Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Follow-up on Gaza Protests

These articles are updates on the effort to mount a nonviolent protest march, which I wrote about in last week's Shadowland column, "What would Jesus do in Gaza?" :


EGYPT: 100 activists depart for Gaza, 1300 others are not allowed to make trip
Los Angeles Times (blog)
"For anyone to claim that Egypt was doing us a favor by offering to allow
100 GFM members to go is asinine and baseless," said Roqayah Shams El Din,
...
<http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/12/egypt-hundred-activists-depart-to-gaza-1300-others-denied-trip.html>


Egypt lets some demonstrators into Gaza
Baltimore Sun (blog)
Egypt has agreed to allow 100 pro-Palestinian demonstrators into blockaded
Gaza, but they do not appear to include any of the Marylanders who were
planning ...
<http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/news/faith/2009/12/gaza_freedom_march.html>


Egypt agrees to buy up to 24 F-16s
Fort Worth Star Telegram
The US government signed an agreement with Egypt on Dec. 24 to sell the
planes to the African nation, and the Pentagon had notified Congress of the
possible ...
<http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1858757.html>
See all stories on this topic:
<http://news.google.com/news/story?ncl=http://www.star-telegram.com/804/story/1858757.html&hl=en>

Thursday, December 24, 2009

Simon and Schuster Author: Christopher Dickey

I had forgotten I filled out this form last year. And, looking back, some of the responses are more interesting than I remembered.

Author Revealed:
Q. What is your motto or maxim?
A. Literature is news that stays news.
Learn more about Christopher Dickey

Saturday, December 19, 2009

War, Deliverance, Sharks, Firebombings ... and James Dickey

The ongoing dialogue between Lt. Col. Edward Ledford, writing from Afghanistan, and poet Carol Muske-Dukes on The Huffington Post inspired me to dig up three long essays I wrote about the works of my father, the poet James Dickey, and questions of war and foreign policy. If you happen to have spare time for reading over the holidays, they may be of some interest:

"Firebombings: From My Father's Wars to Mine," delivered at Clemson University, 2003:

"The Sharks in the Parlor: Fact, Fiction and Foreign Policy," delivered at Clemson University, 2004: http://www.clemson.edu/caah/cedp/cudp/scr/dickey/dickey_christopher.pdf

"War and Deliverance," published by Newsweek Online in 2007 based on a speech at the University of South Alabama, 2006: http://www.newsweek.com/id/53461

Thursday, December 17, 2009

FBI on the Jihadists of Georgia

THE PATH TO TERROR
The Jihadists of Georgia, Part 1
12/15/09


They were a couple of young Americans with terror on their minds, two middle-class kids barely out of high school who lived seemingly normal lives in and around Atlanta while secretly taking up the mantle of violent jihad, who in the span of a year went from being extremist wannabes to trusted brothers of terrorist operatives across the globe.

Now, following their convictions in federal court earlier this year and sentencings this week, they are each headed to prison for quite some time.

Their names are Ehsanul Islam Sadequee and Syed Haris Ahmed, and their story is indicative of both the evolving homegrown extremist threat and the FBI's post 9/11 intelligence-driven investigations.

share.gif
When Sadequee and Ahmed met at a midtown Atlanta mosque, neither was yet 21. Ahmed, who was born in Pakistan and moved to this country at about age 12, was a mechanical engineering student at Georgia Tech. Sadequee, a Bangladeshi-American born in Virginia, was working at an Atlanta non-profit while living at home with his mother and siblings in the suburb of Roswell.

The two soon became friends, finding that they shared a similar interest: violent jihad. They started spending hours online—chatting with each other, watching terrorist recruitment videos, and meeting like-minded extremists.

But they clearly wanted to do more than just stand on the sidelines. Fueled by their growing connections in cyberspace, Sadequee and Ahmed made a series of journeys that drew them further and further into a web of terror.

  • Mark Giuliano, former assistant special agent in charge of our Atlanta office and current head of the FBI's Domestic Terrorism Strategic Operations Section, and other FBI officials discuss the case.
    - Watch Video
    In late 2004, they traveled to rural northwest Georgia, shooting paintball guns and practicing attack techniques as part of basic paramilitary training.

  • The following March, they hopped on a Greyhound bus to Canada, where they spent a week talking terror with three jihadists they met on the Internet. One was an alleged member of the “Toronto 18,” a terror cell that later plotted to bomb the Canadian Parliament and other targets before being exposed in 2006.

  • In April 2005, Ahmed and Sadequee drove a pickup truck to the nation's capital and cased a series of landmarks—including the U.S. Capitol and the Pentagon—making more than 60 short video clips to help establish their extremist credentials. Sadequee sent several clips to Younis Tsouli—aka “Irhabi007” (“Terrorist 007” in Arabic), an al Qaeda webmaster, recruiter, and propagandist—and to Aabid Hussein Khan, a facilitator for two Pakistan-based terrorist groups. Both Tsouli and Khan have since been convicted of terror offenses in the U.K.

  • That summer, Ahmed and Sadequee took separate trips overseas. Ahmed went to Pakistan, meeting with Khan and asking to attend a training camp and engage in jihad (he was talked out of it by his family). Sadequee was off to Bangladesh, where he joined with Tsouli and a Swedish extremist named Mirsad Bektasevic to form a violent jihadist organization known as “Al Qaeda in Northern Europe.” In October, just a few days after being in contact with Sadequee, Bektasevic was arrested in Sarajevo armed to the teeth; he was later convicted of terrorism.

What Sadequee and Ahmed didn't know was that for some time, they were being tracked by the FBI and its partners. In part two of our story later this week, we'll talk about how our investigation unfolded and interview an Atlanta FBI agent and two Bureau execs.

Resources:
- Press release
- The Jihadists of Georgia, Part II



The Jihadists of Georgia, Part 2 12/17/09


Mark Giuliano, former assistant special agent in charge of our Atlanta office and current head of the FBI's Domestic Terrorism Strategic Operations Section, and other FBI officials discuss the case.
- Watch Video

It was a tip from a foreign intelligence partner that set the case in motion.

Now, following their convictions in federal court earlier this year and sentencings this week, they are each headed to prison for quite some time.

In the summer of 2005, we learned that a central player in a terrorism investigation in another country was in e-mail contact with someone in the Atlanta area.

With appropriate court orders, our Joint Terrorism Task Force in Atlanta quickly tracked down who that person was. It was a 19-year-old American named Ehsanul Sadequee, who was also exchanging regular e-mails, we discovered, with a 20-year-old Georgia Tech student named Syed Haris Ahmed.

Initially, our investigation—code-named “Northern Exposure”—was focused on finding out what the two young men were up to and why Sadequee was trading e-mails with a terrorism suspect. We began both electronic and physical surveillance on each one and began tracking their financial and travel patterns with the help of partner agencies in the U.S.

We soon uncovered two key facts. One, both Sadequee and Ahmed were in touch with terrorist suspects in nearly a dozen nations around the world. And two, a great deal of this contact was via the Internet.

With our new post-9/11 intelligence-driven mindset, the last thing we wanted to do at that point was to rush in and make arrests. It was far more important to tease out information on all the players who might be connected to Sadequee and Ahmed, to paint a larger picture of this online and offline network of extremists, and to share that information with our national and international colleagues.

“Sadequee and Ahmed never pulled a trigger or set off a bomb, but they were making plans and working with known terrorists worldwide.”


Gregory Jones
Special Agent in Charge, Atlanta FBI

As discussed in part one of our story, our investigation revealed that Sadequee and Ahmed ended up casing U.S. targets, supporting and sharing information with terrorists around the globe, and traveling overseas to act on their desire to wage violent jihad. Some of our intelligence came from our overseas partners, who discovered links from their terrorism suspects to Sadequee and Ahmed. And the FBI shared its intelligence on terror suspects uncovered during our investigation of the two Atlanta extremists.

In March 2006, we approached Ahmed to see if he would cooperate in the case. Though he tried to deny his illegal activities, Ahmed made incriminating statements and secretly contacted Sadequee to warn him of our investigation. We arrested Ahmed soon after, and Sadequee was arrested in Bangladesh the following month. Both were convicted in separate trials this year, and sentenced on December 14.

A satisfying end to the case, but this investigation had a far broader and more significant outcome: thanks to unprecedented global cooperation, governments in nearly a dozen nations have arrested more than 40 individuals and disrupted an untold number of terror plots.

“Sadequee and Ahmed never pulled a trigger or set off a bomb, but they were making plans and working with known terrorists worldwide,” says Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Gregory Jones. “By using an intel-driven approach, we not only stopped these guys from doing harm, we took out a larger web of extremists.”

In the end, a network of terrorists was brought down by another network: a determined group of law enforcement and intelligence agencies from around the world working in unison to share information, compare evidence, and disrupt terrorist plots.

The Peter Galbraith Saga Continues ...

From today's New York Times:

U.N. Officials Say American Aide Plotted to Replace Karzai

By JAMES GLANZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.
Published: December 16, 2009

As widespread fraud in the Afghanistan presidential election was becoming clear three months ago, the No. 2 United Nations official in the country, the American Peter W. Galbraith, proposed enlisting the White House in a plan to replace the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, according to two senior United Nations officials.... http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/17/world/asia/17galbraith.html

NOTE: I've known Peter for, oh, almost 20 years, crossing paths with him in Abu Dhabi, Zagreb and elsewhere, and while we don't always agree, I've always admired his guts and his determination to stand up for what he thinks is the right policy, even if it goes against -- or slides around -- official policy. He was a passionate supporter of the Kurds before and after the 1991 gulf war, and then after the fall of Saddam a dozen years later. As US ambassador to Croatia in the mid-1990s, he quietly encouraged Iranian arms shipments to the Bosnians, much to the consternation of the CIA station chief. His actions helped bring that long brutal Balkan war, at last, to an end. In recent weeks there have been allegations that Peter profited from his relations with the Kurds by getting a share in a major -- and controversial -- deal with a Norwegian company. But at the time he was acting as private citizen, and, as he told the Times, somewhat archly,"while I may have had interests, I see no conflict."
Peter may not always be a good diplomat, but he's almost always good copy.

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Filmaid's Refugee Film Capitals of Kenya

Ever since "Capote" producer Caroline Baron created Filmaid International from scratch during the Kosovo war, I have watched in amazement at the enormous amount the organization has been able to accomplish with very limited resources. From the beginning I found it startling, as well, that Hollywood, always so anxious to be seen to be doing good, failed to understand that its most valuable gift to refugees around the world would be to offer them some psychological escape from the relentless dreariness of life in the camps. These various clips from YouTube give an idea of what's been done in two camps in Kenya. Some are professionally produced, some are put together by the increasingly skilled refugee filmmakers themselves. But my favorite is this little 28-second cell-phone clip of children in Kakuma camp dancing for the sheer joy of it before an outdoor screening -- which most likely was "The Wizard of Oz."




The elegant official Filmaid trailer, explaining what it's all about:


The link to it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ynmqtVQbFo


A compilation of brief segments from public service announcements produced by and for the refugees in Dadaab and Kakuma. Note that there is a very heavy emphasis on issues directly affecting women.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXHucoiHrlQ

An interview with my good friend Caroline Baron, founder of Filmaid International.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5ucGEAJm_w&NR=1

"About Kakuma" was created by and for the Filmaid staff there to show what they're doing, and who's doing it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7FwRwV313kw&NR=1

A professionally produced overview of Filmaid activity in Kakuma.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d6FMPcFQaRQ&feature=rec-fresh+div-r-7-HM

Interviews with Kakuma film students.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0tPb-jejsl8

Again, this is the link to that 28-second phone-movie clip of children dancing before a screening at Kakuma.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tme-w6Iytfc&NR=1

A "Kakuma Doggs" Filmaid film about an abandoned boy.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KC12nNNXrGY&NR=1

Another Kakuma Doggs Filmaid movie with performance and production in the hands of the students. This one is about conflict resolution when brothers turn against each other over who controls the family store in Kakuma after their father dies and the arguments become violent.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-BUMEHCNGuk&feature=related

Thursday, December 10, 2009

AlJazeera English: Empire: The Long War


This is part two of an interesting program hosted by Marwan Bishara that aired in October with Marc Sageman, Larry Wright, Robert Pape and Gen. Richard Myers. One of the cut segments that starts about after about 17:10 minutes includes clips from a brief interview with me. For the record, while I certainly believe that preventive action by police raises complicated issues, I do not agree with the other people interviewed who suggest that the conviction rate should be the measure of success. The absence of attacks should be the measure of success. - CD

Friday, December 04, 2009

Hoder in Happier Times


Shadowland: The Blogfather and the Spy, 3 December 2009
The "secret witness" in Tehran's show trials may be the man who started Iran's blogging revolution. http://www.newsweek.com/id/225506

These pictures of Hossein Derakhshan from his Facebook pages give a good sense of the mercurial Iranian blogger in happier times.

It's high time that "Hoder" was set free.







Monday, November 30, 2009

War in Context: The Swiss Minaret "Threat"

The European minaret-missile threat

Bigotry is on the rise in “the westerly excrescence of the continent of Asia.”

That unpoetic but topographically-precise description of Europe comes from the Oxford archeologist, Barry Cunliffe.

Whenever voices declaring that European culture is under threat are at their most strident, it’s always worth remembering the actual nature of Europe’s physical form.

As a continent it is nothing more than a malleable contrivance with its ambiguous, historically shifting eastern edge. As a result, it is and always has been, an ethnic and cultural melting pot.

Thus the irony when Europe’s self-appointed protectors take a firm stand in the name of its defense: they so often lack a real appreciation for the very thing to which they have pledged their allegiance.

Why is it that the people who most easily become possessed by ideas about cultural purity are themselves so often culturally impoverished?

Because culture in its richness and complexity is not the real issue.

This is about how individuals respond to the other.

Does the unfamiliar prompt interest and curiosity?

Or does it provoke fear?

Fear in response to the other says more about the fearful than it says about the objects they fear.

The fear of the foreign is at its root a fear of becoming foreign. It is a fear of becoming a stranger in one’s own land.

* * *

In the latest outbreak of European xenophobia, the minaret has become a missile in a campaign to ban their construction — that is, the construction of minarets, not missiles.

This is a curious iconic transformation. Is the Swiss People’s Party suggesting that Switzerland, in which currently there are only four minarets, is at risk of becoming a missile-minaret launching pad threatening the rest of Europe with Islamization? (This is after all a depiction of missile-minarets ready for launch — not incoming missile-minarets about to explode.)

By Sunday it became apparent that Swiss voters had little interest in dissecting the visual absurdity of the campaign poster — a majority seemed to have bought the implicit message: Islam = violence, death and destruction.

The campaign’s final week of fear-mongering managed to raise support for the ban from 37% up to 57.5%, with passage in the majority of cantons meaning that a constitutional amendment will follow....http://warincontext.org/2009/11/29/the-european-minaret-missile-threat/

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Excerpts from today's Iraq Inquiry hearing

A reminder of the Bush administration's sense of drift before 9/11:

22 SIR MARTIN GILBERT: I have just two more questions before
23 9/11. The first is, during that period again
24 focusing on Iraq were
the members of the
25 administration you were talking to at that time
16
1 beginning to contemplate removing Saddam by force,
2 perhaps even within a fixed period?
3 SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: I didn't see that emerging from the
4 interagency process at all. Every now and again, one
5 would say to Condoleeza Rice or to Colin Powell, "How is
6 the Iraq review going?", and they would just say, "Well,
7 we are still talking about it".
8 It wasn't going anywhere, to be honest with you,
9 and, in fact, it looked at the time, technically after
10 the summer break in early September it
kind of looked
11 like the Bush administration as a whole wasn't going
12 anywhere. It lost a sense of direction very rapidly and
13 I remember sending a telegram on 10 September, literally
14 went out on the eve of 9/11. I think they were about to
15 have a visit by John Prescott and this was a form of
16 briefing for him saying,
"This is an administration
17 which appears to be running out of steam", was losing
18 a sense of direction 19
THE CHAIRMAN: Can I interrupt just to ask, did you mean
20 generally across the whole range of policy?
21 SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: I do. I'm sort of compressing
22 things here. What had happened domestically was, with
23 immense political effort, Bush I
mean Bush put all
24 his political capital, most of his political capital in
25 those first few months in getting a big taxcut
through
17
1 congress for getting benefits and prescription medicine
2 for senior citizens.
3 He got them but they were pyrrhic victories, they
4 exhausted him and he lost his majority in the Senate as
5 a result. Come September 2001, before 9/11, everybody
6 was saying that effort has killed him. Rumsfeld, there
7 was a huge bear market in Rumsfelds, because he didn't
8 seem to be reorganising the Department of Defense as he
9 promised to do. He got lost in detail, so the story
10 went. There was a big bear market in Colin Powells
11 because his narrowing and deepening and what he was
12 doing in the Middle East was going nowhere, and there
13 was a cataclysmic market in Paul O'Neills, who was the
14 Treasury Secretary who was soon to be dismissed.
15 So on the very eve of the great atrocity, it looked
16 like an administration that had got into trouble very
17 quickly.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Just to round off, Iraq really not figuring
19 very much, if at all?
20 SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: Iraq was not it
was like
21 a grumbling appendix, I think is the way I would
22 describe it.....

22 SIR MARTIN GILBERT: I have just two more questions before
23 9/11. The first is, during that period again
24 focusing on Iraq were
the members of the
25 administration you were talking to at that time
16
1 beginning to contemplate removing Saddam by force,
2 perhaps even within a fixed period?
3 SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: I didn't see that emerging from the
4 interagency process at all. Every now and again, one
5 would say to Condoleeza Rice or to Colin Powell, "How is
6 the Iraq review going?", and they would just say, "Well,
7 we are still talking about it".
8 It wasn't going anywhere, to be honest with you,
9 and, in fact, it looked at the time, technically after
10 the summer break in early September it
kind of looked
11 like the Bush administration as a whole wasn't going
12 anywhere. It lost a sense of direction very rapidly and
13 I remember sending a telegram on 10 September, literally
14 went out on the eve of 9/11. I think they were about to
15 have a visit by John Prescott and this was a form of
16 briefing for him saying,
"This is an administration
17 which appears to be running out of steam", was losing
18 a sense of direction 19
THE CHAIRMAN: Can I interrupt just to ask, did you mean
20 generally across the whole range of policy?
21 SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: I do. I'm sort of compressing
22 things here. What had happened domestically was, with
23 immense political effort, Bush I
mean Bush put all
24 his political capital, most of his political capital in
25 those first few months in getting a big taxcut
through
17
1 congress for getting benefits and prescription medicine
2 for senior citizens.
3 He got them but they were pyrrhic victories, they
4 exhausted him and he lost his majority in the Senate as
5 a result. Come September 2001, before 9/11, everybody
6 was saying that effort has killed him. Rumsfeld, there
7 was a huge bear market in Rumsfelds, because he didn't
8 seem to be reorganising the Department of Defense as he
9 promised to do. He got lost in detail, so the story
10 went. There was a big bear market in Colin Powells
11 because his narrowing and deepening and what he was
12 doing in the Middle East was going nowhere, and there
13 was a cataclysmic market in Paul O'Neills, who was the
14 Treasury Secretary who was soon to be dismissed.
15 So on the very eve of the great atrocity, it looked
16 like an administration that had got into trouble very
17 quickly.
18 THE CHAIRMAN: Just to round off, Iraq really not figuring
19 very much, if at all?
20 SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: Iraq was not it
was like
21 a grumbling appendix, I think is the way I would
22 describe it.....


2 SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: It took a while for policy to
3 converge sorry,
if we are talking about Americans,
4 the President accepting, for realpolitik reasons, it
5 would be better to go through the United Nations than
6 not, which was a repudiation of where his VicePresident
7 stood.
8 It took a while to get there, probably until August
9 of that year. I said in my briefing telegram to
10 Tony Blair, before Crawford, a copy of which, again,
11 I couldn't get hold of in the archive and
by that
12 time there had been a couple of months, maybe more,
13 maybe three months, in which contingency discussion of,
14 "If it came to a war in Iraq, how would you do it?" It
15 was all very it
was all very embryonic.
16 Of course, while regime change was the formal policy
17 of the United States of America, it didn't necessarily
18 mean an armed invasion, at that time, of Iraq and it may
19 sound like a difference without a distinction or
20 a distinction without a difference, but it wasn't, not
21 at that time, and so I said I
think as I remember
22 I said to Tony Blair, "There are three things you really
23 need to focus on when you get to Crawford. One is how
24 to garner international support for a policy of regime
25 change, if that is what it turns out to be. If it
27
1 involves removing Saddam Hussein, how do you do it and
2 when do you do it?" And the last thing I said, which
3 became a kind of theme of virtually all the reporting
4 I sent back to London in that year was, "Above all" 5
I think I used the phrase "above all "
get them to
6 focus on the aftermath, because, if it comes to war and
7 Saddam Hussein is removed, and then ...?"
8 The other thing at that time, Sir Martin, which
9 people tend to forget is actually what was blazing hot
10 at the time and a far more immediate problem and
it
11 wasn't Iraq, it was the Middle East, because the
12 Intifada had blown up, hideous things were going on in
13 the West Bank, the Israeli army were in the West Bank
14 and we had prevailed on the Americans, as one example of
15 British influence working that year, to put out a really
16 tough statement before Tony Blair arrived in Crawford
17 telling the Israelis in summary that they needed to
18 withdraw from the West Bank towns and withdraw soon.
19 Now, let me be quite frank about this. Crawford was
20 a meeting at the President's ranch. I took no part in
21 any of the discussions, and there was a large chunk of
22 that time when no adviser was there, I think I
don't
23 know whether David Manning has been before you yet, but
24 when he comes before you, he will tell you, I think,
25 that he went there with Jonathan Powell for a discussion
28
1 of Arab/Israel and the Intifada. I think it was at that
2 meeting that there was a kind of joint decision between
3 Bush and Blair that Colin Powell should go to the region
4 and get it sorted.
5 I believe that, after that, the two men were alone
6 in the ranch until dinner on Saturday night where all
7 the advisers, including myself, turned up.
8 So I'm not entirely clear to this day I
know what
9 the Cabinet Office says were the results of the meeting,
10 but, to this day, I'm not entirely clear what degree of
11 convergence was, if you like, signed in blood, at the
12 Crawford ranch....

23 SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: When you look at the conditions now,
24 the socalled
conditions, we failed miserably on one,
25 which was trying to wind down the Arab/Israel dispute,
64
1 where, almost, things went into reverse rather than
2 going forward. On 3
SIR RODERIC LYNE: Just on that 4
SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: Do you want me to take each
5 condition one by one?
6 SIR RODERIC LYNE: Yes, let's take that one first. Didn't
7 the Americans in the end agree to publish the route map?
8 SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: Yes, but it led to b*****r all at the
9 time, let's be frank about it.
10 The high point of British influence on the
11 Arab/Israel dispute was the American statement of
12 4 April in which at a time when the Israeli defence
13 force was in West Bank towns creating some damage and
14 casualties, the Americans called for Israel's early
15 withdrawal from the West Bank towns. That made life
16 infinitely easier for Tony Blair when he came to
17 Crawford and had to do a joint press conference with
18 President Bush, because, if nothing had happened on
19 that, I think it could have revealed a rather large
20 split between Blair and Bush.
21 I say that was a high point of British influence,
22 because, no sooner had that statement come out demanding
23 the early withdrawal of the Israeli forces from the
24 West Bank, than a major political operation was launched
25 in Washington the following week to reverse the nature
65
1 of that call.
2 Colin Powell had been sent to the region, as I said
3 before, and when he came back, he was strongly of the
4 view that he had been consistently undermined by his
5 enemies, while he was away, in the Administration, in
6 the US Congress and by someone who is now the Israeli
7 Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, coming to Washington
8 and effectively working against him.
9 SIR RODERIC LYNE: So we got some progress on the
10 Middle East, but not, in your opinion, nearly enough 11
SIR CHRISTOPHER MEYER: No, sorry, let me just finish this
12 point.
13 The definitive American statement was then one made
14 in June which rowed back a long way from what they had
15 said on 4 April, and effectively said in a practical
16 sense that, "We will leave the Middle East on a care and
17 maintenance basis and, by the way, we are not going to
18 do anything until the Palestinians democratise
19 themselves", and what that means is getting rid of
20 Yasser Arafat, which he didn't do until he died.
http://www.iraqinquiry.org.uk/transcripts/writtenevidence-bydate.aspx

Al Jazeera English "Empire" Takes on Europe

Is Europe the new superpower? That hasn't been the conventional wisdom in the face of American military preeminence and the fast-rising economies of the BRIC states. But my friend Marwan Bishara takes a closer look on his program, "Empire," this month:






Europe has finally adopted a new treaty to strengthen its union, and
chosen a president and foreign minister to speak with one voice for
the continent.

Twenty-seven countries, with more than 500 million people, a combined
economy bigger than the US and almost two million soldiers under arms,
the European Union is to all intents and purposes, a superpower.

However, Europeans remain divided on central issues. Its cheerleaders,
and foremost the dominating Franco German alliance, are celebrating
the supranational Union they expect to lead globally, just as its
detractors warn of a giant leap toward a federalist Europe that looks
to compromise their national sovereignties and weakens their
democracies.

Despite inner wrangling, a prosperous and stable Europe has become a
magnet for neighbouring countries that are being rebuffed by the most
powerful members of the union.

This raises questions about what constitutes a unified European identity.
In the spirit of multicultural diversity and openness, Europe has
recognised its 15 million Muslim citizens, launched the
Euro-Mediterranean process and accepted the accession candidacy of its
largest Muslim neighbour, Turkey.
Recently however, Europe has been backpedalling on its overtures and
promises, erecting immigration barriers and buffer zones with their
less prosperous neighbours, dampening Ankara's chances of joining the
Union, and raising allegations from some quarters that Europe is
essentially a Christian club.

Will 27 nations be able to pull together as one and become a dominant
power in the 21st century? Will they be dominated by the Franco-German
axis, or will they pull themselves apart as each individual country
tries to assert its own national interest before that of the
collective good?

This month's guests:

Timothy Garton Ash
European Studies, Oxford University

Tariq Ramadan
President, European Muslim Network

Slavoj Zizek
Slovenian Philosopher

The Sincerest Form of Flattery



The cover of L'Express on November 26 is "Sarkozy: The Obama Obsession"

The cover of Newseek International two months before was "Sarkozy's Obama Complex"

THE IRAQ INQUIRY: BRITISH HEADLINES

THE INDEPENDENT:

Officials knew WMD evidence was tainted

Intelligence against Iraq used by Blair on eve of invasion had only arrived days before, civil servant tells inquiry

By Michael Savage, Political Correspondent

Intelligence revealing that Saddam Hussein's WMD had been dismantled was received by the Government just days before Tony Blair sent troops into the country, senior officials have admitted.
Ministers were also given repeated warnings that intelligence gathered on Iraq's weapons programmes was unreliable. However, Mr Blair told the Commons that Saddam Hussein did have chemical and biological weapons as he prepared the way for the invasion in March 2003. ... http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/officials-knew-wmd-evidence-was-tainted-1827616.html

THE DAILY MAIL:

What an insult to the dead: Brown accused of new Iraq cover-up as he 'blocks' release of incriminating evidence

By TIM SHIPMAN

Last updated at 12:21 AM on 26th November 2009


Gordon Brown was accused of engineering a new Iraq cover-up yesterday by handing Whitehall departments the right to block the release of secret documents about the war.
Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg ambushed the Prime Minister in the Commons, angrily accusing him of trying to 'suffocate' the Chilcot Inquiry.
Relatives of the 179 servicemen who died in Iraq are desperate for the inquiry to finally uncover the truth and apportion blame.....http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1230993/Brown-accused-suffocating-Iraq-inquiry-blocking-incriminating-evidence.html


THE DAILY EXPRESS:

FORMER PM TONY BLAIR ‘TOLD BEFORE WAR THAT IRAQ HAD NO NUCLEAR ARMS’


Former PM Tony Blair ‘told before war that Iraq had no nuclear arms’
Thursday November 26,2009

By Cyril Dixon

BRITAIN invaded Iraq just 10 days after ministers were told that Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), an inquiry heard yesterday.

Foreign Office staff warned that the Iraqi dictator’s nuclear programme had been dismantled and there was no evidence he had chemical or biological weapons.
But despite the briefings, the then Prime Minister Tony Blair ordered the troops to join the American-led offensive six years ago.
Sir William Ehrman, Foreign Office director of international security at the time, said ministers were repeatedly warned intelligence on Iraq’s weapons was “patchy”.
He gave Sir John Chilcot’s inquiry into the conflict a list of briefings.
In April 2000, the picture was described as “limited to chemical weapons”, in May 2001 the knowledge of WMDs and missiles was “patchy” and in March 2002 the intelligence was “sporadic and patchy”. In August 2002 a briefing noted that “we know very little” about Iraq’s chemical and biological weapons since late 1998, and in September 2002 the intelligence “remained limited”.
Sir William said: “We did, I think on March 10, get a report that chemical weapons might have remained disassembled and Saddam hadn’t yet ordered their assembly.
“There was also a suggestion that Iraq might lack warheads capable of effective dispersal of agents.”...http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/142508/Former-PM-Tony-Blair-told-before-war-that-Iraq-had-no-nuclear-arms-

Friday, November 06, 2009

(BN) Sarkozy's `Grand Loan' Pits EADS Against Peugeot, Safran in Fight for Cash

Bloomberg News, sent from my iPhone.

Sarkozy 'Grand Loan' of Up to EU50 Billion to Boost Industry

Nov. 5 (Bloomberg) -- President Nicolas Sarkozy's plan to spend between 25 billion euros ($37.3 billion) and 50 billion euros to reverse France's declining industrial competitiveness has triggered a race for a piece of the pie.

European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co. wants a share of what Sarkozy calls his "grand loan" to develop helicopters. Safran SA is promoting more efficient jet-engines. PSA Peugeot Citroen is pushing a plug-in car. STMicroelectronics NV proposed fourth-generation cellular networks and telemedicine services.

"Everybody wants a share, so there needs to be a simple selection criteria to avoid a scrum which would end with political decisions going in all directions," said Michel Didier, a member of Prime Minister Francois Fillon's Council of Economic Advisers and chairman of the Paris-based COE-Rexecode research institute. "Without a business plan for each project, we'll have a bit of everything, and deficits all around."

Sarkozy's aim echoes former President Charles de Gaulle's development of nuclear energy, computer technology and the aerospace industry by financing research and development. From 2000 to 2007, France's share of global exports fell by an annual average of 3.5 percent, ranking it 25th among the 30 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

The government's 2010 budget estimates public spending will account for about 56 percent of gross domestic product.

The "grand loan" will range between 25 billion euros and 50 billion euros, a Sarkozy aide, who declined to be named, told Bloomberg today, confirming reports in several newspapers including Le Monde and Le Figaro. It's not yet clear how much of the money will go to the private sector and how much will have to be paid back.

That will add to a 1.43 trillion-euro debt load, which the government expects to reach 90 percent of GDP in 2012. France is planning to sell a record 175 billion euros of notes and bonds, net of buybacks, next year.

Credibility at Risk

France may "lose all its credibility on international markets" unless the constitution is amended to require deficit reduction in the next decade, said Jacques Delpla, a member of the committee studying how the fund should be raised and spent. Its recommendations to Sarkozy are due this month.

France's benchmark 10-year bond yielded 3.63 percent at 3:30 p.m. in Paris today, 2 basis points higher than the Dutch and Finnish government bonds, while it was 3 basis points lower three months ago. That suggests investors have favored other euro-denominated debt with the same AAA credit rating assigned by Standard & Poor's.

Biofuels

Former Socialist Prime Minister Michel Rocard, who co-heads the committee working on the proposal, said in an Oct. 29 interview that possible uses for the money include developing new aircraft and electric cars, and research on nanotechnologies and biofuels. France can't afford much more than 35 billion euros without putting its creditworthiness at risk, he said.

In a Nov. 2 editorial in Le Monde newspaper, 63 lawmakers allied with Sarkozy called for a loan of up to 100 billion euros over five to 10 years.

French business lobbies, the CGPME and the Groupe des Federations Industrielles, have appealed for government help exceeding 100 billion euros, according to proposals posted on their Web sites. Their plans include covering the country with "very high" speed communication networks, developing renewable energies and upgrading the electricity network.

Sarkozy said in an Oct. 15 interview with Le Figaro that aerospace, medical research, universities and small businesses may benefit from the financing. He is following the plan's development through a team led by former Treasury head Xavier Musca, his chief economic adviser.

Electric Cars

The loan "should be used to reduce energy consumption in buildings to save energy that will be used for future electric cars," Gilles Vermot Desroches, sustainable development senior vice president at Schneider Electric SA, said in an interview. He called for investment in solar energies, small wind-power generators, and infrastructure to recharge electric vehicles. "We can't afford to miss the train in new renewable energies."

Paris-based Peugeot, Europe's second-largest carmaker, wants to develop "plug-in" gasoline-electric hybrid vehicles, spokesman Jean-Marc Sarret said.

"Among the many economic sectors that could benefit from the support of this loan, the aeronautics, space, and defense industry mustn't be forgotten," Louis Gallois, chief executive officer of EADS, which is based in Paris and Munich, told the economic affairs committee of the National Assembly on Sept. 29.

France's grand loan should help it develop next generation helicopters, Gallois said. EADS's Eurocopter unit said Oct. 22 that unit sales slumped 70 percent in the first nine months from a year earlier as demand for civil aircraft declined.

Planes, Rockets

Jean-Paul Herteman, the chief executive of Paris-based Safran SA, which makes airplane engines and electronic equipment, told Les Echos newspaper that 2 billion euros would help the industry develop more efficient planes, rockets and helicopters.

At least 3 billion euros would be needed to develop the biotechnology industry, improve cooperation between public and private research, promote telemedicine and help medical- equipment makers, Christian Lajoux, who is chairman of French drug company association LEEM and president of Paris-based Sanofi-Aventis SA's French unit, said in an interview.

The government financing will help accelerate projects "because it decreases their risk profile," Loic Lietar, head of technology alliances, acquisitions and strategic planning at STMicroelectronics, said in an interview. "The whole industry will get aligned much faster than in a normal market economy."

To contact the reporters on this story: Francois de Beaupuy in Paris at fbeaupuy@bloomberg.net

Find out more about Bloomberg for iPhone: http://bbiphone.bloomberg.com/iphone


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Tuesday, November 03, 2009

Shadowland: Big Oil's (and Dick Cheney's) Heart of Darkness

The convictions handed down by a French court this week against arms dealers, influence peddlers, and former government officials, including a son of the late president François Mitterrand, expose a vivid picture of the world in which Dick Cheney used to do business when he was the head of Halliburton in the 1990s. The case did not touch on the former vice president's activities directly, and he is not implicated in any alleged wrongdoing. But now that a verdict has been reached in this nine-year-old French case, I expect the door will be open to investigations touching many corners of this fetid world of corruption....(more)

"Hezbollah's Madoff"

Monday, November 2, 2009

Hezbollah in the Larger Scheming of Things

In the early days of last September, Ibrahim Amin delivered a scorcher. The editor-in-chief of al Akhbar, a leading left-leaning broadsheet whose sympathies for Hezbollah are as visceral as they are principled, wagged his caress-worn finger at the Party of God. It was the surest sign yet that the ululating faux pas involving Mr. Salah Ezziddine had indeed the makings of a full-blown scandal.

On the surface of this man’s sin squirmed a group of embarrassing revelations: the mysterious two days and nights Salah spent with Hezbollah before he was sent on his way to declare his bankruptcy to the Lebanese state; the inconvenient detail that this glaringly pious businessman was not the Madoff of the Shiites, but the Madoff of Hezbollah’s Shiites, a community whose blind faith in him stemmed directly from its blind faith in the Party; the absurdly high 40, 50, even 80% returns on dodgy speculative projects that spoke of sloth and greed and gluttony afflicting a sect which still liked to think of itself as deprived; and, of course, Hezbollah’s indulgence in business practices that mocked not a few teachings by Islam....(more)

"The Turkish-Israeli strategic partnership is no longer in crisis, but has essentially ended"

From Michael Reynolds

DavutogluThe past several days have witnessed not one but two momentous, even stunning, developments in Turkish foreign policy that are reverberating through the region. Both are the work of Ahmet DavutoÄŸlu, a former university professor who became Turkish foreign minister last year. Before that, DavutoÄŸlu (shown on far right with his Syrian counterpart Walid Muallem) served for several years as the Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan’s chief foreign policy advisor. In a manner perhaps befitting a university professor, DavutoÄŸlu has aspired to give Turkish foreign policy a comprehensive and consistent conceptual basis. He laid out his vision in his book Strategic Depth: Turkey’s International Position (Stratejik Derinlik: Türkiye’nin Uluslararası Konumu). According to this vision, whereas in the past the Turkish Republic followed a policy of quasi-isolation and self-imposed quarantine from its neighbors, today it should instead seek to take advantage of the cultural and historical links it shares with other countries in its region. As foreign minister, DavutoÄŸlu has been working tirelessly to put his stamp on Turkish foreign policy....(more)

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Reuters - Obama, Sarkozy discussed Iran situation: Elysee

A Post-Script to "Sarkozy's Obama Complex":

Obama, Sarkozy discussed Iran situation: Elysee

Saturday, Oct 24, 2009 4:33PM UTC

PARIS (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama and French President Nicolas Sarkozy discussed Iran's nuclear program over the phone on Saturday, Sarkozy's office said in a statement.

"The two heads of state noted that they share exactly the same views..." the statement said.

Western powers are scrutinizing Iran's atomic work amid concerns that Iran might be trying to develop nuclear weapons. Iran says all its atomic work is peaceful.

(Reporting by Sudip Kar-Gupta)

Parliament speaker: West trying to cheat Iran

http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15884/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=2zXRVS8q


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Friday, October 16, 2009

(BN) Pakistani Jihadists Adopt Commando Tactics to Gain Psychological Advantage

Bloomberg News, sent from my iPhone.

Pakistani Jihadists' Tactics Seek Psychological Edge

Oct. 16 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan's Taliban and its allies are turning to commando raids on police and soldiers, on top of suicide bombings, as a tactic to convince Pakistanis the government can't contain them.

Guerrillas firing assault rifles and throwing hand grenades stormed three police complexes yesterday in Lahore, the country's second-largest city, and militants exploded two bombs in northwestern Pakistan. Six major operations in a week have killed more than 130 troops, police officers and civilians.

"There seems to be a new strategy by terrorists in recent attacks," said Rana Sanaullah, law minister of Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital. Attacking and taking hostages is meant "to get maximum TV coverage and make their demands."

At least 26 people were killed in yesterday's attacks on a federal police headquarters and two police training centers in Lahore, plus in bombings of a police station in the town of Kohat and a government building in Peshawar.

While suicide bombings have killed three-quarters of those who died in the past week, most of the Pakistani media's focus has been on the commando assaults yesterday and the 22-hour siege involving Taliban-affiliated attackers this past weekend at Pakistan's army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

After years of relying on bomb attacks within Pakistan, jihadist groups have made at least four commando-style assaults this year, two in the past week.

Mumbai Raid

The raids echo last November's three-day attack on Mumbai, India's business capital, when 10 gunmen killed 166 people at a railway station, restaurant and two luxury hotels. India blamed the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba group and halted peace talks with its nuclear-armed neighbor.

The more complex attacks in Pakistan show the groups "are trying to demonstrate their prowess and appear larger than life," said Kamran Bokhari, regional director for the Middle East and South Asia at Stratfor, an Austin, Texas-based intelligence-consulting firm.

Jihadists did use commando assaults in Lahore in March, against a bus carrying the Sri Lankan cricket team and at a police academy that was attacked again yesterday. The tactic has been revived in an effort to fight back after the army drove the Taliban out of the Swat Valley in July and a missile strike killed their top commander, Baitullah Mehsud, in August, Bokhari said by telephone from Islamabad, Pakistan's capital.

The week-long spate of attacks is in part an effort to demoralize Pakistan's security forces as the army has deployed what it says are 28,000 troops around the stronghold of Mehsud's Taliban faction, in the mountainous region of Waziristan, near the Afghan border.

Attacking the Army

The government said this week it has given the army chief, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, authority to begin an offensive against Mehsud's fighters, and warplanes have been pounding their positions in the area.

The jihadists boosted the perception of their power through public shock over their Oct. 10 assault on the seat of the army, Pakistan's most powerful institution, said Mehdi Hassan, the dean of the School of Media and Communications at Lahore's Beaconhouse National University.

The commando attacks are "part of a well-planned psychological war campaign" and have helped create "a national atmosphere of crisis," said Hassan. The groups are creating uncertainty in the country of 180 million, partly because of more than two dozen TV news channels that sprang up under the army-led regime of former President Pervez Musharraf, he said in a telephone interview.

The channels "compete intensely for any breaking news" and "any sense of crisis," said Owais Ali, secretary general of the Pakistan Press Foundation, which trains journalists. "It's like the first three days of coverage of 9/11 in America, only imagine it going on for seven years," he said in a telephone interview from Karachi.

To contact the reporter on this story: James Rupert in New Delhi at jrupert3@bloomberg.net .

Find out more about Bloomberg for iPhone: http://bbiphone.bloomberg.com/iphone
Italy denies paying off Taliban in Afghanistan http://m.apnews.com/ap/db_15860/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=DVigwbMs


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Friday, October 02, 2009

The French Discover Sarkozy's Obama Complex

Newsweek titre sur le "complexe d'Obama" de Sarkozy

lesindiscrets.com - ‎Il y a 1 heure ‎
L'hebdo américain Newsweek consacre son édition internationale de cette semaine à Nicolas Sarkozy. Ou plutôt au "complexe d'Obama de Sarkozy". ...

Sarkozy nourrit un complexe envers Obama, selon Newsweek

Le Parisien - ‎Il y a 1 heure ‎
Comme son homologue américain, Nicolas Sarkozy éprouve un besoin viscéral «d'être à l'avant de la scène», estime l'auteur de l'article, le journaliste ...

Nicolas Sarkozy souffre-t-il d'un «complexe d'Obama»?

20minutes.fr - ‎Il y a 11 heures ‎
DIPLOMATIE - C'est qu'affirme l'hebdomadaire américain «Newsweek», qui consacre sa prochaine couverture à la question... Quand Newsweek joue les Freud, ...

Nicolas Sarkozy et Barack Obama au sommet de Pittsburgh, le 25 ...

TV 5 - ‎Il y a 16 heures ‎
L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre fait sa Une européenne sur Nicolas Sarkozy, titrant sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait le président ...

Sarkozy souffrirait d'un "complexe Obama"

SFR Info - ‎Il y a 17 heures ‎
L'hebdomadaire Newsweek estime qu'il ya un "manque de complicité" entre les deux présidents. L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre fait sa Une ...

Le "complexe d'Obama" de Sarkozy

Europe1 - ‎Il y a 17 heures ‎
Newsweek va faire cette semaine sa Une sur le présupposé "manque de complicité" entre les deux présidents. L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre ...

Newsweek trouve à Sarkozy un «complexe d'Obama»

Le Figaro - ‎Il y a 18 heures ‎
Les deux chefs d'Etat «veulent être aux avant-postes de chaque initiative», note le magazine américain qui dresse parallèlement un portrait plutôt élogieux ...

Sarkozy souffre-t-il du "complexe d'Obama"?

7sur7 - ‎Il y a 19 heures ‎
L'équipe Obama-Sarkozy pourrait faire des étincelles internationales si elle était plus soudée, d'après Newsweek. Pourtant il ne semble pas manquer grand ...

Newsweek titre sur le "complexe d'Obama" de N. Sarkozy

RTBF - ‎Il y a 19 heures ‎
L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre fait sa Une européenne sur Nicolas Sarkozy, titrant sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait le président ...

"Newsweek" titre sur "le complexe Obama" de Nicolas Sarkozy

Le Blog de Jean-Marc Morandini - ‎Il y a 19 heures ‎
L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre fait sa Une européenne sur Nicolas Sarkozy, titrant sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait le président ...

Newsweek fait sa Une sur le "complexe d'Obama" de Sarkozy

RTL Info - ‎Il y a 20 heures ‎
L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre fait sa Une européenne sur Nicolas Sarkozy, titrant sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait le président ...

Newsweek fait sa Une sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait ...

TV 5 - ‎Il y a 20 heures ‎
L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre fait sa Une européenne sur Nicolas Sarkozy, titrant sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait le président ...

Newsweek fait sa Une sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait ...

AFP - ‎Il y a 20 heures ‎
WASHINGTON — L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre fait sa Une européenne sur Nicolas Sarkozy, titrant sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait ...

Newsweek fait sa Une sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait ...

Le Matin Online - ‎Il y a 20 heures ‎
L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre fait sa Une européenne sur Nicolas Sarkozy, titrant sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait le président ...

Newsweek fait sa Une sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait ...

24 heures - ‎Il y a 20 heures ‎
WASHINGTON | L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre fait sa Une européenne sur Nicolas Sarkozy, titrant sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait ...

Newsweek fait sa Une sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait ...

Le Monde - ‎Il y a 20 heures ‎
L'hebdomadaire américain Newsweek du 5 octobre fait sa Une européenne sur Nicolas Sarkozy, titrant sur le "complexe d'Obama" dont souffrirait le président ...

Jalousie d'Obama

L'Express - ‎30 sept. 2009‎
Bon, puisque les réactions aux blogs sur l'affaire Polanski deviennent un peu trop hargneuses, je vous propose un sujet qui appelle sérénité et consensus ...