Just Foreign Policy News October 9, 2006 Sign the petition - No War with Iran! As U.S. officials prepare for military attacks - and as partisans of military conflict in the Bush Administration are emboldened by reports of a North Korean nuclear test - Just Foreign Policy, in collaboration with Peace Action, is sponsoring a petition against war with Iran. To sign the petition, use this link: http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iranpetition.html
Signing the petition takes less than a minute. The Just Foreign Policy News Summary is now podcast daily. The podcast is generally less than 5 minutes. To subscribe, see http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/podcasts/podcast_howto.html. Summary: U.S. In a tendentious article with a misleading headline, the New York Times reported Saturday on Bush Administration claims to have won an agreement from other permanent members of the UN Security Council to "seek sanctions against Iran over its refusal to shut down a nuclear enrichment program that could be used to build bombs." The headline was "U.S. Cites Deal With U.N. Members to Punish Iran." In standard American English, one typically "cites" things that are generally acknowledged to be true, factual, or legitimate, like the Second Law of Thermodynamics or one's First Amendment rights. One "claims" things that are in dispute. As one reads further into the article, it becomes clear that what the U.S. can "cite" is an agreement to discuss sanctions, not an agreement to impose them. James Baker, co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, said he expected the panel would depart from Bush's calls to "stay the course," and suggested the White House enter direct talks with Iran and Syria. "I believe in talking to your enemies," he said. His comments offered a glimmer of what members of his study group have described as an effort to find a face-saving way for Bush to extract the US from the war. Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile accused in a plot to blow up a civilian Cuban airplane that resulted in 73 deaths, presents a quandary for the Bush administration, the New York Times reports. Posada may soon go free because the US has been reluctant to press the terrorism charges that could keep him in jail. Momentum is growing for state governments to divest public funds from companies, mostly foreign-based, doing business with Sudan, the Washington Post reports. A debate on the role of the Israeli lobby in U.S. foreign policy involving prominent academics and former high-level U.S. and Israeli officials is now viewable on the web. Juan Cole characterizes press coverage of the event as a "virtual news blackout." Iran A senior cleric who opposes religious rule in Iran and a number of his followers were arrested Sunday after clashes with police, Iranian news agencies reported. Ayatollah Boroujerdi said he had written to world leaders seeking protection and asking them "to make efforts to spread traditional religion," separate from politics. "I believe people are fed up with political religion and want traditional religion to return," he said. Iraq Three and a half years after the American invasion, the violence that has disfigured much of Iraqi society is hitting young Iraqis in new ways, the New York Times reports. Young people say their lives have shrunk to the size of their bedrooms and their dreams have been packed away and largely forgotten. American and Iraqi troops fought a fierce battle Sunday with militants in Diwaniya, a stronghold of militia members loyal to Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, the US military said. The skirmish was the third serious clash between American or Iraqi soldiers against members of the Mahdi Army in Diwaniya in less than two months. The number of U.S troops wounded in Iraq surged to its highest monthly level in nearly two years last month, the Washington Post reports, as 776 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq. Experts say the number of wounded is a better gauge of the fierceness of fighting than combat deaths because advances in armor and medical care now allow many to survive who would have perished in past wars. The ratio of wounded to killed among U.S. forces in Iraq is about 8 to 1, compared with 3 to 1 in Vietnam. In southern Baghdad, American troops increasingly ask themselves if this is their fight anymore, and who is the enemy, NBC News reports. Israel There are two reasons Israel won't make peace with Syria now, writes veteran Israeli journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery. One is domestic: the 20,000 Israeli settlers living in the occupied Golan Heights, which Israel would have to give back as part of a peace deal. The second is that President Bush wouldn't like it. A true Israeli patriot, Avnery suggests, would try to make peace with Syria if it is in Israel's interest, whether the US likes it or not. Yemen The election in Yemen was a victory for Abdelrahman al-Marwani, who leads an anti-violence campaign in Yemen, the New York Times reports, not because of how people voted but because only eight people were killed. In part due to the efforts of his organization, that number was down from 67 in the 2001 election. Afghanistan NATO's top commander in Afghanistan said Sunday the country was at a tipping point and warned Afghans would likely switch their allegiance to resurgent Taliban militants if there are no visible improvements in people's lives in the next six months. Russia Hundreds of Russians attended a rally in Moscow Sunday to commemorate a veteran journalist who was murdered Saturday, apparently in retaliation for her exposure of human rights abuses by the Russian government in Chechnya. North Korea North Korea's apparent nuclear test may be regarded as a failure of the Bush administration's nuclear nonproliferation policy, the Washington Post reports. But senior U.S. officials have said they would welcome a North Korean test as a clarifying event that would end the debate within the Bush administration about whether to solve the problem through diplomacy or through tough actions designed to destabilize the North Korean government. Illegitimate Debt Anti-debt campaigners are hailing Monday's decision by Norway to cancel $80 million in debt after it determined the loans were not intended to promote development, Inter Press Service reports. The IPS reporter notes that Norway's action "broke ranks" with other creditors, who have refused to acknowledge that much of the international debt owed by poor countries is illegitimate. Remarkably, the IPS article referred to the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the "Paris Club" group of creditor nations as being part of a "creditors' cartel." What is remarkable about this characterization is that it is so accurate. It's a safe bet this reporter will never get a job at the New York Times. Contents: U.S. 1) U.S. Cites Deal With U.N. Members to Punish Iran Philip Shenon, New York Times, October 7, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/07/world/middleeast/07iran.html The US said it had won agreement on Friday from the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany to seek sanctions against Iran over its refusal to shut down a nuclear enrichment program that could be used to build bombs. While the State Department praised the agreement American diplomats conceded that there could still be long and difficult negotiations over what penalties to impose and their timing. Indeed, none of the other nations issued such an explicit statement after the meeting. In the past, China and Russia have both said they would be wary of sanctions against Iran, despite its defiance of international demands to end nuclear enrichment. Nicholas Burns, American under secretary of state for political affairs, said whatever the other nations' diplomatic language, "What we've got is an agreement to go to the Security Council" to punish Iran. In essence, Burns said, the six nations "concluded that Iran is not prepared to negotiate with us" based on conditions set last spring, and that "we'll go forward with sanctions." But he admitted the issue was far from decided. "I think there's going to be a spirited debate about what kind of sanctions should be agreed to." Burns was the senior American negotiator at the talks for the most of the day because Secretary of State Rice was delayed when her military jet developed mechanical problems. The German foreign minister may have come closest to the American statement when he told ZDF television on Friday that "if there is no new decision from inside the Iranian leadership, there is at present no alternative to having the Security Council deal with this conflict." Agence France-Presse quoted the French foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, as saying that the six nations have "decided, in a unified manner, to work together in the next few days to speak about proportionate and reversible sanctions." 2) G.O.P.'s Baker Hints Iraq Plan Needs Change David E. Sanger, New York Times, October 9, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/world/middleeast/09baker.html James Baker, the Republican co-chair of a bipartisan panel reassessing Iraq strategy for President Bush, said Sunday he expected the panel would depart from Bush's calls to "stay the course," and strongly suggested the White House enter direct talks with countries it had kept at arm's length, including Iran and Syria. "I believe in talking to your enemies," he said, noting he made 15 trips to Damascus while serving as secretary of state. "You don't give away anything, but in my view, it's not appeasement to talk to your enemies." The "Iraq Study Group," created by Baker last March with the encouragement of some members of Congress to come up with new ideas on Iraq strategy, has already talked to some representatives of Iran and Syria about Iraq's future, he said. His comments offered the first glimmer of what other members of his study group have described as an effort to find a face-saving way for Bush to extract the US from the war. "I think it's fair to say our commission believes that there are alternatives between the stated alternatives … of 'stay the course' and 'cut and run,' " Baker said. He rejected a rapid withdrawal from Iraq, saying that would invite Iran, Syria and "even our friends in the gulf" to fill the power vacuum. He dismissed as unworkable a proposal by Senator Biden to decentralize Iraq and give the country's three major groups their own regions, distributing oil revenue to all. Baker said he had concluded "there's no way to draw lines" in Iraq's major cities, where ethnic groups are intermingled. According to White House officials and commission members, Baker has been talking to Bush and national security adviser Hadley on a regular basis. They say he is unlikely to issue suggestions the president has not tacitly approved in advance. Those proposals - which he has said must be both bipartisan and unanimous - could give Bush some political latitude to adopt strategies he had once rejected, like setting deadlines for a phased withdrawal of American forces. It was notable that Baker joined the growing number of Republicans who are trying to create some space between themselves and the White House. On Sunday Baker was shown a video of Senator Warner, who said last week Iraq was "drifting sideways" and urged consideration of a "change of course" if the Iraqi government could not restore order in two or three months. The American ambassador to Iraq, Zalmay Khalilzad, has offered a similar warning. Asked if he agreed with that timetable, Baker said, "Yes, absolutely. And we're taking a look at other alternatives." [Of course, the ambassador is a Bush Administration official, so this "distance" takes on the appearance of something orchestrated, perhaps to suggest to voters that after the election there will be a change of course, even Republicans are returned to power -JFP.] Members of the study group have privately expressed concern that within months, whatever course the group recommended could be overtaken by the chaos in Iraq. "I think the big question is whether we can come up with something before it's too late," one member said last month. "There's a real sense that the clock is ticking, that Bush is desperate for a change, but no one in the White House can bring themselves to say so with this election coming." It was a measure of how much the situation had deteriorated that only one member of the group, former Senator Robb, ventured beyond the protected walls of the Green Zone. Friday,. Biden said he thought he saw "heads nodding up and down" about his ideas on creating autonomous regions of the country, but Baker made clear on Sunday that he was not among them. "Experts on Iraq have suggested that, if we do that, that in itself will trigger a huge civil war because the major cities in Iraq are mixed," Baker said. Baker has been critical of how the Bush administration conducted post-invasion operations, and he has not backed away from statements in his 1995 memoir, in which he described opposing the ouster of Saddam Hussein in 1991. He had said he feared such action might lead to a civil war, "even if Saddam were captured and his regime toppled, American forces would still be confronted with the specter of a military occupation of indefinite duration to pacify the country and sustain a new government." 3) Castro Foe Puts U.S. in an Awkward Spot Marc Lacey, New York Times, October 8, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/world/americas/08posada.html Cubana Airlines Flight 455 crashed off the coast of Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976, killing all 73 people aboard. Plastic explosives ignited the plane. Implicated in the attack was Luis Posada Carriles, a Cuban exile. Posada is in detention in El Paso, held on an immigration violation. His case presents a quandary for the Bush administration, in part because Posada is a former C.I.A. operative who directed his wrath at a government that Washington has long opposed. Despite insistent calls from Cuba and Venezuela for his extradition, the administration has refused to send him to either country for trial. Posada may soon go free because the US has been reluctant to press the terrorism charges that could keep him in jail. That has brought criticism of the Bush administration for a double standard for those who commit terrorist acts. "The fight against terrorism cannot be fought à la carte," said José Pertierra, a lawyer representing the government of Venezuela in its effort to extradite Posada. "A terrorist is a terrorist." The Bush administration has stopped short of prosecuting him as a terrorist, however, even though the Justice Department called him as much this week. In court papers, it described him as "an unrepentant criminal and admitted mastermind of terrorist plots and attacks on tourist sites." Instead, Posada faces immigration charges, as the Bush administration tries its best to deport him somewhere else, where he would walk free. Canada, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Panama have all turned down American requests to take Posada, who denies he bombed the plane but is linked to the case in declassified C.I.A. and F.B.I. files. Two countries want Posada: Venezuela, where he is wanted for blowing up the plane, and Cuba, where he is viewed as an enemy who has repeatedly tried to assassinate Castro. The Bush administration is now invoking a law that bars the release of an illegal immigrant who poses adverse foreign policy consequences for the US. That tack has placed it in the awkward position of having to call Posada a terrorist even as it refuses to charge him as one. 4) Sudan Divestment Effort Gains Momentum at State Level Nora Boustany, Washington Post, Saturday, October 7, 2006; A12 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/06/AR2006100601583.html Momentum is growing for state governments to divest public funds from companies, mostly foreign-based, doing business with Khartoum. In a victory for business lobbyists, Congress approved a Sudan sanctions bill stripped of language that would have endorsed states' rights to pass divestment laws. The National Foreign Trade Council, representing more than 300 multinational companies, had lobbied aggressively against the provision on state investments inserted by the House during its consideration of the bill last year. A divestment movement, however, appears to be gaining momentum across the country, with active campaigns on university campuses and at city and state levels. Six states have already passed divestment laws: Maine, Connecticut, Oregon, Illinois, New Jersey and California. Lawmakers in many states are pushing for divestment bills, according to the Sudan Divestment Task Force. Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nebraska, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington could consider some form of legislation early next year, according to the task force. 5) Debate: The Israeli Lobby: Does it Have Too Much Influence on US Foreign Policy?, Cooper Union, New York City, October 3, 2006 Recorded by ScribeMedia for the London Review of Books Panelists: John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science, University of Chicago. Shlomo Ben-Ami, former Israeli foreign and security minister Martin Indyk, Saban Center, Brookings Institution. Tony Judt, Professor in European Studies, New York University. Rashid Khalidi, Professor of Arab Studies, Columbia University. Dennis Ross, Washington Institute for Near East Policy. http://blog.scribestudio.com/articles/2006/10/03/the-israeli-lobby-does-it-have-too-much-influence-on-us-foreign-policy Juan Cole writes in his blog: There was a virtual news blackout on the debate. Despite the widespread interest sparked by the Mearsheimer and Walt article on the Israel lobby in the London Review of Books last spring, no major news outlet bothered to cover this important debate, nor was it on C-Span. Iran 6) Iran Arrests Outspoken Cleric Who Opposes Religious Rule Nazila Fathi, New York Times, October 9, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/world/middleeast/09iran.html A senior cleric who opposes religious rule of Iran and a number of his followers were arrested Sunday after clashes with the riot police, news agencies reported. About 1,000 supporters of the cleric, Ayatollah Mohammad Kazemeni Boroujerdi, gathered outside his home Saturday, the semiofficial ILNA news agency reported. They were there apparently to protect him from arrest and to protest the arrests over the past month of other supporters who had tried to protect him after a court had summoned him. News reports quoted officials saying members of the crowd came armed with knives and daggers, and the reports said riot police dispersed them with tear gas. Ayatollah Boroujerdi said he had written to Kofi Annan, to EU foreign policy chief Solana, to the Pope and others seeking protection and asking them "to make efforts to spread traditional religion," separate from politics, it was reported. "I believe people are fed up with political religion and want traditional religion to return," he was quoted as saying. Protesters who were interviewed on opposition radio and satellite television channels Saturday said the supporters of Ayatollah Boroujerdi were prepared to die in his defense. Iraq 7) Sectarian Havoc Freezes the Lives of Young Iraqis Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, October 8, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/world/middleeast/08iraqyouth.html In a dimly lit room in central Baghdad, Noor is a lonely teenage prisoner. Many of his friends have left the country, and some who have stayed have strange new habits: a Shiite acts holier-than-thou; a Sunni joins an armed gang. At 19, Noor is neither working nor in college. He is not even allowed outdoors. Three and a half years after the American invasion, the violence that has disfigured much of Iraqi society is hitting young Iraqis in new ways. Young people from five Baghdad neighborhoods say their lives have shrunk to the size of their bedrooms and their dreams have been packed away and largely forgotten. It is no longer possible to make plans. "I can't go outside, I can't go to college," said Noor. "If I'm killed, it doesn't even matter because I'm dead right now." 8) U.S. and Iraqi Forces Clash With Shiite Militia Michael Luo, New York Times, October 9, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/09/world/middleeast/09iraq.html American and Iraqi troops fought a fierce battle Sunday with militants in the southern city of Diwaniya, a stronghold of militia members loyal to Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, the US military said. The skirmish was the third serious clash between American or Iraqi soldiers against members of the Mahdi Army in Diwaniya in less than two months. Abdul Razzaq al-Nedawi, head of Sadr's office in Diwaniya, said residents were surprised Sunday when American troops began raiding homes in three residential neighborhoods in the middle of the night. "There was an agreement with the Iraqi government that U.S. forces would not enter residential areas in this city," he said. "This agreement was made through a channel linked to the office of the prime minister." 9) U.S. Casualties in Iraq Rise Sharply Growing American Role in Staving Off Civil War Leads to Most Wounded Since 2004 Ann Scott Tyson, Washington Post, Sunday, October 8, 2006; A01 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/07/AR2006100700907.html The number of U.S troops wounded in Iraq surged to its highest monthly level in nearly two years as American GIs fight block-by-block in Baghdad to check a spiral of sectarian violence that U.S. commanders warn could lead to civil war. Last month, 776 U.S. troops were wounded in action in Iraq, the highest number since the assault to retake the city of Fallujah in November 2004, according to Defense Department data. It was the fourth-highest monthly total since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The sharp increase in American wounded - with nearly 300 more in the first week of October - is a measure of the degree to which the U.S. military has been thrust into the lead of the effort to stave off full-scale civil war in Iraq, military officials and experts say. Beyond Baghdad, Marines battling Sunni insurgents in Iraq's western province of Anbar last month also suffered their highest number of wounded in action since late 2004. More than 20,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in combat in the Iraq war, and about half have returned to duty. While much media reporting has focused on the more than 2,700 killed, military experts say the number of wounded is a more accurate gauge of the fierceness of fighting because advances in armor and medical care today allow many service members to survive who would have perished in past wars. The ratio of wounded to killed among U.S. forces in Iraq is about 8 to 1, compared with 3 to 1 in Vietnam. 10) Soldiers question when Iraqis will take the lead Invisible enemy, untrustworthy allies have troops questioning their purpose Richard Engel, NBC News, Oct 7, 2006 http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15160357/ The U.S. Cavalry's Crazy Horse, 3rd Platoon ventures out into Southern Baghdad, where the enemy is invisible, Iraqi allies untrustworthy, and where American troops increasingly ask themselves if this is their fight anymore. And who is the enemy? "It's not clear now who we're always fighting: they're terrorists, they're criminals, they're religious radicals," says Sgt. Mike Schmieder. Just how murky it's become is obvious after only an hour on patrol. The platoon finds the body of a Sunni man executed and dumped by the roadside just 30 minutes earlier, along with his ID and a photograph of his daughter. Then Iraqi police arrive - the soldiers think too quickly. No one called them. The body these soldiers found had been shot by an Iraqi policeman's pistol; witnesses saw an Iraqi police car leave the scene. Now the soldiers are investigating to see if these police were themselves involved. Surprisingly, an Iraqi police lieutenant tells us he thinks fellow police did it. "My men are infiltrated by Shiite militias and I can't get rid of them," he says. "If I report them, they'll kill me." The troops say it's frustrating not to trust their Iraqi counterparts. Do soldiers here ever ask themselves, "Why are we here? Is this our war anymore?" "Oh yes, all the time. I ask myself that a lot, too," says Spc. Vernon Roberson. "We've been here for so long and we've done so much, but it's just so far we can go." Israel 11) Avnery: Lunch in Damascus Uri Avnery, Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc), 07-10-2006 http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1160256257/ Traveling in a taxi, I had an argument with the driver - a profession associated in Israel with extreme right-wing views. I tried in vain to convince him of the desirability of peace with the Arabs. In our country, peace can seem like something out of science fiction. "When we have peace," I said, "You can take your taxi in the morning and go to Damascus, have lunch there with real authentic Hummus and come back home in the evening." He jumped at the idea. "Wow," he exclaimed, "If that happens, I shall take you with me for nothing!" Bashar Al-Assad has succeeded in confusing the Israeli government.As long as he voices the ritual threat to liberate the Golan Heights by force, it does not upset anybody. That only confirms what many want to hear: there is no way to have peace with Syria, sooner or later we shall have a war. Peace with Syria would mean giving back the Golan Heights. No peace, no need to give them back. But when Bashar starts to talk peace, we are in trouble. That is a sinister plot. It may, God forbid, create a situation that would compel us to return the territory. Therefore, we should not even speak about it. The news must be buried in some remote corner of the papers and at the end of the news on TV, as just "another speech of Assad". The government rejects them "on the threshold", adding that it cannot even be discussed until… Until what? Until he stops supporting Hizbullah. Until Syria expels the representatives of Hamas and the other Palestinian organizations. Until regime change takes place in Syria. Until a Western-style democracy is installed there. In short, until he registers as a member of the Zionist organization. Why don't we make peace with Syria? The domestic reason is the existence of 20,000 settlers on the Golan Heights, far more popular than the West Bank settlers. Barak almost came to an agreement with Syria. The only question that remained was almost ludicrous: should the Syrians reach the shoreline of the Sea of Tiberias (the situation before the Six-day war) or stay at a distance of a few dozen meters (the border between the British and the French.) In popular parlance: will Assad dangle his long feet in the water of the lake? For Assad Sr. that was a question of honor. Is it worthwhile to risk for this the lives of thousands of Israelis and Syrians, who may die in another war? The second reason for rejecting peace with Syria is connected with the US. Syria belongs to Bush's "axis of evil". Bush doesn't give a damn for the long-range interests of Israel. No Israeli government - certainly not that of Olmert - would dare to disobey the American president. Therefore, all peace feelers from Assad will be rejected "on the threshold". This affair throws some light on the complex relations between Israel and the US: who is wagging who - does the dog wag its tail or the tail its dog? Olmert says we must ignore Assad's peace offers, because we must not help him to escape Bush's wrath. An Israeli patriot would have said exactly the opposite: If Assad is ready to make peace with us we should jump at this opportunity and exploit this situation to achieve at long last peace on our northern front. Yemen 12) One Man Leads Often Dangerous Quest to Quell Violence in Yemen Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, October 8, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/08/world/middleeast/08yemen.html With his mobile phone buzzing incessantly and young men standing by the phones for any word of trouble, Abdelrahman al-Marwani waited nervously as the polls closed in Yemen's presidential elections on Sept. 20, eager to see the results of his decade-long campaign. Success had nothing to do with who might win and everything to do with whether election day remained peaceful. The election was something of a victory for Marwani, who has struggled to bring the issue of violence and the need for gun control into the spotlight here. For the past decade, he has led a lonely and often dangerous fight to quell tribal wars, seeking to break a cycle of revenge and retribution that kills as many as 1,200 people a year. Through his organization, Dar Al Salam, or the House of Peace, he says he has negotiated cease-fire deals between warring tribes and even persuaded some to disarm. This year he persuaded the government to declare election day a weapons-free day. Then he helped cajole Yemen's combative tribes to sign a contract agreeing to leave their weapons at home, and he enlisted businessmen to plaster his trademark symbol, a pistol crossed out with a thick red line, on billboards, in newspapers, and on bottles of water and laundry detergent. Eight people were killed on election night, AP reported, but that was down from the 67 killed and more than 100 wounded during local council elections in 2001. Afghanistan 13) NATO Chief Warns of Afghan Tipping Point Fisnik Abrashi, Associated Press, Sunday, October 8, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1008-04.htm NATO's top commander in Afghanistan said Sunday the country was at a tipping point and warned Afghans would likely switch their allegiance to resurgent Taliban militants if there are no visible improvements in people's lives in the next six months. Gen. David Richards, who commands NATO's 32,000 troops, warned in an interview with AP that if life doesn't get better over the winter, most Afghans could switch sides. "They will say, 'We do not want the Taliban but then we would rather have that austere and unpleasant life that that might involve than another five years of fighting,'" Richards said. Afghanistan is going through its worst bout of violence since the U.S.-led invasion removed the Taliban regime from power. The Taliban has made a comeback in the south and east of the country and is seriously threatening Western attempts to stabilize the country. "If we collectively ... do not exploit this winter to start achieving concrete and visible improvement," then some 70 percent of Afghans could switch sides, Richards told AP. Russia 14) Moscow Rally Memorializes Slain Reporter Peter Finn, Washington Post, Monday, October 9, 2006; A12 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/08/AR2006100800358.html Hundreds of Russians attended a rally in Moscow Sunday to commemorate Anna Politkovskaya, a veteran journalist who was murdered in an apparent contract killing Saturday, and the country's top law enforcement official said he was taking personal charge of the investigation because of its "particular importance and its wide resonance within society." "The investigation will focus on possible links between the killing and Politkovskaya's work," said a spokeswoman for the prosecutor general, who is now heading the probe into the journalist's death. The killing of Politkovskaya, a fierce critic of the Kremlin in the conflict in Chechnya, was the second assassination of a crusading figure in Moscow in less than a month. In September, a Central Bank official who had led a campaign against corruption was gunned down as he left a soccer match. North Korea 15) Reported Test 'Fundamentally Changes the Landscape' for U.S. Officials Glenn Kessler, Washington Post, Monday, October 9, 2006; A14 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/09/AR2006100900047.html North Korea's apparent nuclear test last night may well be regarded as a failure of the Bush administration's nuclear nonproliferation policy. Since Bush became president, North Korea has restarted its nuclear reactor and increased its stock of weapons-grade plutonium, so it may now have enough for 10 or 11 weapons, compared with one or two when Bush took office. Yet a number of senior U.S. officials have said privately they would welcome a North Korean test, regarding it as a clarifying event that would end the debate within the Bush administration about whether to solve the problem through diplomacy or through tough actions designed to destabilize North Korean leader Kim Jong Il's grip on power. Now U.S. officials will push for tough sanctions at the U.N. Security Council, and are considering a raft of largely unilateral measures, including stopping and inspecting every ship that goes in and out of North Korea. "This fundamentally changes the landscape now," one U.S. official said. When Bush became president in 2000, Pyongyang's reactor was frozen under a 1994 agreement with the United States. Clinton administration officials thought they were so close to a deal limiting North Korean missiles that in the days before he left office, Bill Clinton seriously considered making the first visit to Pyongyang by a U.S. president. But conservatives had long been deeply skeptical of the deal freezing North Korea's program -- known as the Agreed Framework -- in part because it called for building two light-water nuclear reactors (largely funded by the Japanese and South Koreans). When then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell publicly said in early 2001 that he favored continuing Clinton's approach, Bush rebuked him. Illegitimate Debt 16) Norway Breaks Ranks on "Illegitimate Debt" Emad Mekay, Inter Press Service, Saturday, October 7, 2006 http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1007-02.htm Anti-debt campaigners are hailing as groundbreaking Monday's decision by Norway to cancel $80 million in debt owed by five poor nations after it determined that the loans were not granted in a good faith effort to promote development. Several leading NGOs immediately touted the decision as a model for other wealthy creditors to follow in order to ease the global debt crisis that has squeezed many developing nations. "It is not fair that the populations of debtor nations continue to pay the price of corrupt, negligent and politically motivated lending in the past," said Gail Hurley of the anti-debt group Eurodad. "Today the silence has been broken and we urge other creditor countries, in particular in Europe, to follow Norway's bold lead," she said. A press release from the foreign ministry said the countries that will benefit are Ecuador, Egypt, Jamaica, Peru and Sierra Leone. In its announcement - first of its kind by a rich lender nation - the Norwegian government admitted it had made "a policy failure" and that it had played a role in adding to the "illegitimate debt" poor nations accumulated over the years which have eaten into their social spending budgets. The decision is also significant because Norway broke ranks with the cartel of creditors who have mostly denied they were lending irresponsibly or for political reasons. Rich nations, especially in the powerful group of bilateral creditors known as the Paris Club, and through multilateral lenders like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, have long denied promoting illegitimate debt to corrupt governments or failed policies in developing countries. In its statement, the Norwegian government said the "illegitimate debt" in question came about as the result of a campaign to bolster the country's troubled shipbuilding industry by selling vessels and shipping equipment to poor countries. The proposal suggests the debts be cancelled unilaterally and unconditionally, without extra budgetary allocation. The government of Norway said it will not report the cancelled debts as official development assistance. This means that the debt forgiveness will be supplementary to Norway's ordinary official aid. Such a move breaks the tradition of counting partial debt alleviation as new aid to poor nations - a practice critics say has led to artificially inflated aid budgets that give the impression there is more money available for developing countries than there really is. -------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming U.S. foreign policy so that it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.
