Hydrablog

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/asia/31terror.html
May 30, 2010
U.S. Presses Pakistan for More Data on Travelers
By ERIC SCHMITT [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [gsave and counterinsurgency strategy] [AfPak as main front but metastasizing] [the cajoling begun last week (Jones and Panetta) continues with Paksitan] [here it is much more bureaucratic than last week] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [the US is trying to get more commitment from Pakistan even as the US commits more to Pakistan] [*]
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is increasing pressure on Pakistan to provide the United States with much broader airline passenger information, a crucial tool that American investigators use to track terrorist travel patterns, but a step that Pakistan has resisted, American officials said Sunday.
Pakistan, like other countries, currently provides the names of airline passengers traveling to the United States. But the administration is pressing for information on Pakistanis who fly to other countries, to feed into databases that can detect patterns used by terrorists, their financiers, logisticians and others who support them, the officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/asia/31terror.html
May 30, 2010
U.S. Presses Pakistan for More Data on Travelers
By ERIC SCHMITT [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [gsave and counterinsurgency strategy] [AfPak as main front but metastasizing] [the cajoling begun last week (Jones and Panetta) continues with Paksitan] [here it is much more bureaucratic than last week] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [the US is trying to get more commitment from Pakistan even as the US commits more to Pakistan] [*]
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is increasing pressure on Pakistan to provide the United States with much broader airline passenger information, a crucial tool that American investigators use to track terrorist travel patterns, but a step that Pakistan has resisted, American officials said Sunday.
Pakistan, like other countries, currently provides the names of airline passengers traveling to the United States. But the administration is pressing for information on Pakistanis who fly to other countries, to feed into databases that can detect patterns used by terrorists, their financiers, logisticians and others who support them, the officials said.
Pakistan has for several years rebuffed this politically unpopular request as an invasion of its citizens’ privacy. But the issue is now on a “short list” of sticking points between the two countries — including some classified counterterrorism programs, a long-running dispute over granting visas to American government workers and contractors in Pakistan, [*]and enhanced intelligence sharing — that have intensified since the failed Times Square car bombing on May 1, two senior administration officials said. The two officials and several others spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the continuing negotiations.
The United States currently has a range of confidential agreements with countries governing how much information each will share about its citizens traveling on commercial airliners. Many countries share only information about passengers traveling to the United States, while others, including several in the Caribbean, have agreed to share more information about other countries that their residents visit.
In the case of Pakistan, American officials are seeking details like the recent travel histories of airline passengers and how they paid for their tickets.
President Obama has given his top aides a deadline of the next few weeks to resolve the issues with Pakistan, the officials said. That pressure to deliver results has prompted senior officials like Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, and Leon E. Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, to warn senior Pakistani leaders of the risks to the country’s relationship with the United States if a deadly terrorist attack originated in their country. [*]
Some American aides have told Pakistani officials that the United States might be forced to increase airstrikes in Pakistan in the event of such an attack, though two senior American military officials said there was no special planning under way for such action.
“Terrorists are enemies of both Pakistan and the United States, who need to discuss how to enhance cooperation and that is what we are doing,” Husain Haqqani, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, said in a text message on Sunday. “Pressuring an ally is not the way forward, and both sides understand that.” [*]
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, declined to comment Sunday on any military planning, and said American and Pakistani officials were working closely to hunt Qaeda leaders who are hiding in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
“We’re very concerned about that part of the world,” Admiral Mullen said on “Fox News Sunday.” “That’s where Al Qaeda leadership lives. We know that. And we’re working with Pakistan and, quite frankly, with Afghanistan to continue to put pressure on that leadership.” [*]
In their visit to Islamabad two weeks ago, General Jones and Mr. Panetta presented Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, and other top civilian and military officials with a description of links between the Pakistani Taliban and Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American arrested by the American authorities as the main suspect in the Times Square case, an administration official said.
General Jones and Mr. Panetta thanked the Pakistanis for their cooperation in the investigation, but they also prodded their hosts to take tougher steps against the Talibanand other groups, and to resolve several issues that Pakistan has delayed. [*]
The United States is proposing to open a new consulate in Quetta, in southwestern Pakistan, where the C.I.A. would most likely have a sizable presence.
The White House also wants Pakistan to end a months long dispute over refusing to grant visas to American government workers and contractors in the country. [when Pakistan does that, money must be slowed!] [*]
“In the wake of the failed Times Square terrorist attack and its direct links to extremist groups based in Pakistan, the president instructed General Jones and Director Panetta to go deliver a clear message to Pakistani authorities of the need to step up our counterterrorism cooperation to prevent an attack on the homeland and to address a common terrorist threat,” Michael A. Hammer, a National Security Council spokesman, said in an e-mail message on Sunday.
The airline passenger issue, which General Jones and Mr. Panetta also raised in their meetings, is particularly contentious but has remained largely out of public view. [*]“We are offering to assist the Pakistanis with their border control challenges, including providing them technology and expertise that will allow them to better manage and monitor travel into and out of Pakistan for security purposes,” said a senior administration official.
Analysts at the National Targeting Center in northern Virginia, an arm of United States Customs and Border Protection, could, for example, examine the travel patterns of Pakistanis with known links to militant groups who fly to Persian Gulf countries where donors to Al Qaeda and the Taliban live. [that assuming Pakistan actually wants the same things and the truth is it doesn’t on some issues] [*]
But it would be explosive with Pakistani public opinion for the government to be seen as cooperating with the United States on the identities of Pakistani passengers. [*]A recent poll by a Western embassy in Islamabad showed that only 4 percent of the respondents had a favorable view of the United States, so sharing individual names with the American government would be immensely unpopular.
“We know this is sensitive for the Pakistan government, and we’re trying to strike the right balance,” a senior administration official said.
The renewed urgency in the negotiations comes against the backdrop of evidence that both Mr. Shahzad and Najibullah Zazi, a former airport shuttle bus driver arrested last fall as the main suspect in a failed plot to bomb three New York City subway lines, received training in Pakistan’s tribal areas.
The talks also come about two months after Mr. Obama approved a new security protocol for people flying to the United States. The intelligence-based security system was created to raise flags about travelers whose names do not appear on no-fly watch lists, but whose travel patterns or personal traits create suspicions. [*]The system is intended to pick up fragments of information — family name, nationality, age or even partial passport number — and match them against intelligence reports to sound alarms before a passenger boards a plane.
Jane Perlez contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/30/AR2010053003299.html
Obama's national security strategy is light on the human rights agenda
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, May 31, 2010; A15 [Post’s editorial leader] [columnist and editor] [both editorial and oped] [on the National Security Strategy of the United States, 2010] [this ought to be interesting since he backed the previous two] [as I note at various points below, I don’t believe he sat down and read it cover to cover] [rather, he appears to have read parts—to have used the table of contents to go read large sections] [otherwise, some of the claims he makes must be willfull misconstruing, possibly worse?] [as with other newspaper folks, he doesn’t seem to know in his own mind what US foreign policy is; that is, he’s not bothered to define, operationalize, so forth] [that makes for lots of intellectual flexibility] [*]
What sort of international order does Barack Obama seek? Last week he gave a detailed answer: "One that can resolve the challenges of our times -- countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/30/AR2010053003299.html
Obama's national security strategy is light on the human rights agenda
By Jackson Diehl
Monday, May 31, 2010; A15 [Post’s editorial leader] [columnist and editor] [both editorial and oped] [on the National Security Strategy of the United States, 2010] [this ought to be interesting since he backed the previous two] [as I note at various points below, I don’t believe he sat down and read it cover to cover] [rather, he appears to have read parts—to have used the table of contents to go read large sections] [otherwise, some of the claims he makes must be willfull misconstruing, possibly worse?] [as with other newspaper folks, he doesn’t seem to know in his own mind what US foreign policy is; that is, he’s not bothered to define, operationalize, so forth] [that makes for lots of intellectual flexibility] [*]
What sort of international order does Barack Obama seek? Last week he gave a detailed answer: "One that can resolve the challenges of our times -- countering violent extremism and insurgency; stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and securing nuclear materials; combating a changing climate and sustaining global growth; helping countries feed themselves and care for their sick; resolving and preventing conflict, while also healing its wounds."
That's a big agenda. But isn't something missing? Nowhere in that long sentence, in the introduction to his new national security strategy, [nowhere] [*] does Obama suggest that the international "engagement" he proposes should serve to combat tyranny or oppression, or promote democracy. [though he talks democracy a fair amount] [it does subsitute with justice and liberty and a vague sense of democracy (to with freedom to speak out against tyranny) then returned democracy to the pre-2002 and 2006 versions of same doc] [actually, it does say “we reject the notion that lasting security and prosperity can be found by turning away from universal rights—democracy does not merely represent our better angels, it stands in opposition to aggression and injustice, and our support for universal rights is both fundamental to American leadership and a source of our strength in the world.”] [**] In that sense, it is typical of the first comprehensive account Obama has offered of his administration's goals in the world. In theory -- as in the practice of his first year -- human rights come second. [no, I disagree] [it was made integral and not ordinal] [which makes me wonder if he read the entire document?] [*]
Big, set-piece Washington policy statements often provide a road map to the struggles over policy inside an administration, and the 52-page paper Obama released last Thursday is no exception. The White House's left-leaning "realists" -- who seek to limit U.S. foreign engagements, shift resources to domestic programs and jettisonthe "freedom agenda" of George W. Bush -- seem to have won all of the big arguments. Definitions of strategy throughout the report, from how to defeat al-Qaeda to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to dealing with North Korea and Iran, exclude any mention of democracy or human rights. [I’d put it far more differently] [yes, the Obama folks backaway from the freedom agenda of neconservatives] [for me, it was somewhat painful] [but it was also putting the US back into the business where democracy was an implicit not explicit goal of U.S. foreign policy] [and in that sense, it puts Obama back in line with Bush 41, Reagan, Truman] [Bush 43 was the outlier, whether Diehl likes it or not] [*]
Like the Bush administration before it, the Obama team says America has an interest in the creation of a Palestinian state -- but unlike Bush, Obama doesn't say that that state should be democratic. [?]The policy says al-Qaeda's extremist ideology should be combated with an agenda of "hope and opportunity," but doesn't mention freedom. [if he wishes to pick at that he’s actually creating far more problems for his team] [for example, while Israel is clearly a democracy for its citizens, it is an obstacle to democracy in the lands it occupies] [it prevent Arabs from electing their leaders] [as reprehensible as I find Hamas, Israel effectively bans it from running] [I frankly agree with Israel on the call] [but it demonstrates how relative democracy can be] what we are really talking about is pluraism, not democracy] [and the document was clear on pluralism] [*] A section titled "Promote a Responsible Iran" says "the United States seeks a future in which Iran meets its international responsibilities . . . and enjoys the political and economic opportunities that its people deserve." Does that include free speech and free elections, as the opposition Green Movement has demanded? The paper doesn't say.
Proponents of an Obama freedom agenda did get one chapter of the report, titled "Values." But its very segregation from the other three "interests" -- "Security," "Prosperity" and "International Order," gives its proposals a fenced-off feel. The policy begins with a couple of big qualifications: The United States will promote its values mainly "by living them at home," and it will "recognize economic opportunity as a human right." That means that "support for global health, food security and cooperative responses to humanitarian crises" will share attention and resources with the fight against tyranny and torture -- which will be welcome news for rulers in places such as Burma and North Korea. [again, my guess is he read the ToContent then read sections—in other words did not bother to read it through] [I did not get that same impression] [though I recall looking back at the Contents to try to figure out why things were in particular areas] [my sense was it was not well edited, frankly] [*]
The report's discussion of "engagement with non-democratic regimes" is solid, so far as it goes. [instead, he apparently prefers where the US formerly said “democracy” was the specific goal but then ignored patently undemocratic acts (Russia, China, Saudi, to name just a few hugely important relationships where that was a proble] [*] It says the administration will pursue a "dual-track approach" in which it will cajole governments about human rights while supporting peaceful opposition. "When our overtures are rebuffed," it says, Washington will use "public and private diplomacy" and "incentives and disincentives" in "an effort to change repressive behavior."
But will this policy apply to Russia -- where the administration so far has offered nothing but incentives? "We support efforts within Russia to promote the rule of law, accountable government and universal values," the policy not-very-clearly says. How about the Arab Middle East? "We will continue to press governments in the region to undertake political reforms and to loosen restrictions on speech, assembly and media," says a sentence buried on Page 45. [buried on page 45] [again, I’m farily sure he did not read it through or if he did he was so busy trying to find perfidy that he missed all the stuff it said] [I thought it made things arguably too complex] [that it needed to be simpler and clearer] [but that we are living in a complex world where that’s not always possible] [but to make a statement like that belies any sense of reading it the way I read Bush’s 2002 and 2006 versions] [his intent was to blast it instead fo think of it in terms of USFP] [**]
Maybe such textual analysis is meaningless. But Obama's written strategy has a lot in common with what has actually happened since he took office. It will sound more than familiar to the dissident Greens of Iran, or to the leaders of the nascent pro-democracy movement in Egypt, who are already deeply disillusioned with this administration. [yes, well they too were disillusioned by the previous one] [and that was the problem with making democracy an explicit goal of USFP—I’ve come to believe] [it made the sort conflictual activities of the CW likely to occur more frequently in the post-9/11 world] [*]It will confirm the thinking of Vladimir Putin of Russia and Hu Jintao of China that strategic partnership with the United States won't require domestic reforms. [oh please] [how did did Bush’s work with Hosni Mubarak?] [Dielh makes no attempt to look at this objectively] [he’s simply become a hack for his cause] [I happened to like some of that causes’ principles (democracy, using US power for good, etc)] [but it was no more or less workable than Obama’s] [*]
Obama has already demonstrated that he does not accept Bush's conclusion that the promotion of democracy and human rights is inseparable from the tasks of defeating al-Qaeda and establishing a workable international order. But nowhere in his 52-page doctrine is there a coherent explanation of why. [there he’s more or less right] [but my own sense as I thought about that last week, or at least my impulse to explain it then was they tried not to go after Bush as they had previously] [they backed off and never slammed Iraq but lightly chided with war of choice, twice as I recall] [and I think it was the second time where they framed it in broader disccusion of the US having to take on jihadis now because Iraq had become a front, like it or not] [if he read this through as I did, then I have little faith in his analytic skills or his sense of what US foreign policy is] [he’s confused on his own principles] [*] © 2010 The Washington Post Co

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/31icc.html
May 30, 2010
International Court May Define Aggression as Crime
By MARLISE SIMONS [the Hague] [Holland] [dateline Paris] [international criminal court, ICC] [UN] [aggression as ciminal?] [that seems problematic] [use psci 350. 355-455] [*]
PARIS — More than 100 nations, contingents of human-rights groups and lawyers from around the globe, will begin a meeting on Monday in Kampala, Uganda, tackling issues that could fundamentally expand the power of international law.
The thorniest question on the agenda, one certain to dominate the conference, is a proposal to give the International Criminal Court in The Hague the power to prosecute the crime of aggression.
If approved, it could open the door to criminal accusations against powerful political and military leaders for attacks the court deems unlawful. Those could range from full-scale invasions to pre-emptive strikes. [*]
The court, the world’s first permanent criminal court, already has a mandate to prosecute three groups of grave crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity and war

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/31icc.html
May 30, 2010
International Court May Define Aggression as Crime
By MARLISE SIMONS [the Hague] [Holland] [dateline Paris] [international criminal court, ICC] [UN] [aggression as ciminal?] [that seems problematic] [use psci 350. 355-455] [*]
PARIS — More than 100 nations, contingents of human-rights groups and lawyers from around the globe, will begin a meeting on Monday in Kampala, Uganda, tackling issues that could fundamentally expand the power of international law.
The thorniest question on the agenda, one certain to dominate the conference, is a proposal to give the International Criminal Court in The Hague the power to prosecute the crime of aggression.
If approved, it could open the door to criminal accusations against powerful political and military leaders for attacks the court deems unlawful. Those could range from full-scale invasions to pre-emptive strikes. [*]
The court, the world’s first permanent criminal court, already has a mandate to prosecute three groups of grave crimes: genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. [*]
Adding aggression to this list “would be a game-changer in international diplomacy,” said Noah Weisbord, a member of the expert group that has drafted a definition of the crime for the meeting. [it would be foolhardy] [*]
Another proposal on the agenda would allow the court to prosecute leaders who use weapons with poison, gases, liquids or bullets that cause unnecessary suffering during domestic conflicts and crowd control by the army or police. These weapons are already forbidden in international conflicts. [*]
Many of the court’s 111 member countries have said that they favor adding the crime of aggression to its mandate. They include Germany and numerous small countries that see the change as a form of legal protection. But others, including Britain and France are opposed, arguing that it would overwhelm the court and trap it in political disputes. [needless to say, I agree with Paris-London] [also, when some of its members are A-list criminals, it makes the ICC look a bit feckless and downright contemptuous of rule of law and cynical to boot] [*]
The United States, Russian and China, which cannot vote because they have not joined the court and are in Kampala only as observers, are strongly against expanding the court’s purview and are expected to work hard behind the scenes to postpone any action on [*]the issue. Several diplomats said that those three countries, which along with France and Britain hold United Nations Security Council veto power, do not want to see a court with powers that could weaken the Council’s influence.
The momentum appears to favor adopting some sort of change, but the outcome is far from certain. Adoption would require a majority to agree on a definition of the crime of aggression and the terms under which it could be prosecuted. [*]
Proposals still face many hurdles, with delegates and rights groups lobbying hard on all sides of the issue before the meeting. This is the first conference at which amendments are allowed to the Rome statute that created the court in 1998. [Mr. Clinton was then president and refused to sign on for several reasons] [*]
“Many people figure the stakes are very high here from different perspectives,” Richard Dicker, a director of Human Rights Watch, said in a telephone interview from Kampala, where many more delegates and lobbyists than expected had already arrived. “I don’t recall such large and high-level attention ever focused on international justice.”
The meeting comes at a time when other temporary tribunals that have dealt with atrocities in Yugoslavia, Rwanda and Sierra Leone, are winding down. Once they finish their work, the International Criminal Court will be the main permanent authority to deal with large-scale crimes against civilians in cases where national courts are unwilling or unable to prosecute. [to supplant the ad hoc tribunals that were created historically?] [but to do so they must necessarily be seen as legitimate, not show horses—and that appears a problem?] [*]
Leading up to the meeting, supporters and critics have argued on panels and papers that the court, which opened its doors in 2002 and has started only two trials, should focus on becoming more efficient and on the complex tasks before it, rather than risk getting bogged down so soon in the intensely political issue of aggression. [and yet it’s headed that very way] [not a good omen, I shouldn’t think] [*]
“Just as one nation’s terrorist is another nation’s freedom fighter, one state’s just war is bound to be another state’s unjust war,” Mr. Weisbord wrote recently in an articleexplaining some complexities of defining aggression.
The crime of aggression was originally written into the court’s statute, but delegates disagreed on a definition, and the issue was shelved until this conference. Experts who have spent seven years hammering out a draft definition, have purposely left some gray areas to leave room for life-saving operations, like NATO’s intervention in Kosovo. [exactly] [and it’s a damn good thing that such flexibility was there (or grayness) else more would have been slaughtered by Milosovic’s forces] [to be clear, all sides slaughtered but it was Serbia that went to war with each part of former Yugoslavia] [he died at one such ad hoc tribunal—does anyone see the irony of those being supplanted by ICC?] [*]
“The major powers will not agree on a definition of aggression because that would mean taking a clear stand on categories of self-defense, like using force to prevent an attack or even a threat,” said Antonio Cassese, a scholar and judge who has served at two international tribunals. “Recent U.N. documents consider pre-emptive self-defense unlawful, and I agree.”
Harold Koh, the United States State Department legal adviser and a co-chairman of the American delegation in Kampala, told a meeting of international lawyers in Washington this month that “if we accept a definition, we need to fix it,” adding, “it has to take into account the many ways in which force can be lawfully exercised.” [well yes] [the UN charter allows two sorts of violence interventions: when global stability is threatened and when a legitimated government of a state asks for intervention] [how could those things be called aggression by ICC when they are defined as appropriate by UN charter????] [*]
“The British, French, Chinese, Russians all intensely disliked the definition of aggression,” Mr. Koh said, “and they were even more concerned about diluting the power of the Security Council.” [that, of course, is one of the points] [the security council was rigged by the victors at WWII’s conclusion] [others would like to get rid of it or at least hamstring it] [*]
Washington, among others, would insist on having the Security Council decide if aggression took place before any court action. But many delegates want to bypass the Council because, as one delegate, who was not authorized to speak publicly, put it, “giving the Security Council the on-and-off switch would undercut the independence of the court.” [pretty clear where the battle lines are drawn] [*]
Pacifists are pleading for aggression to be added to the court’s list of crimes, even if the definition is not all-encompassing. Benjamin B. Ferencz, a former prosecutor of Nazi crimes in Nuremberg, and a life-long antiwar campaigner, told Mr. Koh at the Washington meeting: “We are already on the verge of a consensus. Don’t push your luck, let’s not look for trouble, let’s go with it.” [?] [*]

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/30/AR2010053003422.html
At nuclear conference, U.S. expects little, gains little
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post staff writer
Monday, May 31, 2010; A04 [NPT conference] [recall it began late April along with Obama’s announcment of American nuclear strategy] [it has now ended] [headline: “it didn’t fail”] [sort of says it all?] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup] [cross in govt] [*]
It didn't end in failure.
That was perhaps the best the U.S. government could boast about a month-long conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which ended Friday in New York.
President Obama has made a priority of strengthening the treaty, which is in danger of unraveling after decades of curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons. Much of his ambitious nuclear agenda has been undertaken with an eye toward demonstrating U.S. compliance with the pact. [what’s more, the US recently released the national security strategy of the united states, something mandated by congress each new administration] [it speaks to non proliferation and ending dangers of nuclear worlk gone wild but no timeline per se] [*]
The United States got few of the specific goals it sought at the conference, such as penalties

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/30/AR2010053003422.html
At nuclear conference, U.S. expects little, gains little
By Mary Beth Sheridan
Washington Post staff writer
Monday, May 31, 2010; A04 [NPT conference] [recall it began late April along with Obama’s announcment of American nuclear strategy] [it has now ended] [headline: “it didn’t fail”] [sort of says it all?] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup] [cross in govt] [*]
It didn't end in failure.
That was perhaps the best the U.S. government could boast about a month-long conference on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which ended Friday in New York.
President Obama has made a priority of strengthening the treaty, which is in danger of unraveling after decades of curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons. Much of his ambitious nuclear agenda has been undertaken with an eye toward demonstrating U.S. compliance with the pact. [what’s more, the US recently released the national security strategy of the united states, something mandated by congress each new administration] [it speaks to non proliferation and ending dangers of nuclear worlk gone wild but no timeline per se] [*]
The United States got few of the specific goals it sought at the conference, such as penalties for nations that secretly develop nuclear weapons, then quit the pact (think North Korea). Language calling on countries to allow tougher nuclear inspections was greatly watered down.
And the conference's final document singled out Israel's suspected nuclear program -- but not Iran's secret facilities, which many think are part of an effort to build an atomic bomb. Gen. James Jones, the U.S. national security adviser, blasted that absence as "deplorable." [to say the least] [*]
U.S. officials said the conference's final "action plan" at least represented a commitment by 189 nations to stand by the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The last review conference, in 2005, collapsed in failure, with many countries blaming the Bush administration.
"We've got the NPT back on track. There was so much criticism about 2005 . . . and a lot of doom and gloom about the treaty failing," said one U.S. official, who was not authorized to speak on the record. "We have to hold this treaty together." [look, it has worked and the US has long been part of it under many administrations] [but to say it’s on track is an overstatement] [*]
The 40-year-old pact is built on a grand bargain: The original five nuclear powers promised to disarm gradually and all others foreswore the bomb. All treaty members were guaranteed access to nuclear energy, subject to the oversight of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
But the conference revealed the strains in the treaty. Non-nuclear countries complained bitterly that nuclear powers are not upholding their end of the bargain.
It was clear from the start that getting agreement would be difficult. The conference's final documents are reached by consensus, meaning that Iran, a treaty member, could block any initiatives. That explains why it wasn't named. [*]
Israel, on the other hand, has not signed the treaty and did not attend the meetings. {I recall Israel saying as much as rationale for not attending] [so no one is surprised] [however, that it gave Iran a pass is reprehensible and political as hell] [*]
"We did the most we could, considering the rules of the road," said Ellen O. Tauscher, the U.S. undersecretary for arms control.
Still, U.S. officials appeared frustrated that the Obama administration did not get more credit for its record. It has signed a new arms-reduction treaty with Russia, hosted a 47-nation summiton nuclear security and lessened the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. defense policy.
"The disarmament stuff Obama did, they just pocketed," said David Albright, president of the Institute for Science and International Security. Non-nuclear countries, he said, "didn't give anything back."
Egypt's U.N. ambassador, Maged Abdel Aziz, who led the powerful 118-member non-aligned group, disagreed. He said non-nuclear countries ultimately dropped their demands for faster disarmament.
"We like Obama's ideas. We will make the first concessions," he said in an interview. "But we will see what is going to come."
His comments reflected skepticism among countries about how much Obama will achieve. The new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) with Russia has not been ratified, and Obama faces an uphill battle in winning Senate approval of a separate pact banning nuclear tests worldwide.
Aziz said non-nuclear countries are still smarting over the George W. Bush administration's decision to sell civilian nuclear technology to India, which hasn't signed the nonproliferation treaty. Obama voted for that deal as a senator. [and I reluctantly went along with it though I knew it would cause subsequent troubles] [*]
"If you say countries outside the treaty are going to get . . . even more benefits than countries inside the treaty, than what is the benefit for me to bind myself with more [nonproliferation] restrictions?" Aziz asked. U.S. officials said they would continue to pursue tougher nuclear controls in more favorable venues, such as the U.N. Security Council and the IAEA.
Even before the conference started, the Obama administration "trimmed their sails on what they expected to get out of it. The main thing at this point was not to undercut their agenda going forward," said Miles Pomper, a nuclear policy expert at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
Not that the conference lacked for drama. Many diplomats expected the U.S. delegation would kill the final document because of the mention of Israel.
When the United States accepted it, the Iranian delegation was so surprised that it asked for a four-hour postponement of the final session so that members could call their government, diplomats said.
The Iranians finally agreed to the text, recommitting themselves -- at least verbally -- to the treaty's rules. [apparently, if you make pro forma statements about intent you’re okay even while violating the NPT in spades] [*]
The adoption of a document "provides less excuse for people who would like this [treaty] to go off the tracks," the U.S. official said. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/africa/31taylor.html
May 30, 2010
Hunting for Liberia’s Missing Millions
By DOREEN CARVAJAL [Liberia] [Western, Sub Saharan] [French Coast] [Africa] [wedged between Sierre Leone and Ivory Coast] [since colonialism’s demise following WWII (at different rates all around Liberia depening upon whom the colonialists were) of emanicipation] [since, rafts of despotic rule, corruption, nepotism, militarization, large percentage of GDP spent on consumer luxury, commodity economics versus manufactured-goods economics, and so on] [followup] [*]
MONROVIA, Liberia — How much money did Charles G. Taylor, the deposed president of Liberia, siphon out of his destitute, war-shattered country, and where is it? [*]
For almost seven years, since an international warrant was issued for his arrest, the search has stretched from the mangrove swamps and diamond fields of West Africa to Swiss banks and shell corporations — a state-of-the-art version of the sweeping asset hunts that have accompanied the fall of autocrats since the shah of Iran’s demise in the 1970s.
Investigators have crawled in the dirt under porches and buildings in this impoverished capital to seek out financial records. They have confronted bankers and government officials on four continents. They have cross-referenced mazes of documents charting the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/africa/31taylor.html
May 30, 2010
Hunting for Liberia’s Missing Millions
By DOREEN CARVAJAL [Liberia] [Western, Sub Saharan] [French Coast] [Africa] [wedged between Sierre Leone and Ivory Coast] [since colonialism’s demise following WWII (at different rates all around Liberia depening upon whom the colonialists were) of emanicipation] [since, rafts of despotic rule, corruption, nepotism, militarization, large percentage of GDP spent on consumer luxury, commodity economics versus manufactured-goods economics, and so on] [followup] [*]
MONROVIA, Liberia — How much money did Charles G. Taylor, the deposed president of Liberia, siphon out of his destitute, war-shattered country, and where is it? [*]
For almost seven years, since an international warrant was issued for his arrest, the search has stretched from the mangrove swamps and diamond fields of West Africa to Swiss banks and shell corporations — a state-of-the-art version of the sweeping asset hunts that have accompanied the fall of autocrats since the shah of Iran’s demise in the 1970s.
Investigators have crawled in the dirt under porches and buildings in this impoverished capital to seek out financial records. They have confronted bankers and government officials on four continents. They have cross-referenced mazes of documents charting the transfer of millions of dollars into and out of dozens of accounts.
But they have come up dry for any money in Mr. Taylor’s name. In fact, four years ago, Mr. Taylor was classified as “partially indigent” by the Special Court for Sierra Leone at The Hague, where he is charged with instigating murder, mutilation, rape and sexual slavery during intertwined wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone that claimed more than 250,000 victims from 1989 to 2003. [*]
That has left donor nations — the United States being the largest — to cover his monthly $100,000 legal bill and the broader costs of his $20 million trial.
But the investigators push on, and a review by the International Herald Tribune of court transcripts, bank records, and newly available government receipts and confidential prosecution memos indicates why they are reluctant to give up the hunt. [*]
Some of the records show how the country’s largest timber company sent tax payments to Mr. Taylor’s private account rather than the national treasury. Others trace huge payments made by the dominant cellphone company to people suspected of being Taylor cronies. Others depict a web of front companies and banks from Hong Kong to New York involved in the movement of millions of dollars into Mr. Taylor’s accounts in Liberia.
“Money would go to an arms dealer or an ally and from there to a money management firm and then back to Liberia, then cashed out and moved to another bank account,” said Thomas R. Creal, an accountant from Chicago who for five years has led the search for the United Nations. [*]
Retained by Liberia, he and three law firms are developing a new strategy involving filing civil damage claims against companies, governments and international banks that they contend aided Mr. Taylor in illegal transactions. The goal, after investigators have succeeded in freezing only about $8 million held by Taylor relatives and associates, is to win judgments for Liberia even if Taylor accounts cannot be found. [a miserable pittance] [*]
The estimates of hidden wealth — believed to have been extracted from Liberia’s timber and diamond trades, its international merchant shipping registry, tax coffers and the government of Taiwan — run from as high as $3 billion to a middling range of $280 million. Mr. Taylor’s own estimate is zero.
Last year, the flamboyant former warlord taunted prosecutors in court, dismissing the financial investigations as efforts to demonize him. “I challenge any human being or organization in this world — I mean this planet — to bring one bank account that Charles Taylor has money in,” he said. “I have heard the prosecutor blatantly lie, saying, ‘We found millions.’ Bring the millions here.” [*]
Stephen Rapp, the U.S. ambassador at large for war crimes issues and a former chief prosecutor on the case, said the hunt could continue for years. “You will never find an account listed under Charles Taylor,” he said. “In all of these asset recovery cases of former leaders who have been accused of corruption or worse, it has taken a long time to achieve recovery. So this is not going to end.”
High-level targets
In the banking world, investigators call high-profile targets, like deposed heads of state or military officials, P.E.P.’s — “politically exposed persons.” Financially speaking, Mr. Taylor is one of the most elusive. [*]
The list has included Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia, Ferdinand Marcos of the Philippines and Sani Abacha, the Nigerian military dictator who pocketed as much as $5 billion through front companies and Swiss bank accounts, [*]Swiss investigators say.
Since 1999, the Nigerian government has recovered more than $700 million with Switzerland’s assistance. [*]
The Taylor hunt has gone on as he has been imprisoned for four years in a Dutch detention center — a long way down from when he ruled with a showman’s flair, dressing in traditional African robes, cream safari suits or white vestments at a mass “Liberia for Jesus” prayer rally in 2002. [*]
Mr. Taylor, who favors pinstripe suits in court and is a recent convert to Judaism, vehemently dismisses the criminal charges as based on “lies.” The grisliest accusations came from an admitted former death squad commander, Joseph Marzah, known as Zigzag, who described orders from Mr. Taylor to engage in cannibalism and ritualistic eating of enemies. U.N. peacekeepers in Sierra Leone were also targets, he testified, saying Mr. Taylor urged his fighters to eat “them as pork.” [that’s the strange stuff I remember] [*]
Financial suspicions about him go back to 1983, when he was fired for embezzling nearly a million dollars while a government administrator. As a renegade warlord in the ’90s, he controlled diamond-rich regions, timber concessions, rubber plantations and iron ore deposits. As president, he directed large timber companies to wire as much as $2 million of their taxes to a personal account with the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment, according to Liberian bank records.
His defense is that the money did not go to him personally but to buying black-market weapons to thwart a U.N. weapons embargo aimed at quelling his brutal wars with insurgent warlords and, through other warlords, Sierra Leone.
Liberian legislators, said Mr. Taylor’s family spokesman, Sando Johnson, authorized Mr. Taylor “to put money into a special account to fight the war.”
In court testimony, Mr. Taylor said bluntly, “The country is at war. This is our remedy.”
The Taylor account
Mr. Taylor holds an asset any P.E.P. would envy.
“He has a very common name,” said Daniel Thelesklaf, director of the International Center for Asset Recovery in Switzerland. “One English bank made a search of his name and found about 16,000 hits. It’s really like finding the needle in the haystack.”
One place Mr. Taylor used his name was at the Liberian Bank for Development and Investment in Monrovia. From 2000 to 2003, when his presidential salary was $24,000, records obtained by Mr. Creal show more than $24 million moving into and out of the account, passed from foreign banks, with Citibank in New York acting as the clearinghouse and processing the transfers. [shocker, Citibank did his bidding] [*]
Most of the money came from the government of Taiwan — more than $20 million in eight payments made while it was jockeying to maintain Liberia’s diplomatic recognition against fierce competition from China.
In a statement, the Taiwan Foreign Ministry said that the money was earmarked for AIDS medicine, a children’s center, vocational training and charity contributions. In court, though, Mr. Taylor said the funds covered military salaries, Balkan arms deals and the airlift of wounded bombing victims.
Michel Lu, a Taiwan diplomat, said in an interview that his government offered “deep regret” for a “humiliating” turn of events. He said that, internationally isolated, it was under tremendous pressure from Mr. Taylor, who “threatened to cut off relations,” and that it had since discarded checkbook-style diplomacy.
Citibank, which has been criticized for its role in the clearinghouse transactions involving Liberia, has defended its activities. The bank “fully complied with all applicable laws and U.S. and international best practices in place at the time,” said a bank spokesman, Adam Castellani. He said the bank, which processes thousands of transfers daily, “works continually to strengthen its own correspondent banking due diligence processes.”
What happened to the money is not clear. By the time of Mr. Taylor’s indictment in 2003, his Liberian bank accounts were largely drained, sometimes with groups of men taking out as much as $1.3 million in cash in a single withdrawal, Mr. Creal said.
“Frankly speaking,” said Mr. Lu of Taiwan, “nobody can tell you where it went.”
The price of monopoly
U.N. investigators said they believed that Mr. Taylor also extracted money from companies that operated in Liberia and needed his good will.
They have pressed in Liberian courts for information about the entwined companies PLC Investments and Lonestar Communications, suspecting they could be a continuing source of income for Mr. Taylor. Lonestar, the nation’s leading cellphone company, was essentially a monopoly for four years, controlled by two Taylor financial advisers through PLC, a holding company, a U.N. report says. They sold 60 percent of Lonestar to a Lebanese group, Investcom, which in turn was acquired by a South African cellphone company, MTN Group, in 2006.
Mr. Taylor’s former vice president, Moses Blah, and other former ministers testified before the government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission that Mr. Taylor became a secret part owner in Lonestar and granted it an exclusive license to run a mobile network, dismissing officials who urged an open market. [*]
Since then, Mr. Creal has found records of huge Lonestar checks issued to junior employees whom he suspects were allies of Mr. Taylor.
Low-level PLC employees who earned less than $5,000 a year received enormous checks in 2007 and 2008, a U.N. report says. One of them, who earned about $1,800 yearly, received checks for $1.22 million. Others received more than $2 million in checks until 2008.
A search warrant turned up bank statements that showed checks deposited by the employees in another Liberian bank, Ecobank, and the money being drawn out immediately in cash.
In an e-mail message, Frans Joubert, chief executive of Lonestar, said, “Lonestar cannot comment on issues regarding shareholders and shareholding companies.”
Mr. Taylor’s spokesman, Mr. Johnson, asserted there was no hidden Lonestar investment. “Complete foolishness,” he said.
A ‘personal fiefdom’
This year, the impoverished Liberian government retained Mr. Creal and other legal advisers on a contingency basis to explore civil suits against more than a score of companies and banks, on the premise that they were “aiders and abettors” who helped Mr. Taylor move money illegally or without following banking regulations.
The strategy is, in part, an acknowledgement that they may never find money attached to Mr. Taylor himself, which many of them believe is hidden in offshore accounts outside their grasp.
Mr. Taylor’s trial, in its second year, is slowly proceeding toward a verdict. [*]He faces an unspecified sentence in a British prison if convicted.
Liberia’s president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Taylor supporter turned harsh critic, said that recovering money will be hard. “Mr. Taylor ran this country like it was his personal fiefdom,” she said in an interview. “Resources were given to people in a manner that pleased him, and there were no systems or institutions.”
Regardless of the outcome, the money hunt will continue. “There were guns, diamonds, cash, timber and gold moving around West Africa for the individual personal gain of heads of state, boy generals, international terrorists, diamond dealers and gunrunners,” said David M. Crane, a former prosecutor on Mr. Taylor’s case and a professor atSyracuse University College of Law in New York.
“The saga isn’t over.”

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/asia/31koreanavy.html
May 30, 2010
U.S. to Aid South Korea With Naval Defense Plan
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [US continues to assist ROK, as would be expected] [since ROK released rather specific info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [DPRK has broken all relations and threatened to prepare for war—i.e., a typically overwrought response] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — Surprised by how easily a South Korean warship was sunk by what an international investigation concluded was a North Korean torpedo fired from a midget submarine, senior American officials say they are planning a long-term program to plug major gaps in the South’s naval defenses. [be careful there] [ROK will likely purchase some upgrades and god knows the US needs the money] [*]
They said the sinking revealed that years of spending and training had still left the country vulnerable to surprise attacks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/asia/31koreanavy.html
May 30, 2010
U.S. to Aid South Korea With Naval Defense Plan
By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [US continues to assist ROK, as would be expected] [since ROK released rather specific info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [DPRK has broken all relations and threatened to prepare for war—i.e., a typically overwrought response] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — Surprised by how easily a South Korean warship was sunk by what an international investigation concluded was a North Korean torpedo fired from a midget submarine, senior American officials say they are planning a long-term program to plug major gaps in the South’s naval defenses. [be careful there] [ROK will likely purchase some upgrades and god knows the US needs the money] [*]
They said the sinking revealed that years of spending and training had still left the country vulnerable to surprise attacks.
The discovery of the weaknesses in South Korea caught officials in both countries off guard. As South Korea has rocketed into the ranks of the world’s top economies, it has invested billions of dollars to bolster its defenses and to help refine one of the oldest war plans in the Pentagon’s library: a joint strategy with the United States to repel and defeat a North Korean invasion.
But the shallow waters where the attack occurred are patrolled only by South Korea’s navy, and South Korean officials confirmed in interviews that the sinking of the warship, the Cheonan, which killed 46 sailors, revealed a gap that the American military must help address. [*]
The United States — pledged to defend its ally but stretched thin by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq — would be drawn into any conflict. But it has been able to reduce its forces on the Korean Peninsula by relying on South Korea’s increased military spending. Senior Pentagon officials stress that firepower sent to the region by warplanes and warships would more than compensate for the drop in American troop levels there in the event of war.
But the attack was evidence, the officials say, of how North Korea has compensated for the fact that it is so bankrupt that it can no longer train its troops or buy the technology needed to fight a conventional war. So it has instead invested heavily in stealthy, hard-to-detect technologies that can inflict significant damage, even if it could not win a sustained conflict. [*]
Building a small arsenal of nuclear weapons is another big element of the Northern strategy — a double-faceted deterrent allowing it to threaten a nuclear attack or to sell the technology or weapons in order to head off retaliation even for an act of war like sinking South Korean ships. [*]
In an interview last week, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the joint training exercise with South Korea planned just off the country’s coast in the next few weeks represented only the “near-term piece” of a larger strategy to prevent a recurrence of the kind of shock the South experienced as it watched one of its ships sunk without warning. But the longer-range effort will be finding ways to detect, track and counter the miniature submarines, which he called “a very difficult technical, tactical problem.” [*]
“Longer term, it is a skill set that we are going to continue to press on,” Admiral Mullen said. “Clearly, we don’t want that to happen again. We don’t want to give that option to North Korea in the future. Period. We want to take it away.”
American and South Korean officials declined to describe details of the coming joint exercises, except to say that they would focus on practicing antisubmarine warfare techniques and the interdiction of cargo vessels carrying prohibited nuclear materials and banned weapons.
To counter the unexpected ability of midget submarines to take on full warships, the long-term fix will mean greatly expanding South Korea’s antisubmarine network to cover vast stretches of water previously thought to be too shallow to warrant monitoring closely — with sonar and air patrols, for instance. That would include costly investment in new technologies, as well as significant time spent determining new techniques for the South Korean military.
North Korea presents an adversary with a complicated mix of strengths and weaknesses, said senior American officers.
According to a recent strategic assessment by the American military based on the Korean Peninsula, the North has spent its dwindling treasury to build an arsenal able to start armed provocations “with little or no warning.” These attacks would be specifically designed for “affecting economic and political stability in the region” [*]— exactly what happened in the attack on the Cheonan, which the South Korean military and experts from five other countries determined was carried out by a North Korean midget submarine firing a powerful torpedo.
Admiral Mullen and other officials said they believed the Cheonan episode might be just the first of several to come.[*] “North Korea is predictable in one sense: that it is unpredictable in what it is going to do,” he said. “North Korea goes through these cycles. I worry a great deal that this isn’t the last thing we are going to see.” [I tend to agree] [*]
High-ranking South Korean officials acknowledge that the sinking was a shock.
“As the Americans didn’t anticipate 9/11, we were not prepared for this attack,” [that doesn’t make a lot of sense to me] [not apt comparision] [ROK has seen all sorts of strange behavior over the decades including sinking ships, assassination attempts, kidnappings, planes shot down, etc] [they didn’t anticipate that DPRK would do something incredibly stupid?] [how could that be?] [**] one South Korean military official said. “While we were preoccupied with arming our military with high-tech weapons, we have not prepared ourselves against asymmetrical-weapons attack by the North.”
The South Korean military was well aware that the North had submarines — around 70, according to current estimates. But the focus had been on North Korea’s using larger conventional submarines to infiltrate agents or commandos into the South, as it had in the past, not on midget submarines sophisticated enough to sink a major surface warship. [continued to think DPRK had not updated equipment, even with DPRK’s two nuclear detonations since 2006?] [*]
“We believe that this is the beginning of North Korea’s asymmetrical military provocations employing conventional weapons,” said the South Korean official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the military’s internal analysis. “They will use such provocations to ratchet up pressure on the U.S. and South Korea. The Cheonan sinking is an underwater terrorist attack, and this is the beginning of such attacks.”
Though it is considered unlikely, the threat of a conventional war with North Korea is still an issue, too, officials said.
The American military’s most recent “strategic digest” assessing both the strengths of the United States-South Korea alliance and the continuing threat from the North notes that North Korea’s military is “outfitted with aging and unsophisticated equipment.” [*]
Even so, 70 percent of North Korea’s ground forces — part of the fourth-largest armed force in the world — remain staged within about 60 miles of the demilitarized zone with the South. In that arsenal are 250 long-range artillery systems able to strike the Seoul metropolitan area. [*]
“While qualitatively inferior, resource-constrained and incapable of sustained maneuver, North Korea’s military forces retain the capability to inflict lethal, catastrophic destruction,” said the assessment, approved by Gen. Walter L. Sharp, commander of American and United Nations forces in South Korea. [exactly: in a regular war without Russia or China coming to its aid, the DPRK could not win conventional] [after month or two of fighting its equipment would break down and US-backed ROK would prevail] [thus, DPRK more likely to hit in sudden strikes then disengage and enact surprise attack elsewhere] [exactly like what it has done here] [is another strike coming elsewhere in week or two?] [*]
There are about 28,500 American forces in South Korea today, significantly fewer than before the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The South Korean military has maintained its armed forces at a consistent number between 600,000 and 700,000, and has steadily modernized based on its economic dynamism.
The North has an active-duty military estimated at 1.2 million, with between five million and seven million in the reserves.
But many are poorly trained, or put to work building housing or seeking out opponents of Kim Jong-il’s government. The best trained, best equipped and best paid of them are North Korea’s special operations forces, numbering about 80,000 and described by the American military as “tough, well-trained and profoundly loyal.” Their mission is to infiltrate the South for intelligence gathering and for “asymmetric attacks against a range of critical civilian infrastructure and military targets.” [*]
Choe Sang-hun contributed reporting from Seoul, South Korea.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/world/middleeast/01flotilla.html
May 31, 2010
At Least 10 Are Killed as Israel Halts Flotilla With Gaza Aid
By ISABEL KERSHNER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [the flotilla that has been reported ready to head to Gaza for days] [accordingly, stopped it as Israel promised to do] [that violence and deaths occurred is going to be a huge uproar (beyond the human tragedies)] [Israel typically tries not to kill such people however much they annoy Israel?] [followup] [*]
JERUSALEM — Israeli naval commandos raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning, killing at least 10 people, [*] according to the Israeli military and activists traveling with the flotilla. Some Israeli news reports put the death toll higher. [*]
The confrontation drew widespread international condemnation of Israel, with Israeli envoys summoned to explain their country’s actions in several European countries. [*]
The criticism offered a propaganda coup to Israel’s foes, particularly Hamas, the militant group that holds sway in Gaza, and damaged Israel’s ties to Turkey, one of its most important Muslim partners and the unofficial sponsor of the Gaza-bound convoy. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut short a visit to Latin America to return home. [*]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled his plans for meeting with President Obama

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/01/world/middleeast/01flotilla.html
May 31, 2010
At Least 10 Are Killed as Israel Halts Flotilla With Gaza Aid
By ISABEL KERSHNER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [the flotilla that has been reported ready to head to Gaza for days] [accordingly, stopped it as Israel promised to do] [that violence and deaths occurred is going to be a huge uproar (beyond the human tragedies)] [Israel typically tries not to kill such people however much they annoy Israel?] [followup] [*]
JERUSALEM — Israeli naval commandos raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning, killing at least 10 people, [*] according to the Israeli military and activists traveling with the flotilla. Some Israeli news reports put the death toll higher. [*]
The confrontation drew widespread international condemnation of Israel, with Israeli envoys summoned to explain their country’s actions in several European countries. [*]
The criticism offered a propaganda coup to Israel’s foes, particularly Hamas, the militant group that holds sway in Gaza, and damaged Israel’s ties to Turkey, one of its most important Muslim partners and the unofficial sponsor of the Gaza-bound convoy. Turkey recalled its ambassador to Israel, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan cut short a visit to Latin America to return home. [*]
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu canceled his plans for meeting with President Obama in Washington on Tuesday, [not really a surprise: he must stay and manage the fallout on this big a deal!] [*] an Israeli government official confirmed. Mr. Netanyahu, who is visiting Canada, planned to return home Monday to deal with fallout from the raid, the official said.
The Israeli Defense Forces said more than 10 people were killed when naval personnel boarding the six ships in the aid convoy met with “live fire and light weaponry including knives and clubs.” The naval forces then “employed riot dispersal means, including live fire,” the military said in a statement. [watch for contrary evidence to come out over next month then charges of falsification, then a commission of some sort?] [*]
Greta Berlin, a leader of the pro-Palestinian Free Gaza Movement, speaking by telephone from Cyprus, rejected the military’s version.
“That is a lie,” she said, adding that it was inconceivable that the civilian passengers on board would have been “waiting up to fire on the Israeli military, with all its might.”
“We never thought there would be any violence,” [but did they carry weapons?] [I’ve never heard of a flotilla that carried weapons into Israeli waters apart from smugglers] [*]she said.
At least four Israeli soldiers were wounded in the operation, some from gunfire, according to the military. Television footage from the flotilla before communications were cut showed what appeared to be commandos sliding down ropes from helicopters onto one of the vessels in the flotilla, while Israeli high-speed naval vessels surrounded the convoy.
A military statement said two activists were later found with pistols they had taken from Israeli commandos. The activists, the military said, had apparently opened fire “as evident by the empty pistol magazines.” [?] [*]
The warships first intercepted the convoy of cargo and passenger boats shortly before midnight on Sunday, according to activists on one vessel. Israel had vowed not to let the flotilla reach the shores of Gaza.
Named the Freedom Flotilla and led by the Free Gaza Movement and a Turkish organization, Insani Yardim Vakfi, the convoy was the most ambitious attempt yet to break Israel’s three-year blockade of Gaza.
About 600 passengers were said to be aboard the vessels, including the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Mairead Corrigan-Maguire of Northern Ireland, and a Holocaust survivor, Hedy Epstein, 85. [*]
“What we have seen this morning is a war crime,” said Saeb Erakat, the chief Palestinian negotiator for the government in the West Bank. “These were civilian ships carrying civilians and civilian goods — medicine, wheelchairs, food, construction materials.” [it’s bad enough without Erakat bandying about war-crime charges!] [*]
“What Israel does in Gaza is appalling,” he added. “No informed and decent human can say otherwise.”
At a news conference on Monday in Jerusalem, Israeli deputy foreign minister, Danny Ayalon, said the flotilla’s intent was “not to transfer humanitarian things to Gaza” but to break the Israeli blockade.
“This blockade is legal,” he said, “and aimed at preventing the infiltration of terror and terrorists into Gaza.”
Ms. Berlin, of the Free Gaza Movement, said, “They attacked us this morning in international waters. According to the coordinates, we were 70 miles off the Israeli coast.” [*]
Within hours, diplomatic repercussions began to spread from the Mediterranean to Europe where Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs, called for a full inquiry into the incident and the immediate lifting of the Israeli blockade of Gaza.
Bill Burton, a deputy press secretary for the White House, said, “The United States deeply regrets the loss of life and injuries sustained and is currently working to understand the circumstances surrounding this tragedy.” [*]
A joint statement from Robert Serry and Filippo Grandi, two senior United Nations officials involved in the Middle East peace process and humanitarian aid to Gaza, condemned the raid, which they said was “apparently in international waters.”
“We wish to make clear that such tragedies are entirely avoidable if Israel heeds the repeated calls of the international community to end its counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza,” the officials said.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France called Israel’s use of force “disproportionate,” while William Hague, the British foreign secretary, said he deplored the loss of life. Tony Blair, the representative of the so-called quartet of powers seeking a Middle East settlement, said in a statement that he expressed “deep regret and shock at the tragic loss of life.” [*]
“We need a different and better way of helping the people of Gaza and avoiding the hardship and tragedy that is inherent in the current situation,” the statement said. The quartet includes the United States, the United Nations, the European Union and Russia. In London, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters blocked Whitehall, the broad avenue running past the prime minister’s residence and office at 10 Downing Street.
Turkey strongly condemned the Israeli military action. [*]
“Regardless of any reasoning, such actions against civilians engaged in only peaceful activities are unacceptable,” [*]said a statement on the Foreign Ministry’s Web site on Monday. “Israel will be required to face the consequences of this act that involves violation of the international law.”
“Israel launched this operation in international waters and to a ship flagged white, which is unacceptable under any clause of the international law,” the head of the Turkish Grand National Assembly’s Foreign Affairs Commission, Murat Mercan, said on the Turkish station NTV.
“We are going to see in the following days whether Israel has done it as a display of decisiveness or to commit political suicide.” [got that right, though more like weeks and months] [**]
Thousands of protesters gathered in Istanbul’s Taksim Square, chanting anti-Israeli slogans and repeating Islamic verses while government officials called for calm and urged demonstrators to avoid retaliation against Israeli nationals.
Protesters met in front of the Israeli Consulate earlier and marched toward the square carrying a banner that read, “Zionist Embassy should close down,” and chanting slogans including “Damn Israel” and “Long live global intifada.”
Crowds also gathered outside the Ankara residence of Gabi Levi, the Israeli ambassador, who was summoned to the Foreign Ministry.
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said Israel should provide a full explanation of what happened. News reports said the authorities in Egypt and Jordan, two Arab neighbors which have peace treaties with Israel, had summoned Israeli envoys to protest the action. [*]
The outcry from Muslim leaders was strong and immediate. Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, called the incident “a massacre,” according to the official Wafa news agency. Mr. Abbas is to meet with President Obama in Washington next week.
Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, denounced the raid as “a dangerous and crazy step that will exacerbate tensions in the region,” while the president of Iran,Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, said it was “inhuman.” [I understand everyone’s frustration and I also understand their reasons for taking advantage with intemperate statements] [but these are often people who have treated their own people and foreigners badly indeed; thus, glass-house implications are difficult to overlook] [*]
Channel 10, a private television station in Israel, quoted the Israeli trade minister, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, as saying 14 to 16 people had been killed. He said on Israeli Army Radio that commandos boarded the ships by sliding down on ropes from a hovering helicopter and were then struck by passengers with “batons and tools.”
“The moment someone tries to snatch your weapon, to steal your weapons, that’s where you begin to lose control,” Mr. Ben-Eliezer said, according to Reuters. [*]
Jamal El Shayyal, a reporter from the television broadcaster Al Jazeera, was on board the Mavi Marmara, the largest of the six ships, during the assault. He said in a video report that dozens of civilians had been injured in the fighting.
The I.D.F. said the ships from the convoy would be taken to the Israeli port of Ashdod, north of Gaza, where “naval forces will perform security checks in order to identify the people on board the ships and their equipment.” [Israel has taken them prisoner?] [watch for a lot of embassy personnel to get access to their peoples and problems to proliferate] [*]
On Sunday, three Israeli Navy missile boats had left the Haifa naval base in northern Israel a few minutes after 9 p.m. local time, planning to intercept the flotilla. After asking the captains of the boats to identify themselves, the navy told them they were approaching a blockaded area and asked them either to proceed to Ashdod or return to their countries of origin.
The activists responded that they would continue toward their destination, Gaza.
Speaking by satellite phone from the Challenger 1 boat, which has foreign legislators and other high-profile figures on board, a Free Gaza Movement leader, Huwaida Arraf, said: “We communicated to them clearly that we are unarmed civilians. We asked them not to use violence.” [if true, this will be bad for Israel] [*]
Earlier Sunday, Ms. Arraf said the boats would keep trying to move forward “until they either disable our boats or jump on board.”
Reporting was contributed by Mark McDonald in Hong Kong, Sebnem Arsu in Istanbul, Alan Cowell in London and Steven Erlanger in Paris.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/asia/31flogging.html
May 30, 2010
Child Brides Escape Marriage, but Not Lashes
By ROD NORDLAND and 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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [the occasional article that makes us wonder what the hell the West is doing trying to protect this way of life?] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The two Afghan girls had every reason to expect the law would be on their side when a policeman at a checkpoint stopped the bus they were in. Disguised in boys’ clothes, the girls, ages 13 and 14, had been fleeing for two days along rutted roads and over mountain passes to escape their illegal, forced marriages to much older men, and now they had made it to relatively liberal Herat Province.
Instead, the police officer spotted them as girls, ignored their pleas and promptly sent them

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/asia/31flogging.html
May 30, 2010
Child Brides Escape Marriage, but Not Lashes
By ROD NORDLAND and 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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [the occasional article that makes us wonder what the hell the West is doing trying to protect this way of life?] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The two Afghan girls had every reason to expect the law would be on their side when a policeman at a checkpoint stopped the bus they were in. Disguised in boys’ clothes, the girls, ages 13 and 14, had been fleeing for two days along rutted roads and over mountain passes to escape their illegal, forced marriages to much older men, and now they had made it to relatively liberal Herat Province.
Instead, the police officer spotted them as girls, ignored their pleas and promptly sent them back to their remote village in Ghor Province. There they were publicly and viciously flogged for daring to run away from their husbands.
Their tormentors, who videotaped the abuse, were not the Taliban, but local mullahs and the former warlord, now a pro-government figure who largely rules the district where the girls live.
Neither girl flinched visibly at the beatings, and afterward both walked away with their heads unbowed. Sympathizers of the victims smuggled out two video recordings of the floggings to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, which released them on Saturday after unsuccessfully lobbying for government action.
The ordeal of Afghanistan’s child brides illustrates an uncomfortable truth. What in most countries would be considered a criminal offense is in many parts of Afghanistan a cultural norm, one which the government has been either unable or unwilling to challenge effectively.
According to a Unicef study, from 2000 to 2008, the brides in 43 percent of Afghan marriages were under 18. Although the Afghan Constitution forbids the marriage of girls under the age of 16, tribal customs often condone marriage once puberty is reached, or even earlier.
Flogging is also illegal.
The case of Khadija Rasoul, 13, and Basgol Sakhi, 14, from the village of Gardan-i-Top, in the Dulina district of Ghor Province, central Afghanistan, was notable for the failure of the authorities to do anything to protect the girls, despite opportunities to do so.
Forced into a so-called marriage exchange, where each girl was given to an elderly man in the other’s family, Khadija and Basgol later complained that their husbands beat them when they tried to resist consummating the unions. Dressed as boys, they escaped and got as far as western Herat Province, where their bus was stopped at a checkpoint and they were arrested.
Although Herat has shelters for battered and runaway women and girls, the police instead contacted the former warlord, Fazil Ahad Khan, whom Human Rights Commission workers describe as the self-appointed commander and morals enforcer in his district in Ghor Province, and returned the girls to his custody.
After a kangaroo trial by Mr. Khan and local religious leaders, according to the commission’s report on the episode, the girls were sentenced to 40 lashes each and flogged on Jan. 12.
In the video, the mullah, under Mr. Khan’s approving eye, administers the punishment with a leather strap, which he appears to wield with as much force as possible, striking each girl in turn on her legs and buttocks with a loud crack each time. Their heavy red winter chadors are pulled over their heads so only their skirts protect them from the blows.
The spectators are mostly armed men wearing camouflage uniforms, and at least three of them openly videotape the floggings. No women are present.
The mullah, whose name is not known, strikes the girls so hard that at one point he appears to have hurt his wrist and hands the strap to another man.
“Hold still,” the mullah admonishes the victims, who stand straight throughout. One of them can be seen in tears when her face is briefly exposed to view, but they remain silent.
When the second girl is flogged, an elderly man fills in for the mullah, but his blows appear less forceful and the mullah soon takes the strap back.
The spectators count the lashes out loud but several times seem to lose count and have to start over, or possibly they cannot count very high.
“Good job, mullah sir,” one of the men says as Mr. Khan leads them in prayer afterward.
“I was shocked when I watched the video,” said Mohammed Munir Khashi, an investigator with the commission. “I thought in the 21st century such a criminal incident could not happen in our country. It’s inhuman, anti-Islam and illegal.”
Fawzia Kofi, a prominent female member of Parliament, said the case may be shocking but is far from the only one. “I’m sure there are worse cases we don’t even know about,” she said. “Early marriage and forced marriage are the two most common forms of violent behavior against women and girls.”
The Human Rights Commission took the videotapes and the results of its investigation to the governor of Ghor Province, Sayed Iqbal Munib, who formed a commission to investigate it but took no action, saying the district was too insecure to send police there. A coalition of civic groups in the province called for his dismissal over the matter.
Nor has Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry replied to demands from the commission to take action in the case, according to the commission’s chairwoman, Sima Samar. A spokesman for the ministry did not respond to requests for comment.
Forced marriage of Afghan girls is not limited to remote rural areas. In Herat city, a Unicef-financed women’s shelter run by an Afghan group, the Voice of Women Organization, shelters as many as 60 girls who have fled child marriages.
A group called Women for Afghan Women runs shelters in the capital, Kabul, as well as in nearby Kapisa Province and in the city of Mazar-i-Sharif, all relatively liberal areas as Afghanistan goes, which have taken in 108 escaped child brides just since January, according to Executive Director Manizha Naderi.
Poverty is the motivation for many child marriages, either because a wealthy husband pays a large bride-price, or just because the father of the bride then has one less child to support. “Most of the time they are sold,” Ms. Naderi said. “And most of the time it’s a case where the husband is much, much older.”
She said it was also common practice among police officers who apprehend runaway child brides to return them to their families. “Most police don’t understand what’s in the law, or they’re just against it,” she said.
On Saturday, at the Women for Afghan Women shelter, at a secret location in Kabul, there were four fugitive child brides. All had been beaten, and most wept as they recounted their experiences.
Sakhina, a 15-year-old Hazara girl from Bamian, was sold into marriage to pay off her father’s debts when she was 12 or 13. [isn’t human trafficking illegal?] [*]
Her husband’s family used her as a domestic servant. “Every time they could, they found an excuse to beat me,” she said. “My brother-in-law, my sister-in-law, my husband, all of them beat me.” [I’ve heard-seen that a lot in Afghanistan] [*]
Sumbol, 17, a Pashtun girl, said she was kidnapped and taken to Jalalabad, then given a choice: marry her tormentor, or become a suicide bomber. “He said, ‘If you don’t marry me I will put a bomb on your body and send you to the police station,’ ” Sumbol said.
Roshana, a Tajik who is now 18, does not even know why her family gave her in marriage to an older man in Parwan when she was 14. The beatings were bad enough, but finally, she said, her husband tried to feed her rat poison.
In some ways, the two girls from Ghor were among the luckier child brides. After the floggings, the mullah declared them divorced and returned them to their own families. [*]
Two years earlier, in nearby Murhab district, two girls who had been sold into marriage to the same family fled after being abused, according to a report by the Human Rights Commission. But they lost their way, were captured and forcibly returned. Their fathers — one the village mullah — took them up the mountain and killed them.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/asia/31afghan.html
May 30, 2010
NATO Has High Hopes for Afghan Peace Council
By ALISSA J. RUBIN [Afghanistan] [NATO] [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [yesterday, NATO training reported as working; today, attempts at governance are reported to be positive?] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — Western leaders are banking on a national peace council set to begin here on Wednesday to start a new chapter in Afghanistan’s political life, bringing the country together and strengthening President Hamid Karzai, [*]even as security deteriorated on Sunday in several areas of the country.
In a joint news conference, the NATO commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and the senior civilian representative, Mark Sedwill, emphasized that the West supported the peace council, called a jirga, even as many Afghans questioned whether those attending would truly represent the many factions in the country. [*]
“This is a big week for Afghanistan,” said Mr. Sedwill, who described the conference as “the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/31/world/asia/31afghan.html
May 30, 2010
NATO Has High Hopes for Afghan Peace Council
By ALISSA J. RUBIN [Afghanistan] [NATO] [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [yesterday, NATO training reported as working; today, attempts at governance are reported to be positive?] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — Western leaders are banking on a national peace council set to begin here on Wednesday to start a new chapter in Afghanistan’s political life, bringing the country together and strengthening President Hamid Karzai, [*]even as security deteriorated on Sunday in several areas of the country.
In a joint news conference, the NATO commander, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, and the senior civilian representative, Mark Sedwill, emphasized that the West supported the peace council, called a jirga, even as many Afghans questioned whether those attending would truly represent the many factions in the country. [*]
“This is a big week for Afghanistan,” said Mr. Sedwill, who described the conference as “the first of a series of major political events that are going to set the agenda of 2010.” [*]
The jirga will be followed by the Kabul Conference on economic development in July and parliamentary elections in September.
“This is a critical moment for this country to bring together all of the people of Afghanistan, their representatives, in an opportunity to set the direction forward and create a national consensus behind the overall approach to security, to development, to reconciliation,” Mr. Sedwill said.
The Electoral Complaints Commission announced Sunday that 85 candidates had been preliminarily barred from participating in the parliamentary elections because they are members of illegal armed groups. They will have the right to appeal. Still, the number is far more than that in the first round of parliamentary elections in 2005, when just 17 people were disqualified for the same reason, according to a former E.C.C. commissioner, Fahim Hakim.
The increase suggests that a more rigorous review system is now in place, analysts say. [*]
Even as the peace efforts proceed in the capital, Kabul, security appeared to be deteriorating in districts in the east and south of the country and on the western border, where Afghan insurgents trained in Iran are returning to fight and smuggling in weapons, General McChrystal said.
“There is clear evidence of Iranian activities, in some cases supplying weaponry and training to the Taliban that is inappropriate,” he said.
In Nuristan Province, on the country’s eastern border, hundreds of local and Pakistani Taliban have taken control of a remote district near the Pakistan border, Barg-e-Matal. The number of fighters who have crossed the border from Pakistan swelled through the week and now has reached 1,000 to 1,500, [*]said Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the commander of the Afghan Border Police for the eastern region of Afghanistan.
They are “mostly from Pakistan and are conducting collective attacks,” he said. [*]
It appears that many of the Taliban from Pakistan had come to Nuristan in search of a new haven after having come under attack from the Pakistani Army in Pakistan. [*]There are few Afghan security troops in Nuristan’s rugged mountains and only a small number of American troops in the province.
NATO leaders say that they cannot control the entire country with the number of troops they have and had to rely on Afghan forces in remote areas. But because not enough Afghans have been trained, NATO officials say they may have to live with some insurgent havens. [at very least fly drones over them 24/7 to collect data?] [*]
“As we execute our strategy and our capacity to secure areas, we must prioritize the order in which we do those, and how we deploy our forces and our assets,” General McChrystal said when asked whether Barg-e-Matal was being allowed to become a sanctuary.
“The Taliban can still muster strength in places and there are a lot of unknowns there,” added a senior NATO officer, speaking about Nuristan on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record on the matter. [?] [*]
“If there are Taliban there, so what?” he said, adding that the district was far from any population center. [*]He acknowledged that the situation would become more complicated if the Taliban filter out of remote mountain redoubts and into populated areas.
There was violence as well in the southeastern province of Khost, where a barely completed high school, built with international aid, was blown up late Saturday night by men using rocket-propelled grenades and bombs.
The school, which cost $220,000 to build, would have provided classrooms for 1,300 students, said Musa Majrooh, the spokesman for the Khost Education Department. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied that the Taliban were involved in the blast.
Also in Khost, a suicide car bomber detonated his vehicle at the entrance to the police battalion that patrols suburban areas. Nine police officers were wounded, two of them seriously.
In Nangahar Province, in the east, which until recently was relatively calm, two bombings killed five members of the Afghan security forces, and in Badakhshan Province in the far northeast, six counternarcotics officers were killed when their patrol vehicle was blown up by a homemade bomb.
They were on a mission to eradicate poppy, and the province’s governor, Baz Mohammed, accused narcotics traffickers and the Taliban of setting the bomb.
Sharifullah Sahak and Waheed Abdul Wafa contributed reporting from Kabul, and an Afghan employee of The New York Times from Khost.

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/30/AR2010053003727.html
Former Libyan militants now wage battle within homeland to discredit al-Qaeda
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 31, 2010; A06 [Libya] [northern Africa] [Islamic Maghreb] [former Islamic Caliphate] [Islamists and jihadis in totalitarian regime] [leaders such as Qaddafi play into the jihadis propoganda] [psci350, 355-455 469b] [followup] [progress?] [*]
TRIPOLI, LIBYA -- His life as a militant began with a call to holy war. It ended inside a prison in his native Libya. In between, Sami al-Saadi orchestrated attacks against Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, moved in Osama bin Laden's inner circle and befriended Mohammad Omar, [*]the Taliban leader.
Released from prison in March after he renounced violence, Saadi and other top leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group are now waging an ideological battle to de-radicalize extremists and discredit al-Qaeda. [*]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/30/AR2010053003727.html
Former Libyan militants now wage battle within homeland to discredit al-Qaeda
By Sudarsan Raghavan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, May 31, 2010; A06 [Libya] [northern Africa] [Islamic Maghreb] [former Islamic Caliphate] [Islamists and jihadis in totalitarian regime] [leaders such as Qaddafi play into the jihadis propoganda] [psci350, 355-455 469b] [followup] [progress?] [*]
TRIPOLI, LIBYA -- His life as a militant began with a call to holy war. It ended inside a prison in his native Libya. In between, Sami al-Saadi orchestrated attacks against Libyan leader Moammar Gaddafi, moved in Osama bin Laden's inner circle and befriended Mohammad Omar, [*]the Taliban leader.
Released from prison in March after he renounced violence, Saadi and other top leaders of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group are now waging an ideological battle to de-radicalize extremists and discredit al-Qaeda. [*]
"Let's leave Libya's dark chapter behind us," Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam said the day Saadi was set free.
Libya, itself a former sponsor of terrorism, has joined a small but growing number of Arab and African nations that are using religion-based rehabilitation programs to isolate al-Qaeda and inoculate Muslims from bin Laden's narrative. Scores of militants have been released under the program, and U.S. officials say they are watching to see whether such models can serve as a blueprint for combating extremism [the recividism rates appears relatively low though I’ve not seen an actual study, so only anecdotally] [similarly, certain programs such as Saudi’s appear more effective than say Yemen’s?] [*]at a time when al-Qaeda remains a long-term strategic threat.
"It is a new frontier in the fight against terrorism," said Rohan Gunaratna, [*]head of the International Center for Political Violence and Terrorism Research in Singapore.
Yet Libya's experience also shows the limitations of efforts to reform Islamists who harbor deep-rooted grievances against U.S. policies and have spent their adult lives fighting for what they believed was just under the guidelines of Islam.
At one moment, Saadi seemed to embrace a new beginning. "Perhaps we can convince al-Qaeda not to attack the West," he said.
But he later sounded less sure: "I don't believe bin Laden is calling for the killing of any single civilian."
The scion of a wealthy religious family, Saadi dropped out of college in 1988 to wage jihad, heeding an influential Sunni theologian's call to Muslims to liberate Afghanistan from the Soviets. Saadi said he first went to Saudi Arabia and then to Pakistan along with scores of Libyan fighters. He made his way to Afghanistan, where he met bin Laden at a training camp and was impressed by his "devoutness."[*]
After the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, Saadi helped found the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. The group's goal: to overthrow Gaddafi and turn Libya into an Islamic state. By the late 1990s, the militia had staged dozens of attacks in Libya, including three assassination attempts on Gaddafi. [because it was not happening against the West, the West barely took notice though transnationalism had begun to grow in import] [*]
"There was no way but to face the regime with force," Saadi recalled thinking, a faint smile emerging on his face, haggard and gray from years in prison.
The group thrived under Taliban rule and forged close ties to the radical regime's leaders. But it was divided on al-Qaeda. [?] [*]In several meetings before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, bin Laden urged the Libyan fighters to join him in confronting the West, especially the United States, Saadi and two other senior leaders said in their first extensive interviews with a journalist since their release from prison in March.
Some of the fighters were against the idea, warning that the United States might retaliate against the Taliban. [*]
"We did not have any ambitions to export our conflict outside of Libya," recalled Khalid al-Sherif, the group's military commander.
But others embraced bin Laden's global jihad. [interesting] [either they wished to continue against the “near enemy” or they simply lacked conviction of global jihad?] [*]
Today, one of the group's leaders, Abu Yahya al-Libi, is the spiritual leader of al-Qaeda's North African branch, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, [*]which has launched suicide bombings and killed Western hostages.
A deal is offered
After the Sept. 11 attacks, many of the Libyan leaders fled Afghanistan. Pakistani and CIA operatives arrested Sherif in Peshawar in 2003. Saadi was arrested in China in 2004. The group's emir, Abdullah al-Sadeq, was captured in Bangkok in 2004. All three men were handed over to U.S. soldiers and eventually returned to Libya, [*]they and Libyan officials say.
Upon their arrival in Tripoli, each of the men were thrown into a small cell.
In late 2008, the offer from Saif al-Islam Gaddafi arrived: Give up violence and get your freedom.
The government was concerned that Libyans were joining al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in neighboring Algeria, its birthplace. [*]
The offer was rare in the Arab world, where regimes have long used brutality to suppress political conflicts, and Libyan internal security officials opposed it. But Gaddafi convinced his father that the group no longer posed a threat. [*]
"I want Libya to be a safe place," said the younger Gaddafi, who has no official role in the government but has emerged as an influential voice in fostering national reconciliation.
For the jailed militants, there was little choice. Their group had suffered severe military losses.
Reform efforts
A well-respected moderate Islamist, Ali al-Salabi, was enlisted as a mediator to conduct religious dialogues with the jailed militants. Unlike similar programs in Saudi Arabia and Yemen, which focused on reforming grass-roots militants, Salabi met solely with the group's top leaders, who were expected to guide the fighters under them. [*]
Encouraged by the younger Gaddafi, the leaders wrote a 400-page manifesto renouncing violence, challenging al-Qaeda's philosophies and condemning attacks on Western civilians in Muslim nations. [*]
But some of the leaders who split from the original fold have publicly declared that the group had joined al-Qaeda. [*]
Many of the former fighters said they still believe in waging war against U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. They also consider the conflicts in the Palestinian territories and Somalia, where Islamists are fighting a U.S.-backed transitional government, legitimate forms of jihad. [*]
"When America invades a country, the insurgency is legal and lawful. From a religious point of view, it is permissible and we have to support it," said Sadeq, the group's emir. "And U.S. policies in Israel and other places add fuel to the fire." [*]
Salabi, the mediator, agreed. “Violence against occupation is a sacred act,” he said. “It is a sacred jihad.” [*]
The U.S. ambassador to Libya, Gene Cretz, expressed concern about such comments. "I don't know how you parse jihad," he said. "If it means that, 'If you don't do it in Libya, you are free to go and do it elsewhere,' that would be a little troubling to us." [agreed nor do I understand exactly what it means] [at least it appears to mean for the time being, they are sitting things out?] [also, unlike al Qaeda and other jihadis, these former ones appear to be reconcilables in some sense???] [*]
It remains to be seen how the former militants will adapt to a Libya that in recent years has moved closer to the West. Saadi said his country is not "an ideal state under Islam." Others demanded strict Islamic sharia laws, with public amputations for convicted thieves and head-to-toe coverings for women.
"I am still a Salafist," said Tarreq Muftah al-Ghunnay, the group's former commander in Jordan, referring to the ultra-strict brand of Islam espoused by bin Laden. [that likely means sooner or later it will become a problem again but let’s see?] [*]
The younger Gaddafi said he was confident the government could keep most of the released prisoners from returning to militancy. But "nobody can guarantee anything 100 percent," he said. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

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

http://washingtonindependent.com/85750/brennan-u-s-faces-a-new-phase-of-terrorism
[Accessed 5/30/10 9:07:06 AM] [*]
Brennan: U.S. Faces a ‘New Phase’ of Terrorism
Al-Qaeda and Others Have Adapted to Counterterrorism Measures
By SPENCER ACKERMAN 5/26/10 1:47 PM [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [recall the NEC was created by Clinton who also created transnational section of NSC and other innovations] [Bush kept NEC and eventually created homeland security adviser, sort of parallel organization—as was NEC—to NSC structure] [Obama has since changed homeland security adviser (Fran Townsend Frago under Bush) to homeland security-counterintelligence adviser and apparently beefed up] [moreover, since DNI Blair floundered, was outmaneuvered and/or sabotaged by director Panetta (CIA director), homeland-counterintelligence chief inside WH-NSC has grown in importance] [I posted a suggestion from the Washington Note Guest expert previously] [here comes homeland-counterintel chief Brennan’s recent observations] [cross in govt] [use psci 355-455, 469] [*]
John Brennan (UPPA/ZUMApress.com)
“We will destroy al-Qaeda.”
That’s how John Brennan capped his presentation Wednesday morning on counterterrorism’s role in the forthcoming National Security Strategy, and the often intense White House senior counterterrorism adviser smiled a bit as he said it. His

http://washingtonindependent.com/85750/brennan-u-s-faces-a-new-phase-of-terrorism
[Accessed 5/30/10 9:07:06 AM] [*]
Brennan: U.S. Faces a ‘New Phase’ of Terrorism
Al-Qaeda and Others Have Adapted to Counterterrorism Measures
By SPENCER ACKERMAN 5/26/10 1:47 PM [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [recall the NEC was created by Clinton who also created transnational section of NSC and other innovations] [Bush kept NEC and eventually created homeland security adviser, sort of parallel organization—as was NEC—to NSC structure] [Obama has since changed homeland security adviser (Fran Townsend Frago under Bush) to homeland security-counterintelligence adviser and apparently beefed up] [moreover, since DNI Blair floundered, was outmaneuvered and/or sabotaged by director Panetta (CIA director), homeland-counterintelligence chief inside WH-NSC has grown in importance] [I posted a suggestion from the Washington Note Guest expert previously] [here comes homeland-counterintel chief Brennan’s recent observations] [cross in govt] [use psci 355-455, 469] [*]
John Brennan (UPPA/ZUMApress.com)
“We will destroy al-Qaeda.”
That’s how John Brennan capped his presentation Wednesday morning on counterterrorism’s role in the forthcoming National Security Strategy, and the often intense White House senior counterterrorism adviser smiled a bit as he said it. His exploration of the administration’s pathway for getting there was mostly familiar. “A broad, sustained integrated campaign” making use of “every tool of American power: military, civilian, kinetic and diplomatic, and indeed, the power of our values and partnerships,” will sustain “pressure” on al-Qaeda [*]in “Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond” while addressing the “political, economic and social forces” that can create either demand for extremism among populations or acquiescence to it. Judge for yourself how that fits within the broader National Security Strategy.
But Brennan did highlight a new development the Obama administration faces — and subtly defended a controversial tactic that he says contributed to it. Al-Qaeda and its affiliates have entered a “new phase” [this is apparently the take-home message from 2009 myriad US domestic cases] [**] of their campaign against the United States, relying on operatives with “little training” who don’t fit “the traditional profile of a terrorist” for attacks of “little sophistication but with very lethal intent.” [*]English-speaking al-Qaeda allies like California metalhead-turned-extremist Adam Gadahn and Yemen-based radical preacher Anwar al-Awlaki, both American citizens, seek to inspire people already in America to execute their own independently planned terrorist attacks.
All of these moves, Brennan said, are tactical responses from al-Qaeda to a successful pressure campaign from the U.S. and its allies abroad to reduce its safe havens and to hardened U.S. homeland security measures by law enforcement and at ports of entry, for which the Bush administration deserves some credit. [finally starting to say what I have all along] [previous team made some serious mistakes but they also made some good calls and responded overall quite well to 9/11 and aftermath] [Iraq, not so much] [but they did many good things and pushed some things too far] [*]And in only the vaguest terms, without making an explicit reference, he suggested that the drone strikes the administration has accelerated and exported in Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan are a principle reason for al-Qaeda’s adjustment. Limited by an ability to speak publicly about a classified program, Brennan signaled as well that the administration is concerned that blowback from civilians killed by the drones could turn tactical success into strategic failure — but thinks the problem is under control. [thank god they at least appear cognizant] [*]
In all efforts, we will exercise force prudently, recognizing that we often need to use a scalpel and not a hammer. When we know that terrorist networks are plotting against us, we have a responsibility to take action to defend ourselves, and we will do so. At the same time, an action that eliminates a single terrorist but causes civilian casualties can in fact inflame local populations and create far more problems. A tactical success but a strategic failure. So we need to ensure that our actions are more precise and more accurate than ever before. This is something that President Obama not only expects but demands. [*]
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to independently verify Brennan’s claims. Anecdotal reporting indicates that the drone program is expanding beyond precisely targeted top extremist leaders to mid-level operatives and below. [more than anecdotal, though I agree it’s not systematic consideration of all where variables have been controlled] [*]There’s also a low-level rumbling in intelligence circles that the CIA’s drone strikes cause fewer civilian casualties than those executed by the military, particularly in Afghanistan, and the agency doesn’t like the media conflating two different programs. But any differences in impact on local populations are extraordinarily difficult to verify.
Brennan’s forecast of success against al-Qaeda rested on another foundation: It’s in America’s power to determine how it will react to terrorism. Al-Qaeda’s enduring strategy is to get America to “overextend” itself and compromise its values, thereby weakening the sources of its strength and isolating it internationally, [that was al Qaeda’s explicit strategy with 9/11 and there are many reasons to believe it continues today] [*] until it retracts its overall global posture. “We must be honest with ourselves,” Brennan warned. “No nation, no matter how powerful, can prevent every attack from coming to fruition.” But just as the U.S. has an obligation to destroy al-Qaeda proactively, he said, it also has a responsibility not to overreact in the event of a successful attack. [sensible] [*]
“Al-Qaeda can sew explosives into their clothes, and can place explosives in an SUV, but it is our choice how to react,” he said. “They can seek to recruit people already living among us but it is our choice to treat those communities with suspicion or to support those communities.”
I asked Brennan if the Obama administration was counterproductively compromising American values by retaining policies of indefinite suspension without charge at Guantanamo Bay and beyond. “When this administration came in, in January of last year, we dealt with a number of legacy situations that we wanted to make sure we were able to deal with appropriately without compromising the security of the American people,” Brennan said. [recent interagency report—finished at beginning of 2010 but just released last week—confirms continuity even in detentions, mixed federal judiciary-tribunals, intellingence, and drones, …] [but people, and especially GOP, need to realize Bush had moderated many things in 2nd term] [that’s one reason Cheney became increasingly isolated and left the administration angry] [it’s actually a fascinating story in its details but overall points to continuity in USFP!] [*]
I think as everybody recognizes, on both sides of the political spectrum, the situation at Guantanamo is a very, very difficult and challenging one. I think that even as the president said he was determined to close Guantanamo within one year, it still remains open because the president is determined not to do anything that would compromise America’s security. It is something that we are working very closely with the Congress on. We are trying to do things in a very thoughtful manner. We have transferred about 50 of those detainees over the past year and a half, and we’re continuing to look at their situations there. But this is a challenge that we need to look at from a policy perspective, from a legal perspective as well as from a security perspective.

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

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2010/05/dual_hat_panett/
[accessed 5/30/10 8:32 AM] [*]
Dual Hat Panetta: Leon Panetta Should be Appointed Both DNI and DCIA
Wednesday, May 26 2010, 4:41PM [obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [post-IRTPA reorganized IC] [bureaucracy mostly, but originated in NSC principals under Bush and since] [and affects who are statutory vs. ad hoc principals in Obama NSC] [use psci 355-455] [I’m not at all sure this is good idea] [for one thing, it would render even more obsolete the creation of the DNI (and ODNI); moreover, it would do nothing about the lack of budgetary power (NIP, JMIP, TIARA confusion) or programmatic power of DNI] [it would confuse much, even though I think Panetta might be influential as DNI] [also to whom would he be loyal, parochially?] [CIA has already captured him, seemingly] [*]
This is a guest note by Dr. Christopher K. Tucker, founding Chief Strategic Officer of In-Q-Tel, the CIA's Venture Fund. Tucker is also a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.
Leon Panetta Should be Appointed Both DNI and DCIA
Chatter amongst [sic.] [is this guy British?] [*] Intelligence professionals is focused on assessing the political environment that the President faces at the moment, and how this will shape his decision regarding the next Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
With the Elena Kagan nomination, the festering oil-induced Gulf ecological disaster, the Euro situation, North Korea/South Korean tensions, an impending Kandahar

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/2010/05/dual_hat_panett/
[accessed 5/30/10 8:32 AM] [*]
Dual Hat Panetta: Leon Panetta Should be Appointed Both DNI and DCIA
Wednesday, May 26 2010, 4:41PM [obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [post-IRTPA reorganized IC] [bureaucracy mostly, but originated in NSC principals under Bush and since] [and affects who are statutory vs. ad hoc principals in Obama NSC] [use psci 355-455] [I’m not at all sure this is good idea] [for one thing, it would render even more obsolete the creation of the DNI (and ODNI); moreover, it would do nothing about the lack of budgetary power (NIP, JMIP, TIARA confusion) or programmatic power of DNI] [it would confuse much, even though I think Panetta might be influential as DNI] [also to whom would he be loyal, parochially?] [CIA has already captured him, seemingly] [*]
This is a guest note by Dr. Christopher K. Tucker, founding Chief Strategic Officer of In-Q-Tel, the CIA's Venture Fund. Tucker is also a member of the Board of Directors of the U.S. Geospatial Intelligence Foundation.
Leon Panetta Should be Appointed Both DNI and DCIA
Chatter amongst [sic.] [is this guy British?] [*] Intelligence professionals is focused on assessing the political environment that the President faces at the moment, and how this will shape his decision regarding the next Director of National Intelligence (DNI).
With the Elena Kagan nomination, the festering oil-induced Gulf ecological disaster, the Euro situation, North Korea/South Korean tensions, an impending Kandahar operation, and November elections - I suspect that the President does not have the bandwidth to go through a controversial DNI appointment. Yet, it is clear that he cares deeply about fixing the deeply pathological issues within the US Intelligence Community.
Today's signal from Senator Feinstein, Chair of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI), that she would like to see the current DCIA Leon Panetta become DNI certainly shines a light on a politically expedient path for the President. Particularly in the face of Senator Kit Bond's recent declaration that despite Gen. James Clapper's years of stellar service, that it was his opinion that the next DNI should come from the national intelligence community, rather than the military intelligence community. It seems clear that Panetta would cruise through appointment. But to miss this opportunity to address the structural problems that plague the IC would be unfortunate. [Panetta has asked not to be considered] [and he asked not to be considered before Dennis Blair was made DNI] [*]
It is widely recognized that the DNI structure is incapable of achieving the goals that animated the reorganization that first begat it. It was created at a time when the consensus was that the Director of Central Intelligence (DCI), which was also dual-hatted, did not pay adequate attention to larger Intelligence Community coordination issues, and that he lacked the authorities to do so. [*]Most problematic, the DCI could not seem to achieve the level of information sharing needed to avert 9/11 in the first place, let alone another 9/11. [more problematic still, dod owns about 80% of IC] [*] While all this was true, the DNI role and structure was not much different, except for the fact that the DNI no longer had line responsibility for the behavior of the CIA. Under this structure, the DNI was immediately emasculated and in a vain attempt to be effective, the ODNI structure was evolved into a super-overlay staff function atop of the same agencies that existed just prior.
For all its critics, and despite the last decade of change, the centrality of the CIA has hardly been dislodged. Certainly, the powers of each of the 16 different organizations within the US Intelligence Community have been demonstrated in both Iraq and Afghanistan, and frankly, beyond the view of the mainstream media. But, the CIA's central position in this ecosystem has remained. And, it must be remembered which agency networks and personnel dominate the DNI's National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC), National Counter Proliferation Center (NCPC), and the Open Source Center (OSC) - CIA. [*]
To create a DNI that does not have line responsibility for the CIA is befuddling - and bad for our nation's security.
Many good lessons have been learned from the DNI experience. In my personal observation, the experience has even taught CIA to share information better, and to play better with others. But, the DNI structure as implemented was fatally flawed. [indeed, it was] [I sort of thought Negroponte might manuver but he tired quickly] [*] If Panetta was dual-hatted as DNI and DCIA, it would be possible to transform the DNI structure into something that could truly tackle both inter-agency and multi-agency integration issues, including the perennial information sharing boogie man. [?] [*]In some important ways, the DNI
could fill an Office of Management and Budget (OMB) type role for the IC, truly exercising the budgetary and regulatory coordination that is needed - to include the currently impossible process of budgetary rescission.
Something Leon Panetta, as a very effective former OMB Director should be able to take on with panache. No doubt, this would require a major blood-letting in the DNI staff. But anything short of that would fail to breed the confidence needed in, and more importantly, within the Intelligence Community.
The President should convene in the White House Situation Room the Chairmen and Ranking Members of the six Congressional committees that provide direction to the IC (HPSCI, SSCI, HAC-D, SAC-D, HASC, SASC) and demand that they support a move to dual-hat Leon Panetta and begin collaborating in the long and painful process of partnering with the DNI to achieve real-time organizational change. [it’s an interesting idea] [but as I tried to explain in response to Marc Ambinder’s fairly silly piece last week] [without congress reorganizing committees, it’s hard to see how it will work] [or at very least an amendment that clarifies budgetary role of DNI] [and the stakeholders enumerated above (house and senate intel, others) would have to agree] [[so polarized now that I don’t see it] [**] This should include strong but streamlined Congressional oversight that will not require that the DNI live on Capitol Hill. We should not have to wait for another Pearl Harbor or 9/11 in order to re-open the issue of IC reform, to critically and proactively re-conceptualize and re-implement this essential public function.
American citizens and the rest of the world that depends on America deserve nothing less.
Dual-hat Leon Panetta.
-- Christopher K. Tucker

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:42 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052903707.html
Mexican pirates attack Texas fishermen on Falcon Lake, which straddles border
By William Booth
Sunday, May 30, 2010; A01 [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] [a Texas lake that has been in the news lately: it straddles the border and drug-contraband runners now shooting at Americans?] [*]
ZAPATA, TEX. -- Falcon Lake is famous for its monster bass and for the maniacal obsession of the fishermen who come from all over Texas -- and the world -- to stalk them. Now this remote reservoir that straddles the international boundary is known for something else: pirates. [*]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052903707.html
Mexican pirates attack Texas fishermen on Falcon Lake, which straddles border
By William Booth
Sunday, May 30, 2010; A01 [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] [a Texas lake that has been in the news lately: it straddles the border and drug-contraband runners now shooting at Americans?] [*]
ZAPATA, TEX. -- Falcon Lake is famous for its monster bass and for the maniacal obsession of the fishermen who come from all over Texas -- and the world -- to stalk them. Now this remote reservoir that straddles the international boundary is known for something else: pirates. [*]
In the past month, crews of outlaws in a small armada of banged-up skiffs and high-powered bass boats launched from the Mexican shore have ambushed bass anglers from the Texas side innocently casting their plastic worms over favorite spots. The buccaneers have struck in Mexican waters but within sight of the Texas shore. [*]
Dressed in black, the pirates brandish automatic weapons, carry radio cellphones and board the anglers' boats. They demand weapons or drugs from their captives, but finding neither, seem satisfied with taking $400 or $500 as booty, according to law enforcement officials and victims' accounts. [pretty small time but once they collect enough cash and booty they can sell, who knows] [*]
There is a saying about not messing with Texas, and the idea that criminals are preying on American anglers is raising already-high temperatures along the southwest border. Answering calls for help, President Obama last week ordered 1,200 National Guard troops to the region.
The pirates claim to be "federales," or police, but instead are brigands -- with the letter "Z" tattooed on their necks and arms -- from the notorious drug cartel Los Zetas. [lost Zetas the gang with former military-federales?] [*]The Zetas are on a rampage of killing and extortion along the Mexican border as they fight gun and grenade battles against the military and the rival Gulf Cartel.
"Within the last month, with all the feuding going on over there, the dope smuggling has dropped off and it is starving them. This water is Zeta central. They controlled the whole lake. They distributed everything. Now they're desperate and diversifying," said Jose E. Gonzalez, the second in command of the Border Patrol's Zapata station, which operates an around-the-clock maritime patrol.
At least three armed robberies have been reported in Mexican waters. The Texas Department of Public Safety put out a warning for people to stay on the U.S. side. On Memorial Day weekend, when 200 bass boats would usually be in town, only two dozen were seen at county ramps Friday afternoon.
One group of pirates was savvy enough to demand the memory chip from an angler's camera, lest they be identified. Another fisherman told authorities that armed men came roaring toward him. "I saw 'em, and I saw they were machine guns. They were that close, they were 15 yards away from me," San Antonio bass chaser Richard Drake told a local television station. "I was scared."
'Some bad boys out there'
Last week, Border Patrol agents tried to follow a Mexican boat filled with men wearing ski masks, but it was too fast for the agents and entered Mexican waters, where U.S. law enforcement is forbidden. [*]
Olga Juliana Elizondo, the mayor of Nueva Guerrero, Mexico, said ranchers are harassed on their land, motorboats have disappeared, vehicles have been stolen and tourists have fled. "We hope this ends soon," she said.
"We've all heard about the pirates, and we're all sticking to the American side of the lake, because those are some bad boys out there," said Dwayne Deets, a fisherman from Houston who was sliding $50,000 worth of cream-colored bass boat, bristling with sonar and GPS electronics, down a ramp in Zapata. [*]
Deets said Texans loved fishing the Mexican side. It is legal to carry a loaded firearm in a boat in Texas, but it is illegal to bring ammunition or weapons into Mexico. "I just pray no one gets killed out there," he said. [this is why, if I understood him correctly, Obama agreed to redeploy guard to border] [**]
The International Falcon Reservoir was born in the early 1950s, when engineers erected a dam on the Rio Grande, flooding the banks and inundating towns on both sides. The 98,960-surface-acre impoundment stretches 60 miles and provides for irrigation, power, flood control and recreation in the area.
"Until this started, we fished everywhere, and we never cared about the border, Texas to Mexico. But now? No. Hardly anybody is fishing the Mexico side of the lake," said Tom Bendele, who with his brother owns the Falcon Lake Tackle shop in Zapata, now serving as the de facto intel center on all things piratical.
Out on the water, with a reporter in tow, Tom Bendele pointed out the picket line of 14 large concrete beacons that mark the international boundary. Some are swimming distance from the Texas shore; others are miles out in the middle of the lake.
Bendele ventured up the Rio Salado cove on the Mexican side, where two of the acts of piracy occurred. Around the bend, the steeple of the church in Old Guerrero is now mostly underwater. The shoreline is lonely mesquite brush, dotted by rough fish camps used by Mexicans who string gill nets along their side of the lake, hauling up tilapia, carp and bass.
Though illegal in the United States, the Mexican netters often cross into the Texas side to fish, playing an endless hide-and-seek with Texas game wardens.
Bendele cut off his engine, and the boat rocked in the cove. "You could see how it would be easy to get jumped in here," he said. "Notice you don't see any Americans."
'They watch us'
Out on the water with the U.S. Border Patrol, roaring right down the international boundary line but careful never to cross into Mexico, Gonzalez and a crew pointed out spot after spot where they have intercepted tons of marijuana crossing the lake.
The Border Patrol seized 18,000 pounds of marijuana in the lake region last year, worth about $14 million at $800 a pound; it will likely confiscate even more this year.
"But, man, they are so good at counter-surveillance," Gonzalez said, describing the lake as kind of a Wild West on the water. "They watch us, they watch our boats, our cars, our homes. The smugglers, they know every move we make."
The traffickers cross day and night, driving boats with bales of marijuana right into the backyards of homes along the lake. They rent cabins at the lakeside state park and stash dope there. The border agents point to a three-story house built like a watchtower on the Mexican shore. The officers frequently see observers with binoculars on the roof. Up and down the lake, netting boats are idled. [*]Nobody waves.
"We're telling folks that right now, Mexico is not safe. Don't cross, because we can't go over and help you. It's just an imaginary line, but it's a line I can't cross," said Jake Cawthon, a Texas game warden. He said that anyone fishing the Mexican side these days has "got to have one hand on their fishing pole and the other on their boat keys, ready to haul back home." © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/05/30/world/AP-EU-Bosnia-Reconciliation.html
May 30, 2010
Croatian President Honors Serb Victims in Bosnia
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:54 a.m. ET [Balkans] [former Yugoslavia] [EU easing relations with former Yugoslavia’s constituent parts including, notably, Serbia, recently] [and Serbia recently made overtures to accept responsibility for some of things that happened] [followup] [now comes Croatia?] [followup from April 14?[*]
SIJEKOVAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- In an effort to promote reconciliation in the Balkans, Croatia's president laid flowers Sunday to honor Serb villagers killed by Croats during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. [*]
Church bells rang as Croatian President Ivo Josipovic placed bouquets in front of the Serb Orthodox church in the village of Sijekovac, near the Croatian border, where Croatian forces allegedly killed dozens of Serb villagers in what is known as the first atrocity of the Bosnian war.

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2010/05/30/world/AP-EU-Bosnia-Reconciliation.html
May 30, 2010
Croatian President Honors Serb Victims in Bosnia
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 9:54 a.m. ET [Balkans] [former Yugoslavia] [EU easing relations with former Yugoslavia’s constituent parts including, notably, Serbia, recently] [and Serbia recently made overtures to accept responsibility for some of things that happened] [followup] [now comes Croatia?] [followup from April 14?[*]
SIJEKOVAC, Bosnia-Herzegovina (AP) -- In an effort to promote reconciliation in the Balkans, Croatia's president laid flowers Sunday to honor Serb villagers killed by Croats during the 1992-95 Bosnian war. [*]
Church bells rang as Croatian President Ivo Josipovic placed bouquets in front of the Serb Orthodox church in the village of Sijekovac, near the Croatian border, where Croatian forces allegedly killed dozens of Serb villagers in what is known as the first atrocity of the Bosnian war.
He was joined by the Bosnian Serb leader and the head of the main Muslim Bosnian party who laid flowers on behalf of the Bosnian Parliament.
''We came to pay tribute to the victims and their families,'' Josipovic said. ''It is important that we are representing all religious groups.''
As Yugoslavia was falling apart in the 1990s, Bosnia's Serbs, Croats and Muslims clashed in hostilities that also drew in neighboring Serbia and Croatia. The violence left an estimated 100,000 people dead before it ended in 1995 but the country is still riven by ethnic tensions.
In April, Josipovic told the Bosnian parliament he was sorry for the role Croatia played in the destruction of Bosnia -- the clearest message of reconciliation yet from any leader of the three nationalities involved in Europe's bloodiest post-World War II conflict.
He paid tribute to Bosnian Muslim victims killed by Croats but was then criticized for ignoring Bosnian Serb victims.
Josipovic on Sunday was joined by Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and Sulejman Tihic -- the head of the Party of Democratic Action, who represented the Bosnian Muslims in Sijekovac.
''These were innocent people and we came to say that there is no collective guilt. We must make those responsible for crimes face justice,'' Tihic said.
The trio then headed to the towns of Prijedor and Kozarac in northwest Bosnia, where Bosnian Serbs killed Muslims and Croats during the war.
''Our common message is peace and that people should be able to live with each other again,'' said Dodik.
He urged Croats expelled from their homes in Bosnia to return. Most Bosnian Croats fled to Croatia and Dodik promised he will soon go there and invite them personally to come back.
Ruza Trivic, 53, survived the killings in Sijekovac by running to the woods before Croatian soldiers reached her house that day in March 1992. Almost 30 villagers did not make it.
''To me, this is first a confession that Croatia has committed these crimes,'' Trivic said. ''Now we can talk about reconciliation.''

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/weekinreview/30BARRY.html
May 28, 2010
In Czar Peter’s Footsteps
By ELLEN BARRY
MOSCOW [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia’s “Near Abroad”] [in new assertive Russia] [use psci350] [use ir text] [historical record] [Peter the Great and his efforts to force Russia to modernize in late 1600s] [late 1600s (born around 1672) into nearly 1730] [traveled in Europe under pseudonym to learn of Western ways] [followup] [also part of the Russia complex of inferiority (Europeans think Russians backwater and Russians resent same)] [Russian ethos] [*]
THREE hundred years ago, after becoming king of the creaky behemoth that was Russia, Peter Romanov went west. Traveling under a pseudonym, the czar turned himself into an apprentice — studying European advances in shipbuilding, firefighting, dentistry, locksmithing and parliamentary procedure, among other cutting-edge technologies. [industrial revolution was bristling and Enlightenment had already changed huge swaths of Europe] [**]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/weekinreview/30BARRY.html
May 28, 2010
In Czar Peter’s Footsteps
By ELLEN BARRY
MOSCOW [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia’s “Near Abroad”] [in new assertive Russia] [use psci350] [use ir text] [historical record] [Peter the Great and his efforts to force Russia to modernize in late 1600s] [late 1600s (born around 1672) into nearly 1730] [traveled in Europe under pseudonym to learn of Western ways] [followup] [also part of the Russia complex of inferiority (Europeans think Russians backwater and Russians resent same)] [Russian ethos] [*]
THREE hundred years ago, after becoming king of the creaky behemoth that was Russia, Peter Romanov went west. Traveling under a pseudonym, the czar turned himself into an apprentice — studying European advances in shipbuilding, firefighting, dentistry, locksmithing and parliamentary procedure, among other cutting-edge technologies. [industrial revolution was bristling and Enlightenment had already changed huge swaths of Europe] [**]
He returned to remake Russia. The poor rebelled at switching to the European calendar (as far as they knew, it was 7208) and aristocrats stood in livid silence as he hacked off their beards. But Peter insisted that it was in Russia’s interest to integrate westward, writing later that other nations “are working diligently to exclude us from the enlightened world.”
That line of argument is surfacing again in Moscow. [*]Next month, in California, President Dmitri A. Medvedev will spend a day acquainting himself with Silicon Valley, the template for a new scientific city that the government is building outside Moscow. And increasingly — as sketched out in a Foreign Ministry working paper leaked to Russian Newsweek this month — policymakers are airing a new principle: Russia needs alliances with the West if it hopes to modernize.
The impulse is no surprise. In recent months, Moscow has acknowledged the Soviet massacre of Polish officers at Katyn 70 years ago; invited NATO troops to march in Red Square; and offered cautious support for sanctions on Iran. Alongside those gestures, Russia is pursuing economic goals like visa-free travel arrangements with the European Union and admission to the World Trade Organization. [it’s often painful but eventually Russia does look West then take miraculous steps, often with important Russia imprimatur] [**]
More revealing is the reasoning behind it. The leaked Foreign Ministry draft suggests that foreign policy can be marshaled to help Russia attract investment, acquire new technology, update crumbling infrastructure and wean itself from dependence on resource extraction — all challenges that came into painful focus when the price of oil fell. [wow—that certainly suggest Russia sees the end of petroleum-based energy and is preparing] [that should cause the West to think hard?] [*]
Absent is the language of NATO encirclement and external threat that appear in Russia’s official military doctrine, [*]including an update Mr. Medvedev approved four months ago. Fyodor Lukyanov, editor in chief of the journal Russia in Global Affairs, dwelt in amazement on one strategic goal in the draft — “to form the image of Russia as a desirable partner and ally for European countries.” For Moscow, he said, that is revolutionary.
“If Russia, finally, in the spirit of the ‘diplomatic smile’ is able to overcome the inferiority complex which has gnawed at it since the collapse of the Soviet Union,” he wrote in an editorial, “maybe a new chapter is really beginning.”
On both sides of the ocean, skeptics have dismissed the leak as sweet nothings directed, above all, at the European Union and the White House. When Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was asked about it, he derided Russian Newsweek’s journalists as “masters of sensationalism”; still, he lent the draft some authority by calling it “absolutely routine work on the direct orders of the president.”
Indeed, Mr. Medvedev has argued that diplomacy could have a direct economic payoff, and has stressed his belief that Russia be converted from an energy supplier to a modern European economy.
It’s not clear how much agreement there is on that point, since oil and metals make up 80 percent of Russia’s total exports. Pavel Salin, an analyst at the Center for Political Conjuncture, a political consulting firm here, said pro-Western elites in the government can now agree with counterparts who are suspicious of the West on this much: “We will take technology from the West, but we will not adopt its political system.” For that, he added, “we need, at a minimum, nonconfrontational relations.” [*]
But it is not clear, either, that diplomacy can produce the kind of innovation Russia wants. Russia has a vibrant consumer market, but investors also look at its corruption and its problems with the rule of law. And even Mr. Medvedev’s own flagship project — the high-tech village of Skolkovo that has inspired his trip to Silicon Valley — is fueled not by market forces but by state power. [Russia’s slightly different way, with all the good and bad it entails] [*]
“Competition produces innovation,” said Cliff Kupchan, a director at the Eurasia Group, a global risk-consulting firm based in New York. “I still don’t see a working appreciation of that.”
Still, Mr. Kupchan said, the Newsweek draft may represent a genuinely new strain of thinking. Russia has long looked west for technology to exploit its oil and gas resources, he said, but has rarely suggested that it needs outsiders to help fix its bad roads, low worker productivity and energy inefficiency.
That notion would have sounded outlandish here before the financial crisis underlined Russia’s dependence on Western capital — and before Barack Obama offered a reboot of Russian-American relations. “The ‘reset’ has provided political cover, so that it doesn’t look like Russia backing down, but like Russia facing a new challenge in becoming a modern country,” [for that reason alone, vitally important] [the US wants to encourage it and also position the US to take mutual advantage thereof] [*] said Stephen Sestanovich, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.
In any case, it would be a mistake to confuse the reach for technology with a yearning for lasting closeness. Slavophiles still blame Peter the Great for forcing Western customs on Russia, but the foreign experts who flocked to Russia at his invitation were replaced, as soon as possible, by Russians they had trained. Historians tell us he distrusted Europe to the end of his life. [nobody thinks Russia has stopped being Russia or the US stopped being the US or anyother] [*]
The czar said as much himself, according to a trusted minister. “Europe is necessary for us for a few decades,” he said. “Then we must turn our back to her.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052903131.html
Palestinian officials think about replacing Israeli shekel with Palestine pound
By Janine Zacharia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 30, 2010; A06 [Palestine] [West Bank, Fatahsine] [Ramallah] [domestic politics intersects foreign policy] [should Palestine replace Israeli sheckel with Palestine pound?] [followup] [if peaceful integration is goal, perhaps not or perhaps yes for period then return to IS?] [*]
RAMALLAH -- Negotiations on a future Palestinian state might be stuck in neutral. But Jihad al-Wazir, the closest thing to a Palestinian Federal Reserve board chairman, is planning one key aspect of statehood: what the money will be. [*]
Since the creation of Israel in 1948, Palestinians have mainly used the Israeli shekel for commerce. Now they're quietly considering reissuing the defunct Palestine pound, an example of which is displayed in a museum-like Lucite case outside Wazir's office, alongside coins from the time of Alexander the Great. [*]
Quiet talk in the West Bank of a new Palestinian currency comes amid a push by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to ensure the Palestinians can function independently of Israel if they

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052903131.html
Palestinian officials think about replacing Israeli shekel with Palestine pound
By Janine Zacharia
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, May 30, 2010; A06 [Palestine] [West Bank, Fatahsine] [Ramallah] [domestic politics intersects foreign policy] [should Palestine replace Israeli sheckel with Palestine pound?] [followup] [if peaceful integration is goal, perhaps not or perhaps yes for period then return to IS?] [*]
RAMALLAH -- Negotiations on a future Palestinian state might be stuck in neutral. But Jihad al-Wazir, the closest thing to a Palestinian Federal Reserve board chairman, is planning one key aspect of statehood: what the money will be. [*]
Since the creation of Israel in 1948, Palestinians have mainly used the Israeli shekel for commerce. Now they're quietly considering reissuing the defunct Palestine pound, an example of which is displayed in a museum-like Lucite case outside Wazir's office, alongside coins from the time of Alexander the Great. [*]
Quiet talk in the West Bank of a new Palestinian currency comes amid a push by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to ensure the Palestinians can function independently of Israel if they gain sovereignty through peace talks or issue a unilateral declaration in two years if negotiations fail. [*]Fayyad has been working to reform government institutions, professionalize the police force and establish mundane bodies such as a statistics bureau.
Wazir, a well-regarded economist who Stanley Fischer, governor of the Bank of Israel, counts as a friend, has at the same time been working on creating Palestinian economic independence.
A central banker without a bank, he can't employ the traditional monetary policy tools of changing interest rates or issuing Treasury bills. Instead, Wazir has busied himself since 2008 with strengthening private bank supervision, combating money laundering and setting up mechanisms to spot bounced checks. Establishing a currency -- one of the surest signs of sovereignty -- is the next logical step.
"All options are open, as far as we're concerned -- issuing our own currency is one," Wazir said in an interview, adding that the Palestinians are exploring linking the future currency to the dollar or the euro -- or perhaps adopting one of them instead of the shekel.
Even with that caveat, all signs show the Palestinians are at least getting ready to issue their own dough. Bulldozers recently broke ground on a new Palestine Central Bank building that will include specialized vaults. [*]
The notion of a Palestinian currency has long been a matter of controversy with Israel, whose 20-times-larger economy the Palestinians have depended on for decades. At the outset of the Oslo peace process in the early 1990s, negotiators set aside the idea amid Israeli concerns that it would be too bold a sign of independence and fiscally foolish. [why not the Lebanese, or Egyptian, or Jordanian currency?] [*]
By 2000, the last time Israelis and Palestinians engaged in serious peace talks, a committee of Israelis and Palestinians blessed the idea before the talks collapsed. Yet, despite recent economic reforms welcomed by the World Bank and others, Israeli officials remain skeptical that the Palestinians can abandon the shekel.
"Their economy is too small,'' an Israeli official said. "It will need something to sustain the currency. Currency is not like a stamp or an international dialing code, which they have. . . . But to have a currency of your own, it's a whole other ballgame. They don't have what it takes.''
Arie Arnon, an Israeli economics professor who participates in an international working group researching economic aspects of the conflict, says a Palestinian currency is one of the most symbolic items on the diplomatic agenda. [*]
"The Israelis will say it will increase the instability of the Palestinian economy. But I would argue, if I were Palestinian, that the damage to the Palestinian economy from security measures and blockades is more severe than any dangers from currency," he said. "What it will do to the economy depends on how the Palestinians will manage it. They are ready. The problem is that Israel is not ready, politically."
In the meantime, a committee quietly mulls what images to put on a new Palestine pound. The late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is a possibility, Wazir acknowledged, along with scientists, poets and artists.
"We're bringing something back to life,'' he said. "Hopefully, the politics will catch up.'' © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052903172.html
Training of Afghan military, police has improved, NATO report says
By Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 30, 2010; A08 [NATO] [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [NATO training taking hold?] [the first other-than anecdotal evidence of success] [*]
A U.S. military review in Afghanistan has concluded that the addition of more than 1,000 new U.S. military and NATO troops focused on training has helped stabilize what had been a failing effort to build Afghanistan's security forces, but that persistent attrition problems could still hinder long-term success.
"We are finally getting the resources, the people and money," said Army Lt. Gen. William B.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/29/AR2010052903172.html
Training of Afghan military, police has improved, NATO report says
By Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 30, 2010; A08 [NATO] [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [NATO training taking hold?] [the first other-than anecdotal evidence of success] [*]
A U.S. military review in Afghanistan has concluded that the addition of more than 1,000 new U.S. military and NATO troops focused on training has helped stabilize what had been a failing effort to build Afghanistan's security forces, but that persistent attrition problems could still hinder long-term success.
"We are finally getting the resources, the people and money," said Army Lt. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, who heads the NATO training effort in Afghanistan and oversaw the review of his command's past 180 days. "We are moving in the right direction." [*]
U.S. war plans depend on Afghan forces maintaining security in areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan, where the U.S. military is adding 30,000 troops this summer. More broadly, the Obama administration's counterinsurgency strategy places a heavy emphasis on an expansion of the Afghan security forces before the United States begins to withdraw troops in July 2011.
Caldwell's report card on the training effort, which The Washington Post obtained in advance and is expected to be released within the next couple of days, paints a mixed picture. [*]
On the plus side, new money for pay raises has helped boost a recruiting situation that was so dire last fall the Afghan army was shrinking. The progress has bolstered expectations that the Afghans will meet the Obama administration's goals of expanding the size of the police force to 109,000 officers and the army to 134,000 soldiers by the fall.
For the first time in years, the Afghan forces are "currently on path" to meet the ambitious growth targets, the assessment states. It isn't yet clear how well those forces will perform once they are in the field, which is the most important measure of success, [*]Caldwell said.
Still, thousands of additional U.S. and NATO soldiers have arrived in Afghanistan in recent months, leading to a vast improvement in the ratio of recruits to trainers at the Afghan training bases. Today, there is about one trainer for every 29 or so recruits. [*]
"In some areas last fall, we had one trainer for every 466 recruits," Caldwell said. "When you have that kind of ratio, it means that people aren't receiving any training."
The additional trainers have helped double the number of new Afghan soldiers who meet the minimum marksmanship standards by the end of basic training, the report states, although it is still lower than U.S. commanders would like. About 65 percent of the graduates passed the marksmanship test in May. The number of police recruits enrolled in basic literacy programs has also more than doubled, to 28,000 from about 13,000 last fall.
Despite those improvements, police and army units are still struggling to retain personnel, especially in critical areas where fighting is heavy and the demand for forces the greatest.
U.S. and Afghan commanders, for example, have made significant use of the Afghan National Civil Order Police, who are more highly trained than the regular police, to hold areas that U.S. troops have cleared of insurgents. In Marja, the site of the largest U.S.-Afghan offensive of the war, the National Civil Order Police moved in shortly after the U.S. and Afghan army push this spring.
The assessment found that the attrition rate in the Civil Order Police is about 70 percent. That's lower than it was at the end of 2009, the report states, but still "unacceptable and unsustainable."
The Afghan army has missed its attrition goals for two of the past four months, a vast improvement over last fall and winter, when the army was consistently failing to meet its targets. Caldwell, however, said attrition still remains too high in the south and east, where Afghan forces are engaged in the heaviest fighting.
To fix the problem, U.S. and Afghan officials are weighing the possibility of increasing combat pay and giving soldiers a break from battle. "We are working real hard to set up a system to rotate units" out of areas where combat is heaviest, Caldwell said.
U.S. commanders have said the performance of Afghan police and army forces in Kandahar, the country's second-largest city, is essential to the military campaign planned for the area this summer. There are concerns that, as fighting with the Taliban increases, recruitment and retention could suffer.
To ensure continued progress, the report states that the number of military trainers must continue to grow. "In order to increase the probability of success, additional personnel are required," the report says.
Earlier this spring, the Pentagon rushed to fill a near-term training shortage by deploying about a battalion of troops for about three months. Over the longer term, the military is depending on its NATO coalition partners to deploy as many as 750 additional police and army trainers. U.S. officials are cautiously optimistic that they will get most of those trainers and that the increase in instruction will lead to an overall improvement in the force.
"We're going to start seeing a more professional Afghan force in the field over the next eight to 12 months," Caldwell said. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30marines.html
May 29, 2010
In Camouflage or Veil, a Fragile Bond
By ELISABETH BUMILLER [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
ABDUL GHAYAS, Afghanistan — Two young female Marines trudged along with an infantry patrol in the 102-degree heat, soaked through their camouflage uniforms under 60 pounds of gear. But only when they reached this speck of a village in the Taliban heartland on a recent afternoon did their hard work begin.
For two hours inside a mud-walled compound, the Marines, Cpl. Diana Amaya, 23, and Cpl. Lisa Gardner, 28, set aside their rifles and body armor and tried to connect with four nervous Afghan women wearing veils. Over multiple cups of tea, the Americans made small talk through a military interpreter or in their own beginner’s Pashtu. [isn’t it Pashto?] [*] Then they encouraged the Afghans, who by now had shyly uncovered their faces, to sew

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30marines.html
May 29, 2010
In Camouflage or Veil, a Fragile Bond
By ELISABETH BUMILLER [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
ABDUL GHAYAS, Afghanistan — Two young female Marines trudged along with an infantry patrol in the 102-degree heat, soaked through their camouflage uniforms under 60 pounds of gear. But only when they reached this speck of a village in the Taliban heartland on a recent afternoon did their hard work begin.
For two hours inside a mud-walled compound, the Marines, Cpl. Diana Amaya, 23, and Cpl. Lisa Gardner, 28, set aside their rifles and body armor and tried to connect with four nervous Afghan women wearing veils. Over multiple cups of tea, the Americans made small talk through a military interpreter or in their own beginner’s Pashtu. [isn’t it Pashto?] [*] Then they encouraged the Afghans, who by now had shyly uncovered their faces, to sew handicrafts that could be sold at a local bazaar.
“We just need a couple of strong women,” Corporal Amaya said, in hopes of enlisting them to bring a measure of local commerce to the perilous world outside their door.
Corporal Amaya’s words could also describe her own daunting mission, part of a program intended to help improve the prospects for the United States in Afghanistan — and also, perhaps, to redefine gender roles in combat.
Three months ago, Corporal Amaya was one of 40 female Marines training at Camp Pendleton, Calif., in an edgy experiment: sending full-time “female engagement teams” [*]to accompany all-male foot patrols in Helmand Province in southern Afghanistan to win over the Afghan women who are culturally off limits to American men. Enthusiasm reigned. “We know we can make a difference,” Capt. Emily Naslund, 27, the team’s executive officer, said then in an interview.
Now, just weeks into a seven-month deployment that has sent them in twos and threes to 16 outposts across Helmand, including Marja and other spots where fighting continues, the women have met with inevitable hurdles — not only posed by Afghan women but also by some male Marines and American commanders skeptical about the teams’ purpose.
The women are taking it in stride. “If it were easy, it wouldn’t be interesting,” Captain Naslund said.
No one disagrees that the teams have potential and that female Marines are desperately needed, especially at medical clinics, as part of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal’s counterinsurgency campaign. As his officers say, you can’t swing the population to your side if you talk to only half of it. But interviews and foot patrols with Marines during two recent weeks in Helmand show that the teams, which have had gained access to some of the most isolated women in the world, remain a work in progress. [and I didn’t know for certain about woman KIA but when Times showed pictures of dead at the roughly 1,000 KIA mark recently, I noted handful of women troops KIA] [*]
One trip in early May to offer medical care to Afghan women in the village of Lakari showed the program’s promise, problems and dangers. The trip was delayed because of reports that the Taliban had put a bomb in the intended clinic building; although nothing was found, the Marines moved to another place. Then the struggles started in earnest.
Corporal Gardner, a helicopter mechanic who was working with the female Marines from Pendleton but had not trained with them, found herself as the lone woman dealing with five ailing Afghan women. There was no female interpreter or medical officer — there are chronic shortages of both — and the Afghans refused to leave their compound or let the male interpreter and medical officer come to them. Corporal Gardner devised a cumbersome solution. “Some of these women would rather die than be touched by a male,” she said. “So we’ll diagnose by proxy.” [*]
She took the women’s vital signs herself. Then she had an older Afghan woman come outside with her to describe the women’s symptoms, chiefly headaches and stomachaches, to the male interpreter. He translated them for the American male medical officer. (The American men were partly obscured from the older woman by a mud wall to respect her modesty.) Eventually medication — the painkiller ibuprofen — was handed over to the older woman to distribute.
By the end of the day, an Afghan woman was trusting enough to hand her baby to Corporal Gardner to take to the medical officer, who diagnosed digestive problems from a diet of sheep and goat milk. [*]
Sgt. Gabriel Faiivae, 25, the patrol leader, who had kept watch outside the clinic, and whose ears were still ringing from a homemade bomb that had blown the doors off his armored truck the day before, acknowledged that the labyrinthine logistics had to be fixed. “But as far as building trust, it was really good,” he said.
Other trips over the two weeks were get-to-know-you sessions that showed the chasm between two cultures.
“Do you ever fast?” one Afghan woman asked Captain Naslund in the northern Helmand village of Soorkano, apparently speaking of the custom during the Muslim festival of Ramadan.
“Sometimes, when I think I’m getting fat,” Captain Naslund replied, to a curious look. “American men like skinny girls.”
Villagers are often stunned, if not disbelieving, to see women underneath the body armor. Inside compounds, the female Marines say they have been poked in intimate places by Afghan women who want to make sure they are really women. [*]
One morning in the village of Mamor, as Corporal Amaya and Corporal Gardner asked an Afghan woman if she would be willing to teach in a new school, other women and children — who said they had never seen non-Pashtun women — repeatedly asked two American women, a photographer and a reporter, to lift their shirts and pant legs so they could see what was underneath.
Other cultural gaps exist among the Marines themselves. Along with their male counterparts, the female Marines live on rugged bases, often without showers, bathe with bottled water or baby wipes, use makeshift latrines and sleep in hot tents or outside in the dirt.
But team leaders say that some male Marine commanders have been reluctant to send the women on patrols, fearing either for their safety or that they will get in the way. (Women, who make up only 6 percent of the Marine Corps, are officially barred from combat branches like the infantry. In a bureaucratic side step commonly used in Iraq for women needed for jobs like bomb disposal or intelligence, the female engagement teams are added to the all-male infantry patrols.)
The women, who carry the same weapons and receive the same combat training as the men, cannot leave the bases unless the men escort them. Lt. Natalie Kronschnabel, one of the team leaders, said she had to push a Marine captain to let her team go on a five-hour patrol. [probably to avoid women POWs among Talib or other jihadis] [*]
“It wasn’t that hard, it was only four or five clicks,” said Lieutenant Kronschnabel, 26, using slang for kilometers. “And they kept asking, ‘Are you doing O.K.? Are you breathing hard?’ ”
Like the other women, Lieutenant Kronschnabel, a high school athlete in soccer, softball and gymnastics, had to meet rigorous physical requirements in the Marines. When she got back that day, she said the captain told her, “ ‘O.K., we’ll start getting your girls scheduled for more patrols.’ ”
Other male Marines, who consider themselves the most aggressive fighters in the armed services, have been won over by the female engagement teams, referred to as fets. “I was skeptical 100 percent,” said Sgt. Jeremy Latimer, 24, a platoon leader in Company F of the Second Battalion, Second Marine Regiment, who is based at Patrol Base Amir, an outpost in central Helmand. “I didn’t like taking anybody who wasn’t infantry. Basically, I was worried about getting shot at with fet Marines. I didn’t want to leave them behind.”
But he changed his mind after he took two of the women into a village elder’s home so they could smooth the way for a male medical officer to treat the Afghan’s ailing wife and daughters — again, from the other side of a wall. Sergeant Latimer said the favor was important, because the elder had become an informant about the Taliban. [*]The sergeant said he could hear through the wall that the female Marines and the elder’s wife and daughters, who turned out to be only moderately ill, got along.
“It was a normal, girls-just-hanging-out type of conversation, giggling and everything,” he said.
Since then, Sergeant Latimer said, Afghans have been more receptive when his patrols included the female Marines, who hand out stuffed animals to village children. When male Marines try that, he said, “It’s just a bunch of guys with rockets and machine guns trying to hand out a bear to a kid, and he starts to cry.”
But what do all the visits and talk add up to? Master Sgt. Julia Watson, who helped create an earlier version of the female engagement teams in Iraq and has been working in Helmand, said that the women had to move beyond handing out teddy bears and medicine and use what they learn from Afghan women to develop plans for income-generating projects, schools and clinics. “You have to have an end state,” she said.
Capt. Jason C. Brezler, a commander who has worked with the female Marines in the village of Now Zad, agreed. “To leverage a relationship, you have to have something of value to the Afghans,” he said. “And it has to be more than just, ‘I’m a girl.’ ”

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30afghan.html
May 29, 2010
Taliban Push Afghan Police Out of Valley
By DEXTER FILKINS [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters took control of a remote district near the Pakistani border on Saturday, scattering the forces of the Afghan government, [is this still part of radio Falullah business from 2 days ago?] [*] who said they had run out of ammunition.
A force of Taliban attackers entered the district of Barg-e-Matal around 8 a.m. Saturday, after the local police retreated, Colonel Sherzad, the deputy police chief, said in an interview.
“Our forces retreated because they did not have enough ammunition,” he said, echoing other officials in the area. Only 24 hours before, Afghan officials had claimed that they had driven the Taliban from the district into neighboring Pakistan.
The fall of Barg-e-Matal, while embarrassing to the Afghan government, is not necessarily

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30afghan.html
May 29, 2010
Taliban Push Afghan Police Out of Valley
By DEXTER FILKINS [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — Taliban fighters took control of a remote district near the Pakistani border on Saturday, scattering the forces of the Afghan government, [is this still part of radio Falullah business from 2 days ago?] [*] who said they had run out of ammunition.
A force of Taliban attackers entered the district of Barg-e-Matal around 8 a.m. Saturday, after the local police retreated, Colonel Sherzad, the deputy police chief, said in an interview.
“Our forces retreated because they did not have enough ammunition,” he said, echoing other officials in the area. Only 24 hours before, Afghan officials had claimed that they had driven the Taliban from the district into neighboring Pakistan.
The fall of Barg-e-Matal, while embarrassing to the Afghan government, is not necessarily strategically significant. [*]The district sits on an isolated valley in Nuristan Province, one of the most inaccessible places in the country.
The Americans, who provided limited air support over the past few days in clashes with the Taliban, provided none on Saturday. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American commander here, has emphasized protecting population centers, even at the expense of writing off smaller inaccessible areas. [*]
Barg-e-Matal would seem to qualify. Last year, a group of American soldiers spent two months in the valley to help the Afghan government clear and hold the area and pulled out in September.
Last month, the Americans closed their outposts in the nearby Korengal Valley, an equally remote place, after four years of trying to pacify local Afghans. Local Taliban quickly moved in.
Afghan officials said the Taliban fighters in Barg-e-Matal were Pakistanis, other foreigners and members of Al Qaeda, although they offered no evidence to support that assertion. [?] [keep watching for news on same] [*]
Afghan officials have claimed they had killed Maulana Fazlullah, one of the leaders of the Taliban insurgency in Pakistan’s Swat Valley. That could not be confirmed, but it raised the possibility that some Pakistani Taliban had fled into Afghanistan in search of a haven. [yes, apparently the same business from days ago] [*]
The Pakistani Taliban have been under pressure from the Pakistani Army, which has mounted a series of offensives against them in the past year. Afghan officials said the Taliban force outnumbered their own, which they put at 450. Gen. Zaman Mamozai, the head of the Border Police in eastern Afghanistan, tried to put the best face on the flight of the police.
“We made a tactical retreat, but, God willing, we will soon take over of the district center again,” he said.
In its detail, the Taliban takeover appeared grisly. Sardar Muhammad, a member of the National Assembly from Nuristan, spoke by telephone to a member of the Afghan border police just as his post was being overrun.
“Before cutting his throat, the cruel Talib took a knife and ordered the soldier to ‘talk to your friends,’ ” Mr. Muhammad said in an interview. “The soldier was crying and yelling.”
“We heard his voice as his throat was cut,” Mr. Muhammad said, “and they killed him.”
Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30pstan.html
May 29, 2010
Pakistani Taliban Carried Out Attack on Lahore Mosques, Police Say
By JANE PERLEZ [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] [sectarian attacks?] [typically such attacks occur during religious holidays, for example over Christian Xmas where Christian minority targeted and they attack back, so on] [also Sunni versus Shi’a occur with some frequency where Shi’a minority lives] [followup] [attack on Ahmdi] [to no one’s surprise, it was TTP (TiT)] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The coordinated attack on two mosques that killed more than 80 members of a minority Muslim sect in Lahore was carried out by six men affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban, [*]the police said Saturday.
The militants traveled from the town of Miram Shah in North Waziristan, a center for the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30pstan.html
May 29, 2010
Pakistani Taliban Carried Out Attack on Lahore Mosques, Police Say
By JANE PERLEZ [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] [sectarian attacks?] [typically such attacks occur during religious holidays, for example over Christian Xmas where Christian minority targeted and they attack back, so on] [also Sunni versus Shi’a occur with some frequency where Shi’a minority lives] [followup] [attack on Ahmdi] [to no one’s surprise, it was TTP (TiT)] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The coordinated attack on two mosques that killed more than 80 members of a minority Muslim sect in Lahore was carried out by six men affiliated with the Pakistani Taliban, [*]the police said Saturday.
The militants traveled from the town of Miram Shah in North Waziristan, a center for the Pakistani Taliban, and arrived in Lahore on May 21, a week before the attack on Friday, according to the spokesman for the police in Punjab Province, Akram Naeem Bharoka.
The men, ages 17 to 28, scouted the two mosques belonging to the Ahmadi sect with the help of local assistants, [*]he said.
The Taliban, who are Sunni Muslim, have increasingly focused on attacking minority Muslim groups. [*]
The first details of the police investigation came as the Ahmadi, a Muslim sect that has suffered severe discrimination in Pakistan for decades, buried 48 of the victims at a mass ceremony in Rabwah, a town in central Punjab.
A spokesman for the Ahmadis, Salim Uddin, said the burials would continue Sunday. The assault on the two mosques also wounded more than 100 people and was one of the bloodiest attacks in Pakistan in recent years.
Some of the survivors of the attack, who had been held hostage for more than three hours while the gunmen rampaged through one mosque near the central rail station, criticized the slow response of the police [the state is Sunni and regularly cuts slack to Sunni militants] [*]to calls for help. Some of the worshipers trapped in both mosques called the police on their cellphones almost immediately when they heard the sound of gunfire, they said.
The Ahmadis were declared a non-Muslim minority in 1974 when Prime Minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto agreed to the law under pressure from the Sunni majority.
The police spokesman said two of the six attackers had fled and had not been found. Two others died, and two were arrested, he said.
During their weeklong preparations, the men stayed in Raiwind, the headquarters of Tablighi Jamaat, [*]a Muslim missionary group often described by terrorism experts as the antechamber of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. [*]The men had also taken shelter at the Ibrahim Mosque, a center of the Tablighi Jamaat in central Lahore, said Mr. Bharoka, the police spokesman.
One of the arrested men trained in North Waziristan, and originally came from a village in southern Punjab known to have a concentration of sectarian militant groups. [*]
In an unrelated development, a retired army major who was arrested, apparently in connection with the case of the failed car bombing in Times Square, was released by the authorities. [*]
The retired officer, Maj. Adnan Ejaz, who served in the Pakistani Army’s Signal Corps, said in a telephone interview on Saturday that he had been released by the authorities on Thursday. “If you want the full story, call the army public relations office,” he said.
He was arrested May 14, two weeks after the bombing attempt in Times Square. As many as 10 other people have been detained in Pakistan by the Pakistani authorities in connection with the case.
The spokesman for the Pakistani Army, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said that the major had been forced to retire from the army because of his links to banned extremist groups and had been arrested in that connection.
General Abbas denied that the major had been arrested because of ties to Faisal Shahzad, the Pakistani-American arrested by American authorities as the main suspect in the Times Square case.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:09 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/politics/29gays.html
May 28, 2010
As ‘Don’t Ask’ Fades, MilitaryFaces Thorny Issues
By JAMES DAO [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [SecDef, JCS, other chains in Pentagon] [don’t ask, don’t tell] [sounds like a classic political deal?] [defense department, Pentagon] [both house and senate (in senate case, only out of committee) passed yesterday] [SecDef Gates made video to troops to assuage fears of change?] [I understand why but it was weird given the direction this is heading?] [followup] [*]
For opponents of the ban against homosexuals serving openly in the military, the steps by Congress this week to repeal the policy, known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” were a major victory. But now they are girding for what may be an equally difficult task: the transition to a force where straight and openly gay servicemen and women live, work and fight alongside one other.
Some homosexuals in the military say they are worried about how that process will work and whether they will be treated differently if they publicly acknowledge their sexual orientation. Some raised concerns about being harassed, assigned to separate barracks or

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/politics/29gays.html
May 28, 2010
As ‘Don’t Ask’ Fades, MilitaryFaces Thorny Issues
By JAMES DAO [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [SecDef, JCS, other chains in Pentagon] [don’t ask, don’t tell] [sounds like a classic political deal?] [defense department, Pentagon] [both house and senate (in senate case, only out of committee) passed yesterday] [SecDef Gates made video to troops to assuage fears of change?] [I understand why but it was weird given the direction this is heading?] [followup] [*]
For opponents of the ban against homosexuals serving openly in the military, the steps by Congress this week to repeal the policy, known as “don’t ask, don’t tell,” were a major victory. But now they are girding for what may be an equally difficult task: the transition to a force where straight and openly gay servicemen and women live, work and fight alongside one other.
Some homosexuals in the military say they are worried about how that process will work and whether they will be treated differently if they publicly acknowledge their sexual orientation. Some raised concerns about being harassed, assigned to separate barracks or shunned by colleagues who had been friendly before. [it will be good once the US gets some time under its belt—not pun intended—with policy changed] [until then horrible myths will persist] [reportedly, family research council said in past 2 days they fear forced flators?] [myths of aggressive homosexuals, would be somewhat silly of not so pernicious] [*]
“In an idyllic world, getting rid of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and saying ‘Everyone here is welcome’ is great,” said a 29-year-old lesbian in the Army National Guard, who asked that her name be withheld because she could still be discharged under the rule.
“But the policy actually allowed for a lot of protections,” the soldier said. “Getting rid of it completely without modifying it is kind of worrisome. The number of incidents against gays in the military is going to increase.”
Indeed, both opponents and supporters of the ban say a host of thorny practical questions will face the Pentagon if Congress gives final approval to legislation allowing the repeal of the ban, which could happen this summer.
Will openly gay service members be placed in separate housing, as the commandant of the Marine Corps has advocated? What benefits, if any, will partners or spouses of homosexual service members be accorded? Will all military units be required to treat homosexuals the same? And what training will heterosexual officers and enlisted troops receive to prepare them to serve with openly gay soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines?
“The reality is, getting rid of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ doesn’t ensure that all lesbian and gay service members will be equal on that day,” said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director of the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network. “There will continue to be challenges to make full equality for gays and lesbians in the armed forces a reality.”
Similar questions were asked when blacks were allowed to integrate previously all-white units. But that transition was not without its difficulties too, including instances of racial violence.
A Pentagon panel has begun studying the issues around gays serving openly as part of a broad review of homosexuality in the military, which will include surveys of thousands of service members and their families. The panel, led by Gen. Carter Ham, the commander of the United States Army in Europe, and Jeh C. Johnson, the Pentagon’s top legal counsel, is supposed to deliver its report by Dec. 1.
Under an amendment moving through Congress, once that report is finished, the White House and senior Pentagon leadership must certify that repealing the ban will not be disruptive to the military. Once that certification is made, final repeal will occur within 60 days.
The House approved the amendment on Friday as part of the bill authorizing more than $567 billion in Pentagon programs and spending. The Senate Armed Services Committee approved the amendment on Thursday, and the full Senate is expected to take up the authorization bill later this summer.
“It could be late 2011 before this is implemented,” said Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, a nonprofit organization.
Supporters of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” who still hope they can stop it from being repealed, fear the effect on the military if it is.
Elaine Donnelly, a leading supporter of the ban on homosexuals serving openly, said she expected major fights over housing issues, including whether gay couples should be allowed to live together on bases, as married heterosexual couples are. “Same-sex couples in family housing will become a reason for families to decline re-enlistment or a change in station,” she said.
Ms. Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, a nonprofit policy group, also predicted fierce debate over rules governing antidiscrimination policies toward homosexuals. She said she and other supporters of the ban worried that service members who oppose homosexuality on religious grounds would be denied promotions, a policy she called “zero tolerance” toward anti-gay discrimination. [I for one am sick and tired of religion in American politics and USFP] [the founders were clear: read Madison in Federalist 11 (or 10?)] [**]
“Over a period of time, not all at once, people who find themselves out of step with zero tolerance will not re-enlist,” she said.
Mr. Nicholson called such concerns “political posturing,” asserting that tens of thousands of gay people already serve in the military, many open to their closest peers, without problems.
Gay advocates said that federal law would prohibit same-sex spouses from receiving the financial and health care benefits that heterosexual spouses receive from the military. But they said some privileges, like hospital visitation rights, might be given to same-sex partners. That issue, too, is likely to be a subject of much debate, they said.
Many service members interviewed this week said they knew homosexuals in the military and did not mind serving alongside them.
“If you trust a soldier with your life, that’s what is most important, not being gay,” said Specialist Kevin Garcia of the Army, who has done two tours in Iraq and is now stationed at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio.
But Keith Johnson, a petty officer first class with the Coast Guard and a former Marine, said he opposed homosexuality on religious grounds and thought repealing the ban would hurt morale. “If I don’t know, it’s a whole lot better than someone parading it around in my face and me having to deal with it,” he said.
More than 13,000 service members have been discharged for homosexuality since the law was enacted in 1993, though the rate of discharges has declined. One of those who was discharged, Joseph Rocha, a former petty officer third class, said he planned to join the Navy again if the ban is repealed. “My heart is set on becoming an officer,” said Mr. Rocha, 24. “Before yesterday, that wasn’t an option.”
Amid their celebratory talk, gay rights groups on Friday also warned that the ban remained in effect. Indeed, Lt. Col. Victor J. Fehrenbach, a decorated Air Force fighter pilot of 19 years, could be discharged any day under a ‘don’t ask’ investigation that began two years ago.
After being accused of sexual harassment in 2008, Colonel Fehrenbach, who had flown combat missions over Iraq and Afghanistan, admitted to being gay, even discussing his sexuality on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on MSNBC. Though the allegations were dismissed, a board recommended that he be discharged. His case is now before the secretary of the Air Force.
“It just seems incomprehensible that they could justify final discharge, given that Congress is moving toward ending the policy,” Colonel Fehrenbach said in an interview. “I’m afraid people will see headlines and think ‘don’t ask’ has been repealed. And that isn’t the case.”
Dan Frosch and Rob Davis contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/politics/29gitmo.html
May 28, 2010
No Terror Evidence Against Some Detainees
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [11th congress, 2nd session] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo?] [bureaucracy] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [report on group of gitmo guests] [this has long been a prolem—my recollection is of around 200, about 50 are real jihadis?] [see research10 for gitmo_taskforce05282010.pdf] [*]
WASHINGTON — The 48 Guantánamo Bay detainees whom the Obama administration has decided to keep holding without trial include several for whom there is no evidence of involvement in any specific terrorist plot, [in short, Obama has decided to do exactly what Bush did] [but dems tend to feel bad about it] [continuity with anguish?] [*] according to a report disclosed Friday. [on other hand, it makes the GOP who rail against Obama look incredibly silly] [he’s barely different than Bush on foreign policy] [*]
The report was a 32-page summary of the findings of a task force whose members were drawn from national security agencies across the executive branch. [I don’t recall such a group before] [typically has been either dod or doj?] [*] The group worked throughout

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/us/politics/29gitmo.html
May 28, 2010
No Terror Evidence Against Some Detainees
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [11th congress, 2nd session] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo?] [bureaucracy] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [report on group of gitmo guests] [this has long been a prolem—my recollection is of around 200, about 50 are real jihadis?] [see research10 for gitmo_taskforce05282010.pdf] [*]
WASHINGTON — The 48 Guantánamo Bay detainees whom the Obama administration has decided to keep holding without trial include several for whom there is no evidence of involvement in any specific terrorist plot, [in short, Obama has decided to do exactly what Bush did] [but dems tend to feel bad about it] [continuity with anguish?] [*] according to a report disclosed Friday. [on other hand, it makes the GOP who rail against Obama look incredibly silly] [he’s barely different than Bush on foreign policy] [*]
The report was a 32-page summary of the findings of a task force whose members were drawn from national security agencies across the executive branch. [I don’t recall such a group before] [typically has been either dod or doj?] [*] The group worked throughout 2009 to evaluate each of the 240 detainees held at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, when the Obama administration took office and to decide their fates.
The task force’s general findings have been known since its report was completed in January. But the report itself was not made public. [*]It was obtained Friday by The Washington Post, which posted the report on its Web site. [see in research10, gitmo_taskforce05282010.pdf] [*]
Of the 240 detainees, it recommended transferring 126 home or to a third country, prosecuting 36 for crimes, and holding 48 without trial under the laws of war because they are believed to be members of an enemy force. Thirty were Yemenis who have been deemed safe to release as individuals but will continue to be held until security conditions in Yemen stabilize. [it’s actually pretty interesting] [in perverse way it demonstrates America’s devotion, tg, to rule of law] [but perverse qualifier is real enough: for years under Bush and now nearly 18 month under Obama] [talk about continuity and role] [use psci 355-455] [*]
About 180 detainees remain at the base today. Of that group, the 48 whom the administration has designated for continued indefinite detention without trial have attracted the greatest controversy, [my memory was about right] [*]in part because many Democrats sharply criticized that policy when the Bush administration created it after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The report said most such detainees fell into at least one of four categories: they had had a significant organizational role in Al Qaeda or the Taliban; “advanced training or experience” in matters like explosives; they had “expressly stated or otherwise exhibited an intent to reengage in extremist activity upon release;” or they had a “history of engaging in extremist activities or particularly strong ties (either directly or through family members) to extremist organizations.”
The report also cited two primary reasons why the 48 detainees could not be prosecuted. First, it said, the vast majority were captured in combat zones when the focus was warfare, not court cases. While the intelligence against them was deemed credible, it said, evidence was not collected or preserved about them in a form that would be deemed admissible in court or that could prove their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
“One common problem is that for many of the detainees, there are no witnesses who are available to testify in any proceeding against them,” it said.
Legal limitations also posed a problem for prosecutions, the report said. For example, the task force found no evidence that some detainees had “participated in a specific terrorist plot” or that they had acted to support Al Qaeda after October 2001, when laws criminalizing the general provision of material support to a terrorist group were extended to apply to foreigners overseas. Furthermore, it noted, the statute of limitations for providing material support to terrorists expires after eight years.
The report’s disclosure comes as the Senate Armed Services Committee said it had voted to bar the construction of a military detention facility in Thomson, Ill., [multiple articles on same archived here] [*]in a further blow to the Obama administration’s fading hopes to shutter the Guantánamo prison.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052804854.html
Options studied for a possible Pakistan strike
By Greg Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 29, 2010; A01 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [gsave and counterinsurgency strategy] [AfPak as main front but metastasizing] [Obama admin and its substantial continuity with its predecessor] [NSC levels and interface with bureaucracy that implements decisions from NSC] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [see Thrusday’s NSS of United States] [important piece: USFP, gsave] [*]
The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials.
Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration's need for retaliatory options, [*]the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/28/AR2010052804854.html
Options studied for a possible Pakistan strike
By Greg Miller
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 29, 2010; A01 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [gsave and counterinsurgency strategy] [AfPak as main front but metastasizing] [Obama admin and its substantial continuity with its predecessor] [NSC levels and interface with bureaucracy that implements decisions from NSC] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [see Thrusday’s NSS of United States] [important piece: USFP, gsave] [*]
The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country's tribal areas, according to senior military officials.
Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration's need for retaliatory options, [*]the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient. [and sometimes counterproductive] [see today’s external] [*]
"Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square," one of the officials said.
At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan's intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups. The United States and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence center on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, [*]according to the U.S. military officials. They and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military and intelligence activities in Pakistan. [I’ve listened to two presidents over a decade now—mind you, presidents who get PDB from CIA and other IC reports from reorganized system—both look into cameras and tell reporters repeatedly there’s danger] [so whatever party and which ever president one is prepared to hate] [fact is the other has said substantially same] [Obama’s presser Thrusday: reponse to Helen Thomas] [“I would be sending” troops to die there “if I didn’t” think or believe the danger was real] [no smiles] [*]
The "fusion centers" are meant to bolster Pakistani military operations by providing direct access to U.S. intelligence, including real-time video surveillance from drones controlled by the U.S. Special Operations Command, the officials said. But in an acknowledgment of the continuing mistrust between the two governments, the officials added that both sides also see the centers as a way to keep a closer eye on one another, as well as to monitor military operations and intelligence activities in insurgent areas. [recent SSCI report I read] [it didn’t single out fushion centers but did the NCTC] [fushion has not occurred] [*]
Obama said during his campaign for the presidency that he would be willing to order strikes in Pakistan, and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a television interview after the Times Square attempt that "if, heaven forbid, an attack like this that we can trace back to Pakistan were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences."
Obama dispatched his national security adviser, James L. Jones, and CIA Director Leon Panetta to Islamabad this month to deliver a similar message to Pakistani officials, including President Asif Ali Zardari and the military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani. [signaling infighting inside admin—what’s new—but also how seriously IC thinks the problems are] [**]
Jones and Panetta also presented evidence gathered by U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies that Shahzad received significant support from the Pakistani Taliban.
The U.S. options for potential retaliatory action rely mainly on air and missile strikes, but could also employ small teams of U.S. Special Operations troops already positioned along the border with Afghanistan. One of the senior military officials said plans for military strikes in Pakistan have been revised significantly over the past several years, moving away from a "large, punitive response" to more measured plans meant to deliver retaliatory blows against specific militant groups.
The official added that there is a broad consensus in the U.S. military that airstrikes would at best erode the threat posed by al-Qaeda and its affiliates, and risk an irreparable rupture in the U.S. relationship with Pakistan. [*]
"The general feeling is that we need to be circumspect in how we respond so we don't destroy the relationships we've built" with the Pakistani military, the second official said.
U.S. Special Operations teams in Afghanistan have pushed for years to have wider latitude to carry out raids across the border, arguing that CIA drone strikes do not yield prisoners or other opportunities to gather intelligence. But a 2008 U.S. helicopter raid against a target in Pakistan prompted protests from officials in Islamabad who oppose allowing U.S. soldiers to operate within their country. [some of that is tension between military and CIA, plain and simple] [but there’s also real concern that the increased tempo of drones has been too counterproductive in instances] [*]
The CIA has the authority to designate and strike targets in Pakistan without case-by-case approval from the White House. U.S. military forces are currently authorized to carry out unilateral strikes in Pakistan only if solid intelligence were to surface on any of three high-value targets: al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Taliban chief Mohammad Omar. But even in those cases, the military would need higher-level approval.
"The bottom line is you have to have information about targets to do something [and] we have a process that remains cumbersome," said one of the senior military officials. "If something happens, we have to confirm who did it and where it came from. People want to be as precise as possible to be punitive."
U.S. spy agencies have engaged in a major buildup inside Pakistan over the past year. The CIA has increased the pace of drone strikes against al-Qaeda affiliates, a campaign supported by the arrival of new surveillance and eavesdropping technology deployed by the National Security Agency. [*]
The fusion centers are part of a parallel U.S. military effort to intensify the pressure on the Taliban and other groups accused of directing insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. U.S. officials said that the sharing of intelligence goes both ways and that targets are monitored in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. [the only military fushion in NCTC is some military-based IC—where of course military has long dominated, despite CIA] [*]
In the Peshawar fusion cell, which was set up within the last several months, Pakistanis have access to “full-motion video from different platforms,” including unarmed surveillance drones, one official said.
The fusion centers also serve a broader U.S. aim: making the Pakistanis more dependent on U.S. intelligence, and less likely to curtail Predator drone patrols or other programs that draw significant public opposition.
To Pakistan, the fusion centers offer a glimpse of U.S. capabilities, as well as the ability to monitor U.S. military operations across the border. “They find out much more about what we know,” one of the senior U.S. military officials said. “What we get is physical presence – to see what they are actually doing versus what they say they’re doing.” [*]
That delicate arrangement will be tested if the two sides reach agreement on the fusion center near Quetta. [Pakistan must be careful but probably in their interest to allow US surveillance near north and south Waziristan] [*]The city has served for nearly a decade as a sanctuary for Taliban leaders who fled Afghanistan in 2001 and have long-standing ties to Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence directorate.
U.S. officials said that the two sides have done preliminary work searching for a suitable site for the center but that the effort is proceeding at a pace that one official described as "typical Pakistani glacial speed." Despite the increased cooperation, U.S. officials say they continue to be frustrated over Pakistan's slow pace in issuing visas to American military and civilian officials.
One senior U.S. military official said the center would be used to track the Afghan Taliban leadership council, known as the Quetta shura. But other officials said the main mission would be to support the U.S. military effort across the border in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where a major U.S. military push is planned. [important piece with some new info][*]
Staff writers Greg Jaffe and Karen DeYoung contributed to this report. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/opinion/29sat1.html
May 28, 2010
Dealing With Pakistan
[editorial] [what to do with Pakistan mess] [this mess has been building since 2003 if not before] [due to Iraq, Bush neglected somewhat] [Obama inherited but ran with it, owns it now] [c.f., today’s govt where military wrestling with same] [use psci 355-455,469] [*]
Nine years after the 9/11 attacks, the United States is still trying to figure out how to manage relations with Pakistan — and what mix of inducements and public and private pressures will persuade Islamabad to fully commit to the fight against extremists.
The Obama administration is working hard to cultivate top Pakistani officials. There are regular high-level visits. In March, a senior Pakistani delegation visited Washington for a strategic dialogue with the Americans that seems to be building trust and cooperation across a range of government agencies.
An April visit to Islamabad by the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, and Leon Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was a reminder of the limits of American power. They warned officials of severe consequences if an attack on

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/opinion/29sat1.html
May 28, 2010
Dealing With Pakistan
[editorial] [what to do with Pakistan mess] [this mess has been building since 2003 if not before] [due to Iraq, Bush neglected somewhat] [Obama inherited but ran with it, owns it now] [c.f., today’s govt where military wrestling with same] [use psci 355-455,469] [*]
Nine years after the 9/11 attacks, the United States is still trying to figure out how to manage relations with Pakistan — and what mix of inducements and public and private pressures will persuade Islamabad to fully commit to the fight against extremists.
The Obama administration is working hard to cultivate top Pakistani officials. There are regular high-level visits. In March, a senior Pakistani delegation visited Washington for a strategic dialogue with the Americans that seems to be building trust and cooperation across a range of government agencies.
An April visit to Islamabad by the president’s national security adviser, Gen. James Jones, and Leon Panetta, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, was a reminder of the limits of American power. They warned officials of severe consequences if an attack on American soil is traced back to Pakistan. Given Pakistan’s proximity to Afghanistan, its nuclear arsenal and the fragility of its government, it is not clear how much punishment Washington would ever mete out. [*]
Pakistan has its own horrifying reminders that the fight against terrorism is not just America’s fight. On Friday, gunmen and suicide bombers stormed two mosques in Lahore, killing at least 80 worshipers.
Pakistan’s Army has mounted big offensives against Pakistani Taliban factions in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan. It has hesitated in North Waziristan where Faisal Shahzad, the suspect in the failed Times Square bombing, reportedly received support and training. Intelligence-sharing has improved, but there is a lot more to be done as the Shahzad case showed. [*]
So why isn’t Pakistan doing all it needs to? [not hardly] [but realistically, how far can Pakistan be pushed?] [truth is many Paksitanis are split and hate US] [*]
Part of that is the strategic game. Islamabad has long used extremist groups in its never-ending competition with India. Part is a lack of military capability and part political cowardice. While some of Pakistan’s top leaders may “get it,” the public definitely does not.
The United States still does not have a good enough strategy for winning over Pakistan’s people, who are fed a relentless diet of anti-American propaganda.
As The Times reported on Wednesday, the United States is often blamed for everything from water shortages to trying to destroy the Pakistani state. The Obama administration came in determined to change that narrative. When he was in the Senate, Joseph Biden, now the vice president, worked with Richard Lugar on a $7.5 billion, five-year aid package that would prove American concern for the Pakistani people (not just the military) by investing in schools, hospitals and power projects. [in past day or two] [*]
Congress approved the first $1.5 billion for 2010, but the State Department is still figuring out how to spend it. The projects need to move as quickly as possible. And Pakistani leaders who demand more help, but then cynically disparage the aid, need to change their narrative.
The State Department also needs to move faster to implement its public diplomacy plan for Pakistan. Officials need to think hard about how to make sure Pakistanis know that aid is coming from the United States — like the $51 million for upgrading three thermal power plants announced by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in October. It is a delicate issue, but the “made in America” label has to be affixed. [big shrug?] [*]
The State Department has committed to spend $107 million over two years to help Pakistanis better understand the United States. Plans include bringing 2,500 Pakistani academics and others on exchange visits and expanding after-school English classes in Pakistan. There also are proposals to bring more American academics to Pakistan and to reopen cultural centers. They should move ahead. An initiative to make more American officials available to speak directly to Pakistanis has shown promise.
Changing Pakistani attitudes about the United States will take generations. The Shahzad case is one more reminder that there is no time to lose.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/middleeast/29nuke.html
May 28, 2010
189 Nations Reaffirm Goal of Ban on Nuclear Weapons
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR [UN] [general assembly] [NPT] [somewhat unserious deadline to end all nukes by 2012 (Middle East)] [if they took Obama as their inspiration, they’ve not listened to him] [he says questionable whether it will happen in his lifetime] [and from US standpoint, though I think the intent is real, nobody thinks this is coming soon] [many interim deals necessary to pave way, so forth] [less clear on Middle East but onboard rhetorically?] [interesting return to NPT, though] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [*]
UNITED NATIONS — Hard-fought negotiations over the future of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty ended here on Friday with 189 nations reaffirming their commitment to eliminating all nuclear weapons and setting a new 2012 deadline for holding a regional conference to eliminate unconventional weapons from the Middle East.
The complicated 28-page final document from the treaty review conference calls for the United Nations secretary general, along with the United States, Russia and Britain, to appoint a facilitator and consult with the countries of the Middle East convening the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/middleeast/29nuke.html
May 28, 2010
189 Nations Reaffirm Goal of Ban on Nuclear Weapons
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR [UN] [general assembly] [NPT] [somewhat unserious deadline to end all nukes by 2012 (Middle East)] [if they took Obama as their inspiration, they’ve not listened to him] [he says questionable whether it will happen in his lifetime] [and from US standpoint, though I think the intent is real, nobody thinks this is coming soon] [many interim deals necessary to pave way, so forth] [less clear on Middle East but onboard rhetorically?] [interesting return to NPT, though] [use psci 350] [use ir text] [*]
UNITED NATIONS — Hard-fought negotiations over the future of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty ended here on Friday with 189 nations reaffirming their commitment to eliminating all nuclear weapons and setting a new 2012 deadline for holding a regional conference to eliminate unconventional weapons from the Middle East.
The complicated 28-page final document from the treaty review conference calls for the United Nations secretary general, along with the United States, Russia and Britain, to appoint a facilitator and consult with the countries of the Middle East convening the conference.
That goal was considered the landmark achievement of the negotiations, aside from reaffirming the basic premise of the treaty. Review conferences are held every five years and the last one, in 2005, ended in disarray, the gap between states with nuclear weapons and those without too wide to bridge.
Given the current tense realities in the Middle East, senior government officials and diplomats on all sides conceded that even calling such a conference, much less accomplishing any of its goals, remained a distant prospect.
“People are not going to come to a disarmament conference voluntarily if they are at war with their neighbors,” said Ellen O. Tauscher, the under secretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, who led the American delegation. Washington’s support for such a conference does not supersede the longstanding United States policy that disarmament requires a comprehensive peace in the region first, she said. [Obama’s state department point on nukes] [*]
But in 1995 Arab states accepted the indefinite extension of the nonproliferation treaty, in exchange for a commitment for such a Middle East conference. Since there had been no movement on the issue for 15 years, Ambassador Maged Abdelaziz of Egypt had made it clear from the outset that fellow Arab states and the nonaligned movement demanded some concrete steps to support the document this year.
Tensions over the content of the final document after a month of negotiations went down to the wire, with diplomats portraying the last few days as a poker game with the United States and Iran each trying to call the other’s bluff so that one might be blamed for the failure of the conference to reach consensus.
In the end, the United States accepted one reference to Israel in the final document, in the section on the Middle East, which basically repeats a previously stated position that Israel should join the 40-year-old nonproliferation treaty. The Israeli Mission to the United Nations would not comment on the outcome. The Israeli government has never confirmed the widespread consensus that it holds at least 100 nuclear missiles. [the outlier: actor that never tested to demonstrate what it had] [*]
The document also emphasizes the need for countries to respect treaty guidelines for keeping their nuclear programs open to international inspection and suffering the consequences if they do not. Such measures are likely to strengthen the Security Council’s stand in its current confrontation with Iran over possible new sanctions because of suspicions that it is trying to develop nuclear weapons, which Tehran vehemently denies.
“My guess is that language caused the Iranians pretty significant heartburn even though they decided to go along with it,” said Gary Samore, [indeed] [*]the White House coordinator for unconventional weapons. [the thing is for US, most any movement in UN to disarm Middle East is typically aimed directly at Israel and browbeating same] [it’s virtually inevitable that any attempt will be seen thusly] [*]
Much of Friday was spent waiting to hear if Iran would accept the final document. Diplomats said that the conference chairman, Libran N. Cabactulan of the Philippines, even called the leaders of Brazil and Turkey, temporary Security Council members who have been trumpeting their ability to reach a compromise with Iran, to prevail on Tehran not to foil the agreement.
In a speech after the document was adopted, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Iranian envoy, listed at least nine ways in which Iran thought the document was weak. A proposed 2025 deadline for the elimination of all nuclear weapons had been scuttled by the nuclear weapons states, he noted, as had a proposal for a legally binding commitment from states with nuclear weapons not to use them against those without.
“It is of course far from our expectations, but at the same time it is a step forward toward our goal of disarmament,” Mr. Soltanieh told reporters. Iran had also pushed for more stringent language demanding that Israel join the nonproliferation treaty.
Earlier in the week, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and Gen. James L. Jones, the national security adviser, met with Arab ambassadors at the White House to work out compromise Middle East language. The United States accepted dropping direct linkage between a comprehensive Middle East peace and the regional denuclearizing conference, Arab diplomats said, as well as the one reference to Israel.
The United States repeatedly said Friday that it objected to the language singling out Israel, but accepted it because consensus on the overall document underscored President Obama’s commitment to eliminate nuclear weapons.
“There is no problem with the language, but having that language in the Mideast section we think sends a really negative political signal,” Mr. Samore said. “It suggests the conference will be designed to single out Israel.” That would decrease the likelihood of such a conference ever happening, he said, which is why the United States insisted in retaining a role as a sponsor.
Given that all 189 states that have signed the nonproliferation treaty had to agree to the wording, including 64 separate ways to move forward, all the major players found flaws in the outcome. It meant many steps had to be watered down. [*]
Although the document singles out North Korea by name, for example, saying its nuclear program constitutes a threat to “peace and security,” it was not as strong as the condemnation initially proposed.
Aside from Israel, the document also calls on India and Pakistan, both holding nuclear weapons but not nonproliferation treaty members, to join it. [*]
While rejecting a deadline, for the first time the main five nuclear weapons states accepted vague language referring to a new, stronger international convention on eliminating nuclear weapons, and the idea of a “timeline” was introduced.
Despite differences over the pace of disarmament and proliferation concerns, the document breathes new life into a treaty seen as under threat, analysts said. “That is the positive, there is much more attention on future action and new benchmarks,” said Prof. William C. Potter, [perhaps] [*] the director of the center for nonproliferation at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/europe/29czech.html
May 28, 2010
Communists Could Gain in Czech Vote
By DAN BILEFSKY [Czech Republic] [formerly part of Warsaw Pact] [formerly part of Soviet system] [in 1990s broke apart] [thereafter both Czech and Slovak parts became distinct] [in response to dissatisfaction with Western models of development over time] [and global economic meltdown] [return of centrally commanded economic models] [though let’s be clear] [however left, far cry from CW where communists controlled utterly system and elections] [here, whatever drift is function of electorate] [use psci 350] [*]
PRAGUE — A popular online video here called “Convince Granny” urges young Czechs to withhold visits to their grandparents unless the old folks agree not to vote for leftist parties like the Communists in Saturday’s elections.
Modeled on the American comic Sarah Silverman’s video “The Great Schlep,” which in 2008 appealed to young Jewish voters to persuade their grandparents to support Barack Obama in the swing state of Florida, the Czech video is a testament to the Communist Party’s enduring influence here. [*]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/europe/29czech.html
May 28, 2010
Communists Could Gain in Czech Vote
By DAN BILEFSKY [Czech Republic] [formerly part of Warsaw Pact] [formerly part of Soviet system] [in 1990s broke apart] [thereafter both Czech and Slovak parts became distinct] [in response to dissatisfaction with Western models of development over time] [and global economic meltdown] [return of centrally commanded economic models] [though let’s be clear] [however left, far cry from CW where communists controlled utterly system and elections] [here, whatever drift is function of electorate] [use psci 350] [*]
PRAGUE — A popular online video here called “Convince Granny” urges young Czechs to withhold visits to their grandparents unless the old folks agree not to vote for leftist parties like the Communists in Saturday’s elections.
Modeled on the American comic Sarah Silverman’s video “The Great Schlep,” which in 2008 appealed to young Jewish voters to persuade their grandparents to support Barack Obama in the swing state of Florida, the Czech video is a testament to the Communist Party’s enduring influence here. [*]
The creators of “Convince Granny” say they conceived the video, which has had more than 600,000 hits since it was posted on YouTube about a month ago, as a necessary weapon against the ascent of the unreconstructed Communist Party, which recent polls indicate could win up to 15 percent of the vote.
In addition to the jokes about Grandma’s selective memory, the video implores young viewers not to forget the insidious transgressions of the former Communist government, from the exile of the country’s leading intellectuals and artists to the execution of its political enemies. [*]
In an election that is unlikely to yield a majority for either the leftist Social Democrats or the rightist Civic Democrats, analysts say the Communist Party could come closer to real power than at any other time since the Velvet Revolution here overthrew Communism in 1989.
“We hate the Communists,” said Marek Prchal, 35, an advertising executive who helped create the video. “The Communists should have been banned a long time ago.”
Analysts say the Communist Party is benefiting from a regionwide disappointment over the failure of liberal parties to live up to the promises of 1989. [*]
“The theme across the region is the politics of disillusionment,” [join the crowds] [*]said Anna Matuskova, a political consultant here. “In the Czech Republic, there is a new generation of young people with iPhones who don’t remember Communism and will vote for them as a protest vote.”
The Communist Party in this country remains the only one surviving in the former Eastern Bloc and, to its many critics, is a dangerous anachronism. The Communists still extol Lenin and Marx, and advocate the redistribution of wealth and the country’s disengagement from NATO, making the party a potential spoiler for good relations with the rest of Europe and the United States.
Eager to keep the Communists out of power, the Social Democrats and Civic Democrats may come together in a grand coalition that could lead to gridlock, political experts here say. But it is also possible that a minority Social Democratic government could come to power dependent on the Communist Party’s tacit support. [*]
Several new political parties could also prove to be decisive in these elections: the recently created TOP 09, a fiscally conservative party led by Karel Schwarzenberg, a pipe-smoking prince and former foreign minister; and Public Matters, which has instituted patrols in Prague removing drug addicts and homeless people from the street.
The Communists’ secret weapon is Katerina Konecna, the youngest member of the Czech Parliament, who at age 28 says she feels as at home wearing designer black stiletto heels as she does reading Das Kapital. The daughter of Communist Party members, Ms. Konecna says that the current crisis of capitalism has proved a boon to the Communist Party among the young, who were drawn by its promises of free education and guaranteed jobs.
“People would rather queue up for bananas, than today, when they have to stand in the unemployment line,” she said.
Yet the limits of the contemporary Communists’ appeal were all too apparent at a rally held Thursday in front of one of the capital’s largest shopping malls. Jana Kocianova, 18, a would-be Czech Britney Spears, gyrated and belted out Gloria Gaynor’s “I Will Survive” in Czech, as a group of 80-something men swayed to the beat, tapping their canes on the pavement.
Speaking between sets, Ms. Kocianova commended the Communists’ social egalitarianism, even as she acknowledged that singing for them was problematic for her. “It’s not cool to be young and to support the Communist Party,” she lamented.
But she quickly added, “I wasn’t alive during Communism, so I don’t really remember anything.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/africa/29briefs-cartoon.html
May 28, 2010
South Africa: Paper Apologizes for Cartoon of Muhammad
By CELIA W. DUGGER [South Africa] [southern Africa] [sub Sahara] [relatively democratic with turns of corruption and growth pains since apartheid finally died] [free press] [media printed cartoon of Mohammad then had second thoughts?] [apologizes for offense] [I can imagine some editor saying damn the torpedos, we must stand for freedom of expression] [then the responses begin to inundate] [then the fear rises] [then the apology?] [use psci 469] [Islam as political movement, transnationalism] [*]
The Mail & Guardian said Friday that it had underestimated “the depth of anger ignited” by a cartoon it published last week that depicted the Prophet Muhammad lying on a psychiatrist’s couch with a thought bubble over his head that said, “Other prophets have followers with a sense of humor!” The weekly said it regretted “the sense of injury it caused many Muslims.” The cartoon was by Jonathan Shapiro, known as Zapiro, whose sharp satiric pen has gouged many a politician. [*]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/africa/29briefs-cartoon.html
May 28, 2010
South Africa: Paper Apologizes for Cartoon of Muhammad
By CELIA W. DUGGER [South Africa] [southern Africa] [sub Sahara] [relatively democratic with turns of corruption and growth pains since apartheid finally died] [free press] [media printed cartoon of Mohammad then had second thoughts?] [apologizes for offense] [I can imagine some editor saying damn the torpedos, we must stand for freedom of expression] [then the responses begin to inundate] [then the fear rises] [then the apology?] [use psci 469] [Islam as political movement, transnationalism] [*]
The Mail & Guardian said Friday that it had underestimated “the depth of anger ignited” by a cartoon it published last week that depicted the Prophet Muhammad lying on a psychiatrist’s couch with a thought bubble over his head that said, “Other prophets have followers with a sense of humor!” The weekly said it regretted “the sense of injury it caused many Muslims.” The cartoon was by Jonathan Shapiro, known as Zapiro, whose sharp satiric pen has gouged many a politician. [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30korea.html
May 29, 2010
China Offers Condolences Over Sinking of Ship
By CHOE SANG-HUN [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [China finally shamed by public opinion to address the act] [since ROK released rather specific info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [DPRK has broken all relations and threatened to prepare for war—i.e., a typically overwrought response] [followup] [China’s belated response] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China offered condolences on Saturday to South Korea for the sinking of one of its warships in March, [better than the silence heretofore but still weak] [*]The Associated Press reported.
China has faced growing pressure to rein in North Korea, its traditional ally, since an international investigative team placed blame for the warship’s sinking, and the death of 46 sailors, on a North Korean torpedo. South Korea is pushing for the United Nations Security Council to censure the North.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30korea.html
May 29, 2010
China Offers Condolences Over Sinking of Ship
By CHOE SANG-HUN [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [China finally shamed by public opinion to address the act] [since ROK released rather specific info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [DPRK has broken all relations and threatened to prepare for war—i.e., a typically overwrought response] [followup] [China’s belated response] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China offered condolences on Saturday to South Korea for the sinking of one of its warships in March, [better than the silence heretofore but still weak] [*]The Associated Press reported.
China has faced growing pressure to rein in North Korea, its traditional ally, since an international investigative team placed blame for the warship’s sinking, and the death of 46 sailors, on a North Korean torpedo. South Korea is pushing for the United Nations Security Council to censure the North.
Mr. Wen has joined the leaders of South Korea and Japan in a three-way summit on the southern Korean island of Jeju.
“I hope this summit will conclude with solid results and that we will try together to ensure that it will contribute to world peace,” Mr. Wen said, according to a Korean-language transcript released by the South Korean president’s office and reported by the A.P. [*]
On Friday, the Chinese prime minister had promised that Beijing “will not protect anyone” once it had concluded who was responsible for the sinking. Mr. Wen had told the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, that China would make an “impartial judgment” on who was responsible for the sinking, said Mr. Lee’s spokesman, Lee Dong-kwan. [*]
“Once we have our conclusion, we will not protect anyone,” Mr. Wen was quoted by the spokesman as saying, words that seemed to represent a shift away from China’s former calls for calm on all sides.
In its report on the talks in Seoul, China’s official Xinhua news agency made no mention of Mr. Wen’s pledge, but it did quote him as saying that China would assess the matter in an “objective and fair manner.”
During the meeting, Mr. Lee made a detailed case as to why China should join international condemnation of North Korea, his aides said.
Mr. Wen is trying to balance China’s inclination to shield North Korea from further sanctions against the expectations of South Korea and Japan, its third and fourth largest trading partners, that Beijing will be a force for regional stability.
On Friday, Japan said it would limit cash remittances to North Korea from Koreans in Japan.
South Korean officials have said they do not expect Beijing to rebuke the North at the Security Council, where South Korea, with American and Japanese support, will seek condemnation of the North next month.
South Korea is not seeking the imposition of new sanctions but wants to secure broad agreement, particularly with China, on the “will and intention to continue and deepen the existing sanctions,” a senior government official told foreign correspondents in Seoul on Friday.
Young technocrats in Beijing have begun to have “a new thinking” about China’s ties with North Korea, the official said. But “at the top level,” the official said, speaking on the condition of anonymity, “I don’t see any serious change.” [but over time there could be as China becomes part of the status quo structure] [*]
“There are only a few top-ranking old people who can decide China’s North Korea policy,” he said. “That’s the reality.”
Ever since investigators concluded last week that a North Korean submarine torpedoed the 1,200-ton Cheonan warship, international attention has focused on Beijing. Without the support of China, the North’s biggest trading partner and benefactor, any campaign to formally punish the North is likely to fizzle.
So far, China has not formally endorsed the investigative report. North Korea has denied responsibility for sinking the Cheonan and has warned that any retaliation or punishment could lead to war.
On Friday, the National Defense Commission, the North’s highest ruling agency, headed by the country’s leader, Kim Jong-il, issued a rebuttal of the major points on the investigative report, which it called a “fake.”
North Korea does not own a 130-ton minisubmarine of the sort the South said was used to attack the warship, Maj. Gen. Pak Rim-su, a commission official, said at a news conference in the North’s capital, Pyongyang, according to the North’s official news agency, K.C.N.A. Nor did the North distribute brochures containing the specifications of its torpedoes to foreign clients, he said. The South Korean Defense Ministry cited such brochures in support of its report.
General Pak repeated the North’s warning that the Korean Peninsula was heading to “the brink of war.”
Mr. Wen was the first Chinese leader to meet Mr. Lee since South Korea formally accused the North of torpedoing its ship. He will also meet Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyamaof Japan at the three-nation regional summit meeting on the resort island of Cheju over the weekend.
Japan, which already bans trade with the North, said Friday that it would lower the limit on the amount of undeclared cash that could be carried to North Korea to 100,000 yen, or about $1,100, from the current 300,000 yen, or $3,300.
The maximum amount that can be sent to North Korea without being reported to the Japanese government was lowered to $33,000 from $110,000.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:53 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/middleeast/29briefs-israel.html
May 28, 2010
Gaza Flotilla Organizers Protest Israeli Response to Their Mission
By ISABEL KERSHNER [Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [indirect talks restarted May 9, at least announced that day] [followup] [instead of violence, the occasional concession as talks proceed] [fighting and talking and concessions simultaneously] [this flotilla was discussed yesterday but I didn’t archive because Israel had not yet stopped them] [followup] [*]
Organizers of a flotilla of up to nine vessels carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists and thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza protested on Friday against what they called an Israeli disinformation campaign aimed at their mission. Israel has vowed to stop the boats from reaching Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamic militant groupHamas, and insists that there is no humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian coastal enclave. “For over four years,”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/middleeast/29briefs-israel.html
May 28, 2010
Gaza Flotilla Organizers Protest Israeli Response to Their Mission
By ISABEL KERSHNER [Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [indirect talks restarted May 9, at least announced that day] [followup] [instead of violence, the occasional concession as talks proceed] [fighting and talking and concessions simultaneously] [this flotilla was discussed yesterday but I didn’t archive because Israel had not yet stopped them] [followup] [*]
Organizers of a flotilla of up to nine vessels carrying hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists and thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza protested on Friday against what they called an Israeli disinformation campaign aimed at their mission. Israel has vowed to stop the boats from reaching Gaza, which is controlled by the Islamic militant groupHamas, and insists that there is no humanitarian crisis in the Palestinian coastal enclave. “For over four years,” the organizers said in a statement, “Israel has subjected the civilian population of Gaza to an increasingly severe blockade, resulting in a man-made humanitarian catastrophe of epic proportions.” [*]The boats were expected to approach the coast sometime over the weekend. The aim, the organizers said, was to break through the “illegal” Israeli blockade “in non-violent direct action.” [2nd day of coverage so I thought it best to archive something] [*]

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052702253.html
Iranian artists, musicians give voice to opposition amid censorship
By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 29, 2010; A10 [Iran] [confluence of June elections with Iran’s apparent drive for nuke weapon] [the 1-year anniversary of the elections looms] [the thugocracy continues to crackdown in anticipation—self-fufilling activity?] [followup] [whatever their thinking, the regime appears less and less legitimate daily] [*]
TEHRAN -- Nearly a year after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed election victory led to wide-scale protests and a fierce government crackdown, members of Iran's thriving and internationally acclaimed cultural scene have emerged as a driving force for the opposition.
Filmmakers, singers and rappers are, in their own way, pushing for social and political changes, and many are paying the price of speaking out against a government that brooks little dissent. In response to films, songs and paintings inspired by the largest grass-roots opposition movement the country has seen since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the government has arrested artists and markedly increased censorship. [*]
Although some artists have left the country to escape restrictions, others remain in Iran

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052702253.html
Iranian artists, musicians give voice to opposition amid censorship
By Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 29, 2010; A10 [Iran] [confluence of June elections with Iran’s apparent drive for nuke weapon] [the 1-year anniversary of the elections looms] [the thugocracy continues to crackdown in anticipation—self-fufilling activity?] [followup] [whatever their thinking, the regime appears less and less legitimate daily] [*]
TEHRAN -- Nearly a year after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed election victory led to wide-scale protests and a fierce government crackdown, members of Iran's thriving and internationally acclaimed cultural scene have emerged as a driving force for the opposition.
Filmmakers, singers and rappers are, in their own way, pushing for social and political changes, and many are paying the price of speaking out against a government that brooks little dissent. In response to films, songs and paintings inspired by the largest grass-roots opposition movement the country has seen since the 1979 Islamic revolution, the government has arrested artists and markedly increased censorship. [*]
Although some artists have left the country to escape restrictions, others remain in Iran and have turned their work into tools of activism. But the protest message has to be subtle or indirect, and even then the work is often produced secretly, using legal loopholes or underground distribution networks to evade the notice of authorities.
When world-renowned director Jafar Panahi decided to make a film about a family caught in the turmoil after last June's election, he did not ask for permission from the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance. Instead, [*]the filmmaker turned his apartment into a film studio, with his wife cooking for the crew and friends playing the leading characters.
In March, security forces raided the home and arrested Panahi, the cast and his family. [*]
"According to the law, nobody needs permits to film in their own house," he said in an interview. "But the government does not obey its own rules." Panahi was held for nearly three months; top directors such as Steven Spielberg, Francis Ford Coppola and Iranian filmmaker Abbas Kiarostami called for his release. State media reported that he had been making an "illegal movie." [and judges don’t stop it because they too are scared or they are part of regime or both] [*]
On Tuesday, Panahi was released on $200,000 bail, pending the start of his trial.
"They arrest individuals to set an example to others," Panahi said Wednesday as his apartment slowly filled with guests, including actors and writers who gave him a hero's welcome. "My interrogators accused me of working for foreign intelligence agencies and said I was trying to make a movie highlighting problems in Iran. But I believe the rights and demands of millions who demonstrated have been ignored. I want to give them a voice."
He isn't the only one. The latest song by popular underground rapper Hich Kas, "Nobody," has become an instant hit, often blasting from cars on Tehran's busy streets. Hich Kas sings:
Good days will come when we do not kill each other
Do not look badly upon each other
A day we are friends and hug each other like in our school days
The song might sound conciliatory, but it ends with sounds of strife from the protests. Hich Kas, whose real name is Soroush Lashkari, left Iran before the song was distributed through the Internet and street peddlers. He is now touring in Dubai and Malaysia, where many Iranians live.
Within Iran, the opposition movement has lost steam in recent months as the government has used increasingly forceful methods, including executions, to discourage protesters from taking to the streets. Government supporters now confidently proclaim that the opposition movement is dead. But there are still signs of discontent from those who believe Ahmadinejad's supporters rigged an election that should have been won by opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi. [my impression is simply don’t think the govt is legitimate any longer and June pushed them over] [I don’t think many actually think Mousavi won the election but that myth has persisted][*]
On Tuesday evening, 3,500 fans cheered, clapped and gave victory signs -- a popular opposition symbol -- when pop singer Alireza Assar sang a famous tune about corruption and dishonesty.
"People shouted 'Mousavi,' and almost everybody gave the 'V' sign," a witness said. "There would be immense cheering when the lyrics discussed corruption. Everybody interpreted the song as being against the government." [because the green movement is what they identify with and it represents more democratic means] [*]
In a recent interview with Australian television, Iran's top performer of traditional songs, Mohammad Reza Shajarian, criticized Ahmadinejad for referring to the anti-government demonstrators as "dust and weeds."
"I announce that I am the voice of these dust and weeds," Shajarian said. "This voice always was and is for dust and weeds, and I do not let your radio and TV broadcast my voice."
His comments were widely repeated by foreign-based Farsi-language stations. Shajarian has said he will return to Iran within days.
Music, books, poetry and films filled with metaphors and irony played a significant role in the collapse of the Western-backed shah's government during the 1979 revolution. Books by the author Sadegh Hedayat were banned then because of their political content; during the annual Tehran book fair this month, his books and those of six other popular writers and poets -- some of whom died long ago -- were declared illegal by the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance.
Government officials say censorship efforts will continue. "I promise that within a couple of years, our cinema will be mostly making appropriate films. We will try to enforce restrictions so that we can get rid of problematic films in the future," said Mohammad Javad Shamaghdari, [very scarey] [*] the deputy minister, according to the semiofficial Web site Khabaronline.ir.
But filmmakers such as Panahi say they don't intend to bend to the government's will. "In the end, they want artists like me to leave, but I will never go," Panahi said. "This is my land. I will remain here and make independent movies and support what is just." © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/asia/29viper.html
May 28, 2010
When Afghans Seek Medical Aid, Tough Choice for U.S.
By C. J. CHIVERS [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
KHAN NESHIN, Afghanistan — Five-year-old Sadiq was not a casualty of war. He was simply unlucky. The boy had opened a sack of grain at his home early on Wednesday morning, and a pit viper coiled inside lashed up and bit him above the lip.
His father, Kashmir, knew his son was sure to die. With no hospital anywhere nearby, he rushed the boy to an American outpost to plead for help. By midafternoon, Sadiq’s breathing was labored. Respiratory failure was not long off.
The events that followed unfolded like a tabletop counterinsurgency exercise at a military

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/asia/29viper.html
May 28, 2010
When Afghans Seek Medical Aid, Tough Choice for U.S.
By C. J. CHIVERS [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [challenges of living by counterinsurgency doctrine in AfPak] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
KHAN NESHIN, Afghanistan — Five-year-old Sadiq was not a casualty of war. He was simply unlucky. The boy had opened a sack of grain at his home early on Wednesday morning, and a pit viper coiled inside lashed up and bit him above the lip.
His father, Kashmir, knew his son was sure to die. With no hospital anywhere nearby, he rushed the boy to an American outpost to plead for help. By midafternoon, Sadiq’s breathing was labored. Respiratory failure was not long off.
The events that followed unfolded like a tabletop counterinsurgency exercise at a military school. On one hand, the United States military’s medical capacity, implanted across Afghanistan to care for those wounded in the war, could not be used as primary care for the nation’s 29 million people. On the other hand, would the officer who upheld this policy be willing to watch a 5-year-old die? [*]
Since last year, Helmand Province has been the scene of the most intensive combat in Afghanistan. Marine patrols and the Taliban fight daily, and helicopters are needed to evacuate the wounded.
Under NATO rules, any Afghan civilian wounded as a result of military activity is treated in the Western military’s medical system. Black Hawk helicopter crews often scramble and collect them. But each day, Afghans seek help for other injuries and ailments — for heart attacks, for trauma from vehicle and agricultural accidents, for twisted backs, cut hands, spiking fevers, infections, insect bites or dental pain.
For these ordinary medical conditions, unrelated to war but often urgent, Marines and Navy corpsmen in Helmand Province provide first aid. Getting approval for a Black Hawk is another matter.
The helicopters are few. They are spread out. Picking up Afghan civilians with routine ailments puts aircraft and crews at risk. It could also put a helicopter out of position for a gravely wounded soldier or Marine.
Often the decision is made against the patient: helicopters cannot be spared. Many aircrews, and many officers on the ground trying to forge relations with Afghan villages, do not like this. The choice is not theirs; flight approval is made by higher commands. [*]
Maj. Jason S. Davis, a pilot and the commanding officer of Company C, Sixth Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment, which provides a detachment of Black Hawks to fly medical missions in central and southern Helmand Province, described two conflicting truths.
“We can’t be Afghanistan’s E.M.S.,” he said. “But right now we are.” [*]
Sadiq’s father appeared with him at a Marine outpost in southern Helmand. It was clear that local care could not save him. The Marines requested an evacuation helicopter.
At the Camp Dwyer airfield, to the north, Major Davis and a co-pilot, First Lt. Matthew E. Stewart, saw the request posted on their operation center’s electronic message board. With an escort aircraft trailing behind, they soon lifted off from Camp Dwyer and headed south, expecting that the mission would be approved.
After flying perhaps 15 minutes, they were called back. The boy was not eligible for care. Sadiq was on his own.
A few hours later, a new request for medical evacuation, or medevac, appeared on the screen, this one from another Marine outpost. A small boy, it seemed, had been bitten on the face by a viper.
Everyone knew what this meant: Sadiq’s father had brought his dying son to the next Marine position and had started over. [*]
There were no other medevac missions under way. While the pilots stared at the message board, wondering whether this time the mission for Sadiq would be approved, an officer at the second outpost issued a blunt challenge: would whoever denied the mission, the officer wrote, acknowledge that they knew the boy would die?
The typed answer came back on the screen. The mission was approved.
The Black Hawks lifted into the air at 2:25 p.m. Soon they were flying through a dusty haze a few hundred feet up. “Ten minutes out,” Major Davis said. Halfway to the rescue, and they had not been called back.
While the desert dominates Helmand Province, the contest between the Marines and the Taliban plays out elsewhere, in belts of farmland along the river and in irrigated villages kept alive by pumps.
The military calls these areas “the green zone,” a nickname derived from how they appear from the air — pockets of vegetated terrain that end abruptly where the irrigation stops. It is in these areas where almost all the fighting takes place, and where helicopters come under fire. [*]
Up ahead, a crosshatched pattern of pale fields appeared. “Entering the green zone,” Major Davis said. “Tell them to pop smoke.”
Beside a fortified compound, a Marine lobbed a smoke grenade.
Major Davis banked the aircraft in a wide circle and landed beside the billowing plume.
Specialist David C. Harrell, a medic, slid open the left-side door. Sadiq, on a stretcher, was placed gently inside. He was wrapped in a poncho liner. An oxygen mask covered his face. His father climbed aboard. He was in the system now.
Dust swirled as the Black Hawk lifted, and Major Davis put it through a series of maneuvers, a fast zigzagging flight low over the village and the fields, and then set a heading toward Camp Dwyer, where a second aircrew was headed with the antivenin.
Sadiq thrashed, his face severely swollen. His breathing was erratic. But he was conscious. Specialist Harrell checked the boy’s vital signs and tried to keep him awake. The boy lived through the flight. Doctors at the trauma center quickly decided to transfer him to a more advanced hospital. He was rushed to his next flight.
Back at Company C’s operations tent on Wednesday evening, a message was posted: “LOOKS LIKE THAT KID IS GOING TO MAKE IT.”
But overnight, the prognosis changed. A doctor told Specialist Harrell that Sadiq had been transferred to Kandahar, and was likely to die.
Sadiq had been given all of the antivenin on hand in Afghanistan, but he was barely alive. The venom was breaking down his blood, and his wounds — where the IV needle entered his arm — were seeping. He was on a breathing machine. The fang marks showed on his face.
Snakebite toxicology was tricky, Specialist Harrell said. The dosage was hard to calibrate, especially for a child of perhaps 40 pounds. And maybe the helicopter reached Sadiq too late.
Friday afternoon, Specialist Harrell called the military hospital at Kandahar. He listened, nodded, put down the phone and called out. “He’s off the breathing machine,” he said. “He’s still in I.C.U., but right now he’s sitting up, drinking juice and milk.”
“And he’s talking,” he added.
What this meant sank in. Stung by a venomous snake in a primitive and isolated corner of a war, helped by a persistent father and a chain of people who heard him, Sadiq had reversed Afghanistan’s cruelest math. [shows their humanity] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30drone.html
May 29, 2010
Operators of Drones Are Faulted in Afghan Deaths
By DEXTER FILKINS [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [US military release pretty bad report on drone increases under Obama and efficacy versus alienation] [not good] [followup] [psci 469] [I suspect Obama lowered dm locus to inside CIA and may have to reconsider] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The American military released a scathing report Saturday on the deaths of 23 Afghan civilians earlier this year, saying that “inaccurate and unprofessional” reporting by a team of Predator drone operators helped lead to an inadvertent missile strike on a group of innocent men, women and children. [*]
The report said that four American officers, including a brigade and battalion commander, had been reprimanded, and that two junior officers had also been disciplined. Gen.Stanley A. McChrystal, who apologized to President Hamid Karzai after the incident, announced a

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/30/world/asia/30drone.html
May 29, 2010
Operators of Drones Are Faulted in Afghan Deaths
By DEXTER FILKINS [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [US military release pretty bad report on drone increases under Obama and efficacy versus alienation] [not good] [followup] [psci 469] [I suspect Obama lowered dm locus to inside CIA and may have to reconsider] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The American military released a scathing report Saturday on the deaths of 23 Afghan civilians earlier this year, saying that “inaccurate and unprofessional” reporting by a team of Predator drone operators helped lead to an inadvertent missile strike on a group of innocent men, women and children. [*]
The report said that four American officers, including a brigade and battalion commander, had been reprimanded, and that two junior officers had also been disciplined. Gen.Stanley A. McChrystal, who apologized to President Hamid Karzai after the incident, announced a series of training measures designed to reduce the chances of similar events. [McChrystal has repeatedly had to apologize making him look weak] [he’s tried to get military to think but the tensions are enormous] [*]
The incident, in which three vehicles were attacked and destroyed, illustrated the extraordinary sensitivity attached to the inadvertent killing of noncombatants [*] by NATOforces. Since taking command here last June, General McChrystal has made the protection of Afghan civilians his overriding priority, and he has sharply restricted the use of air attacks on suspected insurgents.
The overwhelming majority of civilian deaths in Afghanistan are caused by insurgents, but the growing intensity of the fighting, and the big push by American and NATO forces, has sent civilian casualties to their highest levels since 2001.
General McChrystal’s concern is that NATO forces, now in their ninth year of operations in Afghanistan, are rapidly wearing out their welcome. Opinion polls here appear to reflect that.
“When we make a mistake, we must be forthright,” General McChrystal said in a statement. “And we must do everything in our power to correct that mistake.” [counterinsurgency doctrine at work] [protect major population centers] [*]
The civilian deaths also highlighted the hazards in relying on pilotless aircraft to target suspected insurgents. In this case, as in most others where drones are employed by the military, the people steering and spotting the targets sat at a console in Creech Air Force Base, Nevada. [they are so far removed they don’t understand the damage to NATO-US troops on the ground when they screwup] [*]
The incident occurred on the morning of Feb. 21, near the village of Shahidi Hassas [*]in Oruzgan Province, a Taliban-dominated area in southern Afghanistan. An American special operations team was tracking a group of insurgents when a pickup and two SUVs moving through the area began heading in their direction.
The Predator operator reported seeing only military-age males in the truck, the report said. The ground commander concurred, the report said, and the special forces team asked for an airstrike. An OH-58D Kiowa helicopter fired Hellfire missiles and rockets, destroying the vehicles and killing 23 civilians. Twelve others were wounded.
The report, signed by Maj. Gen. Timothy P. McHale, found that the Predator operators in Nevada, as well as the ground commander in the area, made several grave errors that lead to the airstrikes. The “tragic loss of life,” General McHale found, was “compounded” by the failure of the ground commander and others to report in a timely manner that they may have killed civilians.
“The strike occurred because the ground force commander lacked a clear understanding of who was in the vehicles, the location, direction of travel, and the likely course of action of the vehicles,” [*]General McHale wrote.
That fatal lack of understanding, General McHale wrote, stemmed from “poorly functioning command posts” in the area that failed to provide the evidence that there were civilians in the trucks. In addition, General McHale blamed the “inaccurate and unprofessional reporting of the Predator crew operating out of Creech AFB, Nevada, which deprived the ground force commander of vital information.”
Armed with that faulty information, General McHale said, the special forces commander on the ground believed that the vehicles, then seven miles away, contained insurgents who were trying to execute a flanking maneuver in order to reinforce the insurgents that he and his men were tracking.
Predator drones contain large and powerful cameras that beam real-time images to their operators. In Afghanistan and Pakistan, Predators and other pilotless aircraft are often used to track and kill suspected insurgents, sometimes with their own missiles.
In this case, the Predator operators in Nevada tracked the convoy for three and a half hours but failed to notice any of the women who were riding along, the report said. Americans on the ground did spot two children near the vehicles, the report said, but the Predator operators insisted that the convoy contained only military-age men. [*] [*]
“Information that the convoy was anything other than an attacking force was ignored or downplayed by the Predator crew,” General McHale wrote.
Immediately after their initial attack, the Kiowa crew spotted brightly colored clothing at the scene, and, suspecting that civilians might have been in the trucks, ceased firing. After the attack, the special forces team turned over the bodies to local Afghans.
Even so, General McHale said, officers on the ground failed to report the possibility of civilian casualties in a timely manner, despite clear evidence suggesting that something like that may have happened. [*]
The report, which had previously been classified, contains several words, phrases and sections that are blacked out.
On receiving the results of the investigation, General McChrystal recommended a battery of additional training exercises for servicemen and women coming to Afghanistan, and additional training for those already here. In addition to reprimanding the four officers and admonishing the other two, General McChrystal asked Air Force commanders to open an investigation into the Predator operators.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:51 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/asia/29pstan.html
May 28, 2010
Attackers Hit Mosques of Islamic Sect in Pakistan
By WAQAR GILLANI and JANE PERLEZ [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] [sectarian attacks?] [typically such attacks occur during religious holidays, for example over Christian Xmas where Christian minority targeted and they attack back, so on] [also Sunni versus Shi’a occur with some frequency where Shi’a minority lives] [followup] [attack on Ahmdi sect] [*]
LAHORE, Pakistan — Hafeez Malik heard the gunfire outside the mosque, then shots inside the prayer hall.
“People were dying one after the other,” said Mr. Malik, a 55-year-old architect. “I could count more than 20 people dead around me.”
From inside another mosque several miles away near the central train station, his brother, Abdul Rashid Malik, 65, an engineer, called his family on his cellphone. He was a hostage and had been shot in the leg, he said. He has not been heard from since, Hafeez Malik said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/asia/29pstan.html
May 28, 2010
Attackers Hit Mosques of Islamic Sect in Pakistan
By WAQAR GILLANI and JANE PERLEZ [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] [sectarian attacks?] [typically such attacks occur during religious holidays, for example over Christian Xmas where Christian minority targeted and they attack back, so on] [also Sunni versus Shi’a occur with some frequency where Shi’a minority lives] [followup] [attack on Ahmdi sect] [*]
LAHORE, Pakistan — Hafeez Malik heard the gunfire outside the mosque, then shots inside the prayer hall.
“People were dying one after the other,” said Mr. Malik, a 55-year-old architect. “I could count more than 20 people dead around me.”
From inside another mosque several miles away near the central train station, his brother, Abdul Rashid Malik, 65, an engineer, called his family on his cellphone. He was a hostage and had been shot in the leg, he said. He has not been heard from since, Hafeez Malik said.
More than 80 worshipers of a minority Muslim sect, the Ahmadis, were killed and more than 110 wounded Friday in a coordinated assault by seven well-trained attackers on two mosques in Lahore, [after Karachi] [remember Islamabad was made up capital when fiction of Pakistan was created] [*]Pakistan’s second largest city, the authorities said.
At the mosque known as Dar-ul-Zakir, near the train station, two attackers blew themselves up inside the prayer hall after spraying the congregation with bullets, police officers said.
The target was the Ahmadis, a group of about two million Muslims in Pakistan who are considered heretical by many mainstream Muslims because the Ahmadis believe that Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, who founded their movement in 1889, was the messiah foretold by Muhammad,[*] the prophet of Islam.
There are sizable communities of well-educated Ahmadis in the United States, Britain and other parts of the Muslim diaspora.
The assault, which began during Friday Prayer and lasted more than three hours at the Dar-ul-Zakir Mosque, and about an hour at the Bait-ul-Noor Mosque, occurred amid a surge of sectarian violence in Pakistan in the last two years.
Minority sects like the Ahmadis and the Shiites and have come under increasing pressure as religious extremism has taken hold, fomented by sectarian groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, formerly state-sponsored organizations.
In an unusually strong statement, the American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W. Patterson, said Pakistan, an ally of the United States, had witnessed an increase in “provocative statements that promote intolerance and are an incitement to extremist violence.”
The Ahmadis were declared a non-Muslim minority in the 1970s during the rule of the military dictator Muhammad Zia ul-Haq, a period during which jihadist ideology became ingrained in Pakistan’s state and religious education system. [*]
The minister of law in Punjab Province, which includes Lahore, the capital, said that in the days before their assault, the attackers stayed with the Tablighi Jamaat, a Muslim missionary group that is often described by terrorism experts as the antechamber to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. [*]The headquarters of the Tablighi Jamaat are in Raiwind, a town on the outskirts of Lahore. Tablighi Jamaat gins them up, figuratively] [*]
The minister, Rana Sana Ullah Khan, said he believed that the attackers, who operated as commandos, throwing hand grenades and firing automatic weapons, had been trained for the task in Waziristan, the Pakistani Taliban’s base.
Geo TV, a leading news channel in Pakistan, reported that members of the Punjab branch of the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attacks. The Punjab branch is composed mainly of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Mohammad, which have joined forces with the Taliban.
The attackers, who worshipers said were quite young, opened fire outside the mosques around 2 p.m., just as the sermons were finishing, survivors said. The assaults began within minutes of each other at the Dar-ul-Zakir Mosque near the train station and at the Bait-ul-Noor Mosque in Model Town, an upscale neighborhood where a former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, lives.
Mr. Malik, the architect, said the worshipers at Bait-ul-Noor were sitting, preparing for prayer, when three attackers burst into the prayer hall.
One attacker, about 16 years old and wearing a grubby shirt and pants, was wounded and wrestled to the ground by the worshipers, he said.
“I was waiting for them to come to me; I was near the front,” Mr. Malik said. “They were shooting whoever they could.”
The assault at the mosque near the train station was the more audacious, the police said. One gunman mounted the minaret and traded fire with the police below.
The explosion from the two suicide bombers who blew themselves up in the prayer hall there increased the number of deaths, the police said. When the police took control of the mosques, bodies were strewn across the main floors and verandas.
“I saw what I would never forget,” said Waseem Ahmad, who worked as a guard at the scanner near the entrance to the Dar-ul-Zakir Mosque. “There were dead bodies everywhere, and blood was flowing everywhere.”
Dozens of worshipers survived by scurrying down a narrow passage and hiding in the basement as the ordeal unfolded, said Abdul Salam Arshad, 56, a retired civil servant, who emerged unscathed from the mosque near the train station.
Another survivor, Munawar Shahid, an official of the Ahmadi community, hid in his office next to the mosque during the assault. “Everybody is trying to save their life,” Mr. Shahid said on his cellphone as gunfire rattled around him.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan has regularly reported on discrimination against the Ahmadis, and has said that intolerance of them by extremists has escalated. [against virtually any sect that differs with Deobandi (South Asia version of Wahhab)] [and against non Muslims] [*] “The extremists are not tolerating any other community, including Ahmadis, and it seems the government has failed to control them,” said I. A. Rehman, the commission’s executive director.
The State Department report on human rights said this year said that 11 Ahmadis were killed last year in Pakistan because of their faith. The report said Pakistani law forbade Ahmadis to refer to themselves as Muslims or to engage in any Muslim practices, including using Muslim greetings, referring to their places of worship as mosques, or taking part in the hajj.
Live broadcasts of the attacks in Lahore were notable on Friday for failing to refer to the Ahmadis as Muslims. Reporters and commentators rarely referred to the Ahmadis by name, preferring the phrase “minority community.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:50 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/politics/28tell.html
May 27, 2010
House Votes to Allow Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Law
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and CARL HULSE [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [SecDef, JCS, other chains in Pentagon] [don’t ask, don’t tell] [sounds like a classic political deal?] [followup] [defense department, Pentagon] [both house and senate (in senate case, only out of committee) passed yesterday] [McCain did something rather ignominous: after saying he’d accept the secdef and chiefs, ignored them—probably mostly due to his race with JD Hayworth] [despite the desparation, McCain would be far better for AZ than JD, the bloated weatherman from when we lived there] [why was JD finally sh*tcanned?] [*]
WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
The provision would allow military commanders to repeal the ban. The repeal would permit gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.
It was adopted as an amendment to the annual Pentagon policy bill, which the House is

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/politics/28tell.html
May 27, 2010
House Votes to Allow Repeal of ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ Law
By DAVID M. HERSZENHORN and CARL HULSE [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [SecDef, JCS, other chains in Pentagon] [don’t ask, don’t tell] [sounds like a classic political deal?] [followup] [defense department, Pentagon] [both house and senate (in senate case, only out of committee) passed yesterday] [McCain did something rather ignominous: after saying he’d accept the secdef and chiefs, ignored them—probably mostly due to his race with JD Hayworth] [despite the desparation, McCain would be far better for AZ than JD, the bloated weatherman from when we lived there] [why was JD finally sh*tcanned?] [*]
WASHINGTON — The House voted Thursday to let the Defense Department repeal the ban on gay and bisexual people from serving openly in the military, a major step toward dismantling the 1993 law widely known as “don’t ask, don’t tell.”
The provision would allow military commanders to repeal the ban. The repeal would permit gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time.
It was adopted as an amendment to the annual Pentagon policy bill, which the House is expected to vote on Friday. The repeal would be allowed 60 days after a Pentagon report is completed on the ramifications of allowing openly gay service members, and military leaders certify that it would not be disruptive. The report is due by Dec. 1.
The House vote was 234 to 194, with 229 Democrats and 5 Republicans in favor, after an emotionally charged debate. Opposed were 168 Republicans and 26 Democrats. [it’s become part and parcel of cultural wars] [but at its base it’s very simple] [gay men and women must be allowed to serve openly whereas they are currently forced to lie] [it will not hurt coehesivness] [there will be anecdotal cases of good and bad but overtime it will be fine and it’s simply dumb to ask them to hide it] [*]
Supporters of the repeal hailed it as a matter of basic fairness and civil rights, while opponents charged that Democrats and President Obama were destabilizing the military to advance a liberal social agenda.
“On Memorial Day, America will come together and honor all who served our nation in uniform,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in a floor speech, noting the symbolic timing of the debate. “I urge my colleagues to vote for the repeal of this discriminatory policy of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ and make America more American.”
Separately on Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee approved a similar measure allowing the repeal. [*]
The vote, in a closed session, was 16 to 12, with one Republican, Senator Susan Collins of Maine, in favor of the repeal, and one Democrat, Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, in opposition.
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan and chairman of the committee, said he believed that the full Senate would support permitting the repeal.
Like the House amendment, the Senate measure, which is expected to come up for a vote soon, would allow Pentagon leaders to revoke the ban 60 days after the military study group completes its report and President Obama, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, certify that it would not hamper military readiness and effectiveness or “unit cohesion.”
Mr. Obama and Mr. Gates favor repealing the ban, as does Admiral Mullen, who, in testimony before the Armed Services Committee in February, called for a repeal.
In a statement, Mr. Obama said he was “pleased” by the votes.
“This legislation will help make our armed forces even stronger and more inclusive by allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve honestly and with integrity,” he said.
But chiefs of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines have objected. In letters solicited by Senator John McCain of Arizona, the senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee, they urged Congress to delay voting on the issue until after the Defense Department completed its report.
After the committee vote, Mr. McCain said he would continue to fight a repeal when the bill reached the Senate floor. “I think it’s really going to be really harmful to the morale and battle effectiveness of our military,” he said. [well if he does, it’s a pretty new view brought on mostly by JD] [though I don’t doubt he thinks the other side is pushing agenda] [*]
Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, who sponsored the repeal measure, said, “The ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy doesn’t serve the best interests of our military and doesn’t reflect the best values of our country.” [and Joe and John are practically married so it goes to show] [where are the serious libertarians who should argue against govt getting involved—ergo, DADT was stupid social enginerring in first instance, so on] [*]
“Bottom line,” Mr. Lieberman, added, “thousands of service members have been pushed out of the U.S. military not because they were inadequate or bad soldiers, sailors, Marines or airmen but because of their sexual orientation. And that’s not what America is all about.”
The Armed Services Committee approved the broader policy bill by a vote of 18 to 10, with Mr. Webb and Senator Scott Brown, Republican of Massachusetts, who also opposed the repeal, supporting the broader measure.
With liberals in Congress being asked to vote on an unpopular war spending bill, Democratic leaders there have been pushing to finally do away with a ban that many in their party view as discriminatory and unpatriotic.
The Senate approved the spending bill Thursday night and the House is expected to vote on it early next month.
As the House headed toward the vote, the debate was often emotional.
In a floor speech on Thursday, Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, denounced the policy that requires gay men, lesbians and bisexuals to keep their sexual orientation secret if they want to serve.
Mr. Frank noted that the Israeli military, which he called “as effective a fighting force as has existed in modern times,” does not bar gay men or lesbians from service. Mr. Frank, who is openly gay, also said that he would be criticized — rightly, he said — if he were to suggest that gay men and lesbians be exempted if a military draft were needed. [true—for sake of consistency the govt would have to ban them from draft] [irony: during Vietnam draft, several straight men tried to use it unsuccessfully] [*]
Representative Mike Pence of Indiana, the No. 3 Republican in the House, accused Democrats of trying to use the military “to advance a liberal social agenda” and demanded that Congress “put its priorities in order.”
Other Republicans said the military was a unique institution and its rules sometimes had to differ from civilian society.
“We are dissing the troops, that is what we are doing,” said Representative Howard P. McKeon of California, senior Republican on the Armed Services Committee.
Republicans also questioned if the military leaders who would make the final decision would be able to resist pressure from the White House to lift the ban. [they are not giving much respect to the leaders then?] [*]
Democrats who backed the repeal compared the vote to the racial integration of the military and hailed the action as allowing all Americans who wanted to serve to do so.
“In the land of the free and the home of the brave, it is long past time for Congress to end this un-American policy,” said Representative Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat who is openly gay. [let’s be honest] [both sides are terribly disingenuous about it] [the military ought not to ban gay-lesbian members as they have served for ever and not hurt morale, cohesion, and the rest] [the only reason is historically military did not like gays] [but that has changed in there’s not much good reason to keep pretending] [both sides fight battle based on cultural war and talking points of either side] [it’s ugly] [*]
Democrats accused Republicans of mischaracterizing the proposal, by suggesting it would unsettle the troops. “This policy will happen only when the secretary of defense and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff stay that it is the right thing to do for this country,” said Representative Robert E. Andrews, Democrat of New Jersey.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052705614.html
Congress pursues F-35 engine that Defense Secretary Robert Gates doesn't want
By Craig Whitlock and Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 28, 2010; A04 [Obama white house] [SecDef Gates] [on Pentagon spending and procurment issues] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [but mostly bureaucracy] [followup] [defense department, Pentagon] [followup, May 8] [use psci 355-455] [congress is apparently forcing Pentagon to do 2nd F-35 engine, not good for Gates’ attempt to fix appropriations][*]
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's campaign to rein in defense spending was rebuked Thursday by the House, which approved an aircraft engine the Pentagon does not want despite the threat of a presidential veto. [I think Obama may have to veto] [and the consequences are unclear—I don’t know where the engine and suppliers are geographically?] [*]
As the House voted on a $568 billion defense bill, lawmakers tangled over a comparatively

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052705614.html
Congress pursues F-35 engine that Defense Secretary Robert Gates doesn't want
By Craig Whitlock and Dana Hedgpeth
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, May 28, 2010; A04 [Obama white house] [SecDef Gates] [on Pentagon spending and procurment issues] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [but mostly bureaucracy] [followup] [defense department, Pentagon] [followup, May 8] [use psci 355-455] [congress is apparently forcing Pentagon to do 2nd F-35 engine, not good for Gates’ attempt to fix appropriations][*]
Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates's campaign to rein in defense spending was rebuked Thursday by the House, which approved an aircraft engine the Pentagon does not want despite the threat of a presidential veto. [I think Obama may have to veto] [and the consequences are unclear—I don’t know where the engine and suppliers are geographically?] [*]
As the House voted on a $568 billion defense bill, lawmakers tangled over a comparatively minor item: $485 million to pay for a second engine for the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, a plane projected to be the centerpiece of U.S. airpower in the coming decades.
Gates has opposed the extra engine for years, saying it is unnecessary and a waste of money. But Congress has argued that funding a second engine model for the F-35 would keep defense contractors on their toes by forcing them to compete.
Gates has repeatedly threatened to advise President Obama to veto the entire defense bill if Congress pursues the second engine. The House approved the project anyway, overcoming an attempt by opponents to strip it from the bill. That attempt failed by a vote of 231 to 193, with both parties divided on the issue. [if I checked CA delgation I might be able to see how much was strictly bacon in CA?] [*]
"We don't want nor need the extra engine, but this is just one step in a long journey and Secretary Gates is committed to staying engaged in this process the whole way," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said after the vote, adding that Gates will still recommend a presidential veto "if necessary."
The Senate Armed Services Committee did not include money for the second engine in a related defense bill Thursday. But Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the panel chairman and a supporter of the second engine, said the Senate and House will resolve the issue later in a conference committee. [*]
The primary engine for the Joint Strike Fighter is manufactured by Pratt & Whitney, while the second model is built jointly by General Electric and Rolls-Royce. [PW is also rocketdyne now and ownd the scram jet that flew 200 seconds at mach 6 in past week] [*]The manufacturers have been engaged in an increasingly visible fight to win support on Capitol Hill and in congressional districts where parts for the engines are made. Both sides have media campaigns that include full-page ads in major newspapers, slots on radio programs and pushing their respective sides on blogs, Facebook and Twitter.
Erin Dick, a spokeswoman for Pratt & Whitney, said the company has 1,500 Facebook fans -- fewer than the 7,000 that the GE-Rolls Royce team boasts -- and has tracked 8,000 letters to Congress via a promotional Web site it is running. [when I was growing up, rocketdyne—then much smaller—tested high-performance motors above my house] [*]
“It is incredible the number of people who’ve jumped into this debate on social media outlets,” she said. “I mean, after all, we’re talking about an engine for a plane here.”
One Pratt & Whitney ad reads: “This is the year for Congress to stop funding an extra engine for the F-35. For all those – Republicans and Democrats – who have talked about cutting government waste, here’s your chance.”
GE has fired back with its own ads. It also argues that its engine “provides competition that will lead to more than $20 billion in savings over the life of the Joint Strike Fighter program – savings that equal the cost of producing 200 fighter jets.” [and you better believe GE will remind its various members (both parties)] [more interesting might be to watch for MSNBC-NBC coverage, or lack thereof] [*]
The Pentagon has disputed those figures, calculating that it would cost taxpayers $2.9 billion more, on top of $1.3 billion already spent, in upfront costs to develop the second engine. Gates has also said that any potential savings from having a competition between contractors would be "theoretical." [it’s bacon, plain and simple] [why Gates chose this contract, I’m ont sure] [but he had to choose some place to make a stand] [*]© 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/28brfs-STUDENTCONVI_BRF.html
May 27, 2010
Texas: Student Convicted of Aiding Taliban
By DANIEL CADIS [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [gsave and counterinsurgency strategy] [Obama admin and its substantial continuity with its predecessor] [American jihadis, from visitors to naturalized citizens to 2nd and 3rd generation Americans (not assimilation as we all once thought protected US)] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [several, high-level cases in 2009: Texas case here] [*]
Adnan Babar Mirza, 33, a Pakistani who came to the United States as a student, was convicted in federal District Court in Houston Thursday of conspiring to aid the Talibanand of illegal possession of firearms. Prosecutors said Mr. Mirza had raised about $900 for the Taliban and had trained with other would-be Jihadists in paramilitary camps outside Houston, and that he intended to fight American troops in Afghanistan. His lawyer said the money was intended to go to the families of Taliban militants for humanitarian purposes and that a paid F.B.I. informant urged his client to take part in the camping trips and

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/us/28brfs-STUDENTCONVI_BRF.html
May 27, 2010
Texas: Student Convicted of Aiding Taliban
By DANIEL CADIS [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [gsave and counterinsurgency strategy] [Obama admin and its substantial continuity with its predecessor] [American jihadis, from visitors to naturalized citizens to 2nd and 3rd generation Americans (not assimilation as we all once thought protected US)] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [several, high-level cases in 2009: Texas case here] [*]
Adnan Babar Mirza, 33, a Pakistani who came to the United States as a student, was convicted in federal District Court in Houston Thursday of conspiring to aid the Talibanand of illegal possession of firearms. Prosecutors said Mr. Mirza had raised about $900 for the Taliban and had trained with other would-be Jihadists in paramilitary camps outside Houston, and that he intended to fight American troops in Afghanistan. His lawyer said the money was intended to go to the families of Taliban militants for humanitarian purposes and that a paid F.B.I. informant urged his client to take part in the camping trips and paramilitary training. He faces up to 10 years in prison. [his taking FBI bait on explosion was, frankly, more worrisome than $900 for weapons for his brothers in Islam] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:16 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/28strategy.html
May 27, 2010
New U.S. Strategy Focuses on Managing Threats
By DAVID E. SANGER and PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [the national security strategy of the United States, mandated by congress for each new administration] [I got the document this morning and will read it after newspapers] [use psci 355-455] [looks like some incremental change] [but also lot of continuity] [it’s rhetorically returned “democracy” to the implicit goal category (something I thought would be hard to do?) and elevated climate change—already underway with DNI couple years back] [it preaches multilateralism but near the end still carves out unilateral exemption—practically speaking no change] [presidents change rhetoric—not unimportant but not change—but seldom make dramatic lurches and that’s how I read this document] [additional flowery rhetoric just as Bush’s included 9/11 and neconservative but 2nd term continuity, so will Obama] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s first formal national security strategy describes a coming era in which the United States will have to learn to live within its limits [not really foreign policy] [he did stress repeatedly that US economy was “wellspring” of military and other] [*]— a world in which two wars cannot be sustained for much longer and the rising powers inevitably begin to erode some elements of American influence around the globe.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/28strategy.html
May 27, 2010
New U.S. Strategy Focuses on Managing Threats
By DAVID E. SANGER and PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [the national security strategy of the United States, mandated by congress for each new administration] [I got the document this morning and will read it after newspapers] [use psci 355-455] [looks like some incremental change] [but also lot of continuity] [it’s rhetorically returned “democracy” to the implicit goal category (something I thought would be hard to do?) and elevated climate change—already underway with DNI couple years back] [it preaches multilateralism but near the end still carves out unilateral exemption—practically speaking no change] [presidents change rhetoric—not unimportant but not change—but seldom make dramatic lurches and that’s how I read this document] [additional flowery rhetoric just as Bush’s included 9/11 and neconservative but 2nd term continuity, so will Obama] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s first formal national security strategy describes a coming era in which the United States will have to learn to live within its limits [not really foreign policy] [he did stress repeatedly that US economy was “wellspring” of military and other] [*]— a world in which two wars cannot be sustained for much longer and the rising powers inevitably begin to erode some elements of American influence around the globe.
Mr. Obama argues that the United States is confident enough to live with that reality and that after nearly a decade of organizing its national security policy around counterterrorism, it must return to a broader agenda. [yes, it returned the US, officially, to previous years, states and emerging threats begun under Bush 41 and perpetuated under Clinton] [it was appropriate that Bush veered due to 9/11 as crisis] [**]“The burdens of a young century cannot fall on American shoulders alone,” Mr. Obama says in the introduction of the strategy released on Thursday. “Indeed, our adversaries would like to see America sap our strength by overextending our power.”
But this document, required by Congress, is also bound to reignite the argument over the way Mr. Obama has redirected American foreign policy over the past 16 months. His critics — inclined to portray him as too eager to apologize for America’s failings and too willing to surrender the nation’s role as the single, indispensable superpower — are likely to extract elements of the new document to bolster their case.
But to Mr. Obama’s team, it is a document that recognizes the world as it is and ends a era of illusion in which Washington confused projecting power with achieving results. “We are no less powerful,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Thursday at the Brookings Institution. “We are shifting from mostly direct application and exercise of American power,” she said, to one of indirection, that requires patience and partners, and gets results more slowly. [it also attempted to integrate homeland security strategy with national security—with some good (resources, continuity, …) and less clear (will there be a separate homeland one and when and how will it jibe with congressional mandates and administration attempts?] [*]
“In a world like this, American leadership isn’t needed less,” she said. “It is needed more. And the simple fact is that no global problem can be solved without us.” [pure American Exceptionalism of last 30 years] [document attempts to de-mythologize American Exceptionalism while still arguing its operation premise of US leadership] [not much of change though attempts to mess with mythology are interesting] [and likely to create anger with mythologists who raise it to cult and metaphysical levels] [*]
The 52-page document tries to blend the idealism of Mr. Obama’s campaign promises with the realities of his confrontations with a fractious and threatening world. It describes an America “hardened by war” and “disciplined by a devastating economic crisis,” and it concludes that the United States cannot sustain extended wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan while fulfilling other commitments.
That line is just one of many subtle slaps at former President George W. Bush. While Mr. Bush’s 2002 document explicitly said the United States would never allow the rise of a rival superpower, Mr. Obama argues that America faces no real military competitor but that global power is increasingly diffuse. [I thought they were quite easy on Bush and chose not to slap at his adminstration] [they said Iraq was a choice—I think 3 times at least—but refused to say a mistake and in fact implicity included it as front in gsave] [with which I agree, BTW, since whatever its original justification, it became one] [I thought that reflected Obama’s typical pragmatism] [*]
Both Mrs. Clinton and the principal author of the report, Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, [cross in individual] [*]argued that Mr. Obama recognized that reality when he pressed theGroup of 8 nations — the largest industrialized economies and Russia — to cede more power to the Group of 20, which includes fast-emerging powers like China, India and Brazil. [I disagree] [they simply substituted G20 for G8, another act of pragmatism] [*]
Although Mr. Obama has put a renewed focus on the Afghan war and increased C.I.A. drone strikes against militants in Pakistan, the strategy rejects Mr. Bush’s focus on counterterrorism as the organizing principle of security policy. Those efforts “to counter violent extremism” — Mr. Obama avoids the word Islamic — “are only one element of our strategic environment and cannot define America’s engagement with the world.” [I completely disagree: they kept war with violent extremism imagery repeatedly but also returned to state threats, highlighting Iran-DPRK (or rogues) and failed states everywhere] [the broadened AfPak as central front to Arabian peninsula and Horn-Maghreb] [and they focused on the same nexus of gsave and WMD that Bush did, especially in 2006 version][*]
He goes on to argue that “the gravest danger to the American people and global security continues to come from weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons.” But he also dwells on cyberthreats, climate change and America’s dependence on fossil fuels as fundamental national security issues, issues that received little or no attention in Mr. Bush’s document, although Mr. Bush focused on them more in his second term.
“It is a rather dramatic departure from the most recent prior national security strategy,” said Susan E. Rice, the ambassador to the United Nations. [of course they will say that] [our jobs are to look at it in terms of what foreign policy is—objectives US policymakers seek to effect abroad, the underlying values that promote certain objectives over others, and the tools chosen and used to effect them—and then to analyze where there’s change and characterize it as substantive versus marginal (continuity)] [**]
The differences are clearest in a section on the use of force, which makes no mention of pre-emptive attacks against countries or nonstate actors who may pose a threat, as Mr. Bush did in 2002. But Mr. Obama does not explicitly rule out striking first. [they are either ignorant of marginal shifts from 2002 (a bunch of speeches) to 2006 (the administration real strategy) or are ignoring them to emphasize the differences—the horse race quality] [they fundamentally misunderstand what foreign-national security policy is] [*]
“While the use of force is sometimes necessary, we will exhaust other options before war whenever we can, and carefully weigh the costs and risks of action against the costs and risks of inaction,” he says. When it is necessary, he adds, “we will seek broad international support.” [and then a bit later they explicity write that when consensus and multilateralism don’t work, the US reserves the right for unilateralism!] [how is that different other than emphasis?] [it’s not] [it’s true that the emphasis was reversed for most of Bush and it was understandable given 9/11] [but Bush jettisoned “preemption”—which was never preemition but prevention—after Iraq so they are emphasizing a distinction without a real difference] [*]
Mr. Bush’s aides had said they would not seek a “permission slip” for such actions. Mr. Obama phrases that idea more softly, saying “the United States must reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend our nation and our interests, yet we will also seek to adhere to standards that govern the use of force.” [and Obama’s said the same thing slightly differently] [*]
Mr. Obama also defines security more broadly than his predecessor did, making the case, for example, that reducing the budget deficit is critical to sustaining American power. Mrs. Clinton focused much of her Brookings presentation on that theme, arguing that American commanders and diplomats see the long-term national debt as one of the largest threats to American influence and to the country’s ability to project power abroad. [yes, I think they are correct there] [but again, that’s big picture and probably means little in practice] [in any case, we shall have to see over time] [*]
Still, for all its self-conscious rejection of the Bush era, the document reflects elements of continuity. For example, it does not disavow using the state secrets act to withhold information from courts in terrorism cases, although it argues for prudent and limited use. It also insists that “we will maintain the military superiority that has secured our country, and underpinned global security, for decades.” [it’s riven with continuity] [I understand their job: to look for differences so they may write a story that highlights same] [but they don’t even have a clear idea how they define foreign policy: sometimes it’s simple rhetoric, sometimes it’s tools, …] [*]
It does not make the spread of democracy the priority that Mr. Bush did, but it embraces the goal more robustly than is typical for Mr. Obama, a reflection of a struggle in his administration about how to handle a topic so associated with Mr. Bush. Mr. Obama commits to “welcoming all peaceful democratic movements” and to “supporting the development of institutions within fragile democracies.” [now, finally, they got to the one thing I agree was different] [Bush was first president in post-WWII period to raise promoting “democracy” an explicit foreign-policy objective] [Obama has now returned it to the past of implicit only; further Obama used new code words “justice” and “human dignity” and few others but was mostly talking about interest-group pluralism (i.e., democracy) with emphasis on freedom to express] [very much the model of Clinton, Bush41, other late CW presidents and even early CW presidents] [we discovered yet again how democracy gets sacrificed for practical matters (friendship with all manner of non democratic regimes) in the Bush 2n term] [I thought it would have been harder to run away from but it apparently wasn’t] [but my feeling are mixed since I think promoting democracy is important but bound to cause dilemmas as did throughout CW] [*]
Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from the United Nations.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:15 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/opinion/28fri3.html
May 27, 2010
While China Stands By
[editorial] [DRPK’s latest crisis?] [China’s influence dilemma] [namely, it has influence because it almost never exercises same] [thus, when it’s important for China to do so, it resists] [but if today’s external accurate, this is another manufactured crisis for discrete goal: preparing way for Cute Leader’s succession] [*]
There is only one country with any chance of getting through to North Korea. That is China, the North’s major supplier of aid, food and oil. As tensions on the Korean Peninsula continue to spiral — frighteningly — upward, China is refusing to get involved.
China has only one concern: avoiding any crisis that might unleash huge refugee flows. If it believes that the status quo is conducive to stability, it is mistaken. [it also is concerned about losing the little leverage it has] [*]
Relations between the Koreas have threatened to explode since last week when the South accused the North of torpedoing a South Korean warship, the Cheonan. It offered compelling forensic evidence of the North’s role in the March attack, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/opinion/28fri3.html
May 27, 2010
While China Stands By
[editorial] [DRPK’s latest crisis?] [China’s influence dilemma] [namely, it has influence because it almost never exercises same] [thus, when it’s important for China to do so, it resists] [but if today’s external accurate, this is another manufactured crisis for discrete goal: preparing way for Cute Leader’s succession] [*]
There is only one country with any chance of getting through to North Korea. That is China, the North’s major supplier of aid, food and oil. As tensions on the Korean Peninsula continue to spiral — frighteningly — upward, China is refusing to get involved.
China has only one concern: avoiding any crisis that might unleash huge refugee flows. If it believes that the status quo is conducive to stability, it is mistaken. [it also is concerned about losing the little leverage it has] [*]
Relations between the Koreas have threatened to explode since last week when the South accused the North of torpedoing a South Korean warship, the Cheonan. It offered compelling forensic evidence of the North’s role in the March attack, which killed 46 South Korean sailors.
What makes this so especially dangerous is that North Korea’s erratic leader, Kim Jong-il, is in a power struggle to ensure that his youngest son succeeds him. (American intelligence officials suspect Mr. Kim may have ordered the attack to prove his willingness to take on South Korea and its Western allies.) [Times agrees the succession may be at least part of the reason] [*]
North Korea often blusters, but it has gone much further this time. Over the last few days, it has cut almost all ties and agreements with the South and threatened war if Seoul proceeds with threatened sanctions. On Thursday, it severed a naval hot line that was supposed to prevent clashes in disputed waters.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton tried hard this week to convince Chinese leaders of North Korea’s culpability — and of the need for Beijing to press the North to accept responsibility. There is no doubt about the North’s involvement. An international team investigated the incident, and South Korea has produced a torpedo propeller with North Korean markings.
China needs to stop covering for its client and join in a United Nations Security Council statement that condemns the North’s behavior. Privately, Beijing should make clear to North Korea that any future acts of aggression will result in a cut off of aid. The United States, South Korea and Japan, which have taken a strong stand against the North, also must leave some room for Pyongyang to back down. [I expect that China will eventually have to risk losing its influence for broader objective of world leadership] [*]
The two Koreas — which have never formally ended their war — need to finally set a demarcation line in the West Sea where the Cheonan was attacked and sank. China could do real good if it worked with the United States to bring the two Koreas to the negotiating table.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:14 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia/28japan.html
May 27, 2010
U.S. and Japan Reach Okinawa Deal
By HIROKO TABUCHI and MARTIN FACKLER [Okinawa] [Japan] [NEAsia] [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 deal is finally struck, again] [followup] [*]
TOKYO — An American air base in Japan will remain on the southern island of Okinawa, the two allies said in a joint statement on Friday, as they reached an agreement that resolved a lingering diplomatic dispute but which could present new domestic challenges for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. [*]
The deal confirmed what Mr. Hatoyama had told outraged Okinawa residents on Sunday,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia/28japan.html
May 27, 2010
U.S. and Japan Reach Okinawa Deal
By HIROKO TABUCHI and MARTIN FACKLER [Okinawa] [Japan] [NEAsia] [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 deal is finally struck, again] [followup] [*]
TOKYO — An American air base in Japan will remain on the southern island of Okinawa, the two allies said in a joint statement on Friday, as they reached an agreement that resolved a lingering diplomatic dispute but which could present new domestic challenges for Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama. [*]
The deal confirmed what Mr. Hatoyama had told outraged Okinawa residents on Sunday, that the United States Marine Corps Air Station Futenma, long despised by local residents for noise, pollution and safety concerns, would be moved to a less populated area — but not off Okinawa.
The agreement largely follows a 2006 pact that called for moving the base from its current location in the city of Ginowan. [*]
Mr. Hatoyama took power in a historic election last summer with vows to create a more equal relationship with the United States, including a campaign promise to relocate the Futenma base off the island or out of Japan altogether. But he was forced to reconsider as his public approval ratings fell and because Washington demanded that he honor the previous agreement. Fear of North Korea, which may have a small nuclear arsenal and which South Korea has accused of sinking a warship recently, contributed to his decision.
Okinawans immediately lashed out in protest, accusing Mr. Hatoyama of reneging on his pledge to lessen the burden of the United States military presence in Okinawa, home to about half of the 50,000 American military personnel stationed in Japan under a mutual security pact.
“This amounts to a betrayal of Okinawans,” said Susumu Inamine, mayor of Nago, the city designated to host the relocated base. [*]
“In Okinawa, many still want the base moved out of Okinawa, out of Japan,” said Okinawa Gov. Hirokazu Nakaima. “There has not been enough discussion.”
The deal on Friday appeared to be an effort by Tokyo and Washington to show they were in agreement after months of mistrust. The statement came soon after Mr. Hatoyama spoke by phone with President Obama, Japanese foreign ministry officials said.
During the phone call, Mr. Obama expressed his “gratitude” that an agreement on the base had been reached, the officials said.
It affirms the 2006 pact in specifying that the base would be moved to Camp Schwab, [*] an existing Marine base near Nago and the fishing village of Henoko. It reaffirmed the importance of keeping American Marines in Okinawa, while also pledging to move forward with a broader agreement to relocate some 8,000 Marines to Guam.
The deal also named Tokunoshima, a nearby island, as a possible site for some of the Marines’ training exercises, something the island’s residents fiercely oppose.
“It is a serious matter for the government to ignore the will of the people,” Akira Okubo, mayor of the Tokunoshima town of Isencho, said on Friday. He said he intended to meet with Mr. Hatoyama as soon as possible to express his “resolute opposition.”
The accord threatened to damage Mr. Hatoyama’s ruling coalition government after the leader of a left-leaning coalition partner said she would reject it. [*]
Mizuho Fukushima, head of the Social Democratic Party and a cabinet minister in Mr. Hatoyama’s government, could soon be relieved of her post, according to national broadcaster NHK.
Ms. Fukushima said the Okinawa agreement was unacceptable, and her party was expected to discuss whether to leave Mr. Hatoyama’s coalition.
“I cannot sign,” Ms. Fukushima said. “That will not change.”
Though a split would come at a delicate time for Mr. Hatoyama, who will face nationwide elections for Parliament’s upper house in the summer, it would not be fatal because the Democrats hold a majority in the more powerful lower house. [*]
But losing the support of Ms. Fukushima’s party could damage Mr. Hatoyama’s chances of a decisive win in the upper chamber, bringing about the possibility of a hung Parliament.
Washington and Tokyo first agreed to relocate the base in 1996, after a schoolgirl was raped by an American serviceman, but the move was delayed as Japan struggled to find another community to accept it.
Helped by offers from Tokyo of public works projects, the city of Nago finally agreed to host the replacement base. In January, however, the city’s pro-base mayor was defeated by an opponent who was against the base and who rode a wave of voter expectations that it would be moved off the island.
Despite the contention over the base, most anger has been directed at Mr. Hatoyama’s flip-flopping on the issue, not the United States. Opinion polls suggest most Japanese back their nation’s security alliance with the United States. [most Japanese but not most Okinawans] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:14 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/europe/28briefs-Ukraine.html
May 27, 2010
Ukraine: NATO Application Suspended
By REUTERS [Ukraine] [former USSR] [Russia’s “Near Abroad”] [Ukraine’s attempt to move to NATO] [use psci350] [use ir text] [Ukraine’s continued turmoil in domestic politics and same being pulled between West (NATO, EU) and East (Russian Federation, etc)] [one result of election is this: Ukraine to move decisively to rebalance (“reset” in Obamaspeak) Ukraine’s relations with NATO and Russia Federation] [surely Ukraine saw the writing on the wall (among other reasons) and acted practically?] [followup] [*]
Ukraine formally ended its pursuit of NATO membership on Thursday, with Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko declaring that the issue had been taken off the agenda. It was the most clear-cut statement by the new government led by President Viktor F. Yanukovich that the issue was dead for the foreseeable future. His predecessor had ardently

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/europe/28briefs-Ukraine.html
May 27, 2010
Ukraine: NATO Application Suspended
By REUTERS [Ukraine] [former USSR] [Russia’s “Near Abroad”] [Ukraine’s attempt to move to NATO] [use psci350] [use ir text] [Ukraine’s continued turmoil in domestic politics and same being pulled between West (NATO, EU) and East (Russian Federation, etc)] [one result of election is this: Ukraine to move decisively to rebalance (“reset” in Obamaspeak) Ukraine’s relations with NATO and Russia Federation] [surely Ukraine saw the writing on the wall (among other reasons) and acted practically?] [followup] [*]
Ukraine formally ended its pursuit of NATO membership on Thursday, with Foreign Minister Kostyantyn Gryshchenko declaring that the issue had been taken off the agenda. It was the most clear-cut statement by the new government led by President Viktor F. Yanukovich that the issue was dead for the foreseeable future. His predecessor had ardently pursued membership in the alliance. [I personally thought both the Orange Revolution movements and the West pushed the deal stupidly—what purpose would Ukraine contribute to NATO?] [NATO doesn’t even know what it is at present] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:13 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia/28north.html
May 27, 2010
Succession May Be Behind N. Korea’s New Belligerence
By CHOE SANG-HUN [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [SecState Clinton’s recent trip to Asia] [since ROK released rather specific info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [DPRK has broken all relations and threatened to prepare for war—i.e., a typically overwrought response] [followup] [analysic of DPRK’s possible motives?] [use psci 350] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — Over the years, South Korean officials and analysts have grown accustomed to the North Koreans’ habit of stirring up trouble, whether through missile launchings or nuclear tests. And when faced with international censure, the North lashes out with threats of retaliation and even war. Typically, it is an attention-getting tactic, the South Koreans say, used to win diplomatic and economic concessions. [the necessary-crisis machine to keep North Koreans rallied around leader] [*]
But this time the motivation may be different.
Experts on North Korea say that its latest act of belligerence — the sinking of a South

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia/28north.html
May 27, 2010
Succession May Be Behind N. Korea’s New Belligerence
By CHOE SANG-HUN [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [SecState Clinton’s recent trip to Asia] [since ROK released rather specific info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [DPRK has broken all relations and threatened to prepare for war—i.e., a typically overwrought response] [followup] [analysic of DPRK’s possible motives?] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — Over the years, South Korean officials and analysts have grown accustomed to the North Koreans’ habit of stirring up trouble, whether through missile launchings or nuclear tests. And when faced with international censure, the North lashes out with threats of retaliation and even war. Typically, it is an attention-getting tactic, the South Koreans say, used to win diplomatic and economic concessions. [the necessary-crisis machine to keep North Koreans rallied around leader] [*]
But this time the motivation may be different.
Experts on North Korea say that its latest act of belligerence — the sinking of a South Korean ship in March, one of the worst military provocations since the end of the Korean War in 1953 — reflects a new force at play: the efforts of the North’s leader, Kim Jong-il, to establish his 27-year-old son as a legitimate heir to carry on the family dynasty. [no idea but it’s at least plausible] [*]
“His succession to power is the factor that links all other factors when we try to explain why the North is doing what it does these days,” said Choi Jin-wook, a senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification, the Seoul government’s top research organization on North Korea. “Without it, no explanation is complete or convincing.”
On the surface, the North’s ever-intensifying policy of confrontation can appear self-defeating. But, officials and analysts here say, it is all part of Mr. Kim’s effort to groom Kim Jong-un, the youngest of his three known sons, as his successor. According to this line of thinking, the sinking of the South Korean ship was intended to create an atmosphere of crisis that would serve Mr. Kim’s purposes, both by rallying public support and winning the crucial backing of the military. [in this variation, the military also compelled to rally around the new benefactor?] [interest-group pluralism, DPRK style] [*]
“Kim Jong-il needs to create a warlike atmosphere at home to push through with the succession of power to his son,” said Cheon Seong-whun, another senior analyst at the Korea Institute for National Unification. “To do that, he needs tensions and an external enemy.”
Mr. Kim himself was carefully groomed for years to succeed his father, Kim Il-sung, who died in 1994. In the years he was consolidating his power base, Kim Jong-il was credited with masterminding a 1968 commando attack on the South Korean presidential palace in Seoul and the 1976 ax killings of two American military officers at the border, [Peublo and Poplar Tree] [*] said Baek Seung-joo, a North Korea specialist at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses.
Also in 1968, North Korea captured an American naval intelligence ship, the Pueblo, holding 82 hostages for nearly a year, while its commandos attacked remote South Korean villages and clashed with the South Korean military for two months.
But this latest succession has been thrust upon the Kims prematurely, after Kim Jong-il’s reported stroke in 2008 and subsequent health problems. Although Mr. Kim, 68, was healthy enough to visit China this month, questions persist over how long he can remain in power.
The next step for Kim Jong-un is to make his official public debut, but that has been complicated by his lack of major achievements, [*]analysts said.
The elder Mr. Kim “wants to speed up his military-first policy and nuclear program and wants to consolidate the succession process before his health condition becomes worse,” a high-ranking South Korean government official [*]told a group of foreign correspondents in Seoul on Friday. “His third son is also rushing because as a member of the new generation, he wants to prove himself to be very strong and able to control the military leadership. In order to do so, he wants to show to the North Korean leadership that he has achieved some major military outcomes, particularly targeted against South Korea.”
Of course, the succession issue is not the only problem facing Kim Jong-il. His trademark policy of building a “strong and prosperous nation” was called into question when his navy lost a humiliating skirmish against the South last November. His government’s recent attempt to arrest inflation and eliminate black markets through a drastic revaluation of the North Korean currency set off more inflation and a wave of popular discontent [a rarity in DPRK] [*]that extended beyond the capital, Pyongyang.
Meanwhile, South Korea refused to offer economic incentives until the North gave up its nuclear weapons program.
With the succession issue and the rising internal and external pressures, it is not surprising that Mr. Kim would ratchet up confrontation with the South and its allies, said Mr. Cheon, the analyst. North Korea’s propaganda machine uses international condemnation to strengthen internal solidarity, he said.
North Korea is now telling its people that the United States and South Korea fabricated the sinking of the South’s ship as a version of the “Gulf of Tonkin incident,” a battle that Washington vastly overstated to justify expanding the Vietnam War. Huge outdoor rallies are being mobilized in the North, according to North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a Web site run by defectors from the North, which cited sources inside North Korea. [*]
Last week, using a radio network that reaches every North Korean home, Gen. O Kuk-ryol, a top officer, delivered Mr. Kim’s order to the military and reserve forces to be ready for combat, said the defectors’ Web site.
But Mr. Kim’s most concerted efforts seem to be directed at the military, the critical power base for his son. Despite United Nations sanctions that ban exports of luxury goods to the North, Mr. Kim is believed to have smuggled in fancy foreign cars for loyal generals, and in April 100 senior officers received promotions. [*]
Ha Tae-keung, who runs Open Radio for North Korea, a Web site based in Seoul that collects news from informants inside the North, said that Mr. Kim’s tactics seemed to be succeeding. “I think the son is firmly in place,” he said. “He was in charge in Pyongyang when his father and his top aides were all in China.” [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:12 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/middleeast/29israel.html
May 28, 2010
Israel Partly Reopens West Bank Road
By ISABEL KERSHNER [Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [indirect talks restarted May 9, at least announced that day] [followup] [instead of violence, the occasional concession as talks proceed] [fighting and talking and concessions simultaneously] [*]
BEIT SIRA, West Bank — Israel’s military authorities on Friday partly opened a major access highway that runs through the West Bank to local Palestinian traffic, the latest twist in the saga of a road that for many Palestinians has become a symbol of the injustices of Israeli occupation.
The military had resisted opening the road, known as Highway 443 because of ongoing security fears, but was forced to do so by an Israeli Supreme Court ruling that deemed the continued closing of the road to Palestinians, and its sole use by Israelis, as inconsistent with the rules of international law regarding a belligerent occupation. [*]
But residents of the Palestinian villages that line the hills along the route, like Beit Sira and

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/middleeast/29israel.html
May 28, 2010
Israel Partly Reopens West Bank Road
By ISABEL KERSHNER [Israeli-Palestinian conflict] [indirect talks restarted May 9, at least announced that day] [followup] [instead of violence, the occasional concession as talks proceed] [fighting and talking and concessions simultaneously] [*]
BEIT SIRA, West Bank — Israel’s military authorities on Friday partly opened a major access highway that runs through the West Bank to local Palestinian traffic, the latest twist in the saga of a road that for many Palestinians has become a symbol of the injustices of Israeli occupation.
The military had resisted opening the road, known as Highway 443 because of ongoing security fears, but was forced to do so by an Israeli Supreme Court ruling that deemed the continued closing of the road to Palestinians, and its sole use by Israelis, as inconsistent with the rules of international law regarding a belligerent occupation. [*]
But residents of the Palestinian villages that line the hills along the route, like Beit Sira and Safa, say that the new arrangements fall far short of their expectations and will make little difference to their lives. [*]
West Bank Palestinians using the highway still will not be able to enter Ramallah, the nearest Palestinian city, directly because the Israeli-controlled crossing point that leads from the road into the city is for cargo only. The new system mainly allows for limited movement between the villages themselves. [*]
“This is good for us,” said Yusuf Enkawi, a taxi driver from Beit Sira, “but it is not enough.”
Maj. Peter Lerner, a spokesman for the army’s Central Command, which is responsible for the West Bank, said on Friday that “there are ongoing security concerns,” explaining the significant army presence along the road.
Briefing reporters at a new checkpoint through which cars from Beit Sira can now reach the highway, Major Lerner said the risks to Israelis include drive-by shootings, explosive devices or explosive-laden vehicles. Still, he said, the army was “fulfilling the court ruling by the letter.” [*]
The new military checkpoints and miles of fencing and coils of razor wire along the road reflect Israel’s continuing wariness of the Palestinians even as the two sides have resumed indirect peace talks. [*]
Leaders of half a dozen Palestinian villages in the area held a news conference in the council building of Safa earlier this week to register their dissatisfaction with the change.
“On one hand,” said Hassan Mafarjeh, the mayor of Beit Liqiya, another village, “the Supreme Court decision was good in that it finally recognized us as people with a right to use the road.”
But when it comes to carrying out the decision, he said, it appeared to him that the authorities were playing “games.”
The Palestinian villagers and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel , the Israeli organization that argued their case in the Supreme Court, said the army did the bare minimum necessary to comply with the court ruling.
Dan Yakir, an attorney for the Association of Civil Rights in Israel, said the ruling constituted “a very, very limited victory.”
“It was important at the level of principles, but it is disappointing in its practical consequences,” he said.
Highway 443 connects Jerusalem with Israel’s densely populated coastal plain and serves Israelis as an alternative route to Tel Aviv. [indeed, I remember it well] [*] The roughly 10 mile-stretch that runs through the West Bank, constructed on land that was expropriated from the Palestinian villages, has a military checkpoint at each end. West Bank Palestinians need a special permit to cross either to Tel Aviv or Jerusalem; for most, it will remain a highway to nowhere.
The highway was closed to most Palestinian traffic in 2002, at the height of the second Palestinian uprising, after six Israelis were killed in shooting attacks on their cars. The military placed concrete blocks at all entrance and exit points to Palestinian villages along the highway, barring access for West Bank Palestinian cars. Palestinians from Jerusalem, who carry Israeli identity cards, were still able to use the road.
On a recent weekday, Palestinian traders at Beit Sira were loading a cargo of live turkeys and car tires from a van on one side of the barricade into a van waiting on the other side.
On Friday, the military opened two entry points, including the one at Beit Sira, and four exit points serving the Palestinian villages along the road. Several others remained closed. Each Palestinian vehicle passing through the new checkpoints onto the highway undergoes thorough inspection. Major Lerner said the average check takes four minutes.
Highway 443 encapsulates some of the starkest motifs of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. With its closing as a result of terrorism, the road became a symbol in the fight by civil rights groups against the system of segregated roads in the West Bank.
The fact that the road was constructed on Palestinian land made its subsequent closing all the more contentious. When the land was confiscated in the 1980s, the Palestinian villagers objected, saying they had no interest in a new road. But the military contended that the villagers would be the main beneficiaries of the highway, and the court yielded to that argument, saying occupied land could be developed for the benefit of those living there, not for the occupiers.
The villagers complain that the old road to Ramallah, which twists through the mountains, turns what should be a 20-minute journey into one of up to an hour. An alternative, shorter route was paved by the military two years ago, but residents say it is steep and dangerous. [*]It was damaged by the rains in the winter and has just reopened, after being closed for months for repairs.
The villagers say the lack of quick access to Ramallah , with its universities and hospitals, can have tragic consequences. [*]Johar Taleb Daraj, from the village of Kharbata al-Misbah, said his sister-in-law gave birth in a car on the old road to Ramallah nine months ago, and that the baby died.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:11 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052705393.html
Rhetoric grows heated in water dispute between India, Pakistan
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 28, 2010; A14 [India-Pakistan] SAsia] [subcont.] [communal violence within and between that has led to the precipice of regional war multiple times] [in 2002, nearly a war on sub continent when jihadis stormed New Delhi parliament and killed lawmakers] [water rights now taken up as cause célèbre among jihadis and Kashmiri fighters?] [followup] [use psci 469?] [*]
LAHORE, PAKISTAN -- The latest standoff between India and Pakistan features familiar elements: perceived Indian injustices, calls to arms by Pakistani extremists. But this dispute centers on something different: water.
Militant organizations traditionally focused on liberating Indian-held Kashmir have adopted water as a rallying cry, accusing India of strangling upstream rivers to desiccate downstream farms in Pakistan's dry agricultural heartland. This spring, a religious leader suspected of links to the 2008 Mumbai attacks led a protest here of thousands of farmers driving tractors and carrying signs warning: "Water Flows or Blood." [*]The cleric, Hafiz Sayeed, recently told worshipers that India was guilty of "water terrorism."
India and Pakistan have pledged to improve relations. But Sayeed's water rhetoric, echoed

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/27/AR2010052705393.html
Rhetoric grows heated in water dispute between India, Pakistan
By Karin Brulliard
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, May 28, 2010; A14 [India-Pakistan] SAsia] [subcont.] [communal violence within and between that has led to the precipice of regional war multiple times] [in 2002, nearly a war on sub continent when jihadis stormed New Delhi parliament and killed lawmakers] [water rights now taken up as cause célèbre among jihadis and Kashmiri fighters?] [followup] [use psci 469?] [*]
LAHORE, PAKISTAN -- The latest standoff between India and Pakistan features familiar elements: perceived Indian injustices, calls to arms by Pakistani extremists. But this dispute centers on something different: water.
Militant organizations traditionally focused on liberating Indian-held Kashmir have adopted water as a rallying cry, accusing India of strangling upstream rivers to desiccate downstream farms in Pakistan's dry agricultural heartland. This spring, a religious leader suspected of links to the 2008 Mumbai attacks led a protest here of thousands of farmers driving tractors and carrying signs warning: "Water Flows or Blood." [*]The cleric, Hafiz Sayeed, recently told worshipers that India was guilty of "water terrorism."
India and Pakistan have pledged to improve relations. But Sayeed's water rhetoric, echoed in shrill headlines on both sides of the border, encapsulates two issues that threaten those fragile peace efforts -- an Indian dam project on the shared Indus River and Pakistan's reluctance to crack down on Sayeed. [they always are because religious extremism is popular in Pakistan especially when linked with Pakistani nationalism against India] [*]
It also signals the expanding ambitions of Punjab-based militant groups such as the banned Lashkar-i-Taiba, founded by Sayeed, through an issue that touches millions who live off Pakistan's increasingly arid land. [*]
Pakistan's water supply is dwindling because of climate change, outdated farming techniques and an exploding population. Now Pakistan says India is exacerbating its woes by violating the treaty that for 50 years has governed use of water originating in Kashmir. [*]
India denies the charge, and its ambassador to Pakistan recently called the water theft allegations "preposterous." International water experts say that there is little evidence India is diverting water from Pakistan but that Pakistan is right to feel vulnerable because its water is downstream of India's.
Washington has pressured the two nations to settle their differences. India and Pakistan have fought three major wars, and the conflict has kept much of Pakistan's army focused eastward, not on Islamist insurgents. India wants Pakistan to target India-focused militants, and it is outraged that Sayeed -- whose sermons often call for jihad against India -- remains free. India blamed the Mumbai attacks on Lashkar-i-Taiba.
Yet even as the nations' civilian leaders were building bridges, Pakistan's military underscored the perceived Indian threat last month with large-scale military exercises near the border. [as is often the case, the president exercises little actual control over the military, a popular institution because of war with India] [*]With the Kashmir liberation struggle waning in Pakistan's public consciousness, some analysts say Sayeed's use of the water issue demonstrates his long-standing links to Pakistan's powerful security establishment, elements of which do not favor peacemaking.
"Hafiz Sayeed is trying to echo the establishment's line," said Rifaat Hussain, a professor of security studies at Qaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. "The government is trying to shift the focus of Kashmir as part of a jihadist thing . . . to an existential issue."
Hydroelectric projects
Politics aside, experts say, Pakistan's water situation is reaching crisis proportions. As the population has grown over six decades, per-capita water availability has dropped by more than two-thirds. About 90 percent of the water is used for agriculture, making it an economic lifeline but leaving little for human consumption. [perhaps a population plan is needed?] [*]
Inefficient irrigation and drainage techniques have degraded soil and worsened shortages, forcing many small farmers to pump for groundwater. A severe electricity crisis means most rely on diesel-powered pumps, but fuel prices are rising, said M. Ibrahim Mughal, head of Agri Forum, a farmers' advocacy group.
"You can't do agriculture without water," he said. "What will happen? Hunger."
The Indus Waters Treaty, which India and Pakistan signed in 1960, gave each country unfettered access to three rivers and limited rights to the other nation's rivers. A joint commission oversees the treaty, which water experts say has worked fairly well. [*]
Cooperation has frayed as water has grown scarcer and India has stepped up new hydroelectric projects in Kashmir. Those plans have raised alarm in Pakistan, where newspapers and politicians regularly accuse India of secret designs to weaken its enemy by diverting water. [*]Pakistan's Indus Water Commissioner, Jamaat Ali Shah, said his country believes that one proposed Indian dam on the Kishanganga, an Indus tributary, violates the treaty by making Pakistan's own plans for a hydroelectric project downstream unworkable. [*]
"Candidness and transparency should be there. It is not," Shah said.
In a speech last month, India's ambassador to Pakistan, Sharat Sabharwal, said Pakistan has not detailed its complaints. Pakistan's water problems are attributable to factors including climatic conditions, he said, and blaming India was meant to "inflame public passions."
'Water declaration'
That is exactly what Sayeed is trying to do, according to Yahya Mujahid, a spokesman for the radical cleric's Islamic charity, Jamaat-ud-Dawa. The charity, which the United States and India call a front for Lashkar-i-Taiba, [*]recently sponsored the farmer protest and released a "water declaration" alleging that India had "virtually declared war on Pakistan by unlawfully constructing dams and diverting Pakistani rivers." [*]
Lashkar-i-Taiba has taken its fight against India beyond the disputed terrain of Kashmir to stage attacks in Afghanistan and work with militant organizations in Pakistan's northwest. But Sayeed has typically sought to uphold the group's Kashmir-focused reputation, making water a bit of a departure. Mujahid said Sayeed is helping desperate farmers pressure the government to solve their problems, not inciting jihad. But peace talks are unlikely to help, he said.
The dispute has hard-liners in both countries predicting war, alarming observers who say what should be a technical issue has veered into dangerous terrain. [*]
John Briscoe, a Harvard professor and former World Bank water specialist in Pakistan and India, said allegations of India's "water robbery" are unfounded. But because India could influence river flows into Pakistan, he said, the wisest solution would be for India to initiate talks and perhaps call for a permanent neutral party to implement the treaty. [*]
"On the Indian side, the last thing I would want to come into India-Pakistan relations is an issue as visceral as water," Briscoe said. But, he added, "it's all about politics and political will."
Special correspondent Shaiq Hussain contributed to this report. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia/28afghan.html
May 27, 2010
Pakistani Taliban Commander Reported Killed
By ROD NORDLAND and JANE PERLEZ [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] [TTP (TiT) commander reportedly killed but these reports surface often and prove wrong] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — One of the leading figures in Pakistan’s Taliban insurgency was believed killed during a clash with the Afghan police, who said his followers appeared to be trying to establish a new sanctuary in Afghanistan’s Nuristan Province. [interesting: not just using border for sanctuary but if reports accurate, trying to set up shop in Afghan???] [*]
The victim was said to be Maulana Fazlullah, leader of the Taliban uprising in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, who apparently fled to Afghanistan after a Pakistani counteroffensive wrested the valley from Taliban control last year. [*]
Afghan officials depicted a determined and unusually large-scale effort by the Pakistani

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia/28afghan.html
May 27, 2010
Pakistani Taliban Commander Reported Killed
By ROD NORDLAND and JANE PERLEZ [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] [TTP (TiT) commander reportedly killed but these reports surface often and prove wrong] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — One of the leading figures in Pakistan’s Taliban insurgency was believed killed during a clash with the Afghan police, who said his followers appeared to be trying to establish a new sanctuary in Afghanistan’s Nuristan Province. [interesting: not just using border for sanctuary but if reports accurate, trying to set up shop in Afghan???] [*]
The victim was said to be Maulana Fazlullah, leader of the Taliban uprising in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, who apparently fled to Afghanistan after a Pakistani counteroffensive wrested the valley from Taliban control last year. [*]
Afghan officials depicted a determined and unusually large-scale effort by the Pakistani insurgents to take over Barg-e-Matal district of Nuristan, a remote, mountainous province United States ground forces recently abandoned as part of a plan to concentrate on more easily defended and heavily populated areas.
Gen. Zaman Mamozai, head of the Afghan Border Police in eastern Afghanistan, said the fighting, which began Monday but had still not ended late on Thursday, involved a group of 400 to 500 Pakistani Taliban, along with Arab fighters with Al Qaeda and some Afghan insurgents, [Arab fighters usually means a jihadis versus insurgency only group?] [*]who launched a series of attacks on the police and government headquarters in the district.
Though impossible to confirm, the presence of such a large contingent of Pakistani Taliban and Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan would underscore the difficulty of ultimately denying havens to the groups, even as the Pakistani military roots them out from parts of Pakistan.
General Mamozai said the authorities believed that Mr. Fazlullah was one of seven Taliban militants killed in the Barg-e-Matal district of Nuristan Province in a continuing battle with the border police, but they were awaiting forensic identification of his remains to be certain. The police recovered the seven bodies, [*]he said.
According to the Nuristan provincial police chief, General Qasim, the militants’ bodies were recovered after another counterattack that began late on Wednesday night and ended at dawn, including Pakistanis as well as Chechens and Arabs.
“We could not defeat them ourselves because we had fewer border police,” said General Qasim, who like many Afghans uses only one name. The defenders consisted of a battalion of 200 officers from the border police and 250 from the national police, he said. General Qasim said that local residents took up arms to support the police because they were enraged by reports that Mr. Fazlullah had called for all fighting-age men in the district to be killed and their women taken prisoner. [*]
Mr. Fazlullah’s death had previously been reported last year in Afghanistan, but was later refuted. [*]If confirmed this time, he would be the highest-ranking Pakistani Taliban leader killed since last August. The Pakistanis had offered a bounty of 50 million Pakistani rupees (about $600,000) for his capture.
“Serious fighting is still going on so we haven’t been able to take their bodies for forensic identification,” General Mamozai said. He said that the authorities had intercepted Taliban radio communications confirming Mr. Fazlullah’s death.
General Mamozai said that Mr. Fazlullah’s second in command from Swat, a man known only as Hakimullah, [there is a Hakimullah who commands some Talib of Pakistan?] [*] was also reported among the bodies recovered.
Last August, a missile fired from a C.I.A. drone killed Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, when it destroyed a house in South Waziristan, also killing his wife and other family members, the authorities said at the time; the Taliban later confirmed the deaths.
His successor as the Pakistan Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, was also reported killed in a drone strike last January, but a videotaped message from him surfaced months later denying that. [*]
Mr. Fazlullah, believed to be in his 20s, was a former ski lift operator and the son of a radical imam. Nicknamed “Radio Mullah,” he is known for his jihadist oratory broadcast over clandestine radio stations, and his image as a brave fighter attracted thousands of recruits to the Taliban cause in Swat. [apparently the same radio Mullah from previous years] [*]At one time, some 4,500 Taliban militants, taking advantage of a peace agreement with the Pakistani authorities, set up a parallel government in the rugged Swat Valley, imposing harsh Islamic law on the local residents.
When the Pakistani Army launched its offensive against the Taliban in Swat last spring, Mr. Fazlullah escaped, along with most of the rest of the Taliban leadership. The Pakistani authorities believe Mr. Fazlullah first went to Bajaur in the tribal area bordering Afghanistan, and then escaped to Kunar, just south of Nuristan Province. There, the Pakistanis believe he was given cover by the Afghan provincial authorities, a Pakistani military official said Thursday. [sounds like he may have crossed them in order to take over and area?] [*]
Mr. Fazlullah’s death would probably hinder the re-emergence of the Taliban in Swat, where he had particular local appeal. He was associated with the umbrella organization of the Pakistani Taliban that is fighting the army in other tribal areas, but his influence was largely limited to Swat. [*]
The Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan are separate organizations but have close ties.
Elsewhere in eastern Afghanistan, a would-be suicide bomber apparently on his way to strike an Afghan Army base in the Behsud District of Nangarhar Province was involved in a car accident that disabled his vehicle, according to Colonel Ghafoor, a spokesman for the provincial police headquarters who goes by one name. The bomber fled before the police arrived and found the car wired to explode. NATO troops safely defused the bomb, Colonel Ghafoor said.
Rod Nordland reported from Kabul, and Jane Perlez from Islamabad, Pakistan. Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting from Kabul, and an Afghan employee of The New York Times from Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/asia/29pstan.html
May 28, 2010
Sectarian Attacks Hit Two Pakistani Mosques
By JANE PERLEZ and WAQAR GILLANI [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] [sectarian attacks?] [typically such attacks occur during religious holidays, for example over Christian Xmas where Christian minority targeted and they attack back, so on] [also Sunni versus Shi’a occur with some frequency where Shi’a minority lives] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Gunmen attacked two mosques belonging to a minority sect during Friday Prayers in Lahore, seizing worshipers and repelling police officers as they tried to rescue the hostages, witnesses said.
At least 42 people were killed at one of the mosques, located near the central railway station, said a civil defense officer, Mazhar Ahmed. More than a dozen other worshipers were killed at the second mosque in Model Town, an upscale neighborhood, police officials said. Hospital officials reported scores of injured.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/29/world/asia/29pstan.html
May 28, 2010
Sectarian Attacks Hit Two Pakistani Mosques
By JANE PERLEZ and WAQAR GILLANI [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] [sectarian attacks?] [typically such attacks occur during religious holidays, for example over Christian Xmas where Christian minority targeted and they attack back, so on] [also Sunni versus Shi’a occur with some frequency where Shi’a minority lives] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Gunmen attacked two mosques belonging to a minority sect during Friday Prayers in Lahore, seizing worshipers and repelling police officers as they tried to rescue the hostages, witnesses said.
At least 42 people were killed at one of the mosques, located near the central railway station, said a civil defense officer, Mazhar Ahmed. More than a dozen other worshipers were killed at the second mosque in Model Town, an upscale neighborhood, police officials said. Hospital officials reported scores of injured.
More than three hours after the attacks began, the police took control of the mosque near the rail station and found dozens of dead bodies strewn across the floor, Mr. Ahmed said.
Geo TV, a leading news channel in Pakistan, reported that members of the Punjab branch of the Pakistan Taliban were claiming responsibility for the attack. [?] [*]Lahore is the capital of Punjab, Pakistan’s largest province.
It was unclear how many people were caught when the attacks began. Most Fridays, about 1,500 to 2,000 people attend prayers at each mosque, according to Munawar Shahid, an official of the sect, known as the Ahmedi community. [*]
The attacks within minutes of each other at the mosques a few miles apart were clearly aimed at the Ahmedi community, which considers itself as Muslim but which is severely discriminated against under Pakistani law. [*]
As gunfire rattled around him, Mr. Shahid said by cellphone that he was hiding in a corner of his office, which is adjacent to the mosque near the rail station.
“Everybody is trying to save their life,” Mr. Shahid said.
Gunfire and explosions from hand grenades burst from the mosque near the railway station and another in Model Town, an upscale residential area. One television report described gunmen on the roof of one of the mosques.
One worshiper said he saw five or six armed attackers enter the mosque just as he was approaching.
“They were firing directly at the mosque gate and then they entered the place,” said the worshiper, Nasrullah Baloch. “They also threw hand grenades.”
As shooting subsided at one of the mosques, Ahmedi men formed a human chain outside the gate, apparently in an effort to block unwelcome outsiders. The attacks were apparently orchestrated by Islamic extremists who had issued harsh threats against the Ahmedi sect for the past two years, [*]said I. A. Rehman, the executive director of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. [Ahmedi sect?] [*]
“These extremists are not tolerating any other community, including Ahmedis, and it seems the government has failed to control them,” Mr. Rehman said.
The State Department report on Human Rights said this year that the estimated two million Ahmedis were forbidden by law from engaging in Muslim practices. The report said 11 Ahmedis were killed last year in Pakistan because of their faith. [*]
The Ahmedis believe that the Prophet Muhammad was the latest but not the last messenger sent by God.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/us/27list.html
May 26, 2010
Names of the Dead
[4,391] [KIA] [in AfPak the number passed 1,000 recently] [*]
The Department of Defense has identified 4,391 [KIA] [*]American service members who have died since the start of the Iraq war and 1,070 who have died as a part of the Afghan war and related operations. It confirmed the deaths of the following Americans yesterday:
Iraq

[full article may be found above the jump] [*]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/us/politics/27immig.html
May 26, 2010
Immigration Overhaul Advocates Question Troops
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [“comprehensive immigration reform” and its painful processes] [Obama’s recent return to militarization of border] [I’m normally against militarization of America’s borders but the violence from US-Mexico drug traffic is severe and this appears targeted to that violence] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — In deciding to deploy up to 1,200 National Guard troops to bolster security at the Mexican border, President Obama has stepped into one of the thorniest issues facing American presidents — illegal immigration — and has confounded allies who say he is squandering his chance to address it in a comprehensive way.
The White House says it is sending the troops solely to combat drug smuggling, a problem highlighted by the recent killing of an Arizona rancher. But any move toward border security invariably raises passions in the immigration debate, and on Wednesday advocates for overhauling the system were questioning the president’s intentions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/us/politics/27immig.html
May 26, 2010
Immigration Overhaul Advocates Question Troops
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [“comprehensive immigration reform” and its painful processes] [Obama’s recent return to militarization of border] [I’m normally against militarization of America’s borders but the violence from US-Mexico drug traffic is severe and this appears targeted to that violence] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — In deciding to deploy up to 1,200 National Guard troops to bolster security at the Mexican border, President Obama has stepped into one of the thorniest issues facing American presidents — illegal immigration — and has confounded allies who say he is squandering his chance to address it in a comprehensive way.
The White House says it is sending the troops solely to combat drug smuggling, a problem highlighted by the recent killing of an Arizona rancher. But any move toward border security invariably raises passions in the immigration debate, and on Wednesday advocates for overhauling the system were questioning the president’s intentions.
They said that in focusing first on border security, Mr. Obama might be giving up his best leverage for winning approval of broader but more politically contentious steps to address the status of the millions of immigrants already in the United States illegally, and the needs of employers who rely on their labor.
“I’m trying to reconcile the stated belief of this president when he was a candidate, what he has said publicly — as recently as a naturalization ceremony last month — and what his actions are,” said Angela Kelley, vice president for immigration policy at the Center for American Progress, a left-leaning organization that is a close ally of the Obama administration. “I think there’s a big gap there.”
Mr. Obama’s decision to send the National Guard focused attention on the intense political pressures facing him as he wades into the issue during this midterm election year. Republicans are demanding that he improve border security before they cooperate on an immigration bill. Some moderate Democrats facing difficult re-election races are also demanding tougher action at the border.
But Democrats also see an opportunity to win the political allegiance of the fast-growing Hispanic population for years or decades to come if they can handle the issue adeptly. In particular, Democrats are eager to balance support for enhanced border security with an approach that they can contrast to the policies championed by many Republicans, starting with Arizona’s new law that gives police a greater role in immigration enforcement.
Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat who is trying to generate support for comprehensive immigration legislation in the Senate, said toughening border security would help the broader effort.
“Given the fact the problems at the border have turned to become seriously drug related, I think it’s necessary and helps comprehensive reform,” Mr. Schumer said, “because it shows that Democrats will fight for both parts of the issue.”
In the Senate, Mr. Obama’s 2008 Republican presidential rival, John McCain of Arizona, was driving colleagues toward a vote, originally scheduled for Wednesday but then postponed, on a plan to send 6,000 troops to the border. The White House, which has been quietly working on its own plan to send troops, hurriedly released that plan on Tuesday so that Democrats could have an alternative, according to one senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
Representative Gabrielle Giffords, an Arizona Democrat who, like Senator McCain, faces a tough re-election race, has been leaning hard on the administration. Two weeks ago, she showed up for a meeting with Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano carrying a newspaper article about the Arizona rancher, who was her constituent, and asked that Ms. Napolitano show it to the president.
“She tucked it under her arm, and as she left she said she had a meeting with him that afternoon,” Ms. Giffords said, adding, “I’ve been a thorn in the side of the administration, repeatedly calling for the redeployment of the Guard to the area, and I have not backed down.”
Since the beginning of his presidency, Mr. Obama has been dogged by questions about his commitment to immigration legislation that would provide a path to citizenship for the estimated 12 million people who are living in this country without legal documentation. Other priorities, notably the economy and health care legislation, put the issue on the back burner for the first year of his administration.
That changed last month, when Arizona enacted its new law, aimed at identifying, prosecuting and deporting illegal immigrants. The measure unleashed immediate protests, and Mr. Obama, speaking at a naturalization ceremony for active-duty service members, condemned it on the day it was signed into law. He called on Congress to take up an immigration overhaul.
On Wednesday, Mr. Obama’s attorney general, Eric H. Holder Jr., heard from police chiefs who oppose the Arizona law. The chiefs, representing cities including Phoenix, Tucson, Los Angeles, Houston, Philadelphia and Minneapolis, told Mr. Holder that the law would increase crime, not decrease it, as backers claim.
The Arizona bill put immigration squarely back on the Congressional agenda, but Mr. Obama has been having trouble persuading Republicans to sign on. During a Cinco de Mayo celebration in the Rose Garden last month, Mr. Obama told an audience of Hispanic leaders that he was determined to pass legislation, but that he could not do so without Republican support.
The decision to send troops could be an attempt to get that support. At a testy meeting with Senate Republicans on Tuesday, before the White House disclosed its decision about the National Guard deployment, Mr. McCain pressed Mr. Obama on what he was doing to improve border security. Mr. Obama did not reveal his border security plan, but did ask for Republicans’ help in passing immigration legislation.
“The president told the Republican caucus yesterday that he wants to move forward; he feels that this problem has festered too long and needs a solution,” said David Axelrod, Mr. Obama’s senior adviser, adding that the decision to send troops was “not related to the meeting.”
Advocates for immigration reform say the two issues cannot be divorced. Clarissa Martinez, director of immigration and national campaigns for the National Council of La Raza, questioned why Mr. Obama would satisfy Republicans’ demands for increasing border security without extracting a commitment for comprehensive reform in return.
“Republicans keep saying they need to do these things first before they give immigration reform its due,” she said. “One could argue that perhaps the White House was trying to say: ‘O.K., you’re saying this is the impediment to negotiations. Fine, let’s remove the impediment and get to the negotiations.’ The problem here is, that was not stated. I can’t see the strategy in it.”
Randal C. Archibold contributed reporting from Los Angeles.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/middleeast/27mideast.html
May 27, 2010
White House to Host Mideast Leaders
By REUTERS [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [Middle East] [the dilemmas for USFP policymakers] [most of these same things have existed for years] [is the Obama administration (clearly enamored of covert intruments!) ramping up covert and paramilitary actions in Middle East?] [use psci 355-455] [but also typical US push for Israeli-Palestinian peace] [*]
JERUSALEM (Reuters) — President Obama has invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to the White House for separate meetings, White House officials said Wednesday.
The meetings with Mr. Obama will be the first for the Middle Eastern leaders since the start of the indirect peace talks that began last month, with the president’s special envoy,George J. Mitchell, mediating between the parties.
The president will use the meetings to give a push to the so-called proximity talks. “Both meetings are designed to help move that process forward,” said a White House spokesman,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/middleeast/27mideast.html
May 27, 2010
White House to Host Mideast Leaders
By REUTERS [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [Middle East] [the dilemmas for USFP policymakers] [most of these same things have existed for years] [is the Obama administration (clearly enamored of covert intruments!) ramping up covert and paramilitary actions in Middle East?] [use psci 355-455] [but also typical US push for Israeli-Palestinian peace] [*]
JERUSALEM (Reuters) — President Obama has invited Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, to the White House for separate meetings, White House officials said Wednesday.
The meetings with Mr. Obama will be the first for the Middle Eastern leaders since the start of the indirect peace talks that began last month, with the president’s special envoy,George J. Mitchell, mediating between the parties.
The president will use the meetings to give a push to the so-called proximity talks. “Both meetings are designed to help move that process forward,” said a White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor.
Rahm Emanuel, the White House chief of staff, delivered the invitation in person to Mr. Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Wednesday, while on a family visit to Israel.
The president will host Mr. Netanyahu on Tuesday. Mr. Vietor said no firm date had been set for Mr. Abbas’s visit.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/28strategy.html
May 27, 2010
New Security Strategy Focuses on Managing Threats
By DAVID E. SANGER and PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [the national security strategy of the United States, mandated by congress for each new administration] [I got the document this morning and will read it after newspapers] [use psci 355-455] [looks like some incremental change] [but also lot of continuity] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s first formal National Security Strategy argues that preserving American leadership in the world hinges on learning to accept and manage the rise of many competitors, and dismisses as far too narrow the Bush era doctrine that fighting terrorism should be the nation’s overarching objective. [in fairness, the Bush doctrine was the equating of those who harbor and those who commit terrorist acts and in 2002 when the strategy was passed, it made sense] [the 2006 one shifted heavily in favor of promoting democracy—that is, a more substantive hook for fighting jihadis terror] [*]
In a 52-page document that tries to balance the idealism of Mr. Obama’s campaign

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/28strategy.html
May 27, 2010
New Security Strategy Focuses on Managing Threats
By DAVID E. SANGER and PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [the national security strategy of the United States, mandated by congress for each new administration] [I got the document this morning and will read it after newspapers] [use psci 355-455] [looks like some incremental change] [but also lot of continuity] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama’s first formal National Security Strategy argues that preserving American leadership in the world hinges on learning to accept and manage the rise of many competitors, and dismisses as far too narrow the Bush era doctrine that fighting terrorism should be the nation’s overarching objective. [in fairness, the Bush doctrine was the equating of those who harbor and those who commit terrorist acts and in 2002 when the strategy was passed, it made sense] [the 2006 one shifted heavily in favor of promoting democracy—that is, a more substantive hook for fighting jihadis terror] [*]
In a 52-page document that tries to balance the idealism of Mr. Obama’s campaign promises with the realities of his confrontations with a fractious and threatening world over the past 16 months, Mr. Obama describes an American strategy that recognizes limits on how much the United States can spend to shape the globe.
An America “hardened by war” and “disciplined by a devastating economic crisis,” he argues, cannot sustain extended fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan, while fulfilling other commitments at home and abroad. [*]
“The burdens of a young century cannot fall on American shoulders alone,” Mr. Obama writes in the introduction of the strategy being released on Thursday. “Indeed, our adversaries would like to see America sap our strength by overextending our power.”
That line is just one of many subtle slaps at President George W. Bush. Much of the National Security Strategy, which is required by Congress, reads as an argument for a restoration of an older order of reliance on international institutions, updated to confront modern threats. While Mr. Bush’s 2002 document explicitly said the United States would never allow the rise of a rival superpower, Mr. Obama argues that America faces no real military competitor, but that global power is increasingly diffuse. “To succeed, we must face the world as it is,” he says.
The principal author of the report, Ben Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, noted in an interview that Mr. Obama’s move to replace the Group of 8 with a broader group, called the Group of 20, that includes China, India and Brazil, recognizes this reality. “We are deeply committed to broadening the circle of responsible actors,” Mr. Rhodes said.
Although the administration has put renewed focus on the war in Afghanistan and escalated C.I.A. drone strikes against militants, the strategy rejects Mr. Bush’s single-minded focus on counterterrorism as the organizing principle of national security policy. Those efforts “to counter violent extremism” — Mr. Obama avoids the use of the word “Islamic” — “are only one element of our strategic environment and cannot define America’s engagement with the world.”
He goes on to argue that “the gravest danger to the American people and global security continues to come from weapons of mass destruction, particularly nuclear weapons.” And he dwelled on cyber threats, climate change, and America’s dependence on fossil fuels as fundamental national security issues, issues that received relatively little or no attention in Mr. Bush’s 2002 document, although his administration focused on them more in its second term.
“It is a rather dramatic departure from the most recent prior national security strategy,” Susan Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said in an interview.
Mr. Bush’s 2002 document articulated a vision of American power that foreshadowed the American involvement in Iraq. Mr. Obama’s version could fuel the ongoing debate about whether his philosophy expands or constricts American influence.
Critics already argue that Mr. Obama does not place enough importance on fighting terrorism or fully embrace America’s singular role in the world as he seeks the favor and cooperation of other nations.
A section on the use of force makes no mention of pre-emptive attacks against countries or non-state actors who may pose a threat, as Mr. Bush did in 2002, just six months before the invasion of Iraq. But Mr. Obama does not explicitly rule out striking first.
“While the use of force is sometimes necessary, we will exhaust other options before war whenever we can, and carefully weigh the costs and risks of action against the costs and risks of inaction,” he says. When it is necessary, he adds, “we will seek broad international support, working with such institutions as NATO and the U.N. Security Council.”
Mr. Bush’s aides said they would not seek a “permission slip” for such actions. Mr. Obama phrases that idea differently, writing, “the United States must reserve the right to act unilaterally if necessary to defend our nation and our interests, yet we will also seek to adhere to standards that govern the use of force.”
Mr. Obama also defines national security more broadly than his predecessor did, making the case, for example, that reducing the deficit is critical to sustaining American power. He emphasizes issues like the economy, education, climate change, energy and science. In that way, he tries to draw a broader theme linking his presidency to the notion of a “new foundation,” the phrase he previously has coined as a slogan for his domestic program. “Our national security begins at home,” the strategy says.
Still, for all its self-conscious rejection of the Bush era, the document reflects elements of continuity. For example, it does not disavow using the state secrets act to withhold information from courts in terrorism cases, although it argues for prudent and limited use. It also insists that “we will maintain the military superiority that has secured our country, and underpinned global security, for decades.”
The document does not make the spread of democracy the defining priority that Mr. Bush did, but it embraces the goal more robustly than is typical for Mr. Obama, a reflection of a struggle within his administration about how to approach a topic that became so associated with Mr. Bush. Mr. Obama commits to “welcoming all peaceful democratic movements” and to “supporting the development of institutions within fragile democracies.” But he also broadens the goal by saying, “We recognize economic opportunity as a human right.”
And the document offers assessments of several flash points that seem drawn from wording used by the last administration. For instance, it says that if North Korea and Iran abandon their nuclear programs, “they will be able to proceed on a path to greater political and economic integration with the international community” but if not, “we will pursue multiple means to increase their isolation.”
It calls on China to take on “a responsible leadership role” and vows to “monitor China’s military modernization program and prepare accordingly” while saying that disagreements on human rights “should not prevent cooperation on issues of mutual interest.”
It lays out a vision of a “stable, substantive, multidimensional relationship with Russia” but promises to “promote the rule of law, accountable government and universal values” within Russia and “support the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Russia’s neighbors.” And it reaffirms that the United States is “building a strategic partnership” with India and that “we welcome Brazil’s leadership.”
The bottom line, argued Ms. Rice, is that the security of the United States is inextricably linked to that of people everywhere. “By necessity, we need to build to the greatest extent possible cooperative relationships not only with traditional allies but with new partners,” she said.
In a speech on Wednesday previewing the strategy, John Brennan, the president’s homeland security and counterterrorism adviser, said it offers a sharper definition of America’s struggle with radicalism.
“Our enemy is not terrorism because terrorism is but a tactic,” he said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a research organization in Washington. “Our enemy is not terror because terror is a state of mind and, as Americans, we refuse to live in fear.”
He also rejected the terms jihad, holy war or Islamists because “there is nothing holy or legitimate or Islamic about murdering innocent men, women and children.” Instead, he said, “our enemy is Al Qaeda and its terrorist affiliates.”
Mr. Brennan noted the spate of attacks and attempted attacks lately inside the United States, some by American citizens or legal residents.
“This is a new phase to the terrorist threat, no longer limited to coordinated, sophisticated 9/11 style attacks but expanding to single individuals attempting to carry out relatively unsophisticated attacks,” he said. “As our enemy adapts and evolves their tactics, so must we constantly adapt and evolve ours, not in a mad rush driven by fear, but in a thoughtful and reasoned way.” [I’m not interested in reading others’ views of it as they don’t even define foreign-national security] [so more tomorrow once I’ve formed my own views] [*]
Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from the United Nations.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/europe/27briefs-france.html
May 26, 2010
France: Rwandan Doctor Arrested and Accused in ’94 Genocide
By STEVEN ERLANGER [France] [EU3] [Rwanda-Berundi] [the genocide in the early 1990s] [while it’s taken for ever, at least tepid sign that system will not tolerate genocide] [followup] [*]
The French police on Wednesday arrested a Rwandan doctor on an international warrant. [recall it was Belgium who colonized the region] [and Belgium who basically withdrew Caucasians and their armed forces allowing the genocide to occur] [*] The doctor, Eugene Rwamucyo, is suspected of being involved in the 1994 genocide inRwanda, judicial officials said. The Kigali government has accused him of planning and carrying out atrocities in the Butare region of southern Rwanda. Dr. Rwamucyo lives in Belgium, and was dismissed last month from a hospital post in northern France. He was arrested north of Paris after attending the funeral of another Rwandan, Jean-Bosco Barayagwiza, who was convicted of war crimes in 2003 by the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in The Hague. [*]

[full article may be found above the jump] [*]

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia/28korea.html
May 27, 2010
North Korea to Suspend Naval Hot Line With South
By CHOE SANG-HUN [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [SecState Clinton’s recent trip to Asia] [since ROK released rather specific info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [DPRK has broken all relations and threatened to prepare for war—i.e., a typically overwrought response] [followup] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Thursday that it was cutting off a naval hot line used to prevent clashes on its disputed sea border with South Korea, [with due respect, it didn’t work, now did it?] [otherwise, the ROK ship wouldn’t have been sunk] [*]while the South conducted a large naval drill in a show of force after the sinking of one of its warships.
Cutting the phone line, installed after deadly skirmishes in 1999 and 2002, raises the chances of an armed clash in tense western waters — something the North has said could

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/28/world/asia/28korea.html
May 27, 2010
North Korea to Suspend Naval Hot Line With South
By CHOE SANG-HUN [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [SecState Clinton’s recent trip to Asia] [since ROK released rather specific info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [DPRK has broken all relations and threatened to prepare for war—i.e., a typically overwrought response] [followup] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea said on Thursday that it was cutting off a naval hot line used to prevent clashes on its disputed sea border with South Korea, [with due respect, it didn’t work, now did it?] [otherwise, the ROK ship wouldn’t have been sunk] [*]while the South conducted a large naval drill in a show of force after the sinking of one of its warships.
Cutting the phone line, installed after deadly skirmishes in 1999 and 2002, raises the chances of an armed clash in tense western waters — something the North has said could happen any time. [*]
The two sides have disagreed on the line for a western sea border since the Korean War ended with a truce in 1953.
On Thursday, North Korea’s military said it would “completely nullify” a 2004 accord aimed at preventing accidental armed skirmishes along the disputed sea border, scene of three bloody maritime battles in the past decade. The agreement called for both navies to communicate through a common radio frequency and maintain a phone line to handle emergencies. [*]
“We will immediately deliver a physical strike at anyone intruding across our maritime demarcation line,” [*]the North’s state-run news agency KCNA quoted a senior military official as saying, referring to the North’s self-proclaimed sea border, which juts deeply into South Korean-held waters.
Tension on the divided peninsula has escalated since a team of international investigators said last week that a North Korean submarine torpedoed the Cheonan, a South Korean navy corvette, killing 46 sailors, in waters south of a western sea border drawn unilaterally by the United Nations after the war. The South defends the border, but the North rejects it.
The North’s warnings on Thursday came as a fleet of 10 South Korean warships, including a 3,500-ton destroyer, conducted an exercise far below the disputed waters. Shells pounded the sea and columns of water erupted as antisubmarine depth charges exploded during the one-day exercise.
Following up on the North’s earlier threat to cut all remaining ties with South Korea, the North Korean military also said Thursday that it was considering blocking communications and transportation across the land border, which allow hundreds of South Korean factory managers and engineers to travel daily to and from the joint industrial park at Kaesong, a North Korean border town. [*]
Blocking the border would cut off the industrial complex, where 120 South Korean factories hire 45,000 North Korean workers. So far, despite the escalating tensions, neither side has shut the complex, the last remnant of the so-called Sunshine Policy pursued under President Lee Myung-bak’s two predecessors, Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun.
This week, the South suspended most trade with the North, which has denied involvement in the ship’s sinking.
Earlier this week, the North had threatened to “completely block South Korean personnel and vehicles” from Kaesong if the South carried out its plan to resume its psychological warfare against the North, mainly through propaganda broadcasts across the border. Continuing its sharp language, the North’s military repeated on Thursday that it would “ruthlessly” attack and destroy the propaganda loudspeakers to be put up along the border by the South. [*]
In Seoul on Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton called the sinking an “unacceptable provocation by North Korea” and called for a “strong but measured response.”
She said the United States stood by South Korea as it sought to take North Korea to the United Nations Security Council for censure. But she also urged balancing diplomatic punishment while avoiding a broader conflict on the Korea Peninsula.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:02 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/europe/27britain.html
May 26, 2010
Britain Reveals Nuclear Arsenal: 225 Warheads
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [UK] [London] [EU3] [UK’s nuclear deterrent force] [both UK and France created their own respective deterrence during Cold War] [apparently did not believe the US would go to the mat for London or Paris, and with good reason] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup] [*]
LONDON (AP) — Britain disclosed Wednesday that it has a stockpile of 225 nuclear warheads, its first public accounting of its total nuclear arsenal. [*]
The announcement, made without fanfare in the House of Commons, followed the Obama administration’s recent disclosure that the United States has 5,113 nuclear warheads in its arsenal and “several thousand” more retired warheads awaiting the junk pile [*]— the first public description of the secretive stockpile born in the cold war and now shrinking

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/europe/27britain.html
May 26, 2010
Britain Reveals Nuclear Arsenal: 225 Warheads
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [UK] [London] [EU3] [UK’s nuclear deterrent force] [both UK and France created their own respective deterrence during Cold War] [apparently did not believe the US would go to the mat for London or Paris, and with good reason] [use psci 350, 355-455] [followup] [*]
LONDON (AP) — Britain disclosed Wednesday that it has a stockpile of 225 nuclear warheads, its first public accounting of its total nuclear arsenal. [*]
The announcement, made without fanfare in the House of Commons, followed the Obama administration’s recent disclosure that the United States has 5,113 nuclear warheads in its arsenal and “several thousand” more retired warheads awaiting the junk pile [*]— the first public description of the secretive stockpile born in the cold war and now shrinking rapidly.
The United States made the announcement at the May 3 opening of a five-year review of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, considered the cornerstone of global disarmament efforts, where Washington and its allies are seeking stronger measures to prevent the spread of nuclear arms. Britain made its announcement as the monthlong conference at the United Nations nears an end on Friday, with intense debate under way on a final document.
“We believe that the time is now right to be more open about the weapons we hold,” Foreign Secretary William Hague told the House of Commons. “We judge that this will assist in building a climate of trust between nuclear and nonnuclear weapons states and contribute, therefore, to future efforts to reduce the number of nuclear weaponsworldwide.” [*]
Britain had earlier disclosed that it possessed 160 operational warheads, but Mr. Hague’s comment that the country’s “overall stockpile of nuclear warheads will not exceed 225 warheads” was the first time the size of the total stockpile had been revealed. [*]The Foreign Office later said the 225 figure was the number of warheads the country now held.
Countries that do not possess nuclear weapons have long demanded more openness from the nuclear-weapon states — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China — about the size and nature of their arsenals as an essential step toward nuclear disarmament, which is a crucial plank in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. Four other nations have or are suspected of having atomic arms — Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:01 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/middleeast/27iran.html
May 26, 2010
Iran and Russia Exchange Acerbic Barbs on Sanctions
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia’s “Near Abroad”] [in new assertive Russia] [use psci350] [use ir text] [Russia’s consistent efforts over the years to play both ways with Iran: business including nuclear energy infrastructure but also responsible member of P5?] [this is interesting; demonstrates even Moscow tired of Ahmadinejad nonsense?] [followup] [*]
MOSCOW — Russia and Iran publicly traded barbs on Wednesday, showing strains in their longstanding alliance because of Moscow’s support for a new set of American-backed sanctions over the Iranian nuclear program. [*]
During a televised speech in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at his Russian counterparts, who last week agreed, along with the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, [*]on the draft language for the proposed new sanctions, which would punish Iranian financial institutions and countries that offer Iran

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/middleeast/27iran.html
May 26, 2010
Iran and Russia Exchange Acerbic Barbs on Sanctions
By ELLEN BARRY [Russia] [former USSR] [Russia’s “Near Abroad”] [in new assertive Russia] [use psci350] [use ir text] [Russia’s consistent efforts over the years to play both ways with Iran: business including nuclear energy infrastructure but also responsible member of P5?] [this is interesting; demonstrates even Moscow tired of Ahmadinejad nonsense?] [followup] [*]
MOSCOW — Russia and Iran publicly traded barbs on Wednesday, showing strains in their longstanding alliance because of Moscow’s support for a new set of American-backed sanctions over the Iranian nuclear program. [*]
During a televised speech in Iran, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at his Russian counterparts, who last week agreed, along with the other permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, [*]on the draft language for the proposed new sanctions, which would punish Iranian financial institutions and countries that offer Iran nuclear-related technology.
“We do not like to see our neighbor supporting those who have shown animosity to us for 30 years,” Mr. Ahmadinejad said in the speech broadcast from the southern city of Kerman. “This is not acceptable for the Iranian nation. I hope they will pay attention and take corrective action.” [*]
“If I were in the place of Russian officials, I would adopt a more careful stance,” he said.
The comments came a day after Iran’s ambassador to Moscow said he hoped Russia would dissuade the other Council members from imposing sanctions, and warned that Russia risked manipulation by the United States. [*]
“Russia should not think that short-term cooperation with the United States is in its interest,” said the ambassador, Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi. “The green light the United States is showing Russia will not last long.”
A top Kremlin aide said Wednesday that Russia was guided by its own long-term interests, and that “our position can be neither pro-American, nor pro-Iranian.”
The aide, Sergei Prikhodko, went on to say that Russia rejected extremism and unpredictability in the global arena, and that “those who speak on behalf of the fraternal people of Iran” should not forget this. [ouch back at you] [*]
“No one has ever managed to save his authority by making use of political demagoguery,” Mr. Prikhodko said in remarks carried by Interfax, a Russian news agency. “And I am sure that the thousand-year-long history of Iran itself proves that.” [*]
Russia has historically opposed sanctions against Iran, which it considers an important regional ally. That position began to shift late last year when Iranian leaders rejected aUnited Nations-brokered uranium enrichment plan, which Russia had helped draft, to defuse the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.
With the threat of sanctions looming, Iran revived elements of the proposed compromise, striking a deal with Brazil and Turkey this month to send parts of its stockpile of enriched uranium abroad for further processing.
But that new agreement is also causing friction, particularly between the United States and Brazil. Angry at Washington’s dismissal of the deal, Brazilian officials on Wednesday provided a full copy of the three-page letter President Obama sent to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva of Brazil in April, arguing that it laid the groundwork for the agreement they reached in Tehran. [*]
“There continues to be some puzzlement” among Brazilian officials about why American official would reject the deal now, a senior Brazilian official said. “The letter came from the highest authority and was very clear.” [a) because the timing with Iran clearly using Brazil and Turkey to forestall US effort; and b) the abominable human rights record of last year in particular in Tehran] [that’s why] [*]
In the letter, Mr. Obama wrote that an agreement by Iran to transfer about 2,600 pounds of low-enriched uranium out of the country “would build confidence and reduce regional tensions by substantially reducing Iran’s” uranium stockpile. But he also made clear that the United States would continue to pursue sanctions while leaving the “door open to engagement with Iran.”
Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, said the letter from Mr. Obama to Mr. da Silva should not be taken in isolation. “No one document or discussion captures the totality of the discussion and their mutual understanding,” [*]she said.
A number of countries led by the United States suspect that Iran has been enriching uranium because it wants nuclear weapons. The Security Council has repeatedly told Iran to halt the enrichment. The Iranians have ignored the demand, saying they are within their rights to enrich uranium to relatively low levels for use in reactors.
Last week, Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, offered cautious support for a draft Security Council resolution that would impose a fourth set of sanctions on Iran. But he emphasized that the draft needed approval from the council’s nonpermanent members, and he encouraged Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton to consider Tehran’s newest proposal to enrich uranium in Turkey. [*]
Tension has also been building between Moscow and Tehran over a proposed sale of S-300 antiaircraft missiles to Tehran, a contract that Russia has suspended but not canceled. [Russia would like to sale as much as possible whether it delivers or not] [*] Washington has pressed Moscow not to deliver the weapons, which could help Iran shoot down American or Israeli warplanes should either try to bomb its nuclear facilities.
Alexei Barrionuevo contributed reporting from Rio de Janeiro.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/asia/27afghan.html
May 26, 2010
Trial Marks Change at Prison for Afghan Detainees
By DEXTER FILKINS [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [new prison run by US—did it replace Bagram?—outside Kabul and changing SOP] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The new American-run prison outside the capital will hold its first trial of an Afghan detainee next week, American officers said Wednesday.
The Afghan prisoner, who was not identified, will be tried in an Afghan court, before an Afghan judge, and he will be defended by an Afghan lawyer, [*]officials said. The trial is set for Tuesday.
Vice Adm. Robert Harward, the commander of American detention operations here, said he was not sure yet if the trial would be open to the public.
Even so, the trial would be a significant moment in the evolution of the American detention

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/asia/27afghan.html
May 26, 2010
Trial Marks Change at Prison for Afghan Detainees
By DEXTER FILKINS [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [new prison run by US—did it replace Bagram?—outside Kabul and changing SOP] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The new American-run prison outside the capital will hold its first trial of an Afghan detainee next week, American officers said Wednesday.
The Afghan prisoner, who was not identified, will be tried in an Afghan court, before an Afghan judge, and he will be defended by an Afghan lawyer, [*]officials said. The trial is set for Tuesday.
Vice Adm. Robert Harward, the commander of American detention operations here, said he was not sure yet if the trial would be open to the public.
Even so, the trial would be a significant moment in the evolution of the American detention system in Afghanistan. The Parwan Detention Center, which opened last year, succeeded the prison at Bagram, which had earned a grim reputation as a place where Afghans were sometimes abused. [it did replace Bagram; recall Bagram built by Soviets during their occupation] [*]
Particularly in the early years of the war, Afghans captured during military operations were held at Bagram for long periods without being charged, without facing trial and without being able to see either their families or lawyers. The conditions there were widely criticized as abusive. Two Afghans died in custody at Bagram in 2002, leading to criminal charges against several American servicemen. [*]
In recent years, the Americans have tried to do better. At the same time, they have determined, as in the other aspects of their military operations, that abusing or offending the sensibilities of Afghans undermines their mission. The new prison in Parwan Province affords Afghan detainees better conditions as well opportunities for training and education. At the moment, 800 detainees are being held there. [counterinsurgency strategy that was gradually adopted in 2nd Bush term] [and embraced by Obama officially Dec 1, 2009] [*]
The Americans intend to transfer control of the prison to the Afghan government by January. In the meantime, they are trying to train the Afghans to run the prison and deal with the prisoners held there. Several courtrooms have been built on the premises.
Also Wednesday, representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross in Kabul said that they had been providing first-aid training to insurgents.
In a report released this week, the I.C.R.C., an organization dedicated to helping people in war zones, said that it had provided first aid training to insurgents because conditions were so violent in some parts of the country that people were sometimes unable to take the wounded to hospitals.
Bijan Farnoudi, a spokesman for the organization in Kabul, said that the I.C.R.C. considered itself a neutral party in the conflicts where it operated, and that its job was to help alleviate suffering regardless of politics. The organization’s personnel also provided training to doctors in Afghanistan — and it also maintains seven orthopedic hospitals, which serve the victims of land mines. The organization has provided first-aid training to insurgents in other countries as well.
“That is something we are doing in plenty of other conflicts around the world,” he said.
Mr. Farnoudi declined to say where the training for the insurgents took place, or how it was conducted. [that’s precisely why ICRC is accepted arbiter with regards to POWs] [its neutrality] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:00 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/asia/27pstan.html
May 26, 2010
Pakistan Plans to Relax YouTube Ban
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [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] [more on govt shutting down internet?] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan will restore access to YouTube but will block videos offensive to Muslims that are posted on the video-sharing site, [*]the government said Wednesday.
A number of high-profile Web sites were blocked in Pakistan last week over what the government deemed to be offensive content, like a Facebook page that urges users to post

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/asia/27pstan.html
May 26, 2010
Pakistan Plans to Relax YouTube Ban
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS [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] [more on govt shutting down internet?] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Pakistan will restore access to YouTube but will block videos offensive to Muslims that are posted on the video-sharing site, [*]the government said Wednesday.
A number of high-profile Web sites were blocked in Pakistan last week over what the government deemed to be offensive content, like a Facebook page that urges users to post images of the Prophet Muhammad. Many citizens supported the crackdown, but some questioned why entire sites were blocked rather than specific pages or videos. [I even heard Musharraf, ex president, tacitly support it] [he must be planning on running again?] [*]
The government seemed to move in that direction on Wednesday by deciding that it would restore access to YouTube but continue to block videos “displaying profane or sacrilegious material,” said Najibullah Malik, the secretary at Pakistan’s information technology ministry.
The government is issuing orders to Internet service providers to carry out the decision, he said.
Facebook is still blocked, and Mr. Malik said no decision on it would be made until a court hearing at the end of the month.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 08:59 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/05/the-politics-of-national-intelligence/57289/
[Accessed 5/26/10 10:44 AM] [*]
The Atlantic
The Politics of National Intelligence
By Marc Ambinder [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [USFP and the seriously compromised post-IRTPA system created in response to 9/11] [NSC-IC reorganization] [3rd DNI, Dennis Blair has now resigned] [none of the 3 has been able to wrest power away from bureaucracy as envisioned by 9/11 Commission] [use psci 355-455, 469] [ongoing dynamic in Obama NSC principals and lower over what to do with ODNI-NCTC and reorganized structure] [cross in societal] [*]
President Obama's intelligence cabinet may propose major changes to the nation's intelligence structure, prodded by Congress and a series of public embarassments that led to the firing last week of Director of National Dennis Blair. [*]
Obama asked members of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) to determine whether the national intelligence director's position has enough statuatory and budget authority to complete its core mission, and whether the directorate that houses the position, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, [sic] [I don’t get

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/05/the-politics-of-national-intelligence/57289/
[Accessed 5/26/10 10:44 AM] [*]
The Atlantic
The Politics of National Intelligence
By Marc Ambinder [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [USFP and the seriously compromised post-IRTPA system created in response to 9/11] [NSC-IC reorganization] [3rd DNI, Dennis Blair has now resigned] [none of the 3 has been able to wrest power away from bureaucracy as envisioned by 9/11 Commission] [use psci 355-455, 469] [ongoing dynamic in Obama NSC principals and lower over what to do with ODNI-NCTC and reorganized structure] [*]
President Obama's intelligence cabinet may propose major changes to the nation's intelligence structure, prodded by Congress and a series of public embarassments that led to the firing last week of Director of National Dennis Blair. [*]
Obama asked members of the President's Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB) to determine whether the national intelligence director's position has enough statuatory and budget authority to complete its core mission, and whether the directorate that houses the position, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, [sic] [I don’t get what’s happening with spelling?] [*] has grown too quickly and lost its focus.

According to one intelligence official and several outside consultants, the PIAB has been asked to consider whether the next DNI needs to be incorporated into the executive office of the president and given a West Wing office. PIAB's members could recommend small changes, like a modest expansion of the DNI's authority to distribute money throughout the intelligence community, or more dramatic ones, like a structural overhaul that would fulfill the September 11 Commission's vision [*]of intelligence reform, which envisioned a White House-based national intelligence director with direct authority overall all aspects of domestic, foreign and defense intelligence. [what many Americans don’t realize, congress has resisted change even more than the IC] [IC didn’t like it but was unable to squelch it] [congress, however, refused to have oversight structures—imperative to given DNI actual budget power—to be restructured] [no chair wished ot give up his-her prerogatives] [I’m happy to see this discuss but someone needs to sit the president down and explain the congressional resistance and how most changes he can make unilaterally will continue to suffer unless-until congress is forced to reorg the committees and appropriations] [**]

Speaking in Washington today, John Brennan, the president's assistant for counterterrorism, said that the review was meant to "optimize" the DNI position's ability to "orchestrate" the activities of the 16 agencies in the community.

There will be institutional and political resistence [sic.] [*]to any change, but several key senators, including the chair and ranking members of the intelligence committee, have signaled a willingness to support a larger overhaul, provided the right candidate to lead it is put forth.

The White House was unhappy when "senior administration officials" confirmed reports that Gen. James Clapper (ret.), the current undersecretary of defense for intelligence, was the leading candidate for the job. That Clapper is more likely to get the job is true, but it has not been communicated to other potential replacements, including some of his colleagues in the Defense Department. [*]

And Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the Senate intel committee chair, told reporters she was worried about the militarization of intelligence and would view a Clapper nomination with a skeptical eye. Rep. Pete Hoekstra, the ranking Republican on the House intelligence committee, told Newsweek that Clapper was too aloof and disdained congressional oversight. [in other words, he refuses to demonstrate obeisance to congressional oversight] [*] (This is a complaint that is echoed by many in Congress, some of whom aren't terribly impressed with Clapper's lack of human intelligence experience and the work he did as head of the Defense Intelligence Agency.)

Some senior military officials are quietly lobbying for the administration to ask Maj. Gen. Michael Flynn, currently the chief of intelligence for Gen. Stanley McChrystal's Afghanistan mission, to be the director or his principle [the word is principal] [*] deputy. But Flynn has generated friction with the Central Intelligence Agency over covert operations in Afghanistan, and has vocally opposed the agency's strong relationship with Wali Karzai, the brother of Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai. Though Wali Karzai is alleged to be a major drug trafficker interested in consolidating his power, he provides most of the intelligence for the U.S. in the Kandahar region.

The scuttlebutt at CIA headquarters in Langley suggests the promotion of CIA director Leon Panetta to a strengthened DNI position, but associates say that Panetta has no intention of leaving the CIA, whose morale and direction he believes he has helped to turn around.

Obama's closest advisers believe that the caterwauling about the DNI lacking authority is misplaced. They note that revisions to the executive order that charters the community, 12333, expanded the DNI's power, and that the DNI can move money around more easily than many people seem to think. [*]He or she can fire the heads of the agencies, subject to the president's approval. Indeed, the DNI's staff might be too large, diluting the office-holder's ability to devote his or her attention to matters of intelligence coordination and what's known in the industry as "deconflicting." [the idea was to do similar to what the Goldwater-Nicholas amendment did to service chiefs and joint chiefs, etc] [*]

The 9/11 Commission envisioned a DNI with a staff no larger than 500 people. As of today, it has more than 2,000 employees. The answer, these advisers believe, lies in finding a leader in whom the trusts. (That is one reason why both Panetta and Sen. Chuck Hagel, a PIAB co-chair, were approached about the job.) From the perspective of the DNI, Adm. Dennis Blair never had the president's full backing, which made making the difficult decisions even more difficult. Given the importance of counterterrorism to current intelligence priorities, Blair often felt as though Brennan had more direct decision-making authority than he did. Brennan could, for example, encourage the CIA to undertake, or modify, covert actions. When he did so, the CIA would know he had the direct backing of the president. Blair, by contrast, often found himself fighting against the scope of proposed CIA actions that had already been vetted by the National Security Staff.

A final variant of a reinvigorated DNI would turn the position into a -- wait for it -- czar, with a small staff, who would coordinate conflicts among executive agents and who would be more or less a problem-solver. This person would not testify before Congress. He or she would not make public appearances. He or she would remain in the shadows.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/05/the-politics-of-national-intelligence/57289/
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/us/politics/26gitmo.html
May 25, 2010
Bill Puts Scrutiny on Detainees’ Lawyers
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [11th congress, 2nd session] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo?] [bureaucracy] [probably should not be amendment to appropriations???] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [appears to be a stunt to cause Pentagon to harass lawyers defending unpopular jihadis; another reason should be in federal courts where possible] [election-year stunt?][*]
WASHINGTON — A provision tucked into a defense bill before Congress would direct the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate any suspected misconduct by lawyers for Guantánamo Bay detainees, opening a new chapter in a recurrent political controversy over legal ethics and the representation of terrorism suspects.
The measure is part of a major defense bill that the full House of Representatives is

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/us/politics/26gitmo.html
May 25, 2010
Bill Puts Scrutiny on Detainees’ Lawyers
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [11th congress, 2nd session] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo?] [bureaucracy] [probably should not be amendment to appropriations???] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [appears to be a stunt to cause Pentagon to harass lawyers defending unpopular jihadis; another reason should be in federal courts where possible] [election-year stunt?][*]
WASHINGTON — A provision tucked into a defense bill before Congress would direct the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate any suspected misconduct by lawyers for Guantánamo Bay detainees, opening a new chapter in a recurrent political controversy over legal ethics and the representation of terrorism suspects.
The measure is part of a major defense bill that the full House of Representatives is expected to begin debating this week. It was added late last week, shortly before the House Armed Services Committee unanimously approved the legislation.
The provision would require the Pentagon inspector general to investigate instances in which there was “reasonable suspicion” that lawyers for detainees violated a Pentagon policy, generated “any material risk” to a member of the armed forces, violated a law under the inspector general’s exclusive jurisdiction, or otherwise “interfered with the operations” [show provision; provision exist to nail lawyers who aid and abet the enemy] [*] of the military prison at Guantánamo.
The inspector general would be required to report back to Congress within 90 days after the provision became law about any steps the Pentagon had taken in response to such conduct by either civilian or military lawyers.
Lawyers for Guantánamo detainees have reacted with outrage to the proposal, saying it would have a chilling effect on their efforts to help detainees get habeas corpushearings or to defend them in military commission trials. They are organizing to try to persuade Congress to strip the language before enacting the final bill, which must also still pass the Senate. [fellows, that was the point] [*]
“No lawyers could possibly predict what conduct might fall within the law,” said David Remes, who represents several detainees. “It would therefore be impossible for Guantánamo lawyers to represent their clients effectively and zealously.”
In introducing the proposal last week, Representative Jeff Miller, Republican of Florida, focused on the John Adams Project, a joint enterprise of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. It provides research and legal assistance to the uniformed lawyers defending detainees who are facing prosecution before a military commission.
Mr. Miller characterized the John Adams Project as a “treacherous enterprise,” referring to accusations that its researchers took pictures of interrogators and gave them to military defense lawyers, who in turn showed them to detainees. [*]
The lawyers have defended the legality and propriety of their efforts. They contend that the detainees were illegally tortured in the custody of the Central Intelligence Agency, and they want to raise that issue at trial. To do so, they need to identify potential witnesses to the interrogation sessions. [frankly, there must have been a better way to do that than to burn CIA agents still working, even if they did violate US law] [that’s ameliorating a wrong with another wrong] [*]
But Mr. Miller said the effort was “disloyal” and illegal. He said the “intelligence community deserves a complete and honest investigation” into whether laws or policies were violated. (The Federal Bureau of Investigation questioned three military lawyers about the photographs in August 2009, but it is not clear whether the investigation remains open.)
Democrats on the committee agreed to Mr. Miller’s proposal after several modifications. One change added the requirement of “reasonable suspicion” of wrongdoing before a lawyer would be investigated by the inspector general. Another enabled Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates to halt such an inquiry if it would interfere with a related criminal investigation.
Detainee lawyers argue that even with such modifications, Mr. Miller’s amendment is broad enough to give pause to all lawyers representing Guantánamo detainees — including the far larger numbers who have sought judicial hearings for prisoners who contend that they are not terrorists and are being held by mistake. [have both sides lost track of justice in our system?] [the folks should get a fair trail whatever we think of them] [this petty crap must stop and both sides need to stand down] [*]
The Supreme Court ruled in 2008 that Guantánamo detainees had a right to such habeas corpus hearings. To date, judges have ordered 35 such detainees freed after reviewing the evidence against them, [*]while upholding the continued detention of 14, Mr. Remes said.
The legislation is the latest attack on lawyers representing detainees. Although such lawyers have tended to espouse civil libertarian views, some conservative critics have imputed to them a lack of patriotism and sympathy for the cause of Islamist terrorism. [that’s ridiculous and I’m sick and tired of “conservatives” defining who and what it patriotic] [I’m a patriot and I’m sick of their sh*t] [*]
Such attacks have also prompted a strong reaction, including by other conservatives who have defended the tradition in the American legal system of lawyers representing unpopular clients. [good for them] [conservatives are being given a bad name by a small group of Neanderthals] [*]

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052505854.html
Jordanian, 19, to plead guilty to trying to blow up Dallas building
By Associated Press
Wednesday, May 26, 2010; A04 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [gsave and counterinsurgency strategy] [Obama admin and its substantial continuity with its predecessor] [American jihadis, from visitors to naturalized citizens to 2nd and 3rd generation Americans (not assimilation as we all once thought protected US)] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [several, high-level cases in 2009: Texas case here] [*]
DALLAS -- A Jordanian man accused of trying to blow up a downtown Dallas skyscraper agreed Tuesday to enter a guilty plea in return for a prison sentence of no more than 30 years. [*]
Documents filed in federal court in Dallas show that Hosam Smadi, 19, has agreed to plead guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052505854.html
Jordanian, 19, to plead guilty to trying to blow up Dallas building
By Associated Press
Wednesday, May 26, 2010; A04 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [gsave and counterinsurgency strategy] [Obama admin and its substantial continuity with its predecessor] [American jihadis, from visitors to naturalized citizens to 2nd and 3rd generation Americans (not assimilation as we all once thought protected US)] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [several, high-level cases in 2009: Texas case here] [*]
DALLAS -- A Jordanian man accused of trying to blow up a downtown Dallas skyscraper agreed Tuesday to enter a guilty plea in return for a prison sentence of no more than 30 years. [*]
Documents filed in federal court in Dallas show that Hosam Smadi, 19, has agreed to plead guilty to attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.
The charge is punishable by up to life in prison, but the plea agreement signed by Smadi recommends no more than 30 years when he enters his plea in court Wednesday.
Smadi signed a statement admitting to leaving what he thought was a truck bomb in a garage beneath the 60-story Fountain Place building in Dallas in September. The device was a decoy provided by FBI agents posing as al-Qaeda operatives. [*] © 2010 The Washington Post Co

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/us/26border.html
May 25, 2010
Obama to Send Up to 1,200 Troops to Border
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD [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] [election-year politics (nothing gets done) and Arizon SB 1070 both affecting the issue in complex and mostly dysfunctional ways] [I heard Mitch McConnel chide the president yesterday for trying to get things done 6 months before an election!] [they used to pretend they weren’t hiding from elections but now openly admit same] [anyway, I’m normally against militarization of America’s borders but the violence from US-Mexico drug traffic is severe and this appears targeted to that violence] [*]
LOS ANGELES — President Obama will send up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwest border and seek increased spending on law enforcement there to combat drug smuggling after demands from Republican and Democratic lawmakers that border security

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/us/26border.html
May 25, 2010
Obama to Send Up to 1,200 Troops to Border
By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD [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] [election-year politics (nothing gets done) and Arizon SB 1070 both affecting the issue in complex and mostly dysfunctional ways] [I heard Mitch McConnel chide the president yesterday for trying to get things done 6 months before an election!] [they used to pretend they weren’t hiding from elections but now openly admit same] [anyway, I’m normally against militarization of America’s borders but the violence from US-Mexico drug traffic is severe and this appears targeted to that violence] [*]
LOS ANGELES — President Obama will send up to 1,200 National Guard troops to the Southwest border and seek increased spending on law enforcement there to combat drug smuggling after demands from Republican and Democratic lawmakers that border security be tightened.
The decision was disclosed by a Democratic lawmaker and confirmed by administration officials after Mr. Obama met on Tuesday with Republican senators, several of whom have demanded that troops be placed at the border. The lawmakers learned of the plan after the meeting.
But the move also reflected political pressure in the president’s own party with midterm election campaigns under way and with what is expected to be a tumultuous debate on overhauling immigration law coming up on Capitol Hill. [*]
The issue has pushed Janet Napolitano, the secretary of homeland security, into something of a corner. As governor of Arizona, she demanded that Guard troops be put on the border. But since joining the Obama administration, she has remained noncommittal about the idea, saying as recently as a month ago that other efforts by Mr. Obama had made the border “as secure now as it has ever been.”
The troops will be stationed in the four border states for a year, White House officials said. It is not certain when they will arrive, the officials said.
The troops will join a few hundred members of the Guard already assigned there to help the police hunt for drug smugglers. The additional troops will provide support to law enforcement officers by helping observe and monitor traffic between official border crossings. They will also help analyze trafficking patterns in the hope of intercepting illegal drug shipments.
Initial word of the deployment came not in a formal announcement from the White House — indeed, it was left to administration officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to fill in some details — but from a Democratic member of the House from southern Arizona who is running in what is expected to be a competitive race for re-election.
“The White House is doing the right thing,” the congresswoman, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, [*]said in a statement announcing the decision. “Arizonans know that more boots on the ground means a safer and more secure border. Washington heard our message.”
Senator John McCain, an Arizona Republican whose opponent in a coming primary has relentlessly criticized him on immigration, said Tuesday that he welcomed Mr. Obama’s move but that it was “simply not enough.” [build the dang wall, McCain] [he’s in tough race with Teaparty favorite and demogogue extraordinaire (I remember him as loudmouth weather man) Hayward] [*]
Mr. McCain called for the introduction of 6,000 National Guard troops to police the Southwestern border, with 3,000 for Arizona alone. In a letter to Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, two Obama administration officials said that the proposal infringed on his role as commander in chief and overlooked gains in border security.
Calls for sending the Guard to the border grew after the shooting death of an Arizona rancher in March that the police suspect was carried out by someone involved in smuggling. Advocates of the controversial Arizona state law giving the police a greater role in immigration enforcement played up what they described as a failure to secure the border as a reason to pass the law.
Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, a Republican who is running for a full term, has requested Guard troops at the border but decided not to use her authority to do it herself, citing the state’s tattered finances. The governors of New Mexico and Texas also pleaded for troops.
From 2006 to 2008, President George W. Bush made a larger deployment of Guard troops under a program called Operation Jump Start. At its peak, 6,000 Guard troops at the border helped build roads and fences in addition to backing up law enforcement officers.
Those Guard troops contributed to the arrest of more than 162,000 illegal immigrants, the rescue of 100 people stranded in the desert and the seizure of $69,000 in cash and 305,000 pounds of illicit drugs.
The soldiers will not directly make arrests of border crossers and smugglers, something they are not trained to do. [*]
Rick Nelson, a senior fellow who studies domestic security at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, said that the additional spending could improve security over the long term but that the National Guard deployment was not sufficient for “an overwhelming change that will change the dynamics on the border.” [*]
“This is a symbolic gesture,” he said. “At the end of the day, the face of border security is still going to be Customs and Border Protection, the law enforcement community. It’s not going to be the National Guard.”
Democrats and Republicans who agreed with the move rushed to take credit for it, including Ms. Brewer, who said her signing of the new Arizona law had pushed the administration. [election-year politics from both major parties] [*]
“I am pleased that President Obama has now, apparently, agreed that our nation must secure the border to address rampant border violence and illegal immigration without other preconditions, such as passage of ‘comprehensive immigration reform,’ ” she said.
Terry Goddard, the Arizona attorney general and a Democrat running for governor, released a statement with the headline “Goddard Secures Administration Commitment for $500 million for National Guard, Border Security.” In an interview, Mr. Goddard said, “I think it is a good indication that the administration is taking us seriously.”
But some Democrats were skeptical.
Representative Harry E. Mitchell of Arizona, a Democrat facing re-election in a Republican-leaning district, said it was “going to take much more to secure the border.” He proposed a minimum of 3,000 troops.
Some Republicans said the deployment of the troops should not overshadow the need for a comprehensive approach to the illegal immigration problem.
“Arizona and other border states are grateful for the additional resources at the border,” said Representative Jeff Flake of Arizona. “But I hope that this is merely the first step in a process that culminates in Congress passing comprehensive immigration reform.”
Obama administration officials had resisted sending Guard troops to the border but had never ruled it out. They pointed to a variety of improvements at the border, including a record seizure of drug-related cash and guns, falling or flat rates of violent crime in border towns, and record lows in the flow of illegal immigrants across the border. Analysts give the dismal economy much of the credit for that.
In his meeting with lawmakers on Tuesday, Mr. Obama said improving border security alone would not reduce illegal immigration and reiterated that a reworking of the immigration system could not be achieved without more Republican support.
Carl Hulse contributed reporting from Washington.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:27 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Increasingly, many of the government articles are crossed in societal, even if I neglect to physically cross list them. It is nearly June, and the November midterm elections are beginning to affect government in profound ways.
I cross listed today but will not do so everyday--takes up resources. But readers-users should understand the inextricable links especially during election years.

[full comment may be found above the jump] [*]

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052504695.html
Defense Secretary Gates's war of necessity against wasteful spending
Wednesday, May 26, 2010; A16 [editorial] [sort of sidestepped the don’t ask, don’t tell compromise] [instead, focused on SecDef Gate’s legacy: procurement under control by time he leaves?] [lost of luck] [*]
DEFENSE SECRETARY Robert M. Gates spent his first two years focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in each case backing a "surge" to turn around U.S. fortunes. Now, with his time in office probably dwindling, he's taken on a final mission: reforming Pentagon spending so that the United States will be able to maintain its military forces in an era of fiscal austerity. Though the outcome of a war isn't at stake, it's crucial that Mr. Gates succeed.
The secretary's campaign is motivated by some simple math. Maintaining the current

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052504695.html
Defense Secretary Gates's war of necessity against wasteful spending
Wednesday, May 26, 2010; A16 [editorial] [sort of sidestepped the don’t ask, don’t tell compromise] [instead, focused on SecDef Gate’s legacy: procurement under control by time he leaves?] [lost of luck] [*]
DEFENSE SECRETARY Robert M. Gates spent his first two years focused on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, in each case backing a "surge" to turn around U.S. fortunes. Now, with his time in office probably dwindling, he's taken on a final mission: reforming Pentagon spending so that the United States will be able to maintain its military forces in an era of fiscal austerity. Though the outcome of a war isn't at stake, it's crucial that Mr. Gates succeed.
The secretary's campaign is motivated by some simple math. Maintaining the current number of Army divisions, Navy ships and Air Force wings -- which Mr. Gates rightly believes is essential at a time of growing international insecurity -- requires spending increases of 2 to 3 percent each year in real terms. While the Pentagon is budgeted for modest growth through 2015, it can hardly count on that continuing when Congress will be -- or should be -- trying to reduce or eliminate the dangerous structural gap between federal revenue and spending.
Mr. Gates's aim is to find the spending increases needed for U.S. forces -- the "tooth" -- by cutting the military's "tail": administrative costs, excessive bureaucracy and wasteful weapons systems. This is, to use some military jargon, a target-rich environment. Since Sept. 11, 2001, the Pentagon budget has nearly doubled, not counting the costs of Iraq and Afghanistan. Much has gone to non-military ends. Health-care costs, for example, have risen from $19 billion to $51 billion and make up nearly a tenth of the entire budget. A military family of four pays an average of $1,200 annually for health care, compared with $3,200 for other federal employees. Wages have risen 43 percent, compared with 32 percent in the private sector.
While the military's overall size has shrunk since the Cold War, generals, admirals and their headquarters have remained intact. The private sector has flattened and streamlined management since 2000, but the number of levels of staff between the secretary of defense and a line officer has grown from 17 under Donald Rumsfeld to as many as 30 under Mr. Gates. The latter likes to point out that a request for a dog-handling team in Afghanistan must be approved by five four-star headquarters. [*]
A seasoned veteran of Washington, Mr. Gates doesn't aim for radical change. He'd like to cut $15 billion or so from these costs in the 2012 defense budget. The problem, of course, is Congress. Legislators have regularly added to Pentagon pay raises -- a House subcommittee has tacked on half a percentage point to the 1.4 percent increase Mr. Gates proposed for next year. And they have refused to allow an increase in health premiums for retirees, though premiums haven't gone up in 15 years. [pentagon wisely spread itself out in so many districts that it has captive patrons on capitol hill] [*]
The main battles over these costs may not come until next year. But Mr. Gates faces a preliminary test: The House Armed Services Committee this month voted to add funding for a second engine for the F-35 fighter despite the Pentagon's insistence that it did not want and could not afford it. [*]Mr. Gates has repeatedly said he will recommend a presidential veto if the defense bill passes with this blatantly wasteful spending, and President Obama should back him up. It's a good way for the administration to demonstrate its seriousness about restraining spending -- and to shape the battlefield for the bigger fights to come. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:23 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/opinion/26friedman.html
May 25, 2010
As Ugly as It Gets
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN [oped] [columnist] [much needed column on the abhorrent deal Brazil and Turkey both struck with Iranian regime with blood dripping from its hands] [hear, hear] [and nice comment from Karim S. (Carnegie)] [*]
I confess that when I first saw the May 17 picture of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, joining his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with raised arms — after their signing of a putative deal to defuse the crisis over Iran’s nuclear weapons program — all I could think of was: Is there anything uglier than watching democrats sell out other democrats to a Holocaust-denying, vote-stealing Iranian thug just to tweak the U.S. and show that they, too, can play at the big power table?
No, that’s about as ugly as it gets.
“For years, nonaligned and developing countries have faulted America for cynically pursuing its own interests without regard for human rights,” observed Karim Sadjadpour

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/opinion/26friedman.html
May 25, 2010
As Ugly as It Gets
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN [oped] [columnist] [much needed column on the abhorrent deal Brazil and Turkey both struck with Iranian regime with blood dripping from its hands] [hear, hear] [and nice comment from Karim S. (Carnegie)] [*]
I confess that when I first saw the May 17 picture of Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, joining his Brazilian counterpart, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and the Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with raised arms — after their signing of a putative deal to defuse the crisis over Iran’s nuclear weapons program — all I could think of was: Is there anything uglier than watching democrats sell out other democrats to a Holocaust-denying, vote-stealing Iranian thug just to tweak the U.S. and show that they, too, can play at the big power table?
No, that’s about as ugly as it gets.
“For years, nonaligned and developing countries have faulted America for cynically pursuing its own interests without regard for human rights,” observed Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment. “As Turkey and Brazil aspire to play on the global stage, they’re going to face the same criticisms they once doled out. Lula and Erdogan’s visit to Iran came just days after Iran executed five political prisoners who were tortured into confessions. They warmly embraced Ahmadinejad as their brother, but didn’t mention a word about human rights. There seems to be a mistaken assumption that the Palestinians are the only people that seek justice in the Middle East, and if you just invoke their cause you can coddle the likes of Ahmadinejad.” [Karim, Carnegie] [*]
Turkey and Brazil are both nascent democracies that have overcome their own histories of military rule. For their leaders to embrace and strengthen an Iranian president who uses his army and police to crush and kill Iranian democrats — people seeking the same freedom of speech and political choice that Turks and Brazilians now enjoy — is shameful.
“Lula is a political giant, but morally he has been a deep disappointment,” said Moisés Naím, editor in chief of Foreign Policy magazine and a former trade minister in Venezuela.
Lula, Naím noted, “has supported the thwarting of democracy across Latin America.” He regularly praises Venezuela’s strongman Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro, the Cuban dictator — and now Ahmadinejad — while denouncing Colombia, one of the great democratic success stories, because it let U.S. planes use Colombian airfields to fight narco-traffickers. [*] “Lula has been great for Brazil but terrible for his democratic neighbors,” said Naím. Lula, who rose to prominence as a progressive labor leader in Brazil, has turned his back on the violently repressed labor leaders of Iran.
Sure, had Brazil and Turkey actually persuaded the Iranians to verifiably end their whole suspected nuclear weapons program, America would have endorsed it. But that is not what happened. [most of the world would have applauded them] [*]
Iran today has about 4,850 pounds of low-enriched uranium. Under the May 17 deal, it has supposedly agreed to send some 2,640 pounds from its stockpile to Turkey for conversion into the type of nuclear fuel needed to power Tehran’s medical reactor — a fuel that cannot be used for a bomb. But that would still leave Iran with a roughly 2,200-pound uranium stockpile, which it still refuses to put under international inspection and is free to augment and continue to reprocess to the higher levels needed for a bomb. Experts say it would only take months for Iran to again amass sufficient quantity for a nuclear weapon.
So what this deal really does is what Iran wanted it to do: weaken the global coalition to pressure Iran to open its nuclear facilities to U.N. inspectors, and, as a special bonus, legitimize Ahmadinejad on the anniversary of his crushing the Iranian democracy movement that was demanding a recount of Iran’s tainted June 2009 elections.
In my view, the “Green Revolution” in Iran is the most important, self-generated, democracy movement to appear in the Middle East in decades. It has been suppressed, but it is not going away, and, ultimately, its success — not any nuclear deal with the Iranian clerics — is the only sustainable source of security and stability. We have spent far too little time and energy nurturing that democratic trend and far too much chasing a nuclear deal.
As Abbas Milani, an Iran expert at Stanford University, put it to me: “The only long-term solution to the impasse is for a more democratic, responsible, transparent regime in Tehran. It has been, in my view, a great con game successfully played by the clerical regime to make the nuclear issue the almost sole focal point of its relations with the U.S. and the West. [indeed; but let’s face it, they had help from Bush and Obama] [*] The West should have always followed a two-track policy: earnest negotiations on the nuclear issue and no less earnest discussion on the issues of human rights and democracy in Iran.”
I’d prefer that Iran never get a bomb. The world would be much safer without more nukes, especially in the Middle East. But if Iran does go nuclear, it makes a huge difference whether a democratic Iran has its finger on the trigger or this current murderous clerical dictatorship. Anyone working to delay that and to foster real democracy in Iran is on the side of the angels. Anyone who enables this tyrannical regime and gives cover for its nuclear mischief will one day have to answer to the Iranian people.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:23 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/opinion/26wed1.html
May 25, 2010
A Stronger Military
[editorial] [don’t ask, don’t tell compromise] [Times clearly likes it] [*]
After months of unnecessary hand-wringing and delay, the White House and Congressional leaders appear to have reached an agreement on ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that forced thousands of gay and lesbian service members to stay in the closet in order to serve their country. Although the agreement would postpone full repeal for a few months to await a Pentagon study on implementing the change, finally it creates a path to the full integration of the military. That is not just a matter of justice. It would make the military stronger.
Under the deal, reached Monday night by Democratic leaders and approved by the White House, Congress would vote on repeal in the next few weeks through an amendment to the Pentagon budget bill. The amendment says that the repeal would take place only after the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/opinion/26wed1.html
May 25, 2010
A Stronger Military
[editorial] [don’t ask, don’t tell compromise] [Times clearly likes it] [*]
After months of unnecessary hand-wringing and delay, the White House and Congressional leaders appear to have reached an agreement on ending the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy that forced thousands of gay and lesbian service members to stay in the closet in order to serve their country. Although the agreement would postpone full repeal for a few months to await a Pentagon study on implementing the change, finally it creates a path to the full integration of the military. That is not just a matter of justice. It would make the military stronger.
Under the deal, reached Monday night by Democratic leaders and approved by the White House, Congress would vote on repeal in the next few weeks through an amendment to the Pentagon budget bill. The amendment says that the repeal would take place only after the president, the defense secretary and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff certify that it is consistent with military standards. At a minimum, that would extend the current law until Dec. 1, when the Pentagon study is due.
Considering the years of debate and study that have already passed, it is tempting to say that Congress should simply change the system now. It is unlikely, however, that there are enough votes for an immediate repeal, given the number of conservative Democrats who support Defense Secretary Robert Gates in his call to complete the study first. [and while it’s important the military understand it exists at the behest of a civilian chain of command, it’s also prudent to bring such intitutions along as much as possible] [*]
Mr. Gates made it clear on Tuesday that he supports the agreement only because it allows more time for the study, and he carries significant weight on Capitol Hill. Despite his assent, however, it is not clear that both chambers have the votes to pass the amendment. President Obama needs to step in now to persuade wavering lawmakers to support the deal.
There are also several issues that need to be resolved during the study period regarding the implementation of the new policy, mostly involving benefits for same-sex partners of gay and lesbian service members. Because the Defense of Marriage Act does not allow federal spousal benefits for married same-sex couples, the military will have to work out ways to provide equivalent benefits to domestic partners.
These include issues of housing and foreign relocation, the ability to shop on a base and insurance benefits. At the moment, same-sex partners are often not even notified if a soldier dies or is wounded, and they need to be assured the military will honor their right to receive the memorial flag if their partner or spouse is killed in the service of this country. The study should deal with how to make the repeal happen, not whether to do so. While it is being prepared, the military must live up to its word that it has stopped drumming out openly gay and lesbian soldiers.
Repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law does not automatically ensure that gay men and lesbians can serve openly. It simply takes the situation back to when the military set the policy on its gay members, before Congress gave it the force of law in 1993. Once it has the power to do so, the Obama administration says it will end the previous policy that homosexuality was not compatible with military service. [*]
Until a law is passed guaranteeing that there will be no discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, full integration will require the continuing good faith of President Obama and his successors. One day soon, Congress must be brave enough to pass a bill like the Military Readiness Enhancement Act now pending in both houses, ensuring that all qualified Americans have the right to serve their country.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:22 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26diplo.html
May 25, 2010
Little Progress on Korea Dispute in China Talks
By MARK LANDLER [China] [PRC] [global economic meltdown] [China’s increasingly central role in global economics] [Sino-US relations, complex in the best of times (and this is far from best)] [but the interedependency between the US and China had been growing for decade] [China’s growing pains in a complex, interdependent, globalized economy] [use psci 355-455] [followup] [the apparent sinking of ROK ship by DPRK?] [*]
BEIJING — China and the United States wrapped up three days of high-level meetings with a handful of trade and energy agreements but little progress on the most pressing American priority: winning China’s backing for new measures against North Korea, which South Korea has accused of torpedoing one of its warships.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said China would take “a period of careful

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26diplo.html
May 25, 2010
Little Progress on Korea Dispute in China Talks
By MARK LANDLER [China] [PRC] [global economic meltdown] [China’s increasingly central role in global economics] [Sino-US relations, complex in the best of times (and this is far from best)] [but the interedependency between the US and China had been growing for decade] [China’s growing pains in a complex, interdependent, globalized economy] [use psci 355-455] [followup] [the apparent sinking of ROK ship by DPRK?] [*]
BEIJING — China and the United States wrapped up three days of high-level meetings with a handful of trade and energy agreements but little progress on the most pressing American priority: winning China’s backing for new measures against North Korea, which South Korea has accused of torpedoing one of its warships.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said China would take “a period of careful consideration in order to determine the best way forward in dealing with North Korea as a result of this incident,” suggesting that there was little expectation for joint action to condemn the attack.
China has been reluctant to hold North Korea responsible for the sinking last March, which killed 46 sailors. As a veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council, China’s support, or at least its acquiescence, would be needed to pass any resolution against North Korea.
The United States has thrown its full weight behind South Korea’s effort to take the incident to the United Nations. Mrs. Clinton spent much of her time this week huddled with Chinese officials, arguing the case that North Korea was responsible for the attack and that its aggression demanded a response.
On Tuesday, she tried to put the best face on China’s position, saying that President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao had conveyed their “deep regret” at the loss of the crew. Mr. Wen will fly to Seoul on Friday to meet President Lee Myung-bak, which she said might move things forward.
“We expect to be working together with China in responding to North Korea’s provocative action,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference after the meetings ended. “I think it is absolutely clear that China not only values but is very committed to regional stability.”
But Chinese leaders did not publicly mention North Korea by name during the meeting, and China’s state councilor who oversees foreign affairs, Dai Bingguo, called on the United States and others to “calmly and appropriately handle the issue, and avoid escalation of the situation.”
On the economic side of the ledger, the Americans claimed some modest progress.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner took note of President Hu’s reference to a coming reform of China’s currency policy, saying, “We welcome the fact that China’s leaders have recognized that the reform of the exchange rate is an important part of their broader reform agenda.”
But he added, “This is, of course, China’s choice,” reflecting the fact that China has made clear it will not loosen the dollar peg on its currency in response to prodding by the United States.
Mr. Geithner also credited China for starting to shift its economic growth from exports to domestic consumption — praise that some economists say is premature, given China’s continuing reliance on exports.
The sovereign debt crisis in Greece cast a smaller shadow on the meeting, with Chinese officials worried about how it would affect exports to Europe, their largest market. Mr. Geithner played down those jitters, saying, “Europe has the capacity to manage these challenges.”
The United States pointed to progress on two issues of importance to American investors: a change in Chinese rules on innovation that hurt foreign companies, and its pledge to submit a revised offer to join the World Trade Organization’s agreement on government procurement by July 2010. There were also agreements on issues like clean energy and shale gas exploration.
With few concrete policy agreements, the United States and China played up the personal side of the relationship.
Mrs. Clinton took part in a ceremony to promote student exchanges. The Chinese government agreed to help pay for 10,000 students to study for doctorate degrees in the United States, while President Obama has a goal of sending 100,000 Americans to China over the next four years.
The tone was even lighter in the encounters Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Geithner had with the Chinese news media. In a joint interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, they were quizzed about child-rearing and movie-going habits. (She puts up with former President Bill Clinton’s taste for action films.)
On the CCTV talk show “Dialogue,” Mrs. Clinton was asked about the plans for the wedding of her daughter, Chelsea. She confessed that it was the most important thing in her life right now.
Nobody asked Mrs. Clinton about human rights, and she barely mentioned it this week.
Michael Wines contributed reporting.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 25, 2010
An earlier version of this article missquoted Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton as saying North Korea, when referring to a recently sunk naval vessel. She said, “We are very concerned about the sinking of the South Korean vessel.” [*]

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/asia/27diplo.html
May 26, 2010
U.S. Pledges to Help South Korea in Bid for U.N. Action
By CHOE SANG-HUN and MARK LANDLER [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [SecState Clinton’s recent trip to Asia] [since ROK released rather specific info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [cross in govt] [DPRK has broken all relations and threatened to prepare for war—i.e., a typically overwrought response][followup] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — With political and military tension increasing daily on the Korean Peninsula, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that Washington would stand beside Seoul as it seeks redress at the United Nations Security Council over North Korea’s apparent sinking of a South Korean warship. [she has to speak about honoring treaty provisions to avoid any ambiguity with DPRK] [but it’s also dangerous] [*]
But Mrs. Clinton stopped short of detailing what measures would be sought at the Security

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/27/world/asia/27diplo.html
May 26, 2010
U.S. Pledges to Help South Korea in Bid for U.N. Action
By CHOE SANG-HUN and MARK LANDLER [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [SecState Clinton’s recent trip to Asia] [since ROK released rather specific info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [cross in govt] [DPRK has broken all relations and threatened to prepare for war—i.e., a typically overwrought response][followup] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — With political and military tension increasing daily on the Korean Peninsula, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Wednesday that Washington would stand beside Seoul as it seeks redress at the United Nations Security Council over North Korea’s apparent sinking of a South Korean warship. [she has to speak about honoring treaty provisions to avoid any ambiguity with DPRK] [but it’s also dangerous] [*]
But Mrs. Clinton stopped short of detailing what measures would be sought at the Security Council, where China, a veto-wielding member and a North Korean ally, was likely to block attempts to impose new sanctions on the isolated North. [probably wise] [*]
“We’re very confident in the South Korean leadership, and their decision about how and when to move forward is one that we respect and will support,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference after meetings with the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, and Foreign Minister Yu Myung-hwan. “I believe that the Chinese understand the seriousness of this issue and are willing to listen to the concerns expressed by both South Korea and the United States.” [but apparently little solid from China, see elsewhere in today’s external] [*]
She acknowledged a complicated task facing Washington and Seoul when she said the allies have to work on two tracks simultaneously. She spoke of the “immediate crisis” of the sinking that “requires a strong but measured response” and of a “longer-term challenge of changing the direction of North Korea, making a convincing case to everyone in the region to work together to achieve that outcome, denuclearizing the Korean Peninsula, and offering the opportunities for a better life for the people of the North.”
North Korea has denied any role in the sinking of the ship and the loss of 46 South Korean sailors.
She also endorsed President Lee’s “right approach” in trying to avoiding “escalation and a broader conflict” while seeking international support to punish the North.
“The key word” during the South Korean leaders’ meetings with Mrs. Clinton was her strategy of “strategic patience,” said Lee Dong-kwan, President Lee’s spokesman.
“Another way to put it is that time is on our side,” the spokesman said after the president’s meeting with Mrs. Clinton. “We shouldn’t go for an impromptu response to each development but take a longer-term perceptive in shaping the situation around the Korean Peninsula.” [*]
Those comments followed an escalation of tension in the past week, with the South cutting off most trade with the North and the North responding by terminating all communications with the South and threatening to launch artillery shells across the border.
On Wednesday, the North Korean military threatened to “completely block South Korean personnel and vehicles” from a joint industrial park in the North Korean town of Kaesong if the South carries out its plan to resume its psychological warfare against the North, mainly through propaganda broadcasts across the border. Continuing its sharp language, it also said that it would attack and destroy the propaganda loudspeakers to be put up along the border by the South, calling them a “military provocation.” [*]
Eight South Korean government officials returned to Seoul after they were expelled from Kaesong on Wednesday.
But the South Korean government noted that, despite the North’s declaration that it was severing communications with the South, on Wednesday it followed its usual procedure of speaking through a military telephone line across the border to approve the entry of hundreds of workers from the South to work their regular shifts at the industrial complex.
Neither country seemed to take the final step, at least yet, of dismantling the Kaesong complex, the last sign of progress they made in improving relations over the past decade, and losing the tens of thousands of jobs it creates for the North. [DPRK is fond of bombast] [*]
Mrs. Clinton called for “a strong but measured response” but did not elaborate on what would be the appropriate action at the Security Council.
“This was an unacceptable provocation by North Korea and the international community has a responsibility and a duty to respond,” Mrs. Clinton said.
She spent only a few hours in Seoul, but speaking at the news conference alongside Mr. Yu, she said, “We will stand with you in this difficult hour, and we will stand with you always.”
China and the United States on Tuesday had wrapped up three days of high-level meetings in Beijing with a handful of trade and energy agreements but with little progress on the most pressing American priority: winning China’s backing for new measures against North Korea.
In Beijing, Mrs. Clinton said China would take “a period of careful consideration in order to determine the best way forward in dealing with North Korea as a result of this incident,” suggesting that there was little expectation for joint action to condemn the attack.
China has been reluctant to hold North Korea responsible for the sinking of the South Korean ship last March.
Mrs. Clinton spent much of her time this week huddled with Chinese officials, arguing the case that North Korea was responsible for the attack and that its aggression demanded a response.
On Tuesday, she tried to put the best face on China’s position, saying that President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao had conveyed their “deep regret” at the loss of the crew. Mr. Wen will fly to Seoul on Friday to meet with President Lee, which she said might move things forward. [*]
“We expect to be working together with China in responding to North Korea’s provocative action,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference in Beijing after the meetings ended. “I think it is absolutely clear that China not only values but is very committed to regional stability.”
But Chinese leaders did not publicly mention North Korea by name during the meeting, and China’s state councilor who oversees foreign affairs, Dai Bingguo, called on the United States and others to “calmly and appropriately handle the issue, and avoid escalation of the situation.” [*]
On the economic side of the ledger, the Americans claimed some modest progress.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner took note of President Hu’s reference to a coming reform of China’s currency policy, saying, “We welcome the fact that China’s leaders have recognized that the reform of the exchange rate is an important part of their broader reform agenda.”
But he added, “This is, of course, China’s choice,” reflecting the fact that China has made clear it will not loosen the dollar peg on its currency in response to prodding by the United States.
Mr. Geithner also credited China for starting to shift its economic growth from exports to domestic consumption — praise that some economists say is premature, given China’s continuing reliance on exports. [thank god; its trade balances with key actors gives it undue influence as does it reserve of currencies] [*]
The sovereign debt crisis in Greece cast a smaller shadow on the meeting, with Chinese officials worried about how it would affect exports to Europe, their largest market. Mr. Geithner played down those jitters, saying, “Europe has the capacity to manage these challenges.”
The United States pointed to progress on two issues of importance to American investors: a change in Chinese rules on innovation that hurt foreign companies, and its pledge to submit a revised offer to join the World Trade Organization’s agreement on government procurement by July 2010. There were also agreements on issues like clean energy and shale gas exploration.
With few concrete policy agreements, the United States and China played up the personal side of the relationship.
Mrs. Clinton took part in a ceremony to promote student exchanges. The Chinese government agreed to help pay for 10,000 students to study for doctorate degrees in the United States, while President Obama has a goal of sending 100,000 Americans to China over the next four years.
The tone was even lighter in the encounters Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Geithner had with the Chinese news media. In a joint interview with Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, they were quizzed about child-rearing and movie-going habits. (She puts up with former President Bill Clinton’s taste for action films.)
On the CCTV talk show “Dialogue,” Mrs. Clinton was asked about the plans for the wedding of her daughter, Chelsea. She confessed that it was the most important thing in her life right now.
Nobody asked Mrs. Clinton about human rights, and she barely mentioned it this week.
Michael Wines contributed reporting from Beijing, and Mark McDonald from Hong Kong.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/middleeast/26yemen.html
May 25, 2010
Kidnapped U.S. Tourists Are Released in Yemen
By MOHAMMED al-ASAADI and MICHAEL SLACKMAN [Yemen] [partial move of al Qaeda infrastructure, spring 2009] [has now become operational?] [US has maintained small footprint during Obama’s tenure] [use psci 469] [makes Yemen—along with proximity—inviting to global jihadis] [jihadis attacks on British] [followup] [apparently, recent kidnapping was more transactional than ideological?] [*]
SANA, Yemen — Two American tourists taken hostage early this week were released by tribal kidnappers on Tuesday after Yemen’s president agreed to free a prisoner held by the state, security and tribal officials said.
The release came as a bit of welcome news for the Yemeni authorities on a day when the government had to apologize for a botched airstrike that killed a prominent local official who had been trying to persuade a local leader of Al Qaeda to surrender.
The target of the attack, Mohammed Saeed Jardan, was apparently uninjured, officials said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/middleeast/26yemen.html
May 25, 2010
Kidnapped U.S. Tourists Are Released in Yemen
By MOHAMMED al-ASAADI and MICHAEL SLACKMAN [Yemen] [partial move of al Qaeda infrastructure, spring 2009] [has now become operational?] [US has maintained small footprint during Obama’s tenure] [use psci 469] [makes Yemen—along with proximity—inviting to global jihadis] [jihadis attacks on British] [followup] [apparently, recent kidnapping was more transactional than ideological?] [*]
SANA, Yemen — Two American tourists taken hostage early this week were released by tribal kidnappers on Tuesday after Yemen’s president agreed to free a prisoner held by the state, security and tribal officials said.
The release came as a bit of welcome news for the Yemeni authorities on a day when the government had to apologize for a botched airstrike that killed a prominent local official who had been trying to persuade a local leader of Al Qaeda to surrender.
The target of the attack, Mohammed Saeed Jardan, was apparently uninjured, officials said.
The release of the two Americans, their driver and a interpreter, and the backlash against the government for the errant airstrike, underscored the central government’s ongoing problems in dealing with an entrenched tribal structure that challenges the authority of the state.
The botched airstrike that killed Sheik Jabir al-Shabwani, deputy governor of Marib Province, seemed to incite even more violence as a group of armed tribesmen bombed an oil pipeline and attacked the government offices and Republican Palace.
Reports said that several people were killed in shooting between the villagers and the police, and witnesses said that 20 tanks and armored vehicles surrounded the government offices to ward off the attackers. [*] [*]
Angry tribesmen continued late Tuesday to block the highway between Marib and the capital, Sana. They fired at the power station, which led to a blackout in some areas of the country, including the capital.
Sheik Abdullah Ahmed al-Sharif said that tribal leaders had offered the government a three-day truce and decided to form a committee to follow an official investigation into the airstrike.
Sheik Abdullah said that the tribe would insist on holding talks with high-level security officials if Yemen was found responsible for the attack. But, he warned, if the United States was involved, he said the government would have to take action. [*]
Working with the United States, officials in Yemen have stepped up efforts to break terrorist networks, which have long found safety in the isolated rock and desert corners of Yemen. [I heard Richard Engles last night and he heard drones flying around Mogidishu every 10 minutes or so each night] [apparently mostly intelligence] [but the same is likely happening in parts of Yemen] [*]
As the government was trying to calm the violence in the restive Marib Province, news came that the two hostages had been released and that they were already on their way back to Sana.
Their release came as President Ali Abdullah Saleh agreed to release a prisoner, Hameed Shardah, said Said Naser Sabir, a local leader of the Haima tribe, in an interview. The BBC reported that Mr. Shardah had been arrested in a land dispute.
Mohammed al-Asaadi reported from Sana, and Michael Slackman from Cairo.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:20 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26afghan.html
May 25, 2010
Taliban Slay Elders Over Aid Money
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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [some pretty chaotic activity: hard to tell whether Taliban are deparate or what exactly?] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — In many of the hamlets of eastern Afghanistan, the elders have become used to late-night knocks at the door and masked Taliban gunmen demanding money, but this year was different.
When the men came, the elders refused to pay. The Taliban response in the impoverished Dwa Manda district of Khost Province was swift and brutal. They kidnapped 15 elders from villages that refused to turn over money they had received from the government for small development projects. [*]A day later, the bodies of six elders were found, shot to death, said

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26afghan.html
May 25, 2010
Taliban Slay Elders Over Aid Money
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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [some pretty chaotic activity: hard to tell whether Taliban are deparate or what exactly?] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — In many of the hamlets of eastern Afghanistan, the elders have become used to late-night knocks at the door and masked Taliban gunmen demanding money, but this year was different.
When the men came, the elders refused to pay. The Taliban response in the impoverished Dwa Manda district of Khost Province was swift and brutal. They kidnapped 15 elders from villages that refused to turn over money they had received from the government for small development projects. [*]A day later, the bodies of six elders were found, shot to death, said the Khost provincial police chief, Gen. Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai, on Tuesday.
“These elders were the heads of their village councils, and the enemy had killed six of those elders for no clear reason,” said an Interior Ministry statement.
“These wild killers did not show mercy to the tribal elders; they shot them and then escaped,” the statement said. [Muslims purists killing fellow Muslims over money-power] [*]
Tribal elders have been killed by the Taliban across the south and east of the country; in recent months, elders in Kandahar Province have been especially hard hit. At least 13 have been shot since February. [*]
In the mid-1990s the killings were common practice in Khost as well when the Taliban were seeking to take over Afghanistan, said Arsala Jamal, the former governor of Khost, who is now the acting minister of Borders and Tribal Affairs. By killing just a few elders, the Taliban were able to terrify the others and thus found it easier to gain dominance, [*]he said.
The elders who were attacked this week were from villages that had received grants worth just a few thousand dollars from Afghanistan’s National Solidarity program, which is one of the government’s most successful efforts to spur grass-roots development projects. The Taliban, hearing of the awards, demanded the money, [*]said General Ishaqzai.
“The last time, the Taliban did the same thing in this place and they took all the money, which was given to the village elders,” General Ishaqzai said. “This time the elders did not want to give the Taliban the money. That is why they took them from their houses and killed them.”
The area where the attack occurred lies along the main road between Gardez, the capital of Paktia Province, and Khost, the capital of Khost Province. It has been free of Taliban activity for only brief periods since the 2001 American-led invasion that ousted the Taliban. [*]
The Dwa Manda district lies along one of the main routes for smuggling insurgents, guns and money from Pakistan. Just over the Khost border in Pakistan lies Miram Shah, the headquarters of Afghan insurgents led by the Haqqani family.
On Tuesday, the Afghan Defense Ministry announced that 15 foreigners were among the 44 people who were killed in the crash of a private Pamir Airways plane on May 17. [*]Three of the foreigners were Americans, said Maj. Gen. Ahmad Zia Yaftali, director of the army hospital. However, a spokeswoman for the American Embassy said she knew of only one American citizen who had died in the crash.
“Wayne Stancil was aboard the Pamir flight when it crashed,” said Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the embassy. “Mr. Stancil was employed by Swiz Hewadwal JV, a joint venture. The embassy is in contact with his family, and we are not aware of any other U.S. citizens aboard the aircraft.”
Sharif Sharifullah contributed reporting from Kabul, and an Afghan employee of The New York Times from Khost Province.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26pstan.html
May 25, 2010
U.S. Is a Top Villain in Pakistan’s Conspiracy Talk
By SABRINA TAVERNISE [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] [Pakistani angst; do they realize how much US-Western angst exists about them?] [use psci 469] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Americans may think that the failed Times Square bomb was planted by a man named Faisal Shahzad. But the view in the Supreme Court Bar Association here in Pakistan’s capital is that the culprit was an American “think tank.” [just shows how badly whacked out Pakistan is; only reason US has interest is it has dangerous nukes] [*]
No one seems to know its name, but everyone has an opinion about it. It is powerful and shadowy, and seems to control just about everything in the American government,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26pstan.html
May 25, 2010
U.S. Is a Top Villain in Pakistan’s Conspiracy Talk
By SABRINA TAVERNISE [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] [Pakistani angst; do they realize how much US-Western angst exists about them?] [use psci 469] [*]
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Americans may think that the failed Times Square bomb was planted by a man named Faisal Shahzad. But the view in the Supreme Court Bar Association here in Pakistan’s capital is that the culprit was an American “think tank.” [just shows how badly whacked out Pakistan is; only reason US has interest is it has dangerous nukes] [*]
No one seems to know its name, but everyone has an opinion about it. It is powerful and shadowy, and seems to control just about everything in the American government, including President Obama.
“They have planted this character Faisal Shahzad to implement their script,” said Hashmat Ali Habib, a lawyer and a member of the bar association.
Who are they?
“You must know, you are from America,” he said smiling. “My advice for the American nation is, get free of these think tanks.” [well I’m sure we’ll all take a Pakistani lawyer’s advice] [*]
Conspiracy theory is a national sport in Pakistan, where the main players — the United States, India and Israel — change positions depending on the ebb and flow of history. Since 2001, the United States has taken center stage, looming so large in Pakistan’s collective imagination that it sometimes seems to be responsible for everything that goes wrong here.
“When the water stops running from the tap, people blame America,” [because to do otherwise would mean a critical look at self] [*] said Shaista Sirajuddin, an English professor in Lahore.
The problem is more than a peculiar domestic phenomenon for Pakistan. It has grown into a narrative of national victimhood that is a nearly impenetrable barrier to any candid discussion of the problems here. In turn, it is one of the principal obstacles for the United States in its effort to build a stronger alliance with a country to which it gives more than a billion dollars a year in aid. [*]
It does not help that no part of the Pakistani state — either the weak civilian government or the powerful military — is willing to risk publicly owning that relationship. [no, it sure doesn’t] [they encourage it because it defelcts criticism from them] [*]
One result is that nearly all of American policy toward Pakistan is conducted in secret, a fact that serves only to further feed conspiracies. American military leaders slip quietly in and out of the capital; the Pentagon uses networks of private spies; and the main tool of American policy here, the drone program, is not even publicly acknowledged to exist.
“The linchpin of U.S. relations is security, and it’s not talked about in public,” said Adnan Rehmat, a media analyst in Islamabad.
The empty public space fills instead with hard-line pundits and loud Islamic political parties, all projected into Pakistani living rooms by the rambunctious new electronic media, dozens of satellite television networks that weave a black-and-white, prime-time narrative in which the United States is the central villain.
“People want simple explanations, like evil America, Zionist-Hindu alliance,” said a Pakistani diplomat, who asked not to be named because of the delicate nature of the topic. “It’s gone really deep into the national psyche now.”
One of those pundits is Zaid Hamid, a fast-talking, right-wing television personality who rose to fame on one of Pakistan’s 90 new private television channels. [snake-oil saleman] [we have them too, sadly] [*]
He uses Google searches to support his theory that India, Israel and the United States — through their intelligence agencies and the company formerly known as Blackwater — are conspiring to destroy Pakistan.
For Mr. Hamid, the case of Mr. Shahzad is one piece of a larger puzzle being assembled to pressure Pakistan. Why, otherwise, the strange inconsistencies, like the bomb’s not exploding? “If you connect the dots, you have a pretty exciting story,” [yes; Shahzad was an idiot, thankfully] [*]he said.
But the media are only part of the problem. Only a third of Pakistan’s population has access to satellite channels, Mr. Rehmat said, and equally powerful are Islamic groups active at the grass roots of Pakistani society. [across the Muslim world this is so] [*]
Though Pakistan was created as a haven for Muslims, it was secular at first, and did not harden into an Islamic state on paper until 1949. Intellectuals point to the moment as a kind of original sin, when Islam became embedded in the country’s democratic blueprint, handing immense power to Islamic hard-liners, who could claim — despite their small numbers — to be the true guardians of the state.
Together with military and political leaders, these groups wield Islamic slogans for personal gain, further shutting down discussion. [classic faustian bargain] [*]
“We’re in this mess because political forces evoke Islam to further their own interests,” said Aasim Sajjad, an assistant professor of political economy at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad.
Lawyers in Pakistan have a strong streak of political Islam. Mr. Habib, who has had militants as clients, argues that Al Qaeda is an American invention. Their pronouncements are infused with anti-Semitism, standard for Islamic groups in the region. [yes, the “Jews” created a big list whom they phoned in the days before 9/11 and only Jews stayed home from work] [it’s so bizaare as to be laughable except people believe it?] [*]
“The lobbies are the Jews, maybe some Indians, working in the inner core of the American administration,” [*]said Muhammad Ikram Chaudhry, vice president of the bar association.
Liberals on Pakistan’s beleaguered left see the xenophobic patriotism and conspiracy theories as a defense mechanism that deflects all responsibility for society’s problems and protects against a reality that is too painful to face.
“It’s deny, deny, deny,” said Nadeem F. Paracha, a columnist for Dawn, an English-language daily. “It’s become second nature, like an instinct.”
Mr. Paracha argues that the denial is dangerous because it hobbles any form of public conversation — for example, about Mr. Shahzad’s upper-class background — leaving society unequipped to find remedies for its problems. “We’ve started to believe our own lies,” he said. [*]
For those on the left, that view obscures an increasingly disappointing history. For 62 years, Pakistan has lurched from one self-serving government to the next, with little thought given to education or the economy, said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physics professor at Quaid-i-Azam University. Now Pakistan is dependent on the West to pay its bills, a vulnerable position that breeds resentment. [*]
“We acknowledge to ourselves privately that Pakistan is a client state of the U.S.,” Mr. Hoodbhoy said. “But on the other hand, the U.S. is acting against Muslim interests globally. A sort of self-loathing came about.” [I’ll grant that it’s acting against jihadis interest globally but only Islam insofar as Islam is jihadism] [*]
There are very real reasons for Pakistanis to be skeptical of the United States. It encouraged — and financed — jihadis waging a religious war against the Soviets in the 1980s, while supporting the military autocrat Mohammed Zia ul-Haq, who seeded Pakistan’s education system with Islamists.
But Mr. Hamid is more interested in the larger plot, like the secret ownership of the Federal Reserve, which he found on the Internet. After three years of fame, his star seems to be falling. This month his show was canceled, and he has had to rely on Facebook and audio CDs to make his points. But it is not the end of the conspiracy.
“Someone else will be front row very soon,” said Manan Ahmed, a professor of Pakistani history. “It is the mood of the country at the moment.” [*]
Salman Masood contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:18 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26briefs-mumbai.html
May 25, 2010
Pakistan: Man Accused of Masterminding 2008 Attack in Mumbai Remains Free
By REUTERS [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] [ringleader of LeT, named as uncle by sole survivor, freed on insufficient evidence in Pakistan for role in Mumbai masacre] [use psci 469] [*]
The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed a government appeal and upheld a lower court’s decision last year to release an Islamist militant, whom India accuses of masterminding the November 2008 assault on Mumbai. [*]India had expressed dismay over the earlier decision to free Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, left, founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, [*] though analysts say the Supreme Court ruling is unlikely to derail a recent agreement between the leaders of the two countries to begin talks on long-running disputes.

[full article may be found above the jump] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 09:17 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/politics/25tell.html
May 24, 2010
Deal Reached for Ending Law on Gays in Military
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [SecDef, JCS, other chains in Pentagon] [don’t ask, don’t tell] [sounds like a classic political deal?] [followup] [defense department, Pentagon] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama, the Pentagon and leading lawmakers reached agreement Monday on legislative language and a time frame for repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, clearing the way for Congress to take up the measure as soon as this week.
It was not clear whether the deal had secured the votes necessary to pass the House and Senate, but the agreement removed the Pentagon’s objections to having Congress vote quickly on repealing the contentious 17-year-old policy, which bars gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the armed services.
House Democratic leaders were meeting Monday night and considering taking up the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/us/politics/25tell.html
May 24, 2010
Deal Reached for Ending Law on Gays in Military
By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [SecDef, JCS, other chains in Pentagon] [don’t ask, don’t tell] [sounds like a classic political deal?] [followup] [defense department, Pentagon] [*]
WASHINGTON — President Obama, the Pentagon and leading lawmakers reached agreement Monday on legislative language and a time frame for repealing the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, clearing the way for Congress to take up the measure as soon as this week.
It was not clear whether the deal had secured the votes necessary to pass the House and Senate, but the agreement removed the Pentagon’s objections to having Congress vote quickly on repealing the contentious 17-year-old policy, which bars gay men and lesbians from serving openly in the armed services.
House Democratic leaders were meeting Monday night and considering taking up the measure as soon as Thursday. But even if the measure passes, the policy cannot not change until after Dec. 1, when the Pentagon completes a review of its readiness to deal with the changes. Mr. Obama, his defense secretary and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff would also be required to certify that repeal would not harm readiness.
The measure could enable gay men and lesbians to serve openly in the military for the first time, ending a policy that Mr. Obama, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, all say they oppose.
Representative Patrick J. Murphy, Democrat of Pennsylvania and a leading advocate in the House for repeal, is hoping to attach the proposal to a defense authorization bill that will come up for a vote on Thursday.
In the Senate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman, independent of Connecticut, intends to introduce the language on Thursday in the Armed Services Committee. In a letter to Mr. Obama on Monday, Mr. Murphy, Mr. Lieberman and Senator Carl M. Levin, the Armed Services Committee chairman, announced support for the proposal and asked the White House for its “official views.”
But Capitol Hill aides said the letter was pro forma; Mr. Obama’s budget director, Peter R. Orszag, quickly replied with the White House’s assent.
The compromise emerged Monday after a flurry of closed-door meetings at the White House and on Capitol Hill.
White House and Pentagon officials, who met with aides to proponents of repeal in Congress, declined early in the day to talk about the negotiations.
“Given that Congress insists on addressing the issue this week,” said Geoff Morrell, a spokesman for Mr. Gates, “we are trying to gain a better understanding of the legislative proposals they will be considering.”
Some gay rights advocates complained that too many conditions were attached to the repeal. But the president of the Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solmonese, said the deal “puts us one step closer to removing this stain from the laws of our nation.”
Mr. Obama has been under intense pressure from gay rights groups to live up to his campaign promise to work with Congress to repeal the law.
Already this year, the administration has taken significant steps toward doing undoing the policy; last month, the Secretary of the Army, John M. McHugh, said he was effectively ignoring “don’t ask, don’t tell” and had no intention of pursuing discharges of active duty service members who have told him they are gay.
But full-fledged repeal, which requires an act of Congress, has been moving slowly. Gay rights advocates want a vote before the November midterm elections, when Democrats are expected to lose seats. The language that is now circulating allows lawmakers to do that, while allowing Mr. Gates to keep the timetable for his review intact.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:04 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052402185.html
White House can be a tough fit for ex-military officers
By Anne E. Kornblut and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 25, 2010; A02 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC where military typically fills many slots on staff] [intelligence gathering, non traditional] [NSC staffers in Obama white house] [but mostly bureaucracy] [followup] [defense department, Pentagon, IC] [followup, May 8] [use psci 355-455] [*]
President Obama's firing of retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair as director of national intelligence highlights a pattern of problems involving senior officials in Obama's administration who once served in the upper ranks of the military.
In addition to Blair, national security adviser James L. Jones, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry and Sudan special envoy L. Scott Gration have faced questions about their performance inside and outside the government. All four achieved the rank of admiral or general before joining the administration. [that’s not uncommon][*]
White House officials say that, other than Blair, the men have largely succeeded after

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052402185.html
White House can be a tough fit for ex-military officers
By Anne E. Kornblut and Scott Wilson
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, May 25, 2010; A02 [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC where military typically fills many slots on staff] [intelligence gathering, non traditional] [NSC staffers in Obama white house] [but mostly bureaucracy] [followup] [defense department, Pentagon, IC] [followup, May 8] [use psci 355-455] [*]
President Obama's firing of retired Adm. Dennis C. Blair as director of national intelligence highlights a pattern of problems involving senior officials in Obama's administration who once served in the upper ranks of the military.
In addition to Blair, national security adviser James L. Jones, U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl W. Eikenberry and Sudan special envoy L. Scott Gration have faced questions about their performance inside and outside the government. All four achieved the rank of admiral or general before joining the administration. [that’s not uncommon][*]
White House officials say that, other than Blair, the men have largely succeeded after sometimes difficult starts, and that they have the president's support. But their transition from rigid military chains of command to an administration where decision-making often follows different channels has been turbulent.
"As savvy as many of these senior officers have been, this White House is a highly charged political environment," said Stephen Flanagan, who served on the National Security Council staff during the Clinton administration. "This is alien to a lot of them. And this is a less hierarchical administration, with a lot of National Security Council staff seeming to feel they have a great deal of license in adjudicating some of these issues." [*]
Questions of how former military officials fit in this administration are timely, given that Obama is said to be favoring retired Air Force Lt. Gen. James R. Clapper Jr. as Blair's replacement.
The president also has had problems with advisers from civilian backgrounds. Last November, he fired White House counsel Gregory B. Craig after months of tumult over the administration's inability to meet its deadline to close the military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. [sounds to me like someone is trying to create (recreate) the Clinton administration where the president had tense relations with military] [that’s not my impression here] [*]
Analysts say Obama, who has not served in the military, turned to former generals and admirals in part to dispel fears, raised mostly by his conservative critics, that he would not be tough enough in foreign affairs.
He also kept retired Army Lt. Gen. Douglas E. Lute, President George W. Bush's point person on Iraq and Afghanistan. White House officials say that the president trusts Lute and that he played a large role in shaping the new counterinsurgency strategy in Afghanistan.
"Insofar as there have been issues with these people, there are unique circumstances around each of them," said a senior administration official who often works with Blair, Jones, Eikenberry and Gration and so spoke about their roles on the condition of anonymity. "It is hard to tie a thread through all of them with their military background alone."
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley, a retired Air Force colonel, said it would be a "mistake to suggest that military officials can't succeed in a civilian capacity" in the current administration or any other. "If a particular officer falls short, it often says more about the particular challenge than the individual himself or herself," he said.
When retired Adm. Stansfield Turner took over the CIA in the Carter administration, he was accused of trying to impose a military order to the institution. But the former flag officers in this administration have been accused, in some cases, of having too light a touch.
Blair, a former commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, probably became a short-timer after a young Nigerian man boarded a plane bound for Detroit on Christmas Day allegedly with explosives sewn into his underwear. Obama said afterward that the incident marked "a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had," Blair's chief responsibility.
Jones, a retired four-star Marine general who served as supreme allied commander in Europe, began his tenure amid criticism that he was exerting too little authority. His chief concern early on was broadening the mission of the National Security Council to better reflect the transnational threats facing the country, including global warming and energy security. [hard to say with certainty but he appears to be doing his job effectively if quietly, which is my preference] [*]
But Jones often found his direct line to Obama interrupted by advisers with closer connections to the president. And in a White House where 18-hour days are routine, Jones often left around 6 p.m. His absence sometimes meant a loss in clout. "Every national security adviser is different," the senior official said. [*]
Gration, a retired Air Force major general, has the close personal relationship with Obama that Jones lacks. But that has not translated to stature within the State Department or among congressional leaders. To them, he has appeared out of his depth in dealing with Sudan's president, Omar Hassan al-Bashir, whom the International Criminal Court indicted on war crimes charges over the conflict in Darfur.
An administration official said that Gration "deserves a lot more credit publicly than he's being given" for helping address a complicated mix of issues in Sudan.
Eikenberry, a retired lieutenant general, is now the top U.S. diplomat in Afghanistan, where he had served as a military commander. Obama and his advisers thought he would an ideal diplomat in the war zone, requiring virtually no on-the-job learning.
During the strategy review last fall, Eikenberry argued sharply against sending additional U.S. troops to Afghanistan. His cables explaining his rationale, rooted largely in his distrust of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, were leaked to the media and put him publicly at odds with U.S. policy. [*]
White House officials say Obama appreciated the dissent, believing it forced Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, to better justify his request for additional resources. But administration officials also acknowledge that Eikenberry has infuriated many at the State Department.
Staff writer Karen DeYoung contributed to this report. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:03 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/25military.html
May 24, 2010
U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast
By MARK MAZZETTI [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [Iran and more broadly Middle East] [the dilemmas for USFP policymakers] [most of these same things have existed for years] [is the Obama administration (clearly enamored of covert intruments!) ramping up covert and paramilitary actions in Middle East?] [use psci 355-455] [*]
WASHINGTON — The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents. [*]
The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, [CENTCINC] [*] authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/25military.html
May 24, 2010
U.S. Is Said to Expand Secret Actions in Mideast
By MARK MAZZETTI [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [Iran and more broadly Middle East] [the dilemmas for USFP policymakers] [most of these same things have existed for years] [is the Obama administration (clearly enamored of covert intruments!) ramping up covert and paramilitary actions in Middle East?] [use psci 355-455] [*]
WASHINGTON — The top American commander in the Middle East has ordered a broad expansion of clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups or counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region, according to defense officials and military documents. [*]
The secret directive, signed in September by Gen. David H. Petraeus, [CENTCINC] [*] authorizes the sending of American Special Operations troops to both friendly and hostile nations in the Middle East, Central Asia and the Horn of Africa to gather intelligence and build ties with local forces. Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate. [I have no problem with that] [seems prudent, so long as leaks like this one don’t sabotage it] [*]
While the Bush administration had approved some clandestine military activities far from designated war zones, the new order is intended to make such efforts more systematic and long term, officials said. Its goals are to build networks that could “penetrate, disrupt, defeat or destroy” Al Qaeda and other militant groups, as well as to “prepare the environment” for future attacks by American or local military forces, [?] [*]the document said. The order, however, does not appear to authorize offensive strikes in any specific countries.
In broadening its secret activities, the United States military has also sought in recent years to break its dependence on the Central Intelligence Agency and other spy agencies for information in countries without a significant American troop presence. [the problem with doing so, as I complained when Rummy began doing so much of the same, is the military typically does not have the plausible deniability that CIA operatives do?] [*]
General Petraeus’s order is meant for small teams of American troops to fill intelligence gaps about terror organizations and other threats in the Middle East and beyond, especially emerging groups plotting attacks against the United States.
But some Pentagon officials worry that the expanded role carries risks. The authorized activities could strain relationships with friendly governments like Saudi Arabia or Yemen — which might allow the operations but be loath to acknowledge their cooperation — or incite the anger of hostile nations like Iran and Syria. [parochial, institutional, opposition to what Patraeus is doing?] [likely the source of this leak] [*] Many in the military are also concerned that as American troops assume roles far from traditional combat, they would be at risk of being treated as spies if captured and denied the Geneva Convention protections afforded military detainees. [they are right, sadly] [*]
The precise operations that the directive authorizes are unclear, and what the military has done to follow through on the order is uncertain. The document, a copy of which was viewed by The New York Times, provides few details about continuing missions or intelligence-gathering operations.
Several government officials who described the impetus for the order would speak only on condition of anonymity because the document is classified. Spokesmen for the White House and the Pentagon declined to comment for this article. The Times, responding to concerns about troop safety raised by an official at United States Central Command, the military headquarters run by General Petraeus, withheld some details about how troops could be deployed in certain countries. [Times withheld details?] [CYA maneuver or is there something to it?] [*]
The seven-page directive appears to authorize specific operations in Iran, [*]most likely to gather intelligence about the country’s nuclear program or identify dissident groups that might be useful for a future military offensive. The Obama administration insists that for the moment, it is committed to penalizing Iran for its nuclear activities only with diplomatic and economic sanctions. Nevertheless, the Pentagon has to draw up detailed war plans to be prepared in advance, in the event that President Obama ever authorizes a strike. [I think contingency planning is prudent; I worry some about self-fufilling problems] [*]
“The Defense Department can’t be caught flat-footed,” said one Pentagon official with knowledge of General Petraeus’s order.
The directive, the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order, signed Sept. 30, [took a while to leak] [this may mean that in fleshing it out, only recently have Patraeus enemies become concerned or mobized?] [to be clear, Patraeus created some substantial enemies back when he first pushed what became the “surge” because he necessarily had to circumvent chain of command in rather self interested ways] [*] may also have helped lay a foundation for the surge of American military activity in Yemen that began three months later.
Special Operations troops began working with Yemen’s military to try to dismantle Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, an affiliate of Osama bin Laden’s terror network based in Yemen. The Pentagon has also carried out missile strikes from Navy ships into suspected militant hideouts and plans to spend more than $155 million equipping Yemeni troops with armored vehicles, helicopters and small arms. [also the hit in killed jihadis in souther Somalia September 15, 2009][details were vague but sounded like they swooped in from ships not too far off coast of Kenya?] [note: this was reportedly drafted in September 2009, same month Special Ops swooped in to assassinate caravn of jihadis who were reported as al Qaeda at time] [**]
Officials said that many top commanders, General Petraeus among them, have advocated an expansive interpretation of the military’s role around the world, arguing that troops need to operate beyond Iraq and Afghanistan to better fight militant groups.
The order, which an official said was drafted in close coordination with Adm. Eric T. Olson, the officer in charge of the United States Special Operations Command, calls for clandestine activities that “cannot or will not be accomplished” by conventional military operations or “interagency activities,” a reference to American spy agencies. [*]
While the C.I.A. and the Pentagon have often been at odds over expansion of clandestine military activity, most recently over intelligence gathering by Pentagon contractors in Pakistan and Afghanistan, there does not appear to have been a significant dispute over the September order.
A spokesman for the C.I.A. declined to confirm the existence of General Petraeus’s order, but said that the spy agency and the Pentagon had a “close relationship” and generally coordinate operations in the field.
“There’s more than enough work to go around,” said the spokesman, Paul Gimigliano. “The real key is coordination. That typically works well, and if problems arise, they get settled.”
During the Bush administration, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld endorsed clandestine military operations, arguing that Special Operations troops could be as effective as traditional spies, if not more so. [and that worried me because of spycraft issues: plausible deniability; if military is doing covert stuff will other military get treated by hostiles as they’ve treated CIA spies in past; byzantine nature of Pentagon institutional enemies and institutional leaks; often done to avoid oversight that is expected with CIA; other issues] [*]
Unlike covert actions undertaken by the C.I.A., such clandestine activity does not require the president’s approval or regular reports to Congress, although Pentagon officials have said that any significant ventures are cleared through the National Security Council. Special Operations troops have already been sent into a number of countries to carry out reconnaissance missions, including operations to gather intelligence about airstrips and bridges.
Some of Mr. Rumsfeld’s initiatives were controversial, and met with resistance by some at the State Department and C.I.A. who saw the troops as a backdoor attempt by the Pentagon to assert influence outside of war zones. In 2004, one of the first groups sent overseas was pulled out of Paraguay after killing a pistol-waving robber who had attacked them as they stepped out of a taxi.
A Pentagon order that year gave the military authority for offensive strikes in more than a dozen countries, and Special Operations troops carried them out in Syria, Pakistan and Somalia. [*]
In contrast, General Petraeus’s September order is focused on intelligence gathering — by American troops, foreign businesspeople, academics or others — to identify militants and provide “persistent situational awareness,” while forging ties to local [if it stays limited, I don’t have a problem but it sounds a little worrisome] [*]indigenous groups.
Thom Shanker and Eric Schmitt contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/asia/25korea.html
May 24, 2010
Pentagon and U.N. Chief Put New Pressure on N. Korea
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER [Obama white house] [UN] [111th congress, 2nd session] [from NSC to bureaucracy] [SecState Clinton] [on DPRK’s apparent sinking of ROK ship in late March] [continuity in USFP?] [*]
WASHINGTON — The United States and its allies put new pressure on North Korea on Monday, announcing naval exercises next month to detect submarines of the kind suspected of sinking a South Korean warship, and winning the support of the secretary general of the United Nations for Security Council action. [*]
The officials were seeking to calibrate the response to North Korea cautiously in large part because of concern about how North Korea might react. The country’s defense commission, which rarely issues public statements, has threatened direct attacks on South Korea if it retaliates for the sinking of the warship Cheonan, though the North has denied responsibility for attack, which killed 46 sailors.
American officials acknowledged that the types of steps announced Monday — the threat of

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/asia/25korea.html
May 24, 2010
Pentagon and U.N. Chief Put New Pressure on N. Korea
By DAVID E. SANGER and THOM SHANKER [Obama white house] [UN] [111th congress, 2nd session] [from NSC to bureaucracy] [SecState Clinton] [on DPRK’s apparent sinking of ROK ship in late March] [continuity in USFP?] [*]
WASHINGTON — The United States and its allies put new pressure on North Korea on Monday, announcing naval exercises next month to detect submarines of the kind suspected of sinking a South Korean warship, and winning the support of the secretary general of the United Nations for Security Council action. [*]
The officials were seeking to calibrate the response to North Korea cautiously in large part because of concern about how North Korea might react. The country’s defense commission, which rarely issues public statements, has threatened direct attacks on South Korea if it retaliates for the sinking of the warship Cheonan, though the North has denied responsibility for attack, which killed 46 sailors.
American officials acknowledged that the types of steps announced Monday — the threat of Security Council sanctions, military maneuvers and exercises to practice intercepting North Korean ships suspected of carrying arms or nuclear technology — have been tried before over the past two decades. While some have inflicted temporary pain, they have not deterred North Korea from conducting two nuclear tests since 2006, a battery of missile tests that have yielded mixed results and the sale of nuclear and missile technology to the Middle East.
The strongest statement about North Korea’s culpability came at the United Nations, from Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who was foreign minister in South Korea during a failed effort at what was once called the “Sunshine Policy” of increased interchanges with the North.
“There must be some measures taken,” he said at a news conference, though he stopped short of saying what those measures should be.
“The evidence is quite compelling,” he added, saying he was trying to separate his personal feeling from his duties as secretary general. “There is no controversy. Therefore it is the responsibility of the international community to address this issue properly.”
On a trip to Beijing, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said, “Our support for South Korea’s defense is unequivocal.”
At the Pentagon, officials announced that the United States and South Korea would hold exercises in coming weeks to practice missions detecting enemy submarines and intercepting cargo vessels suspected of hauling nuclear weapons, bomb-making materials or other prohibited arms.
“Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman, said one exercise would allow the South Korean and American militaries to practice antisubmarine warfare. South Korean officials said their warship was sunk by a North Korean torpedo.
But the announcement also appeared to be an acknowledgement that South Korea’s submarine detection technologies left something to be desired. The Cheonan crew had no idea that a North Korean submarine was in the region, and even after the sinking, it took weeks to determine what had hit the ship.
A second set of naval exercises will focus on halting banned cargo at sea, and will be held under the auspices of the Proliferation Security Initiative, a multilateral program to intercept the movement of nuclear materials, weapons and components.
When that program was begun by the administration of President George W. Bush, South Korea at first refused to join, for fear of angering the North. That decision was reversed more than a year ago, but Seoul is now willing to participate in exercises in how to track North Korean ships and force them into port.
Although the White House released a statement early Monday morning that assailed North Korea for its “belligerent and threatening” behavior and promised close military cooperation between the United States and South Korea, Pentagon officials later in the day spoke in cautious tones , and stressed that the issue should be resolved through diplomatic efforts .
“Obviously, the goal here is not to increase tensions or do things that are going to look overly provocative or add to the tension in the region,” said one senior military officer. “At the same time, we want to make sure we are ready to support the South Koreans throughout this issue.”
American officials say there are no plans to bolster the American troop presence in South Korea, which has dwindled to about 26,000, about half the number of troops in the region during the nuclear crises of 1994 and 2002-2003. In the 1994 crisis — when North Korea threatened military action if its nuclear program was referred to the Security Council for action — President Bill Clinton was preparing to reinforce the American military presence on the peninsula.
Since then, South Korea’s own capabilities have improved considerably, American officials say. And the United States maintains the ability to strike from a distance with weapons aboard American warships and combat aircraft. But the North also has a larger stockpile of nuclear fuel, enough for eight or more nuclear weapons, which clearly factors into the calculations being made in Seoul and Washington.
The United States will also have to take the lead in Security Council action — at the same time it is trying to win its approval of sanctions on Iran. Both resolutions will require Chinese support, and so far China has not acknowledged North Korean culpability, much less discussed sanctions or other punishment. American officials noted that while South Korea announced a nearly total cutoff of trade with the North on Monday, the amounts are small enough that China could make up the difference.
South Korean officials said their nation would sever nearly all trade with North Korea, deny North Korean merchant ships use of South Korean sea lanes and ask the Security Council to punish the North. In addition, the South’s military moved to resume “psychological warfare” propaganda broadcasts at the border after six years.
Reporting was contributed by Mark Landler from Beijing, Choe Sang-Hun from Seoul, South Korea, and Neil MacFarquhar from the United Nations.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:02 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052403073.html
A hollow 'reset' with Russia
By Robert Kagan
Tuesday, May 25, 2010; A25 [oped] [Kagan, who has actually been fairly kind to Obama administration on USFP] [now has a bone to pick?] [*]
It took months of hard negotiating, but finally the administration got Russia to agree to a resolution tightening sanctions on Iran. The United States had to drop tougher measures it wanted to impose, of course, to win approval. Nevertheless, senior Russian officials were making the kinds of strong statements about Iran's nuclear program that they had long refused to make. Iran "must cease enrichment," declared Russia's ambassador to the United Nations. One senior European official told the New York Times, "We consider this a very important decision by the Russians."
Yes, it was quite a breakthrough -- by the administration of George W. Bush. In fact, this 2007 triumph came after another, similar breakthrough in 2006, when months of negotiations with Moscow had produced the first watered-down resolution. And both were followed in 2008 by yet another breakthrough, when the Bush administration got Moscow

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/24/AR2010052403073.html
A hollow 'reset' with Russia
By Robert Kagan
Tuesday, May 25, 2010; A25 [oped] [Kagan, who has actually been fairly kind to Obama administration on USFP] [now has a bone to pick?] [*]
It took months of hard negotiating, but finally the administration got Russia to agree to a resolution tightening sanctions on Iran. The United States had to drop tougher measures it wanted to impose, of course, to win approval. Nevertheless, senior Russian officials were making the kinds of strong statements about Iran's nuclear program that they had long refused to make. Iran "must cease enrichment," declared Russia's ambassador to the United Nations. One senior European official told the New York Times, "We consider this a very important decision by the Russians."
Yes, it was quite a breakthrough -- by the administration of George W. Bush. In fact, this 2007 triumph came after another, similar breakthrough in 2006, when months of negotiations with Moscow had produced the first watered-down resolution. And both were followed in 2008 by yet another breakthrough, when the Bush administration got Moscow to agree to a third resolution, another marginal tightening of sanctions, after more negotiations and more diluting. [*]
Given that history, few accomplishments have been more oversold than the Obama administration's "success" in getting Russia to agree, for the fourth time in five years, to another vacuous U.N. Security Council resolution. It is being trumpeted as a triumph of the administration's "reset" of the U.S.-Russian relationship, the main point of which was to get the Russians on board regarding Iran. All we've heard in recent months is how the Russians finally want to work with us on Iran and genuinely see the Iranian bomb as a threat -- all because Obama has repaired relations with Russia that were allegedly destroyed by Bush.
Obama officials must assume that no one will bother to check the record (as, so far, none of the journalists covering the story has). The fact is, the Russians have not said or done anything in the past few months that they didn't do or say during the Bush years. In fact, they sometimes used to say and do more. Here's Vladimir Putin in April 2005: "We categorically oppose any attempts by Iran to acquire nuclear weapons. . . . Our Iranian partners must renounce setting up the technology for the entire nuclear fuel cycle and should not obstruct placing their nuclear programs under complete international supervision." Here's one of Putin's top national security advisers, Igor S. Ivanov, in March 2007: "The clock must be stopped; Iran must freeze uranium enrichment." Indeed, the New York Times' Elaine Sciolino reported that month that Moscow threatened to "withhold nuclear fuel for Iran's nearly completed Bushehr power plant unless Iran suspends its uranium enrichment as demanded by the United Nations Security Council" -- which prompted the Times' editorial page to give the Bush administration "credit if it helped Moscow to see where its larger interests lie." Nine months later, of course, Russia delivered the fuel.
It remains to be seen whether this latest breakthrough has greater meaning than the previous three or is just round four of Charlie Brown and the football. [I agree and have said same in so many words in comments on this site] [it’s too soon to know whether Obama’s “reset” has worked] [there’s some interesting anecdotal stuff that makes it seem like the Russians are being slightly better (or probably somewhat less conspiratorial in seeing US cabals everywhere)] [*] The latest draft resolution tightens sanctions in some areas around the margins, but the administration was forced to cave to some Russian and Chinese demands. The Post reported: "The Obama administration failed to win approval for key proposals it had sought, including restrictions on Iran's lucrative oil trade, a comprehensive ban on financial dealings with the Guard Corps and a U.S.-backed proposal to halt new investment in the Iranian energy sector." Far from the comprehensive arms embargo Washington wanted, the draft resolution does not even prohibit Moscow from completing the sale of its S-300 surface-to-air missile defense system to Tehran. A change to the Federal Register on Friday showed that the administration had lifted sanctions against four Russian entitiesinvolved in illicit weapons trade with Iran and Syria since 1999, suggesting last-minute deal sweeteners. [perhaps] [or perhaps not?] [*]
What is bizarre is the administration's claim that Russian behavior is somehow the result of Obama's "reset" diplomacy. Russia has responded to the Obama administration in the same ways it did to the Bush administration before the "reset." Moscow has been playing this game for years. It has sold the same rug many times. The only thing that has changed is the price the United States has been willing to pay.
As anyone who ever shopped for a rug knows, the more you pay for it, the more valuable it seems. The Obama administration has paid a lot. In exchange for Russian cooperation, President Obama has killed the Bush administration's planned missile defense installations in Poland and the Czech Republic. [he changed it to ship based with some infrastructure in another Near Abroad site; I would not describe that as killed] [*] Obama has officially declared that Russia's continued illegal military occupation of Georgia is no "obstacle" to U.S.-Russian civilian nuclear cooperation. [I’m afraid I have to qualify here too] [most evidence suggests Georgia created the pretext that Russia seized and that it did so thinking Bush would pull Sakashvili’s chestunuts out of the fire] [Bush actually didn’t, to Bush’s credit in my view] [nevertheless, the entire mess demonstrated Russia again acting typically hamfisted, boorish, and all the rest] [and that’s a problem] [but I don’t see why the US needs to sabatoge its own interests for a Georgia that is not particularly important or necessary for US security, especially when it has a leader who is not democratic in any serious way?] [has Obama gone given Russia too wide berth on that?] [possibly] [*] The recent deal between Russia and Ukraine granting Russia control of a Crimean naval base through 2042 was shrugged off by Obama officials, as have been Putin's suggestions for merging Russian and Ukrainian industries in a blatant bid to undermine Ukrainian sovereignty. [what does Kagan want?] [the Russia-leaning guy was elected, in elections (as in democratic process)] [I wasn’t pleased with it but that’s what happened in Ukraine] [Russia’s bombast in Near Abroad is a problem but is the US suppose to insinuate itself in the two’s bilateral relations?] [“shrugged off” is an incredibly imprecise phrase used to complain and criticize when Kagan has nothing in particular to criticize] [it’s not like the standard for oped columns is high—particularly in the Post the last couple years!—but this is this section is a classic polemic!] [*]
So at least one effect of the administration's "reset" has been to produce a wave of insecurity throughout Eastern and Central Europe and the Baltics, where people are starting to fear they can no longer count on the United States to protect them from an expansive Russia. [that may or may not be accurate] [but it’s decidedly anecdotal] [he came to this conclusion how?] [did he talk to “people” to arrive at this?] [I think we all might do well to consider what is NATO’s purpose in post 1991 world?] [unless-until it’s articulated, I wonder if NATO ought not to stay out of Russia’s rather boorish behavior in the Near Abroad] [finally, I don’t recall Kagan taking Bush to task similarly when Medvedev announced Russia’s sphere of influence (late August 2008)] [he was boxed in somewhat because the neconservative prescriptions Bush had mostly followed?] [http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93510017] [I mostly agreed with his analysis, I simply disagree with his sense that August 8 was significant as Berlin Wall coming down] [but I listened to his interview on NPR in August and not even a mild criticism of Bush administration—it was soon after and he may have hoped they’d do more?] [by contrast, brother Fredrick called Bush feckless for same event] [*] And for this the administration has gotten what? Yet another hollow U.N. Security Council resolution. Some observers suggest that Iran's leaders are quaking in their boots, confronted by this great unity of the international "community." More likely, they are laughing up their sleeves -- along with the men in Moscow. [See his Q&A with undergrad journal at Yale, especially llast question: http://www.thepolitic.org/articles/22/the-art-of-power-politics] [for my money, Kagan is interesting mix of classic Realpolitik and neoconservatism (though not the Utopia end of Vulcans)] [*]
Robert Kagan, a senior associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes a monthly column for The Post. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:01 PM | Permalink

http://www.ucsusa.org/ssi/climate-change/scientific-consensus-on.html
Union of Concerned Scientists
February 2009
Home » SSI » Climate Change
Scientific Consensus on Global Warming
In the past few years, scientific societies and scientists have released statements and studies showing the growing consensus on climate change science. A common objection to taking action to reduce our heat-trapping emissions has been uncertainty within the scientific community on whether or not global warming is happening and whether it is caused by humans. However, there is now an overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is indeed happening and humans are contributing to it. [*]Below are links to documents and statements attesting to this consensus.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, IPCC, 2007. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M.Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. [there has been some argument about the IPCC, a UN panel, and whether some falsified data was used by the panel. To specific cases were a university in UK (East Anglia?) and email smoking gun but that was ruled irrelevant by UK-appointed panel that investigated it. The other was an Indian climate scientist whose expertise was glacier shrinkage. As I recall he used some speculative (or worse) data for a glacier in Himalaya range but I don’t recall anyone challenging his conclusions, only his use of data for one glacier] [**]

http://www.ucsusa.org/ssi/climate-change/scientific-consensus-on.html
Union of Concerned Scientists
February 2009
Home » SSI » Climate Change
Scientific Consensus on Global Warming
In the past few years, scientific societies and scientists have released statements and studies showing the growing consensus on climate change science. A common objection to taking action to reduce our heat-trapping emissions has been uncertainty within the scientific community on whether or not global warming is happening and whether it is caused by humans. However, there is now an overwhelming scientific consensus that global warming is indeed happening and humans are contributing to it. [*]Below are links to documents and statements attesting to this consensus.
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
• Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, IPCC, 2007. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Solomon, S., D. Qin, M. Manning, Z. Chen, M. Marquis, K.B. Averyt, M.Tignor and H.L. Miller (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA. [there has been some argument about the IPCC, a UN panel, and whether some falsified data was used by the panel. To specific cases were a university in UK (East Anglia?) and email smoking gun but that was ruled irrelevant by UK-appointed panel that investigated it. The other was an Indian climate scientist whose expertise was glacier shrinkage. As I recall he used some speculative (or worse) data for a glacier in Himalaya range but I don’t recall anyone challenging his conclusions, only his use of data for one glacier] [**]

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level”

“Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

IPCC defines "very likely" as greater than 90% probability of occurrence.

Scientific Societies
• Statement on climate change from 18 scientific associations

"Observations throughout the world make it clear that climate change is occurring, and rigorous scientific research demonstrates that the greenhouse gases emitted by human activities are the primary driver." (October, 2009)
• American Meteorological Society: Climate Change: An Information Statement of the American Meteorological Society

"Indeed, strong observational evidence and results from modeling studies indicate that, at least over the last 50 years, human activities are a major contributor to climate change." (February 2007)
• American Physical Society: Statement on Climate Change

"The evidence is incontrovertible: Global warming is occurring. If no mitigating actions are taken, significant disruptions in the Earth’s physical and ecological systems, social systems, security and human health are likely to occur. We must reduce emissions of greenhouse gases beginning now." (November 2007)
• American Geophysical Union: Human Impacts on Climate

"The Earth's climate is now clearly out of balance and is warming. Many components of the climate system—including the temperatures of the atmosphere, land and ocean, the extent of sea ice and mountain glaciers, the sea level, the distribution of precipitation, and the length of seasons—are now changing at rates and in patterns that are not natural and are best explained by the increased atmospheric abundances of greenhouse gases and aerosols generated by human activity during the 20th century." (Adopted December 2003, Revised and Reaffirmed December 2007)
• American Association for the Advancement of Science: AAAS Board Statement on Climate Change

"The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society." (December 2006)
• Geological Society of America: Global Climate Change

"The Geological Society of America (GSA) supports the scientific conclusions that Earth’s climate is changing; the climate changes are due in part to human activities; and the probable consequences of the climate changes will be significant and blind to geopolitical boundaries." (October 2006)
• American Chemical Society: Statement on Global Climate Change

"There is now general agreement among scientific experts that the recent warming trend is real (and particularly strong within the past 20 years), that most of the observed warming is likely due to increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, and that climate change could have serious adverse effects by the end of this century." (July 2004)
National Science Academies
• U.S. National Academy of Sciences: Understanding and Responding to Climate Change (pdf)

"The scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify taking steps to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere." (2005)
• International academies: Joint science academies’ statement: Global response to climate change (pdf)

"Climate change is real. There will always be uncertainty in understanding a system as complex as the world’s climate. However there is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring." (2005, 11 national academies of science)
• International academies: The Science of Climate Change

"Despite increasing consensus on the science underpinning predictions of global climate change, doubts have been expressed recently about the need to mitigate the risks posed by global climate change. We do not consider such doubts justified." (2001, 16 national academies of science)
Research
• Examining the Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, Peter T. Doran and Maggie Kendall Zimmerman

"It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes."

Doran surveyed 10,257 Earth scientists. Thirty percent responded to the survey which asked: 1. When compared with pre-1800s levels, do you think that mean global temperatures have generally risen, fallen, or remained relatively constant? and 2. Do you think human activity is a significant contributing factor in changing mean global temperatures?
• Beyond the Ivory Tower: The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change, Naomi Oreskes

"Oreskes analyzed 928 abstracts published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003 and listed in the ISI database with the keywords 'climate change.'... Of all the papers, 75 percent either explicitly or implicitly accepted the consensus view that global warming is happening and humans are contributing to it; 25 percent dealt with methods or ancient climates, taking no position on current anthropogenic [human-caused] climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position."

UCS Sign-on Statements
• U.S. Scientists and Economists' Call for Swift and Deep Cuts in Greenhouse Gas Emissions

"We call on our nation's leaders to swiftly establish and implement policies to bring about deep reductions in heat-trapping emissions. The strength of the science on climate change compels us to warn the nation about the growing risk of irreversible consequences as global average temperatures continue to increase over pre-industrial levels (i.e. prior to 1860). As temperatures rise further, the scope and severity of global warming impacts will continue to accelerate." (2008)
• Increase Your Leadership on Global Warming: A Letter from California Scientists

"If emissions continue unabated, the serious consequences of a changing climate for California are likely to include a striking increase in extreme heat and heat-related mortality, significant reductions in Sierra snowpack with severe impacts on water supply, mounting challenges to agricultural production, and sea-level rise leading to more widespread erosion of California’s beaches and coastline." (2005)

Last Revised: 02/02/09

Above, (Beyond the Ivory Tower) a study specifically addressing “consensus” on climate changes was cited. What follows is the specific citation with its text.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686
Science 3 December 2004:
Vol. 306. no. 5702, p. 1686
DOI: 10.1126/science.1103618 Prev | Table of Contents | Next
ESSAYS ON SCIENCE AND SOCIETY
Also see the archival list of the Essays on Science and Society.
BEYOND THE IVORY TOWER:
The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change
Naomi Oreskes*
Policy-makers and the media, particularly in the United States, frequently assert that climate science is highly uncertain. Some have used this as an argument against adopting strong measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. For example, while discussing a major U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report on the risks of climate change, then-EPA administrator Christine Whitman argued, "As [the report] went through review, there was less consensus on the science and conclusions on climate change" (1). Some corporations whose revenues might be adversely affected by controls on carbon dioxide emissions have also alleged major uncertainties in the science (2). Such statements suggest that there might be substantive disagreement in the scientific community about the reality of anthropogenic climate change. This is not the case.
The scientific consensus is clearly expressed in the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). [*]Created in 1988 by the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Environmental Programme, IPCC's purpose is to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action, primarily on the basis of peer-reviewed and published scientific literature (3). In its most recent assessment, IPCC states unequivocally that the consensus of scientific opinion is that Earth's climate is being affected by human activities: "Human activities ... are modifying the concentration of atmospheric constituents ... that absorb or scatter radiant energy. ... [M]ost of the observed warming over the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations" [p. 21 in (4)].
IPCC is not alone in its conclusions. In recent years, all major scientific bodies in the United States whose members' expertise bears directly on the matter have issued similar statements. [*]For example, the National Academy of Sciences report, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions, begins: "Greenhouse gases are accumulating in Earth's atmosphere as a result of human activities, causing surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures to rise" [p. 1 in (5)]. The report explicitly asks whether the IPCC assessment is a fair summary of professional scientific thinking, and answers yes: "The IPCC's conclusion that most of the observed warming of the last 50 years is likely to have been due to the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations accurately reflects the current thinking of the scientific community on this issue" [p. 3 in (5)].
Others agree. The American Meteorological Society (6), the American Geophysical Union (7), and the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) all have issued statements in recent years concluding that the evidence for human modification of climate is compelling (8).
The drafting of such reports and statements involves many opportunities for comment, criticism, and revision, and it is not likely that they would diverge greatly from the opinions of the societies' members. Nevertheless, they might downplay legitimate dissenting opinions. That hypothesis was tested by analyzing 928 abstracts, published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003, and listed in the ISI database with the keywords "climate change" (9).
The 928 papers were divided into six categories: explicit endorsement of the consensus position, evaluation of impacts, mitigation proposals, methods, paleoclimate analysis, and rejection of the consensus position. Of all the papers, 75% fell into the first three categories, either explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view; 25% dealt with methods or paleoclimate, taking no position on current anthropogenic climate change. Remarkably, none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position.
Admittedly, authors evaluating impacts, developing methods, or studying paleoclimatic change might believe that current climate change is natural. However, none of these papers argued that point. [*]
This analysis shows that scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and the public statements of their professional societies. Politicians, economists, journalists, and others may have the impression of confusion, disagreement, or discord among climate scientists, but that impression is incorrect.
The scientific consensus might, of course, be wrong. If the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. But our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it.
Many details about climate interactions are not well understood, and there are ample grounds for continued research to provide a better basis for understanding climate dynamics. The question of what to do about climate change is also still open. [*]But there is a scientific consensus on the reality of anthropogenic climate change. [*] Climate scientists have repeatedly tried to make this clear. It is time for the rest of us to listen.
References and Notes
A. C. Revkin, K. Q. Seelye, New York Times, 19 June 2003, A1.
S. van den Hove, M. Le Menestrel, H.-C. de Bettignies, Climate Policy 2 (1), 3 (2003).
See www.ipcc.ch/about/about.htm.
J. J. McCarthy et al., Eds., Climate Change 2001: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 2001).
National Academy of Sciences Committee on the Science of Climate Change, Climate Change Science: An Analysis of Some Key Questions (National Academy Press, Washington, DC, 2001).
American Meteorological Society, Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc. 84, 508 (2003).
American Geophysical Union, Eos 84 (51), 574 (2003).
See www.ourplanet.com/aaas/pages/atmos02.html.
The first year for which the database consistently published abstracts was 1993. Some abstracts were deleted from our analysis because, although the authors had put "climate change" in their key words, the paper was not about climate change.
This essay is excerpted from the 2004 George Sarton Memorial Lecture, "Consensus in science: How do we know we're not wrong," presented at the AAAS meeting on 13 February 2004. I am grateful to AAAS and the History of Science Society for their support of this lectureship; to my research assistants S. Luis and G. Law; and to D. C. Agnew, K. Belitz, J. R. Fleming, M. T. Greene, H. Leifert, and R. C. J. Somerville for helpful discussions.
10.1126/science.1103618

The author is in the Department of History and Science Studies Program, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA. E-mail: noreskes@ucsd.edu

Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:59 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/earth/25climate.html
May 24, 2010
Climate Fears Turn to Doubts Among Britons
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL [UK] [London (probably Greenwich)] [Britons as society?] [global climate change] [global commons] [not too long ago UK determined that the East Anglica brouhaha was irreleveant and that climate changes were legitimate] [followup] [use psci 350] [use it text] [c.f., posted along with this piece in today’s external, crossed in societal: climatechange_scientific_consensus2009.docx] [*]
LONDON — Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet? [*]
Nowhere has this shift in public opinion been more striking than in Britain, where climate change was until this year such a popular priority that in 2008 Parliament enshrined targets for emissions cuts as national law. But since then, the country has evolved into a home base

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/science/earth/25climate.html
May 24, 2010
Climate Fears Turn to Doubts Among Britons
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL [UK] [London (probably Greenwich)] [Britons as society?] [global climate change] [global commons] [not too long ago UK determined that the East Anglica brouhaha was irreleveant and that climate changes were legitimate] [followup] [use psci 350] [use it text] [c.f., posted along with this piece in today’s external, crossed in societal: climatechange_scientific_consensus2009.docx] [*]
LONDON — Last month hundreds of environmental activists crammed into an auditorium here to ponder an anguished question: If the scientific consensus on climate change has not changed, why have so many people turned away from the idea that human activity is warming the planet? [*]
Nowhere has this shift in public opinion been more striking than in Britain, where climate change was until this year such a popular priority that in 2008 Parliament enshrined targets for emissions cuts as national law. But since then, the country has evolved into a home base for a thriving group of climate skeptics who have dominated news reports in recent months, apparently convincing many that the threat of warming is vastly exaggerated. [UK’s own version of cluture wars?] [I must say I find the movements to discredit climate change puzzling] [I don’t doubt that particular proponents of how to respond have presented overwrought scenarios but I don’t know of many scientists who actually dispute the data and the inferences: climate change is happening; humans account for some percent (though how much is in dispute); and global community must respond—these are all nearly axiomatic in Nature and similar journals that I have read on occasion] [but there’s a real political battle over what to do and how alarmed, so on?] [*]
A survey in February by the BBC found that only 26 percent of Britons believed that “climate change is happening and is now established as largely manmade,” down from 41 percent in November 2009. A poll conducted for the German magazine Der Spiegel found that 42 percent of Germans feared global warming, down from 62 percent four years earlier. [really interesting: apparently a careful campaign works, at least for short term] [*]
And London’s Science Museum recently announced that a permanent exhibit scheduled to open later this year would be called the Climate Science Gallery — not the Climate Change Gallery as had previously been planned.
“Before, I thought, ‘Oh my God, this climate change problem is just dreadful,’ ” said Jillian Leddra, 50, a musician who was shopping in London on a recent lunch hour. “But now I have my doubts, and I’m wondering if it’s been overhyped.” [of course it’s been overhyped because that is the nature of politics] [but there seems little doubt in climatology science that it’s happening and the human cause a percent] [I told a colleages early last semester how horrible I thought the Anglican email scandal was for this very sort of reason—it did so much damage to the rational discourse] [critics would question whether discourse was every rational, I suppose, and with some reason] [**]
Perhaps sensing that climate is now a political nonstarter, David Cameron, Britain’s new Conservative prime minister, was “strangely muted” on the issue in a recent pre-election debate, as The Daily Telegraph put it, though it had previously been one of his passions.
And a poll in January of the personal priorities of 141 Conservative Party candidates deemed capable of victory in the recent election found that “reducing Britain’s carbon footprint” was the least important of the 19 issues presented to them. [put it in context: I recall a GOP debate in spring(?) 2008, well before McCain was frontrunner] [with a half dozen or so potentials standing at their respective lecterns, the moderator asked if anyone on stage doubted evolution!] [one hand then more than half quickly shot up????] [I can think of few principles of science that have more solid evidence form wide-ranging fields (DNA, anthropology, archeology and palientology, basic biology, biochemistry, …] but the candidates worried they would not be seen as sufficiently compliant to religious tests!] [similarly, the Democrat (Mark Pryor of Arkansas?), has a constituency who are bible betl folk] [he surely doesn’t believe Maher’s premise that creation occurred 5,000 years ago with Adam, Eve, talking snake?] [but he dares not say what he believes?] [*]
Politicians and activists say such attitudes will make it harder to pass legislation like a fuel tax increase and to persuade people to make sacrifices to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
“Legitimacy has shifted to the side of the climate skeptics, and that is a big, big problem,” Ben Stewart, a spokesman for Greenpeace, said at the meeting of environmentalists here. “This is happening in the context of overwhelming scientific agreement that climate change is real and a threat. But the poll figures are going through the floor.”
The lack of fervor about climate change is also true of the United States, where action on climate and emissions reduction is still very much a work in progress, and concern about global warming was never as strong as in Europe. A March Gallup poll found that 48 percent of Americans believed that the seriousness of global warming was “generally exaggerated,” up from 41 percent a year ago. [there’s been an effective campaign to question the science and to marginalize it as radical activism by seculars gone nuts] [and it’s worked!] [*]
Here in Britain, the change has been driven by the news media’s intensive coverage of a series of climate science controversies unearthed and highlighted by skeptics since November. These include the unauthorized release of e-mail messages from prominent British climate scientists at the University of East Anglia that skeptics cited as evidence that researchers were overstating the evidence for global warming and the discovery of errors in a United Nations climate report.
Two independent reviews later found no evidence that the East Anglia researchers had actively distorted climate data, but heavy press coverage had already left an impression that the scientists had schemed to repress data. [*]Then there was the unusually cold winter in Northern Europe and the United States, which may have reinforced a perception that the Earth was not warming. (Data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, a United States agency, show that globally, this winter was the fifth warmest in history.)
Asked about his views on global warming on a recent evening, Brian George, a 30-year-old builder from southeast London, mused, “It was extremely cold in January, wasn’t it?”
In a telephone interview, Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist at the World Bank and a climate change expert, said that the shift in opinion “hadn’t helped” efforts to come up with strong policy in a number of countries. But he predicted that it would be overcome, not least because the science was so clear on the warming trend.
“I don’t think it will be problematic in the long run,” he said, adding that in Britain, at least, politicians “are ahead of the public anyway.” Indeed, once Mr. Cameron became prime minister, he vowed to run “the greenest government in our history” and proposed projects like a more efficient national electricity grid.
Scientists have meanwhile awakened to the public’s misgivings and are increasingly fighting back. An editorial in the prestigious journal Nature said climate deniers were using “every means at their disposal to undermine science and scientists” and urged scientists to counterattack. Scientists in France, the Netherlands and the United States have signed open letters affirming their trust in climate change evidence, including one published on May 7 in the journal Science. [*]
In March, Simon L. Lewis, an expert on rain forests at the University of Leeds in Britain, filed a 30-page complaint with the nation’s Press Complaints Commission against The Times of London, accusing it of publishing “inaccurate, misleading or distorted information” about climate change, his own research and remarks he had made to a reporter.
“I was most annoyed that there seemed to be a pattern of pushing the idea that there were a number of serious mistakes in the I.P.C.C. report, when most were fairly innocuous, or not mistakes at all,” said Dr. Lewis, referring to the report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. [*]
Meanwhile, groups like the wildlife organization WWF have posted articles like “How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic,” providing stock answers to doubting friends and relatives, on their Web sites.
It is unclear whether such actions are enough to win back a segment of the public that has eagerly consumed a series of revelations that were published prominently in right-leaning newspapers like The Times of London and The Telegraph and then repeated around the world.
In January, for example, The Times chastised the United Nations climate panel for an errant and unsupported projection that glaciers in the Himalayas could disappear by 2035. [I think this is the India scientist and dispute on his data?] [*]The United Nations ultimately apologized for including the estimate, which was mentioned in passing within a 3,000-page report in 2007. [*]
Then came articles contending that the 2007 report was inaccurate on a host of other issues, including African drought, the portion of the Netherlands below sea level, and the economic impact of severe storms. Officials from the climate panel said the articles’ claims either were false or reflected minor errors like faulty citations that in no way diluted the evidence that climate change is real and caused by human activity.
Stefan Rahmstorf, a professor at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, successfully demanded in February that some German newspapers remove misleading articles from their Web sites. But such reports have become so common that he “wouldn’t bother” to pursue most cases now, he added.
The public is left to struggle with the salvos between the two sides. “I’m still concerned about climate change, but it’s become very confusing,” said Sandra Lawson, 32, as she ran errands near Hyde Park. [indeed] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:58 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/middleeast/25dubai.html
May 24, 2010
Australia Expels Israeli Official Over Dubai Killing
By JACK HEALY [Australia] [Asia-Pacific] [often Australia tracks rather like Europeans on major world politics issues] [here, Australia has an issue with Israel alleged use of fake passports and papers to send assassination teams to Dubai early in new year] [I really have no idea but the m.o. certainly sounds like Israeli “ex” Mossad or Shin Bet or whatever] [it only needs thin veneer of plausible deniability] [Australi takes public stand; why is unclear?] [*]
The diplomatic fallout from the killing of a Hamas operative in his Dubai hotel room expanded Monday as Australia became the latest country to expel an Israeli official, saying that Israel had played a role in falsifying passports used by suspected members of the assassination team. [*]
Meanwhile, police officers investigating the killing of the Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, issued an arrest warrant for a 62-year-old British man. He appears to be the first suspect to be publicly identified by his real name, rather than an alias. [*]
Interpol identified the latest suspect as Christopher Lockwood of Scotland, and said he was

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/middleeast/25dubai.html
May 24, 2010
Australia Expels Israeli Official Over Dubai Killing
By JACK HEALY [Australia] [Asia-Pacific] [often Australia tracks rather like Europeans on major world politics issues] [here, Australia has an issue with Israel alleged use of fake passports and papers to send assassination teams to Dubai early in new year] [I really have no idea but the m.o. certainly sounds like Israeli “ex” Mossad or Shin Bet or whatever] [it only needs thin veneer of plausible deniability] [Australi takes public stand; why is unclear?] [*]
The diplomatic fallout from the killing of a Hamas operative in his Dubai hotel room expanded Monday as Australia became the latest country to expel an Israeli official, saying that Israel had played a role in falsifying passports used by suspected members of the assassination team. [*]
Meanwhile, police officers investigating the killing of the Hamas official, Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, issued an arrest warrant for a 62-year-old British man. He appears to be the first suspect to be publicly identified by his real name, rather than an alias. [*]
Interpol identified the latest suspect as Christopher Lockwood of Scotland, and said he was wanted in Dubai for “crimes against life and health,” but did not provide any details on how he had been involved. The police in Dubai could not immediately be reached for comment.
Police officials in Dubai have released photographs of more than two dozen people said to be connected to Mr. Mabhouh’s killing, but they have so far named only the suspects using the aliases that were on the forged passports that allowed the assassins and their accomplices to slip out of Dubai after the Jan. 19 killing. [*]
The use of forged passports from Britain, Ireland, Australia and other countries has strained relations between Israel and several of its allies. Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, is widely believed to be behind the assassination of Mr. Mabhouh, a founder of Hamas’s military wing. [as did after Munich massacre, Israel likely fired the Mossad folk who were used (presuming it was Israel)] [that’s been the standard as Israel likes to make connections end before assassination teams move out?] [*]
Investigators trying to unravel his killing have released surveillance video showing suspected members of the assassination team in wigs and fake beards trailing Mr. Mabhouh through the hotel. He was drugged and suffocated, [*]Dubai police officials said.
Israel has not admitted any involvement in the killing. The case has thrown an unwelcome spotlight on Israel’s covert operations, and several countries have condemned the use of the counterfeit passports, which in some cases used the names of dual citizens living in Israel.
European officials have denounced the use of falsified passports in the killing, and Britain in March expelled an Israeli diplomat in a rare rebuke to Israel. [*]
On Monday, Australia’s foreign minister, Stephen Smith, told Parliament that there was “no doubt” Israel was behind the passport forgeries, and said he had asked that a member of the Israeli Embassy in Canberra leave Australia within the week. The Haaretz newspaper said it had learned that the official to be withdrawn was the Mossad representative at the embassy. [*]
“These are not the actions of a friend,” Mr. Smith said in remarks to Parliament. “The government takes this step much more in sorrow than in anger or retaliation.”
In Israel, reaction to Australia’s decision was muted, apparently reflecting a desire to move past the killing. Yigal Palmor, the spokesman for Israel’s Foreign Ministry, said, “We regret the Australian measure, which does not reflect the quality and importance of the relationship between the two countries.” [probably wise to downplay] [*]
Isabel Kershner contributed reporting from Jerusalem.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:57 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/asia/25india.html
May 24, 2010
Indian Premier Stresses Economy and Diplomacy
By JIM YARDLEY [India] [SEA] [Indian patriotism] [rising Asia powers] [of China and India, some says India’s model is less chauvinistic, in so many words] [use India ethos] [use psci 350] [ir text] [India’s domestic problems, irrespective from Pakistan—unusual in and of itself] [Singh demonstrating some leadership vis-à-vis Pakistan and Kashmir] [people need to understand how unpopular any reasonable jesture to Pakistan is typically seen in India domestic politics] [Singh’s party has often gone for cheap nationalism instead of diplomacy but now Singh appears to be demonstrating leadership skills?] [I keep worrying that as Pakistan and India inch closer to negotiation, another horrible attack in India is looming?] [followup] [*]
NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday that India must reach 10 percent annual economic growth in coming years and improve relations withPakistan if it wants to reduce poverty and make more rapid progress.
Mr. Singh, who has staked his personal prestige on improving ties with Pakistan, said India

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/asia/25india.html
May 24, 2010
Indian Premier Stresses Economy and Diplomacy
By JIM YARDLEY [India] [SEA] [Indian patriotism] [rising Asia powers] [of China and India, some says India’s model is less chauvinistic, in so many words] [use India ethos] [use psci 350] [ir text] [India’s domestic problems, irrespective from Pakistan—unusual in and of itself] [Singh demonstrating some leadership vis-à-vis Pakistan and Kashmir] [people need to understand how unpopular any reasonable jesture to Pakistan is typically seen in India domestic politics] [Singh’s party has often gone for cheap nationalism instead of diplomacy but now Singh appears to be demonstrating leadership skills?] [I keep worrying that as Pakistan and India inch closer to negotiation, another horrible attack in India is looming?] [followup] [*]
NEW DELHI — Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Monday that India must reach 10 percent annual economic growth in coming years and improve relations withPakistan if it wants to reduce poverty and make more rapid progress.
Mr. Singh, who has staked his personal prestige on improving ties with Pakistan, said India was working to restore trust with Pakistan so that more serious negotiations could resume on the full range of disputed issues between the nuclear-armed neighbors. [no mean feat given political dynamics in India where anti-Pakistan chauvinism is relatively popular (as is the reverse in Pakistan)] [*]
In July, the foreign ministers of both countries will meet in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, in another attempt to rebuild the diplomatic ties shattered by the 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai, India, by militants based in Pakistan. [*]
“This will be the first major effort to deal with the underlying causes — that is, lack of adequate trust between our two countries,” Mr. Singh told reporters, noting that any progress was contingent on Pakistan’s stopping attacks against India by terrorist groups within its borders. He added, “I’m hopeful this process can move forward.”
Mr. Singh’s comments came during a wide-ranging news conference on the anniversary of India’s coalition national government, which is led by his [Singh’s] [*] Congress Party. After taking power amid great expectations last May, the new government, known as the United Progressive Alliance II, has had a mixed early record, having successfully steered the economy out of the global recession even as Indians have grown angry over high inflation.
Mr. Singh, 77, argued that India had done better than almost every other major economy in blunting the impact of the global downturn — with growth projected at 8.5 percent for the new fiscal year following a record drought in 2009. He predicted that inflation, currently near double digits, would fall to between 5 percent and 6 percent by December.
But he also acknowledged that the government’s performance had not been perfect.
“I would be the first person to admit that we could have done more,” Mr. Singh said in a prepared statement. [*]
Mr. Singh does not often hold major news conferences, and his appearance came as the government was being criticized for its inability to thwart deadly attacks by Maoist rebels operating in the Indian countryside. Earlier this month, militants blew up a passenger bus loaded with police officers and civilians, killing at least 31 people. Last month, Maoists killed 75 paramilitary officers during an ambush in a remote forest. [stunning to me that Maoists exist anywhere] [*]
Mr. Singh denied that the central government had underestimated the Maoists, noting that for the past three years he had called them India’s gravest internal security threat. India’s future prosperity hinged on curbing the Maoists, he said, adding that the national government was coordinating a response with state governments, who are at the forefront of the police response.
Mr. Singh also swatted away the speculation that has ebbed and flowed in Indian political circles of a chill between himself and Sonia Gandhi, president of the Congress Party. It was Mrs. Gandhi who installed Mr. Singh as prime minister when Congress first regained power in 2004 through the first United Progressive Alliance government, and their close working relationship had been considered critical to the party’s success. [*]
Mr. Singh, a former economist, is the face of the pro-growth wing of the party, analysts say, while Mrs. Gandhi focuses on political work and social issues, like national projects to provide work, food and education to the rural poor. But some analysts suspected a rift between them in recent months, and some members of the Congress Party grumbled that the prime minister was not dedicating enough attention to social causes. [they are so herculean in India it’s a wonder he’s accomplished anything] [but it’s in the takeoff state of linear development so incredible things happen?] [*]
When Mrs. Gandhi was reinstated to a cabinet-level position as leader of a national advisory group on social issues, some political commentators interpreted the move as a deliberate curbing of the prime minister’s authority.
“There is not an iota of truth that there is an element of distrust or mistrust between me and the president of the Congress,” Mr. Singh said.
In a lighter moment, one journalist noted that the prime minister was advised by two powerful women — Mrs. Gandhi and his wife — and he was asked whose advice he favored. The prime minister said he was “privileged” to benefit from their advice.
“Both of them deal with different subjects,” he said, “and I welcome the advice from both of them.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:56 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/americas/25brazil.html
May 24, 2010
Iran Deal Seen as Spot on Brazilian Leader’s Legacy
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO [Brazil] [SAmerica] [the Americas] [Latin America] [Brazil not playing along with the plan to isolate Iran] [that of course creates tensions between Brazil and US and Brazil and certain UN Security Council members] [recently, Turkey and Brazil made offer to Iran on storing Iran’s enriched uranium as part of solution to US-led efforts to isolate] [followup] [Lulu de Silva’s tarnished legacy?] [*]
SÃO PAULO — When the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, went to Tehran two weeks ago, he was hoping to defuse a seemingly intractable crisis over Iran’s nuclear program and cement his reputation as an international statesman.
But after Brazil and Turkey forged a deal with Iran to exchange uranium, Mr. da Silva returned home to a cloud of criticism by opinion-makers and lawmakers who questioned whether the mission had been naïve, or worse, detrimental to the nation’s standing. [*]
Some argued that Iran had used him to stall for more time to develop nuclear arms. Others fretted that he had damaged Brazil’s relationship with the United States, and that its own

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/americas/25brazil.html
May 24, 2010
Iran Deal Seen as Spot on Brazilian Leader’s Legacy
By ALEXEI BARRIONUEVO [Brazil] [SAmerica] [the Americas] [Latin America] [Brazil not playing along with the plan to isolate Iran] [that of course creates tensions between Brazil and US and Brazil and certain UN Security Council members] [recently, Turkey and Brazil made offer to Iran on storing Iran’s enriched uranium as part of solution to US-led efforts to isolate] [followup] [Lulu de Silva’s tarnished legacy?] [*]
SÃO PAULO — When the Brazilian president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, went to Tehran two weeks ago, he was hoping to defuse a seemingly intractable crisis over Iran’s nuclear program and cement his reputation as an international statesman.
But after Brazil and Turkey forged a deal with Iran to exchange uranium, Mr. da Silva returned home to a cloud of criticism by opinion-makers and lawmakers who questioned whether the mission had been naïve, or worse, detrimental to the nation’s standing. [*]
Some argued that Iran had used him to stall for more time to develop nuclear arms. Others fretted that he had damaged Brazil’s relationship with the United States, and that its own nuclear program could now come under greater scrutiny by atomic energy regulators.
What could have been one of Mr. da Silva’s crowning achievements as president of a country ascending on the global stage was being characterized as a misstep that could dent the legacy of the popular president.
“The most charitable interpretation is that we were naïve,” said Amaury de Souza, a political analyst in Rio de Janeiro. But “in a game like this, being labeled naïve just shows you have a third-rate diplomacy.” [*]
Brazil and Turkey helped broker an agreement under which Iran agreed to send uranium enriched at a low level abroad, reviving parts of a fuel swap plan proposed in October. But despite the deal, Iranian officials said they planned to continue enriching uranium.
Brazilian officials claimed to be caught flat-footed by that statement, dismissing it as pandering to Iran’s domestic constituency.
Washington quickly rejected the deal as a delaying tactic, and the United Nations Security Council’s five permanent members agreed on a draft resolution for new sanctions against Iran.
But Brazilian officials have continued to vigorously defend the accord, with the nation’s foreign minister, Celso Amorim, saying Friday that it was not too late. “Many things still need to happen,” he told reporters. “It’s difficult, but there is a way out.” [I don’t think it’s particularly surprising that Brazil is attempting to move itself into the club of important powers, and has been for some time] [*]
Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Iranian ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, confirmed that his country had officially notified the agency about the nuclear agreement with a letter on Monday.
“We expect to turn from a course of confrontation to cooperation and come to a negotiating table,” he said in an interview.
Brazilian officials have called the negative response by American officials hypocritical. An adviser to Mr. da Silva said Monday that in the days leading up to Mr. da Silva’s trip to Iran, President Obama sent a letter to the Brazilian leader outlining “various points that were very similar to what ended up in the agreement.” [*]
Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, said Monday that Iran moving forward on the deal with Brazil and Turkey could be a step toward a negotiated settlement. But the basic problem, he said, was the lack of confidence on both sides. [to say the least] [Iran has behaved rather like Saddam did in 1990s through 2002] [to expect different results seems strange at best] [*]
If Western powers continue to dismiss the deal, the repercussions could be serious for Brazil’s reputation, political analysts said, with some warning that it could invite further scrutiny of Brazil’s own nuclear program.
Brazil, with France’s assistance, is building a nuclear-powered submarine. It is widely recognized as abiding by the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, allowing regular inspections by the I.A.E.A., and the nation prohibited the development of nuclear weapons in its most recent constitution. But Brazil has refused to sign an additional protocol of the treaty that would allow for more intrusive inspections. [*]
Even before Mr. da Silva’s visit to Tehran, a former foreign minister, Luiz Felipe Lampreia, said the efforts at diplomacy with Iran could “cause incalculable material and political losses” and raise suspicions about Brazil’s own nuclear program. [that’s the real rub] [it just doesn’t make Silva look particularly sophisticated and possibly even conspiratorial minded to keep robust inspections out of Brazil] [and that creates instability in some of Brazil’s neighbors] [*]
“It is like the person who crosses the street on purpose to step on a banana peel on the opposite sidewalk,” Mr. Lampreia wrote in the newspaper O Globo.
It did not help that after the signing in Tehran, Brazil’s vice president, José Alencar, restated a position he has taken before: that Brazil should have the right to develop a nuclear weapon as an “instrument of dissuasion.” [sadly, everybody now wishes to reinterpret the NPT] [a shame because it’s actually been quite successful considering all those who believed they too needed nuclear deterrence in 1960s-1970s][*]
Despite the concerns, many Brazilians noted that Mr. da Silva had taken the international stage and waded into a top priority of the American agenda.
“President Lula ignored the critics and decided Brazil had as much right and legitimate interests to engage in this issue as the U.S. and other major players,” said Paulo Sotero, director of the Brazil Institute at the Woodrow Wilson Center.
Brazil’s attempts to win over the Iranians have not always played well at home. After Brazil’s minister of commerce jovially offered the yellow jersey of Brazil’s national soccer team to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Tehran last month, Clóvis Rossi, a respected columnist, wrote that the Brazilian jersey was “covered in blood” from Iranian dissidents killed by the Islamic government. [it’s difficult to see how any normal state would help Ahmadinejad restore even a scintilla of credibility] [*]
But many Brazilians seem proud to see Mr. da Silva mixing with world leaders. A poll in March by CNI/Ipope found that 48 percent of Brazilians polled remembered nothing specific about what he was doing. But 46 percent recalled his trips abroad.
Mr. Sotero said Mr. da Silva’s legacy is most likely assured. But as for ties between Brazil and the United States, “We won’t know the extent of the damage to the bilateral relationship for a while.”
Neil MacFarquhar contributed reporting from New York.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:55 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/middleeast/25israel.html
May 24, 2010
Israel Denies It Offered South Africa Warheads
By ISABEL KERSHNER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [long-rumored cooperation with South Africa dating back to CW] [accordingly, Israel is said to have proliferated a la that aborhent regime?] [Peres says categorically that Israel did not such thing?] [followup] [*]
JERUSALEM — The office of Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, strongly denied Monday that Mr. Peres, as Israel’s defense minister, offered to sell nuclear warheads to South Africa in 1975, as reported by The Guardian. [*]
Dan Meridor, Israel’s deputy prime minister and minister of intelligence and atomic energy, told reporters on Monday that he had no particular knowledge of what went on in the 1970s, as he was “not in business” then, but that he believed Mr. Peres.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/middleeast/25israel.html
May 24, 2010
Israel Denies It Offered South Africa Warheads
By ISABEL KERSHNER [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [long-rumored cooperation with South Africa dating back to CW] [accordingly, Israel is said to have proliferated a la that aborhent regime?] [Peres says categorically that Israel did not such thing?] [followup] [*]
JERUSALEM — The office of Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, strongly denied Monday that Mr. Peres, as Israel’s defense minister, offered to sell nuclear warheads to South Africa in 1975, as reported by The Guardian. [*]
Dan Meridor, Israel’s deputy prime minister and minister of intelligence and atomic energy, told reporters on Monday that he had no particular knowledge of what went on in the 1970s, as he was “not in business” then, but that he believed Mr. Peres.
Yossi Beilin, a former leftist minister, also dismissed the newspaper article and the book on which it was based, “The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship With Apartheid South Africa,” by Sasha Polakow-Suransky. [I guess I’ve never been clear on where Israel’s benefit would have accrued?] [proliferation for sake of Israel’s own WMD seems unlikely since it was France and few others who sold Israel its enrichment equipment?] [*]
“The article does not concretely say that Israel wanted to sell nuclear warheads. It is a conclusion,” Mr. Beilin told Israel Radio. “The book itself does not say this explicitly, and I think that the president’s denial puts an end to the subject.” [Israel has done many things that are inexplicable from US perspective but I cannot see this happening] [*]
Israel has a longstanding policy of nuclear ambiguity, neither confirming nor denying that it has nuclear weapons, though it is widely believed to have developed a large arsenal.
The president’s denial was unequivocal, stating that “there exists no basis in reality for the claims” that “Israel negotiated with South Africa the exchange of nuclear weapons.” The Guardian article, the president’s office added, was “based on the selective interpretation of South African documents and not on concrete facts.” [*]
The Guardian said its reporting was based on the “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975. The documents, it said, were uncovered by Mr. Polakow-Suransky in research for the book, and showed that South Africa’s defense minister, P. W. Botha, had asked for nuclear-capable Jericho missiles with the “correct payload,” Mr. Polakow-Suransky said in an interview with Al Jazeera, and that Mr. Peres had responded by offering them “in three sizes.” [it just doesn’t sound right] [*]
The “three sizes,” The Guardian stated, “are believed to refer to the conventional, chemical and nuclear weapons.” That, however, was not detailed in any of the documents shown, though Mr. Polakow-Suransky said the documents made clear that the South Africans had interest in Jericho missiles, “only if they carried a nuclear warhead.”
“Sure, there was some kind of cooperation, and there was talk about weapons,” said Ephraim Asculai, who worked at the Israel Atomic Energy Commission for over 40 years, and who retired in 2001. But to conclude that the “three sizes” necessarily referred to weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear warheads, was a long stretch, [agreed; sounds like researcher had eureka moment then became convinced of his-her own brilliance?] [Israel is notorious for its secrecy and this sounds widely opposite of Israel’s normal m.o.] [*] he said.
In an interview with the South African Press Association, Pik Botha, who served as South Africa’s foreign minister in the waning years of apartheid, also questioned the article’s claims. “I doubt it very much,” said Mr. Botha, who is not related to P. W. Botha. “I doubt whether such an offer was ever made. I think I would have known about it.” [*]
Mr. Peres, an elder statesman, was responsible for establishing Israel’s nuclear program with help from France in the 1950s. [*]
Israelis acknowledge that there was cooperation with South Africa — what Mr. Beilin, the former minister, called “an unholy alliance that Israel, in its isolation, forged with the apartheid regime.” [*]
Shlomo Brom, a senior research fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, said it was well known that there had been cooperation between Israel and South Africa on ballistic missiles. “They paid, we developed them, then they bought,” said Mr. Brom, who served as defense attaché at Israel’s embassy in South Africa from 1988 to 1990. Mr. Brom said that Israel had also “probably” received uranium from South Africa. [*]
But he said he had a hard time believing that Mr. Peres was trying to sell nuclear warheads to the South Africans in 1975. [you never know but I don’t buy it] [*]
Celia W. Dugger contributed reporting from Johannesburg.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:54 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26diplo.html
May 25, 2010
Little Progress on Korea Dispute as China Talks End
By MARK LANDLER [China] [PRC] [global economic meltdown] [China’s increasingly central role in global economics] [Sino-US relations, complex in the best of times (and this is far from best)] [but the interedependency between the US and China had been growing for decade] [China’s growing pains in a complex, interdependent, globalized economy] [use psci 355-455] [followup] [the apparent sinking of ROK ship by DPRK?] [*]
BEIJING — China and the United States wrapped up three days of high-level meetings here on Tuesday with some modest trade and energy agreements, but the United States made little progress on winning China’s backing for international measures against North Korea over the sinking of a South Korean warship. [*]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said China would take “a period of careful consideration in order to determine the best way forward in dealing with North Korea as a result of this incident,” suggesting there was no immediate prospect of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the attack.
Mrs. Clinton tried to put the best face on China’s response, saying President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao had conveyed their sorrow at the loss of the 46 sailors on theCheonan,

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/26/world/asia/26diplo.html
May 25, 2010
Little Progress on Korea Dispute as China Talks End
By MARK LANDLER [China] [PRC] [global economic meltdown] [China’s increasingly central role in global economics] [Sino-US relations, complex in the best of times (and this is far from best)] [but the interedependency between the US and China had been growing for decade] [China’s growing pains in a complex, interdependent, globalized economy] [use psci 355-455] [followup] [the apparent sinking of ROK ship by DPRK?] [*]
BEIJING — China and the United States wrapped up three days of high-level meetings here on Tuesday with some modest trade and energy agreements, but the United States made little progress on winning China’s backing for international measures against North Korea over the sinking of a South Korean warship. [*]
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said China would take “a period of careful consideration in order to determine the best way forward in dealing with North Korea as a result of this incident,” suggesting there was no immediate prospect of a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning the attack.
Mrs. Clinton tried to put the best face on China’s response, saying President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao had conveyed their sorrow at the loss of the 46 sailors on theCheonan, which sank after being torpedoed by what South Korea says was a North Korean submarine. [*]
“We expect to be working together with China in responding to North Korea’s provocative action and promoting stability in the region,” Mrs. Clinton said at a news conference after the meetings ended. “It is absolutely clear that China not only values but is very committed to regional stability.” [huh?] [*]
But Chinese officials did not mention North Korea by name during the entire meeting, and Dai Bingguo, a state councilor who oversees foreign affairs, called for the international community to “calmly and appropriately handle the issue, and avoid escalation of the situation.”
For his part, Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner said that Mr. Hu recognized that moving China’s currency closer to a market rate “is an important part of their broader reform agenda.” But he noted, “This is, of course, China’s choice,” reflecting the fact that China is not likely to loosen the dollar peg on its currency in response to outside prodding. [*]
The United States did get concessions on two issues of importance to American investors in China: a change in rules governing innovation that now disadvantage foreign companies, and a pledge to submit a revised offer to join the World Trade Organization’s agreement on government procurement by 2010. [*]
The two countries also signed a raft of modest agreements on issues ranging from clean energy and shale gas exploration to trade finance between the export-import banks of the United States and China. They also agreed to cooperate on nuclear safety and on preventing infectious diseases.
With few major policy agreements, the United States and China played up the less tangible, personal sides of the relationship. Mrs. Clinton took part Tuesday morning in a ceremony to promote people-to-people exchanges. The Chinese government has agreed to help pay for 10,000 students to study for doctorate degrees in the United States, while President Obama has set a goal of sending 100,000 American students to China over the next four years. [*]
The focus was even lighter in the two encounters Mrs. Clinton had with the Chinese news media. In the first, where she appeared jointly with Mr. Geithner on Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV, the two were quizzed about child-rearing styles and movie-going habits.
Among other topics covered: the T-shirts Mr. Geithner wore when he was a student in Beijing in 1981, the Sunday volleyball games played by Mrs. Clinton and her husbandBill Clinton when they were newlyweds in Fayetteville, Ark., and Mrs. Clinton’s admiration for the treasury secretary’s hair: “He always looks so good, you know. It’s maddening.”
On the CCTV talk-show program “Dialogue,” Mrs. Clinton was asked about how she balanced the demands of work and family and about the preparations for the wedding of her daughter, Chelsea.
There were some tougher questions, including how the United States feels about being the world’s No. 1 debtor nation, whether it was veering into economic protectionism, and whether the Obama administration allowed domestic politics to influence foreign policy.
Mrs. Clinton managed to get in a few points, including the American complaint that new Chinese government procurement laws put foreign technology companies at a disadvantage. She also voiced outrage over North Korea’s sinking of the South Korean warship, something the Chinese government has not done, having expressed skepticism about its neighbor’s role. [China is not skeptical about DPRK’s role] [they simply wish it to go away] [*]
“We are very concerned about the sinking of the North Korean vessel,” Mrs. Clinton said. “The 400-page independent report determined that North Korea did it. Don’t ask me why. I don’t understand why they would do that, but that is the conclusion of the independent investigation.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/middleeast/25iraq.html
May 24, 2010
Assassination and Candidate Prohibitions Roil Iraq
By STEVEN LEE MYERS [-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?] [continued post-parliamentary elections intrigues in -ir] [followup] [*]
BAGHDAD — A newly elected member of Iraq’s Parliament was shot and killed in northern Iraq on Monday night.
The candidate, Bashar Mohammed Hamid, a Sunni mill owner from Mosul, had run with the electoral coalition of Ayad Allawi, a former interim prime minister. [certainly looks like Shi’a retribution of recent AQI attacks and/or other sins from Sunni actors?] [*] The coalition, Iraqiya, narrowly defeated Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s bloc, according to preliminary results still in dispute more than two and a half months after the election.
Mr. Hamid, 35, is the first candidate for Iraq’s new 325-member Parliament to become a

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/middleeast/25iraq.html
May 24, 2010
Assassination and Candidate Prohibitions Roil Iraq
By STEVEN LEE MYERS [-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?] [continued post-parliamentary elections intrigues in -ir] [followup] [*]
BAGHDAD — A newly elected member of Iraq’s Parliament was shot and killed in northern Iraq on Monday night.
The candidate, Bashar Mohammed Hamid, a Sunni mill owner from Mosul, had run with the electoral coalition of Ayad Allawi, a former interim prime minister. [certainly looks like Shi’a retribution of recent AQI attacks and/or other sins from Sunni actors?] [*] The coalition, Iraqiya, narrowly defeated Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki’s bloc, according to preliminary results still in dispute more than two and a half months after the election.
Mr. Hamid, 35, is the first candidate for Iraq’s new 325-member Parliament to become a direct target of the violence, and his killing threatened to add tension to the nation’s unsettled politics.
On the same day, election officials disclosed that two other winning candidates could be disqualified from the new Parliament, including one from Iraqiya.
The new potential disqualifications — and new appeals by two candidates who lost their seats in a partial recount completed last week — added more obstacles to the certification of the elections and the formation of a new government.
Referring to Mr. Hamid’s death, Haidar al-Mulla, a spokesman for Mr. Allawi’s alliance, said, “The security lapse is a very dangerous indication of what is happening in the absence of legislative authority.” He did not blame anyone for the killing, but he accused those raising challenges to the results [*]— Mr. Maliki’s coalition, by inference — of delaying the seating of Parliament and the formation of a new government.
Atheel al-Najafi, the governor of Nineveh Province, complained that the Interior Ministry had denied police protection to the new Parliament members, like Mr. Hamid. Mr. Najafi, allied with Mr. Allawi, said it was premature to say who was responsible, but he added, “Several parties want to strike our list.”
It was not clear if Mr. Hamid’s killing was linked to his political victory. Mosul is one of Iraq’s most violent cities.
Only hours before Mr. Hamid’s death, an American soldier was killed in northern Iraq, the American military announced, without providing any details.
Mr. Hamid’s cousin, Mahmoud al-Qaidi, said two men approached Mr. Hamid’s office next to his home at 7:45 p.m. and joined a meeting in progress with six others. After a few minutes, they drew pistols and fired, hitting Mr. Hamid with seven bullets, the cousin said.
One gunman was reported arrested. [political reconciliation in –ir] [*]
Under Iraq’s election law, Mr. Hamid will be replaced in the new Parliament by another candidate from his electoral bloc, officials said.
The candidates facing disqualification would also be replaced by members of their parties, meaning the preliminary results of the vote on March 7 have remained more or less the same, despite a flurry of legal challenges.
It was not clear why the latest efforts to disqualify newly elected lawmakers were undertaken at what seemed to be the end of the certification process. While Mr. Maliki’s critics have been quick to accuse him of using every means in his quest to remain in office, the circumstances appeared to reflect the convoluted bureaucracy of Iraq.
One of two winning candidates, Furat Muhsin Said, faces disqualification on the grounds that he continues to serve as a major general in Iraq’s Army, even though election law forbids him to do so. In an interview, General Said said he had offered his resignation to the defense minister, but that he had not apparently done so formally, according to election officials.
He won a seat on the election list of a predominantly Shiite bloc, the Iraqi National Alliance, which is now allied with Mr. Maliki but is objecting to his return for a second term as prime minister.
The other candidate facing disqualification, Abdulla Hassan Rashid al-Jibouri, belongs to Mr. Allawi’s coalition and received the highest number of votes in Diyala Province. The Interior Ministry recently informed the election commission that Mr. Jibouri should be disqualified because he had a criminal record, said an election commissioner, Sardar Abdul Karim.
Mr. Jibouri was the region’s governor before fleeing Iraq in 2005. He returned in 2009. Rasim Ismail, an aide, said Mr. Jibouri had been convicted in absentia on charges of fraud dating to his tenure as governor. After the election, Mr. Jibouri again left the country and is now in London, Mr. Ismail said.
Reporting was contributed by Riyadh Mohammed, Duraid Adnan, Yasmine Mousa and Zaid Thaker from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Mosul and Baquba.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/asia/25afghan.html
May 24, 2010
Afghan Spy Agency Accuses Pakistan Agency in Suicide Bombing
By ROD NORDLAND and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [rumors continue to circulate suggesting representatives of factions in Taliban have been meeting with Karzai (or other) representatives in Maldives; said to be looking for political solution] [principals deny all of it, of course] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — A spokesman for Afghanistan’s intelligence agency on Monday accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of involvement in the suicide bombing here last week that killed six NATO soldiers, including four colonels. [interesting: Afghanistan is often accusing Pakistan of nefarious things] [but in this case it may be so?] [*]
While Saeed Ansari, the spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, [*] Afghanistan’s spy agency, did not mention the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency by name, he left no doubt of what he meant.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/asia/25afghan.html
May 24, 2010
Afghan Spy Agency Accuses Pakistan Agency in Suicide Bombing
By ROD NORDLAND and ABDUL WAHEED WAFA [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [rumors continue to circulate suggesting representatives of factions in Taliban have been meeting with Karzai (or other) representatives in Maldives; said to be looking for political solution] [principals deny all of it, of course] [followup] [psci 469] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — A spokesman for Afghanistan’s intelligence agency on Monday accused Pakistan’s intelligence agency of involvement in the suicide bombing here last week that killed six NATO soldiers, including four colonels. [interesting: Afghanistan is often accusing Pakistan of nefarious things] [but in this case it may be so?] [*]
While Saeed Ansari, the spokesman for the National Directorate of Security, [*] Afghanistan’s spy agency, did not mention the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence agency by name, he left no doubt of what he meant.
The remarks came in a news conference announcing the arrest of seven people suspected of organizing the attack last Tuesday, in which a suicide bomber drove a minivan full of explosives into a convoy of armored S.U.V.’s. The blast killed 18 people, including a Canadian and an American colonel, 2 American lieutenant colonels and their 2 American drivers, as well as 12 Afghan civilians.
The seven were also charged with involvement in other suicide attacks in Kabul that killed another 25 people.
“All the explosions and terrorist attacks by these people were plotted from the other side of the border and most of the explosives and materials used for the attacks were brought from the other side to Afghanistan,” [*]Mr. Ansari said.
“Of course, when we say that those attacks were plotted from the other side of the border, the intelligence service of our neighboring country has definitely had its role in equipping and training of this group,” [*]Mr. Ansari said. [there is no question that Pakistan’s ISI has equipped and trained and aided multiple jihadis groups, typically ones whose focus is Kashmir and/or India] [to what extent is that still happening?] [and how often does ISI loose control of its charges?] [*]
Afghan officials have frequently accused the Pakistani intelligence agency of supporting the Afghan Taliban and have voiced suspicions about the agency’s role in Taliban suicide attacks on Indian targets in Kabul. In February, suicide bombers attacked two guesthouses popular with Indians, killing 16 people, and in 2008 a suicide bombing of the Indian Embassy killed 41 people. [while not certain it was plausible that ISI had hand in it?] [*]
The seven suspects, all Afghans ranging in age from 21 to 45, lived in Kabul, and included a schoolteacher, a taxi driver and a trading company employee. One was identified as the second in command of the Taliban suicide bombing cell. Mr. Ansari said they had been arrested in the past week but did not say how the authorities managed to arrest them so quickly. Their commander, he said, was a man known as Dawood, the Taliban’s shadow governor for Kabul.
In addition to the attack on the NATO convoy, the suspects were involved in the attack on the guesthouses in February, he said. Mr. Ansari released names and photos of the suspects as well as videotaped confessions. [*]
In the confessions, each a few minutes long, the men admitted having various roles in the attacks, from providing vehicles to storing explosives. They said the attacks had been organized while they were in the Pakistani city of Peshawar. They did not explicitly implicate the Pakistani I.S.I. or Pakistani officials in their plot, but said they belonged to the Taliban, and had organized their attack from the group’s clandestine offices in Peshawar. [*]
Mr. Ansari did not explain what evidence the Afghan spy agency had of Pakistani involvement in the suicide bombings.
On Monday an Afghan court convicted the former treasurer of the Ministry of Hajj and Religious Affairs, Muhammad Noor, of taking bribes and putting more than half a million dollars into his private bank accounts, allegedly to transfer it to his boss, the acting minister, Sediq Chakari.
Mr. Chakari was dismissed from his ministerial post in December and is believed to be in exile in Britain; he has dual British-Afghan citizenship.
The court sentenced Mr. Noor to 15 years in jail and ordered him to repay 41 million afghanis, about $900,000, to the government. [*]
During the proceedings, Mr. Noor claimed the money in his accounts was his personal property, but the prosecutor noted that civil servants of his rank earn $200 a month.
The ministry helps finance those going on the hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
Sharifullah Sahak contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:52 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.slate.com/id/2254826/
[Accessed 5/24/10 11:02 AM] [*]
FIGHTING WORDS
Kim Jong-il's Willing Accomplices
The West puts up with the evil madman's antics because we're afraid of triggering worse.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, May 24, 2010, at 12:10 PM ET [ROK] [DPRK] [the April sinking of Cheonan] [took some time but ROK has finally announced that it’s determined that DRPK sunk it with torpedo!] [US and ROK apparently consulted on roll out of bill of particulars against DPRK and how to respond] [oddly, unanimated?] [followup of past couple weeks of coverage] [cross in societal] [Hitchens take] [use psci 350] [*]
As one of the few people to have viewed the Korean town of Panmunjom from both sides, I never forget to ask why on earth it is referred to as part of the demilitarized zone. It can make a strong claim for being the most intensively militarized zone on the planet. We aren't allowed to know for sure whether there are nuclear mines in the wide strip of desolation that separates the two Koreas, but we do know that the DMZ was one of the reasons given by the Clinton administration for not signing the treaty forbidding the sowing of

http://www.slate.com/id/2254826/
[Accessed 5/24/10 11:02 AM] [*]
FIGHTING WORDS
Kim Jong-il's Willing Accomplices
The West puts up with the evil madman's antics because we're afraid of triggering worse.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, May 24, 2010, at 12:10 PM ET [ROK] [DPRK] [the April sinking of Cheonan] [took some time but ROK has finally announced that it’s determined that DRPK sunk it with torpedo!] [US and ROK apparently consulted on roll out of bill of particulars against DPRK and how to respond] [oddly, unanimated?] [followup of past couple weeks of coverage] [cross in societal] [Hitchens take] [use psci 350] [*]
As one of the few people to have viewed the Korean town of Panmunjom from both sides, I never forget to ask why on earth it is referred to as part of the demilitarized zone. It can make a strong claim for being the most intensively militarized zone on the planet. We aren't allowed to know for sure whether there are nuclear mines in the wide strip of desolation that separates the two Koreas, but we do know that the DMZ was one of the reasons given by the Clinton administration for not signing the treaty forbidding the sowing of mines. [*]"But I will delve one yard below their mines," says Prince Hamlet, "and blow them at the moon." True to this ambition, the North Koreans have several times been caught digging tunnels under the DMZ that were deep and wide enough to carry invading divisions of infantry and artillery. [and smaller ones for odd infiltration missions] [lots] [*]
The military flags displayed at both ends of the Panmunjom strip are testimony to the fact of a cease-fire line, because the Korean War never ended. This is at best an armistice. And we are regularly reminded that the Korean peninsula could explode into a full-scale war [*]or, rather, resumption of war, at any moment. The most recent reminder was the sinking of the Cheonan, a South Korean frigate, in March. After a very detailed and protracted investigation of this incident, it was announced last week that the warship had been hit by a North Korean torpedo. Everybody already knew this, so the only real question was why the unavoidable finding had taken so long. [*]
The answer is not hard to discover. So volatile and unpredictable and hysterical has the North Korean regime become that it was believed in some quarters that even the finding might trigger a fresh escalation—an escalation that might pass the nuclear threshold before anyone could draw breath. [**] Richard Nixon used to ask his sick and compliant operative Henry Kissinger to imply to the Russians and Chinese that he might be such a touchy president that he was capable of anything—this loopy strategy became known in policy circles as "the madman theory of war." In the case of Kim Jong-il, nobody has any difficulty believing that he is delusional and worse, so the blackmail keeps on working. [his regime uses manufactured crises to rally DPRK folk, in perpetuity, around the regime that otherwise has little other legitimacy] [*]
North Korea is thought to have enough purely conventional weapons to destroy South Korea's capital, Seoul, which is located very close to the cease-fire line or "border." [commonly presumed; recently I read that only about a third of DPRK’s might is usable at a given time?] [*] It has also built a series of dams, which, if opened or blown, could flood and drown a good part of South Korea. [too true] [*] (A recent apparently accidental such flood, on a smallish scale, at least served to remind the South Koreans what the stakes were.) So this is the way we live now: conditioned by the awareness that no North Korean provocation, however egregious, can be confronted, lest it furnish the occasion or pretext for something truly barbarous and insane. [particularly well put; concise and succinct and wholly accurate even in its sad reality that we all accept it because the situation is so awful, no alternative exists] [*]
Another version of our complicity with the Dear Leader is to be found with his oppression and starvation of his "own" people. It is felt that we cannot just watch them die, so we send food aid in return for an ever-receding prospect of good behavior in respect of the Dear Leader's nuclear program. [also sadly accurate] [the thing is, what president is going to say “Okay, I willing to write off this generation of North Koreans in order to get this policy right?”] [*] The ratchet effect is all one way: Nuclear tests become ever more flagrant and the emaciation of the North Korean people ever more pitiful. We have unwittingly become members of the guard force that patrols the concentration camp that is the northern half of the peninsula.
The dirty secret here is that no neighboring power really wants the North Korean population released from its awful misery. Here are millions of stunted and unemployable people, traumatized and deformed by decades of pointless labor on the plantations of a mad despot. The South Koreans do not really want these hopeless cases on the soil of their flourishing consumer society. The Chinese, who have a Korean-speaking province that borders North Korea, are likewise unwilling to suffer the influx of desperate people that is in our future. I can't see the United States accepting them in its present mood. Kim Jong-il's junta knows this, as it knows that we are not prepared to fight him. So the deliberate mass starvation and the nuclear blackmail are two aspects of the same depraved system. [and have been for decades] [*](Incidentally, if that system doesn't deserve to be called evil, I don't know what does.)
The evil and the irrationality of the system are also directly related. American intelligence has apparently reported to President Barack Obama that the murder of 46 South Korean sailors was a premeditated action on the part of Kim Jong-il himself, in order to gratify the morale of his military elite and to advance the cause of one of his sons as his impending dynastic replacement. [that, at least, is the rumor] [*]It seems that in April the Dear Leader personally visited and congratulated the naval unit that carried out the torpedo attack. This kind of lethal irresponsibility may seem demented, but I don't know of anyone who studies North Korea professionally who doesn't regard it as at least a plausible explanation. And it seems that the provisional response from Washington has been to urge restraint on the elected government in Seoul, [it’s hardly been the case that the US has needed to urge caution] [ROK is deathly afraid of saying something too directly] [I think it is at least as likely that the ROK has urged caution on US] [*] which indeed has little choice but to confine itself to diplomatic initiatives and the dropping of such economic incentives for good behavior as Seoul can still claim to exert. This may well serve to fend off the latest crisis and prevent it from ballooning into full-out madness, but it doesn't excuse us from the realization that we become accomplices in evil every time we seek to soothe the unslakable appetites of the crime family that sits in Pyongyang. [I think Mr. Hitchens has put it quite well] [and he’s implied that action is necessary to change this intolerable situation] [I just wish he’d offer his suggestion?] [the alternatives are so bad, that president after president has done the same for decades] [one might even applaud the W. Bush administration fo speaking more directly than most: Bush called him a pygmy and implied that the US might be ready to kill him or attack or whatever] [sadly, while it made Dear Leader nervous for some period, the ultimate result was that it confirmed DPRK’s knowledge that not even W. Bushed was nutty enough to do anything other than talk tough—hardly a policy of positive distinction?] [*]
Like Slate on Facebook. Follow Slate and the Slate Foreign Desk on Twitter.
Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair and the Roger S. Mertz media fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Article URL: http://www.slate.com/id/2254826/
Copyright 2010 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC

Posted by Kent Bolton at 11:19 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052303880.html
Lawmakers divided on 'don't ask, don't tell' as votes near
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 24, 2010; A03 [Obama administration] [111th congress, 2nd session] [from Obama’s NSC (at least on occasion) to the broad bureaucracy] [the Clinton ear policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”] [growing pressures to change it] [Obama has made some jestures and congress responds in various ways] [use psci355, 455] [***]
Key votes pending in Congress this week on whether to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" law that prohibits openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the military remain too close to call, advocates on both sides say.
The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to vote by the end of the week [*]on an amendment to the annual defense spending bill that would end "don't ask, don't tell," which Congress passed in 1993. Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) favors a repeal, but it is unclear whether he has enough votes, with six senators on the panel considered undecided, legislative sources said. [last I remember Gates said let him work it through the channels] [if accurate, I’m inclined to let him have some time as it would likely make the transition smoother?] [in the meantime, people do get hurt and I understand why they may not wish

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052303880.html
Lawmakers divided on 'don't ask, don't tell' as votes near
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 24, 2010; A03 [Obama administration] [111th congress, 2nd session] [from Obama’s NSC (at least on occasion) to the broad bureaucracy] [the Clinton ear policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”] [growing pressures to change it] [Obama has made some jestures and congress responds in various ways] [use psci355, 455] [***]
Key votes pending in Congress this week on whether to repeal the "don't ask, don't tell" law that prohibits openly gay men and lesbians from serving in the military remain too close to call, advocates on both sides say.
The Senate Armed Services Committee is expected to vote by the end of the week [*]on an amendment to the annual defense spending bill that would end "don't ask, don't tell," which Congress passed in 1993. Chairman Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) favors a repeal, but it is unclear whether he has enough votes, with six senators on the panel considered undecided, legislative sources said. [last I remember Gates said let him work it through the channels] [if accurate, I’m inclined to let him have some time as it would likely make the transition smoother?] [in the meantime, people do get hurt and I understand why they may not wish to wait longer?] [*]
The House is expected to vote on a similar measure this week, based on a repeal proposal sponsored by Rep. Patrick J. Murphy (D-Pa.), an Iraq war veteran. The House Armed Services Committee declined to act on Murphy's bill in passing its version of the defense spending measure last week, but Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has told gay advocacy groups that she will allow a floor vote if there is enough support in favor of a repeal.
"This is our 'all hands on deck' moment," said Aubrey Sarvis, executive director for the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network, which represents gays who have been drummed out of the armed forces. "For repeal to succeed, it is critical that all proponents for full repeal weigh in now, including the White House. We are only a few days away from this historic vote." [*]
In his State of the Union address in January, President Obama called on Congress to repeal "don't ask, don't tell." Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have subsequently told Congress that they support allowing gays to serve openly, raising hopes among advocates who have fought against the law for years.
Since then, however, momentum has stalled, with Congress slow to act amid conflicting signals from the White House on how to proceed. [*]
In his January speech, Obama said he would work with Congress to repeal the law "this year." But the White House has also lent support to an April 30 letter from Gates and Mullen to Rep. Ike Skelton (D-Mo.), chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, urging lawmakers not to lift the ban until after the Defense Department has finished a study on how to integrate gays in the military. [*]That study is scheduled to be completed by December.
"They're not pushing now," said J. Alexander Nicholson III, executive director of Servicemembers United, an association of gay active-duty troops and veterans. "Every shred of evidence we have about what the White House wants is that they are going to wait until next year." [*]
Supporters of ending "don't ask, don't tell" say they are lining up behind a measure that would repeal the law but not take effect until late next year, after the military finishes its integration study. Some lawmakers had called for a moratorium on the expulsion of gay service members until then, but that effort has fizzled, Nicholson said.
He said advocates fear that their window of opportunity to change the law is closing fast; Republicans, many of whom favor keeping "don't ask, don't tell," are hoping to make substantial gains in November's congressional elections.
"We absolutely do think that we are running a very big risk if we don't get it done in this Congress," Nicholson said. "The environment may not be suitable to passing it next year."
In the meantime, those on the other side of the debate are pressing Congress to maintain the status quo. "We feel strongly that the current policy has served the U.S. military well for 17 years and it would not be wise to make a major cultural change in the middle of two wars," [huh?] [whatever one’s position, it’s hardly the case that the policy has worked?] [*] Clarence E. Hill, national commander of the American Legion, wrote in letters Wednesday to Pelosi and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner (R-Ohio).
Elaine Donnelly, president of the Center for Military Readiness, another group opposed to changing the law, said the April 30 letter from Gates and Mullen had persuaded some fence-sitting lawmakers to hold off. "There are many pro-military Democrats who do not support this agenda," she said of the repeal effort. [how about, it’s the right thing to do?] [*] © 2010 The Washington Post Co

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/middleeast/24awlaki.html
May 23, 2010
U.S.-Born Cleric Justifies the Killing of Civilians
By ERIC LIPTON [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [gsave and counterinsurgency strategy] [AfPak] [Obama admin and its substantial continuity with its predecessor] [NSC levels and interface with bureaucracy that implements decisions from NSC] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [New Mexico’s favorite son, none other than the ubiquitous Sheik al Awalaki] [America’s “fatwa” on the gentleman who has made Yemen his home and has called now for killing of Americans] [*]
WASHINGTON — In a newly released video, Anwar al-Awlaki, the Muslim cleric believed to be an inspiration for a series of recent terrorism plots, justifies the mass killing of American civilians and taunts the authorities to come find him in Yemen. [so what?] [why even give him the press?] [*]
Terrorism experts said on Sunday that the full video interview, excerpts of which had previously been released, shows an increasing radicalization by Mr. Awlaki, an American-born imam who this year became the first United States citizen to be placed on a Central Intelligence Agency list of terrorists approved as a target for killing. [frankly, I don’t have a

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/middleeast/24awlaki.html
May 23, 2010
U.S.-Born Cleric Justifies the Killing of Civilians
By ERIC LIPTON [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [residuals from previous . . . ] [gsave and counterinsurgency strategy] [AfPak] [Obama admin and its substantial continuity with its predecessor] [NSC levels and interface with bureaucracy that implements decisions from NSC] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [New Mexico’s favorite son, none other than the ubiquitous Sheik al Awalaki] [America’s “fatwa” on the gentleman who has made Yemen his home and has called now for killing of Americans] [*]
WASHINGTON — In a newly released video, Anwar al-Awlaki, the Muslim cleric believed to be an inspiration for a series of recent terrorism plots, justifies the mass killing of American civilians and taunts the authorities to come find him in Yemen. [so what?] [why even give him the press?] [*]
Terrorism experts said on Sunday that the full video interview, excerpts of which had previously been released, shows an increasing radicalization by Mr. Awlaki, an American-born imam who this year became the first United States citizen to be placed on a Central Intelligence Agency list of terrorists approved as a target for killing. [frankly, I don’t have a problem with the US dropping a couple of hellfire missiles on his abode] [*]
In his remarks, Mr. Awlaki praises the attempted Christmas Day bombing of a Northwest flight headed to Detroit.
“Those who could have been killed in that plane are a drop in the sea,” Mr. Awlaki said, in a translation provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors statements by jihadists. “And we should treat them the same way they treat us and attack them the same way they attack us.”
Mr. Awlaki has been on record defending attacks on American military targets, both overseas and within the United States. He has praised the Fort Hood, Tex., shootings, carried out in November by an Army psychiatrist with whom Mr. Awlaki had exchanged e-mail messages. But the new video shows that Mr. Awlaki is now urging his supporters not to distinguish between military and civilian targets, [*]citing what he claims are “no less than a million women and children” who had been killed as a result of American military action in Afghanistan and elsewhere. [the lack of standards for the clergy in Islam—on the one hand admirable but different than most others—and who may issues a fatwa to be followed it an issues as they compete with others] [they seem to escalate via their attempts to for farther than the last imam did] [it’s an interesting dynamic] [they Wahhabi institutions get involves, the Saudi state for instance, and start having other imam issues fatwas the other way] [it create a confusing array of counter injunctions for we outsiders?] [and in such a huge religion (1.2 billion?) is that not destined to create problems?] [especially with the Shi’a-Sunni schism, among others] [*]
Mr. Awlaki’s sermons have drawn followers in spots around the world. A senior administration official said on Sunday that it had become clear that Mr. Awlaki “is not just someone who seeks to inspire others to undertake murderous acts, but has been and continues to be operational in plans against our interests and against the homeland.” [yes, he would appear to fit the legal definition of treasonous?] [*]
The interview also shows how tight the collaboration has become between Mr. Awlaki and the Yemen-based group known as Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, [*]said Richard Wachtel, a spokesman for the Middle East Media Research Institute, which also translated the remarks, which were released by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula. Qaeda leaders there recently released a statement defending Mr. Awlaki and offering him protection. [far less clear is the relationship between al Qaeda AP and al Qaeda central???] [*]
In the video, Mr. Awlaki said he had cut off telephone communications to avoid being detected.
“If the Americans want me, let them search for me,” he said. “Allah is the best protector.” [yes, well, I suppose we shall see] [UAVs appear to be quite good defeaters of said protection but so far he’s been, shal we say, “blessed”?] [rather similar to OBL] [*]
Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, made it clear on Sunday that the search for Mr. Awlaki was very much underway. “We are actively trying to find him and many others throughout the world that seek to do our country and to do our interests great harm,” [*]Mr. Gibbs said on the CBS News program “Face the Nation.”

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052303855.html
In the absence of debate, Iraq and Afghanistan go unnoticed
By Fred Hiatt
Monday, May 24, 2010; A19 [oped] [the neoconservative on the Post’s editorial board] [he’s been fairly tough on Obama] [from my perspective, unreasonably as Obama has done so much the same as Bush that it’s rather stunning (though I predicted same)] [here, he’s apparently upset that so few congressional races are featuring war (like many neocons, he’s unhappy unless people constantly (and I think recklessly) bandy about “existential” war] [use psci 355-455] [a major complaint I have with some of my neoconservative friends is their obsession with rhetoric; so obsessed are they that they appear to elavate rhetoric above substance (from which I conclude it’s really about politics)] [*]
You would hardly know, from following this year's election campaign or the extensive coverage of last week's primaries, that America is at war. [really?] [how about all the speeches Obama has given where he’s explicitly said so? How about all the pronouncments

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052303855.html
In the absence of debate, Iraq and Afghanistan go unnoticed
By Fred Hiatt
Monday, May 24, 2010; A19 [oped] [the neoconservative on the Post’s editorial board] [he’s been fairly tough on Obama] [from my perspective, unreasonably as Obama has done so much the same as Bush that it’s rather stunning (though I predicted same)] [here, he’s apparently upset that so few congressional races are featuring war (like many neocons, he’s unhappy unless people constantly (and I think recklessly) bandy about “existential” war] [use psci 355-455] [a major complaint I have with some of my neoconservative friends is their obsession with rhetoric; so obsessed are they that they appear to elavate rhetoric above substance (from which I conclude it’s really about politics)] [*]
You would hardly know, from following this year's election campaign or the extensive coverage of last week's primaries, that America is at war. [really?] [how about all the speeches Obama has given where he’s explicitly said so? How about all the pronouncments that have effectively doubled down on Bush’s policy?] [*]
Those elected to Congress in November will face fateful decisions on the continued deployment, or not, of U.S. forces in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet those wars, and the wisdom of committing to or withdrawing from them, have hardly been mentioned in the hard-fought campaigns of the spring.
Look at some candidate Web sites. Sen. Blanche Lincoln, forced into a runoff in Arkansas's Democratic primary, lists 10 categories of issues, none of which are defense or national security. Under "Veterans and National Guard," she does mention the war in Iraq but not the war in Afghanistan. For her opponent, Lt. Gov. Bill Halter, "National Security, Veterans and the Military" comes eighth on a list of nine issues and begins, "Arkansas is home to military bases that are critical to our nation's security." "Ensuring success in Iraq and Afghanistan" is the entirety of his platform on those conflicts.
In Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak, who rode a wave of opposition toward the Iraq war into Congress in 2006, includes defense (fifth out of five topics) on his site but writes mostly about properly equipping and caring for the force and accountability in weapons purchasing. For his Republican opponent, Pat Toomey, "National Security" comes 10th out of 10 (just after "Second Amendment") with no mention, as far as I could see, of Iraq or Afghanistan. [somebody ought to remind Haitt that campaigns, even for the senate, are local—it’s all local and people hurting economically are tired of thinking singlely about the wars] [*]
In a time of joblessness and home foreclosures, it's not surprising that politics would focus on the economy more than on national security. And maybe, in a time of toxic partisanship, we should be grateful for this inattention to the wars, taking the absence of debate as a sign of rare bipartisan consensus. Certainly few would miss the vitriol of the Iraq debate of a few years back.
Yet there's something disquieting about the quiet. For one thing, it's yet another reminder of American society's separation from its professional military. As the November elections approach, candidates across the spectrum will ostentatiously wear their support for "our warriors" like body armor, which I suppose is better than the alternative. But as the troops become props, the real men and women who are sweating and taking fire and sleeping on hard ground 7,000 miles away are oddly missing from the conversation. [with due respect, I know of no group that has abused the troops as props more than neoconservatives] [it constant—the irony not lost on some of us is how few have served (hence the term “chicken hawks”] [*]
It also seems likely that apparent bipartisan consensus masks a shallowness of support, an unease that permeates wings of both parties but that, for different reasons, neither party feels ready to politically exploit.
President Obama gets both credited and blamed for the absence of debate. A European diplomat I respect welcomes the political cease-fire and attributes it to Obama having masterfully mollified both Afghanistan hawks (with a surge) and doves (with a guaranteed date to begin withdrawing), defusing disagreement. [instead, Hiatt apparently favors Obama preaching on AfPak and standing on rhetorical principle?] [*]
Some conservatives look at the flip side of that record and criticize the president for having had too little to say about the war since crafting his plan last fall -- for not reminding Americans more frequently of the sacrifice the troops are making and the reasons they are fighting. [sounds familiar] [the same critics he decired above for their superheated rhetoric (which I loathed at the time) use to say exactly that about Bush: why hadn’t Bush, they’d sometime say, asked the nation as a whole to sacrifice for the two wars, etc] [**] Although Obama returned to West Point on Saturday to deliver a commencement address, he does not style himself as a "war president," and many Americans seem content with that; unlike his predecessor, Obama is not chided for playing golf in his off hours. [incredible how angry he and other neconservatives are] [Obama does not hyperventilate as Bush did—across the entire range of issues] [and they just hate it] [*]
As long as events cooperate, maybe none of this will matter much. If the Iraqis form a government and U.S. troops can safely begin coming home, if the surge in Afghanistan yields progress, if American casualties do not spike, then war can be 10th out of 10 on the political priority list and the job will still get done.
But wars rarely go according to plan. And if the absence of debate reflects not full-bodied consensus but a wishful averting of eyes, then a spectacular attack on U.S. forces, or even a U.S. surge that yields fruit more slowly than hoped, could tip public opinion abruptly. In that case even political leaders who believe in the mission, having been AWOL from the debate, will have difficulty tipping it back. [I still don’t know quite what is bothering him?] [it seems to be that things are going relatively well and Obama has done things quietly and without a lot of silliness about god’s will for Obama to save the country and as war president?] [when Bush did those things, I tried not to be too critical because I know spiritual people and I sort of undertand how such things can happen] [but to be upset because not every president does it?] [to me, very strange] [*]
fredhiatt@washpost.com © 2010 The Washington Post Co

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:13 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/opinion/24mon3.html
May 23, 2010
Are They Paying Attention?
[editorial] [climate change] [hobby horse for Times] [Post has been a bit more temperate on same] [followup] [use psci 350] [*]
The effort to combat global warming has flagged as other crises have commanded the attention of politicians and the public. New reports from the National Academy of Sciences offer persuasive evidence that it would be folly to put off dealing with the problem any longer.
We hope the reports will jolt the United States Senate into moving forward on an energy and climate bill. They provide an authoritative rebuttal to skeptics in the Senate and industry who have pounced upon small errors in the 2007 report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to suggest that the whole thing is a hoax. [*]
The academy’s conclusion is clear: [*]“Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.” The reports acknowledge that while the magnitude of these risks — sea level

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/opinion/24mon3.html
May 23, 2010
Are They Paying Attention?
[editorial] [climate change] [hobby horse for Times] [Post has been a bit more temperate on same] [followup] [use psci 350] [*]
The effort to combat global warming has flagged as other crises have commanded the attention of politicians and the public. New reports from the National Academy of Sciences offer persuasive evidence that it would be folly to put off dealing with the problem any longer.
We hope the reports will jolt the United States Senate into moving forward on an energy and climate bill. They provide an authoritative rebuttal to skeptics in the Senate and industry who have pounced upon small errors in the 2007 report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to suggest that the whole thing is a hoax. [*]
The academy’s conclusion is clear: [*]“Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for a broad range of human and natural systems.” The reports acknowledge that while the magnitude of these risks — sea level rise, drought, disease, the destruction of marine- and land-based ecosystems — are difficult to predict, society would be wise to move swiftly and aggressively to minimize them.
The academy says that between 2012 and 2050 the nation should produce no more than a total of 200 billion tons of greenhouse gases, ideally considerably less. (At the current rate of seven billion tons a year, the country would produce 266 billion tons.) The longer we wait to begin reducing emissions, the academy adds, the harder and more costly it will be to reach the target. It recommends putting a price on emissions as well as investments in energy efficiency, alternative fuels and developing cleaner technologies. [sort of the key: the US ought not to beat itself up over situation but it should also start acting in its self interest where possible—it will get costlier and harder to fix and 2, 3, 4, 5, 10 years] [*]
A bill that would give this country a decent shot at achieving these goals passed the House last year. A companion bill, recently introduced in the Senate, is going nowhere. Indeed, the Senate continues to flirt with a retrograde proposal introduced by Lisa Murkowski of Alaska that would undermine the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gases.
That authority will become even more important if Congress fails to act. That the Senate would even think of undercutting it is astonishing.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:13 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/opinion/24mon1.html
May 23, 2010
Tainted Justice
[editorial] [Obama white house] [federal judiciary] [military tribunals versus federal courts] [the tweaking the justice is trying to work out with congress] [so forth] [use psci 355-455, 469] [*]
If the Obama administration wants to demonstrate that it is practical and just to try some terrorism suspects in military tribunals instead of federal courts, it is off to a very poor start.
Justice Department and Pentagon officials have chosen a troubling case for the first trial under the revisions that were adopted to the Military Commissions Act in 2009 — a Toronto-born Guantánamo Bay detainee named Omar Khadr. [*]Mr. Khadr, 23, has been in detention since he was 15, when he allegedly threw a hand grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan that fatally wounded Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer. [the detainee who was 15 when picked up] [*]
Mr. Khadr was not a mere bystander. He was indoctrinated into armed conflict by his

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/opinion/24mon1.html
May 23, 2010
Tainted Justice
[editorial] [Obama white house] [federal judiciary] [military tribunals versus federal courts] [the tweaking the justice is trying to work out with congress] [so forth] [use psci 355-455, 469] [*]
If the Obama administration wants to demonstrate that it is practical and just to try some terrorism suspects in military tribunals instead of federal courts, it is off to a very poor start.
Justice Department and Pentagon officials have chosen a troubling case for the first trial under the revisions that were adopted to the Military Commissions Act in 2009 — a Toronto-born Guantánamo Bay detainee named Omar Khadr. [*]Mr. Khadr, 23, has been in detention since he was 15, when he allegedly threw a hand grenade during a firefight in Afghanistan that fatally wounded Sgt. First Class Christopher Speer. [the detainee who was 15 when picked up] [*]
Mr. Khadr was not a mere bystander. He was indoctrinated into armed conflict by his father, a member of Osama bin Laden’s circle who was killed by Pakistani forces in 2003. But if his trial goes forward this summer as scheduled, he will be the first person in decades to be tried by a Western nation for war crimes allegedly committed as a child. [*]
That has drawn justified criticism from United Nations officials and civil liberties and human rights groups. The conditions of Mr. Khadr’s imprisonment have been in clear violation of the Geneva Conventions and international accords on the treatment of children. [I haven’t though a lot about him but I’m not quite sure what purpose they think this serves?] [is it simply they don’t know what else to do with him?] [*]
During a recent pretrial hearing at Guantánamo, it emerged that his initial questioning at Afghanistan’s Bagram prison occurred while he was sedated for pain and shackled to a stretcher following his hospitalization for severe wounds suffered in the fighting.
His first interrogator, identified at the hearing only as Interrogator One, was an Army sergeant later convicted of detainee abuse in another case. He used threats of rape and death to frighten the teenaged Omar Khadr into talking. [*]Another witness recalled seeing him hooded and handcuffed to his cell with his arms held painfully above his shoulders. When the hood was removed, he testified, he could see that the teenager was crying.
In January, the Supreme Court of Canada condemned the questioning of Mr. Khadr by a Canadian official who then shared the results with American prosecutors. The ruling cited Mr. Khadr’s lack of access to counsel and his inclusion in the military’s notorious “frequent flier” program, which used sleep deprivation to elicit statements about serious criminal charges. [I remember that and am sure it’s in archive] [*]
A ruling from the military judge on the admissibility of Mr. Khadr’s statements is not expected for several weeks. But there’s already a bad lingering taste from the hearing, which began just hours after Defense Secretary Robert Gates formally approved a new set of rules for the tribunals and before Mr. Khadr’s lawyers or the judge had a chance to review them. The rules are an improvement over those that governed the Bush commissions, but they have flaws, including the use of hearsay.
During the hearing, the Pentagon barred four reporters from covering any military commission because they printed the name of Interrogator One, even though it has been public for years and is readily available on the Internet. The administration needs to restore the reporters’ credentials. [*]
It also needs to press forward with negotiations on a plea deal. The evidence that Mr. Khadr threw the deadly hand grenade is not clear-cut. Even if it were, it would be impossible to overlook his abuse in custody, and status as a juvenile, which deprived him of mature judgment. [it seems a plea would be SOP for US where a kid is involved] [he did something seriously wrong and that mustn’t be overlooked] [but to treat a kids (then 14-15) under the circumstances where he all his role models were jihadis seems sort of weird] [*]
After Mr. Khadr’s eight-year ordeal, it would be no disrespect to Sergeant Speer to return Mr. Khadr to his home country under terms designed to protect public safety and strive for his rehabilitation. [does Canada have such a rehabilitatio program and what are its stats?][*]
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/opinion/24mon3.html

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:12 AM | Permalink

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/americas/24jamaica.html
May 23, 2010
Jamaica Declares Emergency Amid Unrest
By MARC LACEY [Jamaica] [Caribbean] [note: first time I’ve noted Jamaica even though this began to appear late last week] [instability and violence racking the island] [Jamaica has declared a state of emergency?] [fear in US of spreading to other islands?] [*]
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Mexico — The Jamaican government declared a state of emergency in portions of Kingston, the capital, on Sunday after supporters of a gang leader who is wanted in the United States on gun and drug charges attacked three police stations in an attempt to pressure the government to let him remain free, [*]officials said.
In the western Kingston neighborhood where the gang leader, Christopher Coke, is holed up, residents set up barricades and exchanged gunfire with the police. The Daily Gleaner reported that gunmen allied with Mr. Coke, who is commonly known as Dudus, were roaming the streets with high-powered rifles. [*]
Amid growing unrest, the government met in an emergency session to try to keep the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/americas/24jamaica.html
May 23, 2010
Jamaica Declares Emergency Amid Unrest
By MARC LACEY [Jamaica] [Caribbean] [note: first time I’ve noted Jamaica even though this began to appear late last week] [instability and violence racking the island] [Jamaica has declared a state of emergency?] [fear in US of spreading to other islands?] [*]
SAN MIGUEL DE ALLENDE, Mexico — The Jamaican government declared a state of emergency in portions of Kingston, the capital, on Sunday after supporters of a gang leader who is wanted in the United States on gun and drug charges attacked three police stations in an attempt to pressure the government to let him remain free, [*]officials said.
In the western Kingston neighborhood where the gang leader, Christopher Coke, is holed up, residents set up barricades and exchanged gunfire with the police. The Daily Gleaner reported that gunmen allied with Mr. Coke, who is commonly known as Dudus, were roaming the streets with high-powered rifles. [*]
Amid growing unrest, the government met in an emergency session to try to keep the lawlessness from spinning out of control. The authorities, who said other gangs appeared to be coming to Mr. Coke’s aid, called on him to turn himself in for a hearing on extradition to the United States.
“The police are publicly calling on Christopher Coke, otherwise called ‘Dudus,’ ‘Short Man’ and ‘President,’ to hand himself over,” a police statement said. “The security forces wish to make it very clear that they view the barricading as an act of cowardice on the part of selfish criminal elements, mainly Mr. Coke.” [*]
Mr. Coke is accused by federal prosecutors in the United States of running a major cocaine and marijuana trafficking operation from Tivoli Gardens, the neighborhood in Kingston that he controls. [it almost sounds made up but it’s deadly serious] [*] The State Department sought his extradition last August to New York, where he is accused in United States District Court of trafficking drugs and using the proceeds to buy guns in the United States and send them back to his allies in Jamaica.
Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who represents Tivoli Gardens in the Jamaican Parliament, initially balked at sending him to the United States. He argued that results of the wiretapping conducted by Jamaican law enforcement officials that led to Mr. Coke’s indictment were illegally obtained by American prosecutors.
After protests from the Obama administration and from opposition politicians, Mr. Golding agreed to comply with the extradition request. It was then that Mr. Coke’s neighbors in Tivoli Gardens, who say he keeps the peace in the neighborhood, began striking out at the government.
American prosecutors say that Mr. Coke is the leader of the Shower Posse, a drug gang that his father, Lester Coke, used to lead. The gang is accused of hundreds of drug-related killings in the United States in the 1980s. Federal officials sought to extradite Lester Coke to face narcotics and murder charges, but he died in a mysterious fire in his prison cell in 1992 before he could be turned over to the United States.
“It’s kind of like déjà vu,” said Curtis Scoon, a movie producer working on a film about the Shower Posse. “His father was in the same situation.” [this Jamaican organized crime has been an issue for many years] [it’s usually latent but occasionally becomes visible] [*]
Both of Jamaica’s major political parties have fostered ties with neighborhood gangs, which turn out the vote in exchange for political favors.
Christopher Coke, who runs a consulting firm that receives sizable contracts from the government, is linked to the Jamaican Labor Party led by Mr. Golding. Until recently, Mr. Coke was represented by a prominent senator chosen by the ruling party, Tom Tavares-Finson, a criminal defense lawyer. In an interview, he had described his client as a legitimate businessman, not the monstrous criminal described by American prosecutors.
Ross Sheil contributed reporting from Kingston, Jamaica.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/asia/25diplo.html
May 24, 2010
Clinton and Geithner Face Hurdles in China Talks
By MARK LANDLER [China] [PRC] [global economic meltdown] [China’s increasingly central role in global economics] [Sino-US relations, complex in the best of times (and this is far from best)] [but the interedependency between the US and China had been growing for decade] [China’s growing pains in a complex, interdependent, globalized economy] [use psci 355-455] [followup] [*]
BEIJING — China and the United States opened three days of high-level meetings here on Monday meant to broaden and deepen the ties between the world’s largest developed and developing economies.
But the opening session instead laid bare a recurring theme between Beijing and Washington: the United States came with a long wish list for China on both economic and security issues, while China mostly wants to be left alone to pursue policies that are turning it into an economic superpower without putting at risk its prized geopolitical stability. [*]

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/asia/25diplo.html
May 24, 2010
Clinton and Geithner Face Hurdles in China Talks
By MARK LANDLER [China] [PRC] [global economic meltdown] [China’s increasingly central role in global economics] [Sino-US relations, complex in the best of times (and this is far from best)] [but the interedependency between the US and China had been growing for decade] [China’s growing pains in a complex, interdependent, globalized economy] [use psci 355-455] [followup] [*]
BEIJING — China and the United States opened three days of high-level meetings here on Monday meant to broaden and deepen the ties between the world’s largest developed and developing economies.
But the opening session instead laid bare a recurring theme between Beijing and Washington: the United States came with a long wish list for China on both economic and security issues, while China mostly wants to be left alone to pursue policies that are turning it into an economic superpower without putting at risk its prized geopolitical stability. [*]
President Hu Jintao, welcoming the 200-strong American delegation in the Great Hall of the People, praised the “mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation” between the United States and China. Such coordination, he said, had helped speed the recovery from the 2008 financial crisis.
On the crucial issue of China revaluing its currency — something the Obama administration had pushed for — Mr. Hu made a specific reference to continuing “reform of the reminbi exchange-rate mechanism.” His language repeated China’s past promises to make its effectively fixed exchange rate respond more to the market, but the fact that the country’s top leader mentioned reform at all suggested it is on the leadership’s agenda. [*]
Still, Mr. Hu also repeated that Beijing would move “under the principle of independent decision-making, controllability, and gradual progress.” Translation: China alone will determine the timing of any such move. [code for slow, slow, slow] [*]
Economists said the deepening debt crisis in Greece, which came up immediately in the discussions on Monday, would make Beijing more reluctant to allow its currency to appreciate in value in the immediate future.
Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner did not mention China’s currency in his opening remarks, and the United States did not broach it in the first working session. The administration has decided not to prod Beijing at this meeting, officials said, concluding that it would resist outside pressure. [*]
The United States is hitting similar hurdles on security issues. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pressed China to support measures against North Korea following the strong evidence that it torpedoed a South Korean warship in March. But China has been skeptical of North Korea’s role and is reluctant to punish Pyongyang, with which it has close ties. [the US needs China on range of issues and has for some time, especially economic ones these days] [but China finds it also needs the US in many ways] [*]
And while China agreed to a watered-down United Nations resolution on Iran’s nuclear program, it has not signed off on annexes against specific Iranian individuals and companies. With big investments in Iran’s oil and gas industry, China may well be in business with some of them.
In her speech to the opening session, Mrs. Clinton cited Iran and North Korea as issues in which Beijing and Washington must find common cause. “Today, we face another serious challenge provoked by the sinking of the South Korean ship,” she said. “So we must work together, again, to address this challenge and advance our shared objectives of peace and stability.”
A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry, Ma Zhaoxu, was noncommittal, saying of the Korea crisis, “We hope all the relevant parties will exercise restraint and remain cool-headed.” [*]
Some of this is cultural, to be sure. Chinese officials tend to speak far less directly than Americans. Mr. Hu did not mention Iran and North Korea at all, referring only to regional “hot spots.” The fact that he frankly addressed the exchange rate of China’s currency, the renminbi, surprised some observers, and lent itself to varying interpretations.
For some experts, Mr. Hu’s pledge to “steadily advance the reform mechanism of the RMB exchange rate,” without repeating his previous references to the rate being “basically stable” was a sign of conciliation. “It’s important, the fact they haven’t mentioned it,” said Ben Simpfendorfer, the China economist for the Royal Bank of Scotland.
But others interpreted it as a pre-emptive move to take the issue off the table. Eswar Prasad, an economist at Cornell University, noted that the crisis in Greece had rattled the Chinese on two levels. It was likely to curb their exports to Europe, and it had strengthened the renminbi relative to the swooning euro, which makes Chinese goods more costly in foreign markets.
“That double hit on China’s exports almost certainly means that they’re not going to move forward unless there is evidence of stabilization in the euro and stabilization in Europe’s recovery,” Mr. Prasad said.
A senior Chinese official said that Beijing would keep a “high alert and attention on the euro zone sovereign debt crisis.” He noted that it could affect not only Europe’s economic recovery but also Chinese exports. China exports more to the European Union than to the United States.
The United States needed a 48-vehicle motorcade to ferry its delegation to this second round of the so-called strategic and economic dialogue. Among the prominent names: the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Ben A. Bernanke, the commander of the military’s Pacific Command, Adm. Robert F. Willard, and the secretary of health and human services, Kathleen Sebelius. [white hordes invading China] [*]
Some of the topics under discussion veered far from economics and security. Mrs. Clinton singled out Melanne Verveer, the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for women’s issues, who is meeting with Chinese women’s groups to discuss their progress in women’s rights.
Mr. Geithner lobbied against Chinese government procurement rules that give preference to products with intellectual property developed in China. American businesses, particularly in technology, complain that this handicaps them and deprives China of state-of-the-art products.
“Innovation flourishes best when markets are open, competition is fair, and strong protections exist for ideas and inventions,” he said.
The Chinese have their pet issues as well: Beijing is pushing for the United States to loosen controls on exports of high-technology equipment with potential military applications. A raft of questions from reporters for state-run Chinese media organizations suggested a coordinated campaign.
If the United States seemed likely to leave Beijing with many of its wishes unfulfilled, there was one notable difference in this year’s meeting compared to the one last year in Washington: the American economy is growing again, which gave Mr. Geithner a rare chance to crow a bit. [*]
Rather than identify the United States with the troubled economies of Europe, Mr. Geithner said America was holding its own with the big emerging economies like Brazil, India, and China.
“Economic growth in the U.S. and China is broader and stronger than many had anticipated, even a few months ago,” he said.
Michael Wines contributed reporting from Beijing, and Keith Bradsher from Hong Kong.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/asia/24china.html
May 23, 2010
On North Korea, China Prefers Fence
By SHARON LaFRANIERE [China] [PRC] [multifold agenda: global economic meltdown; Korea Peninsula crisis; China’s own internal problems (non Han treatment); global commons and China’s increasing role; China’s gambit to despoil Africa in order to secure raw resources for its industrial growth; so on] [Sino-US relations, complex in the best of times (and this is far from best)] [but the interedependency between the US and China had been growing for decade] [China’s perpetual attempt to keep DPRK from wigging out over one crisis or another; China forced to take plenty grief from DPRK tail wagging the Chinese dog] [welcome to the world of important power] [use psci 355-455] [followup] [*]
BEIJING — In the best of times, Chinese foreign affairs scholars here say, Beijing grits its teeth while playing best friend to Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s ailing and erratic 68-year-old leader. South Korea’s charge last week that North Korea sank one of its warships, [*]killing 46 crewmen, makes that role exponentially harder. [North Koreans disparage Han Chinese practically to China’s face] [it’s an awkward relationship] [*]
With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and about 200 other American officials

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/asia/24china.html
May 23, 2010
On North Korea, China Prefers Fence
By SHARON LaFRANIERE [China] [PRC] [multifold agenda: global economic meltdown; Korea Peninsula crisis; China’s own internal problems (non Han treatment); global commons and China’s increasing role; China’s gambit to despoil Africa in order to secure raw resources for its industrial growth; so on] [Sino-US relations, complex in the best of times (and this is far from best)] [but the interedependency between the US and China had been growing for decade] [China’s perpetual attempt to keep DPRK from wigging out over one crisis or another; China forced to take plenty grief from DPRK tail wagging the Chinese dog] [welcome to the world of important power] [use psci 355-455] [followup] [*]
BEIJING — In the best of times, Chinese foreign affairs scholars here say, Beijing grits its teeth while playing best friend to Kim Jong-il, North Korea’s ailing and erratic 68-year-old leader. South Korea’s charge last week that North Korea sank one of its warships, [*]killing 46 crewmen, makes that role exponentially harder. [North Koreans disparage Han Chinese practically to China’s face] [it’s an awkward relationship] [*]
With Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and about 200 other American officials here for high-level security and economic talks, Chinese leaders face two unpalatable options. One is to mollify North Korea, and risk undermining its efforts to convince the United States, South Korea and Japan that China is a stabilizing force in East Asia. [*]
The other is to join those nations and the United Nations Security Council in condemning North Korea for the attack, which North Korea denies, and risk a wholly unpredictable response from a volatile neighbor.
So far, China has sought to straddle the two, saying only that both Koreas should show restraint in the midst of a brewing crisis. But Mrs. Clinton, who has publicly cited “overwhelming” evidence that North Korea torpedoed the South Korean corvette, the Cheonan, is pressing Chinese officials to take an unequivocal stance. South Korea, which China has assiduously courted as a major trading partner and diplomatic friend, is making the same case. [China’s foreign policy in a phrase: split the difference] [*]
The sinking and its aftermath have reignited much the same debate that took place last year, after North Korea test-fired a long-range missile in April and conducted an underground nuclear test less than two months later. After balking at first, China eventually agreed to a unanimous Security Council resolution condemning the nuclear test and tightening existing sanctions. [*]
The United States, Japan and South Korea are uniting behind a similarly strong response this time. South Korea is expected to ask the Security Council on Monday to condemn the sinking of the 1,200-ton warship, which it says caused one of the largest losses of military personnel since the end of the Korean War. Mrs. Clinton is pushing Beijing to back the effort. [*]
“The North Koreans will be more easily dissuaded from further attacks like this if they don’t get cover from China, “ said Michael J. Green, an Asia specialist with the Center for International Studies in Washington. “So it’s absolutely critical to Korea and the United States that China send that signal.” [*]
But in discussions that began Sunday, China was resisting, and it has been skeptical of the claim that the North was responsible for sinking the ship. Scholars say such misgivings are typical when China is asked to side against North Korea. [*]
“There’s not much more that can be done to sanction North Korea,” said Shen Jiru, a strategic studies expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in Beijing. “China basically feels that sanctions or other tough measures only serve to escalate conflict with North Korea, and others tend to agree.” [that’s typically China’s position] [*]
Still, a small but influential group of Chinese scholars insist that accommodating North Korea has not worked, and China needs to take a new and tougher tack.
“The Chinese government so far has done too much to protect North Korea,” said Chu Shulong, a professor of international relations at Tsinghua University in Beijing. “Why should we protect them? Why should we treat them so specially? I think China needs to change its approach.”
Wei Zhijiang, a visiting Chinese scholar at the University of Tokyo who specializes in North Korea, said that if China decides not to support a Security Council resolution, it should push for some other punishment. “Certainly North Korea must pay the price somehow,” he said. “Maybe apologize, pay compensation and promise this will not happen again.” [I see China’s dilemma but surely it’s in China’s interest not to have DPRK or others capriciously sinking ships, disrupting navigation] [China is as dependent on trade from abroad as any country these days] [*]
China’s reluctance to censure the North is not rooted in affection for its policies. In private discussions, one American analyst said Sunday, Chinese officials express frustration with North Korea’s growing belligerence. But like their Washington counterparts, they say, they have no good option to deal with it. [it’s hard to explain it but China puts up with more crap from Kim’s regime than anybody] [*]
Officials here worry that more pressure on North Korea will prove counterproductive, and some recent history backs them: after China joined other nations last year in protesting the missile launch, Mr. Kim reacted by pulling out of the six-nation talks, chaired by China, aimed at ending North Korea’s nuclear weapons program. This time, the North Korean government has threatened “all-out war” if it is punished for the Cheonan sinking.
“China remembers this lesson,” said Shi Yinhong, a professor of international relations at Renmin University in Beijing. “I think this time our leaders are a little bit afraid of Kim Jong-il.”
China’s other worry is strategic: if relations with the North sour because its leaders fear China is aligning with the West against it, China could face an unstable and now nuclear-armed adversary on its border. And if international pressure leads to the collapse of the North’s government and eventually a unified, democratic Korea allied with the United States, China’s power in the region would be weakened. [but DPRK is unstable actor with nukes on China’s border—and not far from the heart of China’s govt] [*]
A collapse could also unleash a flood of refugees across the Chinese border, a phenomenon China experienced in the mid-1990s when tens of thousands of North Koreans, if not more, fled widespread famine in their homeland.
So Beijing has tried to support North Korea while gently edging it toward economic reform and nuclear disarmament. To keep the North’s government afloat, China provides food, fuel and, by some estimates, 90 percent of North Korea’s industrial goods.
It also continues to invest there, positioning itself, some analysts say, for a post-Kim Jong-il period. In recent years, China has bought rights to several North Korean coaland mineral mines.
In February, China and North Korea announced a deal to build a four-lane bridge across the Yalu River that marks the border. North Korea also recently agreed to lease its Rajin Port, giving inland northeast China long-sought access to the Sea of Japan.
Yet despite North Korea’s growing dependence on China, officials in Beijing complain that they have very little leverage over Mr. Kim’s behavior. Mr. Wei, the China scholar at Tokyo University, said China considered it a victory when Mr. Kim agreed this month in Beijing to more communication and cooperation with China on regional and international issues.
The past few weeks have shown just how awkward it can be for China to walk the line between courting the South and propping up the North. On April 27, as his nation’sforensic investigation drew to a close, President Lee Myung-bak of South Korea flew to Shanghai to try to persuade President Hu Jintao of China that North Korea had sunk the Cheonan and should be rebuked.
The following week, President Hu hosted the reclusive Mr. Kim in Beijing. Some Chinese scholars said the visit, Mr. Kim’s first to China in four years, showed their government’s desire to keep trying to push the North in the right direction.
But South Koreans saw it as a slap in the face to their president — who one analyst said had asked President Hu to postpone or cancel the visit — and a reassuring nod to North Korea at precisely the wrong time.
This weekend, perhaps as a conciliatory gesture, China announced that Prime Minister Wen Jiabao would travel to Seoul, the South Korean capital, at the end of the month.
Jonathan Ansfield contributed reporting, and Jing Zhang contributed research.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/asia/25korea.html
May 24, 2010
U.S. Backs South Korea in Cutting Trade With the North
By CHOE SANG-HUN and MARK LANDLER [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [SecState Clinton’s recent trip to Asia; I think she’s in China presently] [info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [cross in govt] [sever all trade with DPRK] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — Tensions escalated sharply Monday on the Korean Peninsula as the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, said that his nation would sever nearly all trade with North Korea, deny North Korean merchant ships use of South Korean sea lanes and ask the United Nations Security Council to punish the North for what he called the deliberate sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago.
In Washington, the Obama administration said the South Korean measures were “entirely appropriate.” President Obama instructed American military commanders to coordinate closely with their South Korean counterparts to “insure readiness and deter aggression.” [who spelled insure the old way?] [did that come from WH?] [odd] [*]
“The Republic of Korea can continue to count on the full support of the United States,”

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/asia/25korea.html
May 24, 2010
U.S. Backs South Korea in Cutting Trade With the North
By CHOE SANG-HUN and MARK LANDLER [ROK] [DPRK-ROK relations] [SecState Clinton’s recent trip to Asia; I think she’s in China presently] [info on last month’s ROK naval ship sunk near waters claimed by both?] [followup] [DPRK denies it sunk the ship] [ROK accuses DPRK of torpedo attack] [US forensic experts worked with ROK to identify propellar blade from topedo?] [cross in govt] [sever all trade with DPRK] [*]
SEOUL, South Korea — Tensions escalated sharply Monday on the Korean Peninsula as the South Korean president, Lee Myung-bak, said that his nation would sever nearly all trade with North Korea, deny North Korean merchant ships use of South Korean sea lanes and ask the United Nations Security Council to punish the North for what he called the deliberate sinking of a South Korean warship two months ago.
In Washington, the Obama administration said the South Korean measures were “entirely appropriate.” President Obama instructed American military commanders to coordinate closely with their South Korean counterparts to “insure readiness and deter aggression.” [who spelled insure the old way?] [did that come from WH?] [odd] [*]
“The Republic of Korea can continue to count on the full support of the United States,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in Beijing, where she was attending high-level talks between China and the United States that have been overshadowed by the crisis. “Our support for South Korea’s defense is unequivocal.”
The steps outlined by Mr. Lee in a nationally televised speech — coupled with new moves by South Korea’s military to resume “psychological warfare” propaganda broadcasts at the border after a six-year suspension — amounted to the most serious action the South could take short of an armed retaliation for the sinking of the ship, the South’s worst military loss since the Korean War ended in a truce in 1953. [really?] [none of those mini attacks during CW amounted to deaths of 40-50?] [that’s kind of strange because US lost citizens in such attacks—I don’t remember how many were on board the EC 121 (1969), probably fewer than a dozen] [*]
“We have always tolerated North Korea’s brutality, time and again,” Mr. Lee said. “But now things are different. North Korea will pay a price corresponding to its provocative acts. Trade and exchanges between South and North Korea will be suspended.” [*]
North Korea’s military immediately warned that if South Korea put up propaganda loudspeakers and slogans at the border, it would destroy them with artillery shells, the North’s official K.C.N.A. news agency reported. [and they probably will] [so the ROK better be prepared for next steps] [*]
Mr. Lee’s speech came just as economic and security talks between China and the United States began in Beijing. In meetings on Sunday evening and Monday, Mrs. Clinton pressed Chinese leaders to take a much tougher position toward North Korea, China’s historical ally. Mr. Lee’s speech was bound to add to the pressure on the Chinese, who have called for restraint. [*]
Mrs. Clinton expressed confidence that the Chinese would agree to take at least some measures, noting that Beijing supported additional sanctions against the North after it tested a nuclear device last year. But other American officials cautioned that Beijing remains unconvinced of the need to punish North Korea in the case of the warship.
“I can say the Chinese recognize the gravity of the situation we face,” Mrs. Clinton said to reporters after Mr. Lee’s speech. “This is a highly precarious situation that the North Koreans have caused in the region; it is one that every country that neighbors or is in proximity to North Korea understands must be contained.” [China well known for giving DPRK lots of rope (wide berth) despite DPRK’s craziness] [*]
President Hu Jintao did not mention North Korea in his speech welcoming the American delegation, though he did say the two countries should “strengthen coordination on regional hot-spot and global issues.”
North Korea has denied responsibility for the sinking of the South Korean warship, the Cheonan, on March 26, which left 46 sailors dead. A growing body of evidence assembled by the South has suggested a North Korean torpedo sank the ship.
Cutting off trade with North Korea is the most punishing unilateral action the South could take against the impoverished North. It will deprive North Korea of 14.5 percent of its external trade and $253 million in cash revenues a year, [turns out DPRK is fiscal basket case so it will likely hurt at a time when Kim has ordered new perqs for DPRK military officials (cars, electronics)] [*] according to estimates by Lim Kang-taek, a senior researcher at the Korea Institute for National Unification in Seoul.
Mr. Lee also said that South Korea would block North Korean merchant ships from using South Korean waters, which would force the ships to detour and use more fuel. North Korean merchant ships made 717 trips to South Korean ports or through South Korean sea lanes last year. [*]
Besides these unilateral measures, South Korea will “refer this matter to the U.N. Security Council, so that the international community can join us in holding the North accountable,” Mr. Lee said. “Many countries around the world have expressed their full support for our position.”
Mrs. Clinton declined to detail specific steps the United States is weighing until after she meets Mr. Lee in Seoul on Wednesday. Other administration officials said the United States might conduct joint naval exercises with South Korea in anti-submarine warfare in the waters off the Korean Peninsula.
But Mrs. Clinton did not suggest that the State Department would soon add North Korea’s name to its list of state sponsors of terrorism, as some members of Congress have demanded. [I’m not sure what the point would be other than to make a few congressman feel better?] [the US still must attempt to reign in DPRK on nukes] [on other hand, US cannot simply act as if such things are tolerable] [*] Reinstating North Korea, which was taken off the list by the Bush administration, would only happen if there was evidence that it was involved in acts of terrorism, she said.
In a separate announcement, the Defense Ministry announced the resumption of propaganda blitzes aimed at the North, a cold war tactic with loudspeaker broadcasts along the border, propaganda radio broadcasts and leaflets dropped by balloon. The resumption was bound to irritate the North Korea leader, Kim Jong-il, whose grip on power rests partly on denying outside information to citizens. [some think he approved the attack] [that he stays in power by keeping DPRK on nearly constant crisis so they are forever rallying around their Dear Leader] [and it’s been getting more difficult as information has slowly trickled into DPRK] [if so, Kim is likely to get more outrageous and desperate] [*]
North Korea has already warned that such a move would prompt it to shut down the border with the South completely, raising the possibility of stranding 1,000 South Korean workers at a joint industrial park in the North Korean town of Kaesong. [I would have thought ROK would have evacuated them first???] [*]
President Lee cited evidence that a multinational team of investigators released last week on the sinking of the ship, saying, “No responsible country in the international community will be able to deny the fact that the Cheonan was sunk by North Korea.”
But he did not mention China by name.
Mr. Lee also stopped short of terminating the Kaesong industrial complex. [interesting but quite risky] [those South Koreans could become hostages?] [*]
Delivering his speech from the Korean War Memorial in Seoul, Mr. Lee drew an analogy between the North’s surprise invasion that started the three-year Korean War on June 25, 1950, and the blast that sank the Cheonan.
“Again, the perpetrator was North Korea. Their attack came at a time when the people of the Republic of Korea were enjoying their well-earned rest after a hard day’s work,” he said. “Once again, North Korea violently shattered our peace.” [*]
Choe Sang-hun reported from Seoul, and Mark Landler from Beijing.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/middleeast/24mideast.html
May 23, 2010
No Worries, Israel Insists, Defense Drill Is Just a Drill
By ISABEL KERSHNER and FARES AKRAM [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [supposedly Israel is conducting exercises near Golan-Lebanese border] [in past couple days, Nasrallah announced a shift of Hezbollah fighters to mirror Israel near border] [while both sides being prudent, these sorts of tentions can easily flare into wars] [if I recall correctly, this is a yearly exercise in Israel?] [followup] [*]
JERUSALEM — As Israel embarked on a large-scale civil defense exercise on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to reassure Israelis and some jittery Arab neighbors that the nationwide drill was not meant to signal a deterioration in security or an imminent war.
“This is a routine exercise that has been scheduled for some time,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. “I would like to make it clear that it is not the result

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/middleeast/24mideast.html
May 23, 2010
No Worries, Israel Insists, Defense Drill Is Just a Drill
By ISABEL KERSHNER and FARES AKRAM [Israel] [domestic politics intersects with Israel’s foreign policy] [supposedly Israel is conducting exercises near Golan-Lebanese border] [in past couple days, Nasrallah announced a shift of Hezbollah fighters to mirror Israel near border] [while both sides being prudent, these sorts of tentions can easily flare into wars] [if I recall correctly, this is a yearly exercise in Israel?] [followup] [*]
JERUSALEM — As Israel embarked on a large-scale civil defense exercise on Sunday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sought to reassure Israelis and some jittery Arab neighbors that the nationwide drill was not meant to signal a deterioration in security or an imminent war.
“This is a routine exercise that has been scheduled for some time,” Mr. Netanyahu said at the start of the weekly cabinet meeting. “I would like to make it clear that it is not the result of any exceptional security development. On the contrary, Israel aspires towards calm, stability and peace.”
The five-day exercise, designed to test the readiness of citizens, the emergency services and the local authorities in the case of war, is taking place for the fourth consecutive year. [*]It comes amid growing concern in Israel about the rocket and missile capabilities of militant groups on its borders, and the potential threat of a nuclear Iran.
But the exercise appears to have rattled nerves in Lebanon, where Israel fought a monthlong war against Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed militia, in 2006. Lebanon’s prime minister, Saad Hariri, told reporters in Cairo on Saturday that “to launch military exercises at such a time runs counter to peace efforts” with the Palestinians. [?] [*]
Hezbollah’s deputy head, Nabil Qaouk, said Friday that the military exercise was a sign of Israel’s aggressive intentions and that Hezbollah had gone on alert. Mr. Qaouk was speaking during a meeting at his home in southern Lebanon with the Jewish American intellectual Noam Chomsky, a fierce critic of both American and Israeli policy who was barred by Israel from entering the occupied West Bank from Jordan last week. [it’s not openly against the US but I sure wish Noam wouldn’t do these testimonials] [he can criticize Israel short of joining forces with those who want nothing more than Israel’s destruction] [while Noam is certainly hostile to Zionism, I don’t remember him ever going so far as to say Israeli is unredeemable??] [*]
The Israeli military said the drill will include the sounding of sirens throughout Israel on Wednesday and will “replicate emergency scenarios” in more than 30 local authorities, in cooperation with the Home Front Command.
In Gaza, unidentified gunmen attacked the site of a United Nations children’s summer camp before dawn on Sunday, burning empty water tanks and plastic sheds. [*]
The Hamas government that rules the Palestinian enclave condemned the attack and said it had opened an investigation.
The beachside camp, which was still under construction, was set up by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which provides assistance to Palestinian refugees and their descendants. It was scheduled to open next month.
More than 20 masked militants were said to have taken part in the attack. The camp’s guard, Ibrahim Eliwa, 37, said he was awake at 3 a.m. when he saw “an army of gunmen approaching the camp.” [Hamas?] [*]
Mr. Eliwa was handcuffed. He said the gunmen tucked an envelope into his coat containing a letter and three bullets. “The letter carried threats to senior staff officials at U.N.R.W.A.,” he said.
John Ging, operations director of the United Nations agency, promised to rebuild the camp and said that the agency would not be intimidated.
“It is a disgraceful situation,” he told reporters in Gaza. “There is no doubt in my mind that it is vandalism linked to a certain degree of extremism.” [?] [*]
The agency has been running summer programs for the past five years for about 250,000 children who study in its schools in Gaza. Hamas, the Islamic militant group, has been running its own camps since it took over Gaza in 2007.
In the Hamas camps, strict, bearded men, sometimes waving sticks, teach children the basic tenets of Islam. In the more popular United Nations camps, children’s activities have included painting, singing and swimming. [for many Islamists, UN and other institutions of international law are seen as bad; the most benign interpretation I’ve seen from Islamists is that international law is irrelevant] [*]
Last summer, Younis al-Astal, a Hamas lawmaker, accused the United Nations agency of “implementing a plan to spoil the growing generation of Gaza.”
Isabel Kershner reported from Jerusalem, and Fares Akram from Gaza.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/africa/24somalia.html
May 23, 2010
Insurgents Attack Palace in Somalia
By MOHAMMED IBRAHIM [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] [continued violence; proximity to Yemen-Saudi peninsula] [use psci 469] [*]
MOGADISHU, Somalia — At least 14 people were killed and more than 25 were wounded on Sunday in heavy fighting between government troops and insurgents who attacked the presidential palace with mortars, [*]witnesses and officials said.
At least six mortar shells landed near the palace, witnesses said, but the president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, was in Turkey at a United Nations conference called to helpSomalia. [*]
“Our army withdrew from the front lines, and we have lost neighborhoods,” said Sheik

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/africa/24somalia.html
May 23, 2010
Insurgents Attack Palace in Somalia
By MOHAMMED IBRAHIM [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] [continued violence; proximity to Yemen-Saudi peninsula] [use psci 469] [*]
MOGADISHU, Somalia — At least 14 people were killed and more than 25 were wounded on Sunday in heavy fighting between government troops and insurgents who attacked the presidential palace with mortars, [*]witnesses and officials said.
At least six mortar shells landed near the palace, witnesses said, but the president, Sheik Sharif Sheik Ahmed, was in Turkey at a United Nations conference called to helpSomalia. [*]
“Our army withdrew from the front lines, and we have lost neighborhoods,” said Sheik Yusuf Mohamed Siad "Indha Adde", Somalia's state minister for defense. “But the prime minister is responsible for the defeat,” he added.
The fighting led to what witnesses called the biggest surge in refugees in months. Civilians poured into the streets carrying household goods packed onto donkey carts and into wheelbarrows. Others crammed into minibuses and old Fiat trucks. Refugee camps in several neighborhoods here were evacuated. [*]
“I fled with my children, and I don’t know where I am heading,” said Jija Abdirahman, who was trying to escape with her three children and a wheelbarrow full of luggage. “These are merciless fighters. I have no hope that it will finish soon.”
The fighting began about 5 a.m. near the presidential palace and in three other neighborhoods controlled by the weak government and peacekeeping troops from the African Union.
The insurgents included fighters from the Shabab, which has sent hundreds of young recruits to the capital, and a rival group, Hizbul Islam. [*]
The fighting involved heavy artillery, and fires were set throughout the city. There were reports that dozens of civilians were wounded in both government- and insurgent-held areas.
Habiba Ahmed, 34, a mother of two, said she had been trying to leave Mogadishu since Saturday. “We are lucky; we are safe,” she said. “Maybe I will find someplace to live.”
Last week, the president said he would appoint a new prime minister in an effort to end a longstanding rift within the government. But Prime Minister Omar Abdirashid Ali Sharmarke said he would leave office only if a no-confidence vote in Parliament forced him to. [*]
Meanwhile, the government remains paralyzed. Somalia has not had a powerful central government since the former military leader, Mohammed Siad Barre, was ousted by clan militias 19 years ago.
This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: May 24, 2010
A previous version of this article erroneously attributed a quote about Somali army movement to the Somali president. It was said by Sheik Yusuf Mohamed Siad "Indha Adde," the state minister for defense.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/middleeast/25yemen.html
May 24, 2010
Two Americans Kidnapped in Yemen
By MONA EL-NAGGAR [Yemen] [partial move of al Qaeda infrastructure, spring 2009] [has now become operational?] [US has maintained small footprint during Obama’s tenure] [use psci 469] [makes Yemen—along with proximity—inviting to global jihadis] [jihadis attacks on British] [followup] [more evidence, as if more was needed, that al Qaeda has shifted some focus to Yemen where they find it easier to operate] [*]
CAIRO — Yemeni tribesmen kidnapped two American tourists, a man and a woman, Monday morning outside the capital city of Sana, the United States Embassy in Yemensaid Monday.
The kidnappers, who also abducted the Yemeni driver and translator traveling with the Americans, are from the Shardah tribe, said a Yemeni government official who refused to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the news media. The kidnappers demanded the release of Mahmoud Shardah, a prisoner from the same tribe, the official

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/25/world/middleeast/25yemen.html
May 24, 2010
Two Americans Kidnapped in Yemen
By MONA EL-NAGGAR [Yemen] [partial move of al Qaeda infrastructure, spring 2009] [has now become operational?] [US has maintained small footprint during Obama’s tenure] [use psci 469] [makes Yemen—along with proximity—inviting to global jihadis] [jihadis attacks on British] [followup] [more evidence, as if more was needed, that al Qaeda has shifted some focus to Yemen where they find it easier to operate] [*]
CAIRO — Yemeni tribesmen kidnapped two American tourists, a man and a woman, Monday morning outside the capital city of Sana, the United States Embassy in Yemensaid Monday.
The kidnappers, who also abducted the Yemeni driver and translator traveling with the Americans, are from the Shardah tribe, said a Yemeni government official who refused to be identified because he is not authorized to speak to the news media. The kidnappers demanded the release of Mahmoud Shardah, a prisoner from the same tribe, the official added. [were they researchers?] [why would a man and woman be in Yemen given all the warning 2009-2010???] [*]
The four were taken as they were traveling in a car through Al Haima, a district about 50 miles west of Sana. The kidnapping of foreigners is often used as a tool to demand the release of Yemeni prisoners or seek better services from the government, and the State Department in February warned Americans against traveling to Yemen, citing terrorist threats against Westerners. [they are on their own now] [*]
The latest kidnapping before this took place last week when two Chinese workers were taken in the Shabwa governorate in the south of Yemen, then released two days later.
An employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Sana, Yemen.

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/asia/24reconcile.html
May 23, 2010
U.S. Tries to Reintegrate Taliban Soldiers
By ELISABETH BUMILLER [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [rumors continue to circulate suggesting representatives of factions in Taliban have been meeting with Karzai (or other) representatives in Maldives; said to be looking for political solution] [principals deny all of it, of course] [followup] [use psci 469] [some type of reconciliation is in the air and necessary for counterinsurgency to work!] [cross in govt] [*]
MIAN POSHTEH, Afghanistan — The young Taliban prisoner was led blindfolded to a sweltering military tent, seated among 17 village elders and then, eyes uncovered, faced a chief accuser brandishing a document with the elders’ signatures or thumbprints.
Capt. Scott A. Cuomo, a United States Marine commander who was acting as the prosecutor, told the prisoner: “This letter right here is a sworn pledge from all of your elders that they’re

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/asia/24reconcile.html
May 23, 2010
U.S. Tries to Reintegrate Taliban Soldiers
By ELISABETH BUMILLER [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [rumors continue to circulate suggesting representatives of factions in Taliban have been meeting with Karzai (or other) representatives in Maldives; said to be looking for political solution] [principals deny all of it, of course] [followup] [use psci 469] [some type of reconciliation is in the air and necessary for counterinsurgency to work!] [cross in govt] [*]
MIAN POSHTEH, Afghanistan — The young Taliban prisoner was led blindfolded to a sweltering military tent, seated among 17 village elders and then, eyes uncovered, faced a chief accuser brandishing a document with the elders’ signatures or thumbprints.
Capt. Scott A. Cuomo, a United States Marine commander who was acting as the prosecutor, told the prisoner: “This letter right here is a sworn pledge from all of your elders that they’re vouching for you and that you will never support the Taliban or fight for the Taliban ever again.” [*]
After a half-hour “trial,” the captain rendered the group’s judgment on the silent prisoner, Juma Khan, 23, whom the Marines had seized after finding a bomb trigger device, ammunition and opium buried in his yard. Mr. Khan’s father and grandfather, who was one of the elders, were among the group. “So on behalf of peace, your family, your grandfather,” Captain Cuomo solemnly said, “we’re going to let you go.” [probably smart if properly vetted] [*]
Thus was justice dispensed on a recent Saturday evening, deep in the Taliban heartland of the Helmand River Valley, where the theory behind the American effort to “reintegrate” the enemy meets the ambiguous reality of a nearly decade-old war.
Captain Cuomo, a 32-year-old Annapolis graduate from Long Island who is not related to the New York political family, acknowledged the hazards of the trial and others like it unfolding in Afghanistan. “Do I know that Juma Khan is not going to turn back around and be the Taliban?” he said. “No.” Nonetheless the effort is proceeding. [*]
Even as Washington and Kabul debate their plans to reconcile with senior members of the Taliban, military commanders on the ground in Afghanistan are reintegrating insurgent foot soldiers on their own. The reason is simple, Captain Cuomo said: While Marines are “trained to fight, and we don’t mind fighting, the problem with fighting is that it doesn’t bring stability to your home.” [*]
Six days after Mr. Khan’s May 1 release, another Marine commander, Capt. Jason C. Brezler, got pledges from 25 former insurgents to sign up as police recruits in the northern Helmand village of Soorkano. A week later in Marja, where clashes between the Marines and the Taliban continue in the wake of an American offensive there in February, Lt. Col. Brian Christmas released two young men who admitted to fighting for the Taliban, after the pair and two elders signed pledges promising the men would not fight again.
Acting under military guidelines aimed at persuading low-level fighters to lay down their arms, commanders repeat the mantra that the United States will never kill its way to victory in Afghanistan. They say that in a counterinsurgency war intended to win over the population, reintegration is crucial because the Taliban are woven so deeply into the social fabric of the country. [exactly so] [*]
“I can understand why they’re Taliban,” Captain Cuomo said in an interview after Mr. Khan’s release. “Well of course they are, what do you want them to do? I want to do anything, I had to be part of the Taliban, man.”
Military officials describe reintegration so far as sporadic at best, an interim effort ahead of a more formal process that they hope the Afghan government will adopt at a political summit meeting in Kabul in coming weeks. [*]
Last year, as part of an earlier Afghan push to give jobs to defecting Taliban, the Kabul government said that at least 9,000 insurgents had turned in their weapons. Maj. Gen. Richard Barrons, a British Army commander in Kabul who has helped oversee the reconciliation effort, said the Afghan government now estimated that there were 40,000 fighters to be brought back into the fold, with the 1,000 at the top, including the Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar, as the most important. [wait, do I understand them to be saying Mullah Omar is a potential reconcilable?] [he’s hardcore Islamist, likely jihadis] [*] United States military officials say they do not have a clear idea of how many Taliban have reintegrated so far, including any who came into the fold during the early years of the war, but that the numbers are small.
Washington has so far endorsed Afghan plans for reconciliation with some Taliban, but has drawn the line at negotiating with Mullah Omar. [*](Washington and Kabul use the term reconciliation for the Taliban leadership and reintegration for the foot soldiers.) Either way, the plans echo the Awakening movement in Iraq, where tribal leaders from the country’s Sunni minority rebelled against Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia and joined forces with the Americans. [I made the same point in yesterday’s coverage] [despite it, watch for right-wing lunactic fringe to call Obama soft on jihadis for doing precisely what Bush did] [I can almost guarentee it] [*] But there are many differences between Iraq and Afghanistan, not least Afghanistan’s long history of fighters changing sides, sometimes more than once.
The seeds of Mr. Khan’s “trial” were planted last summer, when the Marines pushed into the lush hamlet of Mian Poshteh, part of an initial escalation ordered in the spring of 2009 by President Obama. Surrounded by harvested poppy fields and a network of irrigation canals, members of Company E of the Second Battalion, Eighth Marine Regiment met fierce Taliban resistance. (The episode was captured in “Obama’s War,” a PBS Frontline documentary broadcast last fall which opened with the shooting death last July of a 20-year-old corporal in the Mian Poshteh market.)
Captain Cuomo’s Company F of the Second Battalion, Second Marine Regiment arrived in October to continuing fighting and the deaths, by sniper and roadside bomb, of two more Marines. But by early this year, the Taliban had either been killed, chased away or given jobs. The Marines reopened the market, committed hundreds of thousands of dollars to work programs and began plans to build a school and clinic. [like Iraq, such controversial cases will be many] [insurgents who have killed Americans will be embraced just as Bush’s “surge” embraced Sunni Awakening (who had blood on their hands in spades)] [*]
The 270 Marines of Company F spread out over a sliver of land, 11 miles long by 5 miles wide, encompassing a string of villages along the Helmand River. From spartan bases, some consisting of only a dozen Marines sleeping in the dirt alongside an armored truck, the Americans moved to build relationships among the Pashtun tribes in the area.
The same Marines patrolled in the same villages each day, getting to recognize the residents. They awarded the elders construction projects and over hours of tea drinking showed them photographs they had taken of virtually every grown male in their battle space.
“Is this guy Taliban?” the Marines asked repeatedly, then poured what they learned into a computer database. Captain Cuomo, who had spent a day with a Los Angeles Police Department countergang unit between two tours in Iraq and his deployment to Afghanistan, called the process “kind of like C.S.I.,” the CBS crime drama television series.
By April, a villager tipped the Marines off about Mr. Khan, who had recently come back to Mian Poshteh from Pakistan. The Marines raided his house, found the ammunition, trigger device and enough opium, Captain Cuomo said, to fill a large American garbage can. They took him to one of their bases, put him in a holding pen the size of a large dog cage, [*] questioned him for two days, got four sworn statements from local residents that he was a member of the Taliban, then held the trial — the 11th such reintegration that Captain Cuomo has conducted since January. [*]
When it was all over, as the elders and Marines crowded around, Mr. Khan said through a military interpreter that he was relieved to be let go. “I think it’s a very, very good thing,” he said. He said he joined the Taliban because “everybody was like with the Taliban, so it’s like the force of the Taliban, I was under pressure.” [*]He claimed he had never made or placed a homemade bomb for the insurgents. [as if it would change anything?] [the US cannot possibly know which ones have done which things—they were fighting against the US and now they aren’t and that’s the issue] [*]
Two days later, Mr. Khan went on Captain Cuomo’s instructions to the nearby Garmsir District center, where he and some of the elders met with the district governor and Mr. Khan formally declared his loyalty to the Afghan government.
But what is preventing him from rejoining the Taliban? The Marines say the village elders who vouched for him will help keep him in check, as will a parole-like program. The Marines will meet with him regularly and pump him for information about his friends. They also expect him to be employed in a canal cleanup project this summer.
“If they realize at some point that the cause they think they’re fighting for is not a worthy one, and we’re here to bring stability to the area, then you have to make an overture,” Captain Cuomo said, then paused before asking: “Will it bite you in the butt?”
He did not directly answer.
C. J. Chivers contributed reporting from Marja, Afghanistan.

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

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052304105.html
Many disillusioned Pakistanis look beyond U.S. for work, travel and education
By Tara Bahrampour and Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 24, 2010; A12 [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] [Pakistani angst; do they realize how much US-Western angst exists about them?] [use psci 469] [*]
A series of international terrorism incidents linked to Pakistanis, including a failed car bombing this month in Times Square, has prompted many Pakistanis who once had deep ties to the United States to look elsewhere for work, education and travel. It has also left some Pakistani Americans feeling uneasy in their adopted homeland. [*]
The stress of living under suspicion has had a palpable effect, Pakistani American community leaders say. Travel agents say bookings between Pakistan and the United States are down, and U.S. visa applications for travel from Pakistan appear to be dwindling. [*] Though the U.S. government has ended a policy implemented after an attempted Christmas

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/23/AR2010052304105.html
Many disillusioned Pakistanis look beyond U.S. for work, travel and education
By Tara Bahrampour and Pamela Constable
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, May 24, 2010; A12 [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] [Pakistani angst; do they realize how much US-Western angst exists about them?] [use psci 469] [*]
A series of international terrorism incidents linked to Pakistanis, including a failed car bombing this month in Times Square, has prompted many Pakistanis who once had deep ties to the United States to look elsewhere for work, education and travel. It has also left some Pakistani Americans feeling uneasy in their adopted homeland. [*]
The stress of living under suspicion has had a palpable effect, Pakistani American community leaders say. Travel agents say bookings between Pakistan and the United States are down, and U.S. visa applications for travel from Pakistan appear to be dwindling. [*] Though the U.S. government has ended a policy implemented after an attempted Christmas Day airplane bombing that involved extra scrutiny for travelers from 14 countries, including Pakistan, many Pakistanis still feel they are being watched. [I’m sure they are to some extent] [and with all the crap coming from Waziristan, why not?] [*]
Times Square bomb suspect Faisal Shahzad "has put us all in this situation where everyone will look at us Pakistani Americans and wonder if they have any connection," said Shaista Mahmood, 54, a community leader who lives in Mount Vernon.
In Pakistan, increased scrutiny of visas and more stringent U.S. airport searches have exacerbated feelings of rejection and discomfort. Many Pakistanis say they do not want to travel to the United States anymore, whether to study, visit relatives or take once-desirable jobs. [don’t blame them but I cannot see how they could blame Americans for their concern?] [*]
Anger and anxiety
"All these U.S. policies have given a whole generation of Pakistanis the psyche that the United States doesn't want us," [that may be; but it’s equally true that Pakistani actions have caused Americans to wonder about Pakistanis in US] [both sides need to try to empathize a bit with the other, I imagine] [*]said Arsalan Ishtiaq, a visa adviser in the city of Rawalpindi who has not received a single U.S. student visa inquiry in two years. "Not only is it much harder to get a visa now, but the few who do get them worry they may get in trouble or implicated in something if they go."
A dozen technology students in Islamabad and Rawalpindi who once would have given anything to work in the United States said they were instead seeking jobs in Britain, Australia, Canada or the United Arab Emirates. [then they have incredibly short memories] [UK looks at them as severly if not more than Americans and for similar reasons, June2005 (x 2), August 2006, …] [*]Several said they had heard about humiliating searches at U.S. airports and spoke angrily of Pakistanis being branded as Islamist radicals. The Times Square incident, they said, was the last straw. [well gee, it was likely a last straw for some Americans too] [*]
"Now the Americans will think we are all terrorists," said Asalan Khan, 21, who recently completed a course in cellphone technology and plans to work in South Africa. "Why should we study so hard, take all those tests and pay all those expenses if they are not going to respect us?"
The Times Square incident has generated hundreds of comments by bloggers, columnists and others in Pakistan. Some were perplexed and angry that an apparently successful Pakistani American might be connected to the bomb plot; others warned of new crackdowns and humiliations. [both frustrations are understandable] [*]
Some younger Pakistanis said friends in the United States have told prospective employers that they are of Indian origin to avoid problems. Others said relatives who are longtime U.S. residents have faced criticism from friends still living in Pakistan, whose views have become much more anti-American in recent years. [do they not understand how the sometimes unbridled hostility to the US in Pakistan affects Americans?] [*]
"My uncle has been living in the United States for years," said Akmal Abassi, an English language instructor and visa adviser in Rawalpindi. "He still admires the American values of freedom and equality, but now it is much harder for him to convince people here at home." Abassi says the majority of his students now seek advanced degrees in Britain.
Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis have relatives in the United States, and several said they have decided not to visit them for now, to avoid unpleasant encounters.
'As a parent, it gets scary'
There has been no shift in the number of U.S. citizens of Pakistani origin seeking visas to travel to their native land, said Nadeem Haider Kiani, a spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington. But he said that such a shift would be hard to gauge until this summer. "Most travel to Pakistan during summer vacation, so we'll have to wait and see," he said.
None of those interviewed in Pakistan said their family members in the United States had encountered personal problems with U.S. authorities. But Adnan Khan, who has lived in the United States for 28 years, said that this summer, for the first time, he will send his wife and daughter alone on the regular family visit to Pakistan and keep his 19-year-old son with him in Walnut, Calif. [*]
"Reports coming out now are that it's five or six hours in the airport," [if they don’t think that Pakistanis are going to get close looks at airports, they are being naïve] [*] he said, referring to tales of Pakistani travelers, usually young men, being detained for questioning. The last time the Khan family returned from Pakistan, three years ago, the son was pulled aside for questioning. It unsettled the father. "Why is he being separated and why am I not included?" said Khan, president of the Council of Pakistan American Affairs. "As a parent, it gets scary."
The effects of the negative publicity could be lasting, Khan said. "We're going to have a whole generation of kids . . . growing up seeing their parents sitting down every night and the discussion was this whole terrorism thing," he said. "I think they'll need therapy, once this war ends, telling them they're not terrorists." [sad all the way around] [and counterproductive for both countries] [but it’s going to play out as it’s going to play out?] [*]
Constable reported from Pakistan. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

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

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37643.html
[accessed 5/23/10 1:32 PM] [*]
Politico
Intel Post A “Wicked Problem” for W.H
Josh Gerstein
May 23, 2010 [Obama White House] [NSC principals and counterterror bureaucracy] [the reorganized IC, as created with IRTPA] [last year’s battles between DNI Blair and CIA director Panetta] [Panetta’s apparent victories in same] [followup] [recent news that Panetta and Jones sent to Pakistan to represent president] [use psci 355-455] [looks like admin was pushing and Blair readying to leave and now Blair announces same] [hugely important: demonstrated the DNI (and ODNI) have not seized (or been allowed to seize) the power the 9/11 Commission said was imperative] [followup] [*]
Prominent political figures and intelligence veterans aren’t exactly leaping at the opportunity to replace Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence who was ousted byPresident Barack Obama last week after losing a series of fights with the CIA and presiding over an intelligence system that failed to detect beforehand three significant

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0510/37643.html
[accessed 5/23/10 1:32 PM] [*]
Politico
Intel Post A “Wicked Problem” for W.H
Josh Gerstein
May 23, 2010 [Obama White House] [NSC principals and counterterror bureaucracy] [the reorganized IC, as created with IRTPA] [last year’s battles between DNI Blair and CIA director Panetta] [Panetta’s apparent victories in same] [followup] [recent news that Panetta and Jones sent to Pakistan to represent president] [use psci 355-455] [looks like admin was pushing and Blair readying to leave and now Blair announces same] [hugely important: demonstrated the DNI (and ODNI) have not seized (or been allowed to seize) the power the 9/11 Commission said was imperative] [followup] [*]
Prominent political figures and intelligence veterans aren’t exactly leaping at the opportunity to replace Dennis Blair, the director of national intelligence who was ousted byPresident Barack Obama last week after losing a series of fights with the CIA and presiding over an intelligence system that failed to detect beforehand three significant terror strikes.

Intelligence analysts say the next DNI will inherit a job with a big mandate — overseeing a sprawling U.S. intelligence bureaucracy largely suspicious and resentful of him — but little real power to carry out reforms, and a position first in line to take the inevitable political heat.

The difficulties the Obama administration has run into in filling the post are rekindling questions about whether anyone can successfully do the job as it is currently constructed — doubts that now extend to some of the earliest and loudest voices for creating the new role five years ago.

“The position is extremely difficult and may be unmanageable,” said Lee Hamilton, the former Democratic congressman from Indiana and co-chair of the 9/11 panel that recommended the new post. “Four DNIs in five years when you appoint the new person, for one of the most important jobs in government? That turnover has to be worrisome. We’ve had three very good people appointed to the post and they’ve all come away dissatisfied…. In large part, they stepped aside or came away dissatisfied because of a lack of authority to get done what they think needs to be done.” [*]

“The job hasn’t been going very well,” said Fran Townsend, a former homeland security adviser to President George W. Bush. “Either you give the DNI the authority he needs or change the job so it focuses more on strategy, and then you don’t need the authority.” [*]

Some say the problems encountered by Blair, and predecessors John Negroponte andMike McConnell, are rooted in an incomplete and watered-down series of reforms Congress passed in 2004 after the 9/11 Commission blamed a lack of coordination and information-sharing among agencies for failing to head off those attacks.

“This is yet another indication of how not-well-thought-out the reorganization in 2004 was, and we’ve had various manifestations of that. The tribulations of Denny Blair are simply the latest ones,” said Paul Pillar, a former top CIA official now a professor at Georgetown. “More and more people are now willing to question whether [the creation of the post] was an improvement or not.”

Intelligence community sources say the administration has tried to interest political figures like former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) in taking the DNI post, but has had little success interesting them in a job whose previous occupants have felt hamstrung by a lack of power over the intelligence community’s budget and its allocations of personnel.

In a series of turf battles over the past year, Blair sought to assert his authority to select the lead U.S. intelligence community representative in foreign countries. He also moved for greater oversight of CIA covert operations. Obama and Vice President Joe Biden largely rebuffed him on both counts, siding with CIA Director Leon Panetta, a politically savvy ex-congressman from California and chief of staff under Bill Clinton. [*]

Even some proponents of a muscular DNI criticized some of Blair’s efforts to exert control over the CIA. “I think Blair did step across a red line there,” in demanding the right to name the country representatives, Hamilton said. “The FBI is not going to let anyone appoint the special agents in charge for them and the CIA is not going to let anyone appoint their station chiefs.”

Blair also irked the White House with public pronouncements seeming to back the past use of aggressive interrogation techniques (He said they produced “high-value information.”) and on other aspects of the fight against terrorism that seemed out of synch with the administration’s message. In several instances, Blair had to reverse or clarify his remarks.
“Denny realized, having lost a couple of battles with Leon, that he was being too ambitious,” Townsend said. “He tried to scale it back, but it was just too late.” [*]

One former senior intelligence official said that there are probably some people who could successfully do the job as it was originally conceived, but those individuals likely wouldn’t take it.

“The law is so weak that you’ve got to strengthen the law with something — that’s probably raw talent and raw relationships,” said the ex-official, who asked not to be named.

“My sense is they’re not going to be able to get any civilian or politician to take the job. It’s going to have to be someone who is or has been a GI,” said the intelligence veteran. “When they get a phone call from the president saying your country needs you, a GI can’t turn that down.”

According to sources, the leading contender to replace Blair is James Clapper, a retired Air Force lieutenant general who is now the undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

Former intelligence and national security officials praised Clapper, but said his nomination as DNI would signal that, by design or default, the White House was scaling back the scope of the job. [they already did when they elevated homeland security adviser and counterterrorism adviser] [*]

It’s implausible to believe, one ex-official said, that Clapper would stand any chance of prevailing in a fight with a well-connected political veteran like Panetta.

“All the political juice in the intelligence community is with Leon,” the former official said.
After refusing to comment for nearly a year on the DNI-CIA conflicts, the White House publicly acknowledged them on Friday, suggesting they were inevitable consequences of the 2004 intelligence reform law that created the directorship.

“The act that set this up put off some of the more difficult questions legislatively for the DNI to have to go through. Adm. Blair did that….working through questions like budget authority, working through questions like chief of station representation,” White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said. “There is probably no harder job in Washington, besides being president, than being director of national intelligence….Director Blair had to bring some clarity to the challenges that the DNI has. He has done that.”

During an off-the-record speech to former intelligence officers on Friday, Blair said little about his falling out with the White House. Attendees said he was “positive” and “not apologetic” about his performance in the job. Several said Blair compared his turbulent tenure to the travails of John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd’s characters in the classic 1980 film, “The Blues Brothers.”

But in what may prove a politically awkward situation for the White House, the DNI post requires Senate confirmation — so the recriminations that led to Blair’s departure seem likely to get a public airing.

Blair’s rocky ride and somewhat abrupt exit is stoking the debate about whether the DNI job needs more power or whether it should instead be relegated to more of a facilitator who would try to align intelligence agency efforts without issuing outright orders — a so-called DNI-lite. [*]

“You have two competing views of the position,” Hamilton said. “One is a strong leader, fully empowered with budget power and clear authority. The other is the coordinator, the facilitator, the convener….Given that the law is not going to be changed in the near future, I think the president has to step in and clarify who is in charge.”

“My preference is for a strong DNI,” Hamilton added.

Asked if a director with reduced authority would be better than getting rid of the office entirely, Hamilton said, “Yes, [but] we would not be as well off as if you had someone in charge.”

Former CIA and National Security Agency Director Michael Hayden said he remains a backer of a robust DNI position, but believes it can work under the current law only if the occupant has significant clout at both Langley and the White House. [*]

“This arrangement is no worse than most and probably better than quite a few,” Hayden said. “In order to make it work it depends on two critical relationships: the DNI and the president, and the DNI and the [director of the] CIA. Unfortunately, in the last 16 months those two relationships apparently didn’t work.” [if the DNI is partly dependent on his relationship with CIA while CIA’s boss, that seems unlikely?] [*]

Some analysts said Congress was mistaken from the outset in thinking creating a DNI could solve the intelligence community’s problems with detecting and disrupting terrorist plots. “The DNI really was a political response to a perceived failure. It was one of those administrative solutions to what people call ‘wicked problems’ — problems that don’t really have an answer,” said Glenn Hastedt, a James Madison University professor who studies intelligence reform. “It was certainly never really an answer that was accepted by the intelligence community.”

However, Townsend said the DNI post may simply limp on because the political risks of killing it altogether are too great. “As a practical matter, there’s more than a little risk for the administration if they kill it and something blows up,” she said. “It’s one of the political realities of Washington: It’s much easier to create things than to kill them — even if they’re not working.”
© 2010 Capitol News Company, LLC

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:41 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/science/space/23secret.html
May 21, 2010
Surveillance Is Suspected as Spacecraft’s Main Role
By WILLIAM J. BROAD [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [Pentagon] [the UAV that blasted into space in late April (?)] [I think it’s pretty obvious that it has a lot of espionage and other applications] [may even be proof of concept deal for delivering of conventional and strategic weapons (latter being deterrence) anywhere in world, so forth] [*]
A team of amateur sky watchers has pierced the veil of secrecy surrounding the debut flight of the nation’s first robotic spaceplane, finding clues that suggest the military craft is engaged in the development of spy satellites rather than space weapons, which some experts have suspected but the Pentagon strongly denies. [*]
Last month, the unmanned successor to the space shuttle blasted off from Florida on its debut mission but attracted little public notice because no one knew where it was going or what it was doing. The spaceship, known as the X-37B, was shrouded in operational secrecy, even as civilian specialists reported that it might go on mysterious errands for as long as nine

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/science/space/23secret.html
May 21, 2010
Surveillance Is Suspected as Spacecraft’s Main Role
By WILLIAM J. BROAD [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [bureaucracy] [Pentagon] [the UAV that blasted into space in late April (?)] [I think it’s pretty obvious that it has a lot of espionage and other applications] [may even be proof of concept deal for delivering of conventional and strategic weapons (latter being deterrence) anywhere in world, so forth] [*]
A team of amateur sky watchers has pierced the veil of secrecy surrounding the debut flight of the nation’s first robotic spaceplane, finding clues that suggest the military craft is engaged in the development of spy satellites rather than space weapons, which some experts have suspected but the Pentagon strongly denies. [*]
Last month, the unmanned successor to the space shuttle blasted off from Florida on its debut mission but attracted little public notice because no one knew where it was going or what it was doing. The spaceship, known as the X-37B, was shrouded in operational secrecy, even as civilian specialists reported that it might go on mysterious errands for as long as nine months before zooming back to earth and touching down on a California runway. [*]
In interviews and statements, Pentagon leaders strongly denied that the winged plane had anything to do with space weapons, even while conceding that its ultimate goal was to aid terrestrial war fighters with a variety of ancillary missions. [*]
The secretive effort seeks “no offensive capabilities,” Gary E. Payton, under secretary of the Air Force for space programs, emphasized on Friday. “The program supports technology risk reduction, experimentation and operational concept development.”
The secretive flight, civilian specialists said in recent weeks, probably centers at least partly on testing powerful sensors for a new generation of spy satellites. [*]
Now, the amateur sky watchers have succeeded in tracking the stealthy object for the first time and uncovering clues that could back up the surveillance theory. Ted Molczan, a team member in Toronto, said the military spacecraft was passing over the same region on the ground once every four days, a pattern he called “a common feature of U.S. imaging reconnaissance satellites.”
In six sightings, the team has found that the craft orbits as far north as 40 degrees latitude, just below New York City. In theory, on a clear night, an observer in the suburbs might see the X-37B as a bright star moving across the southern sky.
“This looks very, very good,” Mr. Molczan said of the identification. “We got it.”
In moving from as far as 40 degrees north latitude to 40 degrees south latitude, the military spacecraft passes over many global trouble spots, including Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and North Korea.
Mr. Molczan said team members in Canada and South Africa made independent observations of the X-37B on Thursday and, as it turned out, caught an earlier glimpse of the orbiting spaceship late last month from the United States. Weeks of sky surveys paid off when the team members Kevin Fetter and Greg Roberts managed to observe the craft from Brockville, Ontario, and Cape Town.
Mr. Molczan said the X-37B was orbiting about 255 miles up — standard for a space shuttle — and circling the planet once every 90 minutes or so. [sounds roughly the same depth in space as space station-shuttle mission?] [*]
A fair amount is known publicly about the features of the X-37B because it began life 11 years ago as a project of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, which operates the nation’s space shuttles. The Air Force took over the program in 2006, during the Bush administration, and hung a cloak of secrecy over its budget and missions. [*]
The X-37B has a wingspan of just over 14 feet and is 29 feet long. It looks something like a space shuttle, although about a quarter of the length. The craft’s payload bay is the size of a pickup truck bed, suggesting that it can not only expose experiments to the void of outer space but also deploy and retrieve small satellites. The X-37B can stay aloft for as long as nine months because it deploys solar panels for power, unlike the space shuttle.
Brian Weedon, a former Air Force officer now with the Secure World Foundation, a private group based in Superior, Colo., said the duration of the X-37B’s initial flight would probably depend on “how well it performs in orbit.”
The Air Force Rapid Capabilities Office leads the X-37B program for what it calls the “development and fielding of select Defense Department combat support and weapons systems.” [*]
Mr. Payton, a former astronaut and senior NASA official, has acknowledged that the spacecraft is ultimately meant to give the United States new advantages on terrestrial battlefields, but denies that it represents any kind of space weaponization. [*]
On April 20, two days before the mission’s start, he told reporters that the spacecraft, if successful, would “push us in the vector of being able to react to war-fighter needs more quickly.” And, while offering no specifics, he added that its response to an “urgent war-fighter need” might even pre-empt the launching of other missions on expendable rockets.
But he emphasized the spacecraft’s advantages as an orbiting laboratory, saying it could expose new technology to space for a long time and then “bring it back” for inspection.
Mission control for the X-37B, Mr. Payton said, is located at the Air Force Space Command’s Third Space Experimentation Squadron, based at Schriever Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. He added that the Air Force was building another of the winged spaceships and hopes to launch it next year.
The current mission began on April 22, when an Atlas 5 rocket at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida fired the 5.5-ton spacecraft into orbit.
Jonathan McDowell, a Harvard astronomer who tracks rocket launchings and space activity, said the secrecy surrounding the X-37B even extended to the whereabouts of the rocket’s upper stage, which was sent into an unknown orbit around the sun. In one of his regular Internet postings, he said that appeared to be the first time the United States had put a space vehicle into a solar orbit that is “officially secret.” [*]
David C. Wright, a senior scientist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a private group in Cambridge, Mass., said many aerospace experts questioned whether the mission benefits of the X-37B outweighed its costs and argued that expendable rockets could achieve similar results.
“Sure it’s nice to have,” he said. “But is it really worth the expense?”
Mr. Weedon of the Secure World Foundation argued that the X-37B could prove valuable for quick reconnaissance missions. He said ground crews might rapidly reconfigure its payload — either optical or radar — and have it shot into space on short notice for battlefield surveillance, letting the sensors zoom in on specific conflicts beyond the reach of the nation’s fleet of regular spy satellites. [*]
But he questioned the current mission’s secrecy.
“I don’t think this has anything to do with weapons,” Mr. Weedon said. “But because of the classification, and the refusal to talk, the door opens to all that. So, from a U.S. perspective, that’s counterproductive.”
He also questioned whether the Pentagon’s secrecy about the spacecraft’s orbit had any practical consequences other than keeping the public in the dark.
“If a bunch of amateurs can find it,” Mr. Weedon said, “so can our adversaries.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/asia/23korea.html
May 22, 2010
U.S. Implicates North Korean Leader in Attack
By DAVID E. SANGER [Obama white house] [SecState Clinton] [on DPRK’s apparent sinking of ROK ship in late March] [continuity in USFP?] [*]
WASHINGTON — A new American intelligence analysis of a deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship concludes that Kim Jong-il, the ailing leader of North Korea, must have authorized the torpedo assault, [*]according to senior American officials who cautioned that the assessment was based on their sense of the political dynamics there rather than hard evidence.
The officials said they were increasingly convinced that Mr. Kim ordered the sinking of the ship, the Cheonan, to help secure the succession of his youngest son. [*]
“We can’t say it is established fact,” said one senior American official who was involved in the highly classified assessment, based on information collected by many of the country’s 16 intelligence agencies. “But there is very little doubt, based on what we know about the

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/asia/23korea.html
May 22, 2010
U.S. Implicates North Korean Leader in Attack
By DAVID E. SANGER [Obama white house] [SecState Clinton] [on DPRK’s apparent sinking of ROK ship in late March] [continuity in USFP?] [*]
WASHINGTON — A new American intelligence analysis of a deadly torpedo attack on a South Korean warship concludes that Kim Jong-il, the ailing leader of North Korea, must have authorized the torpedo assault, [*]according to senior American officials who cautioned that the assessment was based on their sense of the political dynamics there rather than hard evidence.
The officials said they were increasingly convinced that Mr. Kim ordered the sinking of the ship, the Cheonan, to help secure the succession of his youngest son. [*]
“We can’t say it is established fact,” said one senior American official who was involved in the highly classified assessment, based on information collected by many of the country’s 16 intelligence agencies. “But there is very little doubt, based on what we know about the current state of the North Korean leadership and the military.” [*]
Nonetheless, both the conclusion and the timing of the assessment could be useful to the United States as it seeks to rally support against North Korea. [*]
On Monday, South Korea’s president, Lee Myung-bak, who has moved cautiously since the assault, is expected to call for the United Nations Security Council to condemn the attack and is likely to terminate the few remaining trade ties between North and South that provide the North with hard currency.
But those steps have little chance of proving meaningful unless China, which hosted Mr. Kim two weeks ago, agrees to join the condemnation and refuses to make up whatever revenue North Korea loses from any trade embargoes. [*]China, North Korea’s last true ally, has traditionally been reluctant to pressure the North too much, even when the North Koreans conducted nuclear tests, for fear of toppling the government and sending a flood of refugees across its border.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will be in Beijing when the South Korean action is announced, leading a delegation of 200 American officials, including roughly half of the Obama administration’s cabinet, in an annual “strategic dialogue” with Chinese leaders on a variety of economic and political issues.
So far, at least in public, both American and South Korean leaders have been careful never to link Mr. Kim to the sinking of the Cheonan in March, [*]which killed 46 sailors. Officials said that was in part because of the absence of hard evidence — difficult to come by in the rigidly controlled North — but also largely because both countries were trying to avoid playing into Mr. Kim’s hands by casting one of the worst attacks since the 1953 armistice as another piece of lore about the Kim family taking on South Korea and the West.
The North’s state propaganda surrounding that imagery has been used by the Kim family to sustain two generations of leaders since the end of World War II. Under the leading theory of the American intelligence agencies, Mr. Kim ordered the attack to re-establish both his control and his credentials after a debilitating stroke two years ago, and by extension reinforcing his right to name his son Kim Jong-un as his successor.
North Korea has denied any involvement in the attack, despite the presentation of forensic evidence on Thursday — including parts of the torpedo found in the wreckage — that experts from three countries said established that the torpedo was launched from a North Korean submarine.
Although the American officials who spoke about the intelligence assessment would not reveal much about what led them to conclude that Mr. Kim was directly involved, one factor appeared to be intelligence that he appeared on April 25, the anniversary of the founding of the Korean People’s Army, with a military unit that intelligence agencies believe to have been responsible for the attack. [*]
Mr. Kim used the event to praise the group, Unit 586, the officials said, and around that time a fourth star appears to have been given to Gen. Kim Myong-guk, who officials believe may have played a crucial role in executing the attack. General Kim is believed to have been demoted to a three-star general last year, perhaps in response to the humiliation that took place after a North Korean ship ventured into South Korean waters. The North Korean ship was all but destroyed, and some analysts believe the attack on the Cheonan, which was in South Korean waters, was planned as retribution.
“Nobody is going to take overt credit for the sinking,” said Jonathan Pollack, a professor at the Naval War College and an expert on North Korea’s military. “But Kim’s visit to this unit has all the hallmarks of congratulating them for a job well done.” [*]
The senior American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the intelligence assessment is classified, said they ruled out the idea that General Kim or another military officer decided on his own to attack, but they did not explain how they reached that conclusion.
Victor Cha, a North Korea expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and a former official in the National Security Council during PresidentGeorge W. Bush’s second term in office, noted that when Mr. Kim was on the rise three decades ago, “there were similar incidents designed to build his credibility” as a leader.
The Cheonan episode has posed some difficult choices for the Obama administration at a time when its national security team is preoccupied with Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran.
In an intense series of back-channel discussions with Mr. Lee, senior administration officials, including President Obama, have praised South Korea for its calm response. Like the South Koreans, American officials fear that any military retaliation against the North could quickly escalate, leading to rocket attacks on Seoul, major casualties and a panic among investors in South Korea. At the same time, they worry that if North Korea gets through the episode without paying a price — one that American officials decline to define — it could embolden the North Korean military.
The North Korean defense commission, which rarely issues public statements, turned out a fiery-sounding warning last week, saying it would respond to any military retaliation with “all-out war.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:24 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/us/politics/23obama.html
May 22, 2010
Obama Offers Strategy Based in Diplomacy
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [Obama speech] [apparently, president is talking about the national security strategy of United States, finally] [*]
WEST POINT, N.Y. — President Obama previewed a new national security strategy rooted in diplomatic engagement and international alliances on Saturday as he essentially repudiated his predecessor’s emphasis on unilateral American power and the right to wage pre-emptive war. [*]
Eight years after President George W. Bush came to the United States Military Academy to set a new security doctrine after the Sept. 11 attacks, [Bush speech was June 2002?] [*]Mr. Obama used the same setting to offer a revised vision vowing no retreat against enemies while seeking “national renewal and global leadership.”
“Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system,” the president told

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/us/politics/23obama.html
May 22, 2010
Obama Offers Strategy Based in Diplomacy
By PETER BAKER [Obama white house] [111th congress, 2nd session] [NSC principals in Obama white house] [Obama speech] [apparently, president is talking about the national security strategy of United States, finally] [*]
WEST POINT, N.Y. — President Obama previewed a new national security strategy rooted in diplomatic engagement and international alliances on Saturday as he essentially repudiated his predecessor’s emphasis on unilateral American power and the right to wage pre-emptive war. [*]
Eight years after President George W. Bush came to the United States Military Academy to set a new security doctrine after the Sept. 11 attacks, [Bush speech was June 2002?] [*]Mr. Obama used the same setting to offer a revised vision vowing no retreat against enemies while seeking “national renewal and global leadership.”
“Yes, we are clear-eyed about the shortfalls of our international system,” the president told graduating cadets. “But America has not succeeded by stepping out of the currents of cooperation. We have succeeded by steering those currents in the direction of liberty and justice, so nations thrive by meeting their responsibilities and face consequences when they don’t.” [*]
Mr. Obama said the United States would “be steadfast in strengthening those old alliances that have served us so well,” while also trying to “build new partnerships and shape stronger international standards and institutions.” He added: “This engagement is not an end in itself. The international order we seek is one that can resolve the challenges of our times.” [*]
The president’s address was aimed not just at 1,000 young men and women in gray and white uniforms in Michie Stadium who could soon face the perils of Afghanistan or Iraq as Army lieutenants, but also at an international audience that in some quarters grew alienated during the Bush era.
While the president never mentioned his predecessor’s name, the contrast between Mr. Bush’s address in 2002 and Mr. Obama’s in 2010 underscored the ways a wartime America has changed — and the ways it has not. [*]This was the ninth West Point class to graduate since hijackers smashed planes into New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania. Most of those commissioned on Saturday were 12 at the time.
When Mr. Bush addressed their predecessors, he had toppled the Taliban government in Afghanistan and was turning attention to Iraq. “If we wait for threats to fully materialize,” he said then, “we will have waited too long.” As Mr. Obama took the stage on a mild, overcast day, the American war in Iraq was winding down, but Afghanistan had flared out of control and terrorists were making a fresh effort to strike inside the United States.
“This war has changed over the last nine years, but it’s no less important than it was in those days after 9/11,” Mr. Obama said. [*]Recalling his decision announced here six months ago to send 30,000 reinforcements to Afghanistan, Mr. Obama said difficult days were ahead, but added, “I have no doubt that together with our Afghan and international partners, we will succeed in Afghanistan.” [*]
Mr. Obama all but declared victory in Iraq, praising the military, but not Mr. Bush, for turning it around. “A lesser Army might have seen its spirit broken,” he said. “But the American military is more resilient than that.”
At home, Mr. Obama attributed the failure of efforts to blow up an airplane over Detroit and a car packed with explosives in Times Square to the intense American pursuit of radical groups abroad. “These failed attacks show that pressure on networks like Al Qaeda is forcing them to rely on terrorists with less time and space to train,” he said.
And he defended his revised counterterrorism policies that critics say have weakened America’s defenses. “We should not discard our freedoms because extremists try to exploit them,” he said. “We cannot succumb to division because others try to drive us apart.” [hear, hear] [*]
The speech offered a glimpse of his first official national security strategy, to be released this week, including four principles: to build strength abroad by building strength at home through education, clean energy and innovation; to promote “the renewed engagement of our diplomats” and support international development; to rebuild alliances; and to promote human rights and democracy abroad.
But even as he tried to distinguish his strategy from Mr. Bush’s, Mr. Obama faced the same daunting realization and expressed it with a line Mr. Bush used repeatedly: “This is a different kind of war,” he said. “There will be no simple moment of surrender to mark the journey’s end, no armistice or banner headline.” [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:23 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/europe/23europe.html
May 22, 2010
Europeans Fear Crisis Threatens Liberal Benefits
By STEVEN ERLANGER [France] [EU3] [Germany] [global economic meltdown] [the big-fat Greek wedding that has lasted 10-plus years is now coming home to roost?] [if it does not abate soon—if the trillion other EU members have ponied up doesn’t slow it—it’s likely to affect US with a 2nd dip in recession?] [followup] [*]
PARIS — Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II.
Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.
Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. They have also translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net. “The Europe that protects” is a slogan of the European Union.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/europe/23europe.html
May 22, 2010
Europeans Fear Crisis Threatens Liberal Benefits
By STEVEN ERLANGER [France] [EU3] [Germany] [global economic meltdown] [the big-fat Greek wedding that has lasted 10-plus years is now coming home to roost?] [if it does not abate soon—if the trillion other EU members have ponied up doesn’t slow it—it’s likely to affect US with a 2nd dip in recession?] [followup] [*]
PARIS — Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II.
Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.
Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. They have also translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net. “The Europe that protects” is a slogan of the European Union.
But all over Europe governments with big budgets, falling tax revenues and aging populations are experiencing rising deficits, with more bad news ahead.
With low growth, low birthrates and longer life expectancies, Europe can no longer afford its comfortable lifestyle, at least not without a period of austerity and significant changes. The countries are trying to reassure investors by cutting salaries, raising legal retirement ages, increasing work hours and reducing health benefits and pensions.
“We’re now in rescue mode,” said Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister. “But we need to transition to the reform mode very soon. The ‘reform deficit’ is the real problem,” he said, pointing to the need for structural change.
The reaction so far to government efforts to cut spending has been pessimism and anger, with an understanding that the current system is unsustainable.
In Athens, Aris Iordanidis, 25, an economics graduate working in a bookstore, resents paying high taxes to finance Greece’s bloated state sector and its employees. “They sit there for years drinking coffee and chatting on the telephone and then retire at 50 with nice fat pensions,” he said. “As for us, the way things are going we’ll have to work until we’re 70.”
In Rome, Aldo Cimaglia is 52 and teaches photography, and he is deeply pessimistic about his pension. “It’s going to go belly-up because no one will be around to fill the pension coffers,” he said. “It’s not just me; this country has no future.”
Changes have now become urgent. Europe’s population is aging quickly as birthrates decline. Unemployment has risen as traditional industries have shifted to Asia. And the region lacks competitiveness in world markets.
According to the European Commission, by 2050 the percentage of Europeans older than 65 will nearly double. In the 1950s there were seven workers for every retiree in advanced economies. By 2050, the ratio in the European Union will drop to 1.3 to 1.
“The easy days are over for countries like Greece, Portugal and Spain, but for us, too,” said Laurent Cohen-Tanugi, a French lawyer who did a study of Europe in the global economy for the French government. “A lot of Europeans would not like the issue cast in these terms, but that is the storm we’re facing. We can no longer afford the old social model, and there is a real need for structural reform.”
In Paris, Malka Braniste, 88, lives on the pension of her deceased husband. “I’m worried for the next generations,” she said at lunch with her daughter-in-law, DominiqueAlcan, 49. “People who don’t put money aside won’t get anything.”
Ms. Alcan expects to have to work longer as a traveling saleswoman. “But I’m afraid I’ll never reach the same level of comfort,” she said. “I won’t be able to do my job at 63; being a saleswoman requires a lot of energy.”
Gustave Brun d’Arre, 18, is still in high school. “The only thing we’re told is that we will have to pay for the others,” he said, sipping a beer at a cafe. The waiter interrupted, discussing plans to alter the French pension system. “It will be a mess,” the waiter said. “We’ll have to work harder and longer in our jobs.”
Figures show the severity of the problem. Gross public social expenditures in the European Union increased from 16 percent of gross domestic product in 1980 to 21 percent in 2005, compared with 15.9 percent in the United States. In France, the figure now is 31 percent, the highest in Europe, with state pensions making up more than 44 percent of the total and health care, 30 percent.
The challenge is particularly daunting in France, which has done less to reduce the state’s obligations than some of its neighbors. In Sweden and Switzerland, 7 of 10 people work past 50. In France, only half do. The legal retirement age in France is 60, while Germany recently raised it to 67 for those born after 1963.
With the retirement of the baby boomers, the number of pensioners will rise 47 percent in France between now and 2050, while the number under 60 will remain stagnant. The French call it “du baby boom au papy boom,” and the costs, if unchanged, are unsustainable. The French state pension system today is running a deficit of 11 billion euros, or about $13.8 billion; by 2050, it will be 103 billion euros, or $129.5 billion, about 2.6 percent of projected economic output.
President Nicolas Sarkozy has vowed to pass major pension reform this year. There have been two contentious overhauls, in 2003 and 2008; the government, afraid to lower pensions, wants to increase taxes on high salaries and increase the years of work.
But the unions are unhappy, and the Socialist Party opposes raising the retirement age. Polls show that while most French see a pension overhaul as necessary, up to 60 percent say working past 60 is not the answer.
Jean-François Copé, the parliamentary leader for Mr. Sarkozy’s center-right party, says that change is painful, but necessary. “The point is to preserve our model and keep it,” he said. “We need to get rid of bad habits. The Germans did it, and we can do the same.”
More broadly, many across Europe say the Continent will have to adapt to fiscal and demographic change, because social peace depends on it. “Europe won’t work without that,” said Joschka Fischer, the former German foreign minister, referring to the state’s protective role. “In Europe we have nationalism and racism in a politicized manner, and those parties would have exploited grievances if not for our welfare state,” he said. “It’s a matter of national security, of our democracy.”
France will ultimately have to follow Sweden and Germany in raising the pension age, he argues. “This will have to be harmonized, Europeanized, or it won’t work — you can’t have a pension at 67 here and 55 in Greece,” Mr. Fischer said.
The problems are even more acute in the “new democracies” of the euro zone — Greece, Portugal and Spain — that embraced European democratic ideals and that Europe embraced for political reasons in the postwar era, perhaps before their economies were ready. They have built lavish state systems on the back of the euro, but now must change.
Under threat of default, Greece has frozen pensions for three years and drafted a bill to raise the legal retirement age to 65. Greece froze public-sector pay and trimmed benefits for state employees, including a bonus two months of salary. Portugal has cut 5 percent from the salaries of senior public employees and politicians and increased taxes, while canceling big projects; Spain is cutting civil service salaries by 5 percent and freezing pay in 2011 while also chopping public projects.
But all three need to do more to bolster their competitiveness and growth, mostly by changing deeply inflexible employment rules, which can make it prohibitively expensive to hire or fire staff members, keeping unemployment high.
Jean-Claude Meunier is 68, a retired French Navy official and headhunter, who plays bridge to “train my memory and avoid Alzheimer’s.” His main worry is pension. “For years, our political leaders acted with very little courage,” he said. “Pensions represent the failure of the leaders and the failure of the system.”
In Athens, Mr. Iordanidis, the graduate who makes 800 euros a month in a bookstore, said he saw one possible upside. “It could be a chance to overhaul the whole rancid system,” he said, “and create a state that actually works.”
Reporting was contributed by Maïa de la Baume and Scott Sayre from Paris, Niki Kitsantonis from Athens, and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:22 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/asia/24japan.html
May 23, 2010
Japanese Leader Gives In to U.S. on Okinawa Base
By MARTIN FACKLER [Japan] [NEAsia] [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!] [followup] [*]
TOKYO — Apologizing for failing to fulfill a prominent campaign promise, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told outraged residents of Okinawa on Sunday that he has decided to relocate an American air base to the north side of the island as originally agreed upon with the United States.
On his second visit to Okinawa this month, Mr. Hatoyama for first time conceded what Japanese media had been reporting for weeks: that he would accept Washington’s demands

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/asia/24japan.html
May 23, 2010
Japanese Leader Gives In to U.S. on Okinawa Base
By MARTIN FACKLER [Japan] [NEAsia] [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!] [followup] [*]
TOKYO — Apologizing for failing to fulfill a prominent campaign promise, Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama told outraged residents of Okinawa on Sunday that he has decided to relocate an American air base to the north side of the island as originally agreed upon with the United States.
On his second visit to Okinawa this month, Mr. Hatoyama for first time conceded what Japanese media had been reporting for weeks: that he would accept Washington’s demands and honor a 2006 agreement to move the United States Marine Air Station Futenma to the island’s less populated north.
The decision is a humiliating setback for Mr. Hatoyama on a problem that has consumed his young government and could prove its undoing. Before last year’s historic election victory, he had vowed to move the base off of Okinawa or even out of Japan. But his apparent wavering on the issue helped drive his approval ratings below 25 percent.
In the end, he seemed to decide it was more important to keep good ties with the United States, Japan’s longtime protector, at a time when his nation faces a nuclear-armed North Korea and an increasingly assertive China. Washington had consistently demanded that Tokyo honor the 2006 agreement to move Futenma and its noisy helicopters to a new facility to be built in Camp Schwab, near the northern Okinawan fishing village of Henoko.
But Mr. Hatoyama’s decision was met with anger on Okinawa, where 90,000 residents rallied last month to oppose the base. On Sunday, irate crowds greeted his arrival with bright yellow signs that said, “Anger,” and showered him with jeering cries of “Go Home!”
Mr. Hatoyama explained his decision by saying that since taking office, he had learned to appreciate the role that the Marines play as a deterrent in the region, and that Okinawa was the most strategic location for them.
“We came to the conclusion that we have to ask local residents to accept the base in an area near Henoko,” Mr. Hatoyama said during a meeting with Okinawa’s governor.
He also said he had opted for the original plan of moving the base to Camp Schwab in order to quickly get it out of its current location in the middle of the city of Ginowan, where residents have long complained of the noise and potential for accidents.
Mr. Hatoyama called it a “heartbreaking” decision, and said he extended his “heartfelt apology for causing much confusion” among islanders.
Okinawa’s governor, Hirokazu Nakaima, said after the meeting with Mr. Hatoyama, “It is regrettable that he built up our expectations over the past half year.”
The announcement was also met with a deluge of criticism back in Tokyo. Opposition leaders and even members of his own ruling coalition blasted Mr. Hatoyama for having turned Futenma’s relocation into a huge political issue, only to go back to the original agreement.
Mr. Hatoyama had promised to change the 2006 agreement during his campaign for last summer’s election, in which his Democratic Party ended a half-century of nearly unbroken rule by the Liberal Democrats. But since taking office, he failed to take a clear stand on the issue, at times saying he wanted the base off Okinawa, but at other times saying he wanted to heed Washington’s concerns.
This apparent flip-flopping fed criticism of Mr. Hatoyama as indecisive and aloof. There is growing speculation among political observers that he may be forced to step down if his Democrats fare poorly in Upper House elections scheduled for July 11.
On Okinawa, local leaders on Sunday vowed to fight the decision, raising the specter of protests that could further delay the new base’s construction and cause further political embarrassment to Mr. Hatoyama and his ruling party.
The base’s relocation was first agreed between Washington and Tokyo in 1996, after the rape of a 12-year-old schoolgirl, but was long delayed as Japan struggled to find a community to accept the Marines.
Helped by offers from Tokyo of generous public works projects, the city of Nago, where Camp Schwab is located, finally agreed to host the replacement facility. In January, however, the city’s pro-base mayor was defeated by an anti-base opponent, who rode a wave of voter expectations that the base would be moved off Okinawa.
In a meeting on Sunday with the prime minister, Nago’s new mayor, Susumu Inamine, told a grim-faced Mr. Hatoyama that he was not welcome. After the meeting, the mayor denounced Mr. Hatoyama for “betraying” his city and Okinawa. He warned that local opposition meant that “there is zero chance” of the base being built.
“I cannot hide my rage,” Mr. Inamine said. “Nago needs no new base.”

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:21 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/asia/24diplo.html
May 23, 2010
In China, Clinton Is All Business
By MARK LANDLER [China] [PRC] [global economic meltdown] [US debt has been covered by China in recent years] [China has purchased lots of T bills] [but the interedependency between the US and China had been growing for decade] [(Recall Clinton and the criticisms of his administration trying to please Chinses too much; and China buying influence, etc.; one need not believe that to know that China’s influence has grown considerably)] [Iran, DPRK, China’s behavior in Xinjiang and Tibet, and many others, have all linked the two together in recent years] [followup] [SecState Clinton in China; left few days ago for trip to region to discuss DPRK sinking of ROK ship, etc] [use psci 355-455] [*]
SHANGHAI — With a Boeing 737 flown by China Eastern Airlines as a backdrop, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday urged China to open up its markets and better protect intellectual property rights, setting the tone for three days of high-level economic and security talks in Beijing.
“American companies want to compete in China,” Mrs. Clinton said. “They want to sell goods made by American workers to Chinese consumers with rising incomes and

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/24/world/asia/24diplo.html
May 23, 2010
In China, Clinton Is All Business
By MARK LANDLER [China] [PRC] [global economic meltdown] [US debt has been covered by China in recent years] [China has purchased lots of T bills] [but the interedependency between the US and China had been growing for decade] [(Recall Clinton and the criticisms of his administration trying to please Chinses too much; and China buying influence, etc.; one need not believe that to know that China’s influence has grown considerably)] [Iran, DPRK, China’s behavior in Xinjiang and Tibet, and many others, have all linked the two together in recent years] [followup] [SecState Clinton in China; left few days ago for trip to region to discuss DPRK sinking of ROK ship, etc] [use psci 355-455] [*]
SHANGHAI — With a Boeing 737 flown by China Eastern Airlines as a backdrop, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Sunday urged China to open up its markets and better protect intellectual property rights, setting the tone for three days of high-level economic and security talks in Beijing.
“American companies want to compete in China,” Mrs. Clinton said. “They want to sell goods made by American workers to Chinese consumers with rising incomes and increasing demand.”
To do that, she said, the United States needs a “level playing field where domestic and international companies can compete freely and openly.” Without singling out China, she called for transparency in rule-making, greater market access and no discrimination in government contracts.
Mrs. Clinton said questions of economic balance and competition would be high on the agenda at the so-called strategic and economic dialogue, to be held Sunday evening in Beijing. She and Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner are leading a delegation of nearly 200 U.S. officials.
“We are seeking a win-win situation for our two countries,” she said, speaking in a cavernous hangar where Boeing, the U.S. aerospace giant, operates a maintenance center with Shanghai Airlines and the Shanghai airport authority.
China is Boeing’s largest market outside the United States, with 450 orders for planes from fast-growing carriers like China Eastern Airlines, which is headquartered in Shanghai. But Boeing, which buys parts from Chinese suppliers, is facing greater competition from Airbus, the European consortium. Airbus opened a final assembly plant, its first outside Europe, in the industrial city of Tianjin in 2009.
On Saturday, Mrs. Clinton visited the U.S. pavilion at the Shanghai World Expo, where she got a rousing cheer from a group of Chinese children. By all accounts, the United States would have been a no-show at the expo had she not opened her Rolodex and called upon her supporters to raise $60 million in private cash to finance the U.S. exhibit.
But the house that Mrs. Clinton built is unmistakably the house that corporate America paid for.
After touring the pavilion — with its Citibank and Pfizer-sponsored theaters, gauzy eight-minute videos featuring representatives from Chevron, General Electric andJohnson & Johnson, an exhibit hall emblazoned with more brand names, and a gift shop with licensed merchandise from Disney — she seemed less inspired than relieved that the project was done.
“It’s fine,” she said to a reporter asking her what she thought of the pavilion. “Can you imagine if we had not been here?”
With its gunmetal-gray walls and convention-center aesthetics, the pavilion hardly stands out in a fairground studded by beguiling structures like Britain’s Seed Cathedral, a cube with 60,000 sprouting transparent rods that make it look like a dandelion ready to be scattered to the winds.
Still, the organizers of the U.S. pavilion say it has drawn long lines and 700,000 visitors since the expo opened on May 1, which attests either to the enduring attraction of the United States or the wisdom of Woody Allen’s observation that 80 percent of success is showing up.
For Mrs. Clinton, scratching together the money for the project was a simple matter of avoiding a diplomatic snub. The Chinese government spent $45 billion buffing up this glamorous but gritty metropolis to play host to the world fair, and they are treating the six-month- long event with almost the same importance they attached to the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
The participation of the United States was in jeopardy because Congress restricts the spending of public money on world fairs, and under the administration of PresidentGeorge W. Bush, the project had virtually no private financing.
On Mrs. Clinton’s first visit as secretary of state last year, Chinese officials implored her to do something.
“It’s like a coming-out party for countries and cities,” Mrs. Clinton said, referring to world fairs of the last century in Chicago and St. Louis. “There’s a real historical significance to this.”
To avoid violating U.S. government rules, Mrs. Clinton assigned most of the one-on-one fund-raising to two longtime Clinton fund-raisers: Elizabeth F. Bagley and Jose H. Villarreal, both of whom were on hand.
As she walked into the U.S. pavilion on Saturday morning, Mrs. Clinton greeted Indra K. Nooyi, the chief executive of PepsiCo, and senior executives from Chevron, GE and Johnson & Johnson, each of which kicked in $5 million for the exhibit.
She met major sponsors again at a dinner on Saturday night.
Mrs. Clinton also toured China’s pavilion, a monumental deep-red building with a traditional Chinese inverted roof. “It would have to be very big to fit all the provinces of China in it,” she told Shanghai’s mayor, Han Zheng, who thanked her for making sure the United States had a presence.
Nearly 200 countries are represented at the Expo, which stretches along both banks of the Huangpu River. Two countries branded as rogue nations, Iran and North Korea, are conveniently located next to each other.
Among the North Korean attractions was a video of a rocket launching intercut with pictures of children in a classroom.
Iran has gathered examples of its technology, including a satellite and what was identified as the country’s first cloned goat, which had been stuffed. “Only a few countries such as the U.S., U.K., Canada, and China have a cloned goat in their list of achievements,” a placard said.
Neither country made any mention of its nuclear program, which in both cases is fueling tensions with their neighbors and Washington. But then, the United States’ pavilion does not mention the U.S. political system, the Constitution or the country’s founders.
Instead, visitors are treated to a video of Americans struggling to speak Chinese, testimonials about sustainable energy, water conservation and family values — each presented by a corporate sponsor with interest in those areas — followed by a video about a young girl planting a garden in a garbage-strewn lot.
At one point, the seats shake and the audience is sprayed with mist.
The highlight at the pavilion is 70 student ambassadors, drawn from universities around the United States, who speak fluent Mandarin and entertain the long lines of visitors.
Franklin L. Lavin, a former U.S. ambassador to Singapore who is the chairman of the pavilion’s steering committee, said the organizers steered clear of messages about free speech or democratic institutions in favor of the simple virtues of civic-mindedness.
“We wanted to talk about what works in American society, not what doesn’t work in other societies,” Mr. Lavin said.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:20 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/asia/23afghan.html
May 22, 2010
Afghan Government and Taliban Deny Formal Talks
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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [rumors continue to circulate suggesting representatives of factions in Taliban have been meeting with Karzai (or other) representatives in Maldives; said to be looking for political solution] [principals deny all of it, of course] [followup] [use psci 469] [this is precisely what happened before the “surge” in –ir; US and other interlocuters met with key Sunni Awakening members to cut deal on reintegration] [nevertheless, look for the noisy neoconservative (and other hard right) groups to criticize as appeasement] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government and representatives of the Taliban denied on Saturday any connection to reported peace talks on a Maldives island and said the gathering would not lead to anything substantive.
The office of President Mohammed Nasheed of the Maldives announced Thursday that his

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/asia/23afghan.html
May 22, 2010
Afghan Government and Taliban Deny Formal Talks
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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [rumors continue to circulate suggesting representatives of factions in Taliban have been meeting with Karzai (or other) representatives in Maldives; said to be looking for political solution] [principals deny all of it, of course] [followup] [use psci 469] [this is precisely what happened before the “surge” in –ir; US and other interlocuters met with key Sunni Awakening members to cut deal on reintegration] [nevertheless, look for the noisy neoconservative (and other hard right) groups to criticize as appeasement] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — The Afghan government and representatives of the Taliban denied on Saturday any connection to reported peace talks on a Maldives island and said the gathering would not lead to anything substantive.
The office of President Mohammed Nasheed of the Maldives announced Thursday that his government had helped organize the talks in the hope of bringing peace to the region.
About 10 to 20 delegates, including members of the Afghan Parliament, were taking part in several days of discussions to explore an end to the war in Afghanistan, [*]government officials confirmed. Among them were former members of the Taliban and of the mujahedeen party Hezb-i-Islami, whose leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, opposes foreign forces in Afghanistan, officials said.
The Afghan government said that it was not participating and that the discussions were not official peace talks. A government spokesman welcomed any effort toward peace, but said such talks should be held inside the country. The Taliban issued an e-mail statement dismissing as “baseless” a report that its representatives had participated in the talks. Those who took part in the name of the Taliban were in fact people who had already surrendered to the government of President Hamid Karzai and so were acting on behalf of the Afghan government, the statement said.
The Taliban reiterated its demand for the unconditional and immediate withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan. The gathering was organized by Homayoun Jarir, a son-in-law of Mr. Hekmatyar, who has acted as a go-between for the Afghan government and Mr. Hekmatyar. Among the parliamentarians present were Arsala Rahmani, a former minister of higher education in the Taliban [*]government who has worked on bringing Taliban members to the government’s side. [the thing is there are two main types of Taliban: true believers (led and represented by Mullah Omar) and religious-nationalist resistance] [presumably, a bunch of the latter group are reconcilables] [*]
Another parliamentarian, Khalid Farooqi, a former member of Mr. Hekmatyar’s party, said Iran had organized the talks, but there was no independent confirmation.
The State Department spokesman Philip J. Crowley told The Associated Press in Washington, “We continue to support efforts by the Afghan government to open the door to those Taliban who abandon violence and respect human rights of their fellow citizens.”
Rod Nordland and Sangar Rahimi contributed reporting.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:19 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/weekinreview/23burns-sidebar.html
May 22, 2010
Kandahar: A Dossier and Timeline
The Prize [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [just a chronology of sorts--useful] [followup] [use psci 469] [*]
Kandahar - the province and the city - is a prize politically, economically and militarily. Most residents are Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, and Kandahar is the birthplace and political base of the Taliban. To the south, Kandahar borders Pakistan near the city of Quetta, from which Taliban leaders in exile now direct attacks on the Afghan government and Western forces.
Of Opium and Desert
North of the capital, the towering mountains of the Hindu Kush descend to lush towns and river-fed irrigated farmland where vineyards and opium poppies flourish. To the south, the province's farmland gives way to a thinly populated desert.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/weekinreview/23burns-sidebar.html
May 22, 2010
Kandahar: A Dossier and Timeline
The Prize [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [just a chronology of sorts--useful] [followup] [use psci 469] [*]
Kandahar - the province and the city - is a prize politically, economically and militarily. Most residents are Pashtuns, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, and Kandahar is the birthplace and political base of the Taliban. To the south, Kandahar borders Pakistan near the city of Quetta, from which Taliban leaders in exile now direct attacks on the Afghan government and Western forces.
Of Opium and Desert
North of the capital, the towering mountains of the Hindu Kush descend to lush towns and river-fed irrigated farmland where vineyards and opium poppies flourish. To the south, the province's farmland gives way to a thinly populated desert.
Highways, Convoys, Bandits
Kandahar is one of Afghanistan's two main gateway cities for overland traffic to and from Pakistan (the other is Peshawar in the northeast, near the Khyber Pass). It is a crossroads for the main highways around and through the country - to the west, Iran; to the east, Kabul; to the north, the Hindu Kush; to the south, Pakistan. The roads carry truckers, smugglers, military convoys and heroin traffickers. In the early 1990s, warlords extorted fees from truckers and smugglers. The Taliban gained supporters by ending the hated fees.
The Contenders
The two main opponents in Afghanistan's struggle have deep roots in Kandahar. President Hamid Karzai, who heads the Afghan government, was born into an influential and patrician Kandahari family; Mullah Omar, the principal founder of the Taliban, is from rural Kandahar, as are many other founders of the movement.
Tide of Battle
1980s Kandahar is a center of resistance to the Soviets.
1989 The last Soviet troops leave Afghanistan, setting the stage for civil war.
October-November 1994 The Taliban emerge in Kandahar and seize power.
September 1996 Kabul falls to the Taliban, but warfare continues.
December 2001 After the 9/11 attacks, U.S. forces and their Afghan allies oust the Taliban from Kandahar.
2002 The Taliban leadership reorganizes in Quetta.
2004 The Taliban advance on Kandahar City but American forces stop them.
Summer 2005 Ahmed Wali Karzai becomes Kandahar's chief power broker.
2006 Americans turn over responsibility for Kandahar to Canadian units of NATO forces.
2007 The Taliban harass undermanned Canadian units and consolidate control west, southwest and north of city.
2008 The Taliban wage intimidation campaigns among Afghan residents, grow in strength and stage attacks into Kandahar City.
2009 Under new command, Americans send in more forces and battle for control of areas north of the capital.
Spring 2010 Americans launch offensive to help Afghan government reassert control of Marja, west of Kandahar in Helmand Province, and prepare for a more complex military/political effort in Kandahar itself.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/weekinreview/23burns.html
May 21, 2010
Into Kandahar, Yesterday and Tomorrow
By JOHN F. BURNS [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [what’s happening in Kandahar as the offensive unfolds?] [followup] [use psci 469] [week in review] [*]
LONDON — In the postcards of the mind, it is the starkest of all the images of Kandahar, dating back more than 20 years to the period immediately after Soviet troops withdrew from the city, and standing ever since as a grim warning of the folly of foreign military adventures in Afghanistan: hundreds of acres of rubble, whole quarters of the city reduced to fields of blasted concrete and steel, and further out, in the poorer districts, a shattered chocolate-box of a landscape formed by ragged mud walls that had once been home to tens of thousands of people seeking refuge from the war raging in the Afghan hinterland.
Outfought by the mujahedeen fighters of the 1980s, and desperate to hang on in the city that more than any other symbolizes Afghanistan’s history of national resistance, Soviet forces had resorted, like the Americans in Vietnam, to obliteration by bombing. That was as

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/weekinreview/23burns.html
May 21, 2010
Into Kandahar, Yesterday and Tomorrow
By JOHN F. BURNS [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [what’s happening in Kandahar as the offensive unfolds?] [followup] [use psci 469] [week in review] [*]
LONDON — In the postcards of the mind, it is the starkest of all the images of Kandahar, dating back more than 20 years to the period immediately after Soviet troops withdrew from the city, and standing ever since as a grim warning of the folly of foreign military adventures in Afghanistan: hundreds of acres of rubble, whole quarters of the city reduced to fields of blasted concrete and steel, and further out, in the poorer districts, a shattered chocolate-box of a landscape formed by ragged mud walls that had once been home to tens of thousands of people seeking refuge from the war raging in the Afghan hinterland.
Outfought by the mujahedeen fighters of the 1980s, and desperate to hang on in the city that more than any other symbolizes Afghanistan’s history of national resistance, Soviet forces had resorted, like the Americans in Vietnam, to obliteration by bombing. That was as good as an admission that they had lost, and when they finally pulled back across the Hindu Kush, they left behind little by way of a memorial to the 14,000 Soviet troops who lost their lives, or to the Kremlin’s tens of billions of wasted rubles, beyond the scrap of blasted helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles that litter Afghanistan [*]to this day.
The images of that dismal time came rushing back last week when the Taliban, legatees of the mujahedeen, sent a suicide bomber in a vehicle loaded with nearly a ton of high explosives to attack a NATO convoy in western Kabul, killing at least 18 people, among them five NATO soldiers, four of them officers. In the grisly calculus of the current conflict, the attack was a Taliban triumph, and photographs from the scene pressed the message home. Behind the carnage, like a forbidding sentinel, stood the artillery-blasted ruins of the old royal palace at Darulaman, another monument to the Soviet disaster. [*]
When I walked through the Kandahar rubble in the spring of 1989, the Soviet Union’s collapse, hastened by the imperial overreach in Afghanistan, was barely three years away. Now, like others with experience of that time, I find recollections of the Soviet debacle sounding like a tocsin [old French for bell; last time I even read it was MacArthur in West Pont speech (you officers are the ones who respond to the war tocsins …] [*]in the mind, warning of the miseries that await America if the war’s trajectory remains as it is, toward expanding influence for the Taliban and their Al Qaeda cohorts, and mounting signs, for the corrupt Kabul government and its frustrated allies, that the war against the Islamic militants may ultimately be unwinnable.
In the summer of 2010, Kandahar, again, is at the heart of the matter. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American commander, has been signaling for months that the crucial engagement of the war, aimed at loosing the tentacles the Taliban have wound around the city and its outlying districts, would begin sometime this spring or summer. [*]True to the form he set since taking command in Kabul last year, when he warned that the war was on its way to being lost unless radical new strategies were adopted, the general has left no room for illusion. In effect, he has said, the struggle for Kandahar may determine the outcome of the war.
That judgment reflects the lessons learned in Iraq, where, with other reporters, I spent years listening to the illusionism of generals “putting lipstick on a pig,” as Gen. David H. Petraeus expressed when it was his time to retrieve what he could from the disaster unfolding there. No less, the sense that the battle for Kandahar has brought America to a watershed in the Afghan war acknowledges the historic, political and strategic importance of the city, and of the province.
Though Kabul has been the capital for 250 years, Kandahar has been the main crucible of power in Afghanistan since the mid-18th century, when a Kandahari tribal chief, Ahmad Shah Durrani, unified the country and established himself as the first of the Durrani kings, a dynasty that endured until the last monarch, Zahir Shah, was overthrown in 1973. [*]The Communists who ruled until 1992 regarded their competition with the mujahedeen for support from the Kandahari tribes as crucial to their survival, and the two governments since the 1990s — the Taliban, ousted by the American-led invasion after 9/11, and the current administration of President Hamid Karzai — have had their roots in Kandahar.
In a country of perhaps 30 million people, Kandahar’s importance goes beyond numbers. The province is thought to have fewer than two million people, perhaps half in Kandahar city and its outlying districts. Most belong to a cluster of powerful tribes — the Popolzai, Barakzai, Achakzai, Alokozai, Alizai, Ishaqzai, Noorzai and Ghilzai, among others — who are part of a confederacy known as the Pashtun. They are the politically dominant ethnic group who live, mostly, in the lands between the Hindu Kush mountains and the 1,200-mile border with Pakistan.
Strategically, Kandahar is critical. It lies at a junction of historic trade routes that served as infiltration routes for the mujahedeen, and now for the Taliban. It is the main entrepot for the opium-and-heroin trafficking that is Afghanistan’s economic mainstay and a source of financing for the Taliban, as well as for corrupt tribal leaders who nominally, at least, support the Kabul government — among them, many Afghan and American officials say, President Karzai’s younger half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, president of Kandahar’s provincial council. [opium and Ahmed Wali Karzia] [they still appear to go together which is quite unfortunate for US] [*]
Most of the 30,000 additional American troops agreed to by President Obama last year have been assigned to the south, and Pentagon officials have acknowledged that what happens in Kandahar is likely to be decisive when Mr. Obama reaches the July 2011 deadline he has set for reassessing America’s role in the war.
General Petraeus, responsible for both wars as head of Central Command, has warned against drawing too many analogies. But to reporters who have covered the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, there are some compelling similarities. Kandahar and its tribes present some of the same challenges and opportunities as Iraq’s Anbar province, where an American outreach to Sunni tribal leaders marked the beginning of a new arc in that war that made an honorable American exit seem thinkable.
Another similarity has been the American command’s readiness, after years of false starts, to honor the military’s doctrine of “lessons learned” — in Afghanistan, not only from the mistakes made by earlier American commanders but from the Soviet blunders. [*]Thus, in Kandahar, there will be none of the Stone Age tactics the Soviets used, and probably little bombing at all. General Petraeus and General McChrystal have been reluctant even to call what they plan an offensive, describing it as classic counter-insurgency that relies as heavily on political innovation as on military force. In effect, Kandahar will be the laboratory for warfighting doctrines forged from nearly a decade of fighting in both wars, and from the experience of two generals who have served side by side in both.
Not that firepower will be irrelevant. General McChrystal, a former Special Forces commander in Iraq, has already had American and British commandos striking fast and hard at selected targets in and around Kandahar, in a bid to “reduce” the Taliban’s leadership cadres. [they certainly have done that: don’t know how many high-level policymakers have actually been taken down but a lot of foks and pressure is on—balanced againt collateral] [but Taliban tactics offset collateral damage some] [*] More American strikes can be expected in outlying districts and on infiltration routes; in the city, fighting will be entrusted mainly to Afghan forces. But the crucial element of the plan will be the pursuit of a political settlement between tribal factions in the city, once they see the losses inflicted on the Taliban.
If it works, it will be a historic victory. But it is a long shot, as the American generals acknowledge. Not the least of the challenges facing them is the fact that the Taliban have shown signs of becoming, for many Afghans, the lesser of two evils. Loathed as they have been for their medieval brutalities and obscurantism, from their public beheadings to their banning of women from jobs to their ban on almost all forms of public recreation, their directness — some would say their primitive kind of honesty — has made for a stark contrast with the Karzai brothers, who are widely despised for their perceived determination to turn government into a machinery for personal power and profit.
In many of the areas that the Taliban control or decisively influence — a Pentagon report to Congress in April estimated that 48 of 92 districts it assessed were supportive of the Taliban in March this year, up from 33 in December — the insurgents have succeeded in establishing at least a facsimile of government. [*]They have named shadow governors, raised taxes and set up courts. Relying on their own lessons learned, they have relented on some of their harsher measures; now they allow children to fly kites and villagers to play soccer, and they have banned, in a decree issued by Mullah Muhammad Omar, who was one of the founders of the Taliban in a village outside Kandahar in 1994, public beheadings for alleged miscreants. (His preference: firing squads.)
All of that represents a traverse from the Kandahar I returned to in 1996, the year the Taliban completed their sweep of all of Afghanistan south of the Hindu Kush. Having experienced the back-to-the-future of Taliban rule in Kabul, where a group of fighters imprisoned me briefly in a suffocating shipping container for having stubble that failed the test of a six-inch steel strip they used to measure compliance with the Islamic standard for untrimmed beards, I set out for Kandahar to — well, beard the lion in his den. The city I found was one where a frenzied crowd had gathered to watch as a young widow forced into marriage with an elderly man was taken to the main mosque and stoned to death — by one of her own children, among others — for alleged adultery with her husband’s 38-year-old son. [why folks tolerate such antiquated means is somewhat surprising?] [*]
Mullah Omar would not see me, considering American reporters to be infidels. [*]But one of his deputies, a gracious man with a missing eye and leg from his days with the mujahedeen, invited me for a talk at the old royal palace. Over delectable glasses of fresh pomegranate juice, we talked into the night, until he eventually asked me, intently, to offer some advice on an issue vexing the Taliban’s ruling council.
The issue, he said, was what to do with the incidence of homosexuality among Taliban fighters, much of it involving older men and young boys. Should the offenders be buried alive, or taken atop the old city wall and cast down? The question carried me back across the centuries to a time when similar barbarisms were an everyday occurrence in the Christian West. But when I asked my host why the Taliban would resort to such violence, he replied, as if surprised that anybody wound wonder, “Why not?” [*]
At that moment, I understood what remains so hard for many in the West to grasp, as our troops fight to secure freedoms for Afghans that we have long enjoyed at home: that for many in Afghanistan, if not the more cosmopolitan, secular class we have chosen as our principal allies, our world and theirs are, indeed, centuries apart, separated by the ancient verities of the Koran, the rhythms of Afghan traditional life, and the absence, in Afghan experience, of anything like the Enlightenment that broadened the liberties of our forebears in the 18th Century. For American commanders seeking an ending in Afghanistan that spares the United States the humiliation visited on the Soviet Union, that could yet prove an impossible divide to cross.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:18 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/asia/23kandahar.html
May 22, 2010
Rebels Attack Base in Afghanistan
By THE NEW YORK TIMES [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [what’s happening in Kandahar as the offensive unfolds?] [followup] [use psci 469] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents assaulted Kandahar Air Base, the main military base in southern Afghanistan, on Saturday night, military officials said, in the second attack on a major base in a week. [now Talib and others attempting to preempt America’s planned Kandahar offensive] [must have been anticipated given they began telegraphing offensive month or more ago] [*]
The attack began with rocket fire around 8 p.m., said Cmdr. Amanda Peterseim, a

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/23/world/asia/23kandahar.html
May 22, 2010
Rebels Attack Base in Afghanistan
By THE NEW YORK TIMES [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] [Obama “surge”] [followup] [what’s happening in Kandahar as the offensive unfolds?] [followup] [use psci 469] [*]
KABUL, Afghanistan — Insurgents assaulted Kandahar Air Base, the main military base in southern Afghanistan, on Saturday night, military officials said, in the second attack on a major base in a week. [now Talib and others attempting to preempt America’s planned Kandahar offensive] [must have been anticipated given they began telegraphing offensive month or more ago] [*]
The attack began with rocket fire around 8 p.m., said Cmdr. Amanda Peterseim, a spokeswoman at the Kandahar base. One of the rockets struck near a boardwalk common area and wounded some personnel there, she said.
Then insurgents on foot attacked the northern perimeter of the base, though they killed no one and did not break in, Lt. Col. Todd Breasseale said. “It was very sporadic, minor-league, small-arms fire,” he said, adding that the attack seemed to be spread over roughly two hours.
Also on Saturday, NATO announced the deaths of three soldiers and a civilian contractor in two separate attacks in southern Afghanistan. Nor further details were given.
On Tuesday, a car-bomb attack on a military convoy in Kabul killed 18 people and wounded 47. Then, a day later, Taliban foot soldiers and suicide bombers tried to break through the gates at Bagram Air Base, killing one person and wounding at least five American soldiers.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 01:16 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

Download file
[use psci 469] [*]

Posted by Kent Bolton at 12:14 PM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

For the past couple years, those who are au courant on jihadis movements and what's headed the way of the West, have mentioned Sheikh Abu Yahya al Libi. As Sahab is the media organization that is associated with al Qaeda (the central group, apparently centered in Waziristan, Pakistan). Al Libi has somewhat indirect connections to as Sahab which may make him connected to al Qaeda. (Recall, al Libi is the fellow who arguably led the Bagram prison break in 2005.) Anyway, it's time to put his name out there formally on this archive-blog site. Watch for this Libyan's rising influence.
To be clear, he's appeared on this site a few previous times. Here I'm officially raising his name as a potential future leader of the transnational, jihadis movements. For his escape from Bagram, see http://hydrablog.csusm.edu/2008/05/rising_leader_for_next_phase_o.html on this archive.

[full piece may be found above the jump] [*]

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http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/05/why-would-north-korea-sink-a-south-korean-warship/57089/
[accessed 5/22/10 10:26 AM] [*]
The Atlantic
Why Would North Korea Sink a South Korean Warship?
By Lisa Camner [ROK] [DPRK] [societal] [punditocary on why] [it’s a bit like reading entrails but interesting] [good example of “what would you do, if president?”] [on one hand, it’s got to collapse eventually; on other, do you want to be the president who causes thousands of Americans to die?] [use psci 350, 355-455] [*]
On Thursday, the South Korean government announced that the warship it lost in March was sunk by a torpedo attack from North Korea. While South Korea, Japan, and the United States discuss punitive action, North Korea has threatened "all-out war" if new sanctions are imposed. This saber-rattling by the desperately poor North should not be a surprise, says Kongdan Oh, co-author of The Hidden People of North Korea; it is simply the most recent provocation by a regime that needs an external state of crisis in order to justify its repressive internal rule. With international pressure mounting on China, the North's closest friend and benefactor, the regime of Kim Jong Il has achieved just that. [*]The Atlantic spoke with Oh, who is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about the crisis and what the North is hoping to accomplish.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/05/why-would-north-korea-sink-a-south-korean-warship/57089/
[accessed 5/22/10 10:26 AM] [*]
The Atlantic
Why Would North Korea Sink a South Korean Warship?
By Lisa Camner [ROK] [DPRK] [societal] [punditocary on why] [it’s a bit like reading entrails but interesting] [good example of “what would you do, if president?”] [on one hand, it’s got to collapse eventually; on other, do you want to be the president who causes thousands of Americans to die?] [use psci 350, 355-455] [*]
On Thursday, the South Korean government announced that the warship it lost in March was sunk by a torpedo attack from North Korea. While South Korea, Japan, and the United States discuss punitive action, North Korea has threatened "all-out war" if new sanctions are imposed. This saber-rattling by the desperately poor North should not be a surprise, says Kongdan Oh, co-author of The Hidden People of North Korea; it is simply the most recent provocation by a regime that needs an external state of crisis in order to justify its repressive internal rule. With international pressure mounting on China, the North's closest friend and benefactor, the regime of Kim Jong Il has achieved just that. [*]The Atlantic spoke with Oh, who is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, about the crisis and what the North is hoping to accomplish.

We know that South Korea has provided compelling evidence that North Korea was responsible for the torpedo. Can you describe specifically what it was that convinced the investigators?

First, it is credible due to the accuracy and objectivity of the combined investigation team, which involved almost 25 experts from Korea, the United States, Australia, UK, and Sweden. Those are heavy-weights; it wasn't just one or two investigators from Korea. It was global and its level of expertise level was very deep. [*]

Their significant discovery was the propeller part that was used in the torpedo. It was obviously a design that North Korea has been using. [*]They weren't caught on the spot, but with all evidence in hand, it shows this is quite close to an iron-clad case.

Why would the North have done this?

As I have been telling the world for the last 15 or 20 years, the internal political dynamic in North Korea is such that they constantly need a crisis. The regime was built on lies. [*]And the two leaders, Kim and Kim, created one of the worst -- or best -- cults of personality, perpetuating that they are the most brilliant strategic leaders and the entire world is kow-towing to them. That is a foundation of their propaganda. [and new technology has finally begun piercing through which has thousands of formerly isolated North Koreans with increasing questions] [it reminds me of teenager who starts questioning the mythological fabrication of god that same teenager has accepted at face value entire life] [once the kid begins asking 1 or 2 uncomfortable questions and coming to terms with same, floodgates begin opening] [*]

North Korea is basically a failed state -- their basic economy is bankrupt. The military industrial economy is only 30 percent functioning. [if that’s accurate, we’re talking about 300 k troops rather than the vaunted 1 mill?] [*]Other than Kim Jong's palace economy and slush fund, the economy doesn't exist.

In this state, the leader needs a tool to propagate why he should be in charge of the country. Today, a lot of people know that South Korea is not a slave to the Americans and the Korean economy may even be catching up with the Japanese economy. Information seeps through. So the North Korean regime needs more crisis. The ordinary kind of crisis will not be satisfactory, given the grumbling of the technocratic level of mid-class elite who see the North's declining power and know that there is no way out. [*]So the regime has to create a fear of an imminent dangerous and war-like situation so the country will be united in solidarity under the leadership of Kim Jong Il. [*]That's the internal dynamic. For years, it has been one crisis after another. [it’s a plausible explanation and it doesn’t take away from my basic factionalism one—they are not mutually exclusive] [and for last several years I’ve been aware of empirical evidence of defectors and how difficult it is for them to let go of Great and Dear leader well after defections—if “brainwashed” ever applied it does with DPRK] [*]

What is the North's larger strategy -- what are they trying to achieve?

In 1994, North Korea created a nuclear crisis and we signed an agreed framework, and then of course there were accusations about whether the US was fulfilling the agreed framework on time. North Korea blamed the U.S., but basically North Korea broke the agreed framework. [*]They conducted two nuclear tests and many missile [accordingly, no accident one was 2006 and the other 2009; they re-created new crisis each time with two different administrations? (of course, in addition with Clinton in 1994)] [*] tests. So they found out that bluffing, or creating a crisis through resolute militant operation, is maybe the way to sustain global attention, get aid, get diplomatic recognition, put to the UN that North Korea is a country to be reckoned with. [*]

Is this ultimately a successful long-term strategy? I don't think so, because I think the Americans are getting smarter, and students of North Korean affairs are getting angry. But so far, with limited options, North Korea has been pursuing this and they have been gaining rather than losing. [its efficacy may have been exhausted or nearly so?] [and I’d add that technology has hastened that the past couple years] [we’ve all seen satellite pictures of DPRK at night compared to white-hot ROK, the gulags in the north and the rest; some of that stuff must be trickling back into DPRK by now?] [*]

So, what should the U.S. government keep in mind as it plans a response?

A lot of issues--diplomatic, military, economy, social, political--are on the table. I think China is a problem; everyone needs to show solidarity that this kind of provocation in peace time is close to an act of war. It cannot be tolerated. It means you have to impose sanctions, and in particular, tighten the sanctions that block Kim Jong Il's slush fund. That might be the most effective. In addition, for the last 10 years, South Korea has let North Korean vessels pass through the Cheju corridor. That should be stopped. [I don’t disagree] [but let’s be clear about the purpose: this will cause an implosion of sorts with unpredictable consequences] [will Kim go down fighting?] [will he attempt to unleash the dogs of war on ROK and how many Americans will be killed?] [let’s be realistic about what’s to be accomplished and the costs] [on other hand, in a sense, it’s a matter of time: its eventually collapse is essentially certain, only the timing remains uncertain] [**] But most important, the investigators need to deliver their report very formally to China and say look, if you want to be a great power in the 21st century, you are dealing with a gangster, and you should stop helping them. That is another form of sanction.

Why is the North denying responsibility? How is it a show of strength if they don't admit it was them?

They always deny. They always say, American and Korean hooligans created a comic farce and they fabricated evidence. Even if you caught them with blood on their hands, they would claim it was paint. [it’s truly a bizarre regime] [*]

Does this imply any further danger to South Korea -- or to other countries in the region?

There is always danger, unfortunately, until North Korea disappears from the global map and the two Koreas are united. South Korea is very vulnerable because of its geographic location. Because of that, the U.S. has been very prudent not to trigger any war-like act. [*]And North Korea knows it; it is the Achilles' heel for both countries.
This article available online at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2010/05/why-would-north-korea-sink-a-south-korean-warship/57089/
Copyright © 2010 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All Rights Reserved.

Posted by Kent Bolton at 10:43 AM | Permalink | TrackBacks (0)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052104880.html
James R. Clapper Jr. is the leading candidate for national intelligence position
By Ellen Nakashima and Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 22, 2010; A04 [potentially, the next DNI] [Dennis Blair just resigned in past two days] [next DNI will be fourth since it was created, late 2004] [Gen. James R. Clapper] [if I recal correctly, he used to run NSA?] [*]
In the summer of 2004, as Congress was debating the creation of a spymaster-in-chief, James R. Clapper Jr., then head of a major military intelligence agency, argued forcefully at a lunch with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the Pentagon's four largest intelligence agencies ought to report to the new office. [*]
Rumsfeld, according to former administration officials familiar with the incident, threw down his fork. He wanted to know how Clapper and Michael V. Hayden, then director of the National Security Agency, could support such an idea. [consider timeline: had Tenet yet resigned? Had Goss been selected? Negroponte was about to be named the first one; Hayden would

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/21/AR2010052104880.html
James R. Clapper Jr. is the leading candidate for national intelligence position
By Ellen Nakashima and Greg Jaffe
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, May 22, 2010; A04 [potentially, the next DNI] [Dennis Blair just resigned in past two days] [next DNI will be fourth since it was created, late 2004] [Gen. James R. Clapper] [if I recal correctly, he used to run NSA?] [*]
In the summer of 2004, as Congress was debating the creation of a spymaster-in-chief, James R. Clapper Jr., then head of a major military intelligence agency, argued forcefully at a lunch with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the Pentagon's four largest intelligence agencies ought to report to the new office. [*]
Rumsfeld, according to former administration officials familiar with the incident, threw down his fork. He wanted to know how Clapper and Michael V. Hayden, then director of the National Security Agency, could support such an idea. [consider timeline: had Tenet yet resigned? Had Goss been selected? Negroponte was about to be named the first one; Hayden would become Negroponte’s first principal deputy DNI] [had Rummy brought in Steve Cambone by then????] [*]
Rumsfeld's anger reflects the challenges entailed in centralizing authority over the intelligence community, which is divided among several large bureaucracies with leaders intent on keeping their authority intact. [*]
Three years after the lunch in Rumsfeld's office, Clapper, a lanky retired Air Force general with a shaved head and silvery goatee, was installed as undersecretary of defense for intelligence, with control over the agencies that he had argued to Rumsfeld ought to be under the new director of national intelligence, or DNI. [*]
Clapper, who has spent more than 45 years in intelligence work, is the leading candidate to become the next DNI.
The extent of the authorities the next occupant of the post will wield is a significant issue for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which will hold the confirmation hearing. [note: I need to get the testimony transcript when it happens] [they are often quite telling in testimony, as I noted in 2007 NSC book with Hayden and others] [*] "The committee has generally taken the position that the DNI needs to be a strong position, filled with a strong person," a congressional aide said. [it won’t matter who the person is, more than around the margins, unless-until congress changes and gives DNI necessary budget and hire-fire (programmatic) authority] [**]
Some question whether Clapper would want a job that is widely regarded as lacking sufficient authority to coordinate 16 intelligence agencies, ranging from the CIA and NSA to the FBI and National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, Clapper's former agency. [former NGIA also] [*] DNI Dennis C. Blair, who announced Thursday that he was resigning, struggled to fully assume the role of the president's chief intelligence adviser.
Hayden said that if Clapper, 69, were the nominee, he would urge him to secure President Obama's commitment that he is the go-to guy on intelligence. "He has got to believe that the president believes he is senior intelligence adviser," Hayden said.
Sen. Christopher S. Bond (Mo.), the intelligence committee's ranking Republican, said he does not think Clapper is "the right one" for the job. "I believe you need somebody who will work more with the nonmilitary intelligence agencies," [I don’t often agree withi Bond but I think he may be right on this] [the military folks have often been captives of chain of command] [Negroponte was best as first but he grew frustrated at lack of actual power and jumped as soon as he could] [since then, retired general have tried to instill military discipline, which would probably work if the office had the tools necessary] [until it does, an operator needs to run it to carve out what can be carved out until congress fixes!] he said.
According to former intelligence officials, Clapper worked well with Hayden, who was CIA director from 2006 to 2009, and Mike McConnell, who was DNI in the last two years of theGeorge W. Bush administration. Clapper agreed to report to the DNI as well as to the defense secretary, Robert M. Gates.
Clapper has been a calming presence during his three-year tenure as undersecretary of defense, following the turbulence of Rumsfeld's tenure. Rumsfeld drew the ire of many in the intelligence community by pushing the Pentagon to expand its intelligence collection efforts. [*] By contrast, Clapper and Gates have worked hard to build a more collegial relationship with the rest of the intelligence establishment.
"He's very conventional in his approach to intelligence systems," said a senior military official who has worked with Clapper. "He takes a very traditional intelligence perspective."
Some wonder whether Clapper has the right instincts for the job. "He isn't a big fan of organizational politics," said one former colleague. "He's not a knife fighter, and that's probably what they'd need from a DNI perspective." [truly, they need a knife fighter] [**]
Early on in his current position, he dismantled an anti-terrorism database that civil liberties advocates had criticized for gathering information about antiwar groups and activists. He also pushed to end a controversial intelligence program to gather information on terrorist groups in the United States.
Clapper led efforts championed by Gates to increase the number of unmanned surveillance planes in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent years and has more than tripled since 2007 the number of drones flying at any one time.
Even military officials who butted heads with Clapper over weapons programs said that he was willing to listen. "He's an amiable individual," one military officer said. "He's someone you can deal with and has brought a lot of stability to the position." [he’s absolutely the wrong person for the job, from thse few observations] [*]
Staff researcher Julie Tate contributed to this report. © 2010 The Washington Post Co

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

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/world/asia/22detain.html
May 21, 2010
Detainees Barred From Access to U.S. Courts
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [11th congress, 2nd session] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo] [bureaucracy] [another in a mounting record of checks and balances] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [appellate rulling on detainees overseas: they have “no recourse” to American courts?] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that three men who had been detained by the United States military for years without trial in Afghanistan had no recourse to American courts. The decision was a broad victory for the Obama administration in its efforts to hold terrorism suspects overseas for indefinite periods without judicial oversight. [and to be fair, for the Bush administration who initiated the practice] [continuity in USFP] [this is stuff Obama criticized as candidate; I used basic role theory to predict Obama would do much of the Bush things he’s done] [in my 2007 NSC book—

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/22/world/asia/22detain.html
May 21, 2010
Detainees Barred From Access to U.S. Courts
By CHARLIE SAVAGE [obama white house] [residual issues from President Bush’s tenure] [11th congress, 2nd session] [gsave] [federal judiciary] [America’s guests at gitmo] [bureaucracy] [another in a mounting record of checks and balances] [use psci 355, 455, 469] [followup] [appellate rulling on detainees overseas: they have “no recourse” to American courts?] [followup] [*]
WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that three men who had been detained by the United States military for years without trial in Afghanistan had no recourse to American courts. The decision was a broad victory for the Obama administration in its efforts to hold terrorism suspects overseas for indefinite periods without judicial oversight. [and to be fair, for the Bush administration who initiated the practice] [continuity in USFP] [this is stuff Obama criticized as candidate; I used basic role theory to predict Obama would do much of the Bush things he’s done] [in my 2007 NSC book—though just as the “next president”—and in this archive in comments] [check around December 2008 forward] [*]
The detainees, two Yemenis and a Tunisian who say they were captured outside Afghanistan, contend that they are not terrorists and are being mistakenly imprisoned at the American military prison at Bagram Air Base. [it’s an important issues] [I don’t know their cases but many of the folks turned over to US have been grabbed by bounty hunters for a payment] [what percent is wrongly accused is unclear but no question it happens or that others use it as argument for their “false” imprisonment] [but in this case, there’s no question in my mind that they are POWs—irrespective of Bush’s terms of art—rather than simple criminals] [however, those no question the US should also want to winnow out wrongly held folks as much as po