have received no assurances from the federal government that the money is headed their way.
No input in decision
Guam was not consulted in the decision to move 8,000 Marines -- about half those based in Okinawa -- to the island. The $13 billion move was negotiated in 2006 between the Bush administration and a previous Japanese government, with Japan paying about $6 billion of the non-civilian cost, as a way of reducing the large U.S. military footprint in Okinawa.
But in the past year, with new leadership in Tokyo, the Japanese role in the move has become complicated. Anti-military sentiment is growing in Okinawa; Japan's new leaders have yet to decide if they will allow a Marine air station to remain anywhere in the country. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates has expressed irritation with Japan, even as the Pentagon presses ahead with its plan to shift the Marines to Guam by 2014.
The government of Guam and most of its residents initially welcomed the buildup. It was viewed as good for business, and the military enjoys deep respect here. Many families have members serving in the armed forces; among the 50 states and four territories, this island regularly ranks first in recruiting success. Guam's killed-in-action rate is about four times as high as on the mainland.
Guam is the only American soil with a sizable population to have been occupied by a foreign military power. During World War II, the Japanese held the island for 2 1/2 brutal years, building concentration camps and forcing the indigenous Chamorro people to provide slave labor and sex. Beheadings were common.
Led by the Marines, American forces liberated the island in 1944, and people here say they still feel a debt to the United States. To repay it, they proudly call their island the "tip of the spear" for projecting U.S. military power in the Far East. Guam already has Navy and Air Force bases that can handle many of the most potent weapons in the U.S. arsenal. Nuclear-powered attack submarines, F-22 fighter jets and B-2 stealth bombers frequent the island, which will soon be protected by its own anti-missile system.
"We don't mind being the tip of spear, but we don't want to get the shaft," said Simon A. Sanchez II, chairman of Guam's commission on public utilities. "We have been asking for help from Day One, but we have not got any meaningful appropriations."
'Not being listened to'
The governor of Guam, Felix Camacho, asked the military last month to slow down the deployment of Marines until sufficient federal money arrives. But as a territory, and without a vote in Congress, the island has negligible lobbying power and no legal means of halting the buildup.
Many residents have hoped that Obama -- a fellow Pacific islander, who was born in Hawaii and lived in Indonesia -- might understand their anxieties and unlock federal resources. The White House said Obama will visit Guam when his Asia trip is rescheduled, perhaps in June.
"I just want to remind President Obama that his story is our story," said Victoria-Lola Leon Guerrero, an English instructor at the University of Guam and a leader of a group opposing the buildup. She said her students read Obama's autobiography, "Dreams From My Father," focusing on a coming-of-age passage from his years in Hawaii, in which he describes his realization that he was "utterly alone."
"That's how we feel here," she said. "We feel like we are not being listened to, like we are not being respected."
The federal government's push to further militarize this island -- combined with its heel-dragging in paying for the impact on civilians -- has led many Guam residents to doubt the value of their relationship with the United States.
"This is old-school colonialism all over again," said LisaLinda Natividad, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Guam and an activist opposing the buildup. "It boils down to our political status -- we are occupied territory."
Staff writer Michael D. Shear in Washington contributed to this report. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/world/middleeast/22egypt.html
March 21, 2010
A Synagogue’s Unveiling Exposes a Conundrum
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN [Egypt] [broader middle east] [northern Africa to horn] [democratization] [President Mubarak’s govt has begun rounding up Muslim Brothers candidates well in advance of elections?] [a synagogue in Cairo] [followup] [*]
CAIRO — Down a winding alley, deep in a quiet neighborhood of rutted roads and donkey carts, where food vendors sold cheap sandwiches and children chased after a soccer ball, an extraordinary moment passed here with little notice: Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Egyptians sat together and celebrated their shared heritage.
But no one outside the small group of invited guests was allowed to see. [?] [*]
Egypt spent $1.8 million to restore a part of its historic past, the synagogue and office space of Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, known in the West as Maimonides, the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/world/middleeast/22egypt.html
March 21, 2010
A Synagogue’s Unveiling Exposes a Conundrum
By MICHAEL SLACKMAN [Egypt] [broader middle east] [northern Africa to horn] [democratization] [President Mubarak’s govt has begun rounding up Muslim Brothers candidates well in advance of elections?] [a synagogue in Cairo] [followup] [*]
CAIRO — Down a winding alley, deep in a quiet neighborhood of rutted roads and donkey carts, where food vendors sold cheap sandwiches and children chased after a soccer ball, an extraordinary moment passed here with little notice: Jews and Muslims, Israelis and Egyptians sat together and celebrated their shared heritage.
But no one outside the small group of invited guests was allowed to see. [?] [*]
Egypt spent $1.8 million to restore a part of its historic past, the synagogue and office space of Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon, known in the West as Maimonides, the 12th-century physician and philosopher who is considered among the most important rabbinic scholars in Jewish history. On March 7, security men held up a canvas curtain to block the road and barred the news media from attending.
The restoration project, and its muted unveiling, exposed a conundrum Egyptian society has struggled with since its leadership made peace with Israel three decades ago: How to balance the demands of Western capitals and a peace process that relies on Egypt to work with Israel with a public antipathy for Israel.
The efforts to restore the synagogue but keep it quiet illustrate the contortions of a government that often tries to satisfy both demands simultaneously.
“This is an Egyptian monument; if you do not restore a part of your history you lose everything,” said Zahi Hawass, the general secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities, which approved and oversaw the project. “I love the Jews, they are our cousins! But the Israelis, what they are doing against the Palestinians is insane. I will do anything to restore and preserve the synagogue, but celebration, I cannot accept.”
Israel opened its embassy in Cairo just over 30 years ago. In that time, the debate over how to deal with Israel has grown more complicated, at times more nuanced, as the government and intellectuals try to navigate between a desire to preserve a cold peace while also bending to pragmatic economic, social and political realities, political analysts said.
There is no appetite in Egypt for normalization of relations. But there has never been a firm definition of where the line should be drawn, and that is where the debate often falls.
Are Egyptian reporters to be barred from interviewing Israeli officials?
Can artists show their works at a show that also showcases Israeli work?
“With regards to relations with Israel, Egyptians generally and Arabs specifically fall in the deep abyss of confusion and doubt and stagger around the boundaries of this relation, where it starts and where it ends,” wrote Salama Ahmed Salama, in the independent daily newspaper Shorouk.
The problem arose when Anwar Sadat decided to strike peace with Israel without also resolving all the other Arab issues. Egyptian intellectuals felt obligated to take a stand in support of Palestinians, so they called for boycotting normalization.
But over the years, the picture has become clouded as Egypt has made economic deals with Israel, sold it natural gas, welcomed Israeli officials and sent Egyptian officials to Israel. It also has become complicated by Al Jazeera, the popular satellite news channel that regularly covers events in Israel and the occupied territories.
Recently, two cases crystallized the public debate. Hala Mustafa, the editor of one of Egypt’s premier political journals, Democracy, was formally censured last month for having met the Israeli ambassador in her office. It was first time the journalists’ syndicate punished a member for defying a ban on normalization since the group was founded in 1941, according to the independent daily newspaper Al Masry Al Youm.
Even some of her critics, who strongly disagree with Ms. Mustafa’s politics, said they were surprised at the selective nature of the condemnation. Singling out Ms. Mustafa said as much about the way the state and state-aligned institutions apply laws and rules, critics said, as it did about widespread hostility to Israel. [*]
“Accountability here is very selective because the law does not prevail over society,” said Magdy el-Gallad, chief editor of Al Masry Al Youm. “The law is there but its enforcement is subject to personal criteria and political settlements and accounts. And this is what we saw in Hala Mustafa’s case.”
No one can say where to draw the line.
Mr. Gallad was willing, for example, to attend a meeting organized by President Obama, even though an Israeli attended, while another popular writer, Fahmy Howeidy, refused.
While Ms. Mustafa was punished, six top Egyptian scholars, including some from the nation’s premier research center, the Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, attended a conference with the Israeli ambassador. None of them were punished. [*]
When the subject of restoring the synagogue of Maimonides was first raised about two years ago, Egypt agreed to do the work, but asked that it not be made public. The project was announced a year later when the culture minister, Farouk Hosny, was hoping to become the next director general of Unesco, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. When his bid for the post failed, many doubted whether the project would be completed.
But the work was completed, and at first the authorities told members of the Egyptian Jewish community that the news media could not attend the ceremony because they wanted to make the official announcement themselves. Then Dr. Hawass announced he was canceling that, too.
“I am trying to give the Israelis a message that they should make peace,” Dr. Hawass said.
Rabbi Andrew Baker, of the American Jewish Committee, had hoped to publicly congratulate Egyptian officials for the work when he spoke during the ceremony. But his speech was never heard beyond the synagogue walls.
“It’s a sad commentary on the current state of affairs, even if it is not surprising,” Rabbi Baker said in an e-mail message after returning to the United States. “All along in our discussions over the years, they have been fearful of critical voices in Egypt, who conflate criticism of the State of Israel with Egyptian Jews and their heritage. This is a process that has been years in development, and it will not be quickly or easily reversed.”
Mona El-Naggar contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/world/middleeast/22iran.html
March 21, 2010
Obama Offer Is Denounced by Ayatollah
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Iran] [confluence of June elections with Iran’s apparent drive for nuke weapon] [the intense internal dynamics of the various factions and Iran’s nuclear-enrichment processes-plants] [bureaucracy] [growing debate on whether Iran may be contained] [Ayatollah respondsto Obama administration, and not in positive way] [followup] [*]
TEHRAN (AP) — Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, sharply denounced the United States on Sunday, accusing it of plotting to overthrow the clerical leadership in a chilly response to an overture by President Obama for better cultural ties.
Ayatollah Khamenei did not outright reject Mr. Obama’s offer, saying Iran would keep an eye on Washington’s intentions. But he said that so far Washington’s offers of engagement had been a deception.
In his message, released to coincide with the Iranian new year, Nowruz, Mr. Obama told the Iranian people that Americans want better cultural exchanges with Iran. He also criticized the Iranian leadership for “turning its back” on American overtures.
Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say on all political matters in Iran, lashed

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/world/middleeast/22iran.html
March 21, 2010
Obama Offer Is Denounced by Ayatollah
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Iran] [confluence of June elections with Iran’s apparent drive for nuke weapon] [the intense internal dynamics of the various factions and Iran’s nuclear-enrichment processes-plants] [bureaucracy] [growing debate on whether Iran may be contained] [Ayatollah respondsto Obama administration, and not in positive way] [followup] [*]
TEHRAN (AP) — Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, sharply denounced the United States on Sunday, accusing it of plotting to overthrow the clerical leadership in a chilly response to an overture by President Obama for better cultural ties.
Ayatollah Khamenei did not outright reject Mr. Obama’s offer, saying Iran would keep an eye on Washington’s intentions. But he said that so far Washington’s offers of engagement had been a deception.
In his message, released to coincide with the Iranian new year, Nowruz, Mr. Obama told the Iranian people that Americans want better cultural exchanges with Iran. He also criticized the Iranian leadership for “turning its back” on American overtures.
Ayatollah Khamenei, who has the final say on all political matters in Iran, lashed back in a nationally televised address in an annual provincial visit to his hometown, Mashhad, telling the Americans, “You cannot speak about peace and friendship while plotting to hit Iran.”
In particular, he denounced the American criticism of Iran’s own postelection crackdown. Iran has arrested thousands because of protests over President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s lopsided victory in June, which the opposition says is fraudulent.
The ayatollah said that in response to past American overtures, “We said that if they are extending a metal hand inside a velvet glove, we won’t accept. Unfortunately, what we had guessed took place.”
American support for the opposition proved that Mr. Obama’s claims to seek dialogue were a deception, the ayatollah said.
“The new U.S. administration said they are willing to normalize relations. But unfortunately in practice they did the opposite,” Ayatollah Khamenei told a crowd in Mashhad, who several times broke into chants of “death to America” and “death to Obama.”
In his message, Mr. Obama said that the American offer of diplomatic dialogue still stands, but that the Iranian government had chosen isolation.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 03:17 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/22/world/asia/22afghan.html
March 21, 2010
Bombs Kill 13 Afghans; Elderly Man Dies in Raid
By ALISSA J. RUBIN [Afghanistan] [hydra] [began in Afghanistan, but moved to Pakistan] [AfPak] [2009’s substantial pickup in Taliban and other insurgencies] [spring offensive turned into major effort throughout year] [insurgents and jihadis respond to marja success?] [use psci 469] [followup] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — Bombings killed at least 13 civilians who had gathered to celebrate spring picnics in southern and eastern Afghanistan on Sunday,