October 30, 2008

THE DEVIL WE KNOW
Dealing With the New Iranian Superpower
By Robert Baer
279 pages. Crown Publishers. $25.95.




As the end of the Bush era draws near, it is clear that its policy of treating Iran as a country that must be weakened, punished and perhaps even overthrown has failed. Suddenly it has become fashionable to say that Iran must be recognized, respected and dealt with as the increasingly powerful nation that it is.

Earlier this month Henry A. Kissinger, who as secretary of state helped arm and prop up Iran’s monarchy in the 1970s, said there was "no reason for the United States to resist a strong Iran" today. The goal should be to restore the old regional balance of power based on the pillars of two countries friendly to America, Israel and Iran, he added.

In his new book, "The Devil We Know," Robert Baer, a former C.I.A. case officer turned author, goes further. He paints a picture of Iran as a disciplined, strategic, monolithic "police state" and military power driven by imperial ambitions. "At the bottom of Iran’s soul is a newfound taste for empire," he states.

Mr. Baer, who is fluent in Arabic and says he has rusty Persian, spent years in the Middle East. He certainly knows places like Lebanon, Iraq and Saudi Arabia well. But Arabia is not Persia, and the lens of the Arab world can distort Iran rather than bring it into sharp focus.

His Iran doesn’t care about international boundaries or accept Western definitions of how the world should be organized. His Iran has "effectively annexed" the entire south of Iraq and could gain control of Iraqi oil. His Iran wants control of Islam’s holiest sites, Mecca and Medina.

"I witnessed firsthand Iran’s seismic shift, its rise from anarchy to statist power," Mr. Baer writes. But most of his eye-witnessing was done from afar. Mr. Baer says he was in Iran for a week in late 1978, just before the victory of the revolution. He visited again in 2005 — he doesn’t say for how long — as part of a British television documentary team.

On that visit, he laments, he "couldn’t find a single good restaurant in Tehran." He was invited to parties, which he heard were as "wild and hip" as anything in the West, but worried that he had "pressed his luck" and stayed away. Anyway, he adds, "I couldn’t stay up that late." Readers who enjoyed George Clooney’s performance in "Syriana" (the character was modeled on Mr. Baer) might be disappointed that in real life Mr. Baer was too timid and tired to go to a party in a private Iranian home. He might have met some real Iranians there. And did he really have so few sources on the ground in Tehran that he could not find a good restaurant? (There are many.)                  More..................

October 28, 2008

LAHORE, Pakistan | Six-year-old Ali Reza Khan spots a half-eaten apple and steps toward it, darting when another boy makes his move. In one quick swoop, he picks it up, wipes it with a soiled sleeve and takes a bite.

It's 7:30 a.m. at the city garbage dump, and the hunt is on.

Several truckloads of refuse soon arrive, and Ali tosses aside the rind to join a frenzy of Afghan children who depend on the bounty hidden within each steaming mound to support themselves and their families.

Known locally as "ragpickers," most were born in Pakistan after their parents fled the violence and economic hardships that continue to worsen across the border.

Pakistan's own economy is on the brink as the government seeks an emergency infusion of cash from foreign donors, but the country remains home to 1.8 million Afghan refugees seven years after the overthrow of the Taliban.

Despite the filth on which these children tread, most insist they are better off mining trash for money than going home.

"I don't want to do this all my life, but right now I have no choice. There is no work in Afghanistan," said Naqibullah Ullah, 14, peering from beneath a red Dale Earnhardt sports cap.

By some estimates, Pakistan's large cities have as many as 25,000 ragpickers, perhaps 70 percent younger than 18. The vast majority are young Afghans like Naqibullah, who has plied the same waste patch along the Ravi River for five years.

Not long after he was born at a camp outside the southwest border town of Quetta, his family migrated to Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city, in search of better prospects.

His father died of an illness three years ago, leaving him to look after his mother, two younger brothers and a sister who now accompany him on his daily rounds.

From dawn till dusk, 700 to 800 dump trucks rumble into the site spilling trash and belching smoke. The children typically spend six to eight hours a day scavenging on behalf of junk buyers, who pay 3 rupees, the equivalent of 4 cents, per pound for glass, 8 rupees for paper, and up to 10 rupees for polyethylene bags, the scraps of choice.

Naqibullah swears it's possible to earn nearly $5 in a 12-hour stretch if the pickings are prime and his legs hold out, though on average he earns about $1.25.                               More.....................

At an international conference in London dubbed “Terrorism: Alternative global perspectives”, Alan Hart, the author of “Zionism: the Real Enemy of the Jews”, stated, “The United States is supporting Israeli-sponsored terrorism in the Middle East.”

Speaking at the conference organized by the Center for the Study of Terrorism (CFSOT) in London to explore the comprehensive effects of the US “global war on terror”, he added that the Israeli regime, with blanket approval of Washington “simply ignores the United Nations resolutions concerning the violation of Palestinians’ rights”.

Hart, a noted British expert on Middle East affairs and a former television executive who once held the post of controller of BBC One, expressed alarm at the pro-Israeli bias in the Western media when it comes to reporting on the developments in the Middle East.

“The world is falling apart. There is only one way to confront with the double standards of the West and that is informing people about the realities of the history,” he said.

He noted that for the past six decades after the creation of the State of Israel, the United States had blocked most anti-Israel resolutions at the Security Council, in spite of the Jewish state’s gross and often barbaric violations against the Palestinians. The injustice against Palestinians had no parallels in history.

Referring to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, he described it as analogous to the long drawn-out British-Irish conflict whereby the British government moved the Scottish people in Northern Ireland to occupy it gradually. “A similar situation exists in Palestine where the Jews are occupying Muslim lands,” he said, placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of then British Premier Tony Blair’s foreign policy and his close alliance with the US President George W. Bush for spreading terrorism and extremism across the world.                                                          More.....................

October 23, 2008

The Roman historian Tacitus famously put the following lines in the mouth of a British chieftain opposed to imperial Rome: "They have plundered the world, stripping naked the land in their hunger… they are driven by greed, if their enemy be rich; by ambition, if poor… They ravage, they slaughter, they seize by false pretenses, and all of this they hail as the construction of empire. And when in their wake nothing remains but a desert, they call that peace."

Or, in the case of the Bush administration, post-surge "success." Today, however, success in Iraq seems as elusive as ever for the President. The Iraqi cabinet is now refusing, without further amendment, to pass on to Parliament the status of forces agreement for stationing U.S. troops in the country that it's taken so many months for American and Iraqi negotiators to sort out. Key objections, as Juan Cole points out at his Informed Comment blog, have come from the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, which is [Prime Minister Nouri] al-Maliki's chief political partner, the support of which he would need to get the draft through parliament." That party, Cole adds tellingly, "is close to Tehran, which objects to the agreement." The Iranian veto? Hmmm…

Among Iraqis, according to the Dreyfuss Report, only the Kurds, whose territories house no significant U.S. forces, remain unequivocally in favor of the agreement as written. Frustrated American officials, including Ambassador Ryan Crocker ("Without legal authority to operate, we do not operate… That means no security operations, no logistics, no training, no support for Iraqis on the borders, no nothing…"), Secretary of Defense Robert Gates ("Without a new legal agreement,'we basically stop doing anything' in the country…"), and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Mike Mullen ("We are clearly running out of time…") are huffing and puffing, and threatening -- if the agreement is not passed as is -- to blow the house down.

Without a mandate to remain, American troops won't leave, of course. At year's end, they will, so American officials insist, simply retreat to their bases and assumedly leave Maliki's government to dangle in the expected gale. Clearly, this is a game of chicken. What's less clear is who's willing to go over the cliff, or who exactly is going to put on the brakes.

In the meantime, the administration that, only four years ago, imposed conditions on Iraq at least as onerous as those nineteenth century colonial powers imposed on their colonies, can no longer get an agreement it desperately needs from its "allies" in Baghdad. Could this, then, be the $700 billion kiss-off? Stay tuned and, in the meantime, consider, as described by TomDispatch regular Michael Schwartz, what the Bush administration did to Iraq these last five years. Imagine it as a preview of the devastation the administration's domestic version of de-Baathification is now doing to the U.S. economy.                       More........................

October 19, 2008

Uncovering the Israeli-Republican-Evangelical Networks behind the "Obsession" DVD

Something strange has been showing up inside the Sunday newspapers of millions of Americans the past few weeks.   The material being included alongside comics, coupons, and advertisement for local stores is a controversial DVD called "Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West."   Some 28 million copies of this DVD have been distributed for free so far in this fashion. In some ways the scale of this campaign, and its ideological venom, are unprecedented: many newspapers state that they had never previously distributed free DVDs as inserts, certainly nothing with such a charged content. The copies were distributed not randomly across the country, but in the "swing states" (Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Colorado, etc.) that are seen as a toss-up in the November Presidential elections between McCain and Obama. Obviously, someone is trying to influence the American electorate by playing on fear-mongering and hate-mongering themes. But who? Who is behind this massive, multi-million dollar campaign?

Answering that question proved harder than one might think, as the groups behind this DVD have worked hard to hide their tracks.   The connections, which are partially concealed in the DVD and the distribution campaign, take one from groups in Israel, to pro-Israel lobby organizations in the United States, to Christian evangelical groups, and to Neoconservative think-tanks.  

The "facts" presented by Obsession have already been refuted in several detailed presentations.  For example, see the work of Obsessionwithhate.com and that of Sheila Musaji, as well as Altmuslim.com. Therefore, I am not going to make a point by point refutation of the contents of the DVD.  My intention is to explore the networks that are behind the production and distribution of this DVD, with their clear goal of influencing the 2008 Presidential elections towards John McCain.                                     More........................

October 19, 2008

Come, let's away to prison:
We two alone will sing like birds i' the cage:
When thou dost ask me blessing, I'll kneel down,
And ask of thee forgiveness: so we'll live,
And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh
At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues
Talk of court news; and we'll talk with them too,
Who loses and who wins; who's in, who's out;
And take upon's the mystery of things,
As if we were God's spies: and we'll wear out,
In a wall'd prison, packs and sects of great ones,
That ebb and flow by the moon.

I.
Democratic Party circles are in raptures over Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama. One can see the heavily-blinkered logic behind their elation; now that our national politics has been reduced to a petty squabble over spoils among shifting factions in the imperial court, a nod from a consummate courtier like Powell is indeed a glittering prize for an ambitious prince.

But out in the real world, where the operations of imperial power have left smoking trails of murder and ruin across the globe, the "endorsement" of a man who played an indispensable role in the slaughter of more than a million innocent people in a war of Hitlerian aggression should be regarded as a thing of shame, and vociferously rejected by anyone with a scintilla of honor or morality.

In fact, it is not too much of a stretch to say that Colin Powell is more responsible for the mass murder spree in Iraq than any other person except George W. Bush, who gave the actual order for the hit. For it was Powell who "made the sale" for the Bush Faction's deceitful warmongering campaign, with his infamous February 2003 presentation to the UN, laying out the false evidence about Iraq's non-existent weapons of mass destruction. After that farrago of artfully delivered lies, the American Establishment -- urged on by the fawning, bloodthirsty commentariat -- lined up solidly behind the war. After all, if Colin Powell -- so "reasonable," so "honorable," so "honest" and "bipartisan" -- stood foursquare behind the Bush case for war, then it must be ironclad.

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