Peace » peoplesworld

VIDEO: Celebrating 40 years of Chicano Moratorium

Rossana Cambron — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 13:14:00 -0400

The Chicano Moratorium brought together 30,000 people in a national movement to protest the Vietnam War and racism towards people of Mexican heritage. The following is an interview of Chicano Moratorium leader Rosalio Munoz about the significance of the Aug. 29, 1970 protest, then and now.

U-turn in Afghanistan

Marilyn Bechtel — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 12:29:00 -0400

As the ninth anniversary of the war in Afghanistan approaches, the war is failing, casualties are escalating among both U.S.-NATO forces and Afghan civilians, and Americans' support for the conflict is at its lowest ebb. These trends increasingly find reflection in Congress. It's time for a U-turn, in Afghanistan and in U.S. foreign policy generally.

Two polls released in mid-August show Americans' support for the war at its lowest point ever. The Associated Press found support reaching just 38 percent - down from 46 percent in March - while 58 percent said they opposed U.S. engagement in the conflict. Less than one in five think the situation in Afghanistan will improve in the next year, while 29 percent think it will get worse.

A CNN poll put opposition to the conflict even higher, at 62 percent - up from 56 percent in May.

But at the same time, a complicated dance is playing out at top decision-making levels, with new U.S. commander in Afghanistan General David Petraeus saying President Obama's July 2011 deadline to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from Afghanistan is "not the date when the American forces will begin an exodus," and the White House reiterating that the date is "non-negotiable." At the same time, the administration has set no timetable to complete the withdrawal.

The BBC recently quoted Petraeus as saying next July is when "some tasks" will be shifted to "some Afghan forces in those areas where the conditions allow it." Defense Secretary Robert Gates has also said the troop withdrawals "will be of fairly limited numbers." Other officers are said to be pressing for more time, arguing that despite the war's long duration, counterinsurgency efforts have only begun to become effective in the last year or so.

In a "Danger Room" interview with Spencer Ackerman, on wired.com, Petraeus elaborated further on a process of "thinning out" troops from more stable areas and "reinvesting" in less secure locations. A few combat brigades may actually return to the U.S., he said, but withdrawals beyond the 30,000 troops involved in this year's "surge" will depend on the security picture.

Adding to doubts about the military's withdrawal plans are reports of three separate air base expansions, costing $100 million each, none of which are expected to be completed until the second half of 2011. According to the Washington Post, all are intended for use by U.S., not Afghan, forces. Overall, the report says, requests are now before Congress for $1.3 billion in additional fiscal 2011 funds for multiyear construction of military facilities in Afghanistan.

A heavy cloud of doubt hangs over the military's claims, and future projections, of success. Firedoglake blogger Derrick Crowe recently cited an Afghan NGO Safety Office (ANSO) report saying nine Afghan provinces are experiencing more daily attacks since the latest surge began, while only one is experiencing fewer attacks. ANSO says the southern province of Helmand, site of the unsuccessful Marjah offensive earlier this year, saw insurgent attacks spike to 820 in the second quarter of this year, compared to 257 in the same period last year.

Crowe also cites UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan figures showing Taliban assassinations doubling in the first four months of 2010, compared to a comparable period in 2009.

The offensive around the southern Afghan city of Marjah earlier this year failed, and a larger offensive planned for Kandahar province has been postponed.

These trends, and the repeated tragic killings of innocent civilians during raids, are corroborated in reports emerging from Wikileaks' vast release of classified documents last month.

All these factors - the enormous costs in lives and treasure, the deteriorating military situation, and the corresponding rise in popular opposition, are leading to a profound shift in viewpoints and votes in Congress. In July 114 members of the House of Representatives - 102 Democrats and 12 Republicans - voted against a $59 billion supplemental war funding bill, over half of which was for the Afghanistan war. Last year just 32 Democrats opposed a similar bill. In May, 18 senators voted for an amendment by Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., calling for a withdrawal timetable.

President Obama plans another review of the situation in December. This could open the way for a major change in direction, with a timetable for prompt troop withdrawal and emphasis on providing civilian development aid to Afghanistan through international agencies including the United Nations while negotiations on peace and regional stability take place within Afghanistan and with its neighbors.

Such a much-needed first step could be the start of a more thorough reorientation of U.S. international policy, away from efforts at overt and covert military domination and toward international cooperation and mutual assistance.

In that way, we can put our national treasure, both human and monetary, at the service of human needs - at home and around the world.

Photo: Soldiers return after an air assault mission in the Zabul province of Afghanistan, Oct. 15, 2009. (Spc. Tia P. Sokimson/CC)

Coincidence? Israeli-Palestinian talks to open, Israel threatens Iran attack

Susan Webb — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 14:43:00 -0400

Last week's announcement by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that direct Israeli-Palestinian talks will restart Sept. 2, after a nearly two-year gap, is being greeted with caution if not downright skepticism. Just weeks earlier, Atlantic magazine's Jeffrey Goldberg stirred up a storm when he reported, following interviews with Israeli "decision-makers," that "there is a better than 50 percent chance" that Israel will launch a military strike against Iran by next July. The timing seems anything but coincidental.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas are to begin the direct talks in Washington, after individual meetings with President Obama and a state dinner the day before. Even the most optimistic commentators say the talks face enormous obstacles.

Top among them is the issue of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, which have gobbled up vast tracts of land in what is supposed to be the future Palestinian state. Israeli settlement construction and expansion in East Jerusalem is particularly inflammatory for Palestinians, as it is obviously aimed at stymieing the deeply-felt Palestinian demand that East Jerusalem be the capital of the Palestinian state.

Palestinian leaders had insisted on a settlement freeze as a precondition for direct talks. A partial freeze announced by Netanyahu last year under heavy pressure from the U.S. is due to expire Sept. 26. Abbas and other Palestinian leaders have said talks cannot proceed without a freeze. Clinton's announcement made no direct mention of settlements. She did say, ""It is important that actions by all sides help to advance our effort, not hinder it." Some commentators suggest the U.S. may have obtained behind-the-scenes agreement from the Israelis to continue a freeze de facto.

Palestinian leaders wanted a one-year timetable for the talks to arrive at an agreement on the key "final status" issues: borders of the Palestinian state, East Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees. Clinton spoke only of an intention to complete the talks within a year. "We believe it can be done within a year and that is our objective," U.S. special Middle East envoy George Mitchell told reporters.

Mitchell reiterated what has become a widely asserted point of emphasis with the Obama administration: resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not only "very much in the interest of Israelis and Palestinians, of all people in the region; it's in the national-security interest of the United States."

The view that U.S. national security requires ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a new element in U.S. policy - although it was raised as far back as 2006 in the bipartisan Iraq Study Group report. Now top Pentagon leaders are saying it. The national security angle adds weight to Obama's repeated statements of his determination to achieve Israeli-Palestinian peace with a Palestinian state: the two-state solution.

But far-right extremists opposing such a solution play a powerful role in Israeli politics and society and hold key positions in the Netanyahu government.

So it is reasonable to be suspicious about the "news" that "Israel is getting ready to bomb Iran," as the September Atlantic magazine cover story proclaims.

The author, journalist Jeffrey Goldberg, is well connected in both Israeli and Washington circles, and his provocative article has gotten worldwide attention, much of it outraged.

But a key element of the article has gotten little play.

Goldberg writes, "On my last visit to Israel, I was asked almost a dozen times by senior officials and retired generals if I could explain Barack Obama and his feelings about Israel." A senior Israeli official told Goldberg, "This is the problem. If he is a J Street Jew, we are in trouble." J Street is the liberal "pro-Israel pro-peace" organization established to, as Goldberg puts it, "counter the influence of AIPAC," the right-wing lobby group. Goldberg notes that American Jews "are, like the president they voted for in overwhelming numbers, generally supportive of a two-state solution, and dubious about Jewish settlement of the West Bank."

The Israeli official said, "We're worried that he thinks like the liberal American Jews."

And Goldberg reports that, in a meeting he had with Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, Emanuel "suggested that the administration is trying to thread a needle: providing ‘unshakeable' support for Israel; protecting it from the consequences of an Iranian nuclear bomb; but pushing it toward compromise with the Palestinians."

Goldberg writes, "Emanuel, in our meeting, disputed that Israel is incapable of moving forward on the peace process so long as Iran looms as an existential threat."

It seems evident that the supposedly off-the-record comments by Israeli officials about a looming military strike on Iran have much to do with the serious pressure that the Israeli government is now facing from the U.S. to finally make a two-state peace with the Palestinians.

David Kay, the former UN arms inspector in Iraq, suggests that "Israel is engaged in psychological warfare with the Obama administration - and it only partly concerns Iran." Kay writes in The National Interest, an international affairs journal, "[O]f probably greater importance to the current Israeli government is avoiding the Obama administration pushing it into a choice between settlements and territorial arrangements with the Palestinians that it is unwilling to make and permanent damage to its relationship with the U.S."

"Hyping the Iranian nuclear program and the need for early military action is a nice bargaining counter," writes Kay, and the intended bargain is: "if the U.S. wants to avoid an imminent Israeli strike, it must make concessions to Israel on the Palestinian issues."

Yet many experts say it is precisely an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement, establishing a Palestinian state beside Israel, that will deflate anti-Israel posturing and threats, real or imagined, from Iran. Thus peace advocates are urging the Obama administration to do what it takes to ensure these peace talks bear fruit.

Photo: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, accompanied by special Mideast peace envoy George Mitchell, announces Aug. 20 that Israeli and Palestinian leaders have agreed to resume direct negotiations. (AP/Alex Brandon)

Dismembering Afghanistan

Conn Hallinan — Mon, 16 Aug 2010 11:30:00 -0400

Wars are rarely lost in a single encounter. Defeat is almost always more complex than that. The United States and its North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies have lost the war in Afghanistan, but not just because they failed in the battle for Marjah or decided that discretion was the better part of valor in Kandahar. They lost the war because they should never have invaded in the first place; because they never had a goal that was achievable; because their blood and capital are finite.

The face of that defeat was everywhere this past month.

According to the Afghanistan Rights Monitor, "In terms of insecurity, 2010 has been the worst year since the demise of the Taliban regime in late 2001."

A recent U.S. government audit found that despite $27 billion spent on training, fewer than 12 percent of Afghan security forces were capable of operating on their own.

Some 58 percent of the American public think the war is "a lost cause," and 60 percent think the United States should begin to withdraw in July 2011. Only Republican votes in Congress saved the Obama administration's request for $33 billion to fuel the war in the coming fiscal year. The war is currently hemorrhaging money at a rate of $7 billion a month.

The British public - the United Kingdom is the second largest armed contingent in Afghanistan - opposes the war by 72 percent, and other coalition forces are quickly abandoning the effort in the war-torn Central Asian nation. Poland announced it would withdraw its 2,600 troops in 2012. The Dutch will be out this August. The Canadians in 2011. The Australians, along with the rest of the NATO allies, declined a plea in July to send more combat troops.

In a sign of the dire circumstances of the war effort, twice in this past month, Afghan soldiers turned their guns on NATO soldiers.

A poll by the International Council on Security and Development reaffirms that the NATO alliance is failing to win over Afghan civilians, a cornerstone of success in the current strategy employed in Afghanistan. The poll found that in the two provinces currently at the center of the war - Helmand and Kandahar - 75 percent of Afghans believe foreigners disrespect their religion and traditions; 74 percent think working for foreign forces is wrong; 68 percent believe NATO will not protect them; and 65 percent think Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar should be part of the government.

The arithmetic of defeat

So does one calculate the arithmetic of defeat. But "defeat" does not mean the war is over. Indeed, the moment when it becomes obvious that victory is no longer an option can be the most dangerous time in a conflict's history. The losers may double down, as the French and the United States did in Vietnam. They may lash out in a frenzy of destruction, as the United States did in Laos and Cambodia. Or they may poison the well for generations to come by dividing people on the basis of ethnicity, religion and tribe, as the British did when their empire began to disintegrate.

Faced with rising opposition at home, increased casualties on the battlefield, and growing isolation from its allies, the United States is casting about for a way to salvage the Afghan disaster, and coming up with schemes that may end up destabilizing not only Afghanistan, but much of Central and South Asia.

The most radical of these schemes is being floated by the former U.S. ambassador to India, Robert Blackwell, a neoconservative mainstay and currently a lobbyist for India. Blackwell proposes partitioning Afghanistan into two countries: an independent, Pashtun-dominated south, and a northern and western section where Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Hazaras make up the majority. According to the scheme, "Pashtunistan" would be kept in line by armed drones and 30,000 to 40,000 U.S. Special Forces.

Such an independent country would almost certainly destabilize Pakistan's Northern Frontier and Tribal areas, where 40 million Pashtuns currently reside. Many of those Pashtuns have never accepted the 1893 Durand Line that the British used to divide Afghanistan from what was then India.

Pashtunistan would also be a template for an independent Baluchistan, further dismembering Afghanistan - certainly something the Indian Army would be delighted with - and serve as a rallying cry for marginalized ethnic groups all over the region, including those in Kashmir, China, Iran, Kyrgyzstan, Iraq, Russia, and areas in northern India.

It is not clear how much support the partition plan has, given the deep opposition of countries like Pakistan and China, but Blackwell has sprung the genie, and getting it back into the lamp will not be easy.

A second proposal - to create an army of local militias to fight the Taliban - is already under way, in spite of the disastrous experience with similar armed groups during the Soviet occupation. Those militias turned into warlord armies, which shook down local residents, protected the growing drug trade, and fought over tribal turf.

U.S. commander Gen. David Petraeus insists that the armed groups will not be "militia," but more like police - uniformed, armed, and paid by the government of President Hamid Karzai. But given that the Kabul government has virtually no presence outside the capital, how these groups will be controlled is not obvious. Furthermore, if for some reason these militias do confront the Taliban, they will be outgunned by more experienced guerilla fighters.

A June 9 incident in Kandahar is a case in point. The Taliban attacked a local militia that had gathered to celebrate a wedding, killing 40 and wounding 87. The unit had been recruited by U.S. Special Forces, which promised weapons and ammunition. But according to the New York Times, when militia commander Mohammed Nabi Kako went to the Special Forces, the commander fobbed him off to the Karzai regime, which turned down his request - whether from fear of forming independent militias, or plain old corruption is not clear. When the Taliban attacked, the militia couldn't defend itself.

The United States has a long track record of recruiting local people to fight and then abandoning them. The Montagnards in Vietnam's highlands and the Hmong in Laos come to mind.

The model that has the most parallels with the situation in Afghanistan, however, is Guatemala, where the United States helped the military dictatorship create village militias to fight insurgents. If the militias did not fight the guerillas, the Guatemalan Army slaughtered the villagers. If the militias did fight, the villagers became targets in the long-running civil war.

Indeed, an argument can be made that the very idea of militias violates the Geneva Conventions against using civilians to fight in a war, although the United States could finesse that argument by claiming the militia members are "uniformed." What is certain is that entire villages will be pulled into the war by making them targets for retaliation by a more experienced and better-armed Taliban.

However, the most obvious use for the militias will be to protect the vast drug trade that has made Afghanistan the source of 90 percent of the world's opium. It is a trade that corrupts not only Afghans, but the police and military of surrounding countries. Indeed, it is a poisonous chain that leads into the heart of Europe, leaving dead and maimed in its path. More than 30,000 addicts die of heroin overdoses each year in Russia alone.

Arbitrary partitions and local militias will not salvage the war for the United States and NATO. The only way out is to cut a deal with the people we are fighting. That will not be easy. The Taliban offered a reasonable peace plan in 2007, and it was turned down. Given the obvious collapse of the allied effort, why should the Taliban want to negotiate? But the Pakistanis say the deal is doable, and of all the counties in the region, Islamabad has the closest ties to the mélange of groups waging war in Afghanistan.

We have lost the war. It is time to recognize reality and start talking.

Originally published at Foreign Policy in Focus on Aug. 5 and reposted with permission of the author.

Photo: U.S. soldiers depart Forward Operating Base Baylough, Afghanistan, June 16, to conduct a patrol. (DoD photo by Staff Sgt. William Tremblay, U.S. Army/Released)

Gates announces Pentagon cuts, but not really

Susan Webb — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:46:00 -0400

When Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced big Pentagon spending cuts on Monday, he indicated the move was an effort to squelch growing calls for cutting the bloated military budget.

An indication of the cut-military-spending mood on Capitol Hill came just two weeks ago, when a record 102 Democrats, more than a third of the 255 Democrats in the House, voted against the president's $33 billion supplemental Afghanistan war funding bill, compared to 32 who opposed a similar bill last year.

House Appropriations Committee Chair David Obey, D-Wis., expressed the mounting concern that the needs of Americans in economic hard times are being sacrificed to military spending. Before casting his vote July 27 against the new war funding, Obey said, "We have appropriated over $1 trillion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to date. ... These wars have been paid for with borrowed money. But ... virtually everything we have attempted to do this year to address the economic crisis and emergencies on the domestic side of the ledger have fallen by the wayside."

On Monday Gates announced initial cuts in Defense Department management, personnel and programs that are expected to total about $100 billion over the next five years. The cuts include a significant reduction in private contractors, which mushroomed under the Bush administration. But Gates made it clear that he was not aiming to cut the Pentagon's overall budget. Instead, the cuts he is making are intended to free up money for war.

In June, Gates ordered the military and civilian Pentagon bureaucracy to "find tens of billions of dollars in annual savings to pay for war-fighting operations," The New York Times reported. The goal, according to the Times, is to guarantee 3 percent real growth each year in funding for combat operations. "Each dollar in spending cuts found by a military department would be reinvested in the combat force of that branch," the Times reported.

The Obama administration has asked Congress to increase defense spending next year from $535 billion to $549 billion, not counting the cost of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It is less than the growth under Bush, when the Pentagon budget grew by a whopping 36 percent in inflation-adjusted dollars, not counting Iraq and Afghanistan.

Defense officials characterized Monday's cuts "as a political preemptive strike to fend off growing sentiment elsewhere in Washington to tackle the federal government's soaring deficits by making deep cuts in military spending," according to the Washington Post.

But the moves by Gates may not stem the calls for a major change in U.S. spending priorities.

In a panel on national security at the progressive America's Future Now conference in June, Minnesota Rep. Keith Ellison cited the crushing financial burden of defense spending. He said change can begin with the "low-hanging fruit" - cutting waste from the Pentagon budget, as Gates is proposing - but much more is needed. Ellison, a member of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, called for a profound "reordering, reprioritization" of U.S. foreign policy spending, away from military power.

At the annual conference of the National Organization for Women last month in Boston, speakers at a packed workshop on equal pay and retirement security made the point that Social Security funds have been lent to the Pentagon in Treasury bonds to finance "two unfunded wars" - Iraq and Afghanistan. "The money is there" to cover Social Security benefits fully, Ashley Carson of the Older Women's League emphasized. "The U.S. is responsible to pay back those bonds." Spending on the wars, she said, is one of the key causes of the federal deficit.

Predictably the proposed cuts were attacked by Republicans, ever eager to wave the flag of militarism. But the cuts also drew criticism from Democratic members of Congress in places like Virginia, where jobs depend heavily on military bases and contractors. Yet many experts point out that military spending produces fewer benefits for the economy, including job-creation, than civilian spending in areas like education, health, transportation and green construction.

They point to the potential, and need, for a bigger and broader "green jobs, not war jobs" movement.

Photo: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates announces Pentagon cuts, Aug. 9, in Washington. (AP/Manuel Balce Ceneta)

Changeover in Colombia brings hope for peace

Emile Schepers — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 11:48:00 -0400

On Aug. 7, Juan Manuel Santos took the oath of office as president of Colombia. Statements by Santos open a slender possibility for peace in this country of 45 million, which has been racked by civil war for over 50 years. It's a country whose relations with neighboring countries such as Venezuela and Ecuador have taken an increasingly hostile turn under the outgoing president, Alvaro Uribe. The double question is now: Can peace actually be achieved within Colombia, and can war between Colombia and its neighbors be averted?

A lot depends on how the Obama administration handles the situation. And this means that we citizens and taxpayers of the United States have a crucial role to play.

At first glance, Santos seems to be an improbable dove. As Uribe's defense minister he was ultimately responsible for some of the more atrocious actions of the regime, including the attack on a camp of the leftist Fuerzas Armadas de la Revolucion Colombiana (FARC) in Ecuador in 2008, and the horrific "false positives" scandal, in which it was found that the Colombian military was randomly murdering innocent young rural men and then dressing them up in FARC uniforms and claiming that they were casualties of military combat.

Uribe, just before leaving power, tried to block possibilities of peaceful solutions with an accusation at a meeting of the OAS (Organization of American States) that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez was allowing the FARC and another guerrilla army, the ELN, to operate from bases in his country. Unfortunately, the U.S. delegation to the OAS took Uribe's side.

This confrontation pushed tensions in the region to an unprecedented high. But Santos, seemingly distancing himself from Uribe, has been making cautiously conciliatory statements regarding both the Colombian civil war and Colombia's relations with its neighbors.

On his inauguration day, for instance, Santos presented Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa with components of the "magic computer" of former FARC leader Raul Reyes, captured by the Colombians when Reyes was killed in the 2008 raid. This computer has been used to make dubious accusations against a large proportion of the Latin American left of being connected to the FARC.

Other countries in the region moved quickly to try to defuse the crisis between Colombia and Venezuela, and also take advantage of any peace possibilities, however minimal, that might be opened up by the regime change. At the initiative of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, the foreign ministers of UNASUR, which includes all of the major South American countries, met to try to mediate the dispute, only to be rebuffed by Uribe. But Lula, former Argentine President and present UNASUR Secretary General Nestor Kirchner, Ecuador's Correa and others have not given up. Olive branches are being offered to Santos. President Chavez of Venezuela, who had broken off diplomatic relations with Uribe, made a proffer of friendship while calling on the FARC to seek a peaceful solution and imploring them to release some 60 or 70 hostages they are thought to be holding. And FARC leader Alfonso Cano also said he was ready to talk. At writing, a meeting between Chavez and Santos is being worked out.

There is a sense of real danger, but also of an opportunity not to be missed.

Unfortunately, far from helping the progressive Latin American governments to achieve a peaceful resolution of the civil war in Colombia and current tensions among Latin American nations, the United States has been verbally and materially encouraging the right-wing government in Bogota to dream of military victories. Instead of basing its policy on a close working relationship with moderate regimes like those of Cristina Fernandez of Argentina and Lula of Brazil, it is allying itself with right-wing regimes like those of Colombia and Mexico, refraining from criticizing their human rights abuses while handing over billions of dollars to their military and police, through Plan Colombia and the Merida Initiative.

Progressive Americans should demand that our government contribute to a peaceful solution for Colombia's problems instead of exacerbating them. Santos will move away from Uribe's right-wing policies only if he understands that his U.S backers support change. Strident verbal attacks by U.S. officials on left-wing governments, as well as moves such as taking over seven military bases in Colombia and sending 7,000 U.S. Marines to Costa Rica, contribute nothing.

We need to contact the White House, the State Department and our senators and congresspersons to demand a change in direction, away from war and towards peace in South America.

Photo: Colombia's President Juan Manuel Santos, left, shakes hands with Ecuador's President Rafael Correa at the start of Santos' swearing-in ceremony in Bogota, Colombia, Aug. 7. (AP/Fernando Vergara)

Israeli peace movement surges in Sheikh Jarrah

Susan Webb — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 14:20:00 -0400

If the Israeli-Palestinian crisis is going to be resolved anytime soon, the beginning of the solution could be happening in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah. That is where a struggle has been going on since last year over the "right of return."

The "right of return" has referred to the Palestinian people's insistence on acknowledgment of the dispossession of an estimated 700,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948, through campaigns of violence, terror and fear, to create what is now the state of Israel.

The right of return has been a hot-button issue, fiercely rejected by Israeli leaders. But Palestinians have long been willing to compromise. They say any solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must involve acknowledgment of Israeli responsibility for what Palestinians call the Naqba (disaster), and some mutually agreed on combination of compensation for the losses and a limited number of returnees. The widely accepted fundamentals of a peace accord also include sharing Jerusalem, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

But now the Israeli "settler" movement has turned the "right of return" on its head by insisting that Jews who lived in East Jerusalem before 1948 have a right to retake their homes there, even by force.

In so doing, many believe they are actually giving legitimacy to the Palestinians' arguments about their 1948 dispossession, and even undermining the Israeli government's own position.

A year ago, on Aug. 2, Israeli police in riot gear carried out a pre-down eviction of nine Palestinian families, 53 people in all, from two homes in Sheikh Jarrah. In their place, Jewish settlers have moved in.

Another 24 Palestinian families in the neighborhood are battling eviction. The total comprises more than 500 people, including old people and children.

Israel's Supreme Court ordered the eviction, following a 37-year legal battle during which Israeli courts repeatedly upheld claims that Jews have a right to the land because it was owned by Jews before 1948.

After the creation of Israel in 1948, Jordan occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and Palestinian refugees who fled to East Jerusalem during the 1948 war were resettled on abandoned land in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood by UNRWA (the United Nations agency responsible for the Palestinian refugees) and the Jordanian government in 1956.

Then Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the West Bank in the 1967 war, and unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem in 1980. No other country, including the U.S., recognizes that annexation.

At the time of the evictions a year ago, the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process, Robert Serry, called the actions "contrary to the provisions of the Geneva Conventions related to occupied territory," and said they "heighten tensions and undermine international efforts to create conditions for fruitful negotiations to achieve peace."

The Communist Party of Israel points out that the Israeli "occupation of Sheik Jarrah is part of a series of Jewish settlements in the Palestinian neighborhoods that encircle the Old City." These settlements include Sheikh Jarrah to the north, the Mount of Olives to the east and Silwan (the so-called "City of David") to the south.

"The intention is to move settlers into the area and to move the Palestinians out," the Israeli Communist Party says. "It's not about Jews and Arabs living together, and it's not a really great way to make peace."

Over the past year, there have been weekly joint non-violent demonstrations by Israelis and Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah protesting the evictions. They have drawn an increasing array of Israeli public figures. They include poet and journalist Haim Gouri, novelist David Grossman, former Attorney General Michael Ben-Yair, former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg, and philosopher Moshe Halbertal, a co-author of the Israel Defense Forces code of ethics. Police brutality and arrests of demonstrators have made freedom of expression another issue in the protests.

On Friday, some 1,000 Israelis and Palestinians marched in Sheikh Jarrah and another thousand marched in Tel Aviv to mark the one-year anniversary of the evictions. Protests also took place in Haifa, Beersheba and other Israeli cities and towns. "I hope that this is just the beginning," Grossman told the Israeli news website Y-Net.

A July 9 peaceful protest of 300 at Sheikh Jarrah, including Grossman and Yair, was roughed up by police.

A few weeks earlier, several hundred Hebrew University students. lecturers and well known professors marched from the Mount Scopus campus in Jerusalem to Sheikh Jarrah to protest the settlers' takeover of residents' homes. The protesters carried signs calling for an end to settlements in East Jerusalem. Some signs read, "Stop ethnic cleansing."

A March 6 demonstration of several thousand Israelis and Palestinians drew wide international media coverage.

"Ironically," notes Israeli journalist Gershom Gorenberg, "by claiming former Jewish property in Sheikh Jarrah, the settlers are also asserting the right of 1948 refugees or their heirs to reclaim their homes."

The right-wing settler movement really doesn't care about that because their aim is to sabotage peace negotiations altogether, he observes.

But the "blatant injustice" of the evictions and the rashness of the Israeli right is fueling the Sheikh Jarrah protests, Gorenberg writes.

And the "disciplined nonviolence - on the part of the demonstrators, if not the police" - has attracted Israeli "moderates."

Furthermore, "the protests answer a gut need to speak out," says Gorenberg. "To come to Sheikh Jarrah on a Friday is to emerge from slumber and demand a change in Israel's direction."

"It is entirely too soon to know where this will lead," he says. "But if a vibrant Israeli left is reborn, history will mark that it regained life facing the blocked entrance of Sheikh Jarrah."

Photo: A May 21 protest in Sheikh Jarrah. (photos from zion, cc 2.0)

Rally protests U.S.-backed war in Philippines

Luis Rivas — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 11:46:00 -0400

LOS ANGELES - A picket line in front of the Philippine Consulate here last month drew attention to the newly elected president of the Philippines, Benigno Aquino, III, and his campaign promise to prosecute officials responsible for crimes against the Filipino people under the former U.S.-backed president, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

The alleged crimes include human rights violations such as torturing, murdering, disappearing, and general acts of repression against the civilian population under the guise of the international fight against terrorism.

Less than two weeks after Aquino began his term in July, five activists were murdered, leaving many people skeptical that this new presidency's change will only be in face and not policy. Part of Aquino's campaign platform, in addition to ending corruption and fighting poverty, was bringing to justice those responsible for committing crimes against the people, which includes ex-President Arroyo herself, now serving as member of the Philippines House of Representatives.

Prominently displayed at the July 26 demonstration here were images of detained or slain Filipinos, shown as casualties of the U.S.-backed war on terrorism.

In February of this year, 43 health care workers were arrested - dubbed the Morong 43 - under the charge of being and/or conspiring with communist rebel groups against the government. They included two pregnant women. All are still in custody. There are reports that one of the mothers has given birth recently.

The story of the U.S.-backed Arroyo government ,beginning back in 2001 and named the second front on the war on terror by the Bush administration, has many disturbing similarities to the well-known repressive dictatorships that riddle the history of Latin America - both in Central America (Guatemala, El Salvador) and South America (Chile, Colombia).

The Arroyo government used U.S. aid of millions of dollars in 2002, in allegedly combating terrorists with links to al-Qaida, Muslim separatist groups and communist insurgents. U.S. officials have stated that the U.S. anti-terrorism presence in the Philippines will be continuous and indefinite.

"This is the Colombia of Asia," said Kuuselo Hilo, a coordinator of the demonstration here, and county coordinator with the International Migrants Alliance.

"This is the longest anti-colonialism struggle in Asia," Hilo added.

Human rights groups, migrant rights groups and Filipino groups were present with a big percentage of Latino support - both communities having large numbers in the Los Angeles area.

In addition to bringing awareness to the killings, the human rights violations and the Morong 43, groups such as BAYAN-USA (Bagong Alyansang Makabayan, a U.S.-Philippines anti-imperialist human rights coalition made up of 14 organizations) announced and circulated a four-point program, titled "People's Agenda for National Survival." The four points are:

1. Katarungan [Justice] - investigate and prosecute Gloria Arroyo and all perpetrators of human rights violations; free the Morong 43 and all political prisoners; justice for victims of human rights violations
2. Kalayaan [Sovereignty] - terminate the U.S.-Republic of the Philippines Visiting Forces Agreement; eject all foreign military personnel from the Philippines; repeal the Mining Act of 1995
3. Karapatan [Rights] - end state-sponsored violence; stop the killings of activists; terminate Operation Plan Bantay Laya and all counter-insurgency programs; advocate for the rights of Filipino migrants abroad and including comprehensive immigration reform in the U.S.
4. Kabuhayan [Livelihood] - Institute a living wage increase; end the Value Added Tax on basic commodities; implement a genuine agrarian reform program; scarp the unfair stock distribution option.

Other demonstrations have taken place since July 26 around the U.S., including in Jersey City, San Francisco and Seattle.

Photo: PW/Luis Rivas

U.S. will attend Hiroshima memorial for first time

Pepe Lozano — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 15:35:00 -0400

The U.S. ambassador to Japan, Jon Roos, will attend the Aug. 6 ceremony in Hiroshima marking the 65th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of the city. It is the first time a U.S. official has ever attended the event.

The ambassador will "represent the United States at the August 6 Hiroshima Peace Memorial to express respect for the victims of World War II," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters. "At this particular point, we thought it was the right thing to do."

The Japanese government has welcomed the news.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshito Sengoku said the Japanese government hopes the occasion would provide the opportunity for the U.S. to deepen its understanding of Japan's pledge to prevent another atomic catastrophe from taking place.

More than 140,000 people were killed instantly in Hiroshima or died in the days and weeks after the U.S. dropped the A-bomb on Aug. 6, 1945. Three days later a U.S. military plane dropped a second atomic bomb on Nagasaki, killing more than 70,000 people.

Japan is the only nation to have been attacked with atomic bombs.

Roos is expected to lay a floral wreath at the Hiroshima memorial.

Since the late 1990s Hiroshima city officials have invited all nuclear weapons powers to participate in the annual commemoration. While Russia, China, India and Pakistan have done so, the U.S., Britain and France have not.

However this year both France and the United Kingdom have announced they too will send members of their embassies to the event.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will also attend the ceremony this week, becoming the first chief of the world body to do so. The secretary-general also plans to visit the memorial for Korean atomic bomb victims in Nagasaki.

UN officials say they hope the secretary-general's visit will draw attention to the urgent need to achieve global nuclear disarmament.

In the 65 years since the bombs were dropped, no U.S. president has ever visited Hiroshima. President Jimmy Carter did, but only after his term as president had ended.

Last November while President Obama was visiting Japan, a television reporter in Tokyo confronted him about the issue during a joint press conference with then Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama.

The reporter asked Obama if he would visit the two cities, adding, "What is your understanding of the historical meaning of the A-bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Do you think it was the right decision?"

Obama did not entirely answer the question but replied, "Obviously Japan has a unique perspective on the issue of nuclear weapons as a consequence of Hiroshima and Nagasaki." He said, "I certainly would be honored, it would be meaningful for me to visit those two cities in the future."

Scholars and others have debated weather the U.S. decision to drop the A-bombs was justified and pre-empted a greater loss of life on both sides during World War II.

Many contend the bombings were an immoral act, a major war crime, and unnecessary to end the war. Many hope this year's commemoration in Japan, with representation from the allied powers of that war, will demonstrate an important shift toward eradicating nuclear weapons.

They point to President Obama's 2009 speech in Prague where he called for a nuclear-free world. The speech was widely welcomed by the public around the globe.

Photo: Hiroshima's Genbaku Dome, the only structure left standing in the city after the atom bomb hit, is now the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. http://www.flickr.com/photos/twicepix/4134181736/ cc 2.0

War funding passes but unease grows

Susan Webb — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 12:55:00 -0400

The House of Representatives yesterday OK'd an additional $33 billion for the war in Afghanistan, sending the measure to President Obama for his signature. A record 102 Democrats, more than a third of the 255 Democrats in the House, voted against the bill, compared to 32 who opposed a similar war funding bill last year.

It reflected growing unease over the Afghanistan war, fueled this week by the WikiLeaks disclosure of 92,000 classified military files painting a grim picture of the situation there.

In addition, many Democrats said they were upset that the final bill dropped funding to prevent teacher, police and firefighter layoffs and address other domestic needs.

Among the Democrats voting against the bill was Wisconsin Rep. David Obey, who chairs the House Appropriations Committee. As Appropriations chair, he said, he was obligated to bring the spending bill to the floor for a vote. But, alluding to the WikiLeaks documents' portrayal of a floundering military venture, causing civilian casualties that alienate Afghanis, with top U.S. ally Pakistan also helping the Taliban, Obey said, "I cannot look at my constituents in the eye and say that this operation will hurt our enemies more than it will hurt us."

Obey, who is retiring from the House at the end of the year, told his colleagues he was voting his "conscience" to indicate "my profound skepticism that this action will accomplish much more than to serve as a recruiting incentive for those who most want to do us ill."

"We have appropriated over $1 trillion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to date. ... These wars have been paid for with borrowed money," Obey said. "But ... virtually everything we have attempted to do this year to address the economic crisis and emergencies on the domestic side of the ledger have fallen by the wayside."

On July 1 the House had approved a supplemental war funding bill that included a $10 billion Education Jobs Fund aimed at averting thousands of teacher layoffs around the country. It also provided funding for police, firefighter and other public safety jobs, Pell Grants for low-income college students, and other domestic needs. (See more information here.) Obey had been among the chief advocates for these measures.

But when the bill moved to the Senate, Republicans blocked action until the domestic spending was eliminated. Finally, House leaders, bowing to administration pressure, agreed to drop the domestic measures from the bill.

House Democrats say they will introduce separate bills to fund the teacher jobs and other needs. In an opinion piece in the San Jose Mercury News today, Rep. Mike Honda, D-Calif., who voted no on the war funding yesterday, called the failure to fund teacher jobs a "tragedy," and said Congress "can and should" come up with the funds "without cutting even $1 in existing programs."

Citing the crisis facing state education budgets around the country, putting an estimated 300,000 teacher jobs in jeopardy for this fall, Honda wrote, "If this does not qualify as an emergency, I do not know what will. How Senate Republicans can justify blocking $10 billion that would have saved 100,000 teaching jobs is beyond me."

During the House debate yesterday, Massachusetts Democrat Jim McGovern said the U.S. situation in Afghanistan depicted by the Wikleaks documents "is not a pretty picture."

"Things are really ugly over there," McGovern said. "I think the White House continues to underestimate the depth of antiwar sentiment here."

Earlier this month, McGovern had co-sponsored an amendment requiring the president to provide a withdrawal plan, including an end date, by April 4 next year. The amendment was defeated, but not overwhelmingly, and a substantial majority of House Democrats voted for the pullout timetable - 153, versus 98 who voted no, with 4 not voting. The yes votes included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who because of her position usually does not vote on bills, and other top Democrats.

"Our country is on her knees in terms of needs," Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who voted for the withdrawal timetable, told Politico at the time. "This is money, this is cash, going for what?"

The final House vote on the war funding bill yesterday was 308-114, with 160 Republicans and 148 Democrats voting yes, and 102 Democrats and 12 Republicans voting no.

In addition to $33 billion for the Afghanistan war, the bill provides $6 billion for State Department aid programs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and Haiti, $5 billion for FEMA, and $13 billion in benefits for Vietnam veterans exposed to the defoliant Agent Orange.

Photo: Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., chair of the powerful House Appropriations Committee, said he was voting his conscience in opposing the war-funding bill. Above, Obey announces on May 5 that he intends to retire at the end of his term this year. (AP/J. Scott Applewhite)

Afghanistan leaks paint grim picture

Susan Webb — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 16:31:00 -0400

In one of the biggest leaks in U.S. military history, WikiLeaks yesterday released 92,000 classified documents about the Afghanistan war. The military intelligence and incident reports cover a six-year period from 2004 to the end of 2009.

News of the "War Logs," as the material is being dubbed, was reported Sunday by The New York Times, the British newspaper the Guardian, and Germany's Der Spiegel, which had been given exclusive access to the files by WikiLeaks.

According to the Times, the documents "illustrate why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001." The files show, the Times says, that the reality of the war is in many respects "more grim than the official portrayal."

The Times and Guardian reports focus on the following conclusions from the documents:

* Pakistan's intelligence service and military have been deeply involved in helping, even "guiding," the Taliban, even as the U.S. proclaimed Pakistan its key ally in the war and gave it billions in military aid. The Guardian reports the documents show Iranian involvement as well.

* U.S. and NATO forces have killed hundreds of civilians in incidents that have not been reported.

* The U.S. covered up evidence that the Taliban are using surface-to-air missiles to shoot down helicopters and planes. Of course, these powerful weapons were first provided to Afghan "mujahadeen" by the U.S. in its war against the Soviet Union and Afghanistan's socialist government.

* The Taliban have caused growing carnage with a massive escalation of roadside bombings, which have killed more than 2,000 civilians to date.

* A secret special forces unit has hunted down Taliban leaders for "kill or capture" without trial. Some operations have gone awry, killing civilians. In addition, the U.S. is increasingly using drone aircraft to hunt and kill Taliban targets by remote control from a base in Nevada, but their performance is uneven.

The White House e-mailed a statement to reporters Sunday evening pointing out "on background" that, "The period of time covered in these documents (January 2004-December 2009) is before the President announced his new strategy. Some of the disconcerting things reported are exactly why the President ordered a three-month policy review and a change in strategy."

An official statement by National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones said the "shift in strategy" announced by President Obama last December was aimed at addressing "challenges in Afghanistan that were the subject of an exhaustive policy review last fall."

In a Monday press conference in London, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the documents "will shape an understanding of what the past six years of war has been like," and make clear that "that course of the war needs to change."

Assange, an Australian former computer programmer and hacker, said he has been asked numerous times "what is the most single damning revelation" in the files. "That is not the real story of this material," he said. "The real story of this is that it's war, it's one damn thing after another." Citing the "continued small events," the continued deaths of children, insurgents, allied forces, the maimed people, the amputees, he said most of these deaths are just part of the "everyday squalor of war."

He said he expected that the release of these leaked files would encourage others to "step forward."

In April this year WikiLeaks drew international attention when it published a classified U.S. military video showing two Apache helicopter gunships carry out the indiscriminate slaying of over a dozen people in a Baghdad suburb, including two Reuters news staff. A 22-year-old intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, was arrested and charged with leaking the video.

Many of the revelations reported so far from the "War Logs" documents are not really new, but rather confirm or give detail on points that have already been widely reported: the role of Pakistan, the civilian deaths, the special operations, the Taliban successes and U.S. failures. They provide a few "interesting details," Mother Jones commentator Kevin Drum observed. "Overall, however, the basic picture is basically the one we've known for a long time: a difficult, chaotic battlefield that's shown little progress since the very beginning of the war."

But by laying out in compelling detail a mountain of official confirmation of how badly the war is going, the leaks are creating a firestorm, at least on Capitol Hill, where Congress is now taking up supplemental funding for the Afghanistan war.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, issued a statement saying the Obama administration's Afghanistan policies "are at a critical stage, and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent."

Wisconsin Sen. Russ Feingold said the leaks "underscore what we already knew - the policies we have been pursuing in the region under both the Bush and Obama administrations are based on a deeply flawed strategy." Feingold said the leaks make it clear there is no military solution and he called for a timetable for withdrawing U.S. troops.

Photo: Abdul Ghafaar comforts his 7-year-old nephew at a hospital in Kandahar, Afghanistan, July 24. Ghafaar said he brought seven children to the city's hospital after getting caught in crossfire between NATO and Taliban forces in Sangin, a flash-point town in neighboring Helmand province. The NATO-led command said it was aware of reports of civilian casualties in Sangin but said in a statement that it had "no operational reporting that correlates to this alleged incident." (AP/Allauddin Khan)

War in Afghanistan grows more unpopular among French

l'Humanite — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 16:36:00 -0400

PARIS (l'Humanité) -- According to an opinion poll done for l'Humanité on July 8-9, 70% of those questioned oppose the French military intervention in Afghanistan, as against 29% who support it, a ratio of two French people out of three. One percent of those questioned had no opinion.

For pollster Jérôme Fourquet, this poll shows that, for an overwhelming majority of French people, France's military commitment in Afghanistan is unpopular and a withdrawal of French forces would be welcomed.

"We can see," he pointed out, "that the longer the conflict lasts, the less popular it becomes." He added that "we've gone from a 55% favorable opinion in October 2001 to 36% in August 2009, before falling to [the present level of] 29%." "This is the lowest score ever registered."

According to social and occupational categories, it can be noted that 75% of factory workers are opposed to the war, as against 63% of professionals and executives, a 12-point gap.

Along sex lines, a ten-point gap separates women (75% against) from men (65%).

In terms of political orientation, those sympathizing with the Front de gauche* (88%) are the most opposed to the French intervention, followed by those sympathizing with the [Trotskyist] NPA (84%). Trailing farther behind are the Verts [Green Party] (77%) and the Socialists (73%).

In the ranks of the right wing, and singularly in the governing UMP party, a majority of their sympathizers (57%) oppose the war. As to the strong opposition to the military presence in Afghanistan manifested by sympathizers of the [far-right, nationalist] Front National (79%), it is to be explained, according to Jérôme Fourquet, by "an isolationist reaction, of the 'France has no business being down there!' type."

More generally, the poll confirms a previous IFOP poll done for l'Humanité in January 2010, which indicated that 80% of those questioned opposed the sending of French military reinforcements to Afghanistan to satisfy a public request from the United States, which was then preparing to send new troops.

The massive hostility to military intervention in Afghanistan is not unrelated to the political alignment of France with the United States since Nicolas Sarkozy assumed office, a policy which has resulted in a greater military effort on the ground and the death of 45 French soldiers. Indeed, the number of French military personnel has risen from a few hundred men in October 2001 to 3,750 men, and probably beyond that to 4,000 soldiers, since Admiral Edouard Guillaud, the chief of the defense staff, announced the sending of an additional 250 men.

The fact that an overwhelming majority of French people are against the active presence of the French army in Afghanistan will make the attempt by the French presidency to stifle all debate on the war problematic. Moreover, the war in Afghanistan was the pretext for France's rejoining NATO under U.S. command. The fact is that everything leads one to believe that NATO forces have become bogged down. Whereas 521 soldiers, including 317 from the U.S., were killed in 2009, the 500-deaths threshold will probably be reached before the end of 2010; indeed, at the end of June, 2010, the toll already stood at 352 killed.

*The Front de gauche is a French electoral coalition, formed in 2009, and is composed primarily of the French Communist Party, the Left Party and the Unitarian Left. The alliance was extended for the 2010 regional elections. The Workers' Communist Party of France and other smaller political movements joined the coalition ahead of the 2010 regional elections. [adapted from Wikipedia]

Translated from the original French article: La guerre afghane impopulaire en France. Notre sondage by Hassane Zerrouky. Translator: Gene Zbikowski and reviewed by Bill Scoble.

Photo: Federico Coppola/CC

U.S. begins Iraq pullout

Susan Webb — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 11:12:00 -0400

The United States has begun withdrawing troops from Iraq ahead of a major August pullout. A contingent left July 13, cutting short their normal 12-month tour of duty.

The August withdrawal is billed as ending the U.S. combat mission in Iraq, fulfilling a vow President Obama made shortly after taking office last year. Yet some 50,000 "noncombat" troops will remain, along with thousands of private contractors and other U.S. personnel. It remains to be seen what the impact will be on Iraq, and whether all U.S. troops will really leave by 2011 as specified in the agreement signed by President George W. Bush and Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki in the Bush administration's final days.

The number of U.S. troops in Iraq is already down to around 75,000 from a peak of about 170,000 during the 2007 "surge."

Under the status of forces agreement signed in December 2008, the U.S. agreed to pull out of Iraqi towns and cities by June 30, 2009, and remove all troops by Dec. 31, 2011.

U.S. troops did withdraw from Iraqi cities last June, moving to massive bases nearby. However they continued to conduct joint operations with the Iraqi army, officially at the Iraqis' request.

Violence continues, with suicide bombings in Baghdad on Sunday killing at least 43 Sunni "Awakening Council" members waiting to collect their government paychecks. Yet attacks are down overall, according to a variety of sources.

U.S. officials are taking pains to insist that next month's withdrawal will proceed as planned. The U.S. pullout "will not in any way affect the physical stability of Iraq," Vice President Joe Biden told ABC News shortly after the Sunday bombings.

Earlier this month, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno, suggested that UN peacekeeping forces could be brought in to northern Iraq when U.S. forces leave, to help the Iraqi government curb violence in Mosul and other areas disputed between Kurds and Arabs.

Odierno said a UN force would benefit both the Iraqis and the U.S., enabling President Obama to stick to his withdrawal timetable.

Brig. Gen. Kenneth Tovo, who heads U.S. operations in Anbar province, told the Christian Science Monitor he and his Iraqi counterparts believe that "political opportunism" is behind most of the current violence "in this uncertain period when we are working on national government formation." Tovo reflected a wide Iraqi view that when the new Iraqi government is formed, "a lot of this will settle down."

The attacks, which are being credited to "al-Qaeda in Iraq," come in the context of a four-month political leadership stalemate following Iraq's March 7 national elections. The elections did not produce a clear winner, with Maliki's State of Law slate coming in 2 votes behind a slate headed by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. Neither garnered enough votes to form a government on their own. Both presented themselves as non-sectarian, but Maliki's party is Shiite Islamist while Allawi's slate is linked to former Baathists. The outcome was skewed by a controversial election law which essentially disenfranchised smaller parties, including Iraq's well-respected Communist Party and other democratic and ethnic minority parties, and handed their votes to the dominant slates.

Since March, the big political blocs have been engaged in non-stop deal-making, each trying to line up support to head the new government. Neighboring countries, especially Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia, are involved, each seeking a post-occupation Iraqi government that is friendly to the economic and political interests of their respective ruling circles.

And the U.S. is looking for a friendly and stable Iraqi government that will quell the remaining violence, enable the U.S. to free its strained military for Afghanistan and other ventures, and put out a welcome mat for U.S. corporations.

Of course, certain right-wing U.S. circles want to keep a military presence there. And Iraqi commentators say some Iraqis, including some former Baathists but others as well, want the U.S. to stay, feeling the Americans will help them gain leverage over their opponents.

Before the March elections, some saw the U.S. as favoring the Allawi slate. Certainly, Allawi's campaign benefited from vast sums of money from Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally.

Biden went to Iraq July 3, his fifth trip there since taking office as vice president 18 months ago, to press for a speedy resolution to the governmental crisis. Reportedly he pushed for an alliance between the Allawi and Maliki slates. But according to the Iraqi political analysis site Niqash, "Biden's visit raised fears among the other major political parties that they will be excluded from the government." Since then, the wheeling and dealing has continued.

Iraqis say the much talked-of Sunni-Shiite divide was largely manufactured and then exacerbated by the U.S. occupation. Saddam Hussein's Sunni-based regime also included Shiites. Allawi, a former Baathist now heading a Sunni-based slate, is a Shiite. Maliki's Shiite slate also includes Sunnis. Communists and other progressive parties include Sunnis as well as Shiites.

But Shiites, persecuted under Saddam Hussein, and generally associated with Iraq's working class and poor, make up 60 percent of the population. Together with the Kurds, who are 20 percent, and some smaller ethnic minorities, they have no intention of allowing Allawi and his Sunni-Baathist-linked slate to take the prime ministership.

Photo: U.S. Army Sgt. Alma Santiago, 25, from Worcester, Mass., with 2nd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division, waits at Baghdad International Airport as her unit begins their journey to the United States, July 13. The soldiers, based at Fort Drum, N.Y., are headed home after nine months in Iraq as part of the U.S. drawdown of forces, which begins in earnest next month. (AP/Maya Alleruzzo)

New START toward real security

PW Editorial Board — Fri, 16 Jul 2010 12:43:00 -0400

Senate hearings on the New START treaty to cut U.S. and Russian long-range nuclear weapons arsenals have resumed, with a vote possible in coming weeks. Ratification requires a two-thirds majority of senators.

Support for the agreement, signed in April by President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, ranges from longstanding advocates of complete nuclear disarmament to such "top national security leaders" as former Secretary of Defense William Perry and former Secretary of State George Shultz. But, like all positive Obama administration initiatives, it is also subject to a barrage of far-right attacks. Republicans known for their efforts to block other important legislation, such as Senators Jon Kyl, James Inhofe and Jim DeMint, contend the agreement would weaken U.S. security.

They claim New START would hinder U.S. development of missile defenses (something that's not succeeding now and would be incredibly destabilizing if it ever did). Compliance supposedly can't be verified (though the treaty includes extensive verification procedures). The pact allegedly restrains the U.S. more than the Russians (though both countries must cut their deployed strategic nuclear weapons to 1,550 and delivery vehicles to 700). And so on.

At the same time, the right wing is also holding the pact hostage to demands for greater U.S. spending on nuclear weapons. Those demands appear to be bearing fruit, with the administration projecting nuclear weapons spending rising from the present $6.4 billion to some $9 billion in 2018, and plans afoot to "modernize" both the weapons and the weapons complex.

At their root, views of the treaty hinge on views of national security. If one believes, as we do, that complete, worldwide nuclear disarmament is ultimately essential for our national security, New START is a small but vital step on the road toward that goal - a goal President Obama has endorsed.

We also believe spending on U.S. nukes and the facilities to maintain them must be drastically reduced, both to make those resources available for human needs and to make sure nuclear weapons are truly on their way out.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors got it right last month when it unanimously called for ratification of New START and the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty "without conditions and without delay" and urged Congress to end funding to modernize nuclear weapons systems and the nuclear weapons complex, drastically cut funds for all nuclear weapons programs, and "redirect funds to meet the urgent needs of cities."

We urge readers to contact their senators and tell them to ratify New Start.

Photo: President Barack Obama and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev shake hands at a press conference after signing the newly completed "New START" treaty reducing long-range nuclear weapons, in Prague, Czech Republic, April 8, 2010. (AP/Mikhail Metzel)

1970 Chicano Moratorium marches on

Special to the World — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:08:00 -0400

The following is a Los Angeles Times article by reporter Hector Tobar.

LOS ANGELES (LA Times) -- The year Rosalío Muñoz got his Vietnam War draft notice was also a very good year for American cinema.

It was the summer of 1969 and he spent hours in darkened L.A. movie theaters. "I saw 'Easy Rider,' 'Alice's Restaurant,' " he told me. "I'd sit in those theaters and do a lot of thinking."

Movies featuring outlaws were then the vogue - " Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" was the big hit of the year. Muñoz eventually decided to resist the draft. He joined a movement whose climax was the Chicano Moratorium, an East L.A. antiwar march and civil rights rally on Aug. 29, 1970.

That day was, at once, one of the most hopeful and tragic in the history of Los Angeles. Three people were killed, including Times columnist Ruben Salazar, who was struck by a tear gas canister fired by a sheriff's deputy. But a powerful spirit took root in the city.

"After that, we felt we owned the streets," Muñoz said. "We got our voice." The idea that L.A.'s Latino barrios could remain a world separate and unequal from the rest of the city was dead forever.

I spoke to Muñoz last week in a basement gallery downtown. All around him were photographs commemorating the moratorium's 40th anniversary.

There are young men with raised fists who called themselves the Brown Berets. And a group of marching women known as Las Adelitas de Aztlan. A stylized portrait of Muñoz adorns a 1970 poster.

Today young people learn the story of Muñoz and his generation of L.A activists almost exclusively in classes devoted to Mexican American history. It bothers me that this is so.

If you look closely into that episode of L.A.'s past, you'll see it's impossible to separate Chicano history from white history or black history. It's all our history.

"We're part of the democratic traditions of this country," Muñoz told me, referring to himself and the 30,000 others who rallied that day at an East L.A. park.

By his own account, the young Rosalío was not a likely candidate to become part of a Chicano Studies syllabus.

Now 64, he grew up in Highland Park when it was mostly white. His mother was a sixth-generation Mexican American and his father had a PhD. His friends were Italians and Anglos. He was known as Ross.

"It was 'Happy Days,' " Muñoz said, referring to the TV sitcom set in the 1950s. Doug Smith, his friend and a future Times' reporter, nominated Ross to be student body president at Franklin High. Ross won.

Later, in college, Muñoz studied European history. He didn't know much about the Chicano movement.

"Muñoz, look in the mirror," a Chicano activist finally told him. "You're an Indian. And you will be part of our movement."

After he was elected student body president at UCLA, he signed a pledge, along with hundreds of other student body presidents across the U.S., to resist the draft.

"For anyone who didn't grow up in that era, it's just about impossible to understand the enormous pressure the Vietnam War put on young people," said Smith. Everyone knew someone who had been killed in Vietnam.

Activists told Muñoz that his minor celebrity as a student leader would help the antiwar movement gain support among Latinos - "sort of like Muhammad Ali," he said.

Seeking inspiration, he attended a speech by the draft resister David Harris, but concluded his call for passive resistance "wasn't going fly in the barrio."

It what seemed like a cosmic coincidence, Muñoz was scheduled to report to the downtown L.A. induction center on Mexican Independence Day. So he wrote a speech about how Mexican Americans were dying in disproportionate numbers in Vietnam.

"I accuse the draft, the entire social, political, and economic system of the United States of America of creating a funnel which shoots Mexican youth into Vietnam to be killed," Munoz wrote.

His literary inspiration was Emile Zola's "J'Accuse." And Smith gave him some writing tips.

National antiwar leaders were then organizing a moratorium, hoping to bring mainstream America out on the streets against the war.

The Chicano Moratorium had similar goals - to bring the ordinary people of L.A.'s barrios into the maelstrom then sweeping through the U.S. to protest the war in Vietnam and fight for civil rights.

They succeeded. The people marching that day weren't just student radicals but also families with children and future intellectuals and elected leaders who would later join the mainstream of L.A. civic life.

Sheriff's deputies swept through the park just as Muñoz took the podium, transforming the rally into panicked flight. But Muñoz would prefer you not focus on the day's violent end.

"To me, the most important thing was how unified we were," he said.

L.A. is today a more united place, I think, thanks to Chicano Moratorium. That might seem like an odd thing to say about a demonstration with a strong Brown Pride message. But the movement it started eventually brought dramatic changes to many of our public institutions, from the LAPD to the Board of Education. Its legacy is a more open, democratic city.

"Some people say that was the high point of the movement," Muñoz said of Aug. 29. "But it was really only the beginning."

If you have some time this summer, wander down to the basement of the Mexican Cultural Institute next to Olvera Street, and soak up a bit of our local history. The pictures will be up until July 25*.

For a sample of People's World articles by Rosalio Munoz on the moratorium and other related topics, click here.

[Editors' note: Due to a current glitch in the software, Munoz's byline does not appear. This glitch affects a number of authors and is currently being worked on.]

Photo: Rosalio Munoz, in foreground. (People's World)

Teacher funding passes and war opposition grows

Susan Webb — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 14:18:00 -0400

The House yesterday approved a $10 billion Education Jobs Fund that will avert thousands of teacher layoffs around the country. Also approved was funding for police, firefighter and other public safety jobs, Pell Grants for low-income college students, and other domestic needs. But these measures came at a high cost: they won attached to $33 billion in additional funding for the war in Afghanistan.

Yet the votes in the House Thursday indicate growing end-the-war sentiment among congressional Democrats.

An amendment requiring the president to provide a withdrawal plan including an end date, by April 4 next year, was defeated, but not overwhelmingly. The vote was 260-162, with 11 not voting. A substantial majority of House Democrats voted for the pullout timetable - 153, versus 98 who voted no, with 4 not voting. The "yes" votes included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Chief Deputy Majority Whip Jan Schakowsky, and Assistant to the Speaker Chris Van Hollen. Nine Republicans also backed the measure.

With Republicans and some Blue Dog Democrats citing deficit reduction in opposing the teacher job fund and other domestic spending, other lawmakers challenged their support for spending billions for the war. "Our country is on her knees in terms of needs," Rep. Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., who voted for the withdrawal timetable, told Politico. "This is money, this is cash, going for what?"

Another amendment, submitted by Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif., would have limited funds for military operations in Afghanistan to only "force protection" and beginning the redeployment of all troops and military contractors out of Afghanistan. That measure drew 93 Democratic votes, with 4 not voting, and 7 Republican votes. (A third amendment, to simply remove all Afghanistan military funding from the bill, drew only 25 votes, including 3 Republicans.)

House Rules Committee Chairwoman Louise Slaughter, D-N.Y., who voted for both the timetable and Lee amendments, said, "I do not want to spend money to try to rebuild a 12th century economy when ours is crumbling. And if we're going to rebuild an economy it should be the United States."

Rep. Jim McGovern, one of the sponsors of the timetable amendment, called the vote last night "an important milestone." In a statement today, McGovern noted that "60 percent of the Democratic Caucus - including Speaker Pelosi, who by tradition rarely votes on the House floor - was joined by nine Republicans in expressing our strong concerns about our policy in Afghanistan. This vote should send a signal to the administration that Congress is increasingly troubled by risking the lives of our troops and borrowing hundreds of billions of dollars for ‘nation-building' in Afghanistan while we are facing a dire economic situation here at home."

McGovern vowed to continue working to "build bi-partisan support for a meaningful exit strategy from this war."

Politico writer David Rogers interpreted the votes as a "shot-across-the-bow from rank-and-file Democrats, frustrated by the president's failure to do more to help them move new jobs creation legislation."

The domestic spending added by House Democrats, in addition to helping cities and towns avoid teacher layoffs and other cuts, also includes disaster assistance and foreign aid (such as aid previously promised for Haiti), border security, and disability benefits for Vietnam veterans exposed to Agent Orange. Also, the Congressional Black Caucus won new spending for summer jobs and highway construction as well as long-delayed payment on the settlement of black farmer claims against the Agriculture Department.

The supplemental spending bill passed by the House also includes a measure to provide fire fighters, law enforcement officers and other public safety officers with collective bargaining rights.

The final bill, which totals roughly $80 billion, was approved 239-182. It now goes back to the Senate, which had earlier approved a roughly $60 billion version. Senate Republicans will fight to eliminate the domestic spending. Democrats and grassroots groups will have an opportunity to point out the hypocrisy of waving the deficit flag while pouring billions more into the Afghanistan war.

Photo: http://www.flickr.com/photos/bitzi/193922475/ cc 2.0

U.S.-Afghanistan connection: war hurts both

Greg Burry — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:05:00 -0400

DETROIT - A workshop on "Ending the Afghanistan War" at the U.S. Social Forum here last week presented insight into the social conditions in that country, how increasing economic and social problems are exacerbated by the war, and the connection between the war and social problems in the United States.

Prasad Venugopal of the Michigan Peace Council suggested that people check out the CIA Fact Book on Afghanistan that estimates the poverty and unemployment rates there are 40 percent, similar to Detroit.

Phillips Bennis, a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, told the audience Afghanistan's infant morality rate is the highest in the world, caused by the worst prenatal care and maternal death rate in the world. It is the worst place to be born, and for children between 1 and 6 years old, the place with the highest mortality rate.

David Wildman, executive board member of Global Ministries, asked, "Is the war worth it?" His answer was a resounding "NO." After nine years and spending of billions of dollars, the war has done little to help the plight of the Afghan people and has worsened economic and social conditions, he said. "Militarization makes Afghan lives more insecure ... we need less militarization to make Afghanistan more secure."

"Security is built upon the relationships you develop with the community, not with the use of force," Wildman emphasized. "Getting rid of weapons and building relationships builds trust and develops cooperation."

Wildman pointed out that the U.S. has been involved in Afghanistan since 1979. President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski promoted sending covert aid in the form of money and weapons to arm Afghan groups in the effort to destailize Afghanistan's communist government and to draw the USSR into the conflict. The purpose was to demoralize the Soviet army and bankrupt the USSR economy. Ten years later the USSR was exhausted and depleted from the conflict and left in defeat. Brzezinski thinks he bankrupted the USSR, but this conclusion is shortsighted, Wildman said. Brzezinski admits that the Soviet occupation created the mujahedin, the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. He is now recommending a similar course of action by the U.S. military. Obliviously, he has not learned from his own historical precedent, Wildman said.

What is the current strategy? According to Wildman it is not to "win the hearts and minds of the Afghan people but to win the hearts and minds of us for an ongoing military spending." The hope is to enhance the legitimacy of the war, he said. This, however, will only increase the militarization of Afghanistan and the possible bankruptcy of the U.S. economy.

Bennis said, "We need to broaden our movement." She continued, "When we talk about the cost of the war, we mean unions, community organizers, people of color who are at the forefront fighting back against this economic disaster, fighting for jobs, for schools, and for health care. There will be no money for jobs, schools and health care if we continue this war."

Venugopal said working to end the war involves an ideological battle about the role of government. "Even if the money is shifted away from the war, it does not flow to the right places," he said. For example, he noted that "funding for tax breaks to Marathon Oil to refine Canadian oil sands may increase jobs, but at what cost?" The cost is increasing pollution and health problems and this use of our tax money does not mitigate poverty and unemployment. "We must not focus exclusively on the funding of the war," Venugopal said. "We must expand the discussion to show the connection of the war to the impoverishment and pollution of U.S. cities." It is essential to make a connection between social problems and foreign policy, he said. Otherwise, "the peace movement is merely a white middle class movement."

Photo: U.S. Marine Corps photo by Chief Warrant Officer 3 Philippe E. Chasse

Lawmakers urge Afghanistan review

Marilyn Bechtel — Fri, 25 Jun 2010 15:41:00 -0400

Members of Congress are urging reexamination of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, after President Obama fired Gen. Stanley McChrystal as commander of military forces there.

In replacing McChrystal with Gen. David Petraeus, Obama said U.S. policy regarding Afghanistan would not change.

But Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif. - who alone in Congress voted against authorizing the use of force after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack - again called for "a clear exit strategy and a timeline to safely redeploy our troops from Afghanistan."

In a statement, she expressed agreement with Obama's decision to remove McChrystal, and called for fundamentally rethinking U.S. Afghanistan policy and reorienting efforts against terrorism "in a more effective and sustainable manner."

Interviewed by radio station KPFA June 24, Lee said the change in military leadership needs to be accompanied by "a change in strategy, a change in mission, a change in direction."

Noting that U.S. soldiers continue to be in harm's way in "one of the most dangerous periods," she said she "respectfully disagrees" with Obama about the troop surge: "I think this is an opportune time to step back and to reassess where we have been and where we are going."

The issue is increasingly being discussed among members of Congress, Lee said. "There is a lot of reluctance right now to continue to support this war in Afghanistan, recognizing that there is no military solution."

With a vote expected soon on a $33.5 billion supplemental appropriation for the war, Lee said the amendment she is introducing to deny funding for the increase in troop levels "is picking up support." Last fall she introduced HR 3699, to ban funding for any increase in the number of U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan. The measure now has 31 co-sponsors, including some recent additions.

Emphasizing that global terrorism must be addressed "in a big way," Lee commended Obama for "doing a good job," and noted that he inherited the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan from President Bush. "But I think he also needs to break away from the past policies on terrorism and know that we have to have a comprehensive policy on terrorism" that includes diplomacy and development, she said.

Other members of Congress also pointed to the change in military leadership as an opportunity to address underlying issues.

Rep. James McGovern, D-Mass., said that while McChrystal's comments in a Rolling Stone interview "were inappropriate," he is "much more concerned" about the direction of U.S. policy in Afghanistan, including the safety and well-being of U.S. troops and their families. "I believe we need a thorough reexamination of our policy," McGovern said. "This is much, much bigger than a few ill-chosen words."

In April, McGovern introduced HR 5015, "to require a plan for the safe, orderly, and expeditious redeployment of United States Armed Forces from Afghanistan." Lee was an original co-sponsor; the bill now has 98 co-sponsors.

Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., who introduced a companion measure to McGovern's bill in the Senate, called Obama's acceptance of the general's resignation "appropriate," but added that he continues "to have strong concerns about our misguided policy in Afghanistan. After nine years, it is time to give the American people, as well as the people of Afghanistan, a timetable to end this war so our nation can better focus on the global threat posed by al Qaeda and its affiliates."

Meanwhile, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., urged his colleagues to approve the supplemental appropriation, but said McChrystal's remarks, coupled with a House panel's finding that indirect U.S. payments have gone to Afghan warlords and the Taliban, have made it harder to sustain support for the war.

This week a House subcommittee heard results of a six-month investigation that found funds paid to a private security contractor in Afghanistan were diverted to bribes as supply convoys traveled to remote areas.

Photo: Mildred Hardee, mother of U.S. Air Force Staff Sgt. David Smith, touches the flag that draped his casket during funeral services for Sgt. Smith at Mobile Memorial Garden, June 21, in Tillman's Corner, Ala. Smith, 26, was killed in action June 9 while rescuing soldiers in Afghanistan when Taliban insurgents fired two rocket-propelled grenades at his helicopter as it flew across Helmand province. He had only five days of combat duty left, according to his mother. More than 1,000 U.S. soldiers have died in Afghanistan. (AP/Press-Register, G.M. Andrews)

After McChrystal, now what?

PW Editorial Board — Thu, 24 Jun 2010 10:20:00 -0400

President Barack Obama made an important defense of democracy by firing Gen. Stanley McChrystal from his Afghanistan command post, after the general and his top aides lambasted the president and his national security team, including Vice President Joe Biden, for a Rolling Stone article. The president announced McChrystal's boss, Gen. David Petraeus, would take over the Afghan campaign.

Clearly, McChrystal had to go. He publicly expressed contempt for the president and the Constitution, which wisely made a civilian the commander in chief. Part of the battle for democracy in our country is defending that civilian rule against the power of the Pentagon and the military-industrial complex. Score one for democracy with McChrystal's ouster.

But, now what?

There is much parsing as to why the general allowed Rolling Stone - of all places - such access to his seemingly off-the-cuff remarks. Arrogance? Warrior-god complex? Or was it something more political?

McChrystal and other Pentagon bigwigs, including Petraeus, pushed and pushed for an Afghan surge. The president, unfortunately, complied. But Obama added something to the surge that infuriated these generals: a timeline for starting a drawdown of troops - July 2011. A review of the Afghanistan policy is set for December. Perhaps, the message behind McChrystal's Rolling Stone comments: No review, no timeline.

We have said it before, and we'll say it again. War will not solve Afghanistan's many-layered problems. The U.S. war there will not make either Americans or the Afghan people more secure. This is a 30-year civil war that was created by U.S. Cold War policies to begin with. And now the violence is spreading to neighboring Pakistan. It can indeed become the Obama administration's "Big Muddy."

The U.S. public is growing increasingly skeptical of this nine-year war and its mounting cost in treasure and lives.

The Obama administration needs a new Afghanistan strategy. It has to involve getting U.S. and NATO military forces out as rapidly as possible, with a clear timetable - as proposed by Sen. Russ Feingold and Rep. Jim McGovern. It has to focus on helping rebuild Afghanistan's shattered economy, on cooperation with regional powers like China, Russa, Iran and India to that end, and on utilizing the extensive resources and expertise of the United Nations.

Such a strategy will mean standing up to more generals, to the war machine and its far-right partners in Congress. This is a critical juncture, for sure, and one where the American people can play a critical role by sending a message to the White House and Congress that the U.S. must bring the troops home. The $30-plus billion a year for this war should be spent in rebuilding war-torn Afghanistan - and rebuilding our decimated American economy.

See related articles:

The Pentagon's strange new Afghanistan campaign

Is Obama wading into Big Muddy?

Why an Afghan surge will fail

Jobs, not bombs

Photo: Gen. Stanley McChrystal. (www.army.mil)

Israel allows potato chips into Gaza, but blockade continues

Susan Webb — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 16:12:00 -0400

The Israeli government announced some changes to its widely condemned blockade of Gaza last week. It said it would allow potato chips, jam, biscuits, canned fruit, packaged hummus, halva, soft drinks, juice and shaving razors to be imported into Gaza, along with possible additional food items such as coriander and cardamom (both basic Middle Eastern condiments), and cookies.

This was greeted with scorn by Palestinian officials. "They will send the first course. We are waiting for the main course," Palestinian Economy Minister Hassan Abu Libdeh said in Ramallah, in the West Bank. "We are waiting for this unjust siege to end."

The Israeli authorities' move seems likely to further undermine their claim that the blockade has only been aimed at keeping potential rocket and bomb material out of the hands of terrorists in Haza. Potato chips and hummus?

But it indicates the difficulty Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's right-wing government is having in figuring out how to deal with growing world pressure, including from the White House, to end the blockade.

Israel is planning another adjustment, according to Ori Nir of Americans for Peace Now: instead of listing items that are approved for importation into Gaza, Israel will only list unapproved items. That is hardly likely to deflect the pressure for fundamental change.

The Israeli nongovernmental organization Gisha: Legal Center for Freedom of Movement said it was "pleased to learn that coriander no longer presents a threat to Israeli security."

"However," the group said, "Israel continues to prevent the transfer of purely civilian goods, such as fabrics, fishing rods, and food wrappers, as part of what it calls "economic warfare" aimed at crippling Gaza's economy. In doing so, it denies 1.5 million human beings the right to engage in productive, dignified work.

"It is not enough to permit Gaza residents to purchase Israeli-made cookies. Israel should stop banning raw materials such as industrial margarine and glucose, so that Gaza residents can produce their own cookies and restart the economy that has been paralyzed for three years.

"International law requires Israel to allow the free passage of goods and people into and out of the Gaza Strip, subject only to individual security checks."

Nir reports that, according to Israel Radio, the Israeli cabinet is looking into easing the land blockade while maintaining the sea blockade. Others say Israel is considering tightening the land blockade but easing the naval one. Another radio report says Israel will lift the blockade in coordination with the European Union.

Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad called for Gaza's borders to be opened immediately in accord with a 2005 agreement that would restore a role for the West Bank-based Palestinian government in managing the crossings. Fayyad told Reuters this would help reunify the West Bank and Gaza. "Reopening the crossings actually creates a much better environment for reuniting the country and the Palestinian institutions with it," he said.

Fayyad warned against any Israeli actions that would further split Gaza from the West Bank. "If the approach of reopening Gaza focuses on, let's say, ... exclusively maritime traffic, I see a serious risk of that putting us in a situation where we end up having Gaza as a stand-alone entity," Fayyad told Reuters at his Ramallah office.

"That is extremely dangerous from a political point of view, given our objective of ending the Israeli occupation and having a state of Palestine emerge from the territories occupied in 1967," Fayyad said.

Meanwhile, as many as 10 ships may be heading toward Gaza seeking to break the Israeli blockade in the coming months. They include a ship from Lebanon and one or more from Iran - sure to be seen as a provocation by the Israeli government - expected to arrive shortly. The Lebanese ship is expected to have on board dozens of journalists and European activists including members of parliament. The Iranian ship or ships are said to be carrying humanitarian aid collected by the Iranian Red Crescent.

The head of Israel's Shin Bet security/intelligence agency, Yuval Diskin, declared Tuesday that Gaza is not in a humanitarian crisis. But the International Red Cross and the British aid group Oxfam both issued statements this week saying the blockade has created an economic and human disaster for Gaza's 1.5 million inhabitants. The two groups said the blockade amounts to collective punishment of civilians, a violation of international law.

Interviewed on bitterlemons.org, Eyad Sarraj, a Gaza psychiatrist who heads the Gaza Community Mental Health Program, said, "I invite any Israeli to come and live in a refugee camp here and watch his father be unable to find work and provide for his family. I will go and live in Tel Aviv in the meantime. If Netanyahu finds that conditions here are so good, he can come and stay here."

Photo: A Palestinian man works in a bicycle shop in Gaza City. (AP/Maya Hitij)