Al Jazeera English Panel: America's War on Terror

Talking with Marwan Bishara and his guests in all four segments about the law enforcement paradigm, occupation, torture, Abu Ghraib, and where all this has left us in the fight against terrorism:

Newsweek-YouTube: Merchandising Racism

Some of the ten video journal segments that accompanied the Newsweek cover story on "The End of the South" that ran earlier this month.

Spartanburg Herald: Reporting on the Reporting

Spartanburg voices in magazine piece

Newsweek: Article focuses on race and politics in the South

By Rachel E. Leonard
rachel.leonard@shj.com

Published: Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 3:15 a.m.
Last Modified: Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 7:20 a.m.

Newsweek reporter Chris Dickey didn't set off to visit Spartanburg as he embarked on a four-state journey to examine Southerners' feelings and opinions about race and the upcoming presidential election.

He ended up here anyway, by chance and through contact with friend John Lane, a Wofford College professor. Now two of his experiences here - an interview with a waitress in Spartanburg and a visit to a Hispanic family in Una - are featured in this week's cover story, "The End of the South."

In the article and in an online video clip, Gerhard's Cafe waitress Shana Sprouse explains she's voting for Barack Obama, among other reasons, because she's impressed with his health care plan. Sprouse says her 26-year-old boyfriend has been diagnosed with cancer and the couple has spent two years trying to find ways to pay for his treatment. ... (more)

External Links:

• Watch Newsweek's video shot at Gerhard's in Spartanburg

More Appearances Talking About the South

C-Span, Washington Journal:
http://www.c-span.org/video_rss.aspx?MediaID=37580

Christopher Dickey, Paris Bureau Chief at Newsweek discusses the impending nomination of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) and its potential political and social effect on the old Confederate South. Washington, DC : 32 min.



NPR's On Point News Roundtable:
http://www.onpointradio.org/shows/2008/08/week-in-the-news-2/?autostart=true

Friday, August 8, 2008 at 10:00 AM EDT

Week in the News

President Bush criticized China's human rights record during a speech in Bangkok, Thailand on August 7, 2008. (Photo: Chris Greenber)

Post your comments below

A week of big starts — and finishes. It’s 8–8–08, and in Beijing, at 8:08 p.m. local time, the Olympic opening ceremonies got underway. President Bush is there, his words on human rights still hanging in the air.

Back home, the trial of Osama bin Laden’s driver ends with a split verdict and light sentence. The FBI says the anthrax case is solved. On the campaign trail, McCain and Obama get feisty on energy, and the Veepstakes go into overdrive. Iraq’s elections are in doubt. Musharaff faces impeachment.

This hour, On Point: our weekly news roundtable goes behind the headlines.

You can join the conversation. What’s moving your world this week? China and the Olympics? Obama and McCain? The anthrax case? Tell us what you think.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

* * *

Guests:

Shai Oster, Beijing correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He joins us from the site of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Christopher Dickey, Paris bureau chief and Middle East regional editor for Newsweek. His cover story in this week’s issue is “The End of the South: How Obama vs. McCain is Unsettling the Old Confederacy.”

Bill McKenzie, editorial columnist for The Dallas Morning News.

Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly.

NPR: Here and Now - On the South

Christopher Dickey and the American South
Newsweek's Christopher Dickey returns to his roots in the American South to gauge the mood ahead of the presidential election. Dickey says emotions are raw in the region because the candidacy of Barack Obama has stirred up the ghosts of the racial strife that has marked the South for decades.

	Listen
	Read the story and view photos and video

NBC Nightly News: Rediscovering the South

NBC Nightly News did a segment tied to my Newsweek cover story about the South using footage shot by Lee Wang for the accompanying video blogs.

And this is the link to a 30-minute interview on NPR's Talk of the Nation: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93305841

Securing the City - Due out February 2009

After a year and a half of work, I am pleased to report that I have finished the manuscript for "Securing the City," due to be published by Simon & Schuster in February.

The Great (Hoffman-Sageman) Debate

The Myth of Grass-Roots Terrorism

Why Osama bin Laden Still Matters

Bruce Hoffman

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 2008

Leaderless Jihad: Terror Networks in the Twenty-first Century. Marc Sageman. University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008, 208 pp. $24.95.

Summary: Marc Sageman claims that al Qaeda's leadership is finished and today's terrorist threat comes primarily from below. But the terrorist elites are alive and well, and ignoring the threat they pose will have disastrous consequences.

... (full text)

Iraq: The Endless Occupation

An important article by Patrick Cockburn in the Independent:

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

Bush wants 50 military bases, control of Iraqi airspace and legal immunity for all American soldiers and contractors

By Patrick Cockburn
Thursday, 5 June 2008

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US presidential election in November.

The terms of the impending deal, details of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

But the accord also threatens to provoke a political crisis in the US. President Bush wants to push it through by the end of next month so he can declare a military victory and claim his 2003 invasion has been vindicated. But by perpetuating the US presence in Iraq, the long-term settlement would undercut pledges by the Democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, to withdraw US troops if he is elected president in November.

The timing of the agreement would also boost the Republican candidate, John McCain, who has claimed the United States is on the verge of victory in Iraq – a victory that he says Mr Obama would throw away by a premature military withdrawal.

America currently has 151,000 troops in Iraq and, even after projected withdrawals next month, troop levels will stand at more than 142,000 – 10 000 more than when the military "surge" began in January 2007. Under the terms of the new treaty, the Americans would retain the long-term use of more than 50 bases in Iraq. American negotiators are also demanding immunity from Iraqi law for US troops and contractors, and a free hand to carry out arrests and conduct military activities in Iraq without consulting the Baghdad government.

The precise nature of the American demands has been kept secret until now. The leaks are certain to generate an angry backlash in Iraq. "It is a terrible breach of our sovereignty," said one Iraqi politician, adding that if the security deal was signed it would delegitimise the government in Baghdad which will be seen as an American pawn.

The US has repeatedly denied it wants permanent bases in Iraq but one Iraqi source said: "This is just a tactical subterfuge." Washington also wants control of Iraqi airspace below 29,000ft and the right to pursue its "war on terror" in Iraq, giving it the authority to arrest anybody it wants and to launch military campaigns without consultation.

Mr Bush is determined to force the Iraqi government to sign the so-called "strategic alliance" without modifications, by the end of next month. But it is already being condemned by the Iranians and many Arabs as a continuing American attempt to dominate the region. Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the powerful and usually moderate Iranian leader, said yesterday that such a deal would create "a permanent occupation". He added: "The essence of this agreement is to turn the Iraqis into slaves of the Americans."

Iraq's Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, is believed to be personally opposed to the terms of the new pact but feels his coalition government cannot stay in power without US backing.

The deal also risks exacerbating the proxy war being fought between Iran and the United States over who should be more influential in Iraq.... (more)

Some background from Shadowland two years ago:

The Rule of Order 17

An American agreement puts a motley array of foreigners above the law in Iraq. It’s time to take away their license to kill—and to stop treating Maliki’s new government as a servant.

Christopher Dickey

Newsweek Web Exclusive

29 June 2006

It’s just two years ago this week—two very long years—that President George W. Bush’s handpicked proconsul cut and ran out of Iraq. Instead of a grand ceremony handing over something called “sovereignty” to the U.S.-appointed government of Ayad Allawi, there was a low-key, almost secretive handshake and a very quick set of brief remarks before Paul Bremer jumped on a plane and got the hell out. He didn’t want to attract too much attention, or mortar shells from the growing insurgency.

It was an extraordinary moment, fraught with the arrogant hyperbole and arrant hypocrisy that has characterized this adventure all along. According to Bremer, the idea for the stealth ceremony before the announced date came from President George W. Bush, via Condoleezza Rice, who was then his national-security adviser. She’s quoted in Bremer’s book, “My Year in Iraq,” saying, “The president is trying to ‘wrong foot’ the opposition by doing the transfer of sovereignty a couple of days early.” Bremer agreed to this bright idea but worried that it would “look as if we are scuttling out of here, Condi.” There would have to be “several days of relative calm” beforehand. In the event, he settled for several hours. When Bremer landed in Jordan, he called his wife. “I’m safe and free,” he told her. Which was more than he could say for Iraq.

What Bremer did not mention in his book is a document—Coalition Provisional Authority Order Number 17—that he signed on June 27, 2004, just one day before he scuttled out of there, that continues to set the ground rules for the American occupation of Iraq. It is not a “Status of Forces Agreement” (SOFA) like the ones we have with our NATO allies or Japan or other countries where U.S. forces might be based. Those have to be negotiated, and the talks are tough, because truly sovereign countries think sovereignty truly is important. They never like the idea that American soldiers who commit crimes on their territory are not subject to their laws.

But Order 17 was not negotiated with the Iraqis, it was promulgated by the Americans, and it’s purely of the people, by the people and for the people that the United States brought into Iraq. Under its provisions, they are exempt from Iraqi laws, cannot be arrested, prosecuted, tried or taxed. Nor do they have to pay rent for the buildings and land they turn into bases. Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who served in Baghdad immediately after the invasion and subsequently negotiated military agreements with other countries before leaving the State Department in 2004, describes what Bremer pulled off as “a SOFA on steroids.” It’s all about what the Americans get to do, and what the Iraqis get to do for them...(more)

Talking Terror

The Brian Lehrer Show with the NYPD's Richard Falkenrath last year. Useful background on the report "Radicalization in the West" and the question of "homegrown terror."

Don't Give Me That Ol' Time Religion

The New Face of Islam
A critique of radicalism is building within the heart of the Muslim world.

And there is so much more to say. Please do comment and suggest other links. Here are a few that may be of interest:

Using Comics to Turn Off Terror

Muslims Turning a Page on Rage?

The Unraveling

The Rebellion Within

Al Qaeda is losing the war of minds

Moderating Immoderation at the WEF in Sharm

Recent Work

Shadowland: Bush’s 10 Commandments 20 May 2008
The U.S. president's latest pronouncements on Iran and the Arab world generated doom and gloom on his Mideast tour.

Shadowland: Slaughterhouse Beirut 13 May 2008
Lebanon's chances for meaningful reconstruction are diminishing by the day. And despite Bush's bravado, it's going to be the same in Iraq.

Newsweek Online: Bombs in the Basement 7 May 2008
Remembering a Civil War relic hunter who survived.

Shadowland: Terrorist Triage 6 May 2008
Why are the presidential candidates—and so many counterterrorism experts—afraid to say that the Al Qaeda threat is overrated?

Shadowland: Bluff and Bloodshed 1 May 2008
The Persian Gulf is more dangerous than ever. Will the U.S. and Iran go to war at sea?

Newsweek: The French Revolution 5 May 2008
Sarkozy attempts to transform the West's military alliances.

Newsweek: Snapshots of Horror 28 April 2008
The curiously human side of the inhumanity that was Abu Ghraib.

Newsweek: Welcome to Paradise 21 April 2008
Oil revenue has made the desert—and plenty of other places—bloom with unexpected treasures for the tourist. Enter if you dare.

Shadowland: 'Jihadi Cool' 15 April 2008
Comic book action heroes may be better weapons against terror than bullets or bombs. (For more graphics and trailers, visit www.the99.org)

Web Exclusive: Italian Politics as Unusual 15 April 2008
Berlusconi wins by a landslide. Why Italy may never be quite the same again. (Written with Jacopo Barigazzi)

Holland's Xenophobia Alert

Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf has posted an interesting analysis on the OnFaith blog:

Early Warning System for Xenophobia

Learning from the Danish cartoon crisis of 2006 and the Sudanese teddy bear debacle of 2007, the Dutch are preparing to preempt a Geert Wilders-inflicted pandemic of 2008. This preemptive approach seems to be paying off; reversing what looked like an inevitable widening of rifts between the West and the Muslim World. The Netherlands now know that outbreaks of xenophobia must be treated as any other pandemic threatening a population. In preparation for the outbreak, an early warning system must be established and at onset, one must quickly quarantine the ideological disease before it spreads further. With Wilders, the need for preparedness was great.

Geert Wilders, leader of the right-wing, anti-Muslim Freedom Party, of which there are only nine members in the 150-seat Dutch lower house, had long threatened to release a film exhibiting, in his words, "the violent and fascist elements of the Muslim faith". This saber-rattling was not new. On previous occasions, Wilders equated the Qur'an with Mein Kampf and called for both books to be banned (a proposal roundly rejected by parliament). Additionally, Wilders' suggestion that the 1 million Muslims living in the Netherlands renounce aspects of their faith or leave country was also dispelled as nonsensical. This new film, however, was going to trump polemical precedent and the Muslim world was readying for the worst.

This is where the Dutch did right, by discernibly developing mechanisms to dampen down disease spread. With other European Union countries quickly diversifying religiously and ethnically, they too will no doubt trip up on similar potential points of ideological contention. Thus, this model deserves dutiful review and, ultimately, duplication. If the saying "an ounce of prevention equals a pound cure" holds true, the Danish cartoon crisis should shock anyone into an early-warning convert. The potential social, political and financial costs are simply too great to ignore. And the Dutch, as we will see below, understood that. ... (more)

Postcards from the Edge...And Hitler's Stargazer

The British National Archives at Kew come up with surprising finds of one sort or another in every monthly bulletin. The latest offers postcards and photographs from World War I, including this charming wish for "A Pleasant Christmas."

There's also an interesting collection of papers about the astrologer hired by the British government to conduct stargazing psyops against Hitler, who was a great believer in such things:

Louis de Wohl (KV 2/2821)

De Wohl was a Hungarian astrologer and author who came to the United Kingdom in 1935 and spent much of the war in official employment on propaganda work for the Special Operations Executive (SOE), the Political Warfare Executive (PWE) and other agencies. The work was based on the assumption that Hitler was heavily influenced by his own astrologer, so that by employing their own prominent astrologer, the British could sway his thinking.

Truth and Fiction

Just came across this very sharp, very funny take on fake memoirs:
Where Am I Now When I Need Me: The True Story

Flashback: Islam's Challenge, Davos 2006

I just came across this YouTube posting from two years ago. Not much has changed:

Iranian Bling -- Why Sanctions Won't Work

Nasrin Alavi, author of We Are Iran, has been back in her homeland, and she's written a long, interesting report for New Internationalist about her experiences in a country where fortunes are being made, Rolexes are back in the shop windows, and a population that is politically helpless feels ever more apathetic. An excerpt:

I am amongst a group of young women at a bustling Tehran restaurant who are celebrating their university graduations. These girls are the sort of young people that writers (myself included) often enthuse about: the educated, burgeoning children of the Iranian Revolution, with enlightened ideals, at odds with their hardline politicians. Yet these students don’t appear to be fully conscious of the outstanding UN sanctions over Iran’s nuclear programme. ‘We’ve been too busy cramming for exams, I can’t even remember the last time I read a newspaper,’ is one typical response. Still, even if she had picked up a newspaper, she would have had to read between the lines to decipher such news. Iran’s National Security Council has for some time banned any negative reporting of outside pressure over its nuclear programme. This uninformed, passive, politically disengaged outlook is rather typical of most Iranians I have talked to in recent months, rich or poor.

Yet like most Iranians these young women openly grumble about the rules and regulations; the lack of jobs, inflation, poverty and corruption. They mock Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and unashamedly breach the strict guidelines by wearing their compulsory headscarves way back over their head to reveal as much (illicit) hair as possible. This is especially daring as Iran has endured an intensive summer crusade to banish widespread violation of the Islamic dress codes that has seen many cautioned and arrested. Shadi proudly shows off a personally compiled list of all the major shopping centres and thoroughfares in Tehran on her possible daily route where police cars and vans are positioned. Her approach is to avoid going through these areas. The salient mood here seems to be to outmanoeuvre and circumvent rather than face confrontation. ... (more)

Shutting Down the Satellites?

Al-Jazeera's Marwan Bishara appears on CNN to talk about efforts by the Arab League to rein in satellite broadcasts. Of course, Lebanon and Qatar refused to sign so ... and what expectations did we have from any of the rest?
http://edition.cnn.com/video/#/video/international/2008/02/29/ic.arab.media.row.bk.c.cnn

Dangerous Liaisons: Sarko and the Press

Marie Valla has a sharp rundown on the way French President Nicolas Sarkozy spins the press on the France 24 Web site, and not only because she quotes me. (It's in English as well as French -- even though Sarko keeps talking about shutting down the English television service):

Even before the dust has had a chance to settle from French President Nicolas Sarkozy’s ‘get lost you cretin’ mishap at the Agricultural Fair, a new Elysée faux pas has become the talk of the French media. French Daily Le Parisien admitted on Wednesday that the President’s interview published in the paper the day before had not only been reread but also modified by the Elysée press service.

This infringement by the Sarkozy administration blurs the lines between politics and journalism. “In Moscow, they used to hide the official portraits of personalities who had fallen into disfavor. At the Elysée, they rewrite interviews given by the President,” wrote newspaper L’Humanité in its Wednesday edition.

In the interview, Sarkozy stands by Saturday’s outburst adding that “Just because you become President doesn’t mean that you suddenly become something people can wipe their feet on.” L’Elysee thought best to add the sentence “At the Fair, I should not have answered,” thereby significantly changing the tone of his initial answer. “This sounds like a press aide desperately trying to do damage control after the fact,” says Christopher Dickey, Newsweek bureau chief in Paris.

But the bigger problem is the fact that the Le Parisien editorial team - arguing that they were providing useful information to the reader - failed to mention which portions of the interview were an addition. “This is inappropriate,” says Stefan Simons, Paris correspondent for the German weekly Der Spiegel. It isn’t so much the fact that the interview was reread that’s problematic but “the way in which it was done. At Der Spiegel, heads of state are always given the possibility to read and fix their interviews before publication,” he adds....(more)