Maravot world news

01.29.06 Force alone won't defeat extremism

Excerpts: Last month the US attacked Al-Qaeda in tribal areas of Pakistan. Was this attack coordinated with Pakistan?
This was definitely not coordinated with us. We condemn it and have objected to it as an issue of sovereignty. (But) we do know there are foreigners and Al-Qaeda in that (area). It is my regret that there are (such) people there.

Arabs and Al-Qaeda?

Yes, indeed. We are investigating who got killed there. Probably - and I use that word carefully - there were five or six Arabs or foreigners killed there.

It was reported in the US that top Al-Qaeda members were killed.

While this (strike) is a violation of our sovereignty, I also consider the presence of Al-Qaeda and foreigners a violation of our sovereignty. Let�s not play into the hands of extremists (who say) that sovereignty is only violated when someone comes by air.
If the US has intelligence that a terrorist leader is hiding in a certain house – is there time for the US and Pakistan to coordinate?
You have to compromise on these things. Our capability is not as much as the US, but that doesn�t mean that we should allow US forces to operate in Pakistan.

In other words, the US should turn the intelligence over to Pakistan?

There is a lot of coordination going on (in) intelligence.

The argument they use in Washington is that intelligence is short-lived and action is necessary. [More>>nation.com.pk ; See also washingtonpost.com, "Q&A: Pervez Musharraf, President of Pakistan."]

01.27.06 New coalitions forming against the US due to Bush's medaevil policies (continued)

Yesterday India's expressindia.com carried an article against US threats to stop nuclear power plant development there if India does not support a UN referral against Iran, pushed by the Bush administration.

It appears to me that the Iraq War has blind sighted the Bush administration and the American people to the extent that all of the "diplomatic" posturing during the past years among the nations mentioned have left the US more powerless.

The concept of spreading democracy is a good one. But each receives according to its abilities. The Philippines, for instance, was one of the first democracies set up by the US, and it has had the continuing reputation of being one of the most corrupt governments in the world. On the other hand, Iran formed its democracy, producing through Ahmendenijad, one of the greatest threats against US security, as we have been witnessing. Hamas is jumping the threat into Palestine, with Syria already a nation long alienated, against US influence and Israel. And, of course, even if Iraq becomes "pacified" and its "democracy" becomes secure, indications are that it could shift closer to Iran, joining the alliance that is forming around them. The US option would be to continue to maintain its military presence, holding Iraq as a "protectorate." But it is more likely that the US led by the Bush administration, like Rome led by the corrupt and inept Emperor Domitian, will lose more influence and "territory."

Isn't it time for Congress to rein in the President, to create a more positive and certainly more mature policy in dealing with the nations around us? Bush has created a monstrous coalition against the US and economics or arms cannot conquer the nature of the embittered coalition. We are in a new world, and though Bush talks about "New strategies for the 21st century" he has actually been pursuing Medieval strategies; i.e., his Crusade.

In view of the above, is there anyone in Congress that has any understanding of what has been going on behind our back?...

Mel Copeland

01.27.06 Hamas supreme leader 'returning from exile' (continued)

Mr. Mashal, a former physics teacher considered by Israel to be the director of Hamas's terrorist arm, escaped an assassination attempt by Mossad agents in Jordan in 1997. He retains a hardline stance against Israel, and his potential return to help steer his victorious organisation is likely to further enrage Israeli authorities.

In an interview broadcast by the Al-Arabiya television channel before Hamas's election victory, Mashal referred to Israel as the "enemy" and refused to countenance the possibility of peace talks. "What is the point of negotiations when your enemy does not acknowledge your rights? We should escalate the resistance," he said. [More>>timesonline.co.uk ;

See related stories:

independent.co.uk, "From bombs to ballots: is Hamas fit to govern? – Hamas scores stunning win.." : ...Hamas, which has been on ceasefire for more than a year but has been responsible for more than 400 deaths of Israeli civilians in some 58 suicide bombings during the past five years, immediately said it would try to form a unity coalition with the defeated Fatah, which was dogged during the election by splits and a reputation for corruption and inefficiency....

washtimes.com, "Leader likely to cut ties to Israel" : GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip, January 27 – Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar has proposed a dramatic shift of Palestinian policy – ending security cooperation with Israel, cutting most trade links with the Jewish state and refusing to engage with the "Christian-Zionist" U.S. administration.

"We have to go away from Israel and move toward all possible linkages with our Arab and Islamic brothers," he told The Washington Times just days before his militant movement's stunning election victory. "Cooperation [with Israel] on the security and economic fields was a disaster for the Palestinians," he said Although he promised last night to invite Fatah and independent candidates to participate in a broad-based government, Mr. Zahar – the highest-ranking Hamas official in the Palestinian territories – gave no indication that the electoral success had softened his views.

"Resistance is a legitimate right of the Palestinian people, and we will not abandon it. There is no contraction between resistance and entering the legislative council," he told reporters at his party's Gaza City headquarters...

See below link – timesonline.co.uk, "Who's who in Hamas?" : Mahmoud Zahar, Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh are widely considered to be the three most senior figures in Hamas...

Maravot News 01.24.06 (debka.com), "Heads of 10 Palestinian leaders received in Damascus by Iranian president Ahmendenijad." ]

01.26.06 Bush: To be a peace partner, Hamas must give up violence (continued)

US President George W. Bush said Thursday that Hamas cannot be partner for Middle East peacemaking without renouncing violence, and he reiterated that the United States would not deal with Palestinian leaders who do not recognize Israel's right to exist. He also called upon defeated chairman Mahmoud Abbas to remain in office. [More>>Jerusalem Post ; See also islamonline.net, "Hamas to form cabinet, loser Fatah not joining" : "President Abbas will give Hamas the task of forming the government, in which Fatah will not participate," chief negotiator Saeb Erakat, a leading Fatah member, told Agence France-Presse (AFP). "The victors must assume their responsibilities towards our people in every field -- political, security, economic and national," he added. Acknowledging the defeat, Premier Ahmed Qorei and his cabinet ministers resigned Thursday.

"This is the choice of the people. It should be respected," he said. But the government remained in office in a caretaker capacity. Under the law, Abbas must ask the largest party in the new parliament to form the next government. Winner Hamas said it remains ready to negotiate with Abbas and other parties on political partnership. "Hamas is not going to work alone, but with the other groups who represent the Palestinian people," chief candidate Ismail Haniya said Thursday.

"We will negotiate with Abu Mazen (Abbas) and other parties over forming a political partnership. We want to work with you together because the challenges facing the Palestinian people are great and the fight is still long," he said, addressing his remarks to long-dominant Fatah...]

See timesonline.co.uk, "Who's who in Hamas?"

01.25.06 The case for impeachment – It's not just for radicals anymore (continued)

But the real eruption came when a questioner listed several war-related Bush misdeeds and asked, "Are these not high crimes and misdemeanors?"

Both of the city's dominant political factions – the radical lefties and the loyal Democrats – went nuts, the room filling with sustained applause and chants of "Impeach! Impeach!"

Pelosi resisted this call for radical change. "For those of you concerned about these issues," she told the crowd after the roar had died down, "I urge you to channel your energies into the 2006 elections."

But outside the beltway, in congressional districts all over America, the "I" word is moving out of the margins. In the wake of the revelation that federal officials have been illegally eavesdropping on American citizens without required warrants – which President George W. Bush not only admitted approving, but promised to continue under his expansive view of executive power – has propelled talk of impeachment into the political mainstream.

Although political leaders and major media outlets have been slow to pick up on the trend, national polls now show a majority of Americans support an impeachment inquiry.

And the sentiment is growing – and getting increasingly vocal. At one point in the meeting, Pelosi was asked whether she will support a resolution by Rep. John Conyers to create a committee with subpoena power to investigate whether members of the Bush administration may have committed impeachable offenses. "I do not intend to support Mr. Conyers's resolution," Pelosi replied.

...After Bush last month confirmed he authorized intercepting perhaps thousands of communications without required Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants – which have proven easy to obtain and can even be issued after the fact – Nixon's White House counsel John Dean concluded Bush was "the first American president to admit to an impeachable offense."

That charge prompted Sen. Barbara Boxer to seek the assessment of four of the country's leading constitutional experts, scholars respected by both major parties, writing in her letter to them, "This startling assertion by Mr. Dean is especially poignant because he experienced first hand the executive abuse of power and a presidential scandal arising from the surveillance of American citizens." [Full story>>sfbg.com]

Editorial note: A January 23 press release from Senator Dianne Feinstein on the issue of "NSA domestic surveillance," says:

Recently, there have been troubling reports of a decision by the Bush Administration that has threatened to upset the delicate balance between ensuring national security and protecting our nation�s Civil Rights. Reports that the President authorized domestic surveillance of US citizens by the National Security Agency, in apparent violation of the law, are profoundly troubling. I deeply believe there needs to be an opportunity to investigate these troubling revelations.

The President and members of his administration have tried to assert that the original authorization for the use of force following 9/11, coupled with the President�s role as Commander in Chief, allows him to act contrary to statutory authority. I believe this interpretation of the Constitution is both incorrect and dangerous, and I am requesting an inquiry into this issue.

Both the Judiciary and the Intelligence Committees have had numerous hearings and briefings on the authorities provided to the nation's law enforcement and intelligence agencies in their effort to defend against terrorism. We have extensively debated these issues. At no time, to our knowledge, did any Administration representative ask the Congress to consider amending existing law to permit electronic surveillance of suspected terrorists without a warrant such as outlined in the New York Times article.

Recent reports of a "Pentagon investigation" of an anti-war student protest held on the University of California, Santa Cruz campus are equally disturbing. And I have sent a letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, asking for a prompt inquiry about these alleged reports of improper domestic surveillance of US citizens on US terrority.

[For more details on Feinstein's inquiry into the Bush administration's "apparent violation of the law" and her statement on the Judiciary Committee vote for Judge Samuel Alito to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, see feinstein.senate.gov]

Mel Copeland

01.25.06 US officials stashed cash and wasted money in Iraq (continued)

The audit covered projects awarded to contractors in the South Central region of Iraq, which includes the cities of Najaf and Karbala and al-Hillah. The report comes a week before the Inspector General's office gives its official six monthly update to the US Secretaries of State and Defence.

Among the irregularities recorded by the auditors was the case of a contracting officer who kept $2 million in cash in a safe in his bathroom. A paying agent was found storing $678,000 in an unlocked filing cabinet in his office. Officers were described bickering over a missing $100,000 and one soldier was known to have accompanied Iraqi athletes to the Philippines, where he gambled away between $20,000 and $60,000. [More>>timesonline.co.uk ; See related story, independent.co.uk, "US charts the chaos of Iraq's reconstruction program" : A new report by the American government has highlighted the chaos of Washington's post-war reconstruction programme in Iraq, hamstrung from the start by inadequate staffing, bureaucratic infighting and mounting security costs....The document provides a wealth of fresh detail, charting from the inside how control over projects would jump from one US government agency to another, and how dozens of agencies had a hand in the process of awarding contracts, reducing it to chaos. The problems, it says, began even before the war. In November 2002, the US Army spent $1.9m producing a contingency plan, should Iraqi forces sabotage oil installations - as they had done to those of Iraqi-occupied Kuwait in February 1991.

...Reconstruction planning before the war was kept very secret, the report says, "to avoid the impression that the US government had already decided on [military] intervention". This meant the occupation authorities had few detailed plans. And there was constant feuding between the State Department and the Pentagon, in charge of reconstruction. The latter clung to the assumption by Paul Wolfowitz, the former deputy defence secretary and a prime architect of the war, that because of Iraq's oil riches, reconstruction would pay for itself...Full story>>independent.co.uk ; a later (AP) version, January 29, of the report is here: hosted.ap.org]

01.25.06 Double bomb attack in Iran leaves eight dead and dozens wounded (continued)

"The president had been scheduled to give a speech this morning in Ahvaz, although the bombs did not explode in the same place where the speech was scheduled to have been delivered," an aide to the president told AFP.

"President Ahmadinejad's visit to the province was cancelled yesterday (Monday) afternoon because of bad weather." Gholam Hussein Elham, a government spokesman, said Ahmadinejad ordered the intelligence and foreign ministries to probe "the role of foreign hands" in the bombings. [More>>dailystar.com.lb ; See also Iranfocus.com, January 25, "Ahmadinejad sees 'footprints of Iraq's occupiers' in Iran blasts" : Iran�s hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad accused the United States and Britain of being behind twin bomb attacks in the southern Iranian city of Ahwaz. At least eight people died and dozens were injured when two bombs exploded at a bank and a government building in the oil-rich city on Tuesday. Speaking after a cabinet meeting in Tehran Wednesday morning, Ahmadinejad said, �The footprints of the occupiers of Iraq in the events in Ahwaz are crystal clear and they must accept responsibility for their criminal actions�.

Separately, Iran�s Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki accused Britain of involvement in the two bombings. "Britain must answer the Iranian nation�s questions regarding the events in Ahwaz and the terrorist explosions in Khuzestan [Province]," Mottaki said.]

01.25.06 It's either a nuke deal or Iran pipeline – Pakistan to US

The Pakistani request followed US Under-Secretary of State Nicolas Burns' recent visit to Islamabad where he staunchly defended Indo-US nuclear deal saying that India had a strong case as it had no record of proliferation of nuclear weapons while the same was not the case with Pakistan, specially due to activities of disgraced scientist A Q. Khan.

Pakistani media reports said that Aziz during his talks in Washington linked the civilian-nuclear deal to the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, which Washington objected to in view of its growing confrontation with Iran on issues concerning Tehran's nuclear programme.

"Aziz made it clear to the US administration that Pakistan needs energy for its growing industrial needs. So if the US would not give civilian nuclear technology to Pakistan, which it is offering to India, Islamabad has no other option but to go for the pipeline project with Iran," Pakistani daily The Post reported. Islamabad now hopes Bush may make a positive announcement in this regard during his visit to Pakistan, sources said...[Full story>>expressindia.com ; See also Maravot News editorial, January 24, "Pipeline Wars."]

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Copyright © 1981-2006 Mel Copeland. All rights reserved
Painting of Apple by Mel Copeland, early 70's
Background: tile from Cicero's villa (Marcus Tullius Cicero 106 B.C. - 43 B.C.)

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