Summaries here and here and here.

One toe forward, ten steps back.

The overwhelmingly Shiite Muslim military force at the forefront of U.S. and Iraqi plans to secure one of the nation’s most fractious provinces is accused of arresting hundreds of Sunni men on little or no evidence, threatening to rape a suspect’s wife to coerce a confession, and intimidating its commander’s critics, according to interviews with Iraqi and U.S. officials.

Backed by U.S. troops, the Iraqi Army’s 5th Division on Saturday launched a new offensive to rout suspected al-Qaida-allied terrorists from Baquba, the capital of a province infested with Sunni insurgents, Shiite militias, warring tribes and criminal gangs.

While a U.S. military statement said the weekend operation shows the “commitment of Iraqi army officers and soldiers to protect and secure the people,” local residents and Sunni leaders point to the Iraqi division’s track record as one of the chief problems plaguing the restive Diyala province north of Baghdad. Article

Two stories centering on Ramadi which give almost diametrically opposed perspectives.

#1:

With their heads wrapped in checkered Arab scarves and warm jackets pulled tight over their blue shirts — their sole vestige of an official uniform — Ramadi’s police look very much like the insurgents they are fighting.

In fact, many of them used to be insurgents.

“Some of my guys were bad people, but they’ve now chosen our side,” said Major Rafaa, the deputy police chief at a newly established station in the restive western Iraqi city.

“They sure know a lot about the insurgents, though.”

[snip]

“Some of them are former insurgents — they were shooting at us just three months ago,” admitted Lechner, who still wears the insignia patch of the 3rd Ranger Battalion he served with in the 1993 Mogadishu operation immortalized in the film “Blackhawk Down.”

“They may not like Americans, but they hate al-Qaeda,” he said. Article

#2:

About 2,200 Marines left their ships in the Persian Gulf two weeks ago for the dangerous city of Ramadi and other locales around Anbar province, where entrenched and well-financed insurgents use roadside bombs, rocket and mortar attacks, ambushes and snipers to kill American troops at rates approaching one per day.

Two battalions from the 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit have been assigned to this city of mansions with towering, gilded columns and crescent-shaped windows, the capital of a Sunni Arab province that stretches west from Baghdad to the Iraqi borders with
Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

[snip]

A city of 300,000, Ramadi is an insurgent stronghold that has featured some of the bloodiest combat of the war as Marines and soldiers fought their way from neighborhood to neighborhood. Some areas have been reduced to burned-out rubble, and it’s hard to find a high-rise here not pockmarked with bullet holes or scarred from the impact of a rocket or mortar.

“Things here are pretty tough, you’ve still got guys who are getting shot everyday,” said Lance Cpl. Brian Kleinkopf, a 19-year-old from Yreka, Calif.

The unit has spent its early days in Iraq conducting raids and house-by-house searches of insurgent strongholds around Ramadi. It was expecting to see heavy combat this weekend, teaming up with an Army Task Force to sweep an area in the southeastern part of the city rife with disaffected former officers in Saddam’s army who have taken up arms against the American troops. Article

Oy.

A pro-PKK website on Thursday claimed that five tons of C-4 explosives were stolen from the warehouses of Iraqi Defense Ministry. It was not certain by whom or when the plastic explosives in the warehouse were stolen. Article

Summary here.

Bracing for a long, tough winter.

German military has voiced concern over stepped up attacks by Taliban insurgents inside Kabul, the website of the weekly Der Spiegel magazine reported Saturday.

According to the report, the security situation in two districts which Taliban forces use as a staging ground for an attack on Kabul, has deteriorated to a degree that Afghan soldiers don’t dare to patrol the streets at night. Article

This, however, is heartening.

The question, of course, is why this is confined only to the Dutch forces.

On a recent afternoon, Mr. Ahmad watched his men play soccer in the confines of a Dutch military base known as Kamp Holland, and he seemed pleased with his new, quiet life.

“In the last four months, this province is safer,” he said. “I’ll tell you why. When you treat people badly, it comes back at you. When you treat people well,” he said, gesturing at the quiet provincial capital of Tirin Kot, slumbering in the valley below the Dutch base, “this is the result.”

The Dutch went into Uruzgan expecting the same kind of bloody welcome that Canadians have found in Kandahar. Both provinces are considered volatile strongholds of the Taliban insurgency. Special forces operating in Uruzgan encountered daily attacks this summer. So the 1,400 Dutch troops that began arriving in early August came prepared for battle.

But the bloodbath never happened. This past week, the first four-month rotation of Dutch troops started to leave Uruzgan after having completed 400 patrols, established two forward bases and started the slow work of building roads, bridges, schools, and clinics – all without a single soldier killed in action, and just two injuries from hostile forces.

There have been just seven ambushes and 18 roadside bombs in four months; Canadian troops have suffered worse in a single week.

The success is fragile, Dutch commanders caution, and might be partly the result of luck, insurgents focusing on battles elsewhere or the cautious pace of their arrival. But the early results in Uruzgan also suggest that something these commanders call the “Dutch philosophy” is worth a hard look. It’s a strategy focused on supporting the local government rather than killing its supposed enemies, talking with the Taliban instead of fighting them, and treading carefully with an understanding of how little any foreigner knows about this untamed country.

Since NATO inherited control from the Americans, the Dutch have been trying to rein in the U.S. Special Forces that still operate two camps in northern Uruzgan, and they’ve restrained their own troops from any major offensives.

“If there’s a good reason to kick ass, fine,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Nico Tak, 43, the Provincial Reconstruction Team commander. “Do you know whose ass you’re going to kick? What are you basing that on? A telephone call? Human intelligence?”

In the first months after the Canadians’ arrival in Kandahar, commanders sent convoys to the furthest corners of the province. These wide-ranging trips were described as a way of asserting the Canadians’ presence, and sometimes resulted in gun battles.

By contrast, the Dutch have moved with extreme caution. Only about 15 kilometres north of Kamp Holland lies the entrance to the Balochi Valley, the scene of many battles between insurgents and pro-government forces, and a zone where foreign troops expected to sustain regular attacks. Rather than pushing in, the Dutch sent a delegation to a village near the mouth of the valley and asked whether they’re willing to negotiate.

The elders seemed frightened but willing, so Lieutenant-Colonel Piet Van der Sar, the battle group commander, flew in by helicopter for a meeting. “We spread a rumour up the valley, that we’re trying to come in without fighting,” he said.

The tactic worked, he said. Listening to the radio frequencies often used by insurgents, the Dutch interpreters heard locals discussing the new type of foreigner that was replacing the U.S. troops. “They said, ‘Those Dutch aren’t here to fight, they’re here to talk,’” Lt.-Col. Van der Sar said.

The talks include not only village elders, but also the Taliban themselves. It’s a subject the Dutch are reluctant to discuss in detail, as the idea of negotiating with terrorists remains a subject of debate among NATO allies. In a PowerPoint briefing for a visiting reporter, Lt.-Col. Tak moved quickly past a slide titled “Talking to the Dark Side.”

Lt.-Col. Tak said that while nobody under his command talks directly with the insurgents, he works closely with the provincial governor who does make contact with the Taliban.

“Talking to the Taliban is essential,” Lt.-Col. Tak said.

[snip]

The Dutch commanders seem well schooled in the complexities of Afghanistan, easily discussing the mujahedeen factions, schools of Islam and sub-tribal clans that dominate the political landscape.

“I’m in the business of killing people and breaking things. But I can use my brain.” Lt.-Col. Tak said.

[snip]

Dutch forces also say they’re trying to protect villagers from the predations of corrupt or undisciplined Afghan soldiers and police, by watching them closely for bad behaviour and keeping them off the front lines. Even in convoys, they said, Afghan National Army units have been moved from the front of the column into the safer middle.

“You have to teach them [Afghan forces] not to be a pain in the ass for the population,” Lt.-Col. Van der Sar said. Article

What’s up.

Noted FYI:

Iran has passed a law requiring immigration officials to fingerprint US passport holders despite President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s opposition to the measure.

A spokesman for the Guardian Council, a constitutional watchdog that must vet all bills before they become law, announced the approval of the legislation today, the official Iranian News Agency reported.

[snip]

Ahmadinejad last month said he was against the bill because has no quarrel with ordinary Americans.

The power to cancel the law lies with Parliament and the guardian council, which must pass a new legislation that annuls the measure.

Conservatives drafted the law in retaliation for the US requirement that Iranian visitors be fingerprinted. … Article

The militarization of the “homeland.” Though a rah-rah piece supplied by the military, that first sentence sends chills down ye old scribe’s spine.

The National Guard Bureau chief got a look this week at how the forward operating base concept used for U.S. military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere around the world can work for domestic missions, too.

Army Lt. Gen. H Steven Blum toured Forward Operating Base Border Wolf, a new support base within this border town’s industrial park, during his week-long visit to California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to observe Operation Jump Start. The base provides housing and other support services for almost 200 Army and Air National Guard troops from around the country supporting the mission. They’re among about 6,000 Guard members serving in support of the U.S. Border Patrol. The mission is expected to last for about two years as the Border Patrol recruits and trains more agents. Article

A case study of the inherent perils of overarching governmental authority and the use of “secret” evidence.

A federal judge on Wednesday declared the end of the government’s four-year case against a Denver Pakistani-American family once targeted by the FBI as terrorists.

Family members whose lives were turned upside down simply wept. “We’ve lost everything,” longtime Colorado restaurateur Abdul Qayyum said.

Chief U.S. District Judge Lewis Babcock accepted plea deals with federal prosecutors who dropped and reduced immigration charges they pursued after their terrorism case fizzled against Qayyum, his daughter Saima Saima, wife Chris Warren and nephew Irfan Kamran.

Now only Haroon Rashid, Saima’s husband, is jailed. Federal prosecutors dropped all charges against him, too. But Rashid, jailed for more than two years, still faces deportation after a misdemeanor assault on a gang member who hassled his family.

A federal appeals court on Nov. 20 temporarily blocked Rashid’s deportation pending an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

FBI agents targeted this family of naturalized U.S. citizens from the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands based on secret evidence after the 9/11 attacks. U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft trumpeted the case as aggressive action against terrorists.

[snip]

Federal prosecutors defended their actions.

“I don’t know if there was any excess in this case. It was done just like any other case would be,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Gaouette said. Article

Now you know.

The surveillance technique came to light in an opinion published this week by U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan. He ruled that the “roving bug” was legal because federal wiretapping law is broad enough to permit eavesdropping even of conversations that take place near a suspect’s cell phone.

[snip]

The U.S. Commerce Department’s security office warns that “a cellular telephone can be turned into a microphone and transmitter for the purpose of listening to conversations in the vicinity of the phone.” An article in the Financial Times last year said mobile providers can “remotely install a piece of software on to any handset, without the owner’s knowledge, which will activate the microphone even when its owner is not making a call.”

Nextel and Samsung handsets and the Motorola Razr are especially vulnerable to software downloads that activate their microphones, said James Atkinson, a counter-surveillance consultant who has worked closely with government agencies. “They can be remotely accessed and made to transmit room audio all the time,” he said. “You can do that without having physical access to the phone.”

Because modern handsets are miniature computers, downloaded software could modify the usual interface that always displays when a call is in progress. The spyware could then place a call to the FBI and activate the microphone–all without the owner knowing it happened. (The FBI declined to comment on Friday.)

[snip]

Surreptitious activation of built-in microphones by the FBI has been done before. A 2003 lawsuit revealed that the FBI was able to surreptitiously turn on the built-in microphones in automotive systems like General Motors’ OnStar to snoop on passengers’ conversations.

When FBI agents remotely activated the system and were listening in, passengers in the vehicle could not tell that their conversations were being monitored. Article

Ostesibly apolitical and legally required free-handed government oversight and audits, including ferretng out and investigations fraud and waste, is now “terrorism”, according to the new head of the GSA.

We’re in the lull before the onset of the full brunt of the Constitutional crisis which the woebegone G. Walker administration’s machinations have set in motion. It is imperative that balance be restored among the three branches of the governement, but it will take all the fortitude which both the legislative and the judicial brances can muster and all the support which the public can provide to wrest power back from the administration’s detremination for unfettered despotism, to reinstate the American system put into place over 200 years ago.

President Bush is publicly claiming that he is ready to act in a bipartisan manner with respect to the new Democratic Congress, as if he has heard the message voters sent. But his olive branch to the Democratic Congressional Leadership strikes me as more like a fly-swatter, which he is waving about, hoping to keep them at bay as long as possible. I say that because, as of now, Cheney is busy passing the word to the troops that it will be full speed ahead, as if nothing happened in November. In the distance, I can already hear the Republican attack dogs howling, getting ready for the coming Congressional war.

[snip]

Since the election, Cheney has made it clear that he has no interest in cooperating with the Democrats. He told ABC News host George Stephanopoulos he would not testify if subpoenaed. In addition, he told members of the Federalist Society, gathered in Washington for their national convention, that notwithstanding the election results, nothing had changed: The President was going to stay the course in Iraq, and continue sending conservative judicial nominees to the Senate for confirmation.

Not only is Cheney necessarily a key player, if Congress to is understand what has transpired in the Bush Administration during its first six years, but this fact puts Cheney’s philosophy, not to mention his mission as Vice President, directly at odds with Congress’ undertaking its Constitutional responsibility.

[snip]

Rumblings on Capitol Hill suggest that Republicans may literally be “out of control” as the minority party. Many Republicans in Congress are upset that they will lose their perks, and they want to punish the Democrats for winning. In addition, the White House believes its conservative base wants it to make life difficult for the Democrat Congress, so they will assist in doing just that. Article

Noted FYI:

Groundwater is polluted in about 90 per cent of Chinese cities, with those in northern and eastern areas worst affected, state media on Saturday quoted a top environmental official as saying.

An increasing number of groundwater samples contain toxic substances, despite a 2004 national survey of urban and rural areas finding that 63 per cent of underground water was suitable for drinking, the official Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Lijun, deputy director of the State Environmental Protection Administration, as saying.

‘It seems rosy because the survey only tests the inorganic matter in groundwater, but now more organic substances are culprits in groundwater pollution and it costs more to test organic matter,’ government geologist Wen Dongguang said.

Groundwater constitutes about one-third of China’s freshwater resources, supplying about 70 per cent of drinking water and 40 per cent of water for agricultural irrigation, the agency said. Article

JACKBOOTED JOLLY OLD ELF

*sigh*

IRAQ IIO

Summary here and here.

Hakim, the power behind the throne of the major political bloc, displays his quills.

A senior Iraqi Shiite leader who is meeting President Bush next week on Saturday rejected a suggestion by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to hold an international conference on Iraq.

Annan said last week an international conference on Iraq could be useful if the groundwork was carefully prepared and all the political parties could be brought together somewhere outside the country.

But Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, whose party runs a feared Shiite militia backed by Iran, said Iraq’s problems need to be solved at home.

“It is unreasonable or incorrect to discuss issues related to the Iraqi people at international conferences. The proposal is unrealistic, incorrect and illegal,” he said at a news conference in Amman, Jordan.

Al-Hakim, who is scheduled to meet Bush in Washington on Monday to discuss the Sunni-Shiite violence raging in Iraq, also played down fears that his country is facing civil war, labeling the nation’s conflict as “political” rather than sectarian. Article

Wheels within wheels.

Saudi Arabia said there was no truth in an article by a Saudi security adviser suggesting the world’s top oil exporter would back Iraq’s Muslim Sunnis in the event of a wider sectarian conflict.

[snip]

A Western diplomat in Riyadh said the official denial confirmed diplomats’ belief that the substance of Obaid’s article does not reflect Saudi policy. He said at most the article may have been intended as a “warning.”

Diplomats say Saudi Arabia, a key U.S. ally, is worried that Washington has lost control of Iraq and developments in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which Arab governments say is driving Islamic extremism and anti-U.S. sentiment in the region.

[snip]

Diplomats say it is possible that Saudi Arabia has begun low-level funding of some Sunni tribes in Iraq, but a prominent Saudi tribal figure cast doubt on any large scale funding.

“The Sunni tribes have been asking for money for a number of years from Saudi Arabia and they never got anything because Saudi Arabia was so worried about al Qaeda,” said Turki al-Rasheed of the Shamar tribal group that extends into Iraq.

“Those who want Saudi Arabia to intervene are none other than the Americans who are trying to find a quick exit from Iraq. Saudi Arabia will not fight or seriously engage itself in Iraq.” Article

NEW WORLD DISORDER

Seeing ourselves through the eyes of others: From earlier this fall, but new to ye old scribe, is this sometimes intriguing, sometimes aggravating look at U.S. policy implementation and reactive clues from Russia.

RABBLE BABBLE

Ignorance is our most dangerous product.

When radio host Jerry Klein suggested that all Muslims in the United States should be identified with a crescent-shape tattoo or a distinctive arm band, the phone lines jammed instantly.

The first caller to the station in Washington said that Klein must be “off his rocker.” The second congratulated him and added: “Not only do you tattoo them in the middle of their forehead but you ship them out of this country … they are here to kill us.”

Another said that tattoos, armbands and other identifying markers such as crescent marks on driver’s licenses, passports and birth certificates did not go far enough. “What good is identifying them?” he asked. “You have to set up encampments like during World War Two with the Japanese and Germans.”

At the end of the one-hour show, rich with arguments on why visual identification of “the threat in our midst” would alleviate the public’s fears, Klein revealed that he had staged a hoax. It drew out reactions that are not uncommon in post-9/11 America.

“I can’t believe any of you are sick enough to have agreed for one second with anything I said,” he told his audience on the AM station 630 WMAL, which covers Washington, Northern Virginia and Maryland.

“For me to suggest to tattoo marks on people’s bodies, have them wear armbands, put a crescent moon on their driver’s license on their passport or birth certificate is disgusting. It’s beyond disgusting.

“Because basically what you just did was show me how the German people allowed what happened to the Jews to happen … We need to separate them, we need to tattoo their arms, we need to make them wear the yellow Star of David, we need to put them in concentration camps, we basically just need to kill them all because they are dangerous.”

The show aired on November 26, the Sunday after the Thanksgiving holiday, and Klein said in an interview afterwards he had been surprised by the response. Article

“This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
– – Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol

ROCK (OR IS THAT IRAQ?) BOTTOM

Worst ever — or a runner-up? Five takes: #1 — #2 — #3 — #4 — #5