LONDON - The number of British soldiers to die in Afghanistan overtook the toll in Iraq on Friday, underlining the shift in focus between the two theatres of war.
I'm not sure why the second clause was added -- British soliders were dying in Afghanistan even when the focus was on Iraq.
The Ministry of Defence on Friday announced the deaths of eight soldiers Afghanistan, taking to 184 the total number killed since operations against the Taliban Islamists began in late 2001. Of these, at least 147 were killed as a result of hostile action.
Friday's deaths took the Afghanistan toll past that in Iraq, where 179 soldiers died since the campaign began in 2003. Of these, at least 136 were killed due to hostile action.
Taking considerably more of the enemy with them, one imagines.
The last solider to die in Iraq was Private Ryan Wrathall following a gunshot wound suffered in the southern city of Basra. He was the only British soldier to die in Iraq this year.
But Iraq is not the danger to the region it was when the Coalition invaded in 2003, and Arab imaginations have been stirred by the possibility of democratic self-rule instead of tyranny, so he did not die in vain.
British forces formally ended combat operations in Iraq on April 30, one month ahead of schedule, and have withdrawn from their last remaining base in Basra. A small Royal Navy training team remains at the nearby port of Umm Qasr.
British troop numbers were the second largest in the Iraq campaign, peaking at 46,000 at the height of combat operations. British troop levels in Iraq were at 4,100 before the final withdrawal.
As British troop numbers were scaled down in Iraq, the numbers in Afghanistan rose. Some 8,300 British troops are now in Afghanistan, largely in the troubled southern Helmand Province battling Taliban insurgents.
The deaths of five soldiers in two explosions while on patrol near the town of Sangin in Helmand was one of the worst incidents in terms of British casualties since the start of operations in Afghanistan. Four soldiers were killed in a blast in June 2008, and 14 people died in a Nimrod aircraft crash in 2006.
WASHINGTON -- The 4,000 U.S. Marines now pushing deep into Taliban-controlled tracts as part of an expanded war in southern Afghanistan are setting up fire bases amid some of the most productive poppy fields in the world's opium-producing capital. It's not harvest time in Helmand province, the center of Afghanistan's thriving opium poppy industry. But even if the flowers were blooming, it's doubtful the Marines would do much about it.
Convinced that razing the cash crop grown by dirt-poor Afghan farmers is costing badly needed friends along the front lines of the fight against Taliban-led insurgents, U.S. authorities say they are all but abandoning the Bush-era policy of destroying drug crops. "Eradication is a waste of money," U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke told The Associated Press last month.
On a small scale, the new live-and-let-live policy on poppy farming neatly illustrates the redrawn goals for a nearly eight-year war that all the military might of the United States and its allies has failed to win. Heroin may be a deadly scourge, but there are more pressing concerns, U.S. officials say, and ways to fight drug production without driving Afghan farmers into the hands of the Taliban. "You're able to put a hurt on the Taliban without necessarily putting the hurt on the people who happen to live there," said William Wechsler, deputy assistant secretary of defense for counter-narcotics and global threats.
The United States has spent about $45 million annually in recent years to support poppy eradication in Afghanistan, and the policy has also been a cornerstone of the United Nations anti-drug program.
I'm confused: President Bush was executing a U.N. plan? But I thought he was a maverick cowboy who didn't play well with others.
Afghanistan is the world's leading source of opium, cultivating 93 percent of the world's heroin-producing crop. While opium cultivation dropped 19 percent last year,
Why such a significant drop, pray tell?
it remains concentrated in Afghanistan's southern provinces where the Taliban is strongest. The U.N. estimates that opium poppies earned insurgents an estimated $50 million to $70 million last year.
That will pay for a lot of jacket wallahs and truck bombs to be sent to Karachi and Islamabad... and a few to send to Afghanistan.
U.S. officials said they will now "greatly de-emphasize" eradication, which has been carried out by Afghan forces with U.S. backing. The U.S. military stays at arms' length, and NATO forces fighting alongside the U.S. do not participate. The shift away from eradication is still more plan than policy, and it has little practical effect right now. The announcement came after the largest harvest was in for the season.
"The real difference as we move from how we were focusing on Afghanistan in the past (to) the president's new focus on counterinsurgency is this is a policy that defines the strategic interest, that defines winning over the population," as the primary goal, Wechsler said. As a forthcoming mission statement from the new American commander in Afghanistan is expected to conclude, the Obama administration will measure success in Afghanistan not by the number of insurgents killed but by the number of civilians protected.
Earning or buying civilian support is a central tenet of the counterinsurgency strategy U.S. leaders are trying to apply in Afghanistan, after the encouraging example of tribal leaders in Iraq who rejected al-Qaida.
The U.S.-backed government in Kabul was never enthusiastic about eradication, arguing in private that it punished small-scale farmers and endangered Afghan forces. The Bush administration pushed the policy in part out of the conviction that a similar policy had worked in Colombia. "Our experience with illicit crop reduction programs worldwide has shown that a credible threat of forced eradication remains critical to the success of a comprehensive counternarcotics strategy," Nancy J. Powell, the State Department's acting anti-drug chief testified to Congress in 2005. The policy also resonated with Republicans on Capitol Hill, who have so far said little about the shift.
Perhaps the shift also resonates with Republicans on Capitol Hill?
It is not clear whether money requested for eradication this year would be spent elsewhere, but U.S. officials have told allies that Washington will increase funding for alternative agriculture from tens of millions of dollars a year to hundreds of millions of dollars.
It seems to me that was part of the Bush anti-poppy campaign, too, and was quite successful in ending poppy production outside of Helmat province. Nice to see President Obama will continue yet another program initiated by his much-maligned predecessor.
The Obama administration is sending dozens of agronomists and irrigation specialists to Afghanistan this summer as part of what it says is the new, less militarized look of the Afghan mission.
Therefore...
President Barack Obama approved 21,000 additional forces for Afghanistan this spring, of which the Marines moving through Helmand province are the vanguard.
The military is increasingly targeting drug labs and distribution networks used by traffickers, often in partnership with insurgents. In theory, that approach allows the sharecropper farmers to get paid but cuts profits for their Taliban-affiliated masters. "You hurt them when you take out where the value is added," at the lab or warehouse, said Gen. John Craddock, who until this month was the U.S. general in charge of the NATO operation in Afghanistan.
Paste made from poppies is worth about $250 a kilogram, but the value jumps to $2,500 a kilogram or more once the material is refined at a processing lab, Craddock said. A kilogram is about 2.2 pounds. "Destroy the facility ... and you take big money out of the pocket of traffickers," Craddock said. "That's where I think we can make the difference."
Craddock said he agreed with Holbrooke's assessment that eradication has been a wasteful failure and should be scrapped. "It might destroy some acreage, but it didn't reduce the amount of money the Taliban got by one dollar," Holbrooke told the AP. "It just helped the Taliban."
#1
Can we just outbid the current paste buyers - the farmers will make more and we can cut the supply from the drug makers. Could just bid the price up and make the farmers rich, but we can spend a lot of money there before we get close to what we spend elsewhere on the drug war, and nothing else worked, so why not try?
#2
The downside would be an increase in growers world-wide, to take advantage of the guaranteed demand from the US government buying program. So it could only be useful locally and for short periods.
#3
I'd buy the crop, every year, every bit. I'd even provide the seed. And I'd have Monsanto work on a hybrid poppy plant: you know, grows better.
Like all hybrids, it would be sterile.
And then one spring ...
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/11/2009 12:40 Comments ||
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#4
I think part of the problem here is transportation costs. Communication lines are so bad in Afghanistan that the only crop that brings cash is stuff that goes for big bucks because it's highly illegal. Who knows, build some roads instead of amusement parks, and stuff like maize might turn out to be a viable cash crop.
A spokesman for the ISPR on Friday denied the remarks attributed to chief military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas in an interview with CNN. Quoting Abbas from an exclusive interview, CNN had claimed that the Pakistani military was in contact with Taliban leaders and could bring them to the negotiating table with the US. "The remarks attributed to the ISPR director general are totally baseless, fabricated and unfounded and out of context ... the ISPR rejects them," said the spokesman.
The problem is that CNN's history must lead one to think they are either sparing with the truth or shading their presentation of it.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
so, it's just another CNN news mirage? Ho hum.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/11/2009 10:34 Comments ||
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CNN claimed on Friday that the "Pakistani military has declared" that it is in contact with Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar and can bring him and other commanders to the negotiating table with the US.
"The Pakistani military has the ability to get the Taliban to the table with the US to broker a ceasefire by jump-starting a dialogue between the warring parties," reported CNN, claiming that it was quoting army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas from an 'exlusive interview'. "That's right. Dialogue," said Abbas. "Eventually, one would have to return to the dialogue table. I think that can be worked out."
Abbas said that in return for any role as a broker between the US and the Taliban, Pakistan wanted concessions from Washington over Islamabad's concerns with India.
CNN also claimed that the "Obama administration is willing both to talk to top Taliban leaders and to raise some of Pakistan's concerns with India".
Abbas told CNN that following the Soviet war in Afghanistan, the Pakistan remained in contact with Taliban commanders such as Mullah Omar, but that did not mean "you endorse what they are doing".
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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[Mail and Globe] An African Union (AU) panel led by former South African president Thabo Mbeki on Friday backed an international court's indictment of Sudanese officials, including President Omar Hassan al-Bashir, for war crimes.
The panel's recommendation showed the differences around Africa over the indictment for crimes in the Darfur conflict. An AU summit in Libya last week voted to suspend cooperation with the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the matter.
Mbeki told reporters his panel of eight eminent Africans had consulted widely inside and outside Sudan.
"The consensus reached is that those charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity should appear in court and defend themselves," he said. "The warrant has been issued. There is nothing that can be done."
The ICC has indicted al-Bashir on seven counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, including murder, rape and torture.
He has dismissed the allegations as part of a Western conspiracy, and the AU has sought a deferment of the indictment, saying it has complicated peace efforts in Darfur.
United Nations officials say the Darfur conflict in Sudan's western region has killed as many as 300 000 people since 2003.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Mbeki told reporters his panel of eight eminent Africans had consulted widely inside and outside Sudan.
[Mail and Globe] The United Nations human rights chief said on Friday that Islamist insurgents in Somalia had executed civilians and set off bombs in residential areas, violations that she said may amount to war crimes.
"May"? I see where the problem lies.
Navi Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, cited credible reports that rebels had also set up tribunals that have handed down death sentences by stoning and decapitation, and also ordered amputations.
Civilians, especially women and children, are bearing the brunt of the latest violence in the lawless Horn of Africa country, she said, as government troops try to drive insurgents out of their bases in the capital, Mogadishu.
"Witnesses have told UN investigators that the so-called al-Shabaab groups fighting to topple the transitional government have carried out extrajudicial executions, planted mines, bombs and other explosive devices in civilian areas and used civilians as human shields," Pillay said in a statement.
"Fighters from both sides are reported to have used torture and fired mortars indiscriminately into areas populated or frequented by civilians," she said. "Some of these acts might amount to war crimes."
Al-Qaeda-linked fighters in al-Shabaab control much of southern and central Somalia and all but a few blocks of the capital. Neighbouring countries and Western governments fear that if the Somali government is overthrown, the country will become a safe haven for al-Qaeda training camps and militants will destabilise the region.
Pillay, a former UN war-crimes prosecutor, said rights activists, aid workers, journalists and the displaced are especially vulnerable. Six journalists have been killed in Mogadishu this year, including four apparently assassinated, she said.
There was also increasing evidence that "various forces" in Somalia are recruiting child soldiers, a serious violation of international human rights and humanitarian law, she said.
"Once order has been restored -- and one day order will be restored -- those responsible for human rights violations and abuses should, and I hope will, be brought to justice," said South African Pillay.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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[Maghrebia] A former leader of Algeria's Armed Islamic Group (GIA) claimed that his terrorist group killed seven Trappist monks in Tibehirine in 1996 after negotiations with French authorities broke down, international press reported on Thursday (July 9th). Abdelhak Layada's statements to El Khabar and other Algerian newspapers contradicted a French general's recent claim that the Algerian army accidentally killed the monks during the aerial bombardment of a suspected Islamist camp. Layada was sentenced to death in 1993 and released in 2006 under the Charter for Peace and National Reconciliation.
Earlier this week, French General Francois Buchwalter - France's military attaché in Algiers in 1996 -- alleged that the case was covered up by both French and Algerian authorities in a bid to protect bilateral relations. On Thursday, Algeria's National Rally for Democracy (RND) condemned the allegations as a "biased campaign" against Algeria.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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[Kyodo: Korea] Visiting Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei and Japanese Foreign Minister Hirofumi Nakasone agreed Friday on the importance of cooperation among the five countries involved in the six-way talks with North Korea to denuclearize the nation, a Japanese Foreign Ministry official said Friday.
While noting that the six-party talks aimed at ending North Korea's nuclear ambitions is the most ''realistic framework'' to deal with issues concerning the North, Nakasone stressed to the chairman of the multilateral talks the need for ''steady cooperation'' between Japan, China, South Korea, the United States, and Russia.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Yeah. They should all pound the crap out of that pipsqueak government. This is ridiculous allowing the NorK mouse to lead the West around by one ballhair.
#2
Think of it more like the extremely noisy Chiwawa Yipping and barking at a Great Dane, when the Dane finally gets pissed off, two bites and noisy nuisance ceases to exist.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/11/2009 4:13 Comments ||
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[Kyodo: Korea] North Korea held wreath-laying and other commemorative events on Friday to mark the 115th anniversary of the birth of Kim Hyong Jik, the grandfather of the country"s leader Kim Jong Il. A flower-laying ceremony held in Pyongyang was attended by the country"s No. 2 Kim Yong Nam as well as Ri Yong Mu, vice chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission.
I think he's dead, Jim.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Yup, he's dead alright.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/11/2009 4:05 Comments ||
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SEOUL, July 10 (Yonhap) -- Top nuclear negotiators from South Korea and China will meet next week in Seoul to discuss pending issues surrounding Pyonyang's recent military provocations, the foreign ministry here said Friday. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who chairs the six-nation denuclearization talks, is scheduled to visit Seoul on Sunday for a two-day visit as part of a regional tour, the ministry said. Wu visited Russia and the United States and is currently in Japan.
Wu will hold meetings with his South Korean counterpart Wi Sung-lac to discuss their countries' implementation of the U.N. Security Council resolution against North Korea and ways to bring the isolated nation back to the stalled six-party talks. Wu will also meet with Kwon Jong-rak, Seoul's vice foreign minister.
Pyongyang has vowed to boycott the six-party talks, involving the two Koreas, the U.S., China, Russia and Japan, citing the U.N. sanctions imposed for its recent nuclear and rocket tests.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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South Korea plans to toughen its restrictions on goods entering North Korea starting this Friday. The move is in line with UN Security Council Resolution 1874 issued following the North's nuclear test in May.
The Unification Ministry in Seoul says the items in 13 categories that are under new regulatory control are mostly luxury goods including cars, expensive liquor, jewelry, electronics and antique artwork.
You would have thought this would have been done some time back ...
Special authorization will be required in order to transport the items into North Korea except in the case of South Korean government or business representatives who need such items as part of their official duties or even for personal use.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
I'll bet Kim Jong Ill is shuffling his tiny feet in rage.
China is preparing to impose independent sanctions on North Korea, according to a senior U.S. State Department official. The official in a press briefing held on Wednesday said China is in the process of developing its own implementation plan to impose sanctions on North Korea.
No more cognac for you, Kimmie!
That suggests China is willing to cooperate with the U.S. The remarks come after a series of visits to China by Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg and Ambassador Philip Goldberg, the U.S. coordinator for the implementation of UN sanctions, in the wake of the UN Security Council's adoption in June of Resolution 1874 sanctioning North Korea for its nuclear test.
North Korea's international activities are apparently being strangled. The U.S. official said since the sanctions were imposed, the names of North Korean banks are found less frequently in some countries and North Korean enterprises are changing their names. He added ASEAN member states are also cooperating, having promised to enforce Resolution 1874.
Meanwhile, U.S. Senator Sam Brownback on Wednesday introduced a bill to relist North Korea as a country sponsoring terrorism and impose new economic sanctions. This bill envisages the U.S. Treasury Department banning transactions between American banks and foreign banks with a history of dealing with the North Korean government or senior North Korean officials. The bill also envisages the U.S. State Department returning North Korea to the U.S. terror blacklist, from which it was struck last October.
Posted by: Steve White ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#4
The Chicoms ultimately have the power over the Norks. They are the ones supplying the oil that keeps the Kimmie military machine running. It is obvious that the Chicoms do not give a rat's behind about the North Korean people, otherwise they would straighten out Kimmie in a Pyongyang Minute. They look at the Norks like they do Africa. Just another sh*thole to extract resources out of.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/11/2009 23:47 Comments ||
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Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari reportedly admitted this week that his country created extremist groups to achieve short-term tactical objectives. The statement made Tuesday before a group of retired bureaucrats in Islamabad comes only days after Zardari's June 22 op-ed piece in The Washington Post saying: "If the Taliban and al-Qaida are allowed to triumph in our region, their destabilizing alliance will spread across the continents."
In Tuesday's comments in Islamabad, Zardari said the extremist groups did not come about because of government weakness but were deliberately "created and nurtured" as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives, London's Daily Telegraph reported. "Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities. The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well," the Telegraph report quoted the president as saying.
"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities. The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well."
Newspapers in neighboring India gave wide coverage to the remarks as New Delhi for years has said Pakistan has been supplying arms, ammunition and providing training to militants to stage cross-border attacks on Kashmir, a charge Pakistan has always denied. These militant groups also are seen using their sanctuaries in Pakistan for cross-border attacks on U.S.-led NATO troops in Afghanistan. The Times of India, calling Zardari's comments an astonishingly candid admission and the first such by a Pakistani president, published the story on its front page headlined: "Terror is Pak baby: Zardari."
"Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralized but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve short-term tactical objectives," the Indian newspaper quoted Zardari as saying. The newspaper wondered about the remarks' impact on the powerful Pakistani military, which was described as historically setting the tone of Pakistan's India policy.
The Daily Telegraph report said Zardari's remarks echoed similar ones he had made in an interview with the newspaper. In the interview, Zardari also was quoted as saying no one in the Pakistani establishment now supports these extremist assets. The report said groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed have long been regarded as Pakistan proxy forces by diplomats and intelligence services but that Pakistan in the past had always denied any links.
An editorial in Dawn, Pakistan's leading English-language newspaper, referred to Zardari's reported remarks and said: "The president is right, and we would add the policy was wrong then and it is wrong now. It cannot be any other way. How is it possible to rationally explain to the people of Pakistan that the heroes of yesteryear are the arch-enemies of today? The militants' religious justifications remain the same; what's changed is that the militants were fighting the state's 'enemies' yesterday but have turned their guns on the state and its allies today."
The editorial said it is the Pakistani security establishment's inability to admit grave mistakes were made in the past that more than anything else is impeding the defeat of the militants today. "Should we have ever used jihadi proxies to fight the Russians in Afghanistan? Should we have ever supported the idea of armed jihad in Kashmir? Should we have ever sought to retain our influence in Afghanistan through the Taliban? If any of those choices ever made sense, then we should have no complaints about the rise of Talibanization in Pakistan because we created the climate and opportunity for them to run amok," the editorial said.
Pakistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs reportedly sought to clarify Zardari's remarks, saying the president was only referring to the period prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States. But for India, no clarification was needed. Indian Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna told both houses of Parliament Thursday that Zardari's admission had validated India's stand about state-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan. "As regards Pakistan, we have got some kind of confession from the highest authority of Pakistan. To that extent, India's stand has been vindicated in the eyes of the world," Krishna said, adding, "I hope, hereafter, Pakistan will make a determined bid to curb terrorism," media reports said.
The London Daily Telegraph quoted India's Minister of State for External Affairs Shashi Tharoor as saying that Zardari's statement had clarified what India had long believed -- that Islamabad had armed and trained terrorists to launch cross-border attacks.
[ADN Kronos] The Mumbai terrorist attacks that killed 170 people in November last year were planned and launched by Pakistan, according to a report by the Indian government . The report, included in the defence ministry's annual report, said Islamabad's involvement had a serious effect on relations between the two countries.
"The terrorist attack on Mumbai in November, 2008, and clear evidence that the attack was planned and launched by Pakistan have thereafter led to a pause in the (India-Pakistan composite dialogue) process," said the Indian ministry 's 2008-09 report released on Thursday.
"The expanding footprint of extremist and terrorist organisations in Pakistan... (and) the continuing links of these organisations with the Pakistani state adds greater complexities and dangers to the evolving situation confronting us," the report states.
"Pakistan's history of military and quasi-military adventurism underscores the seriousness of the threat we face."
Nine gunmen were among the casualties in the Mumbai attacks that targeted two luxury hotels and other locations in the city.
The only surviving gunman, Mohammed Ajmal Amir Qasab, is facing charges in New Delhi for murder, conspiracy to wage a war against the nation, and terrorism.
He is alleged to belong to the banned Pakistan-based Kashmiri separatist group, Lashkar-e-Toiba. He faces the death penalty if he is convicted.
India and the United States have accused the Pakistan-based Islamic militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba of financing and carrying out the Mumbai attacks.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Pakistan has a death wish!All their neighbours hate them and only Saudi supports them but only if they become an Islamic state.
India is considering possibilities to reduce paramilitary forces in Indian-held Kashmir (IHK) by 10,000 once the ongoing Hindu Amarnath pilgrimage is completed in early August.
Home Ministry sources said they were not against removing paramilitary forces from the IHK and relinquishing control to local police, but claimed the process would take at least two years. They said the proposal was dependent on an intelligence assessment of the situation.
No affect: The officials said the proposed troop reduction would not hamper ongoing operations or create any gaps in the counter-insurgency grid, adding alternative plans were in place to account for any contingency.
The sources said the unrest in Pakistan was a cause of concern for the government, particularly after the suicide blast in Muzaffarabad. "We have redrawn the counter-insurgency strategy to deal with this phenomenon by undertaking aggressive patrolling along the Line of Control, conducting strikes at militant hideouts in remote areas and denying them any base in the hinterland," they added.
On Friday, Home Minister P Chidambaram asked the IHK government to handle the unrest resulting from allegations of soldiers raping and killing Kashmiris "politically" and "swiftly". He said it was difficult to resolve the situation with protestors pelting stones on security officials. He also asked the state government to address mistrust by appointing ministers to visit all sites of unrest.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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[ADN Kronos] On the fifth anniversary of the International Court of Justice finding that Israel's building of a barrier in the occupied Palestinian territory was illegal, a United Nations independent human rights expert spoke out against what he says is Israel's violation of Palestinian rights.
"Tear down that wall, Mr. Netanyahu," Richard Falk, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, said at an international conference at The Hague on the ICJ's 2004 Advisory Opinion.
That opinion called on Israel to halt construction and bring an end to its system of curbing the freedom of movement of Palestinians in the West Bank.
By a majority of 14 to 1, the judges found that the barrier's construction breaches international law, saying it violated principles outlined in the UN Charter and long-standing global conventions that prohibit the threat or use of force and the acquisition of territory that way, as well as principles upholding the right of peoples to self-determination.
Although Israel claims the barrier is only a temporary security measure, the ICJ said that the specific route chosen is unnecessary to achieve its security objectives, with most of the barrier running inside the West Bank, instead of the so-called Green Line, or 1949 Armistice Line.
The barrier is still under construction, and "despite this Israeli refusal to comply [with the ICJ's decision], the United States, the European Union, and the United Nations have totally ignored Israel's defiant behaviour, which has resulted in a major encroachment on Palestinian rights, as well as sending the cynical message that power trumps law," Falk said today.
Thus we see exactly how many legions the ICJ has.
Israel's refusal to dismantle the barrier is just another example of its "unlawful conduct," including settlement expansion and imposing collective punishment on Gaza's population, he added.
The West Bank branch of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) said that the barrier, which is 60 per cent completed, "is but one element of the wider system of severe restrictions on the freedom of movement imposed by the Israeli authorities on Palestinian residents of the West Bank." At present, more than 600 closures block Palestinians' movement in the West Bank, while an increasingly segregated road system restrict travel for them while Israelis can move freely, the Office said. Such constraints not only curtail Palestinians' freedom of movement, but also impede a host of other human rights, including the right to work, health, education and an adequate standard of living.
"And Palestinian residents currently lack meaningful access to an effective remedy -- judicial or otherwise -- for their plight," OHCHR said, calling on Israel to comply with the ICJ's Advisory Opinion and make reparations for any damage caused.
Such viciously silly people pretending to be meaningful.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
Sure. The barriers can come down the day after all "Palestinians" are deported to The Hague.
Posted by: ed ||
07/11/2009 1:15 Comments ||
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#2
What about Israel's right to self-determination and the right to exist?
#3
Whenever the UN comes out with some pronouncement like this, Israel should routinely offer some snarky comment about that UN bureaucrat having too many catamites.
[ADN Kronos] Gaza's ruling Hamas movement paid a ransom to those who kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, sources told Adnkronos International on Thursday. Meaning they bought him...
"The Islamic resistance movement paid money to the kidnappers of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit so that they could give him to them, in a bid to break any ties with them (Hamas)," an unnamed source from the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine told Adnkronos International (AKI) in an interview from the Jordanian capital Amman. Or maybe they financed the kidnapping for plausible deniability that turned out to be pretty implausible.
The source - who wished to remain anonymous - also told AKI that the last payment was made after the Gaza war in December 2008 and January 2009. Although the source did not know the precise amount of money allegedly paid "according to information we have, the figure is about six million dollars." Obviously they expect to get their money's worth. And the number 6 million seems particularly apt when dealing in Jews...
"Shalit's destiny is totally in the hands of Hamas, and the issue of prisoner exchanges is no longer linked to that of national reconciliation, but only to the issue of the reconstruction of Gaza," the source said. Israel has demanded the release of Shalit and that militant factions cease all their operations in Gaza.
The source said Hamas received Shalit alive but apart from that, "we know nothing else about him".
Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak said earlier this week that Shalit was "fine".
Shalit has been held captive by Hamas militants in the Gaza Strip for almost three years. He was seized by militants in a cross-border raid on 25 June 2006. The Marxist-Leninist DFLP is one of the largest factions inside the Palestinian Liberation Organisation.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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#1
MOSAD, Find these people. And you'll find Shalit's grave.
Posted by: Redneck Jim ||
07/11/2009 4:17 Comments ||
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From Geostrategy-Direct, subscription.
MOSCOW -- Russian industry sources said Iran is examining Russian-origin submarines and could move to the procurement stage in 2010. The platforms were identified as the Project 636- and Amur-1650-class submarines, the subjects of briefings at the International Naval Show-2009 in St. Petersburg.
"Russia's export potential in this market sector is very high thanks to Project 636 and Amur-1650 class submarines equipped with the Club-S integrated missile systems," Russia's state-owned arms export agency Rosoboronexport said.
In a June 24 statement, Rosoboronexport said fourth-generation diesel-electric submarines could be sold to up to 40 foreign clients by 2015. The agency did not identify the clients, but the sources said Iran and Algeria appeared to mark the leading prospects.
Iran has already received Kilo-class submarines. In 2006, Algeria agreed to procure the Project 636 Kilo submarine in a contract that industry sources said has not yet been finalized.
Project 636 Kilo-class submarine has been deemed one of the stealthiest submarines in the world. The platform was designed for operations in shallow water.
Rosoboronexport has also been exporting the Project 677, or Lada-class, diesel submarine. Project 677, the export version of which is known as the Amur 1650, contains a new anti-sonar coating for its hull as well as an extended cruising range and advanced anti-ship and anti-submarine weapons.
Russia has also been offering Club-S submarine cruise missiles, which includes the 3M-54E1 anti-ship missile and the 3M-14E land-attack variant, with a range of 275 kilometers. The missiles were said to be capable of launch from standard torpedo tubes from a depth of up to 40 meters.
"By 2010, the share of naval equipment in Russia's arms exports will reach 15 percent, and by 2011 it will total 20 percent," Rosoboronexport delegation head Oleg Azizov said.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
07/11/2009 14:34 ||
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#1
Well, if you are going to buy soviet submarines, make sure they throw in the rescue gear cause you will undoubtedly need it.
#6
There is a dangerous naval build up happening in the world right now, but unlike the pre-WWI naval build up, this one is mostly of submarines. This is inherently dangerous to peace, and hopefully the USN will develop a plausible deniability program of encouraging unrecoverable accidents in enemy submarines before long.
A group of hardline Iranians gathered in front of the German embassy in Tehran on Saturday to protest against the murder of an Egyptian woman inside a German courtroom, a Reuters witness said.
There is a severe unemployment problem in Iran. How nice that this lot found jobs, jobs that entail working outside in the healthy fresh air and sunshine.
"There were around 150 students and they threw eggs at the main gate of the German embassy," said the witness. "The students chanted 'Death to Germany' and 'Death to Europe'" the witness added.
Marwa El-Sherbiny, 31, mother of a 3-year-old and three months pregnant, was stabbed 18 times by the man she was testifying against during a July 1 appeal hearing in Dresden, German prosecutors said. Her killer also stabbed her husband, who German police then mistook for the attacker and shot in the leg, prosecutors said. German prosecutors said the killer, a German of Russian origin, was appealing against a conviction for insulting Sherbiny by calling her an "Islamist," "terrorist" and "slut" when she asked him to make space for her son to go on the swings at a playground in Dresden.
Sherbiny's murder has incensed public opinion and the media in Iran, where hundreds of worshippers condemned the crime at Friday prayers, and state media called her a "martyr" of Islamic values. Iran summoned German ambassador to Iran Herbert Honsowitz on Friday to protest against the murder, urging Berlin to do more to protect the rights of religious minorities in Germany.
Yes, yes, that will definitely make a difference.
Sherbiny's body was flown to Cairo and her funeral took place on Monday. Her murder angered public opinion and the media in Egypt too.
Both the US and Israel believe Iran has the technical capacity to build one nuclear bomb within a year if it decides to do so, but both countries also believe the chances that Teheran will indeed make that decision are slim, according to assessments made known to The Jerusalem Post. Let's play "Identify that Assumption" . . . .
According to these Israeli assessments, there is not much difference now between the US and Israel regarding a timeline for a "worst case scenario" on Iran's development of a bomb. At the same time, both Jerusalem and Washington currently believe that "worst case scenario is not likely to materialize."
The assessments come in the wake of comments made Sunday by US Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, to the effect that Iran could be as little as a year away from completing a nuclear bomb, while Mossad head Meir Dagan recently surprised many by saying Iran won't have a nuclear weapon until 2014.
"I would be careful about all the declarations on this matter," said one senior government official who deals with the issue, adding that a decision by Teheran to go full throttle toward the building of a bomb was dependent on numerous different decisions the government would have to make, and which it had simply not yet made.
In the meantime, the official said, the Iranians have decided to continue to enrich as much low grade uranium as they can, and to also continue development in the field of ballistic missiles at a level that would not make their situation with the international community much worse than it already is. For peaceful purposes, of course.
Some American and Israeli experts have long argued that, rather than pushing for a bomb the moment they can, the Iranians may want to gain the potential capacity, over a longer period, to build an entire nuclear arsenal - and then stay weeks or months away from final bomb-making but ready to make the ultimate push should they so choose. And we're all sure they haven't started already because of what?
The international community, meanwhile, signaled on Thursday that it was still keeping its eye on the nuclear issue, with the G-8 leaders giving Iran until late September to accept negotiations over the issue.
The US is still waiting for an Iranian answer to President Barack Obama's offer of engagement on the nuclear issue. Let me guess, will it involve delay tactics?
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said the situation would be reviewed at a G-20 meeting of developed and developing countries in Pittsburgh on September 24, and that "if there is no progress by then, we will have to take decisions."
A unilateral attack by Israel on Iran to thwart the Islamic republic's nuclear ambitions would be an "absolute catastrophe," Sarkozy was quoted by AFP as saying on Thursday after the G-8 summit in Italy. That's a worst case. What if even half of the west grows some balls? Problem solved.
From an Israeli perspective, the senior government official explained, the G-8 deadline included both positive and negative aspects.
On the positive side, there has been a degree of concern in Jerusalem since the events that followed the June elections in Iran that the international community would try to push back the timetable on the nuclear issue until the dust cleared in Teheran.
The G-8 statement, the official said, strengthened the sense in Jerusalem that the international community was sending a message that "time is of the essence," and that international stocktaking of Iran's position on the issue would take place regardless of Iran's internal situation.
On the negative side of the ledger from an Israel perspective, however, was that the G-8 deadline was also a sign the international community was sill locked into "engagement" mode, dashing any thinly held hope in Jerusalem that the Iranian regime's brutal repression of the protests there would lead toward immediate sanctions.
According to the senior government official, under the current timetable Iran had until September to give a decision on engagement. If the talks began, then by the end of the year - as Obama said in May during his meeting in Washington with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu - there would be a reassessment of the situation, and a determination whether to continue dialogue or take more serious sanctions.
Regarding the contradictory messages that came out of Washington this week as to whether the US was giving Israel a green light for military action, with Vice President Joe Biden implying that a green light was being given, and Obama categorically denying that, the official said that Obama has been consistent in speaking against an Israeli military action.
What needed to be explained, the official said, were Biden's comments. He can't keep his mouth shut. They're probably indicative of what's really going on.
"Biden's comments seem to have come out of the blue," he said. "There has been no discussion with the US over the last few months about the possibility of an attack." Yeah. The One chose a crazy person to be his running mate. He makes stuff up all the time. His closest advisors are getting ready to have him committed any minute.
The official said it was also not clear how the recent events on the ground in Iran would impact on the nuclear issue.
On the one hand, he said, the protests have highlighted the vulnerability of the regime, which now appears significantly weaker than it was before the elections and their aftermath. It wasn't any stronger before, if you really think about it.
On the other hand, the official said, many believe that Iran's foreign policy and its policy on the nuclear issue will only become more intransigent as a result of the developments.
"There is a contradiction," the official said. "While the regime is more vulnerable than in the past to pressure from the international community, this may lead in the early stages to a hardening of its positions."
"When you are weak domestically, you can't show that you are weak externally as well. The opposite is true," he said. "You have to take a tougher stand with the world so they don't conclude that because you are under domestic pressure, you will fold under external pressure."
According to this logic, if the Iranians were willing to absorb the harsh international criticism that came with cutting down the reformers, then they would also be willing to absorb international censure in going forward with the nuclear program.
The international community, however, is now more prepared to impose serious sanctions on Iran than it was before the recent events, the official added. Sanctions shmanctions.
RELATED
Israel orders 1st stealth F-35 squadron Related? Just what is it that you are trying to say?
[Al Arabiya Latest] Israel is ready to withdraw from areas of the Golan Heights, but it will not give up large parts of the occupied territory in any peace deal with Syria, a top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday.
In an interview that shored up the contradictions in Israel's foreign policies, National Security Adviser Uzi Arad told Israel's Haaretz newspaper the Jewish state plans to withdraw from some areas in the Golan Heights, Syrian land captured in the 1967, but intends to remain in the strategically key areas.
Arad followed his announcement with a demand that as part of a statehood deal that settles the conflict with the Palestinians, Israel should be granted NATO membership.
The consensus in Israel was that it must keep a strong presence in the Golan Heights for "strategic, military and land-settlement reasons," despite Syria's demand for a full Israeli withdrawal as part of a peace deal which includes normalizing ties with Israel.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said last month peace talks could not resume because Israel was not committed to reaching a deal. Turkey has said it was willing to resume mediating the indirect negotiations.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[4 views]
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#1
The Golan is hard fought over high-country which Syria repeatedly used to launch wars and terrorism against northern Israel.
Posted by: Mark Espinola ||
07/11/2009 15:00 Comments ||
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[Iran Press TV Latest] The G8 summit in Italy draws to a close with US President Barack Obama delivering a blunt warning to Tehran over its uranium enrichment activities.
Obama, speaking at the end of a G8 summit in Italy, said Iran should understand that world countries are "seriously concerned" over its nuclear work, and would not wait "indefinitely" to allow Tehran to develop a nuclear weapon.
He, however, said that G8 countries are united in their decision to negotiate with Tehran to resolve the international standoff over the Iranian nuclear issue.
"...My hope is that the Iranian leadership will look at the statement coming out of the G8 and recognize that world opinion is clear," Obama told the L'Aquila summit.
Obama explained that Iranian officials have time to respond to the offer for negotiations until the G20 summit, which is slated to take place in September in Pennsylvania, ahead of the United Nations General Assembly.
"And I think what that does is it provides a time frame. The international community has said: 'Here's a door, you can walk through. That allows you to lessen tensions and more fully join the international community," said the US president.
"If Iran chooses not to walk through that door, then you have on record the G8 to begin with, but I think potentially a lot of other countries that are going to say, we need to take further steps," he added.
Washington and its European allies accuse Iran of attempting to make nuclear weapons.
Tehran, however, dismisses the allegation, saying its uranium enrichment is aimed at peaceful energy production.
Iranians see nuclear development as a sign of national independence, similar to the oil, nationalized in 1951, in the face of fierce western opposition.
The Mossadeq government, which led the oil nationalization movement was as a result brought down in the 1953 coup d'état engineered by the CIA.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
They don't need the West to wait indefinitely. Just until they have an unknown number of reliable nukes in their pockets. Testing courtesy of the NorKs.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Tehran police is planning to set up a 50,000-strong special constable-like force called the 'honorary police officers' to provide assistance to the police support units.
Tehran Police Chief Brigadier General Azizollah Rajabzadeh revealed the plans during a press conference on Friday. "After selection and training, these individuals will be equipped and deployed in police stations and with police support units," Rajabzadeh said, Jam-e-jam Online reported.
The voluntary force will be set up first in Tehran, but according to Rajabzadeh the concept might be expanded nationwide. "The police force seeks to utilize people's participation in ensuring security for themselves, and it is with this aim that we are trying to expand the honorary police force up to 300,000 throughout the country," he elaborated.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
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[7 views]
Top|| File under: Govt of Iran
#1
If you like beating and killing women, Uncle Khamani Wants YOU!
#3
Good question. I think it has to do partly with the hash-up the Iranian central and local governments did with the demonstrations. Despite the government's belief that "their people would never do such awful things" that happened in the recent demonstrations; that radicals and militants were responsible, they can't prove that. The easiest thing to do is to kinda-sorta hide the Basiij, reduce their profile, and put a better trained force in their place.
Another reason could be that it puts a security force in place that's not beholden to the IRGC, nor the mullahs (not to mention being a jobs program of sorts for the non-urban Iranians).
It also could be that it's in imitation of China, where PLA troops have donned police uniforms in order to deal with civic unrest. In this case, reliable elements of the IRGC.
[Al Arabiya Latest] A new book published by the Islamist group al-Qaeda reveals the group is paranoid and faltering under international pressure and in "deathly fear" of United States counter terrorism measures in Pakistan, analysts said Friday.
Al-Qaeda's 'Guide to the Laws Regarding Muslim Spies', a 150-page book written by al-Qaeda senior commander Abu Yahya al-Lini and recently posted on jihadist websites, accused "Muslim spies" within its own ranks of spying for the U.S. forces and providing them with information on al-Qaeda camps and safe houses. "It would be no exaggeration to say that the first line in the raging Crusader campaign waged by America and its allies against the Muslims and their lands is the network of spies, of various and sundry sorts and kinds," says the book, translated by MEMRI, the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute.
The Guidebook also claimed "Muslim spies" aided the U.S. in its latest Predator drone campaign against al-Qaeda's fighters in Pakistan.
In the guidebook al-Lini warned that even the old and sickly could be in essence Muslim spies working against al-Qaeda and causing "carnage, destruction, arrest and pursuit," Lini wrote. "Their effects are seen: carnage, destruction, arrest, and pursuit, but they themselves remain unseen, just like Satan and his ilk who see us while remaining unseen," the book stated.
Paranoia and fear
" It would be no exaggeration to say that the first line in the raging Crusader campaign waged by America and its allies against the Muslims and their lands is the network of spies, of various and sundry sorts and kinds "
Qaeda Guidebook on Muslim Spies
Analysts in the U.S. said the book revealed a shift in al-Qaeda's well known triumphant tone to a more worried and paranoid one that signaled a weakening among its ranks.
"In general, Al Qaeda speaks in a very triumphant tone but in the new book Al-Libi speaks of the group's dire straits and serious problems," said Daniel Lev, who works for MEMRI. "I haven't ever seen this kind of language from senior Al Qaeda commanders before," he added.
"Such an admission of distress on the part of a senior Al Qaeda commander makes this a very unique book in terms of the author," he explained. Ayman Al-Zawahri, al-Qaeda's the second man in command after Osama Bin Laden, wrote the introduction to the book.
Analysts also said that a deep seated paranoia of hidden enemies was the main preoccupation of Lini's book which claimed that spying knows no bounds and could be the occupation of even the imam of a mosque.
"The danger of these spies lies not only in the ability of these hidden 'brigades' to infiltrate and reach to the depths," Lini wrote, but "include the decrepit, hunchbacked old man who can hardly walk two steps; the strong young man who can cover the length and breadth of the land; the infirm woman sitting in the depths of her house."
"They are in deathly fear of airpower," Tom McInerny, a military analyst at FOX News said, adding that the book was a "gold mine" for its clues on the success of the Predator strikes in Pakistan which al-Qaeda's guidebook has singled out as the outcome of "Muslim spies" infiltrating its ranks.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/11/2009 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[3 views]
Top|| File under: al-Qaeda
#1
heh. Our spies are everywhere. Whatever you do, don't start a purge. Please
Posted by: Frank G ||
07/11/2009 8:47 Comments ||
Top||
#2
"Our two primary weapons are fear, paranoia, and terror - wait, our THREE primary weapons are..."
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
07/11/2009 9:00 Comments ||
Top||
#3
whatever happened to the fearless Al Qadea jihadist warriors? Dead, huh? Maybe it's time for the rest of them to retrain for civilian occupations like hairdressers or something.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
07/11/2009 10:42 Comments ||
Top||
#4
Good thing they don't know that are spies have infiltrated to the very top levels of Al-Qaeda.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
WASHINGTON -- The 4,000 U.S. Marines now pushing deep into Taliban-controlled tracts as part of an expanded war in southern Afghanistan are setting up fire bases amid some of the most productive poppy fields in the world's opium-producing capital. It's not harvest time in Helmand province, the center of Afghanistan's thriving opium poppy industry. But even if the flowers were blooming, it's doubtful the Marines would do much about it.
[Kyodo: Korea] North Korea held wreath-laying and other commemorative events on Friday to mark the 115th anniversary of the birth of Kim Hyong Jik, the grandfather of the country"s leader Kim Jong Il. A flower-laying ceremony held in Pyongyang was attended by the country"s No. 2 Kim Yong Nam as well as Ri Yong Mu, vice chairman of the powerful National Defense Commission.
SEOUL, July 10 (Yonhap) -- Top nuclear negotiators from South Korea and China will meet next week in Seoul to discuss pending issues surrounding Pyonyang's recent military provocations, the foreign ministry here said Friday. Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Wu Dawei, who chairs the six-nation denuclearization talks, is scheduled to visit Seoul on Sunday for a two-day visit as part of a regional tour, the ministry said. Wu visited Russia and the United States and is currently in Japan.
China is preparing to impose independent sanctions on North Korea, according to a senior U.S. State Department official. The official in a press briefing held on Wednesday said China is in the process of developing its own implementation plan to impose sanctions on North Korea. 
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari reportedly admitted this week that his country created extremist groups to achieve short-term tactical objectives. The statement made Tuesday before a group of retired bureaucrats in Islamabad comes only days after Zardari's June 22 op-ed piece in The Washington Post saying: "If the Taliban and al-Qaida are allowed to triumph in our region, their destabilizing alliance will spread across the continents."
"Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralized but because they were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve short-term tactical objectives," the Indian newspaper quoted Zardari as saying. The newspaper wondered about the remarks' impact on the powerful Pakistani military, which was described as historically setting the tone of Pakistan's India policy.
[ADN Kronos] On the fifth anniversary of the International Court of Justice finding that Israel's building of a barrier in the occupied Palestinian territory was illegal, a United Nations independent human rights expert spoke out against what he says is Israel's violation of Palestinian rights.
[Al Arabiya Latest] Israel is ready to withdraw from areas of the Golan Heights, but it will not give up large parts of the occupied territory in any peace deal with Syria, a top aide to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Friday.
[Iran Press TV Latest] Tehran police is planning to set up a 50,000-strong special constable-like force called the 'honorary police officers' to provide assistance to the police support units. 
[Al Arabiya Latest] A new book published by the Islamist group al-Qaeda reveals the group is paranoid and faltering under international pressure and in "deathly fear" of United States counter terrorism measures in Pakistan, analysts said Friday.
