Just Foreign Policy News
October 14, 2010
For a DREAMy, Wartime, National Service Draft
How could we share the burden of war more fairly, end current wars more quickly, and deter future wars, while not compelling Americans to directly participate in unjust wars against their will? We could institute a wartime national service draft. A universal time tax would disproportionately inconvenience the super-rich, who would then be likely to use their disproportionate political influence to end current wars and stop new ones. A national service draft could also give undocumented Americans of service age a path to citizenship, and give the government a means to soak up unemployed labor and put it to good use.
http://www.truth-out.org/for-a-dreamy-wartime-national-service-draft64206
Brazil Should Lead on Access to Essential Medicines
By the greater use of compulsory licenses, Brazil could lower drug costs not only in Brazil, but in developing countries overall. At a time when the New York Times is reporting that "the global battle against AIDS is falling apart for lack of money," it is absolutely essential that the price of lifesaving medicines in developing countries be driven down to the absolute minimum possible.
http://www.truth-out.org/brazil-should-lead-access-essential-medicines64129
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Top Obama administration officials said the US is helping senior Taliban leaders attend initial peace talks with the Afghan government because military officials and diplomats want to take advantage of any possibility of political reconciliation, the New York Times reports. "Whenever opportunity arise that are worth exploring, we ought to take advantage of that," said Defense Secretary Gates. Secretary of State Clinton said the American public at some point may have to swallow the idea of reconciliation with the Taliban to achieve peace in Afghanistan. "You don’t make peace with your friends," Clinton said. US officials had previously said that they did not expect to begin serious reconciliation efforts until they had sufficiently degraded the insurgency in Afghanistan. But few military experts think the Taliban’s ability to fight has been degraded at this point.
2) Top Administration officials said the Obama administration is a partner with the Afghan government in its peace talks with the Taliban, even though U.S. officials aren’t sitting at the table, AP reports. "I think we’re confident that we have access into this process and plenty of opportunities to make our concerns as well as our suggestions known," Defense Secretary Gates said. The Obama administration’s position is sensitive, because taking any role in talks with the Taliban risks criticism within the U.S., AP says. By making the U.S. role public, the administration may be signaling to a U.S. public weary of the conflict that the Obama administration is committed to ending it, AP says.
3) Six US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan Wednesday as Italy became the latest NATO ally to detail plans to scale down its military presence, AFP reports. Italy is the fifth largest contributor of foreign troops in Afghanistan. Foreign Minister Frattini said Italy planned to start pulling troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2011 and complete the withdrawal in 2014.
4) The US Army has effectively stopped a US soldier whose whistleblowing on soldiers in his platoon led to an investigation of killings of Afghan civilians from talking to the media, CNN reports. The soldier’s lawyer told CNN the soldier had been offered immunity from prosecution in exchange for not talking to the media.
5) A report released by the Open Society Foundation alleges detainee abuse as recently as this year at a secret US jail in Afghanistan, AP reports. Former detainees said they were exposed to excessive cold and light, not given enough food or blankets, deprived of sleep, stripped naked for medical exams and kept from practicing their religion.
6) Critics inside and outside the Army are questioning whether the 5th Stryker Brigade’s get-tough strategy, which emphasized enemy kills over civilian relations, influenced the behavior of soldiers accused of killing Afghan civilians for sport, the Washington Post reports. Questions persist about why the 5th Stryker Brigade’s chain of command did not intervene earlier. Interviews and records obtained by the Post indicate commanders received multiple warnings of trouble brewing. Two lower-ranking officers were apparently removed from their posts because they supported the counterinsurgency strategy of General McChrystal, rather than the "kill as many Taliban as possible" approach of 5th Stryker Brigade’s leader Col. Harry Tunnell, who barred his officers from mentioning the term "counterinsurgency" and told shocked U.S. officials he was uninterested in winning the trust of the Afghan people.
7) Former Army Green Beret Tommy Sowers is running for Congress in Missouri on a platform of ending the war in Afghanistan, the Washington Post reports.
Israel/Palestine
8) Palestinian farmers and Israeli peace activists allege that Israeli settlers in the West Bank are attacking the Palestinian olive harvest and that the Israeli occupation authorities are not meeting their responsibility to protect Palestinian civilians from the settlers, the Washington Post reports.
Iran
9) Iran’s President Ahmadinejad appeared at a news conference alongside the Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman, announcing several bilateral agreements on energy, water, and other issues, the New York Times reports. Iran has offered repeatedly to help equip the Lebanese Army if the US cuts off its military aid. Iranian money was crucial to the rebuilding effort after the 2006 war with Israel, an array of reconstruction projects directed by Hezbollah but whose benefits – apartment blocks and roads – were not limited to its followers.
10) Sunni Muslims have welcomed a religious edict from Iran’s Supreme Leader Khamenei against insulting revered Sunni figures that could help stem sectarian tensions in the Gulf region, Reuters reports. "It is wrong in Islam to disparage symbols of our Sunni brothers," the fatwa said. Kuwait’s cabinet said Khamenei’s intervention was an effort "to bury strife" and unite Muslim ranks. The head of al-Azhar in Cairo, one of the most prominent seats of Sunni learning, said the fatwa came from "one of the most senior Muslim scholars."
Honduras
11) Honduran human rights defender Berta Oliva says assassinations targeting union members and others in the National Resistance Front continue in Honduras, In These Times reports. 83 members of the resistance movement have been murdered or disappeared since current president Pepe Lobo Sosa took office in January, Oliva says.
Argentina
12) UNASUR demanded that the UK not go ahead with announced military exercises in the Falklands/Malvinas, Mercopress reports. UNASUR reaffirmed its call for the UK to negotiate its sovereignty dispute with Argentina.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Push on Talks With Taliban Confirmed by NATO Officials
Helene Cooper and Thom Shanker, New York Times, October 14, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/world/asia/15nato.html
Brussels – The United States is helping senior Taliban leaders attend initial peace talks with the Afghan government in Kabul because military officials and diplomats want to take advantage of any possibility of political reconciliation, Obama administration and NATO officials said Thursday.
Even as senior American officials cautioned that they were not yet ready to formally join a nascent peace effort with their Taliban foes of the past nine years, they acknowledged that the reconciliation effort is a key element in the American-led war in Afghanistan.
"Whenever opportunity arise that are worth exploring, we ought to take advantage of that," said Defense Secretary Robert Gates, appearing before reporters with Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton at a NATO conference here. Mr. Gates said he did not know whether "this leads into something concrete." But he added, "We need to be open to opportunities that arise."
Mrs. Clinton was even more cautious about the pace of the peace talks. She acknowledged during an interview that Americans may be squeamish about the idea of negotiations with the Taliban, which harbored Osama Bin Laden and other senior figures in Al Qaeda before the Sept. 11 attacks. But she said that the American public at some point may have to swallow the idea of reconciliation with the Taliban to achieve peace in Afghanistan.
"You don’t make peace with your friends," Mrs. Clinton told ABC’s "Good Morning America" in an interview broadcast on Thursday. She said she thought it "highly unlikely that the leadership of the Taliban that refused to turn over Bin Laden in 2001 will ever reconcile." But, she added, "stranger things have happened in the history of war."
The remarks by Mr. Obama’s two highest national security officials-made at a news conference following a meeting of NATO foreign and defense ministers – came as the leader of Afghanistan’s new peace council, Burhanuddin Rabbani, confirmed in Kabul that contacts with members of the Taliban had been made through mediators and that the international support for direct talks added new momentum to the effort.
NATO and American officials confirmed on Wednesday that the United States and NATO have been doing much more to try to encourage a peaceful settlement than officials had previously disclosed, including granting permission for former fighters and insurgents to travel to preliminary peace talks in Kabul.
[…] American officials had previously said that they did not expect to begin serious reconciliation efforts until they had sufficiently degraded the insurgency in Afghanistan that Taliban leaders would come to the conclusion that they had no choice but to pursue peace with the Afghan government.
But few military experts think the Taliban’s ability to fight has been degraded at this point. In fact, despite an increase in airstrikes and intensified combat operations, this week has been an especially deadly one for NATO troops. Twenty-five service members were reported killed between Oct. 8 and Oct. 14.
[…]
2) US called ‘partner’ in Afghan talks with Taliban
Matthew Lee and Anne Gearan, Associated Press, Thursday, October 14, 2010; 4:10 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/14/AR2010101403163.html
Brussels – The Obama administration is a partner with the Afghan government in its peace talks with the Taliban, even though U.S. officials aren’t sitting at the table, two top administration officials said Thursday.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said any reconciliation between Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s government and the Taliban insurgents must be led by Afghans. But he told a NATO new conference that the U.S. is offering advice and following the initial talks.
The Obama administration’s position is sensitive, because taking any role in talks with the Taliban risks criticism within the U.S.
"One of the principles we have established with President Karzai is transparency with one another as this process goes forward so we know what they are doing, they know what we are doing and they understand what our requirements are," Gates said. "And frankly, we share with them what we think will be in their own best interest as the process goes along."
Gates added: "It’s basically a partnership as we go forward with this with clearly the Afghans in the lead. I think we’re confident that we have access into this process and plenty of opportunities to make our concerns as well as our suggestions known."
[…] In taking a public role in the current talks, the Obama administration risks being accused of negotiating with the Taliban, the radical group that harbored Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
By making the U.S. role public, the administration may be signaling to a U.S. public weary of the conflict that the Obama administration is committed to ending it. Obama plans to begin withdrawing some troops in July 2011, but there won’t be large numbers coming home then.
[…]
3) Six US Soldiers Killed in Afghanistan
Sardar Ahmad, AFP, Wed Oct 13, 3:16 pm ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20101013/wl_afp/afghanistanunrestnato_20101013191628
Kabul – Six US soldiers were killed in Afghanistan on Wednesday as Italy became the latest NATO ally to detail plans to scale down its military presence and hand over territory to Afghan forces by the end of 2011.
[…] In Italy the defence minister said Wednesday that his government plans to hand over control of large parts of western Afghanistan to local authorities by the end of 2011, leaving only a training mission. "By 2011 we hope that our mission will be only to train the police force and the Afghan army," Ignazio La Russa told the Italian Senate, after the funeral this week of four Italian soldiers killed in a single attack.
Italy is the fifth largest contributor of foreign troops in Afghanistan, deploying around 3,400 troops on the ground. That number is expected to rise to around 4,000 by the end of this year.
Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said this week that Italy planned to start pulling troops from Afghanistan in the summer of 2011 and complete the withdrawal in 2014.
Canada, which is the sixth largest contributor of troops, has already said it intends to pull its estimated 2,830 troops out of the south in 2011.
[…]
4) Soldier silenced for testimony in Afghan killings probe
Drew Griffin and Kathleen Johnston, CNN, October 14, 2010
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/14/griffin.afghan.murder.soldiers.investigation/index.html
Seattle – First, Justin Stoner blew the whistle on his platoon. Now, the Army apparently wants to silence him.
In photos obtained by CNN, Stoner sports bruises and abrasions on his back, chest and near his neck – the marks of a beating inflicted by fellow soldiers as payback for reporting their rampant hashish use, the Army said.
At the time, those close to the investigation tell CNN, Stoner just wanted the smoking in his tent and around him to stop. So he went outside his group and reported the drug use to his superiors.
But that move, and the subsequent beating he endured for being viewed as a snitch, triggered a wide-ranging criminal investigation that has left some soldiers accused of killing innocent Afghan civilians and others accused of posing in gruesome photos with the dead or keeping body parts as war trophies.
Now the Army is doing everything it can to limit the publicity its own explosive account created.
Stoner, a private first class now back in the United States, had agreed to speak with CNN about the torment he went through at the hands of fellow soldiers earlier this year.
But just three hours before the interview was to take place in Seattle, CNN received this e-mail from his military attorney, Capt. Ernesto Gapasin, Jr., abruptly pulling the plug on the scheduled interview:
"About two hours ago, prosecutors and I met re [regarding] the disposition of the case against PFC Stoner," the attorney wrote. "Based on this meeting, PFC Stoner will be given full immunity in this case and not be prosecuted for any allegations made against him, contingent also however, on staying away from the media."
Stoner has not been charged with any crimes, so it is unclear why he is being giving immunity.
What is clear is the Army is scrambling to contain the news of an apparently out-of-control platoon.
[…]
5) Report: Afghans allege abuse at secret US jail
Heidi Vogt, Associated Press, Thursday, October 14, 2010
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2010/10/14/international/i050409D98.DTL
Kabul – A new report from a U.S. foundation details allegations of detainee abuse as recently as this year from Afghans who say they were held at a secret jail inside the main American military base in Afghanistan.
The U.S. military has long operated a facility to detain those captured in Afghan operations, first inside Bagram Air Field and now right next door. But some former detainees have alleged for years they were held at a smaller, more isolated location at the base, dubbed the "Black Jail."
The military on Thursday denied it ran any such hidden jails and said that all detention facilities are held to the same strict standards of conduct, consistent with U.S. law, Defense Department policy and Common Article III of the Geneva Conventions.
The report released Thursday by the New York-based Open Society Foundation, a grant-making and policy organization founded by liberal billionaire George Soros, lists a host of accusations of mistreatment at the alleged site. Former detainees said they were exposed to excessive cold and light, not given enough food or blankets, deprived of sleep, stripped naked for medical exams and kept from practicing their religion.
[…] The report alleges that conditions at the Black Jail are worse than at other detention facilities in Afghanistan. Several of those interviewed said their cells were so cold and blankets inadequate that their teeth chattered and they couldn’t sleep. Bright lights shone 24 hours. "It was like sleeping in the fridge," one of the former detainees told the researchers.
The Army’s Human Intelligence Collector Operations Field Manual says that detainees should not be exposed to "excessive or inadequate heat, light, or ventilation" or given "inadequate bedding or blankets." It also prohibits deprivation of necessary food, orders that detainees must not be prevented from at least four hours of sleep every 24 hours and bans forced nudity.
Many of the interviewed detainees also said they were given food that smelled awful and that they were only able to eat the biscuits supplied with their meals. They also said they were forcibly stripped for medical exams – despite Muslim and Pashtun tribal sensibilities over revealing the naked body.
Detainees said that while they had access to Qurans and had wall paintings showing the direction of Mecca, they often had difficulty knowing when to pray because they didn’t know the time of day and did not have enough water to perform ritual washing before prayer.
Certain detainees also said the Red Cross was blocked from visiting them.
[…]
6) Brigade linked to Afghan civilian deaths had aggressive, divergent war strategy
Craig Whitlock, Washington Post, Thursday, October 14, 2010; 12:50 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/13/AR2010101306280.html
When the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade arrived in Afghanistan, its leader, Col. Harry D. Tunnell IV, openly sneered at the U.S. military’s counterinsurgency strategy. The old-school commander barred his officers from even mentioning the term and told shocked U.S. and NATO officials that he was uninterested in winning the trust of the Afghan people.
Instead, he said, his soldiers would simply hunt and kill as many Taliban fighters as possible, as dictated by the brigade’s motto, "Strike and Destroy."
What resulted was a year of tough fighting in territory fiercely defended by the Taliban and a casualty rate so high that it triggered alarms at the Pentagon. By the time the 3,800-member brigade returned in July to Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Wash., it had paid a steep price: 35 soldiers were killed in combat, six were dead from accidents and other causes, and 239 were wounded.
The brigade also carried home a dark legacy that threatens to overshadow its hard-won victories and sacrifices on the battlefield. In some of the gravest war-crime charges to arise from the Afghan conflict, five soldiers have been accused of killing unarmed Afghan men, apparently for sport, and desecrating their corpses. Seven other platoon members have been charged with other crimes, including smoking hashish – which some soldiers said happened almost daily – and gang-assaulting an informant.
As sordid accounts of the platoon’s activities continue to emerge, critics inside and outside the Army are questioning whether the brigade’s get-tough strategy, which emphasized enemy kills over civilian relations, influenced the behavior of the accused.
Questions also persist about why the 5th Stryker Brigade’s chain of command did not intervene earlier, given that soldiers from the platoon are charged with crimes alleged to have taken place over a roughly six-month period, beginning in November 2009.
Interviews and records obtained by The Washington Post indicate that commanders received multiple warnings of trouble brewing in the 3rd Platoon, Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry Regiment.
Some soldiers have since told investigators that their company commander became furious after learning that the platoon had killed a second unarmed Afghan in January. But rather than referring the incident up the chain of command, he demanded that soldiers find evidence that would justify the shooting.
In March, the platoon’s first lieutenant and sergeant were removed from their posts because their soldiers had been caught shooting at dogs, according to Army investigative records. In contrast, no disciplinary action was taken after platoon members shot and killed four Afghan men – who were allegedly unarmed – in as many incidents. (Three of those shootings are now the focus of murder investigations.)
[…] Evaluators warned Tunnell that his disdain for counterinsurgency would cause trouble in Afghanistan, but the brigade commander ignored them, said Richard Demaree, a retired lieutenant colonel who served as a battalion commander for the 5th Stryker Brigade. "Everybody was astonished he has this war-fighting philosophy toward Iraq or Afghanistan that was totally out of sync with the Army," Demaree said.
Tunnell, who served in Iraq and was badly wounded there, was a devotee of counter-guerrilla strategy, which places more emphasis on raids and other aggressive tactics but had been rejected as a doctrine by the Army in the aftermath of the Iraq insurgency. According to Demaree, Tunnell barred his soldiers from using the term COIN, shorthand for "counterinsurgency."
Demaree, who says he was later forced to relinquish his battalion command because of personal conflicts with Tunnell, said many officers worried that Tunnell’s contempt for counterinsurgency would interfere with their mission in Afghanistan. "I believed it would put soldiers’ lives unnecessarily at risk," he said.
Tunnell’s mind-set also alarmed NATO and U.S. officials shortly after the 5th Stryker Brigade arrived in Kandahar, Afghanistan, according to a State Department official who was present in Kandahar. At the time, military and civilian leaders in NATO’s Regional Command South had embraced counterinsurgency.
"We all said: ‘This is going to be a disaster. This is the exact opposite of what we need,’ " said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because agency rules forbid him from giving unauthorized interviews.
U.S., Dutch and Canadian officials asked Army Brig. Gen. John Nicholson, then the deputy commander of Regional Command South, to intervene with Tunnell. Nicholson agreed to talk to the brigade commander, but the chat had little effect, the State Department official said. Nicholson did not respond to an e-mail seeking comment.
"Tunnell was just apparently totally unimpressed by what he was told," the official said. "He spoke to us and said, ‘Some of you might think I’m here to play this COIN game and just pussyfoot with the enemy. But that’s not what I’m doing.’ "
Tunnell’s Strike and Destroy approach contrasted with official guidelines issued by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, then the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, which read: "Protecting people is the mission. The conflict will not be won by destroying the enemy."
As the 5th Stryker Brigade began suffering heavy casualties, however, some officers and enlisted soldiers grumbled that Tunnell’s strategy was backfiring. According to the Army Times, Tunnell relieved a company commander, Capt. Joel Kassulke, in November after he advocated for counterinsurgency and tacked a quote from McChrystal’s guidelines on a command post wall.
.
On Jan. 28, members of the 3rd platoon fatally shot an unarmed Afghan man along Highway 1 in Kandahar. Some soldiers said they thought the man could have been a suicide bomber.
When Capt. Matthew Quiggle, the platoon’s company commander, heard of the incident, he became "furious," according to one soldier, Cpl. Emmitt Quintal, who later gave a statement to Army investigators. The platoon had shot and killed another unarmed Afghan man two weeks earlier, so Quiggle told the soldiers "they needed to search until they found something" that would justify the shooting, according to the statement. Quiggle did not respond to a request for comment submitted through the Army.
In response, Gibbs and other members of the unit planted a magazine from a contraband AK-47 rifle next to the corpse "to give the appearance the Afghan was an insurgent," according to an Army investigator’s report. The shooting was subsequently ruled justified, and no one was disciplined.
[…]
7) Combat veteran Sowers calls for end to wars in bid for House seat in Missouri
Greg Jaffe, Washington Post, Tuesday, October 12, 2010; 12:31 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/11/AR2010101107125.html
Gainesville, MO. – The 34-year-old former Army Green Beret ran across the street and bounded up the packed bleachers at the Hootin’ and Hollarin’ parade. Spots of sweat dotted his blue button-down shirt. "I think we’ve got to end that war in Afghanistan," Tommy Sowers shouted as he balanced a large American flag on his shoulder. "We’ve been there too long."
His push to end the war appeared to make little impression on the audience, which had come for a day of hog calling, square dancing and outhouse races.
A combat veteran with a graduate degree from the London School of Economics, Sowers gave up a successful military career to mount a longshot bid as a Democrat for a congressional seat in a solidly Republican district. He was motivated by a sense that Congress and the public have lost interest in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq.
[…] Troops, their families, and their superiors say that their sacrifices are poorly understood. "For most Americans, the wars remain an abstraction – a distant and unpleasant series of news items that do not affect them personally," Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates lamented in a recent speech at Duke University. Military service, he said, has "become something for other people to do."
Sowers’s call for greater congressional oversight has become a common theme among frustrated troops. Active-duty officers are writing about it with surprising frequency in military journals, and other veterans running for office are raising the subject on the campaign trail.
[…] Sowers’s tour ended in June 2005. Seventy-two hours after he left his team, Sowers was in New York City visiting his then-girlfriend. "You realize when you are on the streets of Manhattan there is no war for most Americans," he said. In 2006, he served on the staff of the two-star general responsible for Baghdad. Visiting lawmakers rarely asked probing questions about the war’s goals or direction, Sowers said. "They were ill-informed at best," he said.
A year later, Sowers was a newly minted major teaching a course on the American government at West Point. "What is democracy and why is it worth dying for?" he wrote on the chalkboard on the first day of class.
He quoted James Madison on Congress’s role during times of war: "In no part of the Constitution is more wisdom to be found than in the clause that confides the question of war or peace to the legislature and not the executive department."
He and other officers debated how to get the public more involved in the conflicts: a war tax? A return of the draft?
Sowers decided to return home to the Missouri district where he was born and raised and run for Congress.
[…]
Israel/Palestine
8) In West Bank, olive groves are on the front line in struggle over land
Joel Greenberg, Washington Post, Wednesday, October 13, 2010; 11:21 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/12/AR2010101203884.html
Turmus Ayya, West Bank – When members of the Shalabi family went out recently to harvest their olives, they discovered that a few dozen trees had been chopped down, their branches hacked by vandals. In other groves belonging to this Palestinian village, there were scores of dead trees that had apparently been poisoned, with holes drilled in their trunks.
The groves are near Adei Ad, an unauthorized Jewish settlement outpost, and villagers, citing past incidents of assaults and harassment, pointed an accusing finger at the settlers. "You work hard for years to tend the tree, like raising a child, and when you see it destroyed, the feeling cannot be described," Nahil Shalabi, a family member, said as she surveyed the damage. "No one stops them," she added, referring to the vandals.
The olive harvest is an annual ritual in the rocky hills of the West Bank. Families take to the groves to work and picnic together, climbing ladders to pick the hard green or black fruit, a traditional staple of the Palestinian economy, or knocking it off with sticks onto tarps spread under the trees.
[…] In groves of several villages near Havat Gilad, an outpost of militant settlers southwest of Nablus, Palestinians out to harvest their olives have found tracts of trees picked clean, the fruit taken by vandals. Elsewhere, villagers have reported dozens of trees cut down and hundreds more grazed on by settlers’ goats and stripped of leaves and fruit.
Following repeated assaults on harvesters in recent years, and after an Israeli Supreme Court ruling required the army to ensure that "every last olive" is picked, military authorities in the West Bank have developed an elaborate plan to protect Palestinians working in groves near Jewish settlements and outposts. Dates and locations of work are coordinated with villagers, and border police and soldiers are posted to deter settlers and guard the harvesters.
Although access has improved at olive groves where settlers had kept Palestinians out, incidents of vandalism and theft persist.
Rabbi Arik Ascherman, director of Rabbis for Human Rights, an Israeli group that assists the Palestinian farmers, said the security forces were doing a better job of guarding harvesters but were failing to protect property and bring vandals to justice, a task which required more resources. "As long as Israel is maintaining an occupation, it has got to bear the cost," Ascherman said. "It is legally obligated to protect the Palestinians, but the record of the security forces has not been adequate."
[…]
Iran
9) Iran’s Leader Cements Ties on State Visit to Lebanon
Robert F. Worth, New York Times, October 13, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/14/world/middleeast/14lebanon.html
Beirut, Lebanon – President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran arrived here on Wednesday morning and was given an ecstatic welcome by supporters of Hezbollah, the militant Shiite movement his country backs. Thousands of cheering supporters thronged the road that leads from Beirut’s airport to the city, waving Iranian flags, throwing flowers, and chanting greetings in Persian as Mr. Ahmadinejad’s convoy slowly passed.
It is the Iranian president’s first state visit here since he was first elected in 2005, and it comes at a time of rising tension between Hezbollah and its political rivals. The Shiite group has been waging a campaign against the international tribunal investigating the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, which is expected to indict several of the Shiite group’s members.
Hezbollah’s leaders have warned of disastrous consequences if that happens. They see the tribunal as an Israeli plot aimed at discrediting them and have pressured other factions to publicly disavow it. Even without indictments, some fear the tensions could lead to violence or the collapse of Lebanon’s tenuous unity government, in which Hezbollah and its allies wield veto power.
American officials voiced their disapproval last week of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s visit, which seems timed to embolden Hezbollah and underscore Tehran’s broader influence in Lebanon.
After his arrival, Mr. Ahmadinejad appeared at a news conference alongside the Lebanese president, Michel Suleiman, announcing several bilateral agreements on energy, water, and other issues. Iran, which has long provided arms and training to Hezbollah, has also offered repeatedly to help equip the Lebanese Army if the United States cuts off its military aid here. Iranian money was crucial to the rebuilding effort after the 2006 war with Israel, an array of reconstruction projects directed by Hezbollah but whose benefits – apartment blocks and roads – were not limited to its followers.
[…]
10) Iran leader wins plaudits over sectarian strife fatwa, Reuters, October 13, 2010
Andrew Hammond, Reuters, Wed Oct 13, 2010 2:07pm GMT
http://af.reuters.com/article/egyptNews/idAFLDE6930AA20101013
Dubai – Arab Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims have welcomed a rare religious edict from Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei against insulting revered Sunni figures that could help stem sectarian tensions in the Gulf region. The fatwa issued on Sept. 30 was not unusual in itself but the fact that Saudi Shi’ites publicly requested Khamenei’s opinion and that it has been so widely welcomed by Sunnis and Shi’ites suggests Iran is winning the regional clout it craves.
"It is wrong in Islam to disparage symbols of our Sunni brothers as well as to accuse the wife of the Prophet and sully her honour. It is forbidden with respect to wives of the prophets and especially their master, our great prophet," the fatwa, published by Iran’s Mehr news agency, said.
Khamenei was responding to Saudi Shi’ites from the Eastern Province who sought an ease in sectarian tensions following an incident in Kuwait where an outspoken Kuwaiti Shi’ite preacher insulted the Prophet Mohammad’s wife Aisha, revered by Sunnis.
Kuwait last month stripped Yasser al-Habib of his citizenship and banned public gatherings for fear that the comments carried on his website could lead to clashes.
[…] Khamenei’s intervention won widespread praise.
Kuwait’s cabinet said in a statement on Monday it was an effort "to bury strife" and unite Muslim ranks.
Sheikh Ahmed El-Tayeb, the head of al-Azhar in Cairo, one of the most prominent seats of Sunni learning, said the fatwa came from "one of the most senior Muslim scholars" and Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a respected Egyptian cleric who lives in Qatar, praised the fatwa in his weekly appearance on Al Jazeera TV.
[…]
Honduras
11) Violence Against Honduran Resistance Movement, Unionists Continues.
Kari Lydersen, In These Times, October 11, 2010
http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6528/honduras_violence_against_resistance_movement_unionists_continues1/
The drum beat of violence and assassinations targeting union members and others in the National Resistance Front continues in Honduras, as human rights defender Berta Oliva described during a Chicago visit before receiving the Letelier-Moffitt Human Rights Award from the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington D.C. Wednesday on behalf of a coalition of Honduran human rights groups including her group, COFADEH.
[…] Just in the last month, numerous acts of violence and intimidation have occurred: a social security unionist and a member of the campesino group MUCA were killed; 22 university union employees were illegally ordered arrested; and an opposition journalist survived an attempted murder. Oliva noted that 83 members of the resistance movement have been murdered or disappeared since current president Pepe Lobo Sosa took office in January.
And on Sept. 17 – National Teachers Day – union secondary school teacher and prominent resistance activist Felix Murillo Lopez was killed in a hit and run many believe to be a murder. He was a member of the COPEMH union.
[…]
Argentina
12) Falklands’ military operations trigger "formal and energetic" Unasur protest.
The Union of South American Nations, Unasur severely criticized the United Kingdom for the announced military exercises with missiles in the Falklands/Malvinas Islands. Argentina claims sovereignty over the South Atlantic Islands which are a British Overseas Territory.
Mercopress, Wednesday, October 13th 2010 – 07:26 UTC
http://en.mercopress.com/2010/10/13/falklands-military-operations-trigger-formal-and-energetic-unasur-protest
The twelve member organization which includes Argentina "express their most formal and energetic protest" and demand that the British government "abstains from going ahead" with the military tests with missiles in Malvinas Islands, according to the release dated in Quito, Ecuador that currently holds the pro-tempore chair of the group.
The group rejects the military exercises because "they are totally contrary to the region’s policy to search for a solution to the sovereignty dispute through peaceful means", adds the release.
Finally Unasur reaffirms its "full support to the legitimate rights" of Argentina in the sovereignty dispute over the South Atlantic islands and to the regional interest for London and Buenos Aires to resume negotiations so as to find, as quickly as possible, a peaceful and definitive solution to the controversy".
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.