Summaries here and here.

General Babikr Zibari, chief of Iraqi army staff, submitted his resignation but the Iraqi Prime Minister and Armed forces Command-in-Chief rejected it, a Kurdish legislator said on Tuesday. Article

Unknown gunmen killed, on Tuesday, the resident engineer in Sarafya Bridge reconstruction project, as he was leaving his home heading to work, a media source from the Housing and Construction Ministry said.

[snip]

Large portions of Sarafya Bridge had been destroyed in April suicide bombing attack which left ten people killed and 26 others wounded, in addition to material damage to homes on both sides of the bridge. Article

Contours of chaos.

“Dozens of families in Ramadi, and five other nearby towns, were transferred to hospitals on Monday after apparently being poisoned by toxic foodstuffs,” the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

The relief foodstuffs had been distributed by unknown groups of men to poor families earlier in the day in the violence-laden province, the source said. Article

Slouching to recess (emphasis added).

Iraq’s Parliament shrugged off US criticism and adjourned yesterday for a month, as key lawmakers declared there was no point waiting any longer for the prime minister to deliver benchmark legislation that Washington has demanded be put to a vote.

Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani closed the final three-hour session without a quorum present and declared that lawmakers will not reconvene until Sept. 4.… Article

Couple this with an unemployemnt rate estimated at anywhere from 50 to 70 per cent (and obvious limitations on businesses and employers due to lack of electricity and water), not to mention the constant cloud of insecurity and impediments to even basic travel and commuting.

“The ‘brain drain’ that Iraq is experiencing is further stretching already inadequate public services, as thousands of medical staff, teachers, water engineers, and other professionals are forced to leave the country,” it said.

[snip]

Only 60 per cent of the four million people who depend on food assistance have access to rations from the government-run public distribution system, down from 96 per cent in 2004, the report said.

The number of Iraqis without access to adequate water supplies has risen from 50 per cent to 70 per cent since 2003.

The lack of effective sanitation was also highlighted by the joint report, which said 80 per cent of people in Iraq did not have safe access.

The report said children were the hardest hit by the fall in living standards, stating child malnutrition rates have risen from 19 per cent before the US-led invasion in 2003 to 28 percent currently. Article

Related:

Two thousand Iraqis are fleeing their homes every day. It is the greatest mass exodus of people ever in the Middle East and dwarfs anything seen in Europe since the Second World War. Four million people, one in seven Iraqis, have run away, because if they do not they will be killed.… Article

Wracked with every civic and political disease one can list (and as the continuing catalysis provides time to carve out and consolidate fiefdoms), is there anything substantive to which any so-called reconciliation can apply, any legitimacy other than on paper which can be sustainably claimed?

#1:

This is Iraq’s Ministry of Interior – the balkanized command center for the nation’s police and mirror of the deadly factions that have caused the government here to grind nearly to a halt.

The very language that Americans use to describe government – ministries, departments, agencies – belies the reality here of militias that kill under cover of police uniform and remain above the law. Until recently, one or two Interior Ministry police officers were assassinated each week while arriving or leaving the building, probably by fellow officers, senior police officials say.

That killing has been reduced, but Western diplomats still describe the Interior Ministry building as a “federation of oligarchs.” Those who work in the building, like the colonel, liken departments to hostile countries. Survival depends on keeping abreast of shifting factional alliances and turf.

[snip]

The ninth floor is shared by the department’s inspector general and general counsel, religious Shiites. Their offices have been at the center of efforts to purge the department’s remaining Sunni employees. The counsel’s predecessor, a Sunni, was killed a year ago.

“They have some bad things on the ninth,” says the colonel, a Sunni who, like other ministry officials, spoke on condition of anonymity to guard against retaliation.

The ministry’s computer department is on the 10th floor. Two employees were arrested there in February on suspicion of smuggling in explosives, according to police and U.S. military officials. Some Iraqi and U.S. officials say the workers intended to store bombs there. Others say they were plotting to attack the U.S. advisors stationed directly above them on the top floor.

Months after the arrests, it’s unclear whether the detainees are Sunni insurgents or followers of Muqtada Sadr, the anti-U.S. Shiite cleric whose portrait stares down from some office walls in a sign of his spreading influence in the ministry.

Partitions divide the building’s hallways, and gunmen guard the offices of deputy ministers. Senior police officials march up and down stairs rather than risk an elevator. They walk the halls flanked by bodyguards, wary of armed colleagues. Article

#2:

Supplies and medicine in strife-torn Baghdad’s overcrowded hospitals have been siphoned off and sold elsewhere for profit because of corruption in the Iraqi Ministry of Health, according to a draft U.S. government report obtained by NBC News.

The report, written by U.S. advisers to Iraq’s anti-corruption agency, analyzes corruption in 12 ministries and finds devastating and grim problems. “Corruption protected by senior members of the Iraqi government,” the report said, “remains untouchable.”

One potential problem is in the office of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, according to the report.

The report said that “the prime minister’s office has on a number of occasions intervened on cases involving political supporters.”

[snip]

n the Ministry of Oil – the most important agency for Iraq’s economy – the report said “corruption is a major problem” when it comes to refined oil products, such as gasoline and kerosene. The report said corruption in the oil ministry is partly to blame for lines of cars stretching for miles as Iraqis wait hours to fill up their tanks.

An entire battalion of Iraqi police “was found to be nonexistent” and corruption in the army is “widespread,” with ghost employees and a shortage of supplies, according to the report. Article

Oil-related news:

Iraq’s Oil Ministry has directed all its agencies and departments not to deal with the country’s oil unions.

The unions and Iraq’s government, especially the prime minister and oil minister, have been at odds for months now over working conditions and the draft oil law.

The unions went on strike in early June and are threatening to stop production and exports again if demands are not met. The unions claim the oil law, if approved by Parliament, will give foreign oil companies too much access to the oil. The unions enjoy enormous support, especially in the south of Iraq.

[snip]

The letter was addressed to the all of the ministry’s companies, such as the state firms in the north and south of the country, as well as research, development and training centers based in Baghdad, Baiji, Basra and Kirkuk. Article

Also (and note too the glaring lack of mention of Iraqi participation):

The United States has asked Israel to check the possibility of pumping oil from Iraq to the oil refineries in Haifa. The request came in a telegram last week from a senior Pentagon official to a top Foreign Ministry official in Jerusalem.

The Prime Minister’s Office, which views the pipeline to Haifa as a “bonus” the U.S. could give to Israel in return for its unequivocal support for the American-led campaign in Iraq, had asked the Americans for the official telegram.

The new pipeline would take oil from the Kirkuk area, where some 40 percent of Iraqi oil is produced, and transport it via Mosul, and then across Jordan to Israel. The U.S. telegram included a request for a cost estimate for repairing the Mosul-Haifa pipeline that was in use prior to 1948. During the War of Independence, the Iraqis stopped the flow of oil to Haifa and the pipeline fell into disrepair over the years.

[snip]

National Infrastructure Minister Yosef Paritzky said yesterday that the port of Haifa is an attractive destination for Iraqi oil and that he plans to discuss this matter with the U.S. secretary of energy during his planned visit to Washington next month. Paritzky added that the plan depends on Jordan’s consent and that Jordan would receive a transit fee for allowing the oil to piped through its territory. The minister noted, however, that “due to pan-Arab concerns, it will be hard for the Jordanians to agree to the flow of Iraqi oil via Jordan and Israel.”

[snip]

In response to rumors about the possible Kirkuk-Mosul-Haifa pipeline, Turkey has warned Israel that it would regard this development as a serious blow to Turkish-Israeli relations.

Sources in Jerusalem suggest that the American hints about the alternative pipeline are part of an attempt to apply pressure on Turkey. Article

So how’s that political “national unity” progress going?

In the autonomous Kurdistan region, Kurdish security forces in Dohuk city arrested 50 Kurds for waving the Iraqi flag to celebrate the victory of the Iraqi national football team, a police source said Monday.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, ‘Kurdish security forces seize anybody carrying the Iraqi flag, even for one hour.’

The region’s president Massoud Barzani had earlier ordered that the Kurdish flag would replace the Iraqi one in all the cities of the autonomous region. Article

Topically related:

Massoud Barzani, speaking in an interview with U.S.-funded Alhurra television, complained that the Baghdad government was dragging its feet on holding a referendum that could put Kirkuk under control of the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq.

“There is procrastination (by the government) and if this issue is not resolved, as I said before, all options are open. … Frankly I am not comfortable with the behavior and the policy of the federal government on Kirkuk and clause 140,” he said.

The constitutional clause calls for a referendum in Kirkuk to decide its future status by the end of the year. Before the vote, the clause says Kurds expelled from the city during Saddam Hussein’s rule must be allowed to return. A census would then be held to determine which ethnic group was a majority of the population.

[snip]

“If clause 140 is not implemented, then there will be a real civil war,” Barzani said, promising to visit Baghdad shortly to discuss the matter with the central government. Article

Update Aug. 1, 2 a.m.:

Sawt al-Iraq reports in Arabic that Iraq’s Sunni vice-premier for security affairs, Salam al-Zawbai, is accusing Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki of denying him his prerogatives of office. Al-Zawbai released a statement on the web page of his political party, the Iraqi Islamic Party, saying that al-Maliki does not accept that his vice premier has a role in security affairs, and has issued orders to the police and army to ignore al-Zawbai! Source

“Then why are we here?” indeed.

Military officers hail the fact that violence is down as evidence that their campaign against al Qaida in Iraq is succeeding. But there’s no sign of reconciliation between Sunni Muslims and Shiites, the rationale the Bush administration cites for increasing the number of U.S. troops in the country.

The Shiite Mahdi Army militia continues to drive Sunni residents from neighborhoods in Baghdad, a development that one American officer called “disappointing.” Shiite politicians show little sympathy for the expelled Sunnis or interest in stopping the expulsions. In interviews, they argued that the drive against Sunnis is a justified response to Sunni campaigns to drive Shiites from their neighborhoods, a position that American military officers reject.

American officials say they’re hopeful about the recent decision by some Sunni insurgent groups to cooperate with U.S. troops to defeat al Qaida in Iraq. But some of America’s new Sunni allies warn that once they’ve disposed of the religious extremists in their midst, they’ll return to battling rival Shiites – and American occupiers.

[snip]

The two largest militias, Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the Badr Organization of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, are tied to prominent Iraqi families whose rivalries date back generations. Both militias have infiltrated the security forces.

Badr, which has never openly battled American forces, generally gets credit for being the more astute player of the two. “The Badr corps understood the game from the beginning and incorporated itself into the security forces,” Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said.

A senior U.S. military official described American support for Badr – an Iranian-funded organization that many think still conducts targeted assassinations – as the only option since many of its members have been absorbed into the Iraqi security forces.

“Badr has decided to join the government, and they gave up their weapons and became part of the state,” the senior military official said. “If we’re not going to support al Qaida in Iraq and not going to support Jaysh al Mahdi (the Mahdi Army) and we can’t support the security forces, then why are we here?” Article

Unrelated directly to the snippet which follows, but what ever happened to “war czar” Gen. Lute? Off to the Winter Palace? Can we dub him Lute Shytalker?

Rice, accompanied by U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates, met with foreign ministers of Egypt, Jordan and the Gulf Cooperation Council states at the start of a regional tour aimed at countering Iran’s growing influence, notably in Iraq.

“We discussed how to support a unified Iraq where all Iraqis can live in peace and security,” Rice told journalists after the meeting which included top diplomats from GCC states Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates.

With Saudi Arabia accused of allowing Sunni militants into Iraq to fight U.S. forces and Iran accused of equipping Iraqi Shiite militias doing the same, the parties in a joint statement called for “an end to all interference in Iraq.” Article

Read that as “an end to all interference with U.S. interference in Iraq.” Interference which, by one analysis has created an irresistable black hole pulling neighboring states and regional centers of power inexorably into the morass.

Related: If one stands the reported statements of Admiral Michael Mullen made at a congressional hearing on his nomination to become chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff up against one another, they cancel out and leave nothing but vapor.

Noted FYI:

Denmark, which is currently withdrawing its troops from Iraq, was due to transfer its responsibilities on Tuesday to the Iraqis and the British, according to the Army Operational Command (AOC).

“The formal transfer takes place today (Tuesday) in Iraq,” AOC spokesman Kim Grynberger told AFP.

“A small ceremony will be held with a parade in Basra,” in southern Iraq where some 460 troops have been stationed since 2003, under British command. Article

Keeping up with the courts-martial.

#1:

A Marine accused of masterminding a plot to kidnap and kill an Iraqi man told his squad, “Gents, we just got away with murder,” after firing three fatal rounds into the victim’s head, a prosecutor said Tuesday in closing arguments of a court-martial.

Sgt. Lawrence G. Hutchins III is charged with murder, kidnapping, conspiracy and other offenses in the April 26, 2006, slaying. A military jury was expected to begin deliberating Wednesday morning.

“After he brags to his Marines that, ‘Gents, we just got away with murder,’ he directs his Marines to cover up the scene,” prosecutor Lt. Col. John Baker told jurors in Hutchins’ trial.

In the defense argument, attorney Richard Brannon denied Hutchins ever said that, and he attributed Hutchins’ participation in the killing to pressure from his commanding officers.

[snip]

All eight members of the squad were initially charged with murder and kidnapping. Four lower-ranking Marines and the Navy corpsman cut deals with prosecutors in exchange for their testimony and received sentences ranging from one to eight years in prison.

The trial for Cpl. Marshall Magincalda, the only other man still facing charges in the killing, wrapped up Tuesday and the military jury began its deliberations in his case. The panel recessed late in the day without a verdict.

Magincalda is not accused of firing any shots, but under military law he would be as culpable as those who did because he allegedly did nothing to stop the killing.

Both Hutchins and Magincalda face mandatory life sentences if convicted of premeditated murder.

[snip]

On Jul. 20, Cpl. Trent Thomas was acquitted of premeditated murder but convicted of murder conspiracy and kidnapping; he was reduced in rank to private and given a bad-conduct discharge but received no prison time.

At Thomas’ court-martial, prosecutors produced as witnesses the five squad members who had cut deals. Despite testimony that Thomas had shot the man, the jury still acquitted him of premeditated murder.

Defense attorneys for Hutchins and Magincalda hope their military jurors may also look at the kidnap plot through sympathetic lenses. All jurors in both cases have at least one combat tour under their belts and several have been awarded medals for valor.

[snip]

Prosecutors have previously identified the victim as a retired policeman and father of 11 named Hashim Ibrahim Awad, 52, but his name was struck from the charge sheets for Hutchins, Magincalda and another defendant. The victim is now referred to as an ‘’unknown Iraqi male.'’ Defense attorneys said prosecutors could not conclusively identify the body. Article

#2:

An American soldier described the bloody scene where a 14-year-old Iraqi girl was raped and killed by another soldier, who he said later bragged to him about the assault.

[snip]

Maj. Alex Pickands, an Army prosecutor, painted a picture in his opening statement of a unit whose discipline had begun to unravel in a violent rural area south of Baghdad known as the “Triangle of Death.”

Defense lawyer Dan Christensen gave a different view, of a unit filled with soldiers who struggled with mental disorders and took drugs and alcohol to cope with a battlefield that had killed dozens of their friends.

“Every person involved in these allegations had been diagnosed with a mental disorder by March 12th,” he said. “Their ability to cope with the situation was drinking. It wasn’t a big party down there. It was a way for them to deal with the problems they had.” Article

Afghanistan summary here and here.

And from Korea, this.

Pakistan summary here and here.

More shoes to drop.

A civilian grand jury is investigating the deaths of two detainees at a U.S. jail in Afghanistan nearly five years ago, according to current and former service members who said they’ve testified in the probe.

The rare federal court inquiry follows the convictions in courts-martial of six soldiers on charges of abusing detainees, including the two men who died. Nine other servicemen were charged by military prosecutors, but they were either acquitted or the charges against them were dropped.

It’s unclear who the targets of the new investigation are or what may have prompted it now; federal prosecutors declined Monday to even confirm it.

A former military defense attorney said he had heard of only one other instance in which civilian prosecutors have picked up a case that military prosecutors had already handled.

In interviews over the past week, three soldiers and an officer from an Ohio-based 377th military police reserve company told The Associated Press they were called as witnesses to the federal grand jury in northern Virginia near the Pentagon. The 377th ran the jail at Bagram Air Field.

The men said they had been told the grand jury’s targets were no longer in the military.

Federal law allows the civilian prosecution of service members who have left the military since the crime occurred, even if military authorities previously have brought charges.

[snip]

Jim Rybicki, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia, said in an e-mail that he could not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation. Article

Tracing the downward spiral:

rotection (AOHREP), said there were many reasons why the future of the country’s environment was grim: more than 26 years of armed conflict, population displacement and extended drought; the misuse of natural resources; the lack of a law enforcement authority; and the lack of appropriate policies for the environment.

“In the last two decades, we have lost over 70 percent of our forests throughout the country,” Hotaky told IRIN on 29 July in the capital, Kabul.

Extensive deforestation has had multiple social, environmental and economic implications for millions of Afghans, Hotaky added.

One of the immediately visible humanitarian implications of deforestation is the country’s increasingly vulnerability to various natural disasters, specialists say.

“Recently, we witnessed increasing numbers of floods, avalanches and landslides as a result of deforestation,” said Hazrat Hussain Khaurin, the director of the forests and rangeland department in the food and agriculture ministry.

According to government statistics, until the early 1980s, about 19,000sqkm of Afghanistan’s 652,225sqkm territory was covered by forests, which were a sustainable source of income for the government and its citizens.

Because of the many years of war since then, Afghanistan now faces the complete eradication of its forests, Khaurin said.

“Neither the government nor impoverished Afghan farmers have the basic technology or required resources to resist widening desertification,” said Khaurin. “Thousands of hectares of agricultural land have been covered by moving sands in seven southern and southwestern provinces,” he added.

Bushes and other plants that once created natural buffers against sand movement and flash floods flows have been used as fuel by local residents for many years.

Many Afghan refugees who return to their rural communities from neighbouring countries find it impossible to cultivate infertile and arid land with very little irrigation and farming facilities.

“Desertification has exacerbated already widespread poverty among many Afghan farmers who seem hapless to tackle problems created by this natural crisis,” said Hotaky of the human rights and environment protection body.

Against a rapidly increasing population, which requires food, fuel and shelter, among other things, the volume of Afghanistan’s agricultural produce has decreased by 50 percent over the past few years, the food and agriculture ministry said.

For decades, Afghan governments who have come to power have concentrated on winning wars, ensuring stability and solving political dilemmas while paying little attention to a degrading environment, specialists say.

[snip]

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) in a study found that Afghanistan’s long-term environmental degradation is caused, in part, by a complete collapse of local and national forms of governance.

Should Afghanistan fail to address its environmental problems within its reconstruction period, it will face “a future without water, forests, wildlife and clean air”, according to UNEP’s Post Conflict Assessment for Afghanistan. Article

Noted mostly FYI, as it comes across more as a P.R. puff release than as anything else.

The agenda for the first meeting of Pakistan and Afghanistan Peace Jirga, scheduled on August 9 in Kabul, has been finalized.

[snip]

During the three-day talks, he said the two sides would discuss strengthening of bilateral relations on the basis of good-neighborliness, respect for territorial integrity and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs.

He siad other points of the agenda include appraisal of factors and circumstances which contribute to the growth of terrorism and militancy and devising a bilateral mechanism to combat terrorism through cooperation and joint strategy.

He said these also include enhancing goodwill and creating further confidence building measures and mechanisms, including through interaction between political representatives, civil society, academicians, media, sports and cultural links.

[snip]

To a question as to how the pro-Taliban or anti-Pakistan sentiments would be dealt with during the joint Jirga, he said the whole idea is being discussed on a positive note with positive results already achieved. He said both the countries are working on this point and added that the host country would ensure the security. Article

Summaries here and here and here.

The Sadim (Midas, backwards) touch of the woebegone G. Walker administrations twists, cheapens, turns to dross and corrupts every institution which it touches.

Military doctors violate medical ethics when they approve the force-feeding of hunger strikers at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, according to a commentary in a prestigious medical journal.

The doctors should attempt to prevent force-feeding by refusing to participate, the commentary’s three authors write in Wednesday’s Journal of the American Medical Association.

“In medicine, you can’t force treatment on a person who doesn’t give their voluntary informed consent,” said Dr. Sondra Crosby of Boston University, one of the authors. “A military physician needs to be a physician first and a military officer second, in my opinion.”

As of Tuesday, 20 of 23 fasting detainees at Guantanamo were being fed liquid meals through flexible tubes inserted through their noses and throats, said Guantanamo spokesman navy Cmdr. Rick Haupt. The strikers are protesting conditions at the camp and their open-ended confinement.

A few physicians have declined to participate in force-feeding, although the specific number has not been tracked, Haupt said. The military does not punish doctors who won’t participate in force-feeding, Haupt wrote Friday in an e-mail response to questions from The Associated Press.

[snip]

The commentary calls on professional organizations to back doctors who refuse to participate in force-feeding. Commentaries are the opinions of the authors, not of the journal’s editors or of the American Medical Association, but the AMA has endorsed the World Medical Association’s policy against force-feeding. Article

Step by step, inch by inch.

The contours of chaos encompass those left behind.

Army wives under stress because their husbands are deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan have committed markedly higher rates of child neglect and abuse, according to a study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The Army-funded study examined maltreatment rates among families.

Child neglect committed by civilian wives of enlisted soldiers was almost four times greater during combat deployments than when husbands were home.

Physical child abuse by Army wives was nearly twice as high during combat deployments.

Child neglect can involve a parent failing to provide appropriate supervision, said Deborah Gibbs, the study’s lead author and a senior analyst at RTI International, a North Carolina-based research center.

It also includes failing to meet a child’s basic needs, such as nourishment and sanitation. Abuse can include physical harm.

Researchers examined reports of abuse and neglect within 1,771 Army families with nearly 3,000 children. The cases occurred between Sept. 11, 2001, and Dec. 21, 2004. The largest single group of victims was children ages 2 to 12. Article

Signposts of service: Before and after tattoos.

Keeping up with the kidnappings in Nigeria’s oil region:

Seven gunmen kidnapped a Pakistani construction manager in southern Nigeria on Tuesday and demanded a ransom, a local rights activist said citing sources at the man’s company and witnesses.

The attack takes to at least 12 the number of foreigners being held hostage by armed groups in the oil-producing Niger Delta, where crime and militancy have surged since early 2006. Article

It is difficult for many in the West to fathom just how widespread, how affective and how shared and discussed such tomes are. In attention and potential influence, though of course entirely on different planes in terms of content, bigger than Pottermania.

In a prison cell south of Cairo a repentant Egyptian terrorist leader is putting the finishing touches on a remarkable recantation that undermines the Muslim theological basis for violent jihad and is set to generate furious controversy among former comrades still fighting with al-Qaeda.

[snip]

“When the book comes out there will be a furious reaction from Zawahiri and the global jihadi movement. It is clear that Sayid Imam will call a halt to killing operations in Egypt and abroad,” he says.

Diaa Rashwan, of the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, says: “I have no doubt that this is genuine. It will be a real shock and cause a lot of confusion. Jihadis will see hundreds of their former brothers criticizing their most fundamental ideas. That’s why Zawahiri is so bothered by it.”

No one is predicting that the book will bring an end to suicide bombings in Iraq or Afghanistan. But interest is so intense that several Arabic newspapers are competing to buy the 100-page work, entitled Advice Regarding the Conduct of Jihadist Action in Egypt and the World.

[snip]

Sharif’s recantation has emerged from an Egyptian government counter-radicalization program which has successfully “converted” and rehabilitated members of the Gama’a Islamiyya (Islamic Group), once the largest jihadist organization in the Arab world, and which mounted countless armed attacks starting in the 1980s until calling a ceasefire after massacring 62 foreign tourists at Luxor in 1997.

Its top ideologues, mostly now freed, have written 25 volumes of revisions in a series called Tashih al-Mafahim (Corrections of Concepts). These tackle key doctrinal issues such as the concept of takfir — declaring a Muslim an apostate and therefore permissible to kill; attacks on civilians and foreign tourists; and waging jihad against a Muslim ruler who does not apply sharia law.

“If you want to rob these people of their cover you have to take away their legitimacy,” says Ashraf Mohsin, an Egyptian diplomat dealing with counter-terrorism.

“The way to deprive them of their ability to recruit is to attack the message. If you take Islam out of the message all that is left is criminality,” he said.

Like the Gama’a before them, Sharif and other Jihad prisoners have been allowed by the interior ministry and state security to meet and consult each other in prison and have held religious dialogues with clerics from al-Azhar, the fount of mainstream jurisprudence in the Sunni world.

“Of course the Egyptian government is benefiting from this,” Zayyat agrees.

“But it’s not done for their benefit, or for the Americans,” he says.

Past “revisions” have included apologies to the victims of terror attacks, recognition of them as “martyrs”, and the annulment of fatwas as misguided.

[snip]

“Security measures alone cannot defeat terrorism,” argues Fouad Allam, a former state security general — the guards outside his Cairo home testimony to decades spent hunting down armed Islamists.

“Terrorism has to be fought with a broader strategy in which the political issues that fuel extremism are dealt with so that these sort of `revisions’ will have some effect,” Allam says. Article

Noted FYI — markets untethered from the marketplace:

Oil prices shattered a record today, settling at $78.21 per barrel, driven by the familiar drumbeat of energy demand outpacing supply.

No hurricanes appeared poised to ravage Gulf of Mexico oil production, geopolitical hot spots were relatively quiet, and economists weren’t predicting big changes in the economic growth pushing China’s thirst for energy.

So what caused the price to hit the latest milestone today in particular?

“Nothing,” said Philip Verleger, an oil economist who heads PK Verleger in Aspen, Colo. Article

No particular comment, just found this of interest.

Survivors have long claimed that European countries treat them far better than Israel, where many elderly survivors live in poverty. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s announcement of the new allowance did nothing to change that impression. One survivor called the offer “absurd and insulting.”

[snip]

[Israeli PM] Olmert presented his program as a solution.

“We are correcting a 60-year-old blight,” he said. “Holocaust survivors living in Israel are entitled to live respectably without reaching a situation in which it is beyond their means to enjoy a hot meal.”

Beginning next year, the amount allocated for 120,000 needy survivors, about half the total number still living in Israel, will be $28 million annually, according to Olmert’s statement.

But that works out to an average of just $20 a month for each survivor.

[snip]

The new payment is in addition to government support already given to survivors, including those deemed physically or psychologically handicapped, and regular pension payments of about $487 a month.

Survivors groups charged, in what was meant to be an especially painful dig at the Israeli government, that survivors are treated better in Germany.

[snip]

Hillary Kessler-Godin, spokeswoman for Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, said Germany still pays monthly pensions to 80,000 survivors around the world, after starting in the 1950s.

“Each survivor’s pension can be different depending on their persecution history,” she told the AP. Other funds have paid out billions of dollars to various categories of Nazi victims.

Roet said the average stipend for survivors in Holland, where he was born, is between $2,740 and $4,110 a month. Article

WAX SNATCH

Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Charles de Gaulle — naked.

---

BECAUSE IT IS THERE

Why sex?

Summaries here and here and here and here and a judicial occurence here.

Fourteen persons were arrested by the security border forces in Zakho, Duhuk province, on Monday, while trying to infiltrate into Turkish territories, a security source said.

[snip]

Border guard forces in Duhuk arrested more than 400 people during the past six months in different parts near to the Iraqi-Turkish borders for attempting to sneak into Turkey.

Most of them are young men from different parts of Kurdistan and Iraq. Article

If true to past form (and there is no reason to expect otherwsie) the majority of them will not just get out of town, but out of the country.

Iraq’s parliament went into summer recess for a month on Monday after political leaders failed to agree on a series of laws that Washington sees as crucial to stabilising the country.

Lawmakers said the government had yet to present them with any of the laws. The parliament had earlier signalled its intention to go into recess in August after cutting short its summer break that normally starts in July.

“We do not have anything to discuss in the parliament, no laws or constitutional amendments, nothing from the government. Differences between the political factions have delayed the laws,” Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman told Reuters. Article

No weapons or forces being marshaled, but it is nonetheless a civil war — of words.

Iraq’s electricity minister is blaming southern provinces for the Baghdad blackouts, threatening sanctions if they do it again.

Meanwhile, the southern Maysan province, which is not on the ministry’s list, said it will build a power plant to meet an electricity shortage.

The governing council of the Najaf province has also taken action against the lagging power problem, saying it will remove its power plants from the national grid in order to meet local demand.

The weekly Baghdad newspaper Al Mada reports Electricity Minister Karim Wahid called out the Diwaniya, Basra, Nasiriya and Babil provinces for consuming too much of the electricity their plants produce, allegedly depriving Baghdad.

The capital has suffered extensive blackouts lately, worse than the usual lull in electricity the country faces routinely.

Wahid said the provinces are not following National Power Control Center orders, which he said may lead to withholding of funds and technical assistance as punishment. Article

Guess who won’t be in the gallery during G. Walker’s next State of the Union address?

Iraq’s 1-0 victory over Saudi Arabia on a 71st-minute header by captain Younis Mahmoud was an inspirational triumph for a team whose players straddle bitter and violent ethnic divides. After the game, Mahmoud called for the United States to withdraw its troops from his nation.

“I want America to go out,” he said. “Today, tomorrow, or the day after tomorrow, but out. I wish the American people didn’t invade Iraq and, hopefully, it will be over soon.”

Mahmoud also said he will not return to Iraq to celebrate.

“I don’t want the Iraqi people to be angry with me,” he said. “If I go back with the team, anybody could kill me or try to hurt me.”

[snip]

Elation was juxtaposed against the tragedy in the players’ homeland. Coach Jorvan Vieira and Mahmoud wore black armbands during the postgame news conference to commemorate the dozens of fans killed back home during celebrations following Wednesday’s semifinal victory over South Korea.

“It’s very clear, from our arms, our respect to the people who died when we put Korea out of the competition,” Vieira said. “This victory we offer to the families of those people.”

Vieira, who is Brazilian, resigned after the game.

“I have worked my best to give happiness to the Iraqi people, to bring a warm smile to their lips and my mission is accomplished,” Vieira said. “The satisfaction is doubled when you can get this cup and you bring happiness for a country, not just a team. It’s more important than anything.”

Mahmoud, who plays for Al Gharafa in Qatar, scored his fourth goal of the tournament when he met Hawar Mulla Mohammed’s corner kick at the far post. Goalkeeper Yaser Al Mosailem went or the ball but didn’t get it, presenting an easy chance for an unmarked Mahmoud. Article

Oil-related news.

#1:

Iraq’s Kurdistan Regional Government will take up its own oil law Tuesday morning as it moves forward on economic development in the northern region.

A KRG official told United Press International the regional parliament will begin debate on a law that will set guidelines for developing the oil and natural gas reserves. Article

#2:

A disagreement that emerged last week between the two mainstream Iraqi Kurdish political parties concerning the country’s draft oil law has been overcome and the draft is expected to be approved [Tuesday] at the regional Kurdish parliament in northern Iraq, according to a report on pukmedia.com, the official Web site of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK).

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani (L) and the head of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, Massoud Barzani, have solved the disagreement on the country’s draft oil law.

The disagreement between parliamentarians from Iraqi President Jalal Talabani’s PUK and Massoud Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) surfaced at a special parliamentary session last Tuesday when PUK deputies left the assembly in protest, pukmedia noted in its report posted from Arbil on Monday. Article

#3:

Insurgents attacked on Sunday an oil refinery in the southern part of the Iraqi Capital Baghdad wounding 10 workers, the MNF said in a statement Monday.

The insurgent launched four mortar shells at “Doura” oil refinery, the statement added.

The attack is said to have resulted in wounding 10 workers at least but the refinery operations were not affected. Article

Scathing is the only way to describe the Washington Post’s belated expose of Crescent contractors, as described (link within) here.

Palace of broken dreams, moinument to deadly delusion.

Huge, expensive and dogged by controversy, the new American embassy compound nearing completion here epitomizes to many Iraqis the worst of the U.S. tenure in Iraq.

“It’s all for them, all of Iraq’s resources, water, electricity, security,” said Raid Kadhim Kareem, who has watched the buildings go up at a floodlit site bristling with construction cranes from his post guarding an abandoned home on the other side of the Tigris River. “It’s as if it’s their country, and we are guests staying here”

For all its scale and nearly $600 million (U.S.) cost, the compound designed to accommodate more than 1,000 people is not big enough and might not be safe enough if a major military pullout leaves the country engulfed in a heightened civil war, U.S. planners now say.

[snip]

Like much U.S. planning in Iraq, the embassy was conceived nearly three years ago on assumptions that stability was around the corner, and that the military effort would draw down, leaving behind an array of civilian experts who would remain intimately engaged in Iraqi state-building. The result is what some analysts are describing as a $592 million anachronism.

“It really is sort of betwixt and between,” said Stephen Biddle, a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Council on Foreign Relations who advises the defence department. “It’s bigger than it should be if you really expect Iraq to stabilize. It’s not as big as it needs to be to be the nerve centre of an ongoing war effort.”

In a stunning security breach, architectural plans for the compound were briefly posted on the Internet in May.

“If the government of Iraq collapses and becomes transparently just one party in a civil war, you’ve got Fort Apache in the middle of Indian country, but the Indians have mortars now,” Biddle said.

[snip]

Plans are also being drawn up to build short-term housing for several hundred additional people on a currently unused portion of the site, said Patrick Kennedy, the State Department’s management chief, who travelled to Iraq in May to review embassy staffing. How much the housing will add to the cost has not been determined.

The project has echoes of another mega-embassy where diplomats, spies and army brass met for drinks and golf dates in a slice of America amid the escalating chaos in Somalia. That compound, which dwarfed even the Baghdad facility, was dismantled by looters in the power vacuum left by the overthrow of Mohamed Siad Barre’s dictatorship in 1991. Article

Noted FYI:

The Department of Foreign Affairs (UD) has decided to stop the training of Iraqi police officers in Norway, after 10 officers have defected, said reports reaching here on Monday.

Instead, UD plans to support the training in Iraq, Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) reported.

[snip]

“Maybe in a hundred years we will be able to apply our training,” a high-ranking Iraqi police officer told NRK. Article

Floating incidents just waiting to occur. A regional concurrence on updating alignment and mapping of the strait is long overdue.

Mandated to secure Iraqi waters, the commander of a US gunboat orders his crew to watch an Iranian look-out post for activity as his ship sails through waters with no clear divide between Iraq and Iran.

It was in this murky stretch that 15 British military personnel were captured by Iran earlier this year and accused of straying into its waters. A long-running dispute over the nearby Shatt Al Arab border river has helped spark war in the past.

Now, the US military and its allies patrol as close as possible to where they believe Iraq’s territorial waters end, but as tension rises between the Islamic Republic and the West, so does the potential for accidental escalation.

“We set a line where we think it’s reasonable, and by customary use, going up and down that line, we try and set the tone,” said John Chandler of the Australian HMAS Anzac warship, part of the coalition patrolling Iraqi waters.

“The Iranians have slightly different view as to where the line is.”

The last time Iran and Iraq agreed on the division of their waterways was in 1975, when the Shatt Al Arab river and its mouth into the Gulf were split along their deepest channel.

Since then, Western navy sources said, silt has shifted the riverbed’s topography but no new marine border has been defined, leaving right of passage to custom: use it or lose it. Article

Keeping up with the courts-martial:

A US soldier pleaded not guilty Monday to the rape and murder of a 14-year-old Iraqi girl and the slaying of her family, officials said.

Private Jesse Spielman did, however, plead guilty to lesser charges related to his involvment in the scandalous crime.

Revelations last year that the soldiers calmly plotted to violate a young girl they had seen walking down the street and cover up their crime by killing her family and setting their house on fire undermined the already battered reputation of the US military.

Private Jesse Spielman is the last of four soldiers to face a military tribunal in the case.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice, arson, obstruction of justice, and wrongfully touching a corpse but denied all charges that he planned the gang rape and murders.

The alleged ringleader, Steven Green, has been charged as a civilian because he was discharged before the crime came to light. Federal prosecutors have said they will be seeking the death penalty in his case.

Sergeant Paul Cortez and Specialist James Barker — who both admitted to raping the girl — received life sentences after pleading guilty earlier this year.

Private Bryan Howard, who served as a watchout, was sentenced to 27 months in jail for acting as an accessory and helping to obstruct justice. Article

Afghanistan summaries here and here and here.

Pakistan summary here.

Noted FYI:

British casualties in Afghanistan have reached almost the same levels of deaths and injuries as those suffered by the garrison in Iraq over the past 18 months, according to Ministry of Defence figures.

The death in action of a Royal Marine in Helmand yesterday brought the toll in Afghanistan to 63 since the start of 2006, just three short of the number killed in Iraq over the same period. Article

Summary here and here and here and here.

Extensive use of anonymous sources doesn’t breed even threadbare confidence but still, noted:

a well-informed source tells United Press International that according to senior U.S. intelligence officials, President Bush has definitely decided not to strike any of Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons production facilities this year.

The sources say the officials stressed the words “this year,” meaning in 2007. That, however, does not rule out the possibility of military intervention in 2008, right until January 2009, when Bush’s term in the White House comes to an end.

This information seems to back up a report published in the July 16 issue of the London Guardian that claims President Bush gave in to Vice President Dick Cheney, accepting to carry out military action against Iran before he leaves office.

According to the Guardian, a series of meetings held during June and July involving top White House, Pentagon and State Department officials was used by the vice president to stress the point that the diplomatic approach to solving the crisis had failed. The London newspaper went on to say that the vice president was able to convince the president by saying that no future U.S. administration would have the courage to act militarily against Tehran.

At the same time, sources familiar with the intelligence community report that there have been “a lot of stories about bunker buster bombs being moved to the region.” The source says, however, that there is no basis for these reports, which, according to them, are being floated by Israeli intelligence.

“This is ‘PSYOP’ rubbish,” a well-informed source told UPI. PSYOP stands for psychological operations; or in other words, playing mind games with the enemy.

[snip]

Instead of a direct attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, Vice President Cheney has proposed a measure that would launch a very limited military strike at one or more known Iranian training centers whose forces are being deployed to Iraq.

Cheney’s proposal has gotten no approval, so far, say the sources.

[snip]

U.S. intelligence sources…say that the White House estimates of the assistance provided to the Iraqi Shiite community by Iran, as well as the amounts, “are exaggerated.” Article

Socking it to Shell in a part of Nigeria’s oil region:

Oil producing communities in Ogbe-Ijoh Kingdom, Warri South-West local government area of Delta State, weekend, barred the Shell Petroleum Development Company (SPDC) from resuming oil exploration and exploitation activities in their area until the rift between the kingdom and the Delta State Oil Producing Areas Development Commission (DESOPADEC) over the commission’s Ijaw national budget project allocation is resolved. Article

Following up on a case mentioned earlier. As suggested then: poof.

A judge in Miami on Monday dismissed a lawsuit alleging the ruler of Dubai enslaved thousands of children and forced them to work as camel jockeys, saying the suit fell outside the court’s jurisdiction.

Judge Cecilia Altonaga ruled in favor of the defense, which argued that Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashed al-Maktoum did not have sufficient contacts in Florida to justify trying the suit in the southeastern US state. Article

Trickle-up economics (oh hell, more like a geyser):

President Bush’s senior-most aides — staff members like Karl Rove who hold the coveted title of “assistant to the president” — received a $2,800 cost-of-living wage hike in the past year to earn a top pay rate of $168,000, according to an internal White House list of staff salaries compiled by the administration for the year that ended June 29. Congress requires the White House to compile the numbers annually; the list below can be sorted either by dollar ranking or alphabetically.

[snip]

The peak of the White House pay scale in 2005 was $161,000 for 19 heavyweight job titles. In 2006, the pay ceiling rose to $165,200.

Those at the bottom of the White House staff pay scale — the young people answering phones and responding to the president’s mail, for example — are experiencing a pay cut for the same duties because of inflation as they remain stuck at a $30,000 pay floor, which has been the pay basement for at least the past three years, according to a year-to-year comparison of White House data obtained by National Journal.

White House salaries and job titles are largely up to the president, within the confines of the overall budget approved by Congress for the Executive Office of the President. For example, Anita McBride, chief of staff to the first lady, earned the maximum $168,000 in the year that just ended, which was a pay raise of $19,000 over the $149,000 she earned in the prior year as “deputy assistant to the president” and chief of staff for Laura Bush. And McBride’s 2006 salary was, in turn, a leap of $16,000 above her listed pay rate in 2005 — with no substantial change in duties. Article

Surpassing morbid curiosity, some positively bathe in it, while one site turns a penny on the subject.

Born to be unbalanced.

WOOLY WITNESS

And nary a ba-a-ah in earshot.

Summaries here and here and here and here.

Ghettoization by any other name: constricting hearts and minds — and feet.

U.S. troops have isolated certain quarters in the neighborhood of Dora with concrete slabs, blocking the passage of vehicles.

Residents now vent their fury on U.S. troops, accusing the military of turning their neighborhood into a big prison.

Doura is one of the most violent areas in Baghdad and repeated U.S. military forays have failed to pacify it.

Residents said at least three districts were now completely cut off, leading to shortages of food and vegetables.

Cars are not allowed to enter or leave these areas making it difficult for patients to visit hospitals and shop owners to replenish supplies.

[snip]

Residents have now to walk for long distances to reach bus terminals and it is impossible for ambulances and cars to drive patients in acute conditions to hospitals.

Um Mohammed, a house wife, said conditions in Dora were deteriorating with every passing day. “We have become almost like detainees in a prison camp. There is no water and there is no electricity and no fuel to run the standby generators,” she said.

[snip]

Dora is already ringed by fences and walls but it is the first time U.S. troops separate its parts with concrete slabs. Article

Southern spiral.

Skepticism is widespread in Basra, as in Baghdad, about whether Iraqi forces are ready to take over. The British and the Americans will have to assuage the fears of Iraqis that they are being abandoned to gunmen and religious extremists. And each is likely to face intensified attacks from propaganda-conscious enemies trying to claim credit for driving out the Westerners.

As the British prepare for the withdrawal from the city center – and the wider transition of handing over Basra Province to Iraqi security forces during the coming months – Brig. James Bashall, commander of the First Mechanized Brigade, concedes that his men will almost certainly “get a lot of indirect fire as we go backward.”

It is no coincidence that he is reading up on Britain’s withdrawal from its former crown colony Aden in what is now Yemen, and lessons from other theaters, with the American experience in Vietnam as the “obvious parallel.”

[snip]

British and Iraqi leaders point out that although there have been problems with intimidation and infiltration, particularly of the Iraqi police, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has appointed new police and army commanders in recent months to take charge of the city. And the officials say there are encouraging signs.

But certainly a city that was once relatively safe for British troops is no longer.

Where they once patrolled in soft hats and open-topped vehicles, soldiers now move in heavily armored vehicles and are regularly attacked with mortar shells, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs.

This year is already the most deadly since 2003 for British forces in Iraq, with 36 killed as of Saturday. Sixty-one rockets and mortar shells rained down on the palace in one day last week, a record high.

[snip]

“Some people are asking, ‘Are we any longer part of the solution, or part of the problem?’” said Capt. Toby Skinner, 26, of the Fourth Battalion, the Rifles Regiment, in Basra. “An Iraqi told me: ‘You stay here for three years you will be our friend. You stay for four years, you will be our enemy.’” Article

Additional info on the quickening downward spiral of and in Basra here.

Update July 30 1 a.m.: Lots of concrete, but next to no concrete data.

So, what exactly is the Defense Department building in Iraq with the billions in military construction dollars it has received over the past five years? Congress approved $1.7 billion for military construction in Iraq and Afghanistan in 2007, according to [the Congressional Research Service], but offered no breakdown of how the money was spent. Article

For Mr. Khalilzad, fluent in Arabic and intimately conversant with the cultures and sensibilities in and around the Middle East, to so directly and unreservedly acknowledge what he has here is a Big Deal.

Though one also has to question whether it is tied in as a condition of the $20 billion arms deal with the Saudis just announced (related story below in the Web Whiparound section) to allow them to expect and weather some public brickbats.

Regardless, the timing is extraordinarily bizarre, coming as it does immediately before the Rice & Gates act steams into the kingdom.

The US ambassador to the United Nations accused Saudi Arabia and other US allies in the Middle East Sunday of undermining efforts to curb violence in Iraq.

UN envoy Zalmay Khalilzad acknowledged on CNN that he was also referring to Saudi Arabia when he wrote in an opinion piece in the New York Times last week that “Several of Iraq’s neighbors — not only Syria and Iran but also some friends of the United States — are pursuing destabilizing policies.”

“Yes, well, there is no question that … Saudi Arabia and a number of other countries are not doing all they can to help us in Iraq,” Khalilzad, the former US ambassador to Iraq, told the US news network. Article

Notable quotable:

Many of the fixers fled Iraq and are now refugees in neighboring countries. Those who remained risk their lives every day. Some of them have big families to feed, so they stay. But some fixers I know refuse to leave the country merely out of loyalty to their trade. We welcomed the U.S. war with a lot of hope. We changed careers and became fixers to help Iraq. Some of us paid with our lives. Now we are no longer sure we will ever be able to fix anything. Article

Analysis du jour : Of foxes and hedgehogs — and, it must be added, weasels.

Bush’s argument is based on something known as a counterfactual. In his mind, the president has run an alternate view of history — one that imagines Saddam Hussein still in power — and has come to the conclusion that deposing the Iraqi leader was better.

Bush is not alone in using counterfactual thinking. Coming up with what-if scenarios is how people make sense of the world. When we make a financial decision that turns out poorly, we imagine going back in time and not investing in that stock or buying that house. That scenario looks rosier — it is an upward counterfactual. But let us say we make a good financial decision. When we imagine not buying that stock or that house, we contrast the money we have made with the money we might have lost had we not made the investment — producing a downward counterfactual.

But what is dangerous about counterfactuals is that while they may seem reasonable, they easily become a way for us to confirm what we already feel. Bush might not conclude that the war was the right decision because he has reached for a downward counterfactual; he might have reached for a downward counterfactual because he feels the war in Iraq is right.

The basic problem with counterfactual reasoning is there is no way to test your theory. Bush can’t actually go back in time and not invade Iraq and see whether things would actually be worse than they are now. Because the arrow of time runs in only one direction, counterfactuals cannot be disproved. (Indeed, this may be why they are so attractive in political reasoning.) Philip Tetlock, a professor of organizational behavior and political science at the University of California, has found that the careless use of counterfactuals is one reason politicians and experts are often wrong in their predictions. Article

Keeping up with the courts-martial: Court-Martial Near in Iraq Rape-Killing

Afghanistan summary here and here.

Pakistan political summary here and here.

From a Korean paper, on the hostage holding:

…A spokesman for Taliban commander Abdullah Jan, who led the abduction, threatened in a written interview with the Chosun Ilbo to start killing the hostages unless the militants’ demand for a prisoner swap is accepted by the new deadline. He added their only demands were the release of Taliban prisoners and the withdrawal of Korean troops from Afghanistan. The armed group handed over to the Afghan government a list of eight prisoners they want freed over three occasions in exchange for the release of the Korean hostages, he said. The spokesman denounced the Afghan government for “concocting” the story that the Taliban demanded money for the release of the Korean captives.

Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a purported spokesman for the Taliban, in an interview with the Chosun Ilbo arranged through a Korean freelancer in Afghanistan on Sunday, said eight prisoners should be freed in exchange for the release of eight Koreans, at which point the Taliban would submit a list of another eight prisoners. Ahmadi declined to reveal the exact place where the Koreans are held, saying they had been moved around Ghazni Province to thwart attempts to locate them.

He said whether male or female hostages will be free first was not important.

Korean and Afghan negotiators made no progress in hostage negotiations. Afghan chief negotiator Khalil Mohammad Husseini told the Chosun Ilbo they talked with Taliban militants in Ghazni Province but returned to the Afghan capital of Kabul empty-handed, with both Kabul and the Taliban digging in their heels. Article

Color ye old scribe skeptical.

1) Pressure from the military (and from the woebegone G. Walker administration) to carve out exceptions and surreptitiously inch back up will be forthcoming and intense.

2) Dead by indiscriminate death from the sky is still dead, no matter the size of the smoking crater.

The Taliban’s chosen new battlefield is, in a way, one of hearts and minds. One goal is to estrange the population from a Nato force whose mission is to foster development and build support for the government.

Another Taliban aim, some Nato officials think, is to test the resolve of western governments tired of hearing Afghan President Hamid Karzai denounce their troops’ conduct and whose publics are also increasingly worried about the death toll on all sides of the conflict.

Mr de Hoop Scheffer says the Taliban’s new tactic means Nato must be more patient and use less firepower - specifically, smaller bombs - to cut civilian casualties.

[snip]

But Nato has yet to prove it can effectively bring down civilian casualties - and some observers argue that it is too easy to blame the Taliban for the deaths so far. “Precipitate military action has had fatal consequences for Afghan civilians,” according to the Agency Co-ordinating Body for Afghan Relief, a coalition of groups that includes Oxfam, Save the Children and other 90 other relief organisations.

“Many of these incidents have occurred due to the provision of inaccurate or false information regarding insurgents to international forces,” the group adds, in a statement condemning what it says were the deaths of at least 230 civilians at the hands of western forces in the year to mid-June. “Over the same period a further 14 civilians have been killed for simply driving or walking too close to international military personnel or vehicles.” Article

A bit more:

De Hoop Scheffer said that General Dan McNeill, the commander of the 37,000-strong International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, had told troops that they should hold off attacking Taliban fighters in situations where civilians would be put at risk.

“We realise that, if we cannot neutralise our enemy today without harming civilians, our enemy will give us the opportunity tomorrow,” De Hoop Scheffer told the business daily.

“If that means going after a Taliban not on Wednesday but on Thursday, we will get him then.” Article

So how’s that security going?

The U.S. Embassy reminded Americans that they should restrict their travel in Kabul to essential business.

The embassy urged them to be aware of surroundings, vary times and routes of travel, avoid traveling after dark, do not travel alone, avoid crowded areas and demonstrations, avoid Afghan and international government buildings and compounds and do not approach any international or local military or government convoys. Article

Tracking the aftermath of the Red Mosque conflict:

Dozens of masked pro-Taliban fighters Sunday occupied a mosque in Pakistan’s restive tribal areas and named it after Islamabad’s Red Mosque, which was closed indefinitely last week by authorities after a suicide attack.

The extremists who took control of the mosque in Ghazi village of tribal district Mohammand also announced to establish an Islamic seminary named after the female madrassa adjoining the Red mosque, Jamia Hafsa, residents said.

The militants, armed with guns and rocket launchers, had taken positions in the courtyard and at the rooftop of the mosque, a local official said on condition of anonymity. Article

Thrust and parry (see also Congress CX section below).

New US conditions for continued aid to Pakistan for its counter-terrorism initiatives are ‘disappointing,’ the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Islamabad said in a statement Sunday.

The US Congress adopted on Friday a bill that linked aid to Pakistan to its achievements in quelling terrorism, strengthening democracy and maintaining the writ of the government in its territory.

[snip]

The White House reportedly said on Saturday that US President George W Bush would sign the bill into law. Article

And, in fashion news….

Summary here.

Remember the 100 hour agenda? Some fruition, more to come.

Congress sent President Bush legislation Friday to intensify anti-terror efforts in the U.S., shifting money to high-risk states and cities and expanding screening of air and sea cargo to stave off future Sept. 11-style attacks.

The measure carries out major recommendations of the independent 9/11 Commission.

The bill, passed by the House on a 371-40 vote, ranks among the top accomplishments of the six-month-old Democratic Congress. The Senate approved the measure late Thursday by 85-8, and the White House said the president would sign the bill.

[snip]

Completion of the bill, six months after the House passed its original version on the first day of the current Congress, was a major victory for Democrats who have seen some of their other priorities - immigration and energy reform and stem cell research funding - thwarted by GOP and presidential resistance and House-Senate differences.

Another goal, raising the minimum wage, went into effect last Tuesday, and Democratic leaders still hope for agreement on ethics and lobbying changes before Congress departs for its August recess at the end of next week.

[snip]

The 9/11 bill led off the first busy legislative week in the House last January, and the Senate passed its version in March. The measure stalled after that, partly because of a White House veto threat over language, since dropped, to give collective bargaining rights to aviation screeners.

House-Senate negotiators finally reached an agreement this week after Democrats worked out a provision satisfying GOP demands that people who report what they in good faith believe to be terrorist activity around planes, trains and buses be protected from lawsuits.

[snip]

The White House was also unhappy with a provision that requires total amounts requested and appropriated for the intelligence community to be made public.

There was more agreement on changing the formula to ensure that more federal security grants go to high-risk states and cities. The current formula makes sure that every lawmaker, even those representing rural areas relatively safe from terrorism, get a chunk of the federal grants. Under the new formula a larger percentage of grants will go to high-risk urban areas.

The bill also establishes a new grant program to ensure that local, state and federal officials can communicate with each other and approves $4 billion over four years for rail, transit and bus security.

It strengthens security measures for the Visa Waiver Program, which allows travelers from select countries to visit the United States without visas. Article

While it may seem reasonable, that it starts off with a blatant lie is enough to require delving deeply into the precise wording and consequences by those tasked to act before doing so. The lie? FISA has been amended and updated over the “past three decades.”

More — Shorter version: seeking retroactive approval.

“The administration is creating unbelievable amounts of distrust and confusion by not coming forward and giving us its interpretation of the law,” James Dempsey, policy director for the Washington-based Center for Democracy and Technology, said yesterday. “Instead, it is dribbling out bits of information and partial justification. It’s a crazy way to run a war on terror.”

[snip]

“The administration is asking Congress to make changes in FISA law without first coming clean on what they’ve been doing for the last five years,” Dempsey said.

One source familiar with the NSA program said yesterday that there were widespread concerns inside the intelligence community in 2003 and 2004 over how much Internet and telephone data mining could occur, as well as about the NSA’s direct intercepts of communications without court approval. Article

Once more (as predicted), Arlen Specter demonstrates he’s the weeping willow of the Senate, bending to the slightest breeze. Partisan purity over duty, honor, justice and country. Disgraceful.

Note is made that Oman is majority Ibadi, a sect of doctrinal opposition to orthodox Sunni Islam, having that in common with Shi’a Iran.

Oman said on Sunday that Iran did not pose a threat to the Gulf region, as the United States prepares to announce an arms package for Gulf states aimed at addressing Tehran’s growing military might.

“We do not see that Iran poses a threat to the Gulf region,” Yussef bin Alawi bin Abdullah, Omani minister responsible for foreign affairs, told reporters after meeting Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul Gheit.

[snip]

Gulf Cooperation Council member Oman will join the five other GCC states — Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — along with Egypt, Jordan and the US for talks on Iraq and regional security at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh on Tuesday.

Oman and Iran are co-guardians of the strategic Strait of Hormuz entrance to the oil-rich Gulf, and the two have consistently maintained good relations. Article

This is the money paragraph:

Israel’s Maariv daily said Israeli and US officials are working on a deal that would involve a surge in US defence aid to Israel by some 43 percent or nine billion, raising the total sum of defence aid to 30.4 billion dollars. Article

Related:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced a new 30 billion dollar US defence package on Sunday to preserve Israel’s regional military superiority, as Washington readied an Arab arms deal to counter Iran.

The sizeable hike to annual US defence and military aid to its closest Middle East ally was unveiled by the beleaguered Olmert amid reports of a hefty US arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

[snip]

A senior Israeli government source said that under the 10-year defence package, the United States agreed to sell the Jewish state the new generation F-35 fighter jet, advanced bombs and laser-guided missiles.

US defence aid to Israel began in 1973 but a regular 10-year aid plan — with the previous one expiring this summer — was institutionalised in 1977 as part of the Egypt-Israel peace agreement, the official said.

[snip]

But although Uri Bar-Joseph, an Israeli professor of international relations specialising in security concerns, said the news arms deal looked like an achievement for Israel, he questioned whether more cash and sophisticated weaponry could fight “terrorism”.

“The security problems of Israel are not security problems that demand more tanks or more sophisticated airplanes… Sophistication and modern arms don’t help when it comes to terrorism,” he told AFP. Article

Nine decades cannot dim the horrors of war.

Jeans are unAmerican? Tourists beware, bring fancy dress.

Her artwork illustrated a discovery which changed the world.

LEASED LEASH

On your bark, get set, go: Rent-a-pooch.

---

ONE FISH, TWO FISH

Old fish, few fish.

Summaries here and here and here.

US special forces called in an air strike on Friday when Shiite militants unleashed a barrage of rocket and machine gun fire during clashes that erupted in the Iraqi shrine city of Karbala.

The US military said it killed around 12 militants in the strike, ordered after fighters from the Mahdi Army opened fire on a helicopter taking part in the operation which netted a senior militia leader and two aides.

US command denied that there were any civilians in the area of the strike, but Dr. Aziz al-Ghanimi of the Al-Hussein General Hospital said his staff had received nine bodies and had also admitted 23 wounded.

A local government official, who asked not to be named, said the casualties included two dead women and 10 wounded women and children.

The US statement did not say whether US or Iraqi troops had been killed or wounded in the battle. Article

Every silver lining has a dark cloud.

…the Kirkuk governor said today that traffic would be banned in the city as of 6 pm to 9 pm (local time) tomorrow.

The governors’ press release, coming one day before the Asia Cup soccer final between Iraq and Saudi Arabia, fully bans celebratory gunfire shooting, warning that violators will be prosecuted. In addition, security will be intensified in Kirkuk streets. Article

Time to call it what it is: development of a new Republican Guard (minus only the absolute fealty of the Saddam-era Guard), under the aegis of the occupation, bypassing the installed Green Zone government. (emphasis added)

The U.S. military in Iraq is expanding its efforts to recruit and fund armed Sunni residents as local protection forces in order to improve security and promote reconciliation at the neighborhood level, according to senior U.S. commanders.

Within the past month, the U.S. military command in charge of day-to-day operations in Iraq ordered subordinate units to step up creation of the local forces, authorizing commanders to pay the fighters with U.S. emergency funds, reward payments and other monies.

[snip]
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U.S. commanders acknowledge that there is a risk that the Iraqi government will refuse to hire some or all of the local force members and will instead use the names of the Sunni recruits as target lists.

“What the government is afraid of, and we understand that, is they don’t want another armed militia of some sort.…

[snip]

Some U.S. officers were not optimistic that the Iraqi government would ever put the local Sunni forces on the payroll. “Wild success is these guys being integrated into honest-to-God, badge-holding cops. That would be a magnificent sign,” said one U.S. military officer in Baghdad. More likely, he said, the American military will “contract them as little Iraqi Blackwaters to guard their neighborhoods,” he said, referring to a private U.S. security contractor. The worst outcome is that the forces will be actively targeted by the Iraqi government, he said. Article

Contours of chaos.

Iraq is facing a hidden healthcare and social crisis over the soaring number of amputations, largely of lower limbs, necessitated by the daily explosions and violence gripping the country.

In the north of Iraq, the Red Crescent Society and the director general for health services in Mosul have told US forces, there is a requirement for up to 3,000 replacement limbs a year. If that estimate is applied across the country, it suggests an acute and looming long-term health challenge that has been largely ignored by the world.

The revelation of the scale of limb loss suffered by Iraqi civilians is not entirely surprising, even though it has gone unreported. Levels of amputations performed by military surgeons on US troops in Iraq are twice as high as those recorded in previous wars: the most recently available figures suggest 6 per cent of wounded US troops require an amputation, compared with 3 per cent in other conflicts. Article

Noted FYI:

The country’s top five Kurdish, Sunni Arab and Shi’ite leaders are due to hold a summit, possibly next week, in an attempt to find common ground and end the political crisis. [Curiously (ha!) missing is any Sadrist representative. — voxd]

The meeting will bring together Talabani, Maliki, Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, Masoud Barzani, president of Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdistan region, and an aide to ailing Shi’ite leader Abdul Aziz al-Hakim. Article

Oil-related news:

The Iraqi Kurdistan parliament will debate a draft law on oil and gas in Iraq’s Kurdistan region next week, a Kurdish legislator said on Saturday.

[snip]

Although the parliamentary recess has started on July 1, 2007, to continue until September 1, 2007, the sessions will resume debating the draft due to its importance, Marani said. [Surely there was no pressure from the U.S. And donkeys fly. — voxd]

The Iraqi Kurdistan parliament is composed of two main blocs: the green bloc of the PUK, a party that is led by Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, and the yellow bloc of Iraqi Kurdistan President Massoud Barazani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), in addition to other blocs representing Kurdish parties.

The green bloc had asked during Tuesday’s session to have the debate on the draft law on oil and gas in Kurdistan postponed but the request was turned down by the parliament speaker. The bloc walked out of the session in protest. Article

Cross-border he-said/he-said:

The separatist Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) on Saturday denied Turkish reports that four of its leaders had been killed in a suicide attack in a camp in northern Iraq.

According to the reports, four rebels were killed in what newspapers said appeared to have been a settling of scores at a rear base of the PKK in the Qandil mountains, close to Iraq’s border with Iran and Turkey.

A member of the PKK was said to have set off a belt packed with explosives during a meeting of PKK cadres, killing four of them and himself.

But a PKK spokesman denied there had been any attack, and accused the Turkish media of regularly publishing false reports about his movement, which is regarded as a terrorist group by much of the international community. Article

Editorial du jour:

…The US has no business to seek a long-term presence in Iraq and the administration should not be a proxy for American oil companies to take control of Iraq’s oil. It is known that the US is building several huge military bases in Iraq with a view to keeping a 50,000-75,000-strong rapid deployment force ready to intervene anywhere in the Middle East against whatever Washington would see as detrimental to its strategic interests in the region. The massive US embassy that is being built on the banks of the River Tigris in Baghdad is an emphatic statement that the US intends to dig in its heels in Iraq.

[snip]

…As the Democratic speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, put it, the Democrats are determined to “go on record — every day if necessary — to register a judgment in opposition to the course of action that the president is taking in Iraq.” Given that there is little chance of the Bush administration moving to withdraw the US military from Iraq, the world would be watching closely how the Democrats would live up to their anti-war declarations and promises when, as widely expected, when they gain control of the White House in 2009. Article

Rantalysis du jour (all emphasis in original):

The embassy ostensibly will cost $600 million. That’s just construction. In 2007, Congress approved $750 million for State Department operations, which means embassy “activities.” Included in that funding, the Congressional Research Service reported, was “mission security, logistics support, overhead security (reinforcing roofs and ceilings to protect against bombs), and information technology.” That’s in existing State Department buildings, not the new embassy. You have to assume that moving into the new compound would not necessitate extra security costs, the compound having been built for security. So State Department costs should go down. Not so. Here’s what has never been reported: The Bush administration has requested $2.8 billion for State Department operations in 2008. It has done so for all but $65 million through those “supplemental” appropriations that expertly sideswipe the regular budgeting process).

Why the difference? Because in 2008 the State Department, which will really be the equivalent of American defense contractors’ and other business’ chamber of commerce operation in Iraq, will have taken possession of the embassy, where it can then roam its ambitions, and American foreign policy designs, freely: Arabs see the embassy “compound” as that alien mother ship in “Independence Day,” with its oblong-headed aliens plotting their crawly take-over wherever they could set down their techy grasp. The embassy is already among the largest in staff and budget, if not the largest. (The Congressional Resarch Service doesn’t say, but no other embassy comes close to a $1 billion budget, let alone a $3 billion one.) Washington’s Baghdadian Rome employs 1,000 Americans ” representing various U.S. government agencies and between 200 and 300 direct hires and locally engaged staff.” Among all of those, how many actually speak Arabic? All of 33. Here’s where it gets creepy:

Americans representing about 12 government agencies are providing the face of America in the embassy and regional offices in Iraq. The agencies include the Departments of State (DOS), Defense (DOD), Agriculture (USDA), Commerce (DoC), Homeland Security (DHS), Health and Human Services (HHS), Justice (DoJ), Labor (DoL), Transportation (DoT), Treasury, and the Agency for International Development (USAID). Agencies that did not recommend staff for an Iraq presence include Departments of Energy, the Interior, and Veterans Affairs, as well as NASA, Peace Corps, Secret Service, and Social Security.

What, may we ask, are the Departments of Health and Human Services, the Department of Labor, the Department of Transportation, and the Department of Homeland Security doing in Iraq? It’s a wonder that NASA chose to skip out, considering the outlandish membership on the embassy’s roster. Since Arabic isn’t a requirement to work on behalf of American agencies in Iraq, the message seems clear. It’s a one-way deal through and through. The United States is there to exploit, not to share. It’s not even about oil anymore. It’s about every resource imaginable, as long as it’s profitable, and as long as the locals don’t get in the way. The embassy has already learned First Kuwaiti’s lesson. Pay the locals no heed.

Proof? Just look at the way the occupiers have dealt with the Iraqi government, their supposed ally, regarding existing facilities used by embassy staff: “The State Department has been using three sites for embassy-related needs. The sites are the Chancery, formerly a Baathist residence which was later occupied by the U.S. Army; the Annex (the Republican Palace) previously used by the CPA; and the Ambassador’s residence, once occupied by Ambassadors Bremer, Negoponte, and Khalilzad. The U.S. government is not paying Iraq for the use of property and buildings, according to the State Department. The Iraqi government has reportedly requested that these facilities be returned to it, with improvements, which State Department officials say will happen when the New Embassy Compound is completed in 2007.” Don’t bet on those improvements. Is Iraq being returned to its people “with improvements” after four and a half years’ occupation? Nor, by the way, is the U.S. government paying for the 104-acre site on which the embassy folly is situated. Iraq and the United States signed “an agreement on diplomatic consular property” in October 2004. “Among other things,” CRS reports, “this agreement transferred to the United States title to a site for the new American Embassy compound and future consulate sites in Basra and Mosul.”…

[snip]

…Come late summer, the networks will televise the Big news of the embassy’s opening, they’ll all report it like it’s the State department’s version of the Mall of America on the Tigris, the story will spin for 24 hours, and beyond that, the symbol of American neo-imperialism will take its place in the American public’s overcrowded den of indifference. In Baghdad, it’ll loom so large that they’ll be able to see its meaning and intentions from all points of the compass as far off as Casablanca, Aden and Jakarta. Article

Truth to tell, there are a plethora more than five and in any permutation, it is not multiple choice.

…Here are five questions that any administration — this one or its successor — will have to answer as part of an exit from Iraq. Article