A dishonest broker The bad-faith and violence of US foreign policy Wired Magazine 25 Tons of Bombs Wipe Afghan Town Off Map January 19, 2011 An American-led military unit pulverized an Afghan village in Kandahar’s Arghandab River Valley in October, after it became overrun with Taliban. It’s hard to understand how turning an entire village into dust fits into America’s counterinsurgency strategy — which supposedly prizes the local people’s loyalty above all else. But it’s the latest indication that Gen. David Petraeus, the counterinsurgency icon, is prosecuting a frustrating war with surprising levels of violence. Some observers already fear a backlash brewing in the area. Paula Broadwell, a West Point graduate and Petraeus biographer, described the destruction of Tarok Kolache in a guest post for Tom Ricks’ Foreign Policy blog. Or, at least, she described its aftermath: Nothing remains of Tarok Kolache. On Oct. 6 airstrikes battered the village with “49,200 lbs. of ordnance” — which she writes, resulted in “NO CIVCAS,” meaning no civilians dead. It seems difficult to understand how Broadwell or the military can be so confident they didn’t accidentally kill civilians after subjecting Tarok Kolache to nearly 25 tons worth of bombs and rockets. As she clarified in a debate on her Facebook wall, “In the commander’s assessment, the deserted village was not worth clearing. But without entering Tarok Kolache to clear it, how could U.S. or Afghan forces know it was completely devoid of civilians? The military has held “reconstruction shuras” with the villagers and begun compensating villagers for their property losses, but so far the reconstruction has barely begun. “Sure they are pissed about the loss of their mud huts,” Broadwell wrote on Facebook, “but that is why the BUILD story is important here.” Broadwell writes that the operation is ultimately a success. Petraeus told his commanders in the south to “take a similar approach ...on a grander scale as it applies to the districts north.” According to Erica Gaston, an Afghanistan-based researcher with the Open Society Institute, the level of property destruction at Tarok Kolache is “extreme” compared to other operations, so it doesn’t appear as if wiping out villages is standard procedure. But from what she hears, destroying Tarok Kolache — in order, apparently, to rebuild it — has meant jeopardizing whatever buy-in local Afghans gave U.S. troops. --- 17 January 2011 Telegraph.co.uk Russian nuclear officials have warned of another Chernobyl-style nuclear disaster at Iran's Bushehr reactor because of the damage caused by the Stuxnet virus, according to the latest Western intelligence reports. The Stuxnet virus caused extensive damage to the plant's computer systems, which is widely believed to have been the result of a sophisticated joint US-Israeli cyber attack. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the Stuxnet virus had been developed as a joint project by US and Israeli intelligence officials at Israel's top-secret Dimona nuclear site in the Negev desert. (The attack also caused downtime for computer systems here in the US and around the world.) --- January 15, 2011 The New York Times The Dimona complex in the Negev desert is famous as the heavily guarded heart of Israel’s never-acknowledged nuclear arms program, where neat rows of factories make atomic fuel for the arsenal. Over the past two years, according to intelligence and military experts familiar with its operations, Dimona has taken on a new, equally secret role — as a critical testing ground in a joint American and Israeli effort to undermine Iran’s efforts to make a bomb of its own. [There is NO PROOF Iran is seeking nuclear weapons.] Israeli intelligence has been accused by Iran of being behind the deaths of several Iranian scientists. The Israeli Knesset was recently informed that Iran had run into technological difficulties that could delay a bomb until 2015. That represented a sharp reversal from Israel’s long-held argument that Iran was on the cusp of success. --- antiwar.com January 19, 2011 Adding to the evidence that the State Department has been behaving more as an espionage organization than a diplomatic one, a new WikiLeaks cable from 2008 revealed then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice seeking the collection of broad data on Israel and the Palestinian Authority. [In other words, the US and Israel are such close allies that they spy on each other and tell each other lies. ] --- antiwar.com January 16, 2011 Israeli officials have announced yet another plan for a massive settlement expansion, with 1,400 new homes proposed for a settlement in occupied East Jerusalem. The move comes just a week after Israel demolished an historic East Jerusalem hotel as part of a previous plan to expand a settlement into an Arab neighborhood. That move came after Israel demanded Palestinians accept new peace talks. Israel’s claims over territory seized in 1967 is not recognized internationally. --- (Inter Press Service) January 15, 2011 Calls are growing for a swift international response to the situation in the Middle East, as Israel continues to build new settlements in Palestinian territories. Last week, the Palestinian envoy Riyad Mansour sent a letter to the U.S. ambassador saying this was being done "for the direct purpose of altering the demographic composition, character and legal status of its Palestinian inhabitants through forced evictions, home demolitions, revocation of residency rights, and other measures in flagrant violations of international law and past Security Council resolutions." The Palestinians have also been circulating a draft resolution that would declare Israel’s settlement building in East Jerusalem to be illegal. The Palestinians enjoy overwhelming diplomatic support in the U.N. General Assembly. The scene in the Security Council chamber is somewhat different, where over the years, the U.S. has repeatedly blocked resolutions that were either in support of the Palestinians or against Israel. However, it may not be so easy for the U.S. to continue its unconditional support for Israel. Last month, for example, Human Rights Watch called for Washington to stop giving aid to Israel in an amount equivalent to the costs of its spending in support of settlements, and to monitor contributions to Israel from tax-exempt U.S. organizations that violate international law. Aware that the U.S. is Israel’s largest weapons supplier, Amnesty International has called for an arms embargo on Israel. Considering the wider support for the Palestinians on the international level, the noted U.S. intellectual and political analyst Noam Chomsky thinks that a shift in U.S. policy on Israel may not be impossible. But "to break the logjam," he writes in a recent article run by the New York Times Syndicate, "it will be necessary to dismantle the reigning illusion that the U.S. is an ‘honest broker’... ." --- antiwar.com January 19, 2011 The Obama Adminstration angrily warned the Palestinian Authority as well as the United Nations against a new Security Council resolution which would criticize Israel for its massive expansion of settlements on occupied Palestinian land. The US insisted the move would “complicate” peace talks between Israel and the PA, though with the talks entirely stalled for months on end that seems to be only a minor concern for many. Though the US traditionally vetos anything which even resembles criticism of Israel the resolution was deliberately worded to explicitly parrot US comments regarding the settlements, and it would be even more hypocritical than usual for the Obama Administration to veto it. A number of US Senators have written a letter demanding the veto all the same, however, insisting that the efforts to criticize the illegal settlements proves the Palestinians want to “dictate terms to Israel.“ [Yeah, that would be called "a two-sided negotiation."] --- TIME Magazine Jan 21 It was always going to be a struggle for the U.S. to dissuade its Arab allies from going ahead with a U.N. Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements. But last week's "people power" rebellion in Tunisia has made Washington's effort to lobby against the plan more difficult. Tunisia has given the autocratic leaders of countries such as Egypt and Jordan more reason to fear their own people. For those regimes, symbolically challenging unconditional U.S. support for Israel is a low-cost gesture that will play well on restive streets. Going ahead with the resolution, which was discussed on Wednesday at the Security Council and demands an immediate halt to all Israeli settlement construction in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, is, of course, a vote of no-confidence in U.S. peacemaking efforts. There are no negotiations under way, and the Palestinians have refused to restart them until Israel halts its settlement construction. Initial responses at the Security Council reflect unanimous international support for the demand that Israel stop building settlements. If a vote were held today, the U.S. would be the only possible nay. --- Christian Science Monitor The cluster bomb ban – officially known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions – comes into force today. Countries that have ratified the treaty must stop making cluster munitions, dispose of stockpiles, and clear contaminated areas. August 1, 2010 Four decades ago American aircraft dropped more than 2 million tons of bombs on Laos. The campaign was kept hidden from Congress and the public. Many of the bombs failed to explode upon impact. On average, one person a day is injured or killed in some part of the country by unexploded ordnance. Cluster bombs affect about two dozen nations, from Afghanistan to Zambia. But it was Israel's use of the weapon in Lebanon in August 2006, causing more than 200 casualties over the following year, that spurred members of the international community to act. On Aug. 1, the Convention on Cluster Munitions comes into force under international law. --- The Jerusalem Post Thu, Jan 20, 2011 Palestinian flag in Washington ruffles feathers PA envoy: Move "indicates the willingness of the American administration to deal with the realities on the ground.” For the first time, the PLO hoisted its flag above its Washington mission on Tuesday, saying the symbolic step shows progress in the US-Palestinian relationship. Some in Washington opposed the move, however – including House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairwoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-Florida). “Raising this flag in DC is part of the Palestinian leadership’s scheme to manipulate international acceptance and diplomatic recognition of a yet-to-be-created Palestinian state, while refusing to directly negotiate with Israel, or accept the existence of Israel as a democratic, Jewish state,” she said in a statement. [That means they reject an impossibility: Israel can't both be "a Jewish State" and a democracy.]