The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) agreed in 2001 to create a shared currency to help them integrate economies and pursue a monetary policy more independently of the US.

All of the council’s members except Kuwait peg their currencies to the dollar.

Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Qatar on December 15 announced the creation of a Monetary Council, a step toward establishing a shared currency. The board of the council, which will set a timetable for establishing a joint central bank and choose a currency regime, will meet for the first time on March 30.

Oman opted out in 2007. The UAE, the second-biggest Arab economy, withdrew from the currency project in May 2009 after the Saudi capital, Riyadh was selected as the location for the Monetary Council, the future central bank.

The UAE has no plans to rejoin the union project, said January 6, 2010 central bank Governor Sultan bin Nasser al-Suwaidi.Today, in Abu Dhabi, he said that the UAE remains committed to the concept of a single currency, though free trade in the region must come first. That is the reason for a Bloomberg new report on the topic.

With a Skiing Centre near the Grand Mosque of Makkah, like the skiing facility in Dubai, take a guess what Osama Bin Laden’s reaction could be to such displays of opulence.

New Makkah mall set to include skiing centre.
by Andy Sambidge on Sunday, 07 March 2010, arabian Business.

A new shopping mall will be built in Makkah by the end of 2011 and will include its own skiing facility similar to Ski Dubai at Mall of the Emirates, it was reported on Sunday.

The yet-to-be-named mall will be located in the Al-Rusaifah district, about two kilometres from the Grand Mosque, Arab News reported.

The mall will have four floors., the first two of which will be for shops while the fourth floor, which will cater for children with rides and games, will include a ski centre.

Khalid Al-Harbi, CEO of Aqari Investment Holding which will market the new mall, told the paper that efforts would be made to bring in as many international stores as possible.

He added that the third floor would be a food court featuring well-known brands as Al-Baik, Al-Tazaj and McDonald’s.

from:    HRW Press <hrwpress@hrw.org>
date:     Tue, Mar 2, 2010
subject:    Saudi Arabia: Free Woman Who Sought Court Aid
(Beirut, March 2, 2010) – Saudi Arabia’s authorities should quash the January, 2010, verdict of a court that sentenced a woman to 300 lashes and one and a half years in prison for filing harassment complaints without the required accompaniment by a male guardian, and release her from jail, Human Rights Watch said today.

Sawsan Salim was sentenced on charges of making “spurious complaints” against government officials and for “appearing … without a male guardian” in court. The verdict reflects the discriminatory system of male guardianship in Saudi Arabia, in which women are prohibited from many acts without the presence of a male guardian.

“In Saudi Arabia, being a woman going about her legitimate business without a man’s protection is apparently a crime,” said Nadya Khalife, women’s rights researcher for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch. “The government needs to free Sawsan Salim and keep its promise to end this discriminatory system.”

In June 2009, during a review of the country’s human rights record, Saudi Arabia accepted a recommendation by the United Nations Human Rights Council to abolish the legal guardianship system. However, the government has taken no steps to carry out its promise.

Under the system, those designated as “male guardians” conduct business on behalf of their female charges regardless of whether the female is an adult or a minor. Women who wish to travel, seek certain types of medical care, work, and conduct everyday business, for example, must still obtain the consent of their male guardians – who could be a husband, father, brother, or even a son who is a minor.

The case stems from 2004 when a court in Rass, in Saudi Arabia’s northern Qasim region, jailed Salim’s husband, Salih al-Thawwab, in January for failing to pay debts arising from a disputed inheritance. International human rights law prohibits the imprisonment of persons solely for their failure to fulfill contractual obligations, such as paying debts. The Rass court later released al-Thawwab after he claimed bankruptcy.

While her husband was in prison in 2004, Salim sought the help of a local judge, Habib Abdullah al-Asqa of the Buraida court, to gain her husband’s release. In a letter Salim addressed to King Abdullah bin Abd al-‘Aziz Al Sa’ud, she said that al-Asqa told her: “I’m better than [your husband]. He has nothing,” and offered to divorce her from al-Thawwab. Salim also said that after al-Thawwab’s release, al-Asqa told her “I will give [your husband] three months to pay his debt and if he doesn’t, I will return him to jail because you refused my offer to divorce him.”

Salim’s lawyer, Mikhlif Dahham al-Shammari, said that al-Asqa continued to harass her and to give her a difficult time with her business affairs. She complained in writing to the interior minister, Prince Nayef bin Abd al-‘Aziz Al Sa’ud, about what she saw as the judge’s inappropriate behavior.

Al-Shammari said that Salim was also harassed by other Rass officials. He said that on numerous occasions prior to February 2008, the Rass police manager, Salih Sulaiman al-Khalifa; the Rass passport office manager, Abd al-‘Aziz Abdullah al-Khalifa; and Governor Khalid al-‘Assaf, chided Salim for not being accompanied by a male guardian during her visits to their offices. At the time, she had disagreements with her husband and did not wish for him to act as her guardian.

Al-Shammari said the Rass officials disregarded her explanation that as a naturalized Saudi citizen of Sudanese origin, she had no male family members in the kingdom who could act as her guardian.

On February 14, 2008, Salim again wrote to Prince Nayef about the way public officials had allegedly mistreated her on the grounds that she addressed them without a male guardian. Sulaiman al-Mahwis, a retired judge at the Rass court, helped her prepare and submit her complaint.

In response, on February 25, Salim received a summons to meet with the court investigator, Judge Salman Muhammad al-Nushwan. She went to court, but asked if she could come back the next day because she did not have all of her documents with her. Al-Nushwan refused this request, taking notes. When Salim asked to see what he was writing, al-Nushwan also refused, and when she tried to take the paper, it tore. Al-Nushwan then angrily ordered her to leave the courthouse, Salim said in the letter to King Abdullah.

On April 8, 2008, she wrote a letter to King Abdullah bin Abd al-‘Aziz Al Sa’ud, complaining about her encounter with al-Asqa in 2004, her subsequent harassment at the hands of local officials, and her encounter with al-Nushwan.

Judges al-Nushwan and al-Asqa then filed a criminal complaint against Salim, accusing her of making 118 spurious complaints during 2007 (1428 hijri, the Islamic calendar) against government officials and of appearing before government offices without a male guardian. They also filed a complaint against the retired judge who “she went to for help in writing these complaints,” according to the charge sheet.

The complaint went to the president of the Supreme Council of the Judiciary, Salih Muhammad al-Luhaidan. The Supreme Council of the Judiciary appointed two Buraida court judges, al-Asqa and Ibrahim Abdullah, to try the case in the Rass court, despite the fact that al-Asqa was one of the plaintiffs.

The trial opened on December 27, 2009. Retired Judge al-Mahwis was listed as a co-defendant. The prosecutor claimed he “incited” against the “shaikhs [judges] of Rass court” because he had been fired as a judge there, although he is listed as a “retired” judge.
During the trial that day, Salim argued with the judges outside the courtroom, prompting the police to take her into custody. She is being held, together with her infant child, at Buraida central prison, 60 kilometers from her home in Rass. On January 25, 2010, she was found guilty of “making spurious complaints against government officials” and “visiting government offices without a male guardian.” The court sentenced her to one year in prison and 300 lashes. The prosecutor had asked the authorities to strip her of her acquired Saudi nationality and to deport her.

Al-Mahwis was found guilty of charges of helping to write “spurious complaints” and sentenced to 120 lashes and ten months in prison, al-Shammari said. Al-Sahmmari has written to King Abdullah to seek a pardon for Salim and al-Mahwis.

“Seeking justice is a risky business in Saudi Arabia,” said Christoph Wilcke, senior researcher with Human Rights Watch. “Even retired judges can be sentenced to lashes for helping others access the courts.”

Saudi Arabia has no penal code that sets out a catalogue of actions deemed criminal and that defines them. Judges have wide discretion to treat any act they deem inappropriate as a crime and to sentence the perpetrator to any punishment they see fit.

Human Rights Watch said that the verdict against Salim is based on the discriminatory system of guardianship, the verdict against al-Mahwis is on the basis of his assistance to her, and that both verdicts should be quashed. The sentences of prison time and lashes should be cancelled, and both prisoners should immediately be freed, Human Rights Watch said. Human Rights Watch opposes corporal punishment in all circumstances as cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

For more Human Rights Watch reporting on Saudi Arabia, please visit:
 http://www.hrw.org/en/middle-eastn-afric…

For more information, please contact:
In Beirut, Nadya Khalife: +961-71-151-766 (mobile); or  khalifn at hrw.org
In Munich, Christoph Wilcke (English, Arabic): +89-13-626-193; or  wilckec at hrw.org

The United Arab Emirates, led by Abu Dhabi, is the first member of OPEC to associate itself with the so called Copenhagen Note by a Valentine’s day Association message to the World Community – we are with you – we take responsibility for action. This from Mari Luomi’s blog for the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

From:  Jones Andrew <Andrew.Jones@upi-fiia.fi>
date:    Mon, Mar 1, 2010 at 4:17 AM
subject:  New UPI-FIIA publication – The EU and the global climate regime: Getting back in the game.

We are pleased to announce the release of a new publication by the International Politics of Natural Resources and the Environment Research Programme at The Finnish Institute of International Affairs (UPI-FIIA):

** – The EU and the global climate regime: Getting back in the game
 http://www.upi-fiia.fi/en/publication/10… Published 25.2.2010
by Thomas Spencer, Kristian Tangen, Anna Korppoo of the Finnish Institute of International Affairs.

The Finnish Institute of International Affairs.
 http://www.upi-fiia.fi/en/blog/269/ by  andrew.jones at upi-fiia.fi
web: http://www.upi-fiia.fi/
Tel: +358 206 111 734            GSM: +358 40 480 1655
Address: Kruunuvuorenkatu 4, 00160 Helsinki, Finland

** – and the Latest blog: The Opec state that clears its own, greener pat.

The Opec state that clears its own, greener path.
by Mari Luomi

ResearcherInternational Politics of Natural Resources and the Environment research programme. Published 26.2.2010

The United Arab Emirates, led by its wealthiest emirate Abu Dhabi, is finally taking the steps necessary to align its domestic and international policies in the field of climate change. Who would have thought just three years ago that the UAE would stand out as the only Opec state to associate itself to a controversial climate change accord, have a Climate Change Envoy, dub nuclear as clean energy, and, most importantly, set international climate change mitigation ahead of oil industry interests.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) recently became the first Opec member state to associate itself with the disputed Copenhagen Accord. It is also establishing a Directorate of Energy and Climate Change and has flirted with the possibility of announcing emission cuts in comparison to business-as-usual levels. What are the implications of these simultaneous moves for the country and, most interestingly, for the Opec bloc?

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The Association Letter:

The UAE’s association letter, sent to the UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC) on Valentine’s day, was designed to be a clear message to the international community that the UAE is concerned about the negative impacts of climate change and is willing to do its fair share in mitigating climate change. This comes despite the fact that the UNFCCC places no commitments on the country to cut its emissions. The UAE is exempt from emission cuts because, despite its GDP per capita rank placing it in the global top-15, it is classified under the Convention as a developing country.

The association letter notes that the UAE has initiated ‘numerous domestic programmes’ that would reduce the UAE’s emissions to below business-as-usual levels. It also promises a more detailed follow-up on the issue. One would hope that this means that the UAE is planning to set a similar goal as, for example, Singapore, a high-income developing country, which has pledged to cut emissions by 16% in relation to BAU emissions by 2020.

Three issues are highlighted in the letter:
- The common but differentiated responsibilities principle;
- The economic impacts of climate change and its mitigation on oil exporting states and
- The importance of promoting carbon capture and storage, as well as nuclear energy technologies, under the international climate negotiating regime.

The importance of countries associating with the Copenhagen Accord is still contingent on the form and direction that the currently disarrayed international negotiations take over the coming months. Also, the content of the UAE letter has only a few surprises, including the potential emission target and the mention of nuclear energy.

What is significant, however, is that no other Opec state has so far associated itself with the Accord. Kuwait has explicitly rejected it. Saudi Arabia, which took part in the group of 25-30 countries that drafted the Copenhagen Accord, informally representing the voice and interests of the OPEC group, has not associated itself so far. Rather, in a submission to the UNFCCC in mid-February, the country states that the Accord ‘has no legal status within the UNFCCC, and thus can’t be used as basis or reference for further negotiations’.

If any Opec country should back the document, it is Saudi Arabia, given that it participated in negotiating the text, especially since the issue of the impacts of the so-called response measures (policies and measures taken to cut greenhouse gas emissions) and the need to assist countries vulnerable to them, which is one of the key demands of Saudi Arabia and the OPEC group, is included in the Accord.

—————

Climate Change Directorate:

Abu Dhabi’s major English newspaper The National reported today on the setting up of a new Directorate of Energy and Climate Change under the UAE’s Foreign Ministry. To understand the significance of this move, one must take a quick dive into the national context.

Abu Dhabi, owner of over 7% of the world’s proven oil reserves and nine tenths of the total oil reserves of the seven-emirate federation it presides over, has for roughly three years now been building itself an image of a ‘future energy giant’. It has declared itself to be the ‘green energy leader of the region’ and, to earn the title, it has built up an impressive list of alternative energy initiatives, most of which converge under the umbrella of the Masdar Initiative, an alternative energy and technology venture by the Mubadala Development Company. What is best, international media and governments have bought the brand: from the President of Maldives to Ban Ki Moon, the world is praising Masdar and Abu Dhabi for their efforts.

These two moves – the association with the Accord and the new Envoy – might mainly have been taken for branding purposes, but what is important is that they will potentially have far-reaching implications for Opec’s negotiating dynamics that have so far been dominated by a very different tone. They are also finally bringing the ambitious national projects of Abu Dhabi and the UAE’s international climate policy closer to each other.

 http://www.arabianbusiness.com/582471-sa…

Saudi Alwaleed reiterates support to Citi’s Pandit
by Souhail Karam on Saturday, 27 February 2010

Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a prominent Saudi investor in Citigroup, reiterated on Saturday his support 0f the bank’s management led by Chief Executive Vikram Pandit.

“Prince Alwaleed emphasised his support of Pandit and Citigroup’s management,” Alwaleed’s Kingdom Holding Co said in a statement.

Prince Alwaleed met Pandit in Saudi Arabia. Pandit also met the kingdom’s Finance Minister Ibrahim Al Assaf and the head of its central bank Muhammad al-Jasser, added Kingdom in the statement without giving more details. (Reuters)

—————–

What is there to lose for the US had the Saudis bought even a larger stake of Citi? Citi has a long history of working anyway for Saudi interests – directly or via US big oil companies. Our experience taught us that the $4.8 billion financing of the “Gas-to-Gas” New Zealand boondoggle that took good Natural Gas of Motunui and funded its transformation into unneeded synthetic gasoline via methanol – a loss of energy independence for New Zealand that eventually led further to the full give-away of the New Zealand gas resources to Mobil Oil in lieu of paying technology fees before Mobil joined EXXON. Without the backing from Citi – this mess might not have occurred. We did document this at the time and it was brought into the open via a presentation at a Petroleum Science conference in Houston. Why did Washington have to bail out Citi rather then let its shareholder lose some money? Did this serve US interests? If I do not make myself clear, why do you not read Professor Joseph Stiglitz’s article we posted yesterday?

—————-

Further:

Saudi to build $13bn ‘tourist city’ on east coast
Bikini Beaches: Saudi Arabia has its own rich tradation; I mean why they need to allow bikini’s on their beaches and why people need to travel to Saudi to wear Bikini… Javed Iqbal from Jeddah, 27 February 2010, 14:49:40 ( UAE Time )

Those are very logical remarks we found in the UAE posting – why indeed do people want to go to Saudi Arabia and infuriate people there by imposing mores that are strange to them? This is really not so different then selling parts of Citi to the Prince while reassuring him that if the bank flops Washington will bail it out? The real stink is here – not there!

Saudi starts work on first solar water desalination plant.
by Neeraj Gangal on Saturday, 13 February 2010
 http://www.arabianbusiness.com/581394-sa…

WATER PLANS: Saudi Arabia produces today 18 percent of the world’s desalinated water.

Saudi Arabia has started building the first solar-powered water desalination plant, the first step in a three-part program to introduce solar energy into the Kingdom.

The programme, launched by the King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) aims to help stabilise future power and water supplies inside Saudi Arabia through the creation of solar-powered desalination facilities, it said in a media release on Friday.

By building water desalination plants that run on solar energy, the Kingdom can reduce operational costs and in turn, reduce consumer costs, the statement added.

Dr Turki bin Saud Bin Mohammad, Vice President for Research Institutes said, “The solar energy program will reduce the cost of producing desalinated water and of generating power for use in the Kingdom, an oil-dependent nation, which has launched a national energy efficiency program.”

Saudi Arabia is a prime location to harness solar energy because of its year-round sunshine. The sun in Saudi Arabia emits about 7,000 watts of energy per square meter over an average of 12 hours every day.

KACST and IBM have developed a research centre to determine how best to harness and repurpose this solar energy and is preparing to implement this state-of-the-art technology, KACST said.

We believe that America was not created by God and that Theocrats have no place among its bureaucrats. America was incorporated by groups of free people – not Peoples – but men and women.

We believe that the EU should take the America as intended – as its example; and we believe that the UN will eventually also be replaced by this sort of incorporation that is based on the concept that all people were created with the intention to live as equals.

——————–

The New York Society for Ethical Culture Believes in Secular Humanism as the driving Force In The American Constitution.

Sunday Meeting, February 21, 2010
Sunday Meeting – 11:15 a.m. – Auditorium

“One Nation Under the Constitution: Moral Values through Humanistic Government”
Sean Faircloth, Executive Director of Secular Coalition for America
The Secular Coalition for America is a leader of what The Nation magazine recently called the newly “visible, assertive, and respected” secular movement. Executive Director Sean Faircloth, will discuss how the values of our nation’s founders directly connect to the values of the secular movement.

Faircloth served for 10 years in the Maine legislature, and was elected to the post of Majority Whip of the Maine House of Representatives by his colleagues. An attorney whose duties include lobbying in Washington on behalf of the Secular Coalition’s 10 member organizations, he will show how injustices in American law based on religion are not a historical artifact but a stark current reality. He argues that all Americans have a moral obligation to address these injustices through rejuvenation of our government’s secular heritage and legal system. Faircloth is a strong advocate of the separation of church and state and has received many awards for his work, including the 2006 Legislator of the Year Award from the Maine People’s Alliance.

This website participates in Inter-religious dialogue as a way to mutual understanding by religions that agree beforehand to live in peace with one-another. This includes Imams in the US and wherever else – that are ready to enter this larger tent.

The following new leaders in Islam are welcome to the above tent – but as a new breed – not as apologists for the “is” – the problem is not the “Misperception” but the hurt from the effect of on-going actions.

The a-priory perception is that Muslims that come to live in the west have done so in order to avoid oppression in their lands of origin – this like all those that moved to the West before them and came from other religious backgrounds. Some came because they were oppressed, others because they did not agree with the oppression – both groups created new harmonies here – that is the melting pot that has to be understood and cherished.

We wish all the best to those interviewed in the following article, and those that go to meetings like the one in Doha, Qatar, mentioned in the article. We hope they change the leadership of Islam, the relationship to their women, the material learned in the madrassas, the perception of the infidel, etc. That does not mean a castration of their culture, but the bringing out to the forefront of the postive in their culture that we can easily admire also. The venom is what has to be removed internally before an attempt to claim misperception. Westerners are ready to accept the idea that the venom is not the juice of the pure religion it claims to be the guardian thereoff.

————-

Young Western Muslims Fight Misperceptions.
writes Liza Jansen of the IPS, February 16, 2010.

NEW YORK, Feb 15 (IPS) – Islamophobia is rising in the West, and sectarian clashes have undermined unity in the Muslim world, but there is hope from “within”, says a group of young Muslim Leaders of Tomorrow (MLTs) working to address these problems. “There is a lot of misinformation out there about our face, and there are many obstacles to getting the right information out,” Asim Rehman, a member of MLT in the United States, told IPS.

Rehman is also president of the Muslim Bar Association of New York, a professional grouping of Muslim lawyers, law students, and legal professionals. “When you see a 10-second clip of an angry young Muslim but there is no context to it, it disheartens and saddens me that this particular part of the faith has been given priority,” added member Rusha Majeed.

Majeed, also based in New York City, is dedicated to bridging the gap between the wider public and the Muslim community through dialogue, culture, arts, academia and current affairs.

Muslims are currently living in a pivotal period of enormous challenge and transformation, they said, and Muslims seeking positive Islamic solutions must directly tackle this situation.

The MLT programme brings together diverse young Muslims from around the world who are committed to fostering healthy Muslim identities, and working as agents of change in their communities.

In only six years, the network has expanded from 25 countries in Western Europe to about 75 countries all over the world, ranging from Somalia to Iraq to Kosovo, and coming from diverse schools of thought and myriad ethnic, cultural, socio-economic and professional backgrounds.

Rehman says the group’s biggest challenge in the U.S. is undoing the negative perception of Islam. The diverse Muslim community here is an asset in this effort, he said, since “Americans see greater potential for intra- and inter-religious harmony in the U.S. than we do in other countries, because of the melting pot model.”

MLT’s focus for the Muslim community in the U.S. is on interfaith work, building coalitions with different religious communities, and a balanced portrayal of Islam in the media, which is “crucial and critical and a big challenge to keep the conversation going”, according to Majeed.

At the MLT convention in Doha, Qatar, last January, the MLT global network was launched to tackle thorny issues such as violent extremism, competing values, and strained relations with the West.

One of the outcomes was that 86 percent of participants said Muslims face a crisis in religious authority.

“There are competing voices for that space and traditionally there is the Ulema – the educated class of Muslim legal scholars – where people go to,” Majeed explained.

However, many young Muslims don’t know who to turn to if they have questions about Islam, she said, and there is confusion about who is the “right” authority to consult – ranging from the local imam to the popular search engine Google.

“I truly feel that if non-Muslims just knew a little bit more about their Muslim neighbours, and if Muslims themselves were to be a little more open to embrace both non-Muslims and the diversity within Islam, we’d all be in a much better place,” Rehman said.

There are a lot of unqualified Muslim imams in the world, and others blindly follow them, he added.

The MLT programme is the largest of its kind, with 300 young civic-minded Muslim leaders from diverse backgrounds stepping up around the globe as spokespersons, journalists, religious leaders, activists for peace and tolerance, leaders of NGOs, writers and academics.

One Dutch MLT works to affect change by playing music. An Italian MLT and a local imam are working to promote interfaith harmony. And an MLT from Pakistan is involved in reform of the madrasah, the schools of Islamic theology and religious law.

Although the MLT programme does not have an explicit focus on women, the number of female MLTs is remarkable, since many interpretations of Islam oppose women taking leadership roles.

“We aim to keep the group diverse and representative, which includes encouraging women to participate,” said Majeed.

Majeed joined the network two years ago, and says it has provided her with the opportunity to meet a fascinating group of people.

“The MLT programme has done an amazing job in connecting young Muslim leaders around the world,” agreed Rehman. “These are people I can reach out to in participation. It is very inspiring to see people doing the work that they are doing.”

“The MLT network helps building a tremendous confidence for people in their own work. You need a level of pride in order to really make a change for communities,” he concluded.

Daniel Levy to PJ

Hope this note finds you well. I am writing to share with you a couple of my recent Ha’aretz op-eds.

From this weekend, a piece that explores the current debate inside Israel and in particular the disconnect between the urgency expressed by those advocating for the two-state solution and the steps that are being proposed to achieve it.

The second Ha’aretz op-ed, from a couple of weeks ago, takes stock of current efforts to re-launch Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and what’s at stake for regional players. Both pieces are pasted below.

In addition,there was a recent event that was jointly hosted as the New America Foundation’s Middle East Task Force with the Brookings Institution’s Wolfensohn Center for Development that featured James Wolfensohn and Strobe Talbott in conversation, followed by a panel that included Congressman Keith Ellison, Amjad Atallah, and myself.

—

A Retractionist-Retentionist Discourse.
Ha’aretz, Feb. 12, 2010

In his keynote address at last week’s Herzliya Conference, Ehud Barak summoned up the most dramatic case for changing the status quo:  “If, and as long as between the Jordan and the sea, there is only one political entity, named Israel, it will end up being either non-Jewish or non-democratic… If the Palestinians vote in elections, it is a binational state, and if they don’t, it is an apartheid state.”

This quote is particularly remarkable for the specific wording chosen by Israel’s defense minister: He (perhaps unintentionally) suggested that the existing situation could already be described as apartheid.

Considering the Labor Party’s collapse, one may dismiss its leader’s comments, but Barak’s speech does matter, not because of its author, but because it articulates the core narrative of the centrist-pragmatic trend in Israeli-Jewish politics – from Likud realists like ministers Dan Meridor and Michael Eitan, to Kadima and the remnants of Labor and Meretz. Let’s call it the “retractionist camp” – ready to support a withdrawal from the occupied territories that meets the minimum necessary requirement for the creation of a dignified and viable sovereign Palestinian state alongside Israel, and therefore a sustainable two-state solution.
They show realist tendencies, but there is a powerful disconnect (one that was pervasive in Barak’s speech) between most of this camp’s diagnosis of the situation (an “end of the world as we know it” threat of apartheid or binationalism) and their prescription for addressing it: resume negotiations, blame the Palestinians, more of the same. It’s like telling someone they have life-threatening yet treatable cancer and prescribing two aspirins a day.

If the situation is so dire, then bolder steps are surely called for. There are any number of game-changing options to consider. Maybe it is possible to engage Hamas (as is happening in the ongoing Shalit negotiations), to lift the Gaza siege, and to accept Palestinian unity instead of vetoing it, so as to facilitate an empowered negotiating and implementing address. After all, Israel spoke to the PLO before its charter was amended, and the United States engaged Sunni ex-insurgents in Iraq and is encouraging dialogue with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Alternatively, Israel could encourage internationalization of the conflict, handing the territories over to an international protectorate and international forces, or could embrace Salam Fayyad’s two-year plan for statehood and scale back its Area C presence, or even withdraw to the 1967 lines while negotiating over a way settlers could reside under Palestinian sovereignty. Perhaps a Quartet-driven or imposed plan could be encouraged. Anything but business as usual.

Yet most of those in the camp that favors retracting Israel’s occupation – let’s call them “soft retractionists” – eschew such bold positions. Their opponents, the “retentionists,” support retaining all, most or at least enough control of the territories to render impossible a real two-state outcome (indeed, a commitment to retain all of Jerusalem under exclusive Israeli sovereignty is enough to negate a workable two-state option). Again, most retentionists belong in the “soft” category – they are ready to use the language of two states, and support negotiations, economic peace, even a partial easing of the West Bank internal closure. At the heart of both the retractionist and retentionist camps, in their “soft” manifestations, is a basic element of denial. Soft retentionists pretend that ongoing occupation can coexist with preservation of Israel’s democratic character, its security, international acceptance, and a consensus about it in the Jewish world. Making noise about peace and throwing money at public relations will do the trick. Soft retractionists pretend that the occupation can be undone without a fundamental change in approach, and in particular while maintaining existing incentive and disincentive structures (which produced and preserve the current realities).

But while the respective “soft” narratives are more pleasant to the ear, and easier to market, both are not only wrong but also increasingly irrelevant to Israel’s future. The real struggle for the country is between what are commonly labeled as the extremes.

Hard retentionists know they will have to rewrite the rules of democracy, and plead a special exemption clause for “Jewish democracy” and for the elevation of Jewish-only rights. Palestinians are to be dehumanized, human and civil rights groups and international humanitarian law excoriated and a vocabulary created for laundering and justifying an apartheid reality.

Hard retractionists will need to stand up for (long-ridiculed) Jewish values, ethics and morality, for the unloved “other” in society, hold up a mirror to the nations’ warts, and ultimately support international campaigns that distinguish between Israel proper and the occupied territories.

Both camps have a vision for the country’s future: the Jewish Republic of Israel – equal parts ethnocracy, theocracy and garrison state on the retentionist side, while for the retractionists, well, something that lives up to the words of Israel’s Declaration of Independence.

Retentionist cooperation with racist European Islamophobes and American dispensationalist evangelists (for whom Jews have a particularly unenticing role to play during the anticipated Rapture and Second Coming) is considered legitimate and necessary and is embraced by the mainstream. But when retractionists make common cause with the global civil and human rights community, they are vilified as traitors by the mainstream.

The dominant discourse in Israel massively stacks the odds against the hard retractionists. The soft retractionists continue to feed that discourse even though it undermines the very outcome they know is necessary. Their frequent silence, no less than the settlers’ noise, is drowning out Israeli democracy. The hard retentionists are very well represented in the Knesset, while the hard retractionists can barely rely on a tiny and shrinking number of Jewish MKs.

It is the human and civil rights community, the New Israel Fund, the demonstrators at Sheikh Jarrah and the few brave public figures who have joined them – including David Grossman, Moshe Halbertal and Ron Pundak – who are now the standard-bearers and source of hope in this decisive phase of the struggle for Israel’s future.

***

Failure to Re-launch.

Ha’aretz, Jan. 15, 2010

A peculiar if familiar ritual is currently playing itself out in Middle East diplomacy. A concerted push is under way to restart Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, though none of the chief protagonists show any signs of believing they will change anything. We have all been here before, many times over.

If this is the case, then why the great hubbub of activity around such a redundant endeavor? The intentions and strategies behind the activity – in Israel, Egypt, the PLO and the United States – are not entirely on public display. So here is a brief guide to deciphering what they might be.

On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu understands that absent the cloak of legitimacy bestowed by participation in an internationally endorsed peace process, all kinds of undesirable scenarios may start to play out. There may be more questions and recriminations abroad surrounding efforts to maintain, let alone entrench, the occupation, and various third-party actors may start to develop their own independent initiatives.
Ideally, Netanyahu would have preferred an exclusively bottom-up peace process, focused on improving conditions on the ground and postponing discussion of big-ticket items. However, when the Obama administration insisted that improving the daily environment begins with freezing settlements, the prime minister discovered that unanchored permanent-status negotiations might be a cozy comfort zone after all. If history repeats itself, Netanyahu could drag out talks indefinitely. Once negotiating, there is ample opportunity to create diversions, distractions and provocations, with escalating tensions on the border with Gaza being a recent favorite.

There is one caveat: The history of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations is not preordained to repeat itself. The immediate future will largely depend on the Obama administration’s approach. For now at least, Netanyahu seems confident that the combination of Obama’s political clock (midterms, then reelection), more pressing American priorities, American timidity and internal Palestinian divisions will shield him from having to make hard political choices.

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak is a fervent advocate of resuming negotiations, an unpopular position at home and in the region. The Mubarak regime never gave much weight to its popular, democratic mandate, deploying variations on crude Egyptian nationalism as a legitimizing vehicle as and when necessary – most recently in its World Cup altercation with Algeria and the showdown with Hamas over protecting “national sovereignty” on Egypt’s Gaza border.

Increasingly, though, Egypt appears to be entering a new phase of regime-succession obsession. For Mubarak, playing the game of peace broker buys him cover against U.S. pressure for political reforms and freedoms, as well as American support in a future leadership transition. His embrace of Netanyahu’s Israel is a necessary part of this, and as a bonus, it buys Mubarak certain security and intelligence protections, which Israel is good at providing. Such is life for a sclerotic regime driven more by familial than national or even political self-interest.

Other regional states are watching or even assenting to Egypt’s efforts to pressure the PLO-Fatah leadership to restart talks, without themselves going out on a limb. The more grounded in democracy those states are, the weaker their enthusiasm for the Netanyahu-Mubarak negotiation groundhog day (Exhibit A: democratic Turkey).

The PLO-Fatah leadership, so far at least, has cast itself in the role of skeptical party pooper. Its members know the consequences of another meaningless negotiation process for their national – not to mention party-political – cause. Many outsiders have been surprised, and some impressed, by the determination displayed over the last several months by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in refusing unconditionally to resume talks. Yet that same leadership has not offered an alternative strategy to replace negotiations, nor has it reunified the Palestinian national movement. The PLO-Fatah leaders are viewed by all sides as the weakest link, hence the full-court press currently being applied to them. Should they succumb, they will no doubt have to justify such a move by clinging to whatever political fig leaf they are offered, but that will not shield them from what are likely to be harsh domestic political consequences.

The main wild card in this equation is the Obama administration. Year One combined early engagement and a strong declarative commitment to Israeli-Palestinian peace with a frustrating lack of new thinking or political daring from the George Mitchell team, while the president was not personally involved and did not take ownership of the issue. The United States may be satisfied with a convenient and showy re-launch of negotiations, followed by the plodding predictability of process over substance.

President Obama may, however, take seriously his own admonition that this issue matters to American strategic interests. That would translate into U.S. leadership in shaping a breakthrough, preferably with EU and Quartet support, creating real choices and deploying new incentives and disincentives with the parties, notably Israel.

Ultimately, for all the noise and speculation regarding their resumption, Israeli-Palestinian negotiations are likely to prove rather inconsequential. Success or failure in achieving de-occupation and two states will depend primarily on the conversation between Obama and Netanyahu, their political calculations, priorities and persistence. And that conversation has barely begun.

================

George Mitchell – THE KANGAROO

Uri Avnery

30.1.10

The Kangaroo

GEORGE MITCHELL looks like a kangaroo hopping around with an empty pouch.

He hops here and he hops there. Hops to Jerusalem and hops to
Ramallah, Damascus, Beirut, Amman (but, God forbid, not to Gaza,
because somebody may not like it). Hops, hops, but doesn’t take
anything out of his pouch, because the pouch is empty.

So why does he do it? After all, he could stay at home, raise roses or
play with his grandchildren.

This compulsive traveling reveals a grain of chutzpah. If he has
nothing to offer, why waste the time of politicians and media people?
Why burn airplane fuel and damage the environment?

THE DECLARED aim of Mitchell is to “get the peace process going
again”. How? “Get the two sides to return to the negotiating table”.
There is a naïve American belief that all the problems of the world
could be solved if only the parties would sit down at the table and
talk. When reasonable people talk to each other, they will eventually
arrive at a solution.
The trouble with this is that the people responsible for the fate of
nations are not, in general, reasonable people. They are politicians
with passions and prejudices and constituencies, who are driven by the
mood of the masses. When one is dealing with a 130-year old conflict,
the naïve belief in the value of talk borders on folly.

Decades of experience indicate that negotiations are useless if one of
the parties is not interested in an agreement. Worse: negotiations can
actually cause damage when one of the parties uses them to waste time
while creating a false impression of progress towards peace.
In our conflict, peace negotiations have become a substitute for
peace, a means to obstruct peace. They are an instrument used by
successive Israeli governments to gain time – time to enlarge the
settlements and entrench the occupation.

(In an interview with Haaretz published yesterday, Ehud Barak accused
the “left” in general, and Gush Shalom and Peace Now in particular, of
not supporting Netanyahu’s call for negotiations. He got close to
accusing us of treason.)
Anyone who now proposes negotiations “without prior conditions” is
collaborating with the Netanyahu-Barak-Lieberman government in a ploy
to sabotage the chances of peace. Indeed, Mitchell has become –
perhaps unwittingly – such a collaborator. When he exerts pressure on
Mahmoud Abbas “to come back to the negotiating table”, he is playing
the game of Netanyahu, who presents himself as the great peace-lover.
Abbas is being pictured as a man who has “climbed a high tree and
doesn’t know how to get down again”. There is no occupation, no
ongoing settlement activity, no Judaization of East Jerusalem. The
only problem is to get a ladder. A ladder for Abbas!
All this for what? What is the kangaroo hopping for? It’s all to help
Obama, who is thirsting for a political achievement like a man in the
desert thirsting for water. The start of negotiations, however
meaningless, would be presented as a great diplomatic success.

THE OTHER day, Obama himself made a rare gesture: the President of the
United States of America declared publicly that he had made a mistake
and apologized for it. He admitted that he had not properly understood
the difficulties involved in the restarting of the peace process.
Everybody praised the President. Such a courageous leader! Such nobility!

To which I would add: And such chutzpah!

Here comes the most powerful leader in the world and says: I was
wrong. I did not understand. I have failed. For a whole year I have
not achieved any progress at all towards a solution of the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Look how honest I am! Look how ready I
am to admit mistakes!

That is chutzpah. That is chutzpah, because a whole year was lost due
to this “mistake”, a whole year in which 1.5 million human beings in
Gaza, men, women and children, have been suffering utter destitution,
many of them without sufficient food, many of them without shelter in
the cold and in rain. A whole year in which more than a hundred
Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem were demolished while new Jewish
housing projects sprang up at a crazy pace. A whole year in which
settlements in the West Bank were enlarged, apartheid roads were built
and pogroms, under the “price tag” slogan, were carried out.

So, with all due respect, Mr. President, the word “mistake” hardly suffices.

The Bible says: “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper; but
whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs
28:13). Obama covereth not his “mistake”, and that is good. But it is
the second half of the verse that counts: “confesseth and forsaketh”.
No mercy for one who “confesseth” but not “forsaketh”. You have not
hinted with a single word that you are about to forsake your old ways.

It is chutzpah for another reason, too: You say that you have failed
because you did not properly appreciate the domestic problems of the
two leaders, Netanyahu and Abbas. Netanyahu, you say, has an extreme
right-wing coalition, and Abbas has Hamas.

Sorry, sorry, but what about your own “coalition”, which does not
allow you to move an inch in the right direction? What about the two
houses of Congress, which are completely subservient to the pro-Israel
lobbies, both the Jewish and the Christian-Evangelical? What about
your fear of your extreme right, which is supporting our own extreme
right? What about your inability – or unwillingness – to exercise your
leadership, invest political capital in a confrontation with the
lobbies and move forwards according to the real interests of the
United States (and Israel) – as did President Dwight D. Eisenhower in
his time, and even, for a short period, Secretary of State James
Baker?

THE TERRIBLE blow dealt to Obama in the Massachusetts by-election has
dumbfounded many people. It has changed the texture of American
politics and is endangering the health system reforms, the jewel in
the crown he has put on his head. It threatens to turn him into a lame
duck that may not only lose the midterm elections this year, but even
fail to be reelected less than three years from now.
Many ask: what happened to the shining candidate who enchanted the
entire United States and mobilized millions of enthusiastic new
voters? Where is the man with a vision who aroused the masses with the
battle-cry “Yes, We Can”?

How did the inspiring campaigner turn into a so-so president, one who
does not excite anyone?  How did the candidate, who always hit exactly
the right note, turn into a president who is unable to touch the
hearts of the people? How did the candidate, who made all the right
decisions, turn into a president who cannot make decisions? How did
the anti-Bush turn into another-Bush?
It seems to me that the answers lie in one of the fundamental
paradoxes of the democratic system. I have thought about this many a
time while sitting through boring speeches in the Knesset.
A democratic leader who has a vision and wants to realize it has to
pass two tests: to win an election and to govern a country. If he does
not get elected, he will not have a chance to realize his dream. If he
fails in governing, his election victory loses its meaning.

The trouble is that these two tasks are very different. Indeed, they
tend to contradict each other, because they demand very different
talents.

The candidate must make speeches, excite the imagination, make
promises and convince the voters that he is capable of fulfilling
them. These talents can indeed be of help to the ruler – but they do
not suffice to enable him to rule. The ruler must make hard decisions,
withstand extreme pressures, manage a huge apparatus with many
contradictory components, convince the public of his country and the
leaders of foreign countries. He cannot satisfy all sectors of the
public and all the interest groups, the way he tried to do as a
candidate.

The most inspiring candidates often turn out to be disastrous heads of
government. They are swept into power by the enthusiasm they evoke in
their voters, and then suddenly find out that their brilliant speeches
have no impact any more – not on the members of their parliament, not
on the public, not on foreign leaders. Their brightest talent has
become useless.

I have the impression that Obama’s numerous speeches are starting to
tire people and are losing their appeal. When he turns his face from
left to right and from right to left, from one teleprompter to the
other, he starts to look like a mechanical doll. The millions viewing
his speeches on TV see him turning to the left and turning to the
right, but never really looking them in the eyes.
The candidate is an actor on stage playing the role of a leader. After
the elections, when he actually becomes a leader, he can become
helpless. The man who plays Julius Caesar in Shakespeare’s play can be
a great actor – but if he were Caesar in real life, he would not have
a clue what to do. (When I put this to an actor, his retort was: “But
Caesar himself would not be able to play Caesar on the stage!”)
Barack Obama is no Caesar. Rather he is Hamlet, Prince of America.
Enchanting, attractive, full of good intentions – but feeble and
hesitant. To rule or not to rule, that is the question.

IT IS much too early to announce Obama’s political death. Contrary to
Mark Antony, who declares in the play “I come to bury Caesar, not to
praise him”, I am not yet ready to bury the great hope raised by him.

A year has passed since he entered the White House. A year wasted to a
large extent. Three more years are left until the next elections.
True, in the first year, after such a dramatic victory, it would have
been much easier for him to do things than in the following three
years, but Obama can still recover, draw the necessary conclusions
from the experience and manage a comeback.

One of the roads there leads through Jerusalem. Obama must keep his
kangaroo tied up at home and take the initiative into his own hands.
He must announce a clear peace program, the one about which there is
now a world-wide consensus (Two states for two peoples, a Palestinian
state in all the occupied territories with its capital in East
Jerusalem and the dismantling of the settlements in Palestinian
territory) and call upon the two sides to adopt it in theory and
practice – perhaps by a referendum on both sides. When the time is
ripe, he may come to Jerusalem and address the Israeli people from the
Knesset rostrum with a clear and unequivocal message.
In short: exit Hamlet, enter Julius Caesar.

Robert Borosage urges facing up to reality with China as a rogue nation when it comes to trade:“…the US will have to have an aggressive trade policy to challenge Chinese mercantilism and a smart industrial policy to revive advanced US manufacturing. We know how to do it – to target a key industry with public supported R and D, smart procurement, planning to build supply chains, subsidies for investment here.”

OurFuture.org’s Natasa Chart says the US should treat job creation the way China does: “…even though I’m glad the US government isn’t being called out as a global hacker menace, I wish they gave as much of a damn about making sure there was an abundance of good jobs for Americans. The Chinese government is at least trying to keep food on the table. I can respect that.”

OurFuture.org’s Dave Johnson begins exploring how we can double exports: “Paul Krugman recently calculated the job loss just from the currency imbalance to be 1.4 million American jobs, but [C. Fred Bergsten's] statement that 1 percent [increase in the US dollar's value] = 150K jobs [lost] indicates the job loss could be much higher than that.”

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———- Forwarded message ———-
From: Campaign for America’s Future
Date: Wed, Feb 10, 2010 at 9:33 AM
Subject: Your Progressive Breakfast: Jobs Forecast Calls For Snow

FEBRUARY 10, 2010 On the menu this morning: Chance For Small But Bipartisan Jobs Bill … After the Snow Health Care Summit To Establish “Common Facts” Calls For Filibuster Reform After NLRB Nom Blocked WH Steps Up Pressure To Pass Student Loan Reform Dodd May Back Version of Consumer Financial Protection Agency Dealing With China Tea Party Exposed Click here for the web version of Progressive Breakfast » Chance For Small But Bipartisan Jobs Bill … After the Snow Senate jobs package based on GOP tax cut ideas, though GOP still hasn’t endorsed. LAT:“In a rare move toward bipartisanship, Senate Democrats prepared Tuesday to unveil an $85-billion jobs bill that would include payroll tax breaks for employers who create new jobs, aid to small businesses and other GOP-backed ideas to attack unemployment … Few Republicans had seen the proposals Tuesday and bridled when Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) said he hoped the Senate would pass the bill by the end of the week … Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) did not endorse the emerging bill, but neither did he shoot it down.” GOP negotiators suggest they won’t vote for the bill by themselves. W. Post: “Sens. Orrin G. Hatch (Utah) and Charles E. Grassley (Iowa) — senior Republicans who walked away from health-care talks last year — have been heavily involved in drafting the legislation but are reluctant to sign on to the bill unless it attracts broad GOP support.” CNN reports key components of House jobs bill are missing in Senate bill: “What’s not included in the draft legislation is additional funds for states or stimulus money for infrastructure, which Republicans have said they will not support.” No vote this week. NYT:“With snow quickly accumulating around the Capitol again Tuesday night, Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, gave up on his hope of advancing a jobs-creating bill by the end of this week … no real action appeared likely until Congress returns the week of Feb. 22 following a President’s Day recess.” Reid still working on building support for jobs bill. The Hill: “Fifteen senators missed votes on Tuesday and Democrats would likely not have enough support to pass a jobs bill by Friday, as Reid had hoped. Reid said Democrats would hold a special meeting on jobs legislation Thursday at 12:30 pm and urged all members of his conference to attend … Reid said he is making progress negotiating the jobs legislation with GOP leaders.” GOP leader downplays scope of package. Bloomberg: “[Sen. Jon] Kyl … said Democrats shouldn’t advertise the package as jobs legislation because it’s just ‘extending a bunch of tax policy and related items that we need to do.’ … Lawmakers tentatively agreed to three-month extensions of unemployment insurance and aid to help jobless workers buy health insurance from their former employer…” Speaker Pelosi cool to Senate emphasis on business tax cuts in WH meeting. Politico:“White House economic advisers Christina Romer and Larry Summers defended the administration’s proposal to give employers a $5,000 credit for each new worker they hire as well as help with Social Security taxes. Pelosi countered that no one she’s consulted believes that the plan will actually lead to the creation of new jobs, sources said … [But] she didn’t say she’d refuse to move the bill…” The Atlantic’s Don Peck explores “How A New Jobless Will Transform America”: “…this era of high joblessness will likely change the life course and character of a generation of young adults-and quite possibly those of the children behind them as well. It will leave an indelible imprint on many blue-collar white men-and on white culture. It could change the nature of modern marriage, and also cripple marriage as an institution in many communities. It may already be plunging many inner cities into a kind of despair and dysfunction not seen for decades … Concerns over deficits are understandable, but in these times, our bias should be toward doing too much rather than doing too little.” [back to menu] Health Care Summit To Establish “Common Facts” President Obama explains bipartisanship to Republicans at presser.“Bipartisanship can’t be that I agree to all the things that they believe in or want, and they agree to none of the things I believe in and want.” Referee will be in the room for bipartisan health care summit, President Obama announces: “I do want to make sure that there’s some people like the Congressional Budget Office, for example, that are considered non-partisan, who can answer questions … [As] Senator Moynihan said, ‘Well, you’re entitled to your own opinion, but you’re not entitled to your own facts.’” WH won’t rule out use of Senate budget rules to pass health care with simple majority. HuffPost: “White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs said on Tuesday that Republicans coming to the West Wing for the much-anticipated February 25 meeting would be better off arriving ‘without preconditions.’ Asked whether Obama would commit to not using reconciliation … Gibbs replied: ‘The president is not going to eliminate things based on preconditions.’” “Top Pelosi Aide Says Reconciliation Process Is ‘The Only Way’ To Save Health Reform” reports Wonk Room’s Igor Volsky. New ABC/W. Post poll finds public still wants health care reform, more bipartisanship from GOP: “Nearly six in 10 in the new poll say the Republicans aren’t doing enough to forge compromise with President Obama on important issues; more than four in 10 see Obama as doing too little … nearly two-thirds of Americans say they want Congress to keep working to pass comprehensive health-care reform [including] 56 percent of independents.” washingtonpost.com” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://caf.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=F%2B8Q46oMqpW9zqr3sgqhRH57lBN3C9wV” target=”_blank”>The best W. Post’s Ruth Marcus can say about the summit, “It can’t hurt.”: “To take this at face value is to assume that (a) these conversations have not been occurring over the past year, which flies in the face of Democratic assertions that they have accepted numerous Republican ideas, or that (b) Republicans are correct that they’ve been shut out of the sausage-making, which ignores the endless weeks of negotiations among the Senate Finance Committee ‘Gang of Six.’” Salon.com” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://caf.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=G8mHEuIR777qdvpNuDSq2357lBN3C9wV” target=”_blank”>Digby concludes the health care stall means the “Obama Bubble” has popped: “…people are now dealing with political realities. Believing that he was some kind of wizard whose very person was imbued with the power to change reality with a few well-chosen words wasted a lot of time. But if its over, I’m very glad of it. Now maybe they can start looking at problems realistically and understand just how hard they have to fight to solve them.” HHS Sec. takes to WH blog to attack massive Anthem Blue Cross rate hike:“What’s happening in California can happen in any state. It’s clear that we need health insurance reform that will give American families the secure, affordable coverage they need and put a stop to insurance company abuses and control out-of-pocket costs.” House to hold hearing on rate hike on Feb. 24 reports AP. The Treatment’s Jonathan Cohn on the political significance of Anthem’s rate hike: “…many Americans are still asking: What’s in it for me? They should put that question to Californians who have individual insurance coverage from Anthem Blue Cross–and just learned their premiums will be going up by almost 40 percent this year.” The Nation continues its Voices of the Uninsured” series:“Many stories expressed great, unshakeable fear that one medical emergency would ruin them. ‘I would say my wife and I are one medical emergency away from losing everything, but actually I’ve pretty much resigned myself in my head to the reality that if I have a medical emergency I am going to die,’ says a used-book seller in California.” Reviving Liberalism criticizes renewed focus on tort reform: “…California, the home of Anthem Blue Cross, has capped medical malpractice claims since 1975. And research shows that that capping medical malpractice claims in other states has had no effect on insurance rates.” [back to menu] Calls For Filibuster Reform After NLRB Nom Blocked Craig Becker’s nomination to the NLRB was filibustered. The Hill: “The confirmation of Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) was considered a key priority for the labor movement. But the nominee failed to clear the 60-vote threshold in the Senate to beat back a Republican-led filibuster … Sens. Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) joined GOP senators in blocking the nominee…” McClatchy explores the consequences for the labor movement: “‘”It’s a statement that anything friendly to organized labor won’t get through the Senate as long as Republicans stand together,’ said Gary Jacobson, an expert on Congress at the University of California at San Diego. ‘The labor wing of the Democratic Party is not going to get what they were hoping for.’” washingtonpost.com” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://caf.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=KJmDHmYpTWcs7hR6t9e2RX57lBN3C9wV” target=”_blank”>W. Post’s Harold Meyerson suggests labor should have made more advances under Obama: “For American labor, year one of Barack Obama’s presidency has been close to an unmitigated disaster. Labor’s primary priority – the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) – died when the Democrats lost their 60-vote majority in the Senate. Labor’s normal priority – a functioning National Labor Relations Board – also seems out of reach … In their failure to advance labor’s prospects, the Democrats condemn themselves to a future of fewer Democratic voters and their nation to a future of mass downward mobility.” Exasperated Senators explore rule changes to end obstruction. HuffPost: “‘I’m in my thirty-sixth year. I’ve never seen anything like it,’ said Judiciary Committee Chairman Pat Leahy (D-Vt.), noting that no previous Republican Senate leader would have allowed his party to filibuster such a routine nomination. Leahy said that the overuse of filibusters by the GOP was leading Democrats to consider ways to modify it. Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) … said that abuse of the filibuster is unsustainable. ‘I think it will either fall of its own weight … or it will fall after some massive conflict on the floor…’ adding that the filibuster should be restricted to major issues.” [back to menu] WH Steps Up Pressure To Pass Student Loan Reform HuffPost reports Education Sec. Arne Duncan attacking bank lobbyists opposing end of student loan subsidies: “Taking aim at Sallie Mae … Education Secretary Arne Duncan on Tuesday accused the company of using taxpayer funds to lobby and advertise, and cast its executives as white-collar millionaires uninterested in serious education reform … Duncan called the administration’s plans to overhaul the student loan program by ending government subsidies for private lenders ‘a once-in a generation, maybe once-in-a lifetime’ opportunity that Congress would be foolish to let slip away.” OurFuture.org’s Richard Eskow warns Senate of consequences for siding with banks over students: “any politician who fails to fight for this program will be hurting themselves politically and punishing college students financially, leaving those students in the hands of rapacious and corrupt lenders.” Campaign for America’s Future launches online campaign demanding Senate choose students over banks. [back to menu] Dodd May Back Version of Consumer Financial Protection Agency HuffPost’s Shahien Nasiripour reports Sen. Dodd will likely include housing an independent consumer agency within Treasury: “[The bill] will likely call for an agency dedicated to protecting consumers from abusive financial practices — while not a stand-alone entity, it will nevertheless be free from outside interference … Key details, however, are scarce. Committee aides are still writing the legislative text.” GOP Sen. Shelby withholds support of independent agency. HuffPost’s Ryan Grim: “Shelby said: ‘I’m sure at this juncture that he’s gonna go with his bill and go it alone. We don’t believe he can pass a bill without us …’ HuffPost asked Shelby if Dodd had confirmed to him on the floor that he was moving ahead with an independent Consumer Finance Protection Agency. ‘Well, that’s been our biggest split, okay, and it’s still at impasse there,’ Shelby said. ‘But we’re talking.’ … Asked if he specifically told Shelby he was moving ahead with an independent CFPA, Dodd said: ‘No, I didn’t say that. I said the door was open.’” [back to menu] Dealing With China Robert Borosage urges facing up to reality with China as a rogue nation when it comes to trade:“…the US will have to have an aggressive trade policy to challenge Chinese mercantilism and a smart industrial policy to revive advanced US manufacturing. We know how to do it – to target a key industry with public supported R and D, smart procurement, planning to build supply chains, subsidies for investment here.” OurFuture.org’s Natasa Chart says the US should treat job creation the way China does: “…even though I’m glad the US government isn’t being called out as a global hacker menace, I wish they gave as much of a damn about making sure there was an abundance of good jobs for Americans. The Chinese government is at least trying to keep food on the table. I can respect that.” OurFuture.org’s Dave Johnson begins exploring how we can double exports: “Paul Krugman recently calculated the job loss just from the currency imbalance to be 1.4 million American jobs, but [C. Fred Bergsten's] statement that 1 percent [increase in the US dollar's value] = 150K jobs [lost] indicates the job loss could be much higher than that.” [back to menu] Tea Party Exposed Newsweek.com” rel=”nofollow” href=”http://caf.democracyinaction.org/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=zRuAFT8B786K96Mf%2FVTeiX57lBN3C9wV” target=”_blank”>Newsweek’s Jonathan Kay – a self-identified conservative – delves into the far-out conspiracy theorists that populated the convention: “Within a few hours in Nashville, I could tell that what I was hearing wasn’t just random rhetorical mortar fire being launched at Obama and his political allies: the salvos followed the established script of New World Order conspiracy theories, which have suffused the dubious right-wing fringes of American politics since the days of the John Birch Society.” Recalling the radical leanings of original Tea Party leader Samuel Adams, 1973 Tea Party attendant Jim Sleeper wonders where today’s Tea Party radicals are hiding: “Do they have a Sam Adams in Sarah Palin? Is there a John Adams among their cheerleaders at Rupert Murdoch’s global News Corporation? Tea Partiers protest that government is coddling incompetent and dishonest corporations with taxpayers’ money. But have they taken action against incompetent and dishonest corporations’ control of government?” [back to menu] past progressive breakfasts » OurFuture.org |   Donate |   Contact Us Subscribe to E-Publications

Israel’s top ten water technology companies that help keep the world liquid.

By Karin Kloosterman
February 04, 2010
 http://www.israel21c.org/environment/isr…

A serious lack of potable water has forced Israel to create a flourishing water technology industry. ISRAEL21c brings you the country’s top 10 water companies.

It makes you think of the famous line from Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, “Water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink.” – Israel is bordered by the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea; is home to the freshwater Sea of Galilee and the saltiest sea on earth, the Dead Sea. Rivers and springs run through the country.

And yet, despite all this water, Israel has been battling a severe shortage of potable water since its inception in 1948. To survive, policy and government incentives have contributed to the creation of a new and flourishing industry of water technologies.

From drip irrigation, to water recycling, reclamation, wastewater reuse and desalination, Israel has become a pioneering force worldwide, nicknamed by some as the ‘Silicon Valley’ of water technologies. As more and more countries around the world face similar water shortages, Israel’s expertise and industry are growing fast.

While young companies like Aqwise, which treats wastewater, and Atlantium, which uses ultraviolet to clean water, enhance Israel’s impressive water reputation and are on investors’ hit lists, ISRAEL21c brings you a list of the companies that form the backbone of the country’s water industry – tried, tested and true, these companies are the source of the local water technology industry’s claim to fame and were responsible for a large chunk of the country’s $1.4 billion in exports in 2008.

1. Mekorot Group

Mekorot, Israel’s national water company, is responsible for today’s thriving water export market. It is wholly owned by the government and for the past 70 years has managed the country’s environmental and security challenges in the area of water.

A powerhouse in desalination, water reclamation, water project engineering, cloud seeding, water safety and water quality, Mekorot supplies 90 percent of Israel’s drinking water and manages about 80% of its water supplies. Its subsidiary EMS Mekorot Projects supplies solutions in water works planning, installation, testing, sewage treatment, desalination, rain enhancement and more.

Mekorot’s second subsidiary Mekorot Development and Enterprise offers water solutions in design, feasibility studies, project management, and construction, operation and maintenance of treatment facilities. It recently signed an MOU agreement with a company in California and plans to provide desalination solutions for southern California.

2. Netafim

When every drop counts, why not deliver water straight to the roots where the water is needed; nothing more and nothing less? Israeli company Netafim invented drip irrigation – possibly one of the most significant developments in agrotechnology today – when an engineer discovered that an abnormally large tree growing in the desert was fed by a drip in a water pipe.

The company is a global leader in drip irrigation, supplying both low and high tech solutions in developed and developing nations. The company is also looking to new sustainable solutions to help to grow biofuel crops more efficiently.

3. Arad Group

If you live in the US or Canada, there’s a good chance that your water meter was made by Arad Group. The kibbutz-owned company specializes in the design, development and manufacture of precision water meters for domestic use, waterworks, irrigation and water management companies around the world.

The company just purchased a Spanish water meter company for about $10 million, and it recently developed a new drone plane aims to pinpoint water leaks on the ground from up in the sky.

4. IDE Technologies

IDE is the company that makes Israel a world leader in desalination technology, having built some 400 desalination plants around the world. It runs one of the world’s largest desalination facilities off Israel’s coast in the town of Ashkelon, and also at Hadera. Recently, the company also won a tender to build and operate a new desalination plant in Soreq, which will be the largest of its kind in the world.

The industrial company has been in business since 1965 when it was founded by the government. Today it specializes in more than desalination, also working with wastewater treatment, heat pumps and in producing ice and snow machines. IDE is now privately owned by Israel Chemical and the Delek Group.

5. Tahal Consulting Engineers

Israel’s largest firm of water engineering consultants, Tahal Consulting Engineers is ranked as the top of its kind in the world. In the business since 1961, Tahal runs projects with private and municipal clients both locally and abroad.

The company maintains close ties with leading international institutions including the World Bank, the Inter-American Development Bank and United Nations agencies. Tahal specializes in water resource management, agricultural development, sewage and sanitation, environmental protection, roads and highways, marine engineering, industrial parks and more.

6. Amiad Filtration Systems

A company that specializes in drinking water filtration, Amiad Filtration Systems prides itself on using no chemicals and no polymers in an efficient process.

Founded in 1962, the company maintains a North American office in California and provides environmentally sound water filtration technologies on every continent from Antarctica to Australia. It also provides special solutions for offshore installations and the automotive industry.

7. Bermad

Bermad specializes in pipes, valves and how to control them. Serving its customers globally, the company offers a number of solutions for the control and management of water supplies anywhere, based on its control-valve technology.

Working in high-rise buildings, water works plants in municipalities, at power stations and in the private sector, Bermad’s impressive range of activity includes drip irrigation technology, sprinklers, micro-jets and greenhouse irrigation, as well as tools for commercial and residential gardening irrigation needs. The company also applies itself to fire protection and water metering and was instrumental in creating snow for the 2006 Winter Olympics.

8. Arkal

Efficient cleaning and filtering of water is the name of the game in water management and Arkal is fast becoming a world leader in the field, working with countries like Argentina, Turkey and Spain.

The company is active in plastics plants and in aquaculture and fisheries industries, and is providing sprinkler solutions to increase the effectiveness of irrigation.

9. Global Environmental Solutions (GES)

GES designs water and wastewater plants and can also build and operate them in industrial areas, in cities and for agriculture.
GES was created by a merger of three veteran Israeli water companies: Italchem Ayalon, Aniam, and Chemitaas. The company acquired Texma, a firm specializing in industrial adhesives, lubricants and chemicals for treating metals and Argad, a wastewater treatment company.

The super-company GES offers a full repertoire of water solutions for chemical companies, factories and municipalities and specializes in the food, beverage and hospitality industries.

10. Miya

While it has yet to prove itself, Miya is an ambitious business venture founded by Israeli billionaire Shari Arison.

The $100 million initiative, which was set up in 2006, aims to tackle the problem of urban water loss around the world. Miya is acquiring a base of companies and consultants to offer turnkey solutions, services and consulting to manage and fix leaky pipes and save billions of dollars annually.

Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu, the Turkish OIC Secretary General : The Donors Conference for the Development and Reconstruction of Darfur on 21 March.

But the OIC Calendar posted in the same posting says: “March 23: OIC Conference for the Development and Reconstruction of Darfur – Cairo, Egypt.” (??)

OIC Secretary General  Ihsanoglu also expressed his great satisfaction on the visit of H.E. Idriss Deby, the President of Chad, to Sudan and the agreement reached between the two countries to normalize their bilateral relations.

Also – OIC Secretary General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu expressed his deep disappointment over the announced decision of the appeals chamber of the International Criminal Court (ICC) to direct the pre-trial chamber to decide anew on the charge of genocide against the President of Sudan Omer Hassan Ahmed Al-Bashir.

All the above seems to show that the Islamic countries are ready to step into a problem solving mode in Sudan – but will the UN keep its Darfur and South Sudan watchdog positions? White washing Al-Bashir should not be allowed. What was done in Sudan was a series of Government sanctioned crimes. We also said that some of the motivation to those crimes had to do with impacts of climate change – will the oil rich Islamic countries – those countries that got financial advantage by selling the oil to the rest of the world, will they indeed pay their dues in the form of real help to the black people of Darfur – be they Islamic or not?

———–

The Secretary General of the OIC Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu discussed with the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Egypt Ahmad Aboul Gheit the current arrangements for the organization of the ‘International Donors Conference for the Development and Reconstruction of Darfur’, due to be held in the Egyptian Capital, Cairo, in March 21, 2010. The meeting was at Aboul Gheit’s office in Cairo on 6 February 2010. During the meeting, the two sides discussed the facets of joint cooperation between the OIC and Cairo, and their bilateral relations.

The meeting also addressed the ongoing arrangements for the next Islamic Summit Conference, which will be held in Egypt in March 2011, as well as various other issues of mutual interest.

The Secretary General had arrived in Cairo on 5 February. During his visit he also met with the Egyptian Minister of Islamic Affairs Mahmoud Himdi Zaqzouq and discussed the existing cooperation between the two parties in many fields.
In statements made to journalists, the Secretary General said that the Donors’ Conference for the Development and Reconstruction of Darfur will be held in Cairo on 21 March 2010, commending at the same time the concrete Egyptian role towards making the conference a success and its provision of all facilitations for organizing the conference. He also highlighted the significant support the OIC receives from both the leadership and the people of Egypt.

Ihsanoglu said that the Conference, which will be held at the ministerial level, will submit to the donors a number of vital projects in Darfur with the aim of completing the development process, which will strengthen stability in the province.

On another level, the Secretary General delivered on February 7, 2010 a lecture on ‘The Future of the Muslim World’ at the International Book Exhibition in Cairo.

————–

Turkish Minister of Trade and Industry visits the OIC General Secretariat in Jeddah.

A ninety-member Turkish delegation led by the Minister of Trade and Industry of Turkey Dr. Nihat Ergun visited the headquarters of the General Secretariat of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Jeddah on 8 February 2010. The Minister, whose delegation comprised industrialists and businessmen from the private and public sectors in Turkey, was received by the Assistant Secretary General for Economic Affairs Ambassador Hameed A. Opeloyeru, and the Director General of the Cabinet and Chief Advisor to the Secretary General Ambassador Sukru Tufan, on behalf of the OIC Secretary General Professor Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu. They exchanged views on how to expand cooperation between the OIC and Turkey in economic sector.

The Minister and his accompanying delegation attended a briefing session on expanding intra-OIC cooperation in the fields of trade and industry delivered by Ambassador Opeloyeru. The presentation covered a range of vital issues which included Intra-OIC Trade, Trade Preferential System of OIC, Cotton Rehabilitation Program, Agro-Food Development, Development of OIC Halal Food Standards, Cooperation in Tourism, Banking and Financial Sectors, Transportation and Private Sector initiatives.

Minister Ergun for his part stressed that his country will continue to take an active role in the OIC initiatives. He also noted that Turkey will soon finalize the ratification process of the Statute of the Standards and Meteorology Institute for Islamic Countries (SMIIC) which will function under the umbrella of the OIC.

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The Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) is the second largest inter-governmental organization after the United Nations which has membership of 57 states spread over four continents. The Organization is the collective voice of the Muslim world and ensuring to safeguard and protect the nterests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various people of the world. The Organization was established upon a decision of the historical summit which took place in Rabat, Kingdom of Morocco on 12th Rajab 1389 Hijra (25 September 1969). The Headquarters of OIC are in Jeddah - http://www.oosterhuis.nl/quickstart/inde…

In Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh – the news were the record snow. So, that keeps them busy – the need to dig out from under that snow.

So far as governing goes, the Village Voice – that is Greenwich Village in new York City – wrote that the Republicans won a 41-59 majority as a result from the Massachusetts avalanche.

The new weather predictions are that the President will set now the agenda and expect the Democrats to follow – AMEN!       That is leadership – for God’s sake with 59 still standing – what do they wait for?

Further – he – that is Obama – will try to brow-beat the Republicans to cooperate first. The American people say Washington is too partisan ? If that were true the 59 would be good enough – but really? Who are the Obstructionists?

If Obama invites the Republicans to come on board that would be very clever – it would tell the Democrats to stop being obstructionists.

But, politics might be such that the Republicans feel comfortable to project that they are THE PARTY OF NO!

How do you pull out a rabbit from your top-hat? How do you change unemployment rates with nothing happening in the economy? The Republicans might be happy to see the Administration collapse – the country collapse – so who cares about OSAMA!

Obama tells the Democrats – we will be losers together if you do not shape up and they returned – SHOW US THE WAY!

——————

Next topic:  How long can the World’s biggest borrower continue to be the World’s biggest power?

If we get to the point that we have a difficulty to sell our treasuries in the world we will cease to be a big power – that came from Greenspan – the former head of the Federal Reserve. Henry Paulson, the present holder of that job seemed less convincing.

David Walker, former US Controller General – head of the GAO – now head of te Peterson Foundation – wrote a book on the US deficit that has reached now $1.56 trillion and this is untenable.

—————–

Fareed Zakharia on China-US relations – a US – China economic war is MAD – that is Mutual Assured Destruction – he thinks that the two are symbiotically bound now. I think he is wrong. China has such a huge internal market that it can continue well by producing just for their own people without exports to the US. They may not want to do that because it would mean a too soon push at increasing China’s middle class and risking folks ask for a mellowing down of the political regime. But nevertheless, this does not assure an immediate rebellion. In the US rather – a rebellion is possible – or a call for some real war – internally or externally.

To the latest two skirmishes – the US sending $6.4 billion worth of weapons to Taiwan, and Obama hosting The Dalai Lama at the White House. Both topics are not new. The military hardware agreement with Taiwan was agreed in 2001, and the Dalai Lama has visited every single US previous President since he landed in India. Why did the Chinese get excited right now? That is before the April visit they will be making themselves to the White House? What about the Iran sanctions and the fact that Obama was left to wait outside that China conference room in Copenhagen? Are we going to see some muscle show here?

Christiane Amanpour, on her program had as guest Victor Gao, of the China National Association of International Studies.

He pointed out that the US sells weapons to Taiwan that it does not allow for sale to China. China is now the largest credit maker to the US. What if China buys less for several months? Is 2010 going to be the year that Obama gets tough and China gets nasty? Neither of them can afford a real trade war.

David Rothkopf affirmed that “we are interconnected” so we have to develop a different approach.

Victor Cha – he was on China desk at the National  Security Council. He said – This is a MUTUAL HOSTAGE GAME – both sides lose.

—————-

Fareed Zakharia in Davos, had in front of an audience a half hour interview with King Abdullah II of Jordan.

It started out with Fareed pointing out the two main problems he thinks are facing Jordan: Iran’s nuclear ambitions and the Islamic fighting movement, but he was brushed aside by the King who continued coming back to the Israeli – Palestinian problem.

Fareed said that no-one has yet lost money by betting against Peace in the Middle East, but the King countered that the credibility of the US is at stake. We desperately need the undivided attention of the US – he said. If God forbid we cross the line of the viability of the 2 State Solution, what are we left with – continuing warfare – or even worse – the One State solution that many Israelis dread?

Fareed wanted to know if there is a Jordan option and was told flatly by the King that it will not work – Jordan absolutely does not want the West Bank. Are we talking of a viable entity? A third of the UN do not recognize Israel now.  The building of the wall has made Israel safer Fareed said and he spoke with President Peres who believes in a two States solution for the future of Israel but because of the security threats they think only of today and not the future.

The King disagreed – the injustice felt towards the Palestinian people pushes all other issues. He thinks that if you solved the problem of the Palestinians why should Iran then want the nuclear power. It does not make any sense for them to continue on that path. For now, it is the Palestinian issue that propels Iran’s efforts. When asked if he thinks that if not for the Israeli – Palestinian issue, there would be no Islamic terrorism? The King retreated by saying that – for evil to succeed – is for good men to do nothing. Evil will always exist – the evil always will be evil. On November 9, 2005 we had our own 9/11 and proportionately we lost twice as many people as the US casualties. The Israeli-Palestinian issue is is incendiary that it drives everything else.

Fareed suggested that Professor Bernard Lewis explained that it was rather because of the lack of openness in the Muslim world that created the Al Qaeda – it was against Egypt and Saudi Arabia. We have 400 million young people in the Islamic world that need a direction. My role is to create a viable political Middle Class. If you want to move your country it is education – education – education. Bahrain speaks our language – so is a list of young countries that agree.

————-

Christiane Amanpour had a panel on security issues and wanted to know what are the real security problems today. Surely it was not what you would have expected to hear. She was told:

- Outer Space

- The Open Sea

- The Cyber Space

- The Polar Ice Caps.

So far as the conventional thinking she was told that Washington and Beijing have less to fear from each other then from failed States like Somalia.

When satellites become more crucial they become targets. Where are the National borders in cyber-space? Most governments cannot even define a cyber attack.

Zbigniew Brzezinski said that we have to define the nature of the threat. Today it is not as lethal as it was when within 6 hours we could have had 80 million casualties in the cold war. But today attacks are less predictable even though less lethal.

The US still has a higher sophisticated technology capability. The Google issue is a cyberthreat. Are the hackers from China government? Do they really come from China? We may have to retaliatete selectively and we must have a foreign policy that does not object to this.

The way the domestic policy goes now, will Obama continue the international engagement that he started out with so well? Now we have gridlock.

Brzezinski called for Presidential leadership. Also – the President should persevere with the Iran effort.

The other topic is the Israeli -Palestinian conflict. Rhetorically Obama gets an A, For Performance a B or B-

On space – we must avoid a nuclear race in space – we must have the capacity to shoot down satellites and space vehicles.

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From the Kathie Crowley show – her interview with Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, I picked up one fleting issue – the names of the countries the Secretary mentioned as friends to work with in the present world. She clearly mentioned the big two China and India, but then she spoke also of other major economies – Brazil, South Africa and Turkey. I mention this here because it vindicates our recent decision to move Turkey to the Home-page of www.SustainabiliTank.info and it seems that we were right.

Clearly, there were no Europeans mentioned in that segment, neither Mexico nor Canada or Japan.

from: http://twitter.com/AfghanNews?utm_source…

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Militarism in Afghanistan is not enough: The U.S. Afghanistan policy needs a revision, given realities on the ground.
PUBLISHED: 01/31/2010 - http://bit.ly/99iGQm
BY UTTAM DAS

President Barack Obama’s announcement in December 2009 of the deployment of 30,000 additional troops to Afghanistan has received mixed reactions at home and abroad.

Military compulsion on the ground and political expediency at home are apparently in collision; frustration and anger are growing. Allies in the Afghan war such as France, Germany and Australia have reportedly opposed Obama’s announcement. However, the United Kingdom, Poland and Italy promised to send a small number of additional troops.

By June 2010, the number of U.S. troops in Afghanistan is expected to be 98,000. There were 29,950 U.S. troops in the International Security Assistance Force under NATO command, which has 64,500 troops, most supplied by the NATO member countries.

Though Obama had promised “change you can believe in” following his landslide victory in the 2008 presidential election, in the meantime he’s faced criticism for his decision to deploy additional troops to Afghanistan. The president announced that he will begin to withdraw troops in Afghanistan by July 2011 to bring an end to the decade-long war; however, the timeline has not convinced the American people, especially those on the left of the president’s own Democratic Party, who are increasingly demonstrating in front of the White House against the war.

Analysts and media in the region of South Asia are also critical of Obama’s new plan. The influential Indian daily The Hindu observes that sending additional troops to Afghanistan may provide “tactical relief to American commanders on the ground;” however, there is no guarantee that this new deployment would bring any “victory against terrorism and extremism.” For this, innovative strategies must be devised.

In a Dec. 3, 2009 editorial, The Hindu identified four deficits in America’s war against the Taliban and al-Qaida: the political consideration or attention, military doctrine, Afghan capability and a commitment from Pakistan where both the Taliban and al-Qaida allegedly have bases. Flurries of questions will continue to surround the comprehensiveness of U.S. policy and military actions in Afghanistan in the Asian media.

Given the reality on the ground, Pakistan is now in a crisis of sectarian conflict and a rising religious militancy. There is also reported presence of al-Qaida members in its territory; thus, Pakistan’s stability, politics, economy and military power are under great threat, as observes the Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Ittefaq.

Analysts comment that it is likely impossible for the United States to win the war in Afghanistan by merely raising the number of troops. On the contrary, it may prolong the war with serious casualties on both sides.

Analysts recommend improving the conditions of the Afghan people by investing in poverty reduction, education and health. But the country has been further devastated by a war that has brought insufferable civilian casualties. Any investment in social sectors would facilitate to decrease the anger of the Afghan people toward the United States. Without this infrastructure, the poverty- and illiteracy-ridden country will not be able to get on its feet.

The U.S. policy should also engage resources to other countries in the region where al-Qaida is reportedly trying to spread its “ideology.” The presence of poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, natural challenges and displacements all contribute to the people’s vulnerability, which catalyses the spread of ideological organizations like al-Qaida. Reportedly, a swath of religious schools in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh — allegedly beyond the reach of government monitors — are working as bases for the spread of the militaristic, ideological challenge to the West, especially the United States. To offset this trend, governments need to engage civic institutions, but this deserves investment.

In the latest development, a London conference on Afghanistan has drafted a recommendation to initiate dialogues between the Afghan government and the Taliban, with an aim to dislodge al-Qaida from the country. The Taliban extremist Islamic group is essentially ideologically distinct from the terrorist al-Qaida and seized power in Afghanistan in 1996.

However, the international community must monitor such dialogues to ensure they are strategic and to guard against the Taliban using it as a legitimization and recruitment tool.

These dimensions in the Afghanistan conflict make a challenging situation all the more difficult, but for now, the deployment of more troops to the region seems only to increase our dependence on military strategy. What is needed most desperately in the region, however, is stability, investment and infrastructure.

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Robert NaimanPolicy Director of Just Foreign Policy
Posted: February 2, 2010 - http://bit.ly/apDj4q

Eat Your Spinach: Time for Peace Talks in Afghanistan – What’s Your Reaction:

In the last week the New York Times and Inter Press Service have reported that the Obama Administration is having an internal debate on whether to supports talks with senior Afghan Taliban leaders, including Mullah Muhammad Omar, as a means of ending the war in Afghanistan. Senior officials like Vice President Biden are said to be more open to reaching out because they believe it will help shorten the war.

Wouldn’t it be remarkable if this remained merely an “internal debate” within the Obama Administration? Wouldn’t you expect that the part of public opinion that wants the war to end would try to intervene in this debate on behalf of talks in order to end the war?

As an administration official told the New York Times,

“Today, people agree that part of the solution for Afghanistan is going to include an accommodation with the Taliban, even above low- and middle-level fighters.”
And in fact, US and British officials have been saying for months that the “endgame” in Afghanistan includes a negotiated political settlement with the Afghan Taliban.

Now, suppose you tell Mom that you want to have ice cream. And Mom says, you can have ice cream when you’ve eaten your spinach. Wouldn’t you eat your spinach? If you don’t eat your spinach now, you didn’t want ice cream very badly.

So if U.S. and British officials say the endgame includes a negotiated political settlement with the Afghan Taliban, and you figure, extrapolating from the last five thousand years of human history, that a negotiated political settlement typically does not just drop down from the sky, but in fact is generally preceded by political negotiations, and you want to end the war as soon as possible, wouldn’t you be clamoring for political negotiations to start as soon as possible? Because the longer political negotiations are delayed, the longer the war will last. If you don’t support political negotiations now, you don’t want to end the war very badly.

If you consider peace negotiations with the Afghan Taliban “distasteful,” consider this: every month that the war continues, every month that U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan, is another month in which U.S. soldiers will die horrible deaths, be horribly maimed, and be horribly scarred psychologically, perhaps for life. It’s also another month in which the U.S. military is likely to “accidentally” kill Afghan government soldiers (such episodes “are not uncommon,” the New York Times notes) and kill Afghan civilians, as they have done at least twice in the last week, according to the reporting in the New York Times and the Washington Post.

I put the word “accidentally” in quotation marks, not of course because I believe that the U.S. military is killing Afghan soldiers and Afghan civilians “on purpose,” but because when you repeatedly take an action (continuing the war) that leads to a predictable result (killing Afghan government soldiers and civilians) you lose the exoneration otherwise conferred by the word “accidentally.”

Is this not also “distasteful”? Is killing innocent people not more “distasteful” than peace talks?

Gareth Porter, writing for Inter Press Service, reports that an official of the Western military coalition says there has been a debate among U.S. officials about “the terms on which the Taliban will become part of the political fabric.” The debate is not on whether the Taliban movement will be participating in the Afghan political system, Porter reports, but on whether or not the administration could accept the participation of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar in the political future of Afghanistan.

The Afghan Taliban has insisted in published statements that it will not participate in peace talks that would not result in the withdrawal of foreign troops, Porter notes. That raises the question of whether the administration would be willing to discuss the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan as part of a negotiated settlement to the conflict.

The Obama Administration has stated publicly that it has no long-term interest in maintaining U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Therefore, should not the U.S. be willing to agree to a timetable for the withdrawal of U.S. troops as part of a negotiated settlement? We’re leaving anyway, according to U.S. officials – what’s holding us back from agreeing, as part of a negotiation, to do what we plan to do anyway?

U.S. officials have said that the war is all about the relationship between the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda. When the Afghan Taliban breaks with al Qaeda the war is over, say these officials. Some say that Mullah Omar is ready to break with al Qaeda, including the Pakistani intelligence officer who trained him; while Osama bin Laden’s son Omar says Al Qaeda and the Taliban are only “allies of convenience.” Why wouldn’t we put these propositions to the test through negotiations?

If you think, for the sake of peace, the United States should be willing to agree to do on a timetable that which it claims it intends to do anyway, tell President Obama.

Follow Robert Naiman on Twitter: www.twitter.com

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Lesson from Somalia echoes in Afghanistan
By Adam Folken – Contributing Columnist - http://bit.ly/dv6IT3

|Published: Thursday, February 4, 2010

Last Thursday, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown hosted a conference in London regarding NATO’s plans in Afghanistan.  In attendance were U.S. General Stanley McChrystal, commander of NATO operations in Afghanistan, and Richard Holbrooke, Obama’s special emissary to Afghanistan and Pakistan.  According to CTV News, both officials expressed plans to advocate peace and negotiations with Taliban forces.  Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s plan of “reconciliation and reintegration” of potential Taliban defectors complements McChrystal and Holbrooke’s strategies.  These plans represent a growing trend in emphasizing political action over the use of force to suppress the militant insurgency plaguing Afghanistan.  This switch comes nearly nine years after the beginning of the United States’ Operation Enduring Freedom, though it is  better late than never.

The Taliban was the power in Afghanistan prior to 2001, and their ranks draw from various Pashtun clans.  The Pashtun people represent the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan and have dominated Afghan politics for centuries.  It is therefore the appropriate move to include Taliban members in negotiations and going the step further in allowing their involvement in the new Afghan government. This was one of many lessons taken from U.S. involvement in the United Nations’ intervention in Somalia.

The fall of Said Barre’s regime in 1991 created a power vacuum in Somalia that resulted in vicious inter-clan fighting.  The collateral damage was devastating to the Somali people, who suffered the conflict and widespread famine.

For the U.N., what began as an international effort to deliver humanitarian aid evolved into a struggle to stabilize and democratize Somalia.  General Mohamed Farrah Aidid, with the support of members of his clan – the Habr Gidr – and other militant factions, repeatedly assaulted U.S. and U.N. forces to drive them out of Somalia.  Many U.S. and U.N. officials wanted Aidid and his supporters marginalized in the new government.  Rather than work with the local power, the U.S. wished to create a more ‘ideal’ system that had little focus on clannism.  The attempts to remove Aidid’s influence served to unite Somalis against the U.S., culminating in a humiliating retreat from Somalia.

The parallels with the situation in Afghanistan are clear.  Local power structures, such as clannism in Somalia and Afghanistan, must be considered when creating a functional government.  If powerful players are not given incentive to play the game, they won’t have to.

Further Recommended Articles:

Canada and Germany’s mission in Afghanistan (The Concordian)
Fein: ‘Graveyard of empires’ challenge for Obama (The Daily Northwestern)

With President Karzai going to Saudi Arabia to plead for an intervention with the Taliban and Al-Qaeda forces that endanger his regime in Afghanistan, in Washington DC a report was released to the press that A U.S. military investigation into a battle last October in eastern Afghanistan, that cost eight American soldiers their lives, has concluded that the small outpost was worthless, the troops there didn’t understand their mission, and intelligence and air support were tied up elsewhere in the province.

According to an unclassified executive summary of the report that was released to McClatchy and other news organizations Friday, “There were inadequate measures taken by the chain of command, resulting in an attractive target for enemy fighters.”

A statement accompanying the summary said that the report, called an AR 15-6, suggests sanctions on higher-ranking officers and “also recommended administrative actions for some members of the chain of command to improve command oversight.”

But really – is this serious? The whole mess came into existence when the US told the Saudis to finance and organize the rebellion of the Afghan warlords against Soviet occupation of their land. It was the Al-Qaeda forces backed by Saudi money that backed the Taliban fight the Soviets – all of it the brain-product of US CIA in its Washington headquarters where non-Afghan speakers manned the desk that promoted Islamic unity against the Soviet infidel, and inherited now the fight of the same people against the US infidel. Karzai showed now for the first time in his reign that he understands the situation by going to the source of direct backing of his opponents and by-passed the bungling Americans with whom he developed a mutual mistrust.

Yes. lots of people in Washington should be demoted – that is retoactively – for having cost American lives in battles that were started by American lack of understanding of consequences while digging for oil at the outskirsts of an incendiary Middle East.

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From BASHAR ASSAD, President of Syria, being interviewed by Seymour M. Hersh, of the New Yorker.

On Pakistan’s government:

They supported [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai and realized he cannot deliver. I do not know why they supported him and why—nobody knows why.

On American power:

Now the problem is that the United States is weaker, and the whole influential world is weak as well…. You always need power to do politics. Now nobody is doing politics…. So what you need is strong United States with good politics, not weaker United States. If you have weaker United States, it is not good for the balance of the world.

News Alert: Bin Laden blasts U.S. for climate change
06:49 AM EST Friday, January 29, 2010
——————–

Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming. In the tape, aired in part on Al-Jazeera television Friday, bin Laden warns of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop it is to bring “the wheels of the American economy” to a halt

This information we picked up on a page of The Washington Post that includes a large advertisement from CHEVRON Oil Company:

“HUMAN ENERGY” “Every day Chevron invests $59 million in People. In ideas. In progress – Learn more”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/01/29/AR2010012901463.html?hpid=topnews

Bin Laden blasts US for climate change.

Includes also a photo from the FILE – “This is an undated photo of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden. Bin
Laden issued a new audio message claiming responsibility for the Christmas day bombing attempt in Detroit and vowed further attacks. (Anonymous – AP)

The Associated Press
Friday, January 29, 2010; 6:52 AM
CAIRO — Al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has called in a new audiotape for the world to boycott American goods and the U.S. dollar, blaming the United States and other industrialized countries for global warming.

In the tape, aired in part on Al-Jazeera television Friday, bin Laden
warns of the dangers of climate change and says that the way to stop
it is to bring “the wheels of the American economy” to a halt.

He says the world should “stop consuming American products” and
“refrain from using the dollar,” according to a transcript on
Al-Jazeera’s Web site.

The new message, whose authenticity could not immediately be
confirmed, comes after a bin Laden tape released last week in which he
endorsed a failed attempt to blow up an American airliner on Christmas
Day.

—————-

UNFCCC should take notice of this when next time Saudi Arabia will claim to be paid US Dollars for the losses that it will incur when the world will finally decide to use less oil – their hidden treasure under the desert sand. Whatever we think of Bin Laden – we know that it is the US dollars paid for oil that fuelled both – the monarchy of The House of Saud and the Bin Laden family complaints that these dollars corrupted the purity of the faith as they see it. Now – that is why we post the piece also on our “cartoons” column – not really because of our disbelief in the Chevron statement or the actual content of what is attributed to Osama.

We are afraid that some narrow minded people might actually say that because Osama says that the US is to be blamed for Global Warming – it is obvious that Global Warming is a non-issue – and US CATO will thus bless on Bin Laden – so The Heartland Institute can put him up im its Gallery of Fame. Crazy – I told you so.

IDF Haiti Mission: After two weeks, Israel team winds down Haiti mission.

By Amos Harel, HAARETZ, January 26, 2010

The Israel Defense Forces team in Haiti is finishing up its mission and will return home on Thursday.

The decision was based on the recommendation of the Home Front Command, whose senior officers feel hey have fulfilled their role in helping the earthquake victims. In view of the large number of personnel and resources the command is deploying in Haiti and the U.S., it is believed the time has come to wrap up the mission.

Maj. Gen. Yair Golan, the head of the Home Front Command, returned to Israel last Friday after spending a few days with the Israelis in Haiti, commanded by Brig. Gen. (res.) Shalom Ben-Aryeh.

The command and the IDF Medical Corps are now preparing for the next stages of their mission: closing up shop and leaving behind a large part of the equipment brought there as a final goodwill gesture to the people of Haiti.

The winding up of the mission involves assisting the members of the team in returning to normal life back home after the complex experiences they they had, as well as drawing the necessary professional conclusions from the Haiti operation.

On the professional level, the IDF learned much about running a field hospital under such difficult conditions and operating rescue teams; and about dealing with a mass disaster that thankfully Israel has never experienced. The up close experience of dealing with an earthquake and its aftermath – a number of aftershocks occurred while the Israel mission was there – increased awareness of the enormous danger of such a natural event, but the upper echelons of the Home Front Command believe the situation in Israel is very different. While the earthquake in Haiti reached a magnitude of 7 on the Richter scale, it seems the incredible destruction resulted more from the poor-quality construction there. Two similar strength earthquakes in California in recent decades resulted in only a few dozen killed in each quake.

Members of the rescue team who toured the area were surprised to discover there are almost no buildings built with reinforced concrete in Haiti. “You wander through the ruins and see no iron bars. Everything is made out of simple concrete, which turns into a brittle material in an earthquake of this magnitude. Everything collapses,” said one member of the Israeli mission.

In Israel, by way of comparison, a far stricter building code was adopted in the mid-1970s, making buildings far less vulnerable to earthquakes.

The main conclusion of the Haiti mission from an Israeli perspective, said one senior officer, concerns the “awareness of the citizens and local authorities of the possibility of an earthquake. It is possible that more exercises are needed, but if you prepare properly for a missile attack on the home front, then you have 95% of the tools [needed] at your disposal for dealing with an earthquake,” said the officer.

An analysis of the decision making process on sending the team once again shows that time is the critical factor. Israel moved quickly, in terms of making its decision and making the necessary preparations.

This provided effective help at a very early stage. In the case of Haiti, the rescue operations among the ruins – even though they drew huge media coverage – were downplayed. “It is very exciting to pull out survivors, but it’s a drop in the bucket. We rescued or aided in the rescue of four people, while all the rescue teams from all the countries saved 132 people altogether. It seems almost 200,000 people died in the earthquake,” said the senior officer.

Israel’s main accomplishment was in the quick deployment of the field hospital in Haiti. “For five critical days, it was the best hospital in Port-au-Prince,” said the officer. “We provided timely medical care to about 1,000 people, we conducted 300 operations and delivered 16 babies. In the past few days the Americans arrived and then you can put things in proportion and become more modest in the face of their airlift and the scope of their aid. You need to understand that those who will continue to treat the main suffering there are the Americans,” he added.

For Israel, this is further proof of the importance of field hospitals; the IDF closed the last one five years ago and only reopened them as part of the lessons learned from the Second Lebanon War.

Next week the Home Front Command and the Medical Corps will hold a two-day seminar, with the help of psychologists, for those returning from Haiti to prepare them for returning to their routine.

The IDF has praised the cooperation with the Foreign Ministry and El Al during the mission to Haiti.

The good public relations is seen as being of only secondary importance: “Our people went to Haiti to save lives, to provide the best medical care they can and to represent Israel. That is the proper order of priorities. They did not think constantly about the blue and white flag flying overhead,” said the senior officer.

—————–
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-dersh…

Alan Dershowitz – Lawyer and author
Posted: January 24, 2010

As most objective observers throughout the world marvel at Israel’s efficiency and generosity in leading the medical aid efforts in Haiti, some bigots insist on using these efforts as an occasion to continue their attack on the Jewish state. Both the neo-Nazi hard right and the neo-Stalinist hard left cannot help but to demonize Israel, regardless of what Israel does.

The neo-Nazi website ReportersNotebook.com features a blog entitled “The Zionization of Disaster Relief.” It accuses Israel of “exploiting the suffering of poor, defenseless Haitians on behalf of Israeli Triumphalism.” It complains that Israel is rendering medical aid to Haiti only to deflect attention from its crimes against the Palestinians.

The hard left, even in Israel, complains that Israel should not be sending medical assistance to such a faraway place. Instead it should be sending it to nearby Gaza.

Even the New York Times, in an otherwise thoughtful analysis of the controversiality of the aid among some Israelis, failed to note the difference between Israel sending its limited resources to faraway Haiti and to nearby Gaza. Haiti is not at war with Israel. Haiti has not pledged itself to Israel’s destruction. Haiti has not fired 8,000 rockets at Israeli civilians. Gaza, on the other hand, has a popularly elected government that has done and continues to do all of the above. Moreover, there is no comparison between the tens of thousands of Haitians who have died from a natural disaster, and the people of Gaza who suffer far less from what is, essentially, a self-inflicted wound.

Nor do the perennial enemies of Israel emphasize the comparison between tiny and resource-poor Israel, on the one hand, and the enormous and resource-rich Arab and Muslim nations, on the other hand. While Israel digs deeply into its treasury and manpower to send medical assistance a quarter of the way around the world, Arab and Muslim nations are generally missing in action when it comes to relief efforts. This is true not only in Haiti, which is a Catholic nation, but it was equally true when tsunamis and other natural disasters have devastated Muslim nations.

For those who argue that Israel is sending this aid to Haiti for its own selfish reasons, there are two answers. First the realpolitik answer: All nations have interests; and all act, at least in part, out of self interest. When the United States government is asked by Americans to justify its multibillion dollar foreign aid grants, it generally responds by arguing that these grants are serving the interests of the United States. When it comes to Israel, however, a double standard is always applied. Israel must act only out of altruistic motives, while all other countries are entitled to leaven altruism with self interest. The second answer is that Israel is doing far more in Haiti than would be required to satisfy its self interests. It is sending more aid per capita than any country in the world. It is doing it with extraordinary efficiency and real impact. Isn’t it at least possible that the millennia-long Jewish tradition of tzadakah — that is, charity based on justice — is at least part of the explanation for Israel’s generosity?

The fact that so many Israelis are advocating medical and other assistance to Gaza certainly supports this latter theory. Has any other country in the history of the world ever provided medical and other assistance to a people with whom it is at war — to people who continue to support rocket attacks and other forms of terrorism against its own civilians? Again, a double standard. The reality is that Israel will be extremely generous to the people of Gaza if and when they stop supporting attacks on Israeli civilians, stop making martyrs of their suicide murderers, and stop encouraging their children to don suicide vests. Contrast Gaza with the West Bank, which today has an improving economy, better travel conditions and among the best health care available in any Arab or Muslim country in the area. The peace dividend the Palestinian people will reap from making peace with Israel is incalculable.

So continue to criticize Israel when it fails to live up to generally applicable international standards, but praise it when it exceeds those standards in rendering aid that has saved and will continue to save many lives. Israel will continue to send disaster relief regardless of how the world reacts to it because Israelis understand how it feels to be subject to disasters. But fairness requires that Israel not be condemned for its humanitarian efforts, and that its rendering of aid to Haiti not be used as yet another occasion for applying a double standard to its actions.

Saudi Arabia and China to boost ties by 50% by 2015
by Ulf Laessing on Sunday, 10 January 2010

BOOSTING TRADE: Saudi Arabia and China plan to increase trade volumes by 50 percent by 2015.
As per ArabianBusiness.com, it seems that ties between Nations are measured by the amount of oil that flows in their trade.

The title of the article says: Saudi Arabia and China to boost ties by 50% by 2015.
by Ulf Laessing on Sunday, 10 January 2010
 http://www.arabianbusiness.com/578384-sa…

Top oil exporter Saudi Arabia and key customer China want to boost trade volumes by 50 percent by 2015 and solve disputes over issues such as dumping amicably, officials said on Sunday.

While speaking to reporters, China’s commerce minister, Chen Deming, said: “We want to increase the trade volume to $60 billion by 2015 after the target of $40 billion (for 2010) was surpassed early in 2008.”

Saudi Arabia is China’s biggest oil supplier, with Chinese crude imports rising more than 12 percent last year to just over 800,000 barrels per day.

About half of the OPEC member’s crude exports go to Asia, a share set to rise this year, according to analysts.

Saudi finance minister Ibrahim al Assaf said the Gulf Arab state wanted to increase exports of oil and nonoil products to China and boost bilateral investments.

Speaking to Saudi and Chinese officials and business leaders, Assaf said: “The number of joint projects between the two countries is small with only 19 joint projects, which does not reflect the depth of our relations and economic possibilities.”

He said both countries hoped to end a conflict over anti dumping measures imposed by China on some petrochemicals products from the kingdom and other countries.

Speaking to reporters, Assaf said: “We want to solve all conflicts amicably without going to courts.”

On June 24, China said it had begun an investigation into methanol imported from Saudi Arabia and three other countries to assess whether the material had been dumped on the Chinese market at below-production prices.

Deming said China would take a decision after the investigation was completed, adding both sides wanted to end disputes amicably.

Saudi Arabia is among the world’s top suppliers of petrochemical products, with manufacturers benefiting from access to cheap feedstocks and proximity to major markets in China and India.

State owned Saudi Basic Industries Corp has said it has government approval to build a $3 billion joint venture plant with China’s Sinopec in the region of Tianjin and is considering more investment in China.

The Arab Peninsula and the Horn of Africa -too narrow  straights for the West.

POLITICS: Russia, China Sustain Military Toehold in Yemen.
By Thalif Deen

UNITED NATIONS, Jan 5 (IPS) – Russia has stolen a march over the United States in the multi-million-dollar arms market in cash-strapped Yemen, whose weapons purchases are being funded mostly by neighbouring Saudi Arabia.

The Yemeni armed forces, currently undergoing an ambitious military modernisation programme worth an estimated four billion dollars, are armed with weapons largely from Russia, China, Ukraine and the former Eastern Europe and Soviet republics.

With the attempted bombing of a U.S. airliner on Christmas Day by a Nigerian student, reportedly trained by al Qaeda in Yemen, the administration of President Barack Obama has pledged to double its military and counterterrorism aid, to nearly 150 million dollars, to strengthen the besieged government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Currently, Yemen receives assistance under several U.S.-funded programmes, including Foreign Military Financing (FMF), International Military Education and Training (IMET), Non-Proliferation, Anti-terrorism and De-mining, and Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction.

But the proposed military aid to Yemen – all of it gratis – along with U.S. arms supplies, is negligible compared with weapons, military training and technical expertise from non-U.S. sources.

According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), one of the world’s best known think tanks researching arms control and disarmament, Russia accounted for nearly 59 percent of all major weapons deliveries to Yemen during 2004-2008, followed by Ukraine at 25 percent, Italy at 10 percent, Australia’s five percent, and the United States at less than one percent.

Dr. Paul Holtom, director of SIPRI’s Arms Transfers Programme, told IPS that at the beginning of this year, the Russian media reported that Yemen had signed a deal to buy an estimated one billion dollars worth of arms from Moscow (with some reports giving figures as high as 2.5 billion dollars).

These weapons, he said, included additional MiG-29 combat aircraft, helicopters, tanks and armoured vehicles.

Holtom said there were also published reports suggesting these purchases were part of a proposed four-billion-dollar military modernisation programme.

But he said he does not have an update on the degree of progress made on these arms deals.

Dan Darling, Europe & Middle East Military Markets analyst at the Connecticut-based Forecast International Inc., a leading provider of market intelligence on the military, told IPS that in terms of primary arms suppliers to Yemen, “almost everything revolves around Russia”.

The core of the Yemeni Air Force is of Russian-legacy, including MiG-21s and MiG-29s and Su-22s, he pointed out.

From 2001 through 2008, Yemen received 1.4 billion dollars worth of arms, according to the Congressional Research Service (CRS), with 600 million dollars in weapons from Russia.

China provided 200 million dollars worth of armaments, while about 400 million dollars in arms were from a mix of former Soviet republics and East European nations (mainly Ukraine, but also Belarus, Czech Republic, Poland, Italy and others).

A resource-starved Middle Eastern nation, Yemen has negligible quantities of oil and is categorised as one of the world’s poorest nations.

The U.S. State Department has described Yemen as “desperately poor” but a “vital counterterrorism partner”.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that Saudi Arabia had provided about two billion dollars in aid to Yemen last year – “an amount that dwarfs the 150 million dollars in security assistance that the United States will ask Congress to approve for the 2010 fiscal year”.

With the new terrorist threat from insurgents in Yemen, the United States is gearing itself for a virtual new battle front against al Qaeda – besides Iraq, Afghanistan and Somalia.

Darling of Forecast International Inc told IPS: “My take is that Washington understands how crucial Yemen is to regional security and stability.”

He said Yemen’s proximity to Saudi Arabia – from which many al Qaeda operatives are believed to have crossed into Yemen – and its importance in terms of shipping lanes at the mouth of the Red Sea and in terms of combating piracy in the area make ignoring Yemen a risk the U.S. is unwilling to take.

The recent spate of fighting with rebels in the north, combined with the pressures facing President Saleh and the belief that al Qaeda may have found a sort of sanctuary in Yemen, means that the country will garner more and more attention within U.S. government circles, he added.

“The State Department realises the looming potential for disaster in Yemen, where a combination of civil strife, an exploding population, negligible oil reserves, a structurally weak economy, high rates of poverty and unemployment, and deteriorating water supplies all threaten to turn the country into the proverbial failed state,” Darling said. “How they intend to combat this possibility is beyond my purview, but I’m guessing that you will see greater degrees of development assistance and oversight as to how the money is allocated,” he added.

From the latest news coming from Washington – “Under the new airport
rules, all citizens of Afghanistan, Algeria, Lebanon, Libya, Iraq,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and Yemen must receive a pat
down and an extra check of their carry-on bags before boarding a plane
bound for the United States, officials said. Citizens of Cuba, Iran,
Sudan and Syria — nations considered ’state sponsors of terrorism’ —
face the same requirement.”

That means Cuba and thirteen Muslim states: Afghanistan, Algeria,
Lebanon, Libya, Iraq, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia,
Sudan, Syria, and Yemen.

These news caused a lot of comments, but we think the wrong comments.

We assume obviously that Washington is ready finally to address the
terrorism issue. Airplane terrorism, as we learned on 9/11, is not
about transport of weapons but about terrorists – to be specific since
9/11 – we speak here about Islamic terrorists. If you want to catch
terrorists you must look for terrorists. Looking for baby formula is
not the answer – but looking for those passengers whose profiles are
suspicious might be a better bet. Sure, obviously, not all Muslims are
terrorists, and profiling is terrible – even illegal, but if you want
to catch terrorists you start with the profile that most fits Islamic
terrorists, and you bet – they are Muslims of any color. Even though
they may be traveling with documents issued by non-Islamic States,
i.e. the UK, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, France, Switzerland, or even the
US.

So, it is not easy to define exactly what papers are carried by the
terrorists, but you can have some guidelines to increase your chance
of catching them. looking for a profile of an Asian or African Muslim.
Then, learn from the Israelis how to talk to them – you may even find
out that they are so convinced that their cause is the right one, that
they will lower their guard and just plainly disclose that what you
see is all they got.

There may be a Jamaican convert to Islam who preached terrorism in the UK
and resides now in Kenya – a case in point. Kenya does want him either and
he will be sent back to Jamaica a second time. yes, this is a problem if you
are American and Jamaica does not cooperate – but he is a Muslim and no
Anti-Defamation league is enrtitled to tell you Mr. President that he should
not be stripped and searched if he wants to travel via the US to Jamaica.
This is simple.

But what about Cuba? Fidel Castro is more atheist then Catholic, surely
no Muslim. Whatever went on in the past is history to me and I do not believe
prologue to Mr. Castro. So why mix him and his country up with 13 Islamic
States involved in Islamic Terrorism? That is unless someone in the US longs
to see him give cover to such terrorists in the future so they get new reasons
to be after him? If the Jamaica case has anything to teach us – it is that the
US is better off reinsuring its rear parts from anger caused by mistreatment
and friendship is not achieved by mulling over past grief. Specially, as several
hundred former sugar baron families living in Florida should not be allowed to
hold hostage the US when it comes to real US interests.

Mr. President, I watched Bolivia and Venezuela leaders speak in Copenhagen,
they fumed and brimmed with words – no stones or missiles. Their ALBA is,
I think, the natural ally of a US that manages to disengage from the Islamic
world of oil. So, it is the US self interest that calls for you, Mr. President, to
invite Fidel Castro to Washington for a tete-a-tete and start on a way that
eventually will give the US the wall of safety it needs when addressing the 21st
Century centers of terror – the Islamists’ terror cancer that will continue to ooze
as long as we use oil.

Please start by taking him of that list!

The thirteen on that list include the obvious Iran – Syria – Lebanon
trio of the Shii’a Islam, it includes the Afghanistan/Pakistan US
theater of operations and Iraq, as well as the other US theater Saudi
Arabia, Yemen, Somalia, Sudan that misses Egypt and the Gaza strip. A
fourth historic region includes Libya and Algeria, then with Nigeria,
these are newer sources of oil for the US, and as such clear potential
sources of unhappy Islamists who complain about the changes in their
countries as fueled by oil money. In very few countries terrorism
against the US was actually started by rulers decree. Libya, Iran,
Syria, Sudan, Somalia may be the exceptions, but Saudi Arabia and
Yemen may have seen rulers who deflected anger against themselves into
anger against foreigners. In the majority of cases the terrorist is a
person of convictions and the situation could have been avoided had
the US and the rest of the Western World, tried to be less squanderous
with the oil we got addicted to.

Having said the above – let us get now to the point – MR PRESIDENT -
PLEASE – TAKE CUBA OFF THAT LIST BECAUSE THEY DO NOT BELONG ON THAT
LIST IN 2010.

* * * *

Please look – I am posting here four reference – links to news
articles of today’s New York Times.
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/us/05t…

New Air Security Checks From 14 Nations to U.S. Draw Criticism
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

In Yemen, U.S. Faces Leader Who Puts Family First
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

Behind Afghan Bombing, an Agent With Many Loyalties
 http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/world/…

Kenya Seeks to Deport Muslim Cleric to Jamaica

————————

THE UPDATE:

We have received a comment on this post and it presents a very valid point supposedly made at the UN General Assembly by the Foreign Minister of Cuba: “I mean if they were going to include us, then they should have at least thrown in North Korea.”

Even if the e-mail we received from ajay -   akazif at gmail.com  as presented by www. eggplantpost.com in http://eggplantpost.com/2010/01/05/cuba-… were a made up story, the argument holds water nevertheless. DID THE US INCLUDE CUBA ON THAT LIST BECAUSE IT WANTED TO AVOID BEING SEEN AS GOING AFTER A RAG-TAG OF ISLANIC COUNTRIES? Now, we believe that US security should be spoken here – not again US appeasement-for-oil please!