*Just Foreign Policy News January 13, 2011 * *Just Foreign Policy News on the Web:* http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/node/804<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ADVOp%2BX0LyvIqpFJEO6IGJXfhPp%2Bpmkq>
[To receive just the Summary and a link to the web version, you can use this webform: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/switchdailynews<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=UVCg%2F7%2FMJjB9MKBVDDNYJpXfhPp%2Bpmkq> ] **Action: Center for Constitutional Rights: Support the Call for Fair Elections in Haiti* Ask the State Department to support fair elections in Haiti. http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/haitinewelection<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=0SbCg4ACK32dPpn8oYiorZXfhPp%2Bpmkq> *Maxine Waters Calls for New Elections in Haiti* Rep. Waters has called for the results of the disputed November presidential election in Haiti to be set aside and for new elections to be held. She writes: "I call upon the Government of Haiti to set aside the flawed November 28th elections and organize new elections that will be free, fair and accessible to all Haitian voters." The electoral data from 2010 and 2006 strongly suggest that the call for new elections reflects the opinions and interests of the majority of Haitians. http://www.truth-out.org/maxine-waters-calls-new-elections-haiti66807<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=yQMn0LJeUdXM2t6hMYkfnpXfhPp%2Bpmkq> *Glenn Greenwald: Media Lying About WikiLeaks and Zimbabwe* Several papers - including the Guardian - ran pieces trashing WikiLeaks for publishing a cable about Zimbabwe, when in fact it was the Guardian that published the cable. Efforts to correct the record have been spectacularly modest. http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/01/12/propaganda/index.html<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=e%2FbIdUPwDvIytgifjSzl%2BJXfhPp%2Bpmkq> *PDA: January Brown Bag Lunch Vigils to Bring the Troops Home* PDA and others gather at local Congressional offices. Check to see if there is a vigil near you. http://pdamerica.org/articles/misc/2009-11-13-12-49-50-misc.php<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=uHDp6jWJPLRHqtUiWts2T5XfhPp%2Bpmkq> *Help Support Our Advocacy for Peace and Diplomacy* The opponents of peace and diplomacy work every day. Help us be an effective counterweight. http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=aEgjFUO51GFtom7EJOn1v5XfhPp%2Bpmkq> *Summary:* *U.S./Top News <#12d821904cc857d4_January1311r1>* 1) Conservatives and Tea Party supporters are worried about the costs of the war in Afghanistan, the Afghanistan Study Group reports, based on a poll that it commissioned. Two-thirds of conservatives support a reduction in troop levels. A majority of conservatives agree that the United States can dramatically lower the number of troops and money spent in Afghanistan without putting America at risk. 2) The highly contested November 28 elections in Haiti and the unrest that followed have sharpened criticisms against UN troops and heightened concerns about self-determination, human rights lawyer Beatrice Lindstrom writes for the Center for International Policy. Forcing Haitians to accept undemocratic elections will not set a foundation of stability, she writes. It will do the opposite, as evidenced by last month's unrest. MINUSTAH's militarized response to their protests was yet another example of the UN being on the wrong side of the democratic struggle. The MINUSTAH mission has had a troubled relationship with democracy in Haiti from its inception. The force was brought in to secure a U.S.-led coup d'etat. 3) The contours of a large and lasting US presence in Iraq are starting to take shape, the Washington Post reports. Planning is underway to turn over to the State Department some of the most prominent symbols of the U.S. role in the war - including several major bases and a significant portion of the Green Zone. The department would use the bases to house a force of private security contractors and support staff that it expects to triple in size, to between 7,000 and 8,000, U.S. officials said. But the return to Iraq of Moqtada al-Sadr, who opposes any U.S. military presence, could jeopardize US plans. A Sadr spokesman said movement oppose all US influences and would have to "study" whether U.S. contractors should be allowed to stay beyond 2011. 4) It's pretty rich for the State Department to complain about Iran blocking fuel trucks from going to Afghanistan on the grounds that "Energy is a critical resource to any country and any economy, and it should be available at whatever the appropriate market price is," writes Ali Gharib for LobeLog, given that blocking gas exports to Iran is a key goal of US policy. 5) An Afghan presidential commission has determined that military operations in the Kandahar area have caused more than $100 million in damage to homes and farms over the past six months, the New York Times reports. But provincial and district governors where most damage occurred disputed the findings reported by the commission chairman. The US military commander in the area estimated the damage at only $1.4 million and said officials were rapidly processing and paying claims for compensation. 6) The State Department says the Obama administration will take new steps to address the "ideological exclusion" of scholars and others from the US on the basis of their political views, the ACLU reports. A State Department letter says that, in deciding whether to grant visas, the State Department will give "significant and sympathetic weight" to those seeking to enter the U.S. to fulfill speaking engagements, attend conferences, accept teaching positions, "or for similar expressive or educational activities." *Afghanistan <#12d821904cc857d4_January1311r2>* 7) The U.S. government has charged ahead with ever-expanding development programs in Afghanistan despite questions about their impact, cost and value, McClatchy reports. McClatchy found that U.S. government funding for at least 15 large-scale programs and projects grew from just over $1 billion to nearly $3 billion despite the government's questions about their effectiveness or cost. The projects, overseen by USAID, all offer evidence that the U.S. has downplayed their waste and inefficiency in its zeal to demonstrate short-term success, McClatchy says. *Iran <#12d821904cc857d4_January1311r3>* 8) The latest WikiLeaks revelations portray Iranian President Ahmadinejad as open to making concessions on Iran's nuclear program and far more accommodating to Iranians' demands for greater freedoms than anyone would have thought, writes Reza Aslan in the Atlantic. 9) Haaretz says Israel's military chief objected last year to a proposal to attack Iranian nuclear sites by Defense Minister Barak, who retaliated by cutting the general's tenure, Reuters reports. The Haaretz report was unsourced, but its author, Aluf Benn, has a reputation for breaking stories about internal government conflicts, Reuters notes. * Israel/Palestine <#12d821904cc857d4_January1311r4>* 10) Israeli government restrictions on the websites of human rights groups are part of a broader government crackdown on these groups, writes Neve Gordon in The Nation. *Mexico <#12d821904cc857d4_January1311r5>* 11) Mexican officials say 34,612 people have died in drug-related killings in Mexico in the four years since President Calderon declared an offensive against drug cartels, AP reports. The killings reached their highest level in 2010, jumping by almost 60 percent from the previous year. *Cuba <#12d821904cc857d4_January1311r6>* 12) A US prosecutor told Texas jurors that Luis Posada Carriles lied under oath about his role in terrorist attacks in Cuba, the New York Times reports. Cuba and Venezuela have charged that Posada was the mastermind behind the downing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 in which 73 people were killed. Both governments also claim that he orchestrated a series of bombings in Havana in 1997, killing a tourist. * Contents:* *U.S./Top News* 1) Survey Results Of Conservatives Afghanistan Study Group, January 13, 2011 http://www.afghanistanstudygroup.org/2011/01/12/afghanistan-study-group-survey-results-of-conservatives/<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Qp0JZmEehTG7EHLTNtMDo5XfhPp%2Bpmkq> The following is an analysis of a poll taken of conservative voters nationwide. Drawn from a sample of randomly selected phone numbers, this poll contains 1,000 registered voters who describe their political ideology as conservative. Voters with listed landline phones, unlisted landline phones, and cellular phones were eligible to be called. Respondents were interviewed from 5:00 to 9:00 in their time zone from January 4th through 10th. The responses to this survey should be within plus or minus 3.1 percentage points of those that would have been obtained from interviewing the entire population of registered conservative voters. 550 respondents describe themselves as a "Tea Party Supporter". The margin of error for this group is 4.2 percentage points. The following summarizes key results from the survey: Conservatives and Tea Party supporters are worried about the costs of the war in Afghanistan. 71% of conservatives overall, and 67% of conservative Tea Party supporters, indicate worry that the costs will make it more difficult for the United States to reduce the deficit this year and balance the federal budget by the end of this decade. Significant percentages of conservative men (67%) and women (75%) indicate concern about the costs of the war as do conservatives in all age groups. Those in active duty military or veteran households are as worried about the costs of the war (69%) as those in non-military households (72%). 61% of conservatives who believe the war has been worth fighting are worried about the current level of costs. Two-thirds of conservatives support a reduction in troop levels in Afghanistan. When given a choice between three options, 66% believe we can either reduce the troop levels in Afghanistan, but continue to fight the war effectively (39%) or think we should leave Afghanistan all together, as soon as possible (27%). Just 24% of conservatives believe we should continue to provide the current level of troops to properly execute the war. 64% of Tea Party supporters think we should either reduce troop levels (37%) or leave Afghanistan (27%) while 28% support maintaining current troop levels. Among conservatives who don't identify with the Tea Party movement, 70% want a reduction (43%) or elimination (27%) of troops while only 18% favoring continuation of the current level. A majority of conservatives agree that the United States can dramatically lower the number of troops and money spent in Afghanistan without putting America at risk. 57% say they agree with that statement after hearing about the current number of troops in country and the funding needed to support them. Only a third (34%) do not agree with this statement. Among Tea Party supports 55% agree that we can reduce the number of troops without compromising security while 38% disagree. Among non Tea Party conservatives, 60% agree with this statement while 27% disagree. [...] 2) Beyond the Blue Helmets: Stability in Haiti Requires New Elections Beatrice Lindstrom, Center for International Policy, 13/01/2011 http://www.cipamericas.org/archives/3869<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=q%2B85gXFJs2gh9a7KFmJqXUECKeVsLYFa> [Lindstrom is a human rights lawyer with IJDH.] Along Avenue John Brown in Port-au-Prince, freshly painted graffiti reads aba seleksyon! - down with the undemocratic selection process. It is a key message in a visual protest against the failure of democracy in Haiti. It has been added alongside older messages that read aba MINUSTAH, aba okipasyon, calling for an end to the commonly perceived foreign occupation by the United Nations stabilization mission, known by its initials as MINUSTAH. The highly contested November 28 legislative and presidential elections and the unrest that followed have sharpened criticisms against the international forces and heightened concerns about self-determination as the nation seeks to rebuild one year after the devastating earthquake of January, 12, 2010. Haitian voters have been voicing their concerns about flawed elections for months, and many boycotted the vote as it shaped into a selection process intended to secure President Preval's Inite party in power. Preval's handpicked electoral board managed every aspect of the election and excluded the popular Fanmi Lavalas and other progressive parties from running. On Election Day itself, ballot tampering and voter intimidation was documented in numerous locations, and hundreds of thousands of voters were turned away because their names were missing from voter lists. The international community effectively ignored the illegalities and pushed ahead with the elections in the name of stability. MINUSTAH has tried to move the process along uninterrupted by quelling demonstrations and providing logistical support to the government. On Election Day, Edmond Mulet, the head of the U.N. mission in Haiti, offered a statement to international media that "everything is going fine," disregarding widespread outrage over irregularities. The OAS-CARICOM Joint Mission of observers noted the problems but validated the elections anyway. As Haitians protested the fraudulent elections and called for a new and fair process, Mulet went as far as to threaten that the international community would withdraw from Haiti if the results were not respected. Forcing Haitians to accept undemocratic elections will not set a foundation of stability, the purported goal of MINUSTAH's operations. It will do the opposite - evidenced by last month's unrest when voters took to the streets and paralyzed the capital to demand that their right to vote be respected. To Haitians seeking to defend their right to vote in these elections, MINUSTAH's militarized response to their protests is yet another example of the UN on the wrong side of the democratic struggle. The MINUSTAH mission has had a troubled relationship with democracy in Haiti from its inception. The force was brought in to secure a U.S.-led coup d'etat that removed democratically elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide from power in 2004. Today, MINUSTAH has 12,000 troops in Haiti, and is an odd case of a nation that has a UN peacekeeping mission in the absence [of armed] conflict. The mission is led by Brazil, with many other Latin American countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Guatemala, Peru, and Uruguay contributing. As support for MINUSTAH dwindles both within Haiti and countries that contribute forces, the mission continues to expand because it serves the self-interest of regional powerhouses. Wikileaked documents reveal that Brazil continues to head MINUSTAH because it hopes to secure a seat on the U.N. Security Council. The U.S. seeks to maintain a stronghold in Haiti and is concerned that free elections would likely lead to the election of a progressive leader more aligned with left-leaning governments like Venezuela and Cuba. Haiti is thus an important pawn in a regional game of chess. Free and fair elections are an essential vehicle of democratic expression. The denial of the right to vote has led Haitians to seek popular democracy through other means -by holding demonstrations and protests to make their voices heard. Protests that start off as peaceful all too frequently meet forceful and disproportionate responses from the UN forces. The week after the elections, the wife of a camp organizer in Cite Soleil was taken to the hospital after a MINUSTAH soldier shot pepper spray in her eyes. During another protest, a colleague rescued a panicked elderly woman from her makeshift home as a poorly aimed canister filled her tent with tear gas. While crowd control may serve a legitimate purpose in certain circumstances, tear gas, rubber bullets and flash grenades are not the answer to restoring stability in Haiti, and can have drastic consequences. What Haiti needs are new, free, and fair elections. Underlying the unrest on the streets is a sense that Haitian's sovereignty has been stripped away. The undemocratic election is viewed as imposed on Haiti by the international community: by those who paid for the election, the observers who validated it, and MINUSTAH forces that militarily enforced it. New elections are the only hope of securing a government with popular support, and thereby stability. As a result of the irregularities, even the front-runner of the November 28 elections has the support of only six percent of eligible voters. Rather than investing in the democratic process, however, the international community is giving millions to the U.N. stabilization mission that many Haitians do not want. Four days after the elections, the U.N. proposed a 2011 budget for MINUSTAH of $853 million dollars, or $2.3 million a day. This amount nearly surpasses total aid distributed by Haiti's top 30 donors and represents five times the budget the U.N. requested to combat cholera. New elections would cost a fraction of this - just $29 million, or 12 ½ days of MINUSTAH's operations in Haiti - and would render MINUSTAH's continued operations unnecessary. The unrest that has gripped Haiti since the elections should serve as a wakeup call to governments in the Americas to stand up to international political interests and invest in true democracy in Haiti by calling for new elections. Stability through Haiti's difficult rebuilding process will require as much. 3) Contours of a large and lasting American presence in Iraq starting to take shape Aaron C. Davis, Washington Post, Wednesday, January 12, 2011; 6:23 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/12/AR2011011204225.html<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=AD55pvK6bV86vXEuGxHov5XfhPp%2Bpmkq> Baghdad - Despite Iraqi leaders' insistence that the United States meet its end-of-2011 deadline for withdrawing all troops, the contours of a large and lasting American presence here are starting to take shape. Although a troop extension could still be negotiated, the politics of Iraq's new government make that increasingly unlikely, and the Obama administration has shown little interest in pushing the point. Instead, planning is underway to turn over to the State Department some of the most prominent symbols of the U.S. role in the war - including several major bases and a significant portion of the Green Zone. The department would use the bases to house a force of private security contractors and support staff that it expects to triple in size, to between 7,000 and 8,000, U.S. officials said. Ongoing negotiations between the United States and Iraq will determine the number of contractors and bases, as well as the number of uniformed military personnel the United States hopes to keep here to continue training Iraqi security forces, the officials said. But the return to Iraq last week of fiery Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, who opposes any U.S. military presence in the country, could jeopardize American plans. Salah al-Obeidi, a Sadr spokesman, said the cleric and his movement oppose all American influences and would have to "study" whether U.S. contractors should be allowed to stay beyond 2011. "The Sadrists refuse with no doubt the existence of these bases," added Rafi Abduljabar Noshi, a Sadrist lawmaker. Most of the 86 remaining U.S. bases in the country are expected to be turned over to Iraq. Those likely to be transferred to the State Department, including the heavily damaged former palace of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard and the former Baath Party headquarters, would be a far cry from the air bases and other military assets that Pentagon planners once envisioned retaining indefinitely as a deterrent to further regional conflicts. Iraq's newly reelected prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, has insisted publicly that the United States must abide by its agreement to leave, prompting U.S. and NATO officials to begin planning other ways for 400 or more military personnel, as well as hundreds of support staff members, to remain in Iraq. Lt. Gen. Michael D. Barbero, the outgoing commander of U.S. and NATO training programs in Iraq, said half that number could come from extending the current NATO mission. Maliki has formally asked NATO to begin planning for that possibility, Barbero said, and leaders of Iraqi security forces and NATO officials have expressed support for the idea. The other half could stay under the auspices of the U.S. Embassy. The 2008 agreement that set this year's deadline for the U.S. troop withdrawal allows the State Department to establish an Office of Security Cooperation in Iraq, which officials here say they expect to resemble similarly robust U.S. military offices at embassies in Saudi Arabia, Turkey and elsewhere. State Department officials have been guarded about how many U.S. military personnel could remain in the country under that plan, but U.S. diplomatic and military experts said it could be 200 or more. As currently envisioned, Barbero said, the NATO training force and U.S. military office would work as one, with the top U.S. military official at the embassy also holding the title of commander of NATO training in Iraq. [...] 4) State Dept. Hypocrisy On Iran's Fuel Row With Afghanistan Ali Gharib, LobeLog, IPS News Agency, January 13th, 2011 http://www.lobelog.com/state-dept-hypocrisy-on-irans-fuel-row-with-afghanistan/<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=mn8FZWeGCC%2BPXXvtbbOZR5XfhPp%2Bpmkq> This is pretty rich. Iran, a country under economic sanctions by international bodies, the West, and, particularly, the U.S., has reportedly been stymying gas trucks crossing its border into war-ravaged Afghanistan. That country, of course, is consumed at the moment by a war between insurgents and an army from the West (NATO) and, pointedly, the U.S. Just a week after an Iranian plan crashed, killing scores, which was quite possibly caused by the deterioration of Iranian commercial planes due to sanctions restricting spare parts, the U.S. is speaking about the right of every country to have access to energy. This comes while Congress and the Obama administration have put into place sanctions that specifically target Iranian access to refined gas. Do you see the irony? Here's State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley - who has more or less said in the past that the sanctions packages are a means to put pressure on Iranians as a collective, not just the leadership - responding to a question at a daily briefing in Washington: QUESTION: Some kind of economic tension is brewing up between Afghanistan and Iran. Iran has blocked the supply of gas to Afghanistan, which has led to increasing gas prices and shortages of gas in Afghanistan. What do you have to say about that - on that? MR. CROWLEY: I mean, we are watching closely that development. Energy is a critical resource to any country and any economy, and it should be available at whatever the appropriate market price is. Want to qualify that statement now to say that gas should only be available to those countries that the U.S. believes deserve it? 5) Dispute Emerges Over Military Damage to Afghan Property Taimoor Shah and Rod Nordland, New York Times, January 13, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/world/asia/14afghan.html<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=5o2SvILIW1b9BjVCgNZ2%2BZXfhPp%2Bpmkq> Kandahar, Afghanistan - An Afghan presidential commission has determined that military operations in the Kandahar area have caused more than $100 million in damage to homes and farms over the past six months, its chairman said in an interview on Thursday. At the same time, a news conference here including the provincial and district governors where most damage occurred, disputed the findings reported by the commission chairman, Mohammad Sediq Aziz. The American military commander in the area, Maj. Gen. James Terry, estimated the damage at only $1.4 million and said officials were rapidly processing and paying claims for compensation. The issue is a sensitive one because rapid recompense for damage caused by the fighting is an important part of the American counter-insurgency strategy, which holds that winning the support of local populations is more important than chasing away insurgents. While both sides agreed that the destruction was unavoidable, their estimates of the costs varied a hundredfold. The commission studied the impact over the past nine months of Operation Omid, which means "hope" in the Dari language, in which coalition forces targeted Taliban concentrations in Kandahar city and the three districts west of the city. Commission officials, for instance, put the number of homes deliberately destroyed by coalition troops as high as 900. General Terry said only 81 residential houses had been destroyed. [...] The Taliban have sought to make the destruction in districts they formerly controlled a propaganda issue. An email from Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid, using an email account previously used for Taliban communications, provided a link to videos that appear to show American soldiers destroying trees and houses in the Kandahar area. "This is the American democracy, reconstruction, nation-building, winning hearts and minds which they claim they are doing in Afghanistan," Mr. Mujahid wrote in his email. [...] 6) Obama Administration Will Take Steps To Facilitate The Free Exchange Of Ideas Across Borders, State Department Says Letter To Rights Organizations Recognizes Importance Of Global Marketplace Of Ideas ACLU, January 13, 2011 http://www.aclu.org/national-security/obama-administration-will-take-steps-facilitate-free-exchange-ideas-across-borders<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=BQ3zAAP910qn3%2BNDmDQLRpXfhPp%2Bpmkq> Washington - The Obama administration will take new steps to address the "ideological exclusion" of scholars and others from the United States on the basis of their political views, according to a State Department letter made public today by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), PEN American Center and the American Civil Liberties Union. The State Department sent the letter to a coalition of human rights and civil liberties groups after they expressed their appreciation for Secretary Clinton's decision last year to end the ideological exclusion from the U.S. of prominent scholars Adam Habib and Tariq Ramadan. In its letter, the State Department acknowledges the importance of "promoting a global marketplace of ideas." It specifically indicates that, in deciding whether to grant visas, the State Department will give "significant and sympathetic weight" to those seeking to enter the U.S. to fulfill speaking engagements, attend conferences, accept teaching positions, "or for similar expressive or educational activities." [...] * Afghanistan* 7) U.S. keeps funneling money to troubled Afghan projects Marisa Taylor and Dion Nissenbaum, McClatchy Newspapers, January 13, 2011 http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2011/01/12/106681/troubled-us-afghan-projects-mushroom.html<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=cTfS7cGemfytAOU63wt%2BApXfhPp%2Bpmkq> Kabul, Afghanistan - For years, U.S. officials held up Kabul's largest power plant project as a shining example of how American taxpayers' dollars would pull Afghanistan out of grinding poverty and decades of demoralizing conflict. But behind the scenes, the same officials were voicing outrage over the slow pace of the project and its skyrocketing costs. The problems were so numerous that one company official told the U.S. government that he'd understand if the contract were canceled. "We are discouraged and exhausted with the continued flow of bad information," one U.S. official complained in an internal memo that McClatchy obtained. "This is a huge example of poor performance on an extremely important development project." Despite expressing serious misgivings in internal memos and meetings, the U.S. agency that was overseeing the project more than doubled the plant's budget. Welcome to Afghan aid, American-style. In the rush to rebuild Afghanistan, the U.S. government has charged ahead with ever-expanding development programs despite questions about their impact, cost and value to America's multi-billion-dollar campaign to shore up the pro-Western Afghan president and prevent Taliban insurgents from seizing control. [...] McClatchy found that U.S. government funding for at least 15 large-scale programs and projects grew from just over $1 billion to nearly $3 billion despite the government's questions about their effectiveness or cost. They include: - A modest wheat program that's ballooned into one of America's biggest counterinsurgency projects in southern Afghanistan despite misgivings about its impact. - A wayward multi-billion-dollar construction project that's now scrambling to find money to rebuild dozens of schools, clinics and other public buildings that were so poorly constructed that they might not withstand a serious earthquake. The projects, overseen by the U.S. Agency for International Development, are designed to address different goals in Afghanistan but all offer evidence that the U.S. has downplayed their waste and inefficiency in its zeal to demonstrate short-term success. "The strategy at the moment is to try and spend our way out of this war," said Bob Kitchen, the country director in Afghanistan for the nonprofit International Rescue Committee, which is involved in USAID programs. "We should be spending less and demanding more." [...] *Iran* 8) Do We Have Ahmadinejad All Wrong? Reza Aslan, Atlantic, Jan 13 2011 http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/01/do-we-have-ahmadinejad-all-wrong/69434/<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=P2wi52btKJbjRN2Na0A5KpXfhPp%2Bpmkq> Is it possible that Iran's blustering president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, long thought to be a leading force behind some of Iran's most hard-line and repressive policies, is actually a reformer whose attempts to liberalize, secularize, and even "Persianize" Iran have been repeatedly stymied by the country's more conservative factions? That is the surprising impression one gets reading the latest WikiLeaks revelations, which portray Ahmadinejad as open to making concessions on Iran's nuclear program and far more accommodating to Iranians' demands for greater freedoms than anyone would have thought. Two episodes in particular deserve special scrutiny not only for what they reveal about Ahmadinejad but for the light they shed on the question of who really calls the shots in Iran. In October 2009, Ahamdinejad's chief nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili, worked out a compromise with world power representatives in Geneva on Iran's controversial nuclear program. But the deal, in which Iran agreed to ship nearly its entire stockpile of low enriched uranium to Russia and France for processing, collapsed when it failed to garner enough support in Iran's parliament, the Majles. According to a U.S. diplomatic cable recently published by WikiLeaks, Ahmadinejad, despite all of his tough talk and heated speeches about Iran's right to a nuclear program, fervently supported the Geneva arrangement, which would have left Iran without enough enriched uranium to make a nuclear weapon. But, inside the often opaque Tehran government, he was thwarted from pursuing the deal by politicians on both the right and the left who saw the agreement as a "defeat" for the country and who viewed Ahmadinejad as, in the words of Ali Larijani, the conservative Speaker of the Majles, "fooled by the Westerners." Despite the opposition from all sides, Ahmadinajed, we have learned, continued to tout the nuclear deal as a positive and necessary step for Iran. In February 2010, he reiterated his support for the Geneva agreement saying, "If we allow them to take [Iran's enriched uranium for processing], there is no problem." By June, long after all parties in the Geneva agreement had given up on the negotiations and the Iranian government had publicly taken a much firmer line on its nuclear program, Ahmadinejad was still trying to revive the deal. "The Tehran declaration is still alive and can play a role in international relations even if the arrogant (Western) powers are upset and angry," he declared. Even as late as September, Ahmadinejad was still promising that "there is a good chance that talks will resume in the near future," despite statements to the contrary from Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. The second revelation from WikiLeaks is even more remarkable. Apparently, during a heated 2009 security meeting at the height of the popular demonstrations roiling Iran in the wake of his disputed reelection, Ahmadinejad suggested that perhaps the best way to deal with the protesters would be to open up more personal and social freedoms, including more freedom of the press. While the suggestion itself seems extraordinary, coming as it does from a man widely viewed by the outside world as the instigating force behind Iran's turn toward greater repression, what is truly amazing about this story is the response of the military brass in the room. According to WikiLeaks, the Revolutionary Guard's Chief of Staff, Mohammed Ali Jafari, slapped Ahmadinejad across the face right in the middle of the meeting, shouting, "You are wrong! It is you who created this mess! And now you say give more freedom to the press?" [The Leveretts have cast doubt on whether this story about the slap is credible. It's a striking feature of some mainstream press coverage of the WikiLeaks cables: just because a U.S. official told another U.S. official that someone told them something, it's automatically true - "revealed by WikiLeaks." Here's is the Leveretts' piece: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/flynt-and-hillary-mann-leverett/listening-posts-on-iran-p_b_794921.html?page=3<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=VjdF9QK3CdohxI2tX3ZWzJXfhPp%2Bpmkq>-JFP] Taken together, these revelations paint a picture of Iran's president as a man whose domestic and foreign policy decisions - whether with regard to his views on women's rights or his emphasis on Iran's Persian heritage - are at odds not only with his image in the West but with the views and opinions of the conservative establishment in Iran. Take, for example, Ahmadinejad's comments in June 2010, when he publicly condemned the harassing of young women for "improperly" covering themselves, a common complaint among Iranians. "The government has nothing to do with [women's hijab] and doesn't interfere in it. We consider it insulting when a man and a woman are walking in the streets and they're asked about their relationship. No one has the right to ask about it." Ahmadinejad even criticized "the humiliating high-profile [morality] police crackdown already underway," and recommended launching what he called a "cultural campaign" against "interpretations of Islamic dress that have been deemed improper by authorities." In response to those rather enlightened statements, the head of the clerical establishment in the Majles, Mohammad Taghi Rahbar, lambasted Ahamdinejad. "Those who voted for you were the fully veiled people," Rahbar said. "The badly veiled 'greens' did not vote for you, so you'd better consider that what pleases God is not pleasing a number of corrupt people." The ultra-conservative head of the Guardian Council, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, also weighed in on Ahmadinejad's criticism of the morality police. "Drug traffickers are hanged, terrorists are executed and robbers are punished for their crimes, but when it comes to the law of God, which is above human rights, [some individuals] stay put and speak about cultural programs." Ayatollah Jannati's comments reflect the growing rift between the president and the country's religious establishment, perhaps best exemplified by Ahamdinejad's unprecedented decision to stop attending meetings of the Expediency Council, whose members represent the interests of Iran's clerical elite. Ahamdinejad later questioned the very concept of clerical rule in Iran, raising controversy in Tehran and drawing the ire of the powerful religious establishment. "Administering the country should not be left to the [Supreme] Leader, the religious scholars, and other [clerics]," Ahmadinejad declared, lampooning his religious rivals for "running to Qum [the religious capital of Iran] for every instruction." [...] It might seem shocking to both casual and dedicated Iran-watcher that the bombastic Ahmadinejad could, behind Tehran's closed doors, be playing the reformer. After all, this was the man who, in 2005, generated wide outrage in the West for suggesting that Israel should be "wiped from the map." But even that case said as much about our limited understanding of him and his context as it did about Ahmadinejad himself. The expression "wipe from the map" means "destroy" in English but not in Farsi. In Farsi, it means not that Israel should be eliminated but that the existing political borders should literally be wiped from a literal map and replaced with those of historic Palestine. That's still not something likely to win him cheers in U.S. policy circles, but the distinction, which has been largely lost from the West's understanding of the Iranian president, is important. [Aslan has the overall gist of this right, but his explanation isn't quite accurate. Juan Cole explained it better and more carefully. That explanation is here, among other places, where Cole translates the quote from Farsi as "the occupation regime over Jerusalem should vanish from the page of time," not that Israel should be "wiped off the map": http://www.juancole.com/2006/05/hitchens-hacker-and-hitchens.html<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=v3L%2BKyL1OJMu6HXD0XrV9pXfhPp%2Bpmkq>- JFP] As always, both Ahmadinejad the man and the Iranian government he ostensibly leads resist easy characterization. The truth is that the opaque nature of Iran's government and the country's deeply fractured political system make it difficult to draw any clear or simple conclusions. It's not obvious whether Ahmadinejad is driven by a legitimate desire for reform or just tactical political interests. But if you oppose the Mullahs' rule, yearn for greater social and political freedoms for the Iranian people, and envision an Iran that draws inspiration from the glories of its Persian past, then, believe it or not, you have more in common with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad than you might have thought. 9) Israel army brass and Barak clashed on Iran war: report Dan Williams, Reuters, Wed, Jan 12 2011 http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE70B48D20110112<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=uNJNeam%2FhANhjEDQrr1AEpXfhPp%2Bpmkq> Jerusalem - Israel's military chief objected last year to a proposal to attack Iranian nuclear sites by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, who retaliated by cutting the general's tenure, an Israeli newspaper reported Wednesday. Lieutenant-General Gabi Ashkenazi, who retires next month, believed that "initiating a war will only bring disaster upon Israel" and won Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's "promise that his view would be heard," the Haaretz daily said. "This had a fatal impact on (Ashkenazi's) relationship with the defense minister," said the unsourced report by columnist Aluf Benn, who has broken stories on secret cabinet debates. Ashkenazi, a career infantryman, took command of Israel's armed forces in 2007 after his predecessor, Dan Halutz, resigned in disgrace over the inconclusive Lebanon war the year before. Citing professional considerations, Barak announced last April that Ashkenazi's four-year term would not be extended by a year, as is customary. The defense minister named Yoav Galant, the general in charge of Israel's Gaza front, to succeed him. "The impression is that Galant is more aggressive on Iran and will not block Netanyahu and Barak, who are eager to go into battle" against Iran, the Haaretz report said. [...] Some analysts assess that the prospects of an imminent Israeli war on Iran have ebbed, thanks to the perceived success of diplomatic and covert actions against Tehran. [...] Haaretz described a rift between Israel's two most powerful elected leaders and the heads of the security services, who it said have been "moderates" like Ashkenazi when it came to Iran. [...] * Israel/Palestine* 10) Israel's Assault on Human Rights Neve Gordon, The Nation, January 12, 2011 http://www.thenation.com/article/157664/israels-assault-human-rights<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=BTuyAXzSIDH7a4Y4QX3r4JXfhPp%2Bpmkq> Imagine a college student returning to her university after spending Christmas break at home. At the airport she logs on to the Internet to double check some of the sources she used in her final take-home exam for the course "Introduction to Human Rights." She gets online and begins to surf the web; however, she soon realizes that the websites of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch are blocked. She calls the service provider's 800 number, only to find out that all human rights organizations' websites have indeed been restricted and that they can no longer be accessed from the airport. This, you are probably thinking, cannot happen in the United States. Such practices are common in China, North Korea and Syria, but not in liberal democracies that pride themselves on the basic right to freedom of expression. In the United States students can of course access human rights websites, no matter where they surf from. But in Israel, which is also known as the only democracy in the Middle East, human rights websites as well as the websites of some extreme right-wing organizations cannot be accessed from Ben-Gurion, the country's only international airport. If this attack on freedom of expression was merely an isolated incident, one might be able to conclude that it was a mistake. Yet the restriction of human rights websites is actually part of a well-orchestrated assault carried out by the current government and legislature against Israel's democratic institutions, procedures and practices. A spate of anti-democratic bills], now in the process of being ratified in the Israeli Knesset, render it a crime to support any ideology that poses alternatives to conservative interpretations of Zionism, such as support for the notion that Israel should be a democracy for all its citizens. In early January forty-one (versus sixteen) Knesset members voted in favor of a proposal to establish a parliamentary inquiry commission into the funding of Israeli human rights organizations. MK Fania Kirshenbaum, who submitted the proposal, accused human rights groups of providing material to the Goldstone commission, which investigated Israel's 2008-09 Gaza offensive. Considering that the funding of all human rights organizations in Israel is made public each year and scrutinized by the state auditor, the idea of creating a parliamentary commission to inspect their income is merely a smokescreen. The parliamentary commission's actual goal is to intimidate Israeli rights groups and their donors and, as a result, stifle free speech. [...] *Mexico* 11) Mexican official: 34,612 drug-war deaths in 4 yrs Mark Stevenson, Associated Press, Wednesday, January 12, 2011; 9:25 PM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/12/AR2011011203802.html<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=L9d0d9QrSNnkMRgHBTmF9ZXfhPp%2Bpmkq> Mexico City - A total of 34,612 people have died in drug-related killings in Mexico in the four years since Mexican President Felipe Calderon declared an offensive against drug cartels, officials said Wednesday. The killings reached their highest level in 2010, jumping by almost 60 percent to 15,273 deaths from 9,616 the previous year. The rate of killings grew in the first half of 2010, but then stabilized and began to decline in the last quarter of the year, federal security spokesman Alejandro Poire said. [...] *Cuba* 12) Cuban Exile Lied to U.S., Prosecutor Tells Texas Jury James C. McKinley Jr., New York Times, January 12, 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/13/us/13carriles.html<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=hqHNMsttCOVS8e2ntQenYkECKeVsLYFa> El Paso - A prosecutor told jurors Wednesday than an elderly Cuban exile lied repeatedly under oath about how he entered the United States and about his role in terrorist attacks in Havana. The exile, Luis Posada Carriles, 82, is a veteran of the cold war struggles against Fidel Castro who once worked for the C.I.A. and is a suspect in several bombings. He is charged with perjury, obstruction of federal proceedings and making false statements during a naturalization hearing. Cuba and Venezuela have charged that Mr. Posada was the mastermind behind the downing of a Cuban airliner in 1976 in which 73 people were killed. Both governments also claim that he orchestrated a series of bombings in Havana in 1997, killing a tourist. Timothy J. Reardon, the lead prosecutor, told the jury in his opening argument that Mr. Posada was not on trial for his opposition to the Cuban government. But he said he would show that Mr. Posada lied during a deportation hearing in 2005 when he said he had not recruited the bombers who carried out the attacks in Cuba. A key piece of evidence, he said, will be tapes of a lengthy interview Mr. Posada gave to The New York Times in 1998, in which he freely admitted organizing the campaign of explosions at hotels and a restaurant to scare off tourists. [...] Mr. Posada, gray-haired and stooped, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison on 10 counts in the indictment, and 10 years on the last count. He worked for the C.I.A. from 1965 to 1967, spying on exile groups in Miami, then became a high-ranking official in the Venezuelan intelligence service, which he left in 1974. Declassified F.B.I. documents place him at two meetings during which the bombing of a Cubana airliner was planned in 1976. He was held in a Venezuelan prison for nine years as a suspect in that case, but never convicted. In 2000, he was convicted in Panama in connection with a plot to kill Castro at a summit meeting. - Just Foreign Policy<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=eB2qh8JC1CpDYDFHwoses5XfhPp%2Bpmkq>is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans. The archive of the Just Foreign Policy News is here<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=mn8FZWeGCC%2BAbmpWXCDXMJXfhPp%2Bpmkq> . ------------ Click here to unsubscribe<http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=saTnePFEoXJbFOjgeys7OZXfhPp%2Bpmkq> [image: empowered by Salsa] <http://www.salsalabs.com/?email> _______________________________________________ Marxism-Thaxis mailing list Marxism-Thaxis@lists.econ.utah.edu To change your options or unsubscribe go to: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism-thaxis
