Archive for July 13th, 2007
US Fatalities , July 2007
11-Jul-2007 2 | US: 2 | UK: 0 | Other: 0 US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Baghdad (east of) Hostile – hostile fire US NAME NOT RELEASED YET Baghdad Non-hostile
10-Jul-2007 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0 US Captain Maria I. Ortiz Baghdad (Green Zone) Hostile – hostile fire – mortar attack
08-Jul-2007 2 | US: 1 | UK: 1 | Other: 0 US Private 1st Class Jason E. Dore Baghdad (west of) Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack UK Corporal Christopher Read Basra – Basrah Hostile – hostile fire – small arms fire
07-Jul-2007 2 | US: 1 | UK: 1 | Other: 0 US Specialist Roberto J. Causor Jr. Samarra – Salah ad Din Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack UK Lance Corporal Ryan Francis Basra (Al Mudhara district) – Basrah Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack
06-Jul-2007 10 | US: 9 | UK: 1 | Other: 0 US Colonel Jon M. Lockey Baghdad Non-hostile US Petty Officer 1st Class Jason Dale Lewis Baghdad (vicinity of) Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack US Petty Officer 1st Class Robert Richard McRill Baghdad (vicinity of) Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack US Petty Officer 1st Class Steven Phillip Daugherty Baghdad (vicinity of) Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack US Private 1st Class Le Ron A. Wilson Baghdad (South of) – Babil Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack US Sergeant Gene L. Lamie Baghdad (South of) – Babil Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack UK Rifleman Edward Vakabua Basra (Basra Palace) – Basrah Non-hostile US Private 1st Class Bruce C. Salazar Jr. Baghdad (eastern part) Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack US Corporal Kory D. Wiens Baghdad (eastern part) Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack US Sergeant Eric A. Lill Rustamiyah – Baghdad Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack
05-Jul-2007 7 | US: 7 | UK: 0 | Other: 0 US Specialist Jeremy L. Stacey Baghdad (western part) Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack US Corporal Jeremy D. Allbaugh Al Anbar Province Hostile – hostile fire US Lance Corporal Steven A. Stacy Al Anbar Province Hostile – hostile fire US Major James M. Ahearn Baghdad (southern part) Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack US Sergeant Keith A. Kline Baghdad (southern part) Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack US Specialist Anthony M.K. Vinnedge Radwaniyah Palace Complex – Baghdad Non-hostile US Specialist Michelle R. Ring Baghdad (western part) Hostile – hostile fire – mortar attack
04-Jul-2007 3 | US: 3 | UK: 0 | Other: 0 US Private 1st Class Andrew T. Engstrom Taji – Baghdad Non-hostile US Chief Warrant Officer Scott A.M. Oswell Mosul – Ninewah Non-hostile – helicopter crash US Private 1st Class Steven A. Davis Baghdad (southern part) Hostile – hostile fire – grenade
02-Jul-2007 1 | US: 1 | UK: 0 | Other: 0 US 1st Lieutenant Christopher N. Rutherford Balad – Salah Ad Din Hostile – hostile fire – IED attack
01-Jul-2007 7 | US: 7 | UK: 0 | Other: 0 US Lance Corporal Jeremy L. Tinnel Euphrates River – Al Anbar Province Non-hostile – accident US Lance Corporal William C. Chambers Euphrates River – Al Anbar Province Non-hostile – drowning US Lance Corporal Juan M. Garcia Schill Ta’meem – Anbar Hostile – hostile fire – small arms fire US Staff Sergeant Michael L. Ruoff Jr. Ta’meem – Anbar Hostile – hostile fire – small arms fire US Sergeant 1st Class Raymond R. Buchan Ta’meem – Anbar Hostile – hostile fire – small arms fire US Specialist Victor A. Garcia Baghdad (southern part) Hostile – hostile fire – small arms fire US Private 1st Class Jonathan M. Rossi Baghdad (western part) Hostile – hostile fire – IED, small arms fire
Total 35
US: 32
UK: 3
La Chambre des représentants américaine a voté jeudi une loi qui exige que les troupes de combat américaines soient retirées d’Irak au plus tard le 1er avril 2008, défiant une nouvelle fois le président George W. Bush, opposé à toute échéance.
13 juillet 2007
WASHINGTON (AFP) – La Chambre des représentants américaine a voté jeudi une loi qui exige que les troupes de combat américaines soient retirées d’Irak au plus tard le 1er avril 2008, défiant une nouvelle fois le président George W. Bush, opposé à toute échéance.
La Chambre, à majorité démocrate, a adopté ce texte par 223 voix contre 201.
Le président Bush a déjà opposé son veto à un projet de loi similaire proposant un calendrier pour le retrait des quelque 160.000 soldats américains actuellement en Irak. Le président a en outre menacé jeudi de mettre à nouveau son veto à toute loi exigeant une date de retrait des troupes.
Quatre républicains ont voté en faveur du texte tandis que dix démocrates ont voté contre.
Ce vote est intervenu au moment où un rapport officiel américain estime que les progrès réalisés en Irak sont “insatisfaisants”.
Ce rapport intérimaire de 25 pages montre que sur 18 objectifs au total, les progrès sont “insatisfaisants” pour 8 objectifs, “satisfaisants” pour 8 autres tandis que deux derniers objectifs ont eu des résultats mitigés. L’Irak “a fait des progrès insatisfaisants pour accroître le nombre de forces de sécurité irakiennes pouvant opérer de manière autonome”, précise le texte.
“Je crois que nous pouvons réussir en Irak, et je sais que nous le devons”, a déclaré M. Bush lors d’une conférence de presse à la Maison Blanche, en commentant ce rapport. “C’est une guerre difficile” et “si nous accentuons notre effort dans ce moment crucial, nous pourrons hâter le jour du retour des troupes à la maison”, a-t-il fait valoir.
Le président républicain a annoncé que la secrétaire d’Etat Condoleezza Rice et le secrétaire à la Défense Robert Gates se rendraient au Moyen-Orient en août pour discuter de l’Irak avec les alliés des Etats-Unis.
Le document se veut la première évaluation de la situation en Irak depuis l’annonce en janvier d’une nouvelle stratégie américaine pour ce pays prévoyant 30.000 hommes en renfort et qui est très impopulaire aux Etats-Unis. Un rapport complet est attendu le 15 septembre.
“C’est dur à dire mais le président Bush est déconnecté… de la réalité de la guerre en Irak”, a réagi le sénateur démocrate Dick Durbin. “Il est évident que c’est maintenant le chaos en Irak. Et il revient au peuple irakien d’assurer sa sécurité”, a renchéri le dirigeant démocrate au Sénat Harry Reid.
“Notre stratégie en Irak est en train d’échouer”, a résumé la candidate démocrate à la présidence américaine pour 2008 Hillary Clinton.
Rédigé par le Conseil national de sécurité auprès de la présidence américaine, le rapport reproche un manque d’efforts du “gouvernement irakien pour développer un programme de désarmement efficace pour les milices”. Il relève aussi que le Parlement irakien a échoué à adopter une loi décisive pour l’industrie pétrolière du pays qui pourrait atténuer les hostilités entre les chiites et la minorité sunnite du pays.
Il est aussi critique à l’égard du gouvernement du Premier ministre Nouri al-Maliki qui n’a pas réussi à obtenir une loi facilitant l’accès à des postes publics pour les anciens membres du parti Baas de Saddam Hussein.
En dépit de ces critiques, George W. Bush a déclaré qu’il maintenait sa “confiance” en Nouri al-Maliki. “Oui, j’ai confiance en lui, mais je comprends aussi à quel point c’est difficile”, a-t-il dit.
Sur le front diplomatique, le rapport accuse l’Iran et la Syrie de contribuer aux attaques menées contre les Irakiens et les forces américaines en Irak. “Nous voyons peu de changement dans la politique de l’Iran visant à une défaite américaine, via un soutien financier et matériel aux attaques contre les civils et les militaires américains en Irak”, précise le document.
George W. Bush avait annoncé en janvier des renforts américains en Irak pour tenter de pacifier ce pays. Les Etats-Unis comptent actuellement quelque 160.000 militaires en Irak.U.Messenger = new Messenger(); var sStoryLink=”http://fr.news.yahoo.com/afp/20070713/tts-usa-congres-irak-retrait-c1b2fc3.html”; var sStoryHeadline=”USA%3A%20la%20Chambre%20des%20repr%C3%A9sentants%20vote%20pour%20un%20retrait%20d%27Irak”; var sDefaultMsg = “Consultez%20cette%20d%C3%A9p%C3%AAche%20sur%20Yahoo%21%20Actualit%C3%A9s%20%3A”; if (document.all) { sStoryHeadline = sStoryHeadline; sDefaultMsg = sDefaultMsg; } sDefaultMsg += ‘%0A’; sStoryHeadline += ‘%0A’; sStoryLink += ‘%0A’;
Ce que veut l’Aipac, il l’obtient. Les vendus démocrates et le lobby israélien
Par Jerry Kroth > anya@sj.zent.com
Jerry Kroth, Ph. D., enseigne la psychologie en Californie. Il est l’auteur de Conspiracy in Camelot : the complete history of the assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy. On peut le joindre par mél à l’adresse suivante : anya@sj.zent.com
En novembre, l’électorat américain a rejeté la débâcle de Bush en Irak, installant des majorités démocrates tant à la Chambre qu’au Sénat, en se jurant de mettre un terme définitif à cette “politique tordue, enveloppée dans l’illusion”.
Bush a mis son véto à leur calendrier de retrait (d’Irak), mais les électeurs ont exhorté leurs leaders à tenir bon et à ne pas se laisser avoir.
Finalement, toutefois, ce sont non moins de 37 sénateurs démocrates qui ont capitulé et qui ont donné gratuitement (et sans aucune condition) au président Bush son chèque en blanc de 100 milliards de dollars, soit assez d’argent pour financer les études d’un million trois cents mille étudiants du secondaire, durant quatre années complètes !
Profonde déception. Cindy Sheehan, l’icône progressiste, fut tellement démoralisée qu’elle a démissionné et qu’elle est retournée à la vie civile.
En juin, un sondage réalisé par CNN indiquant que le “respect envers le Congrès” avait chuté vertigineusement, atteignant le plus bas niveau “jamais encore enregistré“.
Certains bloggers [il s’agit de personnes qui échangent librement leurs opinions et commentaires politiques sur des sites ouèbes personnels, ndt] les ont traîté de “démocrates traîtres”, et ce qualificatif est approprié.
Au moment du vote, 62 % des Américains étaient favorable à un calendrier de retrait (d’Irak), mais, plus significatif encore, ce sont 70 % des démocrates qui étaient de cet avis. Aussi, le vote parlementaire contre cette vague de colère grossissante a trahi la volonté des citoyens et du parti qui, précisément, avaient désigné ces (parlementaires) démocrates.
Curieusement, la totalité des démocrates traîtres s’avèrent de gros détenteurs de fonds provenant du lobby israélien.
Si nous prenons dix de ces Démocrates apostats et si nous les comparons à dix Démocrates n’ayant pas trahi leurs électeurs, les contributions versées par les lobbys locaux pro-israéliens [les ‘pro-Israeli PAC, ndt] à ceux qui ont retourné leur veste sont dix fois plus importantes que celles perçues par les édiles demeurés fidèles à leur électorat (en moyenne : 322 000 dollars, contre 34 000 dollars).
Rentrons dans le détail : Carl Levin, détracteur déclaré de la guerre, et, pensions-nous, soutien loyal du nouveau régime (démocrate, ndt) pour qu’il y mette fin, a fait défection et a effrontément tourné le dos à sa base électorale dans l’Etat du Michigan.
En dépit de sa rhétorique anti-guerre stridente, le quotidien Grand Rapids Independent écrit que Levin a soutenu Bush sur toute la ligne, “votant avec constance le financement de la guerre et n’introduisant aucun texte législatif significatif susceptible d’en avancer la fin“.
Pratiquement inconnu de ses électeurs, Levin est un des principaux bénéficiaires des largesses des “Pro-Israeli PAC” : il a reçu 600 000 dollars en “contributions à sa carrière (politique)”, indique le Washington Report on Mideast Affairs.
Barbara Boxer, Denis Kucinich et Earl Blaumenauer, tous opposants à la guerre, ont reçu tous les trois ensemble 37 000 dollars ; mais ces démocrates ayant retourné leur veste que sont Dan Durbin, Max Baucus et Frank Lautenberg ont raflé plus d’un million de dollars, auquel il convient d’ajouter des gratifications occultes, tels des voyages à l’œil…
Ce qui part au lavage, c’est le meilleur que puisse acheter le fric de l’Aipac : trois mois avant que nous n’envahissions l’Irak, un sondage du New York Times montrait que seulement 30 % des Américains étaient favorables à une invasion totale ; mais le lobby israélien [Aipac] y était favorable, et il a emporté le morceau.
Seule, une petite pincée d’Américains était en faveur de l’”insurrection” – à peine 14 % – mais l’Aipac y était favorable, et l’insurrection, on la voit se produire en ce moment même !
Moins de 30 % des Démocrates étaient favorables à voter des budgets non conditionnés, mais l’Aipac y était favorable. En conclusion s’élève le chœur rebattu : “Ce que veut l’Aipac, l’Aipac l’obtient“…
En 1992, le directeur du lobby israélien, David Steiner, a été enregistré à son insu en train de se vanter d’avoir joué un rôle dans le choix du Secrétaire d’Etat et de tout ce qu’il avait obtenu en faveur d’Israël : “En plus des 10 milliards de prêts garantis – ce qui était déjà fabuleux -, (j’ai décroché) 3 milliards en aide militaire à l’étranger, et j’ai eu presque un milliards de dollars, sous forme d’autres friandises dont personne n’a la moindre idée !“.
L’enregistrement ayant été rendu public, Steiner démissionna. Mais cette histoire n’a fait que souligner l’incroyable pouvoir, le formidable entrisme et l’inimaginable influence qui sont ceux du Lobby.
Deux universitaires, Mearsheimer et Walt, ont insinué, récemment, que la démocratie américaine a été subornée par le lobby israélien – faisant, en cela, écho à l’accusation formulée en 1989 par le Sénateur Fulbright contre l’Aipac, d’avoir usurpé le processus électoral et d’être capable de “faire élire ou faire battre n’importe quel sénateur ou n’importe quel membre du Congrès qu’il voudrait éliminer“.
Ces observations ne sont pas tombées dans l’oreille de sourds.
Plus de la moitié du Sénat et un tiers du Congrès ont assisté au congrès annuel de l’Aipac, où ils ont été bien sages (à opposer à moins d’une douzaine venus participer à l’événement organisé par la NAACP [il s’agit de la National Association for the Advancement of Colored People – une sorte de Mrap américain, ndt).
Le fait de ne pas assister au congrès de l’Aipac risque de suggérer l’idée que le législateur non assidu pourrait être faible face au terrorisme, voire pire – ce qu’à Dieu ne plaise – être antisémite !
Les idéalistes anti-guerre peuvent penser que le crime de guerre en cours, le carnage "choc et tremblement", les tortures et les enlèvements suivis d’internements touchent à leur fin, mais l’agenda de l’Aipac semble fermement axé sur le maintien de troupes américaines au Moyen-Orient, en tant que première ligne israélienne de défense et, ce, jusqu’à un horizon indéfini.
Leur principal doberman d’attaque, Joe Lieberman, a récemment donné un avant-goût, à l’émission télévisée Face the Nation, de ce qui risque de nous attendre : des "frappes militaires" contre l’Iran… apparemment, pour s’assurer qu’Israël restera bien l’unique puissance nucléaire au Moyen-Orient.
Aussi, si vous pensez que vous avez voté, ou que vous allez voter, afin de ramener les soldats à la maison et de mettre un point final à ce marasme national, sachez qu’à l’extrémité de cet arc-en-ciel, le paxon qui a servi à acheter un parlementaire marron vous attend…
Encore un universitaire qui élève la voix pour exprimer une vérité fondamentale concernant l’Aipac et, de manière générale, le lobby sioniste.
Pas étonnant que le lobby, et son ‘Campus Watch’ [organisme de flicage anti-antisioniste sévissant dans les universités américaines, ndt] soient inquiets.
Ils perpétuent ce qui est décrit dans cet article depuis des décennies, sans la moindre réaction de gens qui prétendent défendre la cause palestinienne (et il n’y a toujours pas le moindre frémissement de prise de conscience à ce sujet dans les organisations bidons du mouvement anti-guerre. Etonnant, non ?)
Pakistan heading for a crackdown
Pakistan heading for a crackdown
By: M K Bhadrakumar
When the commander of the Central Air Command of the US Air Force, Lieutenant-General Gary L North, touched down on Tuesday at the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) base in Sargodha, northwest of Lahore in Pakistan’s heartland Punjab province, the poignancy of the moment couldn’t have been lost on him.
The chief of staff of the PAF, Air Chief Marshal Tanvir Mehmood Ahmed, and the US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W Peterson, were waiting on the tarmac to receive the US general.
North was arriving after a continuous eight-hour flight across the Atlantic. He was flying an F-16 Fighter Falcon capable of carrying nuclear missiles. Another F-16 accompanied him. They are the first of a fleet of a dozen F-16 aircraft that the PAF will receive in the coming months “at very nominal prices” (to quote Ahmed). Pakistan, in addition, may get a further batch of 16 F-16s, bringing the total to 28.
By coincidence, the handing-over ceremony in Sargodha was held just ahead of President General Pervez Musharraf’s calculated decision on Tuesday to order the Pakistan Army to attack Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad. Last weekend, US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte told the Urdu service of Voice of America in an interview that the United States was prepared to help Pakistan “in any way we can”.
In essence, the US is making up for the 28 F-16 aircraft that Pakistan paid for in the early 1990s and Washington failed to deliver once Pakistan lost its importance as a pivotal state in US regional policy in the post-Cold War period.
SCO joins the fray
The huge US gesture comes at a critical juncture in the geopolitics of the region. What emerges is that the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), scheduled to take place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, in a little more than a month, is already casting its shadow on Pakistan’s regional role. Islamabad has barely disguised its interest in forging closer ties with the SCO, and the summit opens a window of opportunity. The SCO comprises China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.
From the proceedings of the meeting of the SCO’s Council of Foreign Ministers (CFM) held in Bishkek on Monday in preparation of the summit on August 16, trends are available that must definitely be annoying Washington. There is no mistaking that the SCO is slouching toward Afghanistan and Pakistan with an irresistible offer of mutual engagement in terms of shared interests of regional security and stability.
The CFM particularly stressed the “importance of intensifying further collaboration with the SCO observer states as well as with the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan within the SCO-Afghanistan Contact Group”. More important, it decided on “creating mechanisms of cooperation by the SCO with international partners, particularly under the auspices of RATS” (Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure).
The SCO summit by all indications may turn out to be one of the most productive in the organization’s history. Taking place against the backdrop of the deepening chill in US-Russia relations, the summit is invested with added significance. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who took part in the CFM meet in Bishkek on Monday, highlighted the SCO’s “quest for a new world order, which will rest on international law and collective action to solve global, regional and other problems”.
The CFM has decided to recommend to the SCO summit that observer countries such as Pakistan must be involved “more actively” in the organization’s activities and projects. It concluded that the stability of the Central Asian region is directly linked to the stabilization of Afghanistan.
For the first time, the SCO is likely to pose a challenge to the United States’ monopoly of conflict resolution in Afghanistan. The CFM has taken the view that the existing pattern of involvement by the international community is restricted to specific sectoral problems in Afghanistan. It concluded that such a narrow issue-based approach on the part of the international community will not serve the purpose of stabilizing the country.
The SCO, therefore, intends to pitch for a “comprehensive approach” that will include its participation not only in Afghan reconstruction work and in countering drug trafficking but also in terms of “support for national consensus within Afghanistan on a principled basis of barring access to power for the Taliban leaders who, with the backing of al-Qaeda, had brought Afghanistan to the condition in which it was not so long ago” – to quote Lavrov.
Cold war in the Hindu Kush
Plainly speaking, the SCO is unambiguously proclaiming its intention to work closely with Kabul and Islamabad – a turf that has hitherto been tacitly accepted by the regional powers as more or less the exclusive playpen of the US and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). This runs counter to the consistent US approach based on keeping Russia out of Afghanistan, and disrupting any Russian-Chinese coordinated policies in Afghanistan.
Washington, in fact, incrementally stifled the French initiative at NATO’s Riga summit last year for forming a “contact group” of countries interested in an Afghan settlement. American diplomats have barely been able to disguise their displeasure over Moscow’s proactive moves toward Kabul in recent months.
Washington has been propagating a “Great Central Asia” strategy, aimed at rolling back the influence of Russia and China in the region, and encouraging the Central Asian states to form partnerships with the South Asian region instead. The strategy is a barely disguised attempt to undercut the raison d’etre of the SCO.
Indeed, Monday’s CFM meet seems to have taken into account the entire range of regional and international developments. Its hidden message is that the SCO is beginning to factor US plans for the deployment of missile-defense systems in Europe and Asia. Lavrov said, “We CFM did not specifically discuss the US plans … but of course we see that the consequences of the unilateral actions in this sphere will make themselves felt here Central Asia too, especially considering not merely the composition of the SCO members, but also the composition of the observers who work within the SCO in such capacity.”
Significantly, China’s position on the US plans of deployment of anti-ballistic-missile systems in the Asia-Pacific region is hardening. A commentary in the People’s Daily on Wednesday lambasted the US for seeking “absolute nuclear superiority”:
Strategic nuclear balance is very important. Today, only strategic nuclear weapons can produce a deadly threat to the United Sates … Balance helps maintain stability. Without strategic balance, the order of the multipolar world would be difficult to maintain. To this extent, the issue of strategic balance does not simply indicate a military struggle. It is actually a question of the type of world order that should be established, and a contest between the unipolar and multipolar world order.
The SCO summit is expected to adopt a “long-term good neighborhood, friendship and cooperation treaty”. There is no gainsaying the fact that the above SCO initiatives emanate primarily out of a Chinese-Russian common understanding. Closely following Russian-Chinese consultations on the sidelines of the CFM on Monday in Bishkek, the foreign ministers of Russia and China will have an opportunity for further extended discussions during Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi’s scheduled four-day visit to Moscow from Thursday.
The eagle has landed
How does all this add up? Without doubt, from the US perspective, Pakistan’s strategic importance becomes compelling. Washington desperately needs a power structure in Islamabad that it can manipulate, but which will have the staying power to ensure continuity in policies. The challenge is arguably formidable.
New factors are at work compared with the Cold War era. Unlike in the 1970s and 1980s, China and Russia are increasingly coordinating their policies regionally and internationally, though the two countries are not thinking of any formal alliance.
On its part, unlike in the Cold War era, Washington is keenly developing its ties with India. By professing a “de-hyphenated” relationship with the two South Asian rivals, Washington has so far managed to have the best of both worlds. But it is a delicate act, especially if Pakistan reassumes its role as the pivotal state in US regional policy.
Besides, the path to power in Pakistan runs through the military, but the spirit of the times requires that the military must be seen as serving civilian masters. Such a calculus, however, is difficult to put together in Islamabad. It has been tried out before in Pakistan, and it proved to be impractical.
Meanwhile, the specter that haunts Pakistan is not of any Islamist takeover. The Islamists simply lack substantial support. The overwhelming majority of Pakistani people are averse to religious extremism and militancy. The real challenge facing Musharraf (and the US) is from a popular uprising. Such a threat looms large, which may altogether result in a drawdown of US influence in Pakistan, given the pervasive “anti-Americanism” in the country. It increasingly appears that a military crackdown may become necessary to preempt a popular uprising.
From a somewhat non-committal stance five days earlier, the US State Department spokesman purposively shifted gear by Tuesday to endorse strongly Musharraf’s handling of the Red Mosque standoff. He said, “The Pakistani security forces have gone in there mosque after exercising a great deal of patience and restraint in offering every possible opportunity for innocents that may still be in the mosque to leave, as well as offering those who have threatened to use violence, and have in fact used violence, to resolve the situation peacefully.
“Of course, everybody wants to see these kinds of situations resolved peacefully. It’s everybody’s optimal solution. But it’s fundamentally a matter for the government to decide when negotiations end and when action needs to take place to bring some sort of resolution to the situation. In my understanding, it was a situation where they had exercised any number of opportunities for these individuals to resolve peacefully, yet they persisted, and they persisted to the point of using children as human shields.”
Thus the second week of July is set to go down as a defining period in US regional policy. North’s landing in the F-16 at Sargodha amounts to more than a mere snapshot of US-Pakistan defense transactions. Washington is, for all purposes, shoring up Pakistan’s beleaguered, hugely unpopular army chief. It is imploring wobbling corps commanders to hold the line.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/IG13Df02.html
Brown: I will get UN support if we have ‘another Iraq’
Gordon Brown has promised the UN that Britain would try to secure a multilateral solution if the world faces a repeat of the Iraq crisis of 2003.
By Andrew Grice, Political Editor
In another break with Tony Blair, Mr Brown assured Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, that he would seek the widest possible international support and agreement through the UN before intervening in another country.
After talks with Mr Brown at Downing Street, Mr Ban was asked whether he could envisage the Prime Minister sidestepping the UN in the way Mr Blair and George Bush did before the Iraq war. He replied:
“Different circumstances will require different leadership. I am sure the new administration in the UK will have a new leadership under new circumstances.”
Mr Ban added: “The situation is different from three or four years ago when the international community was divided over this Iraqi situation. Now I am seeing more recognition of multilateralism and I am quite confident of the continuing strong support of the new administration of the UK.”
Mr Brown has concentrated mainly on the domestic agenda since taking over, announcing some changes to Mr Blair’s policies on education, health, housing and the constitution without dumping its overall strategy. He is expected to turn to foreign affairs soon.
The Prime Minister wants to work through international bodies such as the UN but wants them to be reformed so they are stronger and more effective. He does not rule out military action without UN approval as a last resort but would always seek to build an international consensus.
Allies insist his approach does not mean he is distancing himself from the US. He has had three conversations with President Bush since becoming Prime Minister, including his first video-conference, and believes having strong relationships with both America and Europe is in “the British national interest”.
The Prime Minister has not announced any change of policy on Iraq, saying Britain will meet its commitments to the Iraqi people and government. However, many Labour MPs hope he will be able to speed up the withdrawal of British troops if conditions on the ground allow it.
A possible blueprint for Mr Brown’s strategy on Iraq will be published tomorrow by the Iraq Commission, an independent, cross-party group that has held hearings on the country’s future. Its report will map out a long-term strategy for Britain’s role in Iraq, reconstruction, rebuilding and humanitarian relief, the Iraqi economy and Britain’s diplomatic relations with the US and the Middle East.
The group has considered whether the UN could take on an enhanced role despite fears for the safety of its personnel.
The commission said: “Britain stands at a crossroads. With a new prime minister in Downing Street, there is a unique opportunity to consider a way forward for British policy in Iraq.”
It was set up by the Foreign Policy Centre think-tank and Channel 4, which will broadcast its findings tomorrow at 7.30pm. It is chaired jointly by Lord Ashdown of Norton-sub-Hamdon, the former Liberal Democrat leader, Baroness Jay of Paddington, the former Labour cabinet minister and Lord King of Bridgwater, the former Tory defence secretary.
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article2765566.ece
Comments :
Not only the dirty castrated poodle is a disgusting little dog, but it’s deeply stupid as well.
Brown: I’ll get UN next time, but will continue now even without UN. What a pile of total NWO II bullshit.
And shows again what sort of a stupid imbecile monkey has the poodle britzie fog island dweller is. Everyday, this beast carrying a brolly on the damn doubledecker stupid bus riding around the diseased London, probably going to see the god damn sidewalk the stupid Beatle barefoot hippies once walked across, is getting ever so closer to its idol, the yank red rumped baboon whose bright red arse this britzie poodle loves to lick clean so.
This sort of idiot logic can only exist and work on the brainwashed masses of the diseased west. The place, where, by the latest poll, 60 million yank hairy knuckled clit look alikes think it’s the sun that goes around the moon everyday.
Lies about ‘failed terror attacks’ in UK (Update: Asha’s wife released)
and when he “came to Gordon Brown’s “rescue” on Wednesday during Prime Ministers questions, that about confirmed it.
This is all about making white anglo-Saxon Brits afraid. Why only white anglo-sax/ I think they are the only ones still gullible enough to fall for this – and the danger is that they’ll fall even further by supporting an extension of the time people can be held beyond 28 days.
Why pick on innocent people? This is totally against the Human Rights Act, and the British police seem to continually be getting away with it. They have very many cameras watching all the motorways, and probably were on thew watch out for cars (Mercedes cars?) that had been matched by the central computer to “particular muslim types”. When they found such a car, and the passenger was wearing a black headscarf, they probably got really excited. Reminds me of the Iraqi family stopped at a US checkoint near Lal Afar in Northern Iraq – but in that case the US soldiers actually opened fire. I suppose the family can be thankful that British police don’t do that… although De Menezes family would probably disagree.
I’m surprised Craig Murray hasn’t been saying more about this recently – the incident at Glasgow airport isn’t conclusive as an attempt at a suicide bombing at all, yet the media have just taken it on spec that it was.
By Cosmo
Yeah but the whole strategy behind this is to two-bladed to avoid. I think we can t do anything but to recognize that not only the US but also the UK uses black-ops etc. in order to target its own population in order to force people into “fear of terrorism” while desperately hoping that this “fear of terrorism” will make the people support the US&UK raid-wars & occupation of IRaq and Afghanistan as well as allow them to steal the Iraqi peoples oil.
So one has no choice whether he acts or not. If in UK no muslim goes bombing the UK government installations or carries out the Phantom suicide attacks -> which medias of course blame on “Al Qaida terror org” , the UK will recruit criminals and put their on secret service operatives in to do one horrific crime bombing against the british population after the other – while hammering through the medias into the peoples heads that behind all this is “Al Qaida, Al Qaida … pst you here me .. its Al Qaida ..blah blah..”.
So it in fact does not make a difference. What is why i by now have come to the point to say. If they want to have it, let them have it.
Since also in Iraq they thought they could go in hit their aims by using the Al Qaida excuse – and then occupy the country and steal the oil.
Female bomb plot suspect released
13th July, 7.06 am
BRITISH police said today they had released without charge the only woman among the eight suspects held in the case of failed bomb attacks in London and Glasgow last month.
Marwa Asha was arrested with her neurosurgeon husband, Mohammed, on June 30 while driving on a motorway in northern England.
Their arrests came hours after attackers drove a jeep into an airport terminal building in Scotland and set it ablaze.
That attack followed the discovery of two car bombs near a crowded nightclub in London. Police think the two incidents were linked.
One suspect, Iraqi-trained doctor Bilal Abdulla, has been charged in the attacks.
Four other suspects who have yet to be charged are being held by British police and a fifth is badly burned in hospital.
Another suspect, Dr Mohamed Haneef is being held by police in Brisbane.
Indian-born Dr Haneef enters his 11th day in detention today as the Australian Federal Police (AFP) continue to investigate his suspected links to failed bombings.
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22066935-5005961,00.html
Sarkozy’s Mediterranean Union Project
Sarkozy’s Mediterranean Union Project
Randa Takieddin Al-Hayat – 11/07/07//
Even before assuming the French presidency, Nicholas Sarkozy has been aspiring to create a Mediterranean union between European nations on the northern bank of the Mediterranean and those on its southern bank. To that end, he is visiting Algeria and Tunisia in an attempt to put feelers out to the possibility of such an undertaking, one which seems to numerous observers to be a long shot.
In the Arab Maghreb, the misgivings towards a union with Europe are a result of the failure of several such unity projects in the past, for how can a unity project with Mediterranean European nations be possible for nations that have not been able to find solutions to problems which plague their relations with each other? And how is it possible to unite Mediterranean European nations with, for example, Algeria and Morocco, when relationships between the two latter countries are sour as a result of their disagreement over the Western Sahara, and when the borders between them have now been closed for over 12 years? How is this union to take effect when Europe is having difficulty convincing Libyan president Moammar Qadhafi’s regime to release the Bulgarian nurses and Palestinian doctor who are facing judgments which lack any credibility? And how are the Mediterranean European nations supposed to unite with regimes in the South which are indifferent to the concepts of human rights and freedoms, which are not capable of dealing with democracies, and where leaders are not held accountable for their actions?
It is without a doubt that French president Nicholas Sarkozy’s ambitions of creating an arena of solidarity between the Mediterranean European nations and nations south of the Mediterranean are part of his dream of leaving his own personal touch. This means laying the foundations for an area which will link Europe and the western Mediterranean nations and which will be subject to expansion southwards to include other nations.
Sarkozy’s idea starts with a certain dialogue which can be built upon, and herein lays the importance of his project.
Sarkozy stated during his trip to Algeria that “our Mediterranean sea poses a basic environmental challenge”, and it is true that the creation of an environmental Mediterranean-European track to address the environmentally declining state of the Mediterranean would be a revolutionary launch towards cleaning this magnificent sea, which has been transformed into a litter basket for many of the nations around it. It is important to welcome these kinds of negotiations, particularly if they comprise a joint action at the level of senior officials of European nations and those of southern Mediterranean. The concern over the environment of the Mediterranean Sea is not a simple matter, but a matter fundamental to life and to the lives of the inhabitants of this region.
The other issue Sarkozy wants to work on, which is also important but harder to achieve solidarity over, is the matter of security. Obviously, fighting terrorism and extremism is an important common element of concern to every country around the Mediterranean basin; in Europe, the Maghreb, and the Mashreq, all agree on the importance of fighting terrorism.
When Sarkozy was Minister of Interior, he undertook this project with the countries of the southern Mediterranean, which has prompted him to launch his current initiative. However, existing tensions and cautions between France and Algeria due to their shared history hampers total solidarity on these sensitive issues.
As for the economic arena, there is no doubt that Mediterranean-European solidarity is a sought-after goal. However, myriad efforts are required to solve the problems that abound. A country like Algeria is rich in oil and gas; its earnings from these areas exceed 4 billion dollars a month. France imports 10 billion cubic meters of Algerian gas annually and strives for a closer relationship between Gas De France and the Algerian Sonatrach.
These ambitions are indeed within reach, but only within a bilateral framework, for it is difficult to work on economic issues on the basis of Mediterranean solidarity. Examples of such difficulties are apparent in the myriad problems between Algeria, Morocco, and Spain over the Algerian gas pipeline.
Sarkozy’s ambition to build a Mediterranean union is a good idea on paper, but it will take years and will require changing regimes into democracies willing to accept accountability from its people. If, however, democracy remains a requirement only for the European side, then there will remain no possibility of achieving balance or solidarity between the two sides.
http://english.daralhayat.com/opinion/OPED/07-2007/Article-20070711-b5566d81-c0a8-10ed-01bc-59aa36113777/story.html
