Terrorisme 3

De Toronto Star bericht: 'War on Terror Called Failure.

Another 9/11 "inevitable," experts conclude. Washington's diplomatic efforts rated 1.8 out of 10.
Washington is failing to make progress in the global war on terror and the next 9/11-style attack is not a question of if, but when. That is the scathing conclusion of a survey of 100 leading American foreign-policy analysts.
In its first "Terrorism Index," released yesterday, the influential journal Foreign Affairs found surprising consensus among the bipartisan experts.
Some 86 per cent of them said the world has grown more, not less, dangerous, despite President George W. Bush's claims that the U.S. is winning the war on terror.
The main reasons for the decline in security, they said, were the war in Iraq, the detention of terror suspects in Guantanamo Bay, U.S. policy towards Iran and U.S. energy policy.
The survey's participants included an ex-secretary of state and former heads of the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Agency, along with prominent members of the U.S. foreign-policy establishment.
The majority served in previous administrations or in senior military ranks.
"When you strip away the politics, the experts, almost to a person, are very worried about the administration," says Joe Cirincione, vice-president of the Center for American Progress, the Washington think-tank which co-sponsored the survey.
"They think none of our front-line institutions is doing a good job and that Iraq has made the terror situation much worse."
The findings will be picked up immediately by politicians and policy-makers, he adds: "Just about any one of these people saying this would make news. When the opinions come together, it really carries weight."
Almost 80 per cent of the analysts said widespread rejection of radical Islamic ideologies is crucial if terrorism is to be eradicated, but that goal requires "a much higher emphasis on its non-military tools."' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061506N.shtml

Neoliberale Globalisering

Le Monde bericht: 'Reinventing Globalization.

Nine thousand kilometers! That's the total average distance covered by a shot of milk, fruit, and plastics before they're transformed into a container of yogurt and find their way into your refrigerator. In thirty years, global shipping volume has tripled while road transport in France has jumped 43% in less than fifteen years. The globalization of reciprocal trade is such that international trade represents a third of global production.

Will we be able to maintain this rhythm over the next thirty years? Not very likely. These long trips, voracious in their use of fuel, are only possible because transportation cost is barely reflected in the final price of a container of yogurt, for example. The heralded increases in oil costs due to the exhaustion of reserves and global warming linked to CO2 emissions are going to force us, experts believe, to take a new look at the global flow of merchandise in the next thirty to forty years.

In the scenario where the price per barrel goes from 70 to 180 dollars, as the Conseil général des ponts et chaussées [French "General Council for Bridges and Roads"] envisions in a report on transport in 2050, the logistical situation is likely to be profoundly changed. Diesel fuel represents 20% of the costs for a transport company that clears a 4% profit. We see that if the fuel price variable is affected, the whole economic model teeters. "We don't pay a fair price for energy," reasons Thierry Raes, in charge of the energy and transport sector in the PricewaterhouseCoopers consulting firm. "There's a very perverse logic at work. Globalization's collateral damage - social and environmental - is only very partially taken into account."

The aberrations are easily discernible in daily life. Pears from Argentina can be purchased by a distributor for less than those produced in the European Union. Chinese strawberries have become ultra-competitive, although when they're sold in France, they demand twenty times the equivalent in gasoline of a strawberry from Périgord. "Between a quarter and half the weight of a pair of blue jeans is given off as CO2 by virtue of the product's outsourcing," points out Alain Morcheoine, Director of the agency for the environment, "Ademe."

These aberrations are all the more untenable given that global energy consumption will increase 65% from now to 2025, from - most notably - China and India's economic catch-up. If the Chinese purchased as many cars as Europeans tomorrow, their energy consumption would be one billion tons equivalent of oil a year, or as much as the United States, Japan and Europe today.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061406H.shtml Of in het Frans:
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3234,36-781854,0.html

De Oorlogsstaat 64

De Amerikaanse listserver Justwatch bericht: 'Marine sorry for song about killing Iraqis.

A Marine seen in an Internet video singing about killing members of an Iraqi family says the song was a joke.

Cpl. Joshua Belile, 23, apologized and said the song was not tied in any way to allegations that Marines killed 24 unarmed civilians in Haditha last year.

"It's a song that I made up and it was nothing more than something supposed to be funny, based off a catchy line of a movie," he said in Wednesday's Daily News of Jacksonville.

In the four-minute video called "Hadji Girl," a singer who appears to be a Marine tells a cheering audience about gunning down members of an Iraqi woman's family after they confront him with automatic weapons.

Maj. Shawn Haney, a Marine spokeswoman, said Wednesday the Marine Corps was looking into the matter. "The video, which was posted anonymously, is clearly inappropriate and contrary to the high standards expected of all Marines," she said in a statement.

Belile did not return a call Wednesday from The Associated Press.

He said his buddies pushed him on stage with his guitar while he was in Iraq in September and someone posted it on the Internet. It has since been removed.

Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the video should be investigated by the Pentagon and Congress.

"We welcome Cpl. Belile's apology," he said.'

Eerder had Joshua Belile geschreven:

'Wow I am seeing myself on the internet! This is an awfully weird experience. My name is Joshua Belile and this is a song I wrote and performed many times while aboard Al Asad Airbase in Iraq. If you want to check out more stuff my band and I have done you can check out my myspace at http://www.myspace.com/zelph99 or my band's sites at http://swtrktnz.tripod.com or http://www.myspace.com/thesweaterkittenz

Take care everyone,

Cpl Josh Belile
U.S.M.C. '

Deze mensen worden naar Irak gestuurd om er de mensenrechten en de westerse democratie te verspreiden. Wow!

Irak 92

De Independent bericht: 'The number of soldiers diagnosed with psychiatric problems brought on by the stress of service in Iraq has dramatically escalated since the beginning of the war, according to new figures from the Ministry of Defence.
In 2005, the military authorities were notified of 727 cases of troops with psychiatric disorders brought on by their period in Iraq - an average of 60 each month, or two every day.
The figure is nearly 10 per cent of the total British military presence in Iraq. It includes 66 troops who developed such serious mental problems that they had to be airlifted out for treatment back home.
It is also a sharp increase on official statistics released four months ago, which revealed that 1,333 servicemen had needed treatment in the first two and a half years after the outbreak of the Iraq war, an average of around 40 a month.
These can be added to the total of at least 6,700 British casualties in Iraq, including 113 killed and 4,000 who injured or ill enough to need to be flown out for treatment.
Tom Watson, the Armed Services minister, revealed in the Commons last night in a written answer to the Tory MP Philip Dunne that the Defence Analytical Services Agency had been notified of 727 personnel in 2005 alone who had been examined for suspected mental health problems and were "subsequently identified as having a psychiatric disorder related to their service in Iraq".' Lees verder: http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article1018575.ece

Waar zouden deze mannen gek van zijn geworden? Het doodschieten en mishandelen van burgers? Of van iets anders?

Irak 91

Inter Press Service bericht: 'RIGHTS: Iraq Exodus Ends Four-Year Decline in Refugees.

An exodus of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis escaping growing violence in their homeland last year increased the total number of refugees around the world to some 12 million, according to the World Refugee Survey 2006 released here Wednesday by the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI). That total marked a reversal of a four-year trend of declining numbers of refugees. From 2001 to the end of 2004, the total number of people who crossed international borders in search of a safe haven from persecution or war fell from nearly 15 million to 11.5 million, according to the report. "The increase is largely due to 650,000 more Iraqi refugees who have fled to Jordan and Syria," said USCRI's president, Lavinia Limon. "Although some Iraqis may be fleeing generalised violence, individuals and groups are targeted on the basis of political affiliation, professions, ethnic, or religious differences -- the definition of a refugee." Moreover, she said that protections for fleeing Iraqis appear to be deteriorating, as Syria has begun to require residency permits, forcing many refugees to live underground, while Jordan has failed to so far to grant refugee status to Iraqis and is turning many back at the border. The erosion of such protections, according to the report, is typical of what is happening in many countries around the world, as governments increasingly erect barriers to prevent people fleeing persecution and conflict from entering their territory and force those who have arrived to return home.' Lees verder: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33613

Amerikaanse Oorlogsmisdaden 24

Een kind dat tijdens de Amerikaanse aanval op Fallujah gedood werd. Over Amerikaanse oorlogsmisdrijven schrijft William Rivers Pitt Hij is a New York Times and internationally bestselling author of two books: War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know and The Greatest Sedition Is Silence.

'There is going to be a debate today on the floor of the House of Representatives regarding Iraq. Is it within the realm of possibility to categorize a debate on the floor of the House as a war crime? Is that too much of a stretch? Leveling a war crime accusation is deadly serious business after all, and not to be bandied about like some meager political football. Given what is expected to take place today in Washington, unfortunately, such a categorization is worth considering.
What is a war crime anyway? Article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention defines war crimes as, "Willful killing, torture or inhuman treatment, including willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health, unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person, compelling a protected person to serve in the forces of a hostile power, or willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial, taking of hostages and extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly."
How many of these definitions have been met by the United States during our ill-fated adventure in Iraq and during this so-called "War on Terror" as a whole?
Willful killing? Check: see Fallujah, Haditha, etc.
Torture or inhuman treatment, including willfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health? Check: see Abu Ghraib.
Unlawful deportation or transfer or unlawful confinement of a protected person? Check: see Guantanamo and the secret "rendition" of prisoners for interrogation to nations that practice torture as a matter of daily business.
Willfully depriving a protected person of the rights of fair and regular trial? Check: see Guantanamo again.
Extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly? Check: see much of Iraq, specifically its former petroleum industry.
But all this happened during the invasion and occupation, and many of these despicable activities have been papered over by dubious legal findings generated by Attorney General Gonzales. How does a debate on the floor of the House of Representatives rise to the level of a war crime?
Simple. Awareness that war crimes are being committed, combined with a lack of action to stop those war crimes by an individual or entity holding a position of leadership, is as bad as the crime itself.
Major Darwyn O. Banks of the US Air Force, whose April 2001 research paper on information warfare titled, "Mitnick Meets Milosevic," notes the following: "While there are no claims Milosevic personally committed any such crimes, he is culpable under the principles of command responsibility and direct responsibility. The former alleges Milosevic's foreknowledge of such crimes without acting either to prevent the commission thereof or to punish the perpetrators. The latter form of responsibility implies that he authorized, planned, instigated and/or ordered the unlawful acts. These indictments against the former Yugoslav president, then, highlight the primary categories of the law of armed conflict."
Article I, Section 8 of the United States Constitution endowed Congress with the power to make war. To be sure, that power has been slowly but surely usurped by a series of presidents, but the basic principle remains. At a minimum, if the legislative branch is going to surrender its constitutional responsibilities regarding our formidable war powers to the executive branch, they should at least attempt to exert a degree of oversight once the bullets start to fly.
This Republican congress has not done this to any degree whatsoever. They rolled the whole process down the hill to 1600 Pennsylvania, provided political and legal cover for the White House every time something went wrong, wrapped themselves in as many American flags as they could find, and stapled themselves to this president who, by his own words, goes to work every day with war on his mind. Thus it has been for the last three years and 87 days.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061506Z.shtml

De Bush Bende 16

De Amerikaanse onderzoeksjournalist Greg Palast schrijft: 'Keeping Iraq's Oil in the Ground.

World oil production today stands at more than twice the 15-billion a-year maximum projected by Shell Oil in 1956 - and reserves are climbing at a faster clip yet. That leaves the question, Why this war?
Did Dick Cheney send us in to seize the last dwindling supplies? Unlikely. Our world's petroleum reserves have doubled in just twenty-five years - and it is in Shell's and the rest of the industry's interest that this doubling doesn't happen again. The neo-cons were hell-bent on raising Iraq's oil production. Big Oil's interest was in suppressing production, that is, keeping Iraq to its OPEC quota or less. This raises the question, did the petroleum industry, which had a direct, if hidden, hand, in promoting invasion, cheerlead for a takeover of Iraq to prevent overproduction?
It wouldn't be the first time. If oil is what we're looking for, there are, indeed, extra helpings in Iraq. On paper, Iraq, at 112 billion proven barrels, has the second largest reserves in OPEC after Saudi Arabia. That does not make Saudi Arabia happy. Even more important is that Iraq has fewer than three thousand operating wells... compared to one million in Texas.
That makes the Saudis even unhappier. It would take a decade or more, but start drilling in Iraq and its reserves will about double, bringing it within gallons of Saudi Arabia's own gargantuan pool. Should Iraq drill on that scale, the total, when combined with the Saudis', will drown the oil market. That wouldn't make the Texans too happy either. So Fadhil Chalabi's plan for Iraq to pump 12 million barrels a day, a million more than Saudi Arabia, is not, to use Bob Ebel's (Center fro Strategic and International Studies) terminology, "ridiculous" from a raw resource view, it is ridiculous politically. It would never be permitted. An international industry policy of suppressing Iraqi oil production has been in place since 1927. We need again to visit that imp called "history."
It began with a character known as "Mr. 5%"- Calouste Gulbenkian - who, in 1925, slicked King Faisal, neophyte ruler of the country recently created by Churchill, into giving Gulbenkian's "Iraq Petroleum Company" (IPC) exclusive rights to all of Iraq's oil. Gulbenkian flipped 95% of his concession to a combine of western oil giants: Anglo-Persian, Royal Dutch Shell, CFP of France, and the Standard Oil trust companies (now ExxonMobil and its "sisters.") The remaining slice Calouste kept for himself - hence, "Mr. 5%."
The oil majors had a better use for Iraq's oil than drilling it - not drilling it. The oil bigs had bought Iraq's concession to seal it up and keep it off the market. To please his buyers' wishes, Mr. 5% spread out a big map of the Middle East on the floor of a hotel room in Belgium and drew a thick red line around the gulf oil fields, centered on Iraq. All the oil company executives, gathered in the hotel room, signed their name on the red line - vowing not to drill, except as a group, within the red-lined zone. No one, therefore, had an incentive to cheat and take red-lined oil. All of Iraq's oil, sequestered by all, was locked in, and all signers would enjoy a lift in worldwide prices. Anglo-Persian Company, now British Petroleum (BP), would pump almost all its oil, reasonably, from Persia (Iran). Later, the Standard Oil combine, renamed the Arabian-American Oil Company (Aramco), would limit almost all its drilling to Saudi Arabia. Anglo-Persian (BP) had begun pulling oil from Kirkuk, Iraq, in 1927 and, in accordance with the Red-Line Agreement, shared its Kirkuk and Basra fields with its IPC group - and drilled no more.
The following was written three decades ago:
Although its original concession of March 14, 1925, cove- red all of Iraq, the Iraq Petroleum Co., under the owner- ship of BP (23.75%), Shell (23.75%), CFP [of France] (23.75%), Exxon (11.85%), Mobil (11.85%), and [Calouste] Gulbenkian (5.0%), limited its production to fields constituting only one-half of 1 percent of the country's total area. During the Great Depression, the world was awash with oil and greater output from Iraq would simply have driven the price down to even lower levels.' Lees verder: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061406J.shtml