Obama 56

'United States President-elect Barack Obama's election victory has revived hopes that stalled Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations could finally lead to a two-state solution. Few new presidents have been greeted with such optimism and associated high expectations.
However, the chances for progress depend on more than a new American president. There are several interrelated factors: US engagement, the availability of a viable peace agreement, Israeli and Palestinian internal politics and the broader international situation.
An examination of these factors indicates that the optimism is unjustified and that President Obama will not be more successful in bringing about a two-state solution to the conflict. This does not however mean that the situation will remain static or that those pursuing a just peace have no recourse for action.
Early US engagement is not enough
Days after Obama's election, speaking on CNN, Brent Scowcroft, national security advisor to President George Herbert Walker Bush, advised the President-elect to start early on reviving peace negotiations as a way to "psychologically change the mood of the [Middle East] region" and "because the Palestinian issue ... gives the members of the region a deep sense of injustice" (Fareed Zakaria GPS, 12 November 2008). Former US President Jimmy Carter echoed these views, urging Obama to avoid the mistakes of other presidents who waited until their final year in office to push for an agreement (see "Obama will waste no time pursuing Middle East peace," Haaretz, 12 November). In a June speech to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the pro-Israel lobby, Obama himself pledged, "to do all I can to advance the cause of peace from the start of my administration."
These voices reflect a consensus that early and sustained US engagement has been the missing ingredient. The problem, however, has never been a lack of US engagement. Rather, it has been too much of the wrong kind. Earlier administrations, whether or not they actively encouraged negotiations, have been deeply involved. Since 1967, the US has given growing military, economic and diplomatic support to Israel -- in effect intervening heavily on one side of the conflict.
Aaron David Miller, a former top State Department official, succinctly summed up the American role in Arab-Israeli diplomacy over the past quarter century as "Israel's attorney, catering and coordinating with the Israelis at the expense of successful peace negotiations" (Miller, "Israel's Lawyer," The Washington Post, 23 May 2005). The George W. Bush administration, like that of former US President Bill Clinton, adopted Israeli positions as its own: the permanence of large Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, opposition to Palestinian refugee rights and support for Israel's demand to be recognized as a "Jewish state," even though 20 percent of Israeli citizens are Palestinians whose second-class status would be legitimized by such recognition.
The outgoing Bush administration took American engagement to unprecedented levels both overtly and covertly. Contrary to the well-crafted public initiatives, like the Annapolis conference and attempts to revive the "peace process," it was the Bush administration's covert activities that had the greatest impact. Intervening directly in Palestinian internal politics, it pushed for Palestinian elections, and then when Hamas won, attempted to overturn the result. The administration helped arm and train Palestinian militias opposed to Hamas and vetoed a Palestinian "national unity government." It has supported the blockade of the Gaza Strip and used financial aid to bolster client Palestinian leaders (see David Rose, "The Gaza Bombshell," Vanity Fair, April 2008). While these realities are often ignored, confronting them is nonetheless essential to understanding how American policy would have to change for the US to play a constructive role in fostering a just, sustainable and agr eed peace.
For an Obama administration to live up to the expectations and break with its predecessors would require that the US: make financial and other aid to Israel conditional on compliance with international law and signed agreements (such as long-ignored United Nations Security Council resolutions requiring Israel to dismantle settlements); stop interfering in Palestinian internal affairs and respect the democratic choices of the Palestinian people; and call for an immediate end to the blockade of the Gaza Strip. It would also require that the US exercise its influence to level the power imbalance in negotiations, rather than weighting the scales even further towards the stronger party. This includes using consistent standards for judging violent acts, negotiating ceasefires and apportioning responsibility for breaches of ceasefires by Israelis and Palestinians.'

Lees verder: http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article9969.shtml

Wijsheid 22

"[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will commend the general cause by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom."

John Quincy Adams - (1767-1848) 6th US President - Source: Speech before the House of Representatives, July 4, 1821; quoted in William Bonner and Pierre Lemieux (Editors), The Idea of America (Les Belles Lettres, 2003), p. 237

=It is part of the moral tragedy with which we are dealing that words like "democracy," "freedom," "rights," "justice," which have so often inspired heroism and have led men to give their lives for things which make life worthwhile, can also become a trap, the means of destroying the very things men desire to uphold. Sir Norman Angell (1874 - 1967), 1956.

="As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless." : U.S. President Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 21, 1864 - (letter to Col. William F. Elkins) - Ref: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY)

=

They (corporations) cannot commit treason, nor be outlawed, nor excommunicated, for they have no souls: Lord Edward Coke

=

criminal, n. A person with predatory instincts who has not sufficient capital to form a corporation: Howard Scott

De Israelische Terreur 468

Joodse fundamentalisten met steun van christelijke extremisten maken onder andere van Hebron een hel.

'Hebron, the ultimate family experience in Israel!
Isn't it about time you took your children to visit your great- grandparents in Hebron?
New armored buses, inspiring guides like Rabbi Simcha Hochbaum, Yossi Baumol & David Wilder, Hebron's historic sites and our pioneering spirit - all come together to make this tour your most moving day in Israel!
Celebrate Jewish history with those who keep writing it!
http://www.hebron.com/english/tour.php

En dit is de wertkerlijkheid: 'Underwriting the Conflict in Hebron
When it comes to U.S. fundraising for Israeli settlements, donating to the Hebron Fund is not merely an expression of support for Israel, it's a perpetuation of the systematic oppression of Palestinians.
Matthew Duss December 20, 2007 web only

On Nov. 18, in the beautifully appointed ballroom of Manhattan's posh Grand Hyatt Hotel at Grand Central Station, the Hebron Fund held its annual fund-raising gala. According to organizers, guests paid upward of $300 a head, with anything above the cost of the dinner considered tax-deductible. The evening began with a reception in an anteroom featuring a buffet of gourmet foods. A chef in a tall hat worked a stir-fry station; another expertly sliced sashimi and rolled sushi. A dessert table overflowed with cakes and chocolate mousse. A flute and piano duo played easy-listening versions of vaguely recognizable classics.
The Hebron Fund is a Brooklyn-based charity that supports the "continued Jewish presence" in the West Bank city of Hebron, which is considered holy by Jews, Christians, and Muslims. One of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world, Hebron was home to a vibrant Jewish community until 1929, when a series of conflicts between Jews and Arabs culminated in riots. During those riots 67 Palestinian Jews were murdered by Arabs. (The Zionist Archives preserve a list of 435 Jews who were given refuge by their Palestinian Arab neighbors.) Soon after, the British authorities ordered Jews out of Hebron in order to avoid more violence. After the 1948 war, and until 1967, the West Bank was occupied by the Jordanian Army.
Israeli forces took over the city after conquering the West Bank in the 1967 Six Day War. In 1968, a group of religious students obtained permission from the Israeli occupation authorities to observe a Passover seder in one of Hebron's old hotels. Soon after, they founded the settlement of Kiryat Arba on the outskirts of Hebron. The first settlers moved into Hebron itself in 1979, and since then, Hebron has become a magnet for extremists. Today there are between 500 and 600 settlers living in the center of the city, guarded by 4,000 Israeli troops. They live among nearly 200,000 Palestinians.
The opulence of the recent Grand Hyatt event in New York stands in stark contrast to the brutal reality of life for the Palestinians who must live amid the settlements supported by the Hebron Fund's charity. Like most of the West Bank and the entirety of Gaza, the Israeli occupation has transformed Palestinian Hebron into an open-air prison in which any sort of normal life is impossible. Hebron's Palestinian citizens regularly endure round-the-clock curfews. They are effectively under house arrest, sometimes for weeks at a time. Violence at the hands of settlers is also a fact of Palestinian life in Hebron. The Israeli human-rights organization B'Tselem states that attacks by settlers "include beatings, blocking of passage, destruction of property, throwing of stones and eggs, hurling of refuse ... urinating from the settlement structure onto the street," and that "the soldiers and police who witness attacks fail to take sufficient action to stop the attacks and enforce the law. At times they do nothing."
In their book Lords of the Land, Israeli journalists Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar recount the history of the settlements and the impossible situation that Israel has created for itself by allowing these communities to take root. Despite attempts by hard-line elements to describe the territory conquered in 1967 as "disputed," the territory is broadly understood as occupied land that falls under the purview of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which relates to the protection of civilians under occupation by a foreign power. As article 49 of the Convention states, "the Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies," the settlements are considered as illegal under international law. Observers of the Israel-Palestine conflict recognize the settlements as one of the biggest obstacles to peace. Most Americans are unaware of how the settlements function as tools to consolidate Israeli control over land around Jerusalem and over water sources throughout the West Bank, how provocative these settlements really are to Palestinians, and how constant settler violence and continued settlement growth -- irrespective of promises made by the Israeli government -- strengthen the appeal of Palestinian extremists.
Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian democracy activist and former candidate for president of the Palestinian Authority, says we should have no illusions about what the Hebron Fund is supporting. "This is helping people in an act of theft, stealing people's land. [Israeli settlers] harass the people in the Old City constantly. They block freedom of passage from one area of the city to another. [Children] who go to schools are prevented from reaching schools. ... The attacks are so severe and so frequent that [Palestinians] have to build special nets to put on top of houses and streets so that thrown bottles and stones will not fall on [their] heads."
The Hebron Fund tells its donors about none of this. In the Fund's promotional materials and photo exhibits at its fundraising gala, as well as on the group's Web site, there is no indication of the deeply provocative and controversial nature of the settlements and no discussion of the measures against Palestinians required to maintain the settlements. Indeed, their materials offer scant evidence that the Palestinians exist at all. When I spoke to attendees at the Hebron Fund gala, it was clear that some were less than fully aware of the violence and misery their donations support, and are primarily interested in "supporting Israel" in a general sense. One elderly woman told me she was at the fundraiser because she believed that Jews should be free to live anywhere in the land of Israel.'

Lees verder: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=underwriting_the_conflict_in_hebron

Paul Brill van de Volkskrant 10

Even de feiten nu:

De Israëlische historicus Benny Morris verklaarde in 2004 het volgende: ‘‘Ik denk dat [Ben Goerion] in 1948 een ernstige historische fout maakte. Hoewel hij het demografische vraagstuk begreep en de noodzaak van het vestigen van een joodse straat zonder een grote Arabische minderheid, werd hij tijdens de oorlog bang. Op het laatst aarzelde hij… Ik weet dat dit de Arabieren en de ruimdenkenden en de politiek correcte types verbijsterd. Maar mijn gevoel is dat deze plaats rustiger zou zijn en minder lijden zou kennen als de zaak eens en voor altijd opgelost was geweest… Als aan het eind van het liedje mistroostig blijkt te zijn voor de joden dan zal dit zijn omdat Ben Goerion de verplaatsing in 1948 niet voltooide. Omdat hij een groot en veranderlijke demografische reserve op de Westbank en Gaza en binnen Israël zelf achterliet.’’

Het was dezelfde Benny Morris die als eerste joods-Israelische historicus de etnische zuiveringen in 1948 en de daaraan verbonden zionistische bloedbaden en terroristische aanslagen uitgebreid en gedocumenteerd had beschreven. Desondanks, stelt deze joods-Israelische academicus nu dat de zionisten de oorlogsmisdaden tot hun uiterste consequentie hadden moeten doorvoeren, de volledige etnische zuivering van het 'beloofde land'. Dat wil zeggen: 'beloofd' door de oud-testamentische God, niet door de Verenigde Naties die weliswaar ongeveer 47 procent van Palestina aan het Palestijnse volk had toegewezen, maar waarvan meer dan de helft in 1948 al door de zionisten was gestolen. Zonder overdrijven kunnen we iemand die publiekelijk pleit voor het plegen van terreur en oorlogsmidaden een extremist noemen. Benny Morris steunt terrorisme en is daarmee een joodse extremist. Dat is belangrijk niet uit het oog te verliezen. Vooral niet wanneer opiniemakers die zelf twijfelen over hun identiteit propaganda gaan bedrijven voor een of andere zaak.

Welnu, de Volkskrant-opiniemaker Paul Brill gedraagt zich als een pro-Israel lobbyist met een identiteitscrisis. Zo schreef Brill dat hij zich 'minder dan een halfjood' voelt, wiens 'joodse vader geheel heeft gecapituleerd voor de bekeringsijver van' zijn 'katholieke moeder.' Men hoeft geen Freudiaan te zijn om te beseffen dat het voor zich spreekt dat de door Paul zelf beschreven problematische achtergrond een wezenlijke rol speelt in zijn beoordeling van 'de joodse natie'. Ondanks zijn katholieke achtergrond, een religieus milieu waarin het anti semitisme eeuwenlang welig tierde, lijkt hij zich schatplichtig te voelen aan zijn 'joodse vader' die, zo intens dramatisch voor een zoon, 'heeft gecapituleerd' voor de 'katholieke moeder' die het huisgezin vernietigend moet hebben gedomineerd. En dat allemaal na de gruwelen van de Holocaust. Dit alles maakt de houding van de voormalige linkse journalist Brill bijzonder problematisch zodra het Israel betreft.

Dat bleek weer eens vorige week woensdag toen een interview van Brill met Benny Morris in de Volkskrant werd afgedrukt. De kop maakt meteen duidelijk wat de geinterviewde en Brill zelf relevant achtten: 'Dreigingen voor Israel worden niet minder met komst Obama.' Dit was ook meteen de strekking van het artikel. In de ogen van veel joods-Israeli's en de pro-Israel lobby is de enige klemmende vraag: is wat nu gebeurt goed of kwaad voor Israel? Alles op aarde wordt daaraan afgemeten. Een verklaarbare, maar toch uiterst neurotische houding, die groteske en gevaarlijke vormen kan aannemen, zoals de slachtoffers van Israel uit ervaring maar al te goed weten.

Een onafhankelijke journalist had Morris natuurlijk gevraagd of hij als waardevrije wetenschapper zijn imago niet ernstig had geschaad nadat hij voor nog meer oorlogsmisdaden had gepleit? Immers, Morris had naar aanleiding van zijn extremistische standpunten zelf gezegd: 'Ik weet dat dit de Arabieren en de ruimdenkenden en de politiek correcte types verbijsterd.' Bovendien, als een Palestijnse geleerde publiekelijk de etnische zuivering had bepleit van Israel, dan zou Paul Brill ogenblikkelijk hier terecht een onderwerp van hebben gemaakt. Maar zodra een joodse academicus oorlogsmisdaden bepleit neemt de opiniemaker Brill dit voor kennisgeving aan, het verbijsterd hem niet, hij verzwijgt het, en gaat over tot de orde van de dag.

En wat is momenteel de orde van de dag? Dat komt de lezer al snel in de inleiding te weten, namelijk de geesten rijp maken voor een oorlog tegen de Iraanse bevolking, dus een pleitrede voor nog meer oorlogsmisdaden, of in de woorden van Brill: 'Israelische historicus is niet tegen gesprekken VS-Iran. ''Maar ik verwacht er niet veel van.''' So what? Dat is de mening van 1 individu over de toekomst, maar een onafhankelijke journalist interviewt een historicus toch niet over de toekomt? Historici interview je over het verleden, over een onderwerp waar ze veel van af weten. Over de toekomst weet een historicus net zoveel als ieder andere praatjesmaker met een handvol meningen. Een journalist moet niet op zoek zijn naar meningen, maar naar feiten. Meningen zijn net zo besmettelijk als een neusverkoudheid, dus daar moet je als journalist uiterst voorzichtig mee omspringen, zoals Karl Kraus in de jaren dertig al voor waarschuwde.

Maar Brill is ook geen verslaggever, hoewel hij wonderlijk genoeg als zodanig wordt aangekondigd, maar een 'opiniemaker.' En de mening van de Nederlanders moet nu zo gekneed worden dat er een meerderheid is voor het plegen van oorlogsmisdaden tegen Iran. En dus gebruikt Brill de geinterviewde historicus om de geesten rijp te maken voor terreur, want elk bombardement leidt onherroepelijk in een modern conflict tot talloze burgerdoden en dus tot terreur. Sterker nog, moderne oorlogen worden juist gevoerd tegen burgers, om de wil van de achterban te breken. Paul Brill werkt vrijwillig en zelfs enthousiast mee aan het kweken van een sfeer waarbij het Westen ongestoord terreur kan gaan bedrijven. En dit allemaal nadat zijn 'katholieke moeder' zo dominant was dat Paul's 'joodse vader... heeft gecapituleerd.'

Juist ja, 'gecapituleerd,' want oorlog is er overal, ook in de beslotenheid van het eigen gezin. En hoe kan een zoon van de 'joodse vader' die zich onderworpen had aan de 'katholieke moeder' vrede sluiten? Ik ben geen psychiater, maar ik kan wel constateren dat we hier voor een groot probleem staan. Meer hierover binnenkort.

De Israelische Terreur 467

De Nederlandse commerciele massamedia verzwijgen de sluipende etnische zuivering van Palestijns land, maar de Britse krant de Independent bericht er wel over. Deze Israelische terreur wordt gesteund door de pro-Israel lobby in en buiten het Nederlandse parlement.

Chronic malnutrition in Gaza blamed on Israel
Donald Macintyre reveals the contents of an explosive report by the Red Cross on a humanitarian tragedy
Saturday, 15 November 2008

The Red Cross says the diets of those living in the impoverished Gaza Strip are deteriorating

The Israeli blockade of Gaza has led to a steady rise in chronic
malnutrition among the 1.5 million people living in the strip,
according to a leaked report from the Red Cross.
It chronicles the "devastating" effect of the siege that Israel
imposed after Hamas seized control in June 2007 and notes that the
dramatic fall in living standards has triggered a shift in diet that
will damage the long-term health of those living in Gaza and has led
to alarming deficiencies in iron, vitamin A and vitamin D.
The 46-page report from the International Committee of the Red Cross
seen by The Independent is the most authoritative yet on the
impact that Israel's closure of crossings to commercial goods has had
on Gazan families and their diets.
The report says the heavy restrictions on all major sectors of Gaza's
economy, compounded by a cost of living increase of at least 40 per
cent, is causing "progressive deterioration in food security for up
to 70 per cent of Gaza's population". That in turn is forcing people
to cut household expenditures down to "survival levels".
"Chronic malnutrition is on a steadily rising trend and micronutrient
deficiencies are of great concern," it said.
Since last year, the report found, there had been a switch to "low
cost/high energy" cereals, sugar and oil, away from higher-cost
animal products and fresh fruit and vegetables. Such a shift
"increases exposure to micronutrient deficiencies which in turn will
affect their health and wellbeing in the long term."
Israel has often said that it will not allow a humanitarian crisis to
develop in Gaza and the report says that the groups surveyed had
"accessed their annual nutritional energy needs". But it warned
governments, including Israel's, that "food insecurity and
undernutrition, including micronutrient deficiencies" were occurring
in the absence of "overt food shortages".
A 2001 Food and Agriculture Organisation definition classifies "food
security" as when "all people, at all times, have physical, social
and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that
meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and
healthy life."
The Red Cross report says that "the embargo has had a devastating
effect for a large proportion of households who have had to make
major changes on the composition of their food basket." Households
were now obtaining 80 per cent of their calories from cereals, sugar
and oil. "The actual food basket is considered to be insufficient
from a nutritional perspective." The report paints a bleak picture of
an increasingly impoverished and indebted lower-income population.
People are selling assets, slashing the quality and quantity of
meals, cutting back on clothing and children's education, scavenging
for discarded materials and even grass for animal fodder that
they can sell and are depending on dwindling loans and handouts from
slightly better-off relatives.
In the urban sector, in which about 106,000 employees lost their jobs
after the June 2007 shutdown, about 40 per cent are now classified as
"very poor", earning less than 500 shekels (£87) a month to provide
for an average household of seven to nine people.
The report quotes a former owner of a small, home-based sewing
factory, who said he had laid off his 10 workers in July 2007. "Since
then I earn no more than 300 shekels per month by sewing from time to
time neighbours' and relatives' clothes. I sold my wife's jewellery
and my brother is transferring 250 shekels every month ... I do not
really know what to say to my children." Others said they were not
able to give their children pocket money.
In agriculture, on which 27 percent of Gaza's population depends,
exports are at a halt and, like fisheries, the sector has seen a 50
per cent fall in incomes since the siege began. Among the two-fifths
classified as "very poor", average per capita spending is down to 50p
a day. In the fisheries sector, which has been hit by fuel shortages
and narrow, Israeli-imposed fishing limits, "People's coping
mechanisms are very limited and those households that still have
jewellery and even non-essential appliances sell them".
The report says that if the Israeli-imposed embargo is maintained,
"economic disintegration will continue and wider segments of the Gaza
population will become food insecure".'

Lees verder: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/chronic-malnutrition-in-gaza-blamed-on-israel-1019521.html

Het Neoliberale Geloof 293

'Fed Defies Transparency Aim in Refusal to Disclose (Update2)

By Mark Pittman, Bob Ivry and (Bloomberg) --

The Federal Reserve is refusing to identify the recipients of almost $2 trillion of emergency loans from American taxpayers or the troubled assets the central bank is accepting as collateral.
Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said in September they would comply with congressional demands for transparency in a $700 billion bailout of the banking system. Two months later, as the Fed lends far more than that in separate rescue programs that didn't require approval by Congress, Americans have no idea where their money is going or what securities the banks are pledging in return.
``The collateral is not being adequately disclosed, and that's a big problem,'' said Dan Fuss, vice chairman of Boston- based Loomis Sayles & Co., where he co-manages $17 billion in bonds. ``In a liquid market, this wouldn't matter, but we're not. The market is very nervous and very thin.''
Bloomberg News has requested details of the Fed lending under the U.S.
Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure.
The Fed made the loans under terms of 11 programs, eight of them created in the past 15 months, in the midst of the biggest financial crisis since the Great Depression.
``It's your money; it's not the Fed's money,'' said billionaire Ted Forstmann, senior partner of Forstmann Little & Co. in New York. ``Of course there should be transparency.''
Treasury, Fed, Obama
Federal Reserve spokeswoman Michelle Smith declined to comment on the loans or the Bloomberg lawsuit. Treasury spokeswoman Michele Davis didn't respond to a phone call and an e-mail seeking comment.
President-elect Barack Obama's economic adviser, Jason Furman, also didn't respond to an e-mail and a phone call seeking comment from Obama. In a Sept. 22 campaign speech, Obama promised to ``make our government open and transparent so that anyone can ensure that our business is the people's business.''
The Fed's lending is significant because the central bank has stepped into a rescue role that was also the purpose of the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, bailout plan -- without safeguards put into the TARP legislation by Congress.
Total Fed lending topped $2 trillion for the first time last week and has risen by 140 percent, or $1.172 trillion, in the seven weeks since Fed governors relaxed the collateral standards on Sept. 14. The difference includes a $788 billion increase in loans to banks through the Fed and $474 billion in other lending, mostly through the central bank's purchase of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac bonds.'

Lees verder over de grootste bankroof in de geschiedenis: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aatlky_cH.tY

The Empire 377

De show must go on en dus ook het militair-industrieel complex.

'Readying Bush's Wars for the New President

By Mark Thompson / Washington

Next to a non-denominational prayer room up in the Pentagon's attic, the ways and means of Barack Obama's foreign policy are quietly taking shape.
There, in a decidedly unglamorous and narrow office that was once a hallway, sits the Chairman's New Administration Transition Team (CNATT), where a dozen midlevel military officers have been working to prepare briefings for the next President on America's two wars and other hot spots overseas.
There's an intense hum in this out-of-the-way place. Murmured conversations over secure phone lines mix with keyboard clicks. Officers from all four military services are reviewing war plans, threats to national security unknown to the rest of us, and enough PowerPoint briefings to choke a presidential campaign. The CNATT is by far the most important of all the secret teams around Washington now madly churning out to-do lists for the President-elect. (See pictures of Obama's election celebrations.)
The Pentagon team has for months been tracking Obama's foreign policy and military statements. It has studied his advisers and their backgrounds. The CNATT hasn't generated a written report telling Obama what he should do or even offered options for Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. Instead, it will listen to what Obama has in mind, and then detail for him the corresponding risks and benefits. Obama's transition team, says Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "will be in here very quickly ... to start to come up to speed." Obama called Mullen two days after the election to say he's "looking forward" to working together.
As Mullen likes to point out, Washington has not been through a presidential transition in wartime since 1968. Now, almost 40 years after Vietnam, Obama is inheriting not just one war, but two. The importance Mullen places on getting the handoff right can be seen in the fact that he put the front office of the CNATT on the Pentagon's exclusive E-ring corridor, right next to "the tank," where the Joint Chiefs conduct secret strategy sessions on the wars.
Mullen's first challenge will be to help his new boss shift forces from Iraq to Afghanistan without jeopardizing the gains in Iraq. While U.S.
commanders in Baghdad are leery of additional cuts, Mullen and his fellow Chiefs — along with Obama's team — are already contemplating them.
"It's a huge balancing act," Mullen says.
Although the Pentagon team is focused on Iraq and Afghanistan, "We have to be careful we don't miss other bubbling crises because we're so wrapped up in the wars," a senior Defense official says. Mullen is concerned that — as Senator Joe Biden predicted during the campaign — enemies overseas may try to test the U.S. during the transition, or challenge the will of the new President after a contentious campaign. More likely is an early overseas incident that catches the Commander in Chief and his team off guard. The unraveling of Somalia in 1993 led to the deaths of 18 U.S.
troops in Bill Clinton's first year in office. And President George W. Bush had been on the job a little over two months when a midair collision between a Chinese air-defense fighter and a U.S. Navy EP-3 surveillance plane resulted in 24 U.S. crew members hostage for 11 days. "History is replete with such tests over the past 40 to 50 years," Mullen says. "Given that, I want to be prepared in case we are." (See pictures of piracy in
Somalia.)
On Wednesday, Obama aides said his Pentagon transition team would be headed by Michele Flournoy, president of the Center for a New American Security, and John White, chair of the John F. Kennedy School of Government's Middle East Initiative at Harvard University. Flournoy says transitions are vulnerable times because political appointees often aren't yet in place, leaving the military to run largely on autopilot. A senior Pentagon official during the Clinton Administration, Flournoy knows that from reviewing what went wrong in Somalia that led to the disaster known as "Black Hawk Down."
"You could see the slow-motion derailment of the train," Flournoy said, before being named to head the transition team. "There really wasn't anybody home to do the day-to-day oversight." The Obama camp has already provided names to the FBI in hopes of having a cadre of political appointees ready to assume command quickly.
Mullen, according to aides, sees three areas of potential trouble:
Pakistan: The country's new civilian government remains shaky, and its recent attacks on Islamic militants in its tribal areas bordering Afghanistan have angered much of the population. The stakes are enormous because Pakistan possesses the Muslim world's sole nuclear arsenal. Only by getting rid of the militant sanctuaries inside Pakistan, military officials believe, do the U.S. and its allies have any chance of prevailing in Afghanistan. Wiping out the safe havens while keeping Islamabad's nuclear weapons secure will be a complex challenge. (See pictures of Pakistan.)
Iran: Tehran's dogged push to develop nuclear power — and, the West maintains, nuclear weapons — may come to a full boil in the next year.
Some international experts say that Iran will soon be in a position to produce enough enriched uranium to build a bomb, a threshold that could force the hand of the new President, if not the government of Israel. Obama has declared that Iran will not be permitted to become a nuclear-armed state — a vow that could soon set the stage for a military confrontation if stepped-up diplomacy and sanctions continue to produce no change in Iran's behavior. (See pictures of Iran.)
Terror Inc.: Mullen's biggest concern continues to be another 9/11. He has told confidants he's haunted by the prospect of a strike on U.S. soil as the White House changes hands: "I am extremely concerned that the terrorists who still target us could come at us during this period of time."

Lees verder: http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1858933,00.html