Just Foreign Policy News
October 18, 2010
Photo: UN soldier points his gun at independent journalist Ansel Herz
Your tax dollars at work in Haiti.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/52027548@N04/5086378830/
Beverly Bell: Citizen Protests, Government Repression Mount in Haiti
Haitians have been taking to the streets with increasing frequency since August in calls for redress of the economic and social crisis which has followed the earthquake.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/10/18-3
AFSCME Council 5 Condemns FBI Raids on Peace Activists
The AFSCME resolution notes that four anti-war activists targeted by the FBI "have not been arrested or charged with any crime," "These four members in good standing are well-known and respected activists in our union," and "FBI spokespersons have stated that the raids were prompted by the activities of these four members, and other individuals subject to the same raids, in seeking peace and justice for workers and other oppressed peoples throughout the world."
http://stopfbi.net/2010/10/03/afscme-council-5-resolution-on-judicial-police-intimidation-of-union-members/
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) A report by the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict on civilian casualties in the war in Pakistan adds to evidence that US drone strikes are targeted based on scant information, Gareth Porter reports for Inter Press Service. The report has revealed direct evidence that a house was targeted for a drone attack merely because it had been visited by a group of Taliban soldiers. A survey published by the New American Foundation and Terror Free Tomorrow shows three-quarters of FATA residents oppose drone strikes and nearly half believe they kill mostly civilians. Sixty percent believe suicide bombings against the U.S. military are "often or sometimes justified".
2) The high suicide rate among veterans is part of a larger trend: a surge in the number of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans who have died not just as a result of suicide, but also because of vehicle accidents, motorcycle crashes, and drug overdoses, Aaron Glantz reports in the New York Times. More than 1,000 California veterans under 35 died between 2005 and 2008, a figure three times higher than the number of California service members who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan over the same period. Suicides represented approximately one in five deaths of young veterans; many other deaths resulted from risky behaviors psychologists say are common symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
3) U.S. officials have begun to assert that they see concrete progress in the Afghanistan war ahead of the December review, a sharp reversal from earlier assessments, the Washington Post reports. But they have offered relatively little evidence to back up their claims of progress, the Post says.
4) General Hugh Shelton says in a new book that a Clinton Administration Cabinet official asked him to allow Iraq to shoot down a US pilot as a pretext for starting a war, Salon reports. [The way Shelton tells the story strongly suggests that the official was Secretary of State Madeleine Albright – JFP.]
5) Family members and the military are asking where the adult supervision was for members of a platoon accused of murdering Afghan civilians for sport, the New York Times reports. Interviews and documents in the case offer a portrait of an isolated, out-of-control unit that operated in Kandahar with limited supervision and little oversight from senior commanders.
6) Afghan tribal leaders say they were on the verge of freeing British aid worker Linda Norgrove through negotiations when she was killed by a US rescue operation, the Telegraph reports.
Afghanistan
7) The Afghanistan NGO Safety Office says aid workers should seek permission from the Taliban to operate in areas they control, the Guardian reports. ANSO says NATO will be incapable of reversing the Taliban’s momentum; its data shows that in the south the NATO surge has failed to degrade the Taliban’s ability to fight.
8) US troops in Kandahar face a frustrated and disillusioned population whose land has been devastated by five years of fighting, Carlotta Gall reports in the New York Times. Most villagers have fled; those who remain complain they are trapped between insurgents and the foreign forces, often suffering damages for which they remain uncompensated.
Iran
9) US officials have dropped the pretense that US sanctions against Iran are not aimed at civilians, the Washington Post reports. Officials admit US sanctions are hurting ordinary Iranians but say they should blame their leaders. Iran Air could be forced to cancel or severely reduce flights to and from Europe; nearly 500,000 passengers a year fly between Tehran and 11 European capitals and beyond, an Iran Air official said. Iran Air is planning to take its case to the international court of justice in The Hague. "Traveling is a human right, airline conventions are broken and neither the European Union, U.S. or United Nations sanctions are calling for these restrictions against us," an Iran Air official said.
10) Iran for the first time joined a U.S./NATO-dominated coordinating group on Afghanistan, the Washington Post reports. Richard Holbrooke called the meeting a "living refutation of the clash of civilizations" cited by al-Qaeda and the Taliban propaganda.
Iraq
11) The US has reversed itself on whether it is urgent for Iraqis to form a government, now that it seems likely that the Sadrists will be part of it, Liz Sly reports for the Los Angeles Times.
Israel/Palestine
12) Several thousand Jewish and Arab Israelis protested Saturday against a bill requiring non-Jewish new citizens to swear allegiance to the country as a Jewish state, AFP reports.
13) British film director Mike Leigh canceled a visit to Israel in protest of the loyalty oath law, Haaretz reports. Leigh said he had considered canceling his trip after the attack on the Gaza aid flotilla, but the amendment to the citizenship law was the final straw.
Haiti
14) Nine months after the earthquake, international efforts to clear debris are finally underway, the New York Times reports. International officials blamed the Haitian government for failing to take charge. Haitian officials say international donors were slow to make rubble a priority, a charge echoed by one of the contractors involved in debris removal. Chuck Prieur, senior vice president of DRC-Haiti, said that rubble removal was never "sexy" to donors. "Nobody wants to do cleanup," he said. "Everybody likes to do shiny stuff you can put your name on."
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Report Shows Drones Strikes Based on Scant Evidence
Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service, Oct 18
http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=53194
Washington – New information on the Central Intelligence Agency’s campaign of drone strikes in northwest Pakistan directly contradicts the image the Barack Obama administration and the CIA have sought to establish in the news media of a programme based on highly accurate targeting that is effective in disrupting al Qaeda’s terrorist plots against the United States.
A new report on civilian casualties in the war in Pakistan has revealed direct evidence that a house was targeted for a drone attack merely because it had been visited by a group of Taliban soldiers.
The report came shortly after publication of the results of a survey of opinion within the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan showing overwhelming popular opposition to the drone strikes and majority support for suicide attacks on U.S. forces under some circumstances.
Meanwhile, data on targeting of the drone strikes in Pakistan indicate that they have now become primarily an adjunct of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, targeting almost entirely militant groups involved in the Afghan insurgency rather than al Qaeda officials involved in plotting global terrorism.
The new report published by the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict (CIVIC) last week offers the first glimpse of the drone strikes based on actual interviews with civilian victims of the strikes.
In an interview with a researcher for CIVIC, a civilian victim of a drone strike in North Waziristan carried out during the Obama administration recounted how his home had been visited by Taliban troops asking for lunch. He said he had agreed out of fear of refusing them.
The very next day, he recalled, the house was destroyed by a missile from a drone, killing his only son.
The CIVIC researcher, Christopher Rogers, investigated nine of the 139 drone strikes carried out since the beginning of 2009 and found that a total of 30 civilians had been killed in those strikes, including 14 women and children.
If that average rate of 3.33 civilian casualties for each drone bombing is typical of all the strikes since the rules for the strikes were loosened in early 2008, it would suggest that roughly 460 civilians have been killed in the drone campaign during that period.
The total number of deaths from the drone war in Pakistan since early 2008 is unknown, but has been estimated by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann of the New America Foundation at between 1,109 and 1,734.
[…] Some national security officials, including mid-level officials involved in the drone programme itself, have warned in the past that the drone strikes have increased anti-Americanism and boosted recruitment for the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda. New support for that conclusion has now come from the results of a survey of opinion on the strikes in FATA published by the New American Foundation and Terror Free Tomorrow.
The survey shows that 76 percent of the 1,000 FATA residents surveyed oppose drone strikes and that nearly half of those surveyed believe they kill mostly civilians.
Sixty percent of those surveyed believed that suicide bombings against the U.S. military are "often or sometimes justified".
[…]
2) After Service, Veteran Deaths Surge
Aaron Glantz, New York Times, October 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/us/17bcvets.html
In the six years after Reuben Paul Santos returned to Daly City from a combat tour in Iraq, he battled depression with poetry, violent video games and, finally, psychiatric treatment. His struggle ended last October, when he hung himself from a stairwell. He was 27.
The high suicide rate among veterans has already emerged as a major issue for the military and the families and loved ones of military personnel. But Mr. Santos’s death is part of a larger trend that has remained hidden: a surge in the number of Afghanistan and Iraq veterans who have died not just as a result of suicide, but also because of vehicle accidents, motorcycle crashes, drug overdoses or other causes after being discharged from the military.
An analysis of official death certificates on file at the State Department of Public Health reveals that more than 1,000 California veterans under 35 died between 2005 and 2008. That figure is three times higher than the number of California service members who were killed in the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts over the same period. The Pentagon and Department of Veterans Affairs said they do not count the number of veterans who have died after leaving the military.
The figures, according to the federal Department of Veterans Affairs, legislators and experts in post-traumatic stress, underscore how veterans in Bay Area communities and across the state engage in destructive, risky and sometimes lethal behaviors.
The data show that veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were two and a half times as likely to commit suicide as Californians of the same age with no military service. They were twice as likely to die in a vehicle accident and five and a half times as likely to die in a motorcycle accident.
"These numbers are truly alarming and should wake up the whole country," said United States Representative Bob Filner, Democrat of San Diego, who is the chairman of the House Veterans’ Affairs Committee. "They show a failure of our policy."
[…] Suicides represented approximately one in five deaths of young veterans, the data showed. Many other deaths resulted from risky behaviors that psychologists say are common symptoms of post-traumatic stress.
[…]
3) U.S. military, civilian officials claim progress in Afghan war
Joshua Partlow, Washington Post, Saturday, October 16, 2010; 10:28 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/16/AR2010101601552.html
Kabul – With a year-end report card coming due, top U.S. military and civilian officials in Afghanistan have begun to assert that they see concrete progress in the war against the Taliban, a sharp departure from earlier assessments that the insurgency had the momentum.
Despite growing numbers of Taliban attacks and American casualties, U.S. officials are building their case for why they are on the right track, ahead of the December war review ordered by President Obama. They describe an aggressive campaign that has killed or captured hundreds of Taliban leaders and more than 3,000 fighters around the country in recent months, and has pressured insurgents into exploring talks with the Afghan government. At the same time, they say, the Afghan army is bigger and better trained than it has ever been.
[…] Yet even as U.S. officials here echo Gates’s assessment, they have offered relatively little evidence to back up their claims of progress, and many still hesitate to say that successes against the Taliban in certain pockets add up to the war’s pendulum swinging their way. Indeed, one week last month broke the nine-year war’s record for violence, as the Taliban sought to ambush parliamentary elections: NATO forces logged more than 1,600 attacks nationwide, 500 more than in the previous worst week.
[…]
4) Clinton aide’s idea: Let Iraq shoot down U.S. plane
A new book says a cabinet member proposed letting Saddam kill an American airman as a pretext for war
Justin Elliott, Salon, Friday, Oct 15, 2010 11:21 Et http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/10/15/clinton_official_iraq_hugh_shelton
General Hugh Shelton, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during parts of the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, has a new memoir out that contains this significant-seeming story: Back in the late 1990s, Shelton says a member of Clinton’s cabinet asked him to allow Saddam Hussein to shoot down an American plane over Iraq as a pretext for starting a war. The way Shelton tells the story, this was a serious request.
[…] Here’s what happened shortly after Shelton became Joint Chiefs chair in October 1997, according to his book:
Early on in my days as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, we had small, weekly White House breakfasts in National Security Advisor Sandy Berger’s office that included me, Sandy, Bill Cohen (Secretary of Defense), Madeleine Albright (Secretary of State), George Tenet (head of the CIA), Leon Firth (VP chief of staff for security), Bill Richardson (ambassador to the U.N.), and a few other senior administration officials.
[…] At one of my very first breakfasts, while Berger and Cohen were engaged in a sidebar discussion down at one end of the table and Tenet and Richardson were preoccupied in another, one of the Cabinet members present leaned over to me and said, "Hugh, I know I shouldn’t even be asking you this, but what we really need in order to go in and take out Saddam is a precipitous event – something that would make us look good in the eyes of the world. Could you have one of our U-2s fly low enough – and slow enough – so as to guarantee that Saddam could shoot it down?"
The hair on the back of my neck bristled, my teeth clenched, and my fists tightened. I was so mad I was about to explode. I looked across the table, thinking about the pilot in the U-2 and responded, "Of course we can …" which prompted a big smile on the official’s face.
"You can?" was the excited reply.
"Why, of course we can," I countered. "Just as soon as we get your ass qualified to fly it, I will have it flown just as low and slow as you want to go."
The official reeled back and immediately the smile disappeared. "I knew I should not have asked that…."
"No, you should not have," I strongly agreed, still shocked at the disrespect and sheer audacity of the question. "Remember, there is one of our great Americans flying that U-2, and you are asking me to intentionally send him or her to their death for an opportunity to kick Saddam. The last time I checked, we don’t operate like that here in America."
[…] [If one assumes that Shelton wanted to finger someone without doing so directly, the way he told the story – explicitly naming six people and then informing the reader that it was not five of them (Firth was not a Cabinet member) – strongly suggests that Shelton meant to finger Albright. – JFP.]
5) Accused G.I.’s Were Isolated From Officers
Elisabeth Bumiller and William Yardley, New York Times, October 15, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/16/world/middleeast/16military.html
Washington – Soldiers in an American Army platoon accused of murdering Afghan civilians for sport say they took orders from a ringleader who collected body parts as war trophies, were threatened with death if they spoke up and smoked hashish on their base almost daily.
Now family members and the military are asking a central question: How could their commanders not know what was going on? "I just don’t understand how this went so far," said Christopher Winfield, the father of Specialist Adam C. Winfield, one of the platoon members charged with murder. "I’ve been in management for 20 years; you know what your people are doing."
But interviews in recent days and hundreds of pages of documents in the case offer a portrait of an isolated, out-of-control unit that operated in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan with limited supervision and little oversight from senior commanders.
There are indications of missed warnings among Army officers who saw trouble with some platoon leaders but did not dig deeper – let alone suspect the extent of the problem – until investigators began asking questions in early May, nearly four months after prosecutors say the first of three murders of Afghan civilians occurred.
The documents, which have not been made public, include sworn statements from soldiers and some of their officers. So far, neither the leaders of the 30-man platoon nor more senior officers in the Fifth Stryker Combat Brigade have been charged or disciplined in one of the most gruesome war crimes cases to come out of nearly a decade of conflict in Afghanistan. It is unclear whether action will be taken against them in the future.
[…] "They were kind of the red-headed stepchild of the cavalry because they weren’t their guys and they were kind of left by themselves," Mr. Winfield said. During a rough deployment with high brigade casualties and a daily fear of being killed by homemade bombs, Specialist Winfield told his father that the platoon’s leader, First Lt. Roman Ligsay, rarely checked on his soldiers and that they were even further removed from the Troop A commander, Capt. Matthew Quiggle.
[…] Even before the last death in May, in an indication of some concern among commanders, Lieutenant Ligsay was removed as the platoon’s leader because, an officer told investigators, the platoon had been regularly killing dogs and had discharged a weapon without reason. Although officers at Ramrod criticized Lieutenant Ligsay for allowing the episodes to happen, he was not relieved of duties "for cause," which would be a damaging step in an officer’s career.
In sworn testimony, Specialist Morlock told investigators that Lieutenant Ligsay had also allowed his soldiers to plant a loaded Kalashnikov magazine near an unarmed Afghan whom the platoon had shot to death – this was a separate episode from the three other killings, and no charges have been filed – to make it appear as if the man had been a threat. Lieutenant Ligsay disputed the accusation in his own testimony.
[…]
6) Aid worker Linda Norgrove was close to freedom, Afghan tribal elders claim
Linda Norgrove, the aid worker who died during a bungled rescue mission, may have been hours away from being freed by Afghan tribal elders who were negotiating with her captors, an investigation in eastern Afghanistan has found.
Ben Farmer, Telegraph, 9:30PM BST 16 Oct 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/afghanistan/8068421/Aid-worker-Linda-Norgrove-was-close-to-freedom-Afghan-tribal-elders-claim.html
Jalalabad – Afghan tribal leaders spent 12 days negotiating for the release of Linda Norgrove, covering 150 miles on foot as they criss-crossed the mountains of Kunar seeking to intercede with her captors, The Sunday Telegraph has learnt.
Local leaders were convinced they could free the Scottish aid worker, aged 36, after negotiating the release of several Afghan prisoners in the area in the preceding year.
The gang holding her had reached the point where it was ready to free Miss Norgrove, they claim, but they say hopes of a peaceful resolution were thwarted.
They blame Nato’s refusal to assist them, and to call off the special forces search operation which led to the bungled rescue in which she died. "Some days after Linda was killed the Americans came to talk to us. I told them it was their fault she was dead," said Haji Kamil, the 39-year-old leader of the delegation, who met The Sunday Telegraph on Thursay at a guesthouse in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
Mr Kamil, a wiry man with intense dark eyes and jet black beard, dressed in a long Afghan shirt, waistcoat and circular pakul hat, was leader of a group which was outraged by the kidnapping.
Abduction of a woman is strictly taboo in the conservative Pashtun culture of Kunar Province where Miss Norgrove was kidnapped, and the elders had threatened to exile the family of the kidnappers and burn down their homes unless Miss Norgrove was released. They believe the threat was effective and are convinced that they were close to gaining her release when the botched raid was ordered.
[…]
Afghanistan
7) Afghanistan’s aid workers advised to seek permission from Taliban
Afghanistan’s aid workers advised to seek permission from Taliban
In a gloomy assessment, the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office says the Taliban are ‘anticipating authority’
Jon Boone, Guardian, Friday 15 October 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/15/afghanistan-aid-workers-taliban
Kabul – Aid workers should seek permission from the Taliban to operate in areas they control, a leading NGO says today. In a gloomy assessment of the current security situation, the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office (Anso) says the Taliban are "anticipating authority", even to the extent of developing a foreign policy.
"The sum of their activity presents the image of a movement anticipating authority and one which has already obtained a complex momentum that Nato will be incapable of reversing," it warns.
Anso has an unrivalled system for collecting security information from around the country. Its data shows that in the south the Nato surge has failed to degrade the Taliban’s ability to fight. Attacks have increased by 59% between July and September compared with the same period last year. It also contradicts Nato claims that the insurgency is close to breaking point. Despite Nato efforts in Kandahar, Anso says it believes there are as many as 4,000 insurgent fighters inside the southern city
[…]
8) In Afghan South, U.S. Faces Frustrated Residents
Carlotta Gall, New York Times, October 16, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/world/asia/17afghan.html
Kandahar, Afghanistan – As American troops mount a critical operation this weekend in the campaign to regain control in Kandahar, they face not only the Taliban but also a frustrated and disillusioned population whose land has been devastated by five years of fighting. While most villagers have fled the area, those who remain complain that they are trapped between insurgents and the foreign forces, often suffering damages for which they remain uncompensated.
One of those who left is Abdul Hamid, once a prosperous grape farmer and the owner of two houses, a raisin barn and 900 vines. He lived in a hamlet called Lora in Panjwai, a fertile farming district southwest of Kandahar where others who recently left say there has been heavy shooting and bombardment.
Three years ago, Canadian troops built a temporary post near Lora. When they immediately came under fire from insurgents, they bulldozed much of the hamlet, flattening houses, water pumps and surrounding orchards, the villagers and local elders say.
"There were 10 families who had houses there that were totally destroyed, and mulberry trees were taken out by their roots," Mr. Hamid said in a recent interview in Kandahar city. "They destroyed all these things, and we are unable to replace them."
Press officers for Canadian forces, who have led operations in Kandahar Province for the past four years, and the Afghan district administration said they could not confirm the destruction. But a provincial councilor, landowners and farmers from the area said at least half the hamlet was demolished. A year later the Canadians dismantled the post and left, but the village remains deserted, the villagers said.
The experience has left a bad taste for many villagers. "Fighting brings no result for us because when they are fighting, we get caught under their feet," said Ghulam Haidin, a butcher who fled the hamlet of Garaj for a second time recently.
[…] The Canadian forces have a detailed system of compensation for farmers and villagers who have lost family, property or livelihoods. Afghans can submit claims and have to provide photos or confirmation from a village elder, said Lt. Cmdr. Saloumeh Turani, who runs the program in Kandahar.
Grapes are among the most valuable crop, and compensation for half an acre of vines destroyed, taking into account the time and work needed to replace them, exceeds $8,000, Commander Turani said.
Yet Afghan officials and rural residents say many farmers have fallen through the cracks, partly because of the continuing war and because many areas remain under Taliban control, but also because of the corruption and carelessness of local officials. That means that many of the poorest villagers – whether through bad luck, ignorance or fear of retaliation by the Taliban – have missed out on compensation payments and assistance programs.
Mr. Hamid, the grape farmer, said his wheat harvest was burned in the fighting. He and other villagers filed for compensation through the district administration. He was told the foreigners had accepted the claim, but said he never got any money.
[…] Mr. Haidin, the village butcher, said he fled his home in such haste when the bombardment began that he did not have time to grab his savings, and the women fled without shoes and head coverings. They ran in fear for three hours, and his baby son remained mute for a week, he said.
His son, Hedayatullah, is now 5. Jobless, Mr. Haidin took the family back to the village this summer to try to live off the land. A huge bomb had destroyed his home, so he could not make out the boundary between his land and his neighbor’s, he said. He borrowed a house and planted vegetables on his small plot of land.
The Taliban were around but did not bother them, he said. But after 20 days, military operations and night raids by American forces grew so intense that the family came back to the city. "The situation is not calm," he said. "All the children were crying and not sleeping."
[…]
Iran
9) U.S. deal with European oil firms hobbles Iran Air
Thomas Erdbrink, Washington Post, Saturday, October 16, 2010; 9:38 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/16/AR2010101602504.html
Tehran – A recent agreement between four of Europe’s largest oil companies and the United States aimed at further isolating Iran is already having an impact, with Iran Air, the Islamic republic’s national carrier, unable to refuel its planes in most of Europe.
The fueling problem follows a new push by the Obama administration to move beyond the strict letter of sanctions it imposed to a broader attempt to discourage international businesses from dealing with Iran.
It also illustrates a shift away from an earlier U.S. policy of reaching out to the Iranian people and trying to target mostly state organizations central to Iran’s nuclear program. Officials now admit that the increased pressure is hurting ordinary Iranians but say they should blame their leaders for the Islamic republic’s increasing isolation.
[…] As a result of the canceled jet fuel contracts, all Iran Air planes departing from destinations such as Amsterdam, London and Stockholm are now forced to make lengthy fuel stops either at an airport in Germany or one in Austria, where Total of France and OMV of Austria are still providing the 66-year-old airline with jet fuel until their contracts run out, possibly as soon as next month. At that point, Iran Air could be forced to cancel or severely reduce flights.
During such a stop in the Austrian capital last Sunday, several passengers complained about the unannounced stop. "What do we have to do with our government?" an Iranian man asked loudly, after discovering to his surprise that the plane had landed on the Vienna tarmac. "We are becoming prisoners because of these disagreements between Iran and America."
[…] Earlier moves to isolate Iran focused on Iranian state organizations suspected of producing a nuclear weapon such as the Revolutionary Guard Corps or the Iranian Atomic Energy Organization. But the latest sanctions, which included restrictions on the sale of refined oil products to Iran, as well as the growing pressure on businesses to steer clear of Iran, are now affecting the private sector and ordinary civilians. For example, it is becoming increasingly difficult to import items from luxury cars to raw materials.
[…] Iran Air, a state airline, is the main lifeline for Iranians with the outside world. Nearly 500,000 passengers a year fly between Tehran and 11 European capitals and beyond, a top Iran Air official said. "We will continue to fly to Europe, if needed even with half occupancy to save fuel which we can bring from Tehran," said Mohammad Jalali, an Amsterdam-based district manager for Iran Air. "But we are losing time, money and passengers," he said.
[…] Iran Air is planning to take its case to the international court of justice in The Hague. "Traveling is a human right, airline conventions are broken and neither the European Union, U.S. or United Nations sanctions are calling for these restrictions against us," Jalali said. "This is a low-level war between Iran and the U.S., but I don’t want our passengers to be in the middle."
10) Iran joins international group’s talks on Afghan strategy
Karen DeYoung, Washington Post, Monday, October 18, 2010; 4:51 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/18/AR2010101802785.html
Rome – Iran for the first time joined a U.S. and NATO-dominated coordinating group on Afghanistan on Monday, sending midlevel officials to participate in discussions here on coalition military and political strategy that included a closed-door report by Gen. David H. Petraeus.
Iran’s presence, along with representatives from nearly a dozen other Muslim countries as well as the Organization of the Islamic Conference, "clearly shows this is not a Western or a NATO effort," said Michael Steiner, Germany’s special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, who chaired the meeting. "It transcends geographic, religious and alliance boundaries."
Steiner said the Iranians watched Petraeus’s PowerPoint presentation, doubtless their first U.S. military briefing, "with interest," but did not speak at the morning session. During political discussions later in the day, when the head of the Iranian delegation "told me he wanted to speak, I didn’t know what he wanted to say," Steiner said.
Mohammad Ali Qanezadeh, director of Asian affairs at Iran’s foreign ministry, called for a "holistic" approach in Afghanistan that included military, political and development aspects, according to Steiner’s notes of the meeting. "I had the impression that he appreciated the transparency" of presentations by Petraeus, the top military commander in Afghanistan, and Mark Sedwill, NATO’s top civilian representative there. "This doesn’t mean they have to agree with everything," Steiner said of the Iranians. "Let’s be realistic."
In one of the more effusive descriptions of the day, Obama administration representative Richard C. Holbrooke called the meeting a "living refutation of the clash of civilizations" cited by al-Qaeda and the Taliban propaganda.
[…]
Iraq
11) U.S. now urges Iraqis to take their time in forming government
The change in approach comes as an anti-American cleric’s political faction agrees to support Maliki, a deal that would run counter to U.S. interests and risk further destabilizing the country.
Liz Sly, Los Angeles Times, October 18, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iraq-us-20101018,0,2366226.story
Baghdad – After months of pressuring Iraqis to form a new government quickly, the U.S. is now urging them to slow down rather than rush into a deal that would run counter to U.S. interests and risk further destabilizing the country.
The turnabout in the U.S. approach came after anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada Sadr’s political faction agreed to support Prime Minister Nouri Maliki for a second term, propelling the incumbent close to the parliamentary majority he needs to keep his job.
If Maliki can strike a deal with Iraq’s Kurds, he will have enough support to form a government. But such a government would contradict goals the U.S. has been working toward since the March elections.
[…]
Israel/Palestine
12) Thousands protest at Israeli citizenship bill
AFP, October 17, 2010
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jaQcSVRcNBsanEkPIvf5AjYRMe9g
Tel Aviv – Several thousand Jewish and Arab Israelis protested peacefully Saturday against a bill requiring non-Jewish new citizens to swear allegiance to the country as a Jewish state, an AFP reporter witnessed. The rally, organised by left-wing opposition parties and human rights organisations, came six days after the mainly right-wing government voted overwhelmingly in favour of the controversial legislation.
[…]
13) British director Mike Leigh cancels Israel trip to protest loyalty oath
Leigh, who last visited Israel in 1990 and has since stayed away to protest Israeli policy, was meant to arrive on November 20 for one week as guest of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem.
Haaretz, 17:03 17.10.10
http://www.haaretz.com/news/international/british-director-mike-leigh-cancels-israel-trip-to-protest-loyalty-oath-1.319600
British director Mike Leigh has canceled his scheduled visit to Israel after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet approved a controversial amendment to the Citizenship Law last week requiring non-Jews to pledge allegiance to Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state."
Leigh, who last visited Israel in 1990 and has since stayed away to protest Israeli policy, was due to arrive on November 20 for a one-week stay as a guest of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem. He was scheduled to lead student workshops and meet with audience members at cinematheques. Leigh was also due to give a lecture to Palestinian colleagues at the Jenin Cinema.
In a letter addressed to school director Renen Schorr, Leigh said that he had considered canceling his trip after the raid of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31, but that the amendment to the citizenship law was the final straw.
[…] Leigh, who is Jewish, said that he began seriously contemplating canceling his visit after the government announced that it would resume construction in West Bank settlements. It was only after the citizenship amendment was passed that the decision to stay home was made, Leigh wrote.
[…]
Haiti
14) Weary of Debris, Haiti Finally Sees Some Vanish
Deborah Sontag, New York Times, October 17, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/18/world/americas/18haiti.html
Port-au-Prince, Haiti – Wearing a Nike visor, sunglasses, a crisp linen shirt and pressed jeans, Randal Perkins of Pompano Beach, Fla., watched with satisfaction as his $400,000 hydraulic excavator clawed into a towering pile of concrete chunks in the shattered heart of this city. "This is what the people have been waiting for," Mr. Perkins declared in his booming voice, sweeping his arm to take in a crowd of bystanders mesmerized for hours by the demolition and removal of a collapsed funeral home.
Mr. Perkins had been waiting, too, with increasing impatience, for the cleanup of Haiti to begin. Chief executive of a Florida-based disaster recovery firm, he had made a $25 million gamble that he could capitalize on the Jan. 12 earthquake. He had partnered with a Haitian conglomerate, imported a dozen shiploads of heavy equipment and set up a state-of-the-art base camp here – but then, nothing.
It has been obvious since January that clearing the wreckage is the necessary prelude to this country’s reconstruction, physically and psychologically. But the problem was so dauntingly big and complex that the government and donors got stuck in visionary mode, planning the future while the present remained mired in rubble. It was easier, in a way, to conceive ambitious projects that would, someday, address Haiti’s longstanding issues, like its weak educational system or its crumbling roads.
By late summer, however, the need to tackle the earthquake damage directly became so glaring that some initial steps were taken. The government tendered its very first cleanup contract to Mr. Perkins’s Haiti Recovery Group. Worth $7.5 million to $13.5 million – nobody would be more precise – the contract represented a minuscule piece of a debris removal operation expected to cost $1.2 billion.
But it was at last a start, breaking the paralysis symbolized by the teetering ruin of the destroyed national palace. "Finally, something is moving in debris," Jessica Faieta, the United Nations Development Program’s senior country director in Haiti, said with relief.
[…] International officials blamed the Haitian government for failing to take charge and create a master plan for debris removal and resettlement. Haitian officials, however, maintain that international donors themselves were slow to make rubble a priority. "What is happening now could have happened in March if there had not been a laxity on the part of the international community," said one senior official in the planning ministry, who asked that he not be identified for what he called political reasons. "As you know, we ourselves don’t have the means."
Chuck Prieur, senior vice president of DRC-Haiti, said that rubble removal was never "sexy" to donors. "Nobody wants to do cleanup," he said. "Everybody likes to do shiny stuff you can put your name on."
[…] Crowds gather to watch the demolitions, partly because they are big, noisy spectacles and partly because the glistening new dump trucks always leave something salvageable behind. "It’s beautiful," Ernst Saint Albor, 36, said as he leaned on his bicycle watching one building come down. "It looks like destruction, but it’s progress. We cannot bear to see these collapsed buildings any longer. Be gone with them."
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Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
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