De Oorlogsstaat 37

De Engelstalige editie van Der Spiegel bevat een interview met Nobelprijswinnaar Joseph Stiglitz. 'Trillion Dollar War ."The War Is Bad for the Economy" Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, 63, discusses the true $1 trillion cost of the Iraq conflict, its impact on the oil market and the questions of whether the West can afford to impose sanctions on Iran. Professor Stiglitz, at the beginning of the Iraq war, the United States administration was hoping to almost break even in terms of the costs ...Stiglitz: ... they truly believed the Iraqi people could use their oil revenues to pay for reconstruction.SPIEGEL: And now you are estimating the cost of war at levels between $1 trillion and $2 trillion. How do you explain this difference?Stiglitz: First, the war was much more difficult than President Bush and his government expected. They thought they were going to walk in, everybody would say thank you, and they would set up a democratic government and leave. Now that this war is lasting so much longer, they constantly have to adapt their budget. It rose from $50 billion to $250 billion. Today, the Congressional Budget Office talks about $500 billion or more for this adventure. SPIEGEL: That's still by far lower than your own calculations.Stiglitz: The reported numbers do not even include the full budgetary costs to the government. And the budgetary costs are but a fraction of the costs to the economy as a whole. And compare this to Gulf War number one, where America almost made a profit!SPIEGEL: Because Germany paid for it?Stiglitz: Because Germans paid, because everybody paid. We got our allies to pay full price for used equipment, and we got to refurbish our military. This time, most of the other countries were not willing to do so again.SPIEGEL: Did Bush just miscalculate, or was he misleading the public about the true costs of war?Stiglitz: I think it was both. He wanted to believe it was not going to be expensive, he wanted to believe it would be easy. But there's also enormous evidence now that information channels into the White House were distorted. Bush wanted only certain information, and that's mostly what they supplied him with. Larry Lindsey ...SPIEGEL: ... the White House's former top economic adviser ...Stiglitz: ... gave -- back in 2002 -- a number of up to $200 billion. I think that was the most accurate inside information at the time. He was dismissed. They didn't want to hear it.' Lees verder: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/spiegel/0,1518,409710,00.html Of:
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12634.htm

Irak 58

De Independent bericht: 'Bush authorised Iraq 'leak', White House aide testifies. A senior White House official has told prosecutors that President George Bush authorised the dissemination of previously classified intelligence about Iraq's purported weapons arsenal to the media .
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, is in court charged with obstructing a federal leak investigation. He testified that he had been given permission to share the contents of a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) about Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities. He also said he was authorised to talk about Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who had been publicly critical of Mr Bush's conduct over Iraq.
Mr Libby's claims are contained within court papers that were made public yesterday.
However, there is nothing in the papers which suggests Mr Libby claims either Mr Bush or Mr Cheney authorised him to reveal the identity of Mr Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative. Mr Libby was charged last October with five counts in relation to the leaking of Ms Plame's identity - something which constitutes a federal offence.' Lees verder:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article356252.ece

Howard Zinn 5

De Amerikaanse historicus Howard Zinn schrijft: 'Now that most Americans no longer believe in the war, now that they no longer trust Bush and his Administration, now that the evidence of deception has become overwhelming (so overwhelming that even the major media, always late, have begun to register indignation), we might ask: How come so many people were so easily fooled? The question is important because it might help us understand why Americans—members of the media as well as the ordinary citizen—rushed to declare their support as the President was sending troops halfway around the world to Iraq.A small example of the innocence (or obsequiousness, to be more exact) of the press is the way it reacted to Colin Powell’s presentation in February 2003 to the Security Council, a month before the invasion, a speech which may have set a record for the number of falsehoods told in one talk. In it, Powell confidently rattled off his “evidence”: satellite photographs, audio records, reports from informants, with precise statistics on how many gallons of this and that existed for chemical warfare. The New York Times was breathless with admiration. The Washington Post editorial was titled “Irrefutable” and declared that after Powell’s talk “it is hard to imagine how anyone could doubt that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.” It seems to me there are two reasons, which go deep into our national culture, and which help explain the vulnerability of the press and of the citizenry to outrageous lies whose consequences bring death to tens of thousands of people. If we can understand those reasons, we can guard ourselves better against being deceived. One is in the dimension of time, that is, an absence of historical perspective. The other is in the dimension of space, that is, an inability to think outside the boundaries of nationalism. We are penned in by the arrogant idea that this country is the center of the universe, exceptionally virtuous, admirable, superior. If we don’t know history, then we are ready meat for carnivorous politicians and the intellectuals and journalists who supply the carving knives. I am not speaking of the history we learned in school, a history subservient to our political leaders, from the much-admired Founding Fathers to the Presidents of recent years. I mean a history which is honest about the past. If we don’t know that history, then any President can stand up to the battery of microphones, declare that we must go to war, and we will have no basis for challenging him. He will say that the nation is in danger, that democracy and liberty are at stake, and that we must therefore send ships and planes to destroy our new enemy, and we will have no reason to disbelieve him.' Lees verder: http://progressive.org/mag_zinn0406

De Architecten van de Oorlog

Het progressieve Amerikaanse Think Progress bericht: 'The Architects of War: Where are They Now? President Bush has not fired any of the architects of the Iraq war. In fact, a review of the key planners of the conflict reveals that they have been rewarded - not blamed - for their incompetence.
Paul Wolfowitz
Role in Going to War: Wolfowitz said the U.S. would be greeted as liberators, that Iraqi oil money for pay for the reconstruction, and that Gen. Eric Shinseki's estimate that several hundred thousand troops would be needed was "wildly off the mark." [Washington Post, 12/8/05] Where He Is Now: Bush promoted Wolfowitz to head the World Bank in March 2005. [Washington Post, 3/17/05]
Key Quote: "We are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction and relatively soon." [Wolfowitz, 3/27/03]
Douglas Feith
Role in Going to War: As Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, Feith spearheaded two secretive groups at the Pentagon - the Counter Terrorism Evaluation Group and the Office of Special Plans - that were instrumental in drawing up documents that explained the supposed ties between Saddam and al Qaeda. The groups were "created in order to find evidence of what Wolfowitz and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, believed to be true." Colin Powell referred to Feith's operation as the Gestapo. In Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack, former CentCom Commander Gen. Tommy Franks called Feith the "f***ing stupidest guy on the face of the earth." [LAT, 1/27/05; NYT, 4/28/04; New Yorker, 5/12/03; Plan of Attack, p.281]
Where He Is Now: Feith voluntarily resigned from the Defense Department shortly after Bush's reelection. He is co-chairman of a project at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government to write an academic book on how to fight terrorism. Feith's secretive groups at the Pentagon are under investigation by the Pentagon and the Senate Intelligence Committee for intelligence failures. [Washington Post, 1/27/05, 11/18/05; Washington Times, 3/3/06]' Lees verder: http://thinkprogress.org/the-architects-where-are-they-now Of: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/040606P.shtml

Israel

De Israelische krant Haaretz bericht: 'High Court upholds ban on Machsom Watch exhibit in Be'er Sheva. The High Court of Justice has decided not to interfere with Be'er Sheva Mayor Ya'akov Turner's decision last week to ban a Machsom Watch photo exhibit at the Teacher's Center in the city. Machsom Watch is a women's group that monitors the behavior of soldiers toward Palestinians at checkpoints. The pictures in question depict interactions at the Qalandiyah and Hawara checkpoints in the West Bank. Turner announced the ban last Thursday, claiming that the contents of the exhibit are harmful to the sensitivities of the public.
Justices Edna Arbel, Miriam Naor and Elyakim Rubinstein ruled that Turner acted in accordance with his authority, which gives him the right to ban a public exhibit in a municipal building. However, the court ruling also stated that the municipality should allow activities of this sort in public locations.Attorney Gabi Lasky submitted a petition to the court on behalf of Machsom Watch, after the Be'er Sheva District Court rejected an appeal by the group.Lasky noted that just two weeks ago, the Teacher's Center held an exhibit on human rights abuses in China.' Lees verder: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/700776.html Hier kunt u de betreffende foto's van de Israelische mensenrechtenorganisatie Women for Human Rights bekijken:
http://www.machsomwatch.org/eng/homePageEng.asp?link=homePage&lang=eng Ook de vertoning van Paradise Now van de Nederlans/Palestijnse filmer Hany Abu Assad werd verboden. De Haaretz bericht: 'Acre municipality vetoes screening of acclaimed suicide bomber movie . The Acre municipality and the national network of "Matnas" community centers canceled at the last minute Wednesday a screening of the controversial film "Paradise Now" about Palestinian suicide bombers."Paradise Now" won a Golden Globe for best foreign film and was nominated for an Oscar in the same category.The El-Yatir organization, dedicated to the cultural development of the city and responsible for the scheduled screening, maintains extremist Jewish groups pressured the municipality to cancel it. City officials say that the decision to cancel the screening stemmed from considerations of sensitivity towards the city's residents. They fear that screening the film, which depicts the inner struggle of two suicide bombers, could disrupt the delicate co-existence between Jews and Arabs in the city.' Lees verder: http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/702925.html

Victor IV

Werk van wijlen de Amerikaanse/Amsterdamse beeldend kunstenaar Victor IV die zich ook wel Bulgar Time noemde. Willem Sandberg, van 1945 tot 1962 directeur van het Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, die grote interesse had voor iemand die nooit eerder geschilderd had, schreef hem: 'maar mijns inziens is u geen zondagsschilder, tenminste niet in de gebruikelijke zin van het woord. Natuurlijk is het belangrijkste bij een schilder dat hij wat te zeggen heeft en dat hij weet hoe. Dat is uiteraard zeldzaam onder de onnoemelijk velen die menen met of zonder kwast verf op een of ander materiaal te moeten aanbrengen en zich dan kunstenaar noemen.'

Nederland en Afghanistan 51

De Guardian bericht: 'MPs warn on troop deployment. British troops preparing to be deployed in southern Afghanistan face serious problems including a "fundamental tension" between promoting stability and fighting the opium trade, a cross-party committee of MPs warns today.
It also expresses concern about the treatment of any detainees handed over to the Afghans by British forces, and the prospect of a lack of air cover to protect troops on the ground. From next month more than 3,000 British soldiers will be based in Helmand province for a potentially dangerous mission maintaining security, training the Afghan army, and countering narcotics. ' Lees verder: http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1747946,00.html