Dan Feidt's log on Minnesota, Information Operations, spinstorms and latent contradictions.
As you've probably heard now, Israel is finally backing out some forces from Gaza as the "Road Map" catches some wind. This positive turn has been a long time in coming, but similar plans have failed before. The cease-fire itself contains numerous demands on Israel, such as the release of all Palestinian prisoners. Errrr...It nearly collapsed before it started when Israel attacked militants all over. It could be attributed to a systemic problem in Israel's government, in which it's dependent on the military for intelligence, as columnist Aluf Benn points out in Haaretz:
The political echelon in Israel is held captive by the Israel Defense Forces and the intelligence community, because it lacks an independent unit that is exposed to sensitive material and can ask questions before decisions are made. Prime ministers usually depend on their own military experience and judgment. It is true that tedious staff work is not always the recipe for successful decisions... The Israeli "system," in which decisions are improvised and shot from the hip, is an almost guaranteed recipe for failures. That is the way it is now in day to day decision-making about military operations and assassinations, and that is the way it has been for decades in entanglements like the settlements, ultra-Orthodox draft deferments, the occupation of Lebanon and various failed defense projects.Another Israeli angrily rejects the Jewish outpost 'pseudo-evacuation,' in the West Bank, which in reality are mostly uninhabited, 'decoy' outposts which are suitable to make a show of the government doing something, while the large settlements continue to grow 'naturally.' Of course, Ariel Sharon went on to declare a few days ago that construction would continue in settlements like Ariel, but 'without fanfare.' An article in Al-Ahram claims that it's just going to be the same game with the settlers, over and over. If this continues, it's unlikely for a firm peace to hold.
One nice thing going on today is the profusion of internet weblogs in places like Baghdad and Tehran. During the war Salam Pax got to be pretty well-known as 'the Baghdad Blogger.' I'd suggest looking at his look at the return of the Hashemite prince or the story of depressing Baghdad madness:
Actually we have been having pretty bad days. If you would have talked to me a week ago and I would have told you that I am very optimistic; maybe not optimistic but at least had hope. Now I can only think of two things. One of them was something my mother said while watching the news. She was watching something about the latest attacks on the "coalition forces" and their retaliation. She said that she has always wondered how people in Beirut and Jerusalem could have led any sort of lives, when their cities were practically military zones, she said she now knows how it feels to live in a city were the sight of a tank and military checkpoints asking you to get out your car and look thru your bag becomes "normal". When you turn on the TV and just hope that you don?t see more pictures of people shooting at each other.Salam has started a photo-log too. Other Iraqi bloggers include 'G in Baghdad,' who describes an encounter with a captured Syrian teenager in an American-run hospital, or the dual reality of the Iraqi mind:The other thing was something a foreign acquaintance has said after spending some time in the city on a really hot day. He went in threw his hat on the floor and said loudly: "I want to inform my Iraqi friends that their country is doomed". I have no idea what that was about but the sentence just stuck to my mind.
Here in Iraq every citizen was provided -since the early days of the regime- with a whole set of lies that gradually became the foundation on which you would build your perceptions of the world outside. Consequently you end up with two channels, a "channel reality" that is off the air most of the times and "channel rhetoric" a mixture of self-denial, conspiracy theory [apologia] and propaganda.G also has a photolog going now. There's an Iraqi female blogger named Zainab writing now too.Of course we shouldn?t blame Saddam and his lies based tyrannical regime only, this phenomenon has its roots deep in our cultural/religious history. Nowadays the main question every Iraqi is trying to answer, since the removal of our beloved leader is: (how should I feel towards the Americans?) and (is the American "liberation / occupation" a good or bad thing?). Don?t expect an answer from me here, until we have our first Gallup poll in Iraq all what you will get is mere speculations-observations gibberish...
I think one of the main issues we have to face, is how to stop using the rhetoric channel, how could we stop this cog mire of stupid conspiracy theories going on and on and on how to liberate our selves from the secret police mechanisms nesting in our brains, this liberation will not be achieved by American tanks, nor by a self-denial flagellation process.
Iran has experienced an upsurge in blogging as well, as View from Iran and Blue Bird Escape look at Iran from inside. Persian Blogger Chronicles is grad student Alireza Doostar's attempt to chart this new form of information as it emerges from Iran.
While on the topic of blogs, notorious uber-blonde right-winger Ann Coulter supposedly has a weblog now, but it hasn't really started. She must be building up steam and bleaching those locks...
There are a whole lot of other blogs out there to check out. Here's a few:
Why not start with some very interesting comments between Bush, Sharon and Abbas at the mideast summit, as reported in Haaretz?
Substantiated? "God told me to strike at al Qaida"? Damn. I hope someone follows up on this. Here's a Canadian piece about why Blair is catching so much more flak than Bush. It all has to do with the structure of our governments.Selected minutes acquired by Haaretz from one of last week's cease-fire negotiations between Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas and faction leaders from the Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Popular and Democratic Fronts, reveal some of the factors at play behind the scenes in the effort to achieve a hudna [truce]....
[Abbas] emphasized that at that stage he made clear to the participants at the Sharm summit that "we need time and capabilities to stand on our feet. And I explained that I had already spoken with Ariel Sharon about reaching a hudna between all the Palestinian factions." According to Abbas, "Bush exploded with anger and said `there can be no deals with terror groups.' We told him that they are part of our people and we cannot deal with them in any other way. We cannot begin with repression, under no circumstances, and I made clear to Bush that Sharon already agreed with that."...
[Abbas' peace speech]: "We did not speak of our rights but only of our commitments. Bush was impressed by that and mentioned the prisoners and settlements in his speech." On the matter of the right of return, Abbas said "that right appears in all the previous initiatives, and is not under discussion now. Bush asked, if that's the case, why mention the settlements now, and I told him the settlements are happening now. The Israelis use the excuse of natural growth and I told them that according to U.S. statistics, 33 percent of settlements are empty.
Abbas said that at Aqaba, Bush promised to speak with Sharon about the siege on Arafat. He said nobody can speak to or pressure Sharon except the Americans.
According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East. If you help me I will act, and if not, the elections will come and I will have to focus on them."
It is here that one can see the greatest flaw in the American political system. Being president, for the most part, means never having to say you're sorry. That's because the U.S. president is almost completely insulated from his peers, the representatives of the people. Every week, the prime minister has to go down to the House of Commons and look the opposition directly in the eye. He must explain his conduct and his decisions to his peers, to men and women who are formally his equals.Stay up on your war casualties. Since the illustrious Bush landed on the aircraft carrier it's been an average of 1.24 deaths a day.The American president, on the other hand, is constantly surrounded by his inferiors. The only people to whom he is forced to explain himself, on a day-to-day basis, are journalists. Even then, he is able to do so at a time and a place of his own choosing. He can cut short any line of inquiry that displeases him. And if things get rough, he can simply choose, as Ronald Reagan did, not to hold press conferences for years at a time. He is then, in practice, accountable to no one.
A couple interesting piecess from the UK's Independent about the worthless American press (by the BBC's Washington correspondent Justin Webb) and torture in the war on terror:
Privately, the Americans admit that torture, or something very like it, is going on at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where they are holding an unknown number of suspected terrorists.Delicious moral clarity and takin out evildoers. Torture ain't evil if it happens to suspected terrorists, right? The Iraqi power network is a disaster. "Repair crews have reported 2000 incidents of damage to the power grid in six weeks. Some were strategic attacks." And all the water pumps are electrical. This does not make a happy occupied nation. The BBC is reporting that former US ambassador Timothy Carney "has told the BBC it is clear the White House did not think through its post-war plans and that there was a lack of resources and priority given to reconstruction efforts." Most of this news today comes off a news thread at DailyKos. Big ups to them, because they are switching to Scoop, which is what this site runs.Al-Qa'ida and Taliban prisoners inside this secret CIA interrogation centre - in a cluster of metal shipping-containers protected by a triple layer of concertinaed wire - are subjected to a variety of practices. They are kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles. They are bound in awkward, painful positions. They are deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights. They are sometimes beaten on capture, and painkillers are withheld.
The interrogators call these "stress and duress" techniques, which one former US intelligence officer has dubbed "torture-lite". Sometimes there is nothing "lite" about the end results. The US military has announced that a criminal investigation has begun into the case of two prisoners who died after beatings at Bagram. More covertly, other terrorist suspects have been "rendered" into the hands of various foreign intelligence services known to have less fastidious records on the use of torture.
Super-duper leftie historian Howard Zinn comments that we are still looking at something with The Specter of Vietnam:
The elder President Bush in 1991, after the first war against Iraq, announced proudly: "The specter of Vietnam has been buried forever in the desert sands of the Arabian peninsula."There's not much more frightening than the story of the six dead British MPs.But is the "Vietnam syndrome" really gone from the national consciousness? Is there not a fundamental similarity -- that in both instances we see the most powerful country in the world sending its armies, ships and planes halfway around the world to invade and bomb a small country for reasons which become harder and harder to justify?
...What was not talked about publicly at the time of the Vietnam War was something said secretly in intra-governmental memoranda -- that the interest of the United States in Southeast Asia was not the establishment of democracy, but the protection of access to the oil, tin and rubber of that region. In the Iraqi case, the obvious crucial role of oil in U.S. policy has been whisked out of sight, lest it reveal less than noble motives in the drive to war.
In the Vietnam case, the truth gradually came through to the American public, and the government was forced to bring the war to a halt. Today, the question remains whether the American people will at some point see behind the deceptions, and join in a great citizens movement to stop what seems to be a relentless drive to war and empire, at the expense of human rights here and abroad.
After a seemingly prosaic dispute between the paratroops and townspeople escalated into an intense firefight, witnesses said, scores of Iraqis armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers laid an Alamo-like siege to a police station where British military police were training local patrolmen. At least four soldiers were killed at close range when their ammunition ran out. "Almost the whole city was outside," said Ahmed Hassan, a police trainee who was inside the station but escaped through a side window. "It was not a small attack. It was like a war."That about rounds it out for Thursday. This Iraq thing, not really working right....The siege at the police station in this small southeastern town did not appear to have been connected to the former president's supporters. Instead, residents and officials said, it was motivated by a growing anger at the foreign occupation of Iraq.... In Majar al-Kabir and nearby towns, where local Shiite Muslim militias chased out Hussein's Baath Party government before invading troops arrived, British soldiers had adopted a low profile, refraining from shows of force and making relatively few trips into populated areas. But orders to confiscate banned weapons, such as rocket-propelled grenades, led them to intensify searches of private homes, which many residents contend have been conducted in ways that violate conservative local customs. The Iraqis' rage has been compounded by what they regard as insufficient progress by the United States and Britain in addressing the economic disruption and lack of basic services that followed the war.
The confrontation became so intense, witnesses said, that the paratroops retreated down the main street under a hail of gunfire, returning fire as they moved. Although reinforcements arrived and the paratroops were extracted, a dual-rotor Chinook helicopter was hit with a rocket-propelled grenade as an armed throng converged upon the British evacuation point from several directions, the witnesses said.
"The people were shooting at them from everywhere," said Ahmed Fartosi, 37, an administrator at a humanitarian aid center who observed the battle. "The street was like hell. There were bullets everywhere. It was just like a war."
Either during that clash or shortly after, residents said dozens of people armed with AK-47 assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade launchers besieged the town's police station, about a quarter-mile from the market, where six members of the British Royal Military Police were inside training members of the town's new police force. The attackers shouted for the British police to drop their weapons and leave the building, which they refused to do, Hassan said. When the attackers began firing at the concrete-and-brick building, he said, the British fired back through windows and from the roof. [Hassan] and others who witnessed the gun battle said it lasted for about two hours, until the British soldiers ran out of ammunition. At that point, Hassan and others said, the mob rushed into the compound and killed the soldiers.
When you just gotta overrun a rowdy crowd, why not do it in style? The Talon Riot Control Vehicle, an armored truck, will solve your problems with a spotlight, water cannon, CS gas grenade launcher and other exciting features. As the promotional booklet describes it:
Today, in even the most sophisticated communities, the public resort to serious urban or area violence in reaction to the most trivial actions of governments or by other sectors holding opposing views. Matters which in previous times would be highlighted and perhaps resolved by open meetings, petitions and other forms of moderate confrontation now provoke upsurges of violence and destruction on a massive scale.... The Talon support vehicle has been developed specifically to offer assistance to government agencies trying to uphold the social fabric and the rule of law in their countries... Talon puts in the hands of police or the civil authorities a valuable weapon in the fight against those who would overthrow the established order. The use of Talon will restore stability with minimal casualties thus avoiding local or international outcries against the excessive use of force or aggressive tactics. Talon is today's answer to today's problems.Check out the truck pictures. Apparently most of the units were sold to middle eastern countries, surprising as that is. Also there's a BBC video of the truck causing some havoc.
ut This War Had a Much Deeper Significance than Reported! according to a marvelous book I received on Friday. Beyond Iraq: The Next Move, is selling well on Amazon and Barnes and Noble, where it is listed under the 'non-fiction' and 'biblical prophecy' categories. I got my copy the only honest way, through Armageddon Books (order form: "Thanks again for selecting Armageddon Books as your supplier of end-time materials"). Evans' key points:
As I stood and shook Mayor Giuliani's hand, all I could see in my mind's eye were the two 189-ton bombs in the form of fully fueled Boeing 767s hitting the World Trade Towers just as my friend [Mossad director] had foretold. No one could have known that on that Tuesday, the 11th of September 2001, the first war of the 21st century would begin--a war against terror that may well draw the line in the sand, , forever dividing light from darkness, proclaiming like a trumpet a spiritual battle of monumental proportions. Who would have wondered at the time, that the epicenters of this battle would center on ancient Babylon (biblical Iraq) -- the spiritual center of darkness -- and Jerusalem -- the spiritual center of Light... Iraq will become the US base from which the war on terrorism is fought. From there it will only be a short reach to the throat of Syria and Iran and the terrorist networks.Ahh, sweet sweet Christian evangelistic eschatology. It's the end of time and we have front row seats for the showdown of good and evil. What actually egged me to put down $11 on this book is how much it's getting promoted, at least on MSNBC. On Hardball the other day, the host (a sub for Mathews) introduced Evans without putting him into the context of his evangelical beliefs. He just rambled on (the host asked him if he was drunk, after blurting "Sugarcoating Sinai") about the "t" word, terror, being the issue. The issue of the end of the world never entered the discussion, and suddenly the discourse in the book becomes normal. Who is reading up on stuff this way, who sees the world through this lens? What do they believe about Palestinians?
The Big cahuna himself is coming in to speak to Minnesota today at a microchip plant in Fridley. The plant is owned by a hardcore right winger who is on the board of the Center for the American Experiment, and a big wheel with the Taxpayers League. No surprise this cat was chosen.
Doubeya Troublya will be at the Micro Control facility, speaking at about 1:30. The facility is at 7956 Main St. NE in Fridley, just off University Ave. People are discussing what's to be done about the visit (maps are there), some carpools are going. The local Students Against War is running the carpools.
I'm going to try and check it out, we will see what this brings forth in Minnesota. Probably the same apathy as usual. Maybe not. I just personally feel I have to go express some discontent on behalf of all my employed friends.
There's quite a lot of complex madness going on, as sustained riots go on in Tehran; Israel vows to obliterate HAMAS; the US Army, more than a month after 'hostilities subsided,' kills nearly a hundred mysterious guerillas and loses a helicopter. Meanwhile the WMD/lying gov't scandal continues. This is quite a long post summing up the week. If you're in the mood to get really really frightened about the political situation in Iraq, you should check out a couple writings about the problems confronting Paul Bremer, the US administrator in Iraq, and Gen. David McKiernan, the U.S. military leader in Iraq. That website, DailyKos.com, has provided really excellent coverage of Iraq, the Democratic race, and Bush's numerous failings. Check that site frequently.
It turns out that those "mobile bio-weapons lab" things were actually used to produce hydrogen. Dang, another suspected WMD site struck off.
The conclusion of the investigation ordered by the British Government - and revealed by The Observer last week - is hugely embarrassing for Blair, who had used the discovery of the alleged mobile labs as part of his efforts to silence criticism over the failure of Britain and the US to find any weapons of mass destruction since the invasion of Iraq.
Surprisingly, 82 mysterious and shadowy 'Saddam supporters' were killed at a camp this week, although they managed to shoot down an Apache helicopter in the fight. The mysterious forces seem to have quickly retaliated against American forces nearby, as another supply convoy was ambushed.
Wow. That's both frightening and suggestive of escalating problems this summer. What we've seen this past week in Israel and Palestine was hardly encouraging, as Israel attacked Hamas leaders (mostly of the so-called 'political wing') and a suicide bombing killed about 17 in Jerusalem. The situation on the ground has deteriorated this week, which might compel Israel to withdraw from areas in the northern Gaza Strip and Hamas to take a cease fire. Amos Harel in Haaretz has a lot of up to the minute insight on what's under discussion.The BBC's Jim Muir, in Baghdad, says the attackers apparently caught the convoy unawares, with soldiers being carried unprotected and vulnerable in the back of an open truck. He adds that it is a considerable embarrassment for the Americans, coming soon after the end of a much publicised offensive in the riverside country around the nearby town of Balad.
Thousands of US troops took part in the operation around Balad, part of a series of raids codenamed Peninsula Strike. It was launched after a series of attacks on US forces in the area.
Our correspondent says the fact that the Americans should then take another hit so soon and so close by is a clear sign that the coalition's enemies are determined not to be intimidated by such shows of force. It also shows just how vulnerable the American troops may be to the kind of hit-and-run guerrilla tactics that this attack exemplified.
Israel believes Egypt has a key role to play in the latest efforts aimed at calming the violence of the last few days. While Jerusalem was rocked by a suicide bombing last Wednesday, Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman was meeting with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in Ramallah. Suleiman threatened Arafat with a public Egyptian condemnation if he did not stop interfering with Palestinian Prime Minster Mahmoud Abbas.All this Hamas talk could be related to the rather shocking proclamation of Senator Lugar, who now is suggesting that US troops will be used against HAMAS?!?! There is an excellent in-depth look at HAMAS in the Monday NY Times.At the same time, an Israeli security source says the U.S. is fully aware of the fact that the situation is on the verge of exploding. American reservations over Israel's recent measures in the territories have been replaced by renewed pressure on Abbas and Dahlan to accept security control in the northern Gaza Strip. The source claims that the U.S. promised the Palestinians that if they "present us with a serious plan, the Israelis will oblige."
...The decision to target Hamas leaders was not an emotional response that got out of control, sources in the IDF General Staff claimed. They insist that the new policy is the result of calculated considerations, and came after a host of in-depth discussions among top defense establishment officials.
"Abbas' government was sworn in a month ago, and has done nothing," said one high-ranking officer. He added that Hamas has taken advantage of the vacuum, and has encouraged and directed Islamic Jihad and Tanzim in the carrying out of terror attacks. Israel opted for "shock therapy": it placed Hamas leaders in the crosshairs and generated a crisis that will force Abbas and his people to act. For Abbas, said a senior officer, "this is a 'to be, or not to be' moment."
The group's popularity stemmed in part from the absence of the P.L.O., whose leaders were exiled in 1982. Some experts contend that Israel encouraged the development of Hamas indirectly as a way to weaken Mr. Arafat's Fatah party."The intention at the time was to try to stop the increasing power of Fatah," said Yohanan Tzoref of the International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism in Israel.
... Dr. Ranstorp said that the group believed that history would eventually reward it with a Palestinian, Islamic state on all the land that is now Israel.
"When I interviewed over 100 Hamas activists and all leadership, I was quite astonished because everyone told me that an Islamic state would begin about the years 2022 or 2023," he said. "I asked them, 'What are the conditions?' They said: 'Life after Yasir Arafat. Islamic revolution in Jordan and Egypt. Time and demography are on our side.' "
Attacking the Bush administration artfully, Paul Krugman continues to make me a happy person. He is taking the crucial task of labelling Republican political maneuvers such as the attempted redistricting of Texas as dangerously radical.
Normally states redraw Congressional districts once a decade: Texas redistricted after the 2000 census. But under Mr. DeLay's leadership, Texas Republicans are trying to increase their advantage in seats with a second redistricting. This in itself is an unprecedented power grab.Times columnist Nicholas Kristof looks at the whole WMD mystery, and manages to draw new connections about the VP's duplicity and other extreme derelictions of intelligence gathering.But it gets worse. Texas Democrats responded with a parliamentary maneuver, walking out to deprive the state Legislature of a quorum. In response, hundreds of state law enforcement officers were diverted from crime-fighting to search for the missing Democrats ? assisted, yes, by the Department of Homeland Security...
Above all, expect to see the wall between church and state come tumbling down. Mr. DeLay has said that he went into politics to promote a "biblical worldview," and that he pursued President Clinton because he didn't share that view. Where would this worldview be put into effect? How about the schools: after the Columbine school shootings, Mr. DeLay called a press conference in which he attributed the tragedy to the fact that students are taught the theory of evolution.
...I do, however, get angry at moderates, liberals and traditional conservatives who avert their eyes, pretending that current disputes are just politics as usual. They aren't ? what we're looking at here is a radical power play, which if it succeeds will transform our country.
Condoleezza Rice was asked on "Meet the Press" on Sunday about a column of mine from May 6 regarding President Bush's reliance on forged documents to claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. That was not just a case of hyping intelligence, but of asserting something that had already been flatly discredited by an envoy investigating at the behest of the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.One of my favorite characters to emerge as an unexpected leader in this whole muck has to be that slightly tarnished southern gentleman Robert Byrd, who articulates on the Senate floor the rotten depths of what the United States government is doing. He gave this great speech on the Senate floor May 21.Ms. Rice acknowledged that the president's information turned out to be "not credible," but insisted that the White House hadn't realized this until after Mr. Bush had cited it in his State of the Union address.
And now an administration official tells The Washington Post that Mr. Cheney's office first learned of its role in the episode by reading that column of mine. Hmm...
"It was a foregone conclusion that every photo of a trailer truck would be a 'mobile bioweapons lab' and every tanker truck would be 'filled with weaponized anthrax,' " a former military intelligence officer said. "None of the analysts in military uniform had the option to debate the vice president, secretary of defense and the secretary of state."
I don't believe that the president deliberately lied to the public in an attempt to scare Americans into supporting his war. But it does look as if ideologues in the administration deceived themselves about Iraq's nuclear programs - and then deceived the American public as well.
Five days of protesting have gone by in Iran, as students agitated against the conservative Islamic government. Hard-line religious militants attacked students in dorms and elsewhere. I'm wondering about the substance of accusations of American meddling. Is satellite TV meddling? This Washington Post report, filed from Turkey, clearly has an agenda, but I'm wondering how it seems from over there.[T]he danger is that at some point [the truth] may no longer matter. The danger is that damage is done before the truth is widely realized. The reality is that, sometimes, it is easier to ignore uncomfortable facts and go along with whatever distortion is currently in vogue. We see a lot of this today in politics. I see a lot of it -- more than I would ever have believed -- right on this Senate Floor.
Regarding the situation in Iraq, it appears to this Senator that the American people may have been lured into accepting the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation, in violation of long-standing International law, under false premises. There is ample evidence that the horrific events of September 11 have been carefully manipulated to switch public focus from Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda who masterminded the September 11th attacks, to Saddam Hussein who did not. The run up to our invasion of Iraq featured the President and members of his cabinet invoking every frightening image they could conjure, from mushroom clouds, to buried caches of germ warfare, to drones poised to deliver germ laden death in our major cities. We were treated to a heavy dose of overstatement concerning Saddam Hussein's direct threat to our freedoms. The tactic was guaranteed to provoke a sure reaction from a nation still suffering from a combination of post traumatic stress and justifiable anger after the attacks of 911. It was the exploitation of fear....
The Administration assured the U.S. public and the world, over and over again, that an attack was necessary to protect our people and the world from terrorism. It assiduously worked to alarm the public and blur the faces of Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden until they virtually became one...
I contend that, through it all, the people know. The American people unfortunately are used to political shading, spin, and the usual chicanery they hear from public officials. They patiently tolerate it up to a point. But there is a line. It may seem to be drawn in invisible ink for a time, but eventually it will appear in dark colors, tinged with anger. When it comes to shedding American blood - - when it comes to wreaking havoc on civilians, on innocent men, women, and children, callous dissembling is not acceptable. Nothing is worth that kind of lie - - not oil, not revenge, not reelection, not somebody's grand pipedream of a democratic domino theory.
And mark my words, the calculated intimidation which we see so often of late by the "powers that be" will only keep the loyal opposition quiet for just so long. Because eventually, like it always does, the truth will emerge. And when it does, this house of cards, built of deceit, will fall.
President Bush lauded the student protests that sparked five nights of rioting in the center of Tehran. "This is the beginning of people expressing themselves toward a free Iran, which I think is positive," Bush told reporters today in Kennebunkport, Maine, where he was vacationing with his family.The BBC report on the protests has a different spin, as the BBC tends to do. I have a lot of sympathy for those poor Iranian students, who are trapped in an iron triangle between the loathesome governments of Israel, the US and the mullahs. (Not to mention the US army now occupies two adjacent countries, which could cause some unrest.)In Tehran, demonstrators condemned both the hard-line Islamic clerics who hold most power in Iran and the elected reformers who in six years have failed to reduce the conservatives' control over daily life. Chants of "Death to Khamenei!" were directed at the country's supreme religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. But crowds also called for the resignation of President Mohammad Khatami, a reform leader twice elected by landslide margins, who is a moderate cleric.
The unrest apparently peaked early Saturday, when militiamen wielding knives and iron bars attacked students in their rooms at two dormitories, reportedly injuring 50. Government officials singled out -- and by some accounts, attempted to jam -- Persian-language satellite television broadcasts operated by Iranian exiles in the United States. The broadcasts have urged Iranians into the streets, a position also championed by some in the Bush administration.
The complaints of ordinary Iranians, however, center on an authoritarian religious government that has failed to respond to demands for greater personal freedoms and at least the of a better economic future. More than 70 percent of Iran's 67 million people are under the age of 30 and too young to recall the 1979 Islamic revolution that deposed the U.S.-installed monarchy of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and brought the clerics to power.
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan stated in an interview with Haaretz that he would prefer to see an armed international force placed as a buffer between Israelis and Palestinians.
"The monitoring mechanism that will be put in place next week is a beginning and it may be enough if the parties are able to break the cycle of violence. In the interim period, I would like to see an armed peacekeeping force act as a buffer between the Israelis and Palestinians," Annan said in an interview with Haaretz...Essentially, Annan supports the approach that was adopted by Yitzhak Rabin, and later rejected by Ariel Sharon, namely, "to fight terror as if there are no negotiations and to conduct negotiations as if there is no terror." He deems it a "mistake" not to talk as long as violence continues. He is "encouraged" by Sharon's recent statements about his commitment to the peace process and says, "I have to give him the benefit of the doubt. And I expect that he will deliver and that he will engage in the peace process."
The UN secretary general, who can take credit for establishing the Quartet, also does not agree with Sharon's determination to isolate Yasser Arafat. He believes the Palestinian Authority chairman still has wide influence and that it would be better "to encourage him to work for the peace process and to work to support Mr. Abbas. They need to work together for the effort to succeed." Annan asks, "Do you influence him by not talking to him? Or do you have to talk to everyone in order to have a positive influence? The developments that led to the appointment of a prime minister who is compatible with Prime Minister Sharon and President [George] Bush came out of dealing with Chairman Arafat and getting him to take positive steps. So I think he has not been entirely negative."
Annan believes that calm will not come to the Middle East without a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "It is a crisis that inflames the masses in other countries. It is a crisis that inhibits some of the other leaders in the region from being more forthcoming in trying to achieve peace. It is a crisis that is exploited by the extremists and therefore it is absolutely essential that we resolve this conflict."
Ahmed Chalabi, the chairman of the Iraqi National Congress, is claiming that Saddam is hiding out, paying bounties for killing American soldiers, and with him are the answers about weapons.
Chalabi, 58, the leader of the Pentagon-backed Iraqi National Congress, insisted that U.S. authorities would find the former Iraqi government's hidden weapons once they locate Hussein. Chalabi maintained that Hussein is still alive and directing attacks against U.S. soldiers...So who is this marvellous Chalabi? He is derided as a "hapless strutting tool of US imperialism", as Edward Said put it. An old friend of Wolfowitz and generally someone who has taken their paychecks from the CIA. Consider this article "Tinker, Banker, NeoCon, Spy" from last November:The role of Chalabi and other former Iraqi exiles in helping to build the U.S. case for war has been scrutinized recently in Washington, particularly since U.S. inspectors have not provided substantial evidence of Iraqi chemical, biological and nuclear weapons....
Chalabi is a longtime favorite of Pentagon hawks, and he traveled on a U.S. military transport plane with the U.S.-trained 700-member Iraqi Free Forces to southern Iraq during the war. But he has criticized the U.S. military for not anticipating the extent of chaos after the fall of Hussein's government. He said he had repeatedly pleaded with U.S. officials to train a force of Iraqi military police to "go in with the American force" and halt the "looting" and the "acts of disorder."
Chalabi said that the capture of Hussein and his younger son, Qusay, could still hold the key to discovering Iraq's banned weapons: "The weapons and Saddam are one and the same thing."
If T.E. Lawrence ("of Arabia") had been a 21st-century neoconservative operative instead of a British imperial spy, he'd be Ahmed Chalabi's best friend. Chalabi, the London-based leader of the Iraqi National Congress (INC), is front man for the latest incarnation of a long-time neoconservative strategy to redraw the map of the oil-rich Middle East, put American troops -- and American oil companies -- in full control of the Persian Gulf's reserves and use the Gulf as a fulcrum for enhancing America's global strategic hegemony. Just as Lawrence's escapades in World War I-era Arabia helped Britain remake the disintegrating Ottoman Empire, the U.S. sponsors of Chalabi's INC hope to do their own nation building....There is absolutely no food for thought whatsoever in that article. None.In Washington, Team Chalabi is led by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, the neoconservative strategist who heads the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. Chalabi's partisans run the gamut from far right to extremely far right, with key supporters in most of the Pentagon's Middle-East policy offices -- such as Peter Rodman, Douglas Feith, David Wurmser and Michael Rubin. Also included are key staffers in Vice President Dick Cheney's office, not to mention Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey.
The Washington partisans who want to install Chalabi in Arab Iraq are also those associated with the staunchest backers of Israel, particularly those aligned with the hard-right faction of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Chalabi's cheerleaders include the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). "Chalabi is the one that we know the best," says Shoshana Bryen, director of special projects for JINSA, where Chalabi has been a frequent guest at board meetings, symposia and other events since 1997. "He could be Iraq's national leader," says Patrick Clawson, deputy director of WINEP, whose board of advisers includes pro-Israeli luminaries such as Perle, Wolfowitz and Martin Peretz of The New Republic.
There is a frightening level of general violence in many central Iraqi cities, as skilled guerillas probe coalition defenses. In Fallujah, there have been frequent attacks.
The hostility to U.S. forces appears to be most intense in a region west and north of Baghdad dominated by Sunni Muslims who were at the core of the Baath Party and Hussein's government. Cities such as Baqubah, Samarra, Habaniyah, Khaldiya, Fallujah and Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's home town, have been particularly dangerous for U.S. troops.So here's the question: is this going to get better or worse? Easier or more dangerous? Will a pattern emerge in these guerilla attacks, or would the Bush administration prefer for now that you believe this is random flak from an unstable nation? The Times also reports on this tale of terror, "G.I.'s in Iraqi City Are Stalked by Faceless Enemies at Night":"These are military-type attacks," said Capt. John Ives, of the 3rd Infantry Division's 2nd Brigade in Fallujah, 35 miles west of Baghdad. "It could get worse before it gets better. It's a matter that some people want us dead. We're just going to have to take them out." The division was recently dispatched from Baghdad to reinforce the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment in west central Iraq.
In Fallujah, there are also signs of increasing organization and tactical efficiency of resisters, U.S. officers said. Some groups have begun to give themselves names -- things as simple as "The Fighters," according to graffiti on the walls in the town. Gunmen are using spotters placed along the roads or in mosques to signal the arrival of U.S. troops, Capt. Ives said. Once, someone cut electricity to a neighborhood as U.S. forces were approaching....
In Fallujah early today, a convoy of seven U.S. Humvees was attacked as the vehicles moved down Old Cinema Street, a main commercial thoroughfare. The vehicles were ambushed by rifle fire from four sides. The Americans fired at buildings on both sides of the street, chipping concrete off the facades. No one on either side was injured.
There have been attacks on U.S. forces every night in Fallujah since Wednesday, when Iraqis fired a rocket-propelled grenade at a group of soldiers positioned at a ruined police station, killing one. The assailants escaped. Fallujah has been embittered since U.S. forces killed 17 Iraqis during two separate protests in April. U.S. authorities said the soldiers fired in self-defense.
"We've got to be on our toes all the time. Eyes open, scanning the buildings. It's not tanks and infantry we're fighting anymore. It's something more hidden," said Staff Sgt. Fred Frisbie, a military policeman.
Since the American command quadrupled its military presence here last week, not a day has gone by without troops weathering an ambush, a rocket-propelled grenade attack, an assault with automatic weapons or a mine blast.American forces seem to be battling a small but determined foe who has a primitive but effective command-and-control system that uses red, blue and white flares to signal the advance of American troops. The risk does not come from random potshots. The American forces are facing organized resistance that comes alive at night...
Specialist William Fernandez experienced the enemy tactics firsthand while on patrol on Sunday night. Fernandez, a computer engineer in civilian life, was operating the radio.
When he saw a red flare he sensed his patrol was about to be attacked. Suddenly, a grenade exploded directly behind the column of six Humvees, a move he believed was intended to encourage the Americans to drive forward into the kill zone.
Automatic-weapons fire erupted from several rooftops. The Americans fired at the muzzle flashes and left the scene after several minutes. Most of the Humvees had bullet holes, but the soldiers somehow escaped injury.
"It is a miniwar," Specialist Fernandez said.
I hit the road with the troops the next day. The Spartan Brigade was like a band of nomads. They took the furniture, light fixtures, anything to make their stay in Falluja more bearable. Some soldiers even took the toilets and sinks from a bombed-out palace. They figured that the palace was a total loss and that the items could be put to better use in their new quarters, which seemed to me an eminently sensible calculation.Can we say 'freedom fighters'? Can we call this crew those magic words: a P-R-O-X-Y F-O-R-C-E against Iran? A press release of the Iranian government news agency is quite annoyed with the Bush administration for threatening to interfere with Iranian politics. These are useful to look at because they indicate Iran's basic public claims. (link: Agonist)But what were the new quarters? As the brigade arrived, it turned out that it would be setting up camp in a compound built by the Mujahadeen Khalq, an Iranian resistance group that the Clinton administration put on its terrorist list but that asserts it does not support terror attacks against the United States and wants to make common cause against the Iranian government...
The resistance movement assumed that it could stay on the sidelines during the American-led attack on Iraq and had sent a letter to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell indicating that it had no intention of opposing the American invasion. The United States bombed their bases anyway.
After the war, the United States concluded an agreement with the group, which resulted in the handing over of its tanks, artillery and other weapons. They are stored at a camp under American supervision. Thousands of the group's fighters and supporters live at a camp at Ashraf, north of Baghdad.
But at the sprawling compound here, where the Spartan Brigade was setting up Camp, the American military presence was their immediate concern. The compound was the resistance movement's rear logistics base and includes a 100-bed hospital for women, including female fighters, that had been stripped bare by looters after the war. It also has an underground bunker system that is outfitted with a filtration system, a precaution that they say is against an Iranian missile attack.
The movement says it spent $15 million building the complex, using funds donated by Iranian businesspeople within Iran and in exile. The compound was abandoned after the Americans bombed part of it during the war to topple Mr. Hussein, but now the Iranians want to move hundreds of its women here.
"If the United States desires friendship with Iran, it would naturally be expected not to interfere in Iranian domestic affairs and show respect for the decisions of the Iranian people and their values," Kharrazi said in response to Powell's statement that the US is not an enemy of Iran.So is the United States after Iran? That's the question in the Senate right now. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is addressing this, and there seems to be great confusion and 'no debate' according to Condi, simultaneously. There hasn't been that much debate lately... (Link: Agonist)He said that Washington should be familiarized with Iranian history which proves that the people become even more united whenever the country is exposed to foreign interference. Kharrazi noted that the US secretary of state was aware as gathered from his message that the Iranians will not accept foreign interference in the affairs of their country.
The Iranian foreign minister blasted Powell for calling on Iranians to stand up against their government officials and interact freely with the outside world. Powell's latest statement hints at a desire on the part of Washington to resume friendship with Iran, but ironically not a single day passes without a new conspiracy emerging to tarnish the image of the Islamic Republic before the international community.
Moreover, since the victory of the Islamic Revolution in Iran the United States has spared no effort at blocking Iran's economic progress on various pretexts.
Judging by several interviews of committee members from both parties, a consensus seems to have emerged that President Bush has yet to formulate a clear-cut policy toward Iran, which has been seen as a hostile power since the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy compound in Tehran....Thousands of students protested in Tehran yesterday, getting angry about their government. The demonstrators were dispersed by riot police. (Link: Agonist)"I don't think they have a policy," said Sen. Joe Biden (D-Del.), ranking member of the foreign-relations panel, last week. Biden was reacting to unconfirmed intelligence reports that suggested al Qaeda operatives in the Islamic republic had helped plan the May 12 suicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
"I think it's kind of loose talk to be talking about fomenting a revolution in Iran because I think it undercuts the very people in Iran that we should be giving support to ? that is the moderates, who are not necessarily pro-Western, pro-American, but they are democrats with a small d," Biden said...
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer described Iran?s efforts [to stop developing nuclear tech] so far as insufficient, while one administration official questioned why a country with state-owned oil would need nuclear energy. "Why would they need to develop nuclear fuel for a reactor?" he asked.
Meanwhile, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has said that the administration has no intention of debating the future of U.S. policy in Iran. "There really isn?t a debate on this issue," she told Reuters.
To round out a lot of good news, Bush is going to cause the biggest budget deficit in the history of the United States. A liberal complaint is all I have, a criticism, if you will, of the 'conservative' party and their proven fiscal agility. Do they really always have to run the tab up so much every time they get into the White House? This red ink is not just an abstraction, it's a burden of debt that my generation will have to manage. When will they start to tack it down? 2008?
Ed Rosenthal, convicted of growing medicinal marijuana, was sentenced to a day in prison (already served) and fined $1000, the minimum federal sentence. Now Rosenthal wants to fight to eliminate federal marijuana laws.
This is Day 1 in the crusade to bring down the marijuana laws," Mr. Rosenthal said at a news conference held on a parking lot rented by his supporters. "The federal government makes no distinction between medical and recreational marijuana. They're right. All marijuana should be legal."So that's what the DEA says here. Protecting people from illegal drugs. Another AP story illustrates the real agenda of the drug czar.Though there was general consensus that the sentencing today did not amount to a legal breakthrough for advocates of medical marijuana, some predicted it would embolden the movement to challenge federal drug laws. Nine states, including California, allow the sick and dying to smoke or grow marijuana with a doctor's recommendation.
"I think 20 years from now, when historians look back at how the federal war on medical marijuana ended, this will be the hinge point," said Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group in Washington.
But Richard Meyer, a spokesman for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in San Francisco, said the sentencing would have no effect on the agency's work. "We are not listening to them," Mr. Meyer said of the marijuana advocates. "We will continue to protect the public from the dangers of all illegal drugs."
Rosenthal, who dropped out of college in 1967, had a brief stint as a stockbroker before becoming interested in marijuana cultivation and helping launch High Times magazine. He's authored several books on marijuana, including "The Big Book of Buds" and "Ask Ed: Marijuana Law. Don't Get Busted."Serving the seriously ill... not an effective enough way of delivering that stuff. Experts think that the Bush administration will try hard to fight medicinal marijuana, but perhaps it indicates a "change in the political center of gravity."Despite the lenient sentence, Rosenthal filed his notice of appeal Thursday. [He] will ask the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to consider whether Breyer erred in excluding medical marijuana evidence from the trial.
The appeals court also will be asked whether a city or municipality may grant immunity to people growing and distributing medical marijuana. It's the same protection offered to undercover police officers buying drugs, Riordan said. The law says "any official who's enforcing state or federal law relating to drugs cannot be arrested," he said.
California's Proposition 215, which allows marijuana as medicine, was passed by voters in 1996. Eight other states also have declared medical marijuana legal, though federal authorities say any marijuana use is illegal.
Deputy U.S. drug czar Andrea Barthwell, in San Francisco on Thursday visiting a drug treatment center, called the notion of smoking pot for medicinal purposes "silly."
"We prefer to deliver the active ingredient in the pill form," she said, referring to the drug Marinol, which contains a synthetic form of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. "We do not want to encourage patients to smoke weed ... or smoke opium when we have much more effective ways of delivering that stuff."
Rosenthal was arrested Feb. 12, 2002, for marijuana cultivation and conspiracy. He had been growing starter plants in a warehouse in Oakland, in his capacity as an "officer of the city" under the city's medical marijuana ordinance. The plants were distributed to organizations and clubs that serve the seriously ill.
"I'm highly doubtful whether the Bush administration will allow one federal district judge to stop its program," said Evan Lee, a professor of criminal law and federal courts at the University of California's Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco. But Lee said Wednesday's ruling by U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer "lends a great measure of legitimacy" to medical marijuana advocates' criticism of federal policies.In light of Breyer's solid judicial reputation, Lee said, some public officials may conclude that "the political center of gravity isn't where (they) thought it was," a shift that might ultimately force a change in administration policy.
"It seems to me unlikely that the feds are going to give up very easily on this issue," said Jeffrey Miron, an economics professor at Boston University and research associate at the libertarian Independent Institute.
Miron, the Boston professor whose forthcoming book, "Drug War Crimes," endorses drug legalization, said the federal government is right in one respect: Medical marijuana legalization laws have the potential of crippling overall marijuana enforcement.
"These laws have an enormous impact because there are so many conditions for which you can use marijuana as medicine," he said. "The feds understand that (allowing medical marijuana) would open the floodgates" and will maintain their hard line on the issue, he said.
Today's Star Tribune features a story on the conspiracy theories surrounding the death of Paul Wellstone. Most likely it was a random accident, but as Ted Rall said, we can't ignore the remote possibility of a harsh government killing its most powerful liberal opponent. Was Wellstone worth assassinating? I think so. i think my favorite theory is the electromagnetic pulse assassination:
Discounting weather, pilot error or mechanical problems in Wellstone's flight, Fetzer's articles have seized on the possibility of sabotage brought on by a futuristic electromagnetic pulse weapon that he said could have disabled the plane's computerized components. Evidence for this, he said in an interview, was the absence of any distress call from the pilots and the odd cell-phone experience reported by St. Louis County lobbyist John Ongaro.Ongaro, who was near the airport when Wellstone's plane went down, has dismissed the significance of his experience, in which he said his cell phone made "strange" sounds and then disconnected. "It's not unusual for cell phones to cut out, especially in northern Minnesota," he said.
The Democrats are conflicted, believe it or not. Kerry and Dean are dickering with each other, as Dean has been the most outspoken, grassroots oriented Democrat to run. Is there a conflict between the D grassroots, (Wellstone's bread and butter), versus the Democratic national leadership? (link Nick)
The contest for the 2004 Democratic nomination cannot be understood apart from two factors. One is the intense opposition to Bush at the Democratic grass roots. The other is the widely held sense that the party's older strategies and internal arguments are inadequate to its current problems. Candidates can't win if they address only one of these concerns. But addressing both at the same time will require a political magic that Democrats haven't seen yet.
Private schools in Minnesota are undergoing a growth spurt, according to an article in today's Strib. Would Mounds Park do something similar? Well, you gotta keep up with Blake and Minnehaha, dontcha?
Nick was happy with Thomas Friedman in the times yesterday, talking a big game about the whole theory of everything and generally disreputing the usual targets. Friedman is funny, I like to think of him as this guy from St. Louis Park, travelling about on an exciting personal journey to illuminate the whole everything (particularly the Middle East) for confused American liberals. Yet he seems to sugarcoat the corruption inherent in the way America has managed so much. Does he pull it off?
Why didn't nations organize militarily against the U.S.? Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Ideas That Conquered the World," answers: "One prominent international relations school ? the realists ? argues that when a hegemonic power, such as America, emerges in the global system other countries will naturally gang up against it. But because the world basically understands that America is a benign hegemon, the ganging up does not take the shape of warfare. Instead, it is an effort to Gulliverize America, an attempt to tie it down, using the rules of the World Trade Organization or U.N. ? and in so doing demanding a vote on how American power is used."Oh dear, the lack of weapons of mass destruction is blowing a mess all over the place. Paul Krugman is pounding away as usual today on the Bush crew and their addiction to 'spin.'
There is another reason for this nonmilitary response. America's emergence as the hyperpower is happening in the age of globalization, when economies have become so intertwined that China, Russia, France or any other rivals cannot hit the U.S. without wrecking their own economies.
The only people who use violence are rogues or nonstate actors with no stakes in the system, such as Osama bin Laden. Basically, he is in a civil war with the Saudi ruling family. But, he says to himself, "The Saudi rulers are insignificant. To destroy them you have to hit the hegemonic power that props them up ? America."
Hence, 9/11. This is where the story really gets interesting. Because suddenly, Puff the Magic Dragon ? a benign U.S. hegemon touching everyone economically and culturally ? turns into Godzilla, a wounded, angry, raging beast touching people militarily. Now, people become really frightened of us, a mood reinforced by the Bush team's unilateralism. With one swipe of our paw we smash the Taliban. Then we turn to Iraq. Then the rest of the world says, "Holy cow! Now we really want a vote over how your power is used." That is what the whole Iraq debate was about. People understood Iraq was a war of choice that would affect them, so they wanted to be part of the choosing. We said, sorry, you don't pay, you don't play.
It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable. Over the last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each time the administration comes up with another whopper, partisan supporters ? a group that includes a large segment of the news media ? obediently insist that black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the "liberal" media report only that some people say that black is black and up is up. And some Democratic politicians offer the administration invaluable cover by making excuses and playing down the extent of the lies.Sounds like nothing but liberal excuses to me. Bill O'Reilly and Al Franken got in a huge argument over liberal media bias on CSPAN. However what was shown on TV was edited to provide its own perspective. (The fair and balanced Fox News story) I can't seem to find a transcript of the argument around, but here is a story about the whole book fair they were at, which seems to have been overtly political this year. (AP)If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and peace, we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this: Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent ? who supported Britain's participation in the war ? writes that "the prime minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks."
The speaker of the Knesset announced yesterday that Prime Minister Sharon intends to evacuate 17 settlements in the West Bank, including one inhabited by a government minister, Avigdor Lieberman of the National Union party bloc. Said Speaker Reuvin Rivlin (Likud),
"When Sharon talks of painful concessions, he is referring to a concrete plan that he has already discussed with some of the settlers. Sharon has accepted the fact that if we want to live within borders that enable the Palestinians passage that does not go through our territory, a number of settlements will have to be evacuated," Rivlin said.So, on the face the settlement pullback seems positive (and you will see it as such on NBC News) and indeed, it represents a nudge towards reasonable peace, but, as the man says, the point of this is acheiving a semblance of territorial contiguity, not addressing one of the central Palestinian concerns (and justifications for armed action): the continuing process of annexing the West Bank, and legitimizing those annexations. "Temporary borders" could be a euphemism for "legitimizing annexation." Yes? Graham Usher suspects it's possible, because Sharon is still Sharon:Rivlin said that when Sharon became prime minister, and earlier, in talks he had with former prime minister Ehud Barak, he had earmarked 17 settlements for evacuation. "Arik made it clear a number of times that their evacuation is necessary if we are to reach some agreement. Today there are small territorial divisions. They will be united and joined. Joining them will require the evacuation of about 17 settlements," Rivlin said.
Rivlin said that after hearing of Sharon's plans, he decided he could not serve as a minister in his cabinet. "When he offered me a minister's portfolio, I preferred to be Knesset speaker. I told him openly: Arik, we are now on a course of inevitable collision. I cannot release myself from my faith. I will not convert my religion," Rivlin said.
Strategically, Sharon's acceptance of the roadmap marks another stage in his protracted efforts to shift the destination of the conflict away from "an end to the occupation that began in 1967" (in Bush's words) to the establishment of a "provisional Palestinian state with certain aspects of sovereignty" (in Sharon's). According to the roadmap the provisional state is due to come into being in 2004 but more likely at the end of Sharon's watch in 2006. Nor is Sharon's commitment to Palestinian statehood rhetorical; it is practical and being built.The big question, of course, is what Bush, a Christian, will do about the West Bank and its particular religious/social/security structure. Are we looking at a return to the 1948/67 border, or the attempted annexation of large swaths? Time will tell...In early March -- when the world was distracted by Iraq -- Sharon quietly announced that the security barrier currently carving out chunks of Palestinian farmland near the northern West Bank border will go east, severing the central West Bank region from its Jordan Valley hinterland. In April he mused that mammoth Jewish settlements like Ariel that lie 20 kilometres within the West Bank would eventually be "on our side of the fence".
If so, these walls would cage the emerging "Palestinian entity" into three disconnected cantons in the north, centre and south of the West Bank, covering about 42 percent of its territory but hosting most of its two million or so denizens. This is the "occupation" Sharon wants to end: Israel's occupation of the Palestinian "people", not the occupation of the land and resources that is their patrimony.
"The provisional Palestinian state is a new term for Sharon's old strategy for achieving a long-term interim agreement," says PA Labour Minister Ghassan Khatib. "We know that if we get trapped in this phase we won't be able to move to the final status phase -- there is no chance Sharon will allow this. We also know that the provisional state will be autonomy in effect but occupation in practice. Only it won't be called autonomy -- it will be called statehood and Israel would be let off the hook."
Of the many reservations Palestinians have about the roadmap, the provisional Palestinian state idea is perhaps the gravest. They are aware from bitter experience that Israel's provisional arrangements have a habit of becoming permanent borders.