Global Research / January 1, 2007

Mehr News Agency

Certain Arab states seek to take advantage of the execution of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein to launch a psychological war against Iran, political analyst Sabah Zanganeh said here on Monday.

After 14 months on trial, Saddam was hanged on Saturday for crimes against humanity, specifically the murder of 148 people in Dujail, Iraq in 1982.

“Avoid engagement with Iranians,” Saddam supposedly said before being put to death, IRNA reported.

Through those words Saddam intended to reinforce the media’s psychological war against Iran and leave “hidden bombs of conflict” in Iraq, Zanganeh said.

Saddam was buried in the middle of the night in his native village Tikrit on Sunday.

The Tikrit funeral, which occurred after it had been announced that he was to be buried in an unknown location, is a sign of the current Iraqi government’s self-assurance, the analyst said.

“It shows that the Iraqi government is certain that no other legend like Saddam will emerge in Iraq, and thus they were not afraid to bury him in Tikrit,” he added.

However, the Iraqi people and the Islamic Republic of Iran must still pursue the case of the Baath regime’s crimes, Zanganeh stated.

A criminal has been removed from the case, but other elements still exist and they should be put on trial to shed light on Iraq’s history in order to prevent a repetition of such events, he noted.

U.S. more despicable than Saddam

International affairs analyst Ali Aqamohammadi said, “The U.S. has become more despicable than Saddam.”

The U.S. sought to cover up its own crimes through the execution of Saddam so that future trials investigating the dictator’s offenses would not cause any trouble for Washington, Aqamohammadi told the Mehr News Agency on Monday.

“With the execution of Saddam, the most important witness of the West’s unfair actions and double standards was wiped out, and through the swift execution of his half-brother (former intelligence chief Barzan) al-Tikriti, the trials will be dismissed,” he said.

Certain Middle Eastern and Western states are using their media outlets, including Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, to connect Saddam’s execution to Iran and expand their influence in Iraq, he observed.

Global Research / January 1, 2007

islamservices.org

The leaking of the videotape of hanging of Saddam and the dialogue that was exchanged between Saddam’s executioners, handpicked by Americans, and the subsequent planting of stories in mainstream media that Saddam’s hanging will be seen by Shia’s as a welcome sacrifice on one of the Holiest days of Islam was a deliberate act meant to create a backlash amongst Muslims and a Shia-Sunni conflict in the Muslim world.

Americans have perfected the art of movies in which actors act out the pre-scripted scenarios and dialogues. Scenarios and dialogues which will have a certain impact on the minds of the audience.

Saddam was in American custody from the moment he was caught, his trial was an American trial, and his execution was carried out under American supervision. The puppet Maliki government had no say at all in this and as all puppets do, he had to go along with whatever was dictated by the Americans.

The selection of the day of Eid-ul-Adha for hanging, the videoing, the pre-scripted “taunts” by hired hangmen, and the  release of the video had the goal of creating a division between Shia and Sunni, and angering the Muslim youth in Europe and elsewhere.

Americans want to get rid of Moqtada Sadr, who stands in their way of delivering Iraq’s oil to the American oil companies, and what a better way to do that then to get the Sunni resistance in Iraq to turn their guns on Moqtada Sadr, rather than fight the Americans. The actors who were given the script to shout “Moqtada, Moqtada” to Saddam during his hanging was to incite Sunni feelings against the Shia. To show that the hanging was an act of Shia vengeance against the Sunni Saddam.

The second reaction that they wanted to achieve was for Muslim youth in Europe and elsewhere to resort to acts of terror. Americans know that Muslim youth is angry and many of them will be outraged and chatter about revenge, which is exactly what the Americans need in their “war on terror”, and to keep Europeans and Americans united in the Crusade against Islam and Muslims.

Muslims must not be stupid and fall into this trap of sectarian violence and acts of revenge.

Editor I.I.S.

Boomerang Effect

William Lind

Military.com / December 9, 2006

Last week, one of my students, a Marine captain, asked whether I had heard a news report about an “IED-like device” supposedly found near Cincinnati, and if I thought we would soon start seeing IEDs here in the U.S. I replied that I had not heard the news story, but as to whether we would see IEDs here at home, the answer is yes.

One of the things U.S. troops are learning in Iraq is how people with little training and few resources can fight a state. Most American troops will see this within the framework of counterinsurgency. But a minority will apply their new-found knowledge in a very different way. After they return to the U.S. and leave the military, they will take what they learned in Iraq back to the inner cities, to the ethnic groups, gangs, and other alternate loyalties they left when they joined the service. There, they will put their new knowledge to work, in wars with each other and wars against the American state. It will not be long before we see police squad cars getting hit with IEDs and other techniques employed by Iraqi insurgents, right here in the streets of American cities.

I know this thought — not to speak of the reality when it happens — will be shocking to some readers. To anyone who really understands Fourth Generation war, it should not be. Fourth Generation war does not merely work on the will of a state’s political leaders, as some theorists have said. It does something far more powerful. It pulls an opposing state apart at the moral level.

We saw this phenomenon in the effect the defeat in Afghanistan had on the Soviet Union. Just as that defeat led to the disintegration of the USSR, so defeat in the current Afghan war will bring the disintegration of NATO. We are seeing 4GW pull Israel apart today, to the point where a leaden blanket of Kulturpessimismus now oppresses that country.

We will see the same thing here, powerfully I think, as a result of our defeat in Iraq. It will manifest itself in many ways, and one of those ways will be the progression of inner-city and gang crime into something close to warfare, including war against the state.

Police will not be surprised by this prediction. I have talked with cops about Fourth Generation war, and they “get it” much better than do American soldiers and Marines. Many have told me that they already recognize elements of war in what they are encountering, especially in inner cities. Cops have been killed while just sitting in their cruisers, because they represent the authority of the state. How big a step is it for those cruisers to get hit with IEDs instead of pistol shots?

The Bush administration, as usual, has it exactly backwards. The danger is not that the “terrorists” we are fighting in Iraq will come here if we pull out there. Rather, American involvement in 4GW in Iraq will create “terrorism” here from among the people we have sent to fight the war there. Well educated in the ways of successful insurgency, they will come home embittered by a lost war, by friends dead and crippled for life to no purpose. Thanks to America’s de-industrialization, they will return to no jobs, or lousy “service” jobs at minimum wage. Angry, frustrated and futureless, some of them will find new identities and loyalties in gangs and criminal enterprises, where they can put their new talents to work.

It will, of course, be only a small minority of returning troops who will go this route. But something else they will have learned from the Iraqi insurgents, along with how to make and deploy IEDs, is that it takes very few people to create and sustain an insurgency.

The boomerang effect is a central element of Fourth Generation war. When a state involves itself in 4GW over there, it lays a basis for 4GW at home. That is true even if it wins over there, and all the more true if it loses, as states usually do. The toxic fallout from America’s 4GW defeats in Iraq and Afghanistan will be far greater than most people expect, and it will fall most heavily on America’s police.

“The great value of the Baker-Hamilton report is that it reasserts the necessity of pursuing American interests, as opposed to purely Israeli interests.” Justin Raimondo, “We Can’t Wait for 2008” antiwar.com

Information Clearing House / January 1, 2006

Mike Whitney

The tension between the Bush administration and the members of the Iraq Study Group, illustrates the widening chasm between old-guard U.S. imperialists and “Israel-first” neoconservatives. The divisions are setting the stage for a major battle between the two camps. The winner will probably decide US policy in the Middle East for the next decade.

The failed occupation of Iraq has put the entire region on the fast-track to disaster. That’s why James Baker was summoned from retirement to see if he could change the present trajectory and mitigate the long-term damage to US interests. Baker was opposed to the invasion from the onset but his 4 day trip to Baghdad convinced him that something had to be done quickly. The ISG report reflects the unanimous view of its authors that Iraq is disintegrating into chaos and that action must be taken to reduce the level of bloodshed.

Baker is not merely an objective observer in this process. He clearly “has a dog in this fight”. As Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan he put together the basic scaffolding for America’s imperial presence in the region and he continues to be connected to many of the corporations which benefit from US relations in the Middle East. But he has also always taken a “pragmatic” approach to regional policy and cannot be considered a war-monger. Some critics of Baker say that his business interests suggest that he indirectly supports the Bush policy. But this is an oversimplification. In fact, Baker sees war as a blunt instrument that is essentially incompatible with commercial interests. There are simply more efficient ways for clever men to achieve their objectives.

In Antonia Juhasz’s recent article “Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization” shows how Baker was more than happy to overlook Saddam’s domestic repression as long as it didn’t damage business dealings. As Juhasz’s says:

“Baker’s interest was focused on trade, which he described as “the central factor in the US-Iraq relationship”. From 1982, when Reagan removed Iraq from the list of countries supporting terrorism until August 1990, when Iraq invaded Kuwait, Baker and Eagleburger worked with others in the Reagan and Bush administrations to aggressively and successfully expand trade.

The efficacy of such a move can best be described in a memo written in 1988 by the Bush transition team arguing that the US would have ‘to decide whether to treat Iraq as a distasteful dictatorship to be shunned where possible, or to recognize Iraq’s present and potential power in the region and accord it relatively high priority. We strongly urge the latter view.’ Two reasons offered were Iraq’s ‘vast oil reserves’ which promised ‘a lucrative market for US goods’ and the fact that the US oil imports from Iraq were skyrocketing. Bush and Baker took the transition teams advice and ran with it”.

This is the real James Baker. He’s not ideological and he’s certainly not on a religious crusade. His approach may seem cynical, but it shows that he prefers commerce (even with a brutal dictator) over war. This proves that his role with the ISG is not simply to provide cover for Bush. Baker’s task is to salvage the imperial system which he helped to create. Besides, it’s clear that Bush is unhappy with the report and has already rejected its two critical recommendations; negotiations with Syria and Iran, and a commitment to troop reduction. Furthermore, Bush is doing everything in his power to minimize the effects of the report. In fact, he even flew Tony Blair to Washington so that he wouldn’t look as isolated in his position.

Baker has done a good job grabbing headlines and making his case directly to the American people, but his effect on Bush has been negligible. Bush appears to be brushing the report aside just like he brushed aside the results of the midterm elections. His summation of the ISG’s work was intentionally condescending; he dismissed it as “interesting” and “sincere”, blah, blah, blah.

But Baker won’t be patronized or put-off. In fact, his tone has been unusually threatening at times. As more than one critic has noted, Baker appears to be offering Bush an “ultimatum” not merely recommendations. He warned Bush not to “pick and choose” the recommendations as he saw fit:

“I hope this is not like a fruit salad and I say I like this but I don’t like that. This is a comprehensive strategy designed to deal with this problem we’re facing in Iraq, but also designed to deal with other problems that we face in the region to restore America’s standing and credibility in that part of the world”.

Baker is courteous to the point of seeming unctuous, but his point is clear. He is demanding that Bush execute his plan in its totality and without deviation. This is the cautionary advice of a Mafia consigliore not the empty musings of a retired bureaucrat.

Whatever one thinks about James Baker, he is a seasoned diplomat and a serious man. His record shows that he has broad support among the leaders in the American oligarchy, so he can’t simply be ignored. He represents a powerful constituency of corporate chieftains and oil magnates who are conspicuously worried about the deteriorating situation in Iraq and want to see a change of course. Baker’s their man. He’s the logical emissary for the growing number of jittery plutocrats who see that the Bush policy-train has jumped the tracks.

But if Big Oil wants a change of direction than where is Bush getting his support for “staying the course”?

An AP poll conducted this week shows that only 9% of Americans believe that “victory” in Iraq is possible. Even the hard-core Bush loyalists have abandoned the sinking ship. The only group left touting Bush’s failed policy is the “Israel first” camp which continues to wave the bloody shirt of incitement from their perch at the Weekly Standard and the American Enterprise Institute. These same diehards are leading the charge for a preemptive attack on Iran; a criminal act which will have catastrophic effects on America’s long-term energy needs.

An article which appeared in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz shows how confident Prime Minister Olmert is in the ability of the Jewish Lobby to torpedo the Baker-Hamilton report and steer the US away from changes in Iraq:

“On his way home from Los Angeles, the Prime Minister ‘calmed’ the reporters –and perhaps even himself—by saying there is no danger of the US President George Bush accepting the expected recommendations of the Baker-Hamilton panel, and attempting to move Syria out of the axis of evil and into a coalition to extricate America from Iraq. The Prime Minister hopes the Jewish Lobby can rally a Democratic majority in the new Congress to counter any diversion from the status quo on the Palestinians. (Akiva Eldar, “The Gewalt Agenda”) http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/789919.html

Olmert has good reason to be “calm”. While the new Congress is being apprised of its duties to Israel, the Brookings Institute is convening a forum at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy entitled: “America and Israel: Confronting a Middle east in Turmoil”. The meeting will be attended by Israeli right-wing extremist, Avigdor Lieberman, as well as political big-wigs, Bill and Hillary Clinton.

The context of the meeting suggests that right-leaning Israelis will be informing their friends in the Democratic Party about the anticipated attack on Iran, as well as discussing strategies for sabotaging Baker’s report. If we see the Dems lambasting the ISGs recommendations next week; we’ll know why.

So, the battle lines have been drawn. On one side we have James Baker and his corporate classmates who want to restore order while preserving America’s imperial role in the region. And, on the other side, we have the neo-Trotskyites and Israeli-Jacobins who seek a fragmented and chaotic Middle East where Israel is the dominant power. (see “A Clean Break”)

The one group that has no voice in this “Battle of the Titans” is the American people. They lost whatever was left of their shrinking political-clout sometime around the 2000 Coronation of George Bush.

In any event, Baker and his ilk are not going to sit back and watch the empire (and the military) they put together with their own two hands be systematically pulverized by a cabal of zealots pursuing an agenda that only serves Israeli hardliners.

That ain’t gonna happen.

Expect Baker to wheel out the heavy artillery and fight tooth-and-nail to reassert the primacy of the American ruling class. “The Lobby” may be powerful, but it’s going to be tough-going to take the country away from the people who believe they own it.

The struggle between the political heavyweights is about to break-out into open warfare.

By Paul Craig Roberts

Information Clearing House / January 1, 2006

Last July in response to Bush-the-Evil’s enabling of Israel’s gratuitous slaughter of thousands of Lebanese civilians and destruction of the country’s infrastructure, I wrote about “the shame of being an American.” With the ongoing slaughter of our troops and Iraqi civilians in Bush’s war in Iraq, it is time to revisit that theme.

As the Iraqi civil war (euphemistically termed “sectarian violence”) intensifies, both US and Iraqi casualties have sharply increased. Thirty-five US troops have been killed in the first week of December. Iraqis are dying at each other’s hands at about 100 per day, with many more wounded by bombs.

Iraqi civilians continue to suffer at the hands of the US military, with the latest news being a US air strike that wiped out two families totaling 32 people.

The report from the bipartisan Iraq Study Group has made it plain as day that the US is accomplishing nothing in Iraq except the destabilization of the entire Middle East. As Middle East expert Anthony Sullivan writes in The National Interest, the ISG report “constitutes a massive repudiation of the policy of the Bush Administration.” The war is lost and cannot be retrieved militarily. “Staying the course” is the path of total folly.

Yet, the White House Moron says that it is better for 100 US troops and 3,000 Iraqi civilians to die every month than for him to admit that he is wrong.

To date the cost of Bush being wrong is 25,000 US casualties (dead and wounded) and approximately 650,000 dead Iraqis. No one knows how many have been wounded. How many more will die before America drowns in the shame of the blood that is being shed for no other reason than the American people were so stupid as to elect a president who cannot admit that he made a mistake? The same stupid American people elected a Congress that is too corrupt to impeach a president who is a liar, a war criminal, and a tyrant. Instead, they are prepared to let Bush off with a mere “mistake,” a courtesy denied to President Clinton. Lying about sex is an impeachable offense. Lying about war is a mere mistake.

Are the American people, Congress, and the American Establishment going to let the death toll continue to mount day by day for the two more years it takes for Bush to become history?

How do America’s military families feel about the loss of loved ones for no reason except President Bush cannot admit a mistake?

How do the troops themselves feel about it? On December 8, a US Marine who has spent 7 months fighting insurgents in Anbar province answered this question on lewrockwell.com as follows: “I’m sick and tired of this patriotic, nationalistic and fascist crap. . . . How do you justify ‘sacrificing’ your life for a war which is not only illegal, but is being prosecuted to the extent where the only thing keeping us there is one man’s power, and his ego.” US Marine Philip Martin says he joined the Marines to protect the US Constitution, not to serve as an imperialist storm trooper.

I couldn’t believe my ears when I heard talking heads worrying about Bush’s “comfort level” with the Iraqi Study Group’s unanimous report. Bush’s comfort level? What about the comfort level of the Iraqis and Americans who are losing family members while idiot talking heads worry about Bush’s comfort level with the facts!

Try to imagine the impression the US gives to the rest of the world: The US cannot stop a war that is a catastrophe becoming a calamity because it would interfere with Bush’s comfort level.

This disastrous war is a testament to the irresponsibility of the American people and their elected representatives. There were, of course, many dissenters. But the majority were too lazy and irresponsible to take the trouble to be informed. Most Americans allowed themselves to be deceived and emotionally manipulated. The consequence of this failure of the American people has been brutal for countless people and their families in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon and for the thousands of American families who have suffered because Bush sent US troops on a fool’s mission. The American people are stained with the blood of innocents. Are they still not sufficiently angry with the president who used them for his crimes to demand his impeachment?

As long as Bush remains in office, the neoconservatives will demand more wars. In the current issue of “Foreign Policy,” neocon Joshua Muravchik stridently insists that Bush bomb Iran before he leaves office. Muracvchik urges his fellow neocon warmongers to “pave the way” for the bombing of Iran and to “be prepared to defend the action when it comes.”

As Middle East expert Anthony Sullivan writes, the neoconservatives are “fifth columnists” whose “real concern is not the United States but Israel.” Sullivan writes that “it is past time that neoconservatives and their movement be left to drown in the deepest reaches of the ocean.”

Amen! And send Bush and Cheney and Rice with them.

RAW STORY / January 1, 2007

A Monday night broadcast of CNN’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer confused America’s “number one enemy” with one of America’s most popular senators, RAW STORY has learned.

During a January 1st broadcast of Wolf Blitzer’s nightly news program, a pre-commercial preview of the show’s next segment included a story on the hunt for Al Qaeda’s leadership. Over a photo of Osama Bin Laden and his second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Blitzer stated, according to the transcript, “Plus, a new year, but the same mission. Will 2007 bring any new changes in the hunt for Osama bin Laden?”

But instead of asking “Where’s Osama?” the graphic over the two Islamists read “Where’s Obama?” referencing the surname of popular Illinois Democrat Senator Barack Obama.

RAW STORY is awaiting comments on the graphic from corporate staff at CNN.

Since RAW STORY was alerted to the Situation Room’s gaffe by alert reader Jon Bee in the early evening, a lively discussion of the error was initiated in a diary started by a user of Daily Kos.

 
Cahal Milmo

London Independent / January 1, 2007

A combination of global warming and the El Niño weather system is set to make 2007 the warmest year on record with far-reaching consequences for the planet, one of Britain’s leading climate experts has warned.

As the new year was ushered in with stormy conditions across the UK, the forecast for the next 12 months is of extreme global weather patterns which could bring drought to Indonesia and leave California under a deluge.

The warning, from Professor Phil Jones, director of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, was one of four sobering predictions from senior scientists and forecasters that 2007 will be a crucial year for determining the response to global warming and its effect on humanity.

Professor Jones said the long-term trend of global warming - already blamed for bringing drought to the Horn of Africa and melting the Arctic ice shelf - is set to be exacerbated by the arrival of El Niño, the phenomenon caused by above-average sea temperatures in the Pacific.

Combined, they are set to bring extreme conditions across the globe and make 2007 warmer than 1998, the hottest year on record. It is likely temperatures will also exceed 2006, which was declared in December the hottest in Britain since 1659 and the sixth warmest in global records.

Professor Jones said: “El Niño makes the world warmer and we already have a warming trend that is increasing global temperatures by one to two tenths of a degrees celsius per decade. Together, they should make 2007 warmer than last year and it may even make the next 12 months the warmest year on record.”

The warning of the escalating impact of global warming was echoed by Jim Hansen, the American scientist who, in 1988, was one of the first to warn of climate change.

In an interview with The Independent, Dr Hansen predicted that global warming would run out of control and change the planet for ever unless rapid action is taken to reverse the rise in carbon emissions.

Dr Hansen said: “We just cannot burn all the fossil fuels in the ground. If we do, we will end up with a different planet.

“I mean a planet with no ice in the Arctic, and a planet where warming is so large that it’s going to have a large effect in terms of sea level rises and the extinction of species.”

His call for action is shared by Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientific adviser, who said that 2006 had shown that the “discussion is now over” on whether climate change is happening. Writing in today’s Independent, Sir David says progress has been made in the past year but it is “essential” that a global agreement on emissions is struck quickly. He writes: “Ultimately, only heads of state, working together, can provide the new level of global leadership we need to steer the world on a path towards a sustainable and prosperous future. We need to remember: action is affordable - inaction is not.”

The demands came as the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), the United Nations agency that deals with climate prediction, issued a warning that El Niño is already established over the tropical Pacific basin. It is set to bring extreme weather across a swath of the planet from the Americas and south-east Asia to the Horn of Africa for at least the first four months of 2007.

El Niño, or “the Christ child” because it is usually noticed around Christmas, is a weather pattern occurring every two to seven years. The last severe El Niño, in 1997 and 1998, caused more than 2,000 deaths and a worldwide damage bill of more than £20bn.

The WMO said its latest readings showed that a “moderate” El Niño, with sea temperatures 1.5C above average, was taking place which, in the worst case scenario, could develop into an extreme weather pattern lasting up to 18 months, as in 1997-98. The UN agency noted that the weather pattern was already having “early and intense” effects, including drought in Australia and dramatically warm seas in the Indian Ocean, which could affect the monsoons. It warned the El Niño could also bring extreme rainfall to parts of east Africa which were last year hit by a cycle of drought and floods.

Its effect on the British climate is difficult to predict, according to experts. But it will probably add to the likelihood of record-breaking temperatures in the UK.

The return of El Niño

* Aside from the seasons, El Niño and its twin, La Niña, are the two largest single causes of variability in the world’s climate from year to year.

Both are dictated by shifts in temperature of the water in the tropical Pacific basin between Australia and South America. Named from the Spanish words for “Christ child” and “the girl” because of their proximity to Christmas, they lead to dramatic shifts in the entire system of oceanic and atmospheric factors from air pressure to currents.

A significant rise in sea temperature leads to an El Niño event whereas a fall in temperature leads to La Niña.

The cause of the phenomenon is not fully understood but in an El Niño “event” the pool of warm surface water is forced eastwards by the loss of the westerly trade winds. The sea water evaporates, resulting in drenching rains over South America, particularly Peru and Ecuador, as well as western parts of the United States such as California.

Parts of the western Pacific, including Indonesia and Australia, suffer drought. The effects can last for anything from a few weeks to 18 months, causing extreme weather as far afield as India and east Africa.

The co-relation with global warming is as yet unclear. Archaeological evidence shows El Niños and La Niñas have been occurring for 15,000 years. But scientists are investigating whether climate change is leading to an increase in their intensity or duration.

 
AFP / January 1, 2007

North Korea on Monday hailed 2006 as a “year of great victory” thanks to its first ever nuclear weapons test and vowed to keep putting its military first in the coming year.
A joint New Year editorial in the hardline communist state’s major newspapers also vowed to restructure the creaking economy and called for unbending loyalty to leader Kim Jong-Il.

“Our access to a nuclear deterrent was an auspicious event in the national history as it meant the realization of the Korean people’s centuries-old desire to have national strength no one could dare challenge,” said the editorial carried jointly by the party, military and youth newspapers.

“Our nuclear deterrent serves as a powerful force for defending peace and security in Northeast Asia and guaranteeing the victorious advance of the cause of independence,” it added, referring to the nuclear test on October 9.

The editorial termed 2006 a “year of great victory” and made no mention of the international condemnation or UN sanctions which were sparked by the nuclear test and by earlier missile tests in July.

It also made no mention of six-nation nuclear talks which resumed last month in Beijing but broke off after a week without setting a date to meet again.

“The year 2007 will be a year of great changes, a year which will usher in a new era of prosperity of Songun Korea,” the editorial said, referring to the “Songun” army-first policy which directs most resources to the country’s 1.1 million-strong military.

It described economic revival as “the main task in the present general march” and said emphasis should be put on farming to alleviate chronic food shortages.

“We should, as in the past, keep up farming as the great foundation of the country and make an epoch-making advance in solving the problem of food for the people,” it said.

North Korea suffered famine in the mid- to late 1990s in which hundreds of thousands of people died and severe food shortages persist.

The editorial also called for more production of better consumer goods and development of power, coal-mining, metal and rail transport industries, among other areas.

Analysts said the editorial stressed the importance of economic development, reflecting the seriousness of the impoverished nation’s moribund economy.

“The editorial placed particular emphasis on the economy. It shows North Korea will focus on economic affairs as it achieved its goal in defense through its nuclear test,” said Dongkuk University professor Koh Yu-Hwan said.

The editorial has replaced the North’s New Year message since founding president Kim Il-Sung died in 1994. It called on the nation’s 23 million people to show loyalty to Kim’s son and successor Kim Jong-Il.

“The whole Party, the entire army and all the people should loyally uphold the idea and guidance of the leadership, cherishing the unshakeable spirit of defending their leader at all costs,” it said.

Kim made a midnight visit to the Kumsusan Memorial Palace in Pyongyang, where the embalmed body of his father lies, the official Korean Central News Agency said.

He was accompanied by several top military leaders, including Vice Marshal Kim Yong-Chun who is chief of the army’s general staff, and Vice Marshal Kim Il-Chol, a member of the National Defense Commission and minister of the People’s Armed Forces, the agency said.

 
Ending the occupation will reduce violence, immediately save more than $100 billion and respect the wishes of the American people. Why is Washington, DC ignoring the obvious?

Kevin Zeese / January 1, 2007

If the election results did not make the message clear, polls since the election have done so. Support for sending additional troops to Iraq is at 11% according a December 15-17 poll by CNN. The same poll found that 54% of Americans want the troops home by the end of 2007 and 67% oppose the war. Yet in the Capitol there is talk of adding new troops and almost no talk of getting out of Iraq. Representative government is failing to represent the voters.

Why is the leadership of both parties in Washington, DC failing to discuss getting out of Iraq—rapidly? They say a U.S. exit will lead to an escalation of violence, a blood bath or civil war. But the truth is we can design a rapid exit from Iraq that reduces the risk of violence. How?
First, it is important to look at the real violence. While sectarian violence gets all the attention in the U.S. media, the November 2006 DoD report called “Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq” found that more than 80% of violence is directed at the U.S. military or at the Iraqi military. “Coalition forces attracted the majority (68%) of attacks.” said the report. Attacks on Iraqi Security Forces are the next-largest category, with attacks on civilians being the smallest group. Thus, the real war is between Iraqis fighting the U.S. and its Iraqi allies. Of course, civilians account for the most casualties, as they are unprotected when attacks occur.

Dahr Jamail, a top reporter on Iraq, reports on December 28, in an article entitled “More Troops but Less Control in Iraq,” that “Through the occupation, each time the U.S. has increased troop levels, there has been a corresponding increase in attacks on the forces, and consequently an increase in civilian casualties.” Thus, rather than learning from past experience, the Bush administration, with a compliant Congress, is likely to repeat past mistakes.

On December 6, James Baker, the co-chair of the Iraq Study Group, even admitted to Anderson Cooper on CNN that removal of U.S. troops may reduce the violence.

COOPER: And is it possible that getting the U.S. troops out will actually lessen that violence, that it will at least take away the motivation of nationalist insurgents?
BAKER: Many people have argued that to us. Many people in Iraq made that case.

COOPER: Do you buy it?

BAKER: Yes, I think there is some validity to it, absolutely. Then we are no longer seen to be the occupiers.

Despite the fact that a U.S. withdrawal is likely to reduce the violence, Baker concluded: “We’re still going to have a very robust—forced presence in Iraq and in the region for quite a number of years after this thing sorts itself out whichever way it sorts itself out. We have to do that because we cannot—we have vital national interests in that region.”
William Polk, a former Harvard and University of Chicago professor who has served in various foreign policy posts in the U.S. government, is in the process of writing about twelve insurgencies throughout history. His review finds that one common denominator of insurgencies is “when the occupiers leave the violence ends, as the insurgency loses support.”

While merely leaving Iraq is likely to reduce the violence because Main Street Iraqis will realize they are getting their country back and will no longer have to resist U.S. occupation, there are additional steps the U.S. can take to make a reduction in violence even more likely. William Polk and George McGovern, co-authors of Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now, put forward a detailed strategy for leaving in a way that is likely to reduce the violence.

They recommend two broad areas: (1) strengthen the government by funding civil works projects to rebuild the country, creating jobs for Iraqis and encouraging hundreds of thousands of Iraqis to return home; (2) underwrite a stabilization force that will engage in bringing basic security and policing to Iraq—a force that will not include U.S. soldiers. The cost of these two steps is a fraction of the cost of the Iraq occupation, and would save the U.S. more than $100 billion immediately.

Regarding funding the rebuilding of Iraq, it is important to remember that Iraq was able to rebuild its country after the first Gulf War. They have the capability to rebuild. Rebuilding efforts by Halliburton, Bechtel and other U.S. contractors have failed; worse, because they employed a foreign workforce, the result has been very high unemployment in Iraq, reportedly over 50%. As an Iraqi businessman told The Washington Post , “The longer this [unemployment] goes on, we are asking for trouble because we are breeding more and more insurgents. Unemployment is exactly what the terrorists want.”
Indeed, the U.S. military recognizes that high unemployment may be a major source of the insurgency. As Military.com reported:

’Most of the folks that are out there are not ideologues,’ Air Force Gen. Lance Smith, who heads U.S. Joint Forces Command, told Inside the Pentagon last week in a telephone interview. ‘They’re people that don’t have jobs that [do] have a choice: You can go make 10 or 20 dollars a month picking up trash….You can make—you pick the number—50 or 100 dollars to be a policeman, or 50 or 100 dollars to be a soldier [in the new Iraqi army]. Or you can get $200 to go pick up an RPG [rocket-propelled grenade] and go shoot at the next camouflage-desert vehicle that goes by.’”

The November 20 DoD report on stability in Iraq noted that unemployment “has been an issue that has had a significant effect on the security environment.” Combined with underemployment—estimated by one Iraqi government agency at 34%—unemployment “may make financial incentives for participating in insurgent or sectarian violence more appealing to military-age males,” says the Pentagon assessment.
Polk and McGovern include in their list of costs: rebuilding funding for the reconstruction of Iraq by Iraqis; removing landmines and depleted uranium; dismantling blast walls and wire barriers; restoring archaeological sites; training lawyers, judges, journalists, and social workers in Iraq; bringing back professional Iraqis who emigrated; rebuilding Iraq’s public health system; compensating the families of civilians killed and tortured and training an Iraqi police force.

In addition to this, there would be a need to fund a stabilization force; a force that would not include U.S. soldiers because we cannot bring security to Iraq. They describe this as a group “hired” by the Iraqis, not to fight the insurgency, but to provide order on the roads, at schools, banks, hospitals and other key locations. This force would preferably include Arabs and Muslims from non-contiguous countries acting under UN auspices, or a regional authority like the Arab League. Polk and McGovern estimate such a force would cost $6 billion for two years.

McGovern and Polk estimate the cost of rebuilding Iraq to be $13.2 billion. David Swanson of AfterDowningStreet.org makes a higher estimate totaling $22.05 billion, based primarily on the number of Iraqis killed or injured as he used the Lancet study that came out after their book was written. Swanson points out, “That’s the cost of twelve and a half weeks of occupying Iraq.” The Congress has already approved $70 billion for Iraq for 2007 expenditures, and will be considering another $100 billion in a supplemental appropriation proposal this February. Thus, the U.S. will immediately save $148 billion—that’s billions the U.S. will not have to borrow from China and other countries, as the U.S. is already spending more than we have.

It is also $148 billion that could be spent on basic needs at home. For example, we could restore, and add to, the nearly $2 billion annually cut from veterans benefits last year. Further, the U.S. could invest in the most important step the United States could take to protect its security: slow global warming, protect the environment and build a 21st Century economy by investing in evolving from a fossil fuel-based economy to a clean, sustainable-energy economy. Then the U.S. would no longer have the need to engage in oil wars. We’d even have money left over for a middle class tax cut!

Ending the occupation of Iraq is consistent with the views of the majority of Americans, will save tens of billions of dollars, allow investment in urgent needs at home and put our economy on a more secure footing. Yet the leadership in Congress is not even debating it. They seem to put their desire for military bases in Iraq, control of Iraq and Middle East oil, and protection of Israel ahead of the views of the voters. Is our democracy working?

 
BBC / January 1, 2007

Powers allowing police forces to keep the DNA of people accused of sexual or violent offences have come into force.

The measure will allow the police to store such information on a database, even if there is no conviction.

Currently, DNA must be destroyed if it belongs to an accused of sexual or violent crimes if there is no conviction obtained.

The changes are contained in the Police, Public Order and Criminal Justice (Scotland) Act 2006.

They will allow police to retain DNA samples for up to three years and apply for an extension if deemed necessary.

Drug testing

Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson said: “It represents a sensible balance between those who believe that the police should retain all the DNA that they take and those who argue that police powers to keep DNA should be limited.

“The focus on violent and sexual offences is proportionate, given the seriousness of those offences.”

The act, which came into force on New Year’s Day, was given royal assent last year year and has already provided the police with powers to crack down on knife crime, sex offenders and football-related disorder.

Mandatory drug testing on arrest for anyone aged 16 or over who is suspected of a drugs or drug-related offence, or other offences including theft, will be brought in during 2007 as part of the act.

Those who test positive for heroin, cocaine or both will be required to have a drugs assessment which will initially be implemented on a pilot basis.