JFP 12/13 – Daniel Ellsberg: “I Am Wikileaks!”

Just Foreign Policy News
December 13, 2010

Daniel Ellsberg: "I Am Wikileaks!"
Before asserting that Julian Assange and Wikileaks have nothing in common with Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers case, Senator Durbin would have been wise to take note of the fact that Daniel Ellsberg is still alive and forcefully believes the opposite.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-naiman/daniel-ellsberg-i-am-wiki_b_795848.html

Afghanistan experts call for peace deal and exit strategy
Afghanistan experts with decades of experience in the country call on President Obama to change course and push for a peace settlement and exit strategy. Signers include: Scott Atran, Michael Cohen, Gilles Dorronsoro, Bernard Finel, Joshua Foust, Anatol Lieven, Ahmed Rashid, and Alex Strick van Linschoten.
http://www.afghanistancalltoreason.com/

*Action: Petition: Timetable for the Withdrawal of UN Troops from Haiti
The election fiasco in Haiti, following UN attempts to cover up the likely role of UN troops in the outbreak of cholera in Haiti, add urgency to the call for the UN to tell Haitians what the plan is for the full restoration of Haitian sovereignty.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/haiti

Ron Paul Defends Wikileaks on the House Floor
Rep. Ron Paul directs a series of questions to the anti-Wikileaks hysteria. How can the US government prosecute an Australian citizen for treason for the theft of documents which he did not steal? If Wikileaks is to be prosecuted for publishing classified U.S. government documents, why shouldn’t the New York Times and the Washington Post be prosecuted?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxPB9yy7IJ4

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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) An increasingly assertive group of "engagement hawks" – a group of professional diplomats, military officers, and academics – is arguing that a mindless, macho refusal to engage with "terrorists" might be causing as much harm as terrorism itself, writes Thanassis Cambanis in the Boston Globe. Brushing off dialogue betrays an alarming ignorance of how, historically, intractable conflicts have actually been resolved. The current backlash against the "don’t talk" policy began among frustrated military officers, Cambanis writes. Thomas Pickering, a career US diplomat who has spent the decade since his retirement from the State Department working as an unofficial liaison to many of America’s bitterest foes, is currently engaged in an unofficial effort to forge a regional peace agreement for Afghanistan.

2) New U.S. intelligence reports paint a bleak picture of the security conditions in Afghanistan and say the war cannot be won unless Pakistan roots out militants on its side of the border, AP reports. The National Intelligence Estimates on Afghanistan and Pakistan could complicate the Obama administration’s plans to claim that the war is turning a corner, AP says.

3) The US, Brazil, Canada and the UN were divided on what to do about the Haiti election fiasco, the Miami Herald reports. Brazil pushed a three-person runoff. The UN suggested ruling party candidate Célestin withdraw. The US asked for a true recount with foreign experts going through not just the tally sheets but checking the actual ballots against the partial voter lists. Canada floated cancellation and new elections under an interim government.

4) Out of every $100 of U.S. contracts now paid out to rebuild Haiti, Haitian firms have successfully won $1.60, AP reports. Of the 1,583 U.S. contracts given so far in Haiti totaling $267 million, only 20 – worth $4.3 million – are going to Haitian-owned companies.

5) Julian Assange’s attorney Mark Stephens says he has been told by Swedish authorities that a secret grand jury is meeting in Alexandria, Virginia to consider criminal charges in the WikiLeaks case, CNN reports. Stephens said he thinks his client is being held in Britain on a "holding charge" while the U.S. prepares espionage charges. Meanwhile, the House Judiciary Committee [chaired by Conyers – JFP] plans to hold a hearing Thursday on "the Espionage Act and the legal and constitutional issues raised by WikiLeaks."

6) Pentagon officials and Justice Department lawyers concede any effort to prosecute Julian Assange faces numerous hurdles, McClatchy reports. Prosecution on charges that Assange intentionally threatened U.S. national security would be complicated because top leaders disagree about how damaging the leaks have been. Secretary of State Clinton said the release could put lives in danger, but Secretary of Defense Gates called the reaction "overwrought." No journalist or publisher has ever been successfully prosecuted under the Espionage Act. As for theft of government property, that law was designed for actual things, not electronic information to which the government never lost access.

The government is likely to argue Assange knew he was threatening U.S. national security because State Department Legal Adviser Harold Koh sent Assange a letter warning him that publishing diplomatic cables violated U.S. law. But that argument could be undermined by the fact that the State Department didn’t respond to several requests from Assange to work out which documents threatened national security.

Israel/Palestine
7) The view that American Jews supportive of Israel but critical of its policies are not "real Jews" is widespread, writes Roger Cohen in the New York Times. Israel-right-or-wrong continues to be the core approach of major U.S. Jewish organizations, from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. "These organizations’ view remains essentially that any time you engage in an activity critical of Israel you are trying to destroy the state of Israel," said Jeremy Ben-Ami, president of J Street. Jewish groups, or Hillel societies, on U.S. campuses sometimes discover they will lose their biggest donors if they allow a J Street youth group to form within them.

8) Hundreds of Israeli rabbis have signed a religious edict forbidding Jews from renting or selling homes or land to Arabs, Al Jazeera reports. The edict was condemned by many members of the government, including Prime Minister Netanyahu. Neve Gordon, the author of Israel’s Occupation, remarked: "The rabbis are just an expression of the sentiment." Some landlords have refused Arab tenants for years, Gordon added. "It’s not new. What’s new is the feeling that one can express this [without] shame … and when you lose shame you’ve reached an extremely dangerous situation."

Afghanistan
9) In the Sangin District of Helmand, US Marines who took over from British troops are finding it hard going, with a heavier casualty rate in their first 90 days than the British suffered in more than three years there, the New York Times reports. Since taking over on Sept. 20, US forces, mostly Marines, have suffered 42 fatalities in Helmand Province, according to icasualties.org. WikiLeaks cables showed US military officers and Afghan officials were highly critical of the British effort in Helmand and particularly in Sangin.

Iran
10) Jordan’s King Abdullah II said he was seeking "practical steps" to improve his frosty relations with Iran, AP reports. A Royal Court statement said Abdullah accepted Ahmadinejad’s invitation to visit Tehran soon, but no date was set. In WikiLeaks cabes, the U.S. Ambassador to Jordan quoted Jordanian officials describing Iran as an "octopus" whose tentacles "reach out insidiously to manipulate, foment, and undermine the best laid plans of the West and regional moderates."

Venezuela
11) Private, opposition-owned channels overwhelmingly dominate the television audience in Venezuela, the Center for Economic and Policy Research reports. The state share of television audience is only 5.4 percent. 61.4 percent watch privately owned TV channels. But claims appear regularly in major U.S. media, like the Washington Post, that the government "dominates" the media.

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Talk To Terrorists
How negotiating will make us stronger
Thanassis Cambanis, Boston Globe, December 12, 2010
http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/12/12/talk_to_terrorists/

Ronald Reagan framed the debate over whether to talk to terrorists in terms that still dominate the debate today. "America will never make concessions to terrorists. To do so would only invite more terrorism," Reagan said in 1985. "Once we head down that path there would be no end to it, no end to the suffering of innocent people, no end to the bloody ransom all civilized nations must pay."
[…] Now, however, an increasingly assertive group of "engagement hawks" – a group of professional diplomats, military officers, and academics – is arguing that a mindless, macho refusal to engage might be causing as much harm as terrorism itself. Brushing off dialogue with killers might look tough, they say, but it is dangerously naive, and betrays an alarming ignorance of how, historically, intractable conflicts have actually been resolved. And today, after a decade of war against stateless terrorists that has claimed thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of foreign lives, and cost trillions of dollars, it’s all the more important that we choose the most effective methods over the ones that play on easy emotions.

When it comes to terrorists, "The goal is to persuade them that violence, terrorism, use of force might get attention, but it won’t get them what they want," says Thomas R. Pickering, a career American diplomat who has spent the decade since his retirement from the State Department working as an unofficial liaison to many of America’s bitterest foes. "You don’t get to choose your enemies….We want to convince them it’s better to come inside the tent, where we all behave."

One of the engagement hawks’ more compelling arguments is that America already talks to terrorists, but does so in such a piecemeal fashion that it can ultimately harm our interests. Reagan himself wanted so badly to free American hostages in Lebanon that his administration secretly sold weapons to Iran, greatly benefiting the patrons of the Islamist militants he memorably dubbed the "assassins in Beirut." A more systematic approach would ensure that when the government finally decides to talk, the experts wouldn’t be overlooked. Some scholars also argue that, given our current policy, we should define "terrorism" more narrowly, allowing us to open channels with groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Taliban, which have used terrorist tactics but which have limited territorial and political ambitions. In books with titles like "Resistance," "Talking to Terrorists," and "Talking to the Enemy," they are making arguments that range from radical (America should immediately recognize some Islamist movements as legitimate resistance groups) to modest (America needs to add more diplomatic tools to its munitions-heavy counter-terrorism kit).
[…] Reflexive revulsion at talking to terrorists, they say, doesn’t help keep America and its allies safer. It also allows us to avoid the much harder questions of when and how to talk to terrorists. Ultimately, our objective is dissuade the enemy from bombing civilians or taking hostages: Success or failure on that front is the yardstick against which tactics like dialogue and drone strikes should be measured.

The current backlash against the "don’t talk" policy began among frustrated military officers, who found the prohibition made it nearly impossible for them to solve the day-to-day problems of occupying and stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan. Historian Mark Perry chronicles this early, damning history in his book "Talking to Terrorists," whose most arresting revelations portray senior American military officers, mostly Marines, building back-channel connections to the leaders of the anti-American Sunni insurgency in Iraq’s Anbar province as early as the first year of the war. Defense Department officials shut down the talks as soon as they learned of them, likening the Iraqi fighters to "Nazis."

Once they’d returned from their tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, these disgruntled officers published broadsides critical of American strategy during stints at the military’s various command colleges. Their work led to the current vogue of counterinsurgency doctrine in US military circles. One of its central tenets is that success requires winning the loyalty of hostile foreign populations, which almost always means collaborating with former insurgents or terrorists.
[…].
Historically, however, we’ve been slow to recognize the opportunities when enemies mature from fringe nihilists into quasi-governmental national movements. The United States hasn’t even considered changing Hezbollah’s designation as a terrorist organization, even though it has been more than a decade since its last suicide bombing and despite the fact that most of our European allies have established full diplomatic relations.

Pickering, the former US diplomat who is currently engaged in an unofficial effort to forge a regional peace agreement for Afghanistan, argues that there’s value in channels simply existing; adversaries obtain a more accurate sense of what the other side wants, even if contact doesn’t change their behavior.

Pickering’s relentless approach was evident in a secret meeting with Hamas and a coterie of Westerners in Zurich in the summer of 2009. Minutes of the meeting were leaked, and during hours of back and forth, Pickering continuously forced the Hamas leaders, including foreign minister Mahmoud Zahar (a notorious militant known for his monologues on the perfidy of Jews and Americans), toward specifics. Would Hamas renounce violence? Would it accept coexistence with a Jewish democratic state?

"What are your priorities? What do you expect from the international community?" Pickering asked. At another point, he outlined for Hamas leaders the West’s minimal expectations and added pointedly, "This might not be what you want."

He wasn’t trying to convince or cajole as much as he was trying to focus his interlocutors’ minds on the possible. This is the real work: forcing our enemies to decide their priorities. What do they want most of all? What are they willing to give up? And as much as we want to avoid distasteful choices, it is our work as well. We can’t have everything we want. There are limits to our power.
[…]

2) Bleak Afghan and Pakistan intelligence reviews
Kimberly Dozier and Anne Gearan, Associated Press, Friday, December 10, 2010; 7:53 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/10/AR2010121005613.html

Washington – New U.S. intelligence reports paint a bleak picture of the security conditions in Afghanistan and say the war cannot be won unless Pakistan roots out militants on its side of the border, according to several U.S. officials who have been briefed on the findings.

The reports, one on Afghanistan, the other on Pakistan, could complicate the Obama administration’s plans to claim next week that the war is turning a corner. But U.S. military commanders have challenged the conclusions, saying they are based on outdated information that does not take into account progress made in the fall, says a senior U.S. official who is part of the review process.

The analyses were detailed in briefings to the Senate Intelligence Committee this week and some of the findings were shared with members of the House Intelligence Committee, officials said.

All the officials interviewed spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the classified documents.

The reports, known as National Intelligence Estimates, are prepared by the Director of National Intelligence and used by policymakers as high up as the president to understand trends in a region. The new reports are the first ones done in two years on Afghanistan and six years on Pakistan, officials said. Neither the Director of National Intelligence nor the CIA would comment on either report.

The new report on Afghanistan cites progress in "inkspots" where there are enough U.S. or NATO troops to maintain security, such as Kabul and parts of Helmand and Kandahar provinces. Much of the rest of the country remains Taliban-controlled, or at least vulnerable to Taliban infiltration, according to an official who read the executive summary.

The report contains public opinion polling that finds Afghans are ambivalent – as willing to cut a deal with the Taliban as they are to work with the Americans, the official said.

It also shows U.S. efforts are lagging to build infrastructure and get trained security forces to areas where they are needed, the official said. And it says the war cannot be won unless Pakistan is willing to obliterate terrorist safe havens in its lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

The new report on Pakistan concludes that the Pakistani government and military "are not willing to do that," says one U.S. official briefed on the analysis.

The document says Pakistan’s government pays lip service to cooperating with U.S. efforts against the militants, and still secretly backs the Taliban as a way of hedging its bets in order to influence Afghanistan after a U.S. departure from the region.
[…]

3) Friends tug Haiti in different directions
Jacqueline Charles, Miami Herald, December 11, 2010
http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/12/11/v-fullstory/1969564_friends-tug-haiti-in-different.html

Port-au-Prince – The seeds of chaos were sown just hours after a skeptical United States issued a statement questioning the preliminary results of Haiti’s first presidential runoff elections since the 1986 fall of the dictatorship.

The next day, in the midst of widespread tire burning and destruction, the U.S. Embassy released a more muted message but not before Brazil fired off its own communiqué.

The Brazilians, it turned out, supported the work of an international observer mission, which said while there were serious "irregularities" in Haiti’s Nov. 28 elections, they were not grave enough to void the vote.

The flip-flop by the United States, and conflicting positions of two of Haiti’s most important allies, underscore the split in the international community over Haiti, a country in chaos.
[…] "Political stability is at stake," Erik Solheim, Norway’s minister for international development, told The Miami Herald. "It’s not clear whether it’s [Jude] Célestin or [Michel] Martelly who won the right to be in the runoff for the presidency."

Also at stake are billions in promised reconstruction dollars to help victims of the devastating January earthquake reclaim their lives. Eleven months after the quake, at least one million Haitians continue to live beneath tarps and tents as both reconstruction and the suppression of a deadly cholera outbreak take a backseat to the current crisis.
[…] "You are in a situation where things can really degenerate into a civil war. People just fighting in the streets, complete chaos," said Robert Fatton, a Haiti expert at the University of Virginia. "You clearly don’t have a consensus in the international community. All of the Haitian actors are playing on that."

Fatton said there is nothing surprising about the days of paralyzing street demonstrations. It is something the international community, which paid most of the $29 million election bill, should have envisioned – and planned for in a country where it has become common to take political battles to the streets.

In recent days, key actors in the international community have each floated their own proposals: Brazil pushed a three-person runoff that would involve Manigat, Célestin and Martelly. The United Nations suggested that Célestin withdraw. The United States asked for a true recount with foreign experts going through not just the tally sheets but checking the actual ballots against the partial voter lists. Canada floated cancellation and new elections under an interim government. "The international community cannot reach an agreement," said Fatton.
[…] Some fear as all sides dig their heels in, from Préval to the candidates to elections officials, the international community may be left with no other choice but to cancel elections or come up with a political solution that the opposition would not accept unless it involves the departure of Préval.

"People are fed up with him and if anything the election has shown that he has lost credibility in the eyes of Haitians," Fatton said of Préval. "If the international community is not prepared to push for three candidates in a runoff…what else do you do? You cancel, tell him he remains president until Feb. 7 and have new elections."

Cancellation and new elections would involve a transitional government, a move opposed by some like Manigat and, for now, the United States, which has said it wants to have Préval replaced by an elected president and legislature.
[…]

4) Would-be Haitian contractors miss out on aid
Martha Mendoza, AP, Sun Dec 12, 11:44 am ET
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101212/ap_on_re_us/cb_haiti_outsourcing_aid_1

In a Port-au-Prince warehouse loaded with tarps, plywood, corrugated roofing, nails and other building supplies, company owner Patrick Brun says he had hoped to get contracts from the billions of dollars in international aid promised to Haiti. His 40-year-old company, Chabuma S.A., sells cement blocks, doors, sand bags and other materials for international companies. But what he wants is a more significant role in his country’s recovery, which is why he says he keeps bidding – without success – for U.S. government contracts.

"You can imagine that if we can’t win the contracts ourselves, we become totally dependent on foreign companies and nonprofits, and there is not much hope in that," he said. "We may not have the extended capacity of a U.S. company, but we are respectable. We keep good books and records, we have foreign suppliers, we have good credit, we pay our taxes and our customs dues."

Out of every $100 of U.S. contracts now paid out to rebuild Haiti, Haitian firms have successfully won $1.60, The Associated Press has found in a review of contracts since the earthquake on Jan. 12. And the largest initial U.S. contractors hired fewer Haitians than planned.
[…] But using foreign aid to give local companies contracts is one of the most important aspects of reconstruction, says Clare Lockhart, chief executive officer of the Institute for State Effectiveness. "You can’t just provide manual jobs. You need to contract with companies so that the middle tier managers and owners of companies have a stake in the legal system and rule of law, and ultimately a stake in the success of their political system and their economy," she says.

Of the 1,583 U.S. contracts given so far in Haiti totaling $267 million, only 20 – worth $4.3 million – are going to Haitian-owned companies. And an audit this fall by US AID’s Inspector General found that more than 70 percent of the funds given to the two largest U.S. contractors for a cash for work project in Haiti was spent on equipment and materials. As a result, just 8,000 Haitians a day were being hired by June, instead of the planned 25,000 a day, according to the IG.
[…] The U.S. foreign aid contracts to Haiti since the earthquake have gone to an array of almost entirely U.S.-based goods and services, from bullet-proof vehicles ordered Nov. 18 by the Centers for Disease Control from a Miami-based firm to $24,000 in dental supplies for U.S. Navy medical providers in June from a Chesapeake, Virginia, firm. Yet bullet-proof vehicles and dental supplies are available from Haitian companies, according to the nonprofit Peace Dividend Trust.

"Frankly, it’s a shame and a serious opportunity lost," says Edward Rees of the Peace Dividend Trust. His organization put together a business portal, offering everything from security services to catering, and is training Haitians on how to bid for contracts and grants. "No one is systematically tracking how many contracts have gone to Haitian companies."
[…]

5) Assange attorney: Secret grand jury meeting in Virginia on WikiLeaks
Attorney Mark Stephens made the comments on Al-Jazeera
The Swedes have said they will defer to the United States, he says
America wants to "get their mitts on him," attorney says of Assange
CNN, December 13, 2010
http://edition.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/12/13/wikileaks.investigation/

London – A secret grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia, is meeting to consider criminal charges in the WikiLeaks case, an attorney for the site’s founder, Julian Assange, told the Al-Jazeera network in an interview.

"We have heard from Swedish authorities there has been a secretly empaneled grand jury in Alexandria. … They are currently investigating this," Mark Stephens told Al-Jazeera’s Sir David Frost on Sunday, referring to WikiLeaks. The site, which facilitates the disclosure of secret information, has been slowly releasing a trove of more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables since November 28.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said last week that he had authorized "significant" actions related to a criminal investigation into WikiLeaks’ publication of the cables but has declined to elaborate.

Assange is sought for questioning in connection with allegations of sexual assault in Sweden. He surrendered to British authorities last week.

"I think that the Americans are much more interested in terms of the WikiLeaks aspect of this," Stephens told Al-Jazeera. He said it was his understanding that Swedish authorities have said that if Assange is extradited there, "they will defer their interest in him to the Americans. … It does seem to me that what we have here is nothing more than a holding charge." The United States just wants Assange detained, he said, so "ultimately they can get their mitts on him."

"He is entitled under international law, under Swedish law, to know the charges or the investigation that’s going on, the allegations made against him and the nature of the evidence which is said to support it," Stephens said. "As I sit here talking to you now, he hasn’t that that information, so he’s not been able to comprehensively rebut (the allegations)."
[…] Meanwhile, The U.S. House Judiciary Committee plans to hold a hearing Thursday on "the Espionage Act and the legal and constitutional issues raised by WikiLeaks," according to its website. More details on the hearing and a witness list had not been posted as of Monday morning.

Before WikiLeaks began posting the cables, Assange wrote to the United States and told them he did not want to imperil any ongoing operations or put anyone at risk, Stephens said. Redactions put in place are not seen to have exposed anyone to risk, he said.
[…]

6) WikiLeaks: U.S. having trouble tying Assange to Manning
Nancy A. Youssef, McClatchy Newspapers, December 12, 2010 10:25:39 AM
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/12/10/105110/wikileaks-tying-assange-to-manning.html

Washington – Even as some government officials contend that the release of thousands of classified documents by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange jeopardizes U.S. national security, legal experts, Pentagon officials and Justice Department lawyers concede any effort to prosecute him faces numerous hurdles.
[…] In addition, any potential Assange prosecution on charges that he intentionally threatened U.S. national security would be complicated because top national security leaders disagree about how damaging the leaks have been. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the release could put lives in danger, but Secretary of Defense Robert Gates last week called the reaction "overwrought" in a briefing with reporters.

Also unclear is what law would apply. The Justice Department would most likely charge Assange under one of two laws – the Espionage Act of 1917 or theft of government property, former prosecutors and experts agree.

Either charge would be the first of its kind, however. [Meaning, the first such case against a journalist or publisher; Daniel Ellsberg was charged with both in the Pentagon Papers case, but the charges against him were thrown out due to government misconduct – JFP.]

No journalist or publisher has ever been successfully prosecuted under the Espionage Act. "We are talking about creative legal territory," said Steven Aftergood, the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists and a regular critic of government secrecy policies.

As for theft of government property, that law was designed for actual things, not electronic information to which the government never lost access, experts point out. Throughout Manning’s alleged downloading of the documents onto a CD, other government officials could still read the documents – an important difference, experts say, from taking hard copies out of a room to copy them.

"Whether that law can be extended to electronic information is a very open question," said Baruch Weiss, a litigation partner at Arnold & Porter, who specializes in white-collar and national security matters. Weiss is also a former federal prosecutor and served in the Treasury and Homeland Security departments.
[…] To charge Assange under the Espionage Act, the government must prove that he knowingly acted in bad faith with the intent of harming the government and that his freedom to publish isn’t protected under the First Amendment, which prohibits Congress from passing laws that restrict the freedom of the press.

The government is likely to argue that Assange knew he was threatening U.S. national security because State Department Legal Adviser Harold Hongju Koh sent Assange a letter Nov. 27 warning him that publishing thousands of diplomatic cables violated U.S. law.

But Weiss said that argument could be undermined by the fact that the State Department didn’t respond to several requests from Assange to work out which documents threatened national security.

Proving harm to U.S. national security also would be challenging. The government would likely have to release additional classified information to prove its case, Weiss said. And in an opinion column published in The Washington Post earlier this week, Weiss wrote that Assange’s "defense would argue vigorously that prior assessments of harm due to leaks have proven over time to be wrong."

Such a prosecution also would hinge on a finding that Assange isn’t a journalist. But the courts have never explicitly defined what makes someone a journalist – a job classification made increasingly fuzzy by the ability of millions of people to self-publish blogs on the Internet – and the government has refrained from charging journalists in cases involving the leaking of government documents.

A Congressional Research Service report written earlier this month on how the government could prosecute Assange noted that at least up to now the courts have found that "although unlawful acquisition of information might be subject to criminal prosecution with few First Amendment implications, the publication of that information remains protected."

Finding that WikiLeaks isn’t a journalistic organization would also be difficult. While its current release of government documents has drawn the most attention, the organization has published reports on many other topics since its founding in 2006, including a United Nations report alleging the abuse of girls and women by peacekeepers in eastern Congo and 573,000 messages from pagers purportedly chronicling the events of Sept. 11, 2001.

In a 2008 case, several U.S. news organizations, including the Los Angeles Times, the Society of Professional Journalists, Gannett, Hearst and E.W. Scripps filed court briefs supporting WikiLeaks’ right to publish after Bank Julius Baer of Switzerland sued in U.S. federal court to prevent WikiLeaks from publishing bank records.

The records, WikiLeaks said, showed that prominent officials from several countries had used the bank to hide assets and avoid taxes. After initially issuing an injunction blocking the publication, the judge reversed himself, saying the case raised "serious questions . . . . of possible violations of the First Amendment."
[…]

Israel/Palestine
7) The ‘Real Jew’ Debate
Roger Cohen, New York Times, December 9, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/opinion/10iht-edcohen.html

London – Ira Stup was raised in Philadelphia attending Jewish day school and camps. He found his home in the Jewish community and was "intoxicated with Jewish democracy" as framed in the ideals of Israel’s foundation. Now he has returned deeply troubled from a one-year fellowship based in Tel Aviv.

The worst single incident occurred on Ben Yehuda Street in central Jerusalem. Stup, 24, a Columbia graduate, was returning from a rally with a couple of friends carrying a banner that said, "Zionists are not settlers." A group of religious Jews wearing yarmulkes approached, spat on them and started punching.

"About 20 people saw the whole thing and just watched. They were screaming, ‘You are not real Jews.’ Most of them were American. It was one of the most disappointing moments of my life – you can disagree as much as you want with a banner but to allow violence and not react is outrageous. For me it was a turning point. Nobody previously had said I was not a real Jew."

The view that American Jews supportive of Israel but critical of its policies are not "real Jews" is, however, widespread. Israel-right-or-wrong continues to be the core approach of major U.S. Jewish organizations, from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac) to the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
[…] "These organizations’ view remains essentially that any time you engage in an activity critical of Israel you are trying to destroy the state of Israel," Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, told me. "Here are all these Jewish kids being raised on great liberal values at Hebrew schools – walks for the homeless, Darfur, AIDS – but God forbid we talk about what’s happening in Israel! It’s a dynamic that cuts off discourse."

The issues are worth debating at the highest level. Middle East talks have just broken down again, precisely over settlements. President Barack Obama had virtually no domestic constituency for his attempt to denounce the continued growth of settlements as unacceptable and as undermining a two-state peace at its core: land.
[…] Stup’s research took him often to the West Bank. He would come back to Tel Aviv and talk about Palestinian humiliation he’d seen and found that Israelis seemed unaware or unconcerned. He read in one newspaper that 53 percent of Israeli Jews would encourage Israeli Arabs to leave – "and I saw and felt that anecdotally."

A painful question hardened: "Seeing what the occupation looked like, and given the ideals of Jewish democracy I was raised on, I wondered: Could Israel be failing and could we American Jews be defending that failure?"

It’s time to think again and, above all, think openly. Last month, Ben-Ami was scheduled to speak at a Reform Jewish synagogue, Temple Beth Avodah, in Newton, near Boston. At the last minute the event got canceled because of what the rabbi described as strong opposition from a "small, influential group" within the congregation.

Jewish groups, or Hillel societies, on U.S. campuses sometimes discover they will lose their biggest donors if they allow a J Street youth group to form within them.
[…] Stup, moved to act, has joined J Street. This decision caused tremendous pressure on his family back in Philadelphia. One very close family friend came over to his mother’s house recently and accused him of "poisoning the minds of young Jews." The friendship has been strained to breaking point. "Why," Stup asked me, "is it poisoning minds to encourage them to think critically about the actions of the Israeli government?"

8) Rabbis say ‘no housing for Arabs’
Hundreds of Israeli rabbis have signed a religious edict forbidding Jews from renting or selling homes to Arabs.
Mya Guarnieri, Al Jazeera, 10 Dec 2010 17:26 GMT http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2010/12/2010121015160984116.html

Hundreds of Israeli rabbis have signed a religious edict forbidding Jews from renting or selling homes or land to Arabs and other non-Jews. The public letter instructs Jews to "ostracise" those who disobey the order, which is widely viewed as an attack on the country’s Palestinian citizens.

When the decree was announced on Tuesday, it had been signed by 50 rabbis, many of who are employed by the state of Israel as municipal religious leaders. Despite sharp public criticism, another 250 rabbis have added their names to the proclamation.

It is the latest battle in the ongoing religious campaign against non-Jews. A similar edict was issued in the city of Safed less than two months ago, when over a dozen rabbis banded together to urge Jewish landlords not to rent apartments to Arab college students.
[…] A number of rabbis spoke out against the edict, calling it a "distortion" of Jewish religious law. A prominent rabbi remarked that signatories must be stripped of their pens. After his comment, two rabbis removed their names from the letter. But others dug in their heels, announcing that they would collect an additional 500 signatures against renting or selling property to Arabs and other non-Jews.

The edict was condemned by many members of the government, including Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister.
[…] Abeer Baker, an attorney at Adalah, a local NGO that advocates for Israel’s Arab minority, felt that legal avenues would prove ineffective. "Usually the struggle is against the state, now it’s the private sector. You will find employers and renters with no will to help us now," she remarked.

And because the rabbis are publicly sanctioning racism, "people [who refuse Arab tenants or employees] will not feel guilty". "In the past, people were afraid to say things like, ‘I don’t want to hire an Arab person’. They saw something immoral with it. Now the morals and values are deteriorating."
[…] Neve Gordon, the author of Israel’s Occupation, remarked: "The rabbis are just an expression of the sentiment." Some landlords have refused Arab tenants for years, Gordon added. "It’s not new. What’s new is the feeling that one can express this [without] shame … and when you lose shame you’ve reached an extremely dangerous situation."

Gordon emphasised that this shift is not limited to the religious community. "We shouldn’t understand this outburst as an island. It has to do with the loyalty oath and other legislation that is now in the Knesset," Gordon said, referring to the controversial bill that would force non-Jews who seek citizenship to pledge allegiance to Israel as a Jewish state.

Human rights groups are concerned about scores of other bills, including one that would allow communities to turn potential residents away due to their ethnic, religious, or socioeconomic background, and another that would punish any citizen – Jewish or Arab – who participates in the global campaign to boycott Israeli products. Gordon called such legislation "proto-fascist" and remarked that "the democratic elements of [Israel] are under intense attack".

Afghanistan
9) Violence Flares Anew in Southern Afghanistan
Rod Nordland, New York Times, December 11, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/12/world/asia/12afghan.html

Kabul, Afghanistan – Violence has flared in southern Afghanistan, disrupting a long period of relative quiet since the arrival of large numbers of American troops.

In the Sangin District of Helmand Province, United States Marines who took over from British troops are finding it hard going, with a heavier casualty rate in their first 90 days than the British suffered in more than three years there. Elsewhere in the province, a roadside bomb killed 15 civilians on Friday.

And in Kandahar City, the Taliban assassinated two officials on Wednesday and Thursday, according to Afghan officials.

Progress in Kandahar and Helmand Provinces had been cited recently by the NATO commander, Gen. David H. Petraeus, and was expected to figure in a White House review of the war due this week.

While the assassinations and bombing may turn out to be isolated events, the problems in Sangin – a restive region that the British had trouble subduing – have been more sustained.

Since taking over on Sept. 20, American forces, mostly Marines, have suffered 42 fatalities in Helmand Province, according to icasualties.org, an independent Web site that compiles battlefield data. About 20 of those deaths took place in Sangin, said Maj. Gabrielle M. Chapin, a spokeswoman for the Marines. By comparison, the British lost at least 76 soldiers in three and a half years.

United States State Department cables made public by the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks and posted by the British newspaper The Guardian showed that American military officers and Afghan officials were highly critical of the British effort in Helmand and particularly in Sangin.

"Stop calling it the Sangin District and start calling it the Sangin Base," one document quoted Gov. Gulab Mangal of Helmand Province as telling the British. "All you have done here is built a military camp next to the city."

Another memo quoted an American military commander as saying the British "had made a mess of things in Helmand," and an American diplomat wrote that the United States and President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan "agree the British are not up to the task of securing Helmand."

American military officials acknowledge that Sangin is proving "a very tough area," in Major Chapin’s words.
[…]

Iran
10) Jordan’s king wants improved ties with Iran
Jamal Halaby, Associated Press, Sunday, December 12, 2010; 3:14 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/12/AR2010121201969.html

Amman, Jordan – Jordan’s King Abdullah II said Sunday he was seeking "practical steps" to improve his frosty relations with Iran, a contrast to his regime’s frequent criticism of Iran’s policies. The call came in a closed-door meeting with Esfandiar Rahim Mashai, director of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s office, Abdullah’s Royal Court said in a statement.

Abdullah has been one of Iran’s harshest critics in recent years, warning that its growing influence in the region could undermine him and other pro-American moderates.

The Royal Court statement said Abdullah accepted Ahmadinejad’s invitation to visit Tehran soon, but no date was set.

The Jordanian statement quoted Abdullah as saying it was "imperative to undertake practical steps for improving Jordanian-Iranian relations in the service of both countries, their brotherly people and joint Islamic causes and to consolidate security and stability in the region." It gave no details of what steps might be taken.

As early as 2004, Abdullah warned of Iran’s growing influence in Iraq and the rest of the region. In U.S. cables released by WikiLeaks, U.S. Ambassador to Jordan Stephen Beecroft quoted Jordanian officials describing Iran as an "octopus" whose tentacles "reach out insidiously to manipulate, foment, and undermine the best laid plans of the West and regional moderates."
[…]

Venezuela
11) Private, Opposition TV Continues to Dominate in Venezuela, New Paper Finds
Data Show State TV Has 5.4 Percent of the TV Audience
Center for Economic and Policy Research, December 13, 2010
http://www.cepr.net/index.php/press-releases/press-releases/private-opposition-tv-continues-to-dominate-in-venezuela

Washington, D.C.- A new issue brief looking at data on Venezuela TV audiences contradicts the widely believed – and widely reported – claim that the Chávez government dominates the television media. In reality, the paper finds the opposite is true: the state share of television audience is very small – currently only 5.4 percent -while private, opposition-owned channels overwhelmingly dominate the television audience, with 61.4 percent watching privately owned TV channels, and 33.1 percent watching paid TV.

"Statements claiming the Venezuelan government ‘controls’ or ‘dominates’ the media are not only exaggerated, but simply false," CEPR Co-Director and lead author of the paper, Mark Weisbrot, said.

These claims appear regularly in the major U.S. media and are almost never challenged. For example, in a description of Venezuela’s elections last September for the National Assembly, the Washington Post referred to the Chavez "regime’s domination of the media . . . ." In an interview on CNN, Lucy Morillon of Reporters Without Borders stated, "President Chavez controls most of the TV stations."

The brief, "Television in Venezuela: Who Dominates the Media?", from the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., analyzes data from AGB Panamericana de Venezuela Medición S.A., a local affiliate of Nielsen Media Research International, for the years 2000-2010 and also finds that state television audiences have increased during times of political turmoil, such as during the failed April 2002 coup and the 2002-2003 oil strike.

"The most likely explanation for these spikes in state television viewers is that more people are interested in the news during these times, and so more want to get both sides of the story," Weisbrot said. But even in these few brief spikes of state TV audience – lasting for no more than two or three months – the state TV audience share has never reached 10 percent, even for one month in the past decade.

The paper notes that the primary means through which the government seems to get its message out is through President Chávez himself, in the "cadenas", or official speeches, that private broadcast TV channels are required to broadcast. In 2009, according to data from AGB Panamericana de Venezuela Medición S.A., these cadenas amounted to an average of about 24 minutes per day. While this has the potential to get the government’s message out more than the current share of state TV programming, it is difficult to measure its impact without data on how many people watch these speeches.

–

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