Senate Democrats' failure to reach agreement with wavering Republicans on legislation to withdraw U.S. troops from Iraq forced party leaders to concede yesterday that they are running low on options for altering President Bush's war strategy this year.

The breakdown, coming at the end of days of debate over defense policy legislation, makes it increasingly likely that Congress will conclude 2007 without passing a single Iraq bill of policy-altering significance. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) said yesterday that the next big Iraq showdown could come over an emergency war-funding bill that may not be considered until early next year, as he and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) turn their attention to the domestic policy front, where Democrats' prospects for success are brighter.

"We've done a lot of talking," Reid said of efforts to attract GOP votes. But the bottom line is: "People either want something or nothing."

 

 

Sunni and Shi'a leaders began a potential peace process at secret meetings with leaders of the new Northern Ireland and South Africa one month ago, signing a draft set of principles which resemble the protocols that guided the peace settlements in those two countries.

Chairing the closed meetings near Helsinki were Martin McGuinness, the former Irish Republican Army commander, lead negotiator with the British, and now Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, and Roelf Meyer, former leader of the pro-apartheid National Party in South Africa's peace negotiations. The Irish delegation also included former IRA hunger striker Leo Green, minister Jeffrey Donaldson, former Stormont speaker Lord Alderdice, and former loyalist paramilitary leader Billy Hutchison. South African participants included ANC leaders Mac Maharaj and Rashid Ismail, key participants in the military and political negotiations in South Africa. [Read more "here.]

Names of the Iraq delegations' have not been released but reportedly included six Sunni and nine Shi'a who signed a statement of principles. About thirty Iraqis were present, including Akram al-Hakim, minister of national reconciliation for the Baghdad government, representatives of Moktada al-Sadr, Sunni leader Adnan al-Dulaimi, and Humam Hammoudi, the Shi'a chairman of the Baghdad parliament's foreign affairs committee.

There is no doubt that American and British authorities knew about and approved the meeting, though they were excluded from attending. Instead, the meeting was facilitated and funded by the Finnish Crisis Management Initiative [CMI] and the McCormack Graduate School at the University of Massachusetts.

At this point, virtually no American media outlets have reported the meeting, despite the importance of the parties in attendance.

The twelve principles and nine "political objectives" include:

•to resolve all political issues through nonviolence and democracy;

•to form an independent commission approved by all parties to supervise the process of disarmament in a verifiable manner;

•to commit to accept the result of the negotiations with no party subjected to threats of force;

•to establish an independent consultative body to explore ways to deal with the legacy of the past in a way that will unite the nation;

•"a common vision for all Iraqi political entities on the importance of termination of the presence of foreign troops in Iraq through the completion of national sovereignty and rebuilding a national army and security apparatus according to a national vision within a realistic timetable";

•"to convince political groups that are currently outside the political process to initiate and activate a constructive dialogue to reach common understandings";

•"to deal with armed groups which are not classified as terrorist, encouraging them to use peaceful political mens to address the conflict and to provide their members with jobs and opportunities within state administrations";

•"the cessation of the violation of the human rights of Iraqi citizens and their properties by continuous bombardment and military actions by foreign forces";

•"to be rational in political speeches, for the national interest, and to move away from sectarian and ethnic dispute";

•"to bring an end to the displacement of Iraqi people and work to take care of those displaced, and secure their safe return, with guarantees of their safety by the national forces in cooperation with political parties and tribal leaders."

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20071015/hayden

 

The American air force is working with military leaders from the Gulf to train and prepare Arab air forces for a possible war with Iran, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

An air warfare conference in Washington last week was told how American air chiefs have helped to co-ordinate intelligence-sharing with Gulf Arab nations and organise combined exercises designed to make it easier to fight together.

Gen Michael Mosley, the US Air Force chief of staff, used the conference to seek closer links with allies whose support America might need if President George W Bush chooses to bomb Iran.

Pentagon air chiefs have helped set up an air warfare centre in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) where Gulf nations are training their fighter pilots and America has big bases. It is modelled on the US Air Force warfare centre at Nellis air force base in Nevada.

Jordan and the UAE have both taken part in combined exercises designed to make sure their air forces can fly, and fight, together and with American jets.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/30/wiran130.xml

 

Iraq’s vice president said on Saturday that his country will not be used as a base to launch attacks against Iran or Syria. Adel Abdul-Mahdi said he discussed security and other regional issues with Syrian President Bashar Assad during their meeting on Saturday.

In response to a reporter’s question about a possible US military strike against Iran, the Iraqi vice president said: Iraq does not accept that its territory be used for any aggression against any neighbouring country.’
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=74168

 

A Taliban suicide bomber wearing an Afghan army uniform set off a huge explosion Saturday while trying to board a military bus in the capital, killing 30 people, most of them soldiers, officials said. Hours later, the Afghan president offered to meet personally with the Taliban leader for peace talks and give the militants a position in government.

Strengthening a call for negotiations he has made with increasing frequency the last several weeks, President Hamid Karzai said he was willing to meet with Taliban leader Mullah Omar and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former prime minister and factional warlord leader.

"If I find their address, there is no need for them to come to me, I'll personally go there and get in touch with them," Karzai said. "Esteemed Mullah, sir, and esteemed Hekmatyar, sir, why are you destroying the country?"

Karzai said he has contacts with Taliban militants through tribal elders but that there are no direct and open government communication channels with the fighters.

"If a group of Taliban or a number of Taliban come to me and say, 'President, we want a department in this or in that ministry or we want a position as deputy minister ... and we don't want to fight anymore... If there will be a demand and a request like that to me, I will accept it because I want conflicts and fighting to end in Afghanistan," Karzai said. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-09-29-afghanistan_N.htm

 

"It is something we never see at home," says Zaidi, of India. "They want to kill each other everywhere except in the USA."

For years, Sunnis and Shiites in this country have worked together to build mosques, support charities, register voters and hold massive feasts for Eid al-Fitr (on Oct. 13 this year in the USA), the celebration at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Now there are small signs of tension emerging in America's Muslim community that are raising concerns among many of its leaders. They worry that the bitter divisions that have caused so much bloodshed abroad are beginning to have an impact here. Such concerns are rising at a time when the USA's Muslim community has grown from less than 1 million in 1990 to nearly 2.5 million today, with two of three Muslims born overseas, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center.

"You have people who recently arrived from other places where things may have gotten out of hand," says Sheik Hamza Yusuf, the U.S.-born co-founder of the nation's first Muslim seminary, the Zaytuna Institute, in Berkeley, Calif. "It takes just one deranged person with a cousin back home who died in a suicide bombing to create trouble here." http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2007-09-24-muslim-tension_N.htm

 

Shiite and Sunni figures in Iraq dismissed Saturday a US Senate plan to split Iraq along ethnic and religious lines, while the Kurds welcomed it as the "only viable solution" to the present chaos. 

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said upon his return from the United States that the idea being floated there by a US senator and presidential hopeful would "be a catastrophe not only in Iraq but also on the region."

"It is Iraqis who decide and they are keen to maintain the unity of their country," Maliki told state-run Al-Iraqiya television.

The Senate's non-binding resolution, which is opposed by President George W. Bush, would provide for decentralising Iraq in a federal system as permitted by Iraq's constitution to stop the country from becoming a failed state.

Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical Shiite cleric who commands the largest single bloc in parliament and boasts a powerful militia known as the Mahdi Army, said the proposal demonstrated "flagrant interference in Iraq's internal affairs."  http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070929/wl_afp/iraquspoliticscongress

 

Congress Quietly Approves Billions More for Iraq War

Balkan states bordering Serbia saw scant hope of a breakthrough in New York talks between Serbs and Kosovo Albanians on Friday and were bracing for a rough ride whatever the next move on the breakaway province.

Those who heed diplomatic smoke signals from Washington and Brussels are braced for a unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo in mid-December, with U.S. and majority European Union recognition but in the teeth of Serbian and Russian opposition.

Whether independence is recognized or blocked, the risks are so serious either way that no neighboring government wants to speculate openly on how severe, long-lasting or widespread the repercussions might be.

None wants to aggravate ties with Serbia, which is warning them not to recognize Kosovo. But those with significant ethnic Albanian minorities -- such as Macedonia -- have more reason to fear the risks of delaying the decision.

"I don't want to speculate on various scenarios," said Macedonian Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski this week. "But I want to emphasize that for Macedonia, it's most important that multiethnic relations internally are kept at a very good level as they are now."

Macedonia narrowly averted all-out civil war in 2001 when NATO and the European Union smothered six months of fighting between its army and Albanian separatists.

Tensions are still never far from the surface. Macedonian special forces clashed this week with protesters trying to blockade parliament after a brawl between rival ethnic Albanian deputies. The border with Kosovo is porous and guns are rife.

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL2847489320070928

 

Turkmenistan, the energy-rich gas powerhouse of Central Asia, was all but in Moscow's pocket, having agreed to allow Russia almost exclusive access to its vast reserves and exports. Russian President Vladimir Putin was poised to deal a death blow to Western plans to bring Turkmen gas to the European market bypassing Russian territory. Almost overnight, Turkmenistan appears to be responding to desperate US and European Union moves to recover lost ground. With Iran and China pulling in other directions, the great game has taken a dramatic twist.

 

Vice President Dick Cheney had at one point considered asking Israel to launch limited missile strikes at an Iranian nuclear site to provoke a retaliation, Newsweek magazine reported on Sunday. The news comes amid reports that Israel launched an air strike against Syria this month over a suspected nuclear site. Citing two unidentified sources, Newsweek said former Cheney Middle East adviser David Wurmser told a small group several months ago that Cheney was considering asking Israel to strike the Iranian nuclear site at Natanz. A military response by Iran could give Washington an excuse to then launch airstrikes of its own, Newsweek said. http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2323126720070923?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews   Political turmoil and a spate of brazen attacks by Taliban fighters are forcing Pakistan's president to scale back his government's pursuit of Al Qaeda, according to U.S. intelligence officials who fear that the terrorist network will be able to accelerate its efforts to rebuild and plot new attacks. The development threatens a pillar of U.S. counter-terrorism strategy, which has depended on Pakistan to play a lead role in keeping Al Qaeda under pressure to reduce its ability to coordinate strikes. President Pervez Musharraf, facing a potentially fateful election next month and confronting calls to yield power after years of autocratic rule, appears too vulnerable to pursue aggressive counter-terrorism operations at the behest of the United States, the intelligence officials said. At the same time, the Pakistani military has suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks at the hands of militants in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan where Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda figures are believed to be hiding. U.S. intelligence officials said the conditions that have allowed Al Qaeda to regain strength are likely to persist, enabling it to continue training foreign fighters and plot new attacks. "We are worried," said a senior U.S. counter-terrorism official who closely monitors Pakistan's pursuit of Al Qaeda in the rugged frontier region. The official, like others, spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to publicly discuss the matter. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimesC08.html Lonely, marginalized and suddenly suspicious that he was losing his grip over the organization he helped create, Osama bin Laden finally decided that enough was enough. At least that's the explanation sources close to him are giving for why, after three long years of silence, the Qaeda leader has released one video and two audiotapes in the past month, including last week's audio message calling for a jihad against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. According to Omar Farooqi, a Taliban liaison officer with Al Qaeda, bin Laden recently learned that a faction within his own organization had been conspiring to sideline him, insisting—unnecessarily, bin Laden now believes—that he remain secluded for security reasons.     War and the Constitution

David R. Henderson

Author's note: Sept. 17 was the 220th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Constitution. To commemorate that day, California State University, Monterey Bay (CSUMB) held a public forum with a panel of four speakers: David Anderson, a history professor at CSUMB; Michelle Welsh, a lawyer and member of the ACLU; John Arquilla, a professor at the Naval Postgraduate School; and me. What follows is the talk I gave. Even though I criticized liberal icons such as Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt, the apparently left/liberal audience responded favorably. This day celebrates my second-favorite U.S. historical event, the signing of the U.S. Constitution. My favorite is the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The U.S. Constitution is there to protect our rights, to tell the government the only things it can do. If the federal government does not have a specific power granted to it within the Constitution, then it does not have that power. Period. The Ninth and Tenth Amendments assure that. The U.S. Constitution is a set of enumerated powers. It isn't just the Bill of Rights that protects our rights, although it does do that. It's also the carefully thought-out division of powers within the U.S. Constitution. Why such a division of powers? Because no one is to be trusted with too much power. Incidentally, when Alberto Gonzales gave a talk at the Naval Postgraduate School in 2002 defending many of President Bush's unconstitutional actions, a colleague and I challenged him afterward. He tried to reassure us, saying, "Condi and others and I are looking out for how the president will play in history. We don't want him to look like some monster who destroyed our freedom. Trust us." I answered, "The Constitution is not based on trust, but on distrust." One of the most important things the government does is engage in war. For that reason, the Constitution gives the power to declare war solely to Congress. Article I, Section 8 says, among other things, "The Congress shall have Power . . . to Declare War." It doesn't say that the president doesn't have the power to declare war. The Constitution doesn't need to say that. As I mentioned earlier, the Constitution is a list of enumerated powers: If it doesn't say you have the power, you don't have the power. Consider why this matters. Think back to all the discussion before the U.S. government invaded Iraq in March 2003. One of the biggest issues was whether, and to what extent, Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. We now know that he didn't have such weapons – even many of Bush's defenders will admit his error. We don't even need to get into the issue of whether Bush was lying. Even if we assume the best – that Bush was saying what he thought to be true – the point is that we could have had a much better discussion of the issue if Bush had followed the Constitution. If Congress had actually decided to vote on whether or not to declare war on Iraq, they would have had a debate. If they had had a debate, there would have been multiple sources of information about the weapons of mass destruction. http://www.antiwar.com/henderson/?articleid=11664 The Bush administration has been so enthusiastic in touting its new alliance with Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar Province that it's easy to overlook two basic questions: Why did it take so long to reach an accommodation with the Sunnis? And is Anbar really a good model for stabilizing the rest of Iraq? First, the what-took-so-long issue: The fact is, Sunni tribal leaders have been queuing up for four years to try to make the kind of alliances that have finally taken root in Anbar. For most of that time, these overtures were rebuffed by US officials who, not inaccurately, regarded the Sunni sheikhs as local warlords. This disdain for potential allies was a mistake, but so is the recent sugarcoating of the tribal leaders. They are tough bedouin chiefs, sometimes little more than smugglers and gangsters. The United States should make tactical alliances with them, but we shouldn't have stars in our eyes. That tendency to over-idealize our allies has been a consistent mistake. http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=5&article_id=85417#   Muslim doctors warned yesterday that they would rather go to jail than allow patients to die in accordance with "living wills". The new Mental Capacity Act allows patients to write the wills, instructing doctors not to try to save them if they become incapacitated. It also allows patients to give "lasting powers of attorney" to a friend or relative who would be able to instruct doctors to starve to death a patient who becomes incapacitated. Doctors who refuse to carry out such instructions risk prosecution for assault and a possible jail term. However, the Islamic Medical Association is urging its members to defy the Act, which comes into force next Monday. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=483473&in_page_id=1770   Iran is smuggling advanced weapons, including surface-to-air missiles, into Iraq to be used by extremists against American troops, the US military charged on Sunday. US military spokesman Rear Admiral Mark Fox told reporters in Baghdad that Iran was shifting sophisticated arms such as "RPG-29s, explosively-formed penetrators (EFPs), 240 mm rockets and Misagh-1 surface-to-air missiles" across its borders into Iraq. An EFP is a feared roadside bomb which when it explodes emits a white-hot slug of molten copper that can cut through the armoured skins of US military vehicles. Fox reiterated that Iranian national Mahmudi Farhadi, detained on Thursday in the northern province of Sulaimaniyah, is one of the kingpins in the bomb smuggling operations. "He is a member of the Ramazan Corps, the Quds Force department responsible for all operations in Iraq," Fox said. "We are fulfilling our professional responsibility to detain those individuals who are smuggling these illegal weapons into Iraq," he added. Iran insists that Farhadi is a civilian official on a visit to Iraq as part of a trade delegation. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070923/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestiranus&printer=1;_ylt=AnFgNekk0MovZypTWosUWHybOrgF    US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday it was “very important” for North Korea to be fully transparent about its nuclear weapons programme amid reports it has atomic links with Syria. “There are frankly a lot of questions that remain to be answered and we want to be able to answer questions about all aspects of the North Korean nuclear programme,” she told reporters with her Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi beside her, ahead of their talks on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. “So that’s very important,” she said ahead of a crucial round of six-party talks among the United States, China, Russia, Japan and the two Koreas beginning on Wednesday in Beijing aimed at ending Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons programme. Rice did not cite the reported North Korean-Syrian links. If true, they could cast a dark cloud over US policy towards North Korea, which US President George W Bush, weighed down by the unpopular war in Iraq, has hailed as a success. US and British newspapers have reported recently that North Korea was secretly helping Syria to develop a nuclear weapons facility. http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=73382      Iranian Defense Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said on Sunday that the Iranian military will give a "crushing response" to any threat against the country's territorial integrity and independence, the official IRNA news agency reported.     "One of the U.S. threats is economic sanctions which will be ineffective," Najjar told IRNA on the occasion of the Sacred Defense Week, which marks the Iran-Iraq war in 1980s.     He said Iran is fully self-sufficient in terms of defense equipment production, playing down the possible U.S. sanctions against his country.     The Iranian defense minister said that the U.S. threat to attack Iran is a mere psychological warfare because Washington has bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan.     The United States has been seeking to impose tougher sanctions on Iran through the UN Security Council on the grounds that Tehran is developing a nuclear weapon program under the guise of a civilian-use program.     Meanwhile, Washington has never ruled out military action against Iran's suspicious nuclear targets. http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/24/content_6780235.htm   Pakistani police have arrested more than a dozen opposition activists in a bid to scupper protests against President Pervez Musharraf's plans for re-election on October 6, officials said. Most of those arrested in the capital Islamabad late on Saturday belonged to the party led by exiled former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, whose return to Pakistan was blocked earlier this month, and from parties in a conservative religious alliance. "We have detained 14 people as a preventive measure. They have given calls for protests and we have fears that they may create disturbances in the coming days," Islamabad's top administrator, Chaudhry Mohammad Ali, told Reuters. Ali said he expected more arrests to be made on Sunday. The chairman of Sharif's faction of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, and firebrand leader Javed Hashmi were among those arrested, along with Hussain Ahmed, a central leader of the religious alliance, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA). PML-N spokesman Ehsan Iqbal described the action as "cowardly", and said the government was in a panic over the opposition plan to resign en masse from parliament once Musharraf's nomination papers were accepted on September 29. http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldnews&storyID=2007-09-23T172552Z_01_ISL132996_RTRUKOC_0_US-PAKISTAN.xml

 

 

Guest Speaker Announcement: Café Society is excited to be hosting guest speakers on this week’s topic inthree locations!  Anita David and Elce Redmond from Christian Peacemaker Teams will join the conversations at Intelligentsia, Pause, and Caffe de Luca. For more information about our speakers and details on location see below.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sensitive But Unclassified: This report on corruption in the government of Iraq was leaked by somneone within the US Embassy in Baghdad. Here's your chance to read it (this is a PDF document): http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2007/09/20/us-report-on-iraqi-govt-corruption-leaked/

 

 

 

Edmundo Reyes is a slight, unassuming man of 55 who loves baseball and children's literature. Until recently, he sold candy and soft drinks from his family's corner grocery store in this city's Nezahualcoyotl district.

In May, he left to visit relatives in the state of Oaxaca and never returned. His disappearance might have gone unnoticed but for the fact that it has set off a small war that has twice shut down a sizable chunk of the Mexican economy.

Unbeknownst to family and friends, Reyes was conducting a double life: He was a leader of a group calling itself the Popular Revolutionary Army, or EPR in Spanish. His comrades are convinced that he has been captured by "the enemy."

To get back Reyes and another EPR militant said to have disappeared with him, the Popular Revolutionary Army has started bombing the pipelines of Pemex, Mexico's national oil and gas company. http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimesC05.html

 

 

 

A prime target would be the Fajr base run by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Quds Force in southern Iran, where Western intelligence agencies say armour-piercing projectiles used against British and US troops are manufactured.

Under the theory - which is gaining credence in Washington security circles - US action would provoke a major Iranian response, perhaps in the form of moves to cut off Gulf oil supplies, providing a trigger for air strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities and even its armed forces.

Senior officials believe Mr Bush's inner circle has decided he does not want to leave office without first ensuring that Iran is not capable of developing a nuclear weapon. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/09/16/wiran116.xml