Just Foreign Policy News October 2, 2006 Summary: U.S. The Senate, with no debate Saturday, passed and sent to the president legislation that would impose new sanctions on Iran and countries that trade with Iran.
As the top Democrat on the House military spending subcommittee, John Murtha delivers Democratic votes to Republican leaders in exchange for earmarks for himself and his allies, the New York Times reports. Murtha has helped Republicans round up Democratic votes to block proposals to investigate federal contracting fraud in Iraq, to add $150 million for veterans' health care and job training, and to divert money intended to be spent on base closings to research prosthetic limbs for veterans. The Bush administration is so attached to torturing people because torture is what provides evidence for large important networks of terrorists where there aren't really any, or aren't very many, or aren't enough to justify 800 military bases and a $500 billion military budget, writes Juan Cole . Congress Friday moved to block the Bush administration from building permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq or controlling the country's oil sector, as it approved $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran The San Francisco Chroncle reports on preparations by the U.S. to attack Iran. In a podcast interview, Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford, argues that, far from weakening the Iranian regime, air strikes probably would strengthen its hand because the Iranian people would rally around the flag. Iraq Iraq's government showed further signs of strain Sunday, as Shiite political leaders expressed growing frustration at having to share power with Sunni Arabs whom they view as having ties to insurgents. The complaints came after the disclosure on Friday that a guard working for a leading Sunni politician might have been involved in a plot to detonate multiple car bombs in the Green Zone. Palestine Steven Erlanger reports for the New York Times that efforts to form a Palestinian unity government have been more slogan than reality. As in a previous report, he obscures the fact that some of the "aid" being withheld from the Palestinians is in fact Palestinian tax revenues which the Israeli government is legally required to hand over to the Palestinian Authority. Hamas and Fatah gunmen fought running battles in Gaza on Sunday, as Hamas forces tried to disrupt Fatah-organized protests over unpaid government salaries. Six Palestinians were killed and more than 100 were wounded. Bahrain A former government adviser has set off a firestorm with a report describing a vast conspiracy to rig the elections, manipulate the country's sectarian balance and ensure Sunni domination over the country's majority Shiites. The report suggests that unusual business dealings were occurring between government officials that may have amounted to an effort to set off ethnic conflict. Brazil Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva finished first in the presidential vote held Sunday, but fell short of the majority he needed to avoid a runoff on Oct. 29. Nicaragua Daniel Ortega is once again smiling down from campaign billboards across Nicaragua. Now 60, he stands his best chance yet of returning to power in elections on Nov. 5, the New York Times reports. Washington has sent word that aid will be re-evaluated if Ortega is elected. Contents: U.S. 1) Senate Passes Iran Sanctions Bill Jim Abrams, Associated Press, Saturday, September 30, 2006; 2:12 AM http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/30/AR2006093000163.html The Senate, with no debate Saturday, passed and sent to the president legislation that would impose mandatory sanctions on entities that provide goods or services for Iran's weapons programs. The Senate action came two days after the House approved the measure following a debate over the wisdom of toughening unilateral sanctions at the same time the US was trying to work with its U.N. partners on a multinational approach to Iran's nuclear threat. Both chambers approved the measure, which sanctions any entity that contributes to Iran's ability to acquire chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, by voice vote. Senator Frist, said the action would encourage the administration to use all available leverage over Russia, a partner in Iranian energy projects, to gain Russian support for multilateral sanctions against Iran. But in the House Thursday, Rep. Leach said that "unilateral sanctions don't work and there is no evidence that the other principle parties that are dealing with Iran will follow this example." The measure codifies existing economic sanctions against Iran. It also approves assistance for human rights, pro-democracy and independent organizations and states that the US should not enter into agreements with governments that are assisting Iran's nuclear program or transferring weapons or missiles to Iran. The House passed a similar Iran sanctions bill last April, but that measure met opposition from the administration, which said it reduced the flexibility it needed to reach a diplomatic solution to Iran's uranium enrichment program and the threat that it was developing nuclear weapons. That proposal was defeated in the Senate. The revised version takes out one section that would have cut off aid to countries, such as Russia, investing in projects in Iran that could be linked to weapons proliferation. 2) Trading Votes for Pork Across the House Aisle David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, October 2, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/washington/02murtha.html For more than a decade, Representative Murtha has operated a political trading post in a corner of the House of Representatives. About two dozen Democrats mill around his seat. Others walk back to request pet spending projects, known as earmarks. Republicans come by, asking him to enlist some of those Democrats to join them on close votes. "Whether they get what they want in the bill or they get the votes they are looking for, nobody ever leaves completely disappointed," said Rep. Kanjorski, often found in the Murtha corner. Outside Washington, Murtha may be known for his break with the president over the Iraq war. But inside the Capitol, he is best known for turning earmarks into power. As the top Democrat on the House military spending subcommittee, he often delivers Democratic votes to Republican leaders in exchange for earmarks for himself and his allies. In the last year, Murtha has helped Republicans round up enough Democratic votes to narrowly block a host of Democratic proposals: to investigate federal contracting fraud in Iraq, to reform lobbying laws, to increase financing for flood control, to add $150 million for veterans' health care and job training, and to exempt middle-class families from the alternative minimum tax. In one case that irked Democratic partisans, Murtha led three others in voting against a Louisiana Democrat's proposal to divert money intended to be spent on base closings to research prosthetic limbs for veterans. It failed by one vote. For their "nays" on that and other matters, all four Democrats were rewarded. In the weeks after the vote, they claimed credit for a total of more than $250 million in earmarks in the 2006 appropriations bills. Murtha alone brought home about $80 million for his district and $120 million for his state, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. 3) Craig Murray on Manufacturing Terror Juan Cole, Informed Comment, Sunday, October 01, 2006 http://www.juancole.com/2006/10/craig-murray-on-manufacturing-terror.html Why is the Bush administration so attached to torturing people that it would pressure a supine Congress into raping the US constitution by explicitly permitting some torture techniques and abolishing habeas corpus for certain categories of prisoners? Boys and girls, it is because torture is what provides evidence for large important networks of terrorists where there aren't really any, or aren't very many, or aren't enough to justify 800 military bases and a $500 billion military budget. Craig Murray, former UK ambassador to Uzbekistan, explained what is really behind the new "lily pad" doctrine of US bases, whereby the US is seeking to encompass the "Greater Middle East" with small bases Murray said that the US documents are quite open as to why they are seeking the network of lily pad bases around the Middle East. It is because that is where the oil and gas are. If you include the Caspian region, Tengiz, and the gas reserves in Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan along with what is in the Persian Gulf, the vast majority of proven oil and gas reserves are in this circle of crisis. I understand Murray to argue that the Bush administration hyped the al-Qaeda threat in order to have a pretext for the lily pad strategy of oil security. Murray did not say so, but this strategy would then logically underlie the conquest and military occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq. Murray's exhibit number 1 is Uzbekistan, which has major gas reserves. The US received basing rights there. The US supported the government of Islam Karimov, the Soviet apparatchik who turned himself into a post-Soviet dictator. The US and UK maintained that Uzbekistan was making progress toward democracy. They praised Uzbek elections as a sign of such progress, even though Karimov did not allow the opposition to run in the elections. Murray began receiving photographs and other evidence from victims' families that the Uzbek government was engaging in brutal torture techniques as part of its interrogation of dissidents. Yet the UK and the US were giving large amounts of foreign aid to Uzbekistan and winking at the political repression and torture. Murray as UK ambassador began seeing CIA reports naming known al-Qaeda operatives who were prominent in Uzbekistan. But these turned out to be just run of the mill Uzbek politicians who were on the outs with Karimov. Where did the CIA get this information about high-level terrorists in Uzbekistan? From Karimov's secret police. And where did they get their phony "intelligence"? From torturing dissidents and making them admit to being al-Qaeda and implicating others as al-Qaeda. Uzbeks have a Muslim heritage. They have Muslim names. But Uzbekistan is a country full of atheists and secularists. It is more secular than France. Everyone drinks vodka like fish. Almost no one could actually tell you how to pray the five daily prayers. There are a few. They are considered odd by the other Uzbeks. The government of Islam Karimov is aware that the West is afraid of Islam. So they scare the Americans and Europeans with tall tales about an Islamist menace in Uzbekistan, which attract support to the Uzbek government and also cause the Westerners to make excuses for a degree of political repression that approaches that characteristic of Saddam Hussein in the old days. There is an academic industry in the US of alleging radical Muslim fundamentalism is a big problem in Uzbekistan. It is bunkum. In a poll done in 2002 by Pew, 91 percent of Uzbeks agreed with Bush's War on Terror and the way it was being waged! You couldn't have found those numbers anyplace else in the world, maybe even in the US! Murray pointed out that if you had a referendum in Uzbekistan on whether Islamic canon law should be the law of the land, and explained that it would result in a ban on vodka, less than 1 percent of the population would vote for it. 4) U.S. Congress restricts Bush on Iraq spending Vicki Allen, Reuters, Fri 29 Sep 2006 7:11 PM ET http://today.reuters.com/News/CrisesArticle.aspx?storyId=N29278143 Congress Friday moved to block the Bush administration from building permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq or controlling the country's oil sector, as it approved $70 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The restrictions included in a record $447 billion military funding bill were a slap at the administration, and Republicans have stripped them out of legislation in the past. Democrats and many Republicans say the Iraqi insurgency has been fueled by perceptions the US has ambitions for a permanent presence in the country. The administration has downplayed prospects for permanent military bases in Iraq, but lawmakers have called on Bush to make a definitive statement that the US has no such plans. [For more on this strategy, see http://www.fcnl.org/iraq/index.htm - JFP] Iran 5) How An Attack Would Unfold A military assault on nuclear plants in Iran remains an option for U.S. Matthew B. Stannard, San Francisco Chronicle, Sunday, October 1, 2006 http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/10/01/ING9ULB4N11.DTL The Bush administration is constantly reiterating its desire for a diplomatic solution to the crisis over Iran's nuclear program. But the administration emphasizes that nothing is "off the table," including military action. "The evidence is overwhelming that plans have not only been dusted off, but they are at the White House," said Sam Gardiner, a retired Air Force colonel. "The president believes that he has got to do this." Other analysts are far more guarded. "Only the president and a small number of his intelligence advisors can know at this point," said Michael Eisenstadt, of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "I think this could go both ways." 6) Should the U.S. attack Iran? San Francicso Chronicle podcast interview with Abbas Milani, September 29 2006 http://cdn.sfgate.com/blogs/sounds/sfgate/chroncast/2006/09/29/Insight-20060929.mp3 Insight Editor Jim Finefrock talks with Abbas Milani, director of Iranian studies at Stanford University, about the repercussions of a U.S. air assault on Iran's nuclear facilities. Milani argues that, far from weakening the Iranian ruling regime, it probably would strengthen its hand because the Iranian people likely would rally around the flag. A more profitable path for the US, if it wishes to halt the Iranian nuclear program before it can produce a bomb, is to foster democracy in Iran, Milani says. That's a long, slow process, but it's preferable to turning the Iranian people into enemies of America, and it's better than unleashing the Iranian government to cause even more mischief in the Mideast and around the world, which, Milani says, would be the first response to a U.S. attack on Iran. Iraq 7) Shiite Politicians Grow More Critical of Iraq's Government Sabrina Tavernise, New York Times, October 2, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/world/middleeast/02iraq.html Iraq's government showed further signs of strain Sunday, as Shiite political leaders expressed growing frustration at having to share power with Sunni Arabs whom they view as having ties to insurgents. "There is a real trust crisis," said Baha al-Aaraji, a prominent Shiite legislator. The remarks, which included a call for a cabinet shuffle, came after the disclosure on Friday that a guard working for a leading Sunni politician might have been involved in a plot to detonate multiple car bombs in the Green Zone. But they quickly led to a larger debate, with Sunni and Shiite factions accusing one another of protecting their militias and governing to suit their own sects. The outburst underscored the weakness of Iraq's government. A patchwork of parties and groups that represents most of Iraq's ethnicities and sects, the government was assembled through weeks of bitter negotiations brokered by the Americans this spring. At the time, the thinking was to include all of Iraq's groups, particularly the minority Sunni Arabs who dominated the government of Saddam Hussein, in order to drain support for the insurgency. But now, five months after the government was formed, the violence has only worsened, with death squads carrying out sectarian killings that are changing the texture of neighborhoods. 8) Sadr Political Bloc Calls for Overhaul of Iraqi Cabinet Amit R. Paley & K.I. Ibrahim, Washington Post, Monday, October 2, 2006; A16 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/01/AR2006100100914.html The political bloc of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr demanded a shake-up of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's cabinet Sunday "Some of those who are in this government have direct or indirect relationships with terrorists," said Bahaa al-Araji, a senior legislator with Sadr's Shiite Muslim party. "The democracy that the occupation brought to Iraq is being exploited by the Sunni insurgents and the terrorists to kill our sons and our men." Araji's remarks appeared aimed at Adnan al-Dulaimi, the leader of the largest Sunni Arab coalition in parliament, whose bodyguard was arrested Friday on suspicion of planning suicide bombings inside the fortified Green Zone. Dulaimi has denied that his bodyguard is connected to terrorists, and on Sunday other Sunni legislators denounced Araji for making "hysterical statements." "They accuse the Sunnis of being insurgents, Baathists and Saddamists, but if we check the records of the majority of those politicians, we will find that they have ties to the former regime," said Hussein al-Falluji, a Sunni member of parliament. Falluji also suggested that tensions within the Shiite government -- over Maliki's efforts, unsuccessful so far, to disarm militias controlled by Sadr and other Shiite groups -- are causing politicians to lash out at Sunnis. "They are trying to transfer their problems to us," he said. Palestine 9) Presto, Palestinians, You Are All One Steven Erlanger, New York Times, October 1, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/01/weekinreview/01erlanger.html More than two weeks ago, the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, announced he had reached agreement with the radical Islamic group Hamas on the political platform for such a government as a way to induce the West to resume financial aid to the desperate Palestinians. The idea was immediately endorsed by the EU. But the Europeans were embracing a chimera - praising a new government that didn't yet exist. Hamas repudiated the political program almost as soon as Abbas announced it. The major obstacle is that any new government would represent a defeat for Hamas - an admission that it cannot govern alone, with no ideological modifications. That is apparently too big a concession for its political director, Khaled Meshal, who lives in Damascus. For Hamas leaders in the territories, like Prime Minister Haniya, a unity government could be an exit from a terrible problem. Hamas, considered a terrorist group by the United States and European Union, has proven unable to circumvent the Israeli and American determination to force it to change by denying it recognition and money. But even a unity government would not automatically mean a restoration of financing. The Israelis and Americans make three demands: that Hamas recognize the right of Israel to exist; that it forswear violence; and that it accept all previous Israeli-Palestinian agreements. [Again the NYT in its reporting obscures the fact that some of the money being withheld is not "aid" but Palestinian tax revenues which legally belong to the Palestinian Authority but are being unilaterally withheld by the Israeli government in violation of its agreement with the PA. The same mistake appeared in a September 19 NYT article by Steven Erlanger. -JFP] 10) Fatal Clashes in Gaza Over Unpaid Salaries Steven Erlanger, New York Times, October 2, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/world/middleeast/02mideast.html Hamas and Fatah gunmen fought running battles in Gaza on Sunday, as Hamas forces tried to disrupt Fatah-organized protests over unpaid government salaries. Six Palestinians were killed and more than 100 were wounded. The clashes were among the most severe between the Palestinian factions since Hamas won power in legislative elections in January. After President Mahmoud Abbas, who was traveling abroad, ordered a halt to the demonstrations by members of his Fatah faction, angry protesters turned their rage toward a government building in Ramallah, on the West Bank. Some offices in the Ramallah cabinet building, which is empty because many of the Hamas cabinet members in the West Bank have been arrested by the Israelis, were set on fire after protesters marched through the city shouting, "Hamas out!" Bahrain 11) Report Cites Bid by Sunnis in Bahrain to Rig Elections Hassan M. Fattah, New York Times, October 2, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/world/middleeast/02bahrain.html Just months before Bahrain is to hold parliamentary and municipal elections, a former government adviser has set off a political firestorm with a report describing what he says is a vast conspiracy to rig the elections, manipulate the country's sectarian balance and ensure Sunni domination over the country's majority Shiites. The scandal, which is being called "Bandargate" after the author of the report, Salah al-Bandar, reaches to the core of this tiny island kingdom's simmering tensions. The report includes hundreds of pages of supporting material, apparently authentic, including canceled checks, hotel bills, accounting sheets and notes. The material suggests that at the very least, unusual business dealings were occurring between government officials, Bandar says, and that it may have amounted to an effort to set off ethnic conflict. Brazil 12) Embattled Brazil Incumbent Fails to Win First-Round Ballot Larry Rohter, New York Times, October 2, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/02/world/americas/02brazil.html Brazil's embattled president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, finished first in the presidential vote held here Sunday, but fell just short of the majority he needed to avoid a runoff on Oct. 29. With more than 99.2 percent of the ballots tabulated early Monday, Mr. da Silva, his momentum checked by a last-minute corruption and ethics scandal, had 48.65 percent of the vote. The most competitive of his seven opponents, Geraldo Alckmin of the Brazilian Social Democratic Party, was running closer than had been expected, with 41.6 percent of the vote. Nicaragua 13) Ex-Firebrand Ortega on the Comeback Trail Marc Lacey, New York Times, September 30, 2006 http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/30/world/americas/30nicaragua.html After three failed attempts to return to power in the last 15 years, Daniel Ortega is once again smiling down from campaign billboards across Nicaragua. Now 60, he stands his best chance yet of returning to power in elections on Nov. 5. Though opinion polls give Ortega about 30 percent support, he is the front-runner in a race splintered among five candidates. The prospect has stirred deep anxiety in the Bush administration, which envisions him as a new ally for President Chávez in challenging US policy. Chávez has lent his support to Ortega, while Washington has sent word in no uncertain terms that aid will be re-evaluated if Ortega is elected. The latest in a string of visitors to Managua was Representative Dan Burton of Indiana, chairman of the House subcommittee on Western Hemisphere affairs. While insisting that he was not telling Nicaraguans how to vote, he made it clear to local reporters that he opposed Ortega and that relations between Nicaragua and the US would suffer should he win. -------- Robert Naiman Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming U.S. foreign policy so that it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.
